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dreamofmysoul-tsc · 4 years ago

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Elias Carstairs, Matthew Fairchild, and the Disease of Alcoholism

I’m very nervous about posting this but I think it’s important.

Now before you guys scroll past this post, I’m gonna ask that whoever may read this take some time to hear from my perspective. I would like to preface this by saying that I do not know, nor am I claiming to know, what it’s like to face racism and prejudice everyday, nor do I know what it was like to be queer in a time that was less than accepting and terribly cruel to LGBTQIA+ folks. I will not be speaking about either of those things here, as it is not my place to. However, I do know what it’s like to live with an alcoholic. I do know what it’s like to have an alcoholic parent and I have seen what addiction does to a person and their family firsthand.

Final disclaimer, I am in no way trying to attack or target anybody. All I am doing is providing my own perspective when it comes to the discourse surrounding Elias Carstairs and the differing opinions I have seen in regards to Matthew. I would also like to state that my experiences are my own, and are in no way reflective of every addicts’ experience or the experiences of their children/loved ones. Addiction affects everybody differently.

I am also not a psychologist or a doctor; everything stated below are my personal experiences as a child of an alcoholic.

Now let’s get started.

CW for alcoholism, substance abuse, abuse in general, and death

Elias

When I first started Chain of Gold I didn’t anticipate how much I was going to relate to Alastair. Honestly, I didn’t have strong opinions about him either way; I didn’t hate him, but I didn’t love him either. That was until it was revealed why Elias was sick all the time, and what really happened during his mission. I have never seen alcoholism portrayed in a novel ever. I’m sure there are novels which talk about it out there, but I have never come across one. And for the first time in my life, I felt like somebody understood. There are countless characters in The Shadowhunter Chronicles who have touched my heart, but I will forever be grateful to Alastair and Cassandra Clare for making me feel like I didn’t have to hide anymore, that I was allowed to talk about my father’s alcoholism. Because for 18 years, it had been my secret. For my mother, it had been even longer.

My father has been an alcoholic for my entire life. I’m sure this is common sense for most people, but an alcoholic cannot be a 100% good and supportive parent. Those two things do not mix. Most alcoholics are alcoholics because of shame, pain, or other mental health problems that they have not sought therapy for. I would also like to say that alcoholism is a disease. It physically alters the brain to make the addict believe that they need to drink just as much as they need to eat or sleep. When you are constantly drunk, it can increase stress or anxiety in everyday life and leaves the addict at risk of developing depression if it was not already there. Many alcoholics suffer with depression, general low self esteem, or various other mental health problems before abusing alcohol; these problems are then exacerbated with daily alcohol consumption.

My father never abused us, mentally, physically, etc, and he never has. He carries a lot of mental pain and shame with him, which he has continually refused to seek help for. He drinks because he does not like himself; he feels that he isn’t deserving of help. He feels like he messes everything up. And as a child, I used to make excuses for him. “Well, he never hurts us, so what’s the problem?” “It doesn’t affect his work, so what’s the problem?” I was naive then. No matter how “functioning” they may seem, an alcoholic cannot live a completely healthy, happy, and fulfilling life if they drink everyday, even if it seemingly doesn’t affect their work lives. Alcoholics are very good at hiding their addiction. I cried when Cordelia described finding bottles in odd places, or when Alastair described how he tried everything in his power to hide it from his sister and their community. I used to find beer cans stashed under the kitchen sink. Sometimes I’d find them in the spice cabinet. I don’t like inviting friends to my house because I can never be sure if my dad will be 100% sober. I didn’t want people to see him that way. I don’t want to see him that way.

I have seen a decent amount of posts on various platforms of people wishing Elias dead or wanting him to be completely x-ed out of Alastair and Cordelia’s lives. And while I totally understand the protectiveness many people feel toward Alastair and Cordelia whenever their father is involved (I love them to pieces, too), as somebody who is a child of an alcoholic, I do not and would never wish my father dead. The thought of it makes me sick. Thus far, we know very little about Elias and his personality. We don’t know if he has ever physically harmed Alastair or Sona. This is not to invalidate mental or emotional abuse either, which are just as terrible. And while he does seem to be biased towards Cordelia, which in and of itself isn’t fair, there has been little evidence to show that Elias is violent or abusive. Of course Chain of Iron could prove me wrong, but as of now, I don’t want to immediately assume that Elias is abusive. Alcoholism does not equal abuse, although alcohol can be an expedient to violence. I do not want to invalidate the Carstairs’ experience if that is the case, but I do not want to jump to conclusions either. Of course you can call me lucky because my father has never harmed us in any way. But personally, I find that insulting. When a parent is an addict, regardless of whether or not they harm their children or how involved they are in their child’s life, they will end up leaving their child with mental scars whether it was intentional or not. My father’s addiction and the addictions of countless others cannot be measured on a scale. Addiction hurts everybody it touches, no matter how normal the addict may seem to the rest of the world.

I know this Elias section is already so long, but I have a bit more to say before I move on to Matthew. Alcoholics make choices, many of them poor choices. They decide whether or not to seek help. They decide to drink another beer. They decide to drive drunk, even if their child is in the car with them. It is a disease which completely takes over every single part of their life. And while it negatively affects their lives and the lives of their loved ones, that does not mean that they are undeserving of help. Any addict, whether they’re addicted to alcohol or heroin or cigarettes, anything at all, needs help. And they most definitely should not be mocked or attacked for their addiction or their attempts to get help for it. Regardless of whether or not they are in recovery or in the thick of their addiction, there is absolutely no reason to mock them. There is no reason to tell them to “just quit drinking.” There is no reason to call them a “junkie” or a “drunk,” no matter what stage of their addiction or recovery process they are in.

I am in no way excusing Elias’ behavior just as I in no way excuse my father’s behavior. He [Elias] needs to be punished for showing up to a mission drunk and consequently being unable to keep those four Shadowhunters from dying. He needs to apologize to his children. He needs to apologize to his wife. And he needs to recover. Addiction is an ugly, ugly thing. It never just affects the addict. It leaves their loved ones with scars, whether they’re mental of physical. Personally, I can’t stand the sound of metal beer or soda cans being cracked open anymore. I’m terrified of getting married. I can never feel 100% comfortable or safe around drunk people. I refuse to drink. I don’t like thinking about how the only time my dad has been 100% sober was when we visited my grandparents for a week and he had no opportunity to slip away to buy alcohol. I don’t like thinking about how my mother has had to deal with this for decades. I want my mother to be happier. But I also want my dad to recover. Living with an alcoholic isn’t black and white; I don’t hate my dad. I hate his addiction. I love him. He’s my dad. I don’t like seeing him that way. I know Alastair doesn’t like seeing his father that way either. But no matter how much you scream or cry or fight with somebody, people will not change unless they themselves want to.

Matthew

This section will be much more brief because many of my thoughts surrounding Matthew are similar to my thoughts surrounding Elias. I would like to touch on two things, however.

I have seen people talking about Matthew, or more specifically Matthew’s friends, saying that they don’t understand why they [The Merry Thieves and Co] seem to be ignoring Matthew’s alcoholism or aren’t doing anything about it even if they do realize he has problems with alcohol. Part of it is because of historical context; alcoholism wasn’t considered a disease until very recently, and the beliefs that alcoholics can either a) stop drinking whenever they want or b) are abusive, useless members of society still persist to this day. But the other, bigger part of it is relatively simple: people won’t change unless they believe they can change. Addicts need to want to change in order to begin the recovery process. You can’t force them to. If their heart isn’t in it, they’ll attend therapy or AA meetings a couple times to appease you, and then they will start drinking/using again. Or they’ll lie to you even more, telling you that they did attend a meeting or a therapy session when in reality they bought another pack of beer. Matthew will not seek help unless he believes wholeheartedly that he can change. He needs to believe that he is worthy of change and he needs to truly want to get better in order to begin to make significant improvements in his life. Of course relapses will happen, but the point is that he wants to improve his life. He wants to recover. No matter how much James or Thomas or Cordelia or Lucie tell him to change, no matter how much they want him to get better, he simply will not unless he wants to. It hurts. It really does. I’m not going to sugarcoat it. You can love somebody so, so much, but your love is not going to make them better. Your love will not magically make their addiction go away. To reiterate what I said about Elias earlier, you can scream and cry and fight and give them all of the love until you’re blue in the face, but if they don’t want help, they will not seek it out. Matthew needs help, but more importantly, he needs to come to the realization that he is deserving of that help. He is deserving of a successful recovery. Every addict is.

Lastly, there is something about Matthew and Cordelia’s relationship that has never sat right with me. Children of alcoholics are statistically more likely to get into a relationship or marry an alcoholic because it’s what feels “normal” to us. And while I have always wanted Matthew and Cordelia to become friends, part of this is the reason why I don’t want them to have a romantic relationship. I don’t want Cordelia to have to continue that cycle, never able to escape the effects of addiction. I want Matthew to focus on himself. I want him to recover. I want his friends to support him. I want both Matthew and Elias to have a successful recovery, because the amount of addicts who die from their disease every year is staggering and upsetting. Of course Matthew is deserving of love, but he needs to focus on recovering, both from his addiction and his trauma, before he puts all of his energy into a romantic relationship.

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Overall, I want Alastair to have time to be himself, to not have to carry the weight of his father’s addiction on his shoulders. I want Elias to recover and to apologize for how he has hurt his family, whether it was intentional or not. I want Matthew to forgive himself and to realize that he deserves to take up space in this world just as we all do. And I ask that you, whoever may be reading this, to try to feel a little more compassion for these characters and addicts you may know or meet in your life. Or to put yourself in their shoes and the shoes of their loved ones. We should not be mocking them, or hurting them, and we certainly should not be wishing death upon them. There are far, far too many addicts who have died because of their disease and their mental pain. When dealing with addicts or the loved ones of addicts, I ask that you try to support them and encourage them to seek help, whether it’s therapy or AA or any number of support groups. The effects of alcoholism and drug addiction will stick with the addict in recovery and their loved ones for the rest of their lives. Some days will be harder than others. But the important part is that, when those hard days come, they have a support system of therapists, family, friends, even people online to remind them why they are in recovery and to encourage them and their progress, no matter how small. An addict in recovery, no matter how slow or fast their progress may seem, is better than an addict who has died because they never sought out the help they desperately needed.

If you read through this entire thing, thank you! I really appreciate you taking the time to read through my personal experience. This topic is very important to me, and while I’m relatively new to tumblr, I still felt the need and the obligation to share my perspective. I’m not trying to sway your opinion of Matthew or Elias, just to maybe make some people think about this complex issue. If you aren’t a fan of either of them, that’s totally fine. If anything, what I would like you to take away from this is to be more aware of alcoholism and its effects. If something doesn’t seem right, speak up. I will be providing resources below if you or a loved one needs addiction counseling or help, or if you simply would like to learn more about this. If you have anything to add to this, would like to share your opinion, or have a question for me, feel free to reblog or message me in my ask box. Please be respectful, y’all! This is a sensitive topic and it affects everybody differently; I want this to be a civil discussion, not a witch hunt.

Thank you very much for reading and considering my point of view.

Resources:

What is Alcohol Use Disorder?

SAMHSA (a helpline)

Alcohol Rehab Guide (this website also includes educational resources and a helpline)

Substance Abuse Helplines and Treatment Programs

How Parental Alcoholism Affects Children

#tsc #tlh #matthew fairchild #elias carstairs #personal #just wanted to get my opinion out there #this has been nagging at me for a while #thanks for reading #this is as personal as im ever gonna get with yall i promise

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viciousgracearc · 4 years ago

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sh.adow & b.one thoughts ( contains spoilers! ) tw: racism ( this is just a thought dump and to explain why i’m not adapting the show’s racist elements in my portrayals )

disclaimer: just because i will not adapt the racist element as it appears in the show doesn’t mean i won’t acknowledge the book canon, in-universe prejudice and discrimination against the poc characters in grishaverse.

so. the racism in shadow and bone. having watched all of the show, i now have some mixed thoughts about it. in the books, alina is assumed to be white for the most part. it is only at the end when we ( or at least i ) suspected that she is not entirely ravkan, and then the casting confirmed it. the kind of racism alina ( and mal ) faced in the show was never a factor in the books, despite rampant anti-shu and anti-fjerdan sentiment. the suli are painted as people who are displaced and mostly neglected by the ravkan government, and definitely treated with prejudice, but as far as i recall there is no specific slur directed at them either in book canon.

however, whereas alina’s ethnicity is vague in the books, it is crystal clear in the show that she is a biracial woman. i know that for biracial folk, experiences vary across the board, especially if you’re a biracial person and an immigrant or a refugee. alina is a war orphan. her mother’s country of origin is at war with her current country of residence. to an extent, i understand the level of animosity ravkans have against people who look like the threat / the enemy. people of color face racism and prejudice day in and day out, sometimes from white people, sometimes from fellow people of color. this is a grim reality with a long and studied history of racism and racial superiority creating divides between minorities and pitting them against each other.

was the racism necessary to the plot? it definitely adds layers to it. you have an orphaned girl of color in a mostly white people country. they discriminate against her and her best friend for most of her life, using slurs such as “rice-eater” and “half-breed”. but this country has a huge problem, and it turns out only this orphaned girl of color can save them from it, despite them alienating her consistently. now they need her help, now they call her a saint. this girl, who based on show-canon, feels so different and abnormal from the rest of her peers because her ethnicity is always pointed out and considered a bad thing. now she has to be a hero for a country that despises her... and not only that, now she has to do it under the tutelage of a white man. white man looks older than her; there is an obvious imbalance in their power dynamic, but he looks at her like his hope come at last and places her on a pedestal she doesn’t ask for. this same white man puts a collar around her neck and then effectively subjugates her by taking control of her power.

it... it kinda sounds bad, doesn’t it? it does. “but wait,” the volcra screeches. “via, are you fucking stupid?” it asks. “that’s not how the story ends! she overcomes!”

well, yes. but does it really make the rest of it any less insidious? alina is denied food, consistently picked on, and mocked, for being half-shu. it is prevalent in her show storyline and difficult to ignore. and thus it will be woven into everything that happens to her, and every decision that she makes will in turn, make us, the viewers, look back on it even if she herself doesn’t do so explicitly. i know the intent of including this racism element into her ( and mal’s ) story is to portray an accurate depiction of the POC experience as they maneuver white or mostly white spaces, or just spaces not catered to their specific ethnicity. but does it work? is it necessary? the irregulars, which is also a netflix show, did a great job at casting a young chinese woman in a lead role and a black man as dr. john watson without ever having to define their characters or their capabilities to move in the world by their race alone. as a half-chinese woman myself, it was empowering to watch a chinese girl able to take the lead and make bold statements and brave decisions without ever being bogged down by the limitations of her race.

at the end of the day, it is a fantasy world. do you think if the racism isn’t there, the story’s going to be worse off than it is? personally, if they left it out, i think the story will be just fine. there are a lot of things that tie these characters together outside of their racial struggles, like... i don’t know, personality? circumstances? the need to save their country from a powerful tyrant? the struggle for survival in a constantly at-war nation? there is also the fact that this racism element they’ve introduced is inconsistent. so much directed against alina and mal because they want the viewers to sympathize with these two characters. some of it directed towards inej, another protagonist, whose story has a lot to do with how she was exploited because she is suli. but where’s the racism directed at zoya? at botkin? if there’s racism against the shu and if they call them rice-eaters, where’s the anti-fjerdan racism and what do they call fjerdans? ice-shavers? cold-dwellers? aren’t fjerdans ravka’s enemies too? but oh wait... fjerdans are white. nevermind.

speaking of zoya: in the books, especially in RoW, it was implied that she is white-passing, which is why she was never treated differently for being suli. however, show!zoya is NOT white-passing at all. she is very obviously a woman of color, and while i acknowledge that yes, poc can be racist against poc, i don’t really see zoya -- bully, mean girl, attention-starved, ambitious, ruthless zoya -- resulting to such a low blow. sujaya dasgupta herself admitted that in show canon, zoya experiences racism ( though it was never explicitly shown to us ), and consciously turns it against alina in the hopes of hurting another woman of color. don’t get me wrong, zoya is definitely a terrible person at the start of the series. she was classist and mean and she had a superiority complex, and that superiority complex comes from being a powerful grisha, something she worked hard for. she thinks alina doesn’t belong in the little palace, not because alina is shu, but because alina appears out of nowhere, is untrained but is already considered powerful / the solution to everyone’s problem, and has nabbed her old place as the darkling’s favored. the “you stink of keramzin” jab is more than enough to drive her point home and i don’t think “half-breed” is necessary at all. besides, from what it looked like, alina isn’t the only mixed-race grisha. grisha comes from all over, taking refuge in ravka because they’re the only nation that treats their grisha under acceptable conditions. so one would expect some diversity there, which zoya, having been at the little palace since age 9, would have been used to by now. i don’t really think there’s a lot of incentive for her in using a racial slur, and she’s lethal enough with words that she doesn’t need them to injure somebody.

“via, stop barking and tell us what you’re going to adapt in your portrayal!”

okay, well. personally, i’m not interested in including the show’s racist element in any of my characters’ storyline ( alina, zoya, mal, ehri ). i acknowledge the anti-shu, anti-fjerdan, and anti-suli sentiments as they appear in book canon, but i will not use alina’s ethnicity as the basis of her “otherness” because i like the book canon explanation for that better. nor will i acknowledge that zoya called alina a half-breed, because my zoya is not white-passing zoya, and she knows infinitely better ways to inflict verbal harm than racism. zoya will also be grappling with being half-suli because she was exposed to anti-suli sentiments by her own mother as a young child.

all my characters are of asian-adjacent ethnicities, and as an asian person myself, do you really think i am interested in reliving my traumatic racism experiences through the characters that i write in a fantasy world? with alina especially, it’s like she couldn’t breathe without someone pointing out that she’s half-shu. i think as much as it is important to show authentic poc experiences in art and media, it is also equally important to show poc solidarity, and to stop defining people by their race alone and to just let them exist as people.

it doesn’t help that the show’s way of depicting racism is gratuitous, insulting, and feels like it’s catered more towards the white gaze than... you know, actual POC viewers? i understand people will disagree with me on this and that’s fine. this is just how i feel. given that shu-han as a nation didn’t even feature much in the books and we don’t know ANYTHING about them in a cultural context aside from the fact that their appearance is coded as east asian, the discrimination towards them really just hinges on shallow factors like how they look, what they eat ( ???? ), and how they are viewed as ravka’s enemy. it boils down to an east vs. west type of scenario ( and considering the barrage of anti-asian sentiment in our current political climate it’s... questionable at the very least ), and the racism element is not a profound expression of the poc experience but more like... a caricature version of it, once again, in my opinion.

“via, i can’t believe you used that many words trying to tell us you won’t include the racism in your portrayal.”

hey, i know. but a girl be having thoughts, a girl’s two brain cells be rubbing together, you know? this is me deep cleansing my brain by yoting my thoughts into the void. but yes, this is my take! i understand if you don’t feel the same way, but i just... i can’t feature the racist elements of the show in my blog, sorry (not really).

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

#* ic. / headcanons #headcanon: alina starkov #headcanon: zoya nazyalensky #headcanon: malyen oretsev #headcanon: ehri kir taban #racism tw #sab spoilers #asian ppl who disagree are valid #& pls remember not to tell POC what they can be iffy abt #also this seems like a lot of thoughts i just had to put them somewhere #shadow and bone spoilers

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panharmonium · 4 years ago

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round 3 of in-progress naruto thoughts, featuring me crying tears about pretty much everybody

[spoiler policy disclaimer first, as always: i’m only still in the early stages of shippuden (we just finished the asuma arc). i literally had zero interest in naruto growing up, so i remain unspoiled for virtually everything that happens past this point. i would love to stay that way, so please don’t interact with this (tags included, because the notifications now show them to me automatically) with any spoilery commentary, including even general things like “oh i love this show but it gets less good after X point” or “X season is better than Y season” or any general assessments of quality/likability/etc re: future seasons. Thank you! <3 ]

- well, folks. i have apparently reached the point in my viewing experience where i am deeply emotionally attached to virtually all of the characters and i care when bad stuff happens to even the most minor of them, because the asuma arc really ripped my heart out and used my feelings as ping-pong balls

- that said - i have to admit, if you’re going to kill a character, that was the way to handle it. it wasn’t glossed over or dropped like a hot potato; it had a huge arc attached to it and major development for the other characters involved and it came full circle at the end in such a quiet, complete way. i was hoping from the very beginning that the answer to “who’s the king” was going to be “children” (all i could think about was asuma yelling at kazuma “children aren’t pawns to protect the king!” during the sora arc) and ultimately that ended up being true, and i found that so satisfying. (painful. but satisfying.)

- SHIKAMARU. HERO. i always loved him, but what an incredible arc he had. and that episode, “team 10″ - WOW. wow. they really kicked it up a notch for that one - that was legitimately beautiful television, not just “good by naruto standards.” gorgeous animation/composition/editing...this show is in fact capable of magic, when it takes its time.

- grow up, you three. the shadow of death hangs over us all. some deaths may be harder to accept than others, but if you can’t get past that, there can be no future!

^^ this is legitimately my favorite line of the series. i can’t stop thinking about it. i love how tsunade is speaking from her own experience, and how she’s not wrong - nobody in this confrontation is wrong, really; shikamaru has his stuff more together than tsunade realizes, and tsunade is just telling the truth, and i just love how this entire line relates so closely to the thematic heart of this arc, which is the sanctity of children and the future they represent. like...so many characters in this show have seen so much death and tragedy, but we see children/the promise of the future pulling people out of that hole and back into a hopeful place. it’s literally tsunade’s whole story with naruto. she’s speaking from the heart, and it’s one of those lines that you can feel resonate across the whole story.

- kakashi, once again, coming to destroy me with his level of devotion to the kids. not even his own kids, this time. when he shows up at the end of “team 10″ and offers to take over for asuma and go with shikamaru’s group - i lost my mind. he’s been keeping an eye on those kids the whole time. nobody told him about what they were doing; he has no reason to be out at the gates at that time of night - he’s been keeping tabs on them. he knows exactly what they’re going through. he knows how they must feel. he wants to make sure they’re okay. and when he sees that they’re in an appropriate frame of mind for what they’re planning (aka, not unbalanced by rage or grief or the desire for revenge), he immediately offers himself up as an adult support figure. he inserts himself into that situation and assumes responsibility for making sure nobody gets hurt. he puts himself into a position where he can escort them through this experience safely (in more ways than one). he lets shikamaru take the lead and achieve closure, all while simultaneously monitoring the situation to make sure every choice the group makes is the safest, smartest thing to do. and then in the battle, he puts himself in between the kids and certain death over and over again - he saves their lives so many times.

the kids are so grateful to him for doing that. they respect him so much for it. they feel supported. they feel looked after. they feel validated. three kids who just lost their adult mentor in such a sudden, violent way - for them to have another grown-up step in and temporarily assume that role, for them to feel a pair of capable, steady hands propping them up before they fall down - that is so important!

kakashi is beautiful to me because he takes every horrible thing that ever happened to him and turns it into an unwavering commitment to help other people navigate the same rocky waters. everything he does is designed to catch people when they fall, particularly when it comes to children. he doesn’t have to take that kind of interest in asuma’s team. none of the other adults are monitoring them like that. but he understands what they’re dealing with and he knows they could hurt themselves if somebody doesn’t take care of them and so he steps in and assumes that responsibility himself. and then he does the same thing with team 8′s kids, too, in the next arc, when kurenai is out of commission. he takes all of his own painful experiences and turns them into ways he can protect other people from stumbling into the same pits he fell into, and i’ll tell you this for damn sure - he’d rather take a deadly hit himself than allow another cohort of children to be wiped off the face of the earth before their time.

i love that about him. i love that he turns all of the trouble he’s seen into ways he can be a source of strength for others. i love that he is always thinking about the kids. that’s the whole point of this arc: children are king. kakashi knows that just as well as asuma did, and the way he consistently throws himself in front of the children to keep them safe is my favorite thing about him.

- fucking LOVE that shikamaru turns down the feudal lord’s offer because he wants to stay in the village in case his friends need him. i feel like this kind of choice is never portrayed as a good thing in media - it’s always shown to be better to get yourself out there, try something new, leave old things behind, take a risk, make a change, as if staying home is somehow the same thing as settling or wasting your potential. i love how asuma lifts up shikamaru’s decision to stay rooted in his home as a worthy and admirable thing. the will of fire, indeed.

- the EMOTIONS i felt every time kakashi was helping naruto figure out how to complete the rasengan....when kakashi tells him “i truly believe you are the only shinobi who can surpass the fourth hokage” and then while walking away yamato’s all “you sweet-talked him” and kakashi immediately sets him straight like “no. no. i believe he can do it.” SOBBING.

- “good old asuma. he must’ve known you inside and out, huh?” i’ll be over here crying in the club, folks

- kakashi having conversations with sasuke in his head was Too Much for me ;__;

- we watched a bit past the asuma arc and are now into the part about the gemstone lady but the only thing i have to say about this new arc so far is about jiraiya and honestly i’m going to have to gif it to do it justice. that scene with him and naruto where naruto falls asleep on him just...struck me down where i sat. i was actually about ready to cry for real. my feelings couldn’t take it. i used to not really care too much about jiraiya in the shonen jump days (and yes, there’s some stupid stuff with him that you have to just look past if you’re going to enjoy things) but i love him so much now and i am finding myself so moved by the way he is rejoining the village and (re)building his connections with the people there, and how much meaning has been brought back into his life by the opportunity to work with naruto in particular, and how like...i mean, this is just my own impression, because i haven’t seen his full backstory yet, but he strikes me as someone who’s been running away for a long time, who had very little hope for the future, someone who experienced some terrible things and gave up, just like tsunade, until he runs into naruto. and now things have changed for him, and it warms my heart to see it. i love watching him take naruto on training field trips, and i love the depth of care we see from him towards naruto now - a far cry from the “i don’t like kids” of early shonen jump. i love seeing him collaborate with kakashi - tag-teaming their teaching and climbing in through the window to check on him in the hospital and teasing him about how silly he looks with a sheet over his nose. i’ve just become so touched by his progression and by the way the establishment of these relationships with “his” kids and the village as a whole (bonds, connections, all the things that this show can’t shut up about) has almost been a...healing sort of thing for him and has changed his entire outlook on life and given him a new sense of hope/meaning.

like. i can’t believe i am out here having jiraiya emotions after how little i cared about him when i first met him, but...here i am.

#pan watches naruto #naruto

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linkspooky · 5 years ago

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Shigaraki’s Self Perception

So a lot of people are taking Shigaraki’s flashback for his word, and using it as proof that Shigaraki was a genuinely destructive child who wished for or even enjoyed his family’s destruction. While yes there are cases of abused children who are pushed to a breaking point and resort to murder to escape their abusive situations, I think it’s important to address Shigaraki’s flashback with nuance for what is clearly an emotionally confused and traumatizing situation.

People forget that for a long time this has been the narrative set for Shigaraki. That he’s only capable of destruction, and that he must have wanted it to be that way to have been born with such a quirk. It’s a narrative that other people (Chisaki, All for One, Redestro) attempt to force onto Shigaraki, but also one Shigaraki has accepted for himself.

Narrative identity. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The theory of narrative identity postulates that individuals form an identity by integrating their life experiences into an internalized, evolving story of the self that provides the individual with a sense of unity and purpose in life.

Basically, it’s interpreting a series of events connected to each other as if they are flowing in a story. It’s basically the way you see the story of your life, Shigaraki is a unique case where he defines himself as a villain and an antagonist. Shigaraki fully embraces the fact that he’s a negative, and destructive person in ways most people would avoid. However, as stories are made up fiction just because they are Shigaraki’s perceptions does not make them 1:1 with reality. Shigaraki’s narrative is a false one he’s embraced, and understanding that can help us understand how Shigaraki sees the world.

1. Tenko Shimura is not an Omniscient Narrator

A common mistake that people make in writing and reading child characters is that they assume that they have the same thinking and reasoning capacity as adults. This is because most people cannot remember being teenagers, let alone children. A lot of people assume children are intentionally choosing to be bad or unreasonable, when really they just cannot reason or communicate the same way that adults can and the adults aren’t trying to bridge the gap in any significant capacity.

And it’s clear that Horikoshi is writing these child characters with the intention to actually portray them as children as accurately as he can, because he even mentions this directly in the text of the narration. That kids think differently than most adults expect them too.

So before going into Tenko’s perceptions of the events of the last two chapters, let’s briefly touch upon child psychology. Jean Piaget’s stages of development, is a psychological a study of cognitive development that divides a child’s brain developing into four stages sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational.

Tenko is about five years old at the time of his most formative trauma, which puts him in the preoperatonal stage. While children begin to speak, think and interact with the world Piaget noted they do not yet think logically the same way adults do.

Piaget noted that children in this stage do not yet understand concrete logic, cannot mentally manipulate information, and are unable to take the point of view of other people, which he termed egocentrism. [x]

Because they do not understand concrete logic yet, children instead depend on perception of the environment around them. That’s why children are influenced so much in their formative years by the houses they grow up in, because they simply don’t have the capacity for thinking things through with internal logic yet.

From the age of about 4 years until 7 most children go through the Intuitive period. This is characterized by egocentric, perception-dominated and intuitive thought which is prone to errors in classification (Lefrancois, 1995).

So let’s touch on these two concepts perception-dominated and egocentrism briefly before I use them to explain how Shimura Tenko sees the world.

Egocentrism is the inability to understand that other people have different perspectives, thoughts, feelings and mental states. There’s a difference between an adult being egocentric and simply not caring to understand other people as three dimmensional individually operating entities with their own thoughts and feelings, and children lacking that capability because their brains are literally not developed enough to perceive it. This is something proven with literal experiments, a child cannot imagine a mountain from another person’s point of view on the opposite side of the mountain because they can only imagine seeing the mountain from the angle they are currently standing at.

A child is led to believe that everyone thinks as they do, and that the whole world shares their feelings and desires. Therefore the child assumes automatically that they are the omnipotent narrator, because everybody thinks the same way they do. This is perception-dominated they define the world entirely by what they observe in their own perception, without reasoning through it.

Let’s just use a quick example. Let’s say you are an adult and somebody tells you that you’re bad at math. As an adult you can think of evidence inside your own head to compare what somebody else tells you to be the truth, against your own personal truth and experiences. Well, I got an A in calculus so I don’t think I’m bad at math therefore that person must be saying something false. You reason through this conclusion by comparing it against your own self image and you also understand the difference between how other people perceive you and how you perceive yourself. For children it’s not nearly as distinct, and their perception is much more messy and lacking in this ability to think through and reason. If a child is continually told something, because all of their views are based off of perception rather than evidence based reasoning and logic a child will come to believe it.

"Realism" is the child's notion that their own perspective is objective and absolute. The child thinks from one perspective and regards this reality as absolute.

So, children will make the mistake of assuming there is an absolute reality out of something that is their own personal perception. Just as a quick example, let’s say that they go to greet the mail man, and the mail man doesn’t say hi back. A child will jump to the assumption (the mail man hates me now because he’s ignoring me) based off of what is only their own personal perception. Whereas an adult might consider, oh the mail man is tired today, or maybe they didn’t hear me, because they consider the perceptions of other people as well.

So you cannot trust Shimura Tenko’s assessment of his own memories, not because they’ve been manipulated in some way, but because the narrative of them has been manipulated and Shigaraki does not even allow himself the nuance that he was just a child, and children think differently from adults.

So Shimura Tenko, is at the same time more perceptive of his environment than the adults realize, but also less perceptive than we as the readers give him credit. Kids are sneakier than you expect, but also more simple. He’s perceptive in the fact that he understands that there is something wrong in the household, and that he is being unfairly blamed and made the scapegoat and the other adults are not really doing anything about it.

Tenko however, does not understand basically anything about the nuance of abuse or even what the adults are thinking. All he knows is what he perceives of what the adults are thinking. He only understands his own emotions, and his own reactions to how other people treat him.

Which is why Shimura views the way the adults treat him as rejection. We know that it’s mainly the father of the household trying to control everybody, and the mother, and two in-laws for their own reasons don’t stand up to him the way that they should for reasons we are not quite given, but I assume it has to do with Kotaro being the patriarch of the household and probably bringing in most of the money and defining the rules.

Shimura does not understand any of this, he feels tension from the environment and feels that he is being persecuted but cannot understand the reason behind his persecution.

He probably does not even understand that Nana blamed him for sneaking into the study because she was too afraid that she would get hit, because Tenko cannot perceive people’s internal emotions he can only read their outside actions.

So Tenko is in a situation where he is abused, and rather than either standing up to the abuser, everyone else in his family who Tenko understands to be otherwise very kind and gentle people to him, seem to be siding with the abuser, the person hurting him rather than him. As they tell him to stop crying rather than trying to stop the person making him cry. That sends a message that he was wrong for crying in the first place. They give justification for the way the abuser acts instead of stopping the abuse, therefore saying that Tenko is being rightly punished for provoking the abuser.

Tenko’s perception is then that Tenko himself is the bad child, and that he really is the one causing all the trouble in the household and he deserves to be punished. This is an assumption a lot of abused children make. That it’s their fault they are the one being abused.

Tenko believes that the adults were right, that he was a bad child and that was why they always took his father’s side, rather than trying to defend him. He then takes the leap of assuming that he must have been bad from the beginning and secretly have wanted what was obviously a freak accident.

This is narrative justifying what is otherwise a situation that Tenko had little to no control over. It’s like saying that a city was destroyed by an earth quake because god was punishing them for being sinful. It’s using bias and retrospect, to retroactively give cause and purpose to what was otherwise a random tragedy.

This is not only what Shigaraki has been told all his life but also what he believes. That he wants to be this way, that he wants to destroy things. That he was this rotten all along.

This is future Shigaraki narrating his own bias on his past memories, and it’s clearly and deliberately different from the series of events we are so graphically shown, which is Tenko panicking and apologizing with clearly no idea with what is happening.

A lot of people are asking why we were shown this in such graphic detail when we literally already know what happened to his family and were told several times. Well, here is why. Manga and comics are a storytelling medium that use sequential art and text, the art is contradicting the text and this is purposeful.

Even the one person Tenko might have intentionally killed here is what happened.

Tenko begs his father for help, because despite being on the receiving end of the abuse Tenko still perceives that they are family. Remember Tenko has always blamed himself for provoking Kotaro, not Kotaro for taking out his own personal issues on his son.

While his son is crying and begging for help, rather than try to calm him down Kotaro’s first action is to literally try to stab him with a garden tool.

And then, and only then do we see Shimura move from asking for help to attacking the person in front of him. It is self defense at that point. Not only does Tenko literally have no idea what’s going on because of his childlike perceptions, he only understands that someone is trying to kill him, and that his father who he’s begging for help isn’t going to help him. I wouldn’t even say it’s lashing out the way Shigaraki describes it, like he purposefully killed him with cold blooded hatred and intent to murder because his father attacked him and tried to kill him first.

And here we get narrative again. “I must have wanted this to happen” and “this only happened because I was a bad child and a curse on this household” Tenko takes all the blame on himself for destroying things, when several things were out of his control. It’s literally a reckoning three generations ago of bad and selfish decisions made by adults and forced onto him. Of Nana’s decision to abandon her child. Of Kotaro’s decision on how to run his household and take his issues out on a literal child rather than try to face his own pain. But Tenko does not understand that and in an attempt to give reason and agency to random trauma he takes the blame on himself instead. Because blaming yourself makes you feel less powerless in a way.

Tenko never wants to be a crying victim begging for help again because the most traumatizing moment in his life was knowing that nobody would help him when he needed it. So he absolutely refuses to see himself as a victim in anyway, and not only that but the environment around Shigaraki has been telling him over and over again this is the case.

Like, Shigaraki clearly did not commit genuine cold blooded murder on his father. Even though it was literally a case of self defense not only does Shigaraki apologize to his father’s hand years later, over and over again, but he also carries Kotaro’s hand directly on his face. It’s exactly the opposite, Shigaraki feels so much guilt over what happened that he literally not only repeats his father’s worse punishment on him (a slap to the face) symbolically but he’s still apologizing to him.

This is something that Shigaraki’s environment, but also All For One tries to convince him of again and again. That he is an unfeeling and hollow person. That he must have been a bad and destructive child to control his household like this.

It’s also something that Shigaraki embraces about himself as a coping mechanism. That he really must enjoy all this destruction. That he must have wanted to be this way for things to turn out this way. That he really is not capable of being anything else.

It’s how Shigaraki has survived until this point, but it’s a mindset that ultimately harms him in the end. Shigaraki cannot grasp a future, he cannot grasp an end goal. He defines himself as someone who only intends entirely to destroy and keep lashing out, but he’s so reckless that he has literally zero self value in himself and barely protects himself when he’s fighting.

In other words he’s going to end up like Deku. He’s just going to break himself in needless self destruction if he keeps on this path. Not because of what Re-destro says that Shigaraki has to justify his actions and become some kind of weird terrorist who believes in his cause with cult like dedication but rather Shigaraki is still letting other people completely define how he is. In order to gain self esteem, and self worth, he has to take the next step in defining himself and what he wants and that means rejecting what other people define him as fully.

This is something All For One intentionally did, he raised Shigaraki to exist to hate All Might and carry on All for One’s Legacy. Of course All for One would influence him not to develop any desires of his own besides existing to do what All for One intends of him. And the number one way to stop that is to stunt Shigaraki to the point that he cannot define himself, and his own wants and needs as an individual.

But, Shigaraki in his interactions of the league has obviously developed into his own person with his own way of doing things outside of All for One’s intentions for him, my argument is not that Shigaraki is entirely manipulated by All for One and has no free will but rather that Shigaraki perceives himself as only existing that way and needs to change his perception to truly reach the next step in his development as an individual.

Okay, and one last note to the people pointing out that Shigaraki is laughing in response to this situation and therefore some part of him must be genuinely enjoying this.

People don’t seem to understand trauma response unless it’s presented in the most conventional way possible, ie someone crying and begging for help. Sometimes people laugh when they’re going insane rather than cry, it’s just a different way of coping.

2. Eri

We were also shown how children see and justify their own abuse with Eri, who is around the exact same age as Shigaraki. People might argue that Eri’s abuse was more extreme, but one it’s not a compettition, and two Shigaraki was kidnapped by All for One afterwards and grew up in a mad scientist’s basement. To cap this off let me show you that Eri had the exact same limited perception of reality that Tenko did.

If somebody else tried to save her, and Chisaki killed them Eri automatically understood that it was her fault that Chisaki killed them. Because she cannot perceive Chisaki as an individual who intends harm towards her, she only understands her own perception of reality and her own ego.

Eri genuinely believes what Chisaki tells her, because children base their entire reality out of what they perceive around them. She has no kind of logic that can question it, and until somebody else tells her otherwise she accepts what Chisaki says is true. That she’s to blame, that she’s the one forcing him to act this way.

Tenko and Eri are both raised in environments where they are never made safe or protected. Tenko’s father literally tries to murder him when Tenko is begging for his help. Chisaki aims for her on purpose and says he can just rebuild her. They view themselves as expendable, because that is how they were treated and in general exhibit low self regard.

So we show them exhibit the same symptoms. The both of them not wanting to be saved. The both of them taking personal blame for the harm that others cause around them.

As Chisaki said, it is easier to take the pain on yourself, then to accept the idea that bad things just sometimes happen, because people are bad, or sometimes for no reason at all as freak accidents. It’s actually way easier for Eri to genuinely believe that she is cursed because she takes agency in that, then to realize all the adults in her life have failed her because then she is reduced to a crying child. Children who are victims of abuse use narrative as a way of grasping at agency in any way they can.

And, Eri genuinely cannot perceive anything than the reality that she knows until other people come into her life and show her another way. She genuinely believes the same way Tenko did that on some level to have developed such a quirk she must have wanted it.

She doesn’t believe that it’s a kindhearted quirk until someone tells her it.

People want to intentionally misunderstand this because Tenko does not present himself as a traditional victim. He’s not a crying girl begging for help, and telling others not to get hurt for her sake the same way Eri was, even though Eri displays the exact same unhealthy ways of thinking that Tenko did.

So Tenko’s narrations cannot be taken as objective, because they are just not. Tenko uses narrative the same way other characters do, he just uses the opposite narrative of others he chooses to see himself as villain in his own fate rather than victim.

#shigaraki tomura #mha meta #shigaraki meta #league of villains #tenko shimura #my hero academia meta #boku no her academia meta #bnha meta #league of villains meta #eri #shigaraki and eri #meta

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atlantic-riona · 5 years ago

Note

1, 2, 5-8

1. Describe your comfort zone—a typical you-fic.

It swings between a story with friendship/family dynamics, lots of humor mixed with drama, and ultimately a happy ending, and a story that’s philosophical, vaguely terrifying and/or depressing, and ultimately bittersweet/scary.

…The former tends to be longer stories, while the latter tends to be my short stories. I have no idea what that says about me!

2. Is there a trope you’ve yet to try your hand at, but really want to?

I would love to try my hand at writing faeries. I feel like a lot of modern stuff I’ve read tends to either crib off of Tolkien or be really badly done/uninspired (although for an excellent, wonderful interpretation of faeries, everybody reading this should go read @hobbitsetal‘s Mute, because it’s amazing and I will never stop talking about it).

However, I’m not sure that I could do it well? I don’t know. I have vague plans for something similar to faeries in The Raven’s Return, but these might get adapted as time goes on.

ALSO I would really want to try an arranged marriage story because secretly I ADORE them. it’s just!! their marriage is arranged!! but then!!! they fall in LOVE

5. Share one of your strengths.

I feel like dialogue is a strength of mine? It’s really easy for me to write, at any rate!

6. Share one of your weaknesses.

Description. I really struggle to write description. I’m never sure if I’ve overdone it, underdone it, or what.

7. Share a snippet from one of your favorite pieces of prose you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

A solitary figure stands forlorn, silhouetted against the sunset. The mass of curls on her head burns in the dying light, like a sputtering fire. It’s her. Helen of Troy.

“I know that’s what they call me,” Helen says without moving. Her gaze is fixed on the carnage below. Cassandra hadn’t meant to speak aloud, but now that she has…

She moves closer and Helen speaks again. “They used to call me Helen of Sparta.” Her lovely, hated, adored face remains turned away, shadowed and sorrowed. “And my husband–”

“Which one?” Cassandra interrupts, having assumed a careless position of relaxed leaning against the battlements, one elbow propping up her chin. At the tenseness of the other woman’s shoulders, she shrugs and looks away. “I mean, there are so many of them.” Despite the laxness of her appearance, her muscles are thrumming like a just-fired arrow. This woman is bringing murder and grief to her city, all for the sake of her stupid affair. Cassandra has no interest in hearing any sad story from this woman. Sad stories won’t resurrect the dead or comfort their grieving wives.

Helen turns to face her then. Cassandra stares coolly back at her. She’s beautiful, indeed, but beautiful like a snake. Cassandra has experience with snakes.

“Do you know what it’s like?” Helen of Troy asks her, advancing. “To have never had a choice?”

Cassandra says nothing, because her breath has been stolen away. As with Scáthach, though, she does not retreat. She is no coward.

“All my life,” Helen says, “I have been a prize. A prize to be fought over. First, I was a prize to Theseus at the tender age of seven. My brothers stormed his stronghold and won me back, and so I was again a prize for my father. Then I was a prize for all the kings of Greece. And so that no one would feel insulted, I was not left to choose one out of all of them. Instead my would-be husbands drew straws. And the man who won was not even there to claim me, his winnings–his brother was.”

“You’re still a prize,” Cassandra interrupts, taking a step forward. “Don’t you realize? You’re a prize that Aphrodite granted to my brother for saying that she was the most beautiful goddess. You’re still a prize, so why do it? Why give in to it? Why is it better to be a prize over here, in Troy–why is it better to destroy my city as Paris’ prize than to live quietly with your daughter as Menelaus’ prize? Tell me.”

The crows circle overhead. Helen remains still, frozen like carved ice. A moment later, when she moves, it is like ice shearing off to reveal a storming sea. “Because,” she says, her eyes reflecting the carnage below, “because I have chosen to be here. It may be my destiny to eternally be someone’s prize; but I’ll be damned if I don’t choose who wins me.” A single tear falls. It shatters on the stone like glass. “And I thought you might understand,” she says, “because you’re god-touched too.”

______

I really like this one because it was one of the few times in my life where the descriptions were exactly what I wanted, with barely any editing at all. I also like it because Helen of Troy and Cassandra have fascinated me for, like, ever and I always thought they were such intriguing characters to play with.

Like, Helen can be written as a victim or as a villain or somewhere in between (and when you read the Iliad, it’s pretty obvious that Aphrodite’s heavily involved and making Helen do stuff she doesn’t want to, but also Helen’s life has basically been plotted for her since the beginning–she’s the daughter of Zeus, she’s been kidnapped by Theseus, she’s going to be married off and she’s the most beautiful woman in all of Greece–who’s to say that maybe at the beginning, she chose to do something for herself? I think for this version I went a little more ‘ice queen’ and ‘selfish’ than how I would read the actual Helen in the Iliad, but I do think she can be seen that way). And for Cassandra–is she mad? Is she trapped? Is she going mad? (Wouldn’t you, if you could see everything that was coming, but nobody listened to you, and you couldn’t stop it?)

In I See It Crimson, I See It Red, I was playing with the idea of fate and destiny, and whether it was even possible to have free will if you could see the future and your destiny, so Helen was kind of an example of knowing one’s destiny but making a different choice.

Also, this was a really fun twist to write, because for the earlier parts of the story, Cassandra hates Helen, and Helen gets portrayed extremely negatively, but here, Helen makes the point that she and Cassandra are not so different–both of them have gods meddling with their lives–so that was something I really liked.

8. Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

“You shouldn’t curse people,” he said firmly. “That’s wrong.”

Great. The Raven had standards. “Sorry,” she said, getting up and brushing her knees off, “not all of us had the luxury of morals in the recent past.”

Milon was still warm to the touch when she pressed her hand to his forehead—a little cooler than before, or was that wishful thinking?

“I only meant,” came the Raven’s voice behind her, “that it’s not right. You shouldn’t have to hurt people for money.”

“Are you any better?” she shot back without turning around. “Seems to me you do the same thing, only a little more violently—that’s right, I heard about the massacre in Arciun. A little bit before my time here, true, but the others are still talking about it even now. How many people had to die for the money you and Noz gained?”

“That’s different. Those people—they deserved it.” Almost to himself, he muttered, “King’s blood, you should have seen what they’d done.”

“Oh, but the brother that screwed over his family didn’t? The drunkard who beat his wife and children didn’t? The wife who cheated on her husband and laughed at him when he cried didn’t? The girl who tormented every other child in her village until they were reduced to tears didn’t? At least I don’t kill all of my victims.”

He came over to look down at Milon. “Those Valaviri nobles in Arciun—they kept slaves. They’d practically enslaved everyone else, too. The children were starving. There were—” He stopped, cleared his throat. “There were more orphans than adults. The nobles had killed their parents for resisting, or sent them off to prison—and worse, in that prison, they’d be—” Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes. “I met the prisoners from Arciun. In prison, where we were all waiting to be killed. If you had heard their stories—” He broke off. “And we didn’t kill everyone, either. That’s a lie. Only the ones who were responsible.”

“And that justified making their children in turn orphans? Taking their wealth so they could take their own turn at starving?”

The Raven felt Milon’s forehead and bent over to listen to his breathing. “We didn’t take all of their money,” he argued as he straightened. “We left them enough to live on. More than enough.”

“Oh, yes, so very generous of you—leaving scared children in a province full of people looking to exact however many years of pent-up vengeance upon somebody. Noz feed you that line?” One of her friends had a brother who’d lived in Arciun—she’d cried for weeks when the news finally reached the Tower. “The way I heard it, nobody survived the second round of killings. Now the whole province is still in uproar—how many more orphans have you created? Noble rebels, my foot.”

He shoved his hair out of his eyes. “We—I—had nothing to do with that. You can’t—”

“If you hadn’t set everything in motion, none of that would have happened!”

“They were Valaviri,” he said, eyes flashing in rage. “You don’t know what they’re capable of, how cruel they can be!”

“For your information, I am Valaviri,” she told him coldly. “I may have been born in one of the outer provinces, but without the empire, do you know where I’d be right now?”

“Not running for your life?” he bit off.

She clenched her teeth. “I’d be slaving away on a farm somewhere, instead of knowing how to read—oh, and also how to throw literal lightning.”

The anger in his eyes hadn’t faded; Calista dug her nails into her palm, understanding suddenly why everybody in the camp was terrified of the Raven. He looked as though if she spoke one more word, he would leap across the tent and put her in the ground right then and there.

“Look,” she said, striving for a calmer tone, “I’m not here to make friends or debate politics. I appreciate your help with my little brother, really, I do. Just tell me what you want in return and my debt can be settled.”

He turned away, dismissing her. “I don’t want anything from you.”

Why had she expected anything different? Lulled by the banter between the two boys, exhausted from worry and late nights, she’d hoped—desperately, painfully hoped—for an ally, a friend; someone who could show basic human decency and understand her plight.

Instead, she had been bitterly reminded that she was surrounded by rebels who saw no harm in killing those she considered her friends and countrymen. Fine. She didn’t need them. She didn’t need anyone. She and Milon were just fine on their own, thank you.

“That’s what you say now,” she threw at his retreating back. “That’s what Noz said at first, too.”

“I’m nothing like him!”

____

Because the majority of characters in The Raven’s Return are Falian, we generally see a very anti-Valaviri perspective of the world. And there’s good reason for that, but that’s not the way reality works. For one thing, you can’t blame an entire people for something that their military or government decides to do–and even then, how do you blame an entire group like that? Are the people in the military only in the military because they need money? Is it a way to make their lives better? Did the people in the government make their decision based on what was best for their people? Since people don’t have the benefit of 20/20 hindsight like we do, would it have been feasible for them to take the alternative route like we think they should have? What were the available options that they knew of at the time? Obviously, there are definitely cases where we can look at an event and the people involved and say, “here’s what went wrong, here’s what would have been better for everybody involved, here’s who’s to blame,” but history is complex. People are complex. And for a lot of people, that’s hard to wrap their minds around, because a narrative with good guys and bad guys is so much easier to process and understand.

Part of what I’m trying to do with The Raven’s Return is show the complexity of history and the effect of that complexity. The nin Roys and other Falians hate the Valaviri because their land was invaded and their own culture was taken over. But Lucan wasn’t the one who did that–that invasion happened centuries ago. Plenty of Valaviri weren’t responsible for that. And there are elements of Valaviri culture to be admired–Cal brings up education, and how that improved her future. The issue here is messy, and it’s complicated, and both sides have some of it right and some of it wrong. There isn’t a clear cut “bad group” and a clear cut “good group.” There is an empire, and a lot of the characters hate it (pretty much all of the characters have some problems with how it is right now, but that’s pretty standard for anybody with their government), but it’s not an evil empire, and Falia isn’t the noble rebel nation. It’s messy, just like history.

So I like this conversation because it gets into that a little bit. Cal doesn’t like the government or the magicians right now, but she appreciates the empire nevertheless. Bran can’t understand that, and maybe he never will, but he needs to hear that the world is more complex than he might think.

Also, I love having characters with different worldviews have discussions without one character being a strawman. That’s really annoying to read, and seems so lazy to me. So I like this little snippet for doing that.

#the raven's return #asks #my writing #i see it crimson i see it red #rogue

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darkcitrin · 5 years ago

Text

gruvia

Hi, there is a reason I was not able to write about it again.

This canon ship and canon Juvia are indeed like water, being almost impossible to grasp. How can one analyse things without consistency and shape? I guess by getting wet and all-embracing since every concrete scene analysis will be counter able by other scenes.

Additionally, Hiros Mashimas established definition of “love” within the franchise makes it also really difficult to argue anymore within this universe…

at the same time it demolished also any value ability of this series, meaning and morality which it may had hold for the real world so far but ok he was willing to pay this price to find an ultimate plot excuse for his poorly execution of his story and characters towards the end, while he was overworked by three big projects and travelling, leaving him not even time to think and to conclude his masterpiece appropriately .

A refresher for all, his definition of love would be that one can only truly love somebody if one wants the best for this person despite hating this person for other character sides or due to actions he or she did in the past.

This definition was established when Marvis was saving the “life” of her sexual abuser who threatened humanity and worse and pretty much now justifies Nalu, Gruvia, Jerza who may be to some extend abusive ships…...

It was a newly made definition and contradicts the previously established love definition throughout the series.

Love was previously a feeling of home, acceptance, friendship, support, understanding, despite how strong you are, where you come from or how beneficial you were, as established not only within the guild the members towards their master, family, friends

Lucys love for her guild based on these experiences was stronger than towards her own father who provided her everything except enough love since he was still grieving about the loss of her mother and who even wanted to determine her partnership.

Ren and Sherry become a couple being compatible as fuck, Bisca and Alcsec the same, Gajeel fall in love with Levy rebuild a love relationship by scratch based on these values and oh boy their relationship is beautiful.

In case of our other canon ships well lets only focus on gruvia

Despite people interpreting the water prophecy different than I do, Gruvia was not really treated nicely at the beginning of the series

Juvia who experienced happiness in her life at the first time by meeting Gray thought she can obtain him and secure an eternity happiness by doing so. I selected the word obtain intentionally, since she was using it herself.

Her happiness resulted due to Grays kindness towards her.

To obtain Gray she offered him to protect him, and she started to try to monopolize him, which is seen at different covers as well.

It was shown that she didn t understand and cared for his will to protect other bonds. And sadly she didn t till the very end eventhough she stated differently. First she didn t understand his bond to Erza, Lucy, Lyon and at the End Natsu, being surprised that he would help Erza despite Erza being stronger than him or most others, Lucy by fighting even injured or hanging out with her eventhough he had now Juvia, his bond to Lyon was interpeted as lover instead as a brother, protecting Natsu against Zeref, was for her also really “new”. Simply put, she does not understand that he finds happiness by several people for her a monopolized lover is the key for happiness and there they are not compatible.And this is portrayed in media as if that would be the case contradicting the whole franchise most important message.

( She reminds me of Pinocchio but she never received a more human becoming development)

Furthermore she is portrayed as a real fangirl, not loving gray for who he is since she does not even know, ask, understands him but for what he did for her and later on also for others? There is even a scene she is dreaming gray up being different shonen characters she would all marry.

It is also not as if others would not have offered her to get a closer relationship to them… Juvia is just not interested in that.

However, she claimed that fairytail was making her happy at the famous Cana Game Scene so she seemed to be pretty happy with them.

This scene is really important, aswell as the ova where she proved that she would trust Gray over his behaviour tricking everyone.

These were scenes where I personally thought it could develop into sth but these were the only exceptions... so ... yeah he let me down even there I guess.

Juvia was willing to change to get Grays affection also willing to lose her identity and self independency since being dependent of gray would mean being together with him, as fighting partner or as a person he has to protect now. (I rather preferred her when she said she was stronger than him and wanted to protect him, but well I guess she is not really just fine to love him only as she putted it and wants to feel loved..... by heroic harmful ways like he did for the others... male authors have a really war time driven love declaration definition)

So what is the problem… “it is fucking crazy that a person is doing that” ( Grays wording), however is she a person or is she water indeed… which can produce blood conveniently ….. Can one expect her even to behave like a human?

Yes to not be alone is nice but well she did not give him really an option to chose somebody else and then it got a habit…… is this really love?

Well maybe

I mean I would also love my dog, for eating my left overs and following me around and being there if I am sad losing my dad

To be in a relationship, maybe intending to get a family together and to live together 24 h a day

In my regard not enough

I at least would like to have a partner who respect my boundaries, knows me, supports me how I need support and not how my partner thinks what I would need

I would like to be also a friend of my partner and I would like to have friends beside this partner.

But ok, I also have a different definition of love, love as a feeling of extreme friendship, trust, understanding, comfort and would love to be equal partners playing together the game called life

But oh well this is just a realistic healthy relationship goal I have and I thought and assumed Gray would as well by acting like a rather normal nice person which seemed to have changed suddenly to make way for the next generation, how lovely

However, this is fiction and the words and scenes of the all mighty author are inviolable

Except maybe if he would contradict himself.

Or if he would have admitted that he hadn’t enough time to think things though and would have said that he would have rushed things or if mistakes like scar positions and plot inconsistency may exist

oh wait let me check

He did and they do

Oh well, I guess it is ok then, to post this

And in case people are using a certain flashback scene as contra argument….

For my part at least, I do not trust Juvias imagination, wording and memories, and by looking at canon material I wonder if you would

How exactly is it nice to throw water slicer at lucy and gray in in the police ft spinoff an attack which destroyed the avatar girl in the avatar arc ? Only because he prevented Lucy to fall and hurt herself?

Juvia really evolved into a better person hasn’t she

(can contain sarcasm)

#anti gruvia

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hufflly-puffs · 5 years ago

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Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Chapter 37: The Lost prophecy

The entire conversation between Harry and Dumbledore in this chapter remains one of my favourite in the entire season. Something J.K. Rowling is extremely good at is to write about loss and grief. In a way Harry experiences it for the first time – he was too young when his parents died and Cedric’s death left him in shock, but then again they didn’t really knew it each other. This time it is different. And my reading experience changed, because I have experienced a loss similar like Harry (like Rowling, who had lost her mother shortly before she started writing the Potter series) between the first time I read the book as a teenager and now again as an adult. It might be because Rowling had lost a parent that so much about Harry’s grief resonates with me. It feels real.

“It was his fault Sirius had died; it was all his fault. If he, Harry, had not been stupid enough to fall for Voldemort’s trick, if he had not been so convinced that what he had seen in his dream was real, if he had only opened his mind to the possibility that Voldemort was, as Hermione had said, banking on Harry’s love of playing the hero … It was unbearable, he would not think about it, he could not stand it … there was a terrible hollow inside him he did not want to feel or examine, a dark hole where Sirius had been, where Sirius had vanished; he did not want to have to be alone with that great, silent space, he could not stand it –“ – Sirius’s death is not what causes Harry’s depression, but it certainly factors to it. The anxiety, the impossibility to escape your own thoughts, and how he blames himself for Sirius’s death, despite all logic and rational thought saying he can’t be blamed. And it is what makes things even worse – not just losing Sirius, but the circumstances, that Harry fall for Voldemort’s trap, that it was the love they felt for each other that brought both Harry and Sirius to the Department of Mysteries to save the other. That Harry should have known better, that Hermione (who always represent logic and rational thought) even warned him it could be a trap. Harry let his heart decide for him, he did what he felt was right. And whenever we make a mistake because we let our heart decide for us we feel foolish and weak. Dumbledore will tell Harry later that it was his heart that saved him, but to Harry it is his heart that failed him.

“The guilt filling the whole of Harry’s chest like some monstrous, weighty parasite, now writhed and squirmed. Harry could not stand this, he could not stand being himself any more … he had never felt more trapped inside his own head and body, never wished so intensely that he could be somebody, anybody, else …” – The thing about Harry is that the moment he entered the Wizarding World, the moment he learned he was famous, he has always been confronted with the image others have of him. The boy who lived, the tragic hero. In the last year he has been portrayed as a liar, mentally unstable, attention seeking. He has never let himself defined by these things, knowing they are not true. Now though he sees himself different: as the one responsible for Sirius’s death. He never claimed to be a hero, but it has never been less true than now. Ironically it is his hero-complex, as Hermione calls it, that brought all of his friends in danger, that did cost Sirius his life (at least from Harry’s perspective). It is unbearable to connect himself with the image of a hero others have painted of him, now that he has made a terrible mistake, that he did not save the day, but is the one who brought everyone in danger in the first place.

“‘I know how you’re feeling, Harry,’ said Dumbledore very quietly. ‘No, you don’t,’ said Harry, and his voice was suddenly loud and strong; white-hot anger leapt inside him; Dumbledore knew nothing about his feelings.” – Dumbledore of course has experienced loss and grief himself, but he also knows how it feels to think you are responsible for someone’s else death, as he blames himself for his sister’s death. But Harry does not know this, and he does not ask Dumbledore either, because we always feel like our pain is individual, like nobody could ever know how we really feel. Grief and loss are very personal feelings, because everybody experiences them in a different way, and at times it feels like it creates a barrier between yourself and the rest of the world.

“‘Harry, suffering like this proves you are still a man! This pain is part of being human –’ ‘THEN – I – DON’T – WANT – TO – BE – HUMAN!’ Harry roared […] ‘I DON’T CARE!’ Harry yelled at them, snatching up a lunascope and throwing it into the fireplace. ‘I’VE HAD ENOUGH, I’VE SEEN ENOUGH, I WANT OUT, I WANT IT TO END, I DON’T CARE ANY MORE –’ He seized the table on which the silver instrument had stood and threw that, too. It broke apart on the floor and the legs rolled in different directions. ‘You do care,’ said Dumbledore. He had not flinched or made a single move to stop Harry demolishing his office. His expression was calm, almost detached. ‘You care so much you feel as though you will bleed to death with the pain of it.’” – This always reminds me of a poem by Mary Oliver, “The Uses of Sorrow”: “Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this, too, was a gift.” Dumbledore, in his age and wisdom, knows that experiencing pain the way Harry does, is part of being human, or as he even says it is a proof of being human (and therefore would make Voldemort unhuman). We can’t understand pain like this when we right in the middle of it. Harry experiences it for the first time really and he feels like he will never get over it, like nothing will ever be whole again, that this is the final straw. In time he will learn that you can live with the pain, but you never get used to it. And once he understands what Voldemort has done to his soul, he will understand Dumbledore’s words and what a great gift it is to feel that deeply.

“Voldemort’s aim in possessing you, as he demonstrated tonight, would not have been my destruction. It would have been yours. He hoped, when he possessed you briefly a short while ago, that I would sacrifice you in the hope of killing him.” – But in the end that is exactly what happens: Dumbledore sacrifices Harry in order to kill Voldemort. And that might have been a part of Dumbledore’s plan as well: that after this night Voldemort was convinced that Dumbledore would never do such a thing, that when Harry sacrificed himself in the end Voldemort never assumed that it was part of Dumbledore’s plan.

“‘Kreacher is what he has been made by wizards, Harry,’ said Dumbledore.” – It is interesting that it was Sirius who told Harry that in order to understand someone’s true nature you should look how they treat their inferiors not their equals. Of course Sirius did not hate Kreacher because he is a house elf, but rather because he was a constant reminder of the family/home he hated so much. He could not show Kreacher even the simplest form of respect. And house-elves, bound to their families, always become a product of how their masters treat them. And Dumbledore, unlike Voldemort and many other wizards, never underestimated house-elves. They are individuals, they have feelings, and they have magic of their own. And they are always overlooked, which can make them incredible dangerous.

“ ‘Five years ago you arrived at Hogwarts, Harry, safe and whole, as I had planned and intended. Well – not quite whole. You had suffered. I knew you would when I left you on your aunt and uncle’s doorstep. I knew I was condemning you to ten dark and difficult years.’” – I think this is the first time someone actually acknowledges in words the abuse Harry had to endure. That what happened to him was neither right or fair, despite Dumbledore explaining the reason why he had to stay with the Dursleys.

“Did I believe that Voldemort was gone for ever? No. I knew not whether it would be ten, twenty or fifty years before he returned, but I was sure he would do so, and I was sure, too, knowing him as I have done, that he would not rest until he killed you.” – Imagine though it would have taken Voldemort 70 years to return, the book series would have been quite different.

“‘While you can still call home the place where your mother’s blood dwells, there you cannot be touched or harmed by Voldemort. He shed her blood, but it lives on in you and her sister. Her blood became your refuge. You need return there only once a year, but as long as you can still call it home, whilst you are there he cannot hurt you. Your aunt knows this. I explained what I had done in the letter I left, with you, on her doorstep. She knows that allowing you houseroom may well have kept you alive for the past fifteen years.’” – First, I still can’t believe that Dumbledore could not be bothered to explain this in person, that all he did was to write a letter. Second, the very complicated relationship Petunia has with her nephew. Harry claims that she does not love him, which might be true. Regardless she loved her sister. She took Harry in because her sister gave her life to protect him, because she knew that if she wouldn’t Harry would die. And yet Harry is a constant reminder of Lily, of Petunia’s loss, of all the complicated feelings she had towards Lily. And interesting enough both Petunia and Snape help to keep Harry alive, they both protect him in their own ways, but out of respect and love towards Lily, because he is her son, nothing more. It is not just her blood that protects Harry, but also the relationships Lily made while she was alive, the people who loved her.

“‘I cared about you too much,’ said Dumbledore simply. ‘I cared more for your happiness than your knowing the truth, more for your peace of mind than my plan, more for your life than the lives that might be lost if the plan failed. In other words, I acted exactly as Voldemort expects we fools who love to act.” – Dumbledore thinks that his flaw, that the mistake that he made, was that he cared too much about Harry, that his happiness became more important than the lives of others. And many criticized Dumbledore for his final plan: that in the end Harry had to give his own life in order to defeat Voldemort. But this is exactly what this is about: that Harry’s life is no more important than the lives of thousands. Some see Dumbledore as cruel and manipulating, and perhaps they are right. But he still cares. He cares so much about Harry and yet he knows what he needs to ask of him, knows what it will take to end Voldemort. And one could ask what is more cruel: to sacrifice one live so thousands can live or to accept the pain of the many in exchange for one man’s happiness?

“I had gone there to see an applicant for the post of Divination teacher, though it was against my inclination to allow the subject of Divination to continue at all.” – I mean honestly, it is the most useless subject ever.

So, the prophecy. It reveals something that to the readers might be obvious, but this is the first time we actually hear it: that Harry is the only one who has the power to defeat Voldemort. And Harry of course is famous because he survived the Killing Curse, but perhaps he thought that there might not be a special reason why Voldemort wanted to kill him and his parents. After all Voldemort and his followers killed so many. Perhaps Harry thought Voldemort simply wanted to finish what he had started, that this time he wants to kill Harry because of what has happened to him. Maybe deep down Harry had wondered if there might be more about it, what the real reason was that Voldemort had considered a baby as a threat. If he did he probably ignored that thought, because as Dumbledore explains, it is an incredible burden to live with this knowledge.

Then of course there is the fact that it could have been Neville as well. There are many speculations what would have happened if Voldemort had chosen Neville instead. I always assumed that Alice Longbottom, just as Lily did, would have sacrificed herself for her son, giving Neville the same kind of protection Harry had. Neville would have still grown up with his grandmother (and through her blood he would be protected as well) though with even more pressure put upon him. But I always loved the fact that it could have been someone else, that in a way there was nothing special about Harry, and that of course the irony is that in choosing Harry Voldemort marked him as an equal and gave him the power to destroy him (though Voldemort of course was not aware of this, as he had not heard the whole prophecy). And Voldemort did not choose the son of two Aurors, the pureblood wizard, but Harry instead, the halfblood, because as Dumbledore explains, he saw himself in Harry.

The thing about prophecies is of course whether or not they become true, and in fiction they usually do, especially if people try to avoid their fate. Voldemort did not hear the full prophecy, he did not know that he would be the one to mark his enemy as an equal. The question is, if he had that knowledge and never had tried to kill Harry or Neville, could he have avoided his fate?

Also, we don’t know it yet, but of course it was Snape who had overheard the first part of the prophecy, which made me wonder what he was doing there in the first place. Was it a coincidence? Was he there on Voldemort’s order, spying on Dumbledore? And how come he would not know or figure out that the prophecy could refer to Lily’s son, and therefore would put her in danger by telling Voldemort about it?

“In the end, it mattered not that you could not close your mind. It was your heart that saved you.” – Harry has never been and will never be the most talented wizard, but that did not matter. It does not matter how advanced the magic is that Voldemort works. It is Harry’s ability to love, and the love of his mother, that saves him. And that is something you can’t learn or achieve. If Voldemort has ever been able to love he successfully got rid of this ability. To him love is a weakness, something he never understood and always underestimated. And in Rowling’s work it is essential our ability to love what makes us human. And losing that has made Voldemort dead long before he actually died.

“‘So,’ said Harry, dredging up the words from what felt like a deep well of despair inside him, ‘so does that mean that … that one of us has got to kill the other one … in the end?’ ‘Yes,’ said Dumbledore.” – Just moments before Harry told Dumbledore that he doesn’t have powers like Voldemort does, that he can’t kill someone, and yet he has to or he will be killed. In the end however he defeated Voldemort without actually killing him, and I always loved that he didn’t have to become a murderer.

#Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix #the lost prophecy #chapter notes #ootp

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introvertguide · 6 years ago

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Raging Bull (1980), AFI #4

The second movie for the group on the AFI list was a Martin Scorsese masterpiece that features a stand out acting performance from Robert De Niro as boxer Jake LaMotta. It was filmed completely in black and white on mostly small sets so it was the acting and directing that really held up the film. The film only took home two Oscars in 1981 (best actor and best editing) despite being nominated in eight categories (Tess and Ordinary People were the big winners that year). This film is one of many examples some movie enthusiasts use when saying that the Oscars are somehow rigged since the big winners from 1981 are not on the AFI top 100 and this film is ranked fourth all time (rather strange since the voters for AFI and the voters for the Academy Awards have a strong overlap). No matter the recognition at the time, there are many aspects of this movie that are spectacular and make it worth seeking out today.

Raging Bull follows the history of Jake LaMotta (don’t look into the chronological accuracy because it is not there) over the time that he was married to his celebrity wife from the mid 40s to the late 50s. The first couple of times that I saw this movie, I assumed that it was the history of just LaMotta, but it actually only covers the time of his turbulent relationship with Vikki, his second wife. It is strange how much his jealousy of her is featured (he was 25 and married while she was 15 when they first met at a public pool) yet it doesn’t really feature what a lime light power couple they were for the time. What the movie does feature is how hard headed and unfeeling Jake LaMotta was both in and outside the ring.

De Niro plays the character as basically psychotic because the character fixates on something and has a very difficult time refocusing. The only people that seem to be able to get through to him are his little brother Joey (played as an Italian stereotype by Joe Pesci) and his wife at the time Vikki (played by Cathy Moriarty in her first Hollywood film role). I think that all three actors did a good job of showing what it is like dealing with a dangerous meal ticket, but it does bring up a question for me. I am not Italian nor have I been around a lot of Italian families, so I only know this demographic from movies and hearsay stereotypes. I have been to Italy and there was a lot of hand gesturing but no constant repetition of questions and answers like everyone was hard of hearing. Do Italian-American families repeat themselves constantly like they do in the movies? I assume that they don’t and this characteristic is acted hyperbolically for effect, but I could be wrong. I will have to take a night off from my introverted nature and see if I can sit in on an authentic Italian-American family dinner to see if it is anything like the movies. Perhaps I could better speak to the quality of the acting of Pesci and Moriarty if I was more familiar with the culture.

Considering the movie as a whole. I think that the breakdown scenes are what really stand out in the film for me. This man that almost wants to be hurt physically to feel anything cries twice during the film. Once because he threw a fight and knew he would be caught and a second time when he made the mistake of hiring an underage girl for his bar. Both times the lead tries to hurt himself physically because the inner turmoil is stronger pain than he understands so he tries to match it physically and is unable to do so. It is difficult to watch on some levels but I think that shows empathy from the viewer for this flawed character who is his own antagonist.

De Niro is famous for his commitment to this role in that he trained like a boxer from the 40s to get a boxing physique and then went to Europe and gained 60 lbs. in 4 months eating rich foods to play the part of LaMotta later in life. I think that getting into the mental headspace of somebody like LaMotta would be more difficult than copying his physical changes, so the commitment is effective but the visual is only briefly surprising. If that was the only thing that was noteworthy about the acting, then De Niro would not likely have received so much recognition.

There are a lot of boxing scenes in this movie that I honestly did not feel were that great. There was a lot of punches that obviously did not connect. I believe that Scorsese is known for his grit and is not afraid to show people at both their best and their worst. This was achieved far more with the scenes outside the ring. In fact, I would say that this movie is not a boxing movie at all, but more of an attempt to show a Neanderthal of a man try and make it in a world that confuses him. This man tries to use his strength to dominate and this works to an extent, but he is never truly going to understand others and his life is all the more difficult for his strength.

There are a couple of scenes that are almost painful to watch, but it seems like that is the intention. Same as with the previous movie, I watched this film once alone with headphones and once with a group. When watching in the group, I noticed that there was a lot of awkward talking in the room when LaMotta was doing his 2 minute stand up routine because it seemed so obvious that it wasn’t funny. De Niro did such a great job of playing through the awkwardness because somebody like LaMotta wouldn’t be good at reading a room and no amount of toughness would help that. If watching a person stumble through awkward social situations is hard to watch for you, then there are going to be many difficult scenes in this movie.

While writing this review, I was reminded that Joe Pesci and Cathy Moriarty were nominated for best supporting actor and actress respectively. I agree that they did exactly what the were nominated for: supporting the lead actor. They both played their parts well and accurately portrayed people who dealt with the very unlikable and unpredictable lead and often paid the price, but De Niro shined so brightly that I only saw them as support. They did a great job, but I believe this was only because they got to play off of De Niro. That open to debate, though, because I have never acted next to a strong lead nor did I see the performances of the competition that won the Academy Award from that year so I am not an authority on how deserving Pesci and Moriarty were.

A final note (no pun intended) is the sound aspect of this movie. There is not really a lot of music in the score, but the song that played at the beginning and end is still in my head. You can give it a listen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bw28pFbxg44 if you like swelling string sections with a touch of brass. The sound quality was great overall which was strange because it turned into the one true criticism I have of the movie that isn’t just a matter of personal taste. The punches in the boxing scenes were obviously pulled but the sound effects for the hits landing were amazing. Try playing the movie without sound and it looks like a WWE style fight with some hits but blatantly missed punches and if you listen to the sound with your eyes closed it sounds like a murderous beatdown to the point of being vomit inducing. The sound actually makes the lack of contact in the boxing scenes all the more obvious and that took me out of the movie a couple of times. I would actually suggest not watching with quality headphones because the mismatch is somewhat laughable. It is overall slight, but I wouldn’t want a small thing affect the overall experience of such a great movie.

Raging Bull is a great movie and a real master work of directing from Scorsese and acting from Robert De Niro. The acting is so strong that the viewer can empathize with this monster of a man who could not feel empathy himself. The viewer can also relate to the awkwardness of all the people around this animal who wanted what he had while simultaneously trying to avoid his unpredictable wrath. I am not sure I would have ranked this film #4 on the list of all time great American movies, but it would be in my top ten acting performances. This film is definitely worth watching and I would definitely recommend it to others. I might caution those that are squeamish about violence, but it is worth it for the overall experience. Great film.

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notokj · 6 years ago

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my coming out story (i guess)

Warning - This is probably going to be long and boring, but it’s my truth. And I guess I should start off with a disclaimer.

I am not a lesbian. I am bisexual.

My name is KJ, I’m currently 18 years old and I live a relatively happy lifestyle. From a very young age, I’d been attracted to boys. Specifically (but not exclusively) Robert Downey Jr., Nick Jonas, Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Brenden Urie, and various others. I always thought girls were pretty, but I never let myself think anything further. In the early 2000s, sure, being ‘out’ was slowly becoming normal, but I was a kid and nobody my age was talking about it... so why should I? I had a mom and dad, and so did my friends, I didn’t even consider two moms or two dads or anything in between. I was completely in the dark. But for hours, I would obsess over Miley Cyrus (or Hannah Montana) not just as a TV celebrity, but as somebody I found attractive. I never felt scared to admit this out loud, simply because I believed that I was just being stupid or irrational. I let myself continue to fit in the way I did.

One of the earliest memories I remember about me trying to shut down my feelings was about in the third grade. There was an exchange student from the middle east who was just learning English, and for whatever reason they chose me to help her understand that seasons. You know, fall, winter, spring, summer, it was fine. We were having fun like most little kids do, even with the language barrier. She was having issues understanding what the different words meant, and I was having issues explaining it to her because I couldn’t communicate in a way that she would understand. Giving up on the seasons, she took notice to my disney princess lunchbox. I told her my favorite princess was Ariel, and I’m not sure if I misspoke or she misunderstood but she stated that she “wanted to kiss a princess”. Now, I cannot confirm if that was her true feeling at the time or if she was unable to translate correctly what she said, but I was shocked to hear her say it. I didn’t comment on it, I didn’t make her uncomfortable, I simply moved on and pointed out all of the princesses on my bag. After school that day, I was hanging out with a family friend that was a couple years older than me. Being confused and trusting this friend, I told them what the exchange student said. My friend proceeded to tell me that I was lying, that a girl would never say that, and I laughed it off and agreed with her and told her the girl was probably just crazy. I quickly regretted my words, but kept all my opinions to myself. I didn’t want to seem weird or out of it.

Fast forward to the seventh grade, I had just transferred to a new middle school and was enjoying my time meeting new friends. At this time, it was super cool to girls if a guy was gay, but lesbians were unheard of. In my friend group, there was this one girl, let’s call her Brooke. Brooke was broken up with her asshole ex-boyfriend when we met, and shortly after she admitted to me that she had feelings for another girl. Of course, knowing somebody who had positive thoughts about girls liking girls, I fully supported her. I even helped her to portray her feelings. During this time, I hadn’t outed myself, but I was able to confirm that I did like girls... all because Brooke did it first. Somebody I trusted was brave enough, even though nearly half of her family was homophobic, she was able to say out loud that she liked somebody of the same sex. I respected her for that. We became best friends through that experience. It was special to me, and in eight grade I admitted to my entire group of friends that I liked girls and boys, They all supported me but I hadn’t yet been out to my family.

Two weeks before high school, Brooke had a birthday party. I went, of course, and at a point in the night, a kissing game was played... and, well, I lost my first kiss to Brooke. Do I regret it? No. Was it kinda cringy and gross? Yes, as most fourteen year old kisses were. I immediately knew everything I was feeling was real, and all I wanted to do was give Brooke a chance. I had known for a while that Brooke had feelings for me, and I was starting to have feelings for her. During her party, she claimed that on the first day of high school, she would get down on one knee and ask me out in front of everyone. That was said as a joke, but slick little KJ took advantage of it. Right before I left the party, I whispered into her ear “Why wait until school starts, when I’m saying yes right now?”, THEN I RAN OUT! I ran out like a little pussy but it’s okay! She texted me later that night and asked if I was kidding. I said no. Feelings from both sides were admitted and we confirmed that we were now girlfriend and girlfriend.

Three months later, me and Brooke are still together. Since we started High School as a couple, it was really easy to transition into the culture of our school. We didn’t have to come out to our classmates, because everyone had already assumed we were out. It was okay! Sure, there were “Fag”s and “Dyke”s thrown around, constant mocking and teasing, but we were strong. We didn’t let it get to us and we stuck together. I was at the point where I realized I was falling in love with this girl. I decided to tell my mom. At this point in time, my parents had recently divorced and weren’t living together anymore. I primarily lived with my mom, and I wanted to open up to her about this part of my life. So, I did. She was upset that I hid it from her for three months, but she was happy for me and also confessed that she too was/is bisexual! I’ve never felt so much comfort and security in my life.

But wait, this isn’t a cute happy coming out story that will end up on facebook.

The next hurdle was telling my dad. He’s always been a bit old school and traditional, and both my mom and I KNEW he would not be happy about it. He’d never really liked my friend group, specifically Brooke, and I just knew that being bisexual was not going to be a good thing. Also, knowing my dad, because I was dating a girl, I’d have to come out to him as a lesbian. He was the kind of old school that didn’t believe you could like both. Whatever, I just wanted to tell him. For some reason, this really stressed me out because I wanted nothing more than to be supported by my dad. I had gotten to such a low point, and mixed with high anxiety and depression, I made the mistake of cutting myself (take note it was the first and last time. I’m proudly four years clean). I’d worn a heavy red sweater the day after to hide it, and stupid me wrote my girlfriend a note about what I did because I wanted to be honest. The note got dropped somewhere, and I was reported to the office. The counselor checked my arm, and I swore it was just marks from falling into a bush. I caved, though, called my mom and told her what I did. My mom picked me up from school, and took my home. She stood out on the porch and told my dad what I did and how I did it. He was so angry, he left right away... After that, everyone acted like nothing happened. Nobody asked about me, my feelings, or Brooke. It was uncomfortably normal.

Shortly after, it was my fifteenth birthday. Being a latina, this was a big deal. I had a quinceanera! It was beautiful, Phantom of the Opera themed. I had fifteen roses, and I handed each one to an important person in my life and also gave them a speech. One of those roses went to my girlfriend, of course. But I was very courteous of my dad, and kept the speech platonic. As the night went on, my dad lingered and I had just wanted to apologize to Brooke for not spending much time with her. so I pulled her into the bathroom and we talked. She was okay so we both exited but my dad caught us as I was leaving. He screamed at me in front of everyone and made me cry, all for being with Brooke alone. He got so angry, he left and went drinking. I was miserable.

We talked after that. I told him I liked girls and boys. He told me he felt as if I was pressuring myself into some new societal norm, and that he specifically did not like Brooke. I was hurt, but I knew it would heal with time. And you know what? It did.

Three years later, Brooke left me for reasons not worth putting into a story like this. I was crushed. She was my first love, but I knew it was not meant to be. My dad and I were able to talk without her weight on my shoulders, and he had changed his mindset after years of watching me grow. He’ll never be the dad that’s going to gawk at girls with me, he wasn’t raised that way and I respect that. But he’ll never be the dad that puts me down if I do end up with a woman. I’m proud to say my dad is fully supportive of me, as long as I’m happy and safe. So many people are quick to judge him on the first half of this story, but family to recognize how far he’s come in loving me for me. I trust him with anything now. And having listened to why he didn’t like Brooke, made me realize that his previous anger was not completely directed at my newfound sexuality. He didn’t like how I was treated, not the gender of who I was with. He changed, for my happiness. And he is one of my biggest supporters now.

After Brooke, I had two other partners, both boys. I was the talk of my school. People would say that Brooke was just a phase, and that I faked being gay, and that I was just some phony. Both of those relationships didn’t last, and it was just six months ago that I decided I wouldn’t date until college because I was so put off by all the rude comments. Nobody wanted to believe that I was bisexual. They all wanted to believe that I was straight, or just a weird lesbian. It hurt, all the biphobia.

A month ago, let’s just simplify things and say I started dating my current boyfriend, who I’mma just call 2K here (cause thats his life smh). I am in love with 2K, and I was worried that being bisexual would be a bad thing for him but,... he does not care. He’s loyal, trustworthy, and completely supportive of the fact that while yes- we are in a straight relationship, I am still bisexual. It doesn’t bother him, and I’m lucky enough to have some wonderful friends who are also very supportive! I’m at such a good place in my life right now. 2K is on great terms with my family, I trust him more than anyone, and it’s so comforting to know that the person I love isn’t telling me that Brooke was just a phase. Christ, I was with the girl for three years. That would be a long as phase!

To this day, I still experience extreme biphobia. But you know what? I’m okay. My boyfriend, family, friends, all support me and know who I am. I am not a lesbian. I am not straight. I’m proudly bisexual! And I’m starting college in a few short months. That’s not relevant, but I’m excited. I went through highs and lows to get to this solid point, and I wouldn’t change a damn thing.

So to all of my bi friends... You are HERE. Be proud and be loud. You are not confused, and nobody has the right to make you choose who or what to love!

#coming out #coming out story #bi #bisexual #bisexuality #lgbt #lgbtq #biphobia #phobia

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fracturedknight · 6 years ago

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@kanachise said: ‘What if he gets a girlfriend or a boyfriend?’ in regard to this post.

♘ Firstly, hi! Secondly, I’m happy to answer your question.

I should mention that I do portray Zero divergent from canon while maintaining most of his personality if I can; there’s just a lot with the series I do not agree with, especially in regard to the main three, hence the split from source material. My friend and I ( @defective-cinnamon-bun ) often talk at length about these things and take them into consideration as we write Zero.

ANYWHO! To the question: it just would take time. Zero’s not quick to make friends as it is, it would be immensely challenging for him to forge a healthy romantic relationship where he’s comfortable enough to lie next to another. It’s also my personal headcanon that Zero himself is on the aro/ace spectrum; demiromantic/demisexual combo, probably. Being young as he was before Shizuka attacked, he had no interest or experience in romance, and when Shizuka killed his family, he isn’t really granted the opportunity to explore his orientation as he becomes a young adult. I fully acknowledge his feelings for Yuuki and that he feels romantic love toward her, but he’s also the one to push her away because 1. he’s succumbing to his thirst for blood which will ultimately end in his death, 2. he doesn’t want to hurt or kill her if he loses himself around her. He’s not incapable of having romantic feelings, but dating someone simply is not his priority when he’s got that much stress on his plate.

I should mention that physically speaking, Zero is also disgusted with himself as a vampire, so touch isn’t something he’s entirely on board with either. He loathes his own skin because of what he’s been turned into.

Assuming he does get into a relationship with somebody, it would be when he’s matured and taken time to learn how to heal; he really doesn’t do this ever in canon imo. Healing doesn’t mean the trauma is erased though, the person he decides to let into his life will have to have his full trust and understand that he is suffering from a form of PTSD; the memories of his parents’ slaying is never going to leave him. Like with mental illness, which Zero has a lot of, some nights are going to be better than others. It wouldn’t be an instantaneous thing; it will take time to work up to, and as he copes, the idea of lying next to someone he truly loves and loves him in turn will become easier.

All this said, I’m not an incredibly romantically-charged roleplayer as it is and it shows with all of my muses ^-^;; This portrayal of Zero is a combination of two things: my own comfort level, as well as how I feel the character would react.

If you have more questions about anything, let me know and I will answer best I can! also plz dont reblog this post! D: thank you in advance!

#ooc tag pending #kanachise #long post

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jaeheekangisimportant · 7 years ago

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1/4 As someone who went from walking into the secret endings thinking that the Rika hate was just classic sexism to really, really disliking her, I can assure you that a lot of the Rika hate... actually DOES come from people apologizing/excusing her actions. I know it's easy to chalk it up and say "no one defends her actions" but the victim blaming against V, equating an abuse victim (Saeran) to his abuser, and outright denying Rika's actions (like blinding V) is actually a /VERY/ real issue.

2/4 Espsecially when you have popular blogs brush off hating Rika for her atriciously abusive actions as just “ignorance on mental illness” and trivializing abuse victims who latch onto characters like Saeran and V because of shared trauma as just “jealous fangirls”. I’m not saying that V and Saeran did nothing wrong but at the end of the day, they are Rika’s abuse victims no matter how you slice it. So people are obviously going to be able to empathize with them more.

¾ It’s important to note that, despite male villains usually being more well recieved, this type of trivilizing treatment is treatment that people who despise abusive male characters actually don’t recieve. Because like… you obviously can’t be accused of being a sexist, jealous fangirl if you hate a male villain. Rika isn’t a bad villain at all; however the huge back lash she recieves isn’t simply because she’s female character in a fandom of Straight GirlsTM but rather because she’s a

4/4 very realistic portrayal (far more realistic than most male villains tbh) of an abuser in a fandom where people can easily use her gender as an excuse to wave off the hatred as just “misogyny” rather than an instinctual reaction to seeing a character who walks, talks, and acts like a real life abuser. There’s nothing wrong with liking Rika, but I think some perspective is necessary before just throwing your hands up in the air and going like “she’s a woman and we only like hot men. the end”.

Okay, I actually think there are a lot of really good points in here and I do agree with most of it, there are also a few things I would contend with, and also some things I’d like to discuss in more depth now that I have an excuse to, but before I do that I have two things to say that I think are very important for everyone, including myself, to keep in mind

There are a lot of layers to any discourse, and I can’t cover every angle of every discourse all the time. I do try to be fair and objective and not totally one-sided but I also want to be clear and honest about what my position is and I also try to stick to whatever has been brought up in the asks I get. If somebody sends me an ask that’s like “hey V fucked up and I wish people acknowledged that”, well then, that’s what I’m going to talk about and there’s not always a lot of room for me to give attention to the other side

It’s impossible for everyone to have interacted with every single member of a fandom and ultimately no one will have the exact same experience with a fandom. I can only talk about fandom issues through the lens of my experience and what I have seen and been exposed to, and that won’t necessarily be universal

The rest is going under a read more because this got unexpectedly rambly and I’m truly sorry for that. I’m also sorry that it’s so unorganized I kind of started with a solid idea of what I wanted to say but then every time I thought of some new thing I kind of just went with it

So, about Rika. Whenever people have brought up misogyny in relation to her, I have always tried to be careful to say that I don’t think Rika hate is always inherently misogynistic but that I do think that some anti-Rika sentiments are rooted in it. I probably could have made that more clear and I apologize if there was any confusion. I have frequently said that there are totally valid reasons to hate Rika which is why I try not to go after Rika haters too much. When I see people hating Rika for the simple fact that she’s important to the other characters, or when I see people using very gendered language to insult her, that’s the kind of stuff that I think can reasonably be criticized for misogyny. But like, obviously there are perfectly good reasons to hate Rika so I don’t take issue with hating her in itself, and I have tried to say that as often as possible. I don’t think it hurts to examine where Rika hate comes from and, more importantly, how it actually manifests (I’ll come back to this in a minute). I do agree that brushing off all Rika hate as just internalized misogyny is wrong and counterproductive and very trivializing, which is why I try not to fall back on that argument. But I also don’t think that misogyny is entirely irrelevant to the Discourse about her. I think that “Rika hate isn’t inherently misogynistic” and “a lot of people would treat Rika differently if she were male” are ideas that can coexist

As for what you said about people defending Rika, this relates to Point Number Two I made up there. Most of the people in the MysMe fandom that I still follow these days are Rika fans, and honestly I have never seen any of them try to say that Rika did nothing wrong. I don’t doubt that people have done that, and I also am glad that I’ve never seen people like that, or at least if I have it was rare enough that it wasn’t a significant problem for me and I could just forget it. I think I’ve made it clear enough that I think Rika did very wrong. I have consistently called her a villain, I have repeatedly said that I think she deserves punishment for her crimes, I have referred to both Saeran and V as victims of her abuse (and I’ll get to them soon too). Even if I do like Rika and consider her a tragic and sympathetic character, I am really not okay with people pretending Rika didn’t commit any of the crimes or abuse that she did. I didn’t talk about it because I haven’t seen it, but if I’m wrong and people are doing that then all I can say is YIKES @ those people and please don’t assume I’m one of them

The subject of mental illness is one that the fandom really handles terribly and honestly the game handles it pretty badly too. I’m very mentally ill myself and I actually recognize a lot of my symptoms and issues in Rika (violent intrusive thoughts, the feeling that there’s just something inherently wrong and bad in me and I’m only ever faking being good, paranoid and dramatic/emotional outbursts that even I know aren’tproportionate to the situation, self-harming, self-sabotage and suicidal ideation), so I was inclined to sympathize with Rika. It’s also why I was so viscerally disgusted by the way V talked about her mental illness. Having said all of that, I really don’t like people blaming a character’s abusive actions on mental illness, as if mentally ill people can’t help being bad and violent. Like, I know a lot people probably think they’re sympathizing with us, but you realize that exact same sentiment is used to demonize us, right? You’re not helping anyone by saying that mental illness is an excuse for bad behavior

People really need to learn that there is a difference between an explanation and an excuse. My anxiety flaring up might explain why I’m so irritable sometimes, but it doesn’t excuse me from snapping at well-meaning people. My depression getting really bad might explain why I isolate myself for weeks and sometimes months on end, but it doesn’t excuse me from completely shutting out and ignoring my friends and family who really just want to know why I haven’t spoken to them in so long. Mental illness can make me act out in a lot of ways that are bad for me and for other people, but I would never try to use it as an excuse and I would never want people to use it as excuse for me either. There are still very real consequences to my acting out, I still need to apologize and make up for them, and I still need to try my best to correct that kind of behavior no matter how easy it can be to fall into (and I do try, and I have gotten much better)

Rika’s mental illness and backstory does explain a lot of her behavior. It explains it, it doesn’t excuse it. She’s still very much accountable for her shitty actions. I do think that Rika could have been a very different person if she had gotten proper and intensive help with her mental health, and I wish she had gotten it. I don’t think she’s completely one-dimensionally evil and I do think that, at the very least, she had the potential to be a good person. I do think that she’s partially a victim of her circumstances. But, I also think that arguing about what a character could have been like under different circumstances is pretty moot and that’s why it’s another argument I try not to fall back on. It doesn’t really matter what characters could have been like. What matters is what they are actually are like and Rika is. Well. Rika

I think that there is a lot to criticize about the way Rika is written in the game, mostly having to do with the fact that she perpetuates the Depraved Bisexual trope, or that portraying a mentally ill character as villainous is always going to come with some issues, or the extremely frustrating fact that aside from Jaehee there are no female characters in the game that we’re really meant to like. I kind of wish we could discuss the game’s actual writing issues more because uuum there’s a lot of really bad and messed up stuff in here actually

Also, when I say things about how I think Rika hate is out of hand, it actually doesn’t have much to do with how people react to Rika as a character. It has more to do with people harassing Rika cosplayers at cons, leaving rude and aggressive comments on Rika fan art, attacking her fans even after they’ve made it clear that they only like Rika as a character/villain. That’s more the kind of stuff I’m thinking of when I say that Rika hate can be unnecessarily vicious, when it extends to actual real people who are mostly just minding their own business and trying to have fun with a character they like. I understand that Rika is controversial and for good reason, but come on guys, it’s not hard to have basic decency toward each other

Okay now let’s finally get to V and Saeran. I’ve never denied that they are victims of Rika’s abuse so let’s get that straight right away. I’ve also been careful to avoid equating their actions with Rika’s. I know I have repeatedly said that Rika has done worse things than both of them. And I do deeply sympathize V and Saeran. Almost everything I’ve ever said about Saeran has included a sentence that started with something like “I love Saeran and I sympathize with him but”. And yes I do in fact sympathize with V and I have mentioned this before, but since I’m also pretty harsh on V a lot of the time I suppose that point can get buried.

As a sidenote - and I’m not accusing you of doing this, anon, it’s just something I do want to address - I really don’t like it when people assume that someone must have no experience with abuse or trauma just because they may feel differently about something. Abuse and trauma are heavy subjects and of course people want to make sure you actually know what you’re talking about if you’re going to be talking about it, but like, no one should be required to disclose their personal abuse/trauma history just to prove that they’re qualified to have an opinion. I just… we really should be more careful about things like that

Back to V and Saeran (I’m really sorry I’m all over the place and I’m probably making less sense as I go), even if I do sympathize with them a lot, and even if I can relate to Saeran on a deeply personal level that I don’t much like to share with people, I don’t think it’s right to completely dismiss their wrongdoings. It’s possible for characters to be victims as well as victimizers and I would consider V, Saeran and Rika to be both those things, though obviously to vastly different degrees.

Just because I understand and sympathize with V doesn’t mean I think it’s okay that he enabled Rika’s unhealthy behaviors, romanticized her mental illness, treated her like his art piece rather than as a person, and remained silent and complicit in her crimes.

Just because I understand and sympathize with Saeran, doesn’t mean I think it’s okay that he attempts to kidnap MC, threatens violence against both her and Seven multiple times, and actually does shoot V. And I was actually being generous there by only counting things that he did in Seven’s route and the secret endings, aka the canon stuff that ultimately matters most. If I was going to count all the shit he pulls in other routes (blinding Yoosung in one eye, as an example), in bad endings (sexual assault, kidnapping, torture, murder, as examples), in Another Story and in his own damn route (kidnapping, sexually harassing MC and almost crossing the line to sexual assault, keeping her locked up and being verbally abusive with her), it would be asking me to excuse a lot more. I do both sympathize and empathize with Saeran! I really do! He’s one of my favorite characters ever and he means a lot to me, I can’t even begin to tell you how much!! But a lot of his antics are still inexcusable!!

And again we have to go back to my point about people’s fandom experiences being different from each other’s. I haven’t seen enough Rika defenders for it to be an issue for me, personally, but do you know what I have seen a lot of? And I mean, a lot of? People talking about how hot it would be if Saeran abused and/or raped them, people saying that they would be perfectly happy to let V treat them exactly how he treated Rika, people insisting that anyone who even tries to say that something V did was Not Good are terrible people, or that liking Rika at all in any capacity or even just showingneutrality toward her makes you a terrible person. That was the kind of stuff I saw a lot of back when I was really involved in fandom and that was the kind of stuff that made my experience in the fandom so deeply unpleasant. So, when I talk about fandom issues, that’s the kind of stuff that comes up for me, because those were the issues that I had. Maybe you’re lucky and you missed a lot of the shit I saw. Maybe I’m lucky for missing a lot of the shit people are spewing in defense of Rika. And maybe reducing it to an issue of “Straight Girls only care about hot guys” is not exactly right or fair of me, but… well, Straight Girls who only care about hot guys have been a significant source of annoyance for me in this fandom so when I’m feeling particularly salty they become a very easy target for it. Again, not saying that’s right or fair of me

More often than not what I’m trying to do with V and Rika discourse is get people to realize that the situation was not as black and white as they make it seem. Rika was not one-dimensionally evil and V was not wholly good, that’s all I ever want to get across about those two. And what I’m trying to do with Saeran discourse is… okay honestly I don’t even know what I’m trying to do here I actually wish I could just stay out of Saeran discourse entirely but if it comes up I guess I’ll talk about it. I am extremely uncomfortable with many of the more popular fandom interpretations of Saeran but he’s also too important to me for it to sour my opinion of him (since Ray’s route has come out it’s been a pretty close call tho let me tell you and I swear if this fandom ever does make me stop liking Saeran I’ll never forgive them). I really want nothing more than to stay out Saeran discourse but lately it keeps finding me. I’m honestly kind of tired of discourse-ing about V and Rika on theseblogs because at this point I’m running out of new things to say about eitherof them and I think I’ve already made my thoughts and feelings sufficientlyclear in numerous posts, I’m not sure what else I can do. But again, if people bring it up, I’ll usually be willing to talk about it.

I don’t really care if people hate Rika, and I don’t really care if people love V, I only wish people wouldn’t oversimplify either character and I wish people were more open to accepting that their situation was a complex one where, even if one of them (Rika) is undeniably guiltier, neither person was 100% innocent

#ask #anon #abuse mention #rape mention #suicide mention

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eeveelutionsforequality · 7 years ago

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I recently had a conversation with a friend, because they shipped two characters in a piece of media, but it was later revealed that said characters were siblings, and my friend said that they felt bad for shipping them... I wasn't really sure what to say other than that if they liked the characters' interactions then they liked the characters' interactions, that there's nothing wrong with that, that the characters are fictional so no harm done. I feel like I could've said more though, or been more helpful.

It's important to note that, especially when there's that big reveal coming up and the writers don't want to give it away, siblings in fiction aren't always portrayed in such a way that our brain processes their interactions in the same way that it would view our own siblings in relation to ourselves - just saying "they're siblings", especially long after we've gone through the process of emotionally interpreting their relationship, isn't always enough to elicit that emotional reaction.

I know because I write, because I have to try to convey certain relationships between characters, and because I sometimes have to try to alter somebody's interpretation of a relationship or personality through a surprise twist (and I know how easy it is to fail at that). You lead the reader along and make them feel a certain way about a character, then pull the ol' switcheroo and give them a shock and/or conflicting emotions, but if you don't adequately convey that change emotionally to each individual reader then you get "he wasn't a villain, he was just a misunderstood baby" and similar scenarios - only in the case of certain people shipping incest ships, the initial interpretation stems from the writer (possibly unintentionally) not hitting your personal "family" buttons and not them intentionally pulling a bait n' switch, and said reveal may not have gotten you in sync with the writer either. You can view them as siblings logically, but if the emotion isn't there then it isn't there, and it's not your fault (nor anyone's fault, even the writer's) that this specific portrayal just doesn't click right in your head... think about how many people don't gel with certain canon romantic ships - it's not at all uncommon for portions of the audience to react differently to others, because a writer can't hit the right note for everyone when everyone's brain needs a different note.

(Of course, in my friend's case, maybe they felt bad because the characters did hit the sibling buttons after the reveal - but that wasn't the impression that they gave. That said, if you feel bad about a certain ship suddenly after a reveal, maybe it is because the writer effectively altered your interpretation of the characters and intended that reaction - that's something to applaud them for, not condemn yourself for. Don't feel at all as though there's something wrong with you or some kind of problem within you just because you didn't pick up on a cue or see them that way, it's perfectly fine - possibly even intentional - that you didn't. My friend didn't judge the writers, but some people judge writers for causing such reactions - they say that a writer who writes a story that makes you feel disgusted is glorifying that thing... no, you ninny, nine times out of ten you feel disgusted because they were trying to disgust you. But I'm getting sidetracked.)

Shipping two characters that you didn't initially register as siblings doesn't mean that you're attracted to the concept of incest (in fact, it's an indication of the opposite, especially if you feel conflicted about it upon discovery), and it definitely doesn't mean that you're bad in any way, it just means that it wasn't written in a way that led to your brain solely viewing their relationship in that specific way - and that's fine. We all have different experiences and different things that we associate with other things, so it's completely understandable that an interaction that one individual sees as solely platonic and familial can come across as romantic to another.

That said, even if you enjoy the dynamic of them being siblings in a romantic context in fiction, that's fine too. It's fiction.

Part of it being fiction means that you can warp things, leave out the bad bits, explore dynamics that wouldn't actually present in such a way in reality, make them into something that they wouldn't really be - as long as you're aware that it's a (quite possibly romanticized) fantasy and not an attainable reality, as long as you maintain the separation of fiction and reality, then you aren't going to suddenly change your opinions of the real world (and maintaining that differentiation is something that you're likely doing by default right now and constantly, unconsciously, naturally, because of the inherent differences between fiction and reality, and how our brain interprets stimuli from each).

When it comes to shipping "problematic" things, people seem to forget that, and they call it harmful normalizing/romanticizing. In reality things don't work how they work in fiction, the bad bits are still there, so you're not going to start being okay with the reality because it's those very present bad bits that you are not and were never okay with, it was those bad bits that you needed to take away to enjoy the concept at all. They're still there in reality and you're still not okay with them, ergo you're still not okay with it in reality even if you enjoy it in fiction.

Our brains naturally view fiction and reality in different ways, we interpret them differently, we react to them differently, and our brains are aware that we're currently safe and sound while reading a book, that it's not actually happening (excluding in very specific circumstances like certain mental health issues), and our brains have a different emotional reaction to a real physical loved one than to words on a piece of paper (that's why seeing certain violent actions against a loved one in real life was a traumatic event for me, but watching people get their intestines pulled out by zombies was enjoyable - in the latter, I was safe, and nobody was being hurt because they weren't real).

While you can become desensitized to fictional portrayals, without extraneous factors that desensitization doesn't translate into reality or real behaviour - like I said, the bad bits are still there in reality and they still affect you. Sitting alone and reading words on a page - in a safe environment where nobody involved is real or able to get hurt - is a very different scenario to engaging with real people in a potentially harmful manner, and influencing you to do the latter takes a lot more time, power, targeted manipulation, tactics that are effective on your personality, coercion, etc (often alongside things like social ostracizing and severe mental ill health) than that book alone has (and notably the effectiveness and power of any radicalization or manipulation tactics are dependent upon the severity of the intended action, your upbringing, your susceptibility, your vulnerability, your pre-existing morality, and so forth, so if even that is so wildly varied then something like a fictional story, something substantially less targeted or invasive, something that entirely lacks intent and entirely lacks the ability to adapt to the individual's weaknesses, does not have the power to corrupt vast swathes of the population). Scientology would be a lot more popular than it is if humans were that easy to radicalize - there's a reason cults have to put so much effort in, and still often fail - if it was as simple as a good fanfic then we'd see "Dan and Phil ascend to a higher plane through the Church of Scientology (tw dubcon, tw bananas)" because they'd be on that like it was catnip.

The fact that someone, for example (and not the ship that my friend was talking about), thinks that Stan and Ford's character designs and interactions aesthetically suit one and other, and/or make for an interesting dynamic to explore in fiction, doesn't undo years upon years, decades, of interactions and experiences in the real world, it won't undo how they fundamentally feel about their own siblings - those things are far more ingrained in them than a couple of cartoon old men can ever undo.

Most importantly though, fiction (and yes, even shipping... yes, EVEN SHIPPING) can be about creating emotions other than happiness, arousal, or positive emotions - hurt/comfort fics, angst fics, self-harm fics, and so forth, come to mind. You're not just getting sexual gratification from a pairing, you may not even be getting that at all - you're exploring a fictional dynamic and you can be doing that to achieve all sorts of emotions (yes, even disgust). To assume that someone is shipping because "it must turn them on! why else would they ship it!?" is naive to human behaviour and to the nature of entertainment - shipping is not some special area of entertainment that is reserved for only one emotional goal.

Horror movies, Black Mirror, stories about affairs, these things don't exist because we're happy about fictional people being hurt - "entertainment" isn't just about enjoying good things for good reasons in a good way and feeling good as a result, it isn't just about eliciting positive reactions, humans are strange and sometimes we seek out the negative or neutral feelings too (and it's healthy and useful to do so in a safe environment and via fiction that harms nobody). People aren't just watching I'm a Celebrity because they are happy when someone eats a spider - most people are looking away and cringing while that's happening, they're decidedly uncomfortable, and yet they're entertained. We're all weird.

The association of "entertaining" and "eliciting a positive reaction" needs to get on a spaceship and start searching the galaxy for an intelligent species that's actually hardwired for that to be the case... because we're not that species. Things can be gripping, intriguing, profound, hard-hitting, helpful, and even entertaining, specifically because they are dark or distressing, specifically because they do not make you feel good.

Do you even really want to live in a world where you're never allowed to feel disturbed, grossed out, upset, offended by fiction? A world where you're never allowed to learn or explore various premises, feelings, stories in a safe environment? A world where someone has to break the fourth wall and ruin the immersion just to tell you "this is bad, by the way", instead of trusting you and your developed mind (hence age ratings) to interpret morality properly and of your own accord? (...and if you say that "they don't have to break the fourth wall to do that", you should take a look at the number of people arguing that even specific overtly negative portrayals are "romanticizing" or should be censored, because I believe that it shows quite clearly that people who disagree with this stuff often do not give a fuck about how well written it is; and I'd argue that writers/creators shouldn't have to clarify at all, overtly or otherwise, because you should be capable of maintaining your morality even when faced with something that disagrees with it... do you disagree? congrats, you've proven my point, you can indeed maintain your position against something even while reading something seemingly or actually in favour of it.)

If you don't want that world, does that also apply in regards to sexual or romantic content? If you are okay with disturbing content in general, but not with fictional portrayals of sexual taboos, fictional portrayals of unhealthy or abusive relationships, or fictional portrayals of sexual violence, why? Why is it okay to elicit fear or sadness with a fictional brutal death, but not with a fictional rape?

Did you say that it's because "you're using things that traumatize people for entertainment"? So what makes the trauma of losing my loved ones, of being beaten, of nearly dying, different from the trauma of being raped in this scenario? There's no logical reason that stands up to scrutiny for deeming The Human Centipede okay, Rec/Quarantine okay, but Gothika not okay, The Hills Have Eyes not okay.

Or maybe you just said "It's gross" or "Why would you even want to read that!? Surely it speaks ill of you that you want to!" It's gross... and? The others aren't? What makes it special? What makes it more damning than wanting to watch brutal zombie films? The truth, as I've said, is that it has nothing to do with how people feel in reality or what their desires in reality are - but that most of us just aren't built to only seek out uncomplicated, positive feelings in fiction.

And remember that you're not obliged to ship/watch any of these things - they should have age ratings, trigger warnings, adequate tagging, etc, so that people who need/want to avoid them can do so. There's no obligation to enjoy such things - if you're the kind of person that gains nothing from them, that's okay, that's perfectly fine. However, you need to understand that not everybody creates or indulges in content just to feel good - even if you don't relate to doing that or are unable to envision yourself doing that, it's unfair of you to make vast and incorrect assumptions of so many people (which directly contradict what those very people are telling you that they're feeling).

But I got really sidetracked again there, so to summarize:

If you interpret fictional characters in a way that doesn't elicit an emotional sibling reaction to you, that's okay, that's natural, that's understandable, and it doesn't speak ill of you that your brain happens to read certain cues differently to how the brain of the writer reads them.

If you ship them despite reading them as siblings, that's okay, that's natural, that's understandable, and it doesn't speak ill of you that the lack of risk factors and such that would be present in the real world (ie nobody can get hurt in fiction, there's no genetic risk factors because they don't have DNA, etc) meant that you were able to explore an idea.

If you ship them because you enjoy exploring emotions other than arousal or joy, that's okay, that's natural, that's understandable, and it doesn't speak ill of you that (like every human on the planet) you aren't sunshine and daisies 24/7.

If you're out there feeling bad for liking a ship or pairing - whether it's in spite of canon context or because of it, whether it's because it makes you feel good things or otherwise - please remember that it's okay to ship whatever you ship. It's okay to feel bad about the ship sometimes too, to think that it's gross or silly - maybe the canon creator or the fic creator is trying to elicit that reaction, or maybe you're just not in the mood for that pairing today, or whatever - but don't feel bad about yourself for shipping something, and don't ever feel like the potential interpretations of your ship/s dictate or convey your morality whatsoever.

#Mod Vaporeon #long post #in defense of shipping #sorry I felt like a ramble so I rambled

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laberintos-espinas · 5 years ago

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Creating the Perfect Advertising Headline

My experience starts with a degree in publicizing, running my very own promotion office, trailed by 25 years as a publicizing expert for the Yellow Pages. During those 35 years, I accept that I've taken in some things or three about what makes an effective promotion crusade. I even composed a book about my index encounters and how to make progressively powerful Yellow Page promotions while setting aside cash. Yet, enough about me, this is about you and what you have to do to get that customer huntsville locksmith

From the title, you have effectively assembled it begins with the feature. Regardless of whether it's a paper, magazine, or Yellow Page advertisement, the feature resembles the start of the vehicle. Without one or possibly a decent working one, nothing occurs. The vehicle may falter or whimper, however the final product is sat around idly, for both you and the peruser. I was constantly astonished at what my customer proposed for features in their YP advertisements. Would you be able to think about what they requested?

Most felt that it should simply contain their name. By and large, they assumed that was sufficient. Presently if their name happened to be, "Jones Plumbing, where we fix all channels and depletes effortlessly with 20 years experience and have a full, unconditional promise," I would oppose this idea. Numerous lone needed their name, similar to "Harvey's Appliance Repair" over the whole top. Presently what does that truly let us know? In the first place, the promotion was at that point under "Apparatus Repair," in the telephone directory. Furthermore, for what reason would I need to give somebody my business basically in light of the fact that his name was Harvey? Regardless of whether it was "Smith Toyota Auto Sales," does that by itself persuade you to go there to purchase your next Corolla when there are five other Toyota vendors? I think not.

The feature is a chance to challenge the peruser and offer an element or advantage story. It can pose an inquiry, incite a reaction, or give significant data. Instead of portray each probability, let me list a couple of models:

"You Don't Really Need Insurance, ask us for what good reason" (it's for your survivors, family, and so on.)

"The 7 Things You Must Do Before Calling a Locksmith"

"Is it accurate to say that you are Risking Your Life by NOT Seeing Your Dentist Every Year?"

"Try not to Repair Your Brakes Until You Read This"

"We Didn't Go into Business to Make Money" (to help individuals)

"Take This Window-Washing Test Before You Call Anyone"

"An Ordinary Pest Control Service Hurts More Than Helps"(using unforgiving synthetic concoctions, and so on.)

"Not All Pet Foods Are Made Equal. Ask Us For what valid reason."

"What Painting Contractors Don't Want You to Know"

"Why We the Most Expensive Dealer around the local area and That's the Good News!

"Get familiar with the Secret to Better Carpet Cleaning"

"The One Thing that You should Know about your Real Estate Agent"

"Why We No Longer Sell Burglar Alarms" (we sell wellbeing, bit of psyche, and so forth.)

Things being what they are, what befallen all the business names? They can be anyplace else in the promotion that you pick. The fundamental reason for the feature is to get the peruser to proceed into the core of the promotion. Okay be charmed by these features? Is it accurate to say that they are superior to anything the name and telephone number alone? You can utilize these as a springboard by connecting your own sort of business and afterward clarifying in the sub-content what is truly going on. Wouldn't you like to know how you are taking a chance with your life by NOT seeing your dental specialist? This is on the grounds that ill-advised flossing can prompt a stroke if the microscopic organisms winds up in your circulation system.

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