#bc there are people in this world who can understand the intricacies of the political minefield

[evilkitten3]

one of the most frustrating things about reading naruto meta is that every now and then you'll run into a post that's absolutely brilliantly thought out, has stupendous points, and pulls out all the stops on almost every level....

and you just have to stop and wonder how someone can simultaneously be so good at media analysis and so fucking bad at accepting that sometimes authors just cannot and/or will not write female characters on any level

[ofbreathandflame-archive]

The plot was hideously lost with the replies to your Darkling post. I agreed with the point you made in the initial. Not sure how it turned into that…

Hi anon!

It was jarring, but It proved the point I made about fictional racism and fictional revolutionaries. The entire problem with Aleksander and the whole Grisha problem is that people have linked real-world morality to the Darkling as a character. And while real-world morality absolutely applies in some ways (this is a story that deals with race-adjacent themes) it is used to set the precedent that hatred of the Darkling (or introspection of the Darkling) equals a hatred for the cause as a whole. That was the carrying point for all of the following responses: the idea that the cause is somehow triumphant over self-hood. That the Darkling and the cause act as disembodied entity that ignores the personhood of the Darkling. It is why I said a character like Magneto will always work better because his cause and his personhood are not linked. Magneto being a questionable guy doesn't negate the validity of his claims or like the trauma of his background.

The fact that I can make a point saying that somewhat agree with the surface-level ideology of the Darkling, say he is the best character of the trilogy and still have people trying to prove a point I did not hint at in my initial point proves to me that the people are less mad about the politics of his character and more swooned over the dark bad boy he is...which is fine for their personal preferences but...is weird when their argument hinges on the person on the other side not understanding the intricacies of racism, revolutionaries, and politics around oppression.

And all of this is moot bc in my initial post I gave real-world and literature-based examples of better renditions of Darkling's character. I ended both responses by talking about how his character has been replicated a bit more successfully. All that was ignored to make a point that must be a hot topic in extra pro darling circles. As if I would ever hate a revolutionary who used violence to get freedom. The reason I am free today -- why most black people are free today -- is because of the violence and perseverance of the Haitian Revolution. Do you know how many riots happened that brought us the Civil Rights bill? Do you know how much we looted, and torn down and raged to get that bill passed??? It's just wild to have this much energy for a fictional revolutionary who has 500 years and one brain cell. And whose plans hinged on the backs of teenaged boys and girls who were thrown to wolves the second they made a wrong call and not putting that energy on better written, better comparable characters from literature and real life. I do not believe fandom = activism. If you want to fuck a fictional character thats your imagination, but like trying to justify EVERYTHING about this man to prove the non-comparable point about generic fantasy racism for this fictional white bad boy villain is certainly a choice.

[transmalewife]

the thing that bothers me about criticism (cancelling) of leftist activists/artists/youtubers etc. is like... so what?

Say Rebecca Sugar was really actualy secretly evil and only pretending to be progressive and nb. say they did actually put some problematic shit in their work on purpose and not bc they're a human being who can make mistakes. Would it matter? They still put a lesbian wedding on children's screens worldwide, paved the way for newer cartoons with more queer rep and showed kids that it was ok. They still adressed childhood trauma in a way few children's shows do.

Say cancelled lefttuber of the week really was secretly a racist or hated nb people. Would it change the years of work they did promoting the acceptance of nb people and fighting against racism, capitalism etc? Even if it turned out they were secretly trying to undermine the movement by tweeting, or whatever the accusation is, hundreds of people still cite their videos as what made them stop being terfs, conservatives, or even in some cases alt right. The effect on the world is what matters.

No, i don't believe any of the people i mentioned are actually secretly evil, but my point is, even if they were it wouldn't matter.

And this works the other way round too, btw. József Szájer proved that last year. yes, it was extremely funny to see a conservative homophobic polititian caught at a gay orgy, but does that in any way undo the immesurable harm he did to the queer community? of course not. the right knows it, and so should we. “What our representative, József Szájer, did has no place in the values of our political family. We will not forget nor repudiate his 30 years of work, but his deed is unacceptable and indefensible,” said Orbán on Wednesday evening." (quote is from this article, which i admit i haven't read entirely today bc i have a migraine and they don't have a dark mode)

I don't actually care what politicians and activists on either side really think deep down. I care how their actions affect my life and the world around us.

Also, a point I never see made about lefttube especially, is that if you 100% agreed with every word they said and how they said it, that would mean they weren't doing their job all that well. They're not doing this for you. We don't need leftist media for the exclusive group of the wokest people, we need recruitment and education, and for that they need to explain things in a way that is accessible, understandable, and convincing to people who don't already agree with them. They need to meet people where they're at, and for that they sometimes need to say things in a way that reads as overly simplified or even offensive to us.

and that applies to childrens media too, like if you're watching a cartoon and going 'ah yes this is 100% in line with the intricacies of my political ideology', then either that show is completely incomprehensible to children, who are the target audience, or your political ideology is excesively simple.

And we really need to start focusing on what people are saying and doing, and not how. My mother used he/him pronouns for me on purpose the day before my top surgery to manipulate me away from getting it. the friends who gave me a place to stay when she kicked me out, the stranger i met at work who gave me money for meds i couldn't afford never once used he/him pronouns, and yet their help saved me, and that's what mattered to me.

[afincf-tirwer]

JC meta

JC has never been able to make his own choices in life and this likely frustrated him from a young age, particularly when he saw WWX's agency and this contributed to why he's like that and in this essay I shall-

AIGHT HERE WE GO

Jiang Cheng, from the moment he was old enough to comprehend speech was likely lectured about how he needs to uphold an image of a proper sect leader, be a good boy, carry on the family legacy, not be a disappointment and to make his family, his mother, his father proud. And he was told every day what to do, how to act, what happened in this situation, how he was to handle that situation, all grooming him to be heavily involved in sect politics and understand the intricacies of how it all holds together and how he's involved in it. No decision in the matter, that was the life he was born to and that is the life he shall lead. A bright spot in that likely dull and rigorous life. Puppies. Three puppies and for a boy who loves dogs that's the best thing ever in his entire life, everything that led up to this is worth it because he has his very own dogs.

And then

WWX arrives. JC never asked for a brother, never wanted one, was never given to choice as to whether or not he would like WWX to join their family. And to rub salt in that raw wound, the new boy makes his dogs leave. Why? Because the new boy's needs and comforts are placed as a higher importance than JC's, his father thinks that JC's wants are secondary to this new boy's. (Yes they are bc a debilitating fear of dogs is serious but to a 6 year old....) But he learns to live with it. It's fine. It's okay. This boy is his older brother now, he's going to protect him from dogs and love him with everything in his fierce little heart, protect him in every way that matters, and receive the same in return because...they love each other. And that's what love does. But that moment was one of the first tangible moment JC's decisions were made for him. And then they just kept coming: WWX forcing him to leave him with that tortoise, his mother sending him away instead of letting him fight, his father doing the same, his brother cutting out his golden core for him, his brother turning his back on their sect, his brother refusing to accept his protection, having no choice but to turn on WWX because what else can a young boy's newly rebuilt clan do against the might of the Jin sect and everyone else? What can he do when it looks like his brother really has lost it like everyone is telling him?

At every step and turn of JC's life, there's been something or someone, forcing his hand, making him have to react to it in a certain way, walk a certain path, even if that isn't what he wants to do. It's happened over and over again, his nephew's parents are dead? He's got a child now. He lost his golden core? His beloved brother gives him his own and never tells him, let's him blame him, the guilt from that. Choices are stripped from him, even when he isn’t aware there is a choice to be made at all.

Everything in JC's life has been manipulated and shaped before he even had the chance to react, he was pushed into each and every situation and the pressures on him meant he had one path out if he wanted to keep his sect alive. And there's the argument that WWX is family and you can't turn your back on family but: What is one life compared to the hundreds in the Yunmeng Jiang sect? How can a leader, in good conscience, offer his people up to the wolves for such a selfish gesture? He can't. It's immoral, what choice did JC have?

Compare this to WWX who did anything and everything he wanted with little to no consequences at all. Flaunted every rule of the cultivation world, flitted around like a hummingbird and PEOPLE ENCOURAGED IT. Thought he was better than his younger brother who strove so hard to be as good and always fell short. Looking up at his older brother and seeing how much freedom he has compared to the box JC was shoved into, how could resentment not grow? If JC protected the Wens...his clan would have been decimated. WWX knew this, JC knew this, that's why they faked a fight, tried to lift the responsibility of WWX off JC's shoulders but how it must have stung, WWX a big hero and JC walking away without his brother, having lost something precious.

Yet WWX is the one who gets the happy ending.

JC is left with...what? His nephew and his clan, smaller and more broken than what he had at the beginning of the show and how is that fair? When he was restricted by the circumstance of his birth, with people relying on him so he couldn't take on a hopeless cause? Because he didn't lay himself down on the slaughtering table when there were people who needed him too? Why were the lives of the Wens more important than the lives of the Jiang sect who needed him? Why is the moral of JC's story seemingly, "if you aren't a hero in people's eyes, if you weren't martyred, burned or laying down your life for a hopeless cause, then your story will end in sorrow"?

[coyoteeugly]

what'd you recoomend if your trying to write a self insert character?

Lemme put this under a read more bc this got long! This will just be what I would recommend from my own experience!

STIGMA

Personally I think the most important thing to remember when it comes to self-inserts is that not everyone is gonna be jazzed about role playing with you, even if you are well put together as a muse. So don’t put too much weight on people if they don’t want to ship, or roleplay or anything. It can be a bit of a stigma in some situations.

BE REALISTIC

Another thing to remember is to really examine the world that you’re building this self insert for, and examine yourself as a person. Realistically where would you fall in that universe? As a normal citizen? If your line of work is something like say some sort of repairman, then find some way that you realistically could get into a situation where you can interact with those in the series. For example, I cleaned houses while I was making Coyote, but I pushed it a bit and tried to really think about how someone like me could end up in a situation where he could interact with different people in the Star Fox series. He took a job as a janitor because he got kicked out by his mother, another event that happened to me. Incorporate your experiences, memories both good and bad, into the character / portrayal.

MAKE SURE IT MAKES SENSE / DEVELOPMENT

A lot of people make the mistake of trying to push their self insert to be something more dangerous and far from who the person is like in real life. And there’s nothing inherently wrong with that, but it has to be done in a way that makes sense in terms of a story. Ask yourself what you’d have to go through in order to become someone vastly different than who you are now. Realistically assess danger when in character, don’t pull the whole “I’m not scared of you” bullshit unless it is very much realistic for you to do the same in reality. An example of this is how in reality I really love Wolf and Andross, specifically @icantlose​ and @lylat-ruler​. However, if I were to meet a dangerous mercenary and a tyranical ruler in reality I would NOT be trying to joke around and make fun of them. Realistically think about how you would act in the situations you put your characters in.

INTERACTING WITH OTHER MUSES

You have to be fine with characters insulting, attacking and killing your muse / self-insert. If you take everything personally and make a big fuss about it that’s a no no, no one likes someone who throws a fit over something a fictional character said. It’s really Not That Deep and not worth the energy.

SHIPPING

Same rules apply with ships as it does with non-self-insert. Don’t force ships on people, stay realistic in your interactions. Ask yourself: if someone treated me like this / acted like this in real life how would I react? Of course it’s expected that sometimes muses have crushes but as long as you’re not force ships on anyone I don’t see any harm in it personally. Just don’t try and use that as a way of guilting people into shipping. Be upfront if you feel the chemistry and it’s realistic, or if you’d like to see it shipped. Ask them, be polite, if they say no they don’t try and act all wounded and butthurt. Say you understand and would still like to roleplay even without the ship, and move on. Maybe if you feel like having that angst you could always ask if they’d be comfortable with an unrequited love situation. But if they say no then drop it and move on.

THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE PERSONALITY

Don’t be afraid to examine your flaws and strengths when building the self-insert. What are some good habits / things you’re good at? What are some bad habits / things you’re bad at? Include them all! A self-insert is you after all, if you make them too perfect or too imperfect then they don’t really seem like a person but rather a visual representation of how you see yourself and that doesn’t always work out because they may be one-dimensional in terms of personality.

SOCIAL POSITIONING AND WORLD-BUILDING

Look at where you fit in your world. What’s your gender, race, class, education, etc? Ask yourself how you feel about it, is it something you have to hide? Why? Examining your relationship when it comes to society is crucial, it helps to world build and flesh out the character more and it helps you think about how you can translate that over to the fictional universe.

MAKE PEOPLE CARE

Just like you have to do in regular stories, you have to give the reader / audience a reason to care about your muse! Why should they care if something happens to them? Are they in some position of power? Are they kind? Are they mysterious and drawing the audience to want to find out more before they die? Give your followers a reason to give a shit about the character, just as you would any other character. Without a reason to care there’s nothing really keeping people there, and this doesn’t mean you have to make the character related to some main character because being related to someone important isn’t a personality. Perhaps it could be something they use to defend themselves but there has to be more there, if there’s no intricacies or layers to your character then they’re not going to keep the reader’s attention. Build a character in a way that draws people to them, give them flaws and strengths and blind spots, let them have misplaced anger or toxic traits. When you do that you humanize them and thereby make the audience care about what happens to them. You make them relateable and lovable. Give good character bad traits and bad character good traits. Life isn’t black and white and your self-insert shouldn’t be either!

FEEDBACK

Don’t be afraid to get feedback even if it is negative or not what you want to hear, it can help you grow.

I think that’s all I can think of, but if you have any more specific questions about this subject feel free to ask!

[jtownarch]

Old City, New Perspective

When studying Jerusalem, there is no better place to start than in the Old City.

About a kilometer squared in area, the walled in Old City that -fun fact- originally made up the whole of the City of Jerusalem now acts as a religious, political and social hub. As new interns we went on a free walking tour offered by Sandeman Tours at the entrance to  the Old City by Jaffa Gate (highly recommend btw). While we have both been lucky enough to live in the Old City, this tour gave us a unique opportunity to speak to and learn from the perspective of a certified tour guide. Um, hello Maya and Racheli, what have you been doing there till now...?! Yea, we get it..

If ya didn’t know the Old City of Jerusalem currently holds four quarters: The Muslim, Christian, Armenian, and Jewish quarters. Our tour began outside Jaffa Gate, from which we headed into The Armenian Quarter…

Not so far away from Israel, in a land between Turkey and Georgia, sits Armenia. The Armenians that have been living in the Old City for centuries are predominantly of Christian faith and consider their quarter to be a subsection of The Christian Quarter. Though the Armenian Quarter is small in size and population, with around only 500 residents, they feel very connected to the land because they’ve immigrated here for religious reasons as well as to seek safety from the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire during the early 1900s. (Why so many genocides people come on.) On our tour we visited mostly residential buildings which were easily identifiable by the last names we saw at their doors. If you’re wondering what little identifier can help with Armenian names, think KardashIAN. The “ian” at the end of a name makes it pretty obvious that the person is Armenian. Most, if not all of the architecture in this quarter resembles those in the other quarters in addition to also having its own architectural landmarks and historical structures. However, it is easy to see when you have crossed over into the next quarter... The Jewish Quarter.

With a little under 3,000 residents, the Jewish Quarter is rich in both history and contemporary life. Between 1948 and 1967, the Jewish Quarter was under Jordanian control, and the Jordanian government did little to explore or develop the area. However, after Israel annexed East Jerusalem in the 1967 War AKA the 6-Day War the first thing the government did in this area was dig, research and develop.

We observed both the excavations and modern day life that exists there (which included  multiple face-plants because of the slippery stone floors), one can see the layers of development, planning and improvement that have taken place. Discoveries include the fortification walls, AKA the Cardo, around the ancient old city that were built in order to withstand the Assyrian siege around 701 BC. The ruins of the Cardo indicate the ancient layout of the Roman market that ran through the quarter millenia  before any of the restaurants we see now existed. Dayum.

Today a main draw of going through the quarter is to reach the Western Wall, AKA The Kotel, a holy site to many religions. To the Jews it is the last standing piece of the Second Holy Temple, and people come from all over the world to pray at this spot. Throughout the Old City, but especially in the Jewish Quarter, are many lookouts in which you can see The Golden Dome, the most current structure on top of the Temple Mount. The Jewish significance of the Temple Mount dates back to when Abraham was told to sacrifice his son Isaac in this spot as a test of allegiance to God; according to Jewish tradition, it’s also thought to be the point from which the universe was created! Two Jewish temples have stood on the Temple Mount; the first built by King Solomon and destroyed by King Nebuchadnezzar with the Babylonian army; the second built by King Herod and destroyed by King Titus with the Roman army. The history is so intense!

When looking at the Temple Mount today from any of the many viewpoints in the Quarter, you can see the huge platform King Herod built in order to expand the foundation of Har Moriah, AKA the Temple Mount, so that he could build a more glorious Second Temple. That is why the excavations of the Hizkiyahu tunnels next to and underneath the Western Wall are so far down underground. You can see all the archeological layers of earth and the aqueducts that are there, which represent the level at which ancient villages and life existed at a particular time. It’s like going back in time..! Similar to these layers of earth, over the centuries, each layer of history has added up to reach what we call today ‘ground level’.  

 Continuing through the Muslim Quarter’s narrow alleys, past its market filled with stalls of merchants selling jewelry and spices, and down more slippery slopes, we reached a viewing point that overlooks the Western Wall. From this view we saw the whole expanse of the wall including the the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque which lies behind it. In Islamic culture the Dome of the Rock signifies one of their three most holy sites. It is believed to be the spot in which Mohammed came to from Mecca on his flying horse to receive the 5 pillars of Islam and from where he then returned to Mecca in the same night. Taking a closer look, you can see a plethora of arabesques and geometry simultaneously and seamlessly working together to create the pattern that is easily recognizable today as classic Islamic design. They additionally create a juxtaposition that is meant to signify that the Quran is organized and should be read and followed as a guide to living life similar to the Indian Kamasutra, Jewish Torah, and Christian New Testament. The building of the Dome of the Rock was initially completed in 691 CE, however the first structure collapsed and so had to be rebuilt 1023, which is what we see today. Food for thought… why did it collapse? Considering all the politics and religious tension what would happen if it collapsed again today…?

After this we walked to and stopped in front of a Muslim home. A poster hung from the arch above the door. On it were images of the 3 holiest sites in Islamic culture: the Kaaba, the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Masjid an-Nabawi. A Muslim family hangs this poster by their home after they have visited all 3 sites, completing the Hajj, and they are given a tremendous honor for doing so. They are symbolically knighted, and given a term signifying their journey that is added to their last name. In addition to hanging this poster it is common to see a picture of the face of Saladin who is a prominent figure in their history, the Ayyubid Sultan who led the army that defeated the Crusaders in 1187. Muslims that live in this area are very proud of their local history as well as the aesthetic that has developed.

Interestingly from an urban design and planning point of view, the Arab shuk that lines the main roads within the Muslim Quarter was not intentionally planned out , but it seems to have  simply developed organically over time based on local needs and culture. . Now its beauty and intricacies have made it into a destination, drawing tourists from all over the world.

Last but not least, and although small in population size, the Christian Quarter holds over 40 holy Christian sites and landmarks – woah. The most important of these is the Church of The Holy Sepulchre. It is one of the holiest places in the world to Christian tradition. Inside is the site where Jesus was crucified, and the empty tomb which is said to be where he was buried and then rose from. While it is the headquarters to the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, control of the church is split between several sects of Christianity due to historic tensions over control of the Holy Land (see for example the history of  the Crimean War). Part of why nothing ever changes within or around the church - take for  example this  famous ladder that has stood for years on a ledge outside of the church) is that all involved sects must agree on the change, and the process by which one would need to get that unanimous approval is essentially impossible.

The story goes, when Muslims were in charge of Jerusalem they got hold of the key to the church; in recent times, the various Christian sects couldn’t agree on who would recieve the key, and so there is a neutral East-Jerusalem Muslim family who comes  every morning for generations to unlock the church. Seeing the way in which this quarter developed over the centuries, and how eventually the religious and political tensions brought in a neutral third party to help solve sensitive problems, is super interesting. This story shows how all can benefit from this complex  space even if it is  filled with intra-religious tensions. You should really come check it all out for yourself...

The tour, though a little hot, was a perfect way for us to begin our summer. As our aim for the summer includes understanding  Jerusalem in everything from the layout of its streets to the energy that emanates from its residents, it would be impossible to fully grasp the city if we did not start at its roots. Walking the streets of the OG city helped us to fully understand how and why the city has become the place that it is today. We saw the centuries of trial and error and viewed the pieces, now artifacts, that once made up the life of the city, and that continue to do so in an amazing way.