#so there is an aspect of personal identity that he takes for granted and often brushes under the rug

[myrfing]

and (pointing at nothing) gourd isn’t really HEALTHY about his execution of his purpose either in that he is kind of insane about it. like he completely lacks a sense of self-preservation until after post-shb. he fully considers the possibility he will get blown up and die one million times and inflict terrible violence and just accepts that as almost a matter of fact. i think from a surface level outside view he can very much be taken as someone with an almost unnatural religious fanaticism but at the same time he’s like. not. he doesn’t actually ascribe to a divinity or a belief that he specifically will be rewarded or saved. he doesn’t do it out of need for approval or self hatred or insecurity or to prove his loyalty. he just believes that if he dies something stronger will grow in his place because that’s what he sees in the world all the time. if he believes in a heaven or hell it’s not somewhere else but right here.

his weirdness about it if anything comes from a sense of detachment-but-not-alienation that he found in the wake of the spires dying. the human part is is that this is him making sense of their choice to fight and die even though it hurt him. he WAS for a long time lost and empty in the wake of that decision and this is how he found purpose…it’s just that just because it came from troubled waters doesn’t mean it’s untrue or just a cheap justification. he feels like his place in the world is a given just because he was born, because that’s what he thought of his loved ones. he loves the world and his own existence within it but he loves the world just as much without so he sees no point in being defensive about his life. it’s very much like. a cucumber is a cucumber and it’s still a cucumber if you ate it. this is making even more sense as I keep going on

[rmstitanics]

* GENERAL OBSERVATIONS, PART FOUR.

ASTEROIDS

Determine the sign, planetary ruler, and the house that ASTEROID SHAKESPEARE (2985) is in to figure out which genres of Shakespeare plays you might enjoy the most!

╰► Example: My own Shakespeare asteroid is in 5H Pisces, and Pisces is ruled by Neptune. The 5th house is associated with romance, while Neptune governs illusions, mysticism, secrets, prophets, and deceptive idealism. So I would probably enjoy his romances and comedies such as Much Ado About Nothing, Twelfth Night, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

In my natal chart, ASTEROID WASHINGTONIA (886) CONJUNCTS SUN. This asteroid was named after George Washington, and the Sun represents our Ego + Core Identity. Guess whose first ever fixation as a historian was the American Revolution? ✨Me✨.

Look for ASTEROID KLIO (84) in your chart to determine what types of history you should study! For example, I have 11H Klio in Virgo, which is ruled by Mercury. So this means that when it comes to history, I might be drawn to studying the friendship dynamics that existed between historical figures (shoutout to Abraham Lincoln and William Henry Seward as well as Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman my BELOVEDS) as well as public discourses and social movements of a given time period.

PLANETS

9H VENUS placements might be more comfortable with befriending strangers on the internet + having online relationships than they are with developing their in-person connections.

While working on my Famous Individuals With Your Moon Sign post, I noticed that a LOT of authors have ARIES MOONS. This absolutely checks out because Aries Moons tend to be assertive individuals who become pioneers in their fields of interest, which many of these authors were.

If you have difficulty relating to your SUN SIGN or BIG THREE placements, check the aspects in your chart and spend some time researching them! HARD ASPECTS to your personal planets may be the culprits responsible for this.

VENUS rules over the 5H of creativity, so check the house that your Venus placement is in to determine your most prominent sources of creative exploration!

╰► Example: Taylor Swift has Aquarius Venus in the 1H. Her music is often inspired by 1H themes of exploring her core identity, and it is known to have Aquarian undertones of progressivism and rebelliousness. When I saw this placement in her chart, I immediately thought of her songs “The Man” and “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?”.

╰► Example: William Shakespeare had Gemini Venus in the 12H. His works are widely known for their explorations of hidden enemies, endings, spirituality, mental health, and loss — and with his Venus being in Gemini, it’s clear that he had a lot to say about these topics.

Because the MOON rules over the 4H of home and roots, the house that your moon sign is in can show you where you might feel most at home. For example, I have my moon in the 9th house of higher education, and I’ve always felt the most at home in academic settings.

12H JUPITER placements might do well pursuing an occult career field, such as becoming a professional astrologer, tarot reader, palm reader, or even a past life regression hypnotist.

Going through a period of writer’s or artist’s block? Check to see if your TRANSIT SATURN is in the 5H or if Transit Saturn is aspecting the 5H!

TRANSIT MARS in the 9H is a time of yearning for academic recognition and success. If you have this placement and are currently a student, take advantage of opportunities for class participation, extra credit, study abroad, and extracurricular activities!

ASPECTS

MIDHEAVEN OPPOSITION URANUS natives loathe adhering to social norms and are prone to having unpopular opinions that, if expressed, would drastically alter their social status.

MOON OPPOSITION MARS can indicate strong willed and incredibly assertive personality types that, if caution is not taken, may be viewed by others as “bossy”. They’re the type of folks who like to take the reins and lead the group during a group project.

SUN CONJUNCT URANUS people strike me as the type who enjoys researching conspiracy theories, especially if their Sun sign is Scorpio or Gemini.

MERCURY-URANUS as well as MERCURY-VENUS are the types of people who could be uniquely prone to social media / screen time addiction.

VENUS TRINE SATURN natives are sensitive to rejection, and when rejected, might carry it as a deep wound for a long time.

MERCURY CONJUNCT PLUTO individuals have the potential to be excellent speechwriters, poets, songwriters, and journalists.

[yaminobean]

CPC X Hazbin Hotel: My Dad, the Devil.

A universe where Leland decides to go for shittest dad of the year and sacrifice his youngest son, Frederick to the devil for power to show up Jack of the Pastel Kingdom. Lucifer immediately senses the daddy issues in Frederick and adopts them. I haven't written this in but Lucifer does grant Leland his wish but he doesn't get to live to enjoy it. Leland dies in the enchanted forest, having slipped and plunged off the cliff around the Pastel Kingdom. His power immediately goes to his wife. I like to think that when he died and arrived in Hell, Lucifer sent him to the deepest pits to be tortured for eternity. The main change that happens with Lucifer is that he makes an effort in dealing with his depression when he takes in Edie. He's let his depression separate him from his family before and he refuses to let it happen again.

Eden "Edie" Morningstar facts

- When Edie first came to Hell, she was a little hesitant around Lucifer and mainly refered to him as Mr. Morningstar or Mr. Scratch.

- It took Edie 6 months before she called Lucifer Dad regularly. She did once when she caught the flu and had a fever. She began to see Lucifer as her parent when the fallen angel stayed with her while she was sick. Edie hated being sick because when she was Frederick, her father rarely visited her and forbade anyone from doing so. When he did, he'd always complain about how often she got sick and how inconvenient it was. Leland also expressed disgust at touching her body and often abstain from touching her when she was sick. So when Lucifer put on light puppet shows to cheer her up and held her as they waited for the medicine to take away her headache, the word just slips out. Luci, of course, almost cries and waited with bated breath for it to happen again.

- Edie's style is heavenly inspired by a more colorful version of Charlie's emo phase.

- Asmodeus helped Edie discover her gender identity when she turned 13. When she came out to Lucifer, the king was more shocked by her name choice than her gender reveal. Memories of the garden still brings in complicated feelings but he's still supported her choice.

- Bee tries to convince Lucifer to enroll Edie in one of hell's academies, more so to give the young ward a chance to make friends. But Lucifer opted for homeschooling instead.

- Edie still likes to read and still likes a good fairytale to curl up with at night. Though when she got older, her interest branched out to true crime and some forensic studies. Her serial killer knowledge often concerns her Dad.

- She calls Beelzebub, Titi Bee and Asmodeus Uncle Ozzy. The only sins she doesn't get along with is Mammon and Paimon. Paimon makes caustic comments and Mammon is a crass and vulgar creep that tries to hug her way too long for comfort and loudly declares himself her uncle. He mainly uses that to extend some form of power over her.

- Satan has never spoken to her and she's honestly terrified of him.

- Edie's health issues actually got better while staying in Hell. When Lucifer learned about her asthma and immune issues, he and the family physician worked to help Edie manage these conditions with potions and magic asthma spray. This actually gives her a sense of control and she does feel less at the mercy of her body. She also has some potions that help her transition.

- Edie is the reason Adam doesn't personally show up to meetings in Hell. This event is know as The Fudge Butt incident.

That's all I got so far. I'll update later with some other aspects that I may or may not write as a fic.

[etheirysnoir]

just the basics — yiuno.

[ lore / writing / answers / gpose / aesthetics ] — Updated 2024.09.14

An adventurer by day, and an assassin by night—Yiuno Reine is an enigmatic Viera who walks along the blurred line of light and darkness. From the politically righteous Grand Companies to the unknown depths of the Eorzean underworld, Yiuno will work for anyone for the right price, especially if the job aligns with his personal agendas. However, the dangerous secrets that have slept within him for so long will become the key to the fate of the world… once more.

— basics.

NAME. Yiuno Reine. ALIASES. Yiune Rei (alter ego), Sigrid Rindr (birth name). AGE. Unknown; appears to be in his early twenties. NAMEDAY. 15th Sun of the 3rd Umbral Moon. RACE. Veena Viera. ORIENTATION. Demiromantic Asexual.

— appearance.

HAIR. Born silver-white, which he normally keeps short. Changes hair colors and styles often due to personal circumstances and line of work. As Yiune, he wears bobcut wigs. Dislikes long hair. EYES. Originally born with blue eyes, Yiuno now has heterochromia—blue right, green left—ever since the coup d’etat in Ul’dah. Has larger irises compared to common male Viera, with long eyelashes. Red markings accentuate the corner of his eyes, with a beauty spot under the left. PHYSIQUE. Considerably tall for a male Viera with a gracefully lithe frame. Sometimes mistaken as female even when he’s not in Yiune guise. Very fair complexion. No visible wrinkles, scars or tattoos. CLOTHING. Usually seen in an assortment of suits or military uniforms, consisting a combination of trench coats, shirts and ties, and dress shoes. For casual wear, Yiuno favors hoodies, high-neck sweaters, and survival boots. As Yiune, he may go for more daring designs, such as high-silt dresses or low-cut tops, and over-the-knee heel boots. ACCESSORY. Due to his circumstances and line of work, Yiuno often avoids having telltale items that may easily blow his covers. However, he does wear a leather-bound necklace with a wind-aspected crystal—a gift from his twin sister, Yiuna, with quite a story behind its origin.

— résumé.

PROFESSIONS.

ALCHEMIST. Cover story when he travels from city to city. Usually conducts trade with curative potions and antidotes. GLEANER. Mostly known amongst guilds of arcane arts. Mainly hired to hunt and retrieve dangerous magical artifacts of eons past. Also works as normal treasure hunter (at times, a dungeon raider), possessing a collection of rare items of his own. ASSASSIN. Only known in the Eorzean underworld. Goes by the cover identity “Yiune Rei,” a Hingan courtesan deeply shrouded in mystery, prized for her beauty and talent in Astromancy. Uses honey traps to kill her targets in cold blood.

SKILLS & ABILITIES.

JACK OF ALL TRADES. The perks of being immortal grants Yiuno unlimited time to acquire an arsenal of skills and abilities, which would usually be difficult or even impossible for beings with a normal lifespan. However, regardless of the numerous know-how he has under his belt, he never considers himself a master of any. He has no interest in becoming an expert in a specific field or area, anyway. MAGICAL APTITUDE. Both Yiuno and his twin sister, Yiuna, are naturally gifted in aether manipulation—so much so that even the likes of his former mentor, Shatotto, and later on his partner, Y’shtola, are able to discern in one glance. RECONNAISSANCE. “Knowledge is power,” is a quote often used by scholars, usually associated with books. However, to Yiuno, the same can be applied to field work, especially the kind of jobs he’d take on. Terrain of the site he’d be scavenging as a gleaner. Profile of the target he’d be killing as an assassin. Always preparing himself for the worst.

TRAITS.

MOST POSITIVE. Resourcefulness. Yiuno has lived for a long, long time, which gives him a wealth of knowledge and experience well beyond any beings with an ordinary lifespan. It has helped him to live in the shadows for millennia, enabling him to constantly adapt to the ever-changing world he’s forced to live in—for eternity. MOST NEGATIVE. Cynicism. Yiuno harbors a strong mistrust towards people in general—after all, he has lived through many calamities and countless wars in his immortal life, which have shaped him into a bitter, pessimistic man. He’s driven by personal interests, and he believes that others are no different from him, since he sees it as a basic survival instinct that every living being is born with.

— personal.

HOBBIES. Reading and research, people-watching, training (usually by himself, sometimes with Y’shtola or Sora), traveling. COLORS. Monochrome—the different types of gray, including black and white. Doesn’t mind neutral colors like brown. To a lesser extent, the darker shades of red and blue. AROMAS. Freshly brewed coffee or tea. Amongst musty old tomes in libraries and bookshops. TEXTURES. Soft, fluffy hair of the people he really likes (ex. Y’shtola, Sora). Cold, hard surface of bladed weapons. Rough, wrinkled pages of ancient books. BEVERAGES. Drinks that contain high amount of caffeine with low to no sugar content at all. Long black and herbal tea are his go-to.

FAMILY.

Born into an ancient clan built upon strict matriarchy and meritocracy, Yiuno’s understanding of a family greatly differs from common Eorzeans. Shortly after their birth, kits (young Viera children) were placed under custody care in a specialized facility within the civilization; raised collectively by adult Viera designated to be their caretakers, none of the members knew who their birth parents were. They didn’t care, either—the concept of blood relation never once crossed their mind, for they were taught since young that everyone in the clan is family. The only exception to this is Yiuna, his twin sister. Their birth was met with scrutiny, for no twins were born in the clan for centuries until they came. They share a special bond that they can’t explain, but they know and they can feel it between them. They were banished from the clan due to Yiuna’s deceit—she disguised her brother’s true gender and made him to pretend to be a female so that the wood wardens wouldn’t take him away from her when they hit puberty. After the Seventh Umbral Calamity, Yiuno woke up in the middle of the Black Shroud with an amnesiac Xaela, Sora Amariyo; Yiuna was nowhere to be found. He became a mentor and guardian both to the young Warrior of Darkness, and they began their journey through the realm. As of DT, Yiuno is still searching for Yiuna, trying to reunite with his missing twin sister.

PETS.

Yiuno owns a collection of minions—automated mechanical dolls that he uses as either unsuspecting scouts or diversion puppets in his line of work. He can also summon familiars, in the form of black-feathered owls, to do his bidding.

— law & order.

SMOKES? Never. He despises the smell. ALCOHOL? Drinks socially to maintain some cover stories; this is especially so when he assumes the identity of the mysterious courtesan, Yiune. While he’s unable to get drunk due to his unique body condition, he does enjoy a wine or two on special occasions. DRUGS? Similar to alcohol, drugs have no effects on him due to his special circumstances. However, he has no qualms to use them on others. MOUNT? Yiuno rescued a chocobo sometime during the ARR timeline—the chocobo was apparently abandoned by its original owner because it was an albino. To avoid any issues with the law enforcement, Yiuno registered this chocobo as his mount with the Grand Companies, naming it “Sören”. CRIMINAL RECORDS? Too many to count, given his immorality; some were major historical incidents, such as the War of the Magi. Though Shatotto erased his name from history and bore the weight of his crimes onto herself, Yiuno would never forget the sins he’d committed, even till this day.

[arcplaysgames]

a few P5R classpects

for the characters I think are strong enough that I can assign them a classpect

Maruki: Page of Doom

Might parse to "served by the aspect of inevitability." Doom is the aspect of people who analyse the rules and test the boundaries of them. They see the code of the matrix and learn to make it work for them. Pages as people who seem to be small time at first but they have an almost innate, subconscious connection to their aspect so it does their bidding.

Maruki was always the king of cognitive psience, and his arc through the MSQ is him further unraveling the parameters of how it works and taking a scientific approach to a metaphysical thing.

Another thing about Pages is that they aren't just served by their aspect but their aspect is served to them by the people around them. And just so, the Thieves unwittingly hand Maruki all the knowledge and opportunities he needs to reach the apex of his power.

Morgana: Maid of Light

Might parse to "burdened by the aspect of relevance/agency." Light is the aspect of the literal spotlight on the stage, of knowing the script, of understanding the play. People with more Light have more power over their own lives. Maids are "made" of their aspect, as in they walk into the narrative with an overabunance of their aspect and give of themselves to others.

Morgana is the giver of agency, knowledge, and opportunity to the Thieves. He guides them through their awakenings and explains how the Cognitive World works.

But the thing with Maids is that while they have a lot of their aspect, they are discontent, and are lacking in something else, something that can't be supplied by their aspect. Morgana can help the people around him come into their Thiefy glory, but he is haunted by his missing memory and the lack of understanding of himself.

Joker: lmao Witch of Heart???

Might parse to "Sponsored by the aspect of identity." This one is funny to me because the way Persona works, the way Wild Cards work is that they have hundreds of identities in the sea of their soul, so i think I HAVE to say he's a Witch of Heart.

Being a Witch fucking sucks. I consider one of the tests of being a Witch "has your aspect tried to kill you/put you in danger," and I think Joker passes that test with flying colors. In return for the ways personae have screwed up his life, Joker is granted enormous power from them and has almost total control of his domain. But it comes with the caveat that he lacks a lot of other aspects.

And Heart, of course, is the aspect of identity, it is the willingness to use yourself as a hammer, it's iteration and personal growth. The path forward comes from inside, self reflection.

Haru: Sylph of Life

Might parse to "Heals the aspect of affluence in others."

There is pretty much no way Haru is not a Life player. All Life players share a common starting point, in that they come from a place of privilege and of something analogous to royalty/nobility. They always start the 'game' in a more comfortable position than their fellows. But with it comes obligations, often painful ones they want to escape. Haru and her entire SLink pretty much revolve around this.

I say Sylph because they're the aspect of "I'm a doctor but [cocks gun]" and that's Haru's vibe. She is sweet and eager to help people around her and her introduction is finding Morgana lost and hurt and helping him with her resources. She's so loving and also she hits like a truck. When a Sylph decided to impose their will on the world, shit gets done.

Also they are all just a little bit cutting and able to be more forthright than their group. Haru is the most capable of stating her boundaries and talking back to people, and it's great. Love Haru.

Akechi: Heir of Void

It's hard to nail down Akechi but I'm going with "Avatar of the aspect of obsession." Heirs are weird in that you shouldn't really see them as being players of the game. They are being played by their aspect, directed by its rules and whims, and they seem to have the least control over their aspect. They are incredibly potent, but they have almost no control over their lives.

This I think fits Akechi well, as someone who has been in a constant struggle to have any agency at all in his own story, and every time he starts to get a foothold, it crumbles beneath him.

Void as the aspect of obsession is a dark one. Void players are prone to fixation, to locking onto something and being unable to pry themselves away from it. A Heir of Void would be driven by selfish and uncontrollable whims and desires, but also would be terrifyingly competent at the things they do.

But also very unlikely to break free.

Futaba: Rogue of Space

Would parse to "Distributing the aspect of the concrete world to others." Rogue players are the backbones of any team they are on, and their job is to make sure everyone around them has enough of their aspect. They're support players keeping folks going.

Space players are enthusiasts about something, and they understand the entire world through their one specific realm of knowledge. They are incredibly adept at their domain, but are often at odds against something that is outside their domain. It's like being the god of a place, having total understanding and control of that place, but being unable to even cross the boundary line into another place.

Futaba has enormous control of information and can supply it easily, but she frequently slams into walls that keep her out of certain things, and it's one of her biggest points of frustration.

[apoapsis]

@femtaillle said, ❝ i know you. i know about you. ❞

              He’s aware that he should exercise more care when stepping in for SIGMA directly.

It wasn’t as simple as SIEBREN merely being that efficient; he’s been finding himself getting far too carried away with wanton violence more and more often– and clearly someone had finally taken notice. Hm. Not his fault that he finds SIGMA’S bubbly demeanor and eccentricity nearly impossible to mirror– it would be far easier if his counterpart would simply behave and conduct himself… more properly; more like himself. Often, it seemed as though, in an attempt to re-establish an identity for himself, he established himself as SIEBREN’S own antithesis, whether indirectly or doing so willingly. Oh yes, he could certainly sympathize with him in that regard, if only it didn’t include the infuriating compulsion to polarize himself so vehemently against the very idea of their shared DIVINITY. How SIGMA could knowingly possess such an intimate understanding of such power and still deny his new place in the UNIVERSE was simply beyond him– then again… perhaps he simply needed to be shown exactly what he was capable of, or… perhaps he was afraid of his power.

                Either way, repetitive demonstration was clearly required– that was simply the price of choosing TALON, as cruel as it felt at times… But if he spared him the so-called ‘tough love’, he would die; if SIEBREN couldn’t protect him, who would? 

... Why did SIGMA have to be so… fragile?

                Visually, he is SIGMA– but he moves all wrong. In retrospect, if anyone would take notice to their little “secret”, it would be the Widowmaker herself, as he is the original; what interest does he have in pretending to be meek, when he has achieved GODHOOD? SIEBREN does not carry himself in such a miniscule way; he occupies space so very unapologetically, broad shoulders squared; his regal head cocked back in prime, elegant form as he leers down at friend and foe alike– their honor to be granted the opportunity to bask in his true radiance, the vermin that they are. There is no post-battle commentary, no detectable ounce of SIGMA’S habitual attention-seeking whatsoever, as a thoroughly thrashed astrophysicist lurches aboard the dropship, the aircraft shuddering beneath the blanketing, increased gravitational pull of SIEBREN’S influence, and silently taking his place upon an unoccupied seat to click the safety harness into place. Out of all of the other units, this time he’s the one coated with the most blood it would seem– really, he’d anticipated a mission with just himself and the Widowmaker to be much… tamer, considering he’d been deployed to destroy the facility while she cleared the surrounding areas of survivors. As much as he loved the physical aspect of beating another person into solid concrete, it was exhausting. He can’t tell if the blood coating his face and saturating his previously fluffy, snow-white wisps of hair is his own or not. A pale tongue listlessly peeks through thin, chapped lips, clearing a thin line through the scarlet coating his upper lip with a slow, methodical swipe. Metallic. A sign of a job well done. 

… You are disgusting...!

               ... An odd way to thank me– personally, I found your silence far more respectful... you should be quiet more often.

Initially, he pays no real attention to his crewmates; as far as SIEBREN was concerned, with the mission now complete, they were no longer his responsibility, and any sense of obligation to them rapidly dissipates once he’s cleared to leave the craft. Ideally, he might have wandered off to the medical ward if one Miss Professor O’Deorain did not happen to be employed there– but in reality, superficial and-or otherwise non-debilitating injuries were rarely, if ever, willingly presented to the medical staff. That’s typically why SIGMA often neglected to remove the armor until safely within his room– but right now, SIEBREN is so sticky with the slowly congealing blood and souring bits of gore that he needs it off of his body. It’s fine when it’s warm, but now that it’s had a chance to cool off, he feels sick. He’s quick to meander towards the armory since he knows it’s often quiet– a majority of the time, the equipment provided was brought directly to the agents unless preparing for private missions, and he’d noticed nearly all of them rarely turned up there to hand in their used equipment, leaving it fairly deserted when returning from missions. 

               SIEBREN’S only just unplugged his capacitor from the cable jack socket in the back of his head when Widow speaks up, making him jump reflexively. Maybe SIGMA would have indicated she was there if he wasn’t so upset with him– ah well. It’s difficult not to feel ‘caught’ when he’s well aware that his existence is intended to be, well, secret. It’s here that he makes his next error– rather than instantly recoiling and stammering an unnecessary apology and insisting he knows nothing in his counterpart’s obnoxiously non-subtle way of attempting to redirect attention from himself… There is a moment of hesitation as glacial lavender eyes lock with her equally glass-like stare. She knows…? What did she know? A part of him is praying that she meant the observation towards SIGMA, but… no, she doesn’t speak to him that cryptically; his counterpart wouldn’t have understood the subtext, surely. But if she wasn’t speaking to SIGMA, then…

“... Do you genuinely…?” he asks in a hostile, agitated tone as he resumes discarding the bulk of his gear and allowing it to drop unexpectedly hard to the tiled floor below as his increased gravity accelerates its natural velocity and making the light, durable carbon fiber alloy sound as though it were made of lead with the force with which it impacts the floor. Left in SIGMA’S hideous little jumpsuit, he pads towards her in careful, paced strides– she’s made him aware that she already knows, so there’s no point in attempting to float or pretend any longer while they’re here together. Even with his feet planted firmly upon the floor, he towers above her callously, his own glassy stare just as unblinking as hers as he draws near. Gravity is intoxicating this close to him as his influence exerts pressure upon the atmosphere directly. Yet he would be remiss to deny a sense of curiosity as to why she would feel so inclined to bring it up. 

              “... I don’t think you do.” SIEBREN counters–  however, rather than snap at her, he cocks his head several degrees to the side, narrowed snake-like eyes gazing down at her over the bridge of his broad nose with muted interest. “Because if you knew anything, you would know better than to address me so openly– you didn’t even ask SIGMA if he approved of this. What could you possibly know of me?” Despite sharing the same vocal inflections and cadence that SIGMA exhibited, SIEBREN speaks more directly, articulating each word with uncharacteristic evenly-toned sharpness. “-- Here; let me guess! I would deduce that Miss Sombra must have shared something with you in regards to me… And my disinterest in masquerading around as SIGMA has finally lapsed, is that accurate? In any case, I should... probably have a word with Miss Sombra about that...” At least, in regards to SIEBREN-- he doesn't care what she says about SIGMA.

A dry snort escapes the astrophysicist as he looks her up and down once over, an annoyed scowl crossing his features. “... Regardless… You may know of me– but surely you will not claim to know me. If it's enough to bring it to my attention, then please! By all means-- speak!”

              “-- Tell me; what do you claim to “know”?

"... Of what significance are you to me?”

[hotdogdynamitezzz]

Tough Placements that Indicate a Hard Life | 1

Disclaimer: having these placements does not automatically make your life hard, these are common placement patterns dedicated to each SPECIFIC area of life. The Financial and Identity sections are now available in PART 2!

MASTERLIST

These are split into two sections! In part two there will be more sections :) Enjoy.

1. Home life and Emotions.

2. Enemies.

Family Life & Emotionality:

Sun in 8th House: Usually these people have a strained relationship with their dad or the father figure in the family. Often times the dad is powerful and has gained mounts of success and respect, however, the dad usually has moments where he loses himself, can’t remain reliable, is mean towards the family, and is an indicator of a dad who wastes the families income yet they are seen as a hero or alpha by other males due to the sun’s glorious or even famous disposition. However, the 8th house hides the dad’s problems through a heroic image and gives the child trust issues because their dad is nothing like people claim to know. It’s also an indicator of health problems and the death of the father early on in the child's life.

Moon in the 6th House: This one I ignored before until I dug deeper. The effects of the moon here can grant a turbulent daily life full of emotional ups and downs, yet they are trained to hide it just as well as 8th house moons because their mother figures were insanely critical of them and didn’t accept any sign of emotions or expression. I feel bad for those who are neurodivergent and have this placement because the maternal figure probably expected perfection and conformity in how the child acts and thinks. Or else, I've seen these moms act like they don’t even know their kids unless they achieved an outstanding goal. Basically, a lot of internalized pain with this placement, and often you encounter emotionally unstable people in public or have faced a painful animal death in your family. Watch out for health problems and depression as Mercury rules over Virgo/6th house, and the moon combined with mercurial energy tends to suffer a lot with their mental health. 

Moon in Scorpio: A classic hard family life placement. I’ve never met a Scorpio moon who didn’t suffer from family problems, specifically the mother figure. Their mother tried to gaslight, compete, or even withhold these moon signs from their friends or hobbies simply because the mother never viewed these things of worth or would become suspicious of new people. Blackmail is common, and so are some financial issues within the family. You’re probably the detective in your family and have a natural talent to locate hidden items. These people just want to feel accepted by their mom or family no matter how much they rebel or fight it. They crave true family love and stability.

Moon opposite/conjunct Neptune: I’ve met some people and I hate to say this...but delusional rings a bell. They want to believe they are loved by others and that people have the best intentions for them because that answer was often unclear in their home life. So as a result of an incredible amount of manipulation from the family, this person really does think toxic love could be healthy, or that whatever someone labels them as they internalize it and see themselves as a reflection of what others want. There could’ve been an issue of substance abuse within the family, or just indulgence in anything. Toxic religious views or purity culture may have been forced onto you as Neptune is associated with the higher realm and religion. They do love to connect with others but usually miss the red flags. Don’t get caught up in gossip or labels because you have a tendency to agree with most irrational reasonings as moon - neptune people can empathize with all sides of a situation. Please take time to accept yourself first before seeking it out in groups.

Moon conjunct/square Pluto: Power struggles in the family are very common with this aspect, I’ve also met some people who are very explosive. I’d say they have such intense emotions overwhelming them to the point where they actually can’t even hide them. They also similar to a Scorpio moon spend a great deal of their time trying to be accepted by the mom or family but end up feeling resentment and jealousy. The difference is I repeatedly see the same pattern with this aspect and not even having a physical or emotional home. It’s destroyed literally or figuratively, they crave an actual home the most and are prone to always moving and never having a stable home life. They are paranoid about any intruder or loss in the home, and their birth was very intense that may have almost resulted in the mother dying too. To end this, I know most people think this aspect hides their emotions but I’ve seen the opposite with the conjunction and square as if they just explode and go ice cold periodically. 

Pluto in the 2nd/4th House: Pluto in the 2nd accounts for broken confidence and never feeling good enough, a fear of failure and loss overcomes them and usually they were withheld physical possessions they found important for their mental health as a child like a teddy bear to sleep. People try to target their valuables and money, often being the center of scandals because they want to ruin this individual’s worth on every level. Jealousy runs high as it’s associated with venus and gifted resources. Pluto in 4th could honestly manifest as literal homelessness or an extremely powerful yet deceitful family. It reminds me of the royal family where they have this image of being perfect and elegant but on the inside, there’s tremendous amounts of backstabbing, lies, and very strict training or parenting. Usually, it’s always held together or torn apart by money and public affairs too interestingly.

Saturn in the 4th House: Strict parents, a very pushy family who always tried to control what you do and never let you have much freedom to figure out what YOU really want to do with your life. Parents are overprotective and hover over the child nonstop. You’re sheltered but also harshly taught and expected to perform without fail. You really do crave that emotional freedom to just laugh, be stupid, and have fun in your childhood. But, that was usually restricted as Saturn is cold and restrictive in nature. There could’ve been the death of the dad within the family or a very karmic lesson centered around the dad they must learn for the family’s benefit. 

Lilith in 4th House: It’s giving evil stepmom vibes I’m sorry. The mother could’ve sought to make your family hate you and spread lies, or even separate you from the family entirely. There’s a big theme of jealousy, resentment, and rumours with this. Expect to be the center of family gossip and feel betrayed by mother figures. Good luck bbys...

Lilith in the 8th House: Similar to the 4th house alternatively, but also entirely different. Basically, Lilith here brings some sort of dark feminine trauma into your life. I’ve known people whose moms always humiliated them, were too open or restrictive about intimacy and sex, or even shamed the child for their family members’ death. it’s just so much dark energy present in the individual’s life that made them want to hide and feel ashamed of themselves when everything is out of their control and they’re usually innocent. It’s powerful but way too much to handle for the individual.

Enemies:

Pluto in the 6th House: This is extremely difficult as your health might fail you sometimes. You are prone to getting sick more than the rest and your daily life is filled with unfortunate events or random enemies popping up when you’re just minding your business sheesh. Sometimes you don’t trust healthcare or have negative experiences with hospitals because they could’ve messed up before. Sticking to a daily routine is hard because you are forced to constantly restructure yourself and your life as nothing can really manage or predict the things you go through. I have Pluto transiting my 6th house right now and lemme tell you it’s a bitch. Lowkey you witness random shady events that occur in public too, I call this the undercover cop placement.

Pluto in the 10th House: It holds a lot of power but you always face people trying to tear you down out of spite because of your success. This is a very influential placement that exposes you to the public and your reputation is polarizing due to rumours spread and power dynamics in your relationship with your public image and career. Usually, these rumours are wrong too, and people purposely target you because they see your influence and innovative ways as a threat. You want to hide from the public but you just can’t. You have a wide audience of people watching you and sometimes it feels like you never get a break. At the end of the day, no matter how much you’re torn down I always see this placement make it big with whatever they choose to do.

Uranus in the 8th House: Spiritual hauntings or predictive dreams are common here. You could have spirits in your home that are loud and like to cause a ruckus just to scare you. There’s also a sensitivity to energies and people can sense this. People seek to expose your secrets online or you randomly find yourself going viral for something horribly embarrassing lol. Either way, this placement gets their secrets, identity, and income leaked online at some point due to enemies that randomly dislike you out of the blue. Honestly, you may not feel safe talking to people about anything because you always feel judged and critiqued for your own inquisitive thoughts or creative ideas. People don’t want to see you sparkle and stand out so they try to make you seem weird.  

Neptune in the 10th House: People don’t really know who you are, they project their insecurities onto you and make it seem like you’re an awful or godsent person. Often time and time again your words are taken heavily out of context and twisted into phrases that don’t reflect who you are. It can feel impossible to connect with people or simply just speak up about anything due to this twisted nature that is present in your workspace dynamic. I see superiors trying to take advantage of your work and claiming it as their own so be careful and self-preserve your creations a bit. You don’t have to constantly help people to the point of your downfall.

Saturn in the 1st House: Lessons are taught in self-expression and structuring your identity. Through these lessons, people can treat you harsher than usual and look down on you. There’s often either an intimidated or condescending tone in people’s voices when they interact with you. Usually, these people are quite lonely for some time as others don’t readily accept them and view them as mean when they’re very nice people. Because the 1st house deals with how we perceive the world, you experience it through a lonely and hurt lens. It’s important to know once you prove your enemies wrong you cannot look down on others as Saturn brings karma here.

8th House ruler in the 6th House: the amount of crazy shit that goes on is undeniable. It’s a bit like Pluto in the 6th house except all the aspects of your 8th house are placed into your daily life. You could very well encounter dangerous people, face weird circumstances, or even work in the occult somehow. Look at the sign in your 8th house and that often encompasses your experiences.

Chiron/Pluto in the 11th House: friends and the internet become your wounded healer. You probably felt like the third wheel in a lot of friendships and most of them talked behind your back. I can definitely see this placement wanting to isolate themselves but hurting from the loneliness. Your ideas were never taken seriously no matter the work and originality you put in but once someone else does it, suddenly it’s accepted and normalized.

Lilith in the 7th House: Whenever you crush on someone or commit to a romantic relationship there’s ALWAYS a third party that is jealous of you and wants to destroy your relationship. Or, the person you’re involved with hides secrets from you and tears down your confidence. Usually, feminine individuals are your enemies as Lilith is in a venus-ruled house. Rumours are frequent here too as this is the house of rumours and open enemies. Lilith rules over what you are and not what you are seen as unless it is aspecting the ascendant, so this combination creates a persona of underlying mischief or intentions other people see in you as a threat even if you’re just a baddie going through their day.

[lets-try-some-writing]

Optimus & Bumblebee Headcannon (a small intermission)

I just had this cute idea floating around in my head that wasn't big enough or relevant enough to be included in a main Op&Bee post. So here it is. A short little intermission between the last post and the one I am working on, enjoy.

Cybertronian names

English translations of Cybertronain names do not give them even an ounce of the respect they deserve.

A name is one of the most important aspects of a Cybertronian, a name gives them purpose, identity.

It is the gift of a name and a spark that separates them from mere machines, as such Cybertronians take naming very seriously and only allow those closest to them to grant them a name if they do not select one themselves.

Caretakers will spend ENOURMOUS amounts of time carefully cataloging and crafting names for their sparklings. Taking into account every detail of their charges, most importantly their little one's creation designation, the name gifted to them by Primus.

For a bot to reveal their creation designation is a sign of utmost respect and love.

Usually such a thing occurs between Conjunx's, bonded companions, or Caretaker and Sparkling.

The name gifted to a bot by Primus is considered sacred, it is something every Cybertronian, Autobot and Decepticon, guard jealously.

As such the matter of Bee's naming is an event which Optimus is fully devoted to.

Bee's current designation is nothing more than a nickname, a placeholder for the name he will be granted when he comes of age.

Bee's true designation is something which Optimus holds close to his spark, he will take it to the grave before he offers it to anyone. However that does not mean Optimus refuses to include pieces of it in the name he is devising for the newspark.

While made up of the same glyphs, no two Cybertronian names are the same.

The main Cybertronain glyphs are associated with a specific intent known to be present in the original thirteen Primes.

When crafting a name, one of these holy glyphs is selected to represent what the name crafter envisions the subject of their naming to embody. Be it at present or in the future.

Then the name crafter will then select from numerous sub-glyphs, all representing an object or ideal, and painstaking merge them with the previously selected Primal glyph to create a completely unique name, hand crafted for their special someone.

Traditionally, the name crafter will then personally carve the unique glyph onto a small talisman which they will give to the subject of their naming when the time is right.

With that in mind, have it be known that Optimus is absolute garbage at the carving part of the process.

His time as an Archivist ensures that the name he crafts for Bee is spectacular, it's meaning clear and wonderful.

However being Prime does not automatically mean he is good with his servo's outside of the archives and the battlefield.

Optimus's servo's are huge, even by Cybertronain standards. So trying to carve a delicate, intricate glyph onto a talisman is nearly as hard as duking it out with Megatron.

Forced to wear sight enhancing headgear and use comparatively microscopic tools to do his work, Optimus has no end of frustrations when carving Bee's talisman.

Optimus spends countless hours painstakingly attempting to carve in his study, however more often then not he breaks the talisman in half when he applies a little too much pressure or straight up ruins the whole thing with an unintended twitch.

Eventually the patience Optimus is so well known for snaps and he heads to Perceptor to commission a very specific piece of technology.

Several weeks after the event Optimus returns to his mission of carving Bee's name talisman with renewed vigor and a handy dandy shrinking ray.

The ray only works on small objects, making it mostly useless for the war effort outside of special operations, however Optimus can't help but believe it a worthwhile investment when he walks away from his office with the talisman finally completed and at the appropriate size.

Many vorns later, when Bee is officially brought into the Autobot ranks as a Scout, Optimus at last presents his charge with the talisman he prepared for Bee when he was still a sparkling.

Upon it is the most intricate glyph Bee has ever seen, and when translated nearly makes him cry in joy.

'Golden-Hope-of-the-Future-the-Guiding-Light-within-the-Dark'

Optics foggy with coolant, the freshly named Scout launches himself as Optimus, hugging him with as much strength as he can muster.

Optimus accepts the affection as a rare smile graces his face, replacing his normally weary expression.

Those in attendance at the Scout's naming cheer as he at last releases Optimus from his hold and turns to face the crowd.

His secondary Caretakers smile affectionately as he steps up and presents himself by his new name.

"Scout Cadet Bumblebee reporting for duty!" - Year 172,189 of the great war, Bumblebee's naming ceremony, two weeks before the loss of his vocal capabilities.

Just a drabble

Some poor bot: My name is 'He-who-Shield-his-Allies-from-the-Tempting-Glow-of-Evil'

Team Prime: *Struggling to contain their laughter*

Some poor bot: What's so funny?

Smokescreen: *Proceeds to fall to the floor laughing hysterically*

Some poor bot: I don't get it, what is so amusing about my designation?

Optimus: *Trying and failing to keep a straight face* You see- *cough's into servo to cover up chuckle* Cybertronian names don't tend to translate into human languages very well, and unfortunately some of our names end up automatically becoming associated with human items.

Some poor bot: ?!?

Optimus: In your case your designation has translated rather literally and is... interesting to say the least.

Bumblebee: yoUR NaMe iS SUnBLOcK!

Smokescreen and Bumblebee: *Die of laughter*

Yeah I know its dumb but I thought it would be kinda funny if some poor bot's name ended up translating into something stupid as all get out. And to bots who are familiar with earth it would be the most hilarious thing since ever, even if no one else understands why.

[edenspetals]

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ꒰🥀꒱ lisheng ៸៸

ଓ.° “ my darling, you took the heart of a poet. and now you will live forever ’

·⊰ species: kitsune ( nogitsune )

·⊰ sex: male

·⊰ age: 800+

·⊰ hair colour: dark brown, appears black

·⊰ eye colour: green

·⊰ mbti: ENFJ

·⊰ about: lisheng is a man of arts and adores all forms of it, however, he has a preference for writing poetry and prose. he has long, straight hair that's dark enough to be mistaken as black and often thrown into a high ponytail — and green eyes. seeing as he is a kitsune he has many tails, eight in total along with a pair of fox ears and sharp canines. he prefers to let his nails to grow out and appear talon-like. he is rather tall, standing at 6'5". he prefers hanfus in black and white yet also enjoys having red accents. while his nail polish of choice is usually black, he also alternates to colours such as red or green. he adorns himself in various jewelry, be it earrings ( mostly tassels ), rings or hairpins. he wears eyeliner and often black or red lipstick.

while lisheng is a nogitsune, he has long put his violent past behind him and now tries to make up for what he believes are his 'irredeemable sins'. formerly known by the name yukari, he eventually went on to change his identity around the age of 400. however, that is not to say that his natural instincts don't kick in every now and then. his murderous past was shared with a kitsune he considered a brother ( takeshi ), however, they are now on bad terms with one another. as stated prior, he adores the arts and can often be found writing or reading poetry. he can be rather dramatic and playful in personality. eccentric, graceful and charismatic, he takes great diligence in everything that he does. he sees the true beauty of life and it is very important to him, he finds himself growing frustrated with injustices — yet sometimes may feel as though he does not have the right to feel as such and that it may be hypocritical, given the things he has done.

he is now considered to be a 'wandering fox' and finds humans fascinating rather than 'easy to toy with' as he might of once thought. as said earlier, he does find himself slipping at times and will quickly retreat to the yokai / supernatural border when he feels himself giving into his instincts. due to this, he can become extremely self destructive and push himself to do good deeds in hopes that it will be enough attornment.

with a lover, his playful nature can transcend into teasing as he adores getting reactions out of them. lisheng is very physically affectionate and his go-to would be playing with his lover's hair or, if he's in a particularly silly mood, giving them 'fox kisses.' he takes pride in being able to be of aid to his lover and is always rushing to help them if needed — he will doll you up, do your hair, and all-in-all help you get ready for the day if you so desire. he will write poetry especially for you, especially when trying to lull you to sleep. he can be quite protective of you as kitsune have a knack for wanting to 'keep what's theirs safe' — especially since he acknowledges he has made one too many enemies in the past that could possibly put you in jeopardy. at times his dramatic aspects can come out and he'll hang on you and whine about something, mostly for attention and affection.

·⊰ strengths:

ଓ.°kistunebi — the ability to summon and utilise a type of fire unique to kitsune, also known as 'fox fire'. at times he is able to communicate with the fire that he generates

ଓ.°appearance spells — kitsune have the ability to change their appearance, granted that they do not lose focus or get startled which would cause the spell to falter

ଓ.°enhanced senses and physique — night vision, sixth sense, agility and swift reflexes are all attributes of kitsune, along with a quick witt

ଓ.°possession — the ability to possess living creature's bodies

·⊰ weaknesses:

ଓ.°dogs — these creatures are considered to be the direct enemy to a kitsune. they can sight out the yokai who is using an appearance spell. some kitsune are repulsed by dogs while others are afraid of them

ଓ.°tails — it is known legend that if a kitsune's tails are all cut off, they will die a slow and painful death

ଓ.°onmyoji / cultivators — those who delve in the mystical arts ( specifically of pure nature ) can be a threat to nogitsune as they often see them as evil and vengeful beings. while they cannot outmatch a nogitsune's dark arts, an onmyoji / cultivator of pure rituals and methods can hold their own and even defeat a nogitsune

[goblins-riddles-or-frocks]

Okay! Just copying over my Hadestown thoughts from twitter. Because these were just initial musings they’re a little all over the place:

I ended up liking the show much more than I anticipated! I'm always incredibly wary of anything involving Hades and Persephone these days lmao. people manage to make that myth the most insipid thing sometimes.

The story was honestly far more cynical than I was expecting? It's definitely one of the harshest recent takes on Hades I've seen, and a lot of issues I would've otherwise had with Orpheus are mitigated simply by just how often he's compared to him. Especially when Hades is framed as the unequivocal antagonist, if not outright villain. We get the impression that Orpheus, if given that sort of power and influence, could very well become him.

And for that reason, even though I usually dislike it, I think removing the kidnapping aspect of Hades and Persephone's entire backstory and having it be a relationship that started out on good terms actually works? Because that way it’s such a clearer foil to how we see Orpheus and Eurydice’s relationship unfold. And of course there are many things like in Wait for Me reprise where we see both couples take each other’s hands in identical movements. It’s not a subtle mirroring.

I’m not saying Orpheus is meant to be unsympathetic, that’s untrue. but I think there’s enough acknowledgement of faults and negative tendencies that it doesn’t feel like a blind idealization. The cyclical nature of the story also honestly works for me in that regard, because the implication is that Orpheus will always make these mistakes. He will always be too idealistic, too neglectful, and at the end be ruled by Hades’ same fear of abandonment.

Similarly his song doesn’t work, because in order for the story to repeat, Hades is going to be just as awful every time. and his relationship with Persephone isn’t magically repaired by the song. They need to be at odds just as they are for any of those events to take place. In that way it succeeds in being bittersweet and heartfelt without falling into really neat white male savior territory or narratively excusing Eurydice’s suffering because of Orpheus’ neglect bc idk his work was just that important or some such thing. Like no, it’s all his fault and he fails to make it better and he’s going to do it again lol but he’s also going to try again, and so is she. And they both mean well and will always mean well, despite this terrible cycle. And I do think that sort of idealism, or like grace for fatal flaws, when not blindly upheld is. nice?

That being said, I would have definitely liked more focus on Eurydice? But also Orpheus is clearly framed as the protagonist and I think we actually do get more about her than most retellings (that I’ve encountered anyway) bother to give us. So I’ll take it.

And she does very much get an arc herself, that’s the inversion of Orpheus’. She starts out as this very untrusting, wary person, and it’s sheer tragedy that her learning to trust, and finally putting her faith in someone else directly corresponds to Orpheus succumbing to paranoia. Or she is given more agency to have the choice to go to the underworld, or again later to choose to follow Orpheus back despite his failings, when in the original myth her compliance is taken for granted. She’s not an object.

I initially didn’t really understand the purpose of We Raise Our Cups, considering how damning the depiction of Orpheus is? Because I was reading it as a song that’s solely celebrating him. But seeing how it and Road to Hell reprise are staged just before it helped a lot. Idk seeing the entire cast onstage for it, and realizing that Eurydice also sings half of it, recontextualized it for me and hammered home the show’s main theme of forgiveness and idk. good intentions.

I would say the plot operates on an axis of idealism and trust vs cynicism and paranoia. But underlying that, the cyclical framing device and the story itself, in the way that it is structured as a classic tragedy, highlight forgiveness and just trying your best, in a fourth wall breaking sort of way that ends up being fairly poignant imo

[attemptsonherlifepdf]

fight club, fathers, franchises and ideal selves: a commentary on the absentee american dream

the first rule of fight club is to build a family according to a business model. the second rule of fight club is to blame your father.

brotherhood to fellowship to a hierarchy of space monkeys; this is the progression of antagonist tyler durden’s ‘project mayhem’ in chuck palahnuik’s 1996 book, ‘fight club.’ the anticapitalist cult classic of the late 90s entered the mainstream years after the release of david fincher’s 1999 movie adaptation. the book depicts late stage american capitalism and specifically a masculine reaction to it – the protagonist grows to resent his ‘lovely nest’ of belongings, realising he has very little identity outside of the ikea home he’s built for himself, and begins to spiral into a schizophrenic episode resulting in the destruction of his local, and eventually national economic structures. palahnuik’s ‘stream of consciousness’ style of writing gives us an insight to his unnamed narrator’s psychological decline, providing commentary not just on the events at work in the novel, but commentary of the wider context of american consumerism and men’s roles in it.

linking men’s identities with corporate positions even outside of work environments is a vital theme of the story that palahnuik establishes early on. this characterises the relationships between men as having a business-like aspect to it, as though they are mostly transactional. this is particularly applied to familial relationships, both within the text and within palahnuik’s own philosophies, and is attributed to american culture and attitudes. our narrator describes his absentee father’s patterns as very detached: ‘my dad, he starts a new family in a new town about every six years. this isn’t so much like a family as its like he sets up a franchise.’ this stems from the idea that instead of a person, you exist as product or a branding, or a company. fathers are often likened to high authorities in this text: ‘if youre male and youre christian and living in america, your father is your model for god. and if you never know your father, if your father bails out or dies or is never at home, what do you believe about god?’…‘how tyler saw it was that getting god’s attention for being bad was better than getting no attention at all. maybe because gods hate is better than his indifference.’ the connotations of ‘god’ in this excerpt grant the role of father a tremendous amount of influence, but also a kind of mythical element to it. in the context of corporate roles, this volume of power would put fathers at the top of the hierarchy, like ceos or company founders. actual ceos, or work bosses, serve as ‘secondary fathers.’ palahnuik explains this concept by referring to joseph cambell: ‘[joseph campbell] said that beyond a person’s biological father, people needed a secondary father — especially men. typically that was a teacher, coach, military officer or priest. but it would be someone who isn’t the biological father but would take the adolescent and coach him into manhood from that point. the problem is that so many of these secondary fathers are being brought down in recent history. sports coaches have become stigmatized. priests have become pariahs. for whatever reason, men are leaving teaching. and so, many of these secondary fathers are disappearing altogether. when that happens, what are we left with? are these children or young men ever going to grow up?’

fight club’s narrator introduces his job as something that he is disillusioned with. his insomnia combines the formulaic nature of his job and frequent travelling make it pass in a mindless blur. taking campbell’s theory into consideration here, it can be assumed that is ‘secondary father’, in this instance his boss, has failed him. readers later discover that his biological father, who creates new families like ‘[setting] up a franchise’, did not guide him either: ‘after college, i called him long distance and said, now what? my dad didn’t know. i got a job and turned 25, long distance, i said, now what? my dad didn’t know…i’m a thirty-year old boy.’ the narrator, sometimes referred to as readers as ‘jack’ or ‘joe’, presents himself as a relatively average representation of his demographic. this suggests that in answer to campbell’s question, ‘are these children or young men ever going to grow up?’, the narrator’s experience can be generalised. he often explains his emotions through a format found in old health magazines: ‘in the oldest magazines, there’s a series of articles where organs in the human body talk about themselves in the first person: i am jane’s uterus.’ ‘i am joe’s inflamed sense of rejection…i am joe’s wasted life.’ in fincher’s movie this is changed to ‘jack’, but the connotation of ‘average joe’ remains the same. in remaining unnamed, the narrator is an everyman, a broad reflection of masculine american culture that a readers of that demographic can relate to. in reaction to feeling like an adult child, tyler (and by extension the narrator, hereby referred to as joe) gradually work up from fight club to project mayhem, an all-male organised crime unit that functions similar to an army. while there are more details to project mayhem’s structure, it operates under a systemic hierarchy similar to that of a corporation, with departments and bosses. the core difference is that the ‘employees’ are not paid, and the unit operates not just outside of but against society, the headquarters beyond the edge of town, the members antagonising the public and authorities. initially the idea that tyler and joe have mirrored the corporations they aim to destroy seems ironic, but it does serve the pair a purpose. by founding this corporation-like project themselves, tyler and joe create founder or ceo roles for themselves. this places them at the top of the hierarchy, allowing them to experience the power of the men who failed them (namely bosses and absent fathers). project mayhem seems to naturally take on this structure, despite being separate from american society. implicit in this is the suggestion that power structures are not just ingrained in american capitalism, but in modern masculinity. the masculine response to controlling powers in this text was to take over the controlling powers yourself; while project mayhem’s aim is framed as dismantling regional, and eventually national, capitalistic authorities, it transpires that tyler and joe shift this power to themselves, even if it is only within the context of this obscure group and its branches in other states.

palahnuik, in response to the suggestion that fight club is a gendered text, states that ‘it was more about the terror that you were going to live or die without understanding anything important about yourself. in the book it does directly criticise capitalism’s impact on everyone: you have a class of young strong men and women, and they want to give their lives to something. advertising has these people chasing cars and clothes they don’t need. generations have been working in jobs they hate, just so they can buy what they don’t really need.’ this sentiment is abundantly clear in the text, both thematically and in some chapters, said explicitly. fight club is renowned for its anti-consumerist rhetoric, however its predominantly male cast of characters, and overt comments specifically on the relationship between american consumerism and masculinity does make the book a gendered working critique of capitalism. pahalnuik rarely addresses feminine responses to advertising and corporate employment, and it is certainly not central to the narrative in the way that masculinity is. the author’s other works, namely adjustment day (2018) follows a similar theme. it depicts an armed insurrection that overturns american society. this insurrection is triggered by a corrupt senator’s plans to draft young men, with the intention of letting them die in a planned nuclear attack in the middle east, preventing those same men from staging an uprising. these american men, upon discovering the plot, rise up and kill figures the public have voted online as most deserving to die before the vote to reinstate the draft, and become the united states’ new leaders. this echoes sentiments from fight club, particularly those surrounding the suppression of young men, and the idea of taking power for yourself rather than dismantling power structures altogether. whether intentionally or not, palahnuik focuses on a gendered reaction to american society, with his discussions targeting the culture’s obsessions with consumerism and war.

while the military and advertising culture are staples of the united states, these are not entirely at the frontline of the ‘american dream.’ in fight club 2, the narrator is seemingly living the american dream, characterised by white picket fences, a wife, a child, and so on. despite outwardly living a life sought after by many, joe remains unfulfilled. palahnuik describes this by musing, ‘it’s funny, it isn’t the process of getting stuff, it’s the stuff itself that becomes the anchor. it’s ‘buy the house, buy the car’ and then what? it’s that isolated stasis that’s the unfulfilling part you ultimately have to destroy. that’s the american pattern — you achieve a success that allows you isolation. then you do something subconsciously to destroy the circumstance because you can come down into community after that.’ this mimics motifs from the original fight club, in which the narrator discusses ‘[wanting] to destroy something beautiful’ as a form of catharsis. ‘i wanted to destroy everything beautiful id never have…i wanted the whole world to hit bottom.’ interestingly, a piece of media that conveys a similar point of view on the american dream is the song ‘once in a lifetime’ by the talking heads. it’s argued that the disconnection david byrne describes is reflective of an autistic view on the world. however it does echo the lack of fulfilment the advertised ‘american dream’ can provide. byrne sings, ‘and you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile / and you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife / and you may ask yourself, ‘well how did i get here?’ the song is punctuated by a chorus that repeats the line ‘letting the days go by, let the water hold me down.’ the drowning motif used here is often used in conjunction with feelings of unfulfillment or dissatisfaction, as is reflected in fight club 2 and other similar media. at the start of fight club the narrator feels the same way, insomnia blurring his job and ikea home and work commutes into one dissatisfying experience: ‘this is your life, and its ending one minute at a time…you wake up, and you’re nowhere.’ the destruction of something outwardly desirable, such as blowing up joe’s perfectly curated and furnished apartment, breaks him free of this.

tyler is almost drawn as the antithesis to joe to begin with. there is one key device that demonstrates this; marla singer. it is, of course, incredibly reductive to refer to a female character as a ‘device’, and marla exists to add more to the plot than just illustrating the narrator and tyler’s relationships. however, the distinction between how marla receives joe and how marla receives tyler is significant in charactersing the two of them. for the narrator, marla initially acts as a mirror: ‘her lie reflected my lie…to marla i’m a fake.’ upon meeting marla, the narrator immediately dislikes her because her dishonestly disrupts the benefits he gets from his own dishonesty. they both use these support groups to invoke more feeling in their otherwise dull or flattened experiences; palahnuik describes this by stating that ‘in fight club the [support] groups showed up to create life by being present to death, imminent death.’ for joe, being surrounded by hopelessness, ‘rock bottom’ allows him the emotional release that tires him out enough to cheat insomnia. for marla, the groups are a continuation of her fascination with death, a step up from working at funeral homes; ‘‘funerals are nothing compared to this,’ marla says. ‘funerals are all abstract ceremony. here, you have a real experience of death.’’ ‘she actually felt alive…all her life[…]there was no sense of life because she had nothing to contrast it with.’ in contrast, marla’s relevance to tyler seems predominantly sexual, and the early stages of their relationship are described bluntly and graphically: ‘one morning, there’s the dead jellyfish of a used condom floating in the toilet. this is how tyler meets marla.’ marla’s insistence on speaking with joe seems nonsensical to him, as he was not mentally present during his sexual encounters with her, and tyler’s insistence that joe not tell marla about him draws a sharp contrast between each personality’s relationship to her. ‘ok. you fuck me, then snub me. you love me, you hate me. you show me a sensitive side, then you turn into a total asshole. is this a pretty accurate description of our relationship?’

marla arguably becomes the middle man for highlighting any homoeroticism between joe and tyler, illustrated by joe’s jealousy. joe is not jealous of tyler for having relations with marla, but the other way around. he asks, ‘how could i compete for tyler’s attention. i am joe’s enraged, inflamed sense of rejection.’ towards the movie’s end, upon the reveal that tyler and joe are one person, tyler says ‘all the ways you wish you could be? that’s me.’ this indicates that the jealousy was more centred around his own insecurity, but joe desires tyler’s attention specifically, alluding to a relationship between them. this obviously becomes somewhat dangerous territory here as the pair are technically one person, so a relationship between them would be somewhat incestuous but even in one body they seem like two entirely separate people, if not just in terms of physical appearance. in fincher’s movie adaptation, tyler (brad pitt) and joe (edward norton) share bottles and cigarettes with one another after fighting, fincher’s subtle way of painting physical violence as potentially sexual or intimate. this is illustrated in this moment from the film’s commentary that occurs after the initial fight between the pair: [tyler takes a sip from the bottle] fincher: i love the post-coital smoke. pitt: it’s touching.

the relationship between a man, in this case joe, and his ideal self, tyler, has this intense charge which can obviously be mistaken to be sexual; it is arguably more in tune with the narrative to consider that this intensity is centred around ideas of control. joe is intended to represent that average american man, suggesting that palahnuik is using him as a vehicle to discuss the feeling of incongruence in men in this era. humanist psychologist describes incongruence as ‘unpleasant feelings…result[ing] from a discrepancy between our perceived and ideal self.’ essentially, the root of joe’s boredom and distress can be found in the differences between him and tyler. the tense bond between them lies in the struggle for control; the novel personifies the ideal self and depicts a hypothetical scenario in which this ideal self seizes the autonomy of the individual in order to achieve congruence (an overlap between the perceived and ideal self). congruence is the aim of humanistic psychotherapies. by helping an individual feel less distant from their goals and aspirations as a person one can be more content in themselves. what tyler does in this novel is an extreme reaction to the feeling of incongruence. his reaction encourages the men around him, in both fight club and project mayhem, to change their ideal self from the men they see in adverts to something less ‘self-indulgent’ and take control of their lives to achieve it. ‘we’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. but we won’t. we’re slowly learning that fact…you are not special! you are not a beautiful or unique snowflake!...it’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything.’ in taking these men out of the public sphere and creating an entirely new environment separate from capitalistic society, each member’s ideal self becomes less influenced by advertising, television, and so on, and they are given the space to achieve congruence without societal obstacles such as jobs and families. when taken outside of regular society, these influences begin to have less effect on our identity: ‘you are not your job.’ however, project mayhem still functions similar to an army division or a cult, with its own specific hierarchy designed to suit tyler’s agenda. the congruence between tyler and joe is prioritised over all else given the intense battle over which of them is able to control the body; their combined attempt to maintain their ideal self in some way or another is the most visceral of all the characters, and is the main trigger for the events of the text.

fight club, as a piece of text, essentially functions as social commentary, through the lens of one ‘everyman’s’ neurochemical drama. joe’s struggles are specific to his role in society and his interactions with consumerism, which are depicted in a way that makes them applicable to much of his demographic: in this case, white men in 1990s america. palahnuik creates a narrative that forces the narrator to experience a push and pull effect between his real situations and ideal ones, to the point of creating something entirely separate. his experiences serve as a clear critique of capitalism and its inverse relationship to masculinity. the narrator’s identity warps and changes depending on his roles within, or distance from, consumerist structures. palahnuik’s motif of experiencing events the way one does an aeroplane ride continues throughout joe’s narration, emulating the switches from boredom to terror to acceptance that one experiences in such a structure: ‘we have just lost cabin pressure.’ the participants of fight club represent the usa’s disillusioned youth, their attitude to their jobs, their anger, and their failing desire to participate in capitalism any further. ‘may i never be complete. may i never be content. may i never be perfect.’

i.k.b

[darlingbudsofrae]

Neil Josten Appreciation Post

Foxes Appreciation Series : 1 || 2 || 3 || 4 || 5 || 6 || 7 || 8 || 9 || 10 ||

Alright, let’s just start this by addressing the big elephant in the room: everyone loves Neil Josten. EVERYONE.

If you don’t, you’re lying. 

Okay, first up- I’m glad this is getting addressed more on AFTG tumblr but Neil is literally so much smarter than the fandom gives him credit for.

Like yes, he’s a little dumdum on the social aspect of things (you could argue he kind of has a low EQ but also not really, I would argue that later)

but that doesn’t dismiss that he is smart af and that he can kill you and make it look natural if he wants.

For example, he literally outrun and hid from the mafia for years. Like, that in itself is an obvious point but we often forget that he did this at a very young age.

Like, he was presumably what? 16?? (when Mary kicked the bucket?) And kid was already playing hide and seek pretty well with a freaking mafia.

He does not get enough credit for this.

The survival skills it takes- the mental strength to survive as a runaway and technically he’s also homeless- at freaking 16, that’s just insane.

Also, let’s not mention the fact that it takes skills to forge official papers and all that.

We also do not talk enough about Neil and how he freaking have to relearn an entirely new position just to play exy.

I don’t think most remember that he’s actually a backliner, but have to play as a striker because it was the only available position in that local high school he attended in Millport, and that was how Kevin saw him so he was recruited as a striker.

We also additionally do not talk enough about how Kevin “literal and figurative Son of Exy” Day found potential for court in Neil “I’m a backliner but I’m playing striker because it’s the only thing available and I’m an exy junkie” Josten who only played it for like a year or less. 

Like yeah, Kevin said he needs more training but it’s not even Neil’s official position. 

The talent on this man- I cannot, he is such an icon. 

Aside from his great survival skills and being literally great at picking things up- he’s also like freaking academically smart.

Like that also doesn’t get enough credit- I mean, he does math for fun.

Frankly, I think if you did Kumon or if you had an awesome teacher you could also do math for fun (I know I did) but this should be noted with the fact that he didn’t have proper schooling.

He went on a run at a really young age so there is no way he received formal education.

Which means he is naturally like really smart.

He’s also a polyglot. And the languages he has under his belt are all freaking difficult to learn- like, no kidding: French, German, and he can assumingly speak intermediate Spanish, and we don’t even have an idea if this is all the languages he can speak.

Also, he and Andrew learns how to speak Russian, right? Like, that’s crazy.

The brain on this man and the power that he has- my son, I am so proud.

I mean, for all we know- there’s more than that and the fact that he’s like 18 at TFC screams supremacy.

This is where I argue about his EQ but Neil is crazy perceptive.

It took him like freaking 3 seconds to figure out the team dynamics the foxes have, and how to work against it.

He later figured out how to make it all mesh together.

Like the way he do things isn’t conventional but reading him analyze his team despite his lack of empathy really makes me shudder.

Like, this kid is so freaking smart. I remember reading his thought process for the very first time and being like, okay- I definitely did not think about that.

The main problem with his EQ though is that he doesn’t know how to process positive stuff when he’s involved, but when he’s the outsider- his perspective is so amazing.

Like again, he kind of lacks empathy but the way he understands things and is just so sharp is just noteworthy.

I’d argue he doesn’t understand social cues and “modern teen things” but he isn’t so completely clueless on the social aspect in general as to not manipulate an entire team of misfits with issues to work together.

He’s literally the key to unity in AFTG. Even Dan says so.

Also, the way he puts things into play- like he’s a master manipulator, and I love that for him.

We do not talk enough about manipulative Neil, like I just really love manipulative characters in general so much- especially if they’re just owning it. 

I mean, he freaking manipulated Andrew and Aaron into therapy. Kind of evil but also wow. (just a sidenote, please don’t force people into therapy lol)

Going completely dark for a second, Neil also has a freaking high pain tolerance.

The amount of horrible things he went through in the books were just so sad and the fact that he just kind of moves on from it? That’s just completely oh my gods.

My poor summer child, even if you can kill me at any given time, let me just hug you for a second with consent.

Everyone also gives shit about Neil’s fashion choices and granted it is said he kind of bags the homeless looks but the fact that he values utility above all else-

Yes, we stan a resourceful king. 

Lowkey though, am I the only one who appreciate Neil’s average style?

Speaking of style- I love the way Neil narrates. Like, the way he doesn’t give much attention to how the character looks- it’s just so realistic?

Because if I’m talking to a person in real life, there is no way I am noting how his blue polo makes him kind of casual but clean-cut and how his brown eyes is as warm as my morning coffee. Like, who even does that?

The thing with Neil’s narration is that it’s just so authentic- like it easily engages the readers and the way he gives importance to every thing the same way, it really makes it easier for the reader to discern things objectively, y’know what I mean?

He just has that quality in a main character and narrator- he’s laidback and sarcastic but not trying too hard, and he’s just really easy to love.

Like, I normally don’t like narrators/main characters in books because I favor a side character more or just because they’re annoying, but Neil Josten is legit lovable. 

At the same time, he’s also a really well-written character. Like, for all the technicalities I point out in AFTG, Neil is an asshole. He’s not perfect and I don’t 100% love everything that he does and I love that.

He’s a flawed character but he gives you something to root for- and I just really want to appreciate his characterization for a second. Most books make their characters’ flaws not even their fault to put a check to the flawed character but at the same time still have that perfect character. Eeww, no- give me real flaws to work with.

He’s one of the realest protagonists I ever read.

Like people give him shit for wanting to hide but also choosing to play a nationwide-discerned sport on an infamous collegiate team but for me it’s kind of realistic.

Because I think we, as human beings, also do things we love too much regardless of logic. I don’t know, like it’s kind of funny the way Neil is written but I honestly didn’t see him joining Palmetto as a loophole.

Like, just think of all those successful people who hid their identities via pseudonym or other necessary means to do things they weren’t expected to do or weren’t allowed to do.

For me, his character was really just looking for excuses to play his favorite sport a second longer and if anything, that’s just kind of sad.

But also, his dedication and love to exy is really admirable- like I never understood it but the way he literally does everything to stay on the court for a second longer just makes me want to root for him.

On a random note, Neil may not have an eidetic memory like Andrew’s but the way he memorize most phone numbers by heart? 

Bruh, I don’t even have my phone number memorized and I freaking have it for two years now. 

He also memorizes every twists and turns at every trip, every exits at a room he enters, and most people’s tics upon the first meeting, and other things and that’s just crazy perceptive but also really crazy on another level.

Also, we don’t get much ace/demi representation and out of the few I’ve consumed, demi Neil Josten validates me. He’s legit my favorite character that belongs in the ace spec in books.

I just really love Neil’s character so much- he’s just so amazing.

One thing I always appreciate about Neil Josten is that while he’s not a total angel (sadly), the way he loves the foxes- like he legit tried to mend the team and make sure everyone is going to be okay before walking straight to his death- like I’m with Andrew on this one, what a fucking martyr. Why are you like this and why am I crying?

Neil Josten is by all means not soft, that much is established, but the way he’s just still as precious and must be protected at all costs-

"You know, I get it," Neil said. "Being raised as a superstar must be really, really difficult for you. Always a commodity, never a human being, not a single person in your family thinking you're worth a damn off the court—yeah, sounds rough. Kevin and I talk about your intricate and endless daddy issues all the time."

I love him, your honor- where can I file this adoption papers and do I have anything else to sign?

[shihalyfie]

With Digimon Ghost Game starting, I thought about how different it is from previous Digimon series, though it's still undoubtedly Digimon... and then I realized all Digimon series are like that. So I wonder, what do you think sets each Digimon series apart from the rest?

I think both Ghost Game but also the reboot have been a wake-up call for people in terms of realizing that likes, dislikes, and tastes are subjective, and I think it's especially important in terms of this fanbase that is so obsessed with this idea you can objectively rank things by quality -- especially when each series is often deliberately trying to have its own identity, so it's arguably apples and oranges -- and forcing this idea of what's Good and Not Good on everyone else (especially when there's a nasty double standard phenomenon where Adventure and often Tamers get to be so impervious to criticism that people conveniently forget they're perfectly capable of being scrutinized for a lot of things they're weaker in). Very frustrating to see everyone who likes less popular series treated as if they have to accept that they like a "badly written series" for some things and everything else is a guilty pleasure, which I find to be incredibly dumb.

The most important take-home here is that the fact each series has its own identity is always going to be the main factor in what makes it "good" or not to you, not some arbitrary bar of comparison that's based on some narrow-minded view of "good writing" (which is usually unreasonably based on Adventure). For instance, the reason why 02 is so important to me is because (see below), to me, it has the highest amount of meaningful, important life lessons and themes that it wanted its audience to remember, to the point that I frankly do not care about where the plot goes in comparison. That may not be the case for everyone else, and that's fine, but should my tastes be called unreasonable for that? I think we're also coming to realize that because of Adventure (and kind of 02)'s precedent, so many people have been judging series purely by how intimate their individual character development style is, but this is unfair because Adventure and 02's ridiculous level of character depth to psychological detail is extremely unusual and unrealistic to expect of others; Adventure and 02 only achieved this by practically considering the plot utterly subservient to its character arcs, and it's arguably why they have some of the weakest "plots" in this franchise. It's so bizarre that I can see character development in other Digimon series that outstrips even most kids' anime on the market, but it's not as much as Adventure's so apparently it's bad. And, moreover, as it turns out, some people have priorities other than characterization; just because Adventure had that as its strength doesn't mean that's the only thing anyone should care about. Is the plot fun? Is there a meaningful message besides characters (also important to me)? Do you vibe with the tone being dark, or being silly? How much do you care about resourceful usage of Digimon lore? That kind of thing. Everyone is different, so that's why everyone has their own priorities. If you’re someone who prefers darker content, you may not realize that writing good and well-timed comedy is actually a very, very difficult task, especially when said comedy simultaneously has meaning (in comparison, it’s surprisingly easy to write “dark” but shallow content).

I think it's fair to like every Digimon series for its own thing, depending on your personal tastes. I can't speak for everyone, but my impressions are that it has to do with the following:

Adventure: Significantly easier to understand than 02 due to its more straightforward plot, and focus on individual character development ("individualism" being a strong point here). In terms of characters, it goes a lot into some very real social problems (the divorce around the Ishida and Takaishi families and the pressures surrounding Jou, for instance) in a very realistic manner. Also, it has that sense of mystique and absurdism to the Digital World that's both whimsical but also mysterious, and while 02 has it too, Adventure's the isekai story that has it the most.

02: The first is its focus on the importance of human relationships and the compelling group dynamic unparalleled in this franchise, and the second is its important themes and life lessons that I think are some of the strongest in said franchise. I have a whole tag for the ridiculous amount of nuance packed into every detail and dialogue line for this series, and I think every time I've rewatched an episode I've learned something new about it because there are so many things that clearly wanted to be said in each line. The entire series is basically an unpacking of the feelings of insidious self-hatred and the crushing feeling of being subject to society's expectations, and ones that are so deep-seated that you often don’t even have a single answer to how to unpack it (for instance, Miyako hardly has a tragic single event in her backstory, but she says and does a lot of things that'll be painfully familiar to those who have experienced chronic anxiety). Almost every plot point can be said to connect to each character arc in some way, and the mantras for appreciating and treasuring your own life and living life the way you will make this, in my opinion, the strongest series in terms of speaking to those who struggle with this kind of existential crisis for reasons of depression or otherwise. (Oops, I think I went too passionate about this; my biases are obvious...)

Tamers: I think it forms an interesting study and unpacking of the kinds of things you take for granted in Digimon or the monster-collecting genre in general, and an examination of how they'd work in a real-world context (although 02 had a focus on daily life, it didn't quite merge the Digimon and the real world factors until very late in the series). Also, probably the second highest on "hard sci-fi" (the only one that outstrips it is probably Appmon, but Appmon has a very different, more simplified take on it).

Frontier: A series that lies somewhere between Adventure's scale of individualism and 02's scale of group dynamic, and one more discussing the feeling of having your heart hardened from being an outcast, and what it takes to accept the idea of opening yourself up to others again. Recommended for those who like transforming hero and magical girl stories, too. From the Digimon perspective, also the one with the most detailed and consistent Digital World mythos.

Savers: I think this is the series that most drives home "life is complicated" (i.e. there isn't a single mastermind behind everything) in the most tasteful manner, because while it drives home the point that you can't just simplify everything into a good side and a bad side, some bad things really are evil (hi, Kurata), and it doesn't change the fact that everyone's responsible for cleaning up the fallout. The portrayal of the evils of government bureaucracy is probably the most realistic out of any of these series.

Xros Wars: For those who like fun, most of all! For those who like seeing Digimon finally get more of the spotlight and individuality since so much of it had been geared and biased towards the humans prior to this. For those who really like worldbuilding, and, after all, this is called Xros Wars, so it's interesting to see shakeups on the usual formulas in the form of the different factions and their priorities. Hunters is very different in tone, but I do think they have some of these aspects in common; that said, it being closer to having single partnerships brings it a bit closer in line to conventional Digimon partnerships, and it also has more of a picture of daily life. Also, as much as Tagiru is probably your-mileage-may-vary since he's not exactly a very nice kid (I get it if you don't vibe with that), which may also rub those hoping for not nice kids to become nice the wrong way, I do have to say I find him to be one of the funniest characters in this entire franchise, and you'd be surprised how hard good comedy is to write.

Appmon: Probably one of the strongest theme narratives besides 02, since it has a very clear and obvious theme about the importance of kindness in a world where technology is dominating and we're almost encouraged to strip the feelings out of everything. (Bonus for more straightforward plot than Adventure or 02 while still retaining a lot of its elements in terms of how to characterize them.) Also the first series to be speculative about the near future instead of taking place around the time it airs, and it's very obvious it wants to provide important and necessary commentary about what we need to do in the incoming era, especially as a lot of what it has to say becomes increasingly relevant.

Reboot: For those who like Digimon mythos and null canon -- this is probably the only series to show it off in this level of detail -- and the kind of cool action fights that would usually be saved for the climax in prior series (and animated in much more intimate detail with battle choreography than prior series would have). There are a lot of people into this franchise who felt like it genuinely was not making enough use of its Digimon roster and its potential because it kept going back to the old standbys (especially Adventure-based ones), so it was a huge relief for that crowd to see attention finally being paid.

[pochiperpe90]

Here comes “The Old Guard”. Marinelli goes to Hollywood, alongside Charlize Theron.

“Alone, fragile and immortal.”

A story of love, friendship and compassion with an ancient warrior and a young African American, who has just discovered she is immortal, as protagonists. Because the world needs women and courage knows no gender differences. 20 years after “Love & Basketball” and after “The Secret Life of Bees” and “Beyond the Lights - Find Your Voice”, Gina Prince-Bythewood comes to the action movie with very clear ideas on how to reinvent the rules. We talked to her over the phone while she was in Los Angeles during the lockdown. 

A superhero movie that doesn't look like a superhero movie. Is that why you decided to make it? 

Absolutely yes, when I read the script I realized that despite the fantastic genre there was a very realistic background. These characters are real and it's easy for the audience to relate to them despite being immortal. They fight for goals and reasons that people understand. The more realistic the film, the more viewers can reflect themselves in the protagonists. 

In fact, the most fascinating aspect of the characters is their vulnerability: they are immortal, but up to a certain point, which is a paradox. They too have to deal with the sense of the end. 

There is a possibility that they may die, that their immortality is interrupted, that they still suffer from their wounds, and this brings them closer to us. The public still feels sorry for them when they see them in danger.

Immortals suffer, and not just physically.

Many think that being able to live forever would be extraordinary, but no one asks what this really means. Immortality has consequences: it can be a gift, but it can also be a curse.

And we don’t know why immortality fell to them. 

The thing I loved about the graphic novel and the script is the fact that there is no explanation. Not only do we not know it, but neither do the protagonists. But it is a trilogy and therefore there is still a lot to tell.

Could you offer your contribution to the script? 

It was a great script, with great roles based on the graphic novel so I stayed very true to the text. With the author, Greg Rucka, we wanted to reflect on the fear of taking someone's life, the one that sometimes overwhelms soldiers in war, whose psychology is often neglected. Hollywood films have never been very concerned with this aspect, as if killing had no consequences. The protagonists are forced to kill, but if someone has been doing it for centuries, for others it’s the first time. 

What struck you about Luca Marinelli? 

I could talk about him for days, I love him, he's the actor that all directors dream of having on set. He loved the character and gave him life in a very credible way. Between him and Marwan Kenzari is born a great complicity, necessary between two people who have been together for centuries. Luca's eyes are full of soul, his Nicky is the heart of the group, he’s the most sensitive character of all of them. 

Charlize Theron, who is also one of the producers, has an increasingly and more torn body.

Charlize has already played roles like this one, she is very credible in the genre of action and has been helpful to who had never faced it before. From her, who really worked hard, others learned to do the same. She is very credible in the role of a woman who lived for thousands of years.

Matthias Schoenaerts, on the other hand, has an insidious role. 

He embodies the tragedy of immortality, loneliness, betrayal. He is the actor who most resembles his character in the graphic novel. He wanted to make the film at all costs because he had never measured himself with the action genre and felt he had things to express. 

The film underlines how today it’s no longer possible to hide, images can capture you at any time. 

In a scene near the end, when the immortals look at photos and articles about them, they truly become aware for the first time of everything they have done to protect humanity. They understand the power of images from which they continually try to escape in order to hide their identity. 

And then we talk about science and profit. 

In the film, people from different places join forces to protect the world, a need even more relevant today. Yet it is increasingly evident that profit matters more than human lives. 

Do you think the film industry is becoming more inclusive with women? 

Things are finally changing and I am grateful that, despite having no other action films on my resume, I have been entrusted with The Old Guard. I am grateful for the trust they have placed in me. It should be taken for granted by now that women are capable of coping with any film genre and I think how much pressure from the industry Patty Jenkins, who directed Wonder Woman to success and opening the door for many of us, went through. But the door must be wide open because there are still few who have such opportunities. 

In your opinion, have opportunities grown with the arrival of platforms like Netflix? 

Netflix wasn't afraid to trust a series of directors. Which studio would have produced Roma or Irishman? He has the courage to make films that Hollywood deems too risky.

The Golden boy

“Luca Marinelli, as we have never seen him before: in his Hollywood debut, he becomes an immortal and fights with Charlize Theron to save the world.”

Just before the lockdown he was one of the jury members of the 70th Berlinale in the city where he has lived for years - and he swears he had so much fun watching three films a day. The audience awaits him in theatre in the role of Diabolik, in the film directed by Manetti Bros., but on July 10th he arrives on Netflix with The Old Guard, the action movie that sees him alongside Charlize Theron. And where he plays the Italian Nicolo, Nicky for the group of immortals he belongs to. Directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood and based on the graphic novel by Greg Rucka and Leandro Fernández, the film offers Luca Marinelli an insidious superpower, an endless love and a new opportunity to demonstrate his talent as a true champion. We reached him on the phone and he, less shy than usual, told us how he became a secular "superhero".

How did you get to the project? 

I auditioned in London, where I later returned and met the director. Lastly, there was a final meeting between me and Marwan Kenzari. We made a scene together and then they announced to me, "We'd love for you to be Nicky." 

What struck you about this character? 

The story fascinated me because it tells of immortals as if they were the damned. Nicky and Joe live this condition as a gift because they are linked by a wonderful love story and they are not alone. They met in an absurd and paradoxical situation, during the Crusades, ready to kill themselves. They did it a hundred times and then they looked at each other and fell in love. But others suffer from it, like Andy and Booker. In a beautiful scene, Booker, played by Matthias Schoenaerts, explains what happens to them: they see the people they love die and blame them because they cannot prevent it. And they are tired of watching the world repeat itself following the same dynamics. They fight to save people, but everything seems to go on the same way. Only in the end will they discover what they have done and what they are doing. 

How did it go with Charlize Theron? 

Well, it was wonderful! As I read the script I said to myself: am I really going to make a film with Charlize Theron? And hug as well! I was very excited and intimidated already while reading. She is an extraordinary actress. In the scene where we are at the table and everyone tells Nile something about us, Andy tells her what we are and it was nice to see her running and venturing into the midst of emotions and thoughts. Sometimes I got distracted and didn't say my line. But Charlyze is also a crazy athlete. You have to be really athletes, otherwise you don't survive at the end of the day. And Charlize is an athlete of the body and the heart. 

What about her athletic training? 

We got together a month before shooting to start working with the stunts. I had to get some athleticism back: when I arrived and they looked at me I think they were a little worried. We had to become familiar with martial arts and then we switched from the sword to other weapons and to hand-to-hand combat. We prepared scene by scene, including the choreographies, different for each fight, and each of us had his own rubber reproduction of the sword. It was an unforgettable training.

The immortals come from different places in the world. How much of Italy is there in Nicky? 

Apart from the pronunciation? They still laugh at some of the things I said. Marwan and Matthias, but also Charlize, speak Italian at different levels and every now and then I enjoyed shooting a few sentences to which they could answer me. 

Did you offer your character something that wasn't in the script? 

Well, being in such a group, shy as I am ... I tried. I have always focused on the bond between Nicky, Joe and the other members of the group, because I am interested in discovering what is inside a character, his feelings, how he looks at the world, what excites him. Nicky has lived for centuries, but still greets the people he meets in the desert with a smile, inside him there is the flame of an infinite good. Each character has a different sensitivity and their own armor. Nicky is perhaps the least armored one.

The challenge was also to make people believe in a love story that has lasted for centuries. 

Marwan recites a beautiful monologue in which he talks about their love story. I hope that each of us, in their short life, can say the same thing about the person they love. 

You’ve already had superpowers in “They Call Me Jeeg”. What is your relationship with this genre? 

I like it very much and I think that both films, very different from each other, have a very interesting soul. In Jeeg Robot, Enzo Ceccotti uses his superpowers to help others, taking on a social responsibility. In The Old Guard the protagonists put themselves at the service of others, even if no one has asked them to. “This is what we do,” they repeat over and over to each other. What they do is save people, participate in what they think is right. 

How do you think they would react to protests on American streets and around the world?

I don't feel like playing games, mixing reality and fiction on a terribly real subject like this. I think that in reality, outside of any cinematic fiction, it’s fundamental to fight for equality, within society, but also within ourselves. To go back to our film, if in a microscopic way we manage to carry a message in that direction, I would be very happy. 

What director was Gina Prince-Bythewood? 

She is always ready to listen, and I am someone who asks a lot of questions even at inappropriate times. She always had great patience and was very attentive to the emotional side of the film, to the interiority and beauty of the characters.

CIAK Magazine - Luglio 2020

Just wanted to translate this old interview for the non-italian’s fans ^^ (sorry for my English)

[aboveallarescuer]

#that happens even when the person isnt trying to argue that shes a mad queen/villain but that she has both 'good' and 'evil' in her#and is meant to fail#(e.g. that meta about how dany is a tragic shakespearean hero; which annoys me more bc it sounds convincing when you don't remember what#happened in the books very well...

Can you talk more about your problems with that essay? I thought that it sounded plausible... I don't want those things to happen to Daenerys, but I don't trust GRRM either.

Anon, thank you for this ask and sorry for the delayed answer. I was already planning to write several posts as a response to the arguments of “Daughter of Death: A Song of Ice and Fire’s Shakespearean Tragic Hero” (which you can read here), but I couldn't find the time or motivation for that lately, so thanks for giving me the opportunity to counter-argue it in a single answer. I tried to be brief by summarizing some of my notes and by linking to a lot of metas instead of repeating all of their points, but the response unfortunately ended up becoming long anyway.

In the context of that essay, Dany is considered a Shakespearean tragic hero because the writer thinks she fits five requirements: 1) Dany’s chapters contain supposedly deliberate references to Shakespearean plays; 2) Dany is “torn by an internal struggle”, namely peace versus violence or companionship versus rulership or home versus the Iron Throne, all of which also drive the external conflicts. Choosing the second options will lead to her demise; 3) prophecies and “influential accidents” - that is, events that “have roots in a character’s motivation”, as well as “the sense of ‘if only this had not happened’” - will “heighten and exaggerate [tragic flaws that] already [exist]” in Dany; 4) Dany will (according to the essayist’s speculations) take actions that produce “exceptional calamity” and her demise will be “her own choice and doing”; 5) Dany “[rose] high in position” and is “an exceptional being”, which sets her apart as a character that fits the mold of the Shakespearean tragedy because her reversal of fortune will highlight “the greatness and piteousness of humanity”.

I would argue that the points that the essayist made to justify how Dany supposedly fits these five requirements are all very skewed.

1) When it comes to requirement 1 (Dany’s chapters contain supposedly deliberate references to Shakespearean plays), the essayist is conveniently cherry-picking (as they often do throughout the meta). Bran Stark wants a dreamless sleep just like Dany: “Sweet, dreamless sleep, Bran thought.” (ACOK Bran I); “That night Bran prayed to his father’s gods for dreamless sleep.” (ACOK Bran II). Indeed, @marinabridgerton argues that that’s most likely tied to the fact that they’re the two characters most heavily associated with prophecies. Even Sansa is said to have a dreamless sleep: “Sometimes her sleep was leaden and dreamless, and she woke from it more tired than when she had closed her eyes” (AGOT Sansa VI). And yet, where are the essays about how these quotes are teaching the readership to interpret Bran’s and Sansa’s characters, storylines and trajectories based on Shakespearean tragedies?

2) When it comes to requirement 2 (Dany is “torn by an internal struggle”, namely peace versus violence or companionship versus rulership or home versus the Iron Throne, all of which also drive the external conflicts. Choosing the second options will lead to her demise), the essayist is right to point out that those dilemmas exist. However, they portray Dany’s struggles in a way that makes it seem that 1) there are “good” options (peace/companionship/home) and “bad” options (violence/rulership/Iron Throne) for Dany to take and that 2) choosing the latter ones will lead to Dany’s downfall. There is a lot to question about these assumptions.

2.1) When it comes to Dany’s conflict between peace versus violence, the essayist takes everything that Adam Feldman’s series of essays “Untangling the Meereenese Knot” says for granted when it shouldn’t be. I’m not going to delve into all the problems/inaccuracies/double standards with those essays. For our purposes here, it’s enough to say that they: 1) dichotomize Dany’s identity into mhysa and mother of dragons to argue that the former represents her desire for peace and the latter her violent impulses; 2) assert that the peace was real; 3) conclude that, by rejecting the peace, the Dany of ASOS is gone and from now on she’s going to be a very different person because she will have chosen to follow her violent impulses.

As already argued before, though, 1) Dany’s character can’t be dichotomized in that way because these facets - mhysa and mother of dragons - actually complement each other (as @yendany made clear in her most recent meta). Because Dany was the mother of dragons, she was able to act as mhysa way before she was hailed as such, which we see, for instance, when she kills the Astapori slave masters to free the Unsullied. Both of these identities manifest Dany’s fierceness when faced with great injustices. This is why, in ADWD, locking her dragon children prevented Dany from properly defending her human children… She needs to integrate both parts of her identity to be able to protect them. But Feldman couldn’t recognize that because 2) he accepts the peace deal that Dany made with the slavers as valid. Doing so would mean, however, ignoring the re-enslavement and suffering of thousands of marginalized people, which GRRM continually emphasizes in Dany's and Tyrion’s final ADWD chapters (read more about this here and here) to hammer home that the peace is false for prioritizing the slavers over them. Finally, 3) Dany is not a violent person nor does she have violent impulses. Feldman decontextualized the moments in which Dany uses violence from the standards of her time and place (read more about this here and here and here and here) to portray them in a more negative light than how they are actually meant to be viewed. Additionally, he conveniently left out all the moments in which Dany chooses to be merciful, from when she spares Yunkai and most of the Meereenese slavers (she didn’t do the same in Astapor because she was outnumbered and needed to protect her retinue) to when she doesn’t punish people who threaten or disrespect her to her face (such an envoy who spits at her face, a boy who tries to attack her, Xaro after he says he wishes he’d killed her), to give a few examples (read more about this in @rainhadaenerys's comprehensive meta). I would argue that Dany’s conflict is less about peace versus violence and more accurately about her tendency to be merciful versus her desire for justice (which, especially in the particular context she finds herself in, is unattainable without violence). In fact, I would go further and say that it’s distasteful to characterize Dany as someone “violent” or with “violent impulses” when, so far, she’s only used violence to a) defend and protect victims of (physical and systemic) violence and/or b) in circumstances in which her actions are no more problematic than those of any other leader of her world. And yet, the essayist portrays them as if they were (“To choose indiscriminate destruction over peace tends toward the evil”).

It’s also convenient that the essayist only talks about fire negatively (“Dany wields unmatched power that can “make or unmake at a word”—Dracarys—villages, armies and kingdoms”, “in the words of Maester Aemon, “Fire consumes.””) when it's also connected to life, rebirth, healing and enlightenment. And dracarys in particular is explicitly associated with freedom by the narrative while Dany frees the Unsullied (her decision, in turn, is associated with her future actions in the War for the Dawn). But acknowledging these things would make it harder to portray Dany as a Shakespearean tragic hero.

2.2) When it comes to Dany’s conflict between companionship and rulership … Again, the dilemma exists, but not in the way that the essayist presents it. What I mean is that they go out of their way to make it seem that Dany’s loneliness was the main factor driving her decisions, such as the liberation of the Unsullied (“She feels for the forced loneliness of the Unsullied, and it is loneliness that convinces her to commit violence in the plaza to free the slaves—just as it is in loneliness she chooses violence amidst the Dothraki Sea.”)... And not, y’know, her compassion and sense of justice (“Why do the gods make kings and queens, if not to protect the ones who can’t protect themselves?”), which are rarely acknowledged in this essay even though it’s arguably the main aspect of Dany's characterization. Why does the essayist do that? Because, since they are arguing that Dany is a tragic hero, they need to present Dany’s loneliness both as the reason why she achieved greatness and as the reason that will lead to her demise when she (supposedly) starts distrusting people, closing herself off and choosing violence (“the moral conviction she feels for her abolitionist crusade is part of the greatness that is also her tragic trait [...] She feels for the forced loneliness of the Unsullied, and it is loneliness that convinces her to commit violence in the plaza to free the slaves—just as it is in loneliness she chooses violence amidst the Dothraki Sea.”). As I said, however, doing so requires downplaying Dany’s compassion, as well as ignoring the fact that she does not close herself off to people in ADWD, nor is there any sign that this was seeded as a serious issue for her in future books (especially considering that her governance is meant to be contrasted with Cersei, the character who actually does close herself off to people. But more on that below when I talk about why Dany doesn’t fit the essayist’s third requirement).

Also, singling out rulership in particular as a reason for Dany to feel alone is conveniently selective (“Returning to Westeros means ruling Westeros - and ruling means loneliness”). All the major characters have reasons to feel lonely and isolated in their society because GRRM chose to focus on the underdogs. Their social standings are already enough to make all of them feel alone. As he said, “Tyrion of course is a dwarf which has its own challenges. Dany is an exile, powerless, penniless, at the mercy of other people, and Jon is a bastard”. You can also throw in Arya for being a young girl struggling to adhere to gender norms and Bran for being a disabled child. And that is just one example… There are a myriad of reasons and situations for various characters to feel lonely and isolated, but the essayist specifically chose to talk about how rulership causes that for Dany. And, considering that the essayist thinks that Dany’s rulership -> growing isolation and loneliness -> her ultimate downfall, it really feels like they’re punishing Dany narratively for acquiring and wielding power. Which leads me to the next point...

2.3) When it comes to Dany’s conflict between home and the Iron Throne, I would argue that that’s not really a conflict. Dany (like any feudal leader) believes she needs to retake the Iron Throne to stay in her homeland just like the Starks believe they need to retake Winterfell to stay in their homeland. Whether Dany finds herself at home in Westeros or not is irrelevant to that fact. And yet, the essayist only presents the former as being in the wrong for fighting for her birthright. However, as it's been already explained before, the Starks’ claim to the North isn’t morally righteous. They only have dominance over the North because, for thousands of years, their ancestors fought against, drove away and killed most of its indigenous population (the Children of the Forest), as well as multiple families who were also vying for control over the region. With that in mind, Dany fighting for her birthright isn’t any more problematic than the Starks enjoying the lands and privileges obtained with conquest and bloodshed, as well as the labor of peasants. One could argue that GRRM may have a double standard against Dany in this case (though it's been argued before that he doesn't intend to present the Iron Throne as a source of greed and evil like how fandom presents it) because of the order of the events and depending on whether he holds Dany accountable for more problems for waging her war than the Starks for having done/doing essentially the same thing, but that’s not what the essayist is doing. Instead, they a) take for granted that Dany is doing the wrong thing for fighting for the Iron Throne ("To delay the call of the North and continue to divide an already weakened realm is to give into dark desires.") and b) center all their speculations about her eventual demise based on that belief.

Ultimately, I would argue that none of these three dilemmas - peace versus violence, companionship versus rulership, home versus the Iron Throne - come with easy answers. When it comes to the first conflict, it’s important that Dany prioritizes the lives of the slaves over the privileges of the masters, but that causes more war and bloodshed. When it comes to the second and the third conflicts, it’s worth noting that the first options (which the essayist presents as the “good” ones) are actually the selfish paths for Dany to take. After all, she would rather live a normal life with a husband (companionship) in the house with the red door (home) - “She would rather have drifted in the fragrant pool all day, eating iced fruit off silver trays and dreaming of a house with a red door, but a queen belongs to her people, not to herself”. But, as the quote shows, instead of choosing these selfish goals, Dany accepts the burden of rulership and the fight for the Iron Throne because of her duty towards her people and ancestors. And, while this path leads to war (either in Meereen or in Westeros, though the former is morally righteous and the latter, while not inherently justified, is not any more problematic than Robb fighting for Northern independence), power is also the means through which Dany can make changes that benefit the common people.

With all that said, it’s ironic that Dany fans are often accused of flattening her character or her choices when it’s actually her detractors or “neutrals” (like the essayist) who do so - they are dead set on portraying Dany’s available options as either “good” or “bad” and on speculating that choosing the latter ones will lead to her downfall, but the text actually gives her conflicts in which all the options have their pros and cons.

The essayist also makes a mistake that isn’t really up to interpretation or difference in opinions. They say that, in AGOT Daenerys III, “after admitting this difficult truth [that Viserys will never take back the Seven Kingdoms], Dany assumes the goal for herself (and at the time, her son)”. That is incorrect. In AGOT Daenerys V, moments before Viserys’s death, Dany says she would have allowed him to have the dragon eggs because “he is my brother … and my true king”. Jorah doesn’t think she should still acknowledge him as such, but she tells him that “he is all I have”. So no, Dany hadn’t assumed the goal for herself at that point, she only took over his campaign in her son's name (not hers) after Viserys's death. But the essayist needs to exaggerate Dany's ambition to justify her demise, since they speculate that “in that hurt and betrayal, all that will be left - she will think - is the crown”.

3) When it comes to requirement 3 (prophecies and “influential accidents” - that is, events that “have roots in a character’s motivation”, as well as “the sense of ‘if only this had not happened’” - will “heighten and exaggerate [tragic flaws that] already [exist]” in Dany), the problem is not in cherry-picking or in double standards against Dany, but rather in the essayist’s lack of knowledge about Dany’s characterization. It’s simply not true that Dany’s distrust of people grows to the point that she closes herself off to them. Instead, I would argue that Dany is actually portrayed as someone with a healthy distrust of people. We know from the books (1, 2, 3, 4) that she finds it unlikely that Barristan, Grey Worm or Missandei would ever betray her, but that she doesn’t think she can rely entirely upon Reznak, the Green Grace, the Shavepate, Hizdahr and Daario. Do Dany’s doubts about these people’s intentions lead her to, as the essayist says, “push people away”? No. Through almost all of ADWD, she (wrongly, though understandably) believes that "until [freedmen and former masters stand together, Meereen will know no peace". Accordingly, Dany is willing to listen to the counsel of all of her advisors (both the ones she trusts and the ones she distrusts) to ensure that she makes informed decisions. To give some examples:

Dany allows “well spoken and gently born” people (i.e., not the typical condition of most former slaves, who are glad that Dany freed them) to sell themselves into slavery and imposes a tax each time men chose to do so like how it happened in Astapor (ASOS Daenerys VI). By making this decision, she agreed with both Missandei and Daario.

Dany employs the Unsullied to ask the Blue Graces if someone showed up with a sword wound and to ask butchers and herdsmen who’s been gelding goats (ADWD Daenerys I). By making this decision, she disagreed with Barristan.

Dany chooses not to punish any noble in response to the murder of Stalwart Shield and only increases the amount of gold for whoever gives information about the Sons of the Harpy (ADWD Daenerys I). By making this decision, she agreed with Reznak and disagreed with the Shavepate.

Dany gives up on banning the tokar and wears it herself (ADWD Daenerys I). By making this decision, she agreed with the Green Grace.

Dany (rightly) refuses to reopen the fighting pits for a while until she later relents in the name of the peace with the Meereenese nobles (ADWD Daenerys I, II, III, VI). By making this decision, she disagreed with Hizdahr, Reznak, the Green Grace and the Shavepate and agreed with Missandei.

Dany delays the choice of a husband until it becomes necessary later (ADWD Daenerys I). By making this decision, she disagreed with Reznak, the Shavepate and the Green Grace.

Dany chooses to pay the shepherds for the animals that they say their dragons ate (ADWD Daenerys I). By making this decision, she disagreed with Reznak.

Dany pays Hazzea’s father the blood price (i.e., one hundred times the worth of a lamb) for her death, lays her bones to rest in the Temple of the Graces and promises to pay for his children each year so they shall not want (ADWD Daenerys II). By making this decision, she disagreed with the Shavepate.

Dany allows the Shavepate to torture the wineseller and his daughters for information about the Sons (ADWD Daenerys II). By making this decision, she agreed with the Shavepate.

Dany imposes a blood tax on the noble families to pay for a new watch led by the Shavepate, takes the gold and the stores of food of any nobleman who wishes to leave the city and keeps two children from each pyramid as hostages instead of letting the nobles go unpunished after nine freedmen were killed by the Sons (ADWD Daenerys II). By making this decision, she agreed with the Shavepate and disagreed with Reznak.

Dany has Barristan and Groleo and his captains and sailors to inspect Xaro’s ships (ADWD Daenerys III). By making this decision, she agreed with Barristan.

Dany chooses not to go to Westeros despite being offered ships to do so (ADWD Daenerys III). By making this decision, she disagreed with Barristan.

Dany doesn’t kill her child hostages despite the Sons’ ongoing attacks (ADWD Daenerys IV). By making this decision, she agreed with the Green Grace and disagreed with the Shavepate.

Dany agrees to marry Hizdahr if he’s able to give her ninety days of peace in Meereen (ADWD Daenerys IV). By making this decision, she agreed with Hizdahr, the Green Grace and Reznak and disagreed with the Shavepate, Barristan, Missandei and Daario.

Dany refuses to gather the masters and kill them indiscriminately (ADWD Daenerys IV). By making this decision, she disagreed with Daario.

Dany doesn’t allow the Shavepate to continue his tortures due to their unreliable results (ADWD Daenerys V). By making this decision, she agreed with Hizdahr and disagreed with the Shavepate.

Dany refuses to use her dragons in battle (ADWD Daenerys V). By making this decision, she agreed with Reznak.

Dany decides not to take the field against Yunkai (ADWD Daenerys V). By making this decision, she agreed with the Shavepate and disagreed with Barristan.

Dany brings the food to the Astapori refugees instead of sending someone else to do it (ADWD Daenerys VI). By making this decision, she disagreed with Reznak, the Shavepate and Barristan.

Dany burns the dead among the Astapori refugees, bathes an old man and shames her men into helping her (ADWD Daenerys VI). By making this decision, she disagreed with Barristan.

Dany refuses to allow Hizdahr’s mother and sisters to inspect her womb and to wash Hizdahr’s feet before he washes hers (ADWD Daeneerys VI). By making this decision, she disagreed with the Green Grace and Reznak.

Dany decides to marry Hizdahr by Ghiscari rites and to wear a white tokar fringed with pearls (ADWD Daenerys VI). By making this decision, she agreed with the Green Grace and Reznak.

Dany allows Hizdahr to reopen the fighting pits (ADWD Daenerys VI). By making this decision, she agreed with Hizdahr, the Green Grace and Reznak.

Dany goes along with a peace agreement with the Yunkish slavers in which she’ll let Yunkai and Astapor reinstall slavery if they leave Meereen intact (ADWD Daenerys VI). By making this decision, she agreed with Hizdahr.

Dany holds court in order to, among other reasons, meet the Westerosi men that came over from the Windblown (ADWD Daenerys VII). By making this decision, she agreed with Daario.

Dany doesn’t accept Quentyn’s marriage proposal because she doesn’t want to abandon her people (ADWD Daenerys VII). By making this decision, she disagreed with Barristan.

Dany doesn’t ride a horse in a tokar to meet Hizdahr (ADWD Daenerys VII). By making this decision, she agreed with Missandei.

Dany decides not to sound out the Company of the Cats (even though she wanted to) because Barristan says he's untrustworthy (ADWD Daenerys VIII). By making this decision, she agreed with Barristan.

Dany attends the reopening of the pits (ADWD Daenerys IX). By making this decision, she disagreed with Missandei.

Dany allows the Brazen Beasts to guard her because she wants to show that she trusts them so that her people can trust them as well (ADWD Daenerys IX). By making this decision, she disagreed with Barristan.

Dany prevents Tyrion and Penny from fighting against lions with wooden swords. By making this decision, she disagreed with Hizdahr.

I didn’t include all of Dany’s decisions because she makes many of them on her own and/or without someone explicitly supporting them or opposing them (in fact, many of the ones above were made without any advisor giving her their feedback, but I listed them if they’re seen agreeing or disagreeing with her onpage anyway). That being said, note that Reznak is the one that Dany is most suspicious of (because he perfectly fits the description of one of the treasoners), but that five of her decisions follow his recommendations, in contrast to Barristan (the knight who she actually trusts and who keeps all her secrets) only having his advice followed twice. Also note that Dany “trusted Skahaz more than she trusted Hizdahr”, but she agreed with the former three times and disagreed with him eight times, in contrast to having agreed with the latter four times and disagreed with him twice. The list clearly shows that Dany listens to everyone’s feedback (including from people she distrusts), considers it carefully, makes her own decisions and handles dissent extremely well. Her actions reflect her own words (“A queen must listen to all. [...] One voice may speak you false, but in many there is always truth to be found”, “It seems to me that a queen who trusts no one is as foolish as a queen who trusts everyone”).

There is, however, one character who is seen only listening to people who agree with her and who distrusts and closes herself off to almost everyone - Cersei Lannister. And it’s especially worth noting that Cersei is meant to be “directly contrasted” with Dany, that the author was “doing point and counterpoint” with them and that each of them is meant to show “a different approach to how a woman would rule in a male dominated, medieval-inspired fantasy world”. In other words, Dany and Cersei are narrative foils, but Cersei’s traits are being transferred to Dany in this essay.

Also, I could just as easily create an entire narrative about how Sansa will end up closing herself off to people based on what we see on canon. She thought she could trust Joffrey, but she ultimately couldn’t. She thought she could trust Cersei, but she ultimately couldn’t. She trusted Sandor, but he left her. She tried to trust the Tyrells, but they ultimately disposed of her after she was no longer necessary. She tried to rely on Dontos, but he was a disappointment and was ultimately murdered. She doesn’t trust Littlefinger, but she needs to stick to his side because she has no better option. She considered telling the Vale lords her identity, but she doesn’t trust them. All of this feeds into Sansa’s distrust of others and will lead to tragic consequences. Indeed, as Sansa herself says, "In life, the monsters win". I bet that the essayist would find this whole speculation biased considering that they favor Sansa's character. But then, why is only Dany singled out as the one who is going to meet her demise even though it’s made clear that she continues to trust people through and through?

The essayist needs to say that Dany starts distrusting people to an unhealthy degree (“As Dany gains more power, [...] her focus on the treasons causes her to push people away, widening the gap between rulership and companionship”; ”The more power she gains, the greater her isolation and likely her fear of betrayal. The fear of betrayal is, of course, human. But GRRM has stated that he likes to turn dramatic situations up to 11, which is necessary to create the Shakespearean tragic hero. Dany’s fear must be larger than life.”), as well as to judge her campaign to take back the Seven Kingdoms based on double standards (“Dany’s great sin within the story’s moral order will have been focusing on the war for Westeros against Aegon VI before she turns to the enemy of the North”) compared to the Starks. If they didn’t do so, there wouldn’t be a reason to justify Dany’s demise. If they didn’t do so, the entire speculation that she’s a Shakespearean tragic hero falls apart. But saying that something is true doesn’t necessarily make it true, you need to provide the textual evidence (which they barely do … They assume that the reader will take almost everything they say for granted. After all, since there’s a prophecy foretelling that Dany will be betrayed three times, of course she’s going to distrust people way too much from now on).

There’s also another aspect of Dany’s relationship with prophecies that the essayist portrays inaccurately. They say that “the effect of this prophecy on Daenerys is multifaceted” for “[promising] greatness” (which, along with the also inaccurate statement that “part of Dany’s pursuit of the Iron Throne is born from a sense of destiny”, implies that Dany wants to be great or that she thinks of herself as great, none of which are true) and pushing her “further from the people who surround her”. I already questioned the latter statement, and the former is inaccurate too. After all, Dany has doubts that there are men in Westeros waiting for the Targaryens to return. The birth of the dragons has to do with the fact that Dany was able to put two and two together with clues from dragon dreams and Mirri's words, not because she thinks she's exceptional. Dany is not really sure that the red comet was meant for her. She followed its direction because the other paths weren't reliable and, even in Qarth, she's unsure that it was meant to guide her to success. Then she never thinks about it again. I'd expect otherwise from someone who thinks they're exceptional. Dany is surprised when told by Quaithe that she's the reason why magic is increasing in the world and never thinks or brags about it after their interaction. I'd expect otherwise from someone who thinks they're exceptional. Dany doesn't think she won any victories in the House of the Undying, she credits Drogon for burning the Undying Ones. She only allows Jhiqui to add a bell to the end of her braid because "the Dothraki would esteem her all the more for a few bells in her hair". Dany refuses to sit on the throne inside the Great Pyramid's audience chamber and chooses to sit on a simple ebony bench that the Meereenese think does "not befit a queen". Dany refuses the offer to have a statue in her image to replace the bronze harpy in the Plaza of Purification. I'd expect otherwise from someone who thinks they're exceptional. Dany is highly self-critical and, later in ADWD, thinks that she "was as clean as she was ever going to be" after taking a bath because she holds herself accountable for the upcoming slaughter in the opening of the fighting pits. I'd expect different from someone that thinks they're exceptional. Dany doesn’t think that the people who came to the reopening of the pits wanted to see her - “it was my floppy ears they cheered, not me”. I'd expect different from someone that thinks they're exceptional. Most of Dany's titles (the Unburnt, Mother of Dragons, Mhysa, Azor Ahai, etc) are given to her by other people, they're not self-proclaimed (not that there's a problem if they were, I'm only saying it to reiterate that Dany doesn't think she's exceptional). The ones that she assumes on her own are the ones that anyone who believes in birthright (i.e., everyone in her time and place, regardless of family, regardless of whether they're Targaryens) would assume.

4) When it comes to requirement 4 (Dany will (according to the essayist’s speculations) take actions that produce “exceptional calamity” and her demise will be “her own choice and doing”) … Well, we now enter the realm of speculation. It’s not impossible that Dany “will feel like a villain to the Westerosi, as she burns their villages and crops ahead of a hard winter” in the future. The problem here, once again, is in the double standards. Look at the way the essayist describes the likely reascendance of the Starks in the upcoming books - “With the death of “good” characters like Ned, the injury of innocents and moments such as the Red Wedding, ASOIAF as a story is not concerned with justice. But as the story progresses, we see that the way Ned ruled his people and raised his children contrasts with characters like Tywin and his methods. Much of the North seems to continue to rally behind the idea of the Starks, some with less “honorable” methods than others, while Tywin’s legacy begins to fall apart. Like in Shakespeare’s tragic world, there appears to be an order that arcs towards a higher idea of goodness that instills a dramatic satisfaction”. Like I said above when I questioned requirement 2, the Starks’ claim to the North is no more justified than Dany’s to the Seven Kingdoms. They have the advantage of having had their rule normalized throughout the thousands of years they ruled the North, but it doesn’t change the fact that, because they’re feudal lords, they still maintain a system rigged in favor of the nobles that promotes social inequality and extreme lack of social mobility. It doesn’t change the fact that there's no righteous form of feudalism. But only Dany is criticized in that sense by the essayist - “By nature, power breeds inequality, when one party has the ability to decide the fate of another. That inequality creates distance. As a queen Dany wields absolute power over the rest of her subjects and her court”. Which is pretty infuriating not only because the Starks are also morally grey in the sense that the essayist describes, but also because GRRM specifically mentioned that Daenerys is the ruler "who wants equality for everyone, she wants to be at the same level as her people". Additionally, if Ned left a legacy that motivated his people to fight against his enemies, so did Dany with the former slaves. But the essayist needs to ignore all of that to paint Dany as a Shakespearean tragic hero.

Even if we don’t take into account what TWOIAF reveals about the Starks’ ancestors, the main story itself often paints House Stark’s actions in a negative light. We see a peasant spitting at the mention of the Starks and saying that things were better with King Aerys II in power. We're told that Northmen looking for Jaime on Edmure’s orders burned a village called Sallydance and were guilty of rape and murder. It’s no wonder that the High Sparrow mentions the wolves along with the lions as threats to the septas. Also, thousands of soldiers died indirectly because of Robb’s decisions, as well as lots of people who remained north and became vulnerable to raping and pillaging due to his inability to hold Winterfell. And finally, when winter comes, the smallfolk will be affected by the actions of the northmen, who (like Dany might do in the future) already helped to disrupt the harvest and to leave the continent short on food. And yet, why is their future success framed as “an order that arcs towards a higher idea of goodness”? Why is Dany the only one who is said to be “giv[ing] into dark desires” by “divid[ing] an already weakened realm” when the Starks (framed as the heroes in the essay) did the same thing? This double standard gets infuriating when one remembers that Dany is the one fighting a war in the name of the disenfranchised (even though she is not connected to them by blood or lands or oath of fealty and doesn’t gain anything by helping them), while the Starks are (and will be, if they want to retake Winterfell) fighting a war because of personal injury (which, sympathetic as it may be, doesn’t justify the damage that they caused to the smallfolk). It gets even more infuriating when, as @rakharo pointed out to me, one remembers that, while Dany is trying to right the wrongs of the Valyrians by ending slavery in Slaver’s Bay, none of the Starks have acknowledged, much less tried to make amends for injustices perpetrated by the First Men against the Children of the Forest. It gets even more infuriating when one remembers that Aegon the Conqueror united Westeros in preparation for the War for the Dawn (something that GRRM himself confirmed), while the Starks’ ancestors conquered the North solely because of their greed. That's why Dany’s story can’t be effective as a tragedy: she’d be punished for starting to do what everyone else was doing after doing more than almost everyone else was doing.

5) When it comes to requirement 5 (Dany “[rose] high in position” and is “an exceptional being”, which sets her apart as a character that fits the mold of the Shakespearean tragedy because her reversal of fortune will highlight “the greatness and piteousness of humanity”), again, we’re in the realm of speculation. But there are some things to question as well. First, the essayist validates the criticisms that Dany “too easily ascends to a position of power” by using them as proof that she’s a tragic character. But that’s not really true, which becomes clear with a few comparisons: the Starks lost their father, mother and older brother throughout the story because of the Lannisters, which Dany also did; but her losses go beyond them: she also lost another brother, her first husband and her first child. The Starks had their direwolves given to them, Dany had to use her intuition and then literally walk into a fire to birth her dragons. Aegon the Conqueror used dragons to take Westeros, Dany conquered three cities without barely using hers. Jon Snow’s conflict in ADWD involves conciliating the Free Folk and the Night’s Watch after he makes decisions favoring the former group, while Dany’s involves conciliating the freedmen and the slavers after she makes decisions favoring the former group, which has a worldwide impact; Jon’s conflict has relatively low stakes (because it hasn’t involved the Others so far), Dany’s conflict leads to “half the world” wanting her dead. As these examples show, Dany suffered more losses than the Starks. Dany had to do a lot more than the Starks to find her animal companions. Dany became a conqueror primarily because of her military strategies and resourcefulness without relying on dragonfire like her ancestor. Dany faced greater opposition than her male counterpart Jon so far. As we can see, gaining power and retaining it has not been easy for Dany at all. Every single one of her accomplishments has been earned. But it sure is interesting that Dany’s supposed future tragedies must stem from her actions, but that her victories aren’t given the proper credit and acknowledged as being a result of what she also did as well.

And then the essayist declares something even more inaccurate: that Dany “overcame each obstacle that came her way” and that “Robb and Jon paid for their mistakes while Dany did not” (which, to the essayist, is evidence that “Dany’s fall is meant to stand in contrast as something grander than just one slip-up”).

First of all, Dany clearly did not overcome every obstacle that came her way. Saying so means ignoring all of her ADWD storyline (and it’s funny how Dany's detractors go from saying that she’s overpowered and hasn’t suffered consequences to accusing her of being a bad ruler precisely because she dealt with the negative consequences of her choices, lol). To recap, Dany had an indirect part in the wars outside Meereen because she left the Yunkish slavers’ wealth intact, which leads to terrible consequences - multiple city-states and sellsword companies joining forces against her, Astapor’s fall, the pale mare’s outbreak, the emergence of refugees from Astapor outside her city and the upcoming Battle of Fire. Dany had an indirect role in the wars inside Meereen because she left most of the Meereenese slavers alive with most of their wealth intact, which leads to terrible consequences - the Sons of the Harpy’s attacks and dozens of freedmen’s deaths. Additionally, Dany had an indirect role in Hazzea’s death because Drogon was allowed to roam freely and she had no way to train him or her brothers. All these problems culminate in Dany agreeing with a peace deal that, as already explained here, was inherently unjust for prioritizing the slavers over the freedmen. Dany had to learn that, as much as she wants peace and to plant trees, there are situations in which she can’t be merciful because violence really is the only way to achieve justice for the disenfranchised. (On the flip side, that’s one of the reasons why I’m critical of the theory that Dany accidentally burns King’s Landing. When she was merciful, as I just listed, great tragedies occurred (which is fine, it was a realistic exploration of what happens when you abolish slavery and try to do good). When she used fire and blood, great tragedies will occur too? Even though she would be acting just like the Starks or any other feudal lord by fighting for her birthright? The theory narratively punishes Dany in a way that it doesn't do with the Starks, which is why it's no wonder that it was created by someone with Stark/Stannis biases. Additionally, it validates the common belief that Dany is only meant to be a wartime queen, even though she’s already showed that she’s a good peacetime ruler.)

Second, is dying the only way to pay for one’s mistakes (considering that only Robb and Jon are listed as examples of characters who did)? I don’t think so. Consider Sansa. Didn’t she pay for the mistake of going to Cersei to tell her of Ned’s plan? I would say she did. I would say the author agrees - “Sansa was the least sympathetic of the Starks in the first book; she has become more sympathetic, partly because she comes to accept responsibility for her part in her father's death”. Similarly, Dany had to accept her indirect responsibility for the tragedies that I just listed (Hazzea, forgive me; No marriage would ever bring them back to life, but if a husband could help end the slaughter, then she owed it to her dead to marry.; “I should’ve gone to Astapor. [...] I am the queen. It was my place to know.”; “What kind of mother has no milk to feed her children?”). I would argue that Dany and Sansa both paid for her mistakes, which were acknowledged, made them suffer and influenced their character developments. But the essayist needs to say that Dany didn’t pay for them (or that she had an easy rise to power) to help to paint her as a Shakespearean tragic hero.

6) Now that the essayist’s five requirements have all been questioned, I would also like to mention positive prophecies and speculations related to Dany that are never brought up in this essay.

First, Dany is AA/PTWP/SWMTW. That was heavily foreshadowed (read more about it here) and built up to and, if it doesn’t happen, it frankly would be bad writing. After all, haven’t readers praised GRRM for the foreshadowing of Ned’s death (e.g., a stag having killed the mother direwolf in the beginning of AGOT)? Haven’t readers praised GRRM for the foreshadowing of the Red Wedding (which we see from Tyrion’s to Theon’s to Dany’s chapters)? And yet, the essayist thinks that Dany’s death will cause “the forces [to] become more even, making victory less sure, or the Others surpass the side of the living in strength” and that “the White Walkers gain Drogon, becoming one-on-one but with the White Walkers having the larger dragon.”

Second, Dany and Bran both have dreams in AGOT leading up to their magical awakening. Bran needs to fly to escape from the “cold” of the darkness below, while Dany needs to run from the “icy breath behind”. Both of these dreams culminate with Bran and Dany learning to fly and accepting their magical destinies, which will be important in the War for the Dawn. And yet, the essayist thinks that “by understanding that the concept of warmth is tied to companionship, we can understand that the cold, “icy breath” must represent the opposite: loneliness” to justify Dany’s demise. Instead, it's clear (especially considering the parallels with Bran) that "icy breath" is an allusion to the Others. But they can't acknowledge that Dany will have a crucial role in the War for the Dawn, otherwise their entire speculation falls apart.

Third, Quaithe was presented as the third of the three Qartheen envoys (after Pyat Pree and Xaro) that came to find Dany in Vaes Tolorro, which heavily implies that she breaks the norm and is the one person that Dany can trust. And yet, the essayist takes for granted that Quaithe’s “narrative connection to betrayal is already established”.

Fourth, Dany might as well be the prophesied betrayer, not the one who’s betrayed by three people (after all, she’s already been betrayed by more than three people - Jorah, Mirri, Pyat Pree, Xaro, Brown Ben, the person that gave her the poisoned locusts, etc). It would fit with the pattern of Dany being an active participant in the prophecies rather than a passive one (e.g. Dany is AA/PTWP, not the one who gives birth to the AA/PTWP or the one who dies as a sacrifice to AA/PTWP) even though, at first, the readership is expected to think otherwise. And yet, the essayist takes for granted that Dany will be betrayed because otherwise their entire speculation falls apart.

Fifth, Dany is foreshadowed to have a positive relationship with Jon because “the blue flower” from the “wall of ice” filled the air with “sweetness”. And yet, the essayist needs to say that Dany "[will push] Jon away [...] from fear of betrayal and hurt” and from worries that he might be a “usurper” (nevermind that they are mischaracterizing Dany as someone overfocused on retaking the Iron Throne and who closes herself off due to prophecies, none of which are not true, as I already showed above) because otherwise their entire speculation falls apart.

7) Finally, I would also like to ask: what’s the point of giving Dany a storyline like this? Not only because it would be unearned due to the double standards and the changes that would have to occur in her characterization, but also because Dany has a special place in the narrative. She is 1) one of the two women (along with Asha) claiming power in her own right and the only one that we actually got to see rule, 2) one of three Chosen Ones (along with Bran and Jon) and the only female one, 3) one of two POV revolutionaries (along with Jon) and the only female one (and the one whose storyline arguably has the most political messages since she’s fighting against human slavery), 4) one of two POV female rulers (along with Cersei) and the only one who’s been depicted as competent (because she subverts the Good Princess Evil Queen dichotomy), 5) one of two Targaryen conquerors (three, if Young Griff does indeed take Westeros) and the only female one - “Aegon the Conqueror with teats”, 6) the only major mother who isn’t sure to be doomed and/or hasn’t gone mad, 7) one of two Targaryen queens regnant (along with Rhaenyra) and the only remaining Targaryen woman who gets to have power after a long line of Targaryen women - Rhaenyra herself, but also Rhaena, Aerea, Rhaella, Daenerys (Alysanne’s daughter), Rhaenys the Queen Who Never Was, Baela, Rhaena of Pentos, Daena - who were disempowered. GRRM already has a terrible history with female leaders in particular. If he causes the downfall of another one (especially one who is also one of the five main protagonists) for such unearned reasons like the ones that the essayist laid out, there would also be sexist implications. It would make the only she-king that we saw wielding power onpage overly defined by violence and destruction in a way kings don't have to be depending on their actions, it makes the only competent POV female ruler look incompetent in comparison to the other POV male rulers and it makes her conquest a disaster while the other male Targaryen conqueror (two, if Young Griff takes Westeros) gets to succeed. And yet, death by childbirth is the only speculation that the essayist calls out as problematic (“death by childbirth is a uniquely biologically female phenomenon and would be punishing Daenerys for her sexuality”).

8) What I find insidious about essays like this one is that they pretend to be unbiased (I do not argue for the death of Daenerys as a judgement on her ethical/moral goodness as a character nor of the world she inhabits. I argue it on the strength of her characterization and story, that she should be able to encompass such intensity and greatness as to be considered as complex as all these other single-name headliners in literature.) even though they really aren't. To recap, the essayist portrays Dany as someone with "violent" impulses even though she's a merciful person in general, accepts the peace deal with the slavers as valid even though it prioritizes the slavers' privileges over the lives of marginalized people, only talks about the negative connotations of fire, downplays Dany's compassion and sense of justice, argues that Dany is losing her ability to trust others even though she isn't, says that Dany is negatively affected by promises of greatness even though she isn't, argues that Dany had an easy rise to power and didn't pay for her mistakes even though she did, paints Dany's campaign to take the Iron Throne in a negative light without doing the same with the Starks having dominance over the North and ignores Dany's foreshadowing as AA/PTWP, as well as her special place in the narrative. So it’s not that Dany stans are unable to accept Dany’s mistakes and flaws, it’s that people who dislike her can’t understand her characterization or acknowledge the double standards against her or accept her particular place in the story. At the end of the day, an essay like this one is no better than jonsa metas mindlessly hating on Dany because, just like them, as @semperty and @niniane17 made clear, it also creates speculations with the intent of making Dany self-destruct and become irrelevant to pave the way for their preferred characters. The only difference is that it's more successful at appearing "neutral" to someone who doesn't remember what happened in the books very well, especially because Dany has become a polarizing character for a variety of reasons and it's easy to buy into the Appeal to Moderation fallacy.

Also, as I said before, the fact that these Twitter 'neutrals' all misunderstand Dany's characterization, downplay her struggles and judge her by different standards actually makes me somewhat hopeful that she's getting a better ending, because how can their speculations come true if they don't know Dany at all? But then, it's hard to trust GRRM.

[welcometotheravenclawcommonroom]

Look, I firmly believe that you shouldn’t adopt trans culturally UNLESS you’re willing to help your child preserve the culture of their birth (at least until they’re old enough to tell you if they want to have that connection or not). Like, take classes together in what would have been their native language, learn to cook the food of where they were born, if they already have a name, DON’T FUCKING CHANGE IT! If they don’t have a name yet, consider their culture when you name them. You can’t just take a baby from a minority culture and raise them as if they’re white because they WILL feel isolated. They’ll be marked as “other” for their skin color and/or minority features, but they won’t feel comfortable with people who look like them because there will be a cultural divide and people can be judgemental as hell if you look like them but don’t know their traditions and that shit is heartbreaking. Yes children can and should be able to form their own identity, but I really really believe that children at least need to know enough about *every* facet of where they came from to be secure enough to build that identity. Granted, a lot of this comes from being a Jewish person whose Jewish parent is their father and who was raised in a non-Jewish area with a dad who worked a demanding job. He tried to reach us as much as he could but even he admits that he wishes he could have done more. We were “Christmas tree Jews” and I feel a bit like I’m an imposter in my own culture even though I’m so proud of it and consider it an important part of my identity. But regardless of how much I know about my culture or practice it, just the fact that I was born into it is enough to make me “too Jewish” for some people. And yeah, fuck those people on both sides who think I’m not enough, because they’re wrong, but at the same time, it’s much harder to say that as a kid. You need firm footing to find an identity, often times much further footing than even the most loving family can give you on its own. I mean holy fuck, if you’re not willing to at the very least learn how to say your new child’s name properly, pop in a Rosetta Stone tape, and either call the local restaurant or fuck around in the kitchen until you can make a passable ropa vieja/ Phở/ jīndēui/ sambar and some dosas (even from a packet!)… etc, then I honestly don’t think you should have the privilege of being able to deserve such a beautiful gift as a child. Because every child is different, with unique needs based on that child. A transcultural adoptee is more than likely going to have the need of some sort of stable cultural identity to feel secure, and providing that to the very best of your ability is part of your job. It’s the same if your biological child is bicultural, and for whatever reason you, a member of the majority culture, end up as a single parent- it’s your job to give them enough of a background in *all* aspects of their identity that they feel comfortable enough in themselves as a whole to forge their own identity.