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nickyhemmick · 4 years ago

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A Very Stressed American Jew here again,

Hi! Thank you for taking the time to respond to my ask and yes, I’m someone who loves hearing as many perspectives as possible so I’d love some sources from you. I also very much appreciate the fact you are being very careful to only reblog posts that are anti Israel, not antisemetic (which is frankly a breath of fresh air, the internet has been a bit exhaustingly full of both antisemitic & Islamaphobic content these past feel days as I bet you’ve seen)

I’ve also been to Israel on a Birthright trip. We met people who ( both Palestinian and Israeli) on various sides of the conflict and learned a ton about it, from both perspectives which I was lucky to have the opportunity to do. We even went a little into the Gaza Strip to talk to these people running a pro Palestine peace movement and it was so important to me hearing those stories.

I never said they were on equal footing militarily, they definitely are not, Israel definitely has that advantage. But you are incorrect about Israel always being the aggressor since 1948,they’ve defended themselves about as often as they’ve attacked. Isreal is a small country comparatively to the ones surrounding it, so it makes sense it defends itself heavily in case of an attack.

I 100% agree that there are too many people who are compliant with the mistreatment of many Palestinians! I’m not anti #freepalestine at all! I get why that is a thing. But I also stand with Israel( but that does not mean I condone every action they take. ) Overall I think the situation is extremely complicated and some sort of compromise should be reached.

It’s just been very frustrating to see so many people reblog things on a situation just bashing Israel because so many others are doing it. Especially when then don’t know what they are talking about or using big buzz words that they don’t know what they mean, or spreading misinformation. It’s been on both sides and has been very very draining. I just want peace and some sort of solution. It makes me extremely happy you know what you are talking about and can debate politely yet happily about it. The internet has been so ‘ either agree with me 100% or you a bad person’ about this so it’s refreshing to see you are not like that.

I’ve done a lot of research into it from as many perspectives as I can get my hands on.

Some extremest Israelis are hurting Palestinians

Some extremest Palestinians are hurting Israelis

Both sides are throwing rockets at each other and it’s terrifying.

Both sides claim the other side is brainwashed

There is so much biased propaganda out there on both ends it’s hard to know what is truly happening.

I know people living in Israel who have sent me videos they’ve taken of rockets flying over there heads and I’m so scared for them. I’m so scared for all the innocent people caught in the crossfire on both sides.

Thank you for a more nuanced response and I’d love some of your sources,

A Very Stressed American Jew

Hi anon,

I wasn’t going to respond to this until after my math final tomorrow but I’ve spent the past two days thinking of your ask and the things I wish to articulate in my answer.

I am going to start here: how can you say you support Israel but say you are also pro-free Palestine (as in, you said you are not anti free Palestine). In my opinion, these two ideas cannot coexist. Simply because, the entire establishment of Israel has been on violent, racist, colonial grounds.

(Super long post under here guys)

You said you don’t support all Israel’s actions, and definitely, just because you support something doesn’t mean you can’t criticize it. However, in my opinion, if you do not support Israel’s actions against Palestinians there’s not much left to support? I admit this is a very biased view as I am Palestinian, but many things that people support about Israel have existed before its creation: as in, these are things and qualities that have existed in Judaism and are not due to “Israeli culture.” There is no Israeli culture. There’s Jewish culture--100%. But there is no Israeli culture, because Israel does not only steal Palestinian land, but Palestinian culture, too. Such as claiming Levant food is Israeli; hummus, ful, falafel, shawarma. I mentioned food from this article I know is culturally and traditionally of the Levant, and has been for centuries, it is not something that has come to culinary creation in the past 73 years.

I do not think this is a complicated issue. I said that in the previous ask and I’ll say that again. Saying it is a complicated issue is trivializing the deaths of innocent Palestinians, the violent dispossession our ancestors endured, and the apartheid they live under. I hope if anything comes from this discussion it is you removing the “it’s a complicated issue” phrase from your vernacular.

This is not complicated. A journalist reporting the death of martyrs only to discover that of them include two of his brothers is not complicated. The asymmetry of Israel vs Palestinian armed forces is not complicated, nor is the asymmetry in Israeli vs Palestinian suffering (which I will get to later). It is not complicated. Destroying the graves of martyred Palestinians (or just in general, the graves of the dead) is not complicated. Little children being pulled from the rubble, children being forced to comfort one another as they are covered in the ashes of their decimated homes, attacking unarmed citizens in peaceful demonstrations (you can find videos before this attack where they were playing with kites and balloons), destroying an international media office and refusing to allow journalists to retrieve the work they are spending every waking hour documenting but claiming it was because it was a hide out for a “Hamas base,” fathers who are trying to cheer their frightened children up only to end up dead the next day, while many Israeli have the privilege and the option to go to hotel-like bomb shelters is not complicated.

This brings me to my next point: the suffering of Palestinians cannot be compared to the inconvenience of Israeli’s. On one side, you have children who are happy to have saved their fish in the face of their homes and lives being decimated behind them to Israeli’s in Tel Aviv having to cut their beach day short to get to bomb shelters. You have mothers and fathers ready to set their lives down for their children to save them from bombs to Israeli’s enjoying their brunch only after making sure there are bomb shelters there. You have Palestinian children being murdered to blocking out the sound of sirens in the safety of your bomb shelters. (The first picture of the Palestinian child is not from footage of the recent problems). You have the baby lone survivor of a whole family recovered from rubble. His whole family, gone, before he ever had the chance to realize that he even exists, while Israeli’s decide to flee out of the country,(Translate the caption from Twitter, it checks out), or have to leave the shower due to sirens. Who is really suffering?

I won’t sit here and pretend like the thought of rockets flying over my head, no matter which side I am on, is not terrifying. It is. It’s scary to just think about. But Israeli’s have protection beyond Palestinian’s, they have sirens to warn them (Israel does not always warn Palestinian building members that it is about to be bombed), they have the Iron Dome, they have simply the threat of nuclear power (which I am not saying Israel would use, but the simple fact they have it would make me feel a lot better if I were an Israeli citizen) and they have bomb shelters. What do Palestinians have? Hamas? That smuggles its weapons through the ocean? That only ever reacts to the action Israel instigates? And yet Gazans are branded terrorists and that it is their fault that they “elected” a terrorist organization that only was ever created due to no protection from any armed country? (There are so many links I want to add in this paragraph but it is simply impossible for me to add everything I want, a lot of what I’m referring to can either be found through a Google search, or you can stalk my Twitter account, all that I am posting now is about Palestine, and will include sources of things I cannot add in just this one post.)

Look, I see myself in the genocide happening in Palestine right now. I see myself in this ten year-old girl. In this three year old girl. I see me and my family in videos of cars being attacked in Ramallah and Sheikh Jarrah (I cannot find the Ramallah video, should be somewhere on my Twitter), I see my father in the countless videos of fathers crying out for their children, of kissing the corpse of their loved ones (again, translate the Tweet, the man holding the body is saying “just one kiss”). I see my grandfather in videos like this (old footage). I see my younger brother, I see my grandmother, my mother, my aunts and uncles and cousins. I see myself and my life and my family were my father not lucky enough to get a scholarship to the UK and out of Palestine, were my maternal grandfather not been lucky enough to make it to a refugee camp and build a life in Jordan. I have an unbelievable amount of privilege to be born into the life I was born in to, in terms of I do not have the threat of bombs and violent dispossession around me, and I do not even live in the US. I have privilege and sheer luck that my parents were able to go to the US so that me and my brothers can be born, because now I have both the protection of the most powerful country in the world while at the same time being part of a people to have suffered so generously the past seventy-three years.

On the other hand, you saying that Israel has “defended themselves about as often as they’ve attacked. Israel is a small country comparatively to the ones surrounding it, so it makes sense it defends itself heavily in case of an attack,” I offer you this question: why are they using military grade guns and stun grenades in mosques to “defend” themselves from rocks? And before you mention that Hamas hit Tel Aviv, I remind you that Hamas did that due to the violence in the Al-Aqsa mosque square and the attempted ethnic cleansing in Sheikh Jarrah. The violence didn’t begin with us; the violence was brought out of Palestinians in resistance to the generations of oppression we have endured and the attack on Palestinian Muslims during the holiest night of Ramadan. Hamas has since asked for a ceasefire multiple times and Israel is refusing. New reports say there is a possibility of a ceasefire in the coming days, but Israel could have decided this a long time ago and spared many lives. (Remember, no matter what resistance we make, Israel is the one in power).

Israel has been the aggressor since 1948. Just read up about the Nakba! 700k Palestinian families were dispossessed violently. The only reason Israel was established at all was because it simply declared it was now a country and the US and many other countries recognized it as such. (Of course, there are many other historical details here, like the British Mandate of Palestine, the Balfour Declaration, the Oslo Accords and many others. I am aware of them but these are for a different post all together). My paternal grandfather was a little younger than me when Israel as a state was created. The hostility that followed was due to this independent declaration being listened to over Palestinian voices.

Here is a very, very simplified analogy, one that can also answer some people’s questions as to why Palestinians (not Arabs, we are Palestinian before we are Arab) did not like what happened in 1948 and why they refused a two-state solution (that Israel was never going to go through with anyway). (I am also aware other Arab nations got involved, and that is perhaps what you mean when you said they had to defend themselves, but my response to that would still be we didn't start it, that we only responded to it).

Let’s say you are a farmer. You have many fields of trees, ones you have taken shelter under from the sun since you were a child, or hid behind when you wanted to avoid your parents when you misbehaved. You have seen your trees grow from a seed, to a sprout, to a flower, to a large, beautiful tree with fruits the size of a fist. You pluck the fruits from one tree, and make a jam from it. I don’t know how to make jam but I know it takes a lot of energy. So, you make this jam and from it, produce a lovely, mouth-watering pie. Once it has cooled from the oven, you take it with you outside your balcony just so that you can admire the years, months, weeks and hours this one pie has taken to be created. Suddenly, a stranger walks past and yells to you, “That pie looks delicious, I want it!” And you, shocked at their boldness but ready to share, say, “I will give you a bite.” But the stranger says, “No! I do not want a bite or a slice or whatever you want to offer me, I want the pie!” And they grab it from you. You and the stranger start screaming at one another about who the pie is for, who is allowed to decide what happens to it, and who you can share it with. Then, another stranger comes by and says, “Why all the problems? Let’s cut the pie in half and the both of you can share it!” But why should you, who has spent years cultivating the fruit and grain inside this pie, share it? Why should you give up half of the 100% that you already owned? Of what you already had? So you disagree, and now a crowd has formed around you. “What’s the problem?” someone in the crowd calls. “They don’t want to share their pie!” another voice says. Then you become branded a selfish, mean bastard. Again, this is a super simplified analogy, so don’t take it too seriously, but I am trying to show you why Israel is the aggressor.

In addition, I do not know too much about the Birthright program, just that American Jewish people are sent to Israel, all expenses paid. I tried my best to find the Twitter thread but I read it so long ago, about an American Jewish person who went on their trip and they talked about the propaganda that they were exposed to on that trip. I can’t say for sure that it is true, because I haven’t been on it and never will, but that is the first thing I thought of when you mentioned your Birthright trip. Either way, I think it is still great you went and saw the country. However, I must ask you this: are the people you met ones you, yourself, sought out, or ones you were organized to meet?

Now, I haven’t been to Gaza, so I don’t know what you really saw or didn’t, but did you speak to Palestinians who lost their homes to airstrikes? Did you speak to siblings, parents or children of loved ones who had been lost beneath the rubble of buildings and towers? Outside of Gaza, did you speak to Palestinians that live in poor quarters? Ones who have been victims of an IDF soldier shooting them, or who have family members who have died from such attacks? Did they take you guys to Ramallah, to Nablus, to Beit-Imreen, to Jenin, to small villages in the West Bank, far away from Jerusalem and Tel Aviv? Did you speak to people there? Ask them their stories? Because if you did I have a very hard time believing you still think Israel is “defending” itself.

I’ve been to Jerusalem, many times, even Tel Aviv and Jaffa and Haifa. All the times I visited Dome of the Rock there were IDF soldiers with huge guns strapped to their person, standing menacingly outside the courtyard. For what? Genuinely, genuinely for what? It is nothing but an intimidation tactic. The same way we are not allowed in through the airport. If you could see the struggle some Palestinians actually go through just to get into Palestine, through the land border, you would be disgusted. I love Palestine, it is my ancestry land, it is my culture and tradition. But I always hated going to visit because I knew the way to getting there would be hell.

My father worked in Tel Aviv through the first Intifada. My maternal grandfather was forced out of his home in the Nakba and was forced to leave behind his belongings and the orange trees that have been in his family for generations. Hell, the town they lived in was destroyed! It doesn’t exist anymore except in the memories of my aunts and uncles, who never even saw it, but just heard of it from their father!

I’m not saying there aren’t Palestinians who are racist and anti-Semitic (though, tbh, I will direct you here for that) and who support Hamas in killing Israeli’s, but talking about how there are many “extremist” Palestinians who are hurting Israeli’s and in the next line say there are extremist Israeli’s who are hurting Palestinians is not correct. There are extremist Israeli’s killing, lynching, stealing the houses of Palestinians, and there are Palestinians who are fed up and fighting back. (I am not talking about Hamas vs the IDF here, I am talking about the citizens). I have not seen one reported death of an Israeli due to Palestinian violence (if you have, from a trusted source, send it to me), but I have seen countless of the other way around. I have seen images of charred little bodies, of a baby being dug out of the rubble, of a child’s body that had been so mutilated that you can literally see the insides of their body coming out. (I don’t know if it’s on my Twitter, I didn’t want to save that shit). If this was my country I would be absolutely ashamed of myself and my people and what they are doing in the name of my protection. So you have to forgive me, and forgive other Palestinians, who don’t give a fuck about Israeli’s having anxiety over rockets flying over their heads when we see these images. Where is the protection of our kids? Why does no one seem to mention them except when mentioning the poor, innocent ones in Israel? At least more than the majority of them have their parents to comfort and rock them. At least many of them will probably be saved of ever having to be beneath the rubble of a destroyed building, or digging in it, to hope to find the parts of their parents or siblings just so that they can bury them. Just the links from the start of my answer is enough to support what I am saying.

I have soooo much more I can say, like how Israel uses religion to distort the image of what’s going on (tbh, just check my Twitter for that: language is EVERYTHING), but you didn’t mention religion in any of this and so I won’t either. The only reason I decided to respond to you in such length was because you have been one of the few respectful anons in my inbox in the past few years of me being on here talking about Israel, so I appreciate that from you.

As promised, some more sources: decolonizepalestine is a good place to start if you haven’t used it already, it has reading materials, myth busting, and more. Here is a map list of destroyed localities from pre-1948 until 2017, run by two anti-Zionist Israelis. Here and here are the articles I promised of a former IDF soldier-turned Palestinian activist, I read these two last year in June and remember coming out much more informed than before I read them. I suggest looking into the writer and his organization, which, if I remember correctly, collects accounts from previous IDF soldiers. I would suggest not to follow Israel and the IDF accounts on any platform, or any Israel times newspaper, simply because they will not tell you the truth. In fairness, you do not have to follow any Palestinian Authority accounts (which I am not even sure there are), but to follow on-ground Palestinians like Mohammed El-Kurd, who has been speaking out since he was 12 (he is now 22) and he is part of the families in Sheikh Jarrah. I have noticed that this and this account have been translating Arabic headlines and tweets for non-Arabic speakers, I have just started following this person but their bio says they are a Palestinian Jewish person so I am interested in their view of things. You can also follow Israeli’s on-ground and see their perspective on things, but I would also advise to compare the Palestinian and Israeli side of things from the people, and critically analyze the language used in each case. Also, this article references Jewish scholars opposed to the occupation (I have not looked into them myself but I plan to after my exams), and Norman Finklestein is another great Jewish scholar to look into if you haven’t. Twitter is better than Instagram and Facebook, so I would stick to getting live-info from there, Twitter does not censor Palestinian content as much as Insta and Facebook so you’re more likely to see things there.

I will end this by saying I personally do not see any other option for peace than to give Palestinians our land back. Whether we may be Muslim, Jewish or Christian, it has always been and will always be our land. I only hope to see it free in my lifetime.

Free Palestine.

#palestine #israel #west bank #tala gets asks #anon #whew this ask took me like 2-3 hours to respond to #pls read it even if ure not the anon #lots of good links and info #palestine tag #anon there are more reading lists in my #to read #and palestine tag tags #check my likes on twitter too if u decide btw not just what i retweet #like also: imagine palestinians around palestine and the world who are simply waiting to hear if their relatives are dead or alive or #have been striked from a rocket. like i can see my father worried abt his friend in gaza rn like any day #now he can just never hear back from him and have to guess hes dead somewhere beneath the rubble #and israelis are anxious at the rocket sounds? good for them but again that shows the asymmetry in #palestinian vs israeli suffering #and by ‘good for them’ i mean good that thats what theyre worried abt compared to palestinians #my aunt is in sheikh jarrah #my cousin lives right by the al aqsa square #again theres so much more i couldve mentioned and talked abt but theres just so much #theres so many LAYERS i wld say but not that its complicated #and definitely theres more i need to learn and read and watch dont get me wrong! i am not a fountain of knowledge by all means!!!!

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burnedbyshoto · 4 years ago

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One last unpopular opinion cause I need to get it out. tell me if I’m wrong pls. Whitewashing POC characters is 100% wrong. Why is it okay to change the race or ethnicity of a POC character? I’m talking about stuff where one of the characters isn’t Japanese anymore and they’re mostly black or occasionally some other race. If they’re making a dark skinned Japanese version I get that. But why change race/ethnicity. Isn’t that wrong too? What’s your opinion on this? Not trying to start shit I swear

I guess... hm, I will try to break down my thoughts and opinions on this. i’m not claiming i’m right, i’m merely stating this as someone who literally over thinks literally everything and anything I can. please let me know if i’ve said anything wrong or offensive as i’d like to correct it because i’m not trying to offend anyone here.

when it comes to anime specifically, westerners have this very quick ability to start saying that these characters are white. as we are all damn well aware, anime is created mostly by asian creators (japanese creators to be exact) and are often depicted to be happening in japan or in some fantasy land where terms like white, black, asian reallt don’t apply. there are some anime that take place in america, & we have anime like yuuri on ice that has multiple different countries represented, but i’d say for the most part all characters are japanese.

issues come into play when, typically seen as white people on twitter who are able to pass easily as anime characters appearance simply due to skin tone color and hair color. personally, I think anime tends to throw in funky hairstyles and hair colors and eye colors not because they’re trying to claim characters as white but because japan is a largely homogeneous country and with that they tend to have similar attributes (in which I mean hair type, eye color, and hair color). the lack of color diversity can lead media to look especially dull, for lack of better words, so mangaka & anime creators make these characters have every colored hair, eyes, and sometimes make them bipoc in the world and hair type to create visual contrast, engagement, and highlight important characters.

however, we westerners are quite self centered & think if a japanese character has blonde hair and blue eyes it makes them white! meaning that should white people cosplay this blonde hair and blue eyes character it’s okay! and due to racism, whenever poc individuals — especially black cosplayers — attempt their own version, they’re attacked with how the character isn’t whatever race the cosplayer is and are overall scum bags. the character isn’t even white the mass majority of the time either so I don’t understand the anger they have over that detail except they’re racist pigs.

now, about the race bending, I think it’s because we westerners want to see ourselves within these characters. they’re like headcanons, if you will. just like you might headcanon bakugou to eventually become hard of hearing or deaf, or how you headcanon that midoriya izuku will lose all his limbs and need a robot arm and legs, these are just personal headcanons that make the character more tuned to how everyone wishes them to be.

now this is a western issue so i speak largely for america.

the underlying issue, I think, is racism. white people, whether they like it or not, have a social advantage over everyone. things will always sort of be for them, look like them, accept them. white people will never have to wonder if the newest movie coming out will have a poc lead because they tend to have it be white people. white people never have to worry about if their foundation color is in stock or even exists in the first place because the system makes it so that it’s there for them, or if not, it’s just two blocks away. white people don’t have to worry about if they will see a face that looks like them on all forms of media because european standards are whats it. we are curated in a society where we should want the lighter hair, the lighter skin, the lighter eyes, the button nose, and thin figure. & I understand that beauty standards and ideas are shifting, but if you’re unable to see that people used to shame, put down, and harass other people for having such traits before (and even still right now harass people for having the features they want as well), I guess you’re one of the naive few.

now, because in western countries, not being able to see yourself in any characters on the tv shows (with real people or animated), some people choose to simply take it into their own hands. so they take their favorite characters and decide that they’ll give it a spin to make it look like them. I don’t think anyone really bends the race and goes “damn they should really be fucking latino, what a waste they’re not!” because I really don’t think anyone’s that...intense???? that’s not the right word, but I can’t seem to find it rn. it’s simply for fun and to show other people who also don’t see themselves in these forms of media a way in!

most importantly, I think, is that when characters are turned into different ethnicities it’s other people who come out and say they’re doing it wrong & taunt them with how they would feel if they turned someone white. if i’m being especially honest, most anime characters could definitely be white in my eyes had I never known it originates from japan simply because of the way they’re drawn. they’re putting down people who are simply expanding their creativity and wanting to see a familiar face because western media continues to fail in serving its largely ethnic population.

personally, I don’t think we westerners have the right to demand more black, latino, arabic, whatever characters in anime because the fact is japan owes us nothing. we should be demanding and continuing to harass america to include poc characters because we aren’t involved in japan. (& i’m not saying that japan should just continue to serve only pure japanese characters because they do have their own intermixed population that isn’t just of japanese decent, but I think if they want us to aid their voices i’m here for it, but I won’t be the one demanding anything from a country that isn’t mine when it comes to this form of media. )

so, to me, the reason why it’s okay for poc to change the race but not white people is because racism in america lol. white people got it good on screen & the fact that it really really bothers some people is a bit scary considering the stats on how many movies and tv shows involve main white casts.

my unpopular opinion to all this, however, is I really dislike latino!sero because the spanglish people use for him makes me think that no one writing him is actually any type of latino & i’m sorta tired and a bit offended by the sexy latin lover thing. plus it sorta seems to me that my fellow latinos only use that trope because white people think it’s hot & since they carry more weight then they think; creators keep it up to seem cool or whatever idk. so it’s not my cup of tea as a mexicana 😗✌🏽

edit:

I also think when people race bend characters to other forms of poc it’s a positive expression and something done to make people happy! but typically when the characters are bent to be “white” it’s done as an attack in a way towards poc people & not done because they want to be included in a world, ya know?

#lyssa doesnt shut up

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sunflowerspectre · 4 years ago

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Strange Magic | Ballroom Blitz

This is a 5k commission for @krystalmoonfae

Title: Ballroom Blitz Summary: As a newfound couple, Marianne and Bog work on grasping their new normal while trying to merge both of their kingdoms and cultures. Seeing as both sides have a ball quickly approaching, they see it as a great chance to be able to teach the other about their cultures. Rating: T for mentions of drinking (and Griselda) Tags: fluff, ballroom dancing, cultural differences, minor politics, minor mentions of discrimination

Read it on Archive of Our Own

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Ballroom Blitz

“Is all of this really necessary?”

Marianne looks over at Bog as he stands in an uncomfortable stance, looking himself over with bristling wings. She has to admit, it does not suit him (some part of her whispers how fairy clothes never will and she needs to stop expecting them to; that it is okay that it does not). She does not need to worry about fitting in anymore, she thought that she already accepted that.

Bog is not Roland, she reminds herself. He will not give her grief if she wears something out of season or if his outfit is not up to par and ‘perfect.’ Bog cherishes individuality, he does not squander it. Which is why, even if he will not outright admit it, he hates trying on these ridiculous clothes. But he will, at least, try .

Bog glances at her from the corner of his eyes as she takes off the vest given to him, fluttering around the room in disarray as if any of the other vests already tossed around will be any better. He can see the worry and frustration in her brow. He will try anything and everything for her.

“Calm down, tough girl,” Bog tries to ease the tension.

“I can’t calm down.” Marianne admits, “I just want this to go well.”

Marianne plops down on the flowery bed with a tired, frustrated groan, her wings spreading out behind her. While her father was not thrilled about the idea of Bog being in the castle, nevertheless actually being inside of her room, he can not exactly keep the other King out; his daughter, after all, is an adult. However, she knows that Bog’s visit is kept on a need-to-know basis, as is all of his visits.

Which is exactly why this ball is so important. She is not ashamed to be with Bog, but she is ashamed that everyone is trying to get her to keep it a secret, like it’s a scandal. She is tired of people, especially her father, telling her what is and is not acceptable for her; the latter, she hears much more than the former. She can decide that for herself; and she has decided. She wants Bog and she wants everyone else to realize just how wrong they are about him.

“Do you know how much easier it will be if this goes well,” Marianne ventures carefully, her voice soft. Bog flitters above her, hand outreached to hold hers, his wings clicking to create an insect-like noise that she relishes in; something about it brings comfort to the silence that has befallen them. The spikes of his armor and skin would destroy the delicate bed (a mistake they will not be repeating since it was so hard to explain in order to get it replaced).

Marianne takes the outstretched hand, a soft smile on her face as she notices the nervousness in his expression. She continues softly, a soft blush brushing her cheeks. Her stomach flutters and she loves that he can get this reaction out of her just from being around her, that he brings this side out of her. She thought that after Roland, the butterflies that had once fluttered in her chest were dead, but Bog - he had brought them back to life without even trying.

“I just want everyone to see you the way I do.”

His forehead pressed against hers as their eyes close; he relishes in how warm her skin feels against his forehead. She can feel the comforting coolness of armor, pleated skin. His face is always the safest place for her to touch; the twigs are not as sharp, there’s less barbs for her skin to catch on.

“I know how everyone else sees me.”

Venom seeps into his voice, if a bit unintentionally, but Marianne can hear the hurt underlying in it. “And it’s - sweet - that you are trying, but I do not really think -”

The longer he talks, the more she wants to just scream how this is exactly why she wants everyone else to see him the way she does. Why she wants those stupid fairies to realize that Bog King is not as scary as they all make him out to be - well he can be, but that is far from the only thing that he is.

Marianne places a long finger to his lips, a soft smile on her face. He takes the hint and closes his mouth, stopping himself to let her speak.

“I’m tired of the court talking about you the way that they do.” Marianne softly admits.

She never elaborates on just what they say, but Bog imagines that it’s nothing he has not heard before. Her voice turns more bitter, almost venomous and frustrated.

“I’m tired of Dad acting like there are better suitors out there. I don’t just want everyone to see as equals, you deserve it. You deserve for them to see you as the Bog King. The king I know you are.”

She flushes when she realizes just how gushy she sounds. She never meant to go on a tangent, but when she starts, it is hard for her to get herself to stop talking. All of the things that she has been pent up come flowing out like a busted dam.

Bog sighs softly, his expression softening as he flutters down to her. The sharp edges of his armor and skin cut at the delicate flower petal, but he knows this is going to be much longer conversation than he imagined. He appreciates her enthusiasm, but he gave up on that dream before she even thought of it. He knows that the divide between their kingdoms is large; while it is making its progress, there are still many hurdles for them to fly over. Every step forward feels like it is followed by two steps back.

“They’ll never see me as equals to fairies, tough girl.” Bog speaks up; his expression more somber, solemn as if he already accepted his fate. As if he knew that he would never be enough for her.

Marianne, however, just grins viciously, her teeth gleaming like the devil he knows that she can be. Each time, that grin always reminds him exactly what he loves most about her - her strength, her rebellious side, her sense of justice, her wickedness. Her refusal to abide by their rules of her and to stand by her choices - even when that choice is him.

“I guess we’ll just have to give them no choice.”

_________________________________________________

Fairy balls used to not be the dread of her existence. Marianne remembers a time when she used to look forward to it. She used to love to dress up and to dance, even if her voice carried a bit louder than quiet conversation would allow or she missed a few steps during the dance or she stepped on someone’s foot. The more she looks back on it, the more she realizes that she never quite fit in during the balls even if she did at one point enjoy it.

So if she never fit in anyway, what was the point of trying to fit in now? She may as well do what she wants, have fun, and most importantly, get her dance with Bog. Her original plan was to talk to them, get them to agree to not only Bog attending, but to have her dance with him as well. But she is a princess. Soon to be queen and she will dance with whomever she wants.

If the elders refuse to see him as her equal, at the very least this (very public) dance will help her subjects see him as such. It’s admittedly a bit backhanded. But she knows that someone such as Bog dancing with their crown princess will make their courtship hard to ignore. Harder to try to talk her out of. Harder to slip under the rug or excuse. The more public and more aggressive she is about the fact that Bog is her partner, the less of a choice they have about ignoring him.

They can not outright deny him entry if he has an invitation, she reminded herself; the courts may not like it, especially her father, but they are all too proud to deny their manners as a host. Otherwise, she imagines Sunny would have been kicked out long ago despite Dawn constantly vouching for him.

“Should we be worried about how long they’re taking,” Sunny speaks up, anxiously, from beside her; unlike most of them, Dawn did not have to choose his outfit with the elf already being one of the most fashionable among them. She almost thinks it is a shame that Dawn has not seen him yet.

Marianne glances toward him, but otherwise appears not nearly as concerned. She continues to absently sip at the grape-based wine served, almost lazily, with the peace of mind that if she spilled any than at the very least, it would not show up on the dress. While not caring much about what the others think of her outfit - considering that she has already gotten more than a few stink eyes - she is looking forward to showing herself off to Bog. Dawn had worked hard on this particular dress, with Marianne’s own input, for weeks in preparation for this. The dark purple silk was carefully dyed with wine, intricately sewn in with matching petals. She felt the color was a good way to assert herself as royalty and, admittedly, it is also just her new favorite color. The overall plan is that the neighboring political figures will not make any mistake on who the crown princess is, which will make her dance with Bog an even bigger event.

But now that the ball is in full swing, an appearance from either Dawn or Bog would make them fashionably late; something that is usually more her style than her sister’s. As crown princess, she actually took her duties in getting the ball ready more seriously, which made her almost dangerously early. Her father was thrilled that she was showing more of an interest and she did not want to ruin his good mood by telling him she was only making sure of things this time around since Bog would be joining them.

“Dawn always takes longer to get ready for these things,” Marianne reminds him, “And with a new person to dress up….”

She trails off with a bit of a shrug. It is nice for her sister (her loyal, always by her side sister) to offer to take over Bog’s clothes for the ball; Dawn all but gave her no choice when she found out. While she imagines that Bog is not having the best time, she can not help but be curious as to what Dawn put him in. Out of the two of them, her sister has always had the best taste in fashion and understood the dynamics of being a seamstress must better than herself.

Not too much later after her words, Princess Dawn’s appearance is announced by one of the guards. Considering this is one of the larger balls the kingdom throws, a majority being fairies and political figures from neighboring fairy kingdoms, their father had insisted on the more traditional approach of having each guest carefully announced. Not the worst idea until someone - or two someone - are late.

Considering that there are most everyone is there, and whomever is not by now is considered by most to not be coming, Dawn’s announcement draws a bit of attention. Most of the fairies of their own kingdom pay her no mind, used to at least one princess being late, while their other guests at the very least, turn their head to glance her way. Most just continue their slow dances and hushed whispers - whispers that, with her late attendance, seem to get a smidge louder than normal among their visitors.

To their father’s credit, he does try to greet her, but Dawn wastes no time in going in for Sunny, grabbing his wrist, then dragging him out to the dance floor. Dawn barely even greets her own sister, a smile stretched out on her face wildly, and Marianne just returns the smile as she sips at the glass. She can see her father’s disappointment from here as some of the dancers glance at Dawn and Sunny with uncertainty.

But if the attendees thought Dawn was scandalous, Marianne can not help but grin wickedly when she thinks about the stir her and Bog will cause. She knows she will get an earful later, but she also knows that a statement like this can not be dismissed.

When the guard announces Bog’s arrival, instead of the hushed whispers growing, all sound seems to stop. While the musicians eyed each other uneasily, their music coming to an abrupt stop as an uncertainty washes over them all, the sound of Marianne’s shoes against the solid floor are the only thing echoing across the ballroom.

Marianne grins viciously, her eyes lighting up as Bog enters the party. Her sister did a dastardly good job. Forgoing too much that would cover his armor and rip due to his thorns, Bog instead wears a deep purple toga, made of a thicker fabric with layers. The fabric wraps from just beside his neck across to his hip, giving him the illusion of being covered for the sake of the event, but is open enough to reveal the intricacies of his armor and give him room for his large shoulder plates. It does not go unnoticed by Marianne that they, likely intentionally if she knows her sister, match.

“Care for a dance, Bog King,” Marianne bows deeply, one foot behind the other while her hand stretches out to him in an offering. She winks at him as she meets his gaze, relishing in the way it almost makes him flustered.

Bog matches her grin, shamelessly looking her over as he appreciates her choice of dress. The silky fabric is as dangerously scandalous as he is.

“I thought you’d never ask.”

They walk to the middle of the dance room, many of the guests parting to give them plenty of space, their heads are held high as Marianne evens her breathing. She does not even bother to glance at her father, instead only giving a small wave to Dawn as her younger sister openly encourages her.

A small nod to the musicians is enough for them to start up the music again. It takes a moment for the music to build, with Bog and Marianne taking that time in getting in the proper position. They stand facing each other, one hand behind their back, the other outstretched to barely touch their palms together.

As the music begins to pick up, Bog brings her closer just as they practiced before they start to go into a full swing. With each flare of music, Marianne moves - a kick of her feet, a twirl. All while maintaining her hold on Bog’s arm.

The longer they dance, the more she realizes that - for the most part - everyone has parted away from the middle floor to leave them both the space that they need. Either they realized just how dangerous her kicks are or they do not want to get close to the Goblin King. Like a weight lifted, she realizes she does not care.

All that she can focus on, as the background blurs around them through spins, turns and careful steps, is the fact that Bog is not missing a beat. They move together like one through a series of classic, yet dramatic, dances. The music echoes in her chest as it pounds in her ear, she counts each beat as thinks about where she has to step next.

“Purple suits you,” Marianne comments softly when Bog brings her in close. Her hand moves from position to scrape her nail along the underside of his armor at his neck. He almost growls, but instead grins deviously.

“Your hand is not in the right place, princess.”

Marianne does not move her hand. She just grins, her hand briefly going to his face.

“I beg to differ, Bog King.”

She is lightly pushed away as they part, her going into a twirl before coming back into his arms. As their dance closes, Bog makes a point to dip her a bit deeper than customary with his face too close to hers to be mistaken for casual. His hand is tight at her waist, with no sign of letting go. As much as she tries to hide it, with them so close, he gets a good glimpse at the flush dusting her cheeks.

“You’re a pretty good dancer,” Marianne compliments as they part, Bog maintaining his hand on her waist.

Marianne does not miss the way that the others return to the dance floor as her and Bog leave it. Granted, some go back to the wine bar as soon as her sister stumbles her way to the floor with Sunny back in tow. But at the very least, she knows that their message got across - especially as she looks at her father, who looks two glasses away from passing out. Despite knowing that, and knowing the lecture she has in her future, she can not help but feel elated at just how much fun it was. Her heart racing, cheeks flushed, she hopes that the ball in the dark forest - an event only a few nights away from this one - will be just as fun.

Bog draws her in close, his teeth bared in a predatory dangerous smile.

“You did pretty well yourself, tough girl. Now, it’s my turn.”

__________________________________________________

Marianne is a little more worried over Griselda being in charge of her dress, however at Bog’s reassurances, she takes a deep breath and lets go of the reins. After all, who would know what is more appropriate for a goblin ball more than the previous queen? If she can put her trust and faith into Dawn, she can do the same for Griselda, especially after all that his mother has done for them (if in a bit embarrassing manner).

But, almost embarrassingly so, Marianne is left in the dark as to what to expect for the ball in the Dark Forest.

Her father tried to instill fear and caution in her over attending an event by herself, at night, in the Dark Forest, surrounded by goblins. Dawn tried to imagine something hauntingly beautiful, and made a few passing comments about Griselda enlisting her help with the dress to make sure it balanced goblin fashion and fairy well; though she complained more often than thought that she is unable to attend as the goblin ball, as she would be too busy attending the elves’ own soiree with Sunny.

Bog, however, would just give her teasing comments here and there about preparing herself to see just how different a real party is compared to the one that the fairies had. While that idea is exciting - thrilling - she is a bit nervous. Especially since she knows that, just like the one in the Fairy Kingdom, this event would also have other representatives from different sections of the Dark Forest and who knew what else. She knew that she could protect herself and that Bog would stand up for her presence there, but she still remembers just how scary it was when she first accidentally stepped into the Dark Forest and feels that same fear bubbling under her skin at the idea of being introduced to so many unknowns. She is sure that Bog felt the same anxiety, however, about attending the fairy ball.

And she also has to remind herself that this is what she wants. She wants to be kept on her toes. She wants the challenge. She wants to learn more about Bog and his world, just as he did the same for her. More importantly, this is exactly what she always dreamed of (with a few minor things changed here and there such as actually dating the Bog King).

Griselda helps put the finishing touches up on the dress. With Dawn gone to the elven ball, Griselda puts her all into making sure each detail is perfect a mere hour away from the event. The previous queen is already dressed - with jewelry adorning her horns, but lacking shoes - and Marianne can not help but wonder if she should expect the other goblins to be dressed in something similar - and if going without shoes is the norm.

“You look - beautiful,” Griselda gushes, brushing a tear away from her eye with her pinky claw, “Boggy is just going to love you - well, he already loves you dear, you know that, but when he sees you in this dress - I better be getting grandchildren out of this.”

Marianne flushes deeply, eyes darting around as she can only laugh a bit nervously at the sentiment, especially knowing that Griselda says it so sincerely. Griselda immediately, lightly, scolds her for fidgeting as she finishes sewing up one last spot to make it the perfect fit. Marianne catches glimpses of herself in the mirror - and more she looks at it, the more she falls in love with what Griselda and her sister have created.

“-Is it normal not to wear shoes,” Marianne asks, hesitantly as she eyes Griselda’s toes balancing her as she stands up on them to reach a specific spot. Marianne glances down to her own feet, wiggling her toes, unsure about how she feels about the possibility of dancing barefoot and the more fairy part of her is a little worried about just how dirty her feet would get. She also already knows how Bog’s thorns feel when they prick her finger, she can’t imagine what would happen if he stepped on her toes while barefoot.

“Goblins do not need shoes, honey,” Griselda explains gently, “Our skin is tough and we’re made for running through stones and bark and twigs, not soft dirt and flowers.”

She gently pinches at Marianne’s skin as if to emphasize her point, “But do not worry about it dearie, I made a pair of shoes - with your sister’s input mind you - that will work perfect for tonight.”

_____________________________________________

“Is she here yet,” Thang attempts to whisper, his voice harshly cutting out.

“No.” Stuff rolls her eyes, crossing her arms, “If Queen Marianne was here, we’d see her.”

“ Oh.”

Bog sighs deeply, trying to fight the incoming migraine as the two smaller goblins debate about whether or not Marianne is at the ball yet. He leans on his staff, tapping his foot impatiently as he debates about searching the castle himself for his mother and Marianne. He hopes, at the very least, his mother did not put something ridiculous on Marianne; she would look beautiful no matter what she wore, but his mother’s atrocious ideas of fashion are (at times) a bit much to swallow, especially at formal events. But even he is starting to get impatient over his mother taking too long.

He notices his mother arriving first; it is hard to not notice her. Unlike the fairy ball, with formalities and announcements, Griselda comes in loudly and proudly - immediately calling out to the old politicians that she recognizes, waving to them enthusiastically. Bog sighs at the way some of the others street clear of her as she plows her way through the dancing crowd just to say hi to any given person.

But then he turns to see Marianne. Gorgeous, stunning, beautiful Marianne. Looking as if she belongs to be there as any of them do. The black dress she wears has thin, translucent sleeves that wrap around her arms, connected to the dark collar at her neck, her dark purple wings looking more like an elegant cape behind her as her sword glimmers at her hip. He glances down and is surprised to see that instead of her normal cloth and vines around her feet, she instead wears shoes that look suspiciously like his armor just dyed; they match the armored bracelets at her wrists.

She looks every bit like the future Queen of the Dark Forest should be.

Marianne’s eyes meet his - the dark shadow around her eyelids highlighting the gleam in her eyes and the flush of her cheeks. She holds her head high as she walks to him, with most of the goblins parting out of her way while others linger to look at her in curiosity.

She tries her best to focus solely on Bog, remembering to keep her shoulders back and walk with the confidence that she needs right now. The dark, low lights of the cavern inside of the hollowed tree are unexpected - lit mostly by fireflies and moonlight that beams in through the skylight. She glimpses the various types of goblins around her - batlike ones whose arms reach to the ground to support their weight, ones with ears larger than their bodies or some larger than she thought goblins could even be. The diversity among them is so vastly different than that among the fairies, from their sizes to features, but she feels an odd sense of welcoming that all of them are Bog’s people.

The music is deeper than she anticipated - tight strings with an ominous undertone. As if it is background noise to an anticipated fight. She supposes that that is not entirely wrong, given that she remembers just how Bog taught her how to dance.

“Wow,” Thang whistles, the sound sharp and crass against the rugged music playing, “She looks pretty evil.”

Marianne raises a brow, nose scrunched at the compliment, She is but bites her cheek for now. She is used to the ‘compliments’ people give her - pretty, quirky, awkward. She is used to what Roland used to pass as compliments, but (especially knowing Thang) this does not feel backhanded. It does not even feel like an insult either. But if it is a compliment, she is not sure what exactly it is supposed to mean.

Bog immediately bows to her, causing Stuff and Thang to stumble, squawking in surprise as they do the same. From the corner of her eye, she can see the other goblins do the same. She feels a sense of honor and pride, as well as absolute adoration from Bog being as bold to do something that clearly meant a lot to his people.

“I believe it’s time to dance, tough girl,” Bog takes her hand as he stands up straight, “Do you remember what we practiced?”

Marianne bares her teeth in a wild grin. She remembers exactly how to do this. For as often as she practiced dancing with him for the fairy ball, they practiced twice as much for this. She knows that if something goes wrong someone could get hurt - and she can not imagine what would happen if that person was accidentally Bog.

But she has faith in herself - and in him. She thinks that she has a good enough handle on this to do it well.

“How could I not?”

Bog guides her to the floor with an elegance. At his presence, the goblins make a very clear circle around them to give them plenty of space. She would be more worried about hurting someone if they did not.

Bog gives a nod as they part, gaining a few feet between them. Unlike the close, slower and more calculated movements of the dance they performed at the fairy event, this one starts at a distance as they draw their weapons. They close in with his staff against her sword, circling each other as they bring their weapons down against each other.

“By the way,” Marianne asks softly, eyes still on him- each movement she makes feels natural to her, with her sword acting more like a third limb than a weapon. “Was that earlier?”

“Which part,” Bog almost laughs, but his voice comes off hesitant, “What did my mother do?”

“No - your mother was fine,” Marianne assures him as their weapons hit each other once again, twirling around like this - she can not help feel the parallel to their first fight. “I meant Thang.”

“Thang?”

They stumble - for a brief moment, their dance stutters in an awkward pause as their weapons slip out of their hands and into the air. Their staff and sword glide pass each other in a fumble. They move fast, and as one, to cover the mistake - grabbing each other’s weapon in an elegant switch that causes the crowd to gasp, not noticing it as a mistake and instead as (what Dawn would call) a power move, as they continue on.

“He called me evil.” Marianne states carefully, unsure if it would come off insulting and this time, she is careful to hold onto Bog’s staff. The weight of it is unfamiliar, if oddly comforting, but considering she practiced with only her weapon, her words come out a bit slower as she concentrates more on her movements. “Is that - I mean, is that a good thing or -?”

This time Bog does laugh - bellowing and deep, it echoes through the room as he grins madly at her. Their dance picks up the pace as their conversation blurs among the clash of her sword against his staff.

“Evil is a compliment in these parts, tough girl,” Bog explains, a wicked grin on his face, “Evil is not malicious - but of strength, mischief - rebellion.”

Marianne lets out a quiet oh. She supposes that makes sense, if she squints. To fairies, evil means darkness, malicious intent. But hearing his version of it, she wonders just how much their version of ‘evil’ is just based in prejudice against the Dark Forest.

They come together closer as their dance starts to slow, neither out of breath as everyone watches them carefully. Marianne can hear Griselda already clapping, but for once, Bog does not pay much mind to his mother’s embarrassing attention.

“And there is nothing - ” Bog states, his voice low and soft. Their weapons are down, still against each other as Bog leans into her, close to almost whispering into her ear, “- nothing more rebellious than a fairy princess and a goblin king.”

#krystalmoonfae #strange magic #fanfiction #politics #cultural differences #fairy goblin #bog king #marianne #ballroom #myworks #fics #fic

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nanowrimo · 4 years ago

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Getting Prepared for NaNoWriMo! (With BookTuber FictionalFates and Scrivener)

Every year, we’re lucky to have great sponsors for our nonprofit events. Scrivener, a 2020 NaNo sponsor, is an award-winning writing app that has been enthusiastically adopted by best-selling novelists and novices alike. Today, they’ve partnered with BookTuber Joel Rochester, a.k.a. FictionalFates, to help you get prepared for the month ahead:

At thirteen years old, I participated in NaNoWriMo for the first time. At that point in my life, being challenged to write 50,000 words in thirty days was daunting and very scary. However, I persevered and I somehow managed to do it, albeit the novel I wrote that year will never see the light of day.

However, now at twenty years old, I’ve learned that NaNoWriMo is a great time to break the spine on a new tale, or one that I’ve been working on for years. (Rebels, I see you.) I guess you could refer to me as a “NaNo-Veteran”; someone who’s participated in NaNoWriMo for many years now. Scrivener has very kindly asked me to impart some wisdom on my experiences, whether you’re participating for the first time or looking to refresh that writer’s memory.

But first, have you announced your project yet? This November, I’ll be writing The Dream Prince, which is an enemies-to-lovers fantasy following two princes, one alive and one cursed to die, who converse through their dreams. They are forced to work together to break the curse, or both war and the plans of an ancient cult will come to fruition.

Now that’s out of the way, let’s get to how YOU, beginner or fellow veteran, can better your NaNoWriMo experience, with the help of Scrivener! I have used Scrivener for seven years now, and I don’t think I would’ve been as organized with my writing if it wasn’t for them.

NaNoPrep

Usually, everyone takes the month of October to figure out and plan out their projects to write in November. However, we’re not always as organized as we’d like to be, scrambling at the last minute to come up with an idea. Don’t get discouraged — planner, pantser or plantser, there’s definitely ways for you to prep in your own way, and it’s on a sliding scale.

In my experience:

Pantsers (people who write off the seat of their pants) just need to know what direction their novel is going in, and perhaps some minor details about their characters and world.

Planners (people who extensively plan their novel) plan enough that you know the general beginning, middle and end of your novel and that they know their characters to some extent. However, as with most plans, they might be thrown out the window throughout the month as they begin to realize more details about their novel.

Plantsers (a combination of both, this is me!) plan until they're comfortable, and then discover the rest. In my experience, I mostly have the beginning and end planned, and tiny bits of the middle, and then the rest is to be found during the month!

Scrivener makes it super easy for beginners to prep their novels. By using their corkboard view, you can plot cards and rearrange as you wish. Plus, they have templates for character and setting profiles too, making it easier for you to flesh out your characters as you wish. And with the index on the left, you can arrange them into folders, making everything very neat and organized!

NaNoWriMo

November will come and go as swiftly as this year has gone. Whilst on average, it’s roughly 1,667 words per day in order to write 50,000 words a month — our schedules don’t always accommodate that. So I would say to pace yourself according to your schedule throughout the month.

Have a free day? Try to get as much writing done during that day as it’ll make other days much easier to reach your goals.

Need to be productive? Check Twitter or the NaNo Forums, there will probably be someone hosting writing sprints, where you can write for short periods of time in order to contribute to your larger goal.

I’ve found that in the past, spending five 10-minute sessions throughout the day writing 100 words was much more productive than one 50-minute session trying to write 500 words. Small amounts of progress add to a larger feeling of completion.

This is also what makes Scrivener exciting as I’m able to set word count goals and see the progression bar fill up as I write. Just seeing that visual confirmation really keeps me motivated to keep going throughout the month.

Plus, with Scrivener I’m easily able to organize and write my novel on a scene-by-scene level — plus, I won’t have to copy and paste everything into a manuscript as Scrivener’s compile feature does that for me without the hassle!

Have Fun!

Lastly, NaNoWriMo is a lighthearted fun challenge which most of all, encourages writers to write and make progress in their novels. Whilst winning and achieving the 50,000 word count goal is amazing, if you don’t win, the progress you made in November is still something to be proud of.

It’s important during this month to strive for progress rather than perfection. The words that you write during the month of November will only be the first of many drafts, so ensuring the words are down first of all is an essential step.

Have fun with your characters, have fun with your fellow writers. Maybe look to pick up the Traveling Shovel and use it in one of your scenes. This is a time to celebrate the fact that you have chosen to give life to an amazing story, so write it.

Overall, NaNoWriMo is such a fun month to get to know other writers, hone your craft and begin the progress of a novel you want to write. I hope that all of you make amazing progress over the course of November. Who knows, I might see you in some writing sprints!

For now, if you wanted to try out Scrivener, you can try out a free trial for 30 days and revel in the awesomeness. I highly recommend it, especially for those who are getting started with writing novels. Plus, if you use the code NaNoWriMo, you can get 20% off!

Good luck friends, and happy writing!

Joel Rochester is a writer of Welsh and Jamaican descent. As a young child, he saw books as an escape from the real world but he often found those books never truly represented him. He loves to read and write books about emotional boys, daring worlds, and intriguing tales. He advocates for more diversity in media. Particularly, more QPOC representation.

Presently, he reviews and discusses books through his popular social media presence, ‘FictionalFates’. He is also currently studying a BA (Hons) Creative Writing and English Literature at the University of Winchester. When not writing or reading, Joel can be found consuming other media. Whether it be video games, Korean dramas, or browsing social media. He also never goes long without a mug of matcha tea by his side.

#nanowrimo #writing #amwriting #nano prep #by nano sponsor #scrivener #fictionalfates #joel rochester

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cntrspll · 4 years ago

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this is a love letter to my own fic

hi hello hey, this is an essay about my own fic and the feelings i have about it. fic can be found here.

i am going to try so hard to keep this organized but i don’t know how well that will work soooo let’s go!

on the fic overall:

i just... like magnus. i think he is a fan fave for a reason, but i think there’s a lot of missing discussion of his post-canon situation and the development thereafter. when i finished listening to balance for the first time (in february-ish this year, i think?), i remember being super frustrated with where parts of the fandom had landed their focus. this isn’t an uncommon fandom thing, and i totally get where it comes from. some characters are just super relatable and a lot of fun to write about and have like absolute piles of stuff to unpack, so it’s totally fair that some characters get more focus than others, but where i felt that some of my faves got a lot of fandom focus, others... didn’t.

so this fic was in part an attempt to rectify that, because i wasn’t finding the unpacking of magnus and his emotional / mental state that i wanted. that being said, there are a couple fics that i did draw a little bit of inspiration from, the biggest probably being patterns of migration by goodnicepeople. the depiction of magnus as this big strong dude who also has these quiet vulnerabilities that he doesn’t like admitting to people is like, in part just really accurate to canon, but also something that i really wanted to see explored more, and i didn’t find a whole lot of other fics that fit that, so in part i just wanted to set out to put a little more into that.

also, like, i work in food service, and we are in a pandemic, and i moved in the middle of this year and i started hrt this year and have been dealing with the fallout of coming out and just kind of everything, and this fic was a really good way of just like, distracting myself from everything and sitting down for a little every day and thinking about something else and not so much about everything that was happening around me. so there is a good part of this fic that is just like, me coping with everything and trying to reorient myself a little. and it worked pretty well for that!

on process:

ok first things first, this was never meant to be 133k long. when i first sat down to write this, it was going to be a handful of snapshots set across [undetermined amount of time here] of magnus dealing with isolation and insomnia, and it was only meant to be like, maybe a 20k oneshot? that obviously did not happen. i think my original estimate once i accepted that this was gonna be multichaptered was like 60-70k, but then the chapters started getting longer with each one i finished, and then i wanted to add in an interlude, and then i decided i needed an epilogue, and here we are.

i’ll talk about this in other sections too, but as i wrote, i just kept finding more and more things that i wanted to talk about. i was also in the process of relistening to balance i was writing, and i kept running into little things that happened over the course of the show that i was like... oh shit! and that would inspire another scene or an interaction i wanted to write or something i wanted to focus more on, and the whole thing just kept getting more and more and bigger and bigger.

i’ve said it like 50 thousand times now, but i have never written anything this long before. i tried really hard to be regimented about the way i did it, because from the beginning i knew this was going to be an emotional journey for me to write, but i knew that if i let it slide for a week or so then i would never finish it. so to get through it, i wrote almost every day for a minimum of an hour. the process that i’ve found works best for me when i’m writing is using word sprints, putting on some music, and then forcing myself to tune out of social media and everything else for 25 minutes. i try to do between 750-1k words in that time period, then the site gives you a five minute break, during which i usually check twitter or fact check if i need to, and then i go back in and do another sprint. this works really well for me because i wasn’t trying to hit a specific word goal in any given day, just like... trying to sit down and write. i also tried not to guilt myself too much if i missed a day, or if i only did one sprint instead of two, or anything like that, and that’s kind of what helped me get through the whole monster without instantly dropping it as soon as i had another idea.

on mental health and recovery:

so one of my big personal pet peeves in fiction is the idea that trauma recovery is like, a one time single event deal. like, someone has this big horrible thing happen to them or they have some pressing mental health issue and then someone else walks in and they have one conversation and bam, everything is fine. i was exposed to a lot of [fan]fiction when i was younger that kind of supported this kind of narrative, and i get that there is a certain sort of wish fulfillment thing to that, but it also sucks, being an adult and having Problems(TM) and knowing that it absolutely does not work like that.

so when i set out to write a fic about trauma and mental illness and recovery, i felt kind of a responsibility to not fall into that trap and write it like, okay and then magnus and taako talk about it and taako’s like hey dude you’re depressed but it’s okay and then magnus doesn’t have nightmares anymore. also, because this is taz and the canon of like, historical accuracy is complete bullshit, i can put therapists and psychiatry and psychiatric medications in my fic and no one can tell me i’m wrong and it doesn’t exist. elevators exist, so i can make ssris and anti anxiety pills exist.

but also, magnus as a character is not going to jump into that right away. it is canon fact that he doesn’t like accepting or asking for help with stuff like this, and yes there are a couple big moments where he does, but like i bring up a couple times in the fic, mental health struggles are a big jump from like, a physical fight using swords and axes and shit. and this i think is really accurate to a lot of people’s struggles with mental illness, just taking that first step and admitting that you don’t feel okay, and that you need someone’s help to deal with it. that’s super super scary even to admit to like, your closest friends.

so that’s why magnus kind of shies away a number of times from some of the conversations that people try to start with him about mental health. taako and carey and lucretia and pretty much everyone else approach him at some point about opening up about this stuff, but he pulls away because admitting that kind of vulnerability to someone else is super scary, even if you’ve maybe admitted it to yourself already.

i also wanted to make sure that at the end of the fic, he wasn’t magically better. this is something else that i think people kind of forget, like... trauma and the problems that it causes don’t go away just because of therapy and medication. those things help, they help you reform the ways you think about yourself and about the world, but they don’t change the struggles you’ve been through or the sometimes biological problems that are causing whatever issue you’re having. and i remember reading a lot of fic when i was a kid where someone would be depressed, and then they’d fall in love and get magic dick or something and then they’d never be sad again, which... isn’t great.

but at the same time, i didn’t want it to end on this note like, oh everything is still bad even though he worked so hard to open up and get help, because that sucks, too. so it was really important to me that the fic end on a hopeful note, like, magnus isn’t cured. he still has bad days and bad weeks and sometimes he is just as low as he was before, but he also has like, normal days, which is something that i think you kind of forget can even exist when you’re depressed, or when you’re dealing with any mental illness. but like, i really wanted it to be obvious that things did get better and even if he’s still coping with it and it’s not going away, he’s okay. he’s gonna be all right.

on an unreliable narrator:

this kind of plays into some of the mental health stuff, but one thing that i love about taz that i really wanted to play into with this fic is the idea of limited perspective. griffin does some really cool fucking things with this, specifically in relation to the ipre and the big reveal in the last lunar interlude, with the idea of like... a character can only know the things that they know. like, magnus knows that there is a picture of him depicted as a red robe, and barry knows that they’re all red robes, and taako knows that they found the umbra staff next to a red robed skeleton and that the umbrella spelled out lup at one point, but none of them necessarily know all the things that the other person knew, and none of them know all the things that lucretia knows or that fisher knows or junior knows, etc etc.

unfortunately, just because the pace of the story picks up so much in that last lunar interlude, there isn’t a whole lot of space to explore that like, disconnect between all these facts that they each have as individuals. and given the perspective of mental health and the way that plays into your perceptions of yourself and your perceptions of other people’s perceptions, i really wanted to delve into like… magnus’s misunderstandings.

this is not a strictly straightforward unreliable narrator situation, but i did bring in some elements of that. i really wanted to explore the disconnect between how magnus sees and how everyone else sees him and his issues. there are also a couple moments where he flat out completely misinterprets their intentions, which unfortunately i didn’t delve into as much as i wanted to so they ended up mostly being fun easter eggs for, uh… me? i guess?

one of those moments is the scene in ch 4 where barry and magnus are sitting in the kitchen and barry starts to ask magnus something. magnus assumes it’s going to be about his mental health, and that this is barry stepping up as representative for everyone else to talk to him about it, but it’s really meant to be a precursor to their conversation in ch 6 where they talk about barry and lup and marriage and proposals.

magnus gets a little perspective on this later, i think in ch 7(?) where he’s thinking about how maybe their lives don’t completely revolve around him and he’s missing some of their perspective. but like, they all have their own shit going on, and they all love him and they’re worried about him, but also, barry is thinking about lup. lup is thinking about taako. taako is thinking about lucretia. lucretia is thinking about davenport, and davenport is thinking about his own issues, and so on and so on and they’re not all just like… waiting to pounce on magnus the second he shows weakness.

a lot of that plays into the hypervigilance of ptsd, too. magnus is very aware of any perceived threat, and he sometimes treats the people around him as threats, when all they’re doing in reality is thinking like, man i wish he didn’t live out here by himself all the time.

on a more meta note, i also have a tendency to make every character i write just like, a super good judge of character. i don’t think magnus is that, and i really wanted to lean into that. magnus does not read intention super well, even when that intention is genuinely good.

on the ipre and their relationships:

so i… really don’t write gen fic a lot. even when i do, it is almost always tinged with a little bit of background shipping, and there is some of that in this, but whereas in most fandoms i end up being a multishipper, for some reason with taz i’ve ended up pretty much only caring about the canon ships (sorry…). that being said, the platonic relationships in taz (and especially in balance) are some of the most compelling and important fictional relationships that i’ve ever encountered. like, they are just really well fucking done.

this being the magnus love letter that it is, i really wanted to focus on magnus’s distinct relationships with every member of the ipre crew. i don’t know how obvious this is in the actual narrative, but with the exception of the interlude and the epilogue, the story is broken down into one chapter for each member of the starblaster crew (in order, magnus, taako, merle, davenport, barry, lucretia, lup). i did this specifically because it was really important to me that i dive into all of them and their particular issues. i didn’t quite get the deep dive with merle or davenport that i would’ve liked to, but hopefully in the future i’ll get more time to explore that.

anyway, in case it isn’t obvious, lup is probably my favorite fictional character literally ever in any media created by anyone in the history of time. i say this only because a lot of this fic was set up to build to the conversation between her and magnus in ch 8 out on the mountain where he finally opens up for the first time. there are some really incredible unexplored parallels and relationships in taz (unexplored mainly because like, where would it even fit in canon), and while some of them are super self indulgent (ie, lup and mags, barry and mags), i really really really wanted to dig into those a little more. things like the conversation where taako is talking about everyone brushing over his trauma to rush to forgive lucretia, or lucretia talking about trying to learn to love writing again and recognize happy moments, davenport almost admitting that he’s not completely sure about stepping back into the family in his former role… i could write an entire fic on any of these, really.

but ultimately, this being a magnus fic, i tried to filter those conversations through a perspective of two things: first, how does this affect magnus and his mental health journey, and second, what can magnus do to help this. those scenes where magnus is trying to help someone with something and they’re like, backhandedly helping him are some of my favorite interactions in the fic.

the other thing i really really really wanted to explore that i never see enough of in fic is magnus and carey’s relationship. carey is canonically magnus’s best friend, and yet in fic i feel like she gets pushed to the side a little in favor of the starblaster crew. which i get, they’ve got a hundred and ten years of shared trauma, but also, travis flat out states that carey is magnus’s best friend, so… i mean, there is also a little bit of self indulgence here, because i am also a man who is exclusively best friends with lesbians, but you know.

that being said, i really wanted to emphasize that relationship in particular, which is why carey doesn’t have her own dedicated chapter and instead kind of slides in and out of each one and slowly helps magnus along the way. her personality i also feel is like, the exact kind of thing that magnus needs to push him into accepting / asking for help and moving towards recovery.

on real life parallels:

ok, i swear to god i did not intend to make this a holiday fic posted during the holidays. i started writing this in june, and again, it was only meant to be like 20k and not necessarily entirely set during candlenights. that kind of happened, anyway? candlenights just seemed like the best vessel to get all these characters whose post-canon situations i wanted to explore into the same room, and i finished the first draft around mid october and i wanted to give myself plenty of time for editing, so it honestly just ended up coincidentally aligning with the holidays. go figure.

that being said, isolation ended up featuring pretty heavily in this fic. that i think is to be expected to a certain degree given the nature of mental health and recovery and blah blah blah, but i probably unintentionally ended up leaning into it a little more because like… this year. and the holidays tend to be a time that a lot of us feel really isolated, and this year especially, but one of the big things for me this year is that like, all of my friends live out of state. the closest one to me is still a good 2-3 hour plane ride, which i am absolutely not risking. i had like a hundred plans to go see people and do things this year, and those obviously got cancelled.

probably the biggest one of those things was seeing a friend who i have kind of started a new years tradition of seeing, but we ended up calling that off out of safety considerations, of course. and it sucks! it’s not fun! i also moved out this year and i have my own place and in june i was really hoping that things would be okay by now and i could have all my friends come in from out of town for new years and that didn’t happen. and i wasn’t intending for this fic to be a kind of wish fulfillment of like, here’s my new place post-[saving the universe / coming out and becoming a real person], let me show my found family around my hometown and let’s make new holiday traditions together now that we’re no longer [fighting the apocalypse / literal children] and everything will be fun and happy and good, but that is kind of what happened anyway. [insert joke here that goes like “do you project your real world problems and mental health issues onto fictional characters or are you normal?”]

but yeah, magnus’s mental health struggles did kind of accidentally become a little bit of a pandemic / quarantine life parallel. i did not mean for that to happen, but it did help me tease out a little bit of what it is that i feel like i’m missing and what i want in the future when things are better, and i hope it helped some other people figure that stuff out too, maybe?

and in conclusion:

i said this a little bit in the final notes in the fic, but i am so so so grateful and emotional over the comments i’ve gotten from some of you. i’ve said it already, but this was such an emotional rollercoaster for me to write. i put a decent amount of my own mental health issues into the stuff i wrote into magnus, and it was genuinely therapeutic and like… super helpful and important. it was also a big struggle, and there were some scenes i came out of feeling incredibly drained and like i needed to not write for a week.

so that being said, those of you who have commented things about how this fic helped you deal with your own emotional turmoil or helped put something in perspective for you, i am genuinely so happy to hear that i’ve impacted you in that way like, at all. that is so incredible to me, and not necessarily what i set out to do, but it means so much to hear someone say that and also to know that someone felt comfortable sharing that with a stranger on the internet. thank you so so so much.

again, this fic means so much to me. the fact that it’s impacted even a handful of people in that way is absolutely amazing. some of the things you guys have said have had me seriously choked up. i am so glad that anyone even took the time to read all 133k of this, let alone that it affected people like that.

i don’t know if i’ll be writing more about magnus in this universe. i would love to! but i’m also super happy with where i’ve left his story. i have plans to explore the calen thing in the future, but only kind of tangentially in a side mention and not fully, so who knows? there is more though, a lot with taako and kravitz and lup and barry and hopefully one day i will find the motivation somewhere in me to flesh out everyone else’s situations a little more, too. who knows!

anyway, i just want to say thanks again to everyone for reading, and even more so if you are reading this dumb essay. you’re super cool.

#txt #fic talk

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elwingflight · 5 years ago

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Coronavirus: Information & Guidelines

What you can do now, and what to prepare for

There seems to be a lack of what-to-do suggestions on tumblr beyond handwashing, so I thought I’d put something together. I’ve never actually encouraged people to reblog something of mine before, but this might be the time. To be clear: I am not personally a public health expert of any kind. Both my parents are (epidemiology/global health degrees, worked for CDC) and I’ve run this by them. My information is coming from disease researchers on twitter and official public health guidelines online. Sources at the end of the post. This is mostly directed at people in countries where COVID-19 has been reported (I’m in the U.S.), but is not *yet* widespread in the community. Written Mar. 1st 2020, last updated 3/9 (shorter, helpful twitter thread here, helpful NPR article here)

General Info

Firstly, a lot of politicians are *still* trying to sugarcoat things, but it should be clear by now that the new coronavirus is spreading widely and will continue to do so. Because of the incubation period, and in the U.S. at least the delay in testing, the number of cases is almost certainly going to increase rapidly in the near future no matter what we do now. Official government sources are helpful, but its also good to look at what experts on viral epidemics who aren’t directly government-affiliated are saying. Their agenda is purely informing the public in the most constructive way possible, without politics getting in the way.

Two key points- COVID-19 can have a long incubation period (the time from when you catch the virus to when you start showing symptoms) and most people don’t get severe symptoms. Some are entirely asymptomatic, but most people get typical flu-like symptoms. Specifically, the early symptoms to watch out for are a fever and dry cough (meaning, a stuffy nose is probably just a regular cold). Its possible but unlikely to transmit the virus while asymptomatic, most transmission happens when you have heavier symptoms.

The most vulnerable people are the elderly (~ over 60) and those with preexisting health conditions (i.e. cardiovascular disease, respiratory condition, diabetes), or a simultaneous infection with something else (NOT kids in particular!) So far the mortality rate has been about 1-2% (compared to 0.1% for the general winter flu - yes, this really is worse). However, that might be an overestimate, both because people with mild cases aren’t getting tested (the denominator should be bigger), and because the early situation in Wuhan, where a lot of our numbers come from, was especially bad in regards to availability of healthcare.

This is an emotional, difficult situation. Don’t panic. The world didn’t end in 1918, and its not going to end now. But it is very serious, and we need to be thinking about it rationally, not pretending everything is just going to be okay, or uselessly pointing blame. Take care of your mental health, and check in with each other. Epidemics test our generosity and selflessness. Those qualities are needed right now, but don’t neglect yourself either.

What You Can Do Now

There is stuff everyone can do both to prevent yourself from getting infected, and to prepare if you do. ***The big picture to keep in mind is that the biggest risk of epidemics is that they overwhelm our system, especially our healthcare system. What I mean by this is that our society is built to deal with a certain volume of things happening at once- people buying groceries, getting sick, etc. If we suddenly all rush to do something, we overburden these systems and they won’t be there for the people who need them most. Therefore our goal is to slow down the spread of disease, buying time and lowering the overall burden on these systems. This is called “flattening the curve”. It looks like this, and I cannot stress how important this is.***

A very helpful thread on preparedness

Staying Healthy

Like similar viruses (think colds and flu), COVID-19 is mostly transmitted from person to person, usually by close contact but sometimes from an infected surface. More here.

Wash your hands. Everyone has heard this one- 20 seconds, soap all over your hands, wash the soap off. If you can’t wash your hands use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer (at least 60% alcohol). But handwashing is absolutely better. Also- cough into your elbow/shoulder, not your hand, and avoid shaking hands- try elbow bumps or maybe a polite nod instead! If you’re handwashing so much that you’re hands are threatening to crack and bleed though, consider washing more strategically or using hand sanitizer instead.

In combination with hand-washing- stop touching your face, especially while out! This takes practice, everyone does it all the time without thinking. A good practice is to avoid touching your face while out, then wash your hands thoroughly as soon as you get home.

Similarly, avoid touching surfaces as much as possible! Particularly bad are door handles, elevator buttons, that kind of thing. The virus can probably (based on studies of related viruses) last a while on these. Regular gloves can help a bit. Use a tissue then throw it away, use your elbow, etc.

Do Not buy face masks! There’s mixed evidence on whether they’re at all helpful when used by the general public to prevent catching a virus, but actual medical professionals who need them are facing shortages (that’s probably part of why so many healthcare workers got sick in Wuhan), so our buying them up is really bad. The only times you should be wearing them is if you yourself are sick (they do help then!) or if you’re looking after a sick person. Seek instruction in that case in how to use them properly. (Thread on why buying those fancy masks is not good).

If COVID-19 is in your community, try to stay 6 feet from people, which basically means going places as little as possible. See below.

Planning Ahead

Its also a good idea to prepare in case you need to self-quarantine. Self-quarantine is necessary if you’ve potentially been exposed to COVID-19, or if you’re sick but not enough to need to go to the hospital. Follow local guidelines- if there’s lots of transmission in your area, nonessential workers will probably be advised to stay home as much as possible.

If you’re able, get medication now. Don’t go crazy and buy out the drug store, just a reasonable amount. Try to get at least a month’s worth of any prescription medications. This can be hard at least in the U.S. - your doctor may well be able to prescribe more, but insurance companies and drug stores can be terrible. I’ve found trying a different drugstore can sometimes help. Try your best. They may also be reluctant to prescribe more to avoid causing shortages. Idk what the right answer is here.

Don’t go crazy and buy out the store, but start getting a little extra shelf-stable or frozen food. Even some root vegetables that will last a few weeks. You want enough for 2 weeks in case of self-quarantine, but you do NOT want to empty out stores. Panic buying is definitely a stress on the system. Just add a few extra things each time you shop. Don’t forget about pets. You can always eat the food and replenish it over time.

Make a plan with your family/community. If someone gets sick or needs to self-quarantine, is there a corner of the house they can stay in? Who can take care of them? etc. I haven’t focused on plans for schools/religious communities/workplaces etc but those are very important too! This is one place where keeping an eye on local and national news is important. In the U.S., for example, school systems are planning ways to make food available to kids if they’re not going to school.

If COVID-19 is starting to spread in your community, think about how else you can be a good community member. Cancelling nonessential doctor’s appointments, surgeries etc may be very important, for example. If schools are closed, can you help out neighbors with childcare? Do you have a cleaner who may need to be payed in advance if there’s a quarantine?

If You Might Be Sick/Need to Quarantine

See likely symptoms above. Remember, normal colds still exist, and if you go to the doctor for every one of those you will overwhelm the system.

Don’t just go to a hospital! Call ahead to your doctor/clinic/hospital and get instructions on what to do. Getting healthcare workers sick is something we really want to avoid. That said, DO get tested as soon as possible, and act as if you are contagious. The health coverage situation is the U.S. is not yet clear (and ofc its not something the current admin is eager to clarify). Hopefully testing will be covered financially by the government, but I can’t promise that at this time.

In the meantime, stay home and quarantined if you show any symptoms of illness if you possibly, possibly can. This is especially difficult in the U.S. if you don’t have sick leave/childcare, but please. Do your utmost.

Look after yourself. Skype/google hangouts/etc is great for keeping connected. Have some chocolate/chicken broth/other sick foods ready.

The Big Picture

Coronavirus/COVID-19 has not been declared a pandemic yet, but it probably will be before long. This is almost certainly going to get worse before it gets better. We don’t yet know if warmer weather will slow its spread, and a vaccine will probably take about 1-1.5 years to be developed and tested. As I mentioned before, the best thing we can do to keep the world working, minimize mortality, etc is to slow the spread as much as we can, and minimize the strain on the system. Hospitals are going to be overwhelmed. There aren’t infinite unoccupied beds or ventilators, or people to operate them, and supply chains could get disrupted. Thinking about these things is scary, and it will take time to adjust to what’s happening. Start that process now, and help everyone you know reach the point where they’re able to act, not panic. Another reassuring thing- if we slow the spread of COVID-19, in addition to fewer total people getting sick, you will soon have people who are recovered and almost certainly immune. These people will be invaluable as helpers in their communities.

Now that the practical stuff is out of the way, I want to say from a U.S. perspective that yes, our lack of social welfare other countries take for granted is going to hurt us. Lack of access to childcare, no guaranteed paid sick leave, and of course expensive healthcare are massive problems that will make it much harder to limit disease transmission. Help each other in any way you can, and vote for candidates that support implementing these policies! And of course, watch out for propaganda of all kinds, whether its using the virus as an excuse for racism, calls to delay elections, etc. So far my biggest concern is a lack of willingness to admit how serious this is, but we can do this. Lets put extra pressure on politicians to be honest and change policies to actually help people. But, yes, lets also stay united. We need each other now (just, you know, 6 feet apart).

A few sources

In general, the Guardian is a great, free, reliable source of news. In the U.S., NPR (website as well as radio) is another great source. The Washington Post and Seattle Times have made their coronavirus-related coverage open access, not sure about other national newspapers.

twitter thread from World Health Organization (WHO)

U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) COVID-19 homepage (not being updated in some ways it should be, like total # of tests)

A reality check from some non-Governmental experts (basically, what governments don’t want to say yet, which is that this virus is going to spread, and the goal now is to infect as few people as possible, as slowly as possible. Read this.)

Why you should act now, not when things get bad in your area (we’re always operating on outdated information)

If you want the latest technical info, The Lancet (major medical journal group) has all of their content compiled here, open access.

I can do my best to answer questions (i.e. ask my dad) but those or other reliable, readily find-able sources should have you pretty well covered. Do let me know if anything on here is wrong or needs to be updated! Stay safe, stay positive, we can do this.

#coronavirus #covid19 #covid-19 #healthcare #actually important shit

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twokinkybeans · 4 years ago

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Stark On Ice 2: Heartbeat (Starker Figure Skating AU)

Read On AO3 here

Read Chapter 1 here

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Chapter 2: Heartbeat

Peter hums happily when he sinks into the soft, leather couch outside of the rink. Quentin Beck, the man that’s been hosting Celebrity Spin-Off for nearly a decade now, is already waiting for them. He sends them both a charming smirk and waves the hand in which he’s holding the mic to beckon them closer. Tony carefully skates towards the couch and lowers himself on it. It’s funny how skating through the entire choreo feels solid, yet maneuvering to sit down feels unsteady and scary. He’s panting. His muscles are tired and slightly sore. It doesn’t matter to Tony. He’s so happy he pulled this off. "Woa-woa-woah!" Beck exclaims and shakes his head, grinning. "Tony Stark, now that was a delightful surprise! Give it up for our favorite CEO, everyone!" The public cheers and whistles and applauds, and as much as Tony is used to being in the center of attention, this sure hits differently. People are cheering for something he’s done all by himself. No inheriting something from his crazy rich, crazy stoic father. No. Tony laughs and blows a little kiss towards the camera, mouthing a quick ‘thank you’.

Beck shifts in his seat, crossing his right ankle over his left thigh. He smiles, waiting for the applause to die down. "Tell us, Tony. How are you feeling?" Tony leans in toward the mic. "Fucking amazing- Peter and I have been training for so long. It's so rewarding to finally show off what he taught me." Peter glances and bites down his lip nervously. "What about you, Peter? Rumor has it that you're a big fan of Tony Stark, did he meet your expectations in real life?" Tony whips his head around in surprise.

What? Peter never told him that piece of information before. He makes a mental note to ask him about it at a later time. Peter nods timidly. "Tony's a great dude. He trains harder than some of my fellow professional skaters, and well, as eh, as you could see, he's really picked up some skills here." "Well, let's dive right into this." Beck presses into his earpiece to show the audience he's getting information from backstage. Then, he turns his head to stare at the large projector screen behind them. "Twitter seems to have been blown away by your performance- as have I. You two killed it out there!" Beck licks his lips as he waits for the screen to pull up the Twitter feed. Tony squints and looks up at it too, reading along while Beck speaks.

Stark has the hots for Peter, pass it on! #StarkOnIce

That was both hot and adorable. These lovestruck dorks are everything.

We stan #Starker, let's get this trending folks!

Tony can’t quite believe it. He knew this would happen no matter how good or bad their performance. This tops everything though.

"So Tony, now tell us everything. How long have you two been dating?" Beck jests and barks out a laugh. Tony sniffs, tilting his head. He's not sure if he likes the direction of this conversation but he knows he has to play along. This is still entertainment after all. "I have yet to ask him on a first date, Quentin," he says jokingly and leans in as if to be secretive. "Should I opt for roses or gardenias?" The audience laughs out loud, and Tony grins- glad he made the right call. He nudges Peter next to him, trying to ease the kid's apparent nerves. He gets it. Peter is used to the spotlights while performing. Never outside of the rink. "I wish I knew, Stark, I wish I knew," Beck retorts. "On a more serious note-" The projector screen turns dark. "-that was quite a routine for a first-time figure skater. What's your secret?"

Tony just stares at Peter for a second. It's not even on purpose, and he doesn't realize he's doing it until the crowd breaks into loud cheering once more. He presses his lips together. He knew that asking for a male partner would… Provoke a reaction. This is a bit more than he expected. Before either of them have a chance to respond, Beck continues. “Alright, time to call for our next contestants, our favorite Olympics archery champion Clint Barton and his lovely partner Michelle! Give it up for Tony Stark and Peter once more!"

Tony sucks his lower lip into his mouth as he slides into a basic forward twizzle. Steve is standing at the side of the rink and Tony can feel the man staring at him. God. He shouldn’t overthink this. Focus. He turns towards Peter as together, they shift into backward strokes.

I can feel your heartbeat I can feel your heartbeat

Tony mumbles along to the lyrics as they speed up and squat down. Their fingers intertwined- gripping each other strongly. Tony almost wants to blurt out a lousy joke about being able to feel everything but Peter’s heartbeat. He decides against it in the end. He’d probably laugh and trip again. His already sore hip wouldn’t be too happy about it. "Alright Tony, keep focusing on pressing your heels down, we don't want your toe picks to dig into the ice. Pete- go a little slower so he gets a good feel for it," Steve shouts from outside the rink. Tony sniffs and presses his lips together, trying to get it right. There's not much time left where the music continues.

Maybe it's the way you move, You got me dreaming like a fool. That I could steal your heart away, I could steal your heart away.

Mohawk. Three-turn. Crossovers and- Tony gasps as he nearly loses his balance and grasps on Peter's puffer vest. Peter rushes to steady him. He brings them both to a halt and smiles encouragingly at Tony. "That was good, Tony. I-" "I nearly fell. Again ." "You’re tired, Tony. You really nailed that mohawk though!”

In the background, the song is still playing, but Peter shakes his head slightly when Tony eyes the ice. "Enough for today." He turns around to Steve. "We're done for today, Steve." Their coach nods. "You've made great progress onto the choreo. It's the details, really. And we still have two days until the second live show." Steve says as they skate toward him to get out of the rink. "You should hop in the sauna. Helps the muscles relax." "I've never had someone prescribe me a sauna before." "All the more reason to listen. Right?" With a gentle pat on Tony’s shoulder, Steve stalks off.

Tony grunts when the heat envelopes his naked body. The scent of sandalwood filling his nostrils. He feels his taut muscles loosen up immediately. God. Does that feel good. He's pretty sure his many saunas at home don't feel this good. He puts his towel down onto the wooden benches and lays down on it, closing his eyes. Awkwardly, Peter follows behind him. "I envy you, Peter," Tony mumbles and listens how the boy shuffles around and climbs onto the benches. "W-why?" "You get to do this. Every single day. Your career path…" Tony's voice trails of, not liking how his chest seems to restrict all of a sudden. "It seems so free." "You know it's not, right? It's hard work, it's… It's a big commitment. Everyone is counting on you. You have to be at your pique. Tiptop shape. Every single day. I can't drink. Or smoke. Well, I could cause I'm not going for the Olympics- but it'd be a bad influence on my overall performance. Even when you feel sick, you have to appear and act as if you've never been happier. Don't get me wrong, I fucking love my job. But it's not that glamourous." "Mmmh, sounds like the life of a CEO." Tony sighs. "Minus the drinking." Peter chuckles. "Not so different then." "Nope."

"I eh, I've meant to ask you something," Peter whispers after a few seconds of silence. Tony opens his eyes and props himself up onto his elbows. Looking at Peter and trying not to look at him. Peter… Is rather good-looking. His athletic body ripped and smooth and- Nope. Nope, not going there. "Ask away, kid." "Why… Why did you ask to dance with a dude?" Tony presses his lips together and sucks at his teeth, huffing out some air. "Honestly?" "Yeah." "I didn't want to dance at all. Figured a gay remark would brush them off." There. That's it. It's silent. Then, Peter breaks out into a laughing fit. His cute little giggles making Tony's heart flutter in his chest in a way he didn't quite see coming, and it's terrifying. "Oh God, Mr. Stark, that is genius ." "Mmmh, it didn't quite work, and now here I am." Tony lays back down again, staring at the ceiling. "It's not as bad as I expected. I think I really like figure skating." "I'm glad. And for what it's worth, I'm very grateful for finally having an opportunity to pair with a male partner. MJ is the sweetest and I would never trade her for anyone else… But she's not a man."

It's a confession. Peter Parker is gay. Tony sighs and decides to sit up. Crossing his legs and folding his hands in his lap. He stares at the kid laying a few feet away. "I-I hope you don't mind," Peter whispers, chuckling anxiously. Tony is quick to shake his head. "No, kid. I don't mind at all. I'm… I'm not into women either." "Oh? Really? But... W-what about your ex-wife?" "There's a simple reason that she is exactly that, Pete. I loved her as a friend. A sister, maybe. When I first had a crush on a man, I knew that what I felt for her had deceived me all this time." Peter just nods at him, processing the information. They don't speak after that and simply enjoy the warmth of the sauna, making them sweat and relax. It's clear they've grown a little closer. Bonded. Tony knows that this kid is gonna be something different. The older man has a hard time getting close to people. Something about Peter feels so… Comforting and open. Like home.

Maybe it's the way you move, You got me dreaming like a fool. That I could steal your heart away, I could steal your heart away.

Tony takes a deep breath in and out. The loud music blaring- nearly vibrating through him. The flashing of the spotlights creating strange shadows on the ice. This is the part where he falls more often than not. They've practiced it over and over again, except for yesterday. Peter had sternly told him off.

"You better give your body some rest today, you'll see it makes a difference at the actual show tomorrow."

Mohawk. Three-turn. Crossovers… Tony's lips are pressed together, feeling how his body stiffens in anticipation for yet another fall. The fear of falling in front of the entire United States nearly paralyzing him. But Peter squeezes his hand, and Tony looks up, staring into his eyes. Peter mouths along to the lyrics, and it tugs at Tony's heart- oh God. Had Peter always looked this captivating? His curls bouncing on the air as they speed forward.

No matter what it is you think I'm not the kind of girl to blink And give my heart away Stop tryin' steal my heart away

Before Tony realizes it's over, they've passed the crossovers and a rush of adrenaline courses through his veins. His lips break into a wide smile. He lets go of Peter's hand, and together they speed up, turn around. Tony bends his right knee and extends his left leg backward. He presses his toe pick into the ice and jumps up, arms close to his chest, and huffs a surprised breath when he feels how smooth it goes. When gravity pulls his body down and lands on the ice, he bends his right leg again to counter the landing and smiles, gliding backward rather effortlessly. The audience goes absolutely wild at his performed toe loop.

When the music slows down a little, so does Tony. Both his skates flat on the ice. No strokes, nothing. The speed dies down, and slowly, Peter and he slide closer together. Reaching out with one hand, straining to touch Peter's. Their fingers touch- curl into one another and they twirl around one another.

I don't know where we're going I don't know who we are

They're staring at the other. Peter's eyes are big and wide and so incredibly gorgeous. Tony's breathing picks up. Not from the exercise, no. Peter reaches forward, touching Tony's chest. As choreographed, Tony grabs Peter's hand and presses it even closer into his body.

I can feel your heartbeat He said to me I can feel your heartbeat He said to me I can feel your heartbeat Running through me

Tony forces himself to let go of Peter then and they both turn around. Their backs together for a split second before they both break out into a series of forward strokes again- separating. When Tony reaches the top end of the rink, another mohawk and he licks his lips when he sees Peter doing the same thing at the other end of the rink.

Stop stealing my heart away Give it to me boy

It's at this moment that Tony realizes that he's actually falling for the kid. Hard. So hard and oh God he really, really shouldn't. The show must go on, though. Twizzle. Upright spin. Another twizzle. Grabbing Peter's hands to set off for a camel spin, just as in their first choreo. Peter's strong but smaller body is so close. So graceful. Tony feels dizzy in such a good way that he wonders how on earth he didn't see these feelings coming before they decided to crash down on him. Slowly, Peter comes back upright and they slow down. Tony's arms wrap around Peter from behind. One hand on his waist, the other on Peter's chest. Their necks are crooked so they can look at each other. Panting heavily. Caught in the other’s gaze. Mere inches away. He can feel Peter’s heartbeat thrumming fast underneath his fingertips.

Your heartbeat.

---

Next Chapter: 3: 7 A.M.

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wishesanswered · 4 years ago

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Tarot symbolism in Criminal MV

So i posted a thread on Twitter about the symbolism and meaning behind the Tarot used in Taemin’s Criminal MV, but i wanted to go more in-depth and share it on here. I’ve not been reading tarot for very long, but I find it fascinating and it made me very happy to see it being used in Taemin’s MV. Also, I highly recommend checking out out Bookish Theories analysis of Criminal alongside this post, as they dive a bit deeper into the overall meaning of the lyrics and MV, which might make my post make a bit more sense and gives more context.

Going from left to right, the first card is mostly hidden from view so we cant see what image it depicts. I have a theory about that, but i’ll go into that later. The second card shows a snake and three apples. I believe this to the Three of Pentacles, as the pentacles often represent the material, finance and career. I’ve seen pentacles represented as flowers before and I read pentacles as symbolic of the “fruits of labour”, so i think it’s safe to say in this deck, pentacles are shown as apples. The Three of Pentacles can often mean collaboration, learning, growth and being in the middle of a long-term project/process. In this context, I think this card is a metaphor for the hard work and preparation Taemin has put in to his career up until this point, and how he has grown as a solo artist. When i first watched the Criminal MV, my first thought was how Taemin had taken everything from his previous comebacks (Danger, Press Your Number, Move, Want ect.) and put them all together and built on it. Criminal is an amalgamation of all that Taemin has done as a solo artist thus far.

The next card we can see is an image of an hourglass, and this card is particularly significant as it is the card the skeleton hand is picking out, signifying Taemin’s current situation. I’m willing to bet that this card is the Death card. Some people might see the Death card and bad omen or think its scary, but is actually a more symbolic death. The death card can mean the end of a cycle and the possibility of something new, a transformation or turning point; one side of the hourglass will come to end, then you can flip it over and it starts anew. This death can be seen in the MV when Taemin is suffocating to death with the plastic bag over his head. In one of these shots he is surrounded by butterflies, which are often symbolic of transformation. This is also shown through his hair colour, as when he is being suffocated he has blonde hair, but in the other scenes his hair is grey, subtly suggesting that one reality has come to and end and a new reality is about to begin. Moreover, Taemin also recently released a video called ‘History of Taemin: My Turning Point’ which emphasises that Taemin is in the process of going through a transformation as a solo artist, by letting go of his previous identities and finding a new ego, which Ii believe we will see come to life in ACT 2 of Never Gonna Dance Again.

The third card depicts two knives which is, more obviously, the Two of Swords. In the Original Rider-Waite Tarot deck, the Two of swords shows a person holding two swords with a blindfold covering their eyes. This card means facing a difficult decision or challenge, where the outcome may be unclear and indecision. This is reflected in the MV as Taemin wears a eye-patch, obscuring his vision, and can be seen removing a a blindfold/veil. A the end of the History of Taemin video I mentioned earlier, the audience is asked “what’s next?”. The Two of Swords reflect this, as we do not know what to expect from ACT 2. It is possible that the Taemin in the Criminal MV doesn’t either. Moreover, this could be a hint at what to expect from ACT 2. The Two of Swords could be representative of Taemin’s duality: Suspect and Innocent. Perhaps we are supposed to decide between the two? Will one come out on top over the other or will they be combined? Who will Taemin be when he is reborn in ACT 2?

At the begining of this post, i mentioned the first card that is hidden. I cannot say for sure which card it is, but here is my theory and how it fits into the narrative so far. On the card, if you look close enough, you can see that the snake is the same type of snake seen of the Two of Swords. They have dark scales, its mouth is open revealing fangs. It is also different from the snake on the Three of Pentacles. From that, i’m willing to bet that this card is definitely from the Swords suit. I can’t see anything else much on the card, but if its the beginning of Taemin’s story as a solo artist, I believe that it is the Ace of Swords. When Taemin debuted as a soloist, he was given the nick name “Ace of Ace” and released the song ‘Ace’ alongside Danger. I do not think that this is a coincidence. Moreover, the Ace of Swords is symbolic of a breakthrough, new ideas and ways of expressing oneself, inspiration and opportunities for growth. These are all things Taemin might have experienced at the start of his career as a solo artist and it fits nicely into the narrative alongside the other cards that are shown. Overall, the tarot cards in Taemin’s Criminal MV depicts the story of Taemin’s career as a solo artist and that he is at a turning point that will give way to a new reality and identity that we have never seen from him before.

#Taemin #SHINee #lee taemin #criminal #taemin criminal #never gonna dance again #ngda #tarot #kpop tarot #kpop #kpop theories #my post

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lovemesomesurveys · 4 years ago

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an internet/social media survey. 1 - Are you one of those people who shares absolutely everything on social media? What do you think about those who do? I do tend to overshare in surveys and I share quite a bit on Twitter. I’m pretty quiet on my other social media sites, though, in terms of that. It only bugs me when people share something and then someone asks about it and they’re like, “I don’t want to share it on here” or “I don’t want to talk about it.” You just did, though? Why post about it then? Plus, my nosy ass wants to know haha. I see that all the time on Facebook.

2 - Does anyone in "real life" know that you take surveys? Would you be embarrassed if they found your blog? I don’t think so. Back in the Myspace days people knew cause I posted them there, but no one in “real life” follows me on here. I’m surprised I shared those back then cause I don’t want anyone to see them now. Although, I wasn’t as open back then in surveys. I took the more basic ones and didn’t elaborate like I do now.

3 - When you receive a text message, do you reply straight away or wait a little while instead? It depends.

4 - Who was the last person you blocked on social media? Did you have an argument that lead to that happening? I don’t recall. It was probably some spam account on here.

5 - Aside from Tumblr, what websites do you spend the most time on? I spend a lot of time on YouTube.

6 - What was the first social media account you remember signing up for? Are you still a member of that particular website, if it even still exists? Ooh. I’ve had an online and social media presence for so long... like it was probably something that doesn’t even exist now. I remember some teen sites I was on that I guess were like the social medias of the day. For example, there was this one website I remember called Kiwibox, where you could interact with other people, post stuff, and it shared like trending topics and whatnot that I was a member of in the early 2000s. It was pre-Myspace. I don’t think it even exists now, but if it did I’m sure my account was deleted long ago for being inactive.

7 - How many social media accounts do you have now? Do you use them all regularly? If not, which ones do you think you update the most and why? I’m on all the common ones. I use them all, but I’m more active on some than others. Some I check regularly but rarely post. For instance, I’m super active on here and I post on Twitter quite a bit. I check Facebook a few times a day and “like” some stuff, but I very rarely post. I check Instagram and Snapchat, but not daily and I rarely post or even interact on there. I spend the least amount of time on those two.

8 - Are there are any popular apps/social media sites that you've never got into or signed up for? How come? Hmm. Like I said, I have all the main ones I think.

9 - Do you take surveys on any other website apart from Tumblr? Nope.

10 - Before Tumblr existed, what kind of blogging site did you use (eg. LiveJournal, Xanga etc.). I had a Xanga and LJ account.

11 - Is there anything you miss about websites like MySpace, or do you prefer social media the way it is now? The Myspace days were interesting that’s for sure. I miss the hype of changing up my page and adding stuff, picking my profile song, rearranging my top 8, changing my display name, follow forever trains, comment 4 comments... haha what a ride.

12 - How old were you when you first got the internet at home? Was it broadband/wireless or did you use dial-up? I remember it wasn’t long after my brother was born, so it was sometime in 1999. I remember when my mom brought home our first computer. Those were the days of dial up/AOL. Gah, I do not miss that.

13 - Are you old enough to remember life without any kind of internet access whatsoever? What kind of things did you do to fill the time? Ha, yeah. It’s crazy to think of the days before the internet, but I did have them. I actually used to play outside *gasp* That’s shocking cause ya’ll know I’m a hermit crab. I used to get so tan back then cause I spent so much time outside. Other things I used to do was play Barbies for hours, play with my cousins, read, color, and watch TV.

14 - Have you ever gotten into an argument with a stranger online before? Lol yeah.

15 - Overall, would you say social media is a good thing or a bad thing, or does it depend on how you choose to use it? It definitely has its pros and cons. There’s a dark side to social media and the internet in general, but a lot of good can be done with it as well.

16 - How much time do you think you spend online each day? Is this something that varies depending on the weather? I spend a decent amount of time online for sure, but it does vary. The weather has absolutely nothing to do with it.

17 - If your internet went off right now and you knew it wouldn't come back on for several hours, what would you go and do instead? Well, it’s 3:50AM so I’d watch some TV and attempt to go to bed.

18 - Since getting the internet, what's the longest period of time you've gone without access to it? Did you miss it as much as you thought you might? Probably the times I had surgery. I didn’t have to go completely without because once I was able to I was able to rent laptops that were available for patient use or access a computer while there. That was really nice during the couple times I had to spend a few months in the hospital. Even the shorter stays, like a week or two, I had some access at some point. But yeah, I definitely wasn’t on nearly as much during those times. Not at all the first few days/week. Then when I was back home and had my laptop I still wouldn’t feel up to spending much online. I did miss it, but I spent so much time resting and sleeping during the early stages of recovery so it was fine for awhile. I did start to get stir crazy, though.

19 - What's something you find yourself doing less of because you spend too much time online? Hm. I can’t think of anything I do less for that particular reason.

20 - What websites do you spend the most time on? Do these fall into any particular category or are they just random? Tumblr, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter.

21 - What website from your childhood/teen years do you wish still existed? I miss Xanga a lot. The survey community was poppin back then. I miss the days, not so much the websites themselves, of Myspace, Neopets, playing games on Disney Channel’s and Nickelodeon’s websites, making dolls, and the AOL teen message boards. Good times, good times. Much nostalgia.

22 - Have you ever met up with anyone in real life that you first met via the internet? Did you get on as well as you thought you would? Nope. I had online friends back in the day that I talked to all the time and actually texted with. I even talked to them on the phone a couple times. :O That was during my Jonas Brothers days and I got close to a few people that I met through a Jonas Brothers’ message board and chatroom. I was pretty involved on there. I can’t believe I used to do that cause I wouldn’t do that now.

23 - What's your thoughts on internet dating and is it something you would ever consider for yourself? I probably wouldn’t do it myself, but hey if that works for people then go for it. *shrug*

24 - Do you tend to shop more online or in person? Is that something that's changed since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic? I do all my shopping online now since the pandemic hit, but even for a few years prior I was doing most of my shopping online.

25 - Speaking of the pandemic, did you find all the stories on social media quite scary or overwhelming at the beginning? Absolutely.

26 - If someone on social media annoys or upsets you, are you likely to tell them or just hit the hide/block buttons? Nah, I’ll just keep on scrolling. If it’s that bad then I’d likely mute or just delete.

27 - Are there topics you won't post on social media about, simply because they always end up in an argument? I don’t post about politics.

28 - Are you friends with your parents and family members online? Do you limit what you say because you know they can see it? Yes and yes. Like, even though I don’t post anything bad or risqué lol I still hide some stuff from my grandparents just because they wouldn’t get it, ya know? I’ve done that before and my Nana called my dad and asked if I was okay cause I posted some relatable self-deprecating meme or something haha. It’s sweet of course that she cares, but yeah I didn’t want her to get worried and concerned over stuff like that.

29 - Are you using the internet for anything else except this survey right now? I’m watching ASMR videos on YouTube as well.

30 - Do you access the internet more via a phone, tablet or laptop/PC? Which device do you prefer overall? I use my phone a lot for certain things and my laptop for others. Like, I much prefer the Facebook and Twitter apps, and I access Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok, the Kindle app, and my email on my phone as well. I use both for YouTube. I only like to access Tumblr on my laptop, though, as well as Pinterest.

#personal #text #survey #surveys #internet #social media

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inawickedlittletown · 5 years ago

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314 Some Thoughts

(This is 1,600 words omg...but I guess I had a lot to say. Under the cut for spoilers.)

Heist episode. I am here for it. And I hope we get another heist episode next season because the writers know how to write a good heist and Ocean’s 9-1-1 is an episode I enjoyed a lot last season. The set up for the episode was just on point from the stylistic choices made at the beginning of the episode so that we learn their names to how well planned everything is and how the idea of taking control of the 9-1-1 call center just makes sense in terms of the real crime — the art heist. I just loved that.

The set up for the roles each of the “bad guys” is taking is also not only interesting but looking back a misdirect in the role of Tiffany to the whole operation. Also the whole bit with the security guard, Jake, since we the audience don’t know that he’s involved. In fact, we think he’s dead for a moment.

Maddie managing to send Chimney an SOS in saying “I love you, Howie” from last episode and sending the ball rolling is still impressive writing to me. When things get tied together within storytelling — that does things to me. Chimney immediately finding it odd and trying not only to call her back but also to call 9-1-1 before making the decision to call Buck in the end — I loved that entire sequence. In general there has been so much work put into prior episodes to set up this one from the whole bit with Maddie and Chim to what happened to Josh and they’ve done an amazing job pulling it off.

Also it’s 8am, where was Buck coming from? Because since we know that this episode takes place the morning after the dinner Chim and Maddie had then we know that Chimney wasn’t working which to me means that Buck likely wasn’t working either. So Buck was either out somewhere all night (insert side-eye), or he was out somewhere super early in the morning looking like that because Buck in regular clothes — that also does things to me. Actually...it kinda looks like he was just fetching his mail and Oli said on twitter Buck was getting home from work.

While we don’t see it, we know that Buck tries to call Maddie. No answer. Tries to call Josh. No answer. I love that Buck does have Josh’s number at all. It’s also interesting that Buck and Chim while worried don’t know what to do or even if they should be worried. They just both know that something is up and yet there is no real urgency between them because as Chim says she’s at the call center. What could possibly have happened there? Oh, if only you knew.

At the call center we have the whole hostage situation escalate. We see the epi pen when they’re collecting everyone’s things and they oh so obviously show it so early on because it will come back into play. It’s subtle enough and yet another instance of good writing by showing the weapon and then putting it aside until it’s needed.

This episode is all about this crazy situation and how it goes down both within dispatch but also about how those outside it figure out that something is going on. Both aspects of it make the episode have a certain intensity, it uses dramatic irony in a way that has us wanting the characters to have all the info that we do.

One of the very impressive things about this episode is how the people working at dispatch never actually give up and that they try their hardest to use their skills and their knowledge to figure out the situation and find a way to get help. From how they figure out what area of LA they don’t want dispatch to send anyone to, to how much information they are taking in from what they overhear Greg and the others saying. Not once do they give up even.

Josh thinking quickly on his feet and sending Athena to Chimney’s apartment despite the fact that he’s also dealing with Greg there and memories of what he’d just gone through because of Greg — I just love that so much. I also really appreciate that Josh not only knows Chimney’s address but also Athena arriving there and not already knowing that it’s Chimney’s place brings them all that closer to figuring out what’s happening. Chimney keeping Buck on the phone but then just hanging up on him while he goes off with Athena, did either of you expect for Buck to just stay out of it?

Also prior to Athena arriving, Chimney was 100% ready to go out to dispatch himself and I’m sure Buck would have joined too.

I saw a bit of talk about confusion about Buck showing up right where Athena and Chim were but he knew where they were going so it all made sense for him to show up and spot her car and just get in front of her to get her attention. I also don’t think either Chim or Buck were thinking about calling anyone else at that moment. I saw a bit of complaints about Buck not reaching out to Eddie because why wouldn’t he but I see it as perfectly reasonable because there is no time for any of that and because Athena also tells them in not so many words not to. She doesn’t even necessarily want Buck there. Buck has more things to worry about than trying to call Eddie or Bobby or Hen or really anyone else when they can’t do anything to resolve the situation.

In the meanwhile, the situation at dispatch gets worse because as far as Greg knows, Tiffany is screwing up by taking too long and then there’s also Terri making an attempt to pull the fire alarm and Josh being brave and saving him. Not only is that happening, but the heist team is falling apart and they’re turning on each other and don’t even know that really they’re all being played all along anyway.

The truly scary moment was seeing Athena walk into dispatch and how absolutely close to being shot she was. But then Sue steps up and saves her and not just that, she manages to pass on yet another message. Code 77 - ambush - proceed with caution. It’s the last thing they needed to finally be able to say that something was truly going on. Next they take Athena’s car off of the GPS system. And then all the rest of the police, RA units, firetrucks all go off of GPS and they are ready to go. Obviously this makes the heist team suspicious, but that also sort of breaks them apart further.

Linda is the real MVP because she’s the one that pretends to have an allergic reaction. Greg somehow believes her and doesn’t even see it coming when Maddie stabs him with the epi pen instead. And then dispatch takes the building back and it is amazing that they manage it But Sue shooting at Foster. Loved the strength of that. But then we have Josh facing the possible death of the guy that tricked him and beat him up and then took him and the rest of dispatch as hostages and he jumps in to give him CPR because it’s the right thing to do but also because he wants Greg to suffer in prison and face his crimes. Of course, Greg is somehow the one that tells the police everything.

I admit that I did find it a bit strange that Buck wasn’t standing with Chimney when Maddie came out. However, I didn’t find it strange that he hung back and let Chimney and Maddie have the moment. It also reads like closure to everything we had in the previous episode between them and to me it felt important to show how much Maddie has come to rely on Chim. She doesn’t really need Buck...she has Chimney.

Throughout the whole thing one thing that was consistent was Buck’s belief that Maddie would be okay and that she could handle herself. He and Chim are worried but even when Chimney and Athena are headed over to dispatch, it’s Buck that tries to tell them that they can’t give themselves away. I think this shows so much growth in Buck — the lack of running into things without much of a plan other than a need to go. And we already know that Chimney is level headed despite his worry. They’re letting Athena handle it and I think they both realize that Athena and the others can handle it and will be doing their best to get everyone out alive.

In the end we get a recap of everything that happened. I love that this is split between Athena and her family and then Buck, Maddie, Chim, and Josh. This would have been the perfect moment to insert Albert into the episode and maybe Eddie and Hen as well. After all, we get a tiny bit of Bobby. But instead we really focus on the full story of the heist and we find out about Jake and Tiffany and how poor Josh got involved in the whole mess.

Overall, this was an enjoyable episode. It was a bit of fun and I think it absolutely fits into the show. It is a bit stand alone other than the Madney stuff and yet that works within the context of the show since it takes place in the course of a day. I know the lack of development for anything other than Madney frustrates a few people but I absolutely enjoyed it and I can’t wait to see what we are in store for next week with Eddie Begins.

Honorable mention to how the bad guy named Oliver was “the muscle” because that entirely felt like they were calling Oli out.

My Meta/Reviews Masterpost

#911 fox #911 on fox #911 #911 spoilers #spoilers #meta #911 meta #sort of #this is more like a review of the episode than anything

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the-peaches-pit · 5 years ago

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This misinterpretations, misunderstandings, and false accusations of Ushijima Wakatoshi

Hi howdy, not fanfic but a character essay I wrote for fun. Twitter wanted me to post it so I’m just gonna put it on here.

...... A popular question that comes up in the Haikyuu fandom is what character do you not like? Many will reply with answers on a copy-paste that everyone has seen before. Yamaguchi’s bullies, Tendou’s bullies, Bokuto’s middle school teammates, and well some deserved Terushimas. One character that also floats around in the comments and polls is that of Ushijima. Being a Shiratorizawa stan you could call me biased but I am more than aware of his flaws. People have valid reasons but, I also feel he is still blamed for unfair claims. The series has developed and blossomed very much but at one point Ushijima was horribly despised. The fandom doesn’t hold many grudges moving on from what he was, but that past tense still irks me in people’s words. That irking past tense leads to an in-depth analysis of Ushijima’s character looking at what the fandom still mentions about him. In other words, talking disproving, and explaining the misinterpretations, misunderstandings, and false accusations of Ushijima Wakatoshi.

The most common misinterpretations of Usihijima start the moment you lay eyes on him and really meet his character, his first appearance isn’t the brightest and either is his actual appearance. Ushijima isn’t the softest boy in the series clearly. A 6’2.6 (189.5 cm) giant with a blank stare and a flat expression. Some tend to get rubbed the wrong way just from seeing him and the first appearance of a character does mean a lot. The start of taking his looks the wrong way is the classic idea of judging a book by its cover. The thing about Ushijima’s cover though, is that the pages of his book aren’t the most pleasing either. Compare Ushijima to someone with his similar issue of Tanaka or even Tendou. The first thoughts seeing them are that they stand out negatively almost, the baldy with shark teeth and the dead-eyed redhead. The thing these two characters carry though vs Ushijima is stand out positive personality. They may look frighting but are truly delightful angels were it counts. Ushijima though looks fearful and his personality doesn’t help disprove this theory. He can be said to be judge filled and outright rude from his character interactions. These views have evidence to back them up, but they’re a view that doesn’t match up with what people say. Ushijima views himself above others but this is not carried with intentional rudeness. He knows his strengths and what he is good at, an overabundance of confidence is clear but isn’t always horrible. Interacting with Hinata and Kageyama for the first time is an example. He knows he has the ability to take the two on this isn’t something negative. Ushijima is just not denying his strengths and has evidence that he is powerful enough. Back to a book metaphor Usijima’s cover and contents don’t seem the best, but that comes from mindful skimming of what you may see. Don’t interpret the snippets for his entire being look and actually read before your final conclusion.

Misunderstandings and misinterpretations may be similar words in meanings and even synonyms but regarding this situation, they can be two different things. People will misinterpret Ushijima’s appearance and misinterpret what his actions really mean. People misunderstand the drive behind his actions and why he acts the way he does. Ushijima is a plain and simple boy he is in no way the most complex character but there is a layer of depth. He may like plain rice and not have a current concern but why is he like that? There is not exactly a given reason behind his personality but look at his past and it’s not the best. A mother who didn’t like the way he was trying to force change until his dad stepped in. That stepping in along with some love and inspiration helped Ushijima, but with a nasty divorce that didn’t last the longest. His father across the seas and gone from his life was still a sour topic for Toshi at 18, leaving it up to the imagination that it may still haunt him. Even if not the most dramatic it’s a shame if this doesn’t drive the smallest bit of sympathy from one learning this. One of the most believed and theorized headcanons that exist for his character involves him being autistic. This is in no way true but many admit they see autistic coding in his character and viewing him in this light, would make sense. The poor social behavior, bluntness, hyper fixation, and not liking things he doesn’t know of. Looking at him with this understanding changes things. Other characters that sometimes act this way are Atsumu and Kita from Inarizaki who share similar autistic-like attributes of Ushijima. All are blunt, sometimes rude, and social messes. But with all three of these characters adding this headcanon can help understand them a bit better. It gives them excused reasons for why they’re like this, but it’s not true. Overall this headcanon just helps give light, but a thing in canon that all these characters share isn’t the best past. Lack of parents for two and cruel people for another. Understanding them and what they’ve come from and maybe in a different view, truly can help maybe explain how they are and the way they act.

Lastly with Ushijima comes the false accusations of his character that are linked to the fandom’s misinterpretations and misunderstandings. We’ve all seen the joke. The overplayed and oh it was funny for four seconds joke of Usijima being Oikawa’s stalker. It’s one of the farthest things from the truth. It was funny but then got so carried away. The interaction and the saying, “you should have come to Shiratorizawa” can haunt dreams. No one fully belives it but some still take it wrongly or twist it for angst. Ushijima with blunt behavior as normal simply commented on skills. He was actually giving a complicated compliment in this. He was simply saying Oikawa had the skills to join and be part of his team. A team that was the powerhouse of the time who only allowed those in with strict scholarships. It was in no way stalking behavior. Praise the fandom for no Ushioi killing stalking crossovers just for the poor taste of the joke. Another false claim is he’s sort of an empty robotic character. Volleyball or nothing. He does slightly follow this claim but he can show to have relationships and have some other interests. He has friends of his team that he talks to and associates with outside of practice. Tendou is the main example. A complete opposite that he has seemed to have clicked with. They’ve shared depth filled talks and Tendou tries to get him into hobbies. Related to updated chapters as adults his old teammates even seem to keep in touch with him. They can playfully pick at him and he’s not just gonna critique them. Shirtoizawa has a vice-captain you’ve probably never heard of him but his name is Jin. He’s in no way a regular, but that means Ushijima still had some sort of connection to choose him. Perfection, skill, and other things mean a lot to Ushijima but he’s still human. A human character that has no sinister stalker intentions behind people who spark his interest.

I am a proud and passionate Ushjima Wakatoshi stan who can admit, when joining the fandom I didn’ have the best view of Ushijima either. I fell into the depths of rumors and things said about him, also he is a tad scary to look at. But, diving into it and taking a better glance. I’ve come to love him so much. Everything I’ve said is a personal view of the things I’ve seen in the hidden layers of the fandom. Ushijima grew the smallest bit thankfully and so did many people’s opinions. He wasn’t put in as a character to hate thankfully which is saddening when some still do. Before making a statement of hating Ushijima I just hope that people can read and start to understand that the boy, has many misinterpretations, misunderstandings, and false accusations.

Also, I did not mention the farmer headcanon or claim because it’s funny and is still loved but he isn’t one sadly.

#ushijima wakatoshi #haikyuu!!#character analysis #this is chuncky boy #haikyuu fandom #overall these are just my opinions of what i've seen please do not come for me i plead

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gukkiebunny · 5 years ago

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I’m still thinking about this tweet I quoted earlier, and I felt like the rant I’m holding in belongs on here rather than twitter.

So to start things off, there’s almost no flaws with The Lost Boys in my eyes. Just about everything about that movie is perfect from (most of) the casting, to the character development, the soundtrack, the overall tone, I love literally everything about The Lost Boys except for one thing: The main protagonist.

Michael Emerson is probably the worst character you could possibly root for in the movie (or any movie, honestly), and Max, the Big Bad(tm) is literally right there. Michael has absolutely zero redeeming qualities and if it weren’t for everything else I love about the movie, I would hate it purely because of him alone. I can’t even say “at least he’s attractive” because, here’s the thing, even though Michael has Several physical attributes I find attractive in men (full lips, nice jaw, soft-looking wavy/curly hair, pretty eyes, thick eyebrows, pierced ears), I couldn’t find him attractive if I tried because he’s just that much of an irredeemable shit-stain.

He gets on his motorcycle right at the beginning purely so he doesn’t have to ride with Lucy and Sam to Grandpa’s house.

He sees Star (and Laddie, but he’s not really important) in the crowd at the concert, and just fucking stares at Star the entire time, then when she leaves he fucking follows her around until he sees her get on David’s bike and ride away with David and the others. He’s literally showing stalker behavior right off the bat.

When Michael vamps out, Sam is his first target. If Nanook hadn’t been there, Mike would have absolutely killed his own little brother.

I know this is most likely because Sam was the only other person in the house and Michael was just really thirsty, but it still rubs me the wrong way.

He scoffs at/mocks Star when she tries to warn him about the wine actually being blood, and drinks it anyway (like the dumbass he is). When she goes to his house after David takes him “hunting”, he blames her for him being turned even though she tried to tell him and he just didn’t listen, then when she asks him to help her and Laddie, he laughs in her face and then expects her to stay there.

When he first gets home after sleeping with Star, and Lucy tries to talk with him, he interrupts her several times and is just plain rude to her for literally no reason. She’s clearly a good mother to both Mike and Sam, he has no reason to act like that when she’s just worried about him.

He’s rude to Max when first meeting him. I know Max ends up being the Big Bad (kind of...), but at this point in the movie Max is just Lucy’s sweet, innocent boyfriend who was having dinner at their house, yet as soon as Michael sees him, he says in literally the most mocking tone ever, “And you must be Max”, as if trying to degrade him just for being there. He has literally no manners whatsoever.

There are quite a few points in the movie where he acts rashly. Two of which I already pointed out.

He punches David and tries to start a fight with him after almost driving his motorcycle off a cliff and into the water below (with Star screaming for him to stop).

He drinks the blood-wine purely to try and seem cool to the vamp squad (right after Star told him not to do that).

He goes vamp and tries to attack Sam, only failing because Nanook attacked him and bit his hand.

At the very end, when Max reveals himself as a vampire, Michael reveals himself and lunges to attack Max while Star (again) screams at him to stop (if I’m remembering correctly, she says “Michael, no!”). Obviously the ancient demonic head vampire is worlds stronger than some fledgling half-vampire, so Max easily incapacitates Michael and the latter is unconscious until he hears Grandpa’s car horn.

In literally the same scene, he acts rashly again and shoves max forward. This is the only time him acting on impulse has resulted in anything positive for him, because he helps stake Max, which kills him and turns Star, Laddie, and himself back human.

Aside from all of that, the way he talks is so goddamn annoying that even if he wasn’t an asshole I still wouldn’t like him purely because of how he talks/yells. I cringe every time I see the climactic fight scene because his voice is just so wimpy and it doesn’t fit at all to the scary half-vampire he’s supposed to be. Laddie going vamp was scarier than Michael was at any point in the movie. The only time he doesn’t sound like a fucking dweeb was when he said “Never!” in that demonic voice, and that was one of three times I felt anything about Michael other than Pure Hatred. The other two times? 1. When he was begging for help outside of Sam’s window (I actually pity him there) 2. When he goes into the cave to get Star and Laddie before promptly passing the fuck out in the passenger’s seat of Grandpa’s car.

TL;DR Michael Emerson is an irredeemable fuckass who should not have been the victor of the story by any means, and I hate his character with such a burning passion that I’d be 100% okay with a remake of The Lost Boys purely for the chance that they turn the character into less of an asshole.

#mikey rambles #rant #long post #the lost boys #michael emerson #also the reason i put '(kind of...)' next to calling max the big bad #is because his only motivation in the movie was that he wanted 'his boys' to have a mother #that's all he wanted throughout the entire movie #he saw how wonderful of a mother lucy was to her two sons #and wanted his own four boys to have a mother like that #even after finding all of his children 'dead' (david's not dead and no you cannot change my mind)#he still loves lucy and wants to be with her #the worst thing he did was hold sam away from lucy to convince her to let him turn her #yeah that's still really bad but it's also the ONLY actually bad thing he does #the main antagonist of the movie is literally more redeemable than the main protagonist and i can't get over that fact

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belizedeservesbetter · 5 years ago

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Slave Play and The Thin Place

I saw two different shows a couple weeks ago and both are pretty spoilery if I get too into it so I thought I’d write two small reviews because both of these plays made me think and feel something and my Slave Play playbill photo came out blurry so you’re only getting my Thin Place one

I think I want to start with The Thin Place, written by, according to Playwrights Horizons’ website, “rockstar playwright Lucas Hnath.” This is one of the plays I’ve been looking forward to most this season, especially after hearing him talk about it at Signature’s State of the Play event and learning that it’s a horror play that made people genuinely scared/jump in their seats. I think horror is such an underutilized genre in theatre, which is a shame because the whole theatricality of actuality should make it more popular, no? The fact that you are physically in the same room as a scary thing as a scary thing is happening heightens the fear factor, so I’m surprised horror isn’t a more common theatre thing.

Anyways

Without giving too much away, The Thin Place is about a woman named Hilda (about halfway through a character is like “what kind of name is that?” which I appreciated), who has always been more in touch with the supernatural, whose her mother has recently died? disappeared? ...? and is looking for answers. She meets Linda, who can commune with the dead, and thinks she’s absolutely incredible and starts a relationship with her. However, Hilda wants to learn more about what Linda does and how she does it, but Linda isn’t keen on telling. That’s all I’m going to tell you about the play! I think you’re better off not knowing anything else about the plot.

What I will tell you is there are in fact some scares and I did jump in my seat and there was a genuine sense of fear I felt throughout. Hnath does that with dramatic tension alone, which is totally awesome.

In true Lucas Hnath fashion, the play is a lot of very interesting monologues with a structure that resembles a Greek tragedy in the best way possible. He’s crafted wonderfully full characters who feel both very real but also on another plane. There’s a kind of supernatural quality to each of them, like their world looks a lot like ours but might might not necessarily be the same. Perhaps it takes place in one of Hillary and Clinton’s many different universes.

But I digress.

Like most of Hnath’s plays, they’re “about” one thing, but really about a much deeper thing. For his two Broadway ones, it’s been marriage. For this, it’s grief and loss and painful relationships, both romantic and familial. There are a lot of moments that hit very hard and unexpectedly so.

The acting is uniformly excellent, with Emily Cass McDonnell being the clear standout as Hilda. She speaks about 80% of the dialogue and is both inviting and isolating at the same time? She exudes both loneliness and warmth and I wanted to know everything about Hilda.

I will say the sight lines in the theater itself aren’t great, but that’s more due to the actual physical theater than anything about the play itself, or Les Water’s super cool directing. It’s one of those “well there’s nothing to be done about it” kind of situations, but it’s worth knowing going in. Also! There is a special effect that could trigger a seizure, so that is also something worth knowing if that could be a potential issue.

Overall, I really truly loved The Thin Place and it really made me believe in theatre again.

Now to Slave Play, which I enjoyed a whole lot less.

Again, this is another play where the less you know, the better. However, much like The Thin Place, it is divided into three parts, with each part being fairly different from each other. As for Slave Play, I thought part one was interesting, part two too long and part three focused on the wrong characters.

Overall, the play was not as shocking, funny, or “important” as everyone has been telling me. I think the hype really killed this one for me. If people had said “oh this is a good play,” then I would have seen it and thought “okay yes this is a good play.” I didn’t hate it by any means, I just didn’t love it and didn’t think it was “important” or “shocking” or very profound.

Jeremy O. Harris is a good writer. He has a lot of promise. He’s good with dialogue. However, I will say his Twitter presence is a bit off putting, as well as his active combativeness with anyone who dislikes his play. Seeing his response to the bad reviews for “Daddy” was a little painful. Likewise, the fact that he started the show late for Rihanna and proceeded to text her throughout the entire play was pretty awful. Here’s the thing though, if he didn’t tweet about it, we never would have known and there’d be no “controversy” at all. So he kind of did this to himself.

Anyway, back to his play.

Okay so it was fine. That’s the best thing I can say about it. It was fine. There were some interesting characters and it was fairly well-written and I think I laughed once or twice. The show focuses on three couples (kind of a fourth, but we’ll get into that) and the couple I found most engaging was the gay couple, aka Gary and Dustin. They felt the most honest of all the couples, and the most gut wrenching. They were also my two favorite actors of the night, Ato Blankson Wood and James Ousati-Moyer. Ousati-Moyer is a real star and I can’t wait to see him in more plays. He had stage presence like a spark and I was utterly captivated by everything he had to say, even if what he was saying at times was pure nonsense.

Overall, the acting was really good. Everyone was great, and it was nice to see Paul Alexander Nolan in something that is not Escape to Margarittaville.

I’ll break down my review of Slave Play into its three parts.

The first part is by far the best part of the play. It is fresh and unique and original and funny and a critique all at once. It’s also kind of horrifying. This part really worked for me and I knew what Harris was trying to say and I enjoyed it.

Part two rolled around and I did not enjoy it anymore. First of all, the directing for part two is bad. The characters are sitting in chairs for over an hour, which is painful to get through in such a large theater. Likewise, the two therapist characters (the kind of 4th couple) are absolutely obnoxious and take away from the show. We didn’t need two of them and they needed to be taken in a different direction. I really don’t want to get into the themes and what they talk about in this, because that’s very very spoilery and I do not have the strength to dissect this right now, so I’ll leave it at part two being boring and too long.

Part three, then, focuses on the couple comprising of Kaneisha and Jim. The least interesting of the couples! Then this part basically rehashes the information we got in part two and ends on a big bad spoilery thing that I think was thrown in there for shock value. Again, should have focused on Gary and Dustin. They were the only couple that had anything of interest and value to say.

At the end of the day, why was Slave Play important? I’ve asked many people this, but no one can tell me. Whenever I ask, they just say “It was just so important!” but why. Its message was questionable at best. What was it really trying to say?

This fall semester I didn’t see as much as I would normally, just due to work and school and work and school. The plays that really impacted me this semester were both Heroes of the Fourth Turning and The Thin Place, both at Playwrights Horizons. Sleep No More continues to be the piece of theatre that moves me and haunts me and reminds me why theatre is great. I actually see a lot of Sleep No More in The Thin Place.

The Thin Place has something new and interesting to say, but it doesn’t force it on you either. Hilda offers it to you on a plate, and it’s your choice whether you take it. And you’ll want to take it.

#slave play #the thin place #jeremy o harris #lucas hnath #review

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candi-girl · 6 years ago

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KH3: Hollower Than Any Toy Review **Minor Spoilers**

I just beat KH3 yesterday. I came out of it feeling a bit disappointed. The game is beautiful and the mechanics are still fun but everything from the story to the boss fights felt a bit lackluster. The last boss fights were extremely easy and did not feel as epic to me as KH2's last boss fights. In fact, I liked KH2's ending way more. I haven't played KH2 in years and I still remember exactly how it goes and how I felt after beating it. After what felt like an eternity of reflecting and deflecting light beams back at Xemnas, Sora and a badly wounded Riku sit hopelessly on the shores of the Realm of Darkness. Suddenly a letter in a bottle with a familiar seal emerges from the dark sea. A light shines, a slowed down piano version of "Sanctuary" plays and we are back in the welcoming and colorful world of Destiny Islands. Donald and Goofy lovingly embrace Sora. His eyes then lock-on to Kairi's, Roxas and Namine's eyes follow suit. This felt wayyyy more emotional than KH3's ending which I struggle to remember even though I beat it today.

Before I go any further, I feel I must preface this especially for a post about KH. No, I haven’t played all the spin-off games but I AM A PASSIONATE FAN of the main games in the series. I played the first one for PS2 at 11 when it came out and I was absolutely blown away and in love. I played KH2 at about 14 and got sucked in all over again. In college, I would play Birth By Sleep in between classes. I played 1.5 for PS3 sometime in college as well. Most recently at 27, I played 0.2 from the "The Story So Far" bundle for PS4. I have tried playing Chain of Memories numerous times on an emulator but couldn't stand the Card System and never got very far or finished it. I've also tried 358/2 on an emulator and I've even tried watching it but never got far with it either. I have skipped Re-coded altogether and as soon as I saw the Dream Eaters Link mechanic in DDD I stopped playing that too. I have played a little bit of the mobile KH game but not for long. Suffice it to say, I'm not into mobile games or games for portable devices. The only 2 games I can recall that I have beaten on a portable device (besides Pokemon games on Gameboy) are Birth By Sleep and FFVII: Crisis Core (both PSP). Generally, I get more immersed in games on a TV screen.

Okay so background out of the way, here is what bothers me about KH3 and probably why KH3's ending didn't make me feel as much as KH2's ending. And let me just say, I know this might not be a problem for others who have played all the games, read all the news and external books, probably follow Nomura on Twitter but I don't do that. When it comes to gaming, here is my process: I see a cool game, I want it, I buy it, I play it, I judge whether I like it based on the content in the game, nothing external. I don't follow any gaming news or actively pursue it. If I happen to have the time I’ll watch E3 and hear about things here and there but mostly, when I pick-up a game, I'm hoping it can be self-contained. So, knowing that about me, you can see why I absolutely loathe that if you haven't played KH DDD, KH Recoded, KH 358/2 Days, KH X (the Foretellers lore stuff) you're missing out on like 3/4 of the story.

Chain of Memories being between KH1 and KH2 irked me but I forgave it because the characters and story were still basically the same. Lock keyholes to protect various worlds from being consumed by darkness, help characters in those various worlds with their problem, stop main baddy from opening up Kingdom Hearts, and don't forget that friends are your strength and light. Nothing is wrong with keeping a story “Simple and Clean” and in fact, I think if a story is simple you can focus on making stronger character arcs and make the game super character driven so that the dangerous stuff that happens to characters IS actually scary and emotional! (Side Note: I also believe that because of the association with Disney, the KH franchise feels like it cannot tackle more mature themes like actual death of loved ones, failure, betrayal, etc. which really holds back what a game about the Heart could explore in a more serious, sophisticated manner. However, games like “Ni No Kuni” still find ways to talk about death, depression and grief in ways that are appropriate for younger audiences so it’s possible to do it, KH!)

And I know that KH3 pokes fun at itself for having so many different titles in the franchise and I know it tries to get you up to speed but it cheapens the experience when SO MUCH of the story-telling and lore heavily relies on externalities and not the self-contained game. It seriously becomes a hindrance and emotional barrier when #1 I don't know know what's going on (or don’t understand/feel the extent and impact of something that's supposed to be dangerous), #2 don't know characters well enough to care about them and #3 there are no real stakes in the KH world because every game you fight the same goddamn enemies. I don't know all the Organization members like the back of my hand so their deaths don't do anything for me plus you fight them at least twice throughout the series (maybe even more) so that shows that they can always come back. The rules and logic in KH are very fast and loose. It's like playing a game with a child and when they are losing they make something up. And all this "I think I should know this character but I don't remember" dialogue is so cheap. Stop with the amnesia story-lines! Games like Chain of Memories and Re-Coded, that are made for portable devices are made to hold fans over until the big main game comes out. Let’s be real, KH: Re-Coded might as well be called “KH: Re-Sell” because it’s KH one all over again but on the DS. Now there’s nothing wrong with a company re-branding and re-selling a product if they know fully-well that there is a market for it (in the words of Cutler Beckett, “it’s just good business”) but for the love of all things good, DO NOT PLACE INTEGRAL plot points in them that the main games will gloss over. And don't expect me to read Jiminy’s Journal!

Who is this game for? It plays like a casual game but feels like beginning a story at it’s falling action point. I can’t imagine being a newcomer to this series and playing this game and understanding it. I played the game super slowly, exploring each Disney world thoroughly, trying to take it all in but there is so little KH story given throughout the game. Once I moved on to the Badlands, the actual main KH plot began to unfold. When I first started playing KH3, my gf (who has only played a few hours of the first KH) asked me "so why are you going to other worlds if you're not locking keyholes?" I stumbled on my words to give her an answer. I replied "Sora needs to regain his strength and get the power of waking." She nodded but I knew it sounded kind of stupid. "He looks pretty powerful already!" She said as she watched me defeat hordes of enemies in the first world, Olympus. And that was another thing. I felt super overpowered from the beginning all the way up until the end. When fighting Xehanort all I could think was "that's it?" The game is all about Sora regaining his lost powers and learning the power of waking but you start off super powerful anyway.

This may be a bit of a tangent but in Final Fantasy X, Yuna started off as the weakest, most feeble, docile character in personality and combat as she is just a white mage. I avoided using her at all costs. I had Lulu for black magic and switched Yuna in only when I really needed Protective magic or healing. However, by the end of the game, Yuna with her fully decked out Nirvana staff, third tier white and black magic, double-cast, and ultima became my most valuable and dangerous character. Not only does she literally become stronger in combat, but her (dare I say it) heart becomes stronger too. She becomes bolder and braver. She starts questioning her religion and the society and world she grew up in. She grows in every sense of the word. Yuna’s character trajectory is one of the most poetic I’ve ever seen and experienced in a game and I absolutely love that it’s FELT both in the combat of the game AND the story. I guess the point I’m trying to make is there should be growth in the character’s development but also growth in the game mechanics and combat. FFX is a game that intertwined both forms of growth organically and I think KH3 really should’ve done that as well. Starting off weak and THEN becoming powerful enough to take on the big baddy in the ending rewards the players for their efforts and also feels way more satisfying. Also, a certain character that begins with “K” and ends with “airi” could’ve EASILY been the Yuna of this game. But once again KH3 repeats the same old ideas over and over again. Also, speaking of Final Fantasy, where are my Final Fantasy characters in KH3??

I know this sounds like a negative review but overall, I actually did enjoy playing KH3 and it was great to see all my favs and like I always say, it always feels like home. I'm definitely not done yet (gotta synthesize ultima, collect all treasures and lucky emblems, reach level 99, and maybe play some mini-games). But ultimately it did not have that emotional impact on me like the first 2 KH's. Maybe I AM too old and broken. Maybe when I replay it one day I'll feel differently. Anyway, see you in 2040 when KH4 comes out!

#kh spoilers #kh3 spoilers #kingdom hearts #kingdom hearts 3 #kh3 #kh3 review #personal

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