#sure some promotions treat talent worse than others. but in general. promotions are not Friends

[topflights]

"theres no wrong way to enjoy wrestling” false!!! the wrong way to enjoy wrestling is to participate in promotion wars!!!! watch for the wrestlers!!!! not the promotion!!!!!

[okay-victoria]

Status of Women in The Empire

Summary: LN gives some evidence women have a better status than they did in OTL Germany. It gives little to nothing in the way of evidence that we are in post-sexual-revolution territory. It presents little enough evidence generally that you can use this issue in your own story as you wish; however, using how humans actually work as your baseline, it would be a very definite handwave to think that gender equality is much more than marginally better than OTL would have been at the time, or that Tanya wouldn’t be negatively affected by it in some significant ways in daily life. On the other hand, the original story handwaves an eight year old enrolling in a modern military and getting promoted to a mid-ranking officer by age eleven, so as a reader, I’m obviously pretty down for handwaving some realism for the sake of a good story.

Evidence:

V1/C1

“The armed forces have a practical exception in place for just about everything.” <= I think in fanon the entire Empire as seen as this sort of “everything we do is logical” territory where gender discrimination would have had to be eliminated, but in reality it’s presented as the military, and they are making an exception for a rare and incredibly militarily useful type of person to be able to be put to use by them without gender discrimination stopping it.

V1/C4

“But in the far-from-gender-free world of “ladies first,” Tanya with her outwardly girlish appearance is, albeit only relatively, blessed compared to the other students” <= YMMV, but I would not describe modern society as a world of “ladies first”. Do people do/say it to hark back to pre-1960s chivalry? Sure. Is it really the standard we live by anymore? Not so much. Tanya seems to pretty definitely still be living in those days.

“Basically, apart from the mage branch, the army is a man’s world. Actually, even most of the mages are men.” <= this is notable because it is said when Tanya is in War College, at which point the war has been going on for long enough that available mages have been conscripted, so there is no selection bias that men have simply chosen to pursue a career as a mage more often than women. This is actually weirdly important because it either means:

Magic talent is like, an X chromosome trait and men are thus more likely to have it [in which case, it would probably be taken as natural evidence that men are superior and worsen the gender equality situation]; or

There in fact is a Youjo Konki-esque exception for married women and/or mothers. A nation has to still be relatively in the infancy of gender equality if Female Mage #102 has children with Infantryman #1,000,102 and the military decides that since it can’t leave these children parentless, it has to conscript the dude who is substitutable for literally anyone else and not the human weapon.

Tanya has a long-ish reflection on women in the military. Important points are, the rules have only been overhauled recently to make it practical for women to serve in combat. Women in combat didn’t really exist prior to this war, and women in the military were basically limited to noble/imperial families having their daughters serve out nominal duties. Whatever boost women as a whole get from serving in a capacity that people are used to seeing men in, it has not had time to transform society all that much.

V2/C2

“Women administrators are not uncommon, but in the Empire where gender equality still has a ways to go, their qualifications are always questioned.” <= YMMV as to what degree this is meant to be a statement on something that still troubles women in modern times, or something that indicates gender equality is not particularly close to modern.

V2/C5

“After all, now that I’ve been turned into a girl, I’m faced with this annoying military framework where men are superior. Just the thought of my promotions being blocked by an invisible glass ceiling is enough to dampen any desire I might have to act all girlish for propaganda…apart from that, the Empire’s personnel system has adapted extremely meritocratic principles for the war, in a way, so I’m more or less satisfied with it.” <= sort of same as above, YMMV on whether this is just Tanya realizing what life is like for a woman in modern society or meant as a “no, it was worse” point.

However, I will say this: I highly, highly doubt any men chosen for high military honors were photographed doing anything other than looking ultra manly in uniform. Women serving in modern militaries are not forced to put on showy dresses when they get their photos taken, they are treated, at least in photos, with the same respect as their male colleagues. The fact that anyone found it appropriate to only photograph the recipient of the highest military honor in cute girl clothes speaks to some deep discomfort with anyone outside the military seeing women not doing what they’re supposed to.

V6/C6

“The Imperial Army has already tapped all the population pools that can be mobilized, but it still has two options. One is to begin the general conscription of women. That said, they’ve already been mobilized in the industrial sector.” <= YMMV, again, on how willing a modern country would be to conscript women to fight a world war, but if you are as deep into a world war as the Empire is and no one’s trying it, at the least we can say the Empire is not the bastion of cold logic it fanonically is outside the military. Also, it pretty much seems like women working in large numbers has only become a thing because all the guys are off fighting, which very much sticks us in pre-1950s territory.

V8/C1

Andrew reacts surprised to see a female reporter from the Federation, and reflects that they are quite liberal in some ways <= while this is a non-Imperial guy, given his familiarity with the Empire, it would seem weird that if the Empire was particularly more advanced than his country that he would still be so surprised.

Other Working Knowledge Your Author Has On This Subject:

Women serving in the military, while certainly helpful to the cause of gender equality, by itself is not going to create a broad-based transformation in society. That sounds a bit like saying: As we all know, the US dropped any racist laws or regulations as soon as we started allowing non-white units in the military. After Elizabeth I serving as the Ruler of England, a very manly role that her tiny woman-brain didn’t fuck up too bad, the people who thought women were naturally stupider than men were quickly relegated to the margins and gender discrimination mostly became more of an annoyance than a real hindrance to the average woman’s goals. It just doesn’t work that way. And I’m not here to say that the US is a post-gender paradise, but the US, which has never had a woman president and is pretty slow about expanding military opportunities for women, nonetheless is a lot better on the gender equality front than some countries that have had women leaders and allow women a fuller range of military opportunities. There’s a lot more complexity to it than: My country respects military => military allows women => guess I’m going to stop being sexist

The same goes for something that isn’t about gender equality at large but how it relates to Tanya: The view that while gender equality may be non-advanced, Tanya specifically is exempt from dealing with it because she is “one of the boys”. It Does Not Work Like That. At All. And the further you go back in time, the less it worked like that. Within the military specifically Tanya will probably be alright, but society at large punishes men & women that break gender roles as brazenly as she does more than it rewards them. This is an entire essay unto itself, Google is your friend.

This is going to sound silly and facetious but I’m being dead serious, from what little we know of fashion in the YS world, it matches what would have been the case in the real world in the WW1 era. If society at large was really that different, that wouldn’t be the case.

There is no canon evidence that magic has made any scientific advancements outside the military sphere of influence. Before the advent of things like dishwashers, vacuums, microwaves, especially refrigerators, and especially laundry machines being common household items, the ideal family model was: one person makes money outside home, one person takes care of house. There wasn’t enough time in the day to work and run a household. Many women in poor households had to work, generally at the expense of being able to keep their own household running smoothly, and even then they often worked in capacities that allowed them to be at home or ones that allowed them the flexibility to take care of some of this stuff. It really just isn’t possible to have a society remotely approaching equality when one gender is automatically assigned to home unless necessary.

Same goes for something else - contraception. Women having access to a contraceptive device that they control is a major component of setting a society on a path towards equality. Birth control pills didn’t become widely available until the 1960s. Without being unable to at least kind of balance the outcome of sex (even between married couples) between men and women, women as a class have a hard time escaping from the housewife-mother archetype.

Not to get too political here, but the Empire matches OTL Germanic-Prussianness too much to ignore. Living under a military-worshipping, religiously-inclined traditional monarchy has not, in any real life example I’m aware of, gone hand-in-hand with anything other than a fairly conservative and patriarchal society, and I feel like the burden of proof is on the other side to explain why that isn’t the case in the Empire, and our original author makes approximately zero effort to do this.

Being X turns Tanya into a woman for the purpose of making her life worse. It seems simply illogical [although I guess Being X’s decision-making skills are questionable] that he would then drop her into a world that had undergone broad-based gender reform instead of a world that was just barely tweaked from our own in such a way that it would allow Tanya to serve in the military.

My conclusion: the most likely option is that gender equality is exactly enough better as it needs to be to allow the military to convince the lawmakers that they should be able to use a very rare & dangerous ability to be part of their arsenal without respect to gender, or age, and no more. That difference is not likely to make life for women significantly better than it was in the equivalent OTL time period.

[shibiichi]

Very basic lore shit for some of the fantrolls I just posted:

~ Burgundy

Pelone Messah: a young burgundy blood troll who enjoys handing out with her Indigo Morail. She’s known as the group party girl and is naturally charismatic but will sometimes come off as rude or apathetic.

Mariot Messah: a burgundy blood who has a deep fascination with the arts, specifically photography. She wants to be the first burgundy blood to traverse the entire empire before her life expires. She is kindhearted and cheery, though can be too excited and reckless.

The Canaress (Mariot): A determined journalist who will risk anything to get the news to the public, especially among the highblood quarrels.

The Sanguine (Pelone): An optimist who travels around to help those effected by the empire, especially after attacks.

~ Bronze

Bonahn Celste: An up-incoming bronze model, Bonahn wants to change the empire’s ways with representation of the lower classes. She is determined and empathetic, never letting her lower blood stop her. However she is overly emotional and is prone to mental breakdowns when picked on.

Zharan Celste: Zharan takes an interest in the stars and constellations. She is a reserved bronze blood who just wants to do her own thing. She’s thoughtful, honest, and intelligent, but hard to get along with as she has a tough exterior and often resorts to a physical form of arguments.

The Ascended (Zharan): A bronzeblood who raised from the depths of poverty despite her status. Holds considerable power but is generally detested due to what actions she had to commit in order to ascend.

The Poignant (Bonahn): An activist for low blood rights and generally seen as a caste therapist. Unfortunately seems to focus on the small things rather than the big picture.

~ Gold

Keelah Tembll: a witty and talented programmer, Keelah fits in perfectly to the gold caste. She puts a lot of time into the work she does but doesn’t forget to let herself enjoy life’s moments. She is a quick thinker, a great leader, and has a dry sense of humor. Often though, trolls are pushed away from her as she can be impatient and cruel.

Pitika Tembll: Pitika is a gold blood with considerable clout. She enjoys using social media and rides the low blood representation trend in each post. She is creative, independent, and inspirational, but tends to be conceded and uses her follower count to intimidate others.

The Eclectic / The Vehement (Pitika): A powerful spokesperson against the highblood tyranny. Known for using their psionics to deface public structures and commit arson against imperial buildings.

The Prioress (Keelah): a devout cult priestess who sing’s the highblood’s praises and treats the fuchsia caste like gods.

~ Lime

Mellon Usilue: A soft-spoken and sweet lime blood, Mellon is seen as the troll empire’s ultimate friend. She can manage to get along with most anyone and is always there to help anyone out, no matter the blood color. She is generous, sweet, and patient, though tends to let people walk over her or use her for their gain. She is also ashamed of her body and tends to get defensive if someone brings it up.

Pirchh Usilue: a headstrong and confident lime blood, Pirchh can be hard to get along with at first glance. She’s incredibly bold and doesn’t let others push her around, especially highbloods. Getting past her spiky exterior opens up to a troll who cares a lot about her safety and the safety of those who often get picked upon. She’s incredibly resilient and all about helping trolls better their lives through tough love.

The Tӎerarii (Pirchh): a lime blood who took the highblood upset into her own hands and aims to raise a rally of other trolls, using her calming abilities to manipulate other highbloods onto her side.

The Succorer (Mellon): an ambassador to the fuchsia empress who speaks fondly of the ruling caste, working to spread a positive image and damage control.

~ Olive

Rulani Pumale: this olive blood is the definition of reclusive. Rulani doesn’t like going out much and rather would stay inside all day in bed and on social media. She’s generally optimistic and loves talking to people who share her interests, though she can also be snide and a tad selfish.

Ozzidi Pumale: Ozzidi is an olive with an objective. She is seen as ‘quirky’ but also incredibly friendly to those she meets. She often gushes about her matesprite and will talk a troll’s ears off about them. Unfortunately though, she has a strong distaste for sea dwellers and will go around with her matesprite to harass high blooded sea-folk. She strangely has a fascination for origami though.

The Eleeinos (Ozzidi): One half of a pair of greenblooded killers who seek out sea dwellers to cull. Considered the less respected of the two due to her Olive caste and is constantly put down because of it.

The Duressor (Rulani): An olive blood who takes pride in collecting bounties on troll of all castes, no mater their personal views. She’s in it for the money and infamy.

~ Jade

Vennis Arvone: Vennis is a Jade blood that acts the part. She’s loving and helpful, enjoying acting like the mother of the group. She loves to clean and make things look fancy, taking a preference to interior design. Although she is a wonderful friend, she can be a bit judgmental of those she doesn’t know that well and tends to take them by appearance only.

Kimqey Arvone: Kimqey is an interesting Jade to be sure. She comes off as incredibly sweet and optimistic, but is able to casually talk about her disdain for all things sea dweller in the middle of her perky conversation. Kimqey and Ozzidi are matesprites that both play off one another’s hatred for the higher classes, though Kimqey seems to be worse then the olive blood. Fortunately though, her rage for sea dwellers tends to be calmed when she is with her matesprite and partaking in her favorite activity, which is applying makeup.

The §urmouna (Kimqey): The second half of the green blood killers. The higher respected half of the two and a rainbow drinker to boot. She is especially know for her viciousness.

The Aigrette (Vennis): A sort of doll for the image of the empire. Acts as a representative for what the citizens of the Empire should act like.

~ Teal

Pixuhn Aridel: Pixuhn is a laid back, down to earth teal that’s just here to have a good time. She has little to no grievances with anyone and enjoys simply being with her friends and partaking in fun activities with them, from watching movies to her favorite, card games. She isn’t the best troll to go to when you need to vent though, as she can come across as insensitive and apathetic to another’s troubles.

Motaro Aridel: Motaro is a teal that definitely could cut the coffee. She’s very hyper and loves to know what’s going on at every point of the day. She’s an open book with her feelings on subjects and will take any dare given to her. Her favorite activity would have to be baking, especially with fruits like peaches. She can be blunt though and unintentionally hurtful with her words, and tends to push the blame onto others instead of taking it on herself.

Jingoist Gleefoul (Motaro): a dedicated loyalist to the fuchsia crown and fights for their empress’s title. Doesn’t know of much which is going on but dedicated to the fuchsia caste nonetheless.

Gambless Malcheck (Pixuhn): a teal blood who enjoys putting the lives of others at stake in order to feed her destructive habits. Employed by mostly highbloods to ensure a caste lower than themselves will be punished severely for any sort of crime.

~ Cerulean

Qinnly Moboke: The cerulean blood Qinnly is quite literally as chill as you could possibly get. She’s open to most ideas and goes with the flow in almost all situations. She’s a good friend to go to for your troubles and loves trying to help her friends cope by distracting them with challenges that can often lead to death. Unfortunately she can be a bit nosy and unintentionally manipulative.

Czenik Moboke: Czenik is a cerulean blood that lives up to her caste. She is generally abrasive and foul, taking an interest in expanding her collection of caste blood related memorabilia. She takes full advantage of her class’s psychic abilities when expanding her collection. Fortunately, she can be pleasant and goes on surprisingly cheerful rants about her possessions. She values their rarity and difficulty in collecting, while also showing respect to fellow subculture connoisseurs.

Chancellor Coimetro (Czenik): A cerulean who works to subjugate the lower classes and keep them ignorant. Due to this she was promoted.

Tsaritsa Duplexda (Qinnly): A blue blood cerulean who seized parts of the empire and places herself on top of those stolen areas. Surprisingly good at avoiding culling.

~ Indigo

Balton Istahg: Balton is one of the sweetest Indigo bloods you’ll ever meet. She’s got a passion for the art of hair care and loves when her friends let her do their hair. She’s also interested in tattoos and and gives herself her own ink. She’s soft spoken and agreeable, though can be distant, anxiety prone, and uncomfortable around most people.

Iaasik Istahg: Iaasik is a quick and sassy indigo who knows what she’s good at. She’s heavily into the tech and hacking scene, enjoying the thrill that comes along with code breaking other’s security. Due to her interests though, she can be abrasive and often concerns herself with other’s private problems. She often doesn’t realize when she steps over the line and into someone’s private bubble. Fortunately, she’s a quick learner and is able to catalog other’s specific qualms once she’s told.

Harborer Vaedread (Iaasik): A indigo blood with access to what is happening among the highbloods. Unable to speak of the misdeeds to the public for fear of being culled by either the sea dwellers & clown, or the cerulean chancellor.

Brandern Mokoband (Balton): works as a trader of trolls. Got her title due to her infamously painful branding procedures when trading low blood slaves.

~ Purple

Piyntl Cumber: Piyntl takes the Purple blood clown aesthetic to heart and loves rocking it. She’s bubbly and excitable, often being the loudest of the group. She especially enjoys theater and teaching her friends how to do basic gymnastics. She can come off as overbearing though, and tends to have a negative emotional reaction to blunt but honestly comment’s about her behavior.

Ophiil Cumber: Ophiil is a purple blood hatched with a deformed face. She’s incredibly kind hearted though it’s hard to get bast her tough exterior she put’s up. She can come off as masochistic, and her Lusus only seems to encourage this behavior. She’s gotten used to playing the part as that’s what trolls expect of her due to her appearance and blood color, figuring it’s easier to participate in the role given to her rather than deviate from it.

The Heiress PhobepyꙞ (Ophiil): A purple blood who takes claim to the throne in stark competition to the other highbloods. Once worked with said highbloods to eliminate the fuchsia empress but could not agree to who would be the new empress.

The Funambulist Cuspidhg (Pintyl): a purple blood who opted to run away from the empire and achieve her dreams of simply thriving in life. Surprisingly pure hearted for a purple blood.

~ Violet

Luvici Vonmet: Luvici is a violet seadweller with a penchant for beauty. She’s absolutely obsessed with the fashion of the universe and finds it her purpose to introduce it to the empire. She loves seeing others participate in what most would consider unimportant but can easily get jealous by those she perceives as threats. She can be selfish and egotistical but can also be inspiring and creative.

Gurroe Vonmet: Gurroe is a quiet violet sea dweller who enjoys putting her mark on society. And by mark I mean she wants to paint it with blood to match her aesthetic. She loves all things gory and cute, not realizing that her actions hurt those around her. Even so, she’s incredibly artistic and and gives off the “cool quiet troll” vibe.

Grandeur Bowellox (Gurroe): One of the highbloods fighting for the throne. Was responsible for raising the Ascended into infamy and now hovers over the Ascended, making sure she stays in line and lays her debts.

The Cavalier Scalchic (Luvici): A violet blood who works with the Cerulean Tsaritsa and protects her from the rein of the current fuchsia empress. Acts like her knight or bodyguard in a sense.

~ Fuchsia

Opelic Uridae: Opelic is a fuchsia heir that is prepared to take back the throne for the fuchsia caste. She is determined and extremely talented in the topic of political debate. She’s a quick thinker and is incredibly confident, though she can come off as greedy, materialistic, and narcissistic due to her caste.

Hostia Uridae: Hostia is the sweetest of fuchsia bloods. She is very quiet and reserved, preferring to keep to herself rather than a group of friends. She extremely concerned about the environment around her and advocates for it’s preservation. She does tend to try and please everyone though, leading to multiple empty promises and generally has poor planning skills.

The Pusillan (Hostia): A fuchsia who was a victim of circumstance. Proved to be too weak-hearted to lead the empire so was culled by a group of three highbloods.

The Vainglor (Opelic): A powerful fuchsia empress who does not want anyone near her throne. Uses those below her to spread propaganda about the empire and actively tries to silence any rebellions or rivals.

~ Mutant

Marett Cyclik: a fun-loving and light-hearted mutant fuchsia who tries not to take her odd hue very seriously. In fact she tries to take everything as a joke, which causes others to perceive her as uncaring. She is quite giggly and is incredibly easy to make laugh. She can be easily distracted and is often incorrectly labeled as an airhead.

Harqui Cyclik: a mutant fuchsia with a twisted sense of humor and entitlement. She finds herself to be the proper heir to the throne though prevents herself from challenging it as she’s aware of the stigma around mutants. She’s rather self conscious but tends to lash out aggressively at anyone who may point this out.

The Rhadaman (Harqui): A mutant fuchsia with yet another claim to the throne. Pairs with The Heiress PhobepyꙞ to take down the grandeur but but now fights a risky battle with the purple blood heiress, leaving the empire in a shaky state with no real leader.

The Quipster Paltryin (Marett): An (unfortunately) outspoken mutant who works to poke fun at the empire. Produces works which directly go against the empire’s values and acts as an anonymous voice for the lower castes. Lives in clown exile with The Funambulist.

[miraculouscontent]

The Treatment of Marinette (Season 2)

Because Season 1 was just the appetizer.

If there's one thing that Miraculous is the most consistent in, it's how they treat Marinette. Aside from a few choice episodes in Season 1, the show simply didn’t know how to respect their main lead.

Then Season 2 came along and just made everything worse.

[Mari-not]

Let's start with the simple fact that the writers feel the need to push Marinette's character in certain directions to get their story going, whether it's realistic for her character or not.

In "A Christmas Special," for example, they try to have Ladybug completely misunderstand the situation with Adrien, which is a small part of why Santa gets akumatized.

The show tries to convey this by having Ladybug reason that Chat must've been fighting a supervillain, due to seeing the result of one of his Cataclysms. Yet, not only is Chat not there when she shows up (surely he would've tried to keep holding Santa off even after using his power and also return as quickly as possible if he de-transformed?), but she has no evidence that Santa was even the one who she thinks took Adrien in the first place.

Why would this man have taken Adrien back home if he kidnapped him?

Why would Adrien argue that the man isn't akumatized if the man kidnapped him?

Why would Ladybug insist that she would know an akuma victim when she sees one when Santa doesn't look like a standard akuma victim?

The idea is so obviously that Ladybug is blinded by concern over Adrien that she's not thinking straight, but the suspension of disbelief can only go so far when Ladybug swung in on this guy bringing Adrien back home.

And Ladybug's involvement wasn't necessary in the first place. Santa was already made fun of and yelled at, so why did Ladybug have to be the last straw?

It's all just a method to cause someone's akumatization and doesn't flow naturally. Even Santa brushing off Ladybug's presumption that he was akumatized is silly because he acts as if he doesn't know that akumatizations are a thing.

The fact that there's even a Christmas special at all in this season really emphasizes where the show's priorities are, and they're not on Marinette.

Then there's "Prime Queen." Yes, Marinette gets frazzled easily, but it's a little too farfetched that Marinette wouldn't connect the dots when Nadja asked her to babysit as Marinette and also asked her to the interview as Ladybug. Marinette loses track of time and doesn't always plan things perfectly, but the writers clearly just wanted to have another Marinette freak-out moment without actually thinking about the details of it.

If the interview was planned as soon as someone got a hold of Ladybug, wouldn't Nadja make plans for Marinette to babysit Manon right after? There's no way that Marinette's mind wouldn't piece that together.

Yet another example is "Queen Wasp." Marinette has never been one to put up with Chloe's behavior, usually wanting to put her in her place as quickly as possible, but when Chloe is arguing with her mom, Marinette instead decides to have them bond over how terrible they are to other people.

Not only is this a blunt attempt to go back to the status quo (which we'll get to later), but it essentially makes the entire "Queen's Battle" two-parter mean nothing. The smaller plot points in Malediktator could've easily been changed to compensate for Queen's Battle not existing (like having Chloe and her mom be close naturally; Frightningale even had Chloe make a threat to the mayor centering around her mom), and I would be much less critical of the fact that Chloe is still a brat given that it's two less episodes I had to sit through of her being obnoxious.

If Queen Wasp went off of Marinette's actual character, Marinette would've either let the scene play out slowly with only gentle nudges, or told Chloe that she's not obligated to listen to what her mother says about her, especially if her mother's just going to be rude and dismissive of her when Chloe is just trying to improve.

Chloe should be trying to improve for herself, not for the approval of her mother, and Marinette would've pointed that out.

This is particularly odd given how sympathetic the episode tried to paint Chloe when she was reacting to her mother's words. The camera angles and writing in general try so hard to make you feel bad for Chloe (despite the terrible things Chloe does in the episode), and one would think that the idea there is the show wanting to redeem her to make you like her, but instead, they use Marinette as a tool to have Chloe and her mother get along for all the wrong reasons.

Put simply, it's just a set-up for "Malediktator" to happen, and even THAT didn't end on a proper note, having Marinette throw her bully a party on the basis of "she saved the city once" (disregarding the fact that Chloe almost murdered people last time and also twisting the knife of anyone who's still salty about Chloe not suffering enough consequences from revealing her identity).

Miss Bustier says in "Zombizou" (another thing that we’ll touch on later) that Marinette should forgive Chloe so she doesn't give into negative emotions, but she's missing the point entirely.

It's not important to forgive. It's important to move past those negative feelings while not under any obligation to forgive or forget. Chloe can have a chance at forgiveness when she apologizes to everyone and proves that she's earned that forgiveness, but under no circumstances should anyone ask or expect others to forgive her.

Some wounds can be too deep and severe for that, and having superpowers that are used for good does not equal actually being a good person; that takes time and effort.

Chloe never should've been rewarded for fixing a problem that she caused. At best, she'd be given a pat on the back followed by being told to continue improving and not repeat those mistakes. Rewarding her with a massive party (something that made no sense in the moment, considering how much unbelievable convincing Marinette would have to do to get everyone on board with that after they were just celebrating Chloe leaving) does nothing but make Chloe think that being a superhero is all she needs to do to earn praise and respect; that she's already as good as she needs to be and doesn't need to try any harder.

And, considering the ending of "Mayura," we can confirm that it's exactly what she thought.

Put simply, it's a terrible misuse of a writer's ability to twist Marinette's character just to get the conclusion that the show wants.

And unfortunately, it's not the only example.

[Taking the Fall]

Marinette does her best to correct her mistakes, certainly, but not all of those mistakes were actually hers, and the show seems to enjoy embarrassing her a little too much.

Take "The Collector" for example. Obviously, Marinette wanted Adrien to be able to go to school again, but that didn't mean she had to take all the blame for what Lila did. It shows how good she is as a person, but why (both narratively and just in general) couldn't she explain that it was Lila who took the book? Adrien could've easily corroborated the story to confirm that Lila did indeed take the book (given that he only had contact with Lila the last time he recalled having the book).

Volpina was probably even a big story since she pretended to be a superhero at first, so Marinette could've mentioned Lila, the fox hero, and the necklace compared to what she saw in the book. There's nothing even remotely "I'm secretly Ladybug" about Marinette pulling the grimoire out from the trash after Lila threw it in there.

Heck, if the show wanted so badly for her to look like a love-struck fool, she could've claimed that she was too shy to give the book back at first because she gets tongue-tied around Adrien.

The reason the scene's important to criticize is that Marinette shouldn't have to sacrifice her dreams when there's already a more sensible solution. Gabriel is a big name in the fashion industry and Marinette could've damaged the respect he had for her.

Speaking of which, the scene adds nothing to future episodes. Gabriel still lets Adrien model her hat for her and doesn't seem to have anything against her in "Queen Wasp." The scene could've even been used as a reason why Gabriel keeps Adrien away from hanging out with his friends (because Marinette basically admitted to being one of Adrien's admirers and Gabriel sees that she's talented, fearing Adrien falling in love and being taken away from him), but it instead amounts to nothing.

Also, because Marinette takes the fall instead of Lila, Lila never gets punished for taking the book. She gets punished by Ladybug for one lie, but that amounts to nothing in the grand scheme of things because Adrien doesn't help Marinette counter Lila's lies in "Catalyst" despite knowing that she's a liar.

It could've even been a semi-satisfying moment for "sympathetic" Gabriel if he knew that Lila stole the book and made sure to extra-nail it to Volpina in "Catalyst" to make Lila even madder, since he'd be targetting Lila with the bonus satisfaction that she stole from his son. There's extra continuity in there too.

Another example of Marinette having to make a sacrifice like this is in "Zombizou", though in a different way. Rather than having to take the fall for someone else's mistake, Marinette is asked to compensate for Chloe's by forgiving her.

Yet, the set-up for the episode is wholly in the wrong. Miss Bustier brushes off Chloe's behavior as nothing and even talks about how she'll use Marinette's bag (that Chloe cruelly defaced) to remember both Marinette and Chloe. This essentially praises Chloe for doing such a terrible thing to Marinette's gift when Miss Bustier has sent students to the principal's office for far lesser offenses.

In fact, this could be considered a worse version of what happened all the way back in Origins with Ivan and Kim. Miss Bustier doesn't promote violence, but she also doesn't try and discover the reason why Ivan wanted to punch Kim; Kim insulted him for not being able to confess to Mylene.

So, Miss Bustier's philosophy is essentially that someone's bad offense is completely fine as long as the person being offended is kind and caring in response. Chloe isn't punished, because Miss Bustier believes that Chloe will improve if she's allowed to do whatever she wants and is rewarded with compassion.

It's a ridiculous concept for so many reasons (worst of all being that Chloe has habitually relapsed into bad behavior when people are nice to her), but to bring Marinette into it and essentially tell her that her feelings are invalid and that she should just forgive Chloe - when Chloe isn't even going to be punished for her bad behavior - is a testament to how much the show tries to criticize Marinette for every bad thing she does, yet let bad people get away with their wrongdoings because "they're sad" or "it'll set a good example."

Season 1 wasn't perfect in this regard, but it gave Chloe comeupance for at least some of her actions (ex: Marinette telling her off in "Origins", Miraculous Ladybug not fixing the signed photo in "Dark Cupid", Chloe being banned from judging in "Kung Food", etc.).

If Miss Bustier wants to show how much her "kindness" has improved Chloe, then she should prove it by having Chloe actually apologize to Marinette for ruining her gift instead of encouraging Marinette to promote ignorance in the face of Chloe's actions.

There's a reason why Miss Bustier has to add a "perhaps" when talking about setting a good example. Perhaps they can show Chloe the error of her ways; it means that she knows it's not guaranteed to work. It's the best option she knows because that's her philosophy.

But pushing that philosophy on others is wrong when she has no proof that it actually helps anyone, and is particularly disgusting when Marinette has been so selfless for this whole season and gets trashed on by the narrative in response.

This is even disregarding the fact that dragging Marinette out instead of Chloe is ultimately because Chloe would've hightailed it out of the school the instant that Miss Bustier got hit by the akuma, meaning we couldn't have the plot of "people get taken over by kiss zombies because people keep sacrificing themselves to save Chloe's ungrateful face."

And that's ultimately what the episode amounts to. The episode wants its audience to think that this is some episode about Chloe learning how to be a better person and Marinette learning to set a good example via forgiveness, but it's not.

In the end, it all comes back to the status quo.

[An Icy Cup of Quo-Yo]

The status quo has always been something that's been lambasted by the fandom. Interesting plot threads are dropped and characters are forbidden from changing drastically because everything has to come back to roughly where it was before.

Concerning Marinette, the show refuses to let her branch out from where she is with Adrien. She keeps improving on being able to talk to him, but the status quo keeps pulling her back. Chat was able to confess to Ladybug in "Glaciator", yet Marinette is stuck in the same place.

In "Gigantitan", she tries to go out for ice cream with Adrien, and everyone puts this plan together to get it to work. We're given a fantasy sequence where it's actually pulled off, which actually just makes it all the more obvious that it's going to fail, yet it's still somehow disappointing.

Marinette does not fumble to this degree and shouldn't be in season 2. She fails twice at getting any closer to Adrien, and it's not even because of her.

The narrative won't let her. It makes fun of the fact that she's a stuttering mess, but then pulls her back anytime potential improvement is shown.

"Frozer" was another stand-out here. No one was really expecting Marinette to confess, but all she really tried to ask for was that she and Adrien go ice skating together, just the two of them. It doesn't have to be romantic, but the show shuts it down and has Adrien agreeing to go ice skating with her plus friends instead, meaning that they likely wouldn't get time to talk together with everyone else there.

And, well, you can't really talk about Adrien and Marinette's relationship not changing without bringing up “Troublemaker.” In that episode, Adrien realizes that Marinette has so many pictures of him, but their relationship remains virtually the same and we never actually see her going to more of his photoshoots for the rest of the season. There are plenty of episodes that reference each other in the season, but we apparently can't have Adrien and Marinette's relationship progress further beyond the "standard Adrienette episode," which almost seem mandatory by the show (Kung Food in Season 1, Gorizilla in Season 2), just as we have a "standard Marichat episode" and a "standard Ladrien episode."

This also extends to Marinette wanting to be in the fashion industry one day. Gabriel seems to have a fondness for her considering how lenient he was in "The Collector," but when an opportunity is given to have Marinette be taken more under Gabriel's wing in "Queen Wasp" (since Marinette shouldn't have to go all the way to New York just to learn more about fashion and also shouldn't have to deal with Audrey as well, which is something the episode doesn't address), it goes completely untouched.

It's such a shame as well. Adrien being a doormat around Gabriel would be more understandable if Marinette was working with him, considering that Adrien would be worried that Marinette being friends with him could be seen as a bad thing if he rebels too much against Gabriel, making Gabriel more likely (in Adrien's eyes) to dump Marinette so she doesn't get any time with him that she could've used to "influence him to rebel more."

And really, when the show teases and makes fun of Marinette for her crippling anxiety and general inability to talk to Adrien, what is she really supposed to do about it?

"A Christmas Special" had her giving Adrien a specially-made hat, but he gives it away the very same day so we never get to see him thank her for it or have them interact over it.

"Riposte" had her try to get into fencing, which could've been a great opportunity to get closer to Adrien, but Kagami shows up and presumably gets the place she could've had.

The plan in "Gigantitan" got ruined by the akuma and also the status quo.

"Glaciator" had Marinette almost going out for ice cream with Adrien (and trust me; we'll get there), but Adrien never showed up.

"Gorizilla" was close to letting Adrien and Marinette watch a movie together, but then Adrien took his helmet off, which revealed him to everyone.

"Captain Hardrock" had Adrien arrive so late that he and Marinette didn't seem to spend any time together, which led to Marinette having interactions with a different guy.

"Troublemaker"...well, we just talked about how that went.

"Anansi" had Adrien restricted to video call so he couldn't spend more intimate time with Marinette.

And "Catalyst" only lightly glanced over the fact that Adrien knows that Lila's full of it when it could've been a chance for Marinette and Adrien to bond over their mutual hatred for Lila's lying.

Marinette gets teased/mocked for the fact that she can hardly get a word out around Adrien, but it's because the narrative won't let her and constantly destroys all her chances to make it better.

It's not as if Adrien makes any sort of attempt to get closer to her either. He views her as a friend yet has never tried to make plans with her. Even the suggestion of her attending his photoshoots in “Troublemaker” was still prompted by something she said.

She's always had to come to him. I honestly can't blame her for being nervous about confessing to him yet hopeful that Adrien's talking about loving her in "Frozer," nor can I blame her for questioning if Luka is "like Adrien" when Luka very obviously flirts with her, because Adrien has been giving out mixed signals consistently throughout the entire season.

He slow danced with her in "Despair Bear," made her a lucky charm in "Befana," talks about how glad he is to have her as one of his friends/fans in "Troublemaker," and compliments her on how great she is in multiple episodes.

Yet, he frequently refuses to rebel and doesn't show up to multiple events he promised to be at ("Glaciator"+"Captain Hardrock") despite easily showing up out of nowhere to help her in Season 1 ("Kung Food"), doesn't scold Chloe anymore when she treats her badly ("Despair Bear"), and constantly insists that Marinette is "just a friend" (you don't need me to list example episodes because you know them by heart).

Marinette doesn't know what to think. She's confused. There comes a time where things start to look less like Marinette being interrupted by understandable reasons and more like the universe just hates her guts.

And this, unfortunately, brings us to talking more specifically about Adrien's role in this, as both his civilian self and Chat.

[Chiding the Cheng]

Adrien, Adrien, Adrien.

When talking about the show's issues, it's virtually impossible not to at least mention him. Being the deuteragonist, he gets a lot of the screentime and acts as Ladybug's partner when he's transformed into Chat Noir.

And, honestly, it's a disaster.

See, Adrien's relationship to Marinette is... complicated, made even more so by the status quo. I mean, we just spent a whole segment talking about it, after all.

To fuel the Adrienette train, the show sprinkles in little moments here and there to excite people and make everyone wonder if he might have some semblance of feelings for her.

When, in reality, the show is just teasing its audience. If Adrien felt anything for Marinette, he would've realized it by "Frozer" when he kept ditching Kagami to rush to Marinette's side. There's no "blinded by his feelings for Ladybug" excuse anymore now that Kagami exists and he tried to pursue her romantically.

And how much does Adrien really care about her as Marinette? He does readily protect her in “Catalyst,” but most of his actions in such cases are just what he should do, or what's nice to do.

Yet, all of that comes to a halt when any nuance is involved, and Adrien suddenly doesn't seem so interested in how Marinette feels.

Let's take what we've already mentioned in the last segment: “Despair Bear.” Just like “Zombizou,” it seems like it's a plot that wants to redeem Chloe in someway, but it isn't, because she goes right back to what she was doing before.

And Adrien allowed it. He stood up to her behavior at first, then backtracked when she showed a hint of improvement. Chloe insulted Marinette's macarons to her face and Adrien didn't bat an eye, instead laughing the behavior off.

It seemed like a small offense or a light joke until the rest of the season continued to "reassure" its audience that Chloe was improving when she wasn't. When it was just a one-off episode about Chloe being nice for once, it was easier to ignore.

But then "Malediktator" came along, and it became clear that how Adrien feels towards Marinette and how he feels towards Chloe are very different compared to Season 1.

Was it reckless for Marinette to talk so highly about Chloe leaving in front of Adrien? Perhaps, but not so much when taken into consideration with everything that happened in Season 1. Adrien tended to be very uncomfortable when Chloe hung off him in multiple episodes (Season 2's "Frightningale" also had this going on), actively defended Marinette against Chloe in "Kung Food", and scolded Chloe when she bullied others in "Horrificator." It was reasonable for Marinette to believe that he would at least accept that everyone's happy with Chloe being gone since he knew how Chloe treated them.

And yet, not only does he target Marinette specifically when being offended over the celebration, but he's never shown to be in the wrong or sorry for doing this.

Just because Chloe was his only friend when he was younger doesn't mean that she deserved defending. All it means is that Adrien was so isolated that his options for friends were limited to one person who ended up being a bully. If he wants to be upset at anyone, he should be upset at Gabriel for isolating him in the first place.

The moral high ground is something Adrien has claimed for a long time, to the point where he's even above Tikki, who takes joy in the fact that no Chloe means less akumatization.

And if Adrien didn't have the moral high ground, then why wasn't it addressed? Why is the narrative so insistent on making its audience feel pity for Chloe when she's bullied people for years? Why does it force Ladybug to keep the "useless" comment in mind and use that to encourage Chloe?

It's all about making sure the story plays out exactly the way it wants. No one else is around when Adrien berates Marinette because they'd defend Marinette, which would make Adrien look in the wrong (which he is) and the writers don't want that. Chloe is given a neglectful mom who constantly puts her down because that's the easy road to making the audience feel bad for her. The "useless" line is nothing more than a set-up so the show can bring it back later and pretend that they were clever for doing so.

They're not, because the problem was never that Chloe was "useless." It was that she bullied people for years and threw tantrums, turning lives upside-down, when she didn't get what she wanted. She causes more akumatizations than anyone else on the show and never apologizes for what actually matters.

(Also, side note: if Chloe needed a mystical power-granting accessory to prove that she's useful, then she was indeed useless beforehand. If she had actually used her skills in manipulation to talk the mayor down from his akumatization, that would've been putting the skills she already had to good use.)

Adrien fixates on Marinette calling Chloe "useless" because he has nothing else to go on. Notice how he doesn't even try to touch on Marinette calling Chloe a brat. He happily joked about how Chloe would never change in "Despair Bear," so he has nowhere to go and no defense for Chloe's actions.

It's delusional thinking. Instead of calling Chloe to make her feel better or being upset with Chloe for leaving without even saying anything to him, Adrien scolds Marinette and only Marinette (who, keep in mind, stutters and is shy around him, so it looks really bad on his part to only scold someone who would probably seem to have some self-esteem issues from his perspective), despite the fact that he didn't say a single word to defend Chloe when the class was making fun of her.

And for what? In terms of not speaking up to defend Chloe against the class, there are two options here:

1 - Adrien said nothing because he didn't care enough to, meaning he has no right to suddenly care about Chloe's feelings now.

2 - Adrien did care, but said nothing in fear of retaliation by the other students, meaning that he knows that everyone hates Chloe, isn't bothering to consider their feelings on why, and also purposefully doesn't defend her to save face.

Even in the argument of "Adrien doesn't say anything because Gabriel wouldn't want him to garner a bad reputation among the class," that's still flawed because Adrien could've simply asked Miss Bustier if he could go talk to Chloe after she stormed out or, again, called her after class was over so no one would've even seen him trying to comfort her. "Adrien thought that Chloe's outburst in class was just Chloe being Chloe so he didn't see it as a big deal," also doesn't work because he still gives no verbal sign that he feels guilty that she left unhappy, and he must've known it was more than "Chloe being Chloe" because Chloe actually seemed excited to move to New York and Adrien is guessing that she left unhappy based on what he saw in class.

Point being, regardless of any reason Adrien could've had for not wanting Chloe to leave, the idea that he's taking it out on Marinette while also never feeling sorry for it is not exactly the best for his character.

And, unfortunately, Adrien's behavior extends to him being Chat as well. Chat's there to comfort Ladybug when it doesn't matter and it's just what he should do (”Mayura”), but as soon as nuance is thrown in, suddenly there are questions/ignorance. Adrien claimed that he trusted Ladybug wholly and completely in "Gorizilla," but does he?

"Syren:" Chat gets angry with Ladybug for not telling her information that isn't hers to tell. She's done this before in "The Collector" with being unable to reveal information, making it all the more obvious that these aren't her secrets to tell, so for him to get angry with her when she clearly looks uncomfortable about it is unreasonable. He tries to bribe information out of Plagg as well, despite Plagg also clearly having a reason for not being able to say anything.

It's laughable when Adrien plays with his action figures and shows that he believes that he trusts Ladybug while she doesn't trust him, because if he did trust her, he would know that she would never do this to him without reason. He gets upset with her, then mocks her behind her back.

It's also clear that he knows it's not her secret to tell, but he's making it all about trust anyway. When he stops her from running off to Master Fu, she starts to point out that she can't say anything and he finishes her sentence, only to then proceed to guilt trip her by asking if they're a team.

Heck, Ladybug even apologizes to him, yet the very next scene with Adrien is him threatening Plagg that he'll quit if Plagg doesn't tell him what's going on.

In the middle of an akuma fight, no less. It's one thing to be upset that he's being kept out of the loop, but it's a completely different thing for Adrien to view that as more important than saving everyone from a watery grave.

It was sweet for Plagg to imply that he cares about Adrien a lot, but Plagg was also put in a desperate situation he didn't deserve to be in. Adrien even seems to be pleased to be told that he’s important to Plagg, but he doesn't feel bad for putting Plagg in this position then? Adrien still doesn't take his hand off his ring either until Fu shows up, so what is he trying to achieve and what does this say about how he views Plagg?

Yet, Adrien gets exactly was he wants. Fu caught him right in the middle of threatening to quit and still thought it was time to tell him.

At that point, it looks like Fu goes to Adrien out of necessity, as if it's only "time" now because they'll be without a Chat Noir if it's not and there's no time to find another civilian to be Chat Noir.

But there's no implication of this. Fu doesn't visit Adrien to tell him that what Adrien did was childish, nor does he warn Adrien that him showing up was required in the moment and that Adrien needs to shape up or risk losing his miraculous.

There's nothing. Fu just visits Adrien to talk and introduce himself.

Adrien also isn't mad at Fu for having Ladybug and Plagg keep that secret. He doesn't apologize to Ladybug and Plagg either. He's just happy that he's being put back in the loop, so anything related to that incident is just a distant memory to him now.

We don't see Adrien realizing any of this either. It would still be upsetting that he didn't apologize to Ladybug, but just seeing him feel sorry about all the things he said and apologizing to Plagg would at least be an attempt to make his actions more forgivable.

Marinette even delayed going to the movies with her friends because she wanted to bring up Chat's concern to Fu, but she never gets one iota of thanks for it by Adrien, as apparently the pain Marinette went through for him was deemed unimportant by the narrative.

This is particularly insulting considering that, according to "The Collector," Marinette was only introduced to Fu because she had the grimoire. Tikki even points out that Fu didn't want Tikki bringing Marinette back to him.

Yet Adrien, who put his own feelings above the mission, put unnecessary guilt on Ladybug and Plagg, and clearly doesn't take his hero role as seriously as Ladybug does... he gets to be put in the know.

Even with the smaller things, Chat asks questions. "Anansi" had him question if Ladybug was replacing him, which was a line easily considered a joke until Ladybug reassures him later on that he's irreplaceable. Chat is so oddly confident that Ladybug is or will be in love with him, yet falters, plays the pity game, or gets confrontational when shown any hint otherwise.

"Glaciator" is our next target here and a perfect example to prove my point, because this is another episode that shows Chat getting mad at Ladybug over things she can't help.

Firstly, let's talk about the fact that Chat tries to plan a date with Ladybug on the same day that he and his friends are supposed to go out for ice cream. The event must already be planned, as Ladybug side-mentions that she has plans with her friends, yet the event doesn't seem important at all to Chat since no bells seem to be rung in his head. Adrien texting Nino that he can't come is later, so Adrien still must've planned to go when he was conversing with Ladybug as Chat.

Secondly, Ladybug never guarantees that she'll come. Chat only asks her to come if her plans end early and Ladybug still gives him an up-in-the-air answer. It's very clear that she appreciates the gesture, but isn't likely to come.

Yet, Adrien gets his hopes up unnecessarily anyway. Plagg even points out the fact that Ladybug didn't agree to it, but Adrien continues to be foolishly hopeful regardless.

And instead of sneaking out to go see his friends in an act of rebellion, he goes to plan the date with Ladybug. He sets up this big date and waits for her as if he's sure she'll come anyway, whether through her plans ending early or her ditching her friends to come see him.

Then, he gets upset that she didn't come. He got his hopes endlessly high so it's no wonder he's disappointed, but that's his own fault.

Not only that, but when he goes to visit Marinette, she does all the comforting. She asks the questions, she tries to make the most eye contact (note how Chat Noir doesn't change his sulking expression at all or even glance at her as she confirms that they've met before), and he only asks about her problems when she reveals that information herself (which, even then, seems more like surprise from him being unaware that she has issues in her love life). He might've taken her to the balcony he set up his date on, but then he immediately goes back to sulking, as if he just showed her his efforts in love so he could seek more pity from her.

He doesn't try to pry into her problems and nothing comes from Adrien knowing that Marinette has love issues, so the episode could've been written with Chat realizing that Marinette (in a non-specific doesn't-have-to-be-romantic way) was sad that he didn't show up to get ice cream with them.

It's just a way that the episode sets up Chat's issues as being sympathetic and not Marinette's. Marinette's problems are the ones that cause the akuma, Chat’s are the ones who are given the most comforting, and the scene on the random balcony ends with Marinette thinking that she could've been wrong about him.

That would all be one problem on its own, but despite Marinette's comfort and suggestion that Ladybug could've had problems that evening (the suggestion that Chat completely brushes off, which is both rude to Marinette and a presumption that Ladybug has this perfect life with no problems; laughable considering Adrien's problems that day along with Marinette's), Chat finds it right to get upset with Ladybug in the middle of an akuma battle.

Once again, he puts his feelings over the fight itself, being rude to Ladybug when she suggests they pretend to be a couple. It's a perfectly reasonable solution, yet he shoots her down on the basis that his feelings are hurt, despite the fact that he's never explicitly told her that he's in love with her (which he made a big deal about all the way back in "Dark Cupid" from Season 1, implying that she'd never know if he didn't tell her outright). He's so obviously talking about himself when he refers to playing with people's feelings (a notion that's ridiculous given that they're fighting an akumatized person who won't remember this afterward and the fact that Ladybug made it clear that they'd be pretending; also rich coming from Chat considering what he does to Plagg in "Syren"), so for Ladybug to have to apologize at all is ridiculous.

And yes, Chat does apologize eventually, but it never should've taken this long to get here and the episode never points out the fact that Chat needs to stop expecting such things from Ladybug. Chat's problems are that he hopes blindly for things he's never been guaranteed and that he constantly puts his feelings over missions (the latter problem being something that should certainly not earn him respect from Fu), but these are never addressed. Plagg points out some of his issues ("Copycat" all the way back in Season 1 and now "Glaciator" in Season 2), but Adrien constantly brushes him off.

Despite what happened, Adrien continues to hope blindly, as if the knowledge that Ladybug might someday love him keeps him going.

If that's the only thing that's keeping him going, he needs to re-think things. He has friends, a superhero life that gives him freedom, and with "Syren," a character who has no problems with him nearly about to quit that superhero life unless he gets what he wants.

And he will get what he wants. The love square is endgame, whether the audience wants to admit that anymore or not. Marinette has her moment of considering that she was wrong about Chat and Ladybug blushes when Chat kisses her cheek, which just brings this point home all the more that Chat's feelings dominate over everything else.

Adrien is not a character who got what he wanted because he earned it; he got what he wanted because he felt entitled to it and will continue to get what he wants for the same reason.

He also learns nothing from “Glaciator.” He tells Ladybug that he accepts her friendship, but he doesn't, because he once again tries to flirt with her romantically in "Frozer" (with a rose he stole from a bouquet that might've needed a certain amount of roses but we're not talking about that) even though he's aware that Ladybug loves someone else.

He presses her - tries to find any hope that she might love him - by asking if it'd be different if the one she loved wasn't a factor (something that sounds vaguely like that person dying, but again, not talking about that) when that is clearly not the issue here.

Chat is grasping at straws because he's so desperate to be loved by Ladybug. He doesn't consider her feelings at all and, despite Ladybug's apology at the start of the episode, finds it okay to get mad at her in the midst of an akuma battle for the third time this season.

And this time, there's not even a half-hearted apology; at best, there's an admittance that Ladybug's plan was the correct one. Ladybug is constantly made to feel bad for Chat and Chat isn't given the same treatment in return.

The only reason he even attempts to move on from Ladybug is that Kagami makes the suggestion (the wrong suggestion because Adrien actually needs to just accept Ladybug's feelings regardless of if he changes targets but, again, again, not what we're talking about). Even then, Adrien spends hardly any on-screen time with Kagami before deciding that he's going to continue chasing Ladybug anyway.

This isn't healthy. It's not right, and makes one honestly wonder if Adrien would keep pursuing Ladybug even if she was already dating someone else.

[Respect Ungiven]

For this segment, I want to talk less about the big sweeping issues and more about the little things that happen in Miraculous; little things that aren't really thought about but just pile onto the things that Marinette has to go through in the show.

Teasing, for example. I talked about this when referring to "Gigantitan," but the show really likes to lay into Marinette when she's miserable. Playful teasing is one thing (like Alya teasing Marinette about her phone in "The Mime;" Marinette clearly wasn't bothered by it and even played along), but it's when the teasing either doesn't make sense or is just a jab at Marinette's behavior for no good reason that it starts to become apparent that the show has a certain bias against her.

Let's go back to "Despair Bear." There's already Alya teasing Marinette over kissing Chloe’s cheek (that Marinette is wholly not amused by and that I wouldn't even mind if it weren't for the show's distaste for Marinette in other areas), but we also have a sequel of sorts to the ["Just Like Chloe"] segment of my Season 1 meta as Alya compares Chloe throwing a party for Adrien's attention to Marinette not going to the party until she heard that Adrien would be there.

Not only are those two things not even remotely the same (why would Marinette want to go to Chloe's party unless she had an ulterior motive?), but that particular line digs pretty harshly on Marinette considering all the times Marinette has tried to get closer to Adrien in this season only for things to go south.

Then there's “Reverser,” which has Nathaniel and Marc tease Marinette about being clumsy. Yes, Marinette laughs at it, and it's obviously a reference to the fact that Ladybug was made clumsy by Reverser, but there's no hint of Marinette being clumsy in this episode, so a viewer who’s never seen other episodes will just be confused and put off by that line.

In fact, it's Marc who's clumsy instead (bumping into a pole before dropping his book), so it seems like a pretty harsh insult when Marinette went through so much trouble to get them to work together (and even is glad that they're not mad at her, as if she did something wrong when she was only trying to help).

Another sequel to a past segment I did in the Season 1 meta also happens in "Troublemaker;" specifically, [Tikki the Inconsistent].

Tikki is completely unhelpful in calming Marinette down in this episode, only making things worse when she's supposed to act as a rock to help keep Marinette grounded in reality. Then, she teases Marinette over the TV show recording her Adrien photos, which doesn't even remotely amuse Marinette since she's riddled with anxiety over everyone potentially mocking her.

Then there's "Prime Queen," where Tikki just presumes out of nowhere that Marinette would risk blowing her secret on live TV. Marinette might be easy to fluster, but for Tikki to freak out as if Marinette hasn't been doing a great job at keeping her identity hidden...it's silly. Tikki explains the risks to her like it's the first time Marinette has ever heard them.

"Frozer" even has Tikki be completely oblivious to Marinette's problems. I'll give Tikki slack on Adrien admitting he loves someone else (because really, there was very little she could've said to improve Marinette's mood), but to ask Marinette what's wrong after Marinette's been on this outing where Adrien's trying to court someone else and when Tikki should've heard what Kagami said to Marinette? Yeah, Marinette had enough troubles in that episode without having to explain to Tikki what her issues were.

Tikki's inconsistency extends to "Queen Wasp" as well. Unlike her parents (who seem blissfully supportive of Marinette, which we'll touch on later), Tikki is completely against Marinette going to New York. It might be an understandable reasoning - that Marinette is Ladybug and her powers are needed - but not only could the ladybug earrings be given to someone else (something that almost happened in "Origins"), Tikki pops Marinette's bubble immediately instead of being happy for her yet also asking Marinette to consider the weight of her decision.

Then, Tikki asks at the end of the episode if Marinette is okay with what she decided, as if Tikki tried to give any indication that Marinette should consider going to New York. Obviously, Marinette cared about going, but with what Tikki told her, what else was Marinette supposed to do?

"Befana" could even be used as another example. Tikki continuously shoots down Marinette's theory about a surprise party, yet again taking whatever side will disappoint Marinette most without asking Marinette to pull back on her expectations in case things go south. It also could imply that Tikki doesn't seem to have a high opinion of Alya (or any of Marinette's friends, for that matter) if she's presuming that Alya would actually take Marinette to the dentist on Marinette's birthday and no one would throw Marinette a surprise party.

But, while we’re talking about it, Tikki also isn't the only problem with "Befana."

Marinette's paternal grandmother, Gina, has some... issues. Gina has nicknames for Marinette and does seem to talk highly about spending time with her, yet she doesn't know Marinette's age, can't tell when Marinette is obviously uncomfortable (with either the candies or the fact that she's gotten no texts), doesn't apologize for being gone for over four years at least, and doesn't even consider the fact that other people might want to spend time with Marinette on her birthday.

Furthermore, she goes after Marinette when she gets akumatized, claiming that Marinette lied to her about going to the dentist, which is absolutely not what Marinette did. Marinette started to, then immediately corrected herself by explaining that it was a ruse for her surprise birthday party. Marinette and Gina went to three different places, yet when Marinette decides she wants to go to a party that her friends planned (which, how rude would it be to not show up to?), Gina goes up to Marinette's room to sulk and throw her own pity party by saying that Marinette's "too old to spend time with her."

Yet, there are four hugs between Marinette and Gina in the entire episode (two of which are before this moment), and Marinette initiated all of them (the first two that Gina hardly reacts to and only the last hug which Gina returns). Marinette hung off Gina's arm while Gina walked inside the bakery, didn't seem at all put off by Gina being gone for so long, and insisted that she did want to spend time with Gina when Gina suggested otherwise.

Also to note is that Hawk Moth never tells Gina specifically to go after Marinette; only that he's giving her the chance to get back her place as a grandmother. Instead of considering everyone else bad for taking away Marinette, she targets Marinette to turn her into coal because Marinette "lied" to her, ignoring Marinette when she tries to explain that she didn't want to hurt Gina's feelings. This is in direct contrast to Sabine, who Befana turned into a fairy for saying that Tom never said Marinette was too old to spend time with her when Gina acted like he did. That would've also been a "lie" in Befana’s eyes, but it was a lie to make Gina feel better (which was Marinette's strategy with the candies).

Considering how much Gina ignores Tom when he tries to tell her the blatantly obvious, it starts to feel less like Gina actually cares about Marinette and more like she's obsessed with being considered "the best grandmother." This is further supported by how offended or dramatic she gets at the slightest hint that she doesn't know Marinette (which she doesn't) or that Tom thinks Marinette doesn't want to spend time with her (which is a guilt-trip on her part considering Marinette is standing right next to her).

The stuff concerning Marinette's emotions isn't limited to the Marinette side of things either. In "Prime Queen," Chat doesn't respond to Ladybug getting more and more upset about Nadja's prodding questions about them being in a relationship. He's wholly oblivious to her feelings and even eggs on the idea that they could potentially be in a relationship, which Ladybug rightfully shoots down as it's not the right time to talk about it.

Chat doesn't even realize what's wrong when she pulls the ruse to lead him out of the studio; he doesn't even get that it was a ruse. She has to tell him outright what's wrong, and even then, Chat brushes it off as the price they pay for being famous, doesn't apologize when Ladybug is clearly upset about the matter, and then chases after her while suggesting they get ice cream (which sounds like an attempt to make her feel better but is likely just him flirting).

This is emphasized with the joke about Chat continuously trying to get a kiss from her, but that joke starts to become less funny as you continue through Season 2 and see just how little Chat respects Ladybug's emotions. Just because he didn't force the kiss on her or scold her for pulling them out of the studio doesn't mean that he respects her enough when it matters.

Chat really seems to have no grasp on what's important. For a further example, "Queen Wasp" had Chloe almost kill people due to her recklessness in trying to save a speeding train that she caused, yet instead of Chat being angry at this, he says nothing, his outburst being directed at Ladybug instead when Chloe implied that Ladybug lost a miraculous.

The fact that the son of a fashion designer has no concept of holding one's tongue in front of a camera is baffling. Chat could've at least waited until after the cameras were off to question Ladybug about losing a miraculous.

It's easy to blame Ladybug for Chloe getting away, but after “Prime Queen” and now this, I honestly appreciate Ladybug’s continuous attempts to scold Chat despite none of her efforts ever seeming to stick.

Also, Nadja didn't even inform Ladybug that Queen B was trying to escape, so Ladybug is hardly to blame when Queen B was unwilling to return the miraculous and Chat was thoroughly unhelpful in the actual issue at hand.

Even when Ladybug actually trusts Chloe with the Bee Miraculous (something the narrative kept trying to get the audience to want Chloe to have), Fu still has questions about that decision after Queen B had already done a great job in "Malediktator."

It's another case where it wouldn't be a big deal otherwise (I question the decision too honestly), but with all the trouble Marinette has gone through as Ladybug, all the akuma she's purified, all the good decisions she's made as Ladybug, and the fact that losing the Bee Miraculous wasn't even her fault (considering she got pulled away after being corrected that the magic ladybugs didn't return it), I'd hope that Fu has full confidence in her.

While I'm stoking the fire of "moments that seem like nothing until you see more of the season and think about it," I'd also like to bring up "Riposte." In this episode, Adrien is determined to get a decisive match with Kagami because he believes that Kagami touched him first instead of what Marinette suggests, which was the other way around.

It's not important who's right here; the important thing is that the touches went by in an instant and Adrien only thinks that Kagami struck him first; he's not positive. We never hear Kagami's side of the matter and Adrien brushes off Marinette's conclusions as her being flustered.

Adrien also calls Marinette a friend again, which is something I've thoroughly questioned throughout this piece and am questioning again, because from Marinette's side of things, that's a little more skeptical.

There was only one spot left on the fencing team. Marinette came to be on it and seemed rather excited about it as well.

Then Kagami showed up, and Adrien not only disregards Marinette's conclusion on their match, but he chases a random stranger that he doesn't know to give them another chance at the spot that Marinette wanted.

And, in a way, that's not entirely wrong. Kagami was definitely a skilled fencer - most likely better than Marinette - and Adrien's choice to give her another chance is a good gesture from a person who's trying to be as unbiased as possible.

However, Adrien is not an unbiased person. In fact, he might be one of the most biased people in Season 2, given the fact that he frequently brushed off Chloe's behavior when it was obviously not the right decision.

Taking that into consideration with the treatment he occasionally gives Marinette... yeah, it doesn't look great.

And why did it have to be about Adrien thinking that Marinette's conclusion was wrong? Couldn't it have just been that he thought Kagami was really great at fencing and wanted a rematch regardless of who had actually won?

Moving on, I want to talk about "Catalyst" next, with both Alya and Tikki roles in particular taken into consideration.

For Alya specifically, the stuff I said in "The Collector" (about Gabriel never knowing that Lila stole the book) honestly isn’t important. The problem isn't that Alya doesn't know that Lila is a liar; it's that she dismisses Marinette's attempts to call Lila out as mere jealousy.

Back in, say, the early parts of Season 1, I could maybe see Alya coming to such a conclusion (if only because their friendship had begun very recently), but not in Season 2.

Not after "Frightningale," where Marinette was willing to give up acting alongside Adrien to be with her friends (even if it was partly to prevent her identity from being revealed, Alya doesn't know that), and only decided to take the part because it was Chloe who was playing Ladybug.

And certainly not after "Frozer," where Marinette put aside her own feelings to join Adrien on his date with someone else; if she could do that, then some girl flirting with Adrien wouldn't bother her for no reason.

But that's not what the episode considers. Instead, it focuses on Marinette hating Lila's lies and then promptly lying to her class.

I imagine this is the replacement of the "Just Like Chloe" nonsense, and once again, it's a complete failure.

Marinette does not lie out of nowhere. She lies to protect herself (any time she has to hide her identity), to protect others (not telling Fu that Adrien had the book in "The Collector"), or - like in this case - because she panics.

Not only is this an insult to put in the season finale of all things (when the main plot could've used more time for its story), but it tries to paint Marinette as being just as bad as Lila when their situations are not even remotely the same.

Tikki is also, once again, completely useless in helping Marinette with her problems, because she's not getting to the heart of them. All she does is tell Marinette to tell the truth and that nothing will ruin the party.

Even if Marinette's friends understood and forgave her, there would still be a disappointment (which is Marinette’s issue). Instead of telling Marinette to practice control of her emotions so this doesn't happen in the future (and not to put so much effort into being "perfect"), Tikki boils it down to a very basic "do the right thing and everything will be perfectly fine."

Tikki does something similar at the beginning of the episode where she suggests that being Ladybug is a good enough deed, to which Marinette rightly points out that it's not a deed she can share. It's as if the concept goes right over Tikki's head and it never registers with her that Marinette puts so much into trying to please everyone even when she's already done enough.

And obviously, the writers knew that this subplot wasn't going anywhere interesting; it didn't have the time to. By the end of "Mayura," the subplot gets skipped all the way to everyone helping Marinette with the picnic.

I honestly don't know if that's a saving grace on Marinette's part (since it cut her slack by not making her have to say anything), or admittance that this entire subplot was a mistake.

It's at this point that I have to ask my question from [An Icy Cup of Quo-Yo] again: if the narrative is not going to give Marinette full and uninterrupted chances to do what she needs and not actually help her with her problems, then what is she supposed to do? Her anxiety is made fun of on a relatively consistent basis and Tikki only gives her calming advice half of the time, so she's stuck in an endless loop of being a frantic mess and not being able to make any progress with Adrien while being given lessons she doesn't need to learn instead of focusing on the one thing (i.e: being overly emotional) that would actually help her (and would've made the end to the season 2 finale make all the more sense).

[What Matters]

The steps taken by a creator and the expectations of an audience can be two very different things. Where a creator can see one thing, an audience can see another.

I don't think the creator's intentions are to imply that Marinette is a bad person or that she deserves to be criticized for every small thing that she does. I honestly think they believe that they're being fair with her.

They're not. It's admittedly not always her (some characters definitely get the shaft in the writing department too), but the treatment towards her specifically is the biggest factor in all this.

When asking myself why certain decisions were made in the show, I tend to come to the conclusion that the writers just didn't notice or were reckless and didn't think the fandom would care.

Why did "A Christmas Special" focus more on songs than Adrien's actual home situation, not even having Adrien keep Marinette's hat long enough for them to interact over it? Because it's a Christmas special, and all they had to do was mark off a checklist of Christmas special tropes. They ticked the boxes and called it a day.

Why did "Despair Bear" have Adrien stand up to Chloe but then let Chloe continue to do as she pleases right at the end? Because the writers wanted to have a plot where Chloe has to be nice for the laughs, but then didn't want to actually follow up on what that would mean for her character.

Why did "Prime Queen" have Chat be ignorant to Ladybug's feelings? Because it was more focused on having Chat react to the kiss with Ladybug and the comedy that could come out of him trying to get another.

Why did "Befana" ignore the issues with Gina? Because apologies in the show are usually reserved for only Marinette to say, even when she shouldn't have to.

Why did "Riposte" have Adrien go so far out of his way to get a rematch with Kagami? Because Kagami will be important later on and Marinette was only there to be taught the rules of fencing. Marinette's feelings were secondary.

Why did "Glaciator" make Marinette feel bad for Chat but not the other way around? Because Chat's feelings took priority and Adrien's flaws get brushed away by his backstory.

Why did "Zombizou" brush Chloe's behavior off as nothing? Because the episode wants to teach Marinette and everyone else to bury their feelings so Chloe can continue acting like a brat with the excuse that she might improve eventually.

Why did "Syren" let Adrien get away with threatening to quit? Because the writers probably thought the audience felt like Chat did and would encourage him trying to do something about it without thinking about the actual ramifications that causes in the canon.

Why did "Troublemaker" add so little to the Adrienette dynamic? Because it was an excuse to have Adrien react to Marinette's pictures (while simultaneously having Marinette's freak out "comedically" over the knowledge that it happened) without actually following up on that in a meaningful way.

Why did "Frozer" let Chat get away with being salty at Ladybug? Because Marinette/Ladybug's feelings are so disregarded by everyone who isn't Luka that they're basically non-existent.

Why did "Queen Wasp" have Marinette's subplot be so black and white between Tikki and her parents? Because the arc was all about Chloe, meaning that Marinette's was only there so Marinette could get Chloe and her mother together in the end, thus the blatant "yes" group and "no" group to Marinette's choices.

Why did "Malediktator" try to make you feel sorry for Chloe? Because they wanted an arc that makes you feel bad for her but simultaneously wants you to accept it when she goes back to her old ways, hence having Marinette at the forefront treating Chloe with respect even when Chloe brags about her phone case in the end. By having Marinette excuse the behavior as "baby steps," it gives the show an out for whenever Chloe continues behaving terribly.

Why did "Catalyst" shoehorn in a subplot about Marinette lying? Because they want to continue to remind their audience that Marinette is a flawed individual despite not having the actual comprehension skills to understand basic comparisons in morality.

I don't doubt that the writers had good ideas, or at least that they thought they had good ideas. However, they ultimately had no foresight to what other people would think and also no tact when it came to playing favorites.

[Fixing What's Broken]

In terms of adding episodes into Season 3 to try and fix these issues, it would be near impossible to cover all of them in a way that made sense.

It would involve calling Alya out for making Marinette's problems all about Adrien. (a light offense; possible)

It would involve calling Tikki out for not understanding Marinette and giving unhelpful advice. (a medium offense; possible, but also difficult because episodes don't typically revolve around a kwami getting development and Tikki would need much more screentime than she usually gets)

It would involve retconning Master Fu's faith in Adrien. (not that retcons haven't been done before on this show but I like to think I have a bit more care than that; "Syren" would have to be an exception where Fu only trusted Chat because Ladybug needed him, so any further screw-ups would get a scolding from Fu that Adrien is on thin ice)

It would involve undoing what little work Chloe had done. (Chloe is a heavy offense and they treated Marinette far too badly on their way there, so showing that Chloe will never improve means Miss Bustier has to reverse what she said, at least to some degree, and Marinette is no longer required to be nice to people who don't deserve it)

It would involve showing Adrien that what he's doing is wrong. (And also mean that Adrien apologizes for everything; scolding Marinette, not respecting Ladybug, etc.; this one would probably take the most work to get to)

And having episodes try to mend what other episodes tore apart isn't entirely going to fix the issue. Going back to the previous episodes would still leave a sour taste and it won't change things like "Queen Wasp" putting Marinette's plot off to the side; now that they've done that plot, they're not likely to do it again, which is a shame because it had potential.

The narrative also still roots for these characters in those previous episodes, so it's not as if it would feel like something the show was building too. It'd be too obvious that it's fixing something that no writer thought needed fixing at the time of writing it.

But, in just changing the season 2 episodes? Maybe that can do a bit better.

A Christmas Special - Have the episode actually feel special by not having an akuma for once - Tone down saccharine "Christmas special checklist" vibes to add more watch value when not being watched in winter - Adrien still runs away as Chat, but de-transforms and seeks comfort at the warmest place he knows: the bakery - Adrien gets to actually talk about what he knows concerning his mother (potential flashback episode) - Marinette's line in "The Collector" about Gabriel being cold even around Adrien carries more weight since Adrien would tell her outright about his father's behavior - Marinette gets to ACTUALLY GIVE ADRIEN HER PRESENT IN PERSON and thus gets to witness Adrien's reaction - Adrienette baking scene to relieve Adrien’s stress - Supportive parents Tom and Sabine in a role that's outside of Marinette, scolding Gabriel when he shows up (on a tablet held by Nathalie) at their doorstep after hearing that Adrien was there - Gabriel forces Adrien back home and is too conflicted to yell at Adrien as he usually would - Cue original ending where everyone shows up to see him and Gabriel lets them inside

The Collector - Gabriel learns that Lila stole the book instead of being fooled that it was Marinette

Despair Bear - Adrien doesn't brush off Chloe's behavior, especially when Chloe starts insulting Marinette's treats. He breaks off their friendship, deciding that, if she is going to change, he probably doesn't have to ability to help her do so

Prime Queen - Nadja had another babysitter who had an emergency and only Marinette was left to watch Manon (Marinette’s parents could've even agreed to it instead of her), absolving Marinette of the confusing schedule mix-up - Tikki doesn't freak out over the interview; she merely questions what Marinette plans to do in it - Chat still encourages the idea that he and Ladybug could date one day, but when Ladybug chides him for it, Chat realizes how uncomfortable Ladybug is and is the one to lead them out of the studio instead; Ladybug thanks him for it and Chat assures her that he has her back - Chat is much less direct about the kissing jokes and more dramatic, being playful (with maybe a bit of hope) rather than actually trying to steal a kiss

Befana - Gina actually feels sorry for being gone so long and her goal is that wants to make up for all the time she's lost (which she clearly can't in one day and that’s the problem) - Gina is built up by Tom to be much more competitive and ignorant, making it a character flaw that will be addressed; it’s also implied that Tom and Gina apparently argue about this a lot (this gives more build-up to Befana turning Tom into coal) - After Marinette leaves to go to her birthday party, Sabine manages to talk to Gina before Gina goes up to Marinette's room; Gina realizes Marinette's distaste for the candy and comments that she's a sweet girl for never wanting to hurt her grandmother's feelings - Instead of being akumatized to turn Marinette into coal, Gina instead sees Marinette's friends as foes getting in her way of spending time with Marinette, due to her competitive nature -The episode plays out as normal, but Gina apologizes after she realizes all the trouble she put Marinette through with her akumatization, agreeing with Tom that Marinette has more love than one grandmother can take on her own (thus, Marinette should be able to hang out with whoever she likes)

Riposte - Adrien wants his rematch because he thinks Kagami is the most skilled out of everyone who came to fence and not because he thought Kagami had won - Adrien is conflicted by this, but is encouraged by Marinette, who agrees with his choice even if she wanted to be on the team (Kagami is just plain better than her at fencing, after all) - Adrien talks more highly of Marinette since he never has to mention that she was flustered in her conclusion

Glaciator - Chat still plans his date with Ladybug, but actually realizes his mistakes in not sneaking out to go for ice cream instead (as Marinette vaguely talks about how she was a fifth wheel and felt alone instead of directly referring to her love problems) - Marinette and Chat comfort each other equally over their situations, with Marinette sheepishly suggesting that Ladybug might not even know how he feels about her (which Chat admits he didn't consider) - Chat acts slightly awkward around Ladybug during the akuma fight (not having their usual synergy), but eventually gets it together so they can pretend they're a couple (which Chat isn't offended by the suggestion of due to his earlier conversation with Marinette about Ladybug not knowing) - Ladybug doesn't blush by the end since Chat's behavior is going to return and actually be addressed in "Frozer" - Adrien realizing how Marinette feels will eventually get him to sneak out in "Anansi" or possibly snap at his dad near the end of "Captain Hardrock"

Zombizou - Marinette is more upset that Miss Bustier keeps pushing her feelings aside, but Miss Bustier still defends Marinette from the akuma in time - Chloe doesn't pull a 180 and isn't actually sorry - After her de-akumatization, Miss Bustier calls Marinette back out into the hallway because she was reflecting on everything that happened - Miss Bustier realized that, by not punishing Chloe and simultaneously trying to convince Marinette to forgive Chloe, Miss Bustier prioritized how Chloe might eventually feel to how Marinette felt in the moment, which caused the negative emotions that almost got Marinette akumatized; she acknowledges that there are times to be nice and times to be assertive, and Miss Bustier understands now that treating bad people with forgiveness and doing nothing about their behavior isn't always the way to go - The class still tries to get an apology out of Chloe for everything they went through for her; Chloe attempts to play the pity game to get Miss Bustier to make them stop, but Miss Bustier isn't having it and gives Chloe the ultimatum of apologizing or going to the principal's office for defacing Marinette's gift (bonus if someone points out that Chloe can just threaten to call her dad and Miss Bustier smiles and states that she feels it’s better than doing nothing or pretending like it’s okay)

Syren - Chat is still upset at Ladybug for her secrets, but makes a point that he trusts her wholly and just feels confused as to why he's being left out - Fu makes his reason for not telling Chat clear to Marinette: Chat is reckless and lets his emotions interfere with his superheroing (like in Glaciator), and thus Fu doesn't know if he can trust Chat with new powers if he's just going to waste them - During the Syren flooding, Chat wants to dive down into the water anyway to fish Syren out (showing his recklessness), but Ladybug insists that this isn't the way - When Ladybug summons her lucky charm and tries to go see Fu, Chat tries to press her about her secrets; Ladybug insists that everything's fine even if she can't tell him, but she trusts him to do good while she's gone - Chat doesn't understand what Ladybug meant, but is happy that she's confident in him; he sees people suffering due to the flood and wants so badly to just try to fight Syren anyway, but maintains self-control and instead does what he can to help the people around him - This is enough to allow Fu to reveal himself to Chat

Frozer - Gigantitan is sacrificed for the sake of changing this to a two-parter to better accommodate the focus on four characters - Kagami and Marinette's relationship is changed to a more friendly one - Marinette has more time to spend with Luka to distract her from Adrien spending time with Kagami - Ladybug and Chat save Luka and Kagami from being frozen in ice - Chat isn’t miffed at all over Ladybug’s rejection (having learned from Glaciator and Syren) - Luka and Kagami try to help in fighting Frozer (giving them more moments to shine as characters) - Frozer eventually manages to freeze Luka and Kagami in ice (how Chat and Ladybug react to it could possibly make them realize how they feel towards the two) - Post-battle, Ladybug and Chat talk about Chat's feelings and what they're going to do now - Chat decides that, regardless of whether he continues to date Kagami or not, he'll respect Ladybug's feelings and not make her uncomfortable

Troublemaker - Tikki actually comforts Marinette - More focus is given to Adrien seeing all the pictures hanging around Marinette's bedroom; Adrien's actual conclusion could be anything (Marinette would bring him down to a neutral state regardless), but the important thing is that he considers if Marinette could like him romantically

Style Queen - Gabriel doesn't see Style Queen as some sort of masterpiece (but still has the scene with his wife; he'd realize post-akuma that he needs more thought in place to protect Adrien rather than just quitting), allowing more time for Marinette's hat subplot - Ladybug still takes the bee miraculous, but it won't be stolen; she realizes belatedly that powers of subjugation wouldn't work on someone made of glitter like Style Queen - More emphasis is put on the fact that the lucky charm sent Marinette to Fu's to encourage Plagg to help, not to get a miraculous - The bee miraculous doesn't get used this season (as Ladybug picks it back up before taking Adrien back to the fashion show), but it's implied that Marinette might have an idea for who could be a good fit for it (likely Kagami, who's bold and aggressive enough to be able to use a miraculous that stings)

Queen Wasp - Completely redone episode; rather than being about Chloe, the episode actually focuses on Marinette choosing between staying in Paris or leaving for New York - Audrey's relationship with Chloe is adjusted; Audrey and Chloe can't bond over their mutual rudeness because Chloe still needs to learn how to something exceptional herself if she wants Audrey's respect - Marinette's parents tell Marinette to exercise caution with her decision, but that they'll support her regardless - Tikki is actually flawed and is shown as such, not supporting Marinette going to New York, but more out of a selfish desire because she likes Marinette and doesn't want anyone else to be Ladybug - Episode acts as part-recap as Marinette considers everything she has in Paris versus what she could have if she went to New York, along with who she could potentially give the earrings to if she left - Tikki eventually apologizes for tending to disregard Marinette's feelings completely in favor of spouting her sage advice - Marinette obviously decides to stay, realizing that, even though her job as Ladybug is difficult, she loves helping people and recognizes that she makes a great Ladybug.

Malediktator - The classmates arguing with Chloe is something unrelated to Queen B (since she doesn't exist in this canon) - Chloe, not having a relationship with Audrey, has to go to Andre herself to demand he shut down the school - Chloes's decision to go to New York is partly to get away from her classmates and partly to spite her mother (which is an obviously flawed idea, but she's thinking delusionally) - Adrien isn't upset about the party, but still upset that the only childhood friend he had turned out to be such a bully who didn't even consider him in the end - Ladybug takes care of Malediktator himself, using the laser pointer to have Chat knock down Andre to remove his orbder orb of order so Ladybug can swoop in and take his sash - The episode isn't about throwing Chloe a pity party (or an actual party); rather, the episode actually rolls with Chloe going to New York, with Ladybug telling Andre post-deakumatization that spending time around Audrey might give her some experience in actually doing something with her life (this also opens the door for Lila to come in next season) - Adrien joins the party in the end, having moved past his feelings because he realizes that Chloe being his childhood friend was something he had no choice in and was his only option; it wasn't good of him to favor her just because they were friends once

Catalyst - The subplot is dropped completely and Heroes' Day is reworked so that no one feels pressured to do a good deed; it's encouraged, but doesn't get glorified in class by having everyone talk about their plans - Gabriel sought out Lila to be akumatized both because she was a good target and because it's revenge for her stealing from his son - More time is spent with Marinette talking about the Peacock miraculous with Fu (optional addition if Adrien joins the conversation over voice call) - The picnic at the end is something everyone set up for Marinette since she's their "everyday Ladybug"

It's not easy, but there it is; Season 2 is written to be less sympathetic toward bullies, more validating toward Marinette's feelings, and doesn't let Adrien get his way all the time.

Before I end this long, long, long piece, I want to bring up "Catalyst" one more time. Specifically, the moment where Marinette says that it wouldn't be very heroic to use her powers to solve her problems.

I disagree. I mean, yes, maybe it wouldn't be heroic, but... why not allow her leeway as a reward for being Ladybug?

Marinette does so much for others, both in and out of her mask. Is the show honestly telling me that, for all the schedule overhauling she has to do, all the excuses she has to make, and all the lying she does to keep her secret identity safe, she shouldn't be rewarded for her efforts? If it's not hurting anyone, why shouldn't Marinette be allowed to use her powers selfishly once in a while?

This idea that Marinette should constantly put all her feelings aside and never try to do things for herself is unhealthy. Characters scolding her for feeling an emotion and encouraging her not to is unhealthy.

Marinette has a deeper problem than simply being overemotional: she's a giver.

She gives to others. She gives, gives, gives, and so rarely asks for anything in return.

And others take from her. They'll take because it's easy to, because Marinette is constantly told to be the best person possible and put her feelings off to the side.

Marinette has so much to give, but even that has its limits. People will take, take, take until there's nothing left.

Nothing but an empty shell; an empty shell who never thinks of herself and whose only problem is that she's a human being who can't detach herself enough from reality to give even more.

That's what messed up. Regardless of intent, regardless of the future, this season shoved Marinette to the side countless times because it deemed people who acted worse than her to have more value in their emotions.

There's no value in that.

[homieswithhades]

BTS Analysis;

I don’t even know if I can call this an unpopular opinion bc I know some people agree with this, this is more of an in-depth analysis and personal experience I guess. It’s all about bts... and its lowkey a mess. I apologise in advance for any grammar/spelling errors, and times I may contradict myself a bit. This is something that REALLY bothers me. I just want to clarify that I love bts a lot, and that I was the HUGEST STAN for a good 5ish months. I still stan them but not as much due to the following reasons.

They just don’t make good music anymore.  They love yourself era was when everything turned to shit. The actual core love yourself concept is very good but,,,, it was executed really poorly.

Dna was my first comeback with them, even though I’ve been listening to them since august 2016. But when actually became a stan in April 2017, I was obsessed with them. I was so damn excited for their September 2017 cb that my standards were through the roof. During the summer they changed the logo and did the beyond the scene thing,,, that’s the first thing that kind of irked me,,, and then they did the highlight reels in the style of I need u and they were redeemed.

When love yourself her started promotions and teasers, the bar was higher than the person who edited the DNA mv. The concept pics were so unfitting??? And just lacked that aesthetic element. I dint like them at all,,,, and the album cover was,,, below standard and looked rushed and lazily designed. But when serendipity came out I loved it (and I still do) so that fuelled my expectations for the music, even though they weren’t really that damaged by the odd first impression of the album. But then DNA came out and???? I was so disappointed?????? The beat was so annoying,,, the mv was so ugly,, the outfits were ugly,,, the lyrics were weird. In other words DNA was just a straight up flop... I hoped the rest of the album would have been better but,,,, it really, REALLY wasn’t.

After love yourself her I lost a lot of interest in bts. I missed their old music so much, and I was genuinely upset over it. I didn’t follow them as closely as I used to. I started to joke about them with my friends who lost interest in bts before me, but I still missed the old bts so much. The whole Ellen show thing, all the western media like Buzzfeed and Billboard making vids and articles about bts, all the rigged award shows, it pissed me off bc they were getting famous in the US bc of their worst album that didn’t display their full potential at all!!!!

Imma just go out and say it, armys are one of the most toxic fandoms ever.

Sometimes they’re just plain disrespectful and starting arguments where they don’t belong. I wouldn’t be able to count how many times I got attacked on Twitter, Instagram and even in the YouTube comments for expressing a different opinion. I remember all the fan wars and scandals. All the mobs at airports, All the times k-fans and i-fans tried to ruin another groups reputation (I’m not saying other fans never did this, bc it was always a thing, but it was never this extreme.) and the fuckin credit card thing oh my god,,,, a huge shitstorm caused by one fandom that lasts for years on end.

When bts got really mainstream, and gained more young western fans, they really ruined bts even further for me. Not to mention all the cringey tweets and memes, they hurt to look at. I absolutely don’t mind the “you got no jams” meme or the “ExCuSE mE” one, bc theyre just pure goof from the members, but when armys took it and overused it, that’s when it started to get annoying.

Some armys genuinely think bts is the only kpop group and that the world revolves around them. They comment “annyeonghaseyo any armys here???!!!” in the most unexpected places, I deadass saw someone on my overwatch team playing quick play with the name “army.FOREVER.saranghae” yall do realise it costs 10$ to change ur blizzard username, right?

Some armys also don’t respect other kpop groups in older gens (or any other ones for that matter) and assume that bts broke through into the western world themselves, which is complete bullshit, without groups like bigbang, shinee, tvxq, shinhwa, h.o.t,  seo taiji boys etc etc (and other ones I don’t know of rip) kpop would have never gotten into the western world.

I never identified as an army bc I knew they were cringey bc of my friends who were HUGE armys back in 2016 and low-key koreaboos, and I knew what the bad stans looked like, so I never associated with them, and just called myself a bts stan. But the whole western situation just got so goddamn worse. I was sick of the Americans plaguing bts for me.

I also wanna say, I know not all armys are toxic and cringey. And I respect the level headed and chill Armys, yall are doing it right.

Moving on from Armys, I noticed a change in bts themselves. Namjoon changed his stage name, which absolutely sent me. I understand the meaning behind it but for some reason I felt that he did it to be fake deep? Or woke, and that he tried to completely cover-up his past self. The other members became cocky and were always draped in all that ugly Gucci and designer shit. I knew they were being forced to act the way they were acting, bc I know them well. I know how they really are. I know that they’re good people. I know they’re very humble deep down. They had that special connection with their fans before, that made u feel like u were good friends with them, and they absolutely ruined that. They’re being forced to put on this fake image to impress you filthy Americans.

I still stan bts atm. But I stan them for their old music and the people they truly are, not who they are portrayed to be. I can’t remember when euphoria came out, but I was kinda annoyed they tried to incorporate hyyh prologue into their shitty concept. And the song was also annoying and too edm-ish (like most of their new songs, idk why their style completely changed). Anyway, when tear came out, I was still kinda off the bandwagon, and I saw the concept pics and I was surprised at how nice they were. I saw the album cover, which was still ugly but better than the previous one. Then Singularity came out and!!!!! I loved it a lot. And then fake love happened. Oof is all I have to say. But some songs on the album, were actually good. Like the truth untold, paradise and OUTRO TEAR. Outro tear will remain the best song in the love yourself trilogy.

I also feel that I have to acknowledge that for all the love yourself albums only the intro and outro were genuinely up to standard (except outro answer).

Then came love yourself answer and idol. When I found out they were collabing with niki minaj I lost it. The concept pics were ugly once again, it was supposed to a controversial comeback???? And??? It wasn’t. I’m honestly glad it wasn’t promoted.

I noticed a repetitiveness with songs on answer. The beat was off with the singing. It was all just a mess. I also noticed the amount of godddamn auto tune in the songs (eg, mic drop, fake love, idol, airplane pt.2 and others I can’t remember atm) all of bts’s old songs all sound unique and different, and they all had this “emotional” element to them, to elaborate on that, compare dna, fake love or idol to save me, I need u or young forever. Notice how dna, fake love and idol convey absolutely no emotion through the lyrics or the actual beat of the song, unlike save me, I need u or young forever, that literally have more sentimental/emotional value in the few English lines that are in the song then all of the lyrics in their 3 new title tracks combined. I think this is my most difficult point to explain bc different songs make people feel different things, but it’s no doubt that you can tell the difference between a song that’s made to appeal to the masses with no unique properties to a song that coveys deep emotion (whatever the emotion may be) through the beat, the lyrics and the sound of the vocals/rapping alike. Listen to intro nevermind, and then listen to go go and just try to tell me that im wrong.

Alos, bts seem to have incorporated auto tune into songs, especially on their vocalists. bts don’t need the auto tune bc they’re good vocalists. Also, I have to mention, the vocal line isn’t the “best” per say. they’re good vocalists but it’s nothing special. Seokjin is the best vocalist period. Jungkook’s voice is generic, and in recent songs he has been straining it to reach the notes. Taehyungs voice isn’t even that special, it’s just deep, and it only really suits ballads and R&B songs like singularity or butterfly. Jimin has a very nice voice, but again, it’s nothing extraordinary. I feel that Jin has the most vocal potential, and he doesn’t get to show it, he has this really unique voice, idk what it is about it that just??? I really love it. But to clarify, I’m not hating on their voices or saying there untalented, because they’re very talented, but most of vocal line gets too much credit. As for rap line, I think they’re one of bts’s strongest points. Namjoons style is so smooth and just overall good? It amazes me that he rapped so well over the years with a breathing problem. Hoseok is a good rapper too, his sound is unique and his adlibs add to that uniqueness in older songs, as for Yoongi, I genuinely think he’s one of the best rappers in the industry, it’s not about the speed element, it’s about his flow, his power, his emotion, everything about his rap is just amazing.

Now I wanna talk about the member’s individual popularity. The maknae line has the most stans, and quite frankly, their stans are the worst. Treat all of the members with the same love and respect. Sure, it’s perfectly fine to have a bias but to disregard the other members is just plain wrong.

Bts are human beings, first and foremost, and then there musicians second. They’re being made into media puppets and clout bait, which they absolutely don’t deserve. They deserve recognition for their good stuff, which they have PLENTY of.

All in all, I’m sick of the American attention. It’s cringey, annoying and unnecessary. Sure, bts deserve recognition but not that much of it!!!!!!

And they were being recognised for the wrong thing for fucks sake!!!! I didn’t like ANY of the new songs on answer. I only liked epiphany. And then I found out it wasn’t written by any of the members. Rip. Fans will unfortunately blindly follow, stream and like whatever they put out like blind sheep because it’s accustomed to them, bighit KNOW that they’ll make more money in America. They know no matter what bts put out, no matter how shit it is, fans will like it and itll be revenue for the company. And all the mobile games and the bt21??? Was so unnecessary?? Capitalism amirite? Quantity over quality. It’s the sad truth.

Armys tend to mix up criticism and hate. Although there is a very thin line between the two, there is a difference. Criticism is the analysis and judgement of the merits and faults of something. Hate is blind and unjustified. Hate is disliking something for no reason, or for a very invalid reason. So for example, saying; “I don’t like this apple because its bitter and im not a huge fan of bitter things” is fine to say, unlike, “FUCK THIS APPLE BECAUSE ITS BITTER, FUCK ALL APPLES” you know? It’s okay to dislike a group. It’s NOT okay to hate on a group. No one’s is going to gain anything by hate.

So, all the youtubers are reacting to bts for clout, the fandom is a fucking mess, armys are attacking other fandoms for no reason, the members lost their TRUE humbleness and neglected their real personalities and they’ve put out 3 overall bad standard albums over the course of a whole ass year.

But I still have this spark of hope for them. Why? Because I love them, they have a special place in my heart. I know they have the potential to be amazing, unique and just overall good people with their own personalities, and truly special musical abilities.

After their tour I honestly, really hope the attention dies down and they put out another good, original, album like the hyyh albums, with nice concepts, good songs, and a pleasant to look at mv. It’s really all I ask for. The old bts. I know I’ll never get them back, and I absolutely cherish their old stuff, like the bulletproof logo, bangtan boys, rap monster, hyyh, young forever, no more dream, wings, them all goofing around together and not caring about their image, their wholesome interactions with fans, and all the songs and concepts and theories that never have, and never will be recognised.

On a final note, I realise I can’t blame bts themselves entirely for this. This stuff is only partially “their fault”. Its bighit’s fault, the army’s and haters fault and the media’s fault. But, America is to blame the most. That’s all for today.

[dmitri-smerdyakov]

So, here’s the thing – I didn’t grow up reading L.M. Montgomery’s Anne series; one of my granddad’s brothers did, however, buy me a copy of Anne of Green Gables when I was younger, and I read nearly half of it. Unfortunately, I was only very young – about seven or eight – and so my attention span was not really that great. I read enough to be familiar with the beginning of the story and of the general gist of the first part of the book but I never finished it.

Last year, Netflix released the first series of ‘Anne with an E’, an adaptation of ‘Anne of Green Gables’; I realized it was based on the book and thought I might give it a try. I watched the first episode – but then didn’t watch the rest of the series because my family had walked in halfway through the episode and done nothing but complain about it, about how ‘annoying’ Anne was etc., and it kind of put me off of watching the rest.

The second season released last Friday on Netflix, and I decided I would give it another try – this time making sure that none of my family were there to watch it with me – because I had heard people say how amazing it was. Safe to say, I had quite an enjoyable weekend binge-watching the entire series, and now I’m not quite sure what to do with myself until the next season releases!

Review

Alright, so I can’t really judge the series as an adaptation of the books because, as stated above, I didn’t exactly read them all. However, I can judge it as a series with its own merits, since I think people who haven’t read the books can enjoy it just as much.

Anne is an eleven-year-old orphan who is adopted by brother and sister Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert; originally they wanted a boy to help on the farm, but Anne quickly grows on them and they decide to keep her. A lot of the series is Anne’s adventures in growing up; going to school, meeting her first friend (her bosom-friend, at that), and the like. She’s also got an immense imagination, able to pretend herself into almost any circumstance; her bold creativity is viewed as rather out of place in Avonlea, particularly in the time period of the late-1800s that the story is set in, but it’s her best quality.

Honestly, I don’t think enough praise can be given to Amybeth McNulty, the young actress who plays Anne; she’s perfect for the role, her performance endearing and talented in every way possible. The show wouldn’t work if Anne was miscast – but McNulty is absolutely wonderful, and that’s perhaps the show’s best feature. The other roles are just as well-cast, of course, but Anne is arguably the most important one to get right given that the series is about her; McNulty plays every facet of Anne’s personality perfectly, from the creative imagination to the moments where she has to deal with dark topics or situations.

The show deals with a number of issues that are still very relevant today, especially in the current political climate; ‘Anne with an E’ is a feminist show from the very first episode when Anne announces “girls can do everything boys can and more”, all the way to the hiring of a female teacher in the last few episodes. Girls are always treated with respect and understanding by the writers of the show: such gems include Anne announcing, “A skirt is not an invitation” and the very frank conversation regarding menstruation between both Anne and Marilla, and the girls in the classroom (seen below).

To add, Anne getting her first period is just too relatable: rather fantastic moments commemorating that moment include, “Please plant some pink roses on my grave”, “this is a waking nightmare”, “this can’t be happening” and,  “I’m not ready to be a woMAN!”

Unlike most shows that are set in later time periods (*cough* Stranger Things *cough cough*), ‘Anne with an E’ doesn’t shy away from LGBTQ+ representation; Diana’s Aunt Josephine is established to have been a lesbian with a female life partner, and a boy in Anne’s class, Cole, realizes he’s gay. In one episode, Aunt Josephine throws what is quite possibly the pride event of the century, complete with LGBTQ+ individuals celebrating who they are, wearing flower crowns, and just being unapologotetically open about themselves and their identities. In hindsight, shows such as ‘Stranger Things’ don’t have a leg to stand on when it comes to a lack of representation: non-heterosexual people have been around for centuries, and if a period show set in the 1800s can show multiple LGBTQ+ characters, then so can a show set in the seventies or eighties. Sorry, but “it wasn’t as common” and “it wasn’t as accepted back then” are no longer viable excuses – gay people still existed, and their stories deserve to be told.

Season 2 introduces Sebastian – better known as “Bash” – a black character from Trinidad who accompanies Gilbert Blythe when he returns to Avonlea. The show tackles racism and colonization in the time period extremely well, something that shows with much larger fan-bases and popularity have failed at (not mentioning names but I’m sure I’ve given the idea). Even better is the fact that Bash has a genuine Trinidad accent – not a stereotypical Jamaican one, but one that you’d actually hear someone from Trinidad speak with.

Bullying in schools is also a hot topic in the series; not only does Anne suffer near-constant torment because of the fact she’s an orphan and has red-hair, but Cole receives it too because of his passion for drawing – a pastime that the other boys thinks makes him too feminine. The abuse doesn’t just come from the other kids – namely Billy Andrews and Josie Pye, who I would literally love to dropkick into the Sun – but also from the teacher, Mr Phillips. Some rather passionate anger arose from watching Mr Phillips on-screen, to say the least; imagine the cruelest teacher you’ve ever had, one who liked to make kids feel small so they could feel better about themselves…yeah, that’s Mr Phillips. It’s so hard to not want to slap him, especially given his utterly ridiculous curled mustache; even worse, he literally goes out of his way to harass the students – except the one student he wants to marry, but we’re getting to that in a second. For me, the breaking moment was in Season 2 when he saw Anne with her cropped hair (cut off due to an accident involving hair dye) and announced, “Looks like we have a new boy in the class”. It’s not the worst thing he did, but I wanted to scream by this point because I was fed up of this man and his tripe.

(**I’m trying to keep this review PG for everyone but it’s so HARD**)

As I said above, there’s a rather gross plot-line that involves the teacher wanting to marry a student called Prissy Andrews, who’s only two years older than Anne and her friends. Honestly, the whole thing made me sick – and I think it was meant to, but still. At one point in Season 2, they’re engaged and about to be married; a number of things happen to make Prissy back out, most of all being Mr Phillips telling her that he doesn’t want her going to college when they’re married because she should be learning to be a wife – in other words, he wants her to give up her education and future for him. It all ends in a satisfying way though: Prissy runs out of the church with four girls behind her, deciding she’s better than that, and they have a snowball fight. It’s literal poetic television. As a result, Mr Phillips leaves the school and, honestly, that’s even more satisfying to know.

I also just want to say that Anne rocks the shorter hair in the final half of the second series – it goes from a cute pixie to a bob with bangs, and then to two short pigtails. She looks absolutely awesome, and I will fight anyone who disagrees. I know her hair will be long again next series, but I do love the shorter hair – I just think it looks so amazing on her!

This show deserves far more love than it currently receives, to be brutally honest; it’s better-written than most of the more popular shows on Netflix, it has an actual good story to it, and deals with a number of important topics. However, because it’s about a girl in the 1800s, it’s immediately written off as “boring”. I feel like a part of the lack of viewers is down to Netflix’s lack of promotion for the show; when a new season of ‘Stranger Things’ comes out, they can’t shut up about it, but something like ‘Anne with an E’… well, it’s not ‘Stranger Things’, which means that Netflix immediately de-prioritizes it.

(I just want to add, I have seen both seasons of Stranger Things, and I do like the show. However, it’s far from perfect and despite the fact I enjoy it, I do think it receives way too much hype)

If you’re looking for a beautifully made series that has representation, heart and good storylines, you should consider ‘Anne with an E’. Like the Cuthberts find Anne to be growing on them, the show will grow on you too – and you won’t regret it one bit.

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REVIEW: “Anne with an E” (S1 + S2) So, here's the thing - I didn't grow up reading L.M. Montgomery's Anne series; one of my granddad's brothers did, however, buy me a copy of 

[feynites]

Dirthamen’s Moving Castle

*mumble mumble Howl’s Moving Castle AU mumble Dirthalene mumble mumble*

@selenelavellan

Apprenticeships are not easy to come by, these days.

 Selene sighs over another letter of rejection from the guild. The third one of four - and given how long the fourth has been taking to respond, she suspects that they might not even bother to acknowledge her missive. The wording on this one is curt, too, not even bothering with the usual niceties of explaining that there are no openings or encouraging her to apply again when she has more experience, or a patron. Just a simple ‘we have rejected your request to be considered for the apprenticeship program’.

 That would be the Guild of Alchemists. Not her first choice, but the one she’d had the strongest background for. She turns the letter over to look at the seal, before finally dropping it despondently into the trash.

 Mirena glances over from her place at the sewing station. The new machine is whisper-quiet, and only glows very faintly from the lyrium insertions in it. It is fast and efficient, but requires a mage to operate. Hence, Selene landing this job, at least. Mirena has The Talent, too, but the whole point of an assistant is to assist, and only a very conceited seamstress would take on an employee who couldn’t operate her machinery.

 “Was the a guild letter?” she asks, not unkindly.

 Selene straightens her shoulder, and turns back towards the flower-shaped flourishes she is supposed to be hand-stitching.

 “Just a rejected application. It’s fine,” she insists. And even if it weren’t, she’s hardly going to go crying on her employer’s shoulder. Mirena tsk’s, though, and gets up from her seat. She moves over the waste bin, and plucks Selene’s rejection letter up out of it.

 “Alchemists Guild, hm?” she murmurs, before tsk’ing again. “Rude pack of chauvinists. What other places have you been applying to?”

 Selene sighs.

 “Arithmancer’s Guild, and the Runists, and the Architect’s Guild,” she admits.

 “Architects…? Oh, magical design?” Mirena surmises. Selene nods, and watches her employer drop her rejection letter back into the bin. The consoling pat to her shoulder is well-meant, at least. She appreciates the gesture, though right now she thinks she’d rather not talk about it. The sting is still sharp, and it’s made her keenly aware of just how badly she needs this job, too. If she can’t afford to stay in the city then she and Des will have to go elsewhere.

 And ‘elsewhere’ might end up being ‘back home’.

 “Have you considered the seamstresses guild?” Mirena suggests. “You have some good experience now, and I could always upgrade you to an apprenticeship. You do very solid work.”

 Selene tries not to sigh. It would seem profoundly ungrateful, and she isn’t. The offer is, in fact, very generous - she knows Mirena doesn’t often take on apprentices. And it’s a far better prospect than any of the others she’s gotten so far.

 But… she didn’t come to the city to sew hats. She and Des came to live out their dreams. And seamstresses do not gain access to the Grand Archives, and they are not appointed to Royal Research Programs, and they do not get grants to investigate magical or scientific theories, or funds to attend conferences and symposiums in other cities. There would be worse ways to get by than making hats all day. And she would never claim that it’s not still an improvement over mixing salves in her father’s workshop, falling asleep most nights with her stomach gnawing from hunger, and her hands cracked from over-exposure to too many potent distillations.

 It’s just not what she actually wants, either.

 “That’s very generous of you,” she says, though, because she does need this job, and also because it is.

 Mirena inclines her head, but mercifully lets the matter drop.

 “Take some time to consider it,” she suggests. “How is your friend’s search going? Any better?”

 Selene must shake her head at that. Des might have taken the less conventional road to finding an apprenticeship of his own, but it hasn’t availed him much. The consort’s guild rejected him - to Selene’s relief - and while it had seemed like he might be able to secure a position with some of the city performers, they had ultimately rejected him. A scam, Selene thought, in hindsight. They had taken his ‘application fee’ with no intention of ever officially registering him as an apprentice actor. Having The Talent, at least, let him get his own job in a meat packing plant.

 Which has given him no dearth of puns to work into his flirtations.

 But it also isn’t what he wants to be doing. Overall, though, she thinks Des has been better at making the most of things anyway.

 “How is Thenvunin doing?” she asks, changing the subject towards the one topic which Mirena can always be relied upon to gush about. Her son. It works, even though she suspects her employer knows full well that she is being distracted. Selene is treated to a proud mother’s speech about her son’s recent promotion in the Royal Guard, which quickly devolves into Mirena griping about his current suitor’s unworthiness, and then into complaints about her estranged husband and his mistress. Selene makes sympathetic sounds at the appropriate intervals, even though she heard most of this all yesterday, and finishes stitching up the silk flowers for the next round of designs. The front shop is already closed, and so she needs only help Mirena tidy up a few things, then, before she can head home.

 The streets are quiet, but there’s a certain tension in the air. Selene knows what it is, though. Tomorrow there’s some kind of city-wide festival is going on. Arlathan has so many that Selene can scarcely keep track of them all, it seems, but at least most of them also come with rest days. She’s not surprised when she gets home to find Des already laying out some of his nicer clothes for the morning, but she is surprised when he scoops her into a hug and swings her around in welcome.

 “Selene! Things are finally looking up!” he tells her.

 She hesitates, her stomach sinking as she thinks that someone must have told him that she got a reply from the Alchemists Guild, and must have also assumed that it was good news.

 “I didn’t get the apprenticeship, Des,” she admits.

 He blinks at her, and then waves a hand dismissively.

 “Oh, those idiots don’t know what they’re about,” he insists. “But that’s nothing. Venavismi told me that they hardly ever accept anyone who doesn’t have a high-ranking patron or come from a noble bloodline, especially if they aren’t a man. No, I’m talking about the festival tomorrow! Do you know who’s going to be there?”

 Selene blinks, simultaneously mollified and annoyed.

 Des has this knack with people.

 “Who?” she asks, giving up and letting out a long sigh.

 “The Wizard’s Guild!” Des informs her, eyes bright.

 She blinks.

 “That… doesn’t sound like a real thing, Des,” she can’t help but point out. There are a lot of guilds registered with the city, and Selene had looked into them all when they arrived. Before they’d gotten here, the concept of city politics had been virtually unknown to either of them. But it certainly wasn’t now. There were mages and wizards and magical people of all descriptions, of course, but guilds were about trades. Wizards didn’t have trades. Why would they have a guild?

 “No, but it is a real thing!” Des insists, though. “They’re not a city registered guild, they’re more like one of the nobility’s inner societies. Most of them serve with other guilds, too, or else they’re Royal Attendants . Some are on the Royal Advisory Council. But getting a member of the Wizard’s Guild for a patron is like a golden ticket to any magical field you want to apply to. And they can patronize anyone they want.”

 “And they probably do patronize a lot of people,” Selene cannot help but mutter, cynically.

 Des snorts.

 “Well, you might appreciate it once I seduce one of them,” he declares. “They’re going to be watching tomorrow’s parade, and guess who secured a position as one of the dancers?”

 She blinks, at that.

 “Are you getting paid for it?” she wonders.

 “Paid in opportunities to seduce high-ranking wizards,” Des informs her. He waggles his eyebrows.

 So no actual money, then.

 Selene is internally debating the pros and cons of this development. Not that she actually thinks Des will be able to seduce some high-ranking wizard, but if he spends most of the festival dancing along with the parade, then he’s probably going to end up tired and sore and stressed out by the end of it - rather than happy and relaxed after a day of actually resting and enjoying the celebrations. On the other hand, it’s not as if she’s ever been able to stop Des from doing what he wants, and if it keeps his gaze from wandering towards the back alleys and street corners where people can be found selling tiny blue vials of diluted lyrium…

 She’s about to reply in overall favour of the plan, when there’s a knock at their door.

 It brings them both up short. The festival is set to happen on the first of the new month.

 “It’s end of the month,” Selene realizes. The rent on their room is due. She lifts up her skirts and pulls her coin purse free of her inner pockets, while Des goes and retrieves the little enchanted satchel from beneath their mattress. It bites his fingers a few times, before he remembers the charms to soothe it. Selene goes to answer the door, and sure enough, their landlord is waiting on the other side.

 Elandaris Theol is not an ugly elf, technically speaking. But he makes Selene uncomfortable, and there’s something about him that puts her mind of general ugliness, all the same. He’s more slightly built than Des, though, and shorter than Selene, and he lacks The Talent. His family’s fortune comes from their trade routes. So while she’s never liked him, she’s never really considered him all that threatening, either. It’s mostly a chore to endure the way his gaze lingers on her for a moment, before slipping past her to stare at Des, where he’s still bent over and discreetly counting coins.

 “Good evening,” Selene says, pointedly dragging Elandaris’ attention back to her.

 “Good evening, Miss Lavellan,” Elandaris replies, folding his hands in front of himself. “I fear I have the unwelcome duty of collecting fees, this evening. A business call, not pleasure.”

 “That’s fine,” Selene assures him. She turns towards Des, but mercifully he’s already heading over, his half of the rent counted and in hand. She takes it from him to offer it to Elandaris, along with a polite - if somewhat hollow - smile. “We hope you have a pleasant evening, Mister Theol.”

 “I fear it may be dampened by some bad news,” Elandaris admits, only after he has pocketed their rent. “This will be your last month as my tenants. I have a notice of eviction, effective in a few days’ time. The property has been sold. Trying economic times, you understand. I do apologize for the short notice…”

 Selene feels herself freeze in place for a moment, as Des snatches the eviction papers from Elandaris’ grasp.

 “Short notice?!” Des snaps. “You want us out of here in days? You’re supposed to give us at least a month!”

 Elandaris adopts a falsely innocent expression.

 “I sent a letter weeks ago,” he claims. “I am sure you must have received it-”

 “Oh you lying-”

 “Des!” Selene interjects, hurriedly. She’s furious, too, but her better sense prevails in the nick of time. If Elandaris calls the city guard, the odds of it going in their favour are very low. The landlord’s from a moneyed family, and has surely paid off the guards on the patrol route through this neighbourhood. He owns several buildings here, after all. If things go badly enough they could end up tossed out onto the street now, without even a few days’ grace, and it’s already late.

 Though Elandaris’ smug look makes it very, very difficult not to punch him clean in the mouth.

 “If that’s all?” she asks, instead.

 Elandaris inclines his head, and treats Des to another lingering look.

 “I do hate to cause distress,” he claims. “If you both find yourselves without options, I might be able to help you locate other accommodations. The house on Lovely Road has a few vacancies, if need be.”

 Lovely Road.

 That’s a brothel. And not a reputable one.

 “I’m sure we’ll be fine,” Selene grits out, and before she can lose her last thread of patience, she slams the door in Elandaris’ face.

 There’s a moment of furious silence, before she hears the footfalls of the man moving off.

 “Scrawny prick,” Des spits. And then, upon consideration, he actually spits directly onto the floor of their room. Selene gives him a look.

 “We still have to live her for the next little while, don’t spit on our floor,” she reminds him.

 “You should have let me hit him,” Des protests.

 “And what, get thrown out tonight?” she counters.

 He concedes the point by not really disagreeing with it, as Selene takes the evictions papers from him, and slumps into the room’s lone chair. She reads it over carefully, but the truth is, the lease she and Des agreed to was always fairly tenuous. They couldn’t afford anything better. And it’s their word against Elandaris’ that he gave them full notice, and even if they wished to contest it, they don’t have a lot of means to do so. Selene’s not entirely sure where she would begin. She supposes she could ask Mirena for help, but she’s done that so many times already…

 They’ll just have to find someplace else to stay, probably. And on such short notice, without it being expensive it’s going to be very difficult.

 She’s turning over their options when she looks up, and sees Des back at planning his outfit for tomorrow’s parade.

 “You can’t go now,” she points out. “We need to spend tomorrow finding a new place to stay.”

 “Which will be a lot easier to do if I’ve enthralled a powerful and influential wizard,” Des counters. “They usually have big houses.”

 “Des, be serious,” Selene demands. “You’re not going to enthrall a rich and powerful wizard.”

 “Yes I am.”

 “No you’re not.”

 “Ye of little faith. Don’t you think I’m seductive enough?”

 Selene bites back her first response to that. It’s not that Des isn’t gorgeous - there’s a reason Elandaris tended to stare, and it’s not a mystery. But there are a lot of beautiful elves in Arlathan. However charming he may be, Selene is not at all convinced that he could win the heart of a wealthy patron over the course of a single parade. If he had that much charisma, the Consorts Guild would have taken him regardless of his breeding.

 But she really just… doesn’t want to get into it now. Nothing is going right for them. She can hear her father’s voice, ringing her ears, condemning her as a traitor and promising she’ll only find misery in Arlathan. She can still feel the weight of her wedding dress, constricting her like a snake. Des’ sweaty hand clutched tight in her own, and Haleir still doubled-over from chair Des had beaten him with. Her thoughts hot and her skin hot, and everything breaking, until Des’ voice had cracked through while he packed her into his wagon, along with a few scant pieces of luggage.

 It’ll be alright. We’ll go. We’ll follow our dreams.

 She looks around at their little room. They’ve managed to accumulate a lot more, despite their bumpy road in Arlathan. Des has some very nice clothes, and Selene has one dress that’s worthy of festivals and celebrations. She has books, and some trinkets. And a few hats, awarded to her by Mirena whenever there was a surplus of materials, and she felt ‘inspired’ to make something for Selene. A writing desk, even. Things too heavy to take with them if they have no place to carry them to. Des had traded his wagon when they first arrived, so they wouldn’t even have that to sleep in.

 Des looks at her face, and then sighs, and settles down onto the arm of the chair beside her.

 “Look,” he says. “The parade is in the morning. Just… let me try my plan. I do have one, you know. And if it doesn’t work, then I’ll spend the entire afternoon finding us something better…”

 She swallows.

 “We’re back to square one, aren’t we?” she asks. No apprenticeships, no home, and if they aren’t careful, no belongings, either. Though at least they’ll still have jobs.

 “No we’re not,” Des says, firmly. “We’ve come a long ways, and we’re going to go further. I’m going to get us exactly where we need to be. Look…”

 He reaches for the satchel on his belt. Selene blinks, because that’s ordinarily where he keeps his perfumes and ‘intimate oils’ and other little bottles of things that wouldn’t really be appropriate to this situation. But then he pulls out something altogether different. A vial, pink and shining. The contents liquid, but fragmented in a way that makes them look almost like carved quartz, too.

 She’s never seen such a thing before in person, but she recognizes it. Reflexively, her hand comes up and covers Des’, as if to hide the intensely illegal substance from some unlikely spy.

 “Des,” she hisses. “That’s-”

 “I know what it is,” he tells her, and puts it away nearly as quickly as he’d produced. “It’s our big break.”

 “Where did you even get love potion?!” Selene demands, in her lowest, most hissing whisper. She wouldn’t have thought her heart could sink anymore, but somehow it manages. Anyone who has ever worked with potions, even just a little, knows about love potions. Namely, that they are very, very illegal, and for very, very good reasons.

 “One of the Consort Applicants had it. I picked it from their pocket,” he admits. “I was going to destroy it, but… I thought it might come in handy some day.”

“If anyone caught you with that, you would be hanged,” Selene frets.

 Des sighs, and then shrugs.

 “If any guard caught me with it, I would just give it to him. It’s worth a pretty penny in the right circles, and Arlathan guards are mostly corrupt anyway,” he points out, as if this is somehow a reasonable plan. “But they wouldn’t.”

 “Des, you live with someone who just petitioned the Alchemists Guild for an apprenticeship. If someone caught you with that they’d think I made it!” she points out.

 That, at least, seems to sink in. He pauses, and his expression drops. But Selene is catching up with the conversation a bit more, now. Des has a love potion. Des is talking about winning over a wizard. Des intends to use a love potion on an actual person, on a wizard.

 All the blood rushes out of her face.

 “You can’t possibly mean to use it?” she hisses at him.

 “No!” Des protests. Then he hesitates. “Not to actually… I mean, I’m not going to actually have sex with someone. It’s infatuation in a bottle. All I need to do is win over one of the wizards, put a few droplets into his drink, and then he’ll be gone on me. These noble types develop weird obsessions all the time. Then I can just string him along until he gives us enough favours, and let the potion wear off. It’ll just seem like he got over the infatuation. He’ll move on, we’ll already have enough legs up to get off the ground, and no harm, no foul.”

 Selene stares at Des for a good, long minute, before finally just dropping her face into her hands.

 “Des,” she says.

 “Don’t tell me it’s a terrible plan. It’s not.”

 “It is!”

 “How?”

 “Because!” she snaps, flailing an arm out. “You could get caught! It’s unethical! The wizard could try and rape you! He could figure it out! And when the potion wore off he could decide that it was all such a scandal that he’d rather just get rid of you than risk you embarrassing him!”

 “Well that’s just why I have to pick the right mark,” he insists. “Listen-”

 Whatever he planned to say next, though, Selene interrupts him by reaching for the satchel. Des bats her hands away, and she struggles enough that they both get knocked out of the chair. Hands fumbling and limbs crashing awkwardly as they hit the floor. Selene struggles to get into the bag and Des struggles to keep her out of it, and soon enough the two of them are hissing at one another like they’re thirteen and Selene’s trying to pry hallucinogenic mushrooms out of his hands before he can lick them.

 “Stop it!” Des tells her.

 “Just let me destroy it, Des, for pity’s sake!”

 “No, I need it!”

 Selene’s fingers successfully fumble around the satchel, until to find it spelled shut. She tries to smash the whole bag against the floor, but it’s cushioned, too. A curse escapes her, and Des grapples her away again, and manages to get her into a strong enough hold that she gives up. Cursing again, and smacking a hand against his chest instead.

 “Don’t do it,” she pleads.

 Des lets out a long breath.

 “Okay,” he says. And for a moment, she’s hopeful. “Okay, how about this? I’ll try it without the potion, first, and then if it doesn’t work…”

 “Des!”

 “Selene.”

 They trail off, stymied by one another’s stubbornness. Des isn’t budging, but Selene can’t move from her own position, either. Figuratively, anyway. Literally she can, and she does, shoving back and sitting up, and letting out a few long, aggravated breaths. Her dress is tangled around her legs and her hair is askew, and she’s pretty sure she’s bruised an elbow.

 “This is the worst plan you’ve ever had,” she assures him.

 He sighs, and sits up, too.

 “I just… I just want to give us a little boost,” he argues. “The system isn’t fair, it’s all full of schemers and liars, and the people at the top are responsible for the worst of it. We’ve been playing by the rules since we got here, but the rules are made for people like those wizards, not us. They just keep us where we are, where we’re easy to take advantage of. So what if we take an unfair advantage? How many of them do you think those wizards have had by now?”

 She runs a hand down her face.

 “I’m not worried about the wizards, Des, I’m worried about you.”

 They sit in silence for several more minutes. Selene glares at the satchel. After a few minutes, though, Des starts to scoot his way closer. And when he successfully gets in range without her shoving him away or reaching for the satchel again, he inches and arm around her, and gets his head onto her shoulder. After she lets out another sigh, and curls her fingers in his shirt, he sags against her in turn. The floor is hard beneath them, and their familiar room suddenly seems alien and uncertain.

 “I’ll be careful,” he promises. “I really will. It’s all for naught if I get caught.”

 He pronounces the last line in a familiar sing-song. Selene supposes it says a lot about them, that they practically have that as a theme song.

 “I am strongly opposed to this plan,” she reiterates.

 “...Well it’s a good thing you told me, or else I’d never have guessed.”

 She pinches Des in retaliation for the sarcasm, and he snorts, but then offers her a more serious look.

 “It won’t go wrong,” he swears.

 Selene really, really hopes that she will not look back on this moment as being darkly ironic in any way.

[weightlossfitness2]

Five Simple Strategies for Healthy Families – Make Healthy Easy

Before attempting a brand new weight-reduction plan, take into consideration what you might be actually speaking to your youngsters. Here are 5 easy methods for constructing wholesome households to information you whereas working by yourself well being and way of life modifications.

This put up is sponsored by CLIF Kid.

If you’ve come to a spot the place you need to make modifications to your consuming or way of life to develop into extra wholesome, nice! Congratulations. Seriously. 

But earlier than you go gung-ho on a brand new weight-reduction plan technique or health craze, I’ve a couple of issues I need you to consider in case you are a guardian with littles in your house. Pump these brakes for only a minute and stroll by way of this with me. 

It’s completely regular and comprehensible to need to make modifications to your weight-reduction plan or way of life in the beginning of a brand new yr or season. If this time of yr motivates you greater than others, nice! Go with it. As a guardian although, it’s vital to assume by way of how your selections, behaviors, and phrases are touchdown in your youngsters. Improving your well being gives an amazing alternative to show and mannequin a wholesome way of life to your youngsters that may serve them the remainder of their life. I can perceive if that sounds a little bit daunting, so I wished to offer you encouragement and concepts that will help you out. 

Since we’re speaking about dynamics for wholesome households right here too, I enlisted the assistance of my good friend, Robyn Huntley, a St. Augustine, FL-based Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, to supply insights from her household counseling expertise. 

Robyn says, “Children are sponges and observe everything. What they see their parents do and what they hear their parents say is extremely impactful, whether it’s taught explicitly or inadvertently through modeling or through our children overhearing our conversations.” 

5 Strategies for Healthy Families:

With that in thoughts, listed here are 5 easy methods for constructing wholesome households to information you whereas working by yourself well being and way of life modifications:

#1 – Recognize your emotions and phrases are being observed

While you assume chances are you’ll be saying or considering issues in secret about your physique and meals selections (or another person’s), greater than possible your youngsters are choosing it up. Think about if you would like your youngsters to repeat what you assume or say. It might take some onerous work to vary your ideas, but it surely’s value it. 

“I cannot emphasize enough,” Robyn urges, “the incredible impact that a parent’s words/attitudes/behaviors have on a child. Even into a child’s adult years and on into future generations, for better or for worse, we do become the voices in our children’s heads. That is why it is so important to be mindful of how we talk about health, food, and body image.”

Here’s another posts on Make Healthy Easy that dive into socially acceptable, however maybe not useful, thought processes round consuming and well being:

#2 – Honor your starvation/satiety cues

A valuable reward you possibly can go all the way down to your kiddos is the liberty to honor the cues their physique provides them round starvation and fullness. If that is international territory for you, it’s okay that it would really feel awkward speaking about it along with your youngsters for some time. Regardless of what modifications you may be making to your consuming, studying to honor the cues of your physique is a talent that may assist information you in changing into a balanced eater. 

For occasion, “cheat days” are a generally used time period that recommend you might be dishonest for those who select to eat sure meals at sure instances. This mentality means that sure meals will not be obtainable or acceptable on any given day and disregards private need or enjoyment of a meals. 

Instead of usually speaking about how a lot to eat or not eat, ask your youngsters what their physique is telling them it wants to remain energized. It may be so simple as educating them the significance of stopping for a hunger-busting snack to allow them to proceed to be their greatest. In this example, I like CLIF Kid Zbar® Filled or Zbar® Protein bars. Both present hunger-helping components and have a low glycemic index to assist keep away from sugar spikes and crashes. I discover that the components in Zbar Filled and Zbar Protein bars assist energy my boys by way of a busy afternoon with significantly better attitudes and extra enjoyable for us all. 

This is an space the place it takes observe, trial and error, to develop belief in your physique’s indicators. It’s OK to eat previous fullness generally or not eat fairly sufficient. You or your youngster can be taught one thing vital from these experiences. I’ve had some candy, highly effective conversations with my sons about physique indicators and what they might do in another way subsequent time. 

#three – Use language that builds up meals, not moralizes it

We dwell in a society that always categorizes meals as “good” or “bad”, “healthy” or “unhealthy.” I’m not a fan and don’t assume that is productive, particularly in elevating wholesome youngsters. 

Just not too long ago my boys have began asking questions like “Are calories bad?” and “Is soda healthy?” I’ve fumbled a bit by way of these solutions, to be sincere, as a result of I’m attempting to navigate round my very own biases. I strive onerous to offer sincere solutions that give them actionable info. So as a substitute of answering “Soda is terrible and we do not drink soda,” I went with one thing extra alongside the traces of “Soda is a special treat that you can enjoy occasionally, but it’s probably not the best every day choice.” 

Robyn suggests avoiding the next language and I completely agree: 

Talk of meals making somebody fats

Food or components being dangerous (i.e. carbohydrates, sugar, desserts, kinds of protein, and many others.)

Eating a specific meals or meal is “cheating”

Associating guilt with meals (I used to be so dangerous right this moment as a result of I had three cookies.)

Some examples of different methods you possibly can body your language in your personal thoughts, and along with your youngsters, embody: 

I need to give my physique the vitality it wants. 

All meals serve a objective in our life. Foods may give us vitality, assist us really feel nice or additionally simply be actually yummy. 

My physique deserves to be well-fueled. 

Our our bodies want gasoline and carbohydrates once we’re energetic/enjoying. Pay consideration to what makes you are feeling quick and powerful.

This meals makes my physique actually blissful/robust/joyful/energized. 

I’m going to go on that meals for now, as a result of I already had lots, and an excessive amount of wouldn’t be your best option for me.

I actually loved sharing this particular deal with with you. Your firm was the most effective half. 

#four – Start satisfying habits collectively that lay the inspiration of well being

When you need to make enhancements to your physique and way of life it’s straightforward to first begin with what you need to lower out. But what for those who began with what you’ll want to add to create higher well being? The nice information about this strategy is that it may possibly embody your youngsters! Look to create new, enjoyable experiences round meals and health collectively, that additionally promote well-being.

Snack time is an AMAZING time to do that. Snacking is vital for conserving vitality ranges up so you possibly can proceed having fun with an expertise or working at a excessive stage. It prevents being hangry for adults and children and helps you being your greatest self extra typically.  It additionally supplies a chance to eat nutrient dense meals. Lastly, it may possibly simply be an satisfying time collectively.  If you’re undecided find out how to begin, do that: on a day without work or the weekend, play along with your youngsters. Enjoy shifting collectively. When a while has handed, pause and ask your youngster how their vitality is doing. Are they feeling nice or operating low? Talk about your vitality ranges too. If it’s been a few hours since they ate, recommend pausing to get pleasure from a snack collectively. Share a bit of fruit and supply one among my favourite snacks, CLIF Kid Zbar®, which is crafted to maintain energetic youngsters going.

CLIF Zbars are a favourite with Team Braddock. I admire that they’re the proper measurement for youths, made with healthful components like natural oats, and style scrumptious. They comprise complete grains (10-12g) fiber, and don’t have any excessive fructose corn syrup or synthetic flavors. Everyone could have vitality and may proceed having fun with enjoying.

#5 – Talk about modifications as a household

The attention-grabbing factor about wholesome residing is that non-public selections can have an effect on the whole household. 

If you will do one thing that’s an enormous change, Robyn suggests speaking about it. “When a parent makes obvious diet or lifestyle changes, a child is probably going to notice it, depending on their age. Generally speaking, I tend to encourage openness/transparency and honest discussion about things, rather than keeping anything shrouded in secrecy or mystery. So, though there may be a situation that calls for an exception to this rule, I would lean toward open/honest discussion and explanation. Children are very perceptive and may feel confused about why we’re making certain choices, even if they don’t come right out and ask. To make a significant change in the household, and then just pretend it doesn’t exist isn’t healthy for children. It’s confusing.”

Consider making modifications regularly as a substitute of a number of issues directly. This is vital whether or not you could have youngsters or not as a result of it’s a key to sustainable change. I do know you most likely hear that so much, but it surely’s 100% true, so please belief me. Remove a psychological finish date or weight reduction quantity (i.e., I’m going to lose x # of kilos by my birthday) that makes modifications appear unnecessarily pressing and time-restrictive.

Having that date or quantity in your thoughts is a unconscious end line that, whether or not you understand it or not, permits you to slack off from these drastic modifications you made. It’s simply not wholesome or sensible. Again, think about your youngster speaking this manner a few aim of their life or well being. How would that sit with you? Plus, for those who made huge modifications that impacted your loved ones, however then these modifications eventually stopped, that may be very complicated to youngsters. Remember, little minds are concrete thinkers. 

“Don’t try to force too many or too drastic of changes onto anyone in the family all at once,” Robyn suggests. “Set small, attainable objectives, similar to ‘this week, we’re going to attempt to drink extra water (or strive extra contemporary produce, or play exterior collectively after dinner, and many others.).’

See if you can also make it right into a pleasant recreation and cheer one another on. Remember to maintain the deal with making selections out of a spot of affection/respect/honor for our wonderful our bodies that work so onerous for us every day.” 

Build Healthy Families Together

Building your personal private wholesome way of life is so vital for being the most effective guardian you could be. Sometimes you would possibly want to have interaction in new behaviors by yourself to put a greater well being basis. But, I hope this text has additionally opened your eyes to the superior potential of affect you could have in your littles by way of this course of. Remember these methods for wholesome households alongside the best way:

Think by way of the messages you might be speaking by way of your new actions and whether or not you might be actually OK along with your youngsters receiving them.

Look for alternatives to construct wholesome habits collectively.

Speak and reveal optimistic concepts about our bodies, meals and well being.

Be able to have conversations along with your youngsters.

Now, go forth and be wholesome, be blissful, and do it collectively as a household!

The post Five Simple Strategies for Healthy Families – Make Healthy Easy appeared first on Weight Loss Fitness.

from Weight Loss Fitness https://weightlossfitnesss.info/five-simple-strategies-for-healthy-families-make-healthy-easy/

[theticklefox-blog]

Snatch the Series: My Review

Note: this will contain spoilers, so read no further if you haven’t watched the series yet. It will also contain negative opinions on some issues, so if the show was everything you ever wished for... this isn’t for you and I don’t want to upset you. Just enjoy the GIFs (which betray my biases) and skip the rest.

I really, really wanted to like Snatch.   Honest I did. I keenly anticipated it from the moment it was announced, despite my not being a huge fan of Guy Richie or the film version. The previews made the show look energetic and fun and most of the actors are consistently good, and playing types of characters they’re not necessarily known for, which I always appreciate.  Also, fans of the other actors, Luke Pasqualino and Rupert Grint in particular, were very kind and helpful in providing news, BTS video and rare photos as the series filmed, and were-- mostly-- good about not posting spoilers without a warning.

So it saddens me to report  I found the show more annoying than involving. A large part of that is due to the slipshod writing, underwritten characterization and reliance on jarring edits and often “WTF?!” character motivations and action that made it difficult for me to care about the protagonists (or even perceive them as protagonists, really... let’s say The Young Pretty People The Writers Clearly Wanted Us To Like.) 

Mostly I’m upset Marc Warren’s considerable talents were wasted on such a grand scale. So much could have been made of Bob Fink in the hands of a more creative writing staff... every week on Fargo and Better Call Saul, to name just two current examples, corrupt cops and wannabe gangsters (who are often the same characters) have rich, unpredictable storylines which give talented actors a broad canvas on which to showcase their talents and play off one another. But the Fink charter is merely insulted by everyone in his orbit from the beginning (which, frankly, just made me sympathize with him), marginalized in most of the plot and never given enough to do. 

I suspect Ed Westwick fans are also somewhat frustrated that Westwick, who was front and center in most of the promotion,  was too easily dispensed with in episode four, and that most of his colorful momements were actually given away the commercials. 

I'm still baffled by Marc’s treatment in that promotion. His name was literally never mentioned once by other actors or by the show’s Twitter, Facebook and Instagram feeds, though he’s the closest thing to a main antagonist the show has. (Photos of his character appeared, but Marc was never named.)  Did Marc want to avoid being part of the publicity? Was it some sort of misguided decision by the marketing staff because Marc is relatively unknown here, or even because a handful of people keep whining about how much they disliked his character on The Good Wife? I just don’t get it. I’d like some answers about this.

But the promotional absurdities wouldn’t  matter if Marc had been given a decent role to play, and he was shorted in that department too... Fink could have been a great villain or a great tragic character, but, despite some great acting moments from Marc, he wasn’t allowed to be either. The character is bullied, deceived and marginalized by both his gangster friends and corrupt police associates, yet  the writing kept implying he deserved this without ever providing proof. 

Then there was the Vic Hill character, who the writers clearly intended to be charming, but I saw only a thuggish man-child who continuously jeopardizes his family and bullies his perceived underlings. I hated him from the beginning and he only got worse. Dougray Scott’s hammily overdone performance didn’t help matters. I was on Bob’s side pretty much from the start... if only the writers had a clue about nuance and a willingness to challenge their audience or divide it, but... no. There was no character depth to speak of anywhere.

As for the young leads... the old kiddie ganster musical Bugsy Malone kept popping into my head. i couldn’t take them seriously as adults despite the fact these actors are in their late 20s-early 30s and more than capable of playing bona fide adults if they’d been given a decent script. Instead they were given hoary paint-by-numbers plot cliches cribbed from every gangster movie since the 1920s, padded out by clumsily-executed heist sequences and flashbacks that played like music videos.  

In some ways it seemed like the series had two or three episodes worth of material, and the rest was filler, leading to a number of pointless tangents and inexplicable actions. The backstory about the gold was goofy at best, and nice coincidence about it resurfacing exactly when and where Albert, Charlie et al were planning to hijack Sonny’s cash (in an identical truck, no less). The show is full of such cartoonish improbabilities, though none delivered with the verve of an actual cartoon.  

There are repetitive flashback’s of Vic’s original heist (yeah, let’s show Bob getting heaped with more abuse... ), loony side-stories filling in for character development (ie Billy’s whole backstory... what a wasted opportunity that was. Though Lucien Laviscount did a great job with the few subtle dialogue moments he got between having to beat people up and listen to crazy yarns about his parents), repetitive scenes of Charlie getting impaired in various ways, an out-of-nowhere love triangle that seems to be there just to divide the main group, female characters who have too little to do in general except be feisty and supportive (or, in the case of Dwyer, feisty and cuntish)... I get the sense the scripts were all written in the weekend before filming began, and that no one really scrutinized them closely. 

Yes, I’m a Marc Warren fan and am biased. And I knew going in that he was probably playing an antagonist and that he’d get iced in the final episode... I’m used to all of that. Pretty much every actor I’ve ever admired from Lon Chaney Sr onward got typecast as villains or outsiders and got killed onscreen more times than Steve Buscemi does throughout the Coen Brothers’ oeuvre. I don’t have a problem with that. Conventional heroes and the squarejaws who play them bore me. I love complicated characters and character actors who seek out such roles.   

But I don't appreciate youth-obsessed deck-stacking, treating bullies as heroes, and writing which both wants our protagonists to be “bad-ass” or at least risk-taking, yet continuously lets them off the hook, either through miraculous escapes or through having the older characters or one-note side characters take bullets for them or do the dirty work. Full disclosure: I haven’t bothered with the last two episodes because I was so disgusted with what went down in episode 8. I’m pretty sure the Young Pretty People prevailed and that Albert redeemed the sins of his father and finally said something nice to Charlie according to schedule. I can’t say I really care. 

As in The Musketeers, Marc played a bullied, mistreated character who I couldn’t help but care about, both because Marc is such an exquisite actor even in marginal roles, and because I tend to side with complicated or oppressed characters, not with self-described “heroes”.  In both shows, despite being the nominal villain, his character was shunted to the sidelines for too much of the duration, then suddenly given a lot of screentime just before being ganged up on and killed off.  So yeah, the worst kind of deja vu... in The Musketeers at least Rochefort had some fun or powerful moments, and I understood that the show’s episodic structure hindered a more nuanced character through-line. 

But Snatch has no such excuses. Also: couldn’t Bob and Charlie have had a sustained sequence or conversation without annoying cutaways to more trivial matters, like Vic torturing Charlie’s butler (which was played for laughs! God how I hated Vic...)? And why did Bob keep leaving the apartment? Apart from more plot-padding I mean? Why didn’t Bob shoot Vic when he had the chance? Because he really should have. Why was the whole tiresome side trip to America necessary, given how easily Billy got the diamonds back? Much of the plot strains on like that, making no sense. 

The Snatch showrunners keep comparing their efforts to Fargo, Noah Hawley’s brilliant offshoot of the Coens’ film (of all their films, really)... they need to stop doing this. It does them no favors and it makes me pine for Marc to get cast on Hawley’s show (or anything by Vince Gilligan) instead. Yes, I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, because the writers on those shows know something about ambiguity, character development, unpredictable plotting, creative musical cues, and, most essentially, how to hire great character actors and write roles worthy of them, then give them room to breathe onscreen.   Hawley or Gilligan would’ve known what to do with Bob Fink. They could’ve done for Marc what they’ve done for Giancarlo Esposito, Bryan Cranston, Jonathan Banks, Bokeem Woodbine, Alison Tolman... even established stars like Ewen McGregor  and Billy Bob Thornton have shown new capabilities on Fargo. I would donate my left kidney to see Marc on one of those shows, whereas if the Snatch crew had created Breaking Bad... I'm sure Walter White would’ve been killed off in season one while the balance of the show went on to document the hijinks of Badger and Skinny Pete.   

I know I’ve gone on long enough, but I'm still bitter. ;) Marc Warren has really scaled back his acting commitments in recent years. I have no idea why, whether his priorities now lie elsewhere (and it’s none of my business to guess where), or whether he’s just not getting the calibre of role he’d like... if Snatch and Audible “Audio dramas” are the best he’s being offered, it must be very frustrating, but I don't want to judge his choices when I have no idea why they were made. Marc rarely gives interviews these days.  He has said in the past that Mad Dogs arose from the poor quality of roles offered him at that time. If he and his actor friends wanted to crowdfund something along those lines I would do everything in my power to promote that or help. If Marc simply wants to focus his attentions elsewhere and not act so often, that’s perfectly within his rights as well. Of course he owes me nothing. I hope that when he appears at Birmingham’s Collectormania fancon to do signings next month (June 3) he’ll give us a hint of some kind. (Don’t worry, Marc, I won’t be there... I only do the fangirl thing from a distance.) 

Anyhow... with Marc doing so few projects lately, it’s incredibly frustrating to wait months for something like Snatch, that so consistently fails to deliver. Marc does the best he can and has some great moments in spite of the limits he’s working under. As I’ve said, there was the potential for a great, messy, complicated character there. He deserved so much better.

[lodelss]

Evelyn McDonnell | Longreads | March 2019 | 11 minutes (2,166 words)

  When Janelle Monae inducts Janet Jackson into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame on March 29, it will be a beautiful moment: a young, gifted, and black woman acknowledging the formative influence — on herself and millions of others — of a woman who seized Control of her own career 33 years ago. It will also be an anomaly.

Jackson is one of only two women being inducted into the hall this year, out of 37 inductees, including the members of the five all-male bands being inducted. The other woman is Stevie Nicks. During the 34 years since the hall was founded by Jann Wenner and Ahmet Ertegun, 888 people have been inducted; 69 have been women. That’s 7.7 percent. The problem is spreading.

A November Rolling Stone article announced that the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York, was collaborating with the Rock Hall on a new exhibit of “iconic instruments of rock ‘n’ roll” called Play It Loud. Scheduled to open on April 8, the list of acts whose instruments would be on display included only one woman. My social media feeds exploded with rage and quips, as we wondered whether St. Vincent made the cut because the curators assumed from her name that she was male. Since then, the Met has added several women (and men) to the exhibit list, including Patti Smith, Wanda Jackson, and Joan Jett. It isn’t clear whether the Met added these women as a result of the internet outrage or if they were part of the show all along. After all, all three institutions — the hall, the museum, and the magazine — have, as Jett might say, a bad reputation for excluding women from their reindeer games.

People and institutions have to stop defining rock and rock ‘n’ roll as music played by men, especially white men, with guitars.

The Rock Hall is the most obvious offender in what I’ll call the manhandling of musical history. Manhandling is akin to, and often — as with the Rock Hall — intersects with, whitewashing. Manhandling pushes women out of the frame just as whitewashing covers up black bodies. People of color account for 32 percent of Rock Hall inductees, a far better figure than for women, but still not representative of the enormous role African Americans and Latinx people have played in American popular music. Manhandling is standard practice on country radio; there were no women in the Top 20 of Billboard’s country airplay chart for two weeks in December. Manhandling is standard practice on classic rock radio, where women are relegated to token spots on playlists, and are never played back-to-back. It’s standard in histories of music; there are no women featured in Greil Marcus’s seminal book Mystery Train: Images of Rock ‘n’ Roll in America. And of course, it’s standard practice at IM Pei’s partial glass pyramid in Cleveland. One year of affirmative action at the Grammys cannot wipe away decades of manhandling.

The problem is pervasive, and it is ideological. It is a way of seeing and presenting the world that is based on projections of power and control, not on reality. People and institutions have to stop defining rock and rock ‘n’ roll as music played by men, especially white men, with guitars. We have to change this image, this historiography, this institutionalization, this lie. In short, you do not need a cock to rock.

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Exhibit A: Sister Rosetta Tharpe. In the 1930s, the blues and gospel singer began picking her guitar in a way that we now recognize as the foundation of rock ‘n’ roll playing — she laid the foundation upon which Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly built. There’s footage of her with a Gibson that’s been viewed 2.7 million times on YouTube. If you’re not one of those viewers, become one now. Tharpe was finally inducted into the Rock Hall in 2018.

Holly and Berry were both among the first 16 acts inducted in the Rock Hall, in 1986. All their fellow inductees were male. Built on such grotesquely imbalanced footing, the institution may never get itself right. After all, its main instigator was Ahmet Ertegun, an admittedly legendary records man who treated women abominably, according to Dorothy Carvello’s 2018 memoir Anything for a Hit. Carvello is a music executive who began her career working for Ertegun at Atlantic. Ertegun subjected her to crude sexual harassment and once fractured her arm in anger. The Rock Hall named its main exhibition hall after Ertegun. How can this ever be a place where women feel welcome, let alone safe? Just as universities have removed from buildings and fellowships the names of film executives who gave them money, such as USC renaming their Bryan Singer Division of Critical Studies, the Rock Hall should remove Ertegun’s name from the building and from the annual industry executive award that bears his name. It’s an award that has never been given to a woman.

I would like to not care about what institutions such as the Met and Hall of Fame do.

I pick on the Rock Hall because I care. I love rock ‘n’ roll, to borrow a phrase. I attended the building’s inaugural event, and despite my ever-growing disenchantment, I always pay attention to who is nominated and who wins. I even get to vote — finally. Aware of the way it was increasingly being seen as a sort of hospice for aging white men, the hall has been trying to diversify its voting body, or risk obsolescence. After two decades as a professional rock writer, I was finally asked to vote a few years ago, and to recruit friends. The problem is, every inductee also gets a vote. So every year, more and more men get the franchise and vote in their friends and heroes, who tend to be men. The hall rigged its own system with its testosterocking inaugural class, and despite efforts to add gender and color balance, the numbers are getting worse.

It’s tempting to just say so what. I would like to not care about what institutions such as the Met and Hall of Fame do. They are essentially shrines to white men created by white men, so of course, they honor white men. But they pretend to serve the public — and in the Met’s case, it is in part a publicly funded institution. The Hall of Fame and its associated museum have enormous cultural power, writing in stone the historical importance of individuals in a way that no other institution or publication or organization does. They also create real economic benefits for culture workers. Being inducted into the Rock Hall doesn’t just look good on your resume, it helps sell records and tickets. Most importantly, these institutions provide inspiration — role models — for future generations. And if the only women you’re going to see receiving awards on that stage at the Barclays Center are Janet Jackson and Stevie Nicks, would you, if you were a little girl, go pick up a guitar?

Time’s up for the Rock Hall and the music industry. The Grammys got called on its #GrammysSoMale gender gap in 2018. After women complained that they were largely shut out of the telecast winners, Recording Academy president Neil Portnow responded that female artists needed to “step up” and they would be welcome. Needless to say, that patronizing, clueless comment went over like a lead zeppelin; there were calls for Portnow’s head, including an online petition for him to resign. So this February, the telecast featured an impressive roster of contemporary and historic talent, from Lady Gaga and Brandi Carlile to Dolly Parton and Diana Ross. But then Portnow stepped on stage and publicly patted himself on the back for the show’s sudden gender balance, like he was our white savior, our knight in shining armor coming to our emotional rescue with this feel-good moment.

Moments are not enough. Thankfully, Portnow is stepping down from his position in July. And yes, I’m sure a woman would be happy to take his place. This is part of the change that must happen in the businesses and nonprofits that support music. Women must be hired and promoted across all facets of the industry: as the editor in chief of Rolling Stone, the chairman of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, the CEO of Universal Music Group. After all, a recent study from the University of Southern California shows that women are outnumbered in most aspects of the business, accounting for only 2 percent of producers and 12.3 percent of songwriters, for instance.

Some of this imbalance is a result of outright exclusion or unwelcoming environments. (Just ask any woman who has worked at a music magazine or a recording studio what it’s like to be, as former Rolling Stone writer Robin Green titled her 2018 memoir, “the only girl.”) Some is a result of sexual harassment or assault, which leaves women so traumatized that their careers stall or even stop. Ever wonder why a favorite artist, songwriter, or DJ ghosted for years? Increasing revelations about the predatory behavior of musicians, publicists, producers, managers, and executives show that, as a whole, the music industry can be a frightening place to be female, whether you’re a young intern working for R. Kelly or a talented country singer married to Ryan Adams. Mandy Moore married Adams in 2009, and hasn’t released an album since. They divorced in 2016. A New York Times investigation of Adams’s alleged predatory behavior toward younger women described him as “psychologically abusive” to Moore.

Guys like Ertegun, who died in 2006, reportedly manhandled in the workplace, in addition to creating the Cleveland shrine to gender inequity. Carvello’s book documents in scandalous detail how he and other executives created a boys’ club environment where women had to either pretend to be one of the boys, betraying their sisters, or trade sex for promotion. In Ertegun’s world, women were not allowed to step up; they were stepped on. Having systematically excluded and oppressed women from the business of making music, Ertegun and his cronies at the Rock Hall then carved that exclusion into stone by essentially writing them out of history, year after year after year. When women do get let into the Rock Hall boys’ club, it is on the arms of men: Carole King is there for her songwriting with Gerry Goffin, not as the woman who recorded numerous hit songs herself, including those on the record-smashing album Tapestry. Tina Turner was inducted alongside her abusive ex-spouse Ike. Indeed, the hall seems to define rock in a way that is disturbingly masculinist, as opposed to expansive and risk-taking — the qualities I like to think of as defining popular music. How about a Hall of Fame that includes Selena, TLC, Patsy Cline, and Grace Jones?

There’s nothing so scary to certain men as a bunch of women banding together. That’s another tool of the patriarchy: divide and conquer.

I’m delighted that two deserving female artists, Janet Jackson and Stevie Nicks, will be inducted this year. It’s particularly noteworthy that Nicks is getting the nod as a solo artist, after she was already inducted as part of Fleetwood Mac; she’s the first woman to be inducted twice, joining 22 men in the so-called Clyde McPhatter Club. Next year, the Hall must do the same for Tina and Carole. After being nominated so many times, Chaka Khan must finally be inducted as well.

That still won’t be enough to counteract the sheer numerical voting power of all the male musicians who get in as members of bands, especially if the men of Rufus, Khan’s collaborators with whom she has thrice been nominated, are inducted alongside Khan. There are three things the Hall of Fame can do to rectify that imbalance: 1. Flood the nominating committee and voting membership with more women. Six out of 29 members of last year’s nominating committee were women; the notoriously tight-lipped hall has not revealed this year’s committee members. 2. Reduce the voting power of members inducted as players in bands (so, say, the five dudes in Def Leppard each get one fifth of a vote). 3. Nominate a shit ton of all-female bands next year.

Female musicians and groups are particularly absent from the Rock Hall, as from the industry. There’s nothing so scary to certain men as a bunch of women banding together. That’s another tool of the patriarchy: divide and conquer. It’s why Lady Gaga is basically the only woman in A Star Is Born, a film ostensibly celebrating female artistry. She has no mother, no sister; even her girlfriends are male, and they’re drag queens. By focusing on individual artists, not a collective, the entertainment-industrial complex elevates the star, not the gender. The lioness is separated from her pack.

That’s why some women involved in music have formed an activist group, named Turn It Up! As our mission statement says, we “advocate for equal airplay, media coverage and industry employment of groups who are historically and structurally excluded from the business and the institutions of music-making.” And yes, we’re coming for you, sons of Ertegun.

Here’s who I’d like to see inducted in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame next year:

Tina Turner

Chaka Khan

Carole King

Diana Ross

Dolly Parton

The Go-Go’s

L7

The Runaways

Bikini Kill

The Crystals

Labelle

Salt N Pepa

That would add more than 30 women to the voting rolls. It’s not enough to correct the historical record, but it’s a step up.

***

Evelyn McDonnell is associate professor of journalism at Loyola Marymount University. She has been writing about popular culture and society for more than 20 years. She is the author of four books: Queens of Noise: The Real Story of the Runaways, Mamarama: A Memoir of Sex, Kids and Rock ‘n’ Roll, Army of She: Icelandic, Iconoclastic, Irrepressible Bjork, and Rent by Jonathan Larson. She coedited the anthologies Women Who Rock: Bessie to Beyonce. Girl Groups to Riot Grrrl, Rock She Wrote: Women Write About Rock, Pop and Rap, and Stars Don’t Stand Still in the Sky: Music and Myth and edit the Music Matters series from University of Texas Press. She lives in Los Angeles.

Flor Amezquita, Marika Price and Adele Bertei assisted with research for this article. Figures are based off the official Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s induction page, which was then cross-referenced with multiple lists and sources.

Editor: Aaron Gilbreath; Fact-checker: Matt Giles

[winniegist]

Want To Get Out Of Debt?

You should treat Your Life Like A Business.  Think about it.  Everywhere you turn, whether it’s TV, radio or the internet, consumers are inundated with “get out of debt fast” scams. Unfortunately, most families end up learning the hard way that if it sounds to good to be true it probably is. Companies like Tax Masters, JK Harris and others have gone out of business due to an inability to deliver on the unrealistic promises they make to their customers.

The Business World Has Important Lessons To Offer Consumers Trying To Get Out Of Debt

Since those searching for debt relief have been warned about scams, and have already read countless articles on saving money, paying down debt, borrowing from family and friends and shopping for lower interest credit opportunities, I wanted to liven things up a bit with a different type of get out of debt plan.

Start treating your life like a business. While it may sound counterintuitive, there are many important lessons consumers can learn from successful small business owners.

Successful businesses track spending and don’t take on overhead unless it’s necessary

As a small business owner who has been in business for over 4 years now, I can attest to this principle personally. Unnecessary overhead is a killer. Small business owners won’t stay in business long if they recklessly take on overhead and spend on goods and services they don’t need. In many respects, the trick to running a service based business, like a small law firm, is smart decision making when it comes to spending. If you’re looking for ways to get out of debt, you could do a lot worse than starting with a Quick Books account for your personal checking account.

Start tracking where your money goes

Are you spending too much on entertainment? Credit card bills? Housing? Keeping an eye on where your money is going will give you a better idea of how to cut back on non-essential spending. For example, you may believe that you’re only spending small amounts on dinner and drinks with friends, but maybe it’s a larger percentage of your gross income than you realized. Having access to hard data will up your sophistication level considerably and give you ideas for a plan of action.

Successful businesses are organized

Too often, consumers facing bill problems are overwhelmed by the sheer number of creditors that are calling and writing. They lose track of who and how much they owe. If your plan is to get out of debt, this is not an option. Like a small business that keeps records of all vendors, expenditures, deductions and receipts, you too need a master list of all debts. Even if it is nothing more than an excel spreadsheet that you update every week or so, keep track of every outstanding bill you owe. Make a separate category for bills that are recurring on a monthly basis. Again, this strategy is made much easier by using software like Quick Books, but any system is better than no system. For the chronically disorganized, even a special folder where all bills are kept would be a start. There is no way to get out of debt, unless you have a clear picture of how deep you are in the first place. Get organized.

Successful small business owners think outside the box

Even if only for a moment, break free from the “salary mentality.” Your income does not necessarily need to be finite based on a raise or promotion. Most successful entrepreneurs are creative, they’ve invented ways to make money, either on the side, or as the sole focus of their career. You can do the same, and don’t think you need a multi-million dollar idea to participate. Brainstorm with friends or family, where does your expertise lie? How can you monetize your talents? Even something as simple as selling baked goods to local businesses, creating gift baskets for events, tutoring local students, or making special T-shirts with a catchy slogan can begin to generate income you can use to pay down your debts.

Successful businesses have a long term time horizon

You know all the cliches: Rome wasn’t built in a day, patience is a virtue etc. But consider this, most startup business ventures don’t allow stock options to vest for four years or more! Business owners understand that the first years of a new enterprise are often the most difficult and they are prepared to invest time and money in order to build something sustainable. The goal is to put a plan in place that you can stick with, and that will produce results, for years to come. Forget the scams, forget the get rich quick stuff, get organized, get data and get going, one step at a time.

Successful businesses use bankruptcy as a reset button

At the dinner table, bankruptcy is taboo, but in the board room, it is a sophisticated move that businesses use to start over stronger than before. While bankruptcy is not a process to be entered into lightly, it must be considered as an option for a struggling consumer just as it is for a struggling business. Regardless of level of organization, time horizon, reduction in overhead or side profits from an entrepreneurial business, some consumers are hopelessly saddled with debt and have no other way out than bankruptcy. The point here is that bankruptcy cannot be foreclosed as an option, and must be evaluated, even as you seek to avoid it.

Getting Out of Debt Isn’t Easy, But It Is Possible

Getting out of debt isn’t easy and there will never be a shortage of voices telling you the “best” way to succeed. Regardless of which path you decide to take, incorporating some of sophistication of a successful business into your personal finance routine can only help in the long run.

Free Consultation with Bankruptcy Lawyer

If you have a bankruptcy question, or need to file a bankruptcy case, call Ascent Law now at (801) 676-5506. Attorneys in our office have filed over a thousand cases. We can help you now. Come in or call in for your free initial consultation.

Ascent Law LLC8833 S. Redwood Road, Suite CWest Jordan, Utah 84088 United StatesTelephone: (801) 676-5506

Ascent Law LLC

4.9 stars – based on 67 reviews

Recent Posts

Fiduciary Duties and Business Judgment in a Business Divorce

What is a Chapter 7 Bankruptcy?

Child Support Guidelines Reflect Modern Ideals

Utah Bankruptcy Attorneys

Bankruptcy Lawyer Salt Lake City

Chapter 7 Lawyer

Source: http://www.ascentlawfirm.com/want-to-get-out-of-debt/

[declankhan]

Want To Get Out Of Debt?

You should treat Your Life Like A Business.  Think about it.  Everywhere you turn, whether it’s TV, radio or the internet, consumers are inundated with “get out of debt fast” scams. Unfortunately, most families end up learning the hard way that if it sounds to good to be true it probably is. Companies like Tax Masters, JK Harris and others have gone out of business due to an inability to deliver on the unrealistic promises they make to their customers.

The Business World Has Important Lessons To Offer Consumers Trying To Get Out Of Debt

Since those searching for debt relief have been warned about scams, and have already read countless articles on saving money, paying down debt, borrowing from family and friends and shopping for lower interest credit opportunities, I wanted to liven things up a bit with a different type of get out of debt plan.

Start treating your life like a business. While it may sound counterintuitive, there are many important lessons consumers can learn from successful small business owners.

Successful businesses track spending and don’t take on overhead unless it’s necessary

As a small business owner who has been in business for over 4 years now, I can attest to this principle personally. Unnecessary overhead is a killer. Small business owners won’t stay in business long if they recklessly take on overhead and spend on goods and services they don’t need. In many respects, the trick to running a service based business, like a small law firm, is smart decision making when it comes to spending. If you’re looking for ways to get out of debt, you could do a lot worse than starting with a Quick Books account for your personal checking account.

Start tracking where your money goes

Are you spending too much on entertainment? Credit card bills? Housing? Keeping an eye on where your money is going will give you a better idea of how to cut back on non-essential spending. For example, you may believe that you’re only spending small amounts on dinner and drinks with friends, but maybe it’s a larger percentage of your gross income than you realized. Having access to hard data will up your sophistication level considerably and give you ideas for a plan of action.

Successful businesses are organized

Too often, consumers facing bill problems are overwhelmed by the sheer number of creditors that are calling and writing. They lose track of who and how much they owe. If your plan is to get out of debt, this is not an option. Like a small business that keeps records of all vendors, expenditures, deductions and receipts, you too need a master list of all debts. Even if it is nothing more than an excel spreadsheet that you update every week or so, keep track of every outstanding bill you owe. Make a separate category for bills that are recurring on a monthly basis. Again, this strategy is made much easier by using software like Quick Books, but any system is better than no system. For the chronically disorganized, even a special folder where all bills are kept would be a start. There is no way to get out of debt, unless you have a clear picture of how deep you are in the first place. Get organized.

Successful small business owners think outside the box

Even if only for a moment, break free from the “salary mentality.” Your income does not necessarily need to be finite based on a raise or promotion. Most successful entrepreneurs are creative, they’ve invented ways to make money, either on the side, or as the sole focus of their career. You can do the same, and don’t think you need a multi-million dollar idea to participate. Brainstorm with friends or family, where does your expertise lie? How can you monetize your talents? Even something as simple as selling baked goods to local businesses, creating gift baskets for events, tutoring local students, or making special T-shirts with a catchy slogan can begin to generate income you can use to pay down your debts.

Successful businesses have a long term time horizon

You know all the cliches: Rome wasn’t built in a day, patience is a virtue etc. But consider this, most startup business ventures don’t allow stock options to vest for four years or more! Business owners understand that the first years of a new enterprise are often the most difficult and they are prepared to invest time and money in order to build something sustainable. The goal is to put a plan in place that you can stick with, and that will produce results, for years to come. Forget the scams, forget the get rich quick stuff, get organized, get data and get going, one step at a time.

Successful businesses use bankruptcy as a reset button

At the dinner table, bankruptcy is taboo, but in the board room, it is a sophisticated move that businesses use to start over stronger than before. While bankruptcy is not a process to be entered into lightly, it must be considered as an option for a struggling consumer just as it is for a struggling business. Regardless of level of organization, time horizon, reduction in overhead or side profits from an entrepreneurial business, some consumers are hopelessly saddled with debt and have no other way out than bankruptcy. The point here is that bankruptcy cannot be foreclosed as an option, and must be evaluated, even as you seek to avoid it.

Getting Out of Debt Isn’t Easy, But It Is Possible

Getting out of debt isn’t easy and there will never be a shortage of voices telling you the “best” way to succeed. Regardless of which path you decide to take, incorporating some of sophistication of a successful business into your personal finance routine can only help in the long run.

Free Consultation with Bankruptcy Lawyer

If you have a bankruptcy question, or need to file a bankruptcy case, call Ascent Law now at (801) 676-5506. Attorneys in our office have filed over a thousand cases. We can help you now. Come in or call in for your free initial consultation.

Ascent Law LLC8833 S. Redwood Road, Suite CWest Jordan, Utah 84088 United StatesTelephone: (801) 676-5506

Ascent Law LLC

4.9 stars – based on 67 reviews

Recent Posts

Fiduciary Duties and Business Judgment in a Business Divorce

What is a Chapter 7 Bankruptcy?

Child Support Guidelines Reflect Modern Ideals

Utah Bankruptcy Attorneys

Bankruptcy Lawyer Salt Lake City

Chapter 7 Lawyer

Repost: http://www.ascentlawfirm.com/want-to-get-out-of-debt/ “Steven E. Rush / Divorce Lawyer Utah” http://www.ascentlawfirm.com/

Repost: https://stevenrushutah.wordpress.com/2018/04/05/want-to-get-out-of-debt-2/ * Steven E. Rush * https://stevenrushutah.wordpress.com/

[aretia]

Want To Get Out Of Debt?

You should treat Your Life Like A Business.  Think about it.  Everywhere you turn, whether it’s TV, radio or the internet, consumers are inundated with “get out of debt fast” scams. Unfortunately, most families end up learning the hard way that if it sounds to good to be true it probably is. Companies like Tax Masters, JK Harris and others have gone out of business due to an inability to deliver on the unrealistic promises they make to their customers.

The Business World Has Important Lessons To Offer Consumers Trying To Get Out Of Debt

Since those searching for debt relief have been warned about scams, and have already read countless articles on saving money, paying down debt, borrowing from family and friends and shopping for lower interest credit opportunities, I wanted to liven things up a bit with a different type of get out of debt plan.

Start treating your life like a business. While it may sound counterintuitive, there are many important lessons consumers can learn from successful small business owners.

Successful businesses track spending and don’t take on overhead unless it’s necessary

As a small business owner who has been in business for over 4 years now, I can attest to this principle personally. Unnecessary overhead is a killer. Small business owners won’t stay in business long if they recklessly take on overhead and spend on goods and services they don’t need. In many respects, the trick to running a service based business, like a small law firm, is smart decision making when it comes to spending. If you’re looking for ways to get out of debt, you could do a lot worse than starting with a Quick Books account for your personal checking account.

Start tracking where your money goes

Are you spending too much on entertainment? Credit card bills? Housing? Keeping an eye on where your money is going will give you a better idea of how to cut back on non-essential spending. For example, you may believe that you’re only spending small amounts on dinner and drinks with friends, but maybe it’s a larger percentage of your gross income than you realized. Having access to hard data will up your sophistication level considerably and give you ideas for a plan of action.

Successful businesses are organized

Too often, consumers facing bill problems are overwhelmed by the sheer number of creditors that are calling and writing. They lose track of who and how much they owe. If your plan is to get out of debt, this is not an option. Like a small business that keeps records of all vendors, expenditures, deductions and receipts, you too need a master list of all debts. Even if it is nothing more than an excel spreadsheet that you update every week or so, keep track of every outstanding bill you owe. Make a separate category for bills that are recurring on a monthly basis. Again, this strategy is made much easier by using software like Quick Books, but any system is better than no system. For the chronically disorganized, even a special folder where all bills are kept would be a start. There is no way to get out of debt, unless you have a clear picture of how deep you are in the first place. Get organized.

Successful small business owners think outside the box

Even if only for a moment, break free from the “salary mentality.” Your income does not necessarily need to be finite based on a raise or promotion. Most successful entrepreneurs are creative, they’ve invented ways to make money, either on the side, or as the sole focus of their career. You can do the same, and don’t think you need a multi-million dollar idea to participate. Brainstorm with friends or family, where does your expertise lie? How can you monetize your talents? Even something as simple as selling baked goods to local businesses, creating gift baskets for events, tutoring local students, or making special T-shirts with a catchy slogan can begin to generate income you can use to pay down your debts.

Successful businesses have a long term time horizon

You know all the cliches: Rome wasn’t built in a day, patience is a virtue etc. But consider this, most startup business ventures don’t allow stock options to vest for four years or more! Business owners understand that the first years of a new enterprise are often the most difficult and they are prepared to invest time and money in order to build something sustainable. The goal is to put a plan in place that you can stick with, and that will produce results, for years to come. Forget the scams, forget the get rich quick stuff, get organized, get data and get going, one step at a time.

Successful businesses use bankruptcy as a reset button

At the dinner table, bankruptcy is taboo, but in the board room, it is a sophisticated move that businesses use to start over stronger than before. While bankruptcy is not a process to be entered into lightly, it must be considered as an option for a struggling consumer just as it is for a struggling business. Regardless of level of organization, time horizon, reduction in overhead or side profits from an entrepreneurial business, some consumers are hopelessly saddled with debt and have no other way out than bankruptcy. The point here is that bankruptcy cannot be foreclosed as an option, and must be evaluated, even as you seek to avoid it.

Getting Out of Debt Isn’t Easy, But It Is Possible

Getting out of debt isn’t easy and there will never be a shortage of voices telling you the “best” way to succeed. Regardless of which path you decide to take, incorporating some of sophistication of a successful business into your personal finance routine can only help in the long run.

Free Consultation with Bankruptcy Lawyer

If you have a bankruptcy question, or need to file a bankruptcy case, call Ascent Law now at (801) 676-5506. Attorneys in our office have filed over a thousand cases. We can help you now. Come in or call in for your free initial consultation.

Ascent Law LLC8833 S. Redwood Road, Suite CWest Jordan, Utah 84088 United StatesTelephone: (801) 676-5506

Ascent Law LLC

4.9 stars – based on 67 reviews

Recent Posts

Fiduciary Duties and Business Judgment in a Business Divorce

What is a Chapter 7 Bankruptcy?

Child Support Guidelines Reflect Modern Ideals

Utah Bankruptcy Attorneys

Bankruptcy Lawyer Salt Lake City

Chapter 7 Lawyer

Source: http://www.ascentlawfirm.com/want-to-get-out-of-debt/

[advertphoto]

Want To Get Out Of Debt?

You should treat Your Life Like A Business.  Think about it.  Everywhere you turn, whether it’s TV, radio or the internet, consumers are inundated with “get out of debt fast” scams. Unfortunately, most families end up learning the hard way that if it sounds to good to be true it probably is. Companies like Tax Masters, JK Harris and others have gone out of business due to an inability to deliver on the unrealistic promises they make to their customers.

The Business World Has Important Lessons To Offer Consumers Trying To Get Out Of Debt

Since those searching for debt relief have been warned about scams, and have already read countless articles on saving money, paying down debt, borrowing from family and friends and shopping for lower interest credit opportunities, I wanted to liven things up a bit with a different type of get out of debt plan.

Start treating your life like a business. While it may sound counterintuitive, there are many important lessons consumers can learn from successful small business owners.

Successful businesses track spending and don’t take on overhead unless it’s necessary

As a small business owner who has been in business for over 4 years now, I can attest to this principle personally. Unnecessary overhead is a killer. Small business owners won’t stay in business long if they recklessly take on overhead and spend on goods and services they don’t need. In many respects, the trick to running a service based business, like a small law firm, is smart decision making when it comes to spending. If you’re looking for ways to get out of debt, you could do a lot worse than starting with a Quick Books account for your personal checking account.

Start tracking where your money goes

Are you spending too much on entertainment? Credit card bills? Housing? Keeping an eye on where your money is going will give you a better idea of how to cut back on non-essential spending. For example, you may believe that you’re only spending small amounts on dinner and drinks with friends, but maybe it’s a larger percentage of your gross income than you realized. Having access to hard data will up your sophistication level considerably and give you ideas for a plan of action.

Successful businesses are organized

Too often, consumers facing bill problems are overwhelmed by the sheer number of creditors that are calling and writing. They lose track of who and how much they owe. If your plan is to get out of debt, this is not an option. Like a small business that keeps records of all vendors, expenditures, deductions and receipts, you too need a master list of all debts. Even if it is nothing more than an excel spreadsheet that you update every week or so, keep track of every outstanding bill you owe. Make a separate category for bills that are recurring on a monthly basis. Again, this strategy is made much easier by using software like Quick Books, but any system is better than no system. For the chronically disorganized, even a special folder where all bills are kept would be a start. There is no way to get out of debt, unless you have a clear picture of how deep you are in the first place. Get organized.

Successful small business owners think outside the box

Even if only for a moment, break free from the “salary mentality.” Your income does not necessarily need to be finite based on a raise or promotion. Most successful entrepreneurs are creative, they’ve invented ways to make money, either on the side, or as the sole focus of their career. You can do the same, and don’t think you need a multi-million dollar idea to participate. Brainstorm with friends or family, where does your expertise lie? How can you monetize your talents? Even something as simple as selling baked goods to local businesses, creating gift baskets for events, tutoring local students, or making special T-shirts with a catchy slogan can begin to generate income you can use to pay down your debts.

Successful businesses have a long term time horizon

You know all the cliches: Rome wasn’t built in a day, patience is a virtue etc. But consider this, most startup business ventures don’t allow stock options to vest for four years or more! Business owners understand that the first years of a new enterprise are often the most difficult and they are prepared to invest time and money in order to build something sustainable. The goal is to put a plan in place that you can stick with, and that will produce results, for years to come. Forget the scams, forget the get rich quick stuff, get organized, get data and get going, one step at a time.

Successful businesses use bankruptcy as a reset button

At the dinner table, bankruptcy is taboo, but in the board room, it is a sophisticated move that businesses use to start over stronger than before. While bankruptcy is not a process to be entered into lightly, it must be considered as an option for a struggling consumer just as it is for a struggling business. Regardless of level of organization, time horizon, reduction in overhead or side profits from an entrepreneurial business, some consumers are hopelessly saddled with debt and have no other way out than bankruptcy. The point here is that bankruptcy cannot be foreclosed as an option, and must be evaluated, even as you seek to avoid it.

Getting Out of Debt Isn’t Easy, But It Is Possible

Getting out of debt isn’t easy and there will never be a shortage of voices telling you the “best” way to succeed. Regardless of which path you decide to take, incorporating some of sophistication of a successful business into your personal finance routine can only help in the long run.

Free Consultation with Bankruptcy Lawyer

If you have a bankruptcy question, or need to file a bankruptcy case, call Ascent Law now at (801) 676-5506. Attorneys in our office have filed over a thousand cases. We can help you now. Come in or call in for your free initial consultation.

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[betsynagler]

Why we all have to admit that we knew about Harvey

When I heard the “news” about Harvey Weinstein, I wasn’t surprised. I already knew. The rumors had been around for years. As many other women have talked about, there were “whispers” among us, telling fellow women to beware. But even if I hadn’t heard some of the actual stories about Harvey — including that he’d raped women, because someone had told me that too — my reaction would probably have been the same. I was appalled, of course, and I’d surely have been more appalled if I’d known the extent of it, how many women had been subjected to this harassment or assault or rape, how regular it was for him. But at the same time, these types of stories about men in power in the business, this system — because it is a system — was to a certain degree something I realized I’d accepted for a long time. It was part of my experience, it was part of the experience of people I knew personally, and it was par for the course. That’s the one thing Harvey said that was true: he was “used to this,” because “this” was considered how the business works. That’s why those are the words used not just by him but women trying to explain why they couldn’t say anything, or who decided they’d rather not be in the business at all than have to deal with this type of treatment. That was the choice, for many: accept and deal, or decide that a career in film is not for you. Period.

How did it get to be this way, that we just accepted this situation as the norm? I think for all of us in the industry, and particularly women, it’s a long story. It’s about how you take up visual storytelling because you love it and because you think you’re good at it. How, at that stage, when you’re first drawn to it, you’re idealistic enough to think that art is really what it’s about, and then the more you become immersed in it, and trying to succeed in it, adjusting to what it takes to succeed in it, the more you slowly come to realize that it’s about a few things that are entirely different. One of them, as I’ve written about before, is money. But another is the fucked up relationship between sex and power in the entertainment industry. But at the point at which you understand, for better or worse, you’re already a part it, maybe hoping to change it to the degree that you can from the inside, but also accepting what exists as reality, because of everything that you’ve had drummed into you along the way.

For me, that story begins in film school. When I started grad school at NYU, I was 21, and really naive about everything. In my group of college friends at Stanford, most of us knew how to either be in relationships or be single, with very little in between. At film school, full of 20-somethings released into the wild of New York City, there were not only constantly hookups and shifting short- and long-term affairs among the students, but also power dynamics that were playing out in uncomfortable ways. There was one woman I knew who always seemed to be in relationships with men who could do something for her, like provide her with a place to live or help on a project. There was another who was rumored to sleep around, not just with fellow students and TAs, but with professors who were not young or attractive (mind you we also had slutty male classmates but we didn’t talk about them in quite the same way). And then there was the fact that, while everyone in first year shot three films for their fellow students, because rotating roles was the structure of the curriculum, by the time we got to third year, the only women who were shooting were shooting for their boyfriends.

Now, you could look at these facts and make no assumptions, or you could look at them and just think they justified some truly negative stereotypes about women: that they use sex and intimacy to get somewhere, and that they wouldn’t succeed if they didn’t use those things to get ahead — and indeed, that was how a lot of people looked at the first two women I mentioned. But I looked at what was going on and saw,

1) That the people who had the power in the business were generally men. In the entire grad program, I worked with only two female professors. 75% of the TAs were men, and the students and former students who staffed the equipment room were exclusively men. 

2) Everyone needed the help of these men in power, because what enabled you to move up in the business was almost purely subjective. In my undergraduate years, the grades you received, even when they involved writing or something else seemingly creative, had generally reflected how hard you’d worked. In film school, you could still get decent grades by working hard, but people only really cared about how “talented” you were. Their judgment of that was partly based on cinematic convention — at the time and in that place, we were watching and talking about Spike Lee, Nick Gomez, and Martin Scorsese (and a small number of us were talking about Jane Campion) —  and partly on things like personal taste, how much they liked you, and how much they felt they’d influenced your work. This was why professors promoted their favorites, and that was now considered okay. It was why the chair of the department in my first year (who was let go at the end of that year, probably more because he was an alcoholic) was able to call in a handful of students out of 50 in the first week of school and tell them, “You are the ones I chose to succeed.” In other words, success was just about convincing other people, particularly those in power, that you had something special. 

How did you do that? Well, that was the question. If you were a man, you often did it with boldness, confidence and swagger, but by and large, those things didn’t benefit you if you were a woman. Ergo, 

3) If you were a woman, a large part of how you gained recognition was through the relationships you created with men. Sexual or intimate relationships certainly were not the only kind that worked. Throughout my first three years of film school, I had a boyfriend, so I generally built friendships with my male classmates by crewing with them on other people’s films. Nothing helps you get to know someone like long days sweating in a swamp in Jersey or long nights freezing on a rat-infested trash pile in the East Village on a disorganized student film, and doing those things with Jim, who ran the equipment room mafia, is how I ended up getting HMIs and the good tripod for my thesis. But I could only get two fellow classmates to let me be their DP after first year — both women — despite that the two guys I’d shot for in first year, who were friends of mine, had been really happy with my work. Basically, I found out that I could become friends with men, but that they generally developed stronger bonds, the kind that made them trust them trust each other with what was important (like the look of their film), with other men. Men generally just did not form those types of relationships with women unless they were intimate with them.  

The next couple of lessons I learned in my first years out of film school, when I started working in production while trying to write feature scripts that, I hoped, would help me break into the business as a writer/director. One day, I was at a local cafe and I ended up sitting next to an older man with whom I struck up a conversation. That wasn’t something I normally did, but I was trying to be better about learning how to network, since I knew that this was necessary, and he’d noticed the screenplay on which I was working. This man said that he was a professor and a successful screenwriter, and he gave me his card. I sent him a copy of my script and called him soon after (email wasn’t yet a thing) to see if we could meet up for him to read and talk about my script. When he wrote back, he invited me to go over my script at his apartment. I declined. He didn’t call back. Huh, I thought, this shit really does happen. I was lucky, I guess, in that I really had no incentive to get into an ambiguous situation with a man I didn’t know but who was clearly not earning his living as a screenwriter if he was also a professor. As I started to work in independent film, I learned the second half of this equation: that men will finance any piece of crap another man wants to make if it enables them to live out their sexual fantasies. I saw this over and over and over again in the 90s — I mean, it was embarrassing. The film about the cab driver who gets the supermodel to fall in love with him and leave her boyfriend because of sexual prowess so amazing that he gives her an orgasm the first time they meet without touching her (and without her touching herself either, which to me really only makes her amazing. But anyway, the dirty talk that makes her orgasm is in the script in graphic detail); the one about the man who can have all sorts of wild sex with any woman he wants (again, in the script in graphic detail) but yet gives all that up when he falls in love with the right one, only to be confronted with (surprise!) a supermodel who he must resist at all cost (fun fact: James Toback had a part in that one, and I was treated to listening to him talk to the director about the women on set were while he leered at me, like I was a piece of furniture with breasts. Scumbag). I’d go on, but that’s the point when they were basically all the same? What these things add up to is  

4) Sex in the entertainment industry is a commodity, plain and simple. You may have gotten that just from watching movies, television and commercials, but seeing it play out within the business while you’re working in it? That really drives it home. 

Especially when you’re trying to navigate dating and relationships. If you were one of the few women on a film set in the 90s, you got a lot of attention, and it was often difficult to figure out what that meant. Spending those intense hours together day in and day out but now for weeks or months, people developed intense feelings about each other that didn’t necessarily have to do with anything real. I often had flirtations or crushes, which I thought meant something, that just ended suddenly ended when you each moved on to other projects. At wrap parties, I’d be the recipient of sloppy drunk kisses, or solicitations for my phone number, from multiple guys with whom I didn’t think I’d had any real connection other than a fine working relationship, but in which there probably had been some flirtatious content, because, well, when you were the only woman on set, that was how everyone interacted with you. And that content often included those things said to you, or to a group of people of which you were a part, that were not appropriate for the workplace — sexual jokes, innuendoes, etc. — but that you had to ignore if you were going to keep working with these people. So, I figured out 

5) The rules of behavior for women in the film business often require a certain degree of “friendliness”  and tolerance that isn’t required from men. You need to be smiling and nice even when you’re not feeling it, or ignore what makes you uncomfortable, because that’s how you survive and stay employed. There were times when I responded that I considered successful, because only one guy felt uncomfortable around me afterward despite my efforts to explain my feelings to him – and that person didn’t have any control over my job. More often than not, though, like when a sound mixer I was booming for made sexual jokes to me on the private line that only he and I could hear, or when another chose to kiss me on the lips every time we said goodbye at the end of the day, I felt like I couldn’t say anything and still have them hire me, and so I didn’t.

I also ended up erring on the side of not having sex with people I worked with when things were complicated, which largely meant (although not always) my not having sex with anyone, because I was always at work. The actor I was flirting with on the first professional film I ever mixed, but was nervous about getting involved with because it was my first professional film, and because I thought maybe he was only interested in me because he was the one non-gay actor on the film and wanted to prove he wasn’t gay? While I was trying to figure that one out, he slept with my boom operator. The AD I was into who seemed into me but who had a girlfriend? I waffled, he slept with the makeup artist, and I hooked up with someone else – after the film was over, because even when I was desperate to get laid, I was absurdly cautious about getting into awkward situations in the workplace and how other people there might perceive me. I found, however, that there seem to be no rules for most people, because 

6) It’s easy to get involved in inappropriate and often fucked up relationships on film sets. This is probably true of many work environments, because workplace sex is fraught (and if HR is ineffective now, in the 90s it basically didn’t exist), but it’s even more true, I think, when you have short-term jobs with an ever-changing cast of potential partners, which creates an even greater incentive to think only about yourself and fuck all else, sometimes literally. A lot of people have an affair or two on every job, which is just complicated in the normal ways (especially when it’s two). But then there’s the key PA who always seems to hook up with the hottest guy on the set she’s on, who is usually the main actor (once it was a good-looking AC, but that was the exception), or the European DP who assumes his AC will be his mistress for the duration of the shoot (on the job where I met him, the first AC told me she had turned him down, so he was sleeping with the second). This is where it gets particularly murky: when it’s a seemingly consensual relationship between a man in power and a woman who’s not, whose career he can directly affect. Where do you draw the line on who’s doing something wrong? I bet many of you would draw it between those two women: the key PA, like the European DP, did this serially, so she was clearly “no innocent,” whereas the AC was in a position where she may have felt pressured. I bet some of you would just say that they were both adults, making their own choices. Some might even say that both women used sex for personal gain, and using that calculus, you might look down on the AC more, since she’s now a successful camera operator. But to me, both situations are indications of something just plain rotten in the industry. We don’t know what really went down between these men and these women, except that the men had power and the women didn’t, and sex was involved.

Maybe all of this still doesn’t make sense to you, how so many of us could know that this is how things work in this business and still work in this business. But let me point out one more thing in case it’s not clear: 

7) What’s at stake is huge. It’s the fulfillment of your creative aspirations, plus fame that opens doors to everything, and financial reward beyond what any human being really needs. This is what the film industry promises to all of us, and even once you realize you’re probably not going to get those things because hardly anyone does, and that the people who have them aren’t necessarily happy because they’ve made loads of compromises to get there, once you’re a part of the system, once you think you understand it, even once you know how rigged and wrong it is in every way, it’s really hard to let go of the dream. Especially when you’ve been through or put up with or done so much that you never thought you would.

I guess what I’m saying is, if you’re in this industry, you knew because you know. You know that this is what it’s like, and that makes you culpable, because you’ve compromised, just like we all have. A business where men have all the power and relationships with them are everything, where sex is a commodity, where women are constantly placed in inappropriate situations and forced to choose between poor options, and where the stakes are incredibly high, is just going to be a bad business for women. So if you’re a part of the business, you’re also a part of the bad. Yes, I’ve been a victim, but I’m also part of the system, I’m one of those cogs that keeps it chugging along. I’m taking responsibility for that, as hard as it may sometimes be, rather than just shrugging and saying, as I have so many times, That’s just how it is. That means speaking up not just occasionally but whenever I see something that shouldn’t happen happen. It means creating work with complex female lead characters instead of just Madonnas and supermodels. It means supporting women and helping them move up whenever possible, to change the power imbalance. And even if I’ve failed at changing much because I’m nobody, I need to keep trying, or I need to get the fuck out.

What about you?

[lodelss]

The Manhandling of Rock ‘N’ Roll History

Evelyn McDonnell | Longreads | March 2019 | 11 minutes (2,166 words)

  When Janelle Monae inducts Janet Jackson into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame on March 29, it will be a beautiful moment: a young, gifted, and black woman acknowledging the formative influence — on herself and millions of others — of a woman who seized Control of her own career 33 years ago. It will also be an anomaly.

Jackson is one of only two women being inducted into the hall this year, out of 37 inductees, including the members of the five all-male bands being inducted. The other woman is Stevie Nicks. During the 34 years since the hall was founded by Jann Wenner and Ahmet Ertegun, 888 people have been inducted; 69 have been women. That’s 7.7 percent. The problem is spreading.

A November Rolling Stone article announced that the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York, was collaborating with the Rock Hall on a new exhibit of “iconic instruments of rock ‘n’ roll” called Play It Loud. Scheduled to open on April 8, the list of acts whose instruments would be on display included only one woman. My social media feeds exploded with rage and quips, as we wondered whether St. Vincent made the cut because the curators assumed from her name that she was male. Since then, the Met has added several women (and men) to the exhibit list, including Patti Smith, Wanda Jackson, and Joan Jett. It isn’t clear whether the Met added these women as a result of the internet outrage or if they were part of the show all along. After all, all three institutions — the hall, the museum, and the magazine — have, as Jett might say, a bad reputation for excluding women from their reindeer games.

People and institutions have to stop defining rock and rock ‘n’ roll as music played by men, especially white men, with guitars.

The Rock Hall is the most obvious offender in what I’ll call the manhandling of musical history. Manhandling is akin to, and often — as with the Rock Hall — intersects with, whitewashing. Manhandling pushes women out of the frame just as whitewashing covers up black bodies. People of color account for 32 percent of Rock Hall inductees, a far better figure than for women, but still not representative of the enormous role African Americans and Latinx people have played in American popular music. Manhandling is standard practice on country radio; there were no women in the Top 20 of Billboard’s country airplay chart for two weeks in December. Manhandling is standard practice on classic rock radio, where women are relegated to token spots on playlists, and are never played back-to-back. It’s standard in histories of music; there are no women featured in Greil Marcus’s seminal book Mystery Train: Images of Rock ‘n’ Roll in America. And of course, it’s standard practice at IM Pei’s partial glass pyramid in Cleveland. One year of affirmative action at the Grammys cannot wipe away decades of manhandling.

The problem is pervasive, and it is ideological. It is a way of seeing and presenting the world that is based on projections of power and control, not on reality. People and institutions have to stop defining rock and rock ‘n’ roll as music played by men, especially white men, with guitars. We have to change this image, this historiography, this institutionalization, this lie. In short, you do not need a cock to rock.

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Exhibit A: Sister Rosetta Tharpe. In the 1930s, the blues and gospel singer began picking her guitar in a way that we now recognize as the foundation of rock ‘n’ roll playing — she laid the foundation upon which Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly built. There’s footage of her with a Gibson that’s been viewed 2.7 million times on YouTube. If you’re not one of those viewers, become one now. Tharpe was finally inducted into the Rock Hall in 2018.

Holly and Berry were both among the first 16 acts inducted in the Rock Hall, in 1986. All their fellow inductees were male. Built on such grotesquely imbalanced footing, the institution may never get itself right. After all, its main instigator was Ahmet Ertegun, an admittedly legendary records man who treated women abominably, according to Dorothy Carvello’s 2018 memoir Anything for a Hit. Carvello is a music executive who began her career working for Ertegun at Atlantic. Ertegun subjected her to crude sexual harassment and once fractured her arm in anger. The Rock Hall named its main exhibition hall after Ertegun. How can this ever be a place where women feel welcome, let alone safe? Just as universities have removed from buildings and fellowships the names of film executives who gave them money, such as USC renaming their Bryan Singer Division of Critical Studies, the Rock Hall should remove Ertegun’s name from the building and from the annual industry executive award that bears his name. It’s an award that has never been given to a woman.

I would like to not care about what institutions such as the Met and Hall of Fame do.

I pick on the Rock Hall because I care. I love rock ‘n’ roll, to borrow a phrase. I attended the building’s inaugural event, and despite my ever-growing disenchantment, I always pay attention to who is nominated and who wins. I even get to vote — finally. Aware of the way it was increasingly being seen as a sort of hospice for aging white men, the hall has been trying to diversify its voting body, or risk obsolescence. After two decades as a professional rock writer, I was finally asked to vote a few years ago, and to recruit friends. The problem is, every inductee also gets a vote. So every year, more and more men get the franchise and vote in their friends and heroes, who tend to be men. The hall rigged its own system with its testosterocking inaugural class, and despite efforts to add gender and color balance, the numbers are getting worse.

It’s tempting to just say so what. I would like to not care about what institutions such as the Met and Hall of Fame do. They are essentially shrines to white men created by white men, so of course, they honor white men. But they pretend to serve the public — and in the Met’s case, it is in part a publicly funded institution. The Hall of Fame and its associated museum have enormous cultural power, writing in stone the historical importance of individuals in a way that no other institution or publication or organization does. They also create real economic benefits for culture workers. Being inducted into the Rock Hall doesn’t just look good on your resume, it helps sell records and tickets. Most importantly, these institutions provide inspiration — role models — for future generations. And if the only women you’re going to see receiving awards on that stage at the Barclays Center are Janet Jackson and Stevie Nicks, would you, if you were a little girl, go pick up a guitar?

Time’s up for the Rock Hall and the music industry. The Grammys got called on its #GrammysSoMale gender gap in 2018. After women complained that they were largely shut out of the telecast winners, Recording Academy president Neil Portnow responded that female artists needed to “step up” and they would be welcome. Needless to say, that patronizing, clueless comment went over like a lead zeppelin; there were calls for Portnow���s head, including an online petition for him to resign. So this February, the telecast featured an impressive roster of contemporary and historic talent, from Lady Gaga and Brandi Carlile to Dolly Parton and Diana Ross. But then Portnow stepped on stage and publicly patted himself on the back for the show’s sudden gender balance, like he was our white savior, our knight in shining armor coming to our emotional rescue with this feel-good moment.

Moments are not enough. Thankfully, Portnow is stepping down from his position in July. And yes, I’m sure a woman would be happy to take his place. This is part of the change that must happen in the businesses and nonprofits that support music. Women must be hired and promoted across all facets of the industry: as the editor in chief of Rolling Stone, the chairman of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, the CEO of Universal Music Group. After all, a recent study from the University of Southern California shows that women are outnumbered in most aspects of the business, accounting for only 2 percent of producers and 12.3 percent of songwriters, for instance.

Some of this imbalance is a result of outright exclusion or unwelcoming environments. (Just ask any woman who has worked at a music magazine or a recording studio what it’s like to be, as former Rolling Stone writer Robin Green titled her 2018 memoir, “the only girl.”) Some is a result of sexual harassment or assault, which leaves women so traumatized that their careers stall or even stop. Ever wonder why a favorite artist, songwriter, or DJ ghosted for years? Increasing revelations about the predatory behavior of musicians, publicists, producers, managers, and executives show that, as a whole, the music industry can be a frightening place to be female, whether you’re a young intern working for R. Kelly or a talented country singer married to Ryan Adams. Mandy Moore married Adams in 2009, and hasn’t released an album since. They divorced in 2016. A New York Times investigation of Adams’s alleged predatory behavior toward younger women described him as “psychologically abusive” to Moore.

Guys like Ertegun, who died in 2006, reportedly manhandled in the workplace, in addition to creating the Cleveland shrine to gender inequity. Carvello’s book documents in scandalous detail how he and other executives created a boys’ club environment where women had to either pretend to be one of the boys, betraying their sisters, or trade sex for promotion. In Ertegun’s world, women were not allowed to step up; they were stepped on. Having systematically excluded and oppressed women from the business of making music, Ertegun and his cronies at the Rock Hall then carved that exclusion into stone by essentially writing them out of history, year after year after year. When women do get let into the Rock Hall boys’ club, it is on the arms of men: Carole King is there for her songwriting with Gerry Goffin, not as the woman who recorded numerous hit songs herself, including those on the record-smashing album Tapestry. Tina Turner was inducted alongside her abusive ex-spouse Ike. Indeed, the hall seems to define rock in a way that is disturbingly masculinist, as opposed to expansive and risk-taking — the qualities I like to think of as defining popular music. How about a Hall of Fame that includes Selena, TLC, Patsy Cline, and Grace Jones?

There’s nothing so scary to certain men as a bunch of women banding together. That’s another tool of the patriarchy: divide and conquer.

I’m delighted that two deserving female artists, Janet Jackson and Stevie Nicks, will be inducted this year. It’s particularly noteworthy that Nicks is getting the nod as a solo artist, after she was already inducted as part of Fleetwood Mac; she’s the first woman to be inducted twice, joining 22 men in the so-called Clyde McPhatter Club. Next year, the Hall must do the same for Tina and Carole. After being nominated so many times, Chaka Khan must finally be inducted as well.

That still won’t be enough to counteract the sheer numerical voting power of all the male musicians who get in as members of bands, especially if the men of Rufus, Khan’s collaborators with whom she has thrice been nominated, are inducted alongside Khan. There are three things the Hall of Fame can do to rectify that imbalance: 1. Flood the nominating committee and voting membership with more women. Six out of 29 members of last year’s nominating committee were women; the notoriously tight-lipped hall has not revealed this year’s committee members. 2. Reduce the voting power of members inducted as players in bands (so, say, the five dudes in Def Leppard each get one fifth of a vote). 3. Nominate a shit ton of all-female bands next year.

Female musicians and groups are particularly absent from the Rock Hall, as from the industry. There’s nothing so scary to certain men as a bunch of women banding together. That’s another tool of the patriarchy: divide and conquer. It’s why Lady Gaga is basically the only woman in A Star Is Born, a film ostensibly celebrating female artistry. She has no mother, no sister; even her girlfriends are male, and they’re drag queens. By focusing on individual artists, not a collective, the entertainment-industrial complex elevates the star, not the gender. The lioness is separated from her pack.

That’s why some women involved in music have formed an activist group, named Turn It Up! As our mission statement says, we “advocate for equal airplay, media coverage and industry employment of groups who are historically and structurally excluded from the business and the institutions of music-making.” And yes, we’re coming for you, sons of Ertegun.

Here’s who I’d like to see inducted in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame next year:

Tina Turner

Chaka Khan

Carole King

Diana Ross

Dolly Parton

The Go-Go’s

L7

The Runaways

Bikini Kill

The Crystals

Labelle

Salt N Pepa

That would add more than 30 women to the voting rolls. It’s not enough to correct the historical record, but it’s a step up.

***

Evelyn McDonnell is associate professor of journalism at Loyola Marymount University. She has been writing about popular culture and society for more than 20 years. She is the author of four books: Queens of Noise: The Real Story of the Runaways, Mamarama: A Memoir of Sex, Kids and Rock ‘n’ Roll, Army of She: Icelandic, Iconoclastic, Irrepressible Bjork, and Rent by Jonathan Larson. She coedited the anthologies Women Who Rock: Bessie to Beyonce. Girl Groups to Riot Grrrl, Rock She Wrote: Women Write About Rock, Pop and Rap, and Stars Don’t Stand Still in the Sky: Music and Myth and edit the Music Matters series from University of Texas Press. She lives in Los Angeles.

Flor Amezquita, Marika Price and Adele Bertei assisted with research for this article. Figures are based off the official Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s induction page, which was then cross-referenced with multiple lists and sources.

Editor: Aaron Gilbreath; Fact-checker: Matt Giles

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