#live up to certain societal standards and achieve normalness.

[twinkdemise]

[hermajestyimher]

This post is a continuation of my previous piece on how the old money and the recently rich people behave in different ways.

Recently I was listening to a podcast episode of one of my all-time intellectual heroes, Sam Harris, that involved a conversation surrounding wealth, what it means to be wealthy, and its relation to happiness. So many great insights were shared in the episode. But the thing that stood out for me the most was this idea that as a culture we are currently moving the goal-post to what it means to be wealthy, and how only by attaining that level of perceived money we can then feel happy and fulfilled.

As social creatures, we often look at our peers and the people around us and make judgments about how well they seem to be doing in life and how we measure up to that idea we've created in our heads about them or that they've tried to sell to us. If we feel we are doing worse than them, we begin to question ourselves and feel inadequate in life, leading to feelings of anxiety, lack of conformity, and depression. And all of this has been amplified thanks to our uncontrolled access to social media and the never-ending algorithmic stream of the highlight and fake real.

Our standards for what it means to be rich and our expectations for when we want this wealth to materialize in our lives have been set in a completely unrealistic, simplified, and overtly glorified way. And the worst part of it all is that the reason many people believe they want to achieve a particular level of wealth or power doesn't stem from any intrinsic desire, but from a need to impress others. Effectively rendering themselves slaves to the perceptions and opinions of others. A very miserable and exhausting way to live life.

Think about the time when you were a child, you lacked social media and your view of the world was driven by a sense of curiosity. You did not feel any pressure to meet a specific societal standard to prove any points. You were just existing and experiencing life as it came. Newer experiences, people, and places, all brought great joy. Think about how our current culture makes us feel like we need to be in a constant rat race to the top, never being in the present moment and enjoying the fruits of what we've worked for up to that point, but always wanting and needing more. The latter mind frame is so unhealthy for us that it is physically and mentally tearing us down; it's driving certain people to bankruptcy and ruining lives.

The podcast episode mentioned something that I've always believed to be the case when discussing wealth, and that is that for many of us, wealth is not about having the most material gains to flaunt; but about having the freedom to experience life without being bound by financial burdens. Wealth is about that excess money that you have sitting in bonds, stocks, and other investment vehicles that are generating you more income. It is not about the fancy car or house that is costing you above your means to maintain and keeping you in a financially dreading loophole. Wealth is about freedom, and you could never be free if you live your life enslaved to the idea that you must impress and please others (others who do not care about you in the slightest, and that oftentimes you do not even like).

Breaking from that toxic mindset is your choice and responsibility, but knowing that we don't have to conform to what seems societally "normal" when it is harming us is a freeing experience in and of itself.

[girlvinland]

Every year since I was like. Idek early or mid twenties, I’ve kept wishing so much that people were allowed to take life one day at a time instead of feeling immense pressure to plan out each life stage with this absolute assuredness that it’s going to go exactly how they think it will.

For instance,

I don’t think 18 year olds and younger should have the pressure to go to college and know what they want to do for the rest of their life placed on their shoulders so early.

I don’t think there should be a “relationship escalator” that’s like “need to be married by x, need to have kids by x” or life is ruined.

I don’t think the narrative that there is one true “dream job” just waiting out there for you is a healthy one.

I don’t think anyone should read these things and go “oh yeah that’s fine for other people, but it’s never going to happen to me/I couldn’t deal with it if I didn’t have those things”. (I add this last one because I used to think this way. It was fine if other people didn’t achieve these things, but I needed to for some arbitrary reason I didn’t even understand).

It just makes me so frustrated and sad sometimes to watch friends and family (and myself with aspects of it) fall victim to this mindset that you need to do these things, and do them in a “timely manner” in order to have found success. I include my older relatives in this too who never questioned the status quo because they didn’t want to or because they didn’t know how/didn’t know they could, and who still pressure younger relatives to follow suit.

There are so many various priorities you can allow yourself to have, there are so many ways of looking at life and living in general. The more toxic ideas were pushed on me when I was so young and for so long, and frankly, I was too naive and inexperienced to understand that there were any other options.

I just think of my own experience with things and how I often see it reflected. When I went to college at 18, I was supposed to know exactly what I wanted with no prior experience, down to the specific classes I’d want to take four years later. There wasn’t even a question of if I even wanted to go to college (and if so, where) or if I was really prepared for it, so it was just like. This is what you’re doing, this is where you’re going. Have fun paying for it later despite not fully understanding how loans work yet. And I was too controlled and sheltered to have any knowledge that it didn’t actually have to be that way or to go against what my family expected.

When I met the first person I started dating in college, people were asking me if he was “The One” within months. Even my own mother asked something like that after the very first date I had with him. Why….are we doing that to people? This kind of thing sets people up for unrealistic expectations and can potentially lead them to put themselves in situations where they might endure unhappiness or even abuse because they think it’s normal or that the first choice of anything (college, job, person) is the correct one, or the only one they should ever have.

I think to imply that anyone has to do any or all of these things is honestly part of what sets a lot of people up for failure or becoming depressed when something doesn’t go “right”. Life is so unpredictable in so many ways. That isn’t to say that happiness and good fits don’t exist, because they very much do, but I wish there was more of a push on giving people the freedom to explore their options rather than conform. It’s also unfortunate to me that families seem to do so much of the perpetuating the whole mindset around this stuff because they put so much emphasis on their children being a reflection of themselves rather than seeing them as individuals. I look at my younger family members and couldn’t really give a rat’s ass if they do or don’t fulfill certain societal standards as long as they are happy and healthy. Like, their emotional and physical wellbeing come before anything else.

Anyway. You should be able to say something isn’t right for you and grow from the experience without judgement, whether it means dropping out of school to pursue something else or leaving a job because you’re not getting what you want or need from it or ending a relationship because you just aren’t being fulfilled. What is right for one person isn’t always going to work for another person and all of that. I hope that as future generations come along, these expectations will shift and allow more room for trial and error and exploration.

Edit: I want to add a disclaimer that there is nothing inherently wrong with wanting any/all of these things. The problem comes from how prominent the expectations are and how little wiggle room there tends to be or how much judgement people tend to face when they don’t conform to those expectations.

[starseed-twenty]

Houses determining an 'age stage' 🔮

Okay, so this is a random long post, but.... do you ever think that perhaps the houses in our charts represent the stages in our life? From birth to death? Cause I do.

So basically... the first house (the ascendant) is our energy as soon as we leave the womb. But through life and its dynamic changes, our energy can change into the traits of the sign in the following house because circumstances drive us into having that sign's traits/vibe.

Personally, I'm starting to believe that each of the houses in a person's birth chart holds a stage or period of time in your life where your energy is more focused in that area/house. That's why you'll hear for example "if your 4H is in Sag, you most likely grew up in a carefree home"... cause at the time you were growing up, your energy was focusing on the 3rd and 4th house. And so you transcend into Sagittarius energy because it is in your 4th house.

For example, a person with a Capricorn Ascendant. At birth, they're calm, reserved little babies, who tend to get upset pretty easily. Until they get a little older (around 3 years old) and start developing these Aquarius traits/energy because of their 2nd house [unless Capricorn is in both 1st and 2nd house]. But once they get to an age where they're making sense of the world and developing a sense of being and being aware of the things they have, this is their 2nd house age stage activated.

Okay, so let me put it like this:

1st house age stage [birth to around 3 years]: Since the 1st house is the house of 'self' and revelation (or showing yourself) to the world, this is how it correlates to birth and being a newborn. 1H rules beginnings, the body, and approach to life. The sign you have in 1H is the sign you act as in your approach to life from the beginning to the end. [Side-note: This is because every house you enter that stage in is carried on with you until you're old and die. So you don't necessarily let go of the house because you're in a new age stage, but it merely becomes dim. It's there, but it's not ruling like the age stage you're currently in].

2nd house [around 3 to 6 years old]: This is the age or stage when you're making sense of the world and develop a sense of being and becoming aware of the things you have, as I mentioned. So you're basically becoming conscious about yourself, whilst adapting to the values, possessions, and skills you have. So the sign you have in 2nd house is how you handle that. For example, if you have Capricorn, you're more stern, careful, and calculative about all the possessions and skills you hold. You normally put those things at a high standard, and it can take a while for you to attain certain things because Saturn (Capricorn's ruler) encourages you to earn all that you have.

3rd house [7 to 10 years old]: At this point, you know who you are, what you have, and how you normally approach life. In trying to develop yourself a bit more, you look around you at who the people around you are. 3rd house is Gemini's house, and Geminis are very conscious beings; of people, things to learn, and their word (a bit too conscious, and that's where the 'two-faced' cliche comes in). So this age stage then comes with using the mind a lot. Learning stuff and getting ideas, speaking about them, knowing what friends are and being close with siblings, if any, and sharing stuff. The sign you have there is how you acted through all of this.

4th house [10 to 13 years old/puberty]: This is when you start grounding yourself and knowing where you come from, who your real family is, the foundations of your soul's intentions (life path), and where you feel secure.

This, I would say, is the basis or core of a person and who they eventually become at their peak or in the public eye. So if they grow up in a home that isn't too stable, they grow to oppose that to become more stable in order to bring balance [because 10th house is the 'aftermath' that's opposing of the 4th house]. So the sign you have in this stage is the sign you live out as [e.g, Sagittarius 4th house had a more free-spirited way of living in their pre-teen age].

5th house - [14 to 18 years old]: Now this is where a lot of us begin our adolescence age, and this is because the 5th house comes with this 'being a teenager' energy. 5th house is about creativity, hobbies, exploring, romance and love affairs, self-expression, and drama. A whole lot of drama. We dramatize the things we go through, our bodies and its changes, things that happen at school and at home, and sometimes the 'situationships' we're in. Everything's just such a story. And that is 5th house energy in act. The sign you have in 5th house is how you'd find yourself going about all of these things.

6th house - [19 to 24 years old]: At this stage, you've seen the world from your perspective and played around with your interests & hobbies, so you come to a point of either wanting to capitalize/profit from those hobbies or talents, or settle on simply trying to make money to become stable because now 'you're an adult'. So with that, you're more focused on working, routines, productivity, and self-improvement. For some, body changes also occur here because the 6th house is also about health and body.

Now the sign you have in your 6th house is most likely how you'll make that money or what your career will be like. For example, a person with Gemini in 6th could pass off as a Youtuber, Instagram Influencer, perhaps a Tiktok star, or anything in a field of communicating to people and spreading ideas or trends in a cool way.

7th house - [24 to 27 years old]: After developing yourself, your career, and your financial health, you then find yourself wanting to settle down romantically and start creating a home. So here come relationships becoming more serious, sharing stuff (your ideas & values going forth, your assets, and your whole life) with someone, and basically getting the real feel of marriage or long-term pairing. But the 7th house doesn't only rule love, it also rules partnerships, contracts, and alliances. So how you are one-on-one with people and merging with them is your 7th house influence at play. The sign in your 7th house is how you present yourself through all of this.

8th house - [27 to 30 years old]: The 8th house is a pretty complicated house, but nonetheless it's very good for growth [through changes]. At this age, many experience events that bring depth or deeply felt peak experiences. It's as if it's this rebirth of some kind where you rediscover yourself. From another standpoint, this is where there's more depth in a relationship/marriage, joint ventures or goals coming together, inheriting some money or assets, and also perhaps feeling really sexually liberated or just simply getting to the point of procreation (and this why most people have or picture having kids at this age). From any of these standpoints, the sign you have in the 8th house is what comes out the most as your energy.

9th house - [31 to 35 years old]: This is the age of you finding the true meaning of life and what your beliefs and values are contrary to what you've been taught, but really establishing your own and sharing them with your significant other or/and children.

This is when you're most philosophical, and have a bit of time for journeys, travel, expanding your knowledge, your taste/style, your beliefs, etc. This is why when you look at a lot of people at this age, they're a bit more settled down on who they've become and there's more of a visibility of what their life is about. The sign you have here manifests as the vibe you give out. For example, a Cancer 9th house more or less has nurturing and maternal energy at this age. They have this motherly or homey vibe towards their expanded mental state in a way where they feel like they have a lot to teach and it comes from a compassionate perspective.

10th house - [35 to 42 years old]: Once you're at this age stage, you're pretty much at the peak of your life because this is when all that you are, where you come from (your roots and home), who you've established yourself as and everything you've worked for reaches its final stage and becomes the real end phase of who you are. Anyone who starts knowing you at this stage can navigate the type of person you are (from your past) and not have a reason to think you'll still change into new characters. There's nothing much to come up with after this as you're practically done creating yourself. All you do now is mainly enjoy the fruits of your labour whilst simultaneously working on the career you been building, and also maintain the public image you've established. Your authority, your power, and your achievements are at their peak here. So the sign you have here is how you show all of this.

11th house - [42 to 50 years old]: This is when you're growing old and out of your peak. You're still a valuable part of the world and play a good role in people's lives, but you're basically leaving that zone of only focusing on yourself and you instead focus more on helping the community or leaving a legacy. The 11th house is about humanitarianism, social/global awareness, the community, social groups, end goals, and the future as a whole. So as you're more focused on these things because you're at the age where there's nothing much else to do but help out and be a great member of society for your final years. The sign you have here though can determine how you act out in all these instances. Cause if you have a Sagittarius 11th house for example, then you could be quite youthful and lowkey a rebel against societal norms. So in you helping out the community, you let people to see this vision that's a different version of norms. Like normalizing stretch marks or bringing a new genre or idea of music or wearing clothes that are weird at first but end up being quirky and cool.

12th house - [50 years old to death]: And at this final age stage of life, you're about to transcend out of your body and purely to your soul, so your soul innately/naturally starts feeling connected to its end stage where it's about to retreat from the world. This could be through last acts of service to humanity, deep connections with spirituality, healing, contentment, confinement, self-reflection, understanding karma, and dreaming. These all occur the most once you get to this age. Depending on the sign you have in this sign, you could experience a deep or light transcendence when you get to this age stage.

BUT - huge disclaimer:

The ages vary according to the maturity of a person's life. So for example, for one person, Cancer is in their 6H but they only start developing into their Cancer age stage at 21. At 19 or 20 they still present their Gemini age stage, because everyone differs, including the maturity of their age stages. So they feel more Cancer at an older age.

So... it depends on your life.

But this is most of the route or path of life many people go through.

Also, I'm starting to believe and see that wherever Cancer is in your house is where you feel pretty maternal/paternal, or you're just really loving and caring towards the people around you.

And wherever Leo is in your houses is most likely your shining point or prime of your life; things work out for the best for you at that Age Stage.

For example, Beyonce has her 10th house in Cancer and right now she's pretty much experiencing her 10th house age stage cause we can see how she's pretty maternal and motherly. Cancer is also pretty emotional so we've seen that after the whole cheating saga, she released all her emotions through an entire album. And Angelina Jolie has Cancer in her 1st house, and like I said 'the sign you have in 1H is the sign you act as in your approach to life from the beginning to the end', we can see how she's always felt pretty maternal, so that's why she's grown to have a lot of children (by even adopting some).

Another example, Rihanna having Leo in her 5th house, that's when she was practically discovered (16). And Kim K, she has Leo in her 9th house and that was when she was at the peak of her fame, from 2013 onwards, when she was beginning her 30's. And Ariana Grande has Leo in her 8th house, which I'd say is the age stage she's in currently, considering how she's the female pop singer that's topping charts the most lately.

So, conclusively, this is why I'd really think Age Stage in the houses is a thing.

And if you are trying to understand why your life is going hella sad and boring for the past 4 or 5 years, try and look at the sign in which your Age Stage is at in the houses. Cause it could be Pisces, Scorpio, or Capricorn. [Their rulers] Saturn, Pluto and Neptune can bring tense and deep energy that can make life pretty hectic. But, there are also profection years, so you can look at those too.

[dropintomanga]

Fragile Chainsaw Masculinity

Note: This post covers up to Chapter 84. So regarding huge spoilers, I’m only going to hint at certain elements.

If there’s one manga I find to be summed up as 2020 in a nutshell for a lot of people, it has to be Tatsuki Fujimoto’s Chainsaw Man. It’s a very refreshing Shonen Jump manga where anything goes in a dystopian world where devils and humans have to coexist in order for society to not crumble even further. Every character in this series is flawed and isn’t touted to be some kind of saint. I find the main character, Denji, to be a very good example of how certain aspects of masculinity hurt young men like him.

In Chainsaw Man, Denji becomes a half-man/half-chainsaw being thanks to his Chainsaw Devil pet, Pochita, merging with him. After killing a group of gangsters that have been using him for their own purposes, he then joins an organization of devil hunters who help protect the public. Denji doesn’t have any noble reasons to save the world; he fights to live a simple life and feel safe doing so. However, due to the nature of his power, Denji is the target of many as the Chainsaw Devil inside him can possibly change the world for better or worse.

There was a line I heard from a podcast about masculinity and it was from a young boy who wanted to express himself emotionally. He said “You know, it might be nice to be a girl because I wouldn't have to be so emotionless.” Many young men caught up in how to be masculine arguably feel that way. Being emotionless sums up Denji to a huge degree. Prior to the events of the first chapter of the series, Denji was living under severe debt and forced to do devil-killing jobs in order to pay it off. He never got opportunities to explore his own sense of self as he shut off his emotions out of the fear of scarcity. Denji is a young man lacking a set of core values and purpose in life. 

His chainsaw powers leads him down a path where he is surrounded by death every time he pulls the cord. Masculinity ideology promotes the idea of violence as a way to be strong. While Denji does get his moments of joy, he is encouraged to be violent without much regard to his own feelings. Denji is used as a pawn by the devil hunters to get rid of potential threats. He doesn’t seem to mind at first. But after recent events that involved tackling what’s considered to be the greatest threat to Japan, Denji goes through a grieving process which leads him to wish that he stopped thinking for himself after repeated losses in his life.

Grief? Complicated emotions? No, you’re too manly to think about that. You got better things to do. Just get on with it. This is what we’re all taught in general, but those ideas are drilled harder into men more than women.

Now onto another thing that Chainsaw Man tackles regarding masculinity - achievement in the form of getting women to flock to you.

One of anime/manga’s most popular tropes is having a young male character (usually the hero) surrounded by a good amount of female characters that want him. This also ties into a larger cultural trope where young men are normalized to fantasize about having sexual relations with any woman they deem attractive. Of course, fantasy isn’t reality as women are individuals who aren’t supposed to comply with men’s wishes all the time. 

In Chainsaw Man, Denji meets a number of women (besides Makima) who he falls in love or has somewhat intimate moments with. He once rescued his female devil hunter partner and fellow Devil herself, Power, from a devil just so he could touch her breasts. Power allowed Denji to do so as his reward, but Denji felt it was lacking. There was a notable incident with Power in Chapter 71 where he takes a shower with Power and tries to comfort her after a horrific experience in Hell left her traumatized. Denji dotes to himself that his moment with Power wasn’t what he pictured in his mind. He was unable to see the point of what intimacy truly is - sharing both physical and emotional vulnerabilities and taking comfort in being accepted for them.

Denji starts to realize over time that all he wants is meaningful relationships with people who don’t end up dying. Yet he tries hard to ignore his own desires much to his detriment. He represents the complexity of masculinity in troubling times. When is it a good time to express it? When is it better to be emotional for a man? What counts as being a man in ways that aren’t defined by cultural/societal standards? 

I wonder those questions myself because men are far more likely to kill themselves than women. What masculinity ideology sometimes promotes (risk, violence, “lone wolf” mentality, etc.) are huge factors in increasing the risk of suicide. Men are conditioned to not value friendships as much as women do and are more likely to feel burdened by actions that make them feel worthless. Denji’s “growth” heavily revolves around the feeling of not being alone and the desire to not feel like a failure at any costs.

Chainsaw Man hits home on how the bad parts of masculinity can ruin men like Denji. Which is probably one of the big reasons why I love this series besides the sheer unpredictability of what will happen next in every chapter. There have been times where I realized that some male cultural ideals were hurting me somehow. I know it’s hard to empathize with men these days, but I’m not sure shaming them will encourage them to be better. I once said that bullies are also victims and it’s far better to blame systemic issues (since they create bullies) than bullies themselves.

Chainsaw Man is basically telling us to not pull the cord on men any further than it needs to be because we already have too many devils to begin with.

[antiracistkaren]

On the Paradigm of a House-wife

I have  been a house wife for almost 5 consecutive years.

Finding out that I am autistic turned all of it upside down for me. A nagging fear has chased me my whole life: what if I end up doing something that slowly kills me for the rest of my life?

I found myself pacing and stalking around my house like a caged animal, frantically tidying after every activity time in the house. My children and I rotated from room to room on a delay: half an hour here, then rotate, and I clean this room while they destroy that room.

Discovering my autism means that suddenly feeling bored and thrown off by all-kids-at-home-all-the-time-and-no-break destroyed my entire foundation of being at home. I was able to carefully balance all things until the quarantine. I feel that I cannot be alone in this.

In the groups in which I participate, there are many people like me: the quarantine broke their fragile stability that allowed them to function according to societal standards. Undiagnosed autistic people made it this far by doggedly adhering to some kind of routine, along with all of the internalized “rules” that were taught to us (especially taught to people who were assigned into womanhood) from a very young age.

What I am observing is that many women are finding themselves suddenly making sense of their world, of their turmoil, of their lack of understanding. Breaking that paradigm apart is painful, and as an autistic person, I find myself taking out each of these rules and drawing a line from now, when I have deeply ingrained them in my psyche, and when I learned it in the first place is helpful.

Thus, many autistic people find that their abuse is tied to their gender. At least, in my personal observations of recently diagnosed adults with children. So these very quiet and unspoken rules have literally guided all of our lives.

For example: rule for a woman is to be a wife and mother. You can say that this truth is not real, but for someone growing up in the south, I assure you that knowing the average age of marriage was 23 absolutely impacted my thought processes growing up. 23 wasn’t just an average: it was a goal to meet in order to feel and be considered “normal.”

I learned to hide my body from view almost all of the time, because it was constantly commented on, or about. My baggy clothes were also commented on, but I didn’t mind as much. Fine, call me a slouch in my clarinet lessons, Mr. so-and-so, I practiced my ass off and am winning in this lesson. Clarinet playing has nothing to do with my attire.

The comments on my breasts, bra popping, groping, and sexualization of my friendliness forced me to dress a certain way, only deploying my body as a last resort in order to achieve some kind of goal. I cannot help but think that there are other people who were born and conditioned to be “women” in the “woman” box, found themselves mentally/cognitively separated from their own bodies.

I learned that my body was a thing that seemed to matter a lot to other people, and not so much to me. Watching it grow and contract during pregnancy was a serious challenge because my body wasn’t obeying me anymore due to another autonomous being taking residence in there.

So non-binary was always felt *right* to me, but coming out as non-binary and pansexual will be seen by those who have bravely broken down those barriers and boxes as an attempt to steal something that doesn’t belong to me.

It would be lovely to see the LGBTQ+ community welcome us adult autistic “women” into the community as we break out of the paradigm in which we were raised. I cognitively understand that clothing isn’t inherently gendered, and you can say that to me, but I also understand that I am looked at differently if I am shopping in the men’s section in the south.

If you have been known and had the ability to know yourself sexually from a young age, you have some privilege here. You’ve had at least some measure of freedom to explore with others like you, with support from others like you. Those of us who have felt deficient for an undiscernable reason are just now learning that we really are different. Our cognitive processes, how we see the world, how we interact with neurotypical people, and how we dress our bodies and express our gender is a venture out into a space that we have not felt comfortable making until now. Until after monogamous marriage, after children, after houses, after financial dependence.

So I implore you to be gentle with those autistic people, especially undiagnosed autistic women, who are starting to explore gender expression and sexuality outside of the very rigid rules we internalized and lived by in order to survive in an ableist world that told us we are just plain wrong, and we need to be cured of this wrongness.

Otherwise, you may end up scaring a population of newly queer and questioning people back into their very dark, lonely, and suffocating closet.

[illidanstr]

the standards on /r/femaledatingstrategy 

The first things to look for are superficial, obvious, and most people can achieve them. Good grooming, hygiene, stylish clothing that fits well, healthy body, diet, exercise and sleep habits. A work life balance, neither underemployed or overworked, spends time with friends and family, has hobbies, sports and social clubs, as well as adequate time spent keeping his living space neat, tidy and maintained. Sensible with his finances, neither scrooging or splurging, deep in debt, or funded by Mumsy. Minimal or no destructive habits – drinking, smoking, drugs, criminal activity, unsafe sex, self harm, toxic friends, gaming, porn, social media excess, refusal to seek proper medical treatment and medication when necessary. 

He is responsible and stable in life. He currently has, and can, keep his life together, including finances, career, housing, vehicles and planning for the future, such as retirement, insurance, medical directives and his will. He has ambition and is progressing towards his goals. He is successfully living independently, and isn't still tied to Mommy's apron strings.

this is just so weird

when i’m into someone it’s because there is something special about them.  a spark and fire that nobody else has + certain character traits i value.

i’m trying to think of what bugs me about this list and maybe it’s that it is a gigantic list of no’s

comparing myself against just this part of the list, I can’t dress as well as I’d like because I’m not that rich, my diet is pretty imperfect because eating as many vegetables and as much fiber, fish, etc as is optimal is hard, my sleep is finally starting to get on track after many years of hard labor and trying a ton of stuff, i’m underemployed, don’t spend time in person with friends and family very much, don’t have sports or social clubs, I try for my living space but it’s really imperfect, i scrooge sometimes and splurge sometimes, i like drinking, drugs, porn, i used to game, and sometimes suffer from social media excess

i’m not a high earner who can afford to pay for everything for my significant other, my career is not yet EPIC, i drive an old used car, I don’t have life insurance other than what my job offers and I really should get to medical directives..

basically, I fail almost everything on this list.  including things that I am putting significant effort into.  if you go further down into the next several pages there are things i fail there, too.  

in fact, not a lot of people actually pass this list.  being born into a reasonable amount of money seems like a necessity to get this much shit together.  

you’re basically looking for someone who dedicates their life to not ever failing at anything in a certain societal conception of normal *and* they’re going to pay for everything for you *and* do over 50% of the housework *and* let you snoop through their phone *and* treat you like a fully equal-or-better partner

honestly, I wouldn’t want to date that person 

you don’t want a husband, you want a golem.  by seeking that kind of person you are actually selecting for people who are good at putting up a false front of what society expects because you’ve filtered out all the honest people and your chances of being terribly betrayed are significantly higher than normal

[phylophe]

100 Warm-Up Roleplaying Questions for Players

Character: Amur Universe: Pathfinder Gender/Race/Class: Male human Paladin/Holy Vindicator Alignment: NG/CG Questions source: here

Full (long) post under the cut.

1. If your character wasn’t an adventurer, what livelihood would they lead?

His parents were peasants who worked as labourers, so probably that. If he ever receives charity from any organisation, he’d strive to work for them.

2. Who in the party would your character trust the most with their life?

If it’s strictly his life, Niyooshan - for some reason the alchemist seems to refuse to let him die or even get too hurt. Maybe it’s a healer thing. 

If it’s about making decisions based on his best interest... he doesn’t trust anyone in the current party with that at the moment.

3. What are your character’s core moral beliefs?

People are essentially good. 

Mercy and compassion is no less important than justice and righteousness. 

Any good is worth doing. 

Everyone deserves to be treated with dignity.

4. What relationship does your character have with their parents and siblings?

He left home at the age of 8, and his parents were largely absentee in those years. He honours them out of societal expectations of filial piety, but that’s about it.

He’s the second child of five. His older brother (1st) and younger sister (4th) passed when he was 7; he depended a lot on the former, and got along well with the latter as they have the most similar personalities amongst the siblings at the time. 

For his surviving siblings, he is very close to his younger brother (3rd, only a year his junior), and they still exchange letters frequently. He and his youngest sister (5th) barely knew one another until they reunited recently as adults.

5. Does your character have any biases for or against certain races?

Having the privilege of being human, he has the common in-universe biases but he tries his best to check them. He does this especially consciously when it comes to race/ancestry (i.e. species) - one of his friends from his apprentice days was lynched for being a drow. 

6. What is your character’s opinion on nobility? On authority?

He respects nobility who is responsible in their post, and righteous authority. 

Otherwise he tolerates them and tries not to cause trouble... unless they do something with which he greatly disagrees morally.

7. Describe your character’s current appearance: clothes, armour, scars they’ve picked up along the journey, etc.

(Skipping the part about scars - addressed in #21)

He dresses in full, heavy plate armour complete with a kite shield when out in the field or in battle. 

During downtime, he wears simple tunics with trousers and boots, usually with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Sometimes he wears a gambeson on top or a leather cuirass for more formality. 

8. What location encountered in the campaign has your character felt the most “at home” in, or just generally liked the most?

(Answering the second part - first part addressed in #40.) 

The small towns and villages they’ve passed through with down-to-earth folks. Though he also likes cities with rich histories and culture.

9. What deity, if any, does your character worship? What’s their opinion on other people’s worship?

Sarenrae - the goddess of the sun, redemption, honesty, and healing. 

He respects most other gods and religions on the good or neutral side of the good-evil axis. With evil gods, he tries not to judge their believers until evil actions based on such beliefs are actually taken.

10. If your character had time to pick up any artisan’s tools, game set, instrument, etc., what would it be?

Some sort of sculpture, maybe pottery or carving. He’s a very tactile person.

11. Describe your character’s current relationship with the player character sitting to your right.

(Rolling 1d3 between 1. Amalli, 2. Mawari, 3. Niyooshan)

AMALLI: It’s complicated - he trusts that she means well and has his best interest in mind, however what she considers “best” is rather... unusual. He teeters between having faith that she is kind by nature, and being annoyed at her messed up values and principles ingrained by nurture. 

12. What is your character’s current goal, summed up in one sentence?

Save the sun, keep his uncle alive, vindicate his friend’s honour.

13. Does your character ever want to “settle down” with a spouse, children, house, etc.?

He’s a sojourner who feels uneasy if he has to stay in one place for an extended amount of time. At this point he’s accepted the single life; it makes it easier to travel.

14. Has your character ever been in love?

He’s aromantic/asexual and can’t really distinguish between romantic and platonic love very well. He does love his friends and found family deeply however.

15. What battle in the campaign has been most memorable to your character?

Against a dragon turtle which is also a divine guardian of sorts. The party angered it and was having trouble hurting it at all; he used Greater Angelic Aspect for the first time to speak to it so it would stop attacking them. It eventually involved taking a massive hit for it and dying (for the first time since level 1), but it ended the battle with no further damages to the party.

16. If your character wasn’t whatever class they are, what would they be instead?

A cleric. Arguably with his temperament he’d have turned out better as one.

17. What is your character’s favourite season?

Spring - the sun gets stronger, the day gets longer, the plants and animals become livelier. 

18. What would your character’s Zodiac sign be, following stereotypical astrology?

Pisces.

19. Where in the world does your character most want to visit?

If it’s only Golarion and the material plane - the Padishah Empire of Kelesh.

20. What is the biggest mistake your character has ever made?

Boy where do we begin. A few months ago he’d have said “going to pee alone that one time”, but he’s okay with that now. 

He thinks his biggest mistake was to give in to despair and as a result fell from grace and lost his god-given powers. He counts the lives lost that could otherwise be saved as his fault.

21. Does your character have any noticeable scars? If so, what are their stories?

A scar on his neck from a time when he wanted to kill himself, and a stigmata in the form of a sunburst brand on his right hand from when he became a Holy Vindicator.

22. What animal best represents your character?

Bison - sometimes peaceful and absentminded, other times temperamental; bull-headed, tough and hardy, and stubborn.

23. If your character could go back in time and change one thing about their life, what would it be?

Aside from not falling from grace as per #20... pick a more common language to learn in school. See #95.

24. Which other player character does your character find themselves having the most in common with?

Those in the first adventuring party he’s had - with Adeline, Mirele, and Kebarong. Simple people with simple needs. Their personalities may be very different, but at least they live in worlds that are relatable.

25. Does your character regret any particular choice the party has made?

Anything that involves the deaths of innocents, even/especially if it’s for the “greater good”. 

26. What would your character say their best trait would be?

His faith in humanity.

27. What is your character’s greatest fear? Deep, irrational?

Having his soul doomed in one way or another. Presently the most plausible method by which this can happen is to have it torn asunder and destroyed.

28. What is currently motivating your character to stay with the party?

He knows he can’t do much of anything alone - not only does he play a supportive role in combat, he needs his companions’ skills, qualities, experience, and expertise to achieve the massive goal they all share (to a degree) - see #12.

29. What are your character’s hobbies and interests outside of their class?

Animals (especially felines), writing letters, pleasant long walks somewhere outdoors.

30. What would most people think when they first see your character?

Big, shiny, clangy, scary-looking, heavily-armoured man. He himself is completely unaware of this perception.

31. What stereotypical group role does your character play in the party? (The Mom, the Mess, the Comic Relief, etc. Optionally: What role would your character play in the “Five Man Band” structure?)

Often he’s the Heart. In a Five Man Band he’d be (conditionally) the Leader, the Lancer, or the Chick.

32. What is your character the most insecure about?

His terrible schmoozing skills.

33. What person does your character admire most?

His benefactor, mentor, and mother figure - a cleric who gave up her peaceful life and comfortable home to travel the world as a missionary and healer. 

34. What does your character admire and dislike the most about the player character sitting to your left?

(Rolling 1d3 between 1. Amalli, 2. Mawari, 3. Niyooshan)

NIYOOSHAN: He admires the alchemist’s resourcefulness, calm and analytical mind, general intelligence and skills in what he does. 

He dislikes his cold rationality and ability to make brutal decisions without hesitation... but what he dislikes more is his own feeling of envy for such a quality. (See also #67.)

35. Why is your character’s lowest stat their lowest (the in-character reason, not “because there’s no reason for a wizard to have 16 strength, duh”)?

Strength and dexterity (I know). He grew up poor and missed out on some bulking up as a child. He’s hardy though.

36. What would be your character’s theme song/favourite band/favourite genre of music?

Folk music with lots of wind instruments.

37. What stereotypical role would your character play in a high school AU/if they attended a normal high school? (Nerd, jock, bully, goth, etc.)

Looks like a jock, acts like a nerd. Probably would get bullied if not for protective friends.

38. What treasure/item/artifact that your character has collected during the adventure is the most important to them?

His standard issue shield given by the Church (with which he shares a Divine Bond, and he has had various upgrades attached to it), letters from friends and those he considers family, a feather from the Vermillion Bird.

39. Is there any particular weapon, item, etc. that your character longs to find?

Right now, as the campaign demands - the Chronicles of the Righteous. Otherwise he’d love to come across any of Sarenrae’s divine artifacts.

40. Where does your character feel the most at home?

BACKSTORY: the Sarenite church grounds in Absalom, where he grew up.

IN-GAME: Falcon’s Hollow, despite its cursedness, where he met people he grew to trust with his life.

41. Does your character care about how they’re perceived by others? How do they change themselves to fit in with other people?

He cares how his loved ones see him insofar as he wants them to trust him, but he doesn’t compromise easily on the kind of person his principles make him.

42. What does your character think is the true meaning of life?

To find something worth loving in everything and everyone.

43. What is your character’s scent? (Bonus points for a description that sounds like it could be from a bad [or awesome] fanfic.)

Sun-burnt vegetation and a faint but unmistakable hint of metal.

44. Does your character think more with their heart or their brain?

Heart.

45. What is your character’s most recent or frequent nightmare?

His most frequent nightmares all involve fire - a child being incinerated, a pile of bodies being cremated, a gigantic flaming wheel in the sky overlooking chaos befalling a city.

46. What opinion does your character have on [CERTAIN ESTABLISHED GROUPS/AUTHORITIES IN THE GAME WORLD]? (Dragon-marked Houses, royal crown, etc.)

CHURCH OF SARENRAE IN ABSALOM: It was his home once; not anymore. Maybe it can’t ever be home again now that he’s seen how deep the corruption runs.

EAGLE KNIGHTS: They mean well, but they have a ruthless murderer in their own ranks and after all these years they haven’t sorted that out. Helpful to a point, at least. 

HELL KNIGHTS OF THE SCOURGE: They’re more reasonable and likeable than he’d expected, and he’s not sure how to feel about that.

PATHFINDER SOCIETY: Crazy resourceful, shamelessly shifty.

JADE REGENT: Shit.

47. How did your character spend their childhood? Where did they grow up/who were their childhood friends?

He lived in poverty in a backwater town (Railford) in southern Taldor until the age of 8, when he was brought to the Church of Sarenrae in Absalom. His years there as an apprentice were the happiest, most peaceful of his life - he had his mentor and her companion as pseudo-parents, and made some close friends when he was training to be a paladin.

48. What aspect of your character’s future are they most curious about? (If they could know one thing about the future, what would it be?)

Whether or not he can redeem Shasriel. See also #52.

49. What colours are associated with your character?

Green, yellow, brown.

50. Who in the party would your character prioritise rescuing, in dire circumstances?

Among his current party of Amalli, Niyooshan, and Mawari, he’d prioritise Amalli because she’s been with him the longest and he knows her best out of the three.

51. Is your character the most swayed by ethos, pathos, or logos?

Pathos.

52. If your character was granted a single use of Wish, what would they use it for?

He’s wary of the repercussions and unforeseen consequences of such a powerful spell, so he’ll restrict it to wishing that the wraith feeding off of his soul be saved from undeath and her uncorrupted nature restored. See also #48.

53. What is your character’s favourite spell? If they don’t use spells: what is their favourite personal weapon/combat manoeuvre/skill/etc.?

Lay on Hands, with mercies and feats.

54. How does your character feel about keeping secrets from the rest of the party?

He doesn’t like it but he does it with people he’s not close to, out of fearing judgement. With close people he only keeps secrets if he himself doesn’t want to confront those things, which actually happens quite often.

55. What type of creature in the world is your character the most intrigued by?

Benevolent creatures that should be evil by nature - devils and undead for example.

56. When they were a child, what did your character want to be, or think they were going to be, when they grew up?

Before he went into paladin-specific training, he wanted to be a missionary cleric - just like his mentor. 

57. The player character to your left admits that they’re passionately in love with your character. How would your character respond?

(Rolling 1d3 between 1. Amalli, 2. Mawari, 3. Niyooshan)

MAWARI: He’d think she’s ill, making a bad joke, or trying to curse him.

58. If somebody (an NPC, someone from their backstory, etc.) your character trusts/loves asked your character to do something against the party’s best interest, who would they side with?

It would depend of course, but at this point he doesn’t really trust his current party, so he would probably side with his loved one.

59. Does your character value their own best interest more than the party’s?

Definitely not, to a fault sometimes.

60. What decision would the party have to make in order for your character to consider splitting off from the group?

Something unequivocally cruel and undeniably evil.

61. How does your character imagine the way they will die?

In battle, protecting others with all that he can give.

62. What is your character’s greatest achievement?

Aside from the battle described in #15, being vindicated by his goddess at the exact moment he defied an order from his religious superiors.

63. Is your character willing to risk the well-being of others in order to achieve their goal?

Not at all, unless his goal also happens to be the greater good.

64. What is your character’s opinion on killing others?

He understands the necessity of killing in the kind of life he’s chosen to live, but he tries his best to avoid killing innocents, and even those who are guilty - so long as he thinks they have a chance to be redeemed.

65. What is your character’s favourite food? Beverage?

He doesn’t have single favourite, but he likes homey, hearty meals. Potatoes make him think of Kebarong, one of his closest companions. As of late he seems to have suddenly developed a constant craving for almonds. 

66. How generous is your character? Especially to those they don’t know?

Very. He’d fall for any sob story; even if he knows he’s been cheated he wouldn’t change his ways, because his generosity being abused is not his problem, but the abuser’s.

67. What is your character the most envious about, regarding anyone in the party?

As addressed in #34, he’s envious about Niyooshan’s ability to make cruel but rational and/or necessary decisions. He is also sometimes envious of Amalli’s blissful ignorance of some realities of the world, but other times he feels sorry for her.

68. The player character to your left and the player character to your right are both telling your character two different versions of the truth. Who does your character believe?

(Rolling 2d3 between 1. Amalli, 2. Mawari, 3. Niyooshan) 

MAWARI & AMALLI: This is a toughie. On the one hand he trusts Amalli more than Mawari, since he’s known the former for a while and became acquainted with the latter only recently; on the other hand Amalli has a way of viewing and interpreting reality that he really doesn’t understand sometimes. Ultimately he’d take Amalli’s word for it if he has to.

69. What is your character’s sexuality/relationship with sex?

He’s aromantic and asexual, although he does enjoy intimacy with friends (i.e. he’s quite touchy-feely). if someone were to pursue him romantically/sexually and he already likes them a lot, he’d do what they request if he thinks that it improves their bond. 

70. What is your character’s biggest pet peeve?

People using doublespeak, especially if it’s for politics.

71. Describe how your character feels about the party’s current situation/objective/etc.

It’s a big job and he can’t even fathom how they’ll get there, but it has to be done and it seems like he and his companions are the ones who need to do it, so he’ll just have to take things one step at a time. 

72. Who in the party would your character trust the most to keep an important secret?

Niyooshan - he trusts the man to exercise discretion. Amalli means well but tends to run her mouth.

73. If your character knew that they were going to die in a month, how would they spend the rest of their life?

Write heartfelt letters to his friends and family, write strongly-worded letters to his Church and the authorities-that-be, and do his best to further his and his allies’ mission.

74. What makes your character feel safe?

A nice home-cooked meal, a warm fire, knowing people he trusts and loves are close by. 

75. If your character had the chance to rename the party/give the party a name, no questions asked, what would it be?

“Not-Rebels”. Because they’re totally not rebels with massive bounties on their heads. 

76. What memory does your character want to forget the most?

Technically he’s already forgotten it - the process by which his soul was bound to an ancient Azlanti wraith was traumatic enough that his memory of it is now repressed. 

For his intact memories, he’d very much like to forget about the time he watched a child be incinerated in an instant, or the time he’s had to mercy-kill a group of innocents who’d been afflicted by the curse of undeath... or maybe he doesn’t because he thinks he needs to carry his “mistakes” with him.

77. If your character had to multiclass into a class they currently aren’t the next time they level up, what would it be and what reason would they have for doing so?

Fighter - so he can be more flexible with gear, be more effective at controlling the battle, and - most importantly - use tower shields. 

78. What television/book/video game/etc. character would your character be best friends with? (Or: what media character is your character the most influenced by/similar to?

Take all the usual Knight Templar tropes and subvert them.

Additionally, my GM compares him to Anders of the Dragon Age franchise. I created Amur way before I knew who Anders was, and some of the similarities are frankly uncanny. 

79. What unusual talents does your character possess?

High pain tolerance, and (is this a talent?) diminished self-preservation instincts.

80. How does your character feel about receiving/giving orders? Are they more of a leader, or a follower?

He’s much happier receiving orders than giving them, but he can’t help but question or even defy those he considers immoral. He wants to be a follower but is ultimately too headstrong and impulsive to be a good one.

81. What does your character’s name represent to them? (Or: why as a player did you choose your character’s name?)

His name is one (of the few) ties he has with his birth family, but he’s fine if he has to use a different name temporarily for a good reason.

I named him after the Amur River. As a geomorphologist I sometimes name my OCs after landform features. All my original PCs and NPCs in this universe are named after real-world rivers.

82. Is your character more of an introvert, or an extrovert?

Introvert.

83. How far is your character willing to go to pursue the “greater good”? Do they believe in a greater good at all?

He believes in the greater good, he just doesn’t believe in having to sacrifice innocent individuals to pursue it.

84. What does your character want to be remembered by?

Kindness and compassion.

85. What would be your character’s major in college?

Humanities - more precisely, something along the lines of Anthropology or Cultural Studies.

86. Does your character consider themselves a hero, villain, or something else?

Something else - he sees himself as one who helps someone else become a hero, or turns someone away from villainy. 

87. What major arcana tarot card best represents your character?

Strength.

88. Where does your character see themselves in 20 years?

Dead. Still travelling around, with or without a name, finding trouble, and doing whatever needs to be done.

89. What is your character’s relationship with magic? Are they scared of it, wish to know more about it, indifferent to it?

To him, in general magic is just another ability or talent, as much as someone can be gifted physically, intellectually, or artistically. His own magic is granted by his deity, so he sees it as a blessing and not really belonging to him. 

90. Who is your character’s biggest rival?

He doesn’t consider anyone his rival, but he does have a nemesis of sorts by the name of Geminus Nero Rugatonn. The guy’s been hounding him and his friends since something like level 6.

91. What is your character’s guiltiest pleasure?

Playing with cats.

92. What does your character hope for the afterlife?

To have his soul intact and actually see Sarenrae in all her glory, and to meet those he thinks he’s failed and apologise to them.

93. Who in the party does your character trust the least?

At this point, Mawari - she’s only just joined them, is a witch with creepy curses and hexes, and is their ally only because their goals align with her being a traitor to the Jade Regent.

94. What is your character’s biggest flaw?

Impulsiveness, and being a bleeding heart who is way too forgiving.

95. How did your character learn the languages that they speak?

TALDANE: His first language, and the common tongue across most of the Inner Sea region.

TERRAN: Learned it as part of the curriculum in his apprentice days. Why he didn’t pick something less obscure is anyone’s guess. Maybe he just doesn’t want to use it much.

NECRIL: Started to learn this after being possessed (?) by a wraith.

TIAN: The common tongue in the continent of the current campaign, Tian Xia.

MINKAI: The local tongue in the country of the current campaign, Minkai.

SIGN LANGUAGE: Learned this after Niyooshan lost his speech. 

96. What is your character’s favourite school of magic/type of weaponry?

MAGIC: Healing (conjuration) and harm-negating spells (abjuration).

WEAPONRY: Do shields count?

97. What is most important to your character: health, wealth, or happiness?

Happiness.

98. What advice would your character give to a younger version of themselves?

“Don’t ignore the urging of your conscience; act on it. It’s better to regret what you’ve done than what you haven’t.”

99. Are there any social or political issues your character feels strongly about?

Any sort of persecution or discrimination that is based on some neutral and often unchangeable part of someone’s identity, e.g. being slaves, low-born, or of a particular race.

100. What, currently, is your character the most curious about?

What part he has to play and how he will end up by the end of this whole deal involving nations, religions, legacies, curses, spirits, gods, and Great Old Ones.

[hiriajuu-suffering]

Gender Policing

Online, everyone is prone to have less of a filter than they would have in real life because physically being in front of a person presents a different level of respect than being online, even in the most blatantly individualistic societies like predominantly English-speaking ones. You can really get an indication of a person’s best and most genuine self by how they choose to date. Meaning, an online dating profile should, in theory, present someone’s best and most genuine self with the least amount of social normativity values being imparted onto the dynamic of the interaction. If you’re female participating in the online dating scene, you have a far higher frequency of suitors, all other things equal, than your male counterpart will because of patriarchal norms. Due to this fact, you see a staunch difference in how men and women portray themselves through these mediums.

Men are brutally honest online because they fear reprise or offense less than they normally would. Either they make blatantly clear the nature of the relationship they are pursuing or leave their profile relatively blank for you to judge on their appearance alone so the woman can make whatever assumptions they choose to make. A majority of men, especially minority or short men, couldn’t get a date on these forums if their life depended on it with no presentation of potential danger other than the fear instilled in them by the worst of us. Yet, men are asked by feminism to police said behaviors to improve the lives of women with no expectation or entitlement of anything in this regard in any way. By no means am I saying that’s necessarily wrong, I just find the argument becomes extremely slanted when women don’t police away from bad behavior on themselves like feminism asks of men.

The behaviors in women I’m talking about do more to encourage incel-style behavior than seek to remedy it, further perpetuating the problem feminism tries to solve in equalizing the gender roles. High demand for women and low demand for men on these platforms indicate men must take initiative, intuitively patriarchal. Online dating is a chance to remedy said ailment, but women actively choose not to. Not only does online dating become overly reflexive of patriarchal norms, they enforce them by what women are encouraged to present themselves as by other women. The use of frequency in filters alone is enough to prove vanity comes over substance in the realm, but you start to see some disturbing prejudicial patterns outside of that: blatant height discrimination, overt & covert racism, not disclosing clear “looking-fors” because there’s a distinction between the type of guy to hook up with and the type of guy to date, messages of body positivity in women while only selecting men of a certain body type, and worst of all using one’s presence for validation with no genuine intention.

I’m not necessarily claiming females seem, from the male perspective, to be horribly flaky and fickle daters which they have every right to be anyways. My premise is women expect this gallant behavior among masculine relationships towards women but don’t impart the same standard of courtesy in feminine relationships towards men. Women are encouraged to actively treat men like disposable and as a value of their production, just as society sees them. Women then demand to be treated as individuals warranting a level of veneration of respect that sees past their ability to contribute within the shifting norms of female expectation. I don’t think gender equity is achievable if half of women seek to reap the benefits of patriarchy to them and the other half think actively dissolving the patriarchy is better when yes, all women abuse a benefit the patriarchy affords them in the digital age. I can actively say in the same vain, half of men feel entitled to women and the other half seek real equity while yes, all men benefit from the system of inequity existing with entrenched patriarchy.

Morally abhorrent behavior should be discouraged to all genders, not just men. Female predators are seen as less of an issue than male predators. Just because it often manifests itself in a different way, doesn’t mean it’s any less predatory. Are men guilty of more sexual harassment and assault than women? Most likely. Are women more guilty of subverting the male expectation to get a return on time invested rather than pursuing a genuine connection? Absolutely, this is a textbook interpretation of simping at its finest. Playing the oppression olympics by saying physical/sexual transgressions are worse than mental/financial ones isn’t helpful, even if women would often win every time. Policing disproportionately has been on the forefront of the societal welfare debate when it comes to race, but not when it comes to gender. The social politics existing for a man to be righteous he has to be chivalrous to be good while a woman can be anarchistly free and be equally as good is problematic if men are trying to be convinced women crave real equality.

The lack of feminism’s ability to know how it wants to move forward in a post-patriarchal world is disturbing because it doesn’t require both cisgenders shoulder an equitable burden. The biggest obstacle to feminism is women’s behavior towards one another, not men. Men’s insecurities cause them to cling onto societal power and dominance if women can’t relinquish some of their social power in courtship. The power in a relationship lies with who cares the least, and women seem to only care about men who don’t genuinely care about them. There some tendencies that have to broken for progress to be made, and women policing one another the way they ask men to is a step in the direction gender equalization needs to take. What happens if we’re not comfortable with policing one another? Well then, laziness is what will entrench the patriarchy, generation after generation. When we treat an other gender better, humanity as a whole improves.

[entrance01]

Highlighter and Bronzer: Constant Dualities in Makeup Culture

As written by a makeup user

Makeup is highly polarizing subject to the people who wear it, refuse to wear it, and resign to wear it, and speaking honestly? It can get hard to keep a singular, straight thought about it. Personally speaking at least.

A lot of the topics mentioned were usually written separately, and that’s fine. One person posting how makeup praises European features isn’t wrong! Just like another post saying how makeup fetishizes black features/trying to pass as “racially ambiguous” also isn’t wrong! These two separate camps, among the others I will touch on later, can both exist in the same realm. It’s just our job to see both sides and how either and both affect people.

I know this is far from being the first makeup-critical post nor its last, but throughout my years on this hell site, I have stumbled across numerous articles and thoughts. They are all wonderful and are written with more insight than I could ever, but this compilation is (mostly) for me.

Eurocentric Beauty Standards and Modern Black/Brownface

What do we see when we open Instagram or look up makeup artists on Youtube? Most probably the same cut and crease. The same extensive bronzer. The same cut cheekbones. The same C-shaped highlighted area. And you get the point! But what does it mean? Am I just ragging on the go-to, tried and true looks? Well yes. I hate seeing a lack of creativity, but I want to look deeper into what these artists are choosing to accentuate; what they are choosing to accentuate or hide; what they are choosing to do with their natural skin colour.

One tumblr user (that has since left this site) said, you can’t divorce beauty culture from white supremacy. And they were right. A lot of IG/YT tends still uphold whiteness as a kind of ideal! This perpetuation could be as innocent as contouring tutorials telling viewers to give themselves high cheekbones; a small, straight nose; deeper set eyes; “melon seed” jaws; etc., to an industry-wide problem like Snapchat/IG filters lightening skin tones and companies not providing a ful, broad range of foundations and concealers.

It really wasn’t until, like, what? 2017? where Fenty Beauty made a foundation line with a thorough and broad spectrum that covered almost every skin tone. And that is a travesty! What were you telling these women (and men)? “You should be going lighter than your actual skin shade”? But what’s more insidious than that is actually going out and making skin brightening products for women, especially in countries where colorism is more pronounced –like Central and South America and Asia (especially South and Southeast Asia).

The latter is not just an instance of not a lack of representation (and yes, I acknowledge that we ought to see more darker skinned actors and celebrities and so forth) but is something that can affect the livelihoods of people. Without a doubt, people treat you differently if you look a certain way. It becomes easier to navigate through society! Job prospects open up once you fit these standards, even if they are racist; one non-makeup example is how black women are expected to straighten their hair for jobs, have something like 1A to 2C hair, while other manageable hair styles that are more unique to women with 3A-4C hair (box braids, cornrows, etc.) are seen as inappropriate. But at the same time, non-black people go and appropriate these looks.

As tumblr user estoma6mp (now, luzonbleedingheart) mentioned in their (now deleted) post, what is overlining/plumping their lips and taking the styles of black women other than imitating blackness/modernized blackface? Look at Ariana Grande. The Jenners. These parties “tan” and “bronze” to achieve… I think a certain “racial ambiguity” as well as… just stealing the creative thoughts of African American (and also Latinx) women. It’s…. the coveting and commodification of “ethnic” features and styles for the sake of seeming fashionable and clout while also resting comfortably knowing that you can take off all the bronzer at the end of the day.

The Sexualization of Makeup and Children and the Infantilizing of Grown Women

The names of products and shades are undoubtedly important in creating an image and a connection in the minds of consumers. Like, what does “Killawatt” put in your mind, in my mind, other than something super bright and fluorescent like concert lights? But not all makeup will have simple names like “rose” or “peony” for lipsticks. Those don’t have enough edge. It doesn’t sell sex. But should makeup have to sell sex?

As marisatomay said in her post, makeup companies shouldn’t be naming their products after sexual terms. She goes to list names like “climax” and “super orgasm” and puns like “glow job” that may seem far fetched and almost like a strawman, but no. Those are actual names. Just look at the lip gloss selection from NARS’ site: Orgasm, Super Orgasm, First Time, Strip Tease, Triple X, are just a handful of names. There are so much more I’m not mentioning! I wouldn’t be so opposed to this naming convention if it weren’t for the fact that there are plenty of young girls who are looking to makeup as a form of expression.

Now, whether children and young teenagers should be using makeup is another point of debate. If a child wants to play with makeup and draw flowers on their face and add glitter, that’s fine! It’s all in good fun. But the moment you have girls as young as 7 or 8 becoming makeup artists, contouring, beating their faces, making themselves look like they are in their 20s, that’s where things get concerning. Like, we should let children be children and allow them creativity, but creativity with makeup is hard because the line between having fun and feeling like you need to conform to certain looks/have certain knowledge about making yourself look “beautiful” is getting more and more blurred. It’s already terrible to see elementary school children think that they need to look a certain way, wear makeup a certain way to be seen as pretty, but the makeup industry isn’t just exploiting these young girls’ insecurities. They also exploit the girls themselves. When we see brands posting closeup videos of young girls putting on lip gloss, lips parted, it evokes a certain image.

On the other hand, however, I’ve also seen makeup palettes that are very reminiscent of childhood. Saffron-Sugar wrote on her blog, that a lot of makeup also has an “unpleasantly infantilizing tone,” and I agree! Like, which makeup company hasn’t collaborated with Disney? Mermaid, unicorn, faerie, and even dessert themed products are omnipresent. This by itself isn’t that much of an issue –these are cute aesthetics, and I can get behind some of them—but it really patronizes a lot of adult women. These circumstances emphasize certain connotations with regards to (perhaps feigned) girliness.

While I said makeup can sexualize minors and expose them to unwarranted sexual tension, makeup can also sexualize that same young, innocent image in women. It’s the idea of recapturing girlhood and innocence and purity. It’s sickening because it kinda adds this “barely legal” culture –where men wait for girls to turn 18 as if legality is the only thing that differentiates a girl from a woman. And this is disgusting.

Empowerment and Societal Coercion and the Industry that Doesn’t Care

I’m glad to be living in a time and a world where I can speak my thoughts openly and find ways to be myself, but… I think it’s also this individualism that gives us all an overinflated sense of self. It’s difficult to openly criticize our behavior, our actions, as consumers and as people in a capitalistic society because so many of us do take these as personal attacks. As if we were exempt from reflecting on ourselves and have free reign to perpetuate harmful ideology and phenomena.

So…. It was, like, 2012? 2013? Where we got all these “eyeliner sharp enough to kill a man!!” and “blind them with your highlighter!” comments and posts. The idea, if I recall everything correctly, was that… a lot of girls, a lot of women, were emphasizing that they weren’t wearing makeup for anyone else other than themselves. And I think that is a wonder idea. It’s nice that you can make a hobby out of this, but I also know that there are plenty of others who are less than enthused about makeup.

I don’t hate on the women in the above scenario, totally don’t! But they can’t go around yelling how something (especially makeup) is a choice when to many others it isn’t. Plenty of women feel like they need to wear makeup in order to better navigate through society. As a personal anecdote, I know that I have been treated far better as a person the moment I “glowed up” and tried to coordinate outfits better/put on makeup in a more conventionally attractive manner/adhering to certain beauty standards. I know that in some service jobs such as waiting tables, the number of tips a waiter gets can be determined by her makeup. And let’s not even go into mental health professionals and their patients wearing makeup! It’s unrealistic the amount of time women has to spend on our appearances just to be treated like “normal.”

And the thing is, the makeup industry doesn’t care if you’re either woman! These million-dollar companies, founded on the institutional control of how women look and behave, are getting money from both camps. Advertisement will be sprinkled with buzzwords such as “empowering” and “girl boss” but those are empty words when all they want is to bank on these trends and women’s wants and/or insecurities.

 And here’s the part where I struggle to conclude all my thoughts. Like my previous post about art commissions and business, this is nothing more than a rehash of what people before me have said: I just wanted to compile everything in a more accessible post for myself, rather than scroll through my makeup tag on my main blog. But I guess I need to have some form of closure for anybody who has actually stuck around to get here (and thank you for doing so!).

All of the circumstances mentioned are… quite separate from each other all things considered, but they are all part of a larger, more foreboding culture that makes women feel like they need to look a certain way (even if they think they are being unique and creative). Indeed, makeup is a form of expression and creativity for a lot of women, but to just blindly act without any insight on what you are consuming, what you are doing, and why you are doing it, is honestly irresponsible. Like any other part of culture, a part of media (especially social), we need to see who is benefiting from our actions and who is getting hurt.

[anearthstruckalien]

So thus far I’ve never really gone into greater details beyond what’s either briefly implied or (just as briefly) outwardly stated in the narratives of RPs and writing posts alike, but at long last I’m going to make a headcanon post that summarizes main points about Giegue and his relation to his superior (and thus Psion society as a whole) as it existed in the past i.e prior to the events of Mother 1 and Mother 2.  As such, there are two main (and broadly-defined) sections to be covered on this:  Giegue’s upbringing; and (in a separate post) a collection of points relating to how Giegue felt about his superior and thus Psion society, his perceptions of them, and why.

SUMMARY OF GIEGUE’S UPBRINGING

Building upon what is already mentioned in the About Page’s early history, here are the main points about Giegue’s upbringing while under the military faction Psion superior:

-In general, members of the Psion species are trained almost from the moment of first being produced because Psion society wants to make them as useful as possible in the quickest way possible without compromising the integrity of stuff like PSI.  To this end, members of the Psion species are ruthlessly trained in PSI, intensively educated in psionic and non-psionic ways in general, expected to make use of their time in ‘productive’ ways be it to do what they are assigned to do by their instructors and/or caretakers or how they use their ‘free time’, taught Psion values while reinforcing loyalty to just the species above all else, and generally are set on the path that their intended purpose would dictate.

Each Psion must work towards becoming the best adult version of their ‘type’ as is possible so that they can fulfill their purpose and be of use to Psion society as best as is possible --so that one can be ‘useful’ at all like ‘cogs’ in the greater machine that is Psion society and thus support its overarching goals.  In other words, personal dreams, desires, and even individuality itself do not matter because in the end, they will (or rather should) always come secondary to the goals of Psion society and one’s intended function in it as far as the Psion species is concerned.

Altogether, the end result is a strictly-regimented upbringing with high expectations and intensive training.  The same applies to how Giegue was raised, but it was a little more unique to himself in that it not only deviated from the norm by being more strict, militant, and rigid (even by Psion standards) but it also contained certain elements that are not ordinarily present in how other Psions are raised... as will be further discussed in the points below this one.

- His more ‘human’ characteristics (behaviour, way of thinking, values, preferred activities, etc) were strongly discouraged and in a rather rigid way at that. In particular, not only were his activities and overall schedule controlled to be just so and monitored intensively, but whenever he would ‘slip up’ or otherwise do something that was ‘unacceptable’, he would get scolded for it.  This scolding would take the form of an opening reprimand that this is ‘unacceptable’, an explanation of why he was being scolded at all to establish understanding (with an appeal frequently being made to ‘disappointing’ Psion society alongside the notion that his more ‘human’ tendencies were based on a ‘misguided’ attachment to ‘lower life-forms’ and their ‘misguided and nonsensical values’), and then he’d be assigned some kind of tedious (and sometimes unpleasant) task designed to reinforce the message and have that understanding sink in effectively enough to stick for the long-term.

-At the same time, just as he was discouraged from essentially being himself, Giegue also had these exceedingly high expectations placed upon him.  He was consistently made aware of how important the experiment involving him was, how much potential it introduces within himself, and how he’s supposed to be better than everyone else because of it. Everything has always been about his powers, his abilities, how useful he could be, and how he should always improve himself because it’s not good enough yet relative to what potential he holds –that he always can and should be better and thus continuously work on improving himself accordingly.  As such, beyond the purpose of discouraging his more ‘human’ characteristics, his extremely rigid, strict, and militant upbringing was also aimed at making optimal use of him in Psion society while also reinforcing loyalty to it.

-Suffice it to say, Giegue only ever got what his superior wanted him to get and he only did what his superior wanted him to do.  His existence was regarded as a cut above the rest, but all the same, he was a ‘tool’ meant to serve Psion society by fulfilling his intended purpose and generally being as ‘useful’ as is possible lest he be regarded as ‘useless’, ‘unnecessary’, and ‘incapable of functioning correctly’.  Enough that even when he was allotted more freedom with what activities he could do and far less monitoring than before, Giegue hardly ever did anything for personal enjoyment –not unless it would also serve a use and thus be a ‘productive’ and ‘efficient’ use of time.

-Giegue didn’t really get to interact with anyone of his age group or really anyone that didn’t either work at the research laboratory in space or at the top secret facility at the home-planet’s core until he was deemed fully-integrated into Psion society.  As such, apart from Psion society being how it is serving as a kind of barrier and other elements of his upbringing, Giegue never got a chance to make friends or anything of that sort.  As far as Psion standards go, his upbringing was a little isolated as it was ‘supposed’ to be because in the end, he was a very special and ‘high-class’ tool that was only ever meant to fulfill military objectives using his higher potential (and in the process, pave the way to future energy-efficient productions of Psions with greater powers), not to make friends or anything like that.

IN SHORT:  Giegue underwent an exceedingly strict, rigid, and militant upbringing that was facilitated by the military faction Psion superior whereby he experienced a lot of rejection (and subsequent punitive measures following a strong enough scolding) for being too ‘human’ for their liking while also undergoing quite a bit of pressure to live up to the promise and potential—to be better than other Psions—that the experiment involving him introduced so that it would not be a waste of his usefulness.  The only time where he got some kind of acceptance was when he conformed to their standards and exceeded expectations in psionic and non-psionic ways; his achievements were everything and even then, he could still always be better than that.

Altogether this meant that his upbringing was certainly more strict than what constitutes a ‘normal’ Psion upbringing, but otherwise many elements of it were quite ‘normal’, severe and ruthless as it may come across as anyways.  The reasons why it was so strict are as follows:  his status as an important experiment and thus the potential he held due to it, purging the ‘human’ influences from within him, and ensuring that he would be loyal to and entirely integrated into Psion society –to the Psion species.  As a result, while he never had his will taken away from him, there was quite a bit of societal brainwashing involved.

[avergavi]

LOVE #LUNESDELUNATICAS

Love.

Love continually evolves and is always changing, is a dynamic thing, especially couples love. 

Family love, social love, work love, love, in general, is that thing we really like to feel, but basically is that thing that motivated us to keep doing the things we do.

Few of us are the privileged ones, that we can find love in life, I mean, everyone works, study, live and makes certain efforts for a basic necessity or survival, but we just don’t start loving what we do, we just simply do it because we must do it.

We do it in the automatic mode without paying attention to our privileges, without giving the value to our comfort or easy access, from small things like breading or walk, those things we take them for grounded, we don’t think or imagine even a parallel reality where we don’t have those small things in our life.

There are few of us that we manage to developed conscience and find that joy and eventually that love in what we do.

We all start by doing a minimum effort in what we must do, like dress up, eat, work, study. Then the necessity evolves to comfort, in this point, we don’t mind that from time to time we feel a little discomfort (long hours of transportation, bad lunch schedule, ‘normal’ harassment etc)  then we feel joy in what we do, that small feeling of tranquility even when we are in a discomfort part (extra hours, an argument, a gossip, etc)  then, there are only few that manage to eventually find love, that awareness of valance in what we do.

Awareness of your “efforts”, makes you feel good with you and with others around you, harmony around your daily-life a sense of happiness. 

There always discomfort moments that might make you rethink but end up deciding, not to stop, you to keep doing it, complaints are overcome by acceptance, injustice is overcome by actually find and apply that solution, the surviving pass into the thriving, that point is when you find individual love in life.

If you have achieved that feeling, means that probably family is also sorted out, (acceptable -no perfect idealistic- relation with mom, dad, sisters, brothers, uncles, aunts, cousins) almost work-love helps to finds balance and happiness in other aspects of our individual life (in this point is where humanitarian feelings start to grow) and is beautiful. 

For couples-love is almost inevitable that women face more difficulties in to find that love, evolving, acceptance, kindness that type love we all deserve.

The societal and cultural establishment even in 2019 still impose and picture “standard” of what is “romantic love” between the couple regardless of gender (general public still thinks that is nothing wrong to ask you about your loved ones, or ask you if are single, divorced or have a relationship. personal details are only ok, when you delivered them by your self without being forced to share it) a lot of general population believes that 14 of February is a special romantic day, that we are obligated to spend it in a couple. 

Tons of feminist movement (there are hundreds+ types o feminism or gender studies lines of research) have empowered us to not follow a stereotypical romantic kind of love, but still, we face tons of challenge trying to evolve and grow in a couple relationship.

With this I mean, yes we know arguments and disagreement are part of our human interaction, everyone has bad days or months or years, we are all have individuals efforts and in different circumstances, that we try to solve them in the most logical or rational way possible, by different ways of communication channels (still, we are the most, those who face trouble in keeping our mouth shut and listen more) but in the best circumstances, the growing up type, we developed humility and acceptance to the other person arguments, we developed understanding and set our limits.

Setting limits is never easy, cause that implies, a recognition of mutual feeling but different goals, that after mutual understanding realize that are never going to be compatible and then the letting-go part must be involved with acceptance, in that part is where we must set limits and those limits have a “never cross” warning on it.

Violence is defined by the World Health Organization as “the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person (...) that results in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment or deprivation” (WHO, 2002, p5 ) three parts are really important for me, the intentionality is going to be explained later, but the psychological harm and maldevelopment are the most important.

In the same report the WHO, recognize that “certain behaviors may be regarded by some people as an acceptable cultural practice, but are consider violent acts cause also have implications for the individual health” (WHO, 2002) here factors as culture or social background play a major role when victims (especially women) who are inside the relation are not having a clear understanding of what psychological violence and they are not having clear limits, that only helps to blurry the real aggressor behavior.

Justifying, exempting and accepting circumstances are only the first part to move out a violence circle, interpersonal violence ( intimate partner violence) can be also psychological, again the WHO understand the root of violence from an ecological model, divide by individual, relationship, community and societal, they take into account the following

Individual - behavior according to biological info, demographic, impulsivity, education, substance abuse and prior history of aggression.

Relationship - proximal social relations. 

Community - contexts in which social relationships are embedded, residential mobility, heterogeneity, population density, and geographical context.

Societal - factors that create an acceptable climate for violence, those that create gaps between groups. (norms that support violence, attitudes, health education, social inequality)  - (WHO, 2002, p 13)

In the relationship part, the inform mention that “in the cases of partner violence, interacting on an almost daily basis or sharing a common domicile with an abuser may increase the opportunity for violent encounters. Because individuals are bound together in a continuing relationship, the victim will repeatedly be abused by the offender” (WHO, 2002) here is why is really important to set limits by our self. 

Been aware of a certain situation and understanding the causes of violence might lead us to justify, exempt or accept violent behavior, especially from our partner, therefore from a public health model, a tertiary prevention model of violence are us, we are the one who set clear limits.

To criminal law, violence is related to a crime and in most of the “simple” cases implies an offender and a victim, the offender is pointed out to have committed a type of conduct that is punishable by law.

Then by the term justifying circumstance means, that the offender did commit an act against the law, but his context and motive made him/her react at “self-defense, defense of relatives, defense of stranger, state of necessity, fulfillment of duty and obedience to superior order” (Gregorio, 2012, p2) in general this type of causes lead the offender to less hard punishment. 

The term exempting circumstances implies “imbecility, insanity, minority, accident, the compulsion of irresistible force, impulse of an uncontrollable fear of an equal or great injury, lawful or insuperable cause” (Gregorio, 2012, p33) these cases also means less hard punishment, of course, the evidence of both require specific characteristics and circumstances that the jury and the judge will determine if it’s true or not.

The term acceptance means consenting to receive or undertake the action. these means that we fully know and we are aware of the causes, we know and recognizes the mistreatment but we still accepted. 

Then there is the question. let's picture a typical situation where two persons what to be together in a romantic-couple way, they are both grown-ups, they are both professional with a certain level of education and similar economic backgrounds.

Then one hurt the other, the one that is being offended and even is aware that it’s being hurt, keep contact, then eventually the one that commits the offense asked for an apology and a second chance, the 'victim' agree and try to forgive, then the other hurting situation happens again, committed from the similar way.

The offended argue that even she/he understand the motives and the facts of the hurting situation, is just a growing stage for them because they are trying to reconcile their difference and no there is nothing to be justified is just a different type of love.

Here is an example where the victim doesn’t set limits and the causes of that are because according to sociology slippery concepts of low self-esteem, Stockholm syndrome, codependency or traumatic bonding, learned helplessness (Krupka Zoe, 2016)

But then again we are blaming the victim, without recognizing the aggressor violent behavior or the Ecological-structural model that the WHO uses to analyze violence. 

And the point of this is, that we the “victims” should use this type of information to make the point to our aggressor, use this as evidence to analyze yourself, question if we are actually setting limits? we are blurring his/her behavior or we are again, repeating physiological patrons.

Para: Ti

[flytrendy5-blog]

In case you haven't seen we're surrounded by influencer advertising on all four sides.

Fly Trendy

We inhale and exhale influencer advertising constantly daily and many of us aren't completely conscious of what it is actually.

While the planet is modernizing along with also the people's voice expanding, we've divided into a new age of electronic advertising, a natural kind of promotion performed through influencers.

Fly Trendy

Influencer content might be framed as testimonial promotion where they play the part of a possible buyer , or they might be third parties.

It identifies the people that have influence on potential customers and orients marketing actions about these influencers.

Before we go into some details relating to this kind of advertising, an individual needs to clearly understand what it is.

What's influencer advertising? This type of marketing targets a person, instead of large groups of customers to marketing the brand's message.

The person here is called the'influencer' who's hired to get out the term for your own brand.

In this sport of influencer advertising, these influences might be the possible buyers .

They're linked to others about them and are looked to for guidance and opinions and therefore are considered powerful.

Content advertising and social websites marketing are considered to be the two big kinds of influencer advertising.

How can influence promoting work? These days, users provide more response to evaluations on social networking or remarks of a individual instead of thinking in ads.

This is made based on influencer advertising in which an influencer will write concerning the merchandise in their private and social stations.

People today are inclined to think what the influencers must say about some thing, over the press.

Many advertising companies don't have impact marketing in their radar because it such a exceptional procedure of the goods. Oftentimes, it is out of the management as more of a single voice takes hold instead of the typical static company advertisement.

Digital ads aren't given the exact same interactive and psychological response by the user.

The ratings and feedback on social websites about a certain product or brand adds heavily to the solution or manufacturer being showcased and will be your brand new product positioning platform.

Why is influencer advertising now larger than electronic advertisements? & How did this occur?

Most of us know which websites we hope and distrust and in many cases simply by the topic header.

Conventional networking is scrambled with misinformation as well as the overall consumer prefer to interact with their merchandise or services of attention on a societal level.

Consumers do not purchase merchandise or services unless they're totally assured that the solution or service is ideal for their needs whatsoever.

It's thought that in case you happen to influence the brain, you've got the world on your hands and that is what influencers do.

Much dedication and nurturing have become building those links.

If it comes to establishing connections and developing a positive message about a particular brand that's where influencer advertising has a higher standard when compared with electronic advertising.

Like the world has changed to social websites, customers seem upon at fellow users to notify their purchasing choices.

The Growth of the Social Networking influencer has created a universe of possibilities;

It's opened a flood of new waterworks for manufacturers to contact consumers directly and also on a bigger scale via more organic all-natural promoting method of sway like a brand new era word .

Provides a much better description using an online messaging platform. With every social networking interaction or response, it boosts the chance for countless more people to look at your message during the social links in social own network.

While electronic advertisements are exclusively comprised of exact details regarding the merchandise, an influencer strategy to the marketplace has its own methods of bringing people with the precise description and information concerning the goods and solutions at a more interactive, customer arena, which has a natural life to the concept.

Influencers are reliable to supply the updated details of the goods or services they're managing and the message may also be gradually released over several days weeks or even months.

It's regarded as the task of an influence to collect up all of the things concerning the advertising campaign and forwards that message to the customers.

To guarantee that, the influencers are usually compensated for their occupation. If not paid, then they're provided with incentives from the company they're working for or sometimes sharing articles with their readership for no other reason than to instruct and to promote interaction among the community.

Unlike electronic ads the majority of the time influencers are"not promoting anything" and are just sharing information to produce a more positive network of sway or to encourage involvement and discussion on subjects that could help. They may opt to follow along with other procedures of communicating like an email newsletter to market products or services an marketing solutions.

When comparing social marketing to electronic advertisements, I kind of side by side contrast, a static digital advertisement doesn't offer depth as they consist of banner ads and poster kind advertisements and don't have any notion oriented objective.

The aged and outdated information will soon turn off consumers.

 Where ads might be nothing more than making stories up or exaggerations from the sight of numerous customers, individuals are very likely to trust their fellow buddies and society when they inform them about a particular item.

That is when influencers form connections so as to promote the marketplace;

The influence campaigns help a whole lot in the method The earned trust assists the marketplace to flourish, after all, advertising relies on gaining customers trust so let us get the customers interact with the concept.

Much simpler

Influencer advertising is a far simpler and easier method of advertising compared to electronic advertising marketing.

Not merely is the method of bringing people easier but the manner of really putting up it doesn't need many attempts aside from the imaginative component.

In this age where every thing is made easier by the world wide web, successful marketing was created an achievable task from the societal platforms and internet facilities.

The internet facility can help to link people worldwide.

Market grows faster

Aside from becoming a more straightforward method of advertising, influencer marketing can help to increase up markets in a fantastic speed.

Everything ought to be made as straightforward as possible but much simpler.

- Albert Einstein

The influencer manner of promotion has an edge of performing wonders online that helps to link influencers with individuals from all around the world.

Any questions about a merchandise are instantly facilitated and generally a whole lot more valued than an email, support ticket reaction or another kind Q&A shipping.

Could it be social networking or articles driven marketplace, individuals get the answers to a number of the questions about a item instantly in influencer advertising and even more perspective the remark responses producing the viewership very extraordinary.

In the event of social networking marketing where the advertising is put on most of the often used social websites, individuals get to learn about other remarks about goods, which greatly assists them amount up any buying decisions.

Aside from that, they're also linked to others on the social websites (that in this instance behaves like influencers) who informs them about many products and hence solves numerous questions.

In the instance of the articles driven market influencers are there to react to some questions of their customers. In this manner any doubts regarding a product are eliminated.

It is strong. Yet straightforward.

Influencer markets are strong in their own method. The material shared with influence is strong and authentic. They have the capacity to gain people's trust and dependence, all that's necessary.

Ideas and opinions are shared via influencer markets and improved connections are made even with customers that live miles apart.

"The advertising roots with almost any social network are quite robust and aren't simple to cut down"

The writings can perform wonders

All the bloggers, writers, content authors, CEO's out there is the industry correctly through their writings that depend upon signs, opinions, and thoughts of several customers.

These bits of writings are a lot more convincing than the electronic advertisements that include a few images and slogans. The writings discuss the feedback and remarks of different people and influencers that can be a quality that electronic advertisements market certainly lags. We just could have seen that the peak of the market for electronic advertisements and advertisements.

The Benefit of movies

Digital advertisements that normally is made up of posters and banner ads have come to be less upsetting when the societal media is full of videos about the goods.

Living objects are more appealing than lives. Influencers have begun using movies within their contents to affect the people that is turning out to be just another plus point of the influencer advertising.

Stars as Influencers

Consumers are affected greatly when their favourite actors article about a particular item.

It is now an increasing field of influencer advertising that stars function as influencers to pull people towards a particular item. Like tv advertisements, where actors function as influencers, they're made influences on societal websites today where they article about how they've come to be the clients to a specific item.

This clinic doesn't require any convincing as a lot of people will believe in the character of the item when their favourite celebrity purchases it.

Online comments

When influence marketplace is on social websites the feedbacks of these customers becomes really critical for promotion purposes. The marketplace develops with favorable feedbacks, and additionally, it shrinks whenever the feedbacks aren't in the favor of all their merchandise and services.

People today think greatly from the evaluations and internet opinions of their customers.

Influencer advertising is mainly driven by this idea of internet evaluations and involvement and consequently is quickly growing.

Honest opinions

Consumers appreciate remarks and thoughts over ads.

In the realm of influencer advertising, the remarks of individuals behave as influencers about the societal websites and therefore are equally as significant.

Otherwise all then the majority of the feedback and opinions of individuals about a certain product or service are fair.

Locating honest opinions about something, a individual, or a provider can buy the item.

In the event of digital advertisements advertising, there are barely any remarks shared since the advertising platform doesn't allow for such interaction.

Time efficient

Influencer marketing is instantaneous and is only dependent on the established connection between the influencer and their own network.

[this-is-not-a]

I don’t believe in politics

I have politics. I think we need to tax the rich and use that money to help the poor. I think that includes the ultra-rich but also working rich like me. I think we need to regulate industries which when unregulated are shown to have detrimental societal effects. And I think we need to fund research into what kinds of things have detrimental societal effects so that we’re not just strong-armed by major players in those industries. I think that whatever regulations we come up with shouldn’t be so strong that people are no longer motivated and excited to build businesses, and I think that it’s good for industrial people to be monetarily compensated for their industriousness, but that at a certain point they have been compensated enough and that money would be better spent helping those less well off.

But here’s the truth. I have never really believed in politics. I have never felt like it matters to my day-to-day who the president is. I have never felt like either of the two large parties represent my interests. I have never felt like any political movements outside of the two large parties have any realistic chance of affecting large scale change. I have been told that local politics is the only real politics and yet I have never been to a city council meeting. I am supportive of protesters but I don’t expect their success.

When Trump was president I maintained that he for the most part was enacting normal Republican policies, and the most pervasive criticism of him, though it was not put this way, was that he doesn’t think before saying things. And I still believe this. Every accusation that Trump is a racist or sexist more or less breaks down into a) he said some racist or sexist stuff without thinking about it and b) he simultaneously supports some normal Republican policy which is argued to lead to regressive outcomes.

Even when Trump supporters attempted to impede the final confirmation of Biden’s election victory, it still didn’t seem real. Even as every news outlet, all of my friends, all of my social media was talking about it, whether or not to call it a riot, a protest, or a coup, what it said about the double standard of police, the double standard of progressives, or the double standard of conservatives – even then, it didn’t seem real. On the contrary, it felt like the series finale of Game of Thrones was on: it was an exciting, public, cultural moment, which was also fictional and conceptually distant from anything actually affecting me. Even a friend in DC told me it was remarkable how little disturbance there was to anything not near the actual Capitol building. In fact, “thousands” of protesters is not very many people. Even the upper bound of ten thousand is not very many people. The US is not literally on fire. And whether or not you call it a “coup” does not change the ineptitude of the operation through the lens of actual revolution, to the point where it begins to make more sense to view it as something closer to a sporting event / renaissance fair.

To be fair, I do think Trump’s inciting of this event was totally unprecedented, not at all a normal Republican tactic, and also as people have been saying, absolutely predictable given the last four years. Though maybe I differ from the Twitter armchair experts in that my armchair analysis is that this is more about class war and the partisan divide than the white power movement.

But now that Biden’s term has started it has reminded me again that I really still don’t believe in politics. That the president has changed, and the biggest shift in my life is that I no longer get to be the contrarian pointing out the president sucks but not for the reasons you think he does, and now have to revert back to just pointing out that the president sucks.

And you’re saying, hey, if you feel like the policies set by our government don’t affect you, maybe that’s because they don’t. And maybe they don’t because you have the privilege of being well educated, well off, having a strong safety net, being raised in a safe place, having your health, and facing more or less no oppression. And if you cared about other people who are experiencing this oppression, maybe then you would care about politics. Maybe then you would do something about it. There’s a goddamn pandemic. Trump dropped the ball. Who knows if a Democrat president would have done a better job and avoided 400,000 deaths. Maybe even a more normal Republican president would have done a better job. Three times as many Americans are out of a job than in the 2008 recession. They’re waiting for stimulus money to come in. Most Americans have less than $5000 saved up. This $2000 is going to feed people. It’s going to save lives. I mean not literally, because our welfare services are good enough that very few people literally starve in the US. But improving lots of people’s lives is also an objectively good thing to do, you don’t have to go all the way to literal life-saving. And stimulus money and COVID response are just a few examples of real life change that depends on politics. Lives are at stake.

Well okay. Sometimes I do think I’m better than other people on social media because I’m not getting as worked up about politics. Sometimes I do vaguely feel that smart people who understand what’s really going on and aren’t just getting swept up in trendy politics are less angry about the scandal of the week and What It Says About Society. That those who can get over initial tribalistic emotional responses to things end up having a more Pinker-esque optimistic view. That in the grand scheme of things, short term political movements mean a lot less than scientific achievements gradually raising the water line. That getting worried about them is a waste of energy insofar as it’s just worry, and even if you are the 1 in 50 people who actually translates that worry into action, even the action tends to be a fairly ineffective use of your time.

But I do also think it’s important for me to remember that policies affect the real world. And to the credit of people who get worked up about politics, I think a major strength you have over me is that you remember this all the time. You’re absolutely right that a lot of policies don’t impact me because I’m not very oppressed. Even almost all of my social circle (queer children of immigrants who are minorities) is not very oppressed. But I know oppression exists. Maybe it’s not enough to just vote in elections. Maybe we should be in the streets and on the phones. Maybe the US is sort of on fire and having a measured response isn’t all that valuable.

And at this point I would just like to say, congratulations on ALMOST understanding our place in the world as Americans. Because the truth is that the US is sort of on fire. In fact, the whole world is sort of on fire, and the US is one of the least on fire places to be. US residents estimate that the global median income is $20,000 a year. In fact, it’s $2100 a year. The US is the out-of-touch 1% of the world.

Here’s my thought process when I encounter US political angst on social media. First: this is a dumb thing to get upset about. Second: But I guess it’s good that you care about the wellbeing of others. Third: Except if you care about the wellbeing of others, then in the grand scheme of things, this is not the thing you should be getting upset about.

Sure, sometimes I forget that US politics matters. But then when I see people acting like the reason it matters is because they care about other people, I start to become more confused. I do think people care about other people, but I also think they are extremely prone to just reacting to whatever media is beamed into their eyes, and so unless they work really hard to curate those beams, they end up saying and writing things which hit this weird inconsistent type of caring that looks like virtue-signaling to outsiders, but which I try to understand as being just a non-rigorous, emotional, plea for connection -- a sort of “I’m hurting, do other people feel this way?”

And then at the same time, these people know in the back of their heads that there’s a lot of people in the world who have it really bad, whose lives could be improved if they donated small amounts of their wealth to effective causes. And I start to think, these people don’t think global poverty is real! I mean, they don’t think it doesn’t exist, it’s just not real to them the way US politics are. It doesn’t take them on an emotional journey. It’s not beamed directly into their eyeballs. And it’s not chic to care about. 400,000 deaths? So one year of global Malaria? $2000 stimulus? So one year of median global income? I’m not saying that greater pain invalidates lesser pain, I’m just asking you to have some perspective before you come telling me to have some perspective.

So what do we do? Well, there’s the Giving What We Can Pledge. I took this when I first got a job outside college and have since donated over 10% of my income every year to effective global charities. Peter Singer advocates for a sliding scale which makes sense to me -- 10% means a lot more to people with less than me. And that money can save literal lives (at a much higher rate than it can in the US). It’s not popular because it’s not easy. I mean it is functionally very easy to do, but it’s not easy to walk yourself to a place where you want to. I mean it’s your money, and you probably already help the less fortunate in other ways.

But it is political in a way that is very real. It’s political in the way that investing in education is political. Deworming children (for about 30 cents each) so they can attend school and to avoid organ damage has been shown to dramatically increase their life outcomes. Delivering Vitamin A supplements (for about 1 dollar each) substantially reduces child mortality. It is an apolitical good.

I wrote this because I was frustrated. The thing that improves the world is never the thing that people are talking about. If everyone took the GWWC pledge, we would have enough money to solve global poverty, eliminate all treatable diseases, fund research into the untreatable ones for approximately the next forever, educate anybody who needs educating, feed anybody who needs feeding, fund an unparalleled renaissance in the arts, permanently save every rainforest in the world, and have enough left over to launch five or six different manned missions to Mars. And that’s using just 1 year’s donations. Yet people, global one-percenters nonetheless, seem to continue getting angry about things that matter less.

I wrote this because in real life I would only ever be supportive of someone wanting to get involved politically. I am a firm believer that the war is not to be fought between people who both want to help but in different ways, but between those who want to do something and the apathetic. If you want to get on social media and harness political rage as a way to enact eventual policy change to help people, then in theory I’d like to support it.

I wrote this because I wanted to express the tiring thing about your politics to me. That it’s all lies. It’s all half-true stories being published and publicized. News which is sold because it’s what people are buying. It matters, it doesn’t matter. And none of it’s real, except it’s all real, it’s just not happening to you. But in the end there are still other people, and they are still our neighbors, and we do still want the best for them. So it is good to keep trying. Maybe even consider adopting radical politics like me. Take matters into your own hands and seize the power to do good by recognizing that we the one-percenters of the world already have it.

[tannerlansky1-blog]

Blog#1:A

Gambari: "In daily life, the Japanese use the term Gambari very often, and this overuse seems to point to certain Japanese characteristics, some of which have negative effects." (p. 83)

From a personal perspective, I grew up in a setting where people were always pushing me to be a better person, they would always tell me to keep working my hardest until I achieved my goal (obtaining a bachelors degree) and it would often be overwhelming and cause me to struggle to keep my head straight and achieve my goals because of the constant re-assertion from my family and peers to keep pushing me forward. In American society, I feel that people are getting more "soft' and family and peers try not to push their kids/friends too hard and are ok with what they do or accomplish. This is more noticeable in parents with their kids than it is with grandparents with their grandchildren. This could be because in the past, occupation, marriage, and success were the three main driving factors in society and since then it is more common for people to not have a full-time occupation from a trade, or degree and more and more people are not getting married. In Japan, with the constant overuse of this term I feel it is negatively impacting people because everyone is expecting some sort of standard from each-other, that if one cannot fulfill their goals/duties they feel like they are not part of the "norm" and are a disgrace/ashamed for not being able to hold themselves up to their peers standards. 

"the monk who does not work should not eat' (Japan); 'All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.' (America)." (p. 85)

When I was younger growing up in poverty I help myself strictly to the belief that pulling my weight is essential to success. I would constantly just work and work without giving myself a chance to enjoy my youth and free time. It wasn't until I got to college and my scholarship program showed us the importance of hard work but they also went into depth on the importance of "play" and to enjoy oneself. Once I was able to realize that there is a healthy balance to "work and play" I was able to feel like a normal person and have fun while still being able to achieve my goals. This also goes for the American society. When people are accustomed to work only, they live their lives with high stress and anxiety which is unhealthy and can lead to health/ societal issues. People have learned to accept this and also try to balance business and pleasure. In Japan, however, this is not the case. They feel there is some sort of disgrace if they are not constantly bettering themselves to reach their personal goals/accomplishments. Saying that Japanese people just want to pull their weight in society is a complete understatement. They constantly find work to do that even though it may not be related to themselves, it will help out their close family/ society. They never seem to reach a sense of fulfillment because of the overuse of the term.

Kenkyo: "Although a sense of egalitarianism seems to be growing today, people are still conscious of these hierarchies." (p.144)

I personally do not fully understand how to address my peers/elders/mentors. However, I am able to make the distinction between the hierarchies, I was never fully taught the importance, or how to address the members of each hierarchy. This is also true for American society. I believe this is solely due to the fact of lack of education. If you look at Ivy league and religious schools from a decade or two ago, there was a strict definition/ universal code of how you should address who you are talking to or else you would be punished. Nowadays, schools are becoming very laid back and do not teach this to the kids anymore. and people from middle- to-low class families probably do not have the proper education of this so they cannot really teach it to their own kids. In Japan, this may also be the case, as technology is advancing, they are becoming more connected with the outside world and see how other cultures are also evolving and adapting. this could possibly be the cause of them slipping up and conforming with the idea of egalitarianism.

"The expression of humility in English is kind of an understatement, within the spirit of 'you and I are equals.' Japanese modesty, on the other hand, carries a connotation of 'I'm your inferior' through the expression of negative self-images." (p.147)

As I was growing up people had me accustomed to the idea of "humble yourself". This idea was that everyone is the same, and we all make mistakes. Own up to who you are and accept others how they are. This can be seen throughout American society. I vaguely remember a book we read in our high school where the characters were in a war setting and on of the "disposable" foot soldiers was talking to his peers while watching a highly decorated "tyrant-like" leader and he said something along the lines of: even though they were from the complete opposite ends of the spectrum, they both had to use the same latrines. This is one of my favorite examples to use when I think of "humbling myself to the fact that "we are equals." In Japan however, there is a clear line between the hierarchies and when a lower-class is address an upper-class, the lower class makes it very clear and apparent that they are the underling and have full respect for their higher-up. I see this portrayed in Asian-style films where the inferior pupil will normally not even make eye contact with the higher class, especially when they have done something wrong/shameful.

Amae: "Amae is vital for getting along with others in Japan and is the basis for maintaining harmonious relationships in which children depend on their parents, younger people rely on their elders, grandparents depend on adult children, and so on." (p. 17)

I feel that I am able to understand Amae a little bit when it comes to everyday life. There is a clear understanding in my family that we know who has to rely on who in order to get through everyday life. Without this harmonious balance, it is really easy for things to go south really fast. We have experienced this many times and it is not until we reach the harmony again, that everything returns to normal. I feel like this is also the case for most American families. Most people understand the concept but they do not always follow it strictly and when that happens, it is when most of the time things can fall apart. Sometimes eventually to the point where there is no coming back and establishing this balance and harmony again. In Japan, I feel like this is an important term and can probably go hand-in-hand with the term Gambari. In Asian culture it is common for families to live together in one house just for this reason. It is an endless cycle of need and harmony between everyone just as the quote suggests. The thought process is simple, the children need a parent in order to survive and succeed. Younger people need their elders to teach them from their own past experiences and finally grandparents need their adult children to help take care of them whether it is running errands for them or just keeping them company through their hard times.

"Dependency among adults is commonly seen in Japanese society, as in relationships such as those between husband and wife, teacher and student, and doctor and patient." (p.19) 

This is understandable because I would not be where I am today without this type of dependency being present in my life. My sole understanding of this type of dependency has allowed me to learn and understand the rest of how society works in order to succeed myself. In American society, however, I feel like the distinct lines between relationships are fading and people are losing their sense of this dependency. There has been a lack of respect and acknowledgement between the relationships people have with their peers. This is because of religion, education, probably even past experiences. In Japan, this dependency is essential. A student will never not listen, or do the opposite of what their teacher has told them to do. This shows in "Jiro" with Jiro's apprentice and how he talks with such respect about Jiro. It is most likely considered a waste of time to not see and respect the underlying dependency society has on eachother.

Honne to tatemae: "For example, when a person is visiting someone's house in Japan and it becomes time for supper, people will often say,' won't you dine with us?' But this is not really an invitation; rather it is a subtle hint that it is time to go home." (p. 116)

I was always taught that this is the polite thing to say when I have company come over around dinner time. This is the same for American society as well. However, in American society most people see this as an actual invitation and will more than likely stay for dinner. This is were the term "southern hospitality" has become popular. The idea is that what is mine is yours and what is yours is mine. Most people will probably not find this as being rude or intrusive for this reason. In Japan, this is seen as being intrusive and the proper response is simply "No, thank you" but this is well known as being a "no-no." Japanese culture has been able to master when this type of behavior is not okay because of the strict and distinct use of the "honne' and "tatemae."

"People switch easily and skillfully between the two and are rarely aware that they can cause misunderstandings and confusion among people who are not accustomed to this way of interacting." (p.116)

It is not always easy for me to read a situation and find our what the actual proper response is supposed to be without hurting someone's feelings. This means that most times conversations are always volatile in American society and it is not always easy finding the correct response. In Japan, since they have the clear distinction it is easy for them to inter-operate just fine with ease, but when talking to someone from a different culture it is often hard to find the proper communication without both parties being confused due to the lack of a clear-line between the situations.

[lewyn-martell]

Let me start this review off with a miniature literature lecture. Charles Baudelaire was a crazy French poet who was an aspiring lawyer but decided to drop it all and become the archetypal struggling artist. He borrowed money extensively and spent them on booze and whores. Of course, he burnt out and died from overdrinking alcohol but he left behind a grand literary legacy. His poetry was vulgar, decadent and entirely brilliant, inspiring a movement called the Symbolist movement. But rather than focus on Baudelaire, let’s focus on another poet called Rimbaud (Takao also reads him). Rimbaud became and avid fan of Baudelaire. He was a young teenager and felt trapped in his parent’s home. He frequently ran away from home and eventually moved to Paris to join the Symbolist movement there. The most important thing he preached was the theory of the voyant. Rimbaud believed that a true poet (the voyant, or seer) could only achieve the pinnacle of his art with what he called ‘the derangement of the senses’. He believed that a poet had to achieve every kind of evil and suffering, to make his own soul into a monster. He saw Baudelaire as the first voyant in the whole of poetic history. Of course Rimbaud took the same path of decadence Baudelaire took. His poetic career only lasted 5 years, yet he wrote works that are widely read by the French public even to this day. After his 5 years in Paris, he spontaneously decided to travel to Africa and in the end became an arms dealer. He died of a sickness he caught overseas. Finally let’s go to an era that’s closer to our time, around 1940s – 1950s in America. A group of Literature students in Colombia University felt sick to their stomach about the actions of the US government and about life in general. Of course, I’m referring to the Beat Generation. Allen Ginsberg’s famous “Howl” and Jack Kerouac’s famous “On the Road” became a cult classic, leading to the rise of an entire new counterculture movement altogether. The most important thing is that the members of the Beat Generation were influenced by Rimbaud. When one reads On the Road reads up about the lives of Beat Generation writers, the main theme running among them all is spontaneity and anarchic freedom. They aimed to flout the rules and societal norms as much as possible and to lead a life of utmost chaos. After reading a couple of the reviews posted on this manga, I see the same things repeated again and again. I see people reading it as a manga about Femdom and they claim the plot is unoriginal because the “sadistic girl forcing the guy to make a contract” has been done before. On the other hand I saw the work as a completely differently thing altogether. Of course it requires a certain mindset to see this perspective. There are those people who take a look at the society they live in and genuinely hate it to the very core. They see people who live lives of unhappiness and die unfulfilled. They get the impression that everyone is socially isolated from everyone. They see people indulging in stupid pleasures like dirty jokes and momentary experiences like karaoke sessions. They think chasing after stuff like wealth and cars are just another form of escapism and self-delusion. They dream of running away to Woodstock in the 1960s and spending 3 days of freedom and drugs and rock and roll. They dream of following the footsteps of street artist Banksy and spraying paint and art all over the walls of the city. They think that people are only truly free when they are free to run around in fields, to scream, to have cathartic moment after cathartic moment, to ride On the Road without limits and without care. They don’t like the obligations they have towards society and think it’s a complete waste of time, to live such a myopic lifestyle. Of course, all this is like simple Anarchist theory. You can read more about these sorts of theories of human freedom in things like the works Situationist International and the movie My Dinner with Andre. What I see Aku no Hana as is a portrait, a representation of the burden (and it is a huge burden) and yet simultaneous beauty of leading the lifestyle of sin Baudelaire and Rimbaud once led. Nakamura isn’t just a sadistic BDSM queen; she’s a representation of that lifestyle, a symbol. Takao submits to her because the sheer thrill of their exploits is a form of exaltation. Likewise, I was drawn towards the glimpse of that lifestyle, two people doing things I could never have done and looking so unbelievably joyous in their carnage. Normally I classify works under two forms. One is a work that is a beautiful illusion, a work of fiction that is perfect in every way for escapism and sentiment, drawing out simple emotions. Things like melodramas and thrillers and comedies fall under this territory. Then there are those that have glimpses of direct, real lived experience within them, those works that can give you bits and pieces of life. These are the works that will enrapture your soul and depress you because they capture just a mere iota of a full experience that you know is currently out of your reach or force you to confront a dire reality. Things like Welcome to the NHK, Subarashii Sekai (by Inio Asano), Synecdoche New York, All About Lily Chou Chou, Fight Club (to a small extent, it’s more of a thriller). It didn’t pick up though until that first event in the classroom. The ultimate glimpse of pure anarchist delight embodied in the two dancing adolescent youths. There’s a certain mindset that you need to have before entering such works, the mindset that you are both lonely and damned, the twisted romantic view of life. Aku no Hana is a work for dreamers. The first step is to not see the main characters superficially as a mere twisted couple mimicked in many other stories but representatives of different aspects of humanity. Anarchy, conformity, angst, spite, jealousy, rebellion are all present. Seeing past all the standard critiques, it’s not a matter of clichés or characterization at all, in the end it all comes down to how much you empathize with that beautiful vision of anarchic self-destruction. This review may sound like it comes from a complete sociopath (Most likely. I had Fleurs du Mal and Rimbaud's Complete works before I even knew of the manga. Also I'm one of those hopeless dreamers who plans to live some kind of struggling artist life in the future) but this is just a single perspective that may perhaps change some people's views when engaging with this manga (I hope).

— by czxcjx