#i ask because sometimes it feels like i have a fundamentally different relationship to television than a lot of people

[dooffirmations]

Any kind of show, just use the normal rules of rounding ig.

[loki-darkprince-odinson]

King Loki, I apologize for the rant but I would like some advice.

My father always makes me feel like complete garbage. He is always putting me down, never appreciates me, and makes my depression so much worse. I'm fixing up a house to move in with my friends but I'm still stuck at the house since my parents won't help me get my license or a car, much less a job. I cook, do dishes, take care of the pets, take out the trash, get the mail, do my laundry, wash towels, and help with their laundry. I also take care of my sick mother and while I'm currently on summer break, I'm going to college to become a clinical psychologist. Even then, my father will point out other things that I don't do, and expects me to clean the entire house every day. He always talks about how he needs to do everything around the house yet all he does is sleep, play video games, and watch television. He also says he works hard yet on many occasions he says he sits on his ass all day on his tablet. He also yells so much. I get scared every day when he starts yelling because I worry he may leave us, which he has threatened before, or he may actually hit us. He never has hit either my mother or I yet, and says he never would but he slams and throws things when angry at us so it's his way of showing us how much he wants to hit us, even if he doesn't realize it. However, not only do I have many responsibilities, My depression makes it difficult for me to do much, and he makes it worse. Even when I do try to clean the house he always makes comments such as: "About time." or "How long until it gets cleaned next time?" or "This was half assed, you didn't do it right." I have tried so hard to have a connection with him but I'm so tired of fighting for a relationship that he doesn't care about. I can't address my concerns with him because he will threaten to not take me to college and pay the bills. Do you have any advice to help me deal with my father until I can escape?

Best regards, Catrina.

“Catrina,” Loki drawls, in his smooth resonate voice. “I firstly must commend your good work. For caring for your ill mother, minding the household needs, and that you get up in the morning even if your soul is weary and your bones ache for a rest; that you keep on living even if you do not know how to anymore. Secondly, you have my deepest sympathies for your grievances. I am all too familiar with what it is like to seek the approval of a parent; only for there to be none in return.” His eyes were completely unfocused, yet his pallid features bore the most intense concentration as memories flowed unbidden.

He says nothing for a moment. Then, something in the edge of his mouth—and the corner of his eyes—resembled the ghost of a sad smile.

“Those whom I knew and called my mother and father are dead. That much is beyond dispute. They were not my real parents, but they raised me as their own. I daresay they loved me. That had been in dispute, at least in my own mind for awhile. I found out very late that my identity was a lie. Not Asgardian, not a son of Odin, I was completely unmade. That was how I felt when I learned of my true parentage. I was a fraud, a monster; it explained so much. It explained why I never felt like I fit in, why I would never be my brother's equal, why I would never get what I'd been promised my whole life.” His voice was soft, hoarse. Intent.

Loki raises his left hand and rests his forefinger against his lips as a line forms between his own eyebrows in thought.

“I have lingered around Midgard long enough to come to an understanding of how your minds tick. I shall do my best to give advice where I can.

Try, if you will, to put things into perspective. The most loving parents commit murder with smiles on their faces. They force one to destroy the person they really are: a subtle kind of murder. Even the most loving parents damage their children with the best intentions—to protect them, to guide them, to better them. In most cases, it would appear they do it by imprinting their own fears and prejudices on them.

The point is, parents are mere, imperfect people.

They have flaws, struggles and impaired judgement. They have both emotional and intellectual handicaps. Regardless of their parental role, they are afflicted by personal blockages and limitations.

But most of all, they are people who make mistakes, and who are terrified of being judged by their children.

Learn to see your difficult parent as just that; human. Learn to see their emotional immaturity as a type of disability.

With that in mind, you would do well to keep your expectations of them low.

In many ways the effect a difficult parent has on ones self is fueled by their feelings of injustice and the belief that things could be different, or ought to be different.

In other words, your expectations dictate how you feel.

You need to let go of your expectations and accept your parent for who they are.

You cannot expect someone with, say, a narcissistic personality, to act with empathy and kindness. No more than you can expect a scorpion not to sting.

Difficult parents are much easier to deal with when you accept that they will not change. So do not expect of them more than they are capable of, and you will not be disappointed or hurt.

Do not fall into the illusion of guilt, Catrina.” He warns. “A difficult parent loves nothing more than to make you feel like you’ve hurt them. Or, in a different scenario, like you’re a bad person if you do not do something they ask.

Do not fall for it. If they’re setting a guilt trap, calmly tell them that you do not appreciate being emotionally manipulated, and you will not tolerate it anymore.

Manipulators, and I should know, detest being called out on their dirty tricks.

If they continue to harass you, reiterate that you cannot do what they’re asking you to do this time, and you need them to respect that.

The trick is agreeing with everything they’re saying (how can they argue when you agree with them?) and re-stating your decision over and over again.

Now this part I find to be… far more easier said than done. You must let go of the need for your father's approval, Catrina. It goes without saying that every child needs and wants their parents’ approval. It is normal to want it, and it is normal to receive it.

Yet so many have to accept the fact that this is not going to happen. For whatever reason, their parent has chosen to withhold their approval. Some difficult parents do it as a form of punishment. While others hope to influence their child in the “right” direction.

Most likely, your father loves you, but they have a very warped idea of what parental love is.

In their misguided quest to make you into a version of themselves, they missed the chance to get to know you. And so they cannot appreciate you for the wonderful being that you are.”

He shrugs elegantly. “It is their loss. When you realize this and let go of the need for their approval, you will be able to start living your life in a whole new way.

When confronting your father, be direct and calm without expecting a specific response. That is the part you cannot control. The part that is within your control is letting your thoughts and feelings known, which is empowering.

Stick to the facts and use “I” statements such as, “I feel like my words do not matter to you when you constantly interrupt me” or “I feel scared and misunderstood when you yell at me”

Remember that manipulative parents are not known for their empathy. They will try to confuse you, go on the offensive, or assume the role of a victim.

Do not allow them to bully you into submission by invoking guilt or pity. State your case in a calm and polite manner, and stay cool regardless of their response.

Your goal is to be honest about your feelings, and to make it clear that you will not tolerate certain behaviors.” He softly clears his throat.

“Last but not least, an unhappy alternative is forgoing the relationship that is too harmful. I know, a parent is not someone you can so easily cut out of your life. But if all else fails and your father continues to cause you psychological harm, then this may very well need to be taken into considerable consideration; at least for the foreseeable future. Sometimes it is the only logical recourse.

A parent that is fundamentally incapable of showing love and support, unable to see the error of their ways after numerous attempts to communicate how their behavior or words affect you, consistently dismissive, demeaning or critical, manipulative in a habitual manner, punishing and cruel whenever you disobey, are disrespectful of your boundaries and using threats and intimidation to get what they want is a destructive force that will continue to tear you down until you put a stop to it.

It is not an easy feat, my dear. The parent-child bond is hardwired into the brain, which means children get attached to even the most awful of parents.

But consider the cost of having that toxic relationship in your life—stress breeds anxiety, depression, internalized feelings of inadequacy, and failed personal relationships.

I wish you all the best, Catrina. I truly do.”

[callioope]

For what it’s worth, Cassian says to Jyn, “you’re not the only one who’s lost everything.” It’s an interpretation, to be sure, but I always sensed that he was including people close to him in this statement. That Cassian’s life is unfortunately filled with heavy loss. 

I think Cassian is a person who cares deeply for others, and clearly we see he’s capable of forming enough of a bond with people to convince them to go to Scarif. Many of them wouldn’t have joined that mission if someone else had asked them to go, right? Didn’t it make a difference that it was Cassian who had asked them? Hadn’t he recruited some of them? 

That’s kind of the thing about recruiters, though. He meets so many people, and many of them, he loses. Time after time. I think -- and of course we’re all talking headcanons here -- that Cassian had to have had close bonds with people, but the constant losses... in that situation, it’s likely that a person has to close themselves off to protect themselves. By the time he meets Jyn, that’s the person we see, but that doesn’t mean he was always like that. He cares so much, he intentionally distances himself, but he’s not cold. He does what he has to. And it is breaking him apart. 

I see his interactions with Jyn as a catalyst, but catalysts expedite change. I think it just expedited a trajectory Cassian was already heading towards. We see him grappling with his situation in his first scene, with Tivik. And at any rate, Cassian affects Jyn, too. I don’t want to say they “change” each other but they definitely both impact each other and that is the point. 

I’ve been intentionally vague about “relationships” so far to mean all varieties, but I do want to mention that personally I’m a fan when characters have relationships before they meet whoever I’m shipping them with. I think prior relationships can sometimes actually strengthen a ship. A past relationship fails for some reason (and hopefully not because someone died; see below), and when that happens, it can show how well the ship I support actually works. And that’s not to diminish the importance and meaning behind those past relationships. 

Every person I dated before I married my spouse -- those relationships failed for a reason and helped me to be a better partner and helped me to understand enough about myself to know the kind of person I liked most to be around, if that makes sense. And just because I did not end up marrying any of those people doesn’t mean I should never have dated them, that I did not deeply care for them at the time, and that I don’t still, to some extent, care for them. 

Take Jyn’s relationship with Hadder. Setting aside conflicting opinions of Rebel Rising, I actually really liked Hadder and her relationship with him. That relationship was important and meaningful to Jyn. But also, there was something fundamentally not right with it because Jyn was not capable of sharing her true self with Hadder, and she had justifiable reasons for not doing so. That wouldn’t have been sustainable. I don’t like that he died, and would have preferred they drifted apart, but I do like that she had him in her life.

I’d like Cassian to have a chance for that experience, too. I find it difficult to imagine he wouldn’t have. (I mean... not the part about dying, the part about being loved and supported.)

I guess the question for me though, is how did that/those relationship(s) go?

Some people have already mentioned they’re concerned over “casual” relationships. And I agree with that because I don’t see Cassian as some Bond-esque constantly taking a lover type of person. Those generally aren’t meaningful relationships and don’t feel right for Cassian.

I do tend to think, though, that Cassian’s commitment to the cause could cause conflict in a relationship. I see the cause as his main priority, and having any kind of “typical/standard” relationship might suffer in that situation. I can see him caring deeply about a person, but it doesn’t work out because they don’t understand him, or perhaps separation or duties just get in the way and they drift apart, or perhaps the other person is just as committed to the cause and they take comfort in each other’s presence when with each other, but the idea of “committing” to the “label” of a relationship is challenging for them. We sort of see this kind of tension with Hera and Kanan in Rebels. None of these circumstances mean that either party doesn’t care. It just means that war is war and can create obstacles in a relationship. “Not committing/not being able to commit” to a relationship is very different from “incapable of having connections.” 

The reason I’d rather see these relationships has little to do with Jyn; I just don’t want to see someone fridged. Admittedly that contradicts what I stated above because it’s highly likely that if Cassian lost someone ... they died. So like, if that does happen I suppose I won’t be surprised. But yeah, fridging sucks. There’s probably a careful way to write that story though so that the Significant Other’s death is less to hurt Cassian and something that makes more sense within that character’s own arc. But yeah, I worry about these things because SW doesn’t have the best track record with how it’s handled some character arcs.  

I also don’t want to see Cassian paired up with “the woman right next to him” just because “let’s add romance herp derp!” But that really comes down to I’m worried about the writing and not Cassian being in a relationship in and of itself.

Do I worry about the Andor series? Yeah, I’ve been disappointed by Star Wars franchises before. I’m going to be worried. And I just tend to be the type that worries. But the new SW media I have enjoyed most has all been the “television” content, so maybe things will be okay. I do think if Diego Luna gets much of a say, it’ll probably be good. 

[innuendostudios]

The newest installment of The Alt-Right Playbook - Endnote 4: How the Alt-Right is Like an Abusive Relationship - is a little different. This installment was presented live at Solidarity Lowell, and includes a bonus Q&A section. This video expands on the ideas put forth in How to Radicalize a Normie.

If you would like more videos like this to come out, please back me on Patreon.

Transcript below the cut.

He is intriguing, yet unpredictable. He demands unconditional loyalty. He seems to have an intuitive understanding of what people want to hear but no actual empathy; he treats others as simply bodies or objects. And he’s surrounded by a network of subordinates but the personnel is always changing.

Does it sound like I’m describing The President? Because these are, according to Alexandra Stein, qualities of a cult leader.

Hi. My name is Ian Danskin. I’m a video essayist and media artist. I run the YouTube channel Innuendo Studios, the flagship endeavor of which is currently The Alt-Right Playbook, a series on the political and rhetorical strategies the Alt-Right uses to legitimize itself and gain power. And, if that sounds interesting to you, and you haven’t already, please like share and subscribe.

The most recent episode of The Alt-Right Playbook is about how people get recruited into these largely online reactionary communities like the Alt-Right, a subject which, as it turns out, is real fuckin’ hard to research.

What I want to talk about with you today is how I go about studying a population that is incredibly hostile towards being studied. It involves finding the bits and pieces of the Alt-Right that we do have data on - the pockets of good research, the outsider observations, the stories of lived experience - as well as looking at older movements the Alt-Right grew out of, that have been extensively researched, and spotting the ways the Alt-Right is continuous with them, and trying to extrapolate how those structures might recreate themselves in the social media age.

So it’s… a lot. And, in the process of researching, I found a wealth of interesting perspectives that, by focusing the video on recruitment specifically, I barely dipped a toe in. All that stuff is what I’d like to get into with you today. But I’m trying to thread a needle here: you don’t need to have seen my video, How to Radicalize a Normie, to follow this talk, but, if you have seen it already, I will try not to be redundant. This talk is one part making my case for why I think the conclusions in that video are correct, one part repository for all the stuff I couldn’t get into, and one part how I’ve come to look at the Alt-Right as a result of this research, including some pet theories I wouldn’t feel right claiming as truth without further research, but I do think are on the right track.

This talk is called Isolation, Engulfment, and Pain: How the Alt-Right is Like an Abusive Relationship. We’re going to cover a lot of ground, from information processing to emotional development, but we’re necessarily also going to cover racism and violence and abuse dynamics. So this is an introduction and a content warning: if some of these subjects are particularly charged for you, no offense will be taken if you at any point leave the room. I have to research this stuff for a living, and it is rough, and sometimes I have to step away. We don’t judge here.

Now. Requisite dash of self-deprecation: don’t give me too much credit for all this. I am proud of the work I do and I think I’m genuinely good at it, but much of this video was compiling the work of others. Besides research I had already done and my own observations, the video had 27 sources: three books, five research papers, six articles, one leaked document, three testimonials, four videos, four pages of statistics, and one Twitter joke. I also spoke to four professional researchers who study right-wing extremism and one former Alt-Righter.

Without all their hard work, I would have nothing to compile.

OK? Let’s begin.

We’re gonna center on those three main texts: Alt-America by David Neiwert, a history of the Alt-Right’s origins; Healing from Hate by Michael Kimmel, about how young men get into (and out of) extremist groups, be they neo-Nazi or jihadist; and Terror, Love and Brainwashing by Alexandra Stein, about how people are courted by and kept inside cults and totalitarian regimes.

I began with Kimmel. The premise of Healing from Hate is that extremist groups tend to be between 75 and 90% male, and that you cannot understand radical conservatism without looking at it through the lens of toxic masculinity. Which makes it all the more disappointing that Kimmel has been accused by multiple women of bullying and harassment. I found the book incredibly useful, and we’re still going to talk about it, I just need to caveat here that retweets are not endorsements. Also, if I spoil the book for you then you don’t need to buy it, give your money to someone who isn’t a creep.

Kimmel’s argument is that extremism begins with a pain peculiar to young men. He calls it “aggrieved entitlement.” I call it Durden Syndrome. You know that scene in Fight Club where Tyler Durden says, “We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires and movie gods and rockstars, but we won’t, we’re slowly learning that fact, and we are very, very pissed off”? Yeah, that. As men, the world promised us something, and the promise wasn’t kept.

Some men skew towards social progressivism when they realize this promise was never made to women, or men of color, or queer or trans or nonbinary people, and recognize the injustice of that. Some men skew towards economic leftism when they realize that every cishet white man being a millionaire rockstar movie god is mathematically impossible. But they skew towards reactionary conservatism when they feel the promise should have been kept. That’s the life they were supposed to have, and someone took it from them.

Hate groups appeal to that sense of emasculation. “You wanna feel like a Real Man? Shave off your hair, dance to hatecore, and let’s beat the crap out of someone.” Kimmel notes that the greatest indicator someone will join a hate group is a broken home: divorce, foster care, parents with addictions, physical or sexual abuse. The greater the distance between the life they were promised and the life they are living, the more enticing Real Masculinity becomes. Their fellow extremists are brothers, the leaders father figures.

The group does give them someone to blame for their lot in life - immigrants, feminists, the Jewish conspiracy - but that’s not why they join. They’re after empowerment. According to Kimmel, “Their embrace of neo-Nazi ideology is a consequence of their recruitment and indoctrination process, not its cause."

But once an Other has been identified as the locus of a hate group’s hate, new recruits are brought along when the group terrorizes that Other. Events like cross burnings and street fights are dangerous and morally fraught, and are often traumatic for a new recruit. And experiencing an emotional or physical trauma can create an intense bond with the people experiencing it with him, even though they’re the ones who brought him to the traumatic event in the first place. The creation of this bond is one of the reasons some hate groups usher new recruits out into the field as early as possible: the sooner they are emotionally invested in the community, the faster they will embrace the community’s politics.

This Othering also estranges recruits from the people they are supposed to hate, which makes it hard to stop hating them.

So there’s this concept that comes up a lot in my research called Contact Hypothesis. Contact Hypothesis argues that, the more contact you have with a different walk of life, the easier it is to tolerate it. It’s like exposure therapy. We talk about how big cities and college campuses tend to be liberal strongholds; the Right likes to claim this is because of professors and politicians poisoning your mind, but it’s really just because they’re diverse. When you share space with a lot of different kinds of people, a degree of liberalism becomes necessary just to get by. And we see that belief systems which rely on a strict orthodoxy get really cagey about members having contact with outsiders. We see this in all the groups we’re discussing today - extremists, cultists, totalitarians - but also religious fundamentalists; Mormons only wanna send their kids to Brigham Young. They are belief systems that can only be reliably maintained so long as no one gets exposed to other people with other beliefs.

So that’s some of what I took from Kimmel. Next I read Stein talking, primarily, about cults.

Stein’s window into all of this is applying the theory of Attachment Styles to what researchers calls totalism, which is any structure that subsumes a person’s entire life the way cults and totalitarian governments do. Attachment is a concept you may be familiar with if have, or have ever dated, a therapist. (I’ve done both.)

So, for a quick primer:

Imagine you’re walking in the park with a three-year-old. And the three-year-old sees a dog, and ask, “Can I pet the dog?” And you say yes, and the kid steps away from your side and reaches out. And the dog gets excited, and jumps up, and the kid gets scared and runs back to you. So you hold the kid and go, “Oh, no no no, don’t worry! They’re not gonna hurt you! They were just happy to see you!” And you take a few moments to calm the kid down, and then you ask, “Do you still want to pet the dog?” And the kid says “yes,” so they step away from you again and reach out. The dog jumps up again, but this time the kid doesn’t run away, and they pet the dog, and you, the kid, and the dog are all happy. Hooray!

This is a fundamental piece of a child’s emotional development. They take a risk, have a negative experience, and retreat to a point of comfort. Then, having received that comfort, feel bolstered enough to take a slightly greater risk. A healthy childhood is steadily venturing further and further from that point of comfort, and taking on greater risks, secure in the knowledge that safety is there when they need it. And, as an adult, they will form many interdependent points of comfort rather than relying on only one or two.

If all goes according to plan, that is Secure Attachment. But: sometimes things go wrong when the kid seeks comfort and doesn’t get enough. This may be because the adult is withholding or the kid doesn’t know how to express their needs or they’re just particularly fearful. But the kid may start seeking comfort more than seems reasonable, and be particularly averse to risk, and over-focus on the people who give them comfort, because they’re operating at a deficit. We call that Anxious Attachment. Alternately, the kid may give up on receiving comfort altogether, even though they still need it, and just go it alone, developing a distrust of other people and a fear of being vulnerable. We call that Avoidant Attachment.

Now, these styles are all formed in early childhood, but Stein focuses on a fourth kind of Attachment, one that can be formed at any age regardless of the Attachment Style you came in with. It’s what happens when the negative experience and the comfort come from the same place. We see it in children and adults who are mistreated by the people they trust. It’s called Disorganized Attachment.

According to Stein, cults foster Disorganized Attachment by being intensely unpredictable. In a cult, you may be praised for your commitment on Monday and have your commitment questioned on Tuesday, with no change in behavior. You may be assigned a romantic partner, who may, at any point, be taken away, assigned to someone else. Your children may be taken from you to be raised by a different family. You may be told the cult leader wants to sleep with you, which may make you incredibly happy or be terrifying, but you won’t be given a choice. And the rules you are expected to follow will be rewritten without warning.

This creates a kind of emotional chaos, where you can’t predict when you will be given good feelings and when you will be given bad ones. But you’re so enmeshed in the community you have noplace else to go for good feelings; hurting you just draws you in deeper, because they are also where you seek comfort. And your pain is always your fault: you wouldn’t feel so shitty if you were more committed. Trying to make sense of this causes so much confusion and anguish that you eventually just stop thinking for yourself. These are the rules now? OK. He’s not my brother anymore? OK. This is my life now? OK.

Hardly anyone would seek out such a dynamic, which is why cults present as religions, political activists, and therapy groups; things people in questioning phases of their lives are liable to seek out, and then they fall down the rabbit hole before they know what’s happening. The cult slowly consumes more and more of a recruit’s life, and tightly controls access to relationships outside the cult, because the biggest threat to a Disorganized Attachment relationship is having separate, Securely Attached points of comfort.

And at this point I said, “Hold up. You’re telling me cults recruit by offering people community and purpose in times of need, become the focal point of their entire lives, estrange them from all outside perspectives, and then cause emotional distress that paradoxically makes them more committed because they have nowhere else to go for support?”

Isn’t that exactly how Kimmel described joining a hate group?

Now, these are commonalities, not a one-to-one comparison. A cult is far more organized and rigidly controlled than a hate group. But Stein points out that this dynamic of isolation, engulfment, and pain is the same dynamic as an abusive relationship. The difference is just scale. A cult is functionally a single person having a very complex domestic abuse situation with a whole lot of people, #badpolyamory.

So if we posit a spectrum with domestic abuse on one end and cults and totalitarianism on the other, I started wondering, could we put extremist groups, like ISIS and Aryan Nations, around… here?

And, if so, where would we put the Alt-Right?

Now, I have to tread carefully here. There are reasons this talk is called “How the Alt-Right is Like an Abusive Relationship” and not “How the Alt-Right is Like a Cult,” because the moment you say the second thing, a lot of people stop listening to you. Our conception of cults and totalitarianism is way more controlled and structured than a pack of loud, racist assholes on the internet. But we’re not talking about organizational structure, we’re talking about a relationship, an emotional dynamic Stein calls “anxious dependency,” which fosters an irrational loyalty to people who are bad for you and gets you to adopt an ideology you would have previously rejected. (I would also love to go on a rant puncturing the idea that cultists and fascists are organized, pointing out this notion is propaganda and their systems are notoriously corrupt and mismanaged, but we don’t have time; ask me about it in the Q&A if you want me to go off.)

So I started looking through what I knew, and what I could find, about the Alt-Right to see if I could spot this same pattern of isolation, engulfment, and pain online funneling people towards the Alt-Right. And I did not come up short.

Isolation? Well, the Alt-Right traffics in all the same dehumanizing narratives about their enemies as Kimmel’s hate groups - like, the worst things you can imagine a human being saying about a group of people are said every day in these forums. They often berate and harass each other for any perceived sympathy towards The Other Side. They also regularly harass people from The Other Side off of platforms, and falsely report their tweets, posts, and videos as terrorism to get them taken down. (This has happened to me, incidentally.) I found figureheads adored by the Alt-Right who expressly tell people to cut ties with liberal family members.

We talked before about Contact Hypothesis? There’s also this idea called Parasocial Contact Hypothesis. A parasocial relationship is a strong emotional connection that only goes one way, like if you really love my videos and have started thinking of me almost as a friend even though I don’t know you exist? Yeah. Parasocial relationship. They’ve been in The Discourse lately, largely thanks to my friend Shannon Strucci making a really great video about them (check it out, I make a cameo, but… clear your schedule). Parasocial Contact Hypothesis is this phenomenon where, if people form parasocial feelings for public figures or even fictional characters, and those people happen to be Black, white audience members become less racist similar to how they would if they had Black friends. Your logical brain knows that these are strangers, but your lizard brain doesn’t know the difference between empathy for a queer friend and empathy for a queer character in a video game. So of course the Alt-Right makes a big stink about queer characters in video games, and leads boycotts against “forced diversity,” because diverse media is bad for recruitment.

Engulfment? Well, I learned way too much about how the Alt-Right will overtake your entire internet life. There was a paper made the rounds last year by Rebecca Lewis charting the interconnectedness of conservative YouTube. (Reactionaries really hated this paper because it said things they didn’t like.) Lewis argues that, once you enter what she calls the Alternative Influence Network, it tends to keep you inside it. Start with some YouTuber conservatives like but who’s branded as a moderate, or even a “classic liberal.” Take someone like Dave Rubin; call Dave Rubin Alt-Right, people yell at you, I speak from experience. Well, Dave Rubin’s had Jordan Peterson on his show, so, if you watch Rubin, Peterson ends up in your recommendations. Peterson has been on the Joe Rogan show, so, you watch Peterson, Rogan ends up in your recommendations. And Rogan has interviewed Gavin McInnes, so you watch Rogan and McInnes ends up in your recommendations.

Gavin McInnes is the head of the Proud Boys, a self-described “western chauvinist” organization that’s mostly known for beating up liberals and leftists. They have ties to neo-fascist groups like Identity Evropa and neo-fascist militias like the Oath Keepers, they run security for white nationalists, and their lawyer just went on record that he identifies as a fascist. And, if you’re one of these kids who has YouTube in the background with autoplay on, and you’re watching Dave Rubin? You might be as few as 3 videos away from watching Gavin McInnes.

There’s a lot of talk these days about algorithms funneling people towards the Right, and that’s not wrong, but it’s an oversimplification. The real problem is that the Right knows how to hijack an algorithm.

I also learned about the Curation/Search Radicalization Spiral from a piece by Mike Caulfield. Caulfiend uses the horrific example of Dylann Roof. You remember him? He shot up a church in a Black neighborhood a few years ago. Roof says he was radicalized when he googled “Black on white crime” and saw the results. Now, if you search the phrase “crime statistics by demographic,” you will find fairly nonpartisan results that show most crimes are committed against members of the perpetrator’s own race, and Black people commit crimes against white people at about the same rate as any other two demographics. But that specific phrase, “Black on white crime,” is used almost exclusively by white racists, and so Roof’s first hit wasn’t a database of crime statistics, it was the Council of Conservative Citizens. Now, the CCC is an outgrowth of the White Citizens Councils of the 50’s and 60’s which rebranded in ‘85. They publish bogus statistics that paint Black people as uniquely violent. And they introduce a number of other politically-loaded phrases - like, say, “Muslim fertility rates” - that nonpartisan sites don’t use, and so, if Roof googles them as well, he gets similarly weighted results.

I have tons more examples of this stuff. I literally don’t have time to show it all. Like, have you heard of Google bombing? That’s a thing I didn’t know existed. The point is, the same way search engines tailor your results to what they think you want, once you scratch the surface of the Alt-Right they are highly adept at making it so, whenever you go online, their version of reality is all you know and all you see.

Finally, pain. This was the difficult one. Can you create a Disorganized Attachment relationship over the internet with a largely faceless and decentralized movement? I pitched the idea to one the researchers I spoke to, and he said, “That sounds very plausible, and nearly impossible to research.” See, cults and hate groups? They don’t wanna talk to researchers anymore than the Alt-Right wants to talk to me. Stein and Kimmel get their data by speaking to formers, people who’ve exited these movements and are all too happy to share how horrible they were. But the Alt-Right is still very young, and there just aren’t that many formers yet.

I found some testimonials, and they mostly back up my hypothesis, but there’s not enough that I could call them statistically significant. So I had to look where the data was.

My fellow YouTuber ContraPoints made a video last year - in my opinion, her best one - about incels (that’s “involuntary celibate,” men who can’t get laid). Incel forums tend to be deeply misogynistic and antifeminist, and have a high overlap with the Alt-Right. If you remember Elliot Rodger, he was an incel. Contra’s observation was that these forums were incredibly fatalistic: you are too ugly and women too shallow for you to ever have sex, so you should give up. She described a certain catharsis, like picking a really painful scab, in hearing other people voice your worst fears. But there was no uplift; these communities seemed to have a zero-tolerance policy for optimism. She likened it so some deeply unhealthy trans forums she used to visit, where people wallowed in their own dysphoria.

And I remembered the forums I researched five years ago in preparation for my video on GamerGate. (If you don’t know what GamerGate was, I will not rob you of your precious innocence. But, in a lot of ways, GamerGate was the trial run for what the Alt-Right has become.) These forums were full of angry guys surrounding themselves with people saying, “You’re right to be angry.” And, yeah, if everywhere else you go treats your anger as invalid, that scratches an itch. But I never saw any of them calm down. They came in angry and they came out angrier. And most didn’t have anywhere else to vent, so they all came back.

I found a paper on Alt-Right forums that described a similar type of nihilism, and another on 8chan. What humor was on these sites was always shocking, furiously punching down, and deeply self-referential, but it didn’t seem like anyone was expected to laugh anymore, just, you know, catch the reference. I found one testimonial saying that having healthy relationships in these spaces is functionally impossible, and the one former I talked to said, yeah, when the Alt-Right isn’t winning everyone’s miserable.

So I think it might fit. The place they go for relief also makes them unhappy, so they come back to get relief again, and it just repeats. Same reason people stay with abusers. I wanna look into this further, so, I’ll just say this part to the camera: if there are any researchers watching who wanna study this, get at me.

Finally, I read Alt-America by David Neiwert, a supremely useful book that I highly recommend if you wanna know how the Alt-Right is the natural outgrowth of the militia and Patriot movements of the 90’s and early 2000’s, not to mention the Tea Party. Neiwert also does an excellent job illustrating how conspiracism serves to fill in the gap between the complexity of the modern world and the simplistic, might-makes-right worldview of fascism.

Neiwert also provides an interesting piece of the puzzle, suggesting what people are actually looking for when they get recruited. He references work done by John Bargh and Katelyn McKenna on Identity Demarginalization. Bargh and McKenna looked at the internet habits of people whose identities are both devalued in our society and invisible. By invisible, what I mean is, ok, if you’re a person of color, our society devalues your identity, but you can look around a room and, within a certain margin of error, see who else is POC, and form community with them if you wish. But, if you’re queer, you can’t see who else in a room is queer unless one of you runs up a flag. And revealing yourself always means taking on a certain amount of risk that you’ve misread the signals, that the person you reveal yourself to is not only not queer, but a homophobe.

According to Bargh and McKenna, people in this situation are much more likely to seek online spaces that self-select for that identity. A fan forum for RuPaul’s Drag Race is maybe a safer place to come out and find community. And people tend to get very emotionally tied to these online spaces where they can be themselves.

Neiwert points out that the same phenomenon happens among privileged people who have identities that are devalued even as they’re not actually oppressed. Say, nerds, or conservatives in liberal towns, or men who don’t fit traditional notions of masculinity. They are also likely to deeply invest themselves in online spaces made for them. And if the Far Right can build such a community, or get a foothold in one that already exists, it is very easy to channel that sense of marginalization into Durden Syndrome. I connected this with Rebecca Lewis’ observation that the Alternative Influence Network tends to present itself as nerd-focused life advice first and politics second, and the long history of reactionaries recruiting from fandoms.

So I can see all the pieces of the abuse dynamic being recreated here: offer you something you need, estrange you from other perspectives and healthy relationships, overtake your life, and provoke emotional distress that makes you seek comfort only your abuser is offering. And I found a lot more parallels than what I’m sharing right now, I only have half an hour! But the thing that’s missing that’s usually central to such a system is, an abusive relationship orbits around the abuser, a cult around the cult leader, a totalitarian government around a dictator. They are built to serve the whims of an individual. But I look at the ad hoc nature of the Alt-Right and I have to ask: who is the architect?

I can see a lot of people profiting off of this structure; our current President rode it to great success, but he didn’t build it. It predates him. It’s more like Kimmel’s hate groups, which don’t promote an individual so much as a class of individuals, but, even then, their structure is much more deliberate, designed, where the Alt-Right seems almost improvised.

Well… one observation I took from Stein is that cult recruiters often rely on two different kinds of propaganda: the winding diatribe and the thought-terminating cliche. The diatribe is when someone talks at length, sounds smart, and seems to know what they’re talking about but isn’t actually making sense, and the thought-terminating cliche comes from Robert Jay Lifton’s studies into brainwashing. So, I went vegetarian in middle school, and, when I would tell other kids I was vegetarian, some would get kind of defensive and say things like, “humans aren’t meant to be vegetarian, it’s the food chain.” Now, saying “it’s the food chain” isn’t meant to be a good argument, it’s meant to communicate “I have said something so axiomatically true that the argument need not continue.” That’s a thought-terminating cliche; something that may not be true, but feels true and gives you permission to think about something else.

Both these techniques rely on what’s called Peripheral-Route Processing. So, I’m up here talking about politics, and, Solidarity Lowell, you are a group of politically-engaged people, so you probably have enough context to know whether I’m talking out of my ass. That’s Direct-Route Processing, where you judge the contents of my argument. But if I were up here talking about string theory, you might not know whether I was talking out of my ass because there’s only so many people on Earth who understand string theory. So then you might look at secondary characteristics of my argument: the fact that I’ve been invited to speak on string theory implies I know what I’m talking about; maybe I put up a lot of equations and drop the names of mathematicians and say they agree with me; maybe I just sound really authoritative. All that’s Peripheral-Route Processing: judging the quality of my argument by how it’s delivered.

Every act of communication involves both, but if you’re trying to sell people on something that’s fundamentally irrational, you’re going to rely heavily on Peripheral-Route tactics, which is what the winding diatribe and the thought-terminating cliche are.

I noted that these two methods mapped pretty cleanly onto the rhetorical stylings of Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro. But here’s the question: cults use these techniques to recruit people. But can I say with any confidence that Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro are trying to recruit people into the Alt-Right?

The thing is, “Alt-Right” isn’t a term like “klansman.” It’s more akin to a term like “modernism.” It’s a label applied to a trend. In the same way we debate the line between modernism and postmodernism, we debate the line between Right and Alt-Right. People don’t sign up to be in the Alt-Right, you are Alt-Right if you say you’re Alt-Right. But the nature of the Alt-Right is that 90% of them would never admit to it.

So are Peterson and Shapiro intentionally recruiting for the Alt-Right? Are they grifters merely profiting off of the Alt-Right? Are they even aware they’re recruiting for the Alt-Right? Part of my work has been accepting that you can’t know for sure. It would be naive to say they’re unaware; when they give speeches they get Nazis in their Q&A sections, and they know that. But how aware are they? I suspect Shapiro moreso than Peterson, but that’s just my gut talking and I can’t prove it. Like 90% of the Alt-Right, it’s debatable.

I don’t know if they’re trying to be part of this system, I just know they’re not trying not to be.

A final academic term before we say goodnight that’s been making the rounds among lefty YouTubers is “Stochastic Terrorism.” There’s a really great video about this by the channel NonCompete called The PewDiePipeline. Stochastic Terrorism is the myriad ways you can increase the likelihood that someone will commit violence without actually telling them to. You simply create an environment in which lone wolf violence becomes more acceptable and appealing. It mirrors the structure of terrorism without the control or culpability.

And I hear about this, and I look at this recruitment structure I see approximated in the Alt-Right, and I remember something I learned much earlier in my research, from Bob Altemeyer in his book The Authoritarians. Altemeyer has been studying authoritarianism for decades, he has a wealth of data, and one thing he observes is that authoritarianism is the few exerting power over the many, which means there are two types of authoritarians: the ones who lead and the ones who follow. Turns out those are completely different personality profiles. Followers don’t want to be in charge, they want someone to tell them what to do, to say “you’re the good guys,” and put them in charge of punishing the bad guys. They don’t even care who the bad guys are; part of the appeal is that someone else makes that judgment for them.

So if you can encourage a degree of authoritarian sentiment in people, get them wanting nothing more than to be ensconced in a totalist system that will take their agency away from them, putting them in the orbit of an authoritarian leader, but no leader presents themself… can you just kind of… appoint one?

Like, if you don’t have a leader, can you just find yourself an authoritarian and treat him like one? And, if he doesn’t give you enough directives, can you just make some up? And, if you don’t have recruiters, can you find a conservative who speaks in thought-terminating cliches just because he thinks they win arguments; find a conservative who speaks in meaningless diatribes because he thinks he’s making sense; and then maneuver those speeches and videos in front of people you want to recruit? If you’re sick of waiting for Moses to come down the mountain with the Word of God, can you just build your own god from whatever’s handy?

Every piece of this structure, you can find people, algorithms, and arguments that, put in sequence, can generate Disorganized Attachment whether they’re trying to or not, which makes every part plausibly deniable. Debatable. You just need to make it profitable enough for the ones involved that they don’t fix it. This is a system created collaboratively, on the fly, with the help of a lot of people from hate movements past, mostly by throwing a ton of shit at the wall and seeing what sticks. The Alt-Right is a rapidly-mutating virus and the web is the perfect incubator; it very quickly finds a structure that works, and it’s a structure we’ve seen before, just a little weirder this time.

I’ve started calling this Stochastic Totalism.

Now, again, I’m not a professional researcher; I do my homework but I don’t have the background. I have an art degree. This isn’t something I can prove so much as a way I’ve come to look at the Alt-Right that makes sense to me and helps me understand them. And I got a lot of comments on my last video from people who used to be Alt-Right that echoed my assumptions. But don’t take it as gospel.

Mostly I wanted to share this because, if it can help you make sense of what we’re dealing with, I think it’s worth putting out there.

Thank you.

[ravenbrenna09]

Jij Verliest - Chapter One: Clip #1

master list teaser

...

Zaterdag 9:31

Lying awake in his bed, Robbe could hear the gentle shuffling of the flatshare in the morning.

Across the hall, the adjacent bedroom door opened and closed quietly. The floorboards creaked as someone made their way towards the kitchen (likely Zoë, his tired mind realized). Sunlight spilled in from the bay window in Robbe’s room. Due to the position of his bed against the opposite wall, he was free from the sun’s rays for a little while longer, but he was still wide awake. But the sun shined on everything else in his room; his untouched surfboard tucked behind his dresser, the skateboard against the windowsill. It even managed to touch his desk, positioned in the corner, with his two monitors and game systems, which still looked the same as Robbe left it last night, a little messy and disorganized from his late-night Friday stream.

Laying on his bed while his music lightly played a song that he mostly tuned out, Robbe could still hear the chatter of the growing crowd beneath his window, increasing in volume as time drew on and more and more people left the safety of their apartments to bask in the sunshine. Somewhere near the kitchen, he could hear the distant chatter of Milan and Zoë in the kitchen and the static of the television as someone flipped it on. All around him, the world signaled that it was time for Robbe to drag himself out of bed, to make sure that everything was going as it was meant to, and to get some food before he prepared for his afternoon stream or did some homework for the upcoming week.

But Robbe stayed planted in his bed, his gray sheets twisted around his waist, and twirling his phone in his head, unable to will himself to roll out of the comfort it provided. His alarm clock on the nightside next to his bed flashed bright red numbers—9:31—at him and the chatter in the kitchen had gotten louder. The smell of Milan’s favorite coffee filled the air, wafting into his bedroom, along with the sound of sizzling food as all three of his roommates chattered in the kitchen.  

But Robbe just felt empty. 

In the past three months, the world had carried on in a way that Robbe expected it to, just moving along on the continuous cycle that life crafted for them. But, somehow, he felt stuck—his feet cemented into the floor as the rest of the world spun around him like a tornado. The reality of the situation is that Robbe was stuck because the world had moved on. His friends had moved on, and they tried to bring him along with them, but Robbe always found himself doubling back, circling back around to the constant in his life that he felt was missing from his new present. 

Thomas.

Thomas Martens was Robbe’s boyfriend of a year and six months. While not the first man that Robbe had ever been with, Thomas had been, fundamentally, Robbe’s first serious relationship. All of his other boyfriends (and, in parts of high school, girlfriends) had only lasted a couple of months or less. It was nothing serious, just a few dates here and there, texts, maybe some risky ones, and then they would just split apart. Sometimes, it was mutual. Sometimes, it was circumstantial. Sometimes, it was Robbe’s brain exploding inside his skull. But they’d separate and move past the fork in the road that was the end of the relationship. 

With Thomas, it had been his first real relationship. Thomas had met his mother and they had gotten along swimmingly. Robbe had met his family and Thomas’s little sister half-demanded that Robbe would help her with her science homework every time he would come over. All of their friends got along well (with the exception of Jens who, in private, admitted that Robbe could do better). Their relationship was peaceful—some arguments, no fights that shook the walls, and they had even considered possibly moving in together after they reached the two-year mark. Their relationship was almost perfect. 

Almost.

Somewhere, the foundation of their relationship had cracked. Robbe could feel Thomas starting to pull away and his job was forcing him to stay at work later and later. It had frightened Robbe, because he had witnessed his father slowly pulling away until he walked out the door and his mother hit the hardest rock-bottom that she ever would. Without really meaning to, Robbe clung a little tighter to Thomas and their relationship. He subconsciously tried to be everything that Thomas needed, but he couldn’t—they weren’t working the same anymore, and so about three months ago, they had broken it off. 

While Robbe was still deeply rooted in the epicenter of the twisting tornado of change, Thomas had glided across the gales with an elegant ease that Robbe was jealous of. His ex-boyfriend had moved on, deleting his pictures with Robbe across all social media platforms, and going out with his friends more and more (or, even if he was trying his best to ignore it, at least that’s what his Instagram led him to believe). The only thing that remained of their relationship was the box of Thomas’s things in the corner of his bedroom, spilling with clothes that he had left at Robbe’s, which he still hadn’t come to collect. 

The thought of Thomas caused Robbe’s heart to give a frightening squeeze. He closed his eyes, trying to will away the thoughts of their relationship, the moments that Robbe still clung to, the ones that were still at the forefront of Robbe’s mind. But the harder he tried to push them away, the more intense they came back into focus, swirling around in his mind’s eye as if they were happening right now. Thomas coming over after work on Friday to be with him, his gentle kisses when Robbe was stressed about school work, his warm embrace that wrapped around Robbe like a blanket, his-

Knock, knock. 

The gentle knock pulled Robbe from his thoughts, bringing him hurtling back into his bedroom, no Thomas in sight, on a quiet Saturday morning. Beneath the crack of the door, he could see someone was standing outside of it. For a moment, he thought about acting like he was asleep, like he hadn’t woken up quite yet so he could lay in bed for another hour, but Zoë spoke up, “Robbe? We made breakfast if you wanted to come to join us.”

“Okay,” Robbe said, hearing the sadness in his voice. He tried to swallow down the bubble in his throat and ignore that it had ever existed. When he spoke again, his voice was clearer than it had been the first time. “I’ll be out in a second.”

“Alright,” Zoë said. He could hear Zoë shift away from the door, the floorboards creaking beneath her weight as she moved away, before she added, “I’ll try to make sure that the boys don’t eat all of the pancakes before you have a chance to get some.” 

“Thanks, Zoë,” Robbe said. A smile made its way across his face as he pushed himself off the bed. 

Pulling a pair of sweats from his dresser, he quickly slipped them over his boxers. Then, he grabbed his green hoodie from the back of his desk chair and pulled it over his head. Once he felt appropriately dressed—not like it mattered all that much with his roommates who were practically family—he stepped out of his bedroom and softly closed the door behind him. He shuffled to the kitchen, where he found all three of his roommates sitting at the table, talking as they passed food around. 

Robbe watched as Zoë rolled her eyes while Milan recounted a story of something or another. Milan spotted Robbe, grinning from ear-to-ear as he greeted, “Robbe!” He jumped to his feet and moved to pull Robbe into a tight hug. It was something that Milan always did; a constant stream of tactile affection without a thought. But today, it felt different. Robbe briefly sunk into Milan’s warm hug, wrapping his arms tight around him. Soon, the older man pulled back, grabbing him squarely by the shoulders and steering him to the table. Milan practically forced Robbe into the only unclaimed chair as he said, “Come join us!”

Zoë was sitting beside his newfound seat, wrapped up in a large grey hoodie with her platinum-blonde hair tied up in a ponytail. After placing two or three pancakes onto a plate, she handed it over to Robbe with a small smile on her face. 

“I’d hurry up if I were you. Lucas has his eye on the rest of them and he might just leap across the table and fight you for them.”

The final member of their small little family, and Milan’s cousin, Lucas van Der Heijden, looked absolutely appalled that she would say such a thing. Of the four, he was the one who looked like he had just rolled out of bed with his light brown curls messed up and pointing in all directions. He was wearing a large oversized red sweater that Robbe would bet was his boyfriend’s. Jens was Robbe’s best friend. He would know. 

“Hey,” he spoke, pointing his fork at Zoë dramatically. “I am not that bad… and it’s not my fault that your pancakes are to kill for.”

Milan laughed, shaking his head.

Zoë chuckled. Despite his earlier thoughts of Thomas, Robbe could feel a smile form on his lips as he placed the top two pancakes on his own plate. Once he was finished, Lucas made a child-like grabbing gesture with his hands and Robbe reached across the table to place the plate of remaining pancakes in his hands. Lucas grinned brightly at him and began cutting into his food. 

“Did you sleep well?” Zoë asked, raising an eyebrow at Robbe. “You were up pretty late last night.”

Robbe shrugged. “Yeah, I got about as much sleep as I could’ve gotten with a late-night stream that ran a little late because I wasn’t looking at the time,” Robbe admitted, taking a bit of his pancake. He turned towards Zoë, who was nodding her head. “Did I wake you up?”

Zoë shook her head adamantly. “No, you did really well sound-proofing your room. I just happened to wake up to go to the restroom and saw that your light was still on.” Robbe nodded, taking another bite of his food. “And I know that you’ve been streaming a lot lately.”

“Don’t worry, Zoë,” Lucas spoke up. “Robbe’s always one to know where his limits lie. In the time that I’ve known him anyway.” Robbe sent Lucas a thankful grin and the blond nodded his head in his direction. Between them, Milan sent them a knowing smile. “But do you feel like skating this afternoon? I don’t know if you’ve been listening to Aaron’s ramblings at lunch but he is absolutely convinced that he’s mastered a new move and he wants to show everyone.” 

“Really?” Robbe asked. 

“Yeah,” Lucas said, shrugging nonchalantly. “We’ll see if he ends up landing flat on his face or not. Wanna come?”

Glancing down at his food and shoving another bite into his mouth, Robbe thought about his unused skateboard, which had been sitting there since he last went skating by himself a few weeks ago.

Since he started doing late-night streams on Friday nights—one of his many (failed) attempts to push the absence of Thomas from his mind, from his life—he hadn’t been able to attend the Broerrrs Saturday morning skating competitions because he had stayed up too late and needed more sleep. He tried to make up for it by hanging out with them throughout the week, but his new schedule had reduced their time together significantly. That had been on purpose, to have as little free time as possible, so he wouldn’t have to think about Thomas, but it had the unintended consequence of limiting the time he spent with his friends. 

“Yeah, I’d love to come,” he said. Robbe could feel the lingering exhaustion that was present in every bone and molecule in his body, screaming at him for more sleep. But missing his friends outweighed his exhaustion. The four of them (five, counting Lucas) had lunch together on campus regularly. But hanging out for the 30-minute lunch before classes started was different than going to the skatepark on Saturday mornings to laugh and have fun. 

“Really?” Lucas said with a grin as his bright blue eyes lit up. 

“Yeah,” Robbe replied, grinning as well. Lucas’s smile had always been quite infectious. “I’m a little tired and a bit out of it, but I miss going skating with you guys. What time did they want to meet up?”

clip 2 (zaterdag 12:41)

[angerissue]

Anonymous asked… What is your take on Bruce Banner's love interest? Whether we’re mutuals or not, feel free to ask me about Bruce!

Oh, this is a good question, and something I haven’t discussed in months. Thanks for asking it!

This version of Bruce is hopelessly in love with Betty Ross. He’ll always love her, even if they’re miles apart, and both of them have moved on and dismissed the hopes of seeing each other again. Even if Bruce were to meet someone else, his feelings for her would remain in perpetuity.

I’ve written some headcanons with someone (she's no longer on tumblr, sadly) where Bruce and Betty met in a library during their university years, and the whole dynamic was very much a friends-to-romance one. Their earlier interactions were essentially the "study buddies" kind, and I imagine it was the combination of their shared work and interests, and the comfortability in talking about that stuff, that snowballed into other conversations and ultimately, a romantic relationship. And it continued up until Bruce's accident.

This pairing has always been very special to me because, unlike the others, Betty was the first person to see a far more vulnerable side of Bruce. Bruce has always been an extremely closed-off and reticent person; he hates revealing too much about himself because he feels this information could be abused somehow; that somebody would take issue with what he was telling them, just like how Brian would react vehemently whenever he watched educational children’s television shows, or played with certain toys. Betty was the first person that Bruce felt comfortable enough to open up to, in multiple manners. Not only would he discuss Brian with her (granted, sometimes he didn’t say much, but even dropping a few tiny mentions of Brian was huge for him), but he also felt like he could simply be himself around her. He didn’t need to keep his guard up around Betty like he did around other people. He was still sky, awkward, and nerdy around Betty, but he could voice his opinions more confidently in her presence. And the adaptation I've been writing with; she’s a slightly more modern version of the character — soft and gentle, but she has a temper of her own and a tangible boldness in certain situations, and it can be a subtle juxtaposition to Bruce’s own personality at times. It’s quite lovely.  

There are other aspects of the relationship, here and there, that I also love. In "The Incredible Hulk" (2008), Betty could swear that she saw some aspect of Bruce in the Hulk, and Bruce refused to accept such a possibility at first, because he believed the Hulk was a sentient and autonomous being — a belief that had grown over the years, predominantly because of his immense guilt and an unconscious desire to reduce his sense of culpability. If the Hulk somehow wasn’t him, its destructive actions were no longer entirely his fault. But after the Chitauri invasion, at which point he was able to remember his actions as the Hulk, and self-assess his behaviour in that state, Bruce realized she was correct about everything. If it wasn’t for Betty and the statement she made, he may not have fully accepted the Hulk as a part of himself — as himself, and he would’ve been stuck in denial for years. Lots of his development can be attributed to Betty, even if they aren’t in touch anymore.

Not only this, but Bruce met Betty during a time where he hadn’t experienced all his hardships with Ross. He was nowhere near as world-weary, and while he didn’t trust people much back then, either, it was better than his tendencies nowadays. In that sense, Betty is one of his last few connections to the past, and a time when he was more hopeful and innocent.

But while Bruce can control his condition now, he hasn’t reconnected with Betty. She's been in the dark ever since the Harlem incident, save for glimpses of him on the news here and there.

Bruce does want to see Betty again. He would love to see her. But he’s made some personal discoveries related to his condition that convinced him he’s not a good fit for her, or anyone in general. He doesn’t see himself as completely human anymore, which has become even more of a tangible sentiment ever since his transformations became a typical and even daily occurrence. As a result, there are some philosophical quandaries that prevent him from resuming a romantic relationship with her, or with anyone else. Given his current development trajectory, he would be the Hulk almost constantly in later verses. It’s not an ideal scenario to create a potential relationship from — especially with Betty, because he’s unable to meet some of her needs when he's the Hulk. Additionally, he cannot guarantee Betty’s safety with Ross still around, because he doesn’t know if Ross is still looking for a way to capture him. He suspects there were times in the past when Ross backed off temporarily, like after the Chitauri invasion, because capturing the Hulk at that time would have caused a huge public outcry, but nowadays, he’s unsure where Ross’ intentions lie. He's unwilling to take the risk.

All this being said, Bruce doesn’t expect Betty to remain loyal to him, or vice versa, because he understands the necessity of moving on and not dwelling on the past. It would be melancholic if Bruce discovered that Betty had met someone new, yes (this was certainly the case with Leonard Samson), but ultimately, he would be happy for her, and he’d tell himself that his own feelings don’t matter if it means she’s content and safe. Of course, there is always the possibility that Banner could reach out with letters, or another kind of communication channel. And it's possible that if Ross was gone and the world was more settled, he would meet her in-person, even if he didn't intend to restart a romantic relationship. At that point, there’s nothing stopping them from sharing their work and collaborating professionally, too. This kind of interaction could eventually become the norm. But I don’t really see their relationship shifting to a romantic one again.

So I suppose in the end, I don’t see their relationship as having a cliché happy ending, in the sense that they end up together, are happily married, and are living in their own little cottage somewhere. I see it as a mature progression from young love, to a failed effort to make things work in a terrible situation, and then an acceptance of knowing, while their situation has improved, it’s still not going to work out. And they both have the courage to run with things and make the best of it. Betty would be understanding of Bruce’s situation, as she’s always been, and in concurrence, Bruce would be happy as well, because he knows Betty can have a romantic relationship with someone who completely presents as human. They can still work together too, which is a callback to how their relationship first began in the library. And it continues to build on all the trust and confidence they initially showed each other, and continued to show each other, over the years.

So it’s very bittersweet.

I’m also going to mention the pairing of Bruce and Natasha, because I need to assert that I do enjoy this ship! As a matter of fact, it’s something I’ve enjoyed for years and years. I was one of the wierdos who was shipping them soon after the release of The Avengers, earlier than most to the point where the tag was completely blank. I guess for me, there was something unique about their dynamic in The Avengers that stood out from Bruce’s other interactions. Natasha was ordered to approach the doctor in Kolkata, and at that point, she had seen the Hulk's capabilities in-person during her involvement in the Culver University incident. Her distrust of Bruce and his alter ego was justified, especially given her personal experiences with everything, and while it may (or may not) have lessened over the course of the film, Natasha clearly came to respect Bruce at the very least, and she understood the benefits of not only putting his intellect to good use, but the Hulk itself. During the final battle, Bruce had come on his own volition and was fully prepared to transform, but she still made the active effort to tell him the Hulk was valuable. Given her past experiences with the Hulk, this meant a lot coming from her. And it's clear this wasn't just a "tactical" choice on her part; if she didn't say anything, the outcome wouldn't have been any different. This was a nice way to end the film and create a foundation for their future development between them. If their relationship continued to open up, I could certainly see them developing feelings for each other.

But the next film... Eugh. I was gravely disappointed by the sudden schoolgirl-crush syndrome that Natasha was demonstrating, which was unrealistic in itself (I'll explain my reasoning in a bit), and the total handwaving of everything that led up to it, which ultimately did nothing but break Natasha’s character and make it difficult for most of the audience to accept what was happening. Because... What initially made Natasha go from having a reluctant admiration for him, to downright falling for him? We did not see the process, or the catalysts. They had jumped from Point A to Point Y, and we saw nothing of the points in between. So the whole thing immediately fell apart for me.

A common argument I see in defense of Natasha’s behaviour is, simply put, she’s in love, so it’s natural for her to act a little kooky. However, love doesn’t have the effect of completely negating deeply-ingrained character aspects, especially fundamental traits. And Natasha has many traits that are the complete antithesis of how she was behaving in that movie. It’s the same as seeing Christopher Nolan's Bruce Wayne, a normally close-mouthed and subtle character, gushing, nudging up to, and grinning like a little boy around Rachel Dawes. It doesn’t make sense... So why is it suddenly acceptable for Natasha?

In that sense, I could also presume that Natasha’s behaviour was Joss Whedon’s misogynistic projection of how he, himself, believes a woman in love should behave. There’s a real possibility, given how Natasha was characterized in earlier MCU films, versus how she was acting in this movie, that Whedon threw out her characterization in favour of playing out a fantasy; a stereotype. And unluckily for him, that stereotype (as the word itself implies) does not fit all people or characters. So it was noticeable, and not in a good way.

And honestly... I’m disappointed that this disaster has caused so many people to discount the ship as a whole, even though that film was simply one poor adaptation of it. People also tend to dismiss the pairing because they believe Bruce and Natasha are too different. But they both have trust issues. They both have experiences where they’ve been used for other peoples’ goals. Natasha has seen a very vulnerable and intimate side of Bruce that most people never have (that look he gave her before he transformed on the helicarrier, honestly, was completely unlike the self-composure he obsessively tried to convey in all their prior interactions)... And frankly, I'm sick of hearing about the “age gap” between them, because my aunt and uncle were twelve years apart, and they were happily married for decades. Not to mention, Bruce and Natasha have been through countless hardships, and they probably have a lot more common ground than many people with an “age gap”.

So if things were properly written? That would have been phenomenal, I think. The potential was certainly there in the first movie; it’s just a shame those foundations were ignored and not directly built on.

But that’s enough salt from me!

As for this Bruce in particular... I can see him having a relationship with Natasha in the earlier part of his timeline, before the Sokovia incident occurred. There would've been a lot of opportunities for their relationship to develop, especially because Bruce wasn't just working with the Avengers; he joined S.H.I.E.L.D. and was working on the same helicarrier as Natasha for around a year, too. He would've avoided her a lot, but I can easily see Natasha approaching him eventually, or them running into each other and trying to reconcile. Especially once Bruce remembers everything that happened during the helicarrier incident, and how scared Natasha was. He had offered Natasha a brief apology during the Chitauri invasion, but after those memories were dredged up, it would suddenly become insufficient.

But during or after the Sokovia incident, I doubt they would start a relationship with each other. This is simply because Natasha caused Bruce a lot of turmoil around this time, and afterwards. She betrayed his trust during the Sokovia battle by forcing him to transform, which also worsened an issue that Bruce was currently having with his condition. Her support of the Sokovia Accords didn't help either, because Bruce was vehemently against them from the very beginning, having seen Ross’ wish to exploit the Hulk’s abilities, and he feared this would continue on a much greater scale if the Accords were ratified, with hundreds (if not thousands) of identified superhumans now vulnerable. I hesitate to say Bruce will never trust Natasha again, but while he could probably reach a tentative comfortability around her, a romantic relationship might be asking too much. There’s simply too much negative history between them, a lot of which entails broken trust. And once Bruce’s trust in someone is broken, well, it’s monumentally difficult to restore.

[ajokeformur-ray]

May I have a mach too, please? 😳 I have borderline dissorder that makes me need constantly atention from the person I'm in love, and If I don't get it I feel extremely sad. I am a shy person but with a strong character, making friends is a very hard thing to do for me. I am quite asocial. I talk a lot with very reliable people, I can do monologue for hours. I like to feel protected, loved, feel like a little girl. I am very childlike and facetious. (Sorry for my bad English)

Hi, angel! You sent this in a long time ago so I hope this is still something you’ll enjoy! Thank you for being patient with me!😊💗

Total word count: 1, 806.

Arthur // wc: 918.

If anyone understands what it means to suffer in day to day life, it’s Arthur. He may not know what borderline disorder is upon first learning of it, but Arthur has regular appointments with Doctor Kane and he can easily find out with her. He would read out loud from his government issued brown battered journal all of the things which you said to him the night before during a candid conversation, and Doctor Kane would frown. She would reach into one of her drawers in her overcrowded desk, bowing under its own weight and hand Arthur a pamphlet which details your disorder. Arthur would spend long hours reading from this pamphlet and he would listen to you and follow what you say to the letter. Nothing is more important to him than you are, and he proves that to you every single day. You feel extremely sad if you don’t receive the attention which you need from your loved one, and Arthur is an all or nothing person; which means that naturally are you surrounded with love and never for even a second can you doubt his love and devotion for you. Arthur tells you every single day, in every available moment, that he loves you and all the reasons why. He, too, also needs constant reassurance, so loud are his demons and so vicious are his thoughts. You silence them every day, just as he does for you. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows, for both of you struggle daily and exhausting is it even on your best days. During the days when Arthur can’t be for you what you most need him to be, he is deeply apologetic and devotes the rest of the evening, those scant few precious hours, holding you close and giving you what you deserve. It’s the least he can do for you and it’s undoubtedly  the very same you would do for him in that same situation.

It’s really hard for you to make friends and you’re very shy. Arthur, for his part, is also very shy and keeps to himself. As such, it’s takes a long time for the two of you  to even start a friendship. You have a strong character and Arthur also has hidden depths and is frequently underestimated and in this way do you gravitate towards each other, both sensing that there is more to the other person than first seems to be. You are asocial and Arthur was socially isolated for much of his life, so both of you are lost when it comes to social interactions. However, that sense that there is more to each other guides you through each interaction and you slowly fall together. It isn’t easy, and sometimes you wonder why you bother, but then you look into Arthur’s hypnotic sea green eyes and you remember all of the reasons why.  There is nothing either of you won’t do for the other, and even when or if miscommunications happen between the two of you, there is so much love between you that you can overcome anything. It’s hard for you to make friends and it’s just as hard for Arthur to make friends too, so the two of you typically spend much of your time together; you are each other’s best friend. As the two of you get to know each other, you discover each other’s hidden depths and you realise that you were right: there is more to Arthur than meets the eye. You wonder how you ever survived before him. You are asocial and when Arthur comes home from work and your own day is over with, the two of you spend a quiet evening together on the worn sofa watching The Murray Franklin Show and talking quietly. You rarely go out in the evenings and neither of you would ever have it any other way. You have both found your forever home and though 8J is the apartment, your home is in the arms of the other person.

You talk a lot with very reliable people, and Arthur is the most reliable person of them all. During those quiet evenings on the sofa, you can monologue for hours and Arthur adores listening to you. He likes for it to be quiet while he watches The Murray Franklin Show so that he can fully immerse himself in his daydreams, but when the show is over and he is dancing with you across the cramped but cosy living room, Arthur likes to listen to you talk. “Come on, talk to me,” he quietly says, barely audible over the television. “Let me hear all about your day,“ and he will tell you about his day too. You tell each other everything, best friends are you. You like to feel protected and loved, and Arthur is a natural caretaker. These two things go hand in hand and your relationship is built on mutual trust and respect and your individual personalities perfectly complement one another. You are childlike and Arthur adores practicing his show on you, for you give him an authentic reaction every single time and over the weeks and months of your relationship his show and his sense of humour gets tailored to your own, so desperately does he want to make you laugh and smile. You are facetious and this fits in perfectly with Arthur’s dark sense of humour, for he, too, jokes about inappropriate things. The two of you are perfect for each other in every single way.

Joker // wc: 888.

By this stage in your relationship, yourself and Joker know everything about each other. There is nothing either of you can say or do which will surprise the other person, so deeply and so completely do you know and love one another. The both of you require constant reassurance and attention from the other person for different reasons. For you, it is because of your borderline disorder and for Joker, it is due to learned behaviours. He is not a narcissist, but due to being raised by a narcissistic parent, he inevitably exhibits those tendencies. The longer he is with you, however, the less he shows these signs, due to learning different behaviours. Again, it is not all sunshine and rainbows, and there are days when neither of you are what the other person most wants you to be. Clear communication and mutual trust and respect enable the two of you to discuss your feelings within your relationship, and this means that such times are usually smoothed over with well earned and well-deserved cuddles. He still has the pamphlet which Doctor Kane gave him all that time ago. Little does he refer to it now, preferring to rely on his own knowledge and experiences. There is nothing he won't do for you, and following recent events has that sentiment taken a darker tone. It is more ominous now, and more threatening to all except yourself. You are the safest person in all of Gotham and in Joker's arms do you find everything you have ever wanted or needed, even before you knew what those things were. Whenever you are sad or anything less than perfectly okay, Joker is there with an understanding, sympathetic smile and the calloused pads of his thumbs wipe away any and all tears which fall. You are his greatest priority and he will protect you and defend you with his life. 

Joker is the same man he has always been, it is only that he no longer cares what the world may think of him; Gotham wanted a clown and that was precisely what they got. The poor man chose his name but not what came with it and it breaks your heart to think about everything that he had to go through and still was he unseen, still was he unknown and still was he not listened to, by all except you; his one and only person who understands him. It is difficult for you to make friends and Joker is your biggest supporter. Just because his life is over, as a wanted man and a criminal, it doesn't mean that yours is and he will support you in everything. Your future is something which Joker defends with greater ferocity than you do. You are shy but your character is strong and Joker finds this juxtaposition amusing. If you ever get shy in front of him, he only giggles and cups your face delicately in his hands, his fingers splayed behind your ears, and he kisses you soundly until you quite forget what you were shy about. There is nothing he won't do for you and though he often werewolfs out in the filthy and dirty streets of Gotham, he also loves nothing more than coming home to you. You are safest at home and it is easier for Joker to protect himself when he isn't worried about your safety. If he lost you then he would truly be dangerous for only then would he have nothing left to lose and in a city like Gotham is that dangerous beyond measure. But the city got what it deserves and now, so does Joker in your arms. Nowhere else would he rather be.

Joker's protective streak is amplified by your enjoyment of feeling protected and loved; he is able to express this streak with you without the need of dampening himself down and with you is he his freest and truest self. Everything he does, everything that he is, is designed to help you and to protect you. Joker wouldn't want you any other way, just as you don't want him any other way. You can talk a lot and this grounds Joker more effectively than anything else. When his mind races and threatens to break the spirit of his soul, Joker asks you to talk. It doesn't matter what you say or how you say it, just so long as you do. You are his one and only person who understands him, and he never has to explain himself to you despite his unpredictable behaviours and unknown triggers and boundaries of his anger, because you understand him on a fundamental level, just as he does with you, so long have you been together and so deeply are you bonded. You are childlike and through you can Joker experience his own lost childhood. You remind him of a time which was stolen from him and he clings to you with everything that he has; his biggest fear is losing you. You fear the same and you work hard to maintain the rich relationship which the two of you have built together. Joker loves you for all of you and he would never want you any other way than how you so naturally are on your best day, your worst day and everything in between.

[sacredlettersspn]

Letter #3: Character (Dead in the Water, 1x03)

Theme: Character

Definition: mental and moral qualities distinctive to an individual; the way someone thinks, feels, behaves

Welcome to the Sacred Letters of Supernatural. Today we will be covering episode 1x03, “Dead in the Water” while thinking about the theme of character. When I think of character, my mind goes to the first part of the definition above, the “moral qualities” distinctive to an individual. I am reminded of citizenship awards in elementary school and posters in school hallways with slogans like, “Character is what you do when nobody is watching.” Character has a moral connotation to it with the expectation that I should have “good” character. But that is not the only way to define or think about “character.”

Character is also distinctive qualities of any kind that define a person. Being an avid reader and television show watcher, as a well as a writer of fan fiction, this aspect of the definition is also familiar to me. Creating characters for a story involves building distinctive, compelling individuals that viewers will be invested in. Characters can become so defined that we come to expect certain actions and behaviors from them, and when their actions fall short of our expectations, we label them as “out of character.” In fanfiction, keeping characters “in character” can be a challenge for writers. There is a need to place close attention to the actions, motivations, and philosophies of the people that are being written about. Without these elements, stories can fall apart and readers lose interest. Character is important to a story.

In addition to feeling something is “out of character,” we can have other reactions when a character’s actions surprise us, like when the bad guy finds a cause to be heroic or when the grumpy, standoffish character makes a friend. If these unexpected behaviors are written in a compelling way with clear steps of character growth or appropriate catalysts, we enjoy seeing a character change. Humans can also surprise us in this way. The quiet student can stand up against a bully or a person who has been to jail multiple times can decide to turn their life around. 

It seems that most of the time, we enjoy these kinds of stories. But there are limits to the amount of change we can accept, and that limit is different for everyone. There are men who stop being sexist, nazis who leave their ideology, bullies who develop self-awareness and try to make amends. Accepting these changes can be difficult, if not impossible for some. Yet many of us love movie characters like Loki who develop from the “bad guy” into something better and more selfless. There is the real life vs. movie screen distinction to take into account when thinking about why we react differently. We also understand Loki’s past and watch his development, so we can empathize with him. However, it appears that we often like the idea of the bad guy turning good, but we have a hard time accepting it in real life. “Cancel culture” is an example of this challenge to accept change in people or to recognize the diversity of character within one individual. 

This is not to argue what we should or should not accept, to put a label on right or wrong when it comes to character growth and how we respond to it, in fiction or real life. There are legitimate reasons for not trusting or accepting a person who has committed horrible acts against other humans, or who have passed our own personal boundaries in terms of what we will accept. This discussion is meant to be an observation, one that I think is worth exploring. The purpose of thinking about this idea is to learn more about yourself and how you view the world. I think we can look at this concept of character growth on a smaller scale and consider how we relate it to relationships in our personal lives, and then we can take it and examine how we approach the bigger issues. To begin digging a little deeper into our personal perspectives on this issue, we can ask ourselves, what side of the “acceptance spectrum” I lie on?

So with that question in mind, let’s summarize the episode.

The episode opens in Lake Manitoc, Wisconsin with the morning routine of the Carlton family. There’s Bill, the father, and his two children, Sophie and Will, who live in a small house by the lake. Sophie is getting ready to go for a swim. The weather and the lake is calm, but once Sophie’s out on the water, the swimmer can’t help but feel that something is underneath the surface. She pauses to look around, sees nothing, but is soon dragged under by an unseen force. She drowns and her body is never recovered. 

Sam and Dean enter as federal wildlife officers after seeing an article about Sophie’s drowning. This lake has already claimed a life that year, and several more in the past. The Winchesters talk to the sheriff in town, Jake Devins, and meet his daughter and grandson, Andrea and Lucas. Sam and Dean learn that the daughter’s husband was the first drowning earlier that year, and that the grandson witnessed the event. Lucas won’t speak anymore, he only draws. 

Dean attempts to gain Lucas’ trust while he and Sam investigate the lake. They try talking to the Carltons, but Bill shuts them out. Soon after this first conversation, Will dies by drowning in the kitchen sink. Sam and Dean visit a second time and try harder to make Bill talk, but he is almost comatose with depression. 

With no other leads, Sam and Dean leave Bill alone and happen to meet Andrea in a park. Dean connects with Lucas and receives a picture from him, a drawing of a house by a church with a boy standing by the fence with his bike. They find this house in town, and Sam and Dean visit the house of an old woman whose son, Peter Sweeney, went missing when he was around ten years old. Sam and Dean realize there’s a connection between this boy and Bill when they see an old photograph in the house. 

They visit Bill again, but find him riding his boat out onto the lake. While they try to get his attention, something knocks the boat into the air and Bill falls into the lake and drowns. 

The sheriff kicks Sam and Dean out of town after the incident, looking up their ranger numbers and finding out the ID’s are fake. But Dean doesn’t listen, he feels like something is off, so he turns around and visits Andrea and Lucas. Lucas is frantic when he answers the door. His mom is trapped in the bathroom, drowning in the tub. Dean saves her, and she tells him she heard a child’s voice in the water saying, “Come play with me.”

Dean looks through Andrea’s old photo albums while in her home and sees a young Jake Devins with Peter Sweeney. Lucas directs Sam and Dean to a random spot in the yard by the lake, and they dig up an old bike. The sheriff finds them and holds them at gunpoint. Sam and Dean tell him they’ve made a connection. They guess that he and Bill killed Peter Sweeney as kids. The sheriff tries to deny it, but while facing his daughter, he can’t lie. He admits to the killing, stating that he and Bill bullied Peter, but one time it accidentally went too far, and Peter drowned.

The adults argue about whether the missing boy is haunting the lake, with the sheriff calling Sam and Dean crazy. Meanwhile, Lucas goes out to the dock, drops a toy in, and attempts to fish it out. He’s pulled in by a ghostly hand. Sam and Dean jump into the lake to save Lucas. Meanwhile, the sheriff runs to the edge of the lake and sees Peter’s face, pale and dirty, pop up just above the surface. While Sam and Dean search frantically for Lucas, the sheriff sacrifices himself by wading into the water and begging the spirit to take him instead. It listens, pulls the sheriff under, and releases Lucas to Dean.

The character in this episode I want to focus on is Jake Devins because of his involvement with the murder of Peter Sweeney. While Bill Carlton was also a participant, I would argue that the episode focuses more on Devins character and family. We learn that he’s a family man by hearing how he helps out with his grandson after the death of his son-in-law. We see multiple conversations and interactions with his family, so we’re able to get a sense of the kind of man Devins is. He comes across as a hardworking sheriff who cares deeply about his family. He appears to be direct as well, sometimes intense or intimidating in the way he talks with Sam and Dean about the lake. In general, we get an idea that Devins is a honorable, experienced man, so it might come as a shock when he later admits to being involved in the murder of a fellow classmate as a child.

While the audience may or may not have predicted Jake’s confession, his daughter Andrea is completely taken by surprise. She wavers between doubt and wanting her father to admit the truth in the scene where Devins divulges the secret he has kept for three decades. She is shocked by learning the truth, never considering her father capable of murder. But the truth doesn’t appear to change how she thinks about her father. At the end of the episode, she tells Dean that whatever Jake did in his past, Andrea knows him as a good father and grandfather who loved and took care of his family. This version of Jake is what Andrea chooses to remember. I can’t help but wonder if I would have the same capacity as Andrea to ignore something like murder. Would I be able to focus on the good parts of a person’s character after learning of an action like that? And why would I want to do that?

While watching the episode, my own appraisal of Jake Devins’ character fundamentally changes after learning that he frequently bullied Peter Sweeney with Bill and this bullying caused Peter’s death. I wonder how someone can go that far with hurting someone and still call it an “accident.” I wonder what kind of child Devins was growing up and the lack of empathy he would have had to be a bully. I think about the inability he and Bill had to tell the truth, which comes across as cowardice to me. Their actions led to the death of someone’s son, and Peter’s mom never gets any answers. She has to live the rest of her life not knowing what happened to her son. 

It’s challenging to reconcile the two parts of Jake’s character that we see, the honorable, family-oriented sheriff, and the bully who killed a classmate. In the end, Devins’ family-oriented side wins when he sacrifices himself to save his daughter and grandson. But I can’t help but feel that doesn’t atone for his actions. Somehow Andrea is able to reconcile these two sides of her father. Maybe it’s because of the family bond they have. I am an outsider watching this happen, but if Jake was my father or my brother, my response might be different. 

Character is not absolute, although at times we’d maybe like to think it is. It would make things simple for the bad guy to be all bad, and the good guys to be all good. But humans, and fictional characters, exist in the gray. Every one of us responds to that gray area differently. I extend lots of sympathy to Sam Winchester, for example, who in later seasons makes many questionable choices and endangers many people. But when I think about Sam, I don’t define him by those bad choices. I understand the reason he made the choices, and I believe that makes up for the actual content of the decisions he makes. Jake, however, was a bully. He wasn’t acting questionably for a noble cause, he was doing it to be mean and exert dominance. The intention behind the actions matters to me when I’m judging a character, but it's more challenging to judge a character when two juxtaposing actions exist in the same episode. Jake is both a murderer and a loving father/grandfather, and that makes his character very, very gray.

Again, there’s no right or wrong way to view this issue, but I’m offering my perspective as a point of observation. I think it can be useful to ask ourselves how we judge character, by what standards and to what degree of absoluteness, and consider when we are able to forgive or overlook bad choices. Understanding this can give us insights into how we punish and forgive those in our personal life, what issues we feel passionate enough about to draw a line on, and how we may vote on certain political issues. Learning how we respond to fictional characters can give us insight in how we respond to people and issues in real life. 

Lectio Divina

The next segment of this letter is called “Lectio Divina,” which is a Christian spiritual practice for reading scriptures that involves interacting with the text on four different levels. I am following Harry Potter and the Sacred Text’s use of this practice and adapting it the best I can to the visual format. Normally, you pick a scripture or a line of text to analyze. I randomized numbers between 1 and 42 (the amount of minutes in the episode), and picked the first full line after the minute mark I was given.

Line: 5:00, “I’m agent Ford. This is agent Hamill. We’re with the U.S. wildlife service.” -Dean Winchester

Now we analyze this line on the four levels of Lectio Divina : literal (narrative), allegorical (metaphors and symbols), reflection (how do I connect to it), and invitational (what is the text asking of us or teaching us). 

Literal: Dean and Sam are knocking on the door of the victim’s family. They’re posing as wildlife agents in order to get information from the family about what happened to the victim. They’re using aliases of actors, Harrison Ford and Mark Hamill, who are widely known for their roles as Han Solo and Luke Skywalker in the Star Wars franchise. 

Allegorical/Symbolic: The names that Sam and Dean choose immediately jump out at me. The first thing I think of when I hear these names is Star Wars and then I think of the characters, Han Solo and Luke Skywalker. The choice of these character names for Sam and Dean can give us an insight into how Sam and Dean are meant to be portrayed, and how Sam and Dean see themselves since Kripke has stated that Sam and Dean were originally based off of these characters. Perhaps Dean identifies with Han Solo, the rugged smuggler who’s a bit cocky but ends up having a heart of gold. But I’m not sure whether we can say that Sam identifies with Skywalker because we don’t know if he chose that alias. It seems more likely that Dean chose the alias’ in this situation.

Personal: Here, Sam and Dean are lying for a good cause, but their lie seems dangerous. I tend to think lying is a bad thing except for rare cases. Sometimes I might lie to avoid hurting someone’s feelings, but even the acceptableness of that is arguable. It’s hard for me to imagine posing as federal agents as comfortably as Sam and Dean seem to. I can imagine myself sweating, a knot in my stomach, and stuttering when I attempt to speak, but the fake agent names roll off Dean’s tongue as smooth as his own. In real life, I would argue against people posing as agents, but I’m supportive of what Sam and Dean are doing. Without their ability to pose as agents, their work would be nearly impossible. I can justify the use of their lying, but I don’t often justify lying in real life.

Invitational: I think this line is asking us to compare the characters of Sam and Dean with their alias’ characters, and to see what insights we can gather from this comparison. With these alias’ used so early in the first scene, I can’t help but think their use is significant, not random. And if we can compare the Winchesters with other fictional characters to gain insights into their characters, then I don’t think it’s too far a jump to say we can use fictional characters to gain insights into ourselves. Characters are powerful, just as powerful as the story itself, and I would argue that this ability to compare and relate to fictional characters is what gives power to a story. We can see pieces of ourselves and our own lives in a story, see courage in the face of hardship, and find inspiration to face our own tough choices. So maybe we can ask what Sam and Dean see in these Star Wars characters, and how might they gain inspiration from Han Solo and Luke Skywalker’s stories. 

Before I finish this letter, I would like to end with a question for the audience. This question is for personal evaluation or contemplation, but if you would like a chance for your answer to be featured on the blog or to begin a discussion, please send your answers to my Tumblr inbox.

This week’s question:

Who is your favorite fictional “bad-guy-turned-good” character?

And last, but not least, a special thanks to our patrons!

Jamie S.

[elescambray]

Harry Hood

It may be controversial within the Tumblr world to out myself as a Phish fan. But amongst the band’s tight-knit community, I’m not exactly ruffling any feathers when I say that one of my favorite Phish songs is “Harry Hood.”

For the uninitiated, here’s an excerpt from the song’s history page on phish.net:

“In 1985, Mike, Fish, Page and friend Brian “Miles” Long lived in a house on King Street in Burlington, directly across from a regional Hood bottling plant. The plant’s pair of huge milk tanks bore Harry’s smiling face, his grin illuminated at night by streetlight. “Harry Hood” was inspired by its namesake, the signature character of the Hood dairy company’s advertising campaigns. The little animated milkman in the fridge would proudly rattle on about his company’s dairy products when the “unsuspecting” folks opened their icebox doors. But what happened to Harry when the refrigerator door closed? Brian Long was the first to ask the question that has passed the lips of virtually every Phish fan. “Harry! Harry! Where do you go when the lights go out?”

When Trey and Fish traveled to Greece in the summer of ‘85, they experienced a tumultuous series of events involving a sea storm, a capsized raft, and lots of super-clean “chemists’ reserve” LSD. Following their return to safety, Trey wrote several chunks of new music inspired by the adventure. Back at the King Street house, a former tenant apparently named Mr. A. Miner was still receiving mail. One piece caught the band’s collective eye, a form letter bursting at the seams with Miner’s name, telling him, “Thank You, Mr. Miner.” It is from these relatively nondescript circumstances that one of Phish’s most beloved songs was born. “ 

Lyrically speaking, it’s not quite “Tears In Heaven” level, but that’s Phish for you. But in my first actual post on this blog, I want to discuss what this song means to me. And maybe on a beach in Greece thirty-five years ago, Trey was thinking the same thing. Probably not, but who knows.

As a child, I remember playing this game. Closing the refrigerator door, while trying to catch the precise moment that the light goes out. Can I do both? In my parents’ fridge at least, this task seemed impossible. In “Harry Hood”, Phish poses the question: what does happen to the contents of our refrigerator when the door closes and the lights go out - specifically to this beloved dairy mascot?

The song first “clicked” for me while I was running on my local track in a torrential downpour. During the song’s triumphant peak, I left my body. I wasn’t affected by rain or fatigue or stress. I was gliding. It was then that my love affair with the song took root.

This experience in a way provides a basis for my interpretation. Maybe it’s my penchant for attributing deeper meaning to the mundane (perhaps unnecessarily so at times) and maybe it’s my affinity for the “psychedelic” way of thinking and line of inquiry it entails, but I take the song as an analogy for life.

In the context of the song, we are all “fridges” with a bunch of stuff inside of us. Fears, dreams, anxieties, cravings. Relationships and friendships, family, material possessions. But what happens “when the lights go out” - when all of that goes away? What are we left with?

And Phish has the answer: “Harry!”

During one of the sittings at a recent meditation retreat, a cartoon figure emerged to help me through a particular rough patch. My brain - who has been fed a healthy dose of cartoons and television over the years - rationalized this abstract concept and gave it a familiar shape: Jiminy Cricket. 

In Pinocchio, Jiminy serves as the titular character’s conscience. While that was also my initial interpretation at the time, I now understand it to represent something that is equally difficult to pronounce for me (hell, I even conflate the two when speaking - even if I can explain how they are fundamentally different): consciousness.

When you strip away everything, what are you left with? Buddhists say nothing, I say, “Yes, but not quite”. Sam Harris posits that you are left with “consciousness and its contents.” I like that. Better still, if you’re like me and want things broken down in easier to digest chunks, you might prefer Phish’s response. 

Awareness or consciousness or Harry Hood is all that we have. Beneath every layer of being lies something at the center. Western religions and - to a lesser extent if you really understand its teachings - Hinduism confuse this with an eternal individual soul. But consciousness does not have any attributes. Emotions, feelings, experiences - everything just arises within it. Within this nothing, everything appears. And we are just witnesses to it. 

This could be deeply troubling to some. We cling to who we are as a person - our preferences, our grudges, our “qualities”. But we are not any of these things. At our core, we are consciousness. We are awareness. God is consciousness. God is awareness. Or, if you prefer to be agnostic and don’t like to drop the big “G”, feel free to use the double “H” instead. 

All of us are sometimes caught in a storm - whether it’s on a track or out at sea. We all have to face the vicissitudes of life. Conversely, we all have things to celebrate. And they can be equally as harmful when we cling helplessly to such positive memories and experiences. 

Beneath it all, there is something more real. There is a peace and tranquility that can be attained in fleeting instances. Or in prolonged experiences like my meditation retreat. Or on a particularly scenic hike. While running in the rain. While watching one of your favorite bands in concert at the most famous arena in the world. While goofing off with friends at a college house. While driving through pine-covered mountains that stretch as far as the eye can see.

You aren’t your emotions. You aren’t your experiences. Hell, you aren’t even your self as you understand it. You are awareness. You are consciousness. Nothing more.

While this is destabilizing to some, I argue that this alternative is better. Because when you break it down, after all the food spoils and the lights go out, there is something that is still there. There’s something that lies beyond all that. And every blissful note in a delicious “Harry Hood” jam is a reminder to me of just that. 

That cartoon milkman is always inside of us. He doesn’t go away when it gets dark. He is always there. That peace is always there. We just have to train our minds to live from that place. A place where nothing can hurt us. Where we don’t always just live for the exhilarating, exciting moments. And if you live from this place - it might seem contradictory - but your life takes on new meaning. Colors feel brighter, love feels realer, your senses come alive, and music blossoms into a symphony of wonder and joy. You start living life as if for the first time.  

And that is something that you can feel good about.   

Favorite versions of “Harry Hood”: 12/29/2016, 8/2/1997, 2/28/2003, 10/23/1994. Comment below with your favorites!

[benisasoftboi]

So on Friday night I made this post:

Which I expected that maybe ten, twenty people would see? I didn’t think anyone would really care about a joke about something so old and obscure, and it would just get lost in all the Detective Pikachu stuff. Instead, within five hours, it had become my most popular post. 

I know it’s still not a huge number, but it’s still way more attention than I’ve ever received for anything... ever, so I’ve been thinking about Pokemon Live a lot since. Which has been bad, because this morning I had to take a very important political economy exam, and instead of thinking about Bretton Woods or Marx, I was thinking about Pokemon. I nearly referred to my country’s former Prime Minister as ‘David Camerupt’. It wasn’t good. 

I need to expunge my thoughts. Specifically, my thoughts on one topic in particular - the way this show treats, or rather mistreats, the character of James. Because I truly, truly love Pokemon Live. I do. It’s one of the most glorious dumpster fires I’ve ever had the pleasure of watching a poor quality recording of. But this is the one thing I definitely don’t love.

I don’t expect anyone to read this. I mean, I said that last time, but this time I really don’t. It’s a long essay on a niche topic, and it isn’t even funny. But on the off chance it’ll get you to stick with me, I promise that there will be pictures of Andrew Rannells cuddling puppies at the end. 

So,

How Pokemon Live Mistreats James, and Why It Matters:

The Mandatory Mentioning of The Actor

I’m guessing anyone who knows anything about Pokemon Live also knows that now highly successful, Tony-nominated Broadway and television actor Andrew Rannells was in it playing James. And if you didn’t, now you know why I’ve mentioned him twice now. I’m a big fan of this guy.

He hated this role. Absolutely despised it. Apparently the show was a miserable environment to work in for everyone. The costumes were uncomfortable. The audiences were unbearable. There’s a making of for this show, which can be viewed on YouTube in its entirety - I’ve watched the whole thing more than once and you can see in every cast member’s eyes - there’s no light there. They’re all dead inside. It’s almost heartbreaking.  

To be clear - he’s the only one of these people I, or anyone else I’ve seen, ever makes fun of for this show. And that’s because he’s fine. He’s fine! He’s done very well for himself and talking about it won’t hurt his career, and there’s just always something really hilarious about seeing very successful people in terrible things, isn’t there? Chris Hemsworth in Saddle Club, Zach Braff in Babysitter’s Club, literally everyone in Foodfight. It’s not malicious or in any way intended to be punching down - just poking fun at a really good actor’s really bad early work. It’s not even really making fun of him, more that he was in this.

But there is one reason he hated the role that I don’t find so funny, and that’s that he felt the people that wrote the thing had made James a grossly over-the-top, borderline-to-over-the-line (depending on your tolerance) homophobic stereotype. And... yeah. They undeniably did that.  

Rannells understandably dislikes the character, and to be honest - that makes me a little sad. Knowing that musical!James is probably the only version of the character he (and likely a lot of parents who saw the show, and other cast members) ever really encountered, that’s a huge shame. Because if we go back to the anime the musical’s based on, the one I, and many others, grew up on, James is quite different. In fact, I personally consider anime!James to be the best character in the entire Pokemon franchise.

Why We Love Team Rocket 

Just want to quickly note that I can only discuss the anime up to about halfway through the Sinnoh seasons - I’ve seen basically nothing after that. My childhood was some original series, a lot of Hoenn, and a fair bit of early Sinnoh (somehow skipped over Johto almost entirely, don’t really know how that happened). If any of this is now not accurate, well - it’s not really relevant for this discussion anyway, but I still apologise. 

The Team Rocket trio, James especially, is, pretty queer-coded. This is not unusual for villainous characters in children’s media before the 2010s, so much so that I would guess that a lot of the time it wasn’t even being done deliberately - it was just that common a trope that it was all but expected your show would have at least one flamboyantly effeminate, villainous bloke. And James - especially early James - has no qualms about showing his feminine side:

Notice that Jessie adopts masculine attire to match - she doesn’t always do this, but I like that they have her at least do it sometimes. 

Team Rocket’s disguises became less and less likely to involve cross dressing as the show went on, but it’s one of the things best remembered about them. James also has a strong association with roses, and possesses several other feminine mannerisms. Arguably he’s far more downplayed than most other villains of the type (even more so than others present in Pokemon - Harley’s a great example, who was also, coincidentally, played by Andrew Rannells), but it’s present. And while yes, obviously in real life none of those things should be taken as definitive indication of a person’s orientation, and straight men are perfectly capable of twirling around in pretty dresses - in fact, I fully endorse it - this is fiction. Specifically fiction from the early 2000s. And in fiction, certain things are intended as visual cues and shorthand.

So I really, really doubt we were supposed to think James is entirely straight (I personally have always thought that he’s actually bi, but I’m not opposed to alternatives). You could make the case, but like. Come on.

But how is this different from musical!James? And how is this different than any other villain like him? Very simple. Anime!James has depth.

Not a tremendous amount. It’s a children’s cartoon made to cash in on a popular video game. But he, and Jessie and Meowth, are among the most well-rounded characters in the show’s cast, in a way that’s actually very relatable. It helps that they aren’t actually very villainous people most of the time. I know so many people who grew up with the show that loved, rooted for, and identified with them over the actual protagonists, by a mile. Myself included - I can remember two separate James-centered episodes that made me cry as a kid.

And these three are particularly beloved by young LGBT adults. We know from their backstories that they all came from rough circumstances - Jessie desperately poor and struggling to get anywhere or be recognised, Meowth having changed a fundamental part of himself in attempt to gain love and instead being ostracised for it, and James running away from an abusive household. They’re three people (/Pokemon) who felt alone in the world, that have now found each other. And whether you view Jessie and James’s relationship as romantic, friendship, or found family, it’s far more compelling than any other relationship in the show, at least to me. They may be criminals, but it’s not hard to see why some kids - especially the kids who might already feel like they’re just a bit different - would latch on to them. 

Even if you didn’t know James’s backstory, he still has a character. He’s frequently shown to be the most moral of the trio, he has a stronger bond with Pokemon than honestly even Ash - even more of a running gag than his flamboyance is the fact that his pets love him so much that they just wanna hug him all the time, with inevitable slapstick consequences - he has dorky hobbies like bottle cap collecting, and he’s even occasionally shown to be a bit of an environmentalist. Yes he is in many ways a stereotypical camp villain - but he’s also more. And that’s why we love him. 

And I’d bet anything there probably were some little boys who watched the show and saw James and thought ‘that guy’s like me!’. And yeah, that guy is a villain, because god forbid a maybe-gay character also be a good guy. But more than any other character like him that I’ve seen, he’s also always been a person. And considering how most of the other options kids like that had at the time were either one-note villains or nothing (and even now it’s sparse pickings) - that’s valuable.

And then there’s Pokemon Live.

*long, long sigh*

Oh, Pokemon Live. You beautiful disaster. 

What did you do to my boy?

Is there nothing that better encapsulates it than the bit where James asks Giovanni where Mecha MewTwo (...I know) “stands on campaign finance reform, social security and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”?

First off, I like that James is politically engaged! Good for him! Completely out of character, but still!

And I do find this line incredibly funny, but I want to be very clear about why I find it funny. The line is funny because referencing a real world American discriminatory military policy in a Pokemon musical is just... so completely absurd. It’s super jarring and when I first watched it, I had to pause it so I could stop laughing about the possible implications of Pokemon Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. Is there a Pokemon American military then? Pokemon Democrats and Pokemon Republicans? Pokemon Bill Clinton? POKEMONICA LEWINSKY???

It just raises so many questions.

Also Rannells’s delivery is incredible.

But the thing is, that’s not the joke here, is it? The actual ‘joke’ is ‘HA HA HE’S GAY! HE SAID THAT BECAUSE HE’S GAY!’. Which gets even worse when you think about it and realise that this situation is really just a gay man (I don’t think there’s any doubt about it in this particular incarnation, is there) asking his boss whether or not he thinks people like him should be discriminated against. How is that a joke? (The answer is that it isn’t.)

Which makes it that much more inappropriate for a children’s Pokemon musical, which is sort of, in a dark way, almost funnier. It’s that juxtaposition of something kiddy and cute with something that definitely isn’t. 

But hilarious as I find it, given the chance to I would go back and get rid of that line. I dislike what it implies - that being a gay man is nothing more than a punchline - more than I like the absurdist humour. 

And that’s the whole problem with how they chose to write James for this whole thing. They took a really good example of how you can have this type of villain while also making him a good character, and they turned him into nothing more than a stereotype.

You could say ‘but it’s a much shorter story than a TV show! They wouldn’t have time to make him nuanced!’, to which I would say 1. He doesn’t have to be nuanced, he just has to be slightly more than I’M GAY and 2. There have been 21 Pokemon movies at time of writing, two of which came out before Pokemon Live did. None of them, at least of the ones I’ve seen, committed any character assassinations like this. The first one even had another baffling reference to real world America:

That’s so out of nowhere and silly that I laugh every time I think about it (the Minnesota Vikings are an American football team, if you didn’t know). See, Pokemon Live! It’s possible to do jokes like that which aren’t at the expense of a minority group! Wow!

The anime even has examples of how you can do the gay jokes and make them funny. They are very rare in the show (beyond the humour of James’s personality), but remember the whole Flaming Moltres joke? It’s actually great. It’s a couple of good puns, it’s possibly Rachael Lillis’s best delivery in the whole show, and, just for confirmation, I’ve shown the clip to a few actual gay men in my life, who all said that they think that it’s very funny, and totally non-offensive. The joke is still ‘lol he gay’, but it’s also a neat play on words, it feels very in character for both of them, and it doesn’t have the same malicious, taunt-y feel of the Pokemon Live ‘joke’.

Look, the Pokemon anime is far from perfect. There are lots of moments where you have to grit your teeth and remember when it came out. But it still gave us a really, really wonderful character, and he absolutely deserved better than this.

Do I Still Love Pokemon Live?

Yes.

Even with all of this, it’s still an absolute masterpiece of unintentional hilarity. In some ways, this makes it funnier. Of course, of course, it couldn’t just have terrible costumes and a nonsense plot and really, really bad rapping - of course it’s also kind of offensive. Of course it is. Why wouldn’t it be.

And I would love to talk about all the things I genuinely love about it, and maybe I will one day.

But the thing is, it’s also representative of everything that was wrong with gay-coded characters at the time, something that the show it’s based on came way closer to handling well than most other stuff of its time, no less. And that, as a whole, isn’t funny at all.

So I want to be clear. I love laughing at this show because it’s a weirdly earnest cash-in musical for something that definitely shouldn’t be a musical, with endless bizarre, quotable moments - not because the way it warped this character is actually funny. I love laughing at the character’s lines because they’re absurd choices for a Pokemon musical - not because they’re in any way funny on their own. And I love laughing at the fact that Andrew Rannells was in it because he is so much better than this - not because this is what I think he should be reduced to.

And speaking of, here’s those pictures I promised:

I love one man.

[ducksbellorum]

the flower and the flame (listen/download)

 a gale hawthorne/peeta mellark mix - the hunger games fandom - arranged by ducksbellorum

Kiss With A Fist Florence + the Machine Blood sticks, sweat drips Break the lock if it don’t fit A kick in the teeth is good for some A kiss with a fist is better than none There’s always been tension between Peeta and Gale. No one really knows why: maybe jealousy, maybe a weird sort of affection, maybe they sense they’re both fond of the same girl. Even they aren’t sure, but their fights are a fact of life, a universal constant that’s always been. Their mutual grievance manifests in everything from the all-out tussles when they were small to sniping comments now that they’re grown. Gale doesn’t like Peeta. Peeta doesn’t like Gale. It’s akin to pulling the pigtails of the girl you like, but neither realize it.

Live It Out Metric Look at you, I know I’m already dead No concrete adversity Only traps of our own actions How we wanted it to be When Peeta leaves for the Hunger Games, it’s like a death sentence. It doesn’t hit him at first, but one night on the train he realizes that he’s pretty much already dead. So is Katniss too, if he’s really honest. His life wasn’t supposed to go like this, he wants to scream. But strangely, instead of himself or the girl in the next room, the person Peeta’s thinking about most is Gale. Gale, living the rest of his life in the coal mines, doing normal District 12 things. Like Peeta was meant to do. He wonders if Gale will remember him.

Intro xx Instrumental Gale doesn’t like Peeta. Peeta doesn’t like Gale. The Games didn’t change that. Except maybe they did. Maybe one day Gale finds his way over to Peeta’s house in Victor’s Village and doesn’t leave. Maybe they start talking, about the government, about the weather, about Katniss. Mostly about Katniss, the one thing they really have in common. Maybe it becomes a ritual: six days a week shalt Gale labor, and on the seventh day Gale visits Katniss and on the seventh night he sits with Peeta. And eventually they might realize that they really don’t mind each other’s company anymore.

Never Fall in Love Emilie Simon I am a flower And I hurt your hands Don’t say you love Don’t say you care Gale and Peeta have always been vastly different people. Gale is a fighter, a flare, a rebel to the bone. Peeta had always been a lover and a talker, more of a flower than any sort of fire. The Games changed that as well. Now instead of an innocent dandelion, Peeta’s changed into a rose with long and deadly thorns. This makes he and Gale more alike than either wants to admit. They won’t even admit that they’re friends yet. They can’t be friends, it’s not possible. And they certainly can’t be anything more. Not the flower and the flame.

Hands Open Snow Patrol It’s hard to argue when you won’t stop making sense But my tongue still misbehaves and it keeps digging my own grave Even their political views are different. Gale’s always wanted to go, to fight, to shoot up all the things and take back their freedom from the Capitol. Peeta’s quieter, diplomatic, more in favor of a peaceful approach. They argue about it a lot, but each has to acknowledge that the other makes a lot of sense. A year ago, before the Games, they wouldn’t have even listened to each other. But now there was respect and mutual admiration and maybe maybe some sort of affection. Neither is sure what it is. But they both know they want more of it.

The Walk Imogen Heap No it’s not meant to be like this. Not what I planned at all. I don’t want to feel like this. So that makes it all your fault The kiss comes out of nowhere, somewhere between ‘come inside’ and 'do you want tea’. It’s quick, over in an eyeblink, and it takes a minute for their brains to catch up with their lips. But then it does and…

Gale: “I have to go.”

Peeta, a hand on his arm: “Wait.”

They stare at each other for a long minute. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” Gale says finally. “I don’t even like you.”

“I love Katniss. You love Katniss. We fight over Katniss. We don’t…”

“I guess we do.”

Another cavernous silence.

“Yeah, I guess we do.”

Sort Of Ingrid Michaelson And if I was stronger then I would tell you no And if I was stronger then I would leave this show And if I was stronger then I would up and go But here I am, and here we go again It goes slow from there. It’s like feeling their way through foreign territory, not knowing what to feel or how much to feel or if they felt anything at all. They continue to see Katniss independently of each other and after visiting her there’s always a short discussion along the lines of: “We can’t anymore. It’s Katniss. It’s always been Katniss. Stay away from me and stay away from her.” But it never lasts. Peeta says once, “If I were smarter or stronger, I’d tell you no and mean it.”

“Do you want to?” Gale asks.

Peeta never hesitates. “No.”

Ashamed Muse There’s always something that makes you guilty There’s still something that you’re dying to tell me Make sure no one finds out Tell me all about it Gale’s sure, and Peeta tells him, that in the Capitol and the other districts men can love men just as well as they love women. But Gale’s a country boy with country values. He’s not nearly as sanguine about the whole relationship with Peeta thing as Peeta is. He doesn’t know whether it’s right or wrong in the end, or how to justify his feelings with his fundamental upbringing. Sometimes he feels ashamed of Peeta, of what they’re doing, and then he feels guilty about feeling guilty. Nothing is simple and nothing is easy. But Peeta understands. Somehow Peeta always understands.

Warning Sign Coldplay I’ve gotta tell you what a state I’m in I’ve gotta tell you in my loudest tones That I started looking for a warning sign When the truth is, I miss you They’ve always known that anything they have together can’t last. The Capitol will eventually come in and screw everything over. Sure enough, when the Quarter Quell rolls around, they do. Katniss and Peeta are back to being lovers, back to fighting in the Games, and likely not coming back alive. It puts a strain on all of them, but especially the boys. Their tempers run short and they say things to each other that they never mean. Gale says he misses Peeta. Peeta says he’s still here, but they both know it’s not as true as it used to be.

Under the Sheets Ellie Goulding Where did the people go? My hands are empty You’re not the answer I should know Like all the boys before, like all the boys before Peeta’s a prisoner in the Capitol and all he sees on television is the girl on fire and the rebellion ruining the Capitol’s peace. They’ve put something in his veins and Katniss is all mixed up with terrible thoughts that don’t belong with her or do they. He’s not sure. But Katniss isn’t a good thought. He tries to focus on Gale then, on all the things Gale had told him about revolution and about love and the way Gale made him feel safe. But the idea of Gale gets twisted too and soon Gale isn’t a good thought either.

Love Lockdown Kanye West I’m not lovin’ you the way I wanted to Where I wanna go, I don’t need you I’ve been down this road, too many times before I’m not lovin’ you the way I wanted to Loving Peeta is ridiculous because Peeta is a traitor and Peeta is against everything Gale stands for. Plus there’s Katniss to consider. Gale doesn’t need Peeta, not emotionally or physically or anything. Certainly having any affection for Peeta is bad for his reputation, being as Gale’s the badass rebel soldier and Peeta’s a drugged-up, traitorous timebomb. That’s what he has to tell everyone else, and even himself.

Yet no matter how often he does this, Gale can’t help worrying about the boy and wanting him back. Yeah, so maybe it makes no sense. But that’s just the way it is.

Edge of Desire John Mayer Don’t say a word, just come over and lie here with me 'Cause I’m just about to set fire to everything I see I want you so bad, I’ll go back on the things I believe There I just said it, I’m scared you’ll forget about me Peeta can see Gale through the observation window of his hospital room. He can see the other boy staring in at him, never speaking, never moving, even when Peeta waves hello. Peeta still can’t remember everything right. He can’t remember why he hates Katniss so much, and he can’t remember anything about Gale. He just has a feeling that Gale was safe, that he could trust Gale. Peeta thought if only Gale would tell him what was right, he’d know. Gale never comes. Gale’s afraid to come, but Peeta can’t know that. All Peeta knows is that something is wrong.

2 Atoms in a Molecule Noah and the Whale Held together, holding each other With no one else in mind Like two atoms in a molecule Inseparably combined After everything is said and done and the rebellion is become the government, they talk again. There’s a lot of yelling and lot of accusation. Gale trying to justify the things Peeta has done and Peeta trying to reconcile his actions and Gale’s actions and both of them trying not to say I missed you. But after all the screaming, Peeta says softly, “I dreamed of you.” Gale tells him that it can’t be the way that it was. They both understand. But as they stand there looking at each other, they understand that maybe they could rebuild something better.

Fragment Trespassers William The only thing cautious now’s My hand not to break you I cannot promise any of the things I want to But I could not want this any fragment more than I do They build it up again. It’s slower this time, and less sure, but they do it. Before, Peeta had made promises and Gale had made plans and they’d dreamed together. But they were old now and the time for dreaming was long past. Peeta had Katniss and the children and Gale had his work in the new government. They didn’t see very much of each other. But they met as often as they could, just to talk, like old times. And yet, not like the old times at all. They could never love like that again. But they could remember.

Bonus: Dare You To Move Switchfoot Maybe redemption has stories to tell Maybe forgiveness is right where you fell Where can you run to escape from yourself? Where you gonna go? Gale and Peeta have a tradition when they’re together. They do shots and confess sins. It’s more comfortable than confessing to a priest and forgiveness is guaranteed. Plus you can drown your sorrows in Haymitch’s very best rotgut. Sometimes it gets silly, pranks and jokes and little things. But more often their sessions are serious. Gale remembering the bomb he’d designed consuming Katniss’ sister and Peeta reliving the death of everyone he’d killed in the Arena. They drink in silence. They can’t forgive themselves. But they can forgive each other, and maybe one day together they can start to heal.

[theorynexus]

Double Fives are first, today-- or two together-arranged, 55, I should say.

Also, we’re at Meat 30.   It would seem Jake, Karkat, and Dave are spending time together, this time.

Oh gosh...   I hope Karkat wasn’t made to endure that, considering he supposedly only ever left his house once per year, even if that might be a hyperbole. @w@            His interests and Jake’s are strongly opposed on that from, it would seem.   Thus, it might have been bad for deal-making, for reasons of souring Karkat’s mood; regardless, let’s see whether their other interests might align, or some non-detrimental arrangement (for Karkat, but hopefully for Jake too) might be found between them.

Ouch.    On the other hand, at least Karkat seems to have (likely) become more comfortable with outward signs of his blood’s color.   I doubt he would have failed to realize that it likely gives that impression, even if he originally intended it to be a sign of his closeness with Dave. He almost certainly would have semi-paranoid-ly weighed the pros and cons for his emotional well-being and/or all other consequences involved, and only come to the decision that the suit was acceptable for him to wear after deciding both connotations were acceptable.

Honestly, all things considered, Jake is very much correct. Considering the boost from all his rungs on the escheladder, there’s no way his physical capabilities should be that bad.  ... Though Jake’s estimates probably would be wrong for any other sort of being that was traveling with him. I don’t think his expectations are probably all that well gauged to the individuals in his company. It’s not that I think poorly of his intelligence, mind you. It’s just that Jake can be... rather oblivious, sometimes, if memory serves.

Yeah, his judgment is totally based on his own experience. Still, though, even coated in like 5 layers of fur, Karkat shouldn’t be that worn out. At least, from a world-building perspective, this doesn’t contradict the established rule that-- oh, wait, that was ghosts changing to fit the person’s perceptions, not God Tier players’ appearances, wasn’t it?  Hmmm.

Yes. Karkat’s diplomatic skills are impeccable.  There is absolutely nobody that can beat this guy when it comes to maintaining good relationships and reputations among the important powers of the world--- nobody!

I would suspect that Alt!Calliope is being petty, here, but I think it’s just Karkat being so tired that his coordination has dropped a bit.   (Also, this is honestly rather cute, and I appreciate the opportunity to giggle at it.)

Frack, Dave is good at bringing things up in the most awkward way possible. Also, that Karkat only estimates himself as being able to beat 99% of all humans in a “threshecution threshing match” is both quite comical and somewhat sad. ._. One Percent is a whole lot of people.

***facepalms with the greatest of groans***    SHE REALLY SHOULD FRICKING NOT!!!                        (Internet freedom for all!)   That said:  GAH, Dave, are you trying to sabotage Karkat’s chances, here? On the other hand: Maybe this propensity for blunt, careless words is one of the reasons that he decided he didn’t want to run for President, himself.   If so, good on him, I guess, for knowing himself that well.

( I will say, though, that that was honestly a nice segue, despite the fact that he sortof botched the lead-up to this via his rudeness.    Karkat gets a pass, though, because everyone knows he’s crude, and that’s part of the appeal.)

The real question is:  Are these campaign dollars as in a certain allocated amount that is allowed for each candidate, or money which was donated to the campaign by those who support them and/or Dave/Karkat?  That is a pretty important distinction, politically.  Not that either will likely be addressed and/or matter directly to the outcome of the race, probably. Oh, and those adds sound incredibly silly. I am not 100% sure that they will actually in all likelihood be effective, but they sure do sound comic-(sans)-ical. On the other hand:  Jake seems to be trying to mentally suppress what’s happening to him, probably due to his feelings toward Jane.   Welp.   :|

This is a very complicated issue, and for the sake of not offending either side, I shall choose to remain silent on the real world matter at hand, here.  On the other hand, I love the way that Karkat is just like, “SHUT UP, ALREADY.”   XD

Reminds me of Caliborn.     Indeed, that is definitely the reason why such committees are actually put into place (other than the compelling economic reasons incentives).    Doesn’t mean that they actually succeed in doing so perfectly, however.    It just makes it a grey “I guess maybe they were involved,” regardless of whether the person actually suggested such adds ought go into effect or not. Buuuuut... I’m going to refrain from pushing my promised non-commentary further than that-- and only did comment with this because of its relevance to Jake’s thought process.

It seems that Karkat agrees with my assessment of this matter.  Also, Alt!Calliope sure is quite sassy, compared to the grim and highly reserved person I thought she was. I wonder if it’s because she’s been watching essentially television for eons in order to properly understand humanity+maybe the trolls or whatever, or if it’s because she’s doing it on accident, as was my initial guess/impression, as related earlier in my liveblogs.

That’s not the point, Dave. The point is that, for one, it probably makes the audience think of you as irresponsible; secondly, it wastes the most precious resource in politics: the citizens’ limited attention spans; finally, it may actually make the two of you come off as being condescending and/or not having any actual idea what you’re talking about, which would be absolutely horrible for your chances, come election time.    While campaigns can indeed turn around in the latter months of election season, first impressions are also very important!

That is a very interesting point/question. And very ironic for him to ask; not that Dave actually can’t be properly understood through his layers of irony-- but rather, while he does indeed have a talent for that, his other qualities obscure it so badly as to make it seem quite unremarkable and hidden. And there Dave goes again, saying “thats basically true [sic.]”.   Magnificent. ***will not touch the matter of how straight-forward Dirk is***

...     Man.  Hopefully, this will serve as a lesson to the both of them.    Jake’s reaction is so bloody on the point, though. @w@

I do honestly appreciate that too.  Wow, though, he is being surprisingly civil and respectful as a result of this.  It shouldn’t honestly be a surprise, considering who Jake is.  It’s just... wow. I really appreciate the breath of fresh air.

Yeeeeesss!!!~    <3       I love everything about this that follows!    While he can be quite oblivious at times, I have always thought that Jake’s intelligence was top-notch, and I quite appreciate his flexing it, as well as that wonderfully noted breath of FREEDOM whizzing into his sails!

Boooooo!!!~     I really quite appreciate the correct and excellent display of entomological knowledge, here, but DANG, if Dirk isn’t a slimy piece of garbage, sometimes!     I mean, my gosh, the sociopathic logic, here.  It’s horrific! As for Jake:  I am very proud of him, and appreciate his very appropriate question. Everyone should ask the qualities that politicians bring to the table, policy-wise, and their (+ dis-)advantages--- not just how charismatic they are. Of course, such a statement is stating the obvious. ‘s still good to see it in practice. ... Wow, I really love Alt!Calliope’s sass. So much.

HECK YES! :’D

***grooooaaan***    

FINALLY, CERTAINTY!!!

Aside from his lack of attraction for her, which says nothing of importance, I do in fact agree with Karkat, here.  This is essentially the equivalent of the moment when the United States switched to the Constitution, and the country absolutely needed a Washington.  If Adams had actually been elected, instead of getting the second-highest sum of votes, then both the contry and the entire world could have turned out quite differently.  I, too, do  believe that Crocker could be reasonably said to have a fair chance at acting as a President who doesn’t really shake things up too terribly, and actually manages to set a perfectly fine, perhaps above average standard for Presidents to come.   There are, however, certain points in history which require great leaders if things are going to pan out well in the long-term. Crocker just presents far too many potential problems while not offering enough in the way of positives for me to give a strong endorsement of her, despite my desire to see a female president eventually take office in the United States’ equivalent of the station she and Karkat are competing over.

(SUPPORT KARKAT FOR HIS BETTER APPRECIATION OF FUNDAMENTAL PHILOSOPHICAL ORDERS OF IMPORTANCE.)

Yeeeeaaaahhh...   She was already quite twisted up (read: pained) inside during the session as a result of her concern for maintaining appearances and manipulating peoples’ perceptions of her, unless my memory is horrible in this particular act of dredging up long-ago readings’ implications, so I could certainly see that growing to be a problem as she grew up.    I’d sortof hoped that that would cease to be so much of an issue, after their session was won, considering the rewards involved/gained as a result of that.    :/

...    Yeah, that is a good deal of whiplash. I am honestly pained.

Dangit, I was so swept up in my spiel about the direct political consequences of that decision/strategy that I forgot to emphasize the very obvious danger of it actually alienating Jake from her!

***sobs***   I am so proud of him!    (Though this is not exactly the best reason for choosing one’s political decisions, I can definitely get behind the idea of him striving for independence from that manipulative cur.) 

What Dave said, but less profanity-laced! Also:   Am I incorrect in remembering that God Tier players past a certain Tier are able to wield any weapon they desire, regardless of whether they have a       Kind Abstratus of the appropriate sort in their strife specibus?  That could become relevant, some time in the near future.

[fallencomrade-a]

                                     MUNDAY FACT SHEET.

NAME: kristen.  NICKNAME: kb,  kay,  ten.   AGE: two - nine. SEX/GENDER: f / f. PRONOUNS: she / her. EYES/HAIR: blonde / blue. HEIGHT/WEIGHT: 5′2″ / within recommended bmi.   BUILD: somewhat athletic body type.  pear - shaped.  TATTOOS: nada.  i’m way too OCD to figure out what to permanently put on my body.   SCARS: a few here and there. two on my scalp from two different incidents which required stitches. a nasty one on my ankle that every girl has from shaving. one on / above my upper lip from my loving cat ( biting me). one down my shoulder from my loving sister (scratching me). PIERCINGS: earlobes. used to have my lip pierced, but it’s closed now. 

MYERS-BRIGGS: infj ; the advocate. 

the advocate personality type is very rare, making up less than one percent of the population. advocates share a unique combination of traits: though soft-spoken, they have very strong opinions and will fight for an idea they believe in. advocates will act with creativity, imagination, conviction and sensitivity  -  not to create advantage, but to create balance. egalitarianism and karma are very attractive ideas to advocate personalities. few are as passionate and mysterious as advocates. advocates can easily get tripped up in areas where their idealism and determination becomes more of a liability than an asset - whether it is navigating interpersonal conflicts, confronting unpleasant facts, pursuing self - realization, or finding a career path that aligns well with their inner core. they may face numerous challenges, that at times can make them question who they really are. 

ENNEAGRAM: type 6 - the loyalist. wing 5 - the investigator.

LOYALIST.  conflicted between trust and distrust.    people of this personality type essentially feel insecure, as though there is nothing quite steady enough to hold onto. at the core of the type six personality is a kind of fear or anxiety. this anxiety has a very deep source and can manifest in a variety of different styles, making sixes somewhat difficult to describe and to type. what all sixes have in common however, is the fear rooted at the center of their personality, which manifests in worrying and restless imaginings of everything that might go wrong. this tendency makes sixes gifted at troubleshooting, but also robs the six of much needed peace of mind and tends to deprive the personality of spontaneity. the essential anxiety at the core of the type six fixation tends to permeate the personality with a sort of  ' defensive suspiciousness. ‘ sixes don't trust easily; they are often ambivalent about others, until the person has absolutely proven themselves, at which point they are likely to respond with steadfast loyalty. this loyalty is something of a two edged sword however, as sixes are sometimes prone to stand by a friend, partner, job or cause even long after it is time to move on. sixes are generally looking for something or someone to believe in. 

INVESTIGATOR.  thinkers who tend to withdraw and observe.    people of this personality type essentially fear that they don't have enough inner strength to face life, so they tend to withdraw, to retreat into the safety and security of the mind where they can mentally prepare for their emergence into the world. fives feel comfortable and at home in the realm of thought. they are generally intelligent, well read and thoughtful and they frequently become experts in the areas that capture their interest. fives are often a bit eccentric; they feel little need to alter their beliefs to accommodate majority opinion, and they refuse to compromise their freedom to think. the problem for fives is that while they are comfortable in the realm of thought, they are frequently a good deal less comfortable when it comes to dealing with their emotions, the demands of a relationship, or the need to find a place for themselves in the world. fives tend to be shy, non - intrusive, independent and reluctant to ask for the help that others might well be happy to extend to them. fives are sensitive; they don't feel adequately defended against the world. to compensate for their sensitivity, fives sometimes adopt an attitude of careless indifference or intellectual arrogance, which has the unfortunate consequence of creating distance between themselves and others. trying to bridge the distance can be difficult for fives, as they are seldom comfortable with their social skills, but when they do manage it, they are often devoted friends and life long companions.

ALIGNMENT: lawful neutral

 a lawful neutral character acts as law, tradition, or a personal code directs her. order and organization are paramount to her. she may believe in personal order and live by a code or standard, or she may believe in order for all and favor a strong, organized government. lawful neutral is the best alignment a person can be considered because it means they are reliable and honorable without being a zealot. however, lawful neutral can be a dangerous alignment when it seeks to eliminate all freedom, choice, and diversity in society.

TEMPERAMENT: melancholic.    

the melancholic temperament is fundamentally introverted and thoughtful. melancholic people are often perceived as very ( or overly ) pondering and considerate, getting rather worried when they cannot be on time for events. melancholics can be highly creative in activities such as poetry and art - and can become preoccupied with the tragedy and cruelty in the world. they are often perfectionists. they are self - reliant and independent. one negative part of being a melancholic is that they can get so involved in what they are doing, they forget to think of others.

KINSEY SCALE: F    the test failed to match you to a kinsey type profile. either you answered some questions wrong, or you are a very unusual person.                     hah, go figure. 

ROMANTIC ORIENTATION: romantically - hopeless  /  romantically - INSECURE.   idk, maybe grayromantic ?  who knows.   SEXUAL ORIENTATION: bi sexual.  IQ: 132. OCCUPATION: IT systems administrator for an insurance company. RELIGION: agnostic PETS: an imprinted kitty cat named haley. SCHOOL: bachelors degree in information technology. LANGUAGES: english. MEDICAL: physically ?  the fittest i’ve ever been honestly.   mentally ?  downward spiral.   NEUROLOGICAL: anxiety / depression.    agoraphobia.  boarder line personality disorder.  developing symptoms of obsessive compulsive disorder.  metathesiophobia.  poor self - esteem  /  sense of self - worth / identity. ETHNICITY/RACE: caucasion / american. HOBBIES: writing.  video games.  music.  movies / television.  working  out.  kickboxing.  amusement park enthusiast.  being  outside.   INTERESTS: writing.  reading.  video games.  sight seeing.  being outside.  food.  documentaries.  music.  television  /  movies.  animals.  psychology.  astrology.  science fiction. BLOGS: just this one. SOCIAL MEDIA: i have discord, an instagram and a snapchat for mutuals, if interested.

TAGGED BY: @builtagain  ages ago.    ( ♡ε♡ ) TAGGING: @dustxrgcld ;  @danversiism ; @earthshakcr ; @brooklynsoul ; @xiongsi ; @geislun  +  first  three  lovelies  on  the  dash  ( at  time  of  queue ) : @peaceinourrtime ; @torturewon ; @warwearysoldier

[thesimplyluxuriouslife]

291: 6 Ways To Dance with Life (and Have An Amazing Experience)

“Your inner purpose is to awaken.” —Eckhart Tolle, from A New Earth

To observe the seamless fluidity of a dancing pair with years of professional dancing experience float across the floor no matter what type of dance is asked of them is to observe a deep awareness and skill of their craft. Foxtrot. No problem. Viennese Waltz. Got it. Tango. Oh my, yes. Swing. Yep!

In 2017, in episode #143, the skill of self-awareness was explored in-depth here on the podcast/blog. For a quick refresher, to be self-aware is to be able to observe ourselves, accept and recognize what we discover and be honest about how we feel, why we act certain ways in particular situations, and the change that we may need to take. It is being able to pay attention and be honest about our strengths, weaknesses, thoughts, beliefs, motivations, and emotions. 

When we are fully self-aware, we gain the instructions of how to live well even though we do not know what the next minute will reveal, the next week, month, year, and so on, will reveal.

When we become self-aware, we are awake and capable of noticing when we need to grow and in what way will help us navigate through whatever life may present.

I chose today's topic because no matter where you find yourself in the mix of stress, loss, pain, and confusion regarding our current situation, many readers have shared with me they are presented with new situations of questions, confusion, doubt, [fill-in-the-blank of an unwanted and somewhat or significantly new emotion] from time to time in a manner that perhaps was not present pre-pandemic.

"Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at the moment." —Eckhart Tolle, from A New Earth

Borrowing Tolle's advice from the quote above, seize these unanticipated and initially unwanted moments and feelings and let them be your guide to deeper self-awareness and an improved everyday life. Assuage any grief, quandary, angst, by reassuring yourself that you have been presented with this moment for a reason. Don't toss it. Don't avoid it. Explore it.

Today I would like to look at six unwanted examples that may be happening in your life and how to step forward and do the latter to each in order to improve the quality of your life moving forward and through our current situation

1.You wake up in the middle of the night, your mind reeling, doubt swirling, fear temporarily winning

Course of action: As a matter of fact, take a pre-action prior to going to bed or whenever you feel most confident - write yourself a note and remind yourself of the truth of how capable you are, words of truth and strength. Place this note by your bed. Okay, back to the moment you wake up.

Take a drink of water, hydrate and wake your mind up so that it is in your control and not the other way around. Read your pre-written note. Read it again. Journal if you need to - what is causing you worry, what are you fearful about. Don't necessarily answer anything. Save the answering and analyzing for a time during the day when you are fully awake so that you can be a good judge of whether or not what you wrote is valid as well as to accurately determine if what you are worried about is within your control. Hint, if it is not, let it go. Turn the lights off, count your breath in a steady beat - in and out. Let yourself fall back to sleep. Whatever you do, do not pick up your technology.

2. You are exhausted from work stress and trying to balance all that you think you have to do

Martyrs die. On the other hand, workers with awareness of the larger picture of why they work, live well. While putting and acknowledging work as important, the latter do not make work the top priority. I have worked with both types of people in the handful of school districts I have worked in over my 19 years. Martyrs tend to be different people in the classroom than they are away from their students or staff (if they are administrators). People who live to live well are the same in the moment of teaching as they are in their everyday life. People who live well are more content, more enjoyable to be around and know how to put work in its place and do so with clarity and a love for not only their own life but for the people who look up to them - in this case their students.

Course of action: Be honest with yourself. What are you aching for? Nobody needs to know your honest answer but you, but be honest with yourself. Do you crave at the most fundamental, sleep? Do you crave a social life? Do you crave to be more comfortable in your body but do not have the time to exercise consistently nor prepare and enjoy healthy, satiating meals? Write it down. This is when your life begins to change for the better.

Whether when given the opportunity or simply taking it, try out living the life you want to live - the schedule you'd like to have - even if temporarily. Stick to it long enough to experience potential benefits - one month, a quarter, etc.. Don't ask for approval from anyone else as to whether what you crave is valid. Honor your own feelings, and give the new temporary schedule a try. You will come back with some answers, maybe not all of the answers, but enough, if you are being honest with yourself, to know whether what you thought what you needed was actually indeed what was lacking.

Upon choosing to make permanent changes to your schedule, if the changes involve others or require others to be involved, communicate clearly and refrain from complaining. While it is okay to vent to a friend or your partner or your journal, doing so is a means to release stress, iradicating faulty thinking if it exists due to past grievances being triggered and to ensure you move forward with a rational mind. Sometimes what we are venting about has more to do with built up stress from a variety of sectors in our lives and not just the one thing we are "cursing" at the moment.

Let me end by saying, be honest with yourself. If you are overwhelmed and exhausted, how could you have prevented the situation if at all possible? Could you have raised your voice when decisions were being made? Could you have made the smarter decision, not the easier decision? Be honest and improvement can be made.

3. Tension in relationships - personal or professional

Course of action: Answer this question for yourself (not for the people in the relationship that is in a state of tension) - what behaviors and feelings are unwanted or undesired, but seem to be a default or at the very least, unhelpful? Use your answers as a guide to what skills you need to explore and better understand. Seek out an expert (i.g. a counselor) or a book from a respected source on the subject.

4. Financial Stress not related to job loss

Course of action: Turn off the advertisements, stop or significantly reduce your scrolling on social media and start living in the present with the world, the real-world, not the virtual world, that surrounds you. If the influences for buying more, or "keeping up" are not coming unconsciously from media (and I know, you might be saying - if they are unconscious, how will you know where they are coming from? But take this moment to take a closer examination of what you feel you 'need' and where that idea is being presented or shown), look to your social circle - chosen or not - and start to tailor who you spend time with and if you can't eradicate entirely unhelpful influences, reduce or limit your time with them.

5. State of the world

Course of action: Choose to educate yourself on topics that are grabbing your attention. Choose to look to experts, credible in the field you are exploring, that you may not have looked to before to deepen your clarity on an issue before you jump to conclusion. However, do not overwhelm your mind. Seek out bits of information and then go about your life, adjusting your choices, actions in which you do have control that will make a difference, no matter how seemingly small. The words you choose, letting go of assumptions and fixations, keeping an open-mind and refraining from group-think, but rather practicing critical thinking regularly so that eventually it becomes your default.

6. A feeling of agitation or lack of purpose

Course of action: find something, no matter how seemingly small which allows you to see an immediate finished, improved, completed outcome. The act of productivity need not be anything to do with your job or career, but simply needs to be something in which you can see a "finished" outcome.

For me, my garden has provided many moments of productivity - weeding, pruning, dead-heading - as soon as I tend to it, I see results. Ahhhh. It sounds silly but as Sue Stuart-Smith shares in The Well-Gardened Mind, "Two essential sources of grounding and balance . . . proximity to nature and fulfilling work" (the author is referring to the lack of nourishment to the psyche prompted by the industrialization in the 19th and early 20th century).

Each one of these life moments of challenge offers an opportunity to course correct, to grow, to evolve as Eckhart Tolle expresses in his quote above. It has been my experience that if I choose to not acknowledge that something within me needs to change - to communicate better, to ground myself in self-confidence, to be brave, the same stress, the same worry, the same event perhaps in a different form, keeps rearing its head.

The pandemic is presenting each one of us with unique opportunities to evolve forward and live a better life. Choose to find the growth opportunity that exists inside of you, and your life will change for the better.

Petit Plaisir

—Borgen, on Netflix

Tune into the audio version of today's episode to find out more about this Danish Government television drama series, what Borgen means in English and why I am thoroughly enjoying it and highly recommend it.

https://youtu.be/Nw41sTh2mds

Tune in to the latest episode of The Simple Sophisticate podcast

[garrisonabel93]

5 Ways To Save A Relationship Surprising Ideas

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How To Save Your Marriage

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How To Stop Divorce In India

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[lastsonlost]

This weekend at Comic-Con, the cast of Supergirl was asked by MTV’s Josh Horowitz to do an improvised musical recap of the show’s second season. At one point, Jeremy Jordan, who plays Winn, sings about how Kara met a “new friend,” Lena Luthor (played by Katie McGrath). He then looks into the camera and yell-sings “They’re only friends! They’re only friends! They’re not gonna get together! They’re only friends.”

While Jordan thought he was just making a harmless joke, “debunking” the “Supercorp” relationship, he has a fundamental misunderstanding of why shipping is so important to LGBTQIA fans.

[ETA: For the unfamiliar, “shipping” is when fans imagine a relationship (often times romantic) between characters that may or may not have been overtly intended by their writers or creators.]

LGBTQ+ representation is severely lacking on television, and respectful, fully developed queer relationships even more so. So fans will sometimes root for and support the relationships they want to see onscreen. Just because it isn’t planned by the show’s creators, or official canon, that doesn’t make it less important to fans.

And the very last thing those fans need is to be laughed at by someone on the show.

It’s worth noting that in the full video of the interview, McGrath voices a much more open response to the Supercorp shippers. She says that while she and Melissa Benoist didn’t expect this reaction to their onscreen friendship, she sees it as totally valid. “The great thing about what we do is, like any art, anybody can read into it what they want and take from it, so you can see anything and take from it what you like. And that’s what’s great about this show. There are so many different ways to see everything. And if that’s what you see in it, you know, take it away. It’s art.”

Jordan, though, took to Instagram to address people’s displeasure with his comments. He apologizes, but insists that people are misinterpreting his intentions.

Again, Jordan seems to be misunderstanding what the problem was. His apology still reads as incredibly dismissive of the feelings of fans, ultimately boiling down to “you got it wrong.”

Obviously, he got the message that fans were still upset. (he punked out)

It’s not clear if he actually understands why fans were hurting, and why shipping goes deeper than just fun, silly fantasy. But at least it sounds like he’s open to the idea that just because he doesn’t understand something, that doesn’t mean it’s not important and worthy of his respect.

IN RELATED NEWS THE MARY SUE EATS ITSELF😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

“I accept there’s an uneasy balance between the desire to encourage respectful interaction and becoming the tone police—a tension between advocating for kindness and creating an oppressive culture of nice where nobody can disagree with anything and everybody is rendered silent. Acknowledging those tensions exist is important, but not sufficient to justify bullying. There’s a clear distinction between exploring objects of fandom and considered meta and character analysis on the one hand, and attempting to force people to ship, write, and like people deemed worthy of attention on the other. 

The latter is often combined with the toxic use of social justice activism to coerce fans to agree with a particularly vocal group. When disagreement results in gleeful celebrations over deleted accounts and the disappearance of one or more people into the ether, it leaves something of a bitter taste. “

YES THE MARIE SUE IS CALLING OUT ITSELF.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE