#*by comparison. there's people for whom even 1 call is too much and I would never belittle them. i feel that on some days myself

[mayra-quijotescx]

this cannot be the same brain I was using to process a minimum of 49 inbound calls a day three years ago

[kiisuuumii]

@kiisuuumii's writerly questionnaire !

thank you @lead-to-code for tagging (ily kara <33)

i'd love to see yall's answers (only if you'd like to share of course !) @noahsbong @yearning-rambles @thesorcererpoet

about me:

1. when did you first start writing?

i was maybe between seven and nine ? to be honest, i can't really remember when it was, but i remember the first few things i wrote were story quizzes on a (now gone </3) website called quizilla (it was naruto rp....................)

2. are the genres/themes you enjoy reading different from the ones you write?

not really, now that i actually think about it ! ive always been the type of writer that only liked writing angst, and even outside of writing (fan) fiction (which tbh i dont do very much of anymore), so much of my poetry either comes from heavy emotion or features it so sdghjksd

3. is there an author (or just a fellow writer!) you want to emulate, or one to whom you're often compared?

theres one mutual, actually, who i actually wished i could write more like. in a very self-deprecating way, but ive since become very comfortable, and maybe even happy (!), with my style of writing ! so, no, i'm not really looking to emulate anyone in particular, and no one's ever made a comparison between my work and someone else's so no to that one too :0

4. can you tell me a little about your writing space(s)? (room, coffee shop, desk, etc)

i usually write on my phone, in the notes app or in my drafts here ! and ill usually only write in a (head) space where i can really think, undisturbed, for at least 30-45 mins. so i'll usually be out in my backyard under one of my calamansi trees ! though, lately, ive been occasionally writing at my desk on desktop tumblr :>

5. what's your most effective way to muster up some muse?

fall in love with someone

once i start thinking about how everything around me is alive, i start remembering that i, too, am apart of nature—a lucky enough set of sequenced mutations, to make me—just a eating, breathing, shitting animal. how lucky this set of mutations is to take it all in, the emeralds in the trees, and the beat of a chipmunk's heart, how scared we all are.

that or love

6. did the place(s) you grew up in influence the people and places you write about?

people, no, but places, yes. i grew up for most of my childhood in the desert, and i have /always/ hated summers, because i'm kinda heat sensitive, and i sweat easily, and i hate it i hate i hate it djhks

but, a year ago, i moved back home, and, honestly, since being back home, ive come to appreciate the desert a bit more sgkjds i used to think they were ugly and uninteresting, but there's so much more there if you look a bit harder imo

7. are there any recurring themes in your writing, and if so, do they surprise you at all?

honestly !! i think there are plenty obvious ones, but i really wanna talk about /the lack of/ sexual themes in my work !! i wanna write more sexetry or whatever, but it feels really embarrassing to sdghks i really like writing them too, but again !! it just feels embarrassing !! ;w;

my characters:

1. would you please tell me about your current favourite character? (current wip, post wip, never used, etc)

not to copy of kara dskjfs but i love my first (and my current) d&d chara !! her name is maeve umerie, and shes a drow wild magic sorcerer / (planned artillerist) artificer !! shes so packed full of trauma and self-harming behaviors and addictions that i dont even know where to start <33 (i promise i love her i would actually be so devastated if she died before i could give her a proper happy ending </3)

2. which of your characters do you think you'd be friends with in real life?

i have this fantasy novel thought that ive floated in my head since maybe september-october of last year, and, in it, i have a character named levin hel, and AUGH hes just a sweetie :^( hes the son of a blacksmith-gunsmith duo who know a thing or two about magic, and is the apprentice to the son of the wizard who saved his life (who's name is nox, and he's an asshole ! but also i love him so much ;v;)

i need go go back to all my notes and stuff on it, bc i invested A LOT of time worldbuilding for it, but yea levin's a very kindhearted person, very much wanting to be like nox's father :'''^) </3

3. which of your characters would you dislike the most if you met them?

i would absolutely hate to meet maeve mother. she's horribly self-serving and emotionally manipulative. she rules the house with an iron fist, and anything less than the best is worthless. she uses everything at her disposal to get what she wants, family or not.

4. tell me about the process of coming up with one, all, or any of your characters.

im ngl most if not all of my characters are just bits and pieces of me and my wants in different aus >_> .................................

5. do you notice any recurring themes/traits among your characters?

family and/or religious trauma mhm yep

6. how do you picture them? (as real people you imagined, as models/actors who exist in real life, as imaginary artwork, as artwork you made or commissioned, anime style, etc)

for my fantasy wip, i imagine imaginary artwork, but for maeve, i have pieces i've drawn and pieces i've commissioned of her !! id love to someday get pieces of her family and other major characters in her past commissioned :>

my writing:

1. what's your reason for writing?

i will say that it's changed over the years. as a kid, and up until college, i've wanted to always be a story-teller. but, lately, i dont really have a reason for writing, other than to satisfy the thing that lives inside me that wants to write :^)

2. is there a specific comment or type of comment you find particular motivating coming from your readers?

knowing other people's reactions, getting to hear how something made them feel emotionally, or physically, or if there was a particular thought or memory that came to mind. i love knowing what people see, what my work makes people see, if anything.

that or if theres something, a word choice, or a line, that you thought was clever or struck you !!! i always love knowing people's thoughts !!!

3. how do you want to be thought of by those who read your work? (for example: as a literary genius, or as a writer who "gets" the human condition; as a talented world builder, as a role model, etc)

i want to be thought of just as another person, honestly. someone who had very human emotions, and did the only thing she knew how to do.

4. what do you feel is your greatest strength as a writer?

uhhhhh im ngl i think this is also my greatest weakness but i have a tedium to my world-building, in that i need history-book-level details of my worlds or i will die (like i drew my own map. i drew a fucking map of an entire contiment)

5. what have you been frequently told your greatest writing strength is by others?

yk,,,,, no ones given me a whole lot of specifics so im not sure,,,,,

6. how do you feel about your own writing? (answer in whatever way you interpret this question)

i said it before, but im pretty content at the moment with my poetry. though with prose, i think i could probably improve a bit sdgjksg

7. if you were the last person on earth and knew your writing would never be read by another human, would you still write?

uh yeah !!!! i write and record voice memos in my journal fully knowing no one will ever read it or listen back right now as it is so !!!!

8. when you write, are you influenced by what others might enjoy reading, or do you write purely what you enjoy? if it's a mix of the two, which holds most influence?

i gotta be honest, writing is a selfish act for me. i write because i want to, in ways that tickle my fancy dgkjds

it really is almost like an instinct for me

[stillness-in-green]

On a happier note, according to the ninth popularity poll, Nimble actually won 32nd place! It was probably a joke vote, but I take it as a small Advisor win anyday!

(Or: a brief but salty comparison between the PLF Advisors and the Shie Hassaikai Eight Bullets)

I saw that!  In a paucity of great results (Monoma hitting #11, missing the color image by a single rank, is so MonomaCore I can't even be mad) and amidst some low-key scandal about uncounted votes, it was a small bright spot. Good for her!!  She deserved it, and so much more.

(Yes, I’m still annoyed that she was Spinner’s #1 and yet got so much less to do than his #2, who gets so much more in the way of personality and dialogue, and who is not-so-coincidentally male.  I love Scarecrow and have from the moment I attributed to him dialogue the anime wound up giving RD, but come on.)

Honestly, if you’ll forgive me for using your ask as a springboard for a rant, the general paucity on that front has lately had me thinking about the Shie Hassaikai arc, and how much better, comparatively speaking, Overhaul’s crew got treated.  All named, all with named and explained quirks, and all but one of them[1] have at least one factoid shared either within the story or in supplementary material about their backstories, their relationships, their motivations, or their roles within the gang!  We know Mimic is the gang’s accountant, for example, and we know Tengai is the newest member, specifically recruited to serve as a restraint on Rappa.

1: Sasaki Deidoro is, I think, the only one about whom we know nothing beyond his observable personality and quirks (both mundane and metahuman).  The closest we’ve got is the on-the-job drinking, and even with that, we don’t know for sure to what extent his quirk and his heavy drinking are entwined.  Does the strength of his quirk depend on the amount of alcohol in his system, similar to the prerequisites characters like Fat Gum, Suneater, Momo and Sato have, or does it work the same regardless and he simply prefers to be drunk?  His Ultra Anaylsis blurb says he loves alcohol and is always drunk—hardly a huge leap to make from what's in the manga itself—but is that because his quirk gives him a biological compulsion towards alcohol, making it difficult for him to live a normal life, which in turn led him to the yakuza?  Or is it more a factor of the sort of life he leads, difficulties in his personal history, the demands of his boss, etc? Would he still be an alcoholic either way?

On top of that, every single one has a minimum of one dedicated scene apart from their introductory spread in Chapter 138 and the group scene where Overhaul inducts Toga and Twice into the gang’s operations, and several, like Chrono, Mimic and Nemoto, get multiple such moments dedicated to them throughout the arc.  Even in defeat, we can account for them with relative confidence: the transports attacked by the League reported themselves as carrying 11 members of the Shie Hassaikai, presumably the Eight Bullets, Overhaul himself, Mimic, and Chrono.

Compare this to the advisors, who get exactly the same sort of introductory spread as the Eight Bullets do, but who are for the most part unnamed,[2] only Slidin’ Go getting his quirk officially named, the vast majority of them (17 out of 21) having no chance to even demonstrate what their quirk is, and many of whom not only never get dedicated scenes,[3] but are not even accounted for by the course of the story!  By my measure, only a third of them (7 of 21) can be earmarked as “definitely arrested”—one further, Hose Face, could be called definitely defeated, but given that Big Sis Bindi was in that first wave of people attacked by the Edgeshot+Midnight(+whichever students with ranged attacks they were in range of) combo and yet showed up later in a group shot of PLF remnants, even apparently decisive defeats may not necessarily result in a lieutenant being successfully captured if the Heroes on-scene have too much else to do.

2: And the handful we do get names for are not named in the course of their actual appearances as PLF members.  Slidin’ Go is named because he’s introduced as a Hero and gets a volume extra for that same chapter, several chapters before he’s explicitly identified as a member of the MLA and long before he appears in the roster of PLF advisors.  Sanctum’s identity as Twice’s #1 was just an educated guess based on Twice’s framing of the lecture he received and Hawks’s subsequent namedrop; it’s a guess the anime team made as well, adding a visual of Sanctum to the moment of Twice’s impression, but lord knows the anime does not always get everything right about the MLA!  Finally, Scarecrow might be named Disgustas, but that’s the thinnest guess of all, since it’s based on a scrawl of katakana under an artist sketch of the character included in a pile of other such sketches used as volume preview material.  It’s never used anywhere in the canon itself, and therefore, to me, is not specifically more reliable than any first-draft sketch of a character—it would be like basing your assumptions about Bakugou based on his discarded initial conception as an impossibly annoying prep!  Of the three, Slidin’ Go is the only one whose real name, as opposed to a code name, is known.

3: I would say only Galvanize, Scarecrow, Slidin’ Go and Hose Face rise to the level of having “dedicated scenes,” with Piercings Dude and Brand being the next-closest, the former getting a clear demonstration of his quirk and the latter getting one (1) characterful line of dialogue.  Nimble gets one or two lines of generic rabble rousing, but it lacks anything specific to grab onto as a characterization note, and in fact mostly serves to raise questions about how she’s talking when her face seems to utterly lack a mouth!  Giving her spoken dialogue actually undermines one of the most memorable aspects of her character design!

Three of the advisors are never seen again period after their introductory spread!  They aren’t shown in the opening rounds of the battle, they aren’t shown as escapees, they aren’t shown as arrested, and they appear nowhere in the second war.  They simply vanish entirely from the story; for all we know, Hawks could have guessed their identities wrong, or they could have gone back underground like the original MLA to make sure Liberation ideology survives!

And, of course, most glaringly, there’s the matter of their lack of characterization or defined motivation.

Looking back at the Hassaikai, Katsukame Rikiya—the big energy-draining dude fought by Ryuukyuu and co.—strikes me as the most thinly characterized on his face, being primarily defined by his boorishness towards Nejire, and not helped by the full-coverage bird mask.  Even he, though, has a supplementary note about how he’s a long-time member of the gang who was a "younger brother" (in the yakuza sense, not the familial one) to Overhaul, which suggests a rather charming admiration pulled straight out of the standard book of yakuza relationships, which is noticeably not a dynamic Overhaul has with anyone else in the gang!  All of them are pretty distinct, as much as can be hoped for of characters with their limited screen time; they're bolstered by on-screen connections to other members of the group or quirks that hint at how they came to be criminals.

Compare this over to the PLF.  The named MLA characters introduced during My Villain Academia are all relatively clearly drawn people, with only Geten lacking a real full name and only Trumpet so much as a hint of personal backstory.  All of them have roles, personality, specific ways they engage pursuing the cause, differing shades of belief in what the cause even entails, all that great stuff. 

But the advisors? Aside from their fantastically varied and diverse designs, they're far thinner.  Other than the previously introduced Slidin’ Go, their personalities are virtually identical—militant zealots—with only the barest of discernible differences that trace mostly, again, to the expressiveness of their great designs.  Galvanize and “Red” come off as pretty chill; Sanctum seems more stern than fiery; Big Sis Bindi and Aster have a “cool” vibe.

But that’s the issue: they “come off” that way; that’s “the vibe” they have.  I’m having to guess that based mostly on isolated pictures with no dialogue and little action.  When they get dialogue, what we get is that same “militant zealot” tack, and worse, there’s a choking, overflowing infusion of overt supremacist rhetoric that previously Geten-whose-name-means-Apocrypha was the only character to openly espouse.  As for why those characters believe this—other than as a meta-narrative device to make them less sympathetic—and how they came to be members of the group, none of that gets explored.  The few who do get “dedicated” fight scenes with other characters still get stunningly little time to establish themselves.

Compare the three full chapters (plus bits around the edges of Kirishima's two-chapter flashback) we get with Rappa and Tengai with the single scene Galvanize gets that ends with him ignominiously wiping out against Kaminari.  Compare the two chapters—with space given to specifically showcase their bonds with each other, their individual backstories, and how they came under Overhaul’s dubious wing!—allotted to the Trash Trio before Suneater overcomes them, expressing sympathy and admiration in the moment he does so, with the incredibly cruel-minded showcase Scarecrow gets, his own internal monologue undermining any attempts to read him sympathetically, only the scar on his head even implying anything about his own experience with discrimination, before Koda angrily and summarily pushes him off the roof of a tall building.

And those are the two who do the best!  Hose Face is such a cartoon he has to be made to gloat out of nowhere about a random woman he killed on the battlefield months prior, doubtlessly not the only person he killed that day or in the time since, for no reason but that Horikoshi no longer had the time—or perhaps the freedom—to explain how Hose Face came to have the beliefs he does such that his opponents in the story and the readers of the story can regard him with the slightest trace of empathy or compassion.

It's just pretty fucking egregious all-round.  So, to circle back around to the actual content of the ask (sorry), I’m glad that at least 403 people probably a small handful of extremely dedicated fans with money to burn, be it as a joke or not, looked past the bullshit and voted for Nimble anyway.  The advisors all deserved the kind of attention and care that would have had a handful of dedicated fans voting for them, in the same way that members of the Hassaikai other than Overhaul still show up in the polls to this day.

Thanks for the ask, @shockersalvage! And I'm sorry for using your happier note mostly to complain orz.

P.S. I admit this is a bit unbalanced because a chunk of what we know about the Hassaikai cast does come from the databooks, and we hadn't even met the advisors yet back when Ultra Analysis was released! So maybe if we get a third and final databook once the series actually ends, the advisors will get some blurbs as well.

But cripes, given the quality of their writing in the endgame, do I even want them to? I think I'd prefer Horikoshi just give them canon names and then leave them alone.

[thyandrawrites]

Karasu/chigiri and isagi/reo?

Bxbdb another fun one

Karasu x chigiri:

This is the first time I'm hearing of them as a ship and I find it lowkey funny :') They'd be salt buddies fr fr. Chigiri "it made my blood boil" anger king Hyoma and Karasu "on your own, your coordination is nothing but mediocre" Tabito. They bond over crushing the people who think they're better than them.

Also, I only said that this has crackship energy because I'm picturing a scenario in which Chigiri's whole fam was Karasu's bisexual awakening

Reo x isagi:

I see them strictly as platonic buddies, but LISTEN, I don't get why the fandom sleeps on the fact that these two are canonically confidantes??? Don't get me wrong, I totally get why the nagireo fandom latched onto Chigiri as The Wingman™, since they're all together in the Nel arc, but Chigiri's canonically kind of harsh towards Reo's feelings and doesn't offer him any sympathy...? While Isagi is much more chill and actually listens when he had no obligation to. Plus Reo doesn't have nearly as much animosity towards him post 3v3 as the fandom sometimes seems to believe. In fact, there is one (1) person Reo repeatedly talks about his friendship with Nagi to and that's Isagi, who listens both times and doesn't judge, but instead respects Reo's resolve to better himself.

I know fanon doesn't have to be based off canon necessarily but I think this dynamic is criminally underrated, at least as platonic friends. Yes cause they are FRIENDS. I'm not making that up! You think that Reo, a stupidly proud guy who won't even admit to Nagi's face that he was hurt, would turn to Isagi, whom he once blamed for their separation, to tell him about his doubts moving forward if he wasn't friendly with him?? Come on. Isagi respects Reo's skills, and Reo respects Isagi as a player, and they had that open-heart chat about which team to join and the insecurities attached... Reo confessed to fearing he'll always chase Nagi's back and never be his equal if he turns away now and Isagi shared stuff about himself in turn and his admiration/worship of noa, showing he listened. Isagi isn't over the top in his shows of affection, but his one tell is that he's a good listener. I'm just saying, they can relate to each other, and even though their bond is shown subtly, it's absolutely there, and it has more potential imho than the "you're the cause of my jealousy" it's often reduced to. Reo makes jokes about Isagi's offers, calls him predictable in the manshine match (which shows he's been looking), at one point he even pretty much warns him "careful or nagi will leave you too behind". That's not advice you'd give to someone you hate or are indifferent to. They're buddies, okay. And they're very important to me. I love friendships just as much as ships and these two have a very slow building but strong one imho. It just gets overshadowed because Reo isn't touchy with him (maybe he respects Isagi's comfort zone?) and Isagi has much louder friends who kinda make his other bonds subtler in comparison

[theflyingfeeling]

I am not saying I have s good gaydar but it is beeping loudly at especially Olli 🙈

But a genuine question I know it’s all a joke and nothing serious but do you seriously think Olli and/or Aleksi might be lgbt and do you think they actually might have a crush on each other? I know it’s none of our business really but people (me) tend to be curious 🤷🏻‍♀️

Love your blog btw ❤️

Yeah I can't proud on having anything even remotely resembling a gaydar but sometimes I wonder... 👀🤨🤭

(putting the rest behing a read-more 🫣)

In all seriousness, as I've said many times before, I've always thought there's no way BC is 100% heterosexual. I just don't believe it 😌 as for who in the band is not straight, I'm hesitant to speculate or comment on anyone's sexual orientation (outside fanfics / delusional headcanons, that is), but I mean... obviously it's a possibility? 🤷‍♀️ however, as much as I'd love to see Olli and Aleksi together or even just crushing on each other for real, I must admit them being queer is more likely than them being queer AND having a crush on each other. Then again, they wouldn’t be the first people in the history of the universe to fall for a friend, neither would they be the first people ever to have a crush on Person A while being in a relationship with Person B...

So my (boring) answer to your question is it's possible 🤷‍♀️ one might argue that e.g. Olli wearing that t-shirt with the rainbow on the backside that was made/sold in collaboration with his local LGBTQ+ organisation is relevant here, and maybe it is, but at the same time a completely heterosexual person might as well wear a shirt like that to show their support (to a friend or a family member or just in general, because why wouldn't he? he's a good bean and that's exactly the kinda thing I'd imagine him doing). Same goes for Aleksi's "everone is gay" Nirvana shirt. Sure, there are other "hints" the may have "dropped" (accidentally or not, like that moment in Aleksi’s twitch stream when he refused to read the comment out loud once he noticed it was basically calling him a straight person 😂), but not quite enough for me to actually lean towards any explanation more than the other. I know both of them are currently in long-term heterosexual relationships, so it's rather safe to say neither of them are gay, unless they're been fooling their poor spouses this whole time, which I honestly don't believe is the case. But them being bi or pan for example is totally a possibility as far as I'm concerned, since I don't understand why 'heterosexual' should be the "default" and that everyone is assumably straight until something explicitly proves otherwise. I'm sorry but to me the fact they're in hetero relationship is NOT enough proof 😌

And if someone's tempted to make a comment along the lines of jfc what are you on, of course they're not crushing on each other, they're FRIENDS and you're delusional omg, I want you to ask yourself: is it REALLY that far-fetched that two friends who reportedly 1) really enjoy each other's company, 2) have common interests, 3) share the same kind of humour, 4) spend a lot of time together when given the chance, and 4) possibly find each other attractive (just speculation) would have a crush on one another? Just a teeny tiny (🤏) crush? I think not 😤 Especially in Olli/Allu's case, since they've only known each other since idk 2019 or something like that? Suddenly I can't remember when Timebomb came out or when they worked on it lol but anyway, it's a little different in comparison to Olli's other bandmates whom he has known since he was a teenager / literal child, so I'd imagine he views e.g. Joonas and Tommi as his brothers almost. With Aleksi he doesn't have that kind of history, although I'm sure they too have engaged in all sorts of brotherly activities... 🥰

Even considering the case they're both in relationships, it wouldn't be a complete impossibility. Especially in long-term relationships I'd say it's rather common to have an odd crush on someone else from time to time. Whether or not they do anything about the crushes is another story entirely

Yeah, anyway, hope this helps! 😇 have a great weekend, curious anon ❤️

[dndllgrc]

Thank you, Phoebe Waller-Bridge.

You don't know how your art of story telling had kickstarted my legitimate healing process. For years and years, I have stayed in an unhappy one sided relationship that was obviously unfulfilling for both parties, not just on my end, and all thanks to my unrelenting guilt and hatred on what I have done to a friend.

She didn't kill herself, though. For the very least, I've took that part from her and did it to myself before anyone could ever take that role.

But our friendship died. A wonderful relationship from which I have thrived and felt so much belongingness had died because I did not take into account anyone else's feelings but mine.

I started dating her love interest, and even if they weren't together by the time I started seeing him, it was unethical. Especially on my part, I had always been their third wheel, their bridge, and supposedly, their number 1 shipper. I know, it might seem too shallow that this was the spark that started my wildfire of depression but it is.

I felt awful for alot of reasons. That guilt ate me away throughout the years that had passed. The other girls in our friend group weren't much of a help either. I felt alone.

I thought staying in a relationship with the guy I "snatched" from my friend was a way to take accountability for my mistakes. I thought punishing myself with self-harm was a way to take accountability for my sins. I thought, for a very long time, that I wasn't worthy of anything good because I did something bad.

Now that I have grown so much wiser, I learned that all this guilt was rooting from my childhood where I felt the lack of security from my parents. I'm much better now. I have forgiven my parents, too. However, it did help me know where to start.

"That's why they put rubbers at the end of pencils... because people make mistakes."

I knew without a skip of a beat, Boo would have definitely forgiven Fleabag. It may take her long, or it may do her a hell ton of work and therapy, but I do know she will. She will choose to forgive her friend, her love, Fleabag.

Realizing it gave me a sense of closure. Hannah won't do the same for me. It was enough to know that feeling all this guilt is vain. She must have enjoyed seeing me suffer, anyway. Then that's when I uncovered the truth that my guilt was just grief in disguise. I stopped grieving for a friend who chose to destroy another girl instead of going against the guy who led her on.

I know most people loved season 2 because it was a love story. For me, however, season 1 has a special place in my heart.

The scene where the banker gave Fleabag a second chance reminded me of a time when my student organization president did the same to me despite my unstable mental health. I still think about his wisdom now that years had gone by. We have remained friends up to this very day, and it was him who gave me that one little light of hope. The rest of the work on recovery, accountability and healing now rests on my hands.

I think about everything that has happened for the past ten years. Fleabag definitely helped me alot in ways therapy and psych medication can't.

I can finally say, after 9 years of hating myself and punishing myself, that I have forgiven what has transpired in the past. Myself, my then friends now strangers, my ex.

Not long ago, a similar event has happened. My ex-boyfriend now dates the same girl whom befriended me and was consciously maneuvering whatever plans she planned to get my ex when we were still dating.

But not even once have I even thought that she is a slut and a desperate useless human being who deserved hell for doing so.

That's the only closure I needed. Now I know that Hannah and all the other girls whom called me degrading names were not so far, if not worse, from what I did.

No, they were definitely worse.

Boo would not do this to Fleabag. What Fleabag did to Boo in comparison to what I did to Hannah, it was just a peck on the cheek. Hannah and my ex weren't even dating, she rejected him multiple times. She wasn't allowed to despise me. Via and Bea, more so.

I would never do the same to Giannina. Even with the fact knowing that she consciously made the things that happened which led to my breakup.

Hannah, Via, Bea and Bianca. They called me a slut when I was still a virgin. They took advantage of what was laid out, and slowly ate me away as the years went by.

My "friends" were no different. Shy knew what was happening and still went on and hung out with them. It was the loneliest I had ever been. I wouldn't wish this experience upon my enemies.

They did not deserve my grief.

I am forgiving myself, not for the crimes they taxed me, but for allowing myself to grieve for people who are awful and disgusting.

[thekaijudude]

Naga Ghidorah Zarla (after using her Alpha Call) vs 10 Godzilla Earths. Who wins?

Also, for reference, the Titan-Class Kaiju I mentioned are all basically just more powerful versions of Showa Universe Ultra Kaiju that are styled after the Monsterverse’s Titans.

Anyway, as always, I’ve sent you Naga Ghidorah Zarla’s abilities in DMs.

Oh shi, this might be out of my field of expertise cause I didnt even bother watching City on the Edge of Battle and Planet Eater and only watched the first because I rmb that I felt so scammed that there wasnt any actual MG in the 2nd movie that I just didnt care about watching the rest of the trilogy in its entirety lmao (tho I did saw the fight scenes)

Tho since u specifically brought up Mebius PB for powerscaling purposes, Id urge you to be rather careful with using him for any sort of powerscaling. Cause in the only 2 instances we saw this fusion in canon, his demonstration isnt actually representative of his actual power level as it isnt a “pure” duo fusion as its amped by also fusing with the 5 other Crew GUYS members, giving a pretty ridiculous amp.

Cause even if we assume that Alien Empera has not grown in power since 30 000 years ago when he basically one-shot both Ken and Belial (whom were both ~130 000 years old at the time) using the same calculation, and essentially lowballing Alien Empera to 130 000 yo Ken + Belial, this gives Empera’s power level to be at least 2x10^36 NG, and rmb, this is a LOWBALL.

Thus, this means that PB is amped by 1.33x10^34 times since his base is just at 150 NG. (Ye im also accouting for the Specium Redoublizer here because ive seen people still include as part of PB's "feats" even tho they shouldnt, but it still dosent matter in this case since in the final battle of Mebius, everyone was literally wanked up to kingdom come)

So, I’m just gonna go ahead and assume that you’re referring PB base, at 150 NG cause otherwise you’re essentially asking whether something can essentially beat a 34-way ultra fusion, which for all intents and purposes, unless its the Legendary Ultras/Absolutian Lord/Reiblood himself etc, I’d say that no one can at this point. 

But otherwise, I think your Ghidorah’s abilities are still far too broad and too ambiguous. Lets just run over why with Alpha Call first. When you elaborated that the “Titan-Class Kaiju I mentioned are all basically just more powerful versions of Showa Universe Ultra Kaiju”, thats a pretty broad term yo. 

Firstly, you’re gonna have to be more specific cause the kaiju powerscaling in the Showa Era is still pretty broad. Like we have your standard Tier 2 kaiju like Gomora, Red King etc, which gets one shot by choju in Ace, which in turn, also gets one shot by kaiju shown in literally episode 1 of Taro. So where exactly are you referring to in the Showa Era kaiju scale?

And secondly, how much stronger compared to the actual Showa kaiju? Cause this would help to scale Godzilla Earth.

Since iirc, Godzilla Earth back in 2030 (when hes still around 50m), was already doing a Final Wars with the present earthian kaiju, which puts him at a reasonable choju level. But him awakening and causing kaiju on the same continent (sorta) to flee is also reminiscent to beings like Maga Tano-Orochi, Greeza etc but in their case, it was apparently a worldwide event. So, by that logic, would Godzilla Earth (50m) threat level is somewhere between a choju (Tier 2-3) to essentially a Tier 4 kaiju, which is still a pretty broad estimate, so I’m gonna try and narrow it further. 

As in the same comparison, you could argue that Earth (50m) was more of a threat than Ultroid Zero because the 5 standard kaiju that showed up still had the balls to try and destroy it before it inevitably became Destrudos. But idk how comfortable I’d feel if I try to classify Earth (50m) higher than a D4 Ray user that literally is able to rip apart a local AOE fabric of space-time, the damage of which would essentially spread. But the Zestium Ray from DRC was able to repair the damage (cant compare the D4 Ray launched by Destudos cause we wont have a fair comparison since DRC didnt do the same with him). So, can we somewhat narrow the estimate to from Tier 2 kaiju to a Super form of a NGH?

But then again, now that I think about it, Ultroid Zero was basically doing the same as Earth (50m) as even without using the D4 Ray, he was literally hunting down 7 standard kaiju which was gonna be used as components for Destrudos.

So at the end of all that, I’d say Earth (50m) would be around a choju level kaiju alr. Going from this base level, a single Godzilla Earth (300m) would easily obliterate standard Tier 2 kaiju.

Tho, if I were to assume that the summoned kaiju would be all be choju level (since you say they’re stronger), you’re essentially asking whether 10 Godzilla Earths (300m) can take on 70 chojus at once. Which tbh shouldnt even be a difficult fight even for a 1v70 imo due to the sheer potency of his physical capabilities alone (Tail Shockwaves that we saw cut through even solid rock formations), not to mention his EM shield + “Burning state” which is literally planet buster. 

So in the end, the summoned 70 kaiju wouldnt even really make a difference in the grand scheme of things

(Also note that when im referring to choju level, im specifically talking about their physical characteristics like power output, strength and durability, not their hax like most of them have like time travelling, light speed based attacks etc)

But the above note is brings up another point of contention due to the ambiguity for Zarla because of your unclarified “stronger than Showa Era kaiju” powerscaling. Because if Zarla can outright mimic the choju or other kaiju’s hax abilities like time travelling etc, then its sort of already an easy win for her?

And I suppose that naturally also brings up the question of which kaijus specifically are gonna show up? It ranges anywhere from Tier 1 kaiju like simply giant animals all the way to kaijus beyond even chojus which a HUGE assortment of abilities, hax or otherwise.

Because there’s so many issues and ambiguity for Alpha Call, its more possible to examine just Zarla (without Alpha Call) against 10 Godzilla Earths.

Which tbh, seems like an overkill.

Because assuming Zarla dosent have an anchor (essentially plot armor) like the one we saw in the movie, didnt Void Ghidorah got clowned on severely? Like iirc a single tail swipe was already able to decapitate one of his heads, and Earth was able to rip off another using his bare hands. And I dont think even a standard Mebium Knight Shoot can compare to a planet buster Red Spiral Atomic Breath.

Tbh 1v1 might already be overkill since the Ghidorah was only ever a threat because he had the anchor? And since you didnt specify it being present with Zarla, nor any other durability changes compared to Void, wouldnt the battle end up pretty much the same???

But if we recall that her version of gravity beams are approximately around Mebium Knight Shoot, then it becomes sorta more competitive.

Recall that 1 NG is enough to completely one shot a Tier 2 fresh kaiju. And iirc, Earth’s EM shield and his base durability dosent really scale with his other prowess (Like Earth was severely wounded by the onslaught from MG city as well as being pierced by harpoons), so he’s essentially glass cannon in base. So I think its perfectly reasonable to assume that his durability isnt gonna stand against a gravity beam that is 150x stronger than an NGH’s finisher. Not to mention from 3 heads.

Unless he goes burning from the get go. But I dont believe we have seen the limits of his durability in this state. But considering that Void was also essentially a glass cannon without the anchor, its essentially down to the cliche glass cannon vs glass cannon battle result

It all falls back to who fires the first shot. Thats for 1v1 Zarla vs Earth (base)

And as said for burning state, while I can definitely agree that his durability has increased, we just dont know by how much exactly. And Zarla having up to a 150x multiplier is far too big of a margin to give the benefit of the doubt to Burning Earth’s durability being able to take the hit. So imo, its still the same glass cannon vs glass cannon matchup with the same result

Thanks for the question!

[onbearfeet]

Episode 6

Welp. We made it.

As predicted by multiple commenters, Ep 5 was the trauma-heavy one, and Ep 6 was lighter in comparison--mostly plot and a wee bit of character development. And also a CGI fight sequence I choose to describe as "Kaiju, but also Egyptomania".

Marc's reunion with Steven was well-done. Again, my big fear is DID being monsterized, and this was the opposite of that, so well and good. I would have added a line about Marc expecting to die when he gave the heart to Steven, but ehhhh. It's fine. Probably.

I'm not sure highlighting the difference between Khonshu and Ammit as a minor theological squabble was the right move, writing-wise, especially since the whole thing boils down to an argument about free will vs. destiny while 1) that is an argument that nobody really wins in contemporary media and 2) Moon Knight might be the single worst Marvel hero to involve in that discussion. Oh, well. Still rhetorically clearer than FATWS.

Layla's turn as an avatar was fun, although it did get me and roomie arguing about whether she was too similar to Wonder Woman. (I maintain that if Marc is Marvel Batman and Layla is Marvel Wonder Woman, that just makes their relationship WonderBat, which I enjoy immensely, so SHUSH.)

Marc's decision not to kill Harrow was ... interesting? Weird? I dunno, this kind of seemed like a valid use case for Marc VERY occasionally killing someone, what with the apocalypse and all. I get the reasoning behind Marc choosing not to kill anyone at the climax, but it fell a bit flat for me that his actual proposed solution was just...leaving?

Okay, Jake. Let's talk about Jake, because on the one hand, I did get to hear Oscar Isaac speak Spanish, and on the other, eek.

So one last bit of Kat's Dead Brother Lore (and please remember that if you are shitty about him, the bears will eat you): he had at least one alter that I never met but that was, by all accounts, a fucking nightmare. Nearly took my dad out with a carpet knife once. (I am not saying Dad didn't say or do something to deserve it, mind you. But in context, he could have just loomed over my brother by accident in the wrong moment. This alter was not a discerning soul.) According to my brother's best guess, this alter, whom I'll call S because fuck if I'm saying his name when I'm not even saying my bro's, came into being to absorb abuse from his biological parents and, eventually, to protect him and his younger bio-bro from said abuse. Everything I heard about S aligned with what I later experienced with one of MY biological siblings, sometimes referred to on here as my ex-brother. My ex-bro checks all the boxes for psychopathy and is the main reason I have PTSD. So with all that context, I'm prepared to call S a scary motherfucker.

And yes, S is why my brother died in prison. He did something horrifying. I will not elaborate beyond saying that nobody died, and that's probably why no one tried to death-penalty my brother.

Anyway. Jake.

Jake reminds me of S in some ways, although he's obviously much more organized, at least with Khonshu directing him. He's also, uh, MUCH more comfortable with lethal violence than S ever seemed to be. The people S hurt were usually people he perceived, rightly or wrongly, as threats. There were an awful lot of bodies in that hallway that I doubt could have been interpreted as threats to Marc or Steven.

That leads me to an interesting place, emotionally. Maybe it's because I'm used to thinking of my brother as a victim in many ways, but if Jake originated as a protector for Marc and Steven--someone who took the worst of the abuse at first and maybe did the worst of the violence later on--then his continued willingness to work for Khonshu might be another layer of self-victimization.

Put simply, Marc was willing to destroy himself for Steven. Is Jake doing the same for Marc? Perhaps making a private deal with Khonshu to let the other two go so easily? Does Jake see himself as an acceptable loss for his brothers' freedom? Has Khonshu manipulated Jake even more profoundly than he did Marc?

I dunno. I've seen fanfics writing Jake as a mysterious, "evil" alter, but there isn't enough in one scene to say whether the story itself is monsterizing Jake. I'd be interested to know if a fanfic writer has portrayed Jake as essentially Khonshu's latest victim. (Not sure I'd have the fortitude to read that, but I'd like to know if it exists.)

Okay. Not a perfect show, and it was a near thing getting through it, but I think I'm glad I did.

Oh, and now roomie wants to watch WBN and Daredevil with me because he's enjoying the comics facts, so that's fun.

That's all for now, folks. Russell the Emotional Support Werewolf thanks you for your attention.

Kat watches Moon Knight

Okay, so with the encouragement of several people on here and the emotional support of my roommate, I have finally (in February 2024) started watching Moon Knight, a show whose basic concept scares the shit out of me.

Context: I had an adopted older brother with DID. Note that I said "had". That's past tense because life treated him so appallingly poorly that he died (horribly, in prison) when I was 19. Part of that abuse was enabled by pop-culture depictions of DID in the 1980s and 90s that convinced everyone who knew about his condition (including the court system) that he was a walking time bomb.

One of my earliest memories is of my brother as a young adult, playing Super Mario Bros with my toddler self. Another is of him patiently teaching me how to make friends with a large dog. I never met any of his alters, afaik; I was small and cute and safe for him to be himself with, so he probably didn't need them around me. He was a profoundly gentle man when he was allowed, and it hurt like hell to see him turned into a monster in movies and on TV. I've turned off a lot of "psychological thrillers" in sorrow and disgust.

Ironically, I loved Moon Knight comics as a kid in the 90s, BEFORE he was retconned to have DID circa the mid-2000s. Because those comics came out right after my brother died in 2002 and leaned HARD into making people with DID seem like violently unstable monsters (for reference, see the cover of Moon Knight: God and Country), I stopped reading them around 2008, when I couldn't take being poked in the trauma by a comfort character anymore.

But I do love Werewolf By Night, and there's been a lot of good fic mashing Jack up with Moon Knight without dehumanizing anyone, and several people have encouraged me to try the show. So this post will be a place for my thoughts as I try to work my way through with my Essential Editions in one hand and my memories of my brother in the other. I'll add to it as I watch.

If this entertains the Moon Knight fandom or provides useful fic reference, so be it. Just don't be jerks on my post.

Also, anyone who chooses to be shitty about my brother will be eaten by bears. I don't make the rules.

Episode 1

Okay, we open with Steven as our POV character, and he's...convinced he's a sleepwalker. All right, not terrible. Steven is now a bumbling nerd, which is probably an improvement; good luck making a billionaire playboy sympathetic in the 2020s. Jake would be the logical everyman POV from the comics, but I understand from fic that he's got a different role now. I'm confused about the accent, but it's only episode 1, and Steven clearly doesn't yet know who Khonshu is, or that Marc exists, so obviously there's a ways to go here. (Is Marc ... undercover inside Steven? Ugh, this is a trope I have seen and do not like.)

Did Marc kill Steven's fish? Did Khonshu kill Steven's fish? I'm baffled by the fish. Which is a nice break from the larger anxiety. I'm gonna try to worry more about the fish.

The bits with Steven losing time and finding himself in odd situations were distressingly close to the old tropes, but both of those happened to my brother, so I'm not going to bitch about them quite yet. I want to be as fair as I can.

Oh, hey, I recognize Harrow from the comics. What up, dude. How's the cult biz treating you?

The end of the episode, with the jackal thing chasing Steven into the bathroom, came RIGHT up to the line for me. I realized that what I was most afraid of was that the story would assign "good" and "bad" labels to the alters--make Steven the sweet, innocent one and Marc (or maybe Jake, I guess) the monstrous killer. The early flashes of Steven covered in blood didn't really help allay that anxiety. And now Marc is demanding that Steven let him have control in a pretty threatening manner. But so far, it seems like the contrast between Marc and Steven is one of competence--Marc is better at fighting and Steven is better at ... panicking? Unclear. At least Oscar Isaac is playing the protagonist, so his character(s) might remain sympathetic. Nobody has been monsterized quite yet.

I finished the episode with every muscle in my body locked up, waiting for the emotional punch in the face. But I did finish it, and I think I'm gonna try episode two.

[zoobus]

Posted without commentary:

On Sept. 17, 2021, my long-distance girlfriend, Lauren, paid a surprise visit to me while a friend filmed my reaction. Three days later, she set the 19-second clip to a hokey Ellie Goulding song and posted it to roughly 200 TikTok followers. The first commenters—Lauren’s close friends—had positive things to say. But soon strangers—among whom the video was less well received—began commenting, criticizing my reaction time or my being seated on a couch next to friends who happened to be of the opposite sex. “Girl he ain’t loyal.” “Red flag! He didn’t get up off the couch and jump up and down in excitement.” “Bro if my man was on a couch full of girls IM WALKING BACK OUT THE DOOR.”

As comments accusing me of infidelity rolled in, the video quickly became the topic of fierce online debate, à la “The Dress.” I, an ordinary college sophomore, became TikTok’s latest meme: Couch Guy. TikTok users made parody videos, American Eagle advertised a no-effort Couch Guy Halloween costume, and Rolling Stone, E! Online, The Daily Show, and The View all covered the phenomenon. On TikTok, Lauren’s video and the hashtag #CouchGuy, respectively, have received more than 64 million and 1 billion views.

While the Couch Guy meme was lighthearted on its surface, it turned menacing as TikTok users obsessively invaded the lives of Lauren, our friends, and me—people with no previous desire for internet fame, let alone infamy. Would-be sleuths conducted what Trevor Noah jokingly called “the most intense forensic investigation since the Kennedy assassination.” During my tenure as Couch Guy, I was the subject of frame-by-frame body language analyses, armchair diagnoses of psychopathy, comparisons to convicted murderers, and general discussions about my “bad vibes.”

At times, the investigation even transcended the digital world—for instance, when a resident in my apartment building posted a TikTok video, which accumulated 2.3 million views, of himself slipping a note under my door to request an interview. (I did not respond.) One viewer gleefully commented, “Even if this guy turned off his phone, he can’t escape the couch guy notifications,” a fact that the 37,600 users who liked it presumably celebrated too. Under another video, in which hall mates of mine promised to confront Couch Guy once they reached 1 million likes (they didn’t), a comment suggested that they “secretly see who’s coming and going from his place”—and received 17,800 approving likes. The New York Post reported on, and perhaps encouraged, such invasions of my privacy. In an article about the “frenzy … frantically trying to determine the identity” of the “mystery man” behind the meme, the Post asked, “Will the real ‘couch guy’ please stand up?” Meanwhile, as internet sleuths took to public online forums to sniff out my name, birthdate, and place of residence, the threat of doxxing loomed over my head.

Exacerbating these invasions of my privacy was the tabloid-style media coverage that I received. Take, for example, one online magazine article that solicited insights from a “body language expert” who concluded that my accusers “might be onto something,” since the “angle of [my] knees signals disinterest” and my “hands hint that [I’m] defensive.” This tabloid body language analysis—something typically reserved for Kardashians, the British royal family, and other A-listers—made me, a private citizen who had previously enjoyed his minimal internet presence, an unwilling recipient of the celebrity treatment.

Mercifully, my memedom has died down—interest in the Google search term “Couch Guy” peaked on Oct. 5—and I have come to tolerate looks of vague recognition and occasional selfie requests from strangers in public. And my digital scarlet letter has not carried much weight offline, given that Lauren and the other co-stars of the now-infamous video know my true character. Therefore, my anxiety rests only in the prospect that the invasive TikTok sleuthing I experienced was not an isolated instance, but rather—as tech writer Ryan Broderick has suggested—the latest manifestation of a large-scale sleuthing culture.

The sleuthing trend sweeping TikTok ramped up following the disappearance of the late Gabby Petito. As armchair TikTok sleuths flexed their investigative muscles, the app’s algorithm boosted content theorizing about what happened to Petito. Madison Kircher of Slate’s ICYMI podcast noted how her “For You page just decided I simply needed to see” TikTok users’ Gabby Petito videos “over and over again.” It appears that a similar phenomenon occurred with my lower-stakes virality, as I found myself scrolling through countless tweets bemoaning the inescapability of “Couch Guy TikTok.” One user despairingly reported seeing “five tik toks back to back on my [For You page] about couch guy.” (I assure you, though, that nobody despised Couch Guy’s omnipresence more than myself.)

The most recent target of the app’s emerging investigative spirit was Sabrina Prater, a 34-year-old contractor and trans woman, who went viral in November after posting a video of herself dancing in a basement midrenovation. The video’s virality began with parody videos, but quickly veered into the realm of conspiracy theory due to (you guessed it) the video’s apparent “bad vibes”—at which point I got a dreadful sense of déjà vu. As Prater’s video climbed to 22 million views and internet sleuths came together to form a r/WhosSabrinaPrater community on Reddit, Prater faced baseless murder accusations, transphobic comparisons to Buffalo Bill from The Silence of the Lambs, and overzealous vigilantes who threatened to go to her neighborhood to investigate further. This incident reveals the harmful potential of TikTok sleuthing. One expert aptly summed up the Prater saga to Rolling Stone: “It was like watching true crime, internet sleuthing, conspiracy theories, and transphobia collide in a car crash.”

Given the apparent tendency of the TikTok algorithm to present viral spectacles to a user base increasingly hungry for content to analyze forensically, there will inevitably be more Couch Guys or Praters in the future. When they appear on your For You page, I implore you to remember that they are people, not mysteries for you to solve. As users focused their collective magnifying glass on Lauren, my friends, and me—comparing their sleuthing to “watching a soap opera and knowing who the bad guy is”—it felt like the entertainment value of the meme began to overshadow our humanity. Stirred to make a TikTok of my own to quell the increasing hate, I posted a video reminding the sleuths that “not everything is true crime”—which commenters resoundingly deemed “gaslighting.” Lauren’s videos requesting that the armchair investigation stop were similarly dismissed as more evidence of my success as a manipulator, and my friends’ entreaties to respect our privacy, too, fell on deaf ears.

Certainly, noncelebrities have long unwillingly become public figures, and digital pile-ons have existed in some form since the dawn of the digital age—just ask Monica Lewinsky. But on TikTok, algorithmic feedback loops and the nature of the For You page make it easier than ever for regular people to be thrust against their wishes into the limelight. And the extent of our collective power is less obvious online, where pile-ons are delivered, as journalist Jon Ronson put it, “like remotely administered drone strikes.” On the receiving end of the barrage, however, as one finds their reputation challenged, body language hyperanalyzed, and privacy invaded, the severity of our collective power is made much too clear.

[blindbeta]

Hi! I'm writing a blind character who uses (among other accessibility aids) a seeing-eye animal. This is science fiction, and they're on an alien planet, so I don't want it to be a dog exactly, but I also want to make sure it could conceivably fill the same role. My ideas are ranging from "generic four-legged mammal" to "scampering lizard beast" to "literal alien bird." Is there anything I should avoid? Anything I should be sure to include? Any tips are welcome!

Title: Creating a Guide Animal a.k.a. Way More Than You Ever Wanted To Know About Service Animals, Emotional Support Animals, and Guide Dogs and Guide Horses Specifically

Hi! Thanks for the fun question! I wanted to apologize for the length of this answer. Take your time with it. Even if you already know most of the extra information I provided (which you probably do), I hope it can give you some idea of what might need to be emphasized or explained in your story. I wanted to be as thorough as possible for you and anyone else reading. Understanding more about guide animals will help you create one for your story.

Note: I use Service Animal and Guide Animal in this post. All Guide Animals are Service Animals (they are trained to provide a service to disabled people), but not all Service Animals are Guide Animals.

Okay, as always, this is going to be split into parts for easier understanding. Also, note: This is the perspective of someone who does not use a guide animal and is from a Western country. If someone who uses a guide or service animal AND is from a non-Western country with different laws, feel free to share them. Due to the nature of this question, I only want other blind people and/or service animal users to reply with information. I mostly focused on Western links and laws, as I feel these were easier for me to find sources for when I searched.

The Seeing Eye (trademarked) in an Alien World?

Fun fact! Seeing Eye dog is a specific type of dog trained in The Seeing Eye Inc in New Jersey, USA. The generic term is guide dog or service dog or service animal. I would stick with one of the generic terms, as Seeing Eye dog is specific to Earth. Not all guide dogs come from The Seeing Eye Inc. It would be inaccurate, possibly culturally strange, and take viewers out of the story if you use it. Unless you want someone to establish a Seeing Eye Inc on the new planet, although you could call it something else to avoid confusion, or address it in the text. The Seeing Eye is, thankfully, not the only training school for guide dogs. Although Vision Australia does call them “seeing-eye dogs”, I wanted to include this just in case it tripped a reader up. People will recognize the “seeing-eye dog” term if you decide to use it.

Question 12 on the Seeing Eye website says:

Only dogs trained by The Seeing Eye, Inc., of Morristown, N.J., are properly called Seeing Eye® dogs. The Seeing Eye is a registered trademark. The generic term for dogs trained by other schools is "guide dog."

Guide Dogs and Canes

This may not seem as fun to readers, but your character should follow most Earth rules when training. This is to avoid confusion for a public that tends to know little about service animals. You specificied the character would use other aids, which is great, so I’ll assume you already know this. Your character should already know how to use a cane before getting their guide animal. They will need to use these navigation skills because while the animal can help somewhat, they cannot replace the ability to navigate. For example, when crossing the street, the guide dog waits for the owner’s command to cross. In order to do this, the person must have experience with crossing safely.

Guide animals are also more expensive than canes, which can be free and easy to replace. Animals require food, toys, medical bills, and time.

My source on this is also the Seeing Eye website, which you’ll want to peruse because they have helpful information.

Other Helpful Research Tips

I have two links below about choosing to use a cane vs. a guide animal. They will provide you with information about the advantages and disadvantages of a service animal compared to using a cane. As I said before, blind people must know how to use a cane in order to qualify to get a guide dog. Therefore, it would be appropriate and helpful to have your character also know how to use a cane and to keep a cane on them often, such as in a backpack.

Reasons one might want to use a cane while having a guide dog include:

They want to interact with their environment more, particularly if it is less familiar or has changed

They don’t want to use the guide dog that day because it is too hot, the dog is sick, they don’t want to have to clean up after the animal, etc

They are between guide dogs

Those are some of the reasons someone who already owns a guide dog may want to use a cane. Some people even use a guide dog and cane simultaneously.

For more information about the pros and cons of getting a guide dog, read these articles, one of whom is by a guide dog user. You’ll want to keep these advantages and disadvantages in mind while writing.

White Cane vs. Guide Dog: Why or Why Not?

Guide Dogs vs. White Canes: The Comprehensive Comparison

Things Your Guide Needs

This is not a comprehensive list, but I wanted to include things your animal needs and general tips on how to treat the animal in the story.

1. It needs the ability to follow commands. How you do this is up to you. For research, watch YouTube videos with service dogs. Pay attention to the commands they give.

Here is a list of some commands taught by a school for service dogs, which you can probably use as a base.

Command Central: Guide Dog Commands

2. It should be trained to avoid obstacles, like benches or people

3. It should not be touched or distracted by other characters or animals - people will probably try to do so, and your character should explain that the animal is working and should not be distracted

4. It should be taken care of an given time off-harness, such as at home. It should be well-behaved as well.

5. It should be able to go anywhere. Transportation, hospitals, royal courts, sports centers, whatever is on this planet. Service dogs can go anywhere and saying they aren’t allowed somewhere in a story would be a problem. Some people do try to bar service dogs, such as restaurants, but they do so out of ignorance and not because the law is on their side. Some countries do not have protections in place, true, but because you are creating your own planet, service dogs— or in your case service animals— being allowed anywhere should hold true no matter what. Why? Because even in Western countries where dogs are seen as culturally favorable, service animals are turned away illegally, particularly at restaurants, hospitals, doctor’s offices, and public transport. This differs from an Emotional Support Animal, who are allowed only in housing, dorms, and airports. For more information on the differences between where Emotional Support Animals and Service Animals can go, read the article below.

Where Can I Take Emotional Support Animals?

Who Can Be a Service Animal?

I wanted to discuss this as well. Again, there is a lot of misinformation out there and this leads to a lot of anger directed at people with service animals.

Service Animals and Emotional Support Animals are not the same. They do not serve the same purpose, cannot go to the same places, and are not bound by the same rules. You have probably heard at least one irate person claiming someone tried to bring their service monkey into a restaurant. That person is misinformed.

To start, Emotional Support Animals can be any animal. A dog, a cat, a bunny, a bird, a turtle. There is no limit as to what the animal can be, although it must provide comfort and be beneficial to your mental health. It should be easy to train and not harmful to others. It should also be able to live in a house or be otherwise domesticated. Emotional Support Animals need a letter from a Licensed Mental Health Professional in order to qualify as an Emotional Support Animal, which should hopefully keep people from trying to keep wild or dangerous animals as pets and claim them as Emotional Support Animals.

Here is an article that goes over things what an Emotional Support Animal does, what qualities and qualifications it must have, and examples of good ESA’s and what they can do for you.

Types of Animals As ESA’s and Their Benefits

Remember, Emotional Support Animals are only allowed in any kind of housing (such as apartments or dormitories) and airports. They are not allowed in other public places where animals would not otherwise be allowed. ESA’s also need to be registered through a letter of support by a mental health provider. This letter should be shown to a landlord, as Emotional Support Animals require proof.

Next, Service Animals. Let’s get it out of the way. Service Animals (usually dogs) provide services to people with disabilities. This means a guide dog, medical alert dog, psychiatric service dog, etc. Service Animals are owned by individuals and are not therapy dogs or other working dogs. For example, dogs you are providing therapy to children in hospitals are therapy dogs. Search and Rescue dogs are working dogs. I don’t know much about either of these, but here is an article that goes into more detail about the differences.

Service Dogs, Working Dogs, Therapy Dogs, Emotional Support Dogs: What’s the Difference?

Dogs and Miniature Horses

Service animals can only be dogs OR miniature horses. Many people only think of dogs, as dogs are more popular and common in public than horses. However, a miniature horse has the same rights as a dog when in a service animal role. In the United States, Federal law recognized miniature horses as accepted service animals in 2011.

Service dogs or service horses can:

-enter any public place dogs and horses are not usually allowed

-can be trained to guide the blind or provide services for other disabilities

-can go on planes without a pet fee (provided they can fit by the owner’s feet and not block the aisle)

If we take a look at this article again:

White Cane Vs. Guide Dog: Why Or Why Not?

we’ll notice that “being denied access” is not under the disadvantages of a Guide Dog section. I think it should be. Is denying access illegal? Yes. Does it still happen? Yes. And it would probably be even more likely when someone is presented with a miniature horse - at least in countries where dogs are more popular. On top of lack of knowledge about service animals, people are not often aware that miniature horses can serve in these roles as well. Vision Australia discusses this denial of rights and laws protecting blind people with service dogs.

However, The Guide Horse Foundation reports that many people expirience better acceptance of horses as opposed to dogs. This is because a dog may be perceived as a pet or be an animal that was denied access before. A horse may not have this problem.

Some Places Service/Guide Horses Are Recognized

Canada - with laws and protections varying by province and definitions differing slightly from the U.S and Australia. However, this site specifically mentions guide horses as service animals.

Australia - with laws varying by state, but wider protections in place, which you can read more about at Vision Australia and Australian Human Rights Commission. Australian Human Rights Commission also defines a service animal as a dog or any other animal, leaving horses as an option. According to this page, miniature horses are catching on in Australia, where people generally prefer dogs. The page lists similar reasons to those I included below that someone might want a miniature horse over a dog.

The U.S - According to this page, miniature horses are the one animal that is allowed to be a service animal other than a dog. They are required to be trained and are expected to behave as well as a service dog would. The requirements listed differ little from those required of service dogs.

The U.K - This page reports that miniature horses are making their way as service animals, but I could not find any other sources about this topic, such as official recognition.

I tried searching and could not find proof that miniature horses were catching on in other places, though I found many, many places where guide dogs were popular. The point is that guide horses exist as well, and I think this can help people understand what makes a service/guide animal with more clarity.

Why a Miniature Horse?

Here is an article that discusses this in detail:

A Brief History of Miniature Horses And the ADA

According that article, a major reason people might prefer a horse to a dog is for balancing purposes. The DeafBlind community often includes people with balance difficulties (which I discussed a bit in my last ask) and miniature horses are better able to provide support, having more strength than a dog. They can steady someone when walking or help someone stand from a chair.

Other reasons someone might prefer a horse:

They live in a rural area

They or a member of their household are allergic to dogs

They live in a place where dogs are not favored, seen as dirty, or religiously unacceptable

They or a member of their household has a fear of dogs

They want a guide that lives and works longer than dogs (who work for about 6-8 years)

According to the website for The Guide Horse Foundation, horses have high stamina, do not get fleas or shed as often as dogs, and are conscious about safety.

Qualities Your Guide Animals Should Have

Using the dog and horse guides as references, here are some qualities I think your creature should have:

Trainable, both for commands and so they don’t pee where they aren’t supposed to

It should be specifically trained for this purpose, preferably by a group of some kind - this is your equivalent of a guide dog school

Good eye sight, good hearing, and strong memory at least

Relatively small, but not too small (you can use Labrador dogs and miniature horses as a reference

Good stamina for walking

Not territorial, aggressive, or dangerous- dogs can possess these qualities so I think it is okay if a wild version of your guide has these qualities. However, your guide specifically should not have them. For example, wild dogs may be aggressive, but a trained guide dog would not be.

Your guide should not be used for protection, hunting, or attacking others who may be a threat. While the presence of the animal can certainly act as a deterrent in real life and in the story, that is not the animal’s function.

Your guide should be calm, docile, and able to bond with your character

Your guide animal should generally not be seen by the people in your world as frightening, dangerous, or religiously unclean. Note that sometimes guide dogs fit these qualities in certain cultures and so they are not used there. If possible, give your world and its cultures a good working relationship with a few different animals. Pick one or two of these as possible guides people can choose from. You can possibly draw from your own culture and history for this if your culture has had good working relationships with animals.

Your guide animal should be able to be harnessed (a leash is not enough) and possibly wear something that alerts others that they are working (such as a vest)

The animal should have good navigation skills and possibly natural guiding skills. Because you are creating a species, you can possibly make these qualities innate. From what I read, horses guide by nature, able to act as guides for other horses in the herd if they are blinded.

Your guide animal should probably not fly, unless people fly or float in your world. Since it should be small enough to enter buildings and not accidentally crush children, I don’t know if having it be big enough to fly on would be a good idea anyway, as fun as that sounds.

Small enough to enter buildings and sit at the character’s feet, such as at a restaurant if your world has those

It should be able to be trained in “babyhood” and work into adult life. Dogs typically work 6-8 years and horses have a much longer lifespan and thus work longer. Create an animal that can live at least as long as a dog and thus work for some, but not all of that time. Give it a retirement phase in life, if your book ever got to that. Basically, use dogs and miniature horses as a base and work from there.

The animal should be domesticated on your world and not strictly wild (such as a lion in our world).

The animal should be comfortable on land. The ability to swim is fine, but it should of course be primarily a land animal.

The animal should have a common, available food supply and vet care even if you don’t go into this. If your guide is domesticated and possibly kept as a pet in your world (or a neighboring world, however your story is structured), this will be much easier and being easy to care for will probably be implied.

It should be allowed anywhere, including hospitals, and it should be well-behaved in those areas

It should not run away from your character and leave them alone

That’s all I can think of at this time. Generally, I think if this were set on Earth or an Earth-like fantasy place, I might suggest creating a dog- or horse-like creature, or possibly another domesticated animal that the culture favors in real life. However, since this is on another planet, I feel okay with getting creative with the type of animal, provided it has the same qualities and can serve the same purpose as a real-life equivalent. Some of this you can create with your world-building and some with research on real-life animals to use as inspiration. If anyone with a service animal disagrees, please add your opinion. It would be beneficial to me and hopefully to the asker as well.

Thank you again for the question and if you need more help, feel free to send me another ask or a message. I hope this can benefit you in some way. Good luck with your story!

Edit: I wanted to add this sensitivity reader, who can read for working with guide dogs and other blind stuff.

[robininthelabyrinth]

Unfettered (aka NHS goes feral) - part 3 - previous parts: on ao3 or tumblr pt 1, pt 2

-

Lan Xichen had the strangest feeling that something was going to happen.

He wouldn’t pretend that he had a touch of foresight – life had shown him the hard way how completely he lacked any sorts of skill in that direction– and there was nothing altogether unusual about anything that had happened in the past few days of the war. Lan Xichen was helping with so much more now than he had during the Sunshot Campaign, when he’d been able to be a little above it all as a mere courtier or a single but powerful scouting force, thanks in large part to his sect’s then-existing weakness and Nie Mingjue’s utter brilliance. Nowadays he had to deal with the endless drudgery of war administration: the clean-up before and after battles, the mechanics of feeding and supplying all the cultivators in their front lines, planning their next move and the next after that…

Nie Huaisang had received a message and stormed out, looking annoyed, but that wasn’t new, either.

There were many demands on his time, after all. Nie Huaisang might not have much experience at war on a personal basis, having largely (and willingly) been sidelined during the Sunshot Campaign, but he was a sharp study and an excellent judge of people. He managed their generals – selected for merit without any attention to what sect they were from, if any – with an iron fist that rivaled his control over his own disciples, and on top of the war there was also his extensive network of spies, his constant scrutiny of their supply lines, his supervision of internecine disputes between the sects…

The divisions between us will be the first place Jin Guangshan strikes, he had said – snarled, rather – at the last meeting between sect leaders, taking to task men twice his age without so much as the blink of an eye. I want this petty bullshit between you resolved, now, and I don’t care how many generations you’ve been fighting over it. If you don’t fix it, I’ll fix it for you, and I assure you that neither of you want that.

They’d resolved it.

After all, Nie Huaisang was right: no one wanted him to step in.  

It was a little ironic, Lan Xichen thought. The entire war had started because of Jin Guangshan’s lust for power, his desire to be called Chief Cultivator – a term Nie Huaisang denounced, as Nie Mingjue had before him – and now it was Nie Huaisang to whom the cultivation world deferred without question.

People were afraid of him.

It still seemed a little ridiculous to Lan Xichen, as if at any moment someone would step in and say that it was all a joke that they’d all been taken in by. That Nie Huaisang was still the excitable little roly-poly puppy he’d always been, Lan Xichen’s good friend’s little brother: stubborn and cute and smarter than he pretended to be, interested in nothing but his art and his fans and his clothing, lazy and indolent and unabashedly happy in a way that had brightened Lan Xichen’s day to see, every time.

He wasn’t, though. And it was Lan Xichen that had helped make him into what he was now.

During his travels, he’d heard cultivators in the field referring to Nie Huaisang as the Pallbearer, obliquely calling him the virtuous mourner as if he were a death-god whose name should not be directly uttered lest it draw his attention – it wasn’t anything Nie Huaisang had accepted as a personal title, utterly inauspicious as it was, but if he didn’t take one soon, he’d be stuck with it. If he wasn’t already.

People were simply uncomfortable calling him Nie-er-gongzi the way they had before, and Lan Xichen didn’t blame them one bit – the Nie-er-gongzi of the past was unrecognizable in the man of today.

But neither could he blame Nie Huaisang for refusing the title of Sect Leader Nie as long as his brother still had a single spark of life in his body.

Nie Mingjue…

Lan Xichen missed him terribly.

He knew he didn’t have the right to – Nie Huaisang had made that clear enough – but he did. He missed his old friend, with his confidence and his kindness and his goodness. He missed having a confidant who esteemed him and who trusted him, who shared everything with him without a moment’s hesitation, who always tried his best and honored those who did the same.

He’d once, and only once, caught a brief glimpse of Nie Mingjue after everything had happened: he’d been in bed, pale as death, face quiet and slack and peaceful in a way it never was, with doctors surrounding him. At the time, they were working furiously to save his life as Nie Huaisang paced furiously outside the door, refusing food and only drinking enough water to replenish the tears that streamed endlessly down his face.

That had been early on, before they’d realized Nie Mingjue had lapsed into a deep coma from which there was no telling when or if he would awake and, even if he did, in what state he would be left in. That had been before Nie Huaisang had banned Lan Xichen from the Unclean Realm…banned everyone, really, hosting them anywhere else he could rather than allow them anywhere near his brother when he was vulnerable.

Before he’d slowly started giving up hope. Before they all had.

It’d been years, after all. Surely if Nie Mingjue’s indomitable strength could heal him, it would have done so by now?

Of course, even if Nie Mingjue did eventually wake up, it wasn’t as if Lan Xichen would get his friend back the way it had once been. Nie Mingjue had always been righteous to the point of rigidity, willing to make the hard choices to punish those who had done wrong no matter their identity, and Lan Xichen had failed him so thoroughly, so completely…

Guiltily, too, he knew that if Nie Mingjue woke up, he’d undoubtedly step up as general once more, coordinating everything the way he had during the Sunshot Campaign – and that meant they wouldn’t need to rely on Lan Xichen’s assistance anymore.

Nie Huaisang had made that clear, too.

Whoever had raised his ire by sending him that message that had pulled him away from their work together…well, they’d better have a very good excuse. Nie Huaisang hated to be interrupted, his temper as short as anyone in his family’s had ever been, and his tongue was more poisonous than Jiang Cheng’s.

Lan Xichen would know, being its most frequent target.

Nie Huaisang had never forgiven Lan Xichen in his part in preserving Jin Guangyao’s life, and lacking the actual assassin to rend to bits, he had grimly decided to make do with the accomplice. He needled Lan Xichen at every instance, taunting him with his failures and deficiencies, making nasty jibes and underhanded remarks that cut deep – and Lan Xichen deserved every single one of them.

Back then, it had been Lan Xichen who had hesitated, refusing to believe the truth. Refusing to believe that his then (and, perhaps, still) beloved A-Yao could ever do such terrible things of which he had been accused, either at his time in the Nightless City or the assassination of Nie Mingjue – he had pushed back, prevaricated, insisted on investigating more, finding out more…in the end the truth had come out in all its ugly wretched filthy glory and the only thing his foot-dragging and indecisiveness that he’d pretended was a devotion to justice had gotten him was Nie Huaisang’s endless disdain.

The worst of it, though, wasn’t the humiliation or the insults, nor his feelings of failure and guilt.

No, it was the way his foolish heart raced at how Nie Huaisang looked now, with all restraint a distant memory – the sharp Nie features on his delicate face turning from blurred to clear as the childhood fat on his cheeks melted away; the intelligence that flashed in his eyes, now unhidden by any pretense or indifference; the utter brilliance in the casual way he rattled off orders, effortlessly taking command without permitting any backtalk; the way he moved, a mixture of the martial general and a dancer’s grace; the way everything about him perfectly fit to Lan Xichen’s taste –

He really was a fool.

He had a crush on you for years, Lan Xichen reminded himself. Nie Mingjue even told you about it, he’d even approved of it back then if only you were interested, and yet you pretended you knew nothing. But now, now when he hates you, despises you, sees you as little better than a worm to crush beneath his heel, now is when you finally choose to see what’s always been there?

He hadn’t said anything to Nie Huaisang about it, of course. There wasn’t any point when Nie Huaisang already thought of him in the worst possible terms – weakling, willfully blind, murderer – and he could easily imagine how it might go, if he ever tried anything.

(“I heard some soldiers say that I resemble Jin Guangyao,” Nie Huaisang had mused one day, his hands locked behind his back as he looked down at their troops training in the field. His voice was cold as ice and sharp as a blade. “Though there’s some disagreement as to whether it’s my face or the devious turns of my mind that bring up the comparison. I thought I’d ask you, Zewu-jun, you being the expert and all – am I a good replacement? A suitable stand-in? If I smile at you enough times, will you do whatever I say without question, the way you did for him?”

I would already do anything for you, Lan Xichen had thought at the time, full of sorrow. In a way that goes well beyond what I felt for him. But even if I told you, you wouldn’t believe me, would you?)

No, it was clear enough to Lan Xichen that his father’s blood ran strong in him, dooming him to only love where he was not loved in return, and to finally realize the strength of that love only when it was too late.  At least it seemed that Lan Wangji had escaped that fate with Wei Wuxian, their earlier misunderstandings aside.

A moment later, as if summoned by his thoughts, the man himself appeared.

“Oh, Zewu-jun, there you are! Have you seen Nie-xiong?” Wei Wuxian asked, popping his head in through the door. Lan Wangji was a few steps behind him, waiting patiently as he always did – he was always patient with Wei Wuxian, gentle in a manner that reminded Lan Xichen of the way he sometimes cared for the wild rabbits back at the Cloud Recesses.

They hadn’t spoken much, of late. Lan Wangji had understood Lan Xichen’s weakness and had not held it against him, but that didn’t mean Lan Xichen had forgiven himself, nor did it lessen the sting of shame he felt over events he felt must have lost him the respect of his younger brother, no matter how Lan Wangji denied it – it was easier to focus on matters of war.

“He was called away suddenly, I’m afraid,” Lan Xichen said. “He left a few shichen ago, but he said he’d be back in time for dinner.”

“Dinner has already passed,” Lan Wangji said, his voice neutral – an obvious reprimand for Lan Xichen for having not noticed, shaded with concern over the way Lan Xichen didn’t always eat the way he should. He wouldn’t be hurt by it, he practiced inedia the way they all did, of course, but that didn’t mean he should miss meals if he didn’t have to. “He has not yet returned?”

“Not that I’ve noticed. But if it’s that late, he should be back soon. Do you need him for something urgent?”

“As urgent as anything else in this war,” Wei Wuxian said with a shrug. “If you see him, let us know.”

“Why do you assume I’ll see him first?” Lan Xichen asked, a little amused, but Wei Wuxian blinked at him as if he’d said something foolish.

“He always comes to you first,” he said. “Hadn’t you noticed?”

Lan Xichen’s breath caught briefly – no, he hadn’t noticed, and his mind immediately started to race, his heart growing warm…but no. He only was being foolish again. As the army’s courier, its administrator, Lan Xichen was the obvious person for Nie Huaisang to contact if he wanted to get his plans spread out to everyone as soon as possible.

There didn’t have to be anything more to it than that.

“So when he arrives, if you could just tell him –”

“No need,” Lan Wangji interrupted. “He is approaching.”

A few moments later, and it was clear from the footsteps that Lan Wangji was right, as always – when Lan Wangji was younger, Lan Xichen used to tease him about having the ears of a bat, capable of detecting everything, and sometimes he really thought it might be true.

They waited, and the door opened, and Lan Xichen instinctively turned away as Nie Huaisang let himself in, not wanting to see those hard eyes turn even harder, the instinctive sneer that rose to Nie Huaisang’s lips at the sight of him that it always took him an extra moment to suppress.

“Nie-xiong?” Wei Wuxian asked, his voice rising a register in his shock. “What happened?”

Lan Xichen turned back at once, suddenly cold all over in terror. Had Nie Huaisang been injured? Some ambush, some attack, or worst of all a garrote made of guqin string the way he’d so foolishly taught A-Yao – but no, when he examined him with his eyes, Nie Huaisang looked hale as always, but for the redness and swelling around his eyes.

He looked for all the world as if he’d been –

Crying?

And yet Lan Xichen knew that Nie Huaisang hadn’t wept in years. One could probably accurately say that Nie Huaisang hadn’t had any expression in years, nothing that wasn’t a sneer or a grimace, maybe at best a smirk. What could have caused him to do so now…?

Nie Huaisang shook his head and unexpectedly – smiled.

A real true smile, his eyes curving into crescents and wrinkling at the corners, his cheeks glowing pink and his teeth flashing just like when he was younger and more innocent and smiled like that all the time. A smile of the sort that Lan Xichen hadn’t appreciated when he had it, the sort he’d thought was lost forever.

Lan Xichen’s heart stopped in his chest.

He wished he could stop this moment, too, to keep it with him for the rest of time.

“It’s da-ge,” Nie Huaisang said, beaming. “He woke up.”

Oh, Lan Xichen thought. Oh.

Oh no.

[fakeikemen]

Katara's Grief

(This is my first attempt at a meta post and I know that this has probably been already done but I just needed to get it off my chest and go on a little rant and it kinda got long so bear with me.)

A lot of the hate on Katara stems from the fact that she keeps on mentioning her mother's death at every chance she gets and invalidates other people's pain to assert that her suffering is the worst of the lot.

And even though everybody is entitled to their own opinions, I'm gonna point out why I think the aforesaid claims are not exactly correct.

First we'll take a look at; Katara's Backstory:

We know that Kya is killed in a fire nation raid and that Katara had been the last person to see her alive before she leaves the tent on her mother's insistence. Only to come back a few moments later and find her dead body. This, in itself is a traumatising event.

So yes, her mother died. Other people in the story go through far worse. You're not wrong when you say that.

But what is more important in Katara's story is the aftermath of her mother's death.

As Sokka says while talking to Toph in "The Runaway" in B3 Ep7:

Sokka: When our mom died, that was the hardest time in my life. Our family was a mess, but Katara? She had so much strength. She stepped up and took on so much responsibility. She helped fill the void that was left by our mom.

As an eight year old, she had to force herself to grow up to step into her mother's shoes and raise herself and her elder brother and simultaneously look after the entire village after her father left to fight in the war. She had to do all of it by herself.

In face of all her responsibilities, she never really had the chance to simply be a grieving child lamenting the loss of her mother. She habituated herself to caring more about others than herself (We see this trait in the entire series as she acts as the stand-in mom friend for the entire Gaang with an exception of Suki and Zuko). She ended up bottling her feelings of grief, resentment, guilt and rage deep within herself.

She had to give up an extensive part of her childhood where most children focus on figuring themselves out, to become a mature and responsible person who was working as the immovable pillar holding up the family and even the whole village not much later.

She put up a strong front to help others and pretended to be fine even though she was hurting inside the whole time.

She could never find any closure from the situation. She never got over it.

Moving on to the criticisms:

1. Katara keeps on mentioning her mother like a broken record:

Here are the number of times Katara mentions her mother's death (not sure if that's all of it, lmk if there are any others):

1. In her first scene with Sokka

Katara: Ever since mom died, I've been doing all the work around camp while you've been off playing soldier!

2. A short while after she meets Aang

Katara: Well, I just want you to be prepared for what you might see. The Fire Nation is ruthless. They killed my mother, and they could have done the same to your people.

3. A short while after she meets Haru

Katara: I lost my mother in a Fire Nation raid. This necklace is all I have left of her.

4. A short while after she meets Jet

Katara: Sokka and I lost our mother to the Fire Nation.

5. In the swamp after she sees a vision of her mother

Katara: I thought I saw Mom.

6. In the Crystal Catacombs with Zuko

Katara: I don't? How dare you! You have no idea what this war has put me through! Me personally! The Fire Nation took my mother away from me.

7. A short while after she meets Hama

Katara: We completely understand. We lost our mother in a raid.

8. Repeated mentions in The Southern Raiders episode

(Most of the episode basically)

The first mention with Sokka is in the middle of a siblings' spat where she tells off Sokka for trying to act as if he were superior when it was obvious that in the face of the gaping hole that was left by Kya's sudden death, Katara had shouldered much more responsibility.

When she tells it to Aang, she uses it as a proof that the Fire Nation is capable of immense cruelty and destruction.

The Gaang travel all around the world and meet different people affected by the war in different ways. So when Haru, Jet and Hama narrate their own stories, Katara sympathises with them and talks about Kya's death in lieu of "I understand, the Fire Nation hurt me too."

After they got separated, Aang, Sokka and Katara each had their visions and after they get back together, they all mention their visions and so does Katara.

When left alone in catacombs with Zuko, whom she considered as the face of the Fire Nation— the same Fire Nation that had her mother killed and forced her father to leave to fight in the war, she has a meltdown where she rightfully accuses him of all the bad things he's done and then breaks down while talking about how the war has cost her i.e., by causing her mother's death.

The Southern Raiders is the episode where Katara hunts down the man responsible for her mother's death. If you think mentioning Kya repeatedly in this episode is uncalled for, then I don't know what to tell you.

In all the incidents mentioned above, Katara mentioning her mother's death is a very natural occurrence is the respective conversations. She mostly talks about Kya's death to either extend her sympathy or to use it as an example of the ruthlessness of the Fire Nation.

Another fact to be noted is that 70% of the Gaang's storyline is followed via Katara from a narrative point of view. Plus, being the mom-friend, she acts as the spokesperson. Considering that Kya's death is a major event that played a huge role in shaping Katara's life and is also the source of her severe, unresolved trauma, which acts as the driving force of her story, it is only natural that she brings up this topic whenever she is engaging in a deeper conversation.

It is us as the viewers who have seen her from the start and already know about her mother's death and we see her talking to multiple people about it. Which is why it might come across as repetitive to some people.

While, Kya's death is not necessary information that everyone needs to know, Katara talking about it never comes across as a forced or unnatural.

2. Katara invalidates others' pain because she thinks she has suffered the most:

First of all, if anything, Katara is the most empathetic person of them all. As the mom-friend of the group, not only is she their constant moral support, she also helps them untangle and sort out their own feelings. She is also able to tap into issues that aren't said out loud.

Instances of Katara helping and supporting Aang, emotionally are uncountable.

She is the first one to notice Sokka's sour mood in B3 Ep4 "Sokka's Master". And even though his insecurities seem baseless, she validates him (by saying "I'm sorry you're feeling so down" instead of something like "That's a dumb thing to say") and knows exactly what to do to cheer him up.

In B3 Ep7 "The Runaway" she has the insight to understand that Toph's unruly behaviour is caused by the mixed feelings she has about her parents even though Toph's herself never talked about it.

She even reaches out to Zuko in B2 Ep19 "Crossroads of Destiny" even though she used to think of him as the face of the enemy.

But then there's The Southern Raiders.

Ah yes, that episode where Katara is extremely OOC and a total b*tch.

Agreed that she said some things that she definitely shouldn't have said. But like, she's just 14?? And has been hurting on the inside since she was 8?? And pretended to be fine just for the sake of other people?? Like, there's a limit to how much she can have her shit under control?? And she did a real good job of Sokka's upbringing and taking care of the village and taking care of Gaang on her own?? Some people out there are really willing to forget everything she has ever done just because she was mean for 5 minutes?? A traumatised 14 yo shouldn't be villianised and called toxic because she got mad and lashed out at people that one time??

But here's my take on the scene anyway:

When Aang gets to know that she's going to go face her mother's killer:

Aang: Um ... and what exactly do you think this will accomplish?

Katara: I knew you wouldn't understand. 

Aang is a non-confrontational person who prefers running away from difficult situations as opposed to Katara who firmly stands her ground and is never afraid of confrontations. Katara had approached Aang only hoping that he would understand. But going by his dismissal, he obviously doesn't understand the burning need that she has to confront the man who had single-handedly destroyed her childhood. (Most people infer that what Katara means is that she thinks that Aang doesn't understand the pain of losing people. And so does Aang, I guess)

But things start getting even more tricky when:

Aang: Katara, you sound like Jet.

In all honesty, this is probably the most insensitive thing that she could've heard from anyone right then, let alone one of her closest friends. Hearing herself being compared to a homicidal maniac just because she wants to avenge her mother's killer. (No, I'm not justifying murder but there's a clear difference between homicide and avenging someone's death. And Aang may not be my favourite character but I do love him but this wasn't really a good thing to say either. And he wasn't even mentally distressed in the very least to be completely lacking tact or a filter.)

And then the situation escalates:

Sokka: Katara, she was my mother, too, but I think Aang might be right.

Katara: Then you didn't love her the way I did!

After 6 long years of Katara bottling in her dark feelings and letting them fester inside herself, she is finally letting them out and the first things she faces in a span of few minutes are outright rejection, invalidation of her feelings, comparison to a homicidal maniac and nothing akin to the unconditional support that she has provided to everybody. Her own brother tells her that he is siding with the boy who just compared her to a homicidal maniac.

Yes, accusing your own brother of not loving your mother enough is a very cruel thing to do. But both Sokka and Katara know that she doesn't entirely mean it.

But also, there is one very important factor in here:

In B3 Ep7 "The Runaway", Sokka says to Toph:

Sokka: I'm gonna tell you something crazy. I never told anyone this before, but honestly? I'm not sure I can remember what my mother looked like. It really seems like my whole life, Katara's been the one looking out for me. She's always been the one that's there. And now, when I try to remember my mom, Katara's is the only face I can picture. 

Katara overhears this conversation just as Sokka had meant her to.

This dialogue lets us know that Sokka's coping mechanism has made him suppress all memories of Kya and replace them with memories of Katara in order to attain a semblance of normalcy.

Both Katara and Sokka had very different ways of coping with Kya's death. Katara pressed down her feelings and tried her best to pretend to ignore them while Sokka partially succeeded in forgetting her.

When Katara first hears these words she is shown to be crying. But if she were to remember these very words while she was justifying herself infront of her own brother and a close friend for wanting to avenge her mother, it would've had a negative impact on her.

In her rage, she would've thought: "Of course he doesn't want to avenge mom. Because he doesn't think it's worth it and that's because he doesn't even remember enough of her to be mad about her death."

And for someone who has spent each day of the last 6 years trying to fill in the shoes of her mother and experiencing her absence everyday, the idea of forgetting her mother is a ridiculous concept to her.

Her thoughts would have quickly derailed to: "He didn't love her enough to remember her."

In light of these thoughts, saying "Then you didn't love her the way I did" doesn't feel out of the blue.

No, I am definitely not justifying what she said, I'm just laying out a possible explanation to why she said what she said.

Yes, she should've apologized to Sokka for this and I think that they definitely should've had a long conversation about their mother's death and how it affected them. Between Katara supressing her feelings and Sokka supressing his memories, i don't think they ever had this conversation.

But sadly we are given neither of these scenes.

Tl;dr: Everytime Katara mentions her mother, it's with good reason and I don't think it's fair to call a character toxic when they lack a mind to mouth filter for 5 minutes and say some mean things. And considering all that Katara has done for everybody, it isn't fair at all.

Peace out!

[skullsandwineglasses]

Arsenal Military Academy (2019) Full Review

My first impressions of episodes 1-13 can be found here. I think I was a little dubious at first, but now that I’ve finished the drama, I have to say that I really enjoyed it. This is going to be a short(ish) review because I just don’t have much to complain about. [SPOILERS AHEAD]

The Leads

Xu Kai shines as Gu Yanzhen. Much more than he did as Mo Qing in The Legends. Gu Yanzhen is just such a fun character. While yes, he is an overgrown and spoiled rich kid, he has a great character arc. He learns how to be responsible, caring, devoted, and considerate. Whether it’s love or serving his country, once he’s devoted to something, he’ll put his whole heart into it, which makes him a great friend and leader. And despite his maturation and all that he’s been through, he still stays cheeky and playful until the end. 

That’s what I really like about this drama. It’s consistent. Both in terms of plot and character. And for cdramas, consistency is something that’s often butchered. This drama is 48 episodes long, which was perfect for developing all the plot points in the story. At first I was worried about the length. But the plot is so well-paced. There was no filler, and if there was, then I didn’t even noticed because I enjoyed all of the scenes and interactions between the characters. 

Bai Lu was great at switching between cross-dressing as her brother, and being her “true” self. She carried off being both masculine and feminine, and I enjoyed seeing these two sides of her character. What I also appreciated about this drama is how even when she is revealed to be a girl, nothing really changes in terms of how she acts or how she’s treated by others. Her classmates still call her by her brother’s name. She wears the same clothes, talks the same, walks the same. Of course, by that point, most people have already found out, but for the characters who haven’t found out yet, they don’t dwell on this revelation. They don’t say sexist things about her appearance or mannerisms. They treat her the same as they always have. At first, I was worried that the drama would have a dramatic plot shift after her identity is officially revealed, but there wasn’t a shift. Her reveal was actually not that big of a plot point. (Yes, she was put in prison and accused of killing the chief, but this was resolved in like 2-3 episodes). It blended in seamless with the rest of the plot, and there were bigger issues in the story to address. 

In my First Impressions review, I complained that Xie Xiang was a bit of a flat character. I still think she’s a little underwhelming in comparison to some of the other characters in the drama, but she was watchable and relatable, and she definitely grew on me more as the drama went on. I also applaud her for recognizing her feelings for Gu Yanzhen (I was worried that the drama would make her be conflicted between them), but she did frustrate me a little with how she couldn’t be upfront with Shen Junshan and just strung him along. 

Again, I liked seeing the different sides of her character. Xie Xiang was never a tomboy growing up. She likes theatre and the arts. She likes acting, dancing, and singing. She likes dressing up and accessorizing (when appropriate). Her best friend, Tan Xiao Jun, acts as a foil and shows us what Xie Xiang is really like (or used to be before joining the academy). But her brother was a huge influence and inspiration for her. She learned how to fight from him. She learned what is means to be righteous and fight for justice from him. But she doesn’t want to become him; she just wants to fulfill his dreams. In the academy, she isn’t the best student, nor does she want to be. She doesn’t want to compete with the others, but she just wants to best the best cadet that she can be. It’s all about challenging herself and pushing her own limits, not comparing herself to everyone else in the class.  

Supporting Characters

All of the secondary characters are great. Side characters and villains all served a unique purpose. Villains, such as Jin Xin Rong and the bully in the academy, were sympathetic characters. They all had their own backstories and development arcs, but they didn’t detract from the focus on the leads. In fact, the drama never strayed from the leads, unlike some cdramas were sometimes the focus would move away from the protagonists as the drama dragged on. Importantly, all the subplots were interwoven, and each mission that they completed progressed the plot and developed character relationships. I had a lot of praise for Qu Manting in my First Impressions review, so I won’t go into it again here, but she was a great second female lead (even though I did wish that she had less scenes with Gu Yanzhen). I was also surprised that she’s my age (and also Xu Kai’s age). She’s such a mature and steady actor. 

Edit: Just found out that Toby Lee who played Shen Junshan was the guy in Soulmate?? Didn’t recognize him at all. 

Plot

I loved the humour in this drama. It was quick, witty, and smart. But the drama did take a serious turn in the last arc where there were deaths of 3 prominent supporting characters, which was really surprising. I thought the drama would be a light-hearted comedy all the way through. So when I saw that it was possible for a prominent supporting character to die, I realized that there could be some real and serious consequences for characters in the drama. 

Speaking of deaths, I was also surprised by the amount of violence and liberal killing in the drama. The cadets at the academy never hesitated to kill, and murdering people never affected them. The writers justified the deaths by dismissing the victims as being traitors to the country, whether they were just a driver or security guard for the Japanese or a Japanese nurse or doctor. If they were affiliated with the Japanese and got in the way of a mission, then the leads would kill them. At times it felt like a video game because the cadets would use so much gunpowder to just plow through anyone who was an inconvenience to the mission. The drama also really advocates revenge, which was also really shocking. Revenge can be engaging to watch when it’s fictional, but I don’t morally agree with revenge, so I was surprised that a drama with so much killing and a revenge fetish was allowed to get past censorship. 

Overall, the plot was really good. The drama rarely ever dragged, except for maybe episodes 22-26 where it felt like Gu Yanzhen didn’t really have anything to do with the main plot, but the drama recovers quickly after that. Episodes 16 and 31 are probably my favourite in terms of interactions between the ML and FL. 17-22 are when they’re separated and bond with the supporting leads instead. That was clearly a purposeful move by the writers. They gave us peak sweetness between the leads and then separated them immediately afterwards. Those episodes made me worry that they would be angst, but there wasn’t. Those episodes showed that even when the leads were separated and went through hardships with someone else, they still thought about each other. Again, another example of how every mission progresses the plot and develops character. 

In terms of the romantic plot, I would say that about three quarters of the drama is about characters liking people who don’t like them back, and what you get is a convoluted love rectangle that expands to a pentagon. What I like about Gu Yanzhen is that while he can be childish and obnoxious, he gives Xie Xiang a lot of space. There were some scenes when either Huang Song or Shen Junshan was trying to pursue her and I was like, why isn’t Gu Yanzhen here to intervene? But then I realize that it’s actually good that he isn’t constantly stalking her. Gu Yanzhen may seem possessive at the academy, but he doesn’t prevent her from doing things either on or off campus. On the other hand, when Shen Junshan figures out Xie Xiang’s true identity, he acts entitled to her to the point where it feels manipulative. He would tell Xie Liang Chen that he’s meeting Xie Xiang for lunch, knowing that this would prompt Xie Xiang to dress up and rush off campus to meet him. He changed her room without asking her first, saying it was for her own good. I might have to rewatch the earlier episodes, but I don’t think Gu Yanzhen ever used her secret to underhandedly leverage power against her like that. I don’t think he ever tried to “test” her. It was only after she found out that he knew when he started to teasingly blackmail her with her secret in order to get her to wash his clothes or be nice to him, but this was done upfront to her face, so she knows what she’s dealing with. And also despite being constantly annoyed by him, Xie Xiang feels very comfortable with him. She trusts him. She knows that no matter what, he would never share her secret, so she was able to be herself with him from the beginning. In contrast, there was always a distance and formality between Xie Xiang and Shen Junshan, even though they went through a lot together.

The bigger question is why Gu Yanzhen fell for Xie Xiang instead of Qu Manting. I think it has to do with how Gu Yanzhen likes who he is whenever he’s with Xie Xiang. Manting is too much like his playboy self, so it always feels like he’s putting on an act or playing a game when he’s with her. They clash too much and both have huge egos, even though Manting has done so much for him and has seen him at his most vulnerable. But Xie Xiang is someone whom he wants to unconditionally protect and support. He teases and flirts with her, knowing that he’ll get a scolding and a beating. He wants to expend energy with Xie Xiang, but is fatigued with Manting. Xie Xiang is simple, down-to-earth, and has a purpose. She’s everything he isn’t. She anchors him, while he gets her to open and loosen up in what is otherwise a threatening and uptight environment. A classic example of how opposites attract. 

The Ending

The main character of this drama is the academy. Go figure since that’s the drama’s name. So it made sense that the final shot would be of the academy. Gu Yanzhen and Xie Xiang are shown walking off into the sunset just before that. And while I was really curious to see what their life would be like beyond the academy (I mean, what skills do they even have besides military prowess? What are they even going to do in terms of careers?), it made sense that the last shot we see of them is them leaving the academy. Their future is left to the imagination, almost like a fairy tale. That’s because their story is only one of many that comes out the academy. Their future is uncertain, but the future of the academy is certain. The academy is like a beacon, and it will continue to be here even long after the leads are gone. 

The deaths of Huang Song and Instructor Guo were just tragic. Huang Song never got to find out Xie Xiang’s true identity despite being her closest friend, and he had such a bright future and so many goals. Instructor Guo, who spent the last 2 decades in depression, never got to have his happily ever after. Li Wen Zhong finally redeemed himself, and yet the writers had him sacrifice himself. I thought their deaths were needless, but I did see how their deaths had narrative purpose. It still really, really sucks though.

I think I’ll give this drama an 8.5/10 if not a 9/10. It’s been a while since I last watched a drama with consistent pacing. Wish I could watch this drama for the first time again. 

Going to end the review with some pictures. 

The worldbuilding was really immersive thanks to the costumes, colour grading, OST, and set designs. 

Look at the power stances of this ensemble cast. They’re unstoppable. 

I can’t get over these two. Such a different dynamic from The Legends, but still so much chemistry. 

And deleted scenes though!! I don’t remember this sit-up scene in the drama. 

[dwellordream]

“To understand what friendship between women was, we must first understand what it was not. Before turning to the ways in which female friendship illustrated the play of the Victorian gender system, we must develop grounds for distinguishing it from other relationships between women. This is a detour, for the subject of this chapter is female friendship; erotic desire and marriage between women are the focus of subsequent sections. But friendship, erotic infatuation, and female marriage have so often been conflated, and women’s relationships so commonly understood as essentially ambiguous, that the detour is a necessary one. 

The language of Victorian friendship was so ardent, the public face of female marriage so amicable, the comparisons between female friendship and marriage between men and women so constant, that it is no simple task to distinguish female friends from female lovers or female couples. The question “did they have sex?” is the first one on people’s lips today when confronted with a claim that women in the past were lovers—and it is almost always unanswerable. If firsthand testimony about sex is the standard for defining a relationship as sexual, then most Victorians never had sex. Scholars have yet to determine whether Thomas Carlyle was impotent; when, if ever, John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor consummated their relationship; or if Arthur Munby and Hannah Cullwick, whose diaries recorded their experiments with fetishes, cross-dressing, and bootlicking, also had genital intercourse.

Just as one can read hundreds of Victorian letters, diaries, and memoirs without finding a single mention of menstruation or excretion, one rarely finds even oblique references to sex between husband and wife. Men and women were equally reticent about sexual activity inside and outside of marriage. In a journal that described her courtship and wedding in detail, Lady Knightley dispatched the first weeks of wedded life in two lines: “Rainald and I entered on our new life in our own home. May God bless it to us” (173). Elizabeth Butler, whose autobiography included “a little sketch of [her] rather romantic meeting” with the man who became her husband, was similarly and typically laconic about a transition defined by sexual intercourse: “June 11 of that year, 1877, was my wedding day.” 

The lack of reliable evidence of sexual activity becomes less problematic, however, if we realize that sex matters because of the social relationships it creates and concentrate on those relationships. In Victorian England, sex was assumed to be part of marriage, but could also drop out of marriage without destroying a bond never defined by sex alone. The diaries and correspondence of Anne Lister and Charlotte Cushman provide solid evidence that nineteenth-century women had genital contact and orgasms with other women, but even more importantly, they demonstrate that sex created different kinds of connections. The fleeting encounters Lister had with women she met abroad were very different from the illicit but sustained affair Cushman had with a much younger woman who became her daughter-in-law. 

Those types of affairs were in turn worlds apart from the relationships with women that Lister and Cushman called marriages, a term that did not simply mean the relationships were sexual but also connoted shared households, mingled property, and assumptions about exclusivity and durability. We can best understand what kinds of relationships women had with each other not by hunting for evidence of sex, which even if we find it will not explain much, but rather by anchoring women’s own statements about their relationships in a larger context. 

The context I provide here is the complex linguistic field of lifewriting, which brings into focus two types of relationships often confused with friendship, indeed often called friendship, but significantly different from it: 1) unrequited passion and obsessive infatuation; and 2) life partnerships, which some Victorians described as marriages between women. The most famous and best-documented example of a Victorian woman’s avowed but unreciprocated passion for another woman is Edith Simcox’s lifelong love for George Eliot, which has made her a staple figure in histories of lesbianism.

Simcox (1844–1901) was a trade-union organizer and professional writer who regularly contributed book reviews to the periodical press and published fiction and nonfiction, including a study of women’s property ownership in ancient societies, discussed in chapter 5. From 1876 to 1900, Simcox kept a journal in a locked book that surfaced in 1930. Simcox gave her life story a title, The Autobiography of a Shirtmaker, that foregrounded her successful work as a labor activist, but its actual content focused on what Simcox called “the lovepassion of her life,” her longing for George Eliot as an unattainable, idealized beloved whom she called “my goddess” or, even more reverently, “Her.”

Simcox knowingly embraced a love that could not be returned, though she was aware of reciprocated, consummated sexual love between women. Her diary alludes to a “lovers’ quarrel” among three women she knew (61) and mentions her own rejection of a woman who “professed a feeling for me different from what she had ever had for any one, it might make her happiness if I could return it” (159). Tellingly, though twentieth-century scholars often refer to Simcox euphemistically as Eliot’s devoted “friend,” Simcox rarely used the term, and modeled herself instead on a courtly lover made all the more devoted by the one-sidedness of her passion. Simcox defined her diary as an “acta diurna amoris,” a daily act of love, and aspired to keep it with a constancy that would mirror her total absorption in Eliot (3). 

After bringing Eliot two valentines in February 1878, Simcox wrote: “Yesterday I went to see her, and have been in a calm glow of happiness since:—for no special reason, only that to have been near her happens to have that effect on me. . . . I did nothing but make reckless love to her . . . I had told her of my ambition to be allowed to lie silently at her feet as she pursued her occupations” (25). George Lewes, the companion whom Eliot’s friends referred to as her husband, was present at most of these scenes, and he and Eliot tolerated and even enjoyed Simcox’s attentions, which they consciously construed as loverlike. 

During a conversation about Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s love poems, Sonnets from the Portugese, Eliot told Simcox “she wished my letters could be printed in the same veiled way— ‘the Newest Heloise,’” thus situating Simcox’s missives to her in the tradition of amatory literature (39). In private, Simcox indulged fantasies of a more sensual connection, reflecting on a persistent “love that made the longing and molded the caress,” and recalling how “[i]n thinking of her, kisses used to form themselves instinctively on my lips—I seldom failed to kiss her a good night in thought” (136). 

In trying to define her love for Eliot, Simcox significantly refused to be content with one paradigm; instead, she accumulated analogies, comparing her love for Eliot to both “[m]arried love and passionate friendship” (60). Like a medieval ascetic, Simcox eroticized her lack of sexual fulfillment, arguing that her love was even more powerful than friendship or marriage because, in resigning herself to living “widowed of perfect joy,” she had felt “sharp flames consuming what was left . . . of selfish lust” (60).

In an unsent 1880 letter to Eliot, Simcox again found herself unable to select only one category to explain her love: “Do you see darling that I can only love you three lawful ways, idolatrously as Frater the Virgin Mary, in romance wise as Petrarch, Laura, or with a child’s fondness for the mother” (120). By implication, Simcox also suggested that there would be an unlawful way to love Eliot—as an adulterer who would usurp the uxurious role already occupied by Lewes. She concluded by explaining that her relationship with Eliot was too unequal to be a friendship (120). 

In the absence of the sociological and scientific shorthand provided by sexology or a codified subculture, and in the absence of a genuinely shared life that could be represented by a common history or joint possessions, women like Simcox represented their unrequited sexual desire for other women by extravagantly combining incompatible terms such as mother, lover, sister, friend, wife, and idol. Other women deployed similar rhetorical techniques of intensification and accumulation to express sexual loves that were not equally felt and did not lead to long-term partnerships. 

At age twenty, Sophia Jex-Blake (1840–1912), one of England’s first female doctors and an activist who helped open medical education to women, met philanthropist Octavia Hill (1838–1912). In a biography of Jex-Blake written in 1918 that still adhered to Victorian rhetorical conventions, Margaret Todd called her subject’s relationship with Hill a “friendship” but qualified it as one that made “the deepest impression . . . of any in the whole of her life.” Jex-Blake considered the degree of love she felt for women to be unusual, writing around 1858, “I believe I love women too much ever to love a man” (78). 

During a brief relationship that Hill soon broke off, the two women may have been sexually involved, but even so their feelings were never evenly matched. During the period when the women were closest, Hill reduced their bond to mere chumminess by calling herself and Jex-Blake “great companions” (85). By contrast, Jex-Blake was in awe of Hill and described her as both child and mother, roles often eroticized for Victorians, writing in her diary of “My dear loving strong child . . . I do love and reverence her” (85). Even after the relationship ended, Jex-Blake thought of Hill as her lifelong spouse, referring twenty years later to the “fanciful faithfulness” she maintained for her first love, to whom she left “the whole of her little property” in repeated wills (94). 

Like Simcox, Jex-Blake used intensified language to underscore the uniqueness of her emotions. When she described inviting Hill on a vacation that included a visit to Llangollen, a site made famous by the female couple who had lived there together, Jex-Blake wrote of her “heart beating like a hammer” (85) and then described Hill’s response: “She sunk her head on my lap silently, raised it in tears, then such a kiss!” (86). Female friends often exchanged kisses, but Jex-Blake’s account took the kiss out of the realm of friendship into one of heightened sensation. Although it was common for female friends to love each other and write gushingly about it, Simcox and Jex-Blake also wrote of feeling uncommon, different from the general run of women. 

Simcox identified closely with men and Jex-Blake felt unable to love men as most women did; both were extraordinarily autonomous, professionally successful, and self-conscious about the significance of their love for women. Other women also had intense erotic relationships that went beyond friendship, but were less self-conscious about those relationships, which they rarely saw as needing special explanation, and which usually lasted years or months rather than a lifetime. An example of outright insouciance about a deeply felt erotic fascination between women is found in the journals of Margaret Leicester Warren, written in the 1870s and published for private circulation in 1924. 

Little is known about Warren, who was born in 1847 and led the life of a typical upper-middle-class lady, attending church, studying drawing and music, and marrying a man in 1875. Her diary attests to a fondness for triangulated relationships that included an adolescent crush on her newlywed sister and her sister’s husband, and a brief, tumultuous engagement to a male cousin whose mother was the dramatic center of Warren’s intense emotions. In 1872, when Warren was twenty-five, she began to write incessantly about a distant cousin named Edith Leycester in entries that reveled in the experience of succumbing to another woman’s glamour: “Edith looked very beautiful and as usual I fell in love with her....Tonight Edith took me into her room. . . . She is like an enchanted princess. There is some charm or spell that has been thrown over her.”

 Numerous similar entries recorded an infatuation that combined daily familiarity with reverent mystification of a sophisticated and self-dramatizing woman. Warren’s fascination with Edith lasted several years. Unlike Simcox and Jex-Blake, Warren never self-consciously reflected that her feelings for Edith differed from conventional friendship, but like them, Warren ascribed an intensity, exclusivity, and volatility to her feelings for Edith absent from most accounts of female friendship. Indeed, Warren rarely referred to Edith as a friend when she wrote of her desire to see Edith every day and recorded their many exchanges of confidences, poetry, and gifts. 

Warren fetishized and idealized Edith, was fixated on her presence and absence, and used superlatives to describe the feelings she inspired. Within months of meeting Edith, most of Warren’s entries consisted of detailed reenactments of their daily visits and the emotions generated by each parting and reunion: “Edith was charming tonight and I was happier with her than I have ever been. She looked beautiful” (287). Warren created an erotic aura around Edith through the very act of writing about her, through a liberal use of adverbs and adjectives, and by infusing her friend’s most ordinary actions with dramatic implications. 

Describing how Edith invited her to visit her country home, for example, Warren wrote, “Edith came in and threw herself down on the chair and said quietly and gently ‘come to Toft!’” (291). Although Warren got along well with Edith’s rarely present husband, Rafe, she relished being alone with her and described the awkward, jealous scenes that took place whenever she had to share Edith with other women (362, 369). Warren found ways to dwell on the details of Edith’s beauty through references to fashion and contemporary art. Like many diarists, Warren had an almost novelistic capacity to observe and characterize people in terms of prevailing aesthetic forms. 

She described Edith with flowers in her hair, looking like a pre-Raphaelite painting, and recorded her desire to make images of Edith: “I sd. like to paint her. . . . It wd. make a good ‘golden witch’ a beautiful Enchantress” (290–91). A ride with Edith inspired Warren to pen another impassioned tableau: “All the way there in the brougham I looked at Edith’s beautiful profile, the lamp light shining on it, and the wind blowing her hair about—her face also, all lit up with enthusiasm and tenderness as she leant forward to Rafe and told him a long story . . . I . . . only thought how grand she was” (369–70). 

Shared confidences about Warren’s broken engagement to their male cousin became another medium for cultivating the women’s special intimacy. By assuring Warren that she did not side with the jilted fiance´, Edith declared an autonomous interest in her: “‘I wanted you to come here because— because I like you.’ She was sitting at her easel and never looking at me as she spoke for I was standing behind her, but when she said ‘because I like you,’ she looked backwards up at me with such an honest, soft, beautiful expression that any distrust I had still left of her trueness melted up into a cinder” (290). 

Just as Warren heightened her relationship with Edith by writing about it so effusively and at such length, the two women elevated it by coyly discussing what their interactions and feelings meant. Before one of her many departures from London, Edith asked Warren: “‘[A]re you sorry I am going? . . . How curious—why are you sorry?’ Then I told her a little of all she had done for me . . . how much life and pleasure and interest she had put into my life, and she said nothing but she just put out her hand and laid it on my hand and that from her means a great deal more than 100 things from anyone else” (293). Edith’s gesture drew on the repertory of friendship, but in the private theater of her journal, Warren transformed the touch of a hand into a uniquely meaningful clasp. 

This is not to say the relationship was one-sided. If Warren’s diary reports the two women’s interactions with any degree of accuracy, it is clear that both enjoyed creating an atmosphere of pent-up longing. Edith fed Warren’s infatuation with provocative questions and a skill for setting scenes: “She asked what things I cared for now? And I said with truth, for nothing— except seeing her” (303). Three days later, just before another of Edith’s departures, Warren paid a call: When tea was over, the dusk had begun and I . . . sat . . . at the open window. . . . By and bye Edith came and sat near me. . . . The room inside was nearly dark, but outside it was brilliant May moonlight. . . . Edith sat there ready to go, looking very pale and very sad with the light on her face. . . . We did not talk much. She asked me to go to the party tonight and to think of her at 11. . . . She said goodbye and she kissed me, for the first time. (303–4) 

Warren is exquisitely sensitive to every element that connotes eroticism: a darkened room, physical proximity, complicit silence, a romantic demand that the beloved remain present in her lover’s mind even when absent, a kiss whose uniqueness—“for the first time”—suggests a beginning. Any one of these actions would have been unremarkable between female friends, but comparison with other women’s diaries shows how distinctive it was for Warren to list so many gestures within one entry, without defining and therefore restricting their meaning. Warren’s attitude also distinguishes her emotions from those articulated by women who took their love for women in a more conjugal or sexual direction. Her journals combine exhaustive attention to the beloved with a pervasive indifference to interrogating what that fascination might mean. 

Never classified as friendship or love, Warren’s feelings for Edith had the advantages and limits of remaining in the realm of suggestion, where they could expand infinitely without ever being realized or checked. Women who consummated a mutual love and consolidated it by forming a conjugal household were less likely to leave records of their most impassioned moods and deeds than those whose love went unrequited or undefined. Indeed, women in what were sometimes called “female marriages” (a term I discuss further in chapter 5) used lifewriting to claim the privilege of privacy accorded to opposite-sex spouses. 

Like the lifewritings of women married to men, those of women in female marriages assumed intimacy and interdependence rather than displaying it, and folded their sexual bond into a social one. They described shared households and networks of acquaintances who recognized and thus legitimated the women’s coupledom, liberally using words such as “always,” “never,” and “every” to convey an iterated, daily familiarity more typical of spouses than friends. 

Martha Vicinus’s Intimate Friends cites many nineteenth-century women who described their relationships with other women as marriages, and Magnus Hirschfeld’s magisterial, international study of The Homosexuality of Men and Women (1914) noted that same sex couples often created “marriage-like associations characterized by the exclusivity and long duration of the relationships, the living together and the common household, the sharing of every interest, and often the existence of legitimate community property.” 

Sexual relationships of all stripes were most acceptable when their sexual nature was least visible as such but was instead manifested in terms of marital acts such as cohabitation, fidelity, financial solidarity, and adherence to middle-class norms of respectability. Because friendship between women was so clearly defined and prized, one way to acknowledge a female couple’s existence while respecting their privacy was to call women who were in effect married to each other “friends.” Given that “friends” was used to describe women who were lovers and women who were not, how can we tell when “friends” means more than just friends? 

…There are many instances of published writing acknowledging marital relationships between women by calling them friendships. Victorian women in female couples were not automatically subject to the exposure and scandal visited on opposite-sex couples who stepped outside the bounds of respectable sexual behavior. Instead, many female couples enjoyed both the right to privacy associated with marriage and the public privileges accorded to female friendship. The Halifax Guardian obituary of Anne Lister in 1840 recognized her longstanding spousal relationship with Anne Walker by calling her Lister’s “friend and companion,” a gratuitously compound phrase.

Emily Faithfull, whom we will encounter again in chapter 6, was a feminist with a long history of female lovers. An 1894 article entitled “An Afternoon Tea with Miss Emily Faithfull” described her home in Manchester, decorated by “Miss Charlotte Robinson,” whom Faithfull readily disclosed “shares house with me.”80 Faithfull left all her property to Robinson in a will that called her “my beloved friend” whose “countless services” and “affectionate tenderness and care . . . made the last few years of my life the happiest I ever spent.” To call one woman another’s superlative friend was not to disavow their marital relationship but to proclaim it in the language of the day.”

- Sharon Marcus, “Friendship and the Play of the System.” in Between Women: Friendship, Desire, and Marriage in Victorian England

[valley-of-the-lost]

I don't know if you watched BPA, but.. I have a question, that I don't know if you can answer this, but it's been nagging at me (this is a multi-part ask, this will be a quick rundown): A blog that used to be interested in Barbie claimed that BPA has some racist undertones; this is because, as they claimed, due to the antagonist (who has, as they put it, brown skin) tries to take over the kingdom of a white princess/queen. 1/?- Barbie Multiverse Anon

Okay, so, a quick explanation. This ask has been sitting in my inbox for a few days, and I sincerely apologize to Multiverse Anon for making them wait this long for me to weigh in on this. When I received this ask I was neck-deep in part of an art challenge that wore me out and I had not watched BPA (which I assumed was Barbie Princess Adventure) at the time, and I felt that this was the type of ask that I needed to chew on for a couple days and talk to some people before I was certain of my thoughts on it.

Now, I have done some cursory research, watched Barbie Princess Adventure myself, and bounced it off some of my friends for their take as well. Thus I will attempt to answer this to the best of my ability.

I do agree with the unknown blogger in question that Prince Johan is a brown-skinned character, and that the plot has racist implications due to the combination of this, him being the antagonist, and the fact that his kingdom lost a war to Amelia's prior to the plot to drive his motivation hence why Amelia is taking over the rule of both her own and his kingdom. However, I disagree with them that this is an ongoing theme or that there's a pattern of racist undertones in previous Barbie movies. At least from my own knowledge. 

(under a read more because I don’t want to clog people’s dashes, this is not a simple topic to unpack + the movie did some weird things I wanted to explain too)

Before I really delve into the meat of why I take this stance, I want to quickly discuss why I had to even assert that I agreed that Johan is a brown-skinned character as its own point on the off-chance someone else encounters the same initial weird impression I did. You can skip this part if you want, I'll put a triple asterisk where this ends (***).

Prior to watching BPA myself, I did some cursory research on the Barbie Movies wiki, prompted by this ask. I put together that Johan was probably the antagonist that was being referred to, but when I was on his page, his wiki picture was just this.

This was all I had to go off of at this point, because he didn't have a screenshot gallery for me to cross-reference him throughout different points in the movie. So the conclusion I drew at the time was "he just looks like a tan white guy". This impression was reinforced by his light eyes and recycled Ken face model. I cross-referenced this with some friends, and we came to the conclusion that at best he looks racially ambiguous, with no reason to think he was a character of color unless there was other indication about his race in the movie itself.

And then I watched the movie. And changed my mind when I saw what he looked like in these scenes.

Johan looks noticeably darker than he did in his single wiki picture, especially when next to other more obviously white characters like Barbie and Amelia. His skin tone is closer to Alphonso whom I would call a brown character pretty confidently in the same movie (I wanted to minimize comparisons across movies to eliminate the possible different variables that would come with it).

While this might not be as noticeable to other people casually watching the movie, I found this a bit jarring myself because I was focusing on his skin tone in particular due to the subject of the ask and my initial impression from the wiki picture when he was arguably at his lightest in the whole movie, as well as when he was introduced he was at his darkest because it was set at night. Also the way the animation team decided to shade him to convey that its nighttime confused me because he looked a lot darker than I thought someone of what I assumed his skin tone would look. And then the next scene with him and Barbie further confused me, because he suddenly got this reddish undertone that really highlighted their difference in skin color.

(Barbie’s hands are on the left and Johan’s are on the right for sake of direct comparison)

Finally, in his last scenes in the movie, Johan's skin tone is most like that of his wiki picture's. Darker than Barbie's when they stand in the same shot but light enough that he could've passed as a tan white guy. What cemented my confusion is that he still looks like this in the throne room, where he was before when dancing with Barbie so it should reasonably have the same lighting and bring out that reddish undertone, but no he still looks like that. So my final conclusion on him was that since he looks like a brown-skinned character in around 2/3s of his scenes and there's a 2D painting of him in the bg when Barbie and Amelia are kidnapped, that he is indeed a brown-skinned character and the animation department probably fucked up their lighting which messed with how uniform his skin tone looked across scenes. ***

Now that I've explained my process of confusion and then final agreement that Johan is indeed brown-skinned, let's discuss how this compounds with other elements to create a rather unfortunate picture. I'm afraid its a bit worse than Anon described.

First off, the added context of the history between Amelia's kingdom of Floravia and his kingdom of Johanistan. Prior to the movie proper, these two countries fought in a war and Johanistan eventually surrendered to Floravia. The two countries signed a treaty that said that after her coronation, Amelia would rule both Floravia and Johanistan.

There is a severe lack of critical details about the war itself, such as what caused it in the first place, which really works to the film’s disadvantage, since the absence of clarity does little to clear up the questionable implications of what is known about the relationship between Floravia and Johanistan.

Amelia’s kingdom is the one that took over Johan’s initially, since they won the war and Johanistan would be ruled by Floravia’s queen, with the implication being that she’d depose Johan’s family, the original ruling family. While the lack of details makes it so it can’t quite be said that Floravia is colonizing Johanistan, it also means that it can’t be said that Floravia is not colonizing Johanistan. What is known about the war is very broadly reminiscent of tactics white people have used to colonize other countries, such as using a war to depose the original royal family for the colonizer’s own gain (the US colonizing Hawaii by staging a coup against their ruling family because the white plantation owners got mad) and putting the other country in a disadvantageous position with a treaty (Opium Wars). This would probably just be viewed as normal Kingdom vs. Kingdom politics if... well Johan wasn’t a character of color.

Combined with viewing this movie through the lens of real-life racial biases (which people are predisposed to do because we're inherently based in reality), the likely conclusion drawn is that this white ruler (Amelia) is effectively ousting a character of color (Johan) and his family out of power and force-assimilating his country, and there's simply not enough clarity about previous events before the movie takes place to dispel it sufficiently.

This also poisons the plot proper because Johan's motivation is to take advantage of the law that the rule of both kingdoms falls to him if Amelia doesn't show up to coronation and regain rule of his own kingdom and Floravia as a nice plus. The intention was probably to show him as greedy for wanting lone rule of Floravia and Johanistan, taken together, it honestly comes across as the movie villianizing a character of color because he wants to regain sovereignty of his own kingdom from a white ruler. Its completely understandable that Amelia wouldn't want to lose her own kingdom especially coming off of war, but also her kingdom is also the one ousting out the previous royal family of Johanistan without giving any good reason why they can't compromise.

The effect would be somewhat mitigated if another character of color had a similarly prominent role as Johan on the side of Barbie, but there's really not. The closest I'd argue would be Alphonso, but he doesn't have equal plot relevance. This does, in my opinion, make Barbie Princess Adventure's plot give off racist vibes like that unknown blogger said. But I do not agree with them that there's a "pattern" of racist undertones in other Barbie movies.

Due to the lack of details of what exactly they meant by a "pattern" of racist undertones, I am assuming they mean a consistent pattern of racism across the movies, for example the movies consistently dipping into anti-Asian sentiments with their villains, or their plots inherently having racist vibes woven into them like I just talked about in BPA.

Despite the Barbie movies occasionally dipping into offensive territory, in my personal experience I have not observed a pattern of racist undertones or consistent racism targeting a specific group. I acknowledge that I could fully be wrong and a lot of things could have slipped past my notice, especially since I have not seen all the movies, but from the ones I have seen I have not observed a pattern with regards to this. However, I will point out the offensive/iffy things in the movies that I know of, with varying degrees of detail depending on how much I can remember. This is by no means a full compendium of all the problematic stuff Barbie films have touched on but these are the ones I am aware of at present.

Barbie of Swan Lake - Antisemitism. There was a TikTok on this somewhere that discussed this more in detail that I can't find but will link if I do, but what I do remember was Rothbart was given an extremely large nose which is reminiscent of the "Jewish nose" ethnic stereotype. Also there was something about his name and Tchaikovsky himself being antisemitic and those views being reflected in his ballet. I don't remember all the details I'm sorry and google wasn't giving me much.

Barbie in the Princess and the Pauper - Antisemitism. Preminger hits a couple of antisemitic stereotypes in the movie, such as having a noticeably larger, hooked nose compared to the other male characters which is reminiscent of the ethnic stereotype of the "Jewish nose" and being greedy and corrupt (literally mining every singe piece of gold out of the mines) which is a stereotype of Jewish people. His name is also of Jewish origin which by itself wouldn’t be a necessarily suspicious thing but combined with those other tropes it does add up.

Barbie Diaries - Tia, a black woman and also the only one with curly hair in the cast, making an iffy comment about "getting the tangles out of her hair". POC with different hair textures have gotten a lot of racist shit for their hair so even though this is a small oneoff comment seeing Tia talk about her hair like this in a negative manner rubbed some of my friends with curly hair wrong.

Barbie in a Mermaid Tale 2 - Polynesian racism. Another friend of mine who is Hawaiian brought this up in Mermaid Tale 2, when Merliah and co decided to have a luau (which is a traditional Hawaiian party or feast usually accompanied by entertainment) in Australia. My friend found it a bit iffy they were doing this when most everyone is white, but what they found worse was when poi was being served in the luau. Poi is a traditional Polynesian dish, but in the movie they claimed it was an Australian and Hawaiian dish, which its not, there’s no Australia in its origin. And then there was a "gag" where the people eating the poi were gagging on it, so essentially this movie was making a joke out of another culture's aesthetics and food.

Barbie Princess Adventure - Reread the above text.

Maybe my sample size isn’t big enough but I’m not seeing a pattern or a trend here, which in my opinion would be a larger cause for concern because for these movies their issues are largely contained to their specific movie, and a pattern would be indication of a wider problem. Maybe you see a pattern I don’t, that would be completely valid.

Now, do I think this means you can’t enjoy Barbie Princess Adventure? No, I’d be a bit of a hypocrite if I said that because I still enjoy some of the Barbie movies I listed above that I just said also have problematic elements (Swan Lake and Princess and the Pauper specifically). But I do think it is good to at the very least be aware of it, hear it out, keep it in mind. At the same time I understand why people would be turned off by this topic because they’re here to have fun riding the serotonin of childhood nostalgia and not delve into discourse.

But I hope I answered your question to your satisfaction Multiverse Anon! I’m going to go take a nap now I’m tired 😭.

[gemsofgreece]

random but I find it a bit uncomfortable when we Greeks, especially someone like you who actually knows about history and is educated, calls Scopje "North Macedonia". Just bc they decided to call themselves like that and our dumb, unpatriotic politicians accepted it, I don't see why we should play along. Macedonia is Greek. Alexander the Great was Greek. Period.

If even we Greeks give in and start calling them like this, then we can't expect foreigners not to do so or not to eventually believe the false historical facts spread by that country. And eventually everyone, even Greeks, will believe that Macedonia or Alexander or whatever else were not Greek.

This thought worries me a lot. But since I live overseas myself, I do try educating foreigners about this.

sorry for the lil rant, but it's not the first time I see Greeks (even on tv!) do that and it is disappointing and saddening to me.

like Turks, Germans, French, British or ppl from any other country would never behave the way Greeks do on such a matter.

Really makes me wonder sometimes what it is that makes us Greeks so unpatriotic. it's somehow like being patriotic equals being a fascist for us, and obviously no one wants that so we just accept everyone else running over us, our history and our culture. (generally speaking, not only about that topic and it's definitely not towards you. just an observation of mine)

anyway again sorry for the rant.

I agree, many Greeks have that belief that any slight patriotic sentiment, even without hatred or any feeling of superiority, automatically makes you a fascist. It frustrates me too.

On the topic of our neighbour country, things are very complicated though. It’s not as easy as to say “There’s no other Macedonia - our politicians betrayed us - I try to educate as many people as I can”.

First of all, Skopje is not a correct term to use either. Skopje is their capital city and if I said “there are Pomak populations in Bulgaria, Northeastern Greece and Skopje”, then the average foreigner would misunderstand that sentence. We Greeks simply use that name for the country in lack of any better alternative and because it is not our job to find one for them.

Of course I dislike the name North Macedonia, however I think it is better in comparison to what was being used till the change. Just because we Greeks used the former official name FYROM, it doesn’t mean foreigners did too. It is very sad but it is the truth. In the absence of Greeks, everybody was calling the country Macedonia. The reason is a) the insane propaganda of the neighbours, b) the weirdness of an acronym used as a country’s name and c) the extremely long and complicated name when said in full. Trust me, everyone called them Macedonia and when a Greek showed up and screamed “it’s FYROM”, they were largely ignored or even ridiculed.

Let alone that FYROM is in truth an even more terrible name than North Macedonia. Remember what it means. Former Yugoslavic Republic of Macedonia. What the hell does that mean? That it was formerly (yugo)slavic but now it is not? And that it was or still is THE Republic of Macedonia, the one!!! You get how this was way worse than North Macedonia? North Macedonia suggests that there is another Macedonia too, a South Macedonia. So the average foreigner who doesn’t know much about Greek or Slavic history may be intrigued by that North specification and look up what the “south” Macedonia is and find out about our region and its inhabitants and history. Also the differentiation between North Macedonia and Macedonia (ours, often called Historical or Aegean Macedonia) may intrigue new people to study the issues of the tensions between the two countries and have an educated opinion on it. This was much less probable to happen when foreigners were expected to call the country FYROM and then they were weirded out, so they would be like “oh just call it Macedonia for short” and they would do that without second thought, without knowing someone else condemns this name as appropriation of history and direct land claim.

Of course, the name North Macedonia is mostly inaccurate as only a small part of the far south of the country is part of the actual Ancient Macedonia. The ideal would be a NO Macedonia name but right now it was not realistic. They would not accept it and they were getting deeply under the influence of Turkey. Albania and Bulgaria are deeply influenced by Turkey, Greece felt it was suicide if she destroyed entirely the relations with North Macedonia and was literally surrounded by Turk friends from all sides. I am sure both sides absolutely loathe every single term in this agreement but politics sometimes work differently than our principles. I don’t like it but I have come to a place that I kind of understand. I hate it but it is better than the absolute nothing we had before.

What I can’t come to terms with is giving in for the nationality and language. That really seems as little other than a big fat betrayal. However, if I try hard to be objective about the situation, I believe neighbours are in a worse place than us in the longterm. Huge tensions often arise inside North Macedonia with like 1/3 of “”””””MaCEdoNIAns”””””” being Albanian and Bulgaria claiming the rest 2/3 are actually Bulgarians. And what is factually the truth, that the “Macedonian” language is basically a Bulgarian dialect just must create a situation of chaos within the country. I wouldn’t find it surprising if the nation feels unsafe. And when a nation feels unsafe, the best way to control it, distract it from the identity confusion and give it a purpose is to feed them with a shitload of propaganda, the kind they would LIKE to hear.

When Slavic populations were pushed north and out of Macedonia by the Greeks during the Balkan Wars and then they became part of what was called South Serbia and then part of Yugoslavia and then Yugoslavia collapsed and their population is a blend of Serb Slavs, Bulgarians, Albanians and apparently there must be Greek Slav origins there too, it is no wonder the nation suffers from identity crisis and is susceptible to brainwashing and propaganda. I suppose they hate the guts of all of us surrounding them. So the claim that Macedonian is a separate ethnicity, unrelated to Greeks, and they are the sole descendants, a claim that was only made in 1935 for the first time, was a desperate way to establish an identity against Slavs and Greeks who surrounded them and with whom they felt entirely disconnected and hostile. I mean, at points in time, they were even denying any Slavic heritage. I think lately things aren’t as bad as they were. Of course, their government remains provocative towards Greece even after the agreement but this is no surprise after Greeks agreed on nationality and language. Currently they have tensions on ethnicity and culture mostly with Bulgarians and Albanians so our issue is somewhere in the back. Some of their youth now says they don’t actually believe they are descendants of Alexander the Great and that was an extreme measure to spite Greece. This was one of the terms of the Prespes agreement after all: that they would stop claiming Greek history and culture. Of course extreme and brainwashed nationalists are alive and well (everywhere) but things are better than they were some years ago IMO. I could be wrong though.

Anyway I get why things happened the way they happened. But of course butchering history is not the solution… but as you see they are not very close at solving anything. That was kinda my answer’s point, not sure it came across right. In the meantime, I have to use this geographic term to be understood and it is a little better than any widely understood alternative.

Context for foreigners: Alexander the Great died about 800 years before the first Slav stepped on Macedonia or any other Greek territory. Macedonians and all other Greeks technically stopped being considered as “ancient” half a millennium before the first Slavs showed up.