#which makes me feel like such a failure because my mom is clearly critical of me having to 'rely' on medication | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

omegawolverine · 4 years ago

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I love it when people talk about things they're passionate about, tell me something cool!! Anything you want, just something you find interesting or want to talk about :D

hello anon my beloved, I am in a bad mood so you will be receiving a passionate, yet lowkey of pissy rant about why villainizing bakugou makes me wanna vomit and its NOT just because I'm a dumbass kinnie :)

tws: child abuse (emotional and physical), near death expierences, bullying, kidnapping, suffocation, lots of trauma in general tbh. if you've seen bnha then basically just keep all the general triggering plot stuff in mind incase i missed any warnings

also, note: I havent caught up on bnha in a minute, I'm at like the start of the war arc but I barely remember shit there tbh so like. probs missing new stuff. also bnha spoiler warnings lol

so, for starters, the homie bakugou has like,, a good handful of issues that come from his childhood that explain why he's an ass. he was always praised and never actually reprimanded for being a twat which led to him having a huge ego that ended up fucking him over majorly. this ego was something that his mother acknowledged him having, but literally didnt try to fix it with anything other than violence. see here:

like, instead of trying to help him, she hits and insults him, which is probably what led to his weird inferiority/superiority complex. being constantly told by others that you're outstanding and one day you'll be a top hero because you're rude and aggressive and then going home and being hit by your mother for those exact same behaviors is bound to fucking confuse a child.

so like, now that we've established that its definetly canon that his mother (parents? I think he said parents at some point but masaru doesn't seem like the type so 🤷) hits him though we don't know how much or how often (though if bakugou was as much of a little shit back then ((which as far as we've seen- he was)) then it was probably often), lets talk about how regardless of all that 1) hitting your kids as "discipline" not only doesn't work but is abusive lol like idc if it's spanking/popping them on the mouth for talking shit, slapping them across the face "on occasion", etc. shits not okay 2) hitting your kids!!!! does not work!!!!!!!! it is literally PROVEN not to work!!!!!!!! hitting a child who has done something wrong doesnt teach them to stop doing something it teaches them to be scared of you, which will cause the child to withdraw, removing part of their support system (assuming said abusive parents would even offer that up) and will most likely lead to them thinking they're a bad person, not that their actions were bad, which are two different things. so, ya know, that would clearly have an effect on a kid. like, as someone with a mother who reminds me all too much of mitsuki: I have acted like a complete shitbag and taken my anger out on people to feel better in the past because of the way my mother treated me. though it was nowhere near what bakugou did, I still know first fucking hand what a mother hitting and insulting her child will do, especially if they have no proper outlet for that (friends, a safe place to vent) which bakugou never fucking had.

theres also the fact that just talking to your kid the way mitsuki does (saying it's his fault he was kidnapped because he's weak, all while hitting him) is not??? okay?????? ive seen people arguing that this was just a joke in poor taste but like her son was KIDNAPPED and even if it was a "joke" there's literally NO WAY that would EVER?? BE FUNNY??????? she just sounds like the kind of parent who at the very least says shit without thinking that would traumatize bakugou (because being told right after being kidnapped it's your fucking fault by your mother is absolutely traumatizing) but it comes across as her being emotionally abusive.

mitsukis character as a whole comes across as a shitty mom who doesn't realize she's a shitty mom and thinks bakugou being an ass isn't at least partially her fault even though she's admitted to realizing he has always had an ego problem and doing nothing to fix it except for hitting and yelling which obviously did nothing but make him just as loud and violent as she is.

this is obviously not the entire reason why he's a dick but he was never properly taught that the shit he was doing wasn't okay and people not stopping it and/or praising him endlessly even tho he was a bully is basically the same as encouraging it, thank you very much.

moving on from that, let's talk about bakugous other traumas and how he naturally responds to them. hint: it's with either full blown panic or a fight response (verbal or physical, though usually physical. also sometimes it's the panic followed by the fight response.)

so far in bnha (keep in mind that I am not caught up, I've only read up to the beginning of the war arc and i barely remember those bits so) bakugou has...

nearly died via sludge villain (he was unable to move and was being suffocated to death- keep this in mind)

lost for the first time ever and against deku of all people (this nearly sent him into a full blown panic attack, likely because of that sexy little inferiority/superiority complex combo. think of this as like. gifted kid burnout lite. he has always been the best of the best and now suddenly he is being beaten by somebody who has always been weaker than him, which immediately makes him start thinking he was never actually that good, he's actually a fucking failure, a goddamn fraud)

won the sports festival by default (bakugou counts this as yet another failure because todoroki didnt try his best. had bakugou lost to todoroki full strength, he would've taken 2nd place with a bit of bitching, but he still wouldve taken it rather than refuse the medal as it would be a reminder that he failed. instead of accepting that like UA shouldve, the staff chained and muzzled him on live television and then had all might, his fucking idol, force the medal into his mouth. remember the sludge villain incident and how he couldnt move and was suffocating to death? yeah.)

been kidnapped because of the way he reacted to winning during the sports festival (he was aggressive and tried to refuse the medal because he felt he didnt deserve it and was then retraumatized by being chained up and muzzled. his "villainous attitude" was a fucking trauma response, do not tell me otherwise)

was then chained up once again by the LOV after being kidnapped,,, do we see the "retraumatize bkg" theme yet?

"ended all might" (he literally blames himself for all mights retirement because had he just not have been weak, all might wouldve had more time, right?)

my point with all of these is that bakugou has been severely traumatized and has then had his trauma responses (aggression, fight) used to further demonize him. not all people with trauma react the fucking same and the way the fandom just refuses to acknowledge anger as a valid form of trauma response is gross as hell.

moving away from that topic, bakugou has literally never had any actual friends, they all just used him and didn't care about him which absolutely will fuck up a kid, especially one who already has all that other shit going on. bakugou deadass never had a support system or people to help him grow as a person, let alone properly work through his fucking emotions so it's not surprising that he would take out his bullshit on the one person who tried to help him especially considering he saw dekus actions as him thinking he was weak. bakugou was raised to not seek help, he thought somebody strong shouldnt ever need it, so for somebody like deku (who bakugou percieved as weak and helpless already) to offer up help? deku must obviously think bakugou is even weaker than him, what other explanation could their possibly be!

speaking of which, there's his heaps of insecurities that he basically hid by being a twat and bullying others for most of his life. kid was so insecure he bullied deku for fucking years cause he thought deku looked down on him, thought he was better than him, etc. and that only got worse bc his idol then decided to take deku in, train him and even give him his quirk. there's probably some shit im missing but still he's got issues and always has had issues. that being said, he's actually improving and working them out now which is what makes him a really good, interesting character. it's also nice to see a character who is a dick without some tragic backstory (like his backstory is sad but its not the classic "my family was fucking slaughtered and i turned into a raging bitch who murders people" type shit) bc that rarely happens and it's like most assholes don't actually have a story like that they're just assholes lol

now lets talk improvement! lil bitch has been getting better since he got into UA and im so happy abt it!! he had a rough start what with deku suddenly having a quirk and all but like he is really improving now and it highkey shows that bakugou just mostly needed people who 1) didn't constantly praise him and actually criticized him instead 2) actually fucking punished him doing stupid shit and 3) some motherfucking friends

Since going to UA he's gotten actually feedback from teachers about his weaknesses and how to get stronger, he's lost against others, hes been told he has a shit attitude and is a dick, told he should be nicer and leave deku alone, etc etc. He hasn't gotten in trouble too much with teachers but others give him shit for what he does and aizawa has punished him too, while still acknowledging that bakugou is an amazing and dedicated student, something which no one else had done up til that point. and uh???? homie actually has friends who like,,, don't use him and also call him out when he's a dick. like specifically kirishima has done this shit and him and bakugous relationship is clearly very healthy and beneficial for the both of them. makes me feel all happy n shit, ya know

bottom line is: while it is absolutely valid to dislike or even hate bakugou because he is a massively flawed person who has been very cruel to others, villainizing him for the way he acts which in large part seems to be from a lack of guidance, a shitty mother and heavy amounts of trauma, is fucking awful. his actions cannot be fucking excused, he needs to apologize and continue to grow, but he is also a fucking teenager, who is just now being told that the way he acts is unacceptable by people who dont fucking abuse him (and I swear to god if any people who think mitsuki isnt abusive interact with this fucking post I will fullstop hardblock you, I do not fucking care) and actually treat him like a normal person instead of some prodigy child or someone who needs to be fixed.

people are free to debate my points or whatever bc I know some of this stuff is up to interpretation but like. dni if you're just here to say you hate bakugou for xyz reason or that he's irredeemable. also especially dni if you compare him to fucking endeavor yall bitches make me gag.

anyways thxs for the ask anon <33 sorry this is a kinda messy info dump lol

#shit self #asks #boku no hero academia #long post #bakugou katsuki #yes i am a bakugou kinnie shut the fuck up /lh #this is all /nm btw its just so much easier to make my long posts aggressive yk #this is just how i talk irl but Better Formatted #info dump #kinz #anti mitsuki #discourse #bangerz

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ouyangzizhensdad · 4 years ago

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Hey, feel free to ignore this, but I'd love to hear your grievances against Bridgerton? I saw some of the fashion posts you rbed, but I'm especially intrigued by the "fails on all aspects" parts? Thanks!

Hi there,

There is honestly so much that could be said and analysed in finer points but the short version of it is just that it is a bad story wrapped in the glitz of high production value but surprisingly little good technical execution despite all the money shoveled at it. Bridgerton is the type of show where the petty, mean side of me would delight in a detailed and cutthroat list of all of its flaws but for which I do not care enough to be actually invested in hating it. It’s just a thing to be puzzled and petty about: people think Bridgerton is good. Wild.

Now let me first say that I have no inherent problems with anachronistic creative choices, or the idea of a contemporary take on period dramas. After all, all period dramas are inevitably told through a contemporary lens, to different degrees. It’s also not like they were the first big production to do it either: has everyone just forgot about The Great Gatsby? or tumblr’s favourite Hamilton? I honestly think this kind of mixing already has so many cool outcomes when it comes to music (like this, this or this and this), I do believe we could get something really interesting out of creative anachronism in mainstream visual media. I’m also more forgiving with newer forms of experimentation, because sometimes new ideas need to be worked out before they reach their full potential. But the way Bridgerton does it.... so clearly lacks a clear creative vision and dedication to the concept imo that it makes it harder to excuse the ways it fails since the failures seem to originate from that lack of vision and dedication to storytelling. For instance, there is seemingly no logic as to when the diegetic music will be an instrumental cover of a contemporary song or not--which does not even broach the topic of how bad those ‘classical music’ arrangements for modern songs were? Honestly embarrassing how lazy those arrangements were: hire a good composer (or any at all), you cowards. And then the costumes... once again, a lack of internal logic seems to permeate the choices presented in addition to a lack of care in its execution: so many of the dresses are ill-fitted, the characterisation through the outfits were all over the place (like the mom who wore a silhouette that no one else wore and had no basis in any fashion of the era) and so many of the fabrics/jewellery looked the opposite of expensive (kind of looked like a lot of it was polyester and plastic tbh), which is sort of a problem when you are trying to sell the fantasy of "The lives of the rich and famous but make it regency” imo although I suppose a portion of the audience just doesn’t notice lmao. Honestly I find that a lot of ‘costume historians’ who made video essays on Bridgerton were too nice with the show, perhaps in order not to come off as seeming to hate the costumes on the basis of them not being historically accurate, and as a result were way too forgiving imo. And this lack of real creative vision is also something we see in the cinematography and direction which.... seems often confused about the way it wants to make things feel fantastical and ends up dropping the ball on the execution of these meant-to-be extravagant or over-the-top shots.

But, again, the cinematography is just... middling at best, made only worse by the editing which is just plain bad. I guess you’ll have to just take me on my word on this because I am not willing to do an autopsy of all I find off about it, but lord jesus mary and joseph it was painful to watch at certain moments.

Bridgerton is not the first show to do colourblind casting, although I’d say it deserves recognition for fucking it up for no reason at all. Like, sure there are criticisms to be had about how it remains still a very white story that falls into certain tropes wrt darker skin characters or the glaring lack of south asian representation considering what the contemporary UK looks like, etc. but what I’m gesturing at is the totally unnecessary but mind-boggling “royal love solved racism” twist we get in the, what, fourth episode? (Broey Deschannel covered the topic quite well imo) The audience would have accepted that there were no in-world explanation for the colourblind version of the already-made fantastical regency that had them dancing to Ariana Grande songs. The colourblindness, racism-free society would have just been another aspirational aspect. They literally did not need to do this.

Honestly I don’t feel like I need to get into why the story itself is not very good or well-executed since it feels very obvious. I won’t begrudge on principle the show for using well-worn tropes and common-to-the-point-of-farce character archetypes, but I have to object to the way it uses them and in the service of what story. And not to make myself in a plot-hole-ding kind of person-who-has-thoughts-about-media, but this is not a story that holds up well to scrutiny or logic, let’s say. And any type of social or political commentary it tried to include was dumb to the point of farce: the Feminist Character Who Wants to Read not Go Dance was just.... a masterclass in bad, embarrassing writing. I am surprised at how unlikeable and boring the vast majority of the characters were, but perhaps less surprised at how a series that planned on having multiple seasons already sold the twist of Lady Whistleblow’s identity at the end of the first season, for what seemed to be no narrative reason at all. That being said, I have to give credit where it’s due and acknowledge that there is a skill in being able to produce stories that get extremely popular and well-loved.

(Do I need to mention the performances? So many underwhelming or embarrassing performances. It’s hard to tell sometimes whether it’s the actors themselves or the directing that’s the issue, or a mixture of both, but.... oof).

I guess in the end Bridgerton’s biggest transgression is it sits for me in the uncomfortable middle where it is neither trashy or campy fun nor is it an interesting work of fiction. Differently put, it is simply neither good nor fun.

#cherryblossomshadow #long post #brine corner #i suppose #not mdzs

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reidecorating · 4 years ago

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the bau team and their star signs based on science

hotch: clearly an aries. this is not up for debate and i don't take criticism. natural born and excellent leader? maybe. but bossy boots because he is just a bossy boss man who probably sleeps in a suit or those pyjamas that have suit graphics on them? most definitely. when he speaks, his voice sounds like it’s coming out in all lower case, when he yells, it’s all caps. angery. down to throw hands at anything in his immediate line of vision probably. will exterminate you like a roach if you mess with someone he cares about. don't break the rules or my boss will kill me 😡 to you're breaking the rules under MY supervision, that way my boss will kill US 🥰. probably microwaves food a lot. type of dad to say no to getting a dog, then two months later get matching christmas costumes with said dog. never stops working because he is an absolute UNIT built like the circuit of one of those infinity pools in bali. could use another sabbatical.

rossi: i saw his birth certificate and the rumours are true, he’s a november sagittarius. two wives away from being a modern day king henry the eighth. it’s rossi’s world and we’re all just living in it. he is a prophet. his third eye has been opened and he ascended to the seventh dimension at the age of 24. when he takes leave, the only way to contact him is through a ouija board in latin or maybe greek depending on the position of the sun. he will only die when he chooses to die but will dissolve at the words ‘what are we?’. the major arteries in his body are just long pieces of macaroni. definitely has hooked up with one person from every state the jet has landed in. no filter between his brain and mouth, will destroy your self confidence intentionally. uses abbreviations when texting. liberal - because of the experimenting back in college. probably friends with your mum on facebook.

prentiss: imagine her being anything but an air sign. you can't because she's clearly an aquarius?? work comes first (first equal with her girlfriend). if you tell her to do something she simply won't do it, especially if it was something she was just about to do. she once came home from a run with her mother in the summer and her mother politely suggested that she should drink some water. emily, an anarchist, did not drink water and was hospitalised for heatstroke in due course of proving her point of nonconformity. has been to jail. sucks on candy canes and makes them pointy because christmas is one of her least favourite days. on probation. no, i really like him *deletes his number*. maybe moves to iceland to become a sheep herder to avoid having to ever see anyone she has romantically affiliated with ever again. actually quite the jester, joke levels exceed 4000, but can make you laugh and cry in the span of approximately the length of a short youtube ad. the antichrist.

morgan: has at some point caused someone to question their sexuality. am i really a straight man? do i really only like women? - direct quotes from anyone who has seen him. if that doesn't scream libra i don't know what does. i’m trying to refrain from using the words ‘hot’, ‘sex god’, ‘rail me’. the kinda guy who will hold open a door for you, but also have no problem kicking one down for you. has never ditched class before. momma’s boy. tries to make his pecs move in the mirror. he KNOWS he’s hot okay??? but THEN its not just that because people are like ‘oh he's attractive’ but then they find out he’s RESPECTFUL, and INTELLIGENT and COMPASSIONATE and then that awkward moment when you just DIE because he is not flawed??? it’s like he’s a lucid dream??? probably secretly is really good at baking some obscure european good. uses colognes that have really manly man sounding names for instance, ‘Man Musk’, ‘Mystical Muscles’, ‘Beards and Buttercream’.

garcia: the epitome of a female pisces. a baddie™. definitely owns a pair of those really skinny sunglasses that influencers wear and looks like god herself while in them. spirals from being the momma bear to the wine-aunt. she will care about you so hard but if that's not reciprocated, will hack into your my eyes only and fax those pictures to every machine she can connect to. accidentally has flirted her way into at least 19 relationships. really good at writing fan fiction??? like - seriously good. knows 4 different synonyms for the word “member” iykyk. researches things the people she loves most enjoy, so when she talks to them she can have more detailed conversations. catches feelings for people who are definitely not good for her. sometimes just takes off her glasses because she's tired of, well... seeing. hand makes cute lil earrings for her friends. a master at fireboy and watergirl and will never play with anyone else because ‘another player just slows you down, i can do it myself in half the time’. THAT FRIEND WHO WILL WAIT FOR YOU TO TIE YOUR LACES.

jj: virgo. she was definitely that girl who had notes with pretty titles and colour coded highlighters in school. also did extracurriculars in the weekends so she’d have to be picked up from sleepovers early to go to soccer games. when she takes the time to learn something she learns it well and perfects any craft handed to her because anything less than 100% is failure in her eyes. gets annoyed when other people cry for too long probably. will judge you. so much. silently. especially if you cry. don't make her mad because she has caused civil unrest in 13 continents. live, laugh, love signs in her kitchen. security footage surfaced in 2007 of her roundhouse kicking a middle aged man, in the junk food aisle of a trader joe’s, after he took the last re-stocked bag of cheetos. has a ‘mom first, agent second’ mug that garcia got her. likes family walks which will most likely be planned out meticulously, involving a detailed itinerary of the day i.e. Henry’s toilet break, 10AM

reid: he despises star signs and anyone who gives them any thought because “where is the SCIENCE?” this bitch is a scorpio. definitely only knows his sun sign. so intense! have you seen the way he looks at things?? the way he stares??? the way he analyses dead bodies??? the way he loves??? ridiculously put together to everyone around him but emotionally life is soup and he is fork. kinky. breaks off bananas little by little with his hands before eating each piece individually because eating them normally is too sensual and he’s paranoid morgan might see him doing it and take a picture. wants the kind of love he reads about. has a superiority complex about having a superiority complex. keeps a straight face while saying literally anything so you cannot tell if he’s being serious or not like one day he’ll just be like “yeah i killed a man with an axe once to enable myself to more easily empathise with future unsubs who potentially work as lumberjacks or have a history of logging. it’s called method axing,” and then leave the room to draw circles on maps or something. believes that parallel parking should work, in theory, but never seems to work for him in practice.

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delusion-of-negation · 3 years ago

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top 10 (ish) ridiculous or annoying FAQs:

(click at your own discretion)

1) "kids today rely on others to do everything"

ah yes, damn those participation trophies! if it wasn't for them my hands wouldn't be fucked, and I wouldn't need people to write for me. but seriously, stop reading boomer comics, and go outside to meet some actual young people.

2) "sus that a non-american says mom"

yeah, because it's clearly the superior version, and I'm not too patriotic to concede a defeat.

3) "sweaty, the victims of abuse by catholics are real people, stop appropriating their pain just because you want to hate catholics; plus teachers abuse people just as often anyway"

so firstly, I don't hate anybody. and secondly, regarding the fact that victims really do exist, [insert "of course I know him, he's me" meme here]; although I don't often talk much about the abuse I went through or what my religious beliefs are. but, more importantly, statements like "survivors are people" can be phrased like "some people are survivors", and when you're unable to act according to the latter (like when you don't even consider that somebody might be one) then you display a failure to recognise the former - you're projecting; a survivor can't be appropriating their own pain, but you can be appropriating it to silence one. and thirdly, teachers do abuse - the problem isn't and has never been purely religion, rather that abuse is often done by somebody in a position of trust, power, and familiarity; and that the lack of a global minimum enables totally legal abuse on top of the illegal stuff. people with access and respect have more opportunity to abuse than those without, and that goes for teachers too. but, once again, you can be appropriating the pain of survivors to deflect and silence people. please remember this before you say that shit.

4) "get help/therapy"

way ahead of you - years ahead of you. but it's not magic - people who say this often act as if you'll start behaving differently overnight. not only are some things simply beyond the ability of talking therapy to completely rectify, it also takes time and has to be selective. you've got to pick your priorities, and that's definitely not whatever ship or joke you're mad at me about today. therapy is a slow, arduous process that can't guarantee results - it isn't "anti-recovery" to recognise that, it's honesty. while I've been in therapy for a long time, it is not necessarily going to change whatever you don't like about me - whether that's because it can't, because my focus now is on more important or urgent things, or because I don't want to change that.

5a) "tell your family you ship incest, see how that goes; normal people find it disgusting"

actually, some know, and they're fine with it. in fact, one prefers sibling pairings in fiction to all other dynamics because, to paraphrase, "it's a deeper level of messed up co-dependence". so unfortunately for you, my remaining family (by which I mean those not dead or cut out of my life after abuse and so forth) actually are able to distinguish between fiction and reality. plus, my reasoning for caring if they find it gross or not pertains only to recommending books and such - their opinions do not dictate my tastes.

5b) "don't sexualise/appropriate incestuous abuse" and "I bet you enjoyed being raped" and other attempts to upset me over 5a

firstly, as I've already said here, survivors can't be appropriating ourselves. in addition, you're not owed people's history or trauma - it's not okay to require people's personal information, or else you'll send anon hate and accusations of appropriation. secondly, I'm not sexualising our abuse (not just because I write horror, and so a lot of my writing is intended to be creepy, not sexy); these stories aren't about us, they're not us at all. entire dynamics/people (fictional or otherwise) aren't all going to be applicable to us or identical to us, just because they have something in common with us; they're not us and they're not accountable to us. thirdly, the fact that people send this stuff (attempting to trigger people's trauma over ships) is so much more worrying to me than somebody making our communal imaginary friends kiss. you're trying to hurt people. and finally, to the "I bet you enjoyed it" crowd (if you're at all serious): do you think you'd enjoy being in a real zombie apocalypse, alone, afraid, and really at risk of being eaten alive? a fictional scenario does not feel remotely the same as a real one. this isn't rocket science - things that look like you aren't you; fiction isn't reality; don't send anon hate. (edit: comparable "just leave me alone, I'm not hurting anyone" sentiments for yandere stuff, and anything else you decide I'm naughty for.)

6) "you'll be sent off to do manual labour once your communist revolution happens"

while I don't know why people think that I'm a communist, a dictatorial regime probably isn't going to want me to do manual labour. they're more likely to just shoot me; I'm useless and a liability. call me crazy, but something tells me that "ah yes, we shall give ze deranged cripple ze power tools" isn't the communist position.

7a) "they/them can't be singular pronouns"

yes they can, and they're used as such in both shakespeare and the bible. but you don't have to say this - I'm also okay with he/him, so you could've just used those and chilled out. also, do I look like somebody who views the rules of grammar as fully immutable and imperative?

7b) "enbies/aros/pan/etc aren't valid"

do you really think that you're going to change any hearts or minds by putting that in my ask box or under my funny maymays? chill out, it's not worth the effort - you could be planning a party (in minecraft) and having fun instead. it isn't worth my time to rant at everybody who's saying something isn't valid, updating how I'm explaining it as my opinions grow and general discourse around it evolves; I'm just who I am, somebody else is who they are - why bicker in presumptuous ways about if that's enough? it ultimately is valid, in my opinion, but that isn't an invitation to keep demanding that I debate. (edit: old posts of mine probably don't phrase things incredibly, on this or anything... I tried.)

8) "what are your politics?"

my politics are informed first and foremost by the knowledge that I'm not cut out to be some kind of leader - I don't want to be the guy who tells everyone else what to do, I just offer what seem to me like valid criticisms of how we are doing things now, and general pointers on the values and ethics that I would prefer to move towards. things like individual freedom, taking the most pacifist route where possible, trying not to give excessive power to small groups of people (governments or corporations), helping those in need even when they're not palatable, and letting me suck loads of dicks. but please refrain from decreeing me something - there's not enough information in what I said, so you'll just be filling in the blanks with assumptions. (edit: workplace democracy seems cool to me; benefits are good; fair fines and taxes; and the "sperm makes you loopy" saga: 1, 2, 3, and 4.)

9) "you're a narcissist"

no, I don't meet the diagnostic criteria. joking on the internet that you're hot doesn't make a person a narcissist. the fact that I've chosen to keep my actual self-esteem issues to myself is not proof that they don't exist - you're just not entitled to that information about me. but it's also not narcissism to really like how you look. (edit: don't throw labels around carelessly too.)

10a) "kin list?"

the fabric of the universe, a zombie, dionysus, maned wolf/arctic fox hybrid, a comedian, big gay, big rock, ambiguously partial insincerity. (edit: kin list may or may not be incomplete.)

10b) "kin isn't valid/that's just being insane"

haven't we established that I'm deranged, and that sending stuff like this on anon is simply a waste of your precious time? besides, I do not care if it's invalid or insane - it's fun, I'm happy. (edit: see 7b for my opinion on sending me yet another ask with "that's invalid" in it; I'm not in the mood to discuss the nature of validity.)

bonus: "it gets better" and "trigger list?"

as I've said before, things just don't always get better for everyone - sometimes things can't be cured or even treated, sometimes they kill you; in some cases it could get better if not for a blockade or lack of time. the world is messy. it needs to be more normalised to reassure or comfort people without relying on saying that their issue will get better or be cured. it does suck to be this ill, but it also sucks to be made out to be a lazy pessimist, just because I have the audacity to not play along. and as for the trigger list, I don't like providing people with an easily accessed list of ways to hurt my feelings or harm me - upsetting me is supposed to be challenging, and thus rewarding. if you want a cheat sheet then you're out of luck, I'm afraid.

bonus #2: "FAQ stands for frequently asked questions, it doesn't need that s at the end!"

yeah, I know, I just enjoy chaos and disarray.

bonus #3 (edit): "what are your disabilities and how exactly are they incurable and/or deadly?"

again, I don't tell the internet everything about me, especially when it poses a risk, especially not as an easily accessible list for you to refer back to whenever you feel inclined to hurt my feelings. that is understandably a sore subject. (edit: that includes physical health issues btw.)

bonus #4 (edit): "so we shouldn't be critical?"

if it wasn't clear from my answer about politics or my post in general, you can have opinions about things, and you can voice that. it's just not realistic to exist at extremes: to think that you alone should dictate what exists in fiction, or to think that people shouldn't be expressing disdain or criticism of any calibur. say how you feel about things, that's fine, but it's also fine if people find that they don't value your input. plus we're all flawed, we can all be hypocritical from time to time, we all get bitchy, and we all make mistakes, or even knowingly fuck things up. that's important to keep in mind, whether we're talking about the one being criticised or the one doing the criticising - poor choices of words, imperfect tone, or contradictory ideas are inevitably going to happen occasionally.

congrats on reaching the end! if you have, at any point, said one of these to me, you owe a hug to your nearest loved one (once it's safe).

edit: might add more links/bonus points in the future when I think of things, but it's late now. (sorry for links where prior notes in the thread have my old url, that may get a tad confusing; also, not all links are my blog or my op, since it is to illustrate points/vibes, not to self-promo.)

#don't take life too seriously #nobody gets out alive anyway #tw abuse mention #tw csa mention #tw incest mention #tw for any tws I missed #idk why I did this

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kendrixtermina · 4 years ago

Note

One thing that felt uncomfortable to go along with in the CF route for me was when Edelgard lies about what happened at Arianrhod to her closest allies (Black Eagle Strike Force) and blames it on the church. Can you give some insight as to why she does this? Especially when Edelgard criticizes the church for lying to the people of Fodlan, but isn’t she doing it here?

That’s certainly a moment that is genuinely ambiguous / a valid point of criticism and something I’d laud a whistleblower for exposing if it were a RL politician, but also the sort of realpolitik / appearance management that has taken place in most RL wars.

Once you’re the leader of anything, allowing panic, division, etc. at bad moments comes with its costs. Of course this is hardly a carte blanche (see: Beating down legit protesters for superficial “order”), but neither is it a factor that can be ignored completely.

At the point of the Arianrhod attack Edelgard was one month away from seizing control of the landmass and ending the large-scale fighting, having one enemy taken out (the Church) and being able to turn all her resources on the other (the Agarthans)

The agarthans at this point know they’re losing control of Edelgard and they’re not stupid enough to have any illusions about her loyalty. So they fire a warning shot to demonstrate their superior weaponry. Arundel makes a thinly veiled threat to fire it on Enbarr.

Of course at this point he basically gave away his location and allowed Edelgard & Hubert to come up with countermeasures, but they don’t want him to know that yet, their strategy involves that they keep being underestimated, let the Agarthans keep thinking that the “beasts” have no counter for the nukes pointed at their heads.

But they still destroyed half a fortress killing the ppl inside. If she reveals that she’s got a rogue faction infiltrating her ranks that’s firing frightening superweapons nilly willy, there will be chaos outrage and disunity right before the final battle. If she doesn’t make a statement at all and declares it a mystery, no one will believe it and her own faction will get the blame throughout the country. So what does she do? Pin it on the enemy she is currently fighting anyways. The purpose here is not to reveal the Agarthan situation too early so they can focus on the church for now.

It’s unclear if this was ever revealed to the public (probably not, I don’t think she’d cause a stir on principle alone) but the ending cards make it quite clear that the Strike Force was let in on the Agarthan situation later and helped her mop them up.

Yeah, it’s defamation, an indisputable textbook government cover up and maybe even technically a kind of propaganda, but her casus belli existed before it’s not like she’s basing it on the lie, and in most wars throughout history the factions have hidden or made a spin of failures & mishaps and made the enemy look bad.

There are certainly many historical examples of such actions creating problems, such as fueling lingering resentments or creating general mistrust that can led to real information not being believed etc. so it’s by no means a safe action that is no big deal and I can see how it could be a legit dealbreaker for some, you certainly weren’t supposed to be 100% comfortable with it, or anything on the CF route, everyone involves is well aware that they’re doing ugly, costly things because (or so they see it) the alternatives are all worse. In that sense it’s the most self-aware one. It’s about actually looking at the bottom line of consequences, not what makes you feel like a hero.

At the same time, doing things like that that squander her moral credibility genuinely IS a flaw in Edelgard’s leadership style - it’s probably why more ppl didn’t believe her manifesto, “she already lied to us cooperating with these shady guys”, making it look like a ‘he said she said’ situation to the wider public that can’t go & confirm the evidence for themselves. This is why Claude thinks he has a better shot at winning& implementing reforms in VW (”too shady for the ppl to get behind”) - just like Dimitri has no plans and Claude’s secrecy creating mistrust even when his secret plan is utterly benevolent. Doesn’t matter how altruistic you are if you look suspicious it will have consequences I mean that’s how she loses on the other rouses, everyone ganks up on her cause she antagonized them all with suspicious actions. I’m not saying she’s any more perfect than the other 2.

but putting that on the same scale as what Rhea did is comparing a candle to the sun.

And maybe the Kantians in the audience will disagree with me but it can be a bit unhelpful to classify different actions of vastly different consequence and magnitude as “Lies”. There is a common principle (telling things that aren’t exactly true) but different magnitude. Clearly “The Confederacy was all great and glorious” and “I totally didn’t eat my little sister’s share of toffees” aren’t on the same level of immorality.

Neither is below the “everythings fine and dandy” line but one is a lie about one incident for one clear purpose, and the other is creating a whole fake world view for the express purpose of control, maintaining harmful systems, suppressing any advancement of science & technology... for 1000 years.

Scale, purpose and consequences are totally different. The arianrhod coverup coming to light would spark controversy & discussion on wether she should have done it under those circumstances; Some might change their opinion about her but overall everyone already knew that she’s not above dirty methods. If you told the average citizen of Fodland about all of Rhea’s lies, everything they know would be wrong. They would go from Adoring & worshipping her to being very confused about what’s true.

It’s the difference between your average modern-day politician doing backroom deals with diverse industry lobbies to accomplish their other goals, and a place like Saudi Arabia.

To get perspective here, let’s look at another example: Claude’s deceptions.

He, too, ultimately wants what’s best for everyone and a lot of the time he decides to fool people to avoid fighting them, I don’t mean to bash him at all, but let’s look at his actions in and of themselves:

Look at the sequence where he, Hilda & Byleth rope the church into helping them - that’s even more outright with the slimy politician tactics: He tries to downplay alliance involvement though he is totally in control, he says that “getting the church on our side will make fighting the empire look like a moral cause” implying that he doesn’t think it is one but wants to portray it as one to get ppl’s support, we’re told he made lots of promises to the merchants to get them on his side (so like that’s literal lobbyists), he installs Byleth as a figurehead, he tells the church ppl he wants to help them get back their old power when he really wants it to diminish and to drastically reorder the society.

He tells everyone he’ll help them save Rhea but while he still has basic human empathy for her & what happened to her he makes it clear he doesn’t want her to go back to being archbishop... at all. He even does this with Byleth: “Yeah, sure, teach we’re totally gonna save her” though in their case he tries to hint that she’s not to be trusted for their own good. Despite his dishonesty, he’s actually a very good friend to them imho. (#broTP)

In the end the power struggle between Claude and Edelgard isn’t personal nor a righteous struggle - he’s just taking advantage of the chaos she caused and he needs the seat of power to reach his own goal. He thinks he can do it better and she’s in the way (and to be fair, she thinks the same about him)

It’s your classic slimy politician: “he’s pretending to be for family values etc thing but really he wants power & is in cahoots with economic interests and he won’t do what he promised” etc. ... except with the plot twist that he’s deeply good and not actually all that ruthless. In a sense he’s as much a total subverted trope as Edelgard.

So doesn’t he have the right to criticise Rhea either? Or do you see how, while not per perfect, he’s miles better and not remotely the same?

Edelgard isn’t 100% truthful, but by and large, she made her intentions very clear with the pamphlets and stuff (even if it meant antagonizing ppl who were against that) and all her soldiers generally know what they’re fighting for and are going to get out of it if they support her, or what the consequences will be if they fail, even if she kept some of the “how” to herself.

Which isn’t to say that Claude ever makes ppl act against their interests even if it’s sometimes what he sees as their interests.

Under Rhea’s rule no one knew what the government’s doing, why it’s doing it, or to some degree, even that she IS the government... for 1000 years. There’s some cult of personality going on. She probably genuinely believes that it does benefit the sheeple to be “guided” by her, but she hasn’t even told Seteth about all she’s doing, she’s pretty much accountable to no one.

In terms of honesty, we could probably rank the lords like this:

Dimitri (a few omissions at worst)

Seteth (lies mostly out of self-preservation)

Edelgard (some convenient secrecy here & there)

Yuri (about the same as El but I’d put him slightly higher for the fake betrayal)

Claude (no one rly knows what he’s up to, but he gets ppl what he promised them and doesn’t outright betray them)

(very)

(big)

(gap)

Rhea (fake history, isolationist bubble, abuse of power left & right, manipulation, will smile in your face while planning to make you a meat puppet for her mom)

#fe3h #fire emblem: three houses #fire emblem three houses #three houses #edelgard von hresvelg #edelgard

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c-ptsdrecovery · 5 years ago

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Cults and Dysfunctional Families

The techniques of control used by cults (here meaning social groups that exert excessive and abusive control over their members) are also used by domestic abusers and child abusers. I’ve posted before about the commonalities between cults and dysfunctional families. Well, I was just looking back over the notes I had for a talk on cults that I gave in my Bible study group a couple of years ago... and there are definitely characteristics there that sound like my family. So here are some notes with my commentary added.

• Cults displays excessively zealous and unquestioning commitment to its leader (whether he is alive or dead), and regards his belief system, ideology, and practices as the Truth, as law. Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished. [My dysfunctional family wasn’t quite the zealous, but yes, questioning my parents’ assumptions about the world is not popular with them.]

• The leadership induces feelings of shame and guilt in order to influence and control members. Often, this is done through peer pressure and subtle forms of persuasion. [My mom’s major forms of control are guilt trips and passive aggression.]

• The group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, its leader(s) and members. ‪ The group has a polarized us-versus-them mentality. This discourages members from listening to the rational criticisms of the group by their loved ones. [The assumption in our home was that where other families or individuals differed in their practices from us, their practices were inferior. The way we did it was automatically the right and sensible way to do things. This constant, unspoken assumption made me think that kinder, more open families were somehow doing it wrong. This made me not only NOT question my family, but look at healthier families and practices as alien and stupid.]

• Members are encouraged or required to live or socialize ONLY with other group members. They are required to cut ties with family and friends. This means that they rarely hear any criticisms of the group from the outside, and also means that they have no social support network to help them after they leave the cult. [While my family isn’t totally isolationist, they ARE very selective about the people they hang out with. For instance, when I was a kid, my birthday parties were almost always with extended family, not with friends. I was not permitted to invite friends to them. A couple of times i managed to get my best friend invited however: because she was a second cousin. If she wasn’t, I doubt my parents would have let me invite her. Also the fact that my best friend was my cousin should give you some idea of my family’s idea of socializing. I rarely went to friends’ houses (except my cousin’s) or had friends over, yet we spent almost all Sunday, every Sunday, with extended family (very lonely for me, as cousins my age were rarely there). My parents rarely socialized outside the home except at church or with a few VERY select friends. I also lived in the country, and almost all my neighbors were relatives, so I didn’t have outside people to play with outside of school. I always knew, as a child, that it was pointless to run away, because there was nobody and nowhere to run TO. Unfortunately, while studies have shown that having even one person in your life that can nurture you can hugely decrease your trauma as a result of childhood emotional neglect, I didn’t have that one person.

The group is often preoccupied with money. [I have a lot of anxiety around money, partly because my parents mocked me for spending any of it on myself as a child. There is definitely an air of monetary preoccupation with my parents.]

“love-bombing”: Potential recruits are overwhelmed with attention which makes them feel special, loved, and an important part of the new group. Aspects of this technique include, but are not limited to flattery, verbal seduction, affectionate but usually non-sexual touching, and lots of attention. Love-bombing can produce a social high. Recruits can come to feel dependent on this feeling and the safety net of belonging to a close-knit group of people. It also makes them feel loyal and dedicated, as they now may feel they owe the group some attention in return.[like many abusers, my mom blows hot and cold. For almost a year now she’s been REALLY NICE: it dates from when she found out that I blamed their parenting for my PTSD. She’s clearly trying to convince me she’s a GOOD mom, a NICE mom, and not to tell anybody otherwise. What this has mostly convinced me of is that she COULD have been nice to me all along if she’d actually cared, but she decided she’d rather be abusive.]

In order to keep a member trapped in a cult, the group establishes a threat of some kind. This threat of death can be literal, but usually refers to spiritual death, loss of afterlife, loss of purpose, loss of identity, or the loss of important ideals and attributes. [If my family is right and everybody else is wrong, then disagreeing with my family would mean I was wrong and bad and worthy of contempt. Also, my family worked hard to wear down my self-esteem (see below) so that I believe that if I alienate my family, I won’t be able to handle myself in the outside world and something terrible will happen to me, like failure, unemployment, homelessness, and poverty.]

• Standards for thoughts and behavior are held impossibly high, so that members are never able to reach the goal of what they “should” be, and as such, they never feel as if they measure up. The goals themselves are presented as possible to attain, and thus the standards never become suspect, only the member who is not meeting them. Perfectly normal things like the desire for leisure time, the desire to be alone, or the desire to sleep are depicted as evil. Cult members are therefore tormented by their inability to reach the group’s standards, and can be manipulated through their low self-esteem. And just when they can’t stand the emotional abuse anymore… the leader will praise them for something they did well and they’re so grateful that they stay.

Creating dependency: A member comes to depend on the group for physical, emotional, social, spiritual, or other needs. The member has a high stake in continuing to stay loyal to the group. [see above]

• Cults encourage Black and white thinking: Broad spectrums of thought and morality become reduced to two options: Good vs. Evil, Love vs. Hate, Weak vs. Strong, etc. This stops cult members from seeing other options for their lives. [VERY MUCH THIS. But then if you express criticism of the family using this vocabulary, they can gaslight you by pointing out that “we didn’t do that EVERY time!”]

A persecution complex may exist whereby reasonable criticism is reframed as an attack. [This is a portrait of my mother.]

• Many kinds of abuse occur in cults. Cults mentally abuse their members by making them doubt their own ability to make decisions or live outside the group. They emotionally abuse members by tearing down their self-esteem in order to further control them. Cults sometimes physically or sexually abuse members. They almost always economically abuse their members by requiring or encouraging them to give most or all of their money and labor to the cult. Cult leaders frequently form cults in order to gain admiration, adulation, control of others, money, and/or sex. [My parents have never physically or sexually abused me, but the rest of this is true. My parents even tried to get me to use up $8,000 of my savings so that I could apply for SSI, which would MAYBE have given me an income of a couple of hundred bucks a month? A program of making me economically dependent on them as well as emotionally dependent.]

Why people don’t leave cults

· Sunk cost fallacy

· Fear of reprisals or shunning [yep]

· Fear of loss of identity [somewhat]

· Fear of death or damnation outside of group

· Leaving behind family members who are still in the cult

· Practical problems: no support system, no money, no education, no home, no job, custody of children [yep]

· Poor self-esteem and self-efficacy [definitely]

#dysfunctional family #cults #emotional abuse #childhood emotional neglect #abusive parents

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violetsystems · 4 years ago

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#personal

The holidays are quiet if not a little more restful than usual. I facetime’d my dad and his wife and talked to my mom on the phone. Since I left my job way back in July I haven’t had much video contact with anybody. Everybody is too busy baking banana bread on YouTube I guess to check in. The final days of my employment had devolved into a virtual SCRUM twice a day led by myself on camera. It was exhausting at times to lead but kept people focused. That is when they bothered to show up. One of my employees was off making music with my boss half the time I was trying to lead those discussions. I’m beginning to sense a theme. People saying they are there but not really. Maybe the mic is muted. Maybe you can’t see behind the screen. All I know is the follow through lately with people is missing entirely. I spent a good hour the last two days trying to decouple a credit card from my old job’s contact info. I’m locked out of both the phone number and the email attached to the account. I got the run around trying to provide a US passport to confirm my identity. It was good enough to enter China alone. The first call that ID was sufficient. They had said they sent an email to follow through with the process to two different emails I provided. The email never came most likely because neither had been tied to the account previously. I called back on Christmas eve and suddenly the passport wasn’t good enough. Neither was an expired driver’s license. The woman actually asked me why I hadn’t renewed my driver’s license. I told the truth. My ex girlfriend stole my car. That didn’t really help the situation. I sent a passport photo to unlock my facebook but they never followed through. I had an easier time unlocking my Fortnite account with it although that took a full week. I ended having to call the police on Christmas eve to explore filing a report for fraud and identity theft. The police officer on the phone pretty much gaslighted me at the end of the questioning. “Nothing criminal.” he stated plainly. I didn’t get mad. I didn’t even complain. I simply said Happy Holidays and hung up. Much like I’ve hung up on the last twenty years of my life at this point. Nobody seems to want to answer the video call. The opening introduction if they did would be something like “What exactly have you done with my life?” Maybe they’re afraid to confront the truth. The media, the government, and even the police seem to not want to believe evidence that contradicts their narrative. I guess you could throw up your hands and revolt. But the holidays have been peaceful and quiet enough to simply roll my eyes and move on. I’ve had years of failures to connect. COVID has taught me a lot of things. I heard the mantra in all the mandatory corporate webinars. This pandemic has brought to light structural problems we were never aware of before. Sexual harassment in the workplace. Check. Organizational corruption. Check. The fact everybody is full of bullshit and will just mute the mic and pretend it never happened. Check. People feel invincible behind a screen and think they know it all. Check. Now that we’re aware. What do we do? How do we move on with our life now that we have all this space? How do I even care about participating in a broken process when I have no debt and fiscal maturity? How can I go back to being the old me when I’ve been completely erased and conveniently forgot about? Why would I even bother?

Mostly I take the time with this process to make sure my identity is completely secure. Which is why it’s not really fun to be locked out of twenty years of your own information in the form of an email account and forgotten about for six months. But this is just the structural reality come to light. Much like the rest of America is waking up to the reality of what greed really does to people. That was my Christmas present this year aside from the coffee that never came and that Cyberpunk game that I don’t really have the time or the subpar computer setup to criticize. I’m guilty of tricking myself into thinking people care about me. I have statistical data from the last six months that proves otherwise. I also have financial data that points to whatever hustle I have been hustling during that time has paid off and will continue to. But I don’t really have an answer to anything. I’m in the worst kind of limbo. I don’t get the sense these days that I should even remotely worry until July. Which is kind of like saying fuck you to the world for the next six months. I spent the last six waking up from a nightmare. The only times I look back is to clean up the mess. And a Christmas Eve call to the police is kind of messy. But the result is more of the same for me. An extravagant “I told you so.” I’ve been telling myself for awhile now a lot of things. Some of them were kind of unbelievable. Now those very dreams are all I really take comfort in. The limbo I’m in is more pointed to the light at the end of the tunnel than the void. But I can’t say the same for everybody else. I work for myself for the time being. It looks really nice on paper. I can even pay myself if it fits into my organization’s financial outlook. But none of this matters when you or your struggles don’t even exist to people other than to mock or judge it. All the work we do to survive. All the work we do to create art and to be beautiful in the face of chaos. All of that is negated by a loud mouthed jerk who can bark you back into submission. A mob of dumb ass fraudsters that talk over and mute any opposition without any warrant or merit. The press follows this mentality pretty clearly. Everybody has a hot take and a theory. But nobody wants to sit down and listen to the culmination of lies spread about people and situations. Everyone is too emotionally interested in sharing their recipe for banana bread to an invisible audience. I guess I could be guilty of that too. Except that I share actual human emotion and care with a community of people who pay attention week to week. For a person like myself who has no real need to worry about money for the foreseeable future what’s the value of care and attention? A lot. I don’t feed myself with vapor or fake sentiments. I take it all at base level as real as it gets. You can’t build a future on speculation. You can technically if you are in the stock market. But risk is risk. And money is money. No one can be me at the end of the day. Sometimes I can’t even prove I’m myself. My mom reminded me I had to provide ten pieces of documentation to renew my passport ten years ago. The reasoning was simple. The government did not believe I existed. No bullshit. A decade later nothing really has changed. I’ve been to Shanghai by myself and eaten McDonald’s. I read all these Republicans talk about how you put your identity at risk just setting foot in that country.

And yet when does the rhetoric and brainwashing fall flat on it’s face? When you can’t pass economic stimulus to not only save your own people but the fragile stock market all this bullshit is built upon. I could keep telling you I told you so. Or I could save my own ass. And largely I did without really owing much to this country whatsoever except taxes in Q1. Taxes billionaires don’t have to pay because they offer us so much relevant employment and benefits that fit on their bottom line. The real truth is that America would rather not face the truth. It hasn’t for years. It’s built on this kind of thing. It always has been. And the world gets bigger and the excuses get worse. And so what does anyone expect a person like me to do after you openly admit that there’s nothing criminal going on here. How does that sound when you’ve been treated openly like a criminal in so many unsettling ways that you just don’t want to participate in society anymore? Not that anyone really asks me to participate. They’re too busy signaling or whispering secret messages. Is it suggestion or valid communication? I’m the one that has to shift through it all and detangle the mess from what is real and what is some sort of mass hallucination. An alternate reality hunger game that the rich have been playing for years without any punishment or oversight. When you get caught up in the crossfire they expect you to know the drill. Keep your mouth shut if you know what’s good for you. None of this is good for me. You could argue it made me the beast that I am. But I am the one who had to actively make that choice to adapt and survive. But I’m not like any normal person these days. I refuse to admit it anymore. They say the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. I have a problem. One that it seems I cannot fix. And if you isolate and quarantine yourself from an entire twenty years of nostalgia what is left? Where are the texts of merry xmas from yesteryear. Probably pinging my old work number. I can’t access my facebook. Maybe that’s for the best. I can’t shut down lines of credit until I renew my state ID. I could jump on a plane and visit Shanghai Disney quicker than I could prove I’m alive to the US government. And when does the constant gaslighting break down? When do we realize that people gaslight to cover up an elaborate lie that has gotten out of control. That we are not all in this together. Not by a longshot. That the problem of connectedness is right there in front of our faces. We’re exhausted propping up entire infrastructures that keep a bloated empire alive. Family fortunes built on opioids and war strewn out across the landscape in trusts and elaborate tax schemes. Oligarchs that have generational wealth that buy our politicians and scam people into debt and forced labor. This is America. This is the systemic problem the pandemic brought to light. This shit was built this way. And like any fort constructed with shaky foundations, good luck hiding from the storm in that shit. At least I can still access my Epic account. What am I going to do for the next six months? Complain about something I can’t fix because everybody wants to consider me part of the problem? I don’t know what to do anymore except move forward and lead by example. There’s enough quality people who follow to keep me warm with those thoughts through the holidays alone. I won’t be drunk on a zoom call. I’ll be in bed watching Wonder Woman or something. When everyone you worshipped comes out of this looking fake, tired and exhausted you’ll know where to find me. Unlocking more accounts tied to an identity that doesn’t exist anymore. Nothing criminal. Hopefully people will stop treating me like one eventually. <3 Tim

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templarhalo · 5 years ago

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Templarhalo reviews Birds of Prey. (It’s pretty fantabulous)

HERE BE SPOILERS YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

Ok without this movie, I would have not been a Cassandra Cain fan. I would have not four, yes four ongoing fics with her as the main character. I would not be emotionally and financially invested in the DC cinematic universe or the comics side of things.

Which baffles me because this movie is perfect in almost every aspect,... Except how they treated Cassandra Cain. Which is a fucking shame because her actress is perfect, her chemistry and relationship with Harley is perfect, and the idea of Cass growing up as this pickpocket foster kid, taken in by Harley is unconventional, but I fucking love it.

Here’s a brief summary. After breaking up with the Joker Harley Quinn has to make her own way as the strong, badass, indepent woman we all know she is, while dealing with the fact that without Mistah J’s fell reputation as his significant other to shield her, a lot of people want her raped, tortured, killed and left for the crows… Not necessarily in that order.

To get these people off her back and save her own skin, from one of them, the infamous Black Mask. Harley agrees to recover the Bertinelli Diamond, a diamond encoded with the info for a source of 30 million dollars, Black Mask needs to fiance his take over of Gotham. Which was pickpocketed from one of his associates by our Lady and savior Cass.

The problem is, Cass kind of ate it( (I shit you not) and Black Mask’s guys would rather cut it out of her than wait for the poor kid to take a dump Not to mention Detective tReene Montoya (played by her Gotham Actress, which would have been a nice bit of world building if Gotham was actually in the movie continuity) building a case against Black Mask, with the aid of Black Canary Plus Huntress is indirectly gunning for him and Harley in her own quest for revenge. All these plot points converge into a very satisfying climax and fight scene with a somewhat emotionally satisfying ending.

From a technical standpoint this film is a spectacle. Gotham in the day is colorful but rundown, with markets, suave evil bad guy clubs, dilapidated Chinese restaurants and abandoned amusement parks. The fight scenes are AMAZING with a wonderful tension and energy that makes them incredibly visualising satisfying. Everything flows, the ladies move with an enthralling grace that makes them breaking bones, crushing legs,and tearing through people visceral and heartstopping. (And arousing. Like goddamn Jurnee Smollett-Bell could kill me with her legs and I’d thank her)

The problem, is none of this applies to Cass, and this is the films major flaw besides how short it is. (One hour and forty five minutes). If you had problems with how Harley was handled in Suicide Squad, the movie fixes it. Black Canary gets a short but satisfying emotional arc that feels natural. She goes from a cynical, lethargic woman, content to be Black Masks “Little Bird”; A singer at his club, driver and symbol of his power/dominance over other women until her own conscience kicks in at Harley and Cass’ predicament. Huntress also has a short but satisfying arc in which she gets her vengeance on the people who murdered her family and clearly finds a new one to fill the hole in her life, in the form of the Birds. Reene and her portrayal is a love letter to the 80s cop/hard boiled detectives, a pure, simultaneously complicated/uncomplicated woman seeking to do good for Gotham.

But Cass… Doesn’t feel like Cass and is criminally underutilized except as a walking mcguffin by dint of eating the Mcguffin. She’s introduced to us a snarky tween, stuck in a cycle of shitty foster homes and a pickpocket to get by. And that’s it. T

here are moments where you think she'll get a cool fight scene. Moments where you think she’ll have an emotional heart to heart with Harley, moments where you think…she’ll do something besides run from the bad guys and get saved by the Birds of Prey/Her four moms.

In the end she drives into the sunset with Harley and Bruce the Hyena, but it doesn’t feel earned, satisfying as the scene is. There is nothing implying or hinting she’s the daughter of two of the deadliest assassins in the DC universe, nothing about her running away from David Cain, nothing on her learning disabilities/selective mutism and NOTHING, setting her up to be adopted by Batman and become Batgirl

And this is a fucking shame, because Ella Jay Basco has a real chemistry with Margert and the rest of the cast. She’s adorable, funny, snarky and wonderful as Cass. She brings energy and spunk and I would cut off my left hand, to see her act as Cassandra Cain, not this generic punk kid with the name.

And I feel like this is a HUGE problem because the movie sets up this Mother/daughter relationship, with Cass being Harley’s motivation to be a better person. She goes from willing to hand her over to Black Mask to taking the kid under her wing. Cass is the glue that bands the Birds of Prey together. These lovely, dangerous, women coming together to keep a little girl safe, doesn’t feel as emotionally satisfying as it should because Cass isn’t Cass.

While I will praise the movie for Harley’s arc of seeking her own emancipation and agency outside her abusive relationships and life of crime, I feel like Harley’s arc should have been a question of redemption. Cassandra’s motivation to become Batgirl was her refusal to kill again. (Hey WB remember how in Batman Begins Bruce refused to kill a man because “I will not be an executioner.”)

Here Cass is fine with killing. She chucks a bomb at some goons chasing her and she kills Black Mask with a grenade in the end.

Yeah… Cass “I refuse to kill because my dad made me kill an innocent man at eight years old and killing is wrong” kills people.

*head meet desk*

Sucide Squad, set up Harley and the squad, for an unconventional redemption arc, spite motivated it may be, yet Harley despite her line to Cass “You make me want to be a less terrible person” isn’t seeking to make amends for what she did as the Joker’s henchman. (Like being an accomplice to Jason Todd’s murder).

.Cass pickpots and steals to survive, because she’s a kid with no family passed from foster home to foster home, Harley steals because she can, steal a truck to blow up a chemical plant because she can. Kills because she can. (granted she does use an M79 grenade launcher with bean bag shells for one scene but besides that.)

I like the idea of Harley taking Cass under her wing, its an unconventional but fresh idea, but it doesn’t feel entirely satisfying, and Cass not being Cass, not having an arc beyond “Go along with Harley as her apprentice” really undermines the excellent themes and message the movie is trying to convey.

Now maybe in the Suicide Squad reboot with James Gunn or a future DC film , Cass is going to leave Harley because that life of crime and killing doesn’t suit her and she realizes she’s trying to be something she’s not and I’m just being overly critical, but I still feel like “Harley and Cass seeking redemption and moving past their abusers together” should have been where this movie left off, and it baffles me that it doesn’t from a narrative perspective.

Anway the overall themes and message of Birds of Prey are represented in Evan Mcregor’s Black Mask, a walking talking example of repressive toxic masculinity and misogyny. A flamboyant, all but stated to be a repressed Bi, crime lord seeking to take control of Gotham, Black Mask moves with confidence in his loud suits, and charming quirkiness, He’s cruel, sadistic and repulsive His mannerisms ooz terror,and insanity. He moves like a love child between Heath Ledger and Joaquin Phoenix’s take on the Joker, Gaston from Beauty and the Beast and Joffery Baratheon from Game of Thrones. He’s a control freak, trying to be a badass.

One minute he’s the Godfather, the next he’s a brat. He views Harley as nothing without the Joker, telling her that she needs him to protect her. He enjoys asserting his dominance over Harley during her brief capture by having his men beat her while he eats popcorn. He objectifies Black Canary for her singing voice and beauty..

Black Mask asserts his power and authority over the underworld by his control over women. In one frightening scene, he believes one of the women at his club is laughing at him for his failure to capture Cass, so he orders her to stand on a table, then for her boyfriend to rip open her dress with a knife because he finds it ugly.

In summary he represents the patriarchy. He represents sexist, abusive men. He’s a representation of social norms and ideals that are repressive and disgusting, and rob women of their agency, and self-worth. He represents the use of violence, not for noble reasons, but as a means to control women and lash out at those that defy him and supposedly wronged him .

Furthering this line of thought are the costumes. Black Canary’s costumes represent the amount of control, Black Mask has in her life. When we first see her, Dinah is wearing a long black netted evening gown that accents her legs as she sings “It’s a Man’s Man’s World”. Later she wears a blue tank top and gold, tightfitting pants clearly meant to draw our gaze to her ass and thighs. When she’s Black Mask’s driver, she’s wearing a Bra/crop top that bares her midriff under a short blue blaze, but when she decides she’s going to defy him, she wears a yellow tank top and jeans with a gold belt.

Harley’s costumes are as eclectic as she is, with her DIY caution tape shawl, stamped tops and cut up shorts. Huntress’s outfits are all black leather and punkish athletic wear, utilitarian and elegant in their simplicity while Reene wears a “I shave my balls for this” t-shirt reflecting her uncouth, blunt demeanor, as well as button down dress shirts and slacks for the climactic asskicking montage .

Cass is a kid,who clearly doesn’t have the funds for super nice clothes. She;s running around in ratty shorts and a worn out hoody with a red windbreaker, with an orange bandanna askew on her head. At the end, when she rides off with Harley, she copying Harley’s style.

Speaking of costumes, one thing I appreciate is that instead of the male gaze and sexualisation, we get what I like to call “passive fan service” What I mean is that instead of tracking shots on Harley’s ass or boob shoots, like in Suicide Squad the camera just lets these women’s beauty do the talking.

Huntress is wearing a sports bra and tactical pants for the climax, but the camera doesn’t linger on her boobs. A primary example of this is a lot of Padme’s scenes in Episodes II and III of Star Wars. Lucas knows Natalie Portman is a gorgeous woman and he doesn’t need to remind us by deliberate camera shots. He lets Natalie herself and Trisha Biggar’s excellent costumes do it for us.

Also one thing I really… really liked was how in the big penultimate fight, Harley actually passes Dinah a hair tie so she can get her hair out of the way. So for like a minute, she’s beating the ever loving fuck out of goons with her legs as she ties up her hair. A very nice case of reality ensures.

In conclusion Birds of Prey is another notch in the belt for the DC cinematic universe, a solid, fun film with an excellent cast with clear chemistry, hampered by character derailment that undermines its sorely needed themes and message it's trying to convey. The plot is fast paced, but doesn't feel rushed even though it’s only a little over an hour long. It’s uncompromisingly bold, bloody and hilarious. The lack of a proper post credits scene is somewhat annoying and I'm very disappointed how Cass was handled , but this is by no means a terrible film.

Overall I give it a 8.9 out of 10. Highly recommend you go see it. Drag your friends, smuggle in as much candy and drinks as you can. Buy it when it comes out on DVD. If you’re a Cass fan, reread the Puckett run or pick up her new graphic novel Shadow of the Batgirl to wash out the bittersweet taste this will give you. Speaking of Kelley Puckett, he was actually listed in the “Special thanks to…” in the credits, which i’m sure many will appreciate.

These following posts and thoughts on the film I recommend.

https://dcwomenofcolor.tumblr.com/post/190693985900/how-would-you-fix-bop-cass

https://wits-writing.tumblr.com/post/190718974642/birds-of-prey-movie-review

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YeFJjoQoec

#birds of prey #cassandra cain #templarhalo rambles #Templarhalo reviews books

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hashtagartistlife · 5 years ago

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To take a break from the wdkaly bs (but not from the bl**ch ending salt), I’ve been mulling around-- I wouldn’t even call it a meta, it’s nothing so grand as that-- an idea in my head for a while now, regarding ichigo-masaki, rukia-kaien, and loosely, isshin-masaki, and the point of all three of those relationships with regard to the ichiruki relationship.

I’ve always thought the ichiruki relationship is a miracle of a balancing act, for the simple fact that it’s clearly mirroring ichigo-masaki and rukia-kaien, and yet it managed to never be dictated by those associations. How many ih’ers have made the claim that ichigo-rukia is a mother-son or a mentor-student relationship? With a literal mother-son and mentor-student relationship being their parallels, you might think this claim has some grounds-- and yet, ichiruki are anything BUT mother-son or mentor-student in their dynamic. Kubo has managed to avoid them falling into this trap so beautifully by virtue of two things: one, Ichigo and Rukia don’t consciously, directly associate Masaki and Kaien with one another, and two: yes, ichigo-masaki and rukia-kaien are parallels to the ichiruki relationship, but the whole point of them coming up as a parallel was that this time, things are different, and therefore better.

Bear in mind that the ichigo-rukia similarity to ichigo-masaki and rukia-kaien was obvious to us as third-person omniscient readers, but Ichigo and Rukia themselves don’t consciously look at the other person and think ‘ah, mom’ or ‘ah, Kaien-dono’. Let’s start with the Ichigo-Masaki parallel, which is pretty damn clear cut: it’s directly paralleled with Ichiruki in the chapter Broken Coda. HOWEVER, there is not a single instance in which Ichigo puts Rukia up next to his mom and thinks that they are similar. In fact, in-narrative, their symbols are different: Ichigo describes his mom as the sun, and while we’ve never had in-canon material regarding which celestial body Ichigo thinks Rukia is, word-of-god tells us Rukia is his ray of light, which is much more moon connotations (a ray of light offering hope in the darkness) than it is a sun thing. Sure, he does have his mom flashback moment with regard to Rukia in Broken Coda, where he narrates that he wasn’t able to protect... again, indicating he’s equating this failure to his failure to protect his mom. But note, what he’s equating here is the failure; he’s not equating rukia to his mom directly. It’s made abundantly clear throughout the rest of the manga that Rukia’s significance to him is unique and not due to some random similarity with Masaki. When Orihime is asked, what makes this girl so special? she answers not with ‘she’s like the sun; she draws everyone in; she reminds him of his mother’ but with ‘she changed his world’, an answer that clearly sets her apart from anyone else mentioned in the manga for Ichigo.

Now, Rukia-Kaien. The Rukia-Kaien parallel is a little looser, and a little more extended than the Ichigo-Masaki one. The obvious episodic parallel here is Memories in the Rain (and just to reinforce it, Rukia’s flashback chapters involving Kaien are called… you guessed it, Memories in the Rain 2). But here, if Rukia is reminded of anything by Ichigo’s recklessness, it’s not Kaien himself; it’s Kaien’s recklessness, Kaien’s desire for revenge, and her inability to stop him from going to his destruction that she recalls. Just like with Ichigo, she’s not equating Ichigo to Kaien – she’s equating her helplessness in the first situation to her helplessness in the second.

But MITR alone isn’t the full Rukia-Kaien story parallel; it’s only a parallel to the first part of it, the part where Rukia struggles with her helplessness and indecision. It’s worth noting that Rukia actually does not recall Kaien at all during the first MITR mini-arc; all she flashes back to is Ukitake, giving the speech about fights to protect life and fights to protect pride. The second part of the Kairuki – Ichiruki parallel is the Soul Society arc, where Rukia is fully convinced that Ichigo (Kaien) is about to die (actually died) because of her (because she stabbed him). And yet, note again it’s not Ichigo’s similarity to Kaien that she dwells on, it’s the guilt that she feels for both situations that’s most prominent. And so, Ichigo’s similarity to Kaien, physical or otherwise, is never brought up by her, never even thought of by her, even thought she has obvious reasons to do so. In this way, Kubo cleverly overlays the Kairuki storyline over the Ichiruki storyline but also manages to avoid the major pitfall of Rukia directly equating Ichigo to Kaien: ‘DOES THAT MEAN SHE’S ONLY SEEING ICHIGO AS A REPLACEMENT KAIEN???’ The answer to that is a HELL NO. Rukia has never approached and bonded with Ichigo as anyone BUT pure Ichigo.

The only times Ichigo’s physical resemblance to Kaien has been brought up was through the mouth of other people; Byakuya, Ukitake. And this is yet another clever way Kubo overlaid these parallels; Kairuki doesn’t factor into the purity of the Ichiruki bond, because Rukia hasn’t ever dwelled on it directly, but this is a nudge-nudge wink-wink to the readers. Rukia doesn’t think about the fact that Ichigo looks almost identical to her first love, but we sure as hell do. ‘This is the same situation!’ Kubo says, ‘only this time, he’s not married! How do you think this will pan out, hmm?’ Additionally—this part is a bit of a reach, but whatever, I’m throwing it in—canonically, Ichigo’s never once thought anything about Rukia that seemed even VAGUELY similar to how he thought about his mom. But Rukia has described Kaien as warm—like putting your hand into a sunbeam without realizing it. Oh wow, I wonder who else Kubo has called sun in direct relation to Rukia????

I know this might be a bit confusing, because I just spent two paragraphs explaining how Rukia doesn’t equate Kaien to Ichigo, but now it seems like I’m saying Kubo’s equating Kaien to Ichigo. He’s not. What Kubo IS doing is he’s established a situational parallel in-narrative, in that the characters themselves only ever equate the situations and not the corresponding characters directly—but by fully utilizing his and our awareness as third-person omniscient readers, he’s pointing out additional factors that might be interesting but not necessarily critical for the overall plot. ‘Hey, that Kairuki tragedy sure was a shame. Luckily, we’ve got a similar story setup in which it was resolved happily! Also, Kaien ver 2 happens to be super not married. Super, super not married. Lol not that it means anything. I know everyone keeps pointing out how similar they look but pfft I’m sure nothing’s ever going to happen there.’ Yeah, fucking right. This asshole.

….Anyway, that leads me to the actual point of my post: THE MAIN PURPOSE OF THE KAIRUKI AND ICHIGO-MASAKI PARALLELS WAS NOT ‘OMG LOOK AT HOW SIMILAR THE SITUATION HERE IS, CLEARLY THIS IS THE SAME DYNAMIC IN THE PRESENT DAY’, IT WAS ‘YEAH, OK, THESE SIMILAR THINGS HAPPENED IN THE PAST AND IT SUCKED SHIT FOR BOTH OUR PROTAGONISTS, BUT THIS TIME THINGS ARE DIFFERENT.’

That’s the whole point. The parallels in the past sucked SHIT. They were, respectively, each of our protagonists’ worst trauma and memory. But THIS time, by virtue of the fact that things are DIFFERENT, by virtue of the strong bond they forged between the two of them (WITHOUT ANY SORT OF TAINT OR SHADOW FROM THEIR PREVIOUS COUNTERPARTS), they rewrote that story. They overcame their traumas. This dynamic in the current day is healthier and stronger than their parallels in the past, because DESPITE the parallels it is a different dynamic altogether.

Now, here comes the Isshin-Masaki parallel. Once again, this isn’t a direct character parallel; this is a situational parallel. But unlike the previous two parallels, this has BLATANTLY romantic overtones-- AND IT’S ALSO THE MOST CLOSELY FITTING, MOST DIRECTLY OBVIOUS PARALLEL IN THE ENTIRE MANGA. It’s almost a rehash, not a parallel. IDENTICAL SITUATIONS, IDENTICAL STORIES, GENDERS REVERSED, AND THIS ONE IS A LOVE STORY. Once again, this isn’t dwelled on by the characters in the manga themselves, but to us readers, it’s a HUGE wink-wink nudge-nudge. ‘Look, here’s a love story that looks identical to their initial story. Only, oh, wait, it kinda ended in tragedy. We know these two have a tendency of rewriting their old parallels for the better - don’t you wonder what they’ll do with THIS parallel?’

(the answer is, rewrite it better together. because that’s what they did with their other parallels. but that’s the furthest thing from we got in the end.)

And now, given all this so far: consider the endgame ships(ok, ONE endgame ship, only because Renji was so irrelevant to the overarching plot that he never got any meaningful parallel anywhere), which seem determined to mirror all these parallels DIRECTLY, and copy them as much as possible, rather than rewriting them or creating any difference from them. The biggest attempt I noticed to try and ‘justify’ ichigo -> orihime after the ending, by both the fandom and the official franchise, was by playing up orihime=masaki as much as possible. Her appearance, for one; the way yuzu comments that she reminds her of mom and wants to be closer to her for that reason. As the fans like to bring up, their appearance. Their bubbly personality? Her hairstyle in the final chapter, etc, etc. But the whole POINT of ichigo-masaki in relation to ichiruki was RUKIA WAS NOT MASAKI AND THIS WAS GOOD FOR ICHIGO. By trying to play up orihime = masaki, they’re effectively telling ichigo, marry your biggest trauma. stay tied down to it forever. There is nothing different in store for you. You don’t get to override it, to rewrite it. Not a parallel, but a rehash. In a similar vein, Ichigo was given the Isshin haircut, maybe in a weak attempt to justify IH by attaching it to the Isshin-Masaki parallel. Once again: rehash, not parallel. And finally, Rukia is back in the same position as Kairuki regarding Ichigo: married to someone else. Rehash, not parallel.

The absolute IRONY and TRAGEDY that the whole POINT of all of these intricately built parallels had always been that ichigo and rukia are different to all of these failed parallels in the past, and yet, in the endgame, all they are doing is desperately trying to copy the parallels to a T and attempting to convince everyone that it makes sense because, look, parallel!..... is an insult not only to our intelligence and comprehension as readers but to the narrative itself, since the parallels depended on BOTH to work. There’s several things I’ve mentioned already in Bleach that have, in the endgame, regressed back to or even past their starting point-- the Sokyouku, the Kuchiki Clan, etc. And now, I guess, we’re adding Ichigo and Rukia to that list - tied down to all their old, doomed parallels, with the emphasis now on how SIMILAR they are to it rather than how DIFFERENT they are to it; and thus with nothing to break them out of the looming tragedy this time. Fuck this ending.

**AN/Disclaimer: fdjskdjfh i said this wasn’t a meta and i honestly thought this was gonna be like... 500 words at most. but oops. this is meta. also, this probably isn’t as watertight as i USUALLY like to make my meta, because this whole concept of parallels is something I’m still poking at and refining. So I reserve the right to change my mind about any of my interpretation here. Goodnight.

#super super long text heavy post fair warning #bleach #bleach meta #fangirl life #ichiruki #kurosaki ichigo #kuchiki rukia #and masaki! and kaien! and parallels!#god it's been a WHILE since ive written any lengthy meta and the quality of this is TERRIBLE but it is what it is #im not gonna agonize about university essay quality for FANDOM META lmfao

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lonbergwrites · 4 years ago

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The Jewel

This is part of a multi-part review and commentary on the book Notes From A Young Black Chef by Kwame Onwuachi.

…

This is the chapter that everything has been leading up to. The Shaw Bijou - the Jewel named after chef’s mom. The restaurant that was to be Chef Kwame’s mark on the culinary world, and DC in particular. In some ways the whole book has been leading up to this point, but the nitty gritty is a lot more interesting that I would have supposed it to be.

So I’ve been put in the position to open a restaurant before. I was actually much the same age as Chef Kwame was. For me it required a move as well, though in my case it was to the West Coast. But I’ll get to that...

Chef Kwame had a plan in place to open a concept in Nashville that would open into more food service within the same restaurant (a bar that would start serving more food in a larger conjoined space). This deal was with a large restaurant group, though I am not at this point sure which one it is. Back then as now, Nashville is booming. Fine dining it wasn’t - exactly - but it did give a lot of room to move, and a group behind him that would allow for a lot of expansion once things started working. And more importantly, a lot of experience to help him along his way. Though I’m sure it came with some strings.

Then, out of nowhere, came another offer, this time in DC. This offer was carte blanche, and he took it. Literally, the new guys he was teaming up with said that money was no object, and he took them up on that as well. Listening to the book I was blown away with how much they spent on this restaurant. For example: each course (of 14) required a unique, custom-designed set of silverware; all of the wood and furniture pieces were custom carved; art work was commissioned...

As a side note: I’d expected more when I went to look for photos. This really does seem to be the case of giving a person with little experience in design a ton of money to make something that they think looks fancy. Don’t get me wrong, the actual kitchen photos are beyond amazing, but having been inside several top-flight restaurants, this place doesn’t look riche, at least not under the heavy lighting of professional, glossy magazines... but I digress.

The partners and money behind this investment were two men, one the heir to a beauty empire in DC, and the other an investment banker who always wanted to open a restaurant. To quote my uncle here: “Amateurs with money can drive you up the wall.” That’s a quote - and a wall - that Chef Kwame soon hit.

In my case, I drove across the country to open a patio-themed restaurant in a tiny former A&W with a large outdoor space that had, in its most recent life, been serving as a laundromat. It was in a small neighborhood of a small city in the orbit of a much larger foodie metropolis. We were going to do a lot of farm to table, a lot of small and/or sharable plates. Lots of vegetarian-friendly options. The cuisine was to be the newly “hot” New American. I had a lot of experience in French, Italian, and Middle Eastern cuisine professionally, and lots of experience cooking various Indian cuisines at home, so those were going to be the backbone of the menu.

I’d been flown out to offer a tasting menu after being headhunted from my culinary school’s alumni database. They were taken with me from moment one. As time passed working with them, I not only learned that I was the only person they’d had do a tasting menu for them that was relaxed and didn’t diligently adhere to recipes constantly as they were cooking in the home kitchen, but also that I was the highest-end chef they’d looked at. They weren’t planning on dealing with such haute cuisine as I’d wanted to offer (and they’d gotten excited about with me). But I changed their minds...

Well that changing of minds was indeed the case with Chef Kwame. The owners of the property and future restaurant wanted to do southern food, which was booming in the US at the time (and which Kwame worked hard to avoid doing in Nashville, which isn’t an easy thing to avoid there - I know this well!). They bought into his concept over the phone, ready to throw their money at his growing fame. He took this as a good sign in his naivete, and I know that feeling well, as that’s how I took my good luck as well.

Well, his restaurant soon got over over-extended. The owners evidently never letting him know that they’d personally hit some financial snags, and that the purchasing was getting to be a burden. They kept him on a $70k salary for two years as they planned on opening. That, is unbelievably generous, and far better than I got for doing similar planning work (though clearly with less fame behind me).

The price for the Shaw Bijou? $185 for 14 courses. No tax, tip, or beverage. They were going to open as the most expensive restaurant in DC. Apparently Chef Kwame wasn’t sold at this - he wanted half the courses for half the money - but had to sell the ticket price for admission because they needed the money now in order to stay afloat. They were panned in the press before they ever opened. Chef Kwame hadn’t earned that pricepoint in the eyes of DC critics. Probably fair.

After opening months late, the place finally came under the scrutiny of diners. And critics. The review from the local papers came during the first hours of the first day of service. If you ask me, this is incredibly unfair, and isn’t best practice for food journalism. I don’t know if the restaurant had had soft opens or not - this wasn’t mentioned in the book - but whether or not that is true, reviewers should allow a week, I believe, before reviewing a new place. Needless to say, they were panned.

I want to note here some interesting things about the dining experience at The Shaw Bijou that I’d like to know more about. First, there are only 8 tables. And there is a bar. Now, I’m not sure how this functions over all, because he mentions in the section about the review that diners move from the upstairs bar where they have a course or two, into a kitchen reception room by Chef himself for a course, to the main dining room to eat the rest of the meal. Personally, with such a dinner, I want to settle into a spot and luxuriate, not move as I eat as if on-line at an amusement part. Second, he mentions that the upstairs (where the bar is) was set to be a member-only club that cost $2,000 a year. I don’t know how food was supposed to work there, or what other amenities were to be available, but this is just weird, and I want to know more.

As you can guess, the restaurant failed. There was a lot of blame on partners who didn’t work well together, on the secrecy, especially about the financials, and on the impatience of the partners to weather the storm and allow the restaurant to get its feet under itself. All fair from the perspective of a chef, but it doesn’t surprise me when dealing with people who don’t know what they are doing going into the restaurant industry.

Everybody thinks they can run a restaurant because everybody has been to many, and everybody can cook to a certain degree. In my case, the owners ran out of cash before we ever opened. I was let go. They did eventually open the restaurant under a different chef (then two, and then three) almost a year and a half later. It didn’t last 5 months. Better than the 3 of the Shaw Bijou, but not good. Did I personally relish this? ...

Chef Kwame decided to stay in DC and try to make (another) name for himself. I moved to the culinary metropolis next door to start my life again. There’s a lot of bravery in staying where you’ve had a failure. Good luck to you, chef. I know now that you have another place, and next time I’m in DC, I fully plan on visiting your kitchen for a taste of what you have to offer.

~BPL

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upontheshelfreviews · 5 years ago

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Last year I talked about Fantasia, which is not just one of my favorite Disney movies, but one of my favorite movies in general. And if I may be self-indulgent for a moment, it’s also one of the reviews that I’m the proudest of. Fantasia is a visual, emotional masterpiece that marries music and art in a manner few cinematic ventures have come close to replicating. One question that remains is what my thoughts on the long-gestated sequel is –

…you might wanna get yourselves some snacks first.

As anyone who read my review on the previous film knows, Fantasia was a project ahead of its time. Critics and audiences turned their noses up at it for conflicting reasons, and the film didn’t even make it’s budget back until twenty-something years later when they began marketing it to a very different crowd.

“I don’t wanna alarm you dude, but I took in some Fantasia and these mushrooms started dancing, and then there were dinosaurs everywhere and then they all died, but then these demons were flying around my head and I was like WOOOOOAAAHHH!!”

“Yeah, Fantasia is one crazy movie, man.”

“Movie?”

Fantasia’s unfortunate box office failure put the kibosh on Walt Disney’s plans to make it a recurring series with new animated shorts made to play alongside handpicked favorites. The closest he came to following through on his vision was Make Mine Music and Melody Time, package features of shorts that drew from modern music more than classical pieces.

Fast-forward nearly fifty years later to the golden age known as the Disney Renaissance: Walt’s nephew Roy E. Disney surveys the new crop of animators, storytellers, and artists who are creating hit after hit and have brought the studio back to his uncle’s glory days, and thinks to himself, “Maybe now we can make Uncle Walt’s dream come true.” He made a good case for it, but not everyone was on board. Jeffrey Katzenberg loathed the idea, partly because he felt the original Fantasia was a tough act to follow (not an entirely unreasonable doubt) but most likely due to the fact that the last time Disney made a sequel, The Rescuers Down Under, it drastically underperformed (even though the reasons for that are entirely Katzenberg’s fault. Seriously, watch Waking Sleeping Beauty and tell me you don’t want to punch him in the nose when Mike Gabriel recalls his opening weekend phone call).

Once Katzenberg was out of the picture, though, Fantasia 2000, then saddled with the less dated but duller moniker Fantasia Continued, got the go-ahead. Many of the sequences were made simultaneously as the animated features my generation most fondly remembers, others were created to be standalone shorts before they were brought into the fold. Since it was ready in time for the new millennium, it not only got a name change but a massive marketing campaign around the fact that it would be played on IMAX screens for a limited run, the very first Disney feature to do so. As a young Fantasia fan who had never been to one of those enormous theaters before, I begged and pleaded my parents to take me. Late that January, we traveled over to the IMAX theater at Lincoln Center, the only one nearest to us since they weren’t so widespread as they are now, and what an experience it was. I can still recall the feeling of awe at the climax of Pines of Rome, whispering eagerly with my mom at how the beginning of Rhapsody in Blue looked like a giant Etch-A-Sketch, and jumping twenty feet in the air when the Firebird’s massive eyes popped open. But did later viewings recapture that magic, or did that first time merely color my perception?

We open on snippets from the original Fantasia…IN SPAAAAAAAAACE!

It reminds me a little of the opening to Simply Mad About The Mouse, where bits of classic Disney nostalgia fly about to evoke the mood of this upcoming musical venture. In a clever conceit, snippets of Deems Taylor’s original opening narration explaining Fantasia’s intent and music types plays over the orchestra and animators materializing and gearing up for the first sequence, which jumps right into –

DUN DUN DUN DUUUUUUN – I mean, Symphony #5 – Ludwig Van Beethoven

Here, a bunch of butterflies flee and then fight off swarms of bats with the power of light – I can’t be the only one who saw these things and thought it was butterflies vs. bats, right?

It does look cool with its waterfalls and splashes of light and color bursting through the clouds, but this brings me to a bit of contention I have with the movie.

When I planned this review I was going to do a new version of “Things Fantasia Fans Are Sick of Hearing”, except there were only four major complaints I could think of that. On further introspection, I admit they are legitimate grievances worth addressing. I’m going to get them out of the way all at once in order to keep things rolling.

#1 – This Seems Familiar…

Certain sequences are noticeably derivative from the first movie. It’s as if they were afraid of trying too many new things that would alienate audiences so they borrowed from their predecessor in an effort to say “Hey, we can do this too!” Symphony #5 is clearly trying to be Tocatta and Fugue with its abstract geometric shapes swooping all over to kick things off. Though I love how much character the animators managed to give two pairs of triangles, Tocatta’s soaring subconscious flights of fancy leaves me more enthralled. Carnival of the Animals literally began as a sequel to Dance of the Hours until the ostriches became flamingoes. And Roy E. Disney openly stated he wanted the last sequence, The Firebird Suite to have the same death and rebirth theme as Night on Bald Mountain/Ave Maria, which they got, right down to a terrifying symbol of destruction emerging from a mountain to wreak chaos.

‘Sup, witches?

#2 – Too Short

Speaking of repeating the past, the original idea for Fantasia 2000 was to follow Walt’s vision in that three favorite segments would make a return amongst the newer ones – the Nutcracker Suite, which was eventually cut for time, Dance of the Hours, which I’ve already stated morphed into Carnival of the Animals, and finally, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, the obvious choice to keep since that’s the most popular piece out of any of them. Cutting things for time doesn’t make that much sense, however, when you realize that Fantasia 2000’s runtime is only 75 minutes. A very short animated film by today’s standards that lasts barely half as long as its previous installment. I don’t see why they couldn’t keep at least one other sequence from the first Fantasia to make things last a little longer and keep in the original idea’s spirit.

#3 – All Story, No Experimentation

Unlike the first Fantasia, all of the sequences have a linear narrative structure that’s easy to follow. Not a bad thing and kudos to you if you’re among that group who prefers Fantasia 2000 for because of that, but again, I admire how the original film didn’t stick to a coherent story the whole time; how it was unafraid to let the music, atmosphere, and visuals speak for itself without sticking to a three-act plot and designated protagonist for every piece.

#4 – The One You’ve Been Waiting For, The Host Segments

One of the things that turned Fantasia off for its detractors was Deems Taylor’s seemingly dry narration. But maybe Fantasia 2000 can fix that with some folks who are hip and with it, perhaps a wild and crazy guy or two…

Eh, he’ll do.

Now, the idea of varying segment hosts isn’t an altogether bad idea. Most of them work well: Angela Lansbury gives the lead-in to the Firebird Suite plenty of gravitas befitting the finale, as do Ithzak Perlman, Quincy Jones, and James Earl Jones, who build plenty of intrigue for Pines of Rome, Rhapsody in Blue and Carnival of the Animals respectively; this seriousness makes James’ reaction to what the Carnival segment is really about a successful comic subversion. Even Penn and Teller for all their obnoxiousness kind of works with The Sorcerer’s Apprentice due to the linking magic theme.

I suppose what turns people off is the self-congratulatory tone and seemingly forced attempts at comedy you get from Martin, Penn, Teller, and Bette Midler. But you know what? They still make me laugh after all these years (well, you have to laugh at Bette Midler’s antics or she’ll come after you when the Black Flame Candle is lit). In fact, I have to hand it to Midler’s intro in particular. Fantasia 2000 came out right around the time I began taking a keen interest in what animation really was and how it was made. For me, her preceding The Steadfast Tin Soldier piece with tidbits about Fantasia segments that didn’t make it past the drawing board was like the first free hit that turned me into an animation junkie (plus this was before you could look up anything on the topic in extraneous detail on the internet, so it had that going for it). If I have to nitpick, though, The Divine Miss M referring to Salvador Dalí as “the melting watches guy” is a bit reductive. That’d be like calling Babe Ruth “the baseball guy” or Walt Disney “the mouse and castle guy”. Plus, Dalí and Disney were close compadres with a layered history. They planned on many collaborations, though the fruit of their labors, Destino, would not be completed in either of their lifetimes. Couldn’t show just a modicum of respect there, Bette?

Ahhh! I take it back! Don’t steal my soul!

So, I wouldn’t say I hate or even completely dislike the host segments. Sorry to disappoint everyone who was hoping for me to rip into them. They’re not awful, just uneven. And if you think they ruin the movie for me, you’ve got another think coming.

Pines of Rome – Ottorino Respighi

The idea for Pines of Rome’s visuals came about due to an unusual detail in some concept art. Someone noticed that a particular cloud in a painting of the night sky heavily resembled a flying whale. So why make a short about flying whales? The better question would be why NOT make a short about flying whales? A supernova in the night sky miraculously gives some whales the ability to swim through the air over the icy seas. Again, seeing this in IMAX was incredible. There’s just one minor issue I have with. This and another segment were developed well before Pixar made its silver screen debut, and unfortunately, it shows twenty years later; the worst cases are the close-ups.

Okay, who put googly eyes on the moldy beanbag?

There are ways of blending CGI and hand-drawn animation well, and this isn’t one of them. I understand the necessity of having expressive eyes but simply dropping one on top of a CGI creature gives it a bit of an uncanny valley feel. They should have either stuck with traditional all the way or made the whales entirely CG. The CG animation of the whales themselves isn’t too shabby, so they could have pulled it off.

Because simply giving whales flight apparently isn’t enough to hold an audience’s interest, we have an adorable baby whale earning his wings, so to speak. Once he gets his bearings above the surface, he swoops ahead of his family and bothers a flock of seagulls. They chase him into a collapsing iceberg, leaving him trapped, alone and unable to fly. The quiet dip in the music combined with the image of this lost little calf adds some genuine emotional weight to this piece. The baby navigates the iceberg’s claustrophobic caverns until he finds a crevice that elevates him back to his worried parents. From there a whole pod of whales rises out of the ocean to join them as they fly upwards to the supernova’s source.

“So long, and thanks for all the krill!”

As the music reaches its brilliant crescendo, the whales plow through storm clouds until they reach the top of the world and breach through the stars like water. It’s an awe-inspiring climax of a short that, flaws and all, reminds you of what Fantasia is all about.

Majestic.

Rhapsody in Blue – George Gershwin

The music of jazz composer George Gershwin? Timeless. The art of renowned caricaturist Al Hirschfeld? Perfection. All this brought to life with the best animation Disney has to offer? It’s a match made in heaven. Eric Goldberg, who animated the Genie among other comedic characters, idolized Hirschfeld and drew plenty of inspiration from drawings, so getting to work alongside him while making this was nothing short of a dream come true. That attention to detail in rendering Hirschfeld’s trademark curvy two-dimensional style goes beyond mere homage. It is a love letter to a great artist that encapsulates everything about him and his craft, and to a great city that we both had the honor of calling home. The story goes that Goldberg screened the final product for Hirschfeld shortly before his 96th birthday and his wife told him after that it was the best gift he could have ever received.

All this to say I am quite fond of this particular short, thank you very much.

The piece follows four characters navigating 1930’s Manhattan and crossing paths over the course of a single day:

Duke, a construction worker torn between his steady, monotonous job and following his dream of drumming in a jazz band,

Joe, a victim of the Great Depression desperately looking for work,

Rachel, a little girl who wants to spend time with her parents but is forced to attend lesson after lesson by her strict governess,

and “Flying” John, a henpecked husband longing to be free from his overbearing wife –

And her little dog too!

By the way, John is modeled in name and in looks after Disney animation historian John Culhane, who also was the inspiration for The Rescuers’ Mr. Snoops, hence why the two look so similar. He’s not the only name who appears in this sequence: Gershwin himself makes a surprise cameo as he takes over Rachel’s piano solo halfway through the story.

Speaking of, my family used to compare me to Rachel because at that point in my young life I was doing or already did the same mandatory activities as she – swimming, ballet, music, sports, all with the same amount of speed and varying degrees of success.

No one can argue that art is where we both excelled, however.

The physical timing of Rhapsody in Blue’s animation is hilarious, though it doesn’t rely wholly on slapstick for its humor. The sight gags and clever character dynamics all weaved into the music milk plenty of laughs, and envelop you in this living, breathing island that is Manhattan.

I speak from experience, this is the most accurate depiction of commuting on the 1 train that there ever was.

Even with such a premise and two masters of combining comedy and art, there is still enough pathos to keep the story rooted. Take when all four characters are at their lowest point. They look down on some skaters in Rockefeller Center and picture themselves in their place fulfilling their deepest desires. Seeing their dreams so close in their minds and yet so far away while paired with the most stirring part of the score is heartwrenching.

In the end, things pick up as the characters unwittingly solve each other’s problems. Duke quits the construction site, leaving an opening for Joe to fill. Joe accidentally snags John’s wife on a hook and hauls her screaming into the air, allowing him one night of uninhibited fun at the club where Duke performs.

“Anyone hear something? Nah, it’s probably just me.”

Rachel loses her ball while fighting with her nanny, which Duke bounces off the window of her parents’ office, which in turn gets them to notice their daughter about to run into traffic and they save her. Everyone gets their happy ending and it ends on a spectacularly glamorous shot of Time Square lit up in all its frenetic neon glory.

And not a single knockoff costumed character hitting up tourists for photos. Those were the days, my friend.

If you haven’t guessed by now, I adore Rhapsody in Blue. It’s easily my favorite part of the movie; a blissful ménage-a-trois of art style, music and storytelling, and it’s so New York that the only New York things I could think of that are missing are Central Park and amazing bagels. This sequence is gut-busting, energized, emotional, and mesmerizing in its form. I don’t often say I love a piece of animation so much that I’d marry it, but when I do, it’s often directed at Rhapsody in Blue.

Piano Concerto #2 – Dmitri Shostakovich (aka The One With The Steadfast Tin Soldier)

This piece has an interesting history attached to it. Disney wanted to do an animated film surrounding Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales – including The Little Mermaid and The Steadfast Tin Soldier – as far back as the 30’s, but the project fell by the wayside. During Fantasia 2000’s production, Roy E. Disney asked if they could do something with Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto #2 since he and his daughter were attached to that piece. He looked over sketches and storyboards made for the unrealized Tin Soldier sequence and discovered the music matched in perfect time with the story.

This is the second sequence that features CGI at the forefront. Unlike Pines of Rome, though, it works because the main characters are toys, and you can get away with your early CGI looking shiny and metallic and plastic-like when you’re animating toys.

Hell, it worked for Pixar.

The story centers on a tin soldier cast with only one leg who is shunned by his comrades for routinely throwing off their groove. He falls in love with a porcelain ballerina when he mistakes her standing en pointe as her also missing a limb. Despite his embarrassment when he learns the truth, the ballerina is enamored with him as well. This rouses the jealousy of an evil jack-in-the-box who I swear is a caricature of Jeffrey Katzenberg minus the glasses but with a goatee and Lord Farquaad wig.

“MUST. CHOP. EVERYTHING!!!”

The jack-in-the-box and the soldier duke it out for a bit before the former sends the latter flying out the window in a little wooden boat. The boat floats the soldier into the sewers and attracts a horde of angry rats who attack him, because animated rodents seem to have a natural hatred towards toy soldiers.

Case in point.

The soldier hurtles into the sea where he’s eaten by a fish – which is caught the following morning, packed up to be sold at market, bought by the cook who works at the very house he came from, and he falls out of the fish’s mouth on the floor where his owner finds him and places him back with the rest of the toys. Now the story this is based on hints that the jack-in-the-box is really a goblin who orchestrates the soldier’s misfortunes with his malicious magic. But based the extremely coincidental circumstances of his return home, I’d say the soldier’s the one who’s got some reality-warping tricks up his sleeve.

The soldier and jack-in-the-box duel again that evening, but this time the harlequin harasser falls into the fireplace and burns up. Our hero gets the girl and lives happily ever after. A nice conclusion, though a far cry from what happened in the original tale: the ballerina is knocked into the fire, the soldier jumps in after her, and all that remains of them by morning is some melted tin in the shape of a heart. I gotta say, for all my love of classic fairytales, Disney made the right call. Andersen’s life was far from magical and it reflected in his stories, making many of them depressing for no good reason. The triumphant note the music ends on also would have clashed horribly if they stuck with the original. Even the Queen of Denmark agreed with Disney’s decision to soften their adaptations of Andersen’s work. I don’t know if I’d call The Steadfast Tin Soldier one of my very favorite parts of Fantasia 2000, but in the end, s’all right.

Carnival of the Animals: Finale – Camille Sant-Saëns

This shortest of shorts (clocking in at less than two minutes) kicks off with James Earl Jones asking with as much seriousness as he can muster from the situation, what would happen if you gave a yo-yo to a flock of flamingos?

The answer –

Good answer!

Fie on those who dismiss this part as a silly one-off that doesn’t belong here. Fie, I say! It’s a pure delight full of fun expressions and fluid fast-paced action. Once again we have my man Eric Goldberg to thank for this, though this time he animated it entirely by himself. I’d call it a one-man show except for the fact that his wife Susan handpainted the entire thing with watercolor, making it look like it sprung to life straight from a paintbrush. It’s a simple diversion about a flamingo who wants to play with his yo-yo while the other snooty members of his flock try to force him to conform. As you can see from the still, they fail quite epically. Nothing beats the power of nonconformity and yo-yos (also every yo-yo move featured here is authentic; I love when animators go that extra mile).

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice plays next, but since I already touched on that in the first Fantasia review, I’m skipping over it. The segment ends with Mickey congratulating Leopold Stokowski (again), then crossing the barriers of time and space to inform the conductor, James Levine, that he needs to track down the star of the next segment, Donald Duck. Levine stalls by explaining a bit about what’s to come while Mickey frantically searches for his errant costar. The surround sound sells the notion of him moving around the back of the theater accidentally causing mischief all the while. Thankfully, Donald is found and the sequence commences.

Pomp and Circumstance – Edward Elgar

This famous piece of music was included at the insistence of Michael Eisner after he attended his son’s graduation ceremony. He wanted to feature a song that everyone was already familiar with. Of course, since this was after Frank Well’s untimely passing and no one was bold enough to temper Eisner’s worst instincts with common sense, his original pitch had every animated couple Disney created up to that point marching on to Noah’s Ark – and then marching out with their babies.

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Okay, A: Unless you’re doing a groin hit joke or are Ralph Bakshi or R. Crum, cartoon characters don’t have junk as a rule. And B, one of the unwritten rules of Disney animation is that barring kids that already exist like the titular 101 Dalmatians or Duchess’ kittens, the established canon couples do not in any official capacity have children.

To which Eisner laughed maniacally and vowed that they would.

But in order to placate Eisner’s desire to turn every branch of the Disney corporation into a commercial for itself, the animators compromised and agreed to do Pomp and Circumstance with the Noah’s Ark theme, BUT with only one couple – Donald and Daisy Duck. In this retelling of the biblical tale, Donald acts as Noah’s beleaguered assistant (I guess Shem, Ham, and Japheth were too busy rounding up the endangered species). Daisy provides emotional support while preparing to move on to the ark as well. It’s refreshing to see these two not losing their temper at each other for a change. I wish we got to see this side of their relationship more often. Donald returns Daisy’s easily lost plot device locket to her and as the rain rain rain comes down down down, he starts directing the animals on board; the lions, the tigers, the bears, the…ducks?

Anyway, all the animals and Donald get on board – well, most of them do.

The world’s first climate change deniers.

Donald realizes Daisy hasn’t arrived yet and runs out to look for her, unaware that she’s already boarded. Daisy sees Donald leaving but is too late to stop him before the first floodwaters hit their home. Donald made it back to the ark in time, however, though both of them believe that the other is forever lost to them. I find it astounding that they never run into each other not even once during the forty days and forty nights they’re cooped up on that boat. It’s the American Tail cliche all over again, and well, at least it’s happening in a short and not the entire movie.

Soon the ark lands atop Mount Ararat and the animals depart in greater numbers than when they embarked on their singles cruise. Daisy realizes halfway down the mountain that she’s lost her locket again, which Donald finds at that very moment while sweeping up, and the two are joyously reunited.

“I thought you were dead!” “I thought YOU were dead!”

I kid around, but I truly enjoy this short a lot. There’s so much warmth to Donald and Daisy’s relationship that makes their reunion at the end all the sweeter, and there’s plenty of great slapstick to offset the drama in the meantime. I will admit it’s nice to hear there’s more to Pomp And Circumstance than just the famous march, and the entire suite matches flawlessly with the visuals, though the main theme itself is so ingrained into the public consciousness that it’s difficult to extricate it from that what we’ve seen accompany it countless times.

Come on, you all know what I’m talking about.

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“What? Don’t tell me YOU don’t think of heads exploding like fireworks when you hear Pomp and Circumstance! Name one other life-changing moment could you possibly associate it with…you weirdo.”

The Firebird Suite – Igor Stravinsky

Fantasia 2000 comes to a close with a piece that has some emotional resonance if you know your history. You might remember from my first Fantasia review that Igor Stravinsky was disappointed with how Rite of Spring turned out, especially since he was a big admirer of Walt Disney and really wanted to do more projects with him beforehand. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that they picked his premiere ballet to end the movie on decades later. After all these years, Disney worked hard to do right by Stravinsky – with a few twists, though. Instead of a balletic retelling of Russian folktales involving kidnapped princesses and immortal sorcerers, we have a fantastical allegory for the circle of life.

No, not that circle of life.

A lone elk who I’m fairly convinced is the Great Prince of the Forest walks through the forest in the dead of winter. With his breath, he awakens the spirit of the woods and one of the most beautiful characters Disney has ever created, the Spring Sprite.

I. Love. This character. Her design is gorgeous, shifting from a shimmery opalescent blue as she steps out of the water into an eternally flowing fount of live greenery spreading from her hair in her wake. Wherever she moves, grass, flowers, and trees blossom, fulfilling the idea of a springtime goddess more than Disney’s own Goddess of Spring ever did. The Sprite was a massive influence in developing my art style, particularly in her face and expressive eyes, and I used to draw her a lot. Visit any relative of mine and chances are you’ll find a picture of her by me hanging up on a wall somewhere in their house. Yet there’s far more to her character than just a pretty representation of nature; there’s plenty of curiosity, spunk, determination, and a drive for creativity. I love her frustrated expression when she’s dissatisfied with the tiny flower she sculpts out of the ground and how her face lights up when she morphs it into a buttercup as tall as she is.

The Sprite paints the forest with all the colors of the wind (mostly green) until she reaches a mountain that isn’t affected by her magic. Perplexed, she climbs it until she finds a large hunched over rock figure – or is it an egg? – standing inside. She reaches out to touch it and…

The Sprite has awakened her counterpart, the wrathful and deadly Firebird. Think giant evil phoenix made of smoke, flame and lava. And it goes without saying that seeing this on the biggest screen left quite the terrifying impact. One of the biggest inspirations for this sequence was the eruption of Mount St. Helens (though the shot of the Sprite surveying the breadth of the Firebird’s destruction reminds me far too much of the Australian bushfires going on) and the sheer horror of nature’s irrepressible chaos is fully captured here. But the Firebird refuses to settle for merely destroying the Sprite’s handiwork, oh no. It won’t rest until creation itself is consumed, and the Sprite is reduced to a powerless mite as she scrabbles to escape the Firebird’s relentless pursuit of her. Try as she might, however, the towering monster corners and devours her in one fell swoop.

The forest is reduced to gray ashes in the wake of the Firebird’s rampage, but the Great Prince has survived. Once again he brings the Sprite to life with his breath, only this time she is tiny and weak (the animation of her slowly developing from the ash into her huddled ragged form is breathtaking). Now, I didn’t think I’d get emotional revisiting a small part of a single movie I’ve rewatched countless times before but viewing this through a mature eye combined with the beauty of the Firebird Suite’s climax and its timely message has caused me to see it in a new light:

The Sprite is utterly broken by what she’s been through and the destruction she carelessly caused. She’s lost all faith in herself and in the idea of returning the forest to what it once was. Even so, the Prince gently insists on carrying her on his antlers to the remains of their favorite cherry blossom tree. Where her tears fall, grass shoots begin to sprout. This fills the Sprite with hope, and she soars into the air becoming one with the sky and rains life down on the forest. New trees burst from the earth. The air is filled with leaves and pollen and new life flowing from her essence. The Sprite’s joy and power grow so strong that she even encircles the Firebird’s mountain in all her verdant glory. Life and creation overcome death and destruction. It’s not Night on Bald Mountain/Ave Maria, but it’s close.

And unfortunately, that’s the biggest problem Fantasia 2000 has.

While working on the original Fantasia, a storyman made the mistake of referring to the work they were doing in “the cartoon medium” in Walt’s presence. Walt turned on him and snapped “This is NOT ‘the cartoon medium’. It should not be limited to cartoons. We have worlds to conquer.”

And conquer they did…just not the way Walt intended.

The point I’m trying to make is Walt was breaking new ground and experimenting with things nobody ever tried when it came to Fantasia. While those risks were initially deemed a failure, it eventually gained the recognition it deserved from the animation and filmmaking community. Any attempt to recreate the magic of Fantasia is no small feat. But rather than taking new risks that not even the first film dared, the studio opted to adhere to Fantasia’s formula with pieces that recall if not flat out copy from the original segments. I hesitate to call it a pale imitation or cash grab however because this was done for the art much more than the money (though Eisner was probably hoping it would bring in some bank). There’s even a little bit of depth to it: while the first Fantasia had themes of differing natures in conflict – light vs. dark, fire vs. water, etc. – Fantasia 2000’s theme is accidental but brilliantly meta: CGI vs. traditional animation, a conflict Disney would become very familiar with in the decade following the film’s release. In some ways, it reminds me of Epcot’s genesis. The driving force behind it was long gone, but the attempt to bring it to life as close to the original vision as possible is still much appreciated.

For all my gripes, I really do enjoy Fantasia 2000. Perhaps not on the same level as its predecessor, but it has its moments, oh yes. And believe me, as far as Disney sequels go, you could do far, far, far worse than this one. Fantasia 2000 is Fantasia’s kid sister mimicking its beloved older sibling in an attempt to show it can be cool like the big kids too. But hey, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed this review, please consider supporting this misfit on Patreon. Patreon supporters receive great perks such as extra votes for movie reviews, movie requests, early sneak-peeks and more! If I can hit my goal of $100 a month, I can go back to weekly tv series reviews. As of now, I’m only $20 away! Special thanks to Amelia Jones, Gordhan Rajani and Sam Minden for their contributions! I’ll see you in a few weeks when I and review the 1959 Disney animated classic, Sleeping Beauty!

Artwork by Charles Moss.

Screencaps from animationscreencaps.com

Yes, I know The Lion King and Lady and the Tramp ended with the titular characters having babies, but was there anyone out there apart from Eisner who demanded there be sequels to those films that focused on their offspring?

January Review: Fantasia 2000 Last year I talked about Fantasia, which is not just one of my favorite Disney movies, but one of my favorite movies in general.

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saferincages · 6 years ago

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3/26 - Things have changed for Angel and her diagnosis (again, my poor, precious darling), and this post about her liver is no longer accurate, but it’s the information we had and were working off of at the time. That said, I’m going to keep it up, partially because my blog posts here are serving as a bit of history of everything we’ve been through and what’s happened to her, but since it’s not what ended up being found for her, I wanted to add this note at the top as a reference. As soon as I have a full picture of everything, I’ll make a new post with the correct information.

Thank you all for your patience and understanding.

***

Angel is in liver failure, her enzymes are all off the charts (some to the point where they couldn’t even properly measure them in her blood). We thought the reason for her inappetence and her intake of water was the pneumonia (and that could have been an aspect of it), but it was more likely her liver. (Research anything about liver failure in dogs online and refusing to eat/drinking excess water are some of the very first symptoms, we just...didn’t know in time. This could’ve started three weeks ago, when she first stopped eating, or it could’ve begun much further back and was slowly developing until it became critical. I keep thinking back to December 23, when she yelped in pain when I touched her on her right side and we rushed her to the animal ER on Christmas Eve - right side tenderness is indicative of liver issues. And I told everyone. We’ve seen four different doctors since then, and I told every single one of them that she had a cough and that she was exhibiting internal pain, that there was no way that could be referred pain from her neck, and no one listened to me, and I’m...frustrated and heartbroken over it and keep second-guessing what else we could have done.)

We don’t know what caused this to happen, it could be such a wide array of things. It could be chemical hepatitis from the meds she was taking (and then she became critical when she took the clavamox and it made her so sick), it could be fluid buildup, it could be fibrosis or cirrhosis, it could be a tumor. Her abdominal x-ray was abnormal, but the radiograph isn’t sophisticated enough for the vet to clearly see what was on the scan - it could be that her liver is inflamed, it could even have been her stomach which is irritated from acids and not eating, or, again, it could be recurrence of cancer.

The vet basically sent us home with no real additional ability to help her because we don’t have definitive answers. To really find out anything, she needs to go back to the internal specialists who treated her last year (when they dealt with her lung tumor; the same office also treats specific ailments like liver disease, kidney failure, etc), and she would probably need an ultrasound so that they can closely look at her organs and see what’s going on, and tell us how to proceed, or whether or not anything can be done to help her.

But we don’t know how we can afford that.

So right now we’re just trying to keep her comfortable. She’s better than she was on Wednesday night (when we honestly thought she was dying - she was in so much pain, but they think that was actually the acidity of her stomach causing her extreme discomfort, which, as a person with serious GI problems who has definitely been sick to her stomach even with very little food many, many times, I understand how agonizing that can be). The IVs and the injections of anti-nausea aids and antacids seemed to alleviate that, she’s been resting well and snuggling up with us a lot since Friday night. She’s also on a medication specifically for liver support (Denamarin) that could help manage her enzymes if she hasn’t suffered too much damage. She’s eating tiny bites of lean white chicken and vegetables here and there, and today I got her to take a spoonful of a calorie/nutrient supplement that’s meant to help pets who are either underweight or not getting their proper daily nutrition. Amazingly, her glucose and other levels were still relatively normal, so she’s not looking at starvation yet, or we’d be having end-of-life conversations more immediately. Those still may be coming, we just don’t know. She’s very, very sleepy, but when she’s awake, she’s bright and alert and ambulatory (she somehow has enough energy to jump up on the sofa with ease, which is mostly where I’ve been laying with her, and I was even able to pick her up and put her on my bed and let her get some good rest the other night). If any of that were to change, we’d know she wasn’t improving, but as long as she’s still trotting around and aware of herself and of us, we’re going to take solace in it. It’s a day at a time process right now.

We really don’t know what to do? My mom said to me last night, after I had a minor breakdown of sobbing (I’ve been having a lot of those), that she’s never felt so totally useless or helpless in dealing with anything, even throughout my years of illness, because in this case our sweet little girl doesn’t have a voice and can’t tell us how she’s feeling, and we’ve done a ton of reading and feel fairly knowledgeable about the situation now, but even still we’re not veterinarians and we don’t have enough information without more support.

#bubble wrap around my heart #angel #i'm so tired i can't remember if i already said some of this but maybe it's more clearly stated here

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obsidianarchives · 6 years ago

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In Defense of Thaddy Thor's Physique in Avengers: Endgame

There has been a lot of conversation surrounding Avengers: Endgame, the final chapter in Marvel’s 22-film, three-phase saga. Fans and critics have a lot of feelings about what the film did right, but a lot of the chatter I’ve seen on social media has been about what the film did wrong. Specifically, how the film “ruined” Thor. While I get some of the general issues people have with Thor in Endgame, a lot of the criticism feels unfair.

If you haven't seen Endgame yet and don't want to be spoiled, now is the time to stop reading.

At the beginning of the film, our heroes have lost the battle with Thanos. Thor, the self-proclaimed “strongest Avenger,” who first failed to deliver the fatal blow in Wakanda, executes a weakened Thanos on a garden planet in front of a demoralized team, then walks off. When we catch up with him five years later, he’s holed up in New Asgard with friends Miek and Korg. His hair has grown, his beard is unkempt, and crucially, he has gained weight. This has, apparently, made Thor “a joke.” That particular criticism irks me, so I’ll jump right into why I think it’s wrong.

First of all, Thaddy has been through A LOT. He loses the last of his living parents at the beginning of Ragnarok. His sister Hela, fresh outta prison, shattered Mjolnir(!) and kicked him out of the Bifrost mid-transport. She went to Asgard and murked an entire military squad, the Warriors Three, and no telling how many others. He landed on a strange planet where they cut off his hair(!!) and forced him to fight gladiator-style against his friend, Hulk. When he and his friends escaped, they came back to Asgard to save what remained but had to bring about Ragnarok — essentially letting a monster destroy Asgard — to kill Hela. Then when he led his remaining people to safety, their ship was beset upon by Thanos, who manually culled half the people on the ship, killed Heimdall and Loki, and gave Hulk the business. All while Thor watched, tied up and helpless.

Thor had already lost all his friends, family, and the majority of his people before Thanos used the Infinity Gauntlet to reduce the population of all living creatures by half. He 👏🏾 is 👏🏾 depressed. 👏🏾

Depression doesn't look the same on everybody. But it can and sometimes does look exactly like Thor. It looks like isolation, apathy, extreme weight loss or weight gain, and self-medicating or substance abuse. It looks like doing the bare minimum to keep yourself alive and grooming/showering only when you can muster the strength or the fucks to give. Thor wears his anger, grief, and guilt on his body like people who struggle with depression often do.

Apparently, this makes Thor unworthy. Or at least, that’s the way some people have interpreted it. I don't think the filmmakers thought through Thaddy, beyond wanting to show how much he was affected by everything he's experienced since we've known him. He was not written with as much care as he could have been, but I also don’t think he was written carelessly or as a punchline to a bad joke. I don't think the filmmakers saw him negatively or expected the audience to. They wrote him as someone who is still worthy.

Contrary to some criticism (1, 2, 3, 4), there are only a few times where someone makes a specific comment regarding his body/weight.

When Bruce and Rocket go to retrieve Thor and where his new, fatter body is revealed. Thor says something like "I am doing good, don't I look good?" and Rocket replies, "you look like melted ice cream."

Rocket is an asshole. That is his most defining characteristic, outside of being a sentient raccoon. (This is also why he does not give Thor a good pep-talk on Asgard.) Bruce says nothing about his physical appearance or about the way he spends his time and doesn't make fun of him or judge him for how he's changed. He just asks for his help.

When Thor abandons his mission to take the Aether from Jane and runs into his mother. After she lovingly roasts him and gives him sage advice, she sends him off with "eat a salad."

Mom's be like that. That’s not to diminish it cause it is problematic, but it's a thing a mom would say. It's something my mom has said to me and is in line with the kind of caring concern mothers who mean well often show.

After the team has successfully retrieved the stones and are discussing who will wield the new gauntlet. Thor asks them, "do you know what's coursing through my veins right now?" And Rhodey replies jokingly, "cheese wiz." Thor responds to this by making a face/gesture that's hard to read but is either agreement ("that's fair") or mild hurt. I personally read it as, "you got me there, but now is not the time."

It was, maybe, uncalled for, but definitely not worse than any of the numerous jokes that have been levied at other, fit-bodied people over time. One-liners are a staple of the Avengers films. Humor is one way the MCU and the Avengers films, in particular, have softened what might otherwise be very harsh stories to watch. Take away the zingers and it's just angst and fighting and death.

When Thor rejoins the rest of the team in Endgame, nothing really changes in how they treat him. Tony calls him a nickname, Lebowski, which is not a comment about his weight but his dress and overall demeanor. When Thor starts breaking down while discussing Jane and going on a tangent about what he's lost, they awkwardly try to get him back on task and when they can't, Tony gathers him patiently. They may react to him in ways the audience finds humorous, but they are not laughing at him.

I’d say the camera's POV was more discomforting than any of the characters’ words or behaviors. And this seems largely due to our own biases coloring how we view things. I watched all three Thor films recently and they have always loved a lingering torso shot that pans up. All-a-sudden it’s an issue when that same shot is focusing on a body we no longer find "appealing” or "attractive." They’ve always emphasized his body, it’s just now that his body is no longer “desirable” that the shot is making fun of him. The audience saw a “beer belly” and decided that was the joke. Never mind that the camera has always treated Thor this way.

Thor

Dark World

Ragnarok

Bonus: Age of Ultron

As for his character arc, he went from a person who wanted to be king but wasn’t ready in Thor to a person who was ready but didn’t want it in Dark World. In Ragnarok he discovers that even handicapped and disarmed, he has all the power within him. He leads the Asgardian refugees not because he wants to but because he is needed. It’s a lesson carried through into Infinity War, where he stands in front of a dying star to create a new weapon capable of defeating a powered-up Thanos. He doesn’t need Stormbreaker to be powerful, he needs it to channel his power.

That growth wasn't undermined in Endgame. Thor has not regressed, he’s stagnant. He’s lost. He doesn’t know where to go or how to move on. He feels like he failed his people as their king and everyone else as the “Strongest Avenger.” His retrieving of Mjolnir in the past/alternate reality was not about him “needing” a weapon (as he clearly had access to Stormbreaker), it was about him answering the question of, after all the failures and losses, is he still worthy? And he was. Belly, beard, sweatsuit, and all.

Maybe people's discomfort wasn't that the movie "made fun" of Thor's weight, but that it showed him being soft and vulnerable and messy and not all the way together. He didn't suppress the sadness and guilt he's entitled to. He responded to the pain. People want their heroes to suffer silently and never react or be affected. And it bothers some people that he didn't just move the fuck on. The film didn’t make him a “bumbling idiot” it just made him fat and people projected all their biases onto him.

As of this writing, I've seen Endgame three times. I went into both repeat viewings conscious of how the film treats Thor. And I've come away from it each time feeling the same way. I love Thaddy! I love that he was allowed to be imperfect. And I especially love that there was no “quick fix” before the big battle where he magically loses all the weight. Because even with a belly and split ends he’s still powerful, strong, and capable of and willing to fight. He’s still a hero!

And let us be clear, Thanos was beating ALL they asses! Any comments that Thor was singularly weak is nonsense. Tony and Steve got rocked in equal measure. Steve wielding Mjolnir was the shit(!!!) and it didn’t take anything away from Thor or undermine his strength in any way. Thor got his hero moments like many of the OG Avengers did, he just took a few Ls in the process.

Thor's final act on Earth is appointing Valkyrie king of New Asgard. He didn't want to be king in the first place and only took the mantle to protect his people after Asgard fell. In the five years while he was depressed and unable to lead, Valkyrie stepped up. She was ready and willing and he was not. Giving her the throne was not an act of weakness, but one of strength and wisdom. It was a culmination of all the lessons he's learned and him heeding his mother's advice to "be who you are, not who you're supposed to be."

Last we see Thor, he's hitching a ride with the Guardians and having a push-and-pull with Quill over who’s in charge. As we know, Thor is not a dude, he is a man. Quill is a dude at best. It's unclear whether Thor will make an appearance in the next GOTG, but if he does, I expect him to be the captain, it’s only fair.

Whether he remains thicc or tightens up is of no consequence. Being fat does not diminish him. He is still strong and he is still a hero. And frankly, he is still foine! A little tummy ain't never hurt nobody and Thaddy could still get it!

Header image credit to Marvel Studios.

#Thor #MCU #Avengers: Endgame

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thatssomental-blog · 6 years ago

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Too Coward for the "Coward's Way Out": Living with Passive Suicidal Ideation

TW: This article may be hard for some to read, but is intended to assist others who may be dealing with passive, or active, suicidal ideations. The following text contains details of suicidal thoughts (without intent) and mentions self harm (briefly, and without detail), in addition to depression and it’s relationship with suicidal thoughts.

So many people label suicide as the “coward’s way out”. If that’s true, then why is it that I feel like a coward because I could never follow through? Passive suicidal ideation is defined as wishing you were dead or that you could die, but having no intention to take your own life. Whereas, active suicidal ideation means one is not only struggling with these thoughts, but may have full intention, or a plan already in place, to take their own life. Passive suicidal ideation is still a risk factor among patients with depression and suicidal thoughts, and just because you are not planning your great escape from this world now, doesn’t mean you should skip out on your therapy sessions. All that being said, it is very real, your thoughts are just as valid, and you are not alone in feeling the way that you do.

Before I continue, I would like to specify that “wishing you were dead or that you could die” isn’t a reference to how you feel waking up in the morning, before you reluctantly drag yourself to work/school, it is in reference to a very real, deep desire to stop living, that may come or go, or may stay with you incessantly, even on your best days when everything seems hunky-dory. I am specifying this, because as someone who suffers from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, the mental illnesses that myself and others suffer through daily are not meant to be #relatable, just because you like things neatly organized or hate your job/school.

My own struggle with suicidal thoughts is a plague that I can't seem to get rid of. I suffered from them long before I even knew what suicide truly was. I was about 14 when the first thought came along, and I clearly remember it. I was putting away the clean dishes and took a knife from the dishwasher. I stood there for about five minutes straight, just staring at it, and thinking that I could just slash my wrist open and the numbness I’d been feeling for weeks would all go away. I scared myself with that thought, put the knife away, and didn’t do it; I couldn’t do it, and I wouldn’t have done it. I can’t remember any other thoughts as vividly as that single instance, but sometimes they were there, and sometimes they weren’t, and every time I had them I could never bring myself to act on them.

Health care is necessary for a healthy life. In the US healthcare is expensive, whether you have coverage or not. Health Insurance, especially with Mental Health included, is hard to come by. Even if you’re one of the “lucky” ones that manages to land a job that provides it, a good plan for yourself, not to mention a whole family, can easily eat up what little bit of wages you work for, and have to live off of. In the past several years, life has been difficult for me, though it was mostly adjusting to living the independent life, learning how to pay bills, and learning how to take care of myself. Despite all of the challenges and obstacles I’ve faced in that time, I was doing pretty well. Even through the trauma of sudden death, which my family is not equipped to handle, I managed. Within the past eight months, I attempted to better my situation by leaving a toxic work environment and moving on to something new. Unfortunately, by choosing to leave that job I also left what little health coverage I had, and since have had to move on to even worse challenges and obstacles, all with untreated, depression, anxiety, body and gender dysphoria, and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. If you’ve never been through that, I’ll tell you right now that it is hell, and as petty as I am, I wouldn’t wish anything I’ve been through on my worst enemies.

Factoring in all of the above, with the soul crushing feeling that your whole life and all of your freedom is crashing down around you, like an imploding dumpster fire, it really adds up. In my last few months before moving back home with Mom and Dad, something none of us want to do even if we love our parents with a fiery passion, I was at rock bottom. I couldn’t bring myself to do anything but the bare minimum, which made moving day tougher than it already was, and left me feeling hopeless and drained of life. I would lay on my couch for hours, wrapped in a blanket, staring at the wall with an empty mind and heavy heart, it was the worst I had ever been, and I allowed myself to wallow in it, only making it worse.

Even now that I am home, and surrounded by the love of my family, I frequently wish I was dead. I don’t think such things only when everything is going wrong in my life, but the harder times get the more I just want all the pain to go away. I think of scenarios in which I could put myself out of my misery. I own a gun, I have access to others, and medications, not to mention every knife in the block or kitchen drawer that could easily end all of my suffering. But, why is it that despite my desires to no longer deal with life's stresses, my battle with my seemingly, ever changing, gender identity, and my unbridled hatred for the world we live in and the multitude or horrible people in it, do I refrain? Why, when it seems like the only option for peace of mind and escape from the emotions I can’t control, can I not do it? Why, when I wish for the calming embrace of death, do I fear strangers who could kill me in cold blood? Why, if I want to die, did I seek medical attention, without any health coverage, and go to the ER when I legitimately thought I was dying?

Fear of the unknown. I was raised in the Christian faith from a very young age, and was even baptized twice. My mother was raised within that same faith, and my father is an atheist. Despite my current pagan-leaning/agnostic dogma, there is a fear bread into me from childhood that I will burn in hell. Since becoming “woke”, so to say, I have completely denounced the Christian god for what he is. Despite my genuine certainty that this god does not exist, and if he does, he’s actually quite a terrible deity, because of how I was raised, I will more than likely carry that fear of denouncing him and burning in hell with me, for the rest of my life. Religion aside, and taking things from an atheistic perspective, maybe I’m just going into a hole in the ground when I die, but the thought of everything being black forever is also terrifying for me. Even though I am aware that, in this scenario, I will literally not be conscious of my own death, it is almost impossible for me to wrap my head around it, and as someone who has exhibited a very present case of FOMO all of their life, that just doesn’t fly with me. Regardless of whether we go to sit at Odin’s table in Valhalla, or up to a magic golden kingdom in the clouds where everyone is happy and wants for nothing, or we just literally kill over like a toy with dead batteries, no one actually knows until they actually die.

Fear of failure. I have had a very hard time succeeding at pretty much everything I’ve tried in life. No matter what I do, I never feel like the product is good enough. I am my own worst critic, and, on top of that, I am a rage-quitter. If I am not instantly or naturally good at something, I get bent out of shape when I mess it up, maybe I cry, then I quit, and I move on. (Though that statement doesn’t apply to absolutely everything, it applies to a pretty big chunk of things.) One of the greatest fears that keeps me from “attempting” is knowing that if I mess up, I may not recover. Some people are saved at the last minute, and depending on what you’ve done to yourself, sometimes the wounds or the manner in which you’ve attempted will mend. However, if some things are done incorrectly, i.e. putting a bullet in your brain, or a fall that just wasn’t quite big enough to kill you, you may still survive, but there could be permanent consequences such as brain damage, loss of mobility, etc. I’m sure you catch my drift. I suppose this also technically falls under fear of the unknown, because you never truly know what’s going to happen until it does. Sometimes you just have to stop and ask yourself, would you rather be depressed and fully functional to the best of your capabilities? Or depresses and handicapped, and therefore, with your anxious/depressed brain, if it works anything like mine, an even heavier burden on those around you?

Forcing others to suffer. I am very lucky to have an amazing family that is full of love. Even for those of us living a life that others may not agree with, disowning and/or not loving one another is not in our vocabulary. I am very close to my mother and my grandmother, and it would devastate them beyond comprehension. That used to be my only line of thinking, however things have happened and times have changed. Less than two years ago, we buried my grandmother’s youngest child, my mother’s youngest sister, and one of my best friends, who was more like my sister than my aunt, along with her unborn son. Even if I intended to follow through on my own suicidal thoughts, and even excluding the above reasons, I could never force my mother to bury her only child, or my grandmother to bury another grandchild. I also have an amazing SO and friends who would at least be a little devastated, as well.

I just can’t. Ignoring every other reason I have included, I just can’t do it. Despite my fear of death, failure, and hurting those I love most, I just don’t have it in me. It’s not the pain that I worry about, one could easily swallow a bunch of sleeping pills and hope to not wake up, and as much as I hate to admit it, I have physically self harmed before, way back in my teen years. I don’t know how else to explain it, other than I just can’t. I have a huge fear of missing out, if I don’t know all the details of something it will drive me nuts, and I hate surprises. Despite how great it would be to just not have to worry, and despite how hopeless I feel, there is a part of me that knows something better is coming. If I were to take my own life, there are countless things I would miss out on, things I’ve always wanted and things that I may not even know that I want yet. The future is a mystery, and I’ll never find out what it holds if I don’t have one.

Do those things make my suicidal thoughts invalid? No, and though your reasons behind your lack/full intent may differ from mine, they do not make yours any less valid, either.

I am by no means encouraging suicide, though if you ever lose your battle just know that I will never call you a coward when you’re gone. Suicide is the final side-effect of losing your battle with a very real illness, one that may not be visible to even those closest to you.

My parting wisdom is this: Whether you intend to follow through on your suicidal ideations or not, if you take your own life, you will never be around to see it get better. I know it seems hopeless, I personally feel hopeless about 95% of the time, and I know that sometimes it seems like the only escape from not only the world, but your own mind. I really do. I know it hurts, and even if I don’t know what you’re going through, or how you feel, perseverance is the answer, not death. If you are strong enough to make it this far, through all the grief and torment and suffering, then you are strong enough to build your own future. Please don’t take that away from yourself, no matter how much you may want to.

If you, or someone you love is feeling suicidal, please check thatssomental.tumblr.com/resources for a list of suicide and mental help phone lines, chats, and websites.

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