#like no shade to people who need positive representation. but its interesting to me that this is a recurring thing with my faves!

[bad-as-me]

idk what it says about me that so many of the characters I drift to are like, my worst self.

I've personally coined it the Homura Emotion, because that's the fave that first got me thinking about it. it's the feeling that while I'm obviously way more emotionally mature and well enough not to end up like her, nothing brings me joy in a character like seeing one that does all the things I can see myself doing if that wasn't the case!

you connect to them because, in akemi homura's case, you know the temptation of obsessing over rescuing someone that can't be saved. the darker part of you thinks about how satisfying it would be to just completely give into that feeling, become that devil, ruin yourself and ruin the world for love or the lack of it. and again, you never will, but you understand why they would make those choices.

it's a kind of representation I suppose, but not one that just reflects all of the fun, heroic, likeable things about me back to myself. it's a mirror to all of your ugly thoughts, forcing you to acknowledge that these are still a part of you, so they still deserve sympathy at the end of the day. a tragedy isn't tragic if the victim of it was never worthy of love!

[razorblade180]

This is my RWBY Hot Take:

BB ended up being canon because of fandom and VAs pushing for it. Which, is not necessarilly a bad thing, but it is when you can ACTUALLY tell. And I think that´s the problem.

Now, RWBY has always been on the sights of Yuri and Queer fandom, which are a both a force to be reckoned with whenever people want to admit it or not. This shouldn´t be surprising considering that they showcased not one, not two, not three, but FOUR main characters with very unique desing, appeal and personality. OF COURSE the show was gonna attract lesbian women like honey attracts flies XD

At the same time however, RWBY kinda wanted to fall into very classic old tropes of anime, hence why even 10 years later Ruby has still to show attraction to somebody, like a proper shounen jump character, with some twists every now and then. Which is why you can´t convince me that Sun wasn´t put there to be Blake´s love interest, but the fandom had already taken into the main characters hooking p between them and just wouldn´t move from there.

Proof of that is that even after 10 years of absolute 0 development, White Rose is still one of the biggest ships out there, receiving new art almost daily by, you guessed, lot of tumblr queer (which seems to be in abundance, maybe there´s a correlation? Beats me). Now, this isn´t me throwing shade over WR, they DID have some very good base and chemistry, but people rationalizing that Weiss MUST be bi or even yet, a Compulsory Het (despite absolute 0 evidence that´s even a thing in Remant) just doesn´t paint a very positive figure of the fandom.

What I´m trying to say with this? Well, if a fandom can be THAT obssesed with queer characters (Ask CanonSeeker about it if you don´t believe me) and attract an audience who clearly has an obsession with them either because they just want to see girls kissing (lot of pervs around, the NSFW reddit sub has MORE subs than the main one :/ ) or because they want to see their representation/projection/whatever and see absolute no issue with the crumbs and the bad things RT did some of its queer workers (like Kdin)... who is there not to say that this couple, (or any other even!) is not fanservice?

People want to see what they want to see, and will resort to all kind of emotional pitfalls to rationalize their preference or how "it was always meant to be".

No, having a base as friends is not enough. Yes Nora, people can be friends, and sometimes it´s better if they remain that way, as you have discovered. You can´t have a character show attraction that is slowly being reciporcated for seven years only to drop itone day and say "nah, it was never about it" and pretend the fandom who is not just looking for validation and seeing hot girls make out bdon´t end up scratching their heads in confusion. That´s just now how it works. SPECIALLY when lot of people were dropping after the disaster that was Vol.5

Which is another reason that it feels like the writers just caved:

They realised they were not going anywhere with BlackSun and with the WF, so they just removed it out of the equation and pretend it never existed. They needed to keep their fans interested, and while at it, some Rainbow Capitalism to get some more attention. People called it forced because morons are "ugh, lesbians!" (Not forgetting that some people on both sides of the equation just can´t get that Bi people exist) while the reason can be simply that RT can´t write romance for shit, and the relationship feels more like they just wanted to speedrun to make up for 6 seasons where they still had plausible deniability (forgetting that they just put that line on the sky dropping Sun...) while at the same time not outright confirming until the last minute.

So, the whole point of this rant is: BB is fanservice? Yes.

But it´s the BAD fanservice. The kind of you can TELL they are caving to the fandom for attention, and doing so in a kind of unnatural way, that they try too hard to give crumsb ("Yeah... Ruby.") and have to confess in a magical plot device that feels like taken out of a fanfic, so instead of "this is the natural progression our characters took" feels more like "Yaaaaaaas, we gave the fanatics what they wanted, aren´t we great!? Another "cultural" victory, yay, so now give us the money so we can greenlight Vol 10!"

So, TL:DR - If you are going to give fanservice, try at least to make it FEEL natural, or don´t give it at all. If you ar unsure, get a good producer, a guy whose sole job is to say NO.

This time I think I’m just going to primarily be the bridge that allows people see and respond to this with their own opinions cause if I’m being honest, it feels like you got into the weeds a little and I couldn’t follow. Please be civil in comments.

As for my personal opinions about BB in general i will reiterate what I’ve thought for the past few years now. The ship itself is fine but any cultural impact it would’ve had was lost when you wait so long that Disney beat you to showing a lgbt kiss scene. I think RT did course correction when seeing its popularity which isn’t in itself bad at all, but they just sucked at it.

The two roads people have to walk is thinking BB was planned from the start or added later due to popularity. If you think the first one, then face the fact RT handled it very poorly and unnecessarily made things messy by adding Sun. If you believe the second then don’t be delusional if someone has the opinion it made certain narrative choices messier or that once again, Sun was written as a potential love interest.

I like BB but RT made some questionable choices that wouldn’t say hurt Blake and Yang’s character, but hindered scenes because they dragged it out too long. Also hate to say it but 95% of their relationship healing, comfor, angst, etc. was built off of Adam. So when ya kill Adam… the thing that made the dynamic interesting is gone. That’s not a problem if he died at the end of the show, like most characters do with the trope.

But I will say I do respect the fact they didn’t immediately date after murdering him because that just doesn’t look good on any level. However, Atlas had a time skip. As much as I love Ren and Nora, maybe we should’ve gone to the dance club and do the kiss there before Atlas went to hell? Then we could have a nuanced discussion about if the two of them telling Robyn without consulting anyone was okay.

[lostinthewiind]

𝘋𝘰𝘯'𝘵 𝘚𝘩𝘰𝘰𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘔𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘳

Tsukishima Kei - Haikyuu

Synopsis: before you met Tsukki, Yamaguchi was the go-to person for girls who wanted to confess their love for the tall, blonde middle blocker. Now that the two of you are friends, however, you collect love confessions for him on the daily. And why shouldn’t you? You and Tsukki are just friends; you say so yourself all the time.

Rating: PG

Warnings: None

“You’re sure you don’t mind?”

You shook your head as you took the letter and box of chocolates from the small, trembling girl before you. “No, not at all.” You forced a sweet smile. “I’ll be sure to tell him.”

The girl grinned wide, her face lighting up. “O-okay, thank you! I don’t think I could ever tell him in person about how I feel.”

“He’s really not as scary as everyone likes to think he is,” you said as you tucked the gifts of affection into your bag, pretending to pay careful attention but in reality, not exactly caring whether the card got crumpled or if the candies melted. 

The girl’s cheeks flushed a bright shade of red and she chuckled. “Really? Maybe I’ll try talking to him at lunch then!”

“You should.” You feigned interest, not quite sure why you were encouraging this girl to personally confess her undying love for the boy that you yourself held deep feelings for. Maybe it was because you felt that if you played the part as the supportive best friend, you would eventually just fall into that roll and forget all about how his smirk gave you butterflies or how your heart skipped a beat whenever he offered to share his music with you.

“Okay, I will!” A wave of confidence flooded over the girl’s features. “Well, class is about to start, so I better get going. Thanks again!”

“No problem.” Your assurance fell on deaf ears as the girl turned and headed to class with her friends, the lot of them giggling and whispering as they went. 

As soon as the gaggle of girls had turned the corner and disappeared from sight, you exhaled and turned on your heel to head toward your own classroom. Managing to make it just before the first bell rang, your mood lifted as soon as you spotted your friend sitting in his assigned seat beside yours, eyes closed and headphones positioned over his ears, almost as if they were a permanent fixture of his head.

Fishing the offerings out of your bag, you dropped them down onto his desk rather harshly to get his attention as you slid into your own seat. Hearing the items drop onto his desk and feeling the vibrations through his arms, which had been folded across the tabletop, Tsukki eyed the card and chocolates and sighed.

“Again?” He pulled his headphones away from his ears and hung them around his neck, the music still blaring enough that you could faintly hear the bass. 

“Again.” You confirmed with a slow nod. 

Yamaguchi, who sat on the other side of Tsukki, stared at the gifts with wide eyes. “Wow, Tsukki, you really are popular!”

“I really wish I wasn’t.” He picked up the small box of sweets and tossed them onto Yamaguchi’s desk. “Do you want them?”

Yamaguchi, who was used to laying claim to the rejected love offerings, nodded happily and accepted them. Sometimes he gave them to you as well, and as much as you appreciated the thought, eating the physical representation of unrequited love wasn’t something you particularly enjoyed, so you usually ended up just throwing them out when you got home.

“I wish you would just stop being so mean to everyone who isn’t Tadashi and I, that way people would actually confess their love for you to you and the two of us would be left out of it,” you grumbled. “It’s getting annoying.”

“How do you think I feel?” Tsukki lazily ripped open the card and scanned its contents quickly with his eyes, scoffing at the girly handwriting and hand-drawn hearts. “Pathetic.”

Without a second thought, he handed the card over to you so that you could read it as well. You chuckled to yourself as you took in the words of affection that resembled a Victorian-era love poem. You felt a little guilty about snooping on the private emotions of a girl who, as far as you could tell, seemed perfectly nice; however, you couldn’t deny the joy you experienced when Tsukki shared yet another sappy love note with you, inviting you to participate in the flat-out rejection and tug on your heartstrings just a little bit more. 

As long as he didn’t love anyone else, there was still hope for you. 

“‘The way your eyes sparkle in the sunlight makes my heart sing.’“ You read a particularly descriptive part aloud before handing the card over to Yamaguchi. “If only these poor girls knew that their most vulnerable feelings get scrutinized by a panel of three cynics like us.”

Yamaguchi chuckled heartily as he took his turn reading the card. Before another word could be said on the matter, however, the second bell rang and the teacher strolled into the room, bringing a halt to any and all side conversations.

By the time lunch had rolled around, you had almost completely forgotten about that morning’s events. Your stomach grumbling and your only thought being getting something to eat, you stood up to grab something from the vending machine but stopped in your tracks when you saw the girl from earlier standing by the door, her face even redder than it had been that morning and her eyes drifting from you to Tsukki, who had yet to notice her.

Suddenly, you remembered that you had encouraged the poor girl to talk to Tsukki herself, which even you knew was a horrendous idea. Sure, you had told girls that in the past, but never once had one actually followed through. Usually, you received a love confession, you gave it to Tsukki, you laughed about it together, and the girl would take her broken heart and retreat with her tail between her legs when Tsukki never so much as acknowledged her existence.

This was uncharted territory and you had no idea what to do. 

Turning to Tsukki, you pulled his headphones off—which he absolutely hated, but that was besides the point—and looked him dead in the eyes to set him straight before he could snap at you. “You see that girl by the door?” you asked him, and after glancing past you, he nodded. “She’s the one who gave me the card and chocolates to give to you this morning. She’s going to come in here and talk to you and I need you to not smash her heart into a million pieces. Okay?”

Tsukki opened his mouth to respond, but before he could, the girl had worked up enough courage to make her way into the classroom and was now standing beside the two of you. 

Smiling sheepishly, you backed away to give the two as much privacy as possible and pretended to be busy by digging through your bag for something.

“Tsukishima-san, did you get my card and chocolates?” the girl asked, her fingers intertwined together and her feet shifting weight nervously as she spoke. 

Tsukki simply nodded. With that, Yamaguchi returned from using the bathroom and you stood next to him near the door, the two of you watching from afar as the unknown girl confessed to Tsukki in the partially-full classroom. 

“What do you think he will say?” you inquired out loud.

Yamaguchi shrugged, never taking his eyes off of the interaction before him. “No. He’s never interested in any of the girls that confess to him. I don’t imagine this one will be any different, even if she is doing it in person.”

“Yeah . . . I just hope he doesn’t make her-” You stopped talking mid-sentence when the tears started welling in the girl’s eyes and she turned to rush out of the classroom. “. . . cry,” you finished your thought. 

Rolling your eyes, you returned to your desk, having completely forgot about getting something to eat from the vending machine, and looked to Tsukki, who was completely unfazed. 

“That looked like it went well,” you quipped. “Remind me to never confess my undying love for you.”

“All I did was tell her that I wasn’t interested,” he explained. “I don’t know how I could have possibly been any nicer.”

“Well, no offence, but considering you are you, I’m sure there was a way.”

                                ━━━━━━━━━━━

For the following 24 hours, no matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t get the look on that poor girl’s face after being rejected by Tsukki out of your head. Of course, you had no idea what he had actually said to her, but whatever it had been had been enough to make her cry . . . would he say something as equally insensitive if you ever decided to tell him how you felt?

By some stroke of luck, Tsukki wasn’t at school the next day, giving you time to clear your head without having to put up a facade for hours on end. However, you hadn’t been completely alone the entire day, and Yamaguchi was more observant than you had originally thought he was.

“Something’s bothering you,” Yamaguchi said out of nowhere as the two of you walked home after school that day. “Do you want to tell me or do you want me to guess?”

You chuckled softly. “You have three guesses and if you don’t get it right, you have to buy me a snack from the corner store when we pass it.”

“Deal.” Yamaguchi nodded, an aura of self-confidence practically radiating off of him. “Okay, let’s see . . . you got a bad test grade?”

You shook your head, convinced there was no way he could possibly guess correctly. “Nope.”

“You don’t like what your parents are cooking for dinner tonight?”

You snorted. “Nope, that’s not it.”

“Ah, okay. One guess left.” He was silent for a moment as he thought. “Could it be that you’re upset with how Tsukki turned down that girl at school yesterday because you have feelings for him but now you’re afraid that he will reject you in the same way?”

You stopped dead in your tracks, your jaw dropping. Yamaguchi just grinned. The sneaky bastard had been playing you all along.

“I’m right, aren’t I?” He played it off as a lucky guess. “Does this mean you’re buying the snacks then?”

“I . . . I guess so?” You were unsure how to respond. “But, wait, how did you know?”

“Tsukki may be completely oblivious to the general concept of feelings, but I’m not,” Yamaguchi said as he started toward the store that was in sight in the distance. “Now come on, I’m hungry!”

Completely shaken, you moved forward without really thinking about it and followed Yamaguchi. After you paid for two candy bars, the two of you continued on your way, Yamaguchi munching happily as if nothing had even happened and you staring at the still-wrapped treat in your hands, at a loss of words.

“If you knew I liked him this whole time, how come you’ve never said anything?” You finally found your voice.

“Because I figured you would share when you were ready,” he answered. “But now I think you’re never going to tell him because you’re too scared.”

“Of course I’m scared!” You threw your arms into the air dramatically. “You saw the poor girl running away with tears in her eyes. You’ve seen how he laughs at sappy romance stuff. How could I possibly feel anything but scared?!”

Yamaguchi thought for a moment. “Well, sure, it’d be scary if you were anyone else . . . but you’re not. You’re you. Judging by this whole situation, you don’t know this, but he likes you too.”

For the second time in less than an hour, you had been completely floored. “He what now?”

“Did you think he really hung out with you all the time and blatantly turned down other girls’ confessions in front of you because he just thinks you’re a good friend?”

You nodded, flabbergasted. “Y-yes?”

“You two are so unbelievably oblivious it’s actually hard to watch you guys running in circles around each other. Just tell him how you feel. I guarantee he won’t turn you down.” Yamaguchi suddenly stopped in his tracks and gestured to the house behind him; Tsukki’s house. 

Without even realizing it, Yamaguchi had lead you right into your waking nightmare. 

You furrowed your eyebrows. “You conniving little-”

 “You’ll thank me later. You both will.” He shoved you up the walkway to the front door before continuing down the road to his own house. “Good luck!”

“Yeah . . . thanks,” you huffed, eyeing the closed door in front of you. You had stood on this porch a hundred times before, knocked on the door a hundred times before, but today was different. 

Maybe Yamaguchi was right. Maybe Tsukki did like you back, and the only way to know for sure was to simply ask.

Before you could psych yourself out or change your mind, you pounded on the front door three solid times and glued your eyes to the doorknob, waiting for it to turn. 

Less than a minute later, you could heard footsteps inside and felt heat rush to your face. Were you actually going to do this? 

When the door swung open and Tsukki stood before you, dressed in pajama pants and a sweater, definitely looking a little on the ill side, you felt your heart jump into your throat. 

“Hey,” you greeted. “How are you feeling?”

The boy eyed you curiously. “Better now, thanks. Why are you here?”

“I, um . . . I have a confession for you,” you said before you could stop yourself. The words just sort of tumbled out of your mouth and now there was nothing you could do to avoid the situation. 

An amused look spread across Tsukki’s face. “You didn’t need to come all the way to my house for that. Just throw the card out and eat whatever candy came with it. You know the drill. It’s just another girl who-”

“There’s no card or any candies,” you told him and he cocked a brow. “And it’s not from just another girl . . . this one is from me.”

His face paled and his hand dropped from the doorknob he had still been holding onto, an indication that he had been ready to say goodbye to you pretty quickly. Now, however, he seemed to sense the seriousness of the conversation and had decided it was worth sticking around a little longer for.

“I won’t stand here and tell you that your eyes sparkle in the sun or that my heart does backflips when I see you, because you’ve heard that shit a million times,” you said. “But I will say that I like when you share your music with me or when you let me in on your inside jokes. You make me feel really special and I like that. I like you, Kei, and I just thought that I should tell you.”

“Oh.” He looked eerily similar to a deer in headlights and you were just waiting for him to slam the door in your face. But he didn’t. His hand did reach for the doorknob once again, but instead of closing the door, he opened it wider. “Do you want to come watch a new documentary with me?”

That hadn’t exactly been the response you had been expecting, but considering you weren’t currently a sobbing mess, you knew it could have gone a lot worse.

“I would like that.” You smiled and stepped into the house. “I might not have a whole box of chocolates, but I do have this.” You pulled the candy bar out of your pocket. “We can share it.”

“I would like that.” Tsukki closed the door behind you.

From that day on, even though you and Tsukki never officially declared your love for one another or referred to each other as ‘boyfriend’ or ‘girlfriend’, you knew you had moved on from simply being friends.

And sure, sometimes you still got confessions for him from random girls, but it didn’t bother you nearly as much anymore. How could it when you knew, without a sliver of a doubt, that Tsukki only had eyes for you? 

[concerningwolves]

Hey I'm doing a short story for class about an autistic girl who discovers she have telekinesis and I want to knows how to portray her properly and how beint autustic affect her powets with makint autism sounds baf

Hi anon! I’m very sorry if I’m answering this too late for you; I barely had time to even look at my inbox in October and November, and then when I got time to do so this month, I got overwhelmed by the backlog. Nonetheless, I’ll answer this and hope that even if it’s too late for your original purpose, something in it will help you (/help anyone else who reads this) :]

AUTISM, SUPERPOWERS & FAIR REPRESENTATION

Okay, so, the basic answer to “how not to make autism sound bad” is approach the story with compassion and/or empathy – but that’s a very broad answer and probably not overly helpful for specifics. I’ll start with the “how to represent autism well” part and then break down the superpower-specific stuff from there.

1) Autism should be an integral part of your characters’ personhood, but not their entire personality

As an autistic, I struggle to define where my autism ends and my personhood (i.e., my sense of the “self”) begins, because they’re so deeply entwined with one another.  Autism is a condition that alters how I think and interact with the world, and therefore profoundly impacts how I perceive both myself and the things around me. That doesn’t mean, however, that my only personality trait is autism. It all gets very convoluted and existential – would I still be ‘me’ if you removed autism? What is ‘me’? Is it even fair to think of autism as a separate Thing? – but it is worth considering if you want to get inside your autistic character’s head.

A trap that allistic creators tend to fall into is “this character likes [X] / does [X] because they are autistic”. For example, I once saw someone say that their OC likes blue because it’s a calming colour and therefore sensory-safe. This is a valid process on its own: I also like pale blue (+ other pastel shades) because it’s a sensory-safe colour! But where many allistics fall down is in not considering that an autistic character’s likes, dislikes and hobbies don’t have to relate to their autism.

Although the show has its flaws, I do think that Sam Gardener from Netflix’s Atypical is a positive example of an autistic character just liking something because they like it. His special interest is all to do with penguins and antartic wildlife/explorations, and he also enjoys art as a hobby because... he just does. That’s not to say these things don’t intersect – he takes a scientific illustration class in college precisely because it combines two things he likes; it’s also fair to say that autism gives him an edge in drawing because autism brain is excellent at grasping theory/technicalities. But ultimately it’s nice to have an autistic character whose interests and personality traits go beyond the stereotypical special interest.

For more on representing autistic characters, check out [this post] where I go into a bit more depth. (NOTE: that post is on my list of things that I want to revise/rewrite/flesh out, so it might change soon, but the basic stuff is still the same).

2) Autism isn’t inherently “bad” – but that doesn’t mean it’s without issues, either

Autism is not the devastating tragedy that neurotypicals like to present, but it does come with its own difficulties and pitfalls that you should acknowledge if you want to write a well-rounded autistic character. There’s often discourse/debates on my dash about whether it’s fair to call autism a disability. I’d say it is – there are definitely aspects of autism that are disabling, i.e., sensory overload, burnout, trouble communicating, etc. – but it isn’t a disability in the way that allistics/abled people think.  

Some aspects of autism are “double edged”, in that they have useful and troublesome sides. Speaking for myself, hyper-empathy means that I’m good at grasping why emotions Do The Thing, which is incredibly useful in filling in gaps in my social sense! But. It also means that I struggle to draw a line between my own emotions and someone else’s, and am simply awful at creating healthy emotional boundaries. As the writer, you create good representation by showing both sides. Let your character have meltdowns! Let them have trouble in social situations! Let them get burnt out or overwhelmed! But also make sure to show that this doesn’t make them inherently burdensome to other characters, and explore the good/neutral aspects of autism, too.

3) So, how would all of this impact superpowers?

A lot of that depends on your world’s magic/superpower system. Some things to consider are:

Does your character need to be concentrating?

Do emotions influence how controlled the power is?

Does the power take a physical or mental toll on the user?

etc.

These are laws you ought to think about as part of worldbuilding, regardless of a characters’ neurotype or ability, but I do believe that autism will have an impact on how a character interacts with their powers. For example, many autistic people have difficulty with fine motor skills and spatial awareness, either as part of autism or due to a co-existing condition [1]. This could theoretically cause trouble if a character needs to gauge personal space/use spatial perception when using telekinesis to direct objects. Where emotions effect a power, emotional dysregulation or rejection sensitive dysphoria could also come into play by disrupting a characters’ concentration or control. 

Make sure to show your character working with or around these sorts of issues, and keep a balance between the pros and cons. If sensory input throws off her concentration, what are ways she can get around that? Earplugs for noise, dark glasses for light sensitivity, seamless clothes, headphones... etc etc. On the more negative side, I can only imagine the chaos I might cause during a meltdown if I had telekinesis: objects flying everywhere, lightbulbs bursting, general pandemonium. That said, telekinesis would be great if I could levitate myself and just hang there without any sensory input. Also useful if I needed to get stuff and didn’t have the energy to move because of burnout, or if I could use telekinesis to “weigh down” a blanket on top of me during meltdowns. There are some really fun possibilities here! 

Another way to avoid showing autism as a burden/something bad is to give your character a support network and/or accommodations in the story. Have your character find ways to work around issues just like a neurotypical person would, yes, but also have other characters be understanding and ready to help. Thriving support systems are just as important as the autistic character themself.

Basically, address the fact that some aspects of autism are difficult to cope with/require aid but don't overtly focus on that, you know? Your character can get upset, frustrated, or be resigned. She can beat herself up! All autistic people live with this feeling of "not good enough". But show her overcoming this, show her with a good support system, and show her being a person as complex and developed as any other character.

FOOTNOTE(S)

[1] general practise in diagnostic circles is to avoid diagnosing with things like dyspraxia if another developmental disorder is present (i.e., autism), but we’re still learning about what the big ice-cream bar of autism actually covers. What traits an autistic person has can vary hugely from one person to another.

[mk-wizard]

Top 10 Predictions in the next Transformers Era

Hello, fans.

As mentioned in another post a while ago, the closing of the Prime universe marks the end of another significant Transformers universe. It brought on a lot of things we wanted to see in Transformers for a while now and I predict Transformers will continue the progressive and experimental trend after the booming success of the Prime era. Like I also mentioned, it is very likely that the next era won’t be for another few years and it is likely that it will take place in when my son is five (he’s a baby now) which will mark his introduction to Transformers. I’m very positive about the future and I think Hasbro is finally listening to its fans. With that said, here are the things I think are going to happen next in Transformers. Note, that this is based on theory not wish fulfilment. I want to be unbiased and take into account that it can’t do everything all at once. Moreover, I don’t expect all of these things to happen in one show, just in the one era. Anyway, onto the list;

1- Rodimus Prime will take the lead. - After seeing Bumblebee come out into his own and seeing Rodimus gain a huge following especially with his progressive views in the IDW comics, I think it is very likely that in the next Transformers Era, Rodimus will be the Prime that leads the way. I don’t know if he will be presented as being in training and eventually take up the mantle, or be in charge from the get go, but I think that when the next era comes, the world will be ready for Rodimus with open arms especially if he is as open minded and interesting as he is in the comics.

2- Positive LGBT representation. - After seeing Transformers finally do female representation and black representation right, I think it goes without saying that proper LGBT representation that is open and tasteful is next on the list. Sure, we got Knockout who is out and proud, but Hasbro wouldn’t let him say it and did a “not so nice D word” move of forcing him back into the closet by denying his homosexuality. I think Hasbro learned its lesson and won’t do such a thing ever again.

3- A woman leader. - While I doubt it will be the main series that marks the era, I think the next era will at long last introduce us to a series where the boss is a female. I believe this because after seeing Cyberverse, I feel Windblade is the one really wearing the pants in the series not Bumblebee. Moreover, I see more and more female characters no longer playing the part of love interest, so I think this is a build up to a woman taking the reigns.

4- More positive multi racial representation. - I think it is safe to say that Transformers has made its characters more and more colourful especially in Rescue Bots and Prime. I think the inclusion of more prominent non-white characters will become even more natural and more expanded in the next era. I won’t even be surprised if the next main human character is of colour.

5- Another series that is not Autobots vs Decepticons. - After the success of Rescue Bots, I am convinced Hasbro is going to test more waters. And it should do that! There are other things Transformers can do with its lore like maybe space exploration or another Rescue Bots based show.

6- An on screen wedding. - I say this because of how TV shows for kids are going in general. There is no longer a stigma towards showing romantic love as being natural in a tasteful way in cartoons, so I think it is very likely that in at least one series in the next era, one couple will have an on screen wedding. Now, I don’t know if it will be opposite gender or same gender, or if it will be a human or Cybetronian wedding (I would love to see two Transformers officially marry personally), but there will definitely be two people saying “I do” in the next era at some point and time. And I think it will be great.

7- Humans will no longer be victims, but characters with equal footing. - The biggest shift in the Prime era was how human characters were written. They’re not just victims anymore, but capable team members who can hold out on their own and at times, can be dangerous villains even towards the Transformers. I think that in the next era, this portrayal of humans will become normalised.

8- Another fan favourite character will be spotlighted. - The Prime era was many things, but it was also a very obvious valentine to Bumblebee. I mean, he even got his own movie. With that said, I think Hasbro will try to strike lightning again by spotlighting another fan favourite. I have no idea who it will be though I think it is likely to someone from the top ten list so it might even be a Decepticon.

9- Bulkhead will become a regular character. - Quite simply, almost everyone knows who Bulkhead is now including most of the G1 generation. I think it is safe to say that in his next appearance, he will just need to show his face plate and everyone will be able to point and say “that’s Bulkhead”.

10- The status quo of “Autobots good” and “Decepticons bad” will finally be broken. - I know this sounds like wish fulfilment, but it really isn’t. Hear me out. At the end of Prime, Megatron lost all desire to conquer and left peacefully meaning he had good in him even as a Decepticon. Also, in the comics, Megatron became an Autobot for a while and showed genuine remorse for all of the damage he had done. Heck, he even became friends with Rodimus Prime. And he wasn’t the only one. A lot of Decepticons turned out to be good people who were just following orders. On the flipside, it was revealed that many Autobots were far from good. I think there is a good chance that in the next era, Transformers will no longer be good or bad by way of their faction and the issue of a bot not needing to convert to prove they are good will happen. Even in War for Cybertron, both Megatron and Optimus are shown in much grayer shades.

Anyways, those are just my predictions that are most likely. And like I said, they may not happen all at once or in the same TV show. Some may never happen in the next era or only a few will.

What do you all think and tell me, what do you think will happen in the next era?

PS: If you have an obscure Transformers theory you want explored, tell me about it in my ask box and I will get to it. Please keep it tasteful and kind though. Note that I only do theories that can actually be possible.

See you next time.

[astriiformes]

You know what also bugs the hell out of me? People who even headcanon aro characters in the mindset of shipping. People who are like “oh, there’s nobody to ship this chatacter with, so I GUESS I’ll headcanon them as aro” like. Uggh. I’m so tired. Let me exist in a context that isn’t shipping.

There really is a significant problem with this kind of mindset in fandom. Worse still I think, but related, are the people who have the attitude of sort of “token” headcanoning whichever characters they don’t like and don’t plan on producing much content for as aro -- or for that matter, not making it an explicit headcanon, but in one way or another implying that the characters they don’t like aren’t “deserving” or romance and using it to sideline them (which is a complicated, complicated topic that can intersect with other forms of bigotry as well, and is not exclusively an aro issue, but the spoken or unspoken implication that romance is a reward for good people and those who aren’t in relationships are flawed somehow obviously still has deep, deep ties to arophobia -- and amatonormativity -- even as it intersects with other issues)

It’s one reason I chose to deal with some of the topics I’m writing about in my current fic. I thought it would be interesting -- and personally meaningful -- to explore how complicated it can be to be aromantic, since it seems like the stories I come across in fandom that are written about aro people often fall into two extremes. Either they’re toxic, unfeeling obstacles to someone else’s romantic narrative (either as the object of their affections who won’t return them, or as a side character in contrast to the protagonist that somehow gets in the way or is portrayed in a negative light), or they’re happy, but without real struggles, and just have to learn the right word to accept themselves and have the other people in their life accept them too. The latter admittedly sometimes turn out to be wish fulfillment stories written by aro people themselves, and I won’t critique that -- I’ve honestly even written some things myself that have shades of it -- but they still aren’t the best representation of the aro experience, and I think sometimes leave me feeling like even the fics that don’t treat people like me as a monster don’t afford them much depth, either, which, especially when those stories are written by allo people, can feel like a harmful mischaracterization of its own.

I would love to see more aro-centered stories that are just about being aro, and celebrate it without ignoring the mess of complications that it so often comes with. Because when most of what’s out there is either negative portrayals, or “positive” ones that paint us as not having many real needs or struggles (which again, is tied to your point that often people don’t know what to do with a character that exists outside of shipping -- if all they are willing to do is write plots centered on romance, the characters they write who are not involved in relationships can end up flat and unimportant), it both fails to afford us much respect or to accurately portray us to others. And that hurts.

[bookswithelli]

a darker shade of magic: review

synopsis:

Kell is one of the last Antari—magicians with a rare, coveted ability to travel between parallel Londons; Red, Grey, White, and, once upon a time, Black.

Kell was raised in Arnes—Red London—and officially serves the Maresh Empire as an ambassador, traveling between the frequent bloody regime changes in White London and the court of George III in the dullest of Londons, the one without any magic left to see.

Unofficially, Kell is a smuggler, servicing people willing to pay for even the smallest glimpses of a world they'll never see. It's a defiant hobby with dangerous consequences, which Kell is now seeing firsthand.

After an exchange goes awry, Kell escapes to Grey London and runs into Delilah Bard, a cut-purse with lofty aspirations. She first robs him, then saves him from a deadly enemy, and finally forces Kell to spirit her to another world for a proper adventure.

Now perilous magic is afoot, and treachery lurks at every turn. To save all of the worlds, they'll first need to stay alive.

review under the cut!

stars: ★★★★☆

First of all, although I rated this book 4 stars, there were some issues with it (mainly involving representation and characterization). I rated it 4 stars because I enjoyed reading it despite its issues, but I recognize that the mediocre representation may turn others away from this book.

characters & representation

Before I begin this section of the review, I would like to say that I am not visually impaired and therefore do not have any authority on that subject. My comments on the treatment of Lila's missing eye are merely based on my own observations and what I have heard from visually impaired people on the topic.

Lila:

A cross-dressing thief and aspiring pirate with a penchant for knives, Lila Bard brings to mind the likes of Inej Ghafa from Leigh Bardugo's Six of Crows and Elizabeth Swann from Pirates of the Caribbean. There were times when I really liked Lila; she can be sassy and morally questionable which is always interesting to see when well done. However, her character had a few issues that I wanted to address.

“Delilah Bard looked like a king. No...she looked like a conqueror.” pg. 289

When will fantasy authors stop romanticising conquerors and colonization?! This may be a smaller issue since aside from White London (which is villainized) there is no mention of it in the overarching plot, but this line just really bothered me. It makes me think that V.E. Schwab is a fan of adult and YA fantasy authors like Sarah J. Maas and others who write their main characters to be colonizers and romanticize it in the process. I don’t think this line was necessary at all, and I wish the second sentence had been removed or modified to something a little less problematic (e.g. she looked like a pirate/captain/etc.)

"How did you lose it...your eye?" -Master Tieren, pg. 327

It is revealed near the end of the book that Lila has been missing an eye for as long as she can remember, and she wears a glass eye as a replacement. This is all well and good, but the consequences of her impaired vision are never explored. The only reason the reader knows that Lila is missing an eye is because the author tells them. The narrative never discusses how Lila's lack of an eye affects her day to day life, and it's only brought into the story when it is needed for the plot.

It’s also worth mentioning that Lila is the only female character with a large role in this book, and no matter how “feminist” her character is, there’s not a lot of women in this book that are portrayed positively and with depth.

Rhy:

I actually really liked Rhy and I loved his relationship with Kell. I love sibling love in books and we so rarely get positive sibling relationships, so this was nice to see! It’s also really important to have queer people of color in books. However, I don’t think Rhy’s character is good bi/pan representation (I will refer to him as bi in this review for the sake of brevity, but it’s worth mentioning that neither term is mentioned so Rhy could canonically identify as either).

“He would flirt with a nicely upholstered chair, and he never takes anything seriously.” -Kell, pg. 254

As a queer girl who has identified as bisexual in the past and may in the future, this is bad bi rep 101. Schwab is perpetuating the stereotype of the “promiscuous bi”, or one who flirts and/or sleeps with everyone and everything. This is not a bad characteristic in itself, but it is harmful bi rep because that is the way every bi character is portrayed in media. It reinforces the idea that bisexual people in real life are all like this, and it also reinforces biphobes’ points of view when they say that bisexual people are more likely to cheat because they sleep with more people. This is pretty much the most common stereotype of a bisexual person, so while I doubt that Schwab intended to be harmful in her portrayal of Rhy, it shows that she did not do much research on LGBT+ rep when writing her characters. I do know that some bi people were not bothered by this; however, I believe that writers should stay away from stereotypes, especially when writing characters that are marginalized. Even though promiscuity is not an inherently bad trait, it is harmful when applied to bisexual people because it reinforces real peoples’ beliefs and affects real life bisexuals. This is especially important here because Rhy is the only narrative-confirmed LGBT+ character in the first book. It's not the worst representation I've seen, since Rhy does have a personality outside his flirtatiousness and promiscuity (in fact, it's confirmed that this is a coping mechanism for him) but it's certainly not the best, and I'm just tired of seeing bisexual people represented this way in fiction.

Kell:

I know a lot of people who didn’t like Kell very much, and that is understandable. However, I found him really compelling. It’s refreshing to see a male lead in this genre who’s not jacked and a brooding asshole whose only redeeming quality is his dick size. He’s definitely moody, but not to the point where he becomes an abusive alpha male type guy (yes, I am aware that this is a very low bar). I genuinely enjoyed his character because he’s flawed. He’s stubborn and moody but he’s incredibly caring and he genuinely wants to help people. He feels alienated from his family so he rebels and gets himself in trouble. His character is written well because he’s not perfect by any means, but he’s still likeable and you still root for him.

Holland:

Holland is what every YA love interest wishes they were. Honestly. He’s given no excuses for his actions, and yet he is still sympathetic. You understand that he is under the control of Astrid and Athos, but you also understand that all he has done for years is carry out their orders, and that changes a person. His story is heartbreaking, but that doesn’t change what he has done. He knows it, Kell knows it, Lila knows it, the reader knows it. Honestly, if he were in a YA fantasy romance, I bet Holland would be the love interest; his female “mate” would change him for the better, and he would never face the consequences of his actions. That makes his arc in this story all the more enjoyable. Holland is one of my favorite characters of all time, and not because he’s a perfect “book boyfriend” or whatever, but because his story and character are genuinely interesting and executed well.

worldbuilding

I loved the worldbuilding in this book. There was a bit of an info-dump in the beginning, but I’m willing to look past that because the world was so engaging and interesting that I forgot about the dense first chapter once I got past it. Each London has a distinct feel, and they are all almost tangible. The descriptions of each made me feel like I was in the Londons along with Kell and Lila. It seems like the system would be complicated, but Lila sums it up well:

“There’s Dull London, Kell London, Creepy London, and Dead London.” -pg. 198

After the initial info-dump, Schwab weaves information about the magic system seamlessly through the book, leaving enough mystery for the reader to wonder at what might happen in the next books, but never leaving out so much that the reader is confused. I really appreciated the rules that existed around magic. It’s draining, and Antari magic requires blood, which means there is a limit to how much you can perform at once. Magic is seen to affect the world beyond the characters and their main conflict, which I was very happy about as well. There are too many fantasy novels where the magic system has no rules and only exists to further the plot, but in this world you can see it everywhere. The politics of Red London and White London are affected by magic, even where it is not necessarily relevant to the plot. You can see small amounts of magic being performed in the streets of Red London: spells to protect from thieves, etc. Magic is normal for the people in Red London, and it is treated as such in the text.

pacing & plot

This book flew along. I’ve read it multiple times now, and every time, I can’t stop until I finish. And then I want to move along to the next book immediately. It manages to keep up a great pace and still build up to an exciting climax. Schwab’s lyrical writing is not flowery, but it draws the reader in and carries them along the story effortlessly. It’s very engaging and accessible language, which makes it a good stepping stone into adult fantasy (especially if you’re coming from YA).

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. The representation that it gets praised so highly for is disappointing, but aside from that I enjoyed most of the characters and the writing was beautiful. The plot and world were engaging and made me want to read the second book immediately (even though I’m on my 3rd or 4th reread). I would recommend this book for fans of YA fantasy who want to get into adult fantasy - this book is categorized as adult, but I found it a lot easier to read than other adult fantasies. For me, this book is a reminder that you can recognize the flaws in a book and still enjoy it, so remember to stay critical, even of your favorite books :)

[seyesnyl]

Critical analysis of a Comic book

During my search for books and articles to aid my practice-based research, I came across the text “Critical Approaches to Comics: Theories and Methods”. This book offers a look into the critical analysis of books and the theories and methods their authors employ. It focuses on four essential aspects of a graphic novel/comic which are: Form, Content, Production, and Reception. In each of these parts, contributors with comic criticism expertise discuss their methods of analysis and put into practice these methods on selected comics or graphic novels.

It is an insightful book and going through it made me understand different ways a comic could be analyzed and further understood. I had recently purchased a comic book called X-Men Red (Fig. 01) and wanted to try out the procedures that some critics had employed in their analysis.

Peter Coogan in Chapter 15 Genre: Reconstructing the Superhero in All Star Superman, discusses the superhero genre and its characteristics. He offers a guide towards analyzing the superhero comic book and its context. His procedures entail multiple readings to properly critically analyze.

First reading: Familiarize yourself with the events and characters of the story.

Second reading: engage with the text at a deeper level, note the conventions (heroes, villains, love interests, etc.). Note how are they used; seriously or comically or problematically? Observe structural pairs (events, characters, icons, and settings) that reflect and comment on each other.

Third reading: attend to the sequential artistry of the comic book. 

After these three, the analyst should assemble their notes and try to identify patterns in the story, using conventions, and the sequential artistry that leads to discovering the thematic concerns of the authors.

He mentions that superhero comics are usually intertextual in that they reference other texts and those should be watched out for. He also says to consider the general tendencies of comic books produced at the time the text you are analyzing was published.

Lastly, it should be noted how the characters represent oppositional attitudes (both semantically and syntactically) and how these oppositions are mediated. Then determine what you have to say about the story and how the text supports and reveals the points you want to affect.

(Smith and Duncan, 2012)

Fig. 01  Cover of Taylor, T., Alixe, P., Lee, S., Kirby, J. and Asrar, M., 2018. “X-Men Red - The Hate Machine”. New York: Marvel Worldwide.

After three readings and making notes, I assembled this analysis on two chapters of X-Men Red (1 and 2). 

The comic starts with a one-page introduction of Jean Grey back into the comic universe, back from the dead. It’s a sequel to her actual resurrection chapter, but this first page helps bring the reader to speed with synoptic text and imagery (Fig.02). “I was the Phoenix”, “I burned so brightly”, “And then I was dead”, “And everything was dark”, “I’m alive again”. She is pictured in the last panel of the page recollecting this and reflecting on the events straight after her resurrection.

Jean’s death as the Phoenix is a famous story in the X-Men universe, and just last year, a second live-action movie adaptation was released in theaters worldwide. The first was released in 2006 and there have been many adaptations in comics and animated programs over the decades since the story of her death was first introduced in 1980.

Fig. 02- Excerpt from Taylor, T., Alixe, P., Lee, S., Kirby, J. and Asrar, M., 2018. “X-Men Red - The Hate Machine”. New York: Marvel Worldwide.

From the first page to the following pages of this chapter, Jean acts as the narrator of the events that happened just before she died, and after she came back to life. This is done through green text boxes in the chapter. She catches up with the rest of the X-Men team, and we watch her move from here with her blue-skinned teammate Kurt, to another setting where we get the first glimpse of intolerance towards mutants that will be the focus of this story. Kurt is the target of discrimination by a passer-by and through this, we also get to see a glimpse of Jean Grey’s strength as she deals with this situation. It is revealed throughout the book that Jean can use her powers to its extent without fear of the Phoenix entity taking hold. The extent is yet unknown to her, but she knows she was being held back before.

This theme of intolerance towards mutants (people with abnormal abilities and sometimes appearances) is a topic frequently explored by the X-Men franchise more popularly and taken more seriously compared to any other comic in the superhero genre in my opinion. The seriousness is similarly conveyed in this comic book.

There are similarities in the discrimination mutants face with what minorities in our real world go through. In this instance with Kurt and Jean, it is indirectly shown that even though they are both mutants; Kurt is singled out by a normal white-passing man because he outwardly presents to be different with his blue skin and long tail while Jean is overlooked because she appears like a normal human. Likewise, in the real world, the more obvious your difference is, the more bigotry you are likely to face. Darker skin, non-Eurocentric features, gender-queer appearances, disabilities, etc.

Fig. 03-  Excerpt from Taylor, T., Alixe, P., Lee, S., Kirby, J. and Asrar, M., 2018. “X-Men Red - The Hate Machine”. New York: Marvel Worldwide.

It is obvious Kurt faces this all the time, and he seems to brush it off, but Jean is coming back into this world as sort of fresh-eyed and is appalled the hatred has become more emboldened since she had been gone. It is an added effect she is a mind-reader and reveals the hateful man is scared and does not understand half of the things he professes to hate, which is a common belief about bigots. She also alludes he is among the infamous internet trolls that write bile to strangers from the anonymity and safety of his room. It is fair to say that the “internet troll” in recent times is one of the most prominent social bullies. This man is a clear representative of today’s social and digital hate culture

The first chapter concludes by panning back to the image of Jean in the setting of the first page’s panel, narrating the story of her coming back to life and what she has faced so far. It is from here and the following chapters that the story moves into the present. Jean says that with her new life she will ensure to change this hateful world.

The art of this chapter is a bit unusual to me. It tends to be abrasive. I haven’t paid much attention to western comics recently so that might be a factor in my unease. The artist Pascal Alixe uses short dark lines that don’t flow together for shading and this gives the character’s faces and bodies a rough appearance. The art also doesn’t follow the regular pin-up styles for female characters that comics are famous for. They appear stockier and more muscular than the typical comic representation which, realistically, makes sense for the jobs they take on.

In chapter 2, since Jean has been revealed to be a strong mutant, and we are following her quest to save the world, it is curious to witness how she goes about it. A fascinating way she does this is by using her telepathy to link the brilliant minds of others to solve a specific problem. She does this when she invites distinguished thinkers from all over the world for a meeting and links their minds with her powers to develop an idea to make the world better. She pulls a similar feat later in the comic when she uses Black Panther’s neurological knowledge and the powers of Trinary, a new teammate, to remove an item from a person’s brain. Doing this passes across the message that complicated problems can be solved by bringing together the skills and talents of different people. A telepath might not be realistic, but someone with empathy and good interpersonal skills may achieve this.

In a United Nations meeting, Jean pleaded her case to the world ambassadors. Referencing Professor Xavier’s intent for ‘mutantkind’ – who believed mutants could win normal humans over by being heroes when needed and being invisible when not – she says mutants should not need to be heroes for acceptance. This is a fascinating sentiment as she (or rather the author) could be referencing other superheroes in the superhero genre and the terms of being accepted. This calls upon the intertextuality of the superhero genre. Superman, Spiderman, and other heroes with powers have often had complications with public acceptance until they proved they are useful to society by using those superhuman powers to save their citizens. This also translates to real-world issues. For example, how black people often need to be exceptional before they are thought of separately from stereotypes.

In an examination into ‘homo-normativity’ in children’s literature, Lester (2013) posits that in most queer literature for children, there is an emphasis on the queer or gender non-conforming character to earn approval as opposed to being entitled to it. She states in the article that “This motif of having to prove oneself means the main characters are accepted only after those around them learn to appreciate their differences, the implication being that there is ultimately something unacceptable about gender nonconformity for which young male characters must compensate”… “These cases of privileging individual exceptionalism as the only way of gaining acceptance still maintain that gender nonconformity is unacceptable and should be avoided”.

Fig. 04 -  Excerpt from Taylor, T., Alixe, P., Lee, S., Kirby, J. and Asrar, M., 2018. “X-Men Red - The Hate Machine”. New York: Marvel Worldwide.

Unfortunately, this chapter ends with Jean being framed for the murder of an attending ambassador by the villain of the story, Cassandra Nova. Even though Jean had made some progress during the meeting, the situation has now become worse than before as it is publicly witnessed a mutant has murdered someone that appeared to have opposed her. Before the frame job, a message from Nova was passed to Jean informing her that she had upset the status quo with her actions and would face the consequences. Taking this back to the real world, this alludes to what many social activists and minorities discern, which is that systems have been put in place to ensure that the oppressed remain oppressed for the benefit of the oppressors.

In the subsequent chapters, the story develops further; however, it is noticeably told from an intriguing point of view. More common superhero stories find their heroes playing a more passive role. They live their lives until an accident happens nearby or a super-villain wants to take over the world or rob a bank before they act. In X-Men Red, Jean could have waited for the anti-mutant tensions to rise and actual conflict to ensue before she acted, but she takes on an assertive role and is seeking to achieve a goal and is now being thwarted by the villains.

I researched on remarks from the author, Tom Taylor, about the comic, and he states “this book is Jean Grey coming back to life, but not coming back to the life she left behind. She doesn't want to come back to that life either. She's seen that the world has moved on. It's changed and she doesn't like everything she's seen. She's very empathetic and she feels so much of what's going on around her that she wants to make an actual change to the world. Not just for ‘mutantkind’ or humanity, but for everybody”. He doesn’t out-rightly mention the subliminal social commentary and that is likely because it speaks for itself and is not heavily nuanced.

I find this book pertinent to current times and it is thought-provoking without losing too much on the entertainment factor. As a consumer of superhero entertainment, it is usually difficult for me to grasp how a really powerful protagonist can lead an engaging story, but when faced with the seemingly insurmountable problem of bigotry, discrimination, and changing the hearts of people, it is a worthy challenge and I can’t wait to see how it culminates.

This has been an insightful task for me and the text that assisted my analysis has expanded my outlook on comics and the different facets of it that I never paid attention to. This will undoubtedly help me in my practice to be more intentional about the choices I make in the comics I create in the future.

References

Lester, J.Z. 2014, "Homonormativity in Children's Literature: An Intersectional Analysis of Queer-Themed Picture Books", Journal of LGBT youth, vol. 11, no. 3, pp. 244-275.

Smith, M.J. & Duncan, R. 2012;2011;, Critical Approaches to Comics: Theories and Methods, Taylor and Francis, Hoboken.

Taylor, T., Alixe, P., Lee, S., Kirby, J. and Asrar, M., 2018. “X-Men Red - The Hate Machine”. New York: Marvel Worldwide.

[reimenaashelyee]

History for Granted, or When a Marginal Voice Tackles The Main Text

My thoughts about being a marginalised creator who chose to make a graphic novel on a historical figure in the dominant Western canon. About why I didn't choose a lesser-known history instead. About why, either way, it is not a loss to POC representation

Reposted from my official blog, where I keep all my long-form thoughts.

Some of you may know I write historical fiction. Some of you may also know I’ve been chipping away on an Alexander the Great graphic novel.

My role as a historical graphic novelist has been stewing in the back of my mind for a while now. Actually, the stewing began when I first thought of The Carpet Merchant of Konstantiniyya, but I already know my insights from that project. Be actively thoughtful. Be self aware of how your own biases and societal context influence your storytelling. Recognise the people before and around you. Use your power to bring up voices. Understand that the work of being a responsible author lasts beyond the final page of your story.

Such is the case for Alexander, The Servant and The Water of Life. What I have learnt from TCM still carries over, thank goodness.

However, since last November, I realised that Alexander is a different kettle of fish. I already knew this early on: the mindboggling breadth and scope of research material, the baggage carried by the subject, and the newness of everything. While TCM focused on a narrow historical context (Ottoman era Istanbulite migrates to Georgian era England), and had the advantage of me knowing the lead character for years prior (Zeynel, my precious nerd son…), Alexander was from scratch. I didn’t know just how many Alexander Romances I really needed to read. I didn’t know much about ancient Greek anything. I didn’t know an atom about Alexander the Great himself – really, it was zilch.

Which means my responsibilities this time have a somewhat different character. A different edge.

I don’t write historical fiction about royalties or the elite. The most I have ever been interested in is a well-to-do merchant. Even then, my merchant would have an uncommon edge; he is with the common people. That’s where my interests lie: in the common people. The ordinary people outside of the court who go about their daily ordinary lives and daily ordinary struggles. The ups and downs and ins and outs of aristocrats and royals don’t excite me as much.

Then why Alexander? Honestly, he’s an exception.

Not because he’s suddenly a royal that interests me. Seriously, no royal will ever interest me enough to make a GN out of their life, based on their biography alone. (Though King James of the King James Bible and the secret tunnel to his boyfriend make a convincing petition) Alexander came to me in a roundabout way. A trick. He fooled me to exception by showing me his resume: Macedonian king, prophecised Egyptian pharoah, Persian king, son of a god, Jewish convert, Christian hero, Muslim prophet. And he showed me how many different cultures have absorbed him into their folk mythology over 2000 years. Even as the world changed and his body laid somewhere in Egypt, his shade travelled the world. He’s the only secular figure with similar cultural-legendary reach as Jesus. King Arthur can’t claim that. Heck, even Odysseus can’t claim that. Oh, how could I have resisted? This is exactly what I am all about.

This is all Alexander by the way.

The common people’s Alexander. The story of how different places have appropriated and localised him over time. Gave him different faces. Gave him slightly different names. Gave him quests and adventures and stories that had absolutely nothing to do with ancient Greece. Made him the believer of a pantheon into a believer of a singular God.

What brought me here is this literal embodiment of world literature. But he’s not an epic. He’s popular legend. And he doesn’t belong to any one culture or time or place. He’s everywhere.

But like I said, this kettle of fish is different.

Alexander the Great is not exactly the most obscure of histories. He’s a military idol. A national figurehead. He was a man. He was from ancient Greece. He’s claimed as a “heritage of the Western (read: white) world”, an excuse for why conquest is the legacy of the white, Western man. This is Alexander’s baggage, as I call it.

As a woman of colour (WOC) author from the global south, I’m aware of my (small, individual amount of) power to bring up unheard of histories. Unseen biographies of little known people. A glimpse into outside cultures and voices that Western-dominated media and education gloss over like wallpaper. I could have written about Puteri Gunung Ledang, or May 13th 1969, or the history of how my family came to Malaysia sometime during the Xinhai Revolution. I have no obligation to write about Alexander, because until last November, he was seriously a cultural nobody to me. I have no stake in the furthering the hegemony of Western history.

And I think, maybe not owning that stake is why it’s necessary.

Just as important as minorities writing about little known histories, minorities should write about the histories that are taken for granted. Because of our unique experiences with the consequences of colonialism, slavery, violence, discrimination, dehumanisation, etc, we look at history differently. It’s not about who wins or who loses. It’s about who is missing, who is harmed, what is lost…the gaps made by what was edited out.

With those glasses on, history taken for granted – if not already thoroughly given a critical cleansing – is shown to be what it really is: a history that isn’t as well-known as we thought. (and that’s okay)

I won’t be alone in saying I had no clue Alexander belonged to nobody and everybody (because everyone in the old world has an Alexander). For a long time, Western white history was gatekept, using the reasoning that whatever they claimed had an easy connect-the-dots relationship to their present day (even though I always knew that claim was oversimplified, anti-intellectual thinking). But, all of these things are simply whitewashed facades. The truth is that, like Greco-Roman everything, like Norse history, like Christian destiny, they are more complex, more diverse, more ambiguous, than what these facades can contain.

Just working with Alexander through the framework of the Alexander Romance already blows up general misconceptions about history: that history was a bubble, homogenous and separated from each other (“Egyptian history” “Chinese history” “Roman history”, “Christian world”, “Muslim world” “East”, “West”), rarely interacting and influencing.

And looking at Alexander’s actual biography says a lot about how open the world already was in his time. He was king of three empires. His pre-Hellenistic world was multicultural and diverse. It wasn’t all white marble statues. It was, like what reality is, painted technicolour marble statues.

The Victorian era archeologists who whitewashed those statues stripped off more than just the colour. They took off knowledge.

After a lot of thinking, I feel like I’m in a good place to make a GN about Alexander and the Alexander Romance.

It’s not a confidence thing, though tbh, I believe that as a WOC creator from the global south I cannot afford to doubt myself. It’s more about the position I am in and the new perspective I can offer about a historical-legendary figure taken for granted. And there’s my endless well of passion for multicolour histories. Alongside my desire to decolonialise everything.

It’s not a loss that I have chosen to work on a history taken for granted. Historical GNs are still dominated by the white Western cis-male perspective, both in subject and authorship. To be clear, I wouldn’t consider that particular perspective wrong or lesser on its own. My only qualm is when that perspective becomes the majority perspective, or worst the only perspective, which is given to an audience. I always think about this TED Talk by Chimamanda Adichie, about the Danger of a Single Story:

Me being here, telling an entirely different story, is a statement by itself.

Even then, I shouldn’t need to justify my choice. Whether it’s to a person who tells me I shouldn’t pursue Alexander because he’s a part of the dominant narrative, or to another person who tells me that as a minority creator I must adhere to my social responsibility (responsibility demanded by whom?) to tell little known histories or stories. Again, in my case, I think it’s not a loss which way I go, Alexander or not, because whatever I write is going to be a different story.

I think the only loss is when there aren’t still yet more marginalised authors to take on both the little known histories and histories taken for granted. The project of diversifying storytelling is not demanding the few marginalised voices to choose the correct, exotic, culturally-representative dish they had to bring to the potluck, but making the table wider, inviting more voices, so that, by author’s choice, any dish can be present and enjoyed by everyone.

My choice in whatever story I desire to write, as long as it doesn’t bring harm and intolerance and it undergoes the necessary self-interrogation, should be a choice that is already given. If white, Western authors can have this freedom, why not everyone else? Why must minority voices be defaulted to never having this good faith at the start?

Is it not enough that we already suffer from a lack of representation and a lack of self-esteem? Must our hands be tied even tighter, to be told that even our own voice cannot be trusted, because that trust has been abused over and over by the dominant voice?

Every new voice that is encouraged to speak is one more step towards making the table bigger.

This is one of my responsibilities of being a (historical) graphic novelist. I am here to encourage, and to make the table bigger. I am here to say, oh look, this particular history is exciting too, see how weird and creative and large the world already was.

And for Alexander GN in particular, it’s about showing that we have shared a historical-literary figure. That Alexander (and his baggage) isn’t immune to criticism. That by bringing him back the way I’m planning to, I’m no longer just talking about Alexander of Macedon. I am talking about Sikandar. I am talking about Alisaunder. I am talking about the Alexander conceptualised by Nizami, by Arrian, by Joseph Flavius, by every hand who has ever written and drew their own Alexander.*

Already, is that not a hundred different stories? * despite the fact all of these voices were male…well that’s gonna change

There will be time for me to write of lesser-known histories, if I feel the calling. Maybe I won’t ever. (I did tell myself The Carpet Merchant was the last historical GN I’ll ever do in forever…here I am. Nothing is predicted.) And if I’m not compelled, again, that is not a loss.

I am not the only one with a voice.

[oneofbeing]

Dear  Wengy and as many as Western authors, let us STICK to HARE not Rabbit (the change for convinence) since in the World of Animal Kingdom these are two different animals.. ''The double visions of the Hindus a rabbit in the moon, or the duck who is also a rabbit..'' Vedic period Upanayanam ceremony was performed between the ages of 5 and 24. Students were enrolled for learning under ONE teacher for  ALL subjects.  The dispute of 2 visioins of 'hindu's .. Let me split this TWO visions into FEW subjects. One subject is leading to another and so on. Here subject are between Universe & Animal Kingdom and if you bring these two together then it will  lead to Biology, our own physical structure, then to how to attain Brahman (Supreme Cosmic Spirit ) the ultimate intellectual (knowing the truth about yourself) awareness. Students remain 19 years of education with ONE master how these topics were developed is really amazing and it is just a WOW moment of Learning and Knowing under Saptarishi teahers like Vyasa (Krishna), Vashista and Visvamitra  all those 7 Sages, their lineage. How a curriculum can be developed during vedic periodwith every relevant skills available to human beings. Rig Veda according to me  has to go back to Paleolithic age. not c. 1700–1100 BC or c. 1500 and 1200 BC. reason for this statement is Rig Veda do reflect Glacial period, its impact on humans and hymns and praising nature as gods then requesting their blessing to avoid poverty, killings etc (one vision of a hidden truth). These poems do speak about the climate change and necessary changes needed to be done to protect earth and its living beings.. this I call it as Orbital forcing which is about earth's axis and shape of the orbit.. these poems reveals about one of the shape that is human being, and what that SHAPE brings destructive effects on earth by their actions. ''Variations in the Earth's eccentricity, axial tilt, and precession comprise the three dominant cycles, collectively known as the Milankovitch Cycles for Milutin Milankovitch'' Rig Veda Hymns are praying for better life for humans, animals, etc etc as if they have gone through this tough time in their life in the process explaining about Milankovitch Cycles. please go through the picture representation here http://www.indiana.edu/~geol105/images/gaia_chapter_4/milankovitch.htm I looked at Writing Systems. Writing was Invented in he 4th millennium BC (4000~3000 BC) which started recording history ie beginning of the Bronze Age. The Indus script (also known as the Harappan script) time periods  between 3500 and 1900 BCE. 1st millennium BCE. Brahmin Script abugida  thrived in the Indian subcontinent Languages Middle Indo-Aryan (Prakrit) languages, Dravidian languages (Tamil et al.), Saka, Tocharian Time period  3rd century BCE to 5th century CE. The so-called Indus script is a symbol system used during the 3rd millennium BCE in the Indus Valley Civilization, a Bronze Age civilisation (3300–1300 BCE; mature period 2600–1600 BCE) That means before the Bronze age it was 'SOUND RECORDING' Scripts were RECORDED from the memory to memory (Mnemonic) and passed it on to the students by the invented (teachers) then their lineage, generation after generation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mnemonic it is interesting to learn about this technique as this method was used much before the writing. Dear Harvard Wengy this is the reason for SD people using The double visions of HARE in the moon along with a animal kingdom picuture of it so that it is easy to RECOLLECT the subject which student needed to remember LIFE LONG.. ''Early written symbols were based on pictographs (pictures which resemble what they signify) and ideograms (symbols which represent ideas)'' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pictogram Why it is for Life Long and AFTER.. here is the answer.. ANIMAL KINGDOM 1) Hares and Rabbits are two different animals. Their difference lies in their HEARTS :) since Hares has larger heart than Rabbits. Advantages of Large heart is pumping blood and this increases their power to run faster. Speed of their travelling is recorded as fast as 45 mph. 2) Rabbits built homes, where as Hares build FORMS in the grass or ground which can BLOCK out the WIND.! 3) Hares can adapt to changing environment. Hares' coats change colour in Summer and Spring. Summer they can be dark brown and rudy in winter brown colour softened to grey or can transform into white. Rabbits cannot change their colour. It is also quoted in http://www.druidicdawn.org/node/1490 that 'hares usually have black markings in their fur somewhere'. Means over all 4 types of colour shades..! 4) Hares do not mate for life demonstrating an unselective approach & no attachment forming out of mating. 5) Related to Climate change Hares moves together around Spring Equinox. ''Hares are known to move together en masse, is around the Spring Equinox. Around this time, it's as if some signal has been given in the natural world and the hares go crazy!'' http://www.druidicdawn.org/node/1490   ASTRONOMY How do we get the seasons? The tilt of the Earth's AXIS is the most important reason why seasons occur. We have hot summers and cold winters because of the tilt of the Earth's axis. The tilt of the Earth means the Earth will lean towards the Sun (Summer) or lean away from the Sun (Winter) 6 months later. (google) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equinox An equinox is the moment in which the plane of Earth's equator passes through the center of the Sun, which occurs twice each year, around 20 March and 23 September. On an equinox, day and night are of approximately equal duration all over the planet. They are not exactly equal, however, due to the angular size of the sun and atmospheric refraction. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_refraction Atmospheric refraction is the deviation of light or other electromagnetic wave from a straight line as it passes through the atmosphere due to the variation in air density as a function of height.[1] This refraction is due to the velocity of light through air decreasing (the index of refraction increases) with increased density. Atmospheric refraction near the ground produces mirages and can make distant objects appear to shimmer or ripple, elevated or lowered, stretched or shortened with no mirage involved. The term also applies to the refraction of sound. Atmospheric refraction is considered in measuring the position of both astronomical and terrestrial objects. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refraction_(sound) Refraction, in acoustics, comparable to the refraction of electromagnetic radiation, is the bending of sound propagation trajectories (rays) in inhomogeneous elastic media (gases, liquids, and solids) in which the wave velocity is a function of spatial coordinates. Bending of acoustic rays in layered inhomogeneous media occurs towards a layer with a smaller sound velocity. This effect is responsible for guided propagation of sound waves over long distances in the ocean and in the atmosphere. On the equinoxes the Sun shines directly on the equator and the length of day and night is nearly equal – but not quite. metaphorical stance, the Equinoxes are a time of balance, between night and day, as well as masculine and feminine. The male and female hares boxing simply perpetuates this idea of balance at the Spring Equinox. The March equinox marks the moment the Sun crosses the celestial equator – the imaginary line in the sky above the Earth’s equator – from south to north and vice versa in September. In the Northern Hemisphere, the Vernal (Spring) Equinox marks the first day of astronomical spring. What is equinox phenomenon? An equinox is the moment in which the plane of Earth's equator passes through the center of the Sun, which occurs twice each year, around 20 March and 23 September. On an equinox, day and night are of approximately equal duration all over the planet. What does it mean by Equinox? the time when the sun crosses the plane of the earth's equator, making night and day of approximately equal length all over the earth and occurring about March 21 (vernal equinox or spring equinox) and September 22 (autumnal equinox) What happens during the equinox? Far from being an arbitrary indicator of the changing seasons, March 20 (March 21 in some years) is significant for astronomical reasons. On March 20, 2017, at precisely 6:29 A.M. EDT, the Sun will cross directly over the Earth's equator. This moment is known as the vernal equinox in the Northern Hemisphere. What is the cause for a solstice? During the December Solstice the Sun's rays shine on the Tropic of Capricorn. As the Earth moves around its orbit, it reaches two points during the year where the tilt of its axis causes it to be straight relative to the Sun. These days are known as equinoxes. What is the autumnal equinox? Equinoxes are opposite on either side of the equator, so the autumnal (fall) equinox in the Northern Hemisphere is the spring (vernal) equinox in the Southern Hemisphere and vice versa. Equinoxes and solstices happen twice a year. Equinoxes and solstices mark the start of astronomical seasons. What is the spring solstice? Northern Spring – Southern Fall. ... Equinoxes and solstices are opposite on either side of the equator, and the March equinox is also known as the "spring (vernal) equinox" in the Northern Hemisphere and as the "autumnal (fall) equinox" in the Southern Hemisphere. How do we get the seasons? The tilt of the Earth's AXIS is the most important reason why seasons occur. We have hot summers and cold winters because of the tilt of the Earth's axis. The tilt of the Earth means the Earth will lean towards the Sun (Summer) or lean away from the Sun (Winter) 6 months later. Equinoxes and solstices happen twice a year. Not Entirely Equal Day & Night The March equinox marks the moment the Sun crosses the celestial equator – the imaginary line in the sky above the Earth’s equator – from south to http://www.sacred-texts.com/astro/ml/ml08.htm "To the common people in India the spots look like a hare, i.e. Chandras, the god of the moon, carries a hare (sasa), hence the moon is called Sasin or Sasanka, hare mark or spot." 75 "Max Müller also writes, "As a curious coincidence it may be mentioned that in Sanskrit the moon is called Sasanka, i.e. 'having the marks of a hare,' the black marks in the moon being taken for the likeness of the hare." http://www.druidicdawn.org/node/1490 Hares are quite different from rabbits, Anatomically speaking, hares possess a significantly larger heart than rabbits. In hares, the heart can weigh from 1 to 1.8% of their total body weight, whereas with rabbits, the heart only weighs about 0.3% of their total body weight. When you think about it, this larger heart gives hares a greater advantage when it comes to pumping blood, which of course increases their powers of running at such speed and endurance enviable in the animal kingdom. Hares have been clocked at travelling as fast as 45 mph. Another difference between hares is that unlike rabbits, they don't build their homes in burrows, but instead build forms, little nests in the grass or ground that help block out the wind. Independence is a strong quality of the hare. In summer and in spring, hares' coats change colour like many other animals, as a way of adapting to their changing environment. In the summer, they can be quite dark brown and ruddy, but in the winter, the brown gets softened with grey, and some in further northern climates actually transform into white. One distinction about hares that doesn't apply to rabbits is that hares usually have black markings in their fur somewhere. Hares generally live alone or with a mate, but hares do not mate for life. According to our moral standards, hares are as promiscuous as it gets because they will mate with whoever takes their fancy, and there is no attachment formed because of it. hares are known to move together en masse, is around the Spring Equinox. Around this time, it's as if some signal has been given in the natural world and the hares go crazy! Now let us look at the double vision of Hindus a rabbit in the moon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writing_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_script https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abugida https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahmi_script https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-writing#Indian_Bronze_Age https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandu_Rajar_Dhibi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacial_period https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_forcing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles http://www.indiana.edu/~geol105/images/gaia_chapter_4/milankovitch.htm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hare http://www.druidicdawn.org/node/1490

[barnesnmrnoble]

The Fallen Leaf

(GIF not mine. Credit to owners.)

Main Masterlist - Steve Rogers Masterlist

There is a tree in New York, standing y’all in the depths of the greenery of Central Park. It’s a tree that represents the life and death of the city. With each new life brought into the world, a new leaf blossoms from a it’s branches but with each death that befalls the city a leaf floats and falls to the ground signifying its end.

Every Saturday, Steve watches her smile grow somber, her eyes become glassy with tears unshed and watches as her feet carry her away to the city. He never knows where she goes and never dares ask in fear of watching her already dampened smile fade to nothing. Until one day he can’t handle it any longer and follows her.

Word Count: 3168

Warnings: Angst, mentions of death and blood, car accident

A/n:  It’s been a minute since I’ve been able to post, school and finals have been kicking my ass so hopefully this is the start of me coming back. There should also be a new chapter of Lost in Time in the coming days! I hope you all enjoy! If you do, leave a like and a reblog or comment! I’d love to hear what you think and honestly I’m human and I need the validation. (This was based of a @writing-prompt-s post )

Read on AO3!

There is a tree, standing tall in the depths of the thick greenery of Central Park. It’s larger than life, standing high above the rest of the forest that surrounds it, from the ground looking up, it almost competes with the skyscrapers that line the blue sky. Though it’s not blue today, it’s never blue when she leaves her home for this. It’s dark and dreary, grey clouds rolling in over the city. It’s a reflection of how she feels on these days.

She remembers when she first learned of the tree, her mother sitting her down on a bench nearby it, overlooking the lake in front of her. Her mother held her newborn baby in her arms, gently calming him when he stirred in his sleep. He was only days old, but already had the biggest personality, just like her own. The wind blew around them, almost drowning out her voice when she quietly asked her mother to hold her new baby brother. Her mother had smiled at her, handing her the small infant, keeping her hands underneath her daughter’s. Her mother leaned down to push a wind blown stray hair away from her eyes, smiling as she retold the story her own parents had taught her at this age. She recited it as if it was a fairy tale straight from a story book she had on the bookshelf at home.

It had been centuries ago, when the city had started to come to life. Statues and monuments locals saw each day as they walked into their jobs, had been created then. Stories that would be known until the end of time, started here. A man, whose name she couldn’t remember no matter how many times she’d  told and been told the story --which admittedly wasn’t very often-- had come to the green space in the city. He found solace in the quietness of the forest, found peace from the world. He’d found a place to rest, a clearing in the trees, and in the middle sat a small sapling, no taller than his hip. It’s color was more potent than what he’d seen, greens of every shade covered the few leaves it had. The man pulled a small brown cloth pouch from his clothing, dipping his fingers into the soft mineral powder inside. The powder gleamed against the sun’s bright rays of light, as the man brought it from the pouch and sprinkled it around the tree.

Her mother continues to stroke her hair and finishes her telling of the story with a flourish, “And the rest, as they say, is history.” She smiles up to her mother, fascination running around her brain like a herd of wild horses. But, she can’t help but pause for a moment, her mother had told her an amazing fairy tale of the tree that grew taller than the rest in the middle of the city, but never once did she mention its significance. When she asked to know more about the tree, to know why leaves of varying shades and colors grew from its branches her mother only grabbed her small hand in hers and lead her to the edge of the clearing. “You’ll understand soon, but you must see it.”

It had truly been magical, that day, hearing the stories told from generation to generation had set her mind aflurry, her imagination running wild. Her mother had taken her to see the tree up close, leaves of every color and shade scattered across branches that never seemed to end. If she’d been counting the branches, she was sure to end in the thousands before giving up.  Some leaves had fallen from their branches, dispersed on the ground beneath it, stretching out several feet from its base and covering large roots that measured larger than herself. Her small feet carried her to the edge of where the leaves lay peacefully on the ground, she didn’t dare go further, wouldn’t have even if she hadn’t had her mother still holding her hand. It felt wrong, a deep seeding feeling of disrespect if she crossed the imaginary line in front of her.

____________ . _______________ . ____________ . ___________

She wrapped her scarf around her neck, the soft navy blue one Steve had gifted her a while back, and stroked her fingers over the fabric savoring the comfort it brought her.  It was silly, really. To think a scarf of soft fabric could bring her so much comfort on a day that was so hard, but it was what it represented to her that brought her the feeling of a warm embrace, when the cold around her chilled her to her bones. It was the representation of family, of a shoulder to lean on, open arms to fall into when the world pushed too hard, it was the representation of all that she had lost and then gained once again. She never knew a scarf could represent so much to her.

The clouds that rolled in over the sky were dark and dreary, a nipping wind biting at those who dared walk out in the world. The wind slammed against her cheeks the moment she opened the door and slid into the hustle and bustle of the city. It felt like small pricks against her skin, the ever changing pattern of the wind switching the pins from on side of her face to the other every few steps she took. She blended into the crowd around her, just another face, another set of feet moving from point a to point b, at least until she slid from the bulk of the crowd taking a side street into the park. She walked along the path she always took, a back way to avoid the people she just didn’t have the energy to be around and to bask in the nature around her.

The trees were still bare, a few leaves poking through the cold to find the sun. The winter had started to subside and make way for the spring, letting leaves grow in bunches, grass regain its beautiful green hue, and flower bloom underneath her feet. She loved it here. Her mind wandered with her feet, carrying her to the place she always found herself on these days, the tree of the city.

No matter the time of year, winter, spring, summer, or fall, the leaves of the tree always grew against their branches. It was never failing in its beauty or its life. Before she even had realized she’d taken the backpath, her feet slowed to a stop against the outermost edge of the leaves, the imaginary line forced a stop to her feet. She reached into her coat and pulled out the small picture frame she usually kept hidden away from prying eyes. The dark and worn frame, whose paint had been chipped and rubbed away by her loss and anxiously twiddling thumbs, slid to the end of her grasp and escaped the downpour of her tears. Her delicate fingers traced over the outline of the purple colored leaf and over the letters engraved forever on its skin.

Her brother’s name stared at her through the glass frame under her thumbs, twisting the grip on her heart, one that refused to let up, and hadn’t for two years. It had been a dreary Saturday morning, much like today or really everyday she walked the lone path to the tree. She’d still been living at her old apartment down in Brooklyn, her life as an avenger hadn’t started yet, she was still months out from that part of her life. Her brother had come home from University for the weekend and managed to squeeze in just enough time to have lunch with her before he had to get back, it’d been the first time she’d seen him in months.

But he never showed up.

It was a call she never wished to get, a feeling she would never wish on the worst of people. It had quite literally felt like her heart had been torn from her chest and buried six feet under for no hope of ever finding it again. “Your brother’s been in an accident.” She could hear the helplessness and fear that laced her mother’s voice, she could hear her own sobs permeating the soft air of the diner she’d been waiting for him at. She didn’t care for the odd looks she received for her wailing sobs, or the angry stares she got for “ruining” someone’s dinner. She didn’t care.

Her brothers car was a mangled mess when she passed the awful wreck. She wished she could’ve avoided it, put off seeing horrors no one should ever face, but it was the only way to the hospital. Her stomach churned and threaten to let the bile she’d been struggling to hold down up as she passed the car. She could see blood streaking the inside of the car, a gaping hole where they’d had to cut him from the vehicle.

They waited for hours in the hospital, sitting in awful and uncomfortable chairs that made it impossible it find a position to sit in that didn’t make her back ache. Her hand never left her mother’s, both holding onto each other as if it was the only thing holding them together. Though in reality, it was the only thing holding them together.

The world became darker with each passing moment of agonizing waiting, wondering, hoping, and praying. It became a macabre world of black and white, a world of muted feelings to the point of total numbness. The blank wall in front of her eyes became a seemingly interesting story being told, her eyes never wavering from the spot they’d fixated on hours upon hours ago. Distantly she heard talking, people milling about in the hospital, each one feeling much different from the last. Nurses and doctors held somber looks, though some held smiles as they came out a child’s room, or a room from which someone was still living, still breathing, where they were recovering.

One somber face stood out from the rest. It overrode every feeling of numbness in her until she felt everything all at once, letting it quite literally knock her out of her chair. His eyes were tearful, his gait slow and heartbroken. His shoes were covered in blood, his scrubs he wore didn’t look much better, streaks of red striping what once was a sky blue top into a painful red nightmare. She didn’t need to be told, she didn’t, nor did she want to hear the words spoken out into the world, because if they were that would prove their truthfulness and that wasn’t a truth she was or ever would be willing to come to terms with.

Her baby brother was gone.

The pain settled deep within her heart, never once letting her forget that day, or the feelings of guilt and sadness that she felt everyday when she opened her eyes in the morning. She’d thrown herself into work, isolated herself from friends and family, barely ate and when she did it was nothing more than a birds meal. She even begun a new job, on top of her regular job. She had to, sitting at home and wallowing in the pain was doing nothing for her so she did what she knew and kept herself distracted. Eventually leading her into the arms of the avengers, where her anger and guilt could be used as the driving motion to do some good in the world, just what her brother would’ve wanted for her.

It had taken her several months before she could even bring herself to face the tree that had once held her brothers leaf high on the branches that reached upwards until they touched the blue of the sky. Little by little she brought up her courage and pushed away the pain until the one day she stepped past the imaginary line her feet always stopped her at. She’d sifted through so many leaves, sat for hours and hours until she found the jagged edges of the purple leaf, his favorite color, that held his name. And so, every Saturday she slid out of compound at the early hours of the morning to commemorate him and his life. She went early enough to beat the crowds that lingered around the tree, mostly of those who tried to find their own leaves, they were too cheerful for her. And early enough to avoid or arouse suspicion from that of her teammates. But in a building full of trained soldiers, assassins and geniuses, one was bound to see her slip from the gates with fresh tears already making their way down her cheeks.

Steve had seen her a few months ago, slip from her room and quietly out of the compound, he’d made to ask her where she was headed but as soon as he saw her somber smile and glassy eyes, he just opened his arms for her to seek comfort in. And she did, she never told him anything more than a cop-out answer of “it’s a long story.” or “I’m okay, just a hard week.” but he was never one to push it, it wasn’t his place and he wouldn’t be able to handle it if he was the reason her smiled dampened even more than it already was.

It had been months of her tearful gaze and isolation and Steve couldn’t handle the continuing struggle he could see for her to keep her smile from fading until there was nothing and he snapped. She always left, every Saturday in the early mornings, so Steve was awake just before he knew she’d slide from her room and away for the day and followed her.

He followed her down the backpath she took through the deepest parts of the park, her feet slow moving across the dirt packed path. He listened with a heart heavier than lead as she cried with each step she took, she radiated the pain she felt outwards pushing an invisible force down onto Steve that made each step harder than the last as they rounded the last corner to the open clearing that perfectly framed the tree. He’d seen the tree before, mourned over the leafs on the ground etched with names of his past life, but it had taken him time to even make it as far as the clearing. His fear of seeing those names and coming to terms with the lives and deaths of the people he loved most winning out over his need to have the closure.

He remembered seeing the tree back in the 40s, he’d drawn it countless times in his sketchbook. Though never once did he think his drawings did it’s unmatched beauty any sort of justice. To him, he would never be able to capture the emotions, the happy, the sad, the rejoicing, and the mourning done at the base of this tree, no color palette could ever capture the unique colors that scattered the mass amounts of branches that would’ve taken years to finish drawing. Still he tried, spending many a days out sketching in the warmth of the sun and the coolness he felt when it started to fall beneath the horizon. When his mother had passed, Steve had spent less time in the clearing, pushing it away because it held the memories of his mother, the one woman in his life that meant more to him than anything, because nothing else could compare to her sweet, compassionate personality.

Her feet paused at the outermost edge of the clearing, never crossing the line from the dirt path to the soft green grass the spread from the base of the tree. He watched her grab something from the inside of her coat, her weight shifting from foot to foot and her shoulders slumping even more than they already had. Steve couldn’t handle it, he loved seeing her infectious smile and had since she’d started with the avengers. She’d been a breath of fresh air, she was amazingly capable at what she did-- he couldn’t even counted on his fingers how many times she’d saved his ass-- but even more than that she had helped everyone come down from their minds. Without her, the avengers would probably never have eaten or learned how to cook for themselves, they wouldn’t have days where they could just be people and play games and be the family they really were.

“You know, I came here after I lost Bucky. I stood right where you are, to afraid to cross into the clearing, because if I did and I found the leaf with his name on it, it would mean he was really gone, confirming just what I’d seen on the train. I never moved past that line.” His voice came from behind her, sending her jumping away from where she stood. His hand reached out and grabbed her hand, he laced their fingers together and pulled her into his arms. He didn’t need words, he needed her to know no matter what was going on, she had someone to come to. It was a small gesture but it was just what she needed.

His heart broke with her sobs, his arms gripping onto her waist and holding her steady and she collapsed in his arms and took them both to the ground. They sat in the dirt for hours, some just watching those who showed up to admire the tree, to those who mourned along with them, some just relishing in the comfort of having each other. She told stories of her brother, of the silly games they played, of the crazy pranks they pulled on each other, of the day and the accident that took his life. Each story yanked on Steve’s heart strings until they were stretched farther than a rubber band, he was so close to breaking and letting his tears spill over, to letting his resolve snap into pieces like a rubber band stretched to far.

Part of him did snap, he let silent tears fall, trying and failing to quell his shudders of the sobs he quieted. Her heart so hurt, so closed off from a tragedy he’d never wish on the worst of his enemies. To lose someone so close to you, to not even be able to say goodbye, to see them happy and alive one last time, Steve couldn’t imagine it. She was strong, stronger than anyone knew because despite the horrors she’d lived through, the tragedy she faced, she carried on, pushed past the pain to do her job and do to it well. But more than that she never forgot to take the time to mourn her loss, to remember the life of her brother and to remember what brought her to where she was.

He bent his head down pressing a delicate kiss to her forehead and once again hugging her tight to his body.

“Let’s go home.”

[dualwieldingrollingpins]

I haven’t written fic in years, but mp100 and its fandom have inspired me to pick it back up. This was inspired by a post by @mikuhats and I hope you all enjoy!!

——————————————————————————

Looking back, Shou realizes he only had himself to blame, but he couldn’t have expected the outcome of his actions. Not in a million years.

He was, after all, the one who had broken the silence and occasional clicking of buttons. It was too quiet, and although he knew Ritsu valued the peacefulness if he didn’t speak he was probably going to explode.

“Hey Ritsu, I got a proposition for ya.”

The boy in question kept his eyes on screen, the only hint that he had even heard the redhead was the small hum of acknowledgement he made.

“Five races in Mario Kart. Whoever wins gets to draw whatever they want on the loser’s face.”

Not his best plan, but the thought of drawing something hilarious (and probably inappropriate) on the Golden Boy of Salt Middle School amused him more than he cared to admit. He practically vibrated in his spot on the floor, though this wasn’t out of the ordinary considering he could barely sit still in the first place.

However, he clearly wasn’t the only one scheming, as the illuminated screen let him see the corner of Ritsu’s mouth turn up ever so slightly.

“You’re on.”

They choose their characters (Shou chooses Toad, Ritsu picks Luigi) and their karts (something both boys are very serious about, maximizing their potential to work with their characters’ strengths). Shou grins, hunching forward towards the television. He’s ready to kick Ritsu’s ass and have bragging rights for at least the next week, as well as maybe have a photo for him to snicker at whenever he needed it.

Then the races start, and Ritsu annihilates him. Absolutely destroys him. With every green shell that hits Shou at the worst moment, every boost that Ritsu somehow manages to get perfectly, and every time the redhead’s kart flies off the track, Shou’s dreams of embarrassing Ritsu with his epic racing skills fly further and further away from him. He’s astonished really, Mario Kart is HIS game, and while he’s struggling Ritsu still has that calm smirk that Shou can’t wipe off his face despite all his efforts.

At the end, his pride is so battered that he almost forgets his fate, until Ritsu grins triumphantly and turns toward him.

“Alright,” he turns off the game, leaving the home screen as the only light in the room. “Where’s my marker?”

Shit shit shit shit shit and He’s going to draw a dick or something like that and I’m gonna look like an idiot were the two most prominent alarm bells clanging in his head. But he’s not gonna back out, he’s no coward and he’ll take his punishment like a man.

Ritsu stood, silently walking towards his desk as to not wake his parents. Rifling through his drawers, he picks up a brown marker, not as noticeable as black would be, but good enough.

He knelt back down in front of his friend, marker uncapped, twirling it between his fingers.

“What are you gonna draw?”

Ritsu rolled his eyes, flicking Shou on the forehead. “Like I’d tell you. Now close your eyes.”

Although this was normally when Shou would make a snarky comment or a half-hearted protest, this time he did it without hesitation. Bright blue eyes closed, leaving Ritsu free reign to unleash whatever chaos his artistic side was feeling that moment, which was truthfully nothing. He had no clue what he wanted to draw on Shou’s face, because he wasn’t going to do something basic like draw dicks, there was way too much potential to waste it on something like that.

He inspected his canvas, trying to gain some idea of what to do. Then he spotted them. Shou’s freckles.

The young boy has always been fascinated by them, if he was honest. Shou’s heritage made him look completely different than most people in Seasoning City, a physical representation of his out-of-the-box and fiery personality.

He was struck with an idea, and while it wasn’t anything embarrassing or funny, he was gonna have a good time doing it. Leaning in and ignoring the flip flop of his stomach, he pressed the tip of the marker to a freckle on Shou’s left cheek, connecting it to others around, even some on the side of his nose.

Normally, Shou’s mind was running at around 60 miles an hour, chasing and capturing thoughts while some slipped through his fingertips like sand. This time though, it was moving double time, speeding and racing, revolving around one thing.

Ritsu was so close. He can practically feel the boy’s breath on his face. It’s the only thing he could think about, and his mind took the possibilities and made them into a one hundred meter sprint.

He couldn’t stand it, the outside world was so quiet while his mind was buzzing and panicky and loud-

His thoughts, once floating and soaring, plummeted to the ground from the gravity of a hand on his cheek. His eyes snapped open.

“Dude wha-“

“I couldn’t control the marker calm down,” Ritsu deadpanned, oblivious to the other’s crisis due to trying to mask his own. “Now close your eyes, you staring at me while I’m drawing is weird as hell.”

Shou nodded dumbly, for the first time in his life he was completely speechless. His face was rapidly heating to levels he had only felt when his curiosity had led him to touching a candle’s flame when he was young. His heart was thumping so loudly that he was positive Ritsu could hear it and his mind was screaming and Ritsu’s hand was so warm.

He tried to focus on anything other than that stupid hand. The coolness of the floor underneath him, the hushed ticking of the clock in the hallway, the reminder that it’s 1:53 in the morning and he’s never felt more awake in his life, the pins and needles feeling in his legs from kneeling for so long. But nothing worked, because as soon as Ritsu did anything his thoughts focused on him like a moth to light.

Ritsu had moved on from his friend’s cheeks to his nose to just idly doodling on forehead, though his points of reference were quickly disappearing due to Shou’s face and hair becoming the same color. But it didn’t matter, he was almost done, and he didn’t know why that thought disappointed him. As he finished the final line, he tilted his work from side to side, inspecting his art.

It was cute. He’s cute, his inner voice corrected.

“Okay, I’m done.” It came out a whisper, as if he was too nervous to be any louder.

One eye cracked open, then another, and as soon as he saw blue, his breath trapped itself in his throat. Because he realized how close he truly was, inches away from the other’s face, and his cheeks began to burn.

For a moment, neither spoke or move, daring the other to do something. The challenge hung in the air, mingling with the nervousness and excitement that had been there previously.

As if bored of their game, the earth decided to continue its rotation. The clock sounded. It was 2 am, and the trance was broken.

Both boys backed away from each other. The tension was palpable.

“So, uh,” Shou started, very interested in his socked feet. “I guess I need to see what you drew. Hopefully something funny or cool, like a creeper.”

He chuckled in an attempt to dispel some of the awkwardness that permeated the room, and he silently thanked Ritsu for playing along.

“Yeah. It’s nothing crazy but it’s better than dicks.” The black haired boy shrugged, trying to maintain his calm facade when really his stomach was turning cartwheels.

Shou headed towards the bathroom, with Ritsu a few steps behind, making sure to avoid waking anyone up.

As soon as he flicked the light switch, the brightness smacked him in the face with an unforgiving relentlessness, and he groaned. He took a moment, blinking rapidly in order for his eyes to readjust to the stark change.

Once he could finally stand to open his eyes, he took in his reflection. There were no dicks, no creepers, and no words. He leaned in closer, inspecting.

His freckles were connected by brown lines to form various little shapes. Constellations. The Big Dipper on his left cheek, the Little beyond that, going up the side of his nose. Cancer dipped from his forehead to a spot above his eyebrow, and Sagittarius stretched from his right cheek to his ear to above his lip. So many constellations littered his skin, and the spaces not connected by brown were covered with planets, as if Ritsu was determined to leave no part of his face untouched. He was transformed into a miniature universe with something as simple as a marker.

He pulled and tugged at his skin, obsessively checking so he doesn’t miss a single drawing Ritsu had made. Ritsu observed him from the door frame, bouncing from one leg to another and twiddling his thumbs to suppress his nerves.

Ritsu waited. And waited. The seconds seemed to pass like molasses, idly dripping with no intent on gaining speed. Finally, it was too much. He coughed awkwardly, which brought the redhead back to earth.

“What do you think?” His voice cracked on the last word, buzzing with anxiousness.

The redhead looked at him through the mirror, grinning, cheeks a pretty shade of rosy pink.

“‘S cute Ritsu. Didn’t realize my freckles were such an inspiration.” His teasing was lighthearted, poking his cheek.

Ritsu scoffed, crossing his arms. “Well I figured it would be more fun than just writing ‘Fornite sucks’ or something like that.” His aloof attitude was betrayed by his refusal to look Shou in the eye and a blush that was overtaking his face and ears.

A laugh rang out, genuine and pure and happy. Shou was grasping the counter, shoulders shaking. It was contagious, and just like a lot of his actions, his best friend couldn’t resist joining him.

There they stood until their laughs turned to giggles and faded away. Their faces were alight, having laughed more in that moment than either have in a long time.

“We should probably go to bed. It’s late,” Ritsu pointed out. Shou nodded, turning back to his reflection, looking at his galaxy.

“I wanna take a picture of it. It’s really cool,” Shou reached into his pocket, gesturing for Ritsu to get closer.

Opening up his camera, the two grinned for a picture, their cheeks pressed together and Ritsu’s right hand brought up in a peace sign, with Shou’s arm thrown around his shouldner. After taking a few, Shou seemed satisfied, lowering his phone and inspecting the pictures.

Ritsu saw this as a cue to start walking back to his room, reaching to open the bathroom door.

“Wait!” Shou grabbed his sleeve, stopping him. They both looked down his grip, Shou dropping his hand quickly and muttering an apology.

“I want to take another picture. None of them turned out quite right,” his voice was uncharacteristically small, and he was stumbling over his words.

Ritsu raised an eyebrow at the sudden change of mood, but obliged. They returned to their previous pose, Shou opening his phone camera once more.

Shou gulped, mentally preparing himself for what he was going to do next. As he continued taking photos, he stood on his tiptoes (Ritsu still had a good two inches on him, a fact he never lets Shou forget) and pressed his lips to his friend’s cheek. He felt the other boy stiffen, and he quickly pulled away.

“Thanks for the pictures Ritsu I’m gonna go to bed now sorry if I made things weird just don’t mention it haha,” Shou made a quick exit, willing himself not to kick a wall or scream because he was positive he had messed it up and his first real friend had fallen through.

A calloused hand grabbed his own, and now the tables had turned. He stared down at their clasped hands, then back up at Ritsu, and the fact that Ritsu had yet to speak was killing him inside.

Ritsu silently inched closer, not taking his eyes off Shou, clearly focused.

“Dude please don’t beat me up I’m sorry,” Shou stammered, his eyes squeezed shut.

He was prepared for anything really: yelling, shoving, silent animosity, and he was suddenly reminded of his time at Claw in the worst way possible. What he wasn’t prepared for, however, was the soft pressure on his forehead.

For the second time that night, his eyes shot open to stare at the esper. He was in complete disbelief.

“If you wanted a kiss, you could’ve asked,” Ritsu muttered, embarrassed but still sporting a small smile.

The redhead’s jaw opened and closed, trying to form words but only succeeding in staring. He simply nodded, as his vocal cords were obviously betraying him.

“Let’s go to bed. I’m tired,” Ritsu yawned, tugging their intertwined hands and leading them down the hall. And through his embarrassment and happiness, Shou realized that, as corny as it sounded, their fingers slotted together perfectly.

As they climbed into Ritsu’s bed on opposite sides, allowing sleep to wash over them, Shou realized that this all stemmed from his stupid challenge. He reached up, idly tracing the stars that dotted his face.

Something had changed between the two of them, something they could talk about when the sun was shining. But for right now, each other’s company was enough.

And if they woke up with their fingers intertwined and their bodies much closer than before, they didn’t have to mention it.

[movieshubstuff]

Survey of Movie "Baahubali - The Conclusion"

I got a call from my more youthful sister that the tickets had been reserved and the family would watch the motion picture "Baahubali-The Conclusion" in Telugu language on April 29th, 2017 at Eros Theater in New Delhi. Not surprisingly, I was energized and guaranteed her that I will arrive at the performance center legitimately after my working hours or I would take the consent to go along with them at the theater. Notwithstanding, it was concluded that I should arrive at home and go with them. Every single one of us was energized. In any case, my sister, who was at the driver's seat, was pleased to report that she has seen the motion picture in the Hindi language on April 28th, 2017. She was hyper about it as if it was an extraordinary accomplishment for her. In addition, she needed to look at the film in the two dialects. She guaranteed me that she won't impart the story to me. 

The venue was jam pressed and everybody needed to watch the motion picture without losing a solitary scene. Every single one of the individual landed in time and took the ownership of their sets. I wish we were so dependable in our classes as well! Youngsters requested their folks for the enormous pack of popcorn and soda pops. How might I miss them? I needed to complete two things together-watch and chomp! Much obliged the film started on schedule. 

As indicated by the Central Board of Film Certification, the name of the motion picture was "Baahubali-The Conclusion". It was in Telugu language. It was hued one and was cinemascope. The date of discharge was April 24th, 2017 and under the Universal class (that is intended for the two grown-ups and kids). Nonetheless, it was plainly referenced that the motion picture must be viewed under parental direction. The name of the candidate to sign was Shri Y.N. Sobhandari for M/s Arka Media Works Entertainment LLP, Hyderabad and other underwriter was Shri Pahlaj Nihalani, Chairperson, CBFC, Mumbai. The term of the film was for 167 minutes and 30 seconds. My review here https://123movieshub.eu

Stunning! I enjoyed the titles of the film for following reasons: 

a. PC designs and fakers were utilized for different sorts of creatures appeared in the motion picture like pony, elephant, parrot, pig, bulls, flying creatures, ducks, buffalo, hog, hawk, swan, and so forth. 

b. The group expressed gratitude toward organizations, advanced film, travel accomplices, money trade office in Hyderabad, human services accomplice, online life channels, settlement partner,chocolate and confectionary accomplice, sustenance, versatile, correspondence, Reliance Fresh to get different products, multiplex and Jewelry accomplice, area and experience accomplice, stationary, informing accomplice "howdy", office partner,beauty accomplice to "Lux", wellness accomplice, Make a Wish Campaign, merchandizing and authorizing through ICICI Bank, Simba, and so forth , protection suppliers, their brokers were IDBI and Kotak Bank, Hyderabad, their financers, media and radio accomplices, and so on. They remembered the commitment and support of single individual moreover. That is something to be acknowledged for the accomplishment of the film. 

c. Extremely elaborative and particular foundation was appeared in the titles. This is must for catching the consideration and focal point of the group of spectators. Credit for their reasoning forces. 

d. The film was a mix of both genuine shots and interactive media graphical structures. Along these lines, consideration of the kids was at its most extreme level. 

e. Titles were giving, partner and connecting the network between Baahubali Part 1 and Baahubali-The Conclusion. The short story of the section One of the motion picture was exhibited in the Titles of the film (one more likely than not saw the group of spectators in the theater-I saw that every one of them were dumbstruck and not by any means a solitary individual was squinting their eyes-I thought motion pictures for sure assume a significant job in learning and instructing ourselves, and there is no compelling reason to buckle down with the people. This will do ponders in the classes of Law, Literature, History, Sociology and Journalism and Mass Media. ). 

The motion picture was exhibited by K. Raghavendra Rao, generation of an Arka Mediaworks and inventive film by S. S. Rajamouli. The verses and exchanges were composed by Manoj Muntashir. The music was by M. M. Keeravani. The cinematography by K. K. Senthil Kumar. Distinctive shaded representations were presented toward the start of the film with the tune at the foundation. The makers of the motion picture were Shobu Yarlagadda and Prasad Devineni. The screenplay and Direction was by S. S. Raja Mouli. The principle star cast was Prabhas, Rana Daggubati, Anushka Shetty, Sathyaraj, Ramya Krishna, Nassar and Tamannaah. It was conveyed by Arka Media Works for Telugu rendition, K. Creations for Tamil variant, Global United Media for Malayalam form and Dharma Productions for Hindi adaptation. It was discharged in 4K superior quality organization. 

When the titles are finished, the story starts for us. Our saint Amarendra Baahubali-accomplishes his triumph in the war zone. The Queen Mother is glad for this accomplishment and pronounces that he will be delegated as the future ruler of Maahishmati. Her words ended up being the celebration minutes for the individuals in the realm. In any case, her very own and genuine child Bhallaladeva and spouse are against her desires. Her significant other beginnings impelling Bhallaladeva against her. This is the defining moment in the film. 

The Queen Mother educates Amarendra and Katappa to take the voyage through their realm so as to acquire information regarding their matters and prosperity. Amarendra meets Devasena and is pulled in by her appeal and abilities. They become hopelessly enamored with one another. Before long this data spans to Bhallaladeva and he makes an arrangement to make the contrasts among Shivagami and Amarendra. He tells his mom that he has experienced passionate feelings for Devasena and communicates his craving to wed her. The proposition is sent to Devasena from the side of Shivagami and is dismissed by Devasena. The Queen is irritated at this disposition of Devasena and teaches Amarendra to catch, tie her as detainee and present her at the court of Maahishmati. 

Amarendra helps and shields the realm of Kuntala from their foes called Pindaris. With his astounding abilities, Amarendra overwhelms Pindaris and recoveries the realm. Devasena was interested to think about reality and requests to uncover his character. She comes to realize that Amarendra is the future lord of Maahishmati and won't be the detainee. He vows to secure her humility and weds her. Them two leave for Maahishmati. Shivagami comes to think about reality and is disturbed about it. As of now, she feels regretful for not staying faithful to her obligation to Bhallaladeva. This is the principal point where the defining moment of the story can be seen in the motion picture. 

The contrasts among Shivagami and Amarendra kick off starting here. Before long Shivagami asks Amarendra to leave the realm with his pregnant spouse. With the assistance of abhorrence thoughts, Bijjaladeva is fruitful in making more contrasts between them. In one situation, he announces that Amarendra is attempting to kill Bhallaladeva so as to be the King. She arranges Katappa to slaughter Amarendra furtively with the goal that the realm is spared from disharmony between the illustrious family and the subjects. Thus, Amarendra is cut to death by Katappa, the sovereign is educated about the misleading thoughts of Bijjaladeva and Bhallaladeva and her misstep in making a decision about her very own kin. Meanwhile, Devasena brings forth a child kid and lands to the royal residence in the wake of knowing the demise of her significant other. Shivagami reports that the new borne child is Mahendra Baahubali and future ruler of Maahishmati. 

Bhallaladeva is astonished and arranges his warriors to catch the Queen, slaughter the child and detain Devasena. The Queen escapes from the royal residence and kicks the bucket soon. The child is saved by the average folks and called as Shivudu. Before long he comes to think about his detained mother Devasena from Katappa and begins to look all starry eyed at Avantika. He battles against the bad form and is successful at last. 

Positive purposes of the motion picture: 

a) No creature was harmed or abused in any scene. They get full stamps from every creature darling, naturalists and eco-minding rationalists and women's activists. 

b) This implies innovativeness was at its most elevated level in the media research centers for the colleagues. 

Else they may have missed on the moment subtleties of the specific scene. There is a need to acclaim the whole group. 

c) The Police Commissioner and his group were uniquely expressed gratitude toward for enabling the film unit to deal with territories of Rachakonda in Andhra Pradesh for the shooting of a portion of the scenes in the motion picture. 

d) The crowd were applauding and getting a charge out of the comic scenes present in the motion picture. 

e) Elaborate endeavors were taken to make wonderful visual and sound impacts in the film. 

f) Game was likewise created on the arrival of the motion picture. 

g) Care had been taken to depict the substances of the chronicled era9as this was a verifiable motion picture however not taped on a specific ruler or sovereign or realm). 

h) The Prince had been prepared and instructed in all the individual abilities required for the future ruler in the motion picture. For instance, the Amarendra Baahubali realized how to go out on a limb, handle the circumstances both deliberate and unconstrained one, nearness of the administration characteristics, minute perception aptitudes (for instance when Prince visits the realm of Kuntala, he sees that the townspeople were utilizing their solid assembled cows for different purposes and same ability was useful and utilized when there was the need of great importance to battle against the amazing armed force of Pindaris), being caution and helping the military of the other realm without designating the work to other people, and so on. 

I) Sensitivity of the Prince towards his own affection, keeping guarantees, battling against the disasters, supporting his very own subjects, keeping up different sorts of connections, relinquishing his very own life for the realm and mother, securing powerless subjects and ladies are important and learning exercises for all. 

j) No underestimation of the people was seen in the film. This is the need of great importance in the contemporary society wherein ladies a

[eden-rosebct]

Circa Solar - realign with the nature of time

For emerging practices we were encouraged to look at a technological kick starter of our choice and identify our personal positions, the practice of it within the creative arts and industries, Articulate propositions and highlight alternative and future directions of the said artefact within the said industry. 

Circa Solar. On my initial encounter with Circa Solar, it looked like a fun approach to the concept of time. It sells itself as an alternative clock, based around “the nature of time”. I thought this was an interesting and certainly an aesthetically engaging concept. From a shallow perspective, the whole article on Kickstarter was well-curated, colour coordinated, flashy, clean and had a lot of information from the artefact itself to the philosophy behind it. 

It was my pretentious side that grasped to this idea that “I don’t need numbers for the time, this is way cooler” or “This is more natural for my body rhythms” and other naive thoughts. And the more I read the more caught out I was about how clingy it was. 

We depend on time telling for everything in our culture, it is the main structure of our society. We do everything based around time. The stance they were taking, however, was to change the view of time into the visual concept rather than numerical. 

First, look

The contemporary aesthetic included a lot of cohesive colour work in a bright sunlight yellow, contrasting this with a black and grey accent. This theme was used on all imagery, from photography, design and film. It was obvious they wanted an overall impactful “look” for this product. It did make it look professional and well organised, though when I watched the video I was introduced to the concept with a robotic voice over. It was well informed and to the point and used big words to further drive the importance of their research behind the project. It was clearly a persuasive approach into convincing us that our current reading of time was potentially a “toxic delusion”. 

Though I understood the language they were using, it was a language that would be considered more academic than marketable in my opinion. Their language usage was also concise but ultimately intimidating. It came across as existential and conceptual, rather than whimsical, which I think is a loss, they take themselves too seriously so me to take them seriously.  

They believe this is the solution to the additive “short term thinking” that our current culture is subject to. Using sentences like “if you choose to support solar in this critical moment in time” and overall sense of urgency, the language indicates that their main goal is to enter a new chapter of telling time. I think though, to me, it sounded pretentious. The words and overall approach seemed like an overpromising application. It seemed like they were building up this huge influential project and it would change the world. I was just waiting for a “and much, much more” sentence. 

They separated their explanation from its most simplistic approach to its most complex. I did feel this was effective and worked well for the average viewer, it allowed you to see as little or as much as you want. Chapters are as follows… 

Circa Solar in a sentence 

Circa Solar in a paragraph 

Circa Solar prototype 

Circa Solar in a Story 

Nature of Time 

Nature of being

Toxic Delusions 

Radical Coexistence 

Furthermore risks etc. 

What don’t they say is that this will replace time altogether, but it does seem to have a negative look on the current way of telling time, where that be analog or digital, as far as I know, this is all numerical based rather than visual sundial style. I think there is. the reason why we as people in society graduated from the sundial approach to telling time, to a numerical approach. They also don’t seem to mention anything about sundials and how they were a mix of numerical and visual time telling value. They also seem to compare humans to plant life and the “natural” cycle of light. Funny enough, we aren’t plants, we are people. Time to me at this point is a necessary and essential part of society these days, and it is that way for a reason, which I plan to further investigate. Text, Labels Signs are extremely well curated, it looked like everything was perfectly made to empower their message. It also looks like everything is completely staged and based on theory, rather than practice. I would have loved to see someone use their form of time telling for a week. As I think the biggest concern for people would be being late to things. I know that would certainly concern me. 

((photo))

They had a lot of visual features including, imagery, photography, gifs and video. This was mainly used to show their movement of time. 

Things I would note on.

-Didn’t show a human interactive experience, even the voice over was obviously robotic. 

-Going backwards not forwards to me

-seems to be more aesthetically based than practical 

-would be cool if it was added to current time telling, with out the numbers it reminds of me of “island time” or “meet me at noon”. Doesn’t work in an urban sense and creates timeliness risk. 

The artefact itself

The artefact itself looks like a typical watch or phone app. With a basic monochromatic shading. The hand of the clock still moves around the circle, however, the sunrise and sunset elements are emphasised with the dark to light shading. There are dots around the screen where the hand can point to, however, I think it is still confusing to read as you can’t tell exactly what time sunrise is. For example, 6 is normally where the 3 hands would be, they have changed around the structure of what area of the clock means what time. 

The way it works is below. 

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https://apps.apple.com/us/app/day-night-map/id741375889

Sunrise Sunset Lite

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sunrise-sunset-lite/id321324581

Daylight Clock

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/daylight-clock/id822702909

Daylight one

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/daylight-one/id995040350

SolarWatch Daylight & Weather

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/solarwatch-daylight-weather/id1191365122

Sol: Sun Clock 

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sol-sun-clock/id491537291

Sundial - Solar & Lunar Times

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sundial-solar-lunar-times/id976460540

Daylight

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/daylight/id324528814

Sunny Side Up – Sunrise to sunset, the measures time and robotics

komorebi – Platform for generative sunlight and shadow

https://www.creativeapplications.net/processing/komorebi-platform-for-generative-sunlight-and-shadow/

SUN – Sun’s cycle as an interactive (playful) experience

https://www.creativeapplications.net/js/three-js/sun-suns-cycle-as-an-interactive-playful-experience/

To investigate their concept more I wanted to go back to how time telling came about, which I would assume is by the sun rise and sun set. This was further confirmed for me with a video A brief history of time (keeping). Stephan Hawking also has books on a briefer history of time, even briefer history of time. I did not have time to read his books, but this video seems to sum it up pretty well. For a lot of our lives in the early days, sun and seasons were all the time keeping we ever needed, however with the development of civilisation people needed schedules. 

Egyptians made clocks using shadows and split the day into 12 hours depending on where the shadow lay, this can be referred to a sundial. This concept is increasingly similar to how this watch proposes to operate, using the “shadows” and visual representation of time. I can't help to think, is this not just going backwards? Or maybe that's the point? It’s not exactly a wildly new concept, but maybe it's new in regards to how we live now, and new in the way it reinterprets the past. For nighttime they would 12 of their favourite constellations rise. 12 because Egyptians preferred duodecimal numbers to match lunar or funny enough the number of joints we have on each hand. It took over 3000 years of “clock” making to get to where we are today with our digital and analog clocks.

This Artefact is taking on this idea that we could re connect with the natural light cycles again, removing a minute to minute living. Reading the article again I also understand that they are not trying to change the main form of time telling, more so showing an alternative to living with time. Their purpose is to draw us back to our roots of living. Though I can understand that this would be appealing either aesthetically, or used as a form of a relaxed way to tell time, I do not think it would be practicle as the only source of Time telling and not everyone can afford to be on “island time” sort of sounds like it was made by someone who was always late.

Conclusion todo

What is the argument behind the value proposition or the future scenario?

Evaluation questions

References 

Sundials https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tI0GqYJha1Q.

Circa Solar - realign with the nature of time

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1289884842/circasolar?ref=discovery&term=technology%20

A Brief History Of Time(keeping) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjSwRwAqQA4.

[bigskydreaming]

notjustawave replied to your post:

If the only evidence of a character not being...

me seeing ppl act like deadpool movies are the pinnacle of representation like i HAVE to laugh

Like....we’ve been hearing this “oh, progress takes baby steps, one little thing at a time” crap for our entire lives, and guess what? With the exception of representation created by actual marginalized creators who manage to get a platform for it against all odds, most other so called representation from major studios and companies and franchises looks barely any different from the scraps they were giving us twenty years ago.

Baby steps my ass. Just say you’re trying to keep marginalized viewers on the hook watching your stuff without pissing off the homophobes and racists enough that they stop watching your stuff. That’s what it comes down to. That is the only reason most representation is still half-assed, blink and you miss it.

Major billion dollar corporations and highly successful and influential actors who makes millions off every movie honestly have people bending over backwards to say they’re trying or progress isn’t easy and it takes time, like these people are actual victims and like....boxed in by the evil homophobic society or whatever....instead of the tastemakers whose prioritization of straight white heroes for generations is the reason we have to fight so hard to get actual representation in the first place! 

They’re not powerless to do more in the face of a still largely homophobic society, they’ve just made the conscious choice that they care more about making sure homophobes still buy tickets to their movies than they do actually making a difference.

And like, if that’s what they want to do, then fine, they can do that, but what kills me is this idea that we’re supposed to be grateful for whatever little hint of not-straightness or not-whiteness that they shine a spotlight on for 2.5 seconds in a movie before its back to business as usual.....as though they’d do more if they could, really they would, but that’s just the best they could manage because The Homophobes and the Racists, y’see.

The movie Deadpool only happened because Ryan Reynolds wanted it to happen so badly, he wouldn’t let the project die in development hell. He kept making the rounds himself, kept the push on to keep new scripts for it getting made, and he has enough star power and a big enough fanbase that he was able to make it happen when lots of other actors couldn’t. There’s that post going around about how there’s a Bea Arthur T-Shirt he wore in the movie that they had trouble getting in because copyright stuff, so he paid $10K out of his own pocket for the licensing stuff to go through. And on and on.

Like, these aren’t small, innocuous things, they’re a display of the fact that people have power and influence in Hollywood and use those things every single day to get what they want or do things they care about. If the Deadpool production team and star really WANTED Deadpool the character to be the kind of meaningful representation they’re obviously all too happy to accept accolades for having provided already? Then they absolutely had the power to to give Wade an actual romantic history with one of the men in his films, or even one of them as an actual love interest or reciprocated flirting with one of them responding to his come-ons with like, interest of their own. Because notice how that suddenly, magically, turns what WAS just Wade obnoxiously using suggestive humor purely aimed at getting an audience laugh rather than an actual reaction....into two men having a moment like happens hundreds of times throughout every other summer blockbuster between a man and a woman and given the same degree of consideration and attention.

And yes, before someone comes at me with ‘bi and pan people don’t need to be in a romantic or sexual relationship with the same gender to be bi or pan’, like yes, thank you, I, a bisexual man, am aware of the fact that I remain equally bisexual when single, dating a man, dating a woman, or mid-orgy. My sexuality is not dependent on anyone or anything other than my own identity.

But we’re not talking about a real life human being’s identity here. We’re talking about REPRESENTATION, which is a thing created deliberately by human beings making conscious choices about what they want to display and what they don’t, and their reasons for both.

So yes, a bi or pan character is still bi or pan whether we see them kissing the same gender or not, but you can not act like a living bi man’s romantic and sexual interests being driven by his own unique choices as an individual....this is NOT the same thing as a bi or pan character who just so happens to be romantically interested in women love interests save for the occasional suggestive joke aimed at the nearest male character.

Because the former is born of that real life bi man’s entire life, experiences, personality, his BEING. The latter is born of human agendas and creative decisions and studio politics and yes, the fact that Fox and the Deadpool production are more than happy to throw LGBTQ+ viewers just enough table scraps that they’ll stay invested in supporting it, but not so much that it might risk them losing tickets in large numbers from the homophobic sector of their audience.

If I ignore the five men in my vicinity and focus on the one woman because I feel more of an attraction or connection to her for whatever reason, I get to do that because I am my own person, and people can assume whatever they want about what my motives or thought process might be but guess what? It doesn’t matter, because my choices are for me and me alone.

If Deadpool ignores the five men in his vicinity to focus on the one woman, its NOT because he feels more of an attraction or connection to her, because HE DOESN”T FEEL ANY OF THOSE THINGS. He is a fictional character. He only feels and acts upon whatever the writers decide he should feel and act upon, and THEIR motives and thought process absolutely get to be called into question, because they are not individuals making personal choices that are for them and them alone, they are creators of content that benefits and profits from the positive responses and continued support of whomever they choose to cater that content to in order to gain their support and positive response.

And bottom line, they still care more about selling tickets to homophobes than they do about creating real, positive, meaningful representation, and like....people should say that?? We do not owe it to million dollar franchises to say thank you, can we please have some more because of whatever they deign to dole out. Not while still blatantly making it clear PS, glad you liked that little moment there in Act Two Scene Five but tbh, we still care more about not pissing off the dude who lives in his parents’ basement in Kansas and has five guns and every Deadpool action figure ever made and cries into his pillow every night because Sara Lee rejected him when he asked her to his high school prom because he’s weird and ugly and nobody understands his pain like Deadpool, who is also weird and ugly and thus he NEEDS him, and just because he makes dumb jokes to guys onscreen sometimes, that’s no big deal, everyone does that sometimes, its not like he’s REALLY into guys, that’d be weird and also he can’t be because then he wouldn’t be like that homophobic shitbag who lives in his parents’ basement and trolls LGBTQ+ fans on twitter with “Lulz, dumbass losers, just accept that Deadpool doesn’t really represent you and never will, he’s OURS.”

They understand what actual representation looks like, because they’ve been representing the infinite shades of Shitty Straight White Human Being for generations now, and every single straight white man in Hollywood has a story about the character they identified with most as a child and made them want to write or act and basically shaped their entire life.

They know what actual representation looks like and what it means, but they have no interest in providing it so long as it might alienate who they see as the real moneymakers still, knowing they can still keep marginalized viewers watching by doling out the bare minimum and saying “there’s more coming, its just progress takes time, we need to take baby steps” like they’ve been doing for actual, literal decades, with very little actual change to show for it.

Sorry not sorry, but you tell me here’s five cents for you and hand me a nickel and then turn to the shitbag human being standing on the other side of you wearing a GOD HATES GAYS T-shirt and say “and here’s a twenty dollar bill for YOU, don’t spend it all in one place, lol” and then you and he share a hearty laugh while I’m standing there holding a fucking nickel?

LMAO, you can keep your five cents, you’re not like....actually doing me any favors there and I’m not going to feed your ego by pretending you did anything other than give me a shitty fucking nickel you probably picked up off the sidewalk.

[feysandfeels]

Top “Ten” Books 2017

So yesterday I completed my goodreads goal of reading 50 books during the year and I thought it would be a good idea for me to make a top “ten” books. Who knows? perhaps you’re thinking about picking one of these up but you are not so sure. 

Oh and when I say “ten” what I mean is, some series or books by the same author will be put into the same slot… so they will clearly be more than “ten” books. You guys know I can never choose just one thing.

1. I’ll Give You The Sun - Jandy Nelson. #NoahAndJudeForever. Family is important but it’s more important that you find peace with the past.

2. The Sun Is Also A Star - Nicola Yoon. I invite you to believe there’s still good in the world, I invite you to believe in love, destiny and the universe. I am so grateful for this book, it reminded me of some parts of myself that I had lost during the past years, while also maintaining a good and critical commentary of today’s society.

3. Harry Potter - J.K.Rowling. This series proves, proves to everyone that “children books” does not mean that there is no depth or interesting political positions. J.K. Rowling, I am in awe of you! They are all exceptionally good and so entertaining (duh) but here is my current order:

Harry Potter and the Halfblood Prince: GIVE.ME.ALL.THE.DRAMA.

Harry Potter and the Deahtly Hallows: Payoffs, so. many. payoffs!

Harry Potter and the Philosopher Stone: This is not a happy book, my boy Harry has been abused over and over, but his heart of gold pushes through.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban: Sirius my sweet!

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: Cedric Diggory is a victim of “wrong place wrong time”.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: Sirius’s death is worse than in the movie! But also.. Luna Lovegood is the one true queen.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: THE WEASLEYS ARE EVERYTHING!

4. The Sarah J. Mass books: I loved them all and I will forever praise her writing and defend this books as more than “hot fae meets feisty heroine”.

Tower of Dawn: I was not a huge Chaol fan, but his arc overall the series is one of the most realistic out there, making him a coherent character and a very believable person. This book is basically what happens when you say “Chaol deserved better”, well let me tell you he got “better”! Making a great effort to include more representation the most natural way possible (as it should be) this book is as good, as its predecesor expanding the world and deepening the story. #NestaqMyLoves #YreneTowersIsLife.

A Court of Wings and Ruin: Feyre Darling, you are my number one girl. I loved this book and I thought it was really really good. It had it’s flaws (as do all books), and at certain points I wished for other outcomes. Nonetheless it works as an amazing bridge between old plotlines and new ones. I get the feeling that this book sets the ground for coming payoffs. Female at positions of power, NUANCED characters with bad moments as well as good ones, and a great political position (if you missed Rhy’s immigrant statement or Cassian’s rape analogy then I urge you to read it again). ACOWAR is more than people give it credit for and it’s a good political statement on many things… but it did screwed over Mor -although I feel this will payoff at the end and she will be very happy-.

Empire of Storms: I am still recovering.. (if you have nothing else to do and want to see the process of how my heart shattered then you can read my reaction thread here)

5. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte. Here comes Jane redefining what badass means since the 19th century. This books has everything you need! I mean, it’s classic for a reason. But the language! The use of the language is so well executed that it reads like a novel that has 20 years tops. Bronte is a genius. How she managed to do that, I will never know. She had her way with words.

6. All The Light We Cannot See - Anthony Doerr. Being a book about WWII, I knew it was going to hurt, but oh what a thrilling ride this was! The structure of the narrative, the characters, the story: everything was on point!. #WorstPlotTwistOfTheYear

7. Leigh Bardugo: Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom. THESE BOOKS! I URGE YOU I URGE YOU TO READ THEM! This duology brings some of the best characters literature in general – not just Y.A– has seen. I think this is a perfect example of good representation. The only thing missing was a Latino-Latina character, but I still feel this was a diverse cast and I could find myself in different traits of each character. I love this books more than words could express and I hope and wish that Leigh will continue to spend time in this world with them. I just want more of The Dregs. 

8. A Darker Shade of Magic - V. E. Schwab. Now this is a world I am excited to be a part of! You know when you read a book and you feel that you’re scratching just the surface, the tip of the iceberg? well this was that book for me. As its own I’m sure this novel stands on it’s own and you could read it and leave it at that, but I you just know there is more and more. This is the perfect example of a literary synecdoche, in which a part represents to the whole, but it still a part. Meaning that it can be on it’s own or it can be a part of the bigger narrative. I am eagerly waiting for the second installment to arrive (to my house).

9. Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions- BY MY LOVE Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. “Your feminist premise should be: I matter. I matter equally. Not “if only.” Not “as long as.” I matter equally. Full stop.”. If you have trouble understanding feminism please read this, along with her “we should all be feminist TED talk”. If you like to know more about this ideology and how it applies to society nowadays then read it. Chimamanda is one of the greatest voices to explain what it is all about and how we can contribute towards an egalitarian society, Besides is like 100 pages long… so there’s no excuse.

10. Strange The Dreamer - Laini Taylor. Basically it’s Atlantis more developed. I loved Lazlo and I loved Sarai. This is a story unlike any other, in which words come to live and you feel the characters within you. 

Honorary mentions:

11. Rupi Kaur: Milk and Honey and The Sun and Her Flowers. She articulated my thoughts and gave them life. More than considering it poetry, although some of her texts are beautiful poems, I think of them more of aphorisms or thoughts. It helps when you can see your pain voiced by other, it helps you realize things and then it helps you move forward.

12. Atonement - Ian McEwan. GOD BRIONY! I loved this book and I owe it a lot since my dissertation worked because of it. McEwan is great when exploring characters and in going against the common idea that children are nothing if not innocent. Every action has it’s consequence and we should always keep this in mind. #RobbieDeservedBetter #CeciliaTallisQueenOfMyHeart.