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cqlfeels · 3 years ago

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@lansplaining encouraged me to finish this random meta nobody asked for, so let's talk about Meng Yao, Meng Shi, and 孟母三遷 (mèng mǔ sān qiān), a proverb about good parenting.

A warning: this is super long (even for me!) and is less quality meta and more my ADHD brain jumping around a maze of loosely related ideas. Proceed with caution!

Let me start by briefly going through why I decided to write this, because it’s important. In haunting Meng Shi’s tag in my starvation for Meng Shi content, I’ve multiple times come across the idea that Meng Shi pushed Meng Yao too hard, that she should’ve been more careful with teaching him to seek his father’s approval at any cost, and that she was too naïve. I’ve never reblogged this kind of post because 1) I personally think it’s rude to go out of your way to ramble about how much you disagree with someone on their own post and 2) if this was an isolated incident I wouldn't care either way, so I didn’t want to direct this rant at anyone in particular. It’s more to do with a tendency, primarily (as far as I can tell) from fans who haven’t had much contact with Chinese culture, to oversimplify Meng Shi and make her relationship with Meng Yao slightly disturbing, and I think part of it is due to CQL basically cutting out her entire storyline (so fans simply don’t have info about her to assess her fairly) and part is due to misunderstanding what a good parent is supposed to act like in the context of Ancient China.

[Of course, Ancient China is not a very useful historical concept, not any more than “ye olde Europe” - things change a lot based on time and place - but you know. It’s fantasy. Extremely broad trends are okay in this case.]

Anyway, the idea behind the posts I mentioned is, basically, that Meng Shi (usually through no fault of her own) is to blame for Meng Yao’s obsession with power, since his desire for approval was inherited from lessons she taught him. Just to start with, I’d argue that Meng Yao isn’t power-hungry as much as he craves security and respect, but that’s a different meta. Let’s assume that she really did teach him to be Like That. Was she wrong to do so? I’m not looking for “does that make for a happy, well-adjusted childhood?” or “would you raise your own son as Meng Shi did?” - I’m trying to figure out, would she have been considered a bad mother in the context of the society she lived in? I don’t think she would’ve.

It is surprisingly hard to find texts about the obligations of parents in Ancient China. Their main obligation is to raise filial children, but I feel like that’s not very useful: whether or not parents are good parents, children are expected to be filial, so a child being filial really says more about the child than about the parent. Maybe the parent completely missed the mark and society at large was what taught the child to be filial!

We can assume, of course, that parents were to raise good people, and that by learning what a good person looked like, we could figure out whether the parent was successful, but once again, I feel like that’s pinning things on the outcome, not on the process - the best of parents can end up with an awful kid and vice versa.

While thinking about all this, it took me a frankly embarrassing amount of time to remember the story of Mother Meng and Meng Zi, but once I did, it wouldn’t leave my mind - in part because the Meng here is the exact same Meng of Meng Shi and Meng Yao (yay! fun if useless parallel!), and in part because this is a story about how a woman can successfully raise a son by herself.

Okay, so important note: one of the most influential ancient Chinese thinkers is Meng Zi (孟子 Mèng Zǐ), who is known in the West as Mencius. If you've never heard of him - he's perhaps second in importance only to Confucius. When Mencius was still a young child, his father died, so he was raised by his mother, who is usually known only as Mother Meng (in Chinese, 孟母 Mèng Mǔ.)

Mother Meng's story is told in Biographies of Exemplary Women (列女傳 Liènǚ Zhuàn), which for around 2000 years beginning around the 18th century BCE, was the most commonly used book used to educate women. The book is divided into sections, each one showing a different way women could be honorable and good. Mother Meng's story is told in the Maternal Models section (母儀傳 Mǔ Yí Zhuàn.) The story has a few parts, some of which I'll quote, always from Kinney's 2014 translation.

Before I go on to quote it, though, I'd like to establish that Mother Meng's story is so, so famous that even if Meng Shi had never read this particular book, I'm almost certain she would've been familiar with at least the outlines of Mother Meng's story. I'm not cherry picking a suitable chapter from the book, I'm literally going with the most famous story in it because Meng Shi would be most likely to know this one if she knew no other story.

Okay, the first part of the tale takes place when Mencius is a young boy and Mother Meng is a widow raising him.

The mother of Meng Ke of Zou [a different name for Mencius] was called Mother Meng. She lived near a graveyard. During Mencius’ youth, he enjoyed playing among the tombs, romping about pretending to prepare the ground for burials. Mother Meng said, “This is not the place to raise my son.” She therefore moved away and settled beside the marketplace. But there he liked to play at displaying and selling wares like a merchant. Again Mother Meng said, “This is not the place to raise my son,” and once more left and settled beside a school. There, however, he played at setting out sacrificial vessels, bowing, yielding, entering, and withdrawing. His mother said, “This, indeed, is where I can raise my son!” and settled there. When Mencius grew up, he studied the Six Arts, and finally became known as a great classicist. A man of discernment would say, “Mother Meng was good at gradual transformation.”

According to the translator's footnote, "gradual transformation" is "a childrearing technique, whereby a child is morally formed through daily exposure to correct models of behavior."

From this story comes the proverb 孟母三遷 (Mèng Mǔ sān qiān) - "Mother Meng moved three times." It's come to mean that a parent - especially the mother of a male child - should spare no efforts to provide an environment that will give their child a good education, paying particular attention to what models are surrounding them.

I'm sure I don't need to say if Meng Shi was at all familiar with this proverb (and she would probably be), she must have been very stressed out over literally raising her son in a brothel. (Here I must mention sex workers in ancient China were often essentially owned by the brothels, so literally "moving three times" wasn't really an option for Meng Shi even if she could miraculously pick up another trade.) Meng Shi did however at least try to surround Meng Yao with the accomplishments appropriate for the son of a cultivator:

Xiao-Meng, are you still learning those things lately? [...] The things your mom wants you to learn, things like calligraphy, etiquette, swordsmanship, meditation… How are those things going? [...] His mom’s raising him as a young master of a wealthy family. She taught him how to read and write, bought him all those swordsmanship pamphlets, and even wants to send him to school.

Meng Yao actually talks a little bit about “those swordsmanship pamphlets” in the only time in canon he directly shares memories about this mother:

Lan XiChen, “Your [guqin] skills are also considered quite fine outside of Gusu. Were they taught by your mother?”

Jin GuangYao, “No. I taught myself by watching others. She never taught me such things. She only taught me reading and writing, and bought a handful of expensive sword and cultivation guides for me to practice.”

Lan XiChen seemed surprised, “Sword and cultivation guides?”

Jin GuangYao, “Brother, you haven’t seen them before, have you? Those small booklets sold by the common folk. First jumbled sketches of human figures, then deliberately mystified captions.”

Lan XiChen shook his head, smiling. Jin GuangYao shook his head as well, “All of them are scams, especially to fool women like my mother and ignorant children. You won’t lose anything by practicing them, but you definitely won’t gain anything either.”

He sighed in a rueful way, “But how could my mother have known this? She bought them no matter how expensive they were, saying that if I returned to see my father in the future, I had to see him with as much competence as possible so that I don’t fall behind. All of the money was spent on this.”

See what’s happening? Meng Shi cannot physically take Meng Yao to cultivators, but she spares no efforts in giving him the closest thing she possibly can -- figuratively, we might say she moved three times.

Of course, these booklets don’t work, but as Meng Yao says, how could she have known this? The cultivation world is very closed off - think of how the entire Mo household gathers to see Lan juniors, and how Wei Wuxian mentions once that “Cultivation families, in the eyes of common folk, are like people favored by God, mysterious yet noble.” Not just noble, but mysterious. That tracks, too - I mean, they live in inaccessible households and mostly leave to night hunt or visit each other, neither of which is an activity that would allow commoners to get much more than an occasional glimpse of them.

Now, if Meng Shi doesn’t even know that a pearl for Jin Guangshan was just a trinket, if she doesn’t know even the wealth of a major sect, how can she read booklets and decide whether that’s genuine cultivation or not? All that she sees is a chance for Meng Yao to be surrounded by the ideas and skills of the people she wants him to emulate - cultivators - and therefore she does everything she can to get him that chance. Mother Meng moved three times.

Okay, but maybe the argument is not “Meng Shi shouldn’t have pushed Meng Yao to cultivation” but rather “she should’ve pushed him, just not too hard." To that, I present another tale from Mencius' childhood:

Once, when Mencius was young, he returned home after finishing his lessons and found his mother spinning. She asked him, “How far did you get in your studies today?” Mencius replied, “I’m in about the same place as I was before.” Mother Meng thereupon took up a knife and cut her weaving. Mencius was alarmed and asked her to explain. Mother Meng said, “Your abandoning your study is like my cutting this weaving. A man of discernment studies in order to establish a name and inquires to become broadly knowledgeable. By this means, when he is at rest, he can maintain tranquility and when he is active, he can keep trouble at a distance. If now you abandon your studies, you will not escape a life of menial servitude and will lack the means to keep yourself from misfortune. How is this different from weaving and spinning to eat? If one abandons these tasks midway, how can one clothe one’s husband and child and avoid being perpetually short of food? If a woman abandons that with which she nourishes others and a man is careless about cultivating his virtue, if they don’t become brigands or thieves, then they will end up as slaves or servants.” Mencius was afraid. Morning and evening he studied hard without ceasing. He served Zisi [a great scholar whose grandfather was Confucius] as his teacher and then became one of the most renowned classicists in the world.

Notice that Mother Meng moved three times to ensure Mencius would have the highest of aspirations - to become a scholar. But just aspiration isn’t enough. Not by any means. Now that Mencius is actually studying, Mother Meng is willing to take an extreme action to ensure he's taking it seriously. Mencius doesn't have a father to smooth his path to success. He has to learn that aspiring to greatness isn't enough. He'll have to put in the effort as if his life depended on it. And if he doesn't persist in his hard work, everything he's done thus far will be useless. Sounds like a lesson imparted on young Meng Yao, doesn’t it?

A lot of fandom rage towards Meng Shi would apply to China's Best Mom Contender, Mother Meng. She gives her son big dreams, and teaches him how to go about achieving them in a society where failing is easier than succeeding. Yes, it's fair to say that Meng Shi taught Meng Yao to refuse to settle for anything less than being “Jin Guangshan's son, a respected cultivator.” Yes, it's also fair to say that she probably didn't allow him much time to play like children his age did. But unfortunately, in the world of MDZS, poor children probably wouldn't get to play anyhow, the difference is that they'd usually be working, not studying. Studying is a privilege! It’s a privilege Meng Yao could not afford but was given to him anyway, through his mother’s many sacrifices. We can even say that while she was alive, Meng Shi was trying to ensure Meng Yao would one day have a better life, at the expense of a fun childhood - and that's very Mother Meng of her, whatever our modern Western sensibilities might have to say about that.

Finally, I’d skip other tales (which show Mother Meng and an adult Mencius) and go straight to the poem that ends the Mother Meng section:

The mother of Mencius

Was able to teach, transform, judge, and discriminate.

With skill she selected a place to raise her son,

Prompting him to accord with the great principles.

When her son’s studies did not advance,

She cut her weaving to illustrate her point.

Her son then perfected his virtue;

His achievements rank as the crowning glory of his generation.

I’d like to focus on the last verse - “His achievements rank as the crowning glory of his generation.” All that Mother Meng wanted was for Mencius to not completely ruin his life, but he became great. You can so very easily see a parallel with how Meng Shi hoped Meng Yao would be a cultivator but he became Jin Guangyao, Chief Cultivator, styled Lianfang-zun, one of the Three Venerable, hero of the Sunshot Campaign.

Of course you can say “Jin Guangyao did many Very Wrong Things to get there, though!” Which, sure, okay, fair point. How many and how wrong depends on which canon we're discussing, and your own interpretation, but there’s no version of the story in which Jin Guangyao is 100% an innocent child uwu. But blaming that on Meng Shi is just... straight up weird? I don’t see anyone going “If Jiang Fengmian hadn’t adopted Wei Wuxian, he’d never have dared become Yiling Laozu!” and that’s pretty much the same logic. Would street kid Wei Wuxian have invented a new type of cultivation if he had never been taken in by the Jiang? Probably not, but raising undead armies is very much not something Jiang Fengmian could’ve predicted. In the same way, how could Meng Shi have predicted that teaching her pre-adolescent son “You are the son of a cultivator, act like one and earn your place in society” would’ve ultimately resulted in innocent deaths? How could she predict “You’re not destined to having the same horrible life I did, you can get something better than this” was a bad thing to teach? I quite honestly don’t know.

Finally, I'd like to point towards a much flimsier evidence that Meng Shi did great as a parent. And that is Meng Yao’s love. Nie Huaisang at some point comments Meng Shi is someone who Meng Yao "cherishes more than his life," and I think his assessment is correct.

Even putting aside the fact he built a whole temple to get his mother to reincarnate into a better life, and even putting aside how he refuses to flee the country without her remains, there's still crystal clear evidence that Meng Shi must've done something right. Because a lifetime of people using his mother to bully him doesn't seem to have made Meng Yao resent her. Had their relationship not have been very strong, odds are he'd feel bitter and/or ashamed of her. That doesn't seem to be the case. He's attached to her even decades after her death.

I want to be very careful with equating mutual affection with good parenting, though. When I was a rather rebellious teenager, my mother (in typical Chinese fashion) used to say that parents and children don't have to love each other as long as they're dutiful to each other, by which she meant that a parent-child relationship isn't informed by warm and fuzzy feelings, but by whether you'd be willing to do anything for each other. Specific to my case, she meant "I don't care if it makes you hate me, you will do as you're told because that's what's best for you." (That may also be the reason why people more familiar with Chinese culture see the Jiang family less as outright abusive and more as #complicated, but that's another meta.)

Whether your kid wants to hug you every time they see you is of no consequence to traditional Chinese thought - raising them to be the best they can is all that matters, because at the end of the day, you won't be around forever, but you can definitely set up your kid's life so that it goes smoothly and virtuously. How that's accomplished varies depending on many factors, but to have the goal be "I want my child to love me" rather than "I want to raise my child right" would've been considered selfish as hell.

So even if all that Meng Shi had given Meng Yao had been stern lessons about the need to go get his birthright, she would've still have been considered a good mother!! In fact, she would've been doing everything she was supposed to do, under extremely difficult conditions! (Remember the importance of environment? That Meng Yao grew up to want to be a cultivator despite having probably never even met one speaks wonders about Meng Shi's childrearing powers!!)

But just based off how over the top Meng Yao's filal dutifulness is, I'd go a step further and say that even as she did the impossible, she was also loving enough to inspire genuine affection. This is complicated because children who have present fathers could expect their mothers to be tender with them. The first century BCE text 禮記 Lǐ Jì or The Classic of Rites says that:

Here now is the affection of a father for his sons - he loves the worthy among them, and places on a lower level those who do not show ability; but that of a mother for them is such, that while she loves the worthy, she pities those who do not show ability - the mother deals with them on the ground of affection and not of showing them honour; the father, on the ground of showing them honour and not of affection.

But when the father figure is lacking for any reason, the mother must abandon her tenderness because someone must guide the child, and without a father, the role falls to the mother. A single or widowed mother had to be very careful to not smother their children with affection and raise useless, spoiled kids, or so it was thought. (The presence of Qingheng-jun and Lan Qiren is why Madame Lan can be so affectionate with the Lan boys, by the way - if she was raising them by herself she would've been expected to be much more practical. AUs where she just gets her kids and runs away could do very cool things with this idea. But I digress!)

Where was I? Oh, okay. Because Meng Yao seems to not just respect, but actively miss her, it seems that Meng Shi somehow managed to deal with her son on the ground of both honor and affection, to paraphrase.

So basically, all things considered, it seems not only would Meng Shi have been considered a great mom (if people could look past her being a prostitute, anyway) but she also went above and beyond the bare minimum. She truly spared no efforts on any front to make sure her son had everything your average gongzi would have - someone to teach him and someone to love him, access to education and confidence in his birthright. That she couldn't actually make him a cultivator, that she couldn't actually raise him in a proper home with no one being cruel to herself or him - that's immaterial. Even Mother Meng couldn't control what her neighbors did, only what she taught her son! The key point is Meng Shi tried. She did everything she could to educate her son right. You couldn't ask more of her, and quite honestly, you should probably be asking less.

Of course we can't err on the other extreme and say she was Perfect. Given MXTX only ever writes flawed characters, we can safely assume that if we'd known more about Meng Shi, we would've seen many flaws. Indeed, just the fact she didn't teach Meng Yao the guqin when he apparently wanted to learn it might point to some conflict we don't know enough to speculate about (maybe she focused too much on cultivation when Meng Yao's interests lay elsewhere? Maybe she wasn't able to sufficiently shelter him and he felt it'd be a burden to ask her to teach him anything? Maybe maybe maybe, go wild with your fics.) Nevertheless, I would never hold a female character to a higher ideal than a male character - if the male cast of MDZS can be a hot mess and still be admirable for what they're trying to do, then so can Meng Shi.

At the end of the day, when I look at Meng Shi - and I've made myself a document with all the references to her in the novel canon so I could easily contemplate her life and character - all I see is a woman every bit as determined and resourceful as her son, willing to do everything it took to raise her little boy into the sophisticated and ambitious man he became.

Finally, here's a fun little parallel that I'm 100% sure was unintentional but I still love. I said Meng Shi couldn't have moved three times. She couldn't, but I think maybe she taught her son he was worth moving three times for. Qinghe Nie. Qishan Wen. Lanling Jin. Isn't that super fun to think about?

Alternatively, tl;dr: Oh My God I Can't Believe We're Blaming Women For The Actions Of Their Adult Children In The Year Of Our Lord 2k21, Meng Shi Was Doing Her Best, Chill!

#drinking game #take a shot every time i say 'finally'#this post refused to let me get to the end of it lol #i think because i'm extremely salty about fanon stage mom meng shi #(to not say tiger mom meng shi which crosses into outright racism. but i'm giving people the benefit of the doubt)

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thetrashthatsmilesback · 4 years ago

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I’ve never actually talked about the Bakugou Mitsuki thing...

“So like, I’ve been following BNHA casually for years. I never really tend to mention anime even though its a special interest of mine and has been for years, so I didn’t talk about this at the height of the “is Mitsuki a bad parent” debate, but frankly I have opinions on this and they can be summed up with: people on both sides are all partially correct, so lets get into it. (under the cut)

The TL;DR:

Even if what Mitsuki does/how she acts cannot be classified as abuse, it is still toxic and would be harmful/traumatizing to have a child around

Mitsuki does clearly love Katsuki from what we can see in her words, but that doesn’t excuse and toxic/abusive behaviors displayed

Katsuki’s behavior aligns perfectly with exact outcomes that clinical findings have found are common in those who were raised with corporal punishment

Even if corporal punishment does not meet the qualifications for abuse, it is directly linked to aggression, mood disorders, and personality disorders

Mitsuki’s treatment instilled Katsuki’s ideas of societal placements

Mitsuki’s yelling at her husband and use of violence (hitting, yelling, breaking tables) is clearly an attitude that Katsuki picked up and would be harmful/traumatizing for a child even if it isn’t deemed abusive

I’m going to start this off by just saying that A) saying the series already has an abusive parent in Endeavor is one of the weakest excuses I’ve ever seen for why Mitsuki can’t be interpreted as abusive/toxic and I will not be comparing them and B) the way the Todoroki family was handled also wasn’t great, so that’s not even a good argument (oops)

So the debate started primarily because of her hitting him and victim blaming, but the victim blaming could be a translation issue so I will not be addressing that. Frankly, while there is evidence that corporeal punishment should not be used on children as it can lead to problems later in life, I don’t believe it is enough to constitute abuse. This is where the people who see her as not abusive are correct - its not a good form of punishment, but it isn’t necessarily abuse. Where I actually believe an opinion can be formed is in chapter 207 where we’re shown his actual family dynamics.

I’m going to preface this by saying that just because something is a joke doesn’t mean that it can’t provide actual insight into a situation. The three strips were meant to double as both jokes, and a glimpse at what Katsuki’s home life is actually like. And, in my opinion, its at the very least toxic if not fully abusive.

Mitsuki screaming at her husband is a toxic way to communicate. I get that yelling is the “Bakugou Thing” and its supposed to be funny, but it does set a precedent for exactly how the household operates. Masaru is bullied into submission by his wife (as we see in the third strip with “so you just weren’t able to reject her/you weren’t able to say no” based on the translation), and his wife and son both go at each other aggressively. I actually wanted to bring attention to the “Big Mother Crush” in “Argument.” Katsuki is blowing up the walls, and Mitsuki is breaking the coffee table. Now, Katsuki is a violent 16 year old with a dangerous quirk, so obviously someone needs to make sure he doesn’t harm himself or others, but that isn’t what Mitsuki is doing. She isn’t making any moves to deescalate the situation, and Masaru is hiding behind the couch, so he too is clearly making no effort to attempt to deescalate or calm down his child or wife.

The fact that Mitsuki has a name for the move where she breaks a solid wood coffee table leads me to believe that this is a common occurrence, or at least one that has happened at least one time prior. This puts Katsuki saying “I was raised with violence” and “knowing his place” into a different light as he didn’t always have the level of power he now does. If Mitsuki’s anger problems always led to such violence, then yeah, a small kid could be frightened by this. Maybe its not abusive since she didn’t throw him into the table, but it can certainly be traumatizing to a child.

And that brings me to the next point. Bakugou has a level of distrust in people that is not normal for his age. I don’t just mean at UA, I specifically mean the infamous bridge/log scene. A normal four/five year old would not assume that Help = Being Looked Down Upon. That isn’t a reaction that a healthy child would have.

So, back to the “is she abusive?” point. In my opinion, it doesn’t really matter what the answer to that question is, because no matter what she does to Katsuki himself, it is still an extremely toxic environment to be in. Speaking from experience, even if physically nothing is happening, living in a space with someone who could explode into anger at any second is terrifying, especially if you’re a little kid. I don’t doubt she loves Katsuki. I don’t doubt that she cares deeply for him, and that she did have a hard time with him because yeah, he’s a difficult kid with a quirk that could cause severe damage. However, I also understand that things don’t exist in a vacuum.

The Bakugou family dynamic is obvious: Mitsuki is at the top, then Katsuki, then Masaru (though it could be Masaru then Katsuki. I don’t think I’ve seen enough to note the order for sure). Then, in the Licensing Classes Bakugou mentions that there must be a hierarchy and they have to use violence to change the pecking order, and suddenly his treatment of Izuku makes more sense. He saw Izuku as below him in hierarchy, having been raised in a house where the parents were not equals, and tried to reinforce it how his mother reinforces his father’s place. (This does NOT excuse his actions. Bakugou is my favorite character after Shinso, but I will never excuse his bullying of Izuku. I just like to try and find explanations for things).

Then we see his mother dealing with her stress over his kidnapping by hitting him, her anger as his outbursts by breaking a table, and her frustration at her husband’s mumbling by screaming at him: these are all reactions Katsuki also displays in response to frustration, stress, and anger. It puts the line “I was raised with violence” into perspective because, from what we’re shown, he was taught that all emotions can be solved by reinforcing the hierarchy or by being so loud/violent that it gets pushed away. Emotions other than rage don’t fix anything in his eyes because that’s how his household works.

Encouraging beating children because it’s “How He Was Raised”: this is an interesting point that I actually think about a lot because its such a common thought process. Like “I was spanked as a kid and turned out fine!” You Want To Hit Children Jim. You Clearly Have Some Problems Stemming From It. Now, again, I am not saying that spankings are the same as abuse, because they’re not exactly the same, but they are harmful, and are often justified in ways similar to abuse tactics. “““Punishments”“““ like getting hit with a wooden spoon or spanked are incredibly common, but like, most of the time what is the actual lesson taught. Most people assume its “act that way again and you’ll be hurt,” but if the child doesn’t fully know why what they did is wrong, then it is pointless. Instead the example being set is “you made me angry, so I am going to hurt you in return,” and this aligns exactly with what we see in Katsuki. Ignoring all other moral implications to get back to my meta, we see, explicitly, that Katsuki’s solution to most perceived wrongings is to attack. Frankly, I see my younger self in this a lot.

When a kid is spanked, or hit with a spoon/belt, the reasoning is almost always “if you hadn’t done X I wouldn’t have hurt you,” many times not explaining why exactly X is wrong. This is the problem with corporal punishment. These articles can be read for more information on the exact problems with Corporal Punishment, but the long story short is that Katsuki’s actions align perfectly with someone who not only experienced it, but experienced it without any explanations behind the ““““punishments.”“““ (long story short: don’t fucking hit kids Jesus). X X X X X The most important quotes from them are:

“it can lead to bullying, drug violence, and other problem behaviors that rely on having power over someone else.”

“Ten of the associations were negative such as increased child aggression and antisocial behavior.”

“I was very surprised to find that corporal punishment affects the same brain areas that are affected by severe physical and sexual abuse... the magnitude was lower, but to see that spanking impacts a child’s brain development in the same way was a big surprise.”

“Children who were physically punished were more likely to endorse hitting as a means of resolving their conflicts with peers and siblings”

“Harsh physical punishment in the absence of child mistreatment is associated with mood disorders, anxiety disorders, substance abuse/dependence, and personality disorders in a general population sample.”

I actually want to draw attention to this particular quote --> they have the phrase “in the absence of child mistreatment” so as to clearly state that these are results of Corporal Punishment that were not classified as abuse cases.

I am going to at some people who might be able to spread this a bit and are blogs I look up to. If any of them want me to untag them I will right away!

@here-to-protect-my-son @fuckendeavorandmitsuki @evilkitten3

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astroninaaa · 3 years ago

Note

Hot take a talk about technoblade:

Okay look I've been part of this fandom since August(thank god cuz i watched it all live and it woukd be a nightmare to caatch up) I bring this up cuz i want to discuss my problem with technos character. I have watched every single techno livestream that he made on dream smp and believe it or not i used to be a techno sympathiser that is until doomsday. (By techno apologist standards i am qualified to talk about his character hooray..)

Now techno like every character is flawed if he wasn't he would be boring fandom. One of his biggest flaws is being a hypocrite. That is not something you realise until you compare what he says all the time so you need to look a little deeper to realise it and i don't blame people for not seeing it.

This wouldn't be that much of a problem because that is a character flaw among with many others but the problem that his character has faced is that he doesn't develop much.

Now i hear techno apologist jump at me every single time noooo he isn't a stagnant character he has developed a lot. I am not saying that he hasn't developed at all the problem is that he has developed very little especially when you consider everything.

His goals his ideas his perception of the world what he believes him everything that makes his character him hasn't changed much and that is not a good thing from a writing perspective. Now why do i bring this up. Firstly I'm not saying this to say techno is a bad writer far from it he can be very good when he puts his mind to it. The problem with keeping a character in this state is that it's very harmful for said character first and to the story and other characters second. Look even at yourselves i can guarantee that you aren't the exact same person you were like five years ago for example because during that time you made mistakes learned from them and you grew. Just like in real life you also can't stay stagnant in fiction.

Okay so that's the main problem with technos character that he is stagnant as a character. Now this wouldn't be as big of a problem if he didn't have the role that he has.

You see techno both c! and cc! are very good at the game basically. Now why do i bring this up. The reason why i bring this up is bc of where this places techno whuch is at the very top of the chain don't try and seny it. This means that he is one of the most powerful people on the server if you are going to try and go against this point just look at lmanberg guys that's living proof of how powerful and how terrifying he actually is. I know a lot of you are gonna say but every can get stacked or play the game but you guys forget that even if you are stacked you just don't have the skill and cc! Techno of the best people when it comes to that which bleeds into his character. Saying that is like looking at the upper class than looking at the lower class saying just get rich like it doesn't work like that.

Because of his role techno is literally the 1% by rl standards which means he can a lit of things free of consequences bc no one can give him said consequences. The butcher army was ig an attempt at that but they failed miserably let's be real here.

Because he is in the 1% is incredibly skilled at pvp and can do anything bc no one can challenge him this places him on a pedestal and creates a power imbalance a very big one at that.

And that leads to his biggest problem he has practically everything as said by Techno himself and is never challenged, but that's not an interesting character. An audience gets tired for a character that always wins or loses. Because if it happens repeatedly it just takes all the suspense oh he will win immediately. He will go and slaughter them problem solved. That's it every time. Something that techno himself confirmed is then when he has a problem he just stabs it (both of these were said during the egg stream).

And if you are going to bring the things he went through to say he's changed don't cuz as long as he doesn't act on it it means nothing. Like examples Red festival killed tubbo an ally. Traumatic experience right? This is a good moment to develop his character and give us more insight. What happens? Techno tries to dismiss it and shows us his anxiety and gives us insight on his character Great! Character development? Starting to question himself just a bit or any sign of that event having an effect on him? Nope! Why? Cuz he doesn't act on it instead he tries to hide the fact that ever happened and changes to a different topic bc there is no justification there and he knows it. Nov 16th c!technos pov he just got betrayed caused some damage wished death upon his former allies and left. Quite a dramatic scene. He feels betrayed time for some good old character development. Him thinking about himself and his actions. Reflecting on them. Great moment! Problem: literally everything that shows this is done off camera and now suddenly he's retired... Okay you know what fine it's alright he would probably expand upon and did a timeskip to explain the ling time he didn't stream. I see where it's comming from. The butcher army ge gets hunted down bc actions have consequences techno and you can't just run away like that not after doing that. Great point from the butcher army. Go give him some consequences his character needs it. And then he gets executed alright a bit too far but i guess that's how it goes in this server. Techno gets his life back immediately.. well that was a bit pointless but alright a cool scene for the animatic fair. Then he kills quackity.. the butcher army lost.. this.. what? But this was the moment of consequences... and quackity didn't get it back like techno the butcer aemy lost more than techno what? Moving along he teams up with tommy aannnd the 50 withers are up and ready of course you didn't fully retire what was i expecting. And now team up with tommy perfect way to learn about dream and give more insight on lmanberg and how dream is a tyrant and everything techno is supposed to stand against. The green festival tommy chooses tubbo over techno techno feels betrayed understandable.... and then he teams up with dream lmanberg is destroyed and the underdogs are beaten to the ground loose everything they ever worked for and are taught to be scared of the anarchists?!?!?!?!

Okay now hold up a sec I'll have to stop you right there. What. did. you. just. do. Cuz there is a limit to the amount of stuff you can let a character get away with. The line was crossed months ago this is not good at all.

Also what are yoi guys talking about consequences. Lives? All 3 home? Right there pets? The ones that died were the ones he brought expecting to not live he brought them there on purpose so they don't count. He is one of the most wealthy peoole on the server (no one beats ranboo lol) what did he exactly loose? Friendships? Was that all the hardships you guys have?

Lmanberg lost their home their lives their wealth their pets their friend everything they loved and lived for everything they stood for they lost a part of themselves in the end.

Look at the last 2 paragraphs and how imbalanced that is. How are you guys blind to this How?! And why did doomsday happen? Because the butcher army failed. And if anything techno proved them that they should have punished him harder with this.

So what was the lesson of doomsday?

That you shoukd obey the people on top and never go against them or you will loose everything you love.

Great lesson guys this is exactly the lesson the rich class and every single tyrant tried to teach society and this lesson is being told by the anarchist great job....

Do you see the problem now. This is the reason techno needs a consequence bc if he keeps going like this he will become a Mary Sue. And that is a horrible direction for a character that has a lot of potential. That potential is why i liked his character that much in the beginning but now it's almost non existent. Anyway I'll end this now cuz this went on for too long. That's basically my opinion on it feel free to share your thoughts.

okay. okay. i read this like three times bc. because look

i agree in some very specific points, but i disagree in very broad manners.

(this entire......... essay is all /rp and /nm!!!!)

anyways. send me hot takes!!!

i like c!techno. i personally think he's one of the most fun characters to watch because i enjoy the mess, the crazyness, the chaos of it all. watching doomsday through c!tommy's eyes was painful. watching doomsday through c!techno's eyes was just so fucking hilarious and exciting and fun. he's just a fun character to watch. he's just Funny. i am a fan. however

for starters: ctechno is, 100%, out of the park, an stagnant character. he has little to no development throughout the story. we see no changes in how he acts. that's not necessarily a bad thing, but considering the type of character he is, watching him develop (be it to an actually full-fledged villain or towards a redemption arc) would be ideal to keep him a character people can actually support.

i wouldn't say he's a hypocrite. c!techno has a very strict moral code and he follows it with no hesitation, with no doubts. the point is that his moral code is flawed and skewed. that doesn't make him a hypocrite, that makes him someone with bad morals.

calling c!techno "the 1%" is a stretch. for one- c!ranboo has as much resources, if not more, as c!techno does. he has dozens of totems, thousands of emeralds, and probably has one of the higher counts of diamond and netherite on the server. why is that never brought up? because it doesnt matter. c!foolish has so much gold and diamonds and netherite and just everything, really, and it's also never brought up/a reason for people to be afraid of him. the dream smp isn't a capitalist universe, there's no "1%". specially bc there's, like, i don't know, 20 players? that makes c!techno 1/20 OR 3/20 if we count c!ranboo and c!foolish. but that's not the point at all: the point is that ctechno is feared bc he's skilled and has a relevant personality, not bc he has resources. c!wilbur has no shit and he's still terrifying, there's no character willing to oppose him. not because of resources, but because of who he is. when c!techno first fled from l'manburg into "retirement" he had no shit either, it took him a while to be rich again. no one attacked him either way.

why, you ask? bc he fought against c!quackity with a fucking pickaxe and won. that's why. c!techno doesn't need resources to be feared. the power imbalance doesn't come from his resources, it comes from others’s fear. and they have a reason for that fear, bc c!techno hasn't been defeated yet. that has nothing to do with "upper class" and "lower class". because, one, not a capitalist system and class disparity isn't as simple as that, and two, even without his "riches" he still wins, bc he's got the skill. if you take out the skill, him being rich means nothing and he wouldve been easily killed by the butcher army or c!tommy or whoever decided to kill him. a good example is, once again, c!ranboo: if he wasn't friends with everyone and someone decided to actually fight him like was done with c!techno, he would've died. easily. being rich in the smp is relative.

c!techno will be challenged when we have a character strong enough to challenge him in a way that matters. it's important to be smart about it. that's why i'd love to see, out of everyone, c!philza turn against him, but that's a how other discussion (WHICH I'M WILLING TO TALK ABOUT.......... everytime i make these and i add little point i dont elaborate on and then say i'm willing to talk about them and no one ever asks me to <//3 PAIN /nm /lh).

i do think he's a character that just Always Win in narrative ways and that's very frustrating. he does need to get pulled a few notches down. again, that will only happen when we have a character that can step up to him and challenge him in a way that matters (woooo c!philza you want to hold c!techno accountable for his bullshit so bad woooo........)

now, onto c!techno's trauma. he doesn't need to show it. he- he doesn't. that's........ not how trauma works, and that's one of the points that make his trauma so forgettable for the viewers. c!techno is, from inside out, a character that hardly shows his emotions, but that doesn't mean he doesn't display symptons of trauma. he does, they're just a lot more subtle than other characters's. that doesn't mean he doesn't have any or that he isn't affect by it. c!techno is, in a lot of ways, a lot like c!tubbo: both of them don't mention the shit they've gone through and don't react to it and bc of that some of the viewers don't see how important some traumatic events were in their characterisation. that's why you analyse those characters's trauma through behavior, not through easily seen displays of trauma.

i do think it's taken a little too far with c!techno. the way he reacted to c!tommy's death was...... disappointing, to say the least. c!techno is an underwhelming character in many ways. as said before, it's because he's stagnant. that definitely needs to be worked on.

about the syndicate? yeah, no. theyre not teaching others to fear them. others just Do That bc of their history on the server, but they have literally talked about how they want to better their reputation, bc they don't want to be seen as murderers or oppressors in any way. are they flawed? yes, very much. they have no indicators of what is or isn't a government and they show no regard around the importance of a difference between an oppressive and a democratic government.

they had no right to show up at c!tubbo's door and interrogate him, because they can't appoint themselves as government police. for starters, that's not how anarchy works (they should've had everyone's permission for that. they obviously don't), but also it's just... stupid. it makes it seem that they're trying to boss everyone around so that they live like the syndicate wants them to, which goes directly against the syndicate's own ideals. however, c!techno thinks he has that right. he thinks this is what he's supposed to do. he's just following his moral code - his moral code is just deeply, deeply flawed. what he says and what he does contradict each other but not for him, not to his interpretation. to his interpretation, he's following his strict moral code.

what happened at doomsday was horrible and c!techno has to be held accountable for it, yes, but, again, no character knows how to work around c!techno enough to hold him accountable for it. that's not c!techno's fault.

l'manburg just deserved better, honestly, but to be fair c!techno has been taken advantage of time and time again (sometimes purposefully, sometimes not) and he's fucked up in the head, god bless LMAOOOOOOO

i agree that things need to change otherwise he's just gonna keep being a stagnant character who can get away with everything. i do think he has more to him than meets the eye, tho. meh idk that's still just analysis!!! we have no way of knowing the intent behind c!techno's characterisation, at least not for now. i hope for the best tho cc!techno don't let me down <3

#c!techno critical #adding just in case #technoblade #c!technoblade critical #hot take ask!!!#i don't excuse his actions i just think things are not that easily said and done.#also didnt say it but i would NOT call him a mary sue. the only server mary sue is ranboo i am so sorry- LMAOOOO #that's not the concept of mary sue at all. it just- no it's just not i'm sorry #but i see where you're coming from anon and i respect your opinion!!! i just added my own since i said from the start #that i'd be saying what i thought of y'all's hot takes. if anyone just wants me to post your hot take and not say anything about it thats #fine! just lmk otherwise i Will comment on it i am a Law Major. i cannot Help Myself from Discussions #LMAOOOOOO

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desertdragon · 3 years ago

Note

the star 💫

What are their hopes and dreams? What makes them feel uplifted? What do they become defensive about? Why?

You picked this bc of Nozomi didn't you bestie

She just wants to be Just Some Guy, that's what it's all about, getting to reset back into being Just Some Guy, chasing the high of being normal and peaceful and not Atlas

Being Just Some Guy might sound like it's meaning has radically changed in her perspective as time passed, but at its core it's the same as it ever was

Whether she's part of her tribe hunting across incredible distances in the middle of a desert, or helping at harvest season in the village where she finally settles, both roles are about helping the people of societies she chooses to be part of without the weighty world shattering dramatics and human slaughter her current position requires, it has its own hardships and responsibilities but being Just Some Guy doesn't impose specialness and separation on her, it's far less likely to leave her singled out for powerful people to manipulate her time and energy for their ends and treat her like an object, she gets to be herself on her own terms with people she chooses

That remains her Dream capital D, and it spreads out into other dreams and her hopes

Before becoming WoL it was much the same, to fit in, to make everyone around her proud despite her uniqueness, to be what normal for the U Tribe looks like, unbothered by strange nonsense

Her other dreams are centered on stability too; having a stable home, stable people around etc.

Also she wants to catch every legendary fish and ones so huge no one's ever recorded their size

I struggled with this one beyond repeating the crux of her character, that's why I asked Moss about it in the GC and I think they summed it up better than I can:

I think another of her hopes is simply seeing others not fall victim to the mentality that led to her greatest mistakes; it's unavoidable that people will be vulnerable and hurt throughout their lives, but it's a tragedy to see it consume them into a hole that's difficult to pull themselves from again, she wishes none of that for her children, her loved ones, or strangers- but if they do find themselves in that hole she'll do what she can to show them they can be pulled out, unless it becomes too late

Backtracking for a second one last hope I can think of revolves around her kids; parents have to accept their children will not and should not be them, which she and Yugiri understand by the time they exist, but she does hope they follow them when it comes to their views around peace and not killing since they know the exact weight killing entails

If they don't keep to it then depending on the reason she would be disappointed or sympathetic; she loves all three and knows life is full of uncertainty and insane circumstances, she wants them to know they can count on her

Lately I've been considering Well what if Yoshino or her brothers were put in tough situations that resulted in them killing, despite how deeply they take their parents lessons to heart- especially the pressure it would put on Yoshino as firstborn who by definition is a guideline for Ujihide and Yoshitsugu

I'm on the fence about this though; I can't yet think up a reason for that to happen and if I would just want it for it's dramatic value, or if that's a good idea in the first place- it's a little like the moral dilemma behind Batman not killing because of his parent's deaths defining his views on murder, to have Bruce kill would need to be handled delicately or it betrays everything the character stands for

Seeing others happy is one of the best gifts she can receive, seeing them trust one another and be wholehearted in whatever they're doing is the best feeling, especially if she helped them get there

Some other things include natural phenomena that align with her state of mind at the time; a lightning storm brimming with power and something inexplicable, a river so peacefully in tune with itself, dawn and dusk, the wind making grassy plains roll like an ocean etc.

There's of course the relief from accomplishments, but that's the most basic and lowest tiered requirement; doesn't make the high from it any less meaningful though

You know honestly I don't see her as being someone who gets defensive; she's so accepting and aware of what she's like and what she's done, especially the negative, that she wouldn't rush to deny or deflect- instead she's like Yes I Did That, and she might elaborate on how it makes her feel

I've said that before but it's always fun to type- Oh you bring up when she killed innocent people to guilt her? Doesn't work she beats herself up over it everyday, Oh you think she ate every single thing in your pantry? Yes she did, Oh you think you heard her and Yugiri getting it on though the walls? The details are none of your business but yes they were, Was she sitting topless mending a tear in the leather of her armor? Y e s because she felt like it etc.

It's why the whole concept of refusing your dark side doesn't work on her, why the Dark Knight quests wouldn't work on her, and if you threw her as she is into the Persona games she would either have no Shadow or she would accept hers immediately

This honesty floors people who aren't U Tribe even if they're very forthcoming themselves, it goes against usual social sensibilities because those aren't how she processes feeling shame, shame is much more personal than mere social conventions can measure or dictate- for her shame is in knowing the worst of what she is and that she gave into it again, but denying it altogether won't make it change

The only reason I could see her getting defensive is on her loved one's behalf, but even there honesty rules because she's aware of what flaws she sees but will frame it as something she believes they're working on or can overcome based on their unique circumstances and personalities- she wants to defend those she loves because she believes in them, but without also placing them on a pedestal of inhuman perfection

#hc

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mint-yooxgi · 5 years ago

Text

{3} - Obsession

Yandere AU - Part of the EXO Obsession Series

Genre: Mature, Horror, Angst

Pairing: EXO OT9 X Reader (with a particular focus on X-EXO)

Words: 3,500

Warnings: This is a Yandere story, it will contain themes such as stalking, violence, obsession, possessive natures, and just general overall creepiness and swearing. You have been warned.

A/n: So work was really slow the other day so I actually had time to write, and thanks to two of my coworkers, the next chapter was born! I’m super excited to show you guys what I have planned for this series, especially in later chapters, but as of now, I'm just building things up. I hope you enjoy, and as always, feedback is always appreciated!

Previous ~ Next

“They were in your apartment?” Baekhyun nearly shrieks, eyes wide in disbelief.

“Yes,” you reply calmly with a brief nod of your head.

Currently, it’s the morning after the clones had come to visit you at your apartment, and you’ve just finished relaying the most important details the clones had told you to your team. You’ve chosen to omit some things for the time being until you can get a better read on your strike team. However, from the looks of things, they’re not taking things too well, especially the six members of your strike team.

“Why didn’t you call us?” Jongin asks, Minseok nodding right along with him while they both send a concerned look your way.

“Like I already told you,” you sigh, repressing the urge to roll your eyes, “I handled it.”

“Still, why did you wait until now to tell us?” Junmyeon inquires, frown evident on his face.

“You’re even lucky I’m telling you guys this at all,” you retort, eyes narrowing slightly at all of them. “I could have simply said they left me a message, which they technically did do.”

You can see Junmyeon’s frown deepen, scowls appearing on Sehun, Baekhyun, and Chanyeol’s faces. None of them like the idea of you being alone with their clones, especially in your own apartment. You notice Jongdae’s brow furrowed in concentration out of the corner of your eyes, as well as Jongin looking at you with worry still evident in his eyes.

“So then, what are we going to do? Or more importantly,” Yixing turns to look into your eyes, brow creasing slightly in concern, “what are you going to do?”

“What do you mean?” You question, quirking a brow at him in response.

“Clearly they know where you live, and they can get into your apartment without issue,” Sehun starts to say, leaning forwards in his seat to rest his elbows on his thighs. “So that raises the question of where are you going to be staying for the time being?”

Sharing a brief glance with Kyungsoo, you notice him nod his head ever so subtly in your direction. You fail to notice the hopeful looks shining in your strike team’s eyes, but none as apparent as Junmyeon’s, Baekhyun’s, and Jongin’s. Jongdae subtly bites the corner of his lip in anticipation, waiting to be the first out of all of them to offer up his place as a safe house for you during this time.

“She’ll be staying with me,” Kyungsoo says, breaking the brief tense silence that has been building since Sehun posed the question. You notice their eyes widening in surprise, but none are as wide as Junmyeon’s.

You find yourself nodding along with Kyungsoo’s words in confirmation. He’s the only one out of your entire team that knows that you have your own separate living quarters outside of the apartment that the company has assigned to you. Plus, he’s the one you feel the closest to out of all your team members, even more so than Minseok and Yixing.

He’s the only one you’ve trusted enough to actually bring to your real house, so only he knows where it is. During times like this, where a situation arises in which you need to hide away from your own apartment, the two of you have a mutual agreement with each other where he’ll cover for you. Hence you ‘staying’ with him at ‘his’ house.

“Excuse me?” Baekhyun manages to choke out, blinking a few times in disbelief. He can’t seem to catch a break from surprises today, first with the news that his clone, along with the others, had been alone with you in your apartment last night, and now you’ll be staying with Kyungsoo of all people for your protection. He grits his teeth slightly in frustration, for he knows if it came down to it, he’d be the one who would be able to protect you.

“Perfect,” you nod, “it’s settled.”

“Shouldn’t we talk about this first?” Junmyeon voices, slight panic evident in the way his voice is a pitch higher than usual, causing your eyebrow to quirk in surprise.

“We just did,” you respond, crossing your arms in front of your chest. “Considering it’s your clones that we’re dealing with, it would make the most sense for me not to stay with one of you six. The last thing any of us needs is for one of your clones showing up at your own house looking for us. That would be much worse, now, wouldn’t it?”

Though they seem to all scowl at the thought in distaste, they all reluctantly agree with your reasoning.

“I suppose so,” Jongdae grumbles, letting out a small sigh in the next moment as he leans back onto the chair he’s sitting on, running his fingers through his hair. He’s racking his brain to come up with a better solution, preferably one that allows you to stay with him for the time being. So far, he’s come up with nothing, which frustrates him to no end.

“Speaking of our clones,” Chanyeol adds, “what are we going to do about them then?”

At his words, all eyes turn to you. You let out a sigh, rubbing the side of your face with your hand. However, before you can speak, Sehun is beating you to the punch.

“Well, clearly we have to destroy them,” he says, Jongin nodding right along with him. “If what you told us is true, both ‘versions’ of us cannot survive in the end, so our number one priority, after making sure you’re safe, is destroying our clones.”

“I second that,” Chanyeol hums, nodding along with the others.

“What are we going to do if they show up again?” Baekhyun asks, crossing his arms while leaning against the wall he’s standing near. “Or worse, here?”

“We should have a plan just in case that happens,” Junmyeon agrees. “Even if they confront us by themselves in our own homes, I think it would be beneficial if we alerted everyone immediately.”

“I agree,” Jongdae voices his thoughts. “As soon as you can, alert the others. Especially since we don’t know what our clones are fully capable of yet. Besides, some of us might be able to handle ourselves better than the others, and we can use all the backup we can get in the event of an emergency.”

“Contacting each other and keeping all of us updated will be one of our most important methods of protection, as well as making sure we can respond properly and swiftly to a situation if it does arise,” Junmyeon continues, to which you voice your agreement.

“In the event that they do show up here, we need to make sure to act quickly,” you say, eyes sharp and calculating as you look each one of them over. “Strike them down before they can strike you.”

You can tell that they’re all taken aback by your words and how serious you sound. No question, nor hesitation in your voice.

“She’s right,” Jongdae is the first to break the silence that’s settled over all of you. “We’re going to have to kill them eventually if we want to live. It’s not like they’re us anyways.”

At least, that’s what he keeps telling himself. If these clones really are made from a part of them, and share the same memories and feelings, he’s not quite sure just how different they really are. The only difference right now that he can tell is that his clone is not afraid to go after what he wants. But just how far is he willing to go?

“Exactly,” you confirm. “If they’re going to basically be doing the exact same thing every time they encounter you from now on, then it would be beneficial for all of us to strike first.”

A small silence settles over the ten of you as you let this information sink in. You can tell the six members of your strike team are tense, thinking over what has just been decided, and confronted by having to face themselves to the death.

You let out a long exhale through your nose, not too sure how to raise their morale at the moment, for you need some time to figure out their real feelings for you. The last thing you want to do is to make things more complicated than they are. You need to find out the truth, and fast.

“You know, I never thought I’d ever have to face myself in battle,” Sehun jokes, breaking the tense silence as he chuckles, along with Chanyeol.

“Well, you know what they say,” Minseok sighs. “You’re your own worst enemy.”

“Hope you guys can handle yourselves,” Kyungsoo hums amusedly, a teasing tone in his voice.

“I know I can,” Baekhyun smirks smugly.

“Yeah, sure,” Jongin scoffs, rolling his eyes slightly. “Says the guy who just fell flat on his ass this morning coming down the stairs.”

You laugh, an amused grin coming to rest on your features as you turn to see the tips of Baekhyun’s ears turning red from embarrassment.

“I slipped,” Baekhyun attempts to defend himself.

“Uh-huh, sure you did,” Chanyeol grins.

You continue to chuckle as the three of them continue to bicker back and forth. You’re grateful for the small shift in conversation, for it seems to be relieving the previous tension which had settled over all of you. You can feel yourself calming down slowly, grateful to have the weight of the previous evening lessoned, even if it’s only slightly.

Despite appearing much more calm on the outside, you’re still very worried. You know you’ll have to talk with the members of your strike team separately, away from the others, but you’re not exactly sure how you should go about doing that. You’ve always went with a direct approach when dealing with tough situations, but you’re not sure if they’ll be fully honest with you if you do so this time around. Still, it doesn’t hurt to try.

“I still want to talk with all of you individually to make sure that we’re all on the same page,” you make a point to catch the eyes of your strike team, noticing how a few of them tense under your gaze. If you didn’t know any better, you’d say both Chanyeol and Jongin look nervous. “Who wants to go first?”

Both Junmyeon and Jongdae stand up at the same time, causing your brow to quirk in surprise. However, with one quick look from Junmyeon, Jongdae reluctantly sits back down, letting out a quiet sigh as he does so.

“As for the rest of you, dismissed until I call for you,” you tell them, already making your way out of the briefing room and towards your office which resides near the back of the compound.

Junmyeon follows closely behind, making sure to keep pace with you on the way to your office. He bites the inside of his cheek, nervous for what you want to talk to him about, for he’s sure you all covered everything in the meeting you’ve all just had. Unless his clone did something that you’ve opted to exclude in your retelling of last night’s events.

Shutting the door behind himself once you’ve both entered your office, he turns to face you. He notices how you’re casually leaning against the front of your desk, motioning with your head for him to sit in one of your two chairs which rest in front of you.

“What is it you wanted to discuss?” He asks, taking a seat in the chair on his left, the chair that just so happens to be the closest to you at the moment.

You let out a sigh, closing your eyes briefly as you tilt your head downwards, “look, I know this is a pretty fucked up situation, but do you have any idea why your clone in particular would be coming after me?”

He freezes momentarily, breath lodging in his throat, “I’m not sure.”

“Oh?” You shift your gaze to his, analyzing his every move.

“Must be a side effect of the spell,” he continues, his dead heart racing in his chest. He may be a vampire, but you are one of the only things that actually have an effect on him.

“Must be,” you mutter, crossing your arms once more in front of your chest.

“Is that all?” He asks, wanting to get out of this situation as soon as possible. The longer he stays in your office, the less control over his thoughts he has, especially due to the situation you’re both in. Usually, he loves being in your office, for he can revel in your scent which covers every inch of the space. However, he can’t seem to enjoy it as thoroughly this time around, for he doesn’t want to get too distracted and risk saying something that might give his feelings for you away. His real feelings.

“Junmyeon,” you notice the way his jaw twitches when you say his name, “is there anything you’d like me to know that might help us in this situation?”

“I just want you to be safe,” he replies after a moment of hesitation.

“It’s not me I’m worried about,” you sigh, shaking your head slightly. “Anyways, that’s all for now. If you find out anything else, make sure to let us know. I’m trusting you, considering you are my second in command. I don’t want anything bad to happen to you guys.”

The sincerity in your voice causes a small smile to tug at his lips, “give us a little bit more credit, we’ll be fine.”

You send a weak smile back, “dismissed.”

With that, he stands up from the chair. Before he exits your office, he pauses briefly to send one final look to you from over his shoulder. So badly he wants to wrap you in his arms and tell you that everything will be okay, that he’ll always be there to protect you. However, he knows that it would be inappropriate for him to do so at this time, especially since he can’t even confess to you that he sees you as more than just his captain. As more than just a friend.

Walking down the hallway he decides that he’s going to work on tracking these clones down, and prove to you that he can always be there for you, to protect you. He wants to make sure that he’s doing whatever he can to impress you, too. He might need a little help from the others, but he knows he can run this operation smoothly, and earn your affections by doing so. He’ll show you that he’s worthy to be your man.

The rest of your one on one meetings with the others go pretty much exactly the same way as Junmyeon’s did. None of your strike team admits to anything that you’ve come to assume or learn about them. Jongin and Chanyeol both seemed close to cracking, but held their own in the end. Turns out this might be harder than you originally thought, but if you ever run into their clones again, maybe you can get some more information out of them instead.

Gathering your things to head home for the evening, you let out a frustrated sigh. The good news is that you all have a general consensus and plan for fighting these clones if they were to attack any one of your team members. However, given what you know, and still have yet to find out, you’re not too sure if you’d actually go through with attacking them first. You’d rather get as much information out of them as you can for the time being, that way you can come up with a better way to not only combat them, but understand and deal with the originals as well.

A soft knock on your office door manages to break you out of your thoughts.

“Come in,” you say, not really paying attention to who enters the room.

“You okay?” Kyungsoo’s voice catches your attention, looking up to see him already staring at you with concern etched onto his features.

“Yeah, just a bit frustrated, is all,” you shoot him a tight smile, letting out a puff of air as you sling your bag over your shoulder. Noticing the look he’s sending you, you let out a sigh, “I’ll tell you in the car.”

“Ready to go then?” He asks, seeing you nod your head in response.

Walking over to him, he holds the door open for you. Flicking off the lights, you walk past him into the hallway, hearing the door to your office fall shut as he catches up to you and matches your pace. He doesn’t say anything as the two of you make your way to the underground parking and towards his car, of which you couldn’t be more grateful. Once you’re safe in his car and making you way out of the garage, you find yourself letting out a groan.

“What would you do if you knew the truth about something, but no one would tell you about it?” You voice your thoughts, knowing that you can trust Kyungsoo enough to give you an honest opinion and also keep your conversation a secret.

“Is this about the clones?” He eyes you curiously from the driver’s seat.

“Yeah,” you run a hand through your hair before jumping into the full explanation about what had really transpired last night, telling him specifically how the clones acted near the end of your encounter.

He lets out a low whistle, “based on what you’re telling me, and from what we know about the clones already, it sounds to me like your strike team all has the hots for you, with their own little unique quirks.”

“That’s what I’m thinking, but I can’t be too sure since they’ve never shown signs of being interested in me romantically, nor have they admitted to it,” you say, turning your head to look at him.

“Still, I’d be cautious with how you act around them now, and especially with what you say,” he says, turning onto the highway to get to your place. “The last thing you need is for the team to fall apart.”

“Gee, thanks for the encouragement,” you deadpan. “No pressure or anything.”

“Relax,” he rolls his eyes. “We both know you can handle it. Do your best to gather more information from the clones, and once you have enough information, confront the originals. Who knows, something may end up happening that works in your favour.”

“Look at you, rooting for me to get some romance in my life in times of crisis,” a teasing smirk pulling at your lips.

“Always,” he grins right back before becoming serious in the next second, “but you know that if they ever tried anything to hurt you I’d end them. No hesitation.”

“Yeah, yeah,” you chuckle, “I know.”

“If anything happens, make sure you call me first,” he goes on to say.

“Well, considering you’re the only one who actually knows where I live,” you joke. “Speaking of, what are you going to do if one of them shows up at your place wanting to talk with me?”

“Simple,” he responds. “I’ll just tell them you’re out, or at the gym, or on a walk, or at the compound, or sleeping, or-“

“Okay, I get it!” You grin, shaking your head slightly in amusement. “You’ll just make up some excuse and cover for me.”

“Exactly,” he replies, nodding his head in confirmation. “Besides, if it’s really urgent, they’d call you.”

“That’s true,” you confirm. “At least I’d hope so.”

“They will,” he assures you. “I don’t think I’ve seen them have as much respect for anyone else as they do for you. They’ll respect your wishes, and just like me, will do whatever it takes to make sure you’re safe. Though, I don’t think I’m as paranoid as they are about leaving you by yourself.”

“Which I am thankful for,” you shoot him a look, grin tugging on your lips once more.

Pulling off of the highway, Kyungsoo begins to take the backroads to get to your house which rests in the middle of the woods, hidden by all the trees surrounding it. Once he pulls up to your front door, you thank him for driving you, and proceed to make your way inside your house, watching as his car disappears behind the trees.

You’re happy to be home, though you wish it were under better circumstances. Unlocking the door, you’re quick to turn off your alarm and toss your bag onto the bench you keep by the front door.

Shutting and locking your front door shortly afterwards, you find yourself breathing a sigh of relief. At least you know there aren’t any surprises waiting for you in your living room tonight. Well, you sure hope there’s none.

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ncxus-archived · 4 years ago

Text

:: unpopular opinion - i liked fate; the winx saga ( this is very long and may contain spoilers. )

this is a kinda head dump of my thoughts so feel free to skip over, just wanted to share my thoughts ).

I don’t agree with the whitewashing at all and am angry at them for that. i know that winx was great for showing diversity in the cartoon and people could relate to the different characters because of that diversity. but please do not hate on the actors, they didn’t get a say in that process. I have a theory that flora will actually arrive as she was mentioned so it might be a part of a significant plot point. but yes, i am pissed at them for whitewashing.

I’ve seen a lot of people getting upset because it wasn’t exactly like the cartoons, but the big thing here is that the original was a cartoon aimed at little girls under the age of ten. this new show is aimed for young adults and over. i totally get the frustration with how you were ‘promised’ something, but they had to make the show somewhat more realistic and mature as the same children who watched the cartoon originally are now adults. they probably thought they were appealing to the same audience by making it more mature for their og audience; thus to them they felt they were keeping their promise. i’m also a strong fan of the cartoon, please know i loved the cartoon and still do, yet it would have been impossible to just recreate the cartoon and i’d wager that if they tried to do it so accurately that it would turn out messy. it would be hard to relate to if there was tons of fairy sparkles and a pink castle; they had to make it more realistic and appealing to older audiences. If they did essentially mirror, there would be a whole set of other issues and then where would the creative agency be? why even bother making a live action if it is to be the exact same as the cartoon?

furthermore, they had to make it appealing to all genders, whilst the cartoon, a show from the early 2000's, was quite obviously coded towards young girls. sorry to burst bubbles but the original has very strong issues of gender conformity, sexualisation of characters and body image. in the cartoon, only girls got to be fairies, they were sparkly and they were all thin with slender hourglass figures with very little covering them in their transformation. And all the boys had to be sword fighting heroes wearing muscle tees and be emotionally aloof; thank fuck they began the steps to correct this - not saying its perfect but its progress. i remember watching the cartoon as a child and genuinely being upset because i wasn’t allowed to be a fairy because I was a boy. hopefully if future seasons go ahead, we can see trans and non binary fairies and specialists. And i felt that they didn’t sexualise their characters too much, if at all. i think there were two, maybe three, shirtless scenes but they were fast and brief and didn’t linger and were natural to the plot and their relationship to the characters in the scene (exiting a shower only to be ambushed by your ex and at a party high to suss out a crush) and didn’t really allow for a ‘good look’ which i’m thankful for as they are meant to be 16; unlike other teen drama shows which sexualises it’s characters every chance they get which needs to fucking stop. (we all know the show that commits this crime far too much). i feel like it would have been better if they simply aged up the characters to a college age setting (18+) as their age in the show does not amount to anything plot wise so that would have made me feel more comfortable to watch. in regards to their transformations and why they didn’t happen, i totally understand the frustration and I too would have liked to see some cool ass fairy outfits, but again this is reality. whipping out these minute long transformations, changing their clothes to magical boob tubes and mini skirts would have broken the reality if it happened every chance and then where is the growth ( and having the actresses in these outfits would have opened up another set of conversations regarding sexualistion and body images ). transformations had a big impact as a spectacle element in the cartoon, which makes sense as it was pretty and sparkly and the show was for children; of course it was going to be pretty with fun music and cute poses as it helped children remember who was who. transformation in the live action had a big impact but for the plot and growth of the protagonist and universe. it is set up early on and stated that transformations have been lost, as fairies were not relying on it due to evolution. so when bloom does have that transformative moment, its a powerful thing. she is tapping into something no one else ever could for centuries, she has grown a lot in her power since she wasn’t raised to be a fairy and had issues regarding her family ( also are we that surprised she got intense, fixated and emotional over all this, she’s a fire fairy. she is fucking firey). it also adds a sinister underplot as the boss villain was the one who managed to teach her transformation; so it makes you wonder why and for what purpose? How is bloom going to manipulated? in regards to character, look ngl some of it was shit. it would have been nicer to see them do more stuff together and not be so snooty, but again growth. if the girls all popped in and became instant best friends, where is the room to grow. it made me smile seeing piece by piece they were coming together and learning to trust more and then when the time called for it they were there. as someone who has had to go into a college apartment with a group of people i never met away from home, the trust aint there. it took time and there were rough patches but then it hit a point where we were all close and loved each other, this is natural. one does not become best friends with everyone in a heart beat especially in their unique circumstances. In fact, many of them own up to their issues and apologise which i think is beautiful and probably made them stronger for it. Yes i know they were besties fast in the cartoon, but again this a cartoon. it's spreading happiness and moral lessons to children. Was that same message there? i think so, maybe not as explicitly but why make it obvious? they wanted to take the audience on a journey rather than spoon feed - you aren’t children. Was it a great show? no. Were there things wrong with it? Of course there was. it has far to go and hopefully it will improve and draw a bit more from its source as it could be good to see. But if they take too much then what is the point in making the show to begin with. We have the winx together as friends now so if we get a season two, we will get to see them kick ass and develop as characters which will be great. If anything I have written has upset you I deeply apologise. Please come to me and let’s chat. I’m also up for a friendly chat if you have another opinion regarding the show.

#:: ( mun time ) x #:: wow this is much longer than i thought #:: it's 1 am... this is what i think at 1 am #:: fuck it took me an hour to write this... why do i feel so sad by that fact

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nadziejastar · 4 years ago

Note

Imo Kingdom Hearts could have been a lot different if Disney was never involved or if it was it's entire own francise with no crossover with FF or Disney, imo that would have been great. Since KH1, the Disney-worlds had barely to no connection or revelance to the main-plot anymore, Sora just travels to the worlds because he can, in KH1 there was more at stake in those worlds too, now they just feel like filler, as much as SE has tried up untill KH3.

Well, “Quadratum” means “Square”. It’s possible that Nomura wants to move away from Disney worlds and focus more on Square worlds. Although I like the Disney worlds, and think they help give the series a unique identity, I can understand that Disney is a is large, powerful, greedy corporation. And Nomura’s relationship with them has changed over time.

It’s telling that instead of coming up with a new plot that gives us a good reason to travel to the Disney worlds again (the real ones, not data worlds, memory worlds, dream worlds, etc.) he’s sending Sora and Riku off to a new alternate dimension based on Versus XIII—a Square property. It may indicate that he’s tired of Disney worlds and they will be getting less focus from now on.

KH1

As the series has gone on, the implementation of the Disney worlds has become worse and worse as Nomura has struggled to come up with reasons to travel to them. I think you’re right that KH1 did the best with incorporating the worlds into the plot. Sora was trying to seal all the Keyholes, giving him a good reason to be in each one. He was looking for Riku and Kairi, which was a more personal goal. And then you had the seven princesses and the villain alliance. And each world contributed to the overall theme of the story.

KH CoM

Pinocchio: Gee, Riku, don’t you have a Jiminy like I do? He’s my conscience. He’s taught me all kinds of important stuff. Maybe you just need somebody to show you what’s right and wrong.

Jiminy: Sure. You can’t shoulder all your problems alone, ya know. You must have somebody–a friend you can talk to?

In CoM, the Disney worlds were pure filler. Only existed for gameplay. On Sora’s side, the story within them was almost the exact same as it was in KH1. Even on Riku’s side, the Disney worlds were pointless. For instance, the whole Monstro level in KH3D could have happened in Re:CoM, since it’s basically reliving Riku’s memories from KH1, but having him make a different choice that time.

KH2

Iago: I wanna be a good friend, like Genie, but I can't do anything to help you. What kind of a friend is that?

Sora: Oh, no---it's not like that, Iago. Friends don't have to "do" stuff. As long as you have fun hanging out together, that's all that matters.

In KH2, the worlds are a mix of new and old. But they’re not really important to the plot. Sora’s just looking for Riku and the King, they’re not there, you participate in the movie’s plot, then move onto the next one. All the actual story happens in Twilight Town, Hollow Bastion, or TWTNW. Each world usually has a theme and a moral lesson, but it doesn’t always relate to Sora that much, so they feel filler-ish. In the second half, the organization appears in the worlds, which makes them a little more relevant to the story. But not much. They were still fun levels, though.

358/2 Days

Roxas had a good reason to go to the worlds, to collect hearts for the organization. I don’t mind if the Disney worlds aren’t directly plot-related, as long as there’s character development in them. I like that they took certain worlds from KH2 that felt like filler and expanded on the main theme of them, contributing to character development, particularly for Axel. For instance, in KH2′s Agrabah, the moral lesson was: best friends don’t have to be “useful”. This idea doesn’t have much to do with Sora, though, so it felt kinda pointless to his quest.

If you didn’t need me, then I no longer held meaning. However, reality is different. It wasn’t about whether I was needed or not. If I could just connect to others’ hearts, that would be enough.

But it was implied that this idea was very relevant to Axel’s memories of his past and his best friend.

“Because they copied my powers, the Keyblade’s power, and then they didn’t need me anymore— is that it?” Roxas spat.

He couldn’t bring himself to confirm it.

“I guess you felt the same way, huh, Axel?”

At those words, something wrenched in his chest, and he could hardly breathe. No, not me. I wasn’t thinking like that. I would never. “That’s not true. You—you’re my best friend.” The words spilled out of him.

The story of Days was all about how Roxas and Xion help Axel remember his past and what it felt like to have a best friend (an idea that connects to CoM). And the Disney worlds at least contributed to that idea in a meaningful way.

“Set in a circus and playing off the story of Pinocchio, a puppet with a heart, and the Nobodies who possess no heart, we planned for a sad episode with Roxas and Xion looking for hope for themselves”.

I would have preferred Prankster’s Paradise as a world, though, instead of, say, Halloween Town. It sounds like Roxas and Xion would have developed more in that world and it would have been more relevant to the story. Plus, it would have been new. But I think Days did a decent enough job with the Disney worlds. At least Roxas learned something new when he went to them, spurring on interesting discussions with Axel about friendship, love, the heart, etc.

KHBBS

Bagheera: It was bound to happen. Mowgli is where he belongs now.

Three new characters. In each world, the character learned something new and developed slightly. The worlds were mostly new, too. I don’t have a problem with BBS’s Disney worlds. I do wish they would have kept the Jungle Book worlds in, though.

“Riku… Do you think Nobodies have a home? Somewhere we belong?” Naminé wondered.

Having a home, somewhere to belong, was one of the main themes of the Xehanort Saga.

Master Xehanort: Darkness that you channeled.

Terra: No, I succumbed to it. Just like when I stole Princess Aurora’s heart of light. I can never return home now. I’m a failure.

Terra felt like a failure, and that he could never return home. And Aqua was tasked with bringing Ven home. This world could have been really good in BBS.

Coded

Mickey: Yen Sid… I think we’re finally close to figuring out where Ven’s heart is.

Here’s where things start going off the rails. In Coded, Disney worlds are yet again retreads of KH1, only this time they’re data instead of memories. The whole purpose of the plot was to explain why Mickey sent Sora, Riku, and Kairi that letter at the end of KH2. But you didn’t really need a whole game of travelling through virtual Disney worlds for that, especially involving convoluted ideas like data Namine implanting bug blocks in the journal or Jiminy’s Journal embodying itself as Riku (WTF?). You could have just added a scene into KH2FM+ like the above one from the manga. When Mickey saw the photo of Roxas, he recognized him as Ventus. Then he tells Master Yen Sid about it later, leading to Coded’s ending and him writing the letter.

KHUX

Ephemer: The worlds we visit—the worlds of fairy tales—are nothing more than holograms. You know, projections. The light we collect there is actually this world’s light. To put it simply: There are lots of worlds, right? And they’re all connected by land. But it’s impossible to go around all of them. That’s why there’s a mechanism that projects those worlds here and allows us to collect Lux from faraway lands. I’m gathering information, trying to figure out how the whole thing works. My hunch is that the Book of Prophecies held by the Foretellers is what’s creating these holograms.

The Disney worlds were extremely boring to play through. More than any other KH game, they have scenes that are just copy/pasted straight from the movies. Your main character, since they are mute, has little involvement. They do not grow, change, or develop, after any of these worlds. They have nothing interesting to say and they can barely interact with anyone (Chirithy does it for you).

And all, except for Wreck-It-Ralph, are just retreads of plots that we already experienced in other games. The worlds are digital holograms of the future generated from the Book of Prophecies. It’s all a VERY convoluted excuse to have you play through the same old plots from the Disney worlds. AGAIN. Only with a FAR less interesting main character. Since this was supposed to be just a F2P gacha with little story, it could have been excused. But since KHUX has become so important to the main story, it is inexcusable how poor of a game it is.

KH3D

Sora: I get it now. After this, Pinocchio and Jiminy’s world gets dragged into darkness, and they end up cast into the sea between worlds, along with Monstro. And then…they end up in Traverse Town, and the belly of the whale. That’s when we meet for real. It’s like Master Yen Sid said–I’m in the dream Pinocchio’s world is dreaming. And that world will never be right again until it wakes from sleep.

I don’t have any real issue with a game focusing on the mark of mastery exam, where Sora and Riku travel through Disney worlds. Riku develops along the way in a satisfying way. It’s the first time you actually go to new worlds as him. The test was for Sora and Riku to acquire the power of waking, so they had to go to dream worlds. Fantasia was perfect for this idea.

But the concept of Sleeping Worlds is convoluted and confusing. They’re dream versions of the worlds? Who is dreaming them? The Dandelions? They’re stuck in a time loop of the past? But visiting the Sleeping Worlds doesn’t rewrite the present. So, are they connected to the datascape? Again, it’s so convoluted, because there really is no reason that Sora and Riku would have to go on another adventure in the REAL world. Again, I would have preferred Prankster’s Paradise in Days. Pinocchio would be a human, it’d be set in the present timeline so no awkward dialogue, and Honest John and Gideon would be involved, giving it more of a plot.

KH3

The game’s worlds could have been okay if Sora wasn’t just wandering about aimlessly. And if they had developed the power of waking better. The power of waking is essentially the power to wake a sleeping heart by connecting with it. It’s the power of love, basically. Most of the Disney worlds are about love. And also, a member of the organization appears in each one.

Dark Road

In BBS, it’s revealed that Xehanort wants to open KH to create a new world. But in KH3, he wants to reset the world. How is this different?

Nomura: The most essential part is that he thinks the current world is a failure, and wants to remake it.

I’m interested to know why Xehanort came to think that way (that the world should be remade).

Nomura: Initially, I wanted to dive deeper into the naive, untainted Xehanort who we see playing chess in the next installment (before KH3 was made), but if I did that, the dark seeker arc wouldn’t have ended (lol), so I decided to shelve it for now.

Wonderland is the only Disney world that has had a plot so far. But this was still the most interesting usage of Wonderland in the series, IMO.

Envy (Latin, invidia): Invi Gluttony (Latin, gula): Gula Lust (Latin, luxuria): Luxu. Anger, or Wrath (Latin, ira): Ira Greed, or Avarice (Latin, avaritia): Ava Sloth, or Laziness (Latin, acedia): Aced

The Foretellers are named after the seven deadly sins.

Nomura: As I was writing the scenario for Kingdom Hearts Back Cover, I was careful so as to make each character look neither like a hero nor a villain, however in the end it seems that only Ava was received as a good girl (laughs). At any rate, if you think of the story progression as a gun, where Ava is the only one with the capacity to pull that gun’s trigger, I’m not so sure about how devoid of sin she really is…

I think there were a lot of parallels between the age of fairytales and the Book of Genesis.

Pride (Latin: superbia) is considered, on almost every list, the original and most serious of the seven deadly sins. Out of the seven, it is the most angelical, or demonic. It is also thought to be the source of the other capital sins.

The MoM is probably really Darkness, the original sin, Superbia. And Xehanort has his Keyblade, becoming his successor. Pride was his deadly sin. He could never admit that he lost to Eraqus at chess because of his pride. In the Bible, the source of sin was the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden. After acquiring knowledge of good and evil, he developed a god complex. Pride is the ultimate sin, where all the other sins originate from.

I need only play the role of a fool desirous of the Keyblade’s power.

Luxu is lust and Braig lusted for Xehanort’s power (as Luxu probably did with the MoM). The story in Dark Road is actually interesting. Xehanort is a FAR more interesting protagonist that the Avatar in Union X. As a wielder in training, he actually has a good reason to travel the worlds, and develops as a character along the way. I think Dark Road deserved to be its own real KH game, released on the Vita or 3DS a long time ago. It’s a shame it’s only a mobile game.

Anger is manifested in the individual who spurns love and opts instead for fury. It is also known as Wrath.

Pride is excessive belief in one’s own abilities, that interferes with the individual’s recognition of the grace of God. It has been called the sin from which all others arise. Pride is also known as Vanity.

Envy is the desire for others’ traits, status, abilities, or situation.

Gluttony is an inordinate desire to consume more than that which one requires.

Lust is an inordinate craving for the pleasures of the body.

Greed is the desire for material wealth or gain, ignoring the realm of the spiritual. It is also called Avarice or Covetousness.

Sloth is the avoidance of physical or spiritual work.

The story of Dark Road will likely be Xehanort encountering the seven deadly sins as manifested in Disney villains and coming to the conclusion that the world is too corrupt and needs to be reset. That is actually a decent enough plot and good justification for travelling through the Disney worlds. It’d be cool if they added new worlds. Maybe like Pocahontas, and Governor Radcliffe could be Greed, etc.

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simplywoolgathering · 5 years ago

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MAJOR SANDERS SIDES THEORY

@thatsthat24 @thejoanglebook

SO MY FRIEND HAS THIS THEORY INVOLVING PATTON AND I CANT STOP THINKING ABOUT IT I HAD TO SHARE:

“So, I think... that Patton is not actually Morality, but he doesn't know it.

In the last two episodes, namely Selfishness v Selflessness and Dealing with Intrusive Thoughts, Patton has been unreasonably, uncharacteristically strict on Thomas morally where he never had been before. Even in Deceit's intro episode--where he had been impersonated through lying for most of the episode-- he said that lying is bad but also gave that there were exceptions.

Why did this change take place?

I think that, as the series has gone on, Patton has been told again and again he is not doing his job right. For example, in "Growing Up" Roman tells Patton that they need "actual contributions from you. Perhaps you should stick to knowing the difference between right and wrong and leave the rest to us." For this reason, Patton had begun to feel as if he needs to prove that he is good at his job and not "a joke" as Logan would put it. This leads him to push Thomas to do what he thinks is the morally right option no matter the consequences, and accuse him of being a bad person if Thomas deviates even slightly.

However, Patton admits that he doesn't know what is true, what is right.

He says he doesn't know what the truth is in the courtroom. He doesn't know much about moral philosophy. He doesn't even know that it is wrong to bribe a witness in trial.

What is Patton, then?

He is emotion.

All of Patton's problems in the series had to do with feelings, desires, memories-- never moral dilemas. In the Sherlock epsiode, Logan hears Thomas say “his heart's not in the right place” and immediately turns to Patton. But since when is the heart associated with morals? In the same vein, his emblem, a heart with glasses, seems to align more with emotion than morals.

Whenever the sides have a disagreement, Patton, never lectured on what was right or wrong. Instead he is constantly trying to get the others to talk about... their feelings.

Furthermore, the sides' rooms enhance the quality of Thomas they are meant to represent. As seen in Accepting Anxiety, Virgil’s room enhances anxious thoughts, but Patton's room has nothing to do with morality. It has to do with emotion and memory. He says "I'm at the core of a lot of your feelings,” and his room does just that—enhances emotional connection.

Most of the time, Logan believes that Patton's suggestions don't make sense, but that is because even though they are usually good ideas, they are emotionally driven ones. In this turn, Patton says, "It's not your feelings' (Patton's) job to make sense, you just experience them. Not talking about them is not dealing with them"-- the exact problem he had in Moving On with his repression of emotion.

The nail in the coffin is in the first behind the scenes episode. Thomas and Joan state that Logan's name came from one of the three Greek foundations of debate—Logos-- logic obviously. They also state that Patton is based off another, Pathos- emotional argument. Seems pretty normal right? No. Why did they name Morality after the emotional argument when there is a third-- Ethos- Ethics-- a moral argument? Especially since they took the time to make all THREE words flash up on the screen as they spoke about it.

Patton thinks he is morality because Thomas wants to FEEL like a good person, therefore it is Patton's job to make him feel that way.

But then, who is Ethos? Who is Morality?

It is Deceit.

Where the Roman’s creativity summoned a stage, Deceit summoned a courtroom, a place where society judges the morality of those within it.

He desperately trying to teach the others a lesson about morality, trying to help and preserve Thomas.

Logan starts to say that Thomas can't be a "good person" if all moral the "best" characteristics as favored by society can be labeled bad or good, but the other sides stop him before he is finished. Therefore, Deceit shows a personalized morality dedicated to what would benefit his host rather than a strict morality as normally thought of.

When he impersonated Patton, he knew real facts about philosphers and when questioned said. "I'm morality, I've got to know my stuff." That was not a lie.

In order to know what is right, you must also know what is wrong, and in keeping with his duality, Deceit does. He lies, but he tells the truth, he is half human and half snake, his double-headed snake logo reflects this.

Deceit just continues to let Thomas and the others believe Patton is morality because he just knows the revelation would cause Thomas (and Patton) to go into a “I'm a bad person spiral” and he wants what is best for Thomas even if it is to his own detriment. And so I think that Deceits name will be revealed to be something resembling Ethos (maybe Ethan, keeping with the -an name trend.) Bringing everyone one step closer to the truth.”

#thomas sanders #sanders sides #patton sanders #ts deceit #sanders sides theory #tss theory #fanders #fander theory

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makeste · 5 years ago

Text

BnHA Chapter 245: The Second One

Previously on BnHA: We kicked off day one of New Internships with a fun-filled morning of shenanigans. Highlights included: (1) an old bearded man gallivanting around town telling everyone the world is going to end (and making a surprising amount of sense); (2) Bakugou and Deku attempting to rough up a group of impassioned hobos, only to have their thunder stolen from right underneath their noses; and (3) Hawks, the thunder-stealer himself, who proceeded to be all “what’s up fellas, hey Endeavor did you miss me?” Endeavor, who totally did miss him, pretended like he had not, and meanwhile Hawks introduced himself to Endeavor’s new trainees: Finger-Smashing Kid, Kid Who Used To Work For The Guy You Just Murdered, and Shouto (Just Shouto). Then he pulled out a copy of Re-Destro’s book and was all, “hey Endeavor have you heard of this book which was really important to the plot in the previous arc? I think you should read it, for reasons!!” and Endeavor just kind of stared at him, which wasn’t exactly inspiring. Anyways let’s see if these two idiots can manage to pull this off.

Today on BnHA: Hawks shoves the Liberation Army’s book into Endeavor’s hands while staring at him with the intensity of a thousand suns, and then, to avoid suspicion, proceeds to hand out another 500,000 copies of the book without even being asked. He then flies back to the PLF headquarters and is all “good news gentlemen, I gave out copies of the Army’s book to everyone in Japan!” and they’re all “that’s great, Hawks!” because somehow it turns out that this was actually a good plan. Back at the Endeavor Agency HQ, the kids meet Endeavor’s 30+ other sidekicks, who are all “now let’s all stand around and wait for Endeavor to tell us what to do.” Over in his office, Endeavor shrewdly deduces that Hawks was trying to tell him something, and pieces together the hidden code Hawks left in his book, which basically reads “IN FOUR MONTHS WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE.” Back at the PLF, the League cheerfully discusses their plot to blow up the entire world come Springtime. Which apparently everyone is on board with. So, uh, does anyone else feel like they accidentally fell asleep during a really important part of the movie, because uh. What.

(All comments are my unspoiled reactions from my initial readthrough of the chapter. I did a quick edit for grammar and clarity afterward, and added a few ETAs in the process, but aside from that there are no changes.)

okay so two things: (1) as I mentioned in a previous post, Caleb Cook reported that this chapter took him more than 4 times longer than usual to translate. so like, what does that mean?? guess we’re about to find out!

and (2) HAWKS’S REAL NAME. I started typing up this recap early just so I could liveblog my reaction, since it seems that the databook has leaked, and I figure I’m going to stumble across this sooner rather than later. so I’m just going to look it up now here goes!!

AHHHH TAKAMI KEIGO AHHHH

lol. I have no idea what that actually means. let me look up some more stuff about this

oooh thank you reddit!

ooh damn, I love it!? “hawk” + “vision” lolol HORIKOSHI BACK AT IT AGAIN. but “watchman” is a really nice bonus what with how it relates both to the whole spying biz, and in a more general sense toward what he is trying to do as a hero trying to protect society. plus the name “Keigo” just has a really nice sound to it in general. kind of a boyish, youthful sound. not too hard or soft. idk. I like it. that was my favorite character in Bleach too

also apparently both of the kanji used for “Keigo” mean “enlightenment” oooh. my god I could analyze this all day. this being Thursday night, I’ll have some time to ruminate before I read the chapter tomorrow, so if I have any epiphanies I will add them in later!

(ETA: no additional thoughts on this right now, but there is now a ton of other content out from Ultra Analysis, so let’s take a quick look at some of that!

Haagen Dazs’s gender: I now feel vindicated in continuing to refer to him as a “he” even after the face reveal! let this be a lesson to everyone never to judge a shounen character solely by how pretty they are. not that it wouldn’t have been nice to have another female villain! anyways the important thing is that I still don’t have his name memorized and never will!

Thirteen’s gender?!: now this, I don’t really like. Thirteen was already in the previous databook IIRC and their gender was ambiguous. which to be frank was awesome. having a canon nonbinary character was sick. why you gotta do this now Horikoshi smdh.

Reason for Shouji’s mask: nooooo poor Shouji. people in quirk society are jerks! lol I get the arms being scary, but his face?? now I really want to see what he looks like though. it would be cool if he became more accepting of himself as a result of hanging with his chill classmates and decided to ditch the mask. anyways my boy needs a hug.

and there’s a lot of other stuff, including a whole series of cute segments showing the characters’ relationships with each other, but I think I’ll save those for another post because otherwise this would get way too off-track. but man, so far I’m really loving this.)

okay kiddos. it is now Friday, and time to take our horse to the hype town road. I have been waiting all fucking week for this shit so it had better not disappoint!

“Rising to Action” ooh, nice. guess this is not much of a “sit still” gang, here

okay so we’re picking off right where we left off, and guys, I just need to know, does anyone other than me find this kind of hilarious

like, I don’t know why but just. Endeavor’s face. omg. he just looks like he’s trying so hard to figure out what’s wrong. I think what it is is that this is the exact same bemused/perplexed expression that Shouto gets on his face all the freaking time, and it just tickles me to no end that the apple apparently doesn’t fall far from the tree. ahh Shouto I know you don’t want to hear this but damn boy you look like your dad

anyways. I think we can all agree Endeavor should not be looking this adorable and what the hell. let’s move on

LOOOOOOL

why is this so funny ahhhhhhh. they’re so fucking serious please stop. I mean, but of course they’re serious, though. the weird one is me, right? whatever!

so now here’s the handoff. between these two super-serious dudes

Endeavor you had better not do like me and be all “of course I’ll read it!” fully intending to follow through (really!) but then you never do and everyone is super disappointed and you start to read something else instead, all the while feeling incredible guilt! my point is, Endeavor, I hope you don’t have ADHD or we’re all fucking screwed omg

lol though thankfully we have a backup!

“oh boy!” clamors Deku, a gleam of excitement in his eye. “homework!”

OH MY GOD

WHO ARE YOU, OPRAH

ff now he’s just SLAPPING THEM INTO THEIR HANDS omg. this is amazing

love how Katsuki is keeping an extra 1.5 meters of space in between him and the others because cooties. or something

anyways! I really want them all to read it actually so this is awesome! KACCHAN YOU ESPECIALLY. I want you to read it and then give it a disgusted 1 star review on goodreads. show me how much you’ve grown kiddo

lmaooo

Todoroki Shouto. god’s perfect idiot. bless this child. someone explained Occam’s razor to him one day, and he just sat there nodding like “yes that makes perfect sense” and proceeded to apply it to every fucking thing in his life from there on out. “what’s Hawks doing carrying around 10,000 copies of The Book of PLF and just handing them out to strangers like an old lady on Halloween? processing... processing... oh I see, he probably just REALLY LIKES THE BOOK how keen”

this is what Hawks is up against. this squad of certified morons with two whole brain cells shared among them on a good day. boy literally brought three backup secret messages just in case Endeavor was too dense to figure this out, only to watch these kids exclaim, with perfect sincerity, “GOSH, HAWKS MUST REALLY LIKE THIS BOOK, HUH”

and meanwhile the best Endeavor can do is “............something.......... feels.... off.......” fml. we’re all gonna die. Hawks, I’m sorry. you tried!! next time give Momo your secret message instead!

so now he says that he’s actually recommending this book to all of his acquaintances omg. don’t tell me this handsome canary is actually going around handing out books to every single person he knows?? all to cover up this one action of giving Endeavor the book with the secret message highlighted in it?? okay guys help me decide: is this brilliance or stupidity? like, what is even going on inside Hawks’s head. “I’ll just fly around handing out copies of Atlas Fucking Shrugged to everyone I meet. that’ll seem really natural”

I s2g Endeavor if you don’t follow up on this...! THE WORLD IS COUNTING ON YOU YOU BIG MEATHEAD. GET TO READIN’. MAKE LEVAR PROUD

and now Hawks is flying away with his hands in his pockets

godspeed you dramatically casual bastard

now Deku is all “you know, he’s not much older than us, but he really seems like he’s got his shit together!” which, yeah. don’t you hate that? the truth is though it’s all an act, and he’s actually just as screwed up as the rest of you! the moral is: never trust any 22-year-old who seems like they’ve got their shit together. because, no. he sits on a throne of lies

Endeavor are you actually being thoughtful??!

oh my god. we may actually have a chance here. praise be

now we are cutting to the Endeavor agency! guys, fucking look at this fucking ‘E’, though

ngl that shit is dope. I’m mad. I would buy his merch just for the logo and I hate that about myself

holy shit

the... flaming hot... oh my god

holy shit there’s so many of them

(ETA: hold up -- “Bakugou” and “Shouto”? this is a crucial detail here; they’re using Bakugou’s last name, but Shouto’s given name. so either they’re calling him Shouto because they know his pop, or -- more likely -- they’re calling him “Shouto” because that’s his hero name. in which case, “Bakugou” most likely also refers to “Bakugou” as in the hero name, not his actual name. meaning that still is his hero name. meaning he is still undecided. fucking... Katsuki. honey. why.

ffff and the new databook seems to support this too. instead of a hero name, Horikoshi just wrote “XXX” indicating he still hasn’t made up his mind. welp. looks like it’s back on that slow burn character development train, folks. maybe by the end of this arc, though? please? Horikoshi? Horikoshi damn it look at me.)

so this is how the number one operates, huh. meanwhile All Might only ever had one sidekick, and reluctantly at that. he really was so far out ahead of everyone else that he was basically untouchable. crazy

anyways, yes! they don’t know anything about anything so please teach them!

good grief this girl says Endeavor has over thirty sidekicks?? lmao and her name is “Burnin’.” please tell me the missing g is an actual part of her name please I need this

wow, Burnin’ really went and tried to pick a fight with my famously hot-tempered son knowing full well what his personality is like. and just look at him keeping his cool and firing back though

oh, Katsuki. [hair ruffle] he will thrive here

damn these guys are passionate

Endeavor seriously picked these people as his sidekicks? that Endeavor? they didn’t annoy the shit out of him?? that man is an enigma

btw can we all just stop here for a moment and give a shoutout to this horse-looking dude because. look at him. amazing. new fave

anyway so now the mummy-looking guy is explaining how they organize their shift schedule

so professional. this really is the big leagues

yoooooo my boy is FIRED UP. READY TO SAVE SOME BITCHES! YESSSSS WIN AND RESCUE LET’S DO THIS

LET’S FUCKING GOOOO omg I love him so much. Kacchan you need to cool it or I’m going to spend this whole fucking chapter ruffling your hair

(ETA: incidentally, here’s something I neglected to point out earlier: in spite of being a belligerent asshole in general, Katsuki for the most part is actually surprisingly respectful to most adults, especially heroes. so it’s interesting then that so far, this doesn’t seem to apply to Hawks. he almost seems to consider him another rival rather than another mentor/teacher-type figure to learn from. I wonder if this is because -- as Deku pointed out earlier this chapter -- Hawks is much closer to them in age than the other heroes. it’s interesting that that was pointed out -- and that in the very next panel Katsuki was grumbling about how Hawks pisses him off, at that.

anyway. this BakuHawks rivalry seems to be an established thing now, so I’m very curious to see how this develops.)

lol now Mummy Guy is all “that’s great! now we just need to wait for Endeavor to tell us what to do!” and Kacchan is like “WHAT”

I mean, he’s got a point lol. “we’re so busy!” “great let’s get to work!” “actually we don’t have any work yet!” like, what a fucking tease. don’t worry Kacchan, they’re just waiting to make sure they assign you boys a job that’s plot-related so we don’t waste any time

ahhh, and now we finally come to the moment we’ve all been waiting for! the part that apparently took four hours to translate! ENDEAVOR READING A BOOK

yeah he was acting like he had a freaking gun to his head. why don’t heroes have secret code phrases they can use to let each other know some weird fucking shit is up? or maybe they do, but since he’s being recorded and since PLF has some heroes on roster who probably know those same codes (looking at you, Slidin’), Hawks didn’t want to risk one of them figuring it out. that makes sense

ahhh, here we go

don’t tell me Caleb tried to translate this whole thing. though I gotta admit I am hella curious

anyway. so the rest of this page is Endeavor metaing about Hawks, and it’s some good stuff, ngl

he really is fond of him, huh. look at all those pictures. how many mental snapshots did you take of this kid smiling?? he’s so adopted it hurts

and look at the concern in that last panel! “why is he acting so weird, that’s not like him, I’ve got to get to the bottom of this.” damn, Hawks really did put his trust in the exact right person and it’s paying off

ENDEAVOR STOP MAKING THESE SOFT WORRIED FACES ABOUT HAWKS RIGHT THIS INSTANT I DON’T HAVE TIME FOR THESE FEELS

god damn!! I don’t know why, but I continue to be surprised and impressed at how the character development of Endeavor is actually a subscribe and save deal and not just a one-time purchase. fucking look at Todoroki Enji, proud annual recipient of a different “world’s worst dad” mug every Father’s Day, actually caring enough about another human being to notice the subtle changes in his behavior and realize something is wrong. bruh. good for you!! human compassion is a damn good look for you, negl. fucking growth right here and I’m here for it

anyways, on to the hidden code!

and here are all of the highlighted portions for your code-breaking pleasure

fucking feel like I’m reading Detective Conan right now. yeesh

oooh!

BINGPOT LOOOOOL WHY DID I GET SO EXCITED OKAY LET ME GO BACK AND READ!

“the” “enemy” “liberation” “army” ahhhhhh! HAWKS YOU SNEAKY SON OF A BITCH. GOOD JOB ENDEAVOR!

and now we’re cutting back to Hawks, nooooo I wanted to see Endeavor’s reaction! come on!

lmao although it’s worth it to see Hawks mentally roasting Endeavor exactly like I was mere pages ago omg

his fucking face omg. that’s right Hawks, he’s not the brightest crayon in the box. not the sharpest tack in the bulletin board. he’s a few fries short of a happy meal. the elevator doesn’t go all the way to the top floor

but give him some credit, though! because he did figure it out! not necessarily because he was clever, but because he knows you!

oh shit lol

OH SO YOU PLANNED THAT PART TOO. WELL OKAY THEN

goddamn. he really is a clever bastard. and okay but in all seriousness, I fucking love that he has enough faith in this weird connection between them that out of all the ploys he could have gone with, this is what he chose. he seriously put all his eggs in the “Endeavor will figure it out from my face” basket. and it fucking paid off. this is awesome

AHHHHHHHHHHHH HERE WE GO

LOOK AT HIS EYE OH MY GOD. YOU CAN SEE THE EXACT MOMENT WHEN HE REALIZES HOW SCREWED THEY ALL ARE, YES, FUCK, THIS IS WHAT I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR OH GOD

and we’re cutting back to Hawks again! I’ll just assume the rest of his message went something like “we” “are” “boned” and Endeavor’s face was like :o

BACK AT THE OL’ VILLAIN HOTEL!!!

LOL WHAT IS THIS

THEY HAVE A FUCKING COUNCIL NOW

whose seat is that over on the left? Hawks’s? is Gigantomachia actually wearing a shirt?? AND SHOW US TOMURA’S FACE HORIKOSHI YOU COWARD

lmao oh my god are they really buying this shit

look at him. so trustworthy. nothing to suspect over here! just a 100% sincere born-again villain committed to the cause!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

NOOOOOO MY BABIES ARE EXPOSED. HORIKOSHI YOU BETTER PROTECT THEM I SWEAR TO GOD!!!

wow is the whole conversation just shifting over to the topic of Deku now, seriously?

oh my god oh my god oh my god. like. it’s been so long since the forest lodge and Kamino that I almost forgot that the League already knows these kids. they did fight Deku and Shouto briefly in the woods, and then they had an extended fight against Katsuki later on, although Dabi was unconscious for that part. anyways, shit. just like that they’re on their radar again I’m getting chills omgggg

(ETA: at least they’re underestimating them, though. “looks like he hasn’t gotten much stronger.” boy have you not heard about his bloop? that bloop will fuck you up just you wait!)

so now have some weird panels of Hawks walking through a door

(ETA: ohhhh you can see the door closing on the tip of his wing close-up! sneaky!)

ooh! wtf are you serious he can use his feathers to eavesdrop?!

(ETA: it only just clicked on my second read-through that Spinner of all people appears to be the mastermind behind this plan? like, am I reading this right? is he Tomura’s second-in-command now or what? damn, boy, good for you.)

okay, question. if he could do this the entire time, why did they even need him to pretend to join the League at all? I guess you never know when having a man on the inside who can possibly influence their decision-making will come in handy. but still, it seems to me like he could have easily done the spying bit without ever having to join up. ehhh but I guess there’s probably a range limit, and too much risk of the feathers getting caught and destroyed... eh, fine. I’ll allow it

AHHHHHHHHHHHH

WHAT THE FUCK WHAT EXCUSE ME WHAT?????

AND OF COURSE THAT’S THE END OF THE CHAPTER, LOL, FUCK. EXCUSE ME WHILE I GO STAND IN A CORNER AND SCREAM

lol “danger lurks” fucking you think?? what the hell! so they have an actual plan already, with the details outlined to the extent that they actually have a freaking timetable and everything? and the Liberation Army is on board with this whole thing too? the “destroying everything” part and all? this is too much to process all at once fuck me I can’t

okay! so four months from now is also when the kids will enter their second year! so that means Shinsou can get in on this action too. I’m trying to think of other significant plot things this could potentially imply, but none are coming to mind right now, other than it’ll be the anniversary of USJ. but that’s basically it. -- oh, wait, this also means that there’ll be a new first-year class of students at U.A. too! so that could be interesting. some potential new characters, and a chance for Deku and the others to be senpais. incidentally, to the best of my knowledge the kids will all stay in the same class and Aizawa will continue to be their homeroom teacher in year two. so nothing will change really aside from them becoming 2-A rather than 1-A. and Shinsou joining them, as mentioned. omg

anyway! let me see, any other stray thoughts before I wrap this up? I guess it’s worth noting that Toga’s eye is fine. the League has healed up pretty nicely in general actually. like, that’s seriously impressive for a group that doesn’t have Recovery Girl on staff. how long has it even been since Deika? a few weeks? this is almost ridiculous

and the “boom” -- is that literal? like they’re actually planning to blow everything up? or is that a metaphorical boom. fucking what kind of plan did they come up with where they actually think they can destroy THE ENTIRETY OF JAPAN all at once? is there a doomsday device?? what exactly is this “power” they’re talking about? HAWKS WHY DIDN’T YOU PUT THAT IN YOUR STUPID MESSAGE YOU BOOB

hahaha. anyways. it came down to the last two pages, but that certainly was a reveal worthy of all the hype. to sum: yikes

#bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha 245 #hawks #endeavor #bakugou katsuki #midoriya izuku #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #makeste reads bnha #I honestly can't even think of anything to put in the tags you guys #four months from now!!#BOOM #well all right then!#I'm sure deku can master the rest of ofa in four months #this is fine #anyways #everyone running from the plot now as it barrels toward them like the giant rock in indiana jones #god help us

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jamesbucksiclebarnes · 5 years ago

Photo

Rating: Mature

Chapter List: [1] | [2] | [3] | [4] | [5]

[AO3 Link] | [Fic Page]

SERIES SUMMARY:

"Not human. She was not human. They all knew it. Could almost feel it, but couldn't make sense of it. That was why they were afraid. Not because of what she used to be Before. But because of what she was now."

Having found herself serving as the right-hand to the Governor for too long, Synnove le Jacques does her best to make things right with the people of the Prison. Stuck beside her partner in crime, her irritatingly obnoxious and hideously problematic best friend, Merle, she does her best to fight back against the monster she has let the Governor become.

CHAPTER TITLE: The Consequence of Morality.

It was easy to forget how fragile humans could be. How easily their bodies break, their minds more so. I should have seen it sooner. The decay. The absolute descent from decent man to homicidal lunatic. Really, it should have been clear as day to me. I’d been with the man since the beginning. Followed his lead. Obeyed his orders because I believed he stood for the good of all those still left alive in this goddamn hellscape.

We had been strangers once. At the beginning.

He, his daughter, and his wife had been waiting in the seen-better-days room outside the hanger of the private airport out west. It had been a present from his wife. A single day of flight lessons from a local pilot.

Me, on the other hand? Well, I’d been waiting for my getaway plane. My day job wasn’t exactly within the realm of legality and, often, I’d find myself requiring a rather speedy exit from the immediate vicinity. That time was no different. I did my job and got out of there like any self-respecting worker would do.

I’m still unsure whether it was his luck or mine that allowed us to be within the same place at the same time that day. The answer would likely change depending on which one of us you asked. I say it was my luck. He would say it was his. Either way, we both lucked out that day.

Well, as much as one could “luck out” at the beginning of the fucking apocalypse.

I had gotten him and his daughter to safety, along with the handful of other occupants of the hanger that day. His wife didn’t make it. She was the first to go. I’d had to drag him away from her in order to make sure the kid didn’t become a damn orphan within the space of two minutes.

After we escape the airfield, we made our way steadily towards the nearby town. We had passed by the prison. I remembered that quite clearly. The screams coming from behind those brick walls were horrendous. Lucky for the rest of them, I was the only one that could hear them.

The town was owned by the dead when we arrived. We should have known better, but it was only the beginning. There were many lessons we had yet to learn.

Myself and two of the others cleared a way to the towering city hall building at the centre of town, barricading the doors for good measure. We held up in there for almost three days before Phil came up with that brilliant plan of his.

Build walls, he said, like it was going to be easy. Build them high and strong to keep the dead at bay.

And we did.

It was hard work. Keeping the dead back long enough to place another panel, building more and more each day until the bodies piling up were almost as high as the fence itself. That was my job, of course. Killing them. I was good at it and the rest of them knew it. In fact, I was too good at it and I knew it unnerved some of them. Especially Marcus.

Often, I’d find him eyeing me up from across the room, as if he expected I would leap up and murder him on the spot for absolutely no reason. I’d been quite transparent about my profession since the start, believing it would solidify a sense of trust, but Phillip and Milton were the only ones that didn’t look at me like I was a criminal. Phil, I think, saw the benefit of having someone like me on his side. Milton just accepted it because I was the only one that would listen to him go on about his scientific theories.

It was only after the walls were finished around our newly thriving little community that Marcus made his move.

I wish I could say I hadn’t expected it. But they’d made their intentions glaringly obvious from the get-go. He, Zach, and Luke did their best to catch me off guard during my nightly rounds. Their best wasn’t good enough.

I didn’t kill all of them, of course. We had gained almost twenty new members to our community, many of which were small families. I doubted my straight-up murdering folks would make them feel at home. Marcus, however… He’d had to go.

Once I told Phil what they’d tried to do, Zach and Luke were the first to be exiled.

There’s only been a handful others we’d kicked out since then. Mostly newcomers that refused to get with the program.

I don’t quite know when I became the general of a small army. Nor I do I even remember at what point Phillip became “the Governor”. I don’t even know when I started calling him that if it was before or after Marcus. All I know is, it happened.

Those of us that could fight, that were unafraid of the undead, were sent outside the walls to scavenge and recruit. We were partnered up, given whatever weapons we wanted from the small armoury, and sent out into the world of the dead with a little pat on our backs.

My partner had been… a challenge, for lack of a better term. He was this pasty, old white guy with a dirty mind and a Southern mouth. Sexist, racist, and whatever other “ist” you could think of – this guy was it. And, my God, for a guy with one hand he could sure be handsy. At least, he had been for the first ten or so minutes after we’d first met. Once I’d made it very clear I had little issue cutting off his other hand and feeding it to him, he’d kept it to himself.

Other than that, as a woman with dark skin who was from another country – even one as benign as Australia – it had been a little… tense between Merle and I for a while there.

But, somehow – and I don’t even know at what point we decided we didn’t hate each other anymore – we started getting along. Inside jokes, begrudging respect, and a ride-or-die attitude – we had the whole nine-yards. It came to the point that, suddenly, this redneck, trailer trash, white boy knew me better than anyone. And I knew him. We traded stories like they were currency and barely spent more than a few hours apart. Which was weird, in retrospect, but at the time, it hadn’t felt that way. He was like a brother to me. An older, obnoxiously irritating and horribly problematic brother.

And, as strange as it was, the feeling seemed to be mutual. He’d jump in to defend my honour at every opportunity. One of the guardsmen looking at my backside? His fist would be in their face before I even had a chance to turn around. He knew I could have done it myself – in fact, as much as he said otherwise, I knew some of the things I could do freaked him out a little. Mostly, it was the things he couldn’t explain away – like how I could hear things that he couldn’t or how my reflexes were just a fraction faster than was humanly plausible. Thankfully, he gave up questioning me about it rather quickly, and now just kind of… accepted my weirdness. For which I was thankful.

It was hard trying to come up with logical explanations about my oddities without outright lying about them.

Anyway, the two of us served beneath the Governor’s rule for longer than either of us would like to admit. I wish I could say I knew the exact moment his orders became less than favourable. To be honest, I hadn’t thought to question them. My entire life had been spent listening to orders and obeying them with little enquiry. I’d grown somewhat suspicious of his mindset near the end, there, but the only thing I could actually pinpoint was the exact moment I decided I’d had enough.

It was that night, in the haphazardly put together cells out by the old warehouse. We had brought in two strangers, members of a rival group that had made their home in the once-overrun prison. It had been a completely coincidental run-in. We had been out looking for a woman, a newcomer that had caused some “trouble”. We managed to track her to a series of small shops out by a deserted strip of road. I went around the back while my partner surveyed the storefronts. She was lucky I spotted her first. I didn’t know what he would have done with her. While I had made my growing concerns about the Governor’s current state of mind clear, he hadn’t deigned to share his opinion of the man with me.

At first, she had looked at me with suspicion. The woman I knew as Michonne had seen how close I was with the Governor, knew it was his orders I followed. But when I had jerked my head toward the field behind me, indicating for her to make a run for it, understanding dawned on her face. I was letting her go.

Unfortunately, that was right at the exact moment I heard a voice I didn’t know ask, “Merle?”

A young Asian man and a pretty, petite woman were standing out the front of one of the stores, looking up at Merle as if he had just sprouted horns from his thinning head of hair. I peeked around the corner just in time to watch Merle lift his gun and decided it was likely best to intervene before he got too trigger-happy, like he usually did.

I kept things relatively calm for about three entire seconds before Merle pistol-whipped the poor guy and forced him into the driver’s seat of the nearby sedan. The two of us piled in behind them and instructed them to drive back to the gates of Woodbury.

Everything just seemed to escalate from there.

We threw the two strangers, whose names I learned were Maggie and Glenn, into the barely kept-together cells and began our interrogation. And by “our interrogation” I mean the Governor and Merle’s attempts at intimidation.

Merle’s I could handle. It was nothing I hadn’t seen before. Berating the guy, beating him, tossing a biter in there – the usual. But the Governor?

I had been standing in the room with Merle, watching him berate Glenn, probing him for answers about the group making their home inside the prison fences, when I heard it. The sound of his belt was oddly stark against the soft sobs making their way through the solid metal wall. I knew the other two couldn’t hear it. It didn’t matter.

That was the moment I drew the line. The second I heard that belt, I knew what I had here in Woodbury was over.

Without a second of hesitation, I spun on my heel and marched out the cell door. Martinez was standing outside it, keeping guard, and caught my eye as I made my way down the hall a step to the next door down. His eyes were wide as he shook his head.

“Don’t,” he warned me.

I didn’t listen.

Lifting my booted foot, I kicked down the door to the cell next door and strode across the empty space to where the Governor stood, still undoing his belt. Maggie sat across the metal table from him, naked from the waist up, arms crossed over her bare chest as tears slid down her cheeks.

The Governor turned to face me at the sound of my sudden entrance. I pushed him aside as I peeled off my own shirt and gave it to the sobbing woman. Rapid footsteps sounded by the doorway and I knew both Merle and Martinez were standing there, watching as I rounded on the Governor with fire in my gaze.

He snarled at me. “What do you think you’re doing, Jacques?”

“Putting a stop to this,” I snapped in response, stepping back around the table.

The Governor did his best to stare me down, but he was about as intimidating to me as a baby lamb. “You don’t get to make that decision!” he screamed, spittle flying from his thin lips. “I give the orders here! Me, not you!”

“And I’ve obeyed them!” I yelled. “But I can’t stand by and let you do this. It’s not right and you know it!”

The Governor looked as if he were about to explode. His face was red, and his mouth kept opening and closing as if he were trying to form a response. I turned my back on him before he could, reaching out for Maggie, who had turned around to shield herself as she pulled my shirt over her head. Gently, I took her arm and began leading her towards the doorway.

Merle gave me a warning look, shaking his head just as Martinez had done. Martinez was a close friend, and Merle was my partner in crime, but I didn’t listen to either of them. Instead, I pushed my way through, pulling Maggie along with me as I lead her back into the cell where Glenn sat. The tears that had been steadily spilling down her cheeks increased tenfold when she saw what Merle’s fists had done to Glenn’s face. Once I let her go, she ran to him and began to cry as he asked her what the Governor had done.

She didn’t get a chance to answer.

The man himself burst through the partially closed door and made to grab me by the arm. I sensed him coming and spun out of his reach, turning to face him with a sneer.

“I wouldn’t if I were you,” I hissed.

The Governor looked slightly taken aback. I hadn’t spoken to him like that for a long time. Too long, it would seem. “You think you can just do what you want?” he snapped back, throwing an arm wildly in the direction of the two prisoners behind me. “You want to end up in here, too? Be my guest.”

Merle took a tentative step forwards, lifting his one remaining hand in a surrendering gesture. “Oh, come now. Ya don’t need to be like that, Governor. She’s sorry. Ain’t cha, Jacques?”

“Not really,” I replied plainly. “No.”

The exasperated look he gave me would have been comical in any other situation. What had he really expected? He knew I wouldn’t – couldn’t – lie. Besides, like hell I was going to apologise for stopping him raping a woman. Jesus Christ. I may be an assassin, but I wasn’t a monster.

“Have you forgotten who’s in charge here?” the Governor asked, his voice returning to a normal volume, though underneath the blasé tone I could hear his growing contempt. “Which one of us gives the orders and which one takes them?”

“Have you?” I responded, cocking my head to the side to regard him with cold, narrowed eyes.

The Governor blinked in surprise, his right eye twitching as he tried to make sense of my reply.

I gave him the curtesy of elaborating, making sure to emphasise each hissed sentence with a step in his direction. “Did you really think you had control over me? That I wasn’t only following your orders because I agreed with them? Do you think that highly of yourself that you forgot, for a moment, who I am? What I can do?”

The Governor’s legs seemed to act without his permission, pulling him back, matching my every step forward with one back. He retreated until I came to a stop, looking down at him despite the few inches of difference in our heights.

“If I had wanted that crown of yours, Philip, I’d fucking take it and there would be nothing you could do to stop me.” I stared at him with my piercing blue eyes until he dropped his gaze, swallowing, beads of sweat appearing on his forehead.

A moment of silence passed before I returned to my usual casual lean, the tension in my body evaporating almost instantly as the intensity in my gaze dissipated.

“Now that we’ve covered that,” I began in a chipper tone. “I’d like to continue by stating that I happen to believe freeing these two in good nature would be in our best interests as a community. However, if you say otherwise, I won’t argue.” Because I’d be wasting by breath.

The silence continued to stretch for another few moments before the Governor raised his gaze back up to meet mine once again. I could see the steely resolve in them, the growing sense of distrust and malcontent. He spoke in that authoritative voice, as if I hadn’t just put him in his place merely a few minutes ago.

“We keep them here.”

And that had been that.

Kind of.

No more than a few hours later, Glenn and Maggie’s people infiltrated Woodbury.

I had returned to the cells mere minutes before I knew of their presence, knocking the working guard unconscious – sorry, Andy – and picking the lock open to set them free. My intention, of course, had been to lead them out to the loose panel in the eastern fence, escorting them to safety. That had not exactly panned out, as the people from the prison had decided to launch their attack whilst I was partway through leading Glenn and Maggie to the cellblock’s exit. Once the smoke grenades went off, I brought them both to a stop and explained to them the best way to escape, telling them to keep low in the smoke and wishing them luck before we parted ways.

As much as I knew in theory that I was done in this place, I hadn’t quite accepted it emotionally just yet. After all, I had plenty of friends here, people I almost considered family. It didn’t feel right to fight on the opposite side, not in such an outright way as taking the prison’s side in this.

I should have just gone with them. I wouldn’t have ended up here if I’d just gone.

If it had been anyone other than fucking Martinez that came for me that night, I would have fought back. And I think he knew it, too. The apologetic look he gave me before forcing me up against the side of the building to chain my wrists together was the only thing that stopped me from punching him directly in the nose.

He put a bag over my head and dragged me out to the warehouse, where the sounds of curious, excited chatter met my ears. I could only partially see through the cotton fabric covering my face, but it was enough to make out the shape of the stands we often used during our Game Nights. They were as full as they’d ever been, overflowing with the townsfolk who had no doubt been gathered at the behest of the Governor.

His voice cut through the aimless whispers surrounding him, crisp and authoritative as he announced the purpose behind tonight’s entertainment.

“What can I say?” he asked the gathered people of Woodbury. “There hasn’t been a night like this since before the walls were completed.”

Yeah. Thanks to me. I wanted to scream, to yell at the people that our “fearless” leader had lost his damn mind, but I couldn’t. Not yet. Martinez still held my arm, keeping me in my place at the edge of the biter-lined arena. On the other side, I could see another figure being dragged forwards, bag over his head.

I knew who it was from the dirty wife-beater alone and gave an internal groan. Of course, the one time I wasn’t with him when he did something stupid, he got himself caught.

“I thought we were past it. Past the days when we all sat, huddled, scared in front of the TV during the early days of the outbreak. The fear we all felt then… we felt it again tonight.”

I could barely make out his shape, standing at the back of the stands, a blonde figure sitting in the place beside him. Andrea. She had come to Woodbury alongside Michonne; yet hadn’t heeded the other woman’s warnings. Nor had she listened to mine, when I’d tried to encourage caution around the man she was taking to bed. Well, she was about to learn. As were they all.

“I failed you!” the Governor continued, his voice breaking as if he truly were ashamed. “I promised to keep you safe. Hell, look at me.” I saw the outline of his hand gesturing towards his face, though couldn’t make out what the hell he was pointing to. “You know, I – I should tell you that we’ll be okay. That we’re safe. That tomorrow, we’ll bury our dead and endure, but I won’t. Because I can’t… Because I am afraid.”

Uneasy gasps of surprise rippled through the townsfolk.

“That’s right,” the Governor sighed. “I’m afraid of terrorists. Terrorists that want what we have – want to destroy us! And worse, because more than one of these terrorists are one of our own!”

Across the arena, Patterson pushed Merle forward with enough force to almost send him sprawling onto the sands. Thankfully, my partner kept his footing, skidding to a halt in the centre of the arena and looking around at the townsfolk that had gathered to watch what was no doubt his execution.

“Merle. A man I counted on. A man I trusted.” The Governor shook his head, the dismay in his voice almost, almost believable. “He led ‘em here! And he let ‘em in!”

Merle opened his mouth to argue but something in the Governor’s gaze must have stopped him.

“It was you,” the Governor hissed down at him. “You lied. You betrayed us all.”

From the side of the arena I couldn’t see, someone else was pushed through the gap between the biters and onto the sands. The newcomer stumbled slightly, barely managing to maintain his balance as he came to a stop in front of Merle.

I couldn’t see their faces, but I could tell by the change of air around them that they recognised one another. They were not strangers.

I bit my lower lip. That did not bode well.

“This is one of the terrorists,” the Governor announced to his audience. “Merle’s own brother.”

Ah. Shit.

“And worse yet,” he continued, his voice growing deeper in his attempt to sound dismayed. “Merle’s influence over my most trusted – our most valuable asset to this community…”

I could see him shaking his head, as if the words he was trying to say hurt him too much to voice. Had I not already been almost ninety-nine percent sure he was about to tell the world it had been me that had helped Merle, I would have laughed. He’d gotten good at this.

Behind me, Martinez whispered, “Sorry ‘bout this, ese. Orders.”

He pushed me forwards, keeping his grip on my upper arm as he led me out into the sands alongside Merle and his brother. When he brought me to a stop, he let my arm go and reached up to pull the bag from my head.

“He poisoned our beloved Synnove’s mind against us. A founding member of our community!” the Governor yelled, and the stands erupted with shock and malice.

My gaze, partially obscured by the blonde strands of hair that had fallen free from my ponytail, snapped to Merle’s. He gave me a pointed look, like he was disappointed I’d let myself get caught.

“Really?” he asked, brow cocked.

“Oh, fuck you,” I snapped in response.

From up in the stands, the Governor continued his speech and I was finally able to get a good look at him. He was dishevelled and battered, as if he’d been in a fight, and across his right eye there was a white bandage, splattered with red. Someone had come for him and I hoped beyond hope that that someone had been Michonne.

“What should we do with them?” the Governor asked his people.

From my right, a distinct cry broke through the torrent of voices. “Kill them!”

I twisted in place to look for the owner, only to see an ocean of familiar faces glaring back at me. Jesus Christ. Were they really this easy to manipulate?

“Kill them! Kill them!”

Apparently so.

The chant continued as the Governor smiled down at us, a chilling grin absent of any and all warmth it had once held. I could barely recognise the man standing there.

“You wanted your brother,” he said to Merle. “Now you got him.”

Merle just looked across to the man he called brother before meeting my curious gaze. With a casual gesture towards the man standing across the arena, he grinned. “Jacques, meet my baby brother, Daryl. Baby brother, meet Jacques.”

I glanced over at the other Dixon, my gaze travelling up and down his dishevelled form. He was shorter than Merle, but not by much, and had dark, unkept hair that partially over his forehead. His ruggedly pleasant features were scrunched into a confused scowl as I took my sweet time surveying him before turning back to Merle with a cheeky grin.

“At least now I know where all the looks went in your family,” I remarked lightly.

Merle snorted and gave me the finger.

“Brother against brother,” the Governor called, promptly ruining the moment. “Partner against partner!”

I looked up at him with my upper lip curled over my teeth in a snarl.

Andrea was standing beside him now, looking up pleadingly at him as if she had expected different. Expected better of him, despite all the warnings to the contrary.

“Winner goes free! Fight to the death!”

It was incredibly unlikely he’d keep that promise.

“Hey now,” I yelled out, over the cheers and jeering voices of the crowd. “I’m sensing a little unfairness here!” I jiggled my chains behind my back and gave the Governor a pointed look. “I’m the only one with chains!”

He merely looked down at me as if I were nothing to him, a fly upon his shoe. “Well, we wouldn’t want the fight over too early, now, would we?”

The voices from the crowd called out my name, called out for me to fight. It was almost as if this were any other Game Night, where I would tag-team with Merle against challengers in this very arena. We had been undefeated since the games had begun. These people knew only a fraction of what I could do and, even then, they had always put their money on me.

I looked over to Merle. His upper lip was shaking the way it often did when he was about to explode in anger.

Somehow, he managed to keep it somewhat under control. He took a step back and began to spin, looking at each member of the crowd in turn as he lifted his arms up like he used to do at the beginning of every Game Night.

“Come on, come on! I can’t hear yous!” he called out to the townsfolk.

A few scattered “Let’s go, Merle!”’s echoed around the warehouse, followed shortly by a “Get em, Jacques!”.

“Come on, ya’ll know me! I’m gonna do whatever I gotta do to prove my loyalty is to this town!” Merle continued.

Stepping further into the centre of the arena, I kept a close eye on both him and Daryl while I prepared myself to leap-frog over the chains loosely tied behind me. I knew Merle was talking shit. Knew him well enough to see that glint in his eye that meant the wheels in this balding head were beginning to turn.

From my right, Merle’s brother scoffed. “You really think this asshole’s gonna let you go?”

Merle looked at him with a smirk. “Just follow my lead, little brother. Ready, Jacques? Just like old times?”

I flashed him a wide grin before I jumped up, swinging my bound hands down and around the base of my feet so they were now in front of me. “Ready when you are, old man.”

Merle looked back to his brother, smirk growing wider as his excitement overtook his sense. “We’re gettin’ out of this right now.”

Merle and I leapt into it first. After all, we’d had plenty of practise fighting against one another in this arena. The chain linking my wrists made it a little difficult, but I managed to pull out some old moves to make it our battle somewhat believable. When I stumbled back, having been “kicked” in the chest by Merle’s dirty boot, I took a brief moment to look behind me towards Martinez. He was holding one of the Biter leads, pushing it closer to me each minute that passed.

I knew he was the weak spot. He wouldn’t shoot me, even if his life depended on it. Not after all we’d been through together. I knew it as well as he did. That was our way out.

While I had been “recovering” from Merle’s kick, the old redneck had started beating on his brother. They tussled on the ground for a moment, looking as if they were actually going at it more than they really needed to. Daryl managed to get his boot between them and kicked Merle off and when he scrambled up onto his feet, I stepped into his guard. He took a swing at me and I ducked beneath it, stepping around him and throwing my hands over his shoulders, pulling the chain taut across his throat, leaving only just enough room for him to breathe.

Merle locked eyes with me over his brother’s shoulder. He gave a little nod.

“Martinez,” I said, quiet enough so only Merle and Daryl could hear. “He’s the weak spot.”

Merle nodded. “Count o’ ten?”

“Better make it three.” I looked to the side of Daryl’s face. “You ready, little Dixon?”

He snorted in response. I took it as a yes.

Merle started a countdown.

One.

Two.

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latristereina · 5 years ago

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On this day in history (June 30, 1478) the long awaited male heir of the Catholic Monarchs, John of Aragon and Castile, was born at Seville.

Now everyone was waiting to see what would happen, a full eight years after she had given birth to Isabella. ‘One single hope for the future shone brightly in the hearts of Castilians, the long-desired delivery of Queen Isabella’s child,’ wrote Palencia, who said Isabella hoped for a son. Ferdinand, conscious that he would soon be king of Aragon, also prayed hard for a son – but he worried more about his wife. ‘As the pregnancy looked as if it might run the danger of a miscarriage, the king was especially anguished, moved by his indescribable love for his wife, preferring above all outcomes that she should emerge safely from the experience.’ Others might have put the birth of a male heir first. Perhaps Ferdinand was frightened by the size of Isabella’s expanding womb and the dangers that pregnancy and childbirth brought to her. A rumour spread that he had ordered the beheading of a man who had joked that the Queen would ‘either give birth or explode’.

- Giles Tremlett, Isabella of Castile: Europe’s First Great Queen

In March, a letter from an agent of Juan of Aragón to Fernando conveyed a general atmosphere of expectation and the widespread hope that the royal child would be a boy: ‘It is good, Your Excellency, for here is the most grave and grand matter of Spain, and nothing is more necessary or desired.…’ The hope was fulfilled. On the morning of June 30,1478, Isabel gave birth to a son and heir. Present as the child was born was a midwife and, by royal order, numerous courtiers and city officials, for it was a state occasion and there was to be no question that the child was the queen’s. Court and city celebrated for three days and nights. That Isabel’s second child was male crowned the successes of those years and was widely interpreted as a sign from God of his approval, and of yet greater victories to come.

Seville resounded with fiesta. On July 9, the baptismal procession made its way from the palace to the cathedral through thronged streets, the prince nestled in brocade cloth in the arms of his well-born nurse, Maria de Guzmán, the mule she rode flanked by eight councilmen bearing staffs of office and wearing great cloaks of black velvet ‘provided by the city.’ Alvaro de Stúñiga, the late great rebel, walked directly behind. Three of the queen’s pages strode along at the head of the procession. One held a gold jar, another a gold cup; the third, carrying the customary candle, baby cap, and money offering on a tray, was “so small that he bore the tray on his head, holding on to it with both hands.” All the nobles at court accompanied child and nurse, on foot; so did many knights and other people. Silver crosses gleamed above, and trumpets, hornpipes, and sackbutts played ceaselessly.

The prince was baptized Juan in the cathedral, ‘very triumphantly.’ That observation was made within the description of those proceedings by a new chronicler of a new sort, Andrés Bernáldez, a militant Andalusian chaplain much less concerned with political relations, much less critical of anyone both orthodox and powerful than Isabel’s earlier chroniclers could on occasion be; Bernáldez exuded a crusading patriotism. Officiating at the baptism was Seville’s archbishop, Pedro González de Mendoza, chief among courtiers. The godparents were the constable, Benavente, Nicolò Franco, the papal legate, and Leonor de Mendoza, duchess of Medina Sidonia. A second procession, even grander, took place a month later, on August 9, when the queen went ‘to present the prince to the temple as was the custom of Holy Mother Church. She had waited until then as was also customary, for a woman was not to enter a church after childbirth until “being purified of her blood.’ Fernando led the way on a small silver-grey horse. He was opulently regal, wearing heavy brocade lined in gold and trimmed in gold and black velvet, and a broad hat also lined in cloth of gold. (It was sweltering midsummer in Andalusia; little wonder that Fernando reputedly said that all he wished to his enemies were winters in Burgos and summers in Seville.) At the center of that procession rode Isabel, dressed in brocade shimmering with pearls, mounted high upon a white trotter, its saddle of gold encrusted with more gold and with silver. Accompanying her on foot were most of the city’s council and many nobles. The constable, Haro, held the right-hand bridle rein of her horse; Benavente held the rein on her left. The infant prince, again swathed in brocade, also rode, carried by his nurse upon a mule with a saddle of velvet. Musicians kept pace, playing trumpets and hornpipes and many other instruments.

She centered much affection and her dynastic hopes on her son and heir, Juan. She paid great attention to his education and did not stint on his court, his activities, his clothing, and his retinues, nor on his participation in court pageantry and festivities. He was given his own household and there waited upon as befitted a great prince, with exact protocol maintained from rising to retiring. A hierarchy of servants made a ritual of dressing and undressing him; grandes attended him. She attached to his household her own mentors: Gonzalo Chácon, now known as el viejo—the old one—and whose grandson of the same name was one of Juan’s companions, and Gutierre de Cárdenas as Juan’s mayordomo mayor and contador. Juan’s tutor, Diego de Deza, who had taught theology at Salamanca, was a nephew of yet another of her longtime comptrollers, Rodrigo de Ulloa. She arranged her son’s daily routine. Each morning there were prayers with Deza, then mass, then lessons. Since Juan particularly enjoyed music, she would often send to him during his daily two-hour rest period her music master and four or five choirboys, and he would sing with them, tenor. He was given his own musicians as well and he owned and played a number of instruments, among them the first Spanish claviorgano, a combination of organ and plucked string instrument, made by one Mofévrez, a Muslim grandmaster from Zaragoza; it was a present from his half-brother, young Alfonso de Aragón, archbishop of Zaragoza, Fernando’s son. Yet Juan’s health was always delicate. Isabel had his diet and regimen carefully monitored. Each morning doctors visited and he reported to them on how he had slept, and on his digestion and bodily functions. Münzer, indicating physical disability, wrote of having saluted the prince in Latin and of Juan’s understanding it but ordering Deza to reply for him since, said Münzer, he suffered from a weakness of the lower lip and tongue that impeded his answering plainly. Isabel spoke of her son as ‘my angel’, and had him sent treats considered good for digestion: strawberry conserves, lemon blossom candies, other sugared sweets, and jars of quincemeat from what she referred to as ‘Valencia del Cid.’ Juan’s upbringing tells a good deal about Isabel. One of his pages later recalled that in his education the queen had cared as much for letters as for other abilities and, above all, for virtue. Manly virtue included proficiency in arms. Juan was given a master of arms, and the prince slept with a sword at the head of his bed and was instructed in its use. His father had knighted him before Granada. His mother had even earlier provided as companions for him ten knights, five mature, five young, ‘a species of colegio.’ One, who had fought at Granada, dedicated to the boy a translation into Castilian of Caesar’s commentaries, avowedly to convey that arms would not benefit him without good counsel. Juan corresponded with the humanist Marineo Sículo and with the poet Juan del Encina, who adjudged him as learned in sciencia as in empire. Juan was, that is, raised in the atmosphere then permeating the royal court and compounded of a fervent and militant piety, a resurgent chivalry, and a rising vogue for humanistic classicism. Isabel gave much thought to Juan’s education, designing what she conceived to be the ideal upbringing for a Christian prince. She followed principles akin to those of the Siete Partidas and the mirrors of princes as though glossed by current usages and humanist studies, but their essential base and hers was orthodox religion. That unusual attention to his education and her ideas about what constituted it were reflected in a treatise written by a courtier close to her, Alonso Ortiz. Ortiz composed the work as a dialogue between the queen and Cardinal Mendoza. Surely echoing her own concerns, the principal question the treatise raised was how to achieve the spiritual health of the prince; the answer it gave was through learning good habits in childhood. In that treatise, Mendoza presents a highly traditional Christian rationale with some humanistic overlay. Thus he cites a Christian Platonist and somewhat Pythagorean understanding of purification in stating that the stars incline us and the wiles of the demons push us toward vices, that original sin infected everyone, corrupting the flesh and weighing on the soul; that the flesh submitted to the influence of the stars but the will remained free, subject only to God, yet needed instruction in order to gain wisdom. Training in will power, he explained, would develop natural abilities and correct bad inclinations; it could purify. Accordingly, he advised an education consonant with the stages advocated by Plato and Aristotle, an education leading to virtue both moral and intellectual, and so to the happy mean. Virtue and vice he declared within human power, life a pilgrimage toward blessedness and bliss, toward the eternal life of which Saint John speaks. That dialogue was itself a guide for a prince’s education, as it simply assumed much of what such guides had heretofore customarily stated, that the monarch’s spiritual health was the same as the common good. Taking for granted the importance of the prince, it concentrated on this specific prince’s personal development in wisdom, justice, moral qualities, and high character. In passing it revealed a good deal about humanistic education as understood at the Spanish court in the 1490s.

- Peggy K. Liss, Isabel the Queen: Life and Times

#perioddramaedit #historyedit #on this day in history #isabella i of castile #women in history #john of aragon #men in history #isabel tve #S02E06 #michelle jenner

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catflowerqueen · 5 years ago

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While it’s hard to pinpoint the exact moment things went wrong for Darkrai, it can be pretty much be boiled down to three things: people not understanding/liking what his job actually is, the consequences of that whole fiasco with Pupil and her family, and a few lines in the Time Gear Legend.

Darkrai’s job: Darkrai has dominion over nightmares. No one likes having nightmares. These are facts. But what are also facts is that your nightmares can tell you a lot about yourself—things you’re scared of, or what you’re worried about. So, having a nightmare can sometimes be considered a trial run for what’s going on—they aren’t real, but if you know what the worst-case scenario is, it helps you to prepare for the real thing. This could involve something like making contingency plans or extra preparations to realizing how absurd your fear actually is. Think of the Krabby Claw story—no one is terrified of it, at all, because how realistic is that scenario, actually? In theory someone could probably hook up some sort of electrical current to make the nerve endings or muscles of a detached claw contract (like those videos of soy sauce and octopi), and its possible that a ghost-type could possess it, sure, but are either of those scenarios likely? No—and even if they did happen, it would involve outside force acting on the claw.

Darkrai’s job is to cause nightmares in order for people to learn something from them. He can show worst case scenarios, break down barriers of denial, or make up absurdly scary things with bits of symbolism so that when dawn comes and people stop to think things through, they’ll realize how silly the whole thing really is. On the other hand, non-stop nightmares would help no one, and at a certain point they would be more debilitating than helpful. That’s where Cresselia comes in—she can provide the succor of a good dream to help ensure that people get the rest they need or to act as further supplement to hit Darkrai’s lessons home. And afterwards, both are supposed to be available to help talk things through.

Because the thing is—neither of them are omniscient. Cresselia does not cause every good dream, and Darkrai does not cause every nightmare. So, if they step in, it’s generally because they’re actually needed and so tend to stick around afterwards if someone needs to talk it through. Though, admittedly, that’s typically more necessary in the case of Darkrai’s gifts, since symbolism is confusing and fears—and fear responses—aren’t necessarily rational. And that very irrationality is a problem, because people, as I’ve said before, don’t like nightmares, and typically aren’t very friendly in response to someone deliberately causing them. Ergo, most people do not like Darkrai, and wouldn’t be open to listening to him.

Darkrai tried his best, for a long, long, time, but it’s understandable that he got disheartened by it all, especially as issues like jealousy and superiority drove a wedge between him and Cresselia. Mind you, it was a slow process, and Darkrai’s issues didn’t hit the rapid deterioration that led to his canon actions until, oh, roughly a thousand years ago.

Which leads to the second thing—The consequences of the whole Pupil fiasco:

I’ve already addressed the basics of what went down there in an earlier post, but, to summarize, a thousand years ago there was an incarnation of the Rainbow Child with the nickname Pupil who came to the Pokémon World with her family so that she could have the chance to relax and de-stress before ascending. But her family, and especially her relationship with her siblings, had some major issues and she and her siblings got into a fight which ended with her falling off of a tall cliff and becoming mortally wounded. This was the first time that a Rainbow Child got so close to dying before ascending, and since no one knew what exactly would happen if that were to occur, Relatia got extremely freaked out and decided that from then on, she was no longer going to bring the Rainbow Child for visits to the Pokémon World, nor was she going to go herself unless she was specifically called.

This was not a good thing for the psyche/morale of many legendaries left behind—Darkrai included. It also dovetails nicely into the final thing: A few lines of the Time Gear Legend.

The first line of importance is “Many pokémon came to the Beach—where Relatia and her worshippers had first arrived—to see them off, for they would be greatly missed; especially the Rainbow Child, who was beloved of the legendaries.” The legendaries adored the Rainbow Child, completely and absolutely, and Darkrai was no exception—especially since she actually understood him, and what he was supposed to be doing. They had a special relationship, and—unknown to anyone but him, and the first—he helped her to make some big decisions which impacted a lot of how her role was portrayed and evolved during and after that first visit by Relatia. And even though she couldn’t really remember that in subsequent lives, her feelings about him and his job never changed. He was also one of the legendaries that chose to continually seek her out—or at least to not deliberately hide from her if they happened to cross paths—whenever she came to visit. Others (such as Giratina) deliberately hid, in part because she couldn’t remember their meetings between incarnations and it would have hurt them too much to try and re-forge that bond over and over again. But it didn’t bother Darkrai—or at least, not as much—partially because of the aforementioned thing he helped her with and partially because it was actually rather nice to renew his friendship like that and get to savor and compare differences—and to tell her embarrassing stories about her past lives while still treating her as the unique person she became each new incarnation.

Her renewed support each time also helped to bolster him when the stress of his duties and all the rejection came to be too much. It’s a tough job… but knowing that she cared, and getting those reminders fairly often since she came around semi-frequently (considering the lifespan of a legendary, even if she only came once per incarnation, it still seemed like she was coming, say, every month or so rather than the actual decades to half century-long breaks in between—because when you live that long, time can honestly become rather meaningless, and its pretty easy to lose track of things like dates, or when the last time you left your lake was *cough* looking at you, Uxie *cough*) helped him keep afloat mentally and emotionally.

But then the aforementioned Pupil fiasco happened and… well.

At first it wasn’t so bad—there wasn’t really a hard and fast rule about when those traditional visits happened, just that it had been, up until that point, usually at least once per incarnation. But that meant that the gaps between could be anywhere from thirteen to hundreds of years, depending on when in the Rainbow Child’s life, they came, and how synced up Earth’s time was to that of the Pokémon World’s for any given visit. And sometimes they did have to skip an incarnation, for whatever reason, or some incarnations would come more than once. It was really the finality of it all—since Relatia outright made an announcement that this was the last time she was bringing a Rainbow Child (though, admittedly, it wasn’t like it was widespread or anything—she didn’t go out seeking any legendaries besides maybe Dialga and Palkia, so most people only found out via gossip), coupled with the fact that no legendaries even got to see Pupil before she died, and her prior incarnation only visited once, shortly after her own ascension, and then proceeded to live a very long life, that really impacted everyone’s psyches.

As Azelf told Corphish (and which we can now fully understand given hindsight and knowledge) “Those two (Relatia and the Rainbow Child) left, and then he (the Golden Child/Mason—because celebi are extremely long-lived, despite me having them be only pseudo-legendaries here, so it is entirely possible that it was, indeed, our Mason who was the incarnation of the Golden Child during that period) became depressed, and then everyone sort of… lost contact with each other.”

He wasn’t just talking about him, his siblings, and Dialga—every legendary (save for those, like Giratina [again] who more or less deliberately kept themselves out of the loop and away from everyone) was hit with the same thing. Those who tried to keep in contact with each other slowly stopped over time, and any sort of support group Darkrai may have had vanished—due to a combination of his grief, their own grief, and the usual issues he had to face given his duties.

It’s not too surprising, then, that Darkrai would start to spiral and get a little… desperate. Leading us to the other important line in the Time Gear Legend: “But it was then that the Golden Child made a shocking announcement: he would not be returning with Relatia. Instead, he, along with a handful of other servants, would stay behind to ensure that there would be some way of calling upon Relatia for help if ever tragedy struck the world and she was needed. Relatia was reluctant to part with him, but she agreed that it was a wise idea.”

In short, the legend promised that if Relatia was needed, someone would call her, and she would come help. And given what the whole Time Gear legend is about in the first place… what’s the most likely reason her help would be needed?

Darkrai’s intent in damaging Temporal Tower was never to create a dark, paralyzed future. He just wanted there to be enough damage that things would start to get a bit wonky and someone would call Relatia for help. Hopefully, that help would entail her bringing the Rainbow Child along—and even if she didn’t, he wasn’t above begging her to please let her come back to their world, or let him visit Earth, just so he could see her at least once more. But for whatever reason… she didn’t come. No one called her. Maybe it was because he overestimated the damage, or because people forgot about the Time Gear’s true job (or assumed that they would be able to recharge Temporal Tower from afar or something), but the end result was the Dark Future.

Understandably, this did nothing to help with Darkrai’s growing issues and, in fact, actually made them way, way worse. Much of the reason the pokémon in the Dark World went insane as quickly as they did was probably a combination of Darkrai either accidentally lashing out in his own pain and grief, or doing it deliberately. Maybe at some point he’d half convinced himself that this was what he wanted all along, or that it was some sort of revenge—a, “if they want me to be a monster, then why should I refuse them?” sort of deal.

But that state didn’t last forever, because eventually… he came into contact with Laura. Because that whole “beloved of the legendaries” deal didn’t only apply to him, and, for some reason that would be unfathomable if he hadn’t tried to do the exact same thing (if in a more indirect manner), a fellow legendary (Primal Dialga) had succeeded where he couldn’t, and brought the Rainbow Child back to the world of Pokémon.

…A world which, upon further reflection, was actually really, really dangerous for her to be in, for a few reasons, one of which being that ordinary pokémon would not care at all that she was a nascent Rainbow Child, and would not hesitate to attack her… or possibly even kill her… and, oh yeah, it was still up in the air what would happen if a Rainbow Child died before ascension and he really, really did not ever want to figure that out. So, after an initial plan to get her back to Earth failed, he decided to do something which some of the more canny readers (*cough* @citrus-chickadee *cough*) have managed to figure out—he joined Team They Didn’t Have One (much to Grovyle’s initial displeasure) in order to fix his mistakes.

Initially he—like his teammates—didn’t realize that changing the past would make everyone in the current future disappear. But when they all figured it out, he was rather upset. Not because he was worried about himself or Laura—he’d used Dimensional Holes and things to jump around in time a lot during the initial stages of the world’s deterioration trying to figure out why no one was calling Relatia, so he was technically in the same boat Paula was and would be considered a denizen of the past when it all went down, and he’d already figured out that Laura was from Earth—but because he actually got rather close to Grovyle. Also, considering that this whole situation was his own fault in the first place, Darkrai was definitely feeling guilty, and a bit cowardly, and didn’t want to be the one to pull the actual trigger—even though he totally kept secretly following them around at times, at enough of a distance that neither of them would notice.

But then, he found out that Laura was planning something really, really stupid, dangerous, and self-sacrificing. He really shouldn’t have been surprised… but he also couldn’t let her go through with it—so he attacked her and Grovyle as they were travelling back in time. He wasn’t aiming for the canon result he got, but he figured that the amnesia would be enough to stop her plans so he just let her be after seeing her safely ensconced in the Wigglytuff Guild and then went to shadow (literally) Grovyle for a little bit to make sure that things were on track as far as gathering the Time Gears went. Then he just basically wandered off and tried to decide what to do with his life, and whether or not he could (or should) try to change Laura back into a human after all was said and done and the world was saved.

He really, really shouldn’t have been surprised when Laura got involved anyways and things went haywire… and yet he was. The world should feel very lucky that he was too numbed with shock and grief to actually do anything for those few months that Laura was MIA, because if he was in full control of his faculties at the time, he probably would have ended up recreating the Dark Future again, but this time deliberately and with much, much worse results.

As it stands, when she eventually came back he realized that Relatia may have had a point when she decided to keep the Rainbow Child away from the Pokémon World, so he decided that he was going to do something about it. His initial plan to get her back to Earth way back in the Dark Future might have failed, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t try again. It just meant that he needed to use his own power to do so—or, at the very least, to make enough of a mess of space that someone would actually call Relatia this time and he could basically throw Laura at her and get her to fix things and take her back where it was safe. At least… physically, if not mentally.

Thus, he concocted his post-game plan, which had multiple different parts and directions he could take things if someone started to foil it.

Ultimately that all failed… but not because of the reasons one may think. Mainly because when Cresselia gave that speculation about what happened to Darkrai given that Palkia attacked him while time travelling… she was basing her assumptions on Darkrai’s words, and what happened to Laura. But the thing is… he wasn’t being entirely truthful on the matter. Also, Cresselia had no idea at the time that Laura was a nascent Rainbow Child—because that does matter.

Luckily for everyone, Darkrai ended up right where—and when—he needed to in order to give up those sorts of insane plans.

…Which isn’t to say that he’s given up plotting entirely, or that he isn’t going to show up again…

#pokemon mystery dungeon #explorers of sky #the world's treasure #spoilers #massive spoilers #writing #fanfiction

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alchemist-shizun · 5 years ago

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So uhh I had a train of thought and I just really needed to let it out please note that this is very long so beware before you decide to click “read more” and yeah as for contents this is just really me venting about the fact that I’ve prevented myself from drawing since forever and I can’t really stand it any longer (there might be many mistakes but I don’t expect anyone to read this) really just ignore it

Fuck it fuck it fuck them i dont C a r e ™ I’ve had enough i can’t fucking believe they made me feel like this still to this day I haven’t even talked to them in years and because of them I’m still not over it so honestly fuck you elementary teachers and your stupid fucking way of twisting a child’s perception of thing on their way of shaping themselves cause you ruined a perfectly creative child is what you did

Okay so this dates back to, yes you read, elementary school but oh actually let’s get to kindergarten first

I was coloring a lion picture, I was like 4 but I still freaking remember it to this day, the teacher there told me I did it wrong and I didn’t understand why, I got scolded for fucking c o l o r i n g COLORS, I WAS F O U R it wasn’t like a colored a lion BLUE I used typical lion colors what do you want from me?

So I tried again, unsure of what to do, unsure of everything, I color it again, and as if nothing changed I get scolded again and you want to know what they had the courage to do? The fucking hypocrisy? They sent me to the part of preschool you can go when you’re like 2 or 3 TO SIGNIFY THAT I WAS STUPID and to make me feel ashamed of myself for something that I had no clue about cause nobody cared to explain what I did wrong

I still remember how fucking bad I felt, I might have cried too, I don’t know anymore

Fun fact? I recently heard someone else had the same experience

Now what the fuck? What the fuck? Do you know how impactful something like that is on a 4 year old child? Did you not learn how to treat kids in university? Fucking hell you should’ve studied this kind of things, how am I supposed to react to that kind of shaming?

And now let’s go to elementary school. Everything fucking SUCKED in the attitude of the two main teachers I had.

Basically in here you had to write your name, date, class, daily stuff basically on top of the page every time, and right under these things before you start writing or anything you have to do what in Italian we say “cornicetta” that I can literally translate with “little frame”

Basically it was a very tiny drawing you did and you repeated it horizontally so that you had some kind of frame on a single side of the page

And I was terrible at them. I don’t know, I didn’t have the hand of the artist™ what could I do about it? I was just 6. And my teachers? Batshit crazy. My Italian and history teacher in particular, she absolutely hated my drawings

Everything I did didn’t please her at all, the frames I made were always criticized and thank god I don’t remember all of her comments cause if I did I’d probably still be upset over them

There’s one in particular I remember: I think we were making a drawing for history, cause I remember drawing a cave and some people, so I might have been in second or third year. I had started to color it and my teacher came up, inspected it and said “ah it was actually a good drawing, too bad you had to ruin it with colors”

How am I fucking supposed to feel about that? Do I have to yell in joy and say woah you’re absolutely right I must bow to your genius. N O fuck you that’s what I was supposed to say! I wasn’t encouraged in the slightest.

She made me feel like shit and fucking laughed like she was pleased to fuck around with my sanity. Thank you very much you idiot now I’m terrified of drawing anything at all, this is what you created, you happy??

Not only she never gave me constructive criticism on my drawings, but she also insulted my handwriting over and over along with the one of some others, threatening us to go back to writing with the pencil instead of the pen like everyone else

Again, you can imagine how I fucking felt.

You don’t know how many afternoons I spent with my mother writing words in the exact manner my teacher wanted over and over because those were the sick punishments they gave us

Writing some words like 50 times

Sure, it can be practice, but God fucking damn it

I can understand when they said “hey you did a spelling error, how about you write this word like 20 times so that you get used to it” alright

But you don’t make a child sit for hours trying to fill entire pages of stupid senseless words making them feel even more ashamed and stupid than they already felt

It was dreadful for me and even my mother was pissed at that. Not that she didn’t criticize my handwriting either but she gave up after some time

Also, as if elementary wasn’t enough, we had a young teacher at catechism that dared to give us fucking homework LIKE THAT’S NOT EVEN A NORMAL THING none else in the world did that okay n o o n e

And she gave fucking marks, ofc my marks fucking sucked and I hated going there (my parents only made me go so that I could have done all the required things if I ever wanted to get married in church once adult)

Moral of the story, don’t trust catechism teachers if they’re like mine (also my parents hated her)

I don’t know when I stopped drawing, probably after elementary school, since I didn’t have to do those page frames anymore.

But with middle school came art lessons

Art lessons with the teacher I had meant no history of art at all for all the three years and only making art

I hated it, I sucked at everything, my drawing repulsion (if that’s a term I can use) grew stronger with all the years and the teacher I had also wasn’t professional at all so she gave marks based on how much she liked you

Despite all of this, there was a moment in first year of middle school where this teacher fell down the stairs and broke her leg, so we had a substitute: young, sweet lady that I instantly fell in love with

She made us do a project for a group of people we call “alpini” which is a particular group that helped in the war and fought in the north of Italy, in particular in the Alps.

I had a very artistic classmate, her mother was literally and artist and obviously I stood no chance against her, so I was like well I’m not gonna end up in noe place so, let’s just do this for fun I guess

I made this stupid little concept I had in my head, nothing special really, especially since I also drew people and I have no clue of how bodies work in art, but okay

Wanna know something?

I fucking won

I don’t know how, but I fucking won and I still have the prize

But then, the other teacher came back and everything was back to being shitty.

When it was time to choose highschool I was a bit scared cause my course would have had lessons of history of art since the first year and I had never had one while everybody else would have

I was afraid I wouldn’t have liked the subject

Let me tell you, it’s probably my favorite subject by now, and I’m at the last year. I was afraid I wouldn’t have been able to do anything with it, that if I liked history of art the only available universities where the academies that required you to have drawing skills

Then I came to know of the existence of the Cultural Heritage faculty and I couldn’t have been happier

But lately I’m still here thinking what if I actually tried to not listen to the people around me and practice my drawing skills ever since I was little?

I am so fucking sorry for myself because I lost a potential I know I could’ve grown to something probably very beautiful and I will never be able to see it bloom

And you know what? I don’t fucking care I’m so done with this feeling and I want to get rid of it so I don’t care if I’m 18 you can start whenever you want to do things

So I’m gonna start to teach myself how to draw after 18 years of my life and I’m going to see how it turns out and I will fucking stop being absolutely scared of picking up pencils

I’ll stop hearing my past teachers voices in my head saying it’s no use and that I should give up because they’re absolutely horrible and I hate them in particular

I don’t care that’s it this time I’m doing it, I don’t want to be conditioned by stupid people or be submissive anymore

And to those teachers, an honest and wholehearted fuck you, in your face.

#vent post #tw caps #tw negativity #ellie vents #not ts #tw toxic people #art #tw swearing #long post

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