#implying that education will lead to action because no one wants to be evil. which is a choice. maybe im misinterpreting | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin · 3 years

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Hey you said you don’t agree

as it is

For DE!McGonagall but you can make it work with some changes?

The post anon is referencing.

You take my words much too seriously. I really meant "as it is" as filler, though I suppose there is something to be said.

In the most tautological statement I can make: If I believed McGonagall was a Death Eater then I'd believe McGonagall was a Death Eater.

Given the source material we have, I don't.

But let's get into it.

Why Don't I Think McGonagall's a Death Eater?

The livejournal OP makes very valid arguments, cites canon very well, and makes a very convincing argument for why McGonagall is a Death Eater (and correctly predicts that Snape, in fact, was a double agent for Dumbledore).

However, there are other explanations for the arguments they cite.

Namely, the wizarding world is culturally full of assholes and the society itself, even characters meant to be 'good', is prejudiced against muggleborns and muggles.

That, and the Order itself is completely incompetent, not just McGonagall.

The Wizarding World is Not Supportive of Muggleborns or Muggles

The Wizarding World seems to be divided into three camps. Those who blow up muggleborns, those who quietly tolerate them, and then those who say they support them but wouldn't invite them over for dinner.

We see hints of rampant unemployment in the muggleborn population. We see near universal derision of muggles and muggleborns in general.

Most of the good characters, Harry's friends and associates, fall into this third category.

We have the Weasleys.

Arthur treats muggles much like white people treat black culture, he appropriates the aspects he finds neat and completely fails to understand muggles in the slightest. Molly turns on Hermione and accuses her of being a scarlet woman in a manner that feels very much like, if Hermione were not an uppity muggleborn, she would not be derided in such a manner.

Ron makes quite a few statements throughout the series about Harry's muggle relatives and that they're "the wrong sort of muggle" or just that they're being muggle in general makes them lesser.

Harry picks up on this and starts saying similar things himself. In trying to go to Hogsmeade he notes to McGonagall that his relatives are muggles, they just don't get it, you know?

My point being, Minerva says derisive things about muggles throughout the series. When Dumbledore leaves Harry on the Dursley's doorstep she's appalled, as she views them as "the worst kind of muggle" and heavily implies that she thinks any muggle is not suited to raising Harry Potter.

The OP argues that this is an odd thing for one of the "good" characters to say.

I argue that all the "good" characters say as much, at least, the ones who grew up or assimilated into the wizarding world culture. Minerva McGonagall is far from alone in her derision of muggles.

McGonagall Sure Does a Whole Lot of Nothing

OP argues that, for a character that's a part of the Order, McGonagall takes damningly little action throughout the series.

Snape is always the one acting on some order of Dumbledore. He interacts with Quirrell and saves Harry's life in first year, he gives Harry the occlumency lessons, and later he assists Dumbledore's suicide, aids Draco in infiltrating the castle, and does a whole bunch of behind the scenes work on Dumbledore's orders.

What the hell does McGonagall do?

She teaches her classes, is very upset about Umbridge for a while, and then in the Deathly Hallows enables the children's rebellion.

One explanation for this is that McGonagall is suspiciously incompetent. She is actively sabotaging Order operations while also maintaining her cover. McGonagall is a Death Eater spy.

However, once again, there are other explanations.

First, Dumbledore trusts no one. The reason Snape is the only one to do anything is because Snape is bound by oath and crippling guilt to Harry Potter (and thus Dumbledore himself).

If Dumbledore lets McGonagall peek behind the curtain, do any real task, then he loses control. McGonagall will likely be appalled at Harry Potter's inevitable fate and his ongoing child abuse. She could very well defect and leave the Order.

Dumbledore, ultimately, cannot trust Minerva just as he can't trust any Order member besides Severus Snape.

Minerva does no work because Dumbledore doesn't give her any.

Second, the Order in general is incompetent. None of them do any task of any middling importance ever. The most important thing most of them get up to is trying and failing to babysit a teenage Harry Potter.

Remember, Dumbledore did not sanction the raid on the Department of Mysteries, that was Sirius yelling "CHAAAAAARGE!"

Once again, McGonagall doesn't stand out. If McGonagall's a spy because she doesn't do anything then the entire Order works for Voldemort, with the exception of Snape. (That would actually be a hilarious AU).

As for Minerva's hands off teaching, remember that despite all appearances the Wizarding World is not a modern western nation, they have a different view of education than we do.

Among the staff, Minerva is not alone in being hands off, Slughorn alone is the one to interact with the children and take an extra step to prepare them for their futures.

If Harry's getting into fights in the hallways, is not prepared for his future, then that's Harry's problem. McGonagall's there to teach.

And as it is she does play favorites with Harry, in that she purchases him a broom, allows him to play quidditch early, and is often very fond of him, Ron, and Hermione.

Remember Lupin, he was Harry's favorite professor, and despite Harry's perception Lupin was extremely hands off.

She Wears Green

This one would actually convince me were it not for the others. JKR loves her color coded characters. Green is the color of limes, close to lemons, which we all know means EVIL.

McGonagall wearing green could very well have been JKR's hint she's not a good character.

However, after all's said and done, JKR also likes her villains very noticeable and obvious. Voldemort is flatly evil, she doesn't want you admiring him in the least, every villain is similarly unabashedly bad.

It's obvious who you should root for and who you should hate.

McGonagall, were she a Death Eater, would be far too nuanced. This nuance, after all, was what ultimately signaled that Snape was secretly good.

Deathly Hallows

And there's the fact that by the end of the series, the cat's out of the bag. Voldemort was fully in control, and while McGonagall could have been stationed in Hogwarts as a spy, she did a whole lot of nothing there.

She enabled the children rebelling against Voldemort and she does not report Snape's suspicious actions to Tom. (And Snape does take actions which a competent Minerva would note as suspicious).

And given she helps lead the battle against Voldemort, leading the school children at that, I think it's safe to say that there's maintaining your cover and then there's not having a cover at all because you're not a Death Eater.

TL;DR

Minerva McGonagall is not a Death Eater

But You Didn't Answer the Question!

Right, what would convince me she was.

Well, Deathly Hallows would have had to sell me on it. We'd either need an undeniable reveal, a la Snape, or we'd need something bad to happen to Snape much earlier (as McGonagall rats him out to Tom).

Of course, this would lead very AU places as Harry would never discover he's a horcrux. Or else, McGonagall would find out via Snape, tell Tom, and then we get into that whole AU.

Point being, Deathly Hallows would have had to be much different.

#ask #anon #harry potter #wizarding world

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saby-chan · 3 years

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Fire Lord Ozai: A blood thirsty monster or the less fortunate “Zuko” of his generation?

Hello again and thank you as always for clicking and allotting some of your time to read my humble post! Since I’ve happened to notice quite an increase in posts lately regarding the controversial character and nature of the former Fire Lord, the now imprisoned fallen prince Ozai, and I’ve personally promised in my previous post that I will share my own analysis on him if people asked me to do so (which actually happened), I am here to deliver my own take on this very intriguing man’s character, while also building a potential past for him based on stuff gathered from the show’s cannon.

I would like to start this essay with what I find to be my favorite quote ever: ”Monster’s aren’t born, they are created.” ~ Naruto Uzumaki (Naruto) What I like about this quote soo much and find very inspirational is the truth it holds within its short, yet powerful message. We are often fast to judge a “book by the cover”, to reduce others to what we assume of them by their appearance or latest actions that we’ve seen them do, but never actually take a moment and wonder where they come from, if this person we soo harshly look down upon really has been this way since their very beginning?

I’ve come across many comments on social media related to ATLA, especially on YouTube videos on which people would throw with harsh comments such as “Aang being a coward for choosing to spare the villain just because they saw a dumb baby pic of them” or “Ozai is the essence of evil and even as a baby he’d been a monster”. I can’t help but wonder who hurt these people to make them be so cruel? Like, how messed up must you actually be to say that a baby, a friggin baby, is the embodiment of all evils? Or that a child was a coward for choosing to see his opponent’s last bits of humanity and opted to spare them?

Aang was soo morally conflicted about the idea of killing Ozai not only because it contradicted the morals of his people, but because he himself understood that this man hadn’t always been the cruel beast he came to met in their first and final showdown. It’s important to note here the fact that upon finding that picture, Aang was actually convinced it had to be Zuko as a baby since it looked so innocent and cute and was actually surprised to learn it was Zuko’s father. And that’s the thing, Ozai was born like us all as an innocent and sweet baby. Babies aren’t in any way evil or twisted, they don’t even have the notion of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ defined in their small, still developing minds. In fact, the very choice of the creators to add this picture in the show is meant to tell us this very thing: this man wasn’t always like this. But if he wasn’t always like this, then what happened to make him become this way?

Well, in order to find out the reason, we must go back in time to the very beginning: Ozai’s childhood and upbringing. For this next part I am going to solely focus on the show cannon, as the comics aren’t the products of BryKe and have a lot of inconsistencies to the source’s cannon (you can go and read my other post on why they fail when it comes to Zuko’s character and his family).

From what we know and can easily deduce by ourselves just from their appearances, Ozai and his brother Iroh have a huge age gap between them (somewhere between 10 and 15 years). This has to be our first red flag: isn’t it soo odd that this family opted to have their children at such a long distance between pregnancies? It almost feels as if Ozai hadn’t actually been part of his father’s actual family planning... In other words, he was a ‘mistake’ child (I actually hate having to use this terminology, but it will become relevant to when we expand on Azulon’s relationship with his sons). Sure, some may argue that Azulon actually decided to have two sons in case something were to happen to his first born, but wouldn’t it have been more logical to have his second born at 2-3 years max distance from his first? Why choose to have your second child when you are much older and thus risk having a baby with issues, if your sole purpose of this child is to serve as an insurance that you don’t ‘run out’ of heirs? It just doesn’t make much sense, so let’s go for the moment with the possibility that Ozai was an unplanned pregnancy.

This perspective actually gives way to another very interesting aspect: remember the infamous “Born lucky...Lucky to be born” quote? What if I tell you that there is a possibility that this quote wasn’t Ozai’s personal wicked invention, but actually something he himself heard from his very own father? It had been puzzling me for a long time why he choose to say “You were lucky to be born” to Zuko, which implies that Zuko wasn’t supposed to exist. I mean, it’s soo odd that Ozai went with something implying that Zuko was an unplanned pregnancy, since Zuko was the first born. So my theory is that maybe Ozai wanted to convey a different message to Zuko when he said that quote, but due to his anger he ended up replicating the same line he received from Azulon at some point in his childhood. We never got the exact flashback when the line was delivered from Ozai to Zuko, so we don’t have the exact context that lead to it (remember, we are excluding Yang’s take on the matter from the comics).

I mean, this feels like something that wicked old Azulon would have said to his least favorite child. Okay, so let’s go with the scenario that Ozai was an unwanted child, to which we could also add the possibility that Ilah’s health deteriorated after the first birth, which makes plausible the family’s initial decision of stopping at 1 kid.

Moving on, we know from the old ATLA character wiki’s that Ozai’s character design was made with Zuko in mind, being meant to be a grown up version of Zuzu, without the scar. An interesting choice indeed and even Iroh’s letter to Zuko on Ozai from one of the ATLA books describes Ozzy in a similar way to teenage Zuko in book 1: stubborn, feisty, determined and with a volcanic personality (easy to anger and competitive), so it means that these were intentional choices to imply that Zuko and his father are more similar than we were led to believe at first glance. Maybe Ozai was the “Zuko” of his generation. Also, in one of the interviews on the royal family, BryKe stated that Ozai worked very hard to get where he is in book 3, referring to his firebending specifically (we all know how Ozzy got the throne, so clearly, he didn’t “work hard” for that), so maybe he wasn’t always the strongest man alive, with the most exceptional firebending skills out there, like Azula who showed ease in her learning, but rather someone closer to Zuko’s weaker performance as a child, building his way to success through endless hard work until he became the prodigy we know today.

Continuing with our theoretical scenario, after his birth, the second child show’s lesser skills compared to his brother Iroh (by that I don’t mean that he wasn’t gifted at all, but that maybe Ozai wasn’t as fast and great of a learner like his big bro), so Azulon opts to just ignore him and continue focusing solely on his golden child. In my headcannon I actually think that Ilah survived the birth and so she was left in charge of the younger child’s education and upbringing. At this point Iroh is already 10 or older, so he is forced to focus on his development, which prevents him from spending time with his lil brother, but just for the sake of being positive, let’s assume that Ozai still had both his mother and his big brother to keep him sheltered from Azulon’s darkness for a small portion of his childhood.

I choose to believe that Ozai had his mother’s love for a small bit of his childhood due to his willingness in the show to allow Ursa (who mind you, as the granddaughter of Roku was considered a treacherous individual) to spend a ton of time with both Zuko and Azula and share her philosophy with the children, as seeing his wife playing with their children probably reminded him of his own bitter-sweet memories he had with Ilah. They also probably spent a lot of their time near the turtle-duck pond since that pond’s existence prolly dates long before Ozai and Ursa married and had their own children.

Unfortunately, Ilah dies and little Ozai remains all alone, to be influenced negatively by his father (and even by his grandpa Sozin, we don’t really know for certain when the old man died, so he prolly was there for a short time when Ozzy was still a child). Azulon most likely blames Ozai for his wife’s death as the second birth might’ve really had a huge toll on Ilah’s already fragile body, bringing her closer to death, so he still neglects and ignores the child, if not straight out bullies and abuses him for not being on par with Iroh. This prolly leads to Ozai becoming jealous of his brother since Iroh has their father’s love, pushing them further apart. I headcannon that this jealousy between the siblings led to Ozai complaining to his dad when he finally had too much of their father’s discrimination (at a similar age to when Zuko prolly did and got the infamous line, if not younger) only to get the “Iroh was born lucky, you were lucky to be born!” line with the sole purpose of hurting him since now the child knows that he was never wanted.

When Azulon scolds very furiously adult Ozai in Zuko’s memories for daring to ask to be named crown prince, he literally says something like “What, you dare ask me to betray MY own son?!” (this is like red flag number two), line that pretty much testifies how Azulon chose to pretty much treat Ozai as if he wasn’t his son too, showcasing how much he despised his second born and favored the first child over him. Since we are on the topic of their last conversation, the punishment Azulon gave to his son alone proves this man’s level of sadism, which leads me to be believe that Ozai’s childhood was full of this type of punishments for bad behaviors that could be easily corrected trough a long serious lecture or a lesser punishment focused more on teaching him an actual lesson.

The old wikis also mention on the page about the hall with portraits of the previous Fire Lords that it was the place where Ozai chose to spend most of his time in his youth, seeking advice from his ancestors. I mean, seriously now, if he had a good and supportive father and a present brother in his life, would Ozai had chosen to seek guidance from the dead instead of his living family? That piece of information that was easily overlooked by many proves how lonely this man was in his youth.

So for the most part of his life, Ozai grew up under the toxic influence and abuse of his tyrant father who refused to acknowledge him. Yet he managed to grow up still full of determination to one day prove his worth to Azulon and gain his acceptance (just like we saw with Zuko in book 1, who was desperate to regain his honor and be accepted by his father). But unfortunately, no matter how strong he became or how good of a firebender he was, Azulon was unmoved and unphased by his second son’s performance.

From what we could gather from the little info we received in the show, it seems that Ozai was never sent to the battle field to aid his older brother, being kept as a stay home prince, with the only occasion he actually left home being to search for the Avatar (I don’t think Iroh was sent to do his part on searching the Avatar since he strongly believed that there wasn’t going to ever be one, so it’s safe to assume Azulon assigned Ozai with this mission just to get rid of him for a few years) and the only purpose he ever served to his father was to become part of the old man’s genetics experiment in order to create strong unparalleled firebending offspring (which I am pretty sure were meant to be ‘biological war machines’ used by Azulon in the war, as he didn’t really seem to give a shit about Ozai’s children compared to Lu Ten). So just imagine the level of disappointment and dishonor Ozai must’ve felt as a man and young aspiring soldier to find out that he was going to be used like a ‘non-bending daughter’ in a strategical marriage and never get to serve his country in what he’d been taught was the greatest and most important war for their Nation.

All in all, this marriage didn’t really end up that badly because it seems he and Ursa were actually very compatible. The old wiki for Ursa states that she was a noble woman and the perfect match for Ozai, which leads me to believe that show Ursa was intended to be a very strong willed and determined woman who earned his respect. The show never stated that Ozai never wanted his first born or that he was disappointed with Zuko from birth like the comics say, so it’s safe to assume that Ursa and Ozai actually ended up falling in love at some point since they had not one, but two kids with relatively a short time in between pregnancies.

There are actually many signs in the show that actually prove that these two loved each other and Ozai didn’t abuse his wife: from the fact that they went every year to see Ursa’s favorite play despite Ozai hating the poor performance of the Ember Island Players (I mean, what man would do such a sacrifice as to endure the same torture every single year just to make his wife happy if he never loved her?), Ursa’s undeniable and sincere love for their children (in the show it was never stated that Ursa saw Zuko and Azula as someone else’s children, so if she were indeed an abused woman who was forced to have these children, she wouldn’t have ever loved them to such an extent, especially Zuko who resembled his father the most physically), the fact that Ursa had equal rights in their marriage and raising of their children (her even scolding and grounding Ozai’s favorite child without hesitation), to the most significant scene to the Urzai ship in Zuko’s flashbacks: Ozai sitting troubled all alone in Ursa’s favorite spot by the pond, in a sad and brooding atmosphere, after he lost her, instead of celebrating what had to be the happiest day of his life since he was finally crowned Fire Lord (it’s clear who had more importance in his heart: Ursa meant more to him than the throne, so losing her outshined his achievement). In fact, Ursa must’ve been the only thing that still kept him outside of the darkness that threatened to swallow his heart and once he lost her, Ozai had nothing else to keep him on the right path.

And even as a father, it seems that Ozai wasn’t always cold and distant to his children, as his true self depicted in Zuko’s memories on Ember Island shows him caring for both of his children, even holding Zuko close to him with a protective arm on the boy’s shoulder. Except the Agni Kai, there don’t seem to be any instances in which he was physically violent towards his son before the banishment (Iroh literally let Zuko in to join that faithful war meeting willingly. Would’ve he done that if he knew his brother to be very violent towards his children in case they disobeyed? If yes, then it would make Iroh actually very questionable on a moral standpoint) and even on an emotional level, I don’t really think that he was actually abusive to him (at least while Ursa was there) because from Zuko’s conversation with Zhao, he’s adamant that his father will take him back and even states "You don't know how my father feels about me. You don't know anything!", meaning that the father he used to know showed him a level of respect and genuine affection (if Ozai were to bully Zuko since the boy’s very early childhood, do you think this kid would grow up to be so sure that his father wants him around and would he defend this bully when someone badmouths them in front of him?).

Even with Azula, despite people demonizing her from early childhood and saying that she was manipulated since birth by Ozai to become a war machine, I do believe that she shows genuine love and affection towards her father. I do choose to believe that back in the good times when the family was happy, Ozai spent quality time with his daughter, filling in the gap left by Ursa’s neglect. I theorize that the reason why kid Azula badmouthed her grandpa and uncle was because she was being very protective of her father: since she used to like spying and eavesdropping, it’s safe to assume that she prolly witnessed many instances in which the old man bullied or insulted Ozai, favoring Iroh over him. It’s a bit harder to see it that way since her snarky comments involve dark topics, but since they live in a society governed by power and war, I see them as something similar to if Azula would’ve said “Uncle sucks and he will surely be fired from his job!” or “Grandpa is old and weak, he should leave the family business to dad!”. Even the fact that the only thing capable of shattering her to pieces was her father leaving her proves how much she cared for him. Ty Lee and Mai’s betrayal was a big blow on Azula’s control and sanity, but she didn’t breakdown until Ozai discarded her after his coronation as Phoenix King. There’s nothing more painful in this world than to be left behind by the person you loved the most and was there by your side your whole life, whom you wanted to follow to world’s end and back. That was the moment Azula finally realized that the father she used to know and love was actually gone and had been in fact, long gone for years at this point.

But if Ozai cared for his family what made him change? Easy, it all comes back to the fact that his father never acknowledged him. The throne doesn’t seem to be his ultimate goal in life since Ozai discarded of the Fire Lord title very easily, tossing it to Azula without any remorse or hesitation. It was more about the meaning behind getting the crown: replacing Iroh in the line of succession was the ultimate proof of his father’s acceptance, that he wasn’t only a “mistake” and “failure” in his father’s eyes, but since Azulon ended up saying and doing what he did, backfired Ozai and made him understand that no matter how hard he tried, the old man will never see him for what he is. So yeah, for a proud man like Ozai this was a hard defeat to swallow, which in turn sparked his strong desire of winning the war and becoming the king of the world: if Azulon wouldn’t accept him even in death, then Ozai will prove to the whole world that he was above his father and his “perfect” brother by accomplishing what they never could and even better and no one was going to stop him, not even his own family.

This is what differentiates Ozai from Zuko: while both had similar upbringings, Ozai never broke away from his obsession of gaining his father’s admiration, allowing himself to fall prey to the darkness left by Azulon in his heart and abandon his true self, only to become the copy of his abuser, while Zuko stood up to his dad and chose his own destiny. If Aang were to come back around 20 or 30 years earlier, then he might’ve actually been able to save Ozai just like he saved Zuko, but unfortunately it wasn’t this way.

Do I think that Ozai could still be saved and redeemed even after the events of book 3? Definitely! Since he’s actually a broken man and still has a tiny bit of humanity left within, I think he still has a chance to change his heart. The only thing is that it’d be a long lasting process: first off he needs to spend a long time in solitude and reflect on his life’s choices and his past, understand where he went wrong and that what happened to him in his childhood is called abuse, which he ended up replicating on his own children. After he understands his wrongdoings and becomes willing to rediscover his true self, he needs to understand the truth about the war, that everything he’d known was fake propaganda and that there was nothing glorious in what he, his father and Sozin did under the excuse of “sharing their Nation’s greatness with the rest of the world!”. But most importantly of all, the only remedy that could possibly save him is love. It sound cliche, but by responding to hatred with more hate like Zuko did in the comics would never change the world “for the better” or bring it “to reality”. The only way to save both Azula and Ozai would be trough showing them the power of love, hope and empathy, how they don’t have to struggle alone and push everyone away. And especially by redeeming Azula, she would be a very important piece in Ozai’s redemption: since he had a closer parent-child relationship with Azula and cared for her the most when he did care, realizing how much he made her suffer through his actions, that would probably break Ozai enough to make him admit that he was wrong all along.

So yeah, this is my analysis on Ozai’s character using the cannon information from the show and old wikis and why I think he is just the product of a very bad environment and an abusive parent who never showed him love (if there’s a reason for why Ozai might be uncapable of showing a healthy parental love to his children is because you can’t show what you’ve never learnt yourself), being the Zuko of his generation who never got to experience the positive influence of an “Uncle Iroh” to guide him on the right path.

You can agree with me or not on this one, but this is what I choose to believe. Maybe I am way too good by choosing to see any potential good in anyone, but I feel it’s a better way than to counter hate with more hate like Yang did in his monstrous portrayal of Ozai in The Search.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments and if you agree with anything I’ve said, feel free to leave a like and to reblog this post.

See you next time and stay safe! Bye-Bye!

Saby out.

#atla #atla rant #avatar the last airbender #ozai #azulon #ursa #zuko #azula

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whentheynameyoujoy · 3 years

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Women in SPN—Seasons 2 and 3

Previously on Joy Obsesses over a Show That Creatively Expired in 2010

Tessa

Introduced back when the Winchesters dodging the coffin actually qualified as an episode, she follows in Meg’s tracks by continuing to make monsters seem more approachable and less a malevolent force of nature. Starts off with a completely flat affect but gets annoyed with the Winchester bullshit real quick—a sure-fire sign of an SPN character with a brain. A powerful being capable of returning one’s memories by a smooch which is… convenient. As is the fact that bad guys keep using her for their ebul plans. Serves the typical secondary-character function of a springboard for a main guy’s development. Plants hints of the “natural order”, “destiny”, and “inevitability” which will become major themes down the road and be explored by characters with deeper writing.

Status: Alive as of s5

Importance: Minor, remembered primarily because she keeps popping up.

On her own: A nice addition to the lore.

Jo Harvelle

Originally Dean’s love interest until she got written out for the crime of having tits around the fandom’s husband. Driven by a wish to honor her dead father and become a hunter, she’s held back by the unfortunate fact of not being all that good at it. Cheerful, temperamental, and a pretty skilled hustler, she’s mortally wounded when charging in to protect Dean. Ends up sacrificing herself so that others can escape and attempt to end the Apocalypse.

Status: Dead as of s5, dragged back and disappeared again in s7

Importance: Major

On her own: A soldier going out in a blaze of glory. I bawl every time.

Ellen Harvelle

Unlike her daughter, very good at what she does. No-nonsense authority figure, she’s one of the few in the show to pull off a combination of a hand-wringing mama bear and a pro-active badass with a life outside her family. Not perceived as a threat because fans don’t know the meaning of MILF yet, and so is allowed to stick around for the season 2 finale. Dies to make Jo’s plan to obliterate Meg’s hellhounds work, though it’s strongly implied she mostly refuses to survive her kid.

Status: Dead

Importance: Major

On her own: SPN’s Molly Weasley, sullied by the implications of her death

Lenore

A head-strong leader of a nest of vegetarian vampires, she’s deliberately contrasted with Gordon’s Terminator schtick and to a lesser degree with Dean’s black-and-white monsters vs. humans kill-everything grief-cope in order to further cement SPN’s ongoing crusade of challenging who in fact is the monster around here. Has a crowning moment of awesome when she refuses to feed while covered in Sam’s blood. The entire point of her is her determination not to give up her humanity even when no longer human. Would be shame if the show decided to later abandon this essential part of her character and twist it for cheap drama…

Status: Alive as of s5, annihilated in every way in s6

Importance: Minor in the overall narrative, major in the episode and the boys’ development

On her own: An effective mirror to Dean’s stroll down the slippery slope

Diana Ballard

TheGoodCop manipulated by her professional and romantic partner, she has a surprisingly functional tension with Sam. Luckily for Linda Blair it goes unnoticed because the fandom doesn’t view older women as competition. Noteworthy mostly because she actively participates in uncovering the episode’s mystery which automatically elevates her above the standard clueless civilian, man or woman, who needs the duo to save them. Despite fewer appearances arguably more memorable than Henriksen, precisely because of her active involvement.

Status: Alive as of s5

Importance: Minor overall, a major player in the episode

On her own: Interesting take on the usual boilerplate cop

Ava Wilson

To present a very, very generous interpretation, she foreshadows Sam’s eventual turn to the dark side. Spirited, a little bit airheaded, and freaked about her Azazel-given powers, she gives enough of a damn to prevent her visions of people dying from coming true, though she clings to her intention to lead a normal civilian life. Does a complete switcheroo off-screen to become a villain because… power is awesome? Ends up the most advanced special child in season 2’s battle royale, the very concept of which is just… eh? Still gets dispatched no problem because… why not?

Status: Dead

Importance: Minor

On her own: A prime example of why the special children subplot is just…wot?

Molly McNamara

Memorable primarily because of the experimental (for SPN) narration which frames her as the duo’s partner when in fact she’s one of the things being hunted. For plot reasons spends her episode switching between being terrified, worried for her missing husband, and heartbroken. Can be somewhat tortuously argued to fit the theme of (not) overcoming grief and letting go, one of the few detectable threads in the directionless slog that’s season 2.

Status: Dead

Importance: Minor overall, major because she’s arguably the main character of her episode

On her own: Torture porny. Very torture porny.

Madison

Intelligent, educated, and with an endearing love of soaps, she’s responsible for one of the three watchable sex scenes in the entire show. Has a nice theme of personal growth and healing from trauma going on, although it’s cut short and undermined when she’s revealed as a werewolf and euthanized by none other than Sam himself. Her death is filmed as a narrative-changing tragedy before it goes on to become a joke in season 4.

Status: Dead

Importance: Major

On her own: No matter how you look at it, she’s a diseased dog that needs to be put down for her own good while the menz wallow in their manly manpain. A rare example of a storyline I don’t think can be tweaked to be even marginally less awful.

I believe maestro may have wanted to portray sadness here.

Tamara

Told to be an excellent hunter, she’s shown as needing to be saved in order not to end up like her husband who’s literally forced to gargle bleach. Introduces the notion of growing hostility against the Winchesters in the hunting community. Full of wrath to fit the episode’s one-off seven deadly sins schtick, she’s emphasized as emotional and not in control of herself to such a degree that it overshadows how she’s in fact fairly competent in the second half of the episode.

Status: Alive as of s5

Importance: Minor

On her own: Wouldn’t stand out this much if she weren’t one of the few POCs in the blinding whiteness that’s SPN’s Americana.

Ruby

Doesn’t have the most organic introduction (A cool intriguing sexy French fries loving not like other gurls sassy badass, with a superdooper special knife? How 2000s cringe can you get?) but quickly becomes one of the show’s most distinctive villains allies. She’s an ally. Totally. Don’t worry about it. A sarcastic smartass jerk who breathes lies and manipulation, she’s resourceful, thinks on her feet, and throws herself into the thick of action without hesitation—a trait that gets especially interesting in retrospect as it suggests a fanatic devotion to her real goal. Sadly, her motivation doesn’t get fleshed out beyond “she really likes Satan, I guess” (which, hey) as the writers prioritize the surprise of the revelation over her further character development. Has the second watchable sex scene in the entire show; the fandom weeps itself to sleep. Gets killed by her own weapon when the writers decide that a character who’s smarter than both protagonists combined could well do with a bit of the good ol’ lobotomizing.

Status: Dead

Importance: Supermegadoublemajor

On her own: The stupid nature of her demise and occasional wooden acting do their best but never overshadow the awesome that’s Ruby.

Lisa Braeden

Dean’s past fling who becomes a living symbol of his desire for the white-picket fence. Is implied to possess mad financial skills as she owns property on a yoga teacher’s salary while a single mom below the age of 30. A blank slate the likes of Cassie, she’s salvaged by better acting. Frequent frowning suggests the presence of an inner life though it doesn’t tend to manifest itself on screen or affect the plot. Her single established trait—blow-out assertiveness the moment things get too far—is exercised mostly in service to her son. Exists solely to give Dean something to pine for.

Status: Alive as of s5

Importance: Major

On her own: A tertiary character who so-so sustains her own episode.

Bela Talbot

The best expansion of the show’s lore after the host of heaven, she’s unequivocally a bad person who nevertheless evokes huge amounts of sympathy. A cynical self-serving dealer in supernatural objects who mirrors Dean’s cracking tough guy persona, due to her abuse and the resulting trauma she refuses to open up and rely on anyone out of principle, or be indebted to them. Her pride makes her clinically unable to ask for help until it’s too late, and even forego mentioning personal history when it’d actively benefit her by softening the horrible impression others have of her. Switching between being an antagonist and the duo’s reluctant ally, she manages to outwit them roughly 90% of time. The fact that she has sexual tension with Dean while Sam lusts after her to the point of literal drooling sends fans apoplectic.

Status: Dead

Importance: Major

On her own: A complex character brought down by her own flaws.

Casey

A demon, she’s torn between wanting to enact the Apocalypse and just chilling with her soulmate. Definitely a fanfic reader because her idea of dealing with danger is to shut herself with her enemy in a room and have a lengthy theological debate. Very outspoken about humanity’s propensity for evil. Outcomplexes Lilith and to a lesser extent Ruby as she’s allowed to openly address her life philosophy. While the dialogue format of her scenes is designed to give Dean space to talk about his feelings regarding his impending demise, it’s more or less an equal push-pull exchange. She’s smart, captivating, capable, and in love, i.e. things SPN just isn’t interested in keeping around.

Status: Dead

Importance: Minor in the overall narrative, major in the episode and Dean’s development

On her own: Could have been so good if allowed to stick around

Gertrude Case

A rich elderly creep whose gropy ways are played for laughs because she’s a woman I guess. Either can’t read social cues or doesn’t give a fuck about people’s obvious discomfort. But don’t worry, it’s hilarious. She’s a woman, you see. What harm have those ever done.

Status: I’m going to assume dead by now, otherwise alive as of s5

Importance: A major figure in Sam’s life since she sexually assaulted him. Otherwise minor.

On her own: Sexual harassment is fun, kids

Lucy

Take Molly McNamara, strip her of any pretence at thematic relevance, minimize her importance while playing up her suffering, and then remove her like a broken Christmas decoration while making sassy remarks—voilà, you’ve ended up with the exact simplistic image that pops into one’s head when the words Supernatural and women are mentioned in a sentence.

Status: Dead

Importance: Non-existent

On her own: Just… why

Astaroth

Approaches awesomehood as her demonic business operation is built around preying on bored suburban hausfraus and taking their souls in exchange for magical powers, which they then use to secure benign materialistic keeping-up-with-the-joneses crap and devour one another like a bunch of assholes whose death you can’t help but eagerly anticipate. Srsly, eff those ladies. Stands out as the only (implied) lesbian in the Kripke arc.

Status: Dead

Importance: Minor, not even the real monster of the week when compared to the coven

On her own: There’s probably another discussion about Doylist sexism hidden around somewhere that I’m not really interested in having. Go Astaroth.

Nancy Fitzgerald

Sugar and spice and every other cliché about kindness combined in a pretty sweet package. Plot demands her to be a virgin for some reason, even though this aspect of her character doesn’t amount to anything in the story and only serves to contrast Nancy’s… purity with Ruby who we’re being constantly told is a “slut” and a “whore” and I have no idea how that’s supposed to work. Then again, Nancy’s virginity is framed as a valid personal choice in a rather empowering moment so that’s good. Has standards because even after deciding to let go of her chastity vow, she won’t settle for just any loser who happens to stand around converting oxygen into CO2. Her “cause manpain out of nowhere”-type death is one of the few of this category in the show which actually work because the cruel pointless nature of it is precisely the point (and at least she’s not the only one who doesn’t survive, please ignore how the episode literally says her demise is the most tragic because she never got laid, barfs).

Status: Dead

Importance: Minor

On their own: A textbook definition of a cinnamon

Lilith

An overarching menace that doesn’t spend too much time on screen, she’s a prop rather than her own person. This gets highlighted the moment the show stops casting her as a clichéd creepy child who likes to larp as that Twilight Zone kid, and turns her into the standard hawt chick in a will-they-won’t-they episode. No interiority as she goes along with a plan which requires her obliteration, without at least allowing her to explore her religious motivation. Ruby does all the heavy lifting in this partnership.

Status: Dead

Importance: Major

On her own: For the life of me I can’t make sense of her actions in s4. But the clichéd creepy kid is adorbs so points for memorability.

Maggie Zeddmore

The straight man to the Ghostfacers’ utterly delightful douchefacery. Manages to keep up with Harry and Ed in terms of hilarity because not only is she exactly as out of place as them, she decides to role-play her childhood-friends-to-lovers fanfic in the middle of a haunted house as the best sister that she is.

Status: Alive as of s5

Importance: Minor

On her own: Love at first geek

Next, season 4 and 5 before I try to figure out what this all adds up to.

#spn #spn critical #supernatural #supernatural critical #sexist writing #tessa #jo harvelle #ellen harvelle #madison #ruby #bela talbot #lisa braeden #nancy fitzgerald #lilith

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ariainstars · 3 years

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Umberto Eco on Fascism

I am blogging Eco’s words here because many people don’t seem to understand what “fascism” actually is by definition. The word, together with “Nazi”, seems to have become an overall definition for “evil”, or as a meaning to offend someone by accusing them of being narrow-minded, elitist and enabling violence.This is particularly disturbing within the Star Wars fandom.

The main points of Umberto Eco’s 1995 essay on „Ur-Fascism“.

1. The cult of tradition. “One has only to look at the syllabus of every fascist movement to find the major traditionalist thinkers. The Nazi gnosis was nourished by traditionalist, syncretistic, occult elements.”

2. The rejection of modernism. “The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism.”

3. The cult of action for action’s sake. “Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation.”

4. Disagreement is treason. “The critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism. In modern culture the scientific community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge.”

5. Fear of difference. “The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist by definition.”

6. Appeal to social frustration. “One of the most typical features of the historical fascism was the appeal to a frustrated middle class, a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation, and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups.”

7. To those who lack any social identity, Ur-Fascism suggests that their only privilege is the most common of all, i.e. having all been born in the same country. This is the origin of nationalism and why the only ones who can offer an identity to the nation are the alleged enemies. This leads to the obsession with a plot. “Thus at the root of the Ur-Fascist psychology there is the obsession with a plot, possibly an international one. The followers must feel besieged.” The easiest way to expose a plot is to apply to xenophobia. But the complot must also come from the inside, which explains why during Nazi Germany Jews seemed an ideal object for this, since they at once belonged to the country by living there and did not belong since they identified as Jews.

8. Followers must feel humiliated by the assumed wealth and strength of the enemies. Eco recalls that when he was small, he was told that Englishmen had five repasts every day, contrarily to Italians who were seen as simpler and more sober people. Jews were all assumed to be rich and helping one another through a secret network of reciprocate assistance. The followers must however be convinced that they can “win” over their enemies, thus the enemy is seen as both strong and weak. “By a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak.”

9. Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. “For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle.”

10. Contempt for the weak. “Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology.”

11. Everybody is educated to become a hero. “In Ur-Fascist ideology, heroism is the norm. This cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult of death.”

12. Machismo and weaponry. “Machismo implies both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality.”

13. Selective populism. “There is in our future a TV or internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People.”

14. Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak. “All the Nazi or Fascist schoolbooks made use of an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax, in order to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning.”

By contrast, I would like to leave a note on imperialism here.

“Imperialism - state policy, practice, or advocacy of extending power and dominion, especially by direct territorial acquisition or by gaining political and economic control of other areas. Because it always involves the use of power, whether military or economic or some subtler form, imperialism has often been considered morally reprehensible, and the term is frequently employed in international propaganda to denounce and discredit an opponent’s foreign policy.” (Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica)

I cannot find any parallel between the Empire and the First Order and fascist / Nazi ideology. Their political and military structure is clearly imperialistic, but any of the above-mentioned mindsets are nowhere to be seen. It would be absolutely unfitting for a franchise of action movies, where the average moviegoer simply wants to be entertained, to introduce such a highly charged and complex subject. (On a side note: Darth Vader’s Theme, which we first hear in “The Empire Strikes Back”, the movie where both he and the Empire are at the peak of their power, is called The Imperial March.)

One of the main reasons why I often hear Palpatine’s Empire or Snoke’s First Order being referred to as fascism or a Nazi regime is the destruction of the planet of Alderaan respectively of the Hosnian Prime system, which is called “genocide”.

The destruction of Alderaan and the Hosnian Prime system by the Empire and the First Order aimed at showing the galaxy the extreme destructive power of their oppressor’s weapons in order to terrify them and keep any rebellion at bay. Alderaan and Hosnian Prime were situated at coordinates in the galaxy where their destruction would be witnessed by many other planets. In A New Hope, the actual rebel base is dismissed by Moff Tarkin as being too far away to be suitable as an actual demonstration of the Empire’s power. The races, cultures, religions etc. of the people living on those planets were not of the least interest to them (see points 6, 7 and 8 above). Fascism was not at the root of those mass murders, terrible as they are.

I have never heard or read any Star Wars fan saying that the Empire or the First Order actually were morally good. It is unacceptable that as a fan, one is dismissed as being a fascist or a Nazi respectively someone who supports these awful mindsets.

Yes, some of us understand and feel for characters like Anakin Skywalker / Darth Vader and Kylo Ren / Ben Solo. That does not make us members of a “Nazi boy fan club”: the whole above-mentioned ideology is out of the question.

I have never heard anyone, as well, pretend that these two men did nothing bad and or that they are secretly good. Nobody is doubting or questioning their terrible choices. The point of their stories was to show that they both had once been good, that some good was still left in them and showed itself in the end, that they largely also were a product of their environment and that their fates, and the fates of the many who suffered through them, could have been avoided. It is easy to say “Everybody has a choice / I would never do such a thing” when, as a mere spectator, one is in a wholly different situation.

I will write another entry on the subject of psychological abuse to clarify why I don’t defend Star Wars’ villains but can understand them in their complexity and appreciate the narrative for not simply telling morally black and white stories.

I kindly ask anyone who reads this to please stick to facts instead of blindly attacking fans over a fictional story using terms they don’t quite understand believing by that to prove their own morality. Thank you.

#star wars #sw #fascism #nazi #umberto eco #imperialism #kylo ren #kylo ren hate #ben solo #anakin skywalker #darth vader #alderaan #hosnian prime #genocide #palpatine #snoke #first order

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fortunatelychaoticphantom · 5 years

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She-Ra and the Inherently Good Protagonist

I absolutely love She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, but there’s something that’s been bothering me for a long time. I’m talking about the Horde lying to Adora and the rest of the recruits about their true mission and the war and about the rebels/resistance. Logically, there is no reason whatsoever for them to do that. Why would you lie to your soldiers about something that they are going to see first hand soon enough in the field and know it’s a lie? Not only that, but as we see throughout the show, most members of the Horde do know the truth or, like Catra, don’t particularly care about it when they find out. So why lie in the first place?

(Long-ass meta ahead; some spoilers for She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, Carmen Sandiego, Captain Marvel, Avatar: The Last Airbender, and The Force Awakens)

Unfortunately, the only conceivable reason for it is to make Adora redeemable. Because Adora didn’t know, she thought the rebels were evil, she thought she was on the good side. And that way, once faced with the truth, she would so very easily and very quickly be able with little to no regret or fight to join the real good side.

Now, this is unfortunately something that I’m seeing more and more. Carmen in the new Carmen Sandiego remake has a similar story. Captain Marvel has it too. In all these stories there is an element of authoritarian organizations lying to the protagonist (or even to all member of the organization like in Carmen) about their true nature, which enables said protagonist to defect once realizing the truth. Another important element in these stories, which goes to make the lying part all the more absurd, is the immersion of the protagonist in the culture and environment of the authoritarian organization and the protagonists relative isolation from any member of the extraneous groups they work against.

The protagonists know only life within the moral borders of the cultures they live in. Both Carmen and Adora were raised from infancy by evil organizations in enclosed areas that consists only members of those organizations. They had no prior cultural references with which they had to battle with, they were a clean slate to be molded into the perfect members of their respective societies (thieves and general evil doers for profit in the first case and conquerors in the second). In the case of Carol Danvers it’s a little more complicated, since she wan’t born into the Kree. Her memories were pretty much erased but I am not exactly sure how much of her personality and moral compass were intact after they took her. But either way, at that point of her life she was Kree. Kree life was the only thing she knew (anyone who knows better is welcome to correct me on this). She is also unique in that she is the only one who is being lied to, as opposed to Adora and Carmen, so I’m including her here with a major asterisk as her story has both glaring similarities and important differences that should be taken into account.

I have written about this issue in Carmen before. Back then I said: “there isn’t a single logical reason for an entire criminal organization to lie to everyone of its recruits only to reveal to them at the end that they aren’t evil, they are EXTRA evil”, and it applies to She-Ra as well. If everyone in, let’s call it, “active duty” is well aware of the truth (they are hurting people for profit/they are conquering the planet and killing innocent people/they just don’t like that specific alien race? Honestly I’m not sure I understood what the Kree wanted...), there is no reason for them not to tell their members the truth from the beginning. Since it doesn’t serve the organizations at all, again it leads us to the understanding that it’s only there For The Plot, which is... not the best writing.

There is one thing I can say in favor of this plot device. For that I’ll need to talk about another show - you guessed it - Avatar the Last Airbender. Zuko might be the greatest and most cohesive example of a villain learning the truth about the actions of their side of the war and choosing to defect and help bring it down. The thing is, this process took him two and a half seasons out of the three the show had. I guess we can’t really expect a show called She-Ra or a show called Carmen to take more than two seasons before the protagonists after which the shows are called realize they might be on the wrong side, and this device is very effective in order to jump start the actual plot.

Now, I say “guess” because honestly, that kind of a show would have been fascinating to watch and because it leads me to the most problematic aspect of this plot device; Even though they were raised/nurtured by villainous people, Adora, Carmen and Carol are somehow morally superior to all those around them and are capable of discerning right from wrong even though no one thought them that distinction for absolutely no reason at all besides them being the heroes of the story. Like I said about Carmen: “Instead of making it a process of growth and understanding the consequences of her actions, she is just inherently good and better than anyone around her because of Reasons and plot convenience”. (I would throw in Finn from the Star Wars sequels here as well, but very carefully. He also has many similarities to this plot line - being raised from infancy in a racist authoritarian dictatorship. But even though I love him very much, I still don’t really understand the reason for his defection in TFA - I think he just didn’t want to die? His struggle to do the right thing in the first movie distinguishes him from Adora, Carmen and Carol, but on the other hand he isn’t a part of the evil forces at all from pretty much the minute we meet him, so he doesn’t exactly fit this mold, though it’s an interesting comparison)

This sort of notion is not only an easy trick to make us care about these characters, but it’s a very dangerous and toxic idea that implies that some people are inherently good and others are inherently evil. It ignores the intricate way in which all of us are victims of propaganda, some of which could take years to even notice exist. Nearing 30, I, a woman living in a democratic relatively western country, still find new ways in which misogyny is so ingrained into me by decades of socialization, consumerism and education. To think that a person who lives in an isolated racist dictatorship would have some magic immunity to all its propaganda, and that the process of getting out of these dark dark paces isn’t full of obstacles and doubts and mistakes is distorting our perception about real people in similar situations going through this process right now.

Going back to Zuko’s example, you could say that the fact he wasn’t the protagonist at all but the antagonist in the first season is what enabled him to have a much more rounded process of changing sides and gave him the time to change and grow. But, like I said, watching the protagonist of a show go though this process of unlearning propaganda could be amazing to watch. But the thing I love most about Zuko’s story is that he isn’t inherently good. Sure, he has always been compassionate and values life (at least those of his own people), but his morality wasn’t superior to every single one of his nation. He was arrogant, aggressive, and was not at all ignorant to the actions of the Fire Nation (though maybe he didn’t fully understand their consequences). He truly believed his people are better, and that by their conquest they are making the world better. Whether he particularly cared about the second part is not important. What is important is that while he was fed this propaganda all his life, he wasn’t clueless as to the violent nature of his own and his nation’s actions. What he did learn along the way was that “better” is not an objective definition, and that instead of being “grateful” everyone hated the Fire Nation for the suffering they bring and that maybe war is not the best course of action. He learned that by meeting these people, his enemies, and experiencing their lives.

Adora, Carmen and Carol have these moments too (and they are wonderful) of coming close to their enemies and understanding them (it’s not exactly enemies in Carmen’s case but the general population of the world I guess..,). But it acts more as a shorthand for an actual process and because of the lies they have been fed and their “inherent goodness” they have little to no struggle to renounce their former ways and quickly jump ship and join the opposing forces. Zuko, on the other hand, struggles. Oh, lord, he struggles. He steals from the first person who shows him compassion. He joins forces with “good” people (as much as you can call Jet good) out of necessity or simply for selfish reasons. He struggles and fails and relapses and makes mistakes upon mistakes upon mistakes before he is able to move forward. And even then he makes more mistakes. He is bad at being good because no one taught him how to be good, so he has to learn it almost from scratch and that’s what makes it worth it. It makes it seem like it’s achievable, like it’s something that could happen in real life. It’s not necessarily perfect, but it’s better.

I am not saying that She-Ra doesn’t have much more nuance than that. We see how Catra struggles with her choices, the confusion and abuse that pushes her again and again further into the dark. The same goes to the other shows and movies. What I am saying is that this specific plot device on it’s own about an ignorant protagonist being lied to for no in-story logical reason besides enabling them to easily change sides has a very toxic and dangerous side that we need to pay attention to.

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fatedroses · 5 years

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Pokemon Au

N/: Alright, we’re starting off with this. This au (I have no name for it yet) works on some of the world building provided by the games/anime/manga to kinda synthesize it and make it more of, for a lack of a better word, a realistic universe (like the manga where, spoiler alert, several characters have been killed by both environmental causes and by each other and it is shown). It’s still a work in progress, so I might change how some things work or correct things I get wrong. Anyways, keep in mind this post is hella long, you have been warned.

The World:

Most of the regions remain the same, other than minor tweaks. Because this au is so far focused on the characters below, I’m mainly working on the Kalos region, as while I loved the xy games, the story really lacked details in some areas. I definitely encourage others to pose ideas for the other regions too, please, I’d love to hear from you guys. But anyways, here’s some world building stuff.

Changes to Areas: I’ll have a map drawn out eventually. But I wanted to include the Volcanion movie area, the Azoth Kingdom, and while I was looking at the regional map I noticed there are forest areas north and south east of the mountains that could still be considered part of the region. Hence west Kalos, where the setting is for gen six, is the main political/commercial hub and these two other areas are more closed off and reclusive for several reasons.

Kalos: This region, as shown by the war three thousand years before the game, and a war five hundred years before the anime with the azoth kingdom referenced in the volcanion movie, Kalos could be a very volatile and even admittedly unstable region based on its past. This region also didn’t have a professor until Augustine, as unlike Juniper he had to travel to get trained in sinnoh under Rowan (take that information for what you will, but for me it’s used to represent the instability based around 15-20 years before the xy series). Finally, like how it is implied in other regions, the Pokémon league is the political leadership of the area but there is still a royal family, they just serve more like a regional/national figure (which will be relevant later when discussing Lysandre).

Gyms: Eight gym badges are required to challenge the league (of course), however, there is usually more than eight in the region, based on local towns/populations, and they serve as defenders and local leaders for their communities, and have a higher responsibility of protecting the region as a whole (aka as seen in the ending of xyz).

Pokémon League: The primary council and political leadership, while the champion can vary drastically in age it is noted that the rest of the elite four always has at least one older and more experienced individual that can help lead, and in a normal scenario it is likely that the league was formed to a) create unity among the other regions to prevent further conflict between each other and b) organize a group strong enough to push back against threats that might arise. (In most cases this falls upon the gym leaders, likely the league gets involved as a last resort). The champions (Diantha, Steven, Wallace, Lance, Cynthia, etc) are chosen due to their charisma and likely are meant to be ambassadors between regions, mostly seen with Cynthia.

Legendary Pokémon: I mean this by the “god tier” pokemon, like the creation trio, arceus, yveltal and xerneas, basically any Pokémon shown to be able to communicate telepathically, (I’m definitely going to make a separate post about this topic but that’s for another time), can manifest themselves in a human like form. However this is very unlikely as it is shown that most of the legendaries really didn’t like humans and probably wouldn’t bother replicating their looks.

Humans: for the sake of keeping the anime/games pg of course pokemon aren’t outright killing people and other pokemon(lol but there have definitely been exceptions Jesus Christ), but in this au this can be explained by the idea that humans in the Pokémon universe are far more durable due to their exposure with pokemon (Ash getting thundershocked over and over again, trainers getting hit by stray attacks, resilience to fire, Meyer getting absolutely bodied by Zygarde and still being able to stand afterwards, etc etc.). This also plays into another concept (again something I’ll go more in depth in another post) that being exposed to a certain amount of certain types of pokemon have innate effects on their trainers.

Lysandre:

Look, we’re starting these sections off on the backstorys of these characters. Lysandre is referenced to very likely be a prince, a descendant of AZ’s brother due to both how he holds himself(plus his height) and the reference of sheer wealth Lys has. While I wouldn’t doubt he could’ve built himself from nothing, there are signs pointing that he is meant to be related to AZ so just as a note he and his family are relevant to Kalos for a variety of reasons. (I mean damn, his Japanese name is Fleur de Lis.)

Mier, Lysandre’s father and Sylvie, Lysandre’s mother, were members of the elite four until they eventually retire (Malva and Siebold take their place). In this au for the sake of it, despite the royal family not officially having control over the region, they still do what they can to look over it. Both Lysandre (and his brother Bastien that I’ll talk about later) are well educated and were, well, trained to be able to potentially take their place in the league. Lysandre didn’t really follow suit, instead founding his own research facility/business with the focus of improving Kalos technologically and making the region more accessible to itself. Bastien takes the role of actively representing the royal family, and is currently the king (despite that title meaning absolutely nothing). He also helps with facilitating communities, establishing relationships between towns, and reinforcing policies and proposing projects for economics first drafted up by the league.

Lysandre himself was very reserved and sheltered during his younger years. Their chateau, located in the forest area north of Geosenge, had very few neighbors. His family wasn’t really around that often due to his parents duty with the league and his brother residing mostly at the palace (which despite it being a museum it still has parts used for their average function... I might redesign it later on), but Lysandre spent most of his time with his childhood friend Augustine on his families ranch, up until the pair left to go explore Kalos (This time in the timeline Kalos, mostly in lumiose and the surrounding areas, is a dangerous place, due to a villain team that I’m working on.)

Lysandre was a very caring and an extremely generous individual (until later something so bad happens that it causes him to become a misanthrope. Referenced to be a bad event plus witnessing general human stupidity and greed). He was known for his love and admiration of life, human and Pokémon, and did what he could to protect it. (I still have some stuff to work out for the story during this time) He was willing to learn both the secrets of mega evolution and move based combat. He, alongside Augustine and the others, helped stop The Order of Midnight (the villain team, still a work in progress) from destroying Kalos.

After that, he establishes what eventually will become team flare (back when it wasn’t an evil organization and I’ll probably come up with a name for it later). He, with the help of Clemont (damn child genius), figure out how to provide lumiose and eventually Kalos as a whole with clean renewable energy. He is a known inventor and philanthropist around the region, he also took Clemont in as an apprentice up until Clemont took his father’s place as the lumiose gym leader.

Eventually something happens (still working out the details, but it will involve shadow Pokémon and maybe something with his brother), and Lysandre loses all hope in humanity. By this time and from his experience he hides his misanthropy very well, his friends notice something’s wrong but could never really pry enough to figure out what it really was, until events similar to a mix of the manga/the anime take place, (again this is a work in progress).

In a failed attempt to use the ultimate weapon the building collapses. Trapping Lysandre, who had direct exposure to the blast during the collapse, in and killing him in the process. However, because he used both xerneas and yveltal, became immortal (in a way were he can die but revives and heals /as long as he’s not impaled to something/ over and over again). Xerneas in an act of pity, as Lysandre helped her and yveltal when fighting the order, and an act of justice by freeing him from the debris and making him her champion to protect the world from those bent on making the same decision he did.

Despite his hesitation he also eventually reconnects with his friends, and through his service to xerneas rekindles his love for the world, despite knowing how unlikely it would be for the world to forgive him for his actions, but because the populace doesn’t know he’s alive he doesn’t really care as long as he could help and protect others, once again finding his purpose and his passion that he though he had permanently lost after ‘the event’.

(This is just a note, but as I scroll through sources I found that his misanthropy is also caused by his fear and his anger over his own shortcomings, as it is referenced in the anime and kinda in the games that his generosity was abused, and therefore holds himself to blame for not being able to help others because of his own blind willingness. It gives him character but isn’t something that isn’t easily incorporated into the timeline so I’m just putting it here.)

Augustine:

Augustine lived with his family (I’ll have names later, probably) on their estate/ranch, his father is a pokemon breeder and his mother is a pokemon ranger. Because of this, August grew up taking care of Pokémon to the point it became a literal second nature to him, and Pokémon are drawn to him naturally. However, even though he found that he was actually pretty good at both of his parents professions he didn’t really have a passion for them.

So as the years went on and he really didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life, when Lysandre proposed that he could come with him across Kalos he jumped at the opportunity. He was joined by a gabite, one that tended to give the family a really hard time but over time developed a really strong bond with him (at the cost of the smoothness of his hands /rip/).

He hates seeing Pokémon get hurt, but due to his background is a rather epic opponent in battle (he just says he’s weak to avoid conflict). But he is really good at caring for Pokémon after battle (hey maybe you can pay him back with a cup of coffee later or something). Instead during the journey he participated more in entertainment and performing and tried to avoid battling as much as he could.

However, when they get to lumiose (around the time Lysandre gets his third badge and they try to see if they can challenge Meyer) he discovers mega evolution when they encounter blaziken mask for the first time. This sets him on the path, after learning that Kalos has been without a professor for a really long time, to learn the secrets and techniques of mega evolution, (he later discovers that he is capable of mega evolving any one of his team, and the weaker members of the order built up quite a reputation for the man that could pull a super powered monster on you in seconds).

Meyer and Auriel also teach him about using pokemon moves, and how you can boost the strength of your own Pokémon (think like similar to ash greninja or az’s flotte). Once again he becomes quite a force to be reckoned with (and I’m considering making him apart of Meyer and Auriel’s team as a band of super heroes because hero Augustine is cool, okay?)

He also encounters a disguised Alva (the main villain of the volcanion movie to which they are unaware that he’s associated with the azoth kingdom) and finds out that mega evolutions can in fact be forced which a) terrifies Augustine, and b) motivates him to teach others the importance of having a bond with you pokemon if you’re going to have access to mega evolution, hence the entries on everything that goes wrong or the bad stuff that can happen with mega evolution (he discovered them from Alva.)

After the events with the order and through his own notes and research he is able to get a position under professor Rowan, leaving Kalos for a bit so he can go study in sinnoh. (If you mess with Augustine in the presence of Rowan I’m sorry but you’re hella dead, that man becomes a son to him.) Augustine also becomes a pretty well known coordinator in sinnoh, not really to the surprise of his friends but a surprise to the populace of Kalos after some of those details resurface a decade later.

(Not much is really changed with Augustine afterwards, other than making him even more of a force to be reckoned with and adding in some background details for him).

Meyer:

(Oh look one of my favorite characters) So Meyer was the lumiose gym leader, known for being one of the strongest in the region behind Olympia and Wulfric, and he could have become one of the elite for had it now been for the fact the he just wanted to settle down with his kids, his mechanic shop, and his super hero alter ego. He focused primarily on electric types and was rather difficult to get past for most trainers.

He was one of the major reasons lumiose was even inhabited during the issues with the Order, as he was a defender of the people and did his damndest to keep everything in order. Of course he is just one man, and even beat himself up over that fact that he couldn’t be everywhere at once to protect everyone.

He was also a single father, I’m not exactly sure about the circumstances, but after Bonnie was born their mother just wasn’t in their life afterwards, but he was able to raise his kids pretty well (he gladly accepted the help from his friends when he could, especially when they offered to look over the siblings so he could do his superhero stuff).

No one really discovered his identity other than his friends either because people just didn’t equate his sweetheart mechanic personality with the flying badass that is blaziken mask. His suit, unlike Auriel’s, is actually made by him. He’s not an inventor just because he didn’t want to draw attention to himself, but it’s very Ironman-esk in concept to he doesn’t waste time changing if shit starts going down.

He eventually joins forces with Auriel, another vigilante living in lumiose at the time, (maybe also Augustine after he returns from sinnoh) and they work togther to try and stop the order from causing chaos and destruction in Kalos.

Unlike Auriel he learned the process of using Pokémon moves by himself, that in combination with close calls with the order means he has a few scars, they’re primarily on his palms, lower legs, and torso. He tries to avoid that as much as he can because he doesn’t want his kids worrying about him over this stuff (but that plan didn’t work).

(100% Best Dad)

#long post #no im serious this post is a monster #pokemon #au #lysande #sycamore #meyer #worldbuilding #ill also make a seperate post for all the oc character because i dont feel like they fit in this post #but some will be referenced #like auriel #and lys’s family #if yall have any asks or additions please send them in ;)

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pamphletstoinspire · 5 years

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ADVICE TO PARENTS by Saint Alphonsus Liguori (1696-1787)

Saint Alphonsus, founder of the Redemptorist Order, Bishop and Doctor of the Church expounds on the privilege and responsibilities of parenthood as a special vocation from God. The wisdom of this holy man has guided and fortified Catholics for over two hundred years.

The gospel tells us, that a good plant cannot produce bad fruit, and that a bad one cannot produce good fruit. We learn from this, that a good father brings up good children. But, if the parents are wicked, how can the children be virtuous? Our Lord says, in the same gospel, Do men gather grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles? (Matt. 7:16). So, it is impossible, or rather very difficult, to find children virtuous, who are brought up by immoral parents. Fathers and mothers, be attentive to this sermon, which is of great importance to the eternal salvation of yourselves and of your children. Be attentive, young men and young women, who have not as yet chosen a state in life. If you wish to marry, learn the obligations which you contract with regard to the education of your children, and learn also, that if you do not fulfill them, you shall bring yourselves and all your children to damnation. I shall divide this into two points. In the first, I shall show how important it is to bring up children in habits of virtue; and, in the second, I shall show with what care and diligence a parent ought to labor to bring them up well.

A father owes two obligations to his children; he is bound to provide for their corporal wants, and to educate them in the habits of virtue. It is not necessary to say anything else about the first obligation, than, there are some fathers more cruel than the most ferocious of wild beasts, for these squander away in eating, drinking, and pleasure, all their property, or all the fruits of their industry, and allow their children to die of hunger. Let us discuss education, which is the subject of this article.

It is certain that a child's future good or bad conduct depends on his being brought up well or poorly. Nature itself teaches every parent to attend to the education of his offspring. God gives children to parents, not that they may assist the family, but that they may be brought up in the fear of God, and be directed in the way of eternal salvation. "We have," says Saint John Chrysostom, "a great deposit in children, let us attend to them with great care." Children have not been given to parents as a present, which they may dispose of as they please, but as a trust, for which, if lost through their negligence; they must render an account to God.

One of the great Fathers says that on the day of judgment, parents will have to render an account for all the sins of their children. So, he who teaches his son to live well, shall die a happy and tranquil death. He that teaches his son...when he died, he was not sorrowful, neither was he confounded before his enemies (Eccl. 30: 3,5). And he will save his soul by means of his children, that is, by the virtuous education which he has given them. She shall be saved through childbearing (I Tim. 2:15).

But, on the other hand, a very uneasy and unhappy death will be the lot of those who have labored only to increase the possessions, or to multiply the honors of their family, or who have sought only to lead a life of ease and pleasure, but have not watched over the morals of their children. Saint Paul says that such parents are worse than infidels. But if any man have not care of his own, and especially of those of his house, he has denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel (I Tim. 5:8).

Were fathers or mothers to lead a life of piety and continual prayer, and to communicate every day, they should be damned if they neglected the care of their children.

If all fathers fulfilled their duty of watching over the education of their children, we should have but few crimes. By the bad education which parents give to their offspring, they cause their children, says Saint John Chrysostom, to rush into many grievous vices; and thus they deliver them up to the hands of the executioner. So it was, in one town, a parent, who was the cause of all the irregularities of his children, was justly punished for his crimes with greater severity than the children themselves. Great indeed is the misfortune of the child that has vicious parents, who are incapable of bringing up their children in the fear of God, and who, when they see their children engage in dangerous friendships and in quarrels, instead of correcting and chastising them, they take compassion on them, and say, "What can I do? They are young; hopefully they will grow out of it." What wicked words, what a cruel education! Do you hope that when your children grow up, they will become saints? Listen to what Solomon says, "A young man, according to his way, even when he is old, he will not depart from it" (Proverbs 22:6). A young man who has contracted a habit of sin, will not abandon it even in his old age. His bones, says holy Job, will be filled with the vices of his youth, and they will sleep with him in the dust (Job 20:11). When a young person has lived in evil habits, his bones will be filled with the vices of his youth, so that he will carry them to the grave, and the impurities, blasphemies, and hatred to which he was accustomed in his youth, will accompany him to the grave, and will sleep with him after his bones are reduced to dust and ashes. It is very easy, when they are small, to train children to habits of virtue, but, when they have come to manhood, it is equally difficult to correct them, if they have learned habits of vice.

Let us come to the second point, that is, to the means of bringing up children in the practice of virtue. I beg you, fathers and mothers, to remember what I now say to you, from on it depends the eternal salvation of your own souls, and of the souls of your children.

Saint Paul teaches sufficiently, in a few words, in what the proper education of children consists. He says that it consists in discipline and correction. And you, fathers, provoke not your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and correction of the Lord (Ephes. 5:4). Discipline, which is the same as the religious regulation of the morals of children, implies an obligation of educating them in habits of virtue by word and example. First, by words: a good father should often assemble his children, and instill into them the holy fear of God. It was in this manner that Tobias brought up his little son. The father taught him from his childhood to fear the Lord and to fly from sin. And from infancy he taught him to fear God and abstain from sin (Tobias 1:10). The wise man says, that a well educated son is the support and consolation of his father. Instruct your son, and he will refresh you, and will give delight to your soul (Prov. 29:17). But, as a well instructed son is the delight of his father's soul, so an ignorant child is a source of sorrow to a father's heart, for the ignorance of his obligations as a Christian is always accompanied with a bad life.

It was related that, in the year 1248, an ignorant priest was commanded, in a certain synod, to make a discourse. He was greatly agitated by the command and the Devil appearing to him, instructed him to say, "The rectors of infernal darkness salute the rectors of parishes, and thank them for their negligence in instructing the people; because from ignorance proceeds the misconduct and the damnation of many."

The same is true of negligent parents. In the first place, a parent ought to instruct his children in the truths of the Faith, and particularly in the four principle mysteries. First, that there is but One God, the Creator and Lord of all things; secondly, that this God is a remunerator, Who, in the next life, will reward the good with the eternal glory of Paradise, and will punish the wicked with the everlasting torments of Hell; thirdly, the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity, that is, that in God there are Three Persons, Who are only One God, because They have but One Essence; fourthly, the mystery of the Incarnation of the Divine Word, the Son of God, and True God, Who became man in the womb of Mary, and suffered and died for our salvation.

Should a father or mother say, "I myself do not know these mysteries," can such an excuse be admitted? Can one sin excuse another? If you are ignorant of these mysteries, you are obliged to learn them, and afterwards to teach them to your children. At least, send your children to a worthy catechist. What a miserable thing to see so many fathers and mothers, who are unable to instruct their children in the most necessary truths of the Faith, and who, instead of sending their sons and daughters to Christian doctrine, employ them in occupations of little account, and when they are grown up, they do not know what is meant by mortal sin, by Hell, or eternity. They do not even know the Creed, the Our Father, or the Hail Mary, which every Christian is bound to learn under pain of mortal sin.

Religious parents not only instruct their children in these things, which are the most important, but they also teach them the acts which ought to be made every morning after rising. They teach them first, to thank God for having preserved their life during the night, secondly to offer to God all their good actions which they will perform, and all the pains which they will suffer during the day, thirdly, to implore of Jesus Christ and Our Most Holy Mother Mary to preserve them from all sin during the day. They teach them to make, every evening, an examination of conscience and an act of contrition. They also teach them to make every day, the acts of Faith, Hope and Charity, to recite the Rosary, and to visit the Blessed Sacrament. Some good fathers of families are careful to get a book of meditations to read, and to have mental prayer in common for half an hour every day. This is what the Holy Ghost exhorts you to practice. Do you have children? Instruct them and bow down their neck from their childhood (Eccl. 7:25). Endeavor to train them from their infancy to these religious habits, and when they grow up, they will persevere in them. Accustom them also to go to confession and communion every week.

It is also very useful to infuse good maxims into the infant minds of children. What ruin is brought upon children by their father who teaches them worldly maxims! "You must," some parents say to their children, "seek the esteem and applause of the world. God is merciful; He takes compassion on certain sins." How miserable the young man is who sins in obedience to such maxims. Good parents teach very different maxims to their children. Queen Blanche, the mother of Saint Louis, King of France, used to say to him, "My son, I would rather see you dead in my arms, than in the state of sin." So then, let it be your practice also to infuse into your children certain maxims of salvation, such as, What will it profit us to gain the whole world, if we lose our own souls? Everything on this earth has an end, but eternity never ends. Let all be lost, provided God is not lost. One of these maxims well impressed on the mind of a young person, will preserve him always in the grace of God.

But parents are obliged to instruct their children in the practice of virtue, not only by words, but still more by example. If you give your children bad example, how can you expect that they will lead good lives? When a dissolute young man is corrected for a fault, he answers, "Why do you censure me, when my father does worse?" The children will complain of an ungodly father, because for his sake they are in reproach (Eccl. 41:10). How is it possible for a son to be moral and religious, when he has had the example of a father who uttered blasphemies and obscenities, who spent the entire day in the tavern, in games and drunkenness, who was in the habit of frequenting houses of bad fame, and of defrauding his neighbor? Do you expect your son to go frequently to confession, when you yourself approach the confessional scarcely once a year?

It is related in a fable, that a crab one day rebuked its young for walking crookedly. They replied, "Father, let us see you walk." The father walked before them more crookedly than they did. This is what happens to the parent who gives bad example. Hence, he has not even courage to correct his children for the sins which he himself commits.

According to Saint Thomas, scandalous parents compel, in a certain manner, their children to lead a bad life. "They are not," says Saint Bernard, "fathers, but murderers, they kill, not the bodies, but the souls of their children." It is useless for parents to say: "My children have been born with bad dispositions." This is not true, for, Seneca says, "You err, if you think that vices are born with us; they have been engrafted." Vices are not born with your children, but have been communicated to them by the bad example of the parents. If you had given good example to your sons, they would not be so vicious as they are. So parents, frequent the Sacraments, learn from the sermons, recite the Rosary every day, abstain from all obscene language, from detraction, and from quarrels, and you will see that your children follow your example. It is particularly necessary to train children to virtue in their infancy, Bow down their neck from their childhood, for when they have grown up, and contracted bad habits, it will be very difficult for you to produce, by words, any amendment in their lives.

To bring up children in the discipline of the Lord, it is also necessary to take away from them the occasion of doing evil. A father must forbid his children to go out at night, or to go to a house in which their virtue might be exposed to danger, or to keep bad company. Cast out, said Sarah to Abraham, this bondswoman and her son (Gen. 21:10). She wished to have Ismael, the son of Agar the bondswoman, banished from her house, that her son Isaac might not learn his vicious habits. Bad companions are the ruin of young persons. A father should not only remove the evil which he witnesses, but he is also bound to inquire after the conduct of his children, and to seek information from family and from outsiders regarding the places which his children frequent when they leave home, regarding their occupations and companions. A father ought to forbid his children ever to bring into his house stolen goods. When Tobias heard the bleating of a goat in his house, he said, Take care, perhaps it is stolen, go, restore it to its owners (Tobias 2:21).

Parents should prohibit their children from all games, which bring destruction on their families and on their own souls, and also dances, suggestive entertainment, and certain dangerous conversations and parties of pleasures. A father should remove from his house books of romances, which pervert young persons, and all bad books which contain pernicious maxims, tales of obscenity, or of profane love. He should not permit his daughters to be alone with men, whether young or old. But some will say, "But this man tutors my daughter; he is a saint." The saints are in Heaven, but the saints that are on earth are flesh, and by proximate occasions, they may become devils.

Another obligation of parents is to correct the faults of the family. "Bring them up in the discipline and correction of the Lord." There are fathers and mothers who witness faults in the family and remain silent. Through fear of displeasing their children, some fathers neglect to correct them, but if you saw your child falling into a pool of water, and in danger of being drowned, would it not be savage cruelty not to catch him by the hair, and save his life? He that spares the rod hates his son (Prov. 13:24). If you love your children, correct them, and while they are growing up, chastise them, even with the rod, as often as it may be necessary.

I say, with the rod, but not with a stick; for you must correct them like a father, and not like a prison guard. You must be careful not to beat them when you are in a passion, for you will then be in danger of beating them with too much severity, and the correction will be without fruit, for then they believe that the chastisement is the effect of anger, and not of a desire on your part to see them amend their lives. I have also said, that you should correct them while they are growing up , for when they arrive at manhood, your correction will be of little use. You must then abstain from correcting them with the hand; otherwise, they will become more perverse, and will lose their respect for you. What use is it to correct children with injurious words and with imprecations? Deprive them of some part of their meals, of certain articles of dress, or shut them up in their room. I have said enough. Draw from this discourse the conclusion, that he who has brought up his children badly, will be severely punished, and that he who has trained them in the habits of virtue, will receive a great reward.

You are encouraged to read this article more than once as the valuable advice that it entails needs to be deeply embedded in the minds of parents. It would be pleasing to God and you would be storing up treasures in heaven by ordering many copies of this article and distributing it to as many parents as possible because this is sound instruction that all parents need in the difficult task of raising children.

#advice to parents

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mazurah · 6 years

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Clockwork City Main Quest Discussion

WARNING: Contains Spoilers!

Okay! The Clockwork City in Screenshots is completely posted, so it’s time to get into the lore! Here are my thoughts on the main quest.

The Good:

The graphics, the design, the art deco aesthetic; visually, the Clockwork City is everything I could have hoped for!

Kireth and Raynor are the most adorable siblings! I haven’t encountered them in the main game yet, but apparently they’re recurring characters. I look forward to finding them.

The Blackfeather Court is hilarious. I love them all. I also love that Nocturnal basically got defeated by a bunch of talking crows who got to Seht’s metal city and were just like, everything here is shiny! We must have it! And then went off to do their own thing.

Speaking of Nocturnal, I really liked the depiction of the Evergloam. We rarely get to see ingame depictions of the realms of Oblivion, and when we do, it’s always great. Nocturnal’s realm really seemed to fit her. It coulda been darker, but I understand why the game devs decided to make it twilight instead of straight up night for playability reasons.

Shadows as souls or pieces of souls is an interesting concept, and I wonder if it has something to do with Shadow Magic, like what Nightblades (the character class) use. I’m looking forward to doing some more research into the topic and cobbling together a more full understanding of what exactly shadows are in the TES universe. It’s not really something we get from any other game other than ESO, and I actually really like this contribution to TES lore.

Varuni has such a good character arc! She starts out as a fervent believer in Sotha Sil, and ends up being forced to confront her questions about him and grow as a person! Honestly, she has the best writing in the entire DLC, and she’s my favorite character! Here’s one of my favorite pieces of dialogue and an example of actual good writing in the Clockwork City:

Varuni: "He's gone, isn't he?"

Player: "Sotha Sil? Yes."

Varuni: "I knew it."

Varuni: "I never got to speak to him. Can you believe that? A hundred years of loyal service and then, poof. Gone."

Player: "What would you have said to him?"

Varuni: "Ha. You know, I spent years rehearsing exactly what I would say. I stood in front of the mirror, saying it over and over. Lord Seht, I stand before you as your loyal servant. Prayers of thanks, supplication... on and on."

Player: "And now?"

Varuni: "Now? Now I have nothing but questions.”

Varuni: "Why do we study in the basilica while people struggle on the streets? Why can't we have birds like the exodromals? How could Daedra break through our unbreakable walls? Why can't we leave?"

Player: "Do you think he'd have answers for you?"

Varuni: "I did yesterday. Today? I'm not so sure."

The Bad:

Oh my gods, what did they do to Sotha Sil? They’ve turned him into a faux-deep douchebro! This is my main problem with the Clockwork City DLC, and it’s a major one. They got him all wrong. I mean, he’s hard to understand because he’s Mystery, but at the very least Zenimax shoulda asked some of the original Morrowind lore writers for input or something, because it’s very obvious they had no idea how to handle him. In fact, this is so much of a problem that I feel the need to expound on the point. Here are a couple of excerpts of the most egregious writing:

I asked Sotha Sil about those persistent rumors—the ones about how he and the other Tribunes murdered Indoril Nerevar, the Dark Elf king. According to Marilia, the topic is strictly taboo. Even so, Sotha Sil answered my questions with a quiet grace that surprised even me.

"Why do you think things happen?" he asked. I told him I didn't understand the question.

"Why are we sitting here talking? Why does young Marius exist? Why do I reign over this place, while you convalesce within it?"

I sat quiet for a moment, then replied: "Because that's just the way it is."

His cold face melted into one of his solemn half-smiles. "Exactly."

I can't be sure, but it seemed like relief in his voice. His shoulders relaxed, his tone shifted—he had the look of a man at peace with his sins.

— Proctor Luciana’s Journal, Volume 1

Player: “What is all this for, anyway? The Clockwork City.”

Sotha Sil: “I sometimes ask myself the same thing.”

Sotha Sil: “May I confess something to you?”

Player: “Of course.”

Sotha Sil: “I suffer from a peculiar ailment. Shall I describe it?”

Sotha Sil: “I bear the cruel weight of certainty. Total, absolute, relentless certainty. People rarely comprehend the luxury of doubt... the freedom that comes with indecision. I envy you.”

Player: “Didn't you just say that you question whether the City is worth the effort?”

Sotha Sil: “Indeed. But such questions are flaccid—cursory indulgences that come and go in an instant.”

Sotha Sil: “The truth is that my actions, both good and evil, are inevitable. Locked in time. Determined by chains of action and consequence.”

Player: “So... you were forced to build the Clockwork City?”

Sotha Sil: “Compelled.”

— Game Dialogue with Sotha Sil

Okay first off, nothing is ever certain in the TES universe. There is no such thing as an omniscient god in the TES universe. Not even Hermaeus Mora, the Prince of Knowledge and Fate knows everything. Just look at how the Skaal managed to hide knowledge from him for generations. No god can predict the future with absolute certainty. Just read Azura and the Box, and you’ll see what I mean. In it, Azura, a god of prophecy who asserts that her knowledge is absolute, fails to predict what is in a box. Azura’s assertion that she knows everything is in character for her because she is also a god of vanity, but not so for Sotha Sil. Sotha Sil is not generally characterized as vain. As a person with godlike powers, he should be very much aware of the limitations of his knowledge and power, so the assertion that he can predict the future with absolute certainty is preposterous, and completely out of character.

If he knows everything, why the heck doesn’t he do something? He seems to have been taken by surprise by Nocturnal’s attack on the Clockwork City (as well as by all the events that took place in the Morrowind DLC with Vivec and stuff), so that doesn’t add up, but some of the dialogue from Aios implies that he realizes that Almalexia is a threat to him and he is taking countermeasures of some sort! It doesn’t make any sense! Gaah!

Anyway, moving on. More bad stuff:

It’s explicitly stated in multiple lore books that Sotha Sil and Almalexia are sexually involved. It’s also stated that Almalexia is Vivec’s lover and consort. That would seem to imply that Vivec and Sotha Sil were more involved than just “brothers” since they don’t seem to have any sort of jealous rivalry over Almalexia going on, and yet “brothers” is how Sotha Sil describes Vivec. That... doesn’t really make sense to me. At the very least they would be metamours, and quite likely more than that.

Sotha Sil does not just "quietly" admire Dwemer stuff. He’s blatantly copping and improving on the Dwemer’s inventions. That’s not bad btw, I like how they did that. The bad part is that Divayth Fyr, someone who supposedly knows Sotha Sil better than almost anyone, describes Sotha Sil as “quietly” admiring the Dwemer. He obviously has no idea what he’s talking about.

Sotha Sil’s feet. They gave him mechanical arms but not mechanical feet? Come on you guys! Get it together! He has mechanical feet in Morrowind, why not here? There’s so many great fan theories floating around about Sotha Sil’s feet, one of my favorite being by @boethiah, which speculates that he was injured as a child, and had to have his legs replaced so he could walk. Why not go with something like that? The lore strongly implies that Sotha Sil bypasses Vivec’s path to “true” godhood via CHIM and tries to find perfection through mechanical means. It stands to reason that he would have all mechanical limbs even if he didn’t have some sort of childhood accident requiring him to get prosthetics.

Slag Town. One of the things you can gather from the 36 Lessons and by listening to Almalexia talk about Sotha Sil is that Sotha Sil is an idealist when it comes to people. He thinks the best of them, and he is very hurt when people’s darker nature shows itself, which is one of the factors leading to his self isolation. (I wish I could remember specific sources for this, if anyone remembers something related, please post it.) With that in mind, I think he wouldn’t stand to have slums in his city. He cares about people too much. He wants them to succeed. If you read this lore book about Slag Town, it basically states that some of the people born down there don’t even know how to read. Sotha Sil, being the idealist he is, would obviously have a public education system in place. I don’t understand how writers who have read all the official resources available about Sotha Sil could think otherwise.

Why is Sotha Sil so obsessed with CHIM and Amaranth? That’s Vivec’s thing I thought. If he knows so much about it, why didn’t he achieve CHIM? He’s supposed to be taking a different path than Vivec, but his dialogue seems to be referencing back to Vivec’s path all the time. This would be alright if they added some Almalexia content as well showing her contribution to the Tribunal’s god-philosophies and uniting the Tribunal into a whole, but as it stands it just looks like Sotha Sil is a Vivec fanboy.

This is pretty unimportant, but Dunmer keep calling other Dunmer "dark elves". Just, why...? Only Men ever refer to mer as elves! This isn’t just a problem with the Clockwork City, but with ESO in general. Elves referring to other elves as elves instead of mer is just... weird.

I’m probably being pedantic, but why does everyone pronounce it "Sotha Seel" instead of "Sotha Sil", and "Div-AAAY-th" instead of "Div-EYE-th" or "Dee-VAH-yth"? It just irks me, almost as much as how they pronounced “Nerevarine” in the Morrowind DLC.

The Neutral:

Sotha Sil’s height. Sotha Sil is a giant in comparison to everyone else, even Altmer. He can’t possibly be this tall naturally. He’s probably just making himself appear taller because he thinks he’s supposed to, or possibly because he’s insecure about his height. It’s a strange character choice, and not one I really agree with, but also not one I disagree with either. So... meh?

Divayth Fyr was just... adequate. They got his friendship with Sotha Sil right, as well as his flaunting of authority, but they didn’t give him the booming, larger than life, generally genial-and-magnanimous-if-insensitive personality I’ve come to associate with Divayth Fyr (Dunmer-Brian-Blessed as @chameleonspell put it, click here if you haven’t seen Brian Blessed before.) So it’s just kind of... okay. They also established that Divayth Fyr was friends with Sotha Sil before Sotha Sil’s apotheosis, which would make him old enough to remember being Chimer. However, I was under the impression that he did not personally remember the War of the First Council, but I don’t really have any evidence to back this up, so if somebody has some Morrowind dialogue to help me out, that’d be great. It’s quite possible that this is a lore contradiction.

Sotha Sil’s depression. The way he’s depicted, he exhibits a lot of symptoms that make me think that he has some very profound depression going on. That honestly seems accurate to his character. It’s not necessarily a good or a bad thing, but it’s an understandable character choice.

The ‘I don’t know how to interpret this’:

The very short depiction we get of Nerevar just seems... off. @saltrices mentioned that there were some speculations going around on tumblr that Nerevar could have been part Ayleid or some other non-Chimer elf, and...

That’s the hologram of Nerevar, and the projection of the last Ayleid king. They’re wearing the same armor. Why? I have no idea. I don’t think the armor suits him. His height in comparison to Sotha Sil is certainly not accurate, but again, I think Sotha Sil is probably making himself appear taller because he thinks he should or something. In life, Nerevar was almost certainly the same height or taller than Sotha Sil. The height difference has more to do with how Sotha Sil is choosing to depict them both, and the armor choice could be as well, but I don’t think so. Sotha Sil is likely to depict Nerevar in armor he actually wore, which is why the armor choice is so strange. I’m not sure what to make of it.

TL:DR: I enjoyed the DLC. I disliked some of the writing, especially regarding Sotha Sil, but I like other parts of the writing. I had a lot of fun, and I found the DLC to be visually appealing, but I think that most of the “deep” lore that the DLC tried to add should, in general, be completely disregarded.

That’s my take, now I wanna hear everyone else’s! Reblog with what you thought was good, bad, neutral, or perplexing!

Many thanks to @talldarkandroguesome for running through the Clockwork City 1.5 times with me and for being my sounding board.

Tagging those who were interested in participating: @ladynerevar @kapycta @sharmat-dreams @ratwhisperer @spoopy-eneko @kee413 @king-helseth @kagrenacs @annachibi @jurvektheblogsmer Anyone else who wants to is welcome to join as well!

#tes #eso #elder scrolls online #elder scrolls online: the clockwork city #clockwork city #clockwork city spoilers #elder scrolls lore #Deconstruction #Long Post

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theempiricist · 3 years

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“ Some people who have shifted Religion, Belief, Faith or what have you have to pray for, depth or open-mindedness.

The likes of them are truly convinced that their more ‘decorated’ or ‘ritualized’ counterpart literally pray to the religious statues or images.

Not a few went to the extent of setting the so-called ‘idols,’ ( which mostly were previously of their parents’ ) on fire burning them to ashes.

Whatever happened to their renowned virtues such as respecting others, practicing peace and actions done in the name of love?

This mentality and perception go way back even when I was in a Christian highschool; with a ‘wrath of Godesque’ teacher/pastor leading the charge.

This form of mentality and perception are also one of the many reasons certain people question God ‘Why?’

To me, perspective and open-mindedness both should evolve with time along with the character of an individual.

Preachers, counselors, teachers etc. whom talk and move like Jesus yet do not practice what they preach, project an image opposite of who they really are and are quick to judge everything that does not conform to their own should be the ones burned ( #ThouShouldNotBeTooLiteral ) at the stake; same as what their post-reformative predescendants did to those they ‘labelled’ and condemned as witches and evil even though Wiccans claim not all are so.

Simply put, one should not be too hasty to judge another or anything for the matter; worst do something dire or extreme simply because it deviates from his or her own conviction.

This in my opinion is a form of xenophobic defense mechanism, that is certain to cause fragmentation. Fragmentation spawns gaps and those gaps become walls between people; family or friends both.

But if they would only take a brief moment to look at the mirror to tell the truth; that commonsense and purity of heart reveal that God is Love and love does not and should never divide.

I’m wondering why it has not even occurred to these people that as early as the dark ages man being mortals and because we have the soul were already in search of a Creator or God?

Case in point; when man during those times saw the sun make their crops grow understandably they would think that the sun is God since this was many decades before Christianity; there were no Churches nor Bibles nor missionaries nor education and so I do not think God condemned them rather saw the good intentions of their hearts not their superficial action of praying to the sun or say, making stick figures to represent or symbolize God in their pursuit of Him. As a matter of fact these acts might even flatter a Creator.

In times when I feel that God is so far I myself grasp something as I pray, like a rosary just to give me something solid or concrete to feel and believe in and I’m not even Catholic. Also, this certainly does not imply that my focus is not towards nor that this replaces God rather it helps with my focus, but then probably those who disagree probably have an anti-thesis to this and that is ‘The devil wants you to think that way.’ To me, God does not have low self-esteem issues hence He will never be insecure to nor make a big deal of ‘idols.’

Lastly, the Bible is both a powerful tool and a weapon but is dangerous if taken too literally and in the wrong context and connotation. I hope that the trigger-happy ‘idolatry judgmentals’ would get the point here, lest they themselves be judged as well with zealotry.”

#coexist #mutualrespect #packagingsubversion #pseudosacrosanctperversion

-Tan Schneider

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mellowfilmmaker · 7 years

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5 Reasons Room for Ruby is Poorly Written

Here’s a link to my Mellow Frames of the episode if you want to read that before you read this review.

Aw Room for Ruby, it’s a decisive episode. Not just for the fandom, but also for yours truly. There’s some things I really like about this episode, but also some things I really hate about this episode. However, one thing I know for sure is that it’s a really poorly written episode. Now just because it’s a poorly written episode doesn’t mean it’s a terrible episode. Hit the Diamond is a poorly written episode that I love. Room for Ruby is somewhere in between a poorly written episode that’s still charming like Hit the Diamond and a hard to watch poorly written episode like Fusion Cuisine. Now let’s get on to the list.

1. The Beginning is Contrived, Horribly Improbable and Lazy

As someone who has written before and has read multiple screenplays I would tell you that it can be hard to connect your plot points. Sometimes the writer knows what’s meant to happen in a story, but they don’t know how to get to that point. Beginnings can be hard to write is what I’m saying. However, that will not stop me from saying that the beginning to Room for Ruby is lazy as hell. Navy just lands in front of the temple, no real build up or no reason, she just lands in front of the temple. You have to have your turning points in your story happen more naturally than that. It’s like if you wanted to start a romance story by having character #1 go up to character #2 and say “Hey you seem nice, let’s date”, to which character #2 said “sure”, then the plot begins. It’s not only lazy for an opening, but it’s also confusing. What are the fucking chances she lands in front of the temple. She was drifting in space and fell to the Earth( which is really huge) to fall exactly in front of the temple. If she did it on purpose then how the fuck did she accomplish that!? I’m guessing she didn’t do it on purpose because she didn’t know the location of the temple, so she just happen to fall in front of the temple. That is really contrived Lauren!

2. It’s Hard Not to Take Navy’s Side Here

One thing I loved about the episode was Navy turning out to be “evil”. I really like what they did with the Ruby Squad where they first appeared to be dumb comic relief nuisances, but actually turned out to be somewhat legit threats. Eyeball trying to kill Steven was a big surprise, but Navy tricking the Barned Gems was a bigger surprise. I like how they pull it off in the episode. In most of the episode it wasn’t even considered that Navy could’ve been tricking them (yes a lot of the fandom was suspicious, but the characters weren’t), then she wanted to see their ship and tricked them. This was great. Here’s the downside, she’s kind of in the right.The ending of the episode treats it like she was being a sadist, but she wasn’t. Her anger towards them is justified (which to be fair the episode does mention) and she flung them over water where they would be safe. It’s not like she tried to kill them, she just wanted some catharsis. I can easily see a likable hero doing something like that.

Also the Crystal Gems left the Rubies stranded in space and didn’t even try looking for them once. Yes this was a problem outside of this episode, but this episode could’ve fixed this a little with a small change. Have Steven and Garnet look for the Rubies at the beginning of the episode (also imply that they’ve been doing this regularly) and have them find Navy. This would’ve made the CGs look less like the bad guys and also would’ve fixed the problem with the opening being contrived. Navy’s betrayal would’ve seem more like a betrayal too. The sloppy writing involving the Rubies is definitely why half of the fandom was like “How dare you!” and the rest were like “You go girl!”

3. Lapis Being the One Who Objects Doesn’t Work

Here’s something I did like the first time I saw the episode. It was Lapis’ objection to Navy staying there. I liked that the show was finally giving Lapis a little character development and I liked that they presented not getting use to something quickly as a positive. However, the more I thought about it and after I rewatched the episode I realized that Lapis objecting to Navy staying there doesn’t work. First her objection is pretty much that Navy has forgiven them way too quickly, which is ironic for Lapis to say because Lapis has not brought up once to the Crystal Gems about the whole mirror incident. She doesn’t seem to show any resentment towards them at all. I don’t think it’s conceited to say that I’ve handled this better because I have a running joke about Lapis getting revenge on Pearl by using her water punch on her at random times.

Lapis second objection is that Navy is getting use to the Earth way too quickly since it apparently took Lapis a long time to get use to the Earth. Yes, it took Lapis so long to get use to the Earth, like 1 episode, maybe 2. Some of you might argue that maybe it took her awhile to get use to the Earth while she was living in the Barn. If that’s the case than that’s really lazy writing and a huge side effect of that cursed barn. Actions speak louder than words and that definitely applies to fiction. Lapis’ dialogue in this episode breaks so many show don’t tell rules. Now this isn’t just the fault of this episode, but when you’re trying to write a continuation to a story than you need to make sure the pieces fit with what’s been established. I’m not actually against the story Room for Ruby was telling, but Lapis is terribly miscast as the objector. Now if only there was another Gem in this episode where it would make more sense to be the objector... Wait a minute!

Peridot would have worked so much better! Think about it. Peridot went through multiple episodes where she had to get use to the Earth. She had to get over Homeworld bigotry, she had to learn to value the life on Earth, and she had to be disillusioned to the Diamonds. Her transition to loving the Earth was so much harder than Lapis’ and we actually got to see it. I could see Peridot saying Lapis’ dialogue in this episode and it working a lot better. Unfortunately, they decided they had “better” uses for Peridot.

4. What Are You Doing to Peridot!?

This episode is really frustrating because it features two of my favorite characters of the show at their absolute worst. The first one they featured at their worst was Peridot. She got a lobotomy before this episode happened. In the episode she is completely happy go lucky and doesn’t question anything. There’s even a scene where Peridot is hanging of the back of Navy’s ship and she’s all like “Wow Navy is showing us the ocean!”. What happened to that wonderful three dimensional character we got in Season 2? The fucking barn happened! That fucking barn.

5. What Are You Doing to Garnet!?

Like Peridot, Garnet was also one of my favorite characters that the show has slowly ruined. They didn’t even have to use a barn to ruin her. Back in my Mellow Frames for Mindful Education I made fun of how Garnet is only used as a fusion wise guide. The show pretty much took that as “you think Garnet only talking about fusion is bad, we can make her worse”. The Garnet since Mindful Education comes off as a huge idiot, especially in this episode. Why didn’t Garnet go with Steven to redeem Navy? This could’ve been a good opportunity for Garnet to get some good screen time, or even have her unfuse and have Ruby help her fellow Ruby. The ending implied that Garnet used her Future Vision and saw a possible future where Navy joins the gems and a future where she betrays them. If that’s the case then Garnet not going with Steven is even dumber. Why couldn’t she have gone to make sure they don’t do anything stupid like what they ended up doing in the episode? Her reaction to what happened also makes it look like she too had a lobotomy before the episode begun. Her reaction to Navy stealing the ship is pretty much “oh well, at least we tried”. Um Garnet, this is actually a pretty big deal! A homeworld gem stole your only ship and is no doubt going to tell the Diamonds what happened leading to another homeworld invasion! This is pretty dam serious Garnet! God! What this show did to Garnet is so disheartening and this episode made it worse. They even fucking shrunk her.

Now that is the five reasons why Room for Ruby is a terribly written. Now I honestly don’t think it’s a terrible episode since I thought it was entertaining, had a good story in theory (just poorly executed), and Navy’s betrayal was awesome. I would say it’s passable. Now my next review is going to be of a Lauren Zuke episode that a lot of fans hate, Rocknaldo. I’m going to be a little controversial and tell you why that episode is actually good.

#steven universe #su critical #room for ruby #navy #lapis lazuli #peridot #garnet #ruby #sapphire #review #Mellow Frames

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taehyvnggs · 7 years

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Park Jimin // “Side Hoe”

Summary: You didn’t mean to kiss Jimin...it just happened. And now you can’t stop thinking about it.

Genre: Angst

Warnings: there’s cheating:-(, mentions of sex

It was all a drunken mistake. Partying with Jimin was part of your normal weekend agenda. The goal was to get safely shitfaced and call Jungkook for a ride home. It’s what best friends do! Weekdays are reserved for Jimin’s girlfriend, Sana. That was just how the cookie crumbled, and you made a note to not complain about it.

The number one rule to your nights: Don’t get involved in games that may lead to a hookup. You didn’t have much to lose, but Jimin had his relationship on the line. Even piss drunk, Jimin understood this concept. That’s why his girlfriend trusted him so much -- Jimin knew where the line was, and he knew not to cross it.

Except when you both were stumbling home because Jungkook was out of town. He just kissed you underneath a flickering street light. It was completely out of the blue, but you still kissed him back. You didn’t regret it in the moment, but now you do. You haven’t even spoken about it with Jimin, and it was two months ago. You both have been distancing yourselves from each other. There are only brief conversations and small smiles when you walk past each other. You talk to Sana more than you talk to Jimin now.

You didn’t want to stop being friends with Jimin, but you assumed that it’d be better off that way. All you thought about was kissing him again. How could you possibly do that to him and his girlfriend? Coming between them was the last thing that you’d want. That being said, cutting off Jimin would reduce the likeliness of catching feelings. It made you feel like shit, but so be it.

“Jeez, Y/N. If you like Jimin, why not just tell him? You will get a straight answer!” Yoongi says before taking a sip of his coffee. His is hot and black while yours is iced and creamy. It’s the perfect display of how you two are polar opposites. It’s a miracle how you’ve both been tolerating each other’s presence for two months.

You cross your arms and lean back against the cafe’s chair. “That ruins friendships. Plus, I don’t like him!” you defend yourself. Yoongi never really understood the concept of “having feelings” because he’s too involved with work to see the googly eyes he gets from people. The other business majors are swooning after him but he’s got his nose so far up in his textbook that he’ll never notice.

Yoongi rolls his eyes and adjusts his dark hair. Under the day’s sunrise, it looks pretty good. “My ass. You’ve been talking about him awfully much. You have also been spending more time with me.”

“Yoongi, I always spend time with you when Jimin’s with his girlfriend,” you counter.

“Y/N, that’s during week nights. It’s five in the morning on a Saturday,” he responds quickly to prove his point. “I mean, I’m not complaining, because I love you as a person, but I can’t help you when you reject my advice.”

“Because I don’t want to see him, Yoongi. Every approach you have hurts me in the long run.” You sip your cold coffee and feel it make its way to your stomach.

Yoongi laughs. “Well that’s inconvenient for you. You’re both history education majors and have the same exact classes.”

“Damn Jimin for suggesting that,” you huff.

“You see him every day, dude.”

“I’ve been sitting with other people,” you mention. Jimin hasn’t really cared much about that. If he did, he would have confronted you about it by now. You’ve learned to accept the fact.

“And you’ve been seeing other people,” Yoongi adds, smiling cheekily at you. Part of you wants to vomit because you know he’s referring to himself.

“Not interested,” you say like it’s a chore.

“Wasn’t implied,” he smirks. “Morning, Hoseok.”

Yoongi scoots over so that Hoseok can sit next to him. He’s wearing a black sweatshirt and gray joggers. He looks dead tired with bags under his eyes and black coffee in his hands. At least he looks good while tired.

“Hey, lovebirds. What’s today’s topic of interest?” yawns Hoseok before taking a gulp of his coffee.

“Y/N’s plain and obvious love for Jimin. She should tell him about her feelings already. Agree?” Yoongi tells Hoseok like this is something you’d actually do. All you do in response is stare itently at Yoongi.

“Well, not all of us kiss our best friends and nearly have sex underneath a lamp post,” Hoseok states before drinking his coffee and looking away from you two.

“You did not tell me about that last part,” Yoongi snickers, almost about to break into complete laughter.

“She told me in vivid detail,” Hobi chimes, setting his cup on the table.

“I say you just tell him your thoughts,” Yoongi mumbles before resting his head on the table.

“But what about Sana? You know, the girl Jimin has been dating for six months now.” You glare at Yoongi for his dumb suggestion.

“Maybe she’s one of those girls that are like, ‘Tell my man you like him. It’ll boost his confidence. I won’t hate you for that because I trust him and know that he loves me,’” Hobi points out an obvious lie. Sana is very protective of JImin.

“Dude, she put another girl on blast for holding the door for him,” Yoongi states while showing Hoseok a Facebook post that you’ve read one too many times. It makes you wonder why she hasn’t done that to you yet. As of now, you are more than deserving. “She’s been pretty lowkey lately, so I wouldn’t fret.”

Hoseok purses his lips and looks at you with his scheming face. “If she trusts you enough not to blast you, why not just be Jimin’s side hoe?”

“I don’t condone the ‘side hoe’ concept and I don’t like being called a hoe. I also respect their relationship,” you scowl at the two nodding boys. How they think so little about a relationship stumps you.

“Side chick?”

“Yoongi!” you hiss at your friend, who averts his gaze from you. Neither of these boys would understand this if it hit them in the face.

“What’s stopping you from doing anything?” asks Yoongi, still not looking at you. “Are you scared of Sana?”

Compared to you, Sana is a pea. You both have the same demeanor, but hers is more intense. Physically, you could definitely take her on. Mentally, she would conquer you.

“I’m not scared of her. I simply respect her relationship. It’s common courtesy, asswipe,” you mutter, trying to reach over the table in order to whack Yoongi. He reacts quickly by taking shelter behind Hobi.

“Hey! It was just a question!” Yoongi yelps and hops back onto his chair when Hobi deems it safe. “Plus you didn’t respect their relationship when you made out with Jimin.”

“We get where you’re coming from. You still have to talk to Park Jimin about this. Relationship or not, it’s clearly been bugging you. Stress kills, Y/N,” Hobi lectures you.

“Fine!” you exclaim. “I’ll talk to him!”

“You’ve finally relented,” sighs Yoongi. “Let’s head back to campus now. We can begin our movie day without another Jimin discussion.”

The three of you slide out of your stools and push them underneath the table. You hold your coffee cup in your hand like it’ll warm you up, but it is doing quite the opposite. Your hands are not only ice cold, but they are wet too.

You are wedged between the two boys, walking sluggishly. As much as you enjoy five o’clock coffee, it has slowly been draining you. Yoongi and Hoseok are the only two that would voluntarily wake up at five in the morning for you. Jimin never agreed to waking up this early.

A boy dressed up in a white button down and slacks approaches the three of you. His droopy brown hair identifies hm immediately. Plus, that peace sign greeting wouldn’t be used by just anyone. How could someone look this extra so early in the day?

“Taehyung-ah, you’re going to get robbed if you’re dressed like that,” Yoongi scolds the smiley boy that begins skipping over to you. The kid’s smile lights up your day, but you’re still exhausted.

“Y/N! Yoongi hyung! Hobi hyung!” Taehyung exclaims, grabbing your cold hands. Hoseok pulls your coffee out of your hands so that it doesn’t spill. “How have you all been? I haven’t seen you in two weeks!”

You smile at Taehyung as he jumps up and down. He sways your hands side to side and you just let him continue.

“I’ve missed you quite a bit too, Taehyung,” you chime and go along with Taehyung pulling you around.

Suddenly, your wrists are wrapped by something cold. It’s finished with a click, and Yoongi shrugs once he’s done putting it on you. Handcuffs? Why? Is now really a good time to kidnap you?

“I’m so sorry,” Taehyung mouths to you. His smile has faded and been replaced by a frown.

“Yoongi?” you raise your voice at your friend while Taehyung picks you up and throws you over his shoulder. You pound your handcuffed hands against his muscular back as they begin taking you somewhere.

“Y/N, we’re doing your dirty work for you because we love you,” Yoongi attempts to assure you. He tries too hard to sound nice, which in turn makes him sound evil with an ulterior motive. You retaliate by kicking Taehyung as hard as you can.

The boy carrying you groans in response to your actions. “Y/N, you don’t attack your allies!” Tae whines while Yoongi ties up your ankles.

Hoseok stares innocently at you as he drinks down more coffee. “This wasn’t my idea.”

“Whose idea was it?” you shout at all three boys knowing that they are all scared of you. “Min Yoongi, was this your idea?”

Yoongi steps behind Taehyung so that you can get a good view of him. “Half,” he admits. “The rest was Namjoon’s.” He smiles at you and gives you a thumbs up. You simply glare at him, as well as everyone else that was in on it.

“This looks illegal, but I promise it isn’t. You do get something good from this,” Taehyung says to you. His own stab at being reassuring doesn’t help your cause either. This causes you to punch Taehyung’s back.

“None of this is enlightening!” you screech, elbowing Taehyung’s shoulder blade. “Let me go, you assholes!”

“Personally, I am against this. The outcome will be beneficial though,” Hobi says between sips. As soon as you’re released, he’s the first person you’re going for. He can act as innocent as he wants, but he’s still doing nothing to help set you free. That’s punch-deserving.

Eventually, you give up flailing and let Taehyung haul you to wherever they want to keep you hostage. They’re too clumsy to purposely inflict damage upon you, so you’re not scared -- just anxious. These boys are exhausting.

“You three give me angina,” you quip when you realize you’re being brought to a park. It’s not one of you go to often, but you’ve been here a handful of times. Each time you’ve been here, it was with Jimin.

In the distance, you can hear shouts. Because you don’t have the strength to lift yourself and look, you remain slumped over Tae’s shoulder. Now is one of those times where curiosity does not get the best of you. Considering this could be a kidnapping, you should probably at least care a little bit. Too bad you don’t care anymore. You want this dumb thing to be over with. These boys aren’t capable of purposely doing anything bad to you.

“They look like they handled that terribly,” whispers Yoongi when he gets a glimpse of people from across the park -- likely the ones that were shouting. He winces, which causes Hoseok to do so too.

“He looks dead,” Taehyung points out all too casually. He’s only giddy because you’ve stopped hitting him. He’d be grumpy if you had continued the assault. “Did they kill him? Oh my.”

You shoot up and try to look past Tae. Unfortunately, you can’t see anything because Taehyung swivels you away. “If you’ve witnessed a murder, you have to report it!” you yell, beginning to flail again. If you’re in the midst of murderers, there’s no way you’d be caught dead here. Literally.

Yoongi shushes you and waves his pale hands in your face. “We didn’t witness it! The guy’s also alive, so stop yelling bloody murder this early in the morning!”

If you had the ability to cross your arms, you would’ve done so. Instead, you pout and give Yoongi angry brows.

“Hey, guys,” Hoseok greets people you cannot see.

“Good morning to the four of you,” grunts an exhausted voice. You could recognize that voice anywhere.

“Kim Namjoon! This is all your fault!” you wail. “Kim Taehyung, let me down this instant!”

“Apologies,” Namjoon smiles sweetly at you and frees one of your hands from the cuffs.

You take this opportunity to try to jump from Tae’s grasp. Realizing your attempted escape, Taehyung grips even harder onto you. You hit his shoulder blade again and he merely endures it.

“I don’t forgive you,” you answer Namjoon and look away from him.

“Then I guess I won’t feel bad when I do this,” replies Namjoon. You feel metal around your free wrist and then a click following it. It wasn’t even the cuff he just unlocked -- he put a whole new one on you. “Have fun!”

Taehyung promptly sets you down and you look over at the other end of your second handcuff. A light silver-haired boy smiles weakly at you. Your first instinct is to hit his shoulder. Hard.

“What was that for?” Jimin asks while the other boys run off to a dreary tree across the park.

“For not talking to me anymore!” you reply with an angry frown. “I missed you, idiot!”

Jimin stares blankly at you, and you take his bareface in all its glory. He’d never wake up this early for you...so what did Namjoon bribe him with to get him out of bed? “What are you talking about? I’ve been trying to text you everyday for the past two weeks to confront you about it and you hadn’t texted back. I assumed you were mad at me, and I know you like your space when you’re upset.”

“Texts? I didn’t get anything,” your voice slowly enters a mumbling tone. “Please don’t lie to me, Jimin.”

Jimin fishes in the pocket of his gray sweatshirt and pulls his phone out. He clicks it on and you notice that his lockscreen is an old picture of the both of you from high school. It was taken in a shady photobooth on a sketchy part of town. Part of you is grateful for still being a key part of his life past the odd turns.

“Look,” Jimin says as he scrolls through a series of text messages, “I sent a good morning and goodnight text every single day. No response from your end.”

He’s not lying. He did send you messages every single day. The question is: why didn’t you get the messages?

You pull out your phone this time and show him your thread. There’s nothing, just a text asking for homework answers that Jimin didn’t respond to. When he didn’t respond that day, you started avoiding him more often. That settled it between you two.

“My messages say delivered,” jimin says as he peruses through his messages. “If it didn’t go to you, then where’d they go?” he asks sadly.

Suddenly, you press the contact icon to see your phone number. To both your dismays, that phone number isn’t even relatively close to yours. It’s just a bunch of random numbers that doesn’t look familiar at all.

“You’ve been texting a stranger,” you tell him.

“That’s Sana’s number…” Jimin rolls his eyes. “She must’ve switched your contact information. I’m so sorry, Y/N. She probably blocked your number too.”

“Your girlfriend’s a psycho,” you sneer and tug your end of the handcuffs away from Jimin.

“Ex-girlfriend. We ended it a week after you and I kissed. I had to tell her.” Jimin smiles sadly at you. He looks absolutely heartbroken. This isn’t what you wanted. Jimin doesn’t deserve this.

“Come here,” you say and pull Jimin closer to you with your free hand. He places his head on your shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Chim. You dated a psycho. Did you break up with her?”

He sighs; his forehead still pressed against your shoulder like it’s home. “She ended it. I didn’t think she’d be jealous of you.”

“Why is that?” you ask as you rub his back to comfort him. You’re a little offended because are you not worthy of being jealous of? Well, you didn’t really want Sana to be jealous of you at all...but still.

“Because she was everything that I needed! I loved her so much, Y/N.”

Your heart aches at those words. Your best friend, madly in love with another girl. You never saw Jimin as the type to fall in love, and you never wanted to be his girlfriend. Your friendship had been extremely platonic until he put his lips on yours. That was the game changer.

“I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve that.”

“Yes I did. I kissed you.”

“Okay, so you deserved that, but you didn’t deserve to have our numbers switched like that. Sana did a shitty thing,” you clarify.

“If my breakup means I get more Y/N time, then I have accepted the fact,” Jimin says, pulling away from your shoulder so that you can see his face. He has a great big grin, but his tear-stained face says otherwise.

“Jimin, if we’re going to be friends again, I have to be truthful with you,” you sigh and look down at his black Pumas.

“Of course!” Jimin sways your handcuffed hands side-to-side.

WIth a deep breath, you quickly say, “Truthfully, I couldn’t stop thinking about you. That kiss was...completely unexpected. I know that you knew you were kissing me, not your girlfriend. I keep wondering why you did it, and why I didn’t stop it. There’s a possibility that I have feelings for you, but I haven’t admitted it to myself yet.”

He stares at you. His eyes look like cinnamon in the light. His lips are now pursed, not smiling. Just the sight of him has your heart lurching. Did you say the wrong thing?

“I’m sorry if that’s creepy and taints our friendship. If you don’t want that, I’ll make Namjoon unlock us and I’ll never speak to you again.”

“Y/N…” Jimin says to you very calmly and quietly.

You turn away and shake your head to avoid his stare. This is the end. All of those years have gone to waste. Maybe you don’t deserve a boy as wholehearted as Jimin. Karma has decided your fate, and you have accepted it. You kissed jimin; it’s only fair.

“No, Jimin. Don’t pity me. You know I hate when you do that -- of all people.” You look back at him with tears in your eyes. It’s not that unrequited feelings hurt, but you’re losing JImin, and it’s official this time.

“I wish you would’ve told me this sooner,” he says to you while wiping tears away from your face. His hands are warm in comparison to your cold wet face. You knit your brows together, which causes him to laugh at your vulnerability.

“I was scared to lose you,” you say once he pulls you into his arms for an awkward handcuffed hug. “I can’t keep spending my mornings with Yoongi! He’s getting tired of me.”

“I love Sana,” Jimin murmurs into your hair.

“I know,” you reply with more tears that dampen his sweatshirt. “I’m sorry for coming between you two.”

“Let me finish, Y/N-ah!” JImin laughs at you as he rubs your bac with a free hand. “I love Sana, but I love you so much more. Yes, I felt bad for kissing you, but it was a weight lifted off of my chest. You are beautiful inside and out --”

“Like a mango?” you ask before wiping away the last of your tears.

He sighs, “Yes, like a mango. You know every last bit of me. Sana wasn’t very happy when I told her about what happened, but she made out with another guy not long after we called it quits. That goes to show how much she valued me. Jungkook told me that she was at some party on top of another guy while we were dating. He didn’t tell me until after the breakup though. That dumbass.”

“So you both were unfaithful,” you point out, not really feeling much sympathy as the ‘side chick,’ in Yoongi’s words.

“What I mean is,” Jimin pauses and looks at you.

“I’m waiting.”

“Well…” he trails off, causing you to vie him a confused look.

He quickly kisses you, one hand on your hip and the other lacing his fingers with yours. It’s not like last time, with the bitter taste of alcohol on his lips. This time it’s much more careful and slow.

“Get a room!” Jungkook shouts at you two, causing you to pull away from Jimin with a cherry red face.

“I don’t promote sex,” Seokjin says from behind you. “It looks like you don’t need these handcuffs anymore,” he adds, pointing to your laced fingers.

“I didn’t know that you were here, Seokjin,” you say, slightly startled by his appearance.

“I assisted Namjoon and Jungkook in hauling Jimin’s sorry ass here,” replies Seokjin while pulling out a small key from his pocket.

“They made Jungkook carry me because both of them are old and weak,” Jimin tells you while simultaneously making a face at Jin.

“Don’t make me handcuff you again, kid.” Jin glares at his friend once he sets you both free.

“Sir, yes sir!” Jimin grins at his hyung.

“No sex is safe sex!” he shouts back at you, walking away from the scene.

“Someone better tell Hoseok that,” you giggle and lock your fingers again.

Jimin pulls you closer to him and places a sweet kiss to the top of your head. How wonderful it is to be loved by him again.

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imyobe · 4 years

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The Structure of a Story by imyobe

INTRODUCTION:

Stories, if graphically illustrated, are like the arcs of arrows shot from bows. They are launched skyward, attain an apogee or most height, after which sharply curve as gravity reasons them to fall again to the ground. The first portion of the arc may be equated to a tale's rising tension or suspense, its top can be taken into consideration its climax or turning factor, and its fall is its decision or denouement, at which factor all unfastened ends are tied up and conclusions are reached.

EIGHT-PART STORY ARC:

Both brief and long memories, which include novellas and full-length novels, can appoint eight critical aspects in the unfolding of their plots, however do no longer necessarily should contain all of them. The eight encompass the following.

1). Stasis:

Stasis implies a condition of stability or normalcy. Life goes on for a story's characters. The writer needs to create the baseline of ordinary fact for the protagonists and their world. Depending upon the radical and style, this may be short, even a paragraph, or extremely longer.

Using an extended stasis, however, can speedy bore the reader, who may also then continue no in addition with the tale. Flashbacks, imparting back story, can function a treatment to this impediment.

However you elect to begin your story, you ought to have interaction the reader as rapidly as possible. If you use an extended stasis, then you need a powerful writing style, perhaps developing intrigue about the protagonist's youth or demonstrating something peculiar approximately his current regular life.

2). Trigger:

A trigger may be taken into consideration the stimulating event that breaks the story's stasis and animates the person or characters in order that they turn out to be a part of the plot or principal action.

Triggers may be foremost events, such as killings or explosions, or can also appear almost insignificant, together with something referred to in a conversation. They can equally be advantageous or negative, noticed or unnoticed, sudden or gradual, quick or long. Their key attribute and motive is to spark the exchange that initiates the plot.

Any story may be started with a bang if its trigger takes place immediately, consisting of on the primary page.

3). The quest:

The quest may be considered the protagonist's cause, springing up from the trigger. Ideally, this ought to occupy most of the novel and encompass the factors indexed below.

A said or unstated reason of the quest can be to return the protagonist to the unique stasis, which an antagonist might also oppose. Another probable associated quest may be to defeat the antagonist. The quest may also evolve as extra is discovered and the adventure transforms the hero. Typically, easy private goals, inclusive of conquest or acquisition, evolve into broader and greater social goals, which include saving others. If instances come to be especially tough, the quest may also actually be considered one of survival.

4). Surprise:

Introducing surprises or twists sustains reader hobby and intrigue inside the tale, and provide the opportunity for character development.

To be a wonder, an event have to be unexpected, at the least in part. To work within the story, it ought to be possible and make experience to the reader, at the least in retrospect. Surprises need to add to the plot, growing the involvement and last pride of the reader. A poor wonder will most effective disappoint and disillusion him.

Surprises can regularly be unpleasant, which include, "Oh, no, no longer right here and now," however may be punctuated with occasional quality respite and reward. Unpleasant surprises mission the hero as he battles through his quest, supplying him with an opportunity for genuine heroism and private growth. Pleasant surprises, inclusive of "Hooray, I won!" include gaining treasures and assembly helpful other parties along the way.

5). Critical choice:

At instances the hero may be confronted with tough decisions, which includes must he keep or turn again earlier than he reaches his goal.

Critical selections are significant and crucial elements in the continuation of a quest and might also encompass factors together with pauses to assist others alongside the way or fight evil obstacles. Such decisions should be regular with the individual, although they can also be transformational, changing the person, such as whilst a coward decides to behave bravely. Showing the battle to determine and the workout of unfastened will may be critical.

Critical alternatives often build via the story, with every becoming more vital than the preceding one.

6). Climax:

A tale's climax occurs while the quest, built via surprises and essential picks, reaches its most heightened circumstances. It is the factor where tensions must be resolved. It creates the plot's closing anxiety, leads to some extent of disagreement and/or realization, forces the protagonist to meet the unknown, and is the culmination point of all of the tale's conflicts.

There can be some of minor and foremost climaxes via the story, leading to the grand one close to or on the end. While minor climaxes resolve minor tensions and large tensions are resolved at foremost climaxes, there's still an underlying and mounting anxiety that can only be resolved by using the grand climax wherein the collective quest is sooner or later resolved. It is through this sequence of climaxes that the tale arc is built, binding the reader to the adventure of the hero and different protagonists, almost as if he have been vicariously a part of it.

Along the route of the story, there can be some of sub-testimonies and aspect quests, every with their personal surprises and critical alternatives. While these may be, in effect, little memories of their personal, they ought to still contribute in the direction of the very last grand climax, where perhaps the significance of these facet events ultimately becomes realized.

7). Reversal:

The reversal aspect permits the hero to combine all he has learned in the course of his journey and thus turn out to be the authentic hero, usually without losing his unique allure and personality. Other characters might also alternate, especially once they have journeyed and evolved together.

Reversals are the end result of the journey itself and are, as such, inevitable. A character can not face impediment and adversity, yet stay the identical. Otherwise, it'd obviate the want for the journey. His transformation(s), however, have to be logical and believable.

8). Resolution:

The very last decision serves to create a new stasis or balance in the lives of the characters.

This is likewise inevitable as all tensions are resolved. This new stasis is seldom similar to the original one, however, because the characters have found out and grown. It may serve as a platform for some other adventure, possibly in which aspect characters take on a larger position or wherein the hero develops greater subtly right into a broader, greater rounded man or woman. A new trigger may offer a touch that a brand new or succeeding tale may be anticipated, specifically a sequel.

CONCLUSION:

Like nice dining in a five-star restaurant, whose experience isn't just the food, however is increased to an art by means of the various publications that complement each different and bring about a completeness a long way extra than the sum of its character parts, a tale must whet the appetite (growing action), interact (at its pinnacle or conflict), and sate or satisfy (at its denouement or decision). Diners invest cash in their fulfilling experience. Readers do the identical with their time.

"(In so doing)... the entirety at the page need to have a role in advancing the narrative, and the author must take the most direct course to the telling of the entire tale," in step with Mark Baechtel in "Shaping the Story: A Step-with the aid of-Step Guide to Writing Short Fiction" (Pearson Education, 2004, p. 135). "As (it) moves thru its growing-then-falling path and draws in the direction of its conclusion, the writer should make certain there are no characters, scenes, passages of description, exposition, or precis that (do no longer belong there).

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cupidsbower · 7 years

Text

I’m still the same old me, that’s all I’ll ever be

Supernatural 12x17, “The British Invasion,” and 12x18, “The Memory Remains.”

Two episodes about legacies, two episodes about how our actions can shape the future. Two episodes about making connections and breaking them. And irony. Don’t forget the irony. That’s key!

There have been several British Invasions of the Americas, notably Columbus of course, and the War of Independence perhaps also counts, but ironically, the invasion actually called “The British Invasion” was... wait for it... pop music in the 1960s. The Beatles. The Animals. The Kinks!

Hahahaha.

Anyway, there was also a “Second British Invasion” in the 80s, which included this gem, which wasn’t on the soundtrack for 12x17 but really, really should have been.

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Come On Eileen, by Dexys Midnight Runners

A song about religious guilt, symbolised by desire for a pretty girl called Eileen. On the money, right? *pointedly looks at Mick’s cultish brainwashing*

So, Eileen. She was the highlight of this episode. I love her so! Sam is obviously a bit smitten, and who can blame him. I really adore their dynamic. I’m slightly less enamoured that her life was Mick’s final exam, but she lived so I’m letting it go.

In short, Eileen can come back any time. In fact, I’m intrigued by the possibilities of her coming back. She retreated to Ireland after the accidental shooting of Renny Rawlings, upper-class twit par excellence. And here’s the thing about Ireland... lets just say it doesn’t exactly have a happy relationship with Britain, and would not take kindly to the BMOL doing anything on their turf. Eileen is probably pretty safe there. If Eileen does return this season, it wouldn’t surprise me if she comes back with some Irish colleagues who are sympathetic to the Americans.

The three other meaty aspects of this episode are Mick’s arc, Kelly’s pregnancy, and Mary’s dubious sexual choices.

Mick, ah Mick. You were objectively kind of horrible, but the writers did a pretty good job of making me marginally sympathetic in this episode. Being brainwashed as a kid casts a long shadow, as John’s legacy has demonstrated only too well, and Mick’s childhood was obviously very much an indoctrination into the cult of the BMOL. He just didn’t have quite enough time to grow out of its shadow before it swallowed him up.

Mick’s fate was decided by abusive “nurturing” (if it can be called nurturing) by an adoptive female guardian (the anti-Mary -- present but terrible, instead of a terrible absence). He was indoctrinated into a legacy that shared many of the same problems as Sam and Dean’s, but like them, Mick started to question and see shades of grey once he achieved some distance from the abusive authority figure. Mick’s journey raises the question once more: is a nephilim born evil, or is it raised evil? How much does maternity/paternity define the child, and how much is choice?

I kind of like the symmetry of Mick’s arc, because in the last episode with Claire, and now this one with Eileen, the female characters were lessons for Mick. But his completed arc has turned out to be another kind of lesson -- it’s a major mirror for the nephilim arc. And for all that Lucifer seems so sure it’s a boy, I have my suspicions that it’s a girl. The foreshadowing is definitely hinting at it.

Which brings me to Kelly’s pregnancy. I have such mixed feelings about this plotline. The show is being so cautious, which I get is because they don’t want to alienate their conservative viewers. But I do wish Kelly’s arc had a bit more nuance. I have no objection to her loving her unborn child, or wanting to have it. I do wish we had a bit more insight into her hopes, fears and plans, though. I mean, she was the aide to a super-religious President, right? But she also had sex with him out of wedlock. These are potential contradictions, but we have no insight into how she thinks about them -- I’m curious about where she is on the religious spectrum. Is she also super-religious, and if so, would her fear of Lucifer trump her love of an unborn child? And if she’s not super-religious, what the hell is she making of all this? Is she afraid she’ll die, or does she think that’s hokum and a good hospital will do the trick? Is she missing her friends and family? Does she have any???

Like, I get that she’s probably going to be a disposable container who dies at the end of the season, so that our leads have a baby to deal with next season, but come on. Surely we can get some characterisation along the way before she’s fridged???? This is potentially such rich ground, and we’ve basically been given bupkis.

Now Mary, on the other hand, I’m enjoying a lot. It’s such a pleasure to learn more about her, and get some fresh and unexpected characterisation. I don’t really like her very much at the moment, but her choices are so interesting! Choosing to sleep with Ketch is fascinating (and gross) for so many reasons. For a start, it means she’s coming back to life. She’s making choices about her own pleasure. Sure they are kind of shitty choices, but just a few eps ago, she was in a place where she seemed to see no joy in life as a possibility for her at all, even such fleeting solace as this. I’m curious to see how this will play out. Ketch is a psychopath, but he’s an obsessive one I think. I don’t foresee any love-inspired turning-over of leaves in his future, but I do see him acting in a skeevy or possessive way which has unintended consequences that pay off in interesting plot twists.

Aside from all of that, Mary’s choice to have sex with someone she doesn’t have any deeper feelings for also draws the parallel between her and Dean ever more clearly. Mary will choose pleasure of the moment when she can’t have the deeper pleasures and connections she really wants, and she’s very much aware that this is the choice she’s making. Dean makes exactly the same choice in the very next episode, which is kind of extraordinary once you dig into it. We’ve already had the impala scene, in which Dean realised Mary had had sex in it (just as he has), so the sexual parallel between them isn’t new. But the larger implication of why they both chose fleeting sexual pleasure at this particular moment is new -- for Mary it’s about pining and solace and wanting to feel alive, which due to the parallel implies that it’s also about pining and solace and life for Dean. Both of them are pining for people who aren’t there. Both of them try to take what they can from life anyway.

I keep thinking the show must have plumbed the depths of the possibilities for queer subtext, and then it basically parallels Castiel and John as the missing lovers in question, and I just... Really? Really?

Moving on to 12x18, this episode had some lovely writing in it. From the unacknowledged queer possibilities in the opening scene -- two guys watching het couples make out, and getting off on it -- to the goddamn gorgeous subversion of John’s hunting motto, and a bunch of other things too, this ep made me happy. John Bring, I like you, Please write more!

So there were two main plot strands in this ep, and one major theme. On the one hand we have the bunker being invaded by the BMOL, and on the other, we have the Winchesters taking out a god, no big deal. And through it all runs the thread of legacies -- the things we leave behind for those who come after us.

The title of the ep is probably taken from the Metallica song of the same name, about an aging film star who goes off the rails as their fame fades. Rather like the British Empire has faded compared to its former colony, for instance.

However, the track in the episode which is most directly related to the BMOL is Bongzilla’s Prohibition (4th Amendment). I confess, I had no idea there was such a thing as a stoner band called Bongzilla, but now I have been educated! Their song Prohibition (4th Amendment) is exactly what it sounds like -- an ode to the 4th Amendment to the US Constitution, which “prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures” (x). Obviously an important issue to stoners. I guess.

My main takeaway from the BMOL’s search of the bunker was sadness. I’m now pretty sure that Sam and Dean are going to lose their home when they reject the legacy of the MOL at the end of the season. All that will remain are those carved initials... assuming the whole bunker isn’t blown up, due to the explosive birth of a nephilim for instance.

There’s no doubt in my mind, however, that a rejection of the MOL legacy is coming for Sam and Dean, and it won’t go easy.

The only other thing I want to say about the BMOL strand of this ep is that Ketch’s weird Thing for the Winchesters is officially creepy, especially as it’s not entirely clear whether it’s a Thing for Mary or a Thing for Dean -- Ketch did that whole seduction play for Dean several eps ago, long before Mary decided to jump that, and both Dean and Mary are in the pic.

Maybe it’s both! Ugh barely expresses it really.

I for one will enjoy it very much when he gets his comeuppance.

Moving on to the hunt part of the episode. There are so many things to enjoy here. First, it’s a god, and as Dean says, it’s just “normal” to go eight rounds with one and win if you’re a Winchester. I really do love the juxtaposition of the Winchesters casually taking out a god (Sam is so badass), while the very human BMOL are their actual antagonists for the season. The ridiculousness of it delights me.

The little details of the plot are delightful too. We have the Sheriff who is fighting the legacy of his past, compared with the other kind of legacy -- the illegitimate brother who wants to inherit the sins of the father. And that’s when we get this, which was a highlight of the ep for me:

Pete: That's what we do, right? Hunting people. Killing them. The family business.

And the reason I love it so much is because this is straight out telling us that the Winchester script is no longer John’s script. Because what Pete says shows up just how wrong it is. Hunting and killing people is not the family business. First, because it’s no longer possible to tell who “people” are just by whether they are human or supernatural, and second, because as Sam told us, what matters is saving people -- that is Sam and Dean’s legacy. That is their business.

Sam: But the people we saved, they're our legacy. And they'll remember us and then I guess we'll eventually fade away, too.

When we get these glimpses of Sam’s inner life, it makes me yearn for more. I had so much hope this season was going to be a Sam season, given how it started, but it seems to have trailed off in the second half and I miss it. More inner Sam, please, Mr Dabb.

Anyway, they are not hunters. They are saviours! I mean... *waves hands wildly* Oh em gee. That’s huge!

I am now 100% convinced that the nephilim baby will not die because of Sam, Dean or Castiel. They’ll save it, because it’s the family business.

Okay, the one other thing I want to talk about is Dean and his liaison with the waitress. I’ve already mentioned the parallel with Mary, but I have to say, I liked this part of the ep. It was so cheesy, but it was also Dean celebrating life, which we haven’t seen in a while. Everything from the music as he undertook his hilarious seduction (Tony Hatch’s Music to Watch Girls By) to the affectionate look on Sam’s face the morning after -- it was done with a light touch, and didn’t come off as a no-homo to me. Rather, it felt like a blast from the past. A happy, nostalgic nod back to Dean’s past, signalling that there’s about to be a major shift in his path as we go into season 13.

And the capper, as he ate his hamburger afterwards without a glance at the waitress, was this playing in the background.

youtube

Burgers and Fries, Charley Pride

If that’s not a goodbye to a major part of his life that’s now over, I don’t know what is.

Previously:

The Ministry of Information vs Wayward Sons Carrying On (12x01)

My, my, how can I resist you? (12x02) and follow-up about Bohemian Raphsody

So what am I so afraid of? (I think I love you) (12x03)

I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy Down in my heart (Where?) (12x04) and a follow-up about the codependency and about Dean’s self-flagellation and issues with space

There can be only one! (12x05), and a follow-up conversation with elizabethrobertajones on Freud vs Schwartz.

They shall fall by the sword: they shall be a portion for foxes (12x06)

Presenting the Immaculate Heart Reunion Tour (12x07)

I’m still living the life where you get home and open the fridge and there’s half a pot of yogurt and a half a can of flat Coca-Cola. ~Alan Rickman (12x08, 12x09)

When the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men (12x10)

in re (12x11)

Making the most of teachable moments (12x12) and an added thought, In-and-out-laws

Don’t fuck with the branches on my family tree (12x13)

To Protect and to Serve (12x14) and some more thoughts

Hiding in the shadow of love (12x15) and some further thoughts in response to @elizabethrobertajones‘ meta.

You’re living in the past, it’s a new generation (12x16)

#supernatural #meta #season 12 #spoilers #spn meta #dean winchester #mary winchester #eileen #mick davies #mr ketch #bmol #queer coding #themes #parallels

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dfroza · 4 years

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A post shared this morning by John Parsons

about our inner lives where all desire finds its start:

Do you sometimes feel out of control with your emotions? Have you ever felt overwhelmed by fear, anger, or inordinate desire? Yeshua said "out of the heart come evil thoughts" (i.e., διαλογισμοὶ πονηροί, literally, evil "dialogs") that result in bad feelings, wicked actions, and despair, and therefore we must understand the connection between how we think (and what we believe) and the emotional condition of our inner life. Have you ever heard the saying, "Hurt people hurt people?" The word for "evil" in Hebrew (i.e., ra': רע) comes from a verb (רעע) that means to injure or harm others, though the word also connotes the idea of sadness, a despair of the heart that gives up and chooses to turn “hard” and difficult (קשה). Evil is also connected with cowardice, since the conscience (i.e., moral awareness) reveals judgment for sin, and therefore evil thinking leads to rationalizations, self-deception, and a running away from the truth about who we are...

The Scriptures say that a person without self-control (i.e., מעצר לרוּחוֹ, “rule over his spirit”) is like an ancient city without walls - vulnerable to attack and easily overcome by hostile forces (Prov. 25:28)... If you are impulsive or easily agitated, you are rendered defenseless before the enemy of your soul, and therefore it is essential to repair any breach within your heart and to become unified in your thinking and resolve. The Holy Spirit is called the "Comforter" (παράκλητος) because he imparts strength that fortifies the heart. Therefore the fruit of the Spirit (פרי הרוח) is "self-control" (ἐγκράτεια), a word that means “inner strength” (from εν-, "in" + κράτος, "power") referring to mastery over one’s desires and passions.

A person without self-control is easily overcome by evil. For example, a person who cannot control his anger cannot control what he says, and this reveals subjection to the lower nature. If a person says anything or everything that enters his mind, he is without boundaries, and there will be no door to close his lips... The same can be said of emotions that rise up with in the soul. Some strong emotions, of course, are appropriate to a given situation, but others are not, and without "taking every thought captive" by exercising self-control, we are liable to be brought into bondage to alien passions and obsessive thinking (2 Cor. 10:4). This is the source of addiction and all manner of self-destructive behavior in our lives. Being a "spirit without restraint" is to surrender yourself to dark forces that disregard the glory of your Creator.

God has not given us the spirit of fear but of "power and love and self-control" (2 Tim. 1:7). The Greek word used to translate "self-control" means to be sane, disciplined, restrained from the oppression of inner urges and impulses, and so on. The root word (σῴζω) means to healed from the tyranny of darkness, to be rescued and delivered from evil.... If you find yourself losing your temper or getting fearful when considering the rumors and "news" of this evil world, understand the limitations of your understanding and ask God for the blessing of self-restraint. King David asked the Lord to create in him a new heart that was willing to say "yes" to God's will, but we also need a new heart to say "no" to those impulses that seduce us to look away away from the truth. A double-minded person is “two-souled” (δίψυχος), living out the inner conflict of heart that has not decided what is most important.

“If there is no seed, there is no fruit;” and the type of seed always determines the type of fruit (1 Pet. 1:23; 1 John 3:9). We can sow to the flesh – and reap corruption - or we can sow to the Spirit - and reap life everlasting (Gal. 6:7-8). The formation of “Messiah-like character” is the result of discipline (παιδεία), a word that means to instruct or rear a child (παιδεύω) and is therefore connected with discipleship and education. Indeed, the Hebrew word for “discipline” is musar (מוסר), a term that refers to moral instruction and guidance, whereas the word for “education” is chinukh (חינוך), a term that shares the same root as the word “dedication” (i.e., chanukah: חנוכה). Unlike the Greek view that regards education as a pragmatic process of improving one's personal power or happiness, the Hebrew idea implies dedication/direction to God and His concrete purposes on the earth. Disciples of Yeshua are therefore called talmidim (תלמידים), a word that comes from lamad (למד) meaning “to learn” (a Hebrew word for teacher is melamed (מלמד), a word that shares the same root). There can be no discipline apart from education...

In the New Testament we read, “For the moment all discipline (παιδεία) does not seem full of joy but of sorrow, but afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness (פרי הצדק) to those who have been exercised by it” (Heb. 12:11). The Greek word used for “exercised” is gumnadzo (γυμνάζω), often used to refer to training for competitive gymnastic events. Despite the analogy of training or “exercising” the physical body to comply with the directives of the spirit, however, it is important to remember that the life of God is a miracle that comes from God’s own source of Life. It is the fruit of the Spirit, after all, and not the result of human effort or moral reformation. See John 15:1-8. Our lives are sanctified in the manner in which they were initially justified: wholly by faith in the love and grace of God... Just as we are unable to “crucify ourselves,” so we are unable to produce fruit for God in ourselves. As Yeshua said, “Without me you can do nothing...” (John 15:5).

The Scriptures state twice: שרש למטה ועשה פרי למעלה / "Take root downward and bear fruit upward" (2 Kings 19:30; Isa. 37:31). As Yeshua said, "unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it abides alone; but if it dies, it will produce abundant fruit (John 12:24). We pray we might surrender ourselves to the Lord fully, being immersed in His passion, “bearing fruit in every good work (ἐν παντὶ ἔργῳ ἀγαθῷ καρποφοροῦντες) and growing in da’at Adonai (ידיעת יהוה) - the knowledge of God" (Col. 1:10). The "fruit of the righteous is a Tree of Life" lit., etz chayim (עץ חיים), "the Tree of lives" (Prov. 11:30). It is the fruit of Yeshua, the Righteous One, who bears fruits of healing for the lives of those who turn to Him in trust...

All of us have "hidden faults" of which we are not fully aware. Therefore king David prayed, "Who can discern his errors? cleanse me from secret faults" (Psalm 19:12). We are cleansed by confession, that is, by looking within our hearts to uncover deeper motivations... If we are honest with ourselves we may discover, for example, that we are angry or covetous people, despite how we otherwise wish to regard ourselves. If you find yourself unable to let something go, for instance, some pain or failure of the past, remind yourself that you must do so if you want to move on with your life. Focusing on how things could have been different is to be enslaved to the past. The goal of teshuvah (repentance) is to turn us back to God for life, but to do this, we must be be willing to let go of what makes us sick.

Ha'cholash yomer gibbor ani (החלשׁ יאמר גבור אני) - “Let the weak say I am strong.” The LORD "gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength" (Isa. 40:29). Confess: "I can do all things through the Messiah who strengthens me," not "some things," or a "few things," but ALL things (Phil. 4:13). Yeshua is the Source of all our strength. "May you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being" (Eph. 3:16). Let’s remember to pray for one another and ask the LORD to help make each of us fruitful to the glory of our Heavenly Father (John 15:8). [Hebrew for Christians]

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garyrenard-blog · 5 years

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Type Of Unwind Your Mind

A Course In Miracles

A Course in Miracles is thus pure, so remarkable, so strong, therefore a lot more mentally state-of-the-art than every other part of the planet's literature (past and existing), that you need to in fact experience it to feel it. However those whose minds are actually also affixed to worldly ideas, and do not have the underlying crave real religious expertise that is important for its own understanding, are going to likely not understand a singular entire webpage. That is actually not since A Course in Miracles is baffling - on the in contrast its own concepts are actually extremely straightforward - but rather due to the fact that it is actually the nature of religious know-how that those that are actually certainly not ready to understand it, merely can not understand it. As explained in the Bible, at the beginning of the manual of John: "The sunlight shineth in darkness, as well as night understood it certainly not".

Ever given that I to begin with heard of the stunning and stunning visibility of God, I have taken pleasure in reading a lot of remarkable spiritual jobs like the Bible (my beloved components are actually the Sermon on the Mount and Psalms), the Bhagavad-Gita, the Upanishads, the Koran as well as the poetry of Kabir as well as Rumi. None of them come close to the success of a Course in Miracles Reading it along with an open thoughts and also heart, your fears and problems get rid of. You hear of a fantastic affection deeper within you - much deeper than anything you recognized in the past. The potential begins to seem to be therefore luminous for you and your really loved ones. You believe passion for every person consisting of those you previously have actually tried to leave behind omitted. These experiences are actually quite highly effective as well as at opportunities toss you off equilibrium a little, but it deserves it: A Course in Miracles presents you to an affection so calm, so tough consequently common - you will certainly ask yourself how a lot of the planet's religions, whose intention is supposedly a comparable experience, got so off track acim.

I will just like to state below to any sort of Christian who believes that his religion's mentors carry out certainly not genuinely fulfill his thirstiness to understand a kind, merciful as well as nurturing God, but is rather frightened to review the Course considering that of others' cases that it is actually inconsistent with "true" Christianity: Don't panic! I have actually read the gospels many times and I ensure you that a Course in Miracles is entirely constant with Jesus' teachings while he got on earth. Don't dread the obsessed guardians of exclusionist view - these inadequate folks presume on their own to become the only companies of Jesus' message, and the only ones worthwhile of his great things, while all other will definitely debauch. A Course in Miracles demonstrates Jesus' true message: unconditional love for * all people *. While he performed planet, Jesus pointed out to judge a plant through its fruit. Thus give it a shot and find how the fruits that ripen in your lifestyle preference. If they sample negative, you may leave A Course in Miracles. But if they try as pleasant as my own do, and also the millions of other correct hunters who have located A Course in Miracles to become absolutely nothing lower than a divine jewel, then congratulations - and also might your soul regularly be abundantly loaded with relaxed, nurturing delight.

Changing Lives Through A Course in Miracles.

As the title implies, A Course in Miracles is a mentor unit. It educates our team what is actually genuine and also what is unreal, and leads our company to the straight experience of our personal Inner Teacher.

The Course is set up in three parts: a text, a workbook for pupils and also a guide for teachers. The Text provides the ideas underlying the Course. The book contains 365 regular trainings that offer pupils the chance to use as well as experience the ideas on a sensible level. The instructor's manual appears in a concern and response format, attending to normal questions that a pupil might talk to; it additionally offers a clarification of conditions utilized throughout the Course.

On How all of it Began

The Course was created through Helen Schucman and Bill Thetford, pair of highly educated and successful Professors of Psychology at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City. Helen was actually the secretary for the Course, listing in shorthand the internal information she got. Bill keyed what Helen composed. It took a total of 7 years to accomplish A Course in Miracles, which was actually very first published in 1976 in the United States. Helen composed additional tracts. Her Song of Prayer was posted in 1977 and also The Gift of God in 1978.

Over recent 34 years, the recognition of A Course in Miracles has actually expanded and dispersed worldwide. It has actually been actually equated into 18 different foreign languages and also additional translations are actually in the jobs. Throughout the planet, individuals gather with other similar pupils to go through the Course with each other if you want to better know the Course's notification. In this period of electronic and also social media sites, A Course in Miracles may be secured in electronic book style, on CD, and also via apple iphone Apps. You can easily connect along with various other Course pupils on Facebook, Yahoo Groups, Twitter, and countless other websites acim.

Experiencing the Course

The Course is developed to be actually a self-study resource. Having said that, many pupils find that their first interaction with the product is actually complicated as well as overwhelming - the change in standpoint that it gives is actually contrary to typical thinking. Taking an initial lesson along with a skilled facilitator or even teacher allows for a gentler opening to these originalities as well as an even more satisfying expertise.

There are several training class as well as curricula located upon the approach of A Course in Miracles, and also even particular classes on key Course ideas, such as True Forgiveness or Cause as well as Effect. Such classes provide students the chance to experience the concept as well as use of particular material a lot more profoundly. Through such deeper adventure, several pupils find the reassurance of interior peace as well as the joy of understanding the Inner Teacher.

A Very Brief History of a Course in Miracles

Over 40 years earlier, a psychologist coming from Columbia University began to transport discoveries from a religious body that she was encouraged was actually Jesus himself. She and her aides generated mentors that filled manies vacant web pages over a period of seven years which later on became "A Course In Miracles."

The psychologist was actually a Jewish female named Helen Schucman, and she informed individuals that Jesus Christ themself was her personal feeling resource for these trainings and also mentors. These sessions were supposed to provide support for people to discover that they were the a single responsible of their personal emotions, attitudes, activities and destinies. The teachings took many fines of actions away from the formula. Undoubtedly, a characteristic of the ACIM program is that evil itself carries out certainly not exist. The ACIM teachings assert that through qualifying your thoughts appropriately, you can easily discover that there is actually no such point as wicked, which it is just a perception or even something that various other people have actually prepared up to discourage as well as regulate the activities and ideas of those that are actually certainly not competent of assuming for themselves. ACIM firmly insists that the only point that performs exist is pure love and also upright thoughts and also emotionally correct thinking will certainly not allow just about anything like heinous to exist.

These concepts as well as opinions agitated many individuals that concerned some of the major faiths considering that, while they embraced most of the very same concepts, this program likewise sought to possess people feel that misery is actually unreal as well as therefore wrong is actually likewise unreal. ACIM on its own tries to possess people rely on the sacredness and also prudent beliefs and actions and in the simple fact that nothing can easily injure you unless you strongly believe that it can. Alternative authorities fasted to understand onto these principles because many of the New Age religious beliefs are located out wrong and also atonement but the power of one's personal mind and spirit.

ACIM performs offer some trainings about exactly how to clear on your own of upset and also negative emotions that are flooding your lifestyle with concerns and developing sickness and unhappiness each day. A Course In Miracles instructs you that you are responsible for these sensations and they are actually only harming you. Consequently, it depends on you to rid them coming from your lifestyle for your own happiness and also wealth.

For More Information Visit https://a-course-in-miracles.org/

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