#but when you bring that outside perspective into in world characterization without acknowledging that they don’t have this knowledge we do

[bigskydreaming]

Brain topic du jour is reflecting on the frankly weird as fuck pattern in Dick’s life where....he barely ever experiences losses one at a time. Most of the loss he’s experienced in his life is compounded by him losing multiple people and other elements of stability all at the exact same time.

1) When his parents died, in some continuities this is coupled with him losing his extended family of his aunt and cousin as well, with his uncle left comatose and on life support for years before he eventually died as well. Even in continuities without Richard, Karla and John, the loss of Dick’s parents is compounded by the additional loss of his circus family in the sense that he was taken away from them by the state and their constant reassuring presences in his life were no longer comforts he was able to rely on.

2) When Jason died, Dick didn’t just lose his brother, as the tragedy was compounded by Bruce’s reaction. I’ll never be able to gloss over the effects of NTT #55, personally, because I think its too key to Dick’s entire characterization and the specific direction his character took in the years that followed this, to like....disregard that Bruce however unintentionally, while lost in his own grief, added to Dick’s own sense of loss for Jason in probably the worst way possible. As by kicking Dick out and telling him to leave his keys, Dick - having no way to know or guess that they’d ever reconcile, just like he never actually went back to the circus being a regular presence for him - to Dick, this was in essence the equivalent of his childhood tragedy all over again. Losing not just one family member, but his whole family in one sweep, and all the comforts and stability offered by a home he was forced to leave. Even Dick’s contact with Alfred was minimal for awhile, because why would the guy who basically JUST saw history repeat itself and was like, well I know how THIS tends to play out.....why would he think that if Alfred felt forced to actually choose between his loyalties to Bruce and Dick respectively, that Alfred would pick Dick over the man he’d known and raised from childhood himself?

3) Titans Hunt. I know I harp on this one a lot, but you can’t deny that it fits the pattern. Dick didn’t just lose one friend and teammate.....he lost Joey, he lost a good four or five lesser known Titans who nevertheless were people he viewed as directly HIS responsibility to keep safe. With these tragedies compounded by the fact that though comics played out a lot more slowburn and extended stories over years back then, like.....the aftermath of Titans Hunt was still everpresent and directly died into Dick’s reactions and emotions during the Mirage storyline and everything that happened with the failed wedding and his breakup with Kory AND the fact that he was literally forced off the team he’d basically founded, by the government agency that took over the team and appointed Roy as its leader in his stead.

3) Graduation Day. The second time the Titans disbanded it was again not due to a singular loss, because Dick didn’t just lose Donna at this point, but also Lilith died in the exact same story and though Lilith is criminally underused, like, she’s also one of Dick’s oldest friends. She was literally the first Titan to join after the original five. This then led into the Outsiders era, where Dick was shown to still be reeling from the losses of this story for an extended period of time, and in a fun parallel to the Titans Hunt aftermath, Dick was also ousted from his leadership of THIS team by essentially a vote of no confidence by his teammates (and uh, Bruce too, literally).

4) The Blockbuster arc. Where Dick’s emotional state was due to a continued string of multiple losses. He lost his apartment building and almost every one of the neighbors he’d built a community out of, as we’d been shown him actively involving himself in their lives and vice versa for YEARS before this point. Then he lost his circus, his childhood home, burned to the ground and with dozens of deaths - both spectators and actual performers Dick had known and loved as a child. Then he lost his relationship with Barbara, his sense of self-security and autonomy to Tarantula, he lost another teen vigilante who died in his colors, the mantle HE’D created, when Stephanie was believed dead in War Games, and it all culminated in losing the city he’d invested himself in as his CHOSEN home, the place he dedicated himself to protecting, when Chemo blew it up.

Oh just for the record - my nonexistent passport to the magical kingdom of Narnia for a fic that raises the point when bringing up Tim’s losses in the Red Robin era, that like.....ALL of the above happened at literally the EXACT SAME TIME as all Tim’s referenced losses occurred. Obviously Steph meant more to Tim than Dick on a personal level, but I also included her largely as an anchor point to the timeline, to show how that death, and not long after that Jack Drake’s and then Superboy’s.... occurred right smack in the middle of one of the absolute WORST periods of Dick’s life. To be clear, I don’t intend this to suggest that no actually, Dick had it harder than Tim - nah. 

No thank you. Hard pass. I hate that sort of thing even in support of my own faves over other characters. No, instead the thing I’d love to see explored more is just in light of the SPECIFIC angle fics take here - that Dick’s actions while Bruce was lost in time showed an obliviousness to everything Tim had lost lately - for literally ANYONE to bring up or introduce into the timeline here an awareness of everything Dick had lost AT THE EXACT SAME TIME PERIOD. To establish that actually, Dick didn’t just ‘not understand what it was like’ - rather, its more accurate to say that nobody in universe around this time ever shows an awareness of Dick’s own losses and says oh wait, that doesn’t track then. 

Because obviously, with this stuff put in proper perspective, Dick understands VERY VERY WELL the exact thing we’re accusing him of not understanding by being oblivious to Tim’s losses that he’s not actually oblivious to because he tries to talk to Tim about them all the time, while meanwhile its everyone else who has absolutely mum to say about the fact that Dick’s emotional state is compromised to hell and back at this point, not JUST because of losing Bruce, but also because *gestures wildly* literally ALL OF THE ABOVE in the exact same time frame Tim’s extended losses happened in.

And okay I am going to indulge in slight tiny itty bitty pettiness and point out my ire that so many fics set during this time tend to recite listicles of Tim’s losses, with Steph, Kon and Jack Drake at the very top of said list....while paying no attention whatsoever to the fact that STEPH WAS LITERALLY BACK BY THE TIME THE RED ROBIN SERIES HAPPENED. She’s LITERALLY a person Dick sends to check up on Tim after Tim turns Dick away when he tries himself. How are you gonna stress the impact Steph’s loss has on Tim when you’re not even acknowledging STEPH’S RIGHT HERE IN THE EXACT SPECIFIC CANON STORY YOU’RE CITING??? I just. afhioskhflafhlafhklfahlfa. 

And not to put too fine a point on it, but you know who ELSE was also back at the same time? CONNOR. Superboy LITERALLY was already back to life by the time the Red Robin series even began. Like, the issue where a resurrected Kon and Cassie (Wonder Girl) have a heart to heart about the fact that Tim and Cassie ‘connected’ during his absence and Connor stresses that this doesn’t bother him or make him feel negatively towards either of them at all, because hello, he was literally dead at the time, why would he mind that two of the people he loves most in the world sought comfort in each other? Yeah, that issue? Literally came out BEFORE Tim even became Red Robin.

I MEAN. I’m just saying, when people constantly take shots at Dick’s choices during this period because of how much Tim had lost before Bruce already, in order to shift focus away from the fact that Dick lost Bruce every bit as much as Tim did......and you repeatedly emphasize the SAME three names as the focal point of Tim’s losses while paying no acknowledgment whatsoever to everything Dick lost at the exact same time Tim lost these three.....it quickly becomes kiiiiiiinda relevant in my opinion THAT TWO OF THE THREE NAMES CONSTANTLY MENTIONED AS BEING TIM’S LOSSES ARE NO LONGER EVEN LOST BY THE TIME THE SUBJECT COMES UP. Again, I’m just saying! Pettily, mind you! I am aware of the pettiness, I just beg awareness of like *again gesticulates wildly at all of the above* ALL THAT!

LOL.

But I digress.

5) When Bruce was believed dead while he was lost in the timestream. Again, Dick didn’t just lose the father who had been the only parent in his life for almost TWICE as long as his first parents......this was coupled with the loss of numerous other sources of stability in Dick’s life. There’s the matter of his personal sense of identity and self-expression....Dick FOUGHT against becoming Batman, trying to handle Gotham in Bruce’s absence as Nightwing for as long as he could, because he knew being Batman was very much NOT going to be good for him. He put so much of himself into building his identity as Nightwing, establishing himself in that role, that self-image, that yes, I maintain it was an actual LOSS for Dick, to feel like he had no choice but to give that up and everything it meant to him and his own life, in order to essentially live Bruce’s life for him in his absence. 

Because it wasn’t just being Batman that Dick was struggling with at this time....he also had to act as the patriarch to the Wayne family, essentially raise Bruce’s ten year old son, step into Bruce’s old role in Wayne Enterprises, all while getting no acknowledgment for any of this, for literally LIVING his father’s life instead of the life Dick had worked so hard to build for HIMSELF....because of course Dick’s actions and struggles couldn’t even be advertised beyond the family and close friends, because the whole point of him doing all this was so that nobody else even realized that Bruce wasn’t really there anymore. Dick didn’t just assume Bruce’s responsibilities. Dick assumed Bruce’s life, so thoroughly that most people didn’t even put together that Bruce was ‘dead,’ between Dick handling Bruce’s actual roles and responsibilities while Hush made public appearances as him. 

Like, when you’re living someone else’s life so completely that nobody can tell they’re even gone....how on earth does that leave any time or space for you to have ANY kind of life of your OWN, y’know? Not to mention the fact that like in so many times previously....all this meant that Dick couldn’t even afford to let his grief for his own losses show, because he wasn’t supposed to be grieving any losses in the first place, that was the whole point of the con!

Additionally, couple this with the fact that throughout this time period, Dick didn’t have Tim to lean on at all, because it was never that Dick kicked Tim out or neglected him or didn’t care....he’d actively stressed how much he needed Tim, because the partner Tim was convinced Dick chose ‘over’ him - Dick was the first one to admit back then that he DIDN’T trust Damian yet, couldn’t afford to, because he was all too aware that Damian didn’t give a fuck about him yet and couldn’t be guaranteed to step in to have Dick’s back - because that required mutual trust that Dick literally just hadn’t had time to build yet. And add to THAT the fact that during this time, Jason was actively antagonizing the family and Dick in particular at every turn, trying to bring them all down and basically write over what all of them saw as Bruce’s legacy with Jason’s own version of what he thought that should look like.

Also also, take into account that unlike how often we see fanon depict Dick as just too stubborn or proud to ask for help, there’s the fact that he actually had very few avenues TO ask for help! As already established, he DID ask Tim for help. Not like Jason was an option at this time, and Dick’s friends weren’t actually just sitting waiting in the wings and groaning about the fact that Dick was trying to do all of this solo....nah, they kinda had their own problems, which Dick was all too aware of?

Like the fact that in the wake of Final Crisis, it wasn’t just Bruce that was believed lost. Many other key Leaguers like Martian Manhunter were dead or lost, with others struggling to fill the gaps left in their absence. Cry For Justice happened right after Final Crisis too....that story where Lian was murdered? So it wasn’t like Dick was remotely going to try leaning on Roy when Roy had just lost his freaking DAUGHTER and very much wasn’t handling it well (and not to overshadow Roy’s loss at ALL, but please let’s not act like Dick - who had literally been the person to put a baby Lian in Roy’s arms for the first time and had known that girl for pretty much her entire life - like, it shouldn’t be used to detract from Roy’s loss at all, but it shouldn’t have to, to just acknowledge that Lian’s loss right at this exact time was painful as fuck to Dick, who’d loved his niece like crazy.)

The pattern of compounding, concurrent losses in Dick’s life. I’m just saying. Its there.

And it extends into the New 52 as well, where Forever Evil came right on the heels of Dick losing his circus in THIS continuity to the Joker, just as a way to hurt him in Death of A Family. And with the aftermath of Forever Evil and Dick’s own literal death, being like....the complete loss of Dick’s entire life, even though he was revived quickly. That didn’t mean he got to live HIS life though, since Dick Grayson was believed dead and he was told had to remain so, so its like fuck whatever he actually wanted to do as he went about on the Spyral mission aka something that pinched his own sense of morality and personal agenda at every turn and was kinda the last thing a therapist would recommend for a trauma recovery period, lol. And like, for all the focus that was paid to how Dick’s family were hurt because they believed they’d lost him when he was actually alive, let’s not forget that for all intents and purposes, Dick DID lose his family in the wake of his resurrection because he was flat out told over and over that due to what ‘he’d LET happen to him’ he was an ACTIVE danger to them, and thus wasn’t allowed by Bruce to contact any of them or lean on them to any degree, until Bruce got amnesia and stopped blocking Dick’s pleas to return home by just not being there to pick up the secret phone line at all. 

(And omg, the obliviousness that just EMANATES off the hot takes that Dick had a ‘choice’ in all this and he still CHOSE to do what Bruce told him....like. LOLOL, stop being pissy about me bringing up the term abuse apologism when its literal victim blaming to paint the guy who had to be beaten into ‘agreeing’ to the Spyral mission in the immediate wake of the trauma of DYING, all while his father vocally blamed him for his own suffering and the ‘threat’ he now posed to his family, keying directly into the guilt complex Bruce knows damn well is at the core of most of Dick’s motivations.....fucking please. There’s no choice in all that. That’s active emotional, mental and physical abuse aimed at directly manipulating Dick’s actions, delivered by the guy who knows Dick best in the world and whose approval - particularly when Dick is at absolute rock bottom aka Current Location - matters more to Dick than just about anything because his sense of self-worth has more in common with dog shit than actual dog shit does. Or something. Idk. That analogy got away from me. But like. You get it.)

BUT. I. DIE. GRESS. (I guess).

Aaaaaaanyway, so yeah! That repeating pattern throughout Dick’s life of ‘loss? What loss (singular)? My losses only come in groups, lolol, fuuuuuun’ - mmmm. Yeah. So that’s what’s on MY brain right now. Thoughts?

[outrunningthedark]

Question: what do you like and dislike about how CP is portrayed in 911? Ofc ignore this if youre uncomfortable answering, I'm just curious.

Props to you for this ask, nonnie! I will gladly answer it. Before I continue, please keep in mind that my perspective is based on these three factors: - Christopher is the son of a first responder, not an actual first responder, so his limited screen time plays a part in how much the writers can focus on his CP. - Christopher is ten or eleven at this point in canon, meaning certain things I would like to watch unfold wouldn't make sense unless he was a little older.

- Though Christopher (Gavin) and I both have CP, the way in which it influences our daily lives is different. For instance, I do not have the ability to use crutches or walk short distances without assistance, so our needs are not always going to match up, nor will our experiences when navigating the outside world. Now that we've got that out of the way: What I'm to say is no secret: I *like* how BOTH Eddie and Shannon have been portrayed. Eddie reenlisting when he finds out Christopher is going to need extra medical attention and referring to CP as an "illness"... He's not the first or the last parent who avoids the elephant in the room. I talk about my mother a lot more than my father, but my father is very much like Eddie was during Christopher's infancy - he doesn't like to discuss my CP, if I "complain" about something I struggle with he'll pretend he can't hear me, if I tell him I accomplished something that was very difficult, he won't say "great job" or "I'm proud of you", and he's always been like this. Obviously I'm not in his head, but it would seem as though acknowledging my CP means acknowledging that I'm "different". My father was also the parent that stayed away from hospitals whenever he could. "Tina's got a doctor's appointment at 1:00 next Wednesday." "I can't get out of work, sorry." The scene where Shannon is tearing into Eddie for not being with her at Christopher's appointments is extremely real and relatable for me. Shannon putting herself on a pedestal, particularly in Eddie Begins, is true to life. I'm not going to say ALL mothers of disabled children do it because I don't know ALL of them, but reminding Eddie just how hard she's worked to care for their son is nothing new. I will say that I was born to a mother who never had the opportunity to quit a job and stay home with me because my family needed all the money we could get. Sooo...imagine how much more insufferable Shannon could/would be if she was forced to juggle motherhood and work. One thing I wish we could have gotten in a flashback from Eddie Begins is a scene where Shannon & Eddie learn about Christopher's CP, or maybe Shannon tries explaining the disability during their argument. IMO, it would have been beneficial to provide some context for viewers who don't know what CP is, what it means. I appreciate that Christopher's CP is not the basis for his characterization, don't get me wrong. We're more than our disability (or disabilities) and we deserve the same respect as those who are able-bodied. HOWEVER. A teacher makes an ableist remark and Eddie didn't call her out on it? I understand he was working through his own shit, but MAYBE had Eddie acted "offended" beyond "I'm sorry?" the Ana apologist crowd would have a better understanding of why what she said is not even a little bit helpful. ...And that brings me back to Shannon. I do NOT like that the writers were so determined to make her seem "sympathetic" that Eddie just...let her say the grossest things about her son's disability. The scene where she's hating herself for "making" her kid end up with CP, and crying as she admits she needed a break because taking care of Christopher was "exhausting"... Eddie had to tell her she "did nothing wrong", when really he could have/should have said something about her hypocrisy and the way she viewed HER SON. Do people realize the mind games she played on Eddie back in the day? Christopher needs his father! That "six year old" Eddie was referring to is "your son"! Shannon guilt tripped him AND IT WORKED. She runs away the minute Eddie is back in Christopher's life and it's *justified* because Eddie believed every bad thing she ever said. He failed his wife. He failed his son. He got what he deserved. I wish we could have gotten more insight into Eddie's efforts re: Christopher adjusting to their new life in LA. We had the conversation between Buck and Maddie, which, combined with Buck seeking help from Carla, was a way to foreshadow how connected the Buckley-Diaz family was going to become. Love it. (Of course I do.)

Personally? I would have liked at least one discussion between Buck and Eddie about trying to circumvent "giant bureaucracies". The able-bodied have no fucking clue what it takes. I like the opening montage of Stuck (we all do). One part that always sticks with me is Christopher whispering "Finally!" when he gets his sock on all by myself because THAT IS REAL. The EUPHORIA we feel when we accomplish something in five minutes that would take an able-bodied person all of five seconds is immeasurable and indescribable. Look at us being independent! We've still got it! The scene with Abuela that followed is equally as important. Telling Eddie to help Christopher by carrying him to the door is well-meaning, because she doesn't want her grandson to tire himself out, but Eddie's response is wonderful. "He wants to do it." - Eddie doesn't want to make his son rethink his capabilities, doesn't want him to think Eddie's lost confidence in him. What I don't like? Christopher is portrayed as this Perfect Child who never complains. And when I say "complains" I mean... can this kid say he's tired once? Can he say his legs are hurting? Anything? Nope. Everything's great. He's the best. THAT IS NOT REAL LIFE. We're allowed to be tired. We're allowed to ask for help. It's not going to make him less lovable if he has a hard time doing a simple task because we never know when our muscles are not going to cooperate. . . . This is so disorganized and extensive and it's only a fraction of my thoughts, tbh. If anyone has anymore specific questions, you know where to find me!

[arsonsara]

Acknowledging The Ostrelephant In The Room: A Breakdown of The Mag*psies, The Mistakes They Made, And How They Could Be Improved Upon.

(TW: Slurs [G*ypsie]. & Negative Representation of those in the LGBT+ Community)

[The Following Essay also contains spoilers for the game Mother 3.]

Mother 3 is my favorite game of all time. If anyone has known me long enough to talk about what games I enjoy or followed me on Social Media to see my occasional bouts of reblogging fan-made content for the series, this is an obvious talking point. I’ve been a part of the community surrounding Mother 3 ever since I was about 10-12 years old, with my old Acer Laptop playing through the Fan-Translation on a GBA Emulator. While I wouldn’t consider myself a Mother 3 Veteran, I have been around long enough for me to see how the community has changed and shifted through the years as well as how I myself changed through my perspective on the world around me and myself. 10 or so years later after having played Mother 3 for the first time I still stand by my statement that it is my favorite game of all time, without question.

However, I would be lying if I were to say that Mother 3 was not a flawed game. Arguments can be made that games inspired by the Mother Franchise have gone leaps and bounds above the original series in terms of narrative structure and gameplay. However from what I've seen from the community of Mother 3, none of that tends to bother them enough to hamper the experience of the game itself. Except for one thing. One group of characters that has the community tugging at their collars or just straight up ignoring their existence. While I can understand and even empathize with the idea of just straight up mentally retconning something, especially when said thing directly affects you emotionally due to any personal connections you might have with the connotations, there’s a certain level of unease I garner when I see people clearly side-stepping the situation. Choosing to pretend it never happened as opposed to acknowledging it for it’s flaws, properly criticizing it and even potentially putting ideas forward as to how the situation could’ve been improved. Time to stop beating around the Walking Bushie: Let’s talk about the Mag*psies.

Now let’s start off with what’s right in front of us. The first thing that hits you in the face as soon as these characters are mentioned by name, the thing that unequivocally is a black mark against Mother 3 as a game. Mag*psies. Yeah, it’s bad. Now for those unawares on what I mean let’s clarify something right off the bat: The term Gy*psy is a slur. Specifically a slur against the Romani people, a slur that originated in Europe upon the rising population of Roma migrating from their homeland to European nations. The slur came from an uneducated perspective that the Romani hailed from Egypt. With this slur comes the negative stereotypes that came from that same origin point: That Romani people were a nomadic people that consisted of criminals, ne'er do wells, and the dregs of society. Sometimes, mostly in media, they were even seen as wanderers who practice unsavory and unholy acts of magic. As well as the more uninformed, sensationalized version of “Voodoo” (which, when you put into perspective of how the Romani were mistaken for Egyptians and that Voodoo originated from Hati, really puts into perspective how xenophobia is born on blatant misinformation, scapegoat tactics and a really shitty grasp on geography.)

So with that in mind, the fact that this is the name that was chosen for this group of characters is bad. Although for most people, (I hope) this goes without saying. So why am I bringing this up? Because for a group of characters whose entire troupe are named after a slur that has real world connotations, the Mag*psie don’t outwardly express any malice or xenophobia against the Romani people. With how they’re characterized and presented, there aren’t really any clear connections to the stereotypes for those of Roma descent outside of a connection to magic, in this case PSI. And even than the Magy*psies being proficient in PSI seems more like it was intended as a genuine plot point then as a racial stereotype. So if that’s the case, why was that the name that was chosen? Simple: It was a case of misinformation.

One common misconception regarding the term G*psie is that it means being a free spirit, a wanderer, one with the world around you and mystically inclined. Of course this is all false and mostly stems from taking a negative racial connotation and turning it into a marketable buzzword for anything that seems ‘Mystical’ or ‘Free-Spirited’. In the same way that a Ouija Board is a tool for summoning and contacting spirits and demons that was manufactured by Parker Brothers for about 20$. So, it’s easy to surmise that the reason the name Mag*psie was chosen is because the developers of the game believed it to be an old-world term for someone of magical expertise or connected to the Earth spiritually. It also helps to keep in mind that Mother 3 was developed in Japan, and most people were more than likely unaware towards it’s true connotation. Hell, it wasn’t until a few years ago that people in the United States started to call people out on usage of the term and considering that Mother 3 was developed in the early 2000’s it’s easy to understand the confusion. Now, i’m not saying that this to excuse the use of G*psie in the game. Point blank, it shouldn’t have been used and is a legitimate flaw and mistake on part of the developers. But it also helps to keep in mind that the choice of word wasn’t out of malice, just ignorance. Does that make it better? No, but i’d like to imagine that if way back when, if someone on the development team found out what G*psie actually meant that it wouldn’t have gone into the game. Considering the core messages of Mother 3 and it’s tennants on the importance of companionship, family, community and love, It doesn’t make sense to have such a vile slur used within it’s context.

So what do we do with this information? Well, the Mother 3 community is oddly enough in the best state it’s ever been to fix this problem. Why do I say that? Because the game hasn’t been internationally localized yet. And let’s face it, the Mag*psies are one of the biggest reasons the game hasn’t seen an official English release. And maybe it’s just my overly-optimistic, dare I say, Pollyanna-esque point of view, but if a discussion were to start about the positive changes one could make towards the Mag*psies as characters and a narrative concept, the right people might just be listening in on the conversation and make the right changes for an international release or even a remake.  Now, considering how it’s been 14 years since it’s Japanese release, and soon to be 15 years in a few months, I can understand if you just groaned or rolled your eyes reading that. But on the same merit, what’s the harm? Let’s say we do have this conversation and Nintendo just doesn’t pay attention and Mother 3’s International Localization continues to be a pipe-dream. What do we lose? That’s the fun thing about Fandom, sometimes you can just toss out the bad things about something you enjoy and make it better and overall more positive for the community. We toss out the old Mag*psies with their slur-using titles and uninformed, sloppy concepts of gender expression (trust me, we’ll get to that second point later.) and have newer, better ones that we can use for fan-content! So in the end, we either change the tide of the franchise itself and turn them around, giving us a greater chance at localization than we ever did before on top of a group of characters of positive representation! Or we just have these nicer, more appealing versions of the characters for our own uses now that the franchise is pretty much finished. It’s a win-win.

So with that, I'll start by making what’s probably the easiest change to these characters anyone could ever make.

Mag*ypsies. Mag / ypsies.

Magi.

And there we go. Good as new! Plus, it still works as a title for a group of people who specialize in mysticism and PSI as Magi is the plural for Magus! So, from this point forward, I am going to be referring to these characters as The Magi. Baddabing, Baddaboom.

Now with that out of the way, it’s time we address the second issue regarding The Magi: Their presentation of their gender identity and the problems those bring. In Mother 3, The Magi are referred to by Alec as being “neither male nor female”, and it’s heavily implied that The Magi aren’t even human. That due to them being so ancient, wise and strange they can't fit into the binary of male or female, so they have the traits of both. This results in the characters looking like they’re all men in drag, acting overly flamboyant and flirtatious. This results in The Magi being seen as a negative representation of people who identify as Genderqueer or Non-Binary. The stereotype of being loud, obnoxious, overtly sexual and all placed under a single umbrella of a flawed perspective which just results in them all being poorly written “”Drag Queens””. Now that isn’t to say a character who dresses in drag is a bad thing. If anything I encourage the idea of a Post-Modern RPG having a Drag Queen or King as a plot important ally or even a party member! The issue lies in that, because all of The Magi are presented like this it implies that those who don’t fit within the gender binary of male or female are all like this. Even if that wasn’t the intention, that is what the subtext implies.

Part of the intention behind the creation of the Magi was to balance out the more gritty, action-oriented and “Macho” tone that Mother 3 had compared to Mother 2 and 1. The idea was that The Magi would be at the center of the conflict between Tazmilly Village, The Main Party and The Pigmask Army and to balance out the darker tones of the story they would be aloof, androgynous and accepting of the fact that they would pass as the story progressed. This way the characters would be able to balance out the darker story beats and lighten the mood. Although it’s easy to see how this viewpoint would result in a less than stellar outcome. While on paper, the idea of a group of characters hearkening back to the more light-hearted and out-there tone of the previous games to make it so the game is less bleak is a fantastic idea, the execution was botched due to how sloppily it was handled.

The Magi in Mother 3 are represented in such a dissonant way, especially at the start of the game upon their introduction. Not only are you slapped in the face with their appearance and unfortunate name choice, upon asking about the whereabouts of Claus after he went up to the mountains to fight a Drago as revenge for the death of his mother, almost all the Magi basically respond by saying “Eh, who cares, humans live such short lives anyways so what does the life of one kid mean in the grand scheme of things?” Seeing as the players are meant to see The Magi as sympathetic characters and eventually team up with them in the end game to arrive at the locations of all of the Dragon Needles, the fact that this is their introduction is not only a slap in the face to those who are being negatively affected by how their presented but is also just...crappy writing. And don’t even get me started on the scene where Ionia teaches Lucas PSI, that is just BAD. Like point blank, bold text, red color, size 46 font BAD. Like even if The Magi didn’t have their original name and weren’t sloppy representations of non-binary/genderqueer folk that scene would still be really uncomfy.

And yet with all of this going against The Magi in terms of their presentation, it’s still hard to pin them down as having any ill-intent behind them because of their importance at the end of the game and what they eventually stand for. Once the race for The Dragon Needles begin, not only do all of The Magi support you on your quest and show levels of genuine concern and compassion for the protagonists, but also end up fleshing out the world around them in a way that gives the player a sense of hope in a time of hopelessness. Whether it be Ionia and her boundless compassion for the party and Kumatora especially, acting as her surrogate parental figure and doing everything she can to support the party in a time of crisis. Or Lydia, taking care of a wounded Pigmask Soldier, someone whose job it is to rip the life from The Magi in hopes of awakening the Dragon to shape the world in their master’s image. That despite their motivations, they wouldn’t let a wounded man die in the frigid cold of the mountains. These characters are meant to be beacons of hope, characters to lighten the mood during dark times and become characters you genuinely feel for. And yet, the execution fell flat due to a shoddy introduction, sub-par writing and misinformed representation.

So, where does that leave us? This is obviously an issue that’s a lot more nuanced than just changing their name so where do we start? While I don’t claim to have the perfect solution for this, and encourage others to throw their hat in the ring and keep the discussion going, I do have a few ideas: First things first, remove the concept that The Magi aren’t human and are incomprehensible to “Mortals”. Instead, make it so The Magi are just humans from the past who were so proficient in PSI and Psychic Abilities they were able to survive the cataclysm from milenia’s past and are more akin to Buddhist Monks in how they’re perceived. That being said, I do still like the idea of their style being tightly connected to that of Magicant from Mother 1. Spiral Shell houses, pink hair, very sparkly and pretty, we can keep that aesthetic. It makes sense for them! By making this change, we humanize The Magi a lot more and make it so the players can connect with them better and empathize with them easier as opposed to them being the off-the-wall weirdos that the game tries to represent them as. Plus, if the game really wanted an off-the-wall weirdo that ties back to the previous games, just give Dr. Andonuts more screentime. Along with that change, make them more empathetic without sacrificing their all-powerful mysticism. For example, when Alec and Flint arrive at the party at Aeolia’s, instead of having them nonchalantly shrug off the potential of Claus’ death, have them actively participate in assisting them in finding their lost child. Instead of it being “We’re all powerful so the death of one person is meaningless in comparison to how we perceive the world.” it’s more “We’re all powerful, so assisting you in your journey to save your loved one is a simple task that will require minimal effort. If such a simple request can result in a good outcome, it shall be done.” Of course that begs the question of why they don’t just take care of everything, but I think that can be circumvented with the idea that they can’t intervene with the lives of others too much. That using their immense psychic powers too often would result in them misusing their powers and that they have to practice a certain level of restraint, or even that they’re so strong an overuse of their powers would result in devastation. Sort of like how a knight in a medieval fantasy story would seek guidance from an all powerful wizard, but the wizard can’t just solve the problem for them.

Now my next suggestion is turning a negative into a positive: Instead of having The Magi all represented as men in drag, The Magi are now all represented as different type of people that could fall under the non-binary or genderqueer spectrum! Now instead of all of them falling under the same umbrella, Aeolia can be purely androgynous and agender going by they/them pronouns, Doria is now demigender, partially identifying as male but going by xey/xem pronouns, having a big old pink lumberjack beard and a heartwarming smile, Lydia looks older and more aged with their physical appearance looking like that of an older man but using she/her pronouns and identifying with female presentation whilst feeling that they don’t have to be rescritced to said female presentation, Phygria could be genderfluid and upon each appearance they have they transition between genders, and Mixolydia falling under Genderqueer, having their own personal presentation of themselves and who they are! As for Ionia, I would actually argue keeping her the same! I say this because, if all The Magi are under the same umbrella representation of a stereotyped drag-queen, it’s a problem. However, if all The Magi are comprised of different, varied representations of the non-binary/genderqueer community it would make sense to have one of them fall under the representation of someone who dresses in drag!

Of course, these are all just my ideas. Whilst I have done as much research as I could while writing this, I understand that there are certain aspects behind those of non-binary expression that I am unaware of and ways that I could improve upon this idea. Like how changing The Magi in this way would still result in them all basically being a part of a big “Bury Your Gays” Trope due to them all passing away upon pulling their respective Needles, so i’m sure that there are plenty of other ideas other people could throw in! And I encourage that, I encourage people to look at this and tell me how this concept can be improved upon to create a more inclusive and positive representation of The Magi! Because that’s what we deserve! I can look at this years in the future and admit that there may have been something I missed out on or was just blatantly unaware of! But I’m hoping at the end of the day that this discussion can not only lead to a critical analysis of the wrongs behind the original Magi in Mother 3, but how they can be improved upon and made better. If not for Mother 3, or the Mother 3 community, for those who plan on making their own stories, their own games, so that they know to not make the same mistakes the developers of Mother 3 made and make something even better.

[itsclydebitches]

RWBY Recaps: “ACE Operatives”

We’re back, folks! I have to say, I think overall this is one of the strongest episodes we’ve gotten since “The Lost Fable.” Are there still concerns? You know it, but on the whole I’ve got to give credit where credit’s due. So with that unexpectedly optimistic mindset, let’s dive in.

We open right on the group’s first mission and for a moment I was worried that, like with Oscar’s shopping, this time skip would be passed right over. Especially after we hear Pietro apologize for “holding onto your weapons for so long,” telling us that between the Academy tour at the end of last episode and this mission today, at least a few weeks have passed. Long enough for one guy to re-design multiple combat outfits and weaponry, plus an additional boost here and there. Luckily, the first part of the episode cuts among three distinct times: when they got their weapons, when they first heard about the mission, and this present day flight/landing, which as a technique I like quite a bit. It gives us a sense of each time while keeping us moving forward. No one is thinking, “Ugh. Do we really need to hear a mission briefing when most of last episode was learning about this plan in the first place?” because we already know this is taking place in the past. Just sit through the snippet and then the rest of the info will come through voice-overs while the group jumps out of an airship. Good balance of exposition and action.

What we learn in these flashbacks is that Ironwood wants to use an abandoned dust mine for the satellite’s launch. Only problem? It’s inhabited by a very old, extremely dangerous geist. Kudos to the writing team for the Volume Two callback. I’ve always been intrigued by Oobleck’s comment that grimm are capable of learning if they continue to survive and here we finally see an example of that. This geist isn’t just strong, it’s smart enough to hide in the mines themselves.

Shot over all this we see Atlas military personnel taking out the everyday grimm in the surrounding area, proving that their weapons can handle that task in most situations. Why doesn’t Ironwood’s robots have that then? Or as others have pointed out, something even more powerful like Penny’s lasers, or some of the upgrades the team gets? Chock it up to lack of funds... or simple plot setup. If the robots had been able to take out a bunch of grimm easy-peasy then there wouldn’t have been any cool premiere fight for our group. Then again, all of this casts their snarky comments about Ironwood’s defenses in a new light. Clearly they’re a force to be reckoned with when the plot actually allows it.

We likewise see the group receiving their new gear and... okay. Here’s where the griping starts. Though it’s admittedly small compared to most of my criticisms. First off, why is Jaune receiving a random scrap of Pyrrha’s outfit? Logically this makes no sense to me. Pyrrha’s body disintegrated into a bunch of dust. I can buy Jaune incorporating other armor and fabric into his gear because they were living together and Pyrrha must have spares, but where did this come from? Did Pietro go ask a family member for a random memento for the (from his perspective) equally random teen that showed up? It’s entirely possible that I’m missing something---I’m sick as a dog at the moment and am probably one fever degree away from mild hallucinations---but the whole setup seems incredibly weird. We see Jaune open his box. We see his look of shock. He see him fingering a torn piece of Pyrrha’s skirt. But how does all that come together in any logical way?

More importantly... why? Why is this still a thing? I get it, Jaune is grieving, but to be frank this has been his one-note characterization for over three volumes now. More importantly, everyone else is grieving too. This is another case of the writing prioritizing what the audience knows over what characters know. Meaning, we got to see how close Jaune and Pyrrha were. We know they were in love, but outsiders like Ironwood and Pietro see them as a unified team. Why not give a scrap to Jaune, Nora, and Ren? Really, that’s what rankles the most: this continuing focus on Jaune over the rest of his team. Especially when that focus just leads us in circles of the ‘Jaune is sad’ variety. I thought we were supposed to be learning more about Nora this volume, so why not give her something to remember Pyrrha by? I realize we’re only through the third episode, but in a series that averages twelve each volume, that’s a fourth of our material gone. Please. I’m begging you. Enough about Jaune. We’ve watched him cry and rage and lash out for three years now. He’s gotten to move through every type of grief the writing could throw at him. Let someone else take the spotlight for a change.

(It’s also just all around weird because Jaune is smiling sadly, implying he’s moving on, but then we have Clover narrating about how they’re “going to kill this thing...” which reminds us of Pyrrha’s murder in a way not really conducive to the whole ‘moving on’ vibe... it’s just odd.)

Second gripe: why doesn’t Oscar get anything? I’ve written before about how overall the group still treats Oscar as the outsider and boy oh boy, do we see that trend continuing here. I’ll speak about this more in a moment when we get to the Ozpin situation, but for this scene in particular there’s no reason he shouldn’t be included. If Jaune can get a cool addition to his shield after updating his own outfit, Oscar can get a cool addition too. Take five seconds to have Pietro point out that, as a random farm kid buying combat gear for the first time, he didn’t totally hit the mark. Here are a few things to keep you safer. Hell, you could even have Pietro---who we have established goes above and beyond in his inventions---pull Oscar aside with an updated weapon and Oscar could have gotten all quiet, examining his cane, eventually thanking Pietro, but emphasizing that he doesn’t think he should change things just yet. Or without anther’s input. Or, if Atlas doesn’t want to waste funds on the farm boy let him get a haircut like literally everyone else! We could have allotted Oscar a few seconds of screen time instead of getting what we always get: the team banding together and him nowhere to be seen.

He’s a part of this mission. He’s integral to this mission. He is a main character now. It’s about time the writing started acknowledging that.

The final flashback, at least, includes Oscar a little more. I realize my screenshot isn’t the best, but the expressions here really do say it all: Ruby mindlessly geeking out over new tech while Oscar stands sadly in another doorway.

We hear him say, “Hey... Ruby?” before he’s cut off and we return to the present.

We’ll get back to him in just a moment. For now, the airship opens to reveal everyone’s new look, which isn’t actually a reveal because this scene dominated the trailer. 

Ah well. I have to say though, from here on out one of the main reasons why this episode feels strong to me is because of the overall dynamic among the characters. First, it was smart to break everyone up into different teams to search for a hidden grimm. If they’d tried to cram twelve characters into the same shot for the rest of the episode it would have been a disaster. Second, these smaller teams allow for the sort of teasing/comfort/playfulness we’ve grown used to among these characters, but have largely lost over the last two volumes. One of my favorite moments is when Yang is caught staring at Blake’s new haircut and we get a look at this massive blush.

Not to ship on main, but please note the parallel between this moment and Nora/Ren, two characters who are more firmly established as a canonical couple. Although... here when Nora compliments Ren’s hair he shuts her down pretty hard. There’s none of the casual indulgence we’re used to from him. Since when does Ren insist that Nora take a mission seriously, outside of making those requests in an equally teasing manner? Nora notices as much too, clearly upset, and Jaune is just... dense. It makes me wonder though if this is the direction they’re heading in for Nora. Give her romance troubles in the form of Ren pulling away now that their relationship has had a chance to sink in.

Not sure I’m a big fan of that. Granted, it depends on how they handle it, but on the whole I’m not really invested in reducing Nora’s rare and much needed development down to a cliche ‘Oh no. A boy doesn’t like me’ plot-line. We’ll have to see though.

I also really liked the moment between Weiss and Blake a little later. This is how you tackle racism in your story. Not by having the group risk their world-saving mission by Weiss impulsively throwing civilians into the trash, but by having an incredibly privileged woman acknowledge her privilege. Weiss mentions how angry this mine’s failure made her father, but she doesn’t use the abuse she suffered as any sort of excuse, like she would have in the earlier volumes. Instead, Weiss acknowledges for herself how hard that time was and then apologizes not only for what he’s done to the faunus, but also for “all my complacency in it.” Weiss was a child. We can’t hold her to the same level of responsibility as Jacques. But as a privileged woman in this world Weiss’ complacency does perpetuate her father’s active sins. So it’s fantastic that she admits as much to Blake. In front of all the others, no less. To me, that’s a far better sign of growth than what we got last week.

It’s also during this time that we see Blake eyeing the SDC boxes with anxiety. It could just be bad memories. It could imply that she had some hand in this particular attack. I hope it implies that she’s thinking about Adam because... is anyone going to bring him up? Seriously? Two teammates killed a guy. The self-defense aspect doesn’t erase the fact that they each rammed a piece of a blade through his stomach and watched him topple over a waterfall. We should be dealing with this! Not reducing it to one hug from Ruby right before a major battle. Hopefully this is setup for some (now long overdue) reflection.

Meanwhile, an interaction that doesn’t work as well is when Ruby comments on how freezing she is and Weiss notes that without proper equipment or aura insulation you can freeze to death in an hour. So... is that what the group is doing then? Wasting precious aura whenever they’re outside because Blake wants her arms unzipped, Weiss wants bare spots around her chest, and Yang needs to artistically keep one leg and one arm totally unclothed? The issue is not, “How does the group stay warm?” because plenty of stories have logistical questions like that and unless you’re a fan overly invested in the minutiae, you shrug it off. When is the group going to the bathroom during these endless missions? Who’s carrying pads for when three of them hit their periods at once? No one cares. Rather, the issue is that the writing draws attention to the question and then fails to answer it. Just like they did when suddenly death via cold was something that had to keep them in the creepy town when death via cold was never a concern up until then. Where was hypothermia when Yang insisted Ozpin hash out all his secrets in the snow? It’s a rather convenient ‘Sometimes it’s an issue, sometimes not,” situation. Obviously aura isn’t doing much to keep them toasty though if Ruby feels the need to comment on how cold she still is. And that attention then invites further questions like, “Why then are they still dressed inappropriately for the weather? Should we expect them to fall more quickly in battle because aura is going towards making sure they don’t freeze to death in under an hour?” Better to just leave it alone.

Talk of the cold leads into Oscar though because Yang comments, “I suddenly don’t feel so bad about leaving Oscar behind.” Which... no. You did leave him behind. Don’t try to make that palatable with stupid upsides like, ‘Well at least he’s warm!’ Worse, the group does nothing to justify that decision. Realistically I can buy why they’d leave Oscar out of this mission. We’ve established that this particular grimm has already taken out a lot of people and, without Ozpin, Oscar is still a newbie fighter. With the exception of the train and one grimm in the premier, I don’t think Oscar has fought many grimm at all. So really, it would take two sentences to establish this. Tell us that this mission is way out of his skill range and throw out that he’s training with Ironwood or something. That’s it. That’s all it takes, but the writing bypasses that and leaves us with, ‘The group left Oscar behind... for reasons?’ Which, in the context of his entire time with them looks really, really bad. Because they left him out of the dinner in Haven. And the hunt for supplies at the farm. And in retrieving the relic. And left him alone at the Argus house. And left him out of the upgrade joy. We’ve now established a trend of the group outright ignoring Oscar, whether it’s during bright celebratory moments or agonizing traumatic ones. Doesn’t matter, he’s left out of the loop, and now we see the same thing happening here. Rather than a simple and logical, ‘Oscar isn’t ready to fight a super old geist,’ what we’re left with paints the situation as, ‘Oscar is left behind because Ruby disagrees with him.’

Because without clarification, that’s the context. We get another (very short) flashback where he (thank you, thank you) points out that what they’re doing to Ironwood is precisely what Ozpin did to them. (Although Oscar tries to soften this by saying it only “feels like” the same thing.) Ruby looks guilty for a second... and then that’s it. We’re back to at least a day later where they’re on this mission, they’ve left Oscar behind, and Ruby is re-explaining why her morals are sound.

I’ll admit I’m pleased that Yang points out that they agreed no more lies and no more half-truths. I honestly didn’t expect her to say even that much against her precious sister. But still, on the whole this dilemma isn’t much of a dilemma at all. It’s reading precisely like the airship debacle: a few characters giving token disagreements but when push comes to shove whatever Ruby wants, Ruby gets. You know how above I pointed out how much I like the split present/past business so that we can have a balance between talking and action? Yeah, that only works if the talking is generic exposition. We don’t need a long-winded discussion about the details of this mission. We do need a substantial discussion about the absolute hypocrisy the group has fallen into. That split between past and present is important. Are you honestly going to tell me that over all these days---if not, arguably, weeks---the group never once had a conversation about this? That we don’t get to see that downtime filled with some actual growth? And we could have easily achieved that with the current setup. Extend Oscar’s flashback into something significant, leaving the geist battle for next week. Let him be angry for once, furious that after all the shit they put Ozpin through, and by extension him, they’re just going to turn around and do the exact same thing without even an apology? An acknowledgment that they were wrong? Or create space to have that discussion now. Harriet comes out of the mine saying a part of it has collapsed and they need time to clear it, giving Team RWBY the chance to really hash some things out and disagree for once. Instead, as expected, secret keeping is framed as the right decision without anyone but Oscar acknowledging the hypocrisy in that. They even go so far as to say, “Why don’t we play along for a while before me make any major decisions.” Newsflash:

Graphic design is my passion, all.

Overall it’s not quite as pro-protagonist as it could have been, but it’s not great either. We’re left with the fact that the group has this time sitting with their own lies and apparently, after all that, what they’ve settled on is denial. Great. Fantastic. I hope Oscar finds new friends at the Academy who encourage him to really call them out on this later.

We also learn that Ruby gave the relic back to Oscar. So the writing is self-aware enough for her to acknowledge that carrying it around on her belt is a horrendously bad idea, but not self-aware enough to keep her getting it back in the first place? Imagine you hired someone to transport a priceless painting to your super safe vault and then when it finally arrives you go, “Actually, you did such a good job getting that here I think it’ll be safer in your hands as you go about your life. Rather than the vault I specifically built for it.” Except the painting is a magic relic, the vault is also nearly impenetrable via magic, and the transporter is now a 14yo who, as established, is the weakest fighter of the group. For the love of Ironwood’s characterization, please let that relic be a fake.

Really, on the whole that moment could have been touching... but again, context. ‘Here’s the relic back that I basically stole and then ripped all Ozpin’s trauma from him by wasting an invaluable question.’ Yeah. All the while everyone is still talking as if Ozpin isn’t even there. Ironwood, in his ignorance, has been the one person to actually address him, despite the fact that the entire group knows he’s listening in. You know that feeling when you’re sitting with a bunch of people you’re not particularly close with and it’s clear they’re deliberately not including you in the conversation? Yeah, it’s like that only a thousand times worse. No wonder Ozpin still hasn’t tried to come out. No one cares about his vessel, they still actively hate him, and they’re all hypocritical to boot. I’d stay hidden too.

Anyway, back to the actual plot. Qrow has been paired off with Clover and at first we get a really excellent conversation about teamwork. We as the audience know precisely why Qrow prefers to work alone, but when he slips and Clover manages to catch him, it functions as a fantastic counter. See? Qrow might have bad luck, but this is precisely why he does need to be around others. They can help him when things get tough.

However, that message is severely undermined when it’s later revealed that Clover’s semblance is good luck.

Not only does that remove the previously stated wonderful message---because now it’s not about Qrow learning to accept help, it’s about how Clover’s semblance just conveniently cancels his out---it’s just an iffy stretch of my suspension of disbelief. Really? Out of all the people they could have met, that Qrow could have been paired with, he happens to find the one guy with the exact opposite semblance to him? Clover is an incredibly handsome and charismatic guy. He’s the leader of the strongest kingdom’s strongest team. He just happens to have the best version of Qrow’s greatest weakness. I know I said I wanted more passive semblances, but I would have preferred something other than this heavy-handed introduction.

Although... are they passive? I had to pause the episode for a moment when Qrow throws out, “sometimes I can’t keep it under control” because excuse me?? There are times you can keep it under control? Since when? How? I know we’re loose on our semblance rules here, but c’mon. Is Qrow’s entire life governed by a trait outside of his control or not?

We see a similar issue cropping up at the end of the episode when Harriet informs Ruby that there’s “something else” going on with her semblance. Look. RWBY isn’t Dragon Ball Z. The characters don’t need to tap into unheard of powers every season to keep things interesting. As Yang herself points out, Ruby already has super special silver eyes. 

Her semblance is speed and transformation and transforming other people along with her. Weiss is already a super special Schnee with a super special hereditary semblance that creates glyphs and summoned fighters of whatever she’s killed. Blake is already a super special Belladonna with ties to the world’s biggest resistance group. Yang... okay, Yang is admittedly an ordinary girl with an ordinary background and that’s one of the things I still love about her. She grows stronger through more training, better strategy, and turning any weaknesses into strengths---like her arm. It’s so much more powerful to give characters that kind of arc than to fall back on, “[gasp!] You were secretly special all along.” So who knows what else they’re going to add to Ruby’s semblance. Whatever it is, it’s not needed.

I will say though that semblance issues aside, I’m liking the Ace Ops way more than I thought I would. Given that introducing five more characters was, objectively, a bad move. But they’ve got real personality attached to them. I appreciated that Clover thanked Qrow for the save (they could have made a guy that ‘perfect’ way more arrogant) while the rest spent a good portion of the time teasing RWBYJNR like they’re little siblings. Which I adored. For the first time in volumes we got to see our heroes portrayed exactly as they are: teens in training. Nora says that it “feels like we’re an actual huntsmen team,” acknowledging that they’re not yet. They’re the students following the professionals, helping out without getting in the way. It stood out to me that the geist fight is identical to the one we got in Volume Four, with the exception that it’s way, way better. They come up with Jaune’s strategy to remove the limbs in an instant, rather than taking the entire fight trying and failing to do damage. I don’t think a single member of the Ace Ops took a hit, despite the fact that this geist was a huge threat to the rest of the Atlesian army. Like Team RWBY at times, there was seamless communication, perfect execution, and the one time they made a mistake? Ruby was there to help them out. I really appreciated that the writing had RWBYJNR sit this one out until their particular skills---in this case Ruby’s speed---was actually needed, as opposed to an arrogant, ‘How dare you not let us fight!’ where they endanger themselves and others by insisting that they know best. 

This is the RWBYJNR I want to see more of. Ozpin remains a huge, glaring issue, but if the writer’s can keep this sort of attitude in mind we’ll be making good strides away from the horror that was Volume Six. No more, “We don’t need adults,” please. As a bunch of adults just demostrated, they’re way out of your league.

Finally, we end the episode on Tyrian again. Showcasing RWBY’s new love of horror tropes, he appears beneath the flickering lamp light (complimenting the jump scare we got with Blake earlier on). He approaches Forest, the activist from the airship, and we end with Tyrian’s tail coming his way. Did he just poison him? Did he kill him? What’s the end goal here? Just sow chaos by leaving a bunch of bodies lying around? It’s unclear, but whatever is going on, Tyrian sure is busy.

Also, RIP #FRWBY.

Until next week!

Minor Things of Note

I like that Jaune and Blake both looked at their hair before we cut to them with new looks. Still not over Jaune’s style though. He’s french fry head now and no one will convince me otherwise.

It looks like Blake’s blade has been welded back together with a bit of yellow something-or-other...

Bad execution on an otherwise cool introduction to Marrow’s semblance. That was epic how he managed to stop both centipede grimm at once, but then Harriet just... slams them? Awkwardly? They don’t even disintegrate? Idk. Her end of that team attack didn’t live up to Marrow’s.

Team JNR has a very “headfirst approach.” True enough. Although, it’s not like they had an easy way to stop like their Ace Operative teammates. They did the best they could under the circumstances lol.

Jaune also has a landing strategy! I would have rather the writing just acknowledge that than give us that weird moment with Pyrrha’s fabric.

Not sure if I like Qrow’s new outfit or not. To be fair, that man would look stunning in a paper bag, so I’m not sure I’m an objective judge of any change here. Also to be fair, my own fashion ‘skills’ leaves something to be desired. So I think I’ll just bow out of this particular conversation.

[anthropologist-on-the-loose]

Some Issues with Johann Hari's Article

When I opened up my news feed this morning and saw an article in the Guardian about depression, I was excited and intrigued. As someone who has major depressive disorder, as a medical student planning on going into the mental health field, and as a clinician, I was hopeful that I would learn about some new therapy, some new resource or insight I could gain or offer to others. Instead I was met with the self-promoting, sensationalized ramblings of disgraced journalist who is dangerously promoting polarizing views of depression, treatment, patients, and the medical community as a whole.

As you can probably already tell, I found Hari’s recent works offensive - on many levels. From the perspective of a medical student, Hari’s “novel” insights were incredibly disappointing. Our social and physical environment has an effect on our mental health? Shocking! Hari presents this insight as if this is some sort of fringe, radical idea rather than the well accepted theory upon which a good portion of treatment for depression is based on today. The biopsychosocial model has been a standard of treatment and teaching in the medical field for decades. Any decent professional acknowledges that this is one of the major complicating factors in treating patients who have major depressive disorder or a major depressive episode. While pills are incredibly easy to prescribe, it is much much harder to control what happens outside the clinic, which is often the major influencing factor in a person’s mental health. Physicians know this, and there is a growing portion of the medical community that places a priority on dealing with the psychosocial part of the biopsychosocial model of medicine. Hence the swelling of interest, over the past decade or so, in the medical community around community involvement and building resilience.

Furthermore, Hari’s comment that the medical community only offers “one option” for treatment of depression is spurious at best. Pharmaceutical intervention may play a role in an individual’s prescribed treatment, but nowhere does it say that it should be the only or even the major portion of the treatment. Ideally, a treatment regimen is a complex combination of multiple different resources, from pyschodynamic or talk therapy to mindfulness activities, and yes, medication. Ideally, treatment regimens should be deeply personal and individualized, decided on by negotiation between the physicians recommendations and the patient’s desires. Of course this is an idealized model and this doesn’t always happen for a multitude of reasons*, but to claim that that patients are offered only one option for therapy (pill-way or the highway?) is a gross misrepresentation.

Hari’s article was also triggering on a personal level. I was diagnosed with major depressive disorder about a year ago, but likely had it from childhood having grown up in a deeply toxic household. When, finally, as an autonomous adult, I started to seek treatment, no one pushed me towards medications. My therapist and my psychiatrist didn’t even mention medication until I myself had reached a point where I felt that life was untenable. At that point, I was willing to try anything. Anything - just so I could get out of bed in the morning and do my school work and pass my exams. Medication was offered to me then and I was hesitant, but I tried it and transformed my life. I am not saying taking antidepressants “cured” me - they didn’t. But they did lift the fog a little to the point that I could do talk therapy and actually have it make an impact. I spent the whole of my childhood in and out of psychologists’ offices, like a revolving door and it made little to no impact on my mental health. In comparison, the strides I have made in the last year with the help of antidepressants have changed my life. I feel like I have a future and even when it feels like the world is in flames around me, I feel I can walk through the fire and survive. It’s not all because of the pills, but they certainly helped kick start my progress.

But from the first day that I started taking antidepressants, there were always people around me who were trying to get me to go off them, despite the improvement they saw in me. Always the constant question and nudge - Can’t you cope without them? Maybe learn new coping strategies? Have you tried yoga? Turmeric? Meditation?

Yes, yes, and yes. I have lived with this problem for 20 years. I coped with my depression for 20 years and never really lived because of it. I am not trying to say that just because antidepressants worked for me, that everyone should use them. But I am worried that my experience of people trying to take away the things that do help me is not unique and the pressure put on vulnerable people seeking treatment to just power through without help (whether pharmaceutical or therapeutic) will turn people away from trying something that may help them. Hari dangerously veers toward this perspective, adding additional pressure on top of the extreme social pressure that treats depression like a personal weakness. Tomorrow, when I go into clinic, I am worried that there will be patients who Hari has convinced to drop their medication. Of course, no patient should take anything they feel uncomfortable with, but it frightens me that I will have to stand to the side and watch people who are slowly getting better regress because some journalist published an irresponsible and highly polarizing account to springboard his own flagging career.

And maybe I am being exceedingly paranoid about Hari’s own reasons for publication, but I can’t help but feel that this is a publicity ploy. From the monolithic, black-and-white, good-and-bad characterizations he makes of the medical community to the way he chose to sensationalize long held and accepted theories to the excessive media campaign and promotional advertising for his book, I can’t help but feel that this is yellow journalism. Hari’s own journalistic integrity has come under suspicion more than once- for plagiarism in the past as well as anonymously editing his critics’ wikipedia pages. Who’s to say this is any different?

And just one final plead. Even if you read my entire monologue and decided that it is just the over bilious nattering of a self-important windbag, please, please DO NOT STOP YOUR MEDICATION COLD TURKEY. You put yourself and you health at considerable risk stopping antidepressants immediately without tapering off. Please go and talk to your doctor (doesn’t need to be psychiatrist, primary care will do) who can help you adjust your medication regimen to your satisfaction.

*Dear G-d, the medical field is so, so far from ideal. Can you believe that it takes 8 months to make an appointment with a psychiatrist in Chicago? And that an initial 50 minute consultation costs about $400, which is likely going to be out of pocket because so many psychiatrists don’t accept insurance? And when you mention this as an ethical problem to psychiatrists they just shrug as if it isn’t in their control to accept insurances (It is. It totally is.). Don’t get me started on physicians not spending enough time with patients to explain their medications and potential side effects so they can make an informed decision, corporate structure in large hospitals, and any one of million things I could rant about.

Please, please read this response. I know it’s long, but it brings up some incredibly important points. 

And yes, PLEASE do not quit any medication cold turkey without consulting a medical doctor. There are so many things that can go wrong if you do.

The rest of this you can ignore if you want, it’s just me blathering

It is relation to this article, which I reblogged earlier today. This is a very important criticism of a topic that is near and dear to me, one where I let my emotions get in the way of my critical thinking.

I did a brief search on the author of the book, Johann Hari, and found that not only is he know for plagiarizing and hack journalism, but he has been open about having issues with drug addiction which makes me suspect that his views on medication in general might be a little biased.

I didn’t realize until a second reading that I had been internally refuting aspects of the article in my head, and how damaging it might be for people who don’t have an intimate knowledge of the medical system, or for those who already distrust it. Sometimes I forget that some of my experiences are not universal.

I’m so glad you took the time to write this, and for your willingness to share your own story.

Thank you so, so much for sending this in.

[theonceoverthinker]

OUAT 2X11 - The Outsider

Hey everyone! Don’t even SMEE-k to me until you’ve read my thoughts on the episode below the cut!

Press Release Mr. Gold finds an unwilling test subject to see if a spell he has concocted will allow him to cross the border of Storybrooke – without losing his memory – and go in search of his son, Bae; Belle stumbles upon a vengeful Hook in the Storybrooke harbor whose main goal is to eradicate Rumplestiltskin; and Mary Margaret and David go house hunting in search of a bigger place to live. Meanwhile, in the fairytale land that was, Belle meets Mulan as the two set out to slay a fearsome beast called the Yaoguai, who has been ravaging the land. General Thoughts - Characters/Stories/Themes and Their Effectiveness Past What I like about this segment is the pair up. Both Mulan and Belle provide something that the other wants and while their story of “person with no experience befriends hardened mentor or friend figure with more experience while simultaneously melting her heart with friendliness and trust” is pretty simple and is about as predictable as these tend to go, Belle and Mulan are interesting enough that it works.

That having been said, Belle and Mulan don’t get nearly enough quality time together as they should, and it does hinder Mulan’s resolve to let Belle kill the monster and for a couple of reasons. First, Mulan has been characterized as really freakin’ stubborn thus far in the series and those scenes all take place after this one. Why would she be so willing to give in to fighting the Yaoguai, especially given all the love she has for her village? Second, Belle brings up the good point that she’s not a fighter but instead a researcher and Mulan doesn’t give her much of an answer to it. And when she does, Belle having something worth fighting for isn’t reinforced at any point in the episode, making her resolution weak. Also, Belle’s overall story is just weird. Is she trying to just prove that she can be a warrior? Is it about being a female warrior? Is the story about accepting magic when it’s light? Fighting beasts with kindness rather than violence? There’s a lack of clarity here and it’s makes Belle’s story here feel undefined and because of that, her defeat of the Yaoguai and resolve to go t Rumple afterwards doesn’t strike the powerful note that it’s clearly supposed to.

Finally, the approach to the hunters in this episode is weird. Why not have them on their side? Yeah, they’re douchey, but it’s not like in “The Girl in the Tower,” when Alice and the hunters had diametrically opposed reasons for wanting to go after the troll (Alice wanted to protect the trolls and the hunters wanted to kill the troll). Here, they all want to take the troll down. They also don’t establish the men as sexist, yet the episode tries to paint them as it later on. They’re just a weird blend of evil, but it does nothing to establish Belle’s conflict. Present I have a large problem with a lot of this segment. They’re trying to set up that Rumple is losing sight of getting back to Bae to deal out vengeance (“Tell me this is just about getting the shawl back” is a crucial line in the Rumple/Belle fight scene at the shop and it’s made to be a big point that Rumple doesn’t answer this) while not having established that as a conflict Rumple’s actually going through. His actions haven’t been excessive when this instance of dialogue happened, and they only get excessive after Belle is threatened and Killian goads him on. Even his interaction with Smee isn’t all that different from his interactions with the man in previous episodes. And I do recognize that they finally get to showing him act excessively aggressive, but the moment isn’t helped by the lack of appropriate setup earlier.

I get that Belle isn’t super receptive to Killian’s speech about Milah and Rumple’s evil nature because of the gun, and I swear I get that, but what is the point of telling Belle all of this if she’s not going to change her mindset in any way as a result of this, especially when she’s the one who the audience is supposed to connect with, is generally framed in the right, and is being told about two characters who have established a level of sympathy? Killian’s definitely taking things too far, but we as an audience know that his words about Milah’s death are true and Belle refuses to react to that, making the scene entirely pointless. I understand that the theme of the story is that “when you find something worth fighting for, you never give up,” but this is never challenged and especially as Belle is learning that Rumple murdered someone, that would be the perfect time to challenge that sentiment. But instead, she just leaves the situation at: ”Because his [Rumple’s] heart is true. And yours [Killian’s]? Yours is rotten.” Again, this makes Belle’s doubling down feel so much weaker than it should. Insights - Stream of Consciousness -The town line is glowing! The hell?! -Rumple, wipe that SMEE-rk off your face! -”It’s [Smee’s hat] always brought me good fortune.” You have a very warped perspective on “good fortune.” -It’s so weird seeing such an optimistic character like Snow deliver a eulogy, but when you think about it, she’s probably the best person. Her eulogy is all at once a celebration of Archie’s life, a validity of the sadness of the other townspeople in attendance, and an encouragement to keep on living while keeping Archie in their hearts. -I feel so bad for whoever’s job it is to make tombstones in this world. Between Archie, Rumple, and Killian, they must’ve gotten so fed up with all of the resurrections. I imagine they are like the Cabbage Merchant in Avatar: The Last Airbender! -Bitter segue, writers from the funeral to Archie being tortured. Bitter segue. -Archie, just say “he came to my office one time.” -How does Killian know Archie is a cricket? I’d imagine that Cora told him, but how does she know? -We’ve got our start of the Captain Beauty BROTP here...I love what this is going to turn to, but this is awkward af… -I don’t think I’m ever going to be over the fact that Belle defeated Captain Hook with a fucking BOOKCASE! XD -I am pretty sure that right after that scene in the library is where the hug blooper (i.e. My favorite blooper ever) took place! Update: OH MY GOD, IT TOTALLY WAS! -Rumple, what the hell are you wasting time on? You literally just got what you wanted! -”You expect to defeat the fiercest creature in the land with a book?” No, but give her a case full of them and you might be surprised! XD -Belle’s gambit in that wagon scene was weird. Did she know they were going to push her off the wagon? And if she didn’t, then why lead them the wrong way? If she wanted to go on her own, then why not just leave on her own? -Do platonic relationships have food, because Swan Believer’s is totally Pop Tarts. -Grumpy makes so many good points in his speech to Snow and Emma. Like, the fandom loves to infantize him, but there’s a reason why he’s as in-good with the Charming family as he is: He considers things that no one else will and for the most part, he backs that information up. -”We’re a bit homesick.” My previous point having been said, I’m sad that they don’t really acknowledge this point all that much to my memory. That also having been said, why wouldn’t you want to stay here? I’m with Isaac! Indoor plumbing is the best! -Belle is amazingly inquisitive and I love her no-nonsense approach to learning about Rumple and Killian’s beef with each other. -Rumple, especially considering what happens to Milah in roughly three seasons, fuck you for lying. Now I get it narratively-speaking and it makes sense for him as a character and I get that it’s a half truth. But still...fuck you for lying. -Also, as I said back in my review of “The Return,” I like how to a point, for as inquisitive as Belle is, she reaches a point where she won’t push an issue any further, and I like how moments like that subtly show the differences between Belle and Bae. -Damn, Killian. While I don’t know if you know who that scarf will lead Rumple to, that was EVIL! -I almost hate to make this comparison, but Rumple has a very Kylo Ren way of dealing with his anger (Breaking shit). -”And this is my fault.” Belle, this is so the opposite of your fault. Like, no. This blame game just doesn’t work. -”You’ll cast some spell that gives me no choice?” ...Just play the fucking Rumple irony clip here, okay? -Smee, why can’t you talk? RAT got your tongue?! -Belle rocks. It takes serious balls of steel to walk into an invisible portal, especially over water. -Batten up the hatches, Belle! -Archie, more like “Aren’t ‘chu glad to see me?!” ...They can’t all be winners. -Wow! Seeing Henry call Archie’s answering machine just to hear his voice just breaks my heart. That’s too real! Hell, Henry hasn’t even changed after the funeral. That’s too sad for words! How is this one moment the best part of the episode?! -”It’s just four people and a dalmation is a lot.” Snowy, baby, you have no fucking idea what’s to come! XD -”We could get our own place.” Jeez, Snow! Also, this is another point that’s brought up, but not really dealt with, not even really in the Season where they do get a house. Hell, at least suggest buying a house for all of them to live in together! The Swan Jones house had more than enough room for all of you! -So, Snow’s scene makes no sense. First, she poses that they should move out and then she talks about how they should take the chance for a fresh start that Storybrooke gives them. -”That doesn’t belong to you.” Belle, never change! XD -”It’s just ahead.” This line is the best segue ever! XD -”What makes you think his son wants to be found?” Oooh, with the Killian and Baelfire episode’s information in hindsight, that stings so badly, both as a point on Baelfire and Killian’s characters. Killian of course knows Bae wants to avoid his father after what went down with the portal, and Killian feels the same way about his own father after his abandonment. -Thank you, Killian for telling Belle the truth! Like, I get why this doesn’t prompt any change in Belle because of the gun he has on her, but yesss!! -”He will do anything to hold onto his power. Why do you think anyone who’s ever gotten close to him has either run away or been killed?” -Belle, do not destroy the town to save it! This isn’t “Man of Steel!” That monster is fire and the town is wood! I don’t need to read a lot of books to know that this is bad! -Mal, that was one badass curse! -Wait a sec. Belle left an injured Mulan in the path of a beast without letting anyone know this? -I’m looking at the David and Mary Margaret material, and I feel like if you mix the Season 2 energy with the Season 6 timing and context, this subplot would’ve been so much better. -”Unless we don’t want the same thing.” WHAT IS THE POINT OF THIS LINE? -The Cricket Believer hug soothes my soul!!! -”I knew it.” I’m going to be generous and give this line the benefit of the doubt that it was meant to be a joke. -Belle, why are you going on about how you can make Rumple powerless in front of his enemy?! -”What you’ve done cannot be undone.” Suuuuuuuuure Rumple. XD Arcs - How are These Storylines Progressing? Rumple’s Redemption - So, while I don’t think the episode made this come through effectively at all, the lesson of prioritization does hold through for a while, especially at the start of the next episode. Killian’s Revenge/Redemption - Well, Killian definitely gets his revenge! This I felt was also well done because it was effectively set up that Killian was going to go after Rumple’s love in order to destroy him throughout the episode. Favorite Dynamic Swan Believer. It honestly frustrates me that this has to be put down as my favorite dynamic. Now, that’s not because I don’t love Swan Believer. I fucking love Swan Believer, but when so many interesting dynamics are going up against each other, one of them should be theoretically higher than what amounts to a side story! But yeah. Emma’s struggling with and eventual comforting of Henry as he grieves Archie is really good. It’s a great continuation from what we got in “The Cricket Game,” as this is another aspect of motherhood that Emma has to learn if she wants to truly be a mother, and in addition to just generally comforting him and validating his feelings, getting Pongo is a big step (Or would be). That’s not only a cool thing, but it’s a motherly commitment for herself as she and Henry will be taking care of him together (Or would, if Archie was really dead). Writer I am so disappointed. Goldberg and Chambliss were freakin’ legends for me going into this episode, with prior episodes having such a strong thematic presence. How did they drop the ball this badly? Like, there is just no sense of story structure in either segment and it tarnishes what has the potential to be two great stories. There’s no cohesion between the individual scenes and what we’re supposed to be taking away from them. Motivations and framing go out the window and while some of the individual character moments work, little else does. Apart from plot, nothing else changes, and that’s not what a story should ever do. The writing itself is shallow, playing the “tell, don’t show game” to say what the character’s problems are, but not showing how those are problems. Rating 4/10. This episode’s sole saving grace (Aside from great acting, set design, and music, but those are practically givens on OUAT) is it’s fantastic individual character moments, for any sense of cohesion in the delivery or understanding of his story is nonexistent. Belle’s character isn’t shown to grow from any of her experiences (In either story), Rumple’s actions are weak for what the story is trying to make them seem like, and the nuances of Killian’s motivation, while given time to be presented, are completely ignored. As for the flashback, the same lack of cohesion applies as to exactly how Belle is supposed to learn what the episode is supposed to paint her as learning. Additionally, the time spent with the Charming family adds up to nothing. Flip My Ship - Home of All Things “Shippy Goodness” Rumbelle - Something I find so interesting is how Rumple hates fairies, but Belle is so much of the closest OUAT gets to a fairy fangirl outside of Nova. She’s shown to be friendly with Blue, to the point of making her Gideon’s godmother and teaming up with her on more than one occasion and is much more welcoming at the sign of using light fairy magic in her quests. Also, in terms of the episode itself, Rumple and Belle get a lot of cute moments. Their initial scene in the shop screams of puppy love, their hug after Belle’s rescue is so nice, and before Belle’s shot, hers and Rumple’s farewell is utterly beautiful. Grumpy Beauty - I LOVE these two together! Everytime they share a scene, it’s so tiny, but it tells so much about how much they value each other and their emotional supportiveness of one another. The connection to “Dreamy” itself is just great and helps to reinforce when “Dreamy” encourages Belle to join the hunting party. Millian - So it all comes to an obviously dark place, but you really feel Killian’s fervor for Milah all throughout this episode, from Killian’s excitement at the prospect of his revenge to the more leveled way he speaks of Milah to Belle to the fact that he kept Milah’s scarf despite knowing better to the way he so quietly enflares when Belle says she died to the way he tries to goad Rumple into killing him, and to the wide-eyed venom at the town line. The character work here, both as a shared effort on the part of the writers and Colin’s acting, is sublime. ()()()()()()()()() Writing negative reviews are both the absolute worst ones to write, especially when you’re expecting a good episode. They’re easy to construct because it’s easy to explain why something doesn’t work as opposed to why it does, but fun to put together? Not at all. No one wants to see something bad unless it’s something for jokes like “The Room,” and I’m at the top of this list. I remembered loving this episode, and it honestly hurt to see that it wasn’t nearly as good as I built it in my head it to be from memory and nostalgia.

I sincerely hope the next one is better.

Thank you for reading and to those at @watchingfairytales. Season 2 Tally (96/220) Writer Tally for Season 2: Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis: (29/60) Jane Espenson (17/50) Andrew Chambliss and Ian Goldberg (24/50) David Goodman (16/30) Robert Hull (16/30) Christine Boylan (7/30) Kalinda Vazquez (10/30) Daniel Thomsen (10/20) Operation Rewatch Archives

[plumbobpost]

Fanfic Friday: Spotlight on Skell’s Fortune & Romance

Sul sul!

Today Week of Woohoo continues with a very special twist. I have had the opportunity to ask Skell a few questions as part of a new series of posts about storytelling in The Sims community.

Skell’s Fortune & Romance serves as a prequel to the Pleasantview and Strangetown storylines in The Sims 2 from the perspectives of the Caliente sisters, hence the title which references their aspirations. Her story takes place in the time period between the first and second games and fills in the gaps between the contradicting timelines of The Sims, The Sims 2, and The Sims 3. Although the story is largely from Dina’s perspective, it features most of the iconic The Sims 2 characters ranging from Olive Specter to the Tricous to Bella and Mortimer Goth, establishing its own vivid mythology in the process.

In addition to writing, Skell has also created beautiful Maxis-Match content for The Sims 2 and is a frequent contributor to the Totally Maxis Tumblr and the fansite Garden of Shadows.

Without further ado, I’ll let Skell speak for herself.

You’ve said in the past that Fortune & Romance started out as your attempt to make sense of Maxis canon for the premade characters of Neighborhood 1, Pleasantview, and Sunset Valley. How did this evolve from your personal headcanons into a full-fledged story?

“I had played TS2 off and on for years before I was part of the fandom, mostly just goofing around but I had a lot of fun taking pictures and experimenting with posing. One day I discovered Strangetomato’s “Strangetown Here We Come” on TVtropes and was amazed at the way she fleshed out the premade stories from the game. Through her comment section, I discovered the whole fandom and started paying better attention to the premades. Eventually I came up with a backstory for Dina that I really wanted to write and share.”

Why did you choose Nina and Dina Caliente to be your protagonists? Did you ever consider different lead characters?

“It was always gonna be Dina because I was intrigued her backstory with the mysteriously inconsistent Michael Bachelor and the fact that she’s part alien. I wasn’t as interested in Nina until I noticed that she was shy (like me in RL) and also autonomously beating people up all the time. That’s when I realized she was gonna be a co-star and balance to Dina’s antics.”

Instead of ignoring Maxis’ characterization of Dina as a gold digger, you embraced it and made it a focal point of her character. Similarly, you fully acknowledge Nina’s romance aspiration while not making her a heartbreaker. How did you find a balance between their implied “villainy” in The Sims 2 and making them more sympathetic characters?

“I enjoy classic movies where Marilyn Monroe or Thoroughly Modern Millie is like “teehee I’m gonna marry a millionaire,” and it’s quirky rather than villainous. In those stories, she usually falls for a poor guy and chooses love over money (and often he turns out to be secretly rich.) Since Michael didn’t give her a “married a rich sim” memory, I wanted to write Dina the gold-digger as a modern version of that kind of story.”

“Maxis kind of setup Romance sims for “villainy” by not allowing for casual or open relationships, but of course that can be fixed with mods. With Nina, it’s interesting that she doesn’t really fit the “outgoing party girl” type. I think of her as a quiet person with a very intense energy. She needs lots of exercise and woohoo so that she doesn’t explode.”

There are a lot of unconventional relationships in your story. Nina and Servo. Olive and Ichabod. The Tricous. Even Dina and Michael. That being said, there is very definitely a theme of “love conquers all.” What motivated your approach to these relationships? How does that relate back to your attempts at reconciling Maxis canon throughout different games?

“I have a thing for mixed supernatural relationships. Dina and Mike bonding over their hidden supernatural heritages was always key once I figured Michael had a magic side. I knew I wanted to have Nina be intimate with a servo because that’s HAWT, but I didn’t foresee how intimate things would get until I figured out Servo’s character. The Tricous’ happy polyamory was my explanation for all the weirdness going on with their relationships and family tree. And I wanted Olive, Ichabod, and DJ make up this very loving and weirdly “normal” Unholy Family.”

Speaking of reconciling Maxis canon, you created your own version of Michael Bachelor in order to match his appearance in The Sims better and to create a resemblance between him and his famous sister, Bella Goth. Why do you think Michael was depicted so differently throughout the first three games? What did you draw inspiration from in creating “The Ultimate Michael Bachelor?”

“I think it mostly comes down to them wanting to use a familiar name for Bella’s brother/Dina’s husband in TS2, and carrying that forward. In TS3, I saw a boy who had his life all planned out for him by his father. In my headcanon, he screwed that all up and became the graduate of TS1 who had no idea what he wanted to do with his life. His relationship to Bella is the reason why he’s still single by the time he reconnects with Dina, who helps him find direction.”

There is an abundance of strong female characters in F&R, some of which were not originally portrayed that way. Why did you feel that it was important to write them as such?

“Well, because I’m a proud “SJW,” of course! But seriously, it’s less about being strong and more about seeing them as people?”

^Best answer that I could have asked for.

A large portion of Fortune & Romance is dedicated to the mythology of The Sims universe(s) and to supernatural sims. How did you go about the process of world building? Did you draw inspiration from different games in the series and/or from outside sources?

“My biggest worldbuilding is the explanation of where the supernaturals came from. The fairies are sort of fallen angel types who each have an animal form, and their magic rubbed off on human sims to create the supernatural life states.”

“I try to base the worldbuilding off things in game or aspects of game play. The fairy backstory was heavily inspired by fairy tales, in the way they morally test humans for punishment or guidance.”

Aside from premade supernatural sims such as the Smiths, Calientes, and Summerdreams, how did you go about deciding which premade sims were supernatural and which weren’t? How did you decide what life state they were?

“Bella has that awesome bio about being descended from “occultists, decadents, and mystics,” but then in TS3 the Bachelor family is uber-normal, so it eventually became that Jocasta is a squirellier version of Samantha from Betwitched.”

How has Fortune & Romance evolved since you started? Are there things you would do differently if you were to restart it?

“I was such a younger, different person when I started it, and yes there are many things I would do differently. (Michael’s skintone, for example. I tried to split difference between games with a custom skintone in between S2 and S3, but everyone assumes he was whitewashed to S2.)”

“When recreating families for TS4 I came up with a backstory for Dulcinea and Nestor’s relationship as well as a backstory for Don that explains how he got to be the way he is. I still can incorporate these things, but it would have been nice to bring them in earlier.”

With your story having reached a climax, many readers are wondering whether or not F&R will come to an end sooner rather than later. Not to spoil anything, but will the story continue after the party and if so, do you intend for it to last until the events of The Sims 2?

“I never intended for it to last until the events of TS2 because then it would be really depressing. There is more stuff planned for after the party though!”

Aside from writing Fortune & Romance, you have also created a variety of Maxis-match custom content. Why do you prefer working in this aesthetic? How do you feel it complements your writing?

“The game is cartoony, and I like to use that style to tell the story. I prefer to keep things heightened and silly rather than realistic, which very much fits into The Sims aesthetic.”

Speaking of Maxis-match, you have been working on a project for The Sims 2 that involves adapting Maxis-based custom content to blend in better with the game files. Would you mind elaborating a bit on The Maxis Match Repository Project?

“The TS2 repository project is made up of conversions/separates/or otherwise adapted Maxis which pull their textures from the ones that are already in your game, rather than creating new ones. This makes the files much much tinier. I also wanted to create a catalog where you can easily find it all in one place rather than hunt all over the internet. Check it out and don’t miss out on the gems in the back of your catalog!”

You’ve played every main game in The Sims franchise, and you’ve even made some very popular 2t4 recreations of the Calientes and Michael Bachelor. Do you have a favorite game for playing? Creating sims? Making Content? Building?

“I enjoy a lot of things about TS4. The game looks great and CAS and Build Mode are the best of any game. My favorite aspect is making sims, especially that you can share sims with traits/careers/skills so they have their own little story packaged with them. However, it is much more difficult for storytelling since there’s not even a way to pick up sims and move them around.”

“TS2 is still the best as far as premade sims go, and it’s the only one I make content for. I’m a bit of a control freak with my sims, and TS2 has been mastered by fans at this point where you can have ultimate control.”

Why do you continue to play The Sims? Do you feel that the games provide a creative outlet?

“I always loved playing with Barbies as a kid and The Sims really is the ultimate dollhouse. The first time I ever heard about TS1 I knew I HAD to have it. My aunt bought it for me while I was on vacation, but I couldn’t play it until we got home! During the car ride back home and I read that manual from cover to cover multiple times, so many ideas buzzing in my head.”

Any parting comments, teasers, spoilers, public service announcements, etc.?

“I’ve been on hiatus a long while and am just now getting back into the swing of things. I’m currently working on finishing up the chapter I started posting on Tumblr but never finished. It was FreddyAirmail who got me back in the TS2 spirit by asking me to help out with the Crystal Springs neighborhood project. It’s a community hood with houses based on each of the Stuff Packs, and I made the families for Teen Style and Family Fun!”

Thanks again to Skell for answering my questions. To those of you out there who aren’t familiar with her work, go check out her Tumblr and make sure to catch up on Fortune & Romance.

If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, feel free to visit my ask box. If you are interested, give Plumbob Post a follow, and reblog for anyone else who you think would enjoy this blog. Stay tuned for upcoming posts!

Dag dag!

 *Photo Credits go to Skell*

[monicaparker93]

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[dgcatanisiri]

Gil’s Story Is My Nightmare

You know, it normally takes weeks if not months for my feelings to settle on a subject relating to fiction. Like, my first time through, it’ll wash over me, I’ll consider it a while, and then, eventually, I’ll come to a conclusion.

But Gil’s story rubbed me wrong on first run, and I easily figured out why.

Gil’s story is my nightmare as a gay man.

I know I’m not the first to sum it up, but I am SO frustrated and pissed off by this (and Mass Effect Andromeda’s handling of M/M relationships in general), I need to work it out of my system.

So let’s start with the beginning: Jill. AKA “Fuck This Bitch.”

That’s a pretty extreme reaction coming from me, but… No, you do not get to call yourself a friend to a gay person if you’re going to “tease” them about how they’re ‘making [your] job harder.’ Like… No. This is where real life in 2017 intrudes upon fictional life in 2819. Here and now, gay people face discrimination for this very fact. Our relationships are considered somehow less legitimate because children will never be a biological possibility between the couple. Outside help would always be necessary for that to happen. There’s no room in our world right now for a fictional character to “tease” what real life people suffer.

Which, by the way, as a procreation tech, that would actually mean he makes her job EASIER, because if Gil ever wanted a child, he’d have to go through her. Just because he’s not doing it now doesn’t mean it would never happen. He’s a guaranteed customer at a time when no one is actually really ready to have children the natural way anyway.

And that’s YET. ANOTHER. THING. about this. Jill is talking procreation, talking about her job as a procreation tech, at a time when the Andromeda Initiative has no established colonies and is living almost entirely off of the Nexus. Hell, why is she even out of cryo? This seems like something that should be reserved for second wave, once a foothold has been established, not when the colonies are still in the drawing board phase and resources are questionable at best.

Anyway, far too many real gay people have this as a form of questioning, devaluing, delegitimizing our relationships for this to be something that should ever be teased about. From the Watsonian perspective, maybe (hopefully) that’s less of an issue in the future than it is now, but the Doylist perspective is the one that we have to work with, because this is a real thing that impacts real people.

Indeed, there were homophobic remarks after the title was released that amounted to ‘why would a colonization effort include gay people when they won’t reproduce?’ Now, I don’t know if this had any influence on the story, hopefully meant in a ‘let’s prove them wrong’ kind of way, but… This really just validated them.

Because it’s only the gay guy being questioned here. He is the only one facing the question of reproduction. Not the straight characters. Not the straight relationships. Not the inter-species relationships. The gay guy is being pressured to have a kid RIGHT THIS SECOND.

There is no reason for this to be a subject in the here and now. Literally, this is a decision that so easily can and probably should wait. Again, the Initiative colonies are literally only established in the course of the game proper. Hell, the “suggestion” that Gil have a kid that he actually considers comes at probably one of the worst times – Gil’s maybe in a relationship that’s, generously, a month or two old, and he’s the chief engineer on a ship that’s at the forefront of Andromeda exploration. He’s in a bad place to become a father here and now. He’s on a life-threatening mission that could easily end with his death. This isn’t when you say ‘hey, how about a sperm sample, old buddy, just in case?’

Hell, what about a relationship that only gets confirmed AS a relationship in that scene where we meet her even says that it’s ready for a child? Like, yeah, sure, they’ll drop the love-bomb in the romance scene but being ready to love someone and being ready to raise a child are two very separate things. Why would you even suggest that into a relationship this young and in a situation this dangerous? The Pathfinder and his chief engineer are not in a position to even have a stable environment to raise a child. It's one thing to ask the question as a hypothetical, but this is going straight to the practical before anything has been floated between them.

And the fact that he’ll end up in a family unit with her if not romanced is… very unpleasant in consideration. A gay man is settling down to raise a child with a woman. Please, read that sentence and tell me that you understand why I find that so troubling. This is no unconventional family thumbing its nose at heteronormativity. This is a gay person settling down with someone of the opposite sex in the name of starting a family. And this is considered a happy ending.

Sure, no one mentions that he’s going to suppress his homosexuality or something in the name of making the family unit ‘proper,’ but that’s not the point. The point is that this is a gay person entering a parental relationship with someone of the opposite sex, with her as mother and him as father. That’s pretty damn heteronormative. Him settling down with a woman is in effect devaluing his identity as a gay man in the name of letting him be a father.

I repeat, this is my nightmare as a gay man.

Jill gets so much prominence in Gil’s character arc, I’ve devoted more than a page to just her alone. And without her? There’s really not much to his arc at all. Seemingly every conversation with him ties back to her in some way. SHE’S the one going through a character development and evolution, going from procreation tech to expectant mother.

If you want to write Jill so much, go write her and let someone else write this character. Because he has no independent arc. He’s a supporting character in her narrative instead of the lead in his own.

There’s a telling and not showing element here. There are indications that we’re supposed to see Gil as maturing – he’ll say ‘you’re making me a better man’ in the romance scene, and (much as I’m loathe to acknowledge her) Jill says that something’s changed about Gil when we meet her. But we see nothing of the sort in game. Gil’s character isn’t shown to change over the course of the game. We just get told this, that hey, your very influence and existence in Gil’s life has somehow matured him, without any evidence of how he’s changed ever being produced.

The worst part about this, though, is that we’re likely going to be stuck with this in the final analysis. That as much as we want an improvement in the form of Gil’s story actually focused on him, that would involve writing whole new scenes, bringing at least three actors back into the studio (if not more to offer him better integration into the main cast of characters), and programing that in. That’s a costly thing, and while I honestly think that BioWare should eat the cost, considering how offensive this whole mess has been to an extremely loyal audience… I’m realistic enough to recognize that it’s not likely to happen. The best we can expect is probably some duct taping patchwork in whatever finale DLC they put out, Andromeda’s answer to Citadel or Trespasser.

This story needs to be rebuilt from the ground up. And it sucks because once I divorce all references to Jill from his story, I find a character who I’d like to know more about, that some part of me does find appealing and interesting and relatable. I find something in him I can identify with. But everything else about his story so completely overwhelms that, because so much of it ignores him in favor of a side character who appears in one scene and has like two lines. If Gil were cut, Jill could still function as an autonomous character. HIS characterization depends on HER.

Seriously, this is a case where it really would be best for BioWare to eat the cost needed to fix this because this is homophobic. I’ll be nice and say it’s not intended that way, that this was a misguided effort at queering a straight story for a gay character, but something doesn’t have to be intended to be homophobic to BE homophobic. And given the rest of BioWare’s missteps with handling M/M relationships in this game, it’d be a really solid show of contriteness on their part, of understanding how they messed up, to go back in and fix this whole mess, drop Jill and focus just on Gil’s development.

But I know that they won’t. And it pisses me off.

[nothingman]

There’s been lots of attention-grabbing opposition to Trump’s “Muslim ban” executive order, from demonstrations to court orders. But polls make it clear public opinion is much more mixed. Standard phone polls show small majorities opposed, while web and automated polls find small majorities continue to support it.

What surprises me about the poll results isn’t that lots of Americans like the ban — but that so many Americans don’t. Regular people have lives to lead and can’t investigate complicated issues in detail. Instead they usually take their cues from leaders they trust. And given what politicians across the U.S. political spectrum say about terrorism, Trump’s executive order makes perfect sense. There are literally no national-level American politicians telling a story that would help ordinary people understand why Trump’s goals are both horrendously counterproductive and morally vile.

Think of it this way:

On February 13, 1991 during the first Gulf War, the U.S. dropped two laser-guided bombs on the Amiriyah public air raid shelter in Baghdad. More than 400 Iraqi civilians were incinerated or boiled alive. For years afterward visitors to a memorial there would meet a woman with eight children who had died during the bombing; she was living in the ruined shelter because she could not bear to be anywhere else.

Now, imagine that immediately after the bombing Saddam Hussein had delivered a speech on Iraqi TV in which he plaintively asked “Why do they hate us?” — without ever mentioning the fact that Iraq was occupying Kuwait. And even Saddam’s political opponents would only mumble that “this is a complicated issue.” And most Iraqis had no idea that their country had invaded Kuwait, and that there were extensive United Nation resolutions and speeches by George H.W. Bush explaining the U.S.-led coalition’s rationale for attacking Iraq in response. And that the few Iraqis who suggested there might be some kind of relationship between Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait and the Amiriyah bombing were shouted down by politicians saying these Iraq-hating radicals obviously believed that America’s slaughter of 400 people was justified.

If that had happened, we’d immediately recognize that Iraqi political culture was completely insane, and that it would cause them to behave in dangerously nutty ways. But that’s exactly what U.S. political culture is like.

Interiors from a building in Amiriya district, a residential area on Baghdad’s western outskirts, after an Allied bombing on an air raid shelter by US bombers, Gulf War, Feb. 14 1991.

Photo: Kaveh Kazemi/Getty Images

In an interview last March with Anderson Cooper, Donald Trump tried to puzzle out what’s behind the terrorism directed at the U.S. “I think Islam hates us,” Trump learnedly opined. “There’s a tremendous hatred there, we’ve got to get to the bottom of it.”

“In Islam itself?” asked Cooper. Trump responded, “You’re going to have to figure that out. You’ll get another Pulitzer.”

During Trump’s speech at the CIA right after his inauguration, he expressed the same bewilderment. “Radical Islamic terrorism,” pondered Trump. “This is something nobody can even understand.”

John F. Kelly, now Trump’s head of the Department of Homeland Security, is similarly perplexed, saying in a 2013 speech that “I don’t know why they hate us, and I frankly don’t care, but they do hate us and are driven irrationally to our destruction.”

Say what you want about the tenets of this worldview, but at least it’s an internally consistent ethos: We’re surrounded by lunatics who want to murder us for reasons that are totally inscrutable to rational people like us but … obviously have something to do with them being Muslims.

Meanwhile, in private, the non-crazy members of the U.S. foreign policy establishment aren’t confused at all. They understand quite well that Islamist terrorism is almost wholly blowback from the foreign policy they’ve designed.

Meanwhile, in private, the non-crazy members of the U.S. foreign policy establishment aren’t confused at all.

Richard Shultz, a professor at Tufts whose career has long been intertwined with the national security state, has written that “A very senior [Special Operations Forces] officer who had served on the Joint Staff in the 1990s told me that more than once he heard terrorist strikes characterized as ‘a small price to pay for being a superpower.’” That small price, of course, is the deaths of regular Americans, and is apparently well worth it.

The 9/11 Commission report quietly acknowledged, hundreds of pages in, that “America’s policy choices have consequences. Right or wrong, it is simply a fact that American policy regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and American actions in Iraq are dominant staples of popular commentary across the Arab and Muslim world.” A senior official in the George W. Bush administration later put it more bluntly to Esquire: That without the post-Gulf War sanctions that killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and the stationing of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia, “bin Laden might still be redecorating mosques and boring friends with stories of his mujahideen days in the Khyber Pass.”

Intelligence professionals were quite aware that an invasion of Iraq would take the conditions that led to 9/11 and make them far worse. The British Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq war published a February, 2003 assessment by British intelligence of the consequences of an invasion of Iraq, which would occur one month later. “The threat from Al Qaida will increase at the onset of any military action against Iraq,” the UK’s Joint Intelligence Committee told Tony Blair, and “the worldwide threat from other Islamist terrorist groups and individuals will increase significantly.”

The CIA had the same perspective. Michael Scheuer, who for several years ran the section of the Agency that tracked bin Laden, wrote in 2004 that “U.S. forces and policies are completing the radicalization of the Islamic world, something Osama bin Laden has been trying to do with substantial but incomplete success since the early 1990s. As a result, I think it fair to conclude that the United States of America remains bin Laden’s only indispensable ally.”

For its part, the Defense Department’s Science Board concluded in a 2004 report that “Muslims do not ‘hate our freedom,’ but rather, they hate our policies. The overwhelming majority voice their objections to what they see as one-sided support in favor of Israel and against Palestinian rights, and the longstanding, even increasing support for what Muslims collectively see as tyrannies, most notably Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan, and the Gulf states.”

A Palestinian woman reacts amid destroyed buildings in the northern district of Beit Hanun in the Gaza Strip during a humanitarian truce on July 26, 2014.

Photo: Mohammed Abed/AFP/Getty Images

When Barack Obama took office, he had two choices.

First, he could tell the truth: That the U.S. has acted with extraordinary brutality in the Middle East, that this had been the main motivation for most Islamist terrorism against us, and if we continued the same foreign policy Americans would be killed indefinitely in intermittent attacks. Then we could have had an open, informed debate about whether we like our foreign policy enough to die for it.

Second, Obama could continue trying to run the Middle East without public input, but in a more rational way than the Bush administration.

Obviously he went with the second choice, which demanded several different forms of political correctness.

Most importantly, Obama pretended that the U.S. has never done anything truly wrong to others, and can enjoy the benefits of power without any costs. This is the most pernicious and common form of political correctness, but is never called that because the most powerful people in America love it.

But Obama also engaged in something more akin to what’s generally called political correctness, by contending that Islam has nothing to do with terrorism. But it does — just not in the way that Frank Gaffney and Pamela Geller would tell you.

Religion and nationalism have always been similar phenomena, and Islam sometimes functions as a form of nationalism. And like all nationalisms, it has a crazy, vicious right wing that’s empowered by outside attacks on members of the nation. The right loves to jeer at Obama for calling Islam “a religion of peace,” and they should — not because Islam specifically isn’t a religion of peace but because there is really no such thing, just as there is no “nationalism of peace.” It’s true religions and nationalism can bring out the best in people, but they also bring out the worst (sometimes in the same person for the same reasons).

But Obama could never say anything like that, because he knew the U.S. needs the governments of Muslim-majority countries like Saudi Arabia and Egypt to keep the rest of the Middle East in line.

This amalgam of political correctness made it impossible for the Obama administration ever to tell a story about terrorism that made any sense. For instance, in his 2009 speech in Cairo, he declared, “It is easier to blame others than to look inward” — and then went on to demonstrate that truism.

His description of wrongs done by the U.S. was vague to the point of meaninglessness: “tension has been fed by colonialism that denied rights and opportunities to many Muslims.” Also, “Iraq was a war of choice that provoked strong differences in my country and around the world.”

Obama then explained that “Violent extremists have exploited these tensions.” So … 19 people were motivated to fly jetliners into buildings by “tensions”? If that’s the only story that non-Muslim Americans hear, they’ll rationally be terrified of Islam.

In 2010, Obama’s counterterrorism advisor, John Brennan, emitted a similar bland puree of words at a press conference when questioned by Helen Thomas about Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the failed underwear bomber. Their exchange went like this:

THOMAS: And what is the motivation? We never hear what you find out on why.

BRENNAN: Al Qaeda is an organization that is dedicated to murder and wanton slaughter of innocents… [They] attract individuals like Mr. Abdulmutallab and use them for these types of attacks. He was motivated by a sense of religious sort of drive. Unfortunately, al Qaeda has perverted Islam, and has corrupted the concept of Islam, so that [they’re] able to attract these individuals. But al Qaeda has the agenda of destruction and death.

THOMAS: And you’re saying it’s because of religion?

BRENNAN: I’m saying it’s because of an al Qaeda organization that uses the banner of religion in a very perverse and corrupt way.

THOMAS: Why?

BRENNAN: I think this is a, uh, long issue, but al Qaeda is just determined to carry out attacks here against the homeland.

At his sentencing, Abdulmutallab explained his motivation in less time than it took Brennan to say there wasn’t enough time to explain:

[I pledged] to attack the United States in retaliation for U.S. support of Israel and in retaliation of the killing of innocent and civilian Muslim populations in Palestine, especially in the blockade of Gaza, and in retaliation for the killing of innocent and civilian Muslim populations in Yemen, Iraq, Somalia, Afghanistan and beyond, most of them women, children, and noncombatants.

To be fair, there is one situation in which American officials have lost the mushmouth and drawn a direct connection between a country killing Mideastern civilians and terrorist retaliation: when that country is Russia. William Burns, formerly Obama’s Deputy Secretary of State, recently and accurately proclaimed that “Russia’s bloody role in Syria makes the terrorist threat far worse.” John Kirby, an Obama State Department spokesman, warned that Russia’s brutalization of Syria would lead to  “attacks against Russian interests, perhaps even Russian cities.”

Russia’s response to our friendly observation was about the same as ours when Russia told us before the invasion of Iraq that it would cause a “wave of terror.”

Trump supporters demonstrate against a ruling by a federal judge in Seattle that grants a nationwide temporary restraining order against the presidential order to ban travel to the United States from seven Muslim-majority countries, at Tom Bradley International Terminal at Los Angeles International Airport on February 4, 2017 in Los Angeles, California.

Photo: David McNew/Getty Images

That brings us back to President Trump and his executive order on immigration.

Trump’s story about why it’s necessary is, factually speaking, garbage. But a normal human being can at least understand it and its moral: These incomprehensible foreigners are all potential psychotics, we’ve got to keep them out. Under these circumstances, who cares that no one from any of these seven countries has killed any Americans yet? They’re all part of a huge morass of ticking time bombs.

By contrast, the Democratic, liberal perspective laid out by Obama makes no sense at all. We’ve never done anything particularly bad in the Middle East, yet … some people over there want to come here and kill us because … they’ve been exploited by violent extremists who’ve perverted Islam and … gotta run, there’s no time to explain.

Regular people could sense that anyone mouthing this kind of gibberish was hiding something, even if they didn’t realize that Obama was trying to keep the U.S. empire running rather than concealing his secret faith in Islam.

And because a coherent narrative always beats the complete absence of a story, no one should be surprised that many Americans find Trump’s fantasy of inexplicable Muslim hatred persuasive. The only way to conclusively beat it will be with a coherent, complicated, true story like this:

America has done hideous things to countries across the Middle East for decades, such as bomb a civilian air raid shelter, burning the silhouette of a mother trying to protect her baby onto its walls. It was inevitable that some people would seek revenge. This doesn’t mean that their brutality is justified, any more than the slaughter at Amiriyah was justified by Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait. It just means that humans are humans, violence begets violence, and Americans will always be in danger unless we change our foreign policy.

We must welcome immigrants from the Middle East both for moral and pragmatic reasons. Morally, the U.S. invasion of Iraq is what sent the region spiraling into catastrophe; only psychopaths set someone’s home on fire and then lock them inside. There are already three million Muslim American citizens. If the government keeps bombing the Middle East while making it clear that it genuinely hates Muslims, that will only spur to action more troubled weirdos like Omar Mateen — who was born in Queens, a few miles away from Donald Trump’s childhood home.

And we’d better get started with this story soon, because it may not be true forever. Israel has done an exemplary job turning a solvable, straightforward fight over land into a religious war that may no longer have any solution. We’re making similar strides in transforming a conflict that was 90 percent political, where there can be compromise, into a religious conflict where there can’t.

This can be seen, on the one hand, in ISIS propaganda. Bin Laden generally just talked about kicking the U.S. out of the Middle East and said things like, “Your security is in your own hands and each state which does not harm our security will remain safe.” The ISIS magazine Dabiq cheerfully tells us that “We hate you, first and foremost, because you are disbelievers; you reject the oneness of Allah … even if you were to stop bombing us, imprisoning us, torturing us, vilifying us, and usurping our lands, we would continue to hate you because our primary reason for hating you will not cease to exist until you embrace Islam.”

On the other hand, Donald Trump is president of the United States and Steve Bannon is his chief strategist. Bannon straightforwardly believes, as he told a conference at the Vatican in 2014, that “we’re in a war of immense proportions” that’s part of the “long history of the Judeo-Christian West struggle against Islam.” To win, Bannon says, we must form the “church militant” – an archaic term for the “Christian church on earth regarded as engaged in a constant warfare against its enemies, the powers of evil.”

So it’s quite possible ISIS and the Trump administration can successfully collaborate on getting what they both want: a totally unnecessary, civilizational war. To stop them we have to end our truckling equivocation about terrorism, and start telling the truth while there’s still time.

Top Photo: During a memorial service in Baghdad, Iraqis gather around a bomb hole in the ceiling of the Al-Amariya shelter in 2003, where more than 400 people were killed in a U.S.-led missile attack during the Gulf War. Iraqis opened a new memorial center outside the Al-Amariya shelter to mark the 12 year anniversary of the attack.

The post Why Do So Many Americans Fear Muslims? Decades of Denial About America’s Role in the World. appeared first on The Intercept.

via The Intercept

[maditationsolutions-blog]

Meditation's Beneficial Magic

An ever increasing number of nowadays we see incalculable suggestions to rehearse the well established workmanship and study of contemplation. Most, if not all, praise its apparently enchanted force on the human mind through its implied benefits. These proposals and cases have stood the trial of time-they are generally acknowledged and very much supported. For ages past the individuals who preceded us have said a lot with respect to this extraordinary blessing we as a whole forces however today at times, we disregard to utilize. Why currently would we say we are again helped to remember this?

We all are taking an interest either mindful or uninformed. in a quantum move bringing now and again, wild changes in every aspect of our general public and world structures. Nobody is absolved from the impacts these quick changes bring. While all around encountered, these trans-developmental energies are exclusively novel and handled distinctively relying upon an individual's viewpoint. With a little order and practice we can apply this endowment of meditation to assist balance with focusing on levels, diminish mind-films which appear to play relentless to bring expanding levels of bliss, lucidity and reason into life.

While the facts confirm that thoughtful practices are known by numerous names in essentially all societies each with different types of work on, discovering one that will work for you is very simple. The best part is that this delicately drives us at last to an extraordinary spot we frequently want and need more noteworthy comprehension and acknowledgment to life's secrets.

Thus, how about we quickly investigate the subject for the sole reason for figuring out how to receive numerous advantageous benefits accessible through contemplation. Furthermore, it is valid, the best things in life are free. So let us start to free our brains from futile, wayward unique musings having no legitimization to control or direct our life's bearing. We will discover contemplation permits you in the most perfect sense, to make your own background's. (More conversation about that plausibility somewhat later). For the time being, consider that during meditation you can supplant, and get out undesirable contemplations with life attesting forms increasing a genuine, enduring significant serenity, body and soul. Contemplation is your portal offering all that and more...you can even make some enchantment in your life through this basic procedure!

As you may have heard or on the off chance that you are now a devoted expert, people report significant mental, physical and profound prosperity as they practice meditation day by day. What at that point is contemplation actually about? For fledglings, how might one beginning? What's more, how far would i be able to go with earnest devotion? Right now going to look at a couple of regions some chronicled foundation, benefits, study of the brain and propelled potential outcomes.

History to Date

As indicated by numerous archeologists, meditation pre dates set up accounts. It could be effortlessly imagined an individual entering a modified condition of cognizance by just looking in the brain stilling glint of fire while taking no idea. The most punctual archived record of meditation originates from India in their Hindu sacred writings called tantras. These records go back more than 5,000 years originating from the Indus valley and were joined with what is alluded to today as yoga. Alongside growing exchange, social trade was additionally conveyed westbound and meditation practice was before long implanted in eastern idea and profound practices.

With the approach of Buddha around 500 AD, numerous assorted societies started to build up their own understandings and particular reflective systems. A few systems still being used right up 'til the present time are said to convey unfathomable psyche over-matter forces and supernormal aptitudes that changed the professional. Today, these are faithful people and are not really priests living in some remote mountain religious community. They are regular individuals like you and I. Obviously progressing through time, the long history of meditation is never again just ascribed to the Hindus and Buddhists. Not to be forgotten about, Christianity, Islam and Judaism additionally take an interest in the propagation of contemplation each with its own interpretation of the training.

Be that as it may, verifiably these strict religions don't rule in their lessons and practices a culture of meditation when contrasted with the Asian customs. meditation discovers its place here in our Western culture in the mid 1960's into the '70's. This was when a lot of our way of life was being tried, requesting to be re-imagined. meditation discovered ripe ground in which to prosper and extend. Some could state it was the "flower child" insurgency which propelled to grasp acknowledgment of outside thoughts yet just ones that had genuine substantive worth. It was not long after that when the Western clinical and academic network started to lead research and concentrates on meditation. Furthermore, what did most examinations if not all, to fluctuating degrees find?

You got it-critical medical advantages. One of the most significant parts of contemplation is the means by which it discharges worry from our bodies. This is accomplished by overcoming any issues between our cognizant and un-cognizant selves, circumstances or non-advocated musings that mature pressure become less noteworthy and really lose their capacity. Through meditation, it doesn't take some time before you feel increasingly serene and loose about everything. What happened to cause this almost inexplicable change? Studies have demonstrated that meditation raises serotonin levels which legitimately influence our conduct and passionate disposition. Then again, low degrees of serotonin lead to despondency, migraines even a sleeping disorder. All side effects related with pressure.

Today, our western human progress with all our "propelled" information has re-attested the old information and comprehension of contemplation's remedial capacity to help ease mental and physical afflictions. What's more, this was only the early stages of disclosure or will we say re-revelation of boundless forces accessible inside every one of us. Today, intercession without question is an all around restoratively acknowledged type of all encompassing recuperating utilized around the world. Contemplation could be summarized as a characteristic instrument inside every one of us that empowers the soul inside, the higher, genuine self to connect the correspondence hole into our physical perspectives establishing us in unequivocal love.

Resurrection through Breath

Past all the clinical network declarations lies a tremendous fragment of the populace looking for extra advantages while rehearsing contemplation. By what means can what shows up at first just to be a physical demonstration, impact our actual inward being so significantly by essentially clearing our cognizant considerations and concentrating on our breath? Well the mystery truly is in our breath. At the point when you first beginning a thoughtful practice at face esteem, it shows up extremely simple. However, from the get-go many are effortlessly disappointed in light of the fact that they have actually never really endeavored to calm their contemplations while wakeful. Effectively exploring the psychological brain field of what evidently seems, by all accounts, to be constant surges of musings springing up can from the start be an overwhelming errand. Be admonished this is a typical event and very ordinary and there is an answer. It's entertaining quite acknowledgment sets in that you truly resemble two people inside a solitary physical body. What's more, that isn't a long way from reality.

I, in the same way as other who reflect discovered at an early stage one key to effectively get past this psychological hindrance is to recognize the idea. Continue to then expel it altogether or consent to return to the idea after the meditation meeting and return the psyche's concentration to your relaxing. I have utilized this strategy to incredible achievement moving beyond the inner selves guard job which it frequently plays.

You may discover this strategy accommodating also if not, find what brings your concentration back without diverting musings. Once more, breathing's job is of most extreme significance right now since it is the door spanning the physical body with the otherworldly body. The objective here is the thing that I allude to as the passing of musings through concentrating on your breath. Getting increasingly touchy of taking no idea alongside remaining present at the time by the straightforward demonstration being intentionally mindful of your breathing, an astounding internal resurrection starts. Next, we characterize some great essential strides for all contemplation rehearses.

meditation 101

Odds are a major part of your life you have unwittingly experienced minutes in an absolutely thoughtful state. The chances are that when this happened, you wound up outside in nature. In nature we all the more effectively discover reverberation with a more profound all the more genuine part of ourselves which regularly wakes up in the common habitat.

Maybe it happened while unwinding on a sea shore viewing the mesmerizing like waves drearily washing shorewards or potentially seeing the undetectable breeze stir leaves on a tree as warming daylight washed your face. On the off chance that you recall during these minutes, you found a totally loosened up feeling inundate your general existence since you were liberated from diverting considerations. This is what being in "the occasion" is about. It seems as though your brain tunes into the higher characteristic frequencies of life which generally, are for all intents and purposes non-existent inside structures and such. However, with center, appropriate goals and procedures we can get away from these constraints forced in man-made situations. Obviously contemplation can be significantly upgraded when it is functional in characteristic environment.

The entire idea of meditation takes on different characters depending what a person's aim is while playing out a picked contemplation. Some may need physical or mental alleviation, others, answers or bearings for a superior life. In any case, decisions are plainly individualized. Discover yours since this goes far in helping you along the way supported with an exceptional, customized reason. Characterize it for you! To start a meditation, a couple of straightforward guidelines are generally acknowledged. These by and large are-

1) Break away from interruptions. Mood killer the outside electrical/mechanical interruptions like telephones, PCs, TV's and so forth. A tranquil, quiet serene spot is liked. From the start, submit 10 minutes or more with no interference.

2) Posture is significant in

[theconservativebrief]

A prominent Christian think tank has come out fiercely in favor of better family leave policies, defending federally mandated family leave policies on theological grounds.

“Christian families can form themselves along a divine vision of work and family as holistic complements,” a report released Tuesday reads, “As citizens and culture-shapers, Christians should advocate for and develop policies and practices that protect, rather than fragment, family time.”

The report, authored by Katelyn Beaty and Rachael Anderson of the Center for Public Justice, advocates for changes both on a federal scale, calling for an expansion of the Family Medical Leave Act. Pushing beyond public policy, though, the report also specifically targets gender imbalances within families.

The report follows a Senate finance subcommittee hearing last week on paid family leave, and a growing debate over the government’s role in providing resources for child care. Prominent figures on the right, including Sen. Joni Erst (R-IA) and first daughter and presidential advisor Ivanka Trump, as well as Democrats like Kristen Gillibrand (D-NY) have made the expansion of paid family leave a cornerstone of their policy strategy. Gillibrand’s bill with House cosponsor Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) — calling for at least partial payment to workers on leave for up to 12 weeks — was introduced last year.

”Christian teaching recognizes families’ crucial role in society to nurture and protect the sacredness of life at all stages,” the Center said in an email to journalists. “Paid family leave is an important way to promote family life and family cohesion, particularly for the many households that cannot otherwise afford to elect family care over paid work.”

But the relationship between child care, family life, work, and the evangelical community in America has not always been so straightforward. The history of the relationship between labor, parental support, and government programs to support family life in America has, for the past several decades, been strongly influenced by evangelical opposition to any perceived threat to the nuclear family.

While the authors represent just one Christian think tank among many, their report suggests that, for many evangelical communities, the “traditional” family model — a heterosexual married couple, with a husband who is a primary breadwinner and a wife who is a primary caregiver — is increasingly unsustainable, especially under current American economic conditions and family leave laws.

The report echoes a critique of capitalism, and of the devaluing of family life, heard elsewhere across the contemporary Christian world. Pope Francis, for example, has been a frequent critic of capitalist pro-corporation policies that minimize work-family balance.

However, this point of view has not always been prevalent among Christian leaders. It’s impossible to understand the history of family policy in America without recognizing the role that the nascent Christian right played in advocating against federally-mandated interference in childcare policy, and in advocating for the near-unbridled liberties of corporations. The relationship of Christianity to work-family balance, particularly when it intersects with state interference, has long been a complex and ambiguous one.

After decades of incremental steps and compromises, the current federal law, the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, allows employees working at least 25 hours a week with companies with at least 50 employees to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave for family medical reasons. These include childbirth, adoption, and family illness. This is among the least generous policies in the world.

Meanwhile, the US lacks any semblance of universal child care, which can be a burdensome cost for many families. In fact, according to the report, “child care in the United States costs on average $9,589 per year, a significant portion of the annual income of a working-class couple. Yet if one parent stays home, one salary may not be enough to support the family.”

Still, the authors say, Christians have a role in reversing course in public policy around paid leave and child care as a way to uphold its value of families as a cornerstone of Christian life. “Christians who recognize the socially foundational nature of family,” the report urges, “must not only talk about the importance of family, but enact policies and create cultures that tangibly demonstrate its importance. Protecting and enabling family time at crucial moments — whether birth, adoption, illness or death — is one essential way to uphold the enduring value of the family.”

The report advocates for equal family leave for both mothers and fathers. It urges change in policy at both corporate and governmental levels to ensure that mothers and fathers alike are uniformly given the opportunity to, for example, take maternity or paternity leave, or take leave to care for a sick child.

In addition to advocating the broadening of family leave, Beaty and Anderson specifically target issues of gender imbalance in child care, including the expectation that working mothers work a “second shift,” balancing the bulk of housework and parental duties with a full-time job.

“A biblical account of work and family life … [reminds] us that work and family were each designed for good purposes,” the report says. “God did not intend work and family to be experienced as competing spheres of responsibility, but rather complementary ones. Christians believe that every sphere of life falls under the lordship of Christ and is thus a place of God’s blessing and provision. God calls many people to enter into a marriage covenant and to bear and raise children; God also calls many people to work ‘with willing hands’ (Proverbs 31:13) in order to provide for family needs, effect cultural change and take the gospel into the marketplace. Church teaching honors these calls of responsibility.”

Beaty highlighted the importance for Christians of challenging an unquestioning adherence to capitalist approaches to worker productivity. “Christians across the board would agree that the workplace should be a place of a humanizing effect on a person’s life rather than a dehumanizing effect. And so obviously any kind of work that creates physical or mental or emotional harm for a worker is to be critiqued and to be changed,” she told Vox in an interview Wednesday.

Still, she acknowledged that Christian leaders have work to do in ensuring they practice what they preach.

Citing the mixed track record of some faith-based organizations of providing sufficient family leave, Beaty said, “We see that there is often a gap between what Christian leaders say and believe theoretically about the primacy of the family, and the workplace, and cultures that they create that take time away from the privacy of the family. So we want to help address that gap.”

That gap has, historically, been tied in part to the “culture wars,” and the Christian right’s role in it.

The early 1970s ushered in a growing new wave of feminism and gender equality. With it also came the very beginnings of evangelical activism, eventually taking on the moniker of the Moral Majority, a coalition of evangelical Christian leaders and figureheads who actively sought to bring a (largely white) evangelical Christian perspective to the Republican Party, and into government more broadly.

The issue of government-backed child care rose to prominence in the “culture wars” as early as 1971, as more middle-class women pushed for the ability to choose between homemaking and pursuing careers outside of the home.

As Nancy L. Cohen recounted in 2013 in the New Republic, Congress passed a bipartisan Comprehensive Child Development Act in 1971. The act earmarked $2 billion (or about $10 billion in today’s economy) to open a network of federally funded child day care centers, to provide education, food, and medical care to all children on a sliding financial scale. The bill seemed like a shoo-in.

Then, President Richard Nixon vetoed it. Why? According to Cohen, the president’s special assistant and speechwriter, Pat Buchanan convinced Nixon that universal child care opened the door to government control of child-rearing and the collapse of the nuclear family. Buchanan (who is Catholic, but is often associated with the largely evangelical members of the Moral Majority movement) has frequently characterized his opposition to the act in the bombastic language of the culture wars.

In his veto statement, which was drafted by Buchanan, Nixon argued that if the federal government plunged headlong financially into supporting child development, it would commit the vast moral authority of the national government to the side of communal approaches to child rearing, and that it would in turn lead to the collapse of family structures.

Buchanan frequently made ominous reference, too, to communist systems of indoctrination, telling interviewers, “I had been to the Soviet Union, spent 18 days there. … They took us to the young pioneers, (laughter) and these 5-, 6-year-olds were chanting Leninist slogans. And you said, you know, what is going on here? It was eerie.”

Years later, Buchanan defended his position and took full credit for Nixon’s actions, saying, “The federal government should not be in the business of raising American’s children.” He added, “If we hadn’t stopped it, I think you’d have an entitlement program now of enormous size with these federal day care centers, and they would be growing and growing and growing once you got it on the books.”

Not only did Nixon veto the bill, but he reportedly rejected the pleas of his other advisers, who urged him to leave the door open to less costly alternatives. Federally provided child care in America was deemed not just pragmatically tricky, but ideologically unsound.

From then on, as Gail Collins writes in her history of the 20th-century female experience, When Everything Changed, debates over childrearing became central to the American culture wars. During the Gerald Ford administration, congressional leaders tried to resuscitate a more moderate version of the bill, only to face extreme backlash from grassroots religious groups. Thousands of letter-writers contacted their representatives, falsely accusing Congress of trying to make it possible for children to sue their parents for making them do chores, or creating “a godless Russian/Chinese type regimentation of young minds.”

Much of the outcry, according to Collins, was inspired by a hoax flyer about the bill, evidently authored by a Bible camp director from Kansas, that seems to have circulated around South and Midwest. The bill failed.

In an article in the journal Feminist Studies, Rosalind Pollack Petchesky explores how the Christian right became defined by two “interlocking themes”: opposition to feminism (and thus to provisions that would threaten the female-homemaker model) and opposition to government intervention in private corporations.

A “pro-family” ideology characterized by opposition to abortion, divorce, feminism, and homosexuality became de rigueur for Moral Majority figures like Buchanan and Jerry Falwell, linking Catholics and evangelical Protestants. Or, as the 1980 Republican party platform would have it, “We oppose any move that would give the federal government more power over families.”

While the Christian right never explicitly condemned family leave policies the way it, for example, mobilized against federal childcare, it nevertheless made firm its commitment to minimizing any mandatory or federal interference into family life. The preservation of “family life,” in the abstract — which is to say, as an anti-feminist, libertarian ideal — became increasingly synonymous, with the privileging of corporate license to set family policy as it saw fit.

Beaty stresses that her work at the Center for Public Justice is non-partisan, and that they do not formally endorse any particular policy position. Still, she said, “some of the [right’s historical] emphasis on protecting the free market, protecting corporations’ freedom — I think that’s giving the market too much control … over the primacy of the family. As Christians, we think that solutions to social problems are not just problems of individuals making decisions, but that there has to be kind of a concerted, common-good effort to create standards, policies, ethical, moral commitments for workers to choose time with their families.”

Noting that too many families don’t have the financial option to have a parent stay home with their child, Beaty said, “Pat Buchanan and other more politically conservative evangelical leaders of the ’80s and ’90s assumed too much about individuals’ ability to be with their families.”

While, of course, the report represents just one Christian point of view, it represents an avenue of possibility for Christian discourse, and the “pro-life” agenda, in America: a willingness to treat issues of life and family, and the structural inequalities government them, beyond the traditional American “hot-button” issues of abortion and same-sex marriage. In so doing, Christian advocacy groups have the opportunity to broaden and diversify their political reach, and speak out (as many did about family separation) about issues that transcend sectarian lines.

Original Source -> Christians are calling for better family leave policies. That wasn’t always the case.

via The Conservative Brief

[bookandcover]

[A late update, written at the end of August…]

This book is a timely read for me. I've finally gotten to it after it has been sitting on my shelf for a year. I loved the other Guy Delisle books I read, and I picked this one up weeks before I head to South Korea for the first time. As a “certain unnamed someone” in the American government issues threats and accusations against North Korea, weeks before I head to Seoul, this book was emotionally charged for me. All eyes are on Korea, a place I'm about to be, a place that seems to hang on the verge of turmoil and danger.

The portrait Delisle paints of North Korea is literally and emotionally of a country in denial. While individuals around Delisle in Pyongyang repeatedly insist on their happiness, prosperity, and gratitude to the state, the world Delisle sees does not line up with this optimism. Through both his narrative details and his images, he captures a very sparse North Korea. This isn't a place of violence, high-emotions, or destruction, as one might expect from a Western standpoint. It is, instead, a space of silence and rigorous structure.

The language of euphemism surrounds Delisle. Workers who are watering the grass, sweeping the highway, and building new buildings on their one day-off per week are characterized as “volunteers.” The glorification of the two Kims is ever present, from the small badge North Koreans wear of Kim Jong Il's face to the twin portraits of Kim and father Kim that are on the wall in every room. Songs on the radio are limited to those about Kim Jong Il or Kim Jong Un. And, as Delisle’s guides present the glorious aspects of the country, from a new opera house to a giant movie theater, Delisle quickly learns that these are euphemisms as well. The movie theater is used once a year for diplomats and otherwise used only to screen war film propaganda. This is not a place of extravagance, enjoyment, and happiness for the natives. Delisle carves luxury out for himself with the other foreigners in small spaces that are literally restricted to Koreans. Guy Delisle’s guides wait outside while he drinks, shoots pool, or listens to foreign music with other visitors. There could not be a better portrait of the segregation between Koreans and foreigners than this seemingly trivial detail that speaks volumes.

That is, of course, one of Guy Delisle’s strengths as a writer: to find the every day things that are representative of the larger state of a culture, a country, a place, or a people. It is amazing to Delisle and to the reader that so much of the segregation between Koreans and foreigners is self-selected; Delisle never sees his guides waiver or do other than they're supposed to, he never sees them tempted by luxury. At first, part of him wants to tempt them to share his views of the Western world and democracy, to offer them a glimpse of something “more fun” than their reality. But Delisle himself is changed, as little as he might be willing to admit it, because of these experiences. He wants to include a story in his book drawn by another cartoonist. This cartoonist tells the story of how he was accused of taking photos of garbage cans in an area that wasn't supposed to be viewed by foreigners. As his film was developed and examined, he felt bad as he watched the stress of his guide who had been looking out for him. He acknowledges, perhaps for the first time, that who was at risk because of his behavior wasn’t him, but the Koreans around him. Rules in North Korea were not something to be treated casually. Another man's life was literally in his hands.

Delisle’s humor in this stark North Korean context is one of the joys of the book. Even if, at times, he borders on a desire to force some kind of change on those around him, he does this very much out of irony rather than out of anger. I love the details of this book: the dynamic between Delisle and his guides, particularly after David arrives because then Delisle is part of a dynamic duo. The way Delisle refers to his guide as Captain Sin and the little song that he makes up about his translator are hilarious. Another favorite scene of mine is when Delisle is trying to get his guide to guess a certain song he heard on the radio. His guide sings through several options; he is genuinely trying to help Delisle figure out what song it was…and every single song includes Kim Jong Un’s name in it. From our perspective, it’s obvious that Delisle is pulling the guide’s leg, but the genuineness of the guide shines through as he tries to help his foreign companion learn about North Korea.

Of the Guy Delisle books I’ve read, my favorite was definitely Jerusalem and a huge part of my preference was because of the added irony of Delisle bringing his kid with him in a charged environment. Delisle is lonely in the books before Jerusalem, traveling alone in countries where he feels isolated. It's interesting, however, that he feels less isolated in North Korea then he feels in Shenzhen. He seems to meet a lot of people in Pyongyang and he acknowledges this: his initial assumption that this would be a very solitary trip doesn’t turn out to be true. Yes, Pyongyang is stark, and yes, there are many parts of his experience that are deeply problematic, but he has daily conversations with his guides, translators, and other foreigners, and a surprising social life in North Korea. Again, I think this reflects the separation between the North Koreans and foreigners. The fixation on identity as “a foreigner” is very strong in this book. Delise is confined to certain areas and certain experiences, and foreigners are catered to. In the hotel, Delise comments on the weeks when there are foreign diplomats because the food is better (there's melon for breakfast and the electricity is fully on).

One of the most shocking details to me was the limited electricity. A large area without power is a haunting image because light is something Americans take completely for granted, especially in a city where we’re used to being bombarded by the lights, of transportation, of advertisements. Strip all that away, and what is left in the city when it is dark? Imagine moving through a large city, seeing limitation everywhere in the lack of electricity, which immediately belies the polished and prosperous face that North Korea tries to show to foreigners in the few places were foreigners are allowed to be.

I know that when I arrive in South Korea I will see wealth and extravagance in Seoul. My co-workers describe Gangnam as incredibly clean and new age, with every technology gadget and high-end fashion brand, with a true enjoyment of pleasure and luxury. I know that not all of South Korea is like this. Seoul has developed far more quickly than other areas in the country. However, the contrast between North and South Korea will be present in my mind.

One thing that is mentioned periodically in Delise’s book is the reunification of North and South Korea. North Koreans seem to believe in reunification, at least they believed at the time of Delisle’s visit. I was trying to figure out when this book took place, and it seems like it's around the year 2000. Who knows what North Koreans think about reunification today? Are they still being fed the belief that North and South Korea will reunite into a communist country? This vision in the book seems to rely on South Korea adjusting to be more like North Korea than vice versa. And Delise sarcastically wonders why South Korea would invest the money required for reunification when they have jumped ahead of their northern neighbor in economic development.

When I'm in South Korea, I will try to see the edge of North Korea, which I've heard that you can see from Seoul. I think that, in the world we face today when tensions run high and violence seems imminent, one of the best things we can turn to is knowledge—knowledge of someone else, someone different than us. Taking time to try to understand another culture, to ask questions, to have conversations—this process is truly important and is part of Delise’s books, which transport us into another space, asking us to see it directly, to come to know it.