#this is actually really important to my own racial experience lol

[nerves-nebula]

this is something ive always been kind of curious about but a recent irl discussion has brought it up again.

if u wanna know my personal opinions/the conversation that reminded me of this, you can see them under the cut lol

so like. I was talking about the weird racism stuff with splinter (him being japanese and a rat and the whole history of that stuff) and i said that i personally thought it was less racist for him to have been a japanese guy who got turned into a rat because at least then he has like, a legitimate reason for the accent and the ties to the culture. If he's just a guys pet rat, that kind of makes sense- but also it's always felt to me like that was equating the animal with some innate racial characteristics. idk im not a race scholar...

i'm also not japanese, but I know that if there was a culturally black mutant monkey character, I would prefer for that monkey to have previously been a human. Because otherwise it feels, to me at least, like equating that animal to that ethnicity or culture inherently, since they were never really related to that culture and at most were exposed to it in ways they couldn't understand as an animal. which feels demeaning imo.

the white ppl i was talking to this about came around to my point of view, but they originally expressed the thought that it would be less racist to just have an actual rat mutate and just be a japanese rat, accent and all.

I've seen japanese and other asian tmnt fans express the idea that they feel like the human or the rat origin is less offensive, or that they feel one is more or less racist, so I'm not gonna say i think one is definitively more racist cuz to be honest they're both pretty bad and I've seen compelling arguments for both of them being the worse option.

and how asian people experience and think about the racism that affects them is way more important than how i think about it lol.

BUT! I am interested in what you guys think and I'm especially interested in if it breaks down differently between white and nonwhite people. I was considering splitting the vote even more and giving asian people their own options too but seeing as this was inspired by a discussion between a black person and two white people i feel like the point is more to see if this is a poc/white person split first and if so then maybe I'll put out another poll. if not and that was just a coincidence i'll prolly just leave it as it is.

side note: I will say that I think the way mutant mayhem did it where he was just a sewer rat, not even a pet who was raised by a japanese guy ?? and he learned ninja stuff from VHS's??? That one is probably my least favorite. love that movie but i HATED that.

[qualcosadelgenere]

A "DESERT LION" NAMES ANALYSIS + name meanings related hcs PT.2

DISCLAIMER: if any of the information reported here is wrong or even just partially incorrect/imprecise, feel free to let me know; as my main sources for this analysis were Wikipedia and baby names sites (lol).

Messer Jassim <English Wiki> (Mansur Jasim/Messa Jassim <alternative dub names>):

Mansur Jassim

Mansur (Messer is apparently a surname and Messa doesn't even exist(?)) is a male Arabic name that means "He who is victorious".

Jassim is an Arabic name/surname. (Couldn't find the meaning.)

Headcanons:

Succeeding in his set goals and dreams is a very essential part of his life. He puts great importance on winning and is generally very competitive. He has a hard time forming long-lasting friendships due to this side of his personality.

His parents, unlike Nasser's, tend to encourage him to be less focused on beating others and more on doing things he actually enjoys for himself. His relationship with his teammate is a conflicted one.

On one hand, Nasser is a pleasant guy to be around, always ready to assist or to share a few jokes with. On the other one though, Messer can't really bring himself to relate to his struggles. He doesn't understand how someone could resent parents whose only wish is for you to be your best version; for you to be ambitious and successful.

He didn't bond with anyone in particular, but he tends to spend most of the time with Far, who happens to be his roommate.

___________________________________________ ___ __ _

Zack Abdullah <English Wiki> (Zack Abdulla <alternative dub names>):

Zakariya 'Zack' Abdullah

Zack is sometimes a given name, but more often it's a short form of the Biblical name Zechariah (in this case probably of the Arabic form, Zakariya) and its meaning is "God/YHWH has remebered".

Abdullah is an Arabic Muslim given name/surname which means "servant of Allah".

Headcanons:

Zack grew up in a large family: his mom, his dad, three sisters, and four brothers (including himself).

Zack's family originally hails from Casablanca, Morocco, but they relocated to Qatar in search of better job opportunities. With some financial assistance from Zack's grandparents and some personal sacrifices, they were able to secure stable employment at a local camel farm. Zack's father, who had experience working with dromedaries in Morocco, found the job to be a perfect fit.

Despite their efforts, they still fall under the lower middle-class category by Qatari standards*. As a result, Zack and his siblings had to start working from a young age to support the family.

Growing up among the animals, Zack spent his free time playing football and caring for them. He greatly admires his father and shares a strong bond with his mother and siblings.

Zack is extremely outgoing, friendly, and open-minded as a result of interacting with people from all walks of life. He easily makes friends and is generally well-liked. However, he often feels the need to hide his feelings of inadequacy behind a facade of happiness and laughs, because most of his friends come from well-off families with high social status, and hanging out is a constant reminder of his own financial limits and racial status.

His closest friends are Bjorn, Majidi, and Djamel. He gets along also with Sulai and Adel, with whom he has more of a love-hate relationship. (Adel once referred to him as impossible to ignore and to this day Zack wonders if it was meant to be a compliment or not.)

*(North African Expats are considered to be racially inferior to Gulf Arabs; with them only coming second to Westerners in the class system, even though they're primarily Muslim and from neighboring regions. The apparent reasons for this are a widespread sentiment of anti-blackness and a general dislike for Africans, more specifically sub-Saharan, immigrants).

___________________________________________ ___ __ _

Majidi Ismail <English Wiki> (Majdi Ismail <alternative dub names>):

Majid Ismail

Technically speaking Majidi is an Iranian surname; the Arabic name equivalent would be spelled as Majid. It means "noble", "glorious", and "magnificent".

Ismail is an Arabic given name/middle name/surname and patronymic, that literally translates to "heard by God". It's also the name of Ibrahim(Abraham)'s son.

Headcanons:

He's a very self-assured little guy, as the only male sibling to four sisters he grew up spoiled and pampered.

Scaring(courting?) girls with the little animals he catches in the desert is his biggest hobby and simultaneously his sisters' biggest pet peeve. They tried everything in their power to stop the ever-increasing toll of his victims but to no avail.

"Why can't you impress girls like a normal person, Majidi?"

Fun fact: the moment he catches a fever his chaotic personality is gone, replaced by the meekest and quietest boy you have ever seen.

His mom knows it sounds bad out loud, but sometimes she wishes he'd get sick more often. It's just so nice to have a little quiet with five teenage children around from time to time.

He considers Zack, Rajab, Nasser, and Bjorn his best friends on the team. He doesn't really get along with Hassan, and even if he'd rather die than admit it, it's most likely due to a tiny, small, minuscule flicker of envy that burns in his gut whenever his teammate effortlessly charms the girls he tried to court(scare?) before.

Hassan, sad but true, couldn't care less.

___________________________________________ ___ __ _

Talal Hamad <English Wiki> (Talal Hamad <alternative dub names>):

Talal Hamad

Talal is an Arabic given name and surname that means "admirable" and "nice".

Hamad or Hamda is an Arabic given name and surname, meaning "to praise" or "one who praises", "much praising".

Headcanons:

Talal is too nice for his own good, always praising others and being kind even when people are not in return.

He's also a little bit of a chatterbox, never really stopping talking, but thank god he has an array of aunties who are more than willing to listen to his latest gossip. They're the ones who instilled in him the dream of entering the Middle East's best TV station.

He'd love to work for Al Jazeera since it's one of two main TV stations in his country and it's also pretty popular on an international level.

He bonded quickly with Sulai and Seiyd. Little Rajab is too nice not to like him and Adel's maternal uncle is one of the managing directors of Al Jazeera, so better to have him as a friend rather than as an enemy, right?

___________________________________________ ___ __ _

Hassan Ahmed <English Wiki> (Hasan Ahmed/Hassan Amed <alternative dub names>):

Hassan Ahmed

Hassan (also Hasan) is an Arabic given name that means "handsome" or "good", or "benefactor". As a surname, instead, Hassan may be Arabic, Irish, Scottish, or Jewish.

Ahmed which is the variant of the name/surname Ahmad, means "Highly Praised”.

Headcanons:

He is widely regarded as extremely handsome.

Throughout his life, he has benefited from an inherent advantage due to his looks (pretty privilege), receiving praise for even the most minor accomplishments. As an only child to a wealthy family, his birth was considered miraculous due to his mother's health-related issues. Consequently, he has been showered with affection and has developed an inflated sense of self-worth, perpetually reinforced by those around him.

He's kind of a narcissist, so he doesn't let people get too close if not solely on a superficial level.

The closest thing he has to a genuine friendship is with Adel; it's a relationship primarily based on mutual teasing and banter (which, according to Zack, borders on flirting 98% of the time, however, both parties disagree.).

___________________________________________ ___ __ _

Khalfan Jibril <English Wiki> (Khalfan Jibril/Halfan Djibril <alternative dub names>):

Khalfan Jibril

Khalfan is primarily a male given name of Swahili origin that means "successor"

Jibril (also Djibril) is an Arabic variant of the name Gabriel (the archangel), therefore meaning "God is my strength", and a common Arabic given name and surname.

Headcanons:

Khalfan can be described as a greatly resilient person, always reluctant to give up what he believes is important.

He comes from a family of artists: his grandad was a famous painter and his daughter, Khalfan's mother, inherited his great talent.

He was not exactly gifted with the same artistic abilities, but he knows a great deal about many art forms and is well aware of their historical and social significance.

He aspires to work in art-related fields and is supported in this dream by his family, particularly his proud grandfather who is moved by his grandson's passion for preserving artworks.

His closest buddies are Musa and Yusuf. He enjoys the latter just a smidge more due to their shared love for tradition and Qatari/Arab culture.

___________________________________________ ___ __ _

Rajab Ismail <English Wiki> (Rajab Ismail <alternative dub names>):

Rajab Ismail

Rajab is an Arabic given name that corresponds to the seventh month of the Islamic calendar which is known as Rajab.

Ismail (see Majid Ismail).

Headcanons:

His parents are very religious, hence, his upbringing was very religion-oriented.

They don't support his passion for writing, especially because some of the social issues he's keen on featuring in his novel stem from exasperated and distorted religious beliefs, and his parents find it very hard to critique such things.

Furthermore, due to his youthful appearance, individuals in his environment such as teachers and family friends tend to dismiss his ideas, believing him to be too young to comprehend the depth of his convictions. Consequently, Rajab frequently feels mocked and ridiculed for his beliefs, leading to a significant struggle with not being taken seriously.

He finds Majid funny and he also gets along well with Zack and Talal. He looks up to Adel and Nasser because he deems the first to be very intelligent and mature for his age and the latter to be reliable and confident.

___________________________________________ ___ __ _

Adel Siddique <English Wiki> (Adel Siddique/Adel Shteik <alternative dub names>):

Adil Siddique

There are two different names that are transliterated as 'Adel' and which one it is depends on the pronunciation:

1.) Adel [ˈɑːdəl] (Germanic given name of ancient European origins, evolved from north-western languages; meaning "noble" "nobility" "elite".)

2.) Adil [ˈʕaːdɪl, ˈʕæːdel] (often transliterated as Adel, is a variation itself of the name Adel; an Arabic male name (common in the Muslim world) that originates from the word "Adl", meaning "fairness" and "justice".)

Siddiq/Siddique is an Islamic term and is given as an honorific title. It means "truthful" and it denotes a descendance from someone named Siddique.

Headcanons:

As his name suggests, Adel has a strong sense of justice paired with (sometimes brutal) honesty.

Even though he comes from a horrendously rich and privileged family, social injustices have always been acknowledged in his family as his father and mother are both very intellectual and intelligent people.

For him, it's important to use the privilege he was born with to fight against inequality and ensure that everyone has equal opportunities in life, and this topic will often come up in his movie productions.

His closest friends are Sulai (best friend) and Hassan. Zack is the equivalent of a human mosquito, but he's passable (when he shuts up). He also respects Rajab a lot for his desire to write about their country's social issues and wishes to be less intimidating in his younger eyes.

I also wanted to mention Adel's self-esteem.

Although he's very confident and capable of standing up for himself, he struggles with his physical appearance. Ever since he was a child, he realized that his darker skin and facial features did not conform to the standard of beauty in his country (I like to think he has Somali ancestry somewhere in his family, perhaps his father's grandad?).

Other children had lighter skin, straighter hair, and less full lips, which made him feel different. Additionally, when he started playing football at a national level, he experienced subtle racism from his own people. Despite fitting in and looking rather Qatari, he didn't feel equally accepted by the Qatari public, making him feel like he didn't fully belong.

That explains his attachment to wearing oversized and dark sunglasses as they somewhat mask his ethnic features and give him an advantage when controlling emotions.

In other words, they help him feel less self-conscious.

[cidthesquid]

A walk on the 'Wild Side' - Final Fantasy XIV

So that picture pretty much explains it, But feel free to read the rest of the post for my mindset behind this design, and change. In short, I really enjoy FF:XIV, and have a ton of alternate (side) characters, each with their own personality and style sense.

This was how they looked originally, my 4th character, A female Roegadyn, this was before I had access to Veria, and I wanted to create a taller character that still felt fun!

It's a little embarrassing to think back on now, but I remember one of the core ideas was to capture that "Warrior Princess" energy from like 90's era sci-fi and fantasy. The intense, yet slightly flirty super strong woman who could totally kick the main character's butt, and is just along for the ride.

(Yeah, like I said, kinda embarrassing, lol.) After about a year or so, I switch to Highlander:

I thought it offered the 'buff' look of Roegadyn, but with better expressions and emotes. (some Roegadyn emotes look a little goofy) And I love some of the intensity you can get out of some expressions

(Please don't read this as "Some body types look better than others" This is purely based on the games fixed racial animations/expression) I had a lot of dun designing for her, previously I'd only worked with more 'formal' 'cute', and even 'cool' designs for my other characters, so it was fun to branch out and try more 'intense' designs!

I learned a lot while working on this new design, and a bit of my design philosophy for making characters and outfits has shifted. I also think my shot composition has improved a lot since then, I use waaay less intense filters, and I think my new outfit designs actually look a bit better. But I think it's time for a new challenge, with the release of dawntrail, we now have a new character design to try, Female Hrothgar!

So this new design was really tough for me, Unlike the other races I've tried to design for the 'face' choice is way more important this time around, as hairstyle and other very features are locked to it. Also, the 'Hair color' effects your character's shoulder fur too. So hilights can look a little weird at times:

I was a little mixed on the eye color options, as that also works differently than other races. And then you have to worry about compatibility of hats. It was a little frustrating, but overall I'm pretty happy with the result.

I love that Female Hrothgar, has some of the intensity of highlander, with a more dynamic model like Roegadyn. It's a really fun character style to work with, and even with the more intense style and demeanor, there's still an inherent softness to some poses and expressions. So I can't wait to design more! (Next outfit is a dancer glam, it's non-modd, but slightly suggestive) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It's pretty interesting to see how the same outfit can look fairly different depending on the race. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Anyways, that's all for today, I don't know what the point of this tread was supposed to be, haha. I just like making character and outfits, and instead of just sharing screenshots, I wanted to talk about my why I made some changes, and what I was going for. Hopefully that came through in the text, writing this was a bit awkward, as I can think of hundreds of ways this could be misinterpreted. Yeah, I'm a guy who enjoys designing and dressing up female characters in the game, but I'm trying to be mindful about how I do it, and I've actually found it's actually quite fun to actually learn 'why' something looks nice, and experimenting with different styles. But I'm going to try to not over think it, I genuinely don't think this is one 'best look' in game or out, just various forms of self-expression. if you have any questions or comments, feel free to ask! I'm open to suggestions and critique as well, just keep in mind I'm still learning!

[hesitationss]

it should be said that when protecting against both state actors and non-state actors against doxxing, it is important know your enemy. and not just generally, because the police in every city has their own tactics.

more details and info.

(these are loosely based on the experience of various comrades in other cities) in mtl they are prone to tear gassing protesters, this doesn't really happen in ottawa, toronto, or vancouver, etc. mtl is prob the most outwardly aggressive cities toward protesters and i heard j Trudeau's riding is an absolute shitstain with little social resources LOL

in toronto and other cities in ONT, protest arrests are the primary way in which they identify protesters so it is ESP important in that city to have a lawyers number on hand, to hide your identity, and to avoid arrest. they also do this really insidious thing where they move protesters from one precinct to the next in discreet civilian black vans when people protest outside of their buildings. they do this so that they can announce that the prisoner in which protesters are seeking to be released is no long at that location. they will be buying time for HOURS to do this. it's a divide and conquer strategy. it's meant to disrupt protest and organizing but it's primary purpose it to ID + impose restrictions rather than actually incarcerate anyone.

winnipeg has the second highest police budget in canada, they have a helicopter that they fly over a predominantly indigenous community every night, and they frequently racially profile so that they can beat any native man or women or child without impunity. they do not use tear gas, because they don't need to. they can mobilize white supremacist communities to commit crimes instead. i learned in like 2018(?) that most of the employed police in winnipeg are undercover and that many of them have never even been seen in uniform (since they're duty is as plain clothes officers) i also learned from s worker community members that it is a common occurrence for police to send reports of all the details of their surveillance something that not even my communist student organizer friends at one of the universities didn't know in terms of their deep level of surveillance. the police their are more likely to straight up steal from you too.

in vancouver, the police show up in huge numbers to intimidate. their mayor is sponsored by fucking white supremacists ?? and i have heard about SO many bad faith actors within the movements like more so than the average chauvinism issues... the police presence in vancouver is actually insane. like a public park without protests happening are filled with officers looking to hit homeless people. vancouver police are notorious for wrecking property and acting violently in hopes of baiting protestors and then lying about who did the damage. the entirety of north vancouver is so racist that you will get kkk level hostility there.

also if you are worried about doxxing, similarly with stalking, it is always going to be someone who knows you or has access to you in some way! like yeah you can lock down your social media and be relatively anonymous. but the ppl who are most likely going to fuck with your life by is going to be like a bad faith actor/devil's advocate, zionist, or white supremacists you went to school with or has worked with you in some capacity... and the scary thing is that it is all too easy for these people to access your full name, email, phone number, and address. like there is so much to think about in terms of security and privacy but mostly you need to know what you are up against, and figure out the best preventative and safety measures.

[escapekissed]

GLADIO (& ignis who i’m re-adding lol) HC: outside the wall

i’ve written a bunch of gladio hcs on similar topics on this before this blog. but this is a brand new blog basically and i JUST watched kingsglaive SO. some important notes:

-gladio’s the one that understands camping. prompto has never been outside the wall since he was adopted. 

-ignis hasn’t been outside the wall since he came from the country he was born in to insomnia (and that was a difficult process that makes him both refugree & diplomatic/dignitary aid in a weird way, or at least that’s what his green card says. he’s technically classified as a kingslaive instead of crownsguard, and many have used the phrase ‘a rat picked out of the gutter’ to describe him’ just like the phrase is used by ghaldians to refer to themselves in the movie which they are no doubt repeating from the asshole insomnians that look down on them)

-gladio’s mother was ghaldian. i still hc his mother would’ve been maori by like. real life standards? but ghald is apparently an island country so like IT FITS STILL LOL. gladio’s mother was a glaive, fell in love with clarus, they had a kid together, but she stayed a glaive.

-gladio’s mother was also married in spirit to the king’s magic and her own position in her own head as his shield and his fighter, fighting for her country, fighting for her husband, fighting for all the children of insomnia. she liked the way it made her feel. powerful in a way ghaldian women are not in insomnia. righteous wings. with the king’s magic, she was a hero, she was strong, she was incorrigible, she was unbeatable, and then she was... beat. cocky to a fault, that’s how she died, and it’s hung over clarus’s head and gladio’s too ever since.

-clarus remarried an insomnian woman. like many biracial children, because gladio doesn’t remember his mother and she died when he was young, he remembers only fragments of her---and he was unable to ever connect with ghaldian culture bc of it due to his mother’s family being stuck in ghalad, and, in the vein of my own family history, clarus never thought to reach out to gladio’s mother’s family after she died.

-to me this is most represented by his hairstyle. he has the style almost, but not the braids. he doesn’t know how to do them. it feels wrong to wear them. he wants so badly to hold a part of his mother and ghald in his heart. but he never can, and it feels wrong, and everything about insomnian culture is so easy besides the racism against him, besides the disappointment even tho he does literally everything insomnian so fucking right.

-insomnia worships death. they worship their own lands, their own ruins, their own dead kings who just want more dead kings, which are everywhere. i choose to believe most of the ruins are even more ruined to the point where. what we see in the game is basically the end and short of it. they cling to land they don’t even live on, they propagate a war for people they don’t protect so they can hoard the bones and rocks and temples left behind when they’re eaten alive by disease and rot and somnus’s / ardyn’s original sin.

-but gladio is never sure how he feels about death, about how he feels about war, or insomnia. he just knows that he has to be the best, that he has to take everything seriously, that he has to be perfect and elegant at all times because that’s what’s expected of him but also what he wants for himself. bc it always feels like there’s something missing. he picks at his own flaws, he overcompensates sometimes which is easy when ur so large and eloquent and literally a genius. but he can never get his mother back, just like he feels he can never truly free ghalad from insomnia OR nifhlem.

-the road trip is important to him, and to ignis, more than as a ‘brotherhood bonding experience’ as the game might have u believe. ignis and gladio are ‘the outsiders’. they understand this war better than anyone. and they try to keep things light for noctis---but also. gladio has taken noctis outside the wall. he’s let him see the war, the daemons, camp at night on rocks while iron giants overtake the trees and the animals, while storms rage on temples that are protected only by their own magic, by some old king they’re supposed to pray to and worship even moreso than the temple itself.

-when gladio leaves. he knows that his father will die without him. he knows. in his gut, he knows. it still hurts. there was so much unsaid between them. just like there was so much he could’ve learned from his mother---gladio feels he spent years trying to grow enough to please his father when he could’ve grown WITH him. it hurts. he expected it. but it hurts. and it’s not fair, just like his whole life wasn’t fair, and this war isn’t fair. it’s surpising that he keeps his temper even at all. in a way, the brotherhood of this road trip is all that keeps him sane, as is the fighting with noctis’s magic.

-being a glaive is a way to connect with his mother, and all her strength. lose the fear of dying, fly with a hawk’s beating wings.

-she got the hawk tattoooed, too, but she got it done in traditional ghaldian style, with actual scarring.

-gladio hopes he earns the scars on his back just like she did.

[silvermoon424]

Thought you were an "~Anti SJW~", how did you become a feminist?

Yeah, I was a cringe ~Anti-SJW~ and ~anti-feminist, pro-egalitarian~ for several years, lol. I grew up in a red state surrounded by conservatives and went to private Catholic schools so I was right-leaning for most of my life (although let it be known I was never far-right and still had compassion for a lot of people).

My change into a leftist and a feminist was very gradual. I can't tell you any one huge event that was the catalyst; it was a slow process of ongoing change and self-reflection of my values. I will say that a big contributing factor was going to college and majoring in Sociology. Also, it's not like I went to some fancy liberal arts college in a blue state; I went to a small Catholic college in my red state close to my house. I was just lucky to have very intelligent, thoughtful, cool professors who exposed me to a lot of new ideas without making me feel like I was being propagandized or threatened.

A big turning point on my views of feminism was when I took one of those scary gender studies classes as a requirement for my degree. Lo and behold, my professor wasn't some man-hating blue-haired SJW but rather a very lovely Australian woman with a knack for getting her points across. My class was very small too (iirc it was like 7 women including me) so we would have a lot of good discussions. As we kept discussing topics of sexism and the way it still impacts women, I would think "hey, that does still happen" or "wow, they have a point." I had been so blinded by strawmen that I hadn't actually considered the points feminists had been making, many of which I agreed with and saw value in.

My other classes helped gestate my eventual leftist views as well, with topics of wealth inequality, racial inequality, how the legal system is set up to be soft on the rich and powerful and punish the rest of us harshly (especially poor POC), etc. Btw, I want to make it clear that none of my professors would like, rant at us about this stuff, they would present facts and evidence in a very clear way and let us draw our own conclusions. And the facts and evidence don't lie.

This is a big reason why I think education is so important. I haven't done much with my degree unfortunately, but going to college did open my mind and expose me to so many new ideas. It made me into a better person.

Going to college definitely made me more left-leaning but I didn't become a full-on leftist until I left college. My own experiences of working shitty jobs for under my value helped radicalize me, as did national/global events. Unfortunately I wasn't a leftist when Trump ran in 2016 (when I was still in college); I didn't vote for him but I was doing the cringe "both sides" centrist bullshit so I voted third party. But by 2018 I would say I was solidly a leftist and a feminist.

There are still some cringe anti-SJW/feminism posts from like 2012-2016 floating around on this blog that I should really make an effort to find and delete, lol. If they somehow pop up, please don't hold them against me, I was a fucking idiot and I'm better now. I just thank God every day I didn't fall into the Anti-SJW to alt-right pipeline.

[cant-think-of-anything]

I think part of the reason that there’s such a dissonance between what kind of character Matthew is ~supposed~ to have and what kind of poor traits shine through, especially in his treatment of Alastair, is not just because of CC’s poor handling of alcoholism (and, in my opinion, mental health issues and depression) but also because: Our first introduction to these characters happened a long ways before some major changes to TLH.

Namely… Alastair and Cordelia were basically white in CC’s original planning. There’s just no way around that. Their flower cards, where they’re not just whitewashed but purely white, prove that (and they STILL haven’t been updated, by the way.)

Also, Alastair’s hair: in CoG it was dyed blond, and CC wrote it off implicitly as a racism thing when she decided he was Persian (which I guess happened after the short story where we met Alastair and before TLH) , which would have been fine it if it was an arc written better. Except, I don’t think she realized that it would make Matthew’s comments about Alastair inherently and obviously racist, being a white author. And I doubt that it will be dealt with and named or even acknowledged outright in the final TLH installment.

Kind of the same thing with Cordelia. I’m not saying POC can’t have like red hair because obviously POC don’t come in a prepackaged set of five or six traits that are all configured randomly, but something has always rubbed me the wrong way about the way that CC writes the majority of her POC and especially WOC as exotic. I mean, Kamala as a character is to me a special favorite (even though CC did her dirty and didn’t do a good job portraying her character or intersectional identity) but I rolled my eyes so hard when she had lighter brown or “amber” eyes in canon or officially commissioned art. With Cordelia, I know CC once said she uses henna to redden her hair which is great for her, and I guess I have less of a bone to pick with that because it’s semi(?) realistic, but still. Also the fact that so much of her description as a beautiful person comes from her hair. Again that’s cool, and women of color should be loved wholly including being loved for the parts of them that they freely change (such as Cordelia’s hair) but… the proportion of the fixation on her hair as what makes her lovely rubs me the wrong way sometimes. I feel like it’s sometimes an out from CC making the ~scandalous~ decision that a woman of color can be beautiful because of the traits she is born with. Idk it’s just for me I had this long standing repulsion towards my colorings and my facial structure and white girls would tell me I was whiny about it and then I finally began to piece together things like “Eurocentric beauty standards.”

Going on a tangent slightly, but something else that bothered me was when Anna insulted Cordelia after buying her those dresses and everyone kinda treating it as a compliment? And just cause Cordelia, a fictional teenager, didn’t get mad about it doesn’t mean readers of color can’t see the underlying racism behind “Cordelia looks MUCH better in these dresses which are SUITED for her skin tone.”

I think that narrative could have been handled much better: if it was Cordelia picking out her own clothes as an act of maturity and self-realization and ownership, if Cordelia herself said (in a different way lol) “Damn right I can wear lavender ruffles if I want to and crimp my hair but I’m not going to let white fashion prevent me from outshining everyone because dark skinned women INVENTED jewel tones.” And I think some people will argue that Cordelia’s context makes this too self aware of a development but I would say that it would have been a powerful part of her development outside of her relationships, especially considering that she’s supposed to be a main protagonist. Full arcs for the win baby!

But even aside from all that what bothered me about Anna’s dresses was the fact that it was a white woman showing the “truth” or the “right way” or “saving” a woman of color, a trope which I don’t think CC intended but committed nonetheless. I think from a white author POV the thinking was “Anna is such a free bohemian who lives true to herself and she’s going to help Cordelia become that way too,” which irks me because I feel like that just worked against CC in terms of POC rep and also because that same ideology is used in an attempt to make Anna’s treatment of Kamala justified even though Anna as an out person, with racial and economic privilege and the support of an extensive and powerful family network, pressured and tormented Kamala into coming out.

I have a lot of thoughts on that relationship, mainly: it shouldn’t have been dragged out this long because from the beginning, Every Exquisite Thing, it was clear they were looking for different things. And if CC had left it at that and let them go on their separate ways after a week of knowing each other that would have been fine: Kamala can’t do an out and proud relationship and Anna doesn’t want secrecy, so they’ll develop on their own. And then later Kamala’s pursuit of Anna in the actual TLH books was I think meant to be a thing about “the lengths you’ll go for true love” but it felt forced. Honestly… It just feels icky. like this woman of color is just so hung up on this white woman who abuses her repeatedly and can’t handle her own misogyny and internalizations. And I hate that because both had such awesome potential! To me it’s less that I dislike Anna ( I’d need a whole other post to explain that) and more that I dislike CC for wanting so bad to claim sapphic rep but not wanting to put in the effort to portray it effectively- and pretty much all that entails is writing the relationship without acting like it exists in a pseudo-vacuum where the history and realities of interracial relationships and queerphobia don’t exist in the way we obviously recognize and experience.

And characters like Cordelia and Alastair are amazing and have so much potential; I think the true origin of the problems with their portrayal is that they weren’t really intended as POC or even queer representation in the first place. I don’t know if Cassie would have taken a different approach to her characterization had she known Alastair would be a brown gay man when she first introduced him, but I hope it would have at least made her more conscientious of the inherent application of colonialism and racism in her storytelling from that point onward.

I want to finally add that I’m not saying any portrayal of racism is bad. I’m saying that the racism in the story is not part of a conscious framework that critiques racism appropriately. I think CC wrote the beginnings of the narrative, decided she was going to develop the diversity point content, and then either didn’t look back at the older content to analyze it and the other (white characters) through a new lens of race and outsiderness and queer personhood, or she looked at it and didn’t know what to do with it, or looked at it and didn’t care.

Sorry this got so long! Thanks for listening.

- A.

I feel like CC handled everything poorly in regards to characters who had a lot of potential.

The fact that Cordelia and Alastair are both originally white and it's so obvious in the way every bit of racism is handled by the characters. Matthew's comments in CLS are very important and they should've been handled with the same severity that Alastair's words were. CC changing the characters to POC was a big decision and when she did so she should've went back and actually read her own material. I can assure you that it will not be handled in CHOT, my expectations for CC recognizing the importance and gravity in the words she writes regarding racism or any of her "implied racism" bullshit have gone to the ground.

Because while golden eyes are obviously so easy to write when discussing discrimination obviously racism is out of the question /j

THAT'S EXACTLY IT, women of color in these books are so pathetically rare that on the rare occurrence that she does write them they should all be given these features that aren't as common in POC and written as more beautiful because of those features. I read CHOG after I became more appreciative of my ethnic features but if I had read this a year or so ago? Or even if I had read it after just feeling insecure in general? It would've been awful. The implication is that the lighter features in POC are the most beautiful, with Cordelia's red hair being put on a higher pedestal than her dark eyes and Kamala's eyes being focused on more than her hair (because I literally went back and counted the numbers to prove it and it's exactly what happens.)

I'm sure Cordelia's hair is stunning, but it's the way that when she's described (or more accurately being sexualized) it is just her hair and body that is shown, not the color of her skin or the color of her eyes.

God the pastel thing pisses me off so much. It's not even that Anna tells Cordelia that she would look better in darker colors it's that she says it suits her skin tone. Implying that anyone with brown skin should be barred from wearing pastels. And Kamala? In the few times she is described, she's wearing dark colors or champagne gold, never light blue or purple or pink WHICH HONESTLY SUITS HER PERSONALITY. It's also the way that the dresses Anna sent her are described to be more revealing- it's weird. Anna barely knew her when she started dictating everything that Cordelia could put on her body.

“Damn right I can wear lavender ruffles if I want to and crimp my hair but I’m not going to let white fashion prevent me from outshining everyone because dark skinned women INVENTED jewel tones.”

I literally would have loved that. It recognizes that she doesn't need to follow these "rules" on what to wear but still shows her choosing what she wants to wear without making all the darker skinned readers feel like they can't wear a certain color.

I think what some people fail to realize is that these books are also aimed at upper elementary and middle school and a middle schooler with dark skin reading something like that? In a book with characters they love? It's going to be so harmful

Someone else mentioned that CC said Kamanna's relationship was complicated because Kamala didn't defend Anna: Defend her FROM WHAT? Literally what is there to threaten Anna?

These books are filled with tokenism and then praised for it. The idea of Kamala X Anna has so much potential but they're portrayed in such a toxic way. Throughout the last through books Kamala puts herself through so much guilt and regret and turmoil just for Anna to literally use her, blame her, and cast her aside. And it's so fucking annoying because it pushes this idea that this woman of color who was terrified and in an extremely vulnerable position is in the wrong for choosing her safety and presents them as guilty and shameful for doing such a thing.

I would disagree, the portrayal of racism is bad, because it is used at random points in the story and never brought up again, if you interduce racism take it seriously it's not the kind of thing you're meant to half-ass in a book thousands of people will read

I agree on everything else though, so much of these books are incredibly harmful and they are presented to a young audience so it's overall just a gross situation

Thank you for the ask though! I loved answering this, if you ever have anything else you're more than welcome to come back <3

[anghraine]

I'm still thinking of GW2 as a TTRPG à la D&D 5e, and contemplating:

a) as in my original post about it, the extent to which species impacts stats, because it does seem a bit strange (if mechanically understandable) that being slim and 3 ft tall vs a hulking 8 ft would have no impact whatsoever for martial classes, and that having a magic-friendly culture has no benefits to spellcasters, but veer too far in that direction and you smash into shitty racial essentialism.

b) If I'd try and essentially "map" GW2 professions etc onto something 5e-ish and simply exclude categories that don't fit The Lore (no, you can't be an aasimar in GW2! dragonborn would be super interesting, though).

Some would work easily, at least thematically (warrior -> fighter, guardian -> paladin, ranger -> ranger, thief -> rogue), but others are more difficult, esp spellcasters, since GW2 spellcasting is so specialized—an elementalist simply can't use mesmer abilities, but an Evocation wizard or an elemental-themed sorcerer can use illusion magic, even if an Illusion wizard would be better at it.

c) It would be pretty painful to lose crafting, since it's so integrated into GW2 and so much fun (for me, anyway!). Maybe integrate it into backgrounds (homebrew something to make Guild Artisan more appealing, say, while permitting things like Noble or whatnot—or hybridize backgrounds to some extent à la D:OS2).

d) Actual storytelling, lol. One of the things that had me thinking about it is how the GW2 story is in some ways not very MMO-ish despite much of the game's mechanics being dependent on interaction between players. In-story, there is one Pact Commander—your character, and what they're like is dependent on your specific choices. Other players are ... "adventurers" or something as far as your story is concerned (even as each is the Commander in their own story).

Like, there's not much going on to reconcile your individual significance to the story with the actual experience and interactions that make the game function. Contrast something like City of Heroes in which the premise is was, as you might guess, that you're having adventures in a city with a sizeable population of superheroes that includes you, so the existence of other superhero characters made perfect sense—I much prefer GW2 and its story/vibe/politics, but in that respect COH made more intuitive sense.

It's not a big deal because unexpectedly powerful random adventurers don't seem that odd in GW2's setting, but I've sometimes wondered what the story would be like if they'd taken GW1 more local instead of less (in general, you're operating as part of a larger organization in the GW1 storylines and assisting people much more important than you, usually with the vague assumption that you're one of several people doing this, so this wasn't much of an issue there). Like, speaking of D:OS2, something more along those lines in terms of a protagonist with a party and not "several hundred thousand people simultaneously are and are not the protagonists of this story."

A TTRPG would be harder, in some ways, because making one player the Pact Commander and the other players their, idk, minions would not really work. But I think it'd be doable to tweak the story so it could (no reason there can't be multiple commanders, but like... four or five, not 300,000, lol). Hmmm. Also, you'd definitely have to balance the overarching plot vs the difficulties around railroading—make more use of factions and make it an active choice, say, to correspond to the Orders of Tyria, but also just give players more freedom in general without completing sacrificing the story because someone rolled badly or Leeroy Jenkins'd something.

[envythepalmtree]

My thoughts on 03 and CoS

When I started watching 03, I came in with really high expectations. And I loved it!! Especially the first half - I loved the melancholy tone, the way they fleshed out the FMA world. That being said I have Opinions™️ which also includes some criticisms, as usual. Hearing things about 03 out of context definitely colored my expectations and perception of it. This is partly about the writing of 03, but partly about my own experience watching it.

I’ve been meaning to write and post this for about a month, but only got around to it just now, lol. Spoilers ahead if you haven’t seen it.

What I liked

- The way it took the stuff from the manga and made a completely different story was AMAZING. Far after the storyline diverged, seeing influences from the mangahood storyline and how they were taken in a completely different direction was super cool.

- The tone!! 03 felt much more personal, much more melancholic. We really get to see how traumatic events like the fight with Barry the Chopper effect Edward, and we see that he’s really just a child. A child in the military. I know “03 shows Ed as a child soldier” has been talked about a lot and that aspect of 03 really lived up to what I heard about.

- I loved the fillers!! The adaptations of the bonus comics were delightful to watch and really fleshed out the Mustang squad in a way that Brotherhood didn’t. Roy quoting the Art of War during the Fullmetal vs Flame episode was super cool, ties well with my Xingese Roy headcanons, and I’ll probably write a whole meta on that later.

- Even though I have some beef with the ending, which I’ll get to in a bit, it felt really special to me, personally, to see the characters hopeful and happy even after going through so much loss. I really like the message that sometimes, we do fail. Sometimes, what we’re chasing after is never meant to be ours. But we can learn to get up, and keep going. We can let go of that lost heaven.

What I didn’t

- I heard the line “My sympathy will not be spent on soldiers” out of context. I guess I expected it to be some badass line from Scar about why his anger towards the Amestrian state is valid and not something he needs to apologize for.

- Instead, that line was delivered by Scar right before committing an atrocity - sacrificing a huge number of soldiers for a philosopher’s stone, and placing a huge burden on a 14 year old boy by making Al’s body that stone without his permission. And Scar, after all he’s been through, didn’t get a happy ending. It wasn’t some badass thing, it was painted as tragic. I was really disappointed about where that line ended up and I’ll probably write a whole separate post about the lost potential of that line.

- Ed’s admitting that he has racial bias didn’t live up to my expectations. One of my biggest criticisms of mangahood has been the narrative’s stance towards race: “I think we should ignore race and treat each other as equals!” A common response I got was, “03 doesn’t do that! They actually have Ed admit that he has racial bias!”

- When that scene actually happened, I was thinking, “is that it? Is there more?” And yes, much of that disappointment likely came from me setting way-too-high expectations for the race themes of a shonen anime from 2003. It was such a short moment and didn’t feel as climactic or important as it should have been.

- Roy Mustang. Roy Mustang. The narrative expects us to sympathize with him, to like him, but I found it very hard. In mangahood, Roy’s goal to become Fuhrer and change the country for the better, to help the Ishvalans and make sure that a genocide like that never happens again, is a huge part of the show. In 03, it’s hinted at. Roy talks about becoming Fuhrer in the miniskirt episode, and it’s hinted that he has good intentions and wants to help the Ishvalans. But it’s not considered important.

- And then he completely throws that away.

- Reading things from 03 out of context, I somehow got the impression that Roy was going to quit the military after realizing that he doesn’t want to work within the system anymore. And I was thinking “omg that’s so cool! 03 actually has Roy renounce his ambitions and leave the military, because it’s the best way to help the Ishvalans!”

- Nope. That coup he stages? It’s not out of anger at how the Amestrian state treats its people. It’s not to avenge Ishval. It’s to avenge Maes Hughes, Roy’s friend.

- Having Roy stay in the military, but give up his rank, almost feels like a halfway point between two good ideas: Climbing the ranks to change the country, or leaving because he doesn't want to uphold a corrupt system. Maybe they could've made it work, but I wish they grappled with the implications of that more.

- adklsfaksldfhjks I’m very angry about this and this probably also needs its own post.

- Things in the second half of the show just didn’t feel as fleshed out. In Mangahood we got some time to grapple with the fact that Amestris was created by Father to be sacrificed, to grapple with the implications of that. In 03, that revelation came so close to the end that we just didn’t have time. I was left with so many QUESTIONS about the worldbuilding and parts of the plot, especially after CoS, and they didn’t get answered. I feel like a lot of my problems with 03 would be solved if they added a few episodes. It’d give them time to slow down to add more details, or even just give us an episode or three of Backstory.

all my QUESTIONS:

- Details on Dante and Hohenheim controlling humanity behind the scenes?? They just. tell us that they destroyed entire civilizations like Xerxes.

- Where do Gluttony, Greed, etc come from? If they were created simply to serve Dante, does that mean they were all created after Hohenheim left her?

- Why was Greed imprisoned? Why does he refer to the other homunculi as his sworn enemies?

- Lust is described as the “third Lust.” Who were the other Lusts? Is each sin a position in Dante’s squad, a role that can be filled after the one holding it dies?

- Envy is 300 years old. What the hell were they doing for all that time? Much of their character is based off of resentment of Hohenheim for leaving them and Dante, but that happened extremely recently.

- Hohenheim mentions that alchemy is fueled by people’s deaths in the parallel world?? And it’s NEVER mentioned again??

- How does the portal work? Ed landed in 1910s London, then 1920s Germany. But the times match up in CoS, with the 2 year gap and everything.

- I didn’t understand where the opening flashback about the uranium bomb comes from. It’s implied that it happened in the time gap between Ed joining the military and the Liore arc, but iirc the guy with the bomb came from the other world. How did he get there? How come Ed and Al spend a couple years knowing that a parallel world exists but it’s never brought up?

- How did Ed meet Alfons and get involved in the rocket stuff?

- From one of the guys in the Thule society: “but Hohenheim’s sons are from Shamballa.” HOW DOES HE KNOW THAT?

aklsfhsdj that was long. Stay tuned for some more metas about 03, because your girl has Opinions.

[marmarparadoxa]

Hi! I was quite surprised to see even tho hanji is loved in japan, she is heavily criticized even among her fans. they say hanji is too idealistic or too soft to be a commander or indecisive and bad at negotiation or too weird to be a diplomat. Being compared to sannes and shadis (gets in the way of progress, lies to ppl or bystander). she couldn't throw away any important things, so she couldn't change anything (references Armin quote).

(same anon) she couldn't move forward that's why she died. she can't understand others feeling. being naive/easily deceived. There's also this image of levi being selfish who made hanji suffer as commander to make erwin rest not caring about humanity and became passive post time-skip leaving her do most of the work, took her feeling and presence for granted. I'm sorry for the negativity but I hated these takes and really wanted to know your opinion.

Do you think Yams purposely ignored Hanji throughout the story or reduce her character to a bad commander? She didn’t get enough screen time and she was mainly shown as an insecure and overwhelmed commander and not having a plan or a solution to all the mess that was going on. I also felt like she seemed to be just a placeholder between Erwin and Armin. Do you think yams hated her maybe b/c she is an idealist or he thinks she is an unimportant character?

Hi anons! I’ve decided to answer your questions together, since they both broadly revolve around the same topic. Hope you don’t mind.

About those takes about Hange in the fandom...well, while some are funny enough (like “too weird to be a diplomat” what), others are nasty (“she couldn’t move forward, that’s why she died” you mean it wasn’t because of Eren’s Rumbling that Hange had to die? ...), and none of them makes any sense to me. Anyway, I think one can have quite an idea about the mindsets, and the sympathies associated with these ideas.

For one thing, I feel like a lot of Hange hate probably comes from those who think that what they were trying to do wasn’t right in the first place. In other words, those who support Eren’s actions, and thus think Eren was right in committing genocide, and killing millions of innocent people as the only sensible way to save Paradis. Consequently, I imagine they think of Hange as a traitor, and indecisive because they couldn’t throw away anything, aka accepting to massacre the rest of humanity just for the safety of their own island? To be honest these are mainly suppositions because my fandom experience is basically restricted to safe spaces only lol, so I don’t really know what these people's thought processes are.

As a second reason, I guess that, probably, there still are some that wonder at Hange’s alleged incompetence as commander, without taking into account that what they were dealing with as commander of the SC weren’t mindless titans or Paradis’ politics any more, but a world-wide racial conflict backed by a two-thousand years long history of hatred between Eldians and the rest of the world. And while their only external ally, Hizuru, wouldn’t raise a finger to actually help them but only thought about exploiting their predicament for their profit, they also had to deal with Eren, which suddenly turned their back to them, and decided to attack Liberio, thus cutting away forever whatever hope they might have had of resolve things peacefully. Ah, yes, how incompetent of Hange not having been able to resolve all this.

As regards the Levi towards Hange part, then, I see that there are some persons who not only hate the ship, but would also try in every way to downplay, or deny the significance of Levi and Hange relationship in the story. There’s no point in engaging in this kind of hateful discourse, I think.

Getting to what was Isayama’s purpose about Hange, and why did he choose to show them like that… Well, very simply, I think Isayama needed the Rumbling to happen in this story. Also, and this is what’s troubling me, I kinda got the impression that his intention was to make the Rumbling look like something unavoidable, the only realistic solution Paradis had. As a consequence of this, anyway, he couldn’t have other characters, such as Hange, having concrete plans and solutions for all this mess (except for Zeke’s euthanasia plan, which however was supposed to be thought of as an unacceptable and cruel plan by the majority of the readers). It had nothing to do with reducing Hange’s character, and showing them in a bad light, nor with any other character not having been able to confront Eren (till Mikasa killed him), and having Eren had his own way till the end. All this is about the story Isayama wanted to draw, what kind of obscure message he’s trying to convey, and where his sympathies lie.

As regards what I think in particular about Hange’s arc post time-skip, and their role as commander, you can read my thoughts in this meta and here.

[lavenderek]

how do you not know your ethnicity lol

because it's complicated

genetically i can identify as hispanic or latina, and my father says i am

culturally i have no connection with that heritage. all my spanish speaking relatives passed away before i was born. a lot of them were lost, we literally don't know what happened to them because their records were lost or their names changed - our last name is even misspelled because like four or five generations back the government just like, wrote it down wrong. a bunch of my grandfather's older family members had hispanic names but chose to go by white sounding nicknames. my grandfather was discouraged from speaking spanish growing up both at home and in school, and then he married a white woman.

so my dad and his sisters grew up catholic and took spanish in high school, and they kind of parrot spanglish things their late grandfather used to say, but that's about it.

my father and two of his sisters have brown skin. i have most of my dads physical traits and i tan but i'm not as dark as he is.

i do not appear hispanic and i'm not fluent in spanish. but i also feel things missing and feel disconnected from my mothers side of the family - her father was disgusted that she had "mexican kids"

i once sort of half explained this to a couple coworkers, one hispanic latina and one white, and they like made fun of me and called me "fake mexican" lmao

but i have a hispanic last name and have been teased about this as well

a friend once saw me put my hair up in a towel after i washed it one time and told me my cheekbones looked "mayan"

but i also have my white grandmothers huge head

i have red hair

but it doesn't look like my white family members' red hair, it's dark and coarse.

i haven't disclosed any race on my drivers license.

i'll never get to connect with any of my hispanic heritage and i don't know enough about it or speak the language fluently enough to feel comfortable infiltrating those social spaces, not that i've historically been welcome, and why would i be? i don't experience racism beyond name teasing because i look pretty white. a couple times in my life a white person has even felt comfortable whispering racist comments about mexican people nearby

saying i'm hispanic or latina feels like race faking or claiming an identity that isn't my own in order to feel special. saying i'm white feels like i'm abandoning something important, which in and of itself is kind of a sign of privilege - like the only problem with being white is that i have to say i'm white or something lmfao

i know i'm fortunate, practically speaking, that this is even a concern in the first place. if i wanted i could just be white and act like it doesn't exist. my brother did that and he seems happy.

either way it's like, an actual, physical discomfort saying i'm one or the other. so i don't really have a racial or ethnic identity i guess.

for all intents and purposes i'm white and passively, selfishly mourning the dead parts of me that i'll never be able to experience or reclaim. but that's too long to overshare in the tags of a post about how i pronounce the word "syrup" isn't it

a funny thing though is that i used duolingo all summer and i started to notice that some of the ways my grampa talks might be like, remnants of being taught to talk by people whose first language was spanish. then he taught my dad how to talk, and then my dad taught me how to talk. so if i'm choosing between two shirts i'll be like "should i wear the red shirt or the blue?" instead of "the blue one"

which doesn't sound special but that's the grammatical structure of that sentence in spanish? idk maybe i'm reaching. bye

[whentherewerebicycles]

i have to wonder if there's an implication that can be drawn the other way around wrt playfulness and stress - not that un-playful individuals experience stress more acutely, but that people who experience stress more acutely become less and less playful. i have intense, disproportionate shame/fear reactions due to Childhood Trauma(tm) and it's inhibiting as fuck - my work with my singing teacher to relax and (though i've never framed it this way) play(!) w/out embarrassment has been (1/3)

one of the most healing things for me... so i think there's this nexus of inhibition & confidence/security & perspective/scale & playfulness & resilience. to be playful you have to be a bit silly and vulnerable and willing to take a risk on doing something "wrong" i.e. not take yourself too seriously, but if you feel chronically unsafe you'll take yourself & everything else too seriously and want to do it "right" so you minimize the perceived risk of harm. going back to my singing teacher (2/3)

the most important thing she did for me was create an explicitly safe, non-judgmental environment where it's not only ok but even desirable to "fuck up" and "look/sound stupid" and to reinforce that message multiple times. so anyway that quote just made me think that "don't take things/yourself too seriously" sits at this interesting intersection between increasing playfulness & coping strategies for emotional damage. sorry to ramble about it in your ask box lol! (3/3)

*

yes I think this is so so true!! all of this, lol, but especially the part about how acute stress can make it increasingly difficult to be playful. i have written a lot about working through internalized shame here in the past, and especially about the ways that shame causes you to both physically and emotionally shut down parts of yourself. (i actually gave a talk about this subject recently! it was like, a layman’s intro to the neuroscience of shame, with a specific focus on how shame responses affect people’s ability to learn & to connect socially with others in learning spaces.) 

i do just want to clarify that the excerpt i posted was from a study that was very narrowly focused on answering the question: “is there a link between playfulness levels and positive/adaptive coping mechanisms in responding to stress?” the study wasn’t designed to answer larger questions about what kinds of life experiences might produce higher levels of playfulness vs. make it difficult to be playful (such as past trauma, not having one’s basic needs for security met, etc.). in the conclusion the authors note that their findings (i.e., that playful people seem to be more able to readily access and use positive coping mechanisms) means that we should be doing more research on how to cultivate playfulness and how to help people unlearn maladaptive coping mechanisms like self-blame. so the point of the study was not to blame individuals or place the responsibility on individual people (“if you could just lighten up, you wouldn’t be so stressed / unhappy / bad at coping!”). it was more like, an attempt to establish that playfulness (as a way of engaging with the world) seems to be associated with all of these positive ways of coping and managing stress, and so we might want to research playfulness more deeply and/or focus on cultivating it in college students.

so i think you are absolutely right that when we talk about playfulness it’s important not to think of it as something that something people just “have” or don’t have (detached from any consideration of people’s backgrounds, lived experiences, etc.). and we also want to avoid pathologizing its absence (“if you don’t have a playful attitude then there’s something wrong/flawed/messed up about you that needs to be fixed”). my research is focused on understanding how we can better create learning environments like the one your singing teacher has created for you -- i.e., spaces where people feel more secure and less vulnerable to scathing or hypercritical judgment; where failures and mistakes are encouraged & normalized as a natural, healthy part of the learning experience; where instructors are modeling self-compassion and deliberately not using shame-based methods; and just in general, where students are getting the kind of gentle, compassionate, consistent messaging you describe receiving from your teacher. basically I’m interested in creating classrooms that provide the stability and consistency people need in order to learn adaptive coping mechanisms that will serve them well outside of those learning spaces.

i think these questions are so important because most college instructors are VERY aware that our students come into our classrooms carrying many different kinds of trauma—whether it’s the more extreme forms that we tend to think of when we think about trauma (childhood abuse, sexual assault, trauma experienced by combat veterans or refugees from warzones), or the forms of pervasive lowgrade trauma associated with financial precarity, racialized stress, etc., or even just the “lighter” or harder-to-classify forms of trauma that rachel naomi remen calls “the cultural shadow” (i.e., the toxic dominant culture that many of us grow up immersed in). and anyone who has taught at the college level (or taught any age level) knows that as a teacher you often have to at least temporarily play aspects of counselor / social worker / person adept at navigating university bureaucracy to help keep students in crisis from slipping through the cracks. (that is obviously NOT ideal, as those roles should be filled by trained professionals! but we have all been in those situations, where you are the first line of support for a student in crisis, or sometimes the last line of support because they have slipped through the giant holes in our country’s social safety nets.)

i think there’s been a shift in recent years towards “trauma-informed pedagogy,” but the slightly watered-down version of this approach many instructors receive tends to be very focused on mitigating harm in the classroom (ie, avoiding certain things or framing material in certain ways so as to avoid re-traumatizing students). this work is obviously HUGELY important (and my own research project is v much informed by it!). but i sometimes feel like these approaches are very damage-centered, ie very focused on understanding how students are “damaged” by their experiences and how we can “prevent further damage” in the classroom space. again, wanting to adopt teaching practices that avoid retraumatizing students is a good thing!!! but i think what i am hoping my work can do is suggest that we can and should strive for more than just limiting damage. to put this another way: i’m looking for ways to go beyond asking “how can we avoid re-traumatizing students in our classrooms?” to thinking more broadly about how we (as teachers, mentors, etc) can design learning environments and learning experiences that help students grow into healthier, happier, more emotionally resilient versions of themselves—and hopefully help build a foundation of social-emotional skills that they will take with them into their adult lives.

play is not the sole "answer” or solution! but i think that for me, it’s been one useful way to think about things like trauma-informed teaching, restorative practices, and social-emotional mentoring strategies, in ways that center a more positive, joyful understanding of what happy and emotionally well-adjusted adulthood can look/feel like. does that make sense?? i think about cultivating playfulness as just one angle onto answering these questions, or as one approach or set of strategies that people could have in their toolkits as they think about how we design learning environments. it won’t work for all students or all teachers or all learning environments, and it won’t solve all of the problems in higher ed (or in a culture where traumatic experiences are so prevalent and yet are so often left unacknowledged and untreated). but i think for me at least it’s been one generative way to reimagine some of the common structures and norms that structure higher ed learning environments.

anyway sorry to use your ask as a springboard into a long “thinking aloud” post!! but i really enjoyed reading your thoughts and i feel like it’s prompted me to articulate some thoughts that have just been sort of murkily floating around in my mind for the last couple weeks. i am also so glad for you that you have a space in your own life (and a trusted teacher figure) where you feel secure & can practice and explore being vulnerable, making mistakes, being silly/playful, etc. it sounds like she is a really wonderful teacher, and it’s so cool too that you are able to describe the ways in which that learning space has felt healing or healthy for you.

[the-lightning-strikes-again]

I was curious if I was the only one who kinda enjoyed the battle between the paladins and Lotor in s6? Well at least at first I did until it was never further explored in later seasons. I honestly thought for sure Lotor would come back after s6 and there'd be more to the colony. But it's all kind of just forgotten about so they can move on to the next thing. Anyway hope I'm not bothering you. Sorry for my rambling. haha

Hi, anon! Thanks for the note! And no, you’re not bothering me at all; I appreciate the chance to chat! For the record, I know you’re not the only one who genuinely enjoyed s6. I even know people who enjoyed s1-s8 entirely, lol. As for myself, the animation and acting involved in the s6 battle was really great, and I loved the Sincline mecha. It is honestly one of my favorite designed mechas out of all the mecha shows I’ve seen. So s6 wasn’t a total loss for me. And I actually would not at all have minded a genuine villain!Lotor if they’d properly set up for that. As it is, though, the reason for the battle in s6 is what bothers me and sours my enjoyment. Ultimately, I think the show had to compromise very important story components to result in this battle, and that kills my enjoyment.

I can try to explain what story components I felt got compromised in s6, if you’re interested. But this could get a lil salty, haha. I’ll put it under a Keep Reading line:

The show had a subtle through-line of showing a duplicitous, distrustful Lotor go from hunting down the paladins and throwing several people under the bus for a personal gain (s3-s4), to being actually scared in s5 when he thought Zarkon was going to kill the paladins, to being willing to share his entire intelligence network and information of unfathomable power with his new allies (s5), to allowing the paladins to actually order him around and actively change his moral priorities (s6, ep1)—which is very, very different than the relationship he had with his own generals. So the show had Lotor on a development arc regarding his distrust—and even a redemption arc regarding a fault in his morals, even though the show very plainly stated (multiple times throughout s3-s5) that he longed to get to the quintessence field to stop the Galran empire’s feasting on planets.

That’s part of what bothers me with s6—it reverses this subtle through-line of development and then punishes Lotor for an understandably disturbing de-valuing of life that…1) likely wasn’t even his worst or most extensive crime, 2) was something he was actively learning to overcome and get away from in the present time, and 3) was based on a moral problem paladins had seen within him and previously still accepted their alliance.

Lotor wasn’t a saint to start in this show, and he had a perspective where it didn’t bother him for some people to die if it meant his larger goal of peace was obtained. The weird thing about s6 is we saw the paladins experience that with him already, well before the s6 colony twist. In S6, Lotor places the value of obtaining unlimited quintessence over the safety of an entire Galran planet, and Allura admonishes him and reminds him of his innocent subjects. In s6 ep1, Lotor is very directly challenged by the morality of Allura, who despite being a victim of Galrans, desires that no one should die. That these innocent subjects and Galran soldiers are still just as valuable as everyone else.

So by this moment in s6, Lotor has identified the paladins as valuable enough to risk his life for them…but he hasn’t assigned that same value to the average Galran soldier or citizen he’s still deemed expendable/not worthy of saving compared to his grand agenda of peace. If he had assigned them such value, he would not have initially tried to argue with Allura on going to save them. It’s the one time that Allura gets huffy with him post-alliance and directly contradicts him. And Lotor looks…almost mournful or ashamed? He submits to her, regardless, allowing for his personal missions to go on hold for the first time in interest of other people.

His submission here shows another switch had been flipped in his character, for the better. Prior to Allura and the paladins, he had no difficulty assassinating Narti or leaving his generals for dead after they realized they were in fact expendable. S6 ep1 shows Lotor submitting to save even Galran soldiers that he likely knew were not Emperor Lotor fans.

So going back to the big colony twist, the paladins actively should have known that Lotor had a slightly bent perspective about the expendability of people, because they’d seen it before in season 6 episode 1 and even back in season 3. Clearly, he’s done not good things in the past at the expense of others “for a greater good,” so I don’t know why it’s such a shocker that he would apply the same perspective to Alteans. They literally saw him de-value his own people before, in real-time.

It gets weird too because we see that Lotor had very quickly changed his tactics for obtaining pure quintessence after he realizes Allura and team Voltron are the path of least resistance and least collateral damage. We see him relenting to protect all of his innocent subjects. So ultimately, he ends up being punished for having a problematic perspective that he was slowly beginning to decouple from at the time of his accusation, which the paladins were also witnessing. As it is, the show punishes Lotor for his past crimes precisely after the paladins had already seen this behavior in him, and also after his perspective had started to change for the better. The narrative then pushes him back down into a behavior where he instead expands the list of people and things he accepts as expendable.

I feel that the subliminal messaging behind this particular construction is a little screwy and disheartening. The colony twist would have been better if the show had presented Lotor in s5 and s6 episode 1 as not being ashamed—not submitting—and even getting irritated that Voltron cared about one labor planet in the face of what Lotor felt was a higher calling for peace. It would have been interesting to show Lotor as inherently unconcerned or even approving that the paladins almost died while he and Allura were out in Oriande. There needed to be a more solid through-line of a very troubling, uncontrollable fault that would undermine the alliance and peace itself.

Next, to even get Lotor to go insane or to have him reliant on harvesting Altean quintessence, the show had to contradict its own worldbuilding in early seasons. Lotor was fully infused with massive amounts of quintessence prior to birth that EPs once stated put him on pretty much the same level as Allura, and that he was immune to quintessence. So…s6 heavily contradicts Lotor’s incredibly dynamic behavior and even his moral interest in not killing planets by making him go insane to nearly kill the entire universe. And canon accomplishes this in a way that canonically shouldn’t have been possible, per his in-utero quintessence exposure.

And then I’m bothered that if all he wanted was pure quintessence, there were canonically several other ways to obtain it, including for example that Balmera planets were known for harboring pure quintessence, even pure quintessence offered by living beings like Alteans, and that Balmeras were capable of offering up such power willingly in exchange for a slight token from the asker—or that Weblums happened to be concentrated quintessence manufacturers just floating around…

And I’m bothered that in various places, the show uplifts Alteans as inherently different in their life force/quintessence from all other living things. It contradicts the basic worldbuilding around what quintessence even is according to earlier seasons and creates some…idk, really squicky master race vibes, in ways that other fantasy space shows like Star Wars desperately have tried to avoid by showing diversity among the Jedi and Sith ranks. In VLD, it’s as if to say that Lotor couldn’t have possibly accomplished his goal without specifically sacrificing the life force of one particular race.  

And while what Lotor did doesn’t by definition count as genocide (he still preserved the race and its culture), this messaging in later seasons about inherent racial reasons to sacrifice people is the same problematic thinking people use to perpetuate genocides in real life. And I just…I have a real problem with that. According to the later seasons, the colony Alteans are victims of Lotor’s experiments for specifically being born Altean. It’s even more squicky that the show could have rejected the bad message of “we must sacrifice a race because of their inherent properties” and fleshed out the minimal cues that other races could be just as powerful and helpful—but didn’t.

(For example, the show presents Keith with Princess Leia-like quintessence sensitivity, Coran and Balmera people with the ability to interface with and accept quintessence storages, the Balmera people themselves infusing the Balmera with their quintessence, the Weblums harboring mass stores of concentrated quintessence in their bellies, the very non-Altean Druids like Macidus manipulating mass quintessence into magic, and even a sea serpent/The Baku in season 2 using quintessence to mind-control an entire species. This show could have very easily pulled a Star Wars and at least fleshed out that hey, Midi-chlorians don’t discriminate and that any species can harbor a great Jedi…or Sith.)

But no—instead of presenting a diverse front of magical capabilities coming together to save the universe, the show champions in s8 its own horrific implications in s6, by having two Alteans sacrifice their lives in the end…because of course no other race could learn or manipulate the deep secrets of the universe? No one else could help share the load so that no one would have to actually die? I get that war means sacrifice, but like...why are we always sacrificing specifically along racial lines? So actually, after that s6 morality tantrum, the show approves of Lotor’s tactics by sacrificing the few Alteans to save the many because those few are somehow inherently different? And isn’t it wild that ultimately the federal figurehead of Alteans, Princess Allura, exonerates Lotor for sacrificing Alteans for their power in the name of larger peace…shortly before pulling a Lotor and sacrificing herself in the name of peace? So even in the final moments, the show is trying to argue with me that sometimes it’s necessary to sacrifice a specific race by virtue of their inherent nature.

So…I guess I’ve rambled. I really wouldn’t have minded a villainous Lotor or a big Voltron vs. Sincline battle. There were things I genuinely did like about s6, and I applaud the animators and VAs for their performance in that season. But I think there were a million and one ways to produce that plot, and the way s6 gets to these points makes me feel disquieted. It feels contradictory to previous worldbuilding and to character arcs, it undermines the morality being argued throughout the show, and it just feels like a cheap bait-and-switch if I think about it too long. Instead of relying on an old crime and a known character fault as a justification for battle, it would have been far better if Lotor had done something to specifically betray Voltron and the newly minted alliance or proved himself incapable of submitting to moral choices. And that’s only if they wanted a truly villainous Lotor. There were ways he could betray Voltron without actually turning into a comic book villain...even ways that he could outwardly play a betrayal while still functioning as an agent for Voltron’s aims to stop a loose Haggar/Honerva...

I guess, in retrospect, s6 is a really good example of a plot-driven season. It presented some really fantastic animation and battles and angst…but what did it cost the show to get there?

I think VLD itself should have taken its own advice—that one cannot place a lesser value on one component in the name of achieving a desired end goal. The season ultimately sacrificed world building and character development to achieve a stunning, angsty, heart-stopping robot fight. And that sacrifice undermined so many other things about the show and tainted my enjoyment. Sort of like mixing poop into a cake, I guess, lol.

[ofcloudsandstars]

Will just post some more Litha posts in a minute before calling it a night at like 17:30 cause I have been up since yesterday morning with lil naps in between and I am dyinggg haha. 

Had such a beautiful night yesterday with incredible interactions that made me feel validated or really reflect on some things. 

Yesterday was a wonderful witch friends birthday. It’s one of those spaces where not everyone is a witch but everyone is magical and aware of their sense of magic and ability to create, be expressive, be their full self etc. I tend to find that in a lot of femme queer spaces. Everyone was so vibrant and really genuine. I made like 6 new friends haha. 

I always wanted to have a dance party on the Summer Solstice. I always felt it would be appropriate with the mounting energies as this time of the year is a big energetic climax. Last night I got the invite to this party impromptu like yes come thru.. and it was very much a CATHARTIC release.. Omg we did poetry workshops, so much dancing and it was incredible as this witch friend is Ugandan and a lot of witch friends in this group have African heritage so it felt very ritualistic in the way that in some afro spiritual communities they would beat drums to certain rhythms to evoke spirits and ancestors. This afro queer witch group that I have been blessed to become friends with have all started teaching each other how to DJ so when they would start spinning their sets the beats were so intense and rhythmic it was like you were dancing in a trance. (I mean the party was lit with big red pillar candles everywhere and had deep pink lighting so it felt ritualistic or like we were in another realm haha) And each person of course has their own style but it felt like they were entrancing us with their own magic and it felt kind of like the way guided meditation can guide you on a journey but instead it was with beats and dancing. 

I reconnected with some friends of a friend there and I told them how I always take off work on the sabbats cause I may be a slave to capitalism but I deserve to have my fucking magical days off lol. (Like I don’t even take off Christmas let me have my solstices). I thought they would think this was strange but they actually said they thought it was inspiring 😂😭 I told them even if I don’t get to see friends I make a feast for myself and take time to go into nature and just be immersed in the energy and they are like wtf we want to do that. Turns out incredibly that they all also live by me!! And that they all have Monday off!! So We may actually have a feast tomorrow!! (Also shout out to service/hospitality workers cause we get random days off the week haha). 

But really talking about it with them felt validating cause they say its nice to take a moment to really immerse yourself in the seasons and days or else life just passes you by in a blur and I was like YES EXACTLY!! It’s a grounding ritual!! You take stock as of where you are in life!! You take a pause to enjoy a new chapter/season of nature!! Some caucasian witch friend made a comment once at me like, ‘It’s just another day of the year, why does it matter that you celebrate on this day specifically??’ and it’s like IF yOU DON’T MAKE A TIME TO COMMIT THEN YOU WILL NEVER HAVE THE TIME!! Plus isn’t it nice to like gather friends just to just ‘be’ in nature?? And share season foods and have a feast?? Like isn’t this what life is about?? 

This sentiment was deepened especially by the Host. She was this gorgeous woman who’s spirit just glowed and has warmth that fills the room. She has loving mom energy like the type of person who loves cooking for you (she actually cooked traditional Palestinian food for everyone in the house and even recounted beautifully how she was so happy to get up in the morning to go to the market to pick out the fresh produce and cook for others with love omg). She was so happy to just host the party and have a group of wonderful people over. Anyway there was a crew of very stylish, very attractive palestinian wlw women/femme nbs there who could fucking dance cause their hips were doing some snake charmer shit and they could keep up with all the afro beats and have their bellies, booties and thighs twerk at the same time but obv right now whats happening in Palestine is devastating. Turns out later in the night she revealed that she was a refugee. This was revealed cause the asshole neighbour who was displeased at us having a party (11PM Sat night. Like I know its late but it’s London on a Sat night), was threatening to call the cops which is really aggressive when it’s towards a group of queer, mostly dark skinned afro/arabic group of people and when he got in her face she shouted back at him, “My people have to sleep through bombs and you can’t handle a little music??” omfg.. 

Yet anyway she said something beautiful as we were in the liminal space of the party somewhere between the twilight hours of 3-5AM on her bed high as hell. She first said it in Arabic than translated it loosely to, ‘What is life but not indulges?’ meaning what is life but not the experience of it all? Experiencing our senses, our joy of living etc. And she mentioned how we can take so much for granted like enjoying being out with nature, enjoying the company and safe space of being with friends, of having the freedom of self expression, especially to be queer, to be magical, to not have your entire life uprooted. Of course so many people there have racial and colonial trauma but that crew was experiencing it real time and were ready to fight that neighbour for trying to take away that moment of celebrating a cherished friend’s birthday. 

I feel like I finally have the words to express why I love celebrations. I always thought it was a vapid Libra side of me but it wasn’t easy to dismiss as such cause I even liked celebrating things alone. It’s very grounding in the way that it helps to slow you down in the moment and really experience life. Especially when you celebrate with feasts and eat the gifts and labour you’ve given the earth to enjoy and indulge in divine food. And when you have the blessing to share these moments with friends you get to be reminded of what love feels like and what community feels like and how important these experiences are to be human. Especially when nothing is really guaranteed in this world anymore. 

I wish everyone was in a position to take off from work on the solstice to just ground themselves in nature and even spend time with good friends at the beach or park but capitalism can be really abusive. I am just glad I’ve reshaped my life to get to a point where I can do that. As for now I am going to plan out my day tomorrow then sleep forever and hope my old-ass Life Alert knees stop burning cause they are mad at me for last night’s twerking reminding me that I am on the doorstep of my 30s. 

[morwensteelsheen]

I’m starting grad school this autumn and honestly I’m getting nervous. Like yes I am v excited about the whole prospect overall and I do miss being a student but am intimidated by 3 hr long seminars and thesis writing and massive amounts of reading… everyone keeps saying it’s gonna be very different from undergrad so okay, but how specifically? Is it the large amounts of reading? I already had insane amounts of reading (humanities degree hurrah) especially in my last two years but could you expound on your own experience and how you take notes/read quickly/summarize or just how to deal with first time grad students?

Oh, yeah for sure! A necessary disclaimer here is that I'm at a certain poncy English institution that is noted for being very bad at communicating with its students and very bad at treating its postgrad students like human beings, so a lot of these strategies I've picked up will be overkill for anyone who has the good sense to go somewhere not profoundly evil lol.

So I'll just preface this by saying that I am a very poor student in terms of doing what you're supposed to. I'm very bad at taking notes, I never learned how to do it properly, and I really, really struggle with reading dense literature. That said, I'm probably (hopefully?) going to get through this dumb degree just fine. Also — my programme is a research MPhil, not taught, so it's a teensy bit more airy-fairy in terms of structure. I had two classes in Michaelmas term, both were once a week for two hours each; two in Lent, one was two hours weekly, the other two hours biweekly; and no classes at all in Easter. I also have no exam component, I was/am assessed entirely on three essays (accounting for 30% of my overall mark) and my dissertation (the remaining 70%), which is, I think, a little different to how some other programmes are. I think even some of the other MPhils here are more strenuous than that, like Econ and Soc Hist is like 100% dissertation? Anyways, not super important, but knowing what you're getting marked on is important. I dedicated considerably less time than I did in undergrad to perfecting my coursework essays because they just don't hold as much weight now. The difference between a 68 and a 70 just wasn't worth the fuss for me, which helped keep me sane-ish.

The best advice anyone ever gave me was that, whereas an undergrad degree can kind of take over your life without it becoming a problem, you need to treat grad school like a job. That's not because it's more 'serious' or whatever, but because if you don't set a really strict schedule and keep to it, you'll burn yourself out and generally make your life miserable. Before I went back on my ADD meds at the end of Michaelmas term, I sat myself down at my desk and worked from 11sh to 1800ish every day. Now that I'm medicated, I do like 9:30-10ish to 1800-1900 (except for now that I'm crunching on my diss, where, because of my piss-poor time management skills I'm stuck doing, like, 9:30-22:30-23:00). If you do M-F 9-5, you'll be getting through an enormous amount of work and leaving yourself loads of time to still be a human being on the edges. That'll be the difference between becoming a postgrad zombie and a person who did postgrad. I am a postgrad zombie. You do not want to be like me.

The 'work' element of your days can really vary. It's not like I was actually consistently reading for all that time — my brain would have literally melted right out of my ears — but it was about setting the routine and the expectation of dedicating a certain, consistent and routinized period of time for focusing on the degree work every day. My attention span, even when I'm medicated, is garbage, so I would usually read for two or three hours, then either work on the more practical elements of essay planning, answer emails, or plot out the early stages of my research.

In the first term/semester/whatever, lots of people who are planning on going right into a PhD take the time to set up their applications and proposals. I fully intended on doing a PhD right after the MPhil, but the funding as an international student trying to deal with the pandemic proved super problematic, and I realised that the toll it was taking on my mental health was just so not worth it, so I've chosen to postpone a few years. You'll feel a big ol' amount of pressure to go into a PhD during your first time. Unless you're super committed to doing it, just try and tune it out as much as you can. There's absolutely nothing wrong with taking a year (or two, or three, or ten) out, especially given the insane conditions we're all operating under right now.

I'll be honest with you, I was a phenomenally lazy undergrad. It was only by the grace of god and being a hard-headed Marxist that I managed to pull out a first at the eleventh hour. So the difference between UG and PG has been quite stark for me. I've actually had to do the reading this year, not just because they're more specialised and relevant to my research or whatever, but because, unlike in UG, the people in the programme are here because they're genuinely interested (and not because it's an economic necessity) and they don't want to waste their time listening to people who haven't done the reading.

I am also a really bad reader. Maybe it's partially the ADD + dyslexia, but mostly it's because I just haven't practiced it and never put in the requisite effort to learn how to do it properly. My two big pointers here are learning how to skim, and learning how to prioritise your reading.

This OpenU primer on skimming is a bit condescending in its simplicity, but it gets the point across well. You're going to want to skim oh, say, 90% of the reading you're assigned. This is not me encouraging you to be lazy, it's me being honest. Not every word of every published article or book is worth reading. The vast majority of them aren't. That doesn't mean the things that those texts are arguing for aren't worth reading, it just means that every stupid rhetorical flourish included by bored academics hoping for job security and/or funding and/or awards isn't worth your precious and scarce time. Make sure you get the main thrust of each text, make sure you pull out and note down one or two case studies and move right the hell on. There will be some authors whose writing will be excellent, and who you will want to read all of. Everything else gets skimmed.

Prioritisation is the other big thing. You're going to have shitty weeks, you're probably going to have lots of them. First off, you're going to need to forgive yourself for those now — everybody has them, yes, even the people who graduated with distinctions and go on to get lovely £100,000 AHRC scholarships. Acknowledge that there will be horrible weeks, accept it now, and then strategise for how to get ahead of them. My personal strategy is to plan out what I'm trying to get out of each course I take, and then focus only on the readings that relate to that topic.

I took a course in Lent term that dealt with race and empire in Britain between 1607 and 1900; I'm a researcher of the Scottish far left from 1968-present, so the overlap wasn't significant. But I decided from the very first day of the course that I was there to get a better grasp about the racial theories of capitalism and the role of racial othering in Britain's subjugation of Ireland. Those things are helpful to me because white supremacist capitalism comes up hourly in my work on the far left, and because the relationship of the Scottish far left to Ireland is extremely important to its self definition. On weeks when I couldn't handle anything else, I just read the texts related to that. And it was fine, I did fine, I got my stupid 2:1 on the final essay, and I came out of it not too burnt out to work on my dissertation.

Here is where I encourage you to learn from my mistakes: get yourself a decent group of people who you can have in depth conversations about the material with. I was an asshole who decided I didn't need to do that with any posh C*mbr*dge twats, and I have now condemned myself to babbling incomprehensible nonsense at my partner because I don't have anyone on my course to work through my ideas with. These degrees are best experienced when they're experienced socially. In recent years (accelerated by the pandemic, ofc), universities have de-emphasised the social component of postgrad work, largely to do with stupid, long-winded stuff related to postgrad union organising etc. It's a real shame because postgrads end up feeling quite socially isolated, and because they're not having these fun and challenging conversations, their work actually suffers in the long term. This is, and I cannot stress this enough, the biggest departure from undergrad. Even the 'weak links' or whatever judgemental nonsense are there because they want to be. That is going to be your biggest asset. Talk, talk, talk. Listen, listen, listen. Offer to proofread people's papers so you get a sense of how people are thinking about things, what sort of style they're writing in, what sources they're referring to. Be a sponge and a copycat (but don't get done for plagiarism, copy like this.) Also: ask questions that seem dumb. For each of your classes, ask your tutors/lecturers who they think the most important names in their discipline are. It sounds silly, but it's really helpful to know the intellectual landscape you're dealing with, and it means you know whose work you can go running to if you get lost or tangled up during essay or dissertation writing!

You should also be really honest about everything — another piece of advice that I didn't follow and am now suffering for. The people on your courses and in your cohort are there for the same reasons as you, have more or less the same qualifications as you, and are probably going to have a lot of the same questions and insecurities as you. If you hear an unfamiliar term being used in a seminar, just speak up and ask about it, because there're going to be loads of other people wondering too. But you should also cultivate quite a transparent relationship with your supervisor. I was really cagey and guarded with mine because my hella imposter syndrome told me she was gonna throw my ass out of the programme if I admitted to my problems. Turns out no, she wouldn't, and that actually she's been a super good advocate for me. If you feel your motivation slipping or if you feel like you're facing challenges you could do with a little extra support on, go right to your supervisor. Not only is that what they're there to do, they've also done this exact experience before and are going to be way more sympathetic and aware of the realities of it than, say, the uni counselling service or whatever.

Yeah so I gotta circle back to the notes thing... I really do not take notes. It's my worst habit. Here's an example of the notes I took for my most recent meeting with my supervisor (revising a chapter draft).

No sane person would ever look at these and think this is a system worth replicating lol. But the reason they work for me is because I also record (with permission) absolutely everything. My mobile is like 90% audio recordings of meetings and seminars lol. So these notes aren't 'good' notes, but they're effective for recalling major points in the audio recording so I can listen to what was said when I need to.

Sorry none of this is remotely organised because it's like 2330 here and my brain is so soft and mushy. I'm literally just writing things as I remember them.

Right, so: theory is a big thing. Lots of people cheap out on this and it's to their own detriment. You say you're doing humanities, and tbh, most of the theory involved on the humanities side of the bridge is interdisciplinary anyways, so I'm just gonna give you some recommendations. The big thing is to read these things and try to apply them to what you're writing about. This sounds so fucking condescending but getting, like, one or two good theoretical frameworks in your papers will actually put you leaps and bounds beyond the students around you and really improve your research when the time comes. Also: don't read any of these recommendations without first watching, like an intro youtube video or listening to a podcast. The purists will tell you that's the wrong way to do it, but I am a lazy person and lazy people always find the efficient ways to do things, so I will tell the purists to go right to hell.

Check out these impenetrable motherfuckers (just one or two will take your work from great to excellent, so don't feel obliged to dig into them all):

Karl Marx and Fredrich Engels (I'm not just pushing my politics, but also, I totally am) — don't fucking read Capital unless you're committed to it. Oh my god don't put yourself through that unless you really have to. Try, like, the 18th Brumaire of Louis Napoleon for the fun quotes, and Engels on the family.

Frantz Fanon — Wretched of the Earth. Black Skin White Masks also good, slightly more impossible to read

Benedict Anderson — Imagined Communities. It's about nationalism, but you will be surprised at how applicable it is to... so many other topics

Judith Butler — she really sucks to read. I love her. But she sucks to read. If you do manage to read her though, your profs will love you because like 90% of the people who say they've read her are lying

Bourdieu — Distinction is good for a lot of things, but especially for introducing the idea of social and cultural capital. There's basically no humanities sub-discipline that can't run for miles on that alone.

Crenshaw — the genesis of intersectionality. But, like, actually read her, not the ingrates who came after her and defanged intersectionality into, like, rainbow bombs dropped over Gaza.

The other thing is that you should read for fun. My programme director was absolutely insistent that we all continue to read for pleasure while we did this degree, not just because it's good for destressing, but because keeping your cultural horizons open actually makes your writing better and more interesting. I literally read LOTR for the first time in, like February, and the difference in my writing and thinking from before and after is tangible, because not only did it give me something fun to think about when I was getting stressy, but it also opened up lots of fun avenues for thought that weren't there before. I read LOTR and wanted to find out more about English Catholics in WWI, and lo and behold something I read about it totally changed how I did my dissertation work. Or, like, a girl on my course who read the Odyssey over Christmas Break and then started asking loads of questions about the role of narrative creation in the archival material she was using. It was seriously such a good edict from our director.

Also, oh my god, if you do nothing else, please take this bit seriously: forgive yourself for the bad days. The pressure in postgrad is fucking unreal. Nobody, nobody is operating at 100% 100% of the time. If you aim for 60% for 80% of the time and only actually achieve 40% for 60% of the time, you will still be doing really fucking well. Don't beat yourself up unnecessarily. Don't make yourself feel bad because you're not churning out publishable material every single day. Some days you just need to lie on the couch, order takeout, and watch 12 hours of Jeopardy or whatever, and I promise you that that is a good and worthwhile thing to do. You don't learn and grow without rest, so forgive yourself for the moments and days of unplanned rest, and forgive yourself for when you don't score as highly as you want to, and forgive yourself when you say stupid things in class or don't do all of (or any of) the class reading.

Uhhhh I think I'm starting to lose the plot a bit now. Honestly, just ping me whatever questions you have and I'm happy to answer them. There's a chance I'll be slower to respond over the next few days because my dissertation is due in a week (holy fuck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) but I will definitely respond. And honestly, no question is too dumb lol. I wish I'd been able to ask someone about things like what citation management software is best or how to set up a desk for maximum efficiency or whatever, but I was a scaredy-cat about it and didn't. So yeah, ask away and I will totally answer.

[purplesurveys]

1142

survey by tickticktmr

Do you have a digital camera? What color is it? No, haven’t held one in years. The last digital camera we had was a bit of a magenta shade; it actually belonged to my sister but I borrowed it occasionally.

Did you like the movie Juno? It was ok, though to be honest I’ve mostly forgotten what it’s about. I remember fairly liking it but it’s not the type of movie or genre I’d rewatch.

Name something you think is way over-rated: Big Macs, which I’ve never found tasty.

Do you remember your first friend? Yes, it was a girl named Kaye that I sat with in preschool. She didn’t stay too long in my school, so I haven’t been able to reconnect.

Would you rather live with your mom, dad, a friend or on your own? On my own.

Name something your pet(s) like: Walks.

Do you listen to country music? No, I don’t.

What does the color white remind you of? Peace, serenity, doves, minimalist homes.

What show/movie/song makes you cry every time? Show: From Brooklyn Nine-Nine - either the episode where Rosa Diaz comes out as bisexual or the episode where Terry gets racially profiled.

Movie: La vita e bella.

Song: There isn’t one song that makes me cry 100% of the time, but I suppose Why We Ever by Hayley Williams had this effect on me for a time.

What was your last fight about? I spilled a drop of our dinner’s soup on the dinner table last Thursday and my mom did a sufficient job making me feel incompetent and a dumbass about it, so I was hurt by it and didn’t speak a word for the rest of the evening. Not really a fight, but y’know.

Do you text a lot? I used to not but anymore. I usually get prepaid for LTE now, not to have credits for texts.

Have you ever been screamed at by a teacher? Many times. A number of them didn’t like me for whatever reason...

Do you smile or scowl more? I definitely try to smile more, but idk for sure if that’s what I do more frequently.

Obama or Bush? Idk, maybe Obama? Considering we were colonized by the US at one point and imperialism remains to linger in my country, I generally don’t take kindly to any US president, though.

Batman or Superman? I don’t like comic books.

Are you excited about Blink 182 getting back together? I don’t follow the band so I’m not sure how recent or relevant this news is, but  generally speaking I don’t remember ever being stoked for a Blink-182 comeback in particular.

Would you rather be a teacher, a stripper or a hairdresser? I’d go with teacher, and preferably of history, so that I at least can have an hour or so to talk about my passion with other people lol.

The last person you spoke to: how many times have they made you cry? Just once.

What's your favorite kind of gum? The classic bubblegum flavor is fine with me.

Have you ever failed a class in school? Just exams, but never altogether an entire class that required me to retake.

Are you even in school? No, not anymore.

Are you taller then your best friend? No haha, I’m slightly tinier than both of them.

Are you scared of spiders? I’d be scared probably of the larger kinds, but all we get here are the super small spiders so this isn’t an issue for me for the most part.

You can't eat anything ever again except for jello or apples: which one? Probably apples. I cannot stand the texture of jelly/Jell-O, and I guess I can move past my dislike of fruits for this situation since apple is kinda decent anyway.

Have you ever cheated on anyone? No, never man.

If you answered yes to the last question, do they know about it?

Do you paint your nails often? I never do and I never have them done either.

Mascara or lipgloss? Er lipgloss I guess, since I literally don’t care how my eyelashes look.

Who’s the last person you called? I think it had been Denise, a co-worker. 

Describe the last person who sent you a text: It was just the delivery guy who brought Ysa’s gift to my place, so I don’t know enough about him to be able to give a sufficient description.

Do you ever watch TV shows or movies on YouTube? No, because for the most part they would be high- or low-pitched, in a tiny screen, sped up, zoomed in, or altogether fake. I also don’t understand why buying movies individually on YouTube is still a thing when Netflix exists for literally cheaper.

Myspace or facebook? Uh Facebook, I guess.

How old were you when you lost your first tooth? I was around 5 or 6, I think.

Have you ever embarassed yourself in front of someone you like? Yeah. But when I started dating them, fucking up in front of them became less embarrassing, of course.

Describe your hair right now: Wet and slightly dripping since I just stepped out of the shower.

Do you like it when it rains? Yes, it’s my favorite weather.

Does anyone miss you right now? I hope my friends do...but I can’t say for sure.

How many funerals have you been to? None. Just wakes.

Where's your favorite place to hang out? Depends on the vibe I’m feeling for the day and the company I’ve got.

Have you ever laughed so hard you peed in your pants? Oh gee, never.

Do you like video games? What's your favorite one? I was raised around video games and so much of my childhood was watching my kuya, dad, and a number of my uncles completing games, so I definitely hold a big appreciation and fondness for them. I never inherited any skills of my own though lmao, so I mostly watch walkthroughs; and the only video games I’ve ever met considerable progress on are Nintendo games marketed for all audiences HAHAHA.

Have you ever worn something your parents wouldn't approve of? Yeah I’ve gotten chided by my mom a handful of times, telling me to cover up with a jacket or something. But her reasoning was always men, so I’m usually able to defend myself and say that that’s not my problem and that’s something fucking men have to deal with themselves. We both know I’m right so she ends up begrudgingly letting me go out with whatever outfit I choose on that given day.

Where are your sibling(s)? They are in their respective bedrooms.

When's the last time a friend got dumped/dumped someone? September. That friend was Gabie and the dumpee was me hahahah, does that count?

Do you celebrate Valentine's day? If I have a significant other, yeah. I like keeping our activities lowkey though because from all my past experiences, malls and restaurants tend to get fully booked on February 14 and it ends up being more of a (very crowded) hassle than a celebration.

Do you celebrate Christmas? Yep.

Does it snow where you live? Never.

Have you ever wanted a pet unicorn? I never did, actually.

Would you like to work to earn money, or simply have money given to you? The latter is obviously the ideal situation, but I recognize the importance of hard work too and constantly working on my skills.

If you could be on any game show, what one would it be? Jeopardy or Family Feud.

Do you know anyone whose famous? Yes, at least locally.

Do you read those gossip magazines? I used to, lol those were my guilty pleasures back then. I still keep up with celebrity updates, but I’ve moved to social media now. I also filter which publications I consume and avoid the tabloid-y ones like Daily Mail.

Summer or winter? I’d go with winter so that I can actually experience it for once.

What do you hear right now? I’m watching an archived Facebook livestream of a senior citizen who had held a virtual piano concert to raise funds to afford his maintenance medicine. The media ate it up like crazy and it’s since gone viral, so I was able to I read about him earlier tonight. He reminds me so much of my late grandpa so I quickly searched for the finished concert on Facebook and now I have it on :)

When's the last time you saw a cousin? Around two weeks ago.

Where were you the last time you left your house? I can’t remember exactly. I think I went to Feliz...OH OK I remember now - I originally went to the nearby SM to handle an LBC delivery for work, and to stay at Starbucks for a few hours also to work. After that I went to their vape stall to buy new pods but they didn’t have any for the vape brand I use, so I went to Feliz as well to try my chances there. They ended up having a few flavors but not what I usually get, so I decided to try a new one - grape lol.

Describe the room you are in: Dark, filled with the lovely sounds of piano music, and the faint smell coming from my scented candle. Overall, light and peaceful.

What shoes did you wear today? I wore my Onitsukas when I walked Cooper this morning.