#but it's harder to get a show totally about girls that limit the male character inclusion

[milfbrainrot]

i am getting.... annoyedd... at the amount of male characters that keep being added to yellowjackets. it's kind of fine because there is a balance typically - one guy dies, another gets added on either in the present or past. they pretty much exist to either further the girls' storylines or be obstacles rather than likeable people. and like... clearly it starts off not entirely being about the girls - it's annoying bc of their behavior at times, but we still did have characters like travis to follow at the start... and whose misogynistic bullshit probably did have some purpose to show the norms of civilization wasting away. gotta be authentic to society for the full Feral Teen Girl experience.

i just. am so. cautious. from what happened with the wilds. and i honestly have weird feelings about walter's inclusion in season 2 (he was useful for doing away with a tired plot, but he sort of took away from how capable misty can be on her own) but i'm hoping some odd seeds from his character pan out into something more fitting. and i'm... neutral on jeff. i do still want that cabin daddy episode.

it's fine it's not bad but the show is on thinner ice than javi to me right now given these updates combined with how disappointing some of season 2 was to me in addition to rancid fandom behavior.

[nileqt87]

More thoughts on how to resurrect the Indiana Jones franchise post-Harrison Ford

Perhaps a proper, modern television show would be a good way to bring back a younger, but adult Indy (with perhaps flashbacks littered throughout). You can also get away with a lot more content (definitely aim for TV-14) and characters who are allowed to be flawed. Relationship dramas are serialized storytelling's forte in a way that is disappearing more and more from blockbuster films. Complicated characters are better left to television, as the audience expects and allows for it because of the nuance and depth the serialization affords. The complicated, messy story of Abner and Marion is a story best left to being explored only after the characters have some real complexity and development. It also wouldn't be forced to play to the mass audience of under-13s that makes modern PG-13 often meaningless. In comparison, TV-14 actually pushes up harder against its limits regularly--not just violence, but also with innuendo and sexuality minus nudity. The amount of historical-style, pulpy violence, not to mention potentially comically gruesome deaths, in Indy would also necessitate the rating. Indiana Jones might be niche enough at this point with an audience veering towards adults who grew up with it (Gen-X and the older end of Gen-Y), while Gen-Z has little awareness of it, that Disney wouldn't be forced to make it a total kiddie property. It's not the same situation as back in the early '90s with Young Indy being aimed at older kids who had recently seen Last Crusade in the theater. They could reboot it for television with a young adult Indy who potentially could grow into a fully adult version. And I wouldn't try too hard to not step on the trilogy's toes with the timeline. Just let it live in its own developing continuity.

Use of long-running supporting cast (parents, Remy and returning guest stars aside) would also be a big difference from Young Indy. Characters like Belloq (could potentially go from friend to antagonist, akin to how Smallville handled Lex), Sallah, Henry, Brody, Abner, Marion, etc... could actually be around a lot more than just for an adventure here or there. These are all characters Indy had clearly known for years. Actually put the show into a seasonal, serialized format that isn't a new cast every episode. You could also stick around in locations a lot longer this way, which would help with budget.

Another thought I've had since watching an absolute ton of fantasy/sci-fi dramas in the last few years is that the influence of Indiana Jones is actually pretty apparent in a number of pretty famous characters, sometimes overtly and sometimes a bit more subtly. Harrison, Indy or Raiders in general are outright name-checked in quite a few places, often by scrappy action hero types who tend to take hard beatings (the kinds of characters who should've died a hundred times over) while in situations they're way over their heads in or literally impossible odds they can't win. Like Indy, the intended prize isn't won at the end and, outside of a few gruesome baddie deaths, the shady, corrupt or evil barely get a dent. Fox Mulder and Dean Winchester are two characters who name-check the comparison overtly and you can see the writers and actors both having the influence in mind. It's obviously a male fantasy, too. The influence on The X-Files and Supernatural is definitely there. Supernatural is chock full of biblical MacGuffins (not to mention having angels and demons as most of its recurring supporting cast), so it would be a hard comparison to avoid. Raiders came up in the WWII Nazi submarine episode with a piece of the Ark onboard (it's subsequently a show to raid for Indy ideas, because they pretty much mined everything biblical), for example. The X-Files likewise was dealing with shady government officials and pretty blatantly copied the huge warehouse of government secrets loaded with alien relics (and then repeated the Cigarette Smoking Man's warehouse reveal with the tunnel of filing cabinets stretching on forever). Mulder was also very much a one-man army a lot of the time when it came to the alien conspiracy (no offense to Scully). Moments like him climbing/riding the tops of sky rides, trains and escaping the spaceship were total Indy-esque moments. Sam and Dean had literal God-tier levels of plot armor keeping them alive (repeated resurrections included). Angel is another one that, unlike Mulder and the Winchesters being very human, is a supernatural character (subsequently his level of pain tolerance and durability is at the level of regular impalement, defenestration out of skyscrapers and being set on fire), but the comparison still holds because of how often he's getting decimated and fighting forces way beyond his pay grade. Wolfram & Hart, the Shanshu and seeking redemption with the Powers that Be, like the mytharc conspiracy/alien takeover and literal God a.k.a. Chuck, is another endless, unwinnable fight that is so far beyond all the protagonists that there's no win/happily ever after and they'd be lucky just walking away from it with nothing. Angel also name-checks Indy with a blatantly Indy-inspired fantasy dream episode (Awakening in season 4) with Angelus making a crack about the Raiders fantasy. George Lucas actually visited the Angel set back in 2000 and was interested in how they were making mini movies every week and doing some pretty huge stunts on television. David Boreanaz had lunch with Lucas and has talked about it a few times over the many years. I mean, these are all shows starring action-oriented leading men and writing staffs of relatively similar age. Mostly Gen-X males with a few Baby Boomers (more so on the writing staff) with an audience that's primarily Gen-Y but appealing to a pretty broad age range (and probably a lot more female than originally intended!). Star Wars, Indiana Jones and Harrison Ford films in general were very formative to that generation. Harrison Ford is the ultimate leading man action star to a certain generation. Gen-Y got their familiarity with all of that by being the original home video/VHS generation and subsequently a lot more familiar with retro media (including things that were made before they were born or around that time) than Gen-Z. '80s movies have a lot of currency and familiarity still with Gen-Y, even if Baby Boomers were the stars of them and Gen-X were the ones who saw them in theaters. Gen-Y fangirls absolutely dominate the fandoms of many iconic television supernatural/sci-fi franchises (many are admittedly aging franchises). The WB/CW have catered to this group of fans for the last two and a half decades. If you're going to be reviving the character as a mid-20s-to-30s version (if the show lasts long enough, it probably will be stepping on the trilogy's toes timeline-wise by the end), I'd absolutely be aiming for this same audience and their tastes. They're also the audience who would be most receptive to and familiar with the character, IMO. If I were going to reinvent Indiana Jones for the television landscape, I would definitely be looking at those sorts of shows that have influence from the character already in their DNA. I think for the target audience, they'd definitely need to be aiming it at the same fanbases. Young Indy mostly tried to avoid stepping on Raiders' toes (despite Temple of Doom and Mask of Evil already making it ludicrous) by limiting the amount of supernatural elements, but I think a show would have to go all in on it. Indy would have to be transformed a bit in regards to trying to line him up with a character who would still be skeptical after all he's seen. Young Indy ended up forced into being a straight period drama with educational elements, which is very counter to what the audience wanted. There are things to keep from that approach (meeting historical persons, being a WWI veteran and witnessing history could absolutely be mined as backdrops to the stories), but the supernatural elements would have to exist in a revival now to get the audience who I think would be most receptive to it. While I would aim for a serialized drama format that would mean the globetrotting wouldn't have to completely change locations every episode (have it instead in arcs with some bigger MacGuffins and baddies perhaps crossing entire seasons), it's true that there would probably have to be more location filming than good, ol' Vancouver, but Disney is one of the few who could afford it (though Covid certainly would throw a wrench in it and political situations could potentially kill off certain locations). There's only so much green screen that Indy could get away with, though I imagine that a fair amount of it would have to be used for period piece reasons alone. There are a lot of modern intrusions even in historically-intact cities (Eastern Europe comes to mind as having a lot of its architecture intact and is affordable to film in) and around iconic landscapes to paint out. But at its core, it probably would need to bulk up its focus on the relationship dramas. Indy tends to have a girl at every port and to a degree you would introduce some of these love interests, but there's still a lot of relationships of every kind that could be developed and serialized. Certainly throw in a few femme fatales and tragic losses, given the Smallville-esque situation of there being an inevitable Indy/Marion endgame that should be kept--it thus becomes about the journey when it's a set conclusion. Absolutely have a strong recurring cast of Henry and friends new and old. The films actually have a lot of characters that Indy didn't just meet yesterday and could be developed to a huge extent. For a show to work now, there'd have to be a lot more connectivity to how often the recurring cast appear. Young Indy had a lot more of an anthology format with little chance of us getting attached to most of the revolving cast outside of a very tiny few. That's the biggest thing I'd change. You need characters to become regulars beyond just Indy if it were revived for modern cinematic television (the true successor to the film serials of the '30s!) in a way that isn't necessary for film installments.

[saintcarlyon]

TL;DR is that I dislike the idea of a woman healing/bettering a broken man through the power of love (even if she doesn’t actively love him). Sure it can happen but I don’t buy that Sylvie and Loki are able to pull that off. I’m hoping for something a little different. Getting this off my chest before the last episode drops. Spoilers for the Loki series.

Episode 3 paired the two Lokis up in an attempt to escape Lamentis and teased the possibility that Variant Loki may have fallen for Sylvie. Episode 4 then had a bizarre nexus event at the moment Sylvie reached for Loki. Mobius later berates Loki (and the viewers!) for wanting a relationship with Sylvie. But, it’s worth noting Loki himself hasn’t put into words yet what impact Sylvie or Lamentis had on him. Even his final conversation with Sylvie is a little too vague to assume it’s a confession of love. Finally, in Episode 5 there’s a scene where the two Loki variants tentatively discuss their nexus event and feelings for one another.

I personally don’t care if a Loki is in love with another Loki or just wants to engage in a bit of hedonism. Yeah, it’s totally in character! It’s delightfully silly, perverse, and probably what most of us would do if given the opportunity. What I do take issue with is the narrative trope that another person, usually a woman, is going to somehow heal a broken person through the power of love. Especially if it pushes her narrative and needs into the background. And I think the Loki series risks that as it stands right now. 

Because I can’t help but ask myself; would Sylvie or a Lady Loki have been as fleshed out if she wasn’t a romantic lead? As the only female Variant we’ve seen it detracts from Sylvie as an individual because her role has become Loki’s muse and a savior. Another question that bothers me: if the metaphor is self-love, why is the show so insistent that each and every Loki is also a very different person*? And why is Sylvie -the- one to motivate Loki to change?

Contrast her relationship to Loki with Mobius, Classic Loki, or Kid Loki. Mobius is arguably much more encouraging and receptive to Loki, barring his meltdown in Episode 4. And even after Mobius has purposefully been hurtful to Loki he makes an effort to make amends and invalidate the cruel things he said before. And Mobius is able to do this while being aware of Loki’s worst impulses. That’s a good friend! Yet the show doesn’t frame Mobius as a source of inspiration or strength for Loki. Not until the farewell hug in Episode 5. There’s also Classic Loki or Kid Loki, both have given us compelling snippets of their lives and could have given Variant Loki reasons to find compassion and love for himself. But the narrative doesn’t let that happen.

So yeah, it’s the meta that her character arc and purpose are now constrained by the framing of a romantic interest that bothers me. Sylvie seemed to have so much potential to me as a viewer when she was a potential sister or best friend to Loki. And now that they seem to be leaving harder into romance it limits her and limits Loki’s character development.

But, maybe the writers are wise to that expectation and the trope. Maybe we’ll have a scene where Sylvie rejects being Loki’s muse (I mean, she’s had a rough life, give the girl a break and more friends). Maybe we’ll see that Loki has been projecting his own desire to be noble and resourceful onto Sylvie. She may end up not being the person Loki wanted her to be and that challenges him to develop independent of her. 

And I think there are some hints this could happen! Episode 5 laid most of the groundwork for my doubts. When telling his male counterparts about Sylvie, Loki eagerly proclaims, “She needs me!” Up to this point the show has made it fairly clear that Sylvie is more than capable on her own. When she’s needed Loki’s assistance it’s usually as a direct result of his interference. Sylvie’s history as a ruthless, determined Variant is brought up by Mobius and she justifies it as for the greater good. Sylvie is much more cautious about expressing feelings for Variant Loki when they discuss their nexus event. He’s the one taking risks and looking for a future together. She literally responds with, “Maybe.” Finally, Sylvie asks Loki for reassurances that he won’t betray her. He doesn’t think to ask her for the same. So perhaps Sylvie won’t be stuck in a role of the lady love who brings out the best of a bad man,

But I suspect we’ll see this trope played straight and Sylvie will be pruned in the MCU, yet again.

*tangent: anyone else feel like the writers glossed over Loki’s sexism? He’s used gendered insults at Black Widow, implies rape as a threat in Thor, and is utterly condescending to Sif, Valkyrie, and Jane when in speaking with them. The only two women who aren’t disrespected in this manner are his mother and Hela. Unless the “terrifying” quip in Episode 5 was a callback to this.

[eyepatchdate]

Character questions for girls! 17+18 for Akane, 22+29 for Sennestra, 32 for both. (38 for Tav because I don't want to leave him out :p)

SORRY I FORGOT TO ANSWER THESE.  From the post located here.

17. Do they like to take photos? What do they like to take photos of? Selfies? What do they do with their photos?

Akane is really big on the photo reel.  She’s definitely the kind of person who goes through her photos when she’s bored to delete the ones she shouldn’t keep so that she has more space.  She also definitely uses a computer to store them because they accumulate over the years.  She only takes pictures with her phone, the digital age is kind to her lol.

She takes pictures of things around her, she definitely has a few shots of the places she goes most (her room, her house, places she walks often outside).  She would take pictures of things she sees (pretty buildings, fountains, nature, cute animals).  She would also take selfies, but usually only whenever she’s wearing a new outfit or if she’s with friends.  She definitely likes taking pictures of herself when other people are in it as well, she likes gathering memories.

I can totally see her making scrapbooks when a time or event really strikes her, but she probably keeps those to herself.  She would only share them when she really trusts someone and wants to be very open with them.  (and when a right time happens for her to show them as well).

18. What’s their favourite genre of: books, music, tv shows, films, video games and anything else 

Akane loooooves romance novels.  Big epic ones or trashy silly ones, she adores them all with the same amount of love.  She especially loves medieval-themed romances.  Music-wise she would probably listen to mostly pop songs or classical music.  I can’t really see her enjoying any “harder” music.  TV shows is similar to her book loves, she would love shows like Merlin.  For films she would like foreign artsy films, I think.  Aaand for video games, I don’t usually see her as a gamer, but if she’s going to do anything, it would be to play healer in an MMO with her friends, lol.  She makes her character look pretty and sweet.  I MAYBE could see her getting into rp, which, if that was the case, she would have at least two characters.  One a sweet magical girl and the other a valiant but shy male knight.  She’s baaaaaasically projecting hardcore lol.

22. What are their favourite insults to use? What do they insult people for? Or do they prefer to bitch behind someone’s back? 

If she isn’t swearing, Sennestra would probably call people ‘coward’ a lot, or just literally spit at them.  She definitely bitches both to people’s face and behind their backs--when something bothers her she can be a bit Queen Bitch about it.  I see her using a lot of universe-appropriate swear words when she has something specific to insult too.

Sennestra is definitely the type of person where you’re safe from all perceived slights if you’re her friend, but if you’re her enemy you never escape her glare.

29. What do they do when they find out someone else’s fear? Do they tease them? Or get very over protective? 

For this, I think it depends on the gravity of the fear.  If it’s something small that the person is sort of brushing off themselves even as they confess it, Sennestra would poke fun at them.  Gently, if she’s friends with the person.  This is especially the case if it’s spiders or something little that’s more a minor phobia than a true fear. (And, for these minor things, as long as the relationship wouldn’t be too harmed by it, she’d be the type to do like leaving a rubber spider on the back of someones chair to surprise them later, etc).

If it’s a more serious fear though, especially if it’s the fear of someone she really cares about, Sennestra would be overprotective.  She wouldn’t TALK about it, really, and she’s not good at that kind of close comfort kind of way of addressing fears, but she would be sure to put herself between that fear and the person who is afraid.  Once she’s aware, she would always try to shield them from it, as much as she can.

If it isn’t a physical fear, then she HAS to talk, and while she’s inelegant about that, she would try to do her best to assure the person who is afraid, and would try to reassure them with her own strength.

32. What do they dress like? What sorta shops do they buy clothes from? Do they wear the fashion that they like? What do they wear to sleep? Do they wear makeup? What’s their hair like? 

I’m going to limit myself to a modern universe for this ask or I’ll never get through it.  I’ll start with Akane.  Akane dresses very very femme, lots of pretty dresses and bright colors moreso than dark.  She likes accessories and makeup and prettying herself up.  She buys clothes from stores that sell more clothes for women than men, the sort of store that really has a lot of different fashion-lines to choose from.  She LOVES the clothes she wears.  To sleep, she would wear cute pjs with patterns she likes.  Her pjs would always match.  Her hair is a very dramatic bob, with her hair longer in the front and shorter in the back.  She usually wears it down without much else done to it, but sometimes she will but barrettes or headbands on for fun.  She almost never ties it back at all and would only do so if she’s doing yardwork or something extremely physical like that.

Sennestra is a mix of practicality and goth and while she would dress fancy when the situation calls, for the typical day she wears clothes that she can move quickly in.  When she was younger I think she leaned more heavily into the goth thing, but as she grows older the color scheme remains, but the clothes would change.  She probably buys her clothes from stores that sell clothes for professionalism or sports.  To sleep she probably just wears a big T-Shirt and that’s it.  She’ll wear shorts if other people are around but typically probably wouldn’t bother.  Sennestra wears makeup but she doesn’t change it up very often, but she likes wearing heavy eye makeup and lipstick.  Sennestra’s hair is short, and she styles it to line up with her jawline, but it’s very coarse.

38. What do they admire in others? What talents do they wish they had? 

Tavon admires people who are sure in their ideals and goals, and while he does have those himself, he actually tends to hide his own insecurity about his choices.  He wants so deeply to be sure of his path that he sort of projects the questionlessness he thinks he has onto others and admires it, even when he assumes he possess it as well.  Later, he does possess it, but he does still admire it, especially when someone’s goal does not align with his own--he finds differing perspectives interesting.  (A side note, but he is more often to lessen or remove his own goals in the face of other’s, though--but sometimes that is a good thing).

He also admires practical skills, especially combat-related ones in most universes.  He admires bravery and daring, those who are willing to push for what they think is right.

He wishes he was better at connecting honestly with people--an honest connection is something he struggles with.  Falsely, it is easy for him, he’s a spy, he can play the game perfectly, but trust and true connection often evade him, or are quite difficult.  He looks to people who truly care for and love each other and admires those deep feelings.

He also generally admires any specific skillset that isn’t one he’s particularly trained in--even as a spy its not like he can be a master of everything, so sometimes he needs a specialist.  It depends on universe, but Tavon Prime would wish he had better mechanical technological aptitude (as his skills lie mainly in slicing).

[d-n-battle]

You know... it’s not so much that I hate Naruhina and Sasusaku...

It’s more like I just really don’t get how anyone can really like these pairings?? Like I really just don’t understand the appeal???

Like did I really watch the same series as all you Naruhina and Sasusaku shippers????

Y’all: aaawww look at all of these Naruto and Hinata scenes, he clearly loves her sooo much <3 <3 <3🥰😍😌

Me: bitch where????😂😂😂

(Literally, I could make the exact same joke about Sasusaku)

Like, is it just me, or are these two ships literally just about the girls’ feelings???

I mean I’d be totally fine with these two couples, if they didn’t put this emphasis on the girls, and completely ignore the guys...

I mean ok - serious time now - can the Sasusaku shippers and Naruhina shippers show me any evidence from the anime (or manga if you’re a reader) of Naruto and Sasuke returning Hinata and Sakura’s feelings respectively???

Again, I want to reiterate that this is a genuine request, I’m not trying to poke fun with this one. I’m just genuinely curious as to what you guys can dig up. (But also, side note - please refrain from using the films or Boruto as I haven’t watched them yet. I honestly don’t think I’m even gonna watch Boruto, cause I’m not a big fan of like spin off series, so yeah...But anything from the 720 anime episodes, or any of the manga chapters is fine.)

Anyway, back to my point.

Relationships are about two or more people coming together because they recognise that they have romantic feelings towards each other.

Which is exactly why I, like I’ve said already, don’t understand how Naruhina and Sasusaku are supposed to work???

Like yeah, Sakura and Hinata both like/love Sasuke and Naruto.

But when have Sasuka and Naruto expressed that they like them back in that way???

I mean as a whole the show was never even about romance, sure there were hints at possible relationships throughout, but that was never the point of the show.

I mean I feel like this all harkens back to some points I’ve already seen made by other people, but like why is romance necessary in this situation???

.....siiiiiigh.....😒

Because what else are female characters for??? If not to fawn over the male character then really what are they for??? I mean it’s not like they’re meant to represent real life people just like the male characters right??? It’s not like they’re meant to actually have well fleshed out characters with goals that don’t revolve around getting the guy of their dreams to notice them right??? Nooo, of course not, don’t be ridiculous....

I am seriously just soooo done with this bullshit. Like I’ll be the first to admit that Hinata and Sakura are not my favourite characters, but I mean it’s not like that’s really their fault now is it??? I mean they honestly both had a lot of potential. Like, seriously, soooooo much potential. I’m being completely honest here, I was well and truly so disappointed by how these two girls’ character potential was squandered 😔😔😔

And all for the sake of fullfilling their ‘true’ purpose in the show....

And don’t even try to give me the excuse that because Naruto is a shounen anime aimed at a primarily male audience, female characters can’t be feutured as anything besides the love interst. Like what kind of shit is that - so guys can’t even enjoy female characters unless they’re lusting after the male characters they like to insert themselves into???? I mean if you really think that then you must really hate guys.

Like I’m sorry but that just makes men sound like shit. It makes them sound like they only view women as people who belong to them, and are only relevant when it comes to how they are connected to men.

Women are their own goddamm people!!! They don’t exist solely to appease men!!!

As I woman, I have had to put up with this shit for years, and I am so done with it. If guys get to have characters that represent them in almost every piece of media out there, then why don’t women get to have the same treatment??? We make up a whole half of the entire goddamn population!!!

Honeslty, a bitch is soooooo mad about this 😡😡😡(thag bitch being me of course)

And what I’m also super mad about is that these two relationships imply that the guys feelings are completely irrelevant. Like I’m sorry but no amount of Sakura liking/loving Sasuke makes it okay for her to end up with him - if he doesn’t feel anywhere near the same amount of love or appreciation for her. And the same can be applied to Hinata and Naruto.

This outcome also forces everyone to just completely ignore/forget the fact that Naruto and Sasuke are completely unready to be in a relationship with anyone.

Like, yeah I’m gonna admit here that I am indeed a Narusasu shipper, but I’ll also admit that I dead ass don’t think they’d even be ready for a relationship with each other.

I mean the war and everything else just completely messed them both up, so they would both probably need some time to heal. And knowing those two, it would most likely take quite a while before they’re anywhere near healed enough to date - let alone fucking marry - anyone.

And, also (so that I’m not accused of favouritism towards the boys) - what about Sakura and Himata and the shit that they themselves experienced??? I mean Hinata had to watch her cousin die in front of her - that’s gotta mess you up. And Sakura was a medic - there’s no imagining the shit she must have seen.

War messes people up for a long time, and bassed off of what I’ve heard of Boruto - the timeline implies that these two couples got married and had kids pretty soon after the war.

That. Does. Not. Add. Up. Sis!!!!!

Honestly, the series should have just had what I like to call an ‘open ending’. This is where pretty much everything is left (you guessed it) out in the open. By everything I mean like the final relationships and stuff like the minutiae of the story. Unless, your story is a romance story in which case the romance is the most important thing, but as we’ve established- this is not the case with Naruto.

If you don’t explicitly state that characters X and Y are married with 2.5 kids, everyone who would dislike that as an outcome is free to think that they didn’t.

Like seriously, the whole point of using the line “and they lived happily ever after”, is so that you can leave the ending open to the interpretation of the audience. That’s why I’ve never liked being told how they lived happily ever after.

Because, ultimately everyone has different ideas of what happy looks like.

Some people want to get married because that’s what would make them happy, and for some marriage would achieve the opposite. It’s the same case with having children. Or what job you wanna have.

I mean really, there is soooo many different ideas of what happy looks like.

So why limit yourself and more importantly your audience/readers????

I mean think about it like this. The purpose of a main character is basically to give us a point of view of the story through which we can be influenced. That’s why a lot of the time they don’t really have distinct personality traits - so that the reader can project their own onto them. That way the reader/audience member is able to immerse themselves in the story. We are allowed to image that the main character is us. That’s why we get angry when they do something we don’t like, our first thought is - “well, I wouldn’t have done that...”. So image how disconnected you would feel, from a character who makes a big decision that you don’t agree with. Like say, getting married, when you yourself can’t imagine yourself getting married??? Or say, getting married to someone who you yourself wouldn’t want to get married to???

I think that’s the real issues in case of Naruhina and Sasusake. The majority of us - who are clearly of sound minds - would not want to marry Hinata, Sakura, or even Naruto and Sasuke. Most likely because their characters often times feel like caricatures of people, instead of real life people. They feel somehow unfinished, and so we have a harder time seing the bigger picture, and how these big decisions they have made are supposed to make sense.

Okay, I feel like I’ve rambled enough. I leave you with this -

I don’t mean to offend anyone with this post, and so I hope I haven’t/didn’t/won’t. I’m truly just stating my opinion here. If you don’t agree with anything I’ve said here, please do let me know; I’ll always appreciate constructive criticism.

I will always love Naruto. But in order to truly love something you have to also recognise it as flawed. And this was simply me pointing out some of the things which I perceive as flaws of the show/manga.

Please, don’t think of this post, or any others which I might make in the future, as hate posts. As I’ve said, I do love the show/manga - but that doesn’t make me unwilling to crique it.

Alrighty, this is where I actually end the rant.

Thanks for coming y’all,

Love,

Danny

[gumceline]

another massive bubbline shipper here too say i got mad respect for this blog. as much as i stand by my ship 1000%, i also stand by the fact its totally okay too ship them with other people. i admit the bubbline fandom can be pretty toxic, but alot of us will stand by you. not only are you being super respectful even when you get hate, but you arent straight washing. also the way you looked at the negative parts of our community with understanding in last post, that was real great

oh i appreciate it! I prefer never to judge an entire fanbase by one dude because EVERY fanbase has THOSE people, no fanbase is ever perfect.

I really wished my experience with bubbline shippers had been better, it really was unfortunate to have countless hate, to have people make posts mocking me, to be put on “Lists to block”, not to mention that i legit had supportive friends who were bubbline shippers, but they pretty much turned their back on me, abandoned me, and called me a “Homophobic uncaring asshole”.

It really broke my heart dealing with the stuff i did, and i wasn’t perfect either, but i still don’t think i deserved what that was. I was a kid at the time, and was still having fun and i REALLY wanted to be a part of the fanbase because i love the series and loved the characters, but the fandom just....hated me.

Because i was a multishipper and had different opinions on the characters.

It really didn’t matter to them that i also shipped the characters with other female characters, or i said myself i don’t consider them straight. Because the fandom didn’t really care, they took one look and decided nothing i said mattered.

Being in the star fandom is widely different because the biggest ship there is Starco, a MXF (Which i personally don’t really like but that’s just me), and my favorite ship was...and still is Tom and Marco, because i love their chemistry so much and i genuinely consider them to be a much more believable relationship then the romance they wrote for star and marco.

And trust me, it’s always annoying if you don’t ship the most popular ship and like another pairing more but are succumbed to it everywhere regardless of the characters themselves.

But me not shipping star and marco didn’t make me someone who hated straight people, so i don’t think it’s collectively fair to tell anyone who may of liked marcy or bonnie with finn or maybe they ship them with a male oc of theirs....hate lesbians or were just homophobic.

it’s Like if i took finn out of his (Maybe) relationship with huntress and shipped him with....Tiffany (Who is a male character)...that wouldn’t mean i suddenly hated all straight couples and think finntress should burn.

That’s still a huge leap to jump to and extremely dangerous because you’re collectively accusing someone of something serious without really knowing much more about them then “They like this ship”.

Without any knowledge of them outside of that.

You could effectively damage their rep and make their time in the fandom a living hell out of something minor or something you just assumed, i would know.

I welcome progress, i am quite happy for the bubbline shippers who got their ship, heck...i’m STILL mad that we didn’t get poly tom x marco x star on star vs and felt VERY baited by the crew on that.

but even though i am happy for those people, i don’t think it’s validation to beat up on other shippers either, it does nothing for anyone’s case to do that. If the people are actual bigots who are actively acting terrible and throwing around nasty words and doing terrible stuff, then by all means, call them out.

But people who are just causally shipping stuff for fun? In a way it just feels like using them being a gay ship as a weapon against everyone else, because if they disagree with you and have a different opinion you can effectively boil them down to a bigot and no one might question it...especially when it’s the vast majority.

And that should not be acceptable to do, i ended up hearing from a friend of mine that this fandom actively started purging out other creators for having opinions people didn’t like, and now people are starting to regret that they shunned out so many members of the fandom based on things that were probably incredibly trivial in the long run.

And i get it, it’s an important ship, but it’s important as a rep of that ship to be respectful to others, because if not what you’ll end up doing is turn people away. I would like to be more celebratory of your success in getting the ship canon, but it makes it harder if i’m getting several messages asking when i’m deleting my “Hateful” blog because bubbline was now canon.

I’d like to get along with and support these people, but they don’t want to try and support me and have almost just decided to hate me and it sucks, and there’s not much i can do. That’s why i am thankful for those who don’t just immediately decided to judge me and want to know more about my views on the characters. 

This of course does not apply to the community as a whole, not everyone is acting like this, but it is a problem and it has consequences and i hope the fandom does work on it in the future. Please do better in the future.

Now when it comes to shipping, I have my limits personally, like if the characters have canon sexualities i tend to stick to those sexualities, i for one, have a oc that’s gay. I effectively tell others if they make fanart with him for fun that’s great and i love it, but i want his sexuality respected if ships are involved.

Since the AT ones are left in the air, it means i am left to come up with my own ideas, so that’s what i do. I think everyone should be allowed in that regard to have their own interpretations, marcy could be bi, lesbian, ace,pan, ect and all of those are perfectly acceptable headcanons.

i don’t think one should be held superior over another.

I’ve never looked at Marcy or PG and said “Oh yeah, these two are so obviously straight”, they’re about as straight as a bent nail. XD The people who say this stuff clearly don’t follow me to know that they’re not treated as straight here and i think that’s just frustrating because it’s attacking for completely incorrect information.

And the main problem i think i have, like the biggest issue, is i see the F&C characters differently.

Because i know where the fandom is getting this impression people who these other pairings are homophobic is coming from, it’s because most of the fandom doesn’t really see those characters as much more then well...GB characters.

If i saw tomco, and one was turned to a girl to avoid them both being boys, i would be annoyed, i would, i wouldn’t assume the person was homophobic without other evidence but i’d be annoyed. (I mean for all i know it could be an au and i could be mistaking the situation entirely)

What makes this different for me, is because for one, these aren’t fan-characters, the fans didn’t make a genderbent world and design these characters for fun or anything. These were show characters, that were in episodes and have their own comics and all that.

The way the show approached them for me, makes me feel like they’re kinda misjudged, and people don’t have to agree with me on that fact. But i just feel like between them being fanfiction characters ice king made up, the fact their canon is different, the fact the characters do things the F&J characters don’t do, i just can’t help but feel like treating them as if they were something fans did for fun and have no difference outside of their gender is not the right approach for them.

(I mean ice queen died in one comic and has her own unique origin story which is apparently tied to cake’s, flame prince apparently speaks cat and is the most nervous and awkward cutie I've ever seen, gumball is apparently a card wars superfan and legit takes it WAY too seriously, i just can’t really look at these characters and say “Oh, these are all just Ice King, Flame Princess, and Princess Bubblegum but the opposite gender”).

I feel like the show does enough with them,and had a unique enough approach, that i feel like they should be judged as different characters. Like the redraws of regular episodes with the F&C characters are cute but they’re for fun and probably not what ice king wrote for them in his weird stories.

Like i can’t imagine ice king knew PB so well he made sure gumball had her entire backstory and motivations.

And i feel like the people who do enjoy these ships, heck, ALL FOUR of these ships, feel the same way i do. I’m sure some could def be shipping them for the wrong reasons, but i can’t help but think it’s less about their gender and more that other people recognize they’re different and have considered the different dynamics...like they would if they were shipping any other pairing.

And people don’t have to agree with any of us on that, but i don’t think the alternative should be to accuse us of something so heavily either.

These days i have newer friends who like bubbline who are chill with me, and yeah that’s cool, and i personally don’t really draw the ship myself because i’m still not too comfortable in the AT fandom or with the community right now....the situation with it never leaves me feeling safe frankly.

But we get along, they’re lovely, and the shippers who like bubbline but support the blog are also lovely people and i adore them.

At the end of the day i just want to have fun, i’m fine being in a small subsection of the fanbase and who knows, maybe i have gotten people to think about the F&C characters in a new light, i’m not sure.

But i hope maybe at some point the fandom can chill down and we can support each other without turning it into...whatever that entire situation is. Because i don’t want to be fighting with that community and would prefer to get along with them, but only time will tell.

But thanks for the support! I wish you the best ! I sometimes still have a lot to learn but i hope throughout this whole thing I've gone about it as respectful as possible.

I love the show and all the characters and the fun ships and relationships, i hope someday in the future i can be comfortable enough to get back into the fandom as much as i used to be! ^-^

[spiftynifty]

Hey there! I’m the same anon that sent that confusion ask to jojo. I saw your reply and Read your post about LGBT in kids shows and how (at the time) it seemed probable for a m|m canon. I wanted to ask what your thoughts are now? I personally think it seems most likely that Keith will end in a het. Relationship (despite it seeming a little rushed and lm and jds saying they wouldn’t) Keith ending with no one when such a strong relationship with shiro was built up just doesn’t seem likely either..

To be honest, I was worried about Kacxa at first too. Many, many other hetero romances have started with less than that and seeing underdeveloped relationships just happen because “he was a boy, she was a girl, can I make it any more obvious” is something we are extremely accustomed to. Heck the show kind of plays right into this with Hunk/Shay.

But Keith is different, he is a far more developed and story-focused character than Hunk is, and thus if he’s to be given a romantic partner then it needs to match that flow and level of development. One of the “rules” that we often get in media is that “romance is a higher level on the relationship chart than friendship”. And at this point, and even after 13 more episodes, there’s just no context this show could offer me where I could honestly believe that Keith could regard Acxa with a similar level of affection to how he regards Shiro, let alone higher. This was the biggest reason I stopped worrying; to be blunt, Kacxa doesn’t make sense on a narrative or character level. Keith aside, Acxa deserves to have a story told that doesn’t involve her following dudes around.

Also, revisiting the show I’m quite convinced that Keith is canonically in love with Shiro, that his feelings for him were intended to be read as so many of us do. There’s a reason so many people in and outside the fandom have written about their relationship with optimism and curiosity about where the show is taking it. It’s there, even for those who have never been looking for it. I know a lot of straight guys who have picked up on it despite never realizing Korrasami was a thing. 

But we definitely do a lot of speculating here in the Sheith fandom and I’ve seen some pretty elaborate meta for scenes that didn’t particularly resonate as shippy for me. So stepping back, shipping goggles off, speaking as a viewer and as someone who works in animation, there are really… 3.5 sequences that give me pause, that are so heavily coded and so… interestingly storyboarded and animated that I find it increasingly impossible to believe the showrunners and directors never intended for their relationship to be read romantically. They are:

Because there is something inherently romantic about the slow zoom on their smiles before the slow drift of them towards each other, the castle forgotten

Because this is blatantly highlighting how beautiful Shiro is and Keith staring at him in awe before he closes his eyes for the last time, resigned to their joint fate

Because I have run all the permutations and scenarios in my mind and there is literally no reason for Keith to stop mid lean, with his eye direction shifting lower than Shiro’s eyeline. It would have been faster and way less work to show him just hugging him without the pause.

And then this is the 0.5:

Because while the canon tempers this moment with “you’re my brother”, I am beyond convinced that that line was added because the scene was too romantically coded without it. And if you don’t believe me, check out this edit someone made of what the scene sounds like without the brother line. It’s incredible. 

But will we SEE canon Sheith? that’s… a little more complicated. 

My post ages ago about LGBT in cartoons was pretty optimistic but where I failed was considering the differences in studios. Some companies are a lot more chill about LGBT content in their shows. But they also aren’t the Big Two: Disney and Dreamworks, whose records of LGBT characters are utterly abysmal. Here are the two they had prior to July 2018: LeFou from live action Beauty and the Beast, and Gobber from HTTYD2 in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it line that was ad-libbed by the actor and left in. Arguments could also be made for the Sheriffs in Gravity Falls (that had to be Dumbledore’d after the fact by the show creator who alluded to there being a fight over it).

NOT great, especially when you consider Disney is not just Disney: none, NONE of the 19 Marvel movies feature an LGBT character, nor do ANY of the Star Wars movies. It’s utterly inexcusable. Shareholders in these companies make things more complicated because they help dictate the direction a company will take and if a large portion of their major shareholders are say, more conservative, we’re going to notice that there is one area on the diversity checklist that is repeatedly getting passed over. The bigger the company, the more complicated the relationship is with shareholders. That’s why it’s difficult to compare Korra’s achievement, through Nickelodeon, to the potential of an LGBT relationship on Dreamworks. We should absolutely hold them to the same standards regardless of company size but we can’t expect to get an endgame LGBT relationship just because Korra did, or because of the giant 20-gayteen celebration going on for two wlw ships at Cartoon Network.

But we also got THIS on Voltron.  

And it’s a start. I think it outlines pretty clearly where the limits are for Dreamworks at this time, especially since many casual viewers seemed to miss the romantic implications of Zethrid/Ezor, and a more alarming number somehow walked away from Adam/Shiro’s fight completely unaware they were a couple. Which honestly, was certainly Dreamworks’ goal. Keep it vague enough to fool the shareholders, but implicative enough to pat themselves on the back for their achievement. Even though it only exists because JDS and LM fought tooth and nail for it. But at the end of the day, we still have Shiro, Shiro our canonically gay rep, and that’s so huge. I don’t think people realize how huge that is, and I wish his coming out party hadn’t been so marred by toxic antis and even non-antis who decided to take a really big moment in cartoon history and make it all about themselves and their own pain over the “more” that they didn’t get. 

It’s incredible that we are getting LGBT in cartoons finally, properly. 2018 celebrated three massive historical achievement in kid’s animation: A strong, muscular, leader hero was revealed to be gay and have had a boyfriends, and two wlw couples kissed–one of them got married, onscreen. 

This is HUGE. Prior to 2018 the biggest LGBT cartoon moment we had was Korra and Asami four years ago. 

It was like for four years everyone fought and fought and fought and 2018 was the breaking point and we got this glorious explosion of LGBT romance as a result. Audience reception to these couples has been immensely supportive, which is something the companies are definitely noting if it’s translating into dollar signs. It’s something that makes me much more optimistic for the future of cartoons in years to come. 

But I’m just going to come out and say it: the road to mlm is just a little bit harder. There are a ton of reasons for this but I’d say the biggest two boil down to: classic, gendered homophobia (the white conservative straight dudes with money supporting the studios have an easier time with the idea of two women making out, cuz that’s “hot” than two men, cuz that’s “weird”), and also because it is easier for people to accept that two overly-touchy women are “just good friends” than it is for them to accept that two male characters doing the same thing are. Guys Don’t Get Affectionate With Each Other, after all, because that’s not the Masculine Way. Or something. Tons of people watched the end of Korra and assumed they were just friends. Replace those characters with Shiro and Keith and it raises eyebrows. 

So where does that leave Shiro and Keith? It’s really hard to say and at this point it’s anyone’s guess. I truly believe Sheith was intentionally coded as romantic, but getting the green light is another matter entirely. In addition to the DW shareholders, JDS/LM have to deal with the Voltron ones and since that would include conservative-minded folk along with some Japanese shareholders and Japan has complicated rules about LGBT content… it’s a hot mess. Realistically speaking if you were hoping to see Shiro and Keith kiss onscreen, it’s time to come to terms with the fact that there is a 0.0002% likelihood of it happening. I think the best outcome we can expect at this point is that they both end up single, with bonus points if they’re still alive and on the same planet by the series’ end. I firmly believe that this IS something the showrunners are and have fought for and will continue to fight for until the last retakes are done and the show has been approved and shipped off to Netflix for distribution. 

My tinhat theory is that there is one, single scene/shot, that is blatantly canon, that JDS/LM and KR animated on the sly, and have at the ready that they are totally prepared to replace another more platonic scene with– should DW give the go ahead. But I doubt that go-ahead will ever come. At the end of the day the shareholders are the rulemakers and unless they’re convinced it’s worth the financial gain, Sheith is forever bound to be the “will they won’t they” friends we have seen for the last 7 seasons. And I don’t think that potential financial gain of the kids’ animation world’s first mlm couple is big enough to convince them. But god do I ever hope I’m wrong. 

[notesofarichlycolorednight]

I've seen a popular post on tumblr saying "I'm done with the female villain using seduction to get what she wants,and the male one using violence to the same end. How about we gender flip that shit - the guy charms someone,and the girl threatens to throw the poor victim off of a building?" or anything alike. I totally agreed with them,and my mind went to Drew Tanaka and Luke Castellan. Okay,Drew is a daughter of Aphrodite(goddess of beauty and love),and Luke's a terrific warrior.

Cont. However,that post fits their canon MO’s perfectly, IMO. In The Lost Hero,Drew used intimidation and fear to have people doing whatever she wanted,and was described as having cold,piercing eyes. Luke,while being a badass warrior and a big guy,his biggest assets are his looks and charisma. Silena is an example,and perhaps Kronos chose Luke as his second because he was well-liked. Even Drew being Aphrodite child makes a plus to me,since it makes her half-sister to Deimos and Phobos… ☆

i can agree with you on luke, and somewhat on drew, anon

and i can agree with that sentiment, as well. but also, tbh i think the sentiment is a little surface level, but that’s a whole other beast that i won’t address, bc that’s not really what this post is gonna be abt. and let me be clear, there’s nothing wrong with it being surface level

so luke, we’re good. i think kronos picked luke bc the titan knew that luke was, in fact, very good-looking. even with the scar. and even tho i do think luke had to actually work to charm ppl, he still could. not to mention both annabeth and percy had crushes on him (no one describes another guy like percy did luke unless they have at least a lil bit of a crush on the guy, fite me)

annabeth, of course, had deeper ties

but man, percy sees luke and right off the bat, despite being a little off-put by the scar, percy continues to describe luke is very pleasing terms (for the lack of a better word). even when he knew luke was evil, in som percy calls him an evil male model,,, so like...i’m just saying

anyway

the bonus with luke is that he’s a great warrior--best swordsman in the last three centuries. that’s a high title

drew, on the other hand, i can only half agree with. while i’m glad that rick didn’t go that “sexual” route with her just seducing people to get them to do her bidding, i don’t know that she’s entirely in the “girl threatens to throw someone off the side of the building” class either

for one, it is implied that drew has seduced ppl in order to break their hearts, which is fine. not like, morally fine, but in the sense that it’s okay to age-appropriately have drew “seduce” ppl for her own gains as a character in general. i’m kinda going for “let’s not slut-shame ppl” energy here, which is why i say age-appropriate and put seduce in quotes. so i hope that makes sense

for two, i wouldn’t necessarily be afraid of drew talking me into walking off a cliff or smth. lbr i can’t say how much i’d be affected by charmspeak in general, but we know that charmspeak works better when you’re attracted (or at least find the person aesthetically pleasing) to the person and when what they’re saying is smth they already believe. the magnitude of how well it works probably depends on how much they believe whatever the charmspeaker is telling them/trying to convince them of. with drew, it’s hard to tell her limits, following what we do know from piper, since ppl were scared of her. idk how hard she’s have to try if ppl feared her. it seems like it’d be harder? but that’s a tangent

for three, i also do think her being a child of aphrodite does automatically pull her toward “seduce enemy” territory. now, as you know from previous posts, i want to abolish the stereotype that love only means romantica/sexual love and beauty only means some arbitrary western standards of “““““beauty””””” but it is important to remember that stereotypes are automatic and prevalent responses to things, so it does communicate some of age-appropriate “seduction” on drew’s part

when i read, “girl threatens to throw someone off the side of a building,” i think of the scene in...i think it was the first avengers movie? when cap and black widow are on the roof of a building and the guy they’re--jk, it was the winter soldier, wasn’t it--threatening is like, “you’d never do it cap” and cap is like, “yeah, but she will” and black widow just fucking punts him right off the side of a building without a second thought

drew’s in a grey area between “seduce the villain” and “throw villain off the side of a building” bc she’s not using age-appropriate “seduction” most of the time, and it’s obvious she’s instilled quite a lot of fear in the campers at chb, so i’m not denying that

now am i saying that she has to be physically violent to fit “throw villain off the side of a building?” not at all. and you could def argue that her manipulation is violent in a sense that it’s abusive

but i wouldn’t say you can equate it to the outright violence that men often show in media (which has a lot to do with toxic masculinity, but again, tangent). so, she’s probably closer to “throw villain off the side of a building” but still in that grey area, not to mention her being a child of aphrodite and the stereotypes involved are also pulling her toward the “seduce villain” side

however, i do think if rick made her totally “throw villain off the side of a building,” even with just her charmspeak, we’d be straying into her being a true-true villain territory (she’s definitely an antagonist and not nice, at all in hoo; but like we’re talking the kind of monster that would goad someone into killing themselves). and while it’d be interesting to have a child of aphrodite, who’s a woman, be the antagonist and/or villain would have been dynamic and very interesting, there’s quite a lot to unpack and juggle with if we kept drew as drew and just put her into an antagonist and/or villain role (for example, her being japanese)

that’s all i can think of to say at the moment. thanks for your patience on this. i’m on break, but i’m also working on my thesis p much nonstop so i can propose finals week (wheee)

it’s late here, so i man not be entirely cognizant, but here’s what i got for ya

thanks for sending this in!!

FEED ME SEYMOUR

[wakraya]

Alright, let me put a few points of stuff I’ve seen on the tags to rest here.

1) Jades Are A Rare Caste.

They are implied to be less plentiful than other castes, yeah, I believe Seadwellers are also rare? But here’s the thing- We have six Jades. When someone says “There’s twice as many Jades as we have Rusts or Bronzes”, it sounds like, shit, yeah weren’t they supposed to be less abundant? Except. They’re still, in total, just Six. Alternia is a planet. Lore-wise, they may be a less plentiful Caste, but they’re not even... In the double digits. This is not even the population of a neighborhood, Xefros’ suburban area likely had more Trolls in total than there are Trolls in this Troll Call, and besides it’s likely all Jades are in the same place for some reason- Jadeblood School is the biggest headcanon right now, for example, so... Why wouldn’t you have a bunch of Jades there?

2) Jades Are All Female.

This is a straight-up misconception, yeah they’re mostly girls, but canon still leaves room for Jadeblood boys. So Male Jadeblood? Yeah, can happen, and there’s nothing going against the canon here.

3) Trolls Have No Concept Of Gender.

This one is honestly baffling to me because I haven’t heard about this until the discourse today. I am assuming this comes from the fact Troll Reproduction doesn’t care who provides the genetic material? Their reproduction is not tied to gender, which has made people assume Troll junk is the same for both guys and gals. Except... That’s about it. Even though it’s silly because they’re bugs and implied to be hermaphroditic, they still show sexual dimorphism. And even if they didn’t, they still have a concept of Gender, merely based on the fact there’s Troll Boys and Troll Girls? He/She divide? With Hiveswap expanding on it and showing us there are, indeed, NB Trolls that prefer They/Them. This Gender Divide is actually talked about by Porrim, who also implies that while Fuchsia-down Alternia seemed a Matriarchy, Purple-down it was actually a Patriarchy, informing us that not ONLY is there sexual dimorphism, but also, a cultural divide. By saying that Lanque can’t be Trans because Trolls have no concept of Gender, you’re either mistaking headcanons for actual canon... Or being transphobic by equating genitalia to gender. In which case, fuck off.

4) Trolls Don’t Care About Fashion.

This is something Karkat says, and I believe Kanaya also implies she cares about it more than it’s usual? But Fashion in Troll Culture, seems to be exactly like Mail. Karkat mentions there’s no Mail they do not get a Mailbox with a Flag, yet we see Xefros get mail! Except it’s not Mail. It’s parachuted delivery straight from a website. There’s no standarized Mail system on Alternia, but that doesn’t mean companies can’t deliver things themselves, directly to their Hives. Similarly, Trolls have no concept of Fashion- They don’t care about things such as trends, variety, being dressed properly. And... Hiveswap doesn’t break this. They have more colorful clothes, and some look pretty good! But. Look at Cirava. They’re an absolute fashion disaster. Diemen is just dressed like a hot dog. The Jades all seem to wear uniforms of some sort. Fozzer and Marsti, Skylla, they are more akin to work clothes. The Soleil Twins and Marvus are more flashy, because they’re likely part of a spectacle. Most of them are either a sort of uniform or outfit that’ll fit whatever they’re doing, or a basic color with their symbol somewhere. And you can go from Bright Pink Bathrobe Stelsa, to Pirate-Clad Remele, and back to Punk Denim Elwurd. Not being Fashionable can be about trends, they may simply dress however they want, because of their interests, or their jobs.

But let’s think about this another way. Let’s say that, yeah, they did retcon Troll Fashion- Would... Would you really be mad if they retconned Troll Fashion. Like... Would you be happier if every Troll shown was wearing a plain black shirt with their Symbol, and pants or a skirt, with slight variations of a jacket or a tank top. I don’t think there’s a single Hiveswap design I dislike, and they’re all visibly varied and easily recognizable, and tell a lot about the character, which is like. Character Design 101? So I honestly don’t know what the complaint here is exactly, except Canon Purity.

5) Hiveswap Ruined Fantroll Variety

How. First of all, the entire previous point. Just, expanding upon basic Troll Clothes, showing us the extent of how Trolls dress. But also like... What did they limit exactly? We’re going to learn more about Trolls and Troll Culture and Biology, of course headcanons are going to clash with canon, but so far, what have they limited? I’ve heard about Horns, but like... These horns have all been so varied, and sure there’s stuff like hooks with Ceruleans and Jades, and Four Horns with Golds but... This pattern is also broken, with Azdaja having three, for example. We’ve seen new Psionic colors, we’ve seen stuff like Horn Piercing, we’ve seen Troll Twins, we have seen horns where the orange part starts at different heights than you’d expect and even some of the parts jutting out having their own red-orange-yellow coloration separate of the main shaft of the horn. If anything, until now, there’s always been headcanons for Horns, like, “Oh this is their symbol so it’ll be like this”, or “this is their caste, so, they’ll have big horns”, but no, we have Purples with small horns, we have Bronzes with curly horns downwards, we have a cerulean with super uneven horns, we have a gold with three horns, we have a teal with flat horns, we have rounded horns, we have hotdog horns. I’ve heard people wonder about some Horn Shapes in the prior weeks, about how they didn’t match their restrictive headcanons, and NOW you tell me they’re restrictive? There’s also been complaints about caste roles and stereotypes, and I feel people really forget that Alternia is a Tyranny that forces the inhabitants in roles they are most likely not happy with, specially for the lower castes. Like... Rusts are disposable, and likely to be bound to a life of servitude. Because they’re the lowest of the low, society treats them as such, and there’s stereotypes like Indigos being strong, but that’s not any more restrictive than Psionics being a Gold-only thing, and much like we see Zebede not having Psionics or Elwurd and Mallek having normal eyes to every other cerulean’s messed-up ones... There’s exceptions to the rule everywhere. There have always been.

I’ve also seen complaints about no mutant bloods or things like Albinism and such? And like... The fact they didn’t include it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. We actually got Freckles with Zebede, so it already implies skin conditions are a thing, so Albinism could happen, if anything we have more PROOF that it may be a thing! Complaining about a lack of Limebloods and Violets, too, is just nitpicking, we know there will be Violets eventually, but either we haven’t been shown right now, or they’re just. In the sea. And we’re in the land. And Limes are likely to be a plot point, I’m expecting at least ONE Lime (Fiamet), if not more to show up at some point, and if there’s NO Limebloods I’m sure there will be at least talk OF Limebloods and their whole, you know, extermination, which is a canon thing that happened.

6) The Game’s Representation Is Bad Representation

Listen... Listen. I have friends ecstatic that there’s at LEAST three non-cis characters in Hiveswap (One trans boy, two NBs), without counting the possibility of other characters being Trans (Pretty much anyone could be), or NB (Like, I think about half of the characters don’t have pronouns on their bullet points?), not to mention, further acts with new characters. Hell, even Xefros or Dammek or Joey could be Trans. We. Literally know nothing about these characters, our information is so limited, and yet there’s already people cheering about it and super happy to see representation and I’ve seen one person in the tag encouraged to come out because Lanque is Trans. There’s also at least two Jewish Trolls, plus the possibility of Kanaya being Jewish as well, either her, Rose, or both. And yet, even though they have simply said this, in good faith, respectfully, and trying to add diversity to their roster, and even though we literally know NOTHING of how it’ll be handled yet, you... Bash them for it?

Like, okay. Lanque. The big topic today. He’s not particularly masculine, but as has surely been repeated over and over and over again, not all trans men are masculine, and not all trans people suffer dysphoria. And yeah, it’s true! It would be nice if there was a more masculine trans man! It would be great if there were trans girls! It would be great if there were more diversely coded NB characters! And there may be?? There’s going to be more characters, if not in this Act, in future Acts, and of the ones we’ve seen, many of them could still be NB or Trans. Like... Again. We’ve got three bullet points from each character. Like, I’m sorry you didn’t get a trans character that you could identify better with yet? But that doesn’t mean you have to bash the one we got? When there are people genuinely happy and encouraged about it? You’re not being progressive. You’re being an elitist asshole, if you only accept 100% perfect representation suited to your tastes, and everything else is garbage, or god help me, ‘fetishization’ or ‘disgusting’ (I have heard both on the Tags), like seriously. You’re being the oppressive one. You’re the one making representation harder than it should be.

Oh and if you’re on the OPPOSITE side of the spectrum and simply being Transphobic or saying how all of this is ‘pandering’ to the audience, really I have nothing to say, if you cannot have basic empathy for a group of people finding representation in a game which source material is extremely queer, and have to resort to bashing it down, screw you.

7) WhatPumpkin Are Doing A Bad Job

This is your subjective opinion, and I’d dare to say, a wrong opinion, but let’s not go there for now. WP has suffered a lot of hate for some reason? There have been lies and slander and bashing for absolutely no reason. People hate Cohen for some reason, and have demonized him, when so far what I’ve seen about him is that he’s a pretty chill dude. The writing of Hiveswap wasn’t like, a masterpiece? But it was fun and it got a good bunch of chuckles out of me and made me care for the characters, and even got me a bit scared and sad at some points during the game! It has that Homestuck Spark, and if you say ‘it’s not like Homestuck’, you’re... I’m sorry, you’re just an elitist, or simply don’t like the style anymore? But it carries a very similar charm.

I’ve heard complaints about Hussie not being involved in the project- Which is false, he did write the entire story FIRST THING, and is overseeing the whole project with the rest of the team. There’s also been criticism towards WP ‘failing’ at representation (Before actually seeing the representation apparently, again, we know NOTHING about the game and how it’ll handle stuff so far), and also accusing WP and Cohen specifically of adding representation because of Woke Points and like... WP are Queer as Heck? I don’t know all of them, I don’t even know how many people are working at WP. But they’re not all straight 100% for sure, and I believe they’re not all cis- And even if they ARE all cis, I also doubt a group working on such a Queer game would NOT hear out from Trans friends. What I’m trying to say, is that they haven’t shown at any point disrespect of ignorance regarding the diversity they want to tackle, they’re not doing things out of bad faith, and we haven’t seen how they handle it yet. Even if they didn’t handle it ideally! Does it need to be absolutely perfect, there can be missteps on the way there, god dammit if someone’s trying to better themselves but not quite getting it right you don’t insult them and tear them down! You show them what to do better next time or where they are mistaken, by pessimistically ignoring what they’re trying to do out of spite you’re discouraging good will and being an asshole! Which leads me to my last point for now.

8) They Could Have Told Us We Were Misgendering Lanque

This one is... Really, a bit ridiculous. Okay, let me explain. If someone is Trans and you misgender them accidentally, they’ll tell you quickly and you’ll, hopefully, correct yourself. Obviously. When the Trolls leaked, everyone latched onto Lanque as ‘Butch Lesbian’, and clung to that hope, and now that they were proven wrong, there was salt, at first, and THEN came the talk about Misgendering Lanque. And let me tell you, I think this is very selfish of everyone saying it.

What WP likely thought would happen is that they’d reveal Lanque to be a Trans boy, and people would be like “Oh! Nice, Trans Rep!”. Sure they could’ve told us back then but... Why? Lanque is not. A real person. He’s a fictional character, he’s not going to be offended because you thought he was a butch woman for a few months, in fact the SILHOUETTE alone ALREADY had people clinging to him as a butch woman. If he were a real person? Of course there’d be a quick correction. But he’s. A character. He’s just a god damn character. Who is Trans, out of good faith by a very Queer company, showing us a Trans man, who is a character, and expecting that, like NORMAL PEOPLE, we would not do something like THIS.

When you criticize WP for not telling us Lanque was a Trans Man, all I’m seeing is a shift of blame, not wanting to simply admit you were wrong and jumped to conclusions, and like- Even if there was Fanart or Fanfic of Lanque calling him a woman briefly, shipping him around mistakenly, who cares? You just. Go. “Okay, I’ll change it” or “Whoops haha this was from when we didn’t know he was a Trans boy!” Why the militant hatred? Why the absolute disgust shown today? I can’t understand, I simply cannot understand why your first reaction to “Trans boy Jadeblood” is “WELL I THOUGHT HE WAS A BUTCH LESBIAN!! I WASN’T WRONG BY ASSUMING THIS, WHATPUMPKIN WERE FOR TRYING TO MAKE THEIR GAME MORE DIVERSE”. It’s like... You just. Correct it? You just correct yourself? And yeah you can want more masculine Trans boys, that’s fair! But dismissing what we got, entirely, and insulting it, and getting like THIS, and blaming the team, it just seems.

Narcissistic. It seems narcissistic and extremely self-centered, and perfectionist to the extreme of not wanting anything other than a complete and absolute ideal, that may fit you but may also not fit others.

In conclusion?

People are happy about representation. This isn’t destroying diversity or representation, this is not reducing customization of Fantrolls, this is only building MORE on the already expansive system, and giving us representation and hope for MORE representation in the future, and if you cannot be happy for a genuine, good natured, and honestly, perfectly fine attempt, if you cannot feel empathy for the people who did feel for this representation, if you can only want to find reasons to bash something down and demonize something good and point out how BAD and NOT GOOD things are and how MUCH BETTER they could be, then honestly, you’re a deeply unpleasant person.

Give things time. Give people with good intentions chances. Learn to backpedal and learn from mistakes and simply correct yourself when you’re wrong instead of going down a hateful spiral. Learn to separate fiction and reality. Just like... Think, for a moment, when you’re writing something down- Is it a jaded opinion, or an objective fact? Will it hurt and discourage people who’re genuinely happy or trying to make others happy? Why do more harm than good when there are good intentions paving the way?

I just simply cannot understand the basic lack of critical thought and empathy of some people I have seen today, and hopefully with this I can make my opinion on the whole absurd Discourse that transpired today clear.

[fambaneni]

Storytelling through her eyes

As the first post since my 2 years hiatus, I wanted to cover a story that resonates my current personal position of self- liberation and growth creatively. Since embarking on curating and deeply engaging with the art sector, I discovered that some elements of the industry go against my temperament. Despite this, I am driven and will continue to walk my own path.

For this reason, I am excited to share the story of the South African film maker Ntombozuko “Twiggy” Matiwana, who is making her own mark through film. She has won awards for her first short “The Bicycle Man” 2016  the Silver Poulain and the European Union’s Africa, Caribbean, Pacific Prize in Burkina Faso March 2017, alongside notable film makers/directors; Alan Gomis and Ousmane William Mbeya. Her film has also been to several festivals including Cannes. Matiwana has worked on popular South African TV soaps (The Queen, Scandal and Skeem Saam). She is also well known for her poignant documentaries that highlight critical social issues within South Africa and beyond. With features in magazines such as Elle SA, she is a woman to watch!

Twiggy on the set of “The Queen” which airs on Mzansi Magic

G.T: Hi Twiggy, firstly, I would like to thank you for agreeing to this talk/interview.

I admire your strength to go for what you want. I read in an article that you left your hometown Joza in Grahamstown with only R20, resigned from a marketing course you were doing at the time and a career in Journalism to pursue film and tell stories that are often neglected. Firstly “See, Speak and Hear no Evil” 2013, on violence against women and “Waterless Flower” 2014, on the troubles of access to water and basic sanitation for some communities. These seem to be part of your first works as a film student, yet they have already received accolades.

Can you please tell me about your journey into film making, your favourite films/directors, and why?

T.M: Thank you for the invite Gaynor. Well, when I left home I had an agreement with my family to be back after a month. I told them that I will just go test the waters in Johannesburg. That month turned into 15 years. I can’t believe it’s been that long, what a journey!

Twiggy’s awards for “ The Bicycle Man” film 2016

T.M: My calling has always been to tell stories. From a very young age, I was that child that went to bed late, I was always glued to the television screen. At the end of each film I would carefully read the end credits - intrigued to see who wrote and directed the piece. I was more into Asian cinema, “Days of Being Wild”, “In the Mood for Love” by Kar-Wai Wong, and John Woo’s films like “Face Off”. The list is endless!  

Why…Well I think Wong is poetic, he’s often fascinated by the smallest details, for example, “In the Mood for Love”, there is a scene where you see smoke swirling towards the ceiling or a reflection shimmering in a puddle – he prefers his drama to be understated. Wong’s multi-narrative, non-linear story-lines delight in jumping around restlessly. He knows how to make you laugh too. As for John Woo’s film, “Face Off”, I think it’s a compelling classic compared to other violent Hollywood crime films. This one you can always watch. Woo admits that his gun-play was influence and inspiration from Martin Scorsese. Thinking about this it’s sad that growing up I was never introduced to female filmmakers.

Twiggy with one of her favourite directors/film makers Abderrahmane Sissako

G.T: You aim to educate via questioning/challenging stereotypes through your films. Do you maintain your philosophy on sets that you work or have worked on as an assistant director, such as “The Queen” and “Scandal”? If so, how?

T.M: Television is different ball game. To be honest with you, I have never been part of story development in all the soaps I’ve worked on, I mainly do the casting.

G.T: Can you please share some of your highlights while on these sets, especially “The Queen”, what is it like working for Ferguson Films?

T.M: The Fergusons!! Love them. I think they are the most reliable black owned production company to date. They have given me so many opportunities. I oversee casting and scout new talent. For them to give me that responsibility shows great trust. They also know that I am a passionate film maker, so they give me time off to work on my own projects. Shona and Connie are very supportive of talent and enabling others to excel.

One of my key highlights with the Fergusons is directing a few episodes of The Queen Season 1 and having all episodes approved for broadcast.

On the set of “ Defiant Bonga��

G.T: I have been noticing posts on your Instagram, “Defiant Bonga”, what is the film about, how did you get involved?

T.M: This year South Africa hosted the BRICS Film Festival, each country that forms BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) had to produce a short film paying tribute to the life and legacy of Nelson Mandela. I was fortunate enough to be chosen to direct the South African short which is, “Defiant Bonga”.

The film is about a strained relationship between father and son. This is put to test when the ‘rebellious’ teenager sneaks off in the middle of the night and is brought back home by the police. However, a person’s perspective of a Johannesburg night can conflict with the actual revelations of the day, much to the relief of a concerned father. That’s all that I can say for now, you will have to  see it yourself.

G.T: You directed the web series “Bold Girls” which explores the life and tribulations of 4 women by Nonocreations, a female owned production company. What was it like working on the series/set?

T.M: “Bold Girls” was an exciting project to make. Nono and I wrote the pilot episode and I called in favours from production design to cinematography. Martha Sibanyoni my art director and Philani Brown my DOP (Director of Photography) and I all made sure everything was on point. Everyone was excited about the series and we all made it work. My lovely wife, Sindiswa helped in the wardrobe department. In total, 90% of the crew were women, we all took charge, and helped shape the story. It was fun to be part of. I am happy and proud to have been able to create such interesting lives for those women characters.

On the set of “Bold Girls”

G.T:  What are you currently working on, any writing or full-length film residencies in the pipeline?

T.M: I’m working on my first feature script. Writing can be tormenting sometimes but am learning to be patient with it.

As for residencies, I have been applying but there’s been no luck. Going away from the noise for a while would be great, a peaceful and tranquil place would help.

G.T: I hope you will get a residency soon. Nonetheless, in terms of film making you are doing well, however, are there any obstacles that you continue to face, especially as a woman film maker? If so, how do you overcome them?

T.M: As we all know the film industry is male dominated, so if you come in as a young female director it’s even scarier. I however, always make sure that even if I’m terrified I walk tall. For me to be bold am also always prepared.Preparation is important, it gives you confidence and the crew will see that you know what you are doing.

Finance!!! Finance!!! Finance! Our Industry needs to trust women more. Trust Women! Give funding to Women! Regardless of this issue, I tell myself that my turn will come. I also have space saved up for disappointments, so when they happen I go back to the drawing board and I work even harder. I don’t let obstacles get in the way.

Twiggy in Ouagadugou, Burkina Faso

G.T: In 2017 during the FESPACO festival where you won your awards, you had a video interview where you advised the EU to try and reach those from rural areas and disadvantaged backgrounds with unique stories to tell. As part of the Youth Film Makers Project working together with emerging film makers, what are your thoughts on how the EU can achieve this? If you were to be an ambassador for the EU, how would you go about ensuring this?

T.M: If I were to be an ambassador for EU, firstly, I would help shape the state of education in our country and allow our children to learn with no fear. Secondly, I would help build independent cinemas around where I come from. You know, I can’t believe that Grahamstown does not have a single cinema to this day! That just breaks my heart.

Pushing for film making, I would make sure that aspiring film makers have accessibility to opportunities from a young age and get to learn everything they can about film. I would teach them about Ousmane Sembéne, the father of African cinema; Med Hondo, Djibril Diop Mambéty and Abderrahmane Sissako, Jamil X.T Qhubeka, Ramadan Suleman just to name a few.

G.T: To close, what advice can you give to future film makers both male and female?

T.M: Baby You are all you’ve got. Live to learn that the sky is the limit. You can be anything you want if you set your mind to it. Trust yourself enough AND STAY IN YOUR LANE. Never compare yourself to anyone.

G.T: Well, thank you, what a beautiful close! This actually takes me to my favorite picture of you, at the top of a mountain which you pushed yourself to climb. Its a lesson to continue defeating our fears and shine.......

“......Condolences to Fear and to Insecurities, you will never win with me......"

[restlessmaknae]

Paradox [pt.7]

Chapters: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7

Word count: 1925

Genre: angst, drama, a bit of fluff

Pairing: Lee Donghyuck (Haechan); Yu Dayoung (OC)

Setting: non AU

Warning: mentions of character death, suicide, hints of depression

Chapter warning: -

They were so young, so talented yet so desperate.

Paradox of us (The paradox of you&me)

 People say that we were a wrong pair from the start. We were never meant to be together, it was never written in the stars. We met anyway and we fell in love. That’s when I realised what loss really was. That’s when I learned what love was.

Although coming from different companies, experiencing different training methods and being completely different, I think our paradox was one of a kind. It’s my favourite so far; the paradox of us, the paradox of you&me.

 Dear Donghyuck,

There were times when I believed it would work out. It turned out that I was wrong. I was only chasing a fantasy out of my reach. Life is not a dream, after all. I had to learn the hard way.

I wanted it to be as easy as the start. Without telling silly fibs, without hiding behind masks and without constantly being terrified. However, as trust exists, so does fear. Fear of the future, fear of failure, fear of the unknown. There are so many types of fear and you were only one of them. My greatest fear.

How easy it was in the beginning, right? Joking around without being afraid that we might hurt each other’s feelings. Yet, when one starts to care, insouciance is not a definition anymore. We love, we receive love, we hurt and we get hurt. It’s all part of the system, it’s all how it works. It was just a matter of time until we discovered it for ourselves. After that, there was no turning back. We were trapped in the prison that was called ‘love’.

Our relationship was the stern winter longing for the bright spring, never actually taking the warmth into consideration that will eventually make it disappear. As long as we could play with fire, as long as we didn’t fade away with the burning ashes, we were alright. We got burnt so many times, I don’t even know how many times but the hours we spent together with talking, gazing at each other or just lying beside one another definitely paid off. I wouldn’t regret anything.

The first few months were the so-called good times. We knew nothing about what was waiting for us. It was my mistake, I know. I never let you see how I was shaking in fear every time we parted our ways because I was afraid that we would get caught. But that wasn’t what really teared us apart. It was me, my own stubbornness and my own stupid body that made things turn out the way they did.

Believe me, I wish I could change but there’s no way that I could do so. The doctor says that I can’t do this anymore, I would only make it worse. Trapped in the cage of expectations with the weight of the pressure on my shoulder, I feel like I’m constantly being twisted. What is right and what is not? For who should I make sacrifice? What is my duty and what is the purpose of life? Is that the same thing?

Being confused in your own feelings and terrified at your own thoughts is the worst feeling in the world. You can’t be mad at someone else, the enemy is within you…

Remember how you always said that I would make it? I believed you because I wanted to believe that it would actually happen. I wanted it to be true but until I met you, I couldn’t afford to cherish the thought. It was a mere illusion for me, a dream that I couldn’t reach. It was the air that my lungs sought after; the medicine that I was ready to be given and the drug that kept me on toes, motivating me to keep going, pushing me to my limits. Pushing me until I fell.

In the end, I only have regrets regarding my debut. I shouldn’t have been so stupid, I should have just stepped on my dreams and walk towards another goal of mine. I was too adamant and that turned out to be my greatest weakness.

What I don’t regret is the things that we’ve done together. When we were together, our happiness doubled. When we were together, our sadness lessened. I know it sounds silly since it’s an equation that is far from even logical. But it’s the equation of love, so it doesn’t need explanation.

The hardest part was still yet to come. We couldn’t be prepared for what was following. The days got undeniably harder and so did the war that I wanted to win. It seems that I was an easy opponent and gave up easily. People usually think that if you commit suicide, it was the easy way for you. I have to tell you that it wasn’t. I’m not saying that I was brave and I really should have done it but you can’t imagine how many times I’ve changed my mind. I was constantly thinking about my family, the company, my dream and you. It wasn’t easy at all.

The thought first crossed my mind when Dr. Lee said that I should give up on my dream to become an idol. My body wouldn’t be able to handle it. You know that I’ve said that it was because of all the stress and pressure that was taking hold of me due to the upcoming debut of the Tender Thorns. Yet, I wanted to believe that I can do it.

That’s why I made the deal with the company.

To tell you the truth, I don’t know what it will feel like. Falling, flying with the wind and being free… But I know what I’ll be thinking of. Because amidst all the darkness and grief, you were always there. My beaming light. I’ll be thinking of that light. I’ll be thinking of you.

 And after that… well, I don’t know what will happen. You will probably blame yourself, saying that it was your mistake but let me tell you that it wasn’t. If you hadn’t been there, I would have done it even earlier. So, please, accept my decision and do me a favour.

When I’m not going to be there, please, be the one who smiles. The one who brings laughter and the one who gives hope for others. Be as radiant as you were and continue to be the beaming light for others. Last but not least, never be afraid to love again. And be loved.

I love you, Donghyuck. I should have said it earlier.

 Love,

Dayoungie

 With the letter in his hands, reading her words for the hundredth time, Donghyuck couldn’t help but shed a tear. He felt lonely again and the whole situation made him remember how much he really missed her. He blamed it on the wound that her loss caused which still couldn’t fully recover. It wasn’t as aching as in the beginning but it still hurt. Every single time he read her letter, it was less and less heart-wrenching but the hollowness hadn’t faded yet.

“Donghyuck, come on! We’re coming up next!” Youngho hollered gleefully and opened the dressing’s room door. Poor boy almost had a heart attack when his band member showed up in the room, grinning widely at his scaredy-cat friend.

“Why are you so scared?”

“I was just…” he was hesitating whether to admit that he was reading Dayoung’s letter or say an innocent, little lie. In the end, he decided to tell the truth. “I’ve just finished reading her letter when you came in,” he confessed sheepishly, looking down at the paper in front of him.

He didn’t need to say whose letter it was, Youngho knew it perfectly. In fact, he was the first who got to know about Dayoung’s last words since he was there when the doctor gave it to Donghyuck. He said that they had found it in the girl’s hand when they were operating her. His name was written on the back, so after they had clarified that he was the so-called Donghyuck, he could finally seize it.

At first, he wasn’t even able to read until the end, he bawled in tears after 2 paragraphs. The more he read, the worse he felt. It was tearing him apart, knowing that she had planned her suicide beforehand and he couldn’t figure out that she was up to such a terrifying move.

Yet, he wanted to do her the favour that she had asked and it meant that he couldn’t blame himself. It was one hell of a ride, to say the least, but he managed to move on and start living again. The fans noticed the change in his bubbly behaviour but he had to keep it as a secret due to Dayoung’s and his contract. On top of that, it was about his private life and although he loved his fans like family, he wouldn’t like to share the burden with them. It could have destroyed him even more.

“Oh, I see,” Youngho nodded and awkwardly ruffled his hair. “Do you need a moment to recollect your thoughts and−“

“No, I’m fine. Let’s go and rock this stage!” he immediately cut him off, giving him a thumbs-up. The leader smiled gently and slung his arm around Donghyuck’s shoulder.

Although he was nervous as hell, the current NCT sub-unit’s stage with Youngho – aka Johnny -, Yuta, Ten, Mark, Hansol, Winwin and Kun – turned out to be pretty successful and when they took their seats in the audience, some of their sunbaenims congratulated on their energetic and jaw-dropping performance. Donghyuck boosted a proud grin but he knew that the most exciting part was still yet to come.

They were nominated for the ‘Best Dance Performance Male Group’ and ‘Best Music Video’ awards along other bands like BTS, EXO, GOT7 and Monsta X and it would be an understatement to say that they were shocked when they won the latter. Donghyuck literally froze when he heard their name, questioning whether he had gone totally crazy or he had a problem with his hearing.

Nonetheless, they walked onto the stage and started their winning speech. First, it was Johnny who gave one since he was the leader of the sub-unit and the member who had trained the most, then, it was the international members’ turn - Winwin, Kun, Ten and Yuta. Mark thought of the international fans and said thank you in English, too, while Donghyuck didn’t prepare anything special, he said what was already arranged with the boys.

“I would like to dedicate this award to a very special person whom we had lost this year. I met her exactly a year ago and if she was here today, I’m sure she would do her best to make everyone happy. Please, in memory of Yu Dayoung, join me and observe one minute of silence for her! Thank you!” he bowed respectfully, his eyes scanning the reaction of the other idols.

The stadium stayed totally silent for a moment and then, one particular band stood up and the others emulated their action one by one. Soon, the whole audience got to their feet and no word was exchanged for a minute.

Donghyuck – who was doing his best to cover up his gratitude – looked up at the ceiling, wondering whether Dayoung would be able to see this.

I love you, too, Dayoung. No matter where you are, you will always be my beaming light.

[motivationsuccess]

I-Can Belief. Your Route to Achievement by Stuart Goldsmith

 Stuart Goldsmith

YES! You CAN achieve ANYTHING that you want!

Well; nearly anything.....

I often say this to people only to have them give silly examples of things which they CANNOT do. For instance they will say: "I really want to fly to the moon by flapping my arms; how can I do that?" or : "I'm seventy-five but I want to become the heavyweight boxing champion of the world!"

I get exasperated at this because obviously there are many things which you cannot do and will never do. Your physical limitations (alone) will put a ceiling on your level of achievement.

I call this absolute limit to your potential the REAL CEILING. Your REAL CEILING height is set by things like your age (and hence physical ability), and by what is 'impossible', in the real sense of the world.

For the purpose of illustration, I would like you to imagine this REAL CEILING to be like the ceiling of a huge cathedral.

Imagine this ceiling to be over ONE HUNDRED feet above you.

This represents the REAL ceiling to your achievements.

It may surprise you to know that most people spend their entire lives living and working under a FALSE ceiling.

Furthermore, this FALSE ceiling is set much, much lower than the real ceiling, thereby effectively preventing people from achieving things which are readily achievable.

Now then, how high do you think your FALSE ceiling is in comparison to the REAL ceiling? You'll be amazed when I tell you that most people's false ceilings are under three feet high. YES; THREE FEET!

Let me say that again:

MOST PEOPLE ARE WORKING UNDER A FALSE CEILING WHICH IS LESS THAN THREE FEET HIGH!

They are crammed into this artificially small space without even room to lift their heads. Do you see why I get annoyed at the silly examples?

People who give examples of silly things which they CANNOT do, are pointing out the limitations of a one hundred foot ceiling, whilst working under a three foot ceiling!

It is rather like saying to someone: "Hah! Your Rolls Royce can only go at 130 mph", when all the time you are riding a child's tricycle!

YES, there are things which you cannot and will not achieve; but these things are so far above your present FALSE ceiling that they are irrelevant.

Why worry about not being able to fly to the moon if you haven't even taken a holiday for the last five years?

Why worry about being heavyweight champion of the world if you cannot even give up smoking?

Why worry about being able to buy America if you cannot even pay off your mortgage?

I'll tell you something else: Although the real ceiling to your achievements is one hundred feet high, your wildest dreams of wealth, power and happiness are set at around the fifty foot mark; in other words, they are well below the real ceiling - they are easily achievable! I'll say that again in case you missed it:- Your wildest dreams of wealth, power and happiness are easily achievable.

The statement at the start of this chapter should say: "You can achieve anything providing it is sensible and within human capabilities." But this doesn't have quite the same ring, does it?

So I say that you can achieve ANYTHING AT ALL, and trust that you are sensible enough to realise the implied human limitation of the one hundred foot ceiling.

Stand Up Straight!

Think of the fantastic feeling of relief that you would experience if you could raise your FALSE CEILING from its present low height to the full one hundred foot height! It would be like being born again! You could do ANYTHING which any other human being with similar abilities to yourself had done before; or even something which NO-ONE had done before!

The possibilities are staggering:

You Could Become a Millionaire!

YES, YOU could become a millionaire! Why not? Millionaires are common! There are tens of thousands of them around the world. It's not so very special. In fact, this is one of the EASIER things to do.

Why do I say that becoming a millionaire is one of the easier things to do?

Well it's obviously not that difficult otherwise tens of thousands of men and women would not have achieved it!

There is nothing SPECIAL about these people. Only a small percentage achieved their wealth by inheritance or luck. Most of them are ordinary people like you or me.

They don't all have special abilities or talents which are excluded from you or I. They are not a breed apart, some exclusive elite to which we can never aspire - this might have been true a hundred years ago, but it certainly is not true now.

Most of them are honest and hard-working, and they do not have any secret knowledge from which we are excluded.

I became a millionaire in eight years, starting with an overdraft! I promise to you now that I am just an ordinary guy with no special gifts or talents for making money. I wasn't lucky either; in fact I had a lot of bad luck. I just BELIEVED in myself and my abilities. I raised my false ceiling, not to the full one hundred feet but to at least fifty feet! I still have another fifty feet to go!

But having a fifty foot ceiling sure as hell beats having a three foot ceiling!

Believe me, there is a very, very big difference between having a THREE foot ceiling and having a FIFTY foot ceiling.

Let's All Make Excuses

Perhaps at this point, you are probably thinking things like:

"That's all very well, but......" "He makes it sound easy, he should see where we live..." "If it was that easy, everyone would do it." "I bet he hasn't got children/dogs/sick mother/wooden leg...."

And many other things like this. In fact I hope you ARE making excuses otherwise you shouldn't be reading this book!

Excuses are what people use to cover up or justify their lack of

PSI and I-CAN belief.

I hope you will forgive me for calling them excuses, but THAT IS WHAT THEY ARE! I'll show you WHY you feel you have to make excuses and HOW to stop making excuses by raising your I-CAN belief from the present three foot FALSE CEILING to as high as you can go.

I vividly remember the time when I made all sorts of excuses for not achieving success. Do you remember that I told you how I used to blame anything and anybody other than myself?

I blamed my lack of money, I blamed my lack of contacts, I blamed society for favouring the rich, I blamed the depression, in short, I blamed everything except myself!

Why do you think I made these excuses?

Simple! I made excuses because they LET ME OFF THE HOOK!

If something else or somebody else was causing my failure then I wasn't to BLAME was I? What could I do about it? It wasn't MY fault. After all, I had all these handicaps like lack of money and lack of ability!

"Anyway," I told myself, "what's the point in even TRYING? The only people who make it in this world are either rich to start with, or lucky, or dishonest....... Even if I make lots of money, the taxman would take it all, so what's the point?"

I didn't take responsibility for my own life. It was easy and convenient for me to blame someone or something else for my failure.

Do you see how not taking responsibility for your own life is VERY CONVENIENT? The pay-off is obvious. By blaming external agencies you absolve yourself from responsibility, which, in turn means YOU DON'T HAVE TO TRY.

These excuses were formed very early in your childhood, and they served the purpose of preventing you from having to make changes to your I-CAN World View.

For example, there was a time when you had to struggle to learn the basics of mathematics. Love it or hate it, this level of mathematics CAN be understood, with some effort, by most children . Somewhere along the line you learned the neat trick of saying something like: "I'm useless at maths, my Daddy and teacher both say so. I've always been useless at it, and I always will be."

This gives you the perfect excuse! If Daddy AND teacher both say so, then you have the approval of high authority for your imagined weakness. The pay-off is obvious. You no longer have to struggle to learn maths! After all, what's the point? You KNOW that you'll never be any good at it.

Note that this hardly affects the PSI belief (although the two types of belief are intimately connected). You don't necessarily feel bad about yourself over this, you just believe that you are no good at maths - or whatever subject applies to you.

This type of belief is also nicely self re-enforcing. The more you believe that you are useless at maths, the less you will try, ("What's the point?"), so the worse you will get, ("I told you so!")

Now here is something really interesting: Our society often gives out POSITIVE strokes to people who demonstrate a lack of I-CAN belief, PARTICULARLY TO GIRLS. This is one of the many reasons why women are disadvantaged compared to their male counterparts; they are actively encouraged (albeit by subtle messages), to demonstrate a low level of I-CAN belief.

Here are two fairly typical examples:

JOHN: "I'm useless at maths!"

DAD: "Nonsense son, you'll just have to try harder."

Compare this with:

MARY: "I'm useless at maths."

DAD: "Never mind sweetie, you can't have a pretty face AND be clever at everything can you?"

Going right back to the beginning of this book, do you remember that I told you how I read every 'Positive Thinking' book that I could get hold of, then synthesised my own method?

Well one thing that really struck me after about the fifth book, was that women were totally excluded from these books. In every single book, the reader was always referred to as "he" NEVER "she" and the books were all crawling with nice little sexist examples using a boss, (always a man), and a secretary, (always a woman), as the main characters.

Why do I make this point? Because 'Positive Thinking' books are rarely aimed at women. Women are NOT encouraged by our society to raise their level of I-CAN belief. In fact it is definitely frowned upon if a woman appears too capable or appears to believe in herself (unless that belief is confined to 'safe' subjects like cooking or bringing up babies). Most women who do possess a high level of I-CAN have long ago learnt the trick of playing it down - especially in front of male associates.

It is not my intention to explore the subject of sexism at length in this book. I am not qualified to do so, and it has been well covered by other authors. I only wanted to use this as an example of how a lifetime of training in lowering a person's I-CAN belief, can result in their being confined under a very low ceiling.

I said earlier that most people are confined under a three foot ceiling; if you're a woman reading this then subtract one foot!

Lack of I-CAN belief EVEN IN ONE OR TWO SUBJECTS is a crippling disease. If you don't take the trouble to correct the problem then WHOLE AREAS of life are forever closed to you. In the case of our example, you may not consider maths to be a great loss, but you would be wrong.

Maths is an amazing, wonderful, subject; you could devote a lifetime to it and hardly penetrate its mysteries. I'm not saying that you should immediately go out and study maths, but it is a sheer tragedy if, every time you brush against the subject, the mental shutters come down and you switch off.

It is TERRIBLE to be crippled like this.

It is the same with ALL subjects. They are ALL intensely interesting; it is only your lack of I-CAN belief which prevents you from finding them so.

When you raise your level of I-CAN belief, it is like raising a curtain on the world. EVERYTHING becomes possible; EVERYTHING is interesting. There is NO SUCH THING as a boring subject; there is nothing which you could not become proficient in, given time.

This does not mean that you have to become a leading mathematician and scientist; play the cello to concert standard learn nineteen languages and become a free-lance brain surgeon - but you COULD do any one (or more) of these things if you wanted to. We are talking here not about doing all these things, but about allowing yourself to believe that you could do them if you decided that you wanted to.

It is this belief in your abilities which signifies a high level of I-CAN. This means that ANY opportunity which comes your way is OPEN to you; not closed by your low I-CAN. You can learn anything you want.

You may not WANT to learn Arabic but you KNOW that you COULD if you wanted to. The I-CAN'T person would say something like:

"I've always been useless at languages."

You may not WANT to learn to water-ski but if the opportunity came along, you KNOW that you COULD master it, given time. The I-CAN'T person would say something like: "I'm hopeless at sports; I've always been that way; I'll never change."

You may not WANT to start your own business, but you know that thousands of ordinary people have done just this, and so could you if you wanted to. The I-CAN'T person would say: "It's too complicated; all those figures, I could never do that."

So, we have learnt that due to laziness, the brain learns to make excuses for lack of ability. The pay-off for making excuses is that you don't have to TRY anymore, so you don't have to risk failure. These excuses are self re-enforcing. They lower your level of I-CAN belief and bar you from whole areas of life.

Let me give you one excuse and two examples which serve to illustrate exactly how shallow these excuses can be: The excuse is: "I'm too old/infirm to do anything."

There is a lecturer at Cambridge University who suffers from a crippling progressive wasting disease which prevented him from walking. He wanted to carry on working so he bought himself a wheelchair and continued lecturing.

Then the disease paralysed him so that he could only talk and move one hand. He modified his wheelchair to be operated by one hand and carried on lecturing.

As if this was not bad enough, the disease attacked his voice box which had to be removed surgically. Did he give up? No. He had a friend design a computer linked to a voice synthesiser. He now uses one hand to select from a menu of words from which he constructs sentences and feeds them to the synthesiser. He now carries on normal conversations by means of his computer voice. He is still lecturing.

I still think of this man when I am tempted to moan about my physical problems.

I used to go hang-gliding. I thought this was a young person's sport until I found out that one of the champion hang-gliders was over sixty five! He took it up when he was sixty!

A very great many of the famous people throughout the centuries have done some of their best work during their so- called 'old-age'. Age was not a barrier to them, why should it be to you?

How easy it would have been for any of these people to give up, call it a day, say "I'd love to do that, if only...."?

These are just a few of the many thousands of people who have triumphed over the most amazing difficulties. You'll find that the people with the most severe handicaps are often the ones who do the LEAST moaning and excuse-making. It is often the people with quite mild problems, or even no problems at all, who use it as an excuse.

I used to know a chap in a wheelchair who hitchhiked around Europe! Yes...hitchhiked! He would sit in his wheelchair on the verge of the road and thumb a lift! Drivers would be so amazed to see him that they would stop. The wheelchair would be put in the boot, and Stephen would be helped into the front seat.

Where was the problem? He got a lift more easily than able- bodied hikers!

Being too old/young or claiming a physical disability are just two of the many excuses which people make for not achieving the success that they deserve.

When you raise your I-CAN belief, you stop making excuses!

All of us have restrictions which we could use as excuses.

We're all either poor, lacking in ability, lacking in opportunity, bogged down with responsibilities, too old, too young, ill, infirm, the wrong colour/race/sex etc etc. The list goes on.

Here are a few of the excuses which people use to justify their lack of success:

"I never had a proper education." "The trouble with me is that I'm too highly qualified!" "It's all right for you, I was in my first job at thirteen, what chance did I have?" "Mummy and Daddy were very rich, consequently I didn't have to do a stroke! If only I'd been made to get a job at thirteen, that would have given me the toughness which I lack!" "Everything costs money nowadays. Even if I could think up a good business scheme, I haven't got a penny in capital." "My problem is I'm too well off! Consequently I just dabble around at things and don't take anything seriously. If only I had less money; I'm sure I would try harder."

To Moan or Not to Moan?

How can you tell an excuse from a genuine complaint? Simple!

Excuses are nearly always given as a REASON for inaction. Complaints are just moans and groans; they rarely stop people getting on with things after they have had their moan.

There are other little ways of spotting an excuse, either in yourself or someone else; for example, key expressions often give away excuses. Expressions like:

"If only ....." "It's all very well but......" "I could never do that." "It's all right for you...."

A person uses an excuse to justify why they HAVEN'T done something. If they just outline their problems without using it to justify their inaction, then it is probably not an excuse, just a moan.

For example: "This weather plays havoc with my arthritis," is just a moan, but: "What's the point in taking a holiday in this country when the weather is so awful!", is definitely an excuse.

There is an acid test of an excuse: If someone demolishes the excuse, is another one immediately offered in its place?

This is a cast iron test of excuse-itis, caused by lack of belief. For example, here is an imaginary conversation with ARTHUR:

ARTHUR: "I've always wanted to go to Disneyland, but I can't afford it."

ME: "That's amazing! Just this morning I was given an 'all expenses paid' holiday to Disneyland because I met my sales target. I'm booked up for a holiday already, so why don't you go in my place? I owe you a big favour anyway."

ARTHUR: "Really? Thanks a million. I'll go!"

In this example, Arthur was not using excuses to maintain a FALSE CEILING. He saw an opportunity and seized it. However, supposing the conversation had gone differently and he had responded to my offer as follows:

ARTHUR: "Wow! I'd love to go but I get really scared in aeroplanes; it's a real phobia."

ME: "It's your lucky day! This is a sea cruise taking in the sights of New York, then traveling by Greyhound bus to Disneyland."

ARTHUR: "A sea cruise? Hey, won't that mean that I have to be away for over a month? I couldn't do that!"

ME: "Sure you could! What's stopping you?"

ARTHUR: "What about work? I couldn't take all that time off."

ME: "I'm your boss. Take a month off, you've earned it."

ARTHUR: "Well you see I have this collection of rare snakes which have to be fed every day. I couldn't leave them."

ME: "Snakes? Hey, wow, I love snakes. Do you think I could feed them for you?"

ARTHUR: "But I'm expecting an offer any day from my agent, I'd hate to be out the country when that call came through."

ME: "O.k. Get him to call you at your hotel."

ARTHUR: "Her."

ME: "Him; her; what's the difference?"

ARTHUR: "It's a great offer. Look, I'll think it over and let you know tomorrow."

Build That Wall!

Do you think Arthur will go? NOT ON YOUR LIFE! Did you notice the way he kept inventing a new excuse every time I demolished his previous one? I call this effect the BRICK WALL EFFECT. Not content with having a three foot high ceiling, people also build brick walls around themselves! The bricks are the excuses; one brick for every excuse. Take a brick out of their wall, (by demolishing the excuse), and out comes the trowel and cement and another brick goes right in its place.

When I meet people suffering from acute 'brick wall' syndrome, I like to play the 'brick removal game'. Just like in my imaginary conversation with Arthur, I attempt to remove their bricks one by one and see how good at brick- laying they are!

Some people are expert bricklayers. They're so quick that you can't take bricks out of their wall fast enough to cause a noticeable hole before they have closed up the damage with new bricks.

Other people are a little slower, and you can get quite a few bricks out. These people usually get angry or into a huff; then they'll run away to repair the damaged wall at their leisure!

Here's an example of a conversation with a slow bricklayer:

ME: "You've just said that you can hardly make ends meet; but it doesn't have to be like that. You can earn as much money as you like if you start believing in yourself."

BL: "What are you talking about? I'm unskilled. The most I can earn is £200 a week. You have to be a supervisor to earn more."

ME: "Why aren't you a supervisor then?"

BL: "Why? I'll tell you why, since your asking. You need to pass your exams to be promoted to that grade. I left school at thirteen so I didn't have much of a chance, did I?"

ME: "O.k. so get your exams at night school."

BL: "At my age? You must be joking! Anyway, I can't study, I'm no good at it, I never was."

ME: "Actually, you'll find that most of the people at the classes will be older than you."

BL: "Anyway, what's the point? My boss hates me so I'd never get promoted."

ME: "Then change jobs."

BL: "You think its easy don't you?"

ME: "No, but if you really want to improve your standard of living, then you'll find a way of getting a better job."

BL: "It's all right for you. I expect jobs are ten a penny where you live. Your sort make me sick trying to tell people how to run their lives!"

At which point he stomps off as he is not used to having his excuses attacked so relentlessly!

Why are people so rarely challenged when they make an excuse?

There are two main reasons for this:

Reason one: It is considered 'impolite' to contradict or challenge someone, particularly if you don't know them well. For example, this type of conversation would be unlikely to win you many friends:

JANE: "I'm hopeless at dancing. I've always had two left feet but I'd give anything to learn to dance properly. There's not a chance of doing that because of my responsibilities and lack of money."

YOU: "I disagree. If you really wanted to learn to dance properly then you would find the time and the money."

Whilst what you said was true, Jane would almost certainly be slightly offended by your reply . The "polite" response would have been:

YOU: "Yes, it is difficult to find time when you have a growing family."

This reply subtly re-enforces Jane's negative position.

Reason two: By AGREEING with the excuse-maker, you find a 'partner in crime' who will help you re-enforce your OWN lack of I-CAN; for example:

DAVE: "This weather is awful. My wife wants us to take a holiday but I can only enjoy myself when it's sunny so there's no point is there?"

MARY: "None at all. I would love to have a nicer garden but with the weather we've had, when would I enjoy it?"

DAVE: "Exactly. Speaking of gardens, I've always wanted a swimming pool in the garden, but there's no point if you can only use it for two weeks every year. Anyway, the price of them! I'd buy one on credit but I can't budget; I'm useless with money."

MARY: "I know! Everything's so expensive nowadays. I went to the travel agent the other day to see if we could get away for a week, but when I saw the prices I just turned around and came right out! I can never seem to save for things like that, money just slips through my fingers."

DAVE: "If you think holidays are expensive, have you seen the price of new cars recently? I'm sick of driving my old banger so I thought I'd trade it in. I soon forgot that idea when I saw that the CHEAPEST car was...."

And on and on. This secret complicity is absolutely RIFE within our society. In fact, so normal is it to play this game that people think you are REALLY STRANGE, and even get offended if you refuse to play the game with them. If you don't believe me, see if you find either of the following conversations a little strange or off-key: Two strangers are talking at a party:

JILL: "I love ballet but I never go; it's impossible to get tickets, they're sold out months in advance."

DONNA: "That's not true. I often go to the ballet, it's easy to get tickets, you just have to book months in advance."

Or:

JOHN: "I'd love to trade my old car in for a new one, but there's absolutely no way I could afford it."

DAVE: "I thought that, but then I knew that I deserved a new car so I went ahead and bought one anyway!"

Jill would probably deduce that Donna was a know-it-all, whilst John would figure that Dave was a narcissistic big- head!

In our society it is considered impolite to be positive!

It's amazing isn't it? People tend to think that you're either showing off, or gloating over your own good fortune at their expense. Being negative is far more socially acceptable because it piles the blame onto external events which are out of your control, then everyone can join in and have a good moan.

They can all go away feeling happy because their lack of action has not been criticised - rather, it has been praised.

Which is Which?

How can you tell a lack of PSI-belief from a lack of I-CAN belief?

The answer is that often you cannot.

For example, if someone says to you: "I've always wanted to ride a horse, but animals hate me," they could be suffering from a lack of PSI ("Rich people ride horses, I'm a second class citizen therefore I don't deserve to do this.") or they could have a strong PSI but be lacking in I- CAN belief, ( "Animals hate me, they always have done.") or they could have a problem in both areas.

In the examples given throughout this chapter, the excuses could be caused by a lack of PSI-belief OR a lack of I-CAN belief.

The two are fairly closely linked anyway; that is why later in this book I give you methods which will dramatically raise BOTH types of belief together.

There ARE methods which you can use to spot which belief is most lacking:- If lack of PSI is the problem, then the actual excuse will be irrelevant. If you demolish one excuse by argument, another will be put in it's place. The 'brick wall' syndrome is more indicative of lack of PSI belief than lack of I-CAN belief.

However, if the person offers one excuse and sticks to it; then shows an interest when you try to indicate ways in which they COULD achieve success; then lack of I-CAN is likely to be the trouble.

Look at all the different types of I-CAN'T belief there are:

Specific I-Cant's

These I-CAN'T beliefs are unique to the individual:

"I'm useless at sport, I always have been. I was so bad that I was the only person in our school to be excused games permanently."

"History is just not my subject. I switch off when I hear anything historical; it's so boring."

"I can't handle money."

"I'm no good with animals; they hate me."

"I don't have enough intelligence to run my own company."

Gender-related I-Can'ts

This category mainly limits women. Society has trained most women from the cradle to expect a lot less than their male counterparts, so typically they have I-CAN'T beliefs such as:

"I could never be a company director." "I could never be a millionaire." "I'm useless at figures, science, woodwork, DIY, car mechanics etc." "I don't understand a thing about electricity, it's so complicated." "A woman's place is in the home, not following a career." "Men need looking after. They can't wash clothes, iron, cook or tidy the house, so I do all that."

Men do not escape from this category! Society has trained them also:

"I could never look after a baby, men just aren't tolerant enough." "I can't sew, knit, bake, or cook." "I have no decorative sense, my wife does all that; women are so much better at it."

Race/Regional I-Can'ts

"You have to be white to make it in this town." "You have to have lived in this village for at least twenty-five years before they acknowledge you." "I'm a foreigner and can hardly speak the language; what chance do I have?”

Social I-Can'ts

"I never had a chance of a proper education; we were dirt- poor and we all had to go to work instead of school." "It's not what you know, it's who you know." "It's easy to make money when you've got money." "Property is mainly owned by the upper classes." "It's impossible to get a job around here, there just aren't any."

REMEMBER THAT THE PAY-OFF FOR MAKING EXCUSES IS THAT YOU CAN BLAME SOMEONE OR SOMETHING ELSE FOR YOUR LACK OF SUCCESS

The secondary pay-off is that CHANGING your I-CAN'T beliefs into I-CAN beliefs takes EFFORT and COURAGE. Your subconscious mind is HAPPY with your set of I-CAN'T beliefs because it feels nice and cosy. Just like with PSI-belief, your sub-conscious will RESIST any attempts by yourself to change it's I-CAN World View.

REMEMBER THAT EVERY I-CAN'T EXCUSE CLOSES A WHOLE AREA OF EXPERIENCE AND OPPORTUNITY TO YOU

Let's just take one example and examine it in a little more detail. I could choose any example, but I have decided to choose the excuse about men not being able to look after babies.

The PAY-OFF for the man is that he avoids some difficult work and does not have to master a whole new set of skills. Every time the baby cries, all he has to do is call for Mum.

He avoids smelly nappies and mopping up vomit because he's "All fingers and thumbs when it comes to doing that sort of thing."

He doesn't have to get up in the night when the baby cries because: "Babies need their Mothers when they are crying, men are too rough."

His additional pay-off is that he doesn't have to radically change his I-CAN'T World View. This is the part of his World View jigsaw which says:

"Men are not suited to looking after babies, that's women's work. Women are naturals at it, men are too rough, careless and intolerant. Any man who looks after a baby must be a bit of a sissy; you wouldn't catch me wheeling a pram down the road, what would my mates think? Men just don't have the necessary skills or knowledge to make a good job of it; anyway, even if they did the women would soon be up in arms, it's about the only thing they can do."

To change his I-CAN'T belief into an I-CAN belief, he has to change this whole section of his World View, and there are some pretty major pieces of the jigsaw puzzle contained here. HIS SUBCONSCIOUS WILL RESIST THIS CHANGE PURELY OUT OF INERTIA.

INERTIA RULES THE SUBCONSCIOUS: IT DOESN'T LIKE CHANGE

Remember, the thought of change produces FEAR which causes INERTIA which tries to prevent the change.

But this I-CAN'T belief closes off a whole area of life experience to the man. Yes, it is very difficult looking after a baby, but it also brings a huge set of rewards which are unique in human experience; ask any mother.

I found out how enriching, (and exhausting), this could be after the birth of our twins. I held some of the I-CAN'T beliefs mentioned above, but there was no room for the luxury of them with twins around! I had to do my fair share otherwise we would never have coped. I soon shook off those old attitudes and I'M VERY GLAD THAT I DID. Yes it was totally exhausting working all day, then going home to a second job. Being woken ten or twenty times a night was the hardest thing I think I have ever coped with, but there is no doubt that I am a better person for it, and I hope, closer to my children.

THERE IS NOTHING WHICH YOU CANNOT DO. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS BOREDOM. EVERY OPPORTUNITY WHICH YOU SEIZE WILL BRING BIG RESULTS. EVERY TIME YOU SAY "I-CAN'T" A PART OF YOU DIES

The Corridor of Life

Imagine life as a long corridor with many doors leading off to each side. Every door is labeled with a particular opportunity, an exciting adventure in life. Behind many of the doors lie success and fortune; behind others are life- enriching experiences. Each door leads to a world of possibilities!

With strong PSI and lots of I-CAN belief, EVERY door is open to you; all you have to do is decide which room to go into and how long to dally there before sampling the delights of the next room.

With poor PSI belief, OVER HALF OF THE DOORS ARE SLAMMED AND LOCKED FIRMLY SHUT, because you don't believe that people like you deserve to go through them. These rooms have gold-plated RESERVED signs on them, and it never even crosses your mind that they may be reserved for YOU!

With lack of I-CAN belief, many of the doors are forever closed to you. Instead of these doors bearing a sign spelling out an opportunity, they each have a large red sign saying DANGER! NO ADMITTANCE - HIGHLY SKILL PERSONNEL ONLY!

With so many doors firmly shut, it is not surprising that, after walking down the corridor of life for a while, you begin to wonder why you never get 'the breaks' or why opportunity always seems to pass you by? It is YOU who are passing opportunity by!

After walking down the corridor for a while and trying a few doors, only to find them locked shut, you naturally become cynical; you stop believing that there is anything behind the doors at all! This has the effect of preventing you from even bothering to try any more handles!

What Causes I-CAN'T Belief?

It is a learned response. When you were born, you had no pre-conceived ideas about your abilities. All of your I-CAN and I-CAN'T beliefs were painstakingly built up BY YOU over the years.

YOUR ENVIRONMENT DIDN'T LIMIT YOU! You may have had a tough time as a kid, perhaps your parents were very poor, perhaps you were brought up in a slum and beaten every day; but in the end, it was YOU who DECIDED that this would be a limiting factor. After all, THOUSANDS of people had worse backgrounds, yet still made a huge success of their lives. Quite a few even admit that their terrible environment spurred them on the succeed. They knew how bad things could be, and they wanted something better.

I agree that it's not EASY if you had a bad environment as a child, but who said it SHOULD be easy? If it was EASY it probably wouldn't be worth doing!

It's no easier for a rich kid. They had everything on a plate when they were children, as a result they didn't value anything or appreciate the good things in life. Consequently they find it hard to succeed because they are used to getting everything they want instantly, so they find it hard to apply themselves.

Nevertheless, at some point you learned that you could use the excuse of your poor environment to great effect. It stopped you trying any more. After all, what could you do? You never had a chance did you?

OTHER PEOPLE DIDN'T LIMIT YOU! Your parents and teachers might have hated you and called you useless, stupid, hopeless and a waste of space, but YOU chose to listen to them and believe them.

They may very well have tried to limit you when you were a kid, BUT YOU'RE GROWN UP NOW! You don't have to listen to them anymore, they can't touch you! The world is absolutely wide open to you, and, if you had a limited childhood then you will appreciate all the exciting opportunities MUCH MORE than someone who is used to being able to do anything they please.

I am hammering this point home because it is VITAL that you understand and believe completely that it is YOU who are limiting yourself with I-CAN'T beliefs, not your ENVIRONMENT, and not other people, but YOU. The ultimate I- CAN'T belief is this:

"I CAN'T succeed because there is nothing I can do about it; it is not under my control. My failure is caused by someone or something else."

Nevertheless, when you were younger, you LISTENED to the people who told you you were useless at sport. You BELIEVED the people who told you that you would never go to college, never make the team, never BE anybody. You valued other people's opinions more than your own. If someone told you that you were stupid, you believed them!

This may be understandable when you were five years old and the person telling you how stupid you were was an adult; naturally you will believe them, and it is at this time that I-CAN'T beliefs are formed. BUT YOU ARE GROWN UP NOW! You are not five years old any more!

YOU CAN CHOOSE TO ABANDON THESE OLD I-CAN'T BELIEFS

They are relics, fossils of a bygone time. They are someone else's hang-ups passed on to you. YOU DON'T NEED THEM ANYMORE.

Sure, your subconscious won't LIKE changing the World View.

It will HATE throwing away all those nice neat pieces of the jigsaw, it will FIGHT any changes you try and make, but my response is: TOUGH LUCK! Your subconscious WILL change if you use the correct methods. It is like a stubborn donkey, if you are insistent enough, it will walk, but if you are wishy-washy and half-hearted, it will just stand there.

You CAN and MUST change your I-CAN'T belief into I-CAN belief if you are to succeed, otherwise thousands of opportunities will just pass you by. You have to grab EVERY opportunity as it gallops past you if you are to succeed. Blink and it's gone; charging away into the distance until reigned-in by some braver soul.

Without I-CAN belief, you WON'T RECOGNISE opportunity even if it stops and licks your face!

Here are a few invented examples of the sort of opportunity which will pass you by:

A friend will suggest that you set up a partnership with her and run a book-shop. You want to do it, but will decline because you know nothing about books.

Someone will give you a red-hot investment tip, but since you've never bought shares before and don't know anything about it, you will play safe and not invest.

You will see an advert for a sky-diving course; you want to do it but think that you are too old, or not fit enough, so you don't.

You want to buy your own house but don't think that you can understand the legal/financial technicalities, so you stay in your rented flat.

YOU READ THIS BOOK, BUT YOU DON'T BELIEVE IN YOURSELF ENOUGH TO EVEN TRY MY METHOD. TWO YEARS LATER, YOU ARE STILL IN EXACTLY THE SAME POSITION AS NOW.

So now you know about I-CAN belief. I have told you that I- CAN is about believing in your own abilities as opposed to PSI which was concerned with belief in your own worth. You know that I-CAN is a learned response stemming mainly from the things people said to you as a child. You also know that It is convenient for you to retain these I-CANTs because they prevent you from having to bother to try - and possibly fail.

Having gained your I-CANT beliefs, they become a part of your World View, often they become central pieces of the jigsaw. As you know, the subconscious mind does not like changing central pieces of the jigsaw because this causes FEAR and INSECURITY. To prevent you tinkering, the subconscious uses its master weapon of INERTIA. Inertia prevents you from changing.

Clinging onto old I-CAN't beliefs cripples you and isolates you from many of life's enriching experiences - it effectively prevents you from succeeding. The extent to which your success is inhibited depends upon the type, degree and number of I-CAN't beliefs held by you, but ALL I- CAN't beliefs are bad and life-depressing.

In a later chapter I will be explaining my powerful technique for eradicating I-CAN't beliefs from your subconscious, meanwhile, let's have a look at the third barrier which is preventing you from a achieving everything which you desire.

Extracted from the book 'The Midas Method' by Stuart Goldsmith

buy this book

via SOFT SKILL AND MOTIVATION

[yellowsugarwords]

Walking Dead Game FanFiction - "My Hella Half"

[cadysu]

tell me about your kokuyo gang headcanons pls and thanks

Let us talk about my children the Kokuyo Gang aka Mukuro, Ken, Chikusa, M.M., and the rest but not Chrome because Chrome is a member of the Vongola Family and was kicked out. :^) EDIT: NO FRAN BECAUSE THIS POST GOT TOO LONG GOMEN.  I’m going to do a paragraph or so segment for each character I think with some canon facts mixed into headcanon so have FUN!

Mukuro- Mukuro has a lot of canon info already so this is gonna be on the shorter part. Mukuro is a little shit kjasnd Mukuro enjoys reading of all types- from picking up a magazine to novels. He is also very spiritual- yes his powers have ties to the levels of Hell, but I can see religion and belief systems being topics of interest for him. He’s extremely up to date on politics (less in a “wow politics is interesting” and more as a study of people. He watches to see the corruption, lies, and abuse of power. And let’s make it pretty damn clear that if he had nothing better to do/ there was no effort to it, Mukuro would 10000% be okay murdering those people in cold blood because he can. I feel like a lot of people forget Mukuro is a villain (antihero but still a villain too). On a less serious side of everything though- Mukuro can also be very laid back and playful. He pampers himself (spa day with M.M., glass of wine FRUIT COCKTAIL, video games with the rest of the gang, etc.) As serious and scary as he can come across, he is still a teenager. A teenager that is fully aware of how bad the world can be, but also in a bit of a chuuni-bubble where he feels this one man illusionist wrecking machine can take over everything and his only obstacle atm is the Vongola Family. 

Also Mukuro strikes me as someone who would enjoy David Lynch movies. I mean I’m not projecting my love of Twin Peaks on him, but watching Twin Peaks made me think he’d enjoy it a fair amount. :T Or at least Fire Walk With Me.

Ken- SMELLY BOI. I love Ken. Ken may not be the smartest, but do not call him stupid! He just works things out differently. Ken can pick up on small things that many people miss due to his keen observation skills; his sense of smell, hearing, and vision are all heightened compared to a normal human being. He can almost “sniff” out illusions if they’re not very well done and he is a natural at catching someone in a lie. Ken canonically hates bathing but I can also see him being grubby in general- he doesn’t floss as much as he should or clean his ears, he has dirty nails, runs around barefoot a lot- stuff like that. Ken doesn’t eat his veggies either. He’s like that one tumblr post where Chikusa is the “Do you feel guilty when you dont eat vegetables/ only junk food for awhile and you need healthy food to feel better?” “Idk Kakipi I’ve only had soda and gushers for 3 days and I feel fine” “Ken...no...” That is Ken. Ken has a huge fear of doctors/dental offices in general, but I think one of the biggest things that he’s scared of is anesthesia and needles, even though these things are supposed to help. Seeing tanks of nitrous or the small plastic mask to go over one’s mouth and nose really drive up his anxiety. Only Chikusa and Mukuro can really calm him down and convince him everything will be okay. Even if the doctor is Verde/ someone he has developed a degree of trust, he still cannot control his PTSD. Ken hates wearing suits and he doesn’t really like getting new clothes either- not so much anything against new clothes, he just likes wearing the same smelly shirt 5 days out of the week if he can. Also, not a set in stone headcanon, but I can picture Ken being colorblind.

Chikusa- Chikusa is such an overlooked character aaah- Okay first off- Chikusa is not as smart as Mukuro, but smarter than Ken. He sometimes reads or peaks into the books that Mukuro is reading, and he does try to continue his education however way he can. There actually isn’t a subject he really dislikes, but Ken and M.M. tease him for still doing things like homework or reading the old textbooks they have despite none of them going to school. Chikusa is also one of the only few in the house to do chores: cleaning, cooking, making Ken take a bath, grocery shopping, etc. He can also do small sewing/stitches for mending holes and he learns small skills relatively quickly as long as they aren’t too complex. Despite his extreme loyalty to Mukuro and rarely seen without Ken tagging along, Chikusa is a very independent person. Introverted, but independent. He spends his time at home playing video games and listening to music, and when he needs to leave, he just goes out. Chikusa is a better functioning adult as a teenager than most adults LOL (minus the fact he has no bills to pay). Chikusa tries to save his allowance money but usually gives some to Ken for whatever small reason like a few extra tries in an arcade game, some junk food or comic, etc. He never brings it up or asks for money in return but sometimes sighs with reluctance. If he really doesn’t want to, he’ll say no, but there’s usually a reason (”Ken we need real groceries. I’m not eating gum for dinner.” “I need to replace my headphone cord” “I have a crack in my glasses” etc.) Opposite to Ken, Chikusa tries to have really good hygiene. The only thing that truly bothers him is that he can’t wash his hair as much as he’d like, but he covers it with his hat and possibly dry shampoo from M.M. if desperate.

Chikusa is ambidextrous. :v

ABOUT THE BARCODE- Okay so another person I rp’d with had the headcanon of Chikusa being a twin and the barcode being a way the Estraneo kept track of them, which I thought was fucking genius. Screencaps and manga scans show he didn’t have that tattoo as a kiddo/pre-Mukuro rampage, so technically it isn’t accurate, but it’s a thought nonetheless. I do consider the barcode a tattoo and not drawn on/temporary/birthmark/etc. I still like that idea as an honoring thing. Like if he had a twin who they marked but the twin died during an experiment so when they were out of there he did it as a we-will-never-be-apart thing.M.M. - MY DAUGHTERU. God M.M. is such a good character but people snub her because she’s a “bitch” and a woman (I say that because when Mammon is greedy it is cute but when M.M. is greedy she’s bad. Same with her attitude! If a male shounen character acted that way he’d be like, a princely type. So yeah I think a lot of M.M. hate comes from people who don’t respect women :T) 

ANYWAYS I genuinely love the idea of M.M.’s name/design/background having a small reference to the book series of Madeline. PROBLEM HERE IS I HAVE TWO HEADCANON BACKGROUNDS FOR HER AND I LIKE BOTH SO HERE THEY ARE: I headcanon her real name as Madeline, and the she was sent off to a wealthy all girl’s boarding school as a child. She lost her parents at a very young age and inherited a small fortune, but had nowhere to go. She would stay and live in the boarding school until school was out, and then stay with an estranged relative during the breaks. However, she quickly started staying at “friends” homes instead as her limited family did not look after her or have any interest in her actual well being. THE OTHER VERSION VERY SIMILAR BUT INSTEAD OF BEING WEALTHY SHE WAS VERY POOR AND SENT TO A WEALTHY SCHOOL. The idea of her either being a poor young girl who got a taste of riches and fucking took it or the idea of a young girl who grew up wealthy but was surrounded by people who wanted what she got made her be a lot harder and did a fuck you all I’m M.M. and I get what I want. I love both those ideas and I can see them both working as a background. Both M.M.s’ see how the capitalism really runs the world and the main difference is one just had to work a little more to get rich while the other had less of a struggle but equal amount of determination. M.M. learned quickly that she was rather “pretty” to men and with money, she wouldn’t have to run to anyone or need help from anyone.

To earn money, she started as a small petty thief and moved on to grander schemes quickly. M.M. was a talented shoplifter and would pick up on things she could sell off to the girl’s in school, and then for the big money she knows how to blackmail people and get dirt on anyone. A cheap disposable camera and risky photos can ruin a person’s life. A little bit of alcohol is all it really takes for someone to make a horrible mistake. Also a lot of alcohol can make someone pass out and lose all the money in their wallet. Although she never liked the business, I can see M.M. knowing the fastest cash she could make would be to sell drugs to other girls. A little coke here and there. Think of that post making fun of the group of white boys vs. hipsters with the caption “Who would pay more for weed?” M.M. knows who and knows how to convince them “this is some really rare good stuff that I stole from my parents~ Yknow it’s imported from Amsterdam~” or “Hey I heard you want to lose weight, yknow I know how you can be the thinnest girl in school~” M.M. is resourceful and cunning and she can and will prey on someone’s insecurities for money. M.M. has been arrested and does have a mugshot, but this was in the beginning of her thieving days and she was released later that night. She also may or may not have tried to seduce her guard(s). Also despite her flirting and knowing what she CAN do, she has never gone into sex work. She hasn’t met a man or woman who can afford her. She’s a virgin but she’ll lie about it/ leave it ambiguous just to see what pays more. :T

Now a lot of this all applies to her before she joined the Kokuyo gang. Mukuro had heard about M.M. when seeing her mugshot in a trashy gossip magazine. A young, pretty and precocious teenage girl with a natural talent of stealing? No family really known/ totally independent? Why not try and get her in your growing gang of misfits. She was hesitant at first, but Mukuro, in Verde’s own words, is extremely charismatic. Plus she finds him cute and really saw promise in his plans. She hates Kokuyo Land because of how dirty it is, and actually bothered to have her part of the hideout remodeled for her liking (a nice bed, a vanity in her room, a throw rug over the damaged floorboards, etc.) She managed to turn abandoned and run down into “shabby chic” but she’s hoping she can get it to a more Versailles tier one day. 

Not to bring up Twin Peaks again but after watching it I definitely get Audrey Horne vibes out of M.M.

M.M. has the highest education of the Kokuyo Gang and has actually has a very good understanding of chemistry. Her main passion though is music and she genuinely loves to play her clarinet in her room for fun. 

OTHER CHARACTERS!:

FUN “FACTS”:

M.M. is a Sephora VIB Rouge member and makes fun of people who have to shop at Ulta (except she does shop at Ulta when no one is looking.)

Each member of the Kokuyo Gang has a preferred fighting video game and main. (SIDE NOTE: I don’t play enough fighting games to be familiar with every character’s play styles in all games so these ideas can easily change) Mukuro- Mortal Kombat (I only played MK1 for genesis and MKX which I suck at but I can see him playing Scorpion and beating up Johnny Cage repeatedly), Ken- Tekken and probably mains Kuma (Ken can definitely tap the buttons fast enough for those combos), Chikusa- Street Fighter as Ryu/ he keeps things very classic (But usually he plays whatever Ken wants to play, so I can see him maybe playing a lot of Yoshimitsu),  and M.M. is Soul Calibur as Ivy, who is definitely 100% not overpowered. Also Fran plays Smash bros. and he’s probably a Mewtwo spamming lil shit. Or Metaknight.

Chikusa’s likes to go inside Tower Records and Mandarake stores, but rarely buys anything because of his limited finances.

They didn’t have cable until Verde moved in and would sometimes watch daytime television. Local news, daytime soaps, public tv anime, etc. Sometimes they rent videos for a night at home, or sneak into movie theaters with a little illusion help.

NONE OF THEM HAVE GONE TO A DOCTOR OR DENTIST (except M.M. and Fran when he was at his granny’s) because of their past trauma. When Team Verde was formed, Verde did a health assessment but has been unsuccessful at making any of them see a dentist. Especially Ken- but Ken does take better care of his channels.

i have so much more to type but oh fuck i went on sorry chi jkdsfnaksdfn

[onthemazewall]

Tokenism

So recently I had a lengthy debate with a friend of mine over which was the golden age of cartoons, now or the late 90′s/early 2000′s. Clearly the latter is an indefensible position, but it took hours to actually point that out. We had five criteria, four set out by him and one by me. The important one that he chose was ‘message’ and mine was ‘gender balance/ethnically diverse. We chose three shows from three categories: 2-7, 8-14 and adult. Clearly adult was a no brainer as the only adult shows of that era were South Park and the Simpsons and even today’s South Park is better than yesteryear’s South Park and that’s without even getting into great modern adult cartoons like Archer, BoJack Horseman, Venture Brothers and Disenchantment. 2-7 was also a pretty easy category, because you didn’t have Nick Jr. putting out a glut of educational and fun shows like you do today. There is no yesteryear equivalent of Blaze and the Monster Machines, no emotional growth show as nuanced as the new Muppet Babies or gender bending, multi-ethnic fantasy kingdoms like Nella the Princess Knight. 8-14 was the most challenging. We had some debate over message, with him trying to change the rules to put emotional growth shows as more important than say Ready, Jet, Go!’s hard science message or Wild Kratts’ amazing tour of zoology, but eventually he agreed social studies did not trump every other category. The sticking point was gender balance/ethnically diverse. First he said ethnic diversity wasn’t that big a deal and I said ethnic European person didn't get to tell the minority person that. Then he kept trying to make the argument that a show didn’t need to be gender balanced, as long as there was one super strong, well developed female character that should be enough to count as gender balanced.

This is tokenism in a nut shell, that by a single character of color/female/whatever, as long as they are cool enough the show has done its duty. While this is better than being totally devoid of any diversity, it also doesn’t cut it. The whole point of diversity in cartoons is that they are children’s main windows into the world and their perception of it. The idea is if you see no representations of yourself, it limits your idea of what you can do. In the same respect, if you only see yourself as this super powerful, multitalent version, it leaves no room to be anything other than perfect. I’m always fascinated how much my brain freezes up over Ready, Jet, Go! making the goofball little kid a girl, because I’m so used to the gender neutral clown being default male, like male is the default gender. In the same way that it’s really nice that PJ Masks has a female villain who isn’t the least girly. It’s important to have an array of personalities portrayed for females and people of all ethnic stripes, otherwise you’re just perpetuating a new stereotype. I like a strong Legend of Cora female as much as the next person, but every girl shouldn’t have to think that she has to grow up to be strong or brilliant, just to be herself and pursue what she likes. Tokenism is limiting in that it says if you aren’t the best, don’t even try, there’s only room for you if you are the extraordinary one. Furthermore, it promulgates gates the idea that if you’re not a white male you have to work harder and be better than all the default “normal” people to succeed. 

And that’s why today’s cartoons are so amazing, there are at least three mainstream cartoons for small children with black protagonists and quite a few more with children of color as co-leads. You have Netflix putting out a Masha and Bear style show all about India. The new DC Super Girls has not only a diverse main cast, but a rainbow colored background cast too. Muppet Babies features gay old men neighbors and Rusty Rivets has a metrosexual ice cream scooper. Cartoons can teach you engineering concepts, astronomy, geometry, phonics and so many other topics that wouldn’t be open to children until they could read years later. There are a few classic older shows we’ve bought for the kids, but for the most part I am perfectly content having them consume what’s new now, because there are amazing choices out there that certainly weren't available in the 80′s when I was a child!

[yesperfectcollectionfire-blog]

Why Do So Many People Like To Have An Anime Body Pillow Girlfriend?

In recent years, more and more people are willing to have a body pillow girlfriend regardless of their real love life. It is not a trend among those men only who do not have a girlfriend or have no active sex-life, but also getting more and more famous among men who already have girlfriends. There are certain in-depth reasons behind this type of extreme and reckless act like having a body pillow and pretending to make a girlfriend character out of that. 

If we try to look into the deepness of such cynical and misanthropic behavior of Japanese men, the reason for such desperate measures is quite easily understandable. In that specific nation. one-fourth of the total male population of the age group starting from the late twenties to the early thirties, still have not experienced any real physical intimacy, especially with a person of the opposite sex. In addition to this situation, half of that population do not have any companion of the opposite gender.

It is clear that Japan is not the only country that has a large number of citizens who have been suffering from loneliness and the state of inactivity regarding physical intimacy. It is more likely that their social operation and cultural practices are forcefully making them occupy such anti-social abnormalities. It is actually the way their community functions which is forcing the males to become more uncoordinated and introspective while ultimately leading them to such sick actions.

Now, you can somewhat understand why this is happening. People often think it is hard to live a decent life in western countries, but it is so much harder in Japan. If you do not have roughly a B average throughout your student life, then when it comes to the time for getting a job, you are more or less pressurized as far as possible for gaining anything decent. Usually, the employers do not just want to know if an applicant is graduated, they look at all the details of that individual’s schooling system. 

Additionally, schools are not publicly funded out there entirely. When it comes to taking an exam for getting into the next grade or school, you have to pay for it. It is not generally cheap and that puts a lot of pressure on people to pass the first time around. A lot of people go to a “Cram School” which also costs quite a lot of money. Spending more money practically equals to more stress.

It is not like that good education is not necessary, however, compared to other Asian countries, the system and situation are too much pressure-creating on families and the individuals. With that much stress put on education, it is easily assumed that the lives of Japanese men are much oppressing. It only makes sense that a lot of people snap under the pressure they experience from everyday living situations and go into isolation or develop weird habits like having body pillow girlfriends.

Which body pillows suitable for being your body pillow girlfriend?

1.Erza Scarlet Fairy Tail body pillow

She is an S-class conjuror with brown eyes and long scarlet hair. She has an artificial eye on the right side as she accidentally lost the original one in childhood. She has a very appealing figure with strong build-up. She is both inpatient and strict in personality. She is also highly sensible towards law and justice. 

2.Overwatch  Girl D.Va body pillow

D.Va has been well received by critics and players, and she has been seen as a positive female model for younger gamers.Within the game, D.Va is a Tank character, able to deal a stream of damage and nullify incoming attacks for a short time. If D.Va's suit is destroyed, she can eject from it and stay alive long enough to call in a new suit.  

3.Darling in the Franxx Zero Two body pillow

Zero Two's full ensemble is composed of a white military cap with a matching overcoat and boots. She is often seen wearing her signature red uniform, black tights, and white boots. She also wears her limiter headband.

4.Tokyo Ghoul Kirishima body pillow

She is an evil demon who wears a rabbit mask while hunting. She is a teenager who is thin yet has attractive physical characteristics. She has purple bob hair with bangs on the left side and dark eyes. With a reckless personality, she shows the hardship of living a dual life

In the end, it is all about enjoying the anime girls of your dreams in a bit more realistic way. However, there are more reasons to like them than to not like them and getting cozy with a love body pillow could be the ultimate option to save yourself from the monotony of a lonely sleep.