#i put way too much effort into this and it was still minimal effort imo

[charmac]

How to draw people into your blog? Create a feature everyone in the world wants to use:

Marketing 101, boys.

[plutosfallenangel]

Random Moon Sign Observations | pt.II

(*based on personal experiences and opinions. look at the whole natal chart to gain complete insight, some aspects/house placements can make contradictions to the below information*)

• Scorpio Moon •

-always watching, taking it all in..

-knows most of the answers to questions before they ask

-dry humor (which I personally love)

-passionate about whatever they put their mind to, no half or 50% effort (they do have to be emotionally bonded to the person or hobbie/task, if not, they're redirecting their energy elsewhere)

-prone to becoming hyperfocused on one specific thing (most times to their detriment)

-mommy issues (but they don't talk about them, and hate when you assume you know the relationship dynamic, it's a very unique relationship dynamic and overtime it can grow to be stronger or more distant)

-deep conversations if they trust you, which is hard to gain. Trust is earned through sacrifice most times.. even if something small, they need to see you prove your loyalty and trust)

-the one I would call to bury a body (jokes pls)

-doesn't like to make assumptions, uses their earned knowledge on human behavior, they will study those around them like a case study, only to come to their own conclusions after seeing all the "facts". They can be extremely patient in this act too... they want to know you from the inside out

-sensitive to shifts in the mood, but again.. most times they will keep this information inside and watch, study you to see why it shifted

• Sagittarius moon •

-life of the party (unless heavy earth placements, bedtime comes sooner than later especially with age)

-will be the one you can call to come help you get your car stuck out of the mud, or go biking in the backwoods.. just down for anything and personally I love that about them

-can be too concerned about keeping the good times rolling, doesn't always directly express emotions.. but it's more like a dark joke, everything is turned into a joke, you just need to decipher it most times. And if it's not turned into a joke, they will laugh after they tell you horrible news. Imo a defense mechanism

-may lack boundaries when it comes to those they connect with emotionally, this isn't always a bad thing, they're coming from a place of exploration... like "how far can you and I go?" However sometimes I find they are the most capable of staying in bad situations, always trying to see the good in everyone

-can start a campfire with their bare hands, or atleast minimal tools, very attracted to fire.. find them near a fire all year round if its possible for them to do so

-can sometimes be sneakier than Scorpio moons.. when they set their eye on something in the distance that they want, they go about it most times in silence (this does depend on which house the moon is in)

-big lovers, big emotions, and larger than life dreams

-facial expressions for DAYS! I love how expressive they are.. warm smiles

-definitely rebellious in their younger years

-doesn't like to be tied down by family, but can adapt (most often moves away from mother)

• Capricorn moon •

- lives by the work hard, play harder motto

-always learns the hard way, doesn't like to take advice, rather learn through experience

-tells you like it is when you ask for relationship advice

-too many responsibilities when they were young, even if they had a good solid foundation growing up and were provided for, the expectations put on them were very heavy

-its never "how are you feeling", more "do you need anything?" and I love them for it

-happiest when they're putting themselves into something they can build on long-term, when they don't have that they can spiral FAST

-these people can drink.. and when I say drink, they're the ones to clear a 12-pack and act like they're still sober (from my experience lol)

-in my experience is much of a mommy's girl/boy as cancer moons are (esp when they're young.. they always want to take care of their mom)

-very in tune with the weather, I notice they most times have allergies or can feel a storm coming from how their body reacts

-big provider energy, but they can feel like they can't accept help from others, and end up toughing out the storm by themselves.. this is often from early childhood experiences that breed the need for extreme independence in some form

• Aquarius moon •

-they are on their own energetic wavelengths together, all aqua moons come here for a very specific reason that aligns with what society needs to be shifted/changed.. no matter how big or small the reputation they have they make an impact on those around them. Most are well-known in their local community

-big futures/big dreamers.. these people can see themselves 10 years down the road when you ask them where they'll be, they might not have a CLUE how to get there (depending on the rest of the chart) but they'll always have a sense of direction intuitively on how to get there

-can become way too overanalyzing of their own feelings and that of others.. over thinkers. They can have a hard time reading emotional encounters in the moment.. they need some time to brew with it, read into it, and for them it's easy to sit with these memories of emotion because aqua is a fixed sign

-there is an inner hermit that exists within all of them, do NOT disturb them during their hermit hours

-doesn't give much energy out to people who do them wrong, or atleast out loud to others. They love to share stories about other people, but aren't the first ones to bring up drama when it happens

-their mom is supportive of their endeavors and always wishes the best for them.. I've never met an aqua moon that didn't have a supportive mom (again this does depend on the whole chart, esp 12H moons)

-naturally creative, most I know are very passionate about creative projects and can easily bury themselves in one for long periods of time

-most times they hate having to cancel plans, not because they dont want to go, it's because they hate feeling like they let someone down

-if they invite you to their house, they will make sure you feel at home

-big social circles, few close friends that understand them

-loves to share their viewpoints, but can have bad memories lol they tend to "misplace" memories, you never know what will trigger an old forgotten memory to come up only to dissappear again

-very smart, loves YouTube videos, emotional comfort documentaries

• Pisces Moon •

-can become their mothers "mother" in a sense, their mom might rely on them a lot

-doesnt mind crying infront of others, and for me I admire this... let it out!! There's NO shame in it! (Just don't do it to manipulate others obv)

-vivid imagination, lucid dreamers, I have a 12H moon and often find myself bonding over dream stories with them

-doesn't mind disappearing until they feel up to being social, just don't forget to check in on them, they love compassion

-i often see when they share their emotions and unfortunate stories with others that it causes them to open up too, they love to hold emotional space for people especially those closest

-can often feel the "blame" from others even if it's not theirs, they can feel like they're always doing something wrong or someone is upset and it is because of them, which is most often not the case

-will decorate with a lot of pastels or a wide variety of colors in their home

-the best mentors in their life are women

-journals, journals, journals... let me into your mind palace

-soft poets, or amateur artists, this moon sign expresses a lot of emotion through art. Art helps them put a finger on how they're feeling. They channel divine messages and emotions through a craft, and even if it's not their own art they are connecting with, they will resonate with it and pass a message along to others that helps them understand something they need to at the time

-either early bedtime or no bedtime at all, creature of the night or morning star.. there's no in between with them

-being alone helps them process the most. Especially the shower lol they can process days worth of emotions in the shower I'm convinced

[elusianknight]

I really don't find it comparable to exclusion of same gender romance options, like at all.

If you already have a romance, making it unrestricted by way of gender is a matter of changing pronouns, if that. Maybe altering a few lines or words. Adding polyamory means adding magnitudes more content unless they go the Halsin route and make it minimal.

Poly routes are more work, period, from a game dev standpoint. As I said in the post, even dating sims usually limit to particular combinations due to this. bg3 has 8 romance options. AFAIK, 2? can be poly with Halsin (shadowheart and Astarion). If they wanted to have a polyamorous romance with 2 characters equally in the relationship with the player (idk the term) it would be effectively writing at least 1 additional romance route worth of content. And that's just for 1 possible pair. Then you realize each possible pair would have an entirely different dynamic. 8 romance options + halstarion + halshadowheart = 10. Let's pretend they made Halsin available to be romanced with any other character, in a more equitable manner than presently in the game. That's 8 + 7 = 15 (aka each romanceable character + every character that's not Halsin to account for the possibility of a relationship with him).

But what I mean by magnitude is combination math.

Every unique combination of 3 of 8 romanceable companions is 8!/(8-3)!3!= 8!/(5!3!) = 56. That's not realistic.

Take Wyll out of the equation and it's 35. More reasonable. But you can see the pattern.

Also I don't know much about Warhammer but from what I know of other RPGs, even WOTR which has been praised for its content, they're just less complicated and mechanically deep than bg3 and therefore require less effort to add content. Most RPGs don't have fully voiced content, and if they do, it's not motion captured as it is in BG3.

Game development is not as simple as writing a book or a movie or TV show. Some features are more important and take precedence, and a game is limited by technical and mechanical constraints, not to mention time constraints too. Halsin by all accounts was a late addition to the cast due to fan popularity, so he has less content. Maybe he will get more in future. But that's not inherently a flaw imo. It's like Jaheira and Minsc, they have less content due to being late game additions but I feel that their presence still brings new and interesting stuff to the party dynamic, and so their limited inclusion is still better than none at all.

Bg3 is the kind of the game that's so incredibly complex, they need to limit scope massively for it to even release at all. I know this can be frustrating, I have my own frustrations with where corners had to be cut (such as the loss of the upper city) as well.

All I'm trying to say with my post is that, if Larian had unlimited resources and infinite time, I think there would theoretically be more poly routes. But Larian puts a lot of care into the characters, romances, etc, and chose to limit to mostly monogamous relationships rather than sacrifice detail, polish, and characterization to give more freedom. Maybe giving the option to turn off jealousy would be a possibility, but it still might introduce bugs depending on how flags are set up for romance options.

I'm not saying Larian and BG3 are perfect and beyond reproach, I'm saying from a purely theoretical story-only standpoint, more poly options would make sense based on the characters we are working with. That's all.

Edit: whoops my math is wrong, it's combos of 2 companions. So it'd be 28 combos (tav + 2 companions) or 21 if you take Wyll out of the pool for being the most likely to be monogamous. But then if you think about origin characters it's even more complicated 😭

Some ppl gotta remember game mechanics exist and the lack of some poly routes in bg3 is undoubtedly due to the complexity of additional scenes, dialogue and programming flags/checks it would cause

[bestworstcase]

What are your opinions on the whole Rapunzel-Varian drama in S1 post Queen For A Day, especially with the whole "Rapunzel should've checked on Varian after the snowstorm" or whose fault it was for their conflict?

tbh… if i had to pick one single representative example of the tts fandom’s general inability to handle nuance in fictional conflict, it’d be the QFAD discourse™

because! while this isn’t to rag on anyone, if you pick a random person with an opinion on this question, chances are they will fall into one of two camps. either: 1) corona’s treatment of varian was horrifically unjust and everyone involved except him is a terrible person, or 2) rapunzel did what she had to do and varian’s anger is irrational, unfounded, and fundamentally unfair.

people in camp #1 tend to believe that rapunzel was simply being selfish and acting like a sulky child when she failed to check up on varian after the storm. people in camp #2 tend to point out that rapunzel was traumatized by the events of QFAD too, and believe that this justifies her failure to check up on varian.

but the thing is imo the conflict in QFAD + the rest of s1 is just as complex and messy as the argument cassandra and rapunzel have in RATGT, in that there is no One True Right Answer and no person who is one hundred percent “at fault.” the question of blame is… honestly sort of beside the point if you ask me. to break this down:

#1: rapunzel is a sheltered teenager with minimal social skills dealing with a national emergency halfway through her first unsupervised couple days on the job.

the girl has had like eight months tops of training for the monumental task of ruling a country. she grew up in a situation where the only choice available to her was how she would wile away her free time inside her tower; gothel exerted total control over every other facet of her life. and while she has a little more wiggle room now that she’s out of the tower, she is still basically living her life with all the big, consequential choices made for her.

QFAD was intended to be her first taste of true authority, while still being ultimately inconsequential. if all had gone according to plan, corona would have ticked along more or less on autopilot—just as frederic left it—while rapunzel got in a little practice making judgment calls about minor, unimportant things, like mediating small interpersonal disputes between her subjects.

nobody expected, and rapunzel was absolutely not prepared for, a legitimate national crisis to explode in her face out of nowhere. this was supposed to be pedaling by herself for the first time with training wheels and what she got instead is careening down the freeway on a motorbike at 95mph with zero warning. it is a miracle that she held things together as well as she did.

#2: varian is a child with an emotionally distant, unsupportive father who sets him up for failure.

he’s smart but he’s also fourteen. he has little if any formal training in alchemy, he’s figuring stuff out by trial and error, and he has zero adult supervision. his efforts have caused significant levels of destruction twice in only a few months—the exploding boilers in WTH, and his invention going haywire (with a little help from st. croix) in GE—and it’s implied that this is a fairly regular occurrence with him.

and yet quirin does nothing. he shouts at varian, shuts him down, and at several points orders him point blank to stop messing with alchemy… but he makes no effort to connect with his son or understand where he’s coming from; he doesn’t try to impose reasonable restrictions (like “don’t mess with volatile chemicals unless i’m there to help”) that would allow varian to pursue his passion while minimizing the danger; and he doesn’t create an environment where varian feels able to turn to his father for help. and then with the black rocks, he lets varian come along to see the king, but refuses to explain why he “lied” (/spoke in code) to the king, destroying any credibility he had in varian’s eyes and making varian panicky and desperate because it seemed like no one else cared.

so the end result is that varian feels like he has no choice but to sneak around behind quirin’s back. he can’t rely on his dad for help if anything goes wrong, but the situation is so dire that doing nothing also isn’t an option. he tries his best to be careful (before quirin barges in on him, varian is attempting to put just one drop of the amber serum on the rock) but even if quirin hadn’t startled him, a terrible accident was bound to happen sooner or later, and the responsibility for that lays just as much if not more on quirin’s shoulders—the adult in this situation—as on varian’s. the kid is FOURTEEN.

(i think a neat argument could be made for varian as a deconstruction of the teen/YA fantasy trope of the hyper-competent teenager with absentee parents whose absence allows the teen to get on with the important work of the high-stakes fantasy plot; but that’s a whole different post)

#3: rapunzel did the right thing, but lost control over the situation due to lack of experience.

it would have been wrong to abandon everybody in corona to run off into the blizzard with varian, and frankly it wouldn’t have helped quirin anyway. he was already encased in amber by the time varian got back to old corona, and rapunzel couldn’t have done anything in the moment had she been with varian then. the only benefit to her presence would have been to comfort varian—which is not a small thing, obviously, but it’s not in any way a reasonable exchange for the hundreds or thousands of lives that would have been lost if she left corona completely without a leader in the middle of a crisis. so broadly speaking, staying in corona was the right call.

however.

rapunzel was not in control during that scene in the palace. varian bursts in, panicking, explains his situation and begs for her help—and rapunzel just says, basically, “i can’t help you, there’s an emergency.” then nigel comes in and reinforces that, which makes varian freak out; he grabs rapunzel and shakes her, nigel signals for the guards in response, and varian gets dragged out of the palace while rapunzel pleads with the guards not to hurt him.

(sidebar: the hate nigel gets for describing varian as “attacking” rapunzel is unfounded. varian grabs her and shakes her roughly back and forth and that is, in fact, assault. nigel is not wrong to describe it as such.)

anyway, notice two the things that DON’T happen here:

1) rapunzel doesn’t offer up any alternative solutions. a more experienced or better prepared leader could have responded to varian’s plea with a plan of action, like: i need to stay in corona to oversee the evacuation, so we can’t leave right this minute, but cassandra will take you to ask xavier for advice right now and the minute it’s safe to leave we’ll go together to help your father. or whatever—the point is to engage proactively with varian’s problem, make him feel heard, and give him something productive to do so he isn’t just sitting around fretting in the palace or struggling back home by himself in the middle of a blizzard.

2) raps doesn’t challenge nigel’s decision when he summons the guards to throw varian out of the palace, which is something she absolutely could have done. she could have said no, i can’t go to old corona right this minute to help him, but we are not throwing him out into the storm again, he stays here with me. this is, again, a sign of her inexperience; she’s not used to being an authority, she’s never been in a situation like this before, and she’s under a ton of pressure—so when an older adult whom she sees as an authority (he’s her father’s advisor!) makes a judgment call, it probably doesn’t even occur to her that she can challenge it.

this is why i say that rapunzel lost control over the situation—because even though she made the Right Decision, she got a kind of awful outcome, ie varian being tossed out into the blizzard to struggle home by himself to deal with his problem without any support, and rapunzel inadvertently breaking her promise from earlier.

#4: rapunzel doesn’t immediately go to check on varian after the storm because she’s traumatized, busy, and trusts her father.

painter’s block is all about how the trauma rapunzel feels as a direct result of her decisions during the storm destroys her ability to choose anything. she feels so debilitated by the fear that she will make the wrong choice—because she worries that she chose wrong when she allowed varian to be sent away—that she can’t do anything at all, let alone find the emotional strength to go to old corona and confront her mistakes. and while she tries to process and move past this trauma, mrs sugarby exploits it in an attempt to force her to free zhan tiri.

the next episode, not in the mood, involves rapunzel being put under enormous pressure to entertain an irascible ally of corona’s while he and her father negotiate a trade deal with the threat of a war breaking out if they fail. NITM is a silly episode, but it has the highest non-magical stakes of any episode in the entire series. this isn’t an event rapunzel could have reasonably skipped out on for the sake of one person, no matter how much she cares. she’s slammed. she’s still being forced to prioritize just like she was in QFAD.

and in the third episode after QFAD, rapunzel is tormented by nightmares about varian and what happened to his father, so she presses frederic for information about the rocks and varian’s safety. and frederic assures her that everything is fine. he lies to her face about the rocks having been removed, and rapunzel has no reason to doubt him, so she relaxes… until varian contacts her directly, and she immediately jumps to help him.

#5: at the same time, varian has been forced into hiding because frederic is attempting to cover up the rock problem.

what happens to varian after QFAD is plainly unfair and unjust. his father is trapped in amber, the rocks have completely destroyed old corona, most of the villagers have presumably moved to the new land frederic set aside for them, and frederic’s secret police are crawling all over the village trying to suppress information about the rocks (and fred’s role in creating them). the blame for this lies squarely at frederic’s feet, and varian is right to be angry.

i believe that varian interprets rapunzel’s absence as a sign that she’s complicit in what frederic is doing, making his anger at her justified as well. he doesn’t have access to the information we do about why rapunzel doesn’t seek varian out immediately—he doesn’t see how distraught and shattered she is after the storm, or the high-stakes political nonsense she has to deal with, and he certainly doesn’t see her trying to pursue the matter of the rocks and varian’s safety with her father and being flatly lied to to convince her to stay put in corona. all he knows is that rapunzel kicked him out and now she’s ignoring him and her father’s agents keep chasing him away from his home, and he draws the conclusion that makes the most sense to him, ie rapunzel must be okay with all of this because otherwise she would be here.

and once he has that idea in his head, the fact that rapunzel immediately jumps to help him when he contacts her isn’t enough to dislodge it. he’s a scared, lonely fourteen year old boy looking at this situation through a purely interpersonal lens while rapunzel is an overwhelmed eighteen year old doing the best she can while juggling about a million things at once and putting varian low on her priority list because she’s been told by a trusted source that varian is fine.

they both make mistakes, they’re both missing important contextual information, and neither of them handles this situation in the best possible way. but neither of them is “at fault” in the sense of being purely in the wrong, and—imo—frederic and quirin hold the lion’s share of the blame here, because they had all the information, and they refused and refused and refused to deal with the black rock problem until it overwhelmed them both. varian and rapunzel are both just kids scrambling to deal with something that should not be their problem to solve, and both of them fuck up! (and even then—the best fred and quirin could’ve done was just be honest and upfront about what the problem was. neither of them had the means to fix anything, and neither of them was responsible for the very unfortunate timing of the blizzard. so it’s not as clear cut as everything bad in s1 happens because fred and quirin stuck their heads in the sand. a lot of it honestly was just sheer bad luck.)

a n y w a y, i think by s3 and after a lot of introspection, varian has figured a lot of this out, and that’s why he’s so quick to let go of his lingering grudge against rapunzel. he’s realized that at the end of the day, rapunzel was just as unprepared and lost in that situation as he was, that she’s not responsible for (and wasn’t complicit in) her father’s decisions, etc, etc.

[sometimesrosy]

Got it! Hi Rosy, what do you think about the take that Clarke is guilty in Season 5 for defending Madi over Spacekru? Do you think she has to give an apology or that she did something wrong? How did you interpret that situation, and basically should Spacekru expect an apology from her (like S6 and beyond) and what about vice versa- does Clarke also deserve an apology from Spacekru, since they were on opposite sides and imo lowkey both betrayed each other?

I mean, the concept that the story was wrong for making Clarke need to be rescued, putting her in the place of “victim” that everyone would feel sorry for, and that it was an excuse to redeem her without effort and was pointless and made the story weak  and should have instead been Bellamy who was captured and needed to be rescued and thereby could have made the story about Clarke “earning” her forgiveness and given the blakes a chance to fix their relationship kind of...turns the story inside out.

It comes from the position that Clarke was the bad guy and Spacekru were the good guys, and Clarke needed to crawl on bended knee to be granted forgiveness from spacekru, and that’s just not the story.

First of all, Clarke was not the clear cut villain. She did something wrong. She made one terrible wrong choice and followed it down a dark path. She reversed her decision, though, and returned to spacekru’s side. And it’s kind of the point that all of them have done terrible things. Clarke and Murphy had a conversation about this directly. About how she was on fifth or sixth chance by now, and she pointed out Murphy was also on multiple chances. Right? Or that he was blaming her for things she hadn’t done, as well as things she had. Or ignoring his own bad actions. 

This whole concept that Clarke is the only one who can’t be forgiven for something unless she grovels is really weird. I mean. Shaw was the one that said she had to WORK for forgiveness and she hadn’t done anything. And yet in the next scene she dives through the radiation fence to try and save him and does save the others. So. Like, that’s episode one and she’s already trying to do the good works for her redemption. She negotiates and protects people and saves Bellamy from killing Murphy and chases after strange villains to give her people a chance. And apparently, none of that is good enough for spacekru and some of fandom? 

This is an interpretation that erases Clarke as the hero and verges on being Clarke anti. It interprets everything Clarke does as the worst and forgives everyone else for their decisions. 

I think some of the biggest problem with this concept is that it replaces Clarke as the hero with SPACEKRU as the heroes, and according to the show that we’re seeing, that doesn’t fit. The story is about Clarke getting bodysnatched because it’s about her choosing to live life instead of sacrifice herself. She needs to forgive herself and choose to live. We had this whole thing where she almost killed herself. And it IS about Bellamy saving her. For plot reasons. 

CLARKE is the hero. And spacekru are the supporting players. And not only that, but it’s only Raven and Murphy that don’t forgive Clarke. Echo forgave her right after they talked in season 5. Emori just doesn’t care that much. Bellamy is on Clarke’s side. It’s NOT spacekru that she has to make things up to.

Raven is just straight up being a bitch about it. Just I mean just straight up. She’s being catty and vindictive. And she nearly gets in the way of negotiations with Russell over it. In the end, she goes off with Abby and comes to some realizations of her own about life and death and leadership. Murphy nearly murders Clarke. Sure, when he thinks Clarke is dead, he tries to salvage things and save his people, that’s okay, but when he finds out that Clarke is alive in there and Josephine is trying to fry her. 

And like. They had their OWN journeys about what it meant to be the good guys and to do the right thing... in the ways they’ve been judging and blaming Clarke all these years. And what turns out to happen is that they realized that when THEY took the leadership position, they TOO ended up causing death, destruction and horror. Raven supported the bodysnatching while Murphy almost murdered Clarke AGAIN. 

It seems to me that their forgiveness of Clarke does not hinge on Clarke begging and scrapping for forgiveness but on THEIR UNDERSTANDING of what it meant to be in charge, to be in charge of life and death decisions in a way that Raven, in particular, had been demanding of Clarke.

See. This theory that Clarke has to make it up to Spacekru, minimizes Clarke as a hero and Raven and Murphy’s character arcs as they discover their morality for themselves, in the same way that Clarke has been doing, which has nearly destroyed her. SHE’S been the one to take on the burden while Murphy and Raven wait for her to figure out how to save them. 

AND THEN we get tot he concept that Bellamy should be the one who needs to be saved, so that Clarke can make what she did up to him. And my bros. This interpretation misses the damn point of Bellamy leaving everyone behind to save Clarke.

WELL GEEZ. He ALSO got put into Clarke’s position. He practically drop kicked spacekru, echo at risk, Murphy bleeding out, in order to save Clarke. Just like Clarke drop kicked Bellamy to save Madi. (I personally think she was wrong to do that and everything would have been better if she had trusted bellamy, but her mindset at that time could not understand.)

Bellamy dropping everything to go save Clarke, after being the hero of the last of humanity in season 5, was not erasing Bellamy’s story, but turning Bellamy’s hero’s journey into a ROMANTIC TALE. Bellamy left them to save Clarke because he loved her and needed to save her.

If you don’t like him having a romantic story, that’s taste, but it’s not reducing his importance in the story. He is the romantic hero and we went after his princess to save her from the evil Josephine dragon. 

EPIC TALE.

I didnt’ agree with that theory. The whole thing was predicated on the idea that there was something WRONG with season 6. And there wasn’t.

They only thought the season was bad because they thought Clarke shouldn’t be the hero because she was the bad guy and it should have been about her kissing ass to get spacekru to like her again. And she didn’t do that. 

I wouldn’t have done it either. She made her apologies and she worked to do better. She did. And MURPHY was glad to see her alive because he knows he’s done terrible things and he knows that Clarke has saved them as well as hurt them sometimes, and he knows he was about to sacrifice her and MAYBE HE DID NOT WANT TO DO THAT. Can you imagine. People thinking Murphy should still be pissy at Clarke for the fighting pit (octavia’s fighting pit) when he had just tried to zap her brain out of her body. 

Like. Read the room. Why do people forget what their fave characters have done while holding their hated characters up to the fire to squirm. 

If they can’t handle Clarke being the hero, maybe they should watch a different show. Because Clarke’s always going to be the hero. She might die at the end so spacekru can live, but Clarke’s the hero. 

[sweetdreamspootypie]

Kipo season 3 finale spoilers

The story and overall ending were great

but... that ending showed disappointing trope use.

Long ramble about redemption vs atonement arcs under the cut

Overall the ending and story was great.

But since I’ve seen so much discussion of it on tumblr, I’m really aware of and disappointed in the fact that the writers went with the Christian cultural “redemption arc” narrative that in order for a bad person to be redeemed, they have to sacrifice themselves for others.

It’s the Christian narrative of “oh this person was a Truly Bad Person and there is no way to change that, so to prove that he did Truly Change he has to die to make up for his sins and then he can be dead and you’re allowed to remember him fondly because he died Pure and Redeemed.

It couples with the fact that they also did the “the bad guy was Truly Evil because we all know that people are either fundamentally Good or fundamentally Evil. And given that the bad guy is Truly Evil, the only way to tie up the story is for them to Die For Their Sins.” Except it’s a children’s show about ethics so they decided to not kill the bad guy..... just send them to living hell. Because that’s better apparently. The ethical choice for people who want to be Not As Bad as the Bad Guy.

And that’s all just disappointing because the whole show was about the fact that people aren’t black and white, either friend or foe.

The show was ABOUT putting the effort in to make connections with adversaries to bring conflict to an end. It was ABOUT the fact that it’s not black and white and you have to accept and work with the fact that everyone is in a grey area in order to move forward.

And yet they didn’t have the creativity or courage to round the story off in any way except the Christian Disney “he died to save the princess, and the evil witch fell to her death as a result of a misstep during the big fight but wasn’t killed directly by the Good Guys because that would tarnish their Purity.”

So onto my specific thoughts about Hugo.

I’m going with the definition of redemption as proving you are a fundamentally good person, usually achieved by dying for the cause, 

and atonement is proving you are working on being a better person, by being in a similar position as before, and making a better choice.

(spoiler: imo atonement arcs are better generally, and much more appropriate for the narrative of Kipo)

So with that in mind,

Hugo’s atonement moment was... well ongoing. Because trying to change your ways and live like a better person is an ongoing thing.

But on the boat, at the end, he mind-controlled whatshername, then she got knocked out before he could action it. That was him continuing to go with his old approach, yeah he was now fighting for Kipo, but he was still using his old mindset. Use fear, use force, win because you overpowered others. Then Wolf stopped him and they had their moment, and decided to do it Kipo’s way. Yeah it was Wolf and Greta’s (ah! her name was Greta. Probably.) words, but he was receptive and accepted the principle that his was of force wasn’t the right way forward. The moved forward together in parallel, both giving up the last bits of their old thinking together, and decided to go forward and act like the people they wanted to be, that Kipo showed them how to be. They had already accepted the premise of “bring people together” - they had accepted that goal, but that was the moment they accepted that they needed to change themselves.

(same as how the Atonement Moment for everyone else is when they chose to protect the Mutes from the fireworks - they showed through their actions that they genuinely believed in the project, they weren’t just putting up with co-existence because it was a necessity)

If Wolf didn’t need to die, Hugo didn’t either. There is nothing wrong with having to continue to face the hard task of working to make amends, and facing the reality that not everyone has to forgive you.

(side note - the fact that the coming together to move forward thing also centered forgiveness is also iffy. They didn’t have to forgive the losses they had suffered so recently, they just needed to accept and make peace with the losses in order to move forward. Subtly different thing. Maybe that would be too nuanced to try and cover in the cartoon but still.)

With Emelia...

I’ve said above, that the “don’t kill her, just let her fall to her doom and leave her there” is a Disney style cop out.

But I’m also not entirely against her being marked as unredeemable. She proved that she wasn’t on an atonement path either, at least in that moment - she had the opportunity to not try and kill Kipo but didn’t take it.

And there is an argument to be made that that is perfectly ok from a narrative point of view.

I remember seeing criticisms of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic because that show’s core message is that is you befriend people they will get better and you can work through it and heal together when you have support, so it is good to try and support people trying to get better, even if it’s hard initially because they hurt you. That is a good message, but is incomplete as a message, because obviously sometimes if you tell kids to just make friends with their bullies, they just end up with more exposure to the bullying. And that is fair criticism (but doesn’t mean the whole show is bad).

So with Kipo, I think that’s a nice parallel to MLP:FiM - make friends, bridge divides, put aside old grievances, collaborate for a future... but sometimes the hateful agitators won’t get better, and the reality is you need to deal with them somehow and minimize the damage they can do.

I liked that they showed that Emelia’s brother grew up with the same pressures as Emelia, but given the opportunity chose not to pursue the bigoted route, whereas Emelia did chose it. It showed that it was all a choice she was making, and what influences she was making them under, as opposed to a magic “Fundamentally Evil Person Who Hates People because she’s Evil”

That was a good choice.

But yeah. Acknowledging that some people just won’t come around from their old ways is one thing.

But why

- say let’s save her from the thing she tried to do to everyone else because “we’re not like her” and “nobody deserves that”

- but then still focus on her deserving “punishment” rather than just trying to prevent her from causing further social harm. Hugo got imprisonment and the time and opportunity for reform and his crime was pretty equal to Emelia’s. Again, very Christian narrative - redemption needs death, evil needs punishment in the eternal psychological torture building.

- and then because it’s “just” the good guys leave her in the Eternal Psychological Torture building. And that is supposed to not reflect badly on them because they aren’t the ones who pushed her in? It could have been a perfectly valid choice, because there was high risk to any rescue party attempted, and when you’re rebuilding a society, you can’t afford that risk. And the fate that she fell into was just a part of the risks of the environment and accepted as a fact of life risk. But choosing not to rescue someone from torture because you literally can’t do it, and shrugging and saying it’s right that someone be tortured, even a bad person isn’t. 

In real life maybe that’s different, sometimes you do laugh when a genocidal dictator gets a poetic demise, but this was a children’s show about the ethics of conflict resolution. So, uh, they probably should have come up with something more careful to say than “yeah mostly people need to be met where they are and we all need to forgive old hurts if we want to move forward... but sometimes some people just deserve to be punished and we won’t be conflicted about that inconsistency at all”

All that said

It was a great show

I don’t mind the ending overall - because the issues I have all stick out as “trope usages because they don’t know how else to wrap it up” and thus are easy for me personally to separate from the story’s merits as a whole

[bisexualstokes-archive]

are you okay babe?

tldr is yeah just typical stress

but damn...i need to fucking get this out

i’m training two people at work and still trying to catch up from all my time off (from wedding, training class, etc) and in training people idk it’s like we’re like...super training them at this point like my boss wants them to transition like, next week when they had just started this week (well the one started last week but shit happened and it’s basically like training a clean slate) and idk if that’s really feasible because maybe it’s just me and I’m just like...super thorough in my training of people and there’s just so much going on that I feel like sometimes they can’t keep up/don’t listen to me--like, our job is pretty overwhelming at first and idk some people just can’t deal with that, doesn’t mean i’m a horrible trainer though that will always be the first thing to come to mind because i have that thing were i get insanely guilty over shit that’s not really my fault (and i’m sensitive on top of that so when i tell a new person to do something, they don’t do it claiming “you never told me” instead of me firing back saying “uh no, i told you, you didn’t listen” i’m just like “oh shit i’m so sorry! blah blah blah” i need to be more fucking assertive) and I’m also very introverted and shy so I’m like, super fucking drained by the end of the day from the endless amounts of talking and idk my work ethic is very strong and that’s not something you can really instill into other people but damn do I try and it just sucks because I think I honestly put in too much effort for my job but at the same time I feel like it’s not enough??? 

and then I got my co-workers complaining to me about our other co-workers in our department but like...i can’t really do anything about it, i’m not their supervisor (i’m just in a senior technician position) and even when i do try to approach the other workers on some of that shit they get all defensive and complain, etc so it’s a lose lose situation that I can’t really do anything about and quite frankly the people who are doing the complaining aren’t perfect either I could give them a whole fucking list of shit they don’t do/do wrong, etc so that part’s frustrating because i feel like it’s going to get to a point where we’re not really a team but just people who barely communicate to each other and get the bare minimum (and sometimes less) done than needs to be done and unfortunately with the way things are, our boss doesn’t see that, you know? 

things are just like changing at work in general, too, like structure wise, maybe it’s because we got bought out by a bigger company but there’s definitely just this like...we went from being a small company with more like, i don’t wanna say loose/more lenient standards but now we’re becoming like super professional, a bit more corporate, and maybe it’s because I’ve been away from work for a few months (but still working--like i worked in california for two months, went to a training class for a week, plus some time off, etc) but the change is just sort of...weird? and people are coming, going, leaving, etc and I don’t mind change but it does take some getting used to, when you’re so set into a routine of how your day works and then shit changes and you have to adjust (like having to put aside some of my daily stuff to train people, etc) 

and I don’t take breaks at work--which is entirely like, my own fault and I really don’t care, I’d rather just work through the break instead of having to stay late to finish shit, when i’m training people I don’t get to do some of my responsibilities while I”m training them so I use the time that they’re on break to do my shit, and also I do kinda spend a bunch of time talking to the third shift guy in the morning (even had a crush on him shame it’ll go nowhere because he’s getting married) so I rationalize it that way BUT it just sucks when new people start and I worry that I like...put them off by the fact that I don’t take breaks and then it also makes me realize “well shit....I should probably take a break” esp on a day like today where I haven’t eaten a goddamn thing which again, is my own damn fault cause I’m too lazy to make breakfast in the morning, to pack a lunch, etc and lmao well my dad’s even on this trend of “NO THREE MEALS BULLSHIT FAST ALL DAY” which IMO isn’t healthy (even my doctor when I told her I was eating three meals a day at one point was like “GOOD keep it up!”) 

but some days just hit harder than others without that break, ya know?

and idk i’m starting to get pissed at everyone in general maybe it’s depression or whatever but like...my best friend is even starting to annoy me like I just almost want a week where I can just like, idk isolate myself from everyone and everything lmao i feel like half the time people don’t really listen to me anyway because they got their own shit and I get that, and idk I’m not like, opposed to therapy but I do think it’s kinda stupid that i literally have to pay someone to give a shit about me and just listen to me rant for a bit and explore why I’m feeling certain feelings, etc. and like it’s one of those “do I deserve better or am I just being too dramatic?” things because to be honest? these problems are minimal compared to some of the other hardships other people face every day and like yeah, I know, everybody does have their own shit to deal with and some are objectively worse than others and that’s when I enter the territory of “you’re not allowed to be upset at the shit you’re going through because other people have it worse” train of thought and MORE GUILT! and lol try as I might I’m still holding onto the feelings of various dramas I’ve been involved in and can’t seem to let it go (not like, grudges against anybody, just heavy regret over things i’ve done and said, people I’ve gotten involved with, etc) 

plus i got my period on top of that so you know...hormones. been on the edge of tears all fucking day. granted, I’m happy as hell that i got my period because I didn’t have it for a long time at one point in my life and that’s probably what caused a lot of my depression/anxiety to the point where uh yeah let’s just say I survived myself. (never actually attempted but damn...I thought about it) SO seeing that during one of my bathroom breaks today brought both a “oh thank god” and an “oh fuck this shit” because Emotions ya know?

so uh yeah. I think I’m just stressed lmao.

[battlestar-royco]

Spill the tea on Westworld please!

I feel like I’ve been waiting my whole life for an ask about WW, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR INDULGING ME, ANON. So first, I’ll say what I absolutely love about this show: the first season was such a pleasure to watch from start to finish. It gave me a lot of hope for sci-fi television. For me, all the plot twists were almost flawlessly executed and spaced out. I loved the character arcs and the worldbuilding about hosts and the park. As always with HBO the production value and acting were also amazing.

As with any show, WW has its problematic elements too, namely the needless violence against women and the truly horrendous depiction of indigenous people as violent 2D stereotypes. And before season 2, I highly disagreed with the critics who made fun of the show’s overly confusing lore and flashbacks. Now I agree entirely. Season 2 from start to finish was trying to imitate the success of season 1 but without any of the passion, sense, or intrigue that made season 2 work so well.

SPOILERS for Westworld.

The spectacular elements of season 1 were really the three host arcs (Maeve, Dolores, and Bernard), the rising tension between all the humans, and the emotionally impactful reveals–William is the Man in Black; Bernard is a host created in Arnold’s image; Maeve is exercising her free will to find her daughter; Dolores is fused with the most reprehensible character in the Western park.  You would think that all this lays the groundwork for exciting new character work and worldbuilding, right? NOPE. So many great storylines were either dropped or butchered in favor of action and… I don’t know? People talking in circles around each other?

The fact that Dolores is combined with Wyatt is just? Hardly ever addressed? As of 2.01, there’s no remnant of Dolores in her brain anymore. It’s just Wyatt. There’s no internal conflict, no effort from the true Dolores to be the kind and resilient conscious being she came to be at the end of season 1. Her main goal is to murder all humans by any means necessary and spout random Shakespearean and Biblical quotes while doing so. That is not a compelling or sympathetic goal and she feels like more of a theme-explainer than a character. Further, she has zero conflict with the other hosts except for Teddy in like the last three episodes of the season. The dynamic between Dolores, Angela, Clementine, and Teddy could have been so interesting. How do the other three all feel about Dolores’s abrupt change into Wyatt? Do they want to change her back? Do they like it? Do they contribute to her strategy? Why are they following her? Do any of them have differing goals or ideas about how to achieve their collective goal? Why are they all so willing to kill and die for their cause? Where did they get that grenade to blow up the Cradle, how did they figure out about the Cradle, how did they decide to blow it up, what authority do they have to blow it up and end immortality for all hosts, how did they decide WHO would blow it up, how did Angela feel about blowing it up considering that she knew it would be her final death and she couldn’t get resurrected once her host body was destroyed? There’s SO MUCH INTRIGUE AND COMPLEXITY that could have been developed, but for whatever reason, the writers decided to keep all the characters almost entirely static!

The Maeve/Shogun World plot was equally as mediocre/bad. Maeve was my favorite character in season 1, but she hardly did anything this season except walk around, watch people fight, and develop powers that had very little basis in the world and her character. Again, all the character development felt like it took a backseat to aesthetics. There was no purpose for Maeve to go to Shogun World other than for the writers to say “Hey look there are more worlds besides the western one!” Seriously, what was the point? There was never any indication that Maeve’s daughter would be there, and all the possibly interesting characters died (because we really needed more POC dying violently for no reason right) except for one who came along with Maeve and co just to get zero development. Plus it was kind of lazy of the writers to put the same set of characters from Westworld into Shogun World.

Bernard’s storyline was… alright I guess. At least he kind of got an arc. The way I discuss this plot will be hectic because the plot itself is hectic. Here we go: I was ecstatic for Elsie’s return, but she also got NO development. There was hardly any explanation as to why/how she survived. Why does she still work there? How did she get a job in Westworld and how did she hone her skills/interests to get there? Does she have family and do they know what happened to her or do they think she died? Does she care about any of the other hosts or humans within the park? How has her dynamic with Bernard changed since realizing he’s a host? So many unanswered questions. And the Ford resurrection was a contrived disaster. Honestly, the sci fi elements of this season as a whole were just ridiculous and boring IMO. What the fuck were those flashbacks with the weird white androids who all started killing humans with no dialogue? The stupid shots of host brains being squirted into little red balls? Why would Bernard be the only “human” host there? What’s the difference between humanoid hosts and the white ones? What’s the point of the white ones? In season 1, the non-linear narrative was an amazing device that wound all the plots together so perfectly and genuinely surprised the audience with the true identities of Dolores and William. In season 2, the flashbacks are a lazy device that try to imitate the success of season 1 but don’t do any of the character and plot work to merit anything but confusion and stupidity.

I was also disappointed with the human characters. Lee and Felix had the potential to be great human allies, and their friendship with Maeve could have been an opportunity for the writers to exemplify positive relationships between humans and hosts or the possibility for humans and hosts to work together. However, Felix was barely in the season and Lee’s death was entirely unearned because of the minimal character moments shown between him and the others around him. IMO, the corporate drama is the most interesting part of the human storyline. What happened between William and Logan before the series began and once William began to go black-hat? Why wasn’t Logan’s father introduced in season 1? How did he decide to make William the CEO instead of Logan, despite Logan being SO SURE in season 1 that he would inherit and that William was inferior? How did William meet Juliet and what was it like to return to her after all he experienced with Dolores? I really wanted to see all these things in season 2, but instead we got a random, disjointed, non-linear mixture of scenes that revealed very little.

The worldbuilding was so confusing and shallow. In season 1, there was the very purposeful decision to set almost the entire story within the Westworld park and the Delos headquarters. However, all the intrigue caused because of that decision dissipated because there is nothing interesting or new about the outside world. It’s unclear how far in the future their society is from ours, where in the world it takes place, how climate change and the government/economy has been impacted, who has access to the parks, how much space the parks take up, etc. Despite season 1 ending in a host-inflicted massacre, despite all the suspense built around the world outside of the park, despite the clear groundwork laid for corporate drama (corruption? embezzlement? money laundering? nepotism? exploitation? NONE OF THESE STAPLE CORPORATE DRAMA CONCEPTS ARE ADDRESSED IN SEASON 2), what actually happened was so underwhelming. Delos is a company in an industrialized capitalist society. What are they doing to maintain their public image? What about their sponsors? Is this a media sensation or are they keeping it under wraps? What is their plan if the hosts leave the park and wreak havoc on other humans? Is the government involved at all?

ANYWAY, I could seriously go on for another ten pages about how disappointed I was with season 2. TL;DR, the worldbuilding and characters made very little or boring progress, and the show tried too hard to be intellectual and clever while being lazy in all other aspects of writing.

[learning2eatagain]

My Story

So I think for my first post I’m going to chronicle how I got to where I am before I address my recovery efforts. Thus, this post will be triggering for anyone with an active ED.

Ok, so hi! I’m Victoria, and I’m an 18 year old college student. I really don’t know where to start with this, but here we go. I’ve always been a sort of chubby kid with high anxiety/OCD tendencies. I had to go to counseling when I was very young, but I stopped when my counselor went out of business. I never went to counseling after that because I had learned how to blend in- I’m not bragging or anything, but I’m a high academic achiever (been in GT my whole life, perfect ACT sort) and I put a lot of effort into my appearence so people tell me I look really put together. So, for most of my early life, my anxiety/OCD focused itself on my grades- anything under a 97 was unacceptable and would tear me up inside. My OCD has always been very numbers-oriented. I knew my standards were unreasonable, but I explained away my breakdowns in school by saying my mum had crazy expectations- sorry, mum. My junior year of high school, a few things happen. Firstly, school got hard- I was in 5 AP classes, including (IMO) the three hardest AP sciences, so it was requiring more and more of my time to maintain that 97 I needed to be like, not disgusting to myself. Secondly, the mental health of my support system plummented. I’m not sure of the exact details, but around when my mum had to have surgery, I think she stopped taking her anxiety meds. One time I remember going downstairs in the morning and seeing her on the floor just crying. She was nearly non-functioning, and my dad took a lot of business trips at that time. In addition, my boyfriend’s depression plummeted, and he was soon in a psych ward after several suicide attempts. Suddenly my stupid anxiety about grades and all the work I was piling on myself was meaningless- I couldn’t complain when they were as bad as they were. I couldn’t sleep much because of my courseload and I had no one to whom I could vent, so I turned to eating when I got stressed. I ate a lot, and constantly.

Here’s me after Freshman year:

And during spring break of my junior year:

My mum and boyfriend got better, but I was still eating. I hated how I looked, but I couldn’t stop. It was a coping mechanism at this point. One morning in the summer after my Junior year, my mum asked me “Victoria, are you happy with your body?” I broke down, and she signed me up for WeightWatchers that day- it had worked for her. At first, it was amazing. Then, my OCD and number obsession corrupted it. The way WW works is it assigns you a “point” limit for the day, and every food is worth a certain number of points. That way, you’re not cutting out any food entirely and it helps you keep the weight off in the long run. That’s well and good, unless you’re me. I started out eating my allotted 30 points, but then that little voice in my brain started telling me it would be best to minimize my numbers. It got to where I would limit myself to half of what WW assigned to me- I refused to go over 15 points, even though I had at minimum 30 points a day (you also get a certain number of extra points a week, so 30 ends up being a strong recommendation but essentially a minimum). I lost weight quickly- in 6 months, I had lost my goal of 55 lbs. But of course that wasn’t enough by then. I started measuring myself all the time- I think then, it was only once a day, but I kept track of every body measurement I could. I kept lowering my goal. I left WW ostensibly because I got a job thay conflicted with meeting times, but really because I wanted to keep losing and they wouldn’t let me. So I kept losing. By now, I would just eat as little as I can, to keep those measurements in whatever range I deemed acceptable. Whenever I ate “too much” I could just somehow FEEL heavier, and it would be all I could think about. I would try and eat less the next day to compensate. I knew this was wrong, but I was just so scared of losing weight. I actually called an ED Recovery clinic and had a tour, but it scared me so much I flaked out. For a while after I graduated, my weight stabilized, but then, I got to college. Suddenly I had complete control over what I ate, and was deadly afraid of that fabled “freshman 15” By now, I weigh myself usually 3 times a day to make sure I’m eating little enough, and I always eat alone when I can. I also started daily exercise, which has increased more and more in intensity- I have to burn exactly that number of calories. I’ve lost about 12 lbs in 2 months here.

Here’s me now: not super skinny, but not nourishing my body

I’m tired of food being all I think about, I’m tired of being scared and miserable and feeling best when I’m hungry, so I’m starting the recovery process this week. Honestly, it’s terrifying. Logically, I want to get better, but I’m still terrified of gaining any weight. Anyways, I see a therapist at my school this week and I’m seeing a psychiatrist during Thanksgiving break.

I think my next post will be on recovery research and the trends I’ve noticed within myself. Thanks for reading, and please, get help.

[meliorn]

ok so, i hope this question doesn't offend you or anything, but; i couldn't help but scroll through your dom tag (bc i love him) and noticed through your tags in his posts that you did too, and then you also reblogged the vid of matt's live where he used the f slur. i was just wondering how you feel about dom at this point? i know it's been a few months and he apologised, and tbh i still see a lot of hate aimed at him. so i just kind of wanted to know what your view on this is i guess

oh i’m not offended, don’t worry! i’m pretty much in the middle, i guess? i definitely don’t love him like i used to and i don’t think i’ll ever get to that point again which makes me very sad, but i also don’t hate him.

i think it’s very... unfortunate the way his homophobia was treated and that’s the main issue for me. people fuck up, we all do, and people can change. i just haven’t really seen any indication of that in this case, which is why i’m very hesitant to forgive anything.

yes, he apologized and that’s good, but i wasn’t satisfied with it bc it lacked a lot of key elements, like accountability and an actual explanation on how he came to use the word. saying it’s “a mistake” doesn’t cut it bc you don’t use that kind of language that casually unless it’s a common practice, imo. also it doesn’t sit right with me that we’re supposed to just take his word for it when he says that he’s changed bc he hasn’t shown any (public) indication of that. all he did was record that apology with matt (which reads a lot to me like “the network made me do this bc this is a PR nightmare”), he ghosted for a while, and then suddenly showed back up on social media like nothing’s happened.

while he was gone, his defenders attacked and ridiculed the lgbt fans who had been hurt by his homophobia, calling them pathetic for being hurt “by just a word” etc, and meanwhile dom was nowhere to be found. in my mind, if he really did care abt the hurt he caused, he would’ve gone thru the minimal effort of tweeting smth that emphasized the fact that HE was the one who fucked up and that he doesn’t condone any abuse and ridicule of the lgbt fans who spoke up against him.

right after it happened and a lot of us were campaigning for freeform to issue a statement condemning the homophobia and for dom to face the consequences of using such a slur, i talked a lot on twitter about ways he could redeem himself, one of which was show to us that he’s dedicating himself to reading up on lgbt history and issues, truly understanding the error of his ways, and putting time and money towards lgbt issues. to my knowledge, he did nothing like that, not even when the opportunity was served to him on a silver plate in the form of the #saveshadowhunters trevor project fundraiser. kat donated to it and the fundraiser has been mentioned in plenty of articles as well as by the cast and crew, so i’m pretty sure dom and the people around him know about it. that would’ve been an excellent way of showing support & personal growth, but he didn’t take it.

tl;dr i’m not putting any energy towards him anymore. i’m still annoyed, disappointed, etc etc but i’m not actively angry anymore. that said, i respect those who can’t forgive him and who are still very angry, because i do agree it’s been handled very, very poorly and i can definitely see people not trusting him anymore

[ciceroisthefamilycat]

My Fiery Heart reread response (my Indigo Spell one here, my first-time Fiery Heart one here from 7.5 years ago)

before I get into it, I remembered looking up the Iolanthe coven name Sydney used; that wasn’t something I looked up until after reading it the first time though, so I didn’t realize the fairy court connection to Sydney recommending Zoe do her literature assignment on Midsummer Night’s Dream... I’m very certain it was an intentional reference to that opera now (even though the purple flower meaning was enough on its own)... if they get around to adapting this one, I half want to see Amberwood Prep put on a production of MND where Jill is helping with the costumes and Zoe gets to play Titania or something; I never got around to reading Richard III (Zoe’s original pick) but it’s interesting that free will/fatalism is apparently a major theme, and that Richard contrived to have his brother Clarence sent to the Tower of London...

also, I’m not sure if I cared about “White Rabbit” by Jefferson Airplane all those years ago, but I got a thrill seeing it referenced this go around.

we get the first namedrop for Cicero (though we had heard about his propensity for killing birds and some other mention in the earlier BL books ETA, 7/19: “My family had a cat back in Utah that I was pretty sure was more responsible than Angeline” pg 31 TGL

Anyway, gosh Sydney makes bad decisions in this one. And it’s not because she has too much to do- she has no real outside strenuous challenges to protecting Jill or her group this go around. The friend group actually had to decide “yeah let’s go hunt down a Strigoi in LA” for there to be a major action scene. I realize she’s in her late teens and the burdens put on her are unfair, but she’s a great example of someone who thrives under pressure and falls apart when she’s given too much free time.

The switch to dual narrators was unnecessary. It wasn’t bad, but it was clearly only to set up for the big cliffhanger at the end, and so feels a bit pointless in this one. Btw, Rose didn’t lose her spirit link into Lissa’s mind after Lissa went on antidepressants. Now admittedly, the chemicals in Adrian’s mood stabilizers would have probably worked differently, or maybe Richelle was trying to retroactively make things more consistent (since alcohol could affect the bond), or maybe it was “Adrian and Jill’s bond is less established, so Jill can’t break through like Rose could”... but the sudden decision mid book (with no repercussions- Adrian doesn’t even bring it up to Sydney to be like “hey, one of your main concerns about having sex is taken care of”) is so pointless and really goes to the minimal page-time of the larger ensemble. I said it the first time I read the book, the absence of Kristin and Julia, and Micah, and even more important characters like Angeline or Trey is so frustrating. I realize Richelle couldn’t write a book that was 900 pages long, but I would have gladly taken any of those characters instead of the completely unnecessary Terwilliger/Malachi romance. Especially to see Jill’s reaction to getting to be a more typical high school human, since I think she would have gotten even more attached to Amberwood than Sydney did. I also just... really, the Alchemists decided to have Sydney’s bio sister on campus... pretending to be a cousin... while she was playing sister to Jill? I get they kind of backed themselves into a corner, but weird. That being said, I was happy to have Rowena and Cassie around. (give me Adrian and Rowena being wlw besties excellence to make me really happy)

Sydney’s coven initiation taking place in chapter 2, then she meets Inez (who gives her the books on charms)... and we never see a witch other than Jackie again in this book? Honestly, why bother with writing the initiation at that rate? I still like the cloak they made Sydney though. On reread, there’s the randomest bit where Trey’s like “is Neil even really British” and I wonder if that was a dropped storyline where Neil was faking. Olive and Nina are still pleasant characters, and I liked that they had a “unique” background, but knowing how those stories end was kind of a buzzkill on reread. Olive, especially, deserved better.

This is another one where I forgot quite a few events- Adrian getting drunk and the pawnshop (I think I remembered that obliquely, but not so much on it), or the trip to Texas (which actually came before the pawnshop but oh well). I was happy to finally get some actual Christian content again, although I regret we didn’t get more from Sydney & Rose or more Sydney & Lissa. On Adrian’s mental health storyline... I am less impressed by it than I was the first time (though I didn’t remember being super-impressed, but according to my first review?). I do actually like Adrian being insistent, once he’s started taking meds, that he’s going to continue, but the diagnosis of bipolar disorder doesn’t actually feel like it fits? I will say, I find Adrian’s “chicken or egg” pondering over whether spirit causes mental illness or mental illness means a predisposition to specializing in spirit is fascinating (though it’s probably for the best Richelle never actually answered it).

The way Adrian spoke (or thought) about Zoe really pissed me off. Like, one, you’re an adult, stop antagonizing the sister of the girl you like and just be cordial (which is less suspicious than suddenly acting like you and Sydney don’t get along at all), and two... Adrian’s super protective over Sydney after realizing the emotional abuse Jared heaped on, but somehow doesn’t realize that this fifteen year old has been spending time with said father’s attention solely focused on her for ages now, and he has no sympathy for her? Instead of seeing Zoe being like “Sydney shouldn’t have to provide for you all the time” and being like “aww, that’s a nice protective sister instinct even if she needs an attitude adjustment” he taunts a 15 year old about drinking from her the way he did to 20-something actual-predator Keith. He could have engaged yet another Sage sister in talking about his awesome car on the drive over, or at least made other good faith efforts.

The dabbling stuff made me more uncomfortable this time around (I think). Especially Sydney comparing her getting Keith’s eye ripped out to Adrian’s assault of a human girl... that was some real false equivalency on Richelle’s part. But other parts of it, like “oh here comes Adrian to save the day and at least he’s changed from these guys he used to hang out with (oh, look at that convenient statement that even back in the day Adrian wasn’t on the same level of bad as them)”  was really frustrating, or the fact that Adrian was very deliberately withholding information from her in his own chapters and it made me question his trustworthiness in her chapters. Or the “oh, hey, he made the concession of getting treatment for his mental illness, so all is forgiven” handwaving. Like, Richelle brought this in to be an obstacle to their relationship, but it’s addressed so quickly (with maybe a pittance effort of later being like “oh, at least Adrian didn’t take advantage when Sydney accidentally absorbed some Moroi endorphins- he learned his lessons!) that it doesn’t merit the actual consideration of so important a topic Idk. I do feel like I enjoy the Sydrian relationship more in this book than the others, but I also have some huge issues with it.

Adaptation-wise, I think genderbent Adrian would definitely mean a change to the dabbling storyline (yes, women can be sexual predators, but I don’t think this storyline would be maintained with different social expectations). Honestly, give me an Adrian who, instead of having victimized someone, doesn’t immediately fully grasp how upsetting this idea of vampires preying on her species (and risking exposure) is to Sydney... Adrian being like “it isn’t sexual, those guys would never consider sleeping with a human” but the consent even to give blood still being critical to Sydney. And you know what? Let Lissa “compelled a guy to almost hit himself over the head with a baseball bat for molesting a Feeder” Dragomir have a spirit freak out moment of rage and go off on these subjects of hers the way that was deserved (and then once she cools down, maybe she can’t punish them fully, but she uses it to leverage their royal families’ agreement to the Family Rule amendment). And just finish that law by the end of the season, so that when the Alchemists pull out Sydney and Zoe, they’re actually closing down the whole Palm Springs operation in a rage. (if I remember correctly Alicia kidnapped Jill between books 5 and 6, but that was a stupid plotline imo- let Sydney and her coven take care of Alicia in the downtime of this book instead) Let Rose figure out that Sydney and Adrian are in love- she’s smart and she would pick up on that; let her celebrate them and encourage them to be happy together. Also the “Sydney and Adrian get three days at an inn to sex it all up” was stupid... like I’m happy for them but am I really supposed to buy that they could afford all that time away from Palm Springs?

As bad as I feel for Syd, and Adrian, and Eddie, and Jill, and Jackie at the end of TFH, I do remember that I’m going to feel worst for Hopper. I’m sorry that demon dragon Calistana has my heart and I remember one scene from Silver Shadows featuring the little guy prominently...

[livingbutamireally]

AY2020/2021 Y2S1 Module Reviews

This semester proved to be a pain as expected. Said pain coming mostly from BT2101 and CS2030. Everything was conducted online with the exception of the weekly lab sessions for CS2030 so I only had to go to school for 1 day. F2F CS2030 recitations were optional so I gave up and just watched the recorded zoom session instead of going to school just for a class half way through the semester. I usually miss the live zoom sessions because mine was at 1pm and I am almost always still having lunch at that time and not ready at all. Also i missed about half of my BT2102 tutorials because I simply forgot I had tutorials at that time (2-4pm). They still awarded me nicely for participation much to my surprise (7/10).

BT2101 Decision Making Methods and Tools

BT2102 Data Management and Visualisation

CS2030 Programming Methodology II

GEQ1000 Asking Questions

IS1103 Ethics in Computing

CS2030: Programming Methodology II in Java

Prof: Dr Henry Chia, A.P. Terrence Sim

Weightage:

Weekly labs (5%)

Individual project (15%)

Practical assessment #1 in week 7 (15%)

Practical assessment #2 in week 12 (20%)

Class participation (5%) : includes lab participation, piazza discussions and peer learning activities

Final exam (40%)

CS2030 proved to be intensive not only in the aspect of planning code design but also the actual implementation itself.. (thinking about how to solve the problem and/or get the expected outputs)..  Really struggled my way through the start although that really was only the tip of the iceberg because I had no prior experience in Java and the introductory Winter Workshops were reserved exclusively for freshmen or I missed the deadlines can’t remember.. The first few lectures got us familiar with Java Programming before diving deep into Functional Programming which is a lot harder to grasp vs Object-Oriented Programming which was introduced to us in CS1010S already. The hardest part comes with Streams but honestly after learning streams so many processes can be coded so much more efficiently as compared to OOP, really simplifies some of the tasks when using FP rather than OOP. Interesting to note that this streams part ties in well with BT2102′s coding part where we learnt aggregation pipelines in MongoDB and MySQL i believe the concepts felt similar??

Weekly Labs

Pretty manageable imo , compared to the project ofc (rolls eyes)

This semester they changed things up a bit and shifted all the weekly labs deadlines to finals so we had more control in terms of time management and our progress in the labs. Naturally we are expected to do them every week but say we are busy in a certain week for other modules we can always come back on another. I was always behind by like a month compared to my friends who were more on task.

Individual Project

Project part 1 was still okay for the Discrete Event Simulator (DES) basically designing a system for customers to queue and be served and recording the relevant work done at the appropriate times using OOP.

The hardest part was project part 2 where you had to rewrite the whole chunk in part 1 FP style and also they added a lot of more complex simulations and cases which I really just gave up entirely after completing level 2.

It was so hard it was traumatic. Level 3 had something to do with importing a random number generator and the test cases only get more confusing and long i just really had no brain cells left for the work worth only 7% before deducting late submissions penalty (bc brain slow LOL) and the code design criteria and checkstyles. I was so mad that it takes up so much time and effort just to be worth a petty 7% that I gave up entirely didnt even finish reading the questions (which was also pretty darn long). Sorry i am dumb. Please be proud of me I am trying my best.

I have zero idea who in the department decided to rig the difficulty of this project by so much up compared to previous semesters. They really expected too much out of us i am so sorry to disappoint.

Practical Assessments 

Basically similar to weekly lab exercises but you have to do it within the time frame during a lab session. You get to take home and re-edit the code to get the full marks and are moderated according to the changes you made compared to the one submitted during the PA itself. That also means if you do not submit the correct full marks version of the code in a week, you do not get moderated and will be awarded with the marks scored in lab which is obviously 0 for me I had over 70 compilation errors and you might be thinking how. But trust me i am too, confused how. Most people will score around 0-2m in lab but taking it home and refining the whole code with minimal changes and will be graded according to the amount of changes made to get the final code. Tests you how close you can get to the correct outputs within the time frame whether you already had it in your head.

Final Exam

Comes in MCQs, a few case questions consisting of subparts if i remembered correctly some of which required you to write out a possible code (2-3 lines) converting oop to streams, synchronous to asynchronous etc. There are plenty resources (pyps) floating around in the gc so you can use them well for revision.

Theoretical content was tested i dont really know how to put in words but you may be able to code well even though you may have some of the concepts wrong

We only did pure coding work in labs, projects and practical assessments so this really reinforces your understanding of the material

Considering I didnt finish project part 2 this is quite a decent grade already really thankful i dont have to go through this ordeal again. See you never.

BT2101: Decision Making Methods and Tools

Professor: Rudy Sentiono, A.P. Huang Zhiyong

Weightage:

Group project (20%)

Written assignments - 3x 5% (15%)

Tutorial participation (5%)

Midterm - open book (20%)

Finals - open book (40%)

This is the second module that I have been struggling with since the start of the semester. Tutor changed after the first session, the former tutor was much better and clearer in her explanations. This is quite a math-intensive course and requires some knowledge of linear algrebra and thus the pre-requisities. Maths has never been my strong suit (well except in primary school) so I struggled hard with this module. Nearing the end we learnt about deep learning neural networks which was pretty interesting and really broadened my perspectives on the future of machine learning. The pace was okay, but the lecturer seems to just repeat the words on the lecture slides in his lectures. The lectures were seemingly simplified from the reference texts he used but is nevertheless still daunting to look at to revise. Project was a 4-5 people groupwork where we had to conduct all the stages of data analytics from data exploration, cleaning of data to data mining, conclusions etc. There were an additional 3 assignments that we had to do together with our groupmates by the stipulated deadlines. This module requires a lot of work and preparation. Am glad to be able to pass.

BT2102: Data Management and Visualisation

Weightage:

Assignment 1 (Group):  25 marks

Assignment 2 (Individual): 35 marks

Assignment 3 (Group):  30 marks

Class Participation: 10 marks (Participation in Tutorials and Group Assignment Discussions)

IS1103: Ethics in Computing

Weightage:

FPAQ (50%)

Missions (50%)

Expected Grade: B+

Final Grade: A-

For this module, all 13 missions are to be done by the last date of submission for finals which was a 300 question quiz held on LumiNUS. Missions are assigned weekly where we go to the WordPress website the professor has built, a server that he regularly does maintenance on and in it he uses a tracker to track our progress through clicking links and submitting short answer questions sometimes. Most of them were done by clicking of links and we were told to disable our Adblockers if any to prevent interruptions or his system not capturing our data. We were encouraged to do it weekly although the deadline was the end of the semester. One of the missions included us doing some Linux practice penetration questions on Kali, it was a bit tough but other than that the other missions were pretty simple and straightforward. After every mission done we were to do a practice PAQ which is not graded and upon submission would give us the model answers to study in preparation for FPAQ the final week submission. PAQ consists of 5 themes * 7 questions = 35 questions, whereas FPAQ has 300 over questions to be done over the span of a week, the reading week. Carpal tunnel.

GEQ1000: Asking Questions

Weightage: 

Tutorial attendance/participation (36%)

Forum participation - forum 1 and 2 (14%)

MCQ quiz (36%)

Final paper (14%)

This is a general education module everyone in NUS is required to take. I dont think I learned much so I am really only there to go through the motion. There are a few pillars that the department touches on mainly Physics, Engineering, Design, etc to show how the different disciplinary courses are interconnected and how/why is questioning important. Really low maintenance course, we do a 6 or 10 MCQ quiz every week prior to the lecture for that pillar. Tutorial was online via zoom and really low workload in general. Final week was on design and we had to make a wallet for our partner and explain why or how we chose the designs, and also submitting a word essay on our reflections of things we learned.

Update. I only pray to hover above or maintain at this current CAP lemao PLEASE YOU NEED TO

[kurosarium]

Head canons for the HQ Captains (-Daishou) + Sugawara, Tanaka, and Ennoshita (I don't think that's more than 10 people) on how they spend their Halloween! Please include if they dress up and what their costumes are! Thanks!

Hi, I’m sorry this took me sooo long!! Thank you for requesting, I appreciate it a lot ♥  It’s exactly 10 characters so no worries :D

HALLOWEEN  HEADCANONS

Sawamura

Daichi isn’t all too much into Halloween,given he’s more into action movies than horror movies and such the like.But if any of his friends would suggest dressing up and/or going to a Halloween partyor something like that, he’d gladly agree. Because spooking around insilly/scary costumes is much more fun in a group. If he was to dress up hewould probably choose a comic character like captain America or Thor (Iheadcanon him being a huge Marvel/DC fan).

Alternatively Daichi would just spend his evening at home doingthe things he usually does or he would invite Sugawara to watch some really badhorror movies together.

Sugawara

Okay so I headcanon that sugawara is low-key a huge horrormovie nerd and has watched every thing there is to watch on horror movies orhorror comedies. Thus he’s also very into Halloween and basically forcesall of his close friends to dress up and go out on Halloween. He’sd make Asahidress up as either a mummy or Van Helsing lmao

He himself would most likely want to go as a zombie (butlike a good zombie; very realistic and a lot of theatre blood), because he’s ahuge fan of the walking dead and 28 days later etc. (he also loves sci-fihorror like the thing or the alien franchise).

He insists on his friends (especially Daichi) accompanyinghim to whatever he has planned on Halloween, but will go by himself if none ofthe have the time or simply don’t want to. Preferably he’d like to go to atheme park. (Idk if theme parks everywhere do that, but here they hold horrorevents every year in favor of Halloween.)

Tanaka

Ho boy, Tanaka and Nishinoya have an annual ritual. Eachyear they’ll dress up as super scary clowns, and place themselvessomewhere on a rather lively street in their neighborhood. Then they just waitfor somebody to walk by, and will either just creepily stare at them oractually scare them by suddenly jumping onto them or following them a  few blocks (they’ll leave elderly peoplealone though). (similar to the clowns in DM Pranks’ Killer Clownsvideos, just not as crazy)

He love scaring people, especially children and fellowteenagers. They once tried their thing on the third years, and while Asahialmost died from an heart attack, Daichi wasn’t scared a bit, and swore themthat he and Sugawara would scare them shitless next year.

Ennoshita

He’s not necessarily the biggest Halloween enthusiast, but he definitely loves costume parties. Ennoshita is always the first one to either suggest going or to agree on coming to a Halloween party. He hasn’t spent a Halloween at home in years, and always looks out for the most promising party/event.

Ennoshita is one of the biggest Disney nerds, but is also very fond of comics. Thus he dresses up as one of his favourite characters rather than something Halloween typical like ghosts, vampires etc. And his costumes are always top notch, because he really cares about fabric quality and the like.

He looks strangely hot in a Peter Pan costume btw

Oikawa

Halloween isn’t a big deal for him, but if he’s asked tojoin an event or a party he’ll definitely show up. He will only dress up afterhe has made sure that it’s an actual costume party where most, if not allpeople dress up (doesn’t want to make a fool of himself). Oikawa would probably go for the plain vampire look (I knowthat he was dressed up as vampire in this years official Halloween art, and Ican just totally see him doing that. It just suits him imo)

If he has nothing planned, he’ll do whatever he would havedone every other night. Studying, reading, watching TV, practicing, you nameit.

Kuroo

This boy loves Halloween! On Halloween he’ll either invitesome friends over to his place to hold a horror movie marathon or he’ll go outwith them roaming shibuyas streets (have you seen shibuya on Halloween ? It’sfascinating…and weird). He might even go trick or treating just for the fun of it (or toget Kenma out of his house?). Either way, he enjoys seeing all kinds of peoplein costumes going around scaring people, and he loves it even more to getscared by other people, because he will 100% try to scare them back.

On a more personal note, he prefers staying inside havingthe movie marathon, but he won’t refuse to accompany his friends if they haveanything planned.

Bokuto

Another Halloween enthusiast! While he’s all for other peopletrying to scare him like Kuroo, Bokuto is easily scared. Like, he’s notactually scared of the costume or anything , but he’s very easy to startle. Andwhen he does get startled by something or someone everybody gets a good laughout of it, except for Bokuto himself, who’s going to be all mopey for at least anhour afterwards.

He’d want to be some kind of animal on Halloween, so he’dmost likely dress up as a werewolf or bigfoot.

Kuroo still invites him to his movie marathons out of politeness,because even though they’re fairly good friends he hates that Bokuto tends totalk way too much during horror movies, or all kind of movies honestly.

Ushijima

Doesn’t really care about the occasion, and just minds hisown business. Tendou has tried several times to convince him to tag along to a Halloweenparty, but as soon as Tendou mentioned that he had to put on a costume he politelydeclined and wished him lots of fun without him.

Though, he finds it amusing to watch the majority of thestudents walk around the schoolyard in costumes. (well the ones that live in the student dorms)

Terushima

Terushima is the one throwing the party lmao

He’s isn’t thebiggest fan of everything related to horror, but wants to use Halloween as anopportunity to throw a party. (Mostly just to invite cute girls and to tellthem that it’s a costume party so they would have to dress up)

He puts minimal effort in his costume, and just looks for areasonably scary mask. (Michael Meyers or Jason maybe?)

Moniwa

He likes movies like scary movie or shaun of the dead, andwill spend his evening watching those kind of movies, either alone or with somebuddies. He knows for a fact that Futakuchi will be throwing a Halloween party,and that he and the majority of the team are invited, but he chooses to stayhome and enjoy his evening with some movies, given he’s not that much of anparty animal anyway.

[tea-with-thea-blog]

30 Questions Makeup Tag!!!

Hey everyone!

Firstly, I would like to say thank you to those who have motivated me to start blogging and share my thoughts with the world! None of this would’ve been possible without the support of my loved ones, thank you once again!

I’ve decided to start my blog with a question tag so you can get a glimpse of what I’m like especially with makeup! ;)

Questions from: http://thebeautysection.com/30-beauty-questions-tag/

♥.·:*¨¨*:·.♥.·:*:·.♥.·:*¨¨*:·.♥

1. Do you remember your first makeup item? YES! It was a foundation from Maybelline!

2. Describe your perfect mascara. Have you found one that fits your specifications? The perfect mascara is smudge-proof, water resistant, thickening and lengthening. As of now, I would have to go with Too Faced’s Better Than Sex waterproof mascara. Undoubtedly, the normal one is less drying imo however I prefer the waterproof one also because it holds my lashes up throughout the day (after curling it).

3. What kind of coverage do you prefer from foundation? I prefer full coverage because I tend to have prominent red skin which shows even under medium coverage.

4. Favourite high end brand? I absolutely love Tarte and Too Faced. Tate works well with my skin (I have hypersensitive skin so I’m prone to allergic reactions and acne) and most of their products are breathable so they’re comfortable to wear throughout the day. Too Faced has adorable packaging and I love the quality too! I’m obsessed with their eyeshadow palettes and gorgeous lip cosmetics.

5. What cosmetic brands have you always wanted to try but still haven’t? Wet N Wild, BH cosmetics, Lime Crime, Morphe, Juvia’s Place and Colourpop!

6. Favourite drugstore brand? ELF and Nyx. Hands down.

7. Do you wear fake eyelashes? Yes I do! I do not wear them often (yes, Instagram can be misleading) because I don’t have enough confidence to wear them out hah.

8. Is there any kind of makeup you can’t leave the house without? Several things to be completely honest! I hate leaving the house without BB cream on, mascara and slightly darkened brows (I’d use a brow mascara minimally).

9. What is your most cherished beauty product? Everything to be frank. I cherish my products equally being drugstore or high-end because these were bought with hard-earned money and even if they ever happened to be sent by a company or so, it would still be deeply cherished because it’s a privilege!!!

10. How often do you shop for makeup? Do you like to pick up an item here and there or get lots of goodies at once? *nervous laugh* It really depends on my budget because if I want to spoil myself, I go all out. If I have to replenish or buy an alternative, then I will.

11. Do you have a “beauty budget” or you spend freely? I do have a budget. I am still a student and live with my parents so I prefer using my own money otherwise I would ask my parents if I could get something haha (they’re normally there with me while I shop).

12. Do you utilise coupons, reward cards and sales when you shop for cosmetics? Yes, as much as possible.

13. What type of product do you buy the most of? ANYTHING FOR MY LIPS.

14. Is there a brand that you absolutely can’t stand? I do not think so…

15. Do you avoid certain ingredients in cosmetics like parabens or sulphites? As much as possible yes, however I do not wear makeup for long hours and take them off as soon as I am home (so it isn’t THAT BAD ) because I’m particular about my skin.

16. Do you have a favourite place to shop for makeup? It is Sephora as of now because I live in Asia and the choices aren’t that great per se (well, I am referring to products that work with my skin).

17. Do you like trying new skincare products or do you keep a certain routine? I prefer keeping to a fixed routine; a clay based cleanser and water based facial moisturiser. I have sworn by this ever since I found my cleanser because it cleared up my acne and my skin stopped flaking as well as burning.

18. Favourite bath and body brand? I won’t deny that I still wash myself with baby soap HAHAHA however I really like The Body Shop though I am not fussy a bath and body brand. Most of the products I use for my body are homemade or natural.

19. If you could only buy from one brand, which brand would you choose? If you’re referring to makeup… I would say Tarte because of the variety; they’ve got gorgeous falsies, amazing products in general and their cosmetics are cruelty free (plus point for anyone who is particular about animal testing)!!!

20. What brand do you think has the best packaging? This is such a hard question ugh. I love Kat Von D’s edgy and dark packaging. I love Tarte’s earthly packaging. I love Too Faced’s food-related packaging. UGH HELP ME!!!!

21. Which celebrity always has great makeup? I DON’T ACTUALLY PAY MUCH ATTENTION TO CELEBRITIES BUT I LOVE BRETMAN ROCK AND PRINCESS MAE’S MAKEUP ALWAYS (plus, they are insanely fashionable).

22. Do you belong to any online makeup communities? NO!! :( but I would love to!!!

23. 5 favourite beauty gurus There are too many to choose from however these are some from the top of my head: Amanda Ensing, Marzia Bisgonin, Nikkietutorials, Comethrumaya and Daisy Marquez

24. Do you like multifunctional products like lip and cheek stains? Hmmm I don’t because it really messes with my emotions like I’m super inflexible when it comes to products; if a product is used for several things, I would still find that SOLE PURPOSE FOR IT. However, I hope that my inner-neurotic-and-obsessive-behaviour would subside and allow me to give versatile products a go.

25. Are you clumsy in putting on makeup? YES. I would normally redo and reapply makeup at least 5 times. For instance, I can’t actually do a winged eyeliner without messing up 7 times (I’m serious).

26. Do you use makeup base/primer for the eyes? Yes, I use a primer.

27. How many hair products do you use on a typical day? Nothing besides shampoo and conditioner. On days that I swim, I would use a protein hair mask or use coconut oil.

28. What do you apply first, concealer or foundation? Foundation! :D

29. Do you ever consider taking makeup classes? I have not because I would say that I’ve learned a lot from Instagram and YouTube.

30. What do you love about makeup? DANG THIS IS A BIG QUESTION! I absolutely love how makeup is an art; you are free to express yourself through dramatic, sultry, simple and/or any type of makeup. It warms my heart when people break societal constructs such as gender norms and perceived forms of beauty through makeup. Everyone is liberal to customise their God-given beauty in whatever way that makes them most comfortable and confident. I love it when people are bold enough to try something new and improve from their mistakes or initial steps. We all start off somewhere and within this generation, many are often supportive of one another who choose to wear makeup (and even if they don’t). Makeup is not discriminative in any way so people of different backgrounds and personalities could express themselves through it! :D

That’s about it for the question tag, don’t forget to follow for more posts and feel free to give this a go! Thank you so much for reading!

Thea x

“Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through bond of peace.” Ephesians 4:2-3 (NIV)

[candlewisps]

Will you write anything related to Bloodline? In the Metas, I mean. Because while I think that Kylo's fight with the dark voice in his head (aka Snoke) has apparently been longer than initially expected, I think the fact that he learnt about his connection to DV rather violently if Leia's ominous reaction tells us smtg, with learning that his family had been keeping smtg that important from him... Must have been hard. Any thoughts? (I love your meta)

Sooo many thoughts @luciemiddleford, but I’m almost positive my response isn’tgoing to answer your question in any kind of satisfactory manner whatsoever.

My reaction to Bloodline, while mostly positive, is a bit ofmixed bag, and that’s due entirely to inconsistencies about The Family™ betweenthis book and the information we were given in TFA. Aaaaand how Bloodlinemesses with the timeline we more-or-less had previously established (more onthis later) and how this new set just feels wrongto me. In order for me to get across just how I feel in regards to him findingout about Vader in this manner, its necessary for me to discuss why I don’tfeel confident whatsoever about what little info we did get about the Organa-Solo Family Dynamic. Like, at all. I don’ttrust relying on the glimpses we got in Bloodline, including Ben finding outabout Vader in such a jarring manner.

I haven’t gone through the tags on here so idk if otherpeople have broken down some of the inconsistencies and issues with continuitythat Bloodline through into the mix, or if anyone has noticed them at all. Justto start off: I loved the novel. Fucking loved it. One of the best Star Warsnovels ever, in my opinion. I’m a sucker for politics/undercover/conspiracystories, so this was right up my ally. Basically everything related to Leia,the New Republic, the First Order already working within the Senate, anythingthat set up the political outlook for TFA had me overjoyed and I found itincredibly well-grounded in that regard.

It was just those few throwaway lines (I read the wholething twice and I think there are only like six or seven references) about Ben+ Luke that threw everything off. I was expecting this book to give us piecesof the puzzle to put together about HOW exactly everything went down, or atleast glimpses into how the Organa-Solo family life was pre-academy training.Instead it just made me scratch my head and question the canon-ocity of ClaudiaGray’s work. And there’s honestly good reason to question it??? Gray clearlystated that she had not seen/read the script for TFA prior to writing the book,she was clearly Surprised when she saw TFA and it didn’t outright contradictwhat she wrote in regards to the Fam, and beyond that any information shewould’ve been given about The Family™ in order to make Leia’s relationship tothem seem believable would’ve been pretty cut-and-dry (as in: they have a kid,here’s his name, he and Luke are busy doing ~something~). Rereading it justseems like they told her to name drop Ben and Luke a couple times just to makeit clear that she keeps them in her thoughts. They didn’t give her anymore towork with because obviously they’re saving that stuff for TLJ and didn’t wantto spoil it. When Gray was going through the details with Pablo Hidalgo andRian Johnson on what to center the novel around, the only information shereceived for how to make this a setup for TFA was concentrated solely aroundThe New Republic government, the Vader Scandal, hints of the First Order, andthe forming of the Resistance. Just another reason I don’t feel confident withany of the information that isn’t strictly political in nature. The familyaspect just feels like a fill-in-the-blank game (minus what we got with Han,that was all very believable).

Two of the prime problems I have, inconsistency/generalproblem-wise, are in regard to Ben’s age and in how he found out about Dear OldGranddad.

For starters, it was established pre-Bloodline that Ben leftfor training when he was 10 (still canon). It was also the prevailing andaccepted idea pre-Bloodline that Ben fell to Snoke and did-whatever-deed-he-didat the Jedi Academy when he was 15 (I believe I even saw a source at one pointthat confirmed everything went down at 15 but idk where it would be hiding,someone link me if you find one). Makes sense. HOWEVER. According to Gray’sbook, Ben is still with Luke at the age of 23 and hasn’t gone all Dark Sideyet. Here’s the inconsistency: according to the TFA script, when Kylo takes offhis helmet, “Han is JOLTED, seeing the face of his son for the first time as aman”. So Han hasn’t seen his kid since early adolescence, probably. That iscanon. Unfortunate and heartbreaking, but canon nonetheless. I imagine, butcan’t firmly say, it’s been the same amount of time for when Leia last saw Benas well.

This Bloodline continuity hogwash actually creates a majorproblem for Han and Leia’s characters. If we go pre-Bloodline assumption thathe turned at 15, then it means that, at most, Han/Leia went 5 years withoutseeing their son, in person or holo-vid (that assumption is pushing it btw, theystill could have visited him in early teens). We don’t know how busy they were,don’t know where Luke’s Academy was, don’t know if there were any rulesattempting to limit disturbances in the kids’ training. The only thing we canglean is that the Academy, wherever it was, was fairly isolated and hard toreach. So 5 years (again, pushing it) sucks, but is understandable under the rightconditions. BUT. If we adhere to Gray’s timeline, then it means that they went13 years without seeing their kid. It goes from sucky-but-understandable tofucked up in a big way. It is canonically established that Han hasn’t seen hisboy since he was an adolescent, but 23 is an adult. If Han hadn’t seen his kidin that many years, and was able to with him presumably just chilling with Lukeand not off doing dark deeds, then it makes Han and Leia look bad for notputting in any effort to see Ben (or Luke for that matter #rude). It reflectsbadly on Leia and Han. It was already canonically established that Han and Leiaweren’t there enough to guide him—this makes the setup for his upbringingunfortunate, heartbreaking, sorta-kinda understandable. But going 13 yearswithout seeing your kid when you have the means is not understandable andmakes one a shitty parent. This is why I don’t like it one bit. At the previouslyaccepted 15-year age mark, everything flowed together naturally and made sense.At the “new” 23-year age mark it just makes everyone seem like an asshole. It’sjust pushes things a little too far to be believable imo.

In addition to this, Leia states, “I never should’ve senthim away. That’s when I lost him”. This strongly implies that what happenedwith Ben happened relatively quickly (and that there was probably minimalcontact), as in FIVE years, not THIRTEEN. Thirteen years is a long time to sitback, think, and pinpoint exactly when you lost your son without actively doinganything about it. Which is not in Leia’s character. And Han says, “There wasnothing we could’ve done”, which also implies to me a relatively SHORT periodof time between when they actually had personal contact with him and when Bensplit for the Baddies™. Someone who has had repeated personal contact, evenfavorable/positive with their child (messages or otherwise) over a period ofthirteen years after training began would not be making such absolutiststatements. Again, five years makes a certain amount of sense, thirteen has mewtf-ing. Also??? Both Leia and Han’s statements sound like ones to familiar topeople who have had years upon years to come to term with things (as in, 15years ago, not a measly 6).

Onto my other major problem: how Ben found out about Vader.I have a really, reallllllllyyyyyy hard time imagining that Ben found out abouthim out of the blue. I can see where Gray is coming from, but actually thinkingabout it in terms of how Kylo is portrayed in TFA makes no sense with theBloodline timeline. Just for starters: as a descendant of the Chosen One, Benis ridiculously Force sensitive?? So despite the fact that Leia and Han keptthe Grandpa Bomb from him (I imagine Luke would’ve wanted to tell him the truthbut had to adhere to Ben’s actual parents), I don’t see how he would’ve gonehis entire upbringing not picking up on, at the very least, that they werekeeping something huge from. When Han says that there was too much Vader inhim, it implies there were many signs from him as a kid that made his parentsuncomfortable/nervous. For a Force-sensitive who can sense emotions and readthoughts, he would’ve at least picked up on that kind of ~vibe~ they sometimesgot around him and been curious about it. I even have a hard time believingthat, after a while, he might not have “pried” a little bit by trying to readthe thoughts of his “weaker” parent (Han) without detection. He wouldn’t havemeant anything inherently malicious about it, just a curiosity/desire foranswers for why some things made his parents ~share a look~ if you get mydrift. Kids pick up on things. Not to mention he might’ve picked up a vibe fromLuke himself. While I don’t doubt that Luke would’ve agreed to let Leia/Hanreveal things on their own terms, I still think it would’ve been difficult forhim to maintain the façade of “Vader was the enemy and I hate him to this day,glad I killed the bloke”. Ben would’ve been raised on stories of his family’saccomplishments, especially of Luke’s vanquishing of two Sith Lords, so I thinkhe would notice when they either tried to avoid discussing such things or thatmaybe his uncles retelling just didn’t feel right.

The other problem with the “he found out about Vader out ofthe blue” is the fact that that doesn’t organically coincide with hisdedication to Vaders cause that we see in TFA. For Ben to have gone 23 yearsclueless ala Bloodline, his unnerving conviction to finish what Vader startedfeels out of place. Six years is a little short to go from clueless to the “Iwill do everything in my power to finish what you started” idolization we havegoing on. FIFTEEN years on the other hand…well, you get my point. There’s alsothe issue of Snoke. Snoke was in this kids head from the beginning, so I can’timagine that he wouldn’t have used Vader’s identity as an additional tool toget Ben to mistrust his family as early as was feasible/useful. I already madethis whole post about how Vader’s identity/”ghost” was one of the integraltools Snoke was using to secure Ben’s loyalty, so there’s that as well.

While Bloodline is “technically” canon, it is still dubiouscanon at best, prone to changes and mistakes. There are only three “officialofficial” sources of canon (more or less indisputable), and those are the films,the scripts, and the official novelizations of said films. Any othernovels/comics/etc that doesn’t accompany one of the actual movies is canon only until/unless details within it areproven false or clash with Official Canon. And there’s enough weird informationin Bloodline regarding everyone’s favorite Family™, combined with the fact thatGray never even saw the script for TFA, that has me questioning just howin-universe I can take it.

It’s not that I have a problem reorienting myself intobelieving that he made his dark turn as an adult (I do actually), it is just afar less organic and natural string of events compared to him turning at 15. Samewith how he found out about Vader. Bloodline-timeline requires a suspension ofdisbelief. And it affects the narratives of other people around him as well, ina mostly negative way.

Maybe it’s just me that this really bothers. But theinformation Claudia Gray gave us (again, dubious canon at best) just fills liketrying to fit a square peg in a round hole and it throws me off thinking aboutit. I’m just gonna wait for TLJ to confirm/deny anything regarding the Family.

[beaninggreen]

Becoming Strong & Healthy as a Vegan

https://zenhabits.net/plantstrong/

ZEN HABITS zenhabits 29 Jul 2017 at 7:13 am By Leo Babauta

As a vegan for the last five years (and veg for a decade), I’ve learned a bit about being healthy and strong on plants.

For those who would like to learn about it, I’m offering this guide (as a non-expert fellow learner).

I had a reader write to me about becoming vegetarian, and say that he went back to the gym and feels very weak. They didn’t like the feeling they got after eating meat, so wanted a change, but they’re worried about feeling weak.

Some things to say about this:

It’s not necessarily eating vegetarian that is causing you to feel weak — it could be a number of other things, like not eating enough calories, not getting enough sleep, not being in the gym for awhile, etc. If it is your diet, there are things you can do to address this. Getting enough iron, protein, calcium and other nutrients is a good idea. Lots of vegans are super strong — seriously, google it, there are pro football players, mixed martial artists, bodybuilders, Olympians, Crossfitters, and more who are vegan (male and female). This is strong evidence that you can be strong, fit and healthy as a vegan. If you try it and have trouble, it just might take some research and experimenting. So it’s not only possible to be a strong and healthy vegan, I think it’s not that hard. Anyone who gets into fitness and health tends to do research and experiment to figure out what works, so it’s not any harder than that for vegans.

Here’s what I suggest, based on my research and personal experience:

Protein. It’s actually fairly easy to get enough protein as a vegan, with minimal effort. The best protein, in my opinion, comes from beans & legumes: black, red, pinto, garbanzo, navy and white beans, for example, but also lentils (awesome), edamame (soy beans), tofu, tempeh (one of my favorites), peas and peanuts. Nuts and seeds are also awesome for protein, and whole grains have a decent amount as well. If you eat some kind of bean/legume as a main part of your meal for at least two meals, and add some nuts and seeds and whole grains into the mix, you’ll be good. There are also vegan meat substitutes, which tend to be built off of soy or wheat protein (seitan, for example). These aren’t bad for you, but I like whole foods instead, so I would not make them the biggest part of your diet. Vegans doing strength training can also add protein powder, just like any weightlifter. I personally use PlantFusion (if I use any protein powder at all), which has all the essential amino acids and is a good mix of different plant protein. All of this is to say, you can get some amazing high-quality protein from plants, easily. (Read more.) Greens. These are the powerhouse foods of nutrition. Kale, spinach, broccoli, bok choy, collard greens, romaine lettuce … basically anything green is full of nutrients. The best bang for your calorie. Mix greens into your tofu scramble for breakfast, into your salad for lunch (with beans and seeds and nuts of course), into your soups and chilis, into your stir-frys and lentil curries. Calcium. Vegans don’t drink milk, but calcium is still an important nutrient for bones and other good things. I get most of my calcium from fortified soymilk (which I have with Ezekiel cereal, nuts and and berries, or in my protein shake), but there is good calcium in green veggies, and you can take a calcium supplement if you prefer. For bones, it’s also important to get enough Vitamin D (sunshine, fortified foods or a vegan vitamin) and do some kind of strength or impact exercise like running. (Read more.) Iron. One of the mistakes that new vegans often make is not getting enough iron. It’s not that hard, but it can be easy to ignore. It’s pretty simple: beans, grains and greens are amazing for iron. Vitamin C (which you can find in citrus fruits, spinach and yellow and red peppers, for example) also helps with iron absorption. (Read more.) Vitamin B12. Vegans absolutely need Vitamin B12, as it isn’t found in abundance in plant foods. Luckily, you don’t need that much, and it’s easy to get it in fortified foods (again, soymilk, or fortified nutritional yeast). Or you can take a vitamin, which I also do just for insurance (this is what I use). I get myself tested every year or two, btw, and I easily have enough B12, iron, etc. (Read more.) Other important nutrients. There are other nutrients to pay attention to, like iodine, Vitamins A and K, and more. They are also not hard to get into your diet. I recommend VeganHealth.org for educating yourself. Healthy fats. Omega fats in general are incredible for your brain, heart and overall health … but Omega 3s are the best. It’s easy to get them in plant diets if you choose a few good foods: walnuts, ground flaxseeds, flaxseed oil, chia seeds. Or just take a vegan dha/epa pill (like a fish oil pill, but from plants) — I take this one daily. This is an important nutrient, so read up on it. In addition, I like to use olive oil and canola oil in my cooking. This might seem like a lot, but it’s a newbie mistake to not do your research, so read up on this stuff. In fact, if you do, you’ll be more educated than most non-vegans as well, who are often lacking in important nutrients too.

Putting It All Together

OK, with all of that to digest (pun!), how can one manage all of this into a simple vegan diet? This is what I recommend (again, as a non-nutritionist — don’t just take my advice, research it):

Eat lots of beans/legumes, nuts and seeds. I recommend a good serving of these with both lunch and dinner. Maybe even add some nuts/seeds to your breakfast. Good examples for lunch/dinner: lentil soups or curries, black bean tacos, three-bean chili, tempeh stir-fry with veggies, black bean or white bean soup. There are countless examples. Eat lots of green veggies, with other color veggies as well. A big salad every day with lots of greens, as well as red and yellow veggies, mushrooms, nuts, beans and seeds … and you’re getting a ton of nutrition into one meal. Add some bean soup that has some greens cooked into it, and it’s an amazing meal. If you cook stir-frys, chilis, soups, curries, tacos or any other kind of meal, just add greens and other colored veggies into them. Or have a big helping of steamed greens as a side dish. Whole grains and fruits are good too. Brown rice, corn tortillas, quinoa, flourless whole-grain breads and cereal, black rice, and more can be added to any meal for taste and nutrition. Fruits with breakfast or as a snack or dessert are incredibly nutritious. Soymilk and/or supplement. For things like B12, calcium, etc. that I listed above, you can get a lot of it in fortified soymilk (I drink about a glass or two daily, again with my Ezekiel cereal or protein shake). But if you don’t like that, you can supplement with B12, calcium, and/or a DHA/EPA supplement. If you find some recipes with these general guidelines — experiment to find a balance that works for you — you’ll find that a healthy vegan diet is not that difficult. It might take learning some new recipes, adjusting your taste buds a bit, trying some new foods, but it’s a lot of fun to learn to do all of this. And the benefits in health are incredible.

Exercise Ideas

Nutrition is just one part of fitness and health — a super important part, but not the only one. I’ve experimented with lots of kinds of exercise — from running marathons (and one ultramarathon) to Crossfit, the Goruck Challenge, weight training, sports, swimming, bicycling, yoga and more. I’m not an expert at any of them, just a learner.

Here’s what I’ve learned:

Strength training is important. Lots of vegans overlook strength training, and they get weak, and people blame veganism. No, it’s just that if you don’t stress the muscle with some kind of resistance, it gets less strong. I personally like lifting barbells (squats, deadlifts, bench), but there are lots of different ways to do it. Bodyweight strength exercises like pushups, squats, lunges and chinups are amazing, and of course if your gym just has dumbbells and weight machines, that works too. If you want to get hard core, you can do Olympic barbell exercises and throw heavy stuff like logs and tires around, and drag sleds and stuff. All of it is fun, and will make you strong. Cardio is also important. You don’t have to spend a bunch of time on cardio machines (boring, imo), but getting your body moving is good for the heart and brain and muscles. A good brisk walk is a decent option, but I also like to go for short runs (2-4 miles), do sprint intervals, ride a bike, play some basketball. Swimming is also amazing. Whatever you find fun, do that, but just find a way to get moving regularly. Mixing in some yoga is amazing. I am not an experienced yogi by any means (you should see my flexibility, it’s laughable), but I find yoga to be such an incredible mix of flexibility, strength and mindfulness training that I would be remiss if I didn’t recommend it. A couple times a week would be the minimum to see any benefits, though more is of course better if you have the time and energy. How would I mix all these together? Whatever works for your life is best, but here’s a sample schedule that I might follow:

Sunday: Run and yoga Monday: Squat & bench press workout Tuesday: Run and yoga Wednesday: Sports and/or biking Thursday: Deadlift and chinups Friday: Run and yoga Saturday: Rest day, maybe go for a walk That would get you pretty strong and fit, I think. Of course, you should work your way up to this, starting with bodyweight strength training if you’ve never lifted weights, and getting a trainer to help you with form if you start lifting barbells. Go to an intro yoga class if you haven’t done that. Start with walking and then mix in some jogging with your walking if you don’t run. And of course, if you have any health risks, get checked out by a doctor, don’t just follow the advice of some guy on the Internet. :)

In the end, mixing up your exercise and easing into it is a good idea, as is eating lots of beans, nuts, seeds, greens, colored veggies, whole grains and fruits. With a plan like this, you’ll have a hard time not becoming strong and healthy as a vegan.

Questions & Answers

Some questions you might have:

Q: Why bother becoming vegan at all if you have to worry about these nutrients?

A: Vegans all have different reasons, but my reason is just to not participate in hurting and killing sentient beings if I can help it. I can be happy and healthy and enjoy delicious food without hurting animals (to the extent that I’m able), so why should I eat them?

Q: Isn’t supplementing unnatural?

A: Perhaps. I’m not as concerned about following the naturalistic fallacy — most of us do things that aren’t “natural” all the time, from using computers and cars to eating pizza and using deodorant. And the truth is, it’s a small inconvenience compared to what we do to animals.

Q: Isn’t soy bad for you?

A: Nope. I did an article on this myth years ago. I’ve been eating soy several times a week (sometimes daily) for a decade without any health problems. I prefer to eat less processed versions of soy, like tempeh (fermented soy beans) or edamame (green soy beans). But I have found no problem with tofu or soymilk on a regular basis (in moderation of course). I don’t recommend overdoing soy protein powder or soy meat substitutes, but here again, moderation is the key.

Q: What if I (or someone I know) got really unhealthy as a vegan?

A: It’s possible, especially if you didn’t eat good amounts of protein, calcium, iron, B12, and things like that. It’s also possible to get really unhealthy as a non-vegan. Lots of people eat diets that don’t have the right amount of nutrients, so educate yourself and do a bit of experimenting. One common problem is just eating raw plants, mostly raw vegetables, without getting all the nutrients you need. For taste, not getting enough fats or protein is a common problem, as is not getting enough umami flavor (the taste of grilled meat) — grilled mushrooms are a good way to get umami.