#it means a lot to some people but the more we normalize the nuances the less of a big deal it will become

[bloodpen-to-paper]

How the Kendom's Patriarchy Reflected the Patriarchy Within Ken

I know the title sounds stupid bear with me

I noticed the film made a point to show how much shittier the Kendom was to the Barbies than Barbieland was to the Kens. in the world we live in, women are conditioned to be considerate of others, sometimes at our own expense, while men are conditioned to conquer and pursue their goals without considering who that effects. This is what caused patriarchal ideals of women being something for men to "pursue" rather than people. We talk about this when discussing the male vs female gaze, how the male gaze objectifies while the female gaze aims to humanize. The Barbies simply ignored the Kens, the Kens could've made their own society if they chose too, while the Kens brainwashed and subjugated the Barbies. While the movie makes a point to say neither gender group having power over another is good and the gender field should be equal, patriarchal teachings have resulted in way more harmful consequences for women than anything to come out of the femcel/radfem sphere considering patriarchy is the current reality we live in.

Usually this would be enough to make its own point, but Greta didn't include this just to make more commentary on how the patriarchy effects women, but to specifically show what it does to the men within it. Ken's final arc revolved heavily around the idea of men "getting the girl" and feeling useless after Barbie rejected him, because that's a huge part of patriarchy. Patriarchy tells men that women are objects to be won, and that once they win a woman they are true men who have achieved their life goal. Many men base their entirely personality around being attracted to women, and it shows in how they talk, their jokes, how much they sexualize, etc. And when these same men fail to "get a girl" (because we are, in fact, people with our own wants and desires) they feel useless. That anger often leads them to the incel pipeline of thinking they are owed women's time, attention, and bodies, but above all it leads to them feeling hopeless and failed by false promises. The Kendom was fueled by that rhetoric, with Ken breaking down when he realized he couldn't make Barbie love him because that's all he's ever wanted. He was taught that was his life purpose, and he didn't know what to do when he realized Barbie is a woman who exists outside of him, and that he can't seem to do the same.

By doing this, Greta shows the nuance that comes with systemic oppression. Ken's arc is something that holds men accountable and doesn't make them seem like some untouchable and unavoidable boogeyman, but as people who make deliberate choices that negatively effect women. Similarly, because they are people, and because systemic oppression is never good for anyone, the movie shows how the Kens were also brainwashed by this system, and how its hurting them as well. The Kens, and really men, are pumped full of the same lies as women, and the movie calls for them to work on themselves to unlearn these teaching so that they can be better people to those they hurt, and be people to themselves. Not a conqueror, not a mate, but humans who don't need to obsess over their sexuality and ability to get female partners to be worth something. Men's worth doesn't rely on their interactions with women, just like women's value doesn't rely on their interactions with men. The two groups exist and need to start co-existing, because the gender divide has made all of us treat each other as another species rather than a person like anyone we'd find in our families, friend groups, etc. Gender should not be a roadblock, nor a source of fuel for how you interact with people; it should just be, in the same way hair color and height are. This message is not something that will resonate with all, but its important, and Barbie very effectively made it for all those who needed to hear.

[andivmg]

My experience with Luke (Punz)

CW: toxic relationship, racism, dubious consent

I know in the past i said that i would no longer speak about him publicly, and when talking about my experiences with abuse and emotional mistreatment i begged to keep it anonymous but after reflecting on this for a week and seeing so many incredibly smart and strong women tell their stories. they have given me the strength to say his name.

this is really scary to talk about because of the copious levels of harassment i have received from his fans in the past so if this spreads or gets out of hand i will simply log off.

If you read my last post, i nicknamed him 1.

So aside from everything i said there, there were a lot of things i didn’t include because they would’ve made it obvious that it was him and it could potentially backfire on me so, i’m very afraid to post this. but i’m going to do it scared anyway, because it’s not fair that he gets to just go and live his life worry-free as if he didn’t practically ruin mine.

Because I already made a very lengthy post about him, i won’t include everything i said last time to avoid being redundant but if i repeat myself, please bear with me.

In our year long relationship i had to endure emotional neglect, gaslighting, verbal abuse, one instance where there was dubious consent, and much more.

Starting off at the beginning of our relationship, that’s when i was getting copious amounts of hate and harassment from his fan base (warranted or not), he decided that our relationship must be kept private. he said it was to “protect” me from his fanbase when in reality it was to protect himself. it was so he wouldn’t get all the backlash i was getting. this is funny because one of the things i got called out for was saying the B slur (derogatory term used against mexicans/latinos). I won’t get into the nuances of if i could say it or not as a puertorican because that’s discourse that does not pertain to this specific situation. But you know who definitely can’t say it? A white boy from Massachusetts. When i was getting cancelled for this and getting thousands of tweets calling me names, he decided that was the perfect time to say “I mean you are a b***** aren’t you? my little b*****.” Now, he said this completely unprompted. I was in the process of writing my apology and he just said that. I tell you this because i immediately shut him down and told him that there was no universe in which it was okay for him to say that word and especially not one where he could just call me that. While i was reprimanding him, he was smiling and laughing. he apparently found it amusing to call me a slur. regardless, he gave me a half-assed apology and said he wouldn’t do it again. and he didn’t. but this wasn’t the only time he was weirdly racist to me. this was my first time being in an interracial relationship so i was led to believe that this was normal by all the white people around me at the time. But, sometimes my spanish accent would come out and he would make fun of me and the way i pronounced some words. He also refused to visit me in Puerto Rico when i lived there or come meet my family when i really wanted him to because he “didn’t like the heat” or “it’s dangerous there isn’t it?”. Once, while we were watching season 2 of Bridgerton, he implied that the Sharma sisters were “too dark” for him to be attracted to them. This hurt me because they are brown skinned girls. I am a brown skinned girl. Then this, combined with the fact that he told me once he wasn’t attracted to me made me feel like my skin color was unattractive. These are only a few examples i can think of at the moment, but i’m sure there were more. Our relationship ended in 2022 so some of my memory is a bit hazy. But, I do remember feeling inferior to him throughout the relationship because he was white and I was not. I chalk that up to all the micro aggressions i had to deal with because i had never felt that way around white people before.

Another thing i had to endure was him constantly making me feel like he was embarrassed to be with me. Because i was cancelled, he didn’t want to associate with me too much. He did defend me on multiple occasions, I’ll give him that. But, he only did it because his name was getting dragged in the mud along with mine. Excusing my actions made him look better for being around me. In reality he didn’t really care. Because he was such a big content creator and someone i looked up to professionally, I took his advice as law. He told me to tone down my personality, to keep a low profile, to change things about myself to be more palatable to his audience. The same audience that spoke about me like “The pussy can’t be that good punz please stop defending her”. So i changed a lot of things about myself and my content to better suit what his audience liked. He made me feel like if his audience liked me, he would be public about our relationship and stop hiding it. He told me the reason why he wanted to keep our relationship a secret was because he didn’t want to get hate for it. But this wasn’t true. On my 20th birthday he went to Las Vegas for a twitch rivals event. That night i asked to facetime him to say goodnight and he refused because he was at a hotel room with his friends and he didn’t want them to know that we were together. It was as if my mere presence or the utterance of my name was a source of embarrassment for him. And he didn’t let me forget it. It wasn’t just a public thing at that point. He didn’t want people to know we were together, period. This was devastating to me because I would talk to all my friends about him. I was so proud to be with him and I was just one more problem to him. He made me feel so small and insignificant just because his fans didn’t like me.

He would berate me a lot. Not just due to getting heat online, although he did do that a lot. But in general whenever we would get into an argument or a disagreement he would always call me names like annoying or weird or stupid. He would raise his voice at me if i did something he didn’t like and call me an idiot. And that really hurt, i felt like i couldn’t bring up anything or do anything without getting insulted. If I hadn’t seen him in a few days because he was too busy streaming and i asked to hang out he would call me needy, clingy, and annoying. Granted, he might not have been wrong, but that is not something you say to someone you claim to love. He also insulted me when i was in depressive episodes. I have BPD and at the time i was not being treated properly for it. So, I was all over the place emotionally and he was what i clung to for validation, reassurance, and love. I talked to him when we first started dating about my disorder and told him that if it seemed like something he couldn’t handle that he could opt out of the relationship. I guess he didn’t think it was that bad or something idk because whenever i had really bad depressive episodes, he would tell me I was too sad to hang out with. He said that my sadness was a burden to him. Which would be fair. But, once my mother had a conversation with him about me. She told him that i am someone who needs a lot of love and caring. She said that if he wasn’t willing to put in that kind of effort into a relationship to just leave me alone. He reassured her that he would be there for me no matter what. He told my mother that he would protect me and my heart. He did not. He took all the warnings I gave him and ignored them and then made me feel like I was the problem. And even worse, he would say that i was pretending to be sad to get his attention when he would neglect for days at a time.

There were also some smaller things like the fact that he made me feel really guilty whenever he would spend money on me. Also, he would be really mean about my eating habits. For context, i used to suffer from an eating disorder. I was anorexic and had a really unhealthy relationship with food during high school and my first year of uni. This relationship began when i was recovering from my ED. For me, eating was really hard. So i had certain comfort foods that, while sometimes unhealthy, at least it was something to eat when i didn’t feel like eating anything. He knew this. Yet, whenever i would crave some of these foods he would call me fat. Constantly told me I’d gain weight from eating all that junk food. Saying that to someone with an eating disorder is crazy. Other smaller things were that whenever I would post tiktoks where i was lip syncing or just looking good he would yell at me and say i was looking for attention. Same with Instagram or Twitter whenever i would post photos where I looked hot. He never planned out a single date for us. I would beg him to get me flowers and he did maybe once but i’ll get into that in a bit. He would make fun of me in front of his friends to make himself look better. He let his friends say really degrading things about me in his presence. For example, once when i was showering, i overheard him on a discord call with George and Sapnap and i heard George say “if you don’t go in the shower and have sex with Andi, i will”. Once, when i was really struggling with my legs (for those of you who don’t know, i have arthritis and it’s very painful. at the time i wasn’t diagnosed but i was in a lot of pain) I literally could not walk. I had to beg him to take me to the ER because i didn’t know what was wrong with me. He didn’t want to take me but eventually i convinced him, and while we were there all he did was complain about how long it was taking and that he would have rather been at home streaming. Whenever I would talk about my interests that i was excited about like shows or books he would be incredibly uninterested and say that those things were stupid and he didn’t want to hear about them. I know all of these seem very silly or superficial but cumulatively it was awful.

Now for arguably the most serious thing i’m going to talk about. I want to preface this by saying i am just telling my side of what happened. You can come to your own conclusions about this.

On April 25, 2022 it was our one year anniversary, and i had made a dinner reservation for us. I expected him to plan something throughout the day for us to do. He told me he was going to spend the whole day playing Valorant so I got upset and cancelled the reservation. After a very heated argument, we calmed down and i asked him to come over. He came over about an hour later with flowers and drinks (I was 20 at the time so I couldn’t buy the drinks myself). He brought Smirnoffs and Trulys. For context, I am a lightweight. I always have been. I literally get tipsy on half a cocktail. And that day, I hadn’t eaten anything because i was in distress over our argument. So we get to talking and drinking. I blacked out after my second Smirnoff. Apparently I drank 3 but I genuinely cannot remember anything after finishing the second one. The next morning i woke up naked in my bed. I woke him up and asked him “Luke, why am I naked?” and he said “Because you didn’t want to put your clothes back on.” When I clarified to him that that was not what I meant, he got defensive and said that he didn’t realize how drunk I was. He proceeded to tell me that I initiated sex with him and that i was very enthusiastic about it. He said he didn’t know i could black out on three smirnoffs. He made fun of me for being a lightweight and continued to make light of the situation. Then he mentioned that i fell off the bed at some point in the night and that it was funny how drunk I was. I then questioned him. Because if he thought that me tripping and falling off the bed because i was so drunk was funny, how did he not know that i was too drunk? He responded by saying that i fell off the bed only after we were done. That day I broke up with him. I’m still really confused about what happened that night. I don’t remember anything and all I have to go on is what he said to me. We were in a relationship at the time and he says he didn’t know how drunk I was so I’m not sure what to call what happened. A while after that day, his friend that hmu while we were broken up and I started talking again and i confided in him about that night. He told me to be careful saying things like that because they could get me into trouble. I spoke to some of our other friends about it and they told me it was no big deal and that it wasn’t his fault that he didn’t know how drunk I really was. Because I don’t remember, I have been led to believe that this is not a serious matter. You can think what you want, come to whatever conclusions you want. That is just my side of the story.

I want to add that I’m not proud of how I acted after the relationship ended. I felt really angry at all the shit he put me through and I guess a part of me wanted him to hurt even a quarter of how I did. So I started talking to his friend and got involved with him. This backfired on me because his friend ended up really hurting me too so ig i got my karma. But the thing that hurt the most is that because of what I did, some of our friends took his side in the break up. I was told that I did something terrible by getting involved with his friend that he was already insecure about and that he didn’t deserve that. These are the same friends who were witness to the dumpster fire of a relationship we had and all the things he did to me. They turned their backs on me because of this one thing I did. But stood by and watched as he treated me like garbage for over a year.

I will conclude this by saying that while this relationship has been “over and done with” for almost two years now, I carry a lot of trauma from it still. I still talk about him in therapy and have had to put in a lot of work to heal from what he did and i still cannot say that i am okay. I am very blessed to now have a patient and understanding partner who has helped me heal from that trauma and i just want to quickly thank him for that. Nobody deserves to go through what I did. While yes, it was a toxic relationship, and I had a part in that, it does not excuse all the awful things he said and did to me. This is my truth, thank you for taking the time to read it.

[were--ralph]

why exactly do you dislike generative art so much? i know its been misused by some folks, but like, why blame a tool because it gets used by shitty people? Why not just... blame the people who are shitty? I mean this in genuinely good faith, you seem like a pretty nice guy normally, but i guess it just makes me confused how... severe? your reactions are sometimes to it. There's a lot of nuance to conversation about it, and by folks a lot smarter than I (I suggest checking out the Are We Art Yet or "AWAY" group! They've got a lot on their page about the ethical use of Image generation software by individuals, and it really helped explain some things I was confused about). I know on my end, it made me think about why I personally was so reactive about Who was allowed to make art and How/Why. Again, all this in good faith, and I'm not asking you to like, Explain yourself or anything- If you just read this and decide to delete it instead of answering, all good! I just hope maybe you'll look into *why* some people advocate for generative software as strongly as they do, and listen to what they have to say about things -🦜

if Ai genuinely generated its own content I wouldn't have as much of a problem with it, however what Ai currently does is scrape other people's art, collect it, and then build something based off of others stolen works without crediting them. It's like. stealing other peoples art, mashing it together, then saying "this is mine i can not only profit of it but i can use it to cut costs in other industries.

this is more evident by people not "making" art but instead using prompts. Its like going to McDonalds and saying "Burger. Big, Juicy, etc, etc" then instead of a worker making the burger it uses an algorithm to build a burger based off of several restaurant's recepies.

example

the left is AI art, the right is one of the artists (Lindong) who it pulled the art style from. it's literally mass producing someone's artstyle by taking their art then using an algorithm to rebuild it in any context. this is even more apparent when you see ai art also tries to recreate artists watermarks and generally blends them together making it unintelligible.

Aside from that theres a lot of other ethical problems with it including generating pretty awful content, including but not limited to cp. It also uses a lot of processing power and apparently water? I haven't caught up on the newer developements i've been depressed about it tbh

Then aside from those, studios are leaning towards Ai generation to replace having to pay people. I've seen professional voice actors complain on twitter that they haven't gotten as much work since ai voice generation started, artists are being cut down and replaced by ai art then having the remaining artists fix any errors in the ai art.

Even beyond those things are the potential for misinformation. Here's an experiment: Which of these two are ai generated?

ready?

These two are both entirely ai generated. I have no idea if they're real people, but in a few months you could ai generate a Biden sex scandal, you could generate politics in whatever situation you want, you can generate popular streamers nude, whatever. and worse yet is ai generated video is already being developed and it doesn't look bad.

I posted on this already but as of right now it only needs one clear frame of a body and it can generate motion. yeah there are issues but it's been like two years since ai development started being taken seriously and we've gotten to this point already. within another two years it'll be close to perfected. There was even tests done with tiktokers and it works. it just fucking works.

There is genuinely not one upside to ai art. at all. it's theft, it's harming peoples lives, its harming the environment, its cutting jobs back and hurting the economy, it's invading peoples privacy, its making pedophilia accessible, and more. it's a plague and there's no vaccine for it. And all because people don't want to take a year to learn anatomy.

[jeonscatalyst]

So something I have been thinking since the beginning of AYS. I think JM and JK give themselves away. How someone can look at their behavior and not realize these two have more than a friendship/brotherly vibe. Before I go on a tangent, what I am I trying to say again 🤔. Ohh right. In the previews, we see JK and JM have a pillow in-between them as they sit on the couch while watching TV. Why the damn pillow in-between like it's so obvious! That hug when JM wanted JK to feel how cold he was, I mean. Just go ahead and proper. They crack me up. It's too late. We already know you are together. If they just acted normal 😅. To be honest, I don't blame them it's hard faking not being in a relationship.

Ah I have found my person!

Anon, I have been in this fandom for over 7 years and spent about 5 out of those 7 years being a Jikooker and all through my years in this fandom, I have seen many jikookers give different reasons why they believe Jikook are a together but not many people started seeing them as more for the same reason I did.

I have mentioned before that for me, it was never about the GCFs, the soft looks, the touches or any moments that could be described as soft or romantic or beautiful. For me it was always those moments that many Jikookers don’t like to look at or even talk about. The first thing that made me do a double take on Jikook was fetus Jikook. You see, I wasn’t always a shipper and I was one of those people who actually thought it was silly as hell that people could even believe that any of the members could be in a romantic relationship especially because of things like skinship which is the most common thing among korean men but one day I watched a long compilation on Youtube of fetus Jikook and my mind began to change. You see, when I watched that video and read comments many people were either mad at Jk for being an asshole to Jimin while others felt sorry for Jimin and some were mad that Jimin had to put up with all of that from Jungkook but one look at it and I knew that wasn’t normal at all especially because when I joined the fandom at the beginning of 2017, I spent alot of time reading their interviews and catching up on old content (somehow I didn’t really notice the fetus Jikook bickering or push and pull alot) but one opinion I remember having was that Jk kinda liked being around Jimin and hovering. So when I watched that compilation showing Jk basically being an ass to Jimin, that was the first time I thought “maybe shippers are unto something” because what I was seeing Jk do in the compilation was very conflicting with everything I had learned about Jikook and the opinion I had about them as a duo. I didn’t necessarily think they were the closest but I didn’t think Jk had any ill feelings towards Jimin.

You see anon, one thing I understood while being in this fandom is that, how people interpret or perceive other’s actions and words depends more on them than the people whose actions they are interpreting. Without certain experiences, it is almost impossible for one to understand certain things. Your culture, environment, people around, personal experiences and basically what you are used to, shapes the way you see the world and that is why one person could see a 9 while another person sees a 6. Some people have grown up believing that couples are always soft with each other or with couples it is always smiles and rainbows and roses, you know watching a lot of romance movies or fantasy will do that to you or even only experiencing those first stages of normal romantic relationships will trick you into believing such things. Some people don’t understand context and nuances at all and so they could never understand Jikook even if they wanted to.

It never made any sense to me that we saw Jungkook pushing Jimin away or shoving him in walls or ranking him last in looks yet this same person would choose to put blankets outside to sleep with Jimin at night, or this same person’s would go to cuddle Jimin in his sleep or this same person would be seen hovering around Jimin alottt and wanting to touch him or feel him up (fetus Jk was not subtle). Jungkook already knew that he got his comfort mostly from Jimin. He already understood that the reason he teased Jimin alot was because he really liked him and I think Jungkook’s occasional “bitchy” behaviour towards Jimin was him panicking and not knowing how to deal with Jimin who was obnoxiously loud about how he felt for Jungkook. Jungkook never hated being around Jimin or being touched by Jimin like many people would like to believe because if he did, he would never choose to go spend his nights with Jimin. If he did, he would never go to hug Jimin in his sleep or pile clothes on his bed to go sleep in Jimin’s bed. He clearly loved being around Jimin so how else could anyone explain his behaviour infront of the cameras?

Watching Bangtan, anyone would quickly understand that these boys don’t understand the concept of personal space when it comes to each other. I saw this video on X the other day and it made me laugh…

This is not even the most accurate example I can use but you see how glued they are to each other? Like no care in world. They shower together, sleep together, eat after each other, that is normal for them so explain to me why on earth Jimin and Jungkook would have to put a pillow inbetween them when they sit even though we know for a fact that being glued is literally like second nature to the members?

This is how Jimin and Jungkook give themselves away everytime because you can literally see that sometimes they get overly cautious in a bid to not give too much away but they don’t realize that by doing this, they are actually giving too much away because we know that the members usually don’t have any issues sitting even untop of each other. It’s just like I had once said that when you have nothing to hide, you feel as free as a bird but when you do, you start doing even unnecessary things not to come off suspicious. Why would they need a pillow inbetween them to just sit on a damn couch? If these two are just friends or bros why on earth do they need a pillow? If it was normal to see the members respecting each other’s personal space then we could just see this too as normal but we know that these same people seated right here are the same ones who have had their mouths on various erogenous parts of each other’s bodies so why?

Like you said, if jikook acted normal then I wouldn’t have ever suspected or thought that they are more than friends but the truth is that they don’t act normal at all and this is something everyone can agree on, regardless of whether they see things in a negative or positive way, everyone can agree that Jikook don’t act normal at all and it’s been like this since they were younger.

I have mentioned before that I could never see what taekookers see in Taekook because there is just way too much comfort in their interaction for them to be closeted idols in a romantic relationship. You never see any panic, you never see them acting as if they have something to hide. I have seen some taekookers say that they know that Jikook are not together because their skinship is usually very short or abrupt while taekook’s take longer and I was like ofcourse theirs would take longer because those two have nothing to hide the same way Jk’s skinship with any other member who isn’t Jimin takes longer and they seem more comfortable doing it because they are not worried about how they would come off because those actions are completely innocent. With Jikook, there is a panic and when they start going on at, it doesn’t take long for them to snap out of it and then you see them immediately stopping which sometime makes their interactions come off as awkward.

Imagine yourself in a secret romantic relationship where you are almost always infront of dozens of cameras and staff, who would feel 100% at ease in situations like this? That is why Jikook’s interactions sometimes come off clunky or awkward because of this while you never really sense this with any of the other members interactions. I can sit through any other duo’s interactions without feeling second hand embarrassment, shy or slightly awkward but with Jikook, I go through about 20 different emotions while watching them and that is how I know they are….different. So because not everyone understands the contexts or nuances, they would immediately see this as something bad while someone who understands the context and nuances in this situation expects to see this kinds of interactions. Many people unfortunately are not very smart because if they were, they would really ask themselves why Jk seems to hate Jimin’s touches so much (according to them) or hates being around Jimin so much (according to them) yet this same Jk is the one who voluntarily goes to knock on Jimin’s door everynight at 1am. Why did this same Jk choose to sleep on the floors outside their rooms with Jimin instead of sleeping with Tae or some other member? Why did this same Jk choose to spend majority of his nights and downtime with this person? Why did this same Jk pile clothes on his bed to go sleep in Jimin’s bed? Why did Jk keep going to sleep in Jihope’s room everynight? What was he doing with Jimin at 4am on his birthday after they had already moved out of the dorm and were living in personal apartments? Which one of you knows anyone who would do this if they really didn’t like someone and literally loved being around them? Also, notice how each and everytime we “caught” Jikook in positions where they never expected cameras or weren’t aware of cameras they were always glued to each other and Jungkook especially had no issues being in Jimin’s personal space?

This is one of those cases where someone either gets it or they don’t because it is kinda hard to explain and the truth is, to really understand these kinds of things, you probably need to have experienced something like this or atleast know someone very close who has.

Jikook as a romantic pair was never meant to make sense to alot of people because not very many people have critical thinking skills, not very people know how to piece tiny details together to really understand a situation. So often, people form opinions after watching one single piece of content without caring to look at the history of things. I saw a taekooker say that Jk hated Jimin’s music style because Jk said their show will fail if Jimin sang the OST he joked about singing and you could clearly tell this person is one of those who literally don’t care about context or history because everyone and their mama knows how much Jk enjoys and has always enjoyed Jimin as an artist and a performer and he has made it clear on several occasions just how much he loves the music Jimin makes.

Like I said, Jikook is not meant to be understood by everyone. If everyone understood them then that would mean they weren’t doing something right.

[wordsvomit101]

Just some thoughts on Lucifer's chats

Credits to @shyanimeboi and their friend for sharing, cause this just gives me a newer perspective on Lucifer.

He got me confused at first because why saying the obvious, every human has a name but then he started with Adam, Eve, and Solomon

It gives a lot more nuance to him and other immortal and long-living characters. It makes him so not human but also human in a way. For me, as a normal person, I can barely remember the names of the people I meet every day, but if they stay long enough I can remember them or I will know them through someone I have a closer relationship with, who relates to those I don't have a strong connection with in some way, it's easier. Lucifer in this aspect is like a human to me, he is a dude who lives life slower and longer, it makes sense why he and most other characters addressed MC as "descendant of Solomon" because will MC stay long enough for their name to be embedded into these immortals creatures like how Solomon, Adam, and Eve did or just another fleeting memory.

The "Are you not greedy?" got me thinking for a minute cause what does he mean by that but then, I think it could be an honor thing. It is normal for people to be excited to have someone to memorize their name, like wouldn't you be happy if your favorite celebrity knew your name, your existence? You would, it is something to be greedy for and to have pride in. While his second question also makes sense, because if you're scared of someone, you would rather them never know of your existence, their ignorance of you is your bliss and peace.

And that is some philosophy Lucifer is dropping on my dumb ass, BUT, it sounds to me like he meant, the kings and the seraphim are the beings that reflect on the concept that some truths or pieces of knowledge are not learned through conventional means but are instead a natural part of our awareness and existence. This lowkey sounds so cool and so true to them being the embodiment of inherence factors that everyone has, they will have by just the mere act of becoming conscious.

And I really like that we have this route with Lucifer, getting to know each other is the starting point of every connection, it sounds so easy but probably one of the hardest stages in every relationship. Since it is the starting point, everything could go wrong or it could go great, it is unclear what to do or say and it takes time.

And I really like Lucifer in this chat, I like the slow burn of this and I think the devs did him so well, they cooked in this.

[anachronistic-falsehood]

i. don’t really know what to think about the whole forever situation. because i have seen people say “he’s addressed this a long time ago so why are we bringing it up” but i haven’t seen WHERE he’s addressed it in the past. nary a tweet or clip of anywhere he may have talked about it, but i would love to see an older clip of him talking about this if possible

I’ve seen people say “his tweets and messages were translated in bad faith to give english speakers a bad perception” which. ok yeah understandable but if that’s the case i still don’t know what exactly the situation is or how serious it is

“she was 13” “she was 15” OK WHICH IS IT!!! both are bad but one is still significantly grosser than the other and i don’t know which is true!! or are there multiple girls!!! i don’t know!!!

“he met a fan for flirtatious/sexual reasons” “he met a fan for normal content creator reasons” WHICH IS IT!!!! I DON’T KNOW!!! i guess only he and the fan would know what the intent was when they met, and even then i don’t know if they met alone or if it was a normal ass fan meetup with multiple other people there

“it’s been 7-8 years, he’s changed” ok. now we are making some sense. he has not exhibited this kind of behaviour in years it seems and he appears to be the kind of person who would not say or do these things now. no one is irredeemable and no one is beyond change. still, it is important for some people to know. many fans would rather know this and make the educated choice on whether to support him or not than continue to support him in blind blissful ignorance. even though it’s stressing me out and i’m still clueless about a lot of it, i’m glad i know anyway.

“what about the past transphobia and the ableism and the and the and the-” That Is Not Relevant To This Conversation. this is a different situation. he has apologized for his past opinions and everyone has had ample time to come to terms with them and make peace with supporting him despite his past beliefs.

“he’s deleting past tweets” i mean if someone was digging around my account for things i’ve said that i no longer stand by, i would delete shit too. sure as hell doesn’t make him look innocent but i would do the same. i HAVE done the same, albeit for much more minor and trivial reasons for posts i made when i was like 15, but still

“he apologized and said he’s getting a lawyer!! no guilty person would do that!!” your content creator is not an angel. guilty people take their accusers to court all the time and get away with it. also, it is up to everyone individually to decide whether to believe him or not. you cannot push others to believe your side but you can give context to some things

there’s nuance to this like there is with everything, and people are jumping to conclusions saying either “he’s an innocent little lamb how dare you!” or “he should be deplatformed and we should never speak of him again!” i will never fault anyone for supporting the alleged victim. if your decision is to stop watching him immediately or even stop supporting the qsmp itself, no one should ever fault you for that. it is ultimately up to you to make that decision. the situation is not clear enough for me to make a decision, so i will withhold judgement for now. i will not doompost about it, and i will not call out people for defending or dropping him.

but for the love of god, just. everybody keep your cool. especially english speakers, we may not have full proper translations for the messages and tweets. take a deep breath. if you want to find more info to form an opinion now and spread information that people don’t already have, go ahead. if you want to step back and not think about it for now, go ahead. there is no shame in taking a step back and thinking about other things. you are not morally obligated to be invested in this situation. you are not morally obligated to drop him immediately and you are also not morally obligated to keep supporting him just because he’s friends with your favs. stick to your gut and do what you feel is right. you will be okay. this is not the end of the world.

[lurkingteapot]

Every now and then I think about how subtitles (or dubs), and thus translation choices, shape our perception of the media we consume. It's so interesting. I'd wager anyone who speaks two (or more) languages knows the feeling of "yeah, that's what it literally translates to, but that's not what it means" or has answered a question like "how do you say _____ in (language)?" with "you don't, it's just … not a thing, we don't say that."

I've had my fair share of "[SHIP] are [married/soulmates/fated/FANCY TERM], it's text!" "[CHARACTER A] calls [CHARACTER B] [ENDEARMENT/NICKNAME], it's text!" and every time. Every time I'm just like. Do they though. Is it though. And a lot of the time, this means seeking out alternative translations, or translation meta from fluent or native speakers, or sometimes from language learners of the language the piece of media is originally in.

Why does it matter? Maybe it doesn't. To lots of people, it doesn't. People have different interests and priorities in fiction and the way they interact with it. It's great. It matters to me because back in the early 2000s, I had dial-up internet. Video or audio media that wasn't available through my local library very much wasn't available, but fanfiction was. So I started to read English language Gundam Wing fanfic before I ever had a chance to watch the show. When I did get around to watching Gundam Wing, it was the original Japanese dub. Some of the characters were almost unrecognisable to me, and first I doubted my Japanese language ability, then, after checking some bits with friends, I wondered why even my favourite writers, writers I knew to be consistent in other things, had made these characters seem so different … until I had the chance to watch the US-English dub a few years later. Going by that adaptation, the characterisation from all those stories suddenly made a lot more sense. And the thing is, that interpretation is also valid! They just took it a direction that was a larger leap for me to make.

Loose adaptations and very free translations have become less frequent since, or maybe my taste just hasn't led me their way, but the issue at the core is still a thing: Supernatural fandom got different nuances of endings for their show depending on the language they watched it in. CQL and MDZS fandom and the never-ending discussions about 知己 vs soulmate vs Other Options. A subset of VLD fans looking at a specific clip in all the different languages to see what was being said/implied in which dub, and how different translators interpreted the same English original line. The list is pretty much endless.

And that's … idk if it's fine, but it's what happens! A lot of the time, concepts -- expressed in language -- don't translate 1:1. The larger the cultural gap, the larger the gaps between the way concepts are expressed or understood also tend to be. Other times, there is a literal translation that works but isn't very idiomatic because there's a register mismatch or worse. And that's even before cultural assumptions come in. It's normal to have those. It's also important to remember that things like "thanks I hate it" as a sentiment of praise/affection, while the words translate literally quite easily, emphatically isn't easy to translate in the sense anglophone internet users the phrase.

Every translation is, at some level, a transformative work. Sometimes expressions or concepts or even single words simply don't have an exact equivalent in the target language and need to be interpreted at the translator's discretion, especially when going from a high-context/listener-responsible source language to a low-context/speaker-responsible target language (where high-context/listener responsible roughly means a large amount of contextual information can be omitted by the speaker because it's the listener's responsibility to infer it and ask for clarification if needed, and low-context/speaker-responsible roughly means a lot of information needs to be codified in speech, i.e. the speaker is responsible for providing sufficiently explicit context and will be blamed if it's lacking).

Is this a mouse or a rat? Guess based on context clues! High-context languages can and frequently do omit entire parts of speech that lower-context/speaker-responsible languages like English regard as essential, such as the grammatical subject of a sentence: the equivalent of "Go?" - "Go." does largely the same amount of heavy lifting as "is he/she/it/are you/they/we going?" - "yes, I am/he/she/it is/we/you/they are" in several listener-responsible languages, but tends to seem clumsy or incomplete in more speaker-responsible ones. This does NOT mean the listener-responsible language is clumsy. It's arguably more efficient! And reversely, saying "Are you going?" - "I am (going)" might seem unnecessarily convoluted and clumsy in a listener-responsible language. All depending on context.

This gets tricky both when the ambiguity of the missing subject of the sentence is clearly important (is speaker A asking "are you going" or "is she going"? wait until next chapter and find out!) AND when it's important that the translator assign an explicit subject in order for the sentence to make sense in the target language. For our example, depending on context, something like "are we all going?" - "yes" or "they going, too?" might work. Context!

As a consequence of this, sometimes, translation adds things – we gain things in translation, so to speak. Sometimes, it's because the target language needs the extra information (like the subject in the examples above), sometimes it's because the target language actually differentiates between mouse and rat even though the source language doesn't. However, because in most cases translators don't have access to the original authors, or even the original authors' agencies to ask for clarification (and in most cases wouldn't get paid for the time to put in this extra work even if they did), this kind of addition is almost always an interpretation. Sometimes made with a lot of certainty, sometimes it's more of a "fuck it, I've got to put something and hope it doesn't get proven wrong next episode/chapter/ten seasons down" (especially fun when you're working on a series that's in progress).

For the vast majority of cases, several translations are valid. Some may be more far-fetched than others, and there'll always be subjectivity to whether something was translated effectively, what "effectively" even means …

ANYWAY. I think my point is … how interesting, how cool is it that engaging with media in multiple languages will always yield multiple, often equally valid but just sliiiiightly different versions of that piece of media? And that I'd love more conversations about how, the second we (as folks who don't speak the material's original language) start picking the subtitle or dub wording apart for meta, we're basically working from a secondary source, and if we're doing due diligence, to which extent do we need to check there's nothing substantial being (literally) lost -- or added! -- in translation?

[beyonsatan]

Astrological Fame indicators per Hellenistic astrology ⭐️🎬

Now before we even get into this let’s make some things very clear; fame can mean a range of things, it can mean going viral, it can mean being a best selling author, it can mean being on tv, on the news or even being a model and singer, the representative of a public and very successful company, and some people get famous for all the wrong reasons like hitler or Donald trump, theres nuance to these things so let’s get into it ‼️

1. Chart ruler in the 5th house. This is the first thing that came to my mind instantly which I think is a pretty desirable kind of fame that every normal person kinda soughts after. this configuration is like getting famous for being pretty or having a nice style, being talented, being an inventor, a discover of something or even being a content creator especially since this house literally has significations with creation. The 5th house in Hellenistic is the closest thing to fame and riches because rich people live a very good quality of life. This house will increase the quality of a persons life and any planet here especially the chart ruler or the ruler of the LOF may indicate that. The chart ruler here is generally gonna indicate that a person will be very celebrated by people at some point in their life. I feel like i have to keep repeating to people that this house literally has a relationship with VENUS and Venus kinda just gets whatever she wants

2. A luminary or sect of light within an angular house. The luminaries are the sun and the moon, they both illuminate light and are generally the first things that draw our attention in the sky. The sun sends light to our planet and the moon reflects that light to use when the sun sets and when there’s light upon you, you become easier to see within the landscape that you are in. Generally speaking tho, the luminaries on the angles (houses 1st, 4th, 7th, 10th) are gonna describe someone that is popular and who’s name gets around easily. This is one of those things that can mean a range of things like I mentioned above; being in the news, being a city’s official, a representative for a state, your business being featured in a magazine or more exciting things

3. North node in the 5th house. Now I’ve talked about the north node maybe once or twice and each time I did I explained how the north kinda massively increases things wherever it’s at in your chart for better or for worse depending on the house it’s in and this isn’t necessarily something that you have control over either. The north node here can generally describe all the things I mentioned about the 5th house above being massively increased for you when that karma gets activated at some point in your life.

4. North node conjunct the sun. Now I don’t need to do much elaborating about this if you read anything in #2 or #3. The north node increases things massively and some Hellenistic significations of the sun are as followed; being king, being in charge, being recognized for achievement, being the boss, having all the attention on you etc

5. Your 10th house being the 11th place from the lot of fortune. Calculate your LOT of fortune and what house its in, use your lot of fortune as the ascendant and count 11 houses from there, if the house you land on after counting 11 is your 10th house when you count using your original ascendant, that implies some level of fame. The 11th house from the lot of fortune is where a person will find honor and achievement

6. Lof of fortune in the 10th house. The lot of fortune for lack of better words can describe the cards a person is dealt in life and those cards can be good or bad ones. Generally speaking is gonna describe fated encounters in your career

7. ruler of the LOF in the 10th house or planet that rules the LOF conjunct the 10th house ruler (see #6)

8. LOF in the 5th house or 11th house or conjunct either of the benefics. (See#6)

Just a disclaimer that not everyone will get famous for their desired reasons or even famous at all, not everyone’s dreams or goals get realized or see fruition, and not everyone gets successful or popular. If you become popular though it won’t be because you are begging for it, so don’t beg for it if you have either of these placements. You should be recognized for your own abilities without having to strive for popularity, so instead focus on honing your abilities and stop caring about the outcome, chasing people’s attention isn’t sustainable. Don’t overthink it, just do ‼️

[herefortheships]

Why do you think he fell in love with Lydia? see, it's much stronger than it was for Dolores, I'm not going to ask when because it would be complicated Bj and Lydia have such opposite personalities

Love this question! And to be honest, ever since I watched BJBJ I've been wondering about this. Because, to me, at least when I first watched the movie, I got to the conclusion that he must have fallen in love with her over the years; that he never had any true romantic inclinations towards Lydia in the first movie. So I had to wonder, what changed?

This answer got long... So I'll put a little summary, Tl;Dr answer here: I think there's an in-canon reason he fell for her and a meta reason why Tim Burton and co decided to make Betelgeuse be in love with Lydia in canon. The in-canon reason: Opposites attract. She is exactly his type: a dark, mysterious beauty. Plus her calm demeanor suits his unhinged nature. Their energies play nicely off each other, completing and balancing each other in a way no one else could, whether Lydia realizes it now or not. Lydia also never seemed to mind ugly, scary, dark things, and Betelgeuse is kind of all of that. At some point he grew fond of her and started needing this sweet, dark beauty in his (after)life. The meta reason: Lydia and Betelgeuse are a favorite "Burton Couple", almost right there with Jack and Sally, at least to a LOT of people.

Now to the long answer, because I totally always write a lot (below the read more cut bc this one got pretty long):

I think to properly answer why he fell in love with her, I do need to get into the when. And this is where I might have to put a "trigger warning" just in case, since I will touch upon how he felt towards Lydia in the first movie, when she was a teenager. Anyone uncomfortable with that needs to click away now. We're going to analyze this with the context and nuance of Betelgeuse's backstory. Context and nuance tend to be overlooked a LOT when the purity factions of fandom want to impose moral superiority upon other members of the fandom, so maybe placing the "trigger warning" may not be enough, but, anyway, you've been warned about the topics of this post.

The context and nuance: Betelgeuse, when alive, lived in the time of the bubonic plague, this means he was alive during the 1300s, presumably in Italy. At that time, marrying a 15-16 year old was socially acceptable and normal. Heck, even younger than that (as unacceptable as that seems to us today in our modern times). So it wasn't that strange as it is today. The reason is that people often didn't get to live past 30. The average, oldest age of death around the time was 60 years old. It was also common for men of the time (and where Betelgeuse lived in Italy, and Europe, as I’m reading in these articles) to marry much later than women, as in it was common for men in their 30s and 40s to marry a 14 year old (which I believe is even younger than Lydia was in that movie, not sure). All of that is in that article. That depends entirely on social ranking though; if he was lower class often people married for convenience and I'm not sure but I think age wasn't a factor to consider when people were struggling. In Europe even in the 1800s you'd see age gaps in marriages. //Edit: and America! For some reason my brain when I wrote this at midnight thought Poe was European 💀.// Edgar Allan Poe married a 13 year old when he was 27, for example (which I totally find super weird, personally, but at their time it wasn't a super weird thing as it is today, as far as I've read; it was also normal to marry a cousin around that time in the upper class and upper middle class, or so I've seen). Was Tim Burton aware? Who knows. But at least I'm putting this out there as the context why it isn't weird for Betelgeuse the character to see a teenager as someone of marrying age. We also know he didn't want to marry her in the first movie because he was in love with her; she was a means to an end, more than anything, regardless of any interest he had in her due to her looks etc.

Ok, so now that that's out of the way we can keep talking. Even though I joined the Beetlebabes fandom only after the second movie, and shipping these two characters never once crossed my mind throughout the years of me watching the first movie, after some thought and after rewatching the movie with the knowledge of where the story goes after the events of that movie, I can definitely see that Betelgeuse became interested in Lydia ever since the first movie, and also why he's head over heels for her in the present.

Even though I still think he fell in love over the years after the events of the first movie, I think he became smitten with her since the first movie. Here's why he fell for her: For starters, she is a dark and mysterious beauty, and that seems to be his type (look at Delores, also a dark beauty). We can actually see the moment he first shows interest in her in the first movie, when he saw her while in his snake form. She was the only one he did not hurt. He only stared at her, almost like he was taken aback by her. When Barbara banishes him back to the model, we have that little moment when he mentions he feels the only one he can make a deal with in that house is "Edgar Allan Poe's daughter", meaning Lydia. And we have the little horny joke, so if you wanna throw that one in there as evidence he became interested in her here, then sure you can. As this happens directly after he's seen Lydia face to face... Rember the context above before you want to call him a pdfler or something... please. He is Not.

Then later when she meets him in his real form, she doesn't seem startled or scared that she's in the presence of a demon/ghost. In fact, she just simply asks him "are you a ghost, too?" and that's when he starts making some conversation. He realizes she can see him and communicate with him. You can tell at this point he is intrigued by her. She is the only one he's shown a sort of sensitivity to in the entire movie. He asks her "why?" when she says she wants to go in to the after life (essentially, that she wants to di e). He doesn't try anything naughty with her; instead, next time he sees her when she asks for his help, he proposes the marriage.

Now, at the time I don't think he loved her or even cared much about her; at this time he just wanted out and here was an eligible woman, who was not only beautiful and available, she could also see him and needed his help, which he used as his way to try to get out of the afterlife. I think once they got rid of him, and he realized he could still connect with her over the years, his interest in her grew and he started really growing fond of her until inevitably he fell in love.

Lydia is physically his type, but there's also a calmness to her that plays against his unpredictable, unhinged personality. She's someone who can balance him, and he's someone she could hold on to; there's an energy in him that she can use. Of course Lydia doesn't yet see how she'd be compatible with someone like him, but from an outsider's perspective, they really compliment each other's personalities. She's calm and quiet; he's crazy and loud. She's reserved; he's outgoing. She's a dark cloud; he's high-energy, like sunshine. Etc. Opposites attract. 💚

Now finally, the meta reason: Lydia and Betelgeuse seem to be a favorite "Burton couple" not only to Tim Burton himself (and the cast of the movie themselves!) but also to a great number of people. There's people who grew up watching the Beetlejuice cartoon series and didn't even watch the first movie, who for years had the idea that these two characters actually adore each other. There were people who were going in to watch this movie with that context only. And there were even people who were going to watch the sequel as their introduction to Beetlejuice (like my mom's best friend, for example! She loved the sequel but has NEVER watched the first movie nor the cartoon. She also wanted Betelgeuse and Lydia to end up together after watching this one, by the way). From a meta perspective, Lydia and Betelgeuse are just a fan favorite couple and an inseparable pair. So partly the choice to make it canon that at least he is absolutely in love with her comes from this expectation that many people had for these two characters. It just feels natural; they're just an iconic Burton pair.

[roz-ani]

Okay, so if I got thing right: It is the Solver, not Cyn, that is now a part of Uzi's body. It just has the stammer for whatever reason. However, at the same time, Uzi is now a hologram? Like Cyn back in the mansion?

I think people in general are confused about who is who in this scenario, because we've only seen Cyn under the Solver's control. She was an improperly disposed Worker Drone, so technically Tessa never brought her home. It was the Solver in a body of a Worker Tessa later named Cyn. It just had some unusual mannerisms and developed a special bond with N, calling him "big brother" and even saving his, V, and J's personalities after transforming them into Disassembly Drones.

But was the original Worker Cyn there in the first place? Were they merged, or was it just the Solver disguising itself all along? The only characters capable of controlling the Solver virus were Yeva, Nori, Uzi and Doll, which allowed them to keep their own personalities and consciousness. I think that for most of the audience, Cyn and the Solver are the exact same thing, while the idea is a bit more nuanced. I've seen some theories on twt thank point out that Doll is also a part of Uzi now based on some data from a few screenshots, and because Solver Cyn ate her core. That is something I haven't figured out yet (and don't really have time to tbh XD).

MD is a series that relies a lot on info hidden in the animation and backgrounds. I think most people will agree that it's quite difficult to fully understand the story without rewatching the episodes and pausing from time to time. Honestly, I just want to dismiss the idea that N is now dating his "younger sister". Especially since Cyn, or the Solver in reality, views him more as a plaything.

But the fact that Uzi no longer has her original body is quite intriguing, AND SOMETHING I HOPE WILL GET EXPLAINED IN THE FUTURE

Edit: I saw someone explaining that since Uzi burned Cyn's heart, she is the Solver's host now. Cyn is dead, no matter how much of her would be left after the mutation took over. But wouldn't that make her the primary carrier? The other characters can control the AI, but we also had Eldritch J. It's normal for the Solver to control a few hosts, but Cyn is the antagonist of the story. And since her heart was destroyed, why was she reaching for the core (the black orb)? I'm guessing that's where the Solver was located, like with Eldritch J? Does every heart have one? Wouldn't that also mean we have a bunch of other hosts out there in SPAAAAACEE?

[the-modern-typewriter]

hhhhhhhh your work is just absolutely amazing and I cannot get enough of it… so much that I miiiight have just rebooted the last like two years of your blog… so uh sorry about ur notifs

And some of it had me thinking about how I tend to see like worldbuilding and/or scenarios that revolve around like sex as a necessity- such as like sexpollen or idk fuckordie scenarios - and I always wonder about how another asexual person would react to those, esp if they were more sex repulsed. There just doesn’t seem like space for us to exist in those worlds lol. And maybe it would be clinical or just like wet and awkward. Or they just can’t do it, regardless of the consequences. Your piece with the ace protag who described kissing as just like wet really resonated with me ig. Sorry about the word dump here oop. So if you want, I’d love to see your take on the situation.

I actually think there's a lot of space for asexual or aromantic experiences in these scenarios! Perhaps not the stereotypical take, but the consent/power/attraction dynamics inherent to these scenarios can form an interesting comment for parts of the ace experience.

To be honest, I've always viewed these scenarios on the horror spectrum and I would probably write them as such. Though I also don't think they have to be.

I might write something fully at some point, but:

Fuck or die/sex pollen is simply an extreme version of the already existing societal pressure to have sex/engage 'normally' with the culture we live in. It would be very easy to use that to make these scenarios an ace horror story.

When you add aceness to the mixture, or any sexuality that conflicts with the specific pairing in mind, is that irrelevant to the larger forces at work in the story (e.g. the plant, or the people forcing the fuck/die scenario or whatever) or is the point? E.g. is there a version of the story where someone ace is dosed with sex-pollen because it's considered an in-world cure for asexuality given it manufactures sexual attraction? How does that change attitudes to asexuality within that universe?

Is there a version where someone ace and their partner mutually and consentually try out sex-pollen so the ace person can see what sexual attraction is like? What does that say?

Are ace people immune to sex pollen for whatever reason? What in-world consequences does that have? Do you end up with ace people incentivized to take on jobs in areas where this would be a danger to other explorers? What commentary does that create within the world of these universes?

How does it change the character dynamics? If one person is so utterly against doing anything, even if it ensures both of their survival, what does that do to the other person? Because it's technically a necessity in these stories, but there are still actually two choices and for obvious reasons perhaps these stories rarely lean into the 'or die' part of the scenario. What does the other person decide in this situation?

Then there's the version where it is pure necessity. Not a big deal. No worse than any other chore. There's still consent, but honestly not all consent when you're ace is enthusiastic. In which case, the ace person who may already be geared more towards considering sex as a means to something else might actually be far less traumatized by this scenario than someone non-ace who might view sex with higher stakes/as more sacred/whatever.

Does an asexual alien view fuck or die/sex pollen scenarios with the same morality as an asexual human does? Quite possibly not! E.g. does one not consider it bad in anyway because that's just what humans do and they're not even aware of the consent/power issues going on. What does the dialogue between those two characters look like?

I don't know. I just think there's a lot people could do with the premise + asexuality! Ace people don't live in a world where sex and prevalent attitudes towards sex/sexuality have no bearing, and asexuality is in itself a broad and nuanced spectrum of attitudes.

[venvellan]

da2's arishok is a good villain. if you have a fundamental understanding of the qun and listen to his thought process, the things he does makes sense. he uses the qun to justify slaughtering kirkwall's people, which is utterly inexcusable and what makes him a villain, but his character is complex enough to make dealing with him that much more thought provoking. he sends agents to kill petrice because she was killing his people, he doesn't give up the elves because they committed their lives to the qun, no matter how recently they converted, and he refuses to leave without the tome (and isabela) because his idea of justice hasn't been done. his logic makes sense, generally, though it is wrong on more than one occasion. he isn't moral, but he is methodical.

i feel this way about solas, too. i like da2's arishok for the same reasons that initially draw people to solas, i think. when we meet them, i find them interesting and educational to talk to, someone worthy of respect, and someone very honorable in their own way. similarly, many of my issues with solas compare with flaws in the qun/the arishok.

solas asserts that all of his beliefs are correct, and we're never allowed to challenge him on any of it. if he has high enough approval, he'll approach you to go, "yknow, i thought you were all [insert prejudice or stereotype] but YOU showed me that some of you guys are actually okay," which is NOT what it looks like for someone's beliefs to be challenged.

brief aside, i want to be fair in that we don't get this opportunity with many of the companions, and it's not even an inquisition specific issue. the dialogue format is agree, joke, be mean, and it's flawed, but it works in the majority of interactions. we don't really get to engage in nuanced discussions with characters, but there are positives and negatives to the system overall. it is possible to challenge and shape a character within this dialogue system (i.e., garrus vakarian) but in dragon age that really only comes in the form of harden/unharden. it was a little more doable with origins' system, but it really hasn't been a huge part of any dragon age game. most characters' beliefs remain largely unchanged by you regardless of how you play.

solas also possesses a strong sense of duty and purpose, though what duty he has, what his true goals are, he keeps hidden as long as he can. the most damning comparison though, to me, is how willing he is to destroy the world and bring back "his people," while the qunari fight to conquer the world and homogenize society into "their people."

in any case, with both him and the arishok, you can see the wheels turning in their heads. you can see why they do what they do, even if it's wholly immoral. it makes their threat a lot more personal, a lot scarier, psychologically, that a "normal" person, who doesn't want to cause suffering, can hold such specific beliefs and such strong conviction that knowing that they'll hurt people doesn't give them any pause. the root of their motivation is understandable. solas wants to right his wrongs, at his core. the arishok implicitly believes that the qun is safer, better for its people than life outside the qun. we can see that they're taking it too far, but they don't care. it makes them good villains.

"i am not corypheus, i take no joy in this." sure, which is a very similar sentiment, emotionally, to the qunari sense of duty. you can say you don't enjoy it all you want, you're still committing genocide. you can hate the qunari all you want, but you fight with their ferocity, their unshakeable faith in their own cause. their need to "do what's right," no matter who's caught in the wake.

i understand why people like solas, i go back and forth on it myself, but i don't think he's all that different from the arishok in method and motivation. they're each thrust into a world so different from what they believe is "right" that they demand it change around them. if we had to kill the old arishok, then if solas refuses to give up, he will have to die. he doesn't get to do genocide just because he's romanceable. he's a good character, he's a good villain, but he's not a good guy, and unless he stops before he does any real harm (which he will not do), he should share the arishok's fate.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

A few people have defended Chloe and Lila's writing by saying that teenagers being just as capable of heroism as adults means that they need to be just as capable of villainy as adults. I know that's not good logic, but I can't put my finger on WHY it's not good logic, can you weigh in on this?

I actually don't think it's bad logic at all. They're right. Teenagers are absolutely capable of being monsters. A teenage bully may not have the wide reaching impacts of a terrorist, but teenage bullies still do real and lasting harm that can shape victims for the rest of their lives.

This is why you have to be really careful when it comes to redeeming either of these characters (and also Sabrina since she's almost as bad as Chloe in my eyes). You cannot minimize the harm that they've caused by saying "well, they're just kids" or even by pointing out that Chloe and Sabrina were victims of abuse.

Fourteen-year-olds are more than old enough to know right from wrong. Yes, they're not full adults yet, but they're in the stage of life where they're learning how to be adults. That's why we call them young adults! People in this stage of life are very capable of understanding that their words and actions can hurt people. Heck, three-year-olds are capable of that! If you don't think that these teenage characters understood that bullying Marinette was hurting Marinette, then you're arguing that these characters have some sort of developmental disability or psychological disorder or something of that nature that is effecting their development in an extreme manner. If so, then that requires immediate serious intervention by professionals, but I don't think that anyone is making that argument for anyone save, maybe, Lila.

On the abuse side of things: being a victim is not a free pass to hurt innocents. Victims don't get a magic ticket that says, "you may now do one free abuse" every time that they're abused. By that logic, giving Audrey an abusive past would absolve her of everything that she did to Chloe. The same goes for Gabriel and Adrien, which is why this is such shitty logic. Nothing justifies Gabriel and Audrey's actions. What they did to their children was wrong.

The same logic applies to all characters and all types of abuse. Victim status doesn't prevent you from becoming an abuser. It's actually quite common for abuse to lead to more abuse which is part of why you can't grant exceptions on the basis of victim status. If you do that, then you eventually reach a point where no one is accountable because everyone has been abused and is therefore a blameless victim who can do no wrong. No one wants to live in a world like that.

There is of course, a lot of nuance to this topic and a lot of it is heavily situational. For example, I totally believe that certain exceptions have to made for extreme cases that I'm not going to give examples of to avoid triggering content, but you can probably think of some. However, we're not talking about extreme cases here. The characters that we're talking about are reasonably normal fourteen-year-olds. Young adults who have been allowed to be part of society and who know that what they're doing is wrong. And if they don't know that bullying and terrorism are wrong? Then we're back to the concern that something is deeply wrong with these characters and they need immediate serious intervention from trained professionals.

To be fair, Lila may end up being that kind of character, but Chloe and Sabrina certainly aren't. Since Chloe was the character mentioned in the original ask, we'll focus on her for the rest of this. While Chloe has absolutely been abused, she's not some isolated victim who has no idea how the world works. She's been allowed a reasonably normal childhood. This scene from Malediktator is actually pretty solid writing for a character like Chloe:

Ladybug: I'm fine with helping you, Chloé, but first… I need you to tell me what happened. Why is your father— I mean, Malediktator, so mad? Chloé: It's because of this super lame loser named Marinette Dupain-Cheng. She's this horrible girl in my class and she hates me. (Ladybug looks angry, but then contains her feelings) She's ganged everyone up against me and she— Ladybug: Maybe this Marinette girl isn't entirely to blame? Chloé: Uh! Ugh. Okay, it wasn't totally Marinette's fault. She is really mean to me sometimes, but actually, this time, Daddy got angry all by himself. Ladybug:(not buying it) All by himself? Chloé: Yeah, because… there was something he couldn't do… Ladybug:(puts a hand on Chloé's shoulder) Chloé, it's me, Ladybug. You can trust me. You can tell me the truth. Chloé: I— I— Ladybug: Mm-hmm. Chloé: It— it was me. I hurt my daddy's feelings. Because I want to leave Paris, forever.

She knows right from wrong and she knows when she's hurting people. She just doesn't care most of the time because she's never had to face consequences for causing harm so why should she care? It's not like it effects her! This is why she only cares about the damage she causes when it effects her or the people she loves.

That's not a deeply messed up world view. A lot of people only have strong feelings about things effecting those they love. Chloe just needs to work on being more neutral to people outside her circle because that's how we make a happy functioning society. (This is a hint of that nuance I mentioned before. I'll give a few more hints as we go on, but we won't really be digging into it due to word count. Just know that I'm aware of it.)

Giving Chloe an abusive past didn't absolve her of her actions. It just gave us a potential reason for why she does what she does. This actually does make Chloe's abuse important! Once we know the reasons why her character is doing something, we can then understand her character and better guide her story. Understanding that she's a victim means that she can be helped because this isn't some inherent part of her. It's learned behavior and that means that she can unlearn it.

And now we get to circle back to the original ask and discuss why it's still valid to be mad about Chloe and Lila's treatment and why it IS bad even though it's not wrong to have "evil" teenagers.

The reason why Chloe and Lila's lack of redemption is concerning is because full grown adults who have done far worse things are being redeemed based on nothing while these two teenage girls are being treated as beyond hope. If Gabriel Agreste and André Bourgeois are allowed to have happy endings without doing anything to earn those happy endings, then why are Chloe and Lila being treated as devils? What message is this show trying to send to kids? That it's okay to be a terrorist as long as your reasons are good, but be a bully at 14 and you're doomed for life? That's total BS!

It's especially concerning because Chloe's bad treatment of her adult father is being used to justify his redemption while Audrey and Andre's terrible parenting is not being used to give Chloe a similar free pass. Writers, wtf are you doing? No one should be getting a free pass in this situation. They all need to take action to right their wrongs if they want to be redeemed. Andre shipping Chloe off to live with her mother is an adult man saying, "oops, raised that one wrong! We'll let's just pretend that never happened."

Don't get me wrong, Chloe's actions are still fully her own and she needs to own that, but crying, "Daddy" only held power because Andre did whatever Chloe told him to do. He held all the power and was happy to misuse it in order to make his daughter happy. That means that he holds blame here, too. He allowed his daughter to become a total brat by encouraging bratty behavior.

This was not a situation where Chloe was a danger to others for some reason. A situation where Andre was truly doing the best anyone could hope to do in order to keep his daughter placated so that she didn't physically hurt anyone. It was also not a situation where forces beyond Andre's control were effecting his daughter and shaping her personality while he was desperately trying to guide her down the right path. It was just plain old terrible parenting. He spoiled Chloe rotten, got the completely predictable end result, and then threw her out for a better version that someone else raised. What an uplifting message! (That was sarcasm.)

Chloe and Lila would have worked reasonably well in a story where all of the important characters were teens. A story where Lila was always the big bad, Gabriel was a minor character, and Chloe's parents never got any screen time.

That's not the story that the writers wrote, though, so the "teenagers can be evil" defense falls flat because if domestic terrorists aren't evil and child abusers aren't evil, but bratty teenage girls are, then what are we even doing here? This is extra true because the people this show is aimed at are not adult men. They're little girls who may very well relate to Chloe and Lila.

There's also the issue of Chloe being dammed while other teen characters were given a free pass for no real reason. Felix, Sabrina, and Kim have all done equally bad or even worse things. Felix is especially uncomfortable because he's basically a male Chloe who did all of the same actions - and often did them better - yet he doesn't have to give so much as a simple apology for what he's done. He's just good now because Kagami needs a boyfriend.

Chloe outed herself in public while emotionally compromised? So did Felix and he had weeks to plan before hand, too! Chloe did it in a totally reactive manner without any real plan.

Chloe used the miraculous that Gabriel stole? Felix stole the miraculous himself and gave them to Gabriel!

Chloe bulled Marinette? Felix bullied Adrien!

Felix even did some of the same things as Lila! He tried to ruin Adrien's friendships via manipulation and deceit in his first appearance. He knew Gabriel's secret and used it to his own advantage instead of telling the heroes. He used a major terrorist attack as an excuse to further his own goals. The list goes on! So why is he being welcomed onto the team with open arms? And why is no one telling Kagami just how dangerous her new boyfriend is? She wasn't there for most of this so she has no idea who she's dating.

And this isn't even touching the mess that was Derision's terribly delivered message about owning your actions and not blaming others for your bad behavior. That episode makes everything about Chloe's treatment look even more hypocritical.

In summary, the issue is not that teenagers can't be bad guys, they absolutely can! The issue is how all of the other bad guys and bullies are being treated compared to these two and how inconsistent the rules are. Of course, we haven't seen all of Lila's story, so who knows what the end game is for her. Maybe she'll also be trying to restore a dead wife and so she'll get a free pass, too.

[zkoh001]

Back to Ninjago ✨

I was drawing this. For 72 full hours (spread out trough like-3 months)

It doesn't look like I put 72 hours into this... (I swear my confidence went like a drunk rollecoaster while making this piece)

But alas, it is done, and I worked too hard not to share it. Behold the elemental alliance. (I can't draw armor. So the design changes are mostly because of that)

I totally got the Masters of Sound and Gravity the first few times, which is quite hilarious cause the Master of Gravity spends quite some of his screentime flying, but oh well.

Also, I tought they were related (for no particular reason) hence the positioning on the picture.

The guy on the left side of the picture was literally listed as "unknown elemental master" and I literally only added him so the proportions were more balanced (also so noone could argue it isn't finished)

I feel like his power was supposed to be lightning (based on the outfit) but then season 6 happened, and he was quietly retconned to make way for libber. I hesitated making it a father daughter situation, with him passing his powers on faster than Cole's grandfather to Lilly, but in the end, settled for making him a Master of Light.

Lilly and her father joined together, but neither of them are sure why it took so long for the power to pass down (probably after or at the very end of the First Serpentine War). They were both the type to understand it's war, and those rarely have a happy ending (in general, these people were kinda forced into this role because of their powers, some of them pretty young) Maybe the late heritance caused issues with Lilly's immune system leading to an early death? 👀🥺

I like to think the old Master of Earth was a mother hen of sons just as Lilly (it's genetic a this point). The above picture happened sometime after Garmadon's banishment.

Libber (or whatever they call the previous Master of Lightning) turned out really cute, I'm probably most satisfied with her (also gave her freckles to match Jay). I feel like we massively missed out on having her be the one to make/power Prime Empire. I mean, I get they wanted to save the mom storyline for MotM, but I'm sure you can write two separate stories revolving around parents. I also believe she joined really young, probably the youngest (and she was a menace. Also imagine if she was friends with the twins, the tragedy)

Wu and Garmadon pretty much have their canon designs (I like that they are dressed the most "traditional" out of everyone) except I added a bit more purple and gold respectively. Also, I'll mention it here, every active elemental masters have eye colours matching their elements, and their pupils are light (giving way to theories about them not even being human). The spinjitzu bros have "rings" around their pupils in the opposite color (purple for Wu, gold for Garmadon) showing the link between them and their powers.

When Garmadon is banished, Wu's eyes become completely gold, affected by their severed connection (and Garm has red eyes, but normally his would have become purple as well) Also, I kinda traced the text on their gi, cause I'm not drawing that from memory 😅

Master of Shadow was one of the first to join the Alliance, but is not the youngest member, she wanted a peaceful solution at the start, and like most of the earlier members, have a more nuanced view on the war, probably even had serpentine acquitances, which is why she looks so sad a lot of the time.

I see Ray and Maya as a kinda golden retriever, black cat dynamic. Maya was incredibly skilled, cold and precise, and one of the deadliest elemental masters (I was cooking up some story about a warrior clan she grew up in, but it's up for interpretation).

Ray meanwhile lives by the principle of "They can't know my next step... if I don't know my next step." Runs in, swords blazing, most people fighting him are just sort of. Perplexed at first.

And of course Maya didn't like him at first, but it's really hard to dislike Ray long term. (Which is how he also became Wu's best friend, despite him trying to hold a 'polite acquitances' type of relationship with the Ems. Ray is just like that) But she fell first.

Either this happened, or he went ahead of the trouble and asked him first.

Anyways, back to the topic at hand (working a lot on this means I had a lot of time to microwave these dudes, this post is looong)

Master of Ice is just that one kind of slightly creepy wise old man, who just... knows stuff. Everyone just sort of accepted that you don't ask him how or why he knows stuff, he just does. Wu and Garmadon have a tendency to follow him around (cause he's pretty similar to their father in a way), which kinda translates to everyone following him around like little ducks (even when he barely socialises with anyone lol).

Design for Master of Ice is inspired by @maydayissleepy, go check out their art!

And I already made a bunch of posts about Hands of Time and the time twins, but design wise, I just made a new one (to avoid the complex armor). When in battle, it's basically impossible to tell the two of them apart. Also, they have heterochromia because they both have two powers technically. The murky brown we see in the show is because they lost the power, but are still technically the Masters of Time, since it never passed on (if the blades broke somehow it would go back to them)

I feel like they joined later (even way later, which is why they clashed so much with the alliance) which is why they aren't mentioned in the early flashbacks (and also cause they didn't exist yet), and went kinda gungho on the war, not really knowing (or caring) for it's nuances.

Anyways, let me know what you think!

[varlaisvea]

’this one’

ok i am kind of a dork about ta’agra. i am a ~linguist by education, and in eso, ta’agra has definitely gotten the most love out of all of tamriel's languages, enough such that it has understandable grammar and root words. (enough such that you can kiiind of figure out a general idea of what zerith-var is saying a lot of the time!)( if you've read the amount about ta'agra that i have!) (a normal fanfic writer amount, which is obiously a lot but, as with all elder scrolls lore topics, is insignificant compared to the real ta'agra fans out there). (but for real imagine being a language dork and having a video game give u a lil language dork treat for being a dork about its made up language. elder scrolls babey.). i’ve always been interested in how khajiit refer to themselves, because they have multiple ways of doing so, and—this being the elder scrolls—the choices people make in this regard are culturally meaningful. someone may say “I/me” or “this one” or their name/nickname, and the choice says a lot about the character, their background, and their mindset.

"this one", as a phrase, actually has deep and nuanced historical, cultural, and linguistic lore. because this is the elder scrolls.

as far as personal pronouns, zerith-var and the characters in his flashback stories only use I/me to refer to themselves. one could simply assume that language usage changes over time (khajiit in the 4th era in skyrim, don't really use it, for example). but, this being the elder scrolls, of course this (ultimately extremely minor) lore discrepancy is explained: zerith says “this one” is a more accurate translation for the way the personal pronoun (I/me) is used in the modern day, but it’s completely absent in his time. he doesn’t like “this one” at all: he observes that while ta’agra and cyrodiilic have mixed significantly over time, in his era, they were ‘mere acquaintances.’

so, it's an effect of khajiit mixing more with the rest of tamriel after a few decent centuries without a major war or catastrophic plague, but it's also more than that. languages are frameworks that both inform and convey the speaker's cultural perspective, and using "this one" reflects a desire to express something that "I/me" does not. in terms of how the word is used grammatically, the translation of “ahziss”, the ta'agra personal pronoun, is most accurately “I/me/my." but the literal meaning of "ahziss" is more accurately "this one" or "one person [of a group]" (although canon vs fanon is murky here). so, implicit in the ta'agra personal pronoun is the fact that the speaker is part of a whole—ie, they are saying me, this particular member of the group (the khajiiti people), or this particular khajiit (me). i imagine this is why some khajiit use "khajiit" as a personal pronoun; that also seems like a pretty reasonable approximation of what it sounds like "ahziss" means. this being the elder scrolls, khajiiti mythology also reflects this concept of the individual always being a part of the whole through the lunar lattice—you can see why it might be important to someone to convey something like that in their speech, when referring to themselves.

if this were not the elder scrolls, the lore related to this phrase might end at grammar and history (or well before that), but we are playing a game franchise whose name itself references the truly absurd amount of lore it has. so obviously we must consider the modern usage of the term, in order to really round out the lore about 'this one.'

nobles, like Khamira and Gharesh-ri, tend to speak with a distinct upper-class accent, and exclusively refer to themselves as I/me. The same is true of many scholars, mages, and wealthy people. this seems to suggest that well-educated, wealthy, and cultured khajiit are speaking a more "proper" tamrielic. southern elsweyr is more cosmopolitan (at least the parts that remain, which are largely cities), and people from the south tend to consider themselves more worldly and refined than their northern counterparts. accordingly, this 'upper class' and 'more tamrielic' manner of speech seems associated with a southern accent. this is consistent enough in the game that you can hear the torval curiata in zerith-var’s quests speaking with a southern accent, but using ‘this one’, and it’s kind of jarring.

currently elsweyr has been devastated by the knahaten flu, but historically the south was a wealthy, multicultural coastal trading economy (plus skooma and elegantly organized crime). the north has always been largely badlands inhabited only by baandari nomads, with a more modest agrarian trading economy in the two (formerly three) cities in the north, which are constantly invaded by cyrodiil over the centuries, and cut off from the rest of elsweyr by a massive canyon (and now also a condemned city). so (sorry to any non-americans but i can only make analogies referencing places i know), the north is like if vermont was an ancient desert with dragons in it, while the south is like if bethesda maryland was a post-apocalyptic jungle w/ dragons in it.

soo lower-class, rural, and less-educated khajiit, as well as khajiit from the northernmost part of elsweyr, seem more likely to use 'this one', and there's a lot of overlap in those groups. it's just part of the way people talk-- many people seem to use 'this one'/'I'/their name to convey shades of meaning. using "this one" or your name both require consequently referring to yourself in the third person, which has a much different vibe than referring to yourself in the first person. using your full name, or your name plus your title, or your nickname, or "this one" all have different vibes, and say different things about how you would like to define yourself in that moment. different people mean different things with their choices, but your choice can convey levels of intimacy, public vs private speech, formal or informal, etc.; it's all about feeling and personal preference.

razum-dar is probably the khajiit you talk to the most, and he is interesting to pay attention to--he is as calculating in his use of language as he is with everything else. to the player and to queen ayrenn, he mostly calls himself "raz" (suggesting that's what he uses with people he considers friends), and he usually only uses "I/me" when he is expressing a genuine emotion--ie, almost never. he uses "this one" to humble and formalize his speech when speaking to nobility or in an official capacity, but he also defaults to it when he's in the field. he is impressively cultured, well-read, and politically savvy, but he keeps those "this one"s generous when talking to others, especially high elves. being from merryvale, he has a fairly obvious northern accent, so he is happy to play the part of the lazy redneck sleaze he knows people will presume him to be--he counts on people underestimating his intelligence, and uses it to his advantage.

when the elder scrolls is great, it's because they don't shy away from depicting eg racism, they make their racism function accurately within the culture they have created, and the in-universe racism is fully baked right into "this one".

the cyrodiilic perspective is the in-universe cultural norm in tamriel, and the cyrodillic idea of what a khajiit is like would be informed by the khajiit they would most often interact (and racism). that would be farmers from rimmen and riverhold at a grain market, or baandari traders, who talk and act even more Like That and are even more ~exotic. so, it makes sense that an exaggerated northern accent with copious "this one"s is often used as a sign that someone is being lazy, dishonest, false, or patronizing. think of Pacrooti and Fezez; both have the obsequious khajiiti huckster manner of speaking, underscored by every over-the-top khajiiti idiom in the wiki. They never say "I" or "me", which means they are always referring to themselves in the third person, which in English implies deception. it tacitly admits you are using a persona with some separation from yourself and a good amount of falseness, especially if you let slip that you understand the concept of "I" well enough to insincerely call a stranger to whom you are trying to sell something "my friend." (Fezez even uses "khajiit" as a personal pronoun, which is part of the persona in his case, but also people still do talk that way a sometimes--it seems to be old-fashioned; mostly used by elderly folks, baandari, and people in truly remote backwaters.)

i feel like you can see what zerith var disliked about 'this one'. like, even setting aside the fact that as a person, he cannot comprehend a definition of 'I' that does not already contain within it the concept of the lunar lattice (which is azurah's love, which connects all khajiit to one another, even the ones whose souls were thought beyond saving.) like you can see where that alone would be incomprehensible to his understanding of his own existence. but even aside from that.

he is observing how people treat each other in this time, both good and bad. so he must see the ways khajiit experience racism, and how that racism differs from place to place. his life was such that he never even had to consider the unthinkable question of how to convey what 'I' means to you, let alone how to convey that in a language you now must speak for your own survival. like how do you explain 'when I am talking about myself, I mean me, this person who is honored to be part of an eternal whole, and so completely humbled to be a link in that lattice that they must speak of themself in the third person.' and like, my mans understands how they got there, but he also sees it getting mocked and associated with all the negative stereotypes of modern-day khajiit. which he also cannot help but see reflected in the actions of khajiit, both because he is now experiencing a multicultural society for the first time ever and thus seeing khajiit through an observer's eyes for the first time, and because you totally actually do meet plenty of khajiit who lean into that persona, in fact most khajiit in any type of merchant or service role, anyone who is trying to sell you something, throw some of it into their personality.

and now despite the fact that he is a two thousand year old monk with the power to resurrect the damned in order to offer them true peace, and he has been here for like twenty minutes, he's already felt the weight of 2000 years of history and 2000 years of racism by having to contend with the existence of that phrase. i get why he's like 'nah not for me'

anyway surely this is a normal amount of things to know and ways to feel about a simple phrase in a fictional language!

[krittikasurya]

Some thoughts on Krittka Nakshatra (originally posted on substack and twitter)

Krittika at its best really understands how to both simultaneously enjoy and appreciate things while also being able to give critical commentary and feedback, and I think a lot of people have a hard time wrapping their heads around this level of multifaceted behavior. In a world where black-and-white, all-or-nothing thinking is common and encouraged, people often forget that two things can be true at once. Krittika natives have the creativity and flexibility to understand and implement this “two truths at once” concept into their everyday lives. People think Krittika natives are being insolent or abrasive when the native is just simply speaking on what they’ve learned, gathered, observed and experienced and being straightforward about it…taking the data they’ve accumulated and turning it into something that’s easy to digest. Absolute truths rarely exist, and Krittika exposes the complexities we experience on both a collective and individual level.

Krittika’s goal isn’t to trash things necessarily. I think the goal Krittika natives have is to help themselves and others see things in a different, profound way. Offering refreshing perspectives on many different aspects of life is something the natives take pride in. The Martian influence of the Aries portion of the nakshatra makes one very analytical and strategic. Observing and learning through action and expeirnce, the Aries side of this nakshatra knows how to take things back to the drawing board. They understand that trial and error are some of the best teachers, and that there is always room for change. The Venusian influence of the Taurus portion gives the native discernment and good taste. The discriminatory nature of Venus leaves little to no room for indifference, especially when it comes to connections, arts, and culture. Venus appreciates excellence, and Krittika will accept nothing less. Krittika serves as the bridge between the sun’s (Identity) and the moon’s (Mind) exaltation points, giving both signs vast intelligence that manifests slightly different, but one thing remains the same: The sharp, quick witted nature of the nakshatra that seeks improvement within themsleves and the world around them. In today’s society, echo chambers are growing increasingly common, creating less nuance and mental flexibility, and more groupthink. From arts to politics, the effects of all-or-nothing thinking seems almost inescapable. Mediocrity is the acceptable normal, and Krittika is on a mission to change that.

When not channeled appropriately, Krittika natives can be high strung individuals, hypercritical of both themselves and others while forgetting to appreciate the beauty of life, and the beauty within themsleves. Some constantly feel the need to “shake the table” or say what they believe others are afraid to say, not fully realizing the implications of making ego driven “critiques.” Some “critiques” can be so ego driven, that they are dowright incorrect, mean or hateful in nature. They can be prone to tunnel vision and extreme anger, especially when they feel like their way is the only way. Krittikas can be demanding, exhibiting dictator-like control over their communities which can lead to a “walking on eggshells” feeling for the people around the native. It is imperative that Krittikas don’t lose sight on what’s important: not crossing the thin line between enlightening analysis, and downright negativity.

Krittika natives experience a lot of pleasure from giving critique as well, because they believe that there’s something really cool about being able to get others to think in ways they may not have before, and introduce various perspectives on any given subject. Krittika’s shakti (power) is to purify or burn away impurities, and sharing thier critical thoughts and assessments is one of the best ways to do it in today’s world. If we as a collective are going to consume things, Krittikas believe we can and should evaluate and question what we consume. Things should be questioned more. “Impurities” should be pointed out. The status quo should be challenged in all aspects of life.

Krittika isn’t scared to point out things that are flawed and it infuriates some individuals that Krittika natives don’t just sit and “go with the flow” all the time. Krittika has a burning lust for awareness of the world we live in. Krittika knows that sometimes there will be conflict, they’ll ruffle a few feathers and invoke certain emotions that make others feel uncomfortable, but when done tactfully that has the power to change the world (however big or small you consider your world to be).