#i love focusing on how hes evil all the time he has such negative characteristics that arent really acknowledged when hes not being analyzed | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

blackfemmecharacterdependency · 4 years ago

Text

13. Exposing the Void Pt. 1

A lot of this chapter is straight up Simon’s thoughts, so it gets jumbled and possibly confusing. Let me know if there’s parts where things are unclear (most likely in those times, we’re inside of Simon’s thoughts). Word Count: 5969. Trigger Warnings: Self harm, child death, child abuse, mental instability, mental abuse, dehumanization, betrayal, delusions, intrusive thoughts...

This chapter was actually the hardest for me to write in this story, thus far. And please keep in mind that in this space, there is no ableism allowed. So, refrain from using terms about psychosis or mental illness as insults towards the characters. The purpose is not to blame Simon’s actions on poor mental health or to excuse his behavior due to his trauma. The purpose is to understand a story in a world where mental illness is not necessarily the cause of why some people do evil things, but is sometimes a factor (not usually, as mentally ill people are generally more likely to hurt themselves than others), but yes, there are occasions where our psychosis can led to dangerous outbursts. Please don’t use the phrase “Go psycho” when referring to any variation of Simon Laurent, even this one. Thank you.

Simon was getting a tattoo. He’d already decided that much. He didn’t know of what, but he was convinced that he would think of something. It seemed healthier than self harm, at least… and a professional would mark him in this scenario.

He had a full course on his schedule, additional hours of extracurricular activities and work, plus interviews and maintaining his website. Plenty to do to keep his mind off of it - the void. His nostrils flared just thinking about it. Sometimes, he found himself checking social media for updates from a backup account. He had been blocked under his personal and professional ones. But, it wasn’t back. The last post was the same post that had been shared to each of them by its team.

“Hello, Apex Members. On behalf of The Internet’s Honey, Miss Grace Monroe, we would like to express the sincerest apologies for the negativity that has been spread and for the things that Miss Monroe stands accused of. She is seeking help at a secure location, and it is our hope that she will return to you soon, in all of her glory, fully restored, healthy and well.”

The comments were thousands of “Fuck Grace Monroe. She’s cancelled.” etc. He had been amused before, but the more comments that were added, the more numb he became to them. He was numb to many things… still somehow… it left its mark on him. He pulled up his sleeve and looked at his tallies… it left several. “Fuck Grace Monroe,” he whispered, shook his head and said in a louder, more confident tone, “Fuck the void.” A little mantra before his early AM classes.

Whenever he got home, though… He went through a range of emotions for a while. Everybody lies to me. Everybody leaves me… Even when nothing had anything to do with this thought process, if he wasn’t focused deeply on something else, there were the thoughts. Sometimes, even when he WAS working on something else. The thing about living alone and being at home was that he had a lot of time to get trapped in his harmful thoughts, and no Grace there to ease things. Not anymore.

It started with his mother. She was only going to be gone “for a little while.”

Simon wasn't confident in his abilities to watch himself AND a younger person. He was a cub scout and even a careful child, but he knew that Hope could be a handful, sometimes even for their parents. “I don’t think I can watch Hope, Mom.”

“Oh, of course you can, Simon!” She cheered. “It’s only for a little, short, while, and you’re my capable little man.”

Hope laughed and said, “He’s not a man. He’s Simon.”

“If Mom says I’m a man, then I am!”

Their mom clarified, “He’s a big boy who gets to be man of the house when Mommy and Daddy aren’t here. Mommy’s Little Man. You’ve got this, Si. Like I said, only a little while.” She tousled his hair and filled him with confidence that he had not had a few minutes prior… then she was gone for what felt like forever.

18 year old Simon knew that she had only been gone for 2 hours, but as a 10 year old watching a 4 year old who didn’t want to be watched by a “fake man,” it seemed like a lengthy stretch of time. With Hope doing things that she knew she shouldn’t, taunting him by telling him that he’s a fake man and that’s why he couldn’t stop her, and whenever she tried to go into the attic, that was the last straw. He had gotten really mad at her. She had been teasing him, calling him a fake man, a little baby, a small, small Simon… He didn’t mean to hurt her, but he was offended by her name calling. He was only going to drag her into her room and make her have a time out.

18 year old him knew that he was angry when he grabbed her by the back of her shirt, as hard as he could, upset with her, but also needing to get her off of the ladder and into her room. 10 year old him yanked her off of the ladder and flung her to the floor beneath them with rage. She let out a screaming laugh whenever she went flying down, but when she hit the floor… she became silent.

Simon shook his head. That wasn’t my fault. I was a child! The void had been right about that. “Who leaves a 10 year old home alone with a 4 year old?” He heard her voice ask, when they were kids. More than that - Who tells a boy that young that he is trusted with the life of a smaller child? That he’s “a man” because you need a little favor? Two. Hours!

He still didn’t know how long he had sat there trying to wake Hope up before their mother came back or where she was at that time, but wherever she was, he hoped she thought about it every single day that she tried to blame him. He hoped it ate away at her and corrupted her from the inside out until her health faded and her heart stopped. He didn’t always feel that way.

When he was 10, he blamed himself. He loved his mother. He wanted her back. He wanted to be her little man again, even though he failed her. He was still so young and confused, and nobody was helping him to understand it all. He couldn’t answer why he didn’t call 911. He was scared. He was crying. He... just didn’t think about it at the time. He hadn’t been prepared for an emergency.It was supposed to just be a little while! I was supposed to be the man of the house. Nothing bad was supposed to happen on my watch...

It continued with his father. So furious with his wife’s decision that he couldn’t stand to share the same breathing space with her most of the time. Unfortunately, that also meant not sharing it with Simon. He told Simon that he didn’t blame him. He lied. Some part of him had to, because otherwise, why would he have left him with the woman who had been so irresponsible that they already lost one child? Because… he died in his father’s eyes that night, too. The man was just too much of a coward to admit it. So, he just… left.

And Grace… He almost started crying, but shook his head and shook her it out of his mind. “Void,” he said and clenched his fists. Still… He missed her it. She It was the only thing that used to be able to get his mind off of his family, his pain, his guilt, his rage…

For so long, she it was the only thing. Now, he was left to just force himself to live through this. He was better off. It was going to stop his full potential. It had already stunted him so much. He spent years building a fortress for it and throwing himself in front of everything that came its way. Never again.

After they began officially dating, she was acting weird and he let it go. This was new for both of them and she was still trying to figure out her sexuality. He thought he was extremely understanding about her characteristics. As a matter of fact, up until the moment that he realized that she was a liar, he found no flaws in her at all. He loved all of her, perfect in every way and in the ways that she wasn’t, he never took notice. He just re-imaged those things as perfect, because they were things that were of Grace. Being a snobby, rich bitch - fine. Being lazy and irresponsible, sure. Being wishy-washy and confusing… he didn’t love that, but he accepted it and always assumed that maybe he was mistaken, or maybe she was the confused one in those moments. He never thought that she was deceiving him. Now, it was all that he could think about.

How many lies she must have told him over the years, how much of his childhood and adolescence was built upon those lies… He had to try to void everything that he had ever known her to be from his life, and from his mind.

“Do you not love me?”

“I do!”

Had he not been so blinded by his love, he would have known that she didn’t mean it. He would have heard it in her tone. He would have seen it in her eyes. “The void was just that good,” he told himself. “It tricked everyone. You watched it work for so long, you thought that you were exempt. It cares about nothing but itself.”

She seemed like she was withdrawing from him. He didn’t want to see it at the time, but he knew what that looked like. He couldn’t stop his mother from doing it. He couldn’t stop his father from doing it. He couldn’t even keep the pet cat around! How does one even run off an animal?

The point was… he saw Grace leaving. He saw her packing up. He saw her setting out. He did everything he could possibly think of to prevent it, even before she realized that she was leaving. But, when somebody wants to get away from you, they’ll do whatever you let them do to get away. She should have thanked him. He not only let her go, but he removed her completely. That’s what she wanted, anyway. She made that decision herself. “The void would have taken everything from you. Everything you worked for. Everything you’ve built. Everything you set in place to manage without the liars, the leavers, the lost ones…”

She first began slipping away from him before they became official. She started having problems with things that she didn’t have problems with previously… Honestly, she started the moment that she chose to leave him behind to tour for the summer when they were 15. The previous 5 years, she had plenty of times she could have went on the road. She either blew off her auditions or she didn’t push herself as hard. She had said that she could show off her skills on the Internet and have just as big of a following, if not a bigger one than if she built a resume of dance troupes and traveling ballet. She even forfeited the chance to be in a Broadway production, because she was worried that she’d never get to see him again. Then, when they were 15… It became more important to her than him.

He tried not to take it personally, because she had sacrificed plenty of opportunities for him before. But, it was a bad time for him, and a busy time and… he needed her. He always needed her back then. He had never been prepared to not have her. Sure, he could have went with her, like she wanted, but if HE put off his things, he didn’t have rich parents to fall back on. He didn’t have parents to fall back on, period. She… was in more of a position to give up her goals… but she had decided not to. That was fair. He told himself many times every day that was fair and she deserved to choose herself sometime. She came back changed… or maybe he changed without her there. That much doesn’t matter, right now. What matters is that he TRIED to fix them. She leaned more into these changes. These changes that could tear them apart. Changes that would leave him lonely again, for the first time in years.

Grace was working on her music career junior year. After the tour, she had connections that she didn’t want to go cold. She would throw herself into those and into creation while Simon was working on a future that he still hoped was for both of them. He was working his ass off for them, but in hindsight, she was working hers off for herself. After she was Simon’s girlfriend, at school, things felt different for her. Everybody treated her exactly the same way that they always had, but everything was just different.

Simon was either more social than she knew him to be, or had gotten that way overnight. Then again… He was in StuCo and held a position… so he had the social skills to at least win people over. She supposed that she hadn’t noticed because he was the one who she always had to talk out of a fight. He was more than that, of course, but… she guessed that she hadn’t realized how many friends he must’ve had, because he was doing a lot and having to leave her behind, most of the time.

Most times, he gave her a quick rundown of what type of stuff he had to do for the day, kissed her on the cheek, promised to see her later and rushed off. She chalked it up to the busy schedule that he had been speaking about for this year, at least a year in advance, and didn’t think much of it. At least, whenever they had space, she didn’t have to wonder what to do next. She didn’t have to decide if she should be sitting in his lap like his friend’s girlfriend, or in between his legs like that girl across the way, or straddling him like Shana sometimes did whoever she was dating, or… sit there, with her book, pretending not to see any of it and smiling at Simon whenever they made eye contact.

Simon was always studying her, surveying, making inventory of her expressions and potential emotions. She could feel him investigating and she didn’t know what to do with that. He didn’t know what to do with his findings… Why was she so uncomfortable when he looked at her? Why did she shy away from his gaze? What was wrong with her that she didn’t want his attention? She always wanted attention… it was basically her identity! Not only did she start to seemingly have problems with his attention, but also the rest of the world’s attention.

Being trapped in her room most of the time meant more work on her music. Anytime she posted something new, someone always showed up to remind others of how she "accosted an innocent woman on the train and threatened to ruin her life if she sought justice" and that she "is actually a terrible person." Sure, her fans defended her, but her focus was stuck on the negative feedback. Simon told her, “Don’t worry about those nulls. You’re Apex royalty. They’re scrubs.” He wasn’t remotely concerned about it.

Simon had asked himself if he had defended her to them, would things have been different between them… but the previous times he had defended her, she got mad at him! It took him days to get her back to normal, and even then, she seemed tepid. She was letting a bunch of strangers on the Internet doubt herself.

“She let a bunch of nulls weigh in on her confidence, then she got made at ME for agreeing with her parents that it was weak of her. It was! The Apex doesn’t care about the opinions of nulls!” He realized that he was speaking of the void like it was a person again. Personifying it. Humanizing it. That was sometimes difficult not to do. He would tap into his disappointment, hurt, and anger and he knew it was because of this rot that had spread in his life for years.

But, every now and then a glimmer of her smile, her smell, her softness would hit him in the heart and he would forget about it temporarily. For a few moments, she would be the love of his life again… “It doesn’t care about you. It never did. The void is a parasite. It would have poisoned everything, if you hadn’t cut the head off and incapacitated it.”

He glanced over at a mannequin head designed to look like it. It had given him the idea, inadvertently whenever it jokingly accused him of being a life size figurine of himself. Immediately, he thought - I’ve gotta make her one of those! It was a passion project, and of course, he didn’t have a lot of time to work on it, but the head was complete by the time it showed itself as the hollow it was.

Grace felt like she hadn’t smiled for real in a while. Nobody really noticed. The Apex didn’t know her that well. Simon didn’t have time for her. Her parents probably never cared. She went into town with her flock of girls, these days. She felt like Simon was sending them to be around her and she didn’t know if that was sweet or creepy. But, she ditched them at the mall to go to see him. He was at work that night, at the learning center. He had a job helping to tutor struggling kids - one that his credits as a student tutor at the Academy, his grades, his position as one of the students enrolled in the early college program, and a recommendation from Mr. Monroe got him hired at, despite the fact that most of the staff here were actual educators.

They didn’t even know about the fact that Simon had started a business of doing people's homework, projects, sometimes their tests from the time he was 11 until he was 15. He was definitely qualified for tutoring, but it was her father’s recommendation that really gave him the edge over actual teachers. He was satisfied enough there. He still did a project or two for the rich kids when he could squeeze something in, for extra cash. He was saving up to move out of his dad’s house. Now that his mother was at her mother’s, his dad was considering leaving the military and coming home. Simon didn’t want to be around for that, but there never seemed to be enough money for anything. That was his “adult” experience… Working all of the time, going to school, barely hanging on to his sanity, and yet being so broke that had his father not still been paying the bills, he knew he might be homeless and starving… so it was presumable that's how he might live once Mr. Laurent got back.

He couldn't ask the Monroes for more help. They had practically been taking care of him for the past two years. Mr. Monroe, at least, had been helpful in ways that Simon couldn’t describe. Sure, he believed he would have figured things out for himself , but thanks to the Monroes, he hadn't had to. He intended to pay them back eventually, but for now, he worked hard and loved Grace with everything else he had.

"Hey." He heard her say, walking in with a bag and a cup holder. His smile was wide and his eyes lit up. That made her reflexively smile back. How many of those smiles were fake, he’d have to wonder for as long as he couldn’t shake her out of his mind. “Ditched the girls to bring you dinner. Didn’t know if you’d have a chance to get to some on your own.”

He checked the time on his phone, “Actually, you’re right on time. I was about to go into the computer room and work on homework before I head out.”

“Yeah! Great timing is a thing that I definitely usually don’t have.”

They went into the breakroom to eat and Simon was on his phone, furrowing his eyebrows and blocking people in Grace’s comments. She glanced over and saw, then sank in her seat, not wanting to think about her latest post. “This sounds really good, Grace,” he told her. And he meant it. The vocal coach that she had began to see so that she could confidently transition into singing was paying off. It wasn’t that she sounded bad before, but her voice was pretty bland and she didn’t seem to be able to find her range on her own.

“I wish the audience thought that,” she said, with a sigh. The Internet was making her depressed and isolated. Every thing that she shared came with thousands of critics. As someone used to only either being complimented or ignored, criticism hurt a little more than she would have expected. Perhaps because she was too popular and therefore attracted more feedback than a person probably should have to be faced with at 16.

Regardless of that, Simon shrugged and said, “Anybody who doesn’t like it doesn’t have to listen to it. They’re there, so they obviously wanted to hear the song. Besides, I see way more support than hate.”

“Maybe so, but there’s a LOT of hate, and it’s very aggressive and hurtful. Like… I don’t understand why me trying out a new song and someone not liking it can’t just be scrolled by. Why did this girl have to tell me: Ugh. Everybody tries to be a singer. You’re a lip gloss model, Honey. Keep doing that. Beautiful gowns.”

“Because, she’s a bitch,” Simon said and took a bite of his sandwich. Grace let out an irritated sigh that caused him to look up from his phone. “What?”

“You just… don’t get it.”

“What don’t I get? The song sounds good. You have excellent equipment. You wrote pretty clever lyrics, did your own music, sang and was proud enough of your work to share it with the world. Now that a few birds have come squawking, you no longer see the greatness in what you shared? I know you wouldn't have posted it if you didn’t think it was perfect. So, I get it more than you do. You’re distracted by someone with a crooked wig on in her profile picture?”

Grace looked at the profile picture and saw that the woman’s wig definitely had been sadly placed onto her head. She laughed about it and laughed at herself a little too… but this was always Simon’s reaction to her venting about the people that made her feel bad. He’d basically make her feel a little bit worse by not acknowledging that her feelings were valid and by pointing out how insignificant her critics were. The simple fact that he had a point, that they were nulls, and she was letting them upset her only made her feel worse, which she couldn’t tell him because he didn’t seem to take her feeling bad that seriously anyway.

She knew it was because she had always prided herself on being strong and not caring what people thought about her… but she was handled a lot differently outside of her echo chamber. The Internet was global and her following was high, but some of the people who followed her seemed to do it just to see what to complain about, just to make a dent in her day. They succeeded, too. But, the only person she could admit it to just told her to suck it up.

“I’m thinking about going to a performing arts college,” she said. Simon dropped his phone and stared at her. She smiled awkwardly and said, “I mean… You’re preparing pretty hardcore for college and I’ve dived into this music thing. Maybe, I ought to be more serious about it and actually get the official credentials..”

“Where are you thinking of going?”

“I’m thinking of trying to go to Julliard.” He relaxed a little bit at that. Juilliard was in New York. That would be farther from him than he would like, but if he was at MIT, that would be about an hour away and if he was at Princeton… well… That would be 3 hours, or more… but… He had enough time to put these things into his planning and decision making. “Or… I might go uh, overseas.” Now, his frown was embedded in all of his features. “If I can’t get into the best one in the world, I’m going to shoot for the next best… that’s in Austria…” She bit her lip, waiting for his demeanor to change, hoping that he just had to think about it for a moment. His demeanor did change, but he seemed further away from what she wanted of him at the moment. “What brought this on?” He asked.

“Just… want to get more serious about my craft. Sure, I can spend hours and hours a day working on choreography and songs, training with some of the best professionals in the entire world, but people are still coming onto my dance video posts and saying things like, “I didn’t know that Grace Monroe could dance! I love her more now!” Didn’t know that I could dance? That’s like… the ONE THING that I can do with complete confidence! I’m trying to get my music career started when my first talent isn’t even recognized…”

“It IS recognized! It’s recognized ALL of the time. You’re just so focused on the dregs that don’t recognize, that you’re willing to go 4000 miles away from me, for years, to impress strangers on the Internet who probably STILL won’t fuck with you, because most of the people inciting you are people who just don’t like you, Grace!” He let out a chuckle of disbelief, but she hated it.

“Don’t laugh,” she said, very seriously.

“I’m not laughing,” he said, shook his head, then slumped back in his seat, resting his face in his palm as he tried to collect himself.

"How could you have possibly taken everything that I just told you about how I'm feeling and what I intend to try to do about that and just… make it about you?"

He uncovered his face to look at hers. She looked like she was going to cry. He hated when she cried. It was too far away from her normal… at least it used to be. She was crying more and more lately. Sometimes from the littlest things.

"If you can't see how much a decision like that will affect both of us, then I'm not sure if I currently am in the mood to explain it to you."

"Whenever I shared my thoughts about how much people were hurting my feelings, you didn't care about how that could affect the both of us. You just expected me to deal with it on my own. This is my idea for how I deal with that."

He leaned his elbows on the small table, steepled his fingers and rested his head against his hands. She wants to leave you. She’s using the excuse that people are hurting her feelings so that she can leave you and never come back. She never wanted you. She made that clear and you refused to see it. You thought that it was your brain being mean to you. She lied to you. She never loved you and she never wanted you. Now, she’s pretending that worthless people make her feel bad… She would rather look WEAK to you than to stay with you…

“Simon?” She said. He scoffed. Fake concern. Don’t let her trick you with her soft voice. She’s venomous. She let you love her because she was bored, and now, she’s trying to abandon you like everyone else. “Simon,” she said, more stern. Drown her out. Drown her out. Drown her out. Drown her… “Simon!” She had gotten up and turned his face to look at her with her palm. She made him look into her eyes and he was powerless again. “Where’d you go?” She asked, smiling nervously.

“Did I do something wrong? Why do you want to leave me?” He asked, in a small voice. Maybe his brain was being mean right now. Maybe… it was all a misunderstanding? PLEASE, JUST TELL ME YOU LOVE ME AND THAT I’M OVERREACTING! I. WILL. BELIEVE. YOU.

“No. I did. I thought that I was ready to introduce myself to the world and now that the world knows me, there’s people out there who can’t stand me and I just… I don’t know how to do with that. In real life, they at least pretend to like me, you know?”

She rubbed her hands together anxiously. Lies. She can’t possibly care about the way these strangers feel. She’s Grace Monroe. She knows that she’s invincible. Caring about the movements of ants is futile… “Okay… What do you need me to do to fix it?” He asked, trying to ignore his brain’s warnings.

“Just, support me? I just want to take a step back from all the Internet music, maybe keep creating and try to get into a studio with something I’m proud of, instead of posting onto my websites, and… I really want to try to go to school, just to be more confident that I really do belong in the industry and that I’m not just Internet famous because I was a pretty face with the best organic lip gloss.”

“Support you… leaving me,” he said.

She couldn’t pick up any emotion. It was like something had settled in his mind. Something that he didn’t let her know. “It would be temporary, Simon. Just like whenever you thought you would have to go to the military after graduation.”

“I recall very minimal support from you in regards to that.”

“Yeah, well… I stick by what I said. Our military is a global terrorist, oppressing and destroying civilization in mostly Brown nations. Juilliard is hardly like that, and I most likely will get in! I don’t think I'll HAVE to go to Austria. I wanted to be clear that it’s an option. I just meant the time that we’ll be apart. Plus, I’d send for you if you ever need to see me.” She knelt beside him, cupped his face and kissed him on the lips. He froze in place. She NEVER kisses you on the lips. She always moves her face to make you kiss her on the cheek, or the nose, or… something. She’s placed her hand between your mouths, before! You can’t ignore this any further. It’ll break your heart. You’ve lost her. There’s a void where your Grace once was… Tears fell down Simon’s cheeks as he stared at Grace’s confused face.

She wiped them away with her thumbs and as his tears were being cleared away, so was her face. He just saw a blurry form in front of him, a dark shadow, with an aura of smoke. He looked terrified. She turned to look behind her, alarmed by his reaction, thinking something was hovering over her. She definitely felt a switch of things in the atmosphere. She didn’t see anything though. Simon did.

A void. It stood in front of him, speaking with Grace’s voice and trying to pass itself off as the girl he’d loved for as long as he knew her. That girl was obviously gone. No longer fit for him. No longer fit for the Apex. “Okay.” He said, suddenly fine, as far as she could tell. “I’ll support you.” She offered him a small, confused smile, but he didn’t return it. He didn’t even look at her again. He collected their trash, threw it out and took her hand, “I’ll get you home.

Simon was silent the entire way to the Monroe’s estate. He didn’t get out to get her door, or walk her to the mansion, or talk with her father, so she knew that even though he said he was okay with her decision, that he wasn’t. It was best to just give him his space to work it out, she thought. She thought wrong... Simon tensed up whenever she kissed him on the cheek goodnight. As soon as she got out of the car, he peeled away, vigorously wiping the Apex red lip print from his face. She didn’t deserve to grant anybody that mark anymore.

He drove with trembling hands and lips, talking to himself, arguing with himself about Grace. Grace that once hunted down his bullies with him because she thought he was the most important person in the world. Grace who had threatened anyone who so much as said something rude to him in passing. Grace... who used to want to be near him, and have his back. The Grace that couldn’t stand the thought of being anywhere without him at her side... She was as dead to him as Hope was.

Speaking of... This had began right around the time that she brought him to the cemetery. Was it related? Had Hope somehow reached over and taken her vengeance on him by stealing away his Grace and replacing her with this dark spirit? This ghost? This VOID??? He pulled into the garage of his house, crying again. He left his backpack in the car. He wasn’t going to be doing anymore work that night. He passed the shrine that his father had in the workspace every time he pulled in, but usually, he avoided looking at it. Tonight, he paused and stared at her face. He... had forgotten it. He looked at the photos, wondering if she always looked that way? Not the angel that he remembered dying, but something sinister, smiling joyously at him as he shriveled in pain. “Did you do this?” He asked her. He could hear her laughs in his mind from that night. Her taunting him, making him feel like he wasn’t enough. “I didn’t mean it, Hope! It was an accident!” he yelled at the photos.

“Fake man! Fake man! Wook at the widdle baby man! Can’t catch me! You’re not a man! Mommy lied! Mommy lied!”

“I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t mean to. I didn’t... Please, just... stop.” He whispered, crying more than he had in a long time. Her photos began to move, to cackle, to point at him and call him a baby man... He roared and punched the display, breaking the glass of the frame, which fell on it’s face, bounced off of the desk and crashed to the floor. Now, it was covered in blood. Only a bit of it was from his fist... the rest seemed to be seeping from the cracks in the frame. Like... he had killed Hope, all over again. He picked up a shard of the glass and clenched it in his fist. This was too much. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. This was his mind messing with him, He needed to center himself.

He raised his sleeve and looked at all of the tally marks that he had made for his Grace and he began to add on to them. “1 You are stronger than anybody you know. 2 You are smarter than anybody you know. 3 You can survive losing Grace. 4 Only you can get rid of the void that swallowed her whole. 5 You owe the Apex to get rid of the void. 6 You can do anything. 7 There’s nobody who could stop you. 8 You’re on your own now, but that’s for the best. 9 No one will hold you back. 10 No one can hurt you again, because everyone you loved is gone...” He took a deep breath, looked at the broken frame and threw his piece of glass on top of it. He didn’t even care about cleaning it up. The girl in the photo couldn’t hurt him anymore. And neither could the one in his memories... The one that he used to call Grace, “The void,” he said, going into the house.

#If They Didn't Get on the Train #AU Infinity Train #Infinity Train #Nesha Fanfiction #Infinity Train Fanfiction #fics

16 notes · View notes

arkus-rhapsode · 5 years ago

Text

My Thoughts on FE3H DLC Cindered Shadow’s Story

You are reading that right people, I just binged the new FE DLC side story for six hours straight. Now I want to preface this with one thing, this is my thoughts on the side story ITSELF. I haven’t seen any of the Ashen Wolves individual supports. This will not be a character study.

This will simply be my thoughts on the side story in and of itself. Now considering this just came out 6 hours ago I can not stress this enough SPOILERS!

With all that out of the way, let me tell you what I thought of Cindred Shadows...

This was FILLER. Like no joke, any person who has watched a long running anime produced by studio Perriot could telegraph this story.

Now let me tell you, just because something is filler doesn’t automatically makes it bad. This story very clearly serves the introduction to the newest members of Garreg Mach. But the plot is very very paint by numbers. From addition to lore that introduces Mcguffin as strong as the already established items.Four really strong people we never heard of who were just lying in wait. A villain who they try to portray as morally grey, but in the end is just a giant monster. (Literally)

Okay, let me back up and give you my negatives first and then positives.

Now due to its nature, I’m not going to rag on things like hyper compression of story telling. By its nature the plot needs to move fast. I’m not gonna say “Well maybe if they built up this characteristic longer etc..”

But I will say that the things that felt like dead weight was the other house members. The Ashen Wolves on their own are all cool characters. Very fun, with my personal favorite being Constance. But then you have the lords who for the first time are all together and they really say nothing of value. The one lord convo I thought was really good was when Dimitri is asking Edel about her hair color shift.

In fact, a waste of supporting characters is pretty much the biggest problem with this side story. Obviously the Wolves take front and center, but you have the central plot involving someone connected to Jeralt, and Byleth’s mother, Sitri.

Not once does Jeralt appear. Edel barely interacts with Constance after she claims she’ll prove house nueville and herself to the Empire is almost completely dropped. And we have another Holst connection. A connection for a guy who who we still don’t know what he looks like. And Sothis? Nowhere to be found.

With how focused on the Wolves it was, I wonder if it be better to scrap the supporting cast, and just have the adventure with Byleth, Jeralt, and the Wolves. That would’ve probably resulted in a lot lower difficulty curve, but it would help the story stay self contained.

Im also gonna say I wasn’t a big fan of the Cardinal (I can’t remember his name). As I said, he was so obviously the villain and what his evil plan was, that it genuinely hurt for me. Like I was shaking being like “I already know how this will go, he faked his own kidnapping and its a trap! He wants to use the power of raising the dead on Sitri!” and “How are none of you piecing this together till its right in front of you?” And then there’s his motivation of loving Sitri so much he wants her back.

Which bites because again, how little you actually get to know him. So when he turns out to be bad its just so meh. I will say that part I did appreciate was he wasn’t jealous or anger at Sitri for choosing Jeralt. He wasn’t like “I’m gonna bring her back and then she’ll love me!” No, he’s doing it because he misses her and wanted her to be happy. (I wish Jeralt could’ve contributed something. Or even Alois who is running around.)

I’m not upset with the fact that the story is predicable. And I’m of the mind that just because you can predict a story, doesn’t make it bad so long as getting to that endpoint was really good. And it wasn’t.

I almost feel like this story would’ve been better with no “Human villain.” Like, its just some thieves at first that cause Byleth to explore, then meets the Wolves, and that makes them wanna go exploring till they make it to the Chalice where there’s some deformed Sothis Clone that could look like Hagemon Husk Edelgard or something.

Now with all that said, the thing I really have to praise is the gameplay. Seriously, its about 7 chapters and each map really feels like a challenge. There’s a lot more conditions and bells and whistles and you really feel smart when you figure it all out.

It kinda reminds of FE Conquest, but a bit more forgiving.

Another positive is the Ashen Wolves themselves. As I said, they’re good characters. I’m excited to explore them in the main series game, but that’ll have to wait as of now.

I do think the Abyss itself is a neat concept. Particularly it being a haven for people like Almyrans and Dagdans that are refugees. It makes wonder if Cyril knew about the Abyss.

I like the idea that Rhea is excising her power putting all the “desirable undesirables” under her eye. It really does make her come off as far more manipulative and clever than she already was.

And Sitri herself. I’m glad we finally get to see Byleth’s mom. The small bit talking about her body and where Rhea locked it up was possibly the best addition to the main story. Though its times like these I wish Byleth could talk and have a personality.

In conclusion, the DLC side story is something where the gameplay outshines the story. If you’re an FE fan who wants a challenge, you’ll like this side story. If you only care about the plot then its really up to how you feel on predictable storylines.

For me personally, I’m a bit sad about the story, as I was hoping to fill in some narrative issues with 3H. But there is still the supports which could do something. So If I had to give it a grade, I’d say 5/10

#fire emblem #fire emblem three houses #fe3h #byleth eisner #byleth #jeralt eisner #sitri eisner #ashen wolves #hapi #balthus #constance #fe yuri #constance von nuvelle #balthus von adalbrecht #yuri leclerc #fire emblem cindered shadows #cindered shadows #fire emblem three houses cindered shadows

84 notes · View notes

tifarobles · 6 years ago

Text

How Disney Villains Represent Real Problems in Society: Exploring Emotional Issues

Looking at a side of Disney that I haven’t explored yet, I wanted to consider how messed up the Disney villains are and how their problems can be traced to real issues in society.

In this post, I will primarily be focusing on emotionally abusive relationships, but I will also touch on some personality disorders that some of the villains seem to suffer from.

I also want to bring into question what it means to show powerful villains to children while they are developing their sense of what it means to be right and wrong in the world. We all know that in the real world no person is strictly all good or all evil and I think it’s important to keep that truth in mind when showing these films to our children.

Hans - Prince of Abusive Relationships:

A dude using his charisma to make a woman think he’s interested so that he can use her in some way to benefit himself… TOO REAL! Let’s talk about emotional abuse. He uses classic gaslighting techniques and dishonesty for personal gain throughout the entire film in a way that even persuaded me that he was the good guy. So much so, that this film theory still has me questioning who the true villain is… Assuming Hans wasn’t under a troll spell, he lied about his feelings for Anna, was disingenuous about intentions of taking care of Arendelle, and claimed that Anna was dead in order to get Elsa to give up her own life. That last one has a lot of weight to unpack… Think about how demented you have to be to lie to someone about their closest loved one’s death so that they allow you to kill them in cold blood. That is... really dark manipulation.

Mother Gothel - The Mother of Gaslighting:

Mother Gothel does everything in her power into manipulating Rapunzel into submission of her complete control. She tears Rapunzel down constantly in an attempt to make her feel worthless, including questioning her intelligence and sense of reality. A prime example of this is when she refuses to call the floating lights what they are and insists that they are merely stars. She insults Rapunzel’s looks and ability repeatedly in almost every conversation because she doesn’t want Rapunzel to have the strength to believe in herself enough to escape. Using a passive-aggressive attitude, Mother Gothel intentionally makes Rapunzel think every action and word is for her own good, further influencing Rapunzel to feel like she is incapable of making decisions for herself. Mother Gothel wants Rapunzel to believe that she wouldn’t survive in the world without her assistance and uses exaggerated examples and fear to make Rapunzel feel powerless and dependent. One of her favorite tools is to create situations in which Rapunzel feels guilt for bringing up topics that upset her, using the classic guilt-trip strategy. She even makes bold gestures and uses theatrics to “prove” to Rapunzel how much she cares for her, including boasting about how thoughtful it was that she got Rapunzel’s favorite food and painting herself as a savior for how she protects Rapunzel. You don’t have to be an evil, kidnapping stepmother to use these tools and many people do in all sorts of relationships.

Lady Tremaine - The Queen of Control

Turning Cinderella into a slave after her father’s death is only the beginning of the power hunger that Lady Tremaine abuses her family with. Lady Tremaine doesn’t only emotionally abuse Cinderella but also puts pressure on her daughter’s to maintain the power over Cinderella. She is not only teaching her daughters immoral values, but also preventing them from learning real compassion, empathy, and humility. She micromanages her daughter’s lives, keeping them from independence while forcing Cinderella to live alone under the same roof. Lady Tremaine is the only one with real power in the house and she holds that over all three young girls’ heads at any opportunity. She rewards her daughters for lying and keeps Cinderella from defending herself, raising these women to be submissive for her own benefit. She wants her daughters to provide her with wealth and power so badly that she even threatens them to not disappoint her when it’s time to try the glass shoe on. Everything about her parenting is terribly damaging.

Captain Hook - The Kidnapping Sociopath

This one is a little darker than I want to dive into… but let’s face it, Captain Hook is a kid-napping serial killer. He murders one of his own crew members for singing. When his best friend points out that this murder was uncalled for, he takes no responsibility and deflects the situation by randomly bringing up that his missing hand is also uncalled for… That’s a great example of a complete failure to consider others’ experiences or worth. Right after this, he goes to war against literal children. While many villains use their understanding of the human psyche for manipulation, Captain Hook is completely incapable of understanding that other people have emotions and therefore cannot feel remorse or empathy. This is a true characteristic of sociopaths and is often responsible for apathetic behavior in our society.

Cruella De Vil - Ms. Impulse Control Issues

Once Cruella has set her mind to something, she will do all she can to achieve her goals. This includes being completely selfish with no regard for others, putting herself and others in danger, and breaking the law. She has no respect for others and loves being the center of attention, often barging into homes unannounced. Her identity is wrapped up in her obsession with furs and when she sees unique fur that she wants for herself, she takes it regardless of the likely negative outcome due to her lack of planning. Cruella doesn’t strategically plan the way that most villains do and acts almost entirely on her impulses without thinking through the consequences of her actions. Her short temper is just another example of her inability to control impulsive behavior when the urge strikes.

Maleficent - The Mistress of Evil

So, that is actually how Maleficent describes herself. If she had a business card, it would state “Mistress of Evil” for her job title. My problem with this is that evil often gets put on a pedestal considered as cool and mysterious, turning bad into a positive light. While this can be very fun in storytelling, and I have my own favorite villains that I love to root for (looking at you, Regina in Once Upon a Time!) this isn’t something I want to raise my son to believe. Being evil, selfish, and malicious shouldn’t be a romanticized version of living on the edge, especially in a children’s movie where the main protagonists are bland and outright bad examples themselves. Maleficent is evil and proud with no desire to do good in the world and no consideration for anyone except herself. This sounds like a lonely, sad life to me. My concern is that by idealizing evil characters, we are telling children that they can act on bad impulses and treat others cruelly if they want to be mysterious, misunderstood, and cool instead of encouraging them to always empathize with others in an attempt to be better people.

#Disney #villains #emotional abuse #mental health

6 notes · View notes

streiknine-blog · 7 years ago

Photo

Task 001.

BUT RED WAS WHAT YOU WRAPPED AROUND YOU. BLOOD RED.

—Ted Hughes

BASIC INFORMATION.

Full Name: Vincent James Ouellet Nickname(s): Vin, Vinny, Strychnine, Striker; Strike Age: 28 Date of Birth: 13 February 1990 Hometown: Québec, Québec, Canada Current Location: Dertosa, California Ethnicity: white Nationality: Vincent is Canadian, but his mother was American, so he’s got dual citizenship Gender: cis male Pronouns: he/him Orientation: Vincent is bisexual — but also fun fact he’s never had sex Religion: agnostic — he doesn’t think too hard about it, but I could see him going for something like Roman Reconstructionalist if he actually put thought into it. Political Affiliation: (I don’t know stateside politics and neither does Vincent) Occupation: full-time Poison babey — see also: hitman Living Arrangements: he’s got a small apartment with sparse decorations — really what he was looking for when he got it was somewhere that he’d be able to relax and cook.

The kitchen is the most put-together part of the one-bedroom place, with well-loved pots, pans, and bakeware. A couple nice dishtowels in a white with navy stripes pattern hang from the handle of the oven, and a much more ragged bleach-worn dishtowel is usually seen on the counter (used for wiping up messes as they happen). Little (fake bullet) shell casing salt and pepper shakers sit on the back of the stove, along with a little porcelain rooster — “You have to have a rooster in the kitchen.” Vincent would say, “It’s good luck.” — which its paint is chipping from how old it is.

The living/eating area has a navy and grey rug that looks like he’s had it since he was in his early twenties (and, honestly, he has) and a dark-stained wooden table with four chairs — the insert to make it into a six person table for if he ever had the Poisons over sitting against the far wall, in plain sight — and just a single placemat, that is pastel and multi-coloured and looks like he stole it from a sixty year old’s kitchen décor, sitting on the table at all times.

He’s got a small, grey, apartment-sized couch that he likes to curl up an nap on, so there’s a throw blanket and a single pillow always on it.

Language(s) Spoken: English; French Accent: Light buzzing on ‘TH’, ‘Z’, and ’S’ sounds — a holdover from his Québécois upbringing; for the most part has a fairly neutral “Seattle accent” that he’s taught himself as a consequence of being around Americans and wanting to sound less ‘different’. Still has a light Québécois accent tinging his words.

PHYSICAL APPEARANCE.

Face Claim: Zane Holtz Hair Colour: dark brown Eye Colour: blue Height: 6’1” Weight: 220ish lbs Build: lorge Tattoos: n/a Piercings: n/a Clothing Style: Simple, dark sweaters (navy, forest green, maroon, black), white dress shirts (buttoned to the top), dark sports coats, charcoal or black slacks are the standard, but he’ll wear dark wash jeans occasionally. Usually the jeans are paired with a crisp dress shirt (in any of the sweater colours) that may be rolled to to the elbows. If he’s doing the sweater + dress shirt + jeans outfit, his favourite combination is his maroon sweater with a navy dress shirt. He thinks he looks fancy in it. He’s not opposed to wearing light, airy colours (like powder blue, or dusty pink) but he gets a bit self-conscious when he wears them — thinking that they don’t suit him well enough for him to pull it off. So he sticks to dark colours and neutrals. They’re easier to hide bloodstains anyway, and the white shirts can be bleached.

Fan of French cuffs but never wears them because cufflinks are easy to lose at a scene. When he’s not on the job he’s totally breaking out the French cuffs and his silver cufflinks. There’s the occasional t-shirt + sweatpants combo but usually reserved for when he isn’t going out anywhere/not seeing anyone but the other poisons or the flower he’s booked.

For accessories, he’s got a dark grey tungsten carbide band that he wears on his left ring finger.

Usual Expression: neutral, vaguely aggressive leaning. His eyebrows make him look mad when he’s not holding them up in some form of expression. Distinguishing Characteristics: I’d say his biggest distinguishing characteristic is that he is tall and wide — like not only is this kid over six feet tall, he’s jacked as shit too.

HEALTH.

Physical Ailments: needs glasses, and he’s nearsighted — it’s partly why he prefers knives to guns. Neurological Conditions: nothing I can peg but I’m sure there’s Something. Allergies: n/a Sleeping Habits: king of the cat nap, and honestly whenever he can knock out he’s gonna. He snores too. Eating Habits: he eats a Lot and he’s decently healthy… please see his favourite food section for a more detailed food thing. Exercise Habits: Boy loves to workout — gotta keep fit for murder, y’know? He’s fond of free weights, and bars… boy loves a heavy deadlift, and he’s gotta bench press his friends at least once. He’s also one to do sprints for his cardio, especially resistance sprints. Gotta go fast.

He works until it burns and he’s comfortably sore. Totally one to have a protein shake with oats added after a hard workout.

Emotional Stability: Vincent isn’t necessarily the most emotionally competent but he’s also not especially volatile. He’s got his moments — blind fury or just enjoyment of a kill can cause him to go a lil overboard. When he laughs it’s a whole body laughs — boy’s gonna feel things all at once if he’s going to feel them at all. Sociability: He likes to be with other people but he is just so painfully awkward. He doesn’t quite realize sometimes that he’s making jokes that aren’t funny and that he should stop making poisoning jokes to the flower that is eating the meal he prepped himself but, hey, we can’t be perfect and Vinny certainly isn’t. Body Temperature: I’d say he’s a slight onto the warm side — summer is hell for him. Addictions: can I say the high of a kill? But nah he ain’t a straight up murder-obsessed guy, he just really loves that feeling. In all honesty, he loves sweet things. Drug Use: Never Alcohol Use: Rarely drinks — he doesn’t like the feeling of being drunk/tipsy, but he will go for a lite beer or two, or a mixed drink that is “light on the alcohol, heavy on the mix, please.”

PERSONALITY.

Label: the aggressor; the cold-blooded; the loyalist Positive Traits: Fearless, determined, willing Negative Traits: Ruthless, detached Goals/Desires: his biggest thing is having a balance to things, it’s a driving force behind his actions. Fears: spiders — too many legs they creep him out. Hobbies: cooking, reading, watching movies Habits: absently rotates his wrists/cracks his fingers when he’s focused on something. Mutters in French under his breath if he’s trying to figure something out.

FAVOURITES.

Weather: cold, crisp winter day with large snowflakes floating down lazily — not a flurry, just pleasant and relaxing. Probably around -15C / 5f. Colour: navy and light blue Music: top 40 hits — 22 year old Vincent was the type to sing along to ‘Call Me Maybe’ in his car by himself. Movies: comedies, supernatural themes, French and Québécois cinema. Sport: Lacrosse; hockey (fan of the Canadiens and the Maple Leafs) Beverage: Hot chocolate!

He’s one to pick the drink up from a coffee shop on the way to an appointment, or to make himself a fresh one after he’s back home. He has several different kinds of it — from those hot chocolate wands, to tins of powdered mix, to single-serve portions of it for a on-demand coffee machine — and he’s not picky. He likes the sweetness of it, and, if he’s getting one from a coffee shop, makes sure to ask for extra chocolate sauce. At home it depends how tired he is. It’ll either be basic, with just hot milk and melted chocolate or fancier on his days off with tiny marshmallows or peppermint syrup. He especially likes to make hot chocolate for those he considers friends.

Food: He’ll give most things a try, honestly.

He’s definitely fallen back on the ‘pan seared broccoli with wild rice and baked chicken breast (with smoked paprika, thyme, and black pepper)’ as a basic dinner meal for when he’s feeling lazy. If he’s not feeling lazy the sky is the fucking limit. He’ll make everything from a whole chicken or a roast with accompanying veggies, to stir-frying tofu and veggies. For lunch he’s usually eating something he’s packed — quinoa, lemon-dill salmon, asparagus; rare steak, sweet potatoes, broccolini; Cobb salad with an extra hardboiled egg or two; homemade “instant” ramen in a jar — and for breakfast he’ll either just straight up have a protein shake with oats and fruit, or some of the egg muffins he makes every few days (mushroom, cheese, ham,, quinoa) or he’ll really go all out and have French Toast or waffles.

Homemade stovetop mac n cheese is a comfort food he likes if he wants something quick (25 minutes, start to finish), but if he’s gonna make a comforting meal to distract himself he’s totally the type to go with a braised lamb sort of deal.

Animal: dogs

FAMILY.

Father: Étienne Jean Ouellet (53); president of an insurance brokerage Mother: Lillian Grace Ouellet née Richardson (51); homemaker Sibling(s): none Children: n/a Pet(s): n/a Family’s Financial Status: solidly upper-middle class. Don’t you know the insurance business is practically a license to print money?

EXTRA.

Zodiac Sign: Aquarius; 13 February 1990 MBTI: ISTJ Enneagram: type 8 — the challenger Temperament: melancholic Moral Alignment: totally pegged him as a Lawful Evil — uses murder to get his ends tidy, but has a strong sense of needing balance for things. Not one to just willy-nilly McMurder. Primary Vice: Wrath Primary Virtue: Charity Element: Earth

#tcrp.task #about #this is so extra i'm so sorry

13 notes · View notes

generousartisangladiator · 6 years ago

Text

Sam and Dean as they were. Season 3

Season 3 is very dramatic in terms of the character development of the brothers, the first two seasons were introducing the characters building them, season 3 is quite another kettle of fish. It’s dynamic not only because of the brothers’ running against the clock, but also because it faces dramatic changes in the characters, especially Sam’s, which laid down to the great extent the grounds of season 4 and 5.

Magnificent Seven

Dean goes on the spree – he saved Sam and he doesn’t want to think about the future because it’s frightening and that’s why it’s better not to think about it, dissipating instead, which looks somehow immature. It’s kind of childish, because not thinking about something unpleasant doesn’t mean it will disappear. But, this episode shows that Dean tends to run from the problem and bury his head into the sand, this tendency was shown earlier in Hunted, when he ran from John’s last words suggesting to Sam they should hide instead of investigating the reason of John’s words. And this tendency was highlighted more in 03.01. Now he absolutely refuses even to think about the possibility to squeeze out of the deal, the stake is Sam’s life and he simply can’t live if Sam dies. Dean understands that he did that for himself and not for Sam, he did that to calm his own pain and not to feel that he is a failure. He understands that he shifted all that feeling of guilt he had suffered all over season 2 on Sam but it doesn’t worry him. He couldn’t help doing that.

SAM: Yeah, well, you're a hypocrite, Dean. How did you feel when Dad sold his soul for you? 'Cause I was there. I remember. You were twisted, and broken. And now you go and do the same thing. To me. (pause) What you did was selfish.

DEAN: Yeah, you're right. It was selfish. But I'm okay with that. SAM: I'm not. DEAN: Tough. After everything I've done for this family, I think I'm entitled. (pause) Truth is, I'm tired, Sam. I don't know, it's like there's a, a light at the end of the tunnel. SAM: It's hellfire, Dean. DEAN: Whatever. You're alive, I feel good – for the first time in a long time. I got a year to live, Sam. I'd like to make the most of it. So what do you say we kill some evil sons of bitches and we raise a little hell, huh?

Sam is on the opposite is completely focused on the ways to free Dean from the deal and spends every minute out of hunting on reading all possible books and sources as well as searching for people who could know something. And Sam has been demonstrating a patient of the saint for the whole week! For the whole week he puts up with Dean’s antics. For Sam it’s a real heroism, as Sam is not exactly a Mr. Tolerance in early seasons. (loved that so much I wish some of his unwillingness to put up with the foolishness would return. It seemed some glimpses of that was shown in season 12, but it’s virtually dissaperaed in season 13 so far).

This episode also shows a detail which was already underlined in the previous episodes, that is Sam’s readiness to take the responsibility for things done even if it’s not his fault, but he feels it’s his sphere of responsibility. Sam insists that they are responsible for Hell Gates’ opening.

BOBBY:Those demons that got out at the gate – they're gonna do all kinds of things we haven't seen.

SAM:You mean the demons we let out.

Though it was Sam who did more than anybody else to prevent that.

The kids are all right

It’s one of a Dean-centric episodes which are becoming more and more common since the second half of season 2 to counterbalance the focus of the story on Sam. The more the story was becoming about Sam the more the focus in PoV was shifting to Dean. (Something which Carver failed to do when shifting the focus of the story on Dean he didn’t shift the prevailing PoV to Sam thus destroying the balance of the story). This episode reveals that side of Dean which he conceals even from himself, that is his longing for a peaceful life. Dean loves hunting, because he loves killing, but it doesn’t mean that he doesn’t want something else. Dean may not have even suspected about his longing for a peaceful life, but for his imminent trip to Hell. He wants something else, some other life and he comes to the realization that this life is now closed for him because of his deal, and he wants to leave something behind, some heritage since his bitter disappointment that Ben is not his son. Lisa and Ben is an embodiment of “what might be”, but as he thinks, he will never get. Lisa’s consolations that even if Ben is not his son, Ben is alive because of Dean are empty for him – he spends his life saving people who don’t mean anything to him and he is losing people he cares about and now he has nobody but Sam. This longing is fleeting, and he parts with Lisa without a lot of pain. Dean is not ready to build serious relationships, but nevertheless it’s interesting, usually such longing to try something else but a hunter’s life is happening with Dean when he feels that the death is soon and imminent and when he is extremely scared of his nearest future. It will find the confirmation in Fresh Blood, and later in Paint it Black.

Sam. This episode starts the tendency of the whole season – now it’s Sam who solves all their cases. Even in the first two seasons, especially in season 2 it was Sam who mostly solved their cases, and took the leading role during their investigations, though in common situations the leadership was on Dean. Since this season virtually every case is solved by Sam, and Dean is glad to follow. As I have already mentioned the general leadership is on Dean, but the investigations are now wholly Sam’s sphere of responsibility. This detail underlines one more time the general brothers’ characteristics, which were outlined in previous episodes: Sam is a leader by nature, and Dean is a follower. It doesn’t mean that Sam became a leader between the two of them, it won’t happen for some time, I’m speaking about the character traits, about the potential, which can be realized or can stay only a potential or will be realized, but much later. The character development is not a direct line, each of them has their highs and lows, positive and negative dynamics.

This episode also shows the meeting of Sam and Ruby and Sam is ready to exorcise her, but she buys him with a promise to help Dean out of his deal and Sam gives in. Sam’s guilt and his determination not to let Dean go to Hell, leaves him vulnerable to manipulations.

Bad Day in Black Rock

It’s a light comedy episode, which underlines Dean’s love to show off. Your luck is not your merit, Dean, and you are not a Batman (thanks Chuck), though you want so much to read an admiration in the eyes of the audience, especially Sam. And yes, Dean again, like it was in Magnificent Seven, is recklessly risky. Later in Fresh Blood we will know the reason, when Dean starts risking it is always a sign of the great fear. And Dean is afraid of his future, he is afraid of Hell. And Dean seriously doubts Sam - his concerned: “I mean you're feeling okay?” is not a sign of worry, Sam is sitting near him and he is perfectly all right, it’s a sign of distrust. Azazel’s words, Dad’s last words and Dean’s inability to trust his brother as an equal all have been mixed here.

Sam. Sam’s character is changing and it is changing fast. It is revealed in the beginning of the episode when Sam tells Dean about Ruby and his decision to use her to save Dean and to get an advantage in their war with demons. Sam is changing, he is becoming more pragmatic and now, he is ready to go against his gentle nature to achieve a goal, he is ready to do things which he doesn’t like, but which he thinks are necessary. Dean was right to say that Ruby is using Sam’s weakness and this weakness is Dean. But Sam can’t refuse even from illusory chance to save Dean from the Hell, and he takes a step which he himself considers wrong that is to cooperate with Ruby. Further Sam’s pragmatism will be developing as well as his ability to take a hard decision if it’s necessary to do what should be done, even if he doesn’t like it and his ability to ignore his own feelings, if they get in the way.

And one more thing, Sam is a very good liar, answering the phone call he doesn’t even change a tone of his voice.

Sin City.

From the point of view of revealing the brothers’ outlook it’s an excellent episode. Sam. This episode again reveals the changes in Sam which started after the finale of season 2, when he showed a mercy to Jake and got a knife in his spine and Dean’s selling his soul as an award for the right thing to do. Sam is learning to be pragmatic, he is learning to be tough, and to go against his merciful nature if it’s necessary to get the job done.

RUBY: This won't be easy, Sam. You're gonna have to do things that go against that gentle nature of yours. There'll be collateral damage... But, it has to be done.

SAM: Well, I don't have to like it.

RUBY: No. You wouldn't be Sam if you did. On the bright side, I'll be there with you. (SAM swallows nervously, looking unhappy.) That little fallen angel on your shoulder.

And though it goes against his nature he kills those two demons, though this has a heavy toll on him because he understands that he kills innocent people as well. He did that, because it had to be done, it was a battle condition, but it doesn’t mean he feels better.

Dean doesn’t see all those Sam’s inner battle and doubts, he sees only cold-blooded shots, - he himself killed a lot of possessed people in the past and will kill many more in the future but he doesn’t expect that from Sam. Sam is getting more mature in strides, but Dean doesn’t notice that. His distrust is added by the revelations of Casey: if Sam only wanted he would acquire a great power and would be served by all demons of the Hell. What if Sam will want that? It scares him and his distrust is growing, and he starts to seek the darkness in Sam. And only now Dean begins to understand that his deal will not bring him the salvation from the pain and the guilt, he goes to Hell, which is hell in a literal sense of the word. Dean also starts to understand one more thing: he didn’t save Sam because Sam is now facing an alternative: either he accepts his demonic powers or he will be an easy target for every demon released from Hell, and many of them are dreaming to kill a boy-king.

Bedtime Stories

It’s a Sam-centric episode. Again the case is solved by Sam, at this stage it seems that Dean stopped even to try to help Sam he simply waits until Sam gives him leads to work on. This episode once again underlines how much unacceptable Dean’s deal for Sam:

KYLE No. No. Those were my brothers. This guy, he- he killed my brothers. How would you feel?

SAM (Pause) Can't imagine anything worse.

And, though Dean advises Sam to let him, Dean, go it’s unacceptable for Sam. Sam is not able to give up he never gave up during all the seasons of SPN so far, no matter how tiny chances to succeed he had. And he goes to the crossroad. The answer to the question the Crossroad demon asks: “Aren't you tired of being bossed around like a snot-nosed little brother?” is evident. He is and it ends right now and until the end of season 4. Sam decides to take control over the situation. Unfortunately, he is not able to control himself yet and when all his emotions mix together: his anger, desperation, and fear that he won’t succeed in saving Dean, he pulls the trigger.

Since the previous episode and in this one and later and further into the season, Sam demonstrates one interesting characteristics: on one hand, under the influence of Dean’s deal and facing the necessity to take responsibility for his family (at least for what he still has, that is Dean) he is getting more and more mature and towards the middle of the season he will become a more mature person than Dean, who just won’t be able to catch up with Sam and Sam will be becoming more pragmatic (which is not bad, and in Sam’s case will turn into a striking ability to put important above personal and he will sacrifice his own feelings for greater good), but on the other hand, this pragmatism is only in the process of formation and he tentatively feels its forms and limits (how far I can go? And how far is it acceptable to go?) he is trying to be tougher, and it won’t be smooth and without mistakes.

Dean. At the beginning of the episode Dean is still trying to play the older brother’s card. At the end he is just asking. He is losing his control over Sam and it frightens him.

DEAN You know what he said? Some good advice.

SAM Is that what you want me to do Dean? Just let you go?

3.06 Red Sky at Morning

Sam. Yes, as it was shown in the last episode Sam goes out of Dean’s control and refuses to apologize for his attempts to save him.

SAM: I shouldn't have done it? You're my brother, Dean. And no matter what you do, I'm gonna try and save you. And I'm sure as hell not gonna apologize for it, all right?

DEAN is silent. SAM shakes his head in exasperation.

And it’s him who leads the investigation and solves the case. And, despite his determination to become tougher and act not according to what his heart tells him, but to what his mind tells him, his mercy is still in place and he saves Bella.

Dean. And Dean not only likes to ascribe other people’s achievements to himself, he also likes to shift the responsibility for his failures on other people. Bella deceived Dean, Sam wasn’t even present there but Dean says:

DEAN: Relax! Oh yeah, yeah, I'll relax. I can't believe she got another one over on us!

SAM: (looks up) You.

DEAN: What?

SAM: I...I mean, she got ... one over ... on you, ... not us.

Fresh Blood

An excellent episode revealing the characters of both brothers.

Sam. Mercy is still his prevailing quality, which he demonstrates sympathizing the girl, understanding that she was deceived and doesn’t even understands what’s happening to her.

Sam, coming to the understanding that he can’t save everybody, starts to understand that possibly he can’t save Dean either. On the other hand, he is acquiring the ability to act despite his feelings, and do what has to be done. He easily lies to the girl that they will let her go and is ready to kill Gordon, though only a year ago he stopped Dean from killing him. Dean is worried: he doesn’t understand why Sam is changing and stronger and stronger suspects “the dark side” in Sam.

Also this episode for the first time reveals a bit how dangerous Sam can be. The idea, that from two brothers Sam is much more dangerous enemy will be revealing in the future, but it’s shown for the first time here, in the confrontation of Sam and Gordon. Gentleness, kindness, sympathy and mercy is only a part of Sam. But there is another part – Sam is an extremely dangerous enemy, he is ruthless to those who he thinks are evil and God forbid somebody attacks his family in his presence, Gordon knows. One of the most frightening things is the anger of a merciful man. This episode also reveals that Sam knows Dean a lot better than Dean knows himself. He sees, that behind his devil may care approach Dean hides his fear of the Hell. When Dean is afraid, he acts recklessly and such recklessness Dean demonstrates from the very beginning of season 3. In Magnificent Seven Sam stopped Dean from a reckless attempt to “distract” demons using himself as their chewing toy.

A Very Supernatural Christmas

This episode shows the beginning of their brotherly bond. The awkward and not very successful attempt to make a holiday for his little brother is met with mutual love from the little Sammy when he gives Dean together with the amulet both his trust and his love. And many years later as retaliation jester Sam makes a holiday for his older brother, knowing that but for some miracle it will be the last Christmas with Dean. The whole episode is filled with sincere brotherly feelings and that’s why it’s so good.

Oh, yeah, it’s Sam who solves the case. Again.

Malleus Maleficarum

An excellent episode, revealing the brothers’ characters dynamics.

Sam. Sam is learning to be tough and pragmatic and he is ready to kill the witches, because they are murderers and that is why they are evil. His hesitations about tough decisions are in the past – the evil should be destroyed. Dean doesn’t understand what’s happening to Sam and is scared that Sam is “getting dark” and starts a frank conversation:

DEAN: Are you feeling okay?

SAM: (sigh) Why are you always asking me that?

SAM sits on the foot of one of the beds in the room, and DEAN moves back toward SAM.

DEAN: Because you're taking advice from a demon, for starters. And by the way, you seem less and less worried about offing people. You know, it used to eat you up inside.

SAM: Yeah, and what has that gotten me?

DEAN: Nothing, but it's just what you're supposed to do, okay? We're supposed to drive in the freakin' car and freakin' argue about this stuff. You know, you go on about the sanctity of life and all that crap. (DEAN rubs his stomach uncomfortably.)

SAM: Wait, so – so you're mad because I'm starting to agree with you? (DEAN looks at SAM and exhales.)

DEAN: No, I'm not mad, I'm— I'm— I'm worried, Sam— (DEAN moves and sits down on the foot of the other bed in the room.) I'm worried because you're not acting like yourself.

SAM: Yeah, you're right, I'm not. I don't have a choice.

DEAN: What is that supposed to mean?

SAM: Look, Dean, you're leaving – right? And I gotta stay here in this craphole of a world. Alone. So the way I see it, if I'm gonna make it, if I'm gonna fight this war after you're gone, then I gotta change.

DEAN has been looking increasingly uncomfortable during SAM's last speech, and is now clutching his stomach in discomfort and leaning forward slightly.

DEAN: Change into what?

SAM: Into you. I gotta be more like you.

Sam is trying to overcome his aversion to kill and is trying to learn to kill in the same cold-blooded manner, without hesitations like Dean. Not because he wants to be like his brother but out of pragmatism. He already understands that he can’t win the war armed with mercy (Jake taught him well) and he needs to overcome his aversion to kill anybody.

The interesting moment that Ruby wants the same, she also wants Sam to be more like Dean, she wants him to learn to kill like Dean, like Dean killed Tammy in this episode without even thinking that he is killing an innocent woman too, who never had anything to do with spells and black magic:

RUBY: I need your help.

DEAN: Help with what?

RUBY: With Sam. The way you stuck that demon tonight – it was pretty tough. Sam's almost there, but not quite. You need to help me get him ready – for life without you. To fight this war on his own.

And Ruby buys Dean in the same manner she bought Sam. She bought Sam promising to help to save Dean, and now she buys Dean with the promise to help Sam survive when Dean dies. Dean didn’t get softer to her, but he started to tolerate her near Sam. And one more thing. Only now Dean fully understands what is in store for him. His fate is to become a thing he hates and kills.

And yes, it was Sam who solved the case again, but in this episode the one more detail is shown, that is his ability to find solutions under pressure: he finds the demon among all those witches in a twinkling.

Dream a Little Dream of Me

Sam. Sam is extremely smart, decisive, saves Dean and demonstrates the amazing mental powers, as well as the willpower. He defeats the professional on his field which demands an unbreakable willpower and very highly organized mind. The guy Sam defeated had 160 IQ, does it mean Sam has higher? And in this episode Sam openly defies Dean and acts as he himself thinks is right. Dean gives in and resigns.

But this episode is Dean-centric. This episode gives an insight into Dean’s deeper inner world. And what do we learn? The extremely low self-esteem where his biggest fear roots from – his thinking that he is nothing without Sam and isn’t worthy as a person.

DREAM DEAN: I mean, after all, you've got nothing outside of Sam.

They stop circling each other. They're now back in their original positions. DEAN by the door, DREAM DEAN by the desk.

DREAM DEAN (continues): You are nothing. You're as mindless and obedient as an attack dog.

DEAN (smiling in denial, braving it out): That -That's not true.

DREAM DEAN: No? What are the things that you want? What are the things that you dream? I mean, your car? That's Dad's. Your favorite leather jacket? Dad's. Your music? Dad's. Do you even have an original thought?

DEAN scoffs, not wanting to admit to anything.

This conversation also shows Dean’s inner grudge against his father, subconsciously he thinks that his father used him, and didn’t love him. And Dean is jealous of Sam - he thinks that John didn’t love Dean, but loved Sam.

DREAM DEAN: No. No, all there is is, "Watch out for Sammy. Look out for your little brother, boy!" You can still hear your Dad's voice in your head, can't you?

He motions with the weapon to his head.

DREAM DEAN: Clear as a bell.

DEAN:(smiling) Just shut up.

DREAM DEAN lowers the gun.

DREAM DEAN: I mean, think about it ...

He begins to walk towards DEAN, whose smile is fading now.

DREAM DEAN:... all he ever did is train you, boss you around.

They're now standing face to face.

DREAM DEAN: But Sam .... Sam he doted on. Sam, he loved.

DEAN: I mean it. I'm getting angry.

DREAM DEAN: Dad knew who you really were. A good soldier and nothing else. Daddy's blunt little instrument. (angry) Your own father didn't care whether you lived or died. Why should you?

DEAN: (angry) Son of a bitch!

DEAN pushes DREAM DEAN hard, knocking him into the wall above the desk.

DEAN (screaming angrily): My father was an obsessed bastard!

DREAM DEAN tries to get up and DEAN kicks him down on the desk again. DEAN holds the weapon as a bat and hits DREAM DEAN once and then pins him to the wall with it.

DEAN: All that crap he dumped on me, about protecting Sam! That was his crap. He's the one who couldn't protect his family. He-

DEAN steps back and swings the weapon again, hitting DREAM DEAN twice.

DEAN: He's the one who let Mom die.

DEAN pins DREAM DEAN again.

DEAN– who wasn't there for Sam. I always was! He wasn't fair! I didn't deserve what he put on me.

He backs away from DREAM DEAN.

DEAN: And I don't deserve to go to Hell!

Fortunately this self-reflection which is really rare for Dean is not without its use. At last Dean understands that he doesn’t deserve Hell and agrees at last to try to find a solution. And again this episode shows Dean’s longing for a peaceful life: Lisa and Ben are simply a personification of this peaceful life for Dean.

Mystery Spot.

This is a Sam-centric episode. In this episode Sam experiences a crisis, which influences him so deeply that the consequences will reverberate for many years to come. A lot of Sam’s actions will be determined by the happenings of this episode. The events in this episode traumatized Sam and I’m not sure that now he overcame all the consequences. This episode slowly unravels as every Tuesday Sam is getting more and more desperate and his drive to save Dean is transforming into the obsession and into absolute coldness. “The dark” Sam is a breathtaking view. (Jared is a brilliant actor)

TRICKSTER: You're right. I was just screwing with you. Pretty good, though, Sam. Smart. Let me tell you, whoever said Dean was the dysfunctional one has never seen you with a sharp object in your hands. Holy Full Metal Jacket.

This episode reveals in full what most of the viewers already guessed: from the two brothers Sam is a much more dangerous enemy and where Dean fails Sam even won’t stumble.

The more valuable is the choice Sam makes every time choosing the right thing to do, which ultimately happens in this episode too. At first, it seems that Sam is so desperate as he is ready to sacrifice a human life to save his brother, but a stake, not a knife he used and his words that he does that only because “You are not Bobby” showed that Sam has been bluffing. The first insight into Sam’s ability to bluff, which in the future will help him to win from Patrick in season 5.

One more interesting detail:

TRICKSTER: I swear, it's like talking to a brick wall. Okay, look. This all stopped being fun months ago. You're Travis Bickle in a skirt, pal. I'm over it.

Sam is fantastically stubborn and Sam is not ready to let Dean go and this will lead him to his mistakes in season 4. And the last thing: for better or for worse, but Sam never gives up. That is the difference between the brothers. Dean may break and give up, but not Sam. Sam will never give up even when the chances to win are close to zero. And Sam will impart the faith into Dean as well.

Jus in Bello.

Sam. Sam experienced the events of Mystery Spot and they didn’t go without influence. He is devastated emotionally and he comes to the understanding that this war can’t be won without sacrifices, and collateral damage is unavoidable. All that can be read in his compassionate look at that girl. The lives of thirty people are at stake and there is not any other way. But understanding that rationally doesn’t mean he is ready to accept that and to agree with that. And Sam can’t take such a tough decision preferring Dean’s reckless in its hopelessness plan. And Ruby brilliantly demonstrates to both of them how both of them were wrong. And Sam comes to the realisation that the victims in this war are unavoidable.

Another moment is interesting, though. The decision how to act: according to the plan Ruby suggested or according to Dean’s plan belonged to Sam and Dean was waiting for Sam’s decision. It again showed that Sam went out of Dean’s control and began to take the leadership after 03.05. This tendency continued up to season 4 finale and stopped at the beginning of season 5, when Sam crushed by his guilt gave the leadership to Dean for a very long time and from then preferred to follow. Dean’s unequivocal leadership went on from the beginning of season 5 until the middle of season 9 when Sam got indignant at what Dean had done to him to such a degree, that he decided to return control upon his life into his own hands, and growing Dean’s inability to cope with the Mark of Cain made Sam stop nursing his own feeling of guilt and insecurity which he had been growing after season 4 and made him take the responsibility for his family upon himself.

Long Distance Call

Sam. The episode underlines the fact that Sam despite his realization of the necessity of tough decisions and inevitability of collateral damage at the war, didn’t lose his ability to sympathize to people and his drive to save them all. And this episode reveals this brilliantly: he sympathizes with that girl and saves the boy out of the wheels of the bus. Sam’s core characteristics stay the same, though he changed in some ways considerably. He became more pragmatic and he is skeptical about Dad’s call – the magical cure at the last minute doesn’t match with the sober outlook, and as a consequence, it’s extremely unlikely, and though it’s so desirable to believe, his pragmatic mind prevails.

Dean desperately clings to his faith in his father, even dead, because of his fear of Hell and his desperate hope that he can avoid it. His fear and his hope gets the better of his sense of duty and, instead of trying to save people, he went to hunt nobody knows who to nobody knows where after nobody knows whose call. Did I mention that it was Sam who solved this case? For the whole season Dean didn’t solve a single case, all cases were solved by Sam. Initiative and leadership in hunts are on Sam - Sam is really the brains of their operations.

Time Is on My Side

Both brothers are absolutely desperate. Dean rushes after Bella and is ready to kill her, and Sam rushes after the recipe of immortality. Nevertheless, Sam gives in when Dean refuses to use the recipe. That’s very telling. Sam leaves decision about Dean’s fate to Dean, something which Dean was unable to do in season 9. Did I mention that Sam solved the case?

No Rest for the Wicked

Two significant dialogues here:

The first one:

RUBY: Um... demon. Manipulative's kinda in the job description. Fact is, is that you would have never considered it. Not until you were – SAM: Desperate enough? They exchange a look, and she shrugs as he looks away. RUBY: You don't like being different. You hate the way Dean looks at you sometimes. Like you're some kind of sideshow freak. But suck it up because we've got a lot of ground to cover, and we've gotta do it fast. But we can do it.

The second:

DEAN: She wants you to give into this whole demonic psychic whatever, okay. I mean hell, she probably wants you to become her little anti-christ Super Star. RUBY(angry):I want Lilith dead. That's all.

(The funniest thing here, by the way, is Ruby is telling the truth and Dean is wrong. Ruby doesn’t want Sam’s darkening, she wants Lilith dead, not now, because she is sure Sam can’t kill Lilith now, but later, after Dean will break the first seal and will trigger the mechanism of Apocalypse)

We are told that Sam always hated being special and ran from it, he never wanted to be “special”, or “hero”, but we are also told that Sam got desperate enough that is ready to use his “abilities” despite the fact they are of a demonic origin. But he also feels that these demonic abilities won’t change him they won’t turn him into something evil, he will keep his personality: “This is me, I can handle it”.

But Dean doesn’t believe it. Dean doesn’t trust Sam and look at him as at a freak. The fact that Sam is special, frightens him, he is afraid that Sam will go dark and turn into anti-Christ superstar. (In retrospective season 3 finale looks very ironic as Sam really didn’t turn into something dark and kept his personality, he was strong enough, and as for Dean, he didn’t pass that test in seasons 9 and 10 and turned into something evil). Dean is so afraid that Sam may turn into a monster that he prefers going to Hell and even let Sam die, because their mission is suicidal and they both know that.

And another important detail is that scene with Sam with a knife beside the bed of that girl possessed by Lilith. Where all that toughness, Sam nurtured in himself for the whole season? He knows that killing that girl is necessary, he will save not only Dean, but thousands of people and Bobby and the brothers talked about that only half an hour ago. But, one thing to understand that rationally, the other thing is to do that. Well Sam got more pragmatic and more cold-blooded, but he didn’t get more callous or heartless. To be strong and to be tough are different things. Dean is tougher, but Sam is stronger and he doesn’t need to be tougher.

And the last. Dean’s death, while Sam was helplessly standing by the wall pressed there by Lilith’s power completely crushed Sam. He refused Ruby’s offer and Dean is in Hell and now he will use his demonic something if not to save Dean, but to revenge and to save other people, and be damned his soul.

#SPN #canon #Sam Winchester #Dean Winchester #season 3

2 notes · View notes

michaelbranch · 4 years ago

Text

A Brief Summary of Ideas: No Nonsense Buddhism for Beginners

*These summaries are kept intentionally very brief, just hitting what I consider some of the important/interesting takeaways, most word-for-word or paraphrased. My goal is also to stick to ideas/principals that might guide others (or my future self) in deciding the value of a read (or re-reading). T = takeaway, Q = Question

No-Nonsense Buddhism for Beginners

Author: Noah Rasheta

Buddha means “awakened one”. He was a teacher, not a god.

Various schools view the Buddha in different ways.

Didn’t name a successor. Advised that his teachings would serve as the teacher.

There were many buddhas throughout history.

Little scholarly debate around Siddhartha (Gautama, the “Buddha”)’s existence. Some debates around specific events.

Teachings center on two main themes: problem of human suffering and methods to cease it.

Practitioners are encouraged to see whether the teachings work; not whether they are true. T = Buddhism is a practice. It can be something you do; not who you are.

Buddhism can be many things: religion, way of life, philosophy. Generally nontheistic tradition; not concerned with many of the big questions asked by other religions.

Various schools use different texts and writings as their source. Writings are not considered to be dictated by a deity.

Several sects of Buddhism. Two main branches are Theravada and Mahayana.

Our perception of the reality of any situation is influenced as much by ideas as it is by what actually happened. In our day to day lives, we’re continually making meaning and creating stories about everything that happens.

Our perception is influenced by how our minds are conditioned.

Nirvana is the state of awakened existence. Freed from perceptions to see reality as it is without wanting it to be different. The ultimate goal of Buddhist practice. Can’t be explained; only experienced.

Good and evil are not inherent forces; they’re states of mind.

Greed, hatred, and ignorance = the 3 poisons.

Letting go of hatred isn’t a moral issue. It creates unnecessary suffering for ourselves and others. Affects the emotional well being of the person doing the hating more than the person being hated.

Two types of truths.

Truths that are true whether we believe them or not.

Truths that are true simply because we believe them. We’re bound by space and time to one unique view in the here and now.

Three universal characteristics of life.

Suffering. 3 types of suffering:

Suffering of suffering: Natural. Ex. Pain.

Suffering of loss. Natural. Ex. Lose a loved one or job.

All-pervasive suffering. Self inflicted. Generally arises out of an ignorant or delusional understanding of reality. How we perceive or interpret circumstances. If we didn’t hold a certain belief, the suffering wouldn’t exist. Difficult to detect because it requires us to scrutinize our deeply held views.

Impermanence. Gross impermanence: larger scale (ex. Matter, people). Subtle impermanence: moment to moment change.

Nonself. No inherent essence in anything. Things “are” because of, and in relation to, other things, but don’t exist by themselves as permanent or separate entities. Everything is interdependent. No fixed permanent version of us, only continually changing combination of causes and conditions.

Nonattachment is different from attachment.

In order to be attached 2 things are required: the person who is attached and the object of attachment.

If there is “no self” that nothing to do the attaching. Ignorant view of self that causes us to cling.

Emptiness = all things are devoid of meaning until we assign meaning to them.

As life unfolds it doesn’t mean anything; positive or negative. All things simply are as they are.

Birth isn’t the start and death isn’t the end. Every beginning has an end, and every end gives birth to a new beginning. No beginning or end; only change.

Q (as it relates to misconception about reincarnation) = if there is no permanent you; what part of you could transcend death to become reincarnated?

Humans, like everything else in nature are part of a continual cycle of change.

Karma means “action”.

Law of cause and effect. No justice, intelligence, or moral system behind it.

Central teaching of karma is that we can pause and break the cycle of reactivity. In our mindful pause we can choose a more skillful action to contribute to the web of cause and effect.

Question of theism is irrelevant in Buddhism. Better question is “are my beliefs (non beliefs) preventing me from seeing and experiencing reality properly.

Agnostic (saying “I don’t know”) is like the Zen beginner’s mind; allows us to be open to learning and experiencing.

4 Noble Truths. They can be viewed as “tasks to do” rather than “beliefs”.

Presence of suffering in life.

Cause of suffering. Desire. Suffering emerges when we want life to be different; when we struggle against what is. The more we dwell on our sense of suffering, he more we reinforce it.

End of suffering. It’s not the suffering that ceases, rather our craving NOT to suffer. Suffering is a lifelong reality. Being able to see emotion and allow it to just be.

Path that leads to the end of suffering. The eightfold path.

Eightfold Path. Grouped into 3 essential categories. Don’t think of the “right” in terms of right vs. wrong. But more like right as in wise or skillful.

Wisdom

1 . Right understanding. Recognizing that what we’re seeing might not be actually what it appears to be.

2. Right intent. Consider intent in action. Behaving reactively makes it difficult to be mindful of intent. Ask yourself, “why”.

Ethical conduct

3. Right speech. Communicating with others in a way that doesn’t cause harm. Consider why you say something as much as what you say. Doesn’t always have to be pleasant.

4. Right action. Doing what is proper and necessary for your situation.

5. Right livelihood. Each need to determine for ourselves if what we do for a living is doing more harm than good for ourselves and others. Incorporate right intent.

Mental discipline

6. Right effort. What it takes to put into practice other parts of the path. Dedicating time and effort.

7. Right mindfulness. Pay attention.

8. Right concentration. Focusing the mind on one thing: whatever we’re doing at that moment. Be present.

To embrace/accept suffering isn’t to give up. Rather is not resisting or fighting against reality. We’re not accepting the bad things that happen. We’re accepting THAT bad things happen. Then we can ask what are we going to do about it.

5 Aggregates. We are made up of 5 components that come together to create the perception of a distinct, individual “I”:Form, Sensation, Perception, Mental formations/thoughts, Consciousness.

Perception happens and immediately gives rise to the awareness of perception. The “I” that is aware of the perception gives rise to a sense of self. Aggregates aren’t actually “you”. Just temporary, interdependent, conditional phenomena.

5 Basic precepts. Recommendations for ways of living that might aid you in the path to enlightenment. Can be interpreted differently based on culture, etc.

Abstain from taking life.

Abstain from what is not given.

Abstain from sexual misconduct.

Abstain from incorrect speech (rooted in the three poisons of greed, hatred, or ignorance).

Abstain from intoxicants that cloud the mind (can include more than just drugs/alcohol, might include media consumption or habits).

If you formally decide to become a “Buddhist” many forms do so with a formal ceremony. Don’t have to. Some variation in taking refuge in the 3 refuges.

The buddha (if he did it, so can you).

The dharma (teachings).

The community (easier with others).

#book summary #books #musings #the richest man in babylon #read more #read

1 note · View note

flukeoffate · 7 years ago

Text

Governor Pryce Appreciation

(Contains spoilers for the Thrawn Novel)

There has been a few anti-Pryce posts on my dash this week and My thoughts on her spiraled out of control. I just wanted to throw my two cents in without making a mess of those posts. This is in no way meant to attack other people’s opinions, just studying what I like and dislike and considering reasons for the various reactions she gets.

(Extremely long character examination essay that I may have spent the better part of three or four hours on under the cut.)

I like Pryce. And I admit, the more I thought about her story and personality while writing this, I have maybe even grown to love her.

Is she a likeable person? Well, by the time of Rebels: no. Definitely not. But how many villains are likeable within the time of their introductory story? Few, I think. What I believe makes a villain likeable is their backstory, and also how charismatic they are during their screentime.

I want to examine some famous Star Wars villains. IMO there are very few Star Wars villains that are interesting until you dig deeper into their characters.

Unpopular opinion time: Vader and Tarkin are stupidly boring characters in A New Hope. They show up, kill some people, then lose a battle. We don’t know about Vader being Anakin Skywalker. He just looks cool. And Tarkin-well, I frankly think his interest came more from Peter Cushing’s acting more than the character itself. It is no secret that I’m a huge Hux fan, but the thing that drew me to him initially was his screaming speech. Other than being the ‘Tarkin’ of TFA, (and I use this description begrudgingly for the comparison) Hux doesn’t do much more than Tarkin ever did. All three of these guys are boring cardboard villains until you delve into their histories. Vader=Anakin? Holy shit, tell me more! Tarkin is classy AF and came from Space Australia? Sign me the fuck up! Hux has an abusive father and the weight of the First Order’s future on his shoulders? Damn, that is something to examine!

Pryce has the same problem as the above three: when they are introduced, they are already fully formed villains. You don’t see their developement. It’s done. Their story is pretty much over. No development is expected within their initial debut, their sob stories are not the focus of the plot. Like the aforementioned three, Pryce is 2D boring until you read her backstory. Why is she singled out as terrible compared to the others?

Well, without playing the gender card, I want to say it’s because she doesn’t display the charisma of the others. She is cold, doesn’t look flashy, and lacks charisma in Rebels. She just has one thing going for her: a generally evil and contemptuous thirst for authority and control. It’s standard and boring. I will grant that.

Where I differ from a lot of readers: I think she is a fantastic villain after reading the Thrawn book.

The most popular villains are either someone who has characteristics that you either identify with, or you aspire to have. And the more I think about Pryce, the more I realize that her story is actually very relatable, at least to me.

Pryce starts out as a member of a prominent family with a profitable mining company. She has aspirations of getting away from her backwater planet. Fuck, a lot of people have that urge. It’s not an evil trait in itself. When it the mine is forcibly taken from her family (more specifically her parents are threatened) she vows revenge, and it catipults her into motion. She gets out of there and to Coruscant. Ok, pretty basic. A lot of people hold grudges, it’s not super villain stuff yet. It’s a pretty simple vendetta focused on destroying one obviously corrupt and dislikable government official. (Which, seeing as the entirety of Star Wars is based on fighting evil and corruption, I find it ironic that her initial motive has come under scrutiny.)

All things considered, Pryce is pretty crafty in her plans. Sure, she can be devious. She has the makings of a good spy if she were properly trained. But for the most part, her plan revolves around using the established system against her enemies. THAT is a direct parallel to Thrawn himself. He makes his plans work through ingenuity and finding loopholes. But where Thrawn lacks the ability to manipulate the politics of the system, she can. But more importantly, she grows: she isn’t perfect at navigating the political system to start. It takes a fall from grace to lead her there.

And here we come to the crux of her relatability: her biggest downfall was betrayal from those she trusted the most. People she worked with, people who claimed she was their friend, people who claimed the friendship was genuine even after their schemes had been revealed.

I have had ‘friends’ betray me. Let me tell you it is a mind-blowing and traumatic experience. My therapist actively made me recognize my ex-friend drama as a real traumatic event that should not be trivialized.

And Pryce faces trauma. She was betrayed in the worst of ways, systematically and over a period of years. Pryce was physically, emotionally, and professionally assaulted. When she was drugged during ascension week and threatened? Holy shit, that is the kind of scenario associated with kidnapping and rape. And it was used as blackmail. You don’t shrug something like that off. I felt genuine disgust and fear for her in that scene. Then later, her ‘friends’ involve her in a plot that mixes her up with SAME PERSON who attacked her? Holy shit, wonderful way to reinforce that trauma. And then her friends bring her deeper into their plot by actually endangering her in order to manufacture more trust. And that same plot was made to FRAME Pryce in the event of a take down. She could have been imprisoned or worse, all because of her ‘friends’.

But you know what? Pryce overcame all of this. She fought any fear and pushed it down. She took control of the situation with grace and dignity. She knew what she wanted and how to get it. She manipulated her attackers, destroyed them with cleverly obtained evidence, and took them down with the law at her side. And she never forgives them.

I think that is something people don’t like. That she doesn’t forgive.

Frankly, she doesn’t owe her ‘friends’ a goddamn thing. They are as brutal and manipulative as Pryce becomes. They don’t get a free pass on this for being on the “right” side of things. They are horrible people. Good on Pryce for letting them rot. They fucking deserve it.

I often find myself wishing I could do the same to the people who hurt me. I’m glad she got the opportunity and took it. I would not have the same courage. Fuck all that nonsense about forgiveness being the brave thing to do. In my experience, forgiveness is a lip service phrase followed by a societal pressure to ‘be nice’. Fuck that. I want to be angry. I want them to suffer. But I don’t follow through—because revenge is seen as a negative trait, especially for a woman. There is a reason women resort to sneaky tactics for revenge: it is unbecoming to outwardly express our rage.

Pryce is never shown to have more than a few friends. All of them betrayed her trust.

I relate to that. Viscerally.

You know who has not betrayed her?

Her parents.

We don’t have the full scope of their relationship, but from the getgo we see that Pryce is ready to pounce on anyone threatening her parents. That is a constant through the book. And her parents obviously love her at least as much as any parent should be expected. They are concerned for her wellbeing, and are generally in touch with her. And by the end of the book, she isn’t the same person who vowed to ruin a corrupt official. She has taken up her mantle of anger and distrust. She discovers that she is ready, willing, and able to kill for her family and damn the casualties. She doesn’t care about other people. Other people never cared about her. Her life has proven to her one truth: trust no one. Beyond her parents, she has no love for anyone. The times she tried were a disaster.

There is a tragedy in that. I have experienced betrayal. But I have also had true friendship. We have no indication she ever had the good with the bad. I’m pretty sure that if I can pity Hux for having a shitty childhood, I can pity her for the events that left her so jaded.

So, yes. I like Pryce. I think she has damn good reasons for being the way she is. Do I condone her actions at Batonn? Hell no. Do I hate how she affects Thrawn? Yes. But Batonn is her Anakin to Darth Vader moment, the point where she truly goes to ‘the dark side’. I’m glad to have been given the opportunity to see it unfold. She can continue to be the frigid flat villain in Rebels, because now we know where she comes from. Rewatching Rebels shows her in a new light just as much as it changes how we see Thrawn. And we might see her comments now and think: you evil bitch! But damn, if that doesn’t make me like her more. Before the book, she was a generic Imperial baddie. Now I actually have an emotional response to back it up, and that is WAYYYYY more interesting.

I think the one big thing that prevents her from getting more love is that she doesn’t have the traits that fans typically like to explore in fanfic. She is closed off, and has no real big candidate for shipping purposes. And she doesn’t have any meaningful commonality with the heroes in Rebels beyond being the Governor of Lothal and therefore the enemy. She doesn’t have a specific vendetta driving her actions, she is just doing her job. By the time Rebels takes place, Pryce is not making impressive plans of destruction and she is done with any self reflection that might garner sympathy. But I don’t think she needs it. The book is enough.

With characters like Kallus, you could see than he had a sort of joy for the hunt in the first seasons. Then you learned more about his personality and he grew. Pryce doesn’t get the same treatment. Some people love Phasma for being an absolutely cold monster with no emotion. But Pryce isn’t cold or monsterous enough to have the same level of ‘wtf?’ that makes Phasma interesting (again, adding to the list of boring characters that are only great with their backstory considered...) Most of us can’t relate to the sheer heartlessness of Phasma and are compelled by it. Both Pryce and Phasma are self centered and power hungry individuals. But where Phasma has no conscience or hint or moral code, Pryce does have the capacity for such things, and that make readers see her selfishness as a negative trait to be hated instead of studied.

Maybe people find Pryce’s motivations too easy—a lot of us have friends who aren’t friends, and love our parents. Maybe her relatability is so common that we forget that these still qualify as three dimensional traits. Maybe we are afraid to admit that we have anything in common with her.

Pryce is a good character. I liked her parts in Thrawn. I was scared for her when she was drugged. I felt her loneliness when she couldn’t confide in her friends. I laughed my ass off at the unemployment office scene. I felt her shock and sorrow when she realized no one could be trusted. I envy her tenacity and bold resolve. I don’t have half her courage.

I like Pryce.

#arihnda pryce #governor pryce #pryce appreciation #anti-pryce #pryce love #tw: rape #a strong comparison but I felt it needed to be addressed in this so the R word stayed in.

61 notes · View notes

jmsebastian · 7 years ago

Text

Profundity and Melodrama: The Narrative of NieR: Automata

If melodrama is comprised of characters as stereotype, then it can be a little hard to see NieR: Automata as anything but melodramatic. The game is completely filled with archetypal characters, cheap thrills in the form of fanservice, and emotional exposition that would be laughable (and still might be) if it weren’t so often told through digitized, robotic voices. The game’s first protagonist, 2B, is an impossibly beautiful, no-nonsense warrior dedicated to her mission. Her partner and second protagonist, 9S, is a lovably quirky, inquisitive, and chatty sidekick who warms the heart of 2B. These character tropes are so well worn that it feels suspicious. Through every area you explore, every interaction you have, there is an inescapable feeling that some trick is being played on you, as if what you’re observing isn’t actually what’s happening. Through this lens, the game manages to inform melodrama while simultaneously transcending it.

It’s always important to remember that every single thinking entity in the game is made of artificial intelligence. The androids of YoRHa, the machine lifeforms in all their various incarnations, Adam and Eve, the androids birthed from robots, none of them are made up of biological material. It’s also important to remember that these artificial intelligences were created at the behest of beings that were comprised of biology. The machine lifeforms were created by alien invaders of Earth, while the androids were created by humans to defend themselves from invasion. Neither the aliens nor the humans play an active role in game. It would be difficult for them to since there is very little evidence that either of them have lived or been active around Earth for a very, very long time. The androids and robots continue their war because they were built to do so, but the potential beneficiaries of said war, if you could call them that, have long since abandoned it or simply died out.

The absence of their creators’ guiding hand has led to some interesting results over the long haul. The machine lifeforms have begun to split up into tribes, confused about who their enemy is. Some go to war simply for the sake of being at war. Others find meaning by joining a cult and killing themselves. The extreme nature of the machine lifeforms’ coping mechanisms are most certainly melodramatic. We accept this largely for two reasons: first, the science fiction story acts to distance everything from reality, and second, the artificial intelligence of every single being in the game further distances everything from accurately reflecting how human beings typically deal with conflict.

Melodrama is largely defined by its unambiguous emotional messages. It is never a question as to who is the good guy and who the bad. Instead, the focus is on projecting the emotions of scenes as broadly as possible. In the beginning sequence of the first playthrough, the player is introduced to 9S. 2B, the player character, tolerates him, but attempts to keep him at a distance because she is focused on her job. She is a soldier, and as typical of many military characters, letting emotion creep in is viewed to have negative consequences on their ability to act decisively and with purpose. While 2B is set up as the emotionless officer, she quickly shifts toward extreme emotions when 9S sacrifices his body in an effort to save her.

She goes from zero to ten in about two lines of dialogue.

It’s a major shift in her characterization, and the game hasn’t presented the player with enough information yet to justify it. While the incapacitation of a partner would be an obvious event to get riled up about, 2B’s reaction seems to completely contradict everything that’s been learned about her up until that point. Why is she suddenly so upset about a partner she has so little history with? They had only just met moments before. She’s aware of what the S model androids are and do, but she isn’t familiar with 9S specifically, so far as the player is aware. The time between them meeting and him taking a chainsaw to the back is also quite short, mere minutes. Another betrayal of this characterization is revealed when 2B and 9S discuss their ability to be revived. Androids upload their consciousness to the Bunker, a space satellite that YoRHa operates out of. 2B knows full well that 9S would not be killed. Her gut reaction to repair him when he was clearly beyond repairing feels out of place. Sure, the part of him that didn’t get uploaded between his last upload and his “death” will be gone, but it’s mostly just those few minutes of robot fighting that make up the missing chunk, of which 2B can recount, anyway. Still, she decries the machine lifeforms and her commitment to their eradication is confirmed. They are evil and must be destroyed. The scene ends with 2B and 9S sharing a quiet moment of mutual respect before going out in a blaze of glory. This little story arc is a melodramatic frame, designed less to solicit empathy for the characters, and more to trigger a curiosity in the player about what roles these characters are supposed to be playing. The archetypes that are introduced so specifically at first, end up not so convincing, and this is really before the game even gets going.

Even before you get a chance to care about 2B, let alone 9S, the game tries to crank up the feels.

Perhaps the most melodramatic moment fittingly comes in the form of Simone, a robotic opera singer gone berserk on account of learning she can never earn the love of someone she admired. The player is first introduced to her in the first playthrough where 2B and 9S investigate a theme park. Once they make their way inside, they are ambushed by Simone, her body armored, her theater filled with the corpses of android bodies she has eaten over time. She laughs maniacally and keeps insisting she become more beautiful as she attacks. From the player’s perspective, Simone has clearly gone insane.

The fact that she is a machine lifeform rather than an android allows for a more straightforward retelling of her tragic backstory. Audiences have a long history with characters like this. Erik, whose persona of Phantom of the Opera, is a great example of a character who occupies a space on the fringes of humanity due to his disfigurement and circumstances. Because of his tenuous relationship with societal norms, we can empathize with his twisted view of love toward Christine in a way we couldn’t if he was just a regular jealous suitor. It’s a lot easier to justify kidnapping and murder after learning a tragic backstory filled with mistreatment, after all.

Like Erik, Simone commits horrific acts in her quest to become beautiful. The audience empathizes with her robotic nature and can thus justify those acts since she has no proper guide in understanding the intricacies of human emotions. She tries to understand love through the remnants of a human civilization she couldn’t take part in, never even saw. She learns that the things that make one beautiful are mostly superficial: nice skin, being able to sing. It’s all based on misinterpretation and superstition. She recognizes this fact to some degree, as she doesn’t believe the other robots when she hears that consuming androids can make one beautiful. Still, despite her disbelief, she goes about it, anyway, her desperation is so strong. She eventually becomes a cannibal in an effort to win the affections of another, which is about as heightened as the stakes get considering how low the stakes of dating are by human adult standards. The realization she has is heartbreaking because she is taking on the characteristic of humanity without realizing it, albeit the darkest parts of it. When she finally asks “Why have I done this to myself?”, the player’s empathy is elicited despite the ridiculous emotional heights (or depths, really) reached from a frame as cliched as unrequited love.

To confuse matters further, Simone’s most powerful emotions are conveyed via text.

What’s so frightening about Simone, and 2B’s stoic reaction to killing her, is just how closely this is fundamentally representing humanity. On the one hand, you the darkest expression of human desired realized through Simone. On the other hand, you have 2B, who is not interested in what lead to Simone becoming like this. In fact, the player doesn’t learn anything concrete about Simone’s past in 2B’s playthrough at all. Her backstory comes out as a result of 9S hacking into her, thus, he alone holds this information. 2B’s passionless execution of the opera singer quells the melodrama, and quietly reflects an utter lack of empathy that is also an undeniable part of humanity. Undercutting the player’s empathy in 2B’s playthrough by having the player character insist that machines don’t have feelings, only to reveal in the subsequent playthrough the depths of those feelings, is a novel way to use melodrama to find some actual drama.

NieR: Automata is rich with this cat and mouse game between overwrought exposition dialogue and genuine emotional revelations. The fact that the characters begin as stereotypes, only to have more and more layers put upon them with each subsequent playthrough, makes the melodrama very real, if somewhat short lived. There is an abstracted layer to the whole thing where the androids of YoRHa are basically acting out their roles. They are performing in a melodrama completely unaware since they have no context for it. They don’t understand human history well enough to know what the concept of melodrama is, they often aren’t self-aware enough to critique their behavior, nor do they have histories long enough to reasonably cope with the existential crises that human beings face constantly. As such, they act on their impulses without realizing how pointless, childish, or downright insane it is to do so. The game is constantly telling the player that robots don’t have emotions, yet demonstrating in as grandiose a way possible that they most certianly do.

#NieR: Automata #Platinum Games #Yoko Taro

7 notes · View notes

bobvsuniverse · 5 years ago

Text

ON FORGIVENESS AND ITS ALTERNATIVES

This time of year there is an upsurge in articles and social media memes that present forgiveness as the only way to clear out residual and sometimes crippling negative feelings one may have toward others who have intentionally or unintentionally made one a target of cruelty and malice.

Perhaps this happens due to a collective anticipatory apprehension about sitting down to dinner with family to celebrate a string of holidays during which we are commanded by the culture to be “happy”. At the same time we are inundated by faulty cultural assumptions that familial love and togetherness exist almost alone at the apex of human relationship desire and accomplishment (or lack of it).

Personally, I think this has more to do with selling tchotchkes and bad fruit salad with marshmallow cream than it has to do with the state of reality of the American family, its possibilities and its shortcomings. And I have nothing against forgiveness. I would never disagree with the widespread belief that forgiveness does indeed offer one path to clearing out the self-destructive inner grinding machine of anger at others for what they have done to hurt us.

But forgiveness is only one path and it may not even be the best path toward detoxifying from a goodly amount of the interpersonal poisons that are passed along and/or inherited as a matter of course in the practice of loving others and one’s self … or just in the act of living with people in community in the world.

At this point I think it is important for me to offer a disclaimer relating to my interest and perspective on forgiveness… and what I think about forgiveness as the exclusive method toward the aim of promoting self-healing from interpersonal and other kinds of trauma experienced at the hands of other human beings: there are things that people do to one another that are unforgivable.

For almost 35 years I worked as a social worker, most of it in the public sector with community mental health services. For almost a dozen of those years I also worked as a family counselor in a hospice organization.

Before that I don’t think I gave much thought to the practice and outcomes of forgiveness, and whether it was, in fact, as is often claimed (especially this time of year) the best and even the only way to keep from letting how others have mistreated us from eating a terminal hole in our hearts and souls.

But I did have my own list of grievances, as anyone does. I have been fortunate and resilient enough to be able to go on without dwelling too destructively on the people, groups, and communities that have burned an imprint on my soul. It is a common enough skill and is called to the fore in situations that are perhaps more often than not much more destructive and traumatic than the ones I experienced. And I, by no means, wish to minimize my own. They have been hard enough, thank you. As the great psychoanalyst and Auschwitz survivor Viktor Frankl said: “Everyone has their own Auschwitz.”

In my work I was able to flesh out the kinds of cruelty and the kinds of people who were best able to manage life in a satisfactory if not exemplary manner after it has been irrevocably altered by abuse perpetrated by another. I don’t think it would be productive or timely for me to call up a detailed accounting of the various people and situations in which I found myself acting as mediator and healer to recuperation from trauma. That being said, I can more succinctly come up with a few words that aptly describe the kinds of situations I was routinely made privy to.

Here are some of them:

Devastating. Murderous. Torturous. Blindingly and numbingly double-binded. Gruesome. Cruel beyond all reckoning, Monstrously, bloodily, selfish. Stupendously self-aggrandizing and hurtful. Shattering. Obliterating. Astoundingly agonizingly heartless.

I could go on, but you get the picture.

It didn’t take me long to recognize that people could, in fact, instigate pure evil in others’ lives in ways that left marks so brutally present and un-erasable that urging, insisting by inference, that victims of such acts work to forgive was in itself an act of cruelty.

Some things are unforgivable. I remember being quite upset about something I discovered about a client that was even more disturbing than usual. Something he had survived at the hands of a parent. A wise mentor matter-of-factly told me this: “Some things are unforgiveable”.

I should add that early in my career I did a little research project among my caseload, which consisted of mostly men that showed that over 80% of them had documented histories of serious and brutal abuse at the hands of relatives. My caseload was made up of some of the most challenging “cases” in the attempts to re-integrate people with persistent symptoms of mental illness back to life in the community.

Some things are unforgivable. I think we should all start there. Not just because we may be professionals working to help others who have been designated as the primary victims of such acts, but as our own self-healers and as the defacto healers of people we love dearly who may struggle daily with the long-term aftermath of being mistreated.

If we start, instead, with the idea that forgiveness is a desired outcome, the only or best outcome, for someone whose hurts are deep and lasting we run the risk of propelling ourselves into the role of re-traumatizer, of making the act of forgiveness a requirement for healing when the people we are in healing partnership with (including ourselves!) are no where near being ready for such a leap and may, rightfully so, never be.

The process of healing and letting go of potentially self-defeating and -defining rage toward a perpetrator and his or her acts is a long and arduous one. It can be life long… and may in fact also be a defining characteristic of the subject’s potential and greatness. It may resist the dissolving power that forgiveness assumes, for reasons that have everything to do with the process of healing and completion and the imperfect act of forgiveness.

If we assume forgiveness is the most desirable outcome, and push for it before it is possible if it is possible at all, might we not be reacting out of our own discomfort with a sometimes grueling recovery process or with the presence of the reality of human-to-human cruelty that defines much of how the human race and its individuals have, in surviving it, accomplished transcendent greatness in the midst of abject misery and evil?

Not forgiving does not equal not healing.

Forgiving is only one way of innumerable and highly individuated ways to prime the pump of healing and what is called recovery.

And it is a damn good one. Don’t get me wrong… if it is available. If it is appropriate to the circumstance and nature of the process of healing.

What is interesting is how in our culture, in taking forgiveness off the table of the required goals toward healing, we are left with little in the way of an ongoing narrative. There is an assumption made by those who strongly recommend it that the ability to forgive is practically the only way to demonstrate that one has moved along significantly enough to declare that he or she is healing.

But that is exactly what I want to do. Take forgiveness off the table and ask: What else is there?

Certainly there are a great number of people who survive, heal, even thrive, who are willing to admit that there are things that were done to them that are unforgiveable. I know people who have either not made it a point or don’t have time to make forgiveness a central fulcrum in their journey to reclaim wholeness or make their scars more flexible, or they outright admit there are things that were done that are unforgiveable. One would hesitate, even be ill advisably presumptuous and condescending, to suggest that someone's healing process is incomplete because they have not forgiven.

Let us start by recognizing the power in admitting: some things are unforgiveable.

So, you ask, if not forgiveness then what?

One of the problems with making forgiveness a requirement of healing is how narrow a scope of possible intervention that leaves; how many people it leaves out of the conversation who have managed to make great progress in their own recovery when, in fact, we should be trying to pull in as many perspectives and methods of healing as exist.

What do people do who make tremendous inroads into their own personhood, sans forgiveness, once past the trauma inflicted on them? People who aren’t focused on forgiving their perpetrator/s, but just on reclaiming their life-lihood?

They do what they do.

If forgiveness becomes a part of the package, and it works for them, so be it. Good for them.

But the same goes for those others to whom forgiveness is not central or is impossible because there are things that are unforgiveable. Their work is just as important and just as successful. And, as almost anyone who has survived and thrived after great trauma might tell us, the work of recovery is a life long process, with forgiveness or not. The illusion that forgiveness absolves the perpetrator at the same time that it releases the traumatized from the clutches of some inner sweatshop of recovery work short-circuits the entire endeavor.

There is power and transcendence in the work toward recovery, however it is approached and whatever tools and methods any one individual employs.

Personally, I think that “letting go” is a much more accurate and all encompassing, defining, aspect of moving toward wholeness after trauma than forgiving, even if forgiving has been employed as a way to reach letting go.

Personally, I think that to be effective forgiveness should be asked for.

I know many will disagree with me by saying that forgiveness is for the person forgiving, not the perpetrator being forgiven. That may be so in a certain percentage of people to whom forgiveness has proven to be integral to their ongoing process of letting go, but certainly there are many, perhaps a greater percentage of people moving into and through letting go, who have no need to forgive and recognize the circumstances of their trauma and the people involved have no will or ability to ask for forgiveness, no real presence… because what was done was unforgivable… because forgiveness for a situation that produces such devastating trauma often enough denies clear and precise enough indicators of who perpetrates and what is ultimately to blame.

Still, one must go on. One DOES go on.

It is okay not to forgive.

Maybe forgiveness will present itself as a reasonable action in the future. Maybe not. Maybe you will still move through and into your recovery, and at times do it brilliantly. Maybe you will awaken at some time in the future and realize you needn’t concern yourself with forgiveness. Maybe you will have found you without it.

What a day!

****

— Bob Vance

****

#recovery forgiveness relationships trauma

0 notes

terminalpolitics · 7 years ago

Text

Mao: the Unknown Story

So, while waiting for my internet to get back up and running, I’ve been reading this biography of Mao by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday.

I remember reading Jung Chang’s Wild Swans in college and I was very moved and impressed by it so when I felt like picking up some new books about Mao and saw she had written one I was very excited.

But I’ve got to say I’m not feeling it.

I don’t like Mao. In fact, I dislike Mao. Anyone who read Wild Swans will know that Jung Chang has her own legitimate reasons for disliking Mao – and that’s fine, I’m not a fan of feigned neutrality.

But without exaggeration, every single fact presented about Mao in this book is calculated to present him in a bad light. Even trivial things.

On Tumblr we will see Hitler apologists use stupid arguments like “Hitler wasn’t ALL BAD: he loved his mom!” When everyone knows that loving one’s mom doesn’t really demonstrate anything about one’s moral character.

But in Mao: the Unknown Story, Mao loving his mom is actually presented as a negative. The authors make sure to point out that he loved his mom in a selfish way and not, I suppose, altruistically. In this post-Freud era, would it be wrong of me to suggest that I think most people love their moms selfishly?

Anyway…

When Mao does something impressive –whether or not it is morally good– the “unknown story” is that he either “didn’t actually do it” or “everyone was doing that in those days - no biggie.”

In a reverse of the “great man” theory of history, Mao is presented as stumbling into absolute power and the creation of an unprecedented authoritarian state.

To return to Hitler a moment (I know, I know), I’m usually okay with historians shit-talking him in every way, but if a biography wanted to claim: “Nobody ever took Hitler seriously, he was just kinda a big joke in Germany” that would actually obscure the reality of the dangers posed by someone like Hitler. It obscures the truth that popular support for Hitler allowed him to systematically murder millions and millions of people and to almost completely realize his dream of the annihilation of the Jews in Germany and Europe.

In an 800+ page book, focusing on how Child-Mao not wanting to do his chores shows he was always an evil tyrant risks minimizing the real evils of the cultural revolution and Great Leap Forward.

I don’t like Mao because I believe in liberation, and I feel Mao succeeded in building an oppressive state that elevated only himself and a select few. I wanted to read a book on Mao so I could think about where the slide in authoritarianism begins.

I don’t give a fuck about whether he wanted to do his chores as a kid! Or, another example, unlike the authors, I don’t think that Mao having a hard time learning Russian and giving it up after being mocked by his classmates is a sign of his dissolute moral character.

In some ways the book gives a Leftist an easy out: If every characteristic and element of Mao’s person was evil from his earliest age, then it is no surprise that revolution in China produced an evil state with him leading it. Everything that went wrong can be put down to Mao’s unique and pervasive evil (or his abject failure at every single thing he ever attempted according to the authors).

“It’s just a problem of the individual and not the system” one might claim – “without Mao’s personal excesses, the system would be fine.”

I don’t believe that.

Though I agree some people are indeed bad to start, it is much more common to find power corrupting people than people corrupting power.

So, I’ll try to finish the book but only because I don’t like to quit while reading a book. But I cannot recommend it as a useful history. It may be fun to say “Mao was such a shitbag” but that doesn’t teach us anything about how we can prevent movements for liberation from becoming movements of oppression.

Anyway, that’s just been on my mind.

#mao #china #jung chang #mao the unknown story #history

7 notes · View notes

anti-marxistcult · 8 years ago

Text

Progressives, Marxists, Socialists, SJWs, BLM, Feminists, communists & Transtrenders, Post-Gender ideologues, Globalists are a CULT. What makes a cult?:

CULT BEHAVIOR: an analysis (An analysis of Dr Arthur Deikman's book on cult behavior, The Wrong Way Home.) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htqOIjzi-jE

Cult Case Studies - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxO_UWr43Rw

Dr Arthur J. Deikman was a clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco. His main focus of study was on popular mysticism and became a pioneer of humane psychotherapeutic treatments for sufferers of psychosis. His work often focused on the psychology of the patient, their emotional drives and consequent reactions to frameworks of belief. He coined the term “mystical psychosis” to categorise first-person descriptions of psychotic episodes that strongly resemble religious experiences.

He studied numerous new religious movements that became fashionable in America in the 1960s and 70s, to uncover what made them so attractive to educated, affluent white people. The result of this work was the book The Wrong Way Home: Uncovering the Patterns of Cult Behavior in American Society. This article is an analysis of that book.

What is Cult Behavior?

Cult behavior is an interlaced pattern of behaviors that enable specific kinds of groups to form, sustain and grow. We characterise these groups as cults because of these specific behaviors exhibited from all members of the group, with varying levels of frequency and intensity.

“The structure of cults is basically authoritarian; obedience and hierarchical power tend to take precedence over truth and conscience when they conflict, which they often do. Unfortunately, certain psychological benefits can make authoritarian groups very attractive – they provide the opportunity to feel protected and cared for.” – Page 73

These often-unwitting actions taken by individuals are both practical and performative. They serve to reinforce the cult in direct ways by providing necessary boundaries, structure and normalcy, and also signal intentions and loyalty to both other members of the group and potential recruits.

It’s important to note that the cult is a manifestation of key extreme behaviors on the part of many individuals. Not all groups, even tightly-knit ones, become cults even if members exhibit some cult behaviors.

“What I wish to stress is not that every group is a cult, but that cult thinking is the effect of psychological forces endemic to the human mind, and that these forces operate in the everyday life of each of us; they distort perception, bias thinking, and inculcate belief.” – Page 49

Characteristics of Cult Behavior

Deikman states there are four basic interrelated behaviors that are found in cults in extreme forms:

Compliance with a group

Dependence on a leader

Devaluing the outsider

Avoiding dissent

Deikman believes these behaviors stem from a desire to regress back to a childlike state, one in which the individual is cared for by a loving parental figure, so they can abdicate responsibility for their own wellbeing. He terms this desire the “dependency dream”:

“The regressive wish for security that uses the family as a model, creating an authoritarian leadership structure (the parent) and a close-knit, exclusive group (the children). Since the leader-parent has many of the insecurities of the follower-child, reality must be distorted by both to maintain the child’s illusion (or wish) that the parent can always provide protection, that he or she has no weaknesses. Dissent is stifled because it casts doubt on the perfection of the leader and the special status of the group. Group compliance preserves security by supporting the beliefs crucial to the fantasy of superiority, beliefs which also explain the powers and entitlement of the leader and can no more be challenged than he or she. Outsiders, non-believers, are excluded and devalued for they do not believe what the group believes; if the group and leader are superior, the outsider is inferior.” – Page 48

Deikman likens this feeling to a child relaxing in the back seat of the car while their parents drive. The person wishes to regress to recapture this feeling of security, safe in the knowledge that a loving parent is in total control.

Compliance with the Group (groupthink, SJWs and feminists all think alike, dress the same way, BLM use chants; “we must love and protect each other” repetition)

Deikman observes that in childhood, a person’s family life molds and prepares their expectations for adult life. When people join groups as adults, an informal family structure can still be detected. Certain members of groups naturally become dominant, adopting parental roles, while others become subordinate, adopting child roles. In most groups these are usually quite faint and what we would describe as leadership and agreeability.

Psychiatrists have long known the power that groups can have over their members, and Deikman proposes this is due to a dependency that develops within some groups, and supports this with references and work from various other psychologists. Deikman speculates that this is likely to have come from a reason rooted in evolutionary psychology.

“Human survival has been enhanced by the tendency for families to combine in bands or tribes for mutual protection and support. As banishment from the larger group could endanger an individual’s survival, an acute sensitivity to the group’s wishes and requirements probably carried an evolutionary advantage. Socially aware, adept individuals would eventually dominate the gene pool through the process of natural selection.” – Page 54

In cults, this desire to comply with the group metastasizes into full-blown groupthink, with the group demanding and justifying total control over the lives of its members. Cults often discourage or disrupt married couples and their families to sever existing dependencies, incentivising the individual to become increasingly dependent on the group.

This commitment to the group becomes emotionally gratifying. Acceptance by the group becomes uplifting and nurturing, engendering a feeling of safety, security and homeliness. Cults often reinforce this by use of altered states of consciousness, such as praying, chanting, meditation, singing, dancing, sleep deprivation or substances.

Cult behavior is at its most pernicious when operating on people who have no friends or contacts outside of the group. In these situations the group has total control over its members, who are hopelessly dependent on the cult for emotional and economic support.

Dependence on the Leader (for welfare, policies that benefit them and restrict outsiders and dissenters, push for inflation of preferred political party, defend party’s actions and criminal activity)

All cult leaders are authoritarian. It is easy for an authoritarian leader to encourage cult behavior to strengthen their own position and solidify the cohesiveness of the group they command. A willingness and desire to obey the leader, the parent figure, and be rewarded with approval and benefits which gives a strong incentive to group members.

The leader is usually respected for their admirable qualities and accepted despite their less admirable ones. Cult leaders enhance their reputation by suppression of less-desirable information and the constant emphasis of their virtues. The cult leader is selling a dependency fantasy that is willingly purchased by the group members in exchange for their own personal freedom of thought and action; in exchange for their autonomy they are guaranteed protection by the leader, and by extension, the group.

The cult leader is afforded a special status due to the burden of responsibility put upon them by their followers. This plays into the fantasy of infallibility that the group derive security from, and buttresses the leader’s power over them so that any defense of the leader, no matter how obviously contrary to reality, can be justified.

“When a leader’s actions conflict with the group’s principles, standards, or values, followers may twist words and meanings to reduce cognitive dissonance and maintain the fantasy.” – Page 78

Deikman describes this process as Orwellian doublespeak, used to justify the otherwise-negative actions of the leader in order to preserve the more-important myth of their absolute power and goodness.

“A leader’s role is more complex than it might appear. As powerful as he or she might seem, a leader is also the captive of the group and may not fail the group’s expectation or waver on the pedestal. If a leader does, the group may annihilate him.

“The leader, as much as as the group members, wishes to believe that an omnipotent, perfect parent is possible. And when a person assumes the mantle, he or she participates in the fantasy as faithfully as does the follower.” – Page 76

The power a leader has over the followers is not only based on fear. The leader uses the group member’s idealism, usually made as an appeal to the greater good. Often this is couched in hypothetical, abstract or metaphysical terms, such as structures, systems or demographics, and plays directly on an emotional desire to do good over evil.

“This appeal to the perception of a larger reality, to unsatisfied idealism and the wish for meaning can be very powerful, and can be put to good or bad use.” – Page 81

The leader empowers the group by giving them a source of confidence and righteousness that enables them to delegitimise dissenting points of view through the air of authority the leader carries. The surrender of the self to the group and to the leader is at once comforting and uplifting because it plays directly into the desire of the individual to feel protected, welcome and wanted, while at the same time maximising the power of the leader, thereby reinforcing the fantasy of the leader’s power in a self-sustaining and ever-intensifying loop.

“There is no place in such groups for reasoned, independent judgment; no free will, no responsible choice, only literal adherence to sacred text as selected and interpreted by the church leader or organisation. With surrender, the authority of the leader is maximised, the follower feels relieved of uncertainty and choice and can then experience the ‘bliss’ of someone who has “returned home”. – Page 89

Deikman refers to this kind of veneration of the leader as a form of idolatry and suggests the group falls into a version of Milgram’s agentic state, abandoning their personal autonomy to see themselves as little more than agents carrying out the commands of the leader.

The mythology the disciples build up around the leader is, of course, almost entirely fiction. The leader has no special powers, no magic spells and rarely even any unique knowledge inside the collective. The leader and the group are cut from the same cloth; the flock has made a shepherd of one of the sheep.

Devaluing the Outsider (label all outsiders “nazis”, “fascists”, “racists”, “sexists”, “bigots”, “phobics” etc)

The allure of the cult is the fantasy of security, which is deeply entwined with a sense of togetherness and belonging. In order to create that fantasy, firm lines of demarcation between the group and outsiders must exist.

The distinction between group member and civilian is important for building a sense of being special, being different. The group needs to feel that they have not only made a good choice, they have made the best choice. People outside the group obviously do not share this belief, which should raise doubts about the wisdom of the decision, and so must necessarily be devalued whenever possible. The reason they refused the call and chose to remain as part of the outgroup was due to some form of intellectual, emotional or moral deficiency, which is, of course, the very reason the participant chose to join the cult in the first place.

Deikman believes this stems from the child-like desire of the followers to have their parental figure to be the most powerful and wise, to maximise the feeling of protection for members of the group. They feel comfort and bliss that calms their anxieties. Partisan cult behavior is so common people hardly realise they are doing it.

“Devaluing the outsider is probably the most common cult-like behaviour in everyday society, where it takes the form of regarding one’s opponents as if they were a homogeneous group with only negative traits. Bad motives are attributed to the other, but not to oneself. This devaluation is usually done by designating the adversary as, for example, “stupid,” “rigid,” “lazy,” “reactionary,” “bleeding heart,” “cold”.” – Page 101

Outsiders are devalued by projection. This is when group members attribute to outsiders personality traits that they themselves possess but wish to deny. Projection is a way of protecting the self from punishment and rejection. By applying negative personality traits to others, we are inferring we do not also suffer from them.

“Projection offers protection from the anxiety of being bad and the punishment of being abandoned. In addition, by making other people bad in our own mind, we can legitimise behaviour toward them that would otherwise be morally unacceptable, even to the point of sanctioning cruel and vicious actions.” – Page 103

“The effect of projection is often a perception of the other person as being fundamentally different, a morally inferior species, undeserving of empathy.” – Page 103

“Projection protects us all from what we fear.” – Page 104

Projection is is infused with self-righteousness to increase moral security. If the group member represents all that is good and the outsider represents all that is bad, it is natural to feel morally superior. It allows the group member to separate the world into a false dichotomy in which they have chosen the sacred path and the path the outsider has chosen is profane. Cults project decadence onto the outgroup to preserve the righteousness of the ingroup.

This projection of immorality onto others is scapegoating. The sins of the ingroup are transferred to the outgroup and then cast out. Once the scapegoat has been determined to carry the group’s sins for them, anything is permissible. It becomes acceptable to hate the outgroup.

“Perhaps the most important thing to understand about devaluing the outsider is that it is a necessary preliminary to harming others, to doing violence. Whether the conflict is between nations or individuals, the attacker devalues the victim prior to the violent act.” – Page 102

Avoiding Dissent (safe spaces, trigger warnings, censorship, protests and riots, propaganda)

Dissent is a corrective component of discourse. It anchors a person in reality and is necessary for a healthy and accurate world view. However, dissent is rarely emotionally gratifying. It is natural to see a contradiction as an attack and to egotistically and reflexively deny any arguments or evidence that do not fit a person’s existing beliefs.

“Only a lively appreciation of dissent’s vital function at all levels of society can preserve it as a corrective to wishful thinking, self-inflation and unperceived rigidity.” – Page 138

A cult is a group fantasy created and maintained around specific beliefs for the emotional protection of its members. If information or opinions exist that contradicts the dogma or goals of the group, the only protective measure the group can take is suppression. Thus the core philosophy of the group becomes rooted in the distortion, if not outright fabrication, of reality. This censorship does not have to be as overtly authoritarian as one might imagine.

“Reality may be distorted by simply by screening out dissenting views without the outright censorship seen in totalitarian countries; reality may be distorted by giving great prominence and validity to the established view while devaluing dissenters and making them marginal.” – Page 114

Partisan groups often fall into cult behaviors and find it particularly easy to ignore outside views. When a group has an agreed-upon dogma, to indulge outside perspectives brings in unnecessary doubt. This becomes a source of weakness and divisiveness for the cult and must be expunged.

“The exclusion of doubt has a price. Intellectual parochialism may be fostered by restricting contact with outsiders and by building walls of indifference, or in the most extreme cases, hate.” – Page 143

Confirmation bias is a method by which the group ensures the integrity of its beliefs, whether they are grounded in reality or not. Ideologically-motivated groups are usually inclined to consume media that reinforces their worldview. Dissenting views are summarily dismissed as belonging to outsiders, thereby being wrong by definition.

This happens because members of the group want to believe. To maintain the fantasy of the infallibility of the leader and the subsequent feelings of safety and security they provide to the group, it becomes necessary for the group to police itself without any intervention from the leader. The group members police one another not only to ensure integrity to the shared delusion, but also because this policing increases their power in the group’s internal politics.

Due to the authoritarian nature of cults, suppression of dissent is often confused with loyalty to the group. This creates a predisposition towards secrecy, covering up any immoral or unethical actions by the leader or other group members, and increasing the power and control of the group over its members by omission of information. Combined with the conformity demanded by the group, the devaluation of outsiders and the cultivation of feelings of specialness, group members welcome this echo chamber mentality, and even encourage it to protect and further their higher purpose.

“We want agreement for our beliefs so we can feel the security of being right. Dissent threatens that, it reduces our status, our certainty, our claim to privilege.” – Page 146

Isolation from the outside further increases the intensity of cult behaviors and the subsequent emotional reaction to having these patterns of behavior disrupted.

“Cults further restrict dissent through decreased contact with non-members. Outsiders are likely to raise critical questions about the leader and the group’s activities, thus weakening the group fantasy. In addition, as discussed earlier, outsiders are a threat because they may be sources of support, self-esteem and comfort, offsetting the need for the group. Research suggests that the fewer social ties a cult convert had before joining, the more likely it was that he or she would remain in the organisation.” – Page 124

As dissent is suppressed for emotional reasons, it becomes a source of emotional distress if it cannot be avoided. Critical thinking is curtailed to prevent wrongthink and maintain the integrity of the group. Any facts that cannot be ignored are classified as lies created by the now-hated outgroup and any cult members caught spreading them are necessarily punished.

“In such extreme cases, the individual’s perception has to be narrowed and critical thinking suppressed. Groups have effective means of doing this. “Groups, as well as leaders, may punish dissent or deviation when maintenance of the superparent fantasy requires that no imperfections be revealed lest the whole structure be put in jeopardy.” – Page 79

Ironically, the suppression of dissent makes people more vulnerable to propaganda. Deikman gives the example of American prisoners of war he interviewed who had been captured by the Chinese during the Korean War. The American soldiers had been prevented from hearing arguments against America or capitalism.

“He had been susceptible to their arguments because, coming from a small Midwestern town, he had never heard the United States criticised and was impressed that some of their criticism was undeniably true.” – Page 147

“Not having been exposed to dissident views, he had been a sitting duck for skillful propaganda; indeed, most of those who were similarly won over were from unsophisticated environments.” – Page 148

When exposed to an alternative worldview that contained elements of truth that have been withheld, it becomes easy for a person to uncritically accept the new worldview over the half-informed worldview they had previously held. In both cases, the worldview is inaccurate but the person being manipulated does not understand this.

The Life of a Cult (aka life as a snowflake with victim cards)

Deikman gives us a comprehensive overview of the life of a cult. From page’s 4 and 5:

“The variety of personalities involved, of differing racial, economic, religious, educational, and social backgrounds, was impressive. What was most striking was that no matter whom we interviewed, the stories of involvement in exploitative, harmful cults was similar. A distinct pattern of seduction, coercion, corruption, and regression emerged, no matter what the outward trappings, no matter what dogma or purpose the group espoused. Basic human responses had been elicited by a process fundamentally the same.

At the time they joined their particular cult, most of the people we interviewed had been dissatisfied, distressed, or at a transition point in their lives. Typically the desire a more spiritual life, a community in which to live cooperatively; they wanted to become enlightened, to find meaning in serving others, or simply to belong. An encounter with an enthusiastic, attractive, friendly person served to introduce each of them to a group whose outer appearance was quite benign.

At some point during that introductory phase an intense experience took place which was interpreted as validating the claim that the leader and the group were special, powerful, spiritual; that they could give the person what he or she wanted. This experience might have been an altered state of consciousness (induced by the leader or the group via meditation, chanting, or the laying on of hands), a powerful therapeutic experience, or just a wonderful feeling of being accepted and welcomed – of “coming home”.

Won over, the newcomer joined the group, embracing its doctrines and practices. Soon the cult’s demands increased and the new member was asked to devote increasing amounts of time, money, and energy to the group’s activities. These demands were justified as necessary to fulfill the group’s goals; willingness to comply was always interpreted as a measure of the recruit’s commitment and sincerity. In order to continue, most did comply, sacrificing much for the sake of the stated high purposes of the group (often put in terms of saving the world).

Relationships outside the group became difficult to maintain. The former life of the new member was given up; contact with outsiders was discouraged and the demands of the new life left little opportunity for extra-group activities. However, the sacrifices were compensated for by the convert’s sense of belonging and purpose. The group and leader (at least initially) gave praise and acceptance.

Gradually, however, an iron fist was felt. Deviation from group dogma brought swift disapproval or outright rejection. The message to the convert became clear: what the group had given, the group could take away. In time, he or she submitted to – and participated in – cruel, dishonest, and contradictory practices out of fear of the leader and the group, who by then had become the converts sole source of self-esteem, comfort, and even financial support. Actions that conflicted with the convert’s conscience were rationalised by various formulas provided by the leader.

Critical evaluation of the leader and the group became almost impossible, not only because it was punished severely, but also because the view of reality presented by the cult has no challengers. Discordant information was excluded from the group’s world.

Exploitation intensified and the recruit regressed into a fearful submission. Couples might be separated, members would inform on each other. Morals were corrupted and critical thinking suppressed. Often the group’s leader deteriorated as well, becoming increasingly grandiose, paranoid, or bizarre. In most cases, paranoid thinking tended to mark the entire cult and reinforced the group’s isolation.

Our witnesses told of how, eventually, the demands became unbearable; a mother might be told to give up her child or her husband, or a spouse directed to take a different sexual partner. Although often the person would agree to the new requirement, sometimes he or she would not. In such cases, when the member finally refused to comply with the leader or group’s demands, he or she left precipitously, often assisted by a person outside with whom, some contact and trust had been maintained

Leaving such a group was a flight because the group’s reaction was known to be severe and punitive. Apostates were excommunicated.” – Pages 4 and 5

Where Do Cults Exist? (universities, social media)

Cults are social organisations and so can exist in almost anywhere in modern society. Deikman observed that cult behaviours and thinking are so pervasive that almost everyone in society can be considered to be part of various “invisible cults”. Almost all people exhibit some cult behaviour in their daily lives. Almost everyone conforms to group norms in some way, are dependent on one or more leaders, devalues those outside their groups and avoids media that does not confirm what they already believe.

Deikman suggests this cult thinking is embedded in our societies but is, usually, not all-encompassing enough to be considered an actual cult. Usually, people do not have the opportunity to voluntarily prevent themselves from receiving outside information or opinions, and cannot choose to entirely disassociate themselves from people with whom they disagree.

Even when cult thinking manifests in social groups, it is rarely to the extent and intensity of an actual cult.

“In ordinary society, the cult processes of censorship and decreased contact with outsiders are often found, but in diminished intensity. Censorship of discordant information and isolation from heretical outsiders is usually done voluntarily rather than at the insistence of the group, although expression of deviant views is seldom encouraged.” – Page 148

People of like mind tend to associate with one another for many reasons, and this provides the foundation upon which a cult mentality can be built. Instead of creating a space to interrogate any shared beliefs, the group becomes an exercise in mutual validation. Censorship becomes the de facto norm, creating what Deikman terms as “social ghettos”.

“Eventually, we in the seminar were unable to maintain the belief that cults were something apart from normal society. The people telling us stories of violence, cruelty and perversion of values were like ourselves. After listening and questioning we realised that we were not different from nor superior to the ex-cult members, that we were vulnerable to the same dependency wishes, capable of the same betrayals and cruelty in which our sense of reality was manipulated.” – Page 7

Why do people join cults? (peer pressure, coersion)

The most common misconception about cults is that the people who join them are crazy. This is not true. People do not join cults because they are crazy. In fact, people who have severe cognitive and social handicaps probably cannot successfully join a cult and participate in one at any meaningful level because of the degree of emotional reciprocity a cult requires to function.

“After listening to many variants of this story [people’s reasons for joining a cult], I began to see that cults form and thrive not because people are crazy, but because they have two kinds of wishes. They want a meaningful life, to serve God or humanity; and they want to be taken care of, to feel protected and secure, to find a home. The first motives may be laudable and constructive, but the latter exert a corrupting effect, enabling cult leaders to elicit behaviour directly opposite to the idealistic vision with which members entered the group.” – Page 6

Intelligent, well-educated people join cults because they simultaneously desire a sense of working for a higher purpose and because they are afraid of being on their own. They are people who wish to regress back to the security of childhood so they can feel as if there is still a benevolent and omniscient parental figure watching over them.

This makes cults and cult behaviours highly appealing to people with low levels of emotional maturity. The promise of security, order, direction and certainty appeals to people who are not confident in their own ability to provide these things for themselves.

How to Leave a Cult

To the cult member, the cult is a secretive, all-consuming fantasy world that is opaque to those outside of it. Reality is distorted so that there is one source of evil on which all of the cult’s problems can be blamed, and anyone outside of the cult is an agent actively working against the group to undermine and destroy it.

To leave a cult, one must first understand that they are a part of a cult, invisible or not. Deikman offers six behaviours one can identify in themselves to establish whether or not they participate in cult thinking.

Speaking of adversaries or outsiders as if they were all the same; characterising them by negative traits only; attributing unflattering motives to them but not oneself.

Lacking interest and information concerning the actual statements and actions of opponents or outsiders.

Failing to consider the possible validity of an adversary’s point of view.

Not taking a critical look at one’s own position.

Disapproving or rejecting a member of one’s group for departing from the group position, devaluing the dissident, regarding him or her as an annoyance or a problem.

Feeling self-righteous.

Leaving a cult is extremely difficult because cults prey on the emotional instability and dependency fantasies of their members.. To an outsider, it might seem that there is little forcing the individual to remain in the cult. Ostensibly they possess freedom of movement and self-determination, but from the perspective of the person within the cult, the cult is all-consuming. All of the people closest to them direct and reinforce their cult beliefs, bully them into compliance with the group and withhold companionship and affection when the individual attempts to dissent from the group’s narrative.

This puts the individual under tremendous duress. Not only will they be unable to pursue their higher purpose through the group, they will lose their entire social circle and, in many cases, are financially dependent on the cult to live. These pressures are often insurmountable, and so people become trapped in cults even if they appear physically able to leave.

In addition to this, Deikman puts emphasis on the “special” nature of cults and how they maintain their cohesion by making their members feel better than others. The devaluing of outsiders combined with the veneration of the leader and group make an egalitarian worldview very difficult and unsettling. This is what Deikman calls the ‘eye-level world’, a worldview in which the person views other people as their equals rather than their inferiors. After a prolonged period of projecting negativity onto outsiders, it is understandably difficult to become an outsider oneself.

“In the service of realism, it is important to diminish projection and establish an eye-level perspective, for in our fears, hopes and capacity for nobility as well as self-deception, we can recognise each other, see that ‘the enemy is us’.” – Page 166

The capacity to see the humanity of the outsider is key in breaking out of cult conditioning. The cult fosters a distorted perception of reality that is an intellectual hinderance to the cult members. It is very difficult to admit one’s need to be humble and abandon self-righteousness. This goes directly counter to the atmosphere fostered by the cult and the person’s dependency on feelings of moral superiority to give them emotional security.

Leaving a cult is traumatic and requires deprogramming. It is difficult to remove the lens of the cult and view the world in a more realistic, rational way. The cult member’s fear of abandonment becomes an obstacle which is enhanced by increased authoritarianism from the group brought about by their scepticism and lack of cooperation. The dependency fantasy is used against them as, ironically, threats of ostracism are leveled to prevent the individual from wanting to leave.

It is very rare for a person to voluntarily leave a cult without any kind of outside influence. In most cases, people can only leave a cult when provided with a lifeline to people on the outside. Given the homogenous, deliberately insular nature of cults, the cult member has likely defooed their friends and family and repeatedly affirmed that people outside of the cult are bad people, working not only against the group but the individual’s own higher goals entirely. Electing to join a group the cult has demonised is challenging.

Trusting someone from outside the group is a very difficult affair, even for a cult member who realises they are in a terrible situation that they desperately want to leave. Usually it happens when a cult member has stayed in contact with a family member or long-time friend, someone close to them, whose bond they have been unable or unwilling to break.

On returning to reality, the person often finds themselves in need of therapy. They have endured a traumatic experience and need to adjust to life in the real world, in many ways resembling the rehabilitation of prisoners. The most important thing to remember is that these people are not insane and this could have happened to anybody.

Sources:

The Wrong Way Home: Uncovering Cult Behaviours in American Society

http://www.deikman.com/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_J._Deikman

https://therationalists.org/2016/08/17/cult-behaviour-an-analysis/

#anti sjw #feminism #anti feminism #libtards #sjw #liberal #cult #cults #psa #important #america #marxism #communism #socialism #blm #statism #indoctrination #brainwashing

1K notes · View notes

tantramassageus · 8 years ago

Text

The Quest For Sexual Freedom

We live in a sex-negative society. People suppress sex because they fear its powerful energy. Sex is condemned as sinful, ugly and dangerous. As a result, sexual repression is rampant. But a glimmer of light can be seen in the darkness. Around the world, people are taking steps to transform sexual repression into sexual freedom.

The Sexual Freedom Coalition has published an excellent description of sexual freedom, which can be summarised as the freedom to enjoy sex just like any other human instinct, such as eating, sleeping and soaking up the sun, without apology or attracting stigma.

How can this vision of sexual freedom become reality? How can we create a society in which people are free to live their sex lives to the full; free to experience maximum pleasure and fulfilment? Some advocates of sexual freedom think the answer lies ‘out there’ – in religious institutions, the media, the government, the educational system, the readership of any newspaper.

Yes, attitudes must change if sexual freedom is to prevail. Oppressive laws must be repealed. Positive messages about sex must be spread. Sex education must be of a high quality, and provided much earlier in people’s lives. But if we try to change the world without changing ourselves, sexual freedom will never be a reality.

The greatest barrier to sexual freedom is ignorance – a lack of knowledge, insight and awareness. A great many people mistakenly believe that what they call ‘reality’, an experience of the world that is dualistic in nature (you/me, this/that, right/wrong), is the only reality. They are unaware of the existence of a second reality in which duality does not exist, time does not exist and good and evil do not exist.

But even a brief experience of this other reality has the potential to set them free from the repression that has held them captive. An experience of bliss – of Heaven and Earth united – arrived at through enlightened sex will drive out sexual fear, inhibition and shame, and bring forth sexual freedom and enlightenment.

Having liberated themselves, these people then have the power to be role models, and exemplify a different way of being that others – including religious leaders, newspaper editors, government ministers, teachers and Media readers – may choose to emulate.

That, I believe, is how we create a world in which sexual freedom prevails. Enlightened sex is sexual freedom in practice At this point in the article you may be thinking, “This is all very fine in theory, but how do I put it into practice?”

Enlightened Sex

Sexual freedom is the idea, the theory, the concept. Enlightened sex is the reality, the practice, the experience.

Enlightened sex is the halfway point between ‘ordinary’ sex, with its emphasis on sensual pleasure (kama), and tantra, which is a spiritual practice. Enlightened sex is informed and skilful, uninhibited and in the moment, heart-centred, and a combination of the erotic (kama) and the spiritual (tantra).

"Imagine if that was how we learnt to drive"

Enlightened sex is informed and skilful. In the developed world, most people learn about sex by garnering information from their friends, by watching others do it in porn movies, and through a process of trial and error. Imagine if that was how we learnt to drive. The result would be carnage.

Those who practice enlightened sex are knowledgeable about and skilled in the erotic arts. They understand how their own body works, and that of their partner too. They are free from sexual taboos, inhibitions and hang-ups. They know the many different ways to give and receive pleasure. They are good communicators. And, like good drivers, they are fully present to the experience. They are not worrying about how well they are performing or deciding what their next manoeuvre will be.

Everything Simply Flows...

A person who has mastered an art is able to practice it without conscious thought. This unconscious competence is the result of intentional knowledge acquisition, skill building and on-the-job application. Mastery cannot be achieved by any other means.

Here is a small selection of sexual activities that you and your partner are unlikely to accomplish by happy accident or by doing what comes naturally:

These are technical skills that must be learned deliberately and practised diligently until they have been mastered. Once mastery has been achieved, the skills can put into practice spontaneously and without thinking.

Characteristics of Enlightened Sex

Enlightened sex is uninhibited

Enlightened sex is in the moment

Enlightened sex is a mind-body-spirit practice

It is a product of the three aspects of sexual freedom:

Freedom of thought

Freedom of action

Freedom of spirit

These freedoms are acquired through enlightenment, which itself has three aspects: knowledge, insight and awareness, gained through study and experience. The free individual has no constraints limiting his or her behaviour, and is at liberty to do or say anything without fear. Free from inhibition, he or she can be fully present to the other and experience bliss moment by moment, with no concern for past and future.

Enlightened Sex Is Heart-Centred

Ordinary sex is focused on the sexual organs and is mostly governed by the mind.

Enlightened sex is focused on the heart, while enjoying sensations in the body and the machinations of the mind.

The love that is experienced during enlightened sex is not romantic love, but pure cosmic love. Sexual partners open their hearts to each other, connect their chakras and allow heart energy to move between them.

Tantric masturbators open their hearts to the creator and project their energy outwards to the whole of creation. By bridging mundane reality and what I call ‘second reality’ (also known as second attention, ultimate reality, the nagual), practitioners of enlightened sex transcend their fragmented, conflicted minds and experience bliss. This is the case whether enlightened sex is being practiced alone, with a same-sex partner, with an opposite-sex partner, or in a group.

Enlightened sex combines the erotic (kama) with the spiritual (tantra). Practitioners of enlightened sex enjoy sensual pleasure to the full, while simultaneously experiencing a reality that lies beyond their bodies and their ego-minds. They see no conflict between the erotic and the spiritual, and regard them as complementary and equally legitimate aspects of human experience.

Erotic sex occupies the low ground of human sexual experience. The spiritual dimension is often absent . Spiritual sex occupies the high ground. The physical dimension is sometimes dismissed as gross and profane. Enlightened sex occupies the middle ground, and places equal value on the physical and spiritual dimensions.

source http://tantramassage.us/sexual-freedom.html

3 notes · View notes

emilytj8-blog · 8 years ago

Text

Influential films

IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER:

Gummo (1998) directed by Harmony Korine

Easily making it to the top in my selection of favourite films, Gummo is one of the most unique, uncomfortable, yet enchanting films I’ve seen. A series of bleak vignettes, surrounding the story of two young men trying to get by in the dismal, tornado-struck city of Xenia, Ohio, sends us into a world of adolescence, drug abuse, violence, sex and misfortune. Harmony Korine’s use of unusual characters and miserable scenarios makes this film a grim but fascinating gem, which took me multiple viewings to decide what I thought it all meant. I recommend this film to everyone who needs something to watch- but warn them about the scenes of violence, particularly the animal cruelty. (No animals are actually harmed, but for some it’s still hard to watch.) Everyone should watch this film!

The Wicker Man (1973) directed by Robin Hardy

This is another favourite- it’s almost impossible for me to have a single favourite as I love so many films. But this film is one that has had a big influence on me from a younger age. Adapted from David Pinner’s renowned book Ritual, this film is peculiar, sinister and iconic, and features some of my favourite actors of all time: Christopher Lee, Ingrid Pitt and Britt Ekland! This chilling film focuses on themes such as spirituality, rituals and the conflict between differing beliefs. It makes you question conventional values, and empathise with what would otherwise be seen as evil… In 2003 a remake of The Wicker Man was released, featuring Nicolas Cage, however this film had a generally negative response, and I think this is due to the representation of the people of Summerisle. Whilst The Wicker Man gives an insight to the beliefs of the islanders, and helps us understand why they do what they do (no spoilers), the remake unfortunately presents them as evil, malicious people. This spoils the essence of the story; but as an independent film, with no relations to the original Wicker Man, it could pass as a tolerable horror film.

Eraserhead (1993 in the UK, 1977 in USA) directed by David Lynch

Eraserhead had to feature in this list of influential films, because ever since I watched it, memories of it have never failed to make me feel uneasy! The one word I would use to describe this film, is ‘nightmare’. It surprised me when I found out how early it was filmed, but after some thought, I think a lot of weird things happened in the seventies. My mum told me about this film, so I decided to give it a watch, and whilst it was difficult to finish, I think I enjoyed it. What I like about this- and many other of my favourite films- is the fact it had a significant effect on me. Whether I enjoy a film or not, if it leaves me thinking about it for days, even weeks, it’s done its job in my eyes. What’s the point in a film which doesn’t affect you mentally? This film is creepy, unsettling and hard to make sense of, but it’s pure art. I wouldn’t recommend watching it alone, or when you’re not sober, and have something nice to watch when it’s finished!

Witchfinder General (1968) directed by Michael Reeves

Admittedly, I probably first watched this film because I was obsessed with Dani Filth when I was younger, and he mentioned it in an interview. But being interested in witchcraft and the macabre punishments that were in place during the witch-hunting era, this film was my cup of tea. It’s gruesome and leaves you feeling terrible for the poor women suspected of witchcraft, but Matthew Hopkins, the witchfinder himself, is incredibly strong in character in a terrifying way. The film has a gloomy substance, and when it finished I was left in a bit of a miserable state. But that is what a good horror does!

Basket Case (1982) directed by Frank Henenlotter

This is another film which had to make the list purely because of its disturbing and outlandish essence. This film is absolute madness, the idea is total lunacy and I won’t even mention it here, for the sake of those yet to watch it. Just seeing the poster for this film either makes you laugh, or cry, and the film does exactly the same. Basket Case comes as a trilogy, and for me get more ridiculous with each film. It does categorise as a comedy horror, and it was probably scarier for an audience in the eighties, and now just humorous for contemporary viewers. This film is great for watching if you fancy something weird, hilarious and a bit creepy.

Kids (1996 in the UK, 1995 in USA) directed by Larry Clark

With Harmony Korine writing the screenplay for this film, I saw a lot of similarities between Kids and Gummo, in the characters and style. Featuring Chloe Sevigny, a brilliant actress, who also stars in Gummo, this film looks at the theme of drugs, violence, STDs and sex in a group of teenagers. The film opens with an uncomfortably long scene of a young, underage girl graphically kissing an older boy, and this is just the first of many painful scenes, typical of Korine’s story writing. The story follows the teenage boy Telly’s perverted quests and a young woman Jennie’s journey to find the man who gave her HIV. This film is great in respect to its cinematography, emotional provocation and acting.

Moulin Rouge (2001) directed by Baz Luhrmann

This is one of the more mainstream films I adore. I love everything about it, the actors and actresses, the plot, the music, the colours, the romance, Paris, everything. I used to watch this film all the time when I was younger. I think it humorously and poignantly captures the themes of culture, theatre, desperation and romance, through the use of social class, prostitution and wealth. Another one I’d highly recommend to anyone who hasn’t seen it yet!

Dracula (1958) directed by Terence Fisher

I’m pleased to be able to say I read Bram Stoker’s Dracula way before I watched any of the film adaptations- so I had a good basis to go off when deciding which was my favourite. To be perfectly honest, Christopher Lee’s presence in this film makes me slightly biased, as well Peter Cushing’s (he lived in my hometown, Whitstable). The first time I watched this film was on a big projector by the beach near my home, at a mini film festival during Summer 2013. It was a great setting, as it played during the sunset, so the atmosphere was beautiful. Christopher Lee just portrays the best Dracula, fulfilling the most characteristics described by Bram Stoker, and looks genuinely terrifying for a film made in the late-fifties. Whilst Bela Lugosi��s portrayal of Count Dracula is still iconic, it doesn’t quite fit the alarming and formidable demeanour which Dracula needs- however, this probably wasn’t as achievable- or legal to show on screens- in the early thirties.

Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979) directed by Werner Herzog

This is the only version of Nosferatu I have seen so far, so I can’t compare it to the earlier or later ones, but I enjoyed this film so much. Nosferatu is one of the more spine-chilling vampire characters invented, with horrible protruding teeth and a freakish, bald head. The classic image of Nosferatu leaning over Lucy, (the typical, swooning, voluptuous damsel in distress) fangs at the jugular, is one of the best stills created in film. I think Lucy is portrayed perfectly, she is particularly beautiful and stands out to me. She works perfectly in contrast with the ugly, frightening Nosferatu, who remains just as hideous in each theatrical representation. This film is great, and as usual, not as scary nowadays as it was originally intended, but nevertheless a brilliant watch.

Gaslight (1940) directed by Thorold Dickinson

Not to be confused with the 1944 American remake, this film follows the manipulative relationship between Bella and Paul Mallen following a murder. The whole plot is Paul cruelly convincing Bella that she is going mad, and she begins to doubt her own mind and sanity. He controls her into believing that much of reality is actually just in her own head. The whole story is a tale of deception and manipulation, and fortunately there is justice in the end. It’s hard to write about why this is one of my favourites, as many of my reasons gives away a lot of the plot! It’s one of the older films I like, and sadly older films are sometimes disregarded because of their age. I would really recommend this puzzling and exciting film, which keeps you on edge throughout its entirety. The term ‘gaslighting’, a form of manipulation which causes people to doubt their sanity, originates from this film!

Metropolis (1927) directed by Fritz Lang

Metropolis is a German, silent science-fiction film, which I was fortunate enough to see featuring many scenes which had been missing for a long time! I found this film quite difficult to understand, especially as I wasn’t used to seeing silent films at the time, and it was incredibly long. However, music assists silent films so much, revealing a lot of emotion and suspense which would otherwise be hard to detect. The film is extremely symbolic, looking at cultural and political issues in Germany, such as democracy and capitalism. I had to include this in my list as again, it was very influential for me, and many other film fans. I’m not politically educated enough to quite understand Fritz Lang’s meaning, but it’s open for interpretation, and everyone who watches it has a fresh perspective and unique ideas on what it could mean.

Betty Blue (1986) directed by Jean-Jacques Beineix

Betty Blue has a secure, cherished and precious place in my heart and soul. That sounds dramatic, but it is honestly one of the most romantic, poignant and intense films I’ve watched. It’s also a book, which I read shortly after watching the film for the first time, and it impressed me equally as much as the film. It follows the turbulent and passionate relationship between Betty and Zorg, who are madly in love and care for nothing but each other. The film is really long, but takes you through a vigorous journey of emotions. I don’t think I’ve ever watched Betty Blue without weeping at the end. It’s set in France too, which creates an all the more romantic and seductive sense in the film. Because you experience the couple go through so much, you get to know the characters so well and a sturdy attachment to them is made. Whilst so many events take place, the imperishable love for Betty that Zorg has is endlessly felt throughout the entire film. It truly captures the essence of unconditional love.

#film #media #favourite films #horror #romance #cult classics #love #blog #writing #art

3 notes · View notes

uniformbravo · 8 years ago

Text

ok here are some of my Actual s2 thoughts (voltron spoilers below)

so back when i first watched s1 i guess i wasn’t totally 100% into it?? i dont remember if i ever really talked abt it on here but i remember being a little confused and trying to figure out why it was so popular bc i honestly didn’t think it was that great but idk i must’ve warmed up to it at some point between then and now bc i was way more into it this time around aaaaa

i rly did like s2 better than s1 tho??? idk maybe it’s just bc it’s new so it’s the hype of new content & everything but dang overall i do feel like i enjoyed it more

i rly like the art style and especially the animation style like this is probably just me coming to this show straight from lolirock but like... while lolirock has a really appealing art style im honestly not a fan of the type of animation they use so it felt really nice to come back to like. hand-drawn stuff idk just! voltron is a v visually appealing show in all aspects god bless

everyone is still super trans wow i can’t believe every character is trans

tbh i love shiro? but it’s weird bc i actually think he’s rly boring when it comes to his “leadership” kind of characteristics but like also he suffers a lot and gets a lot of the plot-heavy development and normally i might be annoyed by that but im just...... so weak

also speakin of shiro there was a lot of shiro/keith this season and like..... ok im gonna be honest i dont rly ship them or anything like at all im not too keen on the two of them that way but this person i follow has this au where they’re brothers and imagining them that way made me enjoy their scenes like 100% more so like Good Shit (but tbh keith saying “you’re like a brother to me” or was it maybe “father” i can’t remember but either way that line killed me pls i want them to have a rly strong platonic bond i want shiro to feel rly protective of keith and i want keith to feel safer around shiro aaaaa i love it so much)

pidge starting to adopt altean terms and phrases fucking killed me dude like with the time vocabulary n shit, even the others started picking it up a little bit it’s So Fucking Good im so happy aaaaaAA

i still love keith and lance i hope they never calm down w/ each other and keep fighting forever bye (like rewatching s1 when lance is like “yOU AGAIN” and keith is like “who are u” hfhdgd gOD that was so GOOD)

a lot of the character development was rly good but tbh im a little disappointed by the lack thereof when it came to lance and hunk like ?? at this point they’re still treated like the Joke Characters for the most part, i mean lance did have his one little moment of glory in that one episode but i would really love to see like. an actual full character arc w/ him. and i know hunk did have some stuff in s1 w/ like the balmerans & shae but this season it felt like he was just kinda pushed aside and i mean the same could be said of pidge, who did have a lot of story in s1 but barely anything in s2, so maybe i’m just being a little impatient lol i mean. if u take a step back and lay it all out, s1 focused on shiro, pidge, allura, and a little bit of hunk, and then s2 focused on shiro and keith, so maybe s3 (idk if it’s even confirmed yet but like hypothetically) will focus on lance and hunk more? and probably shiro again tbh i mean it doesn’t really feel like anything’s been set up to go into a lance or hunk arc, but at the same time there wasn’t really any setup for keith’s whole s2 thing in s1 either, so there’s still the possibility that it could all happen in s3 but like. with the way s2 went and the unanswered questions it left about keith i can see s3 being very keith-centric, not to mention all the reminders we got about pidge’s whole family issue this season, so s3 will probably focus on that a lot too idk i mean at the end of the day they are pretty short seasons, it makes sense that they can only focus on a select few characters at a time, so i feel like at this point it makes sense to just sit back and wait to see what happens, & then if hunk and lance are still kind of shoved aside w/ nary even a mere setup then wtf actually

not to keep running w/ the negativity & criticisms but honestly what i really love in a show is complex characters written realistically and w/ voltron i feel like it /almost/ delivers but not really? like, not to bring up lolirock again but that show has fairly one-dimensional characters who are written relying more on their character type than anything with a ton of depth; the protagonists are Good and the antagonists are Evil; auriana is the goofball, talia is the responsible one, iris is the main character or the “pure good” one, mephisto is the clumsy villain, praxina is the irritable villain- like it’s all just very straightforward (most of the time). i feel like voltron is a little more complex with its characters than lolirock, but in the end it still kind of sticks to the same method of characterization; it’s definitely not as cookie-cutter, but each character does have one or two characteristics that blatantly stick out and make them.... i dont know, really predictable? like you Know that every time a girl shows up lance is gonna hit on her, and every time there’s some cool technology pidge is gonna fawn over it and every time there’s food hunk is gonna say some shit about being hungry, and keith and lance argue a lot and shiro gets the team’s shit together because he’s the Leader and it’s just like basically, with voltron it feels very “telling” rather than “showing” with most things, and besides manifesting in the story it shows in the way the characters are written, too. in most situations, the characters’ reactions are written based more on those few main characteristics they’ve been given than more realistic reactions to their current situation, and maybe that’s a little confusing but i’ll try to clarify actually im sorry but i just completely lost my train of thought and i can’t get it back, it’s currently coming up on 1am and im incredibly tired right now so i’m gonna have to cut this short but like. basically, the characters in voltron kind of have their main characteristics and it’s fine to have things like that bc it helps define characters but the way the writers use them feels a lot like those hogwarts house sorting quizzes that are like “what’s your favorite animal? a) lion b) snake c) raven d) badger” like it tends to be relatively straightforward and predictable in a bad way, and a lot of that execution has to do with the storytelling style the show has overall

ok ANYWAY let’s say something more positive now: the soundtrack to this show is absolutely phenomenal tbh i remember thinking this last time too, just the general sound it has, it feels like an homage to the older series and acts as a subtle way to bring that kind of aesthetic into it and i rly like it (i mean i’ve never seen the old show so idk what kind of aesthetic it has but u know what i mean. the kind of “old video tape sound” kind of thing. u know the game oxenfree, which has a similar music aesthetic. god idk how to explain this i hope u know what i’m trying to say. i rly like voltron’s soundtrack)

like i didnt mean to go on this big rant all “here’s everything i didn’t like abt voltron what a Bad Show” bc i actually really like it a lot!! the fact that im picking it apart like this is actually a good sign that i like it bc if i dont care abt something i won’t put in the effort, u know? if i don’t like it then i won’t be all “here’s what i hope to see from this show in the future” right

anyway it’s fuckin 1am bye, i love voltron goodnight

#retag later #voltron blogging #voltron spoilers /

2 notes · View notes