#ultimately it's not worth being attached to the idea of a celebrity being The Good Person

[fixyourwritinghabits]

Hey everybody, I know in these days of going through it, somehow we keep having to go through more of it and that sucks and it's not going to stop. That said, having done the rodeo of Oh No, That Person I Liked May Be Fucking Awful many a time before, there's no much you can do, and that also sucks.

There is one thing you can do, and that is to do jackshit. Sit down and let yourself process. That can take days, it can take weeks. You don't own the internet proof that you're a Good Person TM by immediately dumping your cosplays/books/fanblogs, etc. You can and should take time to decide how your relationship to the work of an author or creative who sucks. It's a hard process, especially if it meant a lot for you, and it's worth taking the time to do it.

When these things pile up - YouTubers, actors, authors, etc seem to all be horrible people, remember that we are prone to focus on the bad and overlook the good. There are great series, wonderful creators, and plenty of fiction out there left to explore, and one way to move forward is to find other things you like. There are plenty of Not Awful people in the world waiting to be discovered.

[imbuedebauchery]

While I love to see everyone so excited about Isha,

especially where it concerns the potential for Jinx's healing, I'm shocked to see a lack of concern for the child and what she means to the story as a whole.

Arcane has always been about cycles of violence, about how people become doomed by violence to uphold systems of violence. It has always shown us this through children. Arcane is fundamentally built on the trauma of children and how that trauma becomes an inescapable vortex.

Vi would not be Vi if she was not extremely young when her parents died. She would not base her entire sense of self and worth around protecting others - she would not consider herself fundamentally wrong and reprehensible for failing to protect her charge, Powder - if not for the way this identity was cemented into her youth. The Enforcers took everything from her. The whole point of her story is how she negotiates (terribly) with all these moving parts - pieces that were presented to her through the vulnerable and fractured lens of being a literal child.

Same with Jinx. Let's not forget what her trauma looked like. Where Vi was forced to be an adult right from the beginning of her life, Jinx never got to grow up. She was forever trapped by her nightmares and hallucinations, unable to process her emotions like an adult. We know how this ended. (Terribly.)

The sister cities are at war. The sisters are at war. They were subjected to ruthless violence and isolating practices throughout their youth. One of the fundamental scenes from S1, E1 is the baroque-invoking montage of Vi, Mylo and Claggor fighting the other kids while Powder sat and watched, horrified. This could very well have been one of the worst, ugliest displays of close-up violence Powder was subjected to in her youth.

Why is it okay that this happens to Isha?

Maybe "okay" is the wrong word. I'm not accusing people of condoning or celebrating any kind of violence involving children, not by any means.

My question is: why are we cheering so loud for Jinx to be reverse-adopted by this child when their first encounter is after a lethal gunfight? Jinx shows her a ruthless display of unthinking, uncaring violence. She has become the undercity embodied with all her chaos and destructive tendencies. Isha was an evader - she ran from the danger. She was a survivor, not a killer. But the moment she is shown someone who cares about her in the same motion that she shows her how the undercity really works, she associated that care with that violence.

Did Isha know what it meant to put herself in Vi's way? Yes or no both bring their own problems. Yes, she understands death and what it means to kill people, and would participate in that act - would either be killed by Vi, or pull the trigger on her - to keep her new source of care safe. No, she has no idea what she's doing, and is blindly acting on love and attachment alone.

This was the question that would have followed Silco and Powder all throughout Powder's upbringing.

Yes, Jinx will be given opportunities to see herself, to see Powder in Isha, and to try and make things better for Isha and thereby address her own childhood trauma. But it's already off to a horrific start. Jinx is ultimately powerless to change how the undercity works (we'll see if she unites it! But likely won't change it), and cannot afford to show anything other than express and expert violence to those she loves. There was another post that talked about how the three girls, Isha, Jinx, and Sevika, communicate in body language and grunts and don't need words to communicate anything - yes. because their communication is based in beating the shit out of people. This makes them good fighters, not good at fixing issues or approaching trauma. They will simply continue to try and solve their problems and become a family in the only way they are familiar with: through killing others.

Another child is simply being roped into the way of things. Another child is being put at risk. Another child will grow up and show other children that violence is what keeps the world chugging along.

Whether or not Isha dies, something tragic will befall her. Something that will provide her with an irreversible fork in the road. She will either die, and Jinx will see that this is what her system, her city, does to people. That this is what she is permanently cursed to do to people. Or Isha lives, and faces something traumatic. Jinx realizes that this is what happens to children in the undercity, and is hopeless to affect any kind of change.

Or... Isha lives. She suffers the moment of extreme horror that will change her forever, and has no coping mechanisms, but saw enough lost love in Jinx that she is able to piece together a way to continue in this world without resorting to violence. She finds a way to address that trauma without unleashing it back on the world.

I'd like to think, knowing how Fortiche will be more than aware of the themes of childhood in this series, that Isha will live. Introducing a child this late in the game - a universal symbol of hope for the future in any given fiction - presents them with the opportunity to express how things can change. Maybe our wretched adult freaks are doomed, but maybe... maybe there's a chance. Maybe not everything is absolutely hopeless.

If they kill her? There is no shred of hope in the rest of this series. I'm sure of it. Literally nothing good will come out of any other plotline in S2 if Isha dies. She is the canary, and oh boy, we're going down deep into the mine with S2.

Why must a child suffer for Jinx to learn? I think this is the ultimate question that comes out of seeing the excitement for the new trio family. Why do we have to rope a literal child into a murder duet so that Jinx might be able to see her own traumas in a different lens?

There's something about the doom of children to systemic violence that just makes me weepy every time. Rewatching S1 E1 had me in tears almost every minute. Knowing that these kids, these children, were participating in practices that would doom them. Knowing that the adults we see at the end of S1 and where we are in S2 are direct and inevitable products of their youth. Kids that deserved love and safety, and were instead handed war and weapons. And we're watching it again in real time! And cheering about it????

I had to ramble about this because I just haven't seen anything on it - and maybe I'm wrong, maybe it just hasn't crossed my feed, maybe everyone is acutely aware of this as a base-level of knowledge and I just didn't get the memo. But I'll share my thoughts anyway.

[ragingstillness]

Idk exactly why but I feel like there’s a plethora of “Alina is gorgeous” fics (not that I disagree at all) but not a ton and a ton of fawning over Aleksander the same way. My brain’s solution to this problem? Siren/Pirate AU where Aleksander is the siren and Alina is the fierce pirate captain.

Extraneous other pieces to this hc:

Mal is Alina’s first mate but isn’t in love with her, they’re just good friends.

Alina grew up in the orphanage with Mal but eventually they agreed to live out their dreams and ran away to become pirates. Surprisingly, they actually succeeded. Along the way they picked up Kaz, Inej, Jesper, Wylan, and Nikolai as part of their crew. Kaz is the helmsman, Inej is a rigger (idk what the term is for ppl who scurry up the rigging), and Jesper is the lookout. Wylan mans the canons and Nikolai is the navigator.

They only kill when they’re attacked with killing intent. Most of the time they just rob fat cat merchant ships, especially those they know belong to the king (Nikolai isn’t his son in this au they just hate him for a whole variety of reasons).

Being a pirate is dangerous at the best of times but in general being on the sea for so long is also considered quite dangerous. It’s thought that the longer you spend on the ocean the more the creatures that live beneath will recognize you and maybe decide you’re worth eating. If you see a merperson or siren or really any supernatural sea creature, you’re supposed to kill them on sight as they are believed to be the spawn of demons, cast out into the ocean by one of the king’s ancestors.

Alina and her crew mostly think the idea of the mercreatures eating people is ridiculous but they don’t deny their existence. They take care not to sail in areas where too many boats are reported to have gone down until one day a freak storm whirls up and flings them wildly off course into a secluded area. It looks almost like a cove but there is no land attached to the towering pillars of brown rock that stick out of the ocean. It is upon one of these that Alina sees Aleksander.

Now, the mercreatures are not, in fact, demons. They were a persecuted minority with magic who were driven by an ancient king to the borders of the country and told to walk into the sea. The most powerful of them all could not stand any longer the suffering of his people so he used up all of his power to transform them into creatures that would survive the deep. For a while he was celebrated until rumors began to circulate about how close he used to be with the land-king (only for manipulation) and how he was so strange to not have power anymore (because he gave it up for you stupid) and they also looked down on him for having a black tail where all of theirs were brightly colored. They didn’t treat him poorly but over time he became feared and isolated and ultimately he just gave up and retreated from them.

Alina has dropped anchor while they wait for the storm to pass and she’s sent her exhausted crew belowdecks to get some rest while she keeps watch. She’s alone on deck when she looks over at one of the rocks and sees a splash in the water, followed by a man pushing himself up onto the rock. She almost calls out to him to see if maybe he was shipwrecked when he heaves his lower half out of the water and she sees that below his belly button he is scaly, transitioning eventually into a long black tail.

He doesn’t notice her and swings his tail idly in the water, hands scrunching into his hair, wringing it out. His posture is slumped, sad, and even from afar Alina thinks she can see tears in his eyes. With an awkward hip movement, the man gets his entire tail up on the rock. He bends over it at an angle that cannot be comfortable and slowly begins to pick seaweed out from between his scales. Alina watches, half convinced she’s fallen asleep and is dreaming. The man continues to clean himself, patiently going through the motions on each and every scale. It is clear that this task will take him a very long time. Alina can’t help but wonder if he’d like some help cleaning, surely more hands would make this go faster (cleaning tails is a bonding gesture among the mercreatures but Aleksander is alone so he has to clean himself 🥺).

As each scale becomes clean, it begins to shine, going from a flat matte black to a shiny almost iridescent black. When the monumental task is finished the man looks pleased and reaches into a rucksack tied around his waist with a belt that Alina hadn’t seen before. From it he pulls a small flute. He holds it in his hands delicately, admiring it, then brings it to his lips and begins to play (playing together is also a bonding activity poor bb Aleksander). The song is gorgeous but also mournful, lonely, and sad. Alina is transfixed. So shocked is she that when the song ends she begins to clap. The noise startles the siren horribly and he makes a shrill shrieking noise before tumbling off his rock and into the sea, leaving the flute behind. Alina waits, but he doesn’t return. When the crew awaken she doesn’t tell them because she doesn’t think they’d believe her. However she does take a small boat out so she can retrieve the flute. She tucks it into her own rucksack and thinks she feels eyes on her but when she looks around there is no one.

Over the next couple of days she can’t help but feel that the eyes are waiting, that they’re following her home. She hopes they do.

[kandulce]

📓 THE ONE VLD IDEA!! GIVE IT TO ME NOW!!!!

so I MAY have gotten a little salty over the last season....... but the short of it is, among (lol) the huge pile of "hopes and theories" for the lore of vld, I had really hoped that the lions would return home in the end.

Their story was, if i remember correctly, that Zarkon had found/created a portal to another dimension, and the metal used to create the Lions was pulled through. or, something similar?

Either way, to be broken into pieces and then reshaped into something completely different without your consent does not sound fun, ngl. Super cool that the lions seemed chill with it and were even kind and open to communication with the general public! but I mean they were sentient beings; they had to have missed home at some point.

which, imo would tie in fairly well with the resolution of the series. Voltron beats the Big Bad, there's a new era of peace that Allura and others have to learn to maintain, but the heavy hitting's pretty much done.

At this point, maybe one or two people in the universe might be attached to the Lions and their symbol of peace. Yknow, the shining beacon of light that freed entire galaxies overnight. I'd bet there'd be a few people who would be anxious over the idea of them, uh, leaving.

now, here's where the salty part comes into play. Lance, favorite character and overall charming people-person extraordinaire, after desperately wanting to be a Pilot since Forever, (don't get me started on Hunk, model Engineer, as a fuckin cook) now lives on a freakin' farm. In reclusivity.

okay. fine. cool. he's sad, he avoids people for a good few years. I can work with that.

while Lance has his third emo phase, pidge goes on to become a prominent researcher and, unavoidably, political figure. Hunk and Keith are in similar situations but within their respective skillsets. Shiro's the same way until he gets sicker and escapes the worst of public scrutiny. Allura's situation is (Alive) exacerbated by about a thousandfold.

they are Tense. they are Anxious. they are middle-aged adults who have had to make sacrifices and are not the same people they were even right after the whole nightmare ended.

Lance is mostly the same. he lived a life avoiding the worst of the worst, but sacrificed nearly all his relationships in doing so.

whether it was worth it is up to him, but ultimately, this leads to the lions going to him and relaying their wishes. They hope mr social recluse can tell these hardcore, war-hardened celebrities that the backbone of Winning Arguments wishes to fuck off back home and away forever. all based off of relationships that died a few decades ago. nice.

it does not Go Well. at first! but the tone of this would be of rediscovery and successful, heartfelt goodbyes. maybe a redeemed lotor can get squeezed in.

[k-s-morgan]

You know, I always look forward to and dread your updates. Don’t get me wrong, I love your writing, your metas and all the fics you have written but ‘What he grows to be’ gives me such an upset feeling. Maybe dark stories are not my cup of tea but I’ve read dark stories before and they haven’t affected me the way yours does. Throughout the whole story my heart feels heavy but I can’t bring myself to stop reading. Also I have a question: could you please explain Harry’s devotion to Tom? Like I don’t study psychology or anything so I’m not an expert (so correct me if I’m wrong) but I don’t see a reason for Harry to sacrifice so much for someone like Tom who is nothing but cruel towards him. He’s been condescending always treating Harry like a helpless thing who needs looking after. He is cruel and manipulative and has a complete disregard towards anything about personal boundaries. I mean he’s basically ,in a loose term, a psychopath. I can understand the way you write Tom, I don’t get the way you’ve written Harry. He’s so weak. He has none of that courage he used to have in the books. He doesn’t have that spirit that made me fall in love with him. He gives in so easily. He forgives easily. He has no morals left. He’s not the Harry I know. Like he literally excused multiple murders Tom committed because he loves him? It’s just so hard to comprehend. I tried to put myself in Harry’s place and instead of feeling sympathetic towards him, I felt angry at how much he has lost himself. I don’t see any thing good in Tom. I would understand for Harry to love him with such abandon if he has anything good in him. But Tom has done nothing but made him suffer. Why did Harry change so much? Just because he only has Tom in this world? Because he raised him? Tom was never a helpless, innocent child for Harry to feel compassion towards him. He was cruel and manipulative from the beginning. It just frustrates me how Harry keeps forgiving Tom and then apologizing to him after his ‘punishments’. It might be cruel for Harry to ‘die’ as a punishment but still does it warrant him forgiving Tom so easily after the atrocities he has committed? It’s a complex situation, I understand and truly I don’t mean to offend you or anything. I’m just trying to understand. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this because you know them better than I do as it is your own story. I don’t know if it makes me a bad person but it always gives me so much satisfaction to see Tom suffer even though it’s for such a short time. Please tell me he won’t get away with everything like always does and that Harry won’t just forgive him easily like he usually does. Because what Tom just did was so cruel and horrifying that I was in shock when I read it. The way he used Harry’s weakeness against him... sorry for the rant!

Hello! First of all, thank you so much for such a long and detailed ask - it's always great to know that my work affects people, even if it evokes so much frustration :D I firmly believe in the death of the author concept, so I don't feel like I can impose my understanding of characters on my readers. Everyone sees them in different ways: some readers think Harry overreacted, others think he should kill Tom and be done with it, etc. What He Grows to Be is certainly a disturbing story, and I think it differs from my other works because Tom and Harry are very different. With Will and Hannibal, violence and manipulations are mutual while here, Harry is genuinely kind and empathetic, and Tom takes advantages of that.

As for my personal view: I don't think Harry is weak. I think he is very fucked up, even more so than in canon because he had to live through even more trauma after the war in WHGTB. In canon, being understanding, forgiving, and empathetic are some of Harry's major traits. It always shakes me to think about how he named his child Albus Severus after two people who caused him so much pain. Yes, Dumbledore loved him in his own way, but ultimately, Harry was his weapon. Years of abuse, every interaction, every test - everything was done with a purpose of manipulating him into being a perfect self-sacrificial hero. And yet Harry still loves Dumbledore with devotion, he still holds awe for him. Same with Snape: yes, he wasn't as terrible of a person as Harry imagined. He suffered a lot, he tried to redeem himself, but Harry never saw anything but hostility and derision from him. And yet he forgives everything to the point of naming a child after him because Snape loved his mother and took care of him. 

Harry didn't hate his relatives after years of abuse. He managed to feel empathy even for Voldemort, and not just once. He tried to give him a chance during the final battle, tried to make him see where he went wrong - that speaks of a unique kind of compassion and a big lack of self-worth. In WHGTB, due to the circumstances, all these traits are amplified.

As it could be expected, the story of Harry's all-encompassing love for Tom started with pity. When he first adopted him, he felt reserved and wary. He didn't like him, he didn't trust him, but he still started to grow attached to him because that's who Harry is: he can't share meals, teach, talk, and decorate house with a person without feeling something for them in the process. When Tom broke the vase and tried to repair it, terrified and guilty, Harry's pity and attachment won out. In that moment, he saw a little fragile boy who was never loved and who craved approval and acceptance. And Harry was determined to give it to him.

For a while, like you said, Tom was rude and condescending. But he showed he's capable of regret and remorse. He tried to heal Harry after hurting him; he listened to him with fascination during lessons and was willing to change his ideas; he laughed and cooked with him. Affection got stronger, and with it, what seemed annoying started to come across like lovable quirks. Harry despised Tom's showing-off at first, but then, after he got used to him and his company, he started finding it funny and endearing. He invested all of himself into this child, making him into his life goal - he couldn't not love him. He started to live for the small moments of Tom's affection and acceptance. His love for Ron, Hermione, his parents, Sirius - it combined and focused on Tom alone because in many ways, Tom was the key to making sure that when these people are born, they live a fulfilling and happy life. In Harry's mind, the more he loved Tom, the more chances of succeeding he had, and then the boundaries of this love started to blur, and Tom began to genuinely outshine every other person he has ever known because he was there and others were not.

When Gringotts happened and Tom's perception shifted, Harry was showered with his absolute devotion and focus. You said that you don't see anything good in Tom, but Harry does - and it's also important to remember that before Beth, Tom was very careful about not letting him see his real face. In Harry's eyes, Tom learned to help others, like when he offered his hand to a Muggle boy. He discarded the ideas of blood superiority and developed a far more moral outlook.  He learned to be caring, worrying about Harry when he's sick, making potions for him, covering him with a blanket at night, helping other students, achieving equality, etc. Tom's devotion is a completely irresistible thing to Harry because he's always been responsive to kindness, no matter how limited it was.

After Beth, it was already too late for him. Love and empathy are a terrible weapon in  Harry's case: he can't just unlove someone who has become his main life purpose. The only way is to try to understand Tom, and as long as this understanding exists, Harry finds an ability to forgive him.

You said Tom has done nothing but make him suffer, but for Harry, that's not true. 80% of time he spends with Tom is the happiest time of his life. Tom became the only person in his world, the person Harry poured of all his love, loneliness, and longing into. Tom is a family Harry never had. He was a child Harry could relate to, so he spoiled him, argued with him, shopped with him, and basked in the happiness of making him smile; Tom was a friend ready to listen and reassure, to discuss how their days passed, to do something fun together; now, Tom has started to slowly growing into something more. The celebrations, the shopping, the holidays, the flying - all these are happy memories for Harry. The only major instances of pain were Beth and now Charlus. Harry feels shattered every time Tom comes close to acting on his darkness, but as compared to the time they spend together, happiness still exceeds the heartbreak.  

When it comes to breaking his limits, Harry doesn't forgive easily. He didn't speak to Tom 6 months after Beth and he subjected him to a terrible trauma as punishment; the thought of Tom killing Charlus almost drove him crazy, but he couldn't ignore the fact that it happened before the system and that Tom has been trying since then. After the ritual, Harry leaves - and yes, I can assure you that forgiveness is definitely not coming any time soon! Although as the toxic cycle of their relationship shows, Harry can't really stay away from Tom indefinitely either.  

Harry is happy with Tom, and he knows Tom loves him. He understands that Tom is a psychopath and that ordinary criteria cannot apply to him, and so he struggles with making sure that Tom follows a lighter path while praising him every time there is some progress. In many ways, Harry succeeded: Tom is not planning on massive destruction. He doesn't discriminate; he made sure that other purebloods became more tolerant; he still wants power, but he's getting to it in ways that don't presuppose violence and murder. Every time Tom shows darkness, it's in an instance concerning Harry.

Harry loves being loved, even though Tom's love is not healthy. He loves being protected because this is something he missed severely in his first life. A big part of him wants to be taken care of, to let go and just enjoy life without constantly having to make difficult decisions. Tom gives him that, and under some conditions, they could be happy together, finding a perfect balance.

Alas, it's not going to happen any time soon (or maybe at all ;)!    

[chidoroki]

Emma - 63194

So, it’s August 22nd, otherwise known as the best day of the month because we get to celebrate Emma's birthday! I feel like she doesn't get enough credit, especially as a shōnen protagonist, probably because she's just a normal kid compared to others with overwhelming powers/magic/quirks/etc, but I think that just makes her feats all the more interesting and amazing. So, here I am, ready to praise the hell out of everything she's done, what she's capable of, and who she is on her special day.

(spoilers for the entirety of The Promised Neverland, so if you haven't read/completed the manga yet, consider this your first warning, because I'm literally going from start to finish with this.)

This is gonna be one hell of a long post, so here we go.

- She's one of the smartest kids at Grace Field, alongside Norman and Ray, who all get full scores on the house's daily tests, which is by no means a simple task.

- This is thanks to her ability to learn things quickly, which she puts to the absolute best use throughout the entire story.

- She's undoubtedly the most athletic out of the full-score trio, as she can pull off a leap like this with no issue!

- I gotta give her voice actor credit here because her scream at the end of EP1 is simply fantastic.

- She noticed the windows in the house were screwed shut, which reinforced the idea that the kids were merely raised like cattle. (Ray was also aware of this, of course.)

- Suspects the use of tracking devices. (The anime had Norman voicing this realization, so whoever you want to give the credit for this is up to you.)

- Believe me when I say that her acting skills are top-notch.

- She's so good that she was able to control her emotions enough and even regulated her pulse to fool Isabella.

- This! Just all of this. Her crazy ideals, her never-give-up mentality, her ability to stay optimistic and strong despite everything they're up against.. just amazing.

- She always thinks of her family first. (she honestly rarely cries too, now that I think about it.)

- By using what she overheard from the demons at the gate and the “blood tests” Isabella once told her about, Emma was able to figure out where the tracking devices were located on her own. (Yeah, Ray knew of this too, but he kept that info to himself.)

- She then created a situation that allowed her to confirm this and that yes, Isabella is indeed always checking their trackers.

- It was Emma's idea to train the other children by playing tag. Not only did this help them during the escape, but afterwards as well.

- Takes advantage of every opportunity to learn. (also, the strength she has!)

- Amazing learning ability x2 (I'm aware the manga says 10 instead, but still! I bet she could memorize 100 too!)

- She believes in everyone and makes Norman realize that no one in their family is truly bad and that leaving anyone behind, even the “traitor,” could cost them their life.

- She called Ray out on his bluff about him actually being willing to help everyone escape.

- Then confronted Ray about the possibility of him experimenting on the tracking devices of their siblings, thus resulting in their early shipments, which is something Norman didn't even realize, if his surprised expression is anything to go by. (Emma scolds him and hides her anger well, though she only stays mad for like, a minute.)

- She, along with Gilda, notice Isabella disappear every night after 8pm, leading them to assume the house might contain a secret room. They eventually pinpoint where it's located. (Ray suspects such a room must have existed, but wasn't certain.)

- Introduces the boys to William Minerva's books and the morse code bookplates they held, which the trio all know how to decode and understand. (I know Phil pointed them out to her originally and manga Ray was also aware of them, surprise, but..) the hunch she had about the two special books being important guides for them turned out to be true later on after the escape.

- Accepts her mistakes and is quick to apologize when she's wrong.

- Thank you anime for giving us these wonderful lines.

- Has her leg broken and yet she doesn't shed one damn tear. (the horrific sound still haunts me.) Ah, might as well also mention this now, but her theme, 63194, is one of the best songs on the soundtrack.

- Once again caring about others more than herself, as she was ready to destroy her leg/foot even more if it allowed Norman a chance to escape.

- This absolutely amazing moment right here! Easily one of the best panels of her by far!

- Used what she heard from Krone and spent two months hiding her emotions and plans from Isabella. Learning ability & best actress x10.

- Isabella actually believes this. Seriously, someone give Emma an award. Best actress x50.

- Do y'all know how strong physically, mentally and emotionally this girl must be to cut off her own ear? I know she was in a rush to escape while Isabella was busy with the fire, like she literally had about ten seconds (anime) to remove her tracker, but damn! Not once does she ever cry over it either. May I remind you she's only 11!

- Stops Ray's suicide attempt by catching the match, thus burning her palms.

- It was her idea to let the other kids know of the escape, which helped in proceeding with the preparations behind Isabella's back.

- I love Ray x fire jokes as much as the next person, but we all know who the real pyro is. More props to her voice actor again for the scream that follows!

- Successfully carried out Norman's plan and escaped Grace Field with 14 other children.

(post-season one spoilers beyond this point)

- Keeps her cool in dangerous situations, which helps calm down the younger children. Also fairly knowledgeable of the books from Grace Field's library, such as “The Adventures of Ugo,” which came in handy in the demon forest.

- Remains positive and completely hopeful after learning the truth about the demon world they're living in from Sonju.

- It only took three days for her to become proficient enough in archery in order to hunt successfully. She apparently also knows how to use a harpoon (ch49) (but I don't think we ever see that, sadly). Learning ability x20.

- She also didn't panic when she was held at gunpoint. She stayed reasonably calm and forced her way free instead.

- Didn't even flinch when Yuugo's bullet grazed her cheek.

- Can she just get a round of applause, please?

- Emma is just so fearless. Gun to the head? Knife in her face? Doesn't matter. She'll threaten you right back.

- Kudos to her learning ability yet again x50.

- Her quick reflexes and accuracy are phenomenal.

- Of course, cue the talk-no-jutsu skills that every shonen protagonist is undoubtedly skilled with.

- Even Lewis knows at a first glance that our girl is good. Takes a lot to receive praise from this demon.

- Offers herself up as bait to lure the poachers away from the other children.

- Literally cares for anyone, as she helped countless kids she didn't even know during her first hunt at Goldy Pond by keeping them safe.

- Thanks again to her knowledge of the “The Adventures of Ugo” novel, she was able to locate the memory chip for the pen that contains information about Minerva's supporters, the paths to cross over to the human world, Goldy Pond, The Seven Walls and Project Lambda 7214.

- The damn skill she has in handling guns in the matter of two weeks is astonishing.. and she's still only 11.

- Informed the Goldy Pond kids on how to accurately aim for the demon’s center eye, which greatly helped them take out the poacher Nouma.

- She has the audacity to taunt Lewis right back and I love her for it. She also offered to stay behind in order stall Lewis on her own, despite knowing he's the most dangerous of the poachers.

- When the talk-no-jutsu towards the crazy demon fails, she summons a wide array of guns against him, because why the hell not, right?

- She once admitted that she was no good at reading an opponent's moves, but after watching many people in her life who are skilled in such a way (Norman, Ray, Isabella, Krone) and thanks to the knowledge she recently leanred about Goldy Pond, she manages to catch Lewis off guard and electrocute him. Her level of adaptability is wonderful. Learning ability x100.

- Can we all just take a moment to obsess over Emma's Goldy Pond outfit because it is fucking fantastic! She just looks so damn good! (I owe Demizu my life for this.)

- Actually manages to get Yuugo to call her by her real name after he was so adamant to no learn them or get attached to the kids.

- This bright smile adds five years onto my life.

- She’s the first to notice the disadvantage demons have with regeneration, which ultimately leads to their winning strategy against Lewis.

- She somehow survives this. (plot-armor, I know, but goddamn!)

- Now presenting, the exact moment I fell in love with Emma, because holy fucking shit! Not only does she survive getting stabbed like that, but she gets back up and continues fighting! Can I get a big ol' HELL YEAH!!

- She busts out the pistol with the trick shots she's kept hidden this entire time until the very right moment, effectively taking Lewis by surprise and granting Yuugo a clear shot to his middle eye as the demon stands defenseless against the shower of bullets.

- Emma's influence over everyone else is so powerful. We see it many times throughout the story, but because of her, they all accept that the impossible is possible, everyone is worth saving, and to never give up. This is especially amazing to witness in scenarios with Ray, since Krone once said that his weakness was that he's "a little quick to give up. He makes a decision fast but abandons other just as quickly."

- Because of everyone's assistance, they were able to destroy Gold Pond and rescue over 60+ kids, which probably wouldn't have happened if it weren't for Emma presence at the hunting ground in the first place.

- Not to discredit Ray, because I'm sure he did a fine job of cauterizing Emma's wounds, but she did survive a day and a half with a low blood count. (She was unconscious, sure, but her body didn't give up either.)

- Finally wakes up from her coma a month later and the first thing she's concerned with is the safety of everyone else.

- I swear, this girl has a heart of gold, but we knew that already.

- Doesn't let her missing ear hinder her at all, just adjusts how it would function normally in her daily life.

- Memorized the many maps found in the shelter's reference room alongside her siblings. Learning ability x125.

- She's capable of taking out three wild demons in the matter of seconds. Accuracy and speed on point still on point.

(Ah post-timeskip, just a little over halfway done now.) - Will not hesitate to jump in and save someone, regardless of the danger to herself.

- No 13 year-old should have this amount of pressure on their shoulders, but I'll be damned, she handles this and so much more well.

- She pushes aside her own anxieties over losing the shelter, those two boys and possibly Yuugo and Lucas and decides to lift the spirits of everyone else instead.

- Y'all see this demon? Do you think she cares? Not one bit! All that matters is her family's safety and she'll do anything to preserve that. We stan one reckless girl.

- Doesn't cry over the deaths of Yuugo and Lucas (at least, I don't think she does? She appears more frustrated here than upset.)

- She can pick up on how others are feeling, even if they're trying to hide it. (also does so several times to Norman (ch30, 128,153) and even to Yuugo (ch64))

- Is the first to volunteer to sneak into the mass production farm guarded by demons in order to retrieve the medicine Chris needs.

- Honey, how are you not screaming for you life right now?

- Official translation has Hayato saying “The Boss is saying he wants to meet you,” but I feel like this unofficial one here conveys the exchange between Emma and Oliver better. Their large family has children who are older and more experienced as a leader than Emma, but they all choose to follow her.

- Just a casual reminder of how strong our girl is. (She even beats out Ray and Don in terms of strength too.)

- I probably only find this impressive because I love my sleep, but she wakes up at 6 in the morning. Always. Without fail. For thirteen years. Then panics the one time she actually oversleeps.

- She knows every life is precious, no matter who or what they are. Also doesn’t want to follow Norman's civil war plan, which is good, because damn that's a bit extreme. Doing so would only create more fear and hatred.

- Say it louder.

- LOUDER!

- Agrees to go and find out more about The Seven Walls in hopes to stop Norman's plan, despite the many risks. Can she really arrive at TSW? What's actually there? Could she even make a new promise? Will she be able to return afterwards? There's a bunch of unknowns, but that won't stop her. (“Simple?” “It is simple.” That line kills me every time.)

- TSW proved to be very mentally exhausting but she and Ray did survive all the craziness they faced while trapped there.

- Due to her unique way of thinking, she managed to remain sane and was able to figure out how TSW worked, which is something even Ray couldn't quite comprehend.

- Because of that, she was then able to finally meet the bastard demon god.

- Thus allowing her to..successfully.. make a new promise. (Ahhh)

- Best actress x500 (damn damn damn!)

- Honestly, have they practiced this before or is her athleticism just that superior? Either way, she never fails to surprise me.

- Isn't afraid to speak the truth and put one of her best friends in their place.

- But manages to (somehow) forgive him, after his plan successfully killed the queen, the demon royals and poisoned the capital city, which forced the nearby demons to degenerate.

- Her optimism knows no bounds.

- She & everyone else were able to infiltrate Grace Field which is not only guarded by demons but the Ratri clan as well.

- Just how? I know your athletic but wow!

- The woman who shipped out so many of Emma's siblings and broke her leg now holds a gun to her face and yet our girl doesn't look panicked in the slightest. Girl, how are you so brave?! Holy shit. There's no fear in those eyes, only anger.

- AND she ends up forgiving her! After learning Isabella betrayed Peter and realizing that all the mothers and sisters are also fighting for their freedom, Emma gladly accepts Isabella's assistance. (Best mother daughter moment I've ever seen.)

- The entire talk-no-jutsu she pulls on Peter in ch172. She's angry, even downright hates the Ratri, but she refuses to get revenge for all the trouble they've caused to her family and friends by killing Peter. She admits the clan's actions can never be forgiven, but she still shows sympathy because she knows they were also suffering due to the world and roles they were born into.

- We find out that Emma worded the promise perfectly which allows every human raised as food to cross over into the human world. Truly thinking of everyone as per usual.

- She kept her promise to Phil and came back for him and the rest of the children she had originally left behind at Grace Field.

- Again, showing no hesitation to save someone she barely knows, even when unarmed.

- Pretty sure I was in literal tears at this point of the chapter, so kudos to her for making me bawl my eyes out. Aahh, she's just so forgiving and her heart is so big.

- Best actress x9999 (*screaming internally*)

- SHE LITERALLY SACRIFICES HER OWN HAPPINESS SO EVERYONE IMPORTANT TO HER CAN LIVE IN PEACE AND BE HAPPY!!

- She loves her family so deeply that even without her memories, her heart still remembers them. (it makes me cry too, hun, it's okay.)

- She has a heart literally made of solid gold. Of course she can't refuse the bastard's reward, but still accepts it with a smile on her face knowing that all humans and demons, of the present and future, can now live freely without any fear. She completely ended the tragedy that persisted the last 1,000+ years and changed the world like she set out to do back in ch4. Sweetheart please, you're anything but selfish.

- She has the most precious family on the planet. Her influence was so strong that they searched endlessly for two years just to see her again, by never giving up or doubting her words back in ch178. They're beyond happy when they do finally find her and are a bunch of sweethearts who accept her no matter what.

- Ahh, I just really love Emma okay? She's honestly one of the few protagonists I actually enjoy. Happy Birthday again to this all-around amazing girl and I can't wait to see her in action in future anime seasons!!

(congrats, you've made it to the end. i apologize if i missed any other moment worth mentioning, but yeah, i think this is enough for now.)

[modmamono]

Celebrating the dumbest/silliest Robot Masters in each mainline Mega Man Game & Bass.

Not every robot needs to be badass to be worth something. I feel this is an attitude people have when a certain robot isn’t their cup of tea. 

Q(?): How dare the goofy looking Toad Man not be as awesome as Quick Man? Toad Man can’t even attack you he just hops into when you shooting at him.

A: Because Toad Man has the unique distinction of having an attack you can’t dodge. You try dodging acid rain. That’s why he’s easy.

I’m not here to crack on the Quick Men of the world and hold up the Toad Men. I just wanna revel in the absolute silliness of Mega Man. Where a Toad Man can exist or Quick Man can have a hilarious in-universe oversight his design.

Because I like my Mega Man silly, and I know when Mega Man knows it’s silly.

Here are my rules:

Only Robot Masters, they have to be selectable on the menu (No Mega Man Killers, Star Droids, Quint, Bass, Wily Wars Bots, Fake Man (sadly), the Dark Men (sadly), Mooks, Duo, Wily Castle bosses, NO DOC ROBOTS, etc.)

I’m not just judging them on their designs or concept. That’s low hanging fruit. Also everyone does that.

I’m also judging them on info we get on based on their game appearances or supplemental material, such as their functions and likes and dislikes.

No Archie or Megamix to deduct/add dumb/silly points from them. (Forgive me if I do accidentally use their tidbits.)

One Robot Master per game, because if I didn’t adhere to this rule and the one above all the MM5 bots would win. (Also this means that Tengu and Astro Man get two chances.)

And that should be it:

READY?

Mega Man 1′s Silliest Robot Master is:

Cut Man!

This was a tough call honestly, Cut Man only really one won by default. Because in-universe, all the MM1 Robots all have their practical use. They’re made for a reason. Bomb and Guts Man are construction bots, Elec Man manages a power plant. Cut Man is a lumber robot.

But it is a little silly he has the scissors on his head. He’s how supposed to accurately cut down trees? It has no handle to cut with and it’s a boomerang. The rest are all much more straight forward with their powers.

Honorable Mention(s):

Roll (She’s a Robot Master too, and she’s selectable in Marvel vs. Capcom 2 if not the first game, loopholes babey!). She’s silly because of her occasional stint as a joke character.

Time Man. He’s just has has a case of the odd one out. All of the non-Rock and Roll Robot Masters in the first game have and immediate function in society, even Oil Man has that. But Time Man not so much, he doesn’t have much of a use. And granted that’s part of his character. If Powered-Up didn’t have story and dialogue he might’ve taken Cut Man’s spot as the silliest due to being the odd one out. 

Mega Man 2′s Silliest Robot Master is:

Bubble Man!

Look... Bubble Man is the easiest target. I didn’t want it to be him. But he’s not as dumb as you may think. I’ll explain in a bit.

I wanna say that I like none the MM2 Robots. They’re all just made to be killing machines. They’re all made with one purpose and that’s to destroy Mega Man. And that’s boring.

Regardless, Bubble Man is an underwater combat robot. That may seem useless against Mega Man. But you gotta remember that Rock is the ultimate goody-two shoes. Plop a Robot Master in an area, order him to attack said area and Mega Man’s on it to stop him. Effectively luring the Blue Bomber to the boss’ home field advantages. And Bubble Man is no different.

Explaining it like that it seems to me that Wily tried viarity in his revenge plan. As Bubble Man makes the water his home his Brothers make their homes in the sky, the forest, the lava sewers, etc.

Really, Bubble Man gets a bad wrap.

Also he gets points because (of what might be Megamix flavor text that) Wily kept laughing at his inability to walk on land. Wily noticed this, laughed at that can he only could jump, and didn’t fix him.

Ergo; Wily, IN HIS REVENGE PLAN!, laughed so hard he didn’t make Bubble Man the best he could be to kill Mega Man.

Honorable Mention(s):

Wood Man and Heat Man (and to a lesser extent Air Man). To me they’re on the same level as Bubble Man, Bubble Man just edges them out by a bit. They’re revenge murder bots, and Wily made one out of wood and the other look like a lighter. Pictured here, man with a sense of humor (or someone who does rush jobs):

Quick Man, because this tidbit may or may not come from Megamix so I couldn’t qualify him, because it may’ve made Quick Man my pick. For you see... Quick Man runs faster then his eyes can process. Meaning he runs against walls. As you can see in Mega Man 2 itself. I love this, Quick Man was supposed to be the rival character to Mega Man, but he might as well be nearsighted.

Mega Man 3′s Silliest Robot Master is:

Gemini Man! !nɒM inimǝӘ

Gemini Man is a narcissist. He likes to check himself out in the mirror. Heck, he doesn’t need to check himself out in the mirror. His power is that he has a holographic clone to do just that. He’s a handsome robot if he did say so himself.

He’s afraid of snakes. That’s all.

I do wanna say, dumbest/silliest doesn’t mean worst. Gemini Man is my favorite of the Mega Man 3. Also what is his function? I imagine Wily and Light didn’t make him for no reason.

Honorable Mention(s):

Top Man, he’s the go-to dumb pick (along with Hard Man). And yes, there’s the question why he’s a top (my guess it was just the two Doctors having fun). But he does have a stated function, he searches for energy. Unlike Gemini Man who seems to be made to look at himself in the mirror.

Magnet Man. He’s the perfect blend of awesome and silly. Mega Man X wishes it could balance it’s tone like that.

Hard Man. This is a token pick.

Mega Man 4′s Silliest Robot Master is:

ACTUALLY, JUST KIDDING IT’S TIE BETWEEN ALL OF Dr. COSSACK’S ROBOT MASTERS!

I can’t pick. Because similarly to Mega Man 1, they were all made with a practical use in mind, and they’re all plausible, leaving only their appearances to judge.

Though out of all these practical bots. Bright Man might not get much use.

Bright Man is designed to explore dark areas, but like... How often does he get to do that? That’s not something I’d give sentience.

There’s also the matter of Bright Man being sorta redundant. Pharaoh Man is already made to explore dark areas, and has the skills to brace any danger. Maybe they work together? Iunno...

If you want, put Bright Man here, this is not a uselessness highlight. Though there’s still the matter he’s a light bulb. That’s plenty silly. Doesn’t change the fact he’ll kick your butt though.

So yeah, I guess Bright Man takes it. Also his Japanese Mega Man & Bass bio his good point is listed as an idea man.

Honorable Mention(s):

NOT Dust Man. If you can/can’t take a sentient vacuum seriously in a world where robots just gratuitously get sentience, that’s your problem.

Mega Man 5′s Silliest Robot Master is:

Stone Man!

Jumps.

Falls apart.

Recollects himself.

Repeat.

I could go into depth. But I won’t.

Please read Mega Man Megamix and it’s sequel Gigamix. No reason why.

Honorable Mention(s):

Wave Man. He’s more or less Bubble Man again. Except he’s more or a terrorism bot then a murder bot. Yes, there is a difference.

Gyro Man, he’s result for Wily’s budget running low. He wasn’t supposed to be a propeller robot. But he ended up as one.

Star Man. This is because of Megamix and Gigamix. But if his Mega Man & Bass bio is anything to go by, he has his Manga counterpart’s personality and I am so on board.

Charge Man. Choo Choo! He’s a steam locomotive, he runs partially on coal, an outdated fuel source. Wily made him to starve basically. Also he’s a train. I can’t hate that.

Crystal Man, he’s is my favorite of this bunch. This guy was made to make Wily money. Crystal Man makes fake crystals, and those fake crystals get sold. If not for that fact, I wouldn’t care.

Mega Man 6′s Silliest Robot Master is:

Flame Man!

Though seriously, another tough call. All of the MM6 Robots are silly, also made for useful purposes (except Tomahawk Man), I couldn’t pick one over the others. This one came down to the Mega Man & Bass bios.

Flame Man’s likes in Japan: Maintaining his mustache

Honorable Mention(s):

Yamato Man’s Japanese Bad Point: Bad with money

Mega Man 7′s Silliest Robot Master is:

No Contest!

Dude, I love Spring Man, no matter how dumb he is. And what really gets me is that some of Mega Man 7′s robots were stolen by Wily (like Freeze and Shade Man), but others were made by him (Slash and Turbo Man). Guess under which category Spring Man falls?

Yep, Wily made this guy himself.

I love this silly concept. I don’t what to tell you. His design may seem impractical, so of course he’s as much a threat as all the other Robot Masters are in this game with the exception of Slash Man. It’s beautiful. They should put him in the robot museum.

Honorable Mention(s):

Junk Man. See Crystal Man’s honorable mention, only with junk and recycling.

Turbo Man. Wily made a Transformer out of an old car because he didn’t have enough parts lying about.

Mega Man 8′s DUMBEST Robot Master is:

Sword Man!

I both like and hate Sword Man. The story behind him is that Wily stole a sword and made Sword Man to be literally attached to that sword.

That sword was too heavy so Wily went the extra mile in making a SWORD BASED ROBOT and gave his torso anti-gravity system. In gameplay that means that he can split his body in two.

Also he’s got the element of fire, he’s the game’s fire robot.

This is needless detail for a robot that just needed to be another Knight Man. Just with a sword. He’s overdesigned and I can’t decide if I like it or not.

Honorable Mention(s):

If not for Sword Man, Search Man would be my pick, here why: He’s got a similar thing going on as Sword Man. He’s a bit over designed, but I like it. Wily thought if he gave Search Man two heads he’d be super smart! But Search Man’s programmed with only has one personality. 2 Heads, 1 Mind. And he can only use one head at the time!

Mega Man & Bass′ Silliest Robot Master is:

Like... D-Do I need to say it? It has to be Pirate Man.

I got nothing to say about him other that I like him. I don’t like Mega Man & Bass much, but I love its Robot Masters. Every single one of them that aren’t Tengu, Cold Man, and Ground Man. 

Okay, maybe I do have something to say about Pirate Man, he’s the silliest by default. Sure, Magic Man might look sillier, but Magic Man isn’t a Robot designed to steal. He’s supposed to entertain.

Overall, & Bass is an odd duck, there isn’t too much silly here. Because:

Dynamo Man is a children's tour guide too dangerous to be around for humans.

Magic Man joined the bad guys so he can get attention (Three Laws, his well-defined robotic butt).

Pirate Man’s a literal pirate (Three Laws, his plain robotic butt).

And Burner Man’s a maniac made to destroys forests! WHO DOES THAT!? And that’s not all, he’s told that if he doesn’t burn down a forest everyday, a bomb inside him will explode! THERE’S NO BOMB!! 

There isn’t much to the others. But that’s all the screwed up you need.

Rockman & Forte: Mirai Kara no Chōsensha′s Silliest Robot Master is:

Take your pick!

A bullet based robot from an alternate future.

An air conditioner based robot from an alternate future.

A grill based robot from an alternate future.

A Japanese-style monk based robot from an alternate future.

A compass based robot from an alternate future. (Not pictured)

Or two clock based robots from an alternate future.

I can’t be mad at any of these, even if they seem like parodies of what a Robot Master should look like. You can say the same of MM5, 6, and 8.

Mega Man 9′s SeSilliest Robot Master is:

Splash Man!

Mega Man 9 has a similar problem I have with some other games. They all got a purpose in-story even if we don’t really get to see it. 9′s are useful and Splash Woman’s coast guard function is a good one.

I’m here to sadly do a hack writer-y: “Hurrr duurrrr. Sure is silly of them to only have a female Robot Master now!”

Also, people, she’s not the first female Robot Master, Roll is. Plum too if you wanna count her. It’s something they should do more though. Hornet Man was almost Honey Woman or something.

I’m not opposed to it.

Also this robot is allergic to robo-bees. That’s the real reason she’s chosen.

Honorable Mention(s):

Shout-out to the disqualified Fake Man. Nobody ever talks about Fake Man:

Don’t worry, he’s not a real Cop.

Mega Man 10′s Silliest Robot Master is:

Nitro Man!

People have stunt doubles. So why not their vehicles too, right? I love this guy.

I’ve avoided doing this, but I’m gonna quote the Mega Man Wikia here:

“Before contracting Roboenza, Nitro Man was a stunt robot who has appeared in many movies and TV shows. He is fairly bold and would be willing to do whatever stunts he is asked, regardless of the risks and the negative outcomes. Nitro Man is also the president of a robot stunt club, which has sixty members.”

How can you not love that? Plus he’s Transformer!

Protip: his weapon, the Wheel Cutter, may seem like a meh weapon. But hold the shoot button down and hug a wall.

Honorable Mention(s):

Pump Man: he’s an old school pump, it’s hard to beat that.

Strike Man gets dumb points for being sentient, I like him, but he shouldn’t have been a sentient robot.

Sheep Man people hated this guy, now people love him except for his weapon. I always liked him. I wonder why the hate though? Because he’s the first main line animal based Robot Master? Maybe? It was gonna happen eventually. Also he gets disillusioned with everything he does very quickly, he’s my spirit animal.

Mega Man 11′s Silliest Robot Master is:

Tundra Man!

This guy got bored of his job so he modified himself to be and look like an ice-skater. And he’s magnificent, gives Powered Up Elec Man a run for his money in flamboyancy.

I don’t have anything to add. Just look at him, his looks are his substance.

Honorable Mention(s):

Bounce Man, just Bounce Man, here’s another Mega Man Wikia quoting: “[Bounce Man] was originally developed as a crash test robot, but his stretching and bouncing abilities led him to become a fitness instructor at an indoor athletic center/amusement park called Boing-Boing Park, and his colorful body and friendly appearance made him a big hit with kids and adults alike. Despite being repurposed for combat by Dr. Wily and equipped with a Speed Gear, after which he took over Boing-Boing Park, Bounce Man is still the same large, cheerful, childlike robot he always was, still viewing everything as one big game.”

AND THAT’S ALL!

Thank you for putting up with this post if you got this far.

These are all my opinion, none of this is fact. And certainly not calling any of them bad, I’m not decrying them.

I just grew up on Top 10 videos where Mega Man, even the innocent Classic series was serious business. Something I was reminded of earlier today.

I get that Mega Man was gone for a while and everyone was in memorial mode(, and admittedly I forgot I was a fan of this series during the time Mighty No. 9 seemed like the savior), absolutely idolizing everything Mega Man.

But even before all of that Mega Man was something of a sacred cow, on the internet (mostly Mega Man 2). And it was all so serious business to a lot of people, and I didn’t like it was so serious business. From both people who know the lore and who don’t.

I just kinda wanted to express that I like that Mega Man Classic is silly and that’s okay. And it’s also okay to realize that every Mega Man game is silly on the surface of it, whether the games realize it or not. (I will say some games are better at pulling it off.)

I have no real point that’s not scatterbrained. I sacrificed sleep for this.

[beautifully-tuan]

for my dream - 3

Mark Tuan x Reader arranged marriage!au, fluff Warnings : drinking, suggestive Word count: 1580

Part 1   ;   Part 2 ;   Materlist

This morning is by far the most confusing one ever for you and Mark. As you look at each other, dumbfounded, both of you seem to ask yourselves the same question: “How did this happen?”

But you both know how it happened.

It all started that one Saturday night when you came down to Mark’s workplace. You were only trying to find a way to repay him for supporting you, but you didn’t know how. You weren’t the best with words, and even worse when it comes to expressing your emotions, so a thank you speech wasn’t the best idea. You also thought of getting him a gift, but you weren’t sure. You were scared that such a gesture would be too personal, as you were still uncertain on what to label your relationship. So you just settled on going to the bar where he works to show some interest into what he does, just like he did for you.

You’re not the kind to go out often especially not to that kind of place. That’s why Mark was utterly surprised when he saw you, so surprised, actually, that it almost seemed like he didn’t want you there. However, seeing how unease you were getting, he fixed his attitude and welcomed you properly.

 - “I’m glad you came. I know all of this must be weird to you.”

 - No, it’s alright. I mean... It’s just a bar.”

 You tried to sound detached, but Mark could’ve sworn he saw your cheeks blush and he randomly found you adorable. The next second, he thought “What the hell?” He shouldn’t be seeing you like that. Despite living with you and somehow being your “friend”, he barely knew you. He quickly dismissed that impression, blaming it on the way you were dressed and the little makeup you had put on. You did look cute after all, maybe it was just that.

 - “So, are you going to show me around or am I just standing here?”

 He immediately started showing you around, explaining what he does there, what all the devices are for, which buttons are for what, which settings you use for which type of voice and which type of music. He’d expected you to get bored and not listen but, to his surprise, you were genuinely interested. You even asked questions and made remarks that prove you were definitely listening to him. He was more than happy to answer you, any form of awkwardness long gone as he talked about his passion, his music, his work, everything that makes him happy.

 When the band that came to play went up on stage, Mark let you sit next to him so you could see for yourself how everything worked during a show. As the band played, he caught you singing along to one of the songs. Of all things, he hadn’t expected you to be versed into music. He’d sometimes heard you sing in the shower but didn’t pay much attention, since that’s a common thing that everyone does. But that band and the song they were playing were very underrated, no one even knew them, and their music wasn’t for everyone. The fact that you did know them and knew their songs seemed trivial, but to Mark it said a lot about the kind of person you were. For the first time, he thinks that maybe his opinion about you was wrong the entire time. Maybe you weren’t the cold, calculating business woman he thought you were, maybe you were more than that, and he suddenly wanted to learn more. He wanted to know that part of you.

 The show ended, and the band stepped out. The owner of the bar then announced an open stage for the rest of the night. You and Mark talked again for hours, and this time the conversation was about you. It was his turn to ask questions, trying not to be too intrusive because he knew you were too attached to your comfort zone to share much with others. He still learned a lot of interesting things about you though: your music taste, what kind of movies you like, your favorite food, what you do on your free time... Small details, but meaningful ones to Mark, who was starting to seriously question why he hated you so much in the first place. You were an intelligent and strong, yet fun and genuine woman, definitely the kind of person he likes to be around. As he watched you laugh to one of his jokes, an idea popped into his mind.

 - “Hey, why don’t you go and sing something?”

 You almost choked on your drink.

 - “What? You mean, up there?”

 - “Yeah.”

 - “I’m sorry but that’s not happening” you laughed.

 - “Why not?”

 - “I can’t sing for shit.”

 - “I don’t believe you. I heard you earlier.”

 - “That wasn’t... that wasn’t singing.”

 - “I still don’t believe you, you’re gonna have to prove it.”

 You stared at him with an are-you-serious look on your face wondering where that sudden interest for your voice came from.

 - “Come on, it could be fun!”

 He begged and pleaded for five good minutes, and you refused again and again, telling you weren’t going up there alone, but then he offered to sing with you. He looked so cute with his pouting face and his constant “Please?” that you gave in to his request.

 - Alright, but I get to choose the song.”

 - “Deal” he said with that billion dollar smile that made you weak.

 The song started, and you could hear your voice shaking from nervousness. There were only a few people left, but it was still the scariest moment of your life. You were probably six years old when you sang in front of a crowd for the last time. Fortunately for you, Mark made it his mission to make you comfortable. He wasn’t a bad singer, but he went out of his way to seem like one. He acted overly goofy and dramatic, and you found it so funny that you relaxed and ultimately had a great time singing with him.

 It was at that moment that the world stopped spinning as Mark watched the magic occur. At that moment, while you were singing your heart out and seemingly having the time of your life, he found something in your eyes, like sparks of joy and pieces of hope, an entire galaxy, and that was it for him. He had found it. He had found the real you. At that moment, he smiled and couldn’t help but think that the feeling he’d had earlier wasn’t just an impression: he really found you adorable.

 Ever since that night, Mark was determined to see it again. He found it in the smallest things, whether it’s your smile whenever he said “have a nice day”, or the way you hummed along to the music he put on in the living room, or your enthusiastic comments whenever he asked for your opinion about a movie, or your laugh whenever he makes a bad pun... All those things he doesn’t usually do but ends up doing just to make you happy, because he was attached to you. Because, as impossible as it’d seemed in the beginning, he probably had you under his skin.

 But you, you were far from realizing that. To you, it just felt like you’d become even closer friends. From your perspective, Mark couldn’t have such feelings for you. Despite you being more comfortable with him, and him being more friendly with you – because of his kind and laid-back nature – you were still the woman who took everything away from him when you got married. For that reason, even though you keep falling for him every day, you never let it show, simply treasuring your moments together, like you always did. And because you had no idea of his feelings for you, you didn’t give it much thought when your phone lit up, receiving a text from him.

“Two years of imprisonment :) worth celebrating, don’t you think?”

 You laughed hard. It’d already been “two years of imprisonment”, but you could say you were content with the way things turned out in the end. Just because of that, celebrating indeed seemed like a good idea.

 In the evening, you and Mark went out to have a drink. Neither of you drank too much, too busy enjoying each other’s company, but still drank enough for some inhibitions to lift. It could’ve looked like you were a flirting couple but, again, you didn’t think much of it since it was a special occasion, and he probably wanted to jokingly play along with the whole marriage thing. So, without further questioning, you gladly spend the rest of your evening having gun with Mark, only walking home together at the late hours of the night.

  You coul’ve called it a night. You could’ve gone to your respective bedrooms and sleep, but it didn’t go that way. You can’t tell at what precise moment your control slipped. You can’t tell exactly why and how things escalated, how they escalated so quickly that you now find yourself here the next morning. Naked. In his bed. With him looking at you with the same confused look. As you sit there, staring at each other, you both seem to ask yourselves the same question: “How did this happen?”

 But you both know how this happened.

Part 4

[detective-with-one-arm]

💯🍬 🎆 💕 🔥 🎥

💯 What is my muse’s ideal date?

Rachel doesn’t really have an ‘ideal date.’ I feel like I’ve answered this one, but I’m not about to go digging for it again because it’s from forever ago probably. But basically, she’s really bad at coming up with date ideas that aren’t just ‘walk around a nice area and talk about things and hang out.’ She feels like a lot of her date ideas are really bland and she’s not good at coming up with stuff like that for herself. But there’s just as much a chance that just spending time with and getting to know someone she already likes in a different context is an ideal date, too. Spending time with someone she likes is already a perfect way to spend it regardless of how or where they do it to her.

🍬 Is my muse a sub, dom, or switch?

Rachel

She’s a switch. She’s extremely versatile and can perform many different roles in the bedroom and has an enjoyment for all of them. Soft domme, rough domme, service top, power bottom, she can basically do whatever she feels like doing or whatever her partner likes. However, she prefers to be submissive and it’s the role she falls most easily into and is the role she tends to instinctively take.

Howard

Dom. Under no circumstances is he a submissive person. Howard has sworn off of letting anyone have control over him under any circumstances and will always want to dominate and have control over someone. He seeks submissiveness in partners instinctively and has a very easy time asserting his dominance over them. It’s where he’s most comfortable.

Serena

She’s dominant, but mostly out of fear and a lack of trust. In truth, she’s more of a switch and would honestly really like to be able to trust someone enough to let them have control over her. But there’s a really slim chance of that happening despite how much she actually wants it. She just feels she can’t ever have it. So, she feels she has to be dominant. To protect herself.

Nathan

While he’s never had any experience in this field, he would want to experiment and see what he feels most comfortable with doing. He’s a scientist, after all. He yearns to learn and experience every outcome to a situation and to an exercise and test. But ultimately, he would find that he’s most comfortable being submissive and would rather not be dominant. It’s much less draining for him since if he’s submissive, he can actually take the time to explore his partner physically without having to be concerned about performance.

🎆 Is my muse into monogamy?

Rachel

She’s definitely had more experience with monogamy than polyamory in her life and her marriage, at least on her end, was monogamous. She simply didn’t really have the time or energy or interest for anyone else while she was married to Frank. Sometimes a crush would form here or there in their relationship, but they didn’t usually go anywhere.

Howard

No. He is not interested in the prospect of marriage in the slightest. While Howard might be fixated on Rachel, without that, he has no qualms of having multiple partners if his current one gives him permission. Really, he’ll only have an exclusive relationship if his partner specifically requests it. 

Serena

Serena on the other hand is not comfortable with the prospect of a committed relationship at all. Sure, it may be something she secretly wants, but she doesn’t feel like it’s something she can ever have and is something she’s scared to have. And it’s not only that she has deeply seeded trust issues. She’s also afraid to be abandoned and tossed aside. She’s never had someone who’s genuinely loved her and wanted to be with her as a person and the only thing that terrifies her more than trusting someone who’s lied to her is that person deciding that she’s simply not worth it anymore and leaving her behind.

Nathan

He struggled seeing himself in a committed relationship with someone, but if he ever was in one, he’s not entirely sure if marriage is something he would be interested in. Mostly because while the actual practice fascinates him as a social thing, for himself, he doesn’t understand why he can’t just have a lifelong partner and need it to be validated in such a way. If they’ve decided and are committed to sharing their life with him, isn’t that enough?

💕 Would my muse ever be in a polyamorous relationship?

Rachel

While she is polyamorous and has had multiple partners before, monogamy is just easier to handle for her. At least, in her experience. She may end up being wrong, but at least in practice, she can really only devote so much of her time and effort to one partner and she feels bad when she can’t do the same for another. Though, it more has to do with feelings than anything else. If she has the same level of attraction to multiple people, of course she’ll put more effort into the relationship. It’s just more work, so she needs to have partners that are more easygoing and laid back or partners that are also partners with each other rather than just with her for this to really work with her.

Howard

He prefers polyamory as it keeps his options open and it’s much more freeing and keeps him from forming too much of an attachment to anyone. But after meeting and becoming hopelessly obsessed with Rachel, he’s confident that he won’t ever want anyone else but her. He wants her and only her and he’s perfectly content leaving everyone else behind to get her.

Serena

While she can’t fathom being in a committed relationship with anyone, even the idea of having a relationship with multiple people frightens her. She sleeps around, but it’s only for practicality’s sake. And sure, she enjoys the sex, but it’s more just what she does to survive and she thinks she’s enacting some sort of righteous revenge for what she went through as a WR400.

Nathan

No, not really. He can barely imagine being in a relationship with one person with how hectic and involved he is with his life of scientific endeavours. But he could never be able to commit to more than one person if at all. He knows that for certain. He’s never had any romantic experience, but he knows himself enough to know that he cannot maintain more than one partner at a time if even that.

🔥 Would my muse ever be up for a threesome?

Rachel

Yes! God yes! She’s never been able to do this or experience this, but she’s always wanted to be able to. It’s sort of a really up there fantasy for her. She’s quite the whore and wants to just be used and used and used. Especially by multiple people. She just has a hard time finding people that she not only feels comfortable with and trusts but would also be up for doing that with her.

Howard and Serena.

No. They both do not enjoy having to divide their attention between multiple partners at a time and much prefer just keeping it to one partner at a time during sex.

Nathan

Nathan is also a no, but more because he doesn’t think he could trust anybody enough to do that with and because it sort of robs the experience of exploring each other away from it in his mind. The most exciting part about it in his mind is the idea of the physicality of it. His scientific mind just wants to study his partner’s movements, sounds, and reactions. And that’s not as appealing with multiple other participants. He’d much rather just keep it to one partner if at all.

🎥 Who is my muse’s celebrity crush?

None of them have one. Absolutely none of them have a celebrity crush of any kind whatsoever. Nathan really respects and looks up to Bill Nye as his inspiration, but that’s the closest any of them come to any sort of celebrity fixation and it’s not at all like that.

[myhomedecorpak]

Room Decor Guide

A home is like an outfit: only the right home accessories make it complete. Our guide on decoration will help you to create the perfect interior look with the right decoration ideas . Decorating an apartment or living room, kitchen or bedroom is the ultimate creative workshop for anyone who loves their home and wants to make it as personal as possible.

Decoration - the accessories for your home

Tasteful decoration is essential for a beautiful home. Most of our furniture has a specific purpose. However, we need decoration in order to feel comfortable. With the right decorative items, we can design our apartment or house in such a way that we feel comfortable in it. Do you need decoration for a brunch? With a beautifully arranged flower decoration you can create a cozy atmosphere in your own four walls without having to make a lot of effort. But also for many other occasions you can find something suitable in our selection of decorations.

Home accessories with decoration potential

There is an important rule when it comes to interior decoration : less is more here! Choose your decorative items carefully so that the room does not look cluttered. Here are some popular examples:

Wall design

Round mirror

Table decoration

poster

Candle sets

Home decoration

You will find these and other stylish interior accessories, with which all possible room decor can be implemented, at myhomedecor.pk. Let yourself be inspired!

Stylish decoration for the living room

Have you just moved into a new apartment or would you like to bring a breath of fresh air into your living room? With fancy living room decoration, you can breathe new flair into the room in no time at all and design it individually. A nice eye-catcher and a real experience for many children: the aquarium as a decorative element! Thanks to maritime elements, decoration in the living room looks very nice and immediately puts us in the holiday mood.

Sustainability is also a big trend when it comes to home furnishings and furnishing your own four walls. Decoration made of birch trunks is a big topic. In addition, decoration with deer motifs can be perfectly combined - above all the deer head as a decorative element! Bedspreads or pillows with deer motifs also meet with enthusiasm. Modern decoration, such as decoration made of driftwood, goes perfectly with living rooms in Scandi style, for example. With western decorations, such as vintage wall clocks or horseshoes, lovers of rustic furnishing styles and fans of vintage decoration will get their money's worth. A table decoration that calls for spring can be created with tablecloths with a light checked pattern and vases in which you put flowers. Decorative hearts or decorative stones also go very well with this. Order decoration that will make you prefer to be in the living room.

Functional and aesthetic kitchen decoration

Do you like to have a glass of wine? Then there's one thing you can't throw away: the boxes. Because wine boxes as decoration are perfect for the kitchen, the dining room or the bar in the basement. As a shelf, they offer a lot of storage space, but they also look good as storage boxes. If you come from Bavaria and want to integrate Bavarian decoration into your home, it does not necessarily have to be the typical Oktoberfest decoration. Everything that revolves around alpine huts and mountains conjures up a cozy hut romance in your four walls and is ideal as a decoration for the kitchen. Hang pictures of idyllic landscapes with beautiful picture frames in the kitchen. Funny decorative ice cubes in the form of figures or objects, which are also suitable as party decorations, provide more pep in your drinks.

Bedroom decorating ideas - sleep well!

Would you like to give your bedroom that certain something, but don't know how? A decorative elephant or decorative owl can be eye-catchers that transform your bedroom into something special or give it an exotic touch. With candles, soft velvet pillows and bedspreads you support the cozy atmosphere. You can also sew great pillow or chair covers from decorative fabrics. Trendy covers for smaller flower pots can be made from the scraps of fabric. Do you have trouble sleeping? The scent of lavender relaxes and has a calming effect. But which decoration with lavender could you now incorporate in your bedroom? Scented candles with a relaxing lavender scent or bed linen in this calming color is our tip! But pink or dusky pink is also a good romantic color for the bedroom. Create a boudoir atmosphere with decorations in pink, in the form of wallpaper or a picture frame. Tip: Here you will find a selection of stylish ones Decoration for every style of living .

Your bathroom in style

Long walks on the beach are an integral part of a beach holiday. We keep our stay by the sea in good memory if we take the mussels we collected home with us in our holiday luggage. So the sound of the sea and the holiday feeling stay with us for a little longer. In the bathroom, the seashells look particularly good as decoration. With a maritime fishing net as a decorative object, you can perfectly complement the look. It looks great on the ceiling or wall. Sand is also a popular souvenir from vacation. Use it as decorative sand in a vase and decorate it with your seashells and other maritime decorations. Decorative items in turquoise enhance the holiday feeling, wooden shower rugs are reminiscent of beautiful spas.

Decoration for every occasion

Festive dinners, brunch with friends, themed parties or birthdays can all require different decorations. Silver decorations give a nice dinner the shine it deserves. Decorative items in neutral tones such as white look great at a party. Occasion-related decoration shows why you are celebrating something and is a topic of conversation. Dress code for the decoration? Of course! In addition, perfectly coordinated decoration expresses the personality of the host, who underlines the importance of the event with the selected decoration items.

Seasonal decoration

With the right decoration, you can also let the change of the seasons come to your home. Stainless steel decorations, such as decorative angels or reindeer, are very suitable as decorations in the living room or in the kitchen. Complete them with gold-plated candle holders, with which your table decoration appears festive in no time. In April, however, it will be high time for spring decorations. Decorative butterflies are particularly suitable for this, because the beautiful butterflies not only provide great color accents in the great outdoors, but can also bring a piece of spring into the room as a decorative element. And how about buying a decorative branch that you can put in a long, narrow vase like a flower, for example? Of course, our variety of products also offers many other decorative items - for example for your summer or autumn decorations.

Let's party! Decoration for special events

A special moment calls for a special setting. With decorative items we can design it according to our wishes and create moments that you will never forget. Attach silver wall decorations for a wedding or equip a long table with modern candle holders. Serve nuts and snacks in small baskets at a birthday party. Make your guests aware of the special moment you are all sharing with beautiful decorations and the right tableware set .

Two quick decoration tips from our interior experts for a cozy home:

Decoration creates a feeling in the home - of being cared for, security, well-being. If you let yourself fall on the sofa in the evening, you will enjoy this moment even more when you can reach for a fluffy blanket. A candle instantly creates a cozy atmosphere. Decorative branches bring a little nature into the living room and maybe you love to decorate your apartment with lots of carpets and pillows ? This is how you create a world that feels soft and sensual everywhere.

The new stars in the decorative sky - that's modern now!

Candlesticks, trays or picture frames made of geometric metal structures are currently very popular. Frames made of brass form the silhouettes of a hexagon and create an object with a facet effect like a diamond.

[violetsystems]

#personal

I had to let the little tabby go this morning.  I woke up to the third day of shitting on the rug in a row.  They had tried unsuccessfully to roll the carpet up like a burrito ignoring the litter completely.  I had brought it in earlier in the week and gave it a full wash.  Yesterday I went so far as to get doggie pads from the pet store and laid them out near the litter.  It had been locked in my back studio for most of the time until I cracked the front door open this morning.  I gave it a choice as it hesitated on the porch and it slowly lunged then jumped over the divider.  It stared down at me for a minute then went off.  Not two minutes later when I went back out to check, another black cat was staring up from the stairs confused.  I wondered if they were lonely too.  There are no shortage of strays in our neighborhood.  I say this almost metaphorically sometimes.  One fateful November on the coldest night of the year I brought the Calico in from the cold.  These days more often than not I wake up to her cuddling me like teddy bear.  She was fairly vocal about the arrangement but not overly aggressive to our visitor.  She adjusted to the litters almost automatically with a few months of peeing where she shouldn’t.  This cat was a different story.  I had felt guilty.  I’m the only one who seems to care about the wildlife it seems.  When it becomes my responsibility, the landlord finds new things to single me out on.  But for the most part, I can’t really save the entire neighborhood by myself.  Especially when people just ignore me and talk behind my back about the Fundamental Attribution Error they perceive me to be.  I’ve been learning to make my own decisions however heartbreaking they may be.  And in this case, I felt if I kept them indoors any longer it would not be a happy situation for any of us.  It hurt.  I cried a little.  But ultimately, every hard decision is easy to make when nobody cares what you do.  And lately it’s really felt like for the most part nobody really gives a fuck about me.  This is not to say I believe it through and through.  I obviously continue to write these because there are people out there who read into them for my insight.  Mostly because I feel they care about me and how I think.  But I can assure you that I am very much alone in my life here in this city.  It is such a catastrophic failure of isolation that I’ve wondered if it’s for the best.  How do you let go of the things that hurt you?  How do you make decisions for yourself that tear you apart inside daily?  How do you live with the guilt?  Personally I’ve lived in the silence of the choices I make for so long that I am at peace with my trajectory.  It doesn’t mean that it’s not a brutal process of letting go and growing at the same time.  

It’s important to note sometimes that people ask too much of you without anything in return.  And this can go on and on until you are saddled with responsibilities.  Society in America is the worst for that these days.  You can never be good enough for most people.  The real trick is that people aren’t really aware of what’s good enough.  And so their perception of who you are and what you do is always skewed.  Celebrity is a hallucination based off of this.  I personally think I’m never good enough for anyone.  I’m not good enough at anything to not be compared to someone else.  And yet the entire last week my net worth crept up without me doing much of anything other than readjusting my finances.  I compare myself constantly because nobody ever treats me like a human being.  Nothing I do is good enough.  The job market is the worst for this kind of mental torture.  You feel picked over and ignored.  You read into the narratives in the news about how the next recession will be the worst.  There will be no jobs.  It will be a musical chairs situation and you will have sat out too long.  Your skills are useless.  Your pay won’t compare to what you were making.  You’ll have to make sacrifices in your life while the rich dance on the ashes of your bottom line removed from their fiscal budget.  And the more I compare myself to the American narrative the more I realize how pigheaded and pompous it is.  It never meets you eye to eye.  It isn’t that proud.  It never wants to face your pain and admit that it has contributed to it by playing into the very same game that hurts you.  It wants a savoir and a martyr at the same time.  A fall guy and a shill.  An inside outside man.  And when you look yourself in the mirror and try to be that all you can see is more pain reflected back at you.  I never wanted to be in this mess.  I only wanted to be a good person.  I show love every day and it is not returned.  And sometimes you have to reevaluate how much of it you want to squander on people who use it like a prop.  Everybody wants a superhero until they realize they’re the villain.  Everybody thinks they’re better than you until you prove them otherwise.  They waltz around in the street like it’s a parade or fashion show.  Expect you to read into every single nuance without understanding the context and the history of what you’ve honestly been through.  And after awhile the writing becomes clear on the walls.  The shit on the carpet is consistent and without fault.  It’s in their nature.  The human animal isn’t so hard to understand and neither is love  Love is waking up to your cat inexplicably attached to your chest until you cannot breath.  Envy and jealousy have nothing to do with it.  Love sometimes after all these years is an understanding of just how fucked up it is.  Like a caged bird, you open the gate and wonder if they’ll leave.  I open the back door and it’s just me and my cat staring out waiting for things to change.  And the more they do, things around here have pretty much stayed the same.  And the angels on my shoulder however you’d like to visualize them never leave my side.  So I have all the information I need to make the hard adult choices for myself and live with them.

Everything does pretty much suck lately.  I’m about to face another winter alone.  Aside from my cat and my long distance friendships which are more fulfilling than I could ever explain.  I feel targeted and attacked almost every day.  I do think about leaving entirely.  I also think about how logistically that can happen with one cat as opposed to two.  It hurts the most to admit that things aren’t really working out for me.  And it becomes a game of figuring out what actually does.  Because if you wallow in the misery of it all you can miss some opportunities.  My bank missed a rally on a stock I got in on early.  Now they’re projecting it forward to 2025.  All I ever hear from any business talking head is this idea of pivots.  How we’re supposed to continually get knocked off our bikes and get back up again.  The pivot is the musical chairs game corporate America loves to play.  Thin the ranks and the benefits and offer more duties to the next person for less pay.  When you’ve been kicked out of every elite club and shunned into nothing more than a ghost where do you actually go?  What do you have to do to be valued as a human being?  I can save every cat in the neighborhood and donate my proceeds to charity and I will still be invisible.  And if I don’t snap out of it I will fade like Casper the friendly ghost.  It’s not a joke anymore.  This is my reality.  I am phased out of everything and whispered about like some legendary scarecrow.  Nobody ever talks to me.  Nobody ever calls me by my name.  I never hear the words “Hi Tim” other than in personal assistance from Artificial Intelligence.  Animals speak to me clearer than most humans.  And what I heard from the little tabby I tried to help was pretty clear.  They didn’t belong here.  And in some ways neither do I.  And yet where do I go?  I feel like I’m trapped in a constant episode of the Prisoner.  This happy little village wants to pretend they’re better.  That I need to acknowledge them and their fucked up ways before I’m accepted again.  And then there’s the undercurrent beneath all of that.  The idea that people understand that I try to lead by example.  That I’ve already communicated what I’m about.  That nobody wants to believe my narrative on things because it would be a horrible reality.  To realize that I am better than this.  And in some ways, admitting this to myself I’ve realized why I’ve waited so long.  I wanted to know for sure.  And I wanted to make decisions that were true to myself that people could be proud of.  And the one thing I have never given up on is the future.  I don’t have room for any more cats.  Nor do I have room for any more people.  No new friends.  Angels only.  Yes I do sometimes feed the strays.  I’m a polite and genuine person by nature.  But don’t take my kindness for a weakness.  And when I close the door on this chapter of my life.  Don’t come knocking when the story is over.  <3 Tim

[mssapphire]

Deconstructing Romantic Love, and what’s actually wrong with it (pt. 1) - Desire and Admiration =/= Love.

In our infinite quest for happiness, one pervasive question we tend to have is: what is love? (baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me, no mo’). And in this quest we have tried to find a million different answers and we have tried to deconstruct and understand what works and what makes it dysfunctional.

In the last century or so, we have tried to come up with alternatives to what we have identified as the root of all evil and female oppression: heteropatriarchal romantic love. And I say in the last century because Romanticism is a 19th c. thing - and to understand how it completely changed society and our relational dynamics, I’d suggest Alain de Botton (it’s a long video but 1) it’s worth it and 2) if you don’t have the time to read his book(s), it’s a great alternative).

This has given way to different forms of “Ethical Non-Monogamy”. I’ll eventually write a post abut the history around different Free Love movements - and how the term has definitely meant different things in different moments of time, and how we have now devoid it of any meaning, to the point we’re back in the clutches of patriarchy through rampant consumerism of bodies. But that’s a post for another day.

What I’d like to explore today is that the problem doesn’t rely in what relationship model you choose to follow (monogamy, polyamory, relationship anarchy, open relationships), but in the way we (mis)understand love. I recently wrote a post about the meaning of being emotionally responsible, making an emphasis on why it’s so difficult for cis straight men. And following that thread, I’d like to come to another crossroads we (but, again, specially cis straight men) seem to find ourselves on: confounding admiration and desire with love. Let’s break that down.

I could really, really go on a tangent here, but I’ll try to stay focused. We could trace back our culture’s confabulation of love, admiration and desire to Courtly Love. Courtly Love taught men that love but, most importantly, loving the right way, was something that could make you a better person, morally (and even socially) superior. The right way to love a Lady, who was the purest being incarnated on the face of the earth, was to admire her beauty which was no doubt a display of her own moral worth (yes, these are white beauty standards, where the most celebrated type of woman was blonde, pale as porcelain, and with blue or green eyes) - and yes, physical appearance being equated to moral worth was a thing in Medieval times (you can guess which are the good guys or the bad guys in a Medieval story only through their physical description). But here comes the plot twist about Courtly Love: you didn’t even had to have met the object of your desire to love her. So you have an entire tradition of poems being written by men to, for and about women they hadn’t even met. They had just heard about their reputation, and they completely made up a fantasy as to who the woman was - a woman they not only proclaimed to love, but also a woman whom they loved so much they could die for her.

This was fertile grounds for Petrarch’s poetry, now in the Renaissance, who took Courtly Love one step further: actually attaching the object of his desire to a real, living person (Laura). Fast forward to Romanticism and the idea of loving someone to the point it kills you, and that they’re the one and only object of your desire, and your “soul mate”, and thus complete and complement you in every single way has now become the trend as to how we perceive love.

But that all sounds very exotic and distant. What about the present? Certainly, you can’t compare these guys to the guys on tinder trying to hook up with anyone who’ll say yes. But allow me to say: 1) yes, yes I can and 2) it’s not only these guys - but even those who seem “more decent” and actually take you out on a date, and even date you for a while. Allow me to elaborate.

Again, I am going to go ahead and quote bell hooks’ definition of love (this is something I do, a lot): you have to distinguish love as a feeling vs love as a verb (we’ll circle back to this). When you understand love as a feeling, and as a feeling only, desire and admiration tend to feel a lot like love. And the problem lies therein society’s portrayal’s of love: “love at first sight”, passionate sex as the ultimate display of what love is and should be, blind admiration towards that person and how you have to stick through thick and thin until death do us part (does that ring a bell?).

“Seeing no wrong” with the object of our affection (or what we now call “missing red flags”) is something we do when we blindly admire someone. And, thus, that convinces us that real love, true love, is that in which you find no conflict, and where the other person is perfect and without flaw. The problem with confusing admiration and love is that, to admire someone, we have to put them up on a pedestal, so we can continue to admire them without our image of them crumbling. Think about all the times you lost respect for your idols as you found out who they really were, as a person, above and beyond their work.

The same happens with desire - which is something more visceral and raw. That person is desirable as long as they fit the fantasy we have about them - which relies to physical attributes, yes, but about things they do and don’t do. Even more so, sex is something that gives you the illusion of intimacy, because sex is inherently emotional and vulnerable (and the idea that it isn’t is capitalistic bullshit, but that’s a topic for another post).  So while you’re engaging in sex, you can enjoy all those endorphins and mushy feelings, without actually doing the hard work of actually getting to know the person for real. The moment the person displays a behavior or an attribute that clashes with the idea we have in our heads (maybe they’re too awkward, or they have bad breath in the morning), our fantasy, built on desire, starts to crumble.

Let me drive the point home with a personal example. An ex of mine was initially deeply attracted to me because of my intelligence (it was a good thing that he found me physically attractive too). He would be delighted when he saw me debate other people (and destroy them), to the point it immediately triggered physical affection. But as the relationship progressed and we found ourselves sharing and discussing personal views, his attitude started to shift. A quality that he usually admired me for, became something that made him feel contempt. “You’re so smart” turned into “you’re too smart” which eventually turned to “I can never talk to you because everything turns into a debate”. My attitude and approach hadn’t changed. What was happening is what always happens in an emotional relationship where you’re actually getting to know the person: I was falling off the pedestal he put me in. 

And, suddenly, I was seen not only as a human being with flaws and shortcomings, and far from perfect - but having to be so close and vulnerable in front of me was also deeply uncomfortable to him. Because when you’re really close to someone, that makes you reflect on yourself. True love and intimacy is an exercise of self reflection, which allows you to become acquainted with the best and worst sides of you. In my ex’s case, having to be confronted by the intelligence he admired so much initially, made him feel stupid and insecure.

Which leads me to another thing: in this confabulation of admiration/desire for love, men also get another short end of the stick. Because patriarchy has convinced them that a woman’s love lies in her admiration for him, the object of their desire (who has to instantly desire them back just because they want this person) has one job and one job only: to admire and support him unconditionally. This means that men are permanently stuck in a position where they have to display strength and bravado, as they fulfill the role of protectors and providers. And what happens then? you never truly get to know who they are inside. So any sort of criticism, disagreement or conflict is perceived as a threat - if you’re not admiring them, you’re personally attacking them, and you don’t really love them.

Again, the problem with all of this is that we still haven’t understood what love actually is. According to bell hook, love is also a verb. It’s the actions you take in order to nurture the relationship, so you both feel seen, known, heard and understood. It’s getting to know the other person deeply and honestly. It’s seeing ourselves reflected in their eyes and getting to know new depths about us that we hadn’t before.

Think about it in another way: if that person wasn’t physically attractive to you anymore, would you still love them? if that person presented flaws that you hate, would you still love them? If they didn’t have the same social status or job? if they didn’t engage in specific activities with you? and what would you be willing to do if those things change? these are all important questions to assess where your feelings for someone stand.

To be clear: you can love someone and admire them and desire them. But just because someone desires you or just because someone admires you, that doesn’t mean they love you. Again, love is in the work you do. And if you do your homework, you will find yourself admiring that person on deeper more significant attributes, like their compassion and patience and integrity, while you even learn to understand and appreciate their flaws in the context of who they really are - that’s what being understood means.

The problem is not monogamy. In fact, I find it more responsible and sustainable to understand just how much work goes into having healthy loving relationships and deciding to have that with one person, than being a hot ass mess and falling in and out of an unending string of relationships because we’re trying to score “woke points” by denying monogamy. Because if you think you’re defying monogamy while at the same time you’re following the same romantic standards to relate, then you’re not really subverting anything.

Next time you feel like you might feel love for someone, ask yourself if what you’re feeling means that you actually have the willingness to do the work required to be in a healthy relationship with them. If you find their presence in your life worth the effort or not. If this is a nourishing relationship, then the answer will probably be yes.

[smuttymess]

bts astro soulmate reading | for deja

sign: gemini sun | pisces moon | libra rising

lover: Park Jimin | soulmate: Jung Hoseok

This reading is for Deja, a Jungkook bias who also stans OT7 with a particular affinity towards Jimin and Tae. With a maknae line like that, who could blame her? Please enjoy this reading, love!

Idealistic, imaginative and intuitive to almost a psychic degree, your star sign combination makes you one of the dreamiest in the zodiac. For better or for worse, you tend to see things as you would like to and not so much as the way they are down on earth. But honestly, who can blame you? The real world pales in comparison to your infinite nature of your imagination. Your intuition helps guide you through life, and you are innately in tune to what you and other people around you need. One of the zodiac's biggest thinkers and communicators, it is best for letting someone else figure out the logistics and details while you are off ideating and making power moves - unencumbered by little details - is likely how you achieve greatness in your life. Both Gemini and Pisces (air and water) are known for their duality, their desire to flow and evolve towards whatever they set their hearts and minds out to do, and as a result of your innate joie de vivre you have many admirers who want to be a part of your world. While in high demand, a result of your charming Libra rising, you are not someone who can be pinned down easily. Your friends have long given up on trying to get you to stick to any sort of schedule - whenever you arrive is right on time. They are happy to take you as you are, for when you are present you are able to express an almost unparalleled empathy, attentiveness and warmth which makes you all at once irresistible and unforgettable to those you love (and even those you've only just met!)

Gemini/Pisces is a duo of energy, movement, and passion: you move through the world on your own terms, seeking excitement and pleasure in everything that you do. This placement, along with your Libra rising, lends you to escapsim. It is not uncommon for you to want to take a spontaneous trip to explore a new culture, perhaps booking a house in wine country in order to blow off steam or avoid an impending work deadline - a little wine won't hurt! Upon arrival you're happy to find that your host is the incredibly attractive Park Jimin, who happens to own the entire vineyard, and you two immediately connect. Jimin is a true Libra, his charm emanating from his being with little to no effort, but it is not disingenuous - he is just naturally flirtatious and personable. His balance-seeking Libra rising and witty Gemini moon is familiar, as if he's known you for many years, making you immediately at ease in your solo travels and maybe a little horny too. You two both possess a gift of being highly sociable and fun to be around, Jimin's Libra Sun meshing almost perfectly with your Libra rising, and it is not long before you two become inseparable - likely making the other guests wonder if you are longtime partners or co-owners of the property.

After many long conversations and several glasses of wine, you are not surprised to find your lips intertwined, the plushness of his perfect pout pressed gently against yours. The Gemini/Libra relationship is a true escape in and of itself, one that simply requires existing as you are in the moment. Within your short time with him you become purely infatuated, his eyes sparkling as brightly as the stars above the vineyard as he smiles, the pure embodiment of romance and passion tanks to his Venus in Scorpio. Your signs share a love for leisure and pleasure, which lends nicely to long mornings in bed and walks across the gorgeous grounds, sneaking in tender kisses and under the sun before ducking away into a more secluded area. Gemini runs the show in this pairing, your hands feverishly running beneath his shirt and across his abs as your lock him into a kiss. Jimin is more than happy to have you push him against the wall, hungrily planting kisses along his neck as his hardness presses into your thigh. this Air signs tangle effortlessly together, as if your bodies were made for each other. Above all else a Libra lover wants to make his partner feel good, taking immense pleasure in seeing your lips fall apart as his fingers slip beneath your dress and across your clit. He knows how to tease you, his fingers brushing across your lips but never giving you the full relief that you crave, smiling as you become more and more desperate against his touch, practically fucking yourself against his fingers. My girl is so naughty, isn't she? The sex is so good you might almost think about making this vacation permanent.

Despite the beauty and charm of this duo, there is not enough stability or grounding in this duo to truly move this from a lovely fling and into a more serious relationship. Jimin's Libra values responsibility, balance and reliability, while Gemini/Pisces placements is notoriously flighty and seeking out their next adventure - where to next? This would not be so much of a problem were it not for JImin's Venus in Scorpio, which often shows love through possession, jealousy and control. Sure, there is a part of you that enjoys it (hello, Pisces) and you love how passionate he is about you and the things he cares about, but ultimately recognize that his need to really be attached to you, however sweet, is stifling. Additionally, these signs are both so consumed by pleasure that you will likely not accomplish anything outside of that, which is all well and good until the money runs out (commonplace with these two!) While this is likely not a forever match, there is a potential here for a long-term friendship filled with shared respect and admiration for the goodness in one another, with little to no animosity over the end of the relationship.

You have the mind of an artist, and it is not uncommon to find you in highly creative and artistic spaces that require out-of-the-box thinking. A leader in your own right, you could easily head a team of creative marketing professionals at a prestigious ad agency or a luxury fashion brand, putting together unique ideas to make a client's dreams come to life. It is in such an environment where you meet Jung Hoseok, your newest celebrity client, your eyes lighting up as he enters the room clad head to toe in starkly contrasting prints that somehow work seamlessly into a cohesive look. He possesses the signature traits of an Aquarius: confidence, independence, and originality. When his dark eyes move to meet yours, you can feel that rare, instant connection that cannot be ignored. While the physical relationship between a Gemini and Aquarius is often undeniable, it is your mutual wit and intellectual-thinking that draws you to each other over the course of your time working together. Aquarius Hoseok is unusual, charming, witty, and cool that gravitates towards your natural curiosity and boundless energy. You know he likes you, his eyes on your frame as you move about the room presenting your newest creations for his clothing brand. Together, you are two misunderstood individuals who innately understand each other on a profound level, as if nobody else is in the room. While neither of you are ones to wear your emotions on your sleeves or commit to anything too early on, you know quite early on that you will be fucking sooner rather than later - and you are certainly hoping for sooner.

Once you are no longer inhibited by the constraints of a professional relationship, all bets (and clothes) are off. The various debates you have and sharing of ideas while working together is all the foreplay you need, and the result is worth the wait. Hoseok has been thinking about every inch of your body that he wanted to feel underneath him, the little spots that would set you on fire the minute he could. He possesses a quiet, strong dominance about him that wants to consume you whole, which he does within minutes of closing the door to his suite. Moving closer to you to place his hand gently against your neck, you are almost overcome with desire as his eyes pierce into you before whispering into your ear. You have no idea how long I've been waiting for this. And now you’re all mine. Hoseok can be authoritative in bed, which you are happy to enjoy as your Pisces moon adores being ravished and devoured. Your sexual fantasies are of course rarely if ever just at home, your signs matched perfectly for mild exhibitionism or discreet public play. He enjoys hearing you scream his name, trembling as he thrusts you in the dressing room of a high-end retailer that he's rented out for a personal shopping trip. My baby looks so beautiful getting fucked in this dress - we'll have to buy it so I can take it off again at home. However timid or bashful your Pisces may be, you know that you are safe in his hands as they grab your hips and your breasts as they press against the floor to ceiling windows of the sprawling hotel penthouse he's booked for the week just to have a change of scenery.

The incredible emotional range of Gemini and Pisces alongside your tendency to go with the flow makes you very sensitive to others perceptions of you and also to criticism. While a Gemini can certainly speak off the cuff, perhaps offending a few people in the process, it is challenging for a Gemini sun/Pisces moon to receive words that are anything less than positive. As a result, you are prone to oversensitivity from taking things personally - your Pisces retreating into solitude away from the ugliness of it all. Hoseok is a perfectionist, his Aquarius sun propelling him forward as he seeks to excel in his own crafts, and while he is a creative thinker he is often very much entrenched in his beliefs. One of Hoseok's weaknesses is his ego, amplified by his Taurus moon and Uranus in Capricorn, which means when he is "right" it is incredibly hard to move the needle. You live in fantasy while he tends to live in reason and factuality, not shying away from criticism, and it is these differences that need to be appreciated for this match to go the distance. Your Pisces moon and his Venus in Pisces is effectively the saving grace of this pairing, allowing you to connect emotionally in a way that many other Gemini/Aquarius may not be able to. Instead of keeping things casual, this shared understanding gives you both with the empathy required to see and love your partner for who they are: an equally flawed and imperfect human trying to do their best.

This is ultimately a successful pairing that knows that in each other they have an intellectual match that should be cherished, forging ahead as business partners and moving the world forward with their incredible imaginations and creative ideals. Life together is not at all a normal one, because you show love through exploration and spontaneity, taking you to destinations around the world at a moment's notice and leaving little room for boredom or conventionality. You two allow each other to explore yourselves individually without restraint, knowing that your bond can't easily be undone. The home base you create together is one likely high above the cityscape, a sanctuary filled with fine art, personalized design, and plenty of space and light to establish a sense of comfort and creativity. While you two are not homebodies of any kind, this refuge gives you just the right amount of serenity so you can wake up and bring your dreamy, airy notions into the wider world.

[pass-the-bechdel]

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend full series review

How many episodes pass the Bechdel test?

100% (sixty-one of sixty-one).

What is the average percentage of female characters with names and lines for the full series?

43.18%

How many episodes have a cast that is at least 40% female?

Thirty-eight, so, more than half.

How many episodes have a cast that is at least 50% female?

Twenty-one, and a few of those were 60%+.

How many episodes have a cast that is less than 20% female?

One.

Positive Content Status:

Ultimately, disappointing. There are definitely good pieces in there, and bad pieces too, and by the end I mostly felt too cynical about the way most of the good pieces were handled - as perfunctory, noncommittal brownie-points grabs - to be very impressed by anything. I think the show spent more time rejecting the branches of feminism that it didn’t want to be associated with than it did celebrating any branches it did want, and at the end of the day it had less progressive commentary to make than it thought it did (average rating of 3.01).

Which season had the best representation statistics overall?

Season four, in every category but the positive content, for which it scored average.

Which season had the worst representation statistics overall?

Season two dropped the ball on the percentage of female characters, slipping below 40% for the season average (and turning in that singular episode under 20%). 

Overall Series Quality:

If only it were as consistent as its Bechdel passes - unfortunately, it’s an absolute mess. I wish I could pretend that the rollercoaster of quality was a deliberate metaphor for the experiences of the show’s lead, but the show never has a strong enough handle on itself to pull off a feat like that; Crazy-Ex Girlfriend was rife with problems from the jump, and even as it resolved one thing (ditch a bad character here, finally achieve a less confusing narrative tone there), it always managed to wander off into some new mistake. The overall gives the impression of being poorly planned, and the show never settles down with itself or its characters in order to tell a cohesive story (hence the lack of payoff on almost any character arc). It’s a shambles, and while I did variously have a good time, by the end I was glad to be rid of it.

MORE INFO (and potential spoilers) under the cut:

Look, it’s no secret that this show caught me at a bad time. As I have pointed out, I have been pregnant for pretty much the entire duration of the viewing experience, and due to the various ups and downs associated with that, it took me something like seven months to watch a mere sixty-one episodes. I will readily admit, this show was not a good fit for me, possibly not at all (it’s...not my usual flavour), certainly not at this particular time in my life. I haven’t been very forgiving, and while I don’t feel that I’ve been unreasonable, I will allow that under different circumstances I might have enjoyed this show more. I did enjoy it, really, more often than it feels like I did on reflection; the bad taste that the show left for me, far too often, the irritation, the boredom, and the sense of unearned superciliousness I sometimes detected in the writing, it all left a stronger impression than the good, genuine moments, the insightfulness, the laughs, and the originality. There was more in the show worth seeing than what I feel when I think back on it. It wasn’t that bad. But, at the end of the day, I still don’t think it was very good, either.

(p.s. since writing that previous paragraph, I had a baby and many weeks have passed. This is not the ideal way to review a show).

I don’t know what was going on behind the scenes on this show - what they had planned from the jump, what was off the cuff, what changed, how much time they had to incorporate change into the story, etc - and I don’t really care to know either, since we are here to consider the product that was delivered, not talk about how it came to be that way. I don’t know if a colossal lack of fore-planning is the big flaw at the heart of this show, or if it’s just that what was planned was so basic it gives the impression of being half-baked. At any rate, I think a lot of the inconsistency in tone and quality and plot movement and narrative purpose can be traced to a lack of planning; the impression I get is of a ‘wing it and see what happens!’ approach which did not work for them at all - having everything locked down from the start isn’t always a good storytelling model since it leaves no room for improvisation as the narrative develops, but grow-as-you-go doesn’t work if you don’t have a strong sense of your moving pieces and their purpose, all you get is a disconnected shambles. It does not appear to me that Crazy Ex-Girlfriend ever had an overarching plan for where it was headed, nor did it establish enough complexity in its players to pull off an unplanned narrative. I feel like a broken record and I’m not gonna harp on this any longer, but the moral here is that you don’t need to have everything figured out in a story when you start, but you do need a trajectory, and for the love of God, don’t just figure out broad strokes of who you’re taking on the ride; figure out the two-fold why. Why is this character here, and why does it matter? Too few of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’s characters had good answers (if they had any), and that’s how you end up with such lacklustre or shoe-horned character conclusions. Even Rebecca didn’t end up with a good answer to the second why?, and that’s just sad.

ANYWAY, there are frankly too many angles I could come at in how I felt this show failed, and as I said early, I don’t think it was that bad, plus I think I’ve railed at it enough that I am just repeating complaints - I told myself I should try to talk about what the show did do well, but I find I’m a little stuck on the subject; everything I liked seems to have some failing attached to it. So, I’m gonna just try and list the good stuff without equivocating - I’ll run with the idea that I already wrote the complaints part elsewhere, possibly many times over. The good things: Josh Chan was everything that a ‘perfect guy’ character should be and never normally is on anything else that plays with the concept; Rebecca’s BPD was often extremely well-handled and a lot of their best work went on doing justice to that part of the story; they brought Valencia around quite successfully to make her one of the more enjoyable characters on the show after a crappy start; Darryl’s bisexual awakening in season one was handled way better than I’ve ever seen a show handle that kind of thing; White Josh existed; Paula was a refreshing change from the usual best-friend/sidekick archetype; sometimes the show had something meaningful to say on the feminist front; Father Brah also existed; there were some great musical numbers; the show definitely offered some things I’d never seen before; Rebecca’s home decor was pleasing; there was that big crocodile plushie...ok, look. This show wasn’t for me, we all know that. I feel a little bad about the way the reviewing process went (up to and including this one) because I know I was distracted and had significant breaks between episodes/seasons way too often (and even now I am holding an upset baby and typing one-handed; it’s not conducive to good evaluation). There was definitely proper analysis that I put in the ‘I’ll get to that’ pile time and again for this show, only to forget it completely when I finally had the time to write anything up; that said, I still don’t think this show would have gone over well with me under different circumstances - better, perhaps, but not well - and that’s because it has a LOT of flaws. A lot. Fun idea, poor execution, and it’s not the baby that thinks so. It was an interesting ride and I am sorry I couldn’t appreciate the good bits better, but it’s time to go now.

[thesinglesjukebox]

MISSY ELLIOTT - THROW IT BACK

[4.71]

[4], my people?

Nortey Dowuona: EEEEEEEEE (but seriously, the low, humming bass and sliding, slinky drums that Missy slots on and walks to Durban over the Atlantic with are really guud.) [9]

Julian Axelrod: Missy Elliott inspires such infectious joy in my dumb gerbil brain that she effectively parries any critiques my angry rat brain might lob at a new single. (YES I have two brains YES they're both from rodents YES scientists are baffled and disgusted!!!) Is "Throw It Back" too simple and contemporary for such a forward-thinking artist? Or is this beat the sound of culture catching up with Missy, its woozy whine and low-flying drone a Pollock paint splash on the blueprint she created? Is this the coronation of Elliott's 2010s nostalgia tour, more preoccupied with exalting her past then defining her future? Rejoinder: Haven't the last few years taught us to celebrate our icons while they're still present and vital and making videos that look like someone poured acid into Lemonade? (And even if her bars are self-referential, bragging about producing for Tweet in the 90s is an unbelievable flex.) And the question that kept gnawing at me: Doesn't this feel like it could kinda be done by any other rapper? The irony is that plenty of artists will try to recreate it; the beauty is that none will succeed. [7]

Kylo Nocom: Leikeli47 valiantly claimed her spot as the heir to Missy Elliott's legacy a couple years back; Missy responds by stooping down to the former's level of monotonous hooks, bafflingly basic club beats, and corniness that pervade the former's catalog. A kind tribute that probably goes off outside of active listening, but not worth waiting until I'm 21 to figure that out. [3]

Alfred Soto: Even for a genre that has thrived on callbacks to evanescent glories -- a phenomenon in which Missy Elliott herself participated -- "Throw It Back" casts itself as a nostalgia move of unexpected lethargy. Fourteen years on from the era of 50 Cent and The Game and Iraq, what aural signposts does Missy offer for a generation that may recognize nothing more than her moniker? The beat's at best eh, and the languor of her delivery lacks charisma. [4]

Maxwell Cavaseno: Last week when Missy Elliott dropped her latest EP, I had to stop and reflect on the fact that it was close to three and a half years ago that her initial talks of a comeback began. Despite being Missy-agnostic for a lot of my life, I thought "Where They From" was complimentary to all of her strengths and the right sort of note to return on, but it revealed a greater issue for her: how does a woman approaching her 50s fit in the ever ageist, still relatively sexist, and incredibly disposable landscape of rap? Especially one whose specific lane of blurring R&B, rap and pop is now commonplace but also drastically shifted in tone from what the present day younger audience demands. In the same way a teenager now probably can't inherently grasp what made Wu-Tang or Outkast appreciable, a time barrier exists for Missy. So what to do? "WTF" was a good burst of nostalgia but didn't make any real radio traction, and nor did it impress newer listeners (the less said about follow-up attempts like "Pep Rally" the better). Becoming an adult-oriented "legacy artist" didn't suit the perception of Missy and would also have made her rely on what aren't her strengths (go back to "Pass The Dutch" and it's easily her worst single of all time). All these issues come forth on "Throw It Back", a song that has a video which literally begins with an innocent child being told she's Supposed To Care about Missy Elliott when frankly, there's dozens of rappers closer to her age borne from the battles that Missy won. Likewise her rapping, boasting about bearing multiple progeny, is relying on a recognition of how important she is based on history and status. This isn't assailable based on truth, but it's baffling to think this would be "cool" or "fun", which are normally some of the easiest adjectives to throw at Missy Elliott. Even the beat itself doesn't sound particularly energetic, instead a gross squelch of faux-trap that feels years dated. It's a bitter pill to swallow that in order to impress upon listeners her value, Missy Elliott would make a song that's so joyless and uninspiring that it ultimately betrays her iconoclasm. [0]

Edward Okulicz: My jaw dropped when Missy dropped "She's a Bitch" all those years ago with its incredibly menacing, minimalist groove. It really did sound ahead of the game. "Throw It Back," obviously, harkens back to that idea, and functions something like a low-key greatest hits package for her. Silly noises, braggadocio that's fun and good cheer. Missy Elliott of 2019 sounding like the Missy Elliott of the past is okay by me. [7]

Joshua Lu: A rare instance where, instead of trying to build on her legacy, it feels like Missy Elliott is cashing in on it instead, this time with a painfully inert single lacking in any takeaways other than it being attached to her first body of work in fourteen years. Ah well, she's long since earned the right to be disposable. [3]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox]

[awed-frog]

hiya *waves* ... a couple days ago you had a post about death--about living well? The oldest living generation in my family have started dying. (It feels so odd to say it like that. but.) It feels like my family is stuck in endless loops of grief. Do you have any advice for making the sadness a little easier to bear? Thank you very much for your time.

I’m sorry you’re going through that. I know exactly what it’s like, because my family is 90% old or oldish people, and it’s so damn hard, isn’t it? Thank you for trusting me to give you advice on this - here is my best attempt at an answer on this complicated topic.

Some say we now find it harder to bear death because we’re not used to it anymore. Very few of us kill our own food, child mortality is exceedingly rare (in luckier countries, that is) and old age is generally disguised, disregarded and hidden away as much as possible. Even funerals, which used to be held in the family home, have become a business (I think around the late nineteenth century, which makes it a very recent development): nowadays, dead people are ferreted away, washed by professionals, dolled up, even pumped full of questionable chemicals so they’ll look ‘healthy’, ‘serene’, and ‘at peace’. I know people who prevent children from visiting older relatives and seeing them after their death, and even going to the funeral, because ‘it’s too much for them’.

(I disagree, by the way. I think it’s good to show children everyone’s different and getting old is a thing, and it’s better to give them a chance to say goodbye, to understand a loved one is truly gone, so they can process it and ask questions about it. Some of my younger students were left traumatized by hidden deaths in the family, and it was heartwrenching to watch.)

I think there’s some truth in all that; but on the other hand, I also see this idea of ‘people getting used to death because shorter life span’ as a bit of a myth. If you read letters from Antiquity, or go through tombstone inscriptions, you find a lot of people ravaged by grief. The fact it was common to lose children and spouses didn’t make it particularly easier to bear.

I don’t know that I can answer your question with anything worth hearing or sharing, because I haven’t found a good way to deal with grief myself. There are days I can be okay with it, and I’m happy and grateful for the time I had with my loved ones, and can imagine they’ll never be truly gone (I’m not sure that I believe in Paradise, but I like the idea that the matter making up our bodies simply goes on to become something else: the old wisdom vita mutatur, non tollitur readapted for the age of science, if you will), and then sometimes it all seems pointless, and pointlessly sad.

What I learned, however, is most of our sufferings come from one thing: we find it very hard to accept change. 

Poet  and historian Hillel Schwartz once said the biggest challenge when facing old age, a life-threatening illness or a sudden disability is not the practical side of it (for instance, that you can’t walk anymore), but the certainty that without this specific thing you can no longer do, you’re no longer yourself. He encourages people to find their sense of self in more profound things, because most of us build it by relying on stuff that’s not permanent and can disappear at any moment (our family, our job, our favourite sport or hobby). I heard him speak two years ago, but I still think about that regularly, because it’s hard, isn’t it, to know who you are without these external supports we take for granted in our daily life (walking, running, a salary, a mother and father, your best friend)? 

And I think the same is true for grief. When you grieve for someone, your grieve for two lives lost: your loved one’s, and your own. You grieve because the person you were with them no longer exist. You’ll never again be someone’s grandchild. That’s gone forever. That side of your personality you only shared with this person, the inside jokes, the quiet moments of affections, the secrets you kept for them or they kept for you - that’s finished. A piece of your sould that’s just missing. And my best guess here is that, like Hillel Scwhartz said, you need to accept you can function as yourself without that relationship in your life - which takes time, of course, and it’s easier said than done.

We know Japanese noblemen cultivated this quest of your deepest, most intimate and essential self by doing three things, which I think we can all practice to try and overcome our saddest moments.

First of all, there are the famous reflections on the worst case scenario. Nobody wants to think about their own death, or your loved one’s death, or other traumatic events like a severe illness, losing your job or your home, but there’s a theory that by staving off those thoughts, what happens is that you’ll be even more afraid of them (because ignorance breeds fear) and completely unprepared when the thing actually comes. That’s why samurais thought about their own deaths a lot, and research shows that being prepared - for anything, and especially for the worst - is a very good way to reduce anxiety and unhappiness. It’s particularly good to gently encourage ageing relatives to make plans for their future lives on living arrangements, medical care and so on.

Meditation is another good way to force the mind to be still and be more present and more aware of why you think and feel the way you do, and it’s also been proven to have health benefits. Plus, as a Zen abbot told me, when you sit in meditation for a long time, you ultimately start to realize all things are equal - that you’re not ‘wasting time’ by doing that, because objective reality is an illusion, and things only assume meaning depending on your attachment to them. 

Finally, something I like about Japanese and other Eastern cultures is that they are quite happy to celebrate impermanence. In Japan, you get an entire nation obsessing over cherry blossoms - a phenomenon that only lasts a few days; in the Himalayas, monks spend a ridiculous amount of time creating intricate sand mandalas, which will then be destroyed. In the West, we take a completely opposite view, and that’s one reason why we’re such hoarders and we give such special meaning to old movie ticket stubs, clothes we no longer wear, and hideous childhood crafts everybody’s secretly ashamed of.

(Also feelings of hurt and resentment which can dog us for years, even after the person we’re angry with is long dead.)

All of those techniques will hopefully lead to a quieter, calmer mind, which still experiences feelings but is not dominated by them. A concept we tend to associate with Buddhism, but that’s actually hailed as as the recipe to happiness in many cultures (through independent philosophical thinking or cross-contamination? that, I don’t know).

When you manage to overcome your own mind, you overcome myriad concerns, rise above all things, and are free. When you are overcome by your own mind, you are burdened by myriad concerns, subordinate to things, unable to rise above. Mind your mind; guard it resolutely. Since it is the mind that confuses the mind, don’t let your mind give in to your mind. (Suzuki Shosan, 1579-1655) 

I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free. (Nikos Kazantzakis, 1923)

The bitter truth about being mortal and self-aware is that saying goodbye to an old, beloved relative is not only part of life: it’s the best option for everyone involved. Living to eighty or ninety, having the opportunity, the time and the emotional skill to forge deep bonds of affection with those around you - that’s something we can all aspire to. But in order to fully understand and accept that, we need to reverse our traditional way of thinking.

Becoming more mindful and more tolerant of impermanence is a long journey, but I honestly believe it leads to a better life. I think the best thing you can do now, and what I’m trying to do myself, is to be there for your older relatives and deepen that connection, while also focusing on the life they will not see: you as an adult, as a parent perhaps, as an older person. Nurture your mind and soul, be curious, be passionate, be patient. Enjoy the present without fretting about the future or regretting the past. Breathe.

(Oh - and here is my favourite poem about grief - I find it helps.)