#it feels disingenuous to describe one piece as ‘just a show’

[mirandimoo]

sometimes i get overwhelmed by just how much one piece makes me FEEL. it makes me feel in such an overwhelming and astonishing way that i don’t think any other piece of media has made me feel. ​it honestly feels disingenuous to describe one piece as ‘just a show’ because it’s not just like “i’m a fan of this and it makes me really excited!” it’s more like somehow this entire world that’s been created and laid out in front of me, and this silly group of pirates that i have the privilege to follow along the journeys of, has changed my life at a very fundamental level. like the very way in which i view life has shifted dramatically ever since the strawhats have been introduced into my life… ever since luffy has entered my life.

my heart races when they’re on an adventure as if i’m right there alongside them. my eyes well with tears whenever something goes oh so right or oh so terribly wrong. i feel my hands physically shake and my eyes and heart and soul brighten and awaken in such a joyful and passionate way when hearing roger, luffy, or any other pirate talk about their dreams being full of adventure and freedom.

to be happy. to be passionate. to be free.

that’s they’re dream. and how lucky am i to feel such emotion upon hearing their dreams.

my dreams are filled by the great expansive seas. in my dreams i’m part of a pirate crew and our bond is closer than any other relationship, be it blood, romantic, or any other type, other people could only dream of sharing a bond like we do. we live every day, every moment, every second, knowing that it could be our last. none of us are afraid of death for ourselves but we fear it for each other, even if that may never be admitted out loud. we plunder and steal. fight and kill. we sing and we dance and we cry and we live. we live so brightly and so shortly but oh how wondrous a life it is.

in my dreams i stare out at the endless horizon line curving out in front of me. i feel the suns bright rays warm me as the salt water breeze cools me down. i help cook, i clean, i fight, i train. i practice my craft specialty in order to be able to better serve my crew. maybe in this dream i’m a musician. maybe i’m a swordsman. maybe i’ll become the king of the pirates. we never know the day or the month because we don’t need to. we just track the seasons by the length of the days and the temperature of the weather and that’s enough because that’s all we need to know. we spend our days together and alone. laughing and crying and singing and creating memories out of the grandiose or the mundane. at night we sit under the stars and lower the anchor to sleep through the night. maybe in this dream i’m on watch duty tonight. id stare out at the stars, blanket wrapped around my shoulders, thinking of how magnificent and absolutely beautiful this life is. i think of the friends i’ve made, the adventures i’ve had, and the freedom that makes my heart ache with what i could only describe as life. true and real life. this is how life is meant to be lived. short and fast and tragic and beautiful. creating bonds and memories and having adventures that perfectly encapsulate the essence of who i am as a person. surely there’s more to life. and surely i have found it here. in this life. with this crew.

and before i know it,

i wake up.

and my dream is over.

sometimes i wonder if Oda knows just how powerful and beautiful of a world he created. if he knows how impactful his characters are and how it has unlocked a part of my heart, my spirit, and my soul, that nothing else in this life has done for me. i haven’t felt anything in a long time. i can feel my passion for living slowly slipping through my fingers with every passing day. apathy spreads through my chest, my mind and my soul like a plague. and yet… out there exists a group of pirates, in this world that i could never be a part of, that acts as the antidote to my apathetic self sacrificially plagued soul.

i wonder if Oda knows this.

i wonder if Oda knows that he’s created a world that fills my dreams every night. that runs free through my veins like the worlds most intoxicating beverage. that has fully and entirely deconstructed my soul and then put it back together piece by piece, intertwining it’s value and passion of freedom into its foundations.

sometimes when i’m really sad, i like to imagine that in another life, this is where i was and where i belonged. to a crew of scheming brave and filthy pirates with a bond so close, who lived so fast and died young. out on the sea, meeting new people every week, having new adventures, exploring uncharted parts of the world, not knowing what lay ahead but being okay with that because it’s the life that i chose and the people that i chose to live that life by.

and that’s freedom.

and if i had to die fighting for that, then id die.

i think in another life my recklessness was seen as a strength and my fixations as a blessing in perseverance. my annoying and loud personality was seen as endearing and my short attention span seen as a useful battle strategy. i think in another life all my shortcomings, and things that hinder me were a strength to me out there. out on the sea.

so until that day comes i’ll keep putting one foot in front of the other. and living my life in a way that all my past selves and all my future selves would be proud of. i’ll live a life that i think luffy would be proud of.

i wonder if Oda knows how much of our souls have become irrevocably intertwined with the souls of the strawhats, their stories, and the world that he’s created.

i hope one day he knows just how much one piece has made me be able to feel again. to live again. to be free again.

[captainsaltymuyfancy2]

I’m not so sure about this post, I’m not really confident in any of it, it’s mostly just wild conjecture and aimless rambling. I’m open to discussion and to changing my mind, this is just what I’m thinking at the moment. Thank you to everyone cited for inspiration❤️

I’m really fascinated by what Jacob said about how the longevity of Louis and Armand’s relationship has led to both tenderness and resentment. The reasons why Louis might resent Armand are PLENTIFUL, but what possible reason would Armand have to resent Louis? Obviously it’s not going to be a “good” reason, but that makes it all the more delectable.

Right now I kind of have this theory that Armand resents Louis in part because he thinks Louis’ shows of affection are disingenuous. Put more accurately, his suspicion that Louis’ affection is disingenuous and his ensuing resentment underlie a deeper fear that Louis doesn’t love him.

HOWEVER, the kicker is that Louis does still feel some kind of affection for Armand. Just like he felt for Lestat when he and Claudia (mostly Claudia) were planning their escape, Louis feels some love for Armand still, but he’s able to leverage it in pursuit of his goal. What exactly this goal is remains to be seen (although I have some serious guesses…well mostly one guess).

Whatever it is, I think Louis has been planning very carefully for a long time to get to it. As @likethemodel points out here, their bed is literally a chessboard, like the one Claudia played in order to best Lestat and get under his skin in s1. The IWTV cast and crew have repeatedly describe the dynamics in Dubai as “3D chess”, and it doesn’t get much more 3D than using yourself as a chess piece. This is what the major question in Dubai is for me: not “did he fuck that old man” or “did Armand alter Louis’ memories”, but rather “What is Louis’ agenda, why has he brought all of these pieces together in this way?”

If my theory is correct, I think it would tie in nicely with the book. As @nativehueofresolution said in this post, Louis in the book does love Armand, but not in a way Armand understands at that point. If this was translated into the show, it could take the form of Louis still loving Armand in some way, like his few displays of affection such as kissing him in bed and squeezing/rubbing his shoulder during the interview being at least partly genuine, but also strategic.

So even though Louis’ affection in these gestures may be somewhat genuine, the context is still performative in order to accomplish a higher goal, though exactly what remains unclear. This much I think Armand can see and he resents, but I think he misinterprets it to mean Louis doesn’t love him at all. But the love is there and it is mutual to a degree, just not in a way Armand can see, which is kind of poetic justice and the absolute least he deserves.

Digressing a bit, even though Louis is being genuinely affectionate at times, even if it was totally without ulterior motives, it still could never be enough for Armand, because what he views as love is simply not something Louis can give.

In an interview posted here by @diasdelfuego, Hannah Moscovitch says she thinks that “Armand is Louis’ creature”, and agreed with the interviewer that Armand “serves a god” in his relationship with Louis. I interpreted this to mean that Armand has *made himself* into Louis’ creature, Louis’ disciple. And like Judas in the artwork in their bedroom (post also courtesy of @diasdelfuego), Armand becomes resentful and thinks Louis doesn’t love him because Louis doesn’t treat him the way Armand thinks a disciple should be treated.

The problem (well, one of MANY) is that this dynamic Armand has tried to create pretty much dooms him to never get back the kind of love he wants from Louis right now. In deciding he ‘serves a god’, Armand has made it impossible for Louis to love him in the way Armand craves, because Louis is not a god. Armand has made himself a disciple to a god that doesn’t exist, and feels betrayed when that nonexistent god doesn’t respond to his worship. Again, it’s poetic justice, but only the very tip of what he deserves. Lukewarm justice.

It’s surely not lost on Louis how stupid (more accurately, hypocritical and insulting) it is that Armand worships him like a god, and yet Armand himself holds godlike power over Louis’ life. A disciple does not control a god, and Louis knows this, he’s chronically Catholic. He knows the control Armand has over him, and I think this interview is partly a way for him to circumvent that power. Armand’s attempts to manipulate and “protect” Louis doom his quest for all-consuming devotion even more. I love messy bitches who create their own problems.

The god-worship is probably one aspect of Louis’ resentment toward Armand, but again this is something that’s so deeply, painfully layered. Between forcing Louis to turn Madeleine and killing Claudia (assuming, as most of us are, that the show is following the book in this way), the depth of Louis’ resentment for Armand is abyssal. Which would make the fact that Louis does still love him (per my aforementioned theory) even more shocking and scrumptious, and his plotting all the more emotionally difficult.

[benicebefunny]

There's something so disingenuous about critics and fans who describe Nathan Shelley as an evil, irrational, ungrateful, unsympathetic villain. And then tack on praise for Nick Mohammed for bringing such an awful, vile creature to life.

As if that was Nick Mohammed's intention. As if all of his acting choices were carefully made so that the audience would perceive his character with such vehement (and often violent) hatred. As if he approached this character like a cartoon villain that everyone loves to hate.

That clearly hasn't been what Nick Mohammed's trying to do. It's obvious in his interviews and social media and--if one bothers to actually watch--the fucking show itself.

Deeply mischaracterizing Nick Mohammed's performance and then praising him for it reads like an excuse for so passionately hating Nathan Shelley. "Nate is an irredeemable piece of shit and I cry blood whenever I see him, but kudos to the actor for making me feel so irrationally enraged." Like, no, bro, you whipped yourself into that fervor. Nick Mohammed could be the worst actor in the entire world, and people would still hate Nathan because (1) he'd still look like Nick Mohammed, and (2) the writers still wouldn't have adjusted their storytelling to compensate for the limited sympathy white audiences possess for characters of color.

Seeing this so consistently (including from professional reviewers), I can't help but feel it's a response to actors in other projects being harassed, stalked, doxxed, and threatened with death, because audiences hate their character. (I'm thinking of Kelly Marie Tran, Anna Gunn, and way too many actors from The Walking Dead.)

It's a pattern. Step One: audiences cannot or will not empathize with (or even just let exist) a character due to their gender, race, disability, fatness, etc. Step Two: audiences direct their rage at the actor for playing that character and/or the audacity of stealing screentime that rightfully belongs to the main white dude.

The formula of bashing Nathan and praising Nick feels like a way to separate oneself from the people who also bash Nick. (For example, the people who tweet "I hate @NickMohammed.") It's a way to not seem like One of Those Awful People without interrogating the forces preventing the extension of one's sympathies to Nathan. But not doing Step Two doesn't make up for still doing Step One.

I don't think it's a good sign if so many people talk about a character in a manner they feel immediately requires an implied "but don't form a hate mob against the actor" addendum. Like, if one's take on a character could be construed as a call to violence, maybe one should rethink that take. And not just add, "the actor deserves ALL THE EMMYS and definitely not to get murdered on the street."

[theblogtini]

I swear I’ve never seen a grown woman, supposedly already famous and discreet, be so desperate to show the world what her life is like (or an image of herself that she wants people to see).

Meghan could have just as easily written that letter in support of paid leave (even including the part of her being fortunate enough to take time off because it would have been naïve to pretend she wasn´t in a privileged position) without all the exposition about her upbringing and her working since she was 13 etc. etc. Like, no matter how much she had to toil in her youth that is clearly not her present anymore.

It reminded me of a paragraph in her oped piece about miscarriage that stood out for me a bit. In it, there was a whole thing describing her household in the morning and picking up crayons and socks lying around just like any other mom, like she doesn’t have a live in maid in a mansion with 15 bathrooms that straightens everything out and is in charge of laundry, c´mon. And it bothered me a bit because despite the point of the article being so strong and universal (rich women go through miscarriages just like poor women do), she still used it as an opportunity to send across a fabricated image of herself.

And I find she´s doing the same thing with this letter. She roots for a good cause while taking advantage for her self-promoting in a way. It´s self-centered, and a bit dishonest.

ALL OF THIS! Yes, yes, yes! Everything she does feels so disingenuous. Like - WTF does her story about scooping ice cream at age 13 have to do with getting paid parental leave? Unless she had a child at 13 and was unable to take leave from said scooping job, it's completely irrelevant to the case at hand. But she uses these anecdotes (over and over again) to try to make herself seem "normal" and like she's "one of the people." The problem is that she tells these stories on "The Office of The Duke and Duchess of Sussex" formal letterhead and signs off as The Duchess. It's ridiculous.

Diane von Furstenberg was a princess when she started her fashion line. She was entitled to use the style and title Her Serene Highness Princess Dian of Furstenberg prior to her divorce but, while launching her label, she never did. Olivia Wilde (the actress) was a princess when she first started working in Hollywood (she divorced her first husband in 2011) - she NEVER used her title. Ever. Even Marie-Chantal doesn't use her style/title (courtesy though they may be) professionally. Sophie Winkleman didn't run around LA as Lady Frederick Windsor. (Would using their titles have helped any of them? Who knows - but being Princess so & so is certainly more noteworthy than being Ms. so and so.) But here's Meghan - who QUIT HER JOB because she hated the horrible racist institution, the way they treated her and her unborn children, and everything they stood for - using her title all over the goddamn place for her own personal gain. Monetizing it.

[the-blue-fairie]

On the Subject of Aporia

I guess I disagree with the notion that Show Yourself is Let it Go done “the right way.”

Much can be made of the fact that, in Let it Go, Elsa doesn’t truly work through her issues. But the thing is... she doesn’t really work through her issues in Show Yourself either. She doesn’t confront the roots of her trauma. She isn’t able to meditate on the roots of her trauma. She doesn’t get true catharsis and she doesn’t get true relief. In fact, Show Yourself goes some ways to sweep the roots of Elsa’s trauma under the rug.

And here I have to discuss how Frozen 2 frames Agnarr and Iduna. Because Frozen 2 never dwells upon the part Agnarr and Iduna played in Elsa’s trauma. It idealizes them, ignoring the fact that they were the ones to initiate the separation of the sisters in the first place, they were the ones who taught Elsa that she had to hide.

In the past, I’ve seen people put the blame on Elsa for the separation - saying that her fear after the accident instigated it and pointing to the fact that Elsa herself continues the separation after her parents’ death.

This reading is disingenuous, to say the least. While the accident scarred Elsa as a child, the separation (which was instigated by her parents, with the affirmation and complicity of the trolls) was what cemented the self-hatred in her heart. Elsa continued the separation after her parents’ death because she learned it well throughout her childhood.

I don’t like the fact that certain people place the blame for the childhood separation on Elsa, who was a terrified child at the time. A terrified child listening to the adults around her, adults in positions of authority. Adults who chose to close the gates, reduce the staff, limit her contact with people, and keep her powers secret from everyone, including Anna.

You can’t blame a child in an extreme situation the same as you blame an adult - but I’ve seen people in the fandom do it - and it frustrates me.

And again, as I’ve always said, Agnarr and Iduna are in an extreme situation too - and they are working under the guidance of the trolls. Agnarr and Iduna are good people - but their choices still contributed to their daughters’ pain.

And neither the films nor the shorts show the sisters processing their parents’ actions and how those actions hurt them.

Not even Dangerous Secrets does that - because Dangerous Secrets focuses on Iduna’s and Agnarr’s perspective. It’s not about the sisters processing what their parents did to them.

And again, “processing” doesn’t mean “condemnation.” I’m not advocating that the sisters condemn or hate their parents. Processing can also mean realizing that their parents were in a painful situation and forgiving them, accepting what happened.

But neither the films, nor the shorts, nor Dangerous Secrets do any of that. Even though coming to terms with the past is a key theme in Frozen 2 and a theme that centers on Agnarr and Iduna, Frozen 2 ignores their part in the childhood separation altogether.

It could have brought it up and, in bringing it up, it could have beautifully paralleled Iduna having to hide being Northuldra with Elsa having to hide her powers. It could have the sisters, as they are forced to make tough choices, sympathize with the tough choices their parents had to make. It could have truly confronted the roots of Elsa’s trauma by referencing the separation when Elsa meets her mother in Ahtohallan, giving the scene greater emotional weight. Or, the film could have highlighted that the True Evil comes from people like Runeard - whose fear causes him to kill, whereas Iduna and Agnarr’s fear for their children’s safety caused them to try and protect, even in an imperfect way.

The possibilities that present themselves are limitless - but only if Frozen 2 had the courage to address Agnarr’s and Iduna’s part in the childhood separation - and it didn’t. It had multiple opportunities to. It simply made the deliberate choice not to do so - to brush those actions essentially under the rug.

It’s like the movie thinks that, if it references Agnarr and Iduna’s part in the separation, that will make Agnarr and Iduna seem bad. But actually, the opposite would be true. If the film directly addressed Agnarr’s and Iduna’s part in the separation, they would become even more sympathetic because viewers would get a clearer understanding of what they were going through and see clearly how they were good people. On top of that, both Elsa and Anna could get a chance at true closure with them.

But the film goes out of its way not to bring that topic up. Even when Olaf recaps the first film, it’s like this: “[as Elsa] Anna, no too high! Blast! [as Anna] Ohhh! [as Elsa] Mama Papa Help! Slam, doors shutting everywhere, sisters torn apart. Well, at least they have their parents. [beat] Their parents are dead.”  “Doors shutting everywhere” and “sisters torn apart” describes the event passively. It’s just “something that happened.” The problem is, within the context of the first film, it’s not just “something that happened.” It’s something that happened as a direct result of the trolls’ choices and Agnarr’s and Iduna’s choices. And I stress their choices over Elsa’s because she was a child in this situation and they are the adults in authority. 

Thus, in a film that’s supposedly all about coming to terms with the mistakes of the past, a film where Agnarr and Iduna play a crucial role, this aspect of the past is actively ignored. Even though not ignoring this aspect of the past would enrich both films and clarify things more fully for people who are on the fence about Agnarr and Iduna (also, hopefully it could address the trolls’ part in all this, because no piece of Frozen media even begins to grapple with the trolls’ part in all this.)

And I know you might say, “Well, Dangerous Secrets addresses the parents’ part in the children’s separation!” And that’s good that it does so. But that still doesn’t get to my central point: that no piece of Frozen media shows Elsa and Anna coming to terms with what their parents and the trolls did to them, and how that influenced Elsa’s actions in the future. 

Now, some people have argued that the films and shorts do address the sisters coming to terms with what their parents did to them, because through their parents’ portrayal in OFA and F2 it is implicitly suggested that Elsa and Anna have no ill feelings towards their parents.

But I’ve addressed this before in the past:

“Having ‘no ill feelings’ is the culmination of an emotional journey that we don’t get to see. We get to see the sisters dealing with the emotional ramifications of their childhoods and what it means for themselves, yes. We get to see them reconnect during Frozen Fever. But we don’t get to see them processing feelings for their parents (and the trolls) that must be complicated for them.

And saying that emotional journey is implicit or is addressed subtly because we see that the sisters bear their parents no ill will... I’m sorry, but that just isn’t good enough for me. The sisters bearing their parents no ill will is an endpoint. It’s not the emotional journey itself. We don’t get to SEE that journey addressed directly. We just have to be content with... implication.”

And the fact we just have to be content with implication when Frozen 2 is so much about the sisters’ relationship with their parents and Frozen 2 offers every chance to go beyond implication is... troubling to me.

It’s more than just an oversight on F2′s part. It’s a deliberate choice.

And it weakens the emotional impact of Show Yourself.

Show Yourself is framed as Elsa gaining closure regarding her mother, her trauma, her sense of self. But, regardless of that framing, it... doesn’t exactly give Elsa that closure.

Because Frozen media, outside of Dangerous Secrets, seems bent on glossing over the part Elsa’s and Anna’s parents and the trolls had in the sisters’ traumas in childhood. Because Frozen media doesn’t give the sisters a chance to talk together or reflect together on their parents’ and the trolls’ actions and come to terms with them. Even Dangerous Secrets, which does better in exploring the nuances and complexities of Agnarr and Iduna, can’t do that because the book is telling the parents’ story, not Elsa’s and Anna’s.

So parts of Show Yourself feel like... going through the motions of catharsis with no actual catharsis - because there are still open wounds that Show Yourself doesn’t even try to heal because the film won’t openly admit they exist. Because, as with Let it Go before it, there is still work to be done.

But at least Let it Go let Elsa be frustrated with her parents’ poor choices. At least it allowed Elsa to repudiate the strictures placed upon her:

Don't let them in, don't let them see Be the good girl you always have to be Conceal, don't feel, don't let them know Well, now they know 

There’s more reflection on her parents’ part in her pain in those few lines than in the whole of Frozen 2 - even though much of Frozen 2 is directly about her parents.

I’ve seen people describe the transition from Let it Go to Show Yourself as a transition from reckless defiance to acceptance and peace... but this framing doesn’t work with the film’s portrayal of Elsa’s relationship with Iduna. Because for that framing to work, we’d actually have to see Elsa’s transition towards acceptance of her mother’s actions. We’d actually have to see the emotional process of Elsa making peace with her parents’ choices.

And we don’t.

And that’s tragic because, especially with the backstory Frozen 2 gives Iduna, there’s so much you could have done with Elsa’s relationship with her mother. So many parallels Elsa herself could have made as we see her truly going through the process of healing.

(Also, this last note isn’t related to Let it Go or Show Yourself, but, How does Anna feel about the trolls modifying her memories in childhood? I’m sure it has come up in the intervening years in-universe, but we’ve never seen it addressed... and that speaks to the larger issue I’ve been discussing.)

EDIT: Kristanna and Greatqueenanna have informed me that Anna’s missing memories are the subject of Memory and Magic, the second book in the Sisterhood is the Strongest Magic series - and, while I’m glad of that, I still am a bit bummed that they are relegated to an obscure book that not everyone will read and may be of dubious canonicity at this point instead of being addressed in the feature film that centers on addressing the past and coming to terms with it. While Dangerous Secrets is much more high-profile, I have similar reservations about it as well - because not as many people are going to find it as find Frozen 2. Moreover, Dangerous Secrets is meant to be a supplement to Frozen 2 and it doesn’t focus on Elsa’s and Anna’s emotional journey regarding their parents. I guess Frozen 2 is supposed to be that emotional journey in a way, but because Frozen 2 refuses to touch the childhood separation and Agnarr’s and Iduna’s accountability for it, that leaves a... gap in the text... so that the emotional journey feels incomplete.   

[sandymybeloved]

Rosa

How does one even talk about this in a way that does it justice? I was so nervous going into this that I wouldn’t enjoy it as much as I did the first time, that it wouldn't live up to my expectations, and boy was I wrong. Why have I not rewatched this before, why, for all these years, have I been satisfied with just my initial viewing. In case it wasn't obvious, I loved it, an incredible piece of television.

Introduction and links to other reviews

I'm sure everybody’s heard all of this before, but I’m going to gush about this anyway. This episode had such a thin line to tread in so many aspects. When someone describes the basic plot, the fam lands in 1955 Alabama the day before Rosa Parks refuses to give up her bus seat and ensure that it happens, you can see all the potential pitfalls plain as day, and thankfully the episode manages to avoid every single one expertly.

The one that I was most afraid of and therefore most impressed by, was giving the fam something to do to facilitate Rosa Parks' actions while avoiding them influencing her to do it in any way. That needle is thread perfectly, the fam's role is to facilitate the circumstances that causes Rosa Parks' decision to have to be made, and from Parks' side, we really just see her story play out, largely how it really did. Even though there’s plenty of interaction between our characters, it really felt like, from Parks' perspective, the fam were just some people she briefly met completely separate from her protest on the bus.

This episode also avoids tonal pitfalls, this is a very heavy episode, and it could have been very easy for it to become depressing to sit through (which wouldn't have been right for what Doctor Who is as a show), or for it to lose its weight in an attempt to avoid that. As it stands, it allows its setting and story to speak for itself and includes just enough lighter scenes and moments (such as Ryan being excited to meet Martin Luther King Jr, or Graham and Ryan getting the bus driver to leave the waterfront), that it never becomes a difficult watch. The other aspect of this is how this episode shows just how far society has come, and yet never letting us forget just how far we've still got to go.

One of my favourite things about this episode is the pervading sense of danger created by the setting. Even though they were on a death planet last weeks, and implanted with DNA bombs the week before, this is the first time I have felt afraid for our main characters. From the moment Ryan is assaulted in the park until the end of the episode, the tension never truly breaks. It feels as though we are always a moment away from something terrible happening. Certainly the most engaging episode so far.

Is this episode beyond reproach? No. but its issues feel necessary, if that makes sense. Its weak points very much felt like there was no way around them, for example some of the dialogue felt a little on the nose, but the primary audience for this is the British general public, and frankly, we do sometimes need to be beaten over the head. None of issues like this were ever pervasive or distracting, none of them ever pulled me out of the episode. 

The main criticism that I remember being bought up a lot was Krasko, which I personally didn't find to be a problem, but it would feel disingenuous if I didn't address it. Now, I'm mostly going off memory here because I don't want my opinion to be coloured by other people's, that’s the whole point of me doing this, but as far as I'm aware, the main complaints that get bought up are 1) he's poorly written as a character and, 2) he detracts from the plot. And look, both of these are valid points in theory, if he was anything other than a plot device. Sometimes, characters are plot devices, they're not here to do anything other than make the plot go. He's not even really the main antagonist, history's the main antagonist, he's just here to divert history enough that the fam has to fix it. Oh no, you couldn't understand the space racist's motivations, he wasn't a believable character to you? Maybe you weren't meant to. Seriously, if this is the reason you don't like this episode, maybe go back and rewatch it and stop paying more attention to him than the episode itself does.

To finish on a much more positive note, watching Rosa Parks be led off the bus is gut-wrenching and yet triumphant at the same time, and isn't that just the perfect encapsulation of what makes this episode great.

[apriorisea]

Ok I’m seriously convinced you’re secretly one of the members...(Joonie is that u???) loool but for real, you write their personalities so well. So not a request, but a question?? Their “concepts” aside (like, “golden maknae etc”)... key personality traits & flaws for each of the boys? Like “passionate, sensitive, a perfectionist, or overly self-critical, etc” Which member(s) is hardest to write?Hope this made sense, I’m just super interested in your take on this :)

--First off, you’re so nice!!! Thank you so much:) And also, thank you for this question! I love things like this---even though it’s obviously all just my personal speculation 😅I listed my thoughts down below, but I would love to hear any thoughts (whether in agreement or disagreement!) anyone else might have!  As for which member is hardest to write, for me I typically struggle a little more with Taehyung and Hoseok. For Taehyung, I think it’s probably because our personalities are pretty opposite (again, HUGE grain of salt, since I don’t *actually* know any of them in real life, so I’m just going off the little info we have), so it takes me a little longer to write his stuff. For Hoseok, I think it’s because there is so much more to him than meets the eye and his personality is difficult for me to pin down sometimes. 

Again, thanks so much for your sweet words and thought-provoking requestion (it’s a word now)! I hope you find my take interesting! 💕💜

Seokjin: 

Conscientious - I think Kim Seokjin is very, VERY aware of his role in any given setting. He knows what’s expected of him and how to do it without bending any of his personal boundaries/rules.

Private - I firmly believe that we will never know the true personality of our Mr. Worldwide Handsome. I think he decided early on that to survive in this life, he was going to have to separate his stage persona from his personal life---and he guards this separation fiercely. This is also one of the qualities I admire the most about him: his unwavering commitment to keeping pieces of himself just for him. My personal opinion is that he is the member that gave up the most of a “normal” life and, while he did so knowing the consequences of this choice, he’s found ways to “rebel” and keep his own autonomy (think: responding to fans in a very “blunt” manner [Marry me? No.], cutting/coloring his hair against company wishes, refusing to give-in to fan-service he is uncomfortable with  [thinking specifically of that one time the host tried to get him to kiss Taehyung and he just started yelling over them when they tried to insist], his penchant for avoiding overly ~revealing~ outfits, etc etc).

Professional - I mean, just a continuation of both of the points above. He always knows when the cameras are watching and how he should act accordingly. But---and this is important---I am in NO WAY saying he’s being fake or disingenuous. The Jin we see on stage, in MVs, RunBTS, and even Bon Voyage/In The Soop is the real Jin---it’s just not all of him. He chose the Idol Life as his career, as a profession, so he would never be caught violating the terms that he himself has set to fulfill his responsibilities. What little we know of his family leads me to believe that he was groomed from a young age how to navigate high society and the professional world; now it’s just a slightly different world and society he floats through. 

Responsible - He takes the job of eldest brother very seriously. Though the baby in much of his younger life, as soon as he got 6 little brothers he stepped effortlessly into his new role. Making them food, driving them to school, helping them feel at home in a new place, providing silent but tangible support... My personal favorite is the way he willingly makes a fool of himself to relax the others, to help them calm down during stressful situations and break the ice. 

Good memory - I want to be careful how I explain this, because I don’t want it to come out wrong. I think Kim Seokjin has a very good memory. If you were decent to him and his brothers during the hard times, he’ll remember that going forward. If you were cruel to or dismissive of him as a young exchange student abroad, he’ll never forget. However, I also think he’s cunning enough that you would never be able to tell which category you fall under unless he wants you to know. 

Hard-worker - I mean, just the endless amounts of anecdotes we have about him practicing his vocals and choreography all night long should be enough evidence for this point, but I still sometimes feel like he doesn’t get enough credit. We all know the story of how he got placed in BTS, but I don’t think people appreciate how damn hard he has worked to grow into this life. He was a college student, set on a completely different life with completely different expectations, scooped off the street and told to learn to sing and dance and look. at. him. now. Listen to that vocal range, look at the Black Swan choreography or the way he seamlessly joined the dance break of ON---he has worked HARD and I don’t think we should forget about this. Just because something doesn’t come easy to you, if you’re not naturally gifted, it doesn’t mean you can’t work to achieve it. 

Basically I just love Kim Seokjin with my whole heart.

Yoongi:

Empathetic -  This word is the beginning and end of how I would describe his entire being. I think Min Yoongi is a very empathetic person. He sits back and observes, and he’s aware of everything. You know when you first get into BTS, there’s always the stories of him being the “scariest” member or the “toughest” or the quietest (especially in the earlier days of BTS, because can we just talk about how much happier he has been this last year-year.5?? How much more himself he is at all times? How much more comfortable??? We love to see it.) But I think his quiet watchfulness just gets frequently mistaken for scary or tough. In addition, his empathy allows him to connect with others in a special way, to acknowledge them and build them up (thinking of that one V-Live or whatever where Jungkook says something kind of under his breath---something about a past life?---and Yoongi not only hears him but turns to him and explicitly validates his feelings and thoughts, OR the times when he tells Jimin that he really likes his singing voice).  

Protective - He doesn’t like unkindness in any way, shape, or form. He doesn’t tolerate cruelty or bullying. And let’s not forget: he sees everything. Every slight, every intentional dismissal, every dig or jab, every “diss track” lyrics. Every single injustice. Now, he can stand up for himself (when he deems it appropriate, because I also think he’s pretty good at picking battles), but his true force comes out when those he loves are belittled/threatened/disrespected. He is fiercely protective of those he loves. 

Emotionally Intelligent - Obviously, I think he’s also just intelligent-intelligent, but I want to focus on this aspect for a moment, because I think this is a quality that gets overlooked in people in general. He is aware of the importance of emotions, both his own and other people’s. It’s in the way he recognized that he and Taehyung were polar opposites and made a concentrated effort to understand him better. It’s in the way he unabashedly announces that they hold hands when they’re arguing. It’s in the way that he insists that there is more to life than school, grades, others’ expectations. It’s also in the way he knows exactly how to make the others laugh, the way one of his sharp-witted comments or physical-comedy bits can break a tension or diffuse the moment. It’s all over every single one of his songs. It’s in the way he calmly handles challenges and has a unique relationship with each of his brothers according to their needs. He treats his relationships---with the members, the fans, staff, friends, family, whoever---with care and respect and maturity. 

Compassionate (read also: Cinnamon Roll) - Yoongi understands darkness because he has experienced it himself, and he will do whatever he can to make sure no on else suffers in the same way. He takes care of the people in his life, usually by doing little things or quiet things (think: the reason they call him the “dad” of BTS). He’s not afraid to correct people when they’re wrong, but he always manages to do it kindly. He’s also a complete pushover for the ones he loves: think of how he each member of the maknae line has a different but special relationship with him, think of how Jungkook can basically crawl all over him and hit him and annoy him and bother him and he never bats an eye, think of the way he showed up with chicken because he didn’t want Hoseok to be alone, think of the way he goes fishing with Jin because he knows his big bro loves it so much, think of the way he never ever yells at anyone when he’s angry, think of the way he softens his tone when explaining things. Cinnamon. Roll. 

Straight-forward - He’s blessed with the ability to be blunt but not cruel. I actually personally really hate the word “blunt” because, in my experience, it usually comes into play when someone is explaining that their rude, offensive, and ignorant comment *isn’t* rude, offensive, or ignorant---they’re “just a blunt person.” But I think Yoongi is someone who is actually able to be straight-forward (a much better term than the dreaded b-word) without slipping into carelessness. He says things how they are, but, using his emotional awareness and intelligence, he’s able to say it calmly and kindly. If you’ve messed up, he’s going to tell you you messed up---but he’s also going to help you figure out the next steps and volunteer to walk with you while you take them. He’s going to call out bad behavior---but always remind you that he loves you no matter what. He’s going to critique the song you wrote---but it’s going to be 90% positive comments and 10% suggestions of what could be better/smoother/more understandable. I also feel like he is someone who expects the same in return: he hates liars and has a low tolerance for bullshit. 

Basically I just love Min Yoongi with my whole heart.

Hoseok: 

Duality - Now, I don’t mean duality in the way you can compare his precious ray-of-sunshine moments to the times he absolutely blows everyone away on stage (though this is obviously a thing). I’m referring more to the way he can be both ray of sunshine and serious-business all at the same time. Like Jin, I think Hoseok chose an Idol persona (though I think his decision was prompted more by a desire to be uplifting and cheerful and our hope) and exists comfortably within those parameters. However, unlike Jin, I think Hoseok doesn’t mind if people see the other side sometimes, too. He’s not afraid to set down the bubbly-Hobi persona, even if cameras are rolling. He’s not afraid to be emotional,  whether that’s over-the-top happiness, or genuine overwhelmed tears. He can wear a flower around his face and make cute noises and then the next second he can snap at the maknae to not fool around near a pool so he doesn’t get his clothes all wet. It’s not an act either way, he’s just both. 

Good judgment - Obviously, we know that Jung Hoseok is a hard-worker. We know he’s dedicated his life to his craft, first with dancing and then with rapping. He can be an intimidating dance captain, someone who takes it seriously and pushes everyone to be the very best they can be. His work ethic is insane, and he never accepts less than his best---but, in comparison to others on this list, I think he is able to critique himself fairly and kindly. While he demands perfection, he doesn’t tear himself apart to find it. I think he has the ability to assess something or someone and come away with a fairly unbiased opinion. 

Comfortable - This is hard to describe in just a word, but I think he has a way of making people feel at ease in his presence. Even as one of the biggest superstars on the planet right now, you get the sense that he never wants to make people feel uncomfortable or intimidated or uneasy. Something about his mannerisms, his bright smile, his personableness, make him seem approachable. I think it’s also why Namjoon’s been known to say that BTS couldn’t exist without Hoseok, why Yoongi values his friendship so much, why Jungkook is constantly snuggling him. My personal opinion is that he was instrumental in bridging the gap that sometimes might have occurred between Namjoon and Yoongi in the early days; his comfortable presence eased some of the tension that (I’m guessing) may have naturally arisen between two of the greatest young rappers in the game when they were first working together. Hoseok just wants everyone to feel comfortable and at ease around him.

Kind - I think Jung Hoseok is just a genuinely kind human being. I think he is trusting and loyal, but also just the sort of person who will make it his mission to make you smile on a bad day. Just the fact that he chose to make his stage persona someone who is full of hope and happiness speaks volumes. Knowing his own personal struggles, he extrapolates this knowledge to guess how others could feel, and throws himself into the role of positive, happy, sunshiney, hope. It’s his kindness that motivates this behavior. 

High standards - This goes along with his good judgment, but I think Hoseok expects a certain level of competence from everyone around him, in whatever capacity they’re working. Again, this goes along with his desire to have the entire group work on a bit of choreo until it’s right. I think that, because he pushes himself to be the best and fulfill expectations, he looks for this same dedication in others (what comes to mind is that moment in some interview where Namjoon is struggling a little [cos English is the WORST, ugh] so Hoseok looks over at the interpreter like “what exactly are you doing, do your job, help him translate”). 

Basically I just love Jung Hoseok with my whole heart. 

Namjoon: 

Unbelievably intelligent - I know this one isn’t exactly shocking, but I still feel like it needs to be mentioned first and appreciated more. Namjoon is crazy intelligent, academically speaking. He thrives on the pursuit of knowledge, on contemplating and discussing higher concepts, on learning new things that feed his curiosity and his soul. While I also think this crazy-high intellect can sometimes hinder his ability to connect emotionally with people, it’s also this exact quality that makes him so well suited for the role he has been thrust into---not just in the group, but in the world. 

Nerdy - Bicycling, bonsai trees, reading, tiny creatures, art exhibits. He is unabashedly and desperately passionate about the things he likes. He isn’t afraid to love something just because he loves it. He goes all-in on things that he’s interested in, whether they’re “cool” or not. His curiosity pushes him forward, needling him to learn everything he can about things he’s passionate about. He sinks himself into these hobbies wholly (think: carrying a book or two with him everywhere so he can get some reading in, visiting as many art museums and exhibits as possible on days off, making cutesy noises at stingrays and scooping teeny-tiny crabs out of the sand to tell them how beautiful they are).

Macro-focused - He strikes me very much as the sort of person who loves to talk about concepts and ideas and philosophies in great terms. He loves clever wordplay, he likes to reflect on his place in the universe, he wants to discuss the complexities of life and human nature. His quick-mind devours these topics, and I can imagine he could sit for hours with you debating philosophy and discussing art. On the flip side, though, I think he isn’t so good with minutiae---and by “minutiae” I mean everything from being more aware of his physical surroundings to dealing with personal things. For example, I think he’s brilliant when he discusses happiness and hardship and joy and pain and love and humanity in the songs he writes...... but he’s not exactly the first person you would go to if you were having a tough or emotional personal time. Don’t get me wrong: obviously he cares about the people in his life, he cares about people in general---but sometimes all you need is a hug and pat on the back to encourage you and Namjoon would instead launch into the greater implications and consequences of human nature in an attempt to help you feel better.

Logical - I know this seems like a given, but while I think others on this list are more emotionally-intelligent, I think logic is one of Namjoon’s greatest strengths. For example: if another member is crying or upset, Jimin would notice they’re upset and immediately go and hug them and wipe their tears away; Namjoon would notice they’re upset and immediately look for the source of the problem. Once identified, he’d take the next steps to rectifying the problem, because logic dictates that if the problem gets solved, then the other member would be happier. If there was nothing to rectify, he’d attempt to comfort them with cold, hard facts. (I’m thinking about that time when Jungkook got upset because he felt like he messed up his performances, and Jimin immediately hugs him and comforts him and tells him he was great, while Namjoon assesses the situation and starts talking about how he himself actually, objectively messed up, so there’s no logical reason for Jungkook to be upset right now.) He dreams and enjoys literature and the arts---but when it comes to handling practical, inter-personal issues, he’s much more comfortable with logic. 

Vibes - I really didn’t have a good word to describe this thought of mine, so let me just get right into explaining: I think Namjoon is, generally speaking, one of the smartest people---if not the smartest person---in the room. He’s aware of this fact without being arrogant about it, but it is the truth. Because of this, I think he’s frequently called on to explain things, to expound on them, to teach or interpret or decipher. I think he enjoys this role, because he loves talking about things he’s passionate about (see above: nerdy) but sometimes...sometimes I think he just desperately wants someone he can vibe with. Someone who can match his level intellectually. Someone whom he doesn’t have to teach. I think he is over-the-moon ecstatic when he meets someone he can vibe with in any way---whether that’s intelligence-related or passion/hobby-related. I don’t know, I just sometimes feel like he chooses to spend his personal time with people who can match him in some way, whom he can vibe with.

Basically I just love Kim Namjoon with my whole heart.

Jimin:

Caring - For me, Park Jimin starts and ends with this characteristic. He cares. A lot. About a lot of things. He cares about his brothers, he cares about his family, he cares about his friends, he cares about ARMY, he cares about music, he cares about his dancing, he cares about fashion, he cares about how he’s perceived, he cares about doing his very best, he cares about the future generations, he cares about those who are less fortunate than him, he just cares so much. Along with Yoongi, I think he is incredibly empathetic. How many times do we see him basically sprint across a room or a sandy beach or a campsite or a stage to get to an upset member? He reads people’s emotions and has a natural instinct to take care of them. Like anything, though, I think his biggest strength can also be a great weakness: sometimes he cares too much. How many times has he worked until his body is covered with pain patches, until his feet bled, until he almost passed out? All the weight he lost, because he cared about his appearance? How hard he worked at being “hardcore, manly” Jimin, because that’s what he thought people cared about most? All the times he cried after a tiny mistake, because he cared about being perfect, because he cared about others’ perception of him? Park Jimin cares so/too much and it’s one of the most defining things about his personality. 

Social Intelligence/눈치 - One thing I love the most is how he has such a unique relationship with each one of his brothers. Now, obviously, every single combo in Bangtan is different and unique and special. But I love watching Jimin’s relationships with the others so much, because he’s so aware of what they need. Truthfully, I think Jimin is hyper aware of others in general. If you’re trying to sneaky-cry at a crowded party, Jimin is the type of person who would somehow appear at your side, ready to help you feel better. His empathy and sensitivity allow him to assess what each individual needs the most from him and act accordingly. He knows Taehyung should never be left alone when upset, knows that if Jungkook is actually crying then something is very wrong, knows that Leader RM sometimes needs to just be his one-year-older hyung Namjoon, knows exactly how far he can push Yoongi’s buttons, knows to laugh at Jin’s dad-jokes (especially when they’re for the benefit of the group), and knows that Hoseok needs to be reminded how much cohesiveness he provides the group in general. 

Self-Critical - All right, I feel like this one might be a little controversial, so hear me out. Like I mentioned earlier, he cares a lot, and part of that translates into caring about himself---caring about his achievements, his performance, his appearance. It’s partly the classical dancer in him and partly just his personality. He wants to do and be his best always. But.... I do think that he has learned to be much kinder to himself over the years. Gone are the days of starving himself to get rid of his cheeks, the tearful breakdowns after a single missed step in a performance, the acting outside of his true personality because he thinks that’s what he’s supposed to be. I think we now very much see a Jimin who has come into his own, who has accepted himself for who he is (including his flaws), who has embraced every part of him. This doesn’t mean that I think he never has to fight the nagging voice in his head, or struggle with insecurities, or swallow down the urge to berate himself after a less-than-perfect performance---he still expects the best out of himself, still wants to be the best. I just think he’s found a way to critique himself without absolutely tearing himself apart. 

Cunning - Yet another word that looks and sounds derogatory, but isn’t really in this context. Like a lot of other empathetic, sensitive, socially-intelligent people, knowing exactly what people need and are feeling also allows him to know weaknesses. Weaknesses he would never exploit---unless he wanted to. I actually don’t think we see much of him using others’ weaknesses against them, but in my opinion, this quality is linked to two of his other quirks: 1) his talent and complete lack of guilt for cheating at games and 2) his penchant for pettiness. I don’t really know how to explain my thought-process here---not well, anyway. But I feel like Jimin is so tuned into the important things (so concerned about the important things) that little things, like cheating at a game, don’t matter to him much. And, if he can use his usually sweet and helpful and hard-working, honest self to get away with it, even better. On the flip side, I don’t think he enjoys or endures confrontation as much or as well as, say, Yoongi might---so he expresses himself in a quieter, underhanded way. (The moment that’s coming to mind is that one time they were at an American event and he commented, in Korean, about how unorganized things seem to be.) Jimin is the sweetest, most sensitive, empathetic little cinnamon roll---until it’s time to win a game, or until he’s feeling a little prickly and petty. 

Basically I just love Park Jimin with my whole heart.

Taehyung: 

Individualistic - Kim Taehyung knows who he is. He knows what he likes, what he wants, what he thinks. He is going to wear whatever he wants, paint whatever he wants, say whatever he wants, and do whatever he wants. He’s a person who seems to have figured out a long time ago what makes him happy and how to be his true self around others no matter what---and this something I greatly envy. If he wants to learn the violin, he’s gonna buy a violin and play some scratchy Twinkle Twinkle Little Star on a hotel balcony---because that’s what he wants to do. If he wants to write a song, it’s going to be in his style, the way he likes it. If he wants a really cool, avant-garde piece of artsy clothing, he’s going to spray-paint it himself. If he has an opinion on something, it’s highly likely that he’s spent quite a bit of time forming this opinion---but once that’s his opinion, that’s his opinion. That’s what he thinks, there’s no need to listen to others or change. I think this quality, this ability to be himself so  freely and earnestly, is both one of the reasons he’s able to make friends so easily and be beloved so quickly (see: “Bangtan’s True Baby” and “Wooga Squad darling”); and one of the reasons others (including the other members, by their own admission) can’t understand him well at first. I think it has brought many good things to his life, but has also played a significant part in some of the struggles that he has had. He’s precious, but also very easily misunderstood.

Not Very Outward-Sensing - Notice I very purposefully don’t go anywhere near the words “self-absorbed” or “self-centered”---because he’s not. On the contrary, I think Taehyung feels very deeply for the people in his life (see below: Emotional), but his ability to care for them is sometimes inhibited by his lack of outward-sensing. If Jimin is the king of 눈치/social awareness, then Taehyung is the absolute opposite (which is why it is unendingly intriguing to me that two of his closest relationships in BTS---he and Jimin, he and Yoongi---are comprised of one person who lacks this awareness [Tae] and one person who has all the awareness [Jimin, Yoongi]). He would never hurt someone’s feelings on purpose, but quite often he’s just not paying a whole lot of attention to what other people might be feeling or experiencing. He’s not concerned about walking on eggshells, because he feels that as long as his intentions are good, nobody can be too hurt or too uncomfortable with him or his behavior (A great example of this is the infamous Spring Day Dance Debate from “Burn the Stage.” In Taehyung’s mind, he saw something that should be changed and needed to be addressed, so he called it out. It never in a million years would occur to him that the way he phrased it or the way he kept harping on it could be a source of irritation or discomfort to Jin. To him, it was a very black-and-white, clear-cut situation: something was wrong, he had an idea of how it should be fixed, therefore nothing bad could/should come of him speaking his mind in the pursuit of this perfect solution he created). He seems like the sort of person who, after accidentally hurting your feelings, would sympathize with your hurt and want to make it better, but focus more on the fact that he didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, so it’s not really his fault. 

Emotional - I think he is very in-touch with his emotions, which can be both a good thing and a bad thing. For example, if he’s upset, he wants everyone to know and acknowledge that he’s upset. He doesn’t like feeling ignored or passed over, and where others might let it slide, he’s not afraid to speak up about it (I’m thinking about the time there was a question directed specifically to Yoongi about being from Daegu and Taehyung immediately pointed out that he was also from Daegu, and kind of pouted a little until it was acknowledged). Also, although it’s never been said explicitly, I think he is one of the members who potentially struggles with depression. He can take things very personally and to heart. But this is likely because he has such a big heart. He loves unabashedly and he’s very vocal about who he loves---think of all the times he’s said and posted comments along the lines of “Please love all seven” and “Please love each of us equally.” He also can be very protective (thinking of that one Weverse post where he lowkey chewed somebody out for posting an unflattering photo of one of the others) and blunt when defending those he loves. I mean, he created a whole new word just to express how much he loves ARMY! When he’s sad, he cries. When he’s happy, he giggles. When he’s angry, he expresses it. When he’s disappointed, he doesn’t hide it. To me, he is a near-perfect example of someone who wears their heart on their sleeves. 

Contradictory - One of his most endearing qualities. He is not very outward-focused---but he bought a pair of gloves because he remembered that Jimin offhandedly mentioned that he needed some. He doesn’t read other people easily---but he (so far) is also pretty darn good at completing accurate Vibe-Checks for those who come in contact with BTS. He doesn’t always see as much as the others might---but he also notices certain things they might miss. The beauty of his being is that he can be both things at the same time and not seem out of place.

Basically I just love Kim Taehyung with my whole heart.

Jungkook: 

Confident Yet Perfectionistic - Now listen: when I say confident, I don’t mean that he never struggles with insecurities. I mean confident in the way that his whole life (at least his whole Idol life) he had 6 older brothers who encouraged him to try and do anything he wanted---and then supported him no matter the outcome. Being raised in an environment like that, where you’re encouraged to try things, where you have people who love you constantly praising your efforts and providing a safe space for you to fail, you gain a certain amount of confidence in your abilities, in yourself. I think this is actually a big part of the Golden Maknae moniker: yes, I think he is the type of person to whom things may come quite easily and who is naturally skilled in several areas---but it’s also a little easier to conquer new things when you have years of encouraged-successes under your belt. He has gained a confidence in himself over years of trying and working his tail off and eventually succeeding; he knows he can do anything if he works at it enough because he’s always been able to do everything he works at. Where the perfectionistic aspect kicks in especially is this: there are a lot of people who have a natural affinity for lots of things. There are lots of people who can pick up something new and be decent right away (I honestly think Taehyung is another person like this, someone who can pick new things up pretty easily)---the difference is that Jeon Jungkook is the type of person who takes that natural affinity and runs with it. He’s not satisfied with just being good at something; if it’s something he really wants to do, he throws his whole heart and soul and self into it. In my opinion, this sets him apart from people who could be considered “Jack of All Trades, Master of None.” He trusts his process and uses it to be the very best he can be in whatever he does.

Introverted -  Obviously he’s not the only introverted member of Bangtan, but I do think that his specific life experiences require a little more discussion on this topic than the others. By his own admission, his childhood ended really early. He didn’t focus much on school because he was focused on his career; he never got to have the typical high school experiences most of the others had. At an incredibly young age he was thrust into a totally different life that required being in the spotlight---and while this definitely brought unique challenges, he loves his life as a musician and performer. I think out of all BTS, Jungkook especially lives for performing. He lights up on stage and is at his absolute happiest when performing (and performing well). And yet none of this changes the fact that he is absolutely an introvert, someone who needs to recharge with just a little alone time. Alone time. Not easy to achieve when you live in the same tiny dorm with 6 other boys. Not easy to achieve when you are constantly surrounded by brothers, staff, instructors, producers, cameras, and fans.  

Maknae - I can’t explain this well, I know I can’t, but it just is such a huge part of him that I feel like I need to try. In so many ways, Jungkook is a typical baby of the family. It’s evident in the way that he unabashedly idolizes his Rap-Mon-hyung. In the way he constantly cuddles and sniffs and snuggles Hoseok. In the way he’s not afraid to pester Yoongi or tease Seokjin. He also seems like someone who is much more of a fixer than a listener; meaning, if you go to him with a problem, he’s going to be focused on how he can fix the situation, not on just listening and sympathizing/empathizing with you, a trait that I feel comes easily to babies of families (not that *all* youngest children have this, mind you) because they’re typically not the ones confided in, so if something is brought to them they want to help make it right (massive generalization, I know, don’t kill me). As discussed above, he’s also confident in himself because he’s been raised with older siblings who have always told him “yes, you can.” He’s just Baby in all the ways that stick with a person even as they grow older. 

Trusting - Jungkook strikes me as the sort of person who trusts fairly easily---and, more importantly, unshakably. He has no problem admitting to millions of ARMY that he ripped his pants on stage or V-Living while drunk (I don’t care what he says, babyboy was at least a little buzzed) because he trusts us. He could easily follow Namjoon (or any of his brothers) to the ends of the earth. He takes every opportunity to speak earnestly and wholeheartedly about how much he genuinely loves ARMY, because he trusts that that love will be returned. 

Basically I just love Jeon Jungkook with my whole heart. 

[good-omens-classic]

Hi Good Omens fans, ever since making this blog, and trawling through the archives for old art, I have been thinking again about trends from before the TV-show, and the way people draw Aziraphale and Crowley.  I wanted to make this post addressing it but this is not “discourse” or to start a fight, in fact I would be perfectly content if all I did was make people think critically about what I am about to say and not even interact with this post at all, but I feel like I need to say it.

Talking about any racist undertones to the way people draw our two favorite boys usually makes people dig their heels in pretty fast.  This is not a callout post for any artist in particular, this is not me trying to be overly critical of artists especially since they have more talent and skill than I do, and I’m going to address some common counterpoints that I frankly find unsatisfactory.  Let’s just take a moment to set aside our defensiveness and think objectively about these trends.  It took me a while to unlearn my dismissive attitude about these concerns so maybe I can help others get over that hurdle a little faster.  Now let’s begin.

I’ve been kicking around the Good Omens fandom since maybe 2015 and for art based in book canon, whether it was made before the TV show came out, or because the artist is consciously drawing different, original designs, I’m going to estimate that a decent 75% of all fanart looks like this

Aziraphale is white and blonde and blue-eyed while Crowley is the typical “racially ambiguous” brown skin tone it’s become so popular to draw podcast characters as nowadays.

And the question is why?  With the obvious answer being “it’s racist,” but let’s delve a little deeper than that.

A common thing I hear is that people get appearance headcanons fixed in their mind because the coverart of the book pictures the characters a certain way.  My first point is this only shifts the question to why the illustrators drew them that way, when there aren’t many physical descriptions in the book.  My second point is that while there definitely are cover arts that picture Aziraphale as cherubic, blonde, and white and Crowley as swarthy, dark-skinned, and racially ambiguous...

(side note: why is Crowley’s hand so tiny?  what the hell is going on in this cover?)

It’s much more common for the covers to simplified, stylized, and without any particular unambiguous skin tones

I don’t know about the UK but the most popular version in the United States is the dual black and white matching covers

And while you could make an argument that the shading on Crowley’s face could suggest a darker skintone, it seems obvious to me that lacking any color these are not supposed to suggest any particular race for either of these two, and the contrasting colors are a stylistic choice to emphasize how they are on opposite sides.  If anything, to me it suggests they are both white.

In short I simply do not buy the argument that people are drawing Aziraphale and Crowley this way because that’s how they were represented on the cover art of the book.  If you draw them the way they are on the cover then whatever, I don’t care, but I don’t believe that’s what’s driving this trend.

The second thing people will say is that Good Omens is a work of satire, and it’s based in Christian mythology which has this trend of depicting angels as white, and it is embodying the trope of a “white, cherubic angel” paired with a dark-skinned demon for the explicit purpose of subverting the trope of “white angel is good, dark demon is bad” since Aziraphale is not an unambiguous hero and Crowley is not a villain.  “It’s not actually like that because Crowley isn’t a bad demon, and Aziraphale isn’t actually a perfect angel” is the argument.  This has a certain logic to it and allows some nuance to the topic, but to this I say:

Uncritically reproducing a trope, even in the context of a satire novel, is not enough to subvert it.  Good Omens is not criticising the racist history of the church, and while the book does have some pointed jabs at white British culture (such as Madam Tracy conning gullible Brits with an unbelievably ignorant stereotype of a Native American) it is not being critical of the conception of angels as white and blonde or the literal demonization of non-white people.  That’s just not what the book is about.  So making the angel white and the demon dark-skinned, playing directly into harmful tropes and stereotypes, is not somehow subversive or counter-cultural when doing so doesn’t say anything about anything.

Please consider fully the ramifications of the conception of white and blonde people as innocent and cherubic and dark-skinned people as infernal and mischievous, especially in modern contexts...

Black people are more likely to be viewed as violent, angry, and dangerous.  Priming with a dark-skinned face makes people more likely to mistake a tool for a gun.  Black people are viewed as experiencing pain less intensely by medical professionals.  Black men are viewed as physically larger and more imposing than they actually are.  The subconscious racial bias favoring light skin is so ingrained it’s measurable by objective scientific studies, on top of the anecdotal evidence of things like news stories choosing flattering, “cherubic” pictures of white and blond criminals while using unflattering mugshots for non-white offenders.

This is why I say that if you’re going to invoke the “whites are angelic” trope, you better have a damn good subversion of it to justify it, because this idea causes real harm to real people in the real world.  And Aziraphale being a bit of a bastard despite being an angel, I just don’t see that as sufficient.  I am especially cautious of when it’s my fellow white fans that make this argument, not because I believe they do this out of any sort of malice or hatred of people with dark skin, but because I know first-hand it stems from a dismissiveness rooted in not wanting to think about it for too long because it makes us uncomfortable.  Non-white people do not have the luxury of not thinking about it, because it’s part of their life.

Now the strongest textual evidence people use, in the absence of much real descriptor, is this:

"Many people, meeting Aziraphale for the first time, formed three impressions: that he was English, that he was intelligent, and that he was gayer than a tree full of monkeys on nitrous oxide. Two of these were wrong; Heaven is not in England, whatever certain poets may have thought, and angels are sexless unless they really want to make an effort" 

This piece of art has circulated in the fandom for so long I don’t know the original artist and it’s been used for everything from fancovers to perfume.  This is where I found it and it’s one of the first things that come up when you google this quote about Aziraphale.  

Doesn’t it just feel like this is the man that’s describing, some blonde effeminate gay man?  Well guess what, there’s the “blonde as innocence” trope rearing its ugly head again, because the stereotype of gay men and effeminacy as being a white and blonde thing is--ding ding ding you guessed it--racism.  And why would intelligent suggest a white and blonde person, except if the stereotype of a dark-skinned person is less intelligent?

Now the point of “people assume Aziraphale is British” is another sticking point people will often use, claiming that the stereotype of a British person is white and blonde.  I guess this has some merit, since the British empire was one of the biggest forces behind white colonial expansion, and it seems disingenuous to assign “British” as “nonwhite” as soon as we’re being satirical, in the same way I found it distasteful that the TV show made God female when so many of the criticisms of the church are about its misogyny and lose their teeth as soon as God is no longer male.

However consider that 1.4 million Indian people live in the UK.  I heard a man say aloud once that the concept of a black person having a British accent was a little funny, as though Doctor Who doesn’t exist and have black people on it.  And I’m not overly familiar with the social landscape of the UK, but I understand they’re experiencing a xenophobia boom and non-white Brits aren’t considered “really British.”  The stereotype of non-white people not being British only exists because of reinforcement in media.  If you really want to be subversive, drawing Aziraphale as Indian goes way further than drawing him as white IMO.

Now let’s talk about Crowley.  He is almost always drawn with a darker skin tone than Aziraphale, even when they are both white, and while I’ve outlined above how this is problematic on terms of linking light skin with innocence, I think it does have an extra layer.  I think it also has to do with the exotification and fetishization of brown skin and non-white people.

This artist’s tumblr is gone now but their art is still on dA and while it’s definitely beautiful and well-done, I think this is a very good example of what I’m talking about.

Crowley and Aziraphale necessarily contrast each other, so describing Aziraphale as “British” might suggest that Crowley is “foreign-looking.”  I also know *ahem* that the fandom generally thirsts over Crowley to hell and back, so making him a swarthy, tall dark and handsome is not necessarily surprising.

An interesting thing happened when the TV show came out, and everyone started drawing Michael Sheen!Aziraphale and David Tennant!Crowley more and more often:  It’s not ubiquitous, but it does happen that sometimes artists will draw David Tennant’s skin darker than it actually is.  The subconscious urge to see Crowley with dark skin is for some reason that strong for many people.  And I really encourage people doing this to think about why.  Not naming any names but I’ve working with fanartists before for collabs who I had to ask to lighten “bad guy” demon’s skin tones because it looked like they were making the skin darker on purpose to make them look scarier.  This person is a perfectly pleasant person who tries not to be racist!  And we both still fell into it accidentally, and it took me a while to notice and point it out, because the ingrained stigmatization of darker skin is pervasive yet often goes unnoticed.

What is the solution?  I don’t know, and as a white person I’m not really qualified to make that call.  Do we draw them both with the exact same skin tone?  Is it better to make them both white?  Should we make both of them non-white?  Should we only make Aziraphale non-white?  I am consciously aware of the fact that the Good Omens fandom is mostly white people, so most of the art we make is being both made by and consumed by white people, so I don’t feel comfortable saying “draw these characters of color specifically” because that can also veer into fetishization territory very quickly.  This is not specific to good omens but I think we should pay attention to what fans of color say in all fandom spaces and weigh our choices even if they seem insignificant.  And it’s important to realize that fans of color will not be a monolith in their opinion either, and it’s our responsibility to recognize that everyone can be affected by racism and social issues differently, the same way all women are affected by misogyny differently so just because one woman says such as such is misogynistic and another says it’s not.  I’m sure there are non-white fans who think it’s perfectly fine to draw Aziraphale as white and Crowley as ambiguously non-white.  I’m not saying they’re wrong.  And I’m not saying you can’t reblog this kind of art, or that people who make or made it should feel bad about themselves.  But so often this sort of thing goes unaddressed just because people don’t like thinking about it, and well, avoiding hard questions never really goes well I think.

[lorei-writes]

Match-Up #4

Hello, @mineko811​​ ! The matchmaking shall begin! :3

Hmm... This may be absolutely wrong, although the first impression I got while reading this list was that you may fall into the “unmovable rock” category - not so much because you seem to be cold like one, but much rather since all those combined (loyalty, kindness, wisdom, empathy and integrity) could be a mark of a great source of support and/or advice. Regardless of correctness of this guess, I did go on with an assumption that kindness and empathy may increase odds of you being willing to help others. However, due to integrity factor, I do suppose that interacting with characters tangled in webs of lies could be extremely frustrating.

Nobunaga (+) Masamune (+) Hideyoshi (+) Ieyasu (/) <- I can see his contrary nature as somewhat annoying Mitsuhide (-) Shingen (-)

Given that you described yourself as wise, I reckon suitors with plenty of life experience, knowledge and/or curiosity my be appreciated. 

Nobunaga (+) Masamune (+) Mitsunari (+) Shingen (+)

Now, to loyalty... I presume this could be considered in several ways. Loyal people may be able to follow the ones they have trust in to great lengths. One could call it a good thing - although it could just as easily become destructive, especially if the other side decided to hurt their partner to “keep them away for their own good”. As such, not points were distributed for this.

I can see anxiety and being easily stressed out potentially causing issues in some of the possible relationships - after all, plenty of the warlords endanger themselves for the “greater good”, as they’d put it (or their own ideals).However, given as you mentioned your integrity... I presume it could be somewhat forgiven, at least if they could make up for caused worry afterwards. Minus points were still given to warlords who seem to risk plenty, but more as to hurt/punish themselves. 

Kenshin (-)

Impatience could make some relationships next to impossible. However, contrary to what it may seem at first glance, it perhaps could be an advantage in some cases - it could provide that little extra push.

Mitsunari (-) Hideyoshi (+)

It’s similar with being quick to anger - as much as soothing presence may be appreciated,

Shingen (+) Mitsuhide (+)

it’s entirely possible that showing your feelings like that could resonate with some of the warlords. After all, it shows you care - and maybe could save you from having your boundaries crossed? Especially with more hot-headed and hard-headed suitors, I can see it as an advantage. 

Nobunaga (+) Masamune (+) Hideyoshi (+)

1st Summary:

Nobunaga ( + + + ) Masamune ( + + + ) Hideyoshi ( + + + ) Shingen (+) Kenshin (-) REST OF THE MATCH-UP & THE CONCLUSION BELOW THE CUT.

Points distributed for likes:

Nobunaga (+++) <- cocktails, hiking, travelling Masamune (+++) <- hiking, travelling, food Shingen (++) <- food, cocktails Mitsuhide (++) <- cocktails, travelling Hideyoshi (+) <- food (he did take MC out to eat + he knows that eating is important)

Masamune (-) <- he really can’t hold any amount of alcohol, so drinking with him around... At best you just drink by yourself, at worst you have drunk (absolutely adorable, but also absolutely heavy) “futon”-hugging, immobilising Masamune.

Masamune (-) <- big groups of people  Nobunaga (-) <- big groups of people Mitsunari (-) <- lack of self-awareness 

All warlords are involved in some sort of “drama”, be it family matters or the entire “I will have your head!” thingie. As such, none were given minus points for that.

2nd Summary:

Nobunaga ( + + + + + ) Hideyoshi ( + + + + ) Masamune ( + + + + ) Shingen ( + + + ) Mitsuhide ( + + ) Kenshin & Mitsunari ( - )

Only characters with ( + ) by their name will be considered in the final stages.

It doesn’t seem that any of the remaining suitors fall under any of the deal-breakers. However, given how misleading first impressions can be, ( - ) were distributed accordingly:

Masamune (-) <- at first, he’s very casual about the relationship and simply considers MC to be cute. Surely, he isn’t shallow, but he can give off that impression at first (hence only a minus, instead of being crossed out). Shingen (-) <- similarly to Masamune above, he may come off as a cheap flirt at first. Is he one? No. But it could make the beginning of the relationship a bit rocky. Nobunaga (-) <- He could be seen as harsh an merciless. Only upon closer look his kindness is revealed (I would even dare to say a very close look), so, again - a rocky beginning.

Points distributed for pet peeves:

Shingen (-) <- disingenuous (to a certain extent, but still) Mitsuhide (-) <- disingenuous 

Points distributed for wild cards: Hideyoshi (+) <- knowing his way around finer things while remaining down to earth Shingen (+) <- knowing his way around finer things while remaining down to earth Mitsuhide (+) <-  knowing his way around finer things while remaining down to earth

Luckily, it appears Yukimura is out of equation here.

Final Results:

Hideyoshi ( + + + + + ) Nobunaga ( + + + + ) Masamune ( + + + )

Hideyoshi:

To call him a kind man would be an understatement, although he doesn’t seem to hold much of this kindness for himself. Loyal, honest and with a somewhat motherly nature, he cares a lot about others, so much so that he forgets about his own needs - and if anything, patience won’t fix that problem! The anger you feel, although generally may be considered a flaw, could provide an invaluable push for him to finally put himself first for once - for the both of you. This isn’t to say he wouldn’t fight anymore or that his ideals would disappear, no, far from it... But he wouldn’t be willing to die for them anymore - he’d live for them, and he’d make up for any worry he has caused.

Hideyoshi isn’t scared of caring for others. He seems to naturally accept most people as they are, although sometimes he struggles, especially when he is being pushed away - regardless, needing any help won’t put him off. He would never betray your trust, his ability to lie being rather... Questionable, to say the least. And you? Show him kindness, be there for him. He won’t ask for anything else - perhaps he wouldn’t even know how to. After all, he isn’t used to people thinking of him in such a way... Perhaps that needs changing. 

Possible issues may arise around him devaluing himself, which could lead to stress-inducing situations. However, he isn’t impossible to reason with.  Free time ideas: visiting tea shops together, sharing meals (and responsibilities around making them), going on trips (around Azuchi, but also if there was some errand to run further away), cuddling at night and sharing stories from the past

Nobunaga:

Intelligent and curious, upon realising who you are, he’ll seek your stories, tales of the future. At first he may come off as rather harsh, perhaps even brutal in some of his antics - however, after getting to know him better, you’d be bound to see some of the kindness in him, even if hidden deep inside. After all, it was the drive for a better world that pushed him forward - and this world wasn’t supposed to be better just for him. Living in constant fear of betrayal, he’d appreciate your loyalty, soon learning to let go of his suspicions around you. Additionally, he isn’t one to devalue a piece of advice because of its source - a man, a woman, an adult, a child, as long as the words do make sense, he doesn’t care.

He’d appreciate your righteous anger and would turn any other kind into a laughable story, perhaps sometimes helping you calm down with his own expertise. Being somewhat detached from his emotion, he’d benefit greatly from your kindness. In a way, he may find solace in your presence, finally allowing himself to drop his defences - or at least some of them.

However, living with a powerful lord like that could feel lonely, his workload proving to be overwhelming at times, leaving him with little free time so spare. Possible issues may arise around that, although it seems Nobunaga would be willing to compromise and try to find some solutions satisfactory for both sides. Free time ideas: travelling together (both on errands and privately), preparing meals together/eating together after a long day of work, watching the night sky from the tenshu, drinking together

[spiderman-homecomeme]

off the record pt. 3

ENEMIES TO LOVERS

A/N: Hello friends!! The third part of my enemies to lovers from Spideychelle week is here!! currently, there are two more chapters left, so we’re getting close to the end!!

Enjoy 3.8k of Peter and MJ still fuckin hating each other, but then... a change of feelings perhaps??

Read here or on AO3

-

They had agreed to meet at the same coffee shop later in the week, Michelle finding herself mysteriously—and annoyingly—frazzled in the days leading up to their interview, especially the morning of. For some unknown reason, her normal morning routine is extended by at least a half-hour, her mind buzzing the moment she wakes up from a restless night. Her stomach twists as she looks at her planner, and she writes it off as the dread of having to actually converse with Parker again.

“Haven’t seen that dress in a while,” Betty smirks knowingly from behind her morning coffee, Michelle having not even noticed her roommate sitting there in the first place.

Michelle looks up, her eyes setting into a wary glare after the initial startle. “And?” She asks slowly as she puts a piece of bread in the toaster.

Betty tips her head, voice smooth and casual. “What’s the occasion?”

“Uh, nothing?” Michelle’s gaze darts left and right, her mouth setting into a frown as she walks to the fridge, pulling out the strawberry jam, her hands fumbling slightly with the jar. “Work?”

Betty taps her fingers against the glass mug, pursing her lips thoughtfully. “Aren’t you interviewing Peter today?”

Again, Michelle looks away, blowing a harsh puff of frustrated air through her nose. “Shut up,” she mutters as her toast pops up. She can hear her roommate suppress a snort of laughter from behind her, the sound making her almost roll her eyes into the fifth dimension as she spreads the jam onto her breakfast.

“You like nice,” Betty offers, the playful edge still in her tone.

Michelle elects to ignore that particular comment, pointedly taking a bite of her toast with an annoyed crunch as she heads for the door, blocking out Betty’s final, “Remember the mission!” as she slams it behind her.

The beginning of the workday before lunch proves to be just as frustrating. Peter has the audacity to wave at her when she walks in, his mouth curved into a stupid, timid smile that she knows has to be just as forced as hers is. Her returning wave is stiff, and she trains her gaze on the ground as she hurries walks with purpose to her desk.

(Peter of course, takes issue with the fact that her tight-lipped, half-assed smile seems so disingenuous.)

Michelle can hardly get any work done, unable to stop herself from glancing up at him working at his desk every so often, feeling as if she has heartburn radiating from her head to her toes. And then, just as she’s leaving her office and out the door, just as she’s walking on the sidewalk, sirens blaring as police cars speed by, she gets a text from him explaining that he ran into some “family stuff” that he needed to deal with first, but that he would still be on time to the interview.

She stirs at her cappuccino, tapping the wooden stick on the cup before setting it aside. Her voice recorder sits to the side of her open notebook, and she twirls her pen mindlessly between her fingers. For a moment, she’s occupied with whether or not she should be toying with it when he walks in, or if it should be at the side, next to her paper—thinking that perhaps the latter might make her look more professional.

Then, in the next moment, she berates herself for worrying about such a pointless detail.

Besides; what did she care about professionalism?

He was the one who was currently eleven minutes late to their very scheduled interview.

But who’s counting?

(She is.)

It’s fine. Totally fine. It’s not like they only have an hour for lunch.

Then, as she starts to feel the real anger set in, she sees the jerk running outside the window, and she watches as he rushes to the entrance. As he flings the door open, the sharp ringing of the bell echoing in the cafe, she quickly averts her gaze down to her own coffee. She’s the very air of nonchalance as he approaches her booth, not even looking up as he flops down onto the bench across from her.

“Sorry—” He’s cut off by his own need to catch his breath. “Had a—had a… thing. With—”

“With your family?” When she dares to glance up at him, she’s alarmed at his disheveled appearance, his hair in disarray, his cheeks flushed a bright shade of pink.

In her mind, there are three possibilities as to why this is. One, being that he really did have a “family thing” and actually ran all the way here. Two, being that he had lied and just came from an intense workout at the gym. And three, being that he had been caught up in some hasty conquest of some kind.

The third doesn’t seem as likely, given that she’s never perceived Peter as being the “one-and-done” type of person, and he’s never mentioned anything about any significant other. And, of course, the idea that anyone in their right mind would want to sleep with this man just seems impossible to her. Still, the third possibility stays in the back of her mind, poking and prodding at her relentlessly as he blinks owlishly at her.

But, as bothered as she is, she doesn’t let it show (too much).

Peter huffs out a nervous laugh. “Yeah. Yeah…”

“No problem,” Michelle lies. She decides to just ignore his current state entirely, opening her notebook to a fresh page. “Let’s just go ahead and get started.”

Peter nods, lips pressed together in a small smile.

With a click of her recorder, she sits up straighter, taking her pencil in hand.

“How would you describe your relationship with Spider-Man?” She asks first.

Peter had been nervous about this before, but no amount of stress could compare to what he felt in this moment. He coughed, clearing his throat. “Um, well…” He pauses, choosing his words carefully, his heart hammering as she gets ready to write whatever nonsense he says. “I’m his photographer, but… I’d actually say that we’re pretty old friends.”

Michelle briefly glances up from her notes. “So you’ve known him a while.”

“Yeah,” he replies simply. “Since, uh—since freshman year of high school.”

“Wow, so a long time.” She takes a moment to finish that particular note. “Did you know him before he was Spider-Man?”

Peter takes another pause, disguising it as another cough, trying to decide the best way to answer. “Uh, yeah. Yeah I did.”

“It’s safe to say that you know him pretty well then?”

“Oh, yeah, you could say that,” Peter says, though there’s a hint of something in his tone that Michelle can’t quite place. “I probably know Spidey better than I know myself,” he jokes half-heartedly, his breath catching when she looks up at him again.

“You must be close, if you’re the only one who knows who he is.” Michelle observes. She knows she’s going off book, but the more he talks, the more she realizes that this is going to have to seem more genuine, that this shouldn’t feel like an actual interview if she wants to get any actual information.

Peter needs to feel comfortable.

Little does she know how impossible that is given what the interview is actually about.  

Peter chuckles quietly, nodding. “Very. We sometimes joke that we’re pretty much the same person.” He bites his lip, and she misses the brief look of panic that flashes across his face as she goes to take another sip of her coffee. He’s too quick to continue, and she doesn’t stop him. “I mean, we’ve had our ups and downs. There are times where he’s the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me, and—and… there are times, I guess, where I feel like your articles you write about him aren’t all that far off…” He trails off with a faint laugh.

Her lips twitches upward as she huffs in amusement before her expression turns serious again. There’s a hint of curiosity in her eyes. “Is there a romantic nature to your relationship?”

“What? Oh—no,” Peter sputters. “I mean, not that there would be anything wrong with that at all, but…” He coughs. “I’m single. He’s single. We’re just… We’re…” He pauses, trying to find the best way to word it without giving away his secret identity (in other words, what he’s been trying to do this whole damn interview). “...best friends.”

Michelle nods slowly, her expression still holding the faintest tint of skepticism, before she looks back down and continues writing.

After a heavy beat, Peter opens his mouth again.

“We’ve been through a lot, though,” He continues, leaning forward on his forearms. “We, uh, kinda had a falling out… back when my Uncle died, and—” He swallowed, not entirely sure why he’s even saying any of this, and he wonders if Michelle would be willing to keep some of it off the record. Still, he keeps going, unable to stop himself. “And our friendship after that was kinda shaky. But… after a while, I realized that living without him was pretty much impossible.”

“So you just learned to tolerate him?” Michelle jokes, earnestly for once, not as his expense.

Peter laughs softly. “In a way, I guess.” He shifts awkwardly, his fingers twiddling together, fearing he’s definitely said too much. “He’s a cool guy though. Solid dude.”

He holds her gaze for a moment before she remembers herself, eyes shifting down to her notes again.

She stares at her next pre-written question, wondering if this will induce the same word vomit as the first. Though, surprisingly, as annoyed as she might have been before at his incessant talking, here she finds that she almost doesn’t mind, and she justifies this new feeling as the product of knowing that his rambling is only helping her. It’s what she wants.

“Would you say that you admire him?” She asks, looking up again. His surprised face when she meets his gaze makes her stomach do an unexplained flip.

And truthfully, Peter’s not sure if there’s a safe answer to this question, or at least one that he can easily elaborate on. He falters for a beat, mentally weighing what he should say. “I’m not sure,” he says finally. “I mean, he’s been a part of my life for so long, it’s hard seeing him how normal people see him, you know? I mean, I admire him for what he does; looking out for the little guy, I guess. Just helping out because he can. But…”

Going into this interview, he hadn’t had the slightest idea that it would turn into some kind of introspective therapy session for himself.

“There are things he can do better—things we can all do better, obviously—but, I don’t know. He’s so busy keeping track of the city, he doesn’t really make time for the people in his life. And he knows this, and he tries really hard.” Again, Peter laughs, sadly. “But this whole superhero thing… it kinda gets in the way. He just… he has a really hard time keeping friends. I don’t know.”

“You’re his friend,” Michelle offers.

“That’s because I tolerate him. Remember?”

The same half-smile pulls at the corner of her lips, and she almost damns herself for letting it show. But once again, she remembers herself, and why she’s here in the first place.

“What’s the origin story of Spider-Man?” She gets right back to business.

“Oh, it’s kinda… It’s kind of a long story,” Peter says with a slight flinch, scratching the back of his neck.

Michelle looks up from her notes, hand frozen, eyeing him expectantly.

“Well, um—” Peter lets out a breathy chuckle. “Back in high school. Freshman year. We were, uh, we were on a field trip to Oscorp—for uh, science stuff. They had this exhibit on gamma radiation, and we had to put on this like, protective gear before we could go in the room, and when he was putting his on, there was a spider in there—one that I guess got trapped in there, I don’t know—and it bit him—” He shrugs, before hastily continuing. “I mean, I was there but, like, I didn’t see it happen or anything like that. That’s just what he told me.”

“So a radioactive spider?”

“I mean, I guess, yeah? Not really, but… Yeah. Sure.” He sits, mouth twisting in thought before he speaks again, voice slightly lowered. “ My working theory is that the spider was hit with gamma radiation. Just like Dr. Banner, you know?”

Michelle only offers a quick nod before continuing. “What exactly are his powers? What can Spider-Man do?”

“Whatever a spider can?” Peter jokes lamely.

Michelle stares unimpressed. “So, inject venom into your prey and digest their organs and then slurp up their insides? Because that’s what spiders can do.”

At that, Peter lets out a genuine, if not a little grossed-out, laugh, a sound that surprisingly doesn’t make Michelle want to throw her coffee in his face.

“God, no,” He replies. “No. Like, I just meant climbing walls. And he’s got synthetic webs and webshooters. And this like… sixth sense. Really, the walls thing is the only spidery thing about him.”

“Anything else?”

“Um… Advanced healing, super strength, enhanced senses like hearing and sight, powerful, unyielding charisma…”

She looks up at him briefly, eyes narrowed.

“Just to name a few,” he adds innocently.

Michelle opens her mouth to speak, a snarky response at the ready, when she’s cut off by the wailing sirens in the distance. Peter cranes his neck, looking past Michelle. She turns. The TV in the corner of the coffee shop shows the scene outside one of the nearby banks, the news anchor’s voice reporting a hostage situation.

When she turns back to face Peter, his eyes are wide, and after a beat, he hastily pulls his phone out of his pocket. He holds up a finger, obviously pretending to take a phone call from someone named May . Apparently, she’s facing quite the inconvenience, judging by Peter’s overacting.

“Sorry, Michelle,” Peter says as he scrambles up from his side of the booth, nearly tripping on his way out. “I—I gotta go,” He stammers, throwing a stiff thumb over his shoulder. “My uh, my aunt… Needs help…”

She fixes him with a skeptical glare.

“We’ll finish this at my desk? Tomorrow? With Coffee? I’ll buy!”

Before she can even respond, he’s rushing for the door, running as soon as his feet hit the pavement outside.

Michelle can only watch, sinking back into her seat, her arms folded across her chest. This had certainly gone better than she expected. Sure, there’s still a lot of things left unanswered, given that they’d only made it about half-way through her list of scripted questions. But, she’s not completely in the dark anymore.

If there’s one thing Michelle’s sure of—100%, to be exact—it’s that Peter Parker is Spider-Man.

--

Okay, maybe he’s not. Maybe she’s only 67% sure.

Michelle knows that she shouldn’t be jumping to conclusions, and although the thought hadn’t immediately crossed her mind, she knows that confirmation bias can be a dangerous thing. After a semi-solid night’s sleep, as she’s walking into the Daily Bugle offices, she decides that this isn’t something she should rush into. She needs to keep investigating. She needs to keep talking to Peter, getting to know him.

Just so she’s really sure.

Then, and only then, can she make her move.

Besides, if she’s going to ruin this guy’s life—whoever Spider-Man happens to be—she needs to really make sure it’s the right guy.

After finishing up the interview at his desk—even after he willingly and thoroughly answers all of her questions—she still feels as though she needs more evidence that he is, in fact, Spider-Man. So, she asks him to meet with her the next day.

And the next.

...And the next.

At this point, the questions aren’t even about Spider-Man anymore. Perhaps finding out more about Peter’s own personal life will give her insight as to how he could manage such a time consuming alter-ego. And she trades this information with her own personal anecdotes.

You know, to make him feel like he’s her friend. That’s how she justifies it.

Peter Parker is surprisingly funny, Michelle finds. And, just in general, not as terrible a person as she’d initially thought. She even lets him start calling her MJ. His little smiles and waves don’t grate on her as much as they did just a few days ago.

Really, if Michelle didn’t hate him so much, she might thing they were actually becoming friends.

Betty seems to think so as well. Or at least more than that.

And she lets Michelle know this information while she’s mid rant about something funny-slash-stupid he’d said during their fourth consecutive “interview”—this one being after work, dinner at a semi-fancy restaurant. Something ]that seemingly had nothing to do with Spider-Man at all.

Betty has the gall to actually suggest that instead of hating Peter, Michelle might like him.

Like-like him, she dares to say.

MJ, of course, shuts that shit down as soon as Betty even thinks to mention it, mocking the very idea for sounding so juvenile while at the same time finding her face unbearably warm.

And, on his side of their tiny world, Peter’s in about the same position. He’s had to stop talking to Ned about the whole thing because the guy just keeps pushing this whole “You’re actually in love with her, you idiot,” narrative that’s frankly not true at all. Ned just doesn’t understand how annoying MJ really is, how annoying the way she just smirks at him is, the way she just deadpans almost every joke she has, or the way he finds himself laughing at said jokes…

The way she tucks her curly hair behind her ear and looks away from him like she’s shy or something…

Okay, so he might not actually hate her, but actually, genuinely falling for her has to be the most ridiculous thing he’s ever heard. Though, he’s surprised to find himself seeing her more and more as a friend everyday. It’s weird.

But what did it matter that they’ve started going out to dinner to discuss her article? He’s just following the plant. There’s nothing else to it.

So what if he takes a split-second to admire the way she looks?

Unbeknownst to the other, they both feel the same strange warmth between them, and their smiles are starting to become genuine. While there’s still the annoyance that’s always there, it’s accompanied by a new, unknown, strange feeling. And with this new, tingling feeling comes a tugging guilt, one that’s faint and easily ignored, but certainly there.

Michelle, for writing this exposé in the first place. Though, the feeling is fleeting, as she’s reminded by another email from Jameson asking for another Spidey article. She knows that her next step is to just keep hanging out with Peter, just to be sure that he’s not Spider-Man himself, to somehow meet his friends, maybe see who’s the flake he’s told her all about. And for once, the idea doesn’t make her want to throw up.

That, and she still has to interview Spidey.

She knows she just has to stay with the plan, and everything will be fine.

And that’s what she reminds herself as she’s called to her boss’s office, and especially as Jameson grills her for not responding to his emails regarding his demand for more Spider-Man articles. Of course, in the midst of all the prep and interviews, Michelle had neglected to tell her boss that what she had in store was better than anything he could possibly want her to write.

“JONES!” Jameson barks. “You better have a damn good reason for dodging my emails!”

Michelle barely flinches, able to maintain a sense of coolness in the face of danger. “It’s actually—”

“And I mean really good! Like dead grandma good! Is your grandma dead?”

“...No. I—”

“Wait, I take that back, I don’t care about your grandma!” He waves her off aggressively. “I expect this shit from Thompson or Parker, but not you!”

“I’m sorry,” Michelle says, her tone flat and even, though she feels the slightest bit hesitant to further explain herself. “I’ve been working on something else.”

“Something else?!” Jameson balks. “What else could you possibly be working on?! My assignments not good enough for you?! I tell you what, whatever you’re working on better be—”

Her own internal turmoil as to whether or not she should tell her boss about her plan, quiet as that turmoil is, is enough to put Jameson’s angry rant on mute, at least for a moment. Truly, she’s unsure where this sudden trepidation is coming from, but she assumes it’s because she wants to have as little input from her boss as possible.

“—It better be big! What are you doing?! Finding out his secret identity?!”

At that, Michelle jerks her head back, mouth parted as she blinks in surprise. “That’s… That’s exactly what I’m doing.”

“Oh!... Oh?” Jameson stops, frozen, and for once, he speaks in lowercase letters. “Well. Uh. Good.”

Still in shock that he was lucky enough—she’d say smart, but that was a bit of a stretch—to guess it on whatever try it was, she nods. But then, she remembers the inevitability that Jameson’s going to spread this around the office, maybe as some sick form of motivation for her poor coworkers.

Which would lead to Peter finding out…

“I’d prefer if we kept this conversation between us, though,” Michelle says, to which Jameson’s only response is a confused quirk of his brow. “I want it to be this big shock to everyone , you know?”

Jameson nods slowly, mouth pressing into a thin line. Clearly, he buys it. “Yes… Yes… You’ve got a point there, Jones.” He claps his hands together, the sound echoing in his office. “Alright! Well! Get back to work then! Find out who Spider-Man is!”

God, at this point he’s already told everyone, she thinks, hiding the way her eye twitches in annoyance.

Michelle dismisses herself, moving to leave without another word. As she opens and starts pushing the door behind her, she startles seeing who’s waiting on the other side.

“Oh! Uh, hey!” She tells herself that the smile on her face is only out of politeness. “Peter!”

Peter clutches at the strap of his camera bag. He gives a single, stiff nod, his mouth pressing into a tight, thin smile as he rocks back on his heels.

He looks as if he’s about to say something when Jameson’s booming voice cuts him off.

“PARKER! GET IN HERE!”

“Good luck,” Michelle teases under her breath.

Peter forces another smile before pushing past her and into the office.

It leaves Michelle in the near-empty hallway, staring at the closed door, confused—and with a strange, unwelcome sinking you-fucked-up feeling in her gut.

[emma-what-son]

(Echee post) Emma Watson criticises 'dangerously unhealthy' pressure on young women

Posted on March 30 2014

From theguardian.com March 2014 Emma Watson has criticised the "dangerously unhealthy" image projected by the fashion industry and said the pressure to look perfect has taken its toll on her. The actor has also described her doomed attempts to merge into the background as a student at an American university, where she found herself being trailed everywhere by British photographers. After the recent New York premiere of Noah, she tweeted a photograph of the array of cosmetics – and a guardian angel pin – that she said were essential aids to her flawless appearance, and another of herself in a backless dress captioned: "I did NOT wake up like this." The actress said she is better at taking criticism these days than she once was. "As a younger woman, that pressure got me down, but I've made my peace with it. With airbrushing and digital manipulation, fashion can project an unobtainable image that's dangerously unhealthy. I'm excited about the ageing process. I'm more interested in women who aren't perfect. They're more compelling." Watson became famous playing Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter movies and has been constantly in work since. She is about to start filming a thriller, Regression, by Alejandro Amenábar and is also trying to complete her degree at Brown University, Rhode Island. She enrolled in 2009 for what would have been a four year course, but has taken several breaks for film work, and spent a year studying at Oxford. "After Harry Potter, all that mattered was university," she said, in an interview with the Sunday Times. "It wasn't always easy to break down barriers, as having men from the British press following me with cameras didn't help my mission to integrate. The American press, by contrast, "afforded me so much privacy", but her fellow students recognised her at once. "On the first day, I walked into the canteen and everyone went completely silent and turned around to look at me. I had to say to myself 'it's OK, you can do this'. You just have to take a deep breath and gather your courage."

GUARDIAN COMMENTERS SAY: So something like this Burberry campaign she did a few years ago? Hypocrisy at its finest. She flaunts with the fashion industry and enjoys its perks all the time, but hops on the 'female beauty' bandwagon and enjoys a moan when it suits her. I'd find her socially conscientious pleas convincing if she hadn't profited in the hundreds of thousands (if not millions) from the big, bad, evil fashion/beauty industry. A few years ago, Emma Watson appeared in high-profile advertising companies for posh Paris fashion house L'ancome. I'm guessing she was handsomely remunerated for her 'work'. Certainly she was not forced into letting her photo shopped image be used to market expensive cosmetics and perfumes. Did she only discover how 'oppressive' the fashion industry is when L'ancome cancelled her lucrative contract? Ms Watson is essentially a third-rate actress, and her pronouncements on large and complex issues, such as the pressures on women, are so idiotically vapid that one is brought to conclude that she really can have very little aptitude for higher education. I mean, her comments are hardly indicative of an educated person, or even of a moderately literate or intelligent person. By the way, I understand that she spent a year at Oxford as a visiting and/or exchange student while enrolled at Brown. How come? She is a British national, and so by rights she should not have gone to Oxford on a visiting/exchange student programme, irrespective of whether she happens a student at an American university. If I am wrong about this, then I should like to have some explanation as to her status at Oxford, and how she came by it. Otherwise, I suppose that one might be forgiven for thinking that it is yet another case of a once respectable academic institutions bowing down before the false idols of celebrity and money. (This is quite apart from the fact that all that one has read about her since she began life as a student concerns her acting career, her modeling and her various boyfriends.) SOME COMMENTS FROM THE DM ARTICLE Notice how it's always people who are very aware of how attractive they are that babble on about how it's okay to have physical blemishes? I'd like to see an ugly person say the same thing. Only someone young, beautiful and with her whole life before her can say that, and mean it. Sometimes, her comments maKe her more stupid. Get lost and Wingardium Leviosa. What a daft thing to say. But, then again, this is coming from someone who can't seem to finish uni. I feel like I've aged about 10 years reading this article. Annoying girl. Not only annoying, but also pretentious and disingenuous. ^None of this is my words. It from commentators from two sites emma-what-son posted many more so check out her page

Here's what I think As for what she is saying about Brown it's a complete 180 from how she described it before 2013. In 2013 she started to elude to the fact it was not as great as she made it out to be. She gushed how wonderful her experiences had been to so many magazines. Now I think she's looking for pity and to have excuses why she never stayed at Brown. She preached how she was staying put. I am so fucking tired of having to post quote after quote proving my point with this when she lies time after time. She is not honest! What the truth is doesn't matter because she always lying. It's a constant thing with her. As for the pressures on women she is really a piece of work. The guardian commenters summed it up nicely. She had no problem attaching herself to Burberry and Lancôme. She's had no problem giving them praise and talking about fashion and make-up in just about every interview. That part where she talked about photo shopping and air brushing. Just wow! Did she see the Wonderland magazine she edited? Some photos it didn't even look like her. She'll continue allowing her image to be manipulated no matter what. She thinks she’s aging? She still looks 15 without all the make-up and photo shopping. Last year she was stopped at JFK because they thought she was a unaccompanied minor. Did you know one of the product she pushed when modeling for Lancôme was an anti-age cream? That's the dumbest comment in her entire interview. But really she's said this kind of stuff the last three years and most notably in 2011 where she had a various quotes about body image and being comfortable in your skin. I wont bore you with those quotes since I have before. She gets lauded for those comments and people place her in role model status but when you closely look at it they were just words that meant nothing at the time other than to make people think, “Emma is so anti-Hollywood!! She’s a role model for women and young girls” but meanwhile she never believed in any of it in the first place. At the time she said those things she was at a more healthier weight than she ever was. In 2011 you can tell she either stopped working out or ate more. I thought she looked her best then. Now she’s back to stick thin and even surpassed it a way IMO is unhealthy. She sending a bad message to women. From standard.co.uk July 2011, “She sees modeling as an extension of acting, in fact - just playing a role - but is conflicted about its demands. “I think the pressure the media and the fashion industry put on women to look a certain way is pretty intense. There’s a certain tyranny to trying to achieve that kind of beauty. I don’t know, I’m maybe not the best person to speak about this because I obviously completely adhere to it,” she laughs nervously. “ ^She really needs to start taking her own advice and quit being a judgmental hypocrite. Not just with this topic but everything she tends to speak out against that she does it herself. Recently she tweeted a photo of all this make-up and I posted this on my tumblr days ago

^Same phone in this photo is what they're using in the bottom photo that I also posted on tumblr She said something else recently (Sunday Times interview) that is just typical Emma. I covered this a few times. From emmawatsonbelgium.blogspot.be March 2014, "For someone who has starred in eight blockbuster movies and is worth an estimated £30m, she is endearingly modest about how green she felt leaving Harry Potter behind in 2011. Emerging from that magical machine was “really intimidating”, she says. “I’d done two tiny plays when I was, like, six and eight, but I wasn’t driven to act. I wasn’t doing Oscar acceptance speeches into a hairbrush." Yeah it might have no been a hairbrush but who knows she could be lying about that. She'd practice her speeches in mirrors. From telegraph.co.uk July 2007,  "Pauline is utterly obsessed with being an actress and I was just like that when I was younger. I dreamt of it. I practised speeches in front of mirrors. Whenever there was a part at school, I went for it. I was probably a bit of a show-off in the sense that any chance to get up and be seen, I did it. I was such a drama queen. I used to wail and moan and cry, and little things were blown up into being big things. I don't know how my parents stood it, really. I've grown up a bit. I've had to. I actually really want to be an actress, a proper actress who makes it her career. I'm always expecting to be found out and I thought, If I'm no good, now is the time to find out." She really wants people to think she all of a sudden wants to act. What I think is she is really trying to distance herself from her lack luster post Potter career by making it out like she now wants to act and that’s why she has no lead roles because her resume does not equal her hype. The last few years she’s separated herself from “always wanted to be an actress” to “I was not sure”. She’s being disingenuous as usual and people believe it. Plus she said she did modeling so directors and producers would look at her differently so that's why she used Burberry and Lancôme. And she did a course at RADA in 2008 so if she was not sure or didn't want to than why did she do these things? One more thing from the Sunday Times interview From emmawatsonbelgium.blogspot.be March 2014, "It’s about as close as she’ll get to revealing anything about her newest relationship, with Matt Janney, rugby hunk and Oxford’s most eligible bachelor. “I can’t comment on it, I’m sorry,” she says, suddenly jumping up and hastily bundling her things back into her bag, which has exploded across the sofa beside her. “I’m trying to keep my private life sacred, although I don’t want to lock myself up and never go out. So I guard it, because I don’t date people who are famous, and I don’t think it’s fair that, all of a sudden, intimate details of their personal life are public as a direct result of me. I find that so uncomfortable, and I wish there was a way I could protect those people, but it’s not in my control.” When I suggest her boyfriends are consenting adults, she looks worried. “But you don’t choose who to love, who you have feelings for, do you?” She throws her phone into her bag and retreats home to pack, as she’s flying to LA. Just a normal girl, then, off to present an Oscar."

So she can go to international magazines and complain she can't find a man or that men are intimidated by her? She had in the past before Will Adamowicz. It was in almost every one of her interviews for a few years. So she can use Matt Janney (this new guy) on a beach in a bikini PDA session as a publicity stunt to cover up her ex boyfriend being caught rolling coke bombs and also use him to product place an iPhone in Madrid but she wants to keep it private? And she doesn't date famous guys? What about Johnny Simmons (Young Neil) and George Craig (Front man for rock group One Night Only)?  If you can Google their name and you see them in movies or music videos, they're famous.

[zobot257]

Propagana Callout: Tucker Carlson

Today I need to talk to anyone reading this about a matter of utmost seriousness: Propaganda.

Propaganda is something that I, as a writer, utterly despise. It's misleading, misinforming, blatantly biased sources of information meant to brainwash rather than to foster thought and further investigation. And it is all around us in this current election. More than ever we have an obligation to do research and investigate things ourselves, to stay properly informed.

I'm going to do something here, which is to show a written work I feel is very much Propaganda, and then explain how it uses fallacy, melodrama, and deception to mislead you. The piece I'm using as an example is linked below:

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker-carlson-2020-election-biden-win-age-of-oligarcy

Please NOTE I'm picking this because it's an easy, obvious target, not because it's "conservative" or "liberal" or anything like that. Propaganda exists on both sides here, and in the modern age it's often harder to spot. If you want me to evaluate something from like CNN or some other obviously liberal news source as a counterpoint to this, feel free to suggest it.

With that in mind, let's begin.

Now, there's a number of things propaganda-laden about this piece. First of all, keep in mind that this is an OPINION piece. Opinion pieces are not subject to as rigid guidelines as anything intended to be presented as ACTUAL journalism. While you still can't say things to say, incite a riot, you can get away with a lot more than you could in a proper newspaper article that's meant to be an authoritarian source as long as you clearly label that it's only your opinion. So that means it's safe, right?

That's the thing here, it isn't.

The fact that it’s from Tucker Carlson, noted TV personality, gives it a sense of significance and weight (if only virtually) than an opinion piece written by any other John Doe. As much as I dislike the man, there are people who trust him and will take his word because of who he is and what he does. Because he's a person in the public eye who is supposed to report the news. So there are people who will read this and believe it wholeheartedly despite it being labeled an opinion piece, and also despite it not really giving any PROOF for his assertions. In fact that lack of any proof for his assertions, no citing of sources or indicators of what he’s saying beyond the article itself, is the first thing I’d say that flags it as propaganda for me. If you make a statement in a political arena you'd better be prepared to back it up. But the fact that it's an Opinion piece frees him from having to cite sources, while still banking on his name and fame to make it SEEM more authoritative than it really is.

Now let’s dissect some of his statements:

“We have no clue what Joe Biden actually thinks, or even if he's capable of thinking. He hasn't told us and no one's made him tell us for a full year.”

Joe Biden has literally gone the whole year campaigning on a platform. I can cite debates he’s participated in, things he’s vowed to do, and speeches he’s made. But Tucker Carlson implies he’s not “capable of thinking” and that “we have no clue what Joe Biden actually thinks”. The Bible says that “by their fruits shall we know them”. It’s pretty easy to see what Joe Biden is thinking by what he says and his history of actions, and he’s a public figure so those things are not mystified or hidden.

But Tucker Carlson in saying that sentence creates an illusion, without any proof, that Joe Biden has hidden motives, an agenda beyond his actions... or, and this is probably what he’s angling for, NO agenda at all, because he’s implied by the rest of the piece to be a shell of a man controlled by corporate interests.

(This is off-topic, but I’ll point out that Donald Trump is the first president to publicly own his own businesses and openly used his political status to PROFIT his own businesses, which I can cite a NUMBER of sources for. Ethics professors and safeguard monitors in and out of Washington DC have rang alarm bells about that being a dangerous conflict-of-interest.)

“What remains is a projection of sorts, a hologram designed to mimic the behavior of a non-threatening political candidate: "Relax, Joe Biden's here. He smiles a lot. Everything's fine." That's the message from the vapor candidate.”

This is another statement showing how Propaganda it is. It’s subtly condescending, while at the same time not condescending towards the people likely to READ it. Instead, it’s implying that “the other side”, those who support Biden for any reason, are easily manipulated and just want to feel safe. So anyone reading it who is on “the correct side” will generally feel reassured they made the right decision. They’re not easily tricked or suckered by ‘the vapor candidate”.

Another way you can tell it’s Propaganda is that it’s using mockery and derision for people who don’t fit their mold.

Propaganda uses Emotional Artifice to manipulate. It’s designed to make you Feel and Care without making you THINK. You can read this whole article without ever having to seriously question what it’s about. You don’t have to, but it’s designed to not be challenging.

Anyway, moving on, let's see the next thing Tucker Carlson says.

“Well, the first thing you should know is that the people behind Joe Biden aren't liberals. We've often incorrectly called them that. A liberal believes in the right of all Americans to speak freely, to make a living, to worship their God, to defend their own families, and to do all of that regardless of what political party they belong to or what race they happen to be born into or how far from midtown Manhattan they currently live.”

Another point that’s pretty Propaganda is this one right here. Defining terms without any basis for how they’re doing it. How does any reader KNOW this is “what a liberal is”, outside Tucker Carlson defining it? They may have outside knowledge, but that's never a guarantee. By setting up his definition for the reader, Tucker Carlson is setting up rules for how the rest of the article will go, while steering the reader towards his desired point of view.

While that in and of itself is not only a tactic used by Propaganda, it’s bad in this specific instance because of the end goal; which is to define a group without any input from the actual group itself. Think “The Noble Savage” being used to describe Native Americans as “those misguided creatures who only need the light of God to start Living and Acting Right" in earlier historical times. Creating an image of a people group without actually KNOWING the people group in question or accurately reflecting them.

Again, if Tucker Carlson gave any basis or rationale for his claims, it might not be Propaganda. But because he doesn’t, because he expects his word to exist only on it’s own in this article, then the article is the only thing he expects you to read, and to evaluate it on it’s own merits. That makes it Propaganda.

Writing to persuade is not a bad thing. Persuading people using manipulative and disingenuous statements IS.

Next point!

“A liberal believes in universal principles, fairly applied. And the funny thing is, all of that describes most of the 70 million people who just voted for Donald Trump this week.”

In the paragraph preceding this one, Tucker Carlson went on to define a Liberal as something fairly mild and inoffensive. Someone you could probably be friends with, right? Now he’s going on to explain how the people who voted for Biden are in fact NOT liberals, and how the TRUE liberals are all the Trump voters. See, if you’re reading this article, you’re clearly the ones who are mild and inoffensive. You haven’t done anything wrong, you’re the "good guys".

It’s an emotional appeal, and one done in bad faith as manipulative. A trap designed to flatter and comfort people without making them question the validity of what he’s doing. This is the sort of thing salespeople do to upsell customers. By convincing them that the more expensive product is the "smart buy".

“They have no interest in silencing the opposition on Facebook or anywhere else”

Take my words with a grain of salt. I’d rather you THINK about it and evaluate what I say rather than just believe me. But I will say in my personal experience alone this sentence does not describe people who voted for Trump OR Biden, and may be the most false statement Tucker Carlson puts into his whole piece here. EVERYONE uses Facebook for politics these days. I'm starting to get sick of it, and the fact that I've done it too is hypocrisy I need to tamp down.

Anyway, next bit of the opinion article to analyze:

“What you do know for certain is that the people behind Joe Biden are not like that at all. They don't believe in dissent. "You think one thing? I think another. That's OK." No, that's not them at all. They demand obedience to diversity, which is to say, legitimate differences between people is the last thing they want.”

Another good example of Propaganda is how it attacks others and wildly caricaturizes them. You see this in old war propaganda all the time. Look at how “the bad guys” are depicted in some of these old superman comic covers for a visual example:

https://sites.google.com/site/worldwar2comicbookpropaganda/home/superman

As much as I hate to defend Nazis in ANY context, at ALL, the “good guy” is obvious in these visual bits of art. The “bad guy” is drawn as a caricature that looks fairly ugly in a shriveled way more often than not, playing up racial stereotypes and looking unfortunate or angry, while the “good guy” looks generally happy and serene or at least stereotypically handsome to look at. Tucker Carlson is doing the same exact thing here, but with words instead of pictures. Demonizing “the other side” while explaining to his intended audience, his “side”, how they’re the sane and good ones. The "other side" is going to silence your voice, ignore the principle of live and let live, all in the name of "diversity" that isn't truly diverse.

Does he have evidence of this?

Maybe, but he doesn't present it anywhere in the article or even try. You have only this article to go by, and that means either you accept his argument at face value or reject it at face value. He's trying to scare you by presenting something no one really wants as what "the other side" is trying to do.

Propaganda almost never is used to try and convince people who aren’t already believers. It usually looks offensive or silly to people outside the “bubble”.

Instead it’s used to reinforce and manipulate the people who already generally agree with your message. Keeping them from thinking for themselves and replacing their thoughts with your own. Studies have shown a crude-yet-effective way to brainwash anyone is to just keep repeating a phrase over and over again to them while giving them positive reinforcement when they agree (or at least listen passively) while they get negative reinforcement for going against it or speaking up negatively. (Again, don't take my word for it, I encourage you to do research on this frankly horrifying concept.)

The same principle is applied in most forms of Propaganda. Constant repetition of similar messages designed to shut down independent thought or controversy. Next snippet!

“Now, if these seem like corporate values to you, then you're catching on to what's happening. The Joe Biden for President campaign is a purely corporate enterprise.”

Again this is off-topic, but I’ll point out that Donald Trump still holds a controlling interest in his own CORPORATION, and how huge a conflict of interest that is for a political official. IF Joe Biden is actually a corporate enterprise as Tucker Carlson is saying, at least he has the intelligence to keep it covered up.

Personally, I’d take competent evil over inept and stupid evil any day of the week.

But more importantly, again, this is a statement of serious allegations made without any PROOF given to back it up. It’s a statement expected to only be taken by its words alone. Remember my point about Propaganda not being used to convince OUTSIDERS.

Anyone who doesn’t already tune into Fox News would probably look at this statement and wonder where getting it from. Because they’re not the target audience. Propaganda exists primarily to reinforce believes that people already have and keep them from questioning or doubting them. This piece does that. Though I don't feel it does it very subtly, which is why I picked it to evaluate. It's easier to dissect something obvious than something artful.

Next up!

“It's the first one in American history to come this close to the presidency. If a multinational corporation decided to create a presidential candidate, he would be-“

Tucker Carlson, should I just start saying “Trump Towers, Trump Branded products, Trump’s Mar-a-largo resort...” and all the other things involved in Donald Trump’s MULTINATIONAL CORPORATION HE WANTS YOU TO BUY THINGS FROM?

“The first one in American history” is a blatant lie meant to cast shade on Biden. Again, to paraphrase from the Bible: "Remove the plank from your own eye before you remove the speck from your brother’s". I'm not quoting that perfectly but you get the point:

Hypocrisy.

Even if Tucker Carlson has a valid argument here, and Biden will be good for shady tech giants like Google (which I acknowledge may be a possibility), he’s making it seem like this is the first time we’ve had a President beholden to corporate interests. Even BEFORE Trump, it really wasn’t. I’d say it goes back to “Citizens United”, where corporations were ruled by the courts to have MORE rights than citizens, but it probably goes back before that and I just don’t know. (Just a reminder! Don't take my word for this! Read up on Citizens United and make your own opinions!)

Donald Trump is the first person to be President who is just OPEN about being beholden to Corporate interests. And if BIDEN is, it’s just a return to form, where the “form” is him outwardly appearing to be a just leader while inwardly being a puppet for them. Again, if Tucker Carlson has the slightest crumb of a point in his opinion piece here, it’s this. But he’s openly lying by saying that Biden’s the first to be beholden to corporate interests. It’s just that Biden is beholden to corporate interests he doesn’t WANT, while Trump wasn’t.

Next up, we hear Tucker Carlson talk about our next VeePee:

“They literally picked Kamala Harris as Biden's running mate, someone who can't even pronounce her own name”

Propaganda often uses mockery and derision to argue it’s points when it doesn’t actually have GOOD arguments. This is because people will laugh at the joke while not realizing it’s manipulating them.

I highly doubt Kamala Harris can’t pronounce her own name, but its presented here as a way to make her look stupid because Tucker Carlson can’t come up with any legitimate way to attack her.

And there ARE legitimate ways

There's so many legitimate ways to attack Kamala Harris.

But the purpose of this article isn't that. It's to educate on Propaganda. So let's move on!

Ooo, especially because now we get to my favorite part of the whole Opinion Piece next!

“Now, whatever you may think of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, they did it the traditional way. Each one of them had the support of actual voters. Living, breathing people loved them, believed in them, vested their hope in them, and, by the way, agreed with their ideas, which they articulated clearly.”

THIS is the beautiful part of the manipulation. The part where Tucker Carlson tries to convince us it’s NOT Propaganda. See, he’s clearly praising someone on “the other side”, so therefore he’s clearly unbiased and entirely nonpartisan. The reason why he’s using Bernie Sanders here? Bernie Sanders also has a following among “the other side” but is ENTIRELY SAFE TO PRAISE because he’s not up for election or reelection. People will forget this propaganda-filled shitty memo in a month.

Guaranteed.

But they’ll remember the message inside it if they buy into it. And this whole paragraph is designed to make you remember Tucker Carlson as “fair and unbiased” because clearly there are people on “the other side” that he “respects”. The reality of the situation is that Bernie Sanders can’t easily be used against Tucker Carlson’s intent, because he’s not up for election in any way that rocks the dang boat. So praising him here, regardless of if it’s sincere or not, doesn’t do anything that might risk having Tucker Carlson’s audience start to think or investigate in further detail.

They don’t have to, who needs to seriously think about Bernie Sanders if he’s not one of the options for president right now? Tucker Carlson may indeed respect that Bernie earned voters fairly. But that’s not the POINT of the paragraph. The subtext is that Bernie Sanders, unlike Joe Biden, earned things “fairly”. Therefore creating the illusion, or rather reinforcing the already present illusion, that Joe Biden did NOT win voters “Fairly” to his side.

Now if there’s been election fraud or not isn’t what this is about. What this memo is saying, OUTRIGHT, in this paragraph, is: “there’s no way legitimate voters would EVER vote for Joe Biden, so therefore his victory is invalid”

But it’s not saying that OUTRIGHT, because that statement is one far more people would disagree with.

Instead, it’s creating the illusion that Joe Biden is unlikable and a front for corporate interests and using Bernie Sanders as a counterpart to illustrate a “better” example of “the other side”, who just happens to not be challenging to Tucker Carlson or “his side” right now at all.

The truth is LIKELY that if Bernie was up for Election instead, Tucker Carlson would be arguing he was a socialist and never saying a word positive about him. I mean, I can’t PROVE that, which is why I said “likely”, but I really doubt Tucker Carlson would ever praise Bernie Sanders in any other context. Feel free to show me I'm wrong if I am.

This last bit is NOT my favorite part, because it’s so overdone as to be cliché. But it’s necessary for Tucker Carlson to end on, because this way his base gets to feel virtuous for agreeing with him. It’s what I call “The Literary Death of the Martyr”. Let’s read:

“It's insulting to say that Joseph R. Biden won this election, if that is what comes to pass. The tech companies will have won. The big banks will have won. The government of China, the media establishment, the permanent bureaucracy, the billionaire class -- they will have won, and not in the way that democracy promises. If a single person equaled a single vote, a coalition like that could never win anything. There aren't enough of them.

But as a group, they have something that Donald Trump's voters sadly do not have, and that is power. They have lots of power and they plan to wield that power, whether you like it or not. It's all starting to look a lot like oligarchy at this point. The people who believe they should have been in charge all along now may actually be in charge.

So what does that mean for the rest of us? Will corporate America declare victory and back off? Can we speak freely again? Will they take the boot from our necks? Can we have America back now that the Great Orange Emergency has passed? Well, the mandatory lying orders finally be lifted? ”

I hate the phrase “Virtue signaling” with all my heart and soul and mind. But if there was ever a place to use it, this would be it. The ending of Tucker Carlson’s opinion piece is basically a bid for sympathy. Not for Tucker Carlson, but for his BASE to feel sympathetic towards itself. Tucker Carlson is saying that the majority of the American public, which is clearly what all his readers are a part of, are now beholden and enslaved to the Special Interest Groups behind the Joe Biden regime. Tucker Carlson’s readers have “lost” and are now prostrate towards these powers who have usurped control of the United States by getting Joe Biden elected. It’s melodramatic prose and it’s only purpose is to make the reader feel victimized. Like they themselves are the martyr suffering for what is right while sipping their coffee and waking up after a leisurely morning where they slept in and never had to fear about Vikings breaking down the doors of their monasteries and sacking the place. The point I'm trying to make is that GENERALLY we as Americans do not have to worry about being violently assaulted in our own homes by Norse raiders. I THINK. If there have been Norse-related sackings and lootings and slaughters in America in the past 50 years I am ignorant about please let me know so I can start living in fear of the longboats once more.

But seriously, what Tucker Carlson is doing here is using melodrama as a way to give people a brief burst of emotional Righteous Indignation, to make them feel like they’re “in the right” and that “the bad guys have won”. When people feel like the victim, they can use that as justification to DO anything without it being wrong behavior.

It’s a way of getting otherwise good people to justify doing terrible things, and Tucker Carlson is using it here. That's about it. There's probably stuff I've missed in this Opinion Piece, but I think I've demonstrated how writing can be used to manipulate, mislead, and maneuver one's opinion. Please keep in mind that this was meant to be non-partisian. If you are cheering me on for picking on someone from “the other side” you're missing the point. I've got no malice towards conservatives or even Tucker Carlson in general, but I feel like so much more these days we are being manipulated and critical thinking skills are essential for anyone to navigate the news these days. If you disagree with anything I'm saying here or feel I've quoted Tucker Carlson out of context please feel free to let me know. I welcome controversy and expression of ideas over this, even if you decide to tell me I'm a partisian piece of trash. And if you want me to pick apart some clearly DEMOCRATIC propaganda, feel free to suggest some.

[smokeybrand]

Venomous Visibility

As a creator, I always find the subject of representation kind of dubious. With the f*cked up Last of Us II leaks, the continuous misandrist poison leaking into the Star Wars canon from that Kennedy-led Lucasfilm, and the incredibly amazing portrayal of Jill Valentine in the Remake, this sh*t has been on my mind lately. Like, how do you write strong, female, protagonist without falling into that Mary Sue trap? How do you code black without being offensive? How do you write gay without resorting to stereotypes? I don't know how to distinguish a trans or deaf or autistic or native person through text without outright stating these things. Where's the nuance in portraying someone queer without it coming across as pandering? I don’t know if it’s because of my limited experience as a straight black dude who kind of thinks the current trend of eighty-eight genders and personal identifications is kind of ridiculous but i find the attempts studios make to cater to these groups to be adequate as f*ck. Like, Sarah Connor and Ellen Ripley kind of defined feminine bad-ass and they both did it way back in the 80s. Why is there this irreverent need to portray this misandrist energy in modern cinema? Birds of Prey was a fun time but it was way heavy-handed on that “Girl boss” energy and it didn’t have to e. Harley Quinn is already a boss and the Birds kick ass in their own right. Why does that have to be the focus of your narrative instead of actual character development and plot? Especially when you have that Ellen Ripley template? It’s weird to say but it feels like certain groups want those aspects to define the entirety of a character instead of it just being a part of them. I think that mindset is both toxic and does a disservice to the given narrative, unless the narrative, itself, is defined by those aspects.

I'm of the mind that, if you wrote dope characters, that should he enough. Take, for examples, Disney’s newest attempt to represent a queer character in Onward. I’ve never seen the movie, i have severe daddy issues so this hilariously outside of my wheelhouse, but i hear that one of the characters makes a passing reference to their same sex spouse. How is that not good enough? Isn’t that how it is in real life? I don’t see gays running around, shouting about their homo love from the balconies and rooftops. Unless it’s Pride. To add that little tidbit in the middle of a Pixar film, aimed at the notoriously conservative middle America, and not have them trying to burn down city hall is kind of amazing and, in my opinion, very tastefully done. At least it’s better executed than the way Beauty and the Beast did with the LeFou reveal. Like, holy sh*t. Talk about blue-balls. This fervent obsession with representation for representation sake or to push an agenda is absolutely repugnant. You think the character of Rey Skywalker would be enough of a lesson on that poisonous nonsense for everyone, not just Disney. Be it female lead, bisexual heroine, gay protagonist, whatever; If you're character is strong enough to be more than whatever social label cats want to code them with, then the representation is inconsequential. Don’t force something that doesn’t need to be forced.

I’ve seen representation executed beautifully. Euphoria is one of the best shows i’ve seen on television and it deals with a ton of sh*t that most SJWs want to fight about. Zendaya is excellent in this show and so is her trans partner, Hunter Schafer. The way that show is written, you can tell that there is an understanding about that culture, a personal connection to their world. That level of representation is outstanding and i commend the creators for giving us such a rich vision for those characters. That said, the strength of Euphoria is in the characters. Rue makes that show. It’s about her journey and everything after that, is a part of who she is as a character, not the defining aspect of it. That subtlety is how you represent an uniquely ignored demographic. That’s how you handle representation in media for adults. For kids, i think this is a little much. Not many nine-year-olds out there are recovering drug addicts.

I think the best piece of media i’ve ever seen in terms of representation actually came out of Disney years ago and gets criminally slept on to this day. Atlantis: The Lost Empire i easily the most diverse, accessible, and palatable piece of “woke” media, Disney has ever made, and it was never created to be so. Atlantis is a story with a female co-lead of color, who has her own agency, doesn’t really fall into the trap of being “damseled” and ends up being a Queen by the rend of this story. The male co-lead is an anxious, neurotic, nerd with a distinct lack of brawn, who beguiles the antagonists with his intellect. The supporting cast is a mixture of people of color, both of which are dope as sh*t, and various nationalities. I’ve spoken at length about my love for Kidagakash Nedakh, she’d be my favorite Disney Princess if she wasn’t a motherf*cking Queen, but i’d be lying if i didn’t admit Audrey had a near equal place in my heart for her sheer dopenesss. Doc is cool, too. Seriously, how is there no Atlantis world in Kingdom Hearts yet? F*cking Disney, man... For the record, my actual favorite Princess is Rapunzel with Jasmine coming in a close second.

Personally, when I create a character, I describe the way I imagine how they physically appear and let the reader assign whatever else afterwords. If I say a character is female with caramel color skin and lavender hair, it's up to the reader to define the minute details in their mind's eye. Is the Lavender a natural hair color? Is she black? Maybe Hispanic? Could she be native or Indian or something completely different? A lot of people have caramel color skin. Hell, she might just have a tan, I don't know because the way I see the character, is different than whoever reads it. I think that's one of the joys unique to literature, that ability to essentially "customize" a narrative to taste, which only amplifies my inability to reconcile this trend of "representation." A lot of people in the fandom attribute Ahsoka Tano as an LGBTQ character and i think that’s fine. It’s never implicitly stated but i don’t think it really has to be. Ahsoka is a bad ass and she displays all of that effortlessly. If you ant to ascribe a queer connotation to her, fine, but that’s not the part of the character that matters to the overall narrative. It shouldn’t be the one aspect which is harped upon officially. I actually really, really, love Ahsoka so i have a dog in this fight. Not so much about the gay coding, that’s a thing that doesn’t really matter to me, more the fact that she needs deserves more shine in the franchise. Thank you Mando II. Also, Dr. Aphra. I hope they actually give her a show. She’s f*cking awesome and, i think, a legit LGBTQ character. I could be wrong about that though.

If a character can be whatever you want them to be, why does it have to be implicitly stated? How is all of this forced representation and social agenda pushing not disingenuous at that point? How is it not more a hindrance than a strength? Why is it acceptable to have your token marginalized appearance, if it’s forced and detracts from the overall story trying to be told? Is it really okay to just accept such pedestrian pandering for the sake of pandering? Like, i’m not gay. How am i supposed to write a gay character without being an ass about it? The only way i know how is to be direct with it. Direct but subtle about everything. “Strong Female Character” should not be the one aspect of your character driving their development. You don’t need to create a Mary Sue in order to have a compelling female lead. Tifa Lockhart and Norah Price prove that. Your protagonist doesn’t need to be “the big gay” in order to be a bad ass. Ian Ghallagher and Willow Rosenberg prove that. Also, they’re both gingers so, you know, double the suffrage points i guess? You don’t have to write a potato who can do physics in their head, to represent an autistic person. Sherlock Holmes and  Amelie Poulain prove that. I would definitely do what Disney did with Onward in order to represent a character of that type of minority because, to me, as a minority, i don’t believe any singular aspect determine the whole of a character. Race, gender, orientation, religion, and other social identifiers; All of those are just qualifiers to the core of the character you’re creating. They are parts, never a whole. These things are just additions to embellish and enrich, not the definition of who they are, as much as everyone wants it to be. I mean, at the end of the day, how lame is your character if all they are is gay or stronk female? How much of a boner is our story going to be with a protagonist as deep as a puddle because you feel some kind of way about visibility?

[patricianandclerk]

Anonymous asked: pls write about the nature of kink. It would be an interesting essay

sorry trying this as a text post to see if it’s less fucked up this way, fuckin tumblr i stg

Hhh, I admit, I don’t think I’d want to write about it in an actual essay format because I’d feel pressured to include sources and so on, whereas all of my thoughts and ideas are like… purely anecdotal and based very much on watching and studying how different people react to kink and interact with kinks and fetishes over the years.

It was super useful to have that background as a phone sex operator, and just as a dude who fucks, and like… I don’t know, I’m really interested in it, but I’m very much not smart or intellectual enough at all to go come at it from a genuine sexological or psychological perspective!

Okay, this got long, so the bulk of it is behind a cut, but… yeah. Basically I think as a society we need to embrace YKINMKATO (Your Kink Is Not My Kink And That’s Okay) more as a philosophy, but also I need everyone to tell me what their kinks and fetishes are and why they think they’re into them because I want to dig into everyone’s brains and understand what makes them tick all day long because I’m just Like That.

The basic premise I work from is that like…

So, we use the word fetish to describe something that is imbued with a lot of like, sexual focus for someone? A fetish is a sexual thing, and people link like, sexual gratification to this focus, but the thing is that I think that’s… kinda stupid, because if it was specifically about sexual gratification, or even sexual drives, asexuals who aren’t interested in sex wouldn’t have them.

And I know plenty of aces who have fetishes - specific fixations which give them pleasure to pursue - that never have sexual gratification on their mind whatsoever.

What is a fetish? A fetish is usually like, a focus on something, an object or an action, so like… You fetishize, say, spanking, or stockings and high heels, or bondage, or stuffing (eating so much you’re full/being overfed). And people treat these things as sexual at their core, but like…

As a child, like, an actual small child at like, I don’t know, six, seven, eight, some of the things that featured in all my pretend games and my imaginings are now things that I would probably hang up on the wall with my fetishes, you know? I absolutely had fetishes in the sense that I had certain concepts upon which I fixated, and that I got way more excited about/fixated on more than other things, and that were way more satisfying to pretend about or be interested in - I know as a child I definitely thought about stuffing (which I obviously didn’t call that, then), but also about my interest in piracy, which like… Now, as an adult man, I would say that the extent of my interest in pirates, sexual or otherwise, is absolutely fetishistic, but as a child, there was obviously no sexual element to it at all, and I wasn’t even aware of it being like… a hyperfocus or fixation at all.

And if you talk to a lot of people who are into stuff like bondage talk about bondage, they often talk about childhood games where they were interested in being escape artists or whose childhood imaginings often involved being tied up and stuff like that, or people who really focused on certain cartoons and are now really engaged with furry fandom and so forth.

I’m not saying that kids have like, kinks, but I do think there must be an element to our behavioural development as children that leads to these fixations and focuses which we later carry into our adult lives, and while we call fetishes sexual in nature, I think that’s an oversimplification, because I think that while sex can absolutely be tied up in it, the actual… Gratification, if we call it that, the satisfaction that comes from taking these ideas to their end - performing a fetish scene, watching or reading a piece of media that focuses on that fetish, for example - is an intellectual one. It can be pursued sexually, but I think that to refer to fetishes as a purely sexual thing is kind of disingenuous, and very much an oversimplification.

A lot of fetishes aren’t just things that appear overnight when you go through puberty - some have their roots much sooner, far before any sexuality is even a concept on the horizon, and like…

To expand on that, we as a society “accept” (or expect, perhaps) a lot of sexual fetishes as par for the course in a lot of films that are made and filmed with the male gaze in mind. We aren’t surprised by upskirt/panty shots, or the fetish of women in wet t-shirts (which is very much a fetish, in that it’s a ritualised thing of semi-nudity, in public, etc), or like, voyeurism, especially in the frat/sorority setting. I mention these three because they’re very common in mainstream comedy films, and because they’re so common in those films as to be like… Almost expected as the norm?

Our treatment as a society of human breasts in general is hugely fetishistic, because they aren’t inherently sexual things, and yet we’ve made them into something much more significant than they are.

But there are common fetishes on pornography sites, like incest or what the industry calls pseudo-incest (with adopted or step-family), which like… You know, are hugely common on these porn sites and are so common as to be like, the subject of mockery by those that don’t share those fetishes, because they’re so common as to be difficult to avoid. Schoolgirl fetishisation is also terrifying, and again something that’s like, made into a thing by the mainstream male gaze…

But the thing is, a lot of people are growing into this society with these fetishes in the mainstream, and these fetishes develop like, you know, watching the clues to them show up  in mainstream television, to such an extent that it’s not even called a fetish?

But the thing that I’m interested in is like… the non-mainstream fetishes.

Like, for example, the stuffing thing, or like… There are people who are super interested in like, inflatable/balloon porn, or bimboification, or furries (as in anthropormophised animals as hotties etc), or that fucking guy who’s into Wonderbread, and like, a lot of these focuses start in childhood. You talk to people about their kinks, and they might mention, off-hand, oh, even as a child, I was interested in X narrative, but obviously, at the time it wasn’t a sexual thing, and to be honest, even later on, it still isn’t necessarily a sexual thing. Where do these concepts come from? Why do we fixate on them? Why do we then carry them into adulthood?

Like, people are always like “before you know it, if you get into porn, you’ll get suddenly way into really weird stuff”, but I’ve not personally had that experience - what I have had is seeking out a certain umbrella of fetishes that kinda scratch that internal itch that I’ve had since I was ye tall, and not in a way that’s like, specifically a sexual thing. I don’t know that I subscribe to this popular belief that fetishes are like… a side-effect of porn addiction, where you get into a weird thing because you read too much about it, or that a fetish is, in itself, an unhealthy/bad thing to have.

The problem is that we have like, such a taboo of sex, I think, that as soon as a conversation feels like it might possibly be about sex or sexual response, we shove it under the table, and we don’t want to talk about it, but like.

There are plenty of people who just get satisfaction - intellectual satisfaction - from say, narratives about inflation or about stuffing, or most of the furry content (which people make out to be WAY more sexual and inherently sexual than most furry content actually is), or whatever.

And because people have a difficult time envisioning that someone could be into like, talking animals (no one’s ever seen Disney Robin Hood or Zootopia?), or stuffing (no one’s ever seen any cartoon ever where a someone eats a comical amount of food?), or whatever else as being non-sexual, like… People fetishize tropes. People a lot of the time search for specific tropes, and I mean hyperspecific tropes, because reading them gives them more satisfaction than other tropes, but it isn’t necessarily a sexual thing.

I’m sure that a lot of people have been in the position where they search by like, a set of several tags to try to find a specific premise and execution of that premise on Ao3, because that specific premise just lights up the pleasure centres in their brain in a way that other premises just don’t, and they keep coming back to those premises for years and years.

If I talk to someone about stuffing or whatever, it’s almost impossible to imagine that it isn’t based inherently in sexual gratification for me, even though I might write or read a lot of non-sexual stuffing stuff, and is instead about the comfort of that fetishistic focus. And yet if I talk about my fixation on piracy, even when it is bordered by a lot of aesthetic attraction and engagement to pirates, and even when I’m explicitly saying shit like “yeah Captain Hook was my sexual awakening tbh”, people don’t view my interest in pirates as inherently sexual, even though my engagement with and interest in pirate tropes is… literally the same as the way I treat my engagement with and interest in stuffing.

In terms of definition, I would make the distinction that a fetish is a hyperfocus or fixation on a specific object, activity, or premise. Sometimes it’s sexual, but it’s not inherently about sexuality, but about some form of gratification, whether it be intellectual or sexual. A kink, in my own personal lexicon, I would generally define as being about control or access to a fetish.

And kinks…

I think I’d be hard-pressed to name a kink, I think, that isn’t somehow about control, whether it’s about losing/giving up control, having control taken from you, or taking control/taking it from someone else.

And like…

Especially when it comes to the kinks most people would call crazy even within fandom - stuffing is one of them, but like, vore, unbirth, bimboification, knotting and A/B/O, impregnation, tentacle sex, oviposition, body transformation, inflation, xeno sex in general, blah blah, like… A lot of these involve an unrealistic element to them which is nonetheless intellectually stimulating/gratifying for people to think about and write about or draw, or even, yes, to wank over! And I really don’t think that just because someone wanks over a thing it becomes like… somehow elevated or lowered than if it was a non-sexual fetish? If that makes sense?

Like, the actual behaviour is the same, it’s still about an internal gratification. Just because you find the gratifying element, sexual or otherwise, of it icky personally (God knows shit like vore, unbirth, and a lot of the stuff to do with A/B/O and pregnancy evades my understanding), doesn’t mean it isn’t like…

I don’t know, valuable, interesting?

One of the things I’ve learned about kink over time is how completely unexpected kinks can be shared by two very different people.

For example, some people are super into watersports/pissplay; other people find piss kind of gross, but might be very interested in power dynamics, control, and so on…

And so both the pissplay people and the power dynamic people might share an interest in omorashi, which is a kink to do with having a full bladder, and a lot of the time involves holding someone down until they wet themselves, or there’s a threat of wetting themselves.

The fact that this specific fetish exists, but that for two groups of people it’s satisfying, because of two completely different elements, is fascinating to me!

Like, loads of people are into A/B/O, but what part of it do they find exciting, or sexually appealing, or intellectually gratifying?

the implicit rape fantasy

the loss of control inherent when entering a state of heat/estrus and/or rutting?

the idea of a big, rugged figure overpowering a smaller one

is the animalistic, bestial element, which is often hugely racialised?

the body transformation element of a self-lubricating asshole?

bulbis glandis/the knot?

are you just a size queen? is it the size of the insertion that’s exciting?

is it the way that the two figures are knotted/tied together during/after sex, adding to the control thing?

is it the amount of come/slick involved? the fluids and mess?

is it the pain/overstimulation element?

is it the emotional catharsis?

is it the soul bond element?

is it the gang mentality in an a/b/o setting, where you’re “at threat” from multiple partners?

is it the power dynamics of a society?

is it because A/B/O allows someone to act out fears/worries we have in a male/female society where the lines of gender are equally fake and equally fictional but with a degree of separation because we actually do live with people trying to enforce a male/female society, but there’s a degree of separation in this fictional equivalent?

Or is it one of the other dozens of elements and fetishes that add to an A/B/O setting?

Like, there’s so many things that make up your average kink, and even your average fetish can come with like… completely different contributing factors that make it attractive to some people.

And I’m fascinated by that! I really am!

[kob131]

https://vanillo.co/v/T2piRZ5GCS

You know, I actually respected your video on RWBY beforehand, even if it had issues...

Now I see that trust was misplaced.

Before he even makes a point, he goes onto explain why he’s making this video.

The reason being and I quote-

“Why? Because I know it’ll make the RWBY fans made that I dare to consider something better than RWBY or because I want to make a legit comparison between two shows, both came out in the same year, both have themes of oppression, both involve fighting monster, have a focus of fighting within, have unique weapons and....ect ect.”

Yeah, this has two major issues.

1. If MangaKamen is doing this to piss off RWBY fans then why should we trust anything he says? One of the quickest ways to piss off a fan is to lie about their series and misrepresent them so how do we know that the mistakes in the video are due to honest overlooks or he did it on purpose to be a disingenuous troll? Not only that but this immediately paints all RWBY fans (and yes, all. He didn’t make any distinction) as irrational and fanboyish so no RWBY fan can argue against his video in good faith, even if they have legitimate grievances with the content. Right off the bat, he’s already put himself in a point where everything he says will be taken with a grain of salt.

And 2. You notice something about the list of things MangaKamen gave for similarities? Let me bullet it point them:

* Same year

* theme of oppression

* fighting

*fighting monsters

* unique weapons

Yeah I bet you’ve caught on now: all but one of these are INCREDIBLY vague.

First off, fighting is a common conflict resolver in media so that shouldn’t even count/

Second, fighting monsters is only barely more specific than just standard fighting and even then there could be any number of differences between the monsters and what they could represent in the story so...no dice.

Oppression is a very common theme in media, ranging from slavery to racism to classism to any form of unfair system stifling freedom. It can be almost anything.

Being released in the same year...I have no idea what that has to do with anything and thousands of pieces of media are released every year. This...is just weird.

And I only discount ‘unique weapons’ because there is no MENTION of how the weapons are unique nor do I know enough about GAIM to debunk this so I can’t say anything.

This isn’t even getting into how important each piece here is to the show as a whole, like how the theme of oppression isn't a major focus in the show and is limited to one character while the monsters are just one part of the antagonistic force of the show. So… Yeah. This comes across as reaching.

And sadly, this is a reoccurring theme.

And now we get into the main point of this video apparently: the basic plot.

And right off the bat we have a problem.

MangaKamen talks about the main characters of RWBY with him zooming on Yang;s breasts as he talks about ‘supposed’ elements of Yang and makes a laughing gif when he describes Weiss as ‘A selfish and self centered girl who becomes kinder and nicer’ in a mocking way. He’s presenting this as a serious basis for the show while also apparently trying to be a troll which just makes him come across as untrustworthy. Again. 

There’s also the issue with how he portrays the main plots of the series.

RWBY: ‘A fictional world with Dust, Fanaus and Grimm were humanity fought for survival against the Grimm and eventually came up with the Huntsmen to fight the Grimm. The series follows the four girls in their adventures.’

GAIM: ‘This is a AU version of our world in the massive city of Zawane, built around the Yggdrisill Corporations’ tower, where we have these dance team composed of youths called Beat Riders who instill joy into the citizens. Mixed with them is a Pokémon-esque game called The Inves Game where they summon the Inves with items called Lockseeds. One day, Kouta Kazuraba’s former team loses to someone who invites him to come look at something. This is the Sengoku Driver where the Driver’s first wearer can transform into a Rider with a Lockseed. The mystery of Yggdrisil, the Driveers and the Lockseeds envelop Kouta and the cast.’

… I feel like explaining why these two don’t work would be insulting my readers but it’s what I gotta do.

First off, Remnant is a completely separate world from our own and thus would logically have quite a few differences with our own in how they view things, how things operate and how their governments and such work. Meawhile, Zawame is based on our world with minor differences which means these people’s values should be extremely similar to our own, how things operate should work similar to our world and their governments and such should be akin to ours. This is just a few aspects of what makes these different hut you get the picture: Remnant and Zawame have almost nothing in common aside from the basic inherent elements inescape to human fiction since fiction ahs to be based on something.

Secondly, Dust is basically elemental gunpowder, Fanaus are just people with animal traits and the Grimm are basically those endless RPG mooks. They are nothing like what MangaKamen states Drivers, Lockseeds and Inves are. They are nothing alike once again so it just drives home for the THIRD time how bizarre the comparisons are.

Third: What a Huntsmen is and what a Rider/Beat Rider is have a very fundamental difference. A Huntsmen is an official profession and thus carries with it an inherent sense of duty and honor to the audience, similar to a firefighter or a police officer. A Beat Rider is basically an unofficial entertainer, who is closer in nature to being a YouTuber which carries a very different connotation to the audience. Now you could argue that the comparison isn’t fair and that I should be using Riders as the counterpoint...except that beinga Rider has no definition other than ‘person who transforms using a Driver and a Lockseed’. It’s more like a Semblance in nature: a power rather than a profession.

Fourth: It sounds like Kouta just so happened to stumble upon the Driver through this one person rather than seeking it out or training for it, like Ruby or really everyone in the main hero cast of RWBY. These carry very different meanings and feelings in fiction MangaKamen, and they serve very different end goals for the heroes on the story as the first begins a story of an unlikely hero into a more ideal hero while the other is more a story about being honorable and doing the right thing. These aren’t mutually exclusive and can work together, like in the case of Spider Man, but you didn’t communicate this.

Fifth: There really isn’t a mystery element in RWBY, at least not until the fourth of so Volume with Salem whereas it seems like the mystery of the Lockseeds, Drivers and Yggdrisil are all ingrained into the story of GAIM.

Really, at this point, MangaKamen should have stopped and really thought about what he was doing at this point because when you have this many issues of this severity in the very beginning of your video, you should probably consider whether or not this is a good idea. Sort of like with MatPat and how he should have reconsidered his many wrong theories when issues started rising in them.

I mean, when I catch myself doing this, I stop and reconsider what I’m doing so it can’t bee that difficult.

Anyway, we then move onto the supposed ‘themes’ that the shows both share ‘extremely.’ Those themes being ‘Coming Of Age’ and ‘Getting Over Yourself.’

… Yeah, not only does he not define what the second theme actually is which means there’s a very real chance that people could misinterpret what he says unintentionally but the first theme is one of the MOST used themes in all of fiction. Like, 99% of Shounen, Shoujo and teenage-aimed fiction in America among so many others is Coming of Age stories, each having examples pf being told in vastly different ways with vastly different tones, styles, characters, worlds and so on. To just present the base trope as valid comparison would be to conflate these two to literal THOUSANDS of pieces of media.

But it gets worse. He goes onto explain himself by saying in GAIM, Kouta believes that the Goku Driver and the transformation will make him a ‘better man’ which isn’t true (demonstrated by him trying to help some construction workers by transforming and jumping up to them with some buckets, making things worse) and he questions his own beliefs and what he needs to do, even if it means sacrificing himself in some way. And in RWBY, Yang has to learn how to think in her battles after losing her arm.

Okay here we know so little about Kouta that I have no idea if this is an actual development for him. Judging by the clips shown, Kouta seems like the kind of guy who’d be self sacrificing by nature considering the almost child-like glee he shows in his transformation and helping others while I know so little about him that I have no idea if he is doubtful of himself normally or it’s an actual development. Same goes for Yang, we have no information on Yang outside of being the big sister type and losing her arm. We see Yang leaping at Adam in a clip but without context we have no idea if this is justified or not or if it’s a reoccurring issue with Yang or not. This is aimed at people who haven’t seen either series so this lack of information is damning and makes his point brittle and weak.

And it breaks if you actually think about it. The issues with Kouta are based on him as a person and helps him directly grow as a person whereas the way MangaKamen presents Yang it’s displayed as though she only really grew as a fighter. (He does say that Yang ‘matured from her previous personality’ but that’s not the result of her training, it was more the result of her experiences and even then one could argue she didn’t ‘mature’, she just changed.) And even then, these two developments don’t have anything common other than...being developments in the characters.

And then we have the fact that this isn’t an application of themes, this is just CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT. Character Development is NOT a theme and yet here MangaKamen is trying to portray it as such. I have no idea why but if I had to guess he realized that the shows didn’t have anything in common beyond basic ideas so he tried dressing up character development as a specific theme.

This gets especially egregious when you consider who SHOULD be Kouta’s counterpart here. Ruby Rose undergoes development revolving around her beliefs being questioned and questioning what she needs to do in order to be a hero. Instead of this comparison with Yang that makes no sense and makes MangaKamen look like an idiot for comparing two different types of character development under the guise of the nebulous and undefined ‘getting over yourself’, he could have reinforced the theme of ‘coming of age’ or ‘being a hero’ with Ruby.

Now why did he not bring up Ruby? Well, again I can only guess...and neither one flattering. 1. He knows Ruby is being questioned not by outside viewpoints like Kouta and her questioning comes not from how to be a hero but the difficulties of being a hero. Or 2. He’s using Ruby to bash her home series. This supported by his first actual point being ‘Is Ruby Even The Main Character?’

However, I will point out that he tries to portray Yang’s loss of her arm and resulting PTSD as the same as Kouta coming to terms with killing a man. because ‘both went through a depressed spell.’ Which is a Trope called Heroic BSOD...one of the MOST used Tropes.

Look, I’d love to continue but for some reason the link started having a 502 issue. And at this point you get the picture. If the link starts back up again or when the video gets uploaded to YouTube, I’ll make a separate post addressing those points.

But numerous times throughout the videos introduction MangaKamen shows that he’s blatantly ignoring facts and information that contradict his assertions and his points, to the point I can only assume he’s being a disingenuous troll or he’s doing this to prop up GAIM. All things he’s called out in the past.

So for now, congrats MangaKamen. How’s it feel to be MatPat for a change? Because you’re being just as intellectually dishonest as him.

I’m Knight Of Balance and remember to examine your fandoms.

[writeremblem-blog]

My Response to EruptionFang’s ‘An Honest Opinion Regarding Bumblbee’

To start, I think that everyone in this thread should watch the video, regardless of your opinion on EF or BMBLB, just so you can be sure that I'm being fair to EF's arguments and not putting words into his mouth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tVXh03kFCs&feature=youtu.be

Opening

Fang opens up with talking about his problems with relationship plots or subplots within fiction. This is actually a fair argument to make, and one I do find myself agreeing with. Relationships in entertainment are almost always forced into stories for the sake of having a relationship. Movies that are otherwise about fighting killer aliens or whatever will inevitably end up also having two characters- usually a goofy, snarky male and no-nonsense, stoic badass female- end up falling in love and kissing at the end. I could (and actually have) write an entire paper on why there are problems with A) relationships being forced into every piece of entertainment, and B) the problems with how its usually portrayed. So, yes I do think EF has a good point in this critique. (Also, I know that Blake/Yang obviously doesnt fit the dyanmic I described on how relationships in media are usually portrayed).

Volume 2 and Ship Baiting

Fang then discusses how V2 introduced relationships between characters- both romantic and platonic- as being important to the plot. He especially focuses on what he describes as 'ship-baiting' with Blake and her relationships with Sun and Yang. He spends a bit talking about how the show teases whether or not Blake will be "Straight... or is she maybe gay? Oh wait heres another gay girl- but wait heres this straight guy!"

Now, as a bisexual. I already have a problem with him deciding you have to be one or the other, but thats not really the point. His main issue hes talking about is how RWBY supposedly played up Blake's love life as being teased by the writers for "six years". Which I honestly don't see. Yes, Sun flirts with Blake from time to time, Yang's interactions with Blake are on a level that many see as romantic, Ilia is confirmed to have had (juries still out on if its still there) a crush on Blake, and Adam used to date her. But this was never the main part of Blake's character arc. Her arc has always been about her identity as a faunus and the White Fang, not how many people she can bang over the course of the series. He also talks about how the show wastes time on Blake's relationships with these characters (I guess his point about RWBY foocusing on character relationships doesn't get to apply here), which feels like a weird argument to me. If Blake didn't have such a close relationship with these four mentioned: Yang wouldn't have lost her arm, which lead to her character arc from 4 and 5 in a way; Sun wouldn't have followed Blake, which was why Blake's arc turned out the way it did; Ilia wouldn't have turned good, which means Blake's parents would likely be dead now; and Adam wouldn't have been as interesting an antagonist is he didn't have a personal connection to Blake.

Fang ends of this section talking about how lesbians are a 'safe' LGBT representation for writers in fiction, which again I agree with. This is another critique of entertainment at large that is sadly true- lesbians are 'hot' and fetishised so much by straight men esepcially that yeah, you're less likely to get backlash for that than for making a man gay or for having someone be trans. This is still a form of homophobia- lesbians aren't really allowed to be a normal couple, they have to be doing 'hot' stuff to appeal to men. So again, I agree with Fang on a critique of entertainment at large. And once again he says Blake and Yang are gay, as if us bis don't exist.

Main Argument

Fangs main thesis on why Bumblebee is a bad thing to become canon is that it "takes away from RWBY's dynamic". As he puts it:

"Now all of a sudden you have two people who care for each other more than they do the other team members."

He talks about how Yang grabs Blake's hand in the Apathy episode to lead her away from danger, and says this is bad because Yang ignored the others still in the room. I have two problems with this argument.

First, Yang was directly next to Blake, but farther away from Ruby and Weiss. She grabbed the closest hand, which was Blake.

Second: consider what had happened just before that scene. When the apathy were in the cellar with everyone, who was clearly the most affected by them? Not Weiss, and certainly not Ruby. Blake was literally unable to even stand for a while, and was hit by the apathy much harder. She was in a weaker state than anyone else, so Yang grabbing Blake's hand does actually have a reason within the show outside of shipping.

"Am I honestly to believe that Ruby or Weiss would do anything similar to what Yang is constantly doing... Its impossible to say that [Ruby] would risk her life for [Blake]."

YOU JUST TALKED ABOUT THE APATHY ARC. It wasn't Ruby herself being attacked by the apathy that set off her silver eyes- it was Blake. At the end of V6, Weiss and Ruby both share a moment to comfort Blake after she was still reeling from having killed someone directly. 6 in general deserves props from me for really showing every relationship between these friends- Ruby and Blake hugging at the end, Ren hugging Yang when he sees they're still fine, etc. Now, would I like to see Ruby and Blake interact more? As a ladybug fan, yes I would. But that doesn't mean we've not been shown that they do care a lot for each other. Fang is in my opinion being disingenuous when he says this.

He then says that Renora is an okay ship because "They're not main characters." Except that wasn't his argument about why BMBLB was a problem. He is being inconsistent here. Why doesn't he care that Ren and Nora now have someone they have a much deeper relationship with than Jaune? What is the difference?

And on that topic- does Fang think Ruby and Yang shouldn't be on a team together? As siblings, they care more about each other than say, Yang about Weiss. So doesn't that hurt the team dynamic? What's different there?

He spends a bit at the end just sort of ranting that having them be gay is forced diversity which is... a very dangerous stance to take, honestly. He's basically throwing out all of his 'I don't mind them being a thing because they're gay...' arguments because, he is pretty much now saying 'Well its different for them because they're gay...' I know this sounds nitpicky, but it is a blatant disregard of everything he had been saying up til now. I don't think EruptionFang is a homophobe or that he outright hates gay people- but I do think this specific part at the end just sort of sounds like the sort of rants you hear from far right homophobes.

He finishes up by talking about how all shipping in a show is fanservice to the audience- which, again, I agree. Shipping is fanservice and done for the audience to enjoy, so yeah he's right.

Overall, it feels like Fang is holding BMBLB to a higher standard than he does other ships and relationships. He outright admits that Renora is different to him, but the reason he gives for why it's different is a reason that wasn't connected to why he dislikes BMBLB. This makes his arguments seem dishonest, or at least as if he doesn't know himself what his reason is.

I want to reiterate- I don't think Fang hates gay people. But I do think that subtle homophobia- assumptions that everyone is gay or straight with no room for bisexuals, for instance- is influencing his opinion.