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terramythos · 3 years

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TerraMythos 2021 Reading Challenge - Book 12 of 26

Title: A Wizard of Earthsea (Earthsea Cycle #1) (1968)

Author: Ursula K. Le Guin

Genre/Tags: Fantasy, Young Adult, Third-Person

Rating: 8/10

Date Began: 5/6/2021

Date Finished: 5/12/2021

Ged is a talented young magician with incredible potential-- possibly greater than any before him. He sets off to join the wizarding School of Roke, and quickly surpasses all of his peers. But in an act of arrogance, Ged tries to bring back the dead to impress a rival student. He unleashes a malevolent shadow upon the world, leaving him traumatized and permanently scarred.

Soon Ged finds himself hunted by the shadow wherever he goes. None of his magic seems to work on it. Worse, he lives in fear that if the dark creature overtakes him, it will use his body as a weapon to harm others. Ged journeys from island to island in an attempt to find the solution and banish the shadow once and for all.

Only in silence the word, only in dark the light, only in dying life: bright the hawk’s flight on the empty sky.

Content warnings and some spoilers below the cut.

Content warnings for the book: Violence and death, including child death and animal death. Traumatic injury.

As a fiction writer, Ursula K. Le Guin is best known for her Earthsea series, but I haven’t read them until now. She had a big impact on my childhood via a series of picture books called Catwings (they're... about a family of cats who can fly). As an adult, I’ve grown more intrigued as I've learned about Le Guin’s philosophies, especially anticapitalism. I read her famous horror story The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas last year and found it unsettling and thought-provoking. So I decided to read some of her longer works! And, of course, speculative fiction is always the way to my heart. My wonderful sister gave me the first four books of Earthsea for the holidays last year, and I’m finally getting the chance to read them.

Overall I had a good time with A Wizard of Earthsea. It’s structured differently than a lot of fantasy novels I’ve read. While there is a big overarching plot, the individual chapters usually have their own complete story arc. It’s the type of book where you can read one chapter before bed and feel like you got a whole story; each part advances the main narrative while also providing a complete side adventure.

There’s a lot of travel in A Wizard of Earthsea due to the setting. Earthsea is a giant, possibly world-spanning archipelago, meaning there’s a ton of islands, each of which has its own way of life. The conflict naturally has Ged travel from island to island and interact with various peoples and creatures. The closest comparison I can think of is The Odyssey, and I’d be shocked if Le Guin didn’t draw inspiration from that. Both stories involve the protagonist traveling by sea and meeting a variety of characters and mythological creatures through smaller, discrete conflicts and interactions. Usually I find long travel sequences boring, but in this case they were one of my favorite parts of the book. There’s always a sense of anticipation on where Ged’s journey will take him next.

The magic system is also is pretty cool. The idea is that all parts of nature, from humans to goats to oceans, have hidden “true” names. Knowing something (or someone’s) true name gives one power over it (or them). Thus wizards use true names to manipulate nature; giving another person your true name is an act of absolute trust and devotion. However, a big theme of the book is equilibrium. One must always be aware of potential consequences when using magic. Changing the wind in one part of the world could cause a devastating storm one island over. Sort of a butterfly effect type thing.

Even though violence is one of my content warnings, I’m impressed that Le Guin largely circumvents it in the story. In many fantasy stories, a wizard/mage character uses their magic to fight and crush their foes. Not so much in this novel. While Ged clashes with various entities through the story, he usually just outsmarts them. Thus his showdown with a big, fuck-off dragon boils down to Ged guessing its true name and telling it to leave. Antagonists are usually the ones instigating violence.

One thing I found odd about the pacing of the book is it slowed down a lot in the last few chapters. There’s a big action sequence with serious consequences around the novel’s midpoint, but everything after that is slower and more reflective. On a surface reading level, I’m not sure I liked this. I’m used to stories ramping up the tension more and more until the end. However, I did like the climax itself, when Ged reveals the shadow’s true name. The central moral of the novel is that one needs to accept everything about themselves, including their past mistakes. Everyone has a dark side, which ties into the central theme of balance, and even the opening poem of the novel (which I used as the excerpt for this review). It’s a pretty universal idea, but Le Guin presents it in a thematically satisfying way.

I tagged this as a Young Adult novel because Le Guin wrote it for a teenage audience. YA didn’t exist as its own genre at the time, but A Wizard of Earthsea is a coming of age story (a staple of YA), and even has a moral message of sorts at the end. However, sometimes it’s really obvious that it’s intended for a younger audience. As I get older, I’ve noticed that YA tends to be pretty blunt about its meaning and symbolism in a way adult novels aren’t. For example, while pursuing the shadow, Ged gets lost in a mysterious fogbank. To me this was a clear callback to the first chapter, where Ged outsmarts a band of barbarians by trapping them in a fog. But Le Guin also made sure to tell me several pages later, in case I missed the parallel. I’m torn on this when reading YA. While I’m not the intended audience, I feel this approach underestimates teenagers’ ability to critically examine a text. But YA teaches many how to view things that way, so I see why authors do it. Teens aren’t a monolith, but it is interesting to see this tendency to over-explain in a novel from 50+ years ago.

A Wizard of Earthsea is surprisingly progressive in many respects. Perhaps the most obvious is race. Ged and most of the main cast are explicitly nonwhite and described as such in the text. This isn’t a huge revelation in 2021, but it’s amazing to see something like that in a mainstream fantasy novel from 1968. Apparently Le Guin struggled with publishers for a long time, as many early covers whitewashed Ged for the sake of “sales” until she gained more creative control. And the (shitty) film/TV adaptations of Earthsea are just as guilty. I went through a LOT of covers while researching this book, and even newer editions often opt for heavily stylized art, nonhuman subjects, etc. The cover I chose is from 1984, when Le Guin presumably had more influence on Ged’s portrayal. I’m interested to see how past book covers stack up when I deep dive on the other books.

However, I found the book to be not so progressive when it came to gender roles (I know, I wasn’t expecting that either). Le Guin makes it very clear that all the famous and powerful wizards/mages in Earthsea are dudes. The wizard school toward the beginning is all dudes. All the adventurers and sailors in the story are dudes. Ged himself makes some pretty sexist comments (though to be fair, that was pre-character development). There are relatively few female characters in the story, and many are either bit parts or (in one case) a seductive, power-hungry villain. Portraying sexism in a fantasy setting isn’t an inherently bad thing. Jemisin’s Dreamblood duology, which I read earlier this year, introduced stringent gender roles in order to explore the insidious nature of misogyny. But A Wizard of Earthsea doesn’t really go beneath the surface level. Yarrow is probably the most well-written female character in the story, and she only shows up in the last few chapters. Again, I’m interested to see how Le Guin handles this in later entries; the next book stars a female protagonist and Ged’s the deuteragonist.

I liked A Wizard of Earthsea overall, and I think it serves as a good introduction to both the series and a central recurring character. While I have some criticisms of the first book, I do realize it’s a relatively early work of Le Guin’s. The last novel in this series was published in 2001, so I’m interested to see how the characters and writing changed over 30+ years.

#2021 reading challenge #8/10 #taylor reads

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alwaysabeautifullife · 5 years

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Do your kids have the same beliefs as you? Sorry if this sounds offensive!

This is such a complicated question (sort of) so sorry if it’s a long answer.

I’ve mostly talked about this with my middle son (14) and my youngest son (13). My middle son I probably talk with him the most about it, he explained he is unsure about any absolute beliefs. He’s very open with his thoughts, ideas, feelings. When he told me this I explained to him that I raised him and taught him the Catholic faith for one and only reason; because I believe it’s true. Just as I taught him everything else I know, and still do. I told him that I didn’t feel sad, mad, or even disappointment, that I was just happy that he spent time even thinking about the “truth” of life, the world, human purpose, all those things, because at 14 I never concerned myself with any of those things. He is very intelligent, and I don’t have any feelings of “worry” for my children when it comes to faith or things of that nature. He mostly has lots of questions (not about Catholicism but life in general), which is exactly how I raised my children and I wouldn’t expect any less. I never wanted my children to blindly believe anything I taught them, I want them to experience their own journeys in life, and I only educated them with information I knew and my own personal experience. I did the best any parent would do, or could do, religious or not and I’m happy I have such deep thinkers, children who concern themselves with spiritual or philosophical thoughts, children with deep emotional intelligence. They still attend Mass when I’m able to go, and come with me to confession, since it’s literally a part of who we are (Catholic is very cultural), but I don’t and never have paid any attention to if my children are choosing to receive the Eucharist since it’s none of my business.

My youngest son seems mostly questioning, he thinks very privately and has a very self critical, black and while moralistic view of the world, so sometimes he arrives in some very dark thoughts. He has been like that since he was very young though, when other kids played with toys he would stare at balloons for hours and gently play with insects. My only worry for him is him arriving in any state of despair or hopelessness, as he cares very very deeply for the entire world, each and every plant, bug, every tree in the forest. Sometimes he really looses himself in a sadness about it, and then the sadness turns into anger. He doesn’t speak so much about his state of beliefs though, maybe he worries I may be sensitive about his opinions? He mostly speaks very passionately about his concerns and things, all usually nature related and trying to understand evil in the world. He is a very very cool 13 year old, and sometimes I don’t understand how he has the energy to think so deeply. I wish I would have been so concerned as he was with the state of the world, I mostly only worried about my own world at 13 tbh. He reads a lot, I think sometimes he does so to turn his mind off.

My oldest is VERY private. He would never speak about his beliefs ever to anyone.

They all practice, although I’m not sure if it’s habitual or not, as sometimes I see them sign the cross alone and things, bless their food and such.

With teenagers there’s this balance as a parent you’re constantly trying to maintain. A safe distance sometimes, showing them boundaries, healthy ways of dealing with very traumatic and hurtful things that happens in their lives when their emotions/mind are at full force but still developing. They are individual, and their world they comfortably navigated as a child is slamming into the rest of the world. I have to constantly show them consequences while they are less severe, as when you’re an adult they are severe enough to ruin your life, while giving them the freedom to get hurt, constantly, face all these negative horrible outcomes you warned them about, the same outcomes and experiences you had and you were warned about as a teen too. Then you have to be patient, because they do things that are absolutely stupid (that you did and warned them about) and then they do things better than you, smarter than you, and you wonder where that came from (because you know at that age you were much dumber). And you hope all this information can be crammed inside them by the time they are forced into the world at 18. So adding the additional pressure of forming some absolute set of beliefs immediately (especially one that matches mine) isn’t something that needs to happen right now, this very second. I tell them sometimes “this is new to me too” I’ve never navigated teens and young adults into life, I’ve barely figured out my own, and now as an adult I’m mostly going “ok so this path was bad and led here, so I wouldn’t do that...oh no...you did that....that was dumb...okay let’s deal with these consequences then, I’ve done this before too.” I think even if I did this a million times with a million children, teens, young adults, I’d never be an expert because it’s so individual.

Also for me, Catholicism wasn’t spiritual as much as it was intellectual. Religion met my scientific criteria, honestly, and that was always the basis for me believing in “something” as a child. It took many years for me to say “okay, this is it,” and I arrived there by thinking, it was never really “simple”. A lot of people quote the “faith like a child” as having a sort of blind faith, a faith that is unwavering and absolute, that ask no questions. But I don’t know any children without questions, I don’t know children who don’t wonder, who aren’t curious. In order to develop any set of beliefs we must put them to the test, every day, and I feel the truth will measure up, regardless of my feelings or attachments. If it doesn’t measure up, it’s not the truth.

I think this scares some of my friends, really all of my friends who are parents, not just the religious ones but maybe the religious ones the most. I think that’s fear, and I don’t have any.

#catholic #parenting #faith #personal

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qunot · 5 years

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Lolicon’s Impact on Me

Oh, how I loathe to write this post, but write I must, I don't know if this will sink to the depths of darkness, but I'd like to think that at-least one soul might benefit from it.

I am what society would call a monster or aberration. A being who has no attraction to adults but does have it to kids. Some as young as 9.

Contrary to popular belief, I did not get bored some day and decide, "I am feeling really masochistic today, why don't I do something that is bound to really backfire on me and completely destroy my life, just to spice things up."

No one thinks like that, it is innate. From the very moment you're born to the very moment you die, it is a part of you forever and ever and it sucks. A lot. Having sex? Never. Having a relationship with someone? Never. Looking at porn? Only if you want to go to prison for forty years.

Also contrary to popular belief, I don't have the desire to jump on random people in fits of lust or to seek out sexual encounters just to relieve the pressure. This is similar to how you don't really see hordes of virgin men scouring the streets for every random woman they can forcefully abduct into their homes.

This is not to say that we are completely stable. Societal pressures involved (being called a monster constantly), having nowhere to turn to, etc. conspire to make us a fair bit more unstable than the national average.

I myself am actually fairly well-adjusted compared to many more unfortunate people like me.

Some go insane.

Some just give into temptation and eventually end up in a dark part of the web filled with things which shouldn't be allowed to exist.

Some get all self-loathing and punish themselves every-day to make themselves feel how much of a monster they are.

I on the other-hand manage to stay relatively stable, albeit having to deal with bouts of depression and mood instability. This wasn't always the case, and I attribute much of it to lolicon hentai, which is a sort of cartoon porn.

Unlike real pornography, every character is entirely fictitious and there is no person to horribly traumatize or to soil the reputation of by being associated with naked pictures of kids. Everyone wins. Society gets well-adjusted productive members of society and I get to be sane.

Except, is this really case? You would think that society would rally behind something with such great benefits, right? Sadly, politics is a huge part of anything to do with this, and more often than not, facts are optional.

At this point in the game, not only are the facilities to help support people woefully lacking, but governments have been carrying the flawed mindset that "this is a slippery slope which leads to children getting abused" when every law they pass actually achieves the opposite.

To really understand how this is so however, I am going to have to take you through a little story about myself and how I came to get to the point I'm at now.

Throughout my childhood and teenage years, I never really thought about sex, it was just something which never really crossed my mind. Other kids would mention a thing or two from time to time, but I would be content to leave that be.

That did end up changing, but not in the ways one might expect, I grew more and more curious towards kids who were far under my age, but were all but present. I would sometimes look at fully clothed images on the internet with a weird feeling.

And one day, I saw perhaps one of the youngest people there who looked a fair bit younger than they actually were, although still a fair bit younger than me who I found extremely cute unlike all of the so called "attractive girls" who the other teenagers would always talk about.

She was far, far less developed than them and that was very enticing.

I very awkwardly tried to make friends with her, and while it very slightly worked, my social awkwardness was off the charts and making it difficult to get much further and eventually it crashed and burned like many unrequited loves too.

During this process, I had a slight feeling that something was wrong, especially with the low age involved, but no one seemed to notice a thing as we were all well within the legal boundaries.

Those were the first encounters with this unique sexuality, although certainly not the last.

At some point, I'm not even sure exactly, , but I drifted away from looking at clothed images of real girls and started looking at random anime (cartoons of sorts which are produced in Japan) ones as I found them particularly cute.

I flicked through lots of them, being pulled more and more towards the young ones who I adored and contained the qualities I loved. I even childishly wanted to leave this world behind entirely.

This continued for a number of years, even past school, although I became more and more conscious of cute school kids roaming by. I didn't have any particularly bad intentions for them, but I did find myself looking whenever they happened to be nearby.

I gradually became more and more disillusioned with reality, especially with this taboo attraction which society all but called the devil and eventually all alone in the depths of depression and repressed self-loathing and after the deaths of several loved ones, I decided to deal with it once and for all.

Through a great deal of research, I discovered that sexual desire had a connection to several hormones within the body, so I thought that if I get rid of those, then I can become normal, right? It's not like these desires are good for anything, right?

Unfortunately, the methods to deal with this involved prescription drugs and getting a hold of them would require going through the right medical channels, but I didn't let this stop me.

I knew that if I let the information about me loose to those professional, then I might well be locked up for the rest of my days in some sort of mental hospital, unable to die. This is how deep the stigma regarding this condition runs, even what may be perfectly reasonable professionals in other times will go crazy at the thought, and I could not take this risk.

I managed to get the pills through sketchy yet perfectly legal channels and began to rid myself of this condition, discarding my former self and being reborn as a normal productive member of society... Except, this did not work, even slightly.

It is true that it somewhat reduced my sex drive, but the romantic attractions, protective instincts for them, etc. simply refused to disappear, so I channeled all my willpower to suppress those and tried to seek relationships with normal adults like any other human being.

As the chief symbol of my depravity, I also cut myself off from all cartoon porn and strived to maintain a porn free life as regular porn could do nothing but conjure up feelings of revulsion in me, as part of this, I slowly brainwashed myself into thinking that all sexual thoughts are evil and clamped down on them viciously.

This too failed as my distorted mental state and already irregular sexuality made it impossible to really get anywhere further than permanent friend zone. They eventually left and looked at me with disgust, or so the distorted feelings said.

As the hormones vanished, my body grew weaker and weaker to the point I would easily run out of breath even for short walks, my bones grew rickety, and I found myself staring listlessly at the wall for many hours at a time, my mind an empty void and occasionally thinking about throwing myself off the tallest building and researching the best way of committing suicide.

I also began to hear faint voices which weren't really there whispering and sometimes saying my name, calling for me and I grew steadily more paranoid about people watching me from outside the window or from behind me, even though there was no one there.

I drifted further and further from the world, continuing the courses of pills like a mindless zombie, and when I was out and about, I felt as if everyone around me was looking at me with the utmost disgust. I even ate a bit of bleach, while thinking about just ending it.

At some point, the pills ran out and I couldn't muster up the will to get more of them at that point, so I continued my suppression exercises and my mindset bit by bit still remained in a weird way, almost like that of an alien and yet I pressed forward convinced by that letting my repressed self out would be a terrible idea.

Eventually, a few more friends abandoned me due to my distorted mind, I pleaded with them to stay, but they took the rational choice. I can hardly fault them for that.

Completely distraught and unable to muster up the energy to continue, I ended up looking at the cartoon porn again and bit by bit reconnected with various people and continued trotting along until I learned that several people near me were arrested for doing the same thing and had their lives destroyed for it.

I freaked out and started looking into various laws and regulations and drifted towards the forums of the various sites which produced my favorite content. I pored over each page and even noticed a few people who were somewhat like me there, and even more surprisingly, they didn't seem to be the evil sadistic monsters which society taught me they were.

I ended up talking to them in a slightly liberating experience and learned a number of things. I also branched out into various other communities.

One of the things I learned is that looking at child abuse images is more of an addiction than being a complete sadistic monster, and that safer content is extremely scarce with people having to dig deeper and deeper into the darkness to find more of what they need.

According to them, it can allow one to vent more effectively than anything else, in practice, a lot of the content is so horrible that it ends up driving you to near suicide.

They also commented that it would have been impossible to escape from that content, if not for the fact that they had an alternate outlet to switch to. This reaffirmed my beliefs that an outlet is vital for dealing with your natural urges and to stay away from that horrible yet addictive content.

Fate tends to make fools of us all, however as while browsing, I stumbled upon a couple of blurry images. I looked in closer and each one was a naked child standing on her own completely naked, I was really surprised that something like this could actually exist on the surface web.

It had a stronger sexual attraction than usual and as I had never seen a naked child (of the right sex) before, I looked curiously at their body structure. Shortly after, I dragged myself away from those images, deciding to stay away from them and just focus on cartoon porn instead.

Several weeks later, I stumbled upon an article about the ban in Japan and discovered that those images in particular were commercially produced thirty years ago back when when it was legal, which made sense considering that the quality of the images was fairly poor by today's standards.

After all these events, I sat down and thought about the poor state of information regarding us.

For instance, there is a misconception that mere thoughts lead to cartoon porn which lead to real porn which lead to rape. Or the very common assumption that we are all crazy rapists by default, I used to think that too after hearing it so many times.

In truth, I have yet to see anyone who has actually abused someone, they seem vanishingly rare and I'm happy for it as-well as I would be very uncomfortable to be in the same space as someone who abused someone against their will.

This led me to think of ways to try to get information out to people that a lot of things have been massively misunderstood and I decided to write a short post. It won't quite be the most effective thing in the world, but every little bit helps in the grand scheme of things.

In the end, even though I am attracted to them and can fantasize about doing all manner of erotic things with them, I wouldn't actually be able to force them to do things against their will, even thinking of it would weigh too heavily on my conscience.

I don't know what you will make of this post, but I hope it's of use to at-least someone.

#society #life #art

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sage-nebula · 7 years

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It's making me really happy to see you posting about Animorphs... I love that series.

Well, I’m happy that you’re happy, because Animorphs is incredible and I feel that it’s terribly underrated! So many people dismiss it as a joke because of the covers, but honestly, re-reading the series as an adult (or at least as an older teenager; I remember picking up one of my books when I was fifteen and being amazed at the amount of violence and gore that I just did not notice as a child) is such an experience, because there is so much depth to it that a child-aged reader just might not pick up on. I could get into an entire essay about how deep and wonderful Animorphs is in the way that it forces its protagonists to constantly examine the choices and decisions they have to make in this war in terms of moral justification, and in fact I originally did have a really long essay typed up about it in this response before deleting it, but I’ll spare you. All I’ll say is, despite being a children’s sci-fi series from the late ‘90s - early ‘00s, it actually addresses the heavier, more gruesome aspects of war better than many of its modern day contemporaries, and it makes its protagonists acknowledge and own up to the fact that they come against moral lines (and sometimes cross them) without letting them off the hook for it. The Animorphs reach many points, over and over again, where they’re forced into morally gray (or even dark) territory. And each and every time this is acknowledged. Each and every time they actually discuss it, argue about it, fight about it, both with themselves and with each other. There are times when they’re called out by the enemy and allies alike. There are times when they have to acknowledge that though the Yeerk Empire itself is evil, there are individuals within the Empire who aren’t—and that even though they were led to believe that the andalites were the Big Good, in all actuality, the andalites are not nearly as pure as they were led to believe, even if there are (again) individual andalites who are on their side. Animorphs exists in a perpetual shade of grey, has social commentary all over its pages, and while it’s not perfect (because nothing is), it’s damn well excellent and I really wish that it wasn’t as underrated as it is. It deserves so much more.

So, that said! I’m happy that you’re happy that I’m posting about it. I’ve actually just started a re-read myself, and even though I’m just in the first book, I’m already enjoying it. I really recommend a re-read (and a first read to anyone who hasn’t read them), because they’re certainly worth it.

But with that said, to actually answer your question … actually, I have in a couple different ways.

The first type of crossover I imagined was a more direct sort of crossover. Something-something happens that results in the Animorphs being transported to the Castle of Lions at some point during VLD’s canon. This isn’t out of the question, to be honest; maybe the Ellimist sent them there (as he does), or maybe there was a sario rip (as happens), or maybe it was something else. This wouldn’t be the first time the Animorphs have been transported across space-time, and I’m sure it wouldn’t be the last. The main thought behind a scenario like this would be seeing how these two teams react to one another. On the one hand, I don’t think the Animorphs woudl be fazed very much at all; they’re well-versed in aliens by this point (particularly Ax, who is, you know, an andalite), and their main concern would be how they’re going to get back to Earth in order to continue fighting the yeerks, considering the fact that … well … the yeerks are taking over Earth. Marco might acknowledge that Allura is gorgeous (and would probably acknowledge the same about Keith and/or Shiro, tbh), but that would be one acknowledgment before he started working with the others to focus on a way to get home. Cassie and Jake would probably be open to hearing what’s going on, and I think that if there was any attempt to recruit the Animorphs into the war against the Galra Empire, Rachel would be super interested, particularly if it meant that she got to pilot a Lion (although, she might think it would have been cooler if the Lions were bears instead, and not just because a lion was David’s battle morph). Tobias would be interested in seeing the Castle and this new alien culture, although I think the lack of forestation would bug him (particularly since the hologram forests in some of the Castle’s rooms would be easy for him, as a hawk, to see through). Ax, too, would be disturbed at the lack of grass, though I could also see him regarding alteans as being just as primative as he views humans, both because we know that (canonically) the technology in the Castle of Lions is 10,000 years out of date, and because alteans walk around on just two legs, which we all know that andalites view as being very clumsy and silly.

Ax would say, looking at their clothing.

“Yeah, but that also means that they have mouths like we humans do,” Marco would point out. “Meaning that they can also sample the pleasures of the Cinnabon like we can.”

Ax would admit, with a pang of regret in his voice.

“Actually,” Hunk would say, “all we currently have in the Castle is food goo.”

“Food … goo?” Jake would ask, wrinkling his nose. Whether he wrinkled it in disgust or confusion wouldn’t be clear.

Ax would say,

So overall, I think that the Animorphs would be mostly focused on how to get back to Earth to continue fighting the yeerks, though they’d probably recognize that they need to help out with whatever situation sent them here to begin with before the Ellimist will send them back. (Conversely, if it was a sario rip, they might be more focused on recreating that so that they can get back home.)

On the other hand, I think that Team Voltron’s reactions would be quite different. Remember that the Animorphs are only thirteen when the series starts. We don’t know exactly how old Ax is, given that he’s an andalite, but we do know that he is about the same age as them, in andalite years. He’s young. They’re all young. They’re kids and this is routinely acknowledged in the books. Despite this, they’re fighting guerilla warfare against an alien invasion. They can’t trust anyone, because the yeerks have infested everyone from their family members to high-ranking politicians and police officers. They can morph into any animal they touch, but this just means that when they fight, they’re literally ripping out throats with their own teeth, clawing through bodies with their own claws, and they have been disembowled and eviscerated more times than any of them cares to remember. They’re kids and they’re already deeply traumatized by fighting a war up close and personal. Now, Pidge was fifteen when she joined up with Voltron. Lance, Hunk, and Keith were 17-18. Allura is somewhere between 17-19, and Shiro is in his mid-twenties. They’re not old, but they’re also not as young (as tiny) as the Animorphs. And moreover, they don’t have to fight as up close and personal as the Animorphs do. Yes, sometimes they do get into hand-to-hand, but they’re always wearing armor and wielding their bayards. They’ve never had to literally bite down on another living being’s arm and taste blood and flesh in their mouths. They’ve never had to slice through a stomach and see everything pour out. They’ve never had that happen to them. And none of them have had to experience the horrors of being an ant in an ant colony. There’s a reason why the Animorphs have sworn off ever morphing ant again. It was horrifying.

And I think that, knowing this—well, first of all, the human members of Team Voltron would be beyond horrified to learn that Earth is currently under invasion, not by the galra, but by the yeerks, which is … kind of worse? At least the galra are waging open warfare. The yeerks will do that later, when Visser Three (after being promoted to Visser One) gets his way, but at the moment they’re not. At the moment it’s a silent invasion, which means that the Animorphs—these children—are the only ones fighting against it, and they have to do so secretly, while also juggling middle school and other responsibilities. That’s bad enough, especially when they recognize what it could mean for their loved ones back home:

“Wait. Do you mean to say that—that my mom could be one of these … controllers?” Hunk asks.

“Yeah,” Marco says flatly. “Probably.”

Hunk goes pale.

But it’s even worse when they look at how young the kids are. Yeah, again, Team Voltron is nowhere near old. But Lance would suddenly feel a whole lot older when he looks at Marco, who’s about four or five years younger than him, who is tiny (because remember, Marco is canonically short), and who should be worrying about things like which girl to ask to the school dance or what video game to play rather than whether he’s going to make it home to his dad in one piece. Of course, god forbid Lance actually express this Marco, because Marco hates being pitied and would counter with something sarcastic (“Gee, why didn’t I ever think that it might be easier and more pleasant to not fight against the Yeerk Empire? If only I’d had the foresight!”), but nonetheless, that’s how he’d feel. I think that Team Voltron would want to immediately put a stop to what they’re currently doing to go help against the yeerks, which might cause some strife with the rest of the coalition (they can’t just abandon the war against the Galra Empire, but at the same time, they’re currently losing their home planet of Earth), but it would also raise an entirely new set of issues, such as … how can Voltron help against the yeerks, when the yeerks are currently waging a silent invasion? Do they get the Galaxy Garrison involved? And what are the odds that the Galaxy Garrison has already been infested—that someone like Iverson might already be a controller?

So that’s one idea I had, particularly with a few different comparisons in mind. (e.g. Marco is what you could imagine ending up with if you combined Lance and Pidge, and Keith and Tobias have so much in common: They’re both orphans, they both have one alien parent, they both feel ostracized from their respective teams in different ways, they both tend to be isolated whether by choice or by force, they both discover their destiny later on, they both have abandonment issues, they’re both regarded as “emo” by their respective fandoms even though they really aren’t, they’re both quite clever, they’re both … well, Tobias is an unwilling dropout due to being trapped in morph, and Keith was booted from the Garrison, et cetera …)

But I also have considered role swap crossovers, to imagine what that would be like as well.

For instance, perhaps the Animorphs (sans Ax this time—sorry, Ax, but the kids just can’t get you from the bottom of the ocean if they don’t have morphing ability) were the ones who, despite being thirteen-year-olds, found the Blue Lion and had it take them to space, and to the Castle of Lions, instead. So they’re the ones who awaken Allura and Coran from cryostasis, and they’re the ones that Allura tries to recruit into the war against the Galra Empire.

I don’t think it would go very well.

To begin with, Marco would be a hard no right away, for the exact same reason that he tried to give a hard no to fighting the yeerks. To quote from the first book:

Marco shook his head. In a quiet voice he said, “Look, I think these controllers are jerks. But if something happened to me … my dad. He wouldn’t be able to handle it.”

Two years ago, Marco’s mom died. She drowned. They never even found her body. Marco’s dad lost it big time. He totally fell apart. He quit his job as an industrial engineer because he couldn’t handle being around other people. Now he was working as a night janitor, making barely enough to support Marco. He spent his days sleeping or watching TV with the sound off.

“You can all think I’m a weasel if you want,” Marco said. “I don’t care. But if I get killed or something, my dad will flat-out die. He’s only hanging in there because of me.”

Marco, aged thirteen, would not be cool with staying in space to fight some evil alien empire. He flat out wouldn’t be. He would want to go home, to go back to his dad, because in all honesty he’d probably already be panicking about being way out in space (how much time has passed on Earth?), would already be flipping out at the possibility of his dad thinking he was dead and committing suicide as a result.

And in all honesty, I’m not sure the rest would be on board, either. I mean, Tobias would be. Tobias was the one most eager to fight the yeerks, the one who felt that he found something worth fighting for, as he tells to Marco early on in the first book. Rachel would be at first, particularly since (again) I think the Lions would excite her, but even she realizes after the police officer controller visits them at the barn that they’re just kids, that this is beyond them, that they should tell someone (even though there’s no one they can trust). She does side with Tobias quickly after that, but she has a moment of hesitation. Cassie would similarly feel hesitant, although at the same time hearing that the galra are oppressing entire civilizations would move her to want to take action. And Jake would be torn, because his family is back on Earth, and he sees both sides. In the books, his motivation for fighting the yeerks was to save Tom. Here, he doesn’t have that, so I’m inclined to think that he, too, would want to go home.

Which would, of course, impossibly frustrate Allura and Coran, but …

In any case, if they did end up staying, then I think the Lion distribution would be:

Black Lion: “The Black Lion forms the decisive head of Voltron. It will take a pilot who is a born leader and in control at all times—someone whose men will follow without question.”

Paladin: Jake Berenson.

Reasoning: I mean, obviously. Jake is the leader of the Animorphs. He was elected as leader with no contest outside of his own. All of the Animorphs have looked to him for leadership and guidance since day one, and even when he calls for votes (which is often), the final decision is still usually his. Ax recognizes him as Prince Jake (even though he’s not a prince) for a reason. So yeah, Jake would be the Black Paladin, for sure.

–

Red Lion: “The Red Lion is temperamental, and the most difficult to master. It’s faster and more agile than the others, but also more unstable. Its pilot needs to be someone who relies more on instincts than skill alone.”

Paladin: Tobias.

Reasoning: This one is difficult, because certain aspects of the Red Lion (temperamental, relies on instincts, difficult to master, unstable) sound like Rachel. Rachel would also really appreciate the Red Lion’s arsenal. She would like the fire power, as well as the sword. However, I’m not sure that Rachel is best suited for the finesse that it takes to fly Red. Rachel tends to barrel through her enemies, not weave and dodge around them like the swift and agile Red Lion requires. Additionally, Rachel is not a natural flier … but Tobias is. Tobias relies on instincts rather than skill alone, given all the time he spends as a hawk in his own series, and he’s definitely used to being swift and agile. Plus, it’s not like he doesn’t have experience with ihs own issues of being unstable, and it’s not as if he doesn’t know how to handle those that are temperamental. So ultimately, I think that the Red Lion would have to go to Tobias.

–

Green Lion: “The Green Lion has an inquisitive personality and requires a pilot of intellect and daring.”

Paladin: Marco.

Reasoning: Marco doesn’t do the best in school, but he’s incredibly intelligent, cunning, and resourceful. He’s the best at strategy, and later in his own series he hacks a CIA database because he’s bored. Now who does that sound like, hm?

–

Blue Lion: “The Blue Lion is the friendliest of the Lions and the most accepting of new pilots. It requires a pilot who (appears to have) confidence to spare, who is willing to keep going no matter the obstacles they face.”

Paladin: Rachel Berenson.

Reasoning: Again, this one was hard, because we don’t actually have criteria for the Blue Lion (thanks, Lance), so I’ve had to piece this together based on the website and what we see in the show. The Blue Lion, according to the website, accepts new pilots the easiest, and has confidence like Lance. But we know that Lance’s (and Allura’s, for that matter) confidence is mostly for show. They hide their insecurities and fears in order to appear strong for others. Rachel does this as well, particularly early on, as she herself thinks in book seventeen when she volunteers for the mole mission first despite being afraid. But the Blue Lion also appreciates that its Paladins ask it for help sometimes, that they keep trying even after they’ve failed, and Rachel is characterized as one who can fall off the balance beam eight teams and get up on it a ninth. So yes, I think she could work as the Blue Paladin, though again, this one can kind of lean toward Tobias as well.

–

Yellow Lion: “The Yellow Lion is caring and kind. Its pilot is one who puts the needs of others above their own. Their heart must be mighty.”

Paladin: Cassie.

Reasoning: I mean, obviously. Cassie is the heart of the Animorphs, and often acts as emotional support (or a morality checkpoint, even if she herself isn’t perfect). She’s pretty clearly a fit for Yellow Paladin.

–

So I think that, if the kids agreed to stay in space and fight this war, that’s how the Lion distribution would be. But I think it’d be hardpressed to keep them there, particularly with regards to Marco, who would be incredibly worried about his dad and wouldn’t want any part of this war that, in his mind, would have nothing to do with him (as he would tell Allura in no uncertain terms—straight up, “And that’s my problem because? Sorry, lady, but you have to sort this mess out for yourself”).

On the other hand, there’s also the other role swap scenario. One where the Voltron cast never ends up getting in the Blue Lion to go to space, but instead encounters a dying andalite, receives morphing power from him, and then watches as he is eaten alive by a morphed Visser Three.

I’ve imagined a lot of different aspects to this particular role swap AU. The one I struggle with the most is wondering whether Shiro is involved or not, since I’ve kind of already decided that high-ranking officials within the Galaxy Garrison (e.g. Iverson, Sam Holt) are most definitely controllers. Is Shiro also a controller? Was he sent off-planet because he was one, such as Sam Holt, and the Yeerk Empire wanted his yeerk doing things in space? Or was he spared that fate, thankfully, and is instead an Animorph?

Well, we know what the more pleasant scenario is. We’ll imagine that for now.

Just as the Animorphs are all thirteen when they’re sent to the Castle of Lions, our former Paladins are all the same ages they are in canon when they encounter Elfangor. I’m imagining that this would still take place around the Garrison; Shiro, if he wasn’t infested and sent off to space, is an instructor. If he’s still around (Kerberos never having happened), then Keith would still be a student, as would Lance and Hunk. We’ll say Pidge is one, too, because that makes things more convenient (and maybe she’s not concealing her gender this time—maybe she’s open about who she is from the start). Since the Garrison is already infested, the yeerks having hit it up first thing, I imagine that there would definitely be a push around the Garrison to get others infested as well. The Sharing is perhaps an organization already in a nearby town that claims to specialize in reaching out to those “at risk,” whether they’re at risk because they’re orphans (Keith) or because of the stress of academia. Infested Garrison instructors and officials really push others to go. It’s a fun group, they say. Everyone belongs there, they say. It’s good to take the stress off studies, they say. Iverson continuously badgers Keith into going, and Shiro (who in this scenario is not infested, remember, though he could be) says that maybe it’d be fine to attend once just to get Iverson off his back. So Keith does, and he finds it pointless and a little degrading (he doesn’t need pity or to be babied), and so he stops. He’s not much of a follower, he says. Iverson’s yeerk is pissed off by this and says that he’d do well to get in line, honestly, or else maybe his future at the Garrison will be cut short.

So anyway, that’s the set-up. At some point they encounter Elfangor. Instead of an abandoned construction site, maybe it’s just somewhere out in the desert. Who knows why they’re out there. Or maybe it still is a construction site, who knows. But they meet Elfangor, and he’s dying, and he gives them morphing power, and tells them about the yeerks, and then they see him get eaten alive by Visser Three. They hear his dying scream in their heads.

(And really, just think about that … aside from Shiro, who spent a year as a prisoner of war, Team Voltron’s introduction to the war against the Galra Empire was to meet a pretty princess in a pretty castle and be told about it. The Animorphs’ introduction to the war against the Yeerk Empire was to meet a gentle alien who was eaten alive not fifteen minutes later right in front of them. And the Animorphs were thirteen. Jesus Christ.)

Of course, they’re now faced with a decision. Shiro, perhaps, will want to tell those at the Garrison about what’s going on, and Lance and Hunk would be on his side, but both Keith and Pidge would be wary, because … how do they know that people at the Garrison aren’t infested? That’s a good point, Shiro concedes, and so they decide to wait it out and see. And lo and behold, they realize that the suspicion was warranted, because people at the Garrison are infested. High-ranking people are infested. They can’t go to the Garrison for help. They’re on their own with this one.

They learn that The Sharing is a front for the yeerks. They learn that Pidge’s brother, Matt (who is still around in this AU), is a controller. Pidge, who previously didn’t really want to fight in this war, is now gung-ho about fighting it to save her brother (and her father, who is a controller off-planet). Lance suggests just knocking Matt out and holding him for three days so that his yeerk dies, but Keith points out that’s not feasible because the yeerks would link it back to Pidge, and then to the rest of them. They’d be captured and infested. Their families would be captured and infested. They can’t do it.

It all hits Pidge even harder when she learns that the reason why Matt is a controller is because … well, he was taken involuntarily, but since then he has made a deal with the yeerks that they can have him so long as they leave her alone.

They all acquire different flying / battle morphs. So far I’ve thought:

Keith: Red-tailed hawk / black panther.

Shiro: Golden eagle / wolf.

Lance: Osprey / male lion.

Hunk: Black kite / rhino

Pidge: Peregrine falcon / king cobra

I feel like Pidge would really want an owl morph, but the problem is that owls are nocturnal. For the day she would need a diurnal bird, and so the peregrine falcon fits that. Additionally, I recognize that there is a risk at giving her a king cobra for a battle morph due to the fact that snakes can be, well, stepped on, but she might have a grizzly bear as backup. If nothing else, king cobras are extremely venomous; their venom is a neurotoxin and can kill in ten minutes if left untreated. So I mean, it’s not as if Pidge having a king cobra morph is entirely a bad choice, especially if the enemies they’re fighting are focused on the other, much larger, opponents.

I’ve thought of a few other things with this, too, like maybe the reason why Keith’s dad disappeared is because he was taken by the yeerks. Maybe he’s an involuntary host to a Visser by this point? The yeerks wanted to hunt down Keith after capturing his dad, because thanks to his dad’s memories they know that Keith is part-galra, but Keith was already put into foster care and hidden away by the time they could get to him. His dad stalled for that long, at least. So Keith doesn’t know his heritage, and doesn’t know that the yeerks have special interest in him, even if they haven’t put the pieces together yet.

So yeah, I’ve definitely thought of a few different crossover scenarios, and I kind of want to write them, haha. We’ll see what (if anything) comes of it.

Thanks for asking! :)

#pidge-eon #animorphs #voltron #animorphs voltron au #voltron animorphs au

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bisoroblog · 6 years

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Why Mindfulness And Trauma-Informed Teaching Don’t Always Go Together

Mindfulness is a fast growing trend both in the world generally and in schools. Teachers are turning to the practice as a simple way to restore calm to the classroom, help students find some quiet space, and build self-regulation skills. Some teachers say their personal mindfulness practice has helped them respond more calmly to students and helps them keep perspective. But it’s also important to realize that some of the ways mindfulness is practiced — sitting still, eyes closed, in silence — can also be triggers for students who have experienced trauma.

“This isn’t about calming down,” said Sam Himelstein, a clinical psychologist, trainer and author who has spent most of his career working with incarcerated youth. “Calming down is great and it is a skill that youth can get better at. But if we’re talking about mindfulness, at its core, we are just talking about being present with whatever it is.”

Himelstein has worked with teachers who get upset when students don’t want to engage in mindfulness a certain way — perhaps they don’t want to close their eyes or won’t sit the recommended way. But none of those things are truly about mindfulness, Himelstein said. Forcing students to engage with the practice in prescribed ways may do more harm than good, especially if the student has experienced trauma.

“You never want to force people to close their eyes,” he said. That alone can cause trauma for some kids. “The goal is not to turn people into meditation monks. It’s just about learning to turn inwards and practice self-awareness.”

Himelstein has a lot of empathy for the young people he works with because he was an angry kid. He said got into trouble in his early teenage years for drugs, and was sent to juvenile hall seven times. He also spent a lot of time in group homes once released, and it was there that a skilled mentor put him in a leadership position and sparked a desire in Himelstein to do counseling.

Himelstein was lucky that he got into trouble during middle school and was able to get back on track for high school. He was also lucky to be born into an affluent, white, two-parent home in Berkeley, California. His time in juvenile hall showed him what other kids his age were up against.

“A lot of the kids I work with it’s a real uphill battle when they come into the system at [ages] 15 to 16 because they just have so many high school credits to catch up on that it becomes overwhelming,” Himelstein said. “It’s so easy for them to get in the mindset that ‘school isn’t for me’ and turn that into a core belief.”

When Himelstein explains mindfulness to young people he likes to use a metaphor coined by Larry Rosenberg the dog-mind versus the lion-mind. If a human waves a bone in front of a dog, the dog will track that bone and chase it when it’s thrown. But wave a bone in front of a lion’s face and that lion might eat the human behind the bone.

“The dog can’t see beyond the bone. If I control the bone, I control the dog’s reality,” Himelstein said. But the lion sees a broader picture. He sees the human behind the bone. “That ability to see the larger picture gives the lion more autonomy, more choices.”

Himelstein then directs students to think of the bone as anger or anxiety. Reacting with the mind of a lion allows a person to say, “I’m angry right now,” and that little bit of metacognitive space between the person and the thought allows them to choose how to respond.

“It’s much easier said than done, but that’s what mindfulness is,” Himelstein said. “It’s noticing what’s happening in the present moment with a non-responsive mind.” When he’s presenting to youths, he asks them: Who’s the king of the jungle? The lion. And who doesn’t want to be the king of their inner jungle?

Himelstein has found that teens gravitate to this metaphor because it makes the concept less abstract. They can see how mindfulness will be useful to them and how it could give them an edge. Additionally, the metaphor becomes a language thread Himelstein can return to over and over again. “Lion-mind” is a shorthand for that ability to choose a reaction.

TRAUMA SENSITIVE MINDFULNESS

“A trauma-informed lens is, ‘this behavior may be a result of some sort of trauma.’ Or even better, ‘this may be a way for them to protect themselves,’ ” Himelstein said. The are some common issues he sees when trauma interacts with mindfulness.

Students don’t take the activity seriously

Students are triggered by silence because it feels like a storm is brewing, so they don’t want to be quiet

Students feel too many requests are made of them without the requisite trust being built up

Students exhibit avoidance behavior

Himelstein says building an authentic relationship is key to accessing the trust required to make mindfulness effective. For some kids, chaos is part of trauma so when adults are unpredictable they can’t be trusted. That’s why being a “predictable adult” is a good way to be authentic with kids.

Himelstein also offers these guidelines for teachers using mindfulness:

Don’t force it

Don’t focus on the logistics like sitting with eyes closed

Somatic awareness, like counting breaths, could be a good place to start. “There’s different types of awareness. Sometimes we’re really aware of what’s going on in the mind and sometimes we’re more aware of what’s going on in the body,” Himelstein said.

Think about the child’s window of tolerance and whether he is already triggered or not. “It’s good to strike when the iron is cold in a lot of these cases,” Himelstein said.

Build relationships

When Himelstein works with teachers, he’s conscientious of how different the classroom setting is from a therapeutic one. While teachers aren’t trained therapists, students gravitate towards a trusted teacher and want to share with them. On top of that, teachers are keenly aware of their duty to cover required content.

“They do have the hardest job out of all the direct service folks because they have all this stuff the’ve got to get through,” Himelstein said.

He likes to affirm with teachers right off-the-bat that the public school setting with 30-40 kids in a classroom is already not trauma-informed. It’s a very difficult context in which to build relationships, and the architecture, policies and procedures that can make schools feel institutional only make it harder. That’s why often Himelstein sees mindfulness first-and-foremost as a self-care technique for teachers. If teachers can successfully use their mindfulness practice to create metacognitive distance, they can take their ego out of interactions with kids.

“Classroom management skills that are based in trauma informed principles, which means learning how to redirect, learning how to confront people with a non-aggressive pose, not taking it personally, all of that overlaps to help form a relationship,” Himelstein said.

If teachers can see the trauma-informed approach as a way to better build relationships, he thinks it may feel less daunting. Once those relationships are formed and students trust their teachers, it’s more likely that mindfulness will be an effective tool for them.

Many teachers already see relationship building as a core part of their effectiveness, but one practice Himelstein recommends may be less intuitive in the rush to deliver information to students: active listening. “That’s a super simple concept, but it goes a long way, especially in an educational setting because kids are used to not just being presented to, but talked down to,” Himelstein said.

SELF CARE

Cultivating a trauma-informed classroom is much harder when educators themselves are burnt out. Building relationships, not reacting defensively to student behavior and taking time to listen to students can feel nearly impossible if the adult is barely making it through the day. Classrooms can be stressful places for teachers and even someone who has been practicing mindfulness for a long time may have difficulty calling upon that knowledge when triggered — just like kids.

That’s why a core part of a trauma-informed classroom is a healthy teacher. There are several categories of self-care, according to Himelstein:

Regular cultivation of relaxation response (3Rs): things like watching TV, going into nature, getting a massage.

Effortful training: These are things like more sustained meditation or exercise where the payoff comes over a longer time period.

Creativity: something that gives purpose and adds vibrancy to life. Writing, reading, painting or other passions are examples.

Advocacy: everything from learning to say “No” (set boundaries), to working at a higher level to impact policy or structural change.

Ultimately, Himelstein wants teachers to be aware of how students who have experienced trauma might be experiencing mindfulness in the classroom so they can respond in more empathetic ways. And, recognizing that sometimes teaching is traumatic and the practice may be more for the adults than the kids.

“You’re casting a wide net,” Himelstein said. “This is how it should be anyway. This is called trauma informed care because it’s often not done this way and when it’s not done it triggers people more. This should just be what engaged teaching is called.”

Why Mindfulness And Trauma-Informed Teaching Don’t Always Go Together published first on https://dlbusinessnow.tumblr.com/

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perfectzablog · 6 years

Text

Why Mindfulness And Trauma-Informed Teaching Don’t Always Go Together

TRAUMA SENSITIVE MINDFULNESS

Students don’t take the activity seriously

Students are triggered by silence because it feels like a storm is brewing, so they don’t want to be quiet

Students feel too many requests are made of them without the requisite trust being built up

Students exhibit avoidance behavior

Himelstein also offers these guidelines for teachers using mindfulness:

Don’t force it

Don’t focus on the logistics like sitting with eyes closed

Think about the child’s window of tolerance and whether he is already triggered or not. “It’s good to strike when the iron is cold in a lot of these cases,” Himelstein said.

Build relationships

“They do have the hardest job out of all the direct service folks because they have all this stuff the’ve got to get through,” Himelstein said.

SELF CARE

That’s why a core part of a trauma-informed classroom is a healthy teacher. There are several categories of self-care, according to Himelstein:

Regular cultivation of relaxation response (3Rs): things like watching TV, going into nature, getting a massage.

Effortful training: These are things like more sustained meditation or exercise where the payoff comes over a longer time period.

Creativity: something that gives purpose and adds vibrancy to life. Writing, reading, painting or other passions are examples.

Advocacy: everything from learning to say “No” (set boundaries), to working at a higher level to impact policy or structural change.

Why Mindfulness And Trauma-Informed Teaching Don’t Always Go Together published first on https://greatpricecourse.tumblr.com/

0 notes