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rosecoloredbi-writes · 4 years ago

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Settle

Summary: After the death of your best friend and their spouse, you went from Godparent to Parent overnight. Now, Mio is your world. Because of this new role, you move back to Tokyo, Japan in order to keep Mio with her friends and her school, even if it means you might run into *him*.

Warnings: Mentions of stalking. Swearing probably. Cannon violence. Single parenthood. barely mentions Mio's parents passing.

Gender Neutral!Reader x Shouta Aizawa (Eventual)

Mentions of past GN!Reader x Dabi

A/N: Okay here is my first fic for My Hero Academia! I got the idea for it earlier today and figured I'd just post this first part I just finished and see if I should keep uploading. This is the first thing I've written in a while and I'm so excited to be writing again :)

It took him a moment to reorient himself, but he knew where he was going. A few more buildings and finally to his perch, he looked in to see you, and to his surprise, a child- no older than five, maybe 6, snuggled into your chest, your arms protectively around them. He stayed in his hiding spot for a while as you slept with your child. He hadn’t been informed there would be a child.

About an hour later, he noticed another person watching you in the shadows, just like he was. He would have to stay all night to make sure no one harmed you.

You controlled your breathing, not wanting the two sets of eyes to know you were awake, to know that you knew they were there. This way you had the advantage. You didn’t know what they wanted, but either way, you had a bad feeling about it.

She began to stir as the sun shone through the open window, stretching her small arms and legs before turning back to face you.

“Good morning my sunshine,” you said softly. “Did you sleep well?”

She nodded her head before sitting up and rubbing her eyes.

“Guess it’s time to get up, huh Mio,” you stood up and picked your girl up, giving her a squeeze as your eyes glanced around. Only one set of eyes, you realized making you shiver.

You did your best to keep to your usual routine and soon enough you were out the door, Mio's hand in yours.

The school Mio attended was used to having students whose parents were pro heroes, so you gave her teacher the signal and they knew something was up and knew not to release even to the people you had given the school the okay to. After a kiss goodbye, you headed to the market, now with your headphones on, music off.

You hummed as you looked through the isles of food, picking up the few things you needed and setting them in your basket. The bakery you worked at was out of a special type of flour you needed to bake a client’s cake with. Once everything was paid for and in tow, you noticed a red feather settled amongst the items.

Why is Hawks following me? What does he need from me and why?

You carried on with your day, hoping he hadn’t noticed that you had noticed.

That is until he came into the bakery. You ducked just in time and took a deep breath, coming back out to the front after he dinged the bell.

He was about to say something, a dumb smirk on his face, but you cut him off.

“Why are you following me?” You asked, trying your best to sound confident and brave.

His features dropped and his eyes narrowed before quickly going back to a leisurely look. “You’re better than they told me you’d be,” He finally said.

You rolled your eyes as you walked over to the little door and opened it for him, gesturing for him to follow you to the back. Once you were settled you told him to start talking.

“I really shouldn’t be telling you any of this bu-”

“I know someone else is following me,” you said, cutting him off again. “I need to know who, why, and if my daughter is in danger.”

“Straight to the point. I like a person who knows what they want,” he commented, eyebrow raised. This had you rolling your eyes again. “We don’t know why or if your daughter is going to be targeted, but we are pretty sure the League of Villains is watching you.”

You took in a sharp inhale. There was only one person who you could think of that would have joined up with them and you knew why he was watching you. You should have recognized the bright blue of his eyes. “Dabi.”

You were very quickly taken into hiding with a man you didn’t know, cause that made you feel safe and protected. But, you pulled some information out of him. For example, his name was Aizawa Shouta and he was an underground hero. His quirk allowed him to erase other people’s quirks, thus the name Eraser Head. He also had a cool capture weapon he wore as a scarf. You tried to mess with it once and it didn’t end well.

You were allowed to go pick Mio up, but you were discreetly escorted by Aizawa who was now in street clothes, hair tied up, looking like he could fall asleep at any moment.

Mio was confused as to who the man was and gave you a questioning look. “Don’t worry, he’s a friend,” you told her softly as the three of you began back to the safe house. Once there, you introduced the two.

She was tense but eventually got comfortable when she saw that you were okay.

“She’s cute,” you turn to Aizawa who is watching Mio with a soft smile on his face.

“She’s the best kid a parent could ask for,” you replied. “Her quirk,” you started slowly after a moment had gone by, “we don’t know a lot about it, but it has to do with her voice. I don’t know who it came from either. I’m not her biological parent, I was her godparent. And then her parents died and here we are. She’s only said a few words out loud and whatever happened, it scared her into staying silent.”

He nodded. “So Y/N, what is your quirk? Does it have to do with your increased senses?”

“That’s mostly learned, but I’ve always had the extra sense of knowing when I’m being watched, which has come in handy more times than you’d think.” You began rolling up your long sleeves, showing tattoos covering almost all the skin on your arms. “Creation is my main ability, but it has its drawbacks. If it’s not illustrated on my skin already, it’s painful and it drains me, which is why I’m covered in tattoos. I have weapons, items I need handy, and a few odds and ends. Now, with the tattoos, it’s almost as easy as breathing.”

Aizawa began to reach out, pausing before he made contact with your skin, looking up to you for permission. When you nodded, the pads of his fingers lightly traced several of them, following a vine up your arm to a butterfly. He looked at you inquisitively and you gently focused on it until a butterfly appeared, gently fluttering.

“Its… it’s real. You can create living things?” He asked in awe, “But how?”

You shrugged and watched as Mio noticed the flittering and watched with wonder as the butterfly landed on the sofa.

“They don’t last forever, that’s the drawback. The bigger the creation and the longer I will it, the more it takes from me. Inanimate objects are the easiest.” You reached your arm around your back and under your shirt, pulling back with it a sword.

Aizawa gently traced the ornate handle, only to jump back as Hawks entered.

“Don’t let me interrupt,” he says with a sly smile. “You figure out what their quirk is yet?” He asks Aizawa.

You turn to him with a frown. Of course, he didn’t actually care about you. You just met! Not to mention you were a part of his mission.

He has the sense to look slightly ashamed before nodding to Hawks.

“Good, now,” he says turning back to you. “Why is Dabi following you? You know more than you are letting on.” He spoke as he walked closer and closer, wings growing larger. You suppose it’s supposed to intimidate you.

You roll your eyes at him for like, the fifth time that day and brush past him. You walk over to Mio who had fallen asleep watching your butterfly. You smooth the hair out of her face before turning back to the men, giving them a warning look and asking them to keep their voices down.

“Fine,” you huffed, tired of them just staring at you, doing nothing. “I dated Dabi for a little while. Back when I was younger and foolish and my morals were… well, flexible.”

“What did you do to make him want to follow you?” Hawks was growing impatient.

“We fought, I won, he told him if I ever came back I better watch my back. I reckon he’s making good on that promise. I broke his heart, but that was so long ago. But, I mean,” you paused and looked back up at the two men who were looking at you incredulously, “he is really good at holding grudges.”

Hawks looked like he was going to have an aneurysm and Aizawa… well his face was unreadable. Except, there was a touch of something else in his eyes.

"Well you aren't going anywhere for a while," Hawks state with all the authority he could muster, still going over everything in his mind. "Better get comfy."

"No," you state clearly. Stopping everyone in their tracks.

"Excuse me?" Hawks says, stepping forward, extending his wings.

"You heard me," you reply, stepping forward yourself, fingers itching to create one of your many weapons. "If Dabi gets even a hint that y'all know and are protecting me, a whole lot more people are going to get hurt. So no, we aren't staying here. We are going to go home. If I have to have someone to guard us we are going to make it look as natural as possible. If you don't agree to my terms I'm just gonna take Mio and we are going back on the run."

Hawks looks like he wants to scream and Aizawa looks amused. You turn to pick Mio up, then you head to the door.

"Aizawa, you've been seen in public with me. You can be our guard. You'll come over at 6 tonight where we will have a meal, then you'll stay late because we drank maybe a little to much sake, then you'll sleep on the couch. Got it?"

Aizawa nods, completely amused by Hawks' bewilderment, and pats him on the back once before walking out himself.

#my hero academia #my hero academia fanfiction #my hero academia fanfic #my hero academia fic #mha fanfiction #mha fanfic #mha fic #eraserhead x reader #eraserhead x gn!reader #gender neutral reader #aizawa shouta #aizawa x reader #eraser head #eraser head x reader

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youwontlikethisblog · 3 years ago

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I Understand You Part 1

Phew! It has been a while!

How is everyone?

I've had to go back and read a few of my own post as a sort of recap. Family left, which is a bummer, but now I can watch YSBLF lol.

Anyway that's not why you're here so lets get into it :)

I've been thinking a lot on the last few post that I've made. There's overall a huge understanding of where Armando is coming from and what motivates him and pushes him. In these next couple of scenes we really get a feel and understanding, finally a clear portrayal of Armando's journey to figuring out his feelings towards Betty. the absolute mastery in the writing, the directing, and the acting is..a loss of words.

Now while Betty's past relationship is something I bring up a lot to clarify where she's coming from, this night that doesn't really hold much significance, in terms of behavior.

This night in some way was a teaser to the possibilities of their future. It's a night that is suspended in the air, not going north or south but in the middle with no real direction. Betty was finally being an active member of the relationship, Armando is finally learning to accept and encourage his feelings for Betty and especially what she means to him.

You're probably thinking "yes we know this, get on with it already!" I need you to exercise more patience with me :)

Maybe I want to torture you all because I am putting off writing this post for two very specific reasons: One It is a post that will be loooong. Two: it is a post that requires so much detail and so much back forth that I've had to go and read my posts and notes to really show the evidence of this theory of mine so it requires so much time for me to write it but as promised, I said it would be a good post and worth the wait and it has been.

I hope y'all enjoy this post :)

While I haven't been an active member of this fandom that interacts with many people, even off of tumblr, I do follow a few accounts on IG related to YSBLF content. One account I follow shared on their IG stories another account that brought to my attention a theory of Armando and his glasses/vision problems and it got me thinking a lot.

It does play a role in these scenes, which is why I bring it up. Armando in the future tells Betty that in the darkness he feels her better and I never quite understood this. I understood it as a "I don't think about how ugly you are but I can feel how much I love you without prejudice" and I always found it so insulting. Like saying "Hey you're not fat, you're beautiful. Some men like meat." it's really a backhanded compliment, like what?

There's a lot of...small details now that are vital! Just like in the past.

Alright now we'll really jump into it!

We last left off on Armando and Betty finally making up and they both leaned in for a kiss. This kiss was different, unlike before, where their kisses were heavy and intense(and tender), this time this kiss is slow and tender HOWEVER Armando's behavior is different. While before(After they slept together) these kisses left him content and even wanting more, this night, this man plans to get more. He pulls away from her and suggest they go some place else even though their kissing wasn't really all that heavy.

Betty suggest a bar or a restaurant but Armando declines and tells her that they can't go anywhere public because of Marcela. After Betty asks where then Armando turns and looks away from her and suggest in a very comedic tone "Mario's apartment."

Betty reacts as expected: How could he suggest that and that he had promised her that Mario would never find out?

In the past I've pointed out how Armando can't really lie to Betty, whenever he does he can't really hold eye contact with her because of the guilt he feels. Armando seems panicked. While Betty is going off, panicked herself, Armando is trying to find a way to calm her down.

What is his end goal here? His end goal is to hook up with Betty before he leaves to Miami. That's it. His end goal is to spend this night with Betty and he wants to get laid. He knows that he'll have both his emotional and physical needs met and he's eager for it. Again in past posts I've mentioned that while Armando at first only felt an emotional attraction to Betty, at least it was a lot more powerful than his physical attraction to her, after they did fornicate together the night of her Birthday, he's learned that he also has a physical attraction and that he is okay with that attraction now. While before he was in denial of it now he accepts it and encourages himself with it so he tells Betty that Mario doesn't know and that he will never know.

Again, his body language is telling here. He makes eye contact with her as he tells her this, his voice is rushed, which means that he blurted it as it came to his head but he maintains eye contact and quickly tries to explain things.

I know I'm reading too much into this but it's fun and we all enjoy it so lets go! Is Armando lying to Betty here?

Not entirely and you could ask yourself "how is that possible? Mario does know, that's like the whole point!" and you're right but really how much does Mario know?

Lets take a break from this particular scene and talk about Armando and Mario.

Both Mario and Armando are manipulators. They are both womanizers, whore bags, and morally questionable beings. However they both use their abilities differently. While Mario uses his manipulation in extremely subtle ways and for all aspects of his life, Armando is very bold and theatrical with his manipulation. Unlike Mario who gets a rush out of screwing up peoples lives and exercising control over them Armando uses manipulation for two reasons: self preservation and because he enjoys the theatrics of it(ego), not the effects(unless it's for self preservation). He feels an immense guilt for manipulating people but when he screws up it's what works for him. So while one uses it as a coping mechanism and an ego boost, the other uses it just out of cruelty. Both are wrong in this but Armando is the lesser of both evils.

So you have two manipulative people. Two individuals who don't show emotions and who are extremely controlled with their emotions to achieve manipulation. Cool, cold, and composed best friends sitting in a tree, staring at each other, trying to manipulate each other.

It's very obvious that Mario has been manipulating Armando from the get go and why he does it. We see his true feelings when Armando is finally being open about his feelings regarding the plan and what he's doing to Betty and when he talks about Betty showing him with actions her love for him, his reactions allows Mario and us to know how he truly feels about Betty and this intel is what Mario uses to manipulate Armando, however Armando too has manipulated Mario.

I know! We all expect him to always be a poor idiot! But surprisingly he's not always an idiot(emotionally yeah).

Let's consider this: When Mario asked Armando about the list of qualities he named so Betty could believe that he was crazy about her, Armando acted like an emotional idiot and mumbled, without saying a word and Mario bought it. Mario interrupted him and congratulated him and asked him for Betty's reaction. When Mario "joked" that Armando was starting to like the kisses Armando compared it to boxing and said he was numbed to it. When they talked about the first kiss they shared and Mario started to make jokes Armando was visibly furious and worried but he acted very composed and mechanical towards Mario. When Mario said "that kiss affected you more than it affected her." Armando quickly said that it did but because Betty didn't deserve to be used that way because he felt like he was betraying an angel, someone who had always helped him and he felt guilty for it.

I point this out in mostly every post I make: Armando never really goes into detail or is specific of what goes on with Betty and him when they go out on dates. He always holds off on giving too much information unless it's to get Mario off his back and even then he's very controlled with what he does say. He never talks about the emotions, how he feels about what Betty shares with him. He doesn't talk about how he really feels about the kisses(when Mario jokes about her braces, mustache etc... and other instances, he complains that he doesn't like the kisses but the reason being is his own guilt and what those kisses mean to him. (If you haven't yet I suggest you go to the very first post I wrote: Yo Soy Betty, La Fea and go on from there because I have broken down certain sides of Armando's character that I won't talk about here anymore so it will help you understand better as well as writing, the way scenes are presented, certain details and patterns que en fin, bring us to this post, so if you haven't yet, please read those so you can get caught up:)) or anything in regards of that. While yes he does complain about having to kiss her(His obsession with perfection, his guilt, and the fact that they affect him) he doesn't make fun of Betty or insult her like Mario does, which gets him half a point.

And I realize this doesn't quite add up with what I've said about Armando being in denial of his feelings because in order to manipulate Mario, he'd have to be aware of his feelings, right? I'll talk more about it in a bit.

What does this all mean?

Armando uses his manipulation to throw Mario off his scent and keep him confused and on the edge regarding his feelings for Betty so here it is.

Here is the truth: While Armando has lived in denial and confusion regarding his true feelings for Betty, he knows what he feels for her is unlike anything he's felt for somebody else and it becomes a lot more apparent the night of Betty's Birthday. So while on the stages of his denial he threw Mario off his scent because he too wasn't even sure of what he felt, Mario as well lived in speculation. He[Mario] could never truly manipulate Armando regarding this part of him because he never shared that part of himself and because of this, Armando too manipulated Mario. This gives him the space for him to give him the benefit of the doubt meaning that while Mario understands that Armando is emotionally affected by what they're doing to Betty, he trust Armando's words more than he does his actions, even if his actions when narrating the dates with Betty indicate that he cares for her, he chucks it out as guilt. Armando tells him this himself and whenever Mario is doubtful of this he then uses Armando's words against him for manipulation. He doesn't use his actions but his words.

The problem about knowing somebody in and out is that our own perception of that person blinds us when it comes to the true nature of the person, that's why many people end up feeling betrayed. It's what keeps Mario and Armando as friends because though they know the nature of each other, their own understanding and perception of the other blinds them to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Often times this is what Mario uses as an advantage to manipulate Armando. He knows that Armando has an easily bruised ego, that he feels like he has no real control over his life, that he wants to be a good person, somebody that is worthy of good things, that above all he wants to make his parents proud, that he has a strict taste for women, and that Armando is emotionally stunted but he also knows that Armando's true weakness is his ego and before he admits to do wrong or commit a mistake Armando will find a way to "Fix" said problem even if it means he has to manipulate those he cares about, even if the burden is an immense guilt for it. However up that point their theatrics and plans had never really held much importance or significance. Basically it was all child's play.

However now the plan has too many risks and too many consequences.

Armando also knows that Mario is detail oriented, that he is smart in what he does, that he has no moral compass, that his ego is big but not as easily hurt and when it is, he's like Teflon, it won't stick for long. He is very aware of Mario's tactics of seduction with women(it's why he often asks Mario for advice on his affairs and enlist him to have an affair with Patsy Pats.) and that most importantly Mario is really good at lurking in the corners of rooms to read a situation well(an example of this would be the night that Mario pushes Armando to interrogate Betty regarding Nicola's role in Terra Moda, once the interrogation is over and Betty leaves Armando drops the act of mistrusting Betty and quickly asks for Mario's feedback regarding what Betty said.). Therefore Armando begins to have a very mechanical and controlled behavior around Mario regarding the affair with Betty.

Mario's knowledge of Armando blinds him to give him the benefit of the doubt so while he speculates that maybe Armando could care for Betty he takes Armando up for his word that it's only guilt he feels for her, that his ego is bruised because some loser has more control over a woman as "ugly" as Betty, that he won't ever admit Daniel was right about him, he won't risk disappointing his parents at this scale, and that Armando, through guilt could want to treat Betty better but even if he did feel something outside of guilt that Armando is too much of a coward to ever fully admit what he feels and be public about it so he ridicules him, insults Betty, uses his ego against Armando, his fears, and vendetta with Daniel to push him to continue with the plan because at the end of the day if the plan does work Mario loses nothing and he does not end up having to deal with the consequences of destroying a person like Armando would.

This is something that becomes evident to Armando the longer the affair goes on. While before he manipulated Mario so that he wouldn't suffer through the ridicule that Mario would surely put him through the more he felt like he needed to protect himself, his feelings, and what he had with Betty from Mario's preying hands.

The quick eye glances, the controlled composure and masking of his emotions in front of Mario is Armando self-preserving and knowing that if he doesn't [do that]that Mario will use what he feels to fully manipulate him and he knows that Mario will succeed because Mario knows that he will always, above all, feel the need to people please and the guilt he feels when he lets those he cares about down. Armando is fully aware of this and he has for so long allowed people to manipulate him(I've talked about this in previous posts regarding this aspect of his personality).

For the first time ever in his life, Armando does not want Mario to have the full control to manipulate him which lets us know that he has been aware of this behavior of Mario towards him for a long time. It isn't only the ridicule that he'd face from Mario if he ever found out how true his feelings are for Betty and it isn't only because he's afraid of the public humiliation he'd face either(it does mean a lot to him, I'll get to that I promise!) but because he knows just how much control Mario would have over him with this information and because in the past he wasn't able to even accept or want to begin to understand his feelings for Betty, he self-preserved by manipulating Mario.

I hope this is all making sense. I know it's a bit confusing.

Basically it's this: Armando actively withheld a lot of information regarding his dates with Betty so that Mario wouldn't use this to manipulate him and whenever he'd let his guard down and give Mario the benefit of the doubt and try to explain how he felt, Mario always used his words against him later on and though Armando always responded and followed through, it wasn't solely based on what Mario was telling him but that Armando already feared those things.

For example this night when Mario is telling him to go looking for Betty, we know that Armando did want to fix things with her. We know he was worried about it. However towards Mario he pretends that it's no big deal. He says he'll fix it the next day but you can tell he is nervous. His body language is him holding his fingers to his mouth, him walking around behind his desk, not being able to stand still and when the emotion of how hurt Betty felt for what he did with AA that day finally translate to him and he understands it he says that he is now really afraid because of what Mario is telling him.

Mario didn't do jack squat in manipulation this night, except he thinks he did. This night Armando is free of his manipulation. This night Armando is only motivated to go searching for Betty but everything else comes from his own desire to be with Betty.

You're probably wondering: Okay, well what does this have to do with the scene?

When Armando tells Betty that Mario doesn't know and he will never know he makes eye contact and holds said eye contact with her, translating that he isn't lying to her. Mario only knows what Armando wants him to know. Truthfully when it comes to the matters of the heart: Mario doesn't know anything. Had he known he would have used Armando's true feelings against him and Armando knows this and because of that he withholds truths and allows Mario to think he has the upper hand in the situation. Mario though aware of the mechanics and even his confused ego, isn't aware of Armando's true feelings and his true dilemas and fears, giving Armando the upper hand, for once, when it comes to mind games, on Mario.

Finally Armando can claim victory here and ironically Mario becomes aware of this.

Now how would it be possible for Armando to manipulate Mario regarding his true feelings for Betty and just feed him the right amount of information? When he himself has lived in denial of said feelings?

Easy peasy; he self-manipulates.

In the past I've talked about Armando's denial and how he emotionally stunted he is therefore he runs away from any emotion and because of this he doesn't understand his own emotions or other people's emotions which is why when he has some sort of clue to what he could possibly be feeling for Betty he runs away from it because he doesn't understand it, prejudice, and so on. So if Armando is telling himself that what he feels for Betty is only based on guilt and if he has a doubt that it isn't only guilt: he tells Mario all he feels is guilt, therefore he affirms aloud this emotion both to Mario and himself but because of this clue he has, the knowledge of Mario's character, he withholds enough information from Mario to affirm guilt out loud and deny any other feeling to himself.

Let's take a look at what Manipulation is.

Mariam Dictionary: to treat or operate with the hands or by mechanical means especially in a skillful manner manipulate the fragments of a broken bone into correct position. 2a : to manage or utilize skillfully. b : to control or play upon by artful, unfair, or insidious means especially to one's own advantage.

Wikipedia: Psychological manipulation is a type of social influence that aims to change the behavior or perception of others through indirect, deceptive, or underhanded tactics. By advancing the interests of the manipulator, often at another's expense, such methods could be considered exploitative and devious.

WebMD: People who manipulate others attack their mental and emotional sides to get what they want. The person manipulating — called the manipulator — seeks to create an imbalance of power, and take advantage of a victim to get power, control, benefits, and/or privileges at the expense of the victim.

A manipulator will actively lie to you, make excuses, blame you, or strategically share facts about them and withhold other truths. In doing this, they feel they are gaining power over you and gaining intellectual superiority.

https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/signs-manipulation

We often rave about how good of a manipulator Mario is because he lurks in the corners of dark rooms to inspect situations, find weaknesses and how detail oriented he is but we don't talk about just how manipulative Armando is as well.

While yes, in his relationship with Marcela we see how he uses gaslighting to manipulate her and how he used Betty's idolization of him to gain control in the relationship(yes he did feel guilty for it) we don't talk about how manipulative he is of Mario after he starts the affair with Betty at the start of it and I didn't touch on it much in the past because it wasn't something that was required to breakdown to understand those episodes until this night.

Mario, hours into the future writes a letter in which he tells Armando that he doesn't tell him everything anymore, not like at the start.

When he'd talk about the mechanics of his dates with Betty to Mario he wasn't eager to share and only shared enough information to keep Mario off his back and for Mario to give advice on how to continue ,when Mario would insinuate that Armando cared he always denied it and said he just felt guilty for what he was doing to Betty and explained how special she had been with him and how she didn't deserve it, that of course that would make him feel guilty but specifically the day we see Armando clear as day manipulate Mario is the day after he first slept with Betty. I broke that down in the post The After Math Of Their First Time so I'll recap by saying that Armando actively tried his best to refrain and withhold information, even when he was desperate to understand why he felt the way he did and why he had enjoyed it so much. When Mario mentions that Armando had never said he cherished Betty, Armando retracts and "explains" that he only cherished her as his secretary, just like Mario cherished Sandra and Roberto cherished Susana.

Every time Mario tried to point out how different he seemed Armando always came back full force, excusing and justifying why he felt the way he felt, never truthfully venturing into the reality of his feelings that now he was desperately trying to understand, however, deep down he knew what he felt. In that scene you see just how freaked out Mario is because he doesn't have the upper hand and can't control or manipulate Armando anymore and we see him react out of frustration until he finally finds solid grounds and begins to once again manipulate Armando. However since then Armando hasn't been easily manipulated.

Now the question is: How does one behave when being manipulated?

We know what manipulation is and we know the tactics that are used by manipulators but how does one behave and feel from being manipulated?

I can say this by personal experience: You feel out of control. There's moments of lucidness where you look at yourself inwardly and the situation and you understand what the reality is but your emotions are at full speed that you cannot control the way you behave. It's almost like an outer body experience where you're begging yourself to be rational and to be objective and clear but all you're doing is watching yourself react out of this fear, anger, sadness, and rage that somebody else has sowed in you.

For example: When I was in middle school my toxic BFF would constantly gaslight me. I could have all the witnesses and evidence to prove their betrayal but it was never good enough to prove it. They warped my reality so much that I questioned all my friends and didn't trust anyone. When they'd show their true colors they'd use my feelings against me, they would guilt trip me, a campaign would be launched of all their close friends telling me I should forgive them, that I was harsh on them, that I was the one that made them cry(I called them out and they cried about it), that they were a good person and I was being... unfair so I'd forgive. I didn't have control over the situation. Not even a little bit. Every time I attempted to I was the bad person.

Armando has been the same in the past. Marcela emotionally manipulates him by guilt tripping him, threatening him, and he feels like he has no control over his life. Then professionally his best friend begins to manipulate him. Though in the past Mario always persuade him to go out with him and some models, Mario begins to manipulate him at work with the panama thing, and especially when Eco Moda falls into Betty's hand.

Mario in many ways is like the toxic ex best friend of mine. In good times they give you all the praise you want. They shower you with attention and compliments and when things are not playing to their advantage they guilt trip you. At the start of his affair with Betty Armando was very easily manipulated by Mario because of this. Mario knew that he could use Armando's ego, his vendetta with Daniel, his standing with his parents with the deep desire of his to make them proud, and lastly the huge responsibility Armando felt towards everyone at Eco Moda so he'd praise him when he did good, he was his guru and when Armando didn't want to do it he would guilt trip him heavily and when he saw that didn't work he'd use his ego against him.

Then all of a sudden neither the guilt tripping with his parents, him, the employees of Eco Moda, Marcela, or his ego are working on Armando and all Mario has left is to use Armando's relationship with Betty against him. Had Mario known all along, for a fact, how Armando truthfully felt, Armando knows that Mario would have made his life a living hell. Not only because Mario would make fun of him for liking Betty but because he'd use this relationship as a token to make Armando do whatever Mario wanted. Though Armando stopped caring about his ego in regards of seeing Betty as a human, a person he cared about, he still didn't want to deal with the public ridicule he'd face for caring about Betty and Mario would use that to his advantage had he known this from the get go and Mario does begin to pick up on this because though Armando has withheld a lot of truths and kept his composure with Mario the one thing he failed at was that he showed he no longer was allowing Mario to manipulate him.

This all plays into the letter and understanding what the hell went through Mario's head when he wrote it.

In conclusion to this first part: Mario knows nothing in regards to the validity and the truth behind Armando's motivation and feelings for Betty and their relationship so Armando did not lie to Betty when he told her that Mario knew nothing and up to that point, Armando planned on Mario never knowing.

Obviously things change later on that night.

Again this night, even in Betty's wardrobe and how she behaves in her relationship with Armando leave the doors and windows of their future fully open. This night is a night that is suspended in the air, no real rhyme or reason to where it could lead them in the future until the next day. It seemed like everything was written and destined to only go up and grow but these small details foretell a different future.

This is the first part of the breakdown of that scene and episode and I know it didn't really hold much in regards to the romance of Betty and Armando but it's importance to understand this part of Mario's and Armando's relationship and how much it's changed because that letter is such an important part of the downfall of Armando and his relationship with Betty.

Thank y'all for being patient and waiting! I hope y'all enjoy this and hopefully I haven't read too much into it lol.

'Til next time! :)

#armando mendoza #armando ysblf #don armando #betty ysblf #betty pinzón solano #beatriz pinzón solano #beatriz pinzon solano #betty la fea #betty #mario calderon #mario ysblf #yo soy betty la fea #analysis of ysblf

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ihassheepquake · 3 years ago

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DC's Stargirl 2.06 "Summer School: Chapter Six" has aired on the CW, and I'm here to talk about it

We know from last week, as well as the description for this episode, that Cindy's new ISA and the JSA are gonna have a showdown this episode, which is super cool. And because we're about halfway through the season now, we should encounter the midpoint probably next episode but we might get some work on it in this one too (for instance, season one's midpoint was spread over episodes 7 & 8, but we also build into that with the first full assembly of the JSA in episode 6). So this is obviously an action-packed episode and it should probably have some pretty big story beats.

Is this the first time that we've seen that Yolanda is left-handed? The kid who plays Isaac is really good at this angsty, angry teen role. It looks like Beth might be still dealing with some aftereffects of the Eclipso mind-fucking from the last episode.

I can't tell if it's just because of my laptop or not, but is this episode physically darker? Like, it's less lit or has some grey tone over the whole thing? Because it looks darker to me, especially here with Artemis attacking Beth. And if that's an intentional thing, I love it. A bit of a tonal shift post-Eclipso encounter makes a lot of sense and this is a good way to show it if it's not just my laptop being weird. Also I keep hearing characters repeating themselves. The guy who owns the dump while talking to Mike, I think Beth's dad did too. Let me know if that actually happened or if my laptop was being weird.

Courtney and Pat, on the same page, leading the team. The whole group kinda slowly pulling together. I love this kind of buildup in my superhero stories.

Oop, Cindy gonna kill Mike. Rip.

A concussive blast with the Fiddle, fun. I don't think we saw Isaac's mum do that. We love new abilities. And Artemis looks actually kind of scary.

Barbara's getting desperate, trying to call Shade. And then he just shows up. Love a creepy villain. Shade teaming up with the JSA to get the diamond?

BETH! That was so cool and creative! I love her distracting Artemis with her parent's mugshots. And we're getting some real teamwork wins for Dr Midnite and Hourman already. The JSA has really come a long way from their first team-up in last seasons episode 6. This fight choreography and cinematography is just stunning. It's so much fun to watch and the cuts are clean & dynamic. This is possibly the most entertaining fight of the show so far. And the two teams really feel like they're on par with each other. Last season, with the older and much more experienced ISA, a lot of the fights felt a lot more one-sided but now it's a lot less clear.

Artemis seems clearly enhanced to me. She's what, 16, 17? I don't know if I believe that any of these characters just can smash a person through a sink like that with the strength a person that young can have built up. Admittedly, I've never tried and don't know anyone who has so maybe it's totally possible, but it feels like she's stronger and more agile than a person can be. I mean, she launched herself up from her back several feet in the air to flip and land on her feet, and we didn't see her propel herself at all. Totally badass, and totally enhanced. And we see Rick do similar things. He just punched through the toilet, launched himself backwards several feet, smashed Artemis through the urinal. All things I absolutely don't believe a person (at least not a teenager) could do without being enhanced and we know he's enhanced. It seems like they made Artemis enhanced specifically to combat Rick.

I like how the dynamic between the JSA and the two different ISA's has changed. Against the new ISA, it's clear that the JSA is the better, more experienced team just as it was with the old ISA. Like I said earlier, the two teams are clearly a lot more on par in terms of what they can do, but the fact that the JSA knows how to work as a team and has several months of experience on the ISA is really putting them over the edge. Whenever one of them takes a serious hit, another is able to swoop in long enough to let the first breathe. It's awesome to see how they've grown since their first fight together. And Cindy, knowing she's losing, attempts to gain the upper hand with the diamond, only for the Shade to show up and even things out again.

WHAT DID I SAY IN MY LAST REVIEW! I knew it, it's the midpoint baby, and just like I predicted, Cindy has officially lost the diamond. Courtney destroyed it. Obviously, we knew that Eclipso would get out eventually, but I'm taking pride in the fact that I called it being in this fight. Now, this is absolutely a terrible thing. Eclipso is now free to roam the world and the tone of the show has changed for the rest of the season. Eclipso just ripped out one of Cindy's blades. And used it to kill Isaac, omg. And then ripped his soul out, disintegrating his body in the process. Goddamn, this took a dark turn and I am loving it. And did he just kill Cindy too, or has she been locked in his own prison? Unclear but I'm guessing the latter. According to Eclipso, as he's almost murdering Shade, Shade's powers come from Eclipso's "home" and what we just watched eat Cindy looks a lot more like the hand that grabbed the original Dr Midnite in the series premier than any of Shades powers have so far. So I'm guessing that Cindy was just pulled into the same weird shadow world pocket dimension that og Midnite is in.

The Staff going dark has to be how Starman is getting pulled in. We haven't seen him since episode 1 or 2 maybe, and we know Joel McHale filmed a fair amount. Sylvester is going to show up because of this.

Y'all I think this might have been the best episode how this show overall. It truly had everything. I am so beyond excited for what's next. And we'll talk about what's next, next week with the release of DC's Stargirl 2.07 "Summer School: Chapter Seven"

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thejustmaiden · 4 years ago

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Jaken = Rin's Dad?

Okay, is this how a daughter treats their so-called father?

Most definitely not.

Rin and Jaken's relationship clearly screams of your typical sibling rivalry punctuated with cute and silly moments of playful bickering.

Yes, Jaken may technically be her main provider, but that doesn't necessarily equate to him being more of a father than Sesshomaru. If anything, he demonstrates more of a brotherly love towards her. As we all know, parents (which Sesshomaru embodies more based on real life patterns and parallels) will leave their older more capable children in charge of looking after their younger brothers and sisters. In this case, that would mean making Jaken responsible for watching over Rin and protecting her if need be. Ah-Un offers protection, too. Think of it as Jaken as the big brother and Ah-Un as the family dog who are babysitting while Sesshomaru as the parent of the household is away at work or taking care of business. I mean, they literally fit that description to a tee and I'm dying at the accuracy of it all! 🤣👌

[Quick! Someone write up a modern au where Sesshomaru finally gets out to have a nice date night but everything goes wrong in the most spectacular way. Like maybe Rin and Jaken catch a ride on Ah-Un to go spy!]

I recently revisited some episodes from The Final Act, and I couldn't believe how many moments like this there were where Rin got after Jaken or when she would "put him in his place" so to speak. Obviously, all of it is mostly harmless. I was only surprised by how often it occurred, not to mention how Jaken would just stand there and take it. Towards a supposed father figure, Rin's behavior is downright unacceptable. There's a certain level of respect a child is expected to show their parents/guardians, and that's just not what I'm witnessing here between them. Like at all.

Rather their dynamic has the nature of some sibling relationships like I mentioned above. So I really wish fans would stop pretending otherwise, because based on what we know of father-daughter relationships- healthy ones at least- they don't appear anything like what Jaken and Rin have. If you could please provide me other examples of where we've seen similar portrayals in fiction or in real life, then perhaps I can get on board.

Look, that doesn't have to mean that because Jaken isn't her father then Sesshomaru must be. They can both be her caretakers without necessarily filling that traditional father role. I'm just saying that if we're going to start assigning titles to characters, let's make sure we are accurate and truthful in our assessments. If you're going to label anyone Rin's dad, then it needs to be Sesshomaru. Jaken doesn't have precedence over him in terms of fatherly attributes, that just wouldn't make sense.

After all, this isn't about what you want to see, this is about what Rin very likely sees. It's safe to assume that she views Sesshomaru more like a father than she does Jaken. She knows she's safe with him (broadly speaking lol) and that he'll come for her no matter what. That sense of security and comfort is what a child seeks and what they should always feel in a parent's presence. She trusts and even idolizes him, just as a young and innocent child tends to do with their parents. At that age, parents are perfect and could do no wrong in their child's eyes. Idk about you, but this describes perfectly how Rin is around Sesshomaru.

Rin adores him and will follow him anywhere- yes, even into danger! That's what the innocence and unconditional love of a child will bring them to do if necessary. Fortunately, at the end of The Final Act we learn Sesshomaru takes Kaede's advice when he realizes that leaving Rin with her in the village is in her best interests. That way she'd be able to lead a more normal and safer life alongside other humans. Remember, Sessrin shippers, that doesn't mean he wasn't still a part of her life and didn't witness her become a young woman over the years right before his very eyes. Therefore, if they eventually do become romantically involved, then most if not all of those gifts had intimate and seductive intentions and it essentially constitutes as child grooming.

I understand from a Sessrin shipper's point of view why it'd be so much easier to claim Jaken as the father. In doing so, they diminish Sesshomaru's role in her upbringing. By refusing to acknowledge the real role he had in helping raise Rin (short periods can be crucial and impressionable too esp. in a child's early years so yes they did assist in raising her not only Kaede), these shippers are better able to justify how their filial-like relationship evolved into a romantic one. So yeah, I get it, if I were a Sessrin shipper I'd probably do the same. It's one of the more plausible arguments available to them, after all. "Let's pin Jaken as the father to fend off antis!" is the best chance they've got, but even so, it's still not good enough. But if you insist Jaken is indeed like a father to Rin, then Sesshomaru is most certainly one too. Who says she can't have two fathers anyway?

The thing is however much you want to deny or downplay what Sesshomaru truly means to Rin and vice versa, nothing will ever change or hide the truth of the matter. Please, stop acting like they're only traveling companions and nothing more. Some of y'all even go so far as to say that they're like strangers. Knowing potentially little about a person is not equal to a lack of love and affection. Making big assumptions such as this to defend your ship is actually doing you more harm than good. Let me elaborate.

According to your reasoning, if that's all Rin ever was to him was a companion and Sesshomaru had no real attachment to her, then what precisely is the basis of your ship? Recall that Adult!Rin doesn't exist yet, thus we have no real idea what she will be like or if she's even alive. So how can you make comments like that but then go on later to say "they have such a unique and unbreakable bond" or "only Rin can be the mother because she's the only human he ever cared for" if all that time spent traveling together didn't amount to much in the first place like you claimed to believe beforehand? Do you see how your rationalizing is confusing?

Contrary to what some of you may think, I'm not just saying all this because I'm an anti and I'm obligated to disagree with you, or whatever other excuse you want to tell yourself. Believe it or not, I'm attempting to give as unbiased and objective of an analysis I can based on widely accepted interpretations of family dynamics, development, and any history we know of.

Of course I respect that at times fans will perceive things differently since that's bound to happen. What's hard for me to wrap my head around however is the unwillingness of some fans- not exclusively Sessrin shippers- to apply basic common sense and sound judgment to their observations and deductions.

Looking at all our facts, then taking the small handful of scenes Sesshomaru and Rin do share together into account, one can logically conclude that their dynamic is akin to one found in a typical parent-child relationship. If you still fail to recognize Sesshomaru as a parent to Rin, then that's fine too. In the end, that won't really change the fact that he'd still take on a role resembling an adult figure overseeing a young child's care and protection. Be it as a vassal, guardian, what have you. Plus, nobody is saying here that Sesshomaru doesn't make mistakes regarding Rin's general well-being, but so do all parents. Overall, I think the majority of us agree that Rin is in good hands. Whether it's in his direct company or in his occasional supervision from his frequent visits to the village.

In other words, it doesn't really matter what exact title you assign him in relation to Rin, as the distribution of power is all inherently the same with any and all adult-child relationships. That bond never changes once you've established it either, seeing as it's a special kind of connection one can only form with a child and a child alone.

I was a teacher for a few years, and speaking from personal experience, you don't need to be a parent, per se, to take on a role of authority in a child's life. I know without a doubt that I could never and will never view any of those kids I taught in a sexual/romantic light later down the road; yes, not even once they become grown-ups who are independent and more than capable of making their own decisions. Those of you who disagree are usually missing the whole point though, because we're not trying to dictate what Adult!Rin can and cannot do like many tend to accuse of us doing. This isn't a question of taking away from her autonomy nor does it fall under "purity culture," which is why people shouldn't continue jumping to these outrageous conclusions and really listen for a change. You're deflecting from the real issue here when you choose to misinterpret what we're saying by ignoring the problem we're actually referring to. You cannot present a valid counter-argument if you persist in twisting our words.

Bottom line: once these kids become old enough to pursue a sexual/romantic relationship, of course they have that right if they're ready. All we're trying to say is you guys ought to stop pushing forward this it's-completely-normal-to-want-to-bang-your-adoptive-dad-since-you're-an-adult-and-can-do-as-you-please agenda and not expect backlash. Ship it if you want, but please stop acting like their romance would be the epitome of a pure and healthy relationship.

Sesshomaru may not wear his heart on his sleeve, but it's foolish to presume he didn't actually care about Rin during their whole time together just because he didn't openly express his feelings until the very end. Surely everybody can comprehend that people handle and process their emotions differently. The way Sesshomaru chooses to is completely valid for the most part, so let's cut him some slack regarding this already.

What I'm trying to get at is that any child whose life you played an influential role in will always be a kid in a lot ways to you even when they're old and wrinkly. Just as they will always picture you as the loved one who guided and protected them when they were most vulnerable and couldn't always fend for themselves. Can't we relate this to children we know personally and apply it accordingly?

Finally, I want to end on this note. Could you kindly take a look at these two images below for a second?

The reason I ask is because of something I recently read that's relevant to the topic. There was this pro-sessrin tweet I saw that stated Rin trying to take care of Sesshomaru when they first met is what a mom would do for a child, which in their opinion, translates to Rin being more like a mother than a daughter if anything.

First off: are you freaking kidding me????

Seriously, so now children aren't allowed to tend to their sick or injured parents?! Parents are apparently superhuman and shouldn't be offered a helping hand from a child, even if they mean well and want to help their parent who's in pain?? Now this Twitter user was mostly being a smartass, but at the same time, it was evident they genuinely thought they offered a valid enough point that warranted no further explanation or clarification.

Secondly, by saying this Sessrin fans don't seem to realize that in actuality they're contradicting themselves and proving the point we've been trying to make all along. Glancing at the first picture and moving down to the second, the role of the one being cared for and the caretaker is reversed. So then by their own logic, Sesshomaru IS in fact like a father to Rin.

What it comes down to is the names you give to the roles these characters play aren't as crucial as the dynamic they share. The specific characteristics of that dynamic are what define the importance of said role, not so much the name in the role itself. So real father or not, Sesshomaru and Rin clearly mean a lot to each other. Close relationships are defined and solidified by the devotion and belonging they have to one another, not solely by the duration of time spent together and their proximity.

Well, that's a wrap! I hope you guys got something outta this blog, and that you enjoyed or found some portions of it interesting. I would love to hear your thoughts on the subject from this fandom, but only engage in conversation if you plan to be respectful. Thank you!

#inuyasha #hanyo no yashahime #sesshomaru #rin #jaken #anti sessrin #child grooming #family dynamics #parent child relationship

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spnopineapples · 4 years ago

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ALRIGHT PEOPLE. I'm READY.

LAST OF US 2 SPOILERS!!!!

......

.......

Are ya gone yet? Have you scrolled past if you don't want to see?

....

Alright. *CRACKS KNUCKLES AND NECK* Let's jump on into this!

First off I'm done with the game.

Second off..... THIS GAME WAS FUCKING PHENOMENAL!!! 10/10

The ending litterally killed me. Finished 2 hours ago,talked the ear off of my best friend for about 1 and a half hours and gushed and lamented the whole time. Cried for about 20 minutes by myself. Had an existential crisis. So on so on. And now I'm here, in the middle of an online meeting cause, ya know, Corona, muted with no camera on, because I'd much rather be typing out this dissertation.

Y'ALL. Go play this. It is AWESOME.

Now for the third and probably longest bit of this. My rebuttal to the bad reviewers:

I still contend that the bad reviews are 1 of 2 reasons with a little of a 3rd mixed in to both. #1. Being that people are pissed they killed off Joel and think the story did a disservice to the characters. #2. People are pissed because they think Naughty Dog was pushing a liberal agenda with a heavily muscled female antagonist/protagonist, a gay Ellie, and a transgender side character, Lev. The mixed in #3 is the extensive violence which I do contend was a lot. Yeah LoU1 was definitely violent, but damned this one got dark. And that's something coming from me because I am a fan of gratuitous violence.

Let me tackle these real quick. I'll be brief about #2 here though.

IN REBUTTAL TO REASON #2 - If you honestly didn't like LoU2 because of this reason (which I explained in my previous post about how IT IS logical that Abby be built the way she is and how Naughty Dog was definitely NOT shoving this or ANY of the others i mentioned in anyone's face in my opinion) you're in need of some corrective thinking and you should re-evaluate your ideas and realize that your opinion on these social issues doesn't matter and is wrong. None of these things make the game story illogical or bad. Bottom line: there are people like this in the world and their stories in this game drive the plot. It doesn't belittle the previous games or detract from the current game at all. You're just bigoted. Calm your tits and don't play the game if it upsets you so much. Pull a Seth and bury the hatchet. Make some steak sandwiches.

But I'm going to give the benefit of the doubt and imagine that the majority of the bad reviewers were more pissed at reason #1, Joel's Death. But real quick.

IN REBUTTAL OF REASON #3 -If you hated the game because of the amount of violence, do realize that the violence was the point of the story this time AND IT WAS SUPPOSE TO BE A DRAG ON YOUR SOUL. LoU1 was about finding love again in a violent world. Love being in the foreground and the violence a backdrop, which is why the violence didn't feel so in your face even though it was PLENTY violent. LoU2 was about succumbing to the violent world because of losing love. Violence being the foreground and tainted love (insert song here ya bastards) being the backdrop that drives it. AND HERE IS MY FAVORITE PART PLEASE READ THIS PART AT LEAST IF YOU DECIDE NOT TO READ THE WHOLE THING.

Think of the two endings. LoU1 WAS a story ABOUT finding love in a violent world BUT ENDED with Joel committing a violent act to protect his love (killing all the Fireflies, 1 of which was Abby's father and the driving reason for LoU2's main plot, and DOOMING THE WORLD TO INFECTION AND DAMNING HUMANITY). LoU2 WAS a story ABOUT losing love and reacting with violence BUT ENDED with Ellie doing a peaceful act (allowing Abby to leave alive with Lev) because of the love she had for Joel (that flashback scene of Joel playing guitar when Ellie decided to forgive him for the violence and lie at the end of LoU1).

DO Y'ALL SEE HOW IMPORTANT THAT IS?

There NEEDED to be a LoU2 because LoU1 ended with violence and a lie. LoU2 fulfilled this with an ending of forgiveness driven by a memory of love from the first game.

I've read a lot of the bad reviews where they mention the violence became too much and ruined the game. And that Ellie wouldn't act like that. First off Ellie totally would, fuck off with that noise. Second off THAT'S THE POINT. This was a story about how revenge is cyclic violence and it doesn't end until someone makes the decision to end it!

BOTTOM LINE: I felt ragged 2/3's of the way thru this game because of the violence, but that's the point of the story. Revenge is not worth it. Especially when it's with people like Abby and Ellie. Because neither are villians. AND BOY HOWDY DID IT TAKE ME A LONG TIME TO COME TO TERMS WITH THIS. Because I HATED ABBY FOR KILLING JOEL. When I first started playing her I DID NOT WANT TO BECAUSE I WAS ANGRY WITH HER. I litterraly felt dirty playing her. But this game did something amazing to get me around to appreciating her character. NOT LIKING HER CHARACTER, but appreciating. And I will tackle this in my next rebuttal.

IN REBUTTAL OF REASON # 1 - Let's talk about Joel's death.

I WILL NOT LIE TO YALL.

I was mightily upset about his death. At first I thought it to be a disservice to a beloved character. But then I realized something. See above about Joel's actions. He killed all those Fireflies and DAMNED THE WORLD. Not only that it is specifically mentioned in both LoU1 and in this game that Joel and Tommy did horrible things before they met Ellie and before Jackson. JOEL WAS NOT A GOOD GUY.

I think what people are upset about is the REALNESS of this game. A lot of other game developers don't do what Naughty Dog has done. Naughty Dog did not shy away from Joel's character flaws and his past wrongs! In fact, all the user's that use the reason for hating the game as "too many plotholes" Y'ALL FUCKING PLAYIN. More on that later.

Back to what I was saying about realness. In the real world, Joel's death and the brutality of it and suddenness of it is actually a very logical event that would occur. Abby doesn't KNOW Joel like we do. All she knows is this guy killed her father and a lot of her friends and damned humanity in the process. LoU1 is not a happy game. Might I remind yall about Sam and Henry? But his death was not "sudden". And it didn't steal Joel from us. I actually really enjoyed all the flashbacks to him. We got more than enough time and I actually feel as if the time we got with Joel was better because of his death so early in the game. DO NOT TELL ME THAT THAT NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM FLASHBACK DIDN'T FULFILL EVERY FEELING NEED.

And now for the wrap up - the big hangup that I see of those who hated Joel's Death is that the story didn't redeem it. They couldn't "buy" Ellie forgiving Abby at the end.

As I stated I will not lie. I was worried for about 2/3s of the way through this game that the bad user reviews were accurate and that the story sucked because I couldn't see where the writers were going. All I saw was senseless death of characters that I had loved and that I was coming to love. I straight up love Jesse by the way. It wasn't until Abby met Lev and Yara that I started seeing the majesty of this revenge story.

BECAUSE THE TRUTH IS I HATE FUCKING REVENGE STORIES WHERE THE MAIN CHARACTER IS LIKE, NO, THEY WOULDN'T WANT ME TO DO THIS. Before this game I'd be like "miss me with that bullshit" but after today I would say "give it to me like this." This actually felt real. And boy was it raw. Guys, the reason I started forgiving Abby is because of her decision to help Yara and Lev. Because it was her attempt to right the wrong of killing Joel which was eating her alive. Her and Owen and Mel. Guys. She is Joel. Why the hell do you think Joel did what he did for Ellie in the first game? Because he liked her at first site? BULLSHIT. He did it because Tess told him to do something good for once. IF YOU ARE UPSET WITH ABBY THEN YOU SHOULD BE UPSET WITH JOEL. I get it. Abby had to earn that with her story because at the beginning I'd have said leave her to the clickers. BUT CONTRARY TO THE USERS OF THIS REASONING SHE DID DESERVE HER REDEMPTION. The game shows over and over and over again that Abby isn't some mustache twirling villian who deserves instant death. She is complicated. She cares and she hates and she loves. She knows what's right and wrong and tries to do right as much as possible but she's human and she gets angry. Anger means you care.. and she cared about her father. She's a good human too because good humans feel shitty about doing shitty things and if you are observant at all you can tell immediately with Abby, as we play her in her Seattle Day 1, that she has doubts and isn't comfortable with her role in how Joel died. SHE DESERVED BEING FORGIVING BY ELLIE AT THE END. AND IN THE SAME TOKEN ELLIE DESERVED FORGIVING HER AND BEING FORGIVEN BY ABBY. It is very clearly obvious by the end of the game that Ellie could not reconcile her revenge killings with her best memories of Joel or with the actions she had to take to get there. Also it is of very important note here that Ellie stopped drowning Abby because of a flash image of Joel playing guitar. And then later on actually seeing the memory associated with that image that stopped her you can understand why Ellie did stop outside of just being as tired of violence as Abby was. The memory shows Joel and Ellie agreeing to try to forgive Joel for lying to her about the Fireflies and denying her her purpose. All this the night before he is killed. Note what Joel says. "If God gave me the chance to do it all over again. I would have done the same thing." Just that fucking devotion he has for Ellie shines through and she really understands his reasons for what he did. Still doesn't feel as if she can forgive him. THAT IS IMPORTANT. She DOES NOT agree with his decision. She understands it, but doesn't agree. But still decides to try and forgive. GUYS. That's exactly what she understands about Abby. Joel was sorry but he still would have done it. Same with Abby. There's a reason that image popped up as she was killing Abby and not the image of his beaten up face.

Remember that line from LoU2? Tess said it. As she is confessing to Joel that she was bit. "We're shitty people, Joel. It's been that way for a long time!" And Joel says "No, we are survivors!"

Y'all don't think for one second that Joel wouldn't have gone after that Soldier who shot Sarah if Tommy hadn't shot him? Y'all kidding yourselves.

Abby realizes this truth in the end. She realizes the part she played in enhancing and playing into the fucking violence and shittiness. Staining and tainting herself in the process. She just wanted to be clean. And Ellie just wanted to be clean.

Bombing this game is doing a fucking disservice to the emotional complexity of this story. It's been a long time since I've been that emotionally twisted.

This game isn't preachy. This game makes something clear that alot of other revenge stories get wrong. Revenge makes otherwise good people do shitty things and the shitty things taint us for the rest of our lives. At least Ellie and Abby stopped themselves before they tainted all their being.

Yeah we're shitty people. But we don't have to be.

#the last of us #the last of us 2 spoilers #the last of us part 2 #the last of us ii #the last of us 2 #I AM SO SORRY THIS IS SO LONG BUT I HAD TO RANT #FUCKING GREAT GAME #Hopefully y'all don't kill me over this #need to go post reviews so that this game gets the user rating it actually deserves #a 10 out of 10

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ecto-american · 5 years ago

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I was doing some research for a fanfiction, and remembered this line from Reality Trip, which got my criminal justice self all excited because of the implications. So have some analysis from a rambling autistic with a criminal justice degree.

“Daniel Fenton, in accordance with the Federal Anti-Ecto Control Act, Article 1, Section 1, Sub-section A, you're under arrest.”

Y'all, this is kinda wack? It means, on some level, there has been a federal judgment within the world of Danny Phantom that not only acknowledges that ghosts exist, but has an entire fucking act describing specifically the course of action in a sense. Lots of acts will kind of be this vague overarching thing with various random acts thrown into it, but the name along with the article one, section one subsection a dealio implies that this entire act focuses on ghosts. I say act and not law btw, because those terms are not necessarily synonyms.

Not only does this confirm that there are acts (at least one anyway) in Danny Phantom that specifically talk about ghosts, but kind of really and truly cements that the Guys in White are actually a federal government agency, rather than them simply acting as one but really being a private company of sorts or being some local state government program.

And with laws about ghosts, it means that legally, the government had to define what exactly a ghost is as well as their rights and lack of rights, and that they legally acknowledge, as a nation, that ghosts exists. While, of course, we don’t really ever get to see this act, and as far as I know, it’s literally Never talked about again, this scene means that this act applies to Danny. For a quick refresher, this happens after Danny is exposed, and so this act still applies to Danny despite him being outted as a half ghost. A scary sidenote is before this scene and line of dialogue, the agents told Danny that he was coming in for questioning and experiments.

So what might it possibly say? If there are any acts that we can potentially base what this act possibly would say, I would probably guess it’d be similar to the acts used for minorities within the United States. And I say these kinds of acts because they’re specifically acts that discriminate towards a group, and that have used various reasons to justify how they are not human, citizens or have any legal rights. If the agents’ lines were correct, these acts probably gave them justification for doing inhumanly cruel things to Danny.

Of course, Danny could be arrest for something totally different and not for some anti-ghost reasons. At this point in time, he’s still kind of half-loved, half-hated publicly as people are shown to still believe that he stole during the events of Control Freaks and the mayor incident of Public Enemies, but if he was under arrest for any of those crimes, the agents would have said that. And I refuse to believe this is an oversight of the writers, because they would have found any nitpicky thing and made it a funny situation where the agents went on and on and on about this endless list of crimes that the ghost boy has committed until Danny roundhouse kicked somebody. And no, it’s likely not because the Guys in White are only interested in Ghost Crimes. As federal officials, which they are confirmed to be, they would have arrested him for everything and have to basically fistfight the other government agencies investigating his Non Ghost Crimes.

So what exactly is he under arrest for? No clue obviously, and it’s hard to really even guess. Article 1, Section 1, Sub-section A for most acts are basically describing what the act’s going to be before it moves on to detail that. I think this is an oversight of the DP writers, lord knows we get enough of them, but it could also potentially highlight the Dumb factor of the Guys in White that we would see them sometimes exhibit, where instead of properly referencing the piece of legislation he’s under arrest for, they just blurt out the first section of that law.

And who wrote this act? It could be anybody, of course. Anybody within politics. It also begs the question as to exactly when this act was written and when it was put into effect. I’d wager it heavily depends on when the Guys in White came into effect, as they are clearly acting under these laws. Which begs the question: how many pieces of anti-ghost legislation are there? Who’s writing them? There’s potential that there are literally lawyers who are literally experts in ghost law. Keep in mind that in the beginning of the series, there was a lot of skepticism that ghosts even exist.

This honestly leads me to propose a new headcanon: The Guys in White are a very new government organization that spawned after the events of Public Enemies. To preface this and clarify, in order, the Guys in White appear in only five episodes: Million Dollar Ghost, Double Cross My Heart, Reality Trip, Eye for an Eye, and Livin’ Large.

Evidence to support this theory:

They only show up four episodes later in their first appearance in Million Dollar Ghost. Public Enemies seems to also be the first episode in the series that shows a massive onslaught of ghost attacks. I would guess that this is the ghostly event that probably spawned the act in question, which may have called for the organization of the Guys in White. Prior to this, ghosts were basically shown that they’re unconfirmed to exist on a public level. Even Jack, our lovable and excitable ghost hunter who’s been doing this since his college years admits in Mystery Meat that he’s never seen a ghost until that point. Jazz mentions that Harriet Chin in Bitter Reunions lost her job for writing an article about ghosts because she was laughed for writing about something that was more for “the national enquirer”, a conspiracy theory newspaper that nobody really takes seriously.

Why are they there during the events of Million Dollar Ghost anyway? If they’re a new organization, they may need that money or are cashing in on the publicity of the event to spread their name, or they’re just starting out and have no real clue where else to go. Only two of them even showed up anyway. The only other groups there are very small ghost hunting groups: literally two young adults on scooters, another set of young adults with a tiger fueled by anxiety and a van, and FentonWorks. And while they, out of all of them, clearly have the most advanced technology, they’re about on the same skill level as the other ghost hunters (getting captured and tricked and such just as easily). Danny even was just as “haha” about them as he was the other hunters who had showed up.

Their technology in Million Dollar ghost is nothing in comparison to the literal jetpacks and planes and four wheelers and armor they get several episodes later. Their funding increased when they proved ghosts exist and more ghostly events happened, and they likely proved their competence in some way. Especially when we see that they have been catching other ghosts (like Skulker in Double Cross My Heart and Lydia in Reality Trip) and gathering important information on ghostly artifacts (Reality Trip).

It would explain why they don’t really show up that often in the series, especially during major ghost events where they really should be there, such as the ghost king invasion of Reign Storm. They may have not secured the funding or manpower to really do anything just yet. Note that Reign Storm happened in between Million Dollar Ghost and Double Cross My Heart, which is almost a 20 episode gap. Their skills, knowledge, ability, technology and apparent funding jumped massively between these episodes, and it kind of stays about the same consistency for the rest of the show.

They really only seem to have one department, and they have really low employee numbers for a government agency. There’s no talk or implications or having multiple departments or anything, such as research or technology. Even during the SWAT invasion during Reality Trip, there’s only like twenty or so agents there. In Livin’ Large, there’s only about seven there, and two are the Agent K and O that we know. They play a lot of roles, from researching, questioning, gathering information, tracking down criminals, getting information from the Fenton’s lab, technology things in FentonWorks, etc. Of course, this is a staple for many law enforcement jobs where you have many tasks, but they seem to be playing the role of detective, computer analysis, and police officer at minimum given the wide variety of things we see them do. As somebody who’s worked in three situations where the company/program was very new, it’s incredibly common for a new company that’s still finding it’s groundings to have a very blurred job line. Or they’re heavily underfunded, but look at the goddamn jetpacks they get, look me in the eye and tell me they’re underfunded.

The lack of basic ghost information. In Livin’ Large, they want to destroy the Ghost Zone. It’s apparently very obvious that you Can’t Do That, but the Guys in White seem oblivious. While you can argue that they’re just fucking dumb, it may be more reasonable to assume that they simply just don’t know.

There’s no dialogue (that I can find) prior to Million Dollar Ghost to suggest they exist. There’s also no dialogue from Vlad, who would have known and been wary of such an organization had it been around for years, to suggest that they’ve been around a while. Jack, who also is open about how much he admires them, would have likely said something to. But I am willing to chalk this entire part up to simply poor writing.

“But Danny knew who the Guys in White were when they showed up in Million Dollar Ghost!” Yeah. He also knew who the other people were, and I heavily doubt that they’d be as big of a deal or name as the Official government branch. It’s very likely that they all introduced themselves when they showed up.

#show analysis #nick talks #danny phantom #guys in white

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inkdemonapologist · 4 years ago

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Okay but I do actually want to know both the things you love and the things you could rant about from DCTL?

OH BOY UHHHHHH okay lets see, I'm gonna see if I can do the "add a readmore after you post it" thing and see if that'll keep it stable.......

But also, much like Sammy, I am incapable of shutting up unless you strike me in the head with a blunt object, so uh, forgive my wordiness:

THINGS I ENJOY:

- DCTL gave us Sammy's ink addiction and like, if you had asked me before all this "what would you most like to see in a franchise?" I would not have answered "one of the characters drinks ink accidentally and then discovers that he can't stop" but boy that sure is my favourite concept that I LOVE to see handled literally any other way than how the book handled it!!!

- I like what it added to Tom and Allison and Norman!! Like, it's not big twists on their characters or anything -- we already knew Tom felt he was doing the wrong thing, so getting to see his CRUSHING GUILT over creating the machine isn't New Information, but it's nice to see and understand more of him; for all of them I feel a lot more attached to them after getting to see more of them as people.

- Like 90% of the "I LOVE IT" category for me is how the book handled Joey, and Buddy's relationship with Joey. The way Joey isn't a Sinister Mastermind Who’s Just Screwing With Everyone but just manipulative in a more mundane way -- someone who thinks of himself as just the guy with the vision to call the shots; he wants what he wants and this is how he's learned to get it; he exploits people not through devious schemes, but just by offering them something that they want or need and asking too much in return, expecting their loyalty for his favours. And the way he interacts with Buddy, making Buddy complicit with him and keeping Buddy off-balance and insecure while making him a favourite and treating him as Special is just PERFECT -- gives a lot of content to kind of extrapolate off of when pondering what must've drawn the others in and convinced them to ignore the red flags. I was initially frustrated with the idea of Buddy not being an artist and jUST DECIDING TO LEARN TO ANIMATE ON THE SPOT ("I've never done this before but I'm sure I can just do an artist's job" is a weirdly common throwaway thing in media and as an artist iTS A PET PEEVE) but actually the way they use his plagiarism to make him trapped in a lie in ways Joey doesn't even realise ends up being a neat echo of other employees (coughTOMcough), who were involved in much graver sins but suddenly felt they couldn't object or they'd lose their one chance, just like Buddy. There's a lot here that I think is really great.

OKAY THATS THE GOOD STUFF, LET'S COMPLAIN ABOUT SAMMY:

- Uncomfortable Bigotry Vagueness that we all knew was gonna be in this list -- I dunno man, a guy committing a microaggression and getting startled and defensive when he's called out for it doesn't necessarily completely ruin his character I GUESS, but the way this was handled is just SO WEIRD AND VAGUE that it's uncomfortable and it doesn't seem to serve any real purpose. "Is Tom black?" is a question I actually have to ask because the text sort of implies he is while also dancing around it and apparently Word of God said he's not??? which makes Buddy's comment nonsensical???? And I mean, you could go that route, since Buddy wonders to himself if Sammy talks to everyone like this -- HE ACTUALLY DOES!! Even within the text of the novel, he uses "Joey" instead of Mr. Drew, which is consistent with his audiologs in the game -- but that makes the writing suggest "this character THINKS this guy might be racist but actually they're reading too much into it and it wasn't racially motivated at all, he's just a jerk!!" wHICH IS SOMEHOW EVEN MORE ICKY??? Anyway like yeah I guess it's not inconsistent with his character that while Sammy Lawrence may not have any specific grudge against minorities he has probably not checked his privilege or done the work to challenge his own internal biases, but “Your Fav Probably Contributes To Systemic Racism In Ways He Hasn’t Considered, As Do We All When Our Assumptions Go Unchecked” is still a wild thing to wade through in a fun story about demonic cartoons

- but yknow so is T H E H O L O C A U S T

- Sammy's voice is wrong. I'm actually okay with him being a weird awkward asshole, I already kind of assumed he was and that's part of why I like him!! but there's so many places he doesn't quite... talk like himself? And not just in terms of word choice, like -- so in his monologue at the end, he's described as talking so quickly that his words are "tumbling out faster than he can speak them," which initially seems fine; like yeah, that's a Standard Scene we're familiar with, the person who's been Driven Mad With Insight becoming more and more manic as they try to convey it -- until I tried to imagine it and realised that Sammy doesn't talk like this. That's a really consistent quality I always notice about his voice; whether he's almost giddily excited in prophet mode, or he’s his irritated and overworked human self, or he's violently angry and his voice has that echo effect -- he always speaks very deliberately. He enunciates carefully. There's some circumstances where I'd buy this as showing that he's Not Himself, but I feel like those would kind of need to be in the middle of his transformation, not at the end of it.

- In fact a lot of the scenes with Sammy kind of have this feeling -- that it's not necessarily an exploration of Sammy as a character, but that he is filling a trope or archetype role here. Once he's fully transformed he excitedly describes the process as more of a mental compulsion, which is in contrast to his weird yeerk-infected behaviour when trying to get ink from Miss Lambert. Both of those scenes don't seem wrong on their own because they fit tropes we know -- but they feel weird when you try to fit them together.

- I also just in general am not a fan of the ink acting like a weird yeerk. It can be a parasite I guess but when it starts overwriting and puppeting people and crawling around to enter their body that's just a completely DIFFERENT kind of supernatural story and it’s not what im here for!!!

- THE FREAKIN!!! HE WILL SET US FREE!!!! WHY????????? SAMUEL LAWRENCE WHAT IS HE SETTING YOU FREE FROM??????? Sammy has No Motive for any of what he's doing, other than just Ink Made Me Do It. The whole thing that was INTERESTING about Sammy as a character is the contrast between this frustrated, ornery musician with no specific love for the cartoons he works on, and the manically devoted cultist he becomes. What happened in the middle there? What made him desperate enough to shift his mindset so much? "Something supernatural made him do things that don't benefit him in any way" is a very boring answer to this question!!! Susie was a victim who implies that her transformation has forced her to do things she didn't want to do, but we can still see her motive -- she wanted to be Alice, so she took a sketchy offer to try to get what she wanted. Even now, her violence echoes that goal -- to be a more perfect Alice. What did Sammy want? WHO KNOWS. Even in his ink-addled state at the end, we don't understand what he hopes the Ink Demon will even do for him, and in fact he seems to be responsible for creating the very scenario he's begging Bendy to reverse in the game.

- [sighs loudly into my hands]

- Overall I'm left wondering if the author just..... didn't like Sammy Lawrence? And I don't mean that in the sense of him being a rude jerk -- like, Joey is not a good person, but the author seems to be interested in him and in what makes him tick. There doesn't seem to be that same interest in Sammy. Sammy's role in the story is that of a monster, transformed into something murderous, unable to prevent or choose it. He's not a victim of anyone but the ink, no one had to manipulate him or figure out how his brain worked or what he wanted or what he feared or give him any reason to do the things he does -- ink got in his mouth and overwrote his personality. And we don't even get to see that change, not really. He starts out angry and defensive and continues being angry and defensive up until his very last scene, denying his ink-stealing but not really much else. We see all his prophetic sketches but we never see hints of this in him, we never see him start to act more excited and hopeful, we never see him seek out the demon he desires to please. Why do we never see Sammy struggling between his dismissive angry front and a building religious fervour he can't quite suppress? We don't get to see any of the in-between. There's no interest at all in why or even what it looked like as Sammy became what he became, when, to be honest, I suspect interest in precisely that is one reason he's such a big fav.

- It's funny, in a "cries into my hands" kind of way, when Sammy is just knocked in the head while monologuing and immediately removed from the story without further mention, like...... that sure is the pattern with him, isn't it, he just tries very very hard and never actually gets to matter, but it also fits right in here, too, in this book that doesn't want to think about his motives -- he rambles nonsensically, explaining nothing, gets one trademark phrase, and then is hastily removed so the story doesn't have to think about him anymore.

...................I think that's most of it.

...

Y'all............ I'm not ready for Sent From Above.......... I'm just not.... I'm not emotionally ready...... like..... Sammy has to be in that right..... he’s Susie’s boss and she has that big crush on him..................................... I’m not ready

#i know you have questions you always do #we all write on the walls #hopefully I have not gotten completely confused on any of these points but LMAO ITS POSSIBLE

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chidoroki · 5 years ago

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TPN ch176

(spoilers! i'm crying and full of anxiety)

I'm gonna tell y'all now to take a deep breath because.. wow and damn.

The wait is finally over. After all the struggles and preparation our escapees went through the past two years, we finally get the Phil reunion we've all been waiting for. This hug alone is enough to make me start tearing up. Their smiles are so precious. (damn it girl, don't toss your gun aside like that aahh)

Phil then learns that Norman is actually alive and he's so relieved. Then we even get Ray apologizing to him. He knows exactly what Phil went through because he was in the same scenario before the jailbreak. Both of them had to carry the burden of knowing the truth about the farms and stay quiet. They had to hide their true emotions when friends were shipped out and perfect a fake smile in order to wave off any suspicion from their caretakers.

Seeing Ray hug him like this means so much. I'm so proud of how strong Phil has become during the long wait and now he can finally put his guard down and let his emotions out.. and just be a normal kid. His family has come back for him like they promised and it warms my heart.

Thankfully Isabella steps in and fills the mom of this plantation about the current situation. How they're all free and can finally love these children normally. It's moments like this that remind me how bad this world is for humans. Literally none of them are truly evil, (unless you're peter) they just valued their own lives so much that they were willing to accept whatever role was given to them in order to stay alive, no matter how harsh.

And these flashbacks.. oh they hurt. They really put into perspective how much these kids have gone through. Not just the Grace Field kids, but literally every child has gone through hell. It doesn't matter how extreme or different their experiences might be. What's important is that they all stuck together, never gave up and now they're all free. They can finally live a life without fear.

The journey was rough and unfortunately they suffered a handful of loses. Yuugo, Lucas, Conny, Olivia, Michelle and the kids who were killed by Andrew. While we, as readers, might not have seen much of certain characters, having Emma here think about each one of them further proves how special everyone is to her, how important it is to value life itself and that one should cherish those that they have in their own lives. Their deaths stressed Emma out to the point of her doubting her abilities, overthinking her actions and straight up scaring her, but she stayed strong and worked so very hard in order to achieve the bright future they all deserved. That crazy dream she had of changing the world has become reality and I'm so proud of her for never giving up or losing hope.

And then the chapter decides, nope, you've all been happy for way too long. Let's change that. Here, have a demon!

And then all hell breaks lose. The children scatter, completely terrified about the sudden appearance of this monster. After all, these cattle children believed this was just an innocent and safe orphanage. This creature shouldn't be real. (glad you finally realized your mistake emma but please hurry!)

As expected, Emma doesn't hesitate as she rushes in to protect the kids. Doesn't even matter that she never met this young girl before, our mc will simply not let another person die! Especially not when they're all so close to freedom. Thankfully Ray, who's just as protective and alert as ever, never dropped his guard and is quick to draw his weapon at the demon. Unfortunately.. that wasn't enough because.. god DAMN IT!!

I knew things were going far too well for the kids recently. I swear I just knew something horrible was bound to happen sooner or later.. but not something like this! Fuck! Kudos to Shirai-san for always keeping me on the edge of my seat throughout this entire series with fantastic twists but damn, you didn't have to hurt my heart like this! I'm legit crying here. This is certainly not a "like daughter, like mother" moment I would have ever wanted to see because this gives me major Goldy Pond flashbacks! Emma was able to survive being stabbed by Lewis not only because she's the mc and has strong plot armor by default, but because Ray knew exactly who in their family she could undergo a blood transfusion with and that Yuugo was quick enough to get her back to the B06-32 shelter in time and use the machine the shelter so conveniently had.

I've come to love Isabella so much that these panels literally makes me anxious. I want her to live so badly. If anyone deserves to live happily it's her simply because of how long she's been a victim of the farm system. She was lucky once already back when Peter spared her life so she could become the new Grandma after Sarah was harvested in her place. Sadly, I don't think she has that kind of plot armor right now. Can we get Zack and Anna over here now please? Or cauterize the blood vessels maybe to stop the bleeding at least like Ray once did to Emma? Because I doubt we're gonna find a blood transfusion machine anywhere close by or even know who's able to give her blood. I don't know how else to save her but that wound looks real bad and needs to be treated, like now! It's Mother's Day for god sake, let this wonderful woman live please! I know the typical neverland story has kids who don't grow up so therefore there's no adults, but come on Shirai-san, can you let us have just one??

Aahh, how will the kids react? This isn't a pretty sight in the slightest. No doubt they'll be mentally scarred. The other sisters and moms must be super worried as well. But Emma? Emma will surely be hard on herself. Whether or not Isabella dies from this, Emma will probably blame her reckless actions for causing her family pain, like she's done with past injuries and deaths. She works so hard to keep her family safe. She would never want someone to sacrifice their life for hers. (if they want to show me feral emma again like we got in goldy pond then please, i'll take it, let her kill once more.) And Ray? Oh god..

That's his actual mother! It doesn't matter that he and Isabella were on bad terms up until very recently, he made the effort to forgive her and now holds no grudge against her. He even helped persuade her to continue on living and join him and the rest of the kids in the human world. I imagine it would upset him deeply knowing that he possibly ruined that bright future for her, as he would most likely blame himself for not shooting quick enough or his shot missing the demon's eye/core (you can see how close he actually was too). He's been very protective of his family ever since he made that promise to Emma back in the demon forest the morning after they escaped GF. He get furious whenever someone he cares about gets hurt or killed, especially when could've done something to prevent it, as we've seen that several times already. I can totally see him killing this demon no problem.. once he gets over the shock of Isabella being stabbed. (if not can we get ayshe over here please? she apparently never misses a shot)

I was happy that Isabella and Ray spoke a couple chapters ago but still wished their chat went a bit longer, or hoped that they'll have another opportunity to talk.. but not if she's on her deathbed! This isn't remotely close to anything I had expected. Like I wanted them to actually make up and hug and maybe reveal to the others like, "yeah this is actually my real mother," and see their reactions.. but not like this! I don't want a heartbreaking conversation darn it! (if this is the end for isabella and we get ray singing the lullaby to her as she's dying, then that's it. saddest damn manga/anime death i have ever witnessed and i swear i'll cry over it for the rest of my life.)

Aaah god, I'm so very worried. Y'all better go hug your mothers today.

#the promised neverland #tpn manga #tpn phil #tpn emma #tpn isabella #tpn ray #phil #emma #mother isabella #ray #chidoroki used chatter

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thebonggirll · 5 years ago

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Chapter 16 - Cavalry Battle

Chapter 15

Bakugou was already fuming about that stupid Deku getting the first position in the first round when Y/N suddenly grabbed his shoulder and talked to him in a way that no one dared to do before. He looked at the girl who still had her eyebrows furrowed while talking to her childhood friend. He was embarrassed and-

"Now the real fun begins." Bakugou heard Midnight's voice boom across the arena. The students gathered around as she explained the rules of the second event - Cavalry Battle.

Participants will form teams with a maximum of 4 people and then get in a horse configuration. The objective was to earn points by swiping other teams' headbands while protecting their own. The value of a team's headband would be the sum of the points each person on the team received based on their performance in the previous competition.

The person who ranked last would be worth 5 points, and each rank above that would be worth 5 more points than the previous one, with the exception of 1st place, which was worth 10 million points. Everyone's eyes fixated on Midoriya. His team was going to be targeted mostly.

The one to wear the headband must be the rider, and they were not allowed to wear it below their neck. If the team lose their headband or crumble as a horse configuration, they would still not be eliminated. Participants were allowed to use their Quirks, but, should they attack with the malicious intention of harming another participant, they will be forced out of the game.

Y/N looked at Todoroki from the distance who was talking to Kaminari, Momo and Iida. "I mean I can ask him atleast.", she thought and walked to them.

"H-Hey Todoroki? You have already decided or-"

"Sorry Y/N.." Momo apologized.

"Oh no no!" Y/N shook her head, "It's fine!" She sighed and looked around. Hot-head was surrounded by many students. Y/N didn't expect him out of all the people to be in demand. She in no way was going to be in his team. Not only because their quirk are basically polar opposites but also because of the little crap that Bakugou spouted. Yes she was mad about it. She was allowed to feel that way.

But now the problem was..who was going to team with her? Looking around she already found students with plans made up before and teams set up. Shoji maybe? He didn't find anyone too. She was walking towards him when Sero stopped her.

"Hey you don't have a team to join yet right?" He asked.

Y/N blinked looking at him and said, "..Not yet."

"Well join our team then!"

"Uhh..sure but who's in-" her eyes moved behind him as she watched the rest of his team members - Kirishima and Bakugou.

"Our quirks aren't compatible." Unknowingly the frown came back to her face.

"Hey look. I get it, y'all have problems but can you just put aside your personal issues and look at it as just participants of a competition? We need you. Your quirk is powerful." He explained, "Also, your quirks can be compatible in ways which you guys don't know about. You just never once considered to think about it."

Y/N's frown deepened as she realized that he was actually right and never thought about it that way. She sighed and said, "Okay."

Even though she managed to make new friends, they had their priorities sorted when it came to their career. Ofcourse she was approached by some people who wanted her to be in the team but after her little speech in the arena before the competition, she didn't really feel comfortable with anyone other than her classmates. It felt like they would only try to use her because of her quirk and if anything happened, guess who's the first one they'll be ready to sacrifice? If given an option, she would avoid joining the team Bakugou was in. Ofcourse it was a matter of her self-respect.

But then again it was also a matter of her stupid ego. Which she had to stomp on if she was going to make a name for herself as a good hero.

Y/N walked to the team, her cheeks reddening out of embarrassment. "Plan and Execute. That's it.", she whispered to herself in reassurance. It wasn't like she had a choice OR a good plan. Her team had Bakugou who was not only strong but smart.

"You're joining?" Kirishima asked, "Woah...I didn't feel like you'll agree."

Bakugou was observing her. She can feel it but she refused to look at him.

"She had no other choice." His smug voice entered her ears.

"Do we have a plan?" She asked, still not looking at him.

Bakugou normally didn't pay much attention to anyone. But for someone to be in his team AND to have the audacity to ignore him, he was surely angry.

"Fucking look at me when you're talking. Or you don't have the guts to do that too?"

She looked back at him and asked again, gritting her teeth, "Do we have a damn plan."

"Ofcourse we have a plan." His face broke into a wicked grin as he said, "We are taking the 10 million from your boyfriend."

"Don't call him my boyfriend." Y/N muttered, averting her eyes. The term just reminded her more about the stupid crush she had on this guy, and she was in no mood to feel giddy about it. Infact, she was getting more mad at herself for even liking a guy like him.

Her whole demeanor - starting from the way she talked with him to the way she refused to look at him - everything was noticed by Bakugou. He didn't get to think much because of the announcement of second round but he knew what he was thinking of at that time.

Embarrassment and fucking guilt.

As soon as the event started, just like everyone, Team Bakugou was also running towards Midoriya. But something happened while they were busy chasing him. A guy from section B, specifically, Team Monoma snatched their headband. Which ended up in Team Bakugou with zero points.

"Your class is too small minded. Think bigger." Monoma said.

Bakugou as usual lost his temper and yelled, "What did you say! Come back here!"

"Midnight said the obstacle course was just the first game. And we figured they wouldn't cut that many of us right off the bat, would they?" Monoma looked back, "Assuming they'd keep atleast 40 of the contestants in the next event, all we had to do was to stay within that group and run. From our spots in the middle rank, we could fully observe the quirks that our rivals have and judge their capabilities. Only a fool would obsess over preliminary round, wouldn't you agree?"

He tied the headband around his neck and continued, "Oh while I have your attention, you're kinda famous aren't you?"

Y/N knew what this kid was talking about. It was a sensitive issue for Bakugou and this guy knew exactly what he was doing. Yes, he was successfully making Bakugou mad but the thing is..

...they don't know what he is capable of doing and especially, when he's mad.

"You got attacked by that sludge villain. You must tell about it sometime. It must be strange for a hero to be in a role of a victim."

"Kirishima." Bakugou said, "We have a change of plans. Before we take down Deku, we are gonna kill every one of these B list idiots." No one ever saw him being that mad, and it scared the rest of the team members.

But she was also pissed about the trash talk they had to listen to from this section since they were shown in the national television. Bakugou was at fault too, ofcourse, but that shouldn't cloud their opinions about every single one of the students of section A.

"Smart, my fucking ass." Y/N thought.

"Please don't make us regret this!" Kirishima said as they started running towards Team Monoma. But they were quick to dodge Bakugou's attack. It took a few seconds for them to realize what Monoma's quirk was. Copy.

Ofcourse it didn't stop Bakugou. As soon as Team Monoma started running away again, He jumped off of Kirishima and flew towards them using his quirk. But once again, he got stopped by their team's Solid Air quirk.

Like it was mentioned before, they don't know what he's capable of. Bakugou was able to break through the solid air and he jumped back. Sero was quick to catch him before he hit the ground.

"We told you to warn us before you jump!" Sero said.

"Whatever, atleast we are advancing-" Kirishima said but got interrupted by Bakugou yelling, "We are not done!!!"

"Boy, you are that pissed." Y/N said as they continued running.

"I couldn't brace myself earlier when I jumped! Get closer! We'll get our points back from these idiots! Then go for the big one!" Bakugou yelled, "Elbow guy! Tape up!"

Sero released his tape forward at high speed, "My name's Sero."

"Speed up Grandma!"

"I told you to stop calling me that!" Y/N said, "Don't slip and hold onto each other firmly!" Releasing a huge gush of water from her feet and using it like a jet ski, she moved forward at a high speed towards their opponent.

It took only a few seconds. Y/N used her quirk to get close and Bakugou used his quirk to break the solid air in front of them created by Team Monoma, then snatching all of their headbands.

"Now we are going after Deku and Todoroki!" Bakugou said turning to his left where Todoroki created an ice barrier, probably to trap Midoriya. Being the impatient boy he was, Bakugou broke the barrier and jumped ahead, without warning his team, again.

And time was up.

Team Todoroki was the winner of the second round. And Team Bakugou was the second. Although, he didn't look too happy with it.

But what came as a surprise was the third winner. Team Shinsou, one with the purple haired guy. Y/N finally came to know about his name.

"Hey congrats Y/N!" Tzuyu said approaching her.

"Yeah I didn't do much, Bakugou just wanted me in to melt Todoroki's ice and for high speed." she replied. Tzuyu then went to crongratulate the others who passed.

"God I'm gonna hate myself for this." Y/N whispered to herself in the meantime. "Hey Bakugou," she called noticing him standing alone and complaining, "Uh, good work. We...wouldn't be in the second place if you weren't so hard-headed."

"What did you just call me!"

"I meant it as a compliment. But, don't get used to it buddy."

"I don't care, I wanted to be the first."

"And I just want to be a good hero." Y/N knew that she was bringing back the topic but she couldn't help herself, "Using unethical ways to be one is just not me. That's all I have to say."

Bakugou couldn't speak any word other than "okay", but Y/N was content with it.

It meant that he listened and probably was sorry about it.

.....Yeah, not so sure about the last one.

Chapter 17

SEASON - II

Ignite

MASTERLIST

tags: @captncappuccino

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bloodraven55 · 5 years ago

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The Potential of Glimmer's Villain Arc

Okay so a lot of people have been theorising about what's coming next for Glimmer's character with everything that's happened in Season 3. And I have plenty of thoughts of my own so this is going to be my longest analysis post in a while. I'll put it under a cut for ease of reading, and I hope y'all enjoy!

So as an introduction let's briefly look at where Glimmer is now. She's getting ever closer to Shadow Weaver, and we all know how well that ended for her father, plus the loss of Angella is undoubtedly going to be hugely traumatic for her, especially because as she herself says she assumed that Angella would always be there since she was immortal.

Angella is gone, Adora is going to be under a whole lot of mental strain of her own due to the revelations she's had about her past and the pain of having lost both Catra and Angella for good as far as she's concerned, the rest of the Princess Alliance aren't exactly around a whole lot at Bright Moon, and it doesn't look like Shadow Weaver is going anywhere any time soon as long as there's power to be had and the Rebellion is where she can best work towards her own goals.

What I'm saying is, Glimmer likely isn't going to have much of a support system except for Bow next Season, and she's in a prime position for Shadow Weaver to employ similar manipulation tactics and methods of abuse on her as she did on Catra and Adora. Glimmer has no real experience with that type of abuse and manipulation, or any real frame of reference to understand the more nuanced form of evil that Shadow Weaver represents, and so she probably won't realise that she's being played and pushed down a darker path until it's too late.

So with that basis established let's look at some of the other signs that seem to point towards an arc of this sort for Glimmer.

One very significant thing is some of the cinematography in Moment of Truth.

First Glimmer is positioned directly in front of the image of her father in this shot, showing us that she's figuratively as well as literally taking the same position as Micah with regards to becoming Shadow Weaver's pupil. Note that she’s standing in darkness rather than in the light in this frame as well, because that’s going to be important going forward.

It’s also very telling that this shot comes right after Glimmer argues with her mother about the best course of action and first suggests accepting Shadow Weaver’s help. The visual symbolism of her replacing her father on screen reflects her taking the first step towards filling the same role as him in the story as well.

Then we have Glimmer flat out stepping from the light into the darkness as she decides to perform the spell with Shadow Weaver. Which is extremely Not Subtle.

Plus the angle of the following shot making Shadow Weaver's outstretched hand look bigger and more striking to highlight the threat that the offer poses.

And finally there's the way that the scene where they actually do the spell is framed. Shadow Weaver's hand extends through the circle, like a barrier is being crossed metaphorically, and again it fills the screen to make it seem threatening and imposing.

Meanwhile when we get the reverse shot, which I might add is clearly meant to actually be from Shadow Weaver's perspective, Glimmer looks very small and very young, an uncertain and far less powerful figure ripe to be taken advantage of.

There is no way that the tone of this scene was accidental. Without any dialogue being exchanged it's telling us that Glimmer is going to suffer for this choice---it's telling us to be worried---and it's honestly a masterful piece of television.

Another aspect that isn't hugely noticeable on first watching is the undercurrent running through the show of Glimmer's desire for power. She's not obsessively power hungry the way Shadow Weaver is, that's for sure, but she does often demonstrate annoyance at her own limitations.

"Glimmer is frustrated by the constraints of her magic, by the constraints of being a princess, the daughter, of this immortal queen — her mother is this kind of immortal, untouchable angel and her father was the best sorcerer that Mystacor has ever seen. And she’s in the shadow of that." (x)

This quote from a recent interview with Noelle Stevenson pretty much spells it out, and I don't think I need to mention the importance of the use of the word "shadow" here.

With all of that covered, I want to move on to something I haven't seen talked about as much, which is the ways that Glimmer and Catra are paralleled in the story.

"In some ways I think [Glimmer]’s a little bit of a mirror to Catra, although neither of them would ever admit it."

I find this quote from the same interview incredibly intriguing, and it gives me lots of ideas about not only the potential development that a villain arc for Glimmer could bring to her own character, but also the development it could bring in terms of her and Catra as foils for each other in the narrative.

For a start, Noelle then goes on to talk about how "it’s always been this kind of like losing battle for [Glimmer]" and I would like to point out the resemblance to Catra's lines about how she "never gets to win" and "if [she] wins a battle [she] loses the war", because this really does seem to foreshadow that Glimmer could end up in a similar place next season to where Catra was at the end of Season 3.

"So when someone comes to her and offers her more power and the ability to actually really save the day and prove her worth, she takes it. Glimmer’s also sorta crossed the line in the sand this season."

This part of the interview I want to bring up just to further prove that the way these things were written this season was certainly deliberate and it isn't reaching to draw these conclusions from them. It's apparent that the writers are very aware of what they're doing in terms of Glimmer and Catra's character arcs and the possible link between the two so I simply wanted to include this quote to give my analysis here a more solid grounding.

The one thing I'd like to pick out of that as well is the idea that Glimmer is looking to "prove her worth", which is something that has been the core of Catra's decision making throughout most of the show so far. In the past it was Catra making bad choices in an attempt to get respect and admiration from Shadow Weaver, and now I believe it will be Glimmer's turn to do the same.

But beyond that, I want to wind the clock back to the beginning of Season 3 for a moment, specifically to when Glimmer asserts that "evil people don't change." Adora is quick to point out that that is an extremely reductive mindset to have and far from always the case, though she does so by applying it to completely the wrong target in the form of Shadow Weaver who is almost certainly not going to be redeemed in any way, but that got me thinking about how Glimmer flirting with her inner darkness could be utilised in the story in exceedingly interesting ways.

The most obvious path is that through having to redeem herself for bad decisions that she made for understandable reasons, Glimmer would come to realise that things aren't as black and white as people being good and evil but rather there is far more nuance to be found with regards to morality. Basically, she would gain a greater understanding of what it means to be good or bad and the possibility of redemption first hand and grow to acknowledge that she was wrong to oversimplify it down to a binary choice of people being immutably good or evil and never able to change.

However, I would also like to discuss how Glimmer's villain arc could intersect with Catra's redemption arc. Glimmer has always balked at Adora's attempts to get through to Catra, telling her that Catra is evil because she's with the Horde and dismissing the notion of a redemption for her. But if Glimmer sinks to that same point---if she hits rock bottom the way Catra did---and she sees Catra pick herself back up and rebuild herself successfully to become a better person than she was before?

Well, then that could provide some amazing inspiration for Glimmer to then follow in her footsteps and break free from the cycle of Shadow Weaver's abuse herself as well. Add Catra getting to see that the Princesses are far from perfect but fallible people just like everyone else on top of that, and both Glimmer and Catra would evolve as part of the same arc and come out of it with a much stronger understanding of each other and just how people work in general.

Lastly I want to bring up this quote that I’ve put below from a recent convention.

"Interesting foil! Catra is a secretly sweet person with her darkness on the outside. While Glimmer is the opposite."

As well as again emphasising that Glimmer and Catra are in some ways two sides of the same coin, this would definitely seem to back up my theory and indicate that Glimmer has depths that she herself doesn't even understand that are now going to be pulled to the surface by Shadow Weaver.

To add to this, in the interview I drew from earlier Noelle comments that "the way this season ends has major repercussions for Glimmer. It throws her into a world that she never expected to be in." I think the second half of that quote is key. Glimmer never realised that she had this darkness within her, let alone expected to tap into it, and this is why it could lead to serious growth for her as a person to discover the worst of herself and in the end choose to cultivate the best of herself despite that.

There’s one more layer to the Glimmer/Catra aspect of all this as well if you combine this theory with the concept of Micah being alive and mentoring Catra during her redemption process. Because it would link Glimmer and Catra even more closely and beyond that it would create a great call back to the fact that this arc started with Glimmer being paralleled with her father.

And if Catra does work with the Rebellion at some point in the distant future, this could also serve as a starting point for the two of them constructing a friendship using the foundation of that shared similar experience (and also a shared father figure potentially) as they learn how to be part of the same team. It might also play into restoring Adora's faith in the people around her as seemingly losing Glimmer to darkness so soon after losing Catra the same way would undoubtedly nearly destroy her and it would give her some much-needed motivation to see both of them pull themselves back from that.

Anyway, there we have it. Those are all of my thoughts on why I do definitely see some kind of villain arc for Glimmer, and how I think it could be an excellent addition to the show for a number of reasons. Thanks for reading and see y'all next time.

#she ra #spop #glimmer #shadow weaver #catra #adora #she ra glimmer #she ra shadow weaver #she ra catra #she ra adora #spop glimmer #spop shadow weaver #spop catra #spop adora #she ra meta #spop meta #my meta

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ladyhistorypod · 4 years ago

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Episode 11: [Insert Political Joke Here]

Sources:

Patsy Mink

National Women’s History Museum

University of Hawaii

United States House of Representatives

Patsy Takemoto Mink

KHON2 News (YouTube)

Further Viewing: Internet Archive, Patsy Mink: Ahead of the Majority (Trailer)

Alice Roosevelt Longworth

The White House Historical Association

Theodore Roosevelt Center at Dickinson State University

Find A Grave

The New York Times

Smithsonian Institute

Wilma Mankiller

National Women’s History Museum

Oklahoma History

Time Magazine

National Women’s Hall of Fame

Smithsonian Magazine

Attributions: Cherokee Nation's Chief Wilma Mankiller, Marching Drum, Power Of People: Sea-Tac Airport Travel Ban/Immigration Protest

Click below for a transcript of this episode!

Archival Audio: I'm really very excited by, and my process says our difficulty has been that not enough have run. We can’t expect that every woman, because she's a woman, the minute she runs she's going to be successful. That's not possible. So we do need to have the numbers in there competing, and given the numbers I think we're going to be more and more successful over the years.

Alana: So this is the first episode that's going to come out after the election is over. Like, by the time this comes out we're gonna know.

Haley: I was thinking of that when I was looking at the schedule and I don't know… I'm real nervous. I have class that night. It's going to my first class being like on the east coast, so I'm gonna be real tired. I’m gonna be with my cat though it's gonna be fine.

Alana: No this podcast is gonna be so nice.

Lexi: To be fair, we might not know who actually won by that Thursday.

Haley and Alana, somehow at exactly the same time: That’s true.

Lexi: Because there's going to be a lot of contention about mail-in ballots. So, dear Lexi listening to this on Thursday or even on Tuesday while editing it of election week; how's it going? What’s up?

Alana: Are you okay?

Lexi: Are you doing okay? Do we know yet? When will we know?

Alana: When will we know? We probably won't know on Tuesday when you're editing it, but…

Lexi: And we probably won't know on Thursday.

Alana: On Thursday when it comes out.

Lexi: We might get a result and then we might get told it's not the result. There might be a lawsuit.

Alana: This podcast is gonna be really nice for the two of you to have to remember my voice by when I die in the coup.

Lexi: Yes the coup that will occur in DC. That might be more like January.

Alana: That's true, the coup will be in January.

Lexi: When someone refuses to leave… the area… to evacuate the premises.

Alana: Maybe he’ll be dead by then.

[INTRO MUSIC]

Alana: Hello and welcome to Lady History; the good, the bad, and the ugly ladies you missed in history class. Here I am, still on Zoom, with Lexi. Lexi, have you ever run a political campaign?

Lexi: Oh my god. I have.

Alana: Did I set you up for this?

Lexi: Yes. My dog is running for daycare class president. Please vote for him. His name is Captain, he's a Portuguese water dog, he's two and a half years old, and he's really cute. His platform is that he'll give you a snuggle.

Alana: I love him.

Lexi: Me too.

Alana: And someday will be reunited in person, Haley. Haley, what's your political platform?

Haley: I know. My skeleton is allowed to be in my passenger seat so I can ride in the carpool lane.

Lexi: Skeletons is people.

Haley: My plastic Napoleon Bone-aparte should be my second in command. Thus, me going in the carpool lane.

Lexi: Vote for Haley, skeletons is people.

Alana: And I'm Alana and my single issue vote is not ushering in the apocalypse.

Lexi: I have experience as a campaign manager, feel free to hire me.

Haley: A lot of people are gonna hate that.

Alana: No I love that.

Haley: I’ve never met–

Lexi: Listen, the people who support NAGPRA, they will love that.

Haley: He’s fake. My mom really had to grill me and I–

Lexi: He’s not real. Her skeleton is not real.

Haley: My mom was terrified that I got a real skeleton. And like honestly, of all people, I could go on the deep dark black webs, sure, but she even like texted my roommate like when we were all like in a group chat and we were calling or something and she was like “Caroline it's plastic, right.” And then also, y'all were involved in this– when Robert and I started dating, for like months he thought that was real and wouldn’t go near it and was like, heavily creeped out that like he was sleeping in the same room as a real skeleton. And it wasn’t until like I pitied him and–

Alana: First of all, he’s sleeping in the same room as two real skeletons.

Haley: That's true.

Lexi: He's sharing a body with one.

Archival Audio: Because the women have not until recently reached retirement age after having worked a full lifetime, only now are beginning to realize that there is inequity in the law.

Lexi: Congresswoman Patsy Takemoto Mink was born on December 6, 1927, near a sugar plantation. She was born on the Hawaiian island of Maui, and I just have to say, Maui is one of my favorite places on Earth. It was the first place I took scuba diving lessons and it is seriously an amazing and beautiful place. I have trouble thinking of any place I've ever been that's as beautiful. Patsy was a third generation American and her grandparents were immigrants from Japan. The term among Japanese Americans for a third generation child is sansei, not to be confused with sensei which means teacher. And sansei are the first to be raised by parents who are themselves raised in America, so they are very American and that is why they get a special name. Patsy was close with her brother Eugene and the two spent most of their childhood exploring the island together, foraging for edible mushrooms and bamboo shoots which is really cute. The family mainly spoke English at home, but Patsy learned Japanese in order to communicate with her mother's parents. Her father, Suematsu Takemoto, had been orphaned at a young age and served in the military before attending the University of Hawaii and becoming a civil engineer. He served during World War I. Suematsu was the first Japanese American to earn a degree in civil engineering from the University of Hawaii and he set a precedent for his children who would go on to break barriers themselves. Patsy witnessed racial discrimination faced by her family at a young age and this may have served as inspiration for her work in later life. Patsy also grew up in a community where many families did not have the privileges and comforts that her family had, and she realized this when she started to attend school; this also likely shaped her future work. Patsy's parents treated Eugene and Patsy equally, breaking Japanese tradition in which strict gender roles were imposed. This likely contributed to the strong bond that she and Eugene shared, valuing each other as equals. Patsy, who always kept up with her brother, decided to attend school a year early to be with him in class. She started primary school at the age of just four. In the fourth grade, her and her brother were transferred to a new school. This new school, which focused on English language learning, only admitted students with fluent English skills, effectively segregating white students from non white students and indigenous people on the Hawaiian islands. Every teacher they had in class was white. Patsy and Eugene were admitted because they had great English skills, but of course, English was their first language and it was also language their parents spoke to them at home. And Patsy and Eugene were part of only five percent of the student body that was non white, so ninety five percent of the school was white. Though Patsy flourished academically, she had trouble fitting in at the new school and made very few friends. Patsy's hobbies included listening to the radio and reading books which connected her to the world beyond Maui. Eventually, Patsy entered a new school to begin high school. There she was elected class president. She claims the support of the football team helped her secure the position. This was the start of her career in politics. While Patsy was in high school, the attack on Pearl Harbor occurred.

Archival Audio (FDR): Yesterday, December 7, 1941, a date which will live in infamy.

Lexi: Local non-Japanese citizens became wary of the Japanese locals, despite no Japanese Hawaiians being involved in the attacks. Japanese families destroyed culturally significant family heirlooms such as katanas and kimonos. They shut down Japanese language schools and they disbanded their cultural clubs. At the same time, Japanese Americans in mainland America were being rounded up and sent to internment camps. Many of them had been born and raised in America and had never even visited Japan. Some of them were sansei, just like Patsy. But racism and fear led non-Japanese individuals to oust even their closest Japanese friends. In Hawaii, far less Japanese were sent to internment camps and Patsy narrowly escaped participating in a tragic part of her generation and culture’s upbringing. Despite this, Patsy later in life claimed that President FDR was her political inspiration. Patsy graduated from her high school as valedictorian in the middle of a global war. In the fall, Patsy was admitted to the University of Hawaii, her father's alma mater, and she began her studies. She participated on the debate team and became president of the pre-med club because at the time she was considering pursuing a career in medicine. As the war continued, many of Patsy's college friends decided to transfer to schools on the mainland for security reasons. One of her professors suggested she apply to a women's college on the mainland. She was admitted to Wilson College in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania which happens to be my home state. She met with the president of the college upon her arrival at the school; he told her she would probably struggle with her course work because the classes are all taught in English and she would be granted a private room. Patsy later recalled that he was so shocked when she replied in perfect English for multiple sentences, and she was then put in a shared room because if you can speak English, you can share a room. This was Patsy’s first taste of the ignorance many mainland Americans had about the Hawaiian territory, which was not yet a state. Patsy found the course work at Wilson to be below her, stifling her for real learning. She also faced discrimination from classmates and faculty. Because of this, she transferred to the University of Nebraska. It was at her third college that Patsy became engaged with policy making. The university's policy segregated white students and students of color in student housing. The international house, where she assumed she had been placed purely because Hawaii was not a state at the time, actually was home to both international students of color and American students were Black, Latinx, or Asian. The school’s other dormitories and the on-campus Greek housing only admitted white students. Patsy decided to take action and began a campaign to end the discriminatory policy. She led letter writing efforts, worked with the school newspaper, and spoke with local newspapers about the issue. Students she did not even know began supporting her in her campaign. She became president of the Unaffiliated Students, a group of individuals were not associated with Greek life at the University of Nebraska. Patsy was within just one semester a campus leader. The same year she starred at the University of Nebraska, the housing discrimination policy was lifted by the board. Unfortunately, Patsy suffered a medical emergency and had to return to Hawaii to be with her family, where she finished her last semester of college just where she started, at the University of Hawaii. She earned a dual major degree in chemistry and zoology. After graduation, she applied to medical school. Every school she applied to reject her. At the time, women were not admitted to medical school at a fair rate and women made up only about three percent of the student body of most American medical schools. And, because it was 1948, many colleges were focusing on admitting returned veterans. The odds had been stacked against Patsy, and unfortunately she would not be able to fulfill her goal and dream of becoming a doctor. Then Patsy started her first job in a museum at the Honolulu Academy of Arts. Museums always seem to be a factor in our shows… huh… Well anyway–

Alana: I wonder why…

Lexi: I wonder why… I mean I didn't even know this about her when I picked her so this is super fascinating.

Alana: You were just– you are drawn to her.

Lexi: Yes.

Alana: The museum called out to you.

Lexi: The little museum bit. And this is actually where she met her mentor who encouraged her to pursue law, so it was through the museum that she found her true calling. And she was accepted to the University of Chicago under their international student quota, and though she desperately, desperately wanted to correct their error and remind her that being born in the Hawaii territory made her an American, she did not want to mess up the chance to get into law school, so she just rolled with it. So, she went to Chicago and she started law school. Patsy found law school intellectually a good match for her and it kept her engaged in her learning which was something she really cared about. She made many friends, some of whom were also Japanese American students studying law. It was at law school where she met her future husband, John Francis Mink. John was from a Pennsylvania mining town and his grandparents were Czechoslovakian immigrants. He had received his undergraduate degree from Penn State and was pursuing a Masters in geophysics at the University of Chicago. Patsy and John married while still in grad school. Patsy's parents disapproved, saying they wished that she would wait until the two graduated, though it is speculated they may have had qualms about her marrying a white man. Patsy graduated in 1951 as the first Hawaiian woman to graduate from the University of Chicago with a law degree. John and Patsy remained in Chicago and had a daughter named Gwendolyn who goes by Wendy for short. And after she was born, they decided it was time to move back to Hawaii. A really shitty, dumb law at the time made women citizens of their husbands’ home states. Who decided that, what for, I do not know. This meant Patsy, despite spending less than a semester for life in Pennsylvania, was a Pennsylvania resident. She fought this law, arguing that the couple had never resided there together and she was granted Hawaiian residency and she was able to take the bar exam in Hawaii. Though she passed, she could not find work as a lawyer. The dual reality of her gender and race was working against her. Potential employers found that it would not be appropriate for a married woman to work long hours as a lawyer and they also feared she would decide to have another child. Go figure, they just assume these things about women, blahblah blahblah blah, people suck. So with the assistance of her father, she opened her own firm, advertising herself as the first Japanese woman lawyer in Hawaii. She had few clients, so she worked as a part time professor and took court appointed cases to supplement her income. When Hawaii was granted statehood, Patsy knew she wanted to run for government positions. She helped start a club in Oahu for young Democrats and expanded her interest in politics. In 1959, she ran for a position in Congress, but was not elected. In 1962, she won a seat in Hawaii’s State Senate. She had run an intense door to door community campaign, and it had worked. Patsy became the chair of the Education Committee and served in the State Senate until 1964. Patsy was determined to make change on a national scale and continue to campaign for selection as a candidate for the Democratic Party of Hawaii. In 1964, Hawaii was granted a second seat in the US House and Patsy ran to be the representative; she became the first Asian American woman to serve in Congress and the first woman to represent Hawaii. During the eighty ninth Congress, from 1965 to 1967, only thirteen of the five hundred thirty five combined senators and representatives were women. Patsy was the only woman of color. There's actually an awesome picture of the thirteen women and Patsy’s just right there in the middle with a big smile, but I think it's so crazy when you think about percentages and scale and how that doesn't accurately represent America, and, hm, anyway. Patsy fought for gender and racial equality. She promoted bilingual education, co-wrote Title IX, and promoted affordable child care. As a working mother, she knew she needed to support other working parents. Even though she moved to DC to take her new role she often traveled home to Hawaii to visit her constituents and hear their concerns. In 1970, she was the first Democratic woman to deliver a State of the Union response. She also passed an act in 1974 protecting women's access to equal education. She also spoke openly against America's participation in the Vietnam War, fearing the effects on civilians of the weapons that were being used. In 1976, she attempted to run for the U. S. Senate but lost. Then the Democratic Party of Oregon asked Patsy to run for president. Because they had an anti-war focus, Patsy felt they shared values and agreed to run for them. Patsy only got two percent of the Democratic primary vote, but she broke barriers as an Asian American and woman running for president; she was the first. East Asian American woman to seek the democratic nomination for president. Patsy also served as the Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs in the Carter administration. In 1990, Patsy returned to Congress as a representative for Hawaii. She founded the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus and served six more terms in the House. In the summer of 2002, Patsy fell ill with pneumonia. She was hospitalized in her home state. She died in September 2002. Because ballots had already been printed for the 2002 election, her name still appeared as the candidate. Despite passing before the election, she won by a vast majority. Her replacement, Ed Case, still serves as a representative for their district of Hawaii today. After Patsy passed away, the Title IX Act was officially renamed the Patsy Mink Act. Patsy was actually one of the women I covered in my personal Instagram campaign to combat the lack of Asian American women in U. S. history core education standards, and as of 2020, no state public school history standard mentions an Asian American woman by name. I've said it on the pod before, I'll probably say it again; let's make sure students learn about people like Patsy, especially young girls in the Asian American community who can see themselves in politics because someone like Patsy broke barriers for them. Patsy continues to be the subject of documentaries and podcasts. In fact, of all the women that I've covered so far, she was featured on the most podcasts according to my quick Google. Obama awarded Patsy a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom, commemorating her work for the people of Hawaii and the nation, and remembered her as the embodiment of the Aloha spirit. Of Patsy, Obama said “Every girl playing little league, every woman playing college sports, and every parent, including Michelle and myself, who watches their daughter on a field or in a classroom, is forever grateful to the late Patsy Mink.” Patsy left her mark on US politics, paving the way for iconic Asian American politicians today like Mazie Hirono, Tammy Duckworth, Andrew Yang, and even Kamala Harris. Mahalo and arigato, Patsy. Lastly, I would like to thank the National Women's History Museum for the awesome page if they put together on her which I used as one of my main sources and I interned there this summer and the content is really well researched and totally worth checking out if you need resources on other women like Patsy.

Alana: I think I remember Obama– like I remember him giving the Presidential Medal of Freedom to her. And I think I remember him also being like she was a political icon of his, outside of what she did for like Asian Americans and women and Asian American women. Like he was just like this is someone else from Hawaii who was doing cool political things. Like role models don't need to be gendered.

Lexi: Yeah I was just gonna say like Hawaii is his home. It might be that being born there and her being born there really built a connection for him between them.

Archival Audio: My mother and I were put behind a screen door in the drawing room. We were allowed to listen, but we couldn’t be seen.

Haley: This is gonna be a wild ride because I have a lot of anecdotes about my life and to this woman, and this woman is Alice Roosevelt Longworth known as the president's daughter or the American celebrity of her time, and she was even referred to as Princess Alice. Like I said, I have a lot of anecdotes about my life and the Roosevelts. Can I interest anyone with a fun fact?

Lexi: Yes I love fun facts.

Haley: Thank you for your enthusiasm Lexi. Her father–

Lexi: Yes! I love fun facts!

Alana: Always! I always want the fun facts!

Haley: I love these two people. President Theodore Roosevelt is technically my fraternity brother. It's like a technical, like they– we say it, we claim as like the boast Roosevelt is like our fraternity brother but there's no– I think, I don't think there's like actual documentation that they were Alpha Delta Phi fraternity members, so– and also if you're listening to me like “that's a fraternity, no women allowed” I am part of the Alpha Delta Phi Society, we still claim post-split to be like gender neutral and be like “hey, women should be involved not just as our secretaries.” That's a whole other tangent I could go on. Google it, if you will. I think there's even a Wikipedia about it. But yeah he's my fraternity brother. I say that a lot when I like, see pictures or like statues of any of the Roosevelts, it’s a great time. I'm gonna start us off with like an inkling of a Teddy quote since we've been talking about him, and a lot of you may know that this quote whisper it while you listen to it if you're in the car, taking a shower, just chilling on your bed hugging a dog, anyway Teddy once said “I can do one of two things, I can be President of the United States or I can control Alice. I cannot possibly do both.” That's just giving you a taste of what a ride we’re going to go on. So what did Alice do to be worthy of such a quote, and the honor of being one of our political ladies for this episode? Honestly I could go on hours– I know I say this all the time, I can go on an hour long tangent on Alice, and I'm going to keep it just to like her pol– main political topics. Again, cracking this history book wide open to the birth of Alice on February 12 1884. Unfortunately, two days later, both her mother and her paternal grandmother died, and she was raised by her aunt Anna Roosevelt, and grew up with her five other half siblings between New York and Washington. This leads into another fun fact, if you will. You can visit their house at Sagamore Hill, and my friend was a ranger there once last year, and I got to go visit her during our Friendsgiving and slept in one of the barns on their site and there's like, I think Teddy's buried there, Alice is not but we'll get to that. But they have a whole like Roosevelt cemetery, it's a whole historic site in Long Island. The barn is haunted by something because I could not sleep at all, I just felt like something kept waking me up and I kept looking at this like one creaky door. Because we were in like her guest rooms, which was like two, two other twin beds in case they were like more Rangers on duty. And mine looked straight at this old door that kind of like lead into a mudroom and the outdoors. I swear there was no light outside. Like I went around, like the next time, I twisted my ankle trying to get around to that area, and I couldn't find like where this porch light would be giving such a green mist of color around this door at night because like all the lights were like those museum fluorescent like white bright lights or like– nothing green light and it freaked me out. Anyhoo that's end of like my tangent with that fun fact. Go visit Sagamore Hill for more Teddy content. And as a child– back to Alice– it was clear that she was a brilliant woman. Many sources noted that she was quote self taught in many of her areas of studies and was an avid reader. Along with her brilliance, she was considered to be a stubborn, strong-willed, risk taker, headline-maker, rabble-rouser, and trendsetter. Just all the things and you want in a lady. Alice's political side didn't shine through her skin cells until her father was sworn into office after President McKinley was assassinated in 1901. She was also, if not like the first, the first of any of the president's daughters to take like on a political role, kind of like with Lexi you were saying like there are a lot of firsts going on, and I believe this was like a first, for whatever reason, but she was the first of like president's daughter having some sort of political action that she like was like “hey let's fix this. I'm gonna do this, I'm a lady, I'm brilliant, I can do this, I have a voice.” And for example, in 1905 she accompanied Congressmen to Asia as like a quote goodwill ambassador for the administration, for like one of those let's go see the sights that we see a lot of political figures around the world do. There she was involved in a lot of peace discussions that were like post Russo-Japanese War. So there's a lot there. There's a lot on like the White House website that's in the sources, but it was more about the politics rather than Alice herself and I saw that a lot when I was reading things about Alice. Like when it started to get political it was heavily on the politics not much so what Alice did for those political actions or her political voice. I don't know if that's like author writing stuff… I didn't write it, all I know is that she was married. I believe it was like around 1906 and it was to Nick Longworth– that's why we have the Roosevelt Longworth name– who was actually part of the Republican Party. So at this time it was the Progressive Party which was her father Teddy Roosevelt and herself and then the Republican Party. And Alice agreed with her father on political stances, thus the Progressive Party, thus making these different political ideals kind of like a wrench in their relationship. But there’s a lot of other stuff that made this marriage kind of like a very topsy turvy one. But also there was alcoholism and affairs and they didn't necessarily come from Nick. This is where I read many sources where like Alice had many different lovers. I didn't really dig into Nick’s because like… men… we're here for Alice. But it was noted that she had different affairs, lovers, and these were all other men in the government. More on her political leaning, I didn't see anywhere that they got divorced, but they did have a daughter, Paulina, and Nick died bef– like way before Alice's death and she would– like should write books and go on like traveling trips, even post Daddy being in office to support Paulina. So I said her father died– that was a great segue, good job Haley. Even after her father died, she continued to use her voice in politics. She was one of the people who led the charge to keep the US from joining the League of Nations, and this is we're gonna get into like right around World War II. She was also a tough critic on how FDR was handling the Great Depression, and she at this time had a syndicated newspaper column where she would just bash politics, essentially. She would use this column to speak her voice and say “Hey, I have this, I’m gonna use it, I'm going to speak my mind, not care if I'm gonna piss any other political figure heads off” which… snaps for her. She also used her voice when she was on different committees to help the US, especially throughout World War II. She was heavily on the side of being neutral. I believe she was like even the head of some of these committees, these US implemented committees, to stay neutral. And just like overall politics itself. I couldn't find any where she was on a specific women's rights, education, it was more glossed over. I could have missed something. Other than being on committees, writing in newspapers, going on different platforms to speak her mind, she also would campaign for others such as Taft’s campaign and it was noted that she was friends with the Kennedys, Nixons, and the Johnsons; all other political figurehead families and future presidents. I didn't know where to put this little story, but like I need to say it, it's great. She was known for like, being like, that wild child. But in her wild child youths, she was known for smoking on the White House rooftop, and I'm like trying to picture the White House in my head, and obviously it probably changed a little bit since like Teddy was president, but like… I want to know if like you could see her from like walking on the Mall just like chilling on the roof because her father said she couldn't smoke inside the house for like a whole laundry list of reasons, it's not ladylike, blah blah blah, and she would just go to the roof and be like “I want to smoke. I'm going to do it on the roof. You can't touch me when I'm on the roof.” And she would also carry around a snake in her purse, and the snake’s name is Emily Spinach, yes, Emily Spinach was her… her snake’s name. Like honestly I would just love to carry around like a snake in my purse or any animal in my purse.

Alana: That’s my aesthetic.

Haley: It's an iconic name, Emily Spinach. This also confused me because I saw many pictures of her with a small dog. Like, kind of like a chihuahua, kind of like a pomsky, like one of those small fluffy dog mixes, so I want to know if like the snake and the dog got along. I don't– I don't know. I couldn't see my small dog like, liking a snake much.

Alana: I think small dogs were bred to hunt snakes. I'm not good at like the history of dog breeds but a lot of those small breeds were bred to hunt like pests, so–

Lexi: Rats, snakes.

Haley: Yeah, very confused.

Lexi: I guess if you raised it from a puppy around your snake, it might– it might have a different view, but like I don't let my parrot and my dog hang out. Maybe she didn’t let them hang out. That’s chill. I don’t know.

Haley: Yeah, I couldn't find a picture of like the two of them together, and if anyone does, please send it our way. That is– that would be an incredible portrait. Because she also– a lot of her faces are kind of like a “I don't want to be here” face, the classic “please leave me alone” which is iconic. And like one of her wedding photos is between like her, her dad and like her husband, and her face is just like “I so don't want to be like here right now…” Chef's kiss, I can feel it. I felt the energy. My last tidbit, of course, is while she was born in New York City, she was buried in Rock Creek Park Cemetery when she died at the age of 96. And I actually went to Rock Creek Park Cemetery a few years ago, when living in DC. At least like on the outside of it, if it's the same cemetery. I went to many cemeteries in DC, doing like the spooky tours but also getting from like point e– point A to point B, because like Rock Creek Cemetery is like way to get into like Maryland area. Also, anyhoo, on their website she's noted as one of their famous residents, and on their tour I believe that her like tomb, grave area is like part of their cemetery tour. Keep it respectful, people. And that's my story on Alice.

Alana: I like that she carried a snake around in her purse. That is my aesthetic. That is goals.

Lexi: Snakes are fun little noodles.

Alana: They’re so fun.

Haley: Snakes are fun. I would love a snake. Emily Spinach. I now want like a stuffed snake to name it Emily Spinach. Lexi, I remember that one of your friends or your sister requested this.

Lexi: Yes, my sister Elena Hoffman who is in law school in DC at the George Washington University. She’s not my biological sister, she's my sorority sister she sent me this like–

Alana: That always confuses me.

Lexi: Sorry.

Alana: Lexi will say that she has a sister and I'm like no you don't and I've– because I forget that she’s in a sorority.

Lexi: Anyway, she sent me this picture that's like one of those tumblr history… we take it with more salt than the Dead Sea.

Alana: Take your internet history lessons with more salt than the Dead Sea.

Lexi: Exactly. And it was like one of those like distorted screenshots where some screenshots it a million times and shares it like a meme. It was– it was about her being crazy, was like smoking cigarettes on the Mall, carrying around a snake, blah blah, a lot of which turns out to be true, so… Elena, thank you for suggesting her. I hope this confirms your weird internet history for you.

Haley: I really thought because I've seen like some of those pictures too, but it kept coming up in sources that I was like “oh they're not gonna give me like misinformation.” If they were, like I wouldn't be surprised, like misinformation comes up even in like what we call good sources. Like correct us if you're more widespread in the Alice history. Because I keep forgetting that like when we do this research, we do like probably like three hours of research, maybe less, maybe more depending on the person, but there are like, people devoted to this for their life's work. So like please, again we say this every episode.

Alana: If we're wrong let us know.

Archival Audio: “My guest, director, producer Valerie Red-Horse Mohl, let's start with the subject. What is the subject of your– your documentary?” “Well the name of the film is Mankiller and that actually is Wilma Mankiller’s last name. Wilma was the first woman elected Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation and her story is just so relevant today.”

Alana: So my political icon for today is Wilma Mankiller, who has the best last name ever in the entire world, it's amazing. It's actually a military rank that was achieved by one of her ancestors, but kids made fun of her for it. If your name is Mankiller, why would you– why would you make fun of that? Because one time–

Lexi: First off, I would be scared.

Alana: Exactly! Exactly, why wouldn't you be scared? One time as like a grown up she was fed up with it and she said to somebody that it was a nickname and that she'd earned it. And I’m just like, what a woman. Very cool. So, she was born on November 18, Scorpio, 1945 in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. Her father's name was Charley Mankiller and he was Cherokee, and her mother was an Irish Dutch woman named Irene Sutton. And Wilma describes her family as an “activist family” so that is how she grew up to be an activist. She was the sixth of eleven children so right there in the middle. And when she was eleven years old, when she was eleven years old, the federal relocation programs that meant to encourage– I'm doing the massivest air quotes in the whole world– encourage assimilation. (Frustration noises) The racism!

Lexi: I just puked in my mouth a little bit.

Alana: The racism! But they moved her family to San Francisco, where they were poor in Oklahoma and they were destitute in San Francisco. It was bad news bears. She married for the first time in 1963 to an accountant from California named Hector Hugo Olaya de Bardi. They had two daughters, and I'm gonna bring up their names– Gina and Felicia. Felicia is my middle name. I think it was Haley, Haley was it you who I told you my middle name and you thought I was kidding?

Haley: Yeah.

Alana: Felicia is legit my middle name. That's true. I will show you my birth certificates, or my passport probably is more likely because I have that on me. In 1969, there was a nineteen month Native American occupation of the island of Alcatraz. Like nobody was using it, it had yet to become a tourist trap and it wasn’t a prison, and so it was sort of like out of use. But for nineteen months, Native American activists occupied Alcatraz and they like had schools and were just doing really amazing things.

Lexi: That's so cool. I didn't know that about Alcatraz and that is so cool.

Alana: It was amazing. But this happened while Wilma was living in San Francisco, which is you know right near Alcatraz, of course. It awoke something in her. She considered it a benchmark in her activism that inspired her to shift her career more towards political activism as opposed to being a mom and doing other things. Her husband wanted her to stay home and be more of like a traditional– massive air quotes again– housewife, so they got a divorce, which is what I would do as well if my husband was like “no I want you to stay home.” I’d be like first of all, why didn’t you tell me this before we got married we could have saved both of us a whole heap of trouble and just not gotten married in the first place but okay. But they got divorced, and so Wilma moved with her daughters back to her family land in Oklahoma, where she became involved in community government and improvement projects. In 1979, she survived a very bad car accident where her best friend died and she was also diagnosed with– I'm probably gonna pronounce this super wrong– myasthenia gravis, which is a neuromuscular disorder that made it hard to talk, hard to write, hard to use her hands in general. So she started the Bell, Oklahoma water project; and Bell, Oklahoma is a tiny, itty bitty, little town in Oklahoma, so small, most people only spoke Cherokee, and they were in like dangerous living conditions. There was no clean water, it was just a bad time all around. But using federal grant money and local volunteers, she managed to construct eighteen miles of a water system and repair a lot of the dangerous living conditions. While she was recruiting volunteers she met her second husband who was full Cherokee named Charlie Soap. I'm not gonna say nothin about her dad and her second husband having the same name, but okay. That's a deal breaker for me, but you know what Wilma, go for it.

Haley: If I found another person with the name Fuzzy. I think I would have to marry them. I don't know like I feel like that's just too insane not to.

Alana: So Ross Swimmer, in 1983, chose her as a running mate for the Cherokee Nation election as he was running for Principal Chief and he wanted her to be his deputy. And they won, despite sexism and death threats. And in 1985 Swimmer took a position in the federal government and Wilma became full time Chief, full time Principal Chief, not deputy anymore. She served two more terms, for a total of ten years as Principal Chief. She decided not to run for reelection in 1995 because of her health. Under her leadership, tribal enrollment was up, infant mortality was down, literacy was up, unemployment was down. She created a self-sufficient health care system, although that's not really going so great anymore because of Covid and racism. Two really bad things, just in general. Of my least favorite things right now, I would say Covid and racism, really high up there on my list of dislikes. She won the Presidential Medal of Freedom, actually, in 1998 from President Bill Clinton who I'm probably gonna talk about in not a flattering light in a couple weeks. And she died in 2010 of pancreatic cancer. She left a legacy of cultural pride and self sufficiency and self government for the Cherokee people. It was her whole thing was like we can do this ourselves, we aren't helpless, we can create our own governments and our own systems, we can be just as good at government for ourselves as these white people who are like imposing these restrictions on us. We can govern ourselves. And so that was her whole thing was like we don't need outside help. That's the story of Wilma Mankiller. I have a couple of closing statements about– for the episode in general. I have been very frustrated lately with people who say that they stay out of politics.

Lexi: It comes to replace a privilege.

Alana: It comes from a place of privilege!

Lexi: But people in different communities can have different levels of privilege, unfortunately.

Haley: Yes.

Lexi: And they can try to exclude themselves from the political process because they think it doesn't affect them, which is blowing my mind. I just–

Lexi: The place I see it the most, and I'm– I don't know if you guys have noticed this too; so many people outside of museums, old heads in museums, trying to say museums should be apolitical. And this frustrates me to no end. For one, everything is political. The existence of a museum is political.

Haley: Yes.

Lexi: Our existence is political. People working in a museum, people who live and then also work in a museum. It's all political. Everything you do– your kid going to school? Political. Your kid go to school? that's political. You eat food? Politics. You wear glasses? You go to the doctor? All politics. This is all political. So, when people say museums are apolitical, I just want to– or or even when they say museums are bipartisan, museums lean one way or the other. And museums tell stories, and stories always have a bias in them, and museum shouldn't try to be apolitical. Museums should aim to tell stories and to make change in their communities.

Haley: I’ve had a similar conversation– I will not give like personal details, but the bottom line was that… the argument that this person was trying to say why they shouldn't be political, were all like human rights… it was just like oh well museums are already like not racist, or like not gender biased and it’s like–

Lexi: Well that's wrong.

Alana: That’s just false.

Haley: But they– like they were trying to skirt around the way of saying like, “oh but these aren't, these are human rights stances, like we can talk about those in museums.” Even though like kind of saying that they're like not happening, trying to be on the more of like there is no gender bias there is no like blah blah blah– which is false, but saying like because those are human rights that they're not political, thus like a museum can talk about it, but we can't say like major political statements which–

Lexi: Human rights is political. It shouldn’t be, all humans should have rights, but…

Haley: Yes! Yes!

Alana: That's why they're called human rights.

Haley: The US has made this a political argument, of course like– regardless of what your stance is, like say “oh these are purely human rights,” not everyone sees it that way.

Lexi: And museums are racist.

Haley: Yes, museums are racist.

Lexi: You know, everyday– everyday, I like sit in the shower because I'm just so overwhelmed. And I think “Museums bad. Museums racist. Museums sexist. Me museums? Me learn museums? Me bad. Me racist. Me sexist. What this all for.” And then I say “That’s museums. Long live the museum.” Because I believe museums can be better places, but–

Haley: And we see that a lot.

Lexi: Yes. There are so many museums doing good work, like District Six Museum in South Africa, the Anacostia Community Museum in DC, one closer to home. Like there are so many museums doing good work, actively anti-racist work. But the historical institution, until we admit this organization is founded on racist and sexist principles–

Haley: We’re getting into a whole chunk of my thesis about the origin of museums. I could–

Alana: I was more talking about, in the broader sense. Like the non-museum people who I know who are like “oh I stay out of politics” and who have friends who are opposite sides of the aisle.

Lexi: Oh, “I don’t vote because I don't care”? Like–

Alana: “I don't know because I don't care.” I think there comes a time, you come to realize that just you existing is political.

Lexi: Yes.

Haley: I also think–

Alana: Like, my existence is political just by virtue of who I am.

Haley: Yes. I also want to like reference like Enola Holmes, remember that part where–

Alana: I was thinking about that a lot.

Haley: It was in the cafe and it was Sherlock–

Alana: Sorry, Lexi.

Haley: And this other cafe human…

Alana: Edith, I think is her name.

Haley: Edith, yes. She was running the cafe and running the upstairs like women learning Jiu Jitsu…

Lexi: The suffragist karate school.

Haley: Yeah, yes. Don’t quote me if it’s Jiu Jitsu.

Lexi: They did not mention the kind, I think it was just martial arts.

Haley: Okay, martial arts. Martial arts. But Sherlock was like “oh I don't get into politics” and…

Lexi: That pissed me off.

Alana: Because like, then she was like “because the system in place benefits you and you don’t want to see it change.”

Archival Audio: “Show me what democracy looks like!” “This is what democracy looks like!” “Show me what democracy looks like!” “This is what democracy looks like!” “Show me what democracy looks like!” “This is what democracy looks like!”

Lexi: You can find this podcast on Twitter and Instagram at LadyHistoryPod. Our show notes and a transcript of this episode will be on ladyhistorypod dot tumblr dot com. If you like the show, leave us a review or tell your friends, and if you don't like the show, keep it to yourself.

Alana: Our logo is by Alexia Ibarra, you can find her on Twitter and Instagram at LexiBDraws. Our theme music is by me, GarageBand, and Ameliea Earhart. Lexi is doing the editing. You will not see us, and we will not see you, but you will hear us, next time, on Lady History.

[OUTRO MUSIC]

Haley: Next week on Lady History, we’re cracking open the history books and talking about some historic and iconic lady authors. Remember, a book a day keeps the stupidity away.

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