Suppose Williams, a two-time national champion at UConn, wasn’t a household name among basketball fans after highly successful stints with European clubs like Spar Girona, Sopron, and Fenerbahçe, where she won a Defensive Player of the Year Award in 2021 and a championship in the year following. In that case, she is now after her remarkable performance at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Ultimately winning a silver medal as Team France fell to Team USA in the gold medal game, Williams emerged with a Best Defensive Player award and a selection to the All-Star Five, averaging 15.5 points, 4.7 rebounds, 4.8 assists, and 2.8 steals throughout the tournament. She led France in scoring and assists.
Williams is one of few players, if any, to win a DPOY award in the college ranks, overseas play, and the Olympics. Wherever she goes, she wins, and her defensive game is a big part of that.
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re last reblog I do see fanfic culture pushing/replicating a certain model of "what trauma looks like," "how trauma works"
this is a problem across all areas of society obviously, but transformative works are, well, transformative. they're about crafting and modifying narratives where the fan-creator sees a flaw or a lack -- often for the better! don't get me wrong, I've done my fair share of "I take a hammer and I fix the canon," it's the main thing that gets my creative gears spinning -- but what happens when that "flaw" is simply a narrative not conforming to popular expectations?
some people just don't get PTSD from events that sound obviously traumatic. they're not masking, and they're not coping; they just straight-up didn't get the permanently-locked stress-response that defines PTSD. they walk away from a horrible experience going "well, that sucked, but it's over now." some people do get PTSD from events most people wouldn't find traumatic. we don't really know why some people get PTSD and others don't. but fandom has an idea of events that must be traumatizing, of a "correct" way to portray trauma. you see the problems with this lack of understanding in e.g. fans pressuring the devs of Baldur's Gate 3 to add dialogue where the player character badgers Halsin about his own feelings on his abuse -- because he must be traumatized, and his trauma must fit a certain mold and presentation of sexual trauma, under the mistaken impression that anything outside that narrow window is somehow "wrong" and disrespectful or even harmful to survivors.
take, for another example, the very common trope of a traumatized character who hates touch or sex "learning" to like touch or sex as a part of their healing process. certainly that can be healing for some people; other people will never like, or want, touch or sex, because of trauma or because they just don't. the assumption that someone who doesn't want sex or doesn't like to be touched must be traumatized, must be suffering from this perceived lack, is seriously harmful -- to asexual people, to people with sensory issues around touch, and to people for whom healing from trauma means freedom to refuse sex or touch.
and there's a secondary trope, one that's slightly more thoughtful but ultimately repeats the problem -- that once someone has learned that their boundaries will be respected, they'll feel it's safe to soften those boundaries. once they feel safe refusing touch or sex, they'll feel comfortable allowing it on their own terms. but many people don't, and many people won't! many people will simply never want to be touched, and never want sex, and they are not suffering or broken or lacking because of it. the idea that proving you'll respect someone's boundaries entitles you to test those boundaries -- the paradox is obvious, and yet this is something i've seen hurt (re-traumatize) people i care for.
people are imperfect victims. people don't heal in the ways you expect. many people have positive memories of their abuse, of their abusers. many people hurt others in the course of their trauma, in ways that can't easily be unpacked in a 5k oneshot. very few narratives of trauma and recovery actually fit the ones put forward by popular children's media and romance novels -- which are the ones I most see replicated in fandom spaces, because they provide the clearest narrative and easiest catharsis, and so they're easy and soothing to reach for.
that's not necessarily a bad thing! i am not immune to goopy romance tropes. i am not immune to teary catharsis. not every fic has to grapple with ugly realities. but there's a problem when these narratives become predominant, when people think they're accurate and realistic depictions of trauma, when the truth of trauma is unpleasant and uncomfortable, and doesn't fit any single narrative, let alone one of comforting catharsis
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I was reading The Monkey King's Daughter (you can read the whole book for an hour) and apparently the protagonist is also Guanyin's grandchild? Can Guanyin be shipped?
I mean I can’t say like what are like the moral implications of shipping GuanYin itself cause that is so not my place but I’m still going to answer this cause it kinda of interesting when it comes to modern media. First off saying that like I have never really seen romance done with GuanYin. At least in a serious way. But if I had to take a guess it can be seen as 'possible' as much as like shipping anyone in Chinese mythos, in that isn't really taken seriously at all. In a lot of modern fan spaces there are a variety of crack ships for more humorous or hypothetical situations like I have seen literally the Star of Venus shipped with Jade Emperor just cause. But I don't see much with buddhas or bodhisattvas in either post-modern media nor in fan spaces. At least that isn't Wukong or Sanzang since they are both Buddhas. And I have done a whole thing about how Wukong for decades wasn’t seen as a romantic figure until like there was a huge character reconstruction, but that isn’t usually the case for most characters.
I would say that the most mainstream instance I can think off the top of my head is The Lost Empire (2001) where it had the main character has a romantic plot with Gaunyin herself. Of course, that wasn't really a masterpiece within itself but this was considered like a 'bad choice' more so that it was just a very strange and awkward romance at that.
Funny enough I think I see more romantic for humor's sake on Guanyin in comic books or games as likes gags at most. Like in Westward comics (later a tv series) Guanyin has a celestial-turned-demon trying to pursue him that he always rejects. Another is more play for laughs but Guanyin in the Fei Ren Zai where people just don't know it's Guanyin and think she is so attractive.
I've seen some games that have Guanyin as like a pretty boy/girl but otherwise nothing even close to a romance plot. Those are more just for like aesthetics of making every character look overly attractive to sell it.
The best I can say is that is just kinda strange and a little strange personally but I can't say that it can be taken seriously. I mean Wukong is supposed to be a Buddha by the end of the novel, so if The Monkey King's Daughter has it that a buddha can have a daughter then there wouldn't be anything stopping the author from having a bodhisattva having kids.
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I am genuinely upset about Andi! WTF is FSG doing? She's one of the best in the entire league! The pens online presense was top tier but with ITR gone last year, and now Andi, I don't have any idea what their plans are. Please let Jen be safe! I'm sure Andi will find a place. I'm not too worried for her. The Pens media department tho
I really wish her the best in whatever she does next. She was at the helm at the peak of the Pens' social media engagement and prominence, and while that fell off as she ascended the ladder and became a VP/further removed from the day-to-day posting, I think she did a ton of good work here.
I'll be very interested in how the department reconfigures in her absence. There seem to be a lot of power vacuums right now, with lots of people with long tenures at the Pens departing. Part of me hopes there's a chance for young blood; other teams have been doing more innovative, more curious, and more creative stuff in terms of their media. While losing legacy employees is a loss, I can only hope that there's an infusion of youthful, out-of-the-box thinking coming our team's way. It's the best we can hope for.
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things that have happened today
- my mum and brother got in a fight about him clearing the driveway so my sister could park her car (my sister didnt care as along as the driveway was clear by monday)
- my sister got in a fight with her on&off bf about his ex. i told her, again, to dump him
- my brother got all butthurt about how much fighting him being is the house is causing (hes a slob and a bad parent)
- THE COPS SHOWED UP to talk to my brother about an accident he was supposedly in earlier this week but they showed up at like 8pm so its kinda sus
- mum and my brother got in ANOTHER fight because he was super drunk and kept talking over her and insulting her when she was talking to our neighbour
- i spent most of the morning babysitting my niblings bc my brother was "too busy" until i eventually just left
- my mum and her bf had a (small) fight just cause theres so much fucking tension in the house rn
- probably some other shit that i forgot about
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hiiiii muse page list update post i meant to do earlier but then i had icecream and did other things instead peace sign
this is for the full one on my page, srry i dont have it elsewhere/on my pinned yet. eventually. peace sign. as per always my multi is a billion times messier than my other blogs(guy who cant shut up)👍👍👍 atm the most proper writing will be happening on akira. probably
added general links of the gbf main story archive, and the a3 & prommy of wizard main story translations👍
on that note added sakuya & misumi (a3!) & chloe, figaro & mitile (promise of wizard) except figaro is mostly type0 verse & mitile will likely lean toward gbf au for a lil bit. thats not to say theyll stay this way (im about to reread+finish main story pt2), its just that i unfortunately am obsessed with type0. i will probably eventually put the rest of spring troupe on my 'wanna pick up' list....(person whos oshi is omi
on that note i should make a new type0 oc i need a silly class9 girlie SO bad. that was the foolery secret intel class right
i can not explain why type0 lives this much in my head
natsume (natsume yuujinchou) is on the list too now. lanna & lumina (island of happiness/a wonderful life) are there for now we'll see who else i add. none have descriptions yet, i know i have one for lanna & natsume from olds blogs but :[ i didnt wanna today
updated mika's (gbf) page with the text i wrote a while back, i'll revise it in the future. fenrir, morphe&phoebe, thelonim has events&fate eps linked on their pages now. emu has the official playlists of wxs main story & her first focus event added.
none of these links are meant in a 'check these', but rather, if you ever get interested in any of the media/characters, there's places to check. i should add the wxs digest anime to emus oh my god i forgot about that one
all the new charas are gonna take some months to be implemented properly...<3 i havent started rereading a3 still & i took a break from natsuyuu when my dog got surgery in february. they're there cuz i felt like updating the lists with links, and figured why not add the rest too. lots of descriptions are missing still. 'then why even add them' because faty was alrdy sending me stuff for figaro so why not actually put him on the list sunglass emoji
i added it on the muse page too, but if u dont know where to start then emu & fenrir are always good choices👍 once my emu break is over ill get back to all of that. phoebe is also a good choice thinking about it...
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