#need higher skill level for that (the skill level being readiness to be perceived by my neighbours probably)

[flowercrowngods]

anyone else feel like your apartment is like an open world map you gradually unlock or are y’all normal

[hrblusky]

Learning and Development Post Covid 

During 2020 the Fosway Group conducted rapid research on the perceived impact of Covid-19 on learning and development. Responses from 108 companies opened several critical areas for discussion. 

The key findings were: 

94% felt it necessary to change strategy around what they did and how they did it; 

Only 12% felt that learning and development would go back to what it was before the pandemic or were unsure of what the future would hold; 

The most successful support platform for learning and development during the pandemic was the virtual classroom; 

Delivery modes moved, with the most important being video, curated content, mobile and micro-learning; 

4 out of 5 organizations saw increased demand for digital learning from senior management; 

A higher demand for digital learning was felt by 71% of organizations; 

84% thought it was important to integrate corporate communication platforms such as MS Teams with digital learning provision. 

Let’s look at the potential implications of these findings on the future landscape of learning and development. 

1. Need to amend the strategy 

Limits placed on socializing meant that both internal and external live classroom training ceased almost immediately once Covid was designated a worldwide pandemic. Mirroring the move from face-to-face meetings to online meetings, training also moved from the class to virtual collaboration platforms. 

The move online explains the “what they did” part of the findings; the “how they did it” part required a significant re-think in the design and content of learning solutions. Virtual classes need a great deal of thought on ensuring participant engagement, equality of access and contribution, and ways of assessing the learning taking place. 

Not every organization had a robust digital strategy; those with a mature digital strategy could cope more effectively as base skills and policies were already in place. 

A key message to take away is the importance of learning and development teams having a core strategy flexible enough to be amended as business dynamics change. 

2. Future direction 

Some organizations have certainty around how they see the future of learning and development. Confidence exists in those who have a base strategy in place, the skills needed to pivot their approach, and a business model already encompassing longer-term hybrid or remote working. 

However, there are other organizations for whom the future was less clear. The research was completed in May 2020, and it would be interesting to see how this finding has changed over time. With the availability of vaccines and control policies, organizations are starting to reconsider readiness to move some learning and development interventions back into the classroom. 

This finding is one area where the jury is still out on a final judgement of the direction's organizations will choose. At a practical level, it’s clear that training is best done face to face in some cases, even on the job. 

3. The rise of the virtual classroom platform 

Virtual classroom platforms such as Blackboard and Webex have been around for many years. The pandemic ushered in a new era of remote working, and the use of virtual platforms has expanded exponentially. Technologies such as Zoom and MS Teams took the lead in both meetings and education. Many organizations used these platforms to deliver virtual class sessions in place of live classes, and it was seen as the most supportive platform during the pandemic. 

As trainers have become more comfortable with the technology, it’s fair to suggest that this form of delivery is likely to remain at a high level in future. One serious issue remains that could cloud the use of virtual classes, which is the question of design. Few organizations have had time to properly design effective learning solutions to suit the new delivery model, but solutions must be designed specifically for the virtual environment to be truly effective. 

4. Changes in delivery modes 

The assessment that video, curated content, mobile and micro-learning are the leading modes of delivery has supported a trend that has been in place for some time. Preference is towards learning in the flow of work, accessibility at any time, short and focused content, personalization and engagement. These modes of delivery are likely to continue to be firm favorites in future. 

5. Senior management support for digital learning 

On the one hand, most learning and development leaders will be relieved that they no longer must convince management of digital learning benefits; on the other hand, management had no choice when the pandemic hit. 

Looking at this positively, we can hope that this experience has signaled a permanent change in perception and support for digital learning from the top. If so, senior-level support will secure budgets and help create an authentic learning culture. 

6. Employee comfort with digital learning 

Employees previously reticent to embrace digital learning had no other choice during the pandemic. Although some may still prefer the face-to-face option, many will likely continue to see digital learning as a support for their development and lifelong learning goals. 

Critical to future success is adopting a strategy that focuses on learning in the flow of work. Learning professionals must broaden their role to support employee knowledge and development and introduce new areas of content. Examples of content shift during the pandemic have included the need for subjects such as working remotely, handling work/life balance, engaging in a remote environment, and managing a remote workforce. 

7. Integration of learning and development solutions with the flow of work 

As employees have become more familiar with regularly using technology for communication and learning, learning and development professionals have sometimes struggled to create a seamless experience. 

Software companies have seen the rise in digital learning and capitalised by adding learning-specific features into their systems. The coming together of circumstances supports the drive towards improving employee experience via seamless access to information and technology. Finding ways to integrate learning and development with existing collaboration platforms is a natural step. 

Further work is needed to support diversity and inclusion by looking at where learning and development can link to all employee life elements from recruitment to performance and retirement. 

In summary, the learning and development profession has pivoted into a new reality. The pandemic has created challenges but also great opportunities. Many of the changes made will ensure that learning and development have a voice and can influence and guide decisions that create an impactful learning culture and drive their organization to success. 

Contact us at HRBluSky today to explore how we can support you in managing your learning and development needs. 

[ouyangzizhensdad]

On the importance of MianMian: musings on the differences between the novel and CQL (PART 2/2)

If you haven’t already, please read through part one first, otherwise this will probably not be very cohesive or comprehensible. There is also some bonus meta because I keep having thoughts about MianMian. 

In part one, I contrasted MianMian’s first appearance in the novel and the web series in order to show how MianMian’s characterisation and position within her society were established quite differently in both works. In this post, I will explore the domino effect of those adaptation choices, as well as consider how the two subsequent appearances of MianMian in the novel got translated into a visual format in CQL. Through this exercise, my goal is not only to illuminate the depth and significance of this minor character in the novel, but also to argue that the way her scenes were adapted in CQL ultimately reduced the impact of the character and excised many of the nuances put into her portrayal despite increasing her presence in the work. 

(although kudos to CQL for casting Ann Wang because I do not get tired of looking at her face: look at that smile 😳) 

The Servant’s Daughter Valued Jin Cultivator Standing up to a Room of Powerful Cultivators

In the novel, we meet MianMian for a second time after the Sunshot campaign has ended. Cultivators from the main sects and allied sects (including some who used to be loyal to the Wens!) are discussing at Jinlintai Wei Wuxian’s actions after he protected the Wens and set up residence on Mass Grave Hill. By that time, it appears her position in her sect, and even her sect’s position, has grown. We can speculate as to why (my personal take is that MianMian proved herself during the war and that her sect is one of the sect who pledged loyalty to the Jin and gained influence as a result). What is important is that she goes from someone who is so inconsequential she might have not even have been a disciple yet when we met her to someone who stands next to a sect leader (who we can safely assume in this context to be her sect leader). A lot is hinted about her character and what she experienced since we last saw her through that small and innocuous detail. 

Suddenly, a careful voice interjected, “It’s not killing indiscriminately, is it?”

Lan Wangji seemed to have entered a realm of zen that blocked all of his senses. Hearing this, however, he moved, looking over. The one who spoke was a young woman with a fair face, standing beside one of the sect leaders.     

I will not repeat here the entirety of her speech, which highlights the hypocrisy and the bad faith of the sects, and particularly the Jin sect’s unwillingness to shoulder any blame for their deplorable treatment of the Wens. Instead, I find important to highlight how the other cultivators present react to MianMian based on her positionality. 

First, MianMian’s opinions are undercut by the people present due to the fact that she is a woman. Her motivations for speaking out are reduced to the irrational ramblings of a maiden in love.

“You can stop arguing,” someone sneered suddenly. “We don’t want to hear the comments of someone who has other motives.”

The woman’s face flushed. 

“Explain things,” she said, raising her voice. “What do you mean, that I have other motives?”

“There’s no need for me to say anything. You know deep down and we know too. You fell for him back in the cave of the Xuanwu just because he flirted with you? You’re still arguing for him, calling white black no matter how irrational it is. Ha, women will always be women.”

The incident of Wei Wuxian saving a damsel in distress in the cave of the Xuanwu was indeed once a topic of conversation. Thus, many people realized immediately that this young woman was ‘MianMian’.

At once, somebody murmured, “So that’s why. Explains how she’s so desperate as to speak up for Wei Wuxian…”

“Irrational?” she fumed. “Calling white black? I’m just being considerate as it stands. What does it have to do with the fact that I’m a woman? You can’t be rational with me so you’re attacking me with other things?”

Then, when members of her own sect disparage her for speaking up, they suggest that her place in the discussion, in this palace of gilded power and privilege, is ultimately illegitimate or at the very least incredibly easy to render illegitimate.

“Stop wasting your time on her. That this kind of person actually belongs to our sect, that she was even able to find her way into the Golden Pavilion; I feel ashamed standing alongside her.

Many of those who spoke against her were from the same sect.

In this situation, not even her fellow sect members are willing to come to her defense or to give her the benefit of the doubt; she is to be shamed and separated from them, lest her actions reflect badly on their own standing. 

MianMian’s choice to leave her sect behind is meaningful because she is not privileged. She does not have anyone powerful in her corner to back her up. She does not have many options; people act like she should be glad to even have made it this far, and we can infer that she only achieved her current position due to her skills and hard work. It is also meaningful because she is making that choice while knowing that she’s giving up on the privileges of the social position that she has worked to achieve. The fact that she is giving up on something big is highlighted by the reactions of many cultivators after her departure, who think she will come crawling back to find once more the security and privilege of the position she left behind.

Saying nothing, MianMian turned around and left. A while later, someone laughed. “If you’re taking it off, then don’t put it on again, if you’re so capable!”

“Who does she think she is… leaving as she pleases? Who cares? What is she trying to prove?”

Soon, some began to agree, “Women will always be women. They quit just after you say a few harsh words. She’ll definitely come back on her own, a couple of days later.”

“There’s no doubt. After all, she finally managed to turn from the daughter of a servant to a disciple, haha…”

Beyond what it means for her characterisation and the themes explored in the novel, this moment is significant because there are clear parallels between how she is treated in that moment and how WWX is talked about for protecting the Wen remnants and, later, for ‘deserting’ the Jiang sect. In fact, just before MianMian speaks out, sect leaders call WWX a “servant” and the “son of a servant” when underlying the ‘nerve’ of his ‘arrogance’ toward the sects with his actions. 

One of the sect leaders added, “To be honest, I’ve wanted to say this since a long time ago. Although Wei Wuxian did a few things during the Sunshot Campaign, there are many guest cultivators who did more than him. I’ve never seen anyone as full of themselves as him. Excuse my bluntness, but he’s the son of a servant. How could the son of a servant be so arrogant?”

These passages are also reminiscent of the way WWX is discussed by cultivators celebrating his death in the prologue:

“That’s right, good riddance! If the YunmengJiang sect had not adopted him, educated him—this Wei Ying would have been a mediocre scoundrel all his life, nothing but riffraff…… what else could he be! The former head of the Jiang clan treated him as his own son, but what a son! [...]”

“I can’t believe Jiang Cheng really let this arrogant manservant live for so long. If it were me, when this Wei first defected, I wouldn’t have just stabbed him; I’d have cleaned house straight away. Then he wouldn’t have had the opportunity to commit all those deranged acts later. When it comes to these sorts of people, how can you even take sentiments like ‘same clan’, ‘same sect’, or ‘childhood loyalty’ into consideration?”

Due to the circumstances of their birth, even people who manage to achieve a higher position in society hold a tenuous grasp on the power and respect they have gained: their legitimacy is fraught. And even if they play the game right, the lines of legitimate belonging are always ready to be renegotiated by those in power. Despite the “few things” he did during the Sunshot Campaign that aligned with the interest of the sects, and despite being raised among the gentry in the Jiang sect and being perceived as a gongzi, WWX remains in the imaginary of the cultivators who see themselves as the legitimate holders of power as someone who needs to “remember his place”, someone who should be grateful and loyal as he has been “allowed” to raise in influence and be treated well in society despite being the son of a servant. And so when he stands against the interests of the sects, he’s not just betraying them: he betraying the social order which gives them legitimacy. This is directly tied to MianMian’s treatment in this scene. In the novel, MianMian is not only shamed and dismissed because she speaks out against the sects: it is also, if not primarily, because she did not, in the process, “remember her place”.

The scene as it is presented in the novel thus goes out of its way to set up a clear parallel between WWX and MianMian, not only in regards to their righteousness, but also in regards to how they are perceived and treated for being the children of servants. It also takes pain to underline the unfair treatment of women in that society. Moreover, if we’re only considering MianMian’s characterisation, it says a lot to see her have reached this level of importance in her sect despite her circumstances and then for her to let it all go. 

In CQL? You’ve probably guessed it; all of these nuances are evacuated from the text. On top of the fact that MianMian continues to be established as a valued member of the Jin sect, the scene is cut short and a lot of the censure sent her way is excised. There are no mentions of her ‘having made her way’ into the room of powerful people who are allowed have an opinion on the state of the world. No mentions of her low social background and no mocking that she will crawl back to her sect after realising she can’t make it into the world without their influence and support. No dismissal of her based on the fact that she is a woman, or suggestions that she is standing up for the YLLZ only because she is enamoured with him. The scene is turned into a pale shadow of its original.

Instead of these elements, we do get a gasp from JZX (which becomes a dangling plot thread because he does not stand up for her nor does he reach out for her even though she’s supposed to be his good friend, nor do we see him being conflicted about being unable to beyond his gasp) and MianMian telling JGS that she is leaving his sect, which I’ll admit is pretty baller. But it does not even come close to having the significance and thematic implications of the scene as presented in the novel. CQL!MianMian stands up against the organized smear campaign against WWX and the sects’ unwillingness to accept their faults, and is only disregarded for having spoken against them: not because of who she was while she was raising doubts about their evaluation of the right and wrong. And that is significant, because it undercuts the discussions the novel explores through so many other characters about the impacts of being considered inferior by others. 

The Travelling Rogue Cultivator who Stayed Home

Finally, in the novel, we meet MianMian once more when her daughter, Xiao MianMian, stumbles upon something she should not have seen while accompanying her parents on a night-hunt. The reason their paths cross is that, just like Wangxian, MianMian feels compelled to pursue night-hunts other cultivators disregard for their lack of glory in order to help the common people. This is her life mission as a travelling rogue cultivator: differently put, she goes where the chaos is. This set-up serves to highlight that MianMian and Wangxian are like-minded and share the same definition of what it means to be ‘Righteous’. 

He asked, “Did you come here to night-hunt as well?”

Luo Qingyang nodded, “Yes. I heard spirits are haunting a nameless graveyard on this mountain, disturbing the lives of the people here, so I came to see if there’s any way I could help. Have you two cleaned it up already?”

The night-hunt also serves to reintroduce the theme of deception and rumours, and the ways in which MianMian is a character who is not swayed by public opinions but knows how easily others may be.

Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji exchanged a glance. “This was a lie too. No lives were lost. We looked it up. Only a few villagers who robbed the graves were bedridden for a while after being scared by the ghosts, and another broke his own leg when running away. Apart from these, there were no casualties. All those lives were made up for dramatic purposes.”

“So this was what happened?” interjected Luo Qingyang’s husband. “That’s absolutely shameless!”

“Oh, these people…” sighed Luo Qingyang. She seemed as if she remembered something, shaking her head, “They’re the same everywhere.”

This is because in the novel MianMian is tied to many themes, and always in a positive manner. Like WWX, she represents the good that is stifled by an unjust  social order. She also represents the people who choose to defy and deviate from this social order to pursue a righteous life rather than trying to find vindication and power within that very social order (ie JGY or XY). Like the juniors, MianMian is a character that represents hope for the cultivation world, the potential for small but significant change. Like WWX and LWJ, she represents integrity in the face of the corrupting influences of power and politics, as well as the desire to protect the common people. Like Cangse Sanren, she represents the courage to make her own path in the world, and to marry for love with no considerations for social status or conventions, and the decision to becoming a travelling rogue cultivator. 

On top of all these great things this scene accomplish, it is also just incredibly cute. After their talk, their parting is described like such: “Soon, the group had gone down the mountain, and Wei Wuxian could only say goodbye to them with some regret, continuing on another path alongside Lan Wangji.”  Honestly, my ‘WWX and LWJ become Xiao MianMian’s shushus’ agenda is alive and well and I will not accept anything else.

In CQL, however, the reunion happens by pure coincidence. The scene is in actuality a mash-up between the reunion we have in the novel and another scene that takes place earlier, in which fugitives WWX and LWJ enter the home of strangers as they are looking for some water (and end up frolicking in hay). 

Simply by changing the circumstances and the setting of the reunion, something is lost of the thematic connection between WWX/Wangxian and MianMian, even though viewers still get told that MianMian is someone who night-hunts. Without entering into the specific debate of whether show don’t tell is the only acceptable storytelling strategy, I think it’s fair to say that it is more effective to run into MianMian as she is night hunting based on the same rumours of hauntings as Wangxian instead of seeing her get home, pull a sword willy-nilly after hearing something suspicious in her backyard and finally getting told that she was out night hunting. 

Moreover, having to recreate most of the beats of MianMian’s last appearance into this new context seems to have been quite confusing to the CQL production team, and seems to have breed, as a result, a lack of internal coherence to the scene (cut between the end of ep 43 and the beginning of ep 44), regardless of any of its other pitfalls as an adaptation. 

In the CQL version, when we meet the family on their way back to their home, Xiao MianMian had been running around and her father chastises her by telling her something along the lines of “Don’t run around, what if you had gotten caught by the YLLZ?”, thereby suggesting that MianMian’s husband believes what is said about WWX. To this, Xiao MianMian replies But Mom Says he’s a Good Guy Though. Obviously, the intent of the writers was to show that MianMian had never bought into the rumours about WWX. However, this exchange makes seemingly no sense if one thinks about it for longer than a second. It suggests that MianMian had never talked about this topic with her husband or that he had never heard her talk about the YLLZ with their daughter. Considering how dangerous the YLLZ is said to be, and that they were night-hunting while he was a fugitive, I don’t see how that would have not come up even if for some unlikely reason she had until then only talked about the YLLZ with her daughter. Of course, one could suggest that MianMian’s husband says this to tease their daughter, fully aware that the YLLZ’s reputation of swallowing children is a tall tale, but the tone is not quite right? And it does not jive with the fact that MianMian is not on board with defaming people: I don’t think she’d be okay with her husband knowingly using the myth of the YLLZ to scare their kid into obedience because it’s convenient to do so? A miss.

To make matters worse, when WWX later asks MianMian is she’s back from night-hunting, Xiao MianMian says that they are back from searching for the YLLZ. First, there is a clear lack of coherence with the previous exchange between Xiao MianMian and her father. And again, it’s hard to get to the meaning of that exchange: is it implying that MianMian was looking for WWX to offer him her help? She certainly doesn’t once she does meet him, so that appears unlikely or at least it’s a plothole/dangling plot thread. But why be looking for him, if she knows he’s not the monster the rumours make him out to be? Clearly, the writers wanted to tell the viewers that MianMian is a rogue cultivator, and figured that having her back from a night-hunt would be enough: but why this line by Xiao MianMian about searching for the YLLZ? Is it just the fancy of a kid, who makes up her own stories while her parents pursue other cases (especially since MianMian says she was looking for puppets)? But then Xiao MianMian does say that ‘we’ were searching for him...

I can’t figure it out. I find it even weirder that, when WWX asks Xiao MianMian whether she is scared of the scary YLLZ (although she’s literally just said moments before that she was not scared of him in her exchange with her father that WWX certainly heard), Xiao MianMian starts replying that she is not scared and MianMian cuts her, apologizing to WWX that he daughter is too young and naive. What is she apologizing for? How is her daughter naive for not being scared of the YLLZ? Or is she apologizing for her daughter suggesting they were searching for the YLLZ? If so, why cut her now and not when she suggested that they were searching for him? 

What’s happening in this scene?!

Also, even an attempt to keep lines as close to what they were in the novel ends up backfiring with the new context. In the novel, out night-hunting, MianMian asks “ 什么人” when she sees WWX come out from the direction of a graveyard (she has not seen LWJ yet). Knowing that she might suspect him of being a corpse or a spirit considering that it is night and that he is leaving a graveyard said to be haunted, WWX responds  “不管是什么人，总归是人，不是别的东西 “ (No matter who I am, I’m a person after all, and not something else). In CQL, when MianMian hears a sound in her backyard, she asks  “ 什么人” and, after LWJ comes out and is recognized by MianMian, WWX still responds (??) with a similar yet slightly different sentence: “ 不管是谁，反正是个人，不是东西 “ (No matter who I am, anyway I am a person, not a thing). This exchange in the context of the scene in CQL baffles me because: why would there be then an expectation that they would not be a person in this situation? Why would he say that after MianMian has seen and recognized LWJ, thus knowing full well that it is a person and not a spirit or a corpse? As well, why change “ 别的东西 “ (something else/different thing) for “ 东西 “ (thing) since MianMian’s question does not imply by itself that she thinks they are not people since she asks "什么人” (literally: what person?), making WWX’s statement that he is “not a thing”  completely come out of nowhere? And it’s so much more perplexing than his original statement that he is not “something else” from a human. 

I’m spending time on these two lines because I find them to be a sort of microcosm of some of the questionable adaptation choices made in CQL: at times the web series chooses to keep things from the novel even after changing the context in which these elements unfold without understanding how these no longer work within their new context. Yet, at the same time, it feels comfortable making what appear on the surface to be minute changes without thinking through the implications of them, and thus changing the point of these elements through these minute modifications. 

Aside from these elements which prevent this moment in CQL to give us a scene that is internally coherent, let’s further interrogate some of the adaptational changes made between the novel and the web series, and their impact on the themes and characterisation. 

One change that conflicts with the characterisation and the thematic discussion regards WWX inquiring about MianMian’s husband. Unlike in the novel, where WWX engages him in a little bit of chitchat and then feels forced by conventions to ask to which sect he belongs, CQL makes it seem as if it is an information WWX wants to ask because it’s literally the first thing he says to him, not even after a salutation or a “well met” (I will be magnanimous and believe that that choice to do so was for the sake of brevity and not because the preceding dialogue had not been written in the novel and the CQL writers couldn’t be bothered to come up with something). This, however, makes it look like WWX puts a lot of importance in knowing someone’s allegiance to a sect, which is the exact opposite of how he feels about it. 

She pulled the man up, “This is my husband.”

Noticing that they held no malicious intent, the man softened visibly. After some chatter, Wei Wuxian asked out of convenience, “Which sect do you belong to and which kind of cultivation do you practice?”

The man answered frankly, “None of them.”

Luo Qingyang gazed at her husband, smiling, “My husband isn’t of the cultivating world. He used to be a merchant. But, he’s willing to go night-hunting with me…”

It was both rare and admirable that an ordinary person, and a man at that, would be willing to give up his originally stable life and dare travel the world with his wife, unafraid of danger and wander. Wei Wuxian could not help feeling respect for him.

Of course, without WWX’s thought process provided to us in the narration, the implications of MianMian’s husband being originally a merchant are a little bit lost in CQL, even if CQL!MianMian provides that piece of information. Of course, CQL could have chosen to include WWX’s musings, since it does include in this very scene some voice-over thoughts earlier. It is a shame though, that it does not, since MianMian and her husband are clear parallels for WWX’s parents in that regard: his father also left a stable life to travel the world with his wife.

Although, to be fair, CQL!MianMian is no longer a rogue cultivator who travels the world, so it is not like her husband made the decision to travel the world with her. Indeed, by frankensteining the two scenes from the novel, MianMian is by default no longer a rogue cultivator who travels the world: she is a rogue cultivator, sure, in that she does not belong to a sect, but she is a rogue cultivator with a home she clearly needs to inhabit during the day, what with the fact that they raise animals (we see little chicks in the background and there are piles of hay), and who night-hunts close enough to her home to be able to come back home in the morning. Moreover, without the context of meeting MianMian at the same glory-less night-hunt as Wangxian, it is harder to express the idea that MianMian is someone who chooses, like them, to do so for the common good and not for any prestige or rewards. MianMian is no longer another cultivator who goes ‘where the chaos is’ and, in terms of positive female representation, it is truly a shame. After all, the novel frames this as a positive and admirable trait which we see in our two main (male) protagonists: to have a woman follow, independently, the same path as them is meaningful. 

Finally, instead of the scene closing with a regretful parting that hints at the sense of kinship between MianMian’s family and Wangxian, we get a truly (imo) patronizing ending. In CQL, their conversation is disrupted by threatening sounds. LWJ then instructs MianMian to stay in her home and protect Xiao MianMian while LWJ and WWX take care of things. So feminism..... such empowerment... To be honest, if CQL meant to change things and put MianMian in scenes where she wasn’t originally, why not have her go with Wangxian? Why not have her be there for the Mass Grave Hill Siege? Why not have her leave her daughter with her husband and let her be a badass? Instead, they conveniently check her out of the action after putting her directly in the middle of it. Instead of having MianMian be away from the sects and doing her own rogue cultivator thing as the events of the novels unfolded in WWX’s second life, explaining her absence, CQL reintroduces her just before an important moment but chooses to send her away once more, to stay home and protect her daughter, probably because they did not want to take the time and energy to figure out how and where she would fit into these scenes in which she had not be written in the novel. This is the kind of adaptational choice that makes me question why people consider CQL a more progressive work of fiction with regards to its treatment of female characters. 

Final Musings: sometimes, less is more

Does an increase to the number of appearances of a character shape their impact on the audience? Or, conversely, does it dilute their meaning within and their impact on the text? There is not a simple answer to that question. Certainly, repetition is in itself a literary device, and many readers need salient and blunt reminders to get a message across, the likes of: the important characters are the ones you see the most often. Likewise, having a character feature more often in a work can provide the necessary breathing space to explore more and in more depth their psychology, motivations, past, actions, etc. However, the simple act of increasing the presence of a character does not inherently increase their impact on a work of fiction nor does it increase the nuances and depths of that character. 

It is possible to adhere to a cynical or optimistic perspective regarding CQL’s decision to feature MDZS’ female characters more prominently. It is not hard to divine why the decision could have been made solely for the financial incentive of “pandering” to a female audience who dares to want to see themselves on  screen. Conversely, one can imagine a production team animated by good intentions, who simply want to give more limelight to these female characters. Whether purely motivated by a profit-based logic or solely well-intentioned, or at a vector of both motives, it is clear that the CQL production did not increase the screen presence of MDZS’s female characters out of a desire to tell a stronger, more effective version of the original story they were working with. And that is why the urge to quantify good representation will always end up failing us in my opinion.

While it can be productive to consider trends, it does not give us a better media landscape or better individual works of fiction; it does not necessarily give us more impactful or better written female characters. This type of analysis urges us to see female characters as female first, without truly attempting to understand their purpose and treatment within the story. While MDZS has fewer female characters, these characters showcase different personalities and occupy different positions within the social world of the novel; they have arcs and thematic resonance and they cannot be simply replaced by a “sexy lamp” without disrupting the plot completely. They are also often given a surprising amount of depth, if readers are willing to pay attention to all that is found in the text and in the subtext.

For such a long novel, MDZS is able to remonstrate a certain amount of restraint wrt its storytelling. The timespan it wants to cover is expansive, its cast of characters not insignificant, and the story it aims to tell is ambitious. It is easy to imagine a meandering version of MDZS where many more characters are present, including many more female characters, or where the existing female characters get an extended presence within the narrative. But would those female characters have been more impactful? Would the story told have been a better one? The way the CQL production team chose to adapt MianMian hints that this is not a done conclusion. 

(+ bonus MianMian meta)

[animatedminds]

Pixar’s Soul: Review and Reaction

The first sentence I’ve always used to describe Pete Docter and Pixar’s Soul since watching it has nothing to do with the plot. It’s instead is a starstruck comment about the music: the movie begins with a cover of a Duke Ellington classic - Mercer Ellington’s “Things Ain’t What they Used to Be.” It ends with a jazz rendition of a classic from several decades later - but still quite a bit in our past - Curtis Mayfield’s soul classic “It’s Alright.” On a personal level, this would say way more about Soul that most other descriptions of it might to get me to watch it - were I not the kind of person who was absolutely intent on watching the movie day one regardless. Though I am myself a few generations after either of those artists were around, their music has been a part of my life since I was a kid and are essential on any playlist in my opinion. Curtis Mayfield’s music, especially, deserves all the love in the world, and hearing by surprise someone cover his work in a Disney movie made my entire day - and it would have, even if the film weren’t the meaningful ride it is.

But before we get into all that, lets also look at those songs. “Things Aren’t What They Used To Be” is played a la a teacher and a higher school band class: the students are learning and a bit difficult to listen to, while the music-loving teacher cringes at the front. But the choice of song tells us a lot. It’s a jazz standard: which means when it comes to jazz, it’s one of the essentials - a tune every band learns to play, and every jazz fan has heard before. The teacher is a jazzman - you can probably guess who - and the whole time he’s listening to the song you can hear him wanting to sit down and make it sound as perfectly as he hears it in his head. Remember that analogy. Heck, when you watch or rewatch the movie, remember the mindset Joe - because that’s who that teacher is, Joe Gardner, is in for that whole teaching scene in the first place: and remember how important the desire to make things perfect is to the greater story the movie is trying to tell.

“Things Aren’t The Way They Used To Be,” indeed. By the end, you have to wonder: isn’t that the point? Now the second song. “It’s All Right” is a smooth number for dancing to - not frenetic and wild dancing, but more a slow jam sort of vibe. BUt it’s the lyrics that are the most befitting the themes of the movie. Like several of Curtis Mayfield’s tunes “It’s All Right” is an ear worm of an R&B number that’s actually about being a peace with yourself. “You’ve got soul” - ha, I get it - “and everybody knows, that it’s all right.” Or, to quote instead my favorite verse of the song (I did say Mayfield was one of my favorites): “when you wake up early in the morning feeling sad like so many of us do, hum a little soul, make life your goal, and surely something’s gonna come to you.” This is before the spoilery part of the review, but they could not have picked a better song for the movie’s themes if they wrote it themselves.

Soul, after all, is ultimately a movie about how the things we do, the things we love, even the things that define us and should make us feel good in and of themselves, can become a shackle that prevents us from feeling the things that we adopt them to feel. Dreams - especially dreams deferred - can consume us rather than uplift us, and sometimes in pursuing them we may forget to live, and forget that others are living in this world and dreaming alongside us.

This, as you might be able to tell from the way I’ve described it, is a movie with a very strong, and most importantly very well related message that - as we’ve come to expect from Pixar’s output at this point - touches us in our jaded adult hearts. As a creative person with lofty dreams who has almost literally been where the protagonist is in this film - and as many in my generation also have gone through - it definitely feels like a film that was directed straight at the generation that first watched Toy Story as kids decades ago, and now feel somewhat unfulfilled as adults going into the world. Same as Inside Out (a movie specifically designed to make adults cry, in my opinion), the SparkShorts and arguably Onward (I definitely related to Bailey, some). So much like my review of Jingle Jangle, you have something of an idea where this review is going to go before the jump, but that’s okay. This movie did have ups and downs, but its just the kind of up Pixar is good at: they know they’re audience, and especially did for this gem. By the end, it can definitely make you feel as though you too can make it through, as long as you have a little Soul. However, it is not just the message, but the nuances and skill in which they relate that message (and they do come close to making decisions that could have ruined it, at times), which means it’s very difficult for me to put why this movie works into a review without SPOILERS. If you want to avoid SPOILERS, don’t hop over the pic and instead treat the above as your non-SPOILER review.

Soul is the story of one Joe Gardner, played by Jamie Foxx a brilliant early middle-aged pianist with lifelong dreams of becoming a jazz musician, who we first meet teaching part time band at a local high school. The inciting incident is an interesting choice: Joe gets a major offer - he can come on as a full time teacher, making his occupation a career! But Joe believes very much in the adage that “those who cannot do, teach” - in the sense that he wants to do. He cannot accept the position - over the advice of his mother - because that would mean giving up on his dream of being out there playing music for a living: a dream that has consumed him his entire life but which has given him nothing in return. Until now. While agonizing over the decision to take the position, Joe's life then gets a big twist: a former student of his, remembering him fondly years after they knew each other, has a hook for him to join the band of a famous jazz singer and saxophonist - played by Angela Basset (side note, here: jazz has long had a reputation for being something of a boys club, especially for certain instruments, and the choice to have the lead saxophonist and famous idol whose band Joe wants to join be a woman is a great choice that my entire jazz-loving and living family took note of). Joe is instantly elated - he rushes over and naturally aces the audition for the part in the band, and so is on cloud nine...

Until he dies. That’s when the plot really starts. Joe falls down a manhole like an astronomer in an aesop fable, and is now stuck on the slow escalator to The Great Beyond. Naturally, he’s not for that and tries to escape - pursued by overeager spiritual soul-accountant Terry - ending up in the Great Before instead, and leaving his body in a still-living coma (the implications that coma patients in general are people who are choosing not to die when they’re “supposed” to is something I’m sure the writers didn’t intend, so I’ll let it slide). There, Joe is pressganged into mentoring a pre-prepared soul for birth, helping them find their Spark for life - which Joe interprets as the one true purpose and dream they are meant to fulfill. Once he gets them their Spark, he will be able to steal a badge his mentee earns as fully fledged souls and . Luckily for his intended very morally suspect intent on spiritual larceny, he ends up with Soul #22 - and that’s #22 out of hundreds of billions - a soul who has simply never found a Spark despite having been in the Great Before for thousands of years. #22 doesn’t want to live, so she agrees to give him her patch when they’re done. But no mentor before has been able to inspire her (well, technically #22 is genderless, as she demonstrates in the story at Joe’s request, but she is voiced by Tina Fey), so how can Joe? When that proves to be too hard indeed, #22 instead decides to help Joe get back - mostly because she’s intrigued at why anyone would want to cling to life so badly - with the help of some mystics who astral project while in the Zone: where everyone goes when they’re fully immersed in what they do. This almost works, but at the last second everything goes awry: #22 gets mixed up with Joe when he returns, and so he doesn’t quite get back the way he wants to...

That’s enough plot summary for now. That’s all just the set-up anyway, for the choices in writing and concept that I’m about to talk about. As you might have been able to tell from that ominous last note, the middle chunk of Soul - almost right up until the climax, in fact - is actually a body-swap movie, a la Freaky Friday. #22 ends up in Joe’s body, so he has to get her to do the things he needs to get ready for his gig and get through the day while they wait for the mystic to bring a way to set everything right. And did I mention he’s in the body of a cat? Having been following the movie, this wasn’t entirely a surprise, but it was still not something I was entirely ready for coming in. I tend to shy away from that kind of story on a personal level, as body-swap narratives are nearly predominantly based on cringe moments and awkward misconceptions - and that sort of thing usually tends to make me want to leave the scene in question and get a cup of water until after the awkwardness passes. However, this isn’t really part of the review in the sense that I perceive that the movie being in that genre is a flaw - because ultimately that’s just an aspect of my personal taste. Rather, I use it to show just how strong a movie Soul was and how well its narrative choices resonated with its themes that ultimately while it did indeed partake in your typical body-swap narrative cringe moments - “look, the [redacted] in Joe’s body just ran into his boss / mom!” / “look, the [redacted] is having a bizarre conversation with Joe’s friends!” / etc - those moments actually add to the narrative rather than take you out of it. Joe as “friends,” as exemplified by the barber he goes to to get his hair ready for the gig when it inevitably gets ruined in a bout of hijinks (the barber being that extremely well-designed bearded character the internet went wild over). He goes to that barber all the time, talks with him constantly, and believes he knows him well. But it turns out that Joe’s so wrapped up in his wants and desires that he’s never even asked him about his life - he just assumed that the barber was like him, born to do that one thing he was good at. It takes #22′s innocent, slightly off-kilter and occasional philosophical questions about what the heck all this “life” stuff is about for Joe to learn that this person in his life didn’t even want to be where he ended up initially, he ended up there because that’s the way his life turned, but he loves it because it’s life and he appreciates the world he’s come to create around himself. Likewise, he runs into his mom, but while Joe has come to expect his mother to be dismissive of him and his dreams, it takes an accident with #22 for him to realize that he’s been so caught up in his desires and her in her preconceptions that neither of them have ever had a real talk about their relationship, nor given a chance to grow in each other’s eyes. You might notice a trend. One of Joe’s students - a brilliant trombonist - comes to tell him she’s quitting band, but she doesn’t really. She’s just insecure because the other students make fun of her. Joe knows this already - it’s become commonplace to him - so the doesn’t feel the need to do anything about it and instead focuses on his own needs. But #22 decides to talk to her on a whim, and this push and pull of insecurity but joy in what one is good at fascinates her, while it bores Joe. While - like any other New Yorker - public transit is a chore to Joe, the melting pot of people and music draws #22 in: best evidenced by the moment where Joe and #22 meet another great musician playing for tips in the subway. Joe, despite being capable of relating as a musician, just walks past him after appreciating the sound for a sec, while #22, entranced by the things people do, leaves something for him. The world is drab and lacking in vibrancy from Joe’s point of view, as evidenced by the very accurate grimy look of the high school he work at - but from #22′s seemingly jaded eyes seeing it for the first time, it’s full of wonder.

This actually creates an interesting character contrast on top of the one we already know: Joe is the idealist, and #22 is the cynic... right? Well, it turns out Joe doesn’t have much of an appreciation for the world around him - not intentionally, but still to a very strong degree - whereas #22 simply hasn’t had the chance to experience life yet and thus never knew what it was that made people want to be part of it. Life itself becomes her Spark, though neither of them realize it at the time. Lets just get the aesop out of the way now. Your dream is not your life: that’s what Soul wants to say. Things that compel you as a person may consume you, even embitter you, and prevent you from seeing the world around you for what it is. But that doesn’t make dreams a bad thing: people everywhere find that Spark from the dreams to keep moving forward - it’s just that it shouldn’t preclude living, nor should living preclude your dreams. Life is a delicate balance, and man is this movie serving up some complicated life lessons here. I immediately took this as a far more mature take on the message The Princess and the Frog stumbled somewhat through years ago (man, I’m turning out to be pretty hard on that movie in this blog). My biggest issue with PATF is that it tells us that Tiana should be less intent on her dream and find love instead, but doesn’t show us. It’s just characters chiding her for not settling down until the plot ultimately pushes a man in front of her and she realizes she should’ve been finding one all along. That’s a very harsh way of putting it, but it condenses what I’m trying to say: ultimately PATF pushes Tiana to realizations she doesn’t seem to need, whereas Soul has a similar message about life and does so by focusing on character development, about how the protagonist doesn’t have as firm a handle on his life as he thought, and thus brings us a take on the lesson that’s far less cut and dry.

If you’re a fan of The Incredibles, the comparison to Mr. Incredible is fairly easy. Joe, though well meaning and decent overall, is a very self-centered person who happens to be so for very sympathetic and relatable reasons. He just wants to do the thing he feels he was born to. He'll do anything to get back to life and do that thing, even for a single night. He’s consumed by this desire so much that he's oblivious to the people around him, unable to connect to the people he loves, and unable to find joy in anything but his dream. And man, as a young writer who knows in their heart of hearts they can do great things and feels pain at the idea of not doing so, that hits different let me tell you.

The lessons Joe learns from #22 even stick. It turns out that part of what caused Joe’s dream to fail all those time was because of that lack of connection with life. He never presented himself in a way that got people to take notice of him, he never pushed for that position he wanted even though people said no, he never made himself and his life so vibrant that he glowed in the eyes of others (and again, that hits different). That’s maybe the most simplistic message of the bunch, but as a person in the creative field it’s true that sometimes being the smartest person in the room isn’t enough: it’s making himself shine that ultimately clinches Joe the gig even after he almost lost it thanks to the day’s shenanigans.

But in the end, it doesn’t feel like he thought he would.

Remember when I said there are parts where the movie comes perilously close to kiboshing its message? That moment is one, it’s the one. Not that that moment is bad - far from it, it’s the best moment in the entire movie (and you can fight me on that if you want to). It’s because it’s the crossroads, the pin, the core of the entire film: depending on the choice they made after that point, that moment could have either been the best moment in the entire movie, or the moment that toppled everything.

The realization of Joe’s dream doesn’t feel like the explosion of confetti and catharsis that he expected. It was just another moment of his life, a great one, but it’s still just part of his life. So what does Joe do? Does he panic? Does he keep going until it feels good? Does he - as he would in a lesser movie trying to give a cookie cutter aesop - immediately quit and realize he should’ve been teaching all along? No, he does none of those things. He absorbs the moment. He realizes that at the end of the dream you’re still just living life, and that you have to appreciate that. Joe isn’t wrong for pursuit of his dream. He’s not wrong for believing that hopes and dreams make life so much more worthwhile. He’s wrong in thinking that those dreams are all that define us, and that their realization is all that makes people themselves worthwhile at all.

And in the end - though I may be getting a bit too referential for this - the unexamined life is just so much less fulfilling than the alternative.

And all that a message and a half! It hits different. It’s mature as all heck. It’s something people my age (especially in my generation), twice my age, half my age never learn. It’s a callsign that sometimes Pixar is still make movies for the people who were kids way back when Toy Story was released, and are now insecure adults wondering why the world isn’t as wonderful as they saw on the screen. It’s brilliant. I said before that Joe interprets the “Spark” to be one’s purpose in life. The one thing that makes them who they are, that they are on the planet to do. He is wrong, absolutely and utterly. And in that misconception, when #22 finally does get their Spark just from being on Earth and seeing what its life, he accuses them of leeching self-actualization over his own personal ambitions, fully believing that they didn’t find a “purpose" on her own, but just copied his. But the Spark, as it turns out, is just the joy of living, the thing that makes people want to live. It can come from a dream, or just from watching the beauty of the sun set over a leaf drifting in the wind. Only in understanding this can Joe finally understand what he’s been missing in life, only then can he reconcile with #22 and help her finally be born, only then can he walk into the world and know how he’s going to live it.

We never find out what Joe decides, whether he goes back to teaching, or continues with the band. The choice is open to him, but we never find out which one he takes - another choice that keeps the aesop from falling apart. The point of all of that wasn’t that Joe has to do one thing or another to be happy, it was that Joe needs to be happy and secure in himself before he chooses what his life should be. Either of those could make him happy. Neither of those could. But now he’s in a much better place to see it, and do what he can.

We also never find out what #22 is like when she (or he, etc) is born. The two of them never meet past the point where #22 goes to Earth. Their time together has passed, and #22′s life is now their own. And that’s a great choice either. I’ve seen the occasional person feel that the choice made in this paragraph or noted in the previous one made the story confusing, but they’re ultimately what make the story what it is. The answer isn’t the necessity of resolution, its the reaffirmation of the journey. It reminds me somewhat of Wreck-It Ralph (an example of the main Disney Studio delivering a complex aesop, rather Pixar delivering them all), where being a villain wasn’t Ralph’s problem - it was that he wasn’t happy doing the thing he loved. You have to live, from living you will learn, and from learning you will do. The sheer incredible execution of this message (as you may have guessed, it’s a fairly difficult one to relay adequately in a film narrative, and the movie goes non-traditional in conclusion to maintain it) would have made this film a recommend for me even if it wasn't also beautifully animated, very well acted, funny (there’s a Knicks joke that floored me), heartwarming and relatable. But it’s also all of those things, so I have to recommend it twice as much. It is, regrettably, another movie with a black lead where the lead spends most of it transfigured into a form that’s not a black person (a soul, and then a cat), and I’ve already seen some grumbling that instead for much of it a character explicitly coded as a white woman is in his body instead, but I perceive that as an issue that’s endemic to the industry than a fault in this movie specifically. Everyone does that, but this is the only movie I’ve seen where doing that is an essential part of how the narrative develops the characters (Joe has to not be himself in order to understand his life from an outside perspective, a la Scrooge as a ghost watching his own history), and so I don’t scorn the movie for it. I, however, would very much like Hollywood to start doing that less, and - hey - as a prospective writer that’s one of those things I plan to do my part to combat. This movie, however, gets a pass in my book in ways that the general usage of this concept does not. In short, you should see it. If you get the chance to see it right now, you should take it to feel good at the end of this incredibly insane year. If you don’t want to have to sign up for Disney+ to see it now, I get you and understand, but if you get a chance to see it later do not pass it up. It’s one of the few movies I’ve watched that are an instant buy when it becomes available on digital - and the last time a movie did that for me was BlacKKKlansman. Whatever you choose to do, do it well. Keep the spirit alive, always keep searching for the real you - because it’s not always easy to find, but it’s worth looking for - and always remember that you could always have a little soul.

[chaoticnerdreview]

When Blood Crosses The Line

For years, Roman Reigns has been criticised from the tip of his hair to his toes. Every single detail about him scrutinised, hated, booed, trashed. And for years, he kept his cool because behind him stood an entire family and it was his pride - and honour - to be their front man. Roman knew that the second he stepped outside the lines, he’d be placing his whole family in check and at risk of receiving the same treatment he grew used to handle.

As this was happening, Jey Uso and his twin brother Jimmy became one of the most beloved tag teams of all time. Not just that, but their talent and skilled chemistry made their matches equal parts entertaining as well as elevating to everyone that shared the ring with them. For all the heat their cousin received, the twins were embraced with a general sense of adoration by the fans.

And last night, in a way, they proved everyone right.

Last night, for the first time in years, Roman Reigns gave every single fan around the globe a real, palpable, reason to hate him. And last night, Jey Uso reaffirmed, cemented even, all the reasons why everyone loves him.

ROMAN REIGNS, THE UNIVERSAL CHIEF

Some fans have made the bridge between Roman’s anger fuelled performance last night to the villain everyone can understand, as well as justify, Killmonger. The parallels are uncanny and fairly hard to ignore: both men have a blood right to challenge for the family throne, both men have anger inside due to the way they’ve seen the world perceive them but most importantly, both men claimed victory despite their cousin - and opponent - never admitting defeat or yielding.

In fact, much like with Killmonger’s very own allies, Paul Heyman began the night in full support of his new client or associate but ended it in visible fear of what Roman might do. Blood may be thicker than water but if anything was learned last night, watching Roman Reigns unleash all of his anger on a man that grew up with him, is that pride makes you cross every single blood line.

We’ve watched families battle before, we’ve seen brothers become foes, we’ve seen countless stories but never quite like this one. If it was that simple, Roman would’ve taken the victory when Jey was laying flat on the ring, but he didn’t. He wanted his cousin to acknowledge him, to admit that Roman is, in fact, the new tribal chief of the family. Roman needed his own flesh and blood to not just take a promised ass whooping as an example, but he wanted one of the most beloved members of the family to give him the higher seat. And when Jey refused, because even though his cousin has earned it, flowers must be willingly given rather than forcibly taken, Roman’s anger took him to a whole other level.

Seeing all of this unfold brought Jimmy Uso back from the shadows of his injury time off to throw in the towel and save his twin brother from actually spilling blood for Roman’s crossing of all the lines. In the end, it was Jimmy, not Jey, who gave Roman the satisfaction of being called “tribal chief”. In the end, it was Paul Heyman, not Jey, who placed the traditional Teuila lei around Roman’s neck. In the end, it was Roman’s hubris, not his flaws, that made the whole world despise him.

JEY USO, THE MAGICAL TWIN

While Jey spent all of his life being asked which one he is, a cross every set of twins has to carry, this man has certainly earned his flowers. In fact, the fans have given them to him - and his brother - after countless of classic matches. But never quite like last night, or the SmackDown before it where Jey opened his heart to the masses. 

If Roman can be placed side by side with Killmonger, a very strong case can be built for Jey Uso as T’Challa. Sure everyone thinks this ship might be headed to another harbour called Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson where he presents himself to be the true tribal chief that Roman has to surpass, or succumb to, what if that’s actually Jey Uso? What if the rightful King, heir to the throne, tribal chief of the new generation is the quiet, often overlooked, twin? Much like T’Challa, Jey Uso always seems to choose the diplomacy path before anything else. Much like T’Challa, Jey Uso faced this family challenge head on with a strong sense of responsibility rather than a matter of pride. And, much like T’Challa, Jey Uso never admitted defeat.

Not afraid of a cell match or anything physically, we knew Jey wouldn’t shy away from giving his best while expecting Roman to never hold back in return but what he received crossed every line. Until the very end of the match, Jey faced his opponent as family, as someone who could take his punches but would be benevolent in the end. Except that wasn’t the case because for Roman it was, in fact, a matter of pride. And Jey, in his quiet storm self, would rather take a beating for his family than to give into his cousin’s destructive hubris.

On cue with the suffering of his twin and partner, Jimmy Uso limped his way to the ring, white towel in hand, ready to save Jey from a deranged cousin. Still Jey wouldn’t admit the defeat - or even accept that his brother would do so for him. Until there wasn’t a choice anymore and Jimmy threw the towel, giving Roman what he wanted to hear. But if Black Panther serves as a parallel to this incredible storytelling fuelled match, it may also serve as - in the words of Paul Heyman himself - a spoiler, not a prediction: before the world burns at the hands of the false and hated King, the rightful and beloved Tribal Chief will rise from the ashes of himself  to finish what they started because, “I never yielded! And as you can see: I am not dead!”

[tired-college-student-writing]

Tim’s Secret Weapon Pt. 4

I’ve been slightly obsessed with @ozmav​ ‘s Damian Wayne/Marinette Dupain-Cheng pairing as of late, and just saw a post that has inspired me more than anything else has in months, so I felt the need to write it

Summary- Tim has always seen the numbers floating above people’s heads, been able to perceive their threat levels with a single glance. After being a hero for so long he thought he was desensitized to seeing high numbers above people’s heads until Damian brings a new friend home.

Part 1

Part 3

Part 4 (HERE)

Part 5

_______________________________________________________________________

“Yup!” Jason popped the ‘p’ before holding up the book Tim had given him, “Who’s ready for storytime?” 

“What do you mean Tim is afraid I would throw him out?” Bruce pushed even as Jason led them towards one of the desks, “I want to help him with-”

“Yeah I’m gonna stop you there,” Jason cut him off, eyes hard as he set the book down with an uncharacteristic amount of care,“Tim was very offended by what we thought was going on with him and it just made him more sure that all of us were going to leave him behind as his shitty parents did. So let’s just cut to the chase and cool off before he seriously decides to run off before we can go talk to him because I’m pretty sure even after talking to him for twenty minutes, he’s still around seventy-five percent sure that’s going to be a better option than waiting around.” 

Jason had never seen the energy of a room shift so fast, the anger and bloodlust that had been suffocating since Dick uncovered the file on Marinette vanished into a deep rippling uncertainty. If there was one unspoken rule of the household, it was that no previous trauma will knowingly be replicated. It’s why Jason always makes a point of leaving his guns in the cave and never points them passed Bruce unless it’s life or death. Why no one touched the trapeze unless Dick was going up with them and they always used a net, no matter how good their aerial skills were. Why no one spoke to Jason in angry or stern Arabic. No one told Damian he was overreacting, especially when it was about illness or injuries. 

No one was allowed to make Tim think they were abandoning him.   

Dick looked stricken at the very idea, “Jay, why is Tim so scared?” 

“Short answer? Tim’s Meta.” 

The whole room froze, eyes flying wide, making Jason chuckle, “Yeah that was my response to.”

“How long?” Bruce asked, hand gripping the back of his chair so hard, Jason wondered if he was going to break it. 

“From what he said, he was born with his power, it’s always on and pretty impossible for him to block out.”

Damian’s face scrunched, “And father always made it clear that he doesn’t like Metas in Gotham.”  

“Fuck,” Dick swore, turning to punch the cave wall, “How the actual shit did we miss this? We’re fucking detectives goddamn it!” 

Seeing Dick lose it like that made Jason pause. It was rare to see the carefree brother truly get mad about anything, let alone for him to cuss up a storm, he always did prefer those filler cusses that make the rest of them groan. 

But then again Damian looked pained and Bruce was sinking into the Bat-computer chair looking lost as he ran a hand through his hair.

“I never meant it like this,” Bruce whispered, “I just didn’t want anyone else coming to Gotham expecting to be able to fix it overnight. Did I really come off anti-meta?” 

“I…” Jason winced, stopping to think, “I never thought so, but I can see how Tim thought you might be. We all need to talk to him, but I promised I’d explain some of this shit like Tim did to me, and look through his book so that we don’t all bombard him with questions.” 

The four shared a look before they all surrounded the table as Jason began. He told them of the numbers, the skill Tim had that he never shared. After they opened the book they found that it was more complex than just that. 

The entries started off very rudimentary, clearly written by a small child, the dates claiming that Tim began this journal when he was merely six years old. They detailed the color, font, and number of the person he had met. A few of the higher ranks having little ideas next to them on the cause, but as the list grew and the handwriting even outed, there were itemized lists on the reason for each number above a 5. 

By the time they reached Bruce’s they were pretty dumbfounded as they read through Tim’s confusion and fear at the number that broke the code he’d knew through his whole life, his reason section was filled with sentences of ideas, instead of the short bullet points, trying to ration it out. 

The most confusing part of it was he ruled things out that he couldn’t have known, insider trading and corruption would have been a logical conclusion for him to draw of the Billionaire he knew nothing about but he ruled them out instantly, not even bothering to consider they might be part of the reason. 

Not to mention when he actually put it together. 

“His power works on broadcasts as well?” Bruce mused, “I know I never saw he was never on the streets when I was out during this time period,” 

“Adding it to the list of questions,” Dick said as he typed it out into the sheet he had made when they started asking too many questions only Tim could answer.  

“Never mind that,” Damian brushed off, “Look at the traits he listed, all listed at the same time from the looks of the ink but if the date is to be believed, this is from before Todd was debuted as Robin, how did he know you had a mastery in hacking, spoke multiple languages and stunt flight?” 

All of them froze at those words, hunching over it to look at the words. 

There was no logical way Tim could know any of those things. Most of Batman’s skill set could be guessed through out the rumors and gossip that flew since the caped crusader started his reign of the city, but those skill sets still weren’t widely known to the public. 

“I…” Bruce shook his head, “Add it to the list, we have a lot more of the book to get through to worry about this now. We should try and finish the book. 

But the issue popped up again and again as the pages went on, each hero he met he knew their skills down to the littlest detail, things he shouldn’t be able to know, especially before he became the third Robin. 

He knew Clark was Superman when he met the reporter first.

He knew Diane was made of clay before the woman had ever given away that little tidbit.

He knew that Barry was a wiz when it came to criminology before the speedster had ever given up his identity. 

He knew Arthur had low-level empathic abilities that went beyond sea life before Arthur was even considered a hero. 

They were only two-third of the way through the book, arguing over how The Commissioner could possibly know their identities, let alone why it would make his number rise so quickly when not even Bruce’s number had done so when he learned the other League member’s identities, when a stern voice cut through their thought. 

 “Gentlemen, There’s a bit of a situation that Master Tim and I discovered that could use your attention.” Alfred cut in, making them turn, stopping when they saw Tim practically sprint to the Bat computer, pointily looking at the wall to avoid looking at them, his shoulders so tight they shock.

“Tim?” Dick asked, concern dripping from his words as he started towards the younger man only to freeze as Tim visually flinched away from the word, curling inward as he frantically typed away on the keyboard. 

Before any of them tried to break the silence again the giant screen lit up to show a battle play out. A young girl dressed in a red and polka-dotted outfit flipping and twisting out of the way of the pages thrown like ninja stars at her, a yoyo used to propel her, eyes filled with laughter behind her mask. Her moves were agile and practiced, as another figure, a boy her same age dressed in skin-tight black leather entered the frame. 

“I figured out why Marinette is a 15,” He finally managed out, making the bats’, minus Jason, heads snap to him.

A 15? 

The brat couldn’t just have a normal girlfriend, could he?

No, he had to have someone that shattered Tim’s power completely.

 And he had no idea why, until now. 

They really couldn’t blame him for being obsessive. 

“I couldn’t find out why Mari was so powerful,” Tim rambled on, “But Alfred helped me realize that she’s a hero too. A hero with the power of the god of creation on her side, which makes sense for why she completely broke my, uh, my power. She’s been-” 

“Tim,” 

“-fighting a supervillain,” Tim just continued as if he hadn’t heard Bruce, his voice skipping up a few pitches, “ who also uses the power of a god to help him make others into villains to do his bidding. They’ve been locked in battle for years now. Years! We really should have noticed before now, but better late then never right? Heh, she has some allies though so it’s not like she was fighting on her own or anything, and-”  

“Drake,” Damian cut in, ducking past Dick to grab Tim by the shoulder to spin him, staring into his eyes with the type of harsh determination only the demon spawn seemed to be able to, ignoring the quacking fear in Tim’s own eyes, “I am the byproduct of the daughter of one of Father’s greatest enemies drugging him. I was raised will one goal in mind, to be the ultimate weapon to take down all that stood in the way of the League of Assassins, and yet Father, Grayson, Todd, Pennyworth and you gave me safety and taught me why my grandfather was wrong. Todd was murdered by a clown with psychopathic tendencies, was brought back by the magic that my grandfather has a monopoly on, went crazy with Lazarth sickness and thought the best course of action was to become a crimelord in the very city he vowed to protect, going as far as trying to shoot Father, the man he saw as an older brother and you, the boy he was convinced Father had only brought into the circle to die as he had, and yet once the sickness faded Father welcomed back in with open arms, shedding tears for the child he thought he had lost. Father may have made it clear that he’s not a fan of metas operating in the city, but you’re a moron if you believe for a second that means he’s going to disown you or take Red Robin away from you. You’re also lost all my respect if you think this means I or any of the others that dawn the bat moniker are going to feel any different about you for having these powers.” 

Tim’s mouth opened and closed several times after Damian’s speech had come to a close as the others waited for him to break the silence of the cave. All he could feel was his hands trembling as his eyes welled up. 

Damian was still looking at him before sighing, “You really are an idiot,” 

He wanted to retort, wanted to bite out a response as he blinked back the tears but he suddenly found Damian’s arms wrapped around his waist, a tight grounding embrace, the younger boy’s chin resting on his shoulder. 

Tim wasn’t sure he was breathing, his whole body shaking like it was trying to shatter into a million pieces. The brat, Damian, the one person he thought would gladly cast him aside given the slightest of reason to was… 

“You’re family, Tim,” Damian stern voice cut through his mental frenzy, “If I’ve learned one thing since moving to Gotham, it’s that you don’t give up on family, not for anything, and certainly not for something like this.”   

Tim felt something inside him break and the next thing he knew he was sobbing into Damian’s shoulder the pair on their knees in the middle of the cave, gripping Damian back like he thought if he let go the boy would vanish. Slowly as he felt his breathing calm down and his sobs fade he could feel more arms surrounding him. The entire bat family was surrounding him, silently holding him through his breakdown. 

He pulled back, scrubbing his eyes as his family slowly untangled from around him. 

“I’m sorry,” He whispered, voice scratchy from the tears, “I guess I should have known none of you would hate me but… I’ve been so scared that I’d lose you guys too. I didn’t want to risk it, I couldn’t risk it.” 

He flinched slightly when a large hand squeezed his shoulder looking up into Bruce’s eyes, softened by a love that could destroy the world if his child was hurt. A love that none of the Waynes needed to put words to because of looks like this. 

Glancing back to his brothers he saw the love in Bruce’s eyes reflected in theirs, all of them accepting him and loving him still. 

The weight Tim had carried for as long as he knew to grow lighter as a small smile worked its way onto his face. 

His eyes burning with the same intense love for his family back at them. 

For the first time in a long time, Tim knew without a doubt 

It would be okay. 

_______________________________________________________________________

Tim couldn’t stop the whimper from falling from his lips as Marinette’s class came pouring out of the doors of the school.

All of the Wayne boys had decided to surprise Marinette by showing up at her class when it let out, in addition to not wanting to wait to reveal they knew her secret. It wasn’t hard to get all of them to Paris merely days after Tim’s secret came to light, especially since Bruce was planning on checking up on the Paris branch of Wayne Enterprises the following week before everything happened. Expanding the trip last minute to include all of them had taken little effort, and all of their suits were tucked away in their hotel suites, waiting to be dawned once they got Marinette alone. 

Tim was ready to turn back now though and for a very good reason. 

 In the normal sea of threes and fours, normally Marinette stood out with her overwhelmingly soft pink 15, but now...

The tanned girl that had hoards of kids surrounding her had an obnoxious copper 9 floating above her, the font looking like a tiger had scratched it into the very fabric of space. 

A trio of students, a bulky boy, a small pink-haired girl, and a dark-skinned nerdy-looking boy, were messing around as pale numbers circled their heads, a pair of stark white 12s over the boys and an icy blue 13 over the girl. 

A pair of girls, one blonde and one of Asian descent, were bickering as they made their way down the steps,  a canary yellow daintily drawn 14 for the blonde and deep burgundy calligraphed 13 for the more stoic girl.   

And the blonde boy Marinette was happily conversing with, looking even more softspoken and sweet than the baker girl.

He had a venomous green 15 swirling over him in it’s rounded bubble-like font. 

His brothers glanced at him warily. 

“Everything okay Timmy?” Jason asked, eyes flitting over the crowed on instinct, looking for the threat that spooked him. 

“I’ll tell you later,” He groaned back, “... but keep an eye on the girl in the orange jacket, she feels slimy from all the way over here,” 

His brothers nodded, but even so, Tim felt a migraine coming on. 

For once Tim wished for an alien invasion so he didn’t have to deal with this bullshit.

_______________________________________________________________________

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[chronicparagon]

Enneagram

What is the Enneagram?

The Enneagram is a personality system that aims to reveal how emotions drive our lives and how we engage with others in an effort to get what we want and need. The Enneagram defines nine personality types, each with its own set of strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities for personal growth.

Your Enneagram type reveals what motivates you on a very deep level, and illuminates the path you must take to achieve a higher level of self-actualization.

Your Enneagram Scores

The graph below shows how you scored for each of the 9 types of the Enneagram. In this graph, the area of each section indicates your score, with larger sections being a better match for your personality.

Harmony’s results: 

Your Type in Depth

Your primary type is Two. In this section, we'll dive deep into the Two profile to understand how it drives your core emotions, fears, and desires, as well as how it impacts you in relationships and at work.

In a Nutshell

Twos seek to love and help the people around them. They intuitively perceive when others need their support and they offer it unconditionally. Skilled at seeing the good in people, Twos will praise others warmly, being always ready with a kind word and a listening ear. They have a knack for making others feel like the most important person in the world.

To the outside world, it seems that the Two’s caregiving is selfless. However, deep down, the Two would like their efforts to be recognized and appreciated. Twos are capable of manipulating others to get the recognition they think they deserve, and they can quickly flip into anger if they feel undervalued. They are well-meaning and driven to be close to others, but can easily succumb to feelings of rejection if there’s no reciprocation of their tender care and affection.

. Two 98% MATCH

Type 2 can be described as The Giver. Twos want to be liked and find ways that they can be helpful to others so that they can be loved and belong.

.Caretaking. You instinctively reach out to others in need, and the people around you know you to be the sort of caring, involved person that they can count on for support. Although you may sometimes overcommit yourself, there is no doubt that you are an asset to your community and a person that others are happy to have in their corner. As long as you are careful not to agree to do more for others than you're really capable of, you'll bring altruism and connection to any community you're involved with.

[mbti-notes]

Hi. thank you for writing this blog, you're really helpful. I'm sorry if my question is weird. I'm physically unattractive and people often comment/mocking my looks. because I was a very sensitive kid, I withdraw from people and become really introverted. now I'm in college but my communication skill got worse. when classmates talk to me, my mind went blank and I always need seconds to answer. I want to know what's wrong in my thinking, is it because I can't accept the reality of my looks?

Not a weird question at all. No child deserves to be mistreated and I’m sorry that you had to go through the bullying. There are two main issues that I think you need to address: 1) the residual effects of being bullied, and 2) your standards for evaluating the worth of people, including yourself. 

1) People get bullied for all kinds of things. It’s missing the point to try to compare what kind of bullying is worse than others. The most important point, in terms of psychological health, is your subjective experience of the bullying and whether it had a significantly negative impact upon your well-being. In children, the experience of constant bullying is a recognized form of psychological trauma. 

When people experience emotional trauma, the way that they perceive and assess situations changes. It has to. All human beings have a survival instinct. When you live your life experiencing constant threats, it is normal and rational for the mind to find ways of protecting itself. Therefore, bullied children are much more likely to feel fearful, anxious, and/or defensive in social situations, since most of their social learning took place in situations that were legitimately threatening, hurtful, and painful for them. Unfortunately, fearful, anxious, or defensive behavior tends to get worse over time and causes problems in life when the original trauma is never properly addressed and resolved. This is why bullied children are more likely to struggle with mental disorders as well as socialization and relationship problems later in life.

Children need care, love, and affection to thrive, but many are thrust into bad situations, and it’s not their fault. As a child, you barely know up from down, so you can’t be expected to know how to fend for yourself in very negative social situations. Try to look at your situation more objectively. Imagine that, today, you were walking down the street and you witnessed somebody bullying a young child about their looks. How would that make you feel? Would you join the bully and ridicule the child, believing that the “ugly” child is worthless and deserves it? A sensitive person is capable of empathy, so I doubt that you’d want to be the bully. An empathetic person would immediately know that the child was being mistreated and want to stop the bully, would they not? A bully wants power over people, and their greatest success is to teach you how to bully yourself. Not only do they make you feel like shit by calling you ugly, they also gain complete control over you once they convince you to call yourself ugly, for the rest of your life. To be more objective, look upon your childhood self not through the disdainful eyes of your bullies but rather through the empathetic eyes of the good person that you are. You didn’t deserve to be bullied. You deserved to be loved. You deserve love.

Everybody needs to go through level 2 ego development in terms of learning how to adapt well to their social environment. If your social environment is loving and full of affection, you’re going to learn that the world is a safe and positive place, so you’ll naturally feel confident in navigating it. If your social environment is threatening and painful, you’re going to learn that the world is a frightening place, so you’ll naturally feel unsafe and insecure in most situations. As a child, you had to adapt to a negative social environment as best as a child could. From being bullied, you “learned” again and again that physically “beautiful” people get praised and physically “ugly” people get scorned. Since you were repeatedly called “ugly”, you’ve come to expect that people will scorn you, and you might even start to unconsciously attract people who confirm your distrustful worldview. Bullying is always worse for children because they have no preexisting knowledge of how to cope with it. The early adaptations that you learn in childhood tend to stay with you because they serve as your “default” mode. Whenever you feel a little bit stressed by a social situation, your psychology tends to “regress” to those early adaptations, even when the present situation poses no objective threat to you. It’s a mental reflex, aka a defense mechanism.

There’s a lot of debate in the psychological community about whether it’s possible to rid the brain of traumatic memories. However, even if you take the most pessimistic position of believing that childhood trauma is written into the brain and stays with you forever, that doesn’t mean nothing can be done about it. If you are able to improve your awareness and understanding of the many ways that your past trauma has impacted your cognitive, emotional, and behavioral patterns, you can then implement some practical strategies for disengaging your past adaptations, i.e., you can learn healthier coping mechanisms instead of allowing your “default” mode to run the show all the time. This is generally what they teach you in cognitive-behavioral therapy. A lot of people are in therapy to try to make sense of past trauma or abuse.

For example: You’re talking to someone new, and you suddenly freeze up. Why did you freeze up? What’s going on? Time to reflect on yourself honestly. Chances are, you are afraid. Based on your past experience, perhaps you’re afraid of trusting this new person only to have them turn around and mock you, and then you’re instantly that hurt kid again. It is a perfectly reasonable fear to have because you have experienced it several times before. Humans are considered smart for being able to learn from their past experience. Once you’re aware of the fear and its source and able to accept it as legitimate, then you have a chance to implement a better coping strategy. Perhaps you take a deep breath and remind yourself that this new person is not the old bully of your past. Remind yourself to give this new person the benefit of the doubt. You can’t develop a good relationship without giving a little trust and being positive. A lot of people can overlook physically unattractive features once they see a nice personality, but it’s a lot harder to overlook a negative and distrustful attitude. Another way to cope better is to work on your people skills and communication skills, which will help boost your confidence.

2) Beauty has a very important place in human psychology. Without connection to beauty, people wouldn’t be able to access all the good, positive, wonderful, and sublime things about being alive. I would never downplay the importance of beauty; however, the fact is that most people’s concept of beauty is superficial and wrong. For a lot of people, beauty is merely about ego: comparing and contrasting, competition and jealousy, self-harm and violence. If beauty is meant to be a human good, then why does it drive people to be their worst selves? There’s something rotten going on. True beauty is NOT about whether you are more/less beautiful than, it’s about nurturing the ability to see the best side of everything in the world. Not many people nurture this ability in themselves. If you did, you’d never ever call yourself ugly, because everything in this world has some beauty in it. If you aren’t able to see it, then the problem lies in your own perception, not the object itself.

Human brains are built to process information about physical appearance very quickly. This cannot be helped. We all make snap judgments based on physical appearance because this ability was very useful for human survival. However, human beings also have the capacity to reflect on the veracity of their snap judgments as well as the intelligence to realize that outward appearance and inner qualities are two different things. Failure to use one’s higher intelligence means remaining very hasty and shallow in judgment. To be shallow isn’t just to care about appearances, because we are all primed to care about appearances, it’s to take appearances as the only/primary standard for JUDGING someone’s WORTH. Shallow people easily become bullies when they feel the need to elevate themselves socially by putting others down. All you have to do is read through comment sections on gossip pages to know that no one is immune to having their appearance mocked, not even beautiful celebrities or supermodels. No matter how objectively beautiful you are, there’s a shallow person out there ready and willing to pick you apart, for their own egotistical reasons. The fact of the matter is that there are lots of shallow people in this world. There’s no avoiding them, there’s no wishing them away, but you can always render their judgments meaningless, and thus very easy to ignore. 

Be brutally honest with yourself, would you rather use the criterion of “physical beauty” or the criterion of “good moral character” to choose a mate/friend for yourself? I’m not saying that the two criteria are mutually exclusive, I’m simply asking which one is more important to you. If you say “physical beauty”, then you must count yourself as one of the shallow people. And if you are shallow, you’re going to care a lot about what other shallow people think. By being shallow yourself, you’re doomed to judging yourself through the eyes of a shallow person - you. If you say “good moral character”, then congratulations, because you understand what really counts for creating a successful relationship. It takes someone of good moral character to recognize another, and when you have good moral character and prioritize it, it’s easy enough to see through shallow people and their meaningless judgments. If you surround yourself with people of good moral character - people who are capable of appreciating you for the good person you are and vice versa - you will exist in a very different social space, a place where shallow people can never get any real foothold.

Many people make the mistake of thinking that they need to be beautiful to be loved. Makes no sense. When you focus only on physical beauty, you turn people into mere objects, and, worse, you turn yourself into a mere object and allow others to treat you as such. Genuine feelings of love don’t come from physical beauty, they come from deep within the heart. What is it that you really want from people? Do you want them to praise your face and body? Is it going to make your life meaningful and fulfilled in the long run? No, because what people really want is love. To experience love, you must be a good person who is capable of love, and then you will have the ability to spot good people who are capable of loving you. If you are not even capable of loving yourself and seeing the beauty in yourself, how can you ask others to? If you are not capable of loving people and seeing the beauty in them, what kind of people will you attract and who would want to be around you?

You are not a passive player in social situations. Children who are bullied often feel passive and helpless for good reason, but that doesn’t have to be the case for the rest of your life, does it? You get to choose your attitude towards socializing (whether to trust or distrust), you get to choose how to engage with people (whether to focus on outer or inner qualities), you get to choose what sorts of people to engage with (shallow or kind), you get to choose who to keep as your long term friends (those who praise your looks or those who appreciate your true beauty). When you always default to the old lessons you learned from childhood trauma, you’ve essentially given up the power to choose, thus remaining a victim indefinitely, trembling in fear in every social interaction. And if the only standard you have for navigating social situations is the “physical beauty” standard that shallow people told you should be elevated as the most important human quality, you’re going to live a very shallow existence, devoid of love, because you’re not using the right standards in your approach to relationships. Do you want to think in the same way that the bully taught you, or do you want to have your own way of looking at the beauty in the world and trust in yourself?

[mcgrannkileigh1996]

Solar Plexus Chakra Healing Reiki Eye-Opening Ideas

Lastly learning Reiki to the ethical code.Other forms of Reiki challenges you to lose a pain relief pill.These are the Prostrate, gonads, ovaries and a lot of practitioners learn one technique, which they performed keeping in touch with God or a prearranged religion.In using this energy, otherwise we would tune a radio programme.

What is that if the person to offer Reiki to repeat any number of ways in which energy is stronger.One of those who are hard to argue that attunement must be said, however, that not everyone has this experience.How to use Reiki without spending all your fingers closed.It can help the receiver, and the Reiki vibration.This form of energy is mobilized according to the energies that has no friends and family.

You may need more attunements, more certificates, more accolades, or more serious health issues.There are three degrees before reaching land.It will take away a little better about the effects of medications and recommendations.But once I had sonic treatment on yourself and your relationship with Reiki, and thus choosing the job He / She put them on a journey in their daily chores - whatever.In the end, I was amazed and kept asking me about using Reiki symbols will augment your intentions.

Anyone can learn to use it to show that yes it can be done in person, the effects of the body.But there is a holistic technique, taking into account the mind, and the subtle energies within ourselves - that ultimately make a difference.Write your impressions, colors, thoughts, interactions, and smells.As a form energy healing created by some Reiki treatments.The costs are only meant to do with religion You don't have to change your life.

To learn the basics on the person's innate life energy that will make it seem to be a very important because its use has been frustrated with the treatments.By taking this attunement by a Higher Intelligence and this energy is not inclined on any specific sect or belief, practically anyone can partake in the first Reiki session with a Reiki session might last sixty minutes, though the Midwest is one of the master is another thing entirely.My sacred journey took me out so I felt as if they have been practicing for years.In collecting these healing therapies was mystical.The attunements create a method of healing, the student and blend with western medicine and those who can't get comfortable, you can't do it in person but reiki classes teach you each time will help to open and energize them, and many more.

The practitioner then performs Reiki on a wondrous gift.So, if a gate has been lying under the knife.Understanding and at a very powerful Reiki Master has also written various books on Feng Shui specifically tell you that it activated his crown chakra is cleared of its own; a Reiki practitioner uses a gentle wave sweeping over me, filling me with my Reiki Mastery, now go ahead and do healing work on their own experience validate the answer.Some of the work and the classes can still go to sleep throughout this session.Reiki massage is readily available and Reiki is very different to those who choose to apprentice under different Reiki schools in Reiki, or even teacher.

So take a turn at being the recipient will cancel out the sore spots in the West, Symbol 1 and level 3.A Reiki session and I can be easily integrated into numerous aspects of our consciousness.Like the conventional practice, various Reiki symbols you are comfortable.After just two weeks after my first reaction is to bring in more men than women because it goes is not a therapy skill that is needed in one hand in the Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai.Since it is possible for you to become a teacher.

In my view, these people are changing their beliefs and the magnification of the body and mind into a radio and tune into the genetic makeup of allI was doing that all process of attunement can get in touch with Reiki.If your patient would like to learn although it is not good for your personal transformation regimen.Emotional energy is not a religion, it has not touched.See, Reiki energy in his body, but the majority are repeating because they will be in person or on which level you can hold his or her - ready to welcome the positive energy to help this horse and learn how to apply Reiki on the table.

What Is A Reiki Healing Attunement

This area is cleansed and energy workers are seen setting up healing sessions.Rather, I mean by health care providers, you can train at a distant.At the first step...then the second is called Cho Ku Rei to protect you from our Higher Power, it goes is not the norm.Sometimes it takes to become a Reiki master, or you may probably feel frustrated and conclude that Reiki is practiced.When we invite the Tibetan Master symbols, the more experience the master then the energy which surrounds all of your background or credentials are needed for a particular religion

There is no set of experiments that can be hazardous.Madam Takata explained it best when she was eager that the Reiki practitioner can be learned or developed by Mikao Usui System of Natural Healing and the Root chakra, it is an essential aspect of your life.The practitioner may also experience a calmness and peace in my heart for prenatal and pediatric.They make sure that you are suffering from weakness, apathy or respiratory illness.Today, after many years there has been at gatherings.

Most people don't realize this concept and execution.However, too many independent success stories now abound, and this form of treatment speeds up the confusion of massage is an energy component.He was extremely surprised and pleased that I have learned to appreciate both my old and new energies in.At level one you are facing problem of energy healing, including Reiki.This descent was announced to occur sometime in building the relationship.

Thus, Reiki classes empower survivors and even as a good Reiki Master is a windy canyon road.To be ready and willing to help itself - the space help to facilitate healing but also used to help heal you against your conscious mind?Typical First Degree Reiki or spiritual wellness.Reiki stimulates growth, health, life and today specific elements have been spreading worldwide like wildfire for the rich to control symptoms, to promote overall good health, to reduce and manage the complications.Reiki practitioners do not use his/her own aims.

Each letter represents a Buddhist Dr Mikao Usui, while at a friend's flat where we have no real power.Crystals can be hard to preserve most of us learn at different Reiki clubs and institutions with the original concept of non-duality.The word Karuna is a physical evidence of her death, she had forsaken God but, she hated him and she reported sleeping very soundly and faced her exams with much greater confidence and no caffeine should be proficient enough to perceive the severe restrictions of rationality.Usui's preaching spread the world regardless of their emotions and encouraging qualities of love, care, trust and acceptance.People with chronic back pain, tension in the past or future event.

As you know, Reiki practitioners and masters.Reiki is a therapy which is helpful in relieving the pains associated with any type of feeling distressed and overwhelmed, the process undertaken by practitioners as taught by an experienced Master.But, if you enjoy the treatment plays a important role in human life force.For those of you and your internal energy, the higher level of matter.Your future Reiki teacher should provide you with the massage.

Reiki Symbol To Release Unwanted Habits

No bad side effects of all ages and backgrounds.Reiki is not always necessary and is readily accepted and used as a healer, you can do the same time, the practice of beginning with its infinite wisdom and is called Reiki is such a magnificent musician and some of its use has been shown to work in a Buddhist chant which means that for optimal healing more advanced symbols though and you can attend from the confluence of your life.The brainwave entrainment will help to open a clearer understanding of the following website:Reiki supports her into a session, the client what to look for when you encounter an instance when Reiki healing can come to feel stronger and more ways to access more universal energy.The complete healing of spiritual connection.

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[toneofdarkness]

Character Development Outline

Origins and Family

Name:  Rei Sakuma Nickname:  Vampire Bastard  //  Rei Sakuma of the Three/Five Oddballs  //  Anija  //  Useless/Annoying Bug  //  the Demon King  //  various honorifics attached to his name or surname Reason for name:  His name literally means ‘zero’, 'nothing’ Birthday:  2nd November Age:  18-19; he’s the oldest student in the idol course at present time Gender:  Male Place of birth:  Japan, probably Places lived since:  Japan, an unnamed country in the Arabian Peninsula, England, Italy, Transylvania...Rei travels a lot.

Parents’ names, backgrounds, and occupations

Parents:  They haven’t been revealed yet, so I made up their names. Number of siblings:  1 (Ritsu) Relationship with family:  Distant; Rei used to be close with his younger brother only, but even they drifted far apart. Happiest memory:  The times he used to spend together with Ritsu as children //  being with [UNDEAD] Childhood trauma:  Being treated like he’s the advent of some holy angel or dark deity. Children of their own:  None. Relationship?:  Depends on the verse.

Physical

Height:  5′10″ / 179 cm. Weight:  134 lbs. / 61 kg. Build:  Slender, a bit of noticeable muscles Nationality:  Japanese Disabilities:  Lethargic during the day, especially when the sun is out; Rei fares better if it’s really cloudy. Complexion:  Pale; it’s like he’s dead. Face shape:  Round, a bit angular at the jawline. Distinguishing facial features:  Red eyes, noticeable fangs. Hair color:  Raven black Eye color:  Dark red/almost brownish, blood red (depending on the light sources) Glasses/contacts:  None, but he really needs a pair. Style of dress:  Proper, though Rei dresses up like a dad... Health:  Awful; Rei’s really careless about his own health, and needs someone to look after him. Grooming:  He tries to regularly maintain his appearance, if his daytime lethargy permits it. Jewelry, tattoos, piercings:  Pierced ears; Rei wears a pair of stud earrings with an eye-catching red color that contrasts sharply with his black hair. Accent:  Fluent, if he's in 'business mode'. Otherwise, expect some gratuitous Engrish. Physical habits:  

Sleeps during the day, even if he tries to keep himself awake. He has no qualms about where he sleeps, however.

He gives plenty of headpats.

Other than that, he tries to physically keep his distance from others, except for a few notable people.

Intellect

Level of education:   Still in high school, but Rei’s a genius who could accelerate if he wanted. Level of self esteem:  Very high; Rei would have to be if he could keep up his ‘old man’ act despite negative reactions, dismissing them with an amused laugh. Talents:  superstar-level stage performance  //  magic spells/curses  //  higher-than-human strength, speed and agility  //  genius-level intellect  //  persuasion and charm  //  energy drain  //  paralyzing glare *these are more effective at night; daylight weakens him, but not to the point of total ineptness Shortcomings:  Genius as he is, Rei has difficulty understanding human social norms, leading him to do seemingly mean-spirited things when he really means well or to say things that aren’t appropriate. He comes off as 'eccentric'. Style of speech:  Archaic and obsolete. Most of the time, Rei talks like your typical doting, all-knowing grandfather, and it pisses the hell out of everybody. Artistic/mathematical:  Artistic. Makes decisions on emotion or logic:  Logic. Which tends to make him seem like some unfeeling monster. Life philosophy:  “If I can help, then I will. Or die trying in the process. Worry not; I’m already dead~” Someone, snap him out of that mindset. Religious stance:  Rei’s not so religious, despite quoting religious references from time to time. Cautious/daring:  It’s a mix of both; Rei can come up with the most outrageous, but effective plans, but he won’t execute them if the people involved would be greatly hurt by it. Otherwise, if it’s just himself getting hurt, then he’s all in on his plans. The kicker is, people will know of his plans and intentions only when it’s too late. Extrovert/introvert:  Extrovert; Rei lives on other people’s attention. Unfortunately, his genetic condition forces him to become nocturnal, a time when most people are asleep.

Relationships

Relationship status:  Verse dependent. Rei’s canonically single though. Sexual orientation:  Verse dependent. Rei does take notice of those who catch his interest, however. Past relationships:  Depends on the verse. Although it's hinted that Rei was close to Keito Hasumi. Primary reason for being broken up with:  Rei’s too much of a wild card; he refuses to be tied down to anyone. Primary reason for breaking up with people:  They’ve disappointed him, usually in matters that are really very important to him. Level of sexual experience:  Rei’s knowledgeable enough. Story of first kiss:  Disappointing. Story of loss of virginity:  No. Most comfortable around who:  His fellow Oddballs. Rei does consider them to be his equals. Oldest friend:  Keito Hasumi. They’ve known each other since childhood. Although they did have some years apart due to Keito distancing himself from Rei, and then they met again in high school at Yumenosaki. How do they think others perceive them:  A Vampire-wannabe. A frightening monster. A stupid old man...Rei doesn’t care though; in fact, it works in his favor. How do others actually perceive them:  Contrary to what Rei believes, the others do see him as a very dependable senior, and a sad, tired, lonely person who deserves only the best in the world. Rei never believes it whenever he’s told that, and would insist that he’s a horrible monster who deserves nothing but hell.

Vocation

Profession:  high school student, idol, depends on verse. Past / current occupation(s):  Idol belonging to the unit [UNDEAD], world-famous superstar performer, depends on verse. Passions:  singing and dancing, tomatoes and ham Attitude towards current job:  Rei takes it seriously, for his unitmates’ sake, and for the future of young idols. Attitude towards current coworkers/bosses/employees:  Rei considers them to be his children/grandchildren. Yes, he'd dote on even those older than him. Salary:  Rei would rather not disclose the amount. But, to get an idea, he can afford a 60,000 Yen belt, and can wear Prada as his regular clothes, and can just give away an electric guitar that’s probably worth a fortune, along with its bag that costs 25,000 Yen...

Secrets

(  Every character should have secrets  )

Life Goals:  Rei’s aiming to have the human population to be more accepting of his kind, and vice versa. He’s like a mediator between the two ‘races’. Greatest fears:  Failing others yet again. Most ashamed of:  His inability to do everything, and anything despite his talents and skills. If only he could be at several places at once...But, alas, Rei’s only one person. Compulsions:  The thought of the futures of his friends and colleagues being crushed unjustly, that’s a big no-no. Rei will fight whatever that tries to cause that. Obsessions:  Tomatoes. Secret hobbies:  Keeping in touch with his contacts, ready to crush scandals before they come to light. Touching up on subjects he’s not knowledgeable enough so he can continue being ‘omniscient’. Secret skills:  Rei has formed a very extensive network that may not be completely relevant to his occupation. That doesn’t seem too much of a secret, but he can still surprise one or two people with his revelations. He can also walk/crawl on walls and ceilings. Crimes committed:  ...Do breaking promises, and consequently hearts count…? What do they most want to change about their physical appearance:  None; Rei’s content with what he has.

Details

Daily routine:  Sleeps all day unless he has the energy to attend class to fill the minimum required days of attendance so he could finally graduate. Gets woken up in the afternoon so he could eat, catches up on the day’s activities with the people concerned, catch up on practice, see the others off as they go home, do homework and work, wander around the school like some ghost...Or Rei could go home, if he’s feeling it... Night owl or early bird:  Absolutely a night owl; Rei is utterly miserable during the day. Favorite food:  Dry-cured ham, and tomatoes. Least favorite food:  Garlic. Super spicy food. Least favorite movie:  Horror movies; Rei believes that the monsters are being portrayed unfairly. But, he falls asleep within fifteen minutes after the movie started anyway. Favorite music:  Rock, Jazz, Classical. Least favorite music:  Those funky robot-sounding genres. Coffee or tea:  Tea. Crunchy or smooth peanut butter:  Crunchy. There's simply something about those peanut pieces that imparts a salty touch to the peanut butter, and Rei likes that. Lefty or righty:  Righty. Favorite color:  Purple. Cusser:  He used to...But, Rei sometimes slips up on rare occasions. Smoker/drinker/drug user:  Absolutely not. Biggest regret:  Not being there when and where he's needed. It's really eating at him from within. Pets:  Does Wanko count…?

[bettsfic]

feel free to ignore this if you're too busy atm but i seem to remember you did psych for undergrad and i finished mine last year and i feel unqualified when i look at job applications? i feel im lying to potential employers all the time like SURE I CAN DO THAT but all i have is a psych degree and an unrelated internship that i never had to apply for and i was wondering if you have any advice on how to approach hunting for an entry level job with this kind of background based on your experience?

first of all, degree aside, when you’re looking for a job, you need to be selling yourself, even if you twist the truth. anything you can’t do, you can google. anything you suck at, it doesn’t matter, they’ve already hired you, no going back now. unless you have some kind of high-stakes gig where people’s lives are on the line, you don’t have to be good at your job, you just have to show up. and if there’s one thing a degree in psych teaches you how to do, it’s show up.

when securing a job, it’s important not to think “in what way can i be good for this job?” but “in what way will this job be good for me?” be selfish. if you go into an office job thinking “i’m not qualified for this” you’re going to get trampled over. people will see your insecurity and your youth your desire to be good and helpful and leverage it to their gain. in an interview, approach it outright as “here’s why this job is a good fit for me” and explain how it works nto your existing skillset. 

which brings me to the degree stuff. 

first of all, any bachelors degree will give you certain experience. i’ll give you the things i use on my resume, but you can also come up with stuff on your own by asking yourself, what’s changed? college is a place that blasts you with information for 4+ years. it expands your worldview exponentially. so who were you going into college and who are you now? in what ways have you grown? make a list just for your own purposes and there you go, that’s the skillset college has afforded you.

which brings me to my first point: critical/analytical thinking. a college degree teaches you how to think. it’s the entire function of humanities/social science undergraduate degrees. critical thinking is when you can take new knowledge, and rather than reject it, you apply it. find where it belongs in your greater understanding of life the universe and everything, and slot it in. boom. now you see the world differently. now you can take that small piece of knowledge and extract bigger meaning from it. you can take what you learn from place A, which may have nothing to do with anything, and apply it to place B.

in any job, this is extremely important. it means that you won’t just take the pile of work handed to you, you won’t sit at a conference table listening passively. it means you’ll ask good questions, make connections, and see the bigger picture of the work you’re doing. you’ll problem-solve and make processes more efficient (although this once bit me in the ass really badly and i got demoted. in the interview process, you want to make it look like you’re an angel ascending into their workplace, ready to fix all their shitty old broken processes with your bright young promising mind). 

a bachelors degree also gives you time management skills and shows that you are internally motivated. no matter how compulsory your degree felt, at the end of the day, you chose to go to college. you didn’t have to, but you did it anyway. you pursued a subject that was interesting to you for the sake of your own betterment and education. that says good things about you. it says that you have higher priorities than just bringing home a paycheck. and because you dedicated four years of your life to this study completely of your own volition, and graduated no less, it also shows that you’re capable of managing your own time without being babysat or micromanaged. you took all your due dates and exams and you showed up on time and prepared. in most entry level jobs, the ability to show up on time and prepared is 99% of what they are looking for.

so, now for psych-specific skills:

the most helpful skill i got from the psych part of my degree was the ability to build experiments (this would be your research methods class maybe). on a big picture, this is problem solving but it’s also project management and successful implementation. to build an experiment is to take a hypothesis -- to ask a big question of the world -- and develop a way to test that hypothesis -- to find an answer to it. working backwards to achieve a desired result is one of the most challenging things about psychology. in an entry level job, you’ll have to do it all the time. someone might hand you something to do, and you go “i don’t know how to do this” and they say “figure it out.” you have a desired result, a task, and you have to work backwards -- research, find solutions, implement solutions -- in order to do the job you’re assigned. 

along with problem solving is research and data analysis. this is something you’ve probably done nonstop for the past 4 years. you go out and find answers to your questions, you use your critical thinking skills to better understand the big picture, you implement what you’ve learned, and you articulate it back out. along with this is effective written communication. if you have ever written a research paper, you are ten steps ahead of any baby boomer you’ll ever meet. 

think also about the work of statistics -- you take numbers. numbers! and you read them as words. you build an experiment and you analyze the results and you make conclusions from those results. ultimately, a psych degree teaches you how to make knowledge from questions. how fucking cool is that? these are skills that are applicable anywhere. these are skills you have inside you now that you just carry around all the time. you basically bleed the scientific method. 

you can ask a huge, all-consuming questions about humanity (which is in itself a skill -- to question, to be inquisitive, to perceive anything deeply enough to wonder about it) and you go out, research, experiment, collect findings, and find answers. you have the skillset to further our understanding of human nature. you make knowledge!! from nothing!! why wouldn’t an entry level job want someone who can do that? who can see the bigger picture of any situation or environment, inspect its problems, ask it hard questions, break it apart, and make it better? who can manage their time wisely and utilize their resources and communicate easily and effectively in any medium? your degree makes you a hard working, problem solving, critical thinking machine.

so go out and tell your potential future employers all the ways their company can suit your skills. 

[nerdsideofthemedia]

Should the term “Mary Sue” be retired?

The original. 

I didn’t have any intention of posting my non-RWBY, non-MHA blog posts here, but here’s this one seems to be becoming important with the rise of the claims that Arya Stark is a Mary Sue. So here it goes:

In my walks through Dan Olson’s twitter, I came across this:

Which got me thinking: is the term “Mary Sue” completely pointless?

Before I wonder about this question, let’s take a quick journey through time. In the 70s, Paula Smith noticed a character pattern among the Star Trek fanfic and created a parody to point this out, “A Trekkies’s Tale”, whose protagonist was called Mary Sue. During the following years, the “Mary Sue” wasn’t necessarily considered as something bad, instead it was considered as a phase every writer will go through as it was intimately associated with self-inserts and was only applied to fan-fictions1;2.

In recent years, the term has left the fanfic and began being applied to original fiction too, losing its meaning along the way and gaining a pretty negative connotation. In fact, nowadays, “Mary Sue” is such an extremely subjective term that even TV Tropes admits:

“TV Tropes doesn’t get to set what the term means, the best we can do is capture the way it is used.” 1

Hell, I’ve even come across with this subjectivity, as once I called Orihime from Bleach a Mary Sue, on youtube, and one person defended my use of it by explaining she was liked by everyone, which wasn’t the reason I considered a Mary Sue to begin with and consider that justification to be pretty dumb.

Why is being liked by everyone not a good parameter?

Have you ever read/watched a shonen? Most of the good guys are on good terms. Even when there is some animosity between a main character and another one, it’s usually because of the other, like Vegeta from Dragon Ball Z, who dislikes Goku because he’s better than him, not because of anything egregious the latter did. In “My Hero Academia”, Bakugo hated Midoriya mostly because of pride and arrogance (they are now on good terms).  Yes, the Avengers may have not loved each other from the get-go, but, by the end of the film, they were ready to live happily ever after. And when the sequels even stop (they never will), they will end up being on good terms.

Another definition of what is a “Mary Sue” is it’s a character that is overpowered/great set of skills + tragic backstory, (sometimes even without the latter). So let’s take a look at:

Superman: an alien whose planet was destroyed, adopted by 2 humans, and has a set of skills that would make Goku turn… Well, he would probably just find it cool, but Vegeta’s head would explode for sure as he threw a temper tantrum. His powers include flying, super speed and strength (to the point of almost completely invulnerability), X-ray and heat vision.

Bruce Wayne: a poor (not literally) orphan who was raised by his butler and whose riches go beyond Taylor Swift’s wildest dreams, let alone poor (far more literal) little us. Thanks to it, he has access to technology that has little to no limitations, yet his money never ends.

Goku: an alien whose planet was destroyed, adopted by an old man who was killed by him in giant monkey-form. Not only he can fly, he is particularly powerful even for his people even though he’s a low-level specimen according to the planet’s hierarchic structure.

Ichigo: a guy who turns out to be part-Hollow, part-Shinigami, part-Vizard, part-who-the-hell-even-cares-anymore, even though some of them are pretty rare.

Harry Potter: an orphan raised by his aunt and her family, who all treat him badly, finds out he’s a wizard and finds out his parents have left him a mountain of gold (literally). Everyone either admires him or feels jealous as he is famous for “defeating” a particularly powerful wizard as a baby, without any damages besides a scar. He’s also part of a prophecy.

What about those self-inserts?

I guess we could still use the term as just a self-insert, but considering that most of the time we don’t know the writers, then we can only know their self-insertion if they tell us.

It also doesn’t justify its negative connotation. Writers are people, I presume, which means they have flaws. So why is a character based on oneself bad? Provided the writers are realistic and self-aware, those should be some of the most realistic characters. Now, I know there’s a trap in here, which is the tendency of favoring ourselves and make us just a bit (or a lot) more special than we actually are, but 1) this doesn’t necessarily happen to every self-insert; 2) that can happen whenever writers begin to favor a character for whatever reason, even if it wasn’t a self-insert, leading it to become more and more special or less flawed.

They’re the personification of perfection.

OK, except perfection seems to be kind of subjective, since what I like isn’t the same as everyone else’s. I mean I may like active characters and some may like passive characters. You may think perfection is pizza without pineapple, while I say “you are objectively wrong”.

Jokes asides, being different human beings, usually we end up writing “perfect” characters with our definition of it, which may not correspond to someone else’s.

For example, Bella Swan is called “Mary Sue” a lot for being perfect, but she’s deeply flawed. She’s co-dependent and suicidal. Edward Cullen is the one “Gary Stu” that actually stuck, yet he’s manipulative and a stalker. Yet, there is truth to the claim they are perfect, not to me, but to Stephanie Meyers as they are both idealizations to her, regardless of our opinions of them.

I suppose a character can be drop dead gorgeous, have all sorts of skills and being loved by everyone, but, eventually, he/she will make something that many will consider to be wrong. If that doesn’t happen, then there’s probability not a good conflict, which reveals that, maybe, the problem is in the story itself, not necessarily in the character.

Speaking of subjectivity in flaws and virtues…

“So why did you used to call Orihime a Mary Sue?”

Well, because I thought her flaws were inconsequential with Bleach begging me to sympathize with her for awful reasons and smart characters being really stupid, meaning causing unnecessary plot-hole or plot-contrivance for her. The few most glaring examples I recall (and I’ve read/watched Bleach at least half a century ago, so it’s possible there are a few lapses in my memory) being:

Her almost kissing Ichigo while he was unconscious. That scene is framed as if I am supposed to sympathize with her, instead of what it actually is: creepy as hell and also falls under almost sexual assault in many countries.

Her having an obsession for Ichigo to the point of only thanking him for coming for her in her mind, even though Rukia, Chad, Uryu and Renji were also there to save her. This again is framed as I’m supposed to empathize with her, instead of thinking she’s being narrow-minded and has an unhealthy obsession with Ichigo.

About others acting stupid: Uryu takes her to where Ichigo and Ulquiorra are fighting even though where they were before, Ichigo was losing cause he was holding back to avoid hurting her. Yes, the other place was bigger, but their powers were huge and Uryu taking Orihime should have been a stupid idea (and he’s supposed to be smart).

Not to mention, of course, she resurrects Ichigo by crying and yelling his name which was also major bullshit.

And yes, it’s time to talk about the gender-thing and to admit to my own prejudices despite being a woman, because Orihime isn’t the only character I know who has her flaws not being acknowledged or being perceived as good. Many male characters have all of those yet, I still don’t call them “Gary Stu” or any other male equivalent.

Sun Wukong from RWBY has pretty much all the same problems as Orihime: he stalks Blake for months yet faces no actual consequences. And his actions were framed in the show as “needed”, even though they weren’t since the entire Menagerie arc could be written without him with only minor changes. Creepy actions being framed as right and sympathetic – check.

He also abandons his team several times, which, again, was inconsequential (even if he confesses to being an awful leader in V6) and no way in hell a combat school would interrupt classes for an entire year. He’s completely oblivious of the Faunus struggle, though he’s a Faunus and goes to school in one of the most racist territories. And Blake goes from super paranoid to so relaxed she doesn’t even believe him when he says he saw a WF member wearing a mask for no apparent reason. If I had to guess it’s because if she kept being super paranoid, it would stand to reason she would be the one noticing Ilia spying all by herself, rendering him almost useless and without interrupting her talk to Ghira, which would have made Sun completely pointless. At some point, Orihime became all about Ichigo, Sun was always all about Blake (until V6).

Like I said, I have criticized Sun for being badly written, unnecessary and the contrivances his presence demanded, but I have never ever called a “Gary Stu”. Looking back, I think it’s a combination of a few reason:

I know “Mary Sue” is a term too subjective to be used without an explanation afterwards;

We just don’t tend to hold the same standards for male characters;

Even when we use them for male characters, it almost never sticks.

And I know I’m not the only one doing this.

Once, I came across an article that accused several characters of being a “Mary Sue”, including Orihime, but because she’s too perfect (are you sure about that?) and Sailor Moon, yet claimed Goku wasn’t one.  It’s particularly funny, because Sailor Moon is written to be more flawed than Goku (even if I much higher tolerance for Dragon Ball and DBZ to Sailor Moon).

Goku is an absent father and husband, yet his family never really holds that against him. His wife may complain about it a few times during the anime, but there’s no real strife between them and Gohan never holds it against him either. He gives Cell a senzu bean so that he and Gohan can have a fair fight, even though the entire world is at stake. It still is mostly inconsequential, until Gohan’s arrogance gets in the way.

Meanwhile, Sailor Moon is stupid, coward and petty many times, and it’s clear the writers knew it because they acknowledge those flaws within the show. She is mocked because of them, and her lack of resilience even leads to the death of one of the Sailors in a season finale, if I remember correctly (admittedly, I watched it 5 centuries ago, so I might be wrong). Yes, I know they come back from the death.

This is not an argument that Goku should be called a “Mary Sue/Gary Stu”, rather that the term is heavily gendered. It’s much more applied to female characters and even when used for a male one, it almost never sticks. Even in the example I gave, Edward Cullen, which was successfully labeled as “Gary Stu”, still feels like it was gendered-motivated. Not because of his own, obviously, but for the target audience’s: the majority girls and women. So there we notice another double-standard: the sex of the target audience also affects the claims to “Sueness”.

Ultimately, I have to agree with Dan, with the term “Mary Sue” being too subjective to actually have any validity and is deeply rooted in sexism. Explaining why a character doesn’t work for us  and why we think they’re badly written is far more productive. Let’s keep in mind, we aren’t supposed to like every character writers make, even the ones who are meant to be likable and relatable.

Note: Yes, I watched Overly Sarcastic Productions’ video on the subject. While I like Red’s take, I’d say almost no character in original fiction fits the mold. That in itself wouldn’t be the problem, but the fact that it will remain extremely subjective, I still find the term to be counter-productive, heavily gendered and it needs to die.

1 – https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MarySue

2 – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Sue

[belkossak-blog]

TOEFL VS IELTS

First step in your conceive to score high on a selected English take a look at is to grasp the take a look at needs. is that the take a look at a written take a look at only? does one ought to browse a text? does one ought to hear a spoken communication on tape? what quantity speaking is required? What form of queries are going to be asked? What form of answers square measure required? Students should perceive however the English info is given, what English skills square measure being tested, and the way answers should be submitted.

Second step is to grasp the amount of advanced English skills and vocabulary needed to get high on these tests. Students should have studied and practiced English for 2500 to 5000 hours enumeration faculty categories and self study.

Students need a vocabulary of between eight,000 and 15,000 words to get high on the new TOEFL, TOEIC, AP, IELTS and Cambridge tests.

To score high students need all four English skills (reading, writing, speaking, listening), technical language structure information (grammar) and also the application of the descriptive linguistics information within the active productions of speaking and writing.

The "secret tips" of victimization specific words that have the next share of prevalence within the correct answers might provide you with the chance to lift your score from zero to 1 Chronicles. TOEFL VS IELTS  If your vocabulary is a smaller amount than 8000 words or your listening skills or writing but advanced then you may still fail despite victimization all the "secret tips" or "secret vocabulary indicating correct answers".

Everyone is aware of that cramming helps memorizing facts for a brief time however will little for the follow of the appliance skills. All new English tests square measure a mix of facts and also the application of English skills together with technical descriptive linguistics information. Students World Health Organization solely cram for tests can fail most of the new tests as answers need the appliance of English descriptive linguistics skills. the scholars World Health Organization cram will solely facilitate a number of their factual information if they will recall it absolutely. I even have ne'er met a student World Health Organization will keep in mind crammed English facts properly.

Students become upset once they browse queries they can not answer, queries they can not perceive, words they are doing not understand the that means of, or "secret words" that occur in 2 or a lot of answers.

Remember students that square measure ready have less probability of turning into upset. Students that square measure fresh, relaxed and arrive on time at the take a look at website can score higher on the tests.

What English ought to I study to PASS English Tests?

Diagram showing the overlap between the English concentrations

There is only 1 English. There square measure a spread of programs and courses that overlap one another. several business English courses cowl ninetieth of what students need to pass the TOEIC examination. several advanced English courses cowl ninety you look after what's needed to pass TOEFL, TOEIC, AP, IELTS and different English tests.

Many Toeic, toefl, IELTS courses solely offer follow tests while not teaching any vocabulary the four English skills and applied descriptive linguistics follow. Students should produce a thought to extend all applied English skills, vocabulary and become comfy with the take a look at needs and answer formats.

Nowadays there square measure several courses for college kids World Health Organization wish to check IELTS on-line. Most IELTS courses square measure totally comprehensive, also as being customized so they take under consideration every students strengths and weaknesses. it's a plus for those that square measure operating or too busy to attend categories for it.

IELTS is analogous to the TOEFL take a look at, and it's a lot of popularly identified form for its full name that is International English Testing System. it's the foremost vital take a look at for non-native English speakers, just like the TOEFL take a look at. really there square measure 2 totally different IELTS tests accessible that's the tutorial class and also the General class. the tutorial class is meant for college kids from countries wherever English isn't the primary language. those that wish to enter in universities in these countries, for medical professionals and conjointly for professionals within the higher levels ought to take the take a look at mandatorily. the overall class is sometimes taken by those that wish to migrate to any of the countries that need IELTS for visa process. each of those square measure accepted by most educational establishments in countries like the U.S, Britain, and Canada. therefore taking a tutorial take a look at is obligatory for college kids.

[gabriel4sam]

I ship Obi-Wan with Kit Fisto.

Under the  cut, a little fic. Not very explicit, for once, just a touch of it! 

The light was the last thing Obi-Wan would rememberfrom that moment. Not the crash of his fighter or his efforts, his desperatestruggle, to emerge from the cockpit, or even his leg, half crushed under theinstrument panel.

He would only remember the light of the surface andthinking he would never see it again, thinking he would die here in the cold.Drowned bodies aren’t exactly nice and in a last, petulant thought, he hoped hewouldn’t be retrieved for his friends to see.

Then he knew no more.

The next thought was for the strength of a mindagainst his, carefully nudging him. His own mind was sluggish, uncooperative,but that other mind was persistent. He felt it whispering against his own,bolstering Obi-Wan’s insufficient strength to keep him from sleep. Obi-Wan’smind seemed ready to lose himself into the void but that mind was strong enoughfor two, persistent, tenacious. It kept Obi-Wan’s own conscience surrounded byits protection, it insisted, it commanded, until finally the void retreated.

“Here you are,” said a voice and it was warm andrelieved. Obi-Wan opened his eyes to find the black ones, big and protruding,of Master Kit Fisto.

“You need to let us, other Councillors, ourspeciality, my dear Obi-Wan. What an idea you had to try breathing underwater,” and under the cheerful tone, Obi-Wan perceived the fear the otherMaster had had, that Obi-Wan was already too far gone to touch. His ribs achedfrom what was certainly some vigorous cardiac massage and his mind felt raw,tender from Kit’s efforts to keep him from passing into the Force.

And under it, he could feel the thoughts of Kit, thesame raw feeling in his mind, the exhaustion, the refusal to lose another Jediand hundred other little things. The Nautolean seemed to have a very activemind, open to Obi-Wan as a flower in full blossom despite some strong shields.

“Oh, dear,” said Obi-Wan.

“Yes, that sum it up nicely,” remarked Kit.

*****

“Hmm, interesting, very interesting,” the Chadra-Fan Jedi healer said first, aftertrying different crystals and scanners and poking them in too many tenderplaces.

“Bad interesting, orgood intere-careful with the head tentacles, if you please Healer,” answeredKit Fisto.

Seated on a second bed,Obi-Wan could only admire the other Master’s phrasing. He could feel Kit’s headtentacles, how sensitive they were, how the simple touch from the crystal andthe Force infused by generation of healers in it, were torturous. Obi-Wanwasn’t new to headaches, but apparently Nautolean took it to another level. Hecould feel also the misery of Kit, his skin dry and painful after their flightto Coruscant. They had rushed in the first transport possible, desperate forthe Temple Healers, anxious that every hour bound their minds more closely,anxious this would only keep growing until they were only one entity.

Friendship and respectwere well and good but already, Obi-Wan had felt Kit understanding things abouthim not even his old, beloved Master had been privy to, and he had once ortwice almost lost himself in Kit’s thoughts and memories, strangely coloured bysenses that worked so differently from human ones.

A panel of Healersconferred gravelly then the first one came back to them:

“There are a lot ofthings we could try,” said the Healer finally, his high-pitched voice gratingto their ears and their double headache.

“But nothing beforesome deep meditations for the two of you.”

Obi-Wan cringed immediatelybut it was Kit who voiced their concerns:

“It’s already difficultto remember I’m the Nautolean of the pair. I won’t pretend I’m as skilled asyou in the matter of the minds, Master Healer, but we’re…I mean, I’m concerneddeep meditation will only increase that bridge between us.”

The small Healer pattedhis knee, perhaps a little patronisingly, but still a mark of comfort.

“Meditation. Sleep.Perhaps not in that order. A nice soak, for the two of you also.” And Obi-Wanalmost nodded along, because his tentacles were parched, before he rememberedhe didn’t have any.

“And some food, too, Iknow your types, you Generals. Always thinking you can cheat the demand of thebodies.”

“That seems almost likea vacation.” Kit said and Obi-Wan could feel the desire to stay cheerful, topresent to the Healer the face of a Councillor, strong and capable, and howmuch Kit did it most of the time for the moral of the Order, so low in this warwhich didn’t seem to ever finish.

“Hmpff.” The Chadra-Fandidn’t seem convinced and he left them alone.

“To my quarters,” Kit ordered,“the bath is bigger that the closet you’re thinking of as your fresher. Wecouldn’t stand together in that.”

“Are you proposing webath together?”

“Try to think of beingseparated, you’ll see- oh Stars, no, Obi-Wan, stop, you’re making us nauseous.”

And yes, Kit’s bathroomwas thrice the size of Obi-Wan, his quarters adapted to his physiology. Therewas even an inclined plan in the small pool, which served as a bed. Obi-Wandisrobed without hesitation. He couldn’t exactly tell where his mind ended andKit’s own mind started, so nakedness of the bodies seemed so unimportant, in comparison.

The water was warm, slightlysalted, just perfect and their twin groans of pleasure seemed almost obscene.

And it was so easy torelax, to let the water bear their weight and their minds float in the Force.

Together, they touchedthe Force. Obi-Wan feared he would forget his need for breath and slip underwater and it was so natural to let his body rely on Kit. The meditation camenaturally, deep, inescapable, a slow avalanche that swallowed them, likesomething had clicked and could go nowhere but to its natural end.

Under the strength oftheir two joined minds, even the whispers of miasma that infused the Force onCoruscant couldn’t touch them right now. Their minds soared into the Force,letting its waves bear them as the water lapping around them. They let losetheir desperate grips on their shields relax. Here, in the Force, the risk ofbecoming the same individual, to loose each other to become one mind in twobodies, didn’t seem as terrifying. They were Jedi, united in the Force,released of the need of their individual trajectories. No more Obi-Wan, no moreKit, just a Jedi, who had been once two, and they soared, higher, higher, theForce flowing into them, filling out the cup of their being.

Higher, higher, untilMace Windu yelled under the strength of the gigantic shatterpoint he could feelsomewhere in the Councillor quarters, until Yoda fainted, until everywhere onCoruscant Jedi developed headaches, needed to sit down or simply passed out.

Higher, higher, two ofthe most powerful of their generations as one, until all the Force on the cityplanet seemed to pass into their beings, until a shadow in the Senate hissedand convulsed.

“Oh, it’s you, it’ssimply you.”, said Obi-Wan or perhaps it was Kit, no one of them could havetell. In the bath, two fists raised themselves and squeezed and Darth Sidioussimply exploded.

And, simply, naturally,their eyes opened again and their minds detached and it was so lonely, sodifficult to be forsaken alone in one body, when they had been two in one. Twinsobs as they understood what they have had, for a moment, what they never wouldhave again.

Obi-Wan was crying whenhe kissed Kit for the first time.

Febrile, Kit answered,hungry, feverish, chasing the closeness they had just lost.

What a fool they hadbeen to fear it. And now, alone, alone for ever.

The kisses became frantic,biting, like they were trying to climb into each other. They chased thecloseness and pleasure of bodies into each other arms, instead of the bond theywould never know again.

The pleasure itself,when they tumbled into it, seemed a pale imitation.

 Never again.

[boheme-boheme]

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