#like an artists work being valued highly is such a different situation than someone making money from other people's labor
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do people not understand the reason taylor swift is worth a billion dollars is bc of the valuation of her catalog? because taylor swift owns her own catalog, instead of it being owned by a record label. like yeah, sure, abolish capitalism or whatever, but ummm until that happens, SOMEONE will own art. and personally i think it's better if it's the artist, not label execs and shareholders who have absolutely nothing to do with the creation of said art. but whatever.
#like obviously she's incredibly incredibly wealthy#and i'm not saying she's not or that she couldn't hypothetically sell her life's work#but you have to be willfully obtuse to ignore the reason her net worth is so astronomically high compared to her peers#she's lucky enough that she's in a position to own her own work. not everyone gets that opportunity.#and it's weird that people act like it's all just profit from like. running sweatshops or something#like an artists work being valued highly is such a different situation than someone making money from other people's labor#like her MUSIC is valued at half a billion dollars#and this is just the music SHE owns. btw.#her back catalog that was sold away from her was $300 million. so.#like we can talk about shit like whether money should exist and that's all fine but like come the fuck on#taylor swift is not the root of evil in the world jfc#she should just make billions of dollars for OTHER people and then it would be fine#also it's weird that rihanna doesn't get this same treatment and her money is literally from running sweatshops but. ok. lol#it's just too obvious that people only gaf bc they hate taylor swift lmfao
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MBTI PAIRINGS BSD
These are just my natural gut instincts mostly for which types I think would be a good partner for the BSD cast. These are highly stereotyped and obviously my unprofessional opinion. I've noted the ones that I am particularly biased about, so take those with even less than a grain of salt because this is purely just me rambling. Also the explanations got longer towards the end, so oops. Here they are, the mbti bullcrap that nobody asked for:
Atsushi - ENFJ, I think ENFJs are good at helping others find a purpose and making others feel like they belong and Atsushi would benefit from someone more outgoing than him since he tends to be bashful.
Kunikida - ISFJ, I think he needs someone who will take care of him and help ease his stress and ISFJs are amazing at that.
Dazai - INFX, he needs someone who will look past his flaws and still see the humanity in him. I also think INFJ and INFP are good at brainstorming random ideas with people, which I think someone like Dazai would enjoy.
Naomi - ISXJ, I think she would do well with someone that is quieter and focused on taking care of the little daily tasks. I think ISTJs and ISFJs would let her take the lead socially, which I think she would enjoy.
Ranpo - ENXP, I kind of feel like Ranpo needs someone similar to him and can keep up with his train of thought. I think having someone who understands him and just wants to laze around would make him really comfortable.
Yosano - INFP, she's been through a lot and she is a strong woman, so I think having someone gentle who won't try to push her too hard would be so sweet for her.
Tanizaki - ESFJ, Honestly I just think he would be good with someone upbeat and friendly.
Fukuzawa - IXFJ, he needs someone calm who he can sit and relax with. Someone who he can care for but that can care for him in return when he is overworked.
Akutagawa - ISFX, he needs someone soft so that he can be comfortable with his own feelings, I think. Having someone who can show him a different way of living than the mafia and can show him the beauty in the world.
Higuchi - ESTJ or INTJ, she needs to have someone who values her work as much as she does. I think having someone who can keep her on track and focused would help her to gain more confidence in herself.
Kouyou - ISFP, I think ISFP have an eye for romance and have an artistic view of love and see a lot of beauty in the world and could help reignite that in her.
Tachihara - ESFJ, he would need someone friendly and understanding. ESFJ are also good at saving face and blending socially, which he might need in his line of work...
Gin - ENFX, Gin needs someone to bring out her lighter side and someone she can just have a good time with. ENFP could take her on a lot of fun dates and ENFJ could do a lot of fun volunteer work with her.
Hirotsu - XNTJ, he would do well with someone progress focused and who knows what they want out of life. Someone who he could build a life together with without needing him around all the time.
Chuuya - ESFJ, I just feel like he goes really well with the cheerleader stereotyped person. Someone who can take him out of the house and go wine tasting together and acts appropriately in social situations. I think he would want someone who can handle themselves without being too independent.
Mori - EXFP, kinda just feel like he would match well with the "genki girl" stereotype. Someone who goes along with his silly ideas and doesn't make him feel like he has to constantly be in control.
Oda - INFP, GIVE ODA A SOFT PARTNER!!!! He deserves someone gentle and sweet who will let him know that he has truly changed his ways and that he is a good man. Someone he can daydream with and if that isn't an INFP then I don't even know. (I'm biased when it comes to Oda because he really did try to change himself for the better.)
Ango - ESTJ, He would be good as the more submissive half of a power couple. He would do well with someone as meticulous as he is, but someone who can bear the responsibility and weight of decisions better than him.
Fyodor - ENTP (biased) or ISTX, look I'm not gonna sit here simping over rat-man and pretending that I wouldn't ship him with myself as an ENTP so I'm entirely biased on that front. Ideally an ENTP could understand his way of thinking and be able to debate him on his beliefs, which I think he would enjoy explaining, but I think and ISTJ or ISTP who is good at following orders and carrying them out accurately would greatly appeal to Fyodor as nothing comes before his plans. As an ENTP, I think he could have like 5 minutes of fun and then I'd be dead, but damn it if a girl can't dream.
Ivan - EXTJ, plain and simple he no longer feels negative emotions, so it wouldn't do him any good being with someone who wants to talk about his feelings really. Having someone logical and dominant would suit him much better.
Nikolai - INFP, he would do well with someone who wants to understand him but doesn't completely grasp his motivations. *cough*so he doesn't murder them*cough*. Someone who can try to gently free his soul without making him feel like he needs to be free of emotions.
Sigma - ESFJ or INFP, I feel like he could be the more submissive partner to a charming and friendly ESFJ or the dominant partner to a dreamy and loving INFP. I think Sigma would like kind of being in a defined role in his relationship since he would have a more clear idea of what he should do.
#fyodor simp#biased af#i finally figured out how to add a fucking tag#nobody asked for this#I'm so sorry#mbti bullcrap#I forgot about the guild#Maybe next time#bsd mbti
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Hi!!! May I get a HP, Star Wars, Voltron, and Disney matchup?
𝗕𝗔𝗦𝗜𝗖𝗦 + 𝗔𝗣𝗣𝗘𝗔𝗥𝗔𝗡𝗖𝗘
19, Libra, Neutral Good, enneagram is 4w5, muggleborn Ravenclaw (with Gryffindor tendencies), and my patronus spirit is Hummingbird. Biromantic Pansexual Genderfluid woman using pronouns of She/Her or He/Him. Cherubic-like face, with short height (5'1") plus sized Southeast Asian woman with Spanish descent that has chic messy/wavy brunette medium hair that reaches to my shoulder, oriental skin, slightly upturned eyes, small lashes, chocolate brown irises, cute flat nose, heart shaped face, full cheeks, cupid's bow lips, a small beauty mark on the forehead, and naturally straight teeth with tiny gap in front (just imagine that it's a mixture of Marinette from 𝗠𝗶𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘂𝗹𝗼𝘂𝘀 𝗟𝗮𝗱𝘆𝗯𝘂𝗴, Musa from 𝗪𝗶𝗻𝘅 𝗖𝗹𝘂𝗯, and Alexandra Trese from 𝗧𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗲---cause' my friend told me that I kinda look like them). My sense of fashion is in between emo and boyish plus korean glam, I sometimes let my hair down or styled like Lara Croft reboot.
𝗣𝗘𝗥𝗦𝗢𝗡𝗔𝗟𝗜𝗧𝗬
Distant, quiet, and timid at first making people thought I'm a demure, modest, and self-effacing that looks "immaculate" or "one of a kind" (due to my protective mom, a reason why I've never been in a relationship) but the truth is, dunno how to initiate a conversation, but a total opposite if I open up---friendly, ambivert, witty, laughing loudly on a daily basis---like my happiness is too shallow, super talkative, eats a lot (yeah I can finish a huge slice of cake or a meal in one sitting), awkward, daydreamer (I got embarrassed from knocking at the door even I'm inside the classroom 😂), EXTREMELY CLUMSY (mostly gets bruises from hitting, bumping my head somewhere, walking into something on my way, and being careless to my belongings), secretly likes affection, easily overwhelmed, prone to melt over wholesomeness, flusters on compliments, lightly blushes on cheesy banters, eager to share what I know (especially about Catholic Church---my past teacher joked that I'll become a saint because of it 🤣), oftenly speaks full of sarcasm with a lowkey crackhead energy citing meme references, and talented girl who can be your no.1 supporter and unashamed to be true to myself but can be awkward to strangers. In terms of leadership, I only educate and guide than being a prefect (I might take the role seriously), will lift my group when there's lacking/incompleteness. About doing projects in school, I become too extra and prepared for efforts, but I'll forget the process in the end.
The extent, I'm expressive, warm-hearted, willig to help, kind, intelligent, supportive, nice, creative, enthusiastic, laid-back, determined, tough, competitive, and feisty outside, but a real softie that can be childish and dramatic that cries so easily (but will enlightened real quick by smallest things that makes me smile) filled with doubts, frustrations, and insecurities with fear of failure that pushes off the limits to to please everyone because they might get dissappointed from expectations---I simply can't stop proving myself too much because I'm a survivor of bullying. But I still managed to be stronger than ever after I stumbled, even it's a slow burn process. I can be blunt, intimidating, harsh, and a douchebag if I receive ends or I got interrupted while doing something. Immature, headstrong, perfectionist, demanding, hesitant, jumpy, forgetful, overthinker, quick-tempered, sensitive, and anxious (no joke, my nervousness makes me think worse scenario will arrive). Though can be procrastinator and arrogant, I raised as a religious 𝖺𝗇𝖽 diplomatic youth, willing to fight what I believe (including my dreams and what's important to me) and what is right. In addition, I have a habit of staying up late and doing sign of the cross to ease nervousness.
Rowdy and feeling-brokenhearted and bitter friend in the group who fangirl a lot, swears like sailor, will call out on people that we loathe, will make fun of your stupidity (in a good way) before helping, and bring gossips, but a hopeless romantic and cheeky (makes banter with sarcasms or pick up lines as an endearment, but gets annoyed if I received sappy or offensive one), Still generous and concerned person in a subtle and different way.
𝗛𝗢𝗕𝗕𝗜𝗘𝗦
My hobbies are singing, drawing, roleplaying, listening to music, chatting/browsing on social media, conceptualizing, writing, and reading some stuffs. I'll include making corniest jokes/puns, sleeping, and dancing when nobody's around or walking like a model if I feel so bold (even I'm terrible at both xD). I also used to learn Italian language a bit.
𝗟𝗜𝗞𝗘𝗦
Loves kittens, milk tea, singing at the karaoke, cartoons, iced coffee, memes, cute things, watching YouTube videos (mostly pageants, ASMR, edit audios, and mukbangs), also enjoys playing games on my sister's PSP. Sucker for arts, choir, poetry, night sky, makeup, fun/deep/dumb conversations, Christianity, documentaries (about saints, real crime stories, and inspirational people), reading interesting stuffs, talking about social issues, and creative writing, chilling both indoors and outdoors. Beside that, my music taste are like late 90s-2000s songs (mostly rock, pop, and country) sometimes Catholic songs, kpop and ppop, chocoholic, and a sweetooth as well.
𝗗𝗜𝗦𝗟𝗜𝗞𝗘𝗦
Things that I hate are stereotyping, HUGE creepy crawlies (spiders, toads, snakes, and cockroaches), firecracker sounds, thunder and lightning, being left out, loneliness, heart break, blackout, and judgemental people. If I found out that someone hates or backstabbing or being rude to me, I won't hesitate to throw offensive criticisms, leaving them with a "I don't give a f" attitude. One random fact about me is, I 𝗐𝗂𝗅𝗅 vent out EVERYTHING I despise in my entire existence---from bad soap operas to toxicity, worse scenarios in real life, and how terrible is my love life from unrequited feelings that I got, because it's a big deal for me, and I consider forcing me to do what I'm not into and manipulating me as my major pet peeves.
𝗧𝗥𝗜𝗚𝗚𝗘𝗥𝗦
In terms of triggers...I only have two which are ta𝖨king about divorce/annullment/separation because I came from a generational broken family (it sucks that some people I knew assumed that the reason why I'm overly unaware that someone is interested in me in secret, is I have "high standards" looking for a partner, but the truth is I'm strict and I have a personal preferences...I know my worth and I don't want settle for less!) and religion/beliefs discrimination, cause' there are reasonings that doesn't makes sense because some, sounds too hypocritical, like as if you're a morally good person.
𝗥𝗢𝗠𝗔𝗡𝗖𝗘 + 𝗟𝗢𝗩𝗘 𝗟𝗔𝗡𝗚𝗨𝗔𝗚𝗘𝗦
My love languages are quality time and gift giving, but I actually swoon over physical touch (especially cuddles and cute kisses) and words of affirmation when it comes to having a partner, though I get attracted so easily, matured but can be a goofy person who's nice, friendly, kind-hearted, loving, faithful, and excels in academics is my cup of tea. Whenever I have a real life crush (which is rare), I act the same but deep inside, my heart is about to explode and will eventually share to my trustful friends how I highly admire that person, however if they spilled the beans out, I'll obviously deny it and will cry if they like someone else, it will take some time for me to move on, now I don't care for them anymore.
Best Friends to Lovers is my ideal trope because I find it very cute since you already knew each other before dating (which happened to my 2nd cousin, she married her best friend!)---perfect balance for romance, laughters, comfort, and tears when it comes to sharing your vibes, being there through thick and thin, safe with embraces, and helping each other to grow.
𝗧𝗥𝗜𝗩𝗜𝗔𝗦
My best assets are smile, eyes, personality, singing voice, artistic skills, writings, intelligence, oratorical skills and I have potential in hosting...so I can consider myself as a singer, artist, orator, speaker, and a top student who's a former active campus ministry member with three roles (choir leader, psalm singer, and reader).
May sounds different but I'm passionate for helping people through my talents and sharing my story to inspire everyone. I may look selfish, but I have a different way on how I show that I actually care also I have a biased sentimental value
Currently a college freshman, learning how to cook. I have so many interests, to the point I don't know what I'm into because of my dreams to become a popular Filipino YouTuber, a novelist, and being part of a successful chorale competing internationally...I also consider joining pageants at school too once the pandemic ends, but maybe.
HP: Remus!
- Remus is also quiet and a bit reserved when he's not in a familiar situation, so your own first impression on him would be a good one, as you'd seem similar to his own personality. He's sweet and is able to start up a conversation if he notices the other person is having a hard time doing so, so hopefully he'd be able to bring out your more extroverted and friendly self after a while so he can be around the more open you. He wouldn't mind you being a bit awkward-he's very much the same way-honestly, the comradery that would come from that would be more positive than anything else. He loves sharing knowledge and learning about new things, so your eagerness to talk about what you know would work really well also! He does a lot better when he knows someone has his back too, so your extra supportive nature would endear him to you as well.
SW: Han!
- Your nicer and more helpful personality would balance out Han's more standoffish vibes when first meeting. You might get on his nerves a bit first, but you'd quickly grown on him and, in turn, make him a bit of a better person. Your ability to be blunt and a bit harsh would serve you well if you ever needed to stand your ground on an issue that two of you have, as he can be quite stubborn.
VLD: Lance!
- Lance can be a bit immature from time to time as well, especially when it comes to trying to be funny or cheering up those around him-he's also headstrong and typically firm in what he wants to do, so your own determined personality would attract him to you a lot as well. He often puts off things he needs to do if they make him anxious too, but if you both recognize that you share that problem, helping each other might be a good solution!
Disney: Flynn!
- Flynn is quite a sarcastic and teasing person, so your own humor would match well with his. He's also quite a hopeless romantic as well, even though he's certainly not one to admit that right off the bat. He enjoys singing, and as he gets closer to someone he feels more comfortable doing so in front of them, so a partner he's been with for a long time would get to see him be more and more open with it. That also applies to activities like dancing.
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Uranus in the Houses: Individualism
Uranus in the 1st: I’m sure you’d imagine quite the quirky and interesting person with this placement. While this certainly can be true, there is something about questioning identity. Uranus indicates a “higher mind”, innovation, moments of discovery. Identity is not fluid, not easily lost, and not obscure BUT they may fall into re-discovering themselves over and over again. Individuality is tightly connected to expression and intellect somehow. Seeking change in how they represent themselves may be something they crave or do naturally. There is something special about exploring all facets of the self.
Uranus in the 2nd: Individuality in how they view self-worth or approach security may manifest. Being inventive and original in practical, sensual, physical ways is another way to look at this placement. “Unique ways to make money” is the trademark of this position but there is much more to this house than money and possessions. Uranus in this House may show their uniqueness in how they spend money or what they buy but they also show their individuality through the physical realm and this can mean many things. This is one to own a “conversation starter” whether it is in their fashion choices or home decor. Having an unconventional approach to what a society deems as “practical” may happen. There is something special about physically living, valuing, and really existing on a different level.
Uranus in the 3rd: “Eccentric communicator” is the label many put on this placement. So yes, individuality is certainly seen in how they crack jokes, spur up debates, and bring up odd, political, or even taboo subjects. Here we see that “higher mind” showing social intuition and observation. They approach the realm of socialization, learning, and expressing differently. They are very eager to learn about others and about the world around them. The way they learn could show individuality and uniqueness. In their earlier years they may have stood out a lot among peers, especially in a classroom setting. There is something special about living in the realm of ideas and sharing for them.
Uranus in the 4th: Unconventional family life or domestic life can pop up with this placement. In terms of individuality this comes from freedom to be themselves apart from a family or tight community. Deep-seeded Influence upon them, comfort, attachments, and roots - these things shape them into a sculpture different than others with their same upbringing. This doesn’t just mean the black sheep in the family, this can mean the odd one out in a school, church, or organization. Being “different” doesn’t always mean being an outcast or something negative. With the 4th being a house about safety and comfort, they may find their individuality or express it best when being disruptive towards that comfort/security. There is something special about constantly stepping out of their comfort zone.
Uranus in the 5th: That individuality shines through the bright 5th House in expression and creativity. Unique fashion sense ✓, has combined quirkiness with flair ✓, unforgettable party goer ✓, original artist ✓. Don’t forget being an “individualist” when it comes to romance. Uranus at times can make someone with this position highly independent and doesn’t want to be in any relationship that threatens their individuality or freedom. Uranus isn’t necessarily known for self-focus but it can be known for separation and a focus on what makes you, you. With that focus comes a theme of rushing into relationships with like-minded people but then still trying hard to protect their differences and freedom to express. There can be a tug-of-war in love. Really individuality sometimes shows the most or is solidified through how they are different from their lovers yet still find common ground. It shows through their art. It shows through their speeches. It shows through their big ideas. It shows through their celebrations. There is something special about never losing yourself while still connecting with another.
Uranus in the 6th: Don’t sleep on this placement! Sure we could talk about unconventional healing and maybe being a healer is one way they stand out. Uncommon illnesses and accidents are tied to this but let’s talk about other areas of the 6th. Other environments that their uniqueness can show and breathe in. Here is someone who stands out in their everyday routine, in their work space, and in their habits. They can be innovative and original, breaking away from the normal humdrum of everyday life. Uranus in the 6th can be a strength for teamwork and altruism. They know how to change a negative or toxic environment or routine into something liberating. They may serve others by helping them break free, start anew, or giving them the knowledge they need to better their situation. Despite Uranus sometimes being looked at as a planet about disruption, chaos, “being apart” - in this house Uranus intelligently approaches inefficiency, which many times could be due to a lack of cooperation or understanding. There’s something special about how they can bring people together but also push them apart, whichever equals an improvement.
Uranus in the 7th: Independence can be both a gift and a struggle in love for this individual. Sacrificing freedom and individuality will never, ever happen. On the surface many have pinned this placement as one showing commitment issues. But let’s look at this as individuality in how we connect with others on a whole. Throw out gender roles, societal expectations for marriage or even friendship, rework master and apprentice. Individuality comes in how they treat others. Their expectations and “roles” in their relationships. An enemy? A rival? They likely don’t think of them how you may typically think of an “enemy”. Respect, equality, and give and take are all approached in a way that allows them to not be bound by how you perceive them and even how you care for them. There is something special about their harmony, their connections, their vibrations with others.
Uranus in the 8th: Individuality is a precious thing shared with others. There is a desire for absolute acceptance and understanding in their closest relationships or within intimacy. Sharing the mind may make them feel more vulnerable than sharing anything else. A great desire to understand the taboo, the occult, the mysterious, metaphysics, life and death exist here. Their individuality can be kept in a darker place only to be shared with a few. On some level this could make someone seem a conformist, basic, etc. But don’t confuse this with the secrets and hidden attributes of the 12th House. Sometimes this can be more literal in that what makes them special is a darkness in their past. How they deal with pain or negativity can stand out. Also the taboo or occult may be an area they feel most comfortable in expressing their true self. Sometimes throw out the average cabbage picture - this may also be the occultist in your community, not afraid to show their spell books or rave about their love for true crime documentaries and podcasts (which honestly isn’t that unusual but I’m trying to give you a visual the best I can). The 8th House with its dark and heavy reputation, I don’t want anyone thinking the darkness in their life is the only thing that makes them “special”. Rather that trauma could have been uncommon. The way they understand the darkness and unpredictability of the world is more of the emphasis I want to make.
Uranus in the 9th: They stand out in their beliefs, morals, or possibly education. Truth and lies play a role in what makes them “unique”. There could be a tendency of bolstering up their individuality, possibly at a young age or when feeling insecure. When secure, when fulfilled, when they have an open mind and are actively learning they show their uniqueness, especially the uniqueness in what they believe in truthfully, openly, proudly. Uranus drives this individual to make a statement in their beliefs or non-beliefs even. This can be presented in so many positive or negative ways. Finding meaning in one’s life is also part of this house. They may stand out the most in the lengths they go to find meaning. From the tamer backpacking across Europe to find themselves, to exploring different religions, to more erratic actions and choices of completely abandoning a long-standing career for something very different or even giving up everything they own to help others may happen. There is something special in how they see a different way to think, believe, and in a way be.
Uranus in the 10th: We can’t ignore that they are going to seem “different” or “special” somehow in the public sphere. Before we talk about fame, know there is a lot about connecting with and belonging to society with this placement. The way they think about or approach society could be unique. The way they fit into society can be unconventional as well. They pay attention to the collective, can tap into it. That intellectual side of the planet can drive them to analyze and understand the collective, law, society, social issues. I would say that standing out in your career or having your individualism show here is a prominent manifestation, especially in parts of the world where career are everything to a society. There’s something special about standing out in the crowd, in the boardroom, in the industry.
Uranus in the 11th: This placement is known to hang around rebels and outliers. This is part of their individuality, befriending those on the fringe of society or the norm. The way they fit into groups and organizations is unique. They may stand out as a leader in a club or friend group. They may be the glue among friends too. The way they view fellowship and approach it is likely unconventional. When it comes to the collective, much like the 10th house position they too can tap into it. The 10th sees trends in what society values and within laws and reputation while the 11th taps into social trends, new ideas, sees where society is headed on a larger scale or with the big picture. They can have goals that are on a different wavelength than most. They dream big and originally. This house can be about extending the self to others. With Uranus we can see someone who does this in an humanitarian way, highly social way, or maybe intellectually focused way. There is something special about giving and taking from the group.
Uranus in the 12th: Known for hidden individuality that wants to bubble to the surface. “Associated with past revolution and upheaval” according to Judy Hall. Individuality is shown best when they have confidence and pride in their uniqueness. It is also shown best when they rebel against the norm. Here can be a powerful position for the “rebel”, “anarchist”, or “innovator”. Their individuality can also shine through by helping others in a large way, through humanitarian deeds. Eccentricities will be both their weakness and strength. At times the emotional heaviness of the house can make them feel unstable and insecure about their differences, other times they can tap into their inner genius, trendsetter, and visionary. There is something special about just being different.
#uranus#houses#zodiac#astrology#uranus in the houses#planets#planet#astrological houses#natal houses
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The Owl House zodiac signs
I decided to match zodiac signs with TOH characters because why not. Info from https://www.astrology-zodiac-signs.com.
Luz: Libra
Strengths: Cooperative, diplomatic, gracious, fair-minded, social Weaknesses: Indecisive, avoids confrontations, will carry a grudge, self-pity
Likes: Harmony, gentleness, sharing with others, the outdoors Dislikes: Violence, injustice, loudmouths, conformity
They are in a constant chase for justice and equality, realizing through life that the only thing that should be truly important to themselves in their own inner core of personality. They will be inspired by good books, insurmountable discussions and people who have a lot to say. ibra representatives are highly social and put their friends in the limelight, but sometimes raise their expectation bars too high, but will often help others understand the other side of their personal conflicts and trouble with other people.
She enjoys being taught about new things and enjoys talking about herself and her personal interests, just as much as she likes sinking deep into her partner’s life. She is charming, intelligent, and finds solutions to problems that arise along the way with certain ease.
Eda: Sagittarius or Aries.
Strengths: Generous, idealistic, great sense of humor Weaknesses: Promises more than can deliver, very impatient, will say anything no matter how undiplomatic
Likes: Freedom, travel, philosophy, being outdoors
Dislikes: Clingy people, being constrained, off-the-wall theories, details Freedom is their greatest treasure, because only then they can freely travel and explore different cultures and philosophies. Because of their honesty, Sagittarius-born are often impatient and tactless. The fun-loving Sagittarius enjoys making and spending money.
Aries
Strengths: Courageous, determined, confident, enthusiastic, optimistic, honest, passionate
Weaknesses: Impatient, moody, short-tempered, impulsive, aggressive
Likes: Comfortable clothes, taking on leadership roles, physical challenges, individual sports
Dislikes: Inactivity, delays, work that does not use one's talents
Aries rules the head and leads with the head, often literally walking head first, leaning forwards for speed and focus. Its representatives are naturally brave and rarely afraid of trial and risk. They possess youthful strength and energy, regardless of their age and quickly perform any given tasks. They are continuously looking for dynamic, speed and competition, always being the first in everything - from work to social gatherings. They are tolerant of people they come in contact with, respectful of different personalities and the openness they can provoke with simple presence. Their circle of friends needs a wide range of strange individuals.
Independent and ambitious, an Aries often knows where they want to go at a young age, separating from their family a bit early. They will take on family obligations when they need to be taken care of, never refusing more work as if their pool of energy is infinite. They live in the present and aren't that focused on the future, and this can make them irrational and hasty when it comes to financial decisions. Still, they seem to always find a way to earn money and compensate for what they have spent.
King: Leo
Strengths: Creative, passionate, generous, warm-hearted, cheerful, humorous
Weaknesses: Arrogant, stubborn, self-centered, lazy, inflexible
Likes: Theater, taking holidays, being admired, expensive things, bright colors, fun with friends
Dislikes: Being ignored, facing difficult reality, not being treated like a king or queen
Aware of their desires and personality, they can easily ask for everything they need, but could just as easily unconsciously neglect the needs of other people in their chase for personal gain or status. Leo is generous, faithful and a truly loyal friend, born with a certain dignity and commitment to individual values. Tuned to themselves for the most part, they tend to become independent as soon as possible. Still, a Leo will do anything to protect their loved ones.
Willow: Taurus
Strengths: Reliable, patient, practical, devoted, responsible, stable
Weaknesses: Stubborn, possessive, uncompromising
Taurus likes: Gardening, cooking, music, romance, high quality clothes, working with hands
Taurus dislikes: Sudden changes, complications, insecurity of any kind, synthetic fabrics
They are loyal and don't like sudden changes, criticism or the chase of guilt people are often prone to, being somewhat dependable on other people and emotions they seem to be unable to let go of. Still, no matter their potential emotional challenge, these individuals have the ability to bring a practical voice of reason in any chaotic and unhealthy situation. People born in this sign are loyal and always willing to lend a hand of friendship, although they can be closed up for the outer world before they build trust for new social contacts they make. Many of their friendships begin in childhood with a tendency to last them a lifetime.
Gus: Gemini Strengths: Gentle, affectionate, curious, adaptable, ability to learn quickly and exchange ideas
Weaknesses: Nervous, inconsistent, indecisive
Gemini likes: Music, books, magazines, chats with nearly anyone, short trips around the town
Gemini dislikes: Being alone, being confined, repetition and routine
They are fascinated with the world itself, extremely curious, with a constant feeling that there is not enough time to experience everything they want to see. Gemini's changeable and open mind makes them excellent artists, especially writers and journalists.
Lilith: Virgo
Strengths: Loyal, analytical, kind, hardworking, practical
Weaknesses: Shyness, worry, overly critical of self and others, all work and no play
Virgo likes: Animals, healthy food, books, nature, cleanliness
Virgo dislikes: Rudeness, asking for help, taking center stage
This is a sign often misunderstood, not because they lack the ability to express, but because they won’t accept their feelings as valid, true, or even relevant when opposed to reason. Their goals and dreams still have strictly defined borders in their mind. People born with their Sun in Virgo are very dedicated to their family and attentive to elderly and sick people. They understand tradition and the importance of responsibility, proud of their upbringing and everything that made their mind be as dominant as it is.
Amity: Scorpio or Capricorn
Strengths: Resourceful, brave, passionate, stubborn, a true friend
Weaknesses: Distrusting, jealous, secretive, violent
Scorpio likes: Truth, facts, being right, longtime friends, teasing, a grand passion
Scorpio dislikes: Dishonesty, revealing secrets, passive people
They are excellent leaders because they are very dedicated to what they do. Scorpios hate dishonesty and they can be very jealous and suspicious, so they need to learn how to adapt more easily to different human behaviors.
Capricorn
Strengths: Responsible, disciplined, self-control, good managers
Weaknesses: Know-it-all, unforgiving, condescending, expecting the worst
Capricorn likes: Family, tradition, music, understated status, quality craftsmanship
Capricorn dislikes: Almost everything at some point
Capricorn speaks of each natural chain reaction of fear, Immersed in their secrecy, they face the world just as they are – brave enough to never run away, but constantly afraid of their inner monsters. Capricorn women are ambitious, persistent, responsible and reliable. She only wants to find someone to make her smile, and can’t wait to open up and feel the real pull of emotion that makes her warm up to the possibilities that lie in the future. It will take some time for her to lower her guard and feel safe and comfortable enough to show just how sensitive and caring she can be when she is in love.
Edric and Emira: Aquarius
Strengths: Progressive, original, independent, humanitarian
Weaknesses: Runs from emotional expression, temperamental, uncompromising, aloof
Likes: Fun with friends, helping others, fighting for causes, intellectual conversation, a good listener
Dislikes: Limitations, broken promises, being lonely, dull or boring situations, people who disagree with them
Aquarius-born have a reputation for being cold and insensitive persons, but this is just their defence mechanism against premature intimacy. They need to learn to trust others and express their emotions in a healthy way.
#the owl house#luz noceda#eda the owl lady#king#of demons#willow park#edalyn clawthorn#lillith clawthorn#gus porter#amity blight#edric blight#emira blight#blight twins#zodiac signs#hcs
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Seventeen - Personality reading
S.Coups: This young man is really fast and straightforward, talkative, clever and intelligent. He is not the guy who take things slowly. He is a speedy when it comes to thinking and decision making. He is competitive and love to get the attention and like to be a little extra. He is someone who can be controlling and chained by his own stubborn ways like a slave to his negative habits. Maybe someone who is very sensitive to addictions. like gaming/drugs/food/alcohol etc. he has the needs of it. If someone hurts him he make sure to step on their toes. He is ambitious and competitive and striving for success. He is not afraid of conflicts, He is very stable and powerful. This is someone who loves people, nature and animals.
Jeonghan: First of all this person is normally a very happy person, he loves to bring people together and celebrate. But he is someone who have difficulties by sharing his emotions and feelings, he won't show or tell his emotions verbally. Because he is guarding his heart. He maybe feels that he is the wrong place and that the world around him stagnant and stuck. He may feel often miserable. He believe there is somewhere better. Stuck with toxic patterns He is afraid of failure.
Joshua: This person is very creative and have amazing abilities. He is very successful with every direction he may choose, He is a manifesto but he doesn't know how to use it. because he feel stuck and he puzzles a lot. as if he his holding himself back. He is afraid to show all his talents. He is afraid to be judged and also he may feel often misunderstood while he focused more on appearance over substance and truth. He likes to avoid responsibility and hide. He often gets confused and feel lost in his head and unable to see the bigger picture. This person make sure that he showed his gratefulness to people that he loved. family friends and his community means everything for him.
Jun: This is someone who puts efforts into the way they look and are very passionate and sensual people. He is very attractive and passionate. His appearance and his image is important to him and he cares what other people think of him. He is someone who likes to date around to feel whole. he may sometimes be grumpy or moody, and need someone who can make him lightened up. and can be indecisive. He might sometimes feel that he is unable to deliver what the audience/co-workers/other parties wants from him. He may feel unsupported in his work. He is someone who wants to make someone happy and give the emotional fulfillment. He is dreaming for a happily ever after, Having a family, career, house. He is romantic and put his children and partner on a pedestal.
Hoshi: This person is a young-soul, he may act or behave immature, is because he is not fully developed as a person, he is still growing and learning to become better and a mature human. He is a free-thinker, someone who seeks freedom, and is idealistic. He is life student that always is learning. He needs to feel accepted by others to open up. He is sensitive and gentle, warm and sweet. He maybe act a little shy at first. He is very good at telling others that he is fine and happy, even when he isn't. He is youthful and playful. He is someone who wants to impress others and can act needy or greedy to materialistic or emotional things. He is caring towards others, He will forgive someone easily after a fight or conflict. He is patient and artistic.
Wonwoo: This person is clever and his mind is full of ideas. He has great communication skills and is intellect how he wants to tell his message. He will confront the issue and will not lose an argument. He love taking a risk, He constantly need to get stimulated and is competitive. Sometimes he get lost in his head and need to be grounded. He believe things are a lot worse than they actually are. He is someone who will hide in the background and he is hardly noticeable He feel emotionally misunderstood. On the brighter side this person is very warm, sensual, loving, charismatic and beautiful. He is creative and have nurturing instinct. He is a family-oriented person.
Woozi: This person is mysterious and intuitive. Someone who is secretive and private and will not share his vulnerable side to others. Until his guts told him it feels right to do so. He has a hard shell and isnt easy to understand who he is as a person. only his closest friends and family knows him the best. He have a lot to do with facing his fears in order to grow stronger. They sometimes need to lie or hide their truth out of fear of others reactions. He may sometimes feel a outsider. Maybe health and mental issues and may need help from others. He is highly developed when it come to his intuition and is sensitive. He is wise and kind and nurture to others. He is empathic and he is good with children and animals. He put the blame on himself first and reflect on it.
DK: This person is always busy and active, when he needs his rest he is loved to have his own quality time (alone time). To recharge his energy. He knows how to make his workplace to a playground and try to have fun with his friends and co-workers. He is someone who goes with the flow. He sees his job as his hobby, and he don't need much money to live happy. He is independent and active in mind and observant, maybe sometimes dishonest about some things. He is most of the times positive and he is always in a blissful state. He wants a harmonious life and avoid toxic people. (stay out of the drama.) He has a strong idealistic values and very romantic towards lovers. He will gives his lover everything.
Mingyu: He is someone who thinks quick and fast. no hesitation, and not patient. everything needs to happen now. He is opinionated and may sometimes step on other people's toes by accident for being too clever and intelligent, and being talkative. even though he may steps on others people toes he is someone who dont like conflicts at all. He will often carry the load to keep others happy. When he feels attacked he may feel emotionally and be dramatic about it. He see the world in different perspective, He daydream often and is visionary. This guy is genius but will not always noticed that side of him. He is someone who will get easily offended or hurt. He don't really know how it feels to be secure. and has doubts about love. He may is anxious about rejection or get hurt. While he may is a jealous type when it comes to his lover.
The8: He is optimistic, happy, confident, he is youthful and carefree, no matter what age he is, He is very sensual. He may sometimes be stuck with his past. He avoid his confrontational emotions by seeking pleasures and sensual experiences. He seems like a happy person but on the inside his tears are behind his smile. He is very kind. He may sometimes act immature. but he also may feel alone he is kinda desperate for love and often looking for it at the wrong place and time. He maybe is needy and have emotional issues.
Seungkwan: This person is creative and intuitive, He is skillful and has a lot of knowledge. He dream big and he move successfully in any path he will choose. He speaks his mind and is intellect. He is someone who will use his intelligent to manifest. Play smart or don't play at all is this person. This person is focused on long term goals and ambitious. He loves to go for an adventure and being patient is not his strongest point. He may sometimes put others first and forget about himself. he find it difficult to say no to others and he loves to make others happy instead of himself. He will look to a lot of sides of the situation and use his logical brain to make a fair decision/conclusion. Justice is his value.
Vernon: He is wise and smart, he is self-reliant and confident. He enjoy spending alone in his own space. He knows who he are and he isn't afraid to show it. He always seems to be in a good mood and loves to bring people together. He will make sure that everything that he will organized will looks beautiful and perfect. He also make sure that he looks amazing too. He is fun to be with and is full of smiles and giggles. He is carefree and lay back. He loves to work together as a team and will be a kind/nice co-worker to team up with. He is always ready to help other people. People can rely on him.
Dino: He is warm,loving and charismatic, and beautiful. He will show openly his affection towards others. He is intelligent and artistic. He cares about the environment and he will be a excellent parent/partner. He is protective and maybe a little possessive. He sometimes have moments that he is unable to relax. His mind is full and messy, he may has troubles with his messy room. He may sometimes feel a little ill. He is sensitive and will also get hurt easily and is afraid of rejection, hurt or loss. He is hungry for success and money. He also is stubborn and isn't a fan of taking advice from others. He may have some control issues.
#dino#vernon#the8#seungkwan#mingyu#dk#Woozi#wonwoo#hoshi#Jun#Joshua#Jeonghan#s.coups#seventeen#svtn#personality#reading#kpoppredictions
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BUT HIS [SON’S] [IRRELEVANT AND PROBABLY FAKE] EMAILS!
In a world where people were trying to do their jobs, this story would not make sense to anyone, now or ever. But because we live in the dumbest fucking timeline, you need to know the shape of the Trump cartel’s latest disinformation campaign against the American democratic process.
Former Vice President Biden is being attacked through his family, which means that his family’s story is the vital context here. Back in the ‘70s, when he was Senator-Elect Biden, his family was in a terrible car crash. His first wife and their young daughter were killed. His sons Beau and Hunter survived, though Hunter suffered a traumatic head injury. The boys went about 80% Parent Trap to convince their dad to marry his current wife Jill, and both grew up and went to law school. Beau became the attorney general of Delaware before dying of cancer in 2015. Hunter went on to a lucrative career in the private sector despite an intermittent struggle with substance abuse, which is a common aftereffect of psychological trauma and brain injuries.
Republicans generally believe that being a Yale Law grad with a wealthy father and a history of substance abuse qualifies someone for the Supreme Court, but for some deeply principled and intellectually honest reason, they have decided that Hunter Biden’s employment in the field of transportation and energy can only be a sign of spectacular corruption. So nefarious and sinister was the Biden family’s treachery that they managed to destroy every iota of evidence before multiple investigations by Senate Republicans could find any of it!
Obviously this little tabloid narrative was derailed when Trump went and got his dumb ass impeached over it. But it’s the middle of October, Trump’s down ten points in the polls, and he made the mistake of replacing the wildly unethical FBI director who threw the last election for him with a guy who at least knows to act professional, so he’s looking for a Hail Mary pass. In the wackiest of coincidences, some random Trumper had what he says might be Hunter Biden’s various hard drives, one of which apparently contained a backup of his most sensitive videos and text messages, in his computer repair shop. Of course this man did the only sensible thing and, uh, copied every file in the drives one at a time before bringing it to Trump’s TV lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and then the FBI. Giuliani, who was a former federal prosecutor before becoming the former mayor of New York City and current new bestie of Random Tech Store Guy, handled this situation with the assistance of someone who has a mere “50/50 chance” of being a Russian agent. (Poor old Rudy does appear to have limited communication skills beyond his personal safe space of a noun, a verb, and 9/11.) It’s unclear to me whether Giuliani or Tech Store Guy was the one who shared the hard drives with Steve Bannon, the white supremacist propagandist and former Trump campaign manager who is currently under indictment for fraud.
As with a lot of Trump trash, it’s impossible to describe without sounding like you’re exaggerating for comedic effect, but the stakes are too high for any of it to be funny.
Over the weekend, a right wing tabloid published what it said were emails from one of Hunter’s laptops. (Reporters at that particular tabloid do not believe the story.) The emails don’t show any wrongdoing by the vice president and seem fake for a lot of reasons – but never mind, the bullshit laundering worked well enough to get some supposed actual reporter to harass Vice President Biden about it, and then a bunch of other supposed actual reporters to collapse into their fainting couches when Biden responded with appropriate impatience.
That apparently didn’t have the hoped-for effect. The next day, what appeared to be a series of highly emotional text exchanges between the vice president and his son appeared. There was nothing even vaguely scandalous in these, to a point where it’s not immediately obvious why anyone would bother publishing them. My best guess is that it’s meant to throw Biden off his stride by trying to hurt and humiliate his son, though it may also be an attempt to soften the ground for an even more theatrical reveal.
A lot of Very Serious Politics-Knowers have deluded themselves that the But Her Emails debacle of 2016 was the legitimate kernel of a story that was “blown out of proportion.” But Her Emails was about people a) having some degree of misogyny, conscious or unconscious, which led to a bias against Clinton and b) wanting to tell other people and/or themselves that it wasn’t because she was a woman. They understand that the But Her Emails-ing was a) enormously consequential and b) incredibly dumb. They don’t want to think too hard about that tension, because if they did, they’d have to take responsibility for how the dumb thing became so consequential.
Meanwhile, Trump campaign insiders know better than the rest of us how much they cheated in 2016, but they’re still people and therefore susceptible to the cognitive bias that they got what they wanted because they earned it somehow. The closest thing they had to an above-board strategy was yelling “emails!!” a lot, so they expect yelling “emails!!” to be successful again. They’re just desperately throwing pasta to see what sticks – but Joe Biden is a man, so they’re throwing it at the theory of relativity instead of the refrigerator door.
There are differences between 2020 and 2016 which are significantly less depressing. Trump’s co-conspirators are resorting to ridiculous methods because so many of the key players who made the 2016 operation work are actually facing punishment for some of their crimes. Paul Manafort is under house arrest. Wikileaks guy Julian Assange is in jail. Social media companies, especially Twitter, were prepared to slam the brakes. Some mainstream reporters have refused to learn their lesson from 2016, but others were prepared to be critical. And, I cannot emphasize this last one enough, voters are more prepared for it. So Team Trump isn’t as good at doing the crimes as they were four years ago, even if they were as good at it they wouldn’t be able to use traditional and social media as effectively as they did last time, and even if they could adjust to that they’d have a harder time manipulating us. Maybe it got frustrating and boring for you to hear and talk about the 2016 attack for years on end, but the whole point of that was that we needed to be ready for exactly this scenario. So far, it seems to be working better than I would have hoped.
Obviously, this is infuriating. All else aside, putting this enormous, invasive pressure on a private citizen’s mental health and substance abuse problems is abusive and gross and genuinely dangerous. I don’t give a shit who his dad is, it’s fucking evil. We need to be ready to remember everybody involved in pushing this story – not just the con artists behind it, but the “mainstream” reporters who validated it in their behavior toward the Biden campaign or who spread what were (allegedly) entirely personal text messages of no news value.
But first, we need to win next month. On that front, I want to reiterate what I said when they first started cooking up this story late last year: it’s actually encouraging that they’re resorting to something like this, because it means they’re flailing. They haven’t been able to make FBI Director Wray abuse his power in the way former Director Comey did, despite the fact that the only real tool they had to manipulate Comey four years ago was taunting and pressure from conservative media. They don’t have a cutout like Wikileaks to launder the documents for them. Most importantly, they’re trying to influence voters’ opinions of Biden because they think voters’ behavior still matters. The only thing Trump knows in life is how to get away with a scam. If they thought they had it “rigged” they would be trying to act normal, because spending the three weeks before a heist reminding your marks of what fucking criminals you are doesn’t help you get away with it.
One last thing: this is a less obvious reason why it’s important to vote as early as you can. All these other increasingly desperate stunts depend on the ability to overwhelm everyone all at once, without enough time for them to be debunked or brought back into proportion. The more early votes are in the bank, the less effective their next stink bomb can be, and if it can’t be effective, there are a lot of people around Trump who would rather save their own asses from prison than help him throw it.
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On Fanworks as Commodities
I've been thinking lately about commodification and how it applies to fandom.
At the risk of giving an unhelpful circular explanation, commodification just means treating something like a commodity when it really isn't. And by commodity, I mean the kind of good or service that it's the kind of thing we can "reduce" to market terms. A loaf of bread is a commodity. So is a house or the services of an accountant- you're not losing anything or "debasing" anyone when you suggest these things can be bought and sold.
But what about surrogacy pregnancy? This is the question Elizabeth Anderson asked in her philosophy paper, "Is Women's Labor a Commodity?" (This is where I first encountered the concept.) She asks what exactly is being sold when we pay a woman to go through a pregnancy and then give up the resulting child to someone else. Anderson said if it's the child that's being sold that seems obviously inappropriate- we rightly consider a human person as the kind of thing you can't just buy and sell- but she also argued even if the woman is just selling the use of her body for a period of time (say, implantation and surrogacy pregnancy of a fetus conceived through in vitro fertilization of the adults who will become the legal parents), there's still something lost. The argument is, pregnancy naturally (at least usually) forms a loving bond between mother and child, which a surrogate woman would wisely try to avoid; otherwise giving up the baby would be that much harder. In effect, it encourages her to alienate herself from the products of her pregnancy. It degrades the commercial surrogate, turns her into an emotionless, contextless factory. And it degrades women who might lovingly serve as surrogates (say, for a sister or friend) because it turns their gift into something indistinguishable from a market transaction.
That's the argument, anyway. Once I found it convincing but these days, I have my doubts. For instance, I don't see any problem saying commercial surrogacy is a different kind of process than surrogacy offered as a gift to someone you know. Even if the result is the same, they seem like very different beasts. I'm also uncomfortable with this idea that certain kinds of work just can't be ethically paid for. Because this usually comes up with "caring" work, which is most often done by women even these days, it becomes too easy to not help bear the costs of that work. We can expect, say, a nurse to care about her patient even though she's paid a salary; is it so wrong if a child who quits her job to care for a sick parent to also be paid for her sacrifice?
That's more a criticism of how the concept is applied, though. I think it's applied too quickly, and in ways that turn it into an either/or, where this doesn't need to be the case. I still think the basic idea has a lot going for it. We do give the market too much power to answer questions it really isn't well suited for. Healthcare, for instance; it needs to be paid for, but not in a way that keeps people from accessing it who need it, or even lets those who can pay get to it more quickly. And maybe market pressures can make it more efficient, to a point, but we really shouldn't reduce it to something that can be bought and sold and understand entirely on those terms.
So, what does all this have to do with fandom? Well, I'm of a different fannish generation than a lot of you young whippersnappers- I first got involved in fannish circles with the Lord of the Rings movies back in the original 2000s. This was pre-AO3 and pre-Tumblr, and only a few years after Anne Rice got ff.net to disallow all fanfic based on her novels. We posted our disclaimers about not owning the characters for a reason and professed our poverty because we believed (or feared at least) we could be sued by the canon's authors. I was mostly in the Tolkien fandom, and it was well known that the estate was never going to authorize fanfic, commercial or otherwise. They state as much on their website, though I can't remember how long that Q&A has existed in its current format.
That gave us a lovely little commercial-free zone. If you couldn't sell your own work commercially, then you could give up all pretenses of success along the normal capitalistic lines and delve into areas that just would never have been very marketable in traditional publishing. Tolkien fandom itself was pretty conservative but I know other fandoms went much further in this regard, exploring genres that just would never be marketable especially before the niche and self-financed publishing the internet opened up for a lot of authors. If the law wouldn't let you do what you wanted to do anyway, why not become utterly ungovernable? So, fanfic became (for me at least) art about art rather than filthy lucre. We were doing what we did because we loved it, and as gifts for our friends, and as a way to be something that wasn't quite allowed in the "normal" culture for whatever reason- even just because we were women daring to make time for our weird little hobbies. It was glorious. And we worked hard enough in other areas of our life that we had the $$$ to indulge in this. We didn't need to be paid, and even if you offered to pay us for our works, we'd likely get a bit insulted and insist that wasn't what this was about at all.
I was told more than once by family that I was good enough to be a "real writer" and didn't I want to do my own thing. So yes, I did get a bit miffed and lean in to my identity of fanfic-writing as hobby not intended as a career.
And I'll be honest: when I see people advertising for commissions or celebrating fan-authors going "professional" as if this is necessarily a step up from unpaid fannish work, I often have this old framework in the back of my head. And it's not really fair. For one thing, I was in college in the early 2000's and so even when we didn't have a lot of cash, we expected to soon get day jobs where we could afford to live comfortably and still afford our hobbies. The housing market crash and the Great Recession changed all of that, as did work opportunities like Instacart and Uber. For a lot of people even a few years younger than me, everything became a side-hustle and there just wasn't this expectation a hobby could be a hobby. I get that there's a lot of privilege entering into that.
On top of which, there's all kinds of gender issues: professional artists, predominantly men, have been painting and selling drawings of comic book characters for years. Star Trek and Star Wars affiliated novels, and Sherlock Holmes pastiches (as opposed to fanfic), again written primarily by men, are also very much a thing. Hell, so are Renaissance artists and the patron system that was built off of. And of course, just because you sometimes produce fanworks just to sell and still do the less commercial work just for yourself if you ever want to. There's no real conflict in that. And it's not like producing art to sell is at all wrong. But to me it does feel like that kind of art is different than what I fancy I do, back when I occasionally wrote. :-) And I probably am more aware of this than I should be, because my backdrop is different from a lot of fans younger than myself, and really do try not to let my situation turn into a blind spot.
Even so, I worry and struggle to find the balance between letting art turn a profit and be reduced to a strictly commercial venture. It's never been anything I've been even remotely drawn to do, and human nature being what it is, I probably do think more highly of the kind of thing I'd choose to do. But I don't want to be unfair, and I don't want to think just because art is paid for and written/drawn to order, it's some sort of assembly-line output with no heart put into it by the writer and artist. Just like an artisan shoemaker might take great pride in his art and work his hardest on each shoe he crafts, even if he must sell it to make ends meet. Somehow, I suspect thinking about this in terms of commodification, the dangers of evaluating artistry using market standards and the ways in which it can still have a value beyond commodity even if it’s bought and sold, might help. But I've not quit worked out what insight that kind of thought would provide, if any.
Do you think there's a special value in fandom or art generally that's not made to be bought and sold? Or am I perhaps making too big a deal over nothing and revealing myself to be an old fuddy-duddy in the process. (It's always a possibility!) I'd be very interested to hear your thoughts if you have any to share.
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In the next episode of The CW series Roswell, New Mexico, entitled “Good Mother,” Isobel (Lily Cowles) is determined to regain control of her life, which leads her to make a risky choice that has potentially very dangerous consequences. With Liz (Jeanine Mason) still hard at work at trying to bring Max (Nathan Parsons) back, Isobel finds herself isolated and unable to turn to anyone to help her through what she’s experiencing, which causes her to further spiral.
During this 1-on-1 phone interview with Collider, actress Lily Cowles talked about the downward spiral that Isobel is currently on, how hard it can be to pick up the pieces after your entire world has been shattered, the relationship dynamic between Isobel and her mother (Claudia Black), how scary and thrilling it’s been to tackle her story arc this season, how Episode 206 could break the internet, and what it’s meant to the cast of this re-imagining to have some of the original cast involved with and supporting the show.
Collider: Clearly, a lot of things are happening this season, and Isobel is just not having a good time of it, right now. How chaotic are things for her to deal with, and does she have a handle on anything, at this moment?
LILY COWLES: Great question. I was really hoping, as an actor, that we would start this season six months in, with Isobel having a little bit of time to process, she’s been seeing a therapist, and she’s a little calmer. But of course, that’s not gonna happen, when you have to let the viewers see her in the trenches. Unfortunately, the beginning of Season 2 is about as bad as it could get for Isobel. She’s lost her brother, her twin, her best friend, the most important person in the world to her. And then, she’s lost her husband, who not only died, but died having turned out to be a psychopathic alien serial killer, who used her body to commit murders and manipulated her. So, she already has a lot to deal with. The world that she knows has already been completely destroyed.
She’s always lived in a pretty restricted gilded cage that she’s built for herself, where everything seems like it’s really fine and everything’s really good, but she’s been very co-dependent on these two men, in her life. Suddenly, her entire world is shattered, so that is already really terrifying, and enough to make anyone lose their mind. On top of that, she realizes that she’s with child, and that she’s carrying a baby, which is something that, three months before this, she might’ve been really happy about. But then, she finds out that she’s carrying the child of this man, who was completely abusive and deceptive, and who totally took her body and took away her own autonomy from her. This is not the way that she wants to find herself pregnant. To be honest, Isobel probably does wanna have a family. I think what she wants most in this world is stability and family and community, and people around her who love her and who make her feel safe. But suddenly, everything has been turned on its head.
She doesn’t have her brother, and her husband was a deceitful liar. And not only that, but now she’s holding his baby. I think this baby represents, for her, the continuation of the legacy of a traumatic abusive relationship and something that has completely ruined her life. She doesn’t think she can move forward with that. I think she feels that she needs to first find herself and rebuild herself, before she can think about taking on raising another life. So, Isobel is in really dire straits, at the beginning of this season, and she finds herself in a particularly bad situation because she really has no one to turn to.
Max is gone. I don’t think she feels that she can talk to Michael about it because he was an unwanted child in the foster care system and he doesn’t feel like someone that she can talk about this with. Beyond that, there’s no medical resources available to her. And of course, Isobel is an alien, so she’s biologically different than a human. She can’t exactly go to a doctor for help through this. She functions as an allegory for people who also find themselves in a situation where they can’t get access to medical care that would help them have autonomy over their own bodies. She’s facing something really bad right now, where she feels very much backed up against a wall and doesn’t have many options. I don’t think that she feels that she can have this child, but what are her alternatives. She has nowhere to turn, which is what leads her to start taking some really drastic measures.
We’ve seen Isobel spending some more time with her mother, to varying degrees of success. How would you describe their relationship, and what do you enjoy about exploring that dynamic?
COWLES: It’s great. We didn’t really get to see Isobel with her mother, at all, before. Isobel has learned a lot from her mother, who is a woman that has, on the front, a very polished exterior, where everything looks good and she’s very much playing by society’s rules. This is who Isobel learned how to behave from. So, we get to see who Isobel has modeled herself after, which is a woman who’s highly attuned to social cues and expectations. There’s no small part of her that really resents her mother for that. She doesn’t feel like it’s necessarily safe to be very vulnerable with her mother. And of course, Isobel is also hiding a giant secret from her mother, which is that she’s not a human being. There’s that complicated factor, as well. She’s hiding something very big from her mother, but clearly, she doesn’t feel comfortable telling her mother that. We can all relate to that relationship with your parent where you’re like, “God, I love them, but they drive me crazy. All of the little things they say, they just know how to trigger me.” She still wants to be close to her mother. She’s in need. She’s a woman who’s completely lost at sea, and she’s reaching out for people. Her mother wants to take her to this warrior class and, at first, she’s a little cruel to her and like, “I just wanna be alone.” But she sees that it hurts her mom and is like, “I don’t mean to make you feel bad, mom. Okay, let’s do it. It’ll be good.” But, it’s wonderful. Working with Claudia [Black] is incredible. She’s so funny and so open. We were really having a good time riffing and doing some fun things, in Episode 2. Ultimately, Isobel doesn’t feel that maybe she can turn to her mother in a time like this, which also probably many young women can relate to, who find themselves in a situation like this. You would hope that your parent would be there for you, and yet so many young women can’t turn to their parents, for whatever reason, and have to deal with it on their own.
When I spoke to your showrunner, Carina MacKenzie, and I asked her what she was most proud of with Season 2, she told me that it’s the fact that she was able to really push the stories in bolder directions and shake things up, and have it be a little darker this season. Clearly, all of that applies to Isobel. So, without spoilers, what has that been like for you, as an actor to get to really dig into and explore?
COWLES: It’s scary, and it’s thrilling. I remember when Carina reached out to me, proposing the storyline for Isobel, my initial reaction was just like, “Oh, my god.” I remember feeling light-headed, where I was just like, “We’re gonna have to put Isobel through so much pain, and as an actor, I have to go there with her.” That’s not a pleasant place to go, and yet, as an artist, you hope that you get to represent all aspects of the human character and experience, and at least half of those are not pleasant. So, I felt an enormous responsibility to do justice for this character because I know that she is an emblem for so many women and humans and men, too, in general, who have had to go through enormous amounts of trauma and come out the other side. Trauma and really terrible things can lead us to places that we never thought we could get. We can find inner strength that will surprise us, and that we never would have had to call on, if we hadn’t been pushed. So, there is real value in taking a character to a dark place and exploring these really dark parts of the human condition because that’s also where so much of the beauty of courage and strength and vulnerability comes from. It’s not hard to be strong and courageous when everything is going your way. It really is in those moments of extremis and dire need that people have to step up and they’re called to show their strength. That’s such a beautiful part of life, so it’s wonderful that Carina is challenging us and pushing us to go there. I was really honored to be able to represent this story, although it was also something that I took very seriously because it’s a very sensitive and weighty issue.
Do you have a personal favorite episode that’s coming up?
COWLES: I loved the first three. I loved them so much. Eva [McKenna] is such an incredible writer, and she wrote the second episode. Deirdre [Mangan] and Carina wrote the third episode, which I think is stunningly beautiful. But I will say that our dear writers, Rick [Montano] and Vinny [Ingrao] knocked Episode 206 out of the park. It’s funny and wonderful, and a reprieve from all of the really high intensity, emotional drama. It’s exciting and it’s got action, and it’s got really juicy things. I think it’s going to break the internet. Episode 206 – tune in!
Things have been a little bit different this season. Last season, you had this little alien trio of Max, Isobel and Michael, and it’s different now, with Max mostly dead. What’s that like for you, as actors? Does it feel like a very different experience without that?
COWLES: Yeah, definitely. All of the actors on our show are so fun to work with, in their own ways, so it’s cool when you get to switch it up. I love working with Amber [Midthunder]. I love working with Heather [Hemmens] and Jeanine [Mason]. I love the little Scooby gang that we’ve got going on, with [Michael] Trevino and Tyler Blackburn and Michael Vlamis and Jeanine and I, all working together to like solve the mysteries of the universe. But I definitely sent a message, at one point, to Michael Vlamis and was like, “I miss you! I miss working with you!” I love working with both Nathan [Parsons] and Vlamis. They’re so different as actors, and they’re both so good and wonderful. Vlamis and I get together and we just riff and have so much fun. I hope, in some world, there’s a blooper reel that comes out with all of our riffing ‘cause we’ll just go off. Eventually, the director will be like, “Okay, enough! Just say the lines.” We rev each other up and get going, and it’s so much fun. When I don’t get to work with my bros, I’m like, “Dudes, I miss you!” But it’s also so wonderful to be able to work with other actors and get to know them. There were characters that Isobel didn’t interact with as much in the first season, that suddenly she’s getting to be bumped up against in the second, and it’s really fun to see how the different characters relate to each other and work around each other.
It’s also very cool that this re-imagining of this has been able to include some of the original cast, with Shiri Appleby directing and Jason Behr now guest starring on Season 2. What’s it meant to the cast to see how the original cast is supporting the series, and what’s it been like to have them around, on set?
COWLES: We’re so lucky to have Shiri and Jason supporting us and wanting to be part of our show. When you make an adaptation of an original, of course, you want to do justice and you wanna feel that the people who made the original are supportive of what you’re doing. It means the world to us that they’re both so excited to be a part of it and to work on it. It boosts our morale so much to see them and to feel like we’re a part of this larger legacy of a story that’s being told across generations. They’re so professional and so funny, and they bring their ow flavor of the original, that was so specific and good, with that tone that they had. They bring that into our show, and it’s so wonderful to be able to infuse what we’re making with that OG flavor. It feels really good. They’re both the most gracious, warm, friendly and hysterical people. I have a huge crush on both of them. If I got to out with one, it would be very difficult for me to choose. And that’s saying a lot because Jason Behr is everything that I thought was good and true, as a 12-year-old. But Shiri, man, is something else.
~ CoIIider
#isobel evans#lily cowles#roswell new mexico#rnm spoilers#rnm 2x03#rnm 2x06#rnm cast interviews#long post is long
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Action Comics #1022 Review
“The House of Kent: Part 1″
Starting off, we have the 9-panel grid. Because Tom King likes to use it to show off that he read Watchmen (before promptly abusing the layout to death), everyone and their mother has been scrambling to shove it somewhere in their work and try to get a useless amount of perceived street cred to show that they too had read Watchmen (killing the layout even more). Since it’s all the rage, Bendis does it here.
I actually like the third panel. As Stan Lee said, every comic is someone’s first comic (and this is the first chapter in a “highly” anticipated arc). Instead of an editor’s note, Bendis explains Kelex through dialogue that is expositional but not unnatural or clunky. But why explain Kelex of all things? My answer is well, why not? Supposedly, Conner is as unformed about a lot of things as is a potential new reader and Superman informs him in a manner that is not entirely out place, even to current readers.
Then Conner explains his origin and touches upon the fact that we’ve had a few different continuities since his creation in 1993. He is excited and curious in the first four panels and then immediately deflates in the last four. I think Bendis is trying to have the best of both worlds by writing both an excited Conner (something that fans are supposed to respond positively towards) and a depressed Conner (because he has been a victim of the discontinuity perpetuated by DC editorial and made no better by Bendis).
We get a double-page splash of the two Kents conversing that I like, especially the color of the Fortress. The conversation is very Bendis, but not offensively so. It serves its purpose, can’t be too upset about that. He tries to depict Conner as nervous, but I really hate how it’s done, it’s like reading an accent phonetically.
uwu what’s this? A fundamental misunderstanding and misinterpretation of a character? In my Bendis book? It’s more likely than you think.
Conner has literally never been little. He was created as a teenage clone of Superman and he stayed a teenage clone of Superman. He came out the test tube the punk Metropolis Kid, not the toddling Metropolis Tyke. A really big conceit of his character is that he will never look older or younger than a teenager. That’s why a lot of eyebrows were raised when in his first reappearance Bendis chose to depict him with stubble.
Another example of Bendis-speak that is fun and full of charm and character, but the characterization for the characters who are conversing is just…off. It’s a conversation these types of characters would have, just not these characters specifically.
You know, for a character that supposedly Bendis hates and wants to write off and make inaccessible to all other writers and artists, he sure writes about Jon a lot. Bendis forces Jon into the future, cutting him off not just from everything he knows and loves, but from, more importantly, the readers. This reinforces the gravity and seriousness of him being written off, but Bendis constantly undermines this hostage situation of his own creation by having him come back to the present quite often. You put characters on a bus to make them go away forever, but the bus keeps returning to the station. And the most baffling part? You’re the driver, Bendis! Commit to the fucking bit!
Jon and Braniac 5 are chumming it up, because they are toooooootally buddies, you can read alllllll about Jon’s actual, very real, and totally not non-existent friendships with the Legionnaires in Legion of Super-Heroes by Brian Michael Bendis and Ryan Sook, because Jon totally has finished watching the Legion orientation film that totally didn’t take more than 5 issues to even get him to watch and he wasn’t even interrupted once. The book is soooooo well developed and evenly paced and not at alllllll bloated behind belief.
Jon acts like he came home from college to do laundry and eat some home cooking and forgot to call ahead, like he totally isn’t supposed to stay in the future.
Me, too, Conner. I don’t know who this character is either.
We also get to see his new costume here, which I hate. The one positive thing I could say about this new character when he was first introduced in Bendis’ Superman run was that I really liked his costume. It had the cyber-armor look of the New 52 Superman suit, but wasn’t too over-designed. It worked, it looked cool. This new look is just kinda bleh. It has the ugliness of the New 52 with none of the intricacies that made it look cool and unique.
We were never going to any meeting between the two Superboys that can even remotely be called good or worthwhile. I appreciate the naiveté of certain fans who enjoy things at face value because, factually, they got what they wanted. Fans wanted this meeting and they got it, which will make the happy, but it is not at all satisfying, which is what they should care about.
Bendis has a firm understanding of Superman and his voice. The same cannot be for Jon Kent. This character is not Jon Kent. He is not written out of character because this is not his character. What we got here is not what we wanted. This is Bendis and DC editorial banking that fans will rationalize to themselves that the crumbs they deigned to give fans is actually a feast worthy of praise and exaltation (look no further than Superman #16).
Oh and by the way, this is all we get for the meeting. The rest of the issue is “wHaT’S ThE DeAl cOnNeR KeNt?”
I’m skipping over the Daily Planet stuff because I don’t care about it and it doesn’t piss me off.
Instead, I will quickly address this: “The rumor come out, does Jonathan Kent is gay?”
I want to say this came about because Jon called Conner’s leather jacket “fabulous”, but it seems this idea existed before this issue was even released. The most I can find in relation to Jon being gay is this article written 2016 and this funny little exchange in the comments of one of Bendis’ Instagram posts.
I knew I was not straight when I was in grade school and it would be amazing if such a high profile character like Jon came out. It would normalize the idea that being gay isn’t something exclusively sexual or adult, but that there is nothing wrong for kids to have feelings for someone their own age who is the same sex. But I don’t trust DC to even attempt this. If they can’t even make Dick Grayson bi, then it’s not likely for any other character to come out.
And just because he described something as “fabulous”, that doesn’t make him gay. It’s an odd choice of words, sure, but word choice is no real indication of sexuality. In an interview with ComicPOP, Todd McFarlane described a box for a figure as “sexy” and “sassy” that I might have instead referred to as “cool” or “awesome.” I think Todd’s word choice is oddly fitting, but it was not something I would have thought to use before hearing him use it in the interview, and it does not at all call into his sexuality. I have a similar sentiment about “fabulous.”
Back to the story, Superman takes Conner to meet some of the intellectual experts in the DC universe to help figure out his deal. They have some “fun” Bendis dialogue and touch upon the multiverse and continuity that Bendis has been helping shape even though he literally has never worked for DC until very recently, relatively speakingm and yet is being trusted with the word “crisis.” And what do you mean you’ve been rebooted at least three times, I thought it was seven times according to Young Justice #1, one of the first issues Bendis wrote for DC.
I saw a Reddit post a little while back that compiled clues and subtle hints that were spread out among several titles, including Tom King, Scott Snynder, and Bendis’ various books, that tied them all together with Doomsday Clock. It demonstrated a remarkable amount of coordination that I thought impossible given who it involved, but the evidence was pretty convincing. However, this was before Dan Didio was fired and they were able to avert 5G. Now that they’ve had time to regroup, I think this issue is sowing some more of those seeds that’ll eventually be dealt with by Synder’s Death Metal.
Here’s some more of that fundamental misunderstanding and misinterpretation of a character. Conner was not “raised” by the Kents. They cared for him, sure, but I wouldn’t call what they did raising.
What is being referred to here is Geoff Johns’ run with Conner Kent in Adventure Comics which took place in 2009. What that contributed to the character was only a relatively recent development in Conner’s history. It should be noted he started living with the Kents in 2002. His solo book was cancelled with Connor being dropped off by Clark at his parent’s house on the very last page. Any sort of “raising” would have occurred off panel during that time and is largely not expanded upon because there was literally no book to depict that kind of relationship until after he had died in 2006 and was brought back in 2009. They are not the sole contributors to his life like it is implied here. He lived in Hawaii and worked for Cadmus for far longer than he lived with the Kents.
And here we have Jon casually referring to Ma and Pa Kent as Grandma and Grandpa like he actually knew them instead of just knowing of them. For those of you don’t know, they were dead when Tomasi and Gleason were writing Superman and were only just recently brought back in Doomsday Clock which concluded well after Tomasi and Gleason had left the book, so Jon never met them. At the absolute most he’s heard stories, looked at pictures, and seen home movies of the Kents. You could say I’m nitpicking, but Bendis deserves it. You can feel his disregard for others’ work throughout his other books, and its panels like this that are the proof.
Jon literally has no reason to know that Ma and Pa Kent are alive. No reason. Jon’s smug face is Bendis’ way of say “Aren’t I a stinker?”
Fuck. You. Bendis.
You do not get to pretend that stories you made impossible to tell of Jon spending time with his grandparents actually did happen. Is this interaction cute and fun and a little bit wholesome? Yes. But is it genuine? Absolutely not. He’s just trying to cash in on what he thinks fans want to see with none of the heart and soul.
And now Clark is acting like Jon is visiting from college.
Piss your pants, Bendis. Jon would never refer to his best friend Damian Wayne like that. If someone else referred to Damian like that when Jon was around, he would correct them and say something along the lines of “He’s not so bad once you get to know him.” Stop pushing the narrative that Damian is some sort of demon hellspawn or psycho killer. He’s a flawed kid with a dark past that wants to be better but struggles with it and needs friends like Jon to support him. This continues to show that Bendis literally does not understand this character and why fans get upset when he writes him this way.
Another 9-panel grid, but this is not Tom King-inspired, but actually befitting the moment. Bendis still think Conner was literally raised by the Kents instead of just living with them, but I really have no skin the game of Conner being recognized as a part of the Kent family, so this doesn’t piss me off much.
I know this is supposed to be emotional because they just reunited, but the dialogue seems to suggest something more ominous and insidious is going on, something bigger than any one of them (Crisis, I know, but its kind of obnoxiously on the nose and yet unnecessarily vague).
The issue actually ends with the story I don’t really care about, so that’s the review.
Note: I realized about part way through writing this post how pissy and whiny I might sound, but I spent too much writing it to not post it.
#action comics#superman#conner kent#superboy#jon kent#legion of super-heroes#brian michael bendis#clark kent#brianiac 5
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Why I don’t really like anime
Alright well here’s one that’s pure “who tf asked” energy but it’s something I’ve legitimately been thinking about. Most of these are just me trying to organize how I think. I try to keep away from this general aura of saying I don’t like something completely unprompted, but my brother is a massive anime fan so I’m around anime a lot more than anything else I’m not into.
Obviously I’m gonna have to preface this with the whole spiel. People can do and enjoy literally anything they want so long as it doesn’t hurt other people. Apart from that, this is just me putting thoughts onto paper and shouting them out into the void pretending people on the internet care or even will hear in the first place. And, apart from THAT, I’m also saying I just don’t like it, not that it’s “bad.” Anyone saying something as expansive as anime can be universally “bad” is objectively an idiot who doesn’t know how things work. Also, I’m not trying to cover my bases as if I expect anime fans to hound me like people stereotypically assume they would, I’ll always cover my bases when saying things like this to catch literally anyone and make the undertones of what I’m actually saying perfectly clear to everyone.
And similar to that, absolutely none of this stems from the less affectionate stereotypes of anime fans. Let it be known that I’ve been a part of various fandoms, including My Little Pony, Steven Universe, Undertale, and probably some others that have just-kinda-bad to horrible stereotypes put on them because of the true weirdos in the fandom who act seriously out of turn. I know the feeling of being lumped in with those unfortunately remarkable people as if this giant group acts basically in the same way/agrees with the same actions. Plus, anime has grown so far beyond the “nerd culture” that I feel like it’s more normal to like at least a little anime than to not like it at all, so people that suggest all anime fans are weirdos are the weird ones.
But yeah, over time I’ve definitely felt a full bias against anime for some reason. Obviously some fit into my interests and get into my mind when I had an anime phase (like anyone), as I’ll mention, but for the most part if something is brought up as “anime” I just lose all interest in watching it. I feel like in terms of my overall biases, there are only three types of series: Non-anime animation, Anime, and Live action. For some reason, live action series are even worse in the bias chart than anime. I literally can’t muster up even the slightest interest in a live action series, while I can at least sometimes get behind the idea of an anime (and it’s a whole different can of worms for movies/other forms).
The reason why I say “non-anime” animation instead of “western” animation is because it really doesn’t have to do with place of origin at all. Also, calling stuff “western” kind of excludes non-Japanese eastern countries that don’t produce anime, like Russia and India. For me, the question is just anime compared to all other types of animation. Aside from the objectively bad art styles of course.
That really just gets troubling with the true definition of “anime,” though, but as far as I care to define it it’s entirely revolving around the art and animation style, and maybe various other stylistic things as well. It’s one of those “hard to define it, but you can usually spot one when you see it” sort of things. But, I feel like even though “anime” might literally just mean “Japanese animation” in general, I feel like there are Japanese animations that could not be “anime.” For example, the big one being anything by Studio Ghibli. It honestly could or could not be anime, but the fact that there is a debate suggests that there’s more to anime than it just being Japanese. If it’s not origin, then basically all of it rests on the style itself. Especially since so many people start off trying to draw “anime style” (like I did), and since some things have been called “French anime” (a term which honestly gets me infinitely more into an idea for some reason, I guess it being “French” reverses the negative bias from “anime”). Then of course it gets into murky water, though, like are Teen Titans (the original) or Avatar: The Last Airbender anime? It’s obviously something that doesn’t have a clear definition and it sucks. But, it’s easier for me to talk about if it’s limited to the art style, because that’s pretty much my main gripe with the whole thing.
I could also just not even remotely know what I’m talking about but just go with it.
If it had to be limited to a single sentence, the main reason why I don’t like anime is that it feels like 90% of it looks extremely similar to one another. See a few paragraphs down for the major exceptions, because there’s always exceptions. Also I’m sure someone somewhere is trying to pull out the “Calarts style” argument here and honestly nothing inoffensive pisses me off more than that and I’m gonna for sure make a separate rant on that some day. Obviously “western” animation isn’t the saving grace either, but it feels closer in general.
It may be one of those things that is supposed to be more functional, of course. I’d have to imagine it’s much more writing-focused, because, if I were an executive at an animation company, I could definitely get sold on a story much more easily if it followed very similar artistic practices that have been used by so many other companies/groups. Plus, for the audience, it’s probably easier to enjoy a story when you are pretty sure you’re going to be into the art style of the show by default. I’d have to imagine that’s why there are so many different anime (animes? Consider it a fish/fishes type thing) out there. For the most part, too, it seems like the vast majority of it is animated simply, with the higher detail and budget being saved for the big events. I’ll never say it’s not a reasonable thing to exist. It just sucks when the one thing made to be so universal is the one thing you don’t like.
But I’m definitely realizing I care about the visual of an animation more than the story. Definitely, a few years ago, I went full stereotypical writer, and cared so much more about the story itself than how things looked, but I definitely have changed from that. I’m much more likely to enjoy a story that’s pretty simple and easygoing that’s told in amazing animation than a highly detailed and complex story that’s told in pretty simple and easygoing animation. I mean, apart from that, I definitely don’t like the idea of a story’s complexity being one of its selling points, but that’s beside the point. Also, not to suggest all anime are “simply animated.” Exceptions are everywhere.
I’m the type of person who can enjoy something by “turning my brain off,” if you want to discredit the value of simplistic stories. Plus, now that I’m starting to try and make animations of my own, whenever I see some crazy good animation I’m halfway between “The animators are legends for putting in the massive legwork of making that” and “The animators are legends for making so impossibly good and high quality.” It also boggles my mind a bit when I see an overly detailed anime character/mech/whatever move. Someone had to animate that.
And then there’s one specific gripe that’s basically exactly that, but distilled into its purest form, and that’s how practically all young male protagonists in a mostly realistic setting in anime look like actual doppelgangers with each other. But, again, that’s a product of japanese society being less racially diverse overall compared to the Americas, so obviously the archetypal male is going to look much more average compared to what I’m used to. Just because there’s a reason doesn’t mean I have to like it, though. And, obviously, a lot of anime doesn’t have this issue, especially with the slightly less prevalent idea of “anime protagonist hair” of the past. Plus, girl characters don’t really seem to have this issue, and lord knows anime girls are a big thing. And, even worse for my case, it’s the same issue I have with the Calarts argument: The protagonists are supposed to look more average/approachable, while the side characters and environment can go the extra design-distance. I will say though that if an anime features the main character who looks just like that one archetype, I just can’t like it at all. It’s too plain. Same goes for when characters attend a school, and their “main” outfit is just their school uniform. Obviously practically all schools in Japan have uniforms, but it’s just so boring from a character design prospective.
Another big part of the style that I don’t like is just the level of detail anime characters/things often have. The worst part of this is always, ALWAYS the hair. It always looks so greasy and stringy, and it just makes me feel gross looking at it for too long. I don’t even care what color it is. Something a little less universal are the more fantastical side of outfits some characters wear some of the time. Obviously some outfits just go too far with detail, or maybe try too hard for a specific look that it thwarts the design as a whole. It’s kind of hard to say that without having specific examples, but I’ll always prefer bigger shapes and relative simplicity over the level of detail most anime characters have. Same goes for items too.
One thing that’s very easy to avoid on the larger scale, but still pretty prominent and a thing I genuinely hate, is how much more sexualized things are in anime. Like I said, it’s pretty easy to avoid sexualization because you can usually tell from the get-go where it’s at its worst, but even in other cases it feels like it creeps in even in the best shows. Trust me, though, I’ll never not admit to being horny, but when I sit down to engage in a genuine story I’m not even joking when I say that there is practically no situation where I want sex to be involved. Romance can be on-and-off, but specifically sexual elements just really throw me off of taking a story seriously, even when it’s actually incorporated into the greater themes and ideas of the story. I don’t know why I’m so averse to it, but I am. But, really, this is more of a writing thing than a visual thing usually. I swear to god, whenever my brother shows me an anime (my family would be completely disconnected from anime without him), there is like a 70-80% chance some female character is going to call a male character a “pervert” (or whatever the untranslated word they use is) and have it play off like a casual joke/remark. That shit actually makes me want to die. It doesn’t even matter whether or not they’re actually being a pervert, the mere mention of the remote idea genuinely pisses me off to no end.
Even though it’s just barely relevant, the way they always draw people with blood shooting out of their nose when they see lewd things makes me feel uncomfortable too. I’m not sure what anime originated that trend, because it sure as hell can’t be a thing from real life. That just doesn’t happen on the scale it happens in anime. Plus, it can’t feel good.
Strangely enough, one of the main things that doesn’t put me off is having to watch with subtitles. For one, if there’s any culture whose animation I enjoy inherently more by default, it’s French animation, so I still deal with it outside of anime. And, even when I understand the language being spoken, I still like watching with subtitles just so I never mishear or misunderstand something. But, also, I’m actually completely on the “sub” side of the age-old-and-probably-ignored-nowadays-but-i’m-behind-the-times “Dubs vs Subs” debate. For some reason, it is extremely hard for me to look at an anime with a very plainly english voice over top of it. It just doesn’t feel right, almost ever. Some get it right of course, but the general state of dubs is pretty low compared to just reading text with the default emotions behind them. It sounds kind of counterintuitive, because I can’t exactly admire the animation as much if I’m reading text, but I feel like I’ve watched and written enough (even though it doesn’t exactly take much to find this skill) to realize what the general effect of a scene is, and when I do, I can usually watch the actual animation itself instead of reading the text. Like with French stuff, I can pick up very few words that repeat and match them to the subtitles to learn just the slightest bit of another language. I actually took a French language class in high school though, so it’s much easier then…
And one thing that I actually wish non-anime did was make different intro sequences/songs for different seasons/sections of the story. Even though some classic cartoon intros are so insanely classic that it’s hard to want to get something else, I can imagine that, for the most part, the alternative intros could be just as good. I guess it’s because we have so many more episodic shows, so the same intro could reasonably apply to the whole show as if it’s practically the same thing over its entire course, unlike anime which are more structured and progress with each season. I just want more music.
Of course different anime differ in levels between these, with some being major problems in some areas and being completely fine in others. I really don’t like going super in-depth about things I hate though, so let’s just skip that.
But the only rule without an exception is the rule that states “everything has an exception,” so there are a few anime that I actually like, or ones that I respect from afar. I did have an anime nerd phase in my past, although it wasn’t super intense or long lived, but in that period a few anime did sneak into my radar and I still like them, mostly because I can’t help but love the nostalgia.
The one that kinda doesn’t count is the Pokemon anime. I like it because it’s Pokemon and I love Pokemon. Plus, it’s based on literally the most profitable gaming franchise ever, so it’s not like a fringe indie series. I will say that I actually really like the artistic direction they’ve taken for both the series and the official artwork/design as a whole. The Sun and Moon series looked pretty cute but maybe took it a bit too far, but the current series has a great balance of the clean, expressiveness of the Sun and Moon series but the solid-ness of the series before it. Apart from that, though, it’s one of those things I only still watch out of obligation, and for the rare good moments. I just love watching Pokemon exist, you know? Since I’ve watched so much of it already, and don’t have too much else to watch on a weekly basis, there’s no reason not to just put on the newest episode. It’s funny, though, because I normally like the dub of the anime more than the sub, but since the Sun and Moon series upped Ash’s expressiveness up to 10 it felt like his old dub voice actress didn’t quite match him anymore. Since I had no impression on what his original japanese voice sounded like, it was easy to start watching the subbed version and apply his new traits onto that voice. Either way, watching the subbed version means I can watch further into the series, and can’t get spoiled on things that’ll happen weeks/months down the line in the dub. As I said, it’s pretty normal nowadays to be into anime, meaning so many more people are following the Japanese episode release times and posting about it ASAP.
One that’s pretty expected is One Punch Man, which I watched once I heard someone explain it as “a parody of anime,” or something to that effect. The greatest thing about parodies is that they can be enjoyed both by those who love the thing being riffed on, and those that don’t. So, I watched it, and loved it. Me thinking about it like a parody also let me pass by the usual gripes I had with anime as a whole, like over-the-top crazy strong villains explaining so much out in the open, only to get one-shot by Saitama. And, the more obvious parody elements, such as Saitama becoming so strong just by exercising a lot, and just being a generally understated guy who just kinda is around. Pairing him with Genos, the more stereotypical anime powerhouse protagonist, is a great choice. For the animation, they even go super hard on the battles partially, I’d have to guess, because it still is just cool, but also to juxtapose how relatively simple Saitama is. There’s even some great character designs in there, like I remember this one single-episode side villain who was like a silhouette girl (?) with sharp teeth and long, seaweed-like hair that I loved the most. There’s also that second-in-command henchman guy under the main season 1 villain who looked sort of octopus-like, and I think had a crazy stupid name. I even liked the second season, which I guess most people didn’t like as much? It might’ve not been the highest of highs but I didn’t hate too much of it.
One of the weirder examples is Attack on Titan because of the artstyle. For some reason, it feels like the characters of AoT are drawn and designed so well that they can look anime, realistic, and just barely cartoonic at the same time, creating diverse and impressionable characters without having to resort to the crazy stuff like colored hair and weird clothes. Plus, this lends extremely well to the overall atmosphere of the show, which of course is more grim in a slightly more realistic setting, but with the occasional guise of happiness some scenes have. It can be everything at once. But, of course, I only realized that after watching it, and the main selling point was actually how interesting and unique the story was, while remaining, at first, pretty simplistic all things considered. I just loved dudes with giant swords jet boosting up to a shambling giant and slicing the back of their neck. Compared to most anime, it was so specifically designed, instead of having a lot of detail put into everything to have the uniqueness. The Scout uniform is basically iconic at this point, while remaining pretty straightforward and, even better, completely unrevealing. Even when you hear the idea of an “anime sword” you also kind of think of something super flamboyant and complex, while the Scouts’ swords are also pretty simple, but very recognizable, basically being a rectangle, and also being replaceable. The whole device they use to get around is also so simple, yet so cool, and relatively reasonable. From a writing perspective, it’s also really good to have all main characters be on practically the same playing field in terms of abilities (aside from, you know, Erin) so each knows their full limitations, and you don’t learn anything out of the blue in the midst of battle. Even better, it’s a type of power you have to be genuinely skilled with, not like how most stories pull the “you’re inherently powerful you just need to release it!” sort of deal (Again, Erin).
I am kinda falling out of interest with the story as it progresses, though, but it’s entirely not the creators’ faults. Part of the appeal initially was how mysteriously cool and terrifying the Titans were, and why everything in this world was the way it was. Like with pretty much everything going on for long periods of time, the explanation had to come eventually, and it never is quite as good as you thought it’d be. Now that I know exactly why everything is the way it is, a lot of the magic kind of dissipated. Plus, that subplot of the false royalty of their kingdom and all the politics of that got very Star Wars Prequels with me. I didn’t come for that stuff. I am still a bit in that “I’m obligated to watch it since I’ve watched so much already” camp, so if they ever continue the series I’ll get back in. I’m definitely not at all the manga type, though. I don’t really like long form comics as a whole, and my eyes genuinely hurt looking at most manga because it seems they don’t use different shades of grey as much as they should. It’s all black and white, and my eyes can’t stand it. It’s the digital age, dammit. Leave the old style behind.
Even though I already said it’s on the verge of being anime and even though It’s all movies (I think?) you gotta admit Studio Ghibli stuff is just impossibly magical. I can only actively remember seeing like 3 of them (Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro, and Ponyo) but I would actually sell my soul to keep these movies in existence. I’m highly considering watching Kiki’s Delivery Service next because I think it’s on some streaming service my family has, where I can literally just watch it whenever with no fuss. They all fall into that kind of foreign fantasy genre that I love to all hell, because the “usual” for western fantasy has gotten impossibly stale and I actually kind of hate it now. Literally whenever any kind of story is a fantasy story, but with fantastical elements coming from some culture that isn’t the norm for fantasy, I can’t help but love it. Even though I’m talking more about the high fantasy genre, I can still love Ghibli stuff for being so adorably casual and local, making it feel so much more like every little thing they show you exists in some magical recess in the real world. The artstyle also has that kind of feel, where it’s cute in that weird-looking way. Plus, it’s a movie, so there’s a more solid stream of higher quality animation, instead of the more necessarily efficient series. Also also, I would die for Chihiro. That’s all.
For the stuff I don’t actively engage with as much, you can’t not mention the big Shonen Jump names, like One Piece, Naruto, and the one I interacted with the most, Yu Gi Oh. I’ve watched all three of those to some extent at some point in my life, but they didn’t really stay too much.
One Piece has another remarkable artstyle, being so weird and quirky and large-faced with everything. I can also appreciate the fantastical pirate elements, as well as the very unique superpowers of Luffy, and the rest of the Devil Fruit powers. I would totally try watching again if it didn’t have over 900 goddamn episodes. That’s the problem with watching super popular stuff like that, it goes on forever, and it’s so hard to make that commitment. Either way, I think that one guy with the cigarette/lollipop was a walking “pervert” joke so I don’t miss it too much. I also honestly think a non-episodic series that goes over like 200-something episodes can’t possibly have a truly balanced and engaging story all throughout.
Naruto also had that “High fantasy of another culture” appeal to it, and is probably the most classic anime that isn’t Dragonball (which I personally am not really into at all, never was). I don’t really have too much to say about it, but I did really like the Wii game I had where it was a fighter with all the characters. I haven’t checked, but I’m pretty sure Naruto’s just like One Piece in that there are too many episodes to make the commitment and I think Naruto might even have a worse problem with “Pervert” jokes, but I don’t remember exactly.
Yu Gi Oh, on the other hand, is actually still sort of my jam. The recent stuff, whether it’s the cards or the series, is completely beyond me, and looks like the true anime BS that I don’t like, but the OG Yu Gi Oh stuff was awesome. I still know how to play the card game, at least with the earlier, simpler rules and card effects. I don’t even know how to play the Pokemon card game, and Pokemon’s one of my favorite things ever. I wish we still had those pre-made decks sorted so I could just play really quickly with those to regain my idea for strategy, and then make an original deck of the hundreds of hundreds of cards we have lying around. It’d be fun for no other reason than nostalgia. The video games are probably a good place to start, and I still have that old PC one where it was split into multiple versions for like Yugi, Kaiba, and Joey I think. I had the Yugi one, and last time I tried I actually had trouble beating him. There’s a semi-decent multiplayer one I have on Steam right now but it’s one of those things where I could either play that, or just… not, and continue life as normal. I might try it out again, but I already feel like I’m wasting my day. Oh my god, then Dungeon Dice Monsters on Gameboy Advance? Who needs anything else for that plane ride, am I right? I think there’s even those semi-story based RPGs on the Gameboy too that I should probably try out again. There’s just so much goodness.
And I haven’t even talked about the anime yet. Definitely the more meme-able of the classic anime, and I can definitely appreciate it for that. It was pretty weird in its own way. Especially with Yugi himself having what might just be the most insane and nonsensical hair style of all of anime. But, even then, I actually think it’s my all-time favorite, and I kinda love it. I have no idea why I do, but I do. I couldn’t even conceive of how to draw it from anything other than the front view. I also seriously appreciate when a character’s main icon/representation is something unique, and the Dark Magician is such an insanely cool character for just being some random dude on a card. Even apart from that, the Millenium Puzzle looks really cool, as does pretty much anything with an Egyptian flair to it. Then, we got the man, the legend, Joey Wheeler, who would not have been the same with any other voice actor. I stand by the fact that Tea and Tristan should’ve been fused into a hot-headed tomboy though, you really could’ve done without them both separately. Kaiba is also a classic anime antagonist/antihero, and he’s pretty lovable for it. Such great characters for something that really didn’t need them at all. I definitely have more nostalgia for the card/video game overall, but the anime definitely has an impression of its own.
There’s also Zatch Bell, which I only know about in full because of that one Billiam video. I did have some vague idea of what Zatch Bell was, but only because we got those cool little books to hold the cards in. Honestly though the average character design in the show kinda sucks considering the fantastical elements are kind of cool. The only reason why I’m bringing it up at all is because I think Zatch’s design might be my all-time favorite character design in any anime property ever. His hair does still look pretty greasy, sure, but overall he has a very simple and clear design, and even though I’d definitely redesign him to look more puppet-like, the only reason why I see him as a puppet is because of the lines going down his cheeks. Those lines might be one of my all-time favorite single character design details for some reason. He also has a giant bow around his neck, and that plus the wide dress seriously makes him feel like a character I’d design (mostly because I have a character with somewhat the same details) minus the uber-generic anime boy protagonist sidekick.
For the list of anime I haven’t engaged with at all yet but can respect from afar, the shortest one I can describe is that one with that skeleton guy who has that average job and it’s animated very plainly, almost like a more western adult animation. You know, that one who got the meme with the subtitle of “Thanks, but reconsider!!!” with him looking all average but also anime-shocked at the same time. I can appreciate the deviation from pretty much every norm for sure.
For the more popular stuff, probably the second most likely for me to watch is My Hero Academia. The artstyle is just varied enough to make it feel better. Sometimes the hero outfits get a little weird, but most of the time they’re alright. What I’m really here for is the base character designs under them. Deku is an amazing average protagonist character design, who definitely looks average but still unique enough to not look boring. Designs like that are hard to come by, because it’s so much easier to use more over-the-top unique elements to make the main character unique. Doing more with less is always preferable though. I could list off all the characters and all, but beyond Deku I really would just be saying things like “The guy who looks like a crow or whatever.” Except for Tsuyu. Tsuyu is best girl, and if you don’t draw her mouth wide enough I’ll be sorely disappointed in you. I think there isn’t a single character I love more from a property I don’t engage with at all. To be honest, I don’t think there’s a serious chance for me really wanting to get into it, though, mainly because I’m intimidated by that little shitstain with the weird latex ball mohawk. As I’ve heard, he’s the walking “pervert” joke type. Could be wrong. I hope so.
The most likely is another Academia, that being Little Witch Academia. It looks adorable as all hell, and the fantasy elements look classically fun, being a sort of bubbly spin on the more generic Harry Potter-type stuff you might imagine for a witch/wizard school. I’ve heard that any Studio Trigger series is animated very well, but somewhat lacking in the story department, but as I said before I can very easily enjoy a simple story with great animation in front of it, so it really seems super up my alley. Plus, it’s just like, ON Netflix. I could literally just boot it up any second and start watching.
I usually try to organize these paragraphs/lists in ascending order of interest, but I gotta break that for something that’s super half-and-half, and sort of the one that triggered me to want to finally write down all this junk. Madoka Magica is occasionally really cool, with the absurd and bizarre imagery of each Witch and Labyrinth, and I seriously love that part. But… Then it turns to the characters, which I honestly hate looking at multiple times more than the average anime character. Maybe it was somehow intentional, but their faces seriously look like those drawn by kids just starting out trying to draw anime, but just barely adjusted to look more polished for the sake of decency. I’m also not really into the story, being this massive juxtaposition of cutesy little magical girl antics and hellish demonic nonsense and brutal events. Trust me, I’m not the one to shy away from intense, adult stuff in animation, but I feel like the two extremes are almost too far apart from each other to really get into. That, and the magical girl dresses they each transform into was the specific inspiration for me mentioning designs that feel like they’re too set on doing one thing that it hinders their overall design. The yellow girl’s dress looks pretty cool though, since she has those weird poofy shoulder things, another character design trait I love. I just had to mention it because of how crazy interesting the Witches and Labyrinths are.
I just remembered Sailor Moon existed as I was writing that, and I’m not insanely opposed to looking into it. It might fight with Dragonball for the title of most classic anime ever. It also looks kind of cutesy-fun, which I can enjoy, but I definitely would expect it being a bit old to be its downfall. The artstyle alone gives me some vicarious nostalgia, even though I’ve never engaged with anything styled like it (and honestly believe it’s objectively worse than the anime style that’s more common nowadays). People as a whole seem to be nostalgic about it, so it’s kind of hard not to also feel it a little bit. As I said, though, I do kinda hate it compared to modern stuff. Same thing applies to Dragonball and really anything of Toryiama’s work. I can see the nostalgia from other people, but I just don’t like it.
I’m sure there are others that are just barely being forgotten about, but you get the point.
So yeah, that’s basically why I hate anime except I talk more about the anime I do like instead of hating on it as a whole. Believe it or not, when I like animation, I truly do like it, regardless of whatever form it is. But still, anime as a whole is not at all my thing. Feed me my generic Disney Channel “Calarts” SJW shlock instead.
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Quarantine Rentals.
Ten indie films you can rent right now, as recommended by Letterboxd members.
Sure, Scoob!. Yes, Extraction. The Wrong Missy, okay. On the other hand, there are plenty of interesting indie films available for VOD and virtual screenings right now that haven’t necessarily had the benefit of studio backing, big stars, film festivals, red carpets or other ‘normal-circumstances’ coverage to build word-of-mouth.
So, because these are abnormal circumstances, we sent our West Coast editor Dominic Corry on a hunt through your recent reviews to find ten under-seen but enthusiastically received indies that you can rent today.
Thanks to our partnership with JustWatch, you can find availability details on each film’s Letterboxd page—and Dominic has also helpfully provided further links to make it that much easier to support these indie films.
Powerbomb Directed by R. Zachary Shildwachter and B.J. Colangelo
Starring Matt Capiccioni (better known Matt Cross, or M-Dogg 20, or Son of Havoc) as an up-and-coming wrestling star, and Wes Allen as the obsessive fan who kidnaps him, Powerbomb is “The King of Comedy set in the indie wrestling scene, which is a cool fucking concept if nothing else,” according to Dustin Baker. “Luckily, there’s some witty writing and good performances to back up that concept to create something that’s surprisingly a lot of fun.”
Don’t worry if you know nothing about wrestling, writes Justin Nordell: “As someone who has zero reference point for wrestling, this film not only made it accessible but enthralling!”
A guide to where you can watch Powerbomb can be found on the film’s website.
Arkansas Directed by Clark Duke
Quietly ubiquitous comedic actor Clark Duke (Kick-Ass, Hot Tub Time Machine) directed and co-wrote this neo-noir in which he stars alongside such high-profile talent as Vince Vaughn, John Malkovich and Liam Hemsworth. Everyone agrees that the film wears its influences on its sleeve. Chainsaw Massacre “loved nearly every minute of this deliberately paced descendant of Tarantino and the Coen brothers. [But] comparing it to those […] filmmakers does it a disservice though, because, while you can feel their influence, first-time director Clark Duke does have his own distinct style”.
While noting that it marks another interesting performance in Vaughn’s recent emergence as a worthy cinematic lowlife, Tummis would also “like to point out that Liam Hemsworth was great in this”.
Arkansas is available via various digital outlets, as indicated on its official website.
What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael Directed by Rob Garver
Before the Letterboxd era, film criticism was a much more exclusive realm, and no one critic loomed larger in that realm than The New Yorker’s Pauline Kael—so iconic that true cineastes of her time referred to her simply by her first name. So it behooves you, good Letterboxd member, to familiarize yourself with this master of the form via this new documentary.
In a review that feels like it could apply to any number of Letterboxd members, kmarus says “From what I’ve encountered of her criticism, Kael and I disagree on a lot of things, but one thing that is readily apparent to anyone who reads her writing is that she genuinely cares about movies”.
Letterboxd’s London correspondent (and professional critic) Ella Kemp felt personally validated watching the film. “It’s magic, she’s magic, this is why we needed her and why we always need movies, and why I want to keep talking about them. It’s nice if you read me, if you like me or if you agree with me—but even if you don’t, I know I’ll be sticking around for a while anyway. I’m nowhere near done yet.”
You can rent the film here.
Slay The Dragon Directed by Barak Goodman and Chris Durrance
The insidious and nebulous practice of gerrymandering is the focus of this acclaimed documentary. As member Andrew Chrzanowski ominously intones, the film is “never more timely than right here and right now” and “demands you to watch, so you may witness in a comprehensive and detailed way the metastasis of the most malignant cancer on our democracy: gerrymandered districts and redrawn borders by Republicans, especially after the 2010 elections”.
Guyatthemovies says the film “does a phenomenal job of taking a topic that may seem confusing for most who are not familiar and breaking it down to simplistic terms, explaining the impact of gerrymandering [through] well-known examples” and that “this is a must-watch for anyone concerned about the state of politics today”.
You can support your favorite theater by renting the film here.
Judy & Punch Directed by Mirrah Foulkes
Mia Wasikovska and Damon Herriman, two of the more interesting Australian actors working in film today, and each possessed of a fantastically cinematic face, star in this one-of-a-kind film as a couple operating a marionette show in a town about to bubble over with tension. Like the classic puppet characters that title the film, they come to blows.
The film is the feature-directing debut of Aussie actor and filmmaker Mirrah Foulkes, and Letterboxd member CJ Johnson says she “announces herself as a feature auteur of serious talent and limitless potential with […] a film whose great artfulness is only outdone by its sheer, breath-taking originality”.
Jess V.K. warns us to “go into this film with no expectations, because whatever you were expecting is not what you will see”.
Rent the film here.
On A Magical Night Directed by Christophe Honoré
This French comedy (of sorts) presents a fresh perspective on a very French activity: infidelity. It begins with a woman, Maria (Chiara Mastroianni, daughter of Italian-French acting royalty Marcello Mastroanni and Catherine Deneuve) deciding to leave her husband, and taking up residence across the street where she can observe him.
As Allison M. explains, “like a modernized version of A Christmas Carol, spirits living and dead come to haunt Maria to help her make a decision about whether or not she should return to her husband. It is complete with a phantom baby, reference to a past threesome, and kissing cousins”.
The film caused Gmacauley to ruminate: “Have you ever thought to yourself that when you get old you’d like to travel to the past and sleep with your significant other while they’re young again? Well now I have.”
Watch it here; and also seek out Nicolas Bedos’ marital fantasy romp, La Belle Époque.
The Assistant Directed by Kitty Green
This austere take on the #MeToo era stars Ozark breakout Julia Garner as a bottom-rung assistant to a never-seen, New York-based film producer clearly modeled on Harvey Weinstein. Through one long workday, we are witness to the manipulative practices that enable such a figure, without ever landing on a single incident that she can cite as tangible proof of his behavior, which helps detail the impossibility of her—and countless others’—situation.
While the film’s understated style has thrown some viewers off, that’s entirely the point according to Ryne Walley, who says it “aims true with unwavering confidence. The calculated pace and concise nature of The Assistant hides very little, echoing the countless cases of abuse and depravity that’ve been disclosed… an agonizingly taut feat of filmmaking… Your heart sinks with each passing hour”.
“So quietly powerful, this is a female film through and through. Gut wrenching in the simplest way,” writes Letterboxd member Katie.
Ella Kemp interviewed Green about The Assistant for Letterboxd. The film’s official website lists various VOD options.
Capital in the Twenty-First Century Directed by Justin Pemberton
French economist Thomas Piketty’s 2013 book about income equality forms the basis of this documentary, which takes on a new pertinence in the coronavirus era.
“It’s a sobering trip,” says Joey Jepson. “As if Covid-19 wasn’t enough to send you into a deep depression, Capital in the Twenty-First Century presents a thesis that seems to indicate that if we don’t course correct, we will see a further divide and evaporation of the middle-class.”
Michael agrees: “Very clearly and lucidly explains why we’re fucked if we don’t start regulating capital.” Eep.
Rent the film here.
Spaceship Earth Directed by Matt Wolf
The 1991 biosphere experiment—in which a group of people sealed themselves off from the world (hey!) to investigate human self-sustainability—is the subject of this documentary, which, like Capital in the Twenty-First Century, also hits a little different in the current moment.
Kellyabailey is on board: “I’m fuckin inspired, man. I wanna see what I’m capable of and finally start that commune I’ve been dreaming up.”
Smooz was impressed with how the film didn’t make fun of its subjects: “It’s rare for a documentarian […] dealing with kooks to produce a movie with any sort of empathy. This movie takes the kooks involved in one of the kookiest, most ridiculed projects in recent decades and honestly shows their successes, visionary moments, shortcomings, and failures while resisting the urge to dunk on them and give them swirlies.”
Letterboxd editor-in-chief Gemma Gracewood spoke to Wolf about his film—and what movies he’d choose to take with into a biosphere—in this interview. Rent the movie here.
Aren’t You Happy Directed by Susanne Heinrich
Those in the mood for something different might do well to check out this aesthetically bold German film—think Wes Anderson meets The Love Witch meets the movie Robert De Niro takes Cybill Shepherd to see on their ‘date’ in Taxi Driver—following a young woman named Mädchen (Marie Rathscheck) through various strange encounters.
Arvid Schmiedehausen says it “might be the most artistic film I have ever watched. It is highly ambitious in its attempts to deconstruct society and western values through fourteen episodes, with each being a persiflage on one unique aspect of it”. [We had to look up “persiflage” too.]
Ian A. Chapman writes that “not in anyway adhering to convention, Aren’t You Happy melancholically meanders through rendezvous allowing time for delicious dialogue. Visually pleasing, the colour choices neatly frame the scenes and set the tones allowing for a shorthand into the vibe”.
Rent the movie here.
Related content
Our list of art house films screening online now.
#indie film#independent film#indie films to rent#vod#streaming#virtual screening#virtual release#quarantine films#letterboxd#letterboxd recommendations#spaceship earth#the assistant#kitty green#vince vaughn
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I saw the "what scares you the most" reblog and I am wondering if you could extend the hc thing and let us know the deepest fears of all the ops :)
Oh boi, you don’t ask easy stuff, do you? Okay, I’ll give it my best shot! And a big thank you and hug to @todragonsart who’s been a huge inspiration and help, and my willing co-conspirator 💜
FBI
Ash: Failure, not being good enough at what she does. Combined with her impulsiveness and competitve nature, it can be a volatile mix. She also fears being treated differently than her colleagues just because she’s a woman.
Thermite: He’s afraid of his explosives. He knows how unstable they can be, and how easily they could cost someone’s life (his own or even worse, someone else’s). He nearly lost all sensibility in his hands the last time a charge went awry, he doesn’t want to contemplate what could happen if he messed up again. Still, he won’t let his fear change his life, or make him lose confidence in himself.
Pulse: Spiders. All those spindly legs and how they scuttle around, weaving that disgusting stuff… he can’t stand spiders, they make his skin crawl.
Castle: The hopelessness of life, how the bad always seems to outshine the good and the fear that his effort and choices won’t really make a difference.
SAS
Thatcher: The pass of time. All his life he’s been a soldier, he doesn’t know what he’ll be once he can’t serve anymore.
Sledge: Not measuring up to what people expect of him. He knows he’s expected to be Thatcher successor when the old man retires, and those are some really big shoes to fill in. He’s also afraid of not being able to protect his squad, his friends. Especially the younger two, who can be reckless and irresponsible at times or most of the time in Smoke’s case
Smoke: Being ignored and alone, that’s the reason he was/is a troublemaker, to catch people’s attention.
Mute: Memory loss. Aside of all the wealth of knowledge he has suddenly disappearing, are you still yourself without your memories?
GIGN
Montagne: Illness, like the one that runs in his family. He can fight terrorists, but he’s not so sure he could fight (and win) against cancer.
Twitch: She’s strongly empathetic, and she fears that could be her downfall, that it could make her unable to act decisively in the middle of the action, that her emotions would paralyze her.
Doc: His choices costing innocent lives, even if it was by inaction (rather than direct action) on his part,
Rook: He fears his trust exercises makes him look gullible, aside from worrying that his skillset is insufficient compared to the other prodigies in Rainbow, that he’s too simple to be part of such an elite group.
Spetsnaz
Tachanka: He built himself an image of powerful, unflappable and unstoppable force, yet deep down he’s only human. He’s terrified people will see through his act and stop respecting him without that metaphorical mask.
Kapkan: The unstoppable marching of time that is slowly guiding us to inevitable death (according to that post you mention xD). In fact I think he’s terrified of his own feelings, of becoming too attached and emotionally dependant on other people. He craves it as much as he fears it.
Glaz: Going blind. He’s a soldier, a sniper, and an artist. Without his eyesight, he would be nothing.
Fuze: Despite his reputation, he’s terrified of accidentally killing someone with his gadget, be it a civilian or worse, one of his team mates.
GSG9
Jäger: He has PTSD from Outbreak, which for a time rendered him unable to pilot even. It also left him with an irrational panic to darkness, he sometimes thinks he can still hear those things scuttling closer and closer to him, while he’s alone in the dark, not knowing if anyone will come for him.
Bandit: He’s already experienced it, and would rather never have to lose someone close to him, knowing it was his fault. That’s why he tends to keep people at arm’s lenght. Note: I don’t think Cedrick is dead, but Bandit is too chicken to face him after the incident, considering their relationship irreparably damaged, aka lost.
Blitz: After being a soldier in the Kosovo war and witnessing its horrors, plus all that he’s seen working in a counter-terrorism unit, he’s afraid of discovering how far human depravity can go. Every time he’s deployed, he fears what new horrors he’ll see this time. However, that’s also the reason he wanted this job, to stop those things from happening.
IQ: She’s a perfectionist, and her obsessive nature and refusal to gice up are a result of her deep seated fear of failure. She defines her worth by her success, and if she doesn’t succeed, then what is she worth?
JTF2
Buck: He’s a direct and practical man, he fears being stuck in a position where he has to act diplomatically or deal with politicians, or even being a public face where his actions and words would be examined by many people.
Frost: She’s not good at reacting in front of surprise or unpredictable situations, plans meticulously because she fears getting caught off guard and not knowing what to do.
SEAL
Valkyrie: She fears physical injury. She already had to give up her dream of being an Olympic swimmer after the car accident that broke her arm, now the stakes of injury are much higher, and she could lose her job and new life. She also fears being treated differently or patronized just for being a woman on an almost purely male environment.
Blackbeard: He’s afraid of losing faith in his nation. If his country was wrong, he would start to question if what he’s done for the country was the right thing or not, and that terrifies him.
BOPE
Capitao: He fears helplessness, being again in a situation where he can’t do anything but wait for someone to help him, just as it happened when h was taken hostage all those years ago.
Caveira: Not being able to protect her family is her worst fear, and knowing how prone her brothers are to get in trouble, it’s not an unreasonable fear. She would do anything for them.
SAT
Hibana: She’s scared of losing her cultural identity. Tradition is important to her and her family, and yet she works away from home in a multicultural team, so she fears losing touch with her roots, forgetting who she is.
Echo: He’s terrified of Ying. Have you ever seen her angry? He has, and after all you can’t spell terrifying without ying.
GEO
Jackal: Failing his brother’s memory. If he can’t solve Faisal’s murder, what’s the use of his life? He can’t have his brother back, hell sometimes he can barely remember his face anymore, but he can bring him justice.
Mira: Fear of abandonment. After he mother left when she was a child, she always has that little voice in the back of her head whispering that everyone else will leave her too, just like mom did.
SDU
Ying: She has PTSD from being in a car crash. Took up driving, and quite recklessly, to feel that she was in control of the situation, not her fears. Yet every time she hears a loud crash noise or feels the car not responding as it should, she starts to feel the panic building up.
Lesion: Drowning. He’s a good swimmer, but during the incident in the oil tank, when he igested the oily water and started coughing, that was the first time he ever thought he would die, with his lungs filled with toxic waters, and it stuck with him.
GROM
Zofia: Following her father’s footsteps and alienating her family because of her job and the expectations she puts on others.
Ela: Due to how her childhood was, she’s always had that feeling in the back of her mind that she won’t ever be enough for the people close to her, not as good as others, not as worthy of love. She also fears she’ll live all her life under Zofia’s shadow, unable to be anything else but the Bosak little sister.
707SMB
Vigil: He’s afraid of loss, vulenaribility, emotions… In fact, it would be easier to list what he isn’t afraid of. Just check his bio and you’ll see.
Dokkaebi: She fears to not be taken seriously due to his young age and image. That’s the reason she so viciously shows off her skills and exploits people’s weaknesses. She is ruthless out of fear.
CBRN
Lion: Himself, what he most fears is becoming again who he was before finding faith. He knows his pride and anger aren’t good either, but at least they keep him in check from spiralling down again.
Finka: Her illness, she’s terrified of the day she won’t be able to move, feels like it’s a countdown to the moment her life will be forever put on hold and she will only be a victim, someone to be pitied.
GIS
Maestro: He fears losing the ability to chose what he wants, of his family or Rainbow taking him for granted and wanting him to stay forever, and how could he say no to his loved ones even if he wanted something else? The guilt of leaving them would kill him.
Alibi: Stemming from witnessing her father being extorted by the mafia, she fears being taken advantage of, or witnessing again how someone close to her being in that position. She’s also afraid that in such situation her anger would override her common sense.
GSUTR
Clash: She’s afraid of her own volatile emotions, of acting rashly again like she did when she was part of the riots.
Maverick: Water, it triggers his PTSD, bringing back memories from when he was imprisoned and waterboarded during that time he was MIA. He avoids bodies of water as much as he can.
GIGR
Kaid: He’s a man who values honour highly, and fears that his moral integrity could be questioned, that someone would think him capable of taking bribes like the Commander that besmirched the reputation of the Fortress before he took over.
Nomad: Growing up in a privileged family came with certain expectations for her future, however, she preferred to enlist and travel constantly alone rather than remain home. She fears having to live a sheltered life again, having to marry and not being able to keep proving to everyone and herself that she’s capable of.
SASR
Mozzie: He’s afraid of being forgotten, and that’s the reason for his showman personality and his tendency to take risks.
Gridlock: She fears taking on more responsabilites than the ones she already has (eldest of 5 siblings, indebted family, taking care of the farm’s finances, and protective of her teammates), that’s why she keeps turning down promotions.
BONUS
Warden: He painstakingly built himself an aura of mystery and danger and proficiency, his biggest fear is people being able to see through all of that. He can’t bear the idea of someone degrading his merits.
Nokk: [REDACTED]
#rainbow 6 siege#r6s#rainbow six siege#r6siege#headcanons#Anonymous#I hope you guys like the bonus and find it funny too xD
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HOW TO NEVER EVER OFFEND ANYONE ONLINE...EVER!!!
***spoiler alert....it's not possible!! so HERE's what to do when the internet TURNS ON YOU!
So I'm walking out the front door of the brewery the other day and there at the bar was great friend and fellow brewery owner from down the block Damon Moreau of Common Crown Brewery. "How's it going buddy?" I blurt out, happy as always to see fellow brewers in our taproom. The somewhat fatigued look on his face said everything but yet he replied "Well our new beer just launched and social media is EXPLODING right now!!" Well, that's GREAT news I begin to attempt to congratulate him but he stops me in my tracks with a "yeah but NOT in a good way!" The reaction to the name "Cherry Karen Sour” hit fast and hit hard. Some people were clearly offended by the use of the Karen meme on their cans and accusations of ignorance and racism began to fly.
From my viewpoint, I thought it was a clever play on a sour beer being named after a sour personality. I've seen enough of the Karen meme vids and GIF's online to get the connection and was truly surprised to see such anger and attacking comments towards them. Of course, I'd witnessed the Karen meme developing over the years since seeing #FuckYouKaren on Reddit YEARS ago. I'd heard the many tales of "the Karen in the dental chair" when my wife comes home from work. I'd just simply never EVER associated this meme with anything racist. My thoughts on the worst part of the Karen meme was the unfortunate effect on the poor ladies who, despite being incredibly nice, respectful, lovely ladies who DO NOT need to speak to the manager and simply happen to be named "KAREN"!
Growing up a redhead I've certainly dealt with my share of being the TARGET of the internet's "less than flattering" meme's that range from my obvious lack of any semblance of a soul, all the way to people celebrating "kick a ginger day" (thanks south park) essentially mobilizing the world towards an entire day of the year promoting actual ASSAULT on myself and my fellow soul-less Gingers.
To be clear, I do not think my personal experiences as the target of the latest internet meme excuses ignorance towards other internet meme's. I do wonder, however, how much responsibility we are to shoulder for keeping up to speed with the latest EVOLUTION of a meme? From my ignorant line of sight "Karen" had not yet manifested herself into a racially charged concept causing fear and possible harm to people of colour.
"Karen" had been making us laugh since 2017 on Reddit but a quick search of Karen on "Know Your Meme" cites that a pretty significant change happened in 2020! May 25th, 2020 to be precise! That day saw the global pandemic collide violently with the killing of George Floyd AS WELL AS the Amy Cooper Central Park incident. Dr. André Brock, associate professor of Black digital culture at Georgia Tech stated "..the viral widespread resonance of “Karen” footage now is the result of an interest convergence where the coronavirus pandemic intersected with collective outrage over police brutality. The weekend that the video of Amy Cooper in Central Park went viral was the same weekend that George Floyd was killed after now-former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck, suffocating him. The Central Park video only highlighted the extreme violence — and potentially fatal consequences — of a white woman selfishly calling the cops out of spite and professed fear."
That happened May 25th, 2020. 50 days ago at the time of writing this. My point about the timeline of the evolution of the meme is that, as a fellow brewery owner, I can say with certainty that ‘50 days ago’ our friends at Common Crown Brewery would have still thought Karen was funny! They also would have already ordered beer cans labeled with Karen based artwork and they would have been so head down, consumed with keeping their business alive during the pandemic that they would have most likely missed the significance of Karen’s shift over the past weeks. I know i missed it. There's simply no way anyone could convince me that any of the fine folks at Common Crown would ever intentionally offend anyone with their branding and I'm positive that every single person who has ever met them feels the same way. So WHY such a violent and angry outcry towards them? I think Ricky Gervais from his time eating vegan wings on "hot ones" has some relevant insight!
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The video above is obviously an overgeneralization of this new world we live in but it's also hilariously accurate. When did we become a generation of people swiping endlessly through other people's lives, waiting eagerly for OUR turn to be offended and stoke the internets mob justice flames? In today's day and age, I wouldn't feel safe announcing ANY kind of beliefs online be it political, religious, medical, sexual, etc. The internet is now a terrifying place, ready to attacknat a moments' notice and bully you for announcing that you wanted the Olympics in Calgary, or that you voted for Nenshi, or that you drive a Tesla, or, or, or,....
So NOW what!!?? Imagine you're a small business owner and despite your best efforts to make your customers happy, to make a living doing what you love, and to create a great environment for your staff to call home, you find yourself on the receiving end of the angry internet? Recently my good friend and fellow business owner James Boettcher of Righteous Gelato (the artist formerly known as Fiasco Gelato) found himself in this similar situation. After releasing a Black Lives Matter Gelato the internet backlash was swift. I watched terrified from the sidelines as my good friend and true Canadian LEGEND of an entrepreneur battled his way through a minefield. What started as criticism quickly turned into a pretty savage attack with people assaulting him as a person and as a business owner. It was brutal. And knowing the incredibly high level of intentions that both Righteous Gelato AND Common Crown Brewery uphold in every decision they make, I'm sure more and more people are thinking "when is it going to be ME who makes a mistake? When will I be the target of the internet's wrath? And what will I do when it happens to me?"
Having caused a few controversial nationally viral stories myself, I'm no stranger to picking a fight and I'm no stranger to spending 24 hours a day for up to a week at a time responding to every single engagement, every single opinion, every single review, and every single media request during these times and I have a few suggestions for you if your turn ever DOES come around!!
1. Take a Deep Breath - Right or Wrong, Good, Bad or Ugly when you find yourself staring down the loaded barrel of an angry internet, the first step is to recognize that these situations are INCREDIBLE opportunities to let the world see who you really are! What you do next will be a defining moment in the history of your business, so take a deep breath and think "how do I let the TRUE spirit of my company's DNA shine through."
2. Decide COLLECTIVELY on your position - We often react quickly with anger or defensiveness towards a seemingly unjustified criticism aimed at ourselves or our business. And why WOULDN'T we? NO ONE knows how hard we've worked as business owners to get to where we are right?? But that type of thinking is like a biased parent who's kid can do NO WRONG!! Anyone with kids on a sports team knows those parents! They are the WORST and usually have the worst kids! haha. But by involving your entire team to address the situation cooler heads can often prevail and can help a business see the situation from another position. Compassion, sympathy, and understanding of how others see our actions differently than we do is a hard skill to master. It's also perhaps the most important first step in admitting that we may, have truly made a mistake and need to genuinely make things right. Collectively Involving your team members with a less emotional connection to business is a great way to show them your level of respect for their insight as well as arrive at a position that the entire business believes and OWNS!
3. OWN your position...GENUINELY! - The internet can spot a fake a MILE away. Bullshit meters these days are finely tuned to sniff out shallow apologies, or disingenuous attempts to make the situation "go away". As Ricky Gervais stated above, it's OK if people don't agree with your decisions, even if they're MAD at your decisions. But don't waffle. If you were wrong...OWN IT! Apologize and mean it! Here's a sniff test example of whether you own an apology or not: If you apologize online for your actions and then someone posts in support of you that they thought your actions were justified....and you don't CORRECT them? then guess what? YOU'RE NOT SORRY so don't say that you are.
4. Don't delete the thread! - I love reading other business' reviews online! But I never waste my time with the 5-star reviews. I always feel they're either fake or the business owners' parents! either way, there's no value to me reading them. It's the ONE-star reviews that show me how a business responds to the challenges of business and most of THOSE are BS as well. When a bar gets a one-star review because some jackass felt vindictive towards the bartender who "cut him off" for the night. I laugh at the drunk idiot who thinks that bad review of this nature makes ANY negative impact on the business. On the contrary, a witty, clever response to a one-star review of this nature can do wonders for letting the world see your business's personality. And when a REAL one-star review comes in. It's a TRUE opportunity to show how your business is managed and you "right the wrongs". But somehow as business owners, we FEAR the one-star review!! Don't! Trust that the public will read between the lines and make their decision based on all the information. Again, we all have highly tuned bullshit meters, and deleting threads of this nature not only stop the public from gaining the full context of the situation you may find yourself in. It also, more often than not, creates a perception of guilt. If I hear about a company experiencing something similar and I look them and can read the threads I can make my OWN decision on where I stand on the matter. But if the threads have been deleted, I instinctively assume "boy they must have really screwed up!"
5. Don't be intimidated by the volume of the angry - People who "oppose" are ALWAYS louder that those who "support". Just because you've never had this much attention on your social channels and it ALL appears to be negative. You have to know that in general people who support you are much less likely to dive into shark-infested waters with you. However other SHARKS smell blood and are MUCH more likely to join in on the feeding frenzy. I guess it's just not as fun to stick your neck out there when you can safely watch the attack from the shore. Have faith, however, that despite the feeling of helplessness and the isolation of feeling totally alone in these times, there are TONNES of people who will read the posts, perhaps see both sides and potentially send you some support on a private DM, email, or phone call in support of what you're going through REGARDLESS of whether you're right or wrong. OTHER business owners are the friends you need to lean on, or shoulders to cry on during these times. The “swim in the deep end with me” quote from the video above is awesome to me as I’ve sent up the bat signal in my business before and called upon my pal Jim button of Village Brewery to wade into deep waters with me on issues in the past. It meant EVERYTHING to me that he dove in, headfirst with me! It’s incredibly important to have people around you who, when they believe in your cause, are willing to stand with you on the front lines taking fire while helping keep the flag in the air! Have those people around but also BE that person when YOU’RE called upon.
6. LEARN, LEARN, and LEARN SOME MORE- Regardless of the situation you've experienced, if you come away without learning and actively attempting to be better moving forward than you're an idiot. The entire WORLD is receiving a crash course on what acceptable behaviour looks like from all corners of humanity. The last few years have exposed a lot of mistakes humanity has made. The #MeToo movement, #BlackLivesMatter, and LGBTQ issues (to name a few) have allowed the world to learn how our past behaviours, past stereotypes, and even past ways of thinking are just not enough anymore. Being truly open to learning about what matters in the lives of those around us is truly eye-opening and incredibly important for loving forward progress of humanity. And without willing hearts, open to the opportunity to LEARN we'll all just be s bunch of angry internet trolls looking for people to attack who don't think the exact same way WE do or vote the same way WE do, etc!!
Finally, My hope for this blog is a call for PASSIONATE understanding and forgiveness. It's OK to be offended and it's OK to let a person or a business know how they've offended. The piece of the puzzle I've seen missing for some time now, however, is understanding and forgiveness. UNDERSTANDING that the initial outward appearance of a can of beer named after "KAREN" does not reflect the INTENTIONS of the great people trying to do great things for our community. But also the FORGIVENESS towards them once the issue has been raised. Most businesses today would stand stunned, eyes wide open, paralyzed in fear, and totally unaware of what to do next when faced with the attacks I've witnessed over the past year. Forgiveness is LIBERATING. It feels GOOD! But it takes empathy and compassion.
Imagine a thread someday where the offender realizes their mistake after reading criticisms they receive online. They regret it. They genuinely apologize. They learn a tonne, become more culturally aware, and the offended parties empathize with them, show them compassion, and openly forgive them for their mistake? Jack Handy probably said it best..."I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world because they'd never expect it"
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2019
The last day of 2019 was also the day I fainted for the first time--a fitting metaphor for the year.
2019 was overall very emotionally taxing. This year was emotionally defined by falling intensely, deeply in love with someone (who is a very private person so I will try to be vague to respect that) and being in a lot of pain because of situations mostly outside of our control. There were a lot of intensely joyous moments, and a lot of intensely sad ones. Throughout it all I wish I had communicated better. I also made some bad decisions with another person I really loved and cared about that resulted in us growing apart. Do I think I grew from the experiences? For sure. Do I wish I could have come upon these realizations through a different course of action? Also yes. Am I fully healed from the experiences? Not really, but I've been getting better.
2019 was also very bad in terms of research. It was the 2nd year of my PhD. After I submitted my rotation project I basically felt stuck in the swamp of my advisors rejecting new project ideas for like literally half a year. This, combined with my high emotional volatility (partially due to starting birth control), made me really sad, unmotivated, and susceptible to self-blame. I definitely had high expectations for myself and became frustrated at my lack of progress and felt a lot of pressure from myself to get my shit together. I also felt incredibly bad after most advisor meetings and not supported by one of them to the point where I had to have a conversation with him about the lack of support (which was very scary)! Things started picking up, though, near the end of the year. I published a paper in collaboration with a former post-doc/now professor elsewhere whom I learned a lot from, and started finally building out another system. I also started mentoring an undergrad who at some point told me I helped him feel like he had something important to say and belong at Stanford for the first time and those words meant a lot to me. I think I'm continuing to refine what I value as research contributions and increasingly think about what it means to build systems that aren't used outside of the lab to satisfy the annual conference publishing cycle. I'm also starting to feel the pressure of doing work that follows a narrative rather than random projects that interest me.
Oh, I guess in terms of "program requirements," I did finish taking required classes, passed qualifying exams, and got a master's degree. But honestly those weren't hard at all nor do I think are externally valued in the larger research community, so I don't really celebrate them as accomplishments beyond surface level.
In 2019 I saw two different therapists. The first one was awful, I think directly influenced some of my bad decisions, and also didn't respect my gender identity??? The second one is a lot better and I'm grateful to see her, even if 90% of our sessions are just talking about my relationship (romantic/advisor) issues, which is something I want to move away from in the future. But I also feel incredibly privileged when relationship issues are the primary stressors in my life--I am grateful I feel equipped to handle other crap, like deadlines, and don't have to worry about my own health.
Those were the main things that have colored this year. We'll now move into the section of this post where I go through my photos to jog my memory of other events.
New years started a tradition of getting dim sum with Jasper, Matthew, and Michelle dear to my heart. My high school friend was also visiting and we all attended a really awesome new year's eve party. I was also going on a lot of dates and having a lot of good sex, which made me really happy, and at the same time crying all the time at work. In February I received probably the best gift anyone has ever given me and saw Panic! at the Disco, which I said in an end of the year group meeting was a good memory of my year (it was, to relive my scene days!). In March I roadtripped both to Marin (which I had never to been before, despite all my years in the bay) and LA for Wondercon; it was nice to both see high school friends and go on a trip with the boo. In April I went on a hike with my office which was probably the start of us all becoming closer (we are the social office in the wing now, which I take pride in! Also we draw a lot of Pokemon which warms my heart). In May I went to CHI in Glasgow and then to Paris afterward, and the entire experience was very weird and bad and also too many flights were canceled and/or missed and I vowed to not return to Europe for a while, but man do I love the noodles at Trois Fois plus de Piment. In June we hosted a double apartment party with my downstairs neighbors (side note: I am really appreciative of the place I live in, for the community, convenience, and large-ass space and will be really sad to be kicked out fall 2020) and I started a friendship important to me. I cat-sat for my advisor (the one who doesn't make me feel bad) twice. I went to Redwood State Park with my family and hosted a summer solstice celebration. Over the summer a friend I met in Paris back in 2017 moved in with me. I had a much needed escape from the bay to Seattle where I was reminded how abundant the world can be. I also went to Tahoe to celebrate my parents' anniversary, and really liked stumbling upon a smaller lake with a cheap boat rental. Then I became FOMO about the highly competitive Bay Area camping and did a last minute walk-in at Redwood Basin in Santa Cruz, which made me realize that I don't actually love camping (but was nice nonetheless). I ate an expensive meal at Commonwealth before they closed. For my birthday we made a friendship quilt and I served my favorite dish of cumin lamb but it was also 90 degrees in my apartment (I felt really bad and bought two fans afterwards). I started buying many cartoon frog plush after being gifted a $3.99 on sale Safeway frog (called Baby!). I went on Tinder dates (one of which was at a quaker yard sale marketed as Harvest Festival where I got a 1970s Kermit puppet for like $2) that largely went nowhere. My high school friend visited and we were both sad about break ups. I did Inktober before I went to New Orleans for a conference on Bourbon St where everything felt like it was coated in a sticky film of alcohol. I almost missed my flight home because I fell asleep in a sculpture garden but I had the most amazing Uber driver who snaked his way through traffic (oh and the flight was delayed by like 3 hours). I went to kind of embarrassing haunted houses and pumpkin patches over Halloween, but also had the most incredible bowl of ramen at Mensho. My whole office dressed up as Zootopia characters which warmed my furry heart. I spent like $120 on a Pokemon shirt. I started playing Arkham Horror and rekindled another friendship important to me. In November went on a road trip to Big Sur because again, I had to escape it all. For Christmas Eve dinner I roasted a duck for the first time (which was delicious). Shortly after I waited in line for 2 hours for a rollercoaster at Great America, which taught me the value of buying a fast pass because at this point in my life that money is worth it, and then waited 2 hours in line at the DMV to get a RealID (I had made an appointment, which was the fast pass).
Okay, now we move to the hobby section!
I got really into sewing in 2019, having received a sewing machine last Christmas. I made a Judy Hopps (which I wore to CrunchyRoll Expo) and Korok cosplay (Fanime), several unsuccessful garments, a crab bean bag, a dice bag, a fanny pack, and put hearts nipples on a jumpsuit.
Shows! I think I went to way fewer shows this year. The ones I can remember are Elephant Gym, Thom Yorke the night before I had an 8am flight, Carly Rae Jepsen over pride weekend (also, she is my #1 artist of the year, which makes a lot of sense given my emotional space), Mitski at Stern Grove, Capitol Hill Bloc Party (which was super lame, except for Lizzo, where I cried), and the National (which was a fucking surreal experience as they played on Stanford's campus, I was the only one within earshot of myself who knew the words to Crybaby Geeks, and then the white catalog moms came up to me after to thank me for singing the song).
I also started playing my own music! I started playing viola again for the first time in 7 years (lol) in both pop-up concerts with the Awesome Orchestra (one in Golden Gate Park, one at the Exploratorium) and a string quartet through my school. Sometimes I am filled with joy and delight. Other times interpersonal tensions run high and also I am very bad at being in tune. It's life.
Media! I really liked Mob Psycho 100 Season 2 and Beastars. I feel like those were the only notable anime I watched this year? I saw the Farewell three times--first in Seattle where I sobbed for like 1 hour after the movie, the second time with my parents, and the third where Awkwafina was present for a Q&A. I thought Parasite was incredible and Promare was OK. I have spent an unfortunately large amount of my time playing Pokemon Masters. I finally beat BOTW and completed my Pokedex in Shield like 2 weeks after getting the game.
Resolutions! In my draft of my 2018 end of year post (which I never polished and posted, sorry), I said my resolutions were 1. come out to my parents 2. draw enough to table at an anime con 3. be disciplined about paper reading and have a doc. I did none of these things!!! However, for 1, I feel like I am well equipped to have this conversation but am waiting for my sibling to do it first out of respect. 2 was just bad. I barely drew this year except for gifts. 3 was okay--I did have a large doc in the beginning of the year when I was looking for ideas, but as time went on I abandoned it (I also stopped reading papers, which I don't think you're supposed to do as a grad student...)
My resolutions this year are phrased as intentions (-(c) Matthew). They span several categories. Relationships: I want to open myself to and actively seek experiences of love, because I miss that. That being said, I will only date someone if 1. they have their life together 2. they love themselves and 3. they challenge me to grow. (I do think you can experience love without dating; the thing I'm after is love in an expansive sense.) Work: I want to do enough work so I don't feel guilty about not doing enough work, and also not berate myself for taking a long time to do things. Hobbies: I want to sew at least one thing a month. Chinese: I want to improve my Chinese, especially pronunciation.
Having written this 20 days into 2020, it's not been so bad so far. But I was also really happy in the beginning of 2019. Here's to no global maxima, a monotonically increasing year!
#noon's shitty end of the year summary posts#lol i never post on here anymore but i got 8 years of summary posts so i gotta maintain the tag u get me
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THE GIFTED ADULT 💜💜방탄소년단 뷔 💜💜 Kim Taehyung a.k.a. BTS “V”
Deirdre Lovecky, a renowned psychologist who specializes in the needs of gifted children, discovered five traits this group of gifted adults had in common. The five traits are: divergency, excitability, sensitivity, perceptivity, and entelechy. Let’s have a look at each of these qualities individually.
Divergency - involves a preference for unusual, original, and creative thinking. Divergent thinking is of positive social and emotional value. Gifted adults who are strong divergent thinkers are able to find creative solutions to problems and to challenge stereotypes. They tend to be open-minded and enthusiastic about novel and original ideas.
BTS V is no doubt has this way of thinking, V is the type of person who always think outside of the box. He is always the one who looks for ways other than the norm. He can create many solutions in one problem.
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Excitability confers energy – seemingly boundless energy at times – that fuels drive and passion and persistence. Many entrepreneurs and inventors have been reported to have this trait. And the energy that comes with excitability can fuel personal pursuits as well as professional projects or career-focused goals. Commonly this energy can be sustained to propel activity and engagement with new pursuits and projects.
As we all know, BTS V is an energy machine since pre-debut era. Even, the members could not understand him. But, it’s just because his mind keeps on working and when they are not doing anything, he has to put this energy into use somehow. So, either he’s doing skits, or just anything. So, him being called "Alien" was just unfair. (he is just gifted afterall). In the video below, you can see how energetic he was. (Just ignore the thumbnail of Alien)
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Sensitivity as it pertains to gifted adults results in an awareness of the feelings and emotional tone of others. Gifted adults who are sensitive in this way are aware of nuances in the feeling tone of other people and often within the environment as well. One highly gifted and sensitive adult that I’ve worked with said, “I can walk into a room and tell if there is a calm in the space or if a disagreement has taken place or some other distress has been experienced.” Sensitivity is frequently seen as the flip-side to excitability – or overexcitability. Sensitivity requires an awareness and perhaps a stillness that allows for feelings and insights to emerge from deep within.
An example of this was when V pulled a crying Jimin to a room as he could feel his best friend’s predicament at that time. Early on, V was also sensitive enough to know how shy Jungkook was and he helped him to come out of his shell.
Perceptivity, according to Lovecky, is “the ability to view several aspects of a situation simultaneously, to understand several layers of self within another, and to see quickly to the core of an issue.” Gifted adults with the quality of perceptivity tend to be intuitive and to be able to understand the feelings and motivations of others. Individuals with perceptivity are often skilled at sensing both truth and incongruency – in oneself, in others, and in the environment. Adults gifted with perceptivity may be aware that others hear flowers signing even before they are. Indeed, perceptivity undergirds both interpersonal and intrapersonal awareness along with social and environmental awareness. The gifted adults’ perceptions may be unnerving to others who don’t share these abilities.
Again, this is very “Taehyung”. In one of the Bon Voyage episode where he was pranked, he was perceptive enough to know that the members were acting. There were so many times that he would know also, if they are lying or not.
Perceptive. If someone calls you perceptive, they mean you are good at understanding things or figuring things out. Perceptive people are insightful, intelligent, and able to see what others cannot. Perceive means "to see"; so, perceptive is a word to describe someone who is good at seeing.
Entelechy
(Realization of potential) . comes from the Greek word for having a goal. Entelechy contributes to self-development and to self-actualizations across the lifespan. Entelechy helps to further focus one’s caring and motivation. Aware of one’s self-development and self- actualization, gifted adults with entelechy are often aware of these processes in others as well. Teachers, therapists, and doctors, among others, are often high in this trait as they care for the well-being of others, too. Entelechy provides the capacity to connect with others on a deep level and to express deep feelings in the context of relationship.
BTS V knows and uses his potentials although not to the fullest yet as he is still in the confines of BigHit. He is a singer, dancer, producer, actor, model and he excels in all of those areas. Scenery, a song he composed, is an example of sensitivity and perceptivity, the way it was presented with different sounds like train, snow, camera clicks, etc. It captures the listeners, as if we could feel what was happening, the lyrics also say it all and we could feel with him, his thoughts, his story... Another is "Winter Bear", this song and the video that accompanied it screams genius. V directed it with so much passion using methapors, symbols, hidden meanings and . emotions. He is really a great artist. Only few people can make others feel so much emotions in a song and V is one of them.
https://soundcloud.com/bangtan/kimv01
These five characteristics clearly confer many advantages. They also present some challenges. Being a gifted adult who is also sensitive and intense in these multiple ways often results in having a sense of being different than others.
Unless a gifted individual is able to connect with others who also encounter the adult gifted experience --- loneliness and isolation may result.
Organizations and activities for gifted children – while not as common as one might hope – are accessible. Fewer opportunities present themselves for gifted adults to gather together.
Sometimes, we may yearn for that one significant friend with whom we can share all of our selves, our experiences, and our interests. ex. Actress Ha ji-won who is also an art ethusiast. V could talk to her various things about art.
Also gladly there were six members to do that with him, too ) If, however, we have wide-ranging interests or interests we hold with great passion and depth, one friend may not match with all of these parts of ourselves. And so, Lovecky suggested that gifted adults – due in no small part to their depth and complexity –may need multiple friends each of whom connects to some interest, quality, or activity that we hold dear.
Like gifted children who have different friends for math club, soccer, drama, and after school play, he too, may need to have friends that match well with different aspects of himself. So, somehow it explains why V has a lot of friends, he needs someone for every depth and complexity he has, so he can connect with them with different aspects of himself.
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