#i think it perfectly sums up the 'we are all human' aspect of the show itself

[haventacluewhatimdoing]

Hugh Laurie and Robert Sean Leanord just fucking about and shooting paintballs on the set of House before it gets destroyed makes me feel so many things

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

The problems I have with HP's world building and the Wizarding World as a whole can be summed up perfectly with Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans. Sounds like a appropriately whimsical treat for a secret magical society. But, they beans flavoured like bodily fluids. We know there's ear wax and vomit flavoured beans, but I bet there are... other flavours.

And the question is, why? Why do that? Why sell something to children where there's a chance they might end up eating a bean that tastes and smells exactly like human shit.

Like, obviously, Rowling wrote it as a funny bit in a children's book that I doubt she expected people to dissect and nitpick over twenty years after she wrote it. But, in-universe, it shows that wizards just lack basic common sense. it's a wonder they made it to the 21st century without going extinct.

As weird as it sounds, I actually find the wizarding world fascinating in that it makes an eerie amount of sense: it's just not what JKR nor anyone else thinks it is/what it's supposed to be.

There's a larger post to be made but to me the wizarding world reeks of an extremely isolated and inbred society, complacent in their use of a technology they no longer understand and slowly forgetting aspects of that technology including the underlying fundamentals, neighbors to very different societies they feel threatened by for all they won't admit as much, and a society that has roots in western traditions but missed out on much of the Enlightenment/Post Enlightenment British history.

So, we see a world that's like Britain but... not...

The professors are there to teach, not go provide emotional guidance or emotional intervention of any kind with the students (read anti-bullying measures). There doesn't seem to be a child welfare or any kind of welfare system in place (orphans get a stipend to attend Hogwarts, but we see no mention of a wizarding orphanage/foster care system or money allotted to those like Ron Weasley who are poor but not Muggleborn). There are two historians ever mentioned and from what we see of Hogwarts a History it is not a modern western historical approach that's covered there. Everyone's extremely closely related and there are no actual positions beyond those a) made for yourself through entrepreneurship b) the ever bloated Ministry. They have no understanding of Muggles at all and those who claim to or wish to tend to be... grossly offensive is the only word I can think of.

It's a great satirical world of a decaying society and, most important, not quite one we'd be familiar with.

But this has nothing to do with your actual question (well, it does, but it's tangential).

To get back to the damned beans, from what we see, the wizarding world loves practical jokes and slapstick humor. Given they're wizards, serious injuries seem relatively easy to repair. If you start vomiting slugs all day, there's a potion for that. If you lose your bones, there's a potion for that. Blow off your hands, there's probably a potion for that.

What that means is that physical injuries in the wizarding world tend not to really matter. Unless you're using dark curses (see Bill's torn up face in HBP), you can probably get whatever it is fixed quickly. Which means that wizards find slapstick style practical jokes very funny.

Which gets us back to the candy.

The beans aren't alone, there are also the acid pops that actually burn through your tongue, blood pops that taste like blood, chocolate frogs which will jump away from you, ice mice that do... something I forget, but point being that we see wizards get very excited about the prospect of not only magic in their candies but some element of danger/just awfulness with it.

That's the exciting gamble of the beans. Sure, you might end up with a nice flavor, you might, but then you could end up with vomit or diarrhea flavored. When the latter happens, you can make a big show to your friends, "OH NO, I GOT THE VOMIT BEAN! OH HELLS, I GOT THE VOMIT BEAN! THIS IS THE WORST! I GOT THE VOMIT BEAN!" and everyone laughs at and with you over your terrible rotten luck over getting the vomit bean while Jimmy over there got strawberry.

It's kind of like a demented version of playing one of the first few editions of Mario Party: someone's going to be fucked over, that's just how the game goes, the delightful enjoyment of it is seeing who the loser is and lording it over them when you steal all their stars they eat the vomit bean.

Basically, you're kind of right about Bertie Botts Every Flavor Bean. They exist because it's funny, I just think the wizards find it funny too.

[billiejean485]

So, I rewatched Risk again and... Welp, I'm still getting shocked at how much this boy's will was controlled. But I'm gonna come back to that in a bit. What I want to bring to attention first is:

Felix' reaction upon seeing Emilie.

The amount of theories and what they're saying about Emilie rivals the one about Pink Diamond's (from Steven Universe) personality and we all know how that went.

The shock Felix had is just... I would say the same as one of a person who was controlled in every aspect against their will and mistreated as a living being and that now saw the abuser who they thought was long gone. His first reaction was to get as far away as possible; he even had his back against the tube elevator. Though, he did recover quite fast after he got out if there...

And then there was another thing, with Adrien, in the Christmas special.

Remember when he openly said he couldn't destroy a Christmas tree because his 'mom' came to mind just as he was about to?

Back then, and up until now, I dismissed that as the typical trope of a kid not being able to destroy something that symbolizes their positive relationship with a deceased parent, but.... Nothing that could hold water for that trope came up at that moment. And we KNOW he's a Sentibeing, so... what if.... he was just 'programed' to never misbehave like that? It would make all the sense - if Gabriel and Amelie wanted a perfect son (and so far we've seen Gabriel never letting Adrien have a say in what he wants to do) they/she most likely must have made him act that way. And Sentibeings can't act opposite to how their creators intended them to be, even when the creator dies (unless they're given their Amok).

So yeah. Really scared of how dark this backstory could be.

On the other, and even more concerning, hand - what does that make Felix? How did he come to be? Why does he look exactly like his 'cousin' (or better called - Sentimonster twin)? What did they do to him? Was he discarded as a flawed creation and given to Amelie? How badly was he mistreated??

Adrien, as far as I could tell from an artistic side, really has the appearance of both Emilie and Gabriel, as if he has both of their genes. So why does Felix look exactly the same? I mean, we are missing one crucial figure in this story - and that is Felix's 'father'. Unless he looks somewhat similar to Gabriel, then it makes no sense for both of these boys to look the same.

Even worse - we know that Sentimonsters can't be snapped out of existence by anyone else other than the wearer of the Peacock Miraculous OR the creator themselves. BUT GABRIEL THREATENED TO KILL HIM WITH A SNAP and that was followed by Felix's reply: "I knew you were no ordinary man uncle." What does it mean???

Astruc did confirm that only one holder can create one Sentimonster at a time, and that one can give the Peacock Miraculous to another person to create a different one. So did Emilie create Adrien and Gabriel create Felix? Or does it have something to do with the twin rings? Though, in that case, Gabriel shouldn't be able to have a say in what happens to Felix's existence. Also, Felix wasn't afraid of him; so what is going on??...

... I think it's time we all accepted that Miraculous took a dark turn - or at least finally revealed that very dark backstory no one was aware of.

And if you wanna talk about mistreatment of the Sentibeings... now's the time. I think this all perfectly sums up how creating something only so you would make it do whatever you want it to do is as inhumane as mistreating any other human and living being. There are no excuses.

... "Getting sentimental on a Sentimonster" rings a bell. But, that same man, who views Sentis in such a way did go to certain lengths so Adrien wouldn't get killed or otherwise harmed; he does seem to care about him in some way. Although... he shows that he doesn't care if he hurts him emotionally or psychologically when he uses him for his masterplans. Plus... he stated that the "ring is the only thing he has left of his wife"... Okay, Adrien is a big part of that ring. Is that why he doesn't want to lose him? Just because he's a memento of Emilie? It didn't seem that way....

Idk, feel free to share your thoughts with me. But, for heaven's sake - be nice. And go away if you're coming here only to salt on Thomas Astruc's writing.

[thevindicativevordan]

Any thoughts on Grant Morrison's Action Comics run? Beyond T shirt-and-jeans Superman being great.

That whole run reinvigorated my love of the character.

There have been numerous thoughtpieces about New 52 Superman, how he worked and how he didn't but these two entries really do a great job of summing up why Morrison's take on Superman was great. Morrison laid the foundation for a new generational Superman that DC completely fucked up and ran into the ground. I'll always be bitter about that, even if I had tapped out of reading the New 52 Superman books by the end due to how bad they got. Editorial and their idiotic mandates were what screwed over the potential of this take in my eyes.

Now I get that it wasn't to everyone's taste, but I cannot fathom how anyone could ever claim that Pre-Flashpoint Superman was better. If you liked Byrne's reboot better, your guy already got rebooted after Infinite Crisis. For someone like me who really enjoyed the Johns/Busiek era, that era's potential got spoiled after Johns & Busiek left, with New Krypton imploding and the awful Grounded taking it's place. When you get to the point where the best Superman book is the one starring Lex Luthor, it's time to reassess the franchise and figure out where the hell it went wrong.

Which is exactly what Morrison did. For this new Superman, Morrison mined all the best ideas of every Superman era to really give what I consider the ideal "base" for Superman. They also took pains to address common criticisms about Superman, working to correct his pop culture image. People have been complaining that Superman is "too perfect", "too unrelatable" for a long time, so Morrison addressed that. They gave Superman his balls back, and let him reacquire that Golden Age edge he had originally.

There are a lot of complaints you can make about Morrison's Superman, but I don't see how you could accuse this guy of being "flawless" or "bland". He definitely had a personality that you could describe, love him or hate him. Compassionate, but not a pushover. Clearly holding himself back, but unafraid to occasionally let loose. Flaws that were patently obvious, Clark had a temper here that could get him into trouble. There was a real showcase of anger here, of Superman being furious at the way people were treated by the rich and powerful, then doing something about it that I ate up.

I read this run just as I was coming into my teens and it hit perfectly for where I was in life. Did not want a Superman who would smile and tell me it gets better, I wanted a Superman who looked you in the eye and told you he felt that same anger, and then encouraged you to go out and do something about how you felt. That was what this run delivered in spades, and it expanded what I believed could be done with Superman.

While it totally blew my mind to see Superman acting this way the first time I read Morrison's Action Comics run, in retrospect it really isn't that different from how Superman has acted even under Byrne. One of the few traits I've seen carry across Superman incarnations in the comics is that he has a temper underneath that affable nature. "Don't tug on Superman's cape" as the old song goes. This run simply elevated that to the forefront of the character again, for the better in my eyes given I believe "Wrath" is Superman's Deadly Sin.

In fact, one of the strongest features of this run is that Superman gets actual character development over the course of the run, analogous to what Batman underwent in Morrison's Bat-Epic. While the Bat-Epic was merely Morrison re-canonizing Batman's entire history, and applying a retroactive character development storyline that culminated in Morrison's current Batman work, their Action Comics run had them attempt to craft something similar for Superman from scratch. What that meant was Morrison attempting to draw on the most important traits of every Superman era and incorporate those into this new take. So Superman had the Golden Age temper, compassion for the oppressed, and cockiness. The Silver Age supergenuis, proud scion of Krypton who cherished his Kryptonian nature, member of the Legion of Superheroes, and participant in stories that weren't afraid to get weird. Superman's wrestling with his place in the world, the importance of Clark Kent, and making journalism a key part of the character strike me as all being hallmarks of the Bronze Age. From Post-Crisis we got that Clark views himself as human and loves his adopted parents, considering them as equal to his birth ones.

One of the big frustrations for me with the endless origin stories for Superman, is that so many of them follow a predictable and stale formula where Clark puts on the suit and is essentially ready to go. Doesn't interfere with human affairs, is modest and humble, restrained in usage of his powers, it's like Clark has meta knowledge of what he "should" be, despite that he shouldn't have any foreknowledge of what a "superhero" should look like. He operates the same way at the start as he does in the modern day, and that's really boring to me. This Superman, because of the difference in powers and attitude, operated extremely different from his "present day" incarnation. Dangling Glenmorgan over the edge of a building isn't something a fully powered and mature Superman should do, but it works great to make his early days different and exciting to read about, it makes returning to that era something you can do different storytelling with. This run is the only time where I really cared that Superman is "supposed" to be the first superhero, because figuring out what that means here is a big part of how he develops.

We all know the common complaint that Superman is "too powerful" and that "nothing can hurt him" (funny how Thor never gets hit with those accusations), so Morrison made sure to show that this take on Superman could be beaten even if he could never be defeated. Events conspired to force Clark to use his brains as well as his powers to overcome the challenges in front of him.

Examples include him using his heat vision to fry Lex's equipment and escape the military, using his rocket ship to defeat Brainiac, and rallying the population of Metropolis to banish Vyndktvx. Not to say that Clark never used his brains before to win, but this run was very upfront and in your face about how important Clark's intellect is to triumphing over his foes. Can't take seriously the complaint that Superman is too overpowered when Morrison constantly showcased how even a very powerful Superman could get his shit wrecked by his Rogues.

Another example of Morrison addressing criticisms is Kryptonite. A lot of people poke fun at how convenient it is that pieces of Superman's homeworld follow him all the way to Earth. Isn't that a bit of an asspull? So Morrison made Kryptonite the power source of Superman's rocket, giving it a perfectly natural and believable reason both for it to end up on Earth, and for Lex & the military to get a hold of it since Pa Kent gave the military the rocket. That's still my preferred explanation for how Kryptonite ended up on Earth.

It also provides a better explanation for all the different Kryptonite variants. DC can handwave away the different types as a result of Lex experimenting or the different "forces" on Earth such as magic or the Speed Force or whatever creating the different variants. That to me is much more believable than Kryptonite travelling all across the galaxy yet still ending up on Earth somehow.

There have also been a lot of complaints about Superman's villains, and Morrison diligently set about reworking them. By far one of my favorite aspects of the run, was the villain revamps. Nimrod felt like a clean revamp of Terra-Man, making him into Superman's Kraven the Hunter struck me as a patently obvious route to go, wild no one has followed up on that or used him since. Metallo felt like a good synthesis of Johns take of him as an Anti-Superman weapon, and the sympathetic aspects of Corben's origin that are always there, I liked that Morrison didn't make him a total bastard before his transformation like Johns did. Brainiac got some sympathy added to him in that the collected worlds that were already marked for damnation, thus he was "saving" them in a fashion. Clay Ramses embodied toxicity as a wife-beater even before becoming Kryptonite Man, and I thought his backstory was a great way for Clark to still deal with "real" issues via a manner he could punch. Ramses is still the best take on Kryptonite Man. Vyndktvx felt like the greatest realization of the threat Mr. Mxyzptlk could pose should he decide to get serious since Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?, plus I'm a sucker for stories where superheroes fight the Devil. Drekken and Superdoom took the only interesting aspects of Doomsday (his ability to evolve and that he can kill Superman respectively), and were much more interesting characters.

And oh my God, speaking of Superdoom, that part of Morrison's Action run has aged like fine wine. I don't know if they caught wind of DC's plans for the character, or if they were just prescient, but everything that Superdoom is playing on is still sadly all too present. What Superdoom is as a character is a condemnation of what DC keeps doing with Superman: killing him off or making him evil.

When you realize what Superdoom (demand for a more violent and "realistic" Superman) and Vyn (WB/DC) stand in for, it makes the frustration Morrison is channeling much more palpable. Those two plotlines are all DC can think of to do with the character, returning to those again and again. Endlessly attempting to recapture the high of Batman and Doomsday beating the shit out of Supes in The Dark Knight Returns and Death of Superman. Overcoming these two obstacles is Superman's greatest challenge as conceived by Morrison, because both are out to corrupt and ruin the very idea of him. It's not just a physical death he faces, but a metaphysical one as well. Sadly it's a threat Superman just can't seem to lick in the real world, with more and more takes on "Evil Superman" coming.

Lois and Jimmy are great here, because Morrison actually made the investigative journalism aspect of Superman important. Lois is an active participant in the story, trying to break in to the base where Clark is being held by her father, competing with Clark for stories (I love how Morrison writes the banter between the two of them), and generally being classic Lois. Jimmy though benefitted from being positioned as a peer rather than as a kid in comparison to the two, something I wish the comics had carried forward. It looks like My Adventures With Superman is going with that interpretation at least, so I hope others do as well. Jimmy being Clark's roommate really adds to their bond, and I wish we had gotten more stories with that status quo.

Investigative reporter Clark Kent was so actively used here that it feels jarring reading other Superman runs where they tend to downplay and ignore it. Following Clark as he travels to different areas of Metropolis and actually interacts with people, instead of hovering above them as Superman, makes him feel human. Watching Clark actively pursue stories aimed at bettering peoples livelihoods, and seeing how those stories crossed with the superheroics, was one of my favorite aspects of the run. It's one unfortunately few other writers seem all that interested in, especially the New 52 writers who followed Morrison (I know editorial probably bears a lot of blame for that though).

Besides all that, this run was a lot of fun! The Legion of Superheroes showed up, their connection to Clark restored, and they got to play a big role in Clark's adventures! Krypto the Superdog! Martian colonies! Memorizing all of medicine, Superman performs a lifesaving operation! Lex using a "bullet train" to knock Clark out! 5-D imps! Rampaging robots from beyond! A Phantom Zone Halloween story! John Henry Irons suits up as Steel and kicks ass alongside Clark! Every Superman Rogue teams up to try to kill him, but Lex Luthor saves his life because that's a privilege he reserves for himself! Showcasing their trademark love for the Supermythos, Morrison took us on a tour of Superlore that demonstrated the depth and width of what could be done with Superman. Meanwhile the backups by Sholly Fisch excelled at giving us smaller, more human stories about Superman (the one where Clark meets Pa again via time travel "after" Pa has died always gives me a lump in my throat to read).

Ultimately this didn't get to be the foundation for the next generation of Superman stories as it deserved. Johns made New 52 Superman the scapegoat in Doomsday Clock for a lot of storytelling choices he did over in Justice League, something that pisses me off to no end. You want to tell me that this guy "didn't relate" to people, didn't inspire "hope"?

Like hell he didn't. This guy was Superman in every way that mattered and he deserved better than to be framed as the scapegoat for all the stupid decisions DC made about what to do with him. Greg Pak was able to do some great work with this version after Morrison, and just like how Gene Yang got a redemption work starring Superman, I hope to one day see Pak return to the character. Would love to read a Black Label Superman story by Pak that follows his take on young Superman.

All wasn't lost however. Against all odds, and Rebirth trying it's damndest to sweep everything under the rug, it looks like parts of this era have actually survived to the current Infinite Frontier era. With Morrison being heavily involved no less, both as an ideas guy and as an actual writer.

Superman & the Authority is explicitly Superman coming full circle back to the attitude displayed by his young counterpart under Morrison. Janin has outright said that the costume Clark wears here is reminiscent of the t-shirt and jeans era of Superman, and this book so far feels saturated with an energy level from Morrison I haven't seen in their work for hire since they left Action. Reaching old age and realizing he never really delivered on the high ideals of his beginnings, it's Superman putting together a team to hopefully succeed where he couldn't alone. Scathing in how it criticizes the superhero status quo, this has been extremely entertaining to read. Wish Morrison was writing 12 issues with this team, and that ultimately it will be up to PKJ to deliver on the potential is a drawback (although I've loved PKJ's Action run so far), but I'm glad to see DC finally treating Morrison and their ideas with more respect than was shown during Rebirth.

Jon meanwhile feels like an even more explicit attempt at redoing New 52 Superman. There's the updated new suit, designed to appeal to a new generation with it's streamlined look. Positioning Jon as a Superman who wants to tackle the "real" issues, with Taylor explicitly comparing him to Golden Age Superman which as I mentioned was an era Morrison tried to reincorporate into their reboot. There's the Legion of Superheroes connection which played an important role in Morrison's reboot. The rumors about Jon's sexuality are interesting, hinting that DC is willing to go outside the box with him in a way they never would with Clark. I'm excited to see what kind of Superman Jon ends up becoming, if he can deliver on the promise of the New 52 Superman all the better.

This run deserves to be remembered and to have the lessons it tried to teach respected. Probably my favorite mainline run on Superman, I hope more people come around to liking it as time goes on.

[just-like-playing-tag]

aaaaaaa okay i just watched the new episode and im so curious about how theyre going to handle the rest of this arc? you always have really good takes so i was wondering what your thoughts were!! bunkerman is such an important character in this part of the story, it seems like they cant cut him out entirely????so where is he!!!

~ Sorry for the late answer, I kept procrastinating writing my thoughts because I knew this would have turned out to be long ahah ~

Thank you for the compliments, I'm flattered!!! Tho I doubt I will be of great help, I feel like I'm lost at sea ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ But I'll do my best!!!

First of all, I'd want to point out that, as of now, I'm confident they will not cut Bunkerman and Goldy Pond off the plot. Goldy Pond is a strong and solid arc that I'm sure received a positive response from SJ readers while it was on going; once it's animated, the anime will be completed of the action that has so far been lacking. As for Bunkerman, in the Shounen Jump's tpn popularity polls he earned 16th and 7th place, which makes me think he's fairly popular. His presence adds a very nice twist to the plot: not only he's the first male adult we see; even though he doesn't side with demons, he's still hostile to the children, which comes off as very surprising to the reader / watcher (and builds up to how Andrew and later the whole Ratri clan will persecute them, introducing the aspect that not all humans on the outside are their friends). Additionally, he is the first character to help build up the theme that Emma is not only going to help her friends and family, but also her enemies, which puts the basis of her character development and her decision to save all the demons and mamas. Moreover: how people have already pointed out, Bunkerman has also a very important role as representing the “what-if” version of the children, as showed in chapter 177:

His character has a very poignant role, as he's revealed to have a very tragic backstory: his story consolidates the cruelty of the world they live in, which is a main theme of tpn, and the way it's ultimately revealed how the children saved his life and gave him the chance to start living again comes to the viewer as extremely moving.

To sum up, he's too much of a great character to be omitted- they're not going to have all that great potential go to waste. His character development and personal growth is too powerful to be thrown away, and I refuse to believe they will (I'm going through chapter 109 again after a long time and I'm getting a little emotional :')

So next up is when we're going to see him, right? I doubt it is going to be soon. My guesses are that he'll show up either in the second half of the season, or even at the very end as teasing for an eventual following season.

The conditions in which the children have found the shelter unsettle me. The shelter confuses me so much, because things simply don't add up. If Bunkerman and his friends have already been there, then why Minerva's letter is still hanging there, unopened. On the opposite, if they have never been there, then that doesn't explain the cookies, which are a clear wink to manga readers, nor the scratched room. I'm confused, because these elements just aren't coherent with each other, and that makes me uneasy. I'd exclude that the Glory Bell escapees didn't open the letter, or that a Minerva supporter came back and placed a new one, but then again those elements really don't make any sense? Any that I can understand anyway- I hope they'll come up with a good explanation in the next episosodes.

Back to why I don't think Bunkerman will show up in the next episodes: several elements from the shelter make me think that. The most evident is obviously the rotten cookies. If he's just out hunting, and he usually lives in the shelter, then I don't see why he would keep those moldy biscuits (if not to commemorate his comrades? Dunnot). Besides, the shelter as for how it's been displayed seems to have not been inhabited for a long time: all the crockery was neatly placed; besides from the biscuits, there was not a single hint of people living or having lived there like the food we saw in the manga- if there had been, the children would have surely noticed. Again, that confuses me. Everything is perfectly tidy and clean, making it more similar to the untouched, neat shelter the Glory Bell escapees found when they arrived there for the first time- except for a conveniently scratched room? Isn't that weird that the room and the biscuits are the very only hint that somebody has been there before? But I'm digressing.

Other things that make me think Bunkerman is not going to show up: the children are learning everything on their own. There won't be Bunkerman to show them the armory, to talk about the limited resources and stuff. I believe that them finding about all these things on their own is a further proof that the kids aren't going to meet him soon.

I don't know how the children are going to meet Bunkerman. I'll be frank, I'm very worried, because for the way the children meet Bunkerman to be as it is is of great importance for his character and character development; I worry to make them meet in a different context is likely to have negative consequences to his character growth.

Shifting back to Goldy Pond, I don't think we're getting there any time soon either? There was no hint to A08-63 in the letter. My personal guess is that the "Poachers" skretch was replaced with "help" because we're not getting any poacher this season, and they didn't want to introduce so early an element that is not going to be explained in this season. Of course "Minerva" could reveal it in their phone call- but then why not mention it at all in the letter, besides from ending the episode with a cliff hanger? Furthermore: would it make sense to introduce Goldy Pond before Bunkerman? Goldy Pond wouldn't be the same without him- besides the fact that it would be hard to integrate the story of Lucas and the other Glory Bell escapees, this is a friendly reminder that it's Bunkerman to both break Lewis' mask and later kill him.

Now, as for my personal guess? I think the children are going to leave the shelter and look for Minerva. First of all, that would explain why, in the opening, everyone has the go-out-shelter-coats:

That's the outfit Emma, Ray and later Gilda and Don wear when going out; it's an outfit we never saw the younger children wear in the manga. Another reason why I think that all the children are going to leave together is because it's the only way to protect them: they still can't be sure the shelter is a safe place (the manga reveals it isn't), so they can't leave the children alone in it. In the manga, they divide in two groups: Emma, Ray and Bunkerman leave the shelter, and Gilda and Don would have stayed to keep the children safe. For how things are in the anime, this becomes a problem. Let's say they decide to leave the shelter (and like, they will, otherwise the plot can't move on lol): Emma and Ray can't leave on their own, without Bunkerman to both guide and protect them; at the same time, they can't leave with the support of Gilda and Don, for that would mean leaving the children alone in the shelter. It's not only because leaving a group of less then nines alone would normally not be a good idea (these children are very smart, so maybe they'd manage to go on?), but they can't really know if the shelter will continue being a safe place: only because the demons haven't found it so far, that doesn't mean they can be sure they won't find it at some point; additionally, for what they know poachers are still after them. That's why I think the most logic progress of events will be for the children to leave the shelter together. Which, even though I stand for what I've said... Sounds like a very bad idea??? Not only the children keep travelling in this demon world- they also don't have weapons besides from bow and arrow? That's why I find the armory being empty one of the most senseless things- of course I want the children to be safe, but for the children to survive in demon forests completely unarmored sounds extremely unrealistic. I just hope they aren't going to kill one of the "irrelevant children" to prove how dangerous the world is, that would destroy me.

(I'm Chris.)

Ok, I think I covered everything! Thanks for asking! Let's hope together they won't mess this up for us :))

[willowistic22]

ok im gonna say it, what taylor swift song is romeo besides love story

Haha was waiting for this one actually. Can’t believe I can’t use love story grr. but yeah i get it. though plsss gimmie the chance to add a little bit of love story? I just love that song yknow. And jfc when I say ‘love’ it doesn’t always mean the romantic kind, aight? N e wayyys lesgo !

Love story. Pretty self explanatory actually. ‘We were both young when I first saw you’ I feel that him being a hopeless romantic started pretty young. He was young dumb but in love and that’s basically how he is when he’s in love. He loves the feeling when he first falls in love, when a love is still young. You don’t really know what you’re doing but you still act like you are because you can’t help it. Romeo mostly embrace the the whole being young and in love just because he loves the feeling and believes that PDA isn’t as bad as ppl might think. Well, not entirely but just enough yknow.

Invisible String. The song is basically the soulmate trope in a song form. And he does believes in soulmates. Let me crack into the... angsty stuff heheh >:). He has a long history of loving himself and sometimes doubt that there are ppl out there that would actually like him yknow. So he pretends there’s like this invisible string that connects him to others. Like destined to meet these few certain ppl. That’s what has kept him afloat all this time. Not many ppl would know it but it’s the truth.

Wonderland. ‘Didn't they tell us don't rush into things?’ and also ‘We found Wonderland, you and I got lost in it’ Now this one is more towards his mentality in stuff. Sometimes when he’s clouded with love (romance or otherwise, take your pick) he gets too easily excited like ‘woah!!! someone likes me!!!’ and goes a bit too quickly. Many ppl were scared off by how clingy this kid can get. Romeo has learned to calm himself yknow, but sometimes he gets too lost and forgets all about it. The second one is mostly because, in plain simple words, he thinks the world is full of shit. His mental health has been hit hard and some days just seem so plain and boring and he’s tired and he didn’t even know why he got up that morning. Sometimes he closes his eyes to pretend he’s somewhere he wants to be. Where he’s wanted and it’s acceptable to cling on ppl. Where he’s not tired and the world around him is in fact wonderful to be in.

Blank Space. Some ppl will describe him of having an endless list of ppl he was once associated with. Call it lovers, friends, whatever. Mostly they get scared bcs the more time they spent with Romeo, more of his true colors are being shown. Some impressions Romeo left them was ‘annoying’ ‘clingy’ and ‘too serious in stuff’. It’s only because Romeo just wants to find a connection. He likes stuff with meaning behind it. Not those meaningless relationships or small talk. He wants to find someone to give his all. Obv these ppl has shown him that when Romeo is proper and polite, just like the way he usually presents himself towards strangers, they like him but not when he’s being his passionate self and so they don’t deserve his heart. ‘Got a long list of ex-lovers, they'll tell you I'm insane’ Lots of ppl misunderstands his passionate self as ‘crazy’. But that’s just how he feels his feelings. Whether he’s sad, happy, or angry. It’s all because he has all this passionate energy to use up. Now here’s the kicker: he doesn’t give up to find that connection. He knows he’ll most likely get his heart broken again but he’s resilient. 

Lover. Yes, yes, we’ve made it perfectly clear that he’s a hopeless romantic. But this song specifically resonates with him. ‘Have I known you 20 seconds or 20 years?’ Romeo never half asses anything when it comes to getting to know others. He will go out of his way to listen to your laughter and sorrows because he loves the human personality. He thinks it’s so complex and amazing. Sometimes in one conversation he can really get a lot of information from someone. ‘With every guitar string scar on my hand, I take this magnetic force of a man to be my lover’ After all that disappointment he is still determined to love. Like I said before he’s resilient when it comes to these things. ‘Can I go where you go? Can we always be this close forever and ever?’ Once you got his love he will stick with you forever. This might be in a way calling him clingy and maybe he is. But that’s just how he shows his loyalty towards someone. And the rest of the song is basically what it’s like for Romeo to be in love and to be loved by Romeo. Beautiful and at peace, like you’re floating on clouds and everything in the world doesn’t matter anymore.

...Ready For It. Haha yes this sounds like a stretch but bare with me. ‘But if he’s a ghost, then I can be a phantom. Holding him for ransom, some’ I feel that despite the ‘bad impression’ he’s given ppl that left him, he did left some form a good mark on them too. Some have tried to insert themselves back in his life, realizing that maybe Romeo isn’t as bad as they thought he was. Of course, there are others that don't, which is always fine for Romeo’s end because he does understand that he’s ‘not for everyone’. ‘In the middle of the night, in my dreams. You should see the things we do, baby’ Despite his openness to love anyone, he does have his own standards. A vivid version of the kind of ppl he would like to share his heart with but he doesn’t over stretch himself to get them to like him other than maybe the usual meeting a person for the first time.

Don’t Blame Me. ‘Don't blame me, love made me crazy. If it doesn't, you ain't doin' it right’ Let me tell you that when it comes to forming a connection/relationship, it really brings out Romeo’s true colors. And I’ve said before that that’s when ppl start leaving him bcs he doesn’t like his passion being executed in a lot of aspects of his other personality. He’s considered ‘crazy’ for that. ‘Lord, save me, my drug is my baby, I'd be using for the rest of my life’ But when it comes to connecting to the right ppl, he will shine and thrive. Maybe he’ll use this opportunity to finally be himself without fearing that these ppl will leave his as well. ‘For you, I would cross the line’ and then there’s the priceless loyalty towards those ppl that I've mentioned. Yeah, Romeo will do anything for the ppl he loves.

This Is Me Trying. It’s how I think Romeo in his low would look. I’ve mentioned before that his mental health sometimes hits very low that he can barely do anything. It looks more like everything that he does is so tiring and all he can do is just stay in bed. He wants someone to know that he’s trying his best to get up just to brush his teeth or get some food. He wants someone to know that he’s trying his best. As much as he wants to, he can’t get through a day like that all alone. He needs someone else to be the one telling him to do things because days like these are usually when Romeo can’t bare to listen to himself. A simple ‘I’m proud of you’ from someone else can be enough to get him to other things that seems difficult. But hey, he’s trying.

To quickly sum it up: Love story is how he views love to be (young, beautiful, yet stupid in the same way) and he proudly embraces it. Invisible String is how he believes in soulmates to cope with the disappointment he faces from ppl that don’t like his true colors. Wonderland is how he tends to get over excited when it comes to ppl that show any form of attention towards him that can be viewed as affection plus how he likes to pretend to be in a world where it’s okay for him to be clingy. Blank Space is how his passionate soul somehow turns him into a crazy person that can’t make a connection with others last. Lover is for how he feels/looks when Romeo does love. ...Ready For It is for how he leaves different kinds of marks on the people he had once connected in the past. Don’t Blame Me is for how the people he wants to connect to brings out his true colors and how he will thrive when the person he connects with is the right one. This Is Me Trying is how Romeo looks like when he’s in his lowest moment and needs someone to support him.

If this doesn’t make any sense then I’m sorry just ignore this pls:)

[stacijya]

K personality break down!

I spent way too much time on this but here we go! (am willing to do other idols as well)

K has such a strong personality. To me its a beautiful thing. I think he is passionate, kind, hard working, and exudes natural confidence that I find very magnetic. However, I can see how some people may misunderstand that. So, in response to some “fans” who seem to not understand this beautiful creature for all his complexity and nuances, and armed with the information available on his profile, have researched and put together a breakdown of the facets of his personality. 

(disclaimer, I cannot pretend to know K on a personal level. I used parts of articles and descriptions that I thought best described his interactions within ILAND and that could be supported by i-cam footage or clips from the actual show.) 

Zodiac: Ox (1997)

Much like the image of an Ox, people born in this year tend to be persistent, honest, and straightforward. They are “talent leaders with strong faith, and strong devotion to work. They are contemplative before taking actions, not easily affected by the surroundings but just follow their concept and ability.” (travelchinaguide.com)

This is most likely where K gets the image of being arrogant or  stubborn. While this might be the undercurrent, I think the other facets of his personality are more often highlighted. Mind you Jungkook, Jaehyun, Cha Eunwoo, Mingyu, and Yugyeom are all Ox’s as well. These people hardly strike me as arrogant now, though I can see their stubborness and devotion (all positive ways). 

Blood Type: A

K, according to his profile, is blood type A which is often described as sensitive, passionate, clever, loyal, calm, consistent, and perfectionist. However type A’s can also be stubborn and overly sensitive. Generally, type A’s are stoic, majestic  and confident, three qualities that can often be misinterpreted as intimidating or rude when in actuality they are very sensitive and caring as well. 

Star Sign: Libra-Scorpio cusp

Libras are known for their flirtatious magnetism while scorpios are known for passion and power. This article sums it up pretty perfectly so I’ll just post a screenshot: 

Libra-scorpio cusps are also known for their fierce loyalty to friends and family. They would willingly sacrifice themselves for their people. They are a combo of water and air which means they blend together the free spirited nature of an air sign with the calm and honest nature of a water sign. Sometimes their honesty can get away from them however and they have to take care not to hurt anyone with their words. 

MBTI: ENFP

K is an ENFP, also known as the Campaigner or the Creative Idealist. They move through the world in a way that draws natural attention. They have a wonderful knack for dividing work from play. They are driven idealists while working but passionate free spirits in their down time. 

Function stacks: extroverted intuition, introverted feeling, extroverted thinking, and introverted sensing. (Look up cognitive functions and function stacks if you need more context). This is also known as NeFi types which prioritize extroverted intuition and introverted feeling. 

ENFPs are passionate, motivating, and versatile. Their primary function is extroverted intuition which means they pull meaning and draw connections out of the social world (relationships and interactions). They then use those meanings to better understand people, their motivations, and their true intentions(Fi). ENFx’s highly value genuine and honest people who don’t have ulterior motives or forced personas. They are very open and honest and expect the same returned to them. 

Also, ENFP’s are very creative, independent people who struggle to work within rigid structures and hierarchies. They hate being micromanaged and would prefer to have the time and space to do the work. Too much micromanagement can cause stress in an ENFP which often leads them to neglect their personal health and happiness. They tend to give more than others are able to reciprocate. 

But above all, ENFPs are kind. They “are very emotional and sensitive, and when they step on someones toes, they both feel it.” (16 personalities). They love open communication and want to listen as well. They really believe that everyone should take the time to recognize and express their emotions. 

Age Hierarchy in Japan vs Korea:

(I am not Korean or Japanese so I looked up scholarly articles to help me with this section. But, for context, I have been to both countries) 

In broad terms, Korea and Japan both have a system of age hierarchy that stems from Confucianism. The general idea is that older people, or people in positions of power, are to be highly respected by the younger generation or my subordinates. However, Japan and Korea have different interpretations of this ideal. 

The Japanese version is focused on “Senpai-Kohai” (student teacher) relationship. This is expressed in many contexts even outside of school. The idea is that the older generation is responsible for teaching the younger generation manners and skills. The Younger generation is expected to listen and learn all the lessons of their teacher or mentor. These roles aren’t always associated with age however. In fact, in recent years, the younger generations, especially in work places, have somewhat turned their backs on the idea that an older colleague is deserving of more honor simply because of their age. In some instances, Kohais will fake their respect for their senpais. Many companies have been forced to abandon this ideal all together, promoting and giving raises to workers who are more skilled rather than workers who are older, thus abandoning age in their hierarchy of honor. 

In Korea, however, the ideals of an age hierarchy are intenched much deeper in the culture. The age hierarchy is encouraged by confucianism but enforced by language and military culture. The korean language is organized around the idea of informal and formal speech in reference to someones age. One of the first questions asked in a conversation with a new person is “what is your age?” This established the social context and solidifies they type of speech a person must use. Older people must be spoken to with formal speech unless they give express permission otherwise. This is also enforced by military culture and the concepts of hoobae (subordinate) and sunbae (older/more experienced person). These roles have specific social expectations attached to them and carry significant weight. 

Citations: 

https://www.nst.com.my/opinion/letters/2018/08/404088/age-means-respect-japan-culture

http://evoice.ewha.ac.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=1293

Physical Appearance

K is physically intimidating, no denying that. He’s tall, athletically built, outwardly confident, and mature. He shows his emotions plainly on his face and takes up a lot of space with his body and energy. His presence is felt regardless of where he is in a room. 

How it all works together

K is a wonderful person, but he has many aspects about his personality, culture, and appearance that can be misinterpreted as intimidating. Again, not only is he physically dominate in the space, his libra-scorpio cusp trait also make him ooze enigmatic appeal,  and his ENFP fills him with passion and drive. He dislikes hierarchy yet must work within a very hierarchical system and culture. He is the oldest among people much younger than him. He’s attempting to use his NeFi personality to create open bonds with many people who are afraid to share their feelings with him. He doesn’t speak enough Korean to fully express his emotions despite that being a fundamental part of his personality. 

K is enigmatic and mysterious with a combination of traits that are easily misunderstood. Every person, regardless of their personality, can grow and work through weaknesses, but, please be kind to them on their journey. We are all humans who must grow and learn as we develop and we can only hope that grace is granted to us as well. So give K grace as he learns to adapt to his surrounding, just as we gave grace to Heeseung, Jay, Niki, and all the others. 

I hope fans of K appreciate him even more and I hope those who doubt him can be more understanding of his perspective. Spread love not hate! 

[bluewatsons]

Joseph A. Harriss, The Elusive Marc Chagall, Smithsonian Magazine (December 2003)

With his wild and whimsical imagery, the Russian-born artist bucked the trends of 20th-century art

David McNeil fondly remembers the day in the early 1960s his father took him to a little bistro on Paris’ Île St. Louis, the kind of place where they scrawl the menu in white letters on the mirror behind the bar, and masons, house painters, plumbers and other workingmen down hearty lunches along with vin ordinaire. Wearing a beret, a battered jacket and a coarse, checkered shirt, his father— then in his mid-70s—fit in perfectly. With conversation flowing easily among the close-set tables, one of the patrons looked over at the muscular, paint-splotched hands of the man in the beret. “Working on a place around here?” he asked companionably. “Yeah,” replied McNeil’s father, the artist Marc Chagall, as he tucked into his appetizer of hard-boiled egg and mayonnaise. “I’m redoing a ceiling over at the Opéra.”

Chagall, the Russian-born painter who went against the current of 20th-century art with his fanciful images of blue cows, flying lovers, biblical prophets and green-faced fiddlers on roofs, had a firm idea of who he was and what he wanted to accomplish. But when it came to guarding his privacy, he was a master of deflection. Sometimes when people approached to ask if he was that famous painter Marc Chagall, he would answer, “No,” or more absurdly, “I don’t think so,” or point to someone else and say slyly, “Maybe that’s him.” With his slanting, pale-blue eyes, his unruly hair and the mobile face of a mischievous faun, Chagall gave one biographer the impression that he was “always slightly hallucinating.” One of those who knew him best, Virginia Haggard McNeil, David’s mother and Chagall’s companion for seven years, characterized him as “full of contradictions—generous and guarded, naïve and shrewd, explosive and secret, humorous and sad, vulnerable and strong.”

Chagall himself said he was a dreamer who never woke up. “Some art historians have sought to decrypt his symbols,” says Jean-Michel Foray, director of the Marc Chagall Biblical Message Museum in Nice, “but there’s no consensus on what they mean. We cannot interpret them because they are simply part of his world, like figures from a dream.” Pablo Picasso, his sometime friend and rival (“What a genius, that Picasso,” Chagall once joked. “It’s a pity he doesn’t paint”), marveled at the Russian’s feeling for light and the originality of his imagery. “I don’t know where he gets those images. . . . ” said Picasso. “He must have an angel in his head.”

Throughout his 75-year career, during which he produced an astounding 10,000 works, Chagall continued to incorporate figurative and narrative elements (however enigmatic) into his paintings. His warm, human pictorial universe, full of personal metaphor, set him apart from much of 20th-century art, with its intellectual deconstruction of objects and arid abstraction. As a result, the public has generally loved his work, while the critics were often dismissive, complaining of sentimentality, repetition and the use of stock figures.

A major retrospective of Chagall’s unique, often puzzling images was recently on view at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, following a highly acclaimed run at the Grand Palais in Paris. The first comprehensive exhibition of Chagall’s paintings since 1985 brought together more than 150 works from all periods of his career, many never before seen in the United States, including cloth-and-paper collages from the private collection of his granddaughter Meret Meyer Graber. The exhibition, says Foray, the chief organizer of the show, “offered a fresh opportunity to appreciate Chagall as the painter who restored to art the elements that modern artists rejected, such as allegory and narrative—art as a comment on life. Today he is coming back strong after a period of neglect, even in his home country.” Retrospectives are planned for 2005 at the Museum of Russian Art in St. Petersburg and at the State Tretiakov Gallery in Moscow.

Movcha (Moses) Chagal was, as he put it, “born dead” on July 7, 1887, in the Belorussian town of Vitebsk, near the Polish border. His distraught family pricked the limp body of their firstborn with needles to try to stimulate a response. Desperate, they then took the infant outside and put him in a stone trough of cold water. Suddenly the baby boy began to whimper. With that rude introduction to life, it’s no wonder that Marc Chagall, as he later chose to be known in Paris, stuttered as a boy and was subject to fainting. “I was scared of growing up,” he told Virginia McNeil. “Even in my twenties I preferred dreaming about love and painting it in my pictures.”

Chagall’s talent for drawing hardly cheered his poor and numerous family, which he, as the eldest of nine children, was expected to help support. His father, Khatskel-Mordechai Chagal, worked in a herring warehouse; his mother, Feiga- Ita Chernina, ran a small grocery store. Both nominally adhered to Hasidic Jewish religious beliefs, which forbade graphic representation of anything created by God. Thus Chagall grew up in a home devoid of images. Still, he pestered his mother until she took him to an art school run by a local portraitist. Chagall, in his late teens, was the only student who used the vivid color violet.Apious uncle refused to shake his hand after he began painting figures.

For all his subsequent pictorial reminiscing about Vitebsk, Chagall found it stifling and provincial—“a strange town, an unhappy town, a boring town,” he called it in his memoirs. In 1906, at age 19, he wangled a small sum of money from his father and left for St. Petersburg, where he enrolled in the drawing school of the Imperial Society for the Protection of Fine Arts. But he hated classical art training. “I, poor country lad, was obliged to acquaint myself thoroughly with the wretched nostrils of Alexander of Macedonia or some other plaster imbecile,” he recalled. The meager money soon ran out, and although he made a few kopecks retouching photographs and painting signs, he sometimes collapsed from hunger. His world broadened in 1909 when he signed up for an art class in St. Petersburg taught by Leon Bakst, who, having been to Paris, carried an aura of sophistication. Bakst indulged Chagall’s expressive, unconventional approach to painting and dropped names, exotic to the young man’s ears, such as Manet, Cézanne and Matisse. He spoke of painting cubes and squares, of an artist who cut off his ear.

“Paris!” Chagall wrote in his autobiography. “No word sounded sweeter to me!” By 1911, at age 24, he was there, thanks to a stipend of 40 rubles a month from a supportive member of the Duma, Russia’s elective assembly, who had taken a liking to the young artist. When he arrived, he went directly to the Louvre to look at the famous works of art there. In time he found a room at an artists’ commune in a circular, three-story building near Montparnasse called La Ruche (The Beehive). He lived frugally. Often he’d cut a herring in half, the head for one day, the tail for the next. Friends who came to his door had to wait while he put on his clothes; he painted in the nude to avoid staining his only outfit. At La Ruche, Chagall rubbed shoulders with painters like Fernand Léger, Chaim Soutine, Amedeo Modigliani and Robert Delaunay. True to his nature as a storyteller, however, he seemed to have more in common with such writers as French poet Guillaume Apollinaire, who described Chagall’s work as “supernatural.” Another friend, Blaise Cendrars, a restless, knockabout writer, penned a short poem about Chagall: “Suddenly he paints / He grabs a church and paints with a church / He grabs a cow and paints with a cow.”

Many consider Chagall’s work during his four-year stay in Paris his most boldly creative. Reconnoitering the then-prevalent trends of Cubism and Fauvism, he absorbed aspects of each into his own work. There was his Cubist-influenced Temptation (Adam and Eve); the disconcerting Introduction, with a seven-fingered man holding his head under his arm; and the parti-colored Acrobat, showing Chagall’s fondness for circus scenes. At La Ruche he also painted his explosive Dedicated to My Fiancée, which he tossed off in a single night’s feverish work and later submitted to a major Paris exhibition. It took some artful persuasion on his part to convince the show’s organizers that the topsy-turvy mix of hands, legs and a leering bull’s head was not, as they contended, pornographic.

Returning to Vitebsk in 1914 with the intention of staying only briefly, Chagall was trapped by the outbreak of World War I. At least that meant spending time with his fiancée, Bella Rosenfeld, the beautiful, cultivated daughter of one of the town’s wealthiest families. Bella had won a gold medal as one of Russia’s top high-school students, had studied in Moscow and had ambitions to be an actress. But she had fallen for Chagall’s strange, almond-shaped eyes and often knocked on his window to bring him cakes and milk. “I had only to open the window of my room and blue air, love and flowers entered with her,” Chagall later wrote. Despite her family’s worries that she would starve as the wife of an artist, the pair married in 1915; Chagall was 28, Bella, 23. In his 1914- 18 Above the Town (one of his many paintings of flying lovers), he and Bella soar blissfully above Vitebsk.

In 1917 Chagall embraced the Bolshevik Revolution. He liked that the new regime gave Jews full citizenship and no longer required them to carry passports to leave their designated region. And he was pleased to be appointed commissar for art in Vitebsk, where he started an art school and brought in avant-garde teachers. But it soon became clear that the revolutionaries preferred abstract art and Socialist Realism— and how, they wondered, did the comrade’s blue cows and floating lovers support Marxism-Leninism? Giving up his job as commissar in 1920, Chagall moved to Moscow, where he painted decorative panels for the State Jewish Chamber Theater. But ultimately unhappy with Soviet life, he left for Berlin in 1922 and settled in Paris a year and a half later along with Bella and their 6-year-old daughter, Ida.

In Paris, a new door opened for Chagall when he met the influential art dealer Ambroise Vollard, who commissioned him to illustrate an edition of the poetic classic the Fables of La Fontaine. Chauvinistic French officials cried scandal over the choice of a Russian Jew, a mere “Vitebsk sign painter,” to illustrate a masterpiece of French letters. But that blew over, and Chagall went on to do a series of resonant illustrations of the Bible for Vollard.

Increasingly alarmed by Nazi persecution of the Jews, Chagall made a strong political statement on canvas in 1938 with his White Crucifixion. Then 51 and in his artistic prime, he por- trayed the crucified Christ, his loins covered with a prayer shawl, as a symbol of the suffering of all Jews. In the painting, a synagogue and houses are in flames, a fleeing Jew clutches a Torah to his breast, and emigrants try to escape in a rudimentary boat. Not long after, in June 1941, Chagall and his wife boarded a ship for the United States, settling in New York City. The six years Chagall spent in America were not his happiest. He never got used to the pace of New York life, never learned English. “It took me thirty years to learn bad French,” he said, “why should I try to learn English?” One of the things he did enjoy was strolling through Lower Manhattan, buying strudel and gefilte fish, and reading Yiddish newspapers. His palette during these years often darkened to a tragic tone, with depictions of a burning Vitebsk and fleeing rabbis. When Bella, his muse, confidante and best critic, died suddenly in 1944 of a viral infection at age 52, “everything turned black,” Chagall wrote.

After weeks of sitting in his apartment on Riverside Drive immersed in grief, tended to by his daughter, Ida, then 28 and married, he began to work again. Ida found a French-speaking English woman, Virginia McNeil, to be his housekeeper. A diplomat’s daughter, and bright, rebellious and cosmopolitan, McNeil had been born in Paris and raised in Bolivia and Cuba, but had recently fallen on hard times. She was married to John McNeil, a Scottish painter who suffered from depression, and she had a 5-year-old daughter, Jean, to support. She was 30 and Chagall 57 when they met, and before long the two were talking painting, then dining together. Afew months later Virginia left her husband and went with Chagall to live in High Falls, New York, a village in the Catskills. They bought a simple wooden house with an adjoining cottage for him to use as a studio.

Though Chagall would do several important public works in the United States—sets and costumes for a 1942 American Ballet Theatre production of Tchaikovsky’sAleko and a 1945 version of Stravinsky’s Firebird, and later large murals for Lincoln Center and stained-glass windows for the United Nations headquarters and the Art Institute of Chicago—he remained ambivalent about America. “I know I must live in France, but I don’t want to cut myself off from America,” he once said. “France is a picture already painted. America still has to be painted. Maybe that’s why I feel freer there. But when I work in America, it’s like shouting in a forest. There’s no echo.” In 1948 he returned to France with Virginia, their son, David, born in 1946, and Virginia’s daughter. They eventually settled in Provence, in the hilltop town of Vence. But Virginia chafed in her role, as she saw it, of “the wife of the Famous Artist, the charming hostess to Important People,” and abruptly left Chagall in 1951, taking the two children with her. Once again the resourceful Ida found her father a housekeeper— this time in the person of Valentina Brodsky, a 40- year-old Russian living in London. Chagall, then 65, and Vava, as she was known, soon married.

The new Mrs. Chagall managed her husband’s affairs with an iron hand. “She tended to cut him off from the world,” says David McNeil, 57, an author and songwriter who lives in Paris. “But he didn’t really mind because what he needed most was a manager to give him peace and quiet so he could get on with his work. I never saw him answer a telephone himself. After Vava took over, I don’t think he ever saw his bank statements and didn’t realize how wealthy he was. He taught me to visit the Louvre on Sunday, when it was free, and he always picked up all the sugar cubes on the table before leaving a restaurant.” McNeil and his half sister, Ida, who died in 1994 at age 78, gradually found themselves seeing less of their father. But to all appearances Chagall’s married life was a contented one, and images of Vava appear in many of his paintings.

In addition to canvases, Chagall produced lithographs, etchings, sculptures, ceramics, mosaics and tapestries. He also took on such demanding projects as designing stainedglass windows for the synagogue of the Hadassah-HebrewUniversityMedicalCenter in Jerusalem. His ceiling for the Paris Opéra, painted in 1963-64 and peopled with Chagall angels, lovers, animals and Parisian monuments, provided a dramatic contrast to the pompous, academic painting and decoration in the rest of the Opéra.

“He prepared his charcoal pencils, holding them in his hand like a little bouquet,” McNeil wrote of his father’s working methods in a memoir that was published in France last spring. “Then he would sit in a large straw chair and look at the blank canvas or cardboard or sheet of paper, waiting for the idea to come. Suddenly he would raise the charcoal with his thumb and, very fast, start tracing straight lines, ovals, lozenges, finding an aesthetic structure in the incoherence. Aclown would appear, a juggler, a horse, a violinist, spectators, as if by magic. When the outline was in place, he would back off and sit down, exhausted like a boxer at the end of a round.”

Some critics said he drew badly. “Of course I draw badly,” Chagall once said. “I like drawing badly.” Perhaps worse, from the critics’ point of view, he did not fit easily into the accepted canon of modernity. “Impressionism and Cubism are foreign to me,” he wrote. “Art seems to me to be above all a state of soul. . . . Let them eat their fill of their square pears on their triangular tables!”

Notes veteran art critic Pierre Schneider, “Chagall absorbed Cubism, Fauvism, Surrealism, Expressionism and other modern art trends incredibly fast when he was starting out. But he used them only to suit his own aesthetic purposes. That makes it hard for art critics and historians to label him. He can’t be pigeonholed.”

When he died in Saint Paul de Vence on March 28, 1985, at 97, Chagall was still working, still the avant-garde artist who refused to be modern. That was the way he said he wanted it: “To stay wild, untamed . . . to shout, weep, pray.”

[bluekaddis]

You almost mentioned Cullen as the best written character, but tbh he is written quite bad, his abuse and hate is never confronted in Inquisition and he is made victim by narrative, while he was the very problem why Chantry sucks. Even his fans admit that. He is mostly liked because of romance.

Ugh.

I was waiting for that moment when admitting I like Cullen’s character and story arc will bite me in the ass.

TL; DR (for those who don’t want to get through my long rant) 

Let everyone enjoy any characters/romances/game choices they want. I have my reasons for having Cullen as a fav DA character and liking his story arc and I don’t think there are more problems with writing of his character than the majority of other companions in DA games. 

Full answer below

First of all – I don’t want to argue that everyone should like or dislike the same elements of fiction as I do – it would be stupid. We all have different tastes, like different character archetypes and have varying opinions on what makes a good story. I’m trying to keep my blog character positive and unless someone asks me directly to share my opinion on a certain character or plot element I prefer keeping my critique to myself. I also don’t feel entitled to confront fans who, in their own posts, state they find Cullen boring, unredeemable or overrated, even if I personally disagree with all these statements. 

If your ask, anon, stated the words “i think” or “in my opinion” I wouldn’t probably bother with such a lengthy answer, HOWEVER, you write your personal opinion like it was an objective statement, like you were in position to tell me how I should view the certain character. What did you expect, that I would suddenly realize “oh crap, NOW I see that a character and plot I had liked for my 200 hours of gameplay is actually bad, I was just too stupid to notice it!”.

Haha, no.

So, let’s go through your comment.

“tbh he is written quite bad”

In. Your. Opinion. There are people who don’t like Cullen’s character development. Some like the general idea but would make some changes if they could. Others (like me) don’t have problem with his story arc and just like to add some headcanons to fill the gaps.

It is understandable that when years pass between games, fans have time to develop their opinions and wishes of what they’d like to see. And because none of them actually writes the story it is very easy to feel disappointed and say “well, I would do it better (= my way)”. But the truth is - your way is not necessary a better way. It may be the case that “your version” would be even more hated by the fandom. Some opinions are just more popular than others and therefore may seem like they are objective but it’s an illusion. A well designed pool, with large sample size and good statistics may be objective. Opinions, on the other hand, are like farts – you always think yours are less stinky than the others’ ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

But I digress.

Yes, I think Cullen is a well written character and yes, I like his story arc. Cullen’s redemption works for me because I see it not as much about atonement for his actions as for his lack of action.

Let me explain.

Anti-Cullen fans tend to assume that he personally did a lot of atrocities, but when you look not at fandom assumptions but at his actual actions we see in games or WoT, you can see that he caused most evil by not doing shit.

He should have protected the mages.

He didn’t.

He should have questioned Meredith’s actions.

He didn’t.

He should have noticed she’s going mad.

He didn’t .

He should have stopped her before she evoked the Rite.

He didn’t.

He was very passive and basically let either Meredith or Hawke make all the choices for him. If he let Meredith decide – people died. If he listened to Hawke (based on player’s choices) he voted for whatever Hawke had proposed.

Why was he behaving like that? Probably because he had lost faith in his own judgment so he put all the responsibility on authority figures (Templar Order and Chantry teachings). Cullen’s core motivation throughout all games was to protect people and it never changes. What changes is his belief of what methods are moral or necessary to achieve that goal and whether he, as an individual, should be in a position to decide it.

In Inquisition Cullen does the opposite. He is a workaholic. He makes his own decisions (leaves Kirkwall, stops taking lyrium) and takes full responsibility for them. He doesn’t follow his leader blindly but openly states his own opinions and advice (whether they are correct or wrong is another topic). He gets really furious when someone in position of power lie to or sacrifice people under their command (like in case of Samson or Rainier). Finally, he dedicates his life, health, skills, basically everything, for a cause - to stop the war that can be blamed mostly on his former organisation, without complaint or asking for forgiveness.

And I love that aspect of his character.

In Inquisition Cullen is still a work in progress. He tries his best but his templar past comes back sometimes - and it’s good. If he was completely free of his biases, it would be damn unnatural. 

I would never say that Cullen is a flawless ray of sunshine. He can be stubborn, biased, narrow-minded, hypocritical, bitter, aggressive and vengeful. But guess what – so can all the other characters. That’s why they are interesting.

“his abuse and hate is never confronted in Inquisition”

It is, at least for the standards of this particular game. DA:I doesn’t have full developed friendship-rivalry mechanics like DA:2 and you can’t even get approval points from advisors. The Inquisitor basically has far less options to condemn the Inner Circle’s actions or change their worldviews than Hawke (you don’t really argue with Dorian about slavery or with Iron Bull about Saarebas or Reeducators either).

But even if the Inquisitor has limited dialogue options to confront Cullen’s actions directly, Cullen himself brings the topic to the player. Cullen’s dialogue and actions in DA:I show that

he is ashamed of the person he became after Uldred’s uprising    

he knows he needs to atone for his actions and he wants to work for it

but doesn’t really believe he can fully atone for what he did

supports the reform of the Chantry, Templar Order and Circles rather than agreeing to their traditional methods

That man already hates himself, give him some rest.

And if you still think he needs an extra punishment for his crimes - Cullen is actually one of only 3 companions/advisors in DA:I whose life you can literally ruin through your choices (the other two being Blackwall and Iron Bull). If your Inky thinks that Cullen’s actions are unredeemable and he deserves nothing better than to forever be chained to the templar life he has chosen as a kid - they can order him to take lyrium again. For me it’s a heartless and morally wrong choice, but anyone can play their game however they want.

„he is made victim by narrative”

Ok, that part really bothers me. Are you saying that it is a bad thing that a narrative treats a person who has been physically, mentally and sexually abused for weeks as a victim of that abuse? Or encourages empathy towards a character fed drugs, manipulation and propaganda? Acknowledging Cullen’s PTSD doesn’t automatically result in ignoring or diminishing traumas and abuse that happened to Anders, Carl or any other character. Empathy doesn’t have to be reserved to people you personally agree with, just saying.

„he was the very problem why Chantry sucks.”

I’d say he was an example showing why Chantry sucks. A symptome, not a cause. Chantry benefits only high ranking members of that intitution + some nobles and rich dudes. Mages are abused and denied most of the rights because of the Chantry. Templars are drugged and brainwashed because of the Chantry. Common folk can’t freely benefit from things like healing magic because of the Chantry. Non-humans are treated like heretics and barbarians - because of the Chantry. The Chantry, as we see at the beginning of DA:I is a corrupt, powerful institution that has forsaken almost all ideals it had been built upon and desperately needs a reform. Everyone can see that. I have NEVER met any fan who said „yeah, Circles, Templar Order, the Chantry – they were perfectly alright, no need to change lol”. Same goes to characters labelled by fandom as pro-Chantry (like Cassandra, Cullen or Vivienne). They all see that major changes must be done, they just believe the reformation is better than abolition.

„Even his fans admit that.”

Some, yes. Others don’t have a problem with his arc. Personally I don’t think there are many Cullen fans that would agree with every single point you made.

„He is mostly liked because of romance.”

Um, no. The reason why the game developers even bothered with making Cullen a romance option in DA:I is that he was already quite liked and popular among fans, despite being just a secondary character. I’d agree that the romance plot made Cullen even more popular, especially among players who didn’t play previous games, but it is wrong to assume that the only reason people enjoy his character is because he’s a pretty boy. I played the games in order and Cullen was one of my fav characters in DA2 - I just like paragon anti-villains with redemption potential. Fight me. 

To conclude this overly long rant - I’m generally under impression that some DA fans tend to point certain aspects of Cullen’s character and story as “stupid excuses made by Bioware and fans to redeem a son of the bitch” and then use almost exactly the same arguments to defend their own favs. It’s the topic for maybe another discussion, but I think it’s a good thing to confront your own biases sometimes.

P.S. I also recommend watching this video about writing redemption arcs. Just for fun.

I rest my case. 

(thanks, Ania, for the high quality picture to sum up my feelings)

[aion-rsa]

Vikings Season 6 Part Two Review (Spoiler-Free)

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This Vikings season 6 part two review is based on all 10 episodes and contains no spoilers.

Vikings has always been Ragnar Lothbrok’s (Travis Fimmel) story. First, we witnessed the rise of the man himself from farmer to visionary to earl to king to legend. Post-Ragnar, the show became an exploration of how Ragnar’s legend suffused and inhabited his sons, and the consequences of its interpretation upon enemies, frenemies, kith, kin and Kings the world over. And, now, the saga comes to an end with the second half of Vikings swansong sixth season, ten episodes that drip with all the blood, battles, tears, seers, fears, and philosophy you’ve come to expect from the History Channel’s flagship show (though this season will premiere on Amazon).    

It’s tough to write a spoiler-free review of a show like Vikings, especially here at the show’s conclusion where it won’t be surprising to learn that the blood flows like wine. Who lives, who dies? Who returns, who stays away? Even acknowledging the presence or absence of a surprise within a certain context could constitute a massive spoiler. As a consequence, much of this review will read like the ravings of the show’s very own seer, a web of insinuations and mystical mumbo jumbo designed only to make sense once the prophecy has been made flesh. 

Early in the season, Gunnhild (Ragga Ragnars) remarks: “Perhaps the Golden Age of the Vikings is gone.” This is a perfect distillation of the thematic ground covered by this half season. Here we have the fall of an empire, the erosion and sometimes amputation of the old ways, and the savage geo-surgery of a flailing world in flux. Absolute power corrupts absolutely; only the truly mad would seek to be king. The battle between paganism and Christianity, always at the forefront of the series, reaches its culmination here, and the episodes are awash with rich religious imagery and symbolism. There is also an answer, of sorts, to the question of which of Ragnar’s sons best embodies and encapsulates his legacy. Each of them carries a chunk of their father distilled within them: Ivar (Alex Høgh Andersen), his wrath, his thirst to conquer; Bjorn (Alexander Ludwig), his galvanizing spirit, his authority, his legend; Hvitserk (Marco Ilsø) , his pain, confusion and predilection for self-destruction; and Ubbe (Jordan Patrick Smith), his sense of adventure, his vision. Series creator and showrunner Michael Hirst knows that you come to these final episodes laden with ideas and expectations surrounding this philosophical set-to, and does a sterling job subverting or confirming them. His skill is in making the surprising seem inevitable, and the inevitable seem surprising.

Most of the Vikings’ world is bathed in blue and grey, an endless twilight of death and despair. Within these grim parameters the direction and cinematography never fails to evoke the beautiful, misty emptiness of the world: the howling of the wind on desolate hills; silence, smooth and dark, stretching towards the pale horizon. There are lots of sweeping aerial shots, which cast you, the audience, as Gods looking down on the action from above. The emotional distance this creates, especially above battlefields, reinforces the absurdity and futility of the bloodshed, something we’ve been encouraged to feel in every season, but never moreso than now. 

The season is front-loaded with some thrilling sequences (including a suitably chilling use of CGI), and at least one moment that will make the hairs stand up on your neck, and hot tears fall from your eyes. The mechanisms of plot necessarily predominate in the early episodes, as machination piles upon machination, twist upon turn, and the pieces of the tragedies and double-dealings to come are moved into place upon fate’s great chess-board: a broken Bjorn has tough choices to consider following his people’s defeat at the hands of the Rus; Ubbe embarks on a westward quest in search of the promised land; Ivar and Hvitserk continue their uneasy alliance with each other within the fraught principality of the maladjusted, half-mad Oleg (Danila Koslovsky). 

An accusation often leveled at Vikings is that it became a lesser show once divorced from Ragnar’s immediate orbit; that when he died, so too did the interest of many of the audience, who never quite took to his sons with the same level of enthusiasm. I can understand the hole that Ragnar’s exit left in the hearts of fans. He was a compelling, larger-than-life character, channeled with great charisma and presence by Travis Fimmel. But although this series is ostensibly about Ragnar, the story is also far, far bigger than him, a point this final season doesn’t fail to ram home. In fact, it’s the whole point.  Besides, the performances of Alexander Ludwig, Jordan Patrick Smith, Marco Ilsø, and Alex Høgh Andersen have always been uniformly excellent, generating more than enough presence, individually and collectively, to carry the show in Ragnar’s name. 

If there is a mote of truth in the accusation it’s probably attributable, in part at least, to the challenges of satisfying such a sprawling ensemble. One of the beneficial things about the show having shed so many characters over the past few seasons is that the sons now have proper time to grow, develop and, ultimately, crystallize. In particular Hvitserk, who was always the sketchiest and most ill-defined of the brothers, finally coalesces into something greater than the sum of his parts. Even his unhealthy attachment to Ivar begins to make sense, and comes to play an instrumental part in much of what makes the final stretch work so well. 

Ivar himself has always been a joy to watch – surely one of the greatest small-screen monsters – but occasionally he could be one-note, albeit largely thanks to his predilection for painting himself into a corner and then having to fight his way out again. Ivar’s relationship with, and to, the young Rus heir Igor (Oran Glynn O’Donovan) helps to humanize him, allowing him to recreate the better aspects of his own relationship with Ragnar, this time sans grand, King-busting plan. Ivar even demonstrates, from time to time, something approaching humility, which can’t be easy for a self-proclaimed God. Plus there’s a moment between Ivar and Katia (Alicia Agneson) that’ll have you punching the air in triumph, and then thinking strangely of yourself for having fist pumped such a thing. 

Read more

TV

Why Vikings Is Ending

By Michael Ahr

Once the heavy gears of plot have cranked into place, the season dips into ennui, as characters drift, break down and take stock. This can make the season a slog to get through, especially if you’re binge-watching; like mainlining misery directly into your blood-stream. Even knowing that this was undoubtedly a deliberate structural choice – to make you feel the characters’ helplessness, heartache, angst and boredom; to understand what drives them to do what they do when Gods and men fall silent – you’re unlikely to emerge from the middle-to-end section brimming with vim and good cheer. Here, another central question is tackled: is there any escape from the seemingly endless cycle of death, destruction and revenge in which Viking society finds itself mired? What hope have Ragnar’s sons of escape when Ragnar himself, the most vocal advocate for a new way of doing things, ultimately perpetuated the cycle by posthumously siccing his sons on his enemies? 

The final act makes everything worthwhile. Think of the middle act like purgatory before Heaven (or should that be Valhalla)? While not every storyline feels like it has an equal place and weight in the pay-off – the latter sections in Kattegat, especially, feel perfunctory and will probably struggle to elicit much interest – most of the series’ overarching narrative and thematic threads come together perfectly in the end, giving a deeply satisfying sense of simultaneous closure and open-endedness.   

There are many surface similarities between Vikings and Game of Thrones, in terms of their stock-in-trade themes, settings, cast-counts, body-counts and bundles of R-rated violence. Where they differ significantly is in Vikings sticking the landing, and not just with the final episode – which is beautiful, elegiac and haunting – but over and throughout the whole final half of the season (give or take a few minor missteps).

Game of Thrones’ once stellar reputation will perhaps forever be sullied by an ending, and a final season that many felt was flat, rushed and cack-handed. This is not the fate that will befall Vikings, which, although it never attained critical, commercial or pop-culture success on anything like the same scale as Game of Thrones, now joins the pantheon of shows whose exemplary endings have cemented their legacies. Vikings can hold its head high among such luminaries as Rectify, The Affair, The Deuce, The Wire, The Sopranos (divisive as its ending proved), The Shield and Breaking Bad (pre El Camino, at least), having offered up a finale that is so resonant, dream-like, and profound that it serves retroactively to render all of the good things about the series better, and wash away any and all misgivings and doubts. It’s a gorgeous ending that will stick in your soul for a long time.

Bon voyage, Vikings. It’s been emotional.   

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[tazzmanien]

The Tian Guan Ci Fu (Heaven Official’s Blessing) Review

Okay I’m doing it finally. Sorry if it ended up way too long, but in my defense the novel itself was huge so…

First of all I will not be comparing this novel with any of the other MXTX novels, but I just want to tell you this is definitely my new favorite for several reasons, but mostly its love story. If you want to know more write me I will gladly talk more about this.

I read in many posts everywhere that Hualian invented love. Well you know what, there is really no lie there. Theirs is one of the most beautiful love stories out there.

So, before I go into the details, please just go and read the novel!!! NOW! 

The good:

Usually I would like to say a few words about the writing style and quality, but as I’ve only read a translation of the novel I don’t think I can tell you much about it. The translation was very easy to read, so I’m guessing the novel can’t be too extravagant or bad either. BTW thank you everyone who is doing translations for FREE. You all are angels!

The novel was quite long, but the moment you step into the world you would wish it was longer. Every character has their own story and they needs time to evolve, so I really liked its length, but also not so much. Check out the bad for more information.

I liked how the story took place in three realms and different times. I know some get confused by such switches, but I tend to enjoy them very much. I think the heaven and the ghost city were so diverse, that I can’t wait to see them play out in whatever visual adaptation. I feel like this time around MXTX finally explained the actual world with more detail, which made it easier for me to imagine myself strolling through the ghost city market buying sum forbidden rubbish, or watching the moon up close while seated in a garden in heaven. I could see, smell, feel, hear and sometimes unfortunately even taste many things and that is what I think good writing should be about. The things that weren’t described in detail made it even more fun, as one could work with their own imagination (this might be a bad thing for visual adaptations, just saying). And some of you might remember I complained before that if one has no prior knowledge about the whole cultivation, eastern religion and xianxia stuff, then you might have issues reading MXTX books, well this did not change, but I guess I’m starting to appreciate it, as my own imagination created a whole new version of what this whole thing was meant to be. Still, I should have probably listed this in the bad part as well.

The main plot was very interesting and at times even slightly surprising. Mostly it was quite predictable, but I think writing does not have to invent itself every time again, but it has to give some sort of satisfaction at the end. If a story is predictable deep down to every little detail, this is not a huge issues if the story has other strengths. And this one had a nice mix of both.

It did have some parts which appalled me, but you know what, this was actually a good thing. Like I felt a lot of things, even though I really didn’t want to. The things that were disgusting, really actually disgusted me. The things that were supposed to make you angry, made me go nuts. The things that should have made you happy, made my grin like a maniac. But worst of all, were the things that existed to hurt you, they ripped out my heart and shredded it in front of me while I was still conscious. So all in all, yeah even the bad parts about the plot served a purpose. If you are good at keeping track on the main plot while diving into hundreds of subplots, then I would say it was easy to follow. I think this was okay, but the other way around (remembering the subplots) I would argue differently (more in the bad). Nevertheless, some of the subplots were so beautiful that I think they might have deserved their own novel, but isn’t that the case with all good stories?

On a side note, I don’t know if that was intended or if I just saw things that weren’t there, but was the hidden plot actually about how wrong idolizing people is and how it feels to go through post traumatic stress? I might write some more on this in a separate post, I just wanted to get it off my chest here.

Now my favorite part of any MXTX novel: the characters. Honestly, I can’t remember many stories where I loved every character. But MXTX did it again, I loved all of them, even the ones I hated. Once again the way the side characters were introduced, involved in the main story and the main guys, had their own very individual nature and lifes and fought with their own challenges was beautiful. Every character had their own aura (for the lack of a better word). Yeah I like to make fun of this but it’s true nevertheless: most of them had sad histories or were living their nightmares while the plot evolved, however, this was good as it made me appreciate the few sunreys that were able to shine through the clouds even more. As I said, I hated quite a few of them, but either they had their moment one had to love them for or they served another purpose, like propelling other characters to become what they were meant to be or drive the overall plot. And none of this felt forced. So to make it short wow!

And last but no least, the main characters and their love story. 

Xie Lian, our protagonist, my angel my only god the life of my love (yeah I used this one already, sue me), is an adorkable martial arts badass/nerd with the worst luck and cooking skills and spiderman reflexes. He is a true neutral, treats everyone with the same respect, just the way a god should be. He is so genuine in every aspect of his being. He is fully aware of all his shortcomings and all the wrongs he has done, but he still hasn’t lost the good in him and the will to act righteously. He is just so so human, that each of us could learn a little from him. I mean he even warns the freaking demon king to not think too highly of him, because he might disappoint him. And what does Hua Cheng do? He calls him his hope! So XL gives the cruelest of all the demons hope. This shows how perfectly imperfect and inspirational XL is. The world does not deserve him, yet still treats him the worst it can. He lost everything, EVERYTHING! Still he somehow came out to be this beautiful being. The only consolation we get is that at least he gets to have Hua Cheng in his life.

And Hua Cheng, he is the only man out there! Towards Xie Lian he is gentle, loving, understanding, supportive, patient, strong, funny and all sorts of beautiful things. With everyone else he is everything you would expect of a demon king to be and none of it a the same time. He is unpredictable in all things that are not Xie Lian. He does so many good deeds that one would forget that he is a demon king, but he hates, is cruel, intimidating, has killed and is mischievous through and through. Even though we don’t get to see everything about him (see the bad), we know him to be the perfect grey character. Also he proves to be the realest of them all, he stands by everything he says and does and I respect that a lot. He shows his anger and love equally and acts upon both equally. And is so freaking intelligent, handsome, sensual, seductive and cute, that I am actually fearing of being in love with a fictional character. The butterflies are a nice touch btw.

Yes, you are right, we all tend to praise almost every main couple, when the love story is good, but please hear me out. Both of them individually are just perfect in their own imperfect way and together they are the definition of true love. Their first encounter was magical to say the least. Without having any prior knowledge about the overall story or how their love would come to be, I was bewitched from the first moment they both shared the “screen”. I could feel the air stilling, just so I could give my full attention to them falling in love (yeah I know one was already head over heels before that meeting, but that is beside the point). And boy, the way they were falling. It was so realistic and yet hopelessly romantic, that I will use them as the perfect example to show people what it feels like to fall and be in love. 

The bad:

The length and some subplots… Yes well it was quite strenuous to follow the happenings, as every character had their own huge side story. While I loved to know every single bit of their stories, sometimes it took me a while to get back on track in the main story and many many times I totally forgot about some subplots later in the novel and was like “where is the other character now? why don’t we see them anymore?”. Despite its length, some characters stories were either only told from the view of the protagonist and lost a lot of what was going on deep down, or some characters stories had huge gaps even. Sure, it was not their story and we can be happy we even got something, but at some point I was kinda disappointed to be teased about a character and never get to find out what happened or how they felt. So I would have enjoyed an even longer book even if the one now was too long. Do you get what I mean? At the end of the day I can actually forget and forgive all except the fact that we never got to see some sides of Hua Cheng and had to read between the lines to understand his motives and feelings a little better. I need a whole book about him only to be honest. 

So my next bad thing, might actually be inaccurate if I’d knew more about Hua Cheng. This part is probably highly subjective, but I feel like Hua Cheng was not demonic enough. You know, in my head I pictured him to be a real demon, including the looks and what he is doing. How else would he become a demon king? I mean the looks were pretty much on point, I just feel like all the other characters either ignored it or didn’t care and the fandom just makes him look more like a human being. And yes he treats many badly, but in my opinion not bad enough. It feels like all his good deeds got more screen time and his bad deeds were either justified by something good or not really shown.

Not sure if it was only my short attention span or if that was the case, but I felt like the living world was not described as good as the heaven and ghost city. 

Conclusion:

I would recommend this novel to everyone who wants to feel love, but is not afraid to hurt a LOT. If you are searching for a story with some human or heavenly goodness, good friendships, good families, just decent people, then this is not a book for you. Xie Lian is the only exception of course and he is worth every tear you are 100% going to shed.

Just go and read the book! Please. And come back to me and talk about it with me :)

[imuybemovoko]

So I just read an article that talked about brainwashing techniques employed in POW camps in North Korea. (It’s linked here.)

I’m inclined to take this article with a slight grain of salt, but there’s something very eerily familiar about the ten steps it lists for brainwashing. It reminds me quite a damn bit of the way your more fundamentalist churches will tell you to share the gospel. I’m going to take a quick run through them and show what I mean. For reasons I’ll explain as “about half shitty site design and about half trauma” I’m having a hell of a time finding specific examples of what I’m talking about here because it involves navigating confusingly executed ministry websites crammed with the exact shit that spent a childhood and five more recent years breaking me. For that reason I’ll make a shitty gospel tract in paint.net with a slide or two to illustrate each point. I’ll probably be annoyingly close to the real thing. Trigger warning here. If this is going to bring something up that you’re not ready to deal with, please do not read any further. 

With that in mind, what would our shitty gospel tract be without some kind of eye-catching title? I’ll take more of a Jack Chick kind of approach to formatting here; Ray Comfort has also been known to make terrible comics following a vaguely similar pattern and typically with far less diverse plots. (Hate-reading Chick tracts is honestly oddly fun sometimes because of the variety and the absolute over-the-top fearmongering about entirely innocent aspects of life and culture.) I’m shooting for a bit of parody energy, so for a title let’s go with:

God’s Blast Furnace Because that seems like the exact kind of cursed energy we should be going for here. I’ll go for a 2x1 aspect ratio here because that also seems pretty typical.

Chick tracts like... usually include people terrified by either God or the flames of hell. I chose the latter. The idea is as much fear factor as you can shove into one tiny page. If you think I’m exaggerating, prepare to be disappointed. Ray Comfort and a lot of campus ministry resources take a less... “in your face” approach to the hellfire bit, but they’ll make damn sure to mention it and how much it’s going to suck to be burned forever. But this is a parody, so if it’s somehow possible to be more over the top than Chick, that’s the goal here.

1. Assault on identity.  In most evangelism guides I remember, one of the first things you’re supposed to mention is that God created the earth and humans and wants us to worship him. Finding specific examples would be a bit of a mindfuck for me because this shit is honestly kinda triggering, but they have a strong tendency towards heavily focusing this in the beginning of their approach. A simple scroll through Chick.com’s tract inventory or, if you can find it, this kind of resource on other sites will show that this assault on identity is extremely important in their approach. Since our parody tract is going to include all of these steps (this is a common but far from universal approach; Ray Comfort tends to include them all but Chick will hyperfocus one or two in every piece of literature), let’s make the first page. The idea here is that they’re saying “you are not who you think you are”. If someone tries to tell you that you’re created by a god rather than a product of evolution, this is their true message. They’ll even mask-off this one, saying “these people think they’re accidental descendants of apes, they’re denying that they were created by God”. So for our parody, let’s do exactly that. I’ll introduce two characters, one Christian and one dreaded “other”, and I won’t bother giving them names; in the real industry, approaches vary. Chick typically gives names, Comfort typically doesn’t. They also tend to grossly caricature unbelievers, so I’ll do that too. I’m going for the “tiny graphic novel” approach here, so I’ll make a panel.

Notice how 1. the unbelievers are presented as strawmen, 2. the Christian is presented as totally normal and even wholesome, 3. he presents this like it’s a self-evident truth, and 4. the response by he unbelievers is angry denial. This is very common and based on prevailing perspectives about unbelievers. You’ll notice an approach quite like this in movies like God’s Not Dead as well, where they make a caricature of Christians that’s way tamer than they present in real life (the kid in God’s Not Dead is super vanilla and a lot of Christians are at best passive-aggressive about it) and a caricature of unbelievers, particularly atheists (they have the most problem with atheists for some reason) that’s straight up aggressive and hostile. In Chick’s tracts, sometimes they wear shirts not that different from the shittily-drawn ones I put on these two unbelievers. I also tried to give the one a mohawk, though the perspective probably isn’t that good. 

Some literature you’ll find in the wild takes a much more detailed approach to this, attacking established scientific facts such as evolution, but others simply present the creation narrative or something akin to it as self-evident and move on. I’ll take the second approach here to save space. Thus, having our unbelievers respond with “how dare you” fits even better because there’s a strong tendency for Christians to think they’re challenging the entire worldview of unbelievers (again, particularly atheists) by even presenting this “fact”. This sets us up perfectly for point 2. 

2. Guilt. In the evangelical view, and in these evangelism resources online, a combination of guilt and fear is very important. Point 2 of the ten in the article is summed up as “you are bad” in the paragraph detailing it; in these forms of Christianity, and very strongly in evangelism techniques, this should be summed up more like “not only are you bad, but the consequences for that are going to be unending and extreme when you die”. This is the strength of the hell narrative in a sentence. On someone who believes it or can be led to believe it, the impact is profoundly damaging. In every “properly-done” evangelism, it is included. Jack Chick goes fucking mental with this narrative and it features in most of his work with vivid pictures of fearful people being yeeted into the flames after pleading for their lives. Ray Comfort also hammers this point fairly hard, framing it as a natural consequence of a life not lived for Jesus and using a metaphor likening death to a long fall and his message to a parachute. In our tract let’s take a mixed approach. Our Christian will yoink Comfort’s parachute metaphor and, much later, we’ll show one of our unbelievers being Chicked. More on that later. 

I’ve started to establish a dichotomy of a type that Chick often uses here where he shows one person getting saved and one getting yeeted into hellfire. “lol sex is epic” is going to dig his heels in like the scary atheist and “there is no god” is going to have his world absolutely rocked by this news. Also, a common caricature is that unbelievers haven’t heard the hellfire bit before. "there is no god” gets this treatment while “lol sex is epic” digs in and gets mad. (It seems to me that the reader is likely meant to find this fitting because he’s the one with the mohawk.) Chick might draw shadowy demons around “lol sex is epic” here, but he doesn’t in every case. Also, note that I’ve brought our title, “God’s blast furnace”, into it here. “there is no god” is walking right into step 3 here. 

3. Self-betrayal. The trick here is to get you to agree that you’re bad. You don’t necessarily have to agree to the hellfire thing; Comfort doesn’t hit that very hard during this phase of a conversation. His approach, which I’ll more or less emulate here, is to get the person to admit that they’ve lied about anything at all, stolen anything at all, or had any lustful thought at all (and, with the latter, referencing Matthew 5:28). Most humans have done at least two of these things at least once (some don’t steal and some are asexual, and there’s most likely overlap, but I feel confident in saying literally everyone lies at least about minor things from time to time), so once he has the confession, Comfort will catastrophise it with a line like “ok so that makes you a lying thieving adulterer in heart” and then pressure the person into answering whether a “just God” will call them innocent or guilty based on this standard. Many people say “guilty” here, as desired. (He paints the ones who say “innocent” or question the standard as dishonest when he makes videos of this.) With guilt thus established, he then asks whether this means a person goes to heaven or to hell. Again, in a typical conversation, the other person answers that this means hell. Ray has triumphed in this moment, because whether he says it or not, the connection is made in the person’s mind that as one guilty of these “sins”, they are bad and deserving of hellfire. So, for our tract, let’s have “there is no god” ask some questions and learn just how “dire” this is from our Christian, a la Ray Comfort. 

“there is no god” betrays himself; “lol sex is epic” stays mad. 

In evangelism, at least in Ray Comfort’s approach, step 3 most often comes in tandem with a lite version of the compulsion to confession, step 6. I’ve condensed this process a bit to fit it into a single panel. “there is no god” now proceeds into step 4. 

4. Breaking point. “there is no god” is now in the trap. This has him questioning everything about himself, his life, and the world. I’ll change his facial expression for the next few panels to illustrate the change. In real life, it takes a lot of repetition, scare tactics and/or other abuse, application during childhood or a moment of great weakness, or a combination of more than one of these to get this done. Since these tracts are a caricature of reality, this is always shown as a fast process. The fast process is also seen as normative because of the belief that God is self-evident, but I am aware of almost no Christians who had this kind of shift because of a single conversation. To my knowledge, this is a months- to years-long process even in most cases of childhood indoctrination. In any case, the victim reaches a point where their view of the world has begun to shatter around them. Or, as the article puts it, asking “who am I, where am I, what am I supposed to do?” We’ll have “there is no god” ask this latter question and add an interjection from “lol sex is epic” to add weight to this. 

“lol sex is epic” gets mad again and says something that many Evangelicals caricature as a common saying of unbelievers, particularly atheists, and progressive Christians (who they have mad beef with for a variety of reasons. Like, I genuinely think they hate progressive Christians more than atheists sometimes). This shows that, in the evangelist’s eyes, “lol sex is epic” has missed the point. Meanwhile, “there is no god” has arrived right at that breaking point, questioning his moral character and asking desperately if there’s a solution to this problem. Our Christian is right there to provide an answer. 

5. Leniency.  Our Christian is going to give “there is no god” the out he’s looking for, declaring that God has given him a solution in the form of Jesus Christ. To show the remaining steps I’ll separate a few things out more than tracts often do. Let’s have a bit more rage from “lol sex is epic” and, for now, have him leave the scene because his use as a character is over until the “and then they both died” bit.

“lol sex is epic” is now gone. Meanwhile, our evangelist has a captive audience for the other steps of this process. 

At this point I’m going to list a couple of steps for each panel because I’m not completely sure how to parse it out the way I’ve been doing thus far. In my perception of this, I tend to view these more easily as far fewer steps. I’ll probably draw this as two or three panels, followed by one where “there is no god” is happy about the decision he’s made. (And wearing a new shirt.)

6. Compulsion to Confession.  Part of the process of salvation is a confession. The fledgling Christian must admit to their status as a sinner and their need of a savior, often in prayer but sometimes also in person to an evangelist or spiritual mentor. This is framed as a relief, a part of casting one’s burdens onto Christ or, as the article puts it, “ the target is faced with the contrast between the guilt and pain of identity assault and the sudden relief of leniency. The target may feel a desire to reciprocate the kindness offered to him, and at this point, the agent may present the possibility of confession as a means to relieving guilt and pain.” The person has been carrying a “lifetime of sin” and a “guilty conscience” and is now letting it all go for the first time. The Catholic church goes absolutely nuts with this, institutionalizing regular confessions. “there is no god” will be presented with a call to confess to Christ. 

7-8. Channeling of guilt; releasing of guilt. The groundwork for this was already laid in the beginning; I forgot to include that part in this tract, but many evangelists will touch on their beliefs about the beginning of the world and the fall of Adam. Thus, they establish the concept of an in-born nature towards sin in all humans. They can give this concept to their target in the form of framing sin as an inherited curse that they can’t avoid having, but isn’t their fault (their actions are but the curse isn’t) and thus can be considered the source of all their “evil” motivations and actions. In this process, a lifestyle of sin is what they channel their guilt into, saying, “I feel bad because I’ve been living this way and not believing in Jesus!” Then, they can use this curse of sin to say, “it’s not me, it’s my bad nature.” Thus, this sense of guilt is channeled and released. This is repentance described in a paragraph. 

9. Progress and harmony.  At this point, the target is encouraged to choose Jesus and the abuse and negativity will stop. They must now make an active and conscious choice towards belief. The fears of hell will be abated. (At least for now).

10. Final confession and rebirth. Evangelicals go full mask off with this, touting a “born again experience” as proof of someone who is truly Christian. Often, the previous several steps are confessed in what’s called the “sinner’s prayer”. I’ll paste it below for a full explanation before I draw the panels for this. At the end, the person invites Jesus into their lives and grants him lordship over their life, then thanks God for this occurrence. This is the end of this process, though the church behaves in ways that reinforce every step of this. You know, for maintenance.  The sinner’s prayer, in one of its several, similar forms: “Dear Lord, I’m a sinner. Please forgive me. Come into my life and cleans me of my unbelief. I believe in you and in salvation through the blood of Jesus. I turn from sin and trust in Jesus alone as my Savior. In Jesus name I pray, Amen.”

Here we see the Christian offering the solution and the broad outline of the sinner’s prayer. Also, “there is no god” is greatly relieved. I’ll make one panel of him doing the sinner’s prayer, then we’ll touch on the “after they both die” thing. Our Christian character is also disposable and this, in this case, is his final appearance.

Here he is getting saved. (His shirt changes alongside this.) And, of course, he ends this with a desire to go tell literally everyone about this. That’s normative in evangelical circles too.

After this, we’re back to more fearmongering, this time involving a dichotomy meant to imply hope, as I yoink a page right out of Chick’s playbook for a couple more panels. 

Here we see a (shittily-executed) great white throne with our Christianized “there is no god” and our angry unbeliever standing before it. The circumstances of their deaths are outlined (fuck you Jack Chick that’s a creepy vibe) and their condition now is clearly explained. Notice how “lol sex is epic” is still angry. But not for long...

The mask drops:

They never portray Jesus putting it exactly like this but this is the kind of energy, at least it’s how it comes across to me when I read these after deconverting. Tracts tend to give a more detailed reaction to the “but I was good” and “give me a chance” things if their damned victims say these things. They assert that deeds aren’t enough and no one is good. Convenient for brainwashing, there’s also an artificial sense of urgency in that this life is listed as your only chance to accept this message and avoid having your flesh boil away before your eyes over and over again for all of time. 

Chick is a big fan of showing the damned being dragged or frogmarched to the pit by angels. 

And here, mohawk man gets the big yeet. 

After this, particularly if they take the Chick approach and include the hell yeet scene and/or the thing at the throne of judgement, they’ll tend to have some questions like this:

Again, parody. They’re not this goddamn on the nose with it.

I could translate this entire thing in one image:

So this has been a painful little look at what goes into a gospel tract/the brainwashing inherent to the gospel message as understood by fundies/evangelicals.

I hate that I used to think this way and unironically tell people this kind of shit. It’s manipulative and stupid, and also deeply cringey. If you’ve read this far, I’m sorry/congratulations. 

Oh, and one final thought: People who don’t generally do this with tracts use verbal, often shorter, versions of the exact same process. CRU reduces it to five points in their resources (and this is a common approach): something like 1. God made the world, 2. we screwed things up and deserve the big yeet, 3. but Jesus makes a way to fix this shit, 4. He died on a cross and rose from the dead so we could be saved, 5. so believe in him and live forever in a realm that doesn’t have to be filled with fire all the fucking time. They’ll tell you to do something involving counting on your hand while explaining this shit. It’s goddamned cursed, and you’ll notice it goes through the exact process I mentioned above. It literally intends to break you down and mold a new person out of the shards and ashes this produces.

Evangelists are assholes. 

[abigailnussbaum]

The Boys - Good & Bad

Being an itemized list of the strengths and weaknesses of the first season Amazon’s superhero show The Boys, based on the comic run of the same name by Garth Ennis, which I haven’t read.

GOOD:

The show looks good.  It’s not tremendously visually inventive on the level of, say, Legion or Doom Patrol, but it’s got a definite style, and not just in the action scenes.  The stagings pop, the street scenes look crisp and interesting, the boardroom scenes take advantage of the set designers’ inventiveness.  There’s the requisite loss of saturation once our two main characters lose their respective love interests, but it’s not color-graded out of existence, the way a lot of other shows trying to evoke masculine despondency do.  A “gritty”, laddish superhero show conjures up certain expectations where visuals are concerned, and The Boys exceeds them at almost every turn.

There are actual episodes!  With beginnings and endings and common themes!  I had no idea streaming shows could still do that, but The Boys is really good at finding mini-stories within its overarching plot and structuring its episodes around them (which should be a basic implement in a TV writer’s toolkit and instead has all-but disappeared).  Episode 2 is about the Boys realizing how screwed they are by having captured a nearly-unkillable superhero who has seen their faces, and trying to figure out a way to kill him.  Episode 5 is structured around Annie and Hughie’s visit to a superhero-themed Christian revivalist festival.  It gives the entire season a more engaging structure, and pulls you along with the story in a way that most streaming shows don’t even attempt.

There are some genuinely clever worldbuilding choices that emerge from the “what if superheroes, but awful” premise.  The fact that superheroes star in their own movies, for example, or that their power competitions become major sporting events, is hilarious, and perfectly conveys the sense of moral bankruptcy that I think the show is going for.  And the crossover the show posits between superhero worship and white Evangelicalism is an obvious and perfect fit, tying into the latter’s barely-concealed love of power and authoritarianism.  Also, there are some inventive demonstrations of how combining superpowers, limited intelligence, and corporate greed can lead to horrifying results, some funny - The Deep trying to rescue a dolphin from captivity - and some genuinely gutting - the plane crash scene in episode 4 is the queasy highlight of the season, as the viewer realizes just a few seconds before the characters do just how badly they’ve screwed up, and how horrible their future choices are going to have to be.

The cast is uniformly excellent, and pretty much everyone gets a lot of different layers to play.  The highlights are Elisabeth Shue, Erin Moriarty, Jessie T. Usher, and Tomer Capon (bit of hometown pride here, but it’s easy to see why he’s such a well-regarded young actor in Israel), but pretty much everyone is good and interesting to watch.  Even Karl Urban, who gets the show’s most thankless task - he has to carry most of the story while playing its least nuanced character - manages to infuse some humor and complexity into Billy.

There are a lot of interesting, complex relationships, the top one being Homelander and Madeline Stillwell.  As a character says near the end of the season, it’s a relationship that is “hard to quantify” - does he want to fuck her, or kill her, or be her child?  Does she want to control him or does she genuinely get off on his desire for her?  Other relationships are less fraught - Frenchie and Kimiko are incredibly sweet together - but still a lot of fun to watch.

The show seems to understand that at the root of almost every villain, and certainly privileged ones, is childishness.  You see this in the way The Deep sinks into self-pity after experiencing the consequences of his sexual assault on Annie, or the way A-Train becomes obsessed with blaming Hughie for his girlfriend’s death, even though he’s the one who killed her.  You see it most of all in Homelander’s resentment of Madeline’s baby and the attention she lavishes on it.  It’s simply stunning how openly envious this grown man is of a months-old infant, and it makes every scene the two share almost unbearably tense, because you’re just waiting for Homelander to snap and kill the baby.  Which ends up much more effectively conveying the point the show is trying to make than the sudden shock of him actually doing it would have - the fact that this character would clearly feel themselves justified in killing an infant, and is only holding back because he knows there’ll be a fuss, is the sum total of the show’s criticism of absolute power.

(This emphasis also justifies the show’s insistence that Hughie is redeemable, because though he starts out quite immature, he does grow, unlike the superpowered villains.  He starts the season killing a super who hasn’t really done anything to him, just for the rush of it, and ends it saving the life of the super whose selfishness destroyed his world, because he’s actually realized that his are not the only problems that matter.)

Someone seems to have realized that having a female (Asian) character whose name is simply The Female is an absolutely terrible idea, and the show gives her a name as soon as possible.  There’s also hints that she may be regaining the power of speech.

BAD:

The use of violence - and particularly sexual violence - against women ends up privileging men, even when those men are the perpetrators.  Both Hughie and Billy are motivated by the loss of the women they loved, and in both cases the show plumps for the classic approach of single scene featuring the love interest being angelic, and doesn’t bother to shade either of them in or give them a personality or a chance to speak on their own behalf.  And even when the victim is a main character, as when The Deep assaults Annie, the focus is much more on him than on her.  Annie processes her trauma in a scene and a half, and it ends up being folded into her overall dilemma over how to be a superhero.  Whereas the Deep spends the rest of the season coping with the consequences of his actions and folding them into his general lack of self-esteem.  While there’s the germ of an important point there - just because this guy has problems of his own doesn’t justify his assault on another person or make him particularly tragic or compelling - the show’s insistence on going back to that well, even as the season approaches its climax, is simply baffling.

This feels, in fact, like a smaller component of the show’s broader problem with sexual ethics, the fact that it seems to have no way of distinguishing between sexual behavior is depraved, and sexual behavior that is just weird or maybe a bit kinky.  Like, the fact that the Deep has consensual sex with dolphins is not worse than, or even equivalent to, the fact that he assaulted Annie.  The fact that Homelander prematurely ejaculates when he and Madeline have sex isn’t a worse reflection on his character than the fact that he may have raped Billy’s wife.  And yet those cases are treated as equivalent by the narrative.  It ends up feeling profoundly anti-sex, rather than anti-sexual-violence, an impression that is only intensified when Annie and Hughie - the show’s sole “good”, loving couple - have sex that is completely vanilla (and despite Hughie’s earlier assurances that he isn’t intimidated by Annie’s strength, he still ends up being the dominant one in bed, and she even lets him be on top).  It also prevents the show from any serious discussion of the one aspect of sexuality that is unique to its setting, the possibility of supers inadvertently hurting their human partners.  The scene in which Popclaw crushes a man’s head between her thighs is the nadir of the season precisely because it’s played for laughs, for that “aren’t we outrageous” vibe that everyone told me the comic was suffused with.  When actually you could do something interesting and character-based with it, if the show actually cared to.

(Having said all this, I do think that the show is a lot better on the subject of sexual violence than it could have been, and a lot better than the source material might have dictated.  It feels significant that - with the exception of the aforementioned Popclaw scene - we never see any act of sexual assault on screen.  We see Homelander and the Deep scoping out their victims, Rebecca Butcher and Annie, and maneuvering them into a position of vulnerability.  And we see the aftermath of the assault for both victims.  But we don’t see the act itself, in a series that is otherwise perfectly happy to depict consensual sex, even if it judges anything resembling kink.  I also thought the handling of Queen Maeve, as a woman who has lived for years under a sustained campaign of sexual harassment, was extremely powerful - again, the focus is on how the abuse twists the victim up and makes them feel powerless and alone, not on any overt act of violence.)

I really don’t get why I’m meant to care about Billy Butcher.  It’s not even that I don’t like him - I just find him completely uninteresting.  He works as an engine of plot and a way to inject chaos into the other characters’ lives (the repeated device in which he authoritatively promises to solve the team’s problems, only for the show to cut away to him alone, wearing an expression that makes it clear that he has no idea what to do and is about to make everything worse, is pretty funny and effective).  But as a character in his own right and with his own story, he just feels too one-note and monomaniacal for me to care about.  I care what happens to MM and Frenchie and Kimiku and Annie and Maeve.  I even care a little what happens to Hughie.  I simply can’t bring myself to give a fuck about Billy.

I don’t see why I should be rooting for Hughie and Annie to make it work.  It’s great that he feels she helped him rediscover his moral compass, but in the meantime he lied to her, used her, and concealed the fact that he had murdered one of her teammates from her.  Annie has the right of it when she hears his confession and replies “the thing is, I don’t care”.  It would be one thing if their reconciliation at the end of the season was more of an ethical one, a case of Annie choosing to rescue Hughie and the Boys because she knows they don’t deserve to die, not because she forgives him.  But I got the impression that we were meant to read it as a romantic reconciliation too, which Hughie hasn’t even come close to earning.

If you must have interchangeable Middle Eastern terrorists as your go-to, killable background villains, doesn’t it seem obvious that there should be at least a few positive, named Middle Eastern characters in the foreground?  (I suppose Frenchie might count?  But given Capon’s heritage, he could just as easily be a Sepharadic Jew, which doesn’t really avoid the problem of Islamophobia that the show cheerfully blunders into.)

The plot kind of loses the thread towards the end of the season, partly, I suspect, because of the need to set up characters and plot points for season 2.  It’s a particular shame because the plotting had been so strong in the first half of the season.

The sound mix is terrible.  It should tell you something that I even noticed this and worked out the right term to use for it, because I’m usually completely illiterate on these matters.  But after the millionth time you’ve had to raise the volume during a dialogue scene, then immediately lower it during an action scene, you start to wonder if there isn’t something wrong.

Overall, this is a much smarter, more interesting, and more entertaining show than discussions of the comic had led me to expect, but I can’t help but wonder if it isn’t benefitting from the fact that we’re so saturated with superhero stories right now.  There’s less pressure to be the one subversive superhero story, which leaves The Boys room to be more character-focused, and to use superheroes as more of a metaphor for the corrupting influence of power and the evil of corporate overreach.  Its supers feel a lot more like generic celebrities - A-Train is an anxiety-ridden athlete; Annie is a pageant kid; Maeve is an aging movie star whose career and soul have been blighted by ubiquitous sexual harassment.  Characters who are genuinely set apart by their superpowers, like Homelander, are in the minority (and even in Homelander’s case it turns out his psychopathy has more to do with having been raised in a lab).  

Basically it feels like the people who adapted the comic saved it by telling a story that is much more generic than the original, which may be entirely to the good.  But I do wonder whether the second season won’t veer further into exactly those parts of the show that I find least interesting.  The final scene seems to suggest much more of an emphasis on Billy’s manpain and his conflict with Homelander, and the introduction of superpowered terrorists threatens to move the show away from the criticism of power that made the first season work.

[canardroublard]

TMFU, Gaby’s fashion, and some feminist film analysis

Back when I slapped together a reblog post about the men’s fashion in The Man From UNCLE in between physio appointments, which somehow got like way more notes than I ever really expected or even wanted, I didn’t address the fashion of the lead female character, Gaby. It was outside the scope of the OP, and I didn’t feel like I had anything new or interesting to say about Gaby’s fashion, or lack thereof.

(My beta says those earrings are the ugliest thing ever. I disagree. It’s a wonder we’re still friends)

Anyways, we see only one brief scene of Gaby in her own street clothes, and a slightly longer sequence of her in her work clothes. The rest of the film, she is wearing clothes chosen for her by Illya. Saying “we just don’t have enough info” is a perfectly reasonable approach to this. So this was the other reason I had no intention of making this post.

But then people started getting interested. Someone reblogged commenting about Gaby’s fashion, and I discovered that I have very strong opinions about something I’d previously claimed was unknowable, and it made me wonder what was going on in my brain.

Then I talked to some other TMFU friends who all seemed interested in what I assumed was common knowledge/nothing unique. So, they may have been feigning interest out of politeness, but it activated the art history side of my brain, and here we are now!

The boring stuff but please read this

I am not attempting to tell anyone how to interpret this film. I am not even trying to change people’s minds or persuade them to my thinking. All I am doing is sharing my thought process. I wasn’t even going to do this for Gaby until people asked. To this end, please don’t attempt to argue with me about this. I don’t want to argue. I won’t respond to it. If you disagree, then please, just move along.

And I’m going to remind people that I love TMFU. I love this movie so much it hurts. Why am I putting this reminder here? Because I am about to apply some critical analysis to it, and in places this will be cynical, and it will not always look kindly on the film. If you just want to exist in a happy “I love TMFU!” bubble and not hear anything less than 100% positive about the film (which is a totally valid choice, I don’t fault anyone for that), then don’t read. But don’t yell at me for being mean or criticizing the film, because I warned you.

Tldr; or, if I were still being graded for this stuff here’s my thesis statement

When analysing Gaby’s fashion, there exist considerations which don’t apply to the male characters. Namely, she is a woman and the male gaze is a thing. So I am very, very wary about taking at  face value any expressions of traditional femininity in the choices made  for her outfits, hair, makeup, etc. Therefore, when considering her character, I find it much more useful and informative to give more weight to the aspects of her appearance which do not connote traditional femininity, rather than those that do.

For readers who have studied enough  media analysis to follow my thought based on that alone, there’s the thesis statement, y’all can go home (or at least skip to the end where I come to a conclusion). If you’re lost, then read on.

(mobile readers, the cut here might not work, and if so I apologize for what is going to be a very long post. Tumblr’s “keep reading” functionality is inconsistent at best, but I tried)

Context is for kings essential for analysing media in a meaningful way

(Or, some brief background. Stick with me here, we’ll get to the good stuff soon)

So, art doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Attempting to analyze any artwork (in this case a film) while disregarding the culture it was created in and the intentions of the creator is...not going to get you very far. Asking “what is art” is a question that quite frankly exhausts me at this point (looking at you, Duchamp) but the closest I’ve ever come to an answer is that the only thing that separates art from everything else is intent. And intention only exists within cultural context. So yes, intent and context don’t just matter peripherally, they are one of the biggest considerations one needs to make when analyzing works of art. The creator in this case being Guy Ritchie et al, the culture being British/American Popular Cinema in The Year of Somebody’s Lord Two-Thousand-And-Fifteen. 

Everyone views and creates (if applicable) art through their own distorted, murky, imperfect lens of personal experience. And one of the most persistent Things in western art is that cishet men create art based on their experience of Being A Dude. This is crucial, because this lens of cishet male perspective literally underpins almost all of western culture including popular culture. And thanks to feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey, we have a name for this.

The male gaze and you

I’m going to quote Wikipedia here, because honestly this intro sentence sums things up rather neatly (with one exception which I will address momentarily).

In feminist theory, the male gaze is the act of depicting women and the world, in the visual arts and literature, from a masculine, heterosexual perspective that presents and represents women as sexual objects for the pleasure of the male viewer.

What does that all mean? That the Viewer and the Artist are both cishet men by default, and any women are Subjects of art. Women are viewed, never viewers. Men take action, women are subjected to actions. Furthermore, women are supposed to be pleasurable to view. By men. Since the Viewer is male by default.

But I would disagree that the pleasure is inherently based on women being sexual objects. That’s honestly a really damn limited read on the whole theory, and it’s one that Wikipedia itself contradicts later in the article. More broadly, cis men also derive other forms of pleasure from the presentation and viewing of female bodies, including aesthetic pleasure (the enjoyment of looking at beautiful things).

The theory of the male gaze is not without limits. As originally theorized, afaik it’s not particularly intersectional. It doesn’t really address queer perspectives or perspectives of POC. However, these issues are something I just can’t address here, unfortunately. And when looking at popular media, I still find the concept of the male gaze, imperfect as it may be, is a helpful means of analysis, so it’s worth having in your toolbox.

Circling back, the easiest way to sum up the male gaze, if you’re still not super clear on what it is, is with a demonstration.

Ever seen a shot like this in a movie?

And did you immediately roll your eyes? Feel gross? Congrats, you have just perceived and reacted to the male gaze.

Now we actually get back to TMFU

But the male gaze also shows up in many more subtle, insidious ways than fanservice-y boob shots. For this post, let’s focus on the following considerations, which might help everyone follow my thought process more clearly.

Gaby is a woman

She functions as the love interest of Illya in the script (I am not talking from a shipping perspective. What you ship does not matter for this discussion. I am talking about the narrative function of Gaby in the script as written. Put on your “cishet man” goggles for a moment)

Illya is a man who is attracted to women, specifically Gaby (again, I don’t care if your shipping conflicts with this. I am analyzing the film based on a literal reading of it as if I were a cishet man. Why? Because that’s who made the film. That’s who it’s “for”. I am all for queer readings of film--hell, I ship OT3, I myself have chosen a queer reading for how I interact with it, but I’m not critiquing people’s readings, I’m critiquing the film itself and to do that I have to critique its intentions and cultural context.)

Cishet men are traditionally only allowed to be attracted to women who are conventionally attractive. If they were to be attracted to anyone else it would destroy their fragile senses of self and their heads would explode or something. At least I assume that’s what must happen, based on how terrified they are of it.

Therefore, Gaby must be conventionally attractive, because it is literally required of her or otherwise the whole underpinning of western straight malehood crumbles and then where would we get such a pure, vast source of unadulterated toxic masculinity?

(Yes, this is a very cynical read on things. I’ve studied, like, three centuries worth of this bullshit. I’m tired. Let me be cynical.)

Or, to force myself to be less cynical, Gaby has to be pretty because...nope, this is still going to turn out just as cynical.

But what I will say in favour of this movie is that it gives Gaby and Victoria both a lot of agency and general awesomeness, which is quite unusual in this sort of big-budget action film, and it’s one of the big reasons I love it. I’m not saying that the entire film is sexist. On the contrary, there’s a ton of stuff to celebrate about how it portrays its female characters. But these aspects don’t change the cultural context, and we still have to consider the impacts of the male gaze.

Anyways, point being is that as filtered through the male gaze, Gaby is never given the option to, say, wear no makeup (or the appearance of such, as the guys are afforded, this being cinema where “no makeup” still means makeup) because that would look “ugly”.  Instead she needs to have a “baseline of pretty” which is way higher than reality because she is not a real human being with her own agency, she is a character created by a cis male writer/director team in a film directed by a cis man in a genre that caters to cishet men.

Gaby doesn’t exist in a vacuum. She exists battling centuries and centuries worth of sexist convention.

Now then, remembering all of that, let’s actually look at her. There are woefully few good pictures so I’m going to have to piece things together a little. Starting with the coveralls.

This is a great look, I love it. And I’m going to give Ritchie a lot of credit here because it would’ve been easy to go for a “Michelle Rodriguez in F&F sexy mechanic lady” look. In case I need to provide a visual:

(Repeat above gif about rolling my eyes)

Now, to be clear, I am not making any judgement about the way any real-life women dress. I’m sure there’s plenty of female mechanics who have their hair down and wear tank tops while working. That doesn’t bother me. I don’t care if real life mechanics choose to do their jobs in a string bikini. Or in cosplay of the bee from Bee Movie. I don’t care (and quite frankly it’s none of my business) because they are real people who can make their own decisions. But what I am talking about here is a fictional character who does not have her own agency. I am critiquing how male creators choose to dress their female characters.

So I personally choose to read much more into the unpretty  aspects of Gaby’s outfit, because these are not the “obvious” or “easy”   things. Obvious and easy are “of course she wears makeup” and “of course her hair looks good” and  “of course she doesn’t look like a swamp witch  who bathes in mud and spends her days cursing passing men”. Those things don’t challenge or disrupt the assumption that women must look attractive for male consumption.

Gaby’s introduction to us is with her in a pair of grease-stained, baggy coveralls, not wearing any obvious makeup (again, this is cinema, so she is wearing makeup. For cinema the goal posts around “wearing makeup” always need to be moved from where they’d be irl). There’s very little here that screams ‘pretty’. And that is fascinating to me.

I don’t know how deeply Ritchie thought this through when giving final approval to the costume, hair and makeup. But unpretty is not the default here. It’s a choice

And look at this. This is the stance and dress sense (and socks!) of a woman who does not give a damn about looking good for the male gaze, whether the in-movie gaze of Napoleon, or the implied gaze of the viewer and creator. It’s not ‘pretty’. And this is the only time in the film we see Gaby in her own everyday clothes, as she only escapes East Berlin with the literal clothes on her back.

So how do I think Gaby dresses? I think that for the most part she dresses....like this. Practical. Comfortable. With a few simple touches of things she likes/finds pretty, perhaps, but not with a specific interest in being pretty. She dresses for herself, not for others. And if that isn’t something to aspire to, I don’t know what is.

[5thhouse-revelations]

Why I Believe Chiron Can be Healed

Note: I am not a professional astrologer! I am simply passionate about learning astrology and I love to share the insights I have about it. I have found lately that many astrologers have a far too negative perception of the asteroid, Chiron, and so I have gone about the task of attempting to transmute this view. Thank you so much, anyone who reads this! 

I likely have a naive sense of faith in humanity, but it’s because I truly believe in the ability people have to overcome. Transcendence is not a much-considered aspect of old astrology; the astrology that originally surfaced the understanding all of our familiar planets and their meanings. It’s true that the ability to overcome stubborn wounds is not avoided completely through the old structures of astrology, but all that we learn traditionally through it was made sense of by a collective that resided in a very stern and withholding paradigm. I don’t claim this as fact (I’m no authority on history, and these are just my personal speculations), but I perceive that in the collective less work was done internally, than in any other part of history. It seems to me that the collective’s inner work was clouded by the obligations that come with religion and conceptualizing sin, and they did not allow as much for the reflections through other people and ourselves, that we are so willing to grasp today. Instead of making sense of the world through God or dogma, we are beginning to make sense of it through each other and ourselves. Today there is a prevalence of learning through the use of higher perspectives and empathy, and we’ve started taking control of what we believe our soul’s fate to be rather than accepting a handed judgment from any sort of deity.

Ascension and its concept are somewhat new, and so many still don’t believe in it, but for those who do, ascension is all about how we can endlessly overcome. This could almost be a philosophy of its very own, if it weren’t for the fact that it is such an affecting phenomenon.  Ascension and astrology don’t go together in an official sense yet, but I believe we are heading in that direction, because I see how beautifully certain energies play out when they are undertaken with the belief that awareness can shift things, and heal whatever comes up in the scope of life. 

Think of the period in which Astrology was formed: it was formed by people who did not conceive that things were in their control. Everything that happened was a result of the external: Gods, goddesses, magic; other such things, as well as planets, of course. There’s a sense of powerlessness within traditional astrology that is being transformed through the new age. We are in an age now of spiritual accountability, and I truly believe this accountability transfers perfectly onto astrology. Accountability, in my opinion, is what Chiron is all about. Chiron is greatly frowned upon because it’s easy to get so caught up in its pain that we forget our own spiritual responsibilities to reflect, and change and grow.

Chiron symbolizes pain, and long-standing trauma. He indicates pain that is so deeply felt that it creates crises, and around these crises complexes are built. We build structures around our pain that have a way of patching it up so that we can circumvent it, and not have to feel it so strongly. This “patchwork” causes a lack of growth, and it’s my opinion that Chiron shows us where we have to tear this down, heal the complexes, and experience the transformation of how it is that we cope. Chiron is seen negatively because, within his arena, the only way to heal the trauma is to work for it through the transformation of perspective, and an attempted ownership of the wounds. 

Chiron’s neighborhood of affliction too often becomes a zone of comfort. Our trauma can become an accidental refusal in that we hold it so closely to us that we avoid anything that can threaten it. This is what Chiron symbolizes to me: it is that trauma we hold too closely, and identify with too much, and this in itself is martyrdom. Our Chiron is where we say:  “No, this is too much. I refuse to exhume this ever again. This is just who and how I am, and this is how my life ended up” Unfortunately the most common action taken from this mentality is the refusal of change and the rejection of new ways of seeing. We refuse to get creative in the matters that our Chiron represents, because the pain can be blinding.

I think this asteroid is somehow linked to creativity, but in a very unusual sense. It’s just like most crises: we have to utilize dormant parts of ourselves and get creative in order to solve whatever the problems are. I’d like to use an example. My mother has Chiron in the 6th house, and she has always struggled with her health and weight, for the entire length of my life. She is traumatized in that she has an addiction to food that stems from her earlier years, and food brings her a sense of security and safety. For many years she refused to look at this pain, and she went on diet after diet after diet. In her view the dieting was failing, which to her meant she was failing. She felt that this was something that would never end in her lifetime, and the wound symbolized by her Chiron kept getting deeper and deeper, seemingly from an external standpoint. What was truly happening, however, was that the diets were masking the wound she was carrying; it was being circumvented, which did not work in the slightest. 

It wasn’t until two years ago when she actually confronted the wound for what it was, and sought the reflection of herself through others, that the Chironian wound began to truly heal. She is now on a path of good health and longevity, and she is losing the weight with utmost motivation. I could not be more proud of her for everything she has overcome, and I know how seemingly impossible it was for her to heal this wound. She got creative with it in that she sought brand new ways to confront the internal aspects that come with having an eating disorder. This disorder did not come from an external happening - not really. It was outside things that were happening to her, that somehow shaped her perception; she took on that pain and identified with it. We all do this, and I truly believe Chiron is the perfect indicator of how and why we do this. It shows us how we internalize specific outer events in our lives, and lock them into a vault.

Chiron has such a nasty reputation because, for most of us, he shows us where our perception of certain traumas does not change because we flinch away from doing the work to change these perceptions. He shows us the pain we take on as part of our identity when truly, we are none of our pain. He indicates where it is we take certain traumatic events and make them permanent, expecting them to just go on forever and ever, as we secretly wish it would ease up much like Saturn does eventually. The problem is that Chironian wounds appear to go so deep that it makes us feel like it’s impossible to face these issues, and when we can’t face something it leads to spiritual stagnancy, which brings us to perpetuate certain complexes we build around it. 

Even though the asteroid can categorize external events that occur, I believe the purpose is to highlight what it is we internalize that we shouldn’t. It’s indicative of exactly what to avoid internalizing and holding onto. As my father once said: “All that matters in life is that you don’t hold onto what it is that hurts you.” I think this sums up the theme of this asteroid perfectly. It can seem like Chiron is responsible for manifesting the same occurrence over and over again, but it’s my belief that unhealed traumas can easily take on this appearance. I’ll use myself as an example. My Chiron is in the 11th house, in Cancer. I’ve always struggled with the realization of my dreams. I have always carried highly Utopian aspirations within myself, and the seemingly repeated failure to see this manifest has felt like my “wound that cannot heal”. 

It wasn’t until this year that I realized it was me that kept perpetuating this belief that only others can have their dreams, and not me. Every failure to manifest my aspirations was just more evidence of my “unhealable” wound. I internalized every single failure, which I think is perfectly resonating with what Chiron appears to do. If you think about it, everyone has repetitive events happen in their life. Everyone fails and everyone loses, but our Chiron is where we internalize these things, thus perpetuating and not healing them. My Chiron placement shows me where in life I internalize my disappointments. I’ve had many failures in my life that have never upset me: I’ve failed school entirely (Even though school has brought me a lot of pain, I never view it as such a personal failure - in fact I embrace it and I’m proud of myself for all that I’ve been able to teach myself to do), and certain jobs; I’ve failed in love and relationships, but never did I internalize these things like I have my 11th house failings. Now I’m realizing how much I refused to be creative and flexible with my aspirations, my perceptions and my identity. I recognize now, how much I truly suffocated these dreams. Instead of letting the mutable forces of life shape and mature them, I deemed my dreams as dying, and I just assumed: “this is where my life has ended up”. I think that sentence describes Chiron quite accurately.

So no, I don’t believe Chiron is a wound that can’t be healed, because I believe we can transcend anything that happens to us. It’s true that Chiron can be time consuming, but I believe his healing depends on how much we are willing to work on the matters of his house and sign, and how much we are willing to be flexible and change our perspectives of what happens to us in these affairs. Humans more than any other species have the power of mental, spiritual and emotional transformation, and this is truly a gift. We are blessed with self awareness and I do not believe there is anything that can doom the ability of this awareness, when we have it, to heal our wounds.

In the realm of pain and trauma, perspective is everything. When we choose to stop seeing ourselves as a victim of external events, we then choose to stop internalizing them and adopting them as our identity. Once we develop a trans formative and free-flowing sense of identity, anything can be healed, whether or not the wound is Chironian in nature.

[gloster]

Favorite Fanfics of 2018

So after seeing so many booktubers and book people make a list of their favorite books of 2018, I figured why not do one for fanfics. After all, they are stories done by insanely-talented, creative people who deserve more love. Why not make a list of the favorites that really blew you away this away-along with hyping the people up who need more love? 

I implore you all to try, especially: @kila09, @scarlet47, @awjiminie, @profoundfelicity, @dreamydrarry, @sebbies, @goldentruth813, @sasuhinas-fan, @l0vegl0wsinthedark, @oh-my-fancan, @eyelashesandentropy. Show some love to your fics, share the recs. 

My favorite fanfics of 2018: 

1). The Changing Lights by @lazywonderlnds (drarry, featuring fem-Draco)

Summary:  Harry returns for an eighth year following the end of the war and soon realizes that although he's put his own animosity towards Malfoy aside, no one else seems to have done the same. When a hex leaves his oldest rival in the body of a female and ridicule doubles, Harry discovers that his hero complex is a difficult thing to fight.

THIS. FUCKING. STORY. OMG. OMG. First off, I have to thank @scarlet47. It is because of her and the insanely amazing fanart she did that I discovered this hidden gem. And I thank her for it since this has to be the best drarry fanfic I’ve read in the longest time.

It has been too damn long since a drarry fanfic had me hooked the way this one did. First chapter in, halfway through, I was hooked. I blew through the chapters, and am anxiously, eagerly waiting for more because it was so good. 

I also love it since I’ve been wanting to read a fem-Draco story. I know some drarry lovers don’t love genderbent drarry but I love it. I’ve read plenty of fem-Harry but sadly hadn’t come across fem-Draco. And the ones I managed to find were just okay.  This one though...set and fucking broke the bar. It makes me CRAVE and want more (feel free to send any recs featuring it). And I loved it so much that I wanna reread but I have to resist since I have a mountain of fanfics to go through. 

2). Oh Darling, Stand by Me by @beatitudinembty (BTS, taekook)

Summary: Kim Taehyung had never coped well when there was an angry alpha around, no matter that he wasn't the object of their fury. Wisely choosing to keep his mouth shut, he had ignored the flaring annoyance building up inside of his chest at being treated like a frail and delicate porcelain doll who did not know any better, once again.

He was not frail.

He was not delicate.

And he was also not anywhere near ignorant.

"And how do you suggest we do that?" Alpha Jeon asked eventually, tiredly taking a seat when he realised that Alpha Kim was not about to open his mouth any time soon.

"How else, Alpha Jeon," Alpha Park said easily, an eerie smile taking over her lips as she regarded both the Kings levelly, "Just like we have sealed our alliances with one another, of course."

If you would have told me that I would fall in love so hard, so quick with a royal-AU, I would either look at you like you are crazy or say...”That would have be one of hell of a story to get me hooked.” Most love royal-AUs, but I typically get too bored with them. Most take forever with the romance, others become too UNNECESSARILY angsty. The political aspect gets so tiring. This one though was the fucking JACK-POT. 

We have a royal-AU with both parties wanting to make the most of the marriage and go from friends to more, which I love and adore so much. Set in an Alpha/Beta/Omega dynamic world done so well. We have feisty, independent Taehyung who may be an Omega but sure as hell doesn’t let people’s narrow mind-sets get him down. We have Jungkook who’s the sweetest in the most softest of ways-and possessive in the most delicious of ways. READ. IT. If you love reading BTS stories, READ IT. If you love royal au with taekook, READ. IT. if you’re in need of a new BTS story, FUCKING. READ. IT. 

3). Love Yourself Series by @profoundfelicity (BTS: namjin, taekook, sope, yoonmin)

Summary: Linear stories revolving around themes of love, self-acceptance, and understanding.

This is a 3-story series following various couples: 

Pretty In Pink follows namjin

My Lovely Lilac follows taekook

Under Pressure follows Yoongi, JHOPE, and Jimin 

This series, this goddamn holy grail of a series-I could not just pick one story of them. Had to say the entire series since it’s THAT GOOD. All stories connect to each other, so even though one story focuses on one couple, the side pairings and characters still play a massive part in them. All stories tackle sexuality, gender norms, trauma, parental abuse and neglect, self-discovery, self-understanding, self-love.  ALL. ARE. FUCKING. AMAZING. ABSOLUTELY, RIDICULOUSLY, UNBELIEVABLY amazing. AND NEEDS TO BE READ BY ALL. 

I feel like this series is painfully underrated, since not too many BTS-fans I talk to know of it. And it’s so good. I honestly learned so much about sexuality, the different branches of it, and the harms of gender norms, rethinking the gender norms through these 3 stories than all the years I’ve been in school. It’s amazing. And is so important during the turmoil we’re currently in. Also the writer is a fucking, perfect, precious cinnamon roll who deserves all the nicer things in life. 

4). It’s The Most Wonderful Time (Of The Year) by @awjiminie (BTS, yoonmin)

Summary: Park Jimin is only three years old when he meets cooler, older, and smarter Min Yoongi for the first time, and is immediately enamoured.

For the first time in his entire life, Jimin feels an emotion he never thought he would feel: infatuation.

Not that he even understands what that feeling means.

All he knows is that there’s a small, pale boy at the front door of his home, right under the hanging mistletoe, firmly gripping his father’s hand and his mother’s skirt as he stares unabashedly into Jimin’s eyes, rendering him absolutely speechless.

Or

childhood best friends yoonmin growing up together and experiencing the complexities of love & relationships, as well as, the harsh realities of growing older over the years, on Christmas day

OH. MY. FRIGGERING. GOD. Warning to all: you will most definitely need a cavity filling from the vast amount of sweetness in this story. It is that fucking cute and so damn good. 

This, to me, is the epitome of sweet holiday goodness every person needs in their lives both during and even after the holiday season. Along with a nice mug of hot chocolate. Or something insanely delicious to go with it. We have yoonmin meeting as kids during the holidays and instantly falling for each other, we have side-taekook that comes along, we have the sweetest, most perfectly-done vmin friendship that just proves they are the definition of platonic soulmates (you will die reading chapter 3).

This story also holds a special place in my heart since I read it during a difficult time and needed some sweetness. Also got to know the author @awjiminie who is the sweetest, purest human being alive and needs love. 

5). Fate Worse than Death by @awjiminie (BTS, taekook)

Summary: For an immortal, five hundred and sixty-six years passed by in the blink of an eye, as time was endless and life was infinite. Yet, for Kim Taehyung, five hundred and sixty-six years of a meaningless existence passed agonisingly slow with each second dragging on to the next as he waited for the day that he would finally see his beloved once more. His beloved who had been ripped from him just as they were on the cusp of freedom. Freedom to finally live and love together without any barriers.

Kim Taehyung lived every day feeling as lonely as he did when he lost him, even when he had his coven to call family, his maker, Min Yoongi, and his lavish lifestyle in one of Seoul's richest districts where he studied at one of the most influential universities.

But nothing was the same. Not without him. Never without him.His lover, his life, and his everything. 

His Jeon Jungkook.

If I could sum up this story in two words, it would be this: HOLY. FUCK. If I could sum up the writer with the plots and twists and fucking cliff-hangers she throws my way, one word in my best Josh Peck’s voice: EVIL. Pure, goddamn evil. And I know for a fact @scarlet47 can agree with me on that one. But it is so damn good. 

Once upon a time, middle school me, along with high school me, was the BIGGEST, die-hard vampire fan. You can thank Twilight for that. And also Vampire Diaries, before season 4 ruined it all. However, like most vampire fantatics, my love for vampires died. Even though I have read the occasional vampire-trope in fanfics with my OTPS, it was just okay. 

This fucking story came out of nowhere and snatched me by my hair and didn’t let me until I got to the recent chapter. It reminded me why I fell in love with vampires in the beginning. Along with that, it also carries so many things I love, so many beloved tropes: reincarnation (which I need more of), enemies-to-lovers, a slow-burn that is so excruciating and so well-done with so many possibilities attached to it, the sweetest taegi platonic relationship that melted my heart. It definitely gave me Buffy the Vampire Slayer vibes, and those good, non-annoying alluring feelings Twilight brought to us when we first read it. 

Basically if you love vampires/in need of a vampire story/love angsty enemies-to-lovers story, you will love this. 

6). EPOCH by Sharleena (BTS, Yoongi, Jimin x Hoseok) 

Summary: “It's kind of fucked up that we feel like this, don't you think?” Yoongi asks.

“Yeah.” Hoseok says, Jimin shrugs.

“Maybe we should take this as a sign.” he says.

“A sign for what?” Yoongi looks at the boy and his thumb is rubbing circles on the soft of Hoseok's stomach.

“That maybe we should stick together.” Jimin whispers.

Yoongi doesn't speak for a long time after that, eyes staring at the ceiling where the red lights keep flickering.

“Yeah.” he finally murmurs, words almost getting lost in the echoes of the music “Yeah, we should.”

Or, they are different, but they were lost and their paths still crossed.

Before the end of 2017, if you had told me that I would be into poly-relationships...there’s a good chance I will give you a look questioning your sanity. I could never get into them. To me, it always felt like one person was being the shared toy between two people. That all changed thanks to several stories, including House of Cards (SO FUCKING GOOD) and Guns, Knives, and Lace that were discovered by chance, were read, and completely changed my mind on them. 

This story made me fall deeper in love with poly-relationships. So well-done, so-addicting, and you can feel the love equally shared between the 3 main characters who are all so different but fit each other so perfectly. 

It’s the kind of story that’s so good, you’re stunned by the number of chapters. 

7). Hear the Harmony Only When It’s Harming Me by @horsegirlharry (drarry, fem-slash)

Summary: Before the war, Draco was so certain of her looks, her breeding, knew exactly how to dress to accentuate her curves without ever looking cheap or tawdry. Now, her body feels strange and extra, like something that she’s forced to carry around with her, a lump of scar tissue that only fires a nerve impulse if it’s brushing knees with Harriet Potter over tea and stolen scones.

---

Or, Harriet and Draco finding themselves (and each other) after the war.

*lets out a low whistle* You know one of those stories you happen to find at random? The story you see on someone’s else’s favorite lists or their collection of favorite stories and become curious? Or, in my case, see a story with an intriguing summary and beautiful edit and you think, I’ll give it a try? And as soon as you finish the last line of the story, you are so grateful to past you for deciding to read it since the story ended up being one of the best perfect stories ever? 

Well this is that story. 

I know a lot of people aren’t the biggest fan of genderbent, especially with drarry. Even I who loves reading about fem-Harry or Fem-Draco get picky since most time you read a story with them, but they don’t feel like them. That wasn’t the case here. Despite the obvious genital changes and names, they felt like drarry. Personalities were right on point, their relationship development was perfect. It was seriously amazing. 

I suggest you give it a try. 

8). Pas De Deux by @julietsemophase

Summary: Harry has a show to put on and the last thing he needs is prima ballerina Draco Malfoy messing things up. But when Draco is injured, the two end up spending more time together and Harry wonders if maybe there's something between them after all?

Muggle AU. Smut.

Really, do I need to say anymore? Given how popular this drarry fanfic writer is? Given how insanely sweet and brilliant her drarry stories are? Do I need to say anymore more? 

I will say this: Ballet-Draco + Stage-hands Harry= one very, very, very happy reader. 

9). Say the Words (Say Them Out Loud) by @goldentruth813 (drarry)

Summary:  When Draco gets assigned as the Auror to guard Harry Potter day and night, he is sure nothing good will come of it. But as the days go on Draco is forced to evaluate himself and things he thought to be true about Potter and relationships. Sometimes it's not love at first sight. Sometimes, first, it's miscommunication and misunderstanding. A story in which Harry and Draco learn to accept the things they want from themselves and from each other.

Again, we see the name. We know the name. We love the name. We love the stories. Do I need to say anything more? Maybe not, since again, we all know and love this person and her amazing stories, but I will make this. 

One of the major things I loved about this story is the fact consent was a big part of the story, of the relationship. Safe to say, we learned, given the BS in the news, that sadly not too many people know the meaning of the word. Don’t seem to grasp the meaning. And this story definitely enforces it and I love it. 

Also LOVE how she did this story. How she wrote their relationship, which was snarky and witty but not tiresome or too annoying. Also, slight spoiler, but the career Janel had Harry be made me so happy. 

This whole story had me so happy, and I loved it so much. 

10). This Isn’t A Dream (Let Me Love You) by...surprise, surprise (NOT) @awjiminie (BTS, yoonmin)

Summary: As captain of his high school’s basketball team, Min Yoongi dedicated all of his attention to his team and their games. His focus on the game never waned, not once for anything or anyone.

Well, until head cheerleader Park Jimin flashed his abs during a solo cheer and made him fuck up his shot.

As we can tell, I clearly gained a new favorite fanfic writer. Seems fitting since I did join a new fandom, aka the phenomena that is BTS. 

What on earth can I say about this story? I feel like it’s one of those that you have to read for yourself to understand why it’s so good. Let’s face it, whenever we try to describe something and hype it up, it’s usually a fail and can never match the goodness of the story. But I will attempt. 

First off, if the summary doesn’t make you the least bit curious, I don’t know what will. Does it sound like a typical high-school AU? Yes, I mean we have basketball player Yoongi and cheerleader Jimin. It is a typical AU? Nope, definitely not. There is so much humor, so much angst, so much slow-burn that drives you nuts and makes you wanna kill the author for the way she ends her chapters but at the same time makes you 10x more thristy for the next chapter.

Also for reasons I cannot explain, but because an inside joke between me and @awjiminie, this story seriously unleashed the High School Musical fangirl in me. I don't know why. It's hardly anything like HSM but every time I read it, the songs play in my head. Especially Troyella.

This is definitely a story I cannot recommend enough. Cannot gush enough over. Please please read

And thus concludes my top 10 favorite fanfics of the year. To the writers who created them, thank you so much for your wonderful stories. I honestly you guys share the fanfics you absolutely loved this year. Doesn’t have to be 10. It can be more than 10. Less than 10. Whatever and how many you love