#had he actually been shown to interact with the people he was condemning or supporting in any significant capacity | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

makeste · 4 years

Text

“...and I bullied him.”

hello, hello, good afternoon or evening or whatever time it is. so by now we’ve all had some time to bask in those “Kacchan admitted he cares about Deku” feels (well, technically they were “All Might pointed out that Kacchan was worried about Deku and Kacchan didn’t deny it” feels, BUT THOSE MIGHT AS WELL BE THE SAME FEELS, YOU KNOW). and it’s been lovely. I’ve been having a time. it’s been nice.

but now I would like to talk a bit more about a part of this chapter which I think was even more important.

for me, this was the line of the chapter. this one panel may honestly be the biggest piece of Kacchan character development since all the way back in chapter 120. “I ended up bullying him.” okay but guys?? can we just talk?? about how absolutely extraordinary this one sentence is.

it’s self-aware.

introspection? from a kid who’s had to be dragged kicking and screaming to every character development milestone he’s ever experienced in his life? and on an emotional level that actually goes deeper, and doesn’t just stop at the surface-level anger that’s so often his instinctive reaction to everything? who are you and what have you done with Bakugou Katsuki lol.

but seriously, the level of self-analysis here almost stunned me, guys. not only does he demonstrate a very impressive level of insight into Deku (something I especially love because it mirrors the many analyses Deku has made of him, and shows that the understanding between them is actually mutual), but he also shows an unprecedented degree of insight into himself. like, historically speaking, Bakugou and Feelings have not always exactly been on the same page, you know? so for him to suddenly get so thoughtful now, and sincerely try to analyze these feelings which up until now he’s always ignored and avoided dealing with... that is such a huge step. also, bonus points: he recognizes it as a problem within himself, and doesn’t try to pin the blame on Deku in any way. he recognizes that he’s the one who reacted badly to Deku’s behavior. to be able to examine your own feelings like that and arrive at a conclusion that acknowledges that you’re not the good guy in this, that you’re the one who made the mistake -- that takes a level of accountability that not everyone possesses.

it’s self-prompted.

okay this one is a big deal honestly. no one put a gun to Katsuki’s head here and forced him to confess this. all All Might said was “you’re worried about him too” and that somehow prompted a level of emotional honesty that Katsuki has never before shown. now, based on the fact that the successors’ notebook is still fresh in Katsuki’s mind, and that All Might mentioned earlier that Aizawa couldn’t help because he was “busy at the moment”, this conversation likely took place shortly after the kids returned from their New Year’s break. meaning that this was basically right after the Endeavor internship arc, when thoughts about seeking atonement were still fresh on Katsuki’s mind. so this isn’t entirely out of the blue; it shows that Katsuki did, in fact, learn exactly what All Might was hoping he would learn from Endeavor.

but it’s one thing for this to be on his mind, and another thing entirely for him to actually confess it out loud. and I absolutely will give him full credit for that. he admits, without anyone forcing him to, that he bullied Deku. there’s no incentive for him to do this whatsoever. Deku isn’t there to hear it. he’s not admitting it for the purposes of seeking forgiveness. he’s simply just being honest, and owning up to what he did because he realizes it was wrong. and that takes a lot of inner strength, to do that. to not shy away from it and keep pretending like it never happened. this is a huge first step for him.

it’s a confession that leaves him emotionally vulnerable.

this is another big one. it’s not always evident because he makes a big effort to downplay it, but Katsuki looks up to All Might every bit as much as Deku does. he seeks his approval, he wants All Might to be proud of him, even though he very often puts on a big show of not caring about it at all. it means a lot to him. a lot.

and Katsuki knows how much All Might cares about Deku. and sure, All Might is already perfectly aware that Katsuki and Deku aren’t exactly on the best of terms, and he’s always been understanding about it; always gently compassionate and attempting to smooth things out between them without being judgmental.

but All Might also doesn’t know everything about the two of them. and even with Kacchan and Deku’s relationship never exactly being on the most rock solid of terms at U.A., there’s still a vast difference between the way they interact there, and the way that they interacted back in middle school. when Katsuki was not only hostile, but occasionally downright cruel. and when Deku was still quirkless, and very much not on equal footing with Kacchan in terms of power, and yet Kacchan bullied him anyway.

what Katsuki is confessing here puts him at risk of rejection from one of the people whose opinion of him matters the most. he’s opening himself up to the possibility that All Might might not, for once, react with his trademark understanding. he’s admitting to All Might, I did something unherolike, and I hurt someone you care about, and I didn’t have a good reason for doing it. All Might, in the moment immediately following this statement, has an incredible amount of power over Katsuki. he has the ability to withdraw his support, to condemn him, to pull away and decide that Katsuki is not someone worthy of becoming a hero after all. he has all the power in the world over Katsuki in this one moment; a rejection from him would be a blow he’d never recover from.

and Katsuki, knowing this, tells him anyway. willingly opens himself up to that possibility of being hurt, of being rejected and shunned by the person who inspired his dream. because the alternative is being dishonest with him. this is, in short, a decision made because he believes All Might deserves to know this, and deserves to hear the truth from him. he wants his approval so badly, but he can’t live with the knowledge that he’s “tricked” him into giving it. so he tells him the truth, ready to face whatever consequences might arise from that. and I think that might be one of the bravest things he’s ever done.

it’s not attempting to shirk responsibility.

this, right here, is why Katsuki is my favorite character. because even though he’s flawed, even though he’s made a lot of mistakes, when he realizes that and is confronted by it, he never tries to hide from them. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: to me, the essence of Katsuki is that he is someone who is always trying to be better. he wants to be a good hero; he wants to be a good person. when people point out to him that he’s done something wrong, he listens. it doesn’t always sink in right away, sure, and sometimes he gets stubborn and it can be hard to hammer that truth in. but once he gets it, he always makes the change. he never tries to make excuses. he owns up to his shit and does his best to course correct.

with this acknowledgement here, that he bullied Deku, there’s no attempt on his part to say that it was Deku’s fault, that Deku shouldn’t have done this or that. he doesn’t blame his parents or his teachers or try to act like he didn’t know any better. he makes no attempt whatsoever to justify it. it’s just simple, honest truth. back then, I ignored my own weakness, so I ended up bullying him. it’s a plea of guilt. no attempt to mitigate it or downplay it. the verb he uses, “ijimeta”, doesn’t water it down.

“to ill-treat; to torment; to be cruel to.” there’s no attempt here to paint this in a flattering light at all. which is good. because in order for him to really atone for it, to really go the distance in his redemption arc which we’re all rooting for him to do, the most important step is for him to take responsibility. he can’t learn from it if he’s trying to hide from it or make excuses for what he did wrong. he has to fully acknowledge his mistakes. and that’s exactly what this is.

it shows remorse.

that’s right y’all. they sent my boy out to do an internship with Endeavor over the holidays, and he came back having learned the true meaning of Christmas. his heart really did grow three sizes. honey badger does care.

there is genuine, sincere remorse for his actions here. he’s sorry for what he did. he regrets what he did. there’s real contrition there. it’s not forced or insincere. again, nobody made him say this! nobody pressured him, nobody led him on. these are his own feelings. I bullied Deku. I shouldn’t have done that to him. I want to atone for it.

I know some people in fandom don’t think this is enough. the same thing happened with Endeavor as well. people aren’t always satisfied with restorative justice; they want retribution. they want punishment for his actions. and that’s a natural feeling; it stems back to that instinct of wanting everything to be fair, which I mentioned in another meta not too long ago.

but the thing is, retributive, punitive justice doesn’t actually help anyone. it doesn’t restore what was lost. Katsuki being punished doesn’t do anything to undo what was done to Deku. it doesn’t do anything to heal the harm that was dealt. it doesn’t do anything to make things better for either of them moving forward.

but do you know what does? restorative justice. making amends. which is exactly what this is building up to now.

it shows an understanding that remorse is not enough, and that in order to move forward he has to take action to be a better person.

Katsuki understands that simply being sorry for what he did is not enough. I suspect that’s one reason why he hasn’t attempted to apologize to Deku yet; because he recognizes that after years of tormenting him for stupid and self-centered reasons, a simple apology might seem meaningless at best and self-serving at worst. it puts pressure on Deku to make a decision to either accept or not accept it. Katsuki saw the Todoroki siblings struggling with a similar conflict not too long ago. and he knows better than anyone else how selfless Deku can be. “deep down, he doesn’t take himself into account, y’know?” and so if Katsuki simply apologizes, Deku might end up offering forgiveness that he doesn’t actually deserve, just because Deku is that kind of person who puts others above himself.

and so rather, what Katsuki has opted to do for now is to put all his efforts into helping Deku. he knows Deku is in a considerable amount of danger. he knows how much Deku has on his plate with the SIXQUIRKS and trying to handle all of that. and he knows there are other potential dangers looming which they don’t even know about yet. he’s been alert and anxious about this -- you saw how quickly his mind leaped to worst-case scenarios about the past OFA users; how he was sure that All Might was hiding something from them, and how agitated and apprehensive he got thinking about what that might be.

“I’m worried for him. you are, too,” All Might said. and Katsuki didn’t deny it. didn’t even try. he is worried about Deku. he’s worried about what he has to face. he’s worried about him getting in over his head and something happening to him. and so the way that he has chosen to try and atone is to help him. with his training, with his quirks; whatever he can do. if he needs to push him he’ll push him. whatever he can do to help make him stronger. and if he needs to protect him, he’ll do that too.

atonement is not the same thing as forgiveness. atonement is about trying to make up for what you did, to try and correct your mistakes however you can. it doesn’t mean you’re pardoned from them. all it means is that you’ve acknowledged them, and are doing your best -- doing whatever you can -- to repair the harm done, and to be a better person going forward. and sometimes there is no way to ever completely make up for it. sometimes you can’t undo the harm, because you can’t go back and change the past. the only thing you can change is the now, and the future.

and so Katsuki is trying to atone. he’s trying to be the friend Deku deserves now, since he wasn’t before. he’s trying his best to make things right, and it all starts with this one sentence. that acknowledgement of what he did, of what can’t be changed. acknowledgement of the mistake, so that he can learn from it, so that it never happens again.

so yeah. BnHA Redemption Arcs strike again. Horikoshi you smooth son of a bitch.

#bnha 284 #bakugou katsuki #all might #midoriya izuku #bakudeku #bnha meta #bakugou meta #bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #bnha manga spoilers #makeste reads bnha

2K notes · View notes

xiyao-feels · 3 years

Text

Part Four: My thoughts on the effects of these changes on our interpretations of the characters, and some miscellaneous final notes

Intro - Pt 1 - Pt 2 - Pt 3 - Pt 4

Okay, so. That's a list of changes. What kind of effect does it actually have on our interpretation of the characters?

For JGY, it's perhaps more subtle than you'd think. The complaint from JGY stans about FJ I heard most often, prior to watching it, was that JGY involves NHS in his brother's killing—whereas in MDZS, as shown, if anything he functions as NHS' protector. This is definitely obnoxious, but to my eye the worst changes are the perhaps more subtle ones. The JGY of FJ is significantly different from the JGY of MDZS and CQL in two ways: first, he has more options available, and second, without ever making an explicit claim, the text nevertheless sends the strong message that he is /not actually in danger from NMJ/.

What do I mean about more options? To begin with, he teaches NHS the corrupted SoC. This carries some risk of LXC finding out, and a much greater risk of NHS finding out—as, indeed, he does. I don't see how this could plausibly be a risk worth taking for JGY; the narrative's insistence suggests either that he has some way to mitigate that risk, or that he's secure enough he can afford to be so careless. His ability to achieve such strong, immediate affects via musical cultivation, despite his weak cultivation level, adds to the general sense that FJ JGY is much less constrained than MDZS or CQL JGY, as does JGS' complete absence from the narrative; it would be easy to forget that JGY is under any social/political pressure at all, even though this is a constant theme in NMJ and JGY's confrontations in MDZS and CQL, and the pressure and danger from JGS specifically is central to their confrontation at the stairs. The lack of any hint of or history of disrespect to LFZ from the Nie men, given what we see of their interaction in CQL, is yet another example of FJ ignoring the constraints JGY actually has to work with.

And, of course, FJ suggests that he has the option to actually cure NMJ, when the fact that he doesn't is in my opinion central to the morality of the decision, to understanding JGY's character, and indeed to many of the themes of the text. (In fact as a friend pointed out to me it suggests that NHS or indeed anyone could learn the music to cure him, although FJ does not seem to realize the implications of this itself.)

This ties in with point two: that JGY is not actually in danger from NMJ. We never see NMJ attack him—NMJ's violence is reserved for other people. Furthermore, we see him (and later NHS) stop NMJ's violence by the quick application of the uncorrupted SoC; this includes, as I've mentioned in previous sections, a scene where JGY protects NHS from NMJ's anger via cultivation, while in the nearest MDZS scene JGY protects NHS from NMJ's anger very explicitly by being a more appealing target. Watching FJ, it would be very difficult to understand how much danger JGY was actually in, and how much he was a target of NMJ's violence.

Even in CQL, NMJ tries to kill JGY at the stairs, drawing his sabre on him after the stairs kick—and even that first attempted blow, before they exchange words outside, could have caused JGY serious damage. In MDZS, after the stairs—where NMJ would very likely have succeeded in killing JGY if LXC hadn't intervened—though WWX admires JGY's skill in finding the right words to convince NMJ to "give him another chance," JGY is only able to do this by promising he'll do something that would probably get him killed, and then promising NMJ that he can kill JGY if he doesn't do it. Moreover, NMJ ends his own life by kicking down a door to kill JGY on the spot, because he did not like the way he was talking about NMJ to LXC. This is a very, very far cry from anything presented in FJ.

The idea that JGY could actually cure NMJ goes to this as well. NMJ is as violent to JGY as he is because of the sabre curse; JGY's choices are endure this, and hope to survive, or...kill him quicker, and hope to survive. He doesn't actually have a choice that involves not being subject to NMJ's violence. Ignoring this fundamentally changes JGY's character, who is so defined by the constraints under which he suffers, and indeed by the lack of physical security he has until he becomes Jin-zongzhu.

What then about NMJ's character? Honestly I don't even have the words for this; it's a profound insult to his original character. The thing is, it's not just that NMJ doesn't doubt the righteousness of Nie cultivation practices, although he very much does not. It's that NMJ would never do something he secretly thought was unrighteous, never mind /shape his life around it/. If he believed something wasn't righteous, he simply wouldn't do it. This is literally the heart of his conflict with JGY, and it repeats throughout the text again and again.

Further, and less flattering to NMJ: NMJ is absolutely convinced of the righteousness of his own judgement. It's not just that he wouldn't do something he thought in his heart wasn't righteous; he's never the kind of torn he is shown to be in FJ, and he never doubts his own judgement. When NHS challenges him here on whether he's qualified to decide the fate of evildoers, who are after all still evil, part of him clearly thinks NHS has a point. But NMJ absolutely, one hundred percent believes in his right to play—if you'll pardon the phrase—judge, jury, and executioner. It's not just JGY, although it very much is, also, JGY; at no point does he seem to believe anything but that he has the absolute right to kill JGY if he decides to. Indeed, some of his worst violence to JGY is a result of JGY challenging his assertions of righteousness, at the stairs. We see it with XY, both in MDZS and arguably even more clearly in CQL as well: in episode 10 he instantly decides that XY should be executed, and is about to carry out that execution when WWX intervenes—and then he's offended about WWX's intervention! The only reason he doesn't carry out the execution on the spot is MY's argument that keeping XY alive can be used to harm the Wen. And, of course, we see it with his attitude to WQ and WN, although people are so often determined to ignore this. Please note that he argues /against/ JC and LXC's defense of them, both in MDZS and in CQL; if ever there was a single incident that could have changed at all how things came out, it would be the very respected sect leader Nie, whose sect is after the Jin the strongest surviving sect post-Sunshot, speaking out in their defense at the conference convened to determine what to do about the fact that WWX just made off with them.

Now, thematically, I think part of the point of his character is that his inflexibility is...well, inflexible; his condemnation of people who are in bad positions does more harm than good. Returning to JGY for a moment, I also think it's telling that NMJ doesn't take effective action to accomplish his goals re: XY. This isn't even just because JGY killed him—if he had actually killed JGY instead, then he would have found quite suddenly that he'd killed Lianfang-zun, the war hero who killed WRH, his own sworn brother, JGS' beloved son, etc etc etc. It would not have gone well for him. Part of the point is that—in a corrupt system, acting as though the system isn't corrupt will itself lead to injustice. Making NMJ himself knowingly complicit in the corruption of that system rather defeats that point.

I am also, I admit, /extremely/ annoyed that /he/ is offered the understanding that he had no choice because of his position, while JGY's difficulties are ignored, and when a) although from what we see in MDZS it would certainly have been quite difficult, he did actually have a choice b) the movie strongly suggests (with the ready willingness of the Nie men to follow him when he rejects the ancestral method of balancing, their respect for sabre-weak NHS, and the lack of opposition from any other area) that it would not, actually, have been that difficult, socially speaking.

I think in terms of the effects this has on people's interpretations of JGY, probably this makes them think that NMJ at the stairs rejects the specifics of JGY's argument, and contributes to a general lack of engagement with the substance of what JGY is actually saying (and the lack of substance of NMJ's reply). People mostly ignore NMJ's similar stance towards WQ, so I suspect this doesn't have much effect there; I have on occasion seen the claim that he was right to condemn her as well, but I mostly don't think it was coming from an FJ-inspired place.

When it comes to NHS…mmm. As I said, CQL makes him less amoral at the beginning, although it doesn't prevent his total—I'm not even sure you can say 'carelessness towards collateral damage' in the current timeline when from his perspective collateral damage would be a good thing, since it would be blamed on JGY. Not to mention the way he treats QS, what he's implied to do with MS' body... I suspect that FJ!NHS is where you get man-of-the-people NHS, who would /totally/ have built those watchtowers instead of that awful JGY if that awful JGY hadn't cruelly murdered his brother because a) he's Evil and/or b) he's ambitious (and also evil), and what other considerations could there possibly be?

To which I can only say: fucking spare me. I suspect the characterization here of NHS and of the Nie men contributes generally to fandom's idea of a much more gentle and progressive cultivation world than either MDZS or CQL supports.

In summation: FJ is, considered as providing any kind of interpretive light on CQL and/or MDZS characters, a terrible movie. If you are not fully familiar with the relevant portions of MDZS, I don't see how you could come away from this without absorbing significant falsehoods. Although I certainly can't and indeed don't wish to tell anyone what they should or should not consider canon, I do think it's important to know that incorporating FJ into your personal canon is going to result in an extremely different characters than not doing so, and if you want to argue with CQL or MDZS fans about characters' characterizations based on FJ, it's not going to be a very productive discussion for anyone involved.

A few miscellaneous notes:

-The change in the narrative of NMJ's violence extends beyond the replacement of his primary target. In fact, there are three things in particular I want to pull out.

First, and despite his near assault of NHS, FJ!NMJ is portrayed as much less...well, scary, than MDZS NMJ, and even to some extent CQL NMJ. NMJ habitually takes out his anger in undirected violence towards objects—the boulder when he hears his men talking about MY, the boulder(/pillar in CQL) after MY kills WRH, the door he kicks open to kill JGY before he qi-deviates, the table he cracks in his anger around NHS delighting in fans rather than knowing where he sabre is; even, though here at least it is a clear deliberate choice, his burning of NHS' things. In FJ—well, I don't want to say there's none of that, he does at least break NHS' paintbrush and I could be misremembering other things, but it certainly seems a lot less prevalent. And more than that, people simply don't react to him as terrifying! In FJ, NHS after NMJ /nearly hits him/ is still a lot less scared of NMJ's anger than NHS is in this parallel scene in MDZS, where he does not (ch 49):

One day, the moment he returned to the main hall of the Unclean Realm, he saw about a dozen folding fans, all lined in gold, flattened out one next to the other in front of Nie HuaiSang, who was touching them tenderly, mumbling as he compared the inscriptions written on each one. Immediately, veins protruded from Nie MingJue’s forehead, “Nie HuaiSang!”

Nie HuaiSang fell at once.

He really did fall to his knees from the terror. He only staggered up after he finished kneeling, “B-b-b-brother.”

Nie MingJue, “Where is your saber?”

Nie HuaiSang cowered, “In… in my room. No, in the school grounds. No, let me… think…”

Wei WuXian could feel that Nie MingJue almost wanted to hack him dead right there, “You bring a dozen fans with you wherever you go, yet you don’t even know where your own saber is?!”

Nie HuaiSang hurried, “I’ll go find it right now!”

Nie MingJue, “There’s no need! Even if you find it you won’t get anything out of it. Go burn all of these!”

All of the color drained out of Nie HuaiSang’s face. He rushed to pull all of the fans into his arms, pleading, “No, Brother! All of these were given to me!”

Nie MingJue slammed his palm onto a table, causing it to crack, “Who did? Tell them to scurry out here right now!”

Even though he nearly hits NHS, even though he actually kills many of his own men, he is simply not presented as nearly as scary.

Second, and not unrelatedly, in FJ the narrative focus of the consequence of NMJ's violence is on his own pain at his men's death, and NHS' pain at seeing him kill them. In MDZS, this is more complicated. We see, of course, his violence to JGY, and the consequences to JGY of that violence; at the stairs, for example, kicking JGY down the stairs he gives him another head wound to add to the one Madam Jin gave him. Moreover, his increasing rage actually /damages/ his relationship with NHS. We see this notably in NHS' reaction to NMJ burning his things (ch 49):

Nie HuaiSang’s eyes brimmed red. He didn’t even make a sound. Jin GuangYao added, “It’s alright even if the things are gone. Next time I can find you more…”

Nie MingJue interrupted, his words like ice, “I’ll burn them each time he brings them back into this sect.”

Anger and hatred suddenly flashed across Nie HuaiSang’s face. He threw his saber onto the ground and yelled, “Then burn them!!!”

Jin GuangYao quickly stopped him, “HuaiSang! Your brother is still angry. Don’t…”

Nie HuaiSang roared at Nie MingJue, “Saber, saber, saber! Who the fuck wants to practice the damn thing?! So what if I want to be a good-for-nothing?! Whoever that wants to can be the sect leader! I can’t learn it means I can’t learn it and I don’t like it means I don’t like it! What’s the use of forcing me?!”

He then runs off the field and locks himself in his rooms, not even letting anyone in to bring him medicine. The next we hear about NHS is in the next scene, not two months later, when LXC describes NMJ's recent troubles (ch 50): "These past few days, he has been deeply troubled by the saber spirit, and HuaiSang has argued with him again." Now, they clearly continue to love each other, and NHS is clearly devastated by NMJ's death; but in the months leading up to NMJ's death, their relationship was unusually strained, not closer than ever.

Thirdly, I think the narrative ends up distorting the way NMJ's sabre rages work. Not completely—the example where he almost punches NHS is actually a pretty good example—but consider his final violence to his men. He kills them, /not/ because in his rage he feels that killing them would be righteous punishment for whatever they have done, but because he hallucinates that they are WRH's puppets. But I don't believe we see NMJ hallucinate anything until he actually qi-deviates—at which point he hallucinates that they are /JGY/, and while in CQL at least JGY has confessed to the corrupted music before he starts hallucinating JGYs, in MDZS his anger is, again, about how JGY was talking about him to LXC. When NMJ is violent to people under the effects of the sabre curse, it is because he is angry, and in his anger that violence feels reasonable. There is not as far as I can tell anything that suggests that his sabre-affected rages feel differently from the inside than his more regular rages—nor do we ever see him apologize for the harm he does in his rages, precisely because, to him, his rage and hence his subsequent violence feel like entirely appropriate responses to the situation. I think this goes to point two, above; it would be harder to induce sympathy for NMJ if, say, he killed his men because they were challenging him, and at no point acknowledged he has been wrong to do so.

-You could probably do something interesting here with considering this movie as splitting JGY's character between NMJ (the man who makes difficult decisions due to his political position), NHS (the weak but skilled cultivator), and NZH (the loyal and extremely competent subordinate), even as it ignores the much greater difficulty of JGY's position, that his weakness is because he lacked NHS' opportunities and his skill obtained despite lacking them, that unlike FJ NMJ he actually does need to make those difficult decisions to achieve his goals and does indeed achieve them, etc. This is left as an exercise to the reader.

-I greatly resent the clear and extensive visual parallels between NHS' bow to JGY, at the end of the film, and MY's bow to JGS after JGS kicks him down the Jinlintai stairs, and the way the similarity is taken as indicating parallels beyond the visual. This is, first, because their positions are not at all the same. I am certainly not saying NHS' position was in any way comfortable or good; nevertheless, he is at that moment a clan leader who is surrounded by men who, from the film, would not hesitate to die at his command. There is not really anything about the presentation of the Nie men in FJ that suggests that if NHS went outside that room with JGY and announced to them that JGY had killed NMJ and they should attack him now, his men would do anything other than try to kill JGY immediately at his command. This was, needless to say, very much not the position of the young teenager MY, far from home, injured, humiliated, and made a public joke; perhaps more subtle is that NHS' position at NMJ's death, though he is politically weak and though he has just suffered a devastating loss, is still more secure than /JGY's/ at the same, as JGY—far from being a clan leader with the absolute obedience of his men—is not even JGS' acknowledged heir. Indeed, in many ways the focus of NHS' enmity on /JGY/, rather than JGS who commands him, is an extension of NMJ's focus on JGY rather than JGS when it comes to achieving XY's execution, and in both cases extremely advantageous to JGS. Certainly NMJ would not have been able to get away with harassing Zixuan as he does JGY on the matter of XY; likewise, JGS would never have risked Zixuan in an attempt to kill NMJ as he does JGY. The advantage of JGY as assassin is that if he kills NMJ, JGS wins; if NMJ kills him, JGS also wins (an incalculable political advantage); and if he is caught, his background makes him both easily severable and an ideal scapegoat. Also returning to framing of the bow—and while this is much more trivial it is a recurring petty imitation—I have seen matched gifsets suggesting that JGY was also swearing revenge on JGS at this moment.

-The last words JGY says to NHS are "Restrain your grief;" in English of course this comes across as extremely insensitive, but see drwcn's post for some cultural context; it's actually a common expression of condolences.

-I believe this is whence the idea that MY's headpiece in CQL used to be NHS', because we see kid NHS wearing it in the flashbacks; let us say, if you don't feel the need to accept FJ as canon, I don't think you need to accept that, either.

#fj negativity #long meta #more than one tag could contain #anger burned in his heart #we can't change places

32 notes · View notes

a3hastakenovermylife · 4 years

Text

Ok, I really, really want some quality interaction between Kazunari and Taichi.

Like I know that we all joke about them because they’re our energetic, adorable, puppy pair, and yes, that is who they are on the surface. But, when you simplify their whole character arcs down to just that, you’re flattening their characters and you lose the depth that the game hints at for the both of them.

The game did a really great job at letting Taichi flush out a decent sized character arc, and concluded that story in a satisfying way during the Autumn Troupe arc. We see our sunshine boy upset, withdrawn, and separating himself from the others out of guilt. Then we see him distraught over the things he’s done and being comforted by Omi (honestly my favorite interaction in the whole series, second only to Juza and Banri high-fiving). Then we see him confessing to the others, and they all retell their portraits to one another, and Taichi finally gets to accept that he’s been forgiven, and more than that, that he’s been truly accepted into the troupe. For the first time, he gets to understand that he will get to act, he’s going to have the opportunity to do what he loves and he’s going to be able to do it with people he’s come to care so much about.

Taichi is in a much better place at the end of the Autumn Troupe arc, and we can see the potential for that to grow in the future. However, I do not feel like we get to nearly the same place with Kazunari.

With Kazunari, we begin to understand that he puts on a front with other people, that he acts all happy and tends to agree with everyone as to not ruffle any feathers. He’s never had a group of real friends before the Summer Troupe, and when confronted with the fact that he not only doesn’t have to pretend to be neutral, that his friends don't want him to be. Kazunari made some real progress here, he did stand tall and give his opinion, but he isn’t shown to make any other significant changes. Nor, can we tell whether this was a permanent change.

He’s still the same energetic Kazunari, friendly and fun-loving as always. I can’t help but feel like his character arc was left mostly incomplete, we know there's a problem, but we haven't taken many steps to fix it, nor does it seem like Kazu has had any change in attitude. He’s still bottling most of his emotions up, refusing to show anything other than his cheery smile.

Here’s where we get into some of my own characterization here, because as a freshmen art major myself, I know, I know, that college isn't easy. On top of all of that, trying to pretend that everything is fine, is like putting a band-aid on a stab wound. The longer you hold everything in, the more mentally isolated you make yourself. Even surrounded by kind, loving, caring people, you can feel totally alone. On top of that, place his pre-existing tendency to hide any and all of his real opinions and feelings, which isn't the kind of mental behavior you can fix overnight.

What you’re left with is a ticking time bomb.

No human being can be happy all the time. It's just not possible.

When a human being is upset, they will need help eventually. Especially, a college student, stepping out into the world for the first time on their own, a pseudo-adult who likes to pretend they've grown up already.

Kazunari needs that character arc of his to be finished, because right now, he's sitting in a limbo within which he can never truly be happy, or relaxed. Simply because he hasn’t taken the time to learn how to open up to his friends.

Now, here's where my Taichi and Kazu interaction comes in.

(Ok, I started this just as an idea post and lo and behold it became almost as long as a fic. This is literally just my word vomit, so I apologize in advance for any poor grammar, spelling mistakes, and unclear transitions that occur, but please enjoy and tell me if you want me to make this a proper fic)

Taichi has for the most part evolved through his character arc, he's in a good place now and is growing closer to everyone in the company. Meanwhile, Kazu seems to be falling out of sync with everyone, he’s way less chatty, he spends most of his time by himself, and while when he's actually in the room with them he is acting relatively normal. Every single time anybody asks him if something is bothering him, he laughs and brushes the concern off easily. However, his troupe mates can hear how forced the laugh sounds.

It’s something that happens over a few months, but Summer Troupe is very worried. They’ve taken to having weekly meetings in the common area while Kazu is doing his homework to try and puzzle out what’s been going on with him. The others share their concern as well, the point is that now the whole company is determined to get to the bottom of whatever is up with him.

I bet you anything that Omi notices the similarities right away. This is way to eerily similar to the way Taichi was acting during those last few weeks before everything came to light. He probably approaches Kazu to talk several times but is shut down at every turn by a forced laugh, or an easy excuse like ‘I’m just a bit tired.’ or ‘Just been super busy lately, that's all.’.

Taichi, himself, probably notices too, but he really doesn't want to stick his nose into something that felt so incredibly personal. He lets it go because he knows how helpful it was when his troupe mates let him talk out his troubles, and listened, and accepted him for all his faults. He feels if he buts in now, he’ll just take that opportunity from Kazu, and he’d never do something that.

The Summer Troupe keeps trying, and one night they all approach him at once, determined not to let this go until he fesses up. They all corner him in his room and start to ask questions, and Tenma and Yuki are almost certainly going to be coming off as being a bit harsh, but who can blame them Kazu has been worrying the both of them senseless for months, and neither of them are the type to mince their words.

Muku is especially emotional throughout the whole thing, he’s had a front row seat to this slow motion train-wreck this whole time, living in the same room as Kazu. He sees how late he stays up, and how often he gets no sleep at all, he's the one who sees the cracks beginning to form in the persona Kazu has built up for himself. He even mentions one particularly horrible night when Kazu was crying in his sleep. By that point though, Muku is relatively incomprehensible through his own crying.

Misumi is mostly watching, agreeing with the others, saying supportive words, but mostly standing aside, looking and feeling a little helpless.

This is Kazu’s breaking point. Kazu has been spiraling for months. It started with feeling horrible and stressed about his classes, then evolved to worrying about how he always hid that fact from the others, then to feeling guilty about being so dishonest about his feelings, then to feeling even more guilty about pushing them away when they were clearly worried and not being able to reciprocate their kindness with even the most basic courtesy of honesty.

Seeing all of them like this, pouring their hearts out to reach him, it just made him feel worse. He wanted them to understand, but some part of him was certain that they never could. That even if he could speak right then, that none of it could make them understand. There was also a traitorous part of his mind that heard Tenma’s frustrated shout and Yuki’s sarcastic drawl, and only hear accusation and condemnation.

He knew it was stupid, that his friends would never actually feel that way about him. He knew that.

That didn’t stop that little traitorous voice in his head from taking the steering wheel though, it didn’t stop it from completely taking over. He was on his feet and pushing past them out of the room before he even knew what he was doing. He vaguely recognized the feeling of someone grabbing a hold of his shoulder and he forcefully pulls away, running faster than he even knew he was capable of out of the dorm.

The voices calling for him to come back, concerned, worried, crying. Concern for him, and he can't even turn around to look at them, he can barely even hear them. He keeps running, longer than his body should have been able to run, faster than he ever thought possible. He tripped more than once and was left with scrapes from each time. The others tried to follow him, but in the darkness, it seems that none of them had succeeded.

Or maybe, the same voice whispered. They’ve just decided to give up on you.

Meanwhile, the Summer troupe meets back at the dorm, and they get the others to come help them look for Kazunari. To say the least, Summer Troupe is pretty distraught, all things considered. Muku is an even worse than he’d been earlier, having given up entirely on trying to talk, Yuki has made it his responsibility to keep Muku from falling over, having to prop him up through most of their search, and he’s become oddly quiet as he does so.

Misumi actually does cry for a few minuites for Kazu, he's so incredibly sad that he can’t seem to do anything to help. However, he doesn't let it keep him down. It's no more than five minutes before he stands up with a half-smile to help search for him again.

Tenma, is just oddly quiet, like way too quiet, more quiet than even Yuki. Only speaking in clipped one-word sentences, and mostly even then, only answering questions addressed to him. He's clearly frustrated, but more than that, he almost seems remorseful. By this point, he’s feeling pretty guilty and useless himself. He is the leader of this troupe after all, and it is his responsibility to take care of stuff like this isn’t it?

It’s early in the morning, and the whole company has been searching for hours when it starts to rain. It's at this point that the director just says that they should head back and get some sleep. Tenma does not take that order well. After a very loud and long argument with Tenma, the most that he’s spoken all night, he finally gives in when he sees the state the rest of his troupe is in, Muku has practically fainted already, Yuki was on the verge of tears himself and Misumi was just staring blankly into space dejectedly.

So, with that everyone heads back to the dorm to go to sleep.

------------

It’s only after they're back inside, dried off, and the lights are off that Taichi realizes that he can’t sleep. He was close with Kazu, they’d always meshed really well together and got along really well. When he’d seen a reflection of himself in Kazu, he'd let it go, and now he was really starting to regret it. He should have realized, that just because Taichi had had Omi to help him work up the courage to confess what he’d done to the rest of the troupe, and to help him sort out his feelings. Omi was practically an adult, he was so mature and always seemed to know what to do.

Summer Troupe didn't really have an Omi. Kazu was actually the oldest of the bunch of them. He should have spoken up sooner, tried to help Kazu through it, if he’d just said something earlier, the situation might not have gotten this far out of control. Taichi had desperately needed someone to give him the courage to speak up when he’d been in such a dark place and, something told him that Kazu needed the same thing, and that nothing would change at all until he got that much.

He might have school in a few hours, and it might still be raining, but Taichi honestly didn't care. He couldn't sit still any longer. He got up from the covers, and grabbed his jacket and was about to open the door to their room when he heard Omi sit up.

“You’re going to go look for Kazunari aren’t you?” He asked.

Taichi blinked and stammered, trying to come up with some other excuse, and epically failing. It was too hard to lie to Omi though, especially after everything that had happened between them. Omi just chuckled, and told him not to worry so much. Omi stood and opened his own closet, pulling out a spare backpack, and placing a large towel, an oversized poncho, and an umbrella in the bag, then handed it to Taichi. Then silently lead Taichi along to the kitchen, where he pulled out a large thurmace and heated up some hot cocoa to put inside, then handed that to Taichi as well.

“I think that you might be one of the only people who can get through to Kazunari, you realize that too don’t you?” Omi said softly, as to not wake the others. Taichi nodded emphatically, a little stunned that Omi was just letting him go no matter how irresponsible of an idea it was. “Alright, then. Good luck, and bring him home.”

Taichi nodded and just as soon as he had gotten outside he started running. It was still dark and rainy, but at least there were plenty of streetlights. He called out to Kazunari and he called and called. Mostly though, Taichi was looking, looking for any sign of a person, anywhere. By now, he was pretty sure that Kazu wasn’t going to reply to the call, but he did it anyway, just in case.

Eventually, about an hour in, his voice got raw and he needed to take a break. He stopped talking, and sat down on just some random street corner, not caring one bit that his pants were now wet.

It wasn't any good, he wasn't going to find him was he?

He sat dejectedly on the concrete, just listening to the rain and feeling his pants begin to get soggy. He didn't know how long he sat there before he heard it.

It was faint, so incredibly quiet, that even the light sound of raindrops nearly drowned it out entirely.

Yet, if he listened hard enough he heard crying. He hoped he wasn't just his desperation getting to him, making him hear things. He stood up eagerly anyway, staying silent and trying to follow the sound before it stopped. It was hard, really hard, and the sky was starting to lighten just a minuscule shade when he finally made it to the mouth of the alley.

There Kazu was, Taichi could just barely make out the top of his head poking out from behind a stack of abandoned boxes. He was absolutely drenched to the bone, there was no way he wasn't going to get sick after this. He was crying softly, his head ducked and his arms hugging himself.

Taichi carefully approached Kazu and found himself at a loss for a moment. The very last thing he wanted was for him to run off again, and he really didn't want to startle him either. What he settled on was taking the umbrella and the towel out, and holding the umbrella with one arm, while he dried Kazu’s head off to the best of his ability with only one arm to work with. Kazu stiffened but didn't move, his crying coming to an abrupt halt as he held his breath.

“Hey, Kazu. It’s just me, Taichi.”

Kazunari gave a shaky sigh of relief at his voice. “Damn, Tai-chan don’t scare me like that ok? Thought you were gonna mug me or something...” It was clear that Kazu was trying to put up his barriers again, and not quite managing it.

“Sorry, about that.” Taichi apologized, more than a little relieved that Kazunari had actually spoken to him right off the bat. That was farther than the rest of Summer Troupe had gotten. Taichi fumbled a bit before he decided to sit next to Kazu, after it seemed clear that he wasn’t too keen on moving.

Silence settled between the two of them, Kazu seemed to be trying desperately to reign his emotions back under control. Taichi was just trying to think of how to start this, what to say. He thought about how Omi had approached him, but something told Taichi that Kazu wouldn't connect well with that.

It didn't help that he had no idea why Kazu was so upset, or what had caused this, or if anything really had caused it. There might not be one cause. It was more than a little overwhelming, Taichi really really really didn't want to mess this up.

He couldn’t do nothing again though, that wasn't an option, he had to say something, anything.

He decided, to just say whatever came to mind. To say how he felt, and hope to every god out there that it reached him.

“You know, it’s impossible for a person to be happy all the time, don't you?” Taichi asked. Kazunari didn't respond, and Taichi decided that was ok. He’d just keep talking for now. “I won’t pretend that I know why you’re so upset, because I don’t. It’s ok if you don't really want to talk about it right now, I get it. Though, if you’re up to it, I would really appreciate it if you listened to my story.”

Taichi waited until he saw Kazunari nod, the other teen seemingly relaxing a bit beside him. Taichi smiled at the sight, and began to speak.

(Authors note: in this story only Autumn troupe and Yuki (+ the director) know about the fact that Taichi was a mole. Not because they're keeping secrets, just because the others never asked and nobody thought to tell them. Mostly, I don't know for sure if any of the others know, and I like to imagine that they don't know, or at least not the full story.)

Taichi essentially performed his portrait for Kazunari, by the end the other teen was actually looking up at him. Taichi continued though, even after his story normally ended.

“You see, whatever you feel so upset about, guilty about even, I doubt it'll be worse than the things I've done. Even if it is, I know that your troupe mates would listen and try their best to understand why. No matter what it is, no matter what might have happened. They care a lot about you, and the only reason they got so frustrated is because they hate seeing you hurting like this, they were only trying to help, you know...”

“Yeah, I know that...” Kazu looked away again. Though, this time he didn't curl in on himself like before, he leaned back and looked to the sky, which was already beginning to lighten in color. “How did you know I was feeling guilty?”

“I guess, I can just tell? I don't know, it's a bit freaky actually.” Taichi gave a nervous chuckle, then his expression softened a bit to match the sincerity in hie voice. “I saw your expression, and it was almost like I was looking in the mirror, I got this weird sense of de ja vu, and I could just tell. That probably doesn’t make any sense does it...”

“Never experienced it myself, but I get what you're talking about.” Kazu replied with a sigh, closing his eyes. The two of them stay quiet for a minute, Taichi got the feeling that Kazunari was just on the verge of telling him something, so he was patient, giving the other teen the chance to gather his thoughts.

“You know, hearing all that you just said, it almost makes me feel a bit silly. This is such a stupid thing to get so worked up over, ‘ya know.” Kazu shook his head at himself. “It’s always been stupid, and I’ve always known that but I can't help it. I’m always terrified of what others will think, if I don't keep a smile on my face. More than that, I’m so used to pushing all of my worries aside that I don’t even know how to face them anymore. I just ignore them, until I can’t anymore.” Kazu swallowed thickly, leaning forward again and running a hand through his still, thoroughly damp hair. “I don’t want to keep hiding my real feelings, it's just that each time I get even slightly uncomfortable, it's easier to just put the mask back on. I can’t help it, and that’s terrifying, ya know. I want the others to know when I’m stressed or upset, its not like I want to keep hiding it from them, but it never seems like the right time to let the facade fall. They're so used to me being happy, that I don't think they understand how much of it is fake. What happens when I let everything out, and they realize that I've been lying to them? Will they even be able to stand me, as I am now? They’re friends with the energetic, fun-loving Kazunari Miyoshi, not me. I don’t know if any of them have ever even met this side of me, I'm hardly even the same person. I really don’t want to ruin this place, I really really love it here. I’m happier living here than I've ever been in my life, I don’t know what I'd do if everything fell apart...” Kazu trailed off.

“I don’t think anything is going to fall apart, Kazu. Things’ll change a bunch, but nothing will be ruined. You don’t even need to do anything more than just explain this to your troupe. Even if they don’t get it at first, they’ll do everything they’re capable of to help you, I just know it. Also, I think that you’re more likely to push them away continuing on as you are, than you are if you just tried to explain.” “You don’t have to try and handle this all by yourself. Please, try and explain this to them. Trust me when I say that you’ll feel better afterwards.”

“You really think it’ll turn out alright?”

“I know it will.”

Kazunari gave a breathy chuckle. “How can you be so sure?”

Taichi smiled wanly and thought about earlier that evening...

“’The hell? How can you even say that?! You really expect me to just go back to the dorm when Kazunari is out here somewhere, all by himself! If we don't find him soon, who knows what’ll happen! Who know’s what’s already happened? He could have been mugged in an alley somewhere by now, and we’d have no idea!”

“Tenma...”

“I’m not going back.”

“Tenma, please stop and listen for a second. Everyone is exhausted, we aren’t going to make any progress like this. If we sleep for even an hour or two and get back to it, we’re more likely to find him, ok?”

“There’s nothing ‘ok’ about any of this!”

“Alright, maybe ‘ok’ wasn’t the right word for this situation, but Tenma...” The director leaned in to whisper something into Tenma’s ear. Immediately the teen star glanced over his shoulder and saw the state of his troupe mates and his stiff angered posture melted. Tenma silently nodded and sighed.

“I really fucked up this whole ‘troupe leader’ thing, didn’t I?”

“Kazu, your entire troupe is convinced that they've failed you in some way or another, especially Tenma-kun. He was so upset earlier that he actually started yelling at the director, like a real argument and not his usual antics. They want to help you more than anything else, and the entire company feels the same way. This isn’t because they want they want you to go back to how you were, its because you’re in pain and they want to help you. Whether that means that you stop putting on that mask entirely, or just start by learning not to rely on it too much, I know they'll be willing to support you no matter what you decide to do, so long as you’re beginning to get better.”

“I’m here too, if you ever want to talk to somebody who gets it a little better. It's hard being yourself, and it's easy to hide so you won't get hurt when someone rejects you. I get that, Kazu, and I do it too sometimes. So, if you need to talk to someone outside of your Troupe, and maybe even get advice on how to make them understand, I’m here too.”

“Kazu, you’ve got so many people waiting for you at home who want to help you, all you have to do is open up and let them. Try and help them understand, and let them do the rest. That’s all you can do, and I guarantee you, that nobody will be upset if you admit that you’re only human, that you can't be happy all the time. Nobody in the troupe has ever expected that of you, even if they’ve gotten used to your antics, they won't judge you for the fact that you can’t keep them up. The only thing, that you have to decide to do for them to accept you as you are, is to explain this to them. That’s all, and nobody can take that first step other than you.” Taichi said seriously.

“I also happen to know how hard it is to take that first step, by yourself. I had Omi to help me along, he pushed me to tell the others what I’d done, even when I was convinced they could never forgive me, and even that I didn't deserve to be forgiven. He’s the one that helped me take that first step, and I’d like to do that too, for you.” Taichi looked up at the sky which was rapidly changing to a much brighter shade of blue.

“The others will probably wake up again soon, if we head back now, we might catch them before they leave the dorm again. Please, let me take you home, so we can talk to your troupe mates and sort this all out. I know that probably sounds impossible right now, but I know you can do it, and I’ll be right by your side while you do it. So, what do you say?”

Kazunari sighed shakily and nodded, looking absolutely exhausted. “I think I can do it, if it's just my troupe and you I think I can try and explain all of this. I just hope they understand.”

Taichi grinned brightly, feeling a wash of relief rush over him. “Really?! Wow, thank you for trusting me Kazu!” He let out a short bark of laughter. “I’ll be honest, was really floundering there for a while. I didn't know what so say at all, I’m so glad I didn’t make things even worse...” Taichi let out a sigh of relief. “Sorry about that, I ended up just spewing my feelings all over you there....”

“You said all the right things Tai-chan, at least I think so. I feel a lot better, if you'll really be with me I think I can manage this. Even if I still don't know if this’ll turn out alright, I'm going to trust your judgement over mine on this one, because clearly my judgement is all out of wack, today...”. Kazunari paused and shook his head to himself. “Actually my judgment has been out of commission for a while now, I think. The point is, I cant really trust myself right now, so I'm going to trust you, ok?” Kazunari’s voice was a bit shaky, but he put some effort into sounding reassuring for Taichi’s sake.

———————— ok POV switch heh

Taichi blinked and stared blankly at Kazunari for a solid minute before he seemed to gather himself, the words finally having settled in. With a mighty sniff Taichi wiped his eyes and dashed away the tears that hadn’t even had the chance to fall. “Thanks Kazunari, that means a lot. I won’t let you down, I promise.” Taichi grinned brightly, his voice gaining a steelly determination behind it. Taichi then, handed Kazunari the umbrella to hold and turned to pull something from the backpack he’d been carrying. Kazunari stared as Taichi placed a thick plastic poncho on his lap and a large thurmace in his other hand and took the umbrella from Kazunari once again.

“You actually managed to run pretty far away from the dorm, so you should put that poncho on, and there’s hot cocoa that Omi made in there. Even if you don’t want to drink it, just open it and hold it. At least the heat will warm you up a bit.” Taichi said, and he almost sounded like director, the way he was fussing over him.

Kazunari was certain that his cheeks were flushed red, but he was equally sure that was only because he was freezing. It definitely wasn’t because he was embarrassed or anything.

“Hey do you want me to call us a ride? I think that might be better than walking all the way back. Plus, it’ll give them a heads up so nobody leaves to look for us.” Taichi asked, and Kazunari almost immediately shook his head.

“I’m soaked to the bone and I seriously don’t need a lecture from Sakyo for ruining the apoulstry of his car, right now.” Kazunari laughed at his own joke, too bad the joke was too close to the truth. He really didn’t want to soak up and ruin anyone’s car by getting inside it the way he was.

Taichi’s smile wavered, he didn’t laugh. Then he took out his phone and was engrossed in typing for a minute, before Kazu realized what he was doing. He propped himself up against the wall and stood, and was shocked to see how hard it was to do so. His vision almost immediately started blurring and darkening as Kazunari leaned against the wall for support.

“Hey, wait! I can walk I swear, don’t call anybody here, I’m fine!” Kazunari blurted just as he heard the message send.

“Sakyo isn’t the only adult in our troupe with a car, you know.” Taichi replied, a little softly. Then, he nervously tapped his foot for a moment before he made eye contact with Kazu again, and spoke. “You said that you were going to trust me earlier, didn’t you? You can’t get all the way home like you are now, and unfortunately, I’m not strong enough to carry you all the way back.”

Kazunari blinked, and sighed.

He did ask for this after all.

He however, refused to sit down. He was gonna lean right against that wall until the ride came, whoever they were. That thought didn’t last more than five minutes though. Kazunari blinked furiously to clear the spots from his vision to no avail. Then, sighed in defeat and leaned against the wall to slide back down to the asphalt.

Taichi gave him a concerned look and Kazunari tried to ignore it, it was just then he was saved by the appearance of a vehicle, and almost immediately Kazu recognized it as Itaru’s. The car parked and Itaru opened got out of the car to join them.

Kazunari had to look away, because a part of him still couldn’t stand the wave of guilt when he saw the worry in his gaze. So, he fiddled with the hem of his shirt, like it was the most interesting thing in the world.

“Thanks, Itaru, for coming to pick us up.” Taichi said extra cheerily, though there was a dash of genuine grstitude hidden in there.

“It’s no problem. I’m glad you asked me, the others were already waking up and getting restless. They were almost about to start searching for you again when you texted me.” Itaru said with a wan smile of his own. “So, let’s get you two back to the dorm. Do you need a hand there Kazunari?”

“Nah’ I’m fi-“. Kazunari was about to say when Taichi pulled him up and propped him up.

“Yeah, Kazu, my buddy, nobody is gonna fall for that.”

“Alright, ok!” Kazunari sighed, and said “I’m super woozy and can barely stand up, yes I’d love some help.” He was too tired to keep up with this. Let the others do what they want, he’s taking a nap when he gets in that car.

Kazunari could hear Itaru let out a relieved chuckle, Taichi did the same not long afterward. When did he close his eyes?

“Happy to help, then.” Itaru idly commented as Kazu heard a car door open, he was gently shuffled into what he assumed was the back seat and his head was definitely resting on Taichi’s shoulder.

Someone strapped his seatbelt on, he assumed it was Taichi, and he heard the drivers door open and admit someone as well, probably Itaru getting in.

Kazunari was definitely getting sleepy and the last thing he remembered hearing, he wasn’t even sure he was dreaming yet or not. But the last thing be remembered hearing, was Taichi whisper.

“Sleep well, everything will turn out ok, I promise it will.”

82 notes · View notes

dbh-rambling · 5 years

Text

Hi everyone, let’s talk about Markus and Carl’s conversation in Night of the Soul when Markus picks angry options, because there’s things to unpack.

At this point in the game, humans are currently rounding up androids and bringing them to ‘Recall Centers’ where they’re being killed en masse. If an android gets caught and isn’t brought to a recall center, it’s because they were killed on the spot. Markus’ people are in the middle of a crisis, and as a major leader it’s up to Markus to figure out the best way to handle it. (This isn’t accounting for whatever fresh hell Markus may or may not have also just gone through in escaping a human-raided Jericho.)

He goes to Carl for advice, because fuck if this nurse-bot who’s been deviant for a week has any idea what to do. He knows that he doesn’t want his people to die, and that he’s lost. Carl always had advice when Markus lived with him, right? Carl’s the closest thing Markus has to a dad.

Markus goes to him. The first dialog tree makes no difference as to what Carl says in response. The next two dialog options are where the scene starts branching into two ways:

Either Markus asks Carl for help and advice

Or Markus starts expressing anger over the literal slavery and genocide of his people

If Markus takes the former, it’s the ‘Good’ scene. He doesn’t raise his voice, he doesn’t get angry. He’s literally talking about maybe going to war with humans in a few hours, but hey, Carl doesn’t mind that part. Carl gets a chance to deliver a few feel-good lines and affirm their relationship. They share a few moments, and Carl drifts off to sleep, with Markus enlightened and more capable of meeting the tasks ahead of him.

If Markus is angry, though? ... Note that I’m not saying if Markus is violent, or if he’s planning to slaughter or torture people or go Revenge of the Sith on humanity--I’m only talking about if he gets mad over the fact that humans are literally killing his people.

Literally everything he’s just said is a damn reasonable takeaway from ‘humans are literally killing androids in the streets and systematically exterminating them’.

Carl’s response?

... Carl, can we, like--maybe go back to the part where Markus was talking about his people’s genocide, and you were being supportive and talking about how wack the world was? Like, can we do this instead of passing character judgments on a man who’s shocked and just seen friends die and is grieving?

Markus has the option to back off here. If he does, he fucking reassures Carl. He’s much quieter, and he sounds like he’s backtracking:

Markus: You're right... You're right, I am angry... But don't worry, I won't let my emotions take over... I just want freedom for my people and I guess I need to decide what price I'm willing to pay for it...

Carl: :)

Yay good ending, I guess. But if Markus doesn’t back off?

Has anyone noticed how Markus’ head lines up perfectly with the bull skull in the background? How picking anger here means he’s promptly given devil horns?

Note that this is the first time in the entire game Markus can bring up any negative expression of feelings over his people’s slavery with him. He’s been sad until now, but hasn’t said a word that might possibly remember that Carl used to own him too. It’s probably a shock, and definitely uncomfortable for Carl.

What does Carl do? Acknowledge the fact that whether or not he meant to he was complicit in a system of oppression and still benefits from it? Listen to Markus rage until he can get enough of it out of his system that he can focus again?

Nah. How about criticizing him for his tone some more?

... CARL.

Oh good, I’d worried that we’d missed the devil horns the first time around. Also, Markus isn’t wrong.

Shown: Markus, Carl’s former slave, talking to Carl, Markus’ former owner. He’s angry, and by the end he’s yelling.

Not shown: Markus throwing things, hurting anyone, or acting out of control.

What happens next?

Carl dies.

Every time Markus does something that’s Morally Incorrect(TM) in this game, he gets guilt tripped. He’ll look down and find his hands covered in blood, he’ll say something that adopts all the blame, Josh will say something that reminds him that everything bad is his fault--or Carl will die because Markus couldn’t be pleasantly upset over genocide and persecution, like he is in other endings.

Please note that Carl never actually gets upset over Markus’ plans, because at this point the player hasn’t actually decided anything. He’s tone policing. Markus loses if he shows the wrong emotion or makes Carl uncomfortable.

There’s a few phenomena interacting here on top of the dynamics I’ve already described above.

One is that black men particularly are seen as dangerous and violent the instant their tone leaves a mollifying and pleasant zone, which this is an example of.

Another is that the ‘ideal’ form of protest and response to hatred and violence is usually seen as Moral Highground, aka Ghandi and MLK’s routes, where... I guess people think they just nicely and patiently asked over an over for people to stop persecuting them? (Popular understandings of these routes completely ignore how these movements interacted with violent counterparts to build a successful whole.)

A third phenomenon is that it was easy for Carl to be supportive and loving until Markus failed to explicitly exclude Carl from his statements raging against his people’s treatment. In other words, Markus started to occasionally say ‘humans hate us’ instead of ‘they hate us’. (Come on, Markus, not ALL humans...) Markus gets more direct for a few lines after that, saying ‘ We tried talking to you, and what'd you do? Same thing you always do, you humiliated us! ‘. (This is naturally where Carl warns him about his suddenly incredibly high risk of becoming a monster.)

Anyway, Carl does... not look great in this scene. Markus expresses reasonable anger and Carl condemns him for it, and the narrative sets it up so that any uncomfortable confrontation will kill Carl and punish Markus by making him responsible for it.

#dbh #dbh meta #dbh markus #dbh carl manfred #long #today's post is brought to you by #'did you know that the game gives Markus devil horns for getting angry about genocide'

306 notes · View notes

asteriuszenith · 4 years

Text

VT Investigation Files: POI Files: Nocturne

(Masterpost)

Account/s

Blogspot

Updated As Of:

7/27/2020

With Regards to His Name

Nocturne is obviously not his real name. He preferred to use that pseudonym in order to maintain some anonymity despite, as he claimed, the fact that a lot of people already probably know his true name due to his whistleblowing days for a company like Montauk. I suppose it could also be a way for him to become more comfortable with sharing his own personal feelings by pretending that the anonymity could protect him from behind the scene.

Nevertheless, as a point of reference for my own files, I’ll state it here that his name is Vincent.

The name Nocturne has a rather interesting meaning behind it. According to google dot com, a nocturne is usually either a musical composition or a work of art that is inspired by, or evocative of, the night.

Vincent, on the other hand, came from the Roman name Vincentius, which was also derived from the latin word vicere which means “to conquer”.

The Nocturnal Archives

Nocturne created The Nocturnal Archives blogger account in order to record his journey on life after he graduated from high school.

At least, that had been the original intention of the blog before a certain event obviously caused an upheaval on his personal life.

After the death of Adrain Carter on October 14 2017, Nocturne became emboldened, or rather to be more accurate, passionate slash obsessed with finding the truth. What sort of truth? I think that originally, it was just to prove his mentor’s innocence with regards to the sexual harassment allegations Dr. Miz Cardozo made around a month after Adrian Carter’s death. However, the deeper he searched for the truth, the more he realized that it wasn’t just about proving his mentor’s innocence at that point but also beginning to pinpoint certain things that doesn’t add up such as his mentor’s research, the fishy events circulating around Miz Cardozo herself, and more.

Most of the entries in the blog contained some self-reflection and reminiscing that tells us of Nocturne’s inner thoughts as well as little facts sprinkled in here and there that told us more about what sort of person he was. Most of the times, however, the entries would focus on his journey for the truth, telling us with some frustration that he’s been encountering roadblock after roadblock in his search for information and sometimes, even when he got some intel, whenever he attempted to piece them all together… It always felt like there was something off or impossible about the information.

It’s definitely a very personal blog and for someone who gives off the vibes that he is a very private person save for when he is around people that he actually cares about, I’m surprised that he actually took the suggestion of his friend to create this blog and put it on public seriously.

Another thing that I’ve noticed on the format of the blog is that it might be heavily inspired by the House of the Leaves book written by Mark Z. Danielewski considering quotes from the book are heavily peppered in around the different entries especially when he’s getting in too deep when he’s talking about a heavy topic. Did he deliberately edit it like that? I don’t know. But I suppose I could always ask him when I manage to muster up the courage to actually talk in the comments.

On the Topic of Adrian Carter

Nocturne looks up to Adrian Carter. He’s constantly singing the man praises for his genius work and personality. He also admired Adrian’s parenting skills and his parent-child relationship with Cassie Carter, noting that despite the long periods of time when they’re physically distant, Adrian was still a hell lot more present in Cassie’s life compared to his own parents who lived much closer to him in distance.

As I said, Nocturne looks up to Adrian as his role model. He admitted in one of his entries that he practically worshipped the grounds the man walked upon with some self-aware light hearted humor:

“It felt like God himself had come down and was like, ‘hey guys, lemme give you some guidance in person here, face-to-godly-face.’”

I wonder if Adrian considered Nocturne as his personal student. If Adrian had been obsessed with perfecting the RedMan then he would have only allowed people that he trusted to influence the creation of the AI, right? So the good relationship between the mentor-student must have been a mutual one.

It appears that Adrian left behind his research to Nocturne or at least, Nocturne had been able to access the man’s lifelong research studies and projects as the creator of the blog had been expressing a nice mixture of appreciation, confusion, and frustration from what he was reading from Adrian’s texts. It appears that most of it doesn’t seem to make sense. He claimed that Adrian seems to have been looking for monsters in the dark judging from some of the ramblings he read through.

Still, Nocturne has nothing but respect and good words for his mentor despite his frustration. He remembers the man fondly and is very much insistent on clearing Adrian’s name after Miz Cardozo stained it with her confession.

Miz Cardozo

It appears as if the two barely crossed paths even as they worked closely with the same man. Nocturne mentioned that Adrian never worked with the three of them together, only ever working with him once Cardozo had gone home for the day (they were working together on RedMan). This claim might get updates if Nocturne will divulge more details on his and Cardozo’s relationship, if there is one outside of the loathing vibes he’d often give off whenever he talked about Cardozo on his blog.

Originally, Nocturne had stayed his tongue when talking about Cardozo after the harassment confession came out. It appeared that he was rejecting the notion that Adrian Carter would do such a thing and was also rather peeved at seeing how Cardozo turned a blind eye on how the world decided to treat Cassie as their newest scapegoat. He decided then that he’ll get to the bottom of these claims, find out for himself and for Cassie’s peace of mind on whether Cardozo’s claims were the truth. If not, he will let the world know of Cardozo’s lies and prove his mentor’s innocence.

However, when the news about Rosemary Road came out, all pretenses of politeness finally melted away from his mask and Nocturne basically declared war against Cardozo calling her a despicable person who had done so much disgusting things that it wouldn’t be surprising if they found out that she made that sexual harassment allegations in order to give her a better chance at taking Adrian’s place on the company as its new CEO.

Miz responded with a mocking, passive-aggressive post that called him a delusional conspiracy theorist and may or may not have peppered in some subtle/not so subtle threats at the end of his section in her answering post to his and Cassie’s callout posts.

Needless to say, I really wouldn’t recommend leaving these two alone together in one room as they might as well start ripping each other to shreds.

Montauk

Nocturne interned in Montauk during his last year in highschool and while he was studying in UCLA. During his time there, he must have shown a lot of promise to have captured Adrian Carter’s attention and satisfied his expectations along with maintaining an amicable relationship with the man to the point that he allowed him to work with him on RedMan.

However, as the years passed by, notably after Adrian’s death, the relationship between the corporation and this man must have soured enough due to Nocturne’s own digging into the company’s dirty secrets that he whistleblowed on the company’s shady dealings. Was the issue that he blew the whistle on the dubious experiments that caused the deaths of so many people? Perhaps that’s another thing to ask him in the future too.

Cabbage Girl

One day, during the summer of 2015, Nocturne burst into his mentor’s office without knocking in order to tell him about his progress on his tasks and met the daughter of Montauk in a humorous way that the head of the massive corporation introduced his daughter to him and created the birth of the fondly remembered inside joke slash nickname “Cabbage”.

Nocturne and Cassie are obviously close as they are both cohabiting together and are actually in a romantic relationship with one another. The man obviously adores Cassie, his dorky little love letter praising her and telling her how much he loves her in his blog is already evidence enough as it provided a glimpse into the man’s softer side that I believe is generally reserved for his cat, Cassie, and their friends. He’s also really protective of her which is rather cute, in my opinion. He’s been really supportive of her over the past years since her father’s death and you could see it or rather hear it in the way Cassie would often pepper in (heh) mentions of him during her stories over the months.

However, it does make one wonder if they both think that it’s just the two of them against the world as nobody or almost nobody is taking their side that Adrian Carter is innocent of the accusation that Cardozo threw at him after his death. From what I saw, the world even condemned Cassie for not ‘cancelling’ her father.

Thankfully, they are both acting as each other’s support system in their trying times and from what I observed in the tiny peeks into their interactions with each other in Cassie’s entries and Nocturne’s journals, they trust the other to drag them out of their own heads when they get in too deep in their own thoughts to the point that they were shutting the world out. I’m just glad that they’re not alone right now as what they are attempting to do would be nigh impossible without anyone they could trust backing them.

Investigations and Seeking the Truth

Nocturne seems to have taken it upon himself to investigate a hell lot of things in his quest for the truth. The Cardozo-Lawrence case, Cardozo’s Relationship with Adrian Carter, the thing with Rosemary Road, Montauk Stuff, Continuing Adrian Carter’s Research and Projects, and it seems he’s beginning to delve into investigating the Bureau of Unreality and how they seem to be innately connected to Cardozo and Montauk and the Rosemary Road case.

All I can say is… My dude, my man, you need to learn how to delegate this shit to others.

(Bold words coming from someone who’s also doing the same thing. Jesus fucking Christ, Robin… What on earth are you doing?)

No wonder he’s having a hard time seeing the forest making up the trees when he’s trying to take in so much information as much as he can. I can’t exactly blame him since I’m not any better but seriously… This is just one massive way to burn ourselves out easily. Anyway—

It appears that for every information that he gets, he also receives fifty more questions which would understandably be very frustrating for him and it doesn’t help that since this is something that could bring quite the dirt into light, a lot of people and organizations are trying to prevent him from being able to dig in too deep and sink his teeth into actually helpful information rather than being led away into another possible dead end via crumbs for intel which would equal to a lot of time lost which could have been used for actual progression in the investigation.

I would suggest finding someone they could trust in order to help them with the investigation but how would you even know if somebody is trustworthy when it seems like the entire universe is completely against you finding the truth?

How would one be assured that the person whom they dragged in to help would also fall for the same trap of getting stuck in the minimal details to the point that they start seeing and hunting for monsters and lies in the dark? Especially when you, yourself, are starting to fall for the same trick?

Honestly? I don’t know if any of us would have an actual answer to that question. You could go the path of the more people to help with the search for the truth, the better, but then wouldn’t that just run the risk of all of us suffering from a horrid game of Telephone? It’s just such a high risk thing.

Either way, it seems that Nocturne’s investigation did at least yield some intel as word about his determination to find out what the actual fuck is happening in the world is getting around and people have started giving him leads that did bear some fruit even if it also created more questions.

Your Cat Pictures… Give It To Me.

Oh.

Nocturne also has a cat baby named Truant and I want a picture of him, damn it!

Somebody stop me from spamming the shit out of the poor man’s blog with begs for serotonin shots.

#voxtenebris #puppet collection #puppetcollection #arg

4 notes · View notes

aspoonofsugar · 5 years

Text

The Umbrella Academy: What Society is Like

Let’s start by considering Reginald’s words in episode 1:

As much as you must strive for individual greatness, and strive you must, for it won’t come to you of its own accord, you must also remember that there is no individual stronger than the collective.

This speech seems oxymoric since it says that the children must compete with each other to fully become capable individuals, but also that a group is stronger than an individual.

However, this is not the case and this scene underlines two of the central ideas of the series.

1) How society works and its contradictions. As a matter of fact society is both an institution which makes so that its members have to compete to emerge (and those who don’t or can’t are left behind) and a reality born because humans are generally stronger when they work together and help each other.

2) The idea that the Umbrella Academy (aka a family) is representative of society as a whole. This means that the dynamics within the family are, on a smaller scale, the same we see in wider groups of people.

This meta will try to explore these two points by analyzing each one of the six alive siblings (Ben will be given some space in Klaus’s section). As a matter of fact each one of them represents a specific kind of person you can find in modern societies and each one of them is either too much detached from society (and the family) or too much adherent to its flawed ideals.

LUTHER

Luther is a person who abides to authority and who wants to become an authority figure himself, but who fails to do so precisely because he has never entered into a conflict with the major authority figure in his life aka his father.

In other words, he is an interesting paradox in the sense that he wants to be a leader and so to have an important social role, but he never truly became an adult member of society:

Diego: “Because that’s what you do when you’re 17. You move out. Become your own person. Grow up.”

This contradiction is highlighted also by the fact that he ended up as a leader without a group to lead:

Moreover, it is telling that, even when Reginald sent Luther away, he ended up on the Moon i.e. an isolated place where there are not other people around and where there are not social institutions with which interact.

Luther’s paradoxical nature is highlighted also by the fact that, despite him being physically bigger than his siblings, he is the most child-like among them since he can’t separate himself from his parent and so he can’t really grow up.

This is something which is made clear by other characters (both Allison and Five tell Luther to grow up) and especially by Diego:

Luther: “I stayed because the world needed me”.

Diego: “You stayed because you couldn’t let go of how things used to be.”

Episodes 6 and 7 seem to support this reading as well.

As a matter of fact in both episodes Luther discovers that his father sent him away for no real reason and for the first time ever shows disappointment and anger towards the man.

Because of the structure of the series we have two different reactions to this discovery and two different outcomes for Luther’s character:

What is important is that these two outcomes are nothing more than two different adolescent behaviours.

As a matter of fact in both cases Luther experiences things he never did, being them a prom-like dance with Allison or getting drunk and having sex with a stranger.

The two situations might seem opposite, but they are actually representative of two stereotypical ideas of adolescence (crushing on your first love and trying things which are unwise and irresponsible).

In other words, by finally getting angry at Reginald, Luther can enter his puberty, not physically of course, but psychologically.

Moreover, by doing so, he also admits this:

Fighting with a parent is the first step into growing up because it means that the child is starting to see things in his own way which is independent from the parent’s one and doesn’t necessarily overlap with it.

However, when Allison is hurt and Luther discovers the fact that Vanya has powers, he immediately regresses and keeps facing problems the same way his father would have This is shown by the fact that he locks Vanya up like Reginald used to and refuses to listen to his siblings’ protests.

This choice leads to Luther’s house being destroyed and to the deaths of Grace and Pogo who are the siblings’ parental substitudes.

Pogo’s death is especially important as far as Luther is concerned and this is proven also by him directly witnessing it.

This is because Pogo is literally who Luther could become if he doesn’t grow up and overcomes his character flaw. This is shown symbolically by the fact that Luther is already physically more similar to Pogo than to a human, but this is true also on a deeper level.

As a matter of fact Pogo, despite the fact that he clearly cared for the children and felt sadness over some of the things Reginald put them through, never stood up to the man and obeyed him even when it would have been wiser to disobey.

Ironically Luther calls Pogo out on this:

Pogo: “It was your father’s dying wish, Master Luther. I.... I had no choice.”

Luther: “There is always a choice”.

However, some episodes later Luther himself uses Pogo’s same line (”I have no choice”) and is immediately called out by Diego in the same way:

Luther: “We might not have a choice, Allison”.

Diego: “Bullshit. There’s always options”.

This underlines how Luther has yet to truly grow up since he is quick to call others out, but then he acts in similar ways to the ones he condemns them for.

That said, Luther has the potential to grow up and to overcome his flaw and we are shown it in episode 6 when he reaches a happy ending with Allison. As a matter of fact episode 6 shows that every character has the potential to reach their objective if only they were to commit to it and it is important how the majority of the characters keep developing positively despite the difficulties they meet in the alternative version of that day. For example, Klaus still manages to avoid drugs, Allison still tries her best to connect and communicate with her family and Diego still tries to take care of the people around him. The major exceptions are Luther and Grace who don’t manage to properly develop in episode 7 as they do in episode 6. Despite this, they have both shown to have the potential to do so.

When it comes to Luther especially the narrative makes clear that his relationship with Allison is what may lead him to become a better person. This is not simply because Allison is Luther’s love interest, but also because Allison is the one who says this:

“You are an adult now, Vanya. You don’t get to blame your problems on anyone, but yourself.”

Allison is a character who is actively trying to become an adult and to take responsibility for her past mistakes concerning her daughter and Vanya. She accepts that being a grown up means mostly this, whereas Luther has yet to show this degree of maturity.

DIEGO

Diego is the opposite of Luther and this is shown in several ways. For example, he is extremely close to his mother and protective towards her, whereas Luther’s loyalty is for Reginald. At the same time, Luther specializes in close range combat because of his super strength, while Diego reaches his maximum potential when he fights from a distance with his daggers. However, the two foil each other on a much deeper level.

Diego, thus, is a person who refuses authority, but he does so mostly because he can’t really overcome what he was taught:

Patch: “You are still trying to prove that, when you were kids, running around in those stupid uniforms. that it wasn’t for nothing.”

This unsolved issue with his father leads him to have problems also as an adult. As a matter of fact he dropped out from the police for his inability to follow rules, so for his inability to act within a system.

Basically, despite the fact Diego tells Luther off because he has never truly tried to fit into society, he himself is unable to fit and keeps criticizing any form of rules and authority even the ones which are necessary and useful.

This leads him to foil Luther also when it comes to their respective problems with their love interests. As a matter of fact Luther has never been able to be together with Allison because he never left the Academy to stay with her and has always made of his mission the reason of his life, whereas Diego is unable to truly set in. This is why he never became a detective and keeps entering into conflicts with Patch.

Ironically, he keeps saying how rules and burocracy go in the way of his role as a vigilante and don’t let him help people, but if anything it is the other way around. It is his stubborness in acting outside the law the reason why he is unable to help the police and later on his siblings as much as he could. For example, if he had worked with the police since the beginning he could have easily understood that Five was involved in their current case. What is more, Patch unofficially calling him for help makes so that he is the primary suspect in her murder and this takes him away from his family when they need him the most.

Diego’s flawed philosophy is also among the reasons why Patch dies.

Let us consider this exchange:

Diego: “You know, maybe for once just try things my way.”

Patch: “I can’t.”

Diego challenges Pacth to try his way of doing things and when she does she dies.

Patch’s death has two consequences.

1) Diego becomes determined to avenge her.

2) Diego becomes more willing to work with his siblings.

1) Diego’s quest for revenge and its conclusion is interesting.

First of all, it mirrors Diego’s tendency to act outside the rules in order to obtain justice. This is what his persona as a vigilante was all about in the first place, so him choosing to act on his own to kill Cha Cha and Hazel makes sense and it represents a continuation of this philosophy. However, in the end he makes a different choice and embraces Patch’s vision of the world.

DIego: “She believed in people. No matter how much shit and filth she saw on the streets. She Always saw the good inside.”

Patch’s prospective is one which could be significant for the series as a whole. As a matter of fact she was integrated in society, but never forgot, according to Diego, of the people who were left behind and kept believing in them. So, Diego finally embracing this idea might be important in his future interactions with his siblings.

Moreover, him letting Cha Cha go is the result of a specific choice and as he himself said:

“There’s always options.”

In other words Diego’s merciful action is the last choice he makes in the series and it happens in the finale, so I think it should determine a transformation of the character which should hold in future seasons as well. This prospective fits with Diego’s desire to protect the weaks like for example their mother and contrasts him even more with Luther who is animated by the desire to be strong and capable in order to make their father proud.

2) The fact that he starts working with the others makes him understand that they need to organize, to act according to specific plans and to have a leader. Basically, he accepts that some rules and authority are necessary.

This leads Diego to admit this:

So, while Luther admits that he should have left in order to grow, Diego admits that their leaving the academy was nothing more than them escaping from their issues.

Finally, Diego as a character has the potential, given his relationship with the police department, to explore themes related to justice and how it works. From this prospective him not killing Cha Cha could also be seen as him starting to develop a more complex vision of this concept which is also rooted in empathy. This is interesting because he has shown to be ready to go against the rules for the people he loves (for example he steals Reginald’s monocle from Grace’s things in order to avoid her being suspected of his death), but also to sacrifice the people he loves for a common good as he does when he “kills” Grace or when he is ready to fight Vanya despite not wanting to hurt her. All in all, how these things will play out later on is unknown and it is impossible to say.

ALLISON

Allison is a person who has obtained great success in her line of work, but has lost her loved ones.

Allison’s powers are highly symbolic of her major issues:

Allison is said to have always used her powers to obtain what she wanted and this led her to build a life which was apparently perfect, but actually empty and pretty frail because founded on a series of relationships which were superficial since literally grounded in “rumors”.

Finally, Allison’s powers are representative of a specific way to communicate with others which is the opposite of Vanya’s and which makes the two sisters foils.

As a matter of fact Allison has always been able to impose her point of view on others thanks to her power, whereas Vanya has always repressed her feelings without truly sharing them:

Vanya: “Maybe I will”.

Of course Allison and Vanya are opposites also when it comes to other aspects of their characters. Allison is one of the most famous people on Earth, whereas Vanya’s name keeps being forgotten by the people she has been playing with for several time. Moreover, while Vanya’s arc lies in her discovering to have powers and having to learn how to control them, Allison’s is about trying to live without relying on her abilities.

It is also interesting to notice how both Allison and Vanya’s careers are linked to performative arts (Allison being an actress and Vanya being a violin player). All in all both acting and music are ways people use to express themselves and this seems to strengthen the idea that Allison and Vanya’s arcs are about communication.

In short, the two sisters mirror each other and this is also why their relationship is extremely rich thematically.

That said, Allison has already started her transformation when we meet her and this is because she has already received consequences for the misuse of her “rumors”. As a matter of fact, Allison’s main motivation to change is the willingness to see her daughter Claire again.

Her relationship with Claire plays a role also in how Allison starts to rethink her relationship with her siblings and with Vanya especially:

Claire: “Mommy, why isn’t Auntie Vanya ever in your stories?”

Moreover, the fact that she has already a daughter makes her more willing to accept that she has responsibilities as an adult:

Pogo: “You were a child, Miss Allison”.

Allison: ”Yeah, but I am not one anymore. And neither is she”.

All in all Allison is trying to change and in order to do so she is trying to find different ways to communicate with her family and most importantly to listen to them.

She is trying to reforge her bonds in a more genuine way. Of course this is difficult and she makes some missteps:

Allison: “I think what he’s trying to say is that this kind of stuff is Dangerous. You’re just…”

Vanya: “Not like you”.

Vanya: “Hey, what’s going on?”

Allison: “It’s a family matter”.

However, the worst mistake she makes is to try to use her powers on Vanya. This choice, even if understandable given the situation, is nothing more than Allison regressing when it comes to how she deals with others’ feelings. In that scene she is facing Vanya who is furious and who is manifesting all the rage she has been repressing. In front of such an outburst Allison tries to calm her down using “the rumors”, but Vanya being manipulated by Allison’s powers is what created the whole situation to begin with. What is more, Allison shows that she is still not able to take on a person’s emotional outburst, just like when Claire was the one having them.

In short, using her powers is the worst possible thing Allison can do in that situation and this is why she has her vocal cords damaged as a consequence.

This handicap, thus, is extremely fitting for her character and makes so that not only she can’t use her powers in the finale, but also that her own “voice” and perspective is constantly ignored by her siblings and that she has to struggle to communicate and to make herself heard.

Despite this, her insights end up being very useful to the whole group. For example, she thinks about how to escape from the bowling and she understands the importance of the violin for Vanya’s powers.

However, the most important thing is that, in the end, she manages to save both Vanya and the others by using the way Vanya’s powers work against her.

This is a fitting ending to the sisters’ relationship in the first season, especially when one considers how their powers are metaphorical of communicative issues. Under this prospective Allison creating a strong noise in order to disturb Vanya’s powers can be seen as her finding a way to reach her sister and to make herself heard despite being unable to speak. All in all Allison’s actions in the finale show how she doesn’t really need her powers or her voice to effectively communicate with others and to make a difference.

Finally her finding an alternative solution when it counted shows once again that what both Luther and Diego said is true: “There is always a choice”.

Allison is given a choice, but she refuses it and finds a third option.

KLAUS

Klaus is a person who excludes himself from society because of fear:

What is Klaus scared of?

I think that there are two answers.

a) He is scared of not being good enough.

b) He is scared of what his powers represent.

a) Throughout the series Klaus has been dismissed by his siblings as useless and treated as a clown.

Despite him apparently not caring it is made clear throughout the season that Klaus wants to be respected by others, but he initially does nothing to make it happen and hides behind a childish and clownish facade.

The scene of the fight between Hazel and Cha Cha and the Academy which ends up with Klaus’ kidnapping underlines this nicely.

On one hand it is true what Klaus says here:

“I am the one person in that house nobody will even notice is gone”.

On the other hand while his siblings are fighting for their lives Klaus is doing this:

Klaus ignoring his siblings’ predicament and them ignoring his kidnapping are not things which happen for a lack of love, but rather they do for a lack of perceptiveness on both parts.

On one hand his siblings don’t manage to understand from where Klaus is coming from and why he has adopted this specific coping mechanism. On the other hand Klaus himself hides in his own world and uses drugs and other things (like music in the scene above) to avoid facing reality and others.

b) Klaus’s powers are linked to death and so it is safe to say that Klaus is scared of it.

This is a pretty common and normal fear which Klaus experiences in an amplified way because of him being constantly surrounded by the spirits of the deads.

Moreover, we know that Klaus (and the others) have had to cope with the loss of a person they all cared about:

The fact that Klaus is constantly followed around by Ben’s ghost is the representation of his (and the whole family’s) inability to overcome his death:

Klaus is literally haunted by a grown up version of Ben, by whom Ben would have become if he had not died.

What is interesting is that Klaus, despite having the possibility to make Ben communicate with his other siblings, doesn’t do so. This is both because the others don’t believe him and because Klaus himself fails to do so:

Klaus: “And if Ben were here, he’d agree with me”.

Ben: “No, I don’t”.

In short, Klaus’ powers are a double-edged sword. On one hand they are linked to an idea which naturally scares humans, but on the other hand they have the potential to let humans better understand and accept death. So, Klaus can either use them to stay stuck in the pain of his losses or to grieve more healthily.

Both fears come up and are faced when Klaus is Cha Cha and Hazel’s prisoner:

Ben: “You know what the worst part of being dead is? You’re stuck. Nowhere to go. No way to change. That’s the real torture if you gotta know. Watching your brother take for granted everything you lost and pissing it all away”.

Klaus, just like what Ben says about death, can’t escape and he is forced to face the situation alone and to use his powers as best as he can. It is meaningful that he manages to put the two killers in distress by communicating with the souls of their victims because it shows that Klaus has much to gain by facing what he is scared of and what he finds difficult. As a matter of fact once he faces the dead people instead of ignoring them he starts obtaining results.

However, this is not enough to motivate Klaus to develop further and this is why he loses Dave.

It is meaningful that what motivates Klaus to train himself more in using his powers is the death of an important person because it shows once again how Klaus’s powers can help with grief:

Diego: “Well, you are luckier than most. When you lose someone, at least you can see them whenever you want”.

Thanks to episode 6 we are shown that Klaus has within himself the ability to reach his objective and he will probably do so in the end.

However, in the main timeline he ends up meeting not Dave, but his father.

This is important because so far Klaus has been the only one who could have a confrontation with Reginald even if the man needs closure with all the siblings.

Klaus and Reginald’s conversation doesn’t exactly offer closure, but at least lets Klaus mention the unfair treatment the father put his children through.

When it comes to Klaus specifically it is interesting to note how Reginald treated him in a way which is almost the opposite of how he treated Vanya.

As a matter of fact Reginald tried to suppress Vanya’s powers, but to draw out Klaus’s. Interestingly, in order to do so, he locked both children up in places they hated and were scared of. Moreover he gave Vanya drugs to inhibit her powers and emotions, whereas Klaus ended up starting to drug himself to inhibit his.

If to these similarities we add that both Klaus and Vanya are ignored by their siblings it is obvious how they parallel each other. This is also made clear by how both have to become more familiar with their powers throughout the season. However, Klaus manages to do so in a positive way, while Vanya in a destructive one. This is because of multiple reasons. For example, Klaus starts developing his powers motivated by a romantic relationship which we are bound to believe was healthy, while Vanya does so because manipulated by an abuser.

Another difference is that Vanya doesn’t get to have a confrontation with his father, while Klaus does and he ends up gaining something from it:

Reginald: “You only scratched the surface of what you were truly capable of. If only you had focused”.

Klaus: “Wait, wait, wait. What...What potential?”

Klaus succeeding in talking with Reginald and later on him being able to have Ben manifest himself make so that he becomes more invested in proving his worth to the others as well.

And finally he succeeds:

This scene is a synthesis of the major ideas present in Klaus’s arc. On one hand he manages to prove to his siblings his talent. On the other hand he manages to have them see Ben once again and this can lead the family to address his loss.

When it comes to Ben it is also worth to underline how he too seems not to have been eager to use his powers just like Klaus is in the series:

Ben: “Do we really have to do this?”

Luther: “Come on, Ben. There’s more guys in the vault.”

Ben: “I didn’t sign up for this”.

Klaus’s powers are linked to death, while Ben’s seem to have been linked to monsters and to the unknown.

Even what is written under his statue suggests it:

May the darkness within you find peace in the light.

This might be used to explore repressed parts within one-self which are clearly present in several characters.

NUMBER FIVE

Number Five is a person who has grown up alone in a post-apocalyptic world and who has been re-integrated back into society thanks to the Commission.

The Commission can be easily seen as a critic to capitalism. After all it is nothing more than a company which, in order to further their own objectives, completely dismisses individuals and is even ready to provoke the apocalypse:

Five: “That’s insane. The end of everything?”

Handler: “Not everything. Just the end of something.”

This utilitaristic approach is shown both in how the Commission treats its employers and in what the Commission literally does which is killing random people despite them not having done anything wrong in order to ensure a specific succession of events. What is more, the way relationships work inside of it is something which partly satirizes extremely competitive workplaces. This is evident in how people act in an amicable way with each other, but they are also ready to kill who goes against the rules or is an obstacle.

What is more, the fact that the company deals with time makes the saying “time is money” come to mind. I think this saying perfectly describes the mentality behind this organization.

“Time” is also, together with “Space”, what Five’s powers are about. This has a series of symbolic meanings which will be now underlined.

a) First of all, one could apply the philosophy behind the words “time is money” to Five as wel, in the sense that he is a character whose identity is strongly tied to his job. Let’s consider these two scenes:

They are parallels since they have the same characters having similar exchanges. In both one of them calls the other out and claims to recognize specific symptoms in the other’s behaviour. What is interesting is that Klaus listing a series of symptoms of drug-addiction is compared to Five listing a series of symptoms of time-travelling.

One explanation is that the two characters are opposite and these two exchanges show how they should learn from each other.

On one hand Klaus should become more serious about how to deal with things and “grow up” and this might be why he is the one who time-travels and spends a year away. During that span of time he develops and learns something important about life:

Five: “Time changes everything”.

On the other hand Five takes himself too seriously and thinks that he is the only one who can stop the apocalypse.

In other words, the narrative underlines how Klaus’s obsession over drugs which he uses to limit his abilities and Five’s one over his job where he can show his talent are extremely similar phenomenons which end up damaging the characters.

When it comes to Five specifically, his behaviour is easily understandable if we consider that he has lived an extremely emotionally deprived life.

Let us consider this scene between him and Klaus:

It is very ironic that this exchange happens between them. As a matter of fact, Klaus will end up developing an important relationship with Dave which will be the catalyst of his development, whereas we will soon discover that Dolores is nothing more than a Mannequine and that for all that time Five was, in fact, alone.

Moreover, the first person Five meets after years is the Handler:

This scene is interesting because here Five passes from a post-apocalyptic world to an alienating society. Both environments are ones where he can not really form close bonds and this is why, despite him being older than his siblings he is one of the most underdeveloped emotionally and this is perfectly shown by how the Handler calls him at one point:

Handler: “You’re a distinguished professional in...schoolboy shorts”.

b) As stated above, Five is the oldest, but also one of the characters who needs to grow the most and this is symbolically shown by him being stuck in the body of a teenager.

This is obviously linked to his powers as well. As a matter of fact he is the way he is because he travelled in time when he was thirteen. The fact that he left for the future alone can be metaphorically seen as him growing up too soon and so not having the chance to properly develop into an adult.

This makes him a foil to Luther with whom he has several important exchanges:

Five: “I think it was all those years alone. Solitude can do funny things to the mind.”

Luther: “Yeah, well, you were gone for such a long time. I only spent four years on the moon, but that was more than enough. It’s the being alone that breaks you”.

As a matter of fact, while Luther has not grown because he refused to leave his home, Five has not properly grown because he left too early. Luther was left behind by his siblings, whereas Five left his siblings behind.

Let us now consider what Luther tells Five here:

This is interesting and it leads us to both the third meaning behind Five’s powers and to him foiling another character aka Vanya:

c) Five’s powers let him move around in space and he often uses them to go away from his siblings.

Basically, Five cuts himself off and, as Allison states above, Vanya does the same. However, the reasons why they do so are opposite since Five does so because he feels superior, whereas Vanya because she feels inferior. This opposite and yet extremely similar behaviours make so that Five and Vanya have also inversed roles within the narrative.

For example, Five is the one who wants to stop the apocalypse more than anyone else, whereas Vanya is the one who initially does not believe (or does not want to believe) it. However, in the end Five was never the one who could avoid the apocalypse, but Vanya was. Moreover, in order to stop this event. Five should not have given that much importance to the big picture and should not have faced the whole matter with the methods he learnt during his job. He should have simply interacted normally with his family, instead. What is more, he should have showed them and especially Vanya how much he cared.

After all, the fact that Five alone can’t change things is made clear when he tells Luther his story and we discover that him not having killed Kennedy did not prevent the president from dying.

So, Five comes back in order to avoid the apocalypse, but in the end the ruckus his return provokes is among the reasons why Vanya is left isolated and neglected leading her to be manipulated by Harold.

What is more, Vanya’s relationship with Harold can be compared to Five’s one with the Handler. This is becuse both Harold and the Handler are who respectively Vanya and Five could become if they were to completely cut themselves off from their family.

Speaking of the Handler specifically, she, just like Five, has no name if not one which denotes her role and which underlines how she sees herself in an utilitaristic way. She is her work, nothing more and nothing less.

Handler: “I’ll just be replaced. I’m but a...small cog in a machine” .

This is also why she dies. She feels so protected by her role that she doesn’t stop to consider that Hazel might act in a way which completely disregards her position and status and shoot her without as much as a word.

Handler’s role in the narrative is to try to transform Five in someone like her. This is why she tempts him tackling his pride in his abilities and also promising him happiness:

Handler: “I mean, I mean you...you can’t be happy like this”.

Five: “I’m not looking for happy”.

Handler: “We’re all looking for happy. We can make that happen. We can make you yourself again”.

Five: “What do you want?”

Handler: “To be happy. To have a simple... unfettered life, to do the work my superiors require.”

However, Five will never find happiness through his job at the Commission, no matter how much high he climbs:

Five: “You know, I never enjoyed it.”

Luther: “What?”

Five: “The killing. I mean, I was...I was good at my work and I...I took pride in it. But it never gave me pleasure.

This phrase perfectly synthesizes Five’s character. As a matter of fact he is proud of himself, but this applies only to what he can do, rather than the value he gives himself as a person. As a matter of fact there are several instances where it is shown how Five has not such a high opinion of himself given that he became an assassin:

Five: “I don’t belong anywhere, thanks to you. You made me a killer.”

Either way, it is clear that Five is conflicted between the utilitaristic way of thinking the Commission embodies:

Five: “Vanya is not important”.

Diego: “Hey, that’s your sister. A little heartless even for you, Five.”

And his love for his family:

Luther: “I know you are still a good person, Five. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have risked everything coming back here to save us all.

It is pretty obvious that Five’s growth lies in the second one rather than in the first and in episode 9 we are shown that Five has the potential to develop in the right direction:

Hazel: “Now you can grow up.”

Let us underline that Hazel is a Five’s foil as well since he too used to work for the Commission, but he realizes that what he truly wants is to connect with another person.

It is probable that, deep down, Five wants this as well:

The lines of Vanya’s book associated to each sibling underline specific issues that character has. So, it must be the same for Five as well. The quote associated with him talks about craving love and it is meaningful that while Five is reading the book Dolores is visible in the background. As a matter of fact Dolores symbolizes Five’s contradictory nature in the sense that on one hand he wants to have someone close to him, but on the other hand this someone is a mannequine because he can’t bring himself to healthily deal with others. For example, a mannequine will listen to his ramblings without really answering or challenging him, but this makes so that Five can’t really be enriched by it as he could by real people.

This is why it is important that Five says goodbye to Dolores. It is something he must do if he wants to truly go on.

That said, the fact that the threath of the apocalypse is not truly over makes so that Five quickly goes back to his flawed ways. However, he too, like Allison, is given a choice in the last episode:

Handler: “You can abandon your family and skip ahead to the apocalypse (…), or you can stay here with your family, and...die a horrible death”.

And he, just like his sister, chooses a third option:

The result of Five’s final choice is extremely interesting for the whole series. This is because the whole family time-travelling and possibly going back to when they were children has several possibilities both plot-wise and when it comes to the themes of the series. As a matter of fact, since the story is clearly about a dysfunctional family which tries to fix its dynamics it is meaningful that they go back to a time and a form which symbolize these unresolved issues.

VANYA

Vanya represents two kinds of people. At first glance she represents a person who is ordinary and who, because of this, is not able to emerge from the mass. However, it is later revealed that she has within herself a power much stronger than the others and which she can’t control. This power and the way it works make her similar to a person who suffers of some kind of mental illness or at least make her character mentally ill-coded.

This is also evident when one considers her story again after knowing the truth about her powers:

Vanya: “If the benchmark is extraordinary, what do you do if you are not?”

The problem with Vanya’s childhood was not really that she was ordinary, but that she was different from the others. Her lacking some kind of special ability did not make her normal, but rather “special” in a negative way. In a family full of people with super-powers her not having one is perceived as some sort of handicap by the others who, encouraged by Reginald, ended up exluding Vanya even when their missions were not involved.

Let us now consider how Vanya’s powers work.

She concentrates on a sound and lets it grow louder and louder until she can hear only that. At that point her power manifests itself in an explosive way. If you take this process and try to interpret it symbolically, it is obvious that it describes the way Vanya deals with others and herself.

As a matter of fact, she is a person who listens to others, but who rarely expresses herself. As a result she ends up repressing her emotions which then explode in an ugly way hurting others and making so that they are not really able to understand her.

The book Vanya writes before the beginning of the series is nothing more than a hint that this is her modus operandi when it comes to her negative feelings. She has been repressing her anger since she was a child and so she chooses to express it in a book in order to make her voice known and to gain attention. However, by doing so she ends up compromising the relationship with her siblings even more. As a matter of fact they are all too wrapped up in their own issues to truly understand what Vanya really wanted to convey through her book and what they take from it is simply that their sister has hurt them. What is more, they can not believe that Vanya would do something like that:

Ben: “She wrote that? I can’t believe she would do that,”

This is exactly the same reaction they have when she manifests her powers and goes on a rampage:

Luther: “Vanya killed him”.

Diego: “But Vanya wouldn’t”.

Another interesting thing about the book is that it manages to give Vanya some temporary fame, but once it ends she is left even more lonely than before. This fits with the idea that talents and accomplishments can give you only that much without deep personal relationships and so, even if it is right to cultivate one’s talent (as Klaus’s arc shows), one should never let one’s accomplishments become an obsession (as Five and partly Allison and Luther demonstrate).

In short, Vanya’s abilities symbolize her sensitivity (she has an enhanced hearing) and the damage her repressing how she felt did (her powers exploding as she can’t control neither them nor her emotions). This together with other info about her character makes clear how what Vanya needs is a healthy way to express herself and this is underlined also by her pursuing a career in music. Music and writing are two activitites linked to some form of art and Vanya pursues them in an attempt to make herself heard.

The concert she invites her siblings to is precisely this for her. It is a way to convey her feelings to them and to make them proud of her. However, her siblings, except Allison, all fail to understand this because too concentrated on their mission and the bigger picture.

On the other hand Vanya is too caught up in her own issues and personal accomplishments to care about the bigger picture. To be more precise she doesn’t think she can do anything to change it or rather she uses her being “normal” in order to avoid thinking too much about it. This is not something which is admittedly much visible in the season because she is mostly excluded by the main action, but one can catch glimpses of this during her confrontation with Five in the first couple of episodes.

I think this confrontation nicely shows both characters’ problems when it comes to communication.

On one hand Five wants someone to listen to him, but he can’t deal with the questions every normal person would obviously ask him when confronted with the news he brings. He has no patience and doesn’t explain himself. He pretends that the others would immediately be on his same wavelength even if they lack many of his own experiences. In other words, he treats others a little as if they were Dolores and gets frustrated when they are obviously not.

On the other hand Vanya uses the fact that she is supposedly normal to avoid dealing with what Five is telling her and so fails to support him. She even uses her own routine in order to postpone their conversation:

Vanya: “You know what, it’s getting late, and I have lessons early, and I need to sleep, and I’m sure you do, too.”

Vanya avoids having to really confront the truth and deal with Five’s problems being them either the fact that he is traumatized and is hallucinating or the fact that the apocalypse is actually coming. As Vanya herself admits to him:

Vanya: “I guess I didn’t know how to process what you were saying. And I still can’t, to be honest.”

So, she prefers not to really face the problem.

Let us underline that she also uses her routine as an excuse to avoid thinking about her powers:

Vanya: “You know, what I really need to do is practice”.

Harold: “Right, should we pick up where we left off?”

Vanya: “No, the violin. The concert’s tomorrow”.

Once again this coping mechanism has both a positive side and a negative one. On one hand Vanya is right in not wanting to give up the ordinary things which are important to her especially considering what it has been established about her playing the violin in order to express herself. On the other hand she is clearly trying not to face the fact that her life is changing and that there is a part of her she did not know about which is extremely powerful and dangerous.

Finally, let us consider her foiling with Harold.

Handler tries to manipulate Five into leaving behind his positive emotions towards his siblings, whereas Harold tries to manipulate Vanya into giving in to her negative ones towards them.

In other words, Handler as a character explores the dangers of a life too focused on accomplishments and personal success where, in order to obtain them, one has to give up their emotions, whereas Harold explores the dangers of letting one-self caught up in negative feelings to the point of losing sight of everyone else except yourself.

Harold has been so obsessed with his revenge that he chooses to ignore that Vanya’s powers are dangerous and even when he overhears the members of the Academy talking about an apocalypse he could be connected to, he does not stop. This is also why he dies since his arrogance and selfishness led him to treat Vanya as an extension of himself without considering her feelings and the fact that she actually really cares about her family despite it all. Something similar risks to happen to Vanya as well if she keeps going the way she has by the end of the season.

As a matter of fact, despite Vanya loving her family and her family loving her, they all end up failing each other when it counts the most and Vanya especially is let down one time too much. This is what makes her go on a rampage and ends up giving her character a symbolic meaning, especially considering what Five says at the end of the series:

Five: “The apocalypse will always happen and Vanya will always be the cause, unless we take her with us and fix her” ,

This line summarizes what the series is about and I think this is how things will be solved in the end even if before that I can see the siblings still screwing up when it comes to Vanya and interpreting the word “to fix” in a way they should not.

That said, I think they will arrive there eventually and at the end of the first season they have all grown.

This is evident when comparing two choices they make respectively at the beginning and at the end of the season.

The first choice is about killing Grace, whereas the second one is about killing Vanya.

By comparing each sibling’s stance at the beginning with the one at the end you can see their development or their lack of it.

Luther is the one who has grown the least since he starts the series wanting to switch Grace off and he ends it wanting to stop Vanya at all costs.

Diego starts the series against the idea of switching off Grace, but he is also the one who ends up doing it secretly without respecting the outcome of the vote. In the end he has doubts about stopping Vanya, but he accepts what the group decides and works with the others.

Allison is the one whose stance completely changes at the end of the series compared to the one she had in the beginning. As a matter of fact she starts the series standing with Luther, but she ends it by directly opposing him.

Klaus does not change his stance since he does not want to kill neither Grace nor Vanya, but he goes from giving selfish reasons for his choice (like wanting to spite Luther) to actually offering more serious arguments. What is more, at the beginning he tries to cheat manipulating Ben’s vote (which nobody is counting anyway), whereas in the end he conveys Ben’s true feelings when it comes to Five’s idea of travelling in time. Moreover, him siding with Diego at the beginning since he is the only one who tries to help and to look after Klaus suggests how important being helpful towards a person can help in obtaining their understanding and cooperation and this idea will be explored to the fullest with Vanya and Allison’s relationship.

Five in the end sides with Luther and shows that he is still reasoning according to the Commission’s principles, but in his case the development is in the fact that he is actually present when they are voting while he was not when they had to decide what to do about Grace.

Finally, Vanya obviously does not get to vote in the end and this underlines how she has grown distant from her family. That said, her voting against switching Grace off underlines that she cares about individuals more than she does about a common good and so it is probable that her love for people will be what will motivate her in the future.

#the umbrella academy #the umbrella academy meta #vanya hargreeves #number five #number five hargreeves #klaus hargreeves #allison hargreeves #diego hargreeves #luther hargreeves #ben hargreeves #my meta #pogo #grace #reginald hargreeves #harold jenkins #the handler

85 notes · View notes

fucking-trashmouth-blog · 7 years

Text

Let’s talk about...Wentworth Tozier.

The subject of Richie’s parents is one I’ve been wanting to tackle for a while since I feel like they’re pretty widely misinterpreted. I’m going to start off with Wentworth Tozier, Richie’s dad. (I’ll be talking about Maggie Tozier, Richie’s mom, at some point in another post.) Wentworth is actually one of my favorite characters to appear in the novel in spite of the fact that he only really appears in one chapter. I have a lot of personal headcanons for him which I would love to write up and share with the world someday, and frankly I’ve thought about RPing him, but right now I’m just going to talk about what we see of him in the canon.

But first, let’s get into what I feel a lot of people get wrong about him. Then fandom has a tendency to A: Turn him into a nice and loving parent, or B: Turn him into a literal ogre who beats his son and/or headcanon children and sends them to school with bruises. The latter is more prevalent in the RP community and the former appears more in the fandom in general, and both are 100% not how Wentworth is shown to be in the novel, which is the only source of canon in which he actually makes an appearance.

First off, Wentworth is definitely an asshole to Richie. (It stands to reason he’s probably an asshole to other people too, but we don’t have any examples of him interacting with anyone but Richie, and Maggie to a small degree). I fully respect that people can interpret the same canon differently (That’s one of the things that makes RP so interesting) but I just don’t see that there’s much room to dispute the nature of Wentworth’s character. However, in spite of the fact that he is so obviously horrible to Richie, a lot of people seem to come away with the impression that he’s a good parent/person. I really, really do not understand how this happens, and honestly it’s kind of frustrating to me to see people talking about what a swell guy he is and failing to recognize his abuse of Richie. So I’m just going to break down why Wentworth is definitely not a swell guy real quick by taking a look at what would appear to be a typical morning at the Tozier family breakfast table.

Exhibit #1 of Wentworth Definitely Not Being A Swell Guy

Wentworth repeatedly degrades his son by insulting his interests and calling him stupid.

Exhibit #2 of Wentworth Definitely Not Being A Swell Guy

Wentworth takes advantage of his son by essentially tricking him into agreeing to do more work than he necessarily wanted to do and then proceeds to rip him off by offering to pay him less money for that work than what he paid a couple of kids that weren’t even his own. (And continues to degrade him by calling him stupid/criticizing his interests)

Exhibit #3 of Wentworth Definitely Not Being A Swell Guy

Wentworth’s smug and seemingly apathetic behaviors towards/treatment of his son. He’s now holding Richie’s trip to the movies hostage until Richie agrees to do more chores than he originally wanted to do for less money than he pays somebody else’s kids on a regular basis for doing that same job - to top it off, he’s repeatedly degraded Richie, and appears to be enjoying it. Furthermore - ‘a predatory shark’? Need I say more? Does that look like the kind of description that would be given to a parent who loves their kid?

So hopefully you’re wondering (I know I do) how the flip someone can look at all that and come away thinking Wentworth is a great parent. Honestly, I feel like a lot of people probably get off when they see the bits in the novel talking about how Richie feels about his parents. Richie is shown to love his parents and doesn’t appear to think there’s anything wrong with how his father treats him...

...but at the end of the day, Richie is just a child. His father’s treatment of him causes him to become uncomfortable (Definitely not something you should be making your 11-year-old feel, especially not on purpose) at multiple points during their conversation...

...but Richie doesn’t ever stop to think ‘hey, maybe that shouldn’t be happening, maybe my dad shouldn’t be doing that to me’, because he’s just a kid. And like most kids, he loves his parents and believes he is supposed to love his parents, and that his parents are going to love and take care of him. He’s not going to stop to consider that maybe his father is deliberately mistreating him, especially not at age 11 - and especially because Wentworth’s mistreatment of Richie is subtle (Too subtle for most children Richie’s age to pick up on, but not so subtle where it doesn’t have major repercussions on him - I could go on for hours about how Wentworth’s treatment of Richie negatively impacts him as a person, but that’s really beside the point of this post, so I’ll save it for another time) and intermingled with what could be perceived, especially by a kid who assumes that his parents have his best interests heart, as harmless banter. Richie is, in short, an unreliable narrator when it comes to his parents - which, when you get down to it, is pretty God damn common for sufferers of abuse.

Getting back to Wentworth - it’s made clear to us, or should be clear to us even in the span of a single chapter that he’s meant to treat his son horribly, and that he practices a very particular and damaging type of psychological abuse on him. That being said, for the love of God, please don’t confuse the type of abuse going on here. There is nothing in the couple of scenes Richie’s parents are shown in to suggest that they would be physically abusive towards Richie - but more importantly, Richie never reflects on suffering any physical abuse at the hands of his parents, which puts him at an obvious contrast with how, say Beverly, is shown to reflect on her father, who is physically abusive towards her.

If Richie was intended to be suffering physical abuse from his parents (I’m not saying it’s impossible to reason them giving him the occasional slap on the wrist if he does something they don’t like, I’m talking about serious, recurring physical abuse, like the kind Beverly’s dad or Henry’s dad are shown to inflict on their children, and other people’s children in the case of Butch) he absolutely would reflect on it at some point. Even if he was totally excusing his parents’ behavior or didn’t see anything especially wrong with it, he would still reflect on it. All of the other characters in the novel who are implied to be suffering physical abuse - such as Beverly - do, and Richie has just as much if not more POV than some of those characters. (Also, I’m not suggesting that one kind of abuse is worse than another - just that physical and psychological abuse are very different and that you shouldn’t senselessly blur the line between them when there is indication of one and no indication whatsoever of the other.)

Now, I understand if you’re running strictly with the canon of the movie that Richie’s dad is essentially a blank page. (We don’t even know for a fact that he’s named Wentworth.) That being said, we know that more than not of the kids had their book relationships with their parents adapted basically as they appear on the page. (With the exception of Mike, who was given a completely different backstory and whose character was changed dramatically, so I wouldn’t really factor him into the equation, Ben, whose relationship with his mother and presumably deceased father is not touched on in the movie, and Stan, whose relationship with his father was changed to be more negative, but we easily get the least on Stan’s parents of any of the Losers’ parents in the novel anyway.) Point being, if Bill’s relationship with his parents, Beverly’s relationship with her dad, Eddie’s relationship with his mom, and Henry’s relationship with his dad were all adapted in a manner very similar to how they appear in the book, it stands to reason that the same was probably intended for Richie and Ben (Both of whom are depicted in the movie very similarly to how they are depicted in the book) and their parents.

That being said, I’m not out to condemn people who don’t run with Richie’s parents being exactly like they are in the book - ultimately, we don’t see his parents in the movie, so you do have some freedom to choose. But how they appear in the book is definitely something that should be carefully considered, especially seeing as how Richie’s character’s is depicted so similarly in the movie and book, and we know his parents must have played a large role in making him the way he is. (In short, it’s not very plausible that you would get basically the same Richie in the movie as in the book if you gave him totally different parents, or a totally different relationship with/perspective on those parents.)

Also, Finn Wolfhard has stated that Richie’s father is a dentist (Wentworth is a dentist in the novel) meaning that the movie is at least to some degree acknowledging the canon of the book regarding Richie’s parents. Richie also never makes any negative statements about his parents in the movie, which implies his feelings on them could easily be similar to what they are in the book. Neither his father nor mother accompany him to Stanley’s Bar Mitzvah (The woman sitting next to Richie who a lot of people assume is his mom is actually Stanley’s mom) which implies a neglectful approach to parenting similar to what’s shown from them in the book. Point being, even though we never actually see them, there’s a lot of evidence to support Richie’s parents being at least similar to how they are portrayed in the book. That doesn’t mean you can’t do something different with them (You have that right, you’d have that right even if you were writing exclusively from the book - you always have the right to deviate from canon where you want, that’s the beauty of RP) but for the love of God, please at least consider what’s written in the book, especially since it’s the only source of canon we even really have for Richie’s parents, before doing anything drastic.

Again, Richie in the movie is portrayed very similarly to how he is portrayed in the book - obviously, he’s going to be like that for reasons largely to do with his upbringing and life experiences, and his parents are inevitably going to be a huge part of that. All parents play a dramatic role in shaping their children, especially parents with behaviors as particular as Richie’s are shown to have - you can’t even begin to logically reason him being the kid he is in the movie if you give him parents that don’t at least behave similarly to the way his parents behave in the book, because he is so alike in both, and we know they must have had a lot to do with making him the way he is. Please, please consider that before you turn Wentworth into a good and loving father or a literal ogre slinging punches at his son, whether or not you decide to run with exactly what’s on the page.

Anyhoo, thanks for reading! Hopefully you found this post to be informative. Like I said, I’ll be making one about Maggie sometime in the near future, so stay tuned for that if you enjoyed this one!

#｜beep͵ beep͵ richie! / ooc｜

7 notes · View notes

morganbelarus · 5 years

Text

50 Memes That Make Fun Of The Idea That Video Games Cause Violence

Some myths have more lives than cats and Mario combined. That’s the way plenty of us feel whenever we see someone blaming video games for every new armed atrocity that shocks the world. Look, we get it, video games are an easy target. It’s far easier to blame them for somebody acting violently than it is to confront the tangled, messy, complex web of interrelated reasons that’s actually at fault. But it doesn’t mean that we should power down our critical thinking, just because we want easy answers.

Donald Trump, the President of the United States, and other politicians recently used video games as a scapegoat to (at least in part) explain the recent shootings in El Paso and Dayton. However, the internet quickly reacted with a whole slew of original memes that hit back against this idea.

Bored Panda collected the best of the best, the crème de la crème, of memes showing how video games don’t cause violence. Upvote the ones you love the most and leave a comment to let everyone know what you thought of the memes. Keep on scrolling, because the memes at the very bottom of the post get lonely sometimes (just don’t feed them after midnight)!

Professor Andrew Przybylski of the Oxford Internet Institute told Bored Panda that “the idea that violent video games cause real-world aggression has been with us for more than four decades but in this time there has been no convincing evidence that supports it.”

“I’d observe that video games with combat, crime, and war are quite popular in Japan, South Korea, Germany, and the U.K., and these countries do not have the same problems with large numbers of shootings,” noted Przybylski, who is an experimental psychologist and Director of Research at the Oxford Internet Institute. His work is concerned with applying psychological models of motivation and health to study how people interact with virtual environments.

When asked by Bored Panda why he thinks video games keep getting blamed for violence, Przybylski answered that “research indicates that about half of the adult U.S. population plays games, I suspect that as this number rises (i.e. gamers age) this excuse will hold less water.”

The professor also mentioned that video games “might” desensitize people to violence, “but it’s likely that the effects are smaller and more nuanced than many assume.”

“I think that games are a complex form of play and that gaming companies should share their data with independent researchers; not because games cause violence, but because they are now an essential part of our lives. It’s their responsibility to our society as good corporate citizens,” Professor Przybylski added.

On the 5th of August, Trump condemned “racism, bigotry and white supremacy”, as well as video games for the most recent deadly shootings in the US.

“We must stop the glorification of violence in our society. This includes the gruesome and grisly video games that are now commonplace,” said Trump. “It is too easy today for troubled youth to surround themselves with a culture that celebrates violence.” The 3rd and 4th of August were bloody days for the US: a gunman killed 22 people in El Paso, Texas on Saturday; while another attacker killed nine people in Dayton, Ohio, on Sunday.

Trump wasn’t the only one stating that video games had something to do with the shootings, however. House Minority Leader and California Republican Kevin McCarthy shared similar thoughts: “But the idea of these video games that dehumanize individuals to have a game of shooting individuals and others — I’ve always felt that is a problem for future generations and others. We’ve watched from studies shown before of what it does to individuals. When you look at these photos of how it took place, you can see the actions within video games and others.”

McCarthy may have a point about people getting slightly desensitized to violence through consuming media, but it’s unclear what specific studies McCarthy referred to. The general consensus among the academic community is that there is no established link between playing video games and acting violently.

Furthermore, video games are played all across the globe, and yet, it’s only the United States that has so many instances of gun violence. In 2018 alone, there were 340 mass shootings in the country. 340! 3-4-0!!!

According to CNN, the US also has 57 times more school shootings than “other major industrialized” countries do, combined. Since 2009, the US has had more than 288 school shootings; Mexico is in second place with 8. Clearly, some other factors are to blame for American shootings, not Call of Duty. Hence, why the internet’s very best meme-engineers started working overtime to satirize the very notion that Game Boys and PlayStations create murderers.

#10

#11

#12

#13

#14

#15

#16

#17

#18

#19

#20

#21

#22

#23

#24

#25

#26

#27

#28

See Also on Bored Panda

#50

Original Article : HERE ;

50 Memes That Make Fun Of The Idea That Video Games Cause Violence was originally posted by MetNews

#MetNews

0 notes

kattiezepps5-blog · 6 years

Text

Research Study Discovers Differences In Exactly How Domestic Violence Targets Look For Aid.

If you obtain whipped sometimes for being actually rascally or even rowdy do not condemn your moms and dads, criticize your own self. Truly glad and also grateful that a lot of little ones as well as moms and topsupplement4u-17.info dads put in the time to go to the celebration. The child of Hollywood luminary Jon Voight, that has actually shown up in loads from films including "The Tourist" as well as "Woman, Interrupted," looked loosened up as she devoted quality time with her little ones. The Spanish words for the godparent jobs are made use of for participants from the wedding party-padrino definition "godfather" or even "" and also madrina definition "godmother" or even "matron from respect"- demonstrating the custom-made of baptismal supporters behaving in this job in a few's wedding event. Lot of times our team choose our names by naming our kids after somebody that we admire and appear up to. Regardless of how you examine it we placed a large amount of notion and also emotion right into a name.

The kit must be changed in order that the bottom sits at your youngster's waistline, and also youngsters need to always use both shoulder straps. Democratic moms and dads, though lenient, are actually much more aware and also show a committment to interact along with their children. With his research studies, Piaget speculated the manner in which little ones developed thoughts. For moms and dads from children accomplishing this therapy program searching for clothing things that fit on legs in casts or even pajamas that collaborate with a nighttime shoe prepare comes to be a concern. That pointed out, a parent will only really want a special place for their kid's toys if that was actually safe. Choosing a kid support and safekeeping attorney is actually a necessary step whether you are actually the non-custodial or even tutelary moms and dad. Consider your purposes for the street rug before your acquisition to obtain the only thing that's counted on fro your kid's play. On The Daily," Davis illustrated Miller as a staunch supporter of the Trump administration's plan because of his view that it dissuades people coming from crossing the perimeter with kids. In order to help with this do not let your kid believe you are actually heading to be alone or depressing when they go to the various other parent, as they may wish to remain to conserve a moms and dad feeling injured. This bag is likewise for preschool and school-age child kids certainly not kids. This is particularly accurate in the 2nd stage from intermediate school progression, when children are actually attempting to figure out their personal feeling from personal. Most parents do not paddle their little ones when they are actually with their family pet. The children have to additionally know they should discuss your time with their brother or sisters. This is actually an excellent means to instruct little ones to consistently search for and pay attention to the positive points in lifestyle. At that point the noncustodial moms and dad can easily state any type of tax credit reports for the youngster or kids in the household as soon as that has been actually submitted. Consisted of in this stations you will certainly find posts covering the heads from IDEA (Individuals along with Impairments Learning Action), FAPE (Free and also Appropriate Education And Learning) and LRE (Least Restrictive Environment) You can easily discover details on the most up to date technical breakthroughs that have commitment for tomorrow's learning-disabled young people, including the use of neurofeedback in order to help students along with autism You could additionally explore the challenges facing today's routine education and learning teachers and learn more regarding the tough subject matter from willpower in the school system. Freddie shed his thousands he had earned as a kid star by time he was actually thirty to legal battles between his moms and dads and his auntie that had actually raised him. Off the time that your little one is born, oral care is actually a priority in maintaining them in good health.

0 notes

scripturehomosexuality · 7 years

Text

Editorial: #MeToo, Same-Sex Activity, and How The Two Are Related

For many months, even as I was writing on this blog, I have been closely watching the #MeToo movement sweeping through the U.S. At first, I was keeping out of it. Though I supported it initially, its original purpose wasn’t related to this blog’s purpose, so I didn’t intend to remark on it.

However, things have changed so much, and the stakes have been raised so high, this male writer feels compelled to say something on it.

Now, before I go any further, I need to make the following perfectly clear: I do not hate women. I do not support the rape or sexual assault of any woman (or man), under any circumstances. Rape and sexual assault is always inexcusable. I’m sure any longtime reader of this blog will know that I do not endorse misogyny. In fact, the Additional Links page will unequivocally show that I support both female sexuality and male sexuality.

As such, if you disagree with what I’m about to say, please do not flood my inbox with condemnatory messages. If you wish to comment, please use the Discus plugin at the end of this post, which allows guest and pseudonymous commenting.

As I said before, sexual assault and rape horrifies me, so I initially supported the #MeToo movement. However, as November 2017 came along, I began to have reservations. To me, it was beginning to feel like a general witchhunt. To give #MeToo the benefit of the doubt, I kept quiet and kept watching its development.

Now, it seems my apprehension was justified. More men and women find the movement increasingly troubling. We are all disturbed by its apparent inability to make distinctions. Sophomoric behavior and mild harassment are being equated to rape and sexual assault. Due process is being skipped in favor of swift justice, as accusations are now enough to impose severe punishment. The fact that women are human beings too, and thus are equally capable of fabrication, is becoming too taboo to suggest.

By no means am I defending the rape and sexual assault of women. My point is that, in trying to end those harmful actions, we’re throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Not every problem is a nail that must be hammered, which the #MeToo movement doesn’t seem to realize.

The crescendo reached a climax this week, as comedian Aziz Ansari was accused of sexual assault. What was the problem? The Ansari story was quite ordinary to most people. To them, it was too ordinary to merit public shaming.

Because of all this, I can confidently say that the #MeToo movement has been hijacked. Rape and sexual assault are now a minimal focus of this movement. Right now, it’s focused on transforming our sexual culture into one that is punitively and brutally governed by certain women. It seems bent on creating a system where, solely by a woman’s whim, an encounter caused by mixed messages becomes punishable sexual assault.

Other writers are reaching similar conclusions. In fact, a few writers openly say that we’re in a full blown sex panic. In a column for the New York Daily News, philosopher Christina Hoff Sommers said “a new puritanism seems to be ascendant,” where “suddenly, office Christmas parties and happy hours are under a cloud.”

As such, there is a vital point being missed in the debate - the #MeToo movement is inextricably linked to developments involving “homosexuality”. If we are serious in analysing what caused the movement, and where it is headed, we must consider this indispensable history.

Firstly, the #MeToo movement owes its existence to the recent history of “homosexuality”. In the United States, the current definition includes all same-sex acts, with “gender inversion” an important but secondary component. At this point, participation in any same-sex act counts as “homosexuality”.

As much as that definition seems established, it’s actually pretty new. Before the second half of the 20th century, “homosexuality” was more defined by “gender inversion” than behavior. Engagement in same-sex activity didn’t automatically merit a “homosexual” identity. From the 1930s onward, a man felt compelled to identify as “homosexual” if

he was primarily or exclusively attracted to men (which was considered a form of “gender inversion”)

his mannerisms parodied those of women

Even then, true “homosexual” men were considered to be effeminate.

We must also remember that back then, sex was mainly defined by penetration. Thus, if the contact was non-penetrative, it wasn’t “sex” per se. After World War II, anal sex started becoming more common in the “homosexual” identified community. However, among non-”homosexual” men, the contact usually was non-penetrative.

As a result of these factors, same-sex activity was relatively common for non-”homosexual” men up until the mid-20th century. It didn’t automatically require a new identity, and since they avoided anal, their contact didn’t count as “sex” for most people. As a result, the rate of premarital opposite-sex contact was also relatively low. Since they were having sexual satisfaction with fellow men, contact with women wasn’t as necessary.

That began changing with the Stonewall Rebellion of 1969. The revolt caused massive upheaval in both the “homosexual” and non-”homosexual” worlds. Now, “homosexual” men could now be validly masculine and effeminate, as shown by the explosion of the Castro Clone. What those masculine and feminine men shared in common - their engagement in same-sex activity - increasingly became the basis of the new “gay” identity.

This wasn’t all. From its slow start after WWII, anal sex became widespread in the “gay” community by the mid-1970s. Up until that time, and despite its increasing popularity, anal still had a bad reputation among “gay” men. Then, as the late 1970s arrived, a cultural seismic shift happened. Anal soon became the ultimate fulfillment of “gay” love, and a necessary act for “gay” men.

In the 1980s, these factors helped change the overall sexual culture of the United States.

HIV/AIDS, a disease mainly spread through anal play, began ravaging the “gay” community. Yet the “gay” community was not the only group affected. The entire United States was traumatized by the disease, because to a point, it affected them too. A significant number of presumed “heterosexual” men, including celebrities like Rock Hudson and Anthony Perkins, were among those who died from AIDS.

These deaths were significant because, while they were “gay” identified and very active in the “gay” community, their identity and activity was unknown to the general public. They were able to keep it hidden because outwardly, they appeared to be “normal” men, and were thus presumed to be “heterosexual” identified.

As to why they interacted in the “gay” community, remember a point made before - the morphing definition of “homosexuality”. Because of that, more of these men felt compelled to sexually engage in the “gay” community, even though that wasn’t the case a few decades before. Unfortunately, that also means they engaged in sexual practices unique to the “gay” community that gave them the disease.

Since men not perceived as “homosexual” were AIDS victims, the predominant definition of “homosexuality” (still mostly based on gender inversion) appeared inadequate. Thus, the definition fully and quickly turned into the behavior-based definition that dominates today.

At the same time, it appears the fact that anal sex drove the epidemic, in lieu of other same-sex acts, was lost on the general public. As a result, all same-sex activity began to gain a stigma.

These other relevant factors added into the mix -

Remnants of 1950s Red Scare attitudes. Though the fervor of McCarthyism waned in the 1950s, elements of its attitudes endured throughout the Cold War era. As such, during the Red Scare, a link was established between “homosexuality” (as they defined it then) and Communism. The AIDS epidemic breathed new life into these ideas.

Growth of the Religious Right. The 1970s was characterized by many revolutionary movements - Women’s Liberation, Gay Liberation, the Sexual Revolution, the acceptance of evolution, etc. In response to the changes, a new reactionary form of Christianity developed. Seeing themselves as saviors as morality, the Religious Right staunchly opposed the “gay” community, and “homosexuality” by extension. In the face of the AIDS epidemic, they abandoned reinforcing their historical condemnation of anal sex. Instead, they went full-throttle with the shifting definition of “homosexuality”. As the definition continued to change, their condemnation of “homosexuality” continuously grew in scope and sharpened in tone.

The changing definition of sex. Before long, STDs began affecting “straight” relationships. At times, these diseases were spread through acts that weren’t usually considered “sex”. As a result, sex was soon defined by both penetrative and non-penetrative acts. Paradoxically, this helped reinforce the shifting definition of homosexuality. For better or worse, all same-sex acts were now validly “sex”, and thus were validly “homosexual”.

All these factors combined into a ferocious hysteria over same-sex activity. This hysteria would increase correspondingly with the growth of AIDS, as it reached its peak during the 1990s. However, one of the features of hysteria is its irrationality, as it perceives threats in all kinds of places. Thus, the resulting stigma over same-sex activity soon spread to same-sex attraction, and even to homoerotism.

The frequency of same-sex activity in the general population went down dramatically, as everyday people wanted to escape being touched by the growing hysteria. At the same time, the rates of opposite-sex contact outside marriage shot through the roof. This strongly suggests that, true to their bisexuality, most people went to the opposite gender when same-sex activity became unacceptable. It was in this environment that our current sexual culture - where opposite-sex contact outside marriage is expected - became set in stone.

In other words, the AIDS stigma created the culture that made #MeToo possible. That fact is inescapable, and utterly necessary to understand this movement’s origins. If AIDS didn’t happen, opposite-sex activity outside marriage wouldn’t have become as acceptable or prevalent. As a result, there would have been no culture that could have spawned anything like #MeToo.

Secondly, the radical feminist movement (which is driving the #MeToo phenomenon) is a sister of the modern “gay” movement. As such, many habits existing in the “gay” world are replicating themselves in the #MeToo movement.

For instance, the “gay” movement has no ability to make common sense distinctions. To them all sex is good yet risky, despite all evidence that anal is uniquely dangerous. To them both men and women are designed for penetration, despite all evidence that they are not. To them all men into men have always had anal sex, despite direct and circumstantial evidence to the contrary.

In the same way, and as said before, #MeToo makes similar moves. To the movement, clumsy advances and sophomoric jokes are apparently tantamount to rape or assault. All merit brutal and severe punishment. In its view, no woman is capable of coloring or fabricating stories, and few men treat women with the dignity they deserve. In fact, a few writers openly wonder how women can pass ANY man on the sidewalk without fear.

As another example, both movements feel that “if you’re not with us, you’re against us”. In other words, if your opinions don’t march in lockstep with their own, you will be considered their enemy. It doesn’t matter how much you might agree with them.

This has been the reigning motto of the “gay” movement for years. This is why this blog, the g0y movement, the Man2Man Alliance, and other like outlets are ignored or opposed. We agree that the Religious Right has abused their power considerably, and must be stopped from causing further damage. However, we also oppose the anal sex ethos of the LGBT leadership, because we see that as equally harmful. For those and other differences of opinion, we have earned their scorn.

Additionally it should be noted that, when talking about the “gay” movement, the Man2Man Alliance said that their attitudes reeked of fascism.

Something similar is happening with the radical feminist movement that is driving #MeToo. Their more moderate members have voiced concerns over the direction #MeToo is taking, and the overall thrust of the movement. In response, they have been viciously attacked and ridiculed by their fellow feminists. Anything other than uniform opinion will not be tolerated. Examples include Cassie Jaye, Laci Green, and Catherine Deneuve.

Another commonality comprises our third point - both movements contain a vicious streak of misandry, which seems to be currently driving the #MeToo movement.

The “gay” movement has been proudly misandronic for years. To them, masculinity naturally gives birth to homophobia, despite the fact that masculinity has never been a monolith. Anything that seems masculine is constantly disparaged and denigrated, and deserves destruction. “Straight-acting gay” men are treated with suspicion and skepticism, because they don’t want to imitate women in their mannerisms. To them, the more a man imitates a woman in everything he does, the better.

In saying this, I’m not trying to disparage women. My point is that the “gay” movement constantly slams things that are most natural to men, and instead encourages behavior that isn’t natural for them.

On a closely related note, that’s also why their worship of anal makes sense. Throughout history, the penetrated male was thought to be “acting like a woman”. Whether the “gay” leadership admits it or not, that same logic guides them today. They also believe anal feminizes a male, which they think is proper and desirable.

That’s also a reason why they hate frot with a passion - it’s simply too masculine for them to tolerate.

The radical feminists do the same thing. Of late, they have constantly decried the effects of “toxic masculinity”. This phrase usually doesn’t say that certain forms of masculinity are toxic, which is completely true. Instead it says that masculinity itself is toxic and evil, and deserves total eradication. That is shown in terms they have coined that associate masculinity with incivility - “mansplaining”, “manspreading”, etc. Their words constantly encourage female distrust and dislike of men. As a result, as Cathy Young said in the Washington Post, “Things have gotten to a point where casual low-level male-bashing is a constant white noise in the hip progressive online media.”

As part of its misandry, radical feminism also wishes to control how men interact with each other, even in the smallest of matters. A post from the Man2Man Alliance mentions an interesting development among Blackwater mercenaries (U.S. military contractors) in 2007 Iraq. In their off hours, the male mercenaries liked to sunbathe naked together on their trailer roofs. That came to an end when female helicopter pilots flew overhead, became extremely displeased, and complained to their superiors.

Think about that for a minute. These men were simply minding their own business, and weren’t bothering the female pilots at all. They were simply doing what felt comfortable. Plus, this probably wasn’t the first time those pilots saw penises. Yet, they felt compelled to disrupt a naturally occurring male activity, simply because they didn’t like it. What motivated these women to react so strongly?

As Alliance founder Bill Weintraub put it, “their objection...is the expression of a puritan impulse, and a puritan impulse alone.” This same puritan impulse seems to characterize radical feminism, which evidently motivated the pilots’ actions. It also seems to drive the #MeToo movement.

Mind you, things are even worse now. A recent British study told women that male friendships posed a deep threat to their own relationships with men, and encouraged them to keep those relationships under surveillance. Thus, the deep feminist suspicion of male intimacy rages on.

Thus, to me, this is what’s really driving the #MeToo movement at present. The radical feminists are no longer satisfied with controlling male relationships. Now, they wish to dictate how men interact with them and other females, where women have total possession of the keys of power.

Once again, I’m not trying to disparage women. My point is that as long as one gender feels justified to dominate the other - men over women or women over men - there will always be war. Ultimately, a gender war benefits neither men nor women. At most, extremists of either gender will be the only victors.

At this point however, I hope you fully understand how “homosexuality” relates to #MeToo. They are completely enmeshed and impossible to separate. This connection fully reveals the origins of this movement, and the motivations for its current actions. #MeToo also reveals what was “business as usual” inside the “gay” world, in a way most people can no longer ignore. Whether most people realize it or not, the attitudes of the “gay” world are now affecting their own lives.

As such, this link leads to a question no one is asking - how “homosexuality” will affect the endgame of the #MeToo movement.

First of all, I completely agree that #MeToo will affect our entire sexual culture. Quotes from a “Spiked Online” article by 13 female writers shows that clearly. In the article, writer Joanna Williams said “...a new wariness has taken hold. A voice in our heads asks how our interactions might be interpreted by others. Is it best to leave the office door open? Invite a third party along to the lunch meeting? Under what circumstances can you hug a colleague? Or touch their elbow?” Meanwhile, writer Lionel Shriver said, “I am concerned that sex itself seems increasingly to be seen as dirty, and as a violation, a form of assault, so that we’re repackaging an old prudery in progressive wrapping paper.”

As such, this will affect men more seriously than you might realize. Remember what was said before - our modern sexual culture aren’t that old, and are historically unprecedented.

If this movement happened under past sexual concepts, the outcome would be different. In times past, “sex” was defined by penetration, and thus excluded most same-sex activity. Thus, if “sex” indeed became a taboo activity, that wouldn’t equate to male sexual deprivation. Instead, those men would turn to each other for sexual pleasure. They would have been able to satisfy their urges even as the hysteria raged on.

That doesn’t exist today. In the United States, “homosexuality” now includes all same-sex activity and attraction, and engagement in such activity now warrants the “gay” label. This process has inordinately affected male relationships throughout its duration. As modern sexual philosophy further evolves, it encroaches further into more areas of life. At this point, “bromances” are increasingly considered light versions of “homosexuality”, which might lead to their stigmatization in the near future.

This takes away the avenue of same-sex intimacy from most men. Thus, as sexual interaction with women becomes more precarious, we will enter an unprecedented reality. One of two outcomes will then happen, both of which are equally horrendous -

Most men will end up having no sex at all

In their frustration, those men may immerse themselves into the “gay” world with all its concepts and practices, including its disastrous practice of anal play

The first one will have effects that, in a very scary way, we cannot exactly predict. Sex is a need of most humans that must be satisfied somehow, much like eating and drinking. As such, Psychology Today plainly says, “Nothing inspires murderous mayhem in human beings more reliably than sexual repression...if expression of sexuality is thwarted, the human psyche tends to grow twisted into grotesque, enraged perversions of desire.”

Sexual repression among Christians has helped transform modern porn in size and content. Can you imagine what will happen if such repression exists throughout the United States? Do we really want to create sexually desperate men who will act out in harmful ways?

Mind you, I have my own reservations with our current sexual culture. Since intimacy among men is so taboo, men feel compelled to satisfy same-sex needs in opposite-sex relationships. This causes all kinds of dysfunction that’s unnecessary, but at least there’s some manner of sexual outlet. If total sexual repression becomes reality in the United States, no man or woman would be safe.

The second one will have effects that we do know, which are equally scary. The “gay” world conceptualizes same-sex activity as an abnormality, which is extremely harmful. That thinking justifies the practice of anal play, which has caused all kinds of medical, physical, and psychological harm. If sexual frustrated “straight” men enter this world, the resulting explosion of disease and injury would threaten human life.

Worst of all, it would trivialize women (and men) with real claims of sexual assault and rape. The systems causing so many problems would remain. Only the positions of the players would change.

In other words, under current conditions, the current version of #MeToo would be disastrous.

If there’s one thing #MeToo has done for good, it has caused further cracks in the imaginary wall between “gays” and “straights”. This blog has constantly said that “homosexuality” is impacted by social and political pressures that also affect “straights”. Given the link between #MeToo and “homosexuality”, and how one affects the other, it’s now harder to pretend that “gays” and “straights” live in completely different worlds.

In conclusion, if you are a feminist, I hope that you think long and hard about what I’ve just said. Please don’t react in a knee jerk fashion to this post. Instead, I ask you to really meditate on my words. With everything that I’ve just described, is this a movement that you should blindly support?

For my readers in the United States, I have a special message for you. Don’t think that we are merely seeing a rebellion against sexual assault. We’re really seeing the seismic transformation of our sexual culture. It is now teetering on the verge of collapse, and what replaces it can be very bad or very good.

This movement has inadvertently continued what footballer Aaron Hernandez began, whose suicide made modern sexual philosophy begin to wobble. At this point, it’s highly doubtful that the sexual status quo will continue.

No matter how you identify, you have a dog in this fight. If you have found this site’s content educational and valuable, don’t keep quiet about it. There is no better time to speak than right now. Let people know that the Scriptures don’t condemn “homosexuality”. Publicly acknowledge that most people swing both ways. Educate your peers on history that reveals modern sexual philosophy as fraudulent.

Make no mistake - from what I can see, we are in the middle of another sexual revolution. Our sexual culture is on the verge of fundamental change, and the content of the discussion will determine what will supplant it. In this era of turmoil, the ones who participate will shape its outcome, which will affect us for years to come. Make sure that in this process, you make your voice heard.

Post-Scriptum (added on 1/22/2018)

I’ve just become aware of a third possible outcome for #MeToo - the utilization of sex robots. At this time, its possibility seems somewhat remote, but it still deserves mention.

As male-female sex becomes more fraught with tension, and same-sex contact remains taboo, sexually frustrated humans might turn to sex robots to fill their needs.

To me, this outcome is as horrendous as the first two. Sex is ultimately an expression of intense love and affection. Meanwhile, sex robots are simply manmade objects, not human beings. How can humans make love to objects that can’t reciprocate?

Thus, I believe that under this outcome, their use will likely have long-term detrimental effects. Sex robots may aggravate social isolation, at a time when social cohesion is already under threat. Sex will simply become a reflex detached from love, and not an extreme interpersonal experience. Humans may somewhat lose their ability to mix the sexual with the social, which might cause a decrease in population.

Furthermore, it would work to reinforce the “straight”-”gay” dichotomy, with all its concepts and ideas. Sex robots would remove the risks cursing extramarital opposite-sex contact, such as pregnancy, disease, emotional turmoil, etc. Furthermore, robots might also remove risks inherent in male-male anal sex, such as disease and physical injury.

I think though this is a rather distant option in the United States (at least for now), because

Sex robot technology is still in its infancy, and currently seems resistant to advancement

There’s still a strong social stigma against sex with robots. At present, it simply rubs most people the wrong way. That stigma may or may not last.

Feminists will likely oppose them. If men turn to sex robots en masse, that would undermine the power of women over sexual relations, which would be unacceptable for them

The third point highlights a possible consequence that would be interesting. Corporations and radical feminism, who are currently working together on #MeToo, may end up at each other’s throats if sex robots become popular.

Sex robots can command high prices, which would yield big profits for their manufacturers. If their demand increases, profits would only grow bigger. This might be a reason why corporations are supporting #MeToo - its encouragement of puritanism would create the perfect market for sex robots.

Thus, #MeToo might be yet another infusion of neoliberalism into our sexual dealings. It might further develop the relationship between neoliberalism and modern sexual philosophy.

#metoo #me too movement #homosexuality #gay #lgbt #editorial #homosexual #lgbt christian #lgbt christianity #Gay Christian #gay christianity

0 notes

pinktheoristcollector · 4 years

Link

State and local public health officials are in a tough spot. After months of imposing restrictions to protect their residents from the highly infectious coronavirus—at great cost to families’ livelihoods and the broader economy—they now must balance those efforts with another, equally vital imperative: protecting Americans’ right to gather en masse to protest police brutality and systemic racism.

This balancing act is further complicated by timing. New daily cases of COVID-19 worldwide hit a record high on June 7, according to the World Health Organization, indicating that the pandemic is perhaps worsening. And after months of stay-at-home orders to slow the spread of the disease, many states and counties are just now beginning to reopen their economies, despite ample evidence many of them have not yet met containment benchmarks, further increasing the likelihood of an uptick in new infections nationwide.

In response to this confluence of factors, public health officials are performing something of a high-wire act. In most states and regions, political leaders have refused to discourage the protests, and are instead moving to prepare local hospitals, testing sites and contact tracing forces for what many predict will be a resurgence of COVID-19 across the country. But just as the danger of the virus itself has not changed, neither have the funding or organizational obstacles that left states scrambling in the early months of the pandemic.

Now, as two crises that disproportionately impact black Americans collide—one, the pandemic, and the other ongoing police brutality—officials predict that the country’s patchwork response could mean a rocky, and perhaps deadly, road ahead.

Weighing the risk

In the days and weeks after George Floyd’s killing by Minneapolis police sparked mass protests, most governors, mayors, physicians, epidemiologists and local health commissioners did not condemn the gatherings or encourage participants to go home. Instead, mayors from Atlanta to Oklahoma City to Washington D.C. joined marchers, while city employees in Minneapolis, New York, St. Louis and Baltimore distributed masks to demonstrators. Nearly 1,300 public health workers signed an open letter calling the protests “vital to the national public health and to the threatened health specifically of Black people in the United States.”

But these acts of solidarity were not taken lightly, public health experts tell TIME. While the threat of COVID-19 has not diminished, the circumstances have shifted, requiring protesters, and thus officials, to make informed calculations about the relative threats to public health and safety. “The impact of systemic racism over centuries is far greater than the impact of COVID,” says Julia Marcus, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Harvard Medical School. “And if we can make progress toward dismantling structural racism in a moment of collective action, then that actually could have a positive impact on public health.”

But, Marcus adds, state and local officials must also work to encourage protesters to gather as safely as possible. “What we should be doing right now is very clearly communicating the risks and ways that people can reduce any potential harms,” she says. For example, on June 6, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene released recommendations for protesters, encouraging people to use noisemakers instead of singing or chanting, carry hand sanitizer, and avoid contact with vulnerable people after attending demonstrations. Public leaders in many cities have encouraged residents to get tested for COVID-19 after they participate in protests.

Police interactions

While many protesters nationwide appear to be wearing masks, not everyone is doing so. And police officers’ actions can make things worse, public health experts say. Photos and videos across the country have shown police officers not wearing masks, and other police actions, like corralling demonstrators, spraying chemical irritants that produce tears and coughing, and crowding people into vans and jails can exacerbate the spread of the virus. In Chicago, Rossana Rodriguez-Sanchez, an alderman for the city’s 33rd ward, spent hours at a precinct helping release on bail detained protesters last week and told TIME “there was not a single officer wearing a mask.”

Taylor Barros, a 16-year-old who was arrested at a protest in Brooklyn, told TIME that the police officers she interacted with acted inconsistently regarding mask usage. “As soon as we got on the bus, they removed my bandana from my face because the cops said I could choke myself,” Barros said. Another officer later handed out masks to those in custody.

Department protocols require New York City and Chicago police officers to wear masks during the pandemic. The NYPD previously told TIME it was “working as fast and safely as we can to process arrests during this unprecedented time.” A spokesperson for the Chicago Police Department told TIME that in addition to requiring masks and gloves outside, it is “strongly recommended” that officers wear these items inside precincts and department vehicles, but acknowledged that given “the heightened activity that officers have been responding to in the past week,” those recommendations have not always been followed.

Keep up to date with our daily coronavirus newsletter by clicking here.

Preparing for a surge

Research shows it can take up to 14 days for those newly infected with the coronavirus to exhibit symptoms of the disease. As a result, epidemiologists expect that cases linked to the ongoing protests will begin appearing in the next week or two. But, they warn, the data is muddy: already, almost half of states are seeing an uptick in coronavirus infection rates, likely tied to the lifting of stay-at-home orders beginning in late April and May. By June 9, at least 22 states had increasing COVID-19 cases.

This dynamic—a bump in infections due to reopening, combined with another expected rise due to protests—means that states are again scrambling to prepare for an increase in hospitalizations. But in early June, some cities and regions are much better prepared than others. NYC Health + Hospitals, the corporation that operates New York City’s public hospitals, said that if the city, the epicenter of the outbreak, sees another spike, it is “prepared to re-activate strategies it implemented in late-March/early-April to respond to COVID-19.” These steps included nearly tripling ICU capacity, reassigning doctors to treat coronavirus patients and recruiting additional clinical support, a spokesperson said.

In Minneapolis, doctors say they are also on track to handle a surge of new cases. Abbott Northwestern Hospital, which is near where Floyd was killed, has not taken specific steps in response to the protests, but Dr. Timothy Sielaff, chief medical officer of Allina Health, which runs the hospital, said the health system is ready to scale up its response if needed. “Allina Health has been actively preparing for a surge in COVID-19 patients for the last few months,” he said in a statement. “We have solid plans in place and will run the plans in accordance with patient volumes.”

Data suggests that other parts of the country where cases are increasing are less prepared. Thirty two states had low ICU availability on Tuesday, according to data from Covid Exit Strategy. Hospitals in Montgomery, Alabama have gotten so crowded they had to send patients to other parts of the state, and metropolitan areas such as Phoenix and Memphis are projected to run out of ICU beds in three weeks, according to the COVID-19 Burden Index, run by the health care intelligence firm Leavitt Partners.

In Arizona, the state health director urged hospitals on June 6 to “fully activate” their emergency plans and to reduce or suspend elective surgeries. That directive came one day after Banner Health, the state’s largest health system, told reporters its ICUs are “very busy” and that if trends continue, the system would soon need to exercise its surge plan. By June 8, Banner Health said it also recently reached capacity on extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) machines, which act as external lungs for patients with severe lung damage, a potential complication of COVID-19.

Racial disparities

As local governments make their preparations, public health officials say hospital care, testing and contact-tracing efforts must be designed carefully to reach out to Black Americans, who have been dying at a much higher rate from COVID-19 than white people, and who express lower rates of trust in public institutions. “Black and brown people are especially aware of the unethical treatment that happens, and the ways in which even public health policies have been complicit in exacerbating health disparities,” says Lorraine Dean, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Johns Hopkins University who studies racial health disparities.

Dean notes that actions by the federal government—from President Trump’s defense of white nationalists in Charlottesville to his administration’s slow response to the current pandemic—make it harder for people to trust their local governments and health departments too. “If there’s already a distrust of the U.S. as a whole, and U.S. systems as a whole, the health care system is a part of that,” she says.

Some states have taken proactive steps to address this trust gap. The Minnesota Department of Health, for instance, is working to set up voluntary COVID-19 testing sites for anyone who participated in mass gatherings such as demonstrations, clean-ups and vigils, and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said on June 7 that his state was adding 15 testing sites for protesters and that New York City would conduct 35,000 tests a day so that demonstrators can better protect themselves and their families. Atlanta added free testing sites for protesters on June 6. Public health officials in other large cities have frequently reminded residents they can now get tested for COVID-19 even without symptoms.

Even before the protests, Baltimore started piloting three mobile testing sites that do not need appointments or doctor referrals, in addition to its other community testing sites. The city used print fliers and radio ads to reach parts of the community who may not be on social media, and these continue to be options for people who want to get tested after attending protests.

A trust gap

The next step is contact tracing, which entails workers identifying anyone who has come into contact with an infected person, and then providing guidance on quarantining, medical treatment and other services. This tracking is widely considered indispensable to slowing the spread of COVID-19. U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield told Congress on June 4 that in order to control the next wave of COVID-19, the U.S. needs an army of between 30,000 and 100,000 contact tracers. While many cities have begun hiring rafts of new contract tracers, they’re still largely playing catch up.

A few weeks ago, Los Angeles had just 400 of the 6,000 contact tracers it estimated it would need for California’s reopening, while New York City launched its contact tracing program on June 1 with 1,700 workers after Mayor Bill de Blasio said in early May he aimed to have 2,500 by early June and eventually hire between 5,000 and 10,000 contact tracers. Philadelphia’s Department of Public Health, which created a new contact tracing division, currently has only about a dozen contact tracers on staff, the department told TIME. In Columbus, Ohio, health department staffers have been reassigned as contact tracers and have seen their workloads increase significantly in recent weeks. John Henry Jr., an HIV counselor currently doing contact tracing there, told reporters at a press briefing on June 4 that a few weeks ago, he was supposed to reach about a dozen contacts each day, and now he has to call as many as 30 contacts daily.

As police continue to arrest—and in some cases abuse—protesters, public health officials say contract tracers face an uphill battle. Protesters, many of whom are already distrustful of police and public authorities, may be unwilling to provide government workers with the names and contact information of friends or colleagues with whom they were protesting. “I fear that there will be even less uptake, especially in communities that really do need the most contact tracing,” says Dean, the expert at Johns Hopkins. “I definitely think that distrust of the health care system that already existed and was warranted—there’s no reason why it shouldn’t continue to play out when it comes to COVID.”

Baltimore Health Commissioner Dr. Letitia Dzirasa told TIME that her city is working to bridge the trust gap. “Even leading up to this point, we tried to be somewhat intentional about our messaging around contact tracing and tried to indicate that we’d never ask for certain personal information, like social security or credit card number or immigration status,” Dzirasa says.

On June 4, Baltimore announced it would hire some 300 additional contact tracers to support the roughly 100 full-time and 28 part-time staffers it had already put on the task. The city is also partnering with trusted local figures such as church leaders, community organizers and peer recovery specialists to help tell residents about the importance of everything from mask-wearing to contact tracing. This last part is perhaps the most essential: “We recognize that we may not get the accurate answer every single time,” Dzirasa says. “But I think it’s important that we continue to make the effort and build trust within the community and say, ‘Please let us know who you’ve been in contact with.’”

Effective contract tracing, after all, may be one of the only ways to encourage mass public protests while also containing the rampant spread of a deadly disease.

— With reporting by Andrew R. Chow/New York

Please send any tips, leads, and stories to [email protected]

#Blogger

0 notes

itsfinancethings · 4 years

Link

Weighing the risk

Police interactions

Keep up to date with our daily coronavirus newsletter by clicking here.

Preparing for a surge

Racial disparities

A trust gap

Effective contract tracing, after all, may be one of the only ways to encourage mass public protests while also containing the rampant spread of a deadly disease.

— With reporting by Andrew R. Chow/New York

Please send any tips, leads, and stories to [email protected]

#IFTTT #Blogger

0 notes

viralnewstime · 4 years

Link

Weighing the risk

Police interactions

Keep up to date with our daily coronavirus newsletter by clicking here.

Preparing for a surge

Racial disparities

A trust gap

Effective contract tracing, after all, may be one of the only ways to encourage mass public protests while also containing the rampant spread of a deadly disease.

— With reporting by Andrew R. Chow/New York

Please send any tips, leads, and stories to [email protected]

#Blogger

0 notes

celebritylive · 5 years

Link

Abby Huntsman and Meghan McCain say they’re like sisters, and they have the stories to prove it.

There’s the day-or-night Facetiming; the text thread full of memes and funny tweets that one or the other has missed; that one bathroom conversation at dinner about whether or not Huntsman, 33, liked McCain’s new boyfriend (spoiler: she did — and then McCain, 35, married him).

And then there’s the hours and hours of advice given and received: No, don’t wear that bright blue jumpsuit on the air while pregnant; yes, I will feel that weird lump on your chest in case it’s something more serious. (Luckily it wasn’t.)

“We’re like salt and pepper, right?” Huntsman, the daughter of former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., recently told PEOPLE in her dressing room with McCain sitting nearby.

“I always say, ‘Everyone needs salt and pepper and you need them both together.’ You don’t just want the pepper and you don’t just want the salt.”

It’s practically a cottage industry trying to dissect who on The View — the top-rated daytime talk show Huntsman and McCain, 35, co-host with Joy Behar, Whoopi Goldberg and Sunny Hostin — likes who else, who is feuding with whom and who is trying to cut a hole out of their contract to use as an escape hatch.

RELATED: Party Time! The View Throws Pregnant Abby Huntsman a Baby Shower for Her Twins on the Way

McCain, the show’s most conservative voice, is also its most guarded host. She’ll tell you that. “This show nicknamed me ‘the Ice Queen,'” she says.

In truth, most days, she is sitting a few feet away from one of her closest friends — a bond forged by their similarities as much as their differences and their years together, first in national politics and then in media.

They tell this story about how they first became friends: Huntsman and McCain were both living in New York City and working at Fox News and Huntsman texted McCain, asking if she wanted to have a drink.

“I think it was my mom, she was like, ‘You and Meghan have so much in common, you guys have got to just connect,'” Huntsman remembers.

She was right.

“We have had so many bad experiences in this industry, where women were not supporting other women. And I’ve seen it and experienced it, and Abby’s seen it and experienced it,” McCain says. “Everybody always tries to pit us against each other or act like there’s only one job for one politician’s daughter,” she continues.

“And we said the day we got margaritas that we were never going to go low and be that and not support each other,” McCain says. No matter what.

“Since margaritas to now, she’s had three children, my dad died, I had a miscarriage, we work on The f—— View,” McCain says, her voice sharpening just as it often does on the show — razor-like but not unaware of how her anger sounds and how to make it a little funny.

RELATED: Meghan McCain Condemns Fake Video Shown at Trump Resort Showing Him Gunning Down Her Father

It’s true: It’s been a year for both Huntsman and McCain and to get through it they’ve relied, in part, on each other in different ways.

Huntsman warms McCain — breaks through her shell — and McCain will always tell Huntsman the truth. (And when there’s a conflict, Huntsman is the one knocking on McCain’s door, telling her they need to talk about it.)

“It’s good for me to give a little bit of me to her and her to give a little bit of me,” McCain says.

“I don’t want to be friends with myself,” Huntsman says. “I don’t want to be friends with someone that’s exactly like me, because you don’t learn as much.”

“You make me stronger,” she tells McCain.

McCain was Huntsman’s first call when she found out she was pregnant with twins, whom she welcomed in June, followed by a two-week stay in the NICU for infant daughter Ruby.

And Huntsman was one of the first people McCain told about her recent pregnancy, which ended in a miscarriage, as she revealed this summer.

“We were texting each other and I’m like, ‘I’m here for you,’ she’s like, ‘I’m here for you,'” Huntsman says. “And I’m like, Here we are, two women going through very scary things, very emotional things, and we can still — she was there for me, supportive and loving, no matter what she went through. And I think that told me so much about her as a person.”

“I know there are women, when they experience miscarriages, can’t be around pregnancy, which I totally get,” McCain says. But it was different for her: Huntsman “got pregnant right after my dad died. … I thought it was so beautiful a reminder of the cycle of life.”

McCain, who says she and husband Ben Domenech are still trying to figure out whether they might try for more children, is especially connected to Huntsman’s youngest son, William.

RELATED: Why Meghan McCain Says Her Miscarriage ‘Hit Me a Lot Harder Than I Thought It Would’

“I was so sad throughout the whole thing and it just felt like so much darkness and sadness and then I remember going over to her apartment right after they were born and I have a picture of him laying on me,” McCain says. “She was saying there’s actually something medical about babies laying on you — nurturing and soothing.”

“Skin to skin,” Huntsman interjects and not for the first time.

Friends for this long, they have a shared shorthand about certain things: stories they finish and tells to their true feelings. (“Abby was in shock” during The View‘s interview with Pamela Anderson, McCain says. “I looked at her face and I was like, ‘Oh my God, I know something’s going down.'”)

They both know they’re in a brighter-than-normal spotlight, given how President Donald Trump has fueled interest in politics — and the ratings of The View, where Trump is a nearly daily topic.

And this brings us to President Donald Trump’s oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., and Don Jr.’s girlfriend, Kimberly Guilfoyle. The couple appeared on Nov. 7 on The View, for the first time ever, ostensibly to promote Don Jr.’s new book, Triggered.

Instead, he and Guilfoyle, an adviser to the president’s re-election campaign, sparred with the hosts about impeachment, the Bidens and President Trump’s divisive style. Huntsman led the questioning, pressing Don Jr. about why he revealed the alleged name of the government whistleblower at the center of the impeachment investigation into President Trump.

McCain’s father, the late Sen. John McCain, has been a favorite target of the president’s even after McCain’s death from brain cancer last year.

She did not speak during Don Jr.’s appearance on The View — save for one segment where she told him, “Mr. Trump, a lot of Americans in politics miss character, and a lot of people miss the soul of this country. You and your family have hurt a lot of people and put a lot of people through a lot of pain, including the Khan family, who is a Gold Star family that I think should be respected for the loss of their son. Does all of this make you feel good?”

Huntsman tells PEOPLE she and McCain “talked a ton” ahead of that interview. Beforehand, McCain told her, “I really need you on this one.”

“You had every reason to want to get it right,” Huntsman tells McCain in their PEOPLE interview. (For the record, they say they didn’t interact much, if at all, with Don Jr. or Guilfoyle while off-camera.)

“I had a really hard time with the Don Jr. interview, really hard,” McCain says. “And I just was asking for advice afterward.”

“It was tough for everybody, but it wasn’t like we were sitting there calling people names,” Huntsman says.

“I knew doing the interview with Don Jr., I knew I would obviously be safe with everyone, but I told Abby, ‘My normal spitfire, I just don’t have the emotional bandwidth for it,'” McCain says. “And I knew she would take the lead and she f—— did amazingly.”

She also gives Huntsman credit for her questioning in an ABC News interview with Ivanka Trump, the president’s oldest daughter and a senior aide.

Huntsman and McCain have talked about the idea of a podcast together as a way to have more in-depth conversations with interview subjects.

McCain, drolly, says, “I wanted to call it Sick of This S— with Abby and Meghan.”

“We have a lot of friends that are Democrat, Libertarian, whatever anyone wants to be. It’s not contentious,” Huntsman says.

The times being what they are though, with divisions widening and tempers flaring, they say they feel out of step with a Republican Party more interested in conflict than conciliation.

“Now, we’re in this place where we’re like, ‘We don’t fit in,'” Huntsman says, “‘We can’t even have conversations.'”

“It makes me feel alone,” McCain says. “But then I don’t feel as alone, because I know Abby feels the same way.”

from PEOPLE.com https://ift.tt/37tpqhB

#Celebrity

0 notes

pinktheoristcollector · 4 years

Text

New top story from Time: City Officials Scramble to Prepare as Mass Protests Threaten a Resurgence of COVID-19

Weighing the risk

Police interactions

Keep up to date with our daily coronavirus newsletter by clicking here.

Preparing for a surge

Racial disparities

A trust gap

Effective contract tracing, after all, may be one of the only ways to encourage mass public protests while also containing the rampant spread of a deadly disease.

— With reporting by Andrew R. Chow/New York

Please send any tips, leads, and stories to [email protected]

from Blogger https://ift.tt/3hfP7a3 via IFTTT

#IFTTT #Blogger

0 notes