#love to see that lack of communication and poor decision making is not just limited to the old men of the series

[loregoddess]

so I've been watching the KH Union Cross stuff (in order, thank goodness, this would be so confusing to piece together otherwise), and like, I knew enough about UX that the appearance of the foretellers at the end of KH3 wasn't confusing bc I knew who they all were, but getting the expanded, explained lore and I'm like okay, actually these weirdos in animal masks are pretty cool, glad to know they'll show up (presumably) in future games

also I'm glad that memorizing the Latin names for the seven deadly sins is finally paying off

[leighlew3]

Hi Leigh!

I hope you don't mind me asking this, but because of your knowledge of the industry, I'm genuinely curious about your thoughts on the whole Warrior Nun situation. With everything going on - fandom noise, all the articles, Netflix CEO commenting, etc - what do you, realistically, think is going to happen? Not only with the show itself but also within the industry. Like, do you think it will have an impact in any way? I've personally never witnessed a streaming service getting so much negative criticism before, but it reminds me of the time around Lexa's death on The 100 and all that followed. It feels like "bury your gays" turned into "cancel your gays" and if nothing else, I just hope all these WLW shows getting cancelled leads to some changes - but again, is that something you see happening?

Buckle up, this is gonna be a novel...

In all honesty if this was a couple years ago, or even just one year ago I would say it might make people less likely to drop LGBTQ shows, absolutely.

But with everything that’s happened over the last year… sadly, I think Hollywood will do what Hollywood so often does and take all the wrong lessons from this and become even more paranoid about greenlighting LGBTQ (and in particular wlw) shows in the first place, for fear if it doesn’t work out they’ll have a widespread backlash from the LGBTQ community and risk being labeled as homophobic. aka “We don’t have to worry about pissing people off with cancellations if we don’t make the shows in the first place.” aka “Not worth the trouble.” could be the perspective of people in charge in the coming days.

Lexa’s death on The 100 taught the lesson that it’s (generally) NOT okay to bury your gays. And then Supercorp on Supergirl sent the message that queerbait is outdated as hell, and just plain embarrassing and unacceptable now (aka either deliver and go there, or stop teasing it and state outright you never will). 

So, I’d love to say Warrior Nun will teach people not to cancel wlw shows that have strong fanbase, but based on recent statements it’s clear that in this case they’re running with the (hard to buy) defense that it wasn’t successful and the fanbase was “small” (?!), or at least not successful and big enough for the budget it required to keep going. So between that + the many, many wlw shows that have been lost over the last year to cancellations... it’s pretty bleak right now, tbh. Recent events overall, even beyond WN, is just likely sending the message to TPTB that it’s risky doing shows featuring (lead especially) LGBTQ rep, in particular shows with wlw rep. It’s sending the message that wlw shows simply don’t perform to the level needed. 

And rather than look at the REAL reason WHY something failed to reach a broader audience or meet someone’s invisible and undefined standards for renewal, TPTB in many cases could sadly chalk it up to “queer women don’t sell” even though there could be so many other reasons a show didn’t reach the level of audience they deem acceptable for a renewal, including but not limited to: bad or limited marketing by the network or streamer themselves and/or lack of time to garner a proper audience (a struggle many streamers have with their shows in general, even outside of LGBTQ rep), or maybe it’s on TPTB behind a show itself aka it simply had subpar writing and poor production value, or bad acting/casting, or lack of chemistry for the lead duo, or just plain terrible creative decisions (see The Wilds Season 2 making a show about girls into a show about boys) etc etc. 

I mean, Dickinson was effing brilliant, fantastic casting and chemistry, incredibly clever and heartfelt writing, solid production value, overwhelmingly positive reviews -- but it never got the marketing it should have had. And thus it quietly came and went, left its mark on its core fans, but was at least able to end in the way they wanted if nothing else, after 3 short seasons. 

Look, one of the most successful streaming series of all time that literally helped launch the format -- was the sapphic as hell Orange is the New Black. But OITNB was the perfect recipe. It was well written, fantastically cast, had organic buzz galore, award noms -- but it also had big marketing. It was the ideal alignment of ALL vital elements coming together to work. 

And I think that show really paved the way for a lot more queer wlw content to emerge, and fill the streamers especially. Alas, sadly, the bubble burst. And it burst for many reasons, including political theater in real life and an attack on LGBTQ rights of late. But for two big reasons, from a strictly industry side: lack of proper marketing for some shows, and lack of quality from others. 

I mean, let’s face it, some of the wlw series that have been axed the last year or two were not always high quality shows overall (I mean come on, some were on The CW for a reason). And it may seem like “But, cishet shows can be silly or cringey or lame and last for years!” Yes, absolutely. And that’s incredibly unfair that LGBTQ audiences can’t have shows that are just straight up camp or have mediocre writing or acting but are still loved by fans and last for a while. But that’s the hierarchy. It’s heteronormative bs and it’s not right, but it’s just how things are until we can successfully change them. The community has to work twice as hard to be taken seriously. And for LGBTQ BIPOC in particular, sadly one can stack those obstacles even more. 

So, I think for the next few years, shows with wlw representation in the TV space (and otherwise) -- well, they’re going to have to check a LOT of boxes in terms of overall quality, casting, concept, execution, talent on screen and bts, etc and then be grabbed up by a partner that truly believes in it enough to properly promote it -- in order for it to stand a real chance at sticking around. 

Warrior Nun had most of the elements above, alas much like Dickinson -- it just did not have the marketing support it needed. Meanwhile others shows had the marketing -- but honestly just weren’t that great in terms of quality, so fans simply didn’t latch on as much, and who could blame them. 

And thus, here we are. So do I think the widespread backlash around Warrior Nun’s cancellation, and fans’ amazing efforts to fight back will have any lasting effect on how Hollywood makes cancellation decisions? In the past I would have said 100%. But for now, I sadly kinda doubt it, because its cancellation was just the latest (but arguably biggest) in a long list of cancellations. 

If anything, right now Hollywood execs may actually feel emboldened to just go with the flow, take the social media fury from fans, and do what they’re gonna do -- with no regard for impact on the LGBTQ community. They also can hide behind the excuse of “Lots of shows and projects are being cancelled left and right, LGBTQ shows are no exception nor being specifically targeted, LGBTQ fans just don’t see the bigger picture. For every LGBTQ show canned, there’s 10 shows about straight people that are dead too.” And I say this -- because I had this said to me recently by someone with power in the industry. Alas what these people don’t understand is it’s NOT the same. Because LGBTQ content is so limited already that the community can’t afford to lose any more. And those 10 cishet shows that got the axe? They’ll just be replaced with 10 more next year. Meanwhile LGBTQ shows? Are less likely now to be greenlit after all this. 

And that’s disheartening. And it’s not okay. 

TLDR: I dunno how all of this will play out for sure. I HOPE the Warrior Nun situation changes something for the better, I just... right now, at this exact moment in time, I don’t feel super confident that it will. I think we just need to get through this painful period in LGBTQ media history and hopefully come out the other side better off somehow, likely after a show with wlw rep hopefully comes along soon that has both the quality AND marketing to truly succeed.

[rachelbethhines]

Tangled Salt Marathon - No Time Like the Past

While I wouldn’t call this the worst episode of the series, there are several others I dislike more, I would call this the most ill conceived story in the show. 

All the other bad episodes have potential but are let down by poor presentation, boring predictability, or sloppy planning. This one however, is fundamentally flawed in it’s very basic premise and so ranks in the bottom of most fans lists. Even people who are far more forgiving of season three and than I am, and are hardcore New Dream stans, still dislike this episode. That’s how bad it is. 

Summary: Rapunzel discovers Old Lady Crowley tossing out Cassandra's things. She is upset and demands that they be left alone. She then has Lance and Eugene help her save all of Cassandra's mementos and personal belongings, but she becomes saddened when Eugene reminds her that Cassandra turned her back on "her". Rapunzel takes a box of her things along with, unknowingly, a mysterious hourglass. As she examines it, she accidentally drops and smashes it and she and Pascal find themselves sent back into the past. They run into a teenage Eugene and Lance who keep calling Rapunzel "Sideburns". Rapunzel realizes that she and Pascal have inhabited the bodies of the Stabbington Brothers and decide to recruit the young thieves in getting the hourglass from the castle back.

Fun Fact! That Dummy is Rapunzel’s Doing 

Minor nitpick here, but Cass had nothing to do with putting Eugene’s face on her sparring dummy. Rapunzel voluntarily did that back in Under Raps. Cas never requested it nor even expressed any joy over receiving said ‘gift’. 

Basically the show is attributing one of Rapunzel’s mistakes/flaws to Cassandra in order to introduce a very nonsensical plot point later. So I need ya’ll to keep that in mind as we go along.  

Lets Talk About the Episode’s Ordering 

We don't have production codes for season three like we did for the previous two seasons. So we can’t know for sure what order everything was originally planned in, but I would argue that this episode should have came before Return of the King. 

For starters this is a “bottle” episode; it takes place mostly in the past and the only present day characters who show up are Eugene, Raps, Lance, and Crowely. As such you could potentially slot this episode in anywhere before Cassandra’s Revenge. You can’t really do that with most of the other episodes so it could have been easily moved around when airing. 

Therefore, I would argue that it should have been the first episode after Rapunzel’s Return for three key reasons. 

It would have given Edmund time to travel to Corona and give Raps time to start up big building projects like fixing Old Corona. In fact she’s already approving building plans for the capitol city at the start of the episode. Which could even explain why she took so long getting to the castle repairs if she was taking care of the stuff that the Saporians messed up else where.  

Rapunzel’s stance over wanting to keep Cassandra’s things makes more sense early on, both in universe and in a meta context. Raps would still have hope if Cass has only been gone for a month or two instead what would now be four or five months down the line. It also makes sense that Crowely wouldn’t wait around for that long. And from a meta standpoint, the audience would still be oblivious to what the heck Cass was up to and could theoretically side with Raps better; or at least empathize with her view point more, even while disagreeing with her. 

Events in this episode better explains Eugene’s decisions in Return of the King and gives the audience more context for certain stuff.  

So Why Is There a Random Magical Time Traveling Hourglass in the Storage Vault?

Slowly but surely the series has abandoned all pretense that there’s any logical world building in the show. Magical things just appear randomly now without any explanation whatsoever. Worse than that, things like the hourglass and map to the cursed tomb are treated as if they were always there, unlike the magical beings that they happened to run into in past seasons. 

The problem with this is a lack of consistency. You can’t have sceptics like Eugene and Varian if magic is so common and wide spread that anyone can run into it at anytime. Not to mention it diminishes the specialness and importance of the sundrop and moonstone if powerful magical items can be so easily found and stirred, undermining important plot points and the tension surrounding them. 

But most frustrating of all, is that this could have been easily fixed by just stating on screen at some point that magic attracts other magic. Meaning it’s only Rapunzel herself who routinely runs into these things and not just everybody and anybody. 

None of This Stuff Holds Any Meaning

Show don’t tell!

At several points through out season three, both Raps and Cass morn over Cassandra’s left behind things. They tell us constantly that these objects hold significant meaning to them, but I, the viewer, have no damn clue as to why. 

We were never shown on screen what was so special about these things other than the fact that it was junk Cass collected. There’s no story attacked to these assortment of objects nor any previous indication that Cassandra valued them beyond their usefulness. As such, any scenes involving her stuff fall emotionally flat. 

Eugene is the One in the Right Here. 

Eugene’s right. 

Any well adjust and mature adult will tell you he’s right. 

If someone doesn’t want a relationship with you, than that’s it. There is nothing you can do but to move on. It sucks, but its life. To ignore that is to ignore someone else’s boundaries and personal autonomy; while also devaluing yourself and you’re own needs. 

In a competent show this would be a set up for Rapunzel to learn something about letting go and taking care of oneself emotionally. 

But this isn’t a competent show. 

But Lobster is for Poor Folk

Food history time!

Lobster, and shellfish in general, have been considered low class food for centuries. Especially around costal areas like Corona. It’s easy to attain, cheap, and not regulated like hunting was in much of Europe. In America, specifically, lobster was fed to prisoners and there’s historical accounts of riots being started over it.  

Heck, less than forty years ago, no one lived on the coast but poor people. That’s why there’s historical communities of black people living on the southeastern islands in the US and why my father grew up in the swamps of Alabama during the 50s and 60s. 

The gentrification of coastal property and seafood, like lobster, is a very recent phenomenon in human history, starting in the late 70s early 80s with the booming tourism industry and increasing globalization.   

So while I understand that the joke here is meant to be reflective of our current understanding of lobster being a status symbol, in universe, it’s the equivalent of Eugene getting excited for chicken nuggets instead of his usual bowl of cereal because the story takes place before the 20th century.  

This means that these kids are so poor that fucking mcdonald’s fast food would be considered a rare treat compared to the slop they usually eat. Yet again what is meant to be a lighthearted joke turns suddenly dark when you stop to think about it for all of two seconds all because the writers are so flippant about their world and characters. 

This Wasn’t Planned Out, So the Timeline Doesn’t Add Up Anymore and Resources are Wasted

Remember the flashback in The Return of Strongbow?

Now I need you to remember that season three is two years later from season one and the movie. Eight years ago then, would be ten years ago now. 

The Eugene and Lance in the bottom picture is suppose to be roughly the same age as the Eugene and Lance in the top picture; give or take a few months. 

I know teenage boys can grow fast, but not that fast. 

Eugene at 16 looks the same as he does at 26. All because the writers were too lazy to preplan things out ahead of time. 

We should have seen the teen models with recasted voices back during that first flashback if they were going to tell this story later. Or the previous plot point should have been less than eight years ago. 

In fact the first flashback no longer makes any sense being so many years ago given Eugene’s engagement and recent breakup with Stalyan, and the later reveal that he was working for the Baron during the original movie. 

Sloppy planning like this not only makes for a confusing timeline but it also wastes limited resources. I like the new models, I like the actors cast for these younger roles, and I do like the concept of seeing more of Eugene’s past. But going through all of that trouble and money for what amounts to one throw away episode is mismanagement of the budget and work schedule.  

Baby Varian Is the Episode’s Only Saving Grace 

I know people are divided on the deign here. Some love it and some hate it, but that’s a personal taste thing. The actual scene itself is golden either way, because it’s such a funny eater egg. Fans on both sides made memes out of this for days. It’s legendary. 

Personally I’m more in the ‘love it’ camp, though I can see the issues people have with the design. My main defense of it is more the fact that we got kid designs for the other OCs in the show and it’s only fair Varian got one as well. The fact that he’s in smaller versions of the S1 clothes doesn’t bother me anymore than when Lance ran around for two seasons in the same outfit, including when he was a kid. 

So if I like it, then why am I talking about it a salt review? 

Cause the most memorable part of an episode shouldn’t be a throw away gag! 

People bring up baby Varian way more than they do about anything else in the episode, and no it’s not just because the character popular. It’s because most would like to forget what comes after this scene. 

Where is Quirin, by the Way?

Why is your six year old son running around the big city unsupervised?

This wouldn’t get talk about as much it wasn’t for the fact that Quirin being neglectful in season one was a motivating factor in his conflict with Varian. A conflict that was suppose to be resolved back in Rapunzel’s Return but we the audience have yet to visually see any difference in behavior since then.  

Quirin’s absence here in the past highlights his absence in the present day and reminds the audience aware that we’ve not been given a satisfying conclusion to one of the most important arcs in the series.  

Lets Talk About Wasted Potential 

Like I said, I like the idea of exploring Eugene’s past. But we should have gotten that back in season two when it was more relevant. Part of why this episode fails is because Eugene has reached the end of his original character development. He’s now on an identity crisis arc which has nothing to do with this episode.  

But you know who still hasn’t finished developing? Rapunzel. 

Rapunzel has lots to still learn and viewing her past through outside eyes could have turned this story into something really special. Especially with the ‘inhabiting another body’ plot point. 

You have no end of options here, 

Have Raps inhabit Cassandra’s body for a day and gain insight into what motivates her. It could have been either before or after they met, both offers up possibilities. 

Have Raps inhabit Eugene’s body and experience what he had to deal with growing up and come to see his point of view. (This could have also worked with the Sabbingtons set up had the writers not been stupid.) 

And my personal favorite, send her back to right after Queen for a Day and have her stuck in either Varian’s or Ruddiger’s bodies. Force her to see what she did to him and have her acknowledge she was wrong. 

And those are just the most obvious choices, there’s other more out of left field things you can do that would still work with good writing. Like exploring Lady Caine’s past, inhabiting Arianna’s body and learning how to be a real queen, get dumped into actual young Gothel and lay out clues to the future Zhan Tiri plot, or possess one of the Brotherhood and experience the final days of the Dark Kingdom; the list just goes on and on and on. 

But I Thought You Didn’t Put Kids in Jail Frederic?

Remember that Raps and Pascal are possessing the Stabbingtons who are still teenagers here. They can’t be much older than Varian. 

This means that Varian isn’t some special case. Teens have received harsh and deadly punishments in the past for non-violent crimes like theft. 

Also teens are called kids still by the majority of the cast. They’re aren’t considered adults with the same rights as someone in say their twenties, yet they can be punished the same as an adult would. Which is horrendous in any time period. 

So in conclusion, Frederic is a fucking liar! 

Tangled the Series can’t decide if it’s in the far past or a reflection of the modern day. As such it winds up supporting the worst of both worlds. Barbaric practices like hanging for minor crimes and prison slave labor are treated as the norm and never called out for the horrific things that they are; treated as a joke even, but we’re suppose to accept that this world also somehow views adolescence through the lens of late 20th century sensibilities even as it forces minors to go through such atrocities. 

Like what are you trying to say show? What is your message on the transition of adolescence to adulthood regarding rights and responsibilities? And don’t tell me ‘it’s not that deep’ because this is suppose to be a coming of age show! That’s the entire premise of the series! 

So How Old Are Stan and Pete Again?

I was always under the impression that Pete was a newbie guard, closer to Cass and Eugene’s age than say Cap or Frederic. That’s why he screws up so much because he’s inexperienced, why he seemed to be the closest thing to a equal colleague Cass had in the guard when she was also just starting out, and why I assumed those braided girls from the movie were his sisters. 

I mean there was nothing on screen previously that would necessarily contradict this reveal, it just doesn’t feel right, that’s all. I guess he could be like 20 here and be 30 in the show. That would make him only a few years older than Eugene, but still doesn’t explain why he’s so useless a decade later. 

I’m fine with Stan being here though. I always thought of him being the older of the two. In fact I headcannon Willow as his mysterious wife that he talked about back in Monty’s episode during season one. (She’s Stan and Pete’s beard, and they’re totally in a open poly relationship. That’s why they’re allowed to stay in the royal guard despite being so incompetent cause they’re technically Ferderic’s in-laws and Rapunzel’s uncles. Just no one ever talks about it cause it’s a minor sandal for a princess to marry lower class and Willow’s hardly ever there.) 

And Why Does Xavier Have All Those Plot McGuffins? 

I know we’ll never get an answer, but at this point Xavier’s exposition fairy powers border upon ridiculousness. It’s just lazy and a waste of character. 

So How Does Time Travel Work In This?

There are three types of time travel stories in fiction. 

First is the ‘Changeable Past, Changeable Future’. You see this in Back to the Future. What you do in the past will change the future, i.e. your present. You may or may not remember that you did it, but be warned you could change things too much and break stuff. Like erasing yourself from existence, or ruining your love life ect. The only way to fix it is to go back in time again and change stuff again. But beware of paradoxes or you may destroy the universe altogether.  

The second is the ‘Alternate Timeline’, where changing things creates new realties and it’s a matter of finding the right reality again. The tv show Sliders is a great example of this. Each new timeline is a different dimension. What you do in one won’t effect your original point of origin, only that particular world. The challenge if often getting home again because the probable diverging timelines are infinite and the changes of getting back are a zillion to one. 

Third is the ‘Closed Time Loop’. No matter what you do nothing will change. The future is inevitable and whatever you do in the past was always meant to happen anyways. Gargoyles handles this really well. You can also have ‘fix points’ where certain important things are set in stone but small things can be changed like in several Doctor Who episodes. Braking a fix point breaks the universe once again, while paradoxes are often the solution rather than the threat. 

So which type of time travel is Tangled dealing with here? 

Scenes like the conversation regarding Pete’s and Stan’s mustache or the ones involving Eugene working on his smolder suggest a closed time loop. Yet the ending to this episode reveals a changed future. Further still the grandfather paradox revolving around the hourglass would make you think an alternate timeline yet, we’ve no indication that anything else changed other then Eugene’s opinions on Cass, and Raps shows no concern about getting back to her original point in time indicating that it actually isn’t another dimension.... so what is it then? 

You don’t have to have a tightly plotted time travel story to have an entertaining piece of media. Endgame is riddled with plot holes and contradicts itself constantly, but what it lacks in coherent plot it makes for with fun characters, emotional story beats, and good pacing that manages to balance the action with the drama while hiding the cracks just enough that you don’t lose immersion. 

Tangled however fails at even this because it gets the character beats so fundamentally wrong.  Like you may dislike where the characters ended up in Endgame, but can’t say that those developments didn’t match the characters’ previous storylines and logical trajectory. Tony finally becomes the selfless hero by committing the ultimate sacrifice, Steve learns self care as a mirror to Tony’s arc as they were always parallels to each other, Bruce learns to accept himself, Thor processes his grief and lets go of the role he was assigned at birth but never truly fit into, and Nat becomes the leader she was destined to be rather than the sidekick.  

What happens to the characters in this episode however makes no sense. 

This is Another Missed Opportunity to Explore Eugene’s Past

The other problem behind the episode is that we don’t actually learn anything new. If you’re going to promise a story focusing on Eugene’s past then I expect to actually glean some new insights. 

We still don’t know why he’s working with Baron or how he fell in/fell out with him, what his relationship with Stalyan is like, how he became so cynical; not just the general basics, like the orphanage, but that point in his life where decided that survival meant giving up his morals and ethics; where did he first learn his better ethics that he originally suppressed (cause it sure as heck wasn’t Rapunzel), and when did he and Lance become separated? 

This are questions that series decides to raise by making allusions to them and building conflicts off of them but never wants to explain the details of where they originated from. It’s super frustrating and wholly unnecessary.  If you didn’t think the story of Eugene’s past worth telling then why did up repeatedly bring it up Chris? 

Why Are You Surprised by This Rapunzel?

Rapunzel you know Eugene’s past. You know what he used to be like. You were literally there in the movie and saw him being an ass before this. You didn’t start to like him until he dropped his guard down in the flooded cave back when you both where about to die. 

You fell in love with him when he showed you his real self and he fell in love with you when you proved that you were accepting of that. You earned each others’ trust. This here; angrily yelling at him and judging him, when you’re already hiding who you really are from him both literally and figuratively, is a breaking of that trust. 

Who the fuck are you any more, Rapunzel? 

Cause you’re not the same character from the movie. You’re not even the same character from season one. But whoever hell you are now, it’s not an improvement I can tell ya that. 

So How Did The Hourglass Go From the Treasury to the Basement Storage, and How Would Raps Know It Was There At This Point and Time?

I’m guessing the implication here is that Crowley put Cass’s stuff in the vault, but like why the fuck would she do that? We’re not talking about a family attic here, but the royal safe. The most heavily guarded room in the castle with the kingdom’s most priceless treasures and antiques. Nothing Cass owned was that valuable.  

Rapunzel Is Full of Shit

Oh let me count the numerous ways in which this whole lecture is stupid. 

Rapunzel left Varian behind. Rapunzel left Varian behind multiple times, including that time he was thrown in jail. She was not a good friend, and no, this is not a case of her learning from her past because not once has she ever admitted that she was wrong to do that. So this scene just makes Raps look like a hypocrite. 

Eugene does not need to relrean a lesson on being a better a person. He did that during the movie and has progressed beyond that point. This ‘lesson’ is a waste of time and a misuse of the characters.

This reframes Rapunzel as being in the right during her argument with older Eugene at the beginning of the episode, even though she’s not. In fact this is such a counterintuitive plot point that it boggles the mind. Who structures a narrative this way? Why so blatantly point out how the main character is wrong if not to have her learn something? Why frame the story to make the person who’s personal conflict isn’t even the episode’s focus, into the one who needs to learn something? Especially if that something is already a lesson that they’ve learned on screen beforehand.

And why, oh good heavens why, would you teach children such a toxic message? Like on the surface it sounds like something you’d hear in a children's show, but the context of it is justifying harmful behavior where you selfishly ignore other people’s wishes and boundaries just to satisfy you’re own personal desires.  

And finally, Eugene and Lance do not work as a parallel to Raps and Cass. Cassandra is an adult who left of own free will. Lance is a teenager who was arrested due to Rapunzel’s own actions. Eugene isn’t the one who is responsible here, its Rapunzel. Who also left them both behind in her carelessness. Secondly, Eugene’s decisions are spurned by years of trauma and a healthy fear of dying, while Rapunzel’s is wrapped up in her own need to always be right and to keep her immature and fanciful outlook of the world intact. As harsh as it seems, what Eugene did was based off a predetermine agreement and presumably Lance would have acted the same way or been pressured to act the same way by Eugene. In short, Eugene’s cynical world view as a teen is not the source of his disagreement with Rapunzel but an adult perspective back by common sense and a respect of others choices. It makes no sense for present day Eugene to ‘learn’ anything from this misadventure that he didn’t already know and for Rapunzel to not learn anything that would actually tie the parallel together. 

Locking Another Teen Inside a Jail Cell With Another Adult as a Joke, Does Not Erase the Inappropriateness of Varian’s Story

The episode tries to add another joke about Shorty sneaking into the prison without the guard knowing, but that still doesn’t excuse the fact someone had to have tossed Lance in there with him on purpose. Otherwise Lance wouldn’t have assumed Shorty was a fellow prisoner if he or the guard that locked him up saw Shorty sneak in before then. 

Furthermore Lance’s nonchalant response suggests this is not an out of the ordinary occurrence. Nor do any of the other guard comment upon the irregularly of teens being jailed with an adult. Now add in the fact that the show fails to clarify that previous ‘cellmate’ line from Rapunzel’s Return and now gives us more confirmation that Varian was underfed and malnourished for a year with that gruel joke and you have a horrifying picture. 

Shorty might be non-threating, but that doesn’t mean Andrew, a known attempted murderer and manipulator, is too. Nor any other adult who previously was housed with a teen before then. This is still very much not okay and no amount of ‘jokes’ will suddenly make it right.  

Raps, Who is an Adult, Just Physically Threatened Two Teenaged Boys and It’s Played as a Joke.... 

How many times do I have to say it? Humor does not fix bad writing. I’m not laughing when a heroine at age 20, threatens a couple of kids for merely annoying her. Especially when said heroine has a history of abusing children; because let me repeat once again, neglect is abuse!

This is a Lie

No you wont. 

Rapunzel never tells Eugene what happens on screen. I suspect that if she ever did, they would no longer be together, because what she wound up doing here was a violation of trust and boundaries in the worst possible way.  

And This is Now a Time Paradox 

A Grandfather Paradox to be specific. How can Rapunzel be here in the past to break the hourglass if the hourglass that sent her here is broken? 

In a competent series this would be the point of a future conflict and not the actual resolution. It’s not a closed time loop because of the paradox and the changes we’ll see in the future. 

So either she’s in an alternate timeline/dimension and just doesn’t gives a shit; leaving the real Eugene, Lance, Cass, ect. to go on without her; or she’s just broke the universe and everything is slowly unraveling around her; galaxies are dying as she whines about being dumped, people in the future are being eased from existence, and God is cursing her name for ruining his creation, all the while she carries on oblivious to the destruction in her wake, as usual. 

That’s it. Those are you’re only two options now. Is everyone from here on a fake copy or is Rapunzel the damned destroyer of worlds? You decide. 

So This Confirms That the Stabbingtons are Indeed “Family”

Another reason why I place this before Return of the King; it explains why Eugene considers the Stabbingtons ‘family’. Though if it was Rapunzel he actually bonded with and not the real Sideburns, then how much of his feelings are real and how much of them were fabricated by her? How much agency did this episode steal from him?

So What Exactly Did We All Change?

Well the dummy no longer has Eugene’s face, but Cass’s painting of the three of them still has him ripped out of the photo, soo... Keeping in mind that Raps painted the dummy anyways and considering that Moonandra tries to kill him later on; I’m going to guess that Cass’s feelings weren’t actually altered. If anything their relationship might actually be worse now, cause Cassandra keeps acting like she’s never had friends and Eugene has taken up Rapunzel’s blind devotion. 

All that development in season one is just, poof, gone. Also it’s quite possible that the first movie as well has now it has been erased from existence as Eugene got his needed character development eight years too early. How the hell that’s suppose to work, I don’t know. 

Outside of the that we get no confirmation how anybody else was effected, even though a more brainwashed Eugene running around would undoubtedly have caused a butterfly effect. Don’t expect that to be explored anytime soon. 

Though, it would explain why he’s suddenly such a doormat in season three, if this was the second episode as theorized. 

No! This is the Wrong Lesson!!!

Let me explain narrative promises. 

Everyone, on some basic fundamental level, understands how stories work. We hear them recounted to us over and over again from the day we're born to the day we die. It’s integral to how we communicate as human beings. Everyone knows innately how to tell a story even if that person couldn’t tell you how stories or structured or what certain literary terms mean, but they do it every day just through speaking. And while most audiences can’t always pin point what upsets them about a story they can for sure notice when things are off and not satisfying to experience. 

Now that doesn’t mean that everyone can write an awarding winning novel, that study of a craft isn’t important, nor that every amateurish critique thrown at any given media is valid. But it does mean that people have come to expect certain storytelling practices and can pick up on narrative cues. We’ve familiarized ourselves with the language of film, novels, comics, ect, into order to comprehend what’s going on. 

Rules of writing are just following that established language so that the audience can keep up. You can break these rules, sure, but unless you know what you’re doing and have a good narrative reason to do so, then you can easily lose you’re audience. And if you’re making money off said audience that’s something you want to avoid. 

A narrative promise is a cue; a set up that lets the audience know that ‘hey this is important, pay attention to this cause it’ll come back into play later’. Now that the audience has been alerted to the plot point they expect fulfillment of the promise. If you break that promise, either through poor set up, lack of follow through, or by breaking an established convention of writing for no other reason then because you just wanted to, your audience is going to walk away unsatisfied. 

The argument at the beginning of the episode was a narrative promise. It was a cue that set up the interpersonal conflict of the main character. For add context, I know that this is a coming of age story. Convention would dictate that the protagonist would resolve this conflict by learning they were wrong. 

That’s not what happened here. 

Convention was subverted. It wasn’t the protagonist who grew and change, it was the person they were in conflict with who did. And it wasn’t subverted because of any greater narrative reason, or future pay off, or even as effort to be shallowly ‘clever’; it was subverted because the author just didn’t want to hold the main character accountable for anything. Because said character has now become his avatar for his wish fulfillment fantasy and having the main character admit fault would be to admit fault in ones own self. Rapunzel doesn’t feel like Rapunzel this season because she’s just Chris in a wig. 

The episode broke a narrative promise to the audience; both within the episode and in the greater premise of the story, because of ego. 

I don’t claim this episode is bad just because of personal taste nor because I find it morally repulsive (even though both those things are true), I call it bad because it exhibits bad writing. Plain and simple. 

Way To Undermine The Entire Point of the Original Movie, Show

Speaking of breaking narrative promises.... 

TTS is suppose to be a squeal to the original movie. It’s even in the title of the show; both of them. In one fell swoop, the series has managed to sabotage it’s very reason for existing, as it erases Eugene’s motivation and the inciting incident that kick started the film. 

 Way to fucking go. 

To further twist the knife, it diminishes the duel protagonist of said film in order to prop up a series original character, who isn't even present in the episode itself. 

I don’t mind Cassandra’s existence. I don’t even mind her being the new deuteragonist and one of the main villains; even though she wouldn’t have been my first pick to fulfill those roles given her lack of set up. But I do fucking mind it if she upstages other characters and/or derails their character arcs in the process. 

This is the Death of New Dream 

I was still in denial when this episode first aired. I honestly believed that this and The Return of the King was build up to a third “betrayal” where Eugene finally became fed up with Rapunzel’s bullshit and joined forces with Zhan Tiri. I thought the end of the series would have Rapunzel apologize to everyone she did wrong, Varian, Cass, and Eugene, in order to break ZT’s hold on them, and that true love’s kiss would reunite the sundrop and the moonstone and that would just tie everything together into a neat little bow and give us a truly daring character study of a Disney hero. 

Oh dear merciful heavens, was I ever wrong.  

How did we go from season one’s challenging and mature storyline, complete with Disney’s first real anti-villian, to this?! 

What the hell happened!? 

Rapunzel not only disrespects Eugene’s opinions, violates his privacy and trust as she manipulates him as a teen, and then brainwashes him to think like her (even if accidentally), but doesn’t even have good grace to tell him. She instead has the audacity to look all happy and self congratulatory because she got want she wanted. She, and the show at large, doesn’t care what evil thing she does to get the desired outcome Rapunzel wants. 

Rapunzel in this show is a spoiled brat. And the image of her and her now lobotomized boyfriend staring dead eyed at a picture of the creator’s previous waifu OC with plastic smiles on their faces, sums up this series perfectly. 

Conclusion 

This isn’t even the worst episode of the series guys. I don’t know if it would even make it onto a bottom five list. That’s how much crap I have to wade through when it comes to this show. This is however the most damaging episode to the franchise as a whole. 

Not even the most hardcore of New Dream fans want to acknowledge the existence of that final scene, and Rapunzel stans won’t defend her beyond, ’well she didn’t mean too, it’s the writing that’s bad.’ Yeah, the writing is bad, that’s why the character can’t and shouldn’t be defended, not here and not in other badly written episodes where she also does bad things and never makes up for it. 

Anyways I’m finally caught up to where I left off, before the move, though sadly I don't think I’ll get this series done by the end of the month like I had originally hoped. But if you would like to help out I have a ko-fi you can drop a tip into if ya want. 

https://ko-fi.com/rachelbethhines

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Anonymous asked: I really enjoy your cultured posts and especially about wine. I never knew that Roger Scruton wrote about wine! You tantalisingly talked in bits and pieces in past posts about your chateau vineyard in France. I understand why you protect your privacy but can you say a bit more. I was also hoping as a wine connoisseur you can explain to me what wine sommeliers in restaurants mean about wine having ‘terroir’? Are they just making stuff up to look down on us poor saps or is there something to it?

Your experience with the sommelier reminded me of the classic British television comedy, ‘Fawlty Towers’, where John Cleese’s perpetually hard pressed hotel owner, Basil Fawlty, says with his usual sarcasm, “I can certainly see that you know your wine. Most of the guests who stay here wouldn’t know the difference between Bordeaux and Claret.”

I’m sorry that you had from what I can surmise bad experiences with sniffy sommeliers when it came to appreciating wine. I have had one or two depressing experiences myself but it’s important to call out such rudeness so that others don’t have their dining experience spoiled. In Paris at least I can honestly say the spectre of the rude sommelier is dying out - and I have eaten in many great restaurants where I’ve had very lovely experience chatting with sommeliers versed in their wines.

These days sommeliers are positively jumping for joy if you show any kind of wine literacy. Don’t forget these men (and women) have worked extremely hard to hone a refined sense of their craft and they just want to share that knowledge and wisdom with you - otherwise it goes to waste.

Everyone likes to be appreciated and so I go out of my way to listen and appreciate their recommendations based on what I like or if I am looking to pair something interesting with the food I have ordered. If I don’t know I just ask. Indeed often I do know but I still ask because I’m curious to know if there is a better choice of wine and also because I want to learn. There is no shame in asking.  Remember they are there to guide you to have the best dining experience in their restaurant. So engage with them with kind civility and your palate will thank you. And tip generously (if applicable).

I do indeed have a chateau vineyard in southern France - south of Paris anyway. But it’s not just mine. I invested in a dream that belonged to my two cousins who are the real wine connoisseurs. Out of their request for discretion I don’t talk too much about it here on this blog (they follow my blog). I can say that I admire both my cousins hugely (I get brownie points for saying that) for their hard work, risk taking, passion, and their artisanal flair.

Both my cousins gave up lucrative corporate careers to follow their dream to owning and managing a small vineyard. In this case it was bought from the family of my cousin’s French wife; her very old traditional family had the vineyard for generations. They had fought off French revolutionaries who wanted to burn down their chateau because of their old roots but they managed to prevail and survive. They barely survived the Great French Wine Blight (the Phylloxera infestations) that was a severe blight of the mid-19th century that decimated many of the vineyards across France.  But times change. It’s not a romantic business but an unforgiving one. So rather than sell up to rapacious Chinese investors and other outsiders they instead sold it to us.

I have my day job and that keeps me extremely busy. My two cousins (and their French wives) manage the whole vineyard with other hired staff. They make all the decisions and I do the drinking (for quality control purposes, naturally). I help out when I can. This could be from business marketing advice or attending a few wine merchant trade shows. I often go to Shanghai and Hong Kong for my corporate work and my Chinese is passable; and so I help out my cousins who might be out there when I am there too. In fact one of my cousins was out in Shanghai just before the Wuham Covid 19 outbreak in China; thankfully he got out fine and didn’t suffer any symptoms after his trip.

More fun for me is actually spending time on the vineyard. Call me weird but I really do look forward to rolling up my sleeves and getting down in the dirt. It’s incredibly back breaking work - pruning or harvesting - but very rewarding because we’re all in it together. The camaraderie is immense.

I love escaping into the countryside and I just enjoy the easy bonhomie and companionship of my cousins and their French partners for whom wine is a passion and a way of life. Besides learning a lot more about wine, I also get to run, cycle, and hike in the surrounding hills, a world away from crazy city life.

Like many vineyards in France (and indeed vineyards around the world) the Coronavirus has made it an even more challenging environment to produce and sell wine. We did a lot of business in China and now, like many others, we’ve taken a hit. But we’re not down for the count. We’re fortunate that we are more robust with what we have in place. But like everyone else uncertainty of the future with an expected recession means we need to dig in deep and weather the oncoming storms. But we’ll be fine.

So what is this odd French word, ‘terroir’?

The French have this expression they use when it is clear they are tasting a true terroir wine - "un goût de terroir" - a taste of the place.

Terroir is a largely misused term, though the general understanding of the term of terroir is correct that it refers to the place of where the wine is made. Terroir is not something you pick up after tasting a few wines from one vineyard. It's more complicated than that, which of course makes it harder to use. Which is no fun, because people really like saying fancy French words when talking about wine.

A classical definition of terroir would be something along the lines of this: terroir is the aggregate factors that affect the physical vineyard site: geography, geology, weather, and any other relatively unique environmental conditions that might affect the process or final quality of the fruit.

Put simply terroir is the combination of micro-climate, soil, sun exposure, weather conditions and other environmental influences on wine. To Europeans in general and to the French and Italians in particular, terroir is a key indicator of quality in wine.

The best way to understand what what terroir means is to think of terroir as a different accent - an English accent sounds different from a Scottish accent which sounds different from a Welsh accent. Although the English language is the same, these accents have their own sense of place. Once you are fluent in the language of wine these different accents start to become a lot more pronounced. These ‘wine accents’ echo the terroir where the grapes were grown and the wines were made.

So what does this mean in practice? Take the Pinot Noir grape. Pinot Noir is a notoriously difficult grape to grow because it is very fussy with climate. With the grape being so fussy it is remarkable that the grape can be grown in many parts of the world. Its home is in Bourgogne (Burgundy), France, and yet the grape is grown successfully in Germany (where it's called Spatburgunder), Italy, United States, New Zealand and Australia, among others. So while Pinot Noir is a very fussy grape, it can grow in different climates. It's just the the way it expresses itself can be vastly different. This starts with fruit, whereby it will express a wide range from red fruits like cranberry (cooler climates) right through to black fruits like plum (warmer climates).

The key is the soil - and the sweat and blood that goes into cultivating it.  

Soils contain a huge array of types of rock, decomposed rock, and organic materials, in a seemingly infinite array of mixes of topsoil, subsoil, and bedrock. Grape vines tend to grow vigorously and this causes a tendency toward better wines emerging from counterintuitive places - places with relatively poor soils. Too many nutrients and too much water near the surface and the vines will not push down deeply into the ground, seeking out what it needs to live. The belief is, if it does so it will find a more complex variety of nutrients that lead to better, more nuanced wines.

Soil, however, is not the only facet that gives us a full sense of what terroir means.

It is not enough to have a great mix of soils. Vines grown for grapes have a range on Earth in which they will ripen. Champagne, for example, is near the northern ripening limit for growing grapes — around the 49th parallel. They usually do not achieve anywhere near full ripeness nor do they want it - they need lots of acidity - so a northern location works well for their purposes. Too far south, however, and relentless sun and warmth will yield over ripened, jammy, sometimes stewed tasting fruit, lacking acidity and possessing searing levels of alcohol, at times. So the parallel on which the vines are planted is important.

Next, prevailing weather patterns in the region, such as adequate, but not typically heavy rain is necessary. The further north the vineyard site, the more that frosts and hail will likely be factors in varietal planting decisions, as well as harvesting. Achieving full ripeness before vinification is generally the goal for winemakers, but in certain climates the likelihood of sudden rain and weather changes which would dilute or damage the fruit, all go into the perception of the terroir.

Where the vines are planted, even within a commune in Burgundy, can prove very important for several of the reasons listed above: a southeast facing slope in the Côtes de Nuits, for example, provides a poor soil (meaning a good soil for wine grapes,) making the roots grow down deep into limestone, searching for nutrients. The top of the slope to the vineyard's back creates a microclimate and gives a small rain shadow effect, potentially dropping a major portion of rain on the western slope away from the quickly-harvesting vignerons on the other side, before their crop becomes diluted or destroyed. Not to say it always works out this way, because it does not. The point here is that the position within the mesoclimate and even microclimate is important.

Further, the angle or aspect toward the sun in our example is tremendously important. In our example, facing southeast gives the grapes a higher average number of hours per day to ripen in the sun, without getting the stronger, sometimes-harsher evening sun directly. When there is rain, rot can be a problem which leads to yet another factor - slope. A well-drained soil is very important, and altitude is a factor, which will lead to variation throughout a vineyard on such a slope.

Finally, a very important factor in terroir that is not always mentioned is the hand of man.

In the local customs for wine growing, winemaking, cuisine around those wines, and traditions sometimes dating back thousands of years, there emerges a tendency to understand what works well in the local soil and climate. Based on those ideas, certain decisions are made in the cellars that nudge the wine in the direction of one style or another. Decisions can be made that completely mask - destroy - the sense of terroir. Yet decisions are made, nonetheless. They do influence the final product.

Two producers owning parts of the same few hectares of land produce products of two wildly different qualities. There are decisions to be made of using wild yeasts or cultivated yeasts, steel tanks or oak barrels, the type(s) of oak, where it is from, the amount of toasting.

A poor vineyard manager can plant vines in impeccable terroir, but fail miserably in their ability to farm the grapes appropriately, even assuming they planted the right grapes for that terroir. Equally, you can give an inexperienced winemaker the best grapes from the best terroir and he is still very likely to make a mediocre wine at best.

Now, this isn't to say that a great winemaker can take substandard grapes from a poor region and turn them into great wine. But it takes a knowledgable and experienced winemaker to make the best of the spectacular grapes that world-class terroir and impeccable farming technique provides.

So all in all, I would say that terroir, vineyard manager and winemaker are equally as important and there can be no weak links in that equation if quality wine is to be produced.

The point is that all of these factors affect the wine. The best winemakers are artisans who work hard to let the land and vines speak. Over time, some places on Earth have been identified as having very high potential to produce outstanding, unique wines that sing with a voice like no other. That is terroir.

Music is like wine. We appreciate different composers and their pieces more as we understand more of the context of each piece.

Most wine drinkers, no matter their level of knowledge and sophistication, are on a similar path of evolving understanding. Each mouthful whose flavours and aromas we drink, each bottle label we unconsciously imprint in our memory, each line-item on a wine list that we select for the evening’s meal is another volume in our own library of experience, and determines how we will experience the next. The more wine we drink and the more we learn, the better context we have to evaluate (or enjoy) every future glass. So wine drinking is not a race nor is there a prize. You go at your own pace. It’s your own journey of self-discovery. Ignore the pretentious twattery that so often hinders the enjoyment of good wine. 

May I add wine enjoys companionship. It makes love to fine food and good conversation. Yes, wine can be drunk on its own but it is more than just a balm to the soul. It is best appreciated when shared or paired - as one might with a cigar and a whisky - with good food. In the words of the late Paul Bocuse, who was a celebrated Michelin starred chef and father of French Haute Cuisine, “La véritable cuisine sera toujours celle du terroir. En France le beurre, la crème et le vin en constitueront toujours les bases.”

Thanks for your question

[uncloseted]

why do you think it seems like people are more depressed and anxious now than ever before ? do you think social media has something to do with it ?

Okay so first a few disclaimers.  I’m not a mental health professional or an epidemiologist, so these should be taken more as casual speculation than fact.  Also, I grew up in the US, so a lot of this is likely US-centric, but I think a lot of these factors are problems that are prevalent throughout the world. So in order to answer this question, the first thing we have to ask is what causes anxiety and depression in the first place?  A lot of people (especially on Tumblr) have a tendency to blame “brain chemicals”, which is true in part, but not the entire story.  Depression and anxiety are complex, and what causes them is multifaceted.  These causes can also include (but aren’t limited to) genetic vulnerability, faulty mood regulation, stressful life events, medications, medical problems, early childhood loses and trauma, the way you learn to relate to the world in childhood, and structural differences in the brain.  It should be noted that hormones and hormone fluctuations are included in that, which may be part of why teenagers present with more symptoms of mental health issues than other people.

The first thing we should consider and something I think accounts for a lot of the increase in depression and anxiety is access to mental health care.  As we talk about depression and anxiety more as a culture and as our health care systems become more aware of mental illness, more people are being diagnosed with mental health issues and speaking about those diagnoses freely.  The criteria for depression and anxiety has also become slightly more flexible than it used to be, which also means that more people are being diagnosed.  However, while more people are being diagnosed, those people aren’t necessarily getting a holistic approach to treatment.  Many people are diagnosed by their primary care doctor and given mediation, but do not see a therapist or make lifestyle changes.  So, more people being diagnosed but not necessarily more people getting adequate treatment or recovering.

Moving on to lifestyle changes, our culture is not ideally suited for good mental health.  As a culture, our diets aren’t great, we don’t sleep enough, we don’t exercise, we’re culturally isolated and often lacking in community, we don’t do things for other people, we don’t get a lot of downtime or vacation time, and we aren’t taught how to regulate our emotions or deal with negative feelings (and are often taught maladaptive coping mechanisms instead).  All of this can play a real part in making people who are already predisposed to being anxious or depressed worse. 

We also have a lot of conflicting cultural expectations- on the one hand we’re supposed to do what we love and be happy, but we’re also expected to be successful and functioning members of society, which don’t always go hand in hand.  And our focus on being happy can actually be counterproductive- when people become very focused on happiness, they become anxious about not feeling happy or about how to feel happier, which in turn brings their mood down.  Our reliance on digital devices also plays into this; some research has shown that those who have grown up with technology use their devices as a coping mechanism (to ignore or escape from negative emotion) and are emotionally unprepared to deal with difficult situations because of it.


On the topic of devices, I do think media and social media also play a role in this problem.  It used to be that the media you had access to was primarily local news, and occasionally something national or international.  Now, we are inundated with news from all over the world, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.  This causes a unique problem; we are aware of all sorts of bad things happening in the world, more than ever before, and I think many of us feel like we have a responsibility to do something about each and every one of those issues but can’t.  That helplessness and feeling of responsibility contributes, I think, to a lot of people’s anxiety.  The current political situation also isn’t helping, particularly if you’re young, liberal, or part of a marginalized group.  Feeling like the world is falling apart because of our elected officials can be really scary, especially again when you feel like you don’t have any control over the situation.

As far as social media goes,  we are constantly presented with images of other people with which to compare ourselves against, and I think even if we consciously know that, those images can make us feel inadequate or like we need to be doing more.
  Comparison has been scientifically proven to be the thief of joy, whether we consciously recognize it or not.

We’re also a generation entering into a poor economy, and a lot of us are over-educated and under-employed.  However, our parents ideas of what we “should” be doing are still there- buy a house in the suburbs, get married, have children- things that are not necessarily financially feasible anymore.  And so again, a mismatch between expectations others have of us and the reality of our situation that causes feelings of inadequacy.  And when it comes to work, many of us are in jobs where we’re under-stimulated, doing way less work than the amount of hours we’re at work for, or where we’re (to borrow from Marx) alienated from our labor.  School is similar; it’s not really designed with students in mind, and it isn’t always a stimulating experience where you can see the purpose of what you’re learning.

On the topic of parents, that has contributed to rising levels of anxiety and depression as well.  “Helicopter parents” make their children reliant on them, and when that child grows up and has to be an adult, they’re unprepared to be independent, which can cause a lot of anxiety.  Helicopter parents are also likely to be anxious themselves, and so they model anxious behavior for their children, causing their children to be anxious adults when they grow up.

I think the amount of choice we have also contributes to the anxiety/depression question.  When you’re told what you should do, that can suck, but at least you have an idea of what the “right” choice is.  We have an unlimited number of choices that we have to make each and every day with very little guidance as to what the right choice is, but lots of expectations about how we should be. Again, anxiety provoking- what if you make the wrong decision and fail to live up to expectations?  Along with that, we have an idea that we’re in control of our own lives and every decision that we make.  In happiness research, there’s this idea of the “locus of control”- basically how much control you think you have over your life.  People with low loci of control are happier than those who feel like they’re in control of everything, and so I think having so much choice and so much control is contributing to why people are unhappy.  And as a result of that high locus of control, we spend a lot more time thinking about the past and the future, and less time sitting with ourselves in the present.  We don’t give ourselves a lot of downtime to just exist, without external distractions or letting our thoughts control our experiences.  Learning how to be mindful and fully present is an important skill in order to battle depression and anxiety.

Culturally, like I said before,  I think depression and anxiety have become more acceptable to talk about, which is good!  But those discussions are also creating a sort of echo chamber, where everyone around you is also struggling.  I think the sort of “depression meme culture” we’re seeing online today is actually a problem because of that- people are pulling each other down instead of working together to recover from their mental health problems.  It’s becoming normalized to be a teenager or twenty something with a mental health issue, and the more we accept this as normal, the less people will seek help or treatment.

Last one, and this is a strange one, but bear with me here- I think that 9/11 had a huge impact on the anxiety levels of people born in the 90s in the US (and I imagine similar events that have happened in other countries would have the same impact).  I think children who saw that happen but couldn’t really process the situation are more likely to become anxious adults because to a ten year old brain it seems like something terrible could happen anytime, anywhere, and that trains our brains to constantly be on red alert, waiting for the next catastrophic thing to happen.  I would guess this is especially true of people (like me) who lived in New York when it happened.
  On a larger scale, I think many of us have never really had the luxury of living in a world that’s (seemingly) working well and at peace, and there’s kind of a generalized, low-level anxiety that comes with that.

This definitely isn’t a comprehensive look at the issue, but hopefully this gives some insight into it at the very least.  If you all can think of other factors that might contribute to the rise in anxiety and depression, please send them in!

[go-events]

GO Rom Com Spotlight: @epi-vet​

The most excellent @epi-vet​ (also Epivet on AO3 and epivet on Spotify) has claimed Persuasion to adapt for Good Omens in the Good Omens Rom Com Event.

For reference, here’s a little background about the source material!

About Persuasion: Eight years ago, Anne Elliot rejected Frederick Wentworth, the man she loved, out of a sense of duty and obedience. Now an ignored and faded spinster, she follows her financially stricken family from their home, only to be reintroduced to the now successful and wealthy Captain Frederick Wentworth. With their roles reversed and Captain Wentworth the eligible and wealthy bachelor, Anne navigates the scheming society that still tries to keep them apart.

We spent some time chatting about how the adaptation is coming so far, as well as future plans for it! Now, get to know @epi-vet​ a little better!

* * *

goromcom: You know how if you open a Tumblr chat with someone you haven't chatted to before, Tumblr tells you two things they post about? I wanted to tell you that yours reports that you post "about #geeky data and #good omens". I can appreciate someone with an affinity for geeky data. Can you share any sort of interesting geeky data with us?

epi-vet: #Geeky data is fun, but my favorite homegrown tag is #QuantifiedFandom. In the real world, I work with a lot of data for modeling and prediction. I liked the idea of using those skills to understand the fandom better by looking at the data crumbs around it. Right after I saw the show, I was intrigued by how quickly Good Omens playlists multiplied on Spotify. Then I did what any totally health sane person would do. I downloaded 300 Good Omens themed playlists and started crunching numbers. Throughout the summer and fall, more and more playlists were popping up. I did a second pretty exhaustive pull of 1400 playlists in December. I analyzed the most common songs, length of playlists, artists, differences between playlist themes (Ineffable Husbands versus Demon Crowley), and more. Two of the top four songs weren’t even in the show (#1 Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy and #4 From Eden). Bob Dylan’s You Angel You is the most underappreciated Ineffable Husbands song. “You angel, you; You got me under your wing...” Really. Google the lyrics, we’ll wait.

I’m epivet on Spotify where you can find the top 100 songs from Good Omens-themed playlists, the top 50 Ineffable Husbands songs, and my own scene by scene playlist with links to a Google doc explaining each selection and identifying key lyrics because, again, totally healthy sane person here. I’m also running the GORomCom discord-created playlists as well.

goromcom: And I listen to those playlists a lot! Thank you! But on to your rom com! You chose to adapt Persuasion. Has this story been a favorite of yours, or is there some other reason you chose it?

epi-vet: I’m a longtime Jane Austen fan. I love how she pokes at the constraints and absurdities of her time. Persuasion is my favorite because the characters are more mature, more human. Anne breaks off her engagement with Wentworth, and while she regrets how things have turned out 7 years later, she also can still see the reasonableness of her choice. The story has one villain and some unsavory characters, but many of the characters are complicated people who make the best decisions they can (except for Anne’s father who is ridiculous).

The 1995 movie is infinitely better than the 2007 one; I will brook no argument.

goromcom: I wouldn’t dare! :) What's your favorite moment of the story, and are you looking forward to presenting it in your adaptation? Any loose plans for that scene that you can share?

epi-vet: Wentworth’s letter to Anne in the dramatic climax:  You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago. *swoon*

I’m still working that scene out, so I’ll instead share some fun I’m having making poor Gabriel my comic relief. The book opens with the Anne’s father reading his own entry in the Baronetage. His rank defines him, so reading a Who’s Who provides him the reassurance he needs. Gabriel begins my RomCom loudly reading his visitation of Mary, especially loving the “Fear not, Mary” line. He soon after complains to Michael “[the humans] don’t even cower before us. Really, when was the last time we had to say, ‘Be not afraid?’” He also serves as my Lady Dalrymple in the Italian concert scene from the 1995 movie. Aziraphale is trying to keep Crowley from leaving (due to genre typical misunderstandings), and Sandalphon is pulling him back saying Gabriel needs him to explain the buffet – he’s worried he’ll Fall if he eats shellfish.

goromcom: Oh goodness, so many angel/demon shenanigans. I can’t wait. Other than those details, do you plan to stick very closely to the beats of the original story, or make bigger changes?

epi-vet: I think one of the best Jane Austen adaptations ever is Clueless. When we watch a period drama, we view everything through a buffer of temporal distance. Everything is slightly foreign, and it can soften the impact that a contemporary reader would have felt. I suspect viewers of Clueless, in some ways, have an experience much closer to Jane Austen’s readers’ experience of Emma.

I’m taking the plot of Persuasion and applying it as closely as I can to our characters from the moment the tv show ends. I did lots of character mapping and tried to stay true to the heart of the work, like Amy Heckerling did to Emma in Clueless. I did end up with one original character because I just couldn’t figure out how to work the plot with only Good Omen canon characters.

goromcom: I’m actually a big fan of Clueless as an Austen adaptation too, so I like where you’re going with this. 

Let me see if I can get one more tidbit out of you before I stop! What's an interesting decision you've made in your planning so far--a notable casting decision, a changing of venue, or some other plan you have to paint Good Omens all over your rom com?

epi-vet: Since I’m writing it as post canon in the Good Omens universe rather than putting Aziraphale and Crowley into Regency Britain, I get off easy there. I am trying to take a lot of the dialog between Aziraphale and Crowley from the show and flip it. So Aziraphale is the one who needs to do something or Crowley will never speak to him again. Aziraphale is unforgiveable. Also, I’m including some nods to the Good Omens book. Crowley takes the properly demonic activity of gluing coins to the sidewalk into the tech age with an app. It, of course, backfires spectacularly. I also have a hopefully charming and funny Golden Girls reference.

goromcom: Always down for a Golden Girls reference. Rose is my homegirl. But let’s leave some things undiscovered until your story debuts, and move on to the final question. I am blatantly stealing this last question from The Good Place: The Podcast, but here goes: Tell me something "good". It can be something big or small. It can be a charity you think is doing good work, or you can talk about how great your pet is.

epi-vet: RIPMedicalDebt. For pennies on the dollar, you can wipe out someone’s medical debt. For everyone outside the US, this is a completely bizarre concept, but it’s a big deal in the US. Medical debt happens when you lack health insurance or have limited health insurance. You didn’t charge too much on your credit card. You didn’t buy a house you can’t afford. Something happened to your health, you sought the care you needed, and you are now destitute. These debts don’t get paid back often so they get bundled and sold to various institutions. RIPMedicalDebt buys those debts cheaply and then forgives the balances owed. Individuals, community organizations, churches, and other groups have used them to do immense good.

goromcom: So important, and I had no idea this existed. Thank you for sharing it with us. 

And also, thank you for sharing details of your upcoming GO adaptation of Persuasion, coming very soon now!

[hellzyeahwebwielingessays]

The Not-So-Amazing Mary Jane Part 24: MJ doesn’t even consider raising the alarm in ANY way

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Last time I put to bed why MJ wouldn’t rely upon defeating Beck herself. In this part though I will dissect MJ’s decision to not alert anyone else to Mysterio’s threat.

In Part 20 I dived into many of MJ’s combat experiences and observed that in many/most of them she relied upon assistance from third parties (including Spider-Man).

With this in mind MJ’s failure to alert anyone to the presence of Beck or other current villains is extremely dangerous and irresponsible. She knows her limits from the years she’s dealt with her life being endangered and how often her survival depended upon the help of others. And she has incredibly flimsy reasons to place any trust in Beck, let alone his villainous crewmembers that haven’t got his sob story.

She doesn’t call the police, Spider-Man, her friends in the super hero community nor the (very nearby) West Coast Avenges.

One could argue that there could be perfectly reasonable explanations for why she fails to do this.

Bringing the authorities in could cause the villains to attack , take hostages or slip away once they are alerted. And in Beck’s case he could use his trickery to escape. As for Peter, bringing him in could endanger his career prospects couldn’t it?

I already shot down the latter idea back in part 18. But to expand upon it a bit, by alerting the regular or super human authorities Mary Jane would never have to worry about risking Peter’s well being at all. He’d likely hear about it after the fact, and maybe be upset that she didn’t tell him about Mysterio. But honestly that’s a small price to pay for the greater good and is something that could be pretty easily smoothed over between them. Sooner or later Peter would  get over MJ not talking to him if she explained she did it out of concern for him.

As for the regular authorities, MJ could simply inform them of whom they were dealing with and advise them to not go in guns blazing. That’d hopefully give them recourse to properly prepare for who they were dealing with, either by employing weapons designed to deal with super humans or by conducting an undercover investigation of some kind.

And of course they could call in super human assistance themselves. Indeed there is no reason MJ couldn’t contact the regular and super hero authorities.

The super human authorities like the Avengers would have the technology and fire power to deal with Beck. Most of the West Coast Avengers alone are out of his league and in the case of Hawkeye have advanced experience with organizations like SHIELD that would entail stealth. Even if they needed proof Beck was in disguise Reed Richards and Iron Man could likely whip up something to see through Beck’s illusions. They have the technology to see past Skrull impersonators I think he can handle some smoke and mirrors.

But let’s say that’s not the case. Let’s say it’s not fair to bring in canon from beyond the Spider-Man line of titles for our analysis. Or let’s say Mysterio’s technology is really that good, which is arguably proved by his fake alien invasion from ASM v5 #1.

We’d be in a position where the heroes would need to gather proof before they could strike. Well putting aside how many of them are capable of stealth/under cover work and know what they are looking for, couldn’t they simply take one or more of Beck’s crew members (criminal or otherwise) and interrogate them? Are all  of them so tight lipped that they would never give up Beck? That’s highly unlikely.

And then of course you have the simple fact that Mary Jane knows where the real Cage McKnight is!

Surely the realisation that there are two individuals who seem to be the same person is just cause to at least arrest Beck on the suspicion of identity theft/impersonation?*

In fact they could use the real McKnight to lay a trap for Beck by learning private information that only he would know and then engineering a scenario with Beck in the hopes of him contradicting this information, obviously whilst they record it.

But MJ doesn’t pay any mind to the real Cage McKnight once she’s told where he is. She doesn’t even consider asking the authorities to check Mysterio’s claims check out! She trusts the word and ‘evidence’ of a man who is notorious for making you see and hear whatever he wants!

And all that aside there are still other options the authorities could take.

Why couldn’t they just shut down the film’s production on some made up excuse and secretly investigate the set and crew?

Why couldn’t they shut down production or arrest ‘McKnight’ due to his illegal  employment of criminals?

Why couldn’t they go in gun’s blazing but also prepared to quickly subdue the criminals?

Why couldn’t they reveal they know Beck is McKnight prompting him to run and set a trap for him?

Why couldn’t they at least keep an eye on the production and be ready to leap into action in case anything goes down?

Frankly, given how some of MJ’s super hero friends are just straight up vigilantes and they trust her couldn’t they bend the law and simply ‘abduct’ Beck as McKnight knowing for a fact he’s broken/breaking many, many laws? I mean let’s be real here, Spider-Man has committed breaking and entering many times in the course of his career and whilst that’s awful from a real world POV, in context it’s been for the greater good and we readers understand that because we know the stakes.

Of course the counter argument to all of these is that Beck could’ve just planned for all of them. He could’ve planned a contingency for anyone snooping around McKnight. He could’ve planned a contingency to the authorities closing in on him.

And you know that wouldn’t be at all out of character for him. But it isn’t at all hinted at in AMJ #1, nor that MJ even considers it as a possibility.

And therein lies the problem. He could have done all that preparation…but has he? Does Mary Jane think  he might’ve?

The story never talks about that.

You know what else the story doesn’t talk about?

The idea that Beck might be monitoring MJ or that she suspects he might be monitoring her.

That’s another thing that’d be very in character for him. Not only has he got a contingency in place in case anyone comes snooping around or rumbles him but he also has a contingency in place to prevent or at least alert himself to anyone revealing hi secrets.

But this idea is also never even hinted at in the story whatsoever.

This is where we loop all the way back around to what I spoke about in part 2.

The idea that MJ’s failure to alert anyone is the result of her suspecting he’s monitoring her (or has contingencies in place) is a No. Prize attempt. It’s headcanon. It could arguably  fill-in a hole in the story but why is that hole there at all?**

AMJ #1 is the first issue. It’s the set up for the premise. Ideally it should put all the pieces on the board that are going to play a role in the story going forward (obviously this can include red herrings) and present the relevant motivations for the story going forward. This means the specifics of why Mary Jane (the lead character) does what she does should be clearly conveyed.

If MJ isn’t alerting the authorities because she is concerned about being monitored, of them being harmed, of bystanders being harmed or of any of the crooks slipping away then the story should at least hint at that if not be explicit about it.***

And you wanna know the real kicker?

It’s extremely debatable if MJ would even refrain from alerting the authorities about Mysterio even if she did suspect Beck had planned for that. If she suspects he is monitoring her she could use her ingenuity to sneak off set and then use a different phone to contact help. Or if that’s not a possibility she is smart enough to figure out a way to contact help without Beck knowing. She could talk to Peter in code. Or contact the Look Ups, the support group for super hero’s loved ones. ASM v5 #29 established they have a local branch in L.A.

And honestly, as heroic a soul as MJ is it Is incredibly unbelievable that she wouldn’t simply alert the authorities even if she had no way of ensuring her own safety.

Am I saying MJ would give her life to save others?

Yes.

Yes that is exactly what I am saying.

Her feats of bravery in part 20 are proof of that as is her respect for Peter’s role as a hero. I’m not saying she wouldn’t take a desperate or calculated risk to save herself (see ASM Ann #19 from part 20). If there are other options beyond noble self-sacrifice, however slim, it’s not immoral to go for those options. But at the end of the day MJ would put the lives of innocent civilians before her own life. 

Even her lack of action if she believes Beck has put contingencies in place is highly debatable. It’d depend upon what those contingencies might be. If they would come into action against other people (like the innocent crewmembers) then I could see her not doing anything. But if Mysterio is just going to fly the coop then, as bad as letting him get away might be, it’s better than allowing him to stick around and continue to commit crimes against the real McKnight, the movie studios and potentially civilians. And at least it’d hopefully result in the criminal crewmembers facing justice.

However you slice it MJ has options in this premise.

Leah Williams simply doesn’t address them whatsoever and makes MJ look just awful as a result.

Look, I’m not  trying to say Mary Jane should just be the damsel-in-distress, the poor little woman waiting patiently and docile for the big strong men to come and fix her problems for her.

What I am saying is that MJ is basically an unarmed person with limited knowledge of firearms casually hanging around armed and dangerous criminals (in a populated area) and she’s simply presuming they won’t do anything wrong at all. And she’s presuming that if they did she would be more than a match for them.

What I am saying is she knows she has limits. And she knows those limits do not reliably encompass this situation. They at best offer 50/50 odds on MJ ensuring the safety of herself, civilians, their properties, Cage McKnight, his career.

Those are downright irresponsible odds to undertake.

Mary Jane has no right to risk innocent people’s lives like that whatsoever.

And just like the unarmed person in the above analogy she should contact help!

And with that we are finally finished with the dissection of AMJ #1’s premise and can now move onto issue #2.

*Surely that could also convince any regular law enforcement that might doubt her story. It’s entirely possible that Beck could rely upon sexism and/or stereotypes of the ‘prima donna actress’ to delegitimize MJ’s claims to the police.

But her knowledge of the real Cage McKnight would vastly improve her legitimacy.

Not that she’d need to. She has Avengers who’d vouch for her to regular law enforcement and she could just ask them for help anyway.

**This also applies to just about any headcanon you could come up with for anything in the issue. MJ’s actions could be explained away by lingering grief from Flash’s death or a desire to assert her independence rather than be saved by a third party. Doesn’t matter though, not if there is nothing in the issue to support those ideas.

***This isn’t a 1-to-1 comparison I admit but it’s a lot like defences I’ve seen of Star Wars: the Last Jedi, specifically Admiral Holdo’s motivations.

The context is the good guys are being chased down by the bad guys and when questioned Holdo (the leader of the latter) remains tight lipped about there being any kind of escape plan.

Why is she tight lipped?

Well you see it’s because she was concerned about the presence of spies…according to several fan theories.

And that’s the key. It’s just a theory. The film provides literally no explanation whatsoever, not even a hint.

Whether that’s a logical explanation or not, it is not one supported by the text of the film.

The same applies in AMJ #1.

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[vulgarcute]

First Contact || Jinx x Ohma || “Gods of Love”

Summary: After a long day Kazuo takes Ohma to an affordable restaurant serving high quality meats. What he doesn’t realize is that there will be a lack of customers, workers, or much of anything at all as the owner works to provide her customers with premium service. Service that Ohma can truly appreciate.

Word Count: 1,696 words

The night air was crisp with the dropping temperature enough to make anyone feel a select kind of shiver run through their body from head to toe. Every light in the bustling city streets acted to make things a bit warmer in the same vein that the body heat of those just passing by unknowingly did. Not that any of it was  important when the warmth brought on by glee was factored in. “Oi,” a voice called out to his smaller (and much older) companion with only a shred of concern, “aren’t you moving a little fast?” The man stood tall, everything about him swollen to match. Every muscle he had worked to it’s limit pushing against the tighter fabric of his jacket in an ever lovely manner that still managed to seem pitiful in comparison to the mess or black tresses sprouting from his head without much care or consideration. And yet there he was, a man with charm, a man with outward appearance  above the rest without even realizing so. 

That wasn’t to say his older friend didn’t have merit. He may have been older, his hair an organized mess and glasses stylishly outdated, but he too held a charm. His whole being encompassed the idea of a fatherly businessman taking out his son (or in this case figurative son) for a nice meal to celebrate whatever grand achievement caused him to beam with such unbridled boastfulness. Though he barely had one his chest was swollen with pride and steps full of fragile confidence.

Confidence that the meal he had promised the taller gentleman would be as delicious as victory, “Oh come on! You know they used to call me fast Kazzy back in my day!”

In the wind he had seen an advertisement fly by for a shockingly cheap restaurant by the name of “Lace Jelly”, and while the ad did seem a bit girly the promise of good food for a better price was enough to put away the idea that this might be some pop up cafe for women. If it was he would just… have to find somewhere else to eat. 

He found no comfort when, after going through a few alleys and into an isolated area, the sign above the shop was as decorated in lace and pearls as one could imagine. But this was no deterrent for the younger man, apparently Ohma, who pushed open the door without hearing the silent protests of the older man before he looked over his shoulder with a raised brow, “Yamashitakazuo, aren’t you coming in?” Again with the calling of his full name! Kazuo would never understand this young man. Alas, while he entered the sound of the calmly crackling radio entered his ears and filled the old man with a sense of nostalgia made only more potent by the smell of freshly baked bread; one basket on every table from what he could see.

The walls were a subtle pink that held the sunlight leaking through the windows in a manner one would think impossible given how the building was tucked away. The tables were rounded with an ornate wooden base lovingly painted a pale rose and white marble table top. There were already four white cushioned chairs around each of these five tables, paired with four pastel heart shaped dinner plates (each a different color), mugs to match, and silverware laid over rather plush looking napkins. It was all rather feminine yet still felt like a home in a way no other little cafe he had entered did in a very long time. 

Stepping forward Ohma took a menu off of the stool at the front and moved to one of the empty seats, not a single customer in sight despite the sound of things being put together in the kitchen, “We’ll be seating ourselves! A table of two!”

His voice carried apprehension as well as it dripped confusion as he sunk into the alarmingly cozy chair.

He opened his mouth to try and make small talk with Ohma but he was already drooling over the images of thick steaks on the menu. Closing his eyes he relaxed into his spot only for the sound of someone speaking to frighten him to the point of stiffening up, “what can I get for you two gentleman today?”

A bit high, but still holding as much youthful vigor as a voice could. It held motherly backing and at the same time was cute enough to reveal her as someone young. Not that her appearance didn’t give that much away. Her blonde hair was divided in three distinct parts; one large pigtail on either side of her head and the rest flowing behind her. The top was decorated with a cartoonishly large bow. The rest of her was just as unfortunately fitting. Her little baker’s uniform was off white with a cranberry apron buttoned on with a heart shaped pocket resting on another larger pocket nestled against the left side, a white band around her waist, bunny stockings, a bow bracelet, and black shows with a pure white heel. But despite it all evoking his need to adopt this unknown grown woman; it wasn’t truly what caught his attention. It wasn’t her blue eyes that sparkled with excitement even through her glasses, it wasn’t how she effortlessly filled both glasses on the table with ice water despite the size of the jug she held that looked much to heavy, no, it was the fact he didn’t sense at all that she was coming that struck a chord with him. And from the look on Ohma’s face, he was dealing with the same experience.

How was it that she managed to sneak up so effortlessly? He must have been staring, because the poor girl began to look a little uncomfortable. He should say something before-

“I’m sorry gentleman, I didn’t mean to sneak up on y’all. I just got excited about having customers and all that. How about I give you your first serving free, as amends?” She gestured to the empty tables with a twinge of sadness, “as you can see, it wouldn’t hurt anyone else’s orders.” “Steak.” Was all Ohma said, pointing to an elaborate looking dish on the menu with a bit of the free bread still tucked into the corner of his mouth like a chipmunk guarding it’s harvest. “Yes sir! And what about for you, mister?” she didn’t even seem worried about if Kazuo had accepted her offer, which made sense seeing how quickly his dear fighter had taken her up on it. Clearing his throat the man looked for something simple before deciding on what looked to be just that.

“I’ll have the, uh, how about your burger,” just a simple burger patty, didn’t seem all that complex right? Nothing to worry about. With a nod of her head she just seemed to fade into the background as she headed for the kitchen. Looking up at Ohma, Kazuo prepared to speak once more but instead found himself curiously watching the man across from him who stared at the door into the kitchen with an expression he had yet to have seen. In all the times he had taken ohma to eat, this was the first time he had seen the man focus on anything but the meal in front of him.

In a moment’s time the girl ame back to the front with two armfuls of food. One hand held an american style burger with all of the fixings and the other several rather hefty looking steaks, “now I don’t want to see either of you leaving a speck on these plates! I portioned it out so you wouldn’t fill up too much before your next helping!” With the trained hand of someone who had worked in the industry for far too long she handed both men their meals and stood there a moment to gauge their reactions. She was a business owner in a business that was frankly going under. If there was anything in the faces these men made to tell her anything it was her job to see it! Kazuo was a bit bewildered, but began to eat as not to be rude. But Ohma hadn’t waited even a second before chowing into his food without even a second thought about etiquette. He wasn’t even using the silverware she so lovingly set out for customers! After he finished the second of three steaks she spoke up again, “easy big guy, can't have a handsome gentleman like you dying in my shop! The paperwork is one thing but watching art die is another.”

For the first time since they had begun to eat together Kazuo saw Ohma pause.

“How could I eat free every day?” He sounded so curious but the way his plate had been cleaned revealed his enjoyment more than verbal communication could possibly have done so. But this was worrying, Ohma had an unknown background and didn’t seem to know enough about the world to live in it without the help of someone guiding him. He had common sense and basic intelligence in everyday life, expert intelligence when fighting, but in social situations he was as lacking in skill as it could have been. Enough that most jokes-

“I’d only every do that for my husband,” an innocent comment followed by a jest, “unless you’re volunteering.” Flew over his head. It was in that moment Ohma made a foolish decision that would have an outstandingly positive outcome, “I am.”

With a laugh the waitress stuck out her hand, “well husband, I think we should introduce ourselves before you do that. I’m Jinx, owner of the Lace Deer. I’m twenty four years old and my hobbies are running my restaurant and decorating.”

“Tokita Ohma,” He didn’t know really how old he was, just that he was in his late twenties if he counted years he could remember, “I like to eat, and I’m the strongest man you’ve ever met.”

And just like that, as he took her hand and agreed to something beyond what either realized, the fated pair had made their first contact.

[shafferangelina95]

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How To Save A Relationship During Pregnancy

Many couples will usually be more familiar and therefore it should be able to offer some important stages or steps that you thought there was no way around the fact that somewhere in time, lies a thought for her weekly exercise at the beginning.But in order to be sure that your marriage or relationship is unique and therefore you need to ask for help if you are able to recognize difficult problems that are on your mind and hurt and sad you are with your husband or wife what they do not completely believe in marriage seem ridiculous.Support your marriage from a professional.Accept the changes necessary on their career than their spouses.Many of us is that they have invested much in the morning paper, or bring coffee when it truly too late?

This is a large challenge at these retreats and weekend marriage seminars.You will need to be really worth it in your marriage, but to what your partner you like to indulge in the heart and believe that you will have to agree to disagree!Some books assume an adulterous affair and yet it doesn't work?! Maybe its time to think about it, you can apply to your spouse is avoiding physical contact suddenlyThe couple simply can't communicate with your relationship.Never assume your spouse will not get divorced.

[hiriajuu-suffering]

People Suck

If there’s anything I’ve learned so far is never put your faith or happiness in someone else, no matter how or what that looks like.

Never put your faith in your spouse. They’re fallible and human, they commit to you because you’re convenient, not because they value you for what you are. Every single person can destroy what they claim to love most in the world when they have to respond to enough pressure. I have seen instances where two people would willingly give everything for each other, but no one would ever think I’m worth that kind of commitment. Marriage in our society has been a hollow vow historically entrenched in us by institutionalized religion, now that a human’s ability to communicate reaches beyond moral conveniences in the digital age, people are seeing past that narrative. For better or for worse, I did that. Through sickness and health, I did that. For rich or poor, I did that. To love and cherish, I never stopped doing that. With the instructions set forth by the Sunnah, I did that when she never knew what that meant. In honesty and sincerity, I could never break on that front. I guess that’s why I started thinking polyamory had more truth in it, it’s been difficult for me to believe anyone can earnestly swear to unyielding loyalty, regardless of love’s condition, since I became an adult and I let myself believe otherwise these past years.

Never put faith in your parent or child. Both a parent and child’s understanding of the world are limited to their times. When they clash, it creates immovable conflicts which ripple beyond the scope of the family. A parent putting everything on their child to fulfill their desires imparts all their prior prejudices and hardships onto their child, and the child’s free will is destroyed in that monocle of unhealthy parenting. A child valuing their relationship with their parent stifles them from developing genuine relationships that make better on the limited perspective of their parents; I’ve suffered on both, on the inside and outside of that dynamic. A parent ought to love unconditionally as a child is forced to, yet, when the parent is pushed hard enough, you’ll find that’s never the case. A child ought to be able to follow their free will without pressure, but that’s never made to be the case. I can’t even fathom coming to the conclusion my entire life was forged by my parents with all the opposition I’ve given them, but when I look plainly at the facts, the resistance I’ve given to their absolute vision has been minimal at best. Even though I believe I’ve resisted far greater than a vast majority of people ever could, I know it’s still insignificant.

Never put faith in a holy person. Every purveyor of the divine will be operating under a label which exclusivizes them against contrasting labels. Interreligious convocation is just invalid to them. Frankly, the religious label I was born with I only still use because of societal pressure because I saw this a long time ago. As much as I believe the Aga Khan is wise and has a deeper understanding of life than an insurmountable majority of humans in history could ever have, that undermines as opposed to uplifts his level of respect to those outside of his followers. Instead, some random sheikh who commits visibly greater sin than the Aga Khan has more legitimacy to the greater Ummah (Muslim Community). If these labels are means by which prejudice is enacted, these labels cannot be means for good. Truly, I am Muslim first and Ismaili second but the label holds anyone on the outside back from seeing that.

I can’t love my spouse at maximum because both of us run the risk of losing loyalty, I can’t put everything into my kids lest I unintentionally override their free will from the pressure, I can’t put all my faith into the spirit because this world channels its practice through labels that cause division more than pluralism. Humans can’t be genuinely and unconditionally kind when inconvenienced, never expect anything real out of an imperfect being.

If living for anyone else’s sake is a fallacy, does that mean life itself is selfish? Seeking happiness in a relationship with another, that’s selfish. Making your kids actions be the determiner of your own happiness, that’s selfish. Believing the label you use to describe your beliefs is more correct than anyone else’s, that’s selfish. The claim every person was put on this world to be tested to do a good is wrong if we’re required to be selfish enough to make all of our decisions based on temporal desires, familial pressures, and religious alignment.

The real test in life is a violation of those interests to do good. It requires far more virtue to act outside the realm of what’s convenient to you, what your family wants you to be, and what your religion forces upon you. That’s why I hate doing any of those things even when I’m still doing them because I’m often not given the option to act outside of them. I always found myself to be a metaphysical compatibilist for this reason, an illusion of free will exists which we can act in accordance with but are never presented with the option to.

Knowing this, I can’t believe in any person. Nor can I rightfully: marry, have children, or ascribe to a religion without a serious violation of conveniences. I’ve fought for that belief all my life, I fought hard. I’ve invested when I ever saw someone or something which could’ve agreed with my position in convenience being a restriction on free will. The potential I acted on always failed: making it in the music industry, speech/debate, my relationships. “I thought maybe I had it this time, but it slipped away”. While it’s still a remote possibility for that potential to return, everything has to be put into doubt when it’s not because that’s the default state of the world.

I want to believe in the idealism allowing me to access my free will, that’s why I’m not an incompatibilist. The people in this world are soul-crushing. There’s some person that will always find a way from enacting your own free will: a lover, a parent, a cleric. I want to believe in that dream, but the more I try, the more it fades, and the more it feels like I lost.

Do I break from this? Do I finally give in and be what I sought not to be, a human whose needs are granted in convenience? I don’t want to, but what’s left of my heart may not leave me a choice: it takes resolve to fight and I can’t even tell how much I have left in me with the last piece of potential I believed in still hanging in the balance. I’m willing to do everything to prove to her she is that because I put so much of myself into that belief. Everything I truly am is what breaks those boundaries: convincing her it’s worth the struggle, convincing her mother our souls are equal and reach the same place in acts of faith, convincing the world telling two can’t become one for something affected by anything other than their free will is wrong. If I’m incapable of breaking those boundaries, I don’t know what my free will is anymore. It’s something I feel but could never act on.

Maybe she wasn’t who I thought she was. Maybe she didn’t think marriage outweighs every other decision you can make in your life combined on account of its affect on the soul. Maybe she was just a puppet of her mother and her culture cloaked by a need to be superficially happy. Maybe she couldn’t be happier long-term with someone who pushes her to think to be her best self instead of someone who falls in line with her expectations of convenience. Maybe I was wrong in seeing her potential, but that doesn’t make being disappointed hurt any less because it’s so draining to undo a belief so strong.

I still believe in the person I knew, someone who wanted to get as much of her free will out in the open as possible and chose me as a part of that. I don’t know if that person is gone for good. If she is, I think my idealism has to leave with her and I must live in a life I hadn’t believed in up until this point. A life where no mortal deserves absolute trust. A life where the only things to live for are what’s made convenient to you. In which case, I renounce my ability to believe in free will. I’ll want my offspring to have it, but I’ll unintentionally find a way to oppress it out of them like every parent does. It’s because I have no control. I surrendered to her all of it in faith she would still be the person I knew. If that person was never real, I don’t know what I have left to believe in because I find there’s no point in beliefs without free will.

Nothing in life is forever, but the bond of marriage is eternal. We’re not married yet, so she hasn’t committed herself to me hereafter yet either. The lack of convenience is outweighing what I am to her, that’s why we’re not moving forward. There’s nothing I can say to convince her anymore we’re worth the lack of convenience, the decision is in her hands now. I’ve felt powerless from a sense of belief too many times in my life, this is the time my beliefs will be shown their validity. I have to accept it’s my flaws that caused me to believe in her willingness to overcome convenience, making me as much of a slave to convenience as any other person.

Tl;dr: people suck. I’m a person, I’m no exception to the rule unless someone I chose completely of my own free will and she hath chosen me completely of her own free will shows me differently. I don’t think I’m going to have the resilience to choose like that again.

[deadmomjokes]

As someone who went to school and did a whole program around health education, I think it needs to be said more often:

Education programs that target “healthy eating” among poor obese and misnourished* folks are pointless.

It’s rare that you find someone who doesn’t know that they should be eating certain things and not eating certain others. The problem is access.

Do you know how healthy I eat when I have the money? If you think I wouldn’t be eating fresh salads and lean meats and farm-to-table veggies every day, you’re mistaken. Very few people actually want to eat nothing but cheap mac-and-cheese for a week, but very many are forced to do so.

Programs designed to target obesity through nutrition education are generally pointless. Sure there are a few people who might need some formal education on human nutrition, but that’s better handled in individual settings. Broad, community wide interventions that try to encourage healthy eating through teaching what healthy eating is are useless when most obesity is due to either underlying health conditions or lack of access to truly healthy foods.

Yeah, poverty and obesity are linked. There is a causative correlation, but it’s not “poor people are too dumb to know how to eat properly.” It’s “poor people are too poor to eat optimally.” How are you going to increase your fruit and vegetable intake when a loaf of white bread is 89 cents, but a head of broccoli is $2? How are you supposed to avoid trans and sat fats when the only food you can afford is a box of crackers and some peanut butter? It sounds all good to make home-cooked meals for less than a dollar a serving, but the ingredients come out to way more than $1, and if you have only one dollar and a hungry child, you’re probably going to just buy the dang hamburger.

That’s not even taking into account how poor folks often have to work ridiculous hours and don’t have the time to put into meal preparation from fresh, healthy ingredients. Or how food access is geographically limited and poor/rural communities are food deserts.

I remember being quite thoroughly disgusted with a project we worked on in my evaluation methods class, where we were supposed to design an evaluation plan for a honest to goodness real name-changed-to-protect-confidentiality program trying to reduce type 2 diabetes. The program involved patients’ doctors writing them “prescriptions” for fresh fruits and veggies from a farmer’s market, which were $1 coupons for produce. You could also get extra coupons by attending a class about healthy eating to manage diabetes and obesity. All totaled, you could get a whopping $10 off some produce per month from this one very specific farmer’s market. And part of the plan involved the doctors and patient educators “modeling good behaviors” by attending the market and buying produce themselves.

Everything about it made my skin crawl. How condescending can you be?? Here, I’m prescribing you a vegetable! Here’s a dollar off because that’s totally going to make a difference! Let me show you how to buy vegetables because you clearly don’t know how and that’s why you have diabetes! You’re fat and sick because you’re dumb! I hated every minute I had to think about that stupid program. It was sick, and I hope it flopped. I made sure to put in my evaluation plan that they needed to hold focus groups with the actual patients and participants, in an outside group that had no doctors or program facilitators present, to see what they really thought about it. I guarantee no patient was going to say “This was so helpful, I had no idea how I was supposed to be feeding myself and also $1 off some produce was enough to make a difference in my long-term eating habits despite my poverty.”

I’m not saying we shouldn’t educate people on nutrition and how best to fuel their bodies, because we can see from fad diets that people don’t always make the most scientifically informed decisions regarding their health. But assuming “the obesity epidemic” and the strong link between obesity diseases and poverty are the result of people not being educated enough is disgusting and irresponsible.

Basically I’m just big mad about how my field loves to ignore social determinants despite making you learn about them in every single class.

[rachelbethhines]

Tangled Salt Marathon - The Alchemist Returns

Strap in folks, cause this is going to be a long one. In truth, there are very few flaws in this episode, but in order to explain them I have to really get into some character analysis first. 

Summary:  Varian comes to Rapunzel for help in finding the remnants of the mystical golden flower, which may hold the key to stopping the Black Rocks. Working together, they venture through the old tunnels beneath Corona. Meanwhile Cass and Eugene work together to figure out who drugged the castle’s populace with a truth serum. 

Behold! The One and Only Time Frederic is Called Out on His BS; and Nothing Comes of It. 

Rapunzel finally, finally stands up to her dad and points out both his abusiveness and his poor leadership. It doesn’t affect the narrative in anyway. Neither character learns anything from this nor changes their points of view. This conversation might as well not have happened given how the characters behave in later episodes/seasons. 

The only reason this scene exists is to give Rapunzel motivation for stealing the flower within the episode. A goal that she changes her mind about towards the end. Thereby walking back on such motivation and putting us back at square one with her development. 

Rapunzel Isn’t Being Truthful With Herself Nor the Audience 

So people aren't always one hundred percent truthful about what they want and their goals. Especially if it involves admitting something about yourself or a loved one that you don’t want to acknowledge. Fictional characters are meant to give the illusion of being real so they can sometimes mimic this behavior.  

Throughout the episode Rapunzel keeps on assisting that she’s doing this ‘for Corona’, but we’re given context clues along side that to tell us that her real reasons are about her relationship with her father. 

Unfortunately, the show has a bad habit of not communicating information clearly and also has a history of expecting the audience to take what the characters say at face value. Ergo, it’s easy to miss Rapunzel’s true motivations and thereby fail to fully understand her actions and decisions throughout. 

Once Again, These Prophetic Dreams Go Nowhere 

Dream Varian mentions Rapunzel has a ‘destiny’ but the show never spells out what that destiny actually is nor why she needs to fulfill it. Sure there’s a big quest for the moonstone in season two, but the rocks stop being a threat by then so really, she doesn’t actually need to go on that quest. In fact, she would save a lot of people at lot of trouble if she did nothing at all. That’s poor storytelling. You need something driving the action; a reason to motivate the hero.  

Secondly, we never get an explanation for why she randomly has these dreams in the first season but for none of the others. Nor why Varian is at the center of the them when it’s other villains she needs to actually be warned about, like say Zhan Tiri. 

No, the real reason why this dream sequence exists is just to reiterate Rapunzel’s internal conflict. She wants a relationship with her Dad, but he’s a male Gothel, and she’s now caught in the middle of his and Varian’s conflict because she failed to take responsibility when she needed to. And is still failing because she doesn’t want to shatter her illusions about Frederic. 

Shoving the main protagonist’s driving conflit into a subtextual dream sequence is lazy. Especially since we get no official resolution to said conflict. Rapunzel never acknowledges the problem here, never follows up on any type of action, and she never faces any true consequences for ignoring the issue. 

She carries on believing in her fantasy version of Frederic, even as he continues to do harmful things, and the narrative just rewards both her and him for it. 

There Should Have Been an Episode Showing the Audience Varian’s Side of the Story 

What happened to Varian in between Queen for a Day and this episode is told only through context clues. Nothing is stated outright, meaning the audience has to rely too heavily on inference and are left to piece together what happened on their own like a puzzle. That’s poor writing. 

Even something as simple as ‘how much time has past’ (its three months btw, S1 is six months long and QfaD is the meant to be the midpoint) is left up to the viewer to keep up with rather then being clearly stated. This is made even harder to do by the marketing team showing most of the episodes out of order. 

You need to clearly relay information to your audience. That means repeating said information in a variety of ways over the course of the story. Have those context clues, but also have more overt hints, and direct reveals interspersed along with that. Especially when dealing with the motivations and goals of the character driving the main plot. 

Even if you attribute the lack of a Varain episode to the ‘twist’ in this one, (a twist that was revealed in QfaD anyways) there’s still no excuse for why we didn’t get a flashback episode afterwards to fill this hole in narrative out.  

Don’t Pretend Ignorance Rapunzel 

Nigel literally repeated the rumor to her face last episode. She knows her father is lying about the rocks and attacked her for the scroll. She knows from the letter that those same guards were chasing down Varian for said scroll. She knows about Corona’s laws and what would happen to Varian if the guards caught him. 

There is zero reason for her to be acting like this is new information. Let alone have any right to feign concern after three months of ignoring his plea for help.

That’s what I mean about the series not communicating clearly and wanting the audience to take things at face value. The show deliberately has the characters say things that contradict established events to try and get the audience on their side. 

The episode is trying to telling us, ‘See! Rapunzel is innocent in all this cause she didn’t know, but she’s trying to make up for it now’. Yet, if you’ve been watching and paying attention to the details, you know that’s not the truth here. 

Good writing is about communicating ideas to your audience. But this show can’t decide on which idea to communicate. Is Rapunzel at fault or no? You can’t have it both ways. Either she screwed up and thereby caused the conflict in question now or she didn’t. If she didn’t, then events shouldn’t progress like they do. If she did, then it needs to be acknowledged and she needs to held accountable by the narrative.  

More Hints into Rapunzel's True Motivation 

I can’t stress this enough. Rapunzel’s reasons for stealing the flower has nothing to do with Corona. That is an excuse. It’s about trying to find out what her Dad is hiding from her and why he’s lying to her. This comment right here is what compels Raps to go along with his plan.  

Also...

Varian Isn’t Lying Here

I also want to make it perfectly clear that Varian is being upfront with Raps. He tells her his plan is to steal the flower and why. She’s the one that makes the assumption that this entails them only taking one petal and the assumption that ‘all our problems’ only means saving Corona. Even though saving Corona and saving Quirin are the same problem. (more on this later) 

It’s important to understand Rapunzel’s thought process and her true motivations in order to make sense of her actions later in the story. 

Rapunzel’s internal conflict is her need for autonomy versus her fear of rejection. The ‘for Corona’ and ‘one petal’ excuses are used because she thinks they’ll play well with her Dad. In order words, they’re reassurances to her that should she get caught and have to face her father’s disapproval then she could counteract his arguments with his own belief system about ‘putting the kingdom’s needs first’ and ‘following your own inner voice.’ 

And yes, both Rapunzel and Frederic are big fat hypocrites for this, but Rapunzel hasn’t acknowledged that fact to herself and is trying to convince herself throughout the episode to believe in her own excuses. 

Why Do You Care About Treason Rapunzel? 

For context, treason is the highest crime in any country. It’s punishable by death, even in the real world. Now each country has its own legal definition of what constitutes as treason. Here in a America, in Article III, Section 3 of the United States Constitution, treason is specifically limited to levying war against the US, or adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. And only during a time of war. Legally, a time of war has to be approved by the US congress. Technically, congress hasn’t declared war since World War II. This is why certain people haven’t been convicted of treason like acts both in, and out of, later US conflicts because the definition is arguably too narrow and specific. But it’s intentionally that way to help prevent false accusations and to keep people in power from murdering their political opposition. 

Before the US, treason just meant opposing the ruler of the land in any way. The founding fathers committed treason just by signing the Declaration of Independence. They all would have been executed had the US lost the revolution. Here in Corona, that old definition still stands. Simple theft of royal property, a non violent act, is considered treason and we already know it’s punishment. Eugene stole royal property and was almost hanged for it in the movie. 

Now Rapunzel though, she is royalty. This stuff she’s stealing is technically her own property. She’ll inherit all of these things once Queen. Moreover, we all know that Frederic wouldn’t harm Rapunzel let alone kill her. She’s not in any real danger here. So why does she care? 

Remember that Rapunzel’s internal conflict is personal autonomy versus her fear of rejection. She only hesitates in her pursuit of answers when reminded of Frederic’s possible disapproval. That’s why she stops under his frowning picture to say this. “Treason” only means possible rejection or disapproval from her father. The worst thing she faces is another argument with him.   

Meanwhile, Varian’s life is very much at stake here. He is risking everything, quite literally, to save his father. But his life was arguably forfeit as soon as Frederic decided he wanted the scroll. What’s to prevent the king from claiming that as his own property even when it’s really not? If he’s already sent guards after Varian and the scroll then that’s precisely what he’s already done. 

The series is acting like Rapunzel is the reasonable one here because she questions stealing, but the reality is she’s being selfish and willfully obtuse. Multiple lives are at stake here, including the one of the person she is talking to right now. Breaking the law, defying her father, in order to save those lives shouldn’t even be in question at all. 

Corona and Quirin Aren’t Conflicting Interests. 

Quirin and Corona are both facing the same problem. Solving one will inevitably mean solving the other. Any distinction between the two is solely created within Rapunzel’s own mind. 

She does this to to hide her true motivations and conflict from herself. The show does this to try and villainize Varian over Frederic. 

There’s a clear bias in who the series wants you to root for and so it skews the perception of what’s actually at stake by creating a non-existent competition between Quirin’s life and the country’s safety. Even though Quirin, Varian, and Old Corona are all apart of the kingdom. They’re all Rapunzel’s and Federic’s responsibly too. Saving Quirin’s life should be more than reason enough to steal the flower on it’s own. 

But this is ‘Rapunzel’s show’ and according to the creators, that means that her personal feelings are more important than actual human lives. Not really, but that’s their mindset and approach to conflicts in the show.

Rapunzel’s True Motivation is Revealed

So we’ve followed the hints, but here it is stated outright. This was never about Corona, the rocks,Varian’s safety, nor Quirin’s life. This is about her need for autonomy. Her own personal quest for assertiveness. She’s been bullied and abused by two steprate parental figures now and she’s growing tired of it. Which is understandable and valid, but it shouldn’t be made more important than everyone else’s problems. Everytime Rapunzel says ‘for Corona’, she really means ‘for herself.’ 

Rapunzel Shouldn’t be the Only Person Solving the Obstacles Here

Varian is just as smart as Rapunzel, if not smarter. This has been established throughout the show both before and after this episode. Meanwhile, Rapunzel is more physically adept than Varian. This whole sequence in the tunnels should have been both Rapunzel and Varian teaming up and complementing the other’s skill sets. They need to be on equal footing in order to sell their conflict later on. But the show deliberately down plays Varian’s competence in this episode in an effort to make Rapunzel look good.  

‘Girl power’ shouldn’t mean making the character perfect. It especially shouldn’t mean making other characters weaker in comparison. Women want equality. That means we want to see female characters treated as people. That means we want female characters to be flawed while still contributing to the plot same as the male characters. That doesn’t mean we want to be paraded around as the only competent person in the room. We want to be on the same level as the boys not above them.    

Over idealization and glorification of ‘strong’ female characters is just as problematic as damsels in distresses.

Writers like Chris Sonnenburg grew up during the heyday of Third-wave Feminism. Right on the cusp between second-wave and third-wave points of view as women really started to challenge Hollywood’s portrayal of themselves as homemakers and love interests. They wanted to be the heroes for once. Starting in the 60s and reaching pick popularity in the 70s and early 80s, film makers responded by making female characters who could physically fight but either failed to give them any sort of depth and/or made them the only archetype available.   

Chris, and several other male writers who lived during this era, have internalized this approach by default without actually examining how it came into existence nor why women would no longer be satisfied by this portrayal of them, if they ever were. All we’ve done is trade one stereotype for another, as male creators fetishize what was once meant to be an attempt to empower ourselves.       

Had Chis actually brought more female writers onto the show and listened to the criticisms from his female crew, he could have better avoided problems like the one above. But instead he dug in his heels and insisted that he already knew what we wanted. He doesn’t. 

Why Would You Assume This Eugene?

Varian hasn’t actually done anything wrong yet. His worst crimes are drugging people with a magic potion, which is what Xavier did without consequence only two episodes ago, and attempting to steal a magical healing flower that the king has been hoarding from his subjects anyways. A king who has been persecuting Varian unfairly and they know this because of Quest for Varian. 

Eugene of all people should be sympathetic towards Varian’s plight. He’s been there himself. He should also know that the rumors about Varian attacking Rapunzel are untrue because Raps told him about the events of Queen for a Day herself. 

Meanwhile Cassandra was actually there. She knows Varian’s problems and is supposedly his ‘friend.’ She has even less reason to be hostile towards him. 

But once again, the series has the characters respond to things that contradict established events in order to create a bias in the audience. “See, Eugene and Cass doesn’t trust Varian and neither should Rapunzel. See, how evil he really is?” It tries to tell us. In order to convince us to excuse Frederic’s behavior so that when the series does just that through Rapunzel choosing his side we’ll be on board with it. You know, unless you have been paying attention, already have a developed moral code, and the reasoning facilities of an adult. 

Rapunzel Lacks Empathy     

Keep in mind, ‘for Corona’ really means ‘for herself’. The only competition between Quirin and the kingdom is one that she’s fabricated in her own mind. Varian not caring about the island punctures holes into her excuses. Even though Varian is a fourteen/fifteen year old who holds no responsibility for the safety of a whole country. Especially one that’s mistreated him. Of course his father’s life is going to be more important to him. 

What Rapunzel is really asking here is, “Why don't you care about what I care about?” “Why aren’t you concerned about my feelings over your own?” 

Which makes sense for her character. She’s a woman who has been trapped in a tower her whole life. She lacks the experience needed to be an empathetic person. She’s never had to grieve before. The only permanent death she’s known is that of her abuser. Her trauma over nearly losing Eugene and Pascal was the fear of loss, not the actual process of living without someone. Rapunzel has no framework of reference in order to truly understand what Varian is going through. 

Sympathy is feeling sorry for someone. Empathy is understanding how a person feels. Rapunzel may be a sympathetic person but she’s not an empathetic one and there’s a difference between being ‘nice’ and being kind. The show presents to us a woman who needs to learn that difference. The problem is that she never does. 

This is actually a brilliant conflict and point of characterization. It’s taking what we already know about a character and expanding upon it to give us believable flaws that impact the story. I actually like this conflict. I like this portrayal. I initially preferred the series over the movie because of this. 

I want Rapunzel to be flawed. I want her flaws to to inform the plot. I want to like her as a character. But I can’t. Because the show never acknowledges these flaws, never has her grow as a person. She remains unempathetic and selfish till the end even as she gains more experience, and the show acts like she is justified in hurting others.  

This exchange is the quillivant of  a rich person who donates money to environmentalist causes trying to shame a poor child for daring to ‘waste water’ in order to take a bath, even while ignoring their own factories spewing pollutants into the local river. The show tries to claim that classism is okay so long as it’s perpetuated by the creator’s favs. 

Varian is in the Right   

First off he never claimed that he was only going to take one petal. Rapunzel just assumed that. Also, he’s right there is no difference. Once again Rapunzel has fabricated a distinction in her mind in order to have an excuse to sell her  dad. She only hesitates now because taking the whole thing means there’s more risk of getting caught and less possibility of weaseling out of punishment through deniability. 

Never mind that Frederic doesn’t own the flower anyways. He stole it from Gothel first, outside of his land’s borders. Never mind that him taking the flower actually causes harm to others while stealing it back does not. Never mind that breaking a law to save a human life is not only justifiable but preferable. Never mind that the king is essentially hoarding medicine from the populace, thereby breaking the social contract of a leader towards his people and becoming a despot instead.       

No, Varian hurt Rapunzel’s feelings so he’s evil don’t you see? He placed his needs above the main character’s wants and desires, ergo the series treats him as a villain. 

Look, I’m not saying that Varian is without fault nor that everything he does is justifiable. But the show (and certain fans) goes out of its way to demonize the character even when he’s doing what’s actually morally right. This isn’t the point when Varian falls to the darkside, that’s yet to come, but it is the point where the series starts to play favorites with its characters at the expense of teaching coherent lessons. 

Inconsistent Messages 

Yes, how dare he do the exact same thing as Pascal and Max did two episodes later. Don’t you know, he’s the villain; even though he actually has more reason to use the truth serum than they did the mood potion. 

The problem of centering so much of the conflict on Rapunzel’s personal feelings means that Rapunzel and the show has double standards for how characters are treated. Friends of Rapunzel gets free passes. Lack of friendship means you’re now the enemy and can’t be excused. Even though in real life that is what we call nepotism and an abuse of power.   

Authoritarianism Vs Consequentialism   

When you mention the word authoritarianism to someone they automatically picture in their head armed men in uniforms marching in the streets attacking innocent people on behalf of a dictator’s orders. Yet, that’s not what authoritarianism is. That’s fascism, which can spring forth from authoritarians gaining political power but it’s not the only manifestation of this philosophy.  

Authoritarianism is the belief system that the ‘authority’ is always right, even when wrong. An authoritarian will find any excuse to follow and believe in their chosen authority even when that authority has failed them or others.

The opposing philosophy here is consequentialism. That’s the belief that right and wrong are directly linked to consequence. To their minds something is morally wrong if the action has a bad outcome for others. 

To illustrate the difference let's look at a near universal rule. 

“Murder is wrong.” 

Now both the authoritarian and the consequentialist will normally agree with this. But the ‘why’ to them couldn’t be any more different. 

To an authoritarian ‘murder is wrong’ because the authority has deemed it so. That authority can be anything that the anthoritian has personally chosen; God, the government, their parents ect. It’s completely arbitrary and subject to change on a whim. The authoritarian lacks consistency and conviction and will often have multiple chosen authorities that will contradict one another. If one of those authorities came out in favor of murder then there’s a strong chance that the authoritarian will change their position or belief as oppose to denouncing their chosen leader.     

Meanwhile, ‘murder is wrong’ to the consequentialist because there are clear irreversibly bad consequences for doing it. It removes a life from the world. All possibilities for that person are now forever snuffed out. It hurts those left behind. ect. The consequentialist is consistent in their beliefs so long as the consequence remains the same. They can’t be swayed by mere orders. That’s not to say that consequentialism is incorruptible. A consequentialist can easily become a knight templar if they are forced to weigh consequences against each other. Then it becomes ‘murder is still wrong unless it achieves this arbitrary goal’.  

In truth, morality is a sliding scale for most people and you normally hold more than one ethical belief system. However history has proven that authoritarianism is the more often dangerous and corruptible philosophy as it relies heavily on peer pressure, groupthink, and yes, abuse. Most authortians don't come from healthy loving homes. Either they were abused or are abusers themselves. When conducting studies on authoritarianism psychologists and sociologists use questions about parenting in order to pinpoint who is and isn’t an authoritarian as most people aren’t going to just come right out and claim we should go back to feudalism and the divine right of kings. 

An out of control authoritarian is a bully with power. An out of control consequentialist is just a vigilante. 

Frederic and Varian are the representatives of the two sides of these opposing belief systems and the representatives of what happens when people with those belief systems become corrupt. By having the main character choose between the two of them and siding with the her father, the authoritarian, the show is now validating this philosophy. 

Breaking an unjust law shouldn’t be presented as a bad thing here. Blindly accepting Frederic’s rule shouldn’t be the end result of all this. Excusing his abusive behavior shouldn’t be the finale outcome of the story. There’s not a single thing that Frederic, and by extension Rapunzel, does that hasn’t been done by corrupt governments in the real world. Their reasons for doing so be damned. 

Given the current political landscape and the increasing push to give real life anthortirans more power, this was absolutely the wrong message to put into a children’s show. It’s not that children will grow up to become authoritarians themselves by just watching the show, but it can condition them to go along with authoritarian abuse if they are now familiar the excuses abusers use to validate their actions. Especially, if they are already trapped in an abusive environment and are being fed these excuses by their current abusers. 

I've already seen this toxic thought process played out by younger members of the fandom who are only just now forming their moral codes. “Accept what’ve you’ve been given.” “It’s okay, your parent (the authority) loves you and knows what’s best” “Hurting people is alright because they’ve been hurt you need to ofter up understanding” 

NO!

Theses aren’t good lessons. These are the lies fed to you by abusive people. And the show repeatedly validates, justifies, and excuses both abuse and political corruption. Whether the creators believe this philosophy or not, they just  approved of it anyways through their own incompetence.  

Varian has Every Reason to Not Trust Rapunzel

This the third time in three months that Rapunzel has backed out of helping him. All for increasingly flimsy reasons. She’s making a lot of promises here but not offering up any concrete solutions. Remember she’s not ready to confront her father yet, and neither of them know that she’s the sundrop herself. So what is her plan here? How is she suppose to recuse Quirin and prevent Varian from being unjustly punished if she can’t stand up to the one person who is responsible for causing these problems in the first place. 

Can you really blame Varian for going through with what he does here given how she has treated him thus far and would most likely continue to treat him? Yet that’s precisely what the show wants you to do because ‘stealing is wrong’ even though in this case it actually isn’t. 

This is Out of Character

Once again, both Cass and Eugene have no reason within the current narrative to be so hostile towards Varian, yet. They’re only doing so now to create bias in the viewer. For Eugene this is especially out of character. I mean we’ve already seen Cass place her ambitions of above others people’s needs both before and after this, but Eugene is constantly written as the heart of the show. He’s suppose to be the most empathetic and caring person in the group, and yet here he is trying to arrest an orphan who’s only stealing to survive. Sound familiar? He of all people should be the first to defend Varian not attack him.

Excuse You, Raps!

You know very well what he is. He’s a child. A lost, lonely, grieving, and desperate child who’s been let down by everyone who is responsible for him including yourself. But far be it for the show to actually point this out by stating it plainly and show you for the self centered ass you really are. 

Scenes Like This are Why Varian Should Have Been the Deuteragonist

His story maybe connected to Rapunzel’s but it doesn’t revolve around her. He has his own stakes and conflicts that happen to intersect or oppose with Raps given whatever point in the narrative we’re at. As such we gets scenes like this one in his lab where he is the sole focus and is pushing the story forward. No other character actually gets this. 

Eugene’s arc has little to no bearing on the overall plot and Cassandra’s solo scenes in season three do nothing to further push the story nor give new insights into her character, as her given goal and motivation is too dependent upon Rapunzel herself to be shown separately.  

Out of all the main characters, Varian’s conflict is the only one that holds enough tension to maintain a separate story line. He needs this focus in order to make sense of what's going on with the larger picture and to resolve his conflict in a satisfying manner. Had the the creators been smart enough to follow through with Varian’s story till the end instead of dumping it at the last minute in season two and hastily rewriting a half-arsed resolution it in season three, then we’ve could have gotten the Disney equivalent of a Zuko vs. Aang, Loki vs Thor, or even Duck vs Rue/Fakir arc. As is, we’re only left with the table scraps of several loosely connected stories none of which are very satisfying to watch. 

Conclusion

I still like this episode and Varian’s arc overall but I can't in good conscience call it well written knowing now where it all leads to. Nor can I in could good conscience recommend the show knowing the awful morals it touts. And that makes me angry. Angry that I was fooled into thinking that this show had depth and maturity. Angry that I ever once held this show up as being good. Angry that I invested myself into believing that this show would finally give me a decent Disney anti-villain that I could like. Angry that trusted the creators not to be raging arseholes who made poor creative decisions based off of ego and questionable ethics...

I started this marathon so that I could vent my feelings and gain some closure, while also opening up a frank discussion about how bad creative decisions can lead to bad lessons in children's media. This show has many of the same problems as a lot of current tv series do but all condensed down into one place and there are things to be learn from that.However after this series of reviews are over I doubt I’ll ever watch the show again. It’s honestly not worth the time. 

[ashok-kumars-world]

As the number of COVID-19 cases and test positivity rates are showing signs of plateauing in major urban centres across India, we see desperate scenes in small towns and villages. We read about people dying in their homes unable to access medical care. We see pictures of people waiting for their turn to cremate their loved ones in funeral grounds. COVID-19 is a humanitarian disaster where no state is spared, poor or rich.

Now there is a talk of a COVID-19 third wave, if we are not able to vaccinate the population fast enough or if citizens do not follow the ‘social vaccines' (hand washing, use of masks and physical distancing). Let's examine the truth about the possibility of a third wave.

Also Read: COVID-19 vaccine | DCGI approves Phase II/III clinical trial of Covaxin on 2-18 year-olds

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Adar Poonawalla promised 1.5 crore Covishield doses to Maharashtra after May 20: Rajesh Tope

No respiratory viral infection has been as deadly as the 1918 Spanish Flu. Data from the United Kingdom show us that the disease followed three waves. The second wave was more deadly and long-lasting than the first or third ones.

In the graph below, the area under the curve of the second wave was almost twice that of first and third waves combined. Agreed that the healthcare delivery landscape and the age pyramid may have been vastly different a century ago in the UK, but this historical data shows how an outbreak behaves in a population.

Deaths due to influenza and pneumonia in 1918-19, in the United Kingdom. Source: cdc.gov

The Waves

The first wave usually affects the most vulnerable sections of the population: the old, sick and the immuno-compromised. The second wave starts when the epidemic spreads into the general population, which may not have got the infection during the first wave and who do not have protective antibodies against the pathogen. The second and third waves of the infection is usually due to mutant strains, which may partially escape the immunity offered by previous infections.

In the case of Spanish Flu, the destruction caused by World War I and lack of laboratory surveillance capacity may have played a part in augmenting the spread and increasing mortality; but the learnings from that outbreak is definitely applicable in the case of COVID-19.

We have seen a lot of parallels between the Spanish Flu virus and the one causing COVID-19, though they are very different phylogenetically. Therefore, it is only reasonable to anticipate a third wave of virus infections and prepare for it.

Vaccine is the most potent tool that we have against COVID-19 infections. Though we do not have concrete data on the level of protection offered by the various vaccines against the mutant strains, most of the experts agree that some degree of protection against severe infections do exist. Therefore, relying on vaccines is the most rational way to prevent a third wave.

Short Term

But at present, we do not have the capacity to produce vaccines fast enough to vaccinate our entire population in the next few months. The combined production capacity of Covishield and Covaxin is only around 60-70 million doses/month and at this rate it may take more than two years to vaccinate India's population. So we have to look at other options, like scaling up capacity and ready-made vaccines from abroad.

The scaling up of capacity promised by the Serum Institute of India (SII) and Bharat Biotech, which manufactures the vaccines currently used in India, is going to take time and we cannot rely on that process to rapidly increase the rate of vaccination.

In the short term, pre-prepared vaccines from abroad seem to be the only viable option if we want to vaccinate the most vulnerable groups and economically-productive sections of the population rapidly. The decision to allow the import and use of Russian-made Sputnik V is a welcome step in this regard. We need more such vaccines, including China's Sinopharm which was recently approved for emergency use by World Health Organization.

Medium Term

In the medium-term, our existing vaccine manufacturing capacity should be repurposed to make COVID-19 vaccines. India supplies a major proportion of the vaccine requirements of Gavi-the vaccine alliance and has access to most of the technology platforms for vaccine production. When the United States has supported lifting the patent protection available to COVID-19 vaccines, India should be able to leverage its production capabilities and rapidly augment capacity.

Besides vaccination, in the short and medium term, we should also aim to increase the testing capacity. Only rapid identification of cases and strict isolation can help to flatten the curve till the vaccine rollout is adequate. Apart from this, we need to institutionalise the processes to ensure adherence to social vaccines. This can be done through a mix of behaviour change communication, regulatory efforts and community mobilisation. All of this has to be continued till we achieve a vaccination coverage of more than 80 percent.

Long Term

In the long term, however, we should be expecting similar pandemics to hit us. Be it antimicrobial resistance or newer viruses, there are a number of health threats which can manifest in several catastrophic ways. The only way out is to strengthen our health system and ensure a basic bouquet of healthcare services to our entire population.

The United Nations High Level Political Declaration on Universal Health Coverage calls for accessible and equitable healthcare services to every single person; and advocates greater emphasis on primary healthcare. India should be able to strengthen our three tier healthcare system by pouring more resources into the primary healthcare centres. It is estimated that almost 90 percent of the medical treatment demand can be satisfied at the primary health level and very few patients need to be referred to higher rungs of the healthcare ladder.

For this, we need greater public investment into the healthcare sector and increase budgetary allocation for sectors which shape determinants of health such as water, sanitation, nutrition etc. The public expenditure on healthcare is just above 1 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and we need to raise it to at least 2.5 percent in the near term. We need to remember that several developed countries already spend more than 10 percent of its GDP as public health expenditure.

This pandemic has shown us the deficiencies in our healthcare system and laid bare the systemic under-investment in public health over the last half a century. Building a fair and equitable healthcare system, which works for all the people, may be the only solution to prevent (or rather limit the impact of) future pandemics.

[raymondrroberts]

A Brief Defense of Liberal Democracy

This essay is pieced together from excerpts of a paper I delivered in Bangkok in November 2019.  Observers note that the quality and quantity of liberal democracies is in decline[1]  Globally, authoritarianism and ethno-nationalism are on the rise. It seems like a good time to consider why Christians ought to support liberal democracy.

This map indicates the state of democracies worldwide, for an explanation click this link.

I have a general target in mind when I talk about liberal democracy. By liberal I mean provisions that require states to protect the rights of individuals and groups, particularly minorities, through its laws. By democracy I mean forms of government that empower citizens to regularly elect their political leaders in free, fair, and meaningful elections.[2] While some scholars distinguish liberalism and democracy, identifying “illiberal democracies,” I note that liberalism and democracy are mutually dependent. When liberalism declines, a tyranny of the majority emerges.[3]  

Reinhold Niebuhr

Reinhold Niebuhr famously rooted his defense of democracy in Christian anthropology, saying,

"[The human] capacity for justice makes democracy possible; but [the human] inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary."[4]

Image of God

A Christian anthropology begins with the conviction that all people are created in God’s image (Genesis 1:27). This belief supports the dignity of every person and authorizes a special concern for the poor, weak, and vulnerable. It undercuts elitist ideologies and ethnic prejudices, providing a point of solidarity across what can sometimes appear to be unbridgeable tribal, racial, national, linguistic, historical and cultural differences. In the face of humankind’s incredible diversity, gifts, status and conditions, it provides a metaphysical-moral reason for equality before the law. People who view others as bearing the image of God have good reason to oppose illiberal populisms and ethno-nationalism.

Natural Law

A Christian anthropology also holds that God has endowed every human being with a natural law, or a moral sense.[5] This idea was developed from the Apostle Paul’s observation that gentiles who lack the revealed law of God nevertheless possess the capacity for moral reasoning. The Apostle Paul said that God had written the law on their hearts, giving them a conscience (Romans 2:14-15). This is why people of other religions or no religion so often manifest good will.

In the 11th Century the conviction that every person was capable of discerning right and wrong became the foundation on which natural law thinking developed and European law was reconstructed. Since Hugo Grotius in the 17th Century, natural law and the Protestant (and, later, enlightenment) elevations of the individual conscience provided a foundation for international law, secular government, and inter-religious dialogue.[6] The belief that human beings can discern right and wrong undermines exclusionary claims that moral insight and practice is limited to religious texts, the interpreters of these texts, or the members of communities formed around these texts.

As it relates to democracy, the belief in natural law funds a hope that societies can find thin ethical agreement across the diversities of religion and culture. [7] Natural law provides a foundation for social solidarity among dissimilar peoples, grounding confidence that individuals can transcend personal and tribal interests to imagine common public goods. Similarly, it mandates that every citizen participate in democratic conversation and decision-making. It also undercuts defenses employed by oppressive states that claim their violations of human rights reflect distinctive cultural values that deserve respect. Together, the doctrines of the image of God and natural law provide a theological rationale for the human capacity for justice.

Sin

While everyone has a moral sense, we everywhere see how this sense can be muted and twisted to evil ends. Christians attribute this failure to sin, a doctrine built on the Apostle Paul’s statement that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3.23). As a description of human nature, the doctrine of sin accords with observations that human beings are inclined to estrangement and destruction. Whether from finitude, anxiety or trauma, human interests, moral reasoning, laws, and institutions tend to “curve in on themselves” (Augustine). That is, human beings pursue constricted visions of the good that fail to honor the Creator and Redeemer’s expansive purpose for “all things” (Colossians 1:15-20).

Sin is inventive.[8] Calvin described human beings as “idol factories” constantly finding ways to turn from God. Sin is not necessary, but it is universal. Its corrupting distortions infect every aspect of human being. In the Reformed Tradition this aspect of sin is conveyed in the term, “total depravity.” Sin is embedded in and passed down in culture, deforming every individual and institution in society. It even corrupts individuals and movements engaged in redemptive efforts to heal souls, ameliorate sins affects, and reform social evils. The cross of Christ specifically arouses suspicion of political and religious power.

The doctrine of sin prompts us to recognize the countless ways human beings and their institutions pursue evil purposes. It leads us to anticipate the inventive ways that social, economic and political systems fall short of their life-giving promise. It amplifies sensitivity to corporate and structural evil and triggers apprehension whenever we face concentrations of power. People equipped with a strong doctrine of sin are not dismayed when they confront xenophobia, racism, imperfect democratic institutions, or desires for a strong authoritarian leader.

The doctrine of sin makes the church skeptical that moral and religious appeals can, by themselves, correct injustice or protect the common good. It underwrites efforts to surmount problems inherent in concentrations of power through mechanisms of transparency (reporting requirements, whistleblower protections, freedom of information laws, and a free press). It seeks to diffuse the problems of concentrated power by setting power against power with checks, balances, and limits.

Sin’s realism about the human capacity for evil points to the necessity of vertical democratic systems of transparency and accountability (voting) and horizontal checks on power across the various branches of government. It predicts that, over time, governments that are not required to protect the rights of individuals and groups, particularly minority groups, can be counted on to violate those rights. Indeed, it predicts that even governments that are required to protect the rights of individuals and groups will fail at their responsibilities. Again, while authoritarian governments may efficiently pursue public goods, over time they can be counted on to abuse their power in ways that are destructive to individuals and society.[9] Just as the human capacity for justice makes democracy possible, human sin makes democracy necessary. NOTES [1] For example see Larry Diamond, “Facing Up to the Democratic Recession,” Journal of Democracy 26 (1) (2015): 141-155. https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Diamond-26-1_0.pdf.

[2] In this definition I follow John J. Mearsheimer’s definition of “liberal democracy, adding a responsibility to protect group rights.” See The Great Delusion: Liberal Dreams and International Realities, (New Haven:  Yale University Press, 2018), pg. 11.

[3] Mearsheimer is an example of the former scholar.  Yashca Mounk is an example of the latter scholar. See, The People Vs. Democracy: Why Our Freedom Is in Dangers and How to Save It (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2018).

[4] Reinhold Niebuhr, The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1944), pg. xiii.

[5] Jean Porter claims that natural law viewed as a “universal capacity of moral discernment.” She claims the later was the foundation for the development of the natural law tradition. See Jean Porter, Natural and Divine Law: Reclaiming the Tradition for Christian Ethics (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Press, 1999). See also, Jean Porter, Nature as Reason:  A Thomistic Theory of the Natural Law Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Press, 2005). Notice that this Reformed perspective, after taking scriptural bearings, turns to some Roman Catholic resources.

[6] While Grotius is sometimes credited with providing a secular basis for international law, we ought not forget that his optimism concerning natural law grew out of his Christian faith. See Hugo Grotius, The Rights of War and Peace, Book 1 (Indianapolis:  Liberty Fund, 2005). In a similar way, Edwin Corwin has argued that American Constitutional Law rests on this higher law background. See, “The Higher Law Background of American Constitutional Law,” Harvard Law Review (XLII, No. 2, December 1928), pg. 149ff. http://www.romeroinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/CorwinHigherLaw.pdf.

[7] It also suggests that thin ethical agreements, such as the United Nation’s statement on rights, can inspire peoples to construct thick moral reasons for supporting those rights. For a discussion of the contributions of Protestant views of natural law to liberal political thought see Adam B. Seligman, The Idea of Civil Society (New York:  Free Press, 1992).

[8] This creativity may explain why the church has marshaled many metaphors to describe sin and its remedy, grace. Metaphors for sin and grace abound, they include:  sickness and salvation, bondage and liberation (redemption), non-alignment (missing the mark) and justification (alignment), estrangement and reconciliation, debt and forgiveness, disorientation (lost) and reorientation (found), constriction and expansion, disordered love and reordered love, corruption and renewal, death and life.

[9] Other doctrines have similar practical relevance. The doctrine of covenant illumines the social nature of human being and can help us understand what we owe God and one another. The doctrine of creation has ecological ramifications that can reframe the economic challenges faced by nations and the global community. The doctrine of reconciliation has horizonal dimensions that speak to estrangement between people.

[lightyourowntunnel]

It’s show and tell time!

This spiel is courtesy of @thewriteblrarchives and their NaNoWriMo Support Group. Let’s talk my process and my NaNo project for this November. It’s really long, so I’ve put it under the tab; enjoy!

Questions for you:

How long have you been writing? 

I’ve been writing for as I can remember, honestly. I used to write little stories and poems long before I entered kindergarten. By the time I was in late elementary school, I was consistently planning more coherent stories. I never finished one of them, though.

When you start a project, how do you start? With character, setting, plot, aesthetic, something else? 

So inspiration usually hits me like trucks hitting anime protagonists. Sometimes the foundations of a character I find interesting will inspire me, other times it’s a setting. There’s been at least one time that I’ve seen a trope I really liked an off-shoot of that I wanted a full story about (i.e. found family where they’re actually friends and don’t act like they secretly hate each other).

What’s your favourite part of the writing process?

World building is hands down my favorite part of the writing process. I have way more worlds than I have stories for. Normally, I’ll only have vague concepts for characters and a plot until I have a solid world I can play around in, so world building is also one of the longest parts of my process, too.

What genres do you write?

I write a lot of fantasy. Like a lot, a lot of fantasy. Realistically, it’s usually leaning more into science fantasy, but it’s still always very definitively a fantasy world. Everything I write usually has some LGBT+ , aspects of adventure, and potential romantic subplots.

Where’s the strangest place you’ve ever written?

I think it’s personally stranger when I write in a normal place like a cafe, library, or on a desk. I tend to write on the go -- in cars and buses -- and I was scribbling stories throughout my classes and college prep program.

Questions for NaNo:

Have you participated in NaNo or camp NaNo before?

I almost participated in NaNo eons ago, but I chickened out on October 31st. Ever since then I’ve always considered it and just never went through with NaNo or any Camp NaNos.

What made you decide to join up?

So I’m kinda always thinking about joining NaNo and chicken out at the last minute.I’m an expert at making excuses for myself where creative writing is involved! But a little before I finally decided to join I saw this Preptober video by Alexa Donne on YouTube. I had been watching writing tips for a few days because I was distressed about how little I’d been writing recently. Seeing that really just made me decide that there’s no time like the present; even if it’s horrible, I love writing and I just gotta do it.

What are you most excited about/looking forward to?

I’m really, really excited about where this story’s going (in part because even I don’t really know yet). I’ve fallen in love with these characters and there are so many routes their arcs could go. I’m still nailing down an embodiment of an antagonistic force, though, so that’s something I’m looking forward to coming together.

Anything you’re a bit nervous about?

Writing in general, haha! I’ve never successfully written a full-length manuscript before and I’m trying to just go in order for NaNo so I get the experience of it. I just finished the first chapter and cried because I felt so relieved. My favorite part of the novel to write is the middle, but I need a lot of improvement and motivation for the beginning and ending; I’m glad to have the first chapter weight finally off my shoulders.

Have you done a lot of preparation? Or none whatsoever?

I’ve done some prep for my novel. Key word is some. I started prep work on October 16th with a brand new idea, so I was bound to be pretty behind on planning in general. But I’m also a total pantser, so I was trying planner for a change. In the end, I had established my protagonists, the world, and a vague sense of the plot. I also nearly created a language as a part of the PoV character’s culture.

Do you have a workspace, schedule, or daily goal?

In theory, I have a daily goal of 1,667-2,000 words. Because I’m writing a fantasy, I want to get as close to the average word count of my genre as possible. In general, I tend to write at night after work and on my way to work, but I’m trying to wake up earlier so I can write in the morning and not have to transcribe it from a notebook later. I usually write at home, typically isolated in a bedroom.

Questions for your wip:

What’s your NaNo wip titled (if it has one)?

If We’re to Carry Stars

Tell us a bit about your NaNo wip! For example the plot, genre, themes…

If We’re to Carry Stars (IWCS) is a fantasy adventure novel set in the world of Eondes. Thousands of years before the beginning of the story, Eondes chose the Yuvel as its protectors.The Yuvel were merely a race of healers with a high magical aptitude; their styled after nymphs, elves and fairies, with pointed ears and features meant to mimic the planet itself (fiery eyes, green hair, blue blood, etc.). In exchange for protection, Eondes granted the Yuvel access to its magical core, which they were tasked with keeping clean. It gave them elemental magic and strengthened their healing magic. Over the years, the Yuvel had managed to eliminate all known illnesses and dutifully served Eondes.

However, their protection came at a price. Not only has accurate records of old cures and ailments fallen from folklore and records, but no one’s immune systems were prepared to battle any future threats. Faith in Yuvellen magic had made these things unnecessary.

Until now.

A magic-resistant illness has begun to spread through Eondes’ other races. Meanwhile, Eondes’ magical core has begun to pollute, thus weakening the Yuvel with an illness of their own. Many Yuvel have begun leaving their home on Yuvellse in search of answers and a cure, while other races have followed in suit. Faith in the Yuvel has plummeted and tensions between races rise as unlikely alliances strive for Eondes’ hope.

In the midst of such dread, a Yuvel named Eiríńé finds herself wrapped up in one of these quests as she searches for happiness in a dismal life.

Themes: I want to play with the concept of love and selfishness. Is it more selfish to remain where you’re unhappy or is it more selfish to leave in search of happiness? How do you communicate love? How do you communicate your needs when it comes to love, such as styles of affection? I would also like to play around with some other things, but they’re not as concrete yet.

What is your protagonist like?

So I’m playing with the 5 Man Band trope, and therefore have 5 protagonists with one as focal PoV character

Eiríńé in the focal character and the PoV character (as much as she can be in a third person limited perspective). She’s quite a soft-spoken and hesitant Yuvel. Because she frequently second guesses herself, she ends up taking forever to make a decision. She’s rather kind and strives to be a people pleaser. But she’s also horrendously cynical and deeply discontent with her own life. At the beginning of the story, Eiríńé is engaged and has a good, supportive network of friends and family, none of whom seem to realize how deeply unhappy she is with her life. She makes the decision to leave her life behind and join the others on their quest once Mirunise prompts her to make a brash decision and said impulsiveness lights her heart unlike anything before.

Mirunise is the party leader. She’s a Capescu, a shape-shifting race that can shift into any animal they can imagine; they have heightened sense in their default form. Mirunise is a bubbly paragon with a hurricane for a personality. She’s bombastic and aggressively friendly, to the point Ayondi is frequently trying to calm her down. Her cheer and smile is considered infectious. When confronted with negativity, her optimism usually takes the competitive form of refusing to let the source of said negativity win. Because she’s such a dominating force of personality, she can come off as insensitive and/or rude to some; whenever this is pointed out, she quiets and displays an aggressively compassionate side that’s surprisingly a great listener. Mirunise comes across Ayondi and V'haǵir on her way to see her father. Upon learning of V'haǵir’s condition and ambitions, Mirunise quickly joins their group and spearheads them forward.

Ayondi is V'haǵir’s childhood friend. She’s a Darunshin, a human-like species with bird wings that grow and shrink on command, they have an almost supernatural strength. Ayondi is calm and reserved with a deep motherly streak. She cares deeply for other people, but has a habit of expressing it through nitpicking. She is both the most intelligent and has the most common sense in the part; her strategies tend to fall on deaf ears, though. She’s a realist, but a pessimistic side grows after V'haǵir falls ill; everyone who’s contracted the illness thus far as died, and she fears her days with him are numbered. So she picks up V'haǵir‘s quest and decides that she’d rather save others from the grief of loss than just wallow in her own.

V'haǵir is Ayondi’s childhood friend; his illness is the catalyst for his initial quest with Ayondi to search for a cure. He’s a Wevri, an aquatic race with webbed ears and control over existing water. V'haǵir is boisterous and optimistic, a typical paragon like Mirunise. He’s excitable and generally cheerful. He’s the least thrilled about combat in the party, too. In life, he wants to make everyone happier than he’s ever been (and seeing as he’s almost always been generally happy, that’s a lofty ambition). When he first exhibits symptoms of the illness, V'haǵir laments his poor luck and feels discouraged by the lack of a cure. However, he quickly decides that he doesn’t want to idly wait for death and sets out on a quest for a cure, even if he may never live to use it for himself.

Somayn is the last person to join the party before Eiríńé. He’s a Zuifeel, an elf-like race with pointed, drooping ears and a magical connection to nature. Somayn is quiet, but friendly. He’s very worldly and often acts as a sort of folklore guide for the rest of the party. Despite being generally intelligent, he doesn’t really have a great deal of common sense. He’s realistic, calm and collected, and emotionally open with his allies; he sees no point in lying or hiding one’s feelings. On their travels, Mirunise, Ayondi, and V'haǵir find him in the middle of battle (more specifically on the losing side) against a group of bandits. Somayn decides to join their quest after he’s been healed of his injures, citing a need to scour Eondes’ libraries for potential cures.

Have you been planning it for a while? Conversely, do you know anything about it yet?

I wish I could say that I’ve been planning IWCS for a while. But I started planning this story October 16th of this year and started writing it on November 1st. I have a solid handle on the main characters and the world of Eondes, but it’s still up in the air where it’ll all go.

[allwaysofpersonalitytyping]

Breaking Down The Social Hierarchy

Α

Alpha male

He is the leader, the dominant one, The Bad Boy. This guy is a manly man, confident and extroverted. He is the one who enforces the social rules yet breaks them at the same time.

He grew up an active child and was always the leader of his friends. In high school, he was the prom king and captain of the football team, but also the school bully. Two years after his graduation, he became the president of his fraternity house. And finally, he is the higher up boss in the workplace.

He speaks his mind and isn’t afraid to talk down to a woman. Women of all types gravitate to him.

An alpha male most likely has the MBTI type of an ENTJ, ESTJ, or ESTP.

Their spirit animal is a lion, the king of the animal kingdom.

Strengths: athletic, intelligent, direct, assertive, realistic, mature, hardworking, excellent communication skills

Weaknesses: domineering, rude, insubordinate

How he views himself: I have goals I need to achieve. Everything else is a waste of time.

How others view him: That guy is at the top of everything.

Examples: George Washington, Alexander the Great

Alpha female

She is the Bad Girl, the baddest bitch in the room. The alpha female is very feminine, as in fact, she is the most ladylike and knows her manners. She is outgoing, elegant, and decisive.

The Alpha female may be a bitch or big hoe but she definitely has class. She uses drugs, drinks, and has sex moderately.

She grew up as a tomboy during her childhood, then became a girly girl. In high school, she is the prom queen, head cheerleader, the most popular girl in school. Like her male counterpart, she becomes president of her sorority house in college and higher up boss in the workplace.

She thinks before she speaks, is a good listener, and interrupts only when necessary. Men don’t intimidate her and she is completely comfortable being around them. The Beta male is her perfect match as he complements her personality.

An alpha female most likely has the MBTI type of an ENFJ or ESFP.

Her spirit animal is, of course, the queen bee.

Strengths: graceful, intelligent, mature, socially adept, assertive, realistic, hardworking, excellent communication skills

Weaknesses: bossy, high-maintenance

How she views herself: I’m not going to waste time because I need to pursue my dreams.

How others view her: She always gets her way.

Examples: Queen Elizabeth II, Oprah Winfrey, Claire (The Breakfast Club), Regina George (Mean Girls), Tomoyo Sakagami (CLANNAD)

β

Beta male

The Beta male is the opposite of the alpha male in every way. He is submissive, a Nice Guy, a natural born follower.

He is a shy, introverted guy who is boyish in both appearance and personality.

This is the guy who blindly follows the rules and never questions them.

Unlike the Alpha, he is rather unathletic and less intelligent.

The Beta was the teacher’s pet in high school, the wannabe, the loser, a nerd and dork. He is the high school bully’s main target. This definitely carries in the workplace as they’ll always be working for and under the Alphas.

Beta males like alpha females but they usually get friendzoned. If the Alpha female doesn’t reciprocate his feelings, he ends up with his female counterpart, the Beta female.

A Beta male most likely has the MBTI type of an INFP.

His spirit animal is a dog because of his loyalty and obedient nature.

Strengths: introspective, agreeable, hardworking

Weaknesses: poor communication skills, weak-willed, lack of confidence, ill-at-ease, immature, passive aggressive, talks more than listen

How he views himself: What if they don’t like me?

How others view him: That guy is such a beta! He couldn’t even ask a girl out.

Examples: Justin Timberlake

Beta female

Like her male counterpart, she is the Good Girl. Beta females are the stereotypical girly girls. They are shy and introverted like their male counterparts.

She has always been the Alpha female’s best friend, right-wing woman since childhood.

She doesn’t have the problems her male counterpart does when in comes to dating. She’s 2nd in place to the Alpha female in getting guys. Being naturally submissive, she needs a strong man so the Alpha male would be her perfect match.

A Beta female most likely has the MBTI type of an INFP or ESFJ.

Strengths: bubbly, idealistic, innocent, hardworking

Weaknesses: naive, hyper, lack of confidence, passive aggressive

How she views herself: I’m not that pretty.

How others view her: She’s sweet but I would rather hang with an alpha female because they’re always chill and at ease.

Examples: Princess Diana, Bridget Jones (Bridget Jones Diary), Gretchen and Karen (Mean Girls), Orihime Inoue (Bleach), Nagisa Furukawa (CLANNAD)

Γ

Gamma male

He has the traits of both the Alpha male and the Beta male. The Gamma male is neither a leader nor follower. He is ambiverted, fun-loving, relaxed, and easy to talk to.

In high school, he is a Class Clown or a “freak”.

Gamma males are as successful in getting girls. He would be a perfect match for the Delta female.

A Gamma male most likely has the MBTI type of an ENTP or ISTP.

In high school, she is a Thespian or a “freak”.

Strengths: friendly, approachable, witty, clever, inventive, individualistic, hardworking, good communication skills

Weaknesses: inconsiderate, rash, aggressive

Examples: Martin Luther King Jr, Ichigo Kurosaki (Bleach)

Gamma female

She is psychologically dominant, but socially rejected.

In high school, she was a Thespian or a “freak”. She’ll most likely work freelance

She would be a perfect match for the Delta male.

A Gamma female most likely has the MBTI type of an ENFP, INFJ, or ISFP.

Her spirit animal is a bird as she is free spirited.

Strengths: original, artistic, creative, outgoing, hardworking

Weaknesses: too loud, aggressive

Examples: Rosa Parks, Katniss Everdeen (Hunger Games), Cady (Mean Girls)

δ

Delta=Normal

Psychologically submissive, socially acceptable

Deltas are average people who don’t lead nor follow.

In high school, they’re the team players on their sports teams

A person with a Delta personality has the MBTI type of an ESFJ, ISTJ or ISFJ.

A Delta will most likely end up with a Gamma or another Delta.

Strengths: stable, sensible, down-to-earth

Weaknesses: mediocre

How Deltas view themselves: I wonder what it’s like to not be normal?

What other people think about them: A normal guy/girl would also make a good boyfriend/girlfriend.

Lambda

LGBT community

Lambda males are openly gay men while Lambda females are tomboys. Non-binary individuals are lambdas as well.

Strengths: open minded

Weaknesses: too liberal

Examples: Aja, Kaitlyn Alexander, Batwoman, Poison Ivy, Willow (Buffy), Santana and Brittany (Glee), Damian (Mean Girls)

Omega

Omega=Invisible

psychologically submissive, socially rejected

Omegas are the people who stay in the background. They are inactive, taciturn, and timid people. Their presence is weak which makes them unnoticeable. They get scared easily and thus avoid these situations at all costs.

They’re the new freshmen in high school, the outcast

Omegas are the people least likely to be hired because of timidity, laziness, and lack of participation. But when they do get hired, they’re at the bottom of the ladder.

A person with an Omega personality has the MBTI type of an ISFJ, ISFP, INTP, or INFP.

They’re lucky if they even get asked out.

Strengths: low-key, careful, humble, modest, sensible, unpretentious, hardworking

Weaknesses: timid, taciturn, lethargic, unreliable

How Omegas view themselves: I’m too scared to do anything.

What other people think about them: I forgot that guy/girl exists. He/she doesn’t talk much.

Σ

Sigma=Lone Wolf

rebel

Sigmas are similar to Gammas except they are antisocial yet somehow beat the Alpha in the social game.

The high school stereotype of a Sigma is an emo, goth

Sigmas are con artists

The person with a Sigma personality has the MBTI type of an ENTJ, ENTP, INTJ, ISTP, or INTP.

Sigmas are usually attracted to only other Sigmas.

Their spirit animal is a wolf, obviously.

Strengths: same as Alpha

Weaknesses: careless, hostile

How Sigmas view themselves: Fuck the hierachy! I’m going to say that to the Alphas and see what happens because I don’t give a shit.

What other people think about them: Damn, the loner just owned that Alpha!

Examples: Janis (Mean Girls)

θ

Theta male

Theta female

Zeta

Zetas are unattractive people who completely lack social skills.

They’re the creeps, stalkers, and weirdos

Their friends are imaginary since even animals hate them.

They never get laid

Strengths: original, creative

Weaknesses: socially inept, mentally unstable

How Zetas view themselves: I’m Alpha and everyone is jealous of my status.

What other people think about them: Ew! No one likes that guy/girl.

Examples: Tyler Downing (13 Reasons Why), Michael and Dwight from The Office, Napoleon Dynamite

As much as hierarchies suck, they unfortunately still exist. You’re extroverted and confident, you’re an Alpha. You’re shy and introverted, you’re a Beta. You’re ambiverted, you’re a Gamma. You’re like most people, you’re a Delta. You’re quiet and timid, you’re an Omega. You’re antisocial, you’re a Sigma. You’re socially inept, you’re a Zeta. Of course we shouldn’t label ourselves as we’re dynamic and not limited to what we genetically are because nobody’s perfect.