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jalebi-weds-bluetooth · 1 day

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hi jalebi

i am so frustrated with these uber-sanskari khushi’s in all the ipk fanfic like why can’t she say ch*tiya and eat mutton biryani and still believe in god and have traditional values

begging you to write something to fix this void

love

an admirer

Hi Admirer 👋

Hmm there’s a thin line between characteristics, character background and then using a character to peddle irritating “sanskaari” teachings.

Khushi, in the show and fics, falls into all three.

I find this ask a little funny because I am a vegetarian and I rarely swear.

And Khushi being a vegetarian and not swearing (in the show for that’s what I can speak for) really comes from her character background (as my friend has attested, the version of Lucknow and Lucknowi family we see is a romanticized version a non Lucknowi would have about the city - a city of poetry and passion, fantasy and fineries, cuisine and character).

While those tropes aren’t baseless - Khushi’s character background is limited to those tropes as opposed to building on it.

Khushi’s vegetarianism probably stems from her religion - the same reason why Arnav’s family is vegetarian as well (I personally do find it irritating that they had this whole yelling when Lavanya got a cake with egg. Chee.)

Also, Khushi might actually appreciate the cooking that goes into a kebab. Unlike Nani she doesn’t seem to maintain social distancing from non veg foods. Such as when Khushi excitedly talks about kebabs that’s cooked in her neighbouring cities back home when she’s try to butter up the waiter to give her and Arnav a table for their “date”.

You might be wondering why I’m writing this in detail and, oddly, defending Khushi because I do not think her being vegetarian, or not choosing to use cuss words is an issue.

These are characteristics. Like her being religious is a fact about her. She is meant to be the opposite of Arnav in every way - literally. Arnav is implied to drop “fuck” at the drop of the hat. Hence Khushi doesn’t swear. He is non vegetarian. She is vegetarian. Arnav wears western outfits with an allergy to ethnic ones, Khushi wears ethnic outfit with an allergy to western ones. Arnav’s language of choice is English. Khushi’s language of choice is Hindi.

And she’s supposed to be modesty in all form - from language to sex (which ofc she’s had none while Arnav does know the tango) and Arnav is temptation in all form (being unattainable is #1).

Now, the reason for my detailed explanation of all this is I think the issue with the show and consequently a set of fic writers is that they don’t show Khushi’s hypocrisy and judgemental attitude - which stems from her traditional upbringing - as wrong.

I don’t have an issue with characteristics and character background. But it is difficult to love a character who is intrusive, behaves like she’s 14, is extremely hypocritical, judgemental, straight up liar and has an extremely high moral superiority complex.

Yes, Arnav has a superiority complex on wealth - which is dutifully called out MULTIPLE times. Which is why fics get him to say sorry, many times, sometimes amazingly, sometimes terribly.

But Khushi’s moral hypocrisy? Never called out.

And the issue with that is that it codes Khushi’s behavior and judgements as correct. And as traits that don’t need a development. She is not written nor treated as someone who needs to unlearn the crap she’s been taught and get off her high horse of traditional values.

However, Khushi eating meat or cussing leads to making changes in the fundamental character itself. And ofc everyone’s entitled to making them. But it means she rebelled against her family - with whom she feels a certain obligatory sense for they adopted her. Doesn’t that change her equation with the family? If she cussed once at home, she would’ve been slapped by Buaji.

Thus Khushi’s behavior would be taken as a form of teen rebellion and one needs to think what triggered it? Her prankster-ness gets her in enough trouble - but it’s also her being loved by Shashi and Payal.

Also Khushi’s 18/19 and extremely sheltered - she hasn’t even had a chance to explore world and get influenced by it.

She does get influenced by Arnav though - she picks up a lot of his English.

I reckon once she’s older she would actually pick up saying “fuck” over “Chutiya”

On a side note, I could legit write her cussing and eating meat and still being just as irritating because I’m changing habits, not working on her personality.

Also food and language have little association to religion. Of course the world doesn’t see it that way. But I don’t think anything is mutually exclusive when it comes to belief and values.

I totally do support the representation of meat eating cussing traditional devout people - lol my dearest aunt was one.

The question is, is Khushi the right character to represent that before she becomes - just a different character?

In an AU - khushi could totally be that. Heck I’ve written the most bizarre stuff lol 😂

:) lots of love,

- Jalebi

#ask #anon #about Khushi

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springcatalyst · 10 months

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something about merle and daryls relationship to religion (particularly christianity)

oops this turned out long. readmore time for yalls sanity and my dignity

it's never actually mentioned, but they both seem to have had a rather christian upbringing. it's safe to assume, because they're in the deep south, but its evident in the ways they interact with the presence of religion and with themselves.

when merle is handcuffed to the roof, hes crying about how he deserves this, about how hes being punished, hes been bad and this is what he gets. he pleads with god for mercy before ultimately telling him he doesnt need his help. this is something we can imagine he is familiar with. hes used to the concepts of divine (or otherwise) punishment, violence and pain as something deserved, a consequence of behaving badly. he seems very used to "this is what you get." and ultimately when he pleads for mercy his prayers go unanswered. this is a familiar script, or at least it was. god never helped him before. hes been punished before. he'll get out of this one on his own, just like all the rest. (he uses the exact same line "I ain't gonna beg" with the governor before hes killed: this is something familiar to him). merle quotes from the bible with hershel in season 3: he knows it. not only knows it, but remembers it. he's held onto it

and then daryl. who is so averse, so mocking of christianity and those who follow it. his casual snide remarks whenever hes in a church, making clear his distaste for the whole affair. his disdain with gabriel for a long while after they meet him. ("the word of god is the only protection I need" "sure didnt look like it.") he sees the lie in it all, while it seems like merle still buys into it, even if he doesn't try to follow it anymore, he knows the punishment that will catch up to him and to others. merle frequently damns others to hell. he inflicts punishment, or the deserving of it, as easily as he understands it for himself. daryl, though, has been disillusioned, at the very least. he sees it as nothing more than a tool to manipulate and lie to the people that believe in it. best case scenario, religion to him is a false hope that will never reach fruition. worst case, it's a manipulative power play meant to keep people in line where 'in line' means subservient. its foolish: a waste of time, to him.

theres a deleted scene where he finds a man dead in a prayer room, and he mocks him for all the good his prayers did. for all the answers he found for his trouble. in season 4, after the prison falls, he says something along the lines of 'faith never did anything for us.' he and merle, though their reasons are different, both see prayer and faith (and as a tangent, hope in general) as a useless tact, nothing gained, nobody will ever answer, you're just fooling yourself. nobody is going to save you but you. and when you say it like that, you know exactly how they got there. these are two characters who frequently have been only out for themselves, only able to rely on themselves, anything outside of that is bound to let them down, to variant degrees of harm. plenty of their own prayers must have gone unanswered. nobody saves them but them.

I legally cant talk about the dixon brothers' relationship to christianity without also talking about carol. she has a lot of similar perspectives as the two of them, but we see her in both sides. when the show begins she still appears to believe in god, and when sophia goes missing she takes that time in the church to pray to him. she says god can punish her however he wants as long as he doesnt hurt sophia. she, too, expects punishment in the form of violence and grief when she behaves badly or, in this case, even thinks things she supposedly shouldn't. here, she had a similar relationship to religion as merle does- she still believes in god: more specifically, a wrathful one. as the seasons progress, though, we see her lose that faith and shift to something closer to daryl's perspective. we see her disillusionment in real time as she sees worse and worse things and is subject to worse and worse environments. but she never really stops behaving as if she is deserving of punishment.

her and Daryl are similar in this way: while merle outright says it, accepts his supposed punishment, and then continues doing whatever he has to and whatever he wants to, carol and daryl operate under the same kind of threat but they dont really realize it. when they do things they deem worthy of punishment, whatever harm comes their way as a result- or even unrelated but soon after (and it's the walking dead, things always happen)- they kind of accept it. daryl allows himself to be treated the way he is in the savior compound, yes because he had no immediate out, but also because he felt like he deserved it. dwight gives him that photograph to really hammer home how he got here, and daryl lets it happen, to an extent. after Henry's death, carol goes off the deep end and doesnt care what happens to her. if not for lydia, she would have gone right over the edge of that cliff because it's what she felt like she deserved, like a righteous end to a life shes been leading poorly. they live under the same eye as merle, but it's more abstract with them. rather than being punished by god, they're being punished by fate, or karma, or luck. it's very 'you get what you deserve' with them, because their disillusionment prevents them from blaming an entity, so in its place they blame themselves.

I think that's the only other option they see, and its part of the reason they are both so different from merle. merle can still blame this outside force, can shove all his problems onto something out of his control that isnt his fault but can be resented for it, so he becomes this hateful, violent person because the one thing hes really angry with is untouchable. daryl and carol lack that, and cant blame anybody else because they are the only common denominator, so it instead turns inward. they hurt other people less because of this, but it's still not healthy, and so in their place they're hurting themselves more.

I have to think they are all intimately familiar with god as a reason. as a justification for damage or an unattainable perfect form that when fallen short of, is punished for. merle still operates on this warped justice system, on punishment for bad behavior (reinforced by his many experiences with prison and the military), while daryl has rejected it entirely. merle still buys into it, but daryl sees it as nothing more than that justification, than that false sense of security. neither trusts god, or religion, or christianity, but the difference I think is that merle still feels the eye of it, while daryl feels the absence.

#the walking dead #daryl dixon #merle dixon #carol peletier #watched more twd with the roomie. thinkin bout CHARACTERS #i wrote this forever ago actually but i decided u get it now. because im thinkin again #hmmmmmmmmm ANYWAY #Merle literally sucks so much ass but he's SO INTERESTING. fuck him but hes a fascinating character #and u KNOW i love analyzing sibling dynamics. ESPECIALLY unhealthy ones. ehehehe #anyway bedtime now. i work in the morning yeehaw

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mikuni14 · 6 months

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Bake Me Please - Ep 4

I have no idea what it is about Bake Me Please, how it came to be my second favorite series that I'm currently watching.

A possible explanation is that while the show has this specific, over-the-top soap opera/Antique Bakery aesthetic, the characters and their behaviors are very human - and very imperfect. They all do stupid things… and I literally have an explanation for all of their idiocy and they all fit the plot to me 😀

There is a terrible, cartoonish mother who lives in the palace... who is terrible in this very ordinary, mundane way. There are her sons who are also realistic and their family dynamic is ultimately… very down to earth. For example, their conversations in this episode certainly take place in many homes. Just.. the way she behaves, or the brothers' conversation, it all feels very real. Shin melting in the presence of the grandmother, a motherly figure, is understandable considering his childhood. Peach and Shin's relationship is also very realistic, their mutual fascination overcoming common sense, good physical compatibility and lack of emotional compatibility. Their fights and reconciliations so far are consistent with the relationship of such personalities. Peach lying to Shin, Shin forbidding Peach from having contact with Guy - bad, but not surprising. I even understand Shin, who doesn't want to talk about their relationship at work because 1) he doesn't want drama 2) he avoids conflict 3) he knows that "flaunting" his relationship will actually hurt Oab. I would also prefer to keep such a relationship a secret, although I would tell Peach WHY 😤) Shin, who doesn't confide in Peach, doesn't tell him things - it fits his personality, his upbringing, even though it's so irritating. Peach, who simply went to a restaurant with Guy and lied, did something stupid, but he is still young and wants something very much and he has this dream and when an opportunity appears… he just takes it without thinking about the consequences. I get it. Shin, unable to take a proper care of his boyfriend, being a dick to him, ignoring his dreams and his words, acts as if he simply didn't know HOW to do it, as if he had not learned HOW to be considerate. Guy quitting his job, having complexes, blaming Shin, is acting stupid - this is still very human behavior, although annoying af. Shin being angry and feeling abandoned and betrayed by Guy also acts understandably, including feeling betrayed by Peach as well and taking it out on him - even though he acted like an asshole.

This series is so unique, there is so much stupid, irritating and uncool behavior in it, and it doesn't even bother me (I mean it does, but I'm cool with it lol). And I like the cast, Ohm plays the asshole like a pro, Guide plays the cutie as he should, they have a good dynamic together, and this is probably the first series in which seme character is not Mr. Perfect, but a real dick 😭 And then there is Poom, who is the perfect rival, the one I look at and I KNOW that he actually CAN mess up this relationship 😍 And tattoos, and a nice wake-up scene, and Peach anticipating that he won't be sleeping at Shin's house ✨

I CAN'T STAND THE KISS THAT LOOKS LIKE CHEATING TROPE, uuuughhhhhhhh 🤢, can it die already? I understand why Oab did it - although I absolutely do not approve! But I'm angry that Peach saw this. Will we ever see this trope in which the one who sees such a kiss WAITS until the end and sees the rejection and anger of the beloved kissed without their consent???? Is their love so weak that when they see such a scene they immediately assume cheating and not that someone is doing something wrong to their loved one? 😬

Anyway, so much drama! Can't wait for te next ep! 🤡

#bake me please #bake me please the series #thai bl #bl drama

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yiling-daddy · 3 years

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Yes, that was me! I can definitely expand on my thoughts re: how Madam Yu’s behaviour reads differently to me due to my traditional, Chinese upbringing.

There is a lot of subjectivity as to whether Madam Yu can be read as abusive, and this reading is often influenced by culture—hence you often see completely off-base takes floating around. However, to me, the way that cultural context influences the reading will actually change depending on the relationship, so I will discuss each one separately. Most of the culturally insensitive takes are about her being an abusive or uncaring mother (she’s not), or that she’s a spurned woman (it’s more complicated than that), so you can skip down to the JC, JYL, and CSSR sections for that.

Madam Yu and Wei Wuxian

As a trend, I think western fandom tends to simplify Wei Wuxian’s dynamic with the Jiang family into an entire adopted family. Consequently, Yu Ziyuan gets perceived as this two-dimensional, evil stepmom figure—but I think this doesn’t capture the truth.

There’s a bit more variability among Chinese audiences when they read the Jiang family dynamic, partly due to our deeper familiarity with wuxia tropes, but mostly because there's a mediocre Netflix translation colouring the western interpretation. Though many Chinese fans do view them all as a sort of family unit and read Madam Yu as a stepmother, I do not. To me, Jiang Fengmian and Jiang Yanli view Wei Wuxian as family—but Madam Yu does not. Madam Yu views him as a servant, a disciple of the sect, and an outsider at the dinner table—and it’s not wrong for her to do so. It’s not gracious, but it’s not unfounded. I don’t think Wei Ying ever gives any indication that he views her as a mother, either.

If you agree that they don’t have anything like a mother-son relationship, all these insults/complaints that Yu Ziyuan levels at him—that he’s the “son of a servant”, that Jiang Fengmian is weird for openly favouring Wei Wuxian over his own son, etc.—these start to make sense? Like, it’s shitty to listen to, but none of it is wrong. Suddenly it reads less like pointless insults and more like actual points.

Additionally, if we consider that Wei Wuxian is a disciple of the sect who goes around and raises the ire of the Wen clan, corporal punishment suddenly looks very normal (again, within the culture). Hence, when I watched the donghua and CQL, I hated seeing Wei Wuxian getting whipped, but I didn’t perceive this as abuse—especially because of the political nature of the decision.

But it is definitely still possible to mistreat a disciple.

In CQL, you see Madam Yu throwing an unnecessary amount of vitriol at Wei Ying. In the novel extras, it's revealed that she regularly whipped him but never whipped the other disciples, indicating that it wasn't normal corporal punishment. She also whipped him for absurdly stupid reasons. To me, this signals that she tended to abuse her authority over him. Even if you don’t view her as an abusive mother to Wei Ying, it's fair to read her as an abusive authority figure.

Importantly however, "abuse" is a loaded word suggesting a violation of social norms, and again, the situation is complicated because the social norms of the setting don't match those of the modern world. Madam Yu is not overstepping her bounds as master of Lotus Pier—hence, people do not think very much of this treatment in-universe, including Wei Ying himself.

Madam Yu, Jiang Cheng, and Jiang Yanli

Okay, when I first watched CQL, I cringed when Madam Yu started dragging her family because she sounded like My Actual Chinese Mother. I felt for a second like I had transmigrated into Jiang Cheng’s body and I was experiencing his agony firsthand!

Madam Yu reads very realistically, and I think this is why it gets personal for a lot of Chinese people when this fandom discusses her character. Yes, she belittles and hurts her children for their perceived failures, but many Chinese people can tell you that this is just a common parenting style. And while it might look like bullying to an outsider, this behaviour is usually motivated by love. It is often also motivated by fear that the child’s future will be substandard. This is textually obvious when you consider what exactly Madam Yu yells about:

She snaps at Yanli to stop peeling lotus pods, because she shouldn’t act like a servant. If Yanli keeps behaving so passively, what kind of role is she going to fall into in the future—especially given that she is not a cultivator?

She berates Jiang Cheng for always being inferior to Wei Wuxian no matter what he does. If Jiang Cheng is constantly overshadowed by Wei Wuxian, what will that mean for his future as sect leader? Or his future status and reputation among the sects?

I can do these Chinese Mom Translations because parents in real life will actually say things like this out of concern for their children (insults included), in an attempt to motivate them... and it really does light a fire under our asses. I attribute many of my personal successes to this parenting style. Thus, when I see posts like “Madam Yu didn’t show any sign of caring for others” or "Madam Yu was a purely selfish and arrogant person" or “Madam Yu is an abusive mother and nothing else"—well, I can tell most of these people are not Chinese, or if they are, then they likely did not have a traditional upbringing.

While I don't think these uninformed readings of Madam Yu are necessarily racist, I do think they they are unpleasant for Chinese fans to constantly see. For those of us in the west that had this type of upbringing, we often struggle with trying to frame and process our relationships with our parents. For me, this was partly due to the emotional baggage of my upbringing (Jiang Cheng winning!!!)... but it was also because white society kept telling me that my parents didn't give a shit about me when obviously they did. That’s fucked up to experience. It reeks of cultural imperialism. Thus, when I see Chinese people getting annoyed at these Madam Yu takes, I’m not surprised. This is unfortunately a fictional discussion that very much resembles a real one for us.

Yu Ziyuan, Jiang Fengmian, and Cangse Sanren

A lot of people view Madam Yu as a spurned woman and assume that is her motivation for constantly antagonizing Wei Wuxian and her husband. But because I assume that a lot of her chaotic yelling stems from her concerns as an Actual Chinese Mother, my take is different.

Remember the scene where Madam Yu catches Jiang Fengmian scolding Jiang Cheng just after praising Wei Wuxian? She drags Jiang Cheng up to his father and, in both CQL and the donghua, says something to this effect (paraphrased from memory):

This is your son, the future master of Lotus Pier! Even if you don’t like him because he was born to me, his surname is still Jiang!

And in CQL, she also says this right after berating Jiang Cheng for not measuring up to Wei Wuxian:

But it’s not your fault. Your mother is no match for his mother.

Yu Ziyuan isn’t angry about Cangse Sanren because she’s jealous; she is angry about Cangse Sanren because she thinks Jiang Fengmian’s feelings for her are jeopardizing his competence as a father to Jiang Cheng. Viewed in this light, it also makes sense why Yu Ziyuan is hostile to Wei Wuxian in a way that alienates him from the family—constantly calling him the son of a servant, pointing out the rumours about his parentage, etc. She’s not doing this because she hates Cangse Sanren or Wei Wuxian; she’s doing it because Wei Wuxian’s presence in the family is threatening Jiang Cheng’s future in her eyes.

Bonus: Did Yu Ziyuan love Jiang Fengmian?

Yes! In both the donghua and CQL (I ashamedly admit I don’t clearly remember the novel), I thought their final moments made it quite evident that they cared for each other. They fought together, died together to protect their home, and reached out to one another in their final moments.

But when I rewatched Madam Yu’s scenes in CQL and the donghua, I realized we got other hints that westerners probably missed. I'll focus on CQL:

Right before Jiang Fengmian sets off with Yanli for Lanling, Madam Yu sees them off. She gives Yanli some snacks and then—without making eye contact with Jiang Fengmian—says that she’s also giving them medicine in case someone gets a headache. Jiang Fengmian pauses, because it’s obviously for him.

This is recognizable behaviour for a lot of Chinese people. I can’t tell you how many times my mother got apoplectic at me, and then the only follow-up was her going out of her way to make me my favourite meal. The chaotic yelling you see between Jiang Fengmian and Yu Ziyuan is also pretty typical to many Chinese parents, and again, the follow-up in my household was often one of them going out of their way to do something for the other.

This is just how the culture is in a lot of families. “Sorry” isn’t expressed in words; it's expressed in actions. “I love you” isn’t expressed in words; it’s expressed in actions. In Chinese culture, the dominant love language is acts of service. It's fleeting, but we get glimpses of that kind of love between Yu Ziyuan and Jiang Fengmian.

#the untamed #cql #wei wuxian #jiang cheng #yu ziyuan #madam yu #jiang yanli #cangse sanren #jiang fengmian #mdzs #mo dao zu shi #damn i guess its madam yu loving hours here #my meta

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immaturityofthomasastruc · 3 years

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Tw for abuse mention!!

I was abused physically, verbally and sexually by my parents (not in that situation anymore dw) growing up, as well as neglected. Ive had child protective show up at my doorstep multiple times, and even I think that chloes situation is absolutely awful. For Astruc to say that Chloe is a brat simply because she gets what she wants and not acknowledge the toxic parenting style in her life, is really disrespectful to people who have been abused. I was abused, I got what I wanted because my parents didn’t want to actually parent me. They’d use money items to seem like better parents than they were despite us living in poverty, and used it as an excuse to guilt trip me.

In Chloe’s life, she has a shitty father because he is a downright ENABLER. Why is the head of Paris or whatever he is, listening so adamantly to his teenage daughter that really would have no power if he just didn’t let her? Why is he giving a teenage girl that much control? And Chloes mom is a neglectful abusive mom too. Not even remembering her name, not acknowledging her, making her feel worthless, is shitty abusive parenting. You could argue that since it’s a children’s show it’s not that deep, but these are relationships that kids can translate into real life. Even I am offended and hurt for Chloe despite having different circumstances, I can’t imagine the little kids who feel like monsters for behaving like her because they have similar parent types in their life. Not to mention I have a personality disorder and I can see Chloe having one too because the parenting style in her life is so chaotic. I’m not saying what Chloe does isn’t bad, she deserves genuine consequences, but it just is so upsetting to see her not get a redemption, it would’ve been such a good message for kids :/

I want to start off by saying I am incredibly sorry you had to go through that, and I’m glad you were able to come out and talk about it here.

The tragedy of Chloe is that neither of her parents managed to serve as a positive role model in her life, despite each of them treating her differently. Andre’s constant coddling and enabling of Chloe caused her to gain a sense of entitlement, while Audrey’s constant insulting and belittling of Chloe only fueled that part of her while she tried emulating her mother in an attempt to gain her approval.

But according to Astruc, Chloe wasn’t actually abused and says her mother mistreating her isn’t an excuse because he thinks that no matter how hard your life is, it’s no excuse to lash out in frustration.

THIS IS WHAT THOMAS ASTRUC ACTUALLY BELIEVES.

He is seriously saying that the right thing to do when something traumatic happens, like losing a parent, or being diagnosed with an incurable illness, is to just deal with it. It doesn’t matter how hard it is to adapt to or move on from the change in your life. You just need to buck up and move on, you little pansy.

Abuse isn’t a competition. You can’t generalize the psychological damage all abuse victims go through or set up a minimum requirement for someone to actually qualify as being abused. The way Astruc says Chloe wasn’t abused while comparing her to an abuser is essentially victim blaming. Yes, she should still at least face consequences, but you can’t just ignore her troubled upbringing and say she wasn’t at least a little damaged mentally.

Like you said, Chloe still betrayed the team, and I expected her to get consequences for it instead of her actions being ignored like everything else about the Season 3 finale while sabotaging a movie’s production was the breaking point for everyone in her life, but the problem is that the show never really tries to address her parents’ role in her upbringing. They just say she was always evil and never get down to what made her that way while Astruc claims the lesson was giving bad people a chance when the characters did the bare minimum in trying to help her with her issues before condemning her as unreasonable.

Really, you can basically describe Chloe’s “arc” and the way Astruc views her like this.

(Credit goes to the artist listed below, Alex Law)

#immaturity of thomas astruc #iota #thomas astruc #thomas astruc salt #chloe bourgeois #queen bee #queen b #audrey bourgeois #andre bourgeois

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breckstonevailskier · 2 years

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Daniel was in the wrong in 4x08, and he owes Anthony an apology and a new iPad

I'm surprised that so many people on social media condone what Daniel did in 4x08, considering that what he did is borderline abuse and made me feel scared for Anthony.

Okay, so Daniel needs to be a firmer parent to Anthony, fine. But there's right ways to go about it, and there's wrong ways to go about it. The right way to go about it is basically something akin to a stern lecture. @shrinkthisviolet has done a nice take on what Daniel should've done in the fic "i promise (i'll do better)".

You see, a stern lecture from Daniel to Anthony where he describes exactly what the Cobras did to him in 1984 is what Anthony needs to hear at this moment. He needs to hear an illustration of what his dad went through, to get an idea of what exactly it might be like for Kenny. If Daniel went about it this way, it would also provide a nice segue for them to discuss the root of Anthony's acting out: the parental favoritism Amanda and Daniel have for Sam.

Instead, Daniel went about it the "wrong way". Destroying his son's possessions in front of him and screaming at him is WRONG, pure and simple. And more likely is going to have the opposite outcome of what Daniel intends. What Daniel did was effectively send the message to Anthony that "I am bigger than you and have more authority than you in this house, I get to do whatever I want to you". It's more likely that the big thing Anthony's going to take away is that he needs to be a better liar and be better at hiding his bad behavior from his parents. Any improvement from Anthony is likely coming from a place of, "I should do these things that good kids are expected to do so that Dad doesn't yell at me again or destroy more of my things".

And Anthony's apology to Kenny at the tournament doesn't feel genuine, because it seems more like he's apologizing because it's what's expected of him / because it'll appease his dad / it'll get his dad to return his electronics.

As it were, Daniel definitely owes Anthony a big apology for acting rashly like that, in an "Anthony, I'm sorry I broke your iPad and screamed at you. It was wrong for me to act like that. You did nothing to deserve me behaving like that. To show you how sorry I am, here's a new iPad". Because Daniel's never acted like that before.

------

Arguably, Daniel's behavior here also lines up with how he and Amanda are also not very consistent as parents, and are like a lot of real life parents who spoil their children then get surprised Pikachu faces when their kids act like Dudley Dursley.

They also have a tendency to "overcorrect" without knowing how to find a middle ground, meaing they abruptly shift from being very permissive and hands-off to dishing out punishment on a dime. This tends to be done a lot primarily for the purposes of them needing to do certain things to advance the plot--like Amanda going from reprimanding Daniel for getting mad at Sam for throwing a pool party in 1x02 to punishing Sam for a hit-and-run where Sam wasn't even driving (and Johnny was also partly at fault) by grounding her, taking her phone, and completely cutting her off from the outside world so Sam can't contact Miguel at a very critical moment in time), but also makes them so inconsistent that their kids probably don't know how they'll react to situations. In this case in 4x08, Daniel has never put his foot down with Anthony for anything in the past, and the way he does it is by breaking Anthony's tablet and yelling at him? He completely skipped over a bunch of intermediate methods that he could've used, like donate Anthony's non-essential electronics to charity.

It also makes Daniel show a lack of self-awareness here. He should realize that his overly permissive parenting (no doubt maybe influenced by his own upbringing) is the reason why Anthony has no regard for consequences.

#violence as discipline #anthony larusso #daniel larusso #cobra kai #anti daniel larusso #samantha larusso #amanda larusso #Yeah #doesn't work #folks #it merely teaches your kids to be better liars and teaches them to be better at being sneaky and not getting caught #all's i'm saying

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iamanartichoke · 3 years

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I wasn't sure if I was going to post this, but I may as well.

I keep starting to reply to things and then stopping bc the words just aren't there, and I suppose I figured out the core of what bothers me so much (and is making me have such a rollercoaster of a fan experience) about the show.

(cut for length)

It's not well-written. My opinion is my opinion, so I'm saying this subjectively, take it or leave it, but ... I feel that it's not well-written. The overall story is fine, and the plot is fine, but I don't know if it's because of the limited number of episodes not being enough to house the story, or because of the relative inexperience of the writer/showrunner+director, or both, or something else, but -

In an earlier reaction post to episode 4, I mentioned really wanting to sink my teeth into all of the subtext I picked up on. That was what made me initially enjoy the episode so much - there were a lot of little moments that I initially felt revealed so much about the characters and about Loki, and I wanted to analyze them. But at some point, as I gathered more information, my perspective changed and now I no longer want to analyze the subtext bc ... subtext = good. Subtext w/out payoff = not as good.

I'll go into more detail in a moment, but I think the tl;dr of it is that I feel like the narrative requires the audience to work way too hard to put together all of the moving pieces here and, like, I kinda just don't want to do that work? Not so much of it, and not in vain. A lot of the enjoyment of Loki's characterization is coming from fans who are rationalizing why he's behaving as he is, but the narrative never actually confirms those rationalizations. It's asking us to figure it out and maybe our conclusions will be correct but maybe they won't, though. At some point, subtext isn't enough without explicit follow-through.

I thought my issue was with the lack of character development - that is, not having enough narrative space to really earn the big things that are happening now, like Loki/Sylvie or Mobius turning against the TVA. And that's still true, to an extent; I still feel like the pacing is all very off and it seems like most of these things kinda came out of nowhere (but are not unbelievable - just undeveloped).

But, yknow, it is what it is, it's a limited series, and I can excuse some things. Ultimately, my issue isn't a problem with what the narrative isn't doing, it's a problem with what the narrative already failed to do and probably cannot recover from at this point.

The narrative has left out significant details that should at least help us do some of the work here. If a person turned on Loki and started episode 1 and had no background knowledge of the character besides that he tried to take over New York - how would that person interpret Loki? Would that person say, oh, well, he's been through X, Y, and Z, and plus A happened, not to mention B, C, and D, so really, it makes sense that he seems off-the-rails, or that he'd want to get ridiculously drunk at the worst time ever.

Maybe we'd like to believe they would, but how would they be getting to that conclusion? The narrative hasn't led them in that direction so, no, they would not say well we have to consider this, this, and that. It would be impossible to really understand Loki as a character from just what we've gotten in the series. The general audience would probably interpret Loki as being out of his element and so it becomes, I wonder how this character is going to get the upper hand here. And, while that's not wrong, it's just so limited.

The narrative at face value does not address Loki's identity crisis from Thor 2011. It does not address his hurt and devastation at being lied to, nor does it address how complicated his self-image is (bc it sucked to begin with and that was before he found out he was part of a race of "monsters," as he'd been taught his entire life). It does not reference Loki being so broken at the end of Thor 2011 that he deliberately let himself fall into the void of space (aka tried to kill himself). It does not reference that he was tortured by Thanos or even that he went through a seriously dark time in between Thor and Avengers, and it absolutely does not reference or address any influence or control of the mind stone.

These are all things that we, the fan audience, know because we've already invested our time into this character's story. But tons of people, the general audience, wouldn't know these things. Or if they did, bc they saw Thor and Avengers, they wouldn't be thinking about them as deeply as we would, nor contextualizing them with how Loki is behaving now, or why it would make sense that he needed to get drunk, or why it's understandable that he needs to keep going-going-going in order to not have a spare second to think or feel.

They'd probably look at Loki, again, as a character who was a villain and is now getting his comeuppance in a place where he has no power or control, and no literal powers, and even when he manages to escape and catch up to the variant, he proceeds to fuck up their plan for seemingly no real reason except that he wanted to get drunk bc he's hedonistic. Which Sylvie even berates him for! I mean. This is not exactly a complex character breakdown, nor a very flattering one, but that's what the narrative has given us.

(If the narrative has addressed Loki's mind control, his torture, his mental breakdown, his suicide attempt, and his general shitty self-esteem as a result of his upbringing, please point it out to me. If the narrative has explicitly acknowledged and referenced these things anywhere and I am missing it, please show me where. Please explain to me how the casual viewer would know any of these things that they need to know in order to actually understand what's happening in this story.)

So I mean, okay, we have a narrative that doesn't paint a full, accurate picture of Loki. Fine, sure. But because the general audience starts out on the wrong footing, they're not going to get out of the overall story what the writers probably intended them to. For example, in episode 3, a lot of us theorized that Loki had some kind of plan - that he broke the timepad on purpose, for some reason, bc otherwise it wasn't believable that he'd be such a failure. But episode 4 revealed that no, there was no bigger plan, Loki just plain old messed up. Which is fine if, again, one is only considering the surface-level portrayal here, but it's not true to Loki's actual characterization.

I mean. Loki is not perfect and Loki actually fails a lot, this is true. He fails for a lot of reasons, but incompetence has never been one of them. Usually it's that either things grew beyond his control, or there ended up being too many moving parts, or he had to change his plan at the last minute due to some roadblock or another being thrown his way, or even that he got in his own way - whatever the case may be for his plans' failures, he was always at least shown to know what he was doing.

That wasn't the case here. The "plan" to fix the Timepad failed as a direct result of Loki's actions, which were careless and made him seem incompetent, like he couldn't even handle this mission. "You had one job," etc. And there were pretty big consequences for this; they were not able to get off-world in time and would have been killed had the TVA not shown up at the last second.

And maybe none of these things matter bc the writers never intended any of this to be a reflection on Loki's character, positive or negative. The situation exists solely because the writers needed to put Loki and Sylvie together in some kind of hopeless scenario so that they could get closer, and thus the narrative could set up their romance. I get that - but, there were other ways to do it that didn't require Loki to look foolish.

Furthermore, the whole reason they needed to set up the romance is to show Loki eventually learning to love himself (like, figuratively but also literally). The audience is supposed to gather that Loki and Sylvie fell for one another, possibly due to the high emotional aspect of, yknow, being about to die (in addition to the variant-bond). The intent is clear: Loki and Sylvie almost die but get rescued at the last minute, having now created an emotional bond --> Loki and Sylvie team up and the narrative further establishes that Loki, at least, has caught feelings --> Loki might confess them but is pruned before he gets the chance --> he somehow survives, he and Sylvie are reunited and don't want to lose one another again, and the combined power of their love is enough to break the sacred timeline and spawn the multiverse, and the reason that the power of their love is so, well, powerful is because it's about self-love and self-acceptance as much as it is about having the capacity to love someone else. The end.

I get all that. The writers more or less said all that. And, I mean, it's certainly not the way I would have chosen to go about it, but it's a fair enough arc to explore. I don't really have an issue with the intent - but my question, however, is this: if the narrative has so far not addressed Loki's background issues (as outlined above), and has furthermore kinda gone out of its way to portray Loki as hedonistic and narcissistic, among other things (like kinda incompetent), and the context the audience starts with is that Loki's this villain who deserves what he gets -

- my question is 1, why should the audience care whether or not Loki gets to a point of loving and accepting himself (thus to make the theme of self-love, via the romance, hold weight) if they don't know that he hates himself to begin with and 2, why should the audience root for Loki to reach that point when so far the perception of him is that he's "kind of an asshole"? if he's a hedonistic narcissist, he probably already has a pretty inflated sense of himself, right? A misplaced inflated sense of himself, at that, because, again, the narrative has made him out to be not that capable of much of anything. (And it didn't start out that way! It seemed to start out with Loki being capable and intelligent but it's like episode 3, in trying to set up the romance, just jumbled it all up somewhere. I think this is why I'm harping on the Loki/Sylvie aspect so much - it's frustrating bc it kinda messes up the whole story and can't even accomplish what it's supposed to anyway.)

Anyway, that's beside the point. What I'm ultimately getting at is, at what point is the audience supposed to get invested in Loki's personal growth journey?

They can't, not really. Without understanding and having the context of everything Loki has been through up until now, and why he hates himself, and why it's so important that he learn to love himself, then the "payoff" becomes kinda pointless bc the significance of it is lost in translation. So suddenly we're left with this romance that comes off as either "Loki loves Sylvie bc of Reasons" (best-case scenario) or "Loki loves Sylvie bc he's vain, narcissistic, and kinda twisted" (worst-case scenario). Neither of these conclusions are what the writers intended or were going for, I'm positive, but there we are, regardless.

In order for the writers' intent in these storylines to land, they need to address the context of what makes these particular stakes high for Loki. So far, they haven't done that. They're asking the audience to pick up on all of these things, and they're showing things that subtextually make sense and are relatively in-character - but only if you realize there's subtext in the first place.

But you can't expect the audience to do all of the work for you. If you don't want the audience to think that Loki is a narcissistic asshole and instead you are trying to convey that, worst-case scenario, he thinks he's a narcissist but is an unreliable narrator, then you have to address that. If you need the audience to understand why you're going the selfcest route and why it's important to explore Loki's capacity to love himself and others, you have to address where that exploration is starting from and why it matters. Etc etc etc.

The narrative isn't doing any of that. And it isn't like it'd be that hard to do it. They don't need to reinvent the wheel here; a lot of the pieces are already there. A few lines of dialogue for context, a brief scene here or there addressing the issues, a little more care and consistency in how Loki handles things - these are all little things that could go a long fucking way in making the narrative stronger.

I'm rambling. My basic point is that my rollercoaster of emotions with this show is because

- as a part of the fan audience, not the general one, I can contextualize and analyze the subtext and come to the conclusions the show wants me to, and thus find the story and the characters more or less enjoyable,

- but I am also going to be using the subtext to come to conclusions that aren't there but probably should be (I think it would be a better story, for example, for Loki to confuse platonic love with romantic love bc it would pave the way to explore just how fucked up Loki's understanding of love - whether of other people or of himself, and the different forms it can take - actually is)

- and when they're ultimately not there, then I think, okay why am I bothering doing all this work just to ultimately feel very unfulfilled? They don't even have to write it the way I would, I'm not saying that, but they do have to do something to make the story feel rewarding.

If we don't get some confirmation of what Loki's been through, and where his headspace is, and why it matters for him to love himself, then the story remains pretty shallow and, for me, it's not fulfilling enough. It's not engaging enough. There isn't actually anything to sink my teeth into, so it becomes kind of boring. Maybe it's rewarding to other people, and that's great for them, but like - I need more than whatever this is.

So I'm just like - well, I had a lot of worries about this show, but my being bored wasn't one of them and now there's only two episodes left and am I really not going to get anything out of this, in the long run? No new canons, no new depths or layers, no new information on Loki's experiences? This is it?

I don't dislike it. I didn't start out disliking it, and I probably wont end up disliking it. I mean, there are a lot of good moments, and good things, and fan service-y things that I appreciate. As far as inspiration for fic goes, it's a goldmine, both plot-wise as well as aesthetic-wise. All of that is great. I don't dislike this show.

But I am disappointed in it, and I feel like I'll be watching the next two episodes lacking the sense of anticipation that would make it exciting. I'll still enjoy them, probably, if for nothing else just the sheer Loki content, but whatever it was I felt watching episodes 1 and 2 is gone and I'm sad about that, too. Because I really wanted to feel fulfilled by this series; I wanted it to fill up the void that Loki's death in IW created three years ago. And I just ... don't feel it. Maybe, maybe that'll change over the course of episodes 5 and 6. I don't know.

Everything that I end up enjoying long-term, I think, will come about as a result of my own interpretations and analysis and while theoretically there's nothing wrong with that, if I had known all I'd get out of this series was more headcanons or support for my current headcanons then, well - that's fine, I suppose, but I'll definitely a little bit robbed.

#loki spoilers #loki series negativity #loki tv series spoilers #loki series spoilers #long post

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the-blue-fairie · 3 years

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Elsa’s scars are because of a complex interplay between the pain of the accident AND the pain of her upbringing thereafter.

I talk about the ways in which the trolls’, Agnarr’s, and Iduna’s choices negatively impact Elsa and Anna a great deal. It’s a complex subject to discuss - and I feel like I’m always returning to it because the fandom often tries to reduce it to black and white.

On the one hand, there are people in the fandom who vehemently dislike Agnarr and Iduna and portray them very negatively.

On the other hand, there are people who love Agnarr and Iduna and try to defend their every action, even when their actions hurt their daughters.

And... the trolls don’t usually get brought up at all. I mean, there are definitely folks who point out that the trolls are to blame for stoking the whole royal family’s fears... but I don’t think people can see their pain as easily in the abstract magical characters’ actions, so they just don’t dwell on them as much.

In my opinion, both extremes are approaching the matter in the wrong way. I don’t agree with people who hate Agnarr and Iduna. I don’t agree with people who paint them simply as abusive parents. In both the first film and the second, Agnarr and Iduna are good people trying to do their best in a painful situation. BUT, at the same time, their parents’ actions and the trolls’ actions hurt both of the sisters - and I feel like, when people bend over backwards to defend their actions, people ignore the hurt they caused.

AND, in some ways, I feel like the second film encourages this black and white thinking. The second film WANTS viewers to ignore the negative ramifications of the trolls’ and the parents’ actions. That’s why the film proper never discusses Agnarr’s and Iduna’s or the trolls’ actions while the sisters were children - opting instead for the tie-in book Dangerous Secrets to discuss those events... a tie-in book that, however well-written, will only reach a select audience while the films will reach a far wider audience.

This bothers me because it usually means I see people ignoring many of the external forces that caused Elsa to grow into who she is as a character.

In some cases, these are people who simply treat Elsa like a bad person because they ignore all the context that informs why she behaves like she does.

BUT, at the same time, I have friends who are deeply sympathetic to Elsa... but can’t seem to process how deeply Elsa’s upbringing informed who she grew up to be.

Like, I’ve had long discussions with friends who have told me that, if Elsa was raised differently, she would still grow up the same because her trauma comes from the accident.

I feel this represents a gross misunderstanding of how child development works.

Yes, Elsa was devastated by the accident. But consider her actions and body language immediately thereafter:

Her first instinct is to run to Anna and hold her in her arms. Even after her parents coming rushing in and her father asks what she has done, she defends herself, saying, “It was an accident. I’m sorry, Anna.” She still holds Anna close:

Elsa has to be taught to recoil, to shrink away, to keep her distance from Anna.

Elsa’s fear is learned. We only see her truly starting the pattern of shrinking away, of curling inside herself with fear of herself after Pabbie shows her an ominous vision, telling her there is “danger” in her powers.

A fear of herself that continues thereafter, after she has processed that she is and so begins to see herself as a danger:

Yes, the accident itself scarred Elsa. But to say that, “If Elsa was raised differently, things would have turned out the same because her trauma emerges from the accident” is simply wrong.

Elsa was a child being influenced by adult authority figures who ultimately failed her.

Pabbie igniting a vague and fiery vision of danger before an impressionable child influenced her, helped to cement the idea in Elsa that she is naturally dangerous.

Agnarr and Iduna separating the sisters reinforces to Elsa that there is something wrong in her - something she has to repress.

Keep in mind, I’m NOT saying this to demonize Agnarr and Iduna. As this moment shows, they are heartbroken the more Elsa shrinks from them. They love their daughter, and hate to see her hurting like this:

BUT that doesn’t change the fact that their actions helped to hurt her. Inadvertently, I know. But they still did.

To ignore the influence of the adult authority figures on who Elsa became is to ignore the complexity of how children interact with the world, how they respond to elders who are in positions of power. Elsa trusts the signals given by the adults around her. When Pabbie tells her there is “great danger” in her powers, she believes him. When her parents tell her that it is a necessity that she isolate herself and conceal herself, she trusts them.

Sometimes, certain people make much of the nuances of Pabbie’s words or Agnarr’s words. They point out that Pabbie also says there is beauty in Elsa’s powers and that “Fear will be your enemy” also refers to Elsa’s inner fear of herself. They comment that “Conceal it, don’t feel it” is not the same as “Conceal, don’t feel.”

The thing is, these readings put the blame on Elsa for misunderstanding - instead of putting the blame on the adults for inadvertently imparting hurtful messages to a child.

It shouldn’t be placed on the shoulders of a child to decipher a cryptically worded aphorism. It should be on the adult figure, especially when this adult figure is an ancient and wise being.

And really, for all the distinctions between “Conceal it, don’t feel it” and “Conceal, don’t feel,” their essence is still the same. The misguidedness of concealment, of not feeling something that is a part of you, is still rooted in the words regardless of which version we choose.

Elsa, as a child, was still told by the adults around her that she should keep her distance from others for their protection and so, as she grew older, she took that more and more to heart. She grew into what she had been taught - even though the teaching initially came from a good-hearted place.

Sometimes, I’ve had my friends ask me, “But by putting all this focus on Elsa’s influences growing up, are you sure you’re not losing focus on the pain Elsa feels because of the accident itself?” And... no, I’m not. That’s why the title of my post is, “Elsa’s scars are because of a complex interplay between the pain of the accident AND the pain of her upbringing thereafter.” Because I WANT this post to be a nuanced reflection.

But... if Pabbie hadn’t shown a vague and terrifying vision to and impressionable child and her frightened family... you can’t tell me things would have been the same.

If Iduna and Agnarr hadn’t limited Elsa’s contact with people, you can’t tell me things would have been the same.

A friend once pointed to the trail of ice Elsa makes on the journey to the Valley of the Living Rock, arguing that this shows Elsa’s loss of control and panic before Pabbie stresses that she is dangerous - and therefore arguing that this highlights that things would still turn out the same for Elsa growing up even if the trolls and her parents made different choices because she fears what she can do:

I feel my friend’s reading here is... a bit of a stretch. Elsa is scared, yes, but the self-hatred that defines her as an adult? That comes later. That, she has to learn. And it is that self-hatred and fear of herself that paralyzes her.

And I’ve had friends point out, “But Elsa WAS dangerous! She DID hurt Anna, and that’s tied into her stress with wanting to protect her, and that was before the trolls or her parents had any involvement...”

I don’t like this take because it seems to put an impossible amount of weight on Elsa as a child. It asks Elsa as a child to be perfectly composed. To not be scared for her sister’s safety. To... not feel.

It’s a take that follows the misguided logic the film ultimately refutes while defending the mistakes that caused that misguided logic to do so much harm.

And, yeah. Sure. Elsa becomes scared. In the ballroom and riding through the forest. She’s a tiny child.

That doesn’t justify teaching her to fear herself, actions that only make the problem far, far worse.

And you can say, “Well, the adults didn’t MEAN to teach Elsa that-” I know they didn’t mean to do it.

But showing a terrifying light-show to a little girl will impact her, regardless of what Pabbie meant. Especially when he does not clarify.

But slamming the gates shut will have a powerful psychological effect on both Elsa and Anna, regardless of what their parents meant.

Elsa was a child.

Children learn from their surroundings. They respond to the actions of adults they trust, adults they love. While the accident itself impacted Elsa, we cannot ignore that the way she was brought up thereafter also had a profound effect on the way she saw the world, the way she responded to the world.

Elsa was a child being influenced by adult authority figures who ultimately failed her - and the fact people are so willing to put the weight of that on a child instead of the adults surrounding her is troubling to me.

The fact that the second film kind of tacitly puts the weight of that on Elsa’s shoulders by only making abstract references to “fear” - instead of openly talking about the complex circumstances Elsa and her parents found themselves in - is troubling to me as well. It allows viewers to disregard the more complicated elements of Elsa’s relationship with her parents and only focus on the positives the second film puts on display.

(Keep in mind, I DON’T intend this post to be anti Agnarr and Iduna. I love them as characters - ESPECIALLY Iduna, with the backstory F2 offers. Agnarr and Iduna are good people. They are loving parents. They were put in a horribly complicated position... and ultimately their actions - for all their good intentions - had negative consequences.)

#frozen #frozen 2 #elsa #bigfrozensix

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facepalming-since-chernobyl · 3 years

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Debunking lies haters spread about Mon-El – misogynist

Misogyny is a wide definitions and includes prejudice against women, social exclusion, sex discrimination, hostility, patriarchy, male privilege, belittling of women, violence against women, and sexual objectification – so it’s not “just” typical hate.

And yes, Mon-El said/did some questionable things. Aka about Eve “She wanted to please me. On Daxam, when a woman wishes to please a man...” and the fact he had no problems with moving the copying machine with her (Crossfire ep) and the line “things was easier on Daxam when I objectified women and didn’t care about anyone“ (the Mxy ep) and didn’t do what Kara said or how SCs like to say, he didn’t respect her.

But here we have few problems here.

First of all Mon-El is from a planet, where people behaved this way. And I write people, not men, because Daxam was a place when all of them where doing things like this. Do we have evidences that women were treated only like sexual objects and exist only to please men? No. Why? Because after all, Rhea - a woman, was the most powerful person on that planet and held true power, not Lar Gand, who was murdered by her and there were no consequences. No patriarchy here. No male privilege here.

But his haters love to forget the line: “on Daxam we drugged themselves to feel nothing“. We aka all people. That was the toxic culture that promoted the system where people were not dealing with feelings, but suppressing them with drugs. What caused not carrying about anything and objectifying was a part of the system.

“The more the merrier“ line, that some people say was lesbophobic and Mon-El wanted to have a threesome with Alex and Maggie is simply stupid. He was talking about having a PARTY, not having sex. Also in that bar scene he showed he was not prejudiced against homosexuals. Daxam was a horrible place but every sexuality was seen as normal and accepted. Also, no sex discrimination.

Next, “On Daxam, when a woman wishes to please a man.” WISHES. When a woman doesn’t want to please a man, she doesn’t. SIMPLE AND OBVIOUS. What also means he never sexually harassed anyone and there are no evidences for that. I will write another piece about how some really gross people accuse him of rape and other things that didn’t happen, but that will appear in the future.

Also, friendly reminder that Eve WANTED to hook up with him. She was a woman who knew what she wanted and did what she wanted. Making her some a clueless victim is a disrespectful for HER.

Secondly, when haters talk about his relationship with Kara is how he disrespected her as a woman.

The problem is they both clashed not because of their sexes but because of their races. They clashed because she was a Kryptonian and he was a Daxamite. They clashed because of their absolutely different upbringing.

He didn’t listen to her?

Kara Danvers : I am trying to help you fit in and you keep messing it up.

Mon-El : Okay, I'm trying very hard to be Mike, okay? But it is not as easy as you make it sound, Kara. I'm used to doing my own thing.

Kara Danvers : Well, you don't do your own thing here. You do my thing.

Mon-El : Um, okay. And if I don't want to do your thing?

Kara Danvers : Then find another mentor.

We talk about an alien who was on Earth like for two weeks and was brought to a CatCo to start a job. I repeat, an alien from totally different culture was brought to a totally new environment to behave like a human and work. Ever heard about cultural shock? And he TRIED. But was not ready. And Kara admitted it herself, later in the ep:

“When I was younger, I had no idea what I wanted to be here on Earth. And I had a family to help me and guide me, but... ultimately I had to make my own choices. And I was trying to impose those choices on you because when you landed, I was-I was just so excited to have someone to take under my wing. To look after. I never got to do that with my cousin. But you are your own man. And your life here on Earth is going to be very different from mine, and that's fine. That's great.”

Because guess what, he was not a dog and not doing what someone else asked is not always disrespectful. It’s you know, not being a slave and having your own mind :) Also, saying someone should do what you want is not mentoring or teaching and Kara explained that herself.

When they clashed after he beat Brian, once again, it was not about her being a woman, it was about how they were using their powers and how they both seen it differently. And it once again, in the end, was about the differences between a Daxam and Krypton.

So what, he was misogynist because he was jealous of Mxy? Because he didn’t do what she asked him to? Because he was arguing with her? Because he was overprotective? Yep, we can all agree it was a shitty behavior. Once again, I understand why he behaved like that – his upbringing in Daxamite culture, ignoring the feelings and getting drugged instead of dealing with them – but his behavior was NOT PORTRAYED AS SOMETHING GOOD. And Kara CALLED HIS SHIT OUT. And after some thinking HE ADMITTED and what is more important, UNDERSTOOD HE WAS WRONG.EXPLAINED himself in a way that made sense. APOLOGIZED. And didn’t repeat this mistake.

Because you know, this was his character arc from being a problematic frat boy of the universe, to finally understanding his character issues and fixing them. That was his story. And I’m kinda surprised how people can admit the tv shows are full of macho idiotic males and how out culture is teaching them how to act wrongly and mistreat women and then when they have an actual arc of man who grasped his shit and become better, they hate on him like no tomorrow. I guess males should stay shitty for their whole lives???

And lastly - look how many times he praised her, how many times he said how awesome she was when she kicked Mxy and other idiots’ asses and how proud he was, how he has learnt to respect her decisions, how he tried to please her, how he walked away when she asked him without a word, how he was able to say how worthless he was, how he played the role of a housewife when she was dealing with criminals, how many times he gave her emotional support and simply was there when she needed it, how he took her side and could admit he was wrong - like, misogynists do stuff like that? Since when?

Yes, he was a jerk and he didn’t have any idea how to treat women, but he has learnt. Keeping things he has done in the past and ignoring his development is like depriving humans of the ability of making mistakes and learning on them. And this is a base of whole damned humanity.

#supergirl #mon el #mon el defense squad #karamel

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vermillioncrown · 3 years

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have you seen the kdrama squid game? everyone's seemingly talking about it wherever i look online, so i caved and started it

not just online, i heard it on the streets, at the stores, my fucking hairdresser, you name it.

every. fucking. where.

in short: i watched it. i like it. would recommend anyone, with the stomach for violence and gore, to watch it. squid game is a tight, well-written story, the korean acting is phenomenal, it's short and doesn't overstay.

long (ass) story about it (so many spoilers):

pre-watch:

it's no secret that i'm opinionated and judgmental, i just try to remain polite and civil and keep it within (bc no one needs my opinion and it's neither more or less important than anyone else's opinion out there).

i don't respect most people's opinions on media i consume. be it disconnect with the social zeitgeist of any moment (consequence of my upbringing as a kid, a deliberate choice as an adult), or there's a part of me that, out of a superiority-inferiority complex, needs to form my own opinion on things, it's difficult to be a person/entity that i'll take recommendations from. people like different things, want different experiences from what they consume. i will sometimes use certain individuals/groups' like or dislike of a thing as a way to do the opposite, and heuristically it's worked out for me.

squid game, from what i've seen, had the visuals of tarsem singh's the fall (old favorite for the gorgeous aesthetics), and plot + character-driven + conflict story that i enjoy in other favorites. but it still seemed like battle royale lite, and i wasn't in the mood for that.

(that's a big division between the media that my bf likes vs what i like. every time he recommended me a thing, my opinion ends up "i hate everyone here, i care for none of this, i hope they all die")

hearing things like "oh, these characters are all shitty" "they're so dumb, if they did this -" "that guy was evil" "haha what game do you think you'd get to -" "omg it's the darkest thing i've ever watched" *insert cutesy dalgona memes* and learning more about the premise from a friend (one i do trust for media recs) gave me food for thought.

the games don't sound complicated. in fact, they're the simplest part of this premise.

... ah. it's about poor asian people.

i knew then, i had to watch it. drive out other people's jokes, quips, whatever about the show from my brain.

watching it:

right away, the first two episodes hit me hard. the lifestyle that gi-hun lives, it's not foreign to me. i know people like this. i'm related to people like this, in situations like this. i was very resigned to my mother becoming like gi-hun's mother, working to death for the sake of her kids. i've been through chinatown all my childhood, seeing the way people lived to make it through, working thanklessly, living in closets, scrounging day-to-day.

that pervasive, oppressive cloud of your socio-economic situation. as a kid, i bought into the lies that people were in charge of their own destiny, and they just need to work hard, pull themselves up by the bootstraps.

spoiler alert, that's not true.

the episodes with the hard-working mothers of sang-woo and gi-hun, of ali's family, made me actually nauseous compared to all the death and violence. we can almost call it socioeconomic violence, the poverty and the situations that the squid game victims face. you can fight physical violence. socioeconomics is an intangible beast with tangible consequences.

it set the tone for the show. i knew why the characters were going to behave the way they did - fabrication of consent, presented by those who held power over others. it was the fucking crab bucket analogy thing.

every joke i've seen was already in the first three episodes.

"okay, what else is going on?" i had to know. who's setting this shit up? does the government know? how big is this operation?

the characters in the show were archetypal, and the later episodes were predictable, but not in a bad way. the show, being 9 episodes, set things up, and let them play out. it's all there. if you were watching, no one's gonna do a heel turn just to 'shock you'

(best part-

me: haha bc it's 69; nice

*rich american asshole does the 69 joke*

me: :O

bf: congrats)

even the ending i was able to accept. gi-hun, at his core, is that kind of person. straightforward, almost foolhardy, naïvely kind - he was at a strike for work, helping a coworker that ended up dying and he got ptsd, and his ex-wife held it against him that he wasn't there for his daughter's birth.

who is good? who is bad? can you be a good friend, a good man, and be a good father? it's not AITA, it's everything sucks here.

(we also joked that the show was on a shoestring budget, and meta-wise, the squid games were also on a shoestring budget that front man wasted it all on the fucking stairs)

(another joke:

there's speculation going around about the squid guys, depending what color you pick for the first game with gong yoo, you are either a gamer or an enforcer

me: if you deck gong yoo, you become frontman)

episode 2, the one that most people said 'meh' over, was what sold me on the show.

given the choice to go back out there... will you come back? you will. everyone's motivation was fucking solid. old man was...

(well, by ep 6, through all the tears, bf and i both agreed he was sus

bf: what do you mean they were trying to 'respect' his death??? no one else was fucking respected! he died off-screen, mark my words, he'll be back!)

every character's situation was explored. that gangster, 101, that-

holy fuck, his character was amazing. yes, typical bully gangster guy in the group, but that strength was a double-edged sword.

(gi-hun "you know, you are the strongest here. i'd be more afraid of the guys next to me" and that fucking uncertainty on 101's face on the way back to his posse, oooooooooo

212 lady!!!! "i'm good at everything, except the things i can't do" dude she was fucking amazing. hate her or love her, you can't help but watch her)

from the beginning, i felt it wasn't about the games. they were simple. they caused meaningless death. they had no complications besides "die". they only got spicier when it tested people's trust in one another (tug-of-war, marble game).

(i fucking predicted that, too. tug-of-war, pick a team. next game, pick a partner

me: dude, knowing that these squid guys are out to fuck me raw, i'd pick a guy i'd want to kill. i know they're gonna pull some 'kill your best friend' shit

me: hidden mist graduation exam bullshit

*ep 6 happens*

bf *through tears*: you were right)

also, knowing how to survive is such an asinine thread of thought to follow for this show. the games are not fair. fairness is fabricated, consent is fabricated. you are here at the whim of the people paying for your human life and the entertainment it provides. the moment you bore them, they are willing to change the rules re: glass factory-ahjusshi :(

that was the episode that cemented the one, pervasive thought in me:

THIS SHOW IS NOT SUBTLE. whoop, there it is: rich people fucking around with poor people because they can, capitalism! it's not a show w a deep, political message. it's a story, set in a realistic world, and based on what is highlighted and what is portrayed, you can get an explicit message from the story and the thoughts of the creator and what they're shaped by.

post-watch:

i knew it, i hate the general populace.

you know, i've always thought (one of my more unkind thoughts) that you had to have brainworms to want to be popular online.

there are so many steps to showing your whole ass (metaphorically) out there:

- think of thing

- go onto device

- translate thing into form to be published on device (picture, text, video)

- last minute checks

- push "submit"

it's not a millisecond. it's seconds at least, minutes, hours, even days. thoughts must be going through your head at some point in that interim, no matter how much a person can joke about being 'head empty no thoughts'

and there are people that, at no point in time, ever think "huh, this joke is rather tasteless, i won't do it for the clout" and submitted whatever thing for the likes and few minutes of attention

enough of that, let's discuss the general category of memery that i've seen about this show:

- character bashing/morality shit: bro. they are all in dire straits and it's a privilege to follow morality. fuck you and your high horse. throwback to when i was a kid, poor enough that my mom told me to skip the fare if i could get away with it, and my stupid ass said "ms. teacher said that was dishonest" or to save money we'd illegally go onto the beach and catch seafood for sustenance. you do what you gotta do.

(also my parents grew up in a communist regime and barely survived, the scars fucking show. being nice starves you at best, kills you at worst)

- making it about the games/how to win each game: you stupid. it isn't about the games. they're all simplistic because it's not about them. it's about pitting people against each other. you start trying to cheese it, frontman's gonna press a button and shoot you dead, bc fuck you.

also if you want to play the squid games, you're as delusional as people who want a zombie apocalypse to "prove their worth". off you fuck.

- haha cutesy references to red light green light/dalgona: the juxtaposition of the cutesy, clean-cut aesthetic to the horrific reality was part of the horror. breakout korean media is very good at this, from what i've seen. love that shit.

but was this the only thing that was in your head? little shapes? pink guys? the little robot voice (before they gun you down with automatics?) yeah, fiction/reality, this is not a political commentary piece of media (is a piece of media informed by reality and politics), blah blah, but really? not a single bit of distaste comes to you when you decide whatever harebrained joke/post/meme you're gonna do for attention?

at least make it clever.

you can really tell who has "dark humor" and who has gallows humor. and you can also fucking tell who has never had real worries about sustaining themselves in their life.

- huge/popular/official entities (corporations, public figures, etc) making references to squid games: tasteless. because likely than not, they will not be part of the squid games, and will be perpetuating it. something something, position of power.

the most egregious example was the hyundai twitter making a dalgona joke with their car models. bro. social media manager, prob a 20-30 year old that saw squid game was popular. you clearly didn't watch the show or absorbed zero things because the main character was a man laid off from a car manufacturing plant that was mistreating their workers, tried to unionize, and faced police brutality.

sometimes, the best thing you can do is fucking not say a thing. shut up.

- recreating squid game games in your vidya: it's not about the games, it's about the stakes and the situation with the games as an excuse. go start a fight club. burglar the louvre. play fall guys. do something else. also, in video games, unless you're playing vr, the physicality and fine motion control that makes the games so terrifying and high-stakes aren't there.

(me during the VIPs episode: you know, if i had the riches to commit unspeakable human atrocities, i think my tastes would be less... pedestrian

bf: rich people have no taste, you know this already)

TLDR overall:

i think squid game is a great show. it has proper pacing, compelling and complex characters, narrative consistency, stunning visuals, great use of foreshadowing, etc etc i'm not a critic. but i do have a brain, and that brain gave it a good, long thought and sees merit in it.

the thing that i hate is how people seem to care more for its popularity than its substance. but ultimately, i'm not going to police how people enjoy things, i've said my piece and will politely turn away whenever someone with an opinion i don't respect shows up.

#here it is #the dreaded squid game ask #this is not an official review/critique #this is my personal experience and opinion #and word vomit on why i don't care for the popular opinion/discussion on this show #anonymous #inquiry #verm is watching...#opinionated verm

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kpopsnowball · 3 years

Text

The forum, the royal court accomplished over more than 1000 years back still displayed its glory because the present day royals still respected its essence of impartial, cut throat and pure justice. They truly believed in maintaining the etiquette even though it was the 21st century now. Afterall it’s not the throne running the royal blood instead it’s the royalties running the throne. Deep meaning, serves the purpose.

The Royal Family. The name itself made people bow down to them. The royal blood, the tag not different from any ordinary but it was their ancestors what made the common man respect them. Even their generations did good deeds and strived to make their royal blood live not in the fake glory but in it’s true pride. Being it the 21st century yet the traditions of royals had still been the same. The only change was their modern attire rest everything had been passed onto to the next generations similar to that of their throne. The traditions and rituals of royals have been strict and always kept no room for opposition. The sin for argument was simply being thrown out as rogue. They had their own set of laws and rules. Everyone were abide by the laws.

The Royal court, a special established building formed for maintaining the laws and orders was created 300 years ago. The main purpose of it was to maintain decorum in the working of their bloodline and to look after the word around the world. The main person in power to make decisions being the King or the Queen. Many people believed it be injustice because the court is for justice but the monarch system was followed. But to be honest, the royals never took advantage of their crown and made sure that fair chances and justice shall be given to the victim and the guilty.

“Her Royal Majesty, the queen have marked her gracious presence in the forum. We are obliged to have her royal majesty in the evening summit of the Royal Chambers. The summit shall commence now.” The Royal secretary, the chief of the court of justice announced the mark of the yearly summit and moved back to his place while placing the book record on the table in front of her royal majesty.

The royal court, circular in inner infrastructure with the worshiped throne placed in the back centre of the room along with lines of chairs emerging from its two sides placed in semi circular outline, lining the edges of the circular shaped forum. Each chair belonging to princes, managers and secretaries. The ordinary blood victim and guilty were abandoned from entering the blood tagged forum, another established court was made for them.

“Before we start, I want every further discussed information to remain confidential in the forum and between the Princes. I hope I made myself clear now” the queen, domineering, bold and fearless demanded while examining the records, a small frown taking place over her features. She was the current queen of the bloodline, a queen without a king in her late 50s yet her glory overpowered by her dominance made people quiver in fear. The crown on her head gave birth to many renowned rulers for hundreds of years. Her face wrinkled showing her age yet her sharp features with small almond shaped intimidating eyes made people bow their heads in front of her.

“Your royal majesty, I deeply apologise for the delay but Your Royal highness, Prince Knight have not marked his gracious presence yet” the royal guard informed with a bow and marched back, leaving the forum.

“This is disrespect to the forum. Consequences will be taken against Prince Vincenzo Knight. I will personally look into this matter. The forum shall begin now” the queen ordered with a displeased expression. Her own son abandoning the forum made her blood boil. She thought of taking strict actions against him. Even if it was the 21st century, decorum of the forum and the royalty shall always remain, she thought.

“Your royal majesty, two of our companies in London are facing a major financial crisis right now. Growth rate for past two years have been increasing by 24.7% but for past few months, the loss incurred is been rising from 6% to 21.9%. The senior manager has been requesting your royal majesty to look into this matter because of the sudden loss. No exact reasons are known and the company is suffering from major crises. Other companies are doing comparatively well but the overall margins of loss are increasing every month. Financially, our companies in London, New York and Japan are requesting for our immediate help. Thank you your royal majesty” the executive secretary stated the facts and with a bow returned back to his positioned chair.

“Prince Antonio Rodriguez, what do you think of this situation?” The queen directed her attention to the Prince, the one who was the master of finances making him gain the tag of financial advisor just at the age of 23. His wisdom and knowledge unparalleled, a true prodigy of his field but the royal majesty was displeased when she found him engrossed in his phone, making her finger twitch in anger. Afterall the queen she was, she was not a person to be neglected.

“Prince Antonio!” The queen raised her voice, making your royal highness flinch a bit.

“Mom, you surprised me! Why are you shouting?Relax” he said looking up, his dark brown eyes boring into hers, the past amusement vanishing. He was piqued by her dictatorial behaviour.

“Prince Antonio where is your attention? I have been calling you”

“And I have been telling you that I am not a Prince” he pounced back.

The queen was infuriated now, her patience low as the melting point of ice.

“The Summit is dismissed for now. I want to have a word with the Princes”

The Royal Secretary, managers and the guards immediately left the forum, a cold sweat breaking down their spine, the wrath of queen was not a joke to make. Now, only the three of them were alone in the room, the third person still not making his presence seen even of when he was physically present.

“Prince Christopher, may I have your attention please” the queen mocked him. He looked up to her from his book, his dark brown eyes covered with lenses stared at his mother, void of emotions and arched a perfect eyebrow. A staring competition took place between the mother and the son, sighing he gave up and stood up from his positioned chair towards his mother who was sitting on her throne.

“Yes mom. You have all my attention now. Tell me what’s the matter”

“Chris I bet your book would be more interesting than her talk” Antonio scoffed and walked towards Christopher and stood besides him. Christopher scowled at him and gave a warning look to stop and in response the man threw his hands in air as a defeat but his eyes still challenging.

“Antonio this is not a way to talk. You need to maintain your etiquette” the queen said, curling her fingers in a tight fist, her anger clearly visible in her sharp eyes.

Scoffing, “Etiquette? Why? Why should I maintain that? I don’t want to and it’s my choice” the man was clearly disturbed by his mother. He did not like her being controlling over him. Even though she did not do anything in the past hour yet he always searched for a reason just to oppose her, afterall he knows what happens behind the royal doors.

“Antonio! I won’t hear a no. I did not ask you for your opinion! It’s my order and you have to follow that Do you get that?!” the royal majesty was now beyond angry, she liked submission and despised domination over her, her hand tightly holding the handle of the throne now.

Antonio was about to pounce back but Christopher immediately placed his hand on his shoulder and stopped him. The man gave a warning look to Chris to stop and let him go but Chris shook his head and asked him to calm down. Antonio was actually a chilled out person but sometimes anger would take the best of him whereas Christopher was quite opposite to him, being quite, composed, but not shy, his dating history was longer than Antonio. He was the calmer and composed one in the Princes. The master of general knowledge. A book worm in particular but with a sharp wit.

“This is not the right time Nio. Stop okay? We need to discuss about him first” Chris whispered to the man besides him, calming him down but his features turning tense with the mention of him.

“She would never agree” the man whispered back to his brother, traces of pain visible over his features. They truly knew their mother.

“Let’s jus-”

A loud bang was heard interrupting their conversation. The huge antique carved door which was above 25 feet long was banged open, viewing a man in all black biker outfit clad tightly to his body, showing his muscular lean body paired with black boots, his one hand holding his helmet and the other pulling his hair back.

“Our queen was missing you a lot Vince! Show her your gracious presence your Royal highness” The past pain vanishing, Antonio mocked but in playful way earning himself a scowl from the man.

“What’s up with people scowling today” he whispered to himself.

“Vincenzo this is not how you should dress and behave in the forum. Do I need to make you all learn your manners?” The queen was clearly annoyed with his sons. Their behaviour and manners were questioning her upbringing.

The man did not reply and simply walked towards his positioned chair and unzipped his jacket and threw on the chair, revealing a tight black tee clasped on his body showing off his strong firm abs.

“Vincenzo! Do you hear me? I am talking to you!” The queen shouted in the forum, making her voice echo. The man did not even budge, he was busy removing his watch and wiping off the sweat from his head.

Christopher nudged Antonio and with his head motioned him to move back. Both the brothers moved to a corner, Christopher started reading the record book kept on the nearby table, a true bookworm he was whereas Antonio crossed his arms and was enjoying the show with a smirk. He knew what was coming next.

The queen was very annoyed now, she strode towards Vincenzo and pulled his arm to face him towards her but immediately the man harshly pulled his arm back with a deep scowl on his face, his eyes fuming making the queen turn even more mad.

“Don’t you dare show me your eyes, you better know your place”

“I definitely do. Queen” the man spoke for the first time he entered, venom lacing his last words.

“I am your mom rig-”

“You have lost that title years ago for me” Vincenzo beat it to her, his eyes burning in agony, the one buried for many years. Christopher immediately diverted his attention to the scenario unfolding in front of them. He looked at Antonio and both shared a bit surprised look. It was not new for them to hear this, but after years they have heard that sentence.

“As much as you try, you can’t change the fact that I am your mother Vince” the queen replied, devoid of any emotion. Her mind completely blank.

“Don’t call me that, I hate to hear it from your mouth” Vincenzo took a threatening steps towards his mother but the queen she was, her legs stood still, her eyes fuming now at the insult.

Taking a deep breath to calm herself down, she said,

“Then what do you want me to do?”

“I want to see regret in your eyes”

“And what if you don’t my beloved son” she smirked, evilness visible in her eyes.

“I will make you, your royal majesty” he smirked back.

She threw her head back and started laughing viciously, clapping loudly.

“Tsk tsk tsk, How would you do that son? Making air castles hun? You know that I am your queen right? The ultimate power. You won’t be able to go above me dear” a complete evil rant, it was not new for them to hear because they truly knew her colours, she was about to continue her evil motives but immediately the man’s next words froze everybody in the forum. The two brothers at the corner completely surprised and the fearless, dominating royal majesty going completely blank, a shiver running down her spine. And that was the last thing she wanted.

“What if I free him queen?”

★𝐓𝐚𝐠𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭: @urowngoddess @purplepsycho03 @koishua @rr0zu @soleilsuhh @bluejaem @kunrengui @najatheangel @emuava @moon-jun @crescentjen @dundun-baby @sunryu @melonmochimoon @reiichann 𝐎𝐩𝐞𝐧 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐧𝐨𝐰. 𝐒𝐞𝐧𝐝 𝐚𝐧 𝐚𝐬𝐤 𝐨𝐫 𝐦𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐚𝐠𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐚𝐝𝐝𝐞𝐝.

★ 𝐀/𝐍: It was very amazing to write the first chapter. I actually searched a lot about the royal court and royal dress of the queen. The information I found was soo beautiful and I would definitely include it in my upcoming chapters. I wanted this chapter to be a bit of introductory to my characters and soon more things will also be revealed.

★ Please consider to leave a feedback or a reblog because it really helps me to learn and grow as a writer. Thank you soo much. Sending you lots of love and happiness❤️

★ 𝐁𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐚𝐢𝐧 𝐩𝐚𝐠𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐑𝐨𝐲𝐚𝐥𝐬

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skullsandwineglasses · 3 years

Text

Awu - A coping character

Like a lot of people, my immediate reaction after watching episodes 59-63 was dissatisfaction and frustration. It seemed like Awu was a passive character. I still think she is passive, but that’s not necessarily a flaw or something that we should fault her about. This is going to be a helluva long post, but let me try to explain.

Awu is what you would call a “coping” character. She copes with obstacles thrown at her. She reacts to the machinations that blow up around her. She doesn’t really strive for things, except for probably general happiness. In the trailers, you hear her say in the voiceover, “I just want to be with the one I love”. Awu is a romantic. We saw this when she was young and crushing on Zi Tan and how she begged the emperor to grant her the wish of marrying for love. When she is a married woman, we see her wanting to start a family with Xiao Qi. We see her actively seek out ways to boost her health so that she can bear a child. Her ultimate goal is to find true love and have a family.

In a way, she reminds me of the Mandalorian. There’s a meme that says that even though the Mandalorian is the main character that the audience follows, in the grand scheme of things, the Mandalorian is actually just a side character among a group of main characters. The Mandalorian doesn’t strive for much. He just wants to be a Space Dad (TM) to Baby Yoda and to find a jedi to train his adopted child, and he has absolutely no interest in the politics in the galaxy. But, he’s always unwillingly thrust into politically-charged situations by these “main” characters around him who have their own political missions.

As a princess, Awu is the center of attention. Everyone dotes on her. But she isn’t a key player in the palace politics at all. She has no desire to be apart of it, even though everyone tries to pull her into it: Daddy Wang trying to force her into an military-advantageous marriage, her Empress aunt trying to get her to marry her son the crown prince, and then her Emperor uncle using her to help protect his will. Everyone has their own political agenda that each would have long-lasting consequences to the empire, but all Awu wants is to live happily ever after with the person she loves. This goal of hers never changes throughout the drama, which I admire. Even up to episode 63, she’s asking Xiao Qi to let go of vengeance and leave the capital with her to go live up north like they’ve always dreamed and planned together. While I don’t really agree with her asking XQ to give up vengeance, I completely understand why she asks him.

Among a cast of characters who are constantly planning and scheming, even Xiao Qi now with his drive for justice and vengeance, it almost feels like Awu doesn’t belong, and I think this difference between her and the people around her is why it can seem frustrating to some viewers. We project our emotions onto her and expect her to react as we would. We expect her to act like how we think we would act in that situation. But Awu has always been different from the people around her. I don’t think she’s ever really been in-sync with any character expect maybe for her mom, her maids (Jin’er doesn’t count), and Xiao Qi. So now that her and XQ are slightly out of sync in terms of their attitudes, we’re feeling a little on edge.

I think many would agree that Awu is a smart character, but she doesn’t scheme. And again, that’s because she’s a simple young woman, so we can’t expect her to scheme since she’s never had to. She’s never had to scheme to survive. Even when her whole family schemes, they always think about sparring her because of how much they loved her in the past. People complain about her being the last one to find out about things, but that’s because she doesn’t really involve herself in matters outside the house. She always thinks the best of people and so she never suspects them. She’s saintly to a fault. In a way, Awu is a very idealistic character, but also a resilient one since she’s able to remain true to her original nature even after witnessing the worst of her family. I admit, this was a little hard to buy at first, which was why I was frustrated with her, and her character isn’t everyone’s cup of tea because it’s a really Mary Sue kind of character, but after having cooled down these past few days, I’ve learned to respect her. With all the cunning and ruthless female leads recently, it’s nice to see a female lead who stays true to herself even after facing adversity, instead of becoming hardened and jaded and cynical. I feel like we hate on these kinds of FLs too much, kind of like how everyone hated Bella from Twilight back in 2010. I secretly really liked Bella and related to her when I was a teen, but I boarded on the hate-bandwagon because everyone else hated her.

BUT, I think what’s causing all the backlash is what people expected Awu to become based on how she was set up from the beginning. It almost feels like the writers couldn’t decide if they want her to be brash and rebellious, or loyal and true to the times. So we end up with a confusing combination of both, and different viewers end up having different expectations of what they want her character to be, hence all the disagreements about how to interpret her actions and decisions.

At the beginning, we’re introduced to a sheltered, loved, and carefree young woman of noble blood. Awu is then forced to marry a man she hardly knows, her lover won’t elope with her, and her husband leaves her on her wedding night. This is her first major turning point, and we see an immediate change in her. She matures overnight. She seems to have lost her carefree innocence. She isn’t as bubbly as before.

Because we see this major change in her character so early on in the drama, this is what we expect to continue moving forward for her character, and that she’s going to keep being molded in this way by life-changing events.

She’s then captured by Helan Zhen and has to try to survive, and she does this very well when you consider her sheltered and noble upbringing. In fact, a lot of the things that Awu does in the drama are out of line with her upbringing. She supports the Emperor’s decision to grant XQ, a peasant-born general, the ranking of a prince. She is able to adapt to the rough lifestyle in Ning Shuo. She’s able to whistle like a bandit, much to Xiao Qi’s surprise. And when you think about it, you begin to wonder, where did Awu learn to whistle and ride a horse like that? Who snuck her out of the prime minister’s manor in order to teach her these things? I doubt it was her brother or the princes, considering how useless and misogynistic they are. Her grandmother taught her politics and the arts, which helped her become worldly and cultured, but she didn’t teach Awu what a peasant’s lifestyle is like. So it’s actually a huge surprise that the spoiled daughter of a princess is able to fall in love with a low-born general and feel safe and at ease with him so quickly and easily. We’re briefly told that Awu likes selfless heroes, and so that’s our explanation for why she was able to fall for Xiao Qi. But to me, I think her falling in love with Xiao Qi is another example of how Awu is able to cope with the circumstances.

When Xiao Qi rescues her and takes her back to Ning Shuo, she’s resistant towards him. She seems defeated. Lifeless. We think her time in captivity with Helan has induced another permanent change in her. When Xiao Qi opens the window to let some fresh air in, she calls hims “cu lu” ( 粗鲁), which means rough. It’s something you say when you insult someone for being inelegant, thoughtless, and rude. She scorns the women’s taste of clothing in Ning Shuo, and is surprised when she learns that XQ, along with the rest of the army, only showers once a month because of the lack of hot water.

BUT, what begins to change Awu’s mind so quickly is seeing how righteous and devoted Xiao Qi is. She sees him as a good marriage partner. Her situation could have been a lot worse. After all, after seeing how unhappy her mother, the Empress, and Wanru were in their marriages, Awu expected a similar situation with her own arranged marriage. But instead, she quickly realizes what a lucky hand she’s been dealt, so she accepts XQ and lets herself fall for him. She doesn’t really have a choice anyway, so she embraces it. I especially love the scene during the siege when she tells Zi Tan that she fell in love with Xiao Qi because of his heroism and his selflessness towards the empire, while she now looks down on Zi Tan. If only Xiao Qi were there to hear her confess her love to him so vehemently.

In Ning Shuo, we see Awu begin to soften towards Xiao Qi. She becomes her old carefree self again around him. THIS is something that deviates from most coming-of-age stories that feature a female lead who is irreversibly changed by a traumatic life event. Awu returning to her normal, positive self instead of being jaded foreshadows how her character will behave for the rest of the drama. Yes, Awu doesn’t “grow” like other female characters, but she stays consistent and optimistic, which is a virtue in itself because it reflects her resilience.

When Awu is separated from Xiao Qi and has to protect a city against a siege by her uncle, we see her rise up to the challenge on her own. We see her command an army. We see her stand up to Zi Tan. She shows potential of becoming a “rebel princess”, which again raises our expectations that she’ll become more involved in politics. But at the same time, she’s still a young woman who likes to cuddle with her husband and be doted on by him when he returns. This is the Awu that we’ve known from the beginning. She’s used to be doted on by people who love her. What we have to remember from this siege arc is that while Awu showed great leadership skills, this is not who she wants to be. She CAN be this person, but she doesn’t want to be. The drama subtly reminds us of this when Xiao Qi comes back and she melts into his arms.

This aspect of her character is echoed again in episode 36 when she and Xiao Qi are cuddling in their signature corner of the manor. She says that she doesn’t seem to have to worry about anything when he’s around. XQ teases her about what she would do while he’s gone at war. She tells him that she can face anything on her own when he’s not there, but when he is here, all she wants to do is rely on him.

We tend to forget that Awu likes to be doted on (e.g., remember all those moments throughout the beginning of the drama where she likes to lie in people’s laps. See this post.) This was how she grew up. Loved and spoiled. But Awu CAN be strong. She’s perfectly capable of being strong. That’s why the Emperor trusted her with his will. That’s why Wanru and Zilong trusted her with their child aka the future of the empire. But, she doesn’t want to be this person who has suddenly become the pillar of the empire. She wants to live a simple life. That’s why she sounds so somber when she talks to Nanny Xu about the meaning behind “Mu Yi Tian Xia”, and her duty as the wife of a general and the descendant of royals to unite the commoners with the blue bloods. It’s a tall order, but she’s willing to take on that responsibility for the good of the empire. Again, this shows that Awu is a reactionary character who copes with turmoil that comes at her, but that’s because she’s taking on goals that she didn’t want or ask for in the first place. She has an entirely different set of goals. She dreams of living out another story. But instead, she’s born into this one.

After the siege, Awu’s next major turning points involve her family, and I think this is where it becomes divisive. She finds out about her Emperor Uncle having tried to have her and XQ killed, her cousin trying to steal the throne, her Empress Aunt trying to burn the Emperor’s will, her father trying to stage a coup, her mother killing herself as a result, and her having a miscarriage. In the end, she forgives everyone even after having seen the worst of them. Even after realizing that they’d sacrifice her for power. This is all understandable, even if saintly of her. These are the people who raised her, so I get why she would forgive them. Awu values family (to a fault). It’s not in her nature to abandon family, especially given how close she is to them. They helped shaped who she grew up to be. She lived a happy childhood with them. She’s never known abuse. Heck, even when they betray her, like the Emperor, they apologize to her soon after. Everyone seems to want to appease her. Even the Empress after all she’s done. Can you blame Awu for not having it in her to hate people? As rotten as her family is, they always try to spare her, and they only target her as a reluctant, last resort (even though they all want her husband killed though. It’s weird how they justify loving her, but still think it’s okay to kill her husband).

Awu does make some questionable decisions and judgments though, and I feel like she thinks of Xiao Qi too idealistically and takes him for granted, which can sometimes be unfair to him.

Case 1 is when she goes out of her way to help Qian’er and meets with Helan Zhen in secret and then dances with him. Like what many people have said, they feel angry that she danced with HZ before her own husband. And when Xiao Qi expresses anger and concern over her meeting with HZ, she insults him by saying he lacks a sense of familial duty since she doesn’t have a proper family or clan. This was a low-blow, but I excused it since it was in the heat of the moment.

Case 2 is the aphrodisiac incident. I think this is when Awu realizes that she hasn’t been considerate enough of Xiao Qi. When she learns that Xiao Qi was the victim in the situation, she immediately defended him and cast out Qian’er. However, up until this point, Awu has always taken Qian’er’s side against him. There’s no doubt that Awu loves and appreciates Xiao Qi, but it sometimes feels like she forgets how much he does for her and how tolerant he is of her family. Xiao Qi, an undefeated general and god of war, is nearly assaulted at the hands of his wife’s cousin because his wife has a big heart and let the predator into the house. Awu has always seen Xiao Qi has invincible, but this was the moment when she realizes that he can be broken, and she can be the cause of it.

Case 3 is what everyone’s been talking about recently, which is how she is reacting to Xiao Qi’s rage towards his betrayed fallen soldiers. While I understand that Awu is stuck in the middle, it also feels like she’s prioritizing her family over his feelings. She knows that Xiao Qi is angry, and yet she asks him to leave with her. She has the expectation that he will listen to her. She’s (quietly) making him choose between her and his army, which is unfair, even if she’s doing it for his own good. Do I agree with what she’s doing? Not really. But do I sympathize with her motivations? Yes. It’s taken me a couple of days, but I think I now understand.

Xiao Qi definitely has flaws too (e.g., the contraceptive fiasco). They both keep secrets from each other and try to make decisions for each other. Two sides of the same coin. Ugh, these two frustrate me so much, but I still love them so much.

Overall, people are expecting Awu to be one type of character, but they ignore how the drama’s been characterizing her. We can agree or disagree with her character’s development, but when you break it down, Awu’s character makes sense and is actually quite consistent, which is surprising for a 68-episode drama. Usually characters take a 180-degree turn after being drawn out for so long, but Awu has stayed true, for better or for worse. Do I still get frustrated at her sometimes? Of course. But, I can sympathize with her.

Rant over.

#monarch industry #the rebel princess #上阳赋 #awu #cdrama #this has taken me 2 hours to write #i don't have a life but I have a bunch of assignments waiting for me #rip #cdrama rant #my life hasn't been my own since jan #character analysis #deep dive

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moon-yean · 4 years

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could u elaborate what was so bad about the barbarians? i saw the show and thought it was ok but i don't have enough knowledge to know what are the ideological implications of it? sorry, just really curious and wanna learn more

*takes a deep breath* oh boy, where to even begin? Thanks for your question as I might finally get this off my chest! Okay, fair’s fair, anyone who likes the show should look away now because I’m not going to mince words. And I want to reiterate that there were things about the show that I liked, mostly on a superficial aesthetical level. Generally you could tell from the get-go though that the writers are hacks who know nothing about history or good storytelling for that matter. I could’ve dealt with a show that was historically inaccurate if only the character drama had been written well. I might also have enjoyed the show more if the character drama had been mediocre but if there had been a sense of historical authenticity (not accuracy, mind; but still something tangibly more substantial than the patina they tried to throw onto their frankly embarrassingly lowbrow attempt by having parts of the dialogue translated into Latin by an expert and by hiring a good crew for the costume and props design - of the Romans at least... putting lipstick on a pig and all that, although pigs are great and the writing here is not).

Since you asked about the ideological implications specifically, I’ll start with that and work my way towards other criticisms (this is going to be LONG):

19th century nationalism: The story of Arminius and his merry band of brothers who defy the big bad Roman empire is a narrative that became especially popular in Germany in the 18th and 19th century, both with liberal patriotic movements that were advocating for the unification of the “German cultural nation” in a modern nation state (spurred by the Wars of Liberation against Napoléon Bonaparte and French occupation) and later with the völkisch movements where that nationalism segued into the pseudo-scientific racial ‘theories’ of a ‘superior German race’ which in turn was part of the ideological foundation of the genocides and atrocities committed by Germany in the 20th century (not only in WWII, see also the colonial genocide of the Herero in 1904). We cannot disentangle this predominantly racist reception history that re-invented Arminius (”Hermann der Cherusker” - “Hermann the Cheruscan” - or, indeed “Hermann the German” ha!) as the founding myth of a German people from the way this story has been depicted in media, entertainment and culture and, as evidenced by Barbarians, continues to be to this day.

Barbarians pays lip service to the fact that actually there was no German people at the time by having the tribes meet at the Ting in the first episode and have someone outright state it. These kinds of tidbits literally voiced by characters give off a strong whiff of the authors googling something, reading something on Wikipedia, and then putting it in there. I’m sorry (actually not sorry) to come down harsh on this but given what we’re talking about here, that’s just not good enough. It’s an embarrassing level of “writing”. The authors clearly have NO idea what they’re talking about or what they’re dealing with because despite their lip services, they actively reproduce the harmful narratives that were spun around this actual historical event and these actual historical figures in the 19th century. No effort was made to depict anything complex or realistic here. Case in point: Even though there’s a pretense that the tribes aren’t part of the same people, they don’t look much different from each other, they all speak the same kind of modern high German that sounds like they’re at a costume party in the year of our lord 2020 (and in the case of Folkwin, drugged out of their mind; he sounds like a guy who’d throw beer cans at passersby). They come across as basically just being separated by the few acres between their villages. And then when the big bad evil Roman empire wants to squash their resistance (Asterix did it better change my mind challenge), freedom fighter Arminius rallies them together with a heroic speech and they charge at the Romans RAAHWWHR! ... no, just no.

There would have been SO MANY ways to reframe and retell this story in a fresh, new, and exciting way that would have made for amazing character drama. The premise is so good. If we were to look at the basics of what is known, there are so many personal AND political complexities in there that just beg to be coloured in with a little imagination. I just... I don’t even know where to begin to fix the choices that the show did go with since most of them don’t make any sense, don’t contribute anything to the narrative and are just. there. Have y’all noticed that there is ZERO dramatic tension in any of the scenes? Like, what? How?? Culture clash, divided loyalties, identity issues, the way that a militaristic upbringing might warp the mind, feelings of home and belonging and displacement, the return of the lost son, the betrayal of a high-ranking officer, just, there are so many themes that the show could have focused on but it botches all of them, nothing of it feels real, earned, or logical. Characters behave in idiotic ways for the sake of the plot (I wanted to like Thusnelda, I really did, I’m always here for female characters but she was so painfully obviously written by 3 dudes who thought that feminism = praying to the good sisters of the forest and slashing your face aöldksfaökdjf plus the actress could not sell any of it, she sounded ridic).

I’m exhausted just thinking about the many ways in which the writing on the show sucked. Impaired character used as a symbol~ for other characters instead of being a character on his own? Check. Weird mystical shit? Check. Earthbound tribal people who are one with nature? Check. Death on the cross to get that Christian imagery in there? Check. Lack of female characters except feisty!badass!Thusnelda, scheming!conniving!pulling-the-strings!wife, weird!mystical!seer? Check. Varus doing a Herod by demanding first-borns to up the Christian persecuted ante? Check. (All he was missing was the mustache to twirl. Was he even a character? He looked vaguely concerned and sceptical. That was his character.)

Look, the actor Arminius was great but even he couldn’t make sense of any of it. The character work was so shoddy, it was shocking. One minute he’s still all-in with the Romans, ordering lashes for “German” mercenaries without being very conflicted about it, reminiscing with fellow Roman soldiers about the good old times in some fireside bonding, asking his foster father to go home to Rome, and then when bad!dad is like “lol no” (surely they would have had that convo before??? surely Arminius would have known how far his career could go???), Arminius turns around and goes “let’s kill 3 Roman legions!! I’M MAD!!” ... lmao dude, just...

Another favourite of mine: The romance between Thusnelda and Folkwin is supposed to be illicit and against her social status. Does anyone even notice? Does anybody even care? Why did the writers come up with Folkwin in the first place? (His name Folkwin Wolfspeer is a hoot and an embarassment in itself. I wonder whether they used some kind of Germanic name generator. They certainly did use a generic speech generator for the battle speech Arminius gives in the last episode lol)

Back to the topic of a lack of tension. Of course there can’t be any tension if the characters suck. But it’s also because of the design of the scenes and plot points. The cliffhangers are so telegraphed and artificially constructed, it’s almost hilarious. My “favourite” has got to be the one of the first episode: The “hi dad” one. Not only does Arminius go to the village with other Romans in tow who then disappear because nothing in this show makes sense but this kind of revelation also goes against everything we know about good storytelling. There’s a famous quote by Hitchcock and I’ll quote it in full because I think it absolutely applies here (and it is valid for character tension as much as it is for suspense):

There is a distinct difference between "suspense" and "surprise," and yet many pictures continually confuse the two. I'll explain what I mean.

We are now having a very innocent little chat. Let's suppose that there is a bomb underneath this table between us. Nothing happens, and then all of a sudden, "Boom!" There is an explosion. The public is surprised, but prior to this surprise, it has seen an absolutely ordinary scene, of no special consequence. Now, let us take a suspense situation. The bomb is underneath the table and the public knows it, probably because they have seen the anarchist place it there. The public is aware the bomb is going to explode at one o'clock and there is a clock in the decor. The public can see that it is a quarter to one. In these conditions, the same innocuous conversation becomes fascinating because the public is participating in the scene. The audience is longing to warn the characters on the screen: "You shouldn't be talking about such trivial matters. There is a bomb beneath you and it is about to explode!"

In the first case we have given the public fifteen seconds of surprise at the moment of the explosion. In the second we have provided them with fifteen minutes of suspense. The conclusion is that whenever possible the public must be informed. Except when the surprise is a twist, that is, when the unexpected ending is, in itself, the highlight of the story.

I hope you can see what I mean here. Barbarians continuously springs surprises on its audience but it has absolutely no tension/suspense in any of its scenes. The only time where the show even comes close to having any kind of genuinely dramatic moment is the conversation between Arminius and Varus where Arminius tries to hide his hurt and disappointment, and all the emotion in that scene is completely due to the actor since the dialogue is fairly idiotic for what is supposed to be the turning moment. Let’s go back to the basics and imagine what the show could have done differently, even allowing for the way in which the writers wanted to tell it (which, as I mentioned, is not appropriately sensitized to the misappropriation of the material in the past - but even if we go with THAT kind of freedom fighter / lost child narrative, it ought to be done well). And here now follows my actual essay of grievances:

The premise of the story, in as much as we know from history, is amazing: An officer of the Roman army, delivered to the Romans by his tribe as a child, returns to the "country" of his birth as part of the invading Roman army which oppresses the natives of the lands. He switches sides, unites different tribes and leads them to a decisive victory against the Roman army in a battle in a forest that lasted for several days and was cleverly planned by the "Germans" who end up outsmarting the Romans who are victims of ambush and the terrain, being split up and stumbling through the forest exhausted and without finding a way back to the other troops (love that the show as we have it managed to squeeze in the cliché "two armies standing on opposing sides decide to just start running towards each other, epic clash, chaos" (which is militarily so fucking stupid and nobody ever did that)).

Anyway, that premise is amazing. You could do so much with it. And if you wanted to make a miniseries about it, the biggest question would surely be: Why did Arminius switch sides? That’s the key plot point. And themes of otherness, oppression, exploitation, identity, and so on, would be a good fit. The first problem with the miniseries is that it has nothing to say about any of that. Arminius doesn’t even feel like the main character (aside from his actor being a cut above the rest). We don’t get to see much of his POV. We don’t get many meaningful conversations between him and Varus (actually just one after which he has a total character transplant). Instead, we get to spend lots of time with characters that don’t add anything in particular to the central plot nor to any of the central themes. Literally, why? 6 episodes is already pretty fucking short to make Arminius’ turn believable, so you’d better spend most of them on him. This is not material for an ensemble show (nevermind that the other characters suck and are not well-acted and written to behave stupidly... that’s just ON TOP of the fundamental issue of this show lacking a POV).

Like, you can turn this into a big Hollywood action movie about the battle or you make it a character drama where the battle is also told from a character perspective (i.e. focusing on the mounting fear and desperation of the soldiers as the battle drags on for days etc but more importantly focusing on why the battle takes place and why it’s important to both the Romans and the “Germans”). As it is, in the show, we don’t get any idea why the Romans are even there in the first place and pestering the people by demanding some tributes. And we don’t get any idea why the Germanic tribes are so opposed to this or why others of them might not be. We don’t get any of the broader political implications, we just get some eagle-stealing pranks (defiance!! cool, just agitate them in a completely stupid and arbitrary way, why don’t you) and a few people executed because the “Germans” were being stupid. That’s not the scale that’s needed here. And I don’t mean that we needed to see mass executions. In fact, I would have preferred if there had been no such hackneyed and emotionally manipulative device.

Arminius is basically absent for all the early encounters of the Romans with the “Germans”. So while we suspect that the mistreatment of the “Germans” at the hands of the Romans would be a strong motivational factor for him, we don’t actually see him witness any of few hints in that direction that we get, so it doesn’t actually matter for his character arc. I have so many issues with how his arc is written. In the first episodes, we don’t get any sense that he’s not a happy Roman. When a “Barbarian” mercenary ridicules Rome, he has him whipped and we don’t get much of a sense that he’s very conflicted about it. Even just moments before he ends up destroying his effigies of Roman gods, we see him trying to get Varus to send him back to Rome. Earlier in the same episode, he prays to those Roman gods. I’m sorry but wtf? How the turntables... If you want to make it believable that he would turn on Rome, why not start with him already being frustrated with the way that things in Rome work? With the way the army is run? And why not give him a careerist streak and make him frustrated that he can’t advance much further because of his lowly birth and background? And instead of Varus being an asshole to him about it (he’s supposed to be his foster father, surely Arminius would already know how Varus thinks about his people and surely he’d already know how far he can climb up the ranks), have Varus be sympathetic but basically like “sorry, there’s nothing I can do.”

Arminius betraying Rome shouldn’t be about Varus saying something mean~, if anything a personal connection of his with Varus should just make the betrayal harder and be something that he does despite the fact that there are Romans he cares about. If you start out the show with him already having significant doubts about his place in the Roman army and identity issues, you just need to add something to it that will finally breaks the camel’s back. Have him become increasingly agitated by the way the "Germans” are treated by the Romans. Start the show with him making to leave Rome, someone asking him whether he’s excited to return to his place of birth and him joking about it but obviously being conflicted and then overwhelmed when he actually gets there because it totally destroys his sense of self which he has built for himself (and for which we would have needed to see the contrast, even if just for one scene, of how he is treated in Rome – perhaps snobbed by others, not treated equally in some sort of social setting, could be something subtle – to show us and him that as much as he wishes, he is not and will never be accepted as a Roman).

And then when he gets to the provinces, we need to see that from his perspective. What’s his reaction to arriving there? To seeing the familiar landscapes? (Or maybe he was taken as a younger child and doesn’t actually have that many memories of it but feels a sense of belonging anyway.) There are so many scenes in this show that seem to hint at these things but they are completely random and unfocused and interspersed with the stupid village people shenanigans. Varus talks about burning down villages in retribution. Well, why don’t we see any of that? (Nevermind that it’s comic book villain level of evil, but I’m working with a fix here and not a total rewrite as would be better.) Surely it can’t be too expensive to burn down a few huts in the night. And having Arminius ride along / witness it but not say anything even though we can see these things having an effect on him. As mentioned: The worst offense is the scene when he rides to the village (with other Romans in tow!) and announces “hi dad!” just to have that cliffhanger. Wtf?

Characters doling out information that the viewer doesn’t have is the absolute worst way of telling a story and maintaining tension. It should be the other way around. How about instead you have him be part of a Roman delegation that rides into the village and demands [random, whatever, the fucking eagle if you must keep that shit] and when the Reik (whom the audience already knows to be Arminius’ father) doesn’t want to give it (because he’s not actually a weak fucking clown as almost everyone in the actual show is aside from feisty Thusnelda who’s a fierce~ fucking clown rmfe), the Romans begin beating the dad or whipping him or whatever, completely humiliating him and his people, and we see Arminius on his horse watching the show with growing unrest until the realization really hits him that this is his father (cue flashback to a very young Arminius being dragged away) and the tension keeps ratcheting until he shouts in German “that’s enough” before correcting himself to give the same command in Latin (maybe he still thinks in German, would be an interesting idea) and the Romans look at him with suspicion, like wtf was that, and the "Germans” are like, why tf does this Roman officer speak German, and it’s super awkward and shit and maybe Varus is also there and he looks at Arminius like, oh shit I need to protect my boy he’s actually all up in his feels about these wildlings let’s go back to the camp and have a talk, and so the Romans end up leaving and the “Germans” are like “wait, was that... could it have been.. remember lil Ari who you gave up... but it couldn’t be...” and meanwhile the beaten dad doesn’t want to hear any of that because he actually has never dared hope he would see his son again and also he kind of doesn’t want to see him again because he would be too ashamed to meet his eyes.

And then later we see Arminius pacing up and down in his tent because this won’t let him go, even after he had a talk with Varus, and after some agonizing he steals away in the night to go confront his father (if you want to keep that German mercenary noticing shit, have him notice that). And then we see the father in his hut and everything is quiet and we are waiting for Arminius to show up because we know he’s on his way. But we don’t know whether he wants to talk to his father or just kill him in revenge for the trauma he’s caused him. You’d show the dad and if it were a good actor, you could see so much in his unrest, maybe despite not wanting to think that that guy could be his son, he kind of knows in his heart that it must be and he’s unsettled and whatnot and then we hear someone outside the door and the door opens and there stands Arminius in a cloak and there’s none of that ridiculous music that wants to scream “epic” but falls way short. Have it be quiet. Have Arminius enter and pull back the hood and they just look at each other. And the dad looks like he wants to hug him but he doesn’t move. And Arminius looks like he wants to murder him but he actually moves to sit down, all the while they keep an eye on each other because who knows, they might actually end up murdering each other. That’s the kind of confrontation you need with a reunion like this jfc. And then they talk and it’s an important scene and I’m not going to write it all out but I hope y’all know what I mean.

I feel like you’d have to rewrite this whole show to actually give the character drama the weight that it needs and deserves because what’s happening in the show is dramatic af but you wouldn’t know because it’s so unbelievably stupidly written. I CANNOT believe that when Arminius is back in the village, he’s standing around with Thusnelda and Folkwin in a field as if they’re catching up at a high school reunion. “So, how’s it been?” “My name is now Arminius lol” “You’re kidding lol” ... uhm hello ??? Is this show a meme or...???

Actually as a last thought, I would have kept Arminius’ mother alive and killed his dad. His dad is irredeemable. He gave him away. But if we assume that he never had a substitute mother, then meeting his mother again (who was against giving him away) would make for much more interesting scenes and would also have a much stronger impact on Arminius. I’ll stop now but I just wanted to note how much I hate the writing on this show and everything it chooses to be. Thanks.

#anonymous #ask #reply #barbarians spoilers #barbarians meta #tv: barbarians #txt #i feel like there is so much more to say #actually the show would need to be rewritten from scratch to be either a good character drama or a good period drama or both #forget my fix here #you can't fix stupid #the whole motivation for arminius' betrayal would need to be revamped #with an eye towards the ways in which it has been misused #in history #but at the same time the story DOES need to be told from his POV imo and it's not here and that's the biggest issue #the conflict within the Roman army would have made for the most intriguing approach #and all that childhood sweetheart bs has to go #that was the worst #so soapy and plain bad #can you imagine how amazing it would've been for roman officer arminius to meet germanic princess thusnelda for the first time?#(if she had been written and acted well)#what could have been...#imma cry #(also WHY is varus the actual foster father of arminius instead of just a higher-ranking officer who takes him under his wing #when he joins up bc he takes a liking to the kid? just... aöldjsfaökdjls)

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unchartedtrivia · 4 years

Text

All Nathan Drake’s girls

ALL NATHAN DRAKE’S GIRLS

(Note: I am basing ONLY on Nate’s journal, games, comics and book. I don’t mention the jobs Nate or Sully mentioned. It’s not an official timeline, just my try to write about Nate’s girls). WARNING: SPOILERS. ALAIRE Q As we know, Nate precisely records all his trophies in his diary; on this basis, it could be assumed that his first partner was Alaire Q. (or Alaine Q). Judging by the date of the affair that had lasted in 1996, she was Nate’s first girlfriend. Nate was born in 1976, which means that he started dating quite early, at the age of about 20. Perhaps he was influenced by Sully, who – as we know – was an incorrigible womanizer and possibly instilled in him such a model of upbringing. GEORGINA S. & RIKA RAJA Nate’s affair, as we see after the next date, did not last long – he’s met Georgina S. from Ipswich in February 1997, and after this he met Rika Raja, Eddy Rajas’ sister, in 2001. Importantly: Rika officially appears in the interactive comic “Eye of Indra” where we get to know more details of their acquaintance. It’s also a prequel to Uncharted 1: Drake’s Fortune.

The circumstances seem quite typical for Nate – Rika saves him from shootout in her own bar (Campin bar), pulls Eddy into Nate’s plan, helps him get the treasure, and later – in the end – she deceives both Nate and her brother.

Interestingly, Rika is also the only one villain in the Uncharted series who has achieved her goal and did not suffer any consequences because of it. This has never happened to any of the villains. Almost all of them – Roman, Navarro, Flynn, Lazarevic, Marlowe, Talbott, Rafe, Orca and Asav suffered consequences.

Let us leave this digression, however; Rika’s character clearly shows what kind of women Nate is interested in: proud, ready to take action, brave and resolute. He is not interested in typical “girl next door”, but rather women who can surprise him, not necessarily positively. Nate is vulnerable to such girls. What is equally interesting is the fact that he is most likely also looking for an “adventure companion” – a woman who would be willing to support him in solving mysteries and seeking treasures. As we know, he is not a person who could give up expeditions to focus on a peaceful family life – and Rika, dangerous and charming, perfectly matched his standards. On this basis, it could be assumed that Alaire Q. and Georgina S. might also have had some connections with the search for treasures.

Returning to the comic: “Eye of Indra” ends with Elena’s show in TV, in which she talks about her discoveries, presenting them to the viewers. Nate tells Sully that he has already contacted this journalist and he will meet with her the next day. However, which is very important, the game says that romance with Elena began in 2006 around June, judging by the dates in Nate’s journal. So what about the date 2000 written in the diary? Based on what we know, I have three theories: 1. A meeting with Rika took place in 2006 (not very reliable theory) 2. Date was the mistake of the creators (not very reliable too) 3. Nate’s meeting and suggestion about cooperation with Elena was postponed by the TV station for several years or required long preparations. I believe that this is the most likely option. Why?

Because large TV stations need several years to prepare a budget, write the whole script and shoot episodes in the meantime. It should also be noted that Nate also needed a long time to find Francis Drake’s coffin (because he had not found it yet). So, just preparing the topic, writing the script, and planning the budget could take several years from 2000.

An equally possible explanation may be the fact that the station proposed a presentation of several other archaeological topics to start with to minimize the risk of working with someone unknown and untested like Nate. So Nate and Elena could show some other discoveries first, and then discover the Francis Drake’s coffin. Given the fact that in Uncharted 1: Drake’s Fortune, Nate and Elena behave as if they’ve known each other for a long time, the last theory would not seem strange, and the date with Rika would then fit the whole. So I personally assume that the romance with Rika Raja took place in 2000 in Jakarta, after which Nate met Elena, and they began to work together to finally discover the secret of Sir Francis Drake in 2006. CHLOE Another Nate’s affair that was noted in the journal is Chloe – and it dates back to 2002. You would think that this is about Chloe Frazer, but this isn’t any way possible. Why? Well, Nate, in addition to the date of the girls affair and name, sometimes notes their phone numbers, e–mails or addresses. Chloe from 2002 has an American address and lives in Tulsa. Chloe Frazer in Lost Legacy said she had never been to America, but would like to visit this country someday. In addition, the dates do not indicate that it could be one and the same person. Nate probably had an affair with two girls named Chloe, especially when he knew Chloe Frazer earlier. SHAMFUFU & CASSANDRA S. Later Nate met Shamfufu – the affair most likely took place at Christmas in 2003. It is hard to say anything more about it – her name, like the names of Georgina and Alaire, had never appeared again in the series. What is interesting, however, is the fact that Shamfufu’s address is from South Africa. The girl lived in Cape Town or he met her in this city. Shamfufu was most likely of South African descent, which would suggest her name. Perhaps she was a partner of Drake’s next adventure, like Cassandra S. from Pasadena, whom Nate met in June 2004. ELENA FISHER According to the journal, it is assumed that after 2004 Nate did not engage in any affairs until June 2006, when the plot of the first game begins – Uncharted 1: Drake’s Fortune. Then Sir Francis Drake’s coffin was finally discovered, as well as the secret of Borneo. Importantly, as I mentioned in the theory above, Nate and Elena act as if they’ve known each other for a long time. Perhaps they have known each other since Rika Raja’s story, given my theory presented above.

Given the Nate’s nature and his taste regarding the choice of partners, it would not be surprising if he wasn’t interested in Elena at the very beginning. Judging by her overall character, Elena was not initially in Nate’s type, especially when compared to Rika Raja or Chloe Frazer. Returning to Nate’s diary, we can see that his affair with Elena didn’t last long, only three months. Importantly, Elena is the most distinguished among all his partners – just like Chloe (not Frazer) in his journals. KARIS & MAGGIE H. In September 2006, Nate met Karis in Istanbul – perhaps she was his next partner during his adventures, just like previous girls. It would not be surprising, but Elena in Uncharted 2: Among Thieves speaks about herself “Elena Fisher. Last year’s model.”

Importantly, affair with Maggie H. from Montreal is dated to December 2008. This suggests three theories:

1. Either the Nate and Elena romance lasted from 2006 to 2008–2009

2. Elena was not aware of the Nate and Karis romance. In that case, she probably didn’t know about Maggie either.

3. Alternatively, Nate and Elena returned to each other for a short time in 2008, before breaking up again soon by Maggie or Karis. Given Nate’s character, his approach to women and adventures, as well as Elena’s pursuit of a peaceful, stable relationship without dangerous adventures, their breakup would not be strange. Interestingly, both Nate and Sully mention Montreal in the game Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, where Nate met Maggie. Although they didn’t say anything more, it would suggest that it could be one of their last jobs between 2006 and 2008–2009. THAT’S ALL? WELL. LET’S TALK ABOUT FRAZER. CHLOE FRAZER. This ends Nate’s diary – but, importantly, two more of his partners appear in the series. The first is Chloe Frazer, who appears in the game in Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, while the second is Marisa Chase from the game Uncharted: Golden Abyss. Interestingly, in Nate’s attic in Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End there is a box with the name Marisa. Perhaps Nate was supposed to send her something back (especially since boxes with objects etc. from his trips were usually signed by the name of the place, e.g. Borneo, Nepal, etc.). Let’s go back to Chloe Frazer: like Elena, Chloe seems to be the second most important girl in Drake’s life. In addition to Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, she also appears in Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception, in the DLC Uncharted: Lost Legacy, in which she is the main character. She also became his partner in the 2011 comic of Uncharted, where she worked for Gabriel Roman. This suggests some inaccuracy – after all, as we know, Roman dies in 2006 during his trip to El Dorado. If Roman dies in 2006 and the story of Uncharted 2: Among Thieves happens in 2008–2009, in what timeline the Uncharted comic takes action? Let’s get back to the events of Among Thieves. Chloe Frazer appears during the meeting of Harry Flynn and Nathan Drake; Flynn introduces her as “the best driver in the industry”. Chloe then gives Nate a hand and introduces himself as “Chloe Frazer.” “Drake. Nathan. Nathan Drake.”. Given the fact that they had known each other before in the Uncharted comic, it suggests deliberate action on the part of Chloe – namely, reassuring Flynn that both she and Nate had not known each other before. This would mean that Chloe was planning to leave Flynn from the very beginning and find Cintamani’s stone with Nate’s help. Equally interesting is the fact that in the comic we see the same or very similar model of the plane that Sully uses in the game Uncharted 1: Drake’s Fortune. This would suggest that after the events of the comic, Sully renewed the plane. This would mean that events even happened before Uncharted 1: Drake’s Fortune, and Chloe and Nate have known each other for a very long time. It would also explain why Roman is still alive, while logic would point to something completely different. All this suggests that the comic’s action takes place before Uncharted 1: Drake’s Fortune and Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. But why didn’t Nate write about her in the journal? Perhaps he had never placed much hope on Chloe for any relationship or anything more permanent; in that case, not writing down this date would be perfectly understandable. All right, but Chloe from 2002 was mentioned. Assuming Chloe and Nate had known each other for a long time, he might have noticed Chloe in his journal – and it would have been the Chloe of Tulsa. At the same time, it would also suggest that the creators have not completely thought through her character, because in Lost Legacy Chloe claims that she has never been to America. What could other explanations be? 1. Chloe gave the address of her own mother (and, importantly, the mother and her daughter emigrated to Australia while Chloe was very young and they probably didn’t move)?

2. Did she give a somebody else’s address, not her own? Personally, I think that Nate did not write about her because of the reasons mentioned above – his acquaintance with Chloe was on clearly defined principles. In addition, as the events of Uncharted 2: Among Thieves and Uncharted comic show, Chloe’s attitude clearly indicates her lack of desire to establish a more lasting relationship. From the overall history of Nate’s personal relationships, we can see that all Nate’s affairs were rather short and fleeting, except for the affair with Elena: he most likely has been returning to her every few years; you can also see that he had been choosing resolute, firm partners that were also able to help him on his temporary adventures. Some agreed with it, just like Chloe, and considered it a short–lived affair – but we know that Elena was opposed to some of his adventures, probably wishing for a “normal” life and “ordinary” relationship. It was their source of conflicts, especially in Uncharted 2: Among thieves and in Uncharted 3 and Uncharted 4.

MARISA CHASE

Interestingly, Marisa Chase seems to be similar to Elena – although she was not afraid of danger, Marisa has been refusing to use weapons and violence if she was not forced to do so (importantly, Elena was able to defend herself, but both similarly fit the “girl next door” model). In other words, Marisa was a character who could captivate Drake – he ultimately tried to protect his companions at all costs. However, Drake did not note her in the notebook – perhaps because the romance between the two of them was not fulfilled despite the suggestive ending, or they both have had a similar approach to Chloe’s attitude. JADA HZUJAK Another character that appears in the series – however, only in the book "Uncharted: The fourth labyrinth" is Jada Hzujak, the daughter of a well–known archaeologist. Jada is Sully’s goddaughter; we get to know her strong personality – she’s non–compromisable, determined and ready to help others. In the series, the tension between them is easy to spot, but Nate had decided not to have an affair with Jada, because he was aware of Sully’s reaction. In addition, as it turns out at the end of the series, he began to treat her more like family. However, this is probably one of the few romances that Nate voluntarily rejected in favour of something else. This has not happened in any other part of the series so far. CHRONOLOGY SUMMARY 1. From the overall chronology of the series, it appears that the comic appeared first. Chloe Frazer appears in the comic for the first time, and it is clearly stated that she had already met with Nate or it was their first meeting. Personally, I suppose Drake had known Chloe even before, judging by the language sphere they use and the situations that affect them – they both act as if they knew each other well. A similar situation happens in Uncharted 1: Drake’s Fortune.

2. Next is Fourth Labyrinth, where Nate decides to not contribute to the affair with Jada Hzujak. Interestingly, at the end of the book, Sully mentions a “job” in Peru. Perhaps that’s where he’s met the bartender he mentions in Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. Equally interesting is the mention of Margaret Xin, who has probably been Sullivan’s former partner and appeared in the book on several dialogues.

3. Later we have Uncharted: Golden Abyss; Drake’s main partner is Marisa Chase this time. At the end of the game, we see clear inclinations of the characters being interested with each other, but the whole thing is spoiled by Sully, interrupting their attempt to kiss. Interestingly, Consuela is mentioned in the game as one of Sully’s partners.

4. Later there is the interactive comic “Uncharted: The eye of Indra” – there Drake meets Eddy’s sister, Rika Raja. Why do I suppose the comic is first? Because, as I mentioned in the theory above, Nate noted Rika in his diary. Both info about places and the women are accurate. This is followed by Uncharted 1: Drake’s Fortune, where Nate is working with Elena Fisher. Affair with Elena is short–lived.

5. Later, in Uncharted 2: Among Thieves we discover that the romance between Elena and Nate ended some time ago. At the end of the series, they get back with each other. Chloe Frazer officially appears in the game for the first time, having an affair with both Nate and Harry Flynn (although the affair with Flynn must have been going on before action of the game starts, since Chloe has treated him in a special way since the beginning of the game).

6. After that, Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception appears. No new character appears but Chloe and Elena, who is known to had once again broken up with Drake to return to him at the end of the game. The exact date of their wedding is unknown – though it is known that in Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End Nate is already married. This is where Drake’s Angels end. BONUS: SULLY’S GIRLS In the whole series we meet only a few of Sully’s partners. We know about them mainly from mentions in the game. They do not appear in comics, but one of them appears in the book – Margaret Xin from Oxford University. Nate calls her Maggie. She was probably Sully’s ex girlfriend. As far as we know, they both did probably break up after a big argument, perhaps because Maggie could not accept Sully’s lifestyle and way of being. It results from the dialogue presented in the book: - Sully is in trouble. I know you two ended kind of messy, but I need your help. - It ended messy between Victor and me. In fact, messy probably doesn’t begin to cover it. I wish he was a different sort of man, but I can’t blame him for that. - So do I – Maggie replied. – When you catch up to Victor – - Yeah? - Give him my love. Sully’s other partner was a Peruvian bartender. Victor was completely crazy about her and often mentioned her. Nothing more is known about this affair, unfortunately. A little more is known about the Consuela, which is mentioned in the dialogues between Nat and Sully in the game Uncharted: Golden Abyss. SUMMARY: First Official Girlfriend: Alaire Q. Longest known girl: Chloe Frazer Longest romance: Chloe Frazer Rejected romances : Jada Hzujak Nice interludes : Shamfufu, Maggie H Big Win in the lottery of life : Rika Raja The biggest affair disappointment : Rika Raja Nate’s Chosen : Elena Fisher

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bloody-cute-yandere · 3 years

Text

Hello I have written a dissertation about a phrase I hate

Two Wrongs Don’t Make a Right?

So I guess to start off this train of thought, I should explain what started it. I love listening to commentary channels on YouTube. They ARE my reality TV, except they seem to cover more important topics. One of the commentary channels I follow is CreepShow Art. I have listened to her videos for quite some time, and while she doesn’t show as much by way of scientific or empirical evidence in her videos, I do feel she is a pretty credible source because she does reference public posts as evidence for her claims, and a lot of what she talks about is readily fact-checkable. Over the past few weeks Creepshow has made a few videos about another youtuber Without A Crystal Ball (who I will abbreviate to WACB for brevity), who is another commentary channel that allegedly has questionable research tactics and reporting skills. She also is prone to being defensive and seems to have the mindset of “any criticism is hate”. Creepshow made a video first about how WACB had dug around in an inappropriate way to gain information about Tati Westbrook and then reported her findings in a more skewed way, which ended up painting Tati in potentially an unfairly negative light. WACB responded….. badly to the criticism she received from Creepshow and other channels that criticized her. She, among other things, went onto a livestream of another channel and doxed Creepshow in the chat. Also, potentially unrelated but someone has allegedly been repeatedly attempting to hack Creepshow’s social media platforms, along with several others that criticized WACB’s behavior. WACB also sent an email to Creepshow where she insinuated that Youtube itself was pushing the entire conflict between the two of them to be handled privately, but were watching the issue at hand. Creepshow responded by showing the email to her audience, which did include showing the email WACB used to reach out to Creepshow. WACB became upset that she had been “doxed” by Creepshow (though it is worth noting that the exposed email address in question happens to be attached to all of her social medias, and not any private information).

During WACB’s most recent response to being “doxed” she used the idiom “Two wrongs don’t make a right”, and I have been stewing on that particular idiom ever since. I’m sure that isn’t an unfamiliar phrase for most people reading this, but for those that haven’t heard it before, it runs akin to the idea of not stooping to someone else’s level when in an argument. The idea is that if someone hurts you then you should be the bigger person and not react in a bad way, because that won’t help the situation become resolved. To a certain extent I believe this idea is absolutely correct; if you want to resolve a situation with another person, you don’t want to make the situation worse by lashing out if they’ve done something to you that is hurtful, because then you just have more hurt feelings you have to resolve in the process of moving forward. However, this idea also hinges upon two crucial truths that must exist in order for it to apply. One: that the two people involved in a disagreement must or want to resolve the conflict at all, and two: that the first offense is not an act done with malicious or cold-hearted intent. It also depends on a moral compass that is entirely determined by outside influences as opposed to an internal value system.

The first assumption “two wrongs don’t make a right” depends on is the idea that both party members do actually want to resolve their current disagreement. If the two people in the middle of an argument are emotionally close (or tied together in other ways) and no one in the situation wants to (or can’t) cut ties with the other person, I would say that this assumption is valid. In the case of Creepshow and WACB, however, this is not the case. According to Creepshow they don’t know eachother. Speaking frankly, this means that there is no relationship that needs to be protected. One could argue a necessity for professional courtesy seeing as how they share the same platform and roughly the same content ideas, however the Youtube platform is so vast already that two single small to moderately sized channels having a feud shouldn’t in any real sense have any effect on the other’s job. In a more general sense, if person A cases a fight with a person they don’t know very well or don’t interact with much, there is no social consequence if person B stoops down to person A’s level (whether or not there are legal repercussions is a separate issue). Neither person A nor person B will have any sort of ripples in their own separate circles as a direct result of the negative exchange because their individual social groups will be biased to agree with their persons’ interpretation of the events. The social distance will also save person A and person B from any future unpleasantness through the mere virtue of anonymity.

A similar argument can be made for people who have no interest in maintaining a relationship they had previously had with each other; even people who had been previously close to eachother can decide to break contact with each other over egregious offenses. In these cases, there is less care about whether you’re behaving in a “good” way because you have no investment in the relationship progressing. In either scenario, it doesn’t matter if you stoop low in an argument if you’re willing to accept the consequences of that behavior, or if there won’t be any appreciable consequences for that behavior.

The second truth that “two wrongs don’t make a right” depends on is that the first offense is not a heinous vindictive one. For example, Doxing. Doxing is the illegal spread of personal information to the public. The act of doxing can leave the victim severely vulnerable to more violent crimes such as stalking, theft/ mugging, rape and murder because their location or other personal information is now known to people that may be willing to cause them physical harm. It’s a dangerous and illegal act. Other potential heinous actions from person A include any other illegal activity (such as assault or other forms of violence, theft) or can be something that technically isn’t illegal but is a severe breaching of boundaries or someone’s own comfort level. If you know someone personally you probably know things that would really upset them, and the act of going through and performing those actions KNOWING that they will be upsetting to your victim is cold-hearted and cruel. At that point in a disagreement, person A isn’t trying to resolve a problem, they are simply lashing out with the sole purpose of destruction. That is not constructive, nor is it ok. In these cases such as these there’s a high likelihood that person B will no longer want to associate with person A if they originally did. example: I knew a person a long time ago that was TERRIFIED of gnomes. They hated them. So, what would happen if at some point this person and I got into a disagreement and I decided to give her a garden gnome as a present? It wouldn’t be illegal by any stretch; it’s a gift. However, it’s a gift that the person would have HATED, and I would have known that. Between them and I it would have been a declaration of war, not a peace-making offer. Furthermore, it would have been proof that I was willing to use this person’s personal deep fears that they confided in me out of trust against them; even if our relationship survived the original disagreement it would probably never be the same. Who, in that case, could really blame this person if they responded in kind? It would be a human response and, in a way, I would absolutely have deserved it because I had breached her trust in an unforgivable way.

At risk of this becoming a dissertation, I happen to especially dislike the idea of the person who committed sleight A being the person to scream “two wrongs don’t make a right” after person B responds to them in the way that WACB responded to Creepshow. To me, that seems like person A is trying to put themselves on a pedestal of superiority, despite the fact that they hurt person B first. “I know what I did was wrong, but you’re not supposed to hurt me back! Two wrongs don’t make a right!” Person A is just trying to avoid consequences for their actions at that point. Because really, what happened to “treat others the way you want to be treated?” I know this begins to sound victim-blamey, but what right does a person have to be upset for (not really) being doxed after they knowingly decided to dox someone else? They’ve already shown that doxing is definitely something they’re ok with, so if they’re going to argue that the original doxing wasn’t a big deal, why is it suddenly a big enough deal to them now that they are the victim of it? I hate hypocrisy like that.

My final note on “two wrongs don’t make a right” is that the entire phrase depends on each person in the disagreement depending on an external source for their moral compass as opposed to having their own internal value system. Morality is, overall, an incredibly gray concept in any society. It is informed by each person’s individual moral ideals which can come from religion, family values, upbringing, influences from social idols and more. Even universal truths like “murder is wrong” become smudged quickly when ideas about self-defense are considered (which becomes even murkier when you begin to question what sorts of actions require “self-defense”). This means that there can be vastly different views about what is and is not ok about any particular topic within one society. There will also be some people that have a very strong internal moral compass within that society, and some people that depend more on the community to act as their compass. If a person who uses an internal moral compass to guide themselves, then they will behave in a manner that falls in line with that compass regardless of how their peers may respond. If, however, a person does not have a strong internal moral compass, their behavior will be largely influenced by those around them because they depend on that social structure to guide their behavior. For someone that has a strong internal compass that they rely on, the idea that “two wrongs don’t make a right” probably won’t have much value to them, because their morality is already determined regardless of what the people around them may say. If person A does x to them, then person B’s moral sense will determine what is and is not ok to respond with, and whether others say that response is right or wrong is irrelevant because they already believed they are justified in whatever response they had. For a person that relies more heavily on their peers for their moral compass, however, “two wrongs don’t make a right” might sort of work as an appropriate guide because it comes from an external place to encourage what socially would be considered “good” behavior, though that itself then depends on what is considered “right” and “wrong” by the surrounding populace, which has already been established to be a bit of a crap shoot.

Overall (and I cannot stress this enough), I don’t believe that a disagreement of any sort should come with responses like doxing or assault or theft or a breach of trust like the examples I gave above. I believe that all people should strive to be better and act with dignity. I always try to act as though everything I do will be posted online for the world to see, and if I wouldn’t want to receive the backlash I could get for a particular action then I tend to not do that thing in the first place. I also believe that hypocrisy is one of the more disgusting personality traits someone can have. If someone doxes another person, clearly they believe that doxing is a justifiable action, and to then have that person be upset when someone behaved in the same “correct” way (As far as person A has shown of their moral values), that is just plain gross. Don’t do to other people what you wouldn’t want done to you, and also don’t be surprised if you’re not the only person willing and capable of lashing out at your level if you decide to stoop low. If you don’t want to give someone else a pass, then don’t deign to believe that you deserve some kind of special allowance to stomp all over others.

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