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snarktheater · 3 years

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Ready Player Two — Opening Cutscene & Chapter 0

Hello again.

It’s been a while. I haven’t been active on this blog since, fittingly enough, Ready Player One. I was going to do this sooner—even had an alarm set up and everything—but then, it turns out, I’m feeling so much negativity about the world in general that a book just pales in comparison.

Seriously, I had to scrap this post’s entire intro because it’s not even 2020 anymore as I write this. And you know, maybe that’s for the best. I’m not really in the mood for doom and gloom and bitching anymore. I uninstalled Twitter from my phone a while back, I’ve been doing good at my daily writing sprints, my biggest fanfic project concluded on a positive note from people I didn’t even realize had been following it for years.

So I don’t know what this is going to be like. My commentary, I mean; I’ve heard echoes of what the book is like, so I’m not expecting a surprise there.

The book opens right after the end of Ready Player One, in a “Cutscene” where Wade recounts to us what happened after he won Halliday’s contest. It also assumes you remember exactly who the main characters of the book are, which is a bold move for a sequel that came out almost a decade after the original.

Technically, I could just look up the details I’m fuzzy about. But also, I think it’s more authentic if I don’t. I trust my memory enough that if I’m wrong, it’ll be in subtle enough ways that it’ll almost be a private jokes between all of us. An “if you know, you know” sort of error system. And I don’t think there’s anything more true to the spirit of this book than that.

Shoto had flown back home to Japan to take over operations at GSS’s Hokkaido division.

So Wade starts his tenure with nepotism. Wasn’t Shoto really young? Why is he qualified to run anything?

Aech was enjoying an extended vacation in Senegal, a country she’d dreamed of visiting her whole life, because her ancestors had come from there.

You know what, I’m not touching “send the token black character back to Africa.” This isn’t my lane.

And Samantha had flown back to Vancouver to pack up her belongings and say goodbye to her grandmother, Evelyn.

Why is she saying goodbye? Why, she’s moving to Columbus to be with Wade, of course! It’s not like there was anything else in her life. Was there? And why isn’t she referred to as Art3mis? I’m pretty sure Wade found out all of their offline names in the last book, and the inconsistency mildly bothers me.

These three sentences are back to back, by the way. Someone—I forget who—once described Ready Player One as a book that’s fun to write a wiki about, because it’s got fun concepts to summarize about until you realize that all the emotional connective tissue you need to turn a list of things into a story is missing, and that’s roughly how this first page feels.

Hell, the first line of the book is Wade telling us he remained offline for nine whole days after winning the contest, but by the end of the second paragraph we’re already to him logging back into the OASIS to "distract himself from [his and Samantha’s] reunion.

I’ll give Ernest Cline one thing: it feels like he wrote this opening nine days after the first book and did about as much maturing as a teenage boy would do between the two books.

Way more time is spent describing Wade’s OASIS rig, or the in-game planet where the climax of the last book happened, than anything else in this introduction. He is immediately greeted by a crowd of adoring fans who have been waiting over a week for him to come back in the game, because they’re all grateful that our protagonist and his friends restored their avatars after they were annihilated by the Sixers.

You’d think the adoring fans would serve some kind of purpose, or that something would happen, but no. Wade immediately goes “ew, people” and teleports away, since he essentially has ultimate powers within the game. With a caveat: the powers are actually coming from the Robes of Anorak he’s wearing, and I’m mentioning that in the hopes that it will pay off sometime in the book’s future, assuming Cline at least learned to do that. But still, let’s not skip too fast the fact that we introduced that crowd of adoring fans for no other purpose than to tell us they’re out there, because it fits right in with the last book’s attempts at saying as little as humanly possible in as many words as possible.

Anyway, Wade went back into Anorak’s study, where he arbitrarily checks out the Easter Egg he got at the end of the last book, and finds an inscription on it. I was dreading another riddle, but no, it’s just straight-up instructions to a vault in the GSS archives, so Wade logs off and goes to check it out.

Of course Halliday had put [the archives] [on the 13th floor]. In one of his favorite TV shows, Max Headroom, Network 23’s hidden research-and-development lab was located on the thirteenth floor. And The Thirteenth Floor was also the title of an old sci-fi film about virtual reality, released in 1999, right on the heels of both The Matrix and eXistenZ.

I’m equally shocked that it took two whole pages (on my ereader) to get to the first slew of references, and that one of these references is from 1999. I didn’t know we were allowed to think of anything that isn’t the 80s. Speaking of which, I’ll spare you the whole paragraph, but the book does feel the need to explain why it’s vault 42.

Inside the vault, there’s another egg containing a super-fancy and advanced OASIS headset. The egg also has a video monitor that plays a video message from James Halliday shortly before his death.

But despite his condition, he hadn’t used his OASIS avatar to record this message like he had with Anorak’s Invitation. For some reason, he’d chosen to appear in the flesh this time, under the brutal, unforgiving light of reality.

That oh-so-important message? An infodump about the headset’s working. He called it an OASIS Neural Interface, ONI for short. It basically lets you experience the OASIS through all your senses with sensory input just like the real thing, you know, that thing Wade had to get a fancy suit and massive rig to do in the first book. And yes, Wade does spend a paragraph or two comparing it to other works of science fiction. Of course he does.

More importantly, it also records all the sensory input into a separate file, which can then be replayed over to re-experience said sensations, or live someone else’s experiences. Halliday tries to frame it as a tool to generate communication and empathy, seemingly all without acknowledging the potential creepiness of that. But hey. Who knows. Maybe that’s because this is the setup stage, and it’ll pay off eventually.

I also wondered about the name Halliday had chosen for his invention. I’d seen enough anime to know that oni was also a Japanese word for a giant horned demon from the pits of hell.

Add “reducing Japan to anime” to the list of things the book has failed to improve upon. By the way, the narration insisted on spelling out ONI letter by letter earlier, so it’s weird to make that link now. It’s also just kind of inelegant to just tell us “this is the symbolism behind the name”, but that’s just the sort of thing I’ve come to expect from this book.

Anyway, the reason Halliday kept this for his successor to find is he wants Wade to test out the technology and decide if humanity is ready for it. Why Halliday thinks the most glorified pop culture trivia / video game competition qualifies you for such a decision should be a problem, but sadly, a lot of billionaires have said and done a lot of dumb and eerily similar things in the past few years since I read Ready Player One, so actually, I can’t fault the book for that one. Tragically, our fates really are in the hands of people who should rightfully be cartoon villains.

To his credit, Wade does question Halliday’s motives in keeping this under wraps at all rather than releasing it himself. So hey, maybe it really is setting something up.

Wade goes back to his office with the ONI, and we’re treated with this lovely piece of narration:

I was grateful that Samantha wasn’t there. I didn’t want to give her the opportunity to talk me out of testing the ONI. Because I was worried she might try to, and if she did, she would’ve succeeded. (I’d recently discovered that when you’re madly in love with someone they can persuade you to do pretty much anything.)

There’s a lot to unpack about the implications this has for their relationship, but it’s way too early in the book for me to editorialize when one character hasn’t even been on the page yet. So I’ll just leave it here for the record. Hopefully you see the problem without me needing to point it out anyway. If not, feel free to hit my inbox.

So Wade, confident in the fact that Halliday would have warned him if there were any risks to using the ONI, decides to try it out. Even though he immediately follows up that statement with this:

According to the ONI documentation, forcibly removing the headset while it was in operation could severely damage the wearer’s brain and/or leave them in a permanent coma. So the titanium-reinforced safety bands made certain this couldn’t happen. I found this little detail comforting instead of unsettling. Riding in an automobile was risky, too, if you didn’t wear your seatbelt…

Wade. My dude. What the fuck is this simile. And why don’t you see that maybe a machine where you’re forcibly trapping yourself inside a virtual reality might be dangerous? Hell, when I said this was setting something up, I was expecting something vaguely interesting about the potential breach of privacy, or how you don’t need to literally walk in someone’s shoes to feel empathy for them, or anything substantial, but now I’m worried it’ll just end up as “man, sometimes science fiction machines will scramble your brain, isn’t that weird”?

Like, I don’t know, to me “it will put you in a coma” sounds like a good reason for Halliday not to release the ONI. Maybe we can still make it into a commentary on how corporations will sell stuff they know is directly harmful if it can make them a profit. Who knows.

The book waffles on about more risks, and the mechanics of how the ONI activates, and the warning disclaimer when it does turn on. Specifically, there’s a time limit of twelve consecutive hours, after which you’ll be automatically logged out, because yes, using the thing for too long can also cause brain damage.

Gregarious Simulation Systems will not be held responsible for any injuries caused by improper use of the OASIS Neural Interface.

See, now there’s the sort of thing that could be a source for commentary, but no, instead it’s thrown in there like it’s nothing and Wade glosses over the entire warning, and instead keep wondering why Halliday didn’t just release the ONI if even the safety disclaimers were in place.

By the way: this whole system has apparently gone through several independent human trials already, so I’m finding it hard to imagine that it’s actually a secret Halliday took to the grave as Wade says. Unless he also had everyone involved in those trials killed afterwards. Or maybe they all ended up with brain damage which rendered them incapable of talking about it.

And before you think I’m being unfair and maybe we’re supposed to understand that ourselves even if the protagonist doesn’t, I’ll remind you that the book didn’t trust its reader to know what the number 42 is a reference to, or what an oni is, even though I don’t think anyone in the target audience wouldn’t know about these two things.

There’s also the fact that, since this book came out, a video game did release with a scene intentionally designed to cause seizures, and it had countless fans flocking to defend it over that fact. So you’ll have to excuse me if I’m not assuming this book’s stance on whether your video game console causes brain damage and possibly coma is actually a bad thing, or just an acceptable risk.

Wade certainly seems to think so, since he agrees to the terms of service.

As the timestamp faded away, it was replaced by a short message, just three words long—the last thing I would see before I left the real world and entered the virtual one. But they weren’t the three words I was used to seeing. I—like every other ONI user to come—was greeted by a new message Halliday had created, to welcome those visitors who had adopted his new technology: READY PLAYER TWO

Well now that’s just silly.

And that’s our opening cutscene. And while this post is already long enough, I feel like I have to go on to chapter 0, because it feels like barely anything has happened so far. We didn’t even introduce any new character motivation or conflict, or a mystery to set the plot into motion, unless I’m supposed to think “why didn’t Halliday release this?” counts.

So Wade is back into the OASIS, and tells us about how much more real it all feels thanks to the ONI. I especially have to question how he can smell or taste anything—both of which he tells us he can. Like, who coded that? Did Halliday implement every single smell and taste himself, without anyone noticing? I hope you don’t need me to tell you that’s not typically how features are added to a large-scale video game.

If it feels like I’m nitpicking at the logic of the book, even though I always say I’m not very interested in that and would rather talk themes, it’s because I am, because there isn’t much else to discuss so far. Wade is happy about tasting virtual fruit. That’s the scene.

He tests out if he can feel pain, but no, the ONI reduces pain (a gunshot is translated as “a hard pinch”). On one hand, good, it would be a nightmare otherwise. On the other hand, I sort of hope there’s a setting for that in there, because otherwise, you just lost an entire clientele of kinksters.

This was it—the final, inevitable step in the evolution of videogames and virtual reality. The simulation had now become indistinguishable from real life.

Ah, now we have some juicy themes. Because if you think this is the inevitable final step in the evolution of video games, I invite you to look at literally any other art form, and what happened to them once hyperrealism became easy. Hint: they didn’t stop evolving, because it turns out realism isn’t the only goal one can achieve with art.

The realism discussion is not a new one in video games, mind you. In case you’re out of the loop: most of the big-budget blockbuster games (“AAA” as they’re known) are aiming for hyperrealism nowadays, and it results in development teams being forced to work in horrible conditions (known with the equally horrible euphemism of “crunch”). And, because it turns out that 1) humans working themselves to the bones isn’t healthy and 2) racing for realism with little to no vision besides it makes for poor creativity, a lot of these games come out as disappointments. Oh, there are hordes of Gamers™ who will defend them to the bitter end, but inevitably, in the months following release, the defense cools off while the criticism keeps on going, because the defense was a knee-jerk reaction born of a mix of people hyping themselves up for a game they hadn’t seen that much of yet, then attaching a part of their identity to liking that thing.

Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that this throwaway line feels like it comes from someone who is so out of touch as to accidentally support a world view that has in fact resulted in the biggest part of the industry stagnating artistically while growing more toxic for the people working in it. All the while, more and more independent games come out every year, proving that that realism is nowhere near the most important thing to making a game good, and that you can achieve much better results with a small team.

What I’m trying to say is: watch Jim Sterling’s channel, they’ve been bleeding out subscribers since they came out as nonbinary and make much better commentary on this topic than I could, and play Hades.

Back to the book, which sadly hasn’t become any more interesting since I decided to go on a tangent. Wade tests the ONI functions some more, all the while musing on how he knows Samantha would disapprove but that he doesn’t care, because what loving relationship doesn’t consist of that?

Among the functions, he tries the ONI files, the aforementioned recordings of someone else’s experiences. Specifically, a woman, which Wade tells us by telling us he suddenly has breasts, I suppose because Ernest Cline saw that subreddit about men writing women and went “I want a piece of that”. Oh, and also, those sample files were recorded from real people, in the real world. And yes, this goes exactly where you think it does.

SEX-M-F.oni, SEX-F-F.oni, and SEX-Nonbinary.oni

Look, I actually started writing a complaint about the boobs thing, and I deleted it, but now Cline is doing it on purpose. So, here goes: I saw a quote from this book on Twitter that looked like Cline attempting to make up for Wade’s casual transphobia in the first book. It wasn’t good, but it at least sounded like he was trying. So to immediately get this is…a lot? Let’s go for a lot.

I can almost excuse the use of “M” and “F”. You gotta name your files and you could excuse a non-exhaustive list. But…nonbinary? On one hand, I want to know what Cline means. On the other hand, I don’t think he can come up with an answer I’ll find satisfactory.

We are thankfully spared from finding out because Wade has just lost his virginity to Samantha a few days ago and he’s 1) not ready for this and 2) pretty sure this counts as cheating. You could make a case that this is more like porn, but I can see that this is more of a personal distinction anyway, and I can respect that one. Plus, you know. I don’t want to find out.

Wade logs off, and he can’t tell the difference between the OASIS with the ONI, and decides this will change the world. And then it’s back to the “how did he do it and keep it a secret”, even though Wade now finds out in the documentation that this had been in development for twenty-five years, basically since the OASIS launched. So it’s not really that it’s a secret, so much as there are a lot of people under very strict NDAs out there. Or, again, they’re all dead and/or otherwise incapacitated.

The ONI is the product of the Accessibility Research Lab, and Wade tells us about other stuff that the lab has produced using similar technology, mostly for medical purposes.

GSS patented each of the Accessibility Research Lab’s inventions, but Halliday never made any effort to profit from them. Instead, he set up a program to give these neuroprosthetic implants away, to any OASIS users who could benefit from them. GSS even subsidized the cost of their implant surgery.

Look, it’s nice that you want Halliday to be the good guy through and through, but it’s kind of hard to take any social commentary seriously when you think this is how a billionaire is made. Hell, even when he shut down the lab and fired its entire staff, he gave them a big enough severance package to set them for life. You know. Capitalism!

Hey, remember when Samantha said she was going to end world hunger if she won the contest, a thing billionaires right now could be doing, but aren’t, and she is now the co-owner of GSS? Yeah, I kind of hope the book remembers that too.

Speaking of the co-owners, the book just completely skips over the debate that our four main characters have over whether or not to release the ONI to the world. All we know is that they voted, and the vote goes in favor of releasing it. I mean, why have characters who could have opinions and feelings that could create a discussion? That might make us care about them! And who wants to care about characters in a story?

We put them on sale at the lowest possible price, to make sure as many people as possible could experience the OASIS Neural Interface for themselves.

What exactly is “the lowest possible price” here? Your company literally owns money. Like, OASIS money is real money. There is literally nothing stopping you from giving them away, especially because what you’re giving away is access to the platform you’re already running for a profit.

It’s almost like, even trying to make “good billionaires” out of its protagonists, the book can’t stop and actually make them significantly good.

Oh, I should mention. If you thought my Ready Player One review was angry at capitalism, wait until you see what the past couple years have done to me.

Anyway, once they his 7,777,777 simultaneous ONI users, a new riddle shows up on Halliday’s website. Because yep: our plot is apparently not about the implications of releasing the ONI, or any of the potential ideological discussions associated with that, it’s another riddle. Oh boy, do I wish I’d known that.

Seek the Seven Shards of the Siren’s Soul On the seven worlds where the Siren once played a role For each fragment my heir must pay a toll To once again make the Siren whole

I cannot wait to have the book give me just not enough information to solve the riddle until it’s solved by the book itself. That was so much fun the other…what was it, five times? Six times? Something like that. Wade already tells us the Siren might be Kira Morrow, because her alias was named after one of the sirens of Greek myth, so I can’t wait for that plot point to stick around. It was so fun to hear all about this man pining for another man’s wife the first time!

So this is the “Shard Riddle”. People are apparently convinced it was made by Wade and his crew as a publicity stunt, but of course, they know that that isn’t the case, and they also don’t know what that riddle is supposed to lead to. So, that’s great. We have a puzzle, and we also don’t know what the stakes are. All we know is that Wade wants to solve the puzzle essentially because it’s a challenge.

We skip over a year, and Wade tells us about how IOI collapses and gets absorbed by GSS because of the ONI’s launch. Remember IOI? They were the bad guys, so I guess we have to cheer?

GSS absorbed IOI and all of its assets, transforming us into an unstoppable megacorporation with a global monopoly on the world’s most popular entertainment, education, and communications platform.To celebrate, we released all of IOI’s indentured servants and forgave their outstanding debts.

On one hand: good for the slave. On the other hand: not gonna cheer for a monopoly, you guys.

Another year’s skip, and now 99% of the OASIS users are using the ONI, and yes, that includes trading their experiences with one another too. And I guess we’re still hand-waving any possible problems associated with that technology, because the technology is made so that all recordings must be shared and played through the OASIS.

This allowed us to weed out unsavory or illegal recordings before they could be shared with other users.

How? Do you know any of the problems associated with content moderations on the current platforms? I don’t know if I want to point to Youtube’s extremely faulty algorithm, Twitter’s complete apathy towards its Nazis, or Facebook doing moderation by making underpaid staff watch all potentially problematic content, which resulted in serious psychological damage to said staff.

You can’t just say that as if it solved everything. The chapter later says this is handled by an AI called “CenSoft”, and as an AI engineer myself, let me tell you: this is not going to work. Again: Youtube is the way it is for a reason.

It also let us maintain our monopoly on what was rapidly becoming the most popular form of entertainment in the history of the world.

And again, monopolies are totally a good thing as long as it’s in the right hands!

When I’m implying that the book does not care for any of these potential problems, I mean it. These enormous ethical issues are sidestepped in cold narratin, and we just keep going on introducing new slang that I hate, but have to quote so help you keep up.

“Sims” were recordings made inside the OASIS, and “Recs” were ONI recordings made in reality. Except that most kids no longer referred to it as “reality.” They called it “the Earl.” (A term derived from the initialism IRL.) And “Ito” was slang for “in the OASIS.” So Recs were recorded in the Earl, and Sims were created Ito.

There. You have been infodumped.

In the midst of all this (still extremely dry) exposition about how this changed media, we also get this tidbit:

You could take any drug, eat any kind of food, and have any kind of sex, without worrying about addiction, calories, or consequences.

Now, I was going to rant about this, but then, a page later, this happens and spares me the trouble:

I’d struggled with OASIS addiction before the ONI was released. Now logging on to the simulation was like mainlining some sort of chemically engineered superheroin.

So, you are aware that addiction isn’t just possible, but extremely facilitated by this. But sure, no worries! It’s perfectly safe! Because our protagonists are good.

Also, remember how the last book ended on a weak attempt at having a moral that maybe the real world is good, actually? Yeah, Wade tells us the ONI helps poor people live enjoyable lives in the OASIS. So. Fuck that message, I guess. It only applies if you’re the literal wealthiest man on Earth.

And me? All my dreams had come true. I’d gotten stupidly rich and absurdly famous. I’d fallen in love with my dream girl and she had fallen in love with me. Surely I was happy, right? Not so much, as this account will show.

Aside from the aforementioned returning OASIS affiction, there’s the Shard riddle that Wade is now obsessed with, to the point of offering a billion-dollar reward to anyone with information about the riddle’s answer.

I announced this reward with a stylized short film that I modeled after Anorak’s Invitation. I hoped it would seem like a lighthearted play on Halliday’s contest instead of a desperate cry for help. It seemed to work.

On one hand: good, Wade finally has a character flaw that the book actually acknowledges as a character flaw. I can work with that. On the other hand: this is all told to me in such a dispassionate that I am dreading how the book will handle this character flaw. Which is to say, I’m not expecting it to be very good.

(For a brief time, some of the younger, more idealistic shard hunters referred to themselves as “shunters” to differentiate themselves from their elder counterparts. But when everyone began to call them “sharters” instead, they changed their minds and started to call themselves gunters too. The moniker still fit. The Seven Shards were Easter eggs hidden by Halliday, and we were all hunting for them.)

Especially when this is something the narration feels is more important to tell me about.

Anyway, skip another year, and a gunter finally leads Wade to the First Shard. Solved that riddle, I guess. And wait, wasn’t part of why IOI was ~evil~ in the first book that they were paying people to find the Easter Egg for them? How is this any different, Wade?

And when I picked it up, I set in motion a series of events that would drastically alter the fate of the human race. As one of the only eyewitnesses to these historic events, I feel obligated to give my own written account of what occurred. So that future generations—if there are any—will have all the facts at their disposal when they decide how to judge my actions.

And that is the end of our chapter 0. And can I just say: what a mess already. I don’t think my snark can properly convey how utterly devoid of emotion this book’s writing is, and that alone is honestly more of a turn-off than anything else in the book so far. Even, knowing that I railed about it in the first book, I still feel newly unprepared for it. And it’s not like this double-prologue is making me hopeful that the book will show an ounce more critical thinking—or decent fucking humanity towards marginalized groups—as its predecessor.

So, that’s a lot to look forward to! For the sake of my sanity and schedule, don’t expect me to do such big posts every time. I’ll probably do one chapter a week from now on, if that. We’re in for a long ride, but I hope it’s worth it, at least.

#ready player two #ernest cline #st: ready player two #book reviews

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aboveallarescuer · 4 years

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Daenerys Targaryen in A Storm of Swords vs Game of Thrones - Episode 3.3: Walk of Punishment

In this series of posts, I intend to analyze precisely how the show writers downplayed or erased several key aspects of Daenerys Targaryen’s characterization, even when they had the books to help them write her as the compelling, intelligent, compassionate, frugal, open-minded and self-critical character that GRRM created.

I want to make it clear that these posts are not primarily meant to offer a better alternative to what the show writers gave us. I understand that they had many constraints (e.g. other storylines to handle, a limited amount of time to write the scripts, budget, actors who may have asked for a certain number of lines, etc) working against them. However, considering how disrespectful the show’s ending was to Daenerys Targaryen and how the book material that they left out makes it even more ludicrous to think that she will also become a villain in A Song of Ice and Fire, I believe that these reviews are more than warranted. They are meant to dissect everything about Dany’s characterization that was lost in translation, with a lot of book evidence to corroborate my statements.

Since these reviews will dissect scene by scene, I recommend taking a look at this post because I will use its sequence to order Dany’s scenes.

This post is relevant in case you want to know which chapters were adapted in which GoT episodes (however, I didn’t make the list myself, all the information comes from the GoT Wiki, so I can’t guarantee that it’s 100% reliable).

In general, I will call the Dany from the books “Dany” and the Dany from the TV series “show!Dany”.

Scene 3

BARRISTAN: The Walk of Punishment is a warning, Your Grace.

DAENERYS: To whom?

BARRISTAN: To any slave who contemplates doing whatever these slaves did.

In the books, the context in which we first see the Plaza of Punishment (yeah, the type of building was changed) is very different:

The Plaza of Pride with its great bronze harpy was too small to hold all the Unsullied she had bought. Instead they had been assembled in the Plaza of Punishment, fronting on Astapor’s main gate, so they might be marched directly from the city once Daenerys had taken them in hand. There were no bronze statues here; only a wooden platform where rebellious slaves were racked, and flayed, and hanged. “The Good Masters place them so they will be the first thing a new slave sees upon entering the city,” Missandei told her as they came to the plaza.

At first glimpse, Dany thought their skin was striped like the zorses of the Jogos Nhai. Then she rode her silver nearer and saw the raw red flesh beneath the crawling black stripes. Flies. Flies and maggots. The rebellious slaves had been peeled like a man might peel an apple, in a long curling strip. (ASOS Daenerys III)

As we can see:

In the books, Dany goes to the Plaza of Punishment because she's going to buy save too many Unsullied and the Plaza of Pride wouldn't fit them all. The names are very appropriate: Dany is going to undermine the pride of the slave masters (the absence of bronze statues of harpies reinforces that fact) by punishing them for what they did to the slaves (which feels like a sort of karmic payback, for she begins a successful anti-slavery rebellion in the very place where the slaves were punished for rebelling) and showing them that they are just as mortal and vulnerable as the people they were oppressing. In the show, all of this significance is lost because show!Dany goes to the Plaza Walk of Punishment before she even makes the deal.

In the books, the slaves are racked, flayed and hanged for disobeying their masters. In the show, they are whipped and then strapped to a cross until they die.

There is a reason why the place was changed from Plaza to Walk: the shooting location in Essaouira had a line of cannons that couldn't be moved, so they decided to build "cannon covers" with the crosses of the dying slaves.

I don't mind that the method of punishment itself was changed (from flaying to crucifixion) or even that the Plaza of Punishment was turned into the Walk of Punishment, only that the location was shown in the inappropriate moment. I can't see any reason why the Walk of Punishment could not have been where the deal was about to be finished only for show!Dany to rebel against the masters and free the Unsullied (like how it happened in the books in the Plaza of Punishment).

Another change in the context of the scene taking place in the Plaza/Walk of Punishment has to do with who is talking to Dany and what is the purpose of the scene. I will quote again both the show dialogue and (parts of) the book passage to emphasize my point:

BARRISTAN: The Walk of Punishment is a warning, Your Grace.

DAENERYS: To whom?

BARRISTAN: To any slave who contemplates doing whatever these slaves did.

There were no bronze statues here; only a wooden platform where rebellious slaves were racked, and flayed, and hanged. “The Good Masters place them so they will be the first thing a new slave sees upon entering the city,” Missandei told her as they came to the plaza.

[...] One man had an arm black with flies from fingers to elbow, and red and white beneath. Dany reined in beneath him. “What did this one do?”

“He raised a hand against his owner.” (ASOS Daenerys III)

In the books, Missandei (a former slave) explains to Dany why the Plaza of Punishment exists. That makes their interaction more powerful, since we're listening to someone who, at some point, likely felt the urge to run away only to see these slaves and realize that it would be more sensible to resign herself to the misery she was in. Also, Dany instinctively understands why the Plaza of Punishment exists before Missandei tells her ("a wooden platform where rebellious slaves were racked, and flayed, and hanged"). In the show, show!Barristan is the one who explains to show!Dany why the Walk of Punishment exists, which is less meaningful in comparison. Also, D&D have show!Dany ask him to whom the Walk is a warning, implying that she can't think of any ideas on her own and making this another case of her being dumbed down in comparison to her book counterpart.

In the books, one of the purposes of the scene is to call attention to the unfairness of these punishments - no person should be "racked, and flayed, and hanged", especially not for a reason as relatively trivial as "rais[ing] a hand against his owner". However, because the level of oppression and social inequality is so high in Astapor and Slaver's Bay as a whole, it's normal procedure to torture and kill someone for insubstantial motives. In the show, since show!Barristan was never a slave like Missandei was, he can't possibly know why they were punished ("doing whatever these slaves did"). Now, of course, one might argue that the scene still causes outrage because no one deserves to be subjected to that level of torture, but it's still quite a shame that the reason why the slave was punished was cut - not only that would have made the point even more explicit, that only happened because they erased the perspective of a former slave.

DAENERYS: Give me your water.

JORAH: Khaleesi, this man has been sentenced to death.

DAENERYS: Here, drink.

This series has a habit of framing acts of compassion and kindness as meaningless ones - as @turtle-paced reminded me, examples include show!Ned's trying to save show!Joffrey (how his attempt was framed in the show, in particular), Talisa's kindness to the Lannister squires who got murdered in S3, the old lady who tried to help show!Sansa in S5 only to get murdered by show!Ramsay and show!Doran's efforts to make peace. @secretlyatargaryen also called attention to how show!Meera was callously dispatched after multiple seasons helping show!Bran to go back home. I would also add how no one in Braavos was willing to help show!Arya after seeing her stomach wound (and then the one person who helps her is assassinated) or how show!Arya's attempts to save a child and her mother in "The Bells" led to naught.

This scene is another clear example that fits the pattern. Instead of creating a scenario in which show!Dany tries to give water to a dying slave only for him to refuse:

Why couldn’t the show writers have had Dany explaining what, in her perspective, makes her worthy of being considered a queen?

Or why couldn’t they have kept Dany’s anger at seeing Jorah talk about the Unsullied as if they were objects to be sold?

Or why couldn’t we have had Dany saying that a queen must listen to all, highborn and low?

All of these examples were entirely cut from the series, which is a shame because they signal that the books are ultimately validating Dany’s efforts to help the oppressed (while it is true that they don’t shy away from the negative ramifications at the same time, her attempts are no less justified and necessary). This scene doesn't convey the same message.

BARRISTAN: Leave this place, Your Grace. Leave tonight, I beg you.

JORAH: And what is she to do for soldiers?

BARRISTAN: We can find sellswords in Pentos and Myr.

JORAH: Is it "we" already, Ser Barristan? If you want to sit on the throne your ancestors built, you must win it. That will mean blood on your hands before the thing is done.

DAENERYS: The blood of my enemies, not the blood of innocents.

JORAH: How many wars have you fought in, Ser Barristan?

BARRISTAN: Three.

JORAH: Have you ever seen a war where innocents didn't die by the thousands? I was in King's Landing after the sack, khaleesi. You know what I saw? Butchery. Babies, children, old men. More women raped than you can count. There's a beast in every man and it stirs when you put a sword in his hand. But the Unsullied are not men. They do not rape. They do not put cities to the sword unless they're ordered to do so. If you buy them, the only men they'll kill are those you want dead.

DAENERYS: Do you disagree, Ser Barristan?

BARRISTAN: When your brother Rhaegar led his army into battle at the Trident, men died for him because they believed in him, because they loved him, not because they'd been bought at a slaver's auction. I fought beside the last dragon on that day, Your Grace. I bled beside him.

JORAH: Rhaegar fought valiantly, Rhaegar fought nobly, and Rhaegar died.

I'm quoting the entire exchange to highlight, again, how much the show overfocused on show!Jorah's opinions over show!Dany's or show!Barristan's.

Let's separate his arguments:

1) JORAH: And what is she to do for soldiers?

2) JORAH: Is it "we" already, Ser Barristan? If you want to sit on the throne your ancestors built, you must win it. That will mean blood on your hands before the thing is done.

3) JORAH: How many wars have you fought in, Ser Barristan? [...] Have you ever seen a war where innocents didn't die by the thousands? I was in King's Landing after the sack, khaleesi. You know what I saw? Butchery. Babies, children, old men. More women raped than you can count. There's a beast in every man and it stirs when you put a sword in his hand. But the Unsullied are not men. They do not rape. They do not put cities to the sword unless they're ordered to do so. If you buy them, the only men they'll kill are those you want dead.

4) JORAH: Rhaegar fought valiantly, Rhaegar fought nobly, and Rhaegar died.

Now let's separate show!Barristan's arguments:

1) BARRISTAN: Leave this place, Your Grace. Leave tonight, I beg you.

2) BARRISTAN: We can find sellswords in Pentos and Myr.

3) BARRISTAN: When your brother Rhaegar led his army into battle at the Trident, men died for him because they believed in him, because they loved him, not because they'd been bought at a slaver's auction. I fought beside the last dragon on that day, Your Grace. I bled beside him.

Finally, what does show!Dany have to say?

1) DAENERYS: The blood of my enemies, not the blood of innocents.

The protagonist of this storyline is also, sadly, the one who least expresses her opinions on the matter of buying the Unsullied or not. (She also asks for show!Barristan's opinion and asserts that she is the last dragon, but these are not arguments/thoughts that add to the discussion)

Before I examine each line (which I will do in a sec), I want to pay close attention to the direction (which, let's have in mind, was solely Benioff's). The camera barely focuses on show!Barristan's face while he makes his first two arguments above, making them seem like an afterthought:

But it always focuses on show!Jorah's face when he is talking:

And while the camera does focus on show!Dany's face when she reiterates the importance of sparing innocent lives:

It's also true that the show erased too many of her opinions/viewpoints (as I will show below).

In terms of screentime, show!Barristan's first two arguments receive 6 seconds. Show!Jorah's first two arguments receive 12 seconds. Show!Dany's sole argument receives 3 seconds. Show!Jorah's third argument receives 39 seconds. Show!Barristan's third argument (which is actually a line from Dany in the books) receives 18 seconds. Show!Jorah's fourth argument receives 6 seconds. Approximately, then, we have: 57 seconds for show!Jorah, 24 seconds for show!Barristan and 3 seconds for show!Dany.

Now I'm going through each of these characters' arguments.

1) JORAH: And what is she to do for soldiers?

The first point is actually one that Dany is shown onpage bringing up in the books:

“When I leave Astapor it must be with an army, Ser Jorah says.” (ASOS Daenerys II)

“Yet I must have some army,” Dany said. “The boy Joffrey will not give me the Iron Throne for asking politely.” (ASOS Daenerys II)

It isn't out of character for Jorah to make this argument - in fact, he does so in the previous chapter when he proposes that Dany changes course to Astapor. However, since they are adapting events from ASOS Daenerys II (when they are already in Astapor), it's another instance in which the show writers would rather have a supporting male character have his voice heard rather than Dany's.

Also, more importantly, Dany is not making this argument to justify slavery like show!Jorah is:

“Even those who bent their knees may yearn in their hearts for the return of the dragons.”

“May,” said Dany. That was such a slippery word, may. (ASOS Daenerys II)

“My brother visited Pentos, Myr, Braavos, near all the Free Cities. The magisters and archons fed him wine and promises, but his soul was starved to death. A man cannot sup from the beggar’s bowl all his life and stay a man. I had my taste in Qarth, that was enough. I will not come to Pentos bowl in hand.” (ASOS Daenerys II)

The reason why getting an army before she gets to Pentos is so important for Dany is because she lived in poverty before and knows that she can't rely too heavily on anyone - she learned that when no one would help her brother, she learned that again when no one would help her in Qarth even with her dragons. She doesn't want to be powerless, but, at the same time, she doesn't want other people to be powerless as well. Having show!Jorah say these things doesn't have the same significance because he didn't have the same experiences that Dany did nor does he care about the slaves' plight.

So, yeah, that change is doubly awful: it prioritizes a male slaver over a female revolutionary.

2) JORAH: Is it "we" already, Ser Barristan? If you want to sit on the throne your ancestors built, you must win it. That will mean blood on your hands before the thing is done.

Show!Jorah's second and third arguments are actually one and the same and are expressed by Jorah in the books as well:

“Your Grace,” said Jorah Mormont, “I saw King’s Landing after the Sack. Babes were butchered that day as well, and old men, and children at play. More women were raped than you can count. There is a savage beast in every man, and when you hand that man a sword or spear and send him forth to war, the beast stirs. The scent of blood is all it takes to wake him. Yet I have never heard of these Unsullied raping, nor putting a city to the sword, nor even plundering, save at the express command of those who lead them. Brick they may be, as you say, but if you buy them henceforth the only dogs they’ll kill are those you want dead. And you do have some dogs you want dead, as I recall.” (ASOS Daenerys II)

However, there are still issues with how they presented his argument in the show.

One, the show writers interspersed Jorah's argument in the show scene, which shows how much they want to reinforce it.

Two, they have show!Jorah undermine show!Barristan (who is anti-slavery) three times:

JORAH: Is it "we" already, Ser Barristan?

JORAH: How many wars have you fought in, Ser Barristan? [...] Have you ever seen a war where innocents didn't die by the thousands?

JORAH: Rhaegar fought valiantly, Rhaegar fought nobly, and Rhaegar died.

Look at show!Barristan finding no response to these points and his expressions indicating that he lost the argument:

By the time of this particular scene, show!Barristan had joined show!Dany's entourage one day ago (we know this because Kraznys said that show!Dany only had one day to decide if she would buy the Unsullied or not). Even if it's understandable (on a Watsonian perspective) that show!Jorah would distrust show!Barristan for that reason, it's less understandable (on a Doylist perspective) that the writers would use this reason to undermine show!Barristan's anti-slavery arguments or that they would write show!Jorah being distrustful of show!Barristan for that reason rather than the actual reasons in the books (i.e., Jorah being constantly disrespectful of Dany's boundaries and trying to isolate her from any man who, in his mind, threatens their relationship).

In contrast with the show, Dany has been with Barristan for enough time to trust him to be her sole companion when she meets Kraznys and the Unsullied. In fact, she brings him partly as an excuse to avoid to be alone with Jorah again after he kissed her without her consent:

He has a good face, and great strength to him, Dany thought. She could not understand why Ser Jorah mistrusted the old man so. Could he be jealous that I have found another man to talk to? Unbidden, her thoughts went back to the night on Balerion when the exile knight had kissed her. He should never have done that. He is thrice my age, and of too low a birth for me, and I never gave him leave. No true knight would ever kiss a queen without her leave. She had taken care never to be alone with Ser Jorah after that, keeping her handmaids with her aboard ship, and sometimes her bloodriders. He wants to kiss me again, I see it in his eyes. (ASOS Daenerys II)

And then there is the fact that the show writers have show!Barristan find no counterargument to show!Jorah's point below, as if that meant that it is too good to be questioned:

JORAH: How many wars have you fought in, Ser Barristan? [...] Have you ever seen a war where innocents didn't die by the thousands?

This happens because this moment was taken out of its original context in order to present show!Jorah as the "realist" one. Let's look at how the scene (which is only between Dany and Jorah) goes in the books:

“When Aegon the Dragon stepped ashore in Westeros, the kings of Vale and Rock and Reach did not rush to hand him their crowns. If you mean to sit his Iron Throne, you must win it as he did, with steel and dragonfire. And that will mean blood on your hands before the thing is done.”

Blood and fire, thought Dany. The words of House Targaryen. She had known them all her life. “The blood of my enemies I will shed gladly. The blood of innocents is another matter. Eight thousand Unsullied they would offer me. Eight thousand dead babes. Eight thousand strangled dogs.”

The Usurper’s dogs. “Yes.” Dany gazed off at the soft colored lights and let the cool salt breeze caress her. “You speak of sacking cities. Answer me this, ser—why have the Dothraki never sacked this city?” (ASOS Daenerys II)

Dany doesn't offer any answer to the question of innocents dying by the thousands, but that's because GRRM writes it so that Jorah ends his line of reasoning with the argument that buying the Unsullied will cause less deaths in her war in Westeros. Right after that, GRRM shows Dany making good observations and gathering more knowledge, which showcases her intelligence. The show, on the other hand, hammers home one particular perspective in a way that the books didn't in order to make show!Jorah look "realist".

Also, while we don't see Barristan explicitly replying to Jorah's arguments in the books (because, again, the context was both a) altered so that that would happen in the show and b) manufactured so that he would lose the discussion), I imagine he would remind Dany of this very important bit of information if he were to have a discussion with Jorah in front of Dany in the books like they did in the show:

“When I leave Astapor it must be with an army, Ser Jorah says.”

“Ser Jorah was a slaver himself, Your Grace,” the old man reminded her. (ASOS Daenerys II)

Which, conveniently, the show chooses to ignore entirely.

I spent a lot of time talking about show!Jorah's second and third arguments, their context and their framing because they undermine the original takeaway of Dany's storyline. I'm going to talk about show!Jorah's fourth argument later.

Now, let's move on to show!Barristan's arguments.

1) BARRISTAN: Leave this place, Your Grace. Leave tonight, I beg you.

2) BARRISTAN: We can find sellswords in Pentos and Myr.

All of these arguments are expressed in the books, but the context is, once again, different:

“Bricks and blood built Astapor,” Whitebeard murmured at her side, “and bricks and blood her people.”

“What is that?” Dany asked him, curious.

“An old rhyme a maester taught me, when I was a boy. I never knew how true it was. The bricks of Astapor are red with the blood of the slaves who make them.”

“I can well believe that,” said Dany.

“Then leave this place before your heart turns to brick as well. Sail this very night, on the evening tide.”

Would that I could, thought Dany. “When I leave Astapor it must be with an army, Ser Jorah says.”

“Ser Jorah was a slaver himself, Your Grace,” the old man reminded her. “There are sellswords in Pentos and Myr and Tyrosh you can hire. A man who kills for coin has no honor, but at least they are no slaves. Find your army there, I beg you.”

“Better to come a beggar than a slaver,” Arstan said.

“There speaks one who has been neither.” Dany’s nostrils flared. “Do you know what it is like to be sold, squire? I do. My brother sold me to Khal Drogo for the promise of a golden crown. Well, Drogo crowned him in gold, though not as he had wished, and I ... my sun-and-stars made a queen of me, but if he had been a different man, it might have been much otherwise. Do you think I have forgotten how it felt to be afraid?” (ASOS Daenerys II)

In the books, we are privy to Dany's perspective all the time. This scene (as I said both in this post and here) displays how her empathy for the slaves is informed not just by her moral principles or cultural values, but also by her own experiences as someone who struggled with poverty and was a slave herself.

In the series, show!Dany's voice is almost entirely erased and show!Barristan's is undermined to enhance show!Jorah's (as I showed above). Also, even if some of Barristan's points are also added in the show, we don't see him realizing how the rhyme he learned was accurate in more ways than he expected, we don't see him reminding Dany that Jorah was also a slaver and we don't feel his outrage at seeing the Unsullied's training (because, in the show, they had show!Jorah accompany show!Dany rather than him):

“You have lived long in the world, Whitebeard. Now that you have seen them, what do you say?”

“I say no, Your Grace,” the old man answered at once. 

“Why?” she asked. “Speak freely.” Dany thought she knew what he would say, but she wanted the slave girl to hear, so Kraznys mo Nakloz might hear later.

“My queen,” said Arstan, “there have been no slaves in the Seven Kingdoms for thousands of years. The old gods and the new alike hold slavery to be an abomination. Evil. If you should land in Westeros at the head of a slave army, many good men will oppose you for no other reason than that. You will do great harm to your cause, and to the honor of your House.”

“Yet I must have some army,” Dany said. “The boy Joffrey will not give me the Iron Throne for asking politely.”

“When the day comes that you raise your banners, half of Westeros will be with you,” Whitebeard promised. “Your brother Rhaegar is still remembered, with great love.”

“And my father?” Dany said.

The old man hesitated before saying, “King Aerys is also remembered. He gave the realm many years of peace. Your Grace, you have no need of slaves. Magister Illyrio can keep you safe while your dragons grow, and send secret envoys across the narrow sea on your behalf, to sound out the high lords for your cause.”

“Those same high lords who abandoned my father to the Kingslayer and bent the knee to Robert the Usurper?”

“Even those who bent their knees may yearn in their hearts for the return of the dragons.”

“May,” said Dany. That was such a slippery word, may. (ASOS Daenerys II)

This scene accomplishes a couple of things - not only it reinforces to the audience that what we are seeing is wrong, it also sets up Dany's conflicting feelings about her father and establishes, again, that Dany's decision to go to Astapor is shaped by her past experiences (namely, as I already said, that she's already struggled too much to not have a healthy dose of skepticism with regard to how much help other people are willing to give her). Basically, the scene emphasizes the anti-slavery messages of Dany's storyline and services Dany's characterization.

The show's scene accomplishes none of that.

Show!Barristan's third argument is the most explicit example of the show writers being uninterested in Dany's perspective:

Let's look at the context of this line in the books:

“Viserys would have bought as many Unsullied as he had the coin for. But you once said I was like Rhaegar ...”

“I remember, Daenerys.”

“Your Grace,” she corrected. “Prince Rhaegar led free men into battle, not slaves. Whitebeard said he dubbed his squires himself, and made many other knights as well.”

“There was no higher honor than to receive your knighthood from the Prince of Dragonstone.”

“Tell me, then—when he touched a man on the shoulder with his sword, what did he say? ‘Go forth and kill the weak’? Or ‘Go forth and defend them’? At the Trident, those brave men Viserys spoke of who died beneath our dragon banners—did they give their lives because they believed in Rhaegar’s cause, or because they had been bought and paid for?” Dany turned to Mormont, crossed her arms, and waited for an answer.

“My queen,” the big man said slowly, “all you say is true. But Rhaegar lost on the Trident. He lost the battle, he lost the war, he lost the kingdom, and he lost his life. His blood swirled downriver with the rubies from his breastplate, and Robert the Usurper rode over his corpse to steal the Iron Throne. Rhaegar fought valiantly, Rhaegar fought nobly, Rhaegar fought honorably. And Rhaegar died.” (ASOS Daenerys II)

In the books, this line is not about Rhaegar at all! This is about Dany projecting her own values and ideals on Rhaegar because she wants to find a way out of the slave trade and thinking about what her biggest inspiration might have done (though she later admits she doesn't really know what he would do) would help her be more sure about what to do. This line is all about Dany!!!! By transferring her line to Barristan, not only the show writers are prioritizing a man's voice over hers, they are also making it about another man when it should be about her.

And now we get to show!Jorah's fourth argument (which is a response to show!Barristan's third argument), which I said I would comment later:

4) JORAH: Rhaegar fought valiantly, Rhaegar fought nobly, and Rhaegar died.

To quote myself on the significance of his advice,

Jorah didn’t really know who Rhaegar was, so I don’t think this sentence is necessarily reliable. The spirit of his advice is simple, however: Jorah is trying to normalize the training of the Unsullied and the existence of slavery in general as necessary evils if Dany is to win the game of thrones.

On the other hand, these words were also useful in another sense: sometimes you can’t play by the rules if you intend to succeed, especially not if these rules and conventions and institutions treat other people as interchangeable objects to be sold and invalidate your sense of morality. Barristan’s advice was also helpful, not in the sense that she should leave the city, but rather that she should not be a part of the slave trade. And so, like with Viserys and Drogo, she will find a solution that was informed by both of these men’s advice while also being her own: by refusing to view the slaves as objects to be traded, Dany considered the deal illegitimate and sparked an abolitionist campaign that would influence an entire continent. In other words, Dany did not play by the rules (like Jorah advised), but not by compromising her moral principles, but because of her moral principles (like Barristan advised).

However, because show!Dany's voice and motivations are so blatantly disregarded, the show can't develop her character in the same way.

Speaking of show!Dany, here's the one thing she has to say in the discussion of whether or not to buy the Unsullied:

1) DAENERYS: The blood of my enemies, not the blood of innocents.

This doesn't really say anything new about her line of thought that we didn't already know from episode 3.1, in which she agonized over the thousands of babies that would be (and would continue to be) killed if she became complicit in the slave trade. Show!Jorah, on the other hand, gets brand new arguments here.

By comparison, here are the arguments that Dany gets to make in the books (that are either erased or given to someone else). I'm not counting her reactions while she witnesses the Unsullied's training:

“Even those who bent their knees may yearn in their hearts for the return of the dragons.”

“May,” said Dany. That was such a slippery word, may. In any language. (ASOS Daenerys II)

Would that I could, thought Dany. “When I leave Astapor it must be with an army, Ser Jorah says.” (ASOS Daenerys II)

“Better to come a beggar than a slaver,” Arstan said.

“How many men do they have for sale?”

“None.” Was it Mormont she was angry with, or this city with its sullen heat, its stinks and sweats and crumbling bricks? “They sell eunuchs, not men. Eunuchs made of brick, like the rest of Astapor. Shall I buy eight thousand brick eunuchs with dead eyes that never move, who kill suckling babes for the sake of a spiked hat and strangle their own dogs? They don’t even have names. So don’t call them men, ser.”

“Khaleesi,” he said, taken aback by her fury, “the Unsullied are chosen as boys, and trained—”

“I have heard all I care to of their training.” Dany could feel tears welling in her eyes, sudden and unwanted. Her hand flashed up and cracked Ser Jorah hard across the face. It was either that, or cry.

Mormont touched the cheek she’d slapped. “If I have displeased my queen—”

“You have. You’ve displeased me greatly, ser. If you were my true knight, you would never have brought me to this vile sty.” If you were my true knight, you would never have kissed me, or looked at my breasts the way you did, or ...

“As Your Grace commands. I shall tell Captain Groleo to make ready to sail on the evening tide, for some sty less vile.”

“No,” said Dany. Groleo watched them from the forecastle, and his crew was watching too. Whitebeard, her bloodriders, Jhiqui, every one had stopped what they were doing at the sound of the slap. “I want to sail now, not on the tide, I want to sail far and fast and never look back. But I can’t, can I? There are eight thousand brick eunuchs for sale, and I must find some way to buy them.” (ASOS Daenerys II)

“The blood of my enemies I will shed gladly. The blood of innocents is another matter. Eight thousand Unsullied they would offer me. Eight thousand dead babes. Eight thousand strangled dogs.” (ASOS Daenerys II)

Everything that show!Dany has to say on the matter is concentrated on the last passage quoted, and its points are scattered across 3.1 and 3.3.

If the show writers cared about Dany's characterization, we would see how she presents different arguments to Barristan (that she needs an army because she has been poor before) and Jorah (that buying the Unsullied is immoral) at the same time and that both counsellors influence her decision to rebel against the masters in their own ways, as I explained in the quote above.

If the show writers cared about Dany's characterization, we would get hints that she feels that it is her moral duty to stay and help the Unsullied ("Would that I could", "There are eight thousand brick eunuchs for sale, and I must find some way to buy them", etc).

If the show writers cared about Dany's characterization, we would leave this scene with the impression that she already knows what she will do by the time she decides to trade one dragon for all of the Unsullied and the untrained boys. Instead, while we know that show!Dany wants to spare innocents and only kill her enemies and their soldiers, there isn’t enough evidence hinting at her eventual rebellion against the masters. In fact, she is still asking show!Barristan what he thinks, making it seem that she is still unsure of her plan or that she is more reliant on their viewpoints than she is in the books. That's the problem of interspersing lines and plot points between episodes: this discussion could have served for episode 3.1 (in which, if they were faithful to the books, show!Dany would have still been concocting her plan), but it doesn't for episode 3.3, in which they have it happen minutes before she makes her fateful decision.

So, in this exchange, we get very, very little about what show!Dany thinks. Show!Jorah is the one in favor of buying the Unsullied, show!Barristan is the one against it. One could argue, like @rainhadaenerys said to me, that show!Jorah is portrayed as the devil and show!Barristan as the angel on show!Dany's shoulders, similar to how show!Davos is the angel and show!Melisandre the devil on show!Stannis's. The show's influence may explain why some people think that Barristan is the one who motivated Dany to begin her anti-slavery rebellion. The books certainly don't allow that interpretation because Dany's voice remains front and center in the discussions, but the show is dead set on erasing it.

We end the exchange with this:

JORAH: Rhaegar fought valiantly, Rhaegar fought nobly, and Rhaegar died.

DAENERYS: Did you know him well, Ser Barristan?

BARRISTAN: I did, Your Grace. Finest man I ever met.

DAENERYS: I wish I had known him. But he was not the last dragon.

It's not true in the books that Barristan knew Rhaegar well:

“Did you know my brother Rhaegar as well?” 

“It was said that no man ever knew Prince Rhaegar, truly. I had the privilege of seeing him in tourney, though, and often heard him play his harp with its silver strings.” (ASOS Daenerys I)

I've already talked about how the show writers gave Dany's lines to show!Barristan, so I won't belabor the point. What I will say is that Benioff's emphasis on show!Dany's awareness that she is the last dragon is very questionable in its intent/framing. In and of itself, that original line is okay - women are often looked down upon if they express confidence both in Westeros and in our world, so it can be refreshing to see show!Dany claiming that Rhaegar was not the last dragon because she knows that she is. It can be refreshing to see a woman whose pride is depicted as a positive trait rather than one that propels her downfall. I'm sure that's the takeaway that what many viewers got from that scene and from show!Dany's trajectory in general in season three.

However, let's see what Benioff says about her in interviews:

Benioff: Dany is so defined by her dragons, they're so much a part at this point, they define her so much that when they're taken from her, it's almost like she reverts to the pre-dragon Daenerys, you know, everyone is a bit defined by who they were when they were an adolescent, you know, no matter how old you get, no matter how powerful you get, and Daenerys was a scared, timid, abused adolescent and I think when her dragons are taken for her, all those feelings, all those memories and emotions are triggered and come back and all the confidence that she's won over the last several months, it's as if that just evaporates and she's back to being a really frightened little girl. (D&D's Inside the Episode 2.6)

Benioff: Dany has her lovable side, but she is also ruthless, and she is also fiercely ambitious and, funnily, like a Littlefinger style ambition where she's trying to climb this, you know, the social ladder. It's almost like a Joan of Arc kind of ambition where she feels like she has this almost divine mission and nothing's going to prevent her from achieving it, and that might mean sacrificing those who are closest to her. (D&D's Inside the Episode 3.3)

Benioff: I think she becomes harder to dismiss, you know, for a long time people have been saying, even if she was alive, you know, really, the only threat she poses is her name, she's a Targaryen, great, but she's a little girl in the edge of the world, so she's starting to knock on people's doors a little bit. (D&D's Inside the Episode 3.4)

Right from the beginning, we can see that Benioff didn't really see show!Dany's pride and confidence and ambition positively. Not only does he think those aspects are dependent upon her dragons and her family name, he also thinks she has a "Littlefinger style ambition" and an "almost divine mission" that she will embark while thinking that "nothing's going to prevent her from achieving it". All of these statements mischaracterize Daenerys Targaryen, so I end up looking askance at the end of the scene for knowing that he's the one who wrote and directed it.

(Also, now that we know in hindsight that the show writers are not just going to strip show!Dany of many characteristics of her book counterpart, but also villainize her and kill her for the very confidence she is displaying here ... I can’t give them any credit.)

Dany does assert her identity and titles in a chapter that they are adapting in this episode, but the context (as usual) is entirely different:

Dany knew she would take more than a hundred, if she took any at all. “Remind your Good Master of who I am. Remind him that I am Daenerys Stormborn, Mother of Dragons, the Unburnt, trueborn queen of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros. My blood is the blood of Aegon the Conqueror, and of old Valyria before him.”

Yet her words did not move the plump perfumed slaver, even when rendered in his own ugly tongue. “Old Ghis ruled an empire when the Valyrians were still fucking sheep,” he growled at the poor little scribe, “and we are the sons of the harpy.” He gave a shrug. “My tongue is wasted wagging at women. East or west, it makes no matter, they cannot decide until they have been pampered and flattered and stuffed with sweetmeats. Well, if this is my fate, so be it. Tell the whore that if she requires a guide to our sweet city, Kraznys mo Nakloz will gladly serve her ... and service her as well, if she is more woman than she looks.” (ASOS Daenerys II)

First, in this quote, we get a hint that Dany is intent on either freeing the slaves or not being complicit in their oppression ("she would take more than a hundred, if she took any at all").

Second, we see that Dany reminds Kraznys of her identity after she spent a very long time being belittled and mocked and ridiculed due to his fervent misogyny and xenophobia. Unlike show!Dany, she is bringing up her titles because she was being disrespected, not because she wants to bring them up for their own sake. In other words, the book's scene doesn't intend to frame Dany as arrogant, though it seems that the show's scene does.

I have thoughts about the show's change of Dany's dress, but I'll leave them to the section about her clothing.

So, to begin talking about the negotiation scene on a positive note, there are some aspects that the show remained faithful to the books to.

The first is that show!Dany is explicitly shown to be doing what she is doing because she wants to help the slaves:

It's funny to gif this scene as if show!Dany were rolling her eyes, but that's not what she is actually doing in the scene: she looks above, at the slaves, and then decides to risk one of her dragons for them. That much is unambiguously clear.

The second detail in common is this:

MISSANDEI: There are 8,000 Unsullied in Astapor. Is this what you mean by all?

DAENERYS: Yes. 8,000. And the ones still in training as well.

Show!Dany wants to free all of the slaves, so she asks for the eight thousand Unsullied and the untrained boys, just like Dany:

“Of thousands, there are eight. Is this what she means by all? There are also six centuries, who shall be part of a ninth thousand when complete. Would she have them too?”

“I would,” said Dany when the question was put to her. “The eight thousands, the six centuries ... and the ones still in training as well. The ones who have not earned the spikes.” (ASOS Daenerys III)

Unfortunately, this is all there is in terms of similarities. There are far more differences.

MISSANDEI: Master Greizhen says they cannot sell half-trained boys. If they fail on the battlefield, they will bring shame upon all of Astapor.

DAENERYS: I will have them all or take none. Many will fall in battle. I'll need the boys to pick up the swords they drop.

First of all, unlike in the show, there is a master willing to sell the untrained boys to Dany:

“We cannot sell half-trained boys,” one of the silver-fringe Grazdans was saying to the others.

“We can, if her gold is good,” said a fatter man whose fringe was gold.

“They are not Unsullied. They have not killed their sucklings. If they fail in the field, they will shame us. And even if we cut five thousand raw boys tomorrow, it would be ten years before they are fit for sale. What would we tell the next buyer who comes seeking Unsullied?”

“We will tell him that he must wait,” said the fat man. “Gold in my purse is better than gold in my future.” (ASOS Daenerys III)

Second, while Dany makes the argument that show!Dany is seen making:

“In a year I shall be in Westeros,” said Dany when she had heard the translation. “My need is now. The Unsullied are well trained, but even so, many will fall in battle. I shall need the boys as replacements to take up the swords they drop.” (ASOS Daenerys III)

They cut what Dany says right afterwards:

She put her wine aside and leaned toward the slave girl. “Tell the Good Masters that I will want even the little ones who still have their puppies. Tell them that I will pay as much for the boy they cut yesterday as for an Unsullied in a spiked helm.”

The girl told them. The answer was still no. 

Dany frowned in annoyance. “Very well. Tell them I will pay double, so long as I get them all.” (ASOS Daenerys III)

Because the show writers chose to only have show!Dany say that she will “need the boys to pick up the swords they drop”, it makes it seem that her request to get them is more strategic than empathetic. It's not; as we can see above, if they had added the bolded parts above, it would have made it even clearer that she is doing what she is doing solely because of her altruism.

MISSANDEI: Master Kraznys says you cannot afford this.

KRAZNYS: Her ship will buy her 100 Unsullied, no more.

MISSANDEI: Your ship will buy you 100 Unsullied.

KRAZNYS: And this because I like the curve of her ass.

MISSANDEI: Because Master Kraznys is generous.

KRAZNYS: What is left will buy her 10.

MISSANDEI: The gold you have left is worth 10.

KRAZNYS: I will give her if it stops her ignorant whimpering.

MISSANDEI: But good Master Kraznys will give you 20.

KRAZNYS: Her Dothraki smell of shit ...

MISSANDEI: The Dothraki you have with you…

KRAZNYS: ... but may be useful as pig feed.

MISSANDEI: The Dothraki you have are not worth what they cost to feed, but Master Kraznys will give you three Unsullied for all of them.

KRAZNYS: So, ask this beggar queen, how will she pay for the remaining 7,877?

The show also decreases the value of Dany's goods a lot.

In the books, Dany is willing to sell Illyrio's three ships (rather than one):

“...But my ships you can have. The great cog Balerion and the galleys Vhagar and Meraxes.” She had warned Groleo and the other captains it might come to this, though they had protested the necessity of it furiously. “Three good ships should be worth more than a few paltry eunuchs.”

The fat Grazdan turned to the others. They conferred in low voices once again. “Two of the thousands,” the one with the spiked beard said when he turned back. “It is too much, but the Good Masters are being generous and your need is being great.” (ASOS Daenerys III)

Have in mind that 2,000 is their worth after Dany chose to pay double for the Unsullied and the untrained boys. Normally, they would be worth 4,000. But let's be generous and use 2,000 ... This means that each ship is worth around 666 Unsullied.

And yet, in the show, her ship is worth 100 Unsullied.

In the books, this is how much Dany's gold and trading goods inside the ship are worth:

“Your men have gone through my ships and tallied every bead of amber and jar of saffron. How much do I have?”

“Sufficient to be buying one of thousands,” the Good Master said, with a contemptuous smile. “Yet you are paying double, you are saying. Five centuries, then, is all you buy.”

In the show, however, show!Dany's gold is only worth 10 Unsullied.

As for the Dothraki, before the slavers make an offer, Dany makes it clear that she will not sell them (or any of the people in her retinue, or any of their possessions):

“My crown is not for sale.” When Viserys sold their mother’s crown, the last joy had gone from him, leaving only rage. “Nor will I enslave my people, nor sell their goods and horses.[”]

Do I think leaving this part out means that show!Dany would be willing to enslave the Dothraki? Absolutely not, it wouldn't make sense with her characterization (watered down as it is). However, would it have cost much for the show writers to have her make it clear that she won't enslave them? Doesn't seem so.

Why is the decrease in the value of Dany's possessions important to have in mind? Because, in the books, it matters that she had other choices rather than the one she ultimately makes:

Two thousand would never serve for what she meant to do. I must have them all. Dany knew what she must do now, though the taste of it was so bitter that even the persimmon wine could not cleanse it from her month. She had considered long and hard and found no other way. It is my only choice. “Give me all,” she said, “and you may have a dragon.” (ASOS Daenerys III)

Dany "found no other way"? If she just wanted an army, she had plenty of other ways:

If she just wanted an army, she could have offered all the trading goods in the ships and gotten the 1000 Unsullied that Jorah advised her to get (unlike show!Jorah, Jorah explicitly recommends a specific number of soldiers - "a thousand swords")

If she just wanted an army, she wouldn’t have offered to pay double for the untrained boys.

If she just wanted an army, she could have given the trading goods and the ships and left with 2000 Unsullied.

If she just wanted an army, she wouldn’t have thought that she must have them all" and that “[i]t was [her] only choice” to offer them a dragon.

By stripping show!Dany of these options, the show writers undercut the extent of her altruism, for they erase the fact and Dany had other alternatives and still chose the moral one. In the books, it was never necessary for her to risk her dragon, but she did it anyway; in the show, 123 Unsullied was not enough to form an army, so one could, on a superficial read, argue that she's only doing what she's doing out of convenience.

Then, we get to the part in which show!Dany actually offers a dragon to the masters:

MISSANDEI: Master Kraznys asks how you propose to pay for the remaining 7,877 Unsullied.

DAENERYS: I have dragons. I'll give you one.

BARRISTAN: You will win the throne with dragons, not slaves, Your Grace.

JORAH: Khaleesi, please.

KRAZNYS: Three dragons.

DAENERYS: One.

KRAZNYS: Two.

DAENERYS: One.

MISSANDEI: They want the biggest one.

DAENERYS: Done.

KRAZNYS: Done.

Before I talk about how her advisors react, let's talk about how show!Dany's sacrifice is being undermined again: in the show, instead of being shocked that show!Dany is willing to sell even one dragon, Kraznys thinks he is entitled to ask for more of them. Let's see the masters' reactions in the books:

“Give me all,” she said, “and you may have a dragon.”

There was the sound of indrawn breath from Jhiqui beside her. Kraznys smiled at his fellows. “Did I not tell you? Anything, she would give us.” (ASOS Daenerys III)

“Tell them I await their answer.”

She knew the answer, though; she could see it in the glitter of their eyes and the smiles they tried so hard to hide. Astapor had thousands of eunuchs, and even more slave boys waiting to be cut, but there were only three living dragons in all the great wide world. And the Ghiscari lust for dragons. How could they not? Five times had Old Ghis contended with Valyria when the world was young, and five times gone down to bleak defeat. For the Freehold had dragons, and the Empire had none.

The oldest Grazdan stirred in his seat, and his pearls clacked together softly. “A dragon of our choice,” he said in a thin, hard voice. “The black one is largest and healthiest.”

“His name is Drogon.” She nodded.

“All your goods, save your crown and your queenly raiment, which we will allow you to keep. The three ships. And Drogon.”

“Done,” she said, in the Common Tongue. 

“Done,” the old Grazdan answered in his thick Valyrian.

The others echoed that old man of the pearl fringe. “Done,” the slave girl translated, “and done, and done, eight times done.”

As we can see, the masters are shocked that Dany would think that it's reasonable to offer even a single dragon. They can't hide how eager they are to control one (especially considering their past history with Old Valyria, which is another observation showcasing Dany's intelligence that the show erased). Their only request is to choose the biggest one, not to take one or two more. What's more, having show!Dany assert that she will only give one dragon makes it seem that her selflessness only goes so far, which is not at all what the purpose of the original scene was.

Now, on to what show!Dany’s advisors think of her trading one dragon for the Unsullied ...

DAENERYS: I have dragons. I'll give you one.

BARRISTAN: You will win the throne with dragons, not slaves, Your Grace.

JORAH: Khaleesi, please.

JORAH: Khaleesi, a dragon is worth more than any army.

BARRISTAN: Aegon Targaryen proved that.

DAENERYS: You're both here to advise me. I value your advice, but if you ever question me in front of strangers again, you'll be advising someone else. Is that understood?

In the books, Jorah never questions Dany's decision like show!Jorah is seen doing in the scene. In fact, he is the one who takes Barristan away from the negotiation scene (likely because he wants to get back into Dany’s good grace after he forced a kiss on her and she avoided him and later (rightfully) slapped him in the face):

“Give me all,” she said, “and you may have a dragon.”

[...] Whitebeard stared in shocked disbelief. His hand trembled where it grasped the staff. “No.” He went to one knee before her. “Your Grace, I beg you, win your throne with dragons, not slaves. You must not do this thing—”

“You must not presume to instruct me. Ser Jorah, remove Whitebeard from my presence.”

Mormont seized the old man roughly by an elbow, yanked him back to his feet, and marched him out onto the terrace. (ASOS Daenerys III)

Also, as I said here, I’m pretty sure Dany shared her plan to revolt against the masters with Jorah and her bloodriders.

Another reason why it bothers me to see show!Jorah reacting so negatively to the exchange show!Dany just made is that ... What else could she have done to get the Unsullied? Obviously, 123 of them wouldn’t be enough to get an army. In the books, before they sail to Astapor, Dany questions how she is going to buy the Unsullied and Jorah shows what she can do to buy them:

“That is what you will find in Astapor, Your Grace. Put ashore there, and continue on to Pentos overland. It will take longer, yes ... but when you break bread with Magister Illyrio, you will have a thousand swords behind you, not just four.”

There is wisdom in this, yes, Dany thought, but ... “How am I to buy a thousand slave soldiers? All I have of value is the crown the Tourmaline Brotherhood gave me.”

“Dragons will be as great a wonder in Astapor as they were in Qarth. It may be that the slavers will shower you with gifts, as the Qartheen did. If not ... these ships carry more than your Dothraki and their horses. They took on trade goods at Qarth, I’ve been through the holds and seen for myself. Bolts of silk and bales of tiger skin, amber and jade carvings, saffron, myrrh ... slaves are cheap, Your Grace. Tiger skins are costly.” (ASOS Daenerys I)

As we can see, Jorah is able to roughly estimate that Illyrio's trade goods will guarantee one thousand soldiers for Dany because "slaves are cheap". In the show, he either made a wrong calculation or neither him nor show!Dany thought of making one in the first place, which dumbs both of them down.

Now, I have a guess as to why show!Jorah is made to disagree with show!Dany's decision - that's, again, because Benioff empathizes with him over Dany. I've already showed above and in episode 3.1 how show!Jorah's viewpoint is consistently prioritized over show!Dany's or show!Barristan's and how he even receives new arguments that make him seem "realist". We should also have Benioff's statements in this interview in mind:

“It’s a hallmark of a number of scenes in [A Storm of Swords] where, in retrospect, I should have seen it coming because George laid out all the pieces, he had given you all the clues,” Benioff said. “The best kind of surprises aren’t the ones that come out of nowhere. The best ones are where after you see it you’re asking yourself, ‘Why didn’t I see that was coming?’ I remember reading [Dany planning to give up Drogon to the slaver] and thinking, ‘Oh, this is kind of disappointing.’ When the real plan was revealed I think I even called [Weiss]. This was before we had met with George, when we were still trying to figure out if this show was possible. The culmination of that scene was one of those moments when we were like, ‘We got to make this f–king show.’ It was very gratifying seeing that wish fulfilled … I think it will be one of the most staggering things ever put on television.” (x)

To be fair to him, at least he acknowledges that GRRM left many clues that that was going to happen (though he didn't add them in the show). But my point is that he was disappointed at Dany when he thought she was giving Drogon up. Since show!Jorah's perspective has been prioritized over the other characters' to the point of the audience being made to empathize and experience the events with him rather than with Dany, it only makes sense that he has the same feelings that Benioff did when he first read the book.

Another thing I want to mention is how Benioff is motivated by the spectacle rather than how the culmination is tied to Dany's characterization. This is partly why, I suspect, so many of Dany's words and thoughts were erased - he prioritized the viewer's shock rather than allowing the viewer to see where she is coming from. (That's similar to the buildup - or lack thereof - to Littlefinger's trial in season seven, when we ended up seeing the events from his perspective rather than the Starks' because they would rather shock us than make us empathize with the actual leads)

As for show!Barristan, some of his book counterpart's arguments are kept in the show - namely, that Dany should win the throne with dragons rather than slaves and that Aegon proved that a dragon is worth more than an army in the Field of Fire. Even so, Barristan's moral outrage has been erased, as I already showed with the book evidence quoted above (here are some examples).

And then there’s show!Dany’s reaction to their dissent:

DAENERYS: You're both here to advise me. I value your advice, but if you ever question me in front of strangers again, you'll be advising someone else. Is that understood?

Look, I have no problem with this scene in and of itself. Show!Dany makes it clear that she’s willing to listen to them, but that her authority can’t be undermined in front of other people (even more so when these people are already prone to underestimate her).

However, some crucial details are missing in this scene compared to the books:

Arstan Whitebeard held his tongue as well, when Dany swept by him on the terrace. He followed her down the steps in silence, but she could hear his hardwood staff tap tapping on the red bricks as they went. She did not blame him for his fury. It was a wretched thing she did. The Mother of Dragons has sold her strongest child. Even the thought made her ill.

Yet down in the Plaza of Pride, standing on the hot red bricks between the slavers’ pyramid and the barracks of the eunuchs, Dany turned on the old man. “Whitebeard,” she said, “I want your counsel, and you should never fear to speak your mind with me ... when we are alone. But never question me in front of strangers. Is that understood?”

“Yes, Your Grace,” he said unhappily. 

“I am not a child,” she told him. “I am a queen.”

“Yet even queens can err. The Astapori have cheated you, Your Grace. A dragon is worth more than any army. Aegon proved that three hundred years ago, upon the Field of Fire.”

“I know what Aegon proved. I mean to prove a few things of my own.” (ASOS Daenerys III)

Unlike in the show, Dany is shown empathizing with Barristan ("She did not blame him for his fury. It was a wretched thing she did."). She doesn’t want to be complicit in the slave trade, and she certainly doesn’t want to sell one of her children, but it’s still the moral duty of a queen as she sees it.

Unlike in the show, Dany is the one who takes the initiative to make it clear to Barristan that she wants his honest advice, just not in public. Unlike in the show, she never threatens to send him away.

They also cut the part in which Dany says that she knows what Aegon proved and that she means to prove a few things of her own, another hint that she will forsake the deal because it should have never been acknowledged as one to begin with.

Before I talk about show!Dany's first one-on-one interaction with show!Missandei, I have to comment on this part:

DAENERYS: I'll take you as well, now. You'll be Master Kraznys' gift to me. A token of a bargain well struck.

MISSANDEI: She asks that you give me to her, as a present. She asks that you do this now.

In the books, Kraznys voluntarily gives Missandei to Dany:

“The Unsullied will learn your savage tongue quick enough,” added Kraznys mo Nakloz, when all the arrangements had been made, “but until such time you will need a slave to speak to them. Take this one as our gift to you, a token of a bargain well struck.”

“I shall,” said Dany.

The slave girl rendered his words to her, and hers to him. If she had feelings about being given for a token, she took care not to let them show. (ASOS Daenerys III)

Now, does this change mean that show!Dany sees show!Missandei as an object to be sold? No. For one, as Emilia Clarke says:

Clarke: Dany sees a lot of herself in her and can kind of see that it's a young girl who's capable of much more than the position she's in.

If show!Dany is able to empathize with show!Missandei on that level, it's much more likely that show!Dany asked to have show!Missandei so that she could free her from Kraznys (who is unabashedly cruel and misogynist). That being said, it is still an unnecessary deviation that can lead to pointless misunderstanding from the viewers.

While show!Dany and show!Missandei discuss some of the same issues that Dany and Missandei do in the books, their first one-on-one meeting is very condensed and altered in several key ways.

DAENERYS: Do you have a name?

MISSANDEI: This one's name is Missandei, Your Grace.

DAENERYS: Do you have a family? A mother and a father you'd return to if you had the choice?

MISSANDEI: No, Your Grace. No family living.

DAENERYS: You belong to me now. It is your duty to tell me the truth.

MISSANDEI: Yes, Your Grace. Lying is a great offense. Many of those on the Walk of Punishment were taken there for less.

Show!Dany begins asking if show!Missandei had a family that she would like to return to, which implies that show!Dany would let her go if show!Missandei had one (again, this is another moment challenging the idea that show!Dany only saw show!Missandei as an object). Show!Missandei replies that she doesn’t, however. This leads show!Dany to remind her that she needs to tell her the truth, which doesn’t make sense. Why would show!Missandei lie about it? Especially since, in the books, Dany doesn’t outright say that “it is your duty to tell me the truth”, merely that “you serve me now” when she wants to confirm with Missandei information that she got from Kraznys about the Unsullied:

“Are these Unsullied truly fearless?”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

“You serve me now. Is it true they feel no pain?”

“The wine of courage kills such feelings. By the time they slay their sucklings, they have been drinking it for years.” (ASOS Daenerys III)

Dany is not reminding Missandei of the need to tell her the truth because she is mistrusting Missandei right off the bat like show!Dany seems to be doing with show!Missandei, she is asking that question because confirming these details will be crucial if she means to turn the Unsullied to her side when she risks both her life and those of her retinue to free them. But the show beats on that dead horse and even has Missandei answer that she wouldn’t lie because to do so would lead her to the Walk of Punishment. It decontextualizes why Dany reminded Missandei of the need to tell her the truth in the books.

Missandei is treated differently by Dany in the two mediums in other ways. In the book, Dany is shown onpage freeing her right away and names her one of her handmaids in case she decides to stay with her:

“Missandei is no longer a slave. I free you, from this instant. Come ride with me in the litter, I wish to talk.” Rakharo helped them in, and Dany drew the curtains shut against the dust and heat. “If you stay with me you will serve as one of my handmaids,” she said as they set off. “I shall keep you by my side to speak for me as you spoke for Kraznys. But you may leave my service whenever you choose, if you have father or mother you would sooner return to.” (ASOS Daenerys III)

In the show, they have show!Dany say that show!Missandei can’t lie because “you belong to me now”, which makes it seem like a master talking to a slave. However, we know that show!Dany frees show!Missandei at some point as well (the latter says so in season seven), the show writers just didn't bother to show it onscreen because, as this meta is hopefully showing, they don't care about Dany's characterization. In any case, show!Dany doing anything but that wouldn’t make sense neither with how she reacts to the Unsullied’s plight nor with Emilia Clarke’s interview. If they had followed the book’s exchange more closely rather than invented new dialogue, there wouldn't have been any confusions.

They have show!Dany confirm with show!Missandei the information she got from Kraznys about the Unsullied:

DAENERYS: Is it true what Master Kraznys told me about the Unsullied? About their obedience?

MISSANDEI: All questions have been taken from them. They obey, that is all. Once they are yours, they are yours. They will fall on their swords if you command it.

However, they forgot to include the most relevant part of exchange, plot-wise: Dany asking Missandei if the Unsullied could be used against her if Dany were to resell them.

“If I did resell them, how would I know they could not be used against me?” Dany asked pointedly. “Would they do that? Fight against me, even do me harm?”

“If their master commanded. They do not question, Your Grace. All the questions have been culled from them. They obey.” She looked troubled. “When you are ... when you are done with them ... your Grace might command them to fall upon their swords.”

“And even that, they would do?” 

“Yes.” Missandei’s voice had grown soft. “Your Grace.” (ASOS Daenerys III)

Dany is making this hypothetical question because she wants to know if there’s any way that the Unsullied can be turned against their previous owner, which is what she intends to do in order to rebel against the masters and free the soldiers.

Then show!Dany reminds show!Missandei that, by following her, she might be vulnerable to many possible misfortunes:

DAENERYS: And what about you? You know that I'm taking you to war. You may go hungry. You may fall sick. You may be killed.

This does happen in the books, but the context is different.

“This one will stay,” the girl said. “This one ... I ... there is no place for me to go. This ... I will serve you, gladly.”

“I can give you freedom, but not safety,” Dany warned. “I have a world to cross and wars to fight. You may go hungry. You may grow sick. You may be killed.” (ASOS Daenerys III)

In the books, as I said, Dany frees Missandei right away, says she might leave her service when she wants to and then warns her of the harsh conditions she will face if she remains with Dany.

In the series, show!Dany reminds show!Missandei of the obstacles she will have to face if she remains with her primarily because she wants to know if show!Missandei is as obedient as the Unsullied, not because she is primarily concerned about show!Missandei’s safety and free will. Again, I don’t mean to be critical of show!Dany here - I do think she had show!Missandei’s best intentions in mind (and that she freed her afterwards offscreen). I’m only saying that the writers could have conveyed that in a more unequivocal way ... like how the books did, y'know.

Like in the books, show!Missandei also says valar morghulis when show!Dany warns her of the dangers of staying with her, but her answer is different from Dany's:

DAENERYS: Yes, all men must die. But we are not men.

“All men must die,” Dany agreed, “but not for a long while, we may pray.” (ASOS Daenerys III)

I don't think this is the worst line ever made for show!Dany, but I definitely prefer the book one and it's sad to revisit that quote now that we know that both show!Dany and show!Missandei will be dead by the end of the series.

Show!Missandei also seems to become fond of show!Dany way too quickly. That line “but we are not men” seems to have the intent to build a feeling of solidarity between these two women (and this is corroborated, again, by Emilia’s interview quoted above); indeed, in the next episode, show!Missandei will give Kraznys a smirk when show!Dany admits that she was fooling him all along. In the books, however, not only we never see Missandei’s reaction to Dany’s rebellion, but her feelings about being given away to Dany seem much more complicated - understandably so.

“I shall keep you by my side to speak for me as you spoke for Kraznys. But you may leave my service whenever you choose, if you have father or mother you would sooner return to.”

“This one will stay,” the girl said. “This one ... I ... there is no place for me to go. This ... I will serve you, gladly.” (ASOS Daenerys III)

She looked troubled. “When you are ... when you are done with them ... your Grace might command them to fall upon their swords.”

“And even that, they would do?” 

“Yes.” Missandei’s voice had grown soft. “Your Grace.”

Dany squeezed her hand. “You would sooner I did not ask it of them, though. Why is that? Why do you care?”

“This one does not ... I ... Your Grace ... ” 

“Tell me.” 

The girl lowered her eyes. “Three of them were my brothers once, Your Grace.”

Then I hope your brothers are as brave and clever as you. (ASOS Daenerys III)

Even if Dany has noble intentions and frees her right away, where would she go? What would she do? How would she survive? Does she have a better option? These are questions that Dany will only directly confront in the next chapter, when plenty of Astapori freedmen will choose to follow her instead of staying in the city. In Missandei’s case, she seems more resigned than anything else in the books.

Also, even if Dany freed Missandei, it doesn't prevent the latter from looking "troubled" and seriously consider the possibility that Dany may order all the Unsullied to kill themselves. Her former master had no problem humiliating and torturing her, why would Dany be any different?

The show could have acknowledged these complications, but it didn’t - that’s why it sucks so much: it pretends to be telling a morally complex tale (see Benioff saying how hard it is for Dany to choose between violence/"realism" and idealism) while it actually undermines the anti-slavery viewpoints (especially Dany’s) and oversimplifies the (positive and negative) ramifications of Dany’s crusade. If it actually intended to be a morally complex tale like it pretends to be, we would see the Astapori refugees in the show. Instead, they would rather overfocus on how show!Dany is becoming “more violent” as her crusade continues (see this).

My comments on the Inside the Episode 3.3

Weiss: Giving away one of the dragons seems like a completely insane thing to do, especially the biggest one. I mean, we know that, historically, the biggest dragons were bigger than school buses and they were weapons of mass destruction and able to lay cities to waste in minutes, and no matter how big or effective your army of 8,000 soldiers is, taking even a small city is going to be a kind of a dangerous prospect for them, and the idea that she's going to give away what they see is her real future for a chance at a small army now seems insane to them.

Benioff: As @rainhadaenerys already said in her tags here, Benioff's comments make it seem like Dany's "lovable side" is secondary to her ruthlessness or her ambition or her "almost divine mission". Check out my list of passages showcasing Dany's moments of empathy and compassion VS in which ways the prophecies drive Dany's story (and also this meta) VS the moments in which Dany uses/considers using violence. The former obviously outweighs the latter two. I also recommend reading this meta debunking claims that Dany is "entitled" or "arrogant", for these false accusations are related to the mischaracterization of Dany as someone who is "fiercely ambitious" (that's because they are all tied to her heritage and her goal to take back the Seven Kingdoms). Finally, I don't know why the heck Benioff is saying that she might sacrifice "those who are closest to her". Time and again we see that she is not willing to sacrifice people for her personal goals - she won't sell anyone from her retinue or any of their belongings nor will she leave the slaves behind at the mercy of the masters. Her risking one dragon is an action that's supposed to highlight how far she is willing to go to "protect the ones who can't protect themselves". Why doesn't he ever bother to talk about her selflessness? Why is it always about her ambition or a "divine mission" that is nowhere to be found in Dany's consciousness in the books?

Weiss: It's annoying that he's talking about show!Jorah as if he were against show!Dany's decision to trade a dragon for the Unsulllied (which he never was in the books), but I've already written about that extensively in this post. His description of the dragons as being "able to lay cities to waste in minutes" is questionable, as well as his description of 8,000 men as "a small army".

Show!Dany's clothes

This episode adapts events from ASOS Daenerys II (which has no description of her clothes) and ASOS Daenerys III, in which we see her wearing this dress for the negotiation scene:

She had chosen a Qartheen gown today. The deep violet silk brought out the purple of her eyes. The cut of it bared her left breast. While the Good Masters of Astapor conferred among themselves in low voices, Dany sipped tart persimmon wine from a tall silver flute. She could not quite make out all that they were saying, but she could hear the greed. (ASOS Daenerys III)

This scene exhibits Dany's political skills - by using a dress that calls attention to her body and arouses the masters, she disarms them and potentially makes them more amenable to her offers.

I also think it's significant that the dress is Qartheen, for their culture (as seen through Dany's eyes) is marked by flattery and adulation and politeness and dishonesty.

In the show, however, show!Dany is still using the blue dress:

Unlike in episode 3.1 (which adapted a scene in the docks in which she was using Dothraki clothing), now I can't say that the dress is spiritually faithful to the one from the books. It's another opportunity that they missed to highlight aspects of Dany's characterization that tend to be overlooked (in this case, her intelligence).

There is a 2012 interview in which Emilia Clarke addresses the matter of the Qartheen fashion:

FaB: Some fans were irked at the news that the Qartheen fashion of leaving one breast exposed was not being adhered to, as it was in the books. And speaking as a heterosexual male, I suppose that’s a shame… yet I also think, visually, it would have been extremely distracting to the eye. Was this ever discussed?

EC: This was indeed discussed! I remember when I was filming in Croatia seeing a copy of book 2, and the front cover picture was of Dany in the ‘traditional Qartheen fashion’ and you could say that I was rather taken aback. There are lots of things to bear in mind when adapting a book for the screen, and yes we all agreed that if this was kept as a visual reference, it would take away from the drama and integrity of Dany’s storyline as she grows into such a strong Khalessi.

Emilia's thoughts must be respected, especially considering what she's been through on set. Also, have in mind that I'm a gay man speaking about the issue of female nudity in media, so I don't have the full awareness to discuss it like women do because I'm not a victim of the male gaze. If I'm being callous, please let me know.

With this caveat in mind, I don't think having show!Dany wear a Qartheen dress in this scene would "take away from the drama and integrity of Dany's storyline". In fact, it would have been an example of nudity being used to display Dany's shrewdness rather than to sexualize her. It would have been an example of her nakedness being normalized rather than fetishized (like it will be in episode 3.7, when she stands up naked to show!Daario just ... because).

#daenerys targaryen #asoiaf meta #valyrianscrolls #a storm of swords #missandei #asoiaf vs got #asos vs got #barristan selmy #jorah mormont #s3

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rainbowstrashpile · 4 years

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The Hypocrisy of Cathedrals

A show of good faith that I am indeed working on a Primedak fic. Not finished yet, but the intro is solid now. WARNING: Prime is a terrible person and uses terrible language to describe every living thing in the universe basically. So if you’re uncomfortable with that, please do not read.

Nothing sexy yet. Just Prime being terrible.

The universe is governed by very little. For the most part, it is matter gravitating towards matter. Coalescing. Becoming. Morphing and igniting and compounding into stars and planets, nebulae and meteors, burning screaming spinning rupturing crashing uncontrolled. Chaotic. Messy.

Truly, this cacophony is something to be despised as the things it gives rise to are horrendous. Planets laid to waste by dying stars, their surface now an irradiated husk. Solar systems devoured by a star's gravity, their mass so great they pull everything around them down into their flames. Planets so hot that they rain glass; billions of tiny knives ripping through the atmosphere. Hostile, horrible, useless.

But the worst of all is life. Seething, crawling, oozing masses all loudly clambering for more more more, their hunger unending. For eons, he has watched what other life forms are capable of, and he has found them lacking.

Prime has come to live by a rigid philosophy. Curated over the millennia and refined down to a simple fact: to want is a crime. A cardinal sin. Wanting leads to greed; to covetous desire, then to war. Endless, senseless violence where there is no true winner. The only prizes gained were loss and suffering. It was exhausting, really, that most beings were too unevolved to grasp this, too simple in their mindset to realize they themselves were the root of their problems. Wasn’t it better then, that the universe be governed by order rather than chaos? Guided by a deft, firm hand as opposed to the mindless greed of the inhabitants? Too wanton and wasteful for their own good, consuming everything around them. Instead, Prime would provide all that was needed. Prime would bring peace and enlightenment to the unwashed masses. In turn the only thing they should desire was his approval, his love.

Just like his little brothers. All of them together, working in perfect unison. Their small thoughts a happy, thrumming buzz in the back of his mind at all times. How glad they were, to have such great purpose. How thankful they were, to be allowed to bask in his light. What could be better than serving the one who had created order in the universe at last?

Attending to the one who had brought enlightenment and civilization to countless lives, despite the primitives kicking and screaming the whole way. His work is exhausting, and at times even frustrating, but by now he has it down to a science. There's a rhythm to the teaching, an order. A delicate dance of subjugation and indoctrination. They always resist at first, too set in their flawed ways. Generally, they must be crushed completely, their egos broken down to nothing with their kingdoms in flames, in order to finally accept peace and light. But Prime and his brothers are infinite, unyielding. A flawlessly composed missionary melody executed with precision. But then, something discordant happened; a sour note in his otherwise perfect meter. A defect. A mistake. And like all mistakes, he had been cast out.

Prime, in his infinite wisdom and kindness had tried to send him out with honor. To die on the battlefield with glory in the name of his creator. Instead this defect kneels before him again, a testament of undying loyalty, craven to serve. He has returned from parts unknown, dragging with him not only two other lifeforms, but an entire planet of backward creatures. And what a mess he’d made of this new conquest. A terrible impression of Prime’s divine Horde.

Poor little thing, trying to lead an army like that. His brothers are simply not meant to lead. They are created only to serve. It’s no surprise that he had done such a terrible job; that he had been manipulated and felled by his so called subordinates. Lucky for him, Prime is merciful. He is willing to take him back into the fold; to correct his lowly, animalistic behavior. It seems that, hidden from the light of Prime, even his brothers will become corrupt. For this one wanted more than to be a good boy. As if wanting something wasn’t bad enough on its own. This one thought he could be favored. Held on high and beloved above all of his brothers. How selfish, how greedy of him to want more, especially when Prime loves all of his brothers equally. He would have to be reconditioned for that, certainly.

This little brother had to be shown that wanting will only lead to pain. Especially when he had wanted something other than the peace and order Prime had so graciously brought to the universe. And what a strange thing he wanted indeed. Purple hair. Red eyes. Gentle gloved hands. Diminutive. Soft. Despite that, she had been a blur of motion, a wellspring of knowledge and innovation; exuberant and enthusiastic. Her heart so open Little Brother had fallen head first into it.

He had wanted to stay with her. To build a nest for them to tinker away in; two defects hidden from the cleansing light of Prime.

It was only when she was gone did he resume his quest to come home. But still, his labor should be rewarded. And not just that of the portal, but his missionary work as well. Despite his flaws, this brother had been kind and generous in trying to bring these heathens to Prime's light. To fight for so long in order to return to his side; and in such a sickly state too. Poor defect. His body would collapse, as hard as he may try to be like the others. He would only slow them down, gumming up the works of the machine they worked so hard to maintain. He could be propped up with chemicals, reinforced with outside structures, but try as he might eventually he would fail again.

And yet, it seemed a waste to be rid of him. His time away had done things to him. How interesting this one had become. Deviant, in a way; corrupted by the chaos and want of an uncivilized world. How fascinating it would be to crack his mind open, to lay him bare entirely; to witness the seething mass of imperfection he had become. To feel those sins burn away by Prime’s light.

Once his new guests had been settled he would deal with his wayward brother himself.

______________________________________________________________

Prime is terrible but his tits are huge and he’s hot as hell. He has panache. I cannot resit him. I’m so glad he’s dead. I in no way approve of any of his actions which it’s insane that I have to say that in 2020 in a fanfic. Can’t I just be horny for fat tits in peace?

I wanted to give everyone a first installment because I kind of feel like I’ve been leaching off this fandom and annoying everyone. Unfortunately I specialize in dark fic so my contribution is this. Anyway, I’ve actually got a lot of script format dialog written for Prime and Hordak, and even some smut. But it’s all jumbled up and not fleshed out yet.

And if anyone wants to just chat about how terrible but absolutely fascinating Prime is my ask box is open. It’s so interesting to me that they went with like, a mega church prosperity gospel, pray the gay away, space Catholicism final boss. Prime is deeply rooted in all the negative aspects of Christianity and for someone who was raised Catholic, I love to see people make villains out of that. Spop ended up having its fair share of problems at the end but kudos to them for that callout. I doubly love Prime because despite being all things terrible about Christianity, this man openly fucks? Every move he makes is unabashedly horny. He even wears revealing clothes. And that’s so against modern Christian morals. He’s every scrap of authoritative hypocrisy I was raised with turned sexy. His aesthetic is if Apple went art nouveau. He’s terrible and fascinating and the only reason season 5 is watchable.

#primedak #hordak #horde prime #rainbow writes

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thegospelaradia · 4 years

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Crystal Matrix Basics

Hello my witches, baby witches, aspiring spell casters, students of the occult, and seasoned shamans alike! I'm coming at you today with a brand new entry in my special series on intermediate to advanced sorcery. I'll try to keep updating this blog on at least a weekly basis - if not more often. But, I'm only an interdimensional multifaceted galaxian xenine quantum manipulation nexus in a human body, after all!

Crystal matrices are a component of a much larger school of magic, and one that I always enjoy teaching: the art of WARDING!

To ward means to guard or protect. We do this in the most basic sense a lot of different ways. Someone making the sign of the cross, spitting upon seeing a bad omen, casting a circle of salt, amulets, talismans, gris gris bags, a chicken's foot, eleke beads, a pocket full of iron nails - these behaviors all have one thing in common: they're wards.

My Catholic mother rarely makes the sign outside of church, but when she does? It's a whole production. Spitting to her left and right as she crosses herself, raising her eyes to the sky, and muttering what I imagine is the Hail Mary. There's a rarity to it, because of the severity to it. My mom is in the habit of crossing fingers and knocking wood, and there's always a crucifix around her neck. That, combined with her morning and evening prayers, is typically enough to keep her feeling "warded" all day.

All cultures have their own warding rituals, and it's very likely there is a specific tradition (I find "superstition" racist and colonial) from your own family's culture. If there is? Use it. The magic of your ancestral lineage is always going to be more powerful than a spell you find online.

I've gotten a bit off track, but it's important to realize that all people, from all cultures, and from all walks of life perform some manner of warding magic.

Now, the working we'll be learning today is a bit more complex than the sign of the cross, but as a witch I believe we have more complicated needs when it comes to magickal protection.

Whenever we create sacred space in a traditional manner or cast a Wiccan circle, it's important to remember that these practices are fundamentally seperate from warding spells. A magic circle is a space in which to raise and contain energy in a cone of power. They are NOT circles of protection. No matter how deeply you are embraced by the magick, there is very little chance that a circle of salt is going to "protect" you. That's why we have banishing spells after our rituals.

Why is it important to have this in mind? In my practice, demons and spirits are what we make of them. All demonolators know that just as one might work with the Greek and/or Roman gods - for example - demons can also be part of your pantheon. Not even a very accomplished Magus could cast a warding spell to keep out Diana or Bacchus, and the same goes for demons. At best, a magical circle keeps out all the negative "vibes" that we're increasingly bombarded with.

I have a labyrinth of selenite as a permanent part of my altar - they're great at absorbing EMF and negative energy, and I keep them front and center for just that reason. But, back to demo

Demons are the gods that Christianity tried to eliminate. There's really not much to be afraid of where they are concerned. Working with demons is something best attempted by shadow magi (those who have integrated their shadow selves) but again - I'm not teaching wards that stop demons, angels, or gods. Do you really think Belial or Leviathan can be bothered to pay you personally a visit?

A fear of demons is a Christian concept. The word originally (the Greek Daimon) was a sort of guardian spirit everyone is born with. The Devil isn't the source of all evil (that's capitalism) and demons aren't in shadows waiting to ruin your life. Few things are.

Now, let's get to the magick!

With those disclaimers and background out of the way - let's talk crystal matrix warding!

For this enchantment, you will need:

Palo Santo, Agua Florida, Holy Water, Black Salt, Yerba Santa, or any other purification medicine. (Remember: white sage is over farmed and culturally specific.)

A magic broom / a bundle of tree leaves, esp. from the druid sacred trees.

Copal, sandalwood, cedar, francincense, myrrh, or your preferred incense.

4 quartz points*

A small table

Incense holder

Wand

Athame

Optional: an equal number stones of various types.

Optional: an orgone pyramid, a large piece of vanondanite, a meteor, or a large free-standing piece of selenite/himalayan pink salt

*as these are the only requisite stones, and will be doing the brunt of the work in the spell, choose 4 crystals that are at least 1.5 to 2 inches and well shaped for the task (jamming into the corners of your room).

Personally, I'm not a huge fan of spells that come with long lists like wedding registries. Brujería on a budget is my favorite kind of magic. That said, you should always have purification medicine (I can't ever remember NOT having a bottle of Agua Florida), at least one sacred incense (Nag Champa is a great substitute), and some kind of ritual tool (don't have a wand made of elk horn, emerald, and gold? Enchant a kitchen knife or paint brush. Consecrate a Sailor Moon wand replica. Go outside a stick, hold it up, and shout "this is my magic stick!". You really don't need to drop a lot of cash on this.

Oh, and a magic broom.

Seriously.

Your broom needs to be functional but sole-use. Using the same broom to sweep the kitchen and then your sacred space? It almost cancels out. A magic broom must have a single purpose - to sweep away negative energy.

Your magic broom doesn't have to be fancy. You need not buy a hundred dollar bundle of twigs from Etsy (you can though, if you want). In a pinch, buy a hand broom (not that comfortable) or a regulation size broom from a home goods store.

TBH? I just finished my masters degree so I've had to get very creative with my spell ingredients. Rather than go make an Ikea trip to find a nice witch broom, I gathered a few thin branches from a cedar tree. I've also - when they were blooming - used stems of my yerba santa and basil plants. These work best with holy water, but consecrating is a breeze. Find what you have on hand and use that - don't blow all your money on magic.

OK, now down to the actual spell! Let's go through it step by step.

First, cleanse and purify the room you want to ward. Using either a standard broom or a bundle of herbs dipped in holy water, sweep or swish from the center out - widdershins.

Light your incense in the center of the room. Sit in front of the censer and enter into a state of contemplation. Slow your thoughts. Follow your breath.

If you work with deities, divinities, demons, orishas, etc. - invoke their power.

With a clear mind, close your eyes and begin to meditate on safety - set your intention: "harmful forces: be this your bane. Go ye back from whence you came." Your intention is to block negative energy - not spirits. Most supernatural beings are indifferent to you.

Walking clockwise around your room, place into each corner a quartz point. Whisper into the stone your wish - that no negative energy will enter.

Once you've placed all four crystals, take your athame in hand. If you have a compass, locate the NE or E crystal. Check that the crystal is secure (I shoved mine in the wall cracks) and then touch it with the tip of your athame/tool.

Here you'll need to utilize your visualization skills. Using your athame/tool, draw a line of energy (gold, white, or blue are good choices to envision) from the first crystal to the next.

Repeat this process until you return to the first crystal. You will have a line of magical light running along the wall and around the bottom of your entire room.

Starting at the first crystal, raise a line of magick up to the ceiling. Repeat the previous process.

When you are done, (you should be going up, across, down, back up, across) you will be in a cube (or irregular polygon) of magical energy. Focus on the crystals as you move.

Sit for a moment in front of the censer and strengthen the visualization - you are sitting in an irregular polygon of energy.

With your wand, walk around clockwise from the first crystal. This is where your creative energy comes in - draw (like a light drawing) magickal and protective symbols as if on a wall that sits like skin atop the physical wall. Invent your own mantra to chant. "Ommmmmmm" works in a pinch.

Your room is now a cube or polygon of energy, covered on all sides with magical graffiti. These symbols will protect you. The crystals have become sentient guardians. Imagine, if you can, a spider web of runes and protective symbols stretching across it.

This is optional, and a bit labour intensive, but the next step would be to create a "generator" to "power" your warding. On a small table, lay out a cloth and place in the center a crystal pyramid, an orgone pyramid, or any other large power stone. Around it, either in an ordered or organic manner, place various small crystals.

Once you are confident with your "core," enter into as deep a meditative state as possible. Channel energy from above and below, push it into your core matrix, and then envision beams of the same magical energy from the central matrix to the other, larger one. In your mind's eye, see the energy swirling clockwise from the generator outwards. Your matrix is now powered by a crystal core.

For the next few days, meditate on your matrix and the core (if you built one) to reinforce the permanence of the ward.

It's easy to find crystal matrix cloths online - especially on Etsy. I use a Cube of Metatron crystal matrix cloth - because it's pretty. You can use anything, honestly. The energy and intent are what's important.

And that's pretty much it! Keep your matrix in mind as often as possible. Maintenance is importance so this spell isn't a one time deal. In addition to reinforcing the wards, it also will give you a good indication as to when the system needs to be recharged - from the core outward.

I know, I know; this is a lot. I just hope you haven't gotten too confused by what should have been "crystals in each corner and some more in the middle of the room."

Complicated and long as it may be, this spell has given me a peace I didn't know I could have. As someone with PTSD, feeling secure and safe anywhere is massive. And it isn't just me: everyone who comes into my space remarks on how safe and warm they feel in the matrix. As I said - forget demons and "evil" spirits. Once you're protected from the rampant negative energy radiating from your surroundings, you'll thank me.

And then there's my favorite protection charm - my Black Magic woman.

But that will have to wait until next time, my witches!

-Magus Aradia

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isitreallyok · 4 years

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Positivity Pressure: Handling The Negativity (Part 3)

I know we’ve been talking about positivity all week now and I understand that this topic can be wholly triggering to some people. To some of you it may feel like I am beating a dead horse, but this line of thinking has impacted me in so many ways over the years that I feel like sharing it will hopefully be beneficial to someone else who is unsure of how to handle it in their current circumstances.

Last time we were talking about how common sense wasn’t so common. How did you come to this realization?

Throughout my life my father has told me that rather than react to situations I should respond to them instead. I spent a lot of time not knowing what exactly he meant by that and in turn getting frustrated at the fact that these two concepts are incredibly similar in meaning and then would just argue linguistic semantics rather than find the lesson to take away. Now that I have been hearing this for my entire adult life and have worked towards reevaluating how I handle various situations I have come to realize that this is the difference between logical and emotional responses to triggers.

This is something that took me over a decade to begin to understand. Even understanding the concepts, I still struggle to figure out the best way to implement them in my own spur of the moment responses to situations. I am likely not alone in being emotionally driven and tending to shy away from logic and reason when I’m upset so next time I want to talk about what I’m discovered in this and show you all a bit of the thought process when I’m examining how I handled various situations after they have come to a close.

So what are some examples of reacting versus responding because I’m not understanding it either.

Lets use an example here of positivity reinforcement that doesn’t work for me and how I react to the situation. For the sake of this example lets assume that someone has quoted the lines of the song that started all of this and then followed it up with some otherwise derogatory statements out of frustration. Here is what was said then we will examine how best to handle the situation as the person on the receiving end.

“Shut up and be happy. It’s all in your head. Shut up and be happy ‘cuz it ain’t that bad.” followed by “Your pessimism is really starting to make it to where I don’t feel like I can talk to you about anything. You’re always like this and as such you can not be reasoned with. If you aren’t going to listen then I’m going to stop trying to help”

If I were to react to this situation in the moment it would look something like this, but imagine that I am adding expletives every few words. “So what you are saying is that my problems aren’t real to you and since they aren’t real you can’t be bothered to even listen to what I’m saying. You are making the assumption that I’m consistently pessimistic and in assuming that you don’t see what I do behind closed doors to try to help myself. So if you don’t want to even listen and assume that all of my problems are in my head you clearly don’t want to be a part of my life in the first place. You don’t care about me. You don’t love me. You don’t want me. You don’t respect me. You’re just trying to make sure that I don’t jeopardize whatever fragile peace you have put around yourself because you can’t be bothered to handle someone who is breaking down. If you don’t care I don’t either” Then I likely would get way too worked up slam a door and think about a myriad of different ways that things in my life suck and how I am never going to be able to overcome them on my own and the person who said this clearly thinks that no matter what I do I can’t be reasoned with in a positive manner.

Clearly this approach is wholly unhealthy and relies heavily on a lot of really crazy assumptions that likely are not true. By having these assumptions as the primary motivation for how I react to the situation it leads me down a much darker rabbit hole that is often times harder to get myself out of because I then don’t feel confident reaching out to people for help.

Now lets assume that I respond to the situation instead. The same words are spoken, but I’m able to take a moment and be a little more objective about it. That would sounds something more like this “Clearly I’ve said something in my venting about my problem that has upset you. I can see that you aren’t able to handle this right now and I apologize for not making sure that you were in the right frame of mind to handle my emotional volatility right now. So rather than having both of us say things that we might regret in the future lets both take a step back and talk about this situation when we are able to address it a little more calmly.” This approach is much more reasonable for both parties, but still manages to put an undue pressure on one individual to “be the bigger person” and step away from the situation.

Ok. I see what you’re saying now, but does it ever really work that way?

I’ll be honest. I am often unable to respond to situations with logic and calculated thought. Usually I react to situations in negative or overtly pessimistic ways which is what gets me into these situations in the first place. I am by no means perfect, nor will I ever claim to be.

I think that rather than trying to go full Vulcan in situations there should be some kind of meeting in the middle of these two reactions. To do this there are a few things that need to happen. First, understand that your feelings, even if they aren’t understood by the other party, are valid. This allows you to operate without beating yourself up for being emotional. Second, accept that there is a chance that your feelings might not be wholly accurate to the situation. This response to a situation is also okay and completely valid. If I see the way that I felt about something as a negative I have to learn to forgive myself for it and work towards seeing things differently in the future. Emotions are fickle beasts that can change on a moments notice. Finally, and very importantly, it needs to be understood that there are two sides to a conversation and as such there are two viewpoints that may not line up.

It is paramount for people to accept that their opinion on a situation may not be understood by others and accept that the person that they are trusting to listen or advise them in that moment is going to be genuine in trying to help in whatever way they know how. I firmly believe that this is how that middle ground is reached. Whenever we reach out to others in a time of crisis we are putting our trust in someone else to respond appropriately to our cries for help. After understanding your personal needs, communicating them in less strenuous times, and then reaching out in a time a crisis, then open an honest communication based on understanding can then occur. Emotions are able to be felt, boundaries are then able to be set, and there is a level of safety in this type of communication. There is a risk in doing this with people because you never know how they’ll react, but this allows you to find those that you can go to in a time of need and learn who you aren’t able to approach when life gets you down.

I understand what you’re saying now. Lets bring this back to positivity reinforcement though.

Ah yeah. That was the topic that set all of this off. Lets wrap up what we’ve already talked about and then I’ll drive home one last point. In essence reminding people who are feeling hopeless that there are positives in their lives to celebrate is a double edged sword. It is something that can be very beneficial to them if they are open and receptive to hearing it, but in a moment of crisis it typically is the last thing that they want to hear in the ways that people often think of approaching it. The steps that I developed with people to help me cope and maintain healthy relationships and conversations around positivity reinforcement go like this.

1. Be introspective about how your needs can change in various situations and figure out how best to relay that information to those that I communicate with in a time of crisis.

2. When not facing a crisis, communicate these needs to my confidantes so that they have a well established understanding before a time of crisis arises.

3. Trust that when I am in a situation where I feel the need to reach out for help people will be able to work with me to assess which set of needs I am looking to have met.

4. In a time of crisis, remember that if people are reminding me about other aspects of my circumstance that are not as bad as what I’m hyper-fixating on they are not trying to belittle my problem and instead are communicating something to me that I may not have seen or considered.

5. Understanding that the other party is not able to read my mind. Clear communication is beneficial to all parties involved. It assists me in getting the support I need to make it through a difficult situation and it allows the other party to have the information that they need to make informed decisions about how to help.

6. Respect the growth and work to cherish it. Any amount of growth no matter how small is a cause for personal celebration. I know what makes me uncomfortable and if I find myself pushing boundaries to make a positive change I should celebrate that. Conversely, if I back slide a little bit then I have to remember to be kind to myself in accepting that these things occur.

7. Be appreciative of others giving their time and energy. They have no obligation to listen to me complain while hyperventilating.

8. Be there for others the way that they are there for you.

The last step in this list is the final thing that I want to touch on. Support networks are two ways. I am eternally grateful for all that Elyse has done for me over the course of our friendship to love and support me in whatever way she best knows how. However, I am also ready to drop what I am doing at a moments notice if she finds herself in a time of crisis and needs the same level of love and support that she has shown me. This is a part of support that is very easy to forget. I know that I don’t always manage to remember to check in on everyone whenever I feel I should. As long as it is established as a give and take relationship both parties will have a trust in one another and be able to grow together. No one is perfect in this, myself included, and mistakes are made, but this is how we adapt and grow into better people.

What this all boils down to is exactly this, there are always things to celebrate but it is completely valid to occasionally lose sight of them and not want to see them when reminded. No matter what anyone is going through their feelings are valid and their own. Even if there is a dichotomy of opinions, the emotions that one experiences are uniquely their own. Reminders of positive circumstances are important even though they are not always well received. Through consistency, even outside of times of crisis, paradigms can shift. Remember, Rome wasn’t built in a day. This applies to both positive and negative shifts. We entrench ourselves in our thoughts and it can take some time to get out.

So I know that this week has veered off course a few times throughout these posts, but all of the problems that I have mentioned have been things that have naturally come out of both blasting people with unnecessary positivity reminders and receiving them as well. As far as positivity is concerned I’ll leave you all with this advice. Be kind to each other. Remember that everyone is different. Love yourself the same way that you love others.

Keep being incredible fam. I’ll post some more lighthearted stuff outside of the usual posting window over this weekend.

#positivity #Mental Health #Mental Health Awareness #Bipolar #Depression #neurodivergent #friendship #communication

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firstritter · 4 years

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THE BIG BLEACH HC MEME centering around politics, repost & fill out! For anyone who wanted to explore those aspects more, considering it played a big role in the story. Some things may be unknown to your Muse, just think in WHAT IF then & well, have fun and take your time!

BASICS

Name: Lille Barro / / / Age: 1000+ / / / Gender: Cis male Race: Shinigami / Quincy / Hollow / Fullbringer / Visored / Human / Other Currently lives: Soul Society / Hueco Mundo / Silbern / Living World / Hell Exact Location: His life was in the world of the living before the Wandenreich was founded, and then he barely left Silbern, as most of his brothers and sisters in arms who survived the first war. I still have to write a post-war verse, so I’m leaving it at that. Group(s): Quincy / Sternritter / Schutzstaffel

QUESTIONS

- Would your muse consider themselves more: GOOD / BAD / NEUTRAL ? - Would your muse consider their group more: GOOD / BAD / NEUTRAL ? - How does your muse think others see them: GOOD / EVIL / NEUTRAL ? - How does your muse think others see their race: GOOD / EVIL / NEUTRAL ? - How does your muse think others see their group: GOOD / EVIL / NEUTRAL ?

- Is your muse considered a threat: YES / NO ? From whom?: Apart from Jugram, he’s the one Sternritter who is closest to Yhwach, the leader of the emperor’s personal guard, one of the strongest quincies in general. I figure that if the Shinigami put bounties over their heads after the first war, Lille would be one of the richest prizes. - Is your muse powerful: YES / NO ? Could they be considered OP: YES / NO ? ( Lille’s abilities may appear somewhat plain and he still got defeated by the (assembled) Royal Guards, but he’s still stronger than most captains combined so I guess he qualifies as OP. ) - Did your muse commit any crimes: YES / NO ? - Does your muse think they are doing mostly the right thing: YES / NO ? - Would society think the same: YES / NO / MIXED OPINIONS ? ( Soul Society probably wouldn’t lol, but to the Quincy community scattered over the world, what they’re doing offers a promise of revenge and liberation. Also they’re bringing forth a kingdom of heaven, so, Lille adamantly believes there should be no doubt as to the righteousness of their war. )

- Does your muse think they are treated unfairly: YES / NO ? ( Individually, no. But his kind has always been stomped upon, so it’s a bit of a yes, too. ) - Does your muse feel understood from others: YES / NO ? ( The youngest quincies might not understand him at all. ) - Is it important for them what others think of them as a person: YES / NO ? - Would they welcome death: YES / NO ? - Will they ever find peace: YES / NO ? ( Only by Yhwach’s side. After his death, Lille would be broken and restless. )

01.0. Do they fully stand behind the group they are part of? YES / NO. Why is that? Explain: Lille did not believe in the wholeness and the consistence of the hope for a Quincy nation before he came to meet Yhwach. Not only because he was young, but also because his world was extremely small, narrowed down to his and a few more families that, together with some regularly human ones, made up his community. Meeting Yhwach, coming in contact with his people and bonding with them over their belonging to the same group, certainly broadened Lille’s horizons. The oppression and deaths they endured over the centuries only contributed to further solidify his belief that the Quincy will never be free as long as Shinigami exist and retain the power to shape the asset of the world(s). He believes in their common dream, and he loves his people fiercely.

02.0. Do they like as things are in Soul Society? YES / NO / INDIFFERENT. 02.1. Is there anything they would change? Explain here: He perceives Soul Society as a paragon of evil, and although he’s not so well-navigated in the specifics of its politics, Lille knows it is rotten to the core. ‘Things’ in Soul Society cannot possibly go well as long as Shinigami have the power.

03.0. Would they ever actively try to bring change (in general)? YES / NO. 03.1. Is your muse more: passive / active ? Introverted / Extroverted ? ( He takes initiative, but it all ultimately boils down to Yhwach’s will. He obeys him. ) 03.2. Does your muse care more about: others / themselves ? ( He cares about Yhwach and the Quincy more than anything else. ) 03.3. Do they trouble their mind over a lot of problems, others? YES / NO. 03.4. Do they mostly involve: the world / everyone / themselves / comrades / friends / family / elderly / kids / teenagers / home / workplace / strangers / souls / humans / quincy / shinigami / nobles / fullbringer / visored / hollows / espada / arrancar / (former) boss(es) / pets / animals / zanpakuto spirit / enemies / partner / lovers / soul king / god / other…(add more) 03.5. Name (up to) three which are the most on their mind (optional, adding names): Yhwach is makes up the gist of his entire world. He left everything he knew and did everything in his power to find him, Lille worships him to the point of fanatism; being allowed to serve Yhwach is the greatest honor, and consequently, what’s most on his mind revolves around Yhwach and serving him well. He also takes the matters of the Quincy to heart, and despite not being very sociable, he’s also fond of his comrades - he shared a lot with them.

04.0. Do they think frequently about politics? YES / NO / SOMETIMES. Why is that? Explain: Lille is a character with more religious and spiritual implications than political, but every Quincy character is, in a way or another, affected by politics. He’s no exception, but because he has a kind of black-and-white worldview, he can be somewhat naive in that regard.

05.0. How do they feel in their current location: POSITIVE / NEGATIVE / NEUTRAL ? 05.1. Why is that?: Quincy originally belong to the broad spaces of the world of the living, and Lille undoubtedly misses them. That said, the hidden state of the Wandenreich prevented the total extermination of a good chunk of their people and protected them for centuries, it’s his home and he’s adapted to it pretty well. As a sniper, hiding in the shadows of the enemy and waiting to strike is pretty much his natural condition.

06.0. Does your muse have any goal: YES / NO ? BIG / SMALL ? ( His only goal is to see Yhwach’s design fulfilled. ) 06.1. Does it involve anything world-changing: YES / NO ? 06.2. If goal or not, any future plans? Share here: Apart from the realization of Yhwach’s goal, his only ambition is to continue serving his king and the Quincy. I’m sure Lille would deny himself the possibility to fall in love and build a family, as it would be a distraction from a lifetime long vocation.

07.0. Does your muse know about the Original Sin of Soul Society*: YES / NO ? * curious? Read about it here. 07.1. If they knew, would it change their views on Soul Society: YES / NO ? - 07.2. More: POSITIVE / NEGATIVE / NEUTRAL ? ( The Original Sin is at the base of Lille’s extremely negative opinion of Soul Society, actually, so his views would not shift much. )

08.0. Who is the worst person in their eyes?: Genryusai Yamamoto 08.1. What should happen to them? Execution (quick / slow death) / Imprisonment / Stripped of their powers / Torture / Repay for their sins / Pay a Fine / Social Work / lose their loved ones / Exile / other… (add more). 08.2. Explanation: He remembers Yamamoto’s flames vividly. He remembers the smell of burnt flesh of his comrades, the screams, and how the man (who was truly nothing more than a murderer who donned an aura of respectability) took their God and king away from them. The right to kill the man belongs to Yhwach, but Lille would have very much liked to put a gaping hole in his head.

09.0. Thoughts on: Quincy Massacre if they knew: POSITIVE / NEGATIVE / NEUTRAL ? 09.1. Would they be alright with such thing happening again: YES / NO / INDIFFERENT ? 09.2. Would they try to prevent it: YES / NO / DEPENDS ? 09.3. Explanation: The Quincy are his people, lbr no Quincy would be alright with what was done to them. Lille is a very proud individual, and he could never cope with the shock, the shame, the humiliation and the pain of seeing his people, people like him that weren’t lucky enough to be protected by the Schatten Bereich, be systematically exterminated and experimented on. Just thinking about it makes him furious.

10.0. Would they ever switch sides: YES / NO ? 10.1. If yes, What could bring them to do so?: - 10.2. Would they create a new one: YES / NO ? or join a current one? If so, which: Lille is a loner, truly like a sniper. He would never betray Yhwach, but post-war, I cannot see him actively searching for other surviving quincies to start a new community; he cherishes his solitude, and especially after the war, I think he’d be much more withdrawn in the attempt to cope with the defeat.

11.0. Does your muse follow a certain moral code*?: YES / NO / GRAY AREA ? * (ethics) A written, formal, and consistent set of rules prescribing righteous behavior, accepted by a person or by a group of people. 11.1. What does it involve?: He’d do anything Yhwach asked of him, but as a general rule, he leaves children and civilians out of things. 11.2. What does it NOT involve?: He doesn’t ‘fight fair’, he fights and kills mercilessly.

YOUR MUSE’S VIEWS / OPINIONS ON THESE GROUPS ?

Central 46: positive / negative / neutral. ━ because: they’re just old men desperately clinging to power.

Four Great Noble Clans: positive / negative / neutral. ━ because: he knows what their ancestors did to the Soul King, the Quincy’s ancestor. It feels like the first of a long series of slights done to their people.

Royal Guards / Gotei 13: positive / negative / neutral . ━ because: they are the violent core of Soul Society; an array of deceitful, paternalistic and oppressive individual who hide behind the excuse of ‘balance’ to reinforce their supremacy.

Fullbringer: positive / negative / neutral. ━ because: he never came in contact with any of them, though through rp his opinion might shift.

Visored: positive / negative / neutral. ━ because: they’re Shinigami, and they’re Hollows. Also, the fact that despite what was done to them, they accepted to go back to Soul Society and now fight within the ranks of the Gotei? Huh.

Espada: positive / negative / neutral. ━ because: they’re Hollows, it doesn’t matter how human or civilized they might look. There’s always that ugly shudder crawling up his spine that makes Lille immediately pull the trigger.

Quincy: positive / negative / neutral. ━ because: again, they’re his people. He believe their war to be a righteous one and he’s protective of them. I’m not sure how important the concept of ‘Quincy pride’ is to Lille, because he’s already a proud individual and his pride stems largely from his bond with Yhwach, rather than from the simple belonging to the Quincy as a community. Lille doesnt’ even contribute much to their communal life anyway, so haha. Still, pride aside, he loves the Quincy, and that love made the slights against them brew a deep, burdening ire within him that carried on through the centuries.

YOUR MUSE’S VIEWS / OPINIONS ON THESE (IMPORTANT) PEOPLE ?

Aizen: positive / negative / neutral. ━ because: he’s a traitor of his kind, and even had the presumption to call himself ‘a god’. There’s no greater heresy.

Yhwach: positive / negative / neutral. ━ because: not to get redundant but Yhwach is the God he worships, fights for, waited for. He crossed land and water just because, one night, he heard Yhwach’s voice calling him. He found his people and was given a purpose thanks to Yhwach, he fought in a war without hope for Yhwach. He waited almost 1000 years, patiently, for Yhwach to awaken and regain his senses. It’s difficult to express with words the link that ties the divinity and the devotee; i think it’s trust, wonder, faith and love.

Mayuri: positive / negative / neutral. ━ because: the idea that such a cruel, disgusting criminal still walks freely in the Soul Society as a high-ranked officer viscerally upsets Lille. He would kill him without even wanting to see that face of his.

Kurosaki: positive / negative / neutral. ━ because: a Gemischt Quincy, brainwashed and exploited by Soul Society sounds like a terribly sad story. I think that, while not knowing him and acknowledging the threat Ichigo poses, Lille pities him.

Soul King: positive / negative / neutral. ━ because: he respects the Soul King for what he has been and for constituting the primordial archetype of the Quincy people, but he sides with Yhwach in wanting to end the agony and the unacceptable disrespect paid to that poor creature.

EXTRA(optional): add more characters which hold some meaning to your muse.

Gerard: they are the oldest members of the Schutzstaffel (and Pernida doesn’t really count), the way they interact makes me think that there’s a familiarity between them you don’t see elsewhere. I think they’ve been together through a lot, having fought together and shared the same expectant devotion. They’re definitely brothers in arms and good friends.

CONGRATS, you managed till to the end, now tag your fellow bleach partners!

TAGGED BY: always crediting @skyvar for her amazing meme uwu TAGGING: nope.

#CH STUDY.

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ettadunham · 5 years

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A Buffy rewatch 6x19 Seeing Red

aka dick move joss

Welcome to this dailyish (weekly? bi-weekly?) text post series where I will rewatch an episode of Buffy and go on an impromptu rant about it for an hour. Is it about one hyperspecific thing or twenty observations? 10 or 3k words? You don’t know! I don’t know!!! In this house we don’t know things.

And after today’s episode, who’s ready to get drunk and do some math? *points to self* It me. I’m drunk.

Seeing Red has not one, but TWO of the show’s most controversial scenes in the entire series, so that’s a distinction I guess. One that I should probably be talking about, but… you know. Turns out that when you drink the rest of your apple liquor in one sitting, your ability to form critical thought exponentially deteriorates with each and every second.

But math? Math is easy. You can do math drunk while walking on your hands. So let’s do math.

So, did you guys know that Amber Benson appeared in the most Buffy episodes per season while not being in the credits? It’s true. I made a very detailed excel sheet.

(Yes, these are all the actors who appeared at least 14 episodes of the show. I didn’t really need to include all of them to prove my point, but I did it anyway.)

Those purple highlights you see? Those are for actors who appeared at least 70% of the episodes while not being part of the main cast in a season. Apart from a few special cases where someone has been promoted to the main cast during a season (like Michelle Trachtenberg after one episode in season 5 or Marc Blucas following the first 10 episodes of season 4), the only ones this applies for is Kristine Sutherland and Amber Benson. And the latter’s 18 appearance during season 5 (aka 82% of the season) is our biggest outlier among those even.

Now, to be fair, actors who are part of the main cast never actually go below 83% in their own respective season appearances on Buffy (see the blue highlights that show the two instances that goes below 90% even), but like… Appearing in 16-18 episodes of at least two 22-episode seasons in a major capacity is still a fucking lot by any TV standards.

So the fact that neither of these actors have been promoted to regular status during their run is kind of weird. Maybe Joyce was often forced into the background, but Kristine Sutherland was a huge presence in season 5 in particular. Up until Joyce’s death in The Body, she appeared in all episodes, and had a cameo later in The Weight of the World. She should’ve been in the credits for that period, imo.

Similarly, if you look at other characters who occupied a comparable role to Tara – so, basically characters who were introduced as love interests to one of the Scoobies –, each and every one of them have been promoted to the main cast by their 3rd year at the very least. And Emma Caulfield, who was one of those third year joiners, only appeared in 5 episodes in her first season. Seth Green, who with his 10/22 appearance is much closer to Amber Benson’s 12/22 in their respective debut seasons, was part of the credits by his second year on the show.

In conclusion what I’m saying is that fuck you Joss for pulling that opening credits shit on us. No. This should’ve happened two seasons ago, and now you’re using it to play on the audience’s attachment to this character, dangling that promise of having more of her on the show just to take it away.

Not cool, my dude. So very not cool.

In other bad news, making that excel sheet sobered me up a bit (damn you, math), and now I’m just kinda tired and sad. It’s starting to dawn on me that this is the last I’ll see of Tara during this rewatch.

Maybe I should just start over from Hush? There’s an idea…

There’s also a reason why this episode is cited as such an egregious example of the Bury Your Gays trope even after almost two decades. With the show having been limited on what they can show of Willow and Tara’s relationship early on, the inclusion of the many sexual moments in this episode especially jumps out. Having that precede Tara’s death somehow manages to maximize the negative impact of it even more, reinforcing pre-existing harmful associations in the audience.

But then again, would it have been better to not have these moments at all? I don’t know the answer to that.

In any case, when I talked about character deaths earlier on this show, I mentioned that there are two criteria that I judge those: story impact and social impact. Meaning on one hand, that when you kill off a character, you want that to have a meaningful impact on your story and characters. It needs to have a purpose and long-lasting effects for it to satisfy your audience’s emotional needs. And on the other hand, there’s also the bigger media and societal landscape to consider. Especially when you’re killing off a character, who’s already part of an underrepresented group.

I think I probably already alluded to how I consider Tara’s death to be well-executed story-wise, despite being extremely poorly done in the latter regard. There are arguments to be made of course about how maybe the show could’ve killed a different character to achieve the same effect in the story, etc. – but I find the following arc captivating as it is regardless.

Then again, I also love Tara, and definitely wouldn’t have complained if the show just randomly brought her back from the death, story be damned. Unbury your gays, you cowards.

I guess I’ll also need to touch on the other controversial scene in the episode, huh? Well, I don’t want to.

But fine.

Hot take, but I just don’t connect to Spike. Not during this rewatch. And looking back at my feelings on it, I think that part of that is the very association that’s textualized here.

See, vampires are giant rape metaphors. Well, they can be metaphors for a lot of things, this is Buffy after all, but that’s definitely a big part of them. And the show’s been playing up this aspect with Spike in the past – usually it’s just been done for comedy.

Think about his scenes with Willow in Lovers Walk or The Initiative. The latter is especially chilling with the way he attacks Willow on her bed and turns up the music, right before we cut to black… and then we find out that Spike’s “impotent” and can’t bite her, and suddenly she’s comforting him? And it’s a comedy?

That scene is super weird. And uncomfortable. And that was probably part of its purpose, but it also means that I’m just not shocked by what he almost does here.

Spike’s a romantic, but he’s also a soulless vampire who can’t differentiate between love, death, sex and violence. He tells Buffy in a previous episode that he wouldn’t hurt her, but while he may believe that, it’s not true exactly. He doesn’t understand what Buffy needs. They share an understanding, but in this, he’s unable to empathize with Buffy beyond a certain level.

Afterwards though, he does seem to understand what he’s done, and given what we know of vampires, that’s pretty fascinating. He finally realizes that he can’t love Buffy without that empathy. And he can’t be the monster he used to be with these conflicts. So he’s off to rectify that.

Meanwhile Buffy’s out there, fighting superpowered nerds right after that fucking traumatic experience. Which… don’t get me wrong, I can definitely see how beating up Warren can be therapeutic, but there is also something to be said about the show not giving Buffy enough space to process certain traumas, and focusing more on Spike’s development instead.

Again though, it’s not that I don’t get it. Spike’s an intriguing character, and I can definitely see how a lot of people connect with him. His more negative traits are balanced out by his vulnerability, and his ability to self-reflect and grow. Just because I have a hard time relating to him, doesn’t mean that others shouldn’t enjoy his character. God knows that I have plenty of problematic faves...

Oh yeah, and Xander and Buffy share a nice scene by the end of the episode. Still, I guess I wanted a bit more out of it? Like Xander acknowledging how putting Buffy on a pedestal leads to him judging her more harshly, and how it’s something he should be working on in order to be a better friend to Buffy? Maybe I just want too much.

A character who was just perfect in this episode though? Dawn. Actual picture of Dawn Summers looking at Tara and Willow.

Same, Dawn. Same.

The last three minutes of Seeing Red? I don’t know her.

#buffy rewatch 2k19 #btvs talk #btvs

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robininthelabyrinth · 5 years

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Fic: An Internal Affair - Chapter 19 (Ao3 link)

Fandom: The Flash Pairing: Leonard Snart/Barry Allen

Summary: Leonard Snart, the CCPD Captain of Internal Affairs, is known as Captain Cold for a very good reason: He hates corrupt cops with a merciless vengeance, and once you’re on his list, you’re in serious trouble.

His next target?

A CCPD lab tech named Barry Allen who’s developed a suspicious habit of disappearing at random intervals.

—————————————————————————————————

Len is so far from having a good day, he can't even begin to quantify it. It's like something out of one of his worst nightmares.

(There had better not be a meta with the ability to turn nightmares into reality, because if there is and they have anything to do with this, Len is going to throttle them and he won't even be sorry. Well, maybe a little sorry.)

But seriously, he’s having trouble picking the worst thing that’s currently happening to him.

Mick is gone - hurt, kidnapped, probably dying from lack of hospital access, trapped at the mercy of some superhuman monster that likes to play with people before he kills them.

Trapped in a room knowing there’s nowhere to go, just like Len was.

If Len thinks about that for too long, he’s going to crack, and he can’t crack, not when Mick's counting on him, so he can’t think about it.

But if he’s not thinking about Mick, then he’s thinking about the fact that the Families are on the cusp of closing a deal that will give them fresh blood and power and vigor, thereby undoing all the work he's so painstakingly accomplished with twenty years undercover.

Or the fact that the police force he gave his life to, his friends, his family, his truth to, is corrupt beyond all belief, beyond even his admittedly negatively biased views of it.

That the city he loves is a ticking time bomb and he's one of the few people who knows it.

That Barry is still fucking perfect.

Okay, that last one is probably not at the same level as the others, but damnit, it feels like it should be.

Barry has no right being so damn wonderful. He committed horrible crimes!

...which he accepted, taking responsibility for and accepting the consequences of. He didn't make excuses, he didn't try to explain himself, he just looked Len square in the eyes and said: You're right, I was wrong, I will never let it happen again, I will do better, but just saying so doesn't change the fact that what I did was wrong and I will pay what I must for it.

And he was manipulated by Wells, who's apparently good enough to play politics with the military and the Families and the Central City government, all at once, and that's without considering how he tricked Barry into seeing him as a surrogate father figure, utilizing his apparently extensive stalking (including, apparently, cameras in Barry's bedroom which really is the stuff of nightmares) to figure out the best ways to get under Barry’s skin.

Under the circumstances, really, one could see many of Barry’s actions as being taken under a form of emotional duress...

Damnit.

Mick was right, as he so often is.

Barry really isn't corrupt. Barry's trying his best and making mistakes (if very bad ones) in the process. But deep down, Barry’s still a good man.

And Len is head-over-fucking-heels in love with him.

A realization that helpfully arrived after he destroyed Barry's life and those of his closest friends and family.

He fully expects that this has almost certainly ruined his chances to ever get Barry’s forgiveness, even after Barry serves whatever time he must. Acceptance, tolerance, understanding, maybe, but nothing else.

Nothing like love.

Great.

Way to go, Len. Way to fucking go.

At least Len’s still in charge of the investigation in some part – really, he ought to have recused himself as soon as he’d processed what Hartley had told him, given his emotional involvement with one of the targets, but he was just so upset that he utterly forgot – so there's a chance he might be able to present evidence of what mitigating factors exist to explain Barry’s actions, and hope that that's enough to convince someone impartial to take pity.

The alternative – Barry's spirit getting stamped out of him by the brutal realities of prison, or indelibly tainted by a quiet and unethical dismissal designed to avoid having to re-open his cases – isn’t worth thinking about.

So he won’t.

Len’s gotten very good at not thinking about things.

At least he has now: this wonderful, awful interlude where they're working together, a unified front, the way Len wishes they still were.

The way they were before Len screwed everything up because he just couldn’t help his knee-jerk instinct to assume the worst in people and refuse to listen to any explanation they might have. If only he'd confronted Barry in private, maybe...

Still, if this little bit of teamwork is all Len can get, he'll take it.

Of course, despite his confident words to Barry, actually getting everything into action and going to STAR Labs to defeat Wells and rescue Mick and Thawne isn't as easy as just saying that they’ll do it.

Len has a time and a half getting the Feds on board, but twenty years of being one of their most reliable local guys pays its dividends and they agree to come with whatever resources they can spare, which on such short notice – the day before, really, Snart, you getting lax on us? – isn’t much but will have to do. Len puts his contacts in touch with Singh at the CCPD and Cecile Horton at the District Attorney’s office, the only two he personally trusts to not be on a Family payroll, to work out the business of getting warrants and putting together an actionable plan for how to deal with what’s coming.

Unfortunately, getting in touch with the CCPD means that the CCPD, leaky boat that it is, knows that something big is going down.

There’s no way to avoid it, but Len didn’t spent his years undercover twiddling his thumbs, either.

“Singh, I want you to go for a walk with someone and mention to them that they’ve got to keep it real hush-hush, but the Feds are getting involved ‘cause someone’s threatening a terrorist attack on Election Day,” Len instructs. He’s getting annoyed that he’s still on the phone while Barry’s already finished up making plans with Iris, called in Ramon and Snow to go help the CCPD with gadgets and triage for potential injuries respectively, and is now standing around and is, in fact, twiddling his thumbs.

And, to add insult to injury, he didn’t even use superspeed.

“Yes, I know, the cover story won’t last past impact,” he adds impatiently when Singh protests. “That ain’t the point. The point is that we don’t know who in the department is on the take and who ain’t, and that means we tell all of ‘em the cover story in an attempt to keep the Families from panicking before the Feds can show up with RICO warrants. Just drop the story publicly, then keep going with it in private until everyone’s convinced that’s the reason for the time being.”

There’s more arguing on the now-conference call line.

“No, we’re not getting clearance from the Commissioner,” Len says. “Not till we’re sure he’s clean. Listen, he gave me free clearance to recruit as many people as I wanted to my Weird Things task force, right? And basically no mandate? I’m recruiting your entire precinct, it can go under my name, it’s fine – yes, I’m aware that it’ll blow up in my face if this intel’s wrong, I don’t care, I’m willing to take the risk.”

That convinces a good few people. Amazing what the opportunity to cover your ass will convince people to do.

After a bit more insistence, they finally agree to accept his idea and to implement it in just the way he proposed, and then they move on to debating mechanics – where to put up barricades to help reduce damage if there are, as expected, riots, explained away as preparations for a potential panicked response to the ‘terrorist attack’, how many resources they need to divert to reinforce Iron Heights to ensure there aren’t break-outs in the meantime, etc.

Len waits a few more minutes and, when he’s pretty sure they don’t need him anymore, says, “In the meantime, I’m going to go deal with an outstanding issue –”

Immediate protests.

Goddamnit, people, you’re adult policemen! Do your goddamn jobs! Without Len holding your hand the entire time!

“Are you done yet?” Barry asks hopefully.

"You know what, yes," Len says. "Fuck this. Let's go. Yes, I’m hanging up now – no, you can’t call me back, I’m going to mute my phone the second after I hang up, I don’t care – listen, if I survive what I’m about to go do, I promise I’ll sign off on all of this minutiae and if I’m dead, just blame whatever you do on me. I ain’t gonna care, I’ll be dead. And right now, I don’t know which one of ‘em’s a better option!”

He hangs up.

“Sometimes I wish we still had flip-phones,” Barry says nonsensically, but it makes sense when he adds, “I feel like it would have been more satisfying to slam something closed or down in the hanger or something, rather than just angrily stabbing the ‘end call’ button.”

“Very likely,” Len says, and then his phone rings again.

He lifts it up to throw it down on the ground, only for Barry to flash it out of his hands before he can. “I’m gonna turn off your phone,” Barry says wisely. "It's clearly stressing you out."

"Mick is missing and maybe dead, the Families are going to destroy my city, lots of people are gonna die, and even the police I trust not to be corrupt are being pests," Len says, scowling. Barry hands him back his phone with the setting firmly on ‘mute’, which helps a little. "I think I’ve gone beyond stress."

"Where we're going, we don't need neurotransmitters."

Len pauses. "We're in the middle of a crisis and you’re paraphrasing Back to the Future?"

"...maybe?"

Stop being perfect.

"Right," Len says instead. "Let’s find a private corner and you can take us to STAR Labs. When we get there, if you see Mick and Thawne -"

"Don't you dare say that I'm to prioritize getting them out," Barry cuts him off. "I can only carry two people, and I'm not leaving you alone."

"Barry -"

"You can't defeat him. I barely stand a chance."

"I have the cold gun –"

"He's a speedster. You got one over on him the last time because he wasn’t expecting it, but now that he is, you'll never get the chance to use it."

"It doesn't matter," Len hisses. He knows that. He knows that all too well. But ultimately, in the end, it doesn’t matter. They still have to try. "Barry, please. When we get there, you have to listen to me, okay? I'm not going to say you have to prioritize them, we'll make a game-time decision on that depending on the circumstances, but I have to trust that you'll listen to me."

For some reason, that makes Barry pause. "Okay," he says. "Okay. You can trust me. I'll listen to you."

"Even if I order you take them out and leave me behind?"

"Even then. But we have to try to get everyone out before we resort to that, okay?"

"Deal." Len tries on a smirk. “I don’t intend to let Wells have the last word – besides, didn’t you hear? I’ve got paperwork to do.”

“Just so you know, that conversation doesn’t actually give me a lot of confidence in your desire to survive this,” Barry says dryly, because he knows Len pretty well, but he runs them to STAR Labs anyway.

Despite the fact that the sun is rapidly setting around them, almost all of STAR Labs’ lights have been shut off, likely because Ramon wasn’t around to turn them on, lending the building an eerie, deserted feeling.

It's "almost all" because once they walk through the main doors, they see that it's not entirely true that the building is deserted – the lights in the base of the Accelerator itself, the very core of STAR Labs, are still on.

“Wow,” Barry says. “So, everyone who thinks this is a trap, say ‘aye’.”

“Aye,” Len says. “Sadly, we’re going in anyway.”

“Should I pick up my Flash suit?” Barry asks. “It’s in the main lobby, and it could offer some extra protection –”

“No, don’t. Ramon made that, and it lives here; Wells could’ve tampered with it at any time.”

Barry makes a face. “Yeah, point. I’ve seen some of the stuff Cisco can do remotely with that thing; I don’t want to get trapped or lit on fire or something like that.”

He still looks wistful, though, so Len adds, “If we survive here, you can get him to make you a new one. Ramon, that is; it doesn’t seem like Wells took him into his confidence.”

Barry nods, looking a bit cheered. “Stop saying ‘if’,” he advises. “We’re going to survive. Better, we’re going to rescue everyone.”

Determined optimism is a good look on Barry.

Everything is a good look on Barry.

(Barry's beautiful.)

God, Mick was right -

He can't think about Mick.

Mick, who was torn away from the hospital equipment he still needs to live. Who could already be gone, dying a torturous death of sepsis or an infection or even just an inability to keep all his body functioning...

He can’t think about Mick.

“Let’s go,” he says, and makes his way into the Accelerator.

It’s not even a surprise to see Wells waiting patiently for them down on the Accelerator’s floor, a door pulled open from the floor to reveal a ladder undoubtedly leading into a secret basement room.

Len assumes that’s where Mick and Thawne are being kept.

Wells is wearing the yellow suit with the hood pushed back off his face. It looks exactly like Barry’s Flash suit, only in reverse colors and with a lightning bolt facing the other direction.

Creepy stalker.

Len wonders if Barry’s suit was always designed to be the opposite of Wells’, and if so, what that was supposed to signify.

“Take us down,” Len tells Barry. “Fast.”

He grits his teeth through the run, even though, as always, his back and leg protest the movement. It’s fine, though; he’s prepared. He can’t show weakness right now.

He's always been good at ignoring pain to avoid showing weakness.

“Mr. Snart,” Wells says. “Mr. Allen – no. Barry. Welcome. I’ve been expecting you for some time now.”

“What can you say,” Len drawls. “Sometimes I can be a bit – slow.”

Barry, who was standing as tense as wire string and almost undoubtedly working himself into an anxious frenzy that would do nothing but make him less capable of thinking through his actions before he did them, audibly snorts at that, relaxing into a more comfortable stance.

Len knows Barry pretty well by now, too.

“Indeed you are, Captain Cold,” Wells says. “Slowing things down is rather your specialty, isn’t it?”

Len isn’t impressed with Wells right now. “You realize that’s a precinct nickname, right? And I’m pretty sure you ain’t a cop.”

“In my time, you are known almost universally by your chosen appellation,” Wells says. “I’d start adjusting now, if I were you.”

“In your time?” Barry asks. "What - do you mean that you're -"

No way.

No fucking way.

"Oh yes," Wells says, and smiles. It's a very creepy and intimidating smile. "It’s true. I'm from the future."

Len shifts to lean more of his weight on one crutch, pulling it in tight against his body for better balance, and raises his other hand into the air like a schoolboy.

"...do you have a question, Mr. Snart?" Wells says, his voice a little strangled, his creepy smile gone crooked with confusion. Probably wasn't expecting Len’s infantile behavior, but in his defense Wells is clearly setting up for a nice lecturing monologue, so it seemed appropriate.

Barry just has his eyes closed like he's trying to keep himself from kicking Len and his lips pressed tight to keep himself from laughing.

"How far in the future?" Len asks. "Are we talking one day? One week? One year? Ten years? A hundred? A thousand? Has the sun exploded yet?"

"I - no? Why would the sun have exploded?"

"Ain't it supposed to do that in a billion years or so?" Len frowns at him. "You're a scientist, don't you know that?"

"He's a particle physicist, Len," Barry says, sounding long-suffering but also highly amused. "You don't have to take astronomy courses to get a degree in that. He's not some sort of all-around mad scientist from a novel or television show or something. Besides, time travel we know is real; multidisciplinary studies is just implausible."

"Fine, fine," Len says, even though as a non-scientist that sounds highly dubious to him. "The question still stands - are we talking real time, or is he just being really pretentious about having come back about a week or so?"

"I traveled back a thousand years to find the Flash," Wells snaps. "And when I did, I discovered that he wasn't worthy of the honors history had bestowed upon him! I was alone, Mr. Snart; the only one in my era like me, the only one gifted with these powers, and yet when I sought out someone who could understand, he rejected my friendship -"

"Rejecting a crazy murderous fanboy," Len says. "Can't imagine why he did that."

Wells scoffs. "The people I kill here now have been dead for centuries to me, Mr. Snart. They were insignificant to the timeline; it makes no difference."

"Makes something of a difference to them," Len says. "Lemme guess the rest, yeah? You got powers - maybe you even gave yourself powers, after hearing about what the Flash could do from your history books - and then you realized that it's too damn easy to be the only speedster around. So you found a way to go back to the only place you knew you'd find another one, 'cept you're a waste of space personality-wise, a self-absorbed asshole with delusions of grandeur, so when Barry here didn't immediately give you all the attention you wanted, you decided you hated him and that you were gonna kill him. Except for you, it wasn't enough to just kill him, 'cause then he'd still be alive for you, wouldn't he? Not like those other, insignificant people - no, you needed to wipe him outta history. So you went back to when he was just an insignificant little kid. Something like that, yeah? Stop me if I got anything wrong."

"Very clever, Mr. Snart," Wells says. He looks like he's just bitten into a lemon. Probably wasn't expecting Len to steal his thunder like that. Pity for him that Len’s actually read a book or two in his time, and he likes scifi. God, what a cliché. "Unnecessarily editorial, but right on the important points."

"That's why you killed her?" Barry asks, blankly, numbly. Another dagger in his heart, courtesy of Wells - was there no way this man would stop hurting him? "Because - because of me?"

"You were my target, Barry, yes," Wells says. His voice is kindly, almost paternal, if you ignore the batshit crazy stuff spilling from his mouth. "Your future self stopped me, stealing you away and saving you, and I killed her in anger. But it was my good fortune that I didn't succeed - killing your mother was enough to derail your future and stop you from being the Flash. But it was only then that I realized: without you to inspire me, I would never have obtained my own powers. My access to the Speed Force was cut off, and I was trapped in this primitive era - and my only way back was you, Barry. I need you. Only you will be fast enough to help me use the Accelerator to open the time portal I need to get back home."

"That's why you wanted me to get faster," Barry says, his eyes fixed on Wells much like a man confronted by a venomous snake. "As soon as possible. That's why - but why in the world would you think I'd help you? Especially now? Why?"

"Because, Barry, I can help you fix it," Wells says, his eyes avid. "The same speed that will enable me to return to my era will help you go back to when you need - to stop me from killing your mother at all - to erase my mistake, that caused you so much pain -"

"You know what, I don't believe you," Len announces.

"You - what?!"

"I don't think you killed her."

"I beg your pardon?!"

"You're a speedster, Barry's a speedster," Len says with a shrug. "Who says the real Man in Yellow couldn't've been a third guy? You might just be claiming credit."

Wells looks irritated beyond all belief. Barry is just staring at Len in total disbelief. Lots of belief going around here.

"What?" Len says. "He's got a nice story - ooooh, I'm from the fuuuuture, how narratively satisfying - but no proof. Why couldn't he be taking advantage of someone else's crime to get what he wants? It's not like he knows any details about the murder that only the murderer would know or something -"

"I murdered Nora Allen in her own living room," Wells snarls. "With a stainless steel knife measuring approximately eight inches, taken from the kitchen - the second drawer on the counter, the third one down the right side of the knife block, knocking down several pans that were hanging above as I did - and then I stabbed her in the thorax between the seventh and eighth rib, using enough force to cause traumatic bruising throughout -"

He stops abruptly. And then he starts chuckling.

"Oh, very clever indeed, Mr. Snart," he says, his voice soft and menacing. "Always thinking ahead, aren't you? I assume you're recording this conversation?"

"My phone's uploading to a cloud stream right now," Len confirms cheerfully. "Scattering the evidence onto a dozen different servers all around the world - none of which you'll be able to track, being a particle physicist and not a computer engineer. Thanks, though; that'll make proving Barry's dad's innocence a heck of a lot easier."

Barry looks touched.

"Besides," Len says, "your plan won't work and you know it."

Wells scowls at him. "And why not, exactly?"

"Because you know very well that I made Barry promise me he wouldn't go back and change significant events in the past," Len says. "I've got some mistakes of my own that I need to confront and accept, and knowing there was a way to reverse 'em was too easy. So I made him swear." He shrugs. "Barry's a bit of a liar, don't get me wrong, but once he promises something, he sticks to it."

Wells looks even more lemon-faced, probably because he's spent significant time with Barry these past few months and knows that what Len's saying is, in fact, true.

Barry's a stickler for his promises, even if he lies like a scarlet-and-gold Aladdin-style rug when confrontation is in the air.

Len's pretty sure that Wells already knew all of this, though, which means he's just posturing - and still has cards left to play.

"Well, then," Wells says, and sure enough he doesn't actually seem surprised by the revelation. "It appears we are at something of an impasse. Unless you're willing to release Mr. Allen from his promise?"

"Nope," Len says. "Sorry. And yes, before you start, I included the event of my death in the things he ain't allowed to change. So that's my last word on the subject."

"Luckily, it isn't mine," Wells says, and smirks. "I heard you, you see, in the hospital - very touching, confessing your love for Mr. Allen -"

"His what?!" Barry blurts out.

Great.

Thanks, Wells.

"- but you also made something else very clear," Wells says. "You vowed that you'd never pick anything over Mr. Rory ever again, didn't you?"

"You stole him from a hospital bed," Len says bitterly. "One attaching him to things he needed to live. Given that he's probably already dead now, what exactly are you offering me? A redo where you don't take him?"

"Oh no, Mr. Snart -"

Wells blurs, and suddenly Mick is there - on his knees, his arms bound before him, a gag in his mouth - but he's alive.

He's alive.

He's –

Noticeably less injured?

Still burned, yes, the burn scars still ugly across his neck and his shoulders and chest beneath the ill-fitting STAR Labs sweatshirt Wells put him in, but he's breathing on his own and he's not bleeding and his muscle tone looks vastly improved.

He looks like he could almost be - okay.

"One of the many advantages of future technology, Mr. Snart," Wells says. "When I took Mr. Rory - admittedly, more in the interest of tormenting you than in preparation for this moment, but waste not, want not - I realized swiftly that he would soon expire if a number of his more serious injuries were not resolved. And so: I did."

Len swallows.

Mick.

Mick, alive, better - and probably about to be murdered by a speedster.

Well, two outta three ain't bad.

"And so I offer you a deal, Mr. Snart," Wells says. "You may love Mr. Allen, but you also love Mr. Rory. Which one do you love more?"

"Why'd you take Thawne?" Len asks, playing for time. That didn’t sound like the sort of ‘deal’ he’d be interested in. "Instead of Iris?"

Wells smirks. "Ah, yes; hadn't I mentioned? My name is not Harrison Wells - that was merely an identity I assumed upon coming to this era. Instead -"

"You're a Thawne," Barry breathes, inadvertently interrupting. "That's it, isn't it? You're his descendant! If anything happens to him, that would affect you, wouldn't it?"

"Very good, Barry," Wells says, because apparently Barry interrupting him with insights is all well and good while Len doing the same is just annoying. It's okay, Len knows who the favored child here is, and he doesn't envy Barry one bit. "My true name is Eobard Thawne - a descendant of a great and noble house, politicians and scientists and kings, the great movers and shakers of history. It occurred to me that continuing to run around with Mr. Snart here could lead little Eddie into trouble. And while he himself wasn't anything special, his death would be - paradoxical."

"Very Back to the Future of you," Len says.

"Indeed. Very well, enough of this - Mr. Snart, I will give you Mr. Rory, in his new stabilized condition, as well as my word that I will refrain from harming both of you. In return, however, you release Mr. Allen from your promise - and leave him here with me."

Barry swallows. "Len," he says before Len can react.

Len looks at him.

"It makes sense," Barry says quietly. "I'm the only one who's a match for him - even with your cold gun, you won't be able to do much. This'll at least keep you guys safe. It's a good deal. You should take Mick and go."

"That's right," Wells adds gloatingly, smirking as Barry flinches. "Just take Mr. Rory. You love him more, after all -"

"S'got nothing to do with who I love more!" Len exclaims. "That doesn't matter!"

"It - doesn't?"

"No! I'm a goddamn cop! Trading one innocent life for another is unethical."

"Unethical," Wells says blankly.

"Yes! Ethics! Contributing to another person's crime makes you part of it, while doing nothing doesn't. Listen, even for a psychopath like you that don't got a little voice that tells you right from wrong, there are rules that lay it all out, and the rules are real clear on this one. Emotions don't even come into the goddamn equation. No one's getting traded for nobody."

And then he catches Mick's eyes and without saying a single word they both act at once, in one gloriously synchronized motion the way they used to do when they were proper partners, Len acting as a distraction by pulling out his cold gun, keeping Wells' (Eobard's?) attention while Mick swings his bound arms straight across, thereby hopefully giving Len a chance to finishing getting his gun out.

Wells might be a speedster, but he still needs to notice something coming his way.

He also reacts to being punched in the balls the same as any other man.

Unfortunately, he recovers much faster.

Much, much faster.

He knocks Len down, only to be hit in the side by a charging Barry, and next thing Len knows the two of them are running through the Accelerator.

It's no contest.

Wells is faster - much faster. He has more experience, more practice, more time to experiment - he knows tricks Barry hasn't even conceived of.

He's leading Barry on a pointless chase through the Accelerator - or maybe not so pointless, given what he said about using the Accelerator to open a time portal.

Not good.

"Barry!" Len shouts. "Get Mick and Detective Thawne outta here now!"

Yes, he's aware that he could have safely left Thawne in, er, the other Thawne's custody; Eobard-Wells has already admitted he doesn't plan on killing him.

Not on killing him, no. But harming him...

There are plenty of ways to harm someone if all you need from them are their genes.

Besides, Len would never leave someone trapped in a small room, an oubliette, abandoned and losing all hope of rescue - especially as Wells would undoubtedly move him to somewhere equally secure but less easy to find if he were given the chance.

At least Wells wasn't expecting Barry to veer off so sharply, obeying Len's orders without hesitation, and he actually comes to a complete stop for a moment, staring after Barry as the yellow flash of light zips out the door.

Then he turns to Len.

"Cold, Mr. Snart," he says, and his tone is murderous. "Very cold. When given a choice of which one of three to sacrifice, you choose - yourself. The cripple."

Suddenly he's in front of Len, standing far too close, the cold gun batted out of Len's hands to their feet. Len can't bend to pick it up, not with his injuries, and he's pretty sure his conventional weapon will be less than useless.

"Pity," Wells says conversationally. "I would have liked to work with you, one day. But I suppose you'll have to serve my purposes by showing Barry that nothing he loves will ever be safe until he defeats me. Me - and only me."

Len doesn't even feel the blow that throws him across the room, but he does feel it when he hits the ground, hard, his crutches clattering down around him, his side and leg on fire, his head spinning from the impact as he stares blankly up at the Accelerator's glass ceiling.

He can see the stars in the darkening evening sky.

Only two, mind you, but that's light pollution in Central City for you. Plus he's pretty sure only one of them's a star and the other a plane.

Still - not the worst view to end a life on.

He regrets it, of course, but Mick will be safe and well, and Barry - well, Len already broke Barry's heart when he turned him and his friends in to the police. Barry will mourn him, of course, and probably the what-might-have-beens, thanks to Wells’ little revelation, but he'll be fine, in time.

Wells appears above Len and hauls him up.

"Not yet, Mr. Snart," he says. God, what an utter cliché he is; Len could practically recite his next few words with him. "First I'm going to wait until Barry comes back. Then I'm going to kill you."

Yep. Just as expected.

"Boss!"

Wait, what?

That was not part of the script.

Especially since that was Danvers' voice, rather than Barry's or Mick's.

"Who are you?" Wells asks, a bit blankly. He's probably never even seen Danvers before.

"That's my secretary," Len says, just as blankly. He has no idea what she's doing here - Iris must've told her where they were.

"Admin assistant, boss!" she shouts, a kneejerk instinct.

"...right," Wells says, obviously deciding that he doesn't care. "Unless you've instructed Mr. Allen not to return -"

Damn, Len wishes he'd thought of that.

But no, it's too late for that, he can already see the red-and-yellow streak that is Barry Allen, running towards them desperately, and he can see that Wells sees him, too, and Wells lifts his hand, vibrating as fast as a saw, and -

Suddenly there’s glass everywhere.

Glass?

Oh, he's gone through STAR Labs’ glass ceiling.

Wait - how?

Danvers has him in her arms.

(Heh. Women and glass ceilings - there's a pun in there, somewhere.)

Wait, is Danvers flying?

That seems impossible, but they're definitely hovering far above STAR Labs, looking down at Central City, all lit up for the encroaching night, laid out beneath them. Which - huh?!

They float there in silence for a long moment.

It’s getting awkward.

“Well, Danvers,” Len finally says, because he’s never been awkward with Danvers and he has no plans to start now. “No wonder you never had train problems!"

#coldflash #leonard snart #barry allen #eobard thawne #mick rory #eddie thawne #kara danvers #my fic #an internal affair

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alicezan-ncgred · 5 years

Text

Bleeding Red

Preface: I’ve been bitching around the bush of this long enough. So, I’ve been really silent on a bunch of stuff that’s been eating me alive which has made me both inactive and unproductive. I’m going to get straight to the point, starting off with the TL:DR from my post on my main blog. Context: An anon asked me if I was alright because I hadn’t updated in a while.

TL:DR You probably didn’t ask this to hear about all the bad shit of my life so here’s the short of it. No, I’m not doing fine. I will try get next weeks post out on time and I’ll work on making up on the lost posts. Updates will return regularly, ‘ite.

Time for the thick and thin of it.

Insecurity and being shafted: I’m stoic, even at my worst I won’t say anything. I’ll push through regardless of my current condition and since I’ve gone years like this, it’s not hard for me to do. In my real life situation, I’m currently in a place of social isolation. This has lead to a somewhat near reliance on Tumblr to be my social outlet. This present many issues.

The main one is that I’m quite the isolationist. This has only been reinforced by many interactions throughout the entirely of my life. Because of this, I can’t say I’ve ever had anything really more than two friends at a time. While in a way this has helped me express myself so well through writing, it’s come at the cost of social skill. I don’t talk to anyone.

With this kind of issue you could easily imagine that the THREE PEOPLE (four now, but very limited) to ever directly talk ended up in a way shafting me. The first blocked and disconnected with me without warning or reason. At this point we’ve been talking to each for about a month and we hit it off very well and then one day, silence. Never heard from them again. That fucked me up hard when I finally realized what happened.

The second person left during the Tumblr P**n Purge. We were talking about how to contact each other on other platforms and then they stopped responding. I had already given contact to other platforms of which they pinged me in any way. Another person that I trusted massively on here just abandoned me and I’m still hurting from that. Wasn’t fair at all.

Then the third person was someone that I been following for a while. This person is actually the reason that I’ve been putting this off for so long. I don’t want them to see this post but they will. I got an ask from them that ultimately turned out to be misinformation. I said I wasn’t mad but I was. I was so fucking angry about it and I’m still kinda mad, but I didn’t want problems. I still don’t. I just didn’t want them to worry about it. This will come back later.

I try my best to be as inoffensive as possible. The problem with that is that much of the things I believe or enjoy are highly divisive. Hell, even my own identity can be seen as offence. I’m bisexual, non-binary (I’m currently still questioning this. I might actually be gender fluid but in the overall scheme, that’s worse than being non-binary), and nonreligious. I’m in a very religious area so you I’m still “in the closet” about much of this IRL. I though it would better online but with how much people are saying bisexuality doesn’t exist, or that non-binary isn’t a valid gender (or that being gender fluid make you insane and you should be locked up) and all the hate people who say they are this are getting, the very community that’s supposed to accept me, HATES me. I had a bi pride flag icon last year during Pride Month. I never doing that ever again. It was terrible.

I’m trying my best to come out of my shell like I said I would when I made this blog but it seems I’m just crawling further into it. People I think I can trust keep setting me up to fall, people I know in real life won’t ever accept my existence if they knew who I really was, and my own mental health problem and self loathing are eating me alive. But that isn’t the total of it.

Crumbling Pillar: I’ve always ended up in the position where things were thrown onto me. In which no one wanted to do, I was stuck with. Because of this not only do I have a severe distaste being around my family (beyond everything mentioned before hand) but I grew to have a negative out look on everything. This effect is still quite obvious in my writings, especially my poems. Out of the 14 poems on my poem blog @washed-soul, only one has a happy meaning.

The one happy poem was called dreams. Under a metaphor it talks about how a demon kept me trapped in a dark space. I start to get better and nearly break free before I have a negative relapse back to my old ways. The poems ends with the demon putting a end to itself leaving the nightmare in which it was keeping me in to slowly fade away, letting one crack of light peeking through to become a window to a door until one day I walk free. When writing this poem, I never thought I would find myself rebuilding the nightmare but that’s where I am.

I’m done with holding things together that other people have placed onto me. Because of this, issues have began showing in my private life. Issues that should’ve been solved decades ago are only now being addressed. This change in the status quo of my life has caused many issues in my productive and mood. Between everything else I’m too tired to do anything.

Is that a reason, is that an excuse. No it isn’t but it’s the best thing I got as a reason. I’m doing my damnedest to do the best I can but of course, when it comes to the thing that matter I just fall short. Big fucking whopha my intelligence and capability does me if I can’t use it for anything that means a damn.

Meaningless Triviality: I’m a very emotional person. I’m very strongly bound to my emotions and if everything above hasn’t given it away, my emotions are very negative prone. But it just doesn’t stop there, it goes back into my memories. I can only honestly place 3 happy memories for certain that aren’t either A) a dream or B) me escaping reality through my mind. Besides that, almost all my memories are negative.

People like to throw around the word Nihilist to describe themselves because today's culture is very, god while I hate to use this word, edgy. For those who don’t know a Nihilist is someone who views the world as being completely meaningless and reject all religious and moral principles. I very truly struggle with this outlook of life. It’s a daily for me to berate myself saying “just kill yourself” or “I want to die” or just shutting down and crumpling up while say “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry” over and over again. Hell, I did that while writing this.

I take things very hard, even the slightest transgression. I’m so used to trying to make things perfect and because people have the image that I’m the smart one, the mature one, the capable one, I’m left with the over hanging expectation of excellence. Almost no room for margin of error or being human. Since I’m the silent type, I put up no challenge and work to meet it. Only time I get any praise for anything too.

I guess as a little self promotion to my main blog, for those that have read the very first few updates of my main blog @the-truth-behind-redacted, or read Defiance’s character sheet, while The Machine and Defiance are separate character, they both share the name Machine. That in part is a reflect of said above expectation. How ravenous and inhuman it can be all under the guise of something human. Those characters are the two sides to the same coin.

Remember how I said I try to be un-problematical and how I try to avoid any potential conflict. In the first segment I told on how I lied about my feelings just so another person didn’t have to worry over something that honestly, in hindsight, wasn’t even really a big deal. But I also said how it consumed me in anger. I just don’t want to bother anyone over anything. It’s part of the reason why I am writing this post, as some way of a self enforced rehab program to get better.

This absolute consumption of negative emotion has pushed me into a non human state before. I hit a point of absolute mental exhaustion and in such a self enforced bubble of actual hatred I became completely apathetic. I felt numb to everything. I watched and heard of terrible things happening to people, and felt nothing. I watched people lives crumble before them leaving them nowhere to go and LAUGHED. “Just another worthless pathetic worm on this rotting carcass of a planet being hit with the hard reality that life doesn’t care for them. What whimsical pathetic bullshit they deluded themselves with to think otherwise.” This isn’t an exaggeration on how I thought, this is what I actually thought. Which brings me too.

The Mandatory Sob Story: Roll your eyes everyone and get the tiny violin. I guess in order for everyone to exactly understand the place I’m coming from when it comes to mental health I’ll have to detail my experiences. I have a long standing history with mental illness. I have professionally diagnosed OCD, Bipolarism, Anxiety, Chronic Depression, and visual and auditory hallucinations. I take 600 mg of Seroquel a day as well as Amitriptyline when needed. I’m also still currently in therapy to deal with said OCD, Bipolarism, Anxiety, Chronic Depression, the visual and auditory hallucinations, as well as Suicidal thoughts, and my Nihilism. There’s a reason to why I’m so god damn familiar with mental illness and treatment plans.

OCD and Bipolarism run in my family on my fathers side. My Father’s Father had them, my Sister has them, my brother most likely has them (however he refuses to see a doctor because he uses said possible mental illnesses as a get out of jail free card. He doesn’t want to be treated and he has FUCKING ADMITTED IT), my father has them, and I have them. I, however, have the misfortune of having it real bad. I said yes to well over half of all the total symptoms when I was being tested (I don’t remember exact numbers but I remember there being three pages worth of common symptoms) which was very worrying to the doctor. I was currently in an inpatient hospitalization program at the time for both suicidal thoughts and actions, and severe depression.

On that, my graze in with suicide. Before I went into my first inpatient program I was contemplating suicide. I was sat in front of a mirror with a bottle of over the counter medication. It was an unopened bottle of ibuprofen, 1000 200mg tables. What I planed to do was down the whole bottle with benadryl and die in my sleep. I had the small box of benadryl got from the Kroger pharmacy and a hand full of ibuprofen poured out looking directly into the mirror. My suicide note was sitting on the desk on my room with an online copy on my laptop open.

I sat there for an hour in the dead of midnight complicating my life. I had lost all hope in the world, filled with hatred, anger, pain, and despair. I had no god or after life to look forward too, part way hoping that a Hell existed for me to burn in. I hated myself that much. I was close to taking the first handful before before I caught a glimpse of my own eyes in the mirror. In what was in a weird sudden epiphany I realized that I truly did become what I hated but not for any reason I told myself. I became the very bastion of negativity I sought to fight and rid of in what little friends I did have. That was what set off my path to recovery in spite of the medical system. I guess if people care I’ll make a separate post on that.

Before I move on, I feel I should explain my history with the visual and auditory hallucinations. It should be no surprise that with everything else above, I also had extreme paranoia that led to me having very bad insomnia. Insomnia is, just like most other medical disorders like Depression, Self-harm, Anxiety, OCD, Bipolarism, is romanticized to hell. Insomnia isn’t having one nights bad sleep where you got 5 hours of sleep instead of 8.

You know what Insomnia is? insomnia is being physical incapable of sleeping despite not sleeping in 2 to 3 day while your body suffers massive agony brought on by this. Muscle spasms and seizing, difficulty breathing, your eyes feeling like fire ants are eating them, and of course visual and auditory hallucinations. Now I already had issues with visual and auditory hallucinations even when I could get sleep regularly but the combined effects of my OCD and Bipolarism made this perfect condition of Insomnia, Anxiety, Paranoia, with the already added in disposition to hallucinations and I felt like I was actually losing my mind.

My hallucinations presented themselves in three forms. Disassociation of reality, night terrors, or alterations of reality. Disassociation of reality often were complete black out moments. I would lose any perceived connect to reality and enter an episode of my mind. I can’t remember what they actually were but I do remember what it felt like. Cold sweats, anxiety to point where if I didn’t lock up I would vomit, actual physical pain, mind numbing fear, and intense fatigue.

The second were night terrors often in the form of horrific “things.” I do remember these and most of them were as best as I could describe, forms of things that were vaguely human and formations of industrial machinery. The most vivid one I remember was of a long lengthy apparition that was for the most part human but many locations of it’s impossible physiology were rebar beams and mechanical sockets. It began when I was about to fall asleep and it was next to my window. The thing was making week groaning and gasping sounds before it violently slammed against my window breaking it then letting out a horrific howl that I can’t describe as it tossed itself out followed shorty after with the sound of bones breaking against the dirt.

Now that might not seem so bad, exspecally with everything that is in horror movies or games now, but keep in mind that was fucking real to me. It was as real as the clicking of the keys of my keyboard as I’m writing this. As real as the chair I’m sitting in and as real as the wall in front of me. As far as my mind was concerned that thing, what ever it was, actually existed. It took me physical touching my window to make sure it wasn’t actually broken and checking outside to see if there wasn’t a body there. This isn’t the type of thing I talk about lightly.

Finally there is the alteration of reality. This is very simply but it’s something that fucked with me hard. For very little meaning or warning, I would have trouble interpreting the world around me. My hearing and sight would be warped and there wasn’t any real way to tell what I was hearing or seeing was real or not until the episode was over. The way I got through these was the ultimate fake it till you make it. Obviously, very often I failed and this created issue in my schooling.

Ending Message: I’ve been in a very bad state for a while now and as it is now, no signs of getting better. I also strongly believe my medications are being to fail me which I’ve been telling my doctor and therapist for over a year now but nothing’s been done. Mainly it’s my Depression but insomnia episodes are beginning and my own paranoia been on the rise. It’s gotten to the point where I can’t even look at a creepy image or thumbnail without having a very bad episode.

I’ve managed to eat something today which was nice but my body is cramping hard. And to possible stave of a possible comment, I’m biologically male. Like I said I’m not in the best head space, or living for that matter. If this gets better, only time will tell.

#Long post #tw: suicide #TW: Depression #Trigger Warning #TW #OCD #Anxiety #Chronic Depression #Bipolar Disorder #Bipolar #Mental Health #My mental health

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wnq-psychology · 6 years

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How To Build Your Self Esteem

step away from the affirmations

“To be healthy, functioning individuals, we need to feel good about ourselves. To feel good about ourselves, we need to feel that our time and energy is spent meaningfully. Meaning is the fuel of our minds. When you run out of it, everything else stops working.”

Most of us struggle with self esteem. Many of us are fortunate enough to realize this, and some of us care enough to try to fix it.

The problem, however, is with the majority of the resources available to us — especially online. I am pretty sure these articles are 100% written by people who have serious self esteem issues, regurgitated from everyone else who has self esteem issues, on down the cycle to readers with self esteem issues, who think it’s just their fault for not being able to apply them and successfully boost their self esteem.

But of course not. Because none of this is how self esteem works.

First, let’s talk about what self esteem ISN’T:

Self esteem is not selfishness or narcissism

Having to say this makes me impatient, because if people don’t innately “get it,” they fight it blindly, emotionally, tooth and nail. And I understand, because there are a lot of emotions on the line here (see: entire post) so I’m just going to tread lightly and quickly when I say:

Self love and self esteem are not selfishness.

On the contrary, selfish people have desperately low self esteem and self love, which is why they overcompensate, demand, and have nothing left to give others.

Self esteem is not a series of “dont’s”

Most self esteem articles cheerily suggest things like, “Don’t have the negative self talk. Don’t compare yourself to others. Don’t put yourself down. Don’t doubt yourself,” like “just don’t have low self-esteem!”

These aren’t solutions.

The brain struggles with the word “don’t,” and when you focus on the negative, you’re still focusing on the thing. The brain interprets the sentence as an imperative, like: “ah, okay, negative self talk. Got it!” The brain is baby Groot.

The way we talk to ourself is a reflection of self esteem, not the root. It’s effect, not cause. It helps, of course, but it’s not the core. And fixing the core will fix the way we think and talk about ourselves.

Nature abhors a vacuum. If you don’t have something positive at the ready, the old stuff will just rush back in.

Self esteem does not come from others

It’s not anyone’s job to make you feel good about yourself. It can only come from you.

Some articles suggest that readers should “learn to accept compliments” — several even went so far as to suggest that you approach others and “ask them what they like about you.”

Trying to build self esteem through “others’ compliments” is like trying to learn how to walk by being carried.

Only you control of your self-acceptance and self-love.

Self esteem is not in “self help”

This is just an extension of the above.

Self help reinforces perceptions of inferiority and shame. It plays on insecurities and fabricates solutions that don’t serve real needs. It encourages avoidance.

It’s like how MayoClinic convinces us we’re dying more than it actually, directly remedies health problems. Engaging will eventually make us absorb all these negatives. We are not more powerful than what we give attention.

Self help just replaces one external influence for another. We’re still grasping for some authority figure, some omnipotent voice, to tell us what to do.

This of course includes this very post. Which is ironic, but at least honest and warm-hearted, because I wrote this only after doing tons of similar reading myself, and I write hoping we all resolve this.

Self help will never help

When I was getting my business off the ground, in the 3 dark months of “white noise” after quitting my job but before getting my first customer, isolated and running mostly on “faith” alone, someone asked me, “what kind of music do you listen to during the day?” I told them, “on good days, upbeat music. On bad days, chill music. And I know it’s an ugly day when I resort to motivational videos on YouTube.”

Those videos got me nowhere — except maybe through the day.

You want to know what finally kicked my self esteem back into gear? When I started making sales. Once that happened, I never watched another motivational, “self-help” video.

Self esteem is not about “pampering”

My god, if we could all stop with the “indulgences” and “little day to day pleasures;” if only we could stop thinking “self love” is about “treating ourselves,” or “scheduling time every day for fun and relaxation.”

Heidi Priebe said it best,

“Real self-love isn’t about ‘treating yourself’… because real self-love is less about babying yourself and more about parenting yourself.”

Good parents don’t indulge children with candy each time they cry. Good parents support, teach coping mechanisms, and gently encourage growth.

This is what loving ourselves means as well. It’s not about daily indulgences. It’s identifying and pursuing our longterm values.

Self esteem is not about affirmations

Fuck writing down all your best qualities.

I don’t know who came up with this terrible advice, but it’s pretty much useless. Consider, for a moment, the most genuinely confident person you know — do they sit down every day and write down their best qualities? Maybe they do, but I doubt it.

Confident people don’t do this. And people don’t magically become confident doing it. Only self-doubting people get stuck in this compulsive loop.

Self love is not about affirmations.

As Heidi Priebe wrote,

“Claiming to love yourself and actually doing the hard work of loving yourself are not the same thing… You can repeat a thousand affirmations an hour, write a limitless number of blog posts about how you’re worthy of love and stick millions of post-it notes reminding yourself how awesome you are on every mirror in your house, but that only gets you 10% of the way to self-love.”

Except it’s more like 0%.

The real solution is: agency, awareness, authenticity, and action.

What self esteem IS:

Step 1.) Self esteem is agency

Self love is taking responsibility.

So many terrible articles encourage readers to keep self esteem at the mercy of external forces, prompting them to “think about what is affecting your self-esteem,” and suggesting “your confidence may have been lowered after a difficult experience or series of negative life event, such as: being bullied or abused, losing your job or difficulty finding employment, ongoing stress physical illness, mental health problems, a difficult relationship, separation or divorce.”

No. To this entire list: no.

I’m not saying that bad shit didn’t happen to you — it probably did. Because bad things happens to everyone. But life isn’t about playing the victim, or comparing notes on who suffered most. Life has negatives in the cards for everyone — even the most confident people you know — and the only difference between those with self esteem and those without it is that the first group chose to take responsibility for their lives, their responses, and their actions.

So when it comes to thinking about “what is affecting your self-esteem,” the answer is always “you.”

You are in control of your self esteem. That’s the entire list, beginning to end.

you are in charge. you are in charge. you. are. in. charge.

Step 2.) Self esteem is awareness

This is super important, and we don’t talk about it enough.

Get out of your damn head. Be present.

Stop slipping away. Stop shutting down. Stop freezing and falling silent any time you’re uncomfortable, or unsure, or anxious. Stop reminiscing on the past, or thinking about the future, or wandering around, mentally, anywhere that you actually aren’t.

I wrote pretty openly about struggling with this myself, and the fact that I’m currently working on it, so I speak from a place of empathy and love.

We do this is because we’ve learned that “shutting down” offers security — it’s “easier” if we don’t engage; we think there’s less risk.

But what we give up in exchange every time we do this is moments of our own lives. Which is why, in those brief moments we pull our head out of the sand, we’re filled with panic to realize we don’t like what we’re living. But then most of us respond by seeking reassurance (see “self help,” above — “you can do it!”) or solutions we don’t take, and ultimately shut it back down.

The first step? Awareness of your breathing. Second, awareness of your body in space; what you’re physically feeling. From there, you’ll become more aware of what you’re emotionally feeling as well. Accept these emotions as they come to you.

Wake up. Be aware of what you’re doing and where you are all the time. And most importantly: be aware of what you feel and think about it…

Step 3.) Self esteem is authenticity

It’s knowing what we actually want.

This is probably the hardest part. It’s also really important.

Because “nature abhors a vacuum,” if self esteem isn’t coming from external sources, but us instead, then we have to do the work of identifying what wewant and need — in that vacuum, without regard to others. (Note: just like the “selfish” section, that is not meant to read as “without regard for others.” We should still be considerate. But able to say what we want (or think or feel or need) without having to first ask, “well but what do others want?”)

Self esteem is answering “what do I think?” without first asking “what do others think?” This is harder than people realize, especially because it’s so ingrained.

I was recently thinking about what I wanted to do for Valentine’s Day, and initially could not answer this question— did I really want to go to dinner, or did I just like the way that sounded? Did I really want flowers, or did I just hope they’d serve as some security; some certainty that this was special? Did I really even want to do anything? Sometimes we do things we don’t evenreally want, but doing what “sounds good” saves us the risk of regretting having not done something come the morning of the 15th.

(In the end, what I wanted was a cookie from our favorite local bakery. We go together all the time and they put out these seasonal designs that are so adorable I could die. And then, like a good partner, I said in clear words that that’s what I wanted.)

We do this with everything. We pick where to travel, what to buy, and where to eat based on other people — our order at restaurants is influenced by others’, and we eat more in the presence of people we’re trying to impress. We often choose clothing, cars, houses, and hobbies couched in “what others think.” And sadly, we often even choose jobs and partners this way.

Sometimes we’re asked: “What would you do if you could not fail?”

And that’s great, but an equally great question is: “What would you do if you could not tell or be told by anyone?”

Would you get married if you had to go on telling people you weren’t? Would you drive the same car if nobody saw? Would you do the same thing on your weekends if you couldn’t frame it up as “how it retells on Monday morning?” Would you vacation in the same places if nobody knew?

Would you still be doing the same job and have the same partner if you had to tell people you had a totally different job and partner, both of which they deemed “unimpressive?”

What do you want? Not just in the moment, but in the long-run. What areyour values? What is your version of long-term happiness?

If that’s too hard or scary to speculate: start with a chunk of lifestyle now. Not your leisure time, but your actual life. When, for example, are you happiest at work? If your answer has anything to do with others (i.e., “when I get recognition,” “when I get a raise,” “when I win a deal,” or “when I help others,” you need to look again, for answers that serve you.) Maybe you don’t even like your work. That’s for you to explore.

If you’re struggling here and you just want more “help” on “how to do it:” you are missing the point entirely (and probably also missing the alarm bell that should be going off in your head.) This work fundamentally cannot be done by anyone else. This work is you. Do the work.

If you are so far gone that you still feel lost knowing what you want onany level: you skipped self awareness. You’re not paying attention. See “step 2” for further instruction.

Skipping this step is why “just do it!” doesn’t help

Our struggle (and reluctance) to find answers is why “advice” like “just do it!” or “just try things and see what you like” is met with apprehension at best, and disaster at worst. (If you aren’t in touch with what you actually want, and what your happiness feels like, there’s no way of even knowing if you like what you’re trying, and without this skill set, you’ll just keep falling back on “but it sounds cool” or “it’s what people do.”)

You can’t know what you love if you don’t know what love feels like, and you’re so out of touch with your own feelings you don’t know what it is.

We have to actually know who the hell we are, and what we want. Experimenting and taking action is second-grade reading level and we’re still learning letters over here.

Step 4.) Self esteem is action

Only once you understand what you want — what really makes you happy — in the long run.

Action is about making decisions. It’s about committing. It’s about choice and assertiveness and asking for the things we want and need. It’s about taking steps, and thinking, and coming to our conclusions — and then verbalizing them.

It’s also about being aware. It’s about being alert and awake and active in our own lives — not passive, compliant, or submissive.

As Nathaniel Branden wrote in “How to Raise Your Self Esteem,”

“Living consciously means taking responsibility for the awareness appropriate to the action in which we are engaged. This, above all, is the foundation of self confidence and self-respect.”

Or, to be slightly more clear,

“The difference between low self-esteem and high self-esteem is the difference between passivity and action.”

But knowing what action to take requires knowing what we want, outside of what others want — i.e., authenticity — which requires that we take full responsibility for our lives. Which requires that we dump all of the bad assumptions and models around self love, take agency in-house, and start to build self-fueling fire of our own desire.

About The Author:

Kris Gage

Motorcyclist, Software Manager, Drink-Slinger of the South 🍻

Reach out: http://bit.ly/2CXgcv5

#Self Improvement #Happiness #Love #Relationships #Dating

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theonceoverthinker · 6 years

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OUAT 2X10 - The Cricket Game

I’m loving this Season’s villains! I think they’re...CORA-upting me!!! XD

It’s okay, Reggie! You know I’m PUN-OMENAL at these!

If you want to read my actual thoughts on this episode (And BOY do I have some opinions), hit me up by going down below the cut!

Press Release Regina is accused of murdering one of the town’s most beloved fairytale characters – but only Emma senses that she may be innocent. Meanwhile, back in the fairytale land that was, after capturing the Evil Queen, Snow White and Prince Charming set about planning her public execution in order to rid the land of her murderous tyranny. General Thoughts - Characters/Stories/Themes and Their Effectiveness Past The trapping Regina scene in the flashback captivates Snow’s character in essence. Snow is not a stupid woman. She knows from experience what Regina is capable of, so she took the precaution of bringing reinforcements. However, she still has the kindness and love that the world (Both in and out of universe) came to know and love her for by attempting for diplomacy with Regina and later mourning the fact that Regina didn’t take it after the fact.

Apart from that, this is honestly a very frustrating segment. That’s because from where I stand, Regina at this point in her life absolutely deserved to die, and it was moronic of Snow not to let that happen.

And I get that that’s the point of the segment. Snow learns what everyone else already knew: Regina can’t change. However, the problem comes where this episode tries to make Snow and Charming’s debate one of equal merit to try to play up to a level of ambiguity. The episode is trying so hard to convince me that Snow might be in the right for wanting to spare Regina from execution, but is actually giving the explanation and diligence of dialogue to Charming. Charming’s coming across as barely ruthless, and his words are those that make sense and are given truth by the fact that we have seen what Regina is capable of. Hell, Regina, in the moments before the execution says that she regrets not having caused more pain.

And if they’re not going for an ambiguous plot and Snow is unabashedly supposed to be wrong in this flashback, then it’s just an honestly boring flashback. The segment itself doesn’t explore anything or lead to any unique character moments. While it’s nice to see Regina and Henry Sr. talk again, their conversation is pointless and gives us nothing that we haven’t gotten before. It honestly shouldn’t have existed because it paints Snow and Charming’s rule, something that was supposed to be fair and strong, albeit stuck in a conflict with Regina’s kingdom, into a bit of a joke. Now, in relation to the present, is it better that Regina lives? Yes, but this flashback is so fresh off the boat of detailing all of the harm that she caused in Season 1 that it would’ve had more effectiveness had it aired in a later season where present Regina could’ve had a lot more goodness at her back and her past been more distanced. As it stands, it’s a flashback that works semi effectively for Regina, but at the cost of reinforcing Regina’s more evil qualities and making Snow seem like not only a detrimental pacifist (And to be frank, an idiot), but an unjust ruler to all of her friends who lost what and who they cared for at Regina’s hands. It was actually painful to watch the scene between Snow and Charming after the failed execution, and not in the good way (It’s made even worse by the fact that Snow is so much smarter in the present). Snow’s not presenting a good enough argument to spare Regina against someone who is framed semi-negatively who has every reasonable reason to want to kill her, and it’s even revealed during her conversation with Rumple (“I don’t even know if it’s possible.”) that she doesn’t even have complete confidence in her decision while it risks the safety of her entire kingdom. How am I supposed to retain my confidence that Snow has what it takes to rule when this is how she handles such a big decision? Present I love the story here. It feels like the logical continuation of the story for out mains: What do we do with Regina now? Emma feels mixed, but her love for Henry and after dealing with Cora for an extended amount of time paints her as more willing to at least hear Regina out going forward (Though with understandable limits) while Snow and Charming who have encountered Regina at her worst for far longer are far more reluctant, and that conflict of feelings is the driving point behind the story. Now, do I consider Emma a touch too forgiving? Somewhat, but I also feel like said experiences with Cora paired with an understanding of the path bad parenting can turn on onto and genuine gratefulness for her return home makes it work well enough, especially with their argument during the party!

If I had a complaint about this segment (And it’s honestly a nitpick), it would be at Emma trying to pretend that there’s this connection between her and Regina about trying to change. Now, it’s effective enough, showing how Emma wants to be a mother to Henry while Regina’s trying to change her life, but I feel like the balance of that comparison never quite felt as strong as it could’ve.

Also, let’s talk about the “my son” line. I take no issue with it and actually applaud the line. It’s appropriately framed as the moment where Emma’s gone too far when she says it, but because as far as she knows, Regina has just squandered her own redemption, something she was trying to do for Henry’s sake, and then had the nerve to lie about it. It’s supposed to be a frustrating yet understandable response and it annoys me how so many refuse to accept that there are layers to this line and conversation that are delivered through framing and think that this is some issue where sides need to be definitively taken on who was “right.” That’s not how this works. Also, it had an appropriate level of setup because Emma was definitely responsive to Regina’s snipe at her during the party as to her skills as a mother. We see that throughout the episode, Emma’s been taking more steps to take on a direct motherly role to Henry after that conversation at the party. It culminates so well so at the moment she’s lost faith in Regina’s innocence, she’s lost faith in her ability to be a mother too. Insights - Stream of Consciousness -The opening shot of this episode is the most underrated shot in the entire series. It’s cool, dark, and Killian’s standing in the moonlight like a badass. It’s the first frame we see without even a recap or intro, but it pulls me in like nothing else in the world! And as the moment intensifies and we here Killian’s theme as he looks upon an unsuspecting Storybrooke and later jumps off his ship, it only gets better. Gif makers, make more gifs of this because I don’t see these shota on my dash at all and that’s a fucking problem! Like, it’s badass Hook! How is this not the centerpiece art or inspiration for like a dozen fics, no matter what you ship?! Like, Killian could either be a good guy or a bad guy in that! So please, just use this gif more! -Cora and Killian have a great rapport. While Killian’s not dumb by any means, we see how his vengeance tends to blind him and how someone more reserved in her thinking like Cora (EFor as INCREDIBLY fucked up as she is) can keep his thoughts in check. -Cora! Don’t kill the nice tackle shop employee! Rude af, ya bitch! And thank you, Killian for at least having the decency not to kill him. -I talk a LOT more about the tacos scene in the “Flip My Ship” section of this reviews (Or should I say, I TACO bout it), but the aftermath with Henry and Emma is hysterical and it only gets better with time. The line that brings the joke home (“It’s impressive that we can still provide her with a few traumatic childhood memories at this stage of the game”) just cements it as one of OUAT’s eternal shining moments. -Why did we not see Snow and Charming take down King George? At risk of dipping my toe into the salt pool, I feel like King George was really done dirty in the name of getting more characters when he was dripping with nuance. I’m not mad, per se seeing as we got that great castle storming last season, but there were more than a couple of eyes rolled when that bit of exposition was delivered to Regina. -It is just too cute to see Snow and Emma walking into a party only to be cheered by all their friends. Like, that just warms my heart. -On a sadder note, I realized how Emma’s name on the sign is smaller and not of the same material, almost like an add on. I don’t know if that was supposed to be read as a subtle hint from the set designers that Emma doesn’t fully fit in yet or what, but that hurts so much! -”I cannot tell you the relief of cooking something that I didn’t have to kill first.” “Don’t I know it. Meat loaf back home? What a bitch.” Another great set of funny lines! -On another funny note, I’m just imagining somewhere in town, Killian and Cora are walking around with ALL of the modern world jokes happening in the background! Fic writers (Maybe just me): GET ON THIS! -Charming’s speech is just so great here! It’s funny (“Here’s to hopefully not having to look for a while), adorable, and creates this very at-home mood. -Leroy, way to rush for the knife! XD And “What’s the secret ingredient? Poison?” is just a riot! -Mad props to Regina for her respect for the new paradigm of her standings with Henry’s custody. Like, look at Season 1 Regina, and there’s this big change! BUT also, I like how the writing shows how she’s not suddenly a goody-two shoes. Regina has anger issues and that comes out in a nasty and petty way. This was a good decision, especially given how fast she realizes her mistake and apologizes! And that real sincere apology is accepted, but the nastiness and pettiness doesn’t fully go away either, as evidenced by her talk with Dr. Hopper shortly afterwards! The character work at here is just gorgeous! -Cora is terrifying. She knows from just one look at Regina how “broken” she is. (As a side not, I’m now thinking of the title of the Season 1 premiere, “Broken” and how it relates to Regina. -”Reminding them of my past?” Archie told Emma nothing about your past and even you know that! -”I fear the Queen will never change.” I like this line, not only because it contrasts between Jiminy’s resolve in the past and present towards Regina, but how it speaks to the impact that Henry has had on Regina, as he’s made her someone who he believes could be saved. -”We must dispense justice.” Jiminy, for once in your life, you are making sense! -LIsten to the fluffy baby! -”Corgina’s” outfit is just so cool! -I like how Emma, though knowing that Regina’s words were said out of anger, still takes an aspect of them to heart by trying to be a more involved mother. -”How can I blame the one I love most?” A more cynical side of me is saying that this line is purposely over the top, but the side of me seeing Regina and Henry Sr. having a moment is crying too hard at said moment to care! -Rumple shows up for the execution. I wonder, did he actually fear that Regina would die, and if so, was he coming just to see if it would happen, or was his motivation more out of concern. Also, love the pan to him when Regina says, “even caused death.” Twice! -”We let her go. Then, we find the truth.” YES! Give me “Emma Swan: Investigations” on the 3DS, please! -If I ever decide to make a drinking game out of this show, I need to make sure that I take a BIG gulp every time Rumple is interrupted while or right before eating. -Rumple cooing at Pongo turns out to be all I need. Best episode ever! -”Well a long time ago in another life, I got to know a sheepdog or two.” WHY. WAS. THIS. NEVER. SHOWN?! -”It won’t allow us to communicate [With Pongo].” If magic won’t let you communicate with animals, then what’s the fucking point of it? -”Couldn’t you just use magic to fool us?” Give it time, Emma. -I LOVE those looks Snow and Charming give when Rumple reveals that Emma has magic and the follow-up reluctance when Rumple goads her into using it. -Love the Neal hint with that dream catcher! Prop Department, you guys deserve a retroactive raise! XD -Why did Pongo’s dream catcher only start glowing around his back/stomach? XD -I like how Emma immediately adopts and understands the concept of “all magic comes with a price.” -”He’s not [your son]! He’s mine.” I love the buildup to this fight. Like a cup of tea, it was brewing to the point of a perfect outburst. That having been said, Emma’s dialogue gets a little...weird after Regina magically pushes her. It sounds like how Snow or Charming would talk, not her, and character voice is an important thing. And why did what Emma say during that bit of the fight change her attitude from fighting Emma to leaving? It’s not like Henry showed up and saw her attack. I guess it’s a matter of credibility? -How the hell did Cora and Killian travel through Storybrooke with any manner of subtlety?! They’re Mr. and Ms. Drama! -Killian says “mom” too! I know it’s stupid, but what was up with the weird colloquialism in the Enchanted Forest?! Like, 98% of the citizens use the “mother/father” designation, and these instances where they use “mom” really pop out! -”If that’s him, who did you kill?” “How should I know? It’s my first day in town!” The humor in this episode is just the best! XD Arcs - How are These Storylines Progressing? Regina’s Redemption - Regina’s redemption is appropriately challenged here and instead of Henry doing the challenging, it’s Henry’s heroes, who are far less forgiving of Regina’s misgivings. Well, partially because of Emma. I said this before, but I think how they handled Regina in the present part of the story was just genius! She’s really trying to fit in, but no one forgives her barring Henry, Emma, and Archie. Understandable. But what makes this so good is that Regina’s doesn’t just flip characters into someone nice but unrecognizable. The nasty, petty, and savage side to her is still very much alive, suppressed until she gets angry. That goes such a long way to showing that this redemption is a fight within herself. It’s a show of how self aware she can be depending on if she can apologize or not and sticks with the other characters as they investigate Archie��s murder. Cora in Storybrooke - Cora’s here and she’s corrupting shit! Cora immediately starts acting like a heat-seeking missile. She gets basic intel about her situation and then set out about destroying Regina’s life. And just like said missile, she destroys it pretty much on sight. Killian’s Revenge/Redemption - We’re starting to get into the “how” of how Killian takes his revenge. And Killian saves a fish guy! Rumple’s Redemption - Granted while all but forced because of Belle’s presence, Rumple does help Emma and co. to the best of his abilities. Favorite Dynamic Emma and Regina - What I love about this dynamic here is just its sincerity. Emma is blatantly unsure of how much Regina has changed, but she knows that she wants to and is being supportive. And even though this builds to an unhappy ending between the two of them, that sticks with Emma the whole time. She gives Regina the benefit of the doubt because she both believes in Regina and she wants Henry to have her in his life until plausible deniability goes out the window (As far as she knows). Emma works herself to the bone trying to examine each and every possibility that could prove Regina’s innocence and I feel like she doesn’t get enough credit for that. Regina herself is also being sincere, both in her defense for herself in the murder mystery and with her emotions and wants. She’s very honest as to her opinions on why she’s innocent and she’s open about her hopes to spend more time with Henry. And you honestly feel her trying to be more self aware, especially with the apology at the party. Writer Goodman and Hull are back in this episode, and unfortunately, so is Goodman’s sanctimony. This episode is so annoyingly on the nose with its laurels and in the past, it has nothing to show for it. Additionally, there’s no sense of framing in the flashback. While Snow ultimately decides that trying to redeem Regina was wrong, the entire amount of buildup towards that conclusion gives all the good points to David while making Snow our focal character. In the present, things are much better, for the framing is dependent on the effective shows of work into her redemption that Regina’s gone through and the audience has the crucial point of reference that Cora is in town and she can transform herself. I feel like I need to attribute this to Hull. Rating 6/10. I’m so torn about this episode. The quality of the content in the present is out of this world. Half the lines had me in stitches because the comedy hit a bullseye each and every time. And story wise? What a great one! The conflicts between Emma and her parents, Emma and Regina, and Emma with herself are all delivered masterfully and they were written so intricately that no one is left without sympathy. On the other side of the coin though, the flashback is a profound waste of time. It serves to grant a single point of exposition, but unlike other episodes that try for the same thing, nothing of interest is even attempted barring a genuine though completely useless conversation between Regina and Henry Sr.. We know Regina wasn’t about to switch sides in this flashback, and without the attempt of pretense to entertain that, the writing ends up making Snow a complete idiot. Flip My Ship - Home of All Things “Shippy Goodness” Snowing - TACOSSSSSSSSSSS!!!! *ahem* That is all. Okay, I’ve got more to say because the taco scene is just adorable and sexy, and it’s rare that we get a scene like this without unfortunate implications behind it. The chemistry between Ginny and Josh is as hot as it’s ever been and it’s a perfect bout of payoff for their separation. Seeing Snow and Charming cradle each other and have such fluffy pillow talk that you’d think the scene happened in heaven itself is just flawless. Rumbelle - Seeing Belle coo over Rumple cooing at Pongo brings the biggest smile to my face on this Earth! ()()()()()()()()() Thank you all for reading and to the fine folks at @watchingfairytales! Next time, let’s examine one of our outsiders, okay? See you then!

Season 2 Tally (92/220) Writer Tally for Season 2: Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis: (29/60) Jane Espenson (17/50) Andrew Chambliss and Ian Goldberg (20/50) David Goodman (16/30) Robert Hull (16/30) Christine Boylan (7/30) Kalinda Vazquez (10/30) Daniel Thomsen (10/20)

Operation Rewatch Archives

#ouat #once upon a time #watching fairytales #ouat 2x10 #ouat rewatch #jenna watches ouat #basically every character in this episode is discussed

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