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chooseyouovereveryone · 3 years

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Brittana Analysis Part 6: Love Languages

I'm a big believer in the 5 Love Languages. I discovered it all a few years ago and I truly think knowing your partners love language can help your relationship, because you know how to communicate your love to them, and also read their way of showing love.

It got me thinking about Brittany and Santana’s love languages, and in true yin/yang style, how different I believe their specific love languages are.

If you don't know about the 5 love languages maybe give it a google first. I personally find it really interesting. But anyway here's my take (a short novel be warned):

Santana

I think Santana's love language is predominantly Words of Affirmation and Quality Time. You can tell she values words a lot in the way she communicates with Brittany. The way she shows she loves Brittany is by encouraging her, assuring her and listening to her. She's always complimenting her with words:

"You really are a genius Brittany"

"You're the most amazing dancer i've ever met"

"You are the unicorn"

"You're my lady knight in shining armour"

"You're my best friend"

"You're my favourite person in the whole world"

"You make me so happy"

Also note that most of the time Santana is the one to initiate saying 'I love you'. This doesn't mean Brittany doesn't love her as much, we'll get to that in a minute, she just has a different way of showing it. But Santana definitely values words! You can also see as well as giving love that way, she likes receiving words back to make her feel loved. Examples of this:

"Please say you love me back" 2x15

"I said I love you. You didn’t say you loved me back." 2x17

"Are we dating?" 3x04

She needs concrete proof and words to solidify it, whereas Brittany is the opposite. She already knows, without the words being said. Note that she says "Of course I love you" like it should be obvious to Santana. It's not obvious to Santana, because she hasn't heard the words. But because Brittany's love language is different, she doesn't feel the need to 'say it' she's more 'show it'. Another good example is her reaction to Santana asking if they're dating. While Santana again seeks verbal proof, Brittany has assumed their actions meant they were dating all along, no questions asked.

Further proof to me that words are so important to Santana is that in 4x22, when saying goodbye to Brittany, she tells her not to say anything. In my head this is because Santana is so affected by words, that hearing Brittany say anything in such an emotional moment, would have made it too hard.

Words are so important to Santana, and what's also interesting is the way she is so anti words at the beginning. Whenever Brittany wants to talk, Santana shuts her down. This is shown in 2x04 'there's a lot of talking going on', and also referenced in 2x15 by Brittany various times, in that Santana never wants to talk. This again highlights how important words are to Santana. She didn't want to accept her love for Brittany at this point, so she couldn't communicate words because it's her love language. But the minute she did, boy did those words of affirmation spill out.

She also says in 4x04 that she liked to say things with music, when words just weren't enough, something that we saw her doing a lot (she sang a lot of love songs to Brittany). This is also highlights how important words were for her. She values them as the top aspects, and the only thing she can do better, when even that's not enough, is to sing.

Now onto the Quality Time, I think again this another one of Santana's love languages and something that's really important to her. The main example I have of this is when she breaks up with Brittany, due to struggling with the distance. In the cut scene, she talks about how hard it is to not be physically around Brittany, and that due to this she stopped calling and texting because it wasn't enough for her. It just made her miss Brittany more.

'Both couples are rarely getting what they need' is something she says, showing how important it is for her to have that time with Brittany. She doesn't say she wants it, she says she needs it.

It's very important for Santana to be physically in Brittany's presence. Before they break up, she deliberately does laundry at home so she has an excuse to come back and see her. After they break up, she comes back on a number of occasions to see Brittany again. She admits in 4x06 that she only agreed to play Rizzo in Grease to come back and see Brittany.

While it's obvious that the distance would have affected Brittany too (who wouldn't be upset going from seeing their girlfriend every day to hardly ever), and we get to see the impact this has on her as well, I think it affects Santana more so, because it's her love language. Hence why she's the one to call time on their relationship, while Brittany could probably power through.

When Brittana do get back together, Santana mentions Brittany moving to New York quite quickly, because it's important to her not to have distance between them. She raises this again in 6x03, showing it's obviously something that plays on her mind. It's evident they'd both want to live together, but it's always Santana who brings it up.

My final example of this, is 6x08, and the way that Santana can't stay away from Brittany even for a few hours.

'I'm really sorry that I can't go an hour without seeing you, because i'll just miss you too much"

It's all about the quality time and sweet words for one Santana Lopez. Now onto Brittany.

Brittany

In standard Brittana style, I think Brittany's love languages are the complete opposite to Santana's. I would say her main love languages are Acts Of Service and Gifts. I'll start off with Acts Of Service.

Brittany is helpful by nature, but she displays that sign most of all, with Santana. She shows she loves her by helping her and doing things for her. She'd do anything to lighten the load for her and make things less stressful. Here are just a few examples:

Getting Santana the scholarship to Louisville and trying to help her figure out what she wanted to do in 3x16

Going to Santana's Abuela to find out her opinions on love/marriage/family in line with wanting her to come to the wedding for Santana 6x06

Doing most of the wedding planning. We see it's Brittany who approaches Artie to plan the wedding and she does the invites in 6 x 06, and she's seen at the venue decorating it in 6 x 08

She offers to come out on Fondue For Two in 2x19, even though she doesn't really need to, it's purely to help Santana

She allows herself to be nominated for Prom King, in order for Santana to be able to be Prom Queen, because she knows it's important to Santana in 3x19

She leaves New Directions and joins The Troubletones to make Santana happy in 3x04

She also helps Santana come to terms with her sexuality, and while at the start pushing Santana to talk may have been for her own reasons as well, it's shown that she still encourages Santana to accept herself despite staying with Artie. She wants Santana to do it for herself, and not just to be with her. She gets her the Lebanese shirt, and she constantly brings it up, and calls her out for trying to hide back in the closet and use men to cover it up. Because she wants to help her accept herself.

"I do love you, clearly you don't love you as much as I do, or else you'd put this shirt on and you'd dance with me" is very telling of this love language, as it shows how important it is for Brittany to help Santana, in order to show she loves her. When she feels she's not helping, it upsets her.

Even down to the finer details of the wedding, where Brittany is trying to make everything perfect. She tries to stick to traditions of not seeing Santana, wearing Tina's underwear etc just to make sure their day is great and nothing goes wrong. While she does ban Santana from seeing her in her wedding dress, she doesn't ask her do the other traditions (the underwear etc). If it was about tradition, surely she would request Santana does it too. It is just an example of Brittany doing everything in her power to make everything perfect, whilst making sure Santana has to do very little.

I think this is definitely a very important love language for Brit, and now onto her other one. Gifts.

We see Brittany show her affection for Santana many times with gifts and grand gestures:

She makes her a playlist for valentines day in 3x13

She buys her lilies and tickets to Lesbos in 5x13

She makes her the giant heart out of mounds bars as an engagement present in 6x02

She gives her the Lebanese shirt in 2x18

She also puts a lot of thought into these gestures. With the playlist she creates the cover herself and makes it personal to them, she's researched that lilies are the lesbian of flowers, and mounds bars are the lesbians of candy, she chooses Lesbos thinking it's a lesbian island (note Brittany is bisexual so she's doing this solely thinking of Santana), she calculates the minutes they've spent together for the engagement present. She gets her the shirt, to help her come to terms with her identity, and show her that it's okay. They are all so well thought out and this is because gestures mean a lot to Brittany, and they are for her, an important way of showing Santana how much she loves her.

You can also see it means a lot to Brittany when Santana performs gestures like this for her. Santana purely does it for Brittany, since it isn't her own love language, and you can tell it means a lot to Brit.

When Santana gets the song for Valentines Day for Brit in 3x13, you can see how touched she is by it.

In 6 x 08, when they release the doves, Brittany turns to Santana and says 'You did that!?' with her hand on her heart.

Whenever Santana sings to her, she cries. Note how emotional she gets in Saturday Night Gleever. She is a sucker for a big gesture

Brittana

So we have Santana all about the words and quality time together, and Brittany all about helping and doing things for Santana, and grand gestures. One area I think they both cross paths is the final love language, Physical Touch.

Both girls are very hands on, and it's clear they show and receive love by touching, hugging, kissing, holding hands etc. This is a love language they share, although i'd argue it's slightly more important to Santana. I think Santana initiates touch more, and when she is upset, she leans on Brittany for support and needs to physically touch her.

But both definitely exhibit this one!

There's obviously some cross overs. Everyone has features of all 5. Santana displays Acts Of Service when she helps Brittany with Kurt's campaign, with her own presidential campaign and when she helps her learn her lines for Rocky Horror. Brittany shows Words of Affirmation when she tells Santana she loves her more than anything in this world etc. It's a great representation of a healthy relationship as they are both changing their love language to suit the other, whilst not fully neglecting their own.

I think it's interesting how as with everything, they both have complete different love languages. You don't have to speak the same love language to have a happy and healthy relationship, you just need to be able to communicate and understand the differences, and know what makes your partner happy.

As Santana says in 6x08 'you love me, and i love you' so it's clear they both have no doubt in their love for one another, despite showing and receiving it in different ways :)

& there is my super long analysis. Congrats if you got to the end hahaha!

#brittana #brittana analysis #brittanalysis #brittany and santana #santana and brittany #love languages #five love languages #glee analysis #santana lopez #brittany pierce #brittany s.pierce #brittanypierce #santanalopez #glee brittany #glee brittana #glee santana

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lesbian-fabray · 4 years

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quinn fabray is a lesbian - season one

1x01: pilot

in the first scene we see quinn in that isn’t a quick shot of her cheerleading, quinn has specifically taken time out of her gym class in order to not only watch rachel’s video and mock her, but be the first view on the video

when we finally get a name for quinn in the form of finn mentioning her, we see a scene in which finn and quinn are kissing and when he tries to push for more, she physically removes his hands and forces him to pray with her. while this does fit in with quinn’s commitment to celibacy, it is the first time we see a hint that quinn does not really have any physical attraction to men

1x02: showmance

in the scene where her and finn are arguing at his locker near to the beginning to the episode, she offers up a sexual act as an incentive to get him to quit glee club. this is one of the first instances we see of quinn only showing interest in sexual acts with men when she thinks she can get something as a result of it

in this same scene, quinn says that people will see her as finn’s “big gay beard.” later in the show, we learn that the writers define beards as two gay people of opposite genders who date to hide the fact that they’re gay. while this is just her acknowledging what people may think, it also shows that people thinking she is gay is a legitimate and significant fear of her’s

in the celibacy club scene, quinn forces santana to spin around and show off the cheerio’s skirt, then says “god bless the perv that invented these.” i don’t really think i need to explain this one

also in the celibacy club scene, quinn looks absolutely SHAKEN when rachel says that girls want sex just as much as guys do

while it’s a pretty minor moment, quinn kind of gasps (not audible because the song is playing over the scene, but you can see her gasp) then has to compose herself after brittany strokes her arm at the end of “i say a little prayer”

1x03: acafellas

when rachel first brings up dakota stanley and criticizes will’s choreography, quinn is shown looking incredibly sad and expectant when rachel looks over at her for reassurance

when quinn and santana are updating sue on their sabotage of glee club in her office, quinn repeatedly sneaks little glances at santana when she thinks no one is looking

during the dakota stanley scene, when the unholy trinity turns to look at the rest of the group, quinn’s eyes go not to the group, but to santana’s chest

1x05: the rhodes not taken

when rachel comes in to essentially save the day between songs during the invitational, we see quinn look at rachel, then at the floor, then at finn, then back at the floor. it looks as if she has to remind herself that finn exists and is her boyfriend

1x06: vitamin d

ALL OF THIS IS IN THE HALLWAY SCENE

admits to drawing “pornographic” pictures of rachel in the bathroom stalls

after rachel tells quinn that she doesn’t hate her, quinn is genuinely confused and feels like she deserves rachel’s hatred. at this point it almost feels like she has been trying to get rachel to hate her. it is also incredibly obvious that she feels bad about the way she treats rachel

as rachel walks away, quinn stares after her with what i can only describe as a longing look

1x07: throwdown

quinn doesn’t care if finn cheats on her. she only cares that he doesn’t do it with rachel. this feels different from her general hatred of rachel. i think you guys know where i’m going with this one

throughout “no air,” quinn is found staring at rachel a handful of times. it’s nothing special, just standard quinn shit

the fight with rachel seems super gay but i can only really point out a couple things. one of these is the fact that quinn quickly looks away from rachel, breathes out, then sets her sight back on rachel after rachel says she helped cover up quinn’s pregnancy because she had “ulterior motives.” it honestly looks like quinn is reminding herself exactly who those intentions are regarding

also in the fight, when rachel says, “you obviously have a lot to express,” qunn responds with “oh, you have no idea.” after this, quinn goes into a dream sequence type-thing where she sings “keep me hangin’ on,” which i’m pretty sure is considered a love song, while surrounded by women in revealing outfits dance in a sexual manner around her. at the end of the song, she looks deeply embarrassed by the fact that it even happened

1x08: mash up

this one could just be choreography honestly, but at one point during “bust a move,” quinn is part of the group singing the line “you want it, baby, you got it.” quinn looks directly at santana during the “baby, you got it” part. normally i wouldn’t add this, but considering the turn their relationship takes, i’m including it.

1x09: wheels

at the end of “proud mary,” quinn sighs then rests her head in her hands and looks at rachel with a loving look

1x12: mattress

when rachel is nominated as team captain, quinn quickly and covertly shoots her eyes down to look at rachel when no one can see her do so

quinn forces sue to give glee club a page in the yearbook even though the only person who wanted this was rachel. everyone else is vehemently against it

1x13: sectionals

quinn is in no way mad at rachel after she told finn the truth about quinn’s baby, despite the fact that rachel could have put her into a very dangerous situation by doing so

1x14: hell-o

quinns seems to be staring at finn and rachel when the two are talking by her locker, but her eye line seems more focused on rachel than on finn

at multiple points during “gives you hell,” quinn is fangirling over rachel’s performance harder than anyone else in the room, despite the fact we’re supposed to believe she hates rachel

1x15: the power of madonna

draws a caricature of rachel with inexplicable hearts all around it

quinn is visibly excited when rachel starts talking about dating, but looks disgusted and voices said disgust when rachel describes making out with jesse

despite supposedly hating rachel, quinn is VERY excited when rachel started singing “express yourself”

1x17: bad reputation

quinn put santana higher than puck on the glist, despite the fact they were briefly romantically involved

quinn deliberately put the glist on rachel’s locker, as if she was trying to prove that she didn’t think rachel was attractive

1x18: laryngitis

when talking to mercedes about puck, she shows absolutely no interest in him or anything about him

1x20: theatricality

when rachel went to go introduce herself to shelby when they were spying on vocal adrenaline, quinn literally is distracted by rachel’s ass before she tells her to come back

quinn seems VERY impressed by rachel’s slightly revealing lady gaga outfit that shelby made

1x22: journey to regionals

quinn seemingly checks out rachel while moving closer to her during the choreography for “anyway you want it/lovin’ touchin’ squeezin’”. at first i thought her facial expression may just be part of the routine, but no one else had an expression remotely similar

#raven quinn fabray is gay #quinn fabray #lesbian quinn fabray #quinn fabgay #quinntana #faberry

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themagnificentartofshipping · 4 years

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This is a Glee post about the Kurt and Quinn fight about Karofsky’s suicide attempt. It’s probably gonna get ranty, I watched the clip on youtube and I didn’t want to right my opinion in the comments because it will probably be long and it could possible end up turning into being about Quinn’s issue and how the show angers me with how they treat her and her clear problems. I haven’t written it yet, so we’ll see. And you know me on my bullshit especially about Quinn should be in the place where in the year 2020 I still have a Quinn icon.

I love Quinn Fabray , if you couldn’t tell so I'm definitely biased towards her, but I do understand what she said about suicide was insensitive and I don't agree with it. I still think Kurt is in the wrong, one because he shouldn't downplay what Quinn's been through, and also I don’t think it fair for him to act like he understands what Karofsky’s going through just because he’s also gay because Kurt’s coming out experience was positive and he didn’t lose people in that process and just Kurt relationship with his sexuality is very different from the way were shown Karofsky’s.

And to be honest(and this is where people may be pissed at me) I feel like Karofsky’s experience with being outed and his peers and friends reactions is closer to Quinn’s experience with her pregnancy then Kurt's coming out experience and I want to say I’m not equating Quinn’s pregnancy with being gay, I’m bringing this up because I think Kurt and Quinn have experienced different parts of what Karofsky’s was going through. Kurt obviously understands the mental and emotional struggle that figuring out and coming to terms with your sexuality is. Quinn understand the isolation and just awfulness when people you thought cared about you and were your friends turned on you and just dropped you and/or made fun of you( the glee girls in mash up said some not great things in reference to her and her pregnancy and Santana bringing up her having a baby in their fight and we never see a cheerio who’s not San or Britt speak to her in season 1 after her pregnancy news drops) This is going to sound shallow but, both Quinn and Karofsky care about where they are on the social hierarchy of high school and they both had their spot at the top ripped out from under them. They also both did not get to control when important life changing information about themselves was released to the world or their families. Quinn only got to tell Finn about her pregnancy her self every other time it was announced she didn’t get to do it or know it was going to happen, and that caused her to be blindsided by changes in her life and personally I think she should have been allowed to tell people when she was ready. I know that it is different from being outed but, I do think it has in common the feeling of being blindsided, and not being able to prepare for the worst/ peoples reactions and having people know a very personal thing about you without your permission. Writing this section made me realize i’d probably be significantly less pissed off if Santana would have called out Quinn instead, I still would have been upset about dismissing what Quinn has gone through, but since Santana has experienced being outed and having to tell family before she was ready and even family rejection over her sexuality as well as her fearing losing high school status, I think she does understand Karofsky’s experience so has higher ground to stand on.

So now this section will be about what Quinn has gone through, why I feel dismissing it is shitty and the way Kurt said specifically upset me, it might get into how season 3 treats her as a whole but we’ll see. So like i have an issue with the fact that he said the world never stopped loving her cause that’s just not true. Her father called her a disappointment and kicked her out of her house and as far as we are aware they still are not in contact(like he doesn’t show up at her HS graduation and she got into Yale) and that is parent who is suppose to love you unconditionally. And Sue a person she looked up to and respected publicly told her she was a disgrace. She lost her social standing and it seems like most of her friends and losing popularity might seem shallow but, it was important to Quinn. Also just the fact that she made the effort to rejoined the cheerios even though the culture of it is awful with the weigh ins and Sue’s shakes proves to me that she definitely didn’t feel like she was still loved by the world or the school. Back to the parent thing, I feel like its big part of why Kurt saying this is so frustrating to me because one of the stand things about Quinn’s pregnancy is the fact that her parents completely abandoned her and didn’t even try to support her because that is something Kurt could never get because he has the most supportive dad in the world. Like being a pregnant teen is hard, you have to make a lot of adult decisions and experience all the physical and hormonal changes while being this extreme outsider in your age group is difficult enough(which Kurt kind of dismissed)but, you add on not having familial support and having to worry about where your going to live and holy shit that’s hard and awful and emotional tasking. Also learning that your parents love for you is conditional can not be an easy thing to go through emotionally. And the world clearly didn’t love her at the beginning of season 3, when no major adult in her life made any attempts to help her, Sue used her breakdown for her own gain and Will just screams at her and tells her to grow up and says a bunch of mean things to her that are easily disapproved.

Moving on to dismissing her struggles at the beginning of season three as a bad dye job, its just very frustrating to me cause it very clear that that wasn’t it. And like I’m aware that Kurt as a character is likely unaware of all the shit going on with Quinn in season 3, but the person who wrote that line should be aware of what’s been going on with Quinn so I’m very confused about there intention. Because I think its clear even to people who don’t sympathize with Quinn that she was not in her a good mental state when Shelby was there, (i think that’s like until the 8th or 9th episode) and that clearly shows something else is going on and I believe that Quinn not being okay didn’t come out of nowhere, the last 3 episodes of season 2 had Quinn not being in the best place ending with her big meltdown in New York. Some people read/interpret Quinn as being depressed at least at the beginning of season 3, I kind of agree with that interpretation and definitely believe she had/has some sort of mental illness/disorder, I just don’t want to personally be like she definitely has this blank and diagnosis her in anyway. But I don’t think her issues just appeared they all go back to her pregnancy and giving up Beth and just don’t think she dealt with her feeling and was repressing them and living in a state of denial throughout most of season 2. This is going to become even longer if I allow myself to go on that tangent, (so maybe another post to explain that stuff and Quinn headcanons and stuff) but basically I have an issue with dismissing early season 3 Quinn as just rebellion and things like that because it clear that it alot more then that.

Kurt also basically said that Quinn doesn’t understand self- loathing and despair and I don’t think i need to give examples of Quinn not loving herself I feel like that’s pretty obvious, just like watch the show. But despair like her dad pretty much disowned her and giving up her baby clearly fucked her up, so I feel like she‘s felt despair. Kurt also acting like the fact that she’s going to Yale somehow eliminates her pain and I just don’t understand that.

Also just want to make it understood that the intentions of this post is not to hate on Kurt. I just don’t get why this scene exists, like it has always felt to me like its one of those scenes where the intention is just to make people hate Quinn and not empathize with her since it takes huge struggles that she had that caused empathy in viewers and dismissing them. And with the idea that existed at the time the show was on that, Ryan Murphy didn’t like that people liked Quinn, it’s one of the explanations that makes sense to me. Also that this is in the same episode as Quinn’s car accident is so fucking crazy and i don’t like it.

#glee #quinn fabray #kurt #david karofsky #rant #glee on my way #my opinion #pls don't hate me #i feel like this is something that happens in my brain everytime i've seen this scene #So I've some version of this in me since 2012 #I just needed to get out of my brain so here it is #might do more glee shit #been rewatching #and getting back into glee fanfic #writing some too #very quinn focused though #And sorry that this ended up being so long and so about Quinn #I didn't know what this would be when i started and I've been writing it for 2 hours

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themostrandomfandom · 5 years

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Hi! I hope you’re doing well :)) I was randomly thinking about Brittana the other day and — do you think Santana came out to anyone before she was outed? and do you think Brittany ever “came out”? Because nobody seems to be acting as if her liking girls is new information in 3x07.

Hey, @sitandsingtoyou!

So the short answers are:

With the exceptions of Brittany Pierce,Holly Holliday, and Dave Karofsky, I don’t think Santana ever really comes outto anyone (at least in so many words) prior to episode 3x06.

As for Brittany, I don’t think she ever comesout so much as she just is out andhas been kinda forever.

Long answers after the cut.

___

First, a quick rundown:

In episode 1x02, in her very first appearance on the show,Brittany checks out Santana’s ass as Santana twirls in her Cheerios skirt,demonstrating the “teasing not pleasing” technique. Several other cheerleaders,including Quinn, are present to witness the incident. Brittany makes no effortto hide her obvious attraction.

In episode 1x13, Brittany reveals to Kurt, Mercedes, Artie, andTina that she and Santana have sex with each other often enough that by some definitionsthey could be dating.

In episode 1x14, Santana offers to make out with Brittany whileFinn spectates.

In episode 1x17, Brittany reveals to Kurt, Mercedes, Artie, andTina that she has personally made out with “everyone” at the school, includingboys and girls.

In episode 2x04, Mercedes witnesses Brittana’s silent hallway “lovers’quarrel,” when Brittany indicates that she is cutting Santana off from havingsex with her.

In episode 2x06, Artie witnesses Brittana leaving Breadstix withPuck, presumably to have a threesome with him.

In episode 2x14, Santana takes shots off of Brittany’s abs at theRachel Berry House Party Train Wreck Extravaganza.

In episode 2x15, Brittana come out to Holly Holliday—thoughSantana still maintains the pretense that she is attracted to boys. Later,Brittana sing “Landslide” to each other and hug in plain view of the glee club.Rachel comments on the sapphic nature of the performance. Based on her bodylanguage, Quinn may also realize what’s up. Artie appears somewhat suspiciousof the exchange and what it might mean for his relationship with Brittany.However, Sam fails to understand the significance of the moment.

In episode 2x17, Santana defends Klaine from Dave’s homophobicbullying. Though she doesn’t indicate that she is doing so because she, likeKlaine, is gay, Kurt may realize, at least to some degree, that something is upwith her.

In episode 2x18, Santana comes out to Dave and blackmails him intobearding with her. She then forms the Bully Whips, using Dave to help her makeWMHS safe for Kurt’s return. However, she refuses to participate in the gleeclub’s “Born This Way” performance and only dons the “LEBANESE” t-shirtBrittany made for her at the very end of the episode, where no one but Dave cansee her do so.

In episode 2x19, Brittany reveals on FF2 that Santana “plays foranother team.” The Muckraker then runs a blind item column which refers toSantana as the prom queen candidate who is in the closet. Santana angrilyconfronts Brittany about her word choice in the presence of several other gleeclub members. Later, Brittany reveals to Artie that she is cheating on him withSantana, and Bartie break up.

In episode 2x20, Brittany dances with a girl at the prom.

In episode 2x22, Quinn notes that all of the other girls in theglee club aside from her “have love.” Though she doesn’t mention Brittany andSantana by name, she does spare them a pointed look which strongly suggeststhat she knows they are in love with each other. Seconds later, she confusesBrittana’s offer to cheer her up with a haircut up as an invitation to jointhem in a threesome. Surprisingly, Santana is able to laugh off the mistake.

In episode 3x01, in their very first scene of the season, Brittanygets a food tray for both her and Santana to eat from. The girls then meet up,link elbows, and happily skip away for their “lunch date.” Jacob Ben Israelcatches this whole exchange on film and broadcasts it to the school. Later,when Will exiles Santana from the glee club, Brittany appears very upset, andFinn seems to take notice.

Between episodes 3x01 and 3x04, Brittana are generally very touchywith each other, and, for the first time in a long while, neither one of themhas a boyfriend or even a boy toy. They also don’t express any interest in boysat all.

In episode 3x02, Brittany tries to sell Kurt on her ProjectUnicorn campaign platform, which is specifically designed to combat homophobicbullying at WMHS. Brittany makes it clear to Kurt that she has a personalinvestment in the cause. Later, Santana stands up to Kurt when he disparagesBrittany’s platform. Brittany eventually decides to run for senior classpresident on her own ticket. She identifies herself as a “bicorn” to Kurt.

In episode 3x03, Brittany shows up to Booty Camp, even though sheis personally exempted from the practice, expressly for the purpose of hangingout with Santana. In Mercedes’s “It’s All Over” fever dream sequence, sherefers to Santana “knockin’ off that piece who thinks she’s better thaneverybody runnin’ for president”—i.e., Brittany—indicating that she at leaststrongly suspects if not knows for a fact that Brittana are back to sleepingtogether again.

In episode 3x04, Brittany dodges Rory’s romantic advances. Santanaalso threatens Rory against pursuing Brittany, referring to Brittany has “[her]girl” and calling her beautiful, innocent, and “everything that’s good inthis miserable, stinking world” in the process. Elsewhere, when Mercedes approachesSantana to join her new glee club, she is savvy enough to realize that Brittanycomes as a package deal, further indicating that she is aware that Brittana aretogether, and, moreover, that their relationship is both committed andfeelings-based.

In episode 3x06, prior to being outed, Brittana continue to bevery affectionate with each other in public—and especially during the “Stop theviolence!” scene during Troubletones practice, when Santana practically meltsat Brittany’s cuteness, in plain view of Sugar, Mercedes, Shelby, and the otherglee club members. Santana also chews Finn’s ass for calling Brittany stupid.

To the best of my recollections, these represent all of theinstances in which Santana’s lesbianism, Brittany’s bisexuality, and Brittana’ssexual and romantic relationship are either discussed or brought to theattention of other characters prior to Santana’s outing in episode 3x06.

Of course, that’s to say nothing of the flirtatious, pining,bedroom, adoring, moony, thirsty, love-eyed looks they sling each other betweenepisodes 1x02 and 3x06, or the way they drape themselves all over each othersitting on the back row in the choir room, or how they dance together duringpractices, or the fact that they’re usually glued at the hip, or that Santananever smiles at anyone in the way she smiles at Brittany, and Brittany hasnothing but praise for Santana (never mind what everyone else says), and, and,and—

There may be other instances in which either Santana or Brittanyas individuals or Brittana as a couple come out to people, but if there are, wecertainly don’t see them take place on screen.

Personally, my sense is that prior to her outing, Santana neverpurposefully comes out to anyone besides the select individuals mentionedabove. I have two reasons for thinking this way.

First, I tend to believe that had Santana come out to anyonebesides Brittany, Holly, and Dave, TPTB would have shown her doing so onscreen—because it kinda would have been a BIG DEAL.

Santana is very much the epitome of this text post:

Compare her tearfully admitting to Brittany that she’s in lovewith her during the Hurt Locker scene in episode 2x15 versus her casually quipping to Quinn’s boyfriend the very first time she meets him in episode 5x12, “Wordon the street is you’re old money. I’m a lesbian, but I’m totally into that.”

Back in S3, Santana is still so new to coming out (and even toaccepting her own lesbian identity) that I just have to believe that had shecome out to anyone—whether on purpose or accidentally—it would have been depictedas part of her storyline. It’s something that would have factored into her arcin a major way.

—which brings me to my second reason for believing that she doesn’tcome out to anyone else prior to episode 3x06: namely, I don’t think she’sready to make “that kind of announcement,” just from a character standpoint.

In episode 3x04, she’s still holding Brittany’s hand under the napkin. While making thingsofficial with her dream girl probably boosts her confidence at least somewhat,it also doesn’t necessarily mean that she suddenly has enough confidence tocome out.

Honestly, based on her reaction to Finn outing her and Reggie Salazarrunning his political ad (“Not just the school, you idiot! Everyone!,” “I haven’teven told my parents yet!”), I tend to think that Santana’s m.o. is not to comeout at school until after she comesout to her family. They’re her first priority when it comes to taking thatstep. She doesn’t want anything to get back to them before she’s had a chanceto tell them the truth herself.

Since we know she isn’t out to her parents and grandmotherpre-episode 3x06, then my guess is that she also isn’t out to anyone else atschool—at least not in a formal way.

Instead, I think she tends to take “the Brittany approach.”

—which brings us to the matter of Brittany’s “outness.”

As mentioned above, there are several instances prior to episode3x06 when Brittany makes her attraction to girls known in a public setting.

In particular, in both episodes 1x13 and 1x17, she admits to groupsof her peers that she has both kissed and had sex with girls.

Neither one ofthese scenes is a “coming out” scene in the traditional sense, as she isn’tlabeling her sexual identity or framing what she says as a disclosure but rather simply talking about her life and about the way things are with her in a general, matter-of-fact way.

Her attitudesuggests that what she’s saying isn’t a secret or something that she considersrevelatory.

That’s why I say that Brittany never comes out as much as she just isout.

While there may be some instance before the start of the show(like in middle school or the ninth grade) when Brittany formally announces toher classmates that she is bisexual, my sense is that there isn’t.

I honestly don’tthink Brittany ever tells anyone in so many words “I’m interested in multiplegenders” or “I’m bi.” I think she is just always kind of open about the factthat she is.

In fact, a lot of the friction between her and Santana during S1and S2 derives from the fact that they have differing comfort levels withoutness.

Even though they are in love with each other, Santana isn’t readyto admit that they are even to herself, much less to anyone else, so sheinsists that any time she and Brittany are actively hooking up with each other,then they must also actively be hooking up with boys on the side. Frankly, ifgiven her druthers, Brittany would probably prefer to be monogamous withSantana—and, in fact, according to my calculations, Brittana probably arefairly monogamous with each other between episodes 1x16 and 2x06 (see here)—sothe only reason she bothers making out with random classmates outside ofSantana is because Santana insists that they “play straight.” The desire toconceal her sexual orientation and her feelings for Santana never comes fromher. She only participates in misdirecting behavior because Santana’s “rules”necessitate it.

On the few occasions when Brittany oversteps Santana’s boundaries,pushing her to be open if not about her own sexual orientation than at leastabout the true nature of her and Brittany’s relationship (see episodes 1x13 and2x04), Santana immediately shuts her down, and Brittana experience relationalfriction.

Consequently, Brittany tends to back down—at least until S2, whenshe decides that if Santana doesn’t want to be her girlfriend, then maybe sheshould try dating someone else, and she ends up becoming a couple with Artie.

Of course, the really interesting thing is that even thoughBrittany is generally open about her bisexuality, very few people seem to pickup on it prior to episode 3x06.

That whole “gals being pals” phenomenon, where people look at wlwshowing romantic love for their partners but mistake it for platonic bestfriendly affection because heteronormativity—that’s Brittany’s entire lifeexperience prior to Santana’s outing.

Brittany can talk openly about how she’s made out with boys andgirls; dance with a girl at the junior prom; and spend every day in glee practicemaking eyes at Santana, holding her hands, stroking her hair, and justgenerally being moony about her, but people will still view her as being prettymuch straight until her girlfriend is outed as a lesbian.

—and even then it’s debatable to what extent the general publicunderstands Brittany’s sexuality.

As I talk about in thispost,

Brittanyhas been vocal about her attraction to men and women since early in S1, firststating that she’s slept with Santana in episode 1x13, then revealing thatshe’s made out with girls, boys, and Mr. Kidney the janitor in episode 1x17.

The factthat she is not straight has never exactly been a secret.

—and yetno one at McKinley seems to raise an eyebrow at her sexuality, never mind that,for a time, she is the only out LGBTQIA+ kid in the student body.

(Lateron, various people on the show will talk about how Kurt Hummel is the first outgay kid at the school, which, though true in terms of being gay specifically,is not necessarily true in terms of being “not straight” in a more general way.The fact that no one at McKinley seems to acknowledge Brittany as the first outLGBTQIA+ kid at the school shows that her sexual orientation doesn’t reallyregister with the more part of the student body. No one really thinks of her asbisexual/pansexual/sexually fluid/queer Brittany, or at least they don’t thinkof her in those terms in the same way that they think of Kurt as gay. Hersexual orientation isn’t viewed as an important part of her identity, eventhough it’s something she is actually fairly open about from the start.)

Whilemembers of the New Directions give Brittany funny looks when she talks abouthaving sex with Santana and achieving her perfect kissing record with everyoneat school (regardless of gender), these funny looks aren’t particularlydifferent from the ones they give her for spouting off Brittanyisms or speakingin non sequiturs.

So whythe nonreactions on their parts? Why do Brittany’s teammates not really seem tonotice or care that Brittany isn’t straight?

Part ofit probably has to do with their misunderstanding of Brittany in general:

She’sincomprehensibly strange to them, something between a child and an idiot. Doesshe even know what she’s saying? Does she even understand what making out orhaving sex means? Since they view her as having such low intelligence, it’sprobably somewhat uncomfortable for them to think of her as having sexualagency, so they don’t dwell on it.

She’sjust Brittany being Brittany, after all. Best not to press the matter.

Anotherpart of it definitely has to do with heteronormativity:

They’reconditioned to think of straight as a baseline. And straight girls can stillmake out with girls sometimes, right—especially if they’re dumb straight girlswith active libidos? After all, Brittany only really goes on dates with guys,and observable behavior = orientation, doesn’t it? So Brittany must bestraight. The “kissing (and having sex with) girls” thing is an anomaly, asometimes thing, the exception and not the rule. Somehow it doesn’t count.

So even though Brittany never goes out of her way to conceal her bisexuality, she still manages to “hide in plain sight.” Her peers don’t really seem to notice or care about her sexuality until it relates to her relationship with Santana.

—which brings us back to Santana in S3.

Based on her behavior in early S3, I tend to believe that Santana adopts the same method to “outness” as Brittany does: namely, though she doesn’t actually come out to anyone, either directly or in so manywords, she also gives up on attempting to conceal both her sexualorientation and feelings for Brittany—and especially to the degreethat she did in the past.

In S1 and S2, whenever Brittana were engaged in a sexualrelationship with each other, they would also each maintain sexualrelationships with boys on the side, so as to create plausible deniability. Butcome S3, neither one of them has a boy toy or beard, even though they aretogether.

They also don’t express sexual or romantic interest in anyonebesides each other—i.e., they’re clearly not on the hunt for boyfriends or evenpretending that they are. Gone are the days of them (and mainly Santana)working overtime to convince everyone that they’re straight or even thatthey’re not each other’s primary relationship.

While they’re not yet to the point of kissing or holding hands inpublic, they are very touchy with each other. They’re also openly emotionally supportive of each other, such aswhen Santana defends Brittany’s unicorn campaign to Kurt in episode 3x02 orwhen Brittany shows up to Booty Camp just to hang out with Santana in episode3x03.

Essentially, then, they are no longer in the business of activelyconcealing the truth about Santana’s sexual orientation and their romanticrelationship, though they’re also not yet ready to make a public announcementregarding those topics, either. They start out S3 hiding in plain sight, as itwere.

Santana’s attitude during this point in time seems to be along thelines of, “I’m gonna start being more and more myself, and if someone noticeswhat’s up, then someone notices. Otherwise, I will come out when I’m good andready.”

True to her pragmatic nature, she is taking baby steps: parting ways with her final beard, Karofsky;coming to terms with the word “lesbian” and starting to embrace the label forherself; giving up on her mad grab popularity schemes (like her convoluted promqueen campaign); becoming more and more a real part of the glee club; standingup for other LGBT kids, like Kurt and Blaine; starting to allow her realpersonality to shine through; spending the summer dating Brittany even thoughshe can’t be fully sure that they are dating; kicking off her senior year beingmore open with her feelings for Brittany in public than she has ever beenbefore.

Part of what makes her outing so horrific, then—among a millionother things—is that she spends late S2 and early S3 steadily laying thegroundwork towards coming out, only to have the decision as to how and when shedoes so completely ripped away from her before she gets the chance. Somethingthat she wanted to do by increments and when she felt comfortable got forcedonto her in an instant. Finn just ripped the bandaid right off without givingher any warning.

Anyway, I’ve rambled on for a long time now.

Thanks for the question!

#Crazy Brittanalyst Answers #sitandsingtoyou #I just want queue

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kailaasa08 · 3 years

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26 FEBRUARY 2020 (7:56 AM IST, WEDNESDAY) *POWERFUL COGNITIONS FROM TODAY’S NITHYANANDA (ENGLISH) SATSANG *TODAY IS THE TENTH DAY OF THE PARAMASHIVA RATRI BRAHMOTSAVAM. SRI NITHYANANDESHWARA PARAMASHIVA AND NITHYANANDESHWARI PARASHAKTI ARE GRACING IN SARVA ALANKARA WITH AMLANA MALA IN SVARNA RISHABHA VAHANA IN ADI KAILASA NITHYANANDA PEETHAM. WE NOW OFFER OUR WORSHIP AT THEIR FEET AND RECEIVE THEIR GRACE. *PARAMASHIVA’S MESSAGE FROM SHRIKAILASA DIRECTLY: *LOVE IS THE FRAGRANCE OF TYAGA, VIOLENCE IS THE DELUSION YOU CREATE INSIDE NOT JUST IN YOUR MIND, BUT EVEN INSIDE YOUR VERY CONSCIOUSNESS. VIOLENCE IS NEGATIVITY TRYING TO REACH ALMOST THE STATE OF CONSCIOUSNESS. IT IS LIKE TRYING TO JUSTIFY HATRED NOT ONLY LOGICALLY BUT EVEN BASED ON YOUR EXISTENCE. ANY POWERLESSNESS, NEGATIVITY, VIOLENCE, LOGICALLY JUSTIFIED ITSELF IS A CRIME. BUT YOU GO EVEN DEEPER THAN LOGIC AND MAKE YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS TO ATTEST IT, WHICH IS THE WORST CRIME YOU CAN DO TO YOURSELF AND TO OTHERS. *IF YOUR MIND IS ABSOLUTELY CORRUPTED, ONLY THEN VIOLENCE CAN REACH YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS. YOU FEEL THAT ONLY IF YOU START DOING VIOLENCE YOU CAN EXIST. THAT MENTAL SETUP IS CALLED ASURI, RAKSHASATTVA, TAMOGUNA. *THE UNIVERSE IS TOO BIG. THERE IS ENOUGH SPACE AND PLACE FOR ALL BEINGS. I AM NOT TEACHING POWERLESSNESS. I AM NOT SAYING YOU SHOULD JUST GET KILLED. IF YOU UNDERSTAND MY TEACHINGS, YOU WILL UNDERSTAND THE POWER YOU DERIVE FROM YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS. *O HINDUS! THE GREATEST WRONG YOU HAVE DONE IS, YOU HAVE DENIED THE ANCESTRAL KNOWLEDGE OF RAJA VIDYA - RAJA GUHYAM - ROYAL KNOWLEDGE AND ROYAL SECRET. *REACTIONARY ASSUMPTION, VIOLENCE, IS MIDDLE CLASS MENTALITY, NEVER ROYAL. WHEN SOMEBODY ATTACKS YOU AND YOU GET AGITATED AND REACT, IT IS A MIDDLE CLASS MENTALITY. ANYBODY WITH THAT MENTALITY CAN BE DESTROYED EASILY. THE ROYAL PERSON WHO KNOWS THE ROYAL KNOWLEDGE AND ROYAL SECRET CANNOT BE DESTROYED. THAT ROYAL SECRET I WILL EXPLAIN TO YOU NOW. *LOVE IS THE FRAGRANCE OF TYAGA. NEVER EVER BELIEVE IN YOUR HEART THAT VIOLENCE IS A PREREQUISITE FOR YOUR SURVIVAL OR EXISTENCE. YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS SHOULD NOT FEEL SURROUNDED OR SUFFOCATED BY THE VIOLENCE, THE NEED FOR VIOLENCE AND JUSTIFICATION OF THE VIOLENCE. *THE CONTEXT WITH WHICH KRISHNA MADE ARJUNA WAGE THE MAHABHARATA WAR AND GOT VICTORY, IS NOT THE VICTORY FOR SANATANA HINDU DHARMA, IT IS ARJUNA’S VICTORY! ALL OTHERS SUPPORTED ARJUNA. BHEEMA SUPPORTED BY KILLING DURYODAHANA. *I WILL GIVE YOU THIS RAJA VIDYA, RAJA GUHYAM: THE MAN WHO GETS AGITATED, DOES REACTIONARY ASSUMPTIONS AND CHERISHES IT AND REACTS, IS A SHUDRA, CHANDALA. IN HINDU TRADITION, BRAHMANATTVA, VAISHYATVA, KSHATRIYATVA, AND SHDUDRATTVA COME MORE BASED ON YOUR KARMA, YOUR DECISIONS, NOT BY YOUR BIRTH. *ONCE, A DISCIPLE CAME TO ME AND TOLD ME ABOUT HER MENTAL DEPRESSION AND MOOD SWINGS. AFTER SEEING HER NADI - ENERGY FLOW, I TOLD HER, ‘YOU HAVE AN IRON DEFICIENCY PHYSICALLY. BUT WHEN THE IRON GOES DOWN, YOU HAVE THE CHOICE TO PICK UP WHICH PATTERN YOU WANT AND EMPOWER IT.’ *IN MY HOUSE THERE WERE TWO GRANDMOTHERS - ONE FROM THE FATHER’S SIDE AND ANOTHER FROM MY MOTHER’S SIDE. BOTH HAD THE PROBLEM THAT DURING AMAVASYA (NO MOON NIGHT), THEY WILL GO CRANKY! ALL OTHER DAYS THEY WILL BE HIGHLY BALANCED! BOTH OF THEM LIVED FOR MORE THAN 100 YEARS. MY MOTHER’S SIDE GRANDMOTHER, WHEN SHE GOES CRANKY, SHE WILL GIVE AWAY ALL THE HOUSE ITEMS TO OTHERS ON THE STREET! THE OTHER ONE, WHEN SHE GOES CRAZY, SHE WILL BRING ANYTHING IN THE STREET INTO THE HOUSE! THE WORKERS OF THE CORPORATION OF THE LOCAL TOWN WILL BRING PIPES, BRICKS, CONCRETE, TO DO THE PUBLIC WORKS. IF IT IS AMAVASYA DAY, IF ANY OF THOSE ITEMS ARE MISSING, THEY WILL COME STRAIGHT TO OUR HOUSE. MY UNCLE WILL OPEN THE DOOR AND ASK WHAT HAPPENED. THEY WILL SCRATCH THE HEAD AND SAY, ‘YESTERDAY WAS AMAVASYSA’. MY HOUSE IS CONSIDERED A BIG FAMILY AND MY FATHER'S ELDER BROTHER WAS A TOWN SURVEYOR! SO THEY WILL POLITELY SAY, ‘THE PIPES ON THE ROAD ARE MISSING!’ HE WILL ALLOW THEM IN. THEY WILL GO STRAIGHT TO THE GRANDMOTHER'S ROOM AND TAKE IT BACK! *SO EVEN WHEN YOU GO CRANKY, YOU DECIDE WHICH PATTERN TO PICK UP AND EMPOWER! I TOLD THIS GIRL THIS STORY. WHEN ONE OF MY DISCIPLES - MA PRANAPRIYA GOES CRAZY, SHE WILL GO WILD AND DO ALL THE PENDING PROJECTS AND BECOME MORE WORKAHOLIC. WHEN SOME PEOPLE GO CRAZY, THEY WILL DESTROY ALL THE PROJECTS. SO EVEN IF YOU GO CRAZY, YOU SHOULD GO CRAZY LIKE MA PRANAPRIYA! PICK UP THE POSITIVE PATTERN AND EMPOWER IT. BE LIKE THE GRANDMOTHER WHO BECOMES A DHANI WHEN SHE GOES CRAZY BECAUSE SHE BELIEVES MORE GOOD WILL HAPPEN TO YOU AND OTHERS WHEN YOU GIVE OTHERS. EVEN WHEN YOU GO CRAZY, DON'T STEAL, DON'T TAKE WHICH IS NOT YOURS. *THIS PLANET EARTH IS A PREPARATION FOR YOU TO GO TO KAILASA AND SO YOU DON'T HAVE A CULTURE SHOCK THERE! IT IS PROBATIONAL TRAINING TO BE IN KAILASA, REMEMBER THAT. I AM TEACHING YOU THE CULTURE OF KAILASA. *DO NOT SUFFOCATE YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS WITH THE FALSE IDEAS THAT VIOLENCE IS REQUIRED FOR YOUR EXISTENCE AND SURVIVAL. ONCE YOU START BELIEVING VIOLENCE IS REQUIRED FOR YOUR SURVIVAL, NOT ONLY YOU WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO REACH KAILASA, THE WHOLE EXISTENCE FOR YOU WILL BE JUST GOING LOWER AND LOWER AND LOWER. THEN YOU WILL START CREATING THAT KIND OF AN ECOSYSTEM AROUND YOU. *THE MAIN REASON I MOVED OUT OF HUMANITY IS, HUMANITY DOESN’T KNOW THAT ATTACKING OTHERS IS NOT REQUIRED FOR YOUR EXISTENCE. ONLY NOW, I REALISED WHY ALWAYS THE RISHIS MOVE OUT OF THE SOCIETY. *FROM THIS RAJA VIDYA - ROYAL KNOWLEDGE, THE ENERGY WHICH MANIFESTS IN YOU WILL BE TOO POWERFUL. I AM TALKING ABOUT THE NUCLEAR POWER, NOT ABOUT ELECTRICITY. *WHEN YOU FEEL INJUSTICE IS DONE TO YOU, YOU ARE MENTALLY SICK. IF YOU SUFFOCATE YOURSELF 24 HOURS THINKING THERE IS A LOT OF INJUSTICE DONE TO YOU, IT IS ATMA HATHYA, AND YOU DESTROY THE ATMA TATTVA IN YOU. DO NOT DO THAT MESS. *I AM TALKING THIS AFTER BEING BEATEN LEFT AND RIGHT. I DON'T EVEN NEED TO PROVIDE EVIDENCE FOR IT. ALL NATIONAL CHANNELS HAVE SHOWN LIVE SHOWS OF NITHYANANDA BEING PUSHED INTO A THATCHED HUT, DOOR LOCKED OUTSIDE, AND EVERYONE KNOWS THERE IS NO WAY OF ESCAPING, AND PETROL BOMBS ARE BEING THROWN TO MURDER HIM! IT IS A LIVE MURDER SHOW! AFTER GOING THROUGH ALL THIS, I AM TELLING YOU: VIOLENCE IS NOT A COMPULSORY INGREDIENT NEEDED FOR YOUR EXISTENCE. *THE ENEMIES WHO ATTACK ME HAVE CREATED ALL THE EVIDENCE. WITH PRIDE THEY ARE DESCRIBING THAT THEY ARE RID OF THIS NITHYANANDA. AND IF YOU ZOOM IN THOSE VIDEOS, YOU CAN SEE: ONE BRAHMACHARI IS TRYING TO GET ME OUT AND SAVE ME. BUT ALL THE POLICE, MEDIA PERSONS WERE STANDING THERE AND DOING A LIVE SHOW. THE POLICE IS NOT ALLOWING EVEN MY SANYASIS TO COME AND SAVE ME. AND WE WERE NEVER ALLOWED TO FILE EVEN ONE FIR. IT IS MULTIPLE LIFE ATTEMPTS ON ME. *SO, ANYONE WHO GETS AGITATED, DOES REACTIONARY ASSUMPTIONS AND THIS IS A MIDDLE CLASS MENTALITY. THE ENEMIES THOUGHT I WILL FEEL ATTACKED AND FALL INTO THEIR TRAP. BUT I AM CLEAR ABOUT MY LIFE'S MISSION. I AM CARRYING ONE OF THE MOST VALUABLE GIFTS TO SHARE WITH HUMANITY, AND I NEED TO EXIST TO SHARE THIS GREAT GIFT WITH HUMANITY. *HOW MANY TIMES, MY CAR HAS GOT BLOCKED AND ATTACKED. HOW MANY TIMES MY SANYASIS SUFFERED WHEN THE ENEMIES SUSPECTED I AM IN THEIR CAR. HOW MANY KAILASAVASIS WE LOST. AFTER GOING THROUGH ALL THIS, I AM TELLING YOU THIS TRUTH MEANS, IT IS BECAUSE YOU ARE MY DEAR, MY OWN, MY BELOVEDS. ONLY TO THE DEAREST PEOPLE YOU WILL TELL THE HIGHEST SECRET. *I AM TELLING YOU THE ROYAL SECRET. YOU GUYS ARE THE ONES WHO GIVE ME FOOD, LOVE AND ALL THE BEST THINGS IN MY LIFE, SO I WILL BE HONEST AND LOYAL TO YOU ALL. YOU ARE ALL MY ANNADATTAS. SO, DO NOT ALLOW YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS TO FEEL SUFFOCATED WITH THE IDEA THAT INJUSTICE IS DONE TO YOU. IT IS DELUSION, IT IS NOT A FACT. OTHER THAN THE HIGHEST REALITY THAT YOU ARE PARAMASHIVA, NOTHING ELSE CAN BE A FACT. *IT IS LIKE YOU DREAMING A CONFUSED, MIXED DREAM: YOU FEEL YOU ARE ALREADY 70 YEARS OLD AND YOU ARE WITH YOUR GIRLFRIEND WHOM YOU HAD IN COLLEGE BUT NEVER GOT MARRIED TO, AND WITH THAT GIRL FRIEND YOU ARE GOING TO DO SOME EXAMINATION, AND FOR THAT, YOUR PRESENT BOSS DOESN'T GIVE YOU VACATION, AND YOUR GRANDSON GETS YOU PERMISSION FROM YOUR BOSS TO WRITE THE EXAMINATION! HOW YOU WILL LAUGH AT THIS DREAM AS ABSOLUTELY WEIRD AND ILLOGICAL! IT IS DIFFERENT FACTS AT DIFFERENT TIMES PUT TOGETHER INTO ONE FALSE NARRATION! THIS IS EXACTLY THE DELUSION OF YOUR EXISTENCE. *LISTEN TO THIS ONE TRUTH, AND YOU WILL MANIFEST POWERS. NEVER ALLOW THE IDEA THAT INJUSTICE IS DONE TO YOU. IF YOU ALLOW THAT, YOUR ENEMIES ARE SUCCESSFUL, OVER! THEY HAVE PUT THE POISON IN YOU. YOU WILL BE DEAD TODAY OR TOMORROW. THEY WILL GO AND POISON OTHERS BECAUSE THEY HAVE DONE THEIR JOB ON YOU. *ANYBODY WHO CONSCIOUSLY DOES NOT FEEL SUFFOCATED BY THE IDEA THAT VIOLENCE IS THE NECESSITY FOR YOUR SURVIVAL, YOU ARE CALLED ‘SADHU’. ANYBODY WHO FEELS SEX IS NOT THE BASIC REQUIREMENT TO EXCITE YOU, YOU ARE A ‘SANYASI’. SEX MAY BE A PHYSICAL EXCITEMENT ACT BUT NOT A FUNDAMENTAL REQUIREMENT FOR YOUR ANANDA OR EXPERIENCE OF EXHALTED STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS. *THE CORE SUFFOCATIONS YOU FEEL FORM LIKE AN ECOSYSTEM AROUND YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS AND THAT ATTRACTS THE SAME KIND OF MASS AROUND YOU. *EVEN THOUGH SO MUCH OF VIOLENCE IS THROWN AT ME JUST TO MAKE ME FALL INTO THAT RUT, AND I NEVER DID ANY WRONG TO ANYONE, ONE OF THE GREATEST BLESSING AND PROTECTION I RECEIVED FROM PARAMASHIVA AND KALABHAIRAVA IS, I DID NOT FALL INTO THEIR RUT. I DID NOT DECIDE TO BELIEVE THAT VIOLENCE IS NEEDED FOR MY SURVIVAL. THEY WERE NOT ABLE TO CONVINCE ME ON THAT! *KALABHAIRAVA TAUGHT ME CLEARLY THAT HE IS ALIVE AND RUNS THIS WHOLE KARMA CHAKRA. *YOU DO NOT NEED TO FEEL VIOLENCE IS A PREREQUISITE FOR YOUR SURVIVAL. ANYONE WHO UNDERSTANDS THAT THE DHARMA OF KALABHAIRAVA IS ALIVE AND YOU DO NOT NEED VIOLENCE FOR YOUR SURVIVAL NEED, IS A ‘HINDU’. HE IS A SANTANA HINDU DHARMI. *THIS UNDERSTANDING MAKES YOU STRATEGICALLY STRONG AND POWERFUL. YOU KNOW STRATEGICALLY HOW TO KEEP YOURSELF SAFE AND DO THE MISSION FOR WHICH YOU HAPPENED AND HOW TO MAKE YOUR ENEMIES IRRELEVANT IN YOUR LIFE. *HINDUS LOST THIS SCIENCE AND LEADERS WHO HAVE THIS SCIENCE. THAT IS THE WHOLE PROBLEM. WE ALSO STARTED FOLLOWING THE SAME STUPID THEORY OF ‘EYE’ FOR ‘EYE’. NO! *NONVIOLENCE FROM THE RIGHT CONTEXT REALLY GIVES YOU POWER, NOT THE NONVIOLENCE THAT COMES FROM POWERLESSNESS THAT NOTHING CAN BE DONE. NONVIOLENCE SHOULD COME FROM THE PARAMASHIVA TATTVA - I AM PARAMASHIVA, LET ME DO WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE, BUT VIOLENCE IS NOT THE PREREQUISITE. *THE UNIVERSE IS TOO BIG. EVERY BEING HAS A SPACE AND YOUR COGNITION ABOUT THE SPACE IS TOO IMPORTANT. THE STRONG CORE BELIEFS YOU CREATE FORMS THE AURA KARMIC BODY - SUKSHMA SHARIRA FOR YOU AND IT GOES ON ATTRACTING THAT SAME KIND OF PEOPLE AROUND YOU. AND IF YOUR SUKSHMA SHARIRA IS POWERFUL, EVEN DEMONS CAN’T HIT YOU. THEY JUST GET KICKED OUT AND YOU CONTINUE TO LIVE AS PARAMASHIVA. *INVINCIBILITY IS KNOWING THE DHARMA, THE COSMIC LAW, THE LAW OF THE UNIVERSE, BRAHMANDA, AND THE COSMIC LAWS WILL BE REALISED IN YOUR BRAIN ONLY WITH THE LUBRICATION OF LOVE AND NONVIOLENCE. WHEN THE COSMIC LAWS PENETRATE YOU, YOU VISUALISE THE TIME AS KALA CHAKRA. *THE KALA CHAKRA IS PENETRATING ALL OF US NOW, NOW, NOW. YOU ARE TOUCHING THE KALA CHAKRA NOW AND LOVE IS THE LUBRICANT. IF YOU CARRY THE LUBRICANT IN YOUR HEART, IT WILL BE A SMOOTH, HAPPY MOMENT. IF YOU CARRYING VIOLENT, POWERLESS COGNITIONS, EVERY TIME THE KALA CHAKRA TOUCHES, YOU WILL BE ANGRY, BOILING, POWERLESS. *ONE GUY GOES TO THE DOCTOR AND SAYS HIS WHOLE BODY IS PAINING. THE DOCTOR PICKS UP THIS GUY’S RING FINGER AND PUTS THAT ON HIS LEFT HAND AND ASKS, ‘IS IT PAINING?’ HE SAYS, ‘YES’. THE DOCTOR PUTS IT IN EACH PART OF THE BODY AND ASKS IF IT IS PAINING. HE SAYS, ‘YES DOCTOR’. FINALLY THE DOCTOR SAYS, ‘YOUR FINGER HAS A FRACTURE!’ UNDERSTAND, IF YOU ARE CARRYING VIOLENCE IN YOUR HEART, YOUR FINGER HAS A FRACTURE, AND EVERY MOMENT THE KALA CHAKRA TOUCHES YOU, YOU WILL HAVE DEEP PAIN AND POWERLESSNESS. IT MEANS, THE ENEMIES HAVE ALREADY POISONED YOU AND YOU DON'T NEED ANYMORE ENEMIES TO DESTROY YOU. *THE ROYAL SECRET IS: HOW YOU REACT TO THE ENEMY REQUEST. MILLIONS OF PEOPLE SEND ENEMY REQUEST TO ME, TRYING TO MAKE FUN OF ME, ABUSE ME ATTACK ME CASUALLY. IF I REACT AND ATTACK THEM BACK, I AM INTELLIGENT ENOUGH TO GIVE A VERY STRONG RESPONSE TO THEM, BUT IT WILL BE LIKE I ACCEPTED THEIR ENEMY REQUEST AND THE KALA CHAKRA STRATS. THE ROYAL PERSON KEEPS THE ENEMIES MINIMUM. I ACCEPT ONLY FRIEND REQUESTS, NO ENEMY REQUEST. I HAVE PUT A BOARD LIKE THAT! *MANY PEOPLE REMEMBER ME SWEETLY, BEAUTIFULLY AND THEY SHARE THEIR LOVE AND SEND FRIEND REQUESTS. I WANT TO SPEND MY LIFE ONLY LOVING THE PEOPLE LOVING PEOPLE. FOR THAT ITSELF I DON'T HAVE TIME, THEN WHERE IS THE QUESTION OF HATING THE PEOPLE WHO HATE ME? IF SOME FRIENDS TURN INTO ENEMIES, I JUST UNFRIEND THEM. I DON'T BOTHER ABOUT THEM. *I HAVE SEEN THE SPECTRUM OF LOVE AND HATRED. I HAVE SEEN PEOPLE WHO ARE READY TO SACRIFICE THEIR LIFE FOR A CUP OF COFFEE FOR ME. I HAVE SEEN TRAITORS, WHO IF THEY GET A CUP OF COFFEE ARE READY TO SELL ME. WITH THAT RICH LIFE I AM TELLING YOU THIS TRUTH. *INSIDE IN YOUR CORE, DO NOT ALLOW THE IDEA THAT ‘VIOLENCE IS A PREREQUISITE’ TO SUFFOCATE YOUR ATMA TATTVA - THE CONSCIOUS COMPONENT / PRINCIPAL PRINCIPLE OF YOU. IF YOU UNDERSTAND THIS ONE TRUTH, YOU WILL START MANIFESTING TYAGA AND LOVE AND I CAN GIVE YOU ALL POWERS. *THESE DEMONS AND RAKSHASAS WHO ARE TRYING TO ATTACK AND ABUSE ME TRIED TO SPREAD NEGATIVE RUMOURS THAT THE KANTA MALA AND MANDALA HAVE NEGATIVE ENERGY. I THROW THIS CHALLENGE: JUST BRING ARUNCALESHWARA TEMPLE PRASAD, OR GANGA WATER FROM VISHWANATH ABHISHEKA, OR SAMAYAPURAM MAHAMARIAMMAN KUMKUM AND PUT ON THE MANDALA AND KANTA MALA. YOU WILL SEE THE MANDALA WORKING MORE POWERFULLY! IF THERE IS NEGATIVE ENERGY, IT WILL NOT FUNCTION LIKE THAT. ONLY THE POSITIVE ENERGY GETS MORE AWAKENED. IF IT IS NEGATIVE ENERGY, I WILL NOT TELL YOU TO PUT ALL THE TEMPLE PRASADAMS ON IT! NONE OF THESE ABUSER ANSWER FOR THIS LOGICALLY BECAUSE THEY DON'T HAVE A LOGICAL ANSWER! IT IS ONLY A HATE SPEECH, SPREADING HATRED. *ALSO, AS LONG AS THE KANTA MALA AND MANDALAS ARE THERE, THEY WILL PROTECT YOU WITH THE GURU’S ENERGY. THEY ARE WAITING TO REMOVE THE GURU’S PROTECTION FROM YOU AND THEN CONTROL YOU AND ATTACK YOU. *ALL THOSE WHO CONSCIOUSLY THROW AWAY THESE THINGS CAN SEE HOW YOUR LIFE WAS EARLIER AND HOW IT IS NOW, AND DECIDE. DECIDE FOR YOURSELF BY COMPARING AND SEEING. IF YOU ARE A SINCERE SEEKER, GET THE TEMPLE PRASADAMS AND PUT IT ON THE KANTA MALA AND MANDALA AND KEEP THEM WITH YOU! YOU WILL HAVE GURU’S PROTECTION. IF YOU THROW THEM OUT LISTENING TO THE DEMONS AND RAKSHASAS, THEY WILL DESTROY YOU WHICH IS WHY THEY ARE BRAINWASHING YOU. ALL OF THEM WHO TOLD YOU NOT TO WEAR THE KANTAMALA ARE THE REPRESENTATIVES OF DEMONS AND SATANIC DEVILS. THAT IS WHY I AM GIVING THIS OPEN CHALLENGE! *I AM A RARE MANIFESTATION. ANYONE WHO MISSES ME ESPECIALLY AFTER GETTING CONNECTED TO ME WILL NOT BE ABLE TO FORGIVE YOURSELF OR YOUR DELUSION AND VIOLENCE. *I AM HERE TO LIBERATE YOU FROM YOUR BINARY LOGIC, NOT TO BEHAVE AS PER YOUR BINARY LOGIC. I AM THE MULTIDIMENSIONAL LOGIC OF PARAMASHIVA. DON'T TRY TO BIND ME INTO YOUR BINARY LOGIC. *MY LEVEL OF INTEGRITY, AUTHENTICITY, LOYALTY AND HONESTY IS DIFFERENT. YOU CAN'T EVEN UNDERSTAND IT. USE THE ELECTRICITY AND ENRICH YOUR LIFE. DON'T SAY, ‘I WILL TRY TO UNDERSTAND ITS LOGIC BY PUTTING MY HAND INTO IT!’ I AM NOT EVEN ELECTRICITY, I AM A STRONG NUCLEAR FORCE AND SOMETHING MORE. *TYAGA IS A SUPERPOWER. IT MAKES ALL THE PAINS OF YOUR LIFE IRRELEVANT, ALL THE INCOMPLETIONS IRRELEVANT. TYAGA CAN CURE EVEN IF YOU HAVE CANCERS. IT CAN CURE ANY PHYSICAL AND MENTAL DISORDERS AND ATTRACT HUGE WEALTH AROUND YOU AND GIVE YOU SO MUCH ENERGY TO RELATE HAPPILY WITH 1000S OF PEOPLE WHICH IS A WEALTH. *AFTER GOING THROUGH SO MUCH, I AM TALKING ABOUT NONVIOLENCE, TYAGA, LOVE! *NOT ALLOWING THE FALSE BELIEF THAT YOU NEED TO STEAL FROM OTHERS TO LIVE, IS ‘ASTEYA’. THINKING THAT ‘YOU NEED TO FAKE LOVE AND STRATEGICALLY BEHAVE WITH OTHERS TO GET WHAT YOU WANT FROM OTHERS’ IS THE DELUSION. NOT HAVING THIS DELUSION IS ‘BRAHMACHARYA’. *I WILL HONESTLY SHARE ME WITH PEOPLE. AND WHOEVER HAS THAT LEVEL OF HONEST SHARING OF HIMSELF WITH ME IS IN PURE BRAHMACHARYA. HONESTY AND LOYALTY IS A POWER. HAVING THIS CLARITY AND NOT ALLOWING THE DELUSION THAT YOU NEED TO SEDUCE PEOPLE STRATEGICALLY TO GET WHAT YOU WANT, IS ‘BRAHMACHARYA’. *YOUR CORE BELIEFS ARE TOO IMPORTANT BECAUSE THEY ATTRACT THE LIFE, PEOPLE, INCIDENT, PLACES AND HAPPENINGS IN YOUR LIFE. YOUR CORE MASS DECIDES WHAT KIND OF A MASS IT IS GOING TO ATTRACT AROUND ITSELF AND WHAT SORT OF AN ECOSYSTEM IT IS GOING TO BECOME. *THE LAST FEW MONTHS, I AM INSISTING ON ALL THESE PRINCIPLES BECAUSE I AM READY WITH A GREAT GIT WHICH IS SOMETHING MORE THAN POWER MANIFESTATION. TO SHARE THAT WITH YOU ALL, I AM PREPARING ALL OF YOU. I AM GOING TO SHARE THAT WITH JUST 108 PEOPLE. I AM COLLECTING THAT 108 NOW. FOR YOU TO RECEIVE THAT GIFT YOU SHOULD BECOME GODS WITHOUT VIOLENCE, AND HAVING TYAGA, BUT VERY POWERFUL. I WANT TO GIVE YOU THAT POWER. I CANNOT GIVE THE NUCLEAR POWER TO A TERRORIST. HE WILL DESTROY THE WHOLE PLACE! I AM INSISTING ON THE CORE ORIGINAL PARAMASHIVA JNANA FOR THAT ONLY. *ALL OF YOU WHO ARE STILL CONNECTED TO ME ARE SURVIVORS OF THIS WORST HINDU HOLOCAUST. THE ATTACK NEED NOT BE ALWAYS KILLING. IT IS ALSO CONSCIOUSLY DESTROYING YOUR POSSIBILITY, WHICH IS WORSE THAN PHYSICALLY KILLING YOU. *I WANT ABSOLUTE TYAGIS WITHOUT ‘IF’S AND ‘BUT’S, TO WHOM I CAN TRANSMIT THIS, AS THE FIRST BATCH, AND I GUARANTEE PARAMASHIVATTVA IN YOU BEYOND YOUR IMAGINATION AND EXPECTATION. NO FEE FOR THIS PROGRAM. YOU SAY, ‘I AND MINE IS YOURS’ AND I SAY, ‘I AND MINE IS YOURS.’ RAMANA MAHARISHI SINGS, ‘I GAVE ME AND GOT YOU, WHO IS MORE INTELLIGENT O ARUNACHALA!’ *’NAMAHA’ MEANS, ‘ME’ AND ‘MINE’ ARE NOT MINE ANYMORE. I AM WAITING FOR THOSE 108 PEOPLE WHO ARE READY TO SAY ‘NAMAHA’ SO I CAN AWAKEN THEM AND TRANSMIT THIS BEING OF PARAMASHIVA IN THEM. FOR THAT YOU NEED TO BE ABSOLUTELY MATURE AND NONVIOLENT. *WHEN PEOPLE ABUSE YOU, IF YOU START ABUSING THEM BACK, YOU ARE A CHEAP CHANDALA. IF YOU SAY, ‘LET ME NOT ABUSE THEM AND CREATE MORE KARMA,’ YOU ARE A MIDDLE CLASS BRAHMANA. IF YOU UNDERSTAND, ‘ALL PUBLICITY IS GOOD PUBLICITY’, YOU ARE A LEADER, KSHATRIYA. IF YOU UNDERSTAND, ‘I AM PARAMASHIVA. NEITHER PEOPLE WHO ABUSE ME NOR THOSE WHO PRAISE ME KNOW ME. BOTH ARE IN DIFFERENT KIND OF DELUSION. PEOPLE WHO PRAISE ME, LET THEM HAVE REAL LOVE AND RECEIVE ONENESS FROM ME AND RAISE. OTHERS, LET THEM HAVE THEIR KARMA AND ATTRACT WHAT THEY WANT IN THEIR LIFE,’ THAT'S IT! THAT IS PARAMASHIVATTVA. *NEVER HAVE THE FEELING OF HITTING YOUR HEAD FROM INSIDE. YOU GETTING TENSED BECAUSE OF YOUR ENEMY IS LIKE YOUR ENEMY HITTING YOUR HEAD ON THE WALL. WHY ARE YOU MAKING YOUR ENEMY SUCCESSFUL? STRESS IS YOUR ENEMY'S SLEEPER CELL INSIDE YOU DESTROYING YOUR LIFE CONTINUOUSLY. THIS IS FOR MY DISCIPLES. IF YOU ARE NOT A DISCIPLE, YOU WILL THINK I HAVE A CUNNING STRATEGY AND YOU WILL CONTINUE TO HAVE VIOLENCE AND SUFFER FROM IT. *HAVE THE CONTEXT: YOU ARE PARAMASHIVA AND FROM THAT SPACE, ACT AND REACT. THEN YOU WILL MANIFEST POWER, LOVE, TYAGA. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS: VARA VENKAT IS ASKING, ‘HOW TO ACTIVATE INTELLIGENCE IN AUTISM KIDS? SOME HAVE INTELLECTUAL DISABILITIES TOO, WHICH PREVENTS THEM FROM EFFECTIVELY COMMUNICATING WITH OTHERS, LOW IQ AND DIFFICULTY TAKING CARE OF THEMSELVES. THEY LACK SPONTANEOUS INTELLIGENCE BUT HAVE AN AMAZING MEMORY.’ THE ONLY WAY TO ACTIVATE INTELLIGENCE IN AUTISM KIDS IS THIRD EYE AWAKENING. WE HAVE HEALED SUCCESSFULLY 100S AND 100S OF AUTISM KIDS THROUGH THIRD EYE AWAKENING AND APPLYING JNANANJANA AND OUR GURUKUL TRAINING IS THE BEST. BRING THEM TO OUR GURUKUL AND HAVE THIRD EYE AWAKENED, THAT'S IT. ANANDA SADYOJATA SHIVAM IS ASKING, ‘WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TYAGA AND UNCLUTCHING?’ TYAGA IS THE CONSCIOUS DECISION TO UNCLUTCH. AND UNCLUTCHING IS THE CONSCIOUS DECISION TO DO TYAGA. UNCLUTCHING IS THE ACTION AWAKENING THE CHEMISTRY OF TYAGA. TYAGA IS THE BIOLOGY WHICH AWAKENS BY THE CHEMICAL ACTION OF UNCLUTCHING. I WAS TELLING MY SANYASI, ‘WHEN YOUR IRON CONTENT GOES LOW, WHEN YOU GO INTO DEPRESSION, YOU CAN CONSCIOUSLY DECIDE TO PICK UP THE TANTRUM-THROWING PATTERN AND TORTURE YOURSELF AND OTHERS, OR YOU CAN BECOME AGGRESSIVE AND ACTIVE AND BECOME WORKAHOLIC! IT IS YOUR CONSCIOUS CHOICE. CHEMISTRY IS THE SICKNESS, BIOLOGY IS A CONSCIOUS DECISION. TYAGA IS A CONSCIOUS DECISION TO UNCLUTCH. ACTUALLY, WHENEVER YOU AUTOMATICALLY FEEL LIKE UNCLUTCHING, UNCLUTCH BASED ON TYAGA, NOT BASED ON DEPRESSION. ONLY IF YOU APPLY IT INTERNALLY, YOU WILL UNDERSTAND DEEPLY WHAT I AM SAYING. NEXT QUESTION, ‘SWAMIJI, JUST LIKE HOW FIRE BURNS IS NOT TRUE, TIME MOVES IS NOT TRUE. EARTH REVOLVES IS NOT TRUE, LANGUAGE WHICH IS PART OF MY REALITY IS NOT TRUE. IS IT THERE BECAUSE WE WERE TAUGHT THAT IT IS? I FEEL I WON’T BE ABLE TO HANDLE THE REALITY IF NONE OF THIS IS TRUE. THAT IS WHY YOU CONTINUE TO BE IN DELUSION. WHENEVER YOU FEEL THE REALITY WILL BE VERY DIFFICULT TO UNDERSTAND, YOU CLOSE YOUR EYES SO TIGHTLY, THAT YOU CLOSE YOUR THIRD EYE ALSO. NO ONE HAS CLOSED YOUR THIRD EYE OTHER THAN YOURSELF. YOU CLOSED IT BECAUSE YOU FEEL REALITY WILL BE TERRIFYING. BUT YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND, IF ALL YOUR SINS WILL LEAD YOU TO NARAKA, ALL YOUR SACRED ACTS WILL LEAD YOU TO SWARGA! DON'T BE AFRAID OF REALITY. YOU ARE ALREADY HAVING YOUR REALITY. WHAT IS THERE TO BE AFRAID OF IT? CLICK WITH THIS! YOU ALREADY HAVE YOUR HUSBAND OR WIFE WHO IS YOUR REALITY, WHO REMINDS YOU ABOUT YOUR REALITY! WHAT ELSE ARE YOU AFRAID OF? THERE IS NOTHING MORE TO BE TERRORISED ABOUT! THERE IS NOTHING MORE TO BE SUFFERED OR TO BE WORRIED ABOUT OR DISTURBED ABOUT. HAVE THAT COURAGE. YOU WILL START SEEING THINGS AS IT IS. AND YOU WILL START SEEING REALITY. MA SAKALA IS ASKING, ‘SWAMIJI, DO WE EXIST IN MULTIPLE DIMENSIONS SIMULTANEOUSLY?’ YES, YES, YES! THE EXISTENCE OF YOU IN MULTIPLE DIMENSIONS SIMULTANEOUSLY, IS WHAT I CALL YOUR ‘CONSCIOUSNESS’. YOU HAVE 14 EXISTENCES, NOT IDENTITIES. ALL THE 14 IS CONNECTED BY ONE BEING, WHICH IS CALLED ‘CONSCIOUSNESS’. HOW YOU EXIST IN YOUR DREAM, IN YOUR WAKING STATE, IN YOUR FANTASY, ALL THOSE EXISTENCES ARE CONNECTED BY ONE BEING - YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS. AND YOU EXIST SIMULTANEOUSLY IN ALL 14 AT A TIME. SAKALA, YOU CONTINUE TO EXIST AS YOUR DREAM PERSON, AS YOUR WAKING STATE PERSON AND AS YOUR KAILASA PERSON! YOU ARE ALREADY EXISTING IN KAILASA WITH ME! THAT PERSON IS ONLY IS ‘SAKALANANDA’. YOU SITTING IN OHIO, IS YOUR WAKING STATE PERSON. AND STILL YOU HAVING INTERNAL CONFLICTS, IS YOUR DREAM PERSONALITY. AND YOU COMING TO COMPLETION AND DECIDING YOU ARE GOING TO ACHIEVE WITH WILL PERSISTENCE, IS YOUR FANTASY PERSON. IF YOU DECIDE TO EMPOWER YOUR 14 EXISTENCES, YOU WILL BE HERE IN KAILASA! DECIDING TO EMPOWER YOUR ‘HIGHEST PERSONALITY AND DROPPING ALL THE LOWER’ IS TYAGA. *I AM NOW GOING TO DO THE ASHTABHAIRAVA NYASA PROCESS - AWAKENING THE ASHTABHAIRAVAS IN ALL OF US WITH THE GRACE OF PARAMASHIVA AND THE BLESSINGS OF BHAIRAVA. IF ALL THESE DAYS, THE PROCESS WAS LIKE A MILLION DOLLAR, TODAY’S PROCESS IS LIKE A BILLION DOLLAR!

Sri Nithyananda Paramashivam Supreme Pontiff of Hinduism

#notselfstyledgodmanButSupremePontiffOfHinduism

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poetzproblem · 6 years

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I have started to notice something and was wondering if there is a reason to it. Why is Quinn always the one in the wrong? On DOEP, on the baby discussion (she wasn't wrong but she was putted as the one who overreacted), on POTS (by the debates on the blog you can see who people deem wrong) and on the Teresa thing, where Rachel was in the wrong, Quinn was still the one who ended being forgived for going to confront Teresa (and lets be honest, if Quinn was the one who flirted + \Part 1/2

+++ she would have received a lot more of backlash than Rachel). Is it because of considering Rachel incapable of doing any wrong? Or because Quinn’s past mistakes will always put her as the “bad” one? I’m not trying to criticized you! I’m actually asking because I didn’t notice this only here. And Merry Christmas! Part 2/2

I won’t answer in a blanket statement for other writers or fandom in general. And it’s not my intention to seem rude or evasive, but I’ve gotten variations of this question in the past. Yours is certainly the nicest version to date, but it always seems to lead into a debate about the way fandom writes Quinn or the way I write Quinn that I’d rather not revisit again. So right up front, I’m making it known that I’ll answer this question in regards to my own writing and the examples you’ve listed but I won’t be answering follow-ups on this particular subject.

To start, I have to say that I personally feel like the interpretation of which character is wrong and which is right in any given circumstance more often than not might be based on the readers’ own character preferences. And that’s not a criticism of you, Anon. We all have our favorites, and we all tend to bring our own expectations and perception to every story we read of film we see or television show we watch.

Perception can also be influenced by the point of view that a story is being told in—Rachel is obviously going to think she’s right even when she’s wrong. So is Quinn.

That being said, I don’t agree that some of the examples you listed above paint Quinn as the bad guy or as wrong. And I’m not automatically going to claim that I’m right because I wrote them, because I understand that some people will read a situation differently than I do or miss the more subtle cues that I try to add into the text—and if that second one is the case, then I’ve failed to some degree as a writer.

My own interpretation to these specific situations is explained under the cut for those who don’t care to read the long-winded fic analysis:

In DOEP, yes, Quinn placating her ex-girlfriend in front of her current girlfriend and failing to see the problem in that did make her more in the wrong in that situation—though Rachel’s behavior isn’t perfect. She’s jealous and possessive and gets angry at Quinn because she feels hurt. If someone feels that wasn’t adequately acknowledged in her own internal admission of her jealousy over Sarah and her external apology for walking away from Quinn without telling her exactly why she was upset rather than leaving Quinn to guess at it, then again, I failed somewhere in the text.

But I disagree that Quinn was painted as wrong with the baby situation. It was a no-win argument for both of them, and I feel that I portrayed it that way. Quinn wanted what she wanted and Rachel didn’t, and Quinn felt hurt and betrayed and angry and then disappointed—all perfectly natural reactions for someone in her position. And Rachel felt pressured and defensive and terrified and then guilty—also natural reactions. Neither of them were wrong, but both of them initially reacted in wrong ways. Rachel got defensive instead of admitting what her real concerns were, and Quinn got upset and belligerent.

The place where Quinn admits (and Santana agrees) that she may have overreacted was specifically in reference to her conversation with Santana—which I never wrote out in detail—where she claimed that her marriage was built on lies just because Rachel wasn’t ready for a baby right at that moment. But that overreaction was Quinn being led by her anger at the perception that Rachel was shutting down her dream of a family.

For me, Quinn being quick to anger is as much a part of her character as Rachel’s self-centeredness. Maybe that makes it seem like she’s being shown as the one who’s wrong, but for me, it’s a Fabray characteristic that Rachel is well acquainted with.

And that also played into the situation surrounding Rachel’s first meeting with Teresa. Quinn was most certainly not wrong for being upset that Rachel was a little too flattered by another woman flirting with her. I never wrote out that particular argument, but in Make Me Wanna Stay, it is mentioned that they’d had one and that Rachel had apologized for failing to make it known that she wasn’t interested in Teresa. Quinn’s apology wasn’t about Quinn confronting Teresa specifically; it was that she was being a little vindictive about the whole situation by throwing Rachel’s mistake back in her face when Rachel thought that she’d already been forgiven—and doing it in a way that played on Rachel’s insecurities about how easily Quinn could seduce a woman like Teresa if she wanted. And that’s happening because Quinn is still insecure about Rachel—it’s still early days in their relationship after all. They very specifically both acknowledged that they hadn’t handled it in the best way and apologized to each other for their behavior.

That particular ficlet was, in fact, a direct response to conversations on this blog regarding Shuffling the Cards Of Your Game. Some people felt that Quinn had the right to be angrier at Rachel about the Teresa thing than she seemed by the actual confrontation with Teresa while others felt like Quinn confronting Teresa was a problem because it meant that Quinn was being jealous and didn’t trust Rachel. I realized that both were valid points, so I wrote that scene to address those concerns to some degree and to show that, at that point in their relationship, they were still learning how to be a couple and building a new kind of trust and that it wasn’t always smooth sailing.

Again, these things happen in DB because Quinn is not completely defanged from her high school self. She’s not a saint, and she occasionally does or says hurtful things because she’s been hurt. Rachel will react to that as Rachel would–with all of their history in play. And Rachel occasionally acts selfishly or thoughtlessly and ends up hurting Quinn. And they both occasionally get defensive and confrontational. But then they talk it out and make compromises.

And Rachel is the one that ‘compromised’ on the baby thing, admitting that she was wrong to let her fear stop her from fully embracing having a family with Quinn.

As for POTS, I feel like it’s the discussion on this blog that’s more coloring the perception of Quinn being at fault in some way than the stories themselves. Quinn isn’t being cast as the villain in that universe—she had every right to be hurt by Rachel’s rejection of her in the first part. In fact, Rachel was pretty much seen as the bad guy right after the first installment.

I think most people understand why Quinn never wanted to speak to Rachel again after what she believed had been done to her. Rachel led her on and made her believe she was finally getting everything she wanted only to rip it away in the worst way imaginable at her absolute most vulnerable moment. But maybe because Rachel got the closing point of view where we find out the why of everything, she ends up getting a little more sympathy in the discussions that followed here because she’s the one who ended up alone and unhappy while Quinn has (mostly) moved on. And, as someone pointed out, they both really sucked at communicating in that universe, so Quinn refusing to take Rachel’s calls—even if she and Rachel both felt it was justified in the text—wasn’t really the healthiest way for either of them to move on.

I realize that none of this is liable to change an opinion of anyone that feels that my writing is unbalanced regarding Quinn, but I truly do try to explore situations with them in ways that I think are true to their characters and derived from the traits they were given in canon combined with the ‘growth’ I believe they’ve had through the progression of the overall story. And I understand that my interpretation of the characters may not match up to what someone else believes it should be, but it’s my interpretation, and I’m going to keep writing them the way I believe they’d act.

#Anonymous

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leigh-kelly · 7 years

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It's Deeper, Dear, By Far, Than Any Ocean

#brittana #fire island #starlight!verse #1940's fire island

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quietpagan · 7 years

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TH What Falls and What Grows 11

“But he who dares not grasp the thorn

Should never crave the rose.”

― Anne Brontë

Alexandra spent the rest of the evening, through the night, and into the morning tearing through Kanjigar’s library. It was an incredible collection – as vast and diverse as that of Blinky’s brother’s. There were anthologies of poems and sagas that Kanjigar liked –

- And damn, was it weird to think of Kanjigar in both past and present tense –

- and books of obscure lore; personal diaries of previous Trollhunters; the short, bloody journal of a Gumm-Gumm that ominously cut off in the middle of the page; several incongruous human comics and graphic novels; pages of construction details for pieces of Heartstone Trollmarket that Alex guessed Kanjigar had been helping with; letters from people who needed the Trollhunter’s help, and from others thanking him; Supernatural-esque journals of how to defeat certain creatures; sixteen beautifully illustrated manuscripts, both human and troll; stone tablets covered in swirling carvings and indecipherable runes; the entire Lord of the Rings series and accompanying books; a bunch of rocks delicately carved with notes from a goblin spy; a page from what Alex really, really hoped was a Codex Regius; two books that she knew by smell were bound in human skin, and another that was bound in troll skin, which was as impressive as it was gruesome, because the troll would have had to have been alive at the time of the skin-removal; and a much-annotated list of children suspected stolen to the Darklands (her name wasn’t on it), to name a few. It was heaven.

It was a Library of Alexandria, in a pocket dimension underneath a small California town. In fact, she was sure that one of the scrolls had come from the Library of Alexandria.

Blinky could spit in her face and kick one of her cats right now and she’d forgive him immediately.

She left only once, before getting too deep into anything, to get more lamps and a pot of tea, but as soon as she approached the first shelf she lost all sense of time.

Hopefully Kanjigar wouldn’t mind her digging through his stuff, but if he did, it was too bad. She’d landed a punch on his chest and he was a fucking ghost, so he could deal with her reading his love letters to Draal’s delightfully crude mother.

It was weird. She was looking through the personal items of a dead man, but a dead man who could still berate her for it.

This will be entertaining, Alexandra thought, deliberately setting her tea cup down on a hand-drawn journal of medicinal plants and tapping her feet to one of his Santana records. She got comfortable on Kanjigar’s neatly-made bed, now stacked with disorganized books, and only was pried from the room when Blinky and AAARRRGGHH came to collect her mid-morning, bearing food and apologies.

She was in a good enough mood that Blinky was ‘forgiven’ for the whole Changeling debacle, and they finally put the incident aside and settled in the Forge for a proper training session.

Blinky was convinced that her sword skills, such as they were, would at least allow her to get away from her opponent. So, she was banned from using the sword for the next several sessions. His lessons instead included, but were not limited to: rock climbing, dodging fireballs, being attacked from all sides by larger opponents, being attacked from all sides by smaller opponents, and then archery, which she actually rather liked.

“Where in the hell would I need to know how to climb a damn rock?” “Your fights will not be restricted to only Bular, Master Alexandra! What will you do if confronted, for example, by a hydrabeast? One cut, and you will have a multitude of opponents instead of just one!”

“Then I set it on fire.”

“Where will you get matches,” Blinky said dryly.

Alexandra dodged a rock, caught it, and threw it at his head.

“A hydrabeast has weaknesses under its scaly armor,” Alex said, remembering her texts and making Blinky grin even as he ducked. “Strike when its scales are flared, and then kill it.”

“Excellent, Master Alexandra! Just be sure to – “ Alex didn’t hear his next words, as she was barreled over by a stone arm from behind.

“Ah. Yes. Do not get distracted while trying to think of how to defeat your opponent,” Blinky said.

Alexandra huffed and picked herself up, throwing herself at a large blade as it flew past her. Digging her claws into the rock, she pulled herself to the top of the blade and ran along its flat edge, and then jumped onto a moving level when the blade reached its zenith.

“And…oof! You’ll find all of these opponents in Arcadia?” “Oh, surely not,” said Blinky, as he activated another part of the Death Arena and forced her to dodge a swath of flaming arrows. One nicked the edge of a horn.

I swear if I lose another goddamn eye…

“You’ll be hard-pressed to find a rust-troll or Batmugg here, but that does not mean that one may not come, or that you might not be called away to a different locale. As Trollhunter, your protection spreads over the whole of the human and troll worlds, and you most likely will have to travel extensively to fulfill your duties.”

“Your domain stretches farther than Arcadia,” said a whispy voice, one that Alex wasn’t entirely sure was not in her head.

“Not you assholes again,” she hissed, as the red of the Forge began to dim. She quickly jumped to the main floor and ran over to Blinky, surprising him when she grabbed him by the arms. Surely they wouldn’t grab her and Blinky. The darkness and stars receded as quickly as they had appeared, and after a moment she let go of the other troll, who looked completely stunned.

“You were summoned?”

Alex nodded, still giving the Forge a look-over. When she glanced back at Blinky, he had his hands over his mouth and something suspiciously twinkling in his eyes.

“What?” “The Trollhunters of old – they gave you council?” “In…a manner of speaking,” Alex murmured. In the distance, she heard the tapping of Vendel’s staff. “They mostly insulted me and offered bad advice.”

Blinky rolled his eyes.

“Only you, I believe, would take being summoned by our most esteemed warriors as a session of ‘bad advice’, and refuse another summons.” “I’m busy,” Alex said, and threw her sword across the arena, where it lodged in the side of a stone statue’s head.

“And you are about to become busier.”

Alex and Blinky turned to the bridge, where Vendel was slowly making his way across. AAARRRGGHH was following him, looking unusually glum.

“Ah, Vendel! Perhaps you would like to see how our Trollhunter – “ “I know how she progresses,” interrupted the larger troll, completely ignoring Blinky and standing directly in front of Alexandra. She refused to back down, even though his cataract-sprinkled eyes seemed to bore right through her.

“What I am interested in is how she manages on an actual assignment.” Blinky, not to Alexandra’s surprise, did not argue but instead clutched his hands behind his back. She and he both knew that it was far past time for her to do some actual troll-hunting.

“Your physical training goes well, Trollhunter, but you must be able to assist in any situation. Many will not involve battles or fights, but will be tests of how you deal with people and how sound your judgement may be.”

“What’s the assignment,” Alex asked. Vendel briefly looked over at Blinky.

“The Killahead Bridge, as you may know, was torn apart and scattered, to various locations around the world, some of which even I don’t know about.” “Has something gone wrong,” Blinky asked. Vendel nodded grimly.

“I have lost communications with one of my contacts in England. She was supposed to send me an updated census of trolls in the United Kingdom, but has not answered my letters or scrying-calls. I want our new Trollhunter to check on her and ensure that both her post and what she guards are secure.”

Alexandra nodded, already gearing herself up for the assignment. “Alright,” she said. “Where in England does she live?”

“I have absolutely no idea.”

I guess this is part of the test.

It certainly was going to be a test, because she and Blinky needed to go to the museum, and Alexandra had no idea if Nomura would be there or not. She hoped to hell that she didn’t have to encounter the other Changeling, especially since Nomura would possibly recognize her.

Blinky wouldn’t be swayed from accompanying her, and when AAARRRGGHH found out that his friend was going he decided that he was coming too, and Alexandra wanted to claw her eyes out. She could run a recon mission, but not with two other trolls, neither of whom was particularly good at being sneaky. She was feeling testy already.

The reason they had to go to the museum was to find some sort of text that hinted at locations of some of the Bridge’s pieces. To prevent discovery or betrayal, there was nobody who actually knew the locations of more than a few pieces; instead, they knew where to find clues to some of the pieces. It was horrendously complicated and convoluted, but effective; in order to put together the bridge someone would have to go through dozens of people and go on hundreds of scavenger hunts. It wasn’t efficient, but Alexandra could appreciate the complexity.

“Why not just smash the pieces,” she muttered later that evening, when night had fallen and she, Blinky, and AAARRRGGHH were scoping out the museum. “Just turn it to dust and scatter it on a beach somewhere. Boom. No need to guard fucking dust.”

“The Killahead Bridge is an object of immense power,” replied Blinky. “Each stone is seeped with magic. One cannot simply destroy it.”

AAARRRGGHH, ineffectively hiding behind a short tree, nodded in agreement of his friend.

“Would if we could,” he rumbled.

“Exactly. Now, should we proceed, Master Alexandra?” Alex kept her eyes on the museum but nodded. She’d had them waiting and watching the place for almost two hours, just to see if anyone came or went, and since no one had shown she really couldn’t put it off for much longer. Her lower hands worried over the loading of the little gun she’d brought, in case she needed to shoot Nomura in the face.

“Come on,” she whispered, stowing it in her back pocket. “And stay quiet.”

She led them around the back of the building. From her pocket she felt a little stone amulet, something Blinky had gotten for her from a shop. It was inscribed with a sigil that meant sight, and then violently chiseled over. Apparently it was supposed to cause any cameras to go dark in its presence, but Alexandra knew it was unnecessary. She’d only been to the museum once, but once had been enough to see that the cameras were not in operation. It was a good thought, though.

She jimmied open a window just barely large enough for her to fit through. She and Blinky had to find a door for AAARRRGGHH, which made her grit her teeth, but she stayed silent about his and Blinky’s presences. Two of the doors were alarmed, but the third, a maintenance door hidden behind an over-crowded archiving room, was not. Together again, Alex led them silently through the halls, her ears strained for any sound. They turned the corner to a hallway under construction, and that’s when the smell hit her.

Goblins.

It was faint – probably from the other end of the museum – but the scent was distinct and put her on edge. She backtracked and took them around another section of the building, going at an almost snail-like pace until they reached a small room dedicated to manuscripts. She shoved Blinky forward and he looked around before silently pointing at a large book under a glass case.

Luckily for them, the museum had been more concerned with architecture than security, and Alex lifted the glass case off without any alarms sounding. Blinky paged through the book, eyes roaming at impressive speeds, and Alex stood guard with AAARRRGGHH at the doorway.

She didn’t like the presence of goblins here. When she first visited the museum over a year ago, they hadn’t been in the museum, or at least she hadn’t smelled any evidence of them. So it was a new development, and Alex wondered what had changed. Whatever it was and whatever Nomura was getting up to, it wouldn’t be good for Trollmarket. Everything seemed to be happening in Arcadia; understandable, since it stood directly above the largest population of trolls in North America, but by Alexandra’s count there were three changelings in the town, as well as goblins, and the son of Gunmar. Wherever Bular was, something important was happening. She knew that they were looking for ways to get the Bridge back together, but had they really found enough pieces to begin building?

The disappearance of Vendel’s contact was an even worse omen if the actual rebuilding of the Bridge was becoming a reality.

A very soft aha drew Alex’s attention away from the deserted hallway. Blinky had found what he needed.

Alex shushed him when he began to explain what he had found, and carefully replaced both the manuscript and the case it was under. The three of them tiptoed through the empty museum again and encountered nothing of concern, until the last hallway before the maintenance door.

The scent of Bular hit her like a brick to the face, and by the way AAARRRGGHH froze behind her she knew that he had recognized it, too.

And he was close.

Alex motioned for the others to stay still, smacking Blinky into submission when he kept gesturing for her to don her armor, and she crept forward into the hall, keeping close to the shadows and the walls. She wanted her armor too, but it was too shiny and it clanked to high hell.

A bright light flashed through a doorway at the end of the hall and Alex hastily beat a retreat, grabbing Blinky and AAARRRGGHH and rushing them as quickly as she could to the maintenance door. There was no was in hell that she was going to risk getting caught for the sake of checking that out. Whatever Bular was up to in the museum would have to be a mystery until Alexandra could come back without two huge liabilities walking around with her.

She refused to let them stop or speak until they were safely inside Trollmarket again, the portal shut behind them. A cold shiver ran through her shoulders even though she knew they had not been followed, and she shook it off with a huff, still creeped-out.

Blinky waited patiently for her to gather herself.

“Yes, Blinky, what did you find?” “Have you ever heard of curse tablets?” Alexandra, jumping down the crystal staircase, pursed her lips.

“No, I can’t say that I have. What are they?” “Well,” Blinky began, climbing down behind her, “They are sheets of metal inscribed with a text, sometimes names, sometimes prayers, sometimes pleas for justice, that are buried or placed in tombs, or even occasionally tossed into wells. They originated in the Greco-Roman age, and the manuscript I found featured illustrations of several of them. One held an untranslated inscription thought to be a form of Celtic language; it is, in fact, Trollish.”

“Ancient troll curse?” asked AAARRRGGHH as they made it to the bottom of the staircase.

“Indeed it was, although not so much as curse as a plea. It was incomplete, but from context I can infer that the words inscribed were ‘may he never rise’. ‘He’, of course, is referring to Gunmar.” They scooted through Trollmarket for a minute, until Alexandra finally asked, “Alright, what the hell does that mean? Where is the stone?”

“The stone, Master Alexandra, is in Somerset, England,” said Blinky triumphantly, walking ahead of her and turning them in the direction of the gyre portal. “In the waters of Sulis, in the valley of the river Avon and the Roman baths built thereupon!”

“Hate gyre,” AAARRRGGHH muttered beside Alex.

Blinky loved the gyre. Where spars and fights thrilled others he just got tired and grumpy, but the gyre pumped his adrenalin and made him feel like he was flying. He felt a little bad because his friend loathed the experience so much and so he made up for it by not using the device nearly as often as he would have liked, but Alexandra seemed to get some enjoyment out of the turns and flips and immense speeds gained by the machine.

Their foray into the museum had not nearly been as exciting nor as dangerous as he had anticipated; he wished they could have stayed and explored a little longer – so many wonderful artifacts! – but Alexandra had been on edge the entire time and even AAARRRGGHH, who rarely had a problem being above ground, had tensed on the way back. Blinky had only figured out that the smell of strange troll had been Bular’s scent later, when the excitement of figuring out the clue had faded slightly.

The gyre trip was relatively short, from California to Arizona, where they would catch a bridge to London.

The New London Bridge in Lake Havasu City, Arizona, was the only place where a troll could travel by bridge from North America to Europe. The bridge had originally been built over the Thames river before being sold and relocated to Arizona in the late 1960’s. A new bridge had been built in its place over the Thames, and the two London Bridges shared a magical connection that allowed trolls to move between continents without having to resort to hiding away in a boat or a plane.

The actual crossing of the portal was one of the most interesting experiences Blinky had had in the whole century; the process was a mixture of a typical portal opening using a horngazel and something akin to Platform 9 ¾ from the Harry Potter series, hidden from human sight by use of the tunnels under the bridge. They emerged in the London underground just as night was beginning to fall, and they caught another gyre to the city of Bath in Somerset County. AAARRRGGHH, who had never been to England apart from their initial crossing to the New World, was fascinated by the landscape and architecture they saw when they finally departed their gyre. Alexandra too looked around with interest, and Blinky wondered if she had ever left the United States. He himself had been to England a few times before the migration, but so many things had changed in the hundreds of years since that he recognized nothing.

They emerged from the underground just as the sun began to rise, which meant that they would have to wait the entire day before they could explore Bath. It was not a popular troll destination and did not have many places to stay the day, so they opted to remain in London until nightfall. Most of the underground was bedding down, but although Blinky found them temporary lodgings Alexandra was more interested in exploring than sleeping. Both Blinky – who had been recognized by several of the stall-keepers in the market that surrounded the portal – and AAARRRGGHH, who spent nearly an hour meeting-and-greeting with people who wanted to have a word with the famed former general, retreated to their rooms for some well-earned sleep. Alexandra watched them from the other side of the market, having ducked away as soon as they’d arrived. Blinky was everything but subtle, and she wanted to have a little time to herself before he outed her as the new Trollhunter.

The market was quite extensive. Built in the troll counterpart of a busy airport, it wasn’t really as homey as Heartstone Trollmarket, but the stalls held a more international selection of cures and curios, and there was an immensely greater variety of trolls meandering about. She actually wandered past a group of her and Blinky’s kin, but as they only spoke Norse and a universal Trollish, she didn’t stay any longer than to say that she was from out of town and no, she wasn’t kin to Edda’s husband Ragnold.

Alexandra – who still didn’t have any money, Trollhunting really didn’t pay well at all – swapped her old, faded (vintage, she called it) sarong for an actual pair of pants, and traded in one of the hairballs she now hoarded for a small history book and the most recent edition of the troll equivalent of a newspaper.

For the first time, Alexandra found herself in the local watering hole, sitting by herself in a corner table with a drink of questionable palatability in a stone cup under her nose. She faintly remembered the foul smell of glog from her Darkland days and did not count herself lucky to have encountered it again, but it seemed like the popular drink of the establishment and she was trying to be popular-ish. Really, her head was pounding and she probably looked even more tired and disheveled than she felt, but hey. Effort. ‘Be nice and a people person’ was penciled into her schedule for the next millennium, or at as long as it took to get a decent reputation.

She probably looked unsociable, sitting alone with a book under her nose, but if she was going to be with these people, performing this role, living this life until she died, it was going to get very tiring to keep up an entirely fake persona, especially when that persona was supposed to be gregarious. When she first entered Trollmarket she had a distinct personality she had assumed, but keeping it up for the next forever was not something she was willing to continue.

She read for an hour or so, only getting up once to refill her disgusting drink. As far as bars went, it was a good one, quiet-ish and atmospheric.

A group of trolls at one of the middle tables kept giving her looks, their gazes moving from her freshly-scarred face up to her horns, down to her arms and the hand she was tapping on one knee. It had been a while since she’d been given a good appreciative glance. She wasn’t sure exactly what passed as attractive for trolls, but since no one here yet knew her as Trollhunter and the group was staring at her biceps, she assumed that she made the bar.

Sorry, boys, Alex thought with a measure of amusement, I don’t have a second of time for you.

She hadn’t had a relationship in a while, but was not in need of one now. Another complication might just kill her.

Did trolls even do sex? She hadn’t actually got to a book that really described the physical process of making whelps yet, a gap in her knowledge that, in relation to current events, was not actually important but seemed glaring anyway. She knew, at least, that there were ‘gronk-nuks’ and a need for some trolls to wear pants or loincloths, so there had to be some useful bits somewhere.

Considering that most trolls were seven feet or taller and nearly as broad, Alex wasn’t quite sure if she really did or really did not want to know. The fact that she herself only wore a vest out of habit, not need, was a stark reminder of how little she knew of even her own anatomy.

Either way, she wouldn’t be finding out from experience anytime soon, so unless she wanted to bug Kanjigar into giving her a horrendously awkward Talk she’d just have to guess.

It might annoy him, though…

Her growing amusement was interrupted by a presence at the end of her table; she looked up to see one of the males from the middle tables grinning at her.

“Enjoying your stay in London, love,” he said in Trollish, standing in a posture that he probably thought was rather roguish.

Oh, Lord, it’s like he looked it up in a book. ‘How to be Creepy and Cliché, 101’.

“Until now,” she replied sweetly, pointedly tapping a finger against the back of her book.

A female from his table egged him on, and he sat down in an unoccupied chair.

“No need to be like that, woman, I’m just trying to be friendly – “ Alexandra tossed down her book, grabbed him by the collar of his vest, and hauled him out of his chair, slamming his face against the table hard enough to cause it to crack. Spilled glog softly dripped on the floor. The bar was quieter, but not silent, clearly accustomed to rowdy patrons. The male’s mouth was bleeding and he tried to pull away, but Alexandra had two extra arms and leverage, and he was pushed down again.

“So am I,” she said in his ear. “But talk to me like that again and you’ll see me be unfriendly.”

He trembled against the table for an instant before she let him go, and as he tumbled to the floor Alex picked up her book, made an apologizing gesture to the annoyed barkeep, and settled back down to read, keeping one eye on the bleeding troll. She silently crowed in triumph as he massaged his jaw and stared at her. He was blushing greatly and Alex realized with a jolt that she had probably just done the troll equivalent of flirting outrageously. He watched her for another moment, his friends at his back shouting for him to try again, but he slowly retreated. Alex watched him down the rest of his drink and leave the bar.

She really was enjoying her stay in London.

Around nine in the morning she dragged herself into the city above, Changing quietly in the shadows before blending in seamlessly with the crowd of the Underground. The problem of money was resolved by pick-pocketing a tourist with a fanny pack, and she got a train to Bath, using the travel time to update her appearance.

The baths were unlike anything she had ever seen before, and part of her wanted to take a flying leap into the green waters. The rising sun was at an angle to perfectly illuminate the yellowed stone walls, casting deep shadows into corners. Outside there was a bit of morning traffic, but in the baths it was quiet, and peaceful, with only a few human voices mingling with the sound of flaming torches and rushing water. A few pigeons cooed as they bathed themselves, and from the top Alex could see a magnificently built cathedral. She felt peaceful – but she couldn’t just perambulate with no rhyme or reason; she had a job to do.

The baths seemed innocuous enough, but she scoured the place for any sign of troll or Changeling activity. She knew there was at least one troll around – Vendel’s contact, who had gone missing – but she didn’t know if the woman stayed in the baths or if she lived elsewhere. There was a faint trollish smell in some of the quieter rooms; the shadowed nooks and rising steam actually made very good cover for any troll working around, especially in the East baths and changing rooms, but whoever Vendel’s friend was, she was good – Alex didn’t see a single trace of troll. Considering that the woman was missing, that could be a very good or very bad thing.

“Gunmar wafa prieklan,” she muttered to herself whenever she passed an employee of the Baths, giving them a knowing look as she did so. Most of them smiled politely and moved on, but the receptionist in the tiny gift shop snapped her eyes on Alex and sharply grinned.

“Gunman wafa prieklan,” she replied, putting down her western romance. Alex briefly allowed her eyes to glow. She’s put on a new face on the train, wrapped in a floral scarf and with pigtails, jeweled glasses, and a small gap painted between her front teeth with ink from a pen she’d eaten, and with a Welsh accent she was the picture of a country-girl touring the city.

“Stricklander sent me,” she said, casting a brief glance to the door before leaning on the counter.

“He is anxious to make sure all loose ends are tied up. Are you sure every troll is accounted for?” The other Changeling nodded, lightly fingering her necklace of beads. Alex noted that several of them looked to be carved out of teeth. Jesus.

“There were only the two,” she said, “And our spy overcame them easily enough. There’s not much you can do against a horde of angry goblins.”

Alex, who had known a horde of angry goblins, nodded in agreement.

“There’s also the matter of the stone…” The other Changeling allowed her eyes to flash in annoyance.

“I’ll find it when I find it,” she said. “There’s only so much information you can get out of a corpse.”

“Which is why I’m here,” said Alexandra. “Stricklander is very insistent about getting the stone as soon as possible.” “What, he can’t be arsed to come and get it himself?” “He’s too important, the bloody twmffat.” They shared a mutual grin. Nobody liked Stricklander, who was more pompous than a peacock and enjoyed pretending that he was the boss. Alex was glad that most Changelings had an immediate comradery, born of being the outcasts of both worlds. They’d happily stab each other in the backs at a moment’s notice when it became necessary, but until then any Changeling was as good as family as soon as they met.

“I’ve got until tonight,” Alexandra said. “Information from one of our spies says that a delegation from Trollmarket will be coming around. They’ve noticed the absence of their contact here.” The Changeling cursed, quietly and fervently.

“I can’t get my information organized that quickly,” she hissed. “Is this someone we can take out?” Alex shook her head.

“They’ve got the general AAARRRGGHH with them,” she said. The Changeling paled. “That’s the only one I know of for sure. There are two or three others.” A pair of tourists came in then, giggling about the taste of the spring’s water. Alex gave them a smile and turned back to her fellow.

“Is there somewhere we can meet for lunch?”

It was nearing nightfall before she got back on the train, her head buzzing with information but her heart heavy with guilt.

She never used to be guilty about killing someone. It was always a necessity, for safety or secrecy – as this murder was as well, but she still felt bad.

In her defense, she had tried. She’d told the Changeling – Emma Anglia – that she was working for the Trollhunter, that Gunmar’s rise would bring nothing toward the improvement of Changelings’ lives, that there was a place for her in Trollmarket.

She had a sizable cut down her breastbone from Anglia’s reaction, and a shoulder that had been wrenched when the woman had thrown her against the wall of an alleyway. The killing looked like a mugging gone wrong; Alex still had the woman’s wallet, but she’d thrown the earrings and necklace into the river. Anglia’s address was in the phone book and Alexandra had taken a look around, but there were only a few bits of paper and keepsakes in the hideaways she’d found.

Anglia’s verbal information, however, was startling. Alex knew that Bular was looking for the pieces of the Killahead Bridge, certainly, but she hadn’t known that they’d gathered enough to start building. And they were building it in Arcadia; no wonder there were so many Changelings about. It was rare to see two or more Changelings in a single state, let alone one town. This was very bad.

Anglia had had a fetch in her apartment, tucked away in a chamber only another Changeling could access. Alexandra spent two hours copying the woman’s handwriting before she sent a message through it, saying that she – Anglia – had received warning of a delegation from Trollmarket coming to investigate the disappearances of the trolls in Bath, and she had to run before she found the stone. It would keep Stricklander from sending anyone else for a while, and Anglia’s lack of communication would not be suspicious.

Alexandra got back to the London trollmarket and her temporary lodgings as night fell, and collapsed on her bed about a half hour before AAARRRGGHH dragged her back out.

“You look quite tired, Master Alexandra,” commented Blinky as she quaffed down an enormous mug of Turkish coffee which had been spiked with what smelled like lighter fluid.

“I’m good,” she replied, although her arms were beginning to shake. “Let’s get going.”

A/N: Got a few more references to the book in here. I love Blinky in that book; he’s even more verbose than he is in the show, and is delightfully and unintentionally rude, and is just as overdramatic as show!Blinky.

Fuck this was longer than I expected. I researched the shit out of ancient witchcraft and spells and the Roman Baths, which I only picked because I wanted to write about something I’d actually been to so as to make it more realistic, and now I know to how to find the difference between California and London time and more about the London Bridge(s) than I ever needed to know. It’s true, though, that they shipped and rebuilt the bridge from London to Arizona.

The thing about the curse tablets is true; there are many found in the Roman Baths in Bath, England, and a couple of them feature the only examples of written Celtic text, inscribed with Roman letters but in an untranslatable language. For the sake of this story I’m gonna call it Trollish.

The Roman Baths were really cool and we got to drink a little water from one of the springs there and I loved the architecture and the caves.

I hope you enjoyed the paragraph of library p0rn, because I sure loved writing it.

Going to have to split this up into two chapters, because I’m exhausted and don’t have the brain-space to keep writing for now. Sorry this took so long, but I’ve been a$$-fucked by work and school and there wasn’t room or time to write. Hopefully we’ll be hiring someone soon, so I’ll actually have days off again.

And I hope everybody enjoyed the eclipse! I went upstate to my favorite city and got to see totality! It was cloudy, for the most part, but still really, really cool and special.

#drabble #trollhunters #blinky #aaarrrgghh #vendel

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magnoliapip · 3 years

Text

The Storm Inside

Title : The Storm Inside

Book : Open Heart series (Choices - Pixelberry)

Description : Casey has been pushing everyone away and spiraling since the attack on the hospital and her loved ones are concerned.

Pairing : none established / ambiguous

Characters : Open Heart FMC (Casey Valentine), Sienna Trinh, Bryce Lahela, Jackie Varma, Rafael Aviero, Elijah Greene, Aurora Emery, Kyra Santana, Danny (mentioned), Bobby (mentioned)

Warnings : mention of death, mental health

Prompt : “What’s the weather outside your window doing right now?...”

Casey stared vacantly out the floor length windows into the night sky above Boston from her seat against them on the living room floor. The sky was as clear as could be, a rarity for the area, but in a city as populous as Boston seeing the stars was a gift they were never granted. She stretched out her cramping legs to a different position as she leaned her head and left shoulder against the cool glass.

She looked out of windows with alarming frequency now. She had never really done so before, preferring to always be doing other things. She’d always thought of herself as a social person who enjoyed others company, though she could be either out dancing in a packed club or relaxing away a quiet night in with the same level of enjoyment. Friends and loved ones was all she really needed.

The attack on Edenbrook had changed everything, down to her very bones.

Some days her mood was somber but calm, like a cloudy day. Those were her best days and the ones she liked best. The cloudy days could be darker with threat of rain or lighter with the sun just missing the opportunity to come out. It was the closest to her old self she could feel. Unfortunately for her, those days were not only fleeting and the least common, they were becoming a rarity.

More often, her moods were a range of levels of sadness. All the way from a misting drizzle, enough to coat everything in water and make the air humid, to a torrentially pouring rain. Buckets from heavens and flash floods. The only thing those floods never seemed to leave clean was herself.

Other times she was cold. So, so cold. The best of those days were accompanied with a blizzard. Cold, but manageable with a shovel. On the days where she left her heart covered in an inch thick layer of ice and brandished her words like weaponized icicles, frigid and sharp, the people around her knew to steer clear. She was getting a little too good and stabbing them where it hurt.

Her worst moods felt like she should alert the National Weather Service. Tornado warnings and hurricane evacuations were a courtesy she never felt up to extending, adding to her already astronomical guilt. Like a twister, she could feel so angry and out of control she would tear through everyone in her path with no regard for who or what was in it. She had hurt people, especially the ones she loved, deeply but couldn’t bring herself to stop. It was like watching her body act with someone else at the controls.

It was just one more thing about herself to hate lately, and it had a long line to stand in.

The weather in reality never matched what she felt inside. It fascinated and disgusted her in equal measure. It had been sunny (mostly) since the funeral. It was repulsive.

Bobby was dead. Danny was dead. Raf had almost died and would have god knew how many long term problems ahead because of the illness. She had nearly died. And the world just kept spinning.

Couldn’t they see? Couldn’t any of them see that she was stuck there in that room. That she had never recovered. That she couldn’t recover.

At first, when her friends had noticed her strange new affinity for gazing outside for hours every night, they tried to pull her away. Distract her with things like herbal teas, chocolate ice cream and support. They tried to shower her with her favorite pastimes from before. They tried dancing around the apartment to silly pop songs and playing video games with her. But they didn’t understand. And they didn’t stop.

So she bit them. Hard.

Now they left her alone.

She was an awful person. She shouldn’t have been allowed to live. Someone should have realized it at the hospital and just let her die.

She could feel the tears well up again, stinging her eyes as her inner clouds started to rain again. The night sky outside stayed perfectly cloudy.

It was going to be a long night.

Sienna stood around the corner, watching her best friend shatter silently, as she had done every night for over a month. She whispered to those behind her, “Don’t you all see? Nothing is helping and she’s getting worse. After the last time she panicked when I reached out, I thought I’d give her space. We all did. But it’s not working. Does anyone have any suggestions?”

The gathered assembly of those in the cramped penthouse hallway who loved a young doctor named Casey watched her crumble, weeping without making a sound...and no one said anything. Some of the smartest doctors in the nation, and no one had an answer.

Not Bryce, who stood off to the side watching the pain on the face of the first true friend he’d made while at Edenbrook. Someone who had looked past the brash, self-confidence he used as a shield. The first person he hadn’t been afraid of discovering his past.

Not Rafael, who stood at the back of the crowd, down the hall, not able to stand to look at the person who made him believe he was worth as much to her as these intelligent, talented and more well off friends of hers. Not as she could no longer see how much she was worth.

Not Jackie, who was used to facing her problems by cackling at them until they scurried off with tails between legs or tearing them out with her teeth. But this was a problem that required delicacy, the type she had been shown by the very woman who now needed it.

Not Ethan, who leaned against the wall as he saw his protégé, the first person he’d ever believed in this much, destroy herself. She had forced herself, her goodness, into his life and helped fix his hurt self. Now it was his turn and he, for the first time, found himself at a loss.

Not Aurora, her rival turned friend who showed her at her loneliest that having friend was worth something after all. Not Elijah, a beacon of positivity who felt entirely inadequate with this situation that left her emotionally impaired. Not Kyra, desperate to find some way to give Casey the support she had given. Not Sienna, whose heart broke as she watched her very best friend, her dolphin, her rock in many ways fall further and further into herself.

Each one of them loved her. Each one of them cared for her. Each of them had a purpose and a reason to be at Edenbrook, but Casey was the glue that had held them all together. That glue, their foundation, was compromised. This time, they needed to find a way to save her. This time, she couldn’t waltz her way into a miracle seemingly handed down by the divines themselves to fix the situation.

Giving voice to their silent thoughts, Bryce whispered softer than before, “She needs us. She has to know it. She has to know we’re here somewhere inside, but can’t ask. Won’t ask.”

“We’ve already lost so much because of the attack,” Sienna said quietly. “We can’t lose her now. I can’t.”

“None of us can,” Rafael replied softly.

There was practically a flashing beacon over Casey’s head, screaming help me please. It was long overdue for them to stop ignoring it. For a few pregnant minutes, they all looked around at each other and back to her. This mismatched band of misfits and nerds, bound this night by their affection for one single woman. They stared at each other, desperate for answers…

Until the one who loved her most went rigid. Then stepped toward the rest, speaking slowly.

“I...may have an idea.”

[BREAK]

Notes : I left the ending open for interpretation on purpose. This story is not intended to be expanded on or have a second part. Y’all can decide who the person who loves her most is (and if that person isn’t presently named in my story, you can put them there yourself :D)

Also, I want to extend a heartfelt thank you to the amazing writers I’ve talking to lately. Due to some truly awful comments and the way they were affecting me mentally, I recently purged all of my works but a few from fanfiction.net, AO3, and here on tumblr. Talking to, interacting with, and just seeing you lovelies in action has led me to believe I should start to do this again.

Huge shout out to @jerzwriter and @lovealexhunt for being the lovely souls they are. You may have no idea who I am, especially on this blog rather than my main, but I will never stop being grateful for the positivity you put into the world. Thank you.

#choices #open heart #choices open heart #open heart mc #casey valentine #ethan ramsey #bryce lahela #jackie varma #rafael aveiro #sienna trinh #elijah greene #aurora emery #kyra santana #magnoliapip

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mfmagazine · 5 years

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Dr. Dot

So let’s start at the begging. You started by walking on your parents back. How did that grow into massaging some of the world’s greatest bands and singers? My parents were hippies, smoking pot, lying around listening to Janis and Zappa, The Beatles and Santana… in the evening, they would have me walk on their backs. Not just theirs, there were many hippie pals around, as my dad was 22 and his sisters were 17 and 18, so they all had these long haired folks over all the time, it was like a hippie flop house. I was the only kid around and my feet were small, so I would walk on everyone's backs and my Mom would ask me to bite her back, as she wanted massage but my hands weren't strong enough yet. I was raised on music and my parents would take me to concerts all the time. When they separated, I was 11 and still wanted to go to shows. They got tired of paying all of the concerts I went to and so I got the idea, at age 15 (Def Leppard was the first band I massaged) of asking the bands if they would want to trade massage for entrance for my friends and I. It went over well, as they usually want free things and I am fucking strong, so they loved my massages. I heard Frank Zappa gave you the nickname Dr. Dot? In 1988 I went on most of the 'Broadway the Hard way' Zappa tour. I told Frank, listen, I don't want money, just want to see each sound check and show in trade for massages. He agreed. Since I was healing him and his band, he would call me the Doctor. (My real name is Dorothy, but everyone knows Dot is short for Dorothy. My Granny is also called Dot.) So Doctor Dot just stuck. Has a good ring to it... Frank could have called me Dr. Fool and I would have kept it, Frank is my hero. How has music influenced your life? Influenced is a huge understatement. Music is and my life, always has been always will be. Can't live without it. Now I even like to sing and do karaoke a few nights a week. I am in the process of forming my own band, didn't know I could sing until a couple years ago. Fucking love music. If I could inject it, I would, but thank God I don't need to. You have been to more than a life times worth of concerts. What couple shows stick out in your mind? I have seen over 3,000 shows and for sure Zappa was always the best. Then AC/DC (they fucking rock live!) and believe it or not, George Clinton and the P Funk rocked my world. Then there is David Bryne, Peter Gabriel and even though I never listen to them on CD or LP, I have seen the Grateful Dead over 300 times and up until the let the cat out of the bag (doing an MTV video) they were so amazing live. How has Jasmine shaped your life? Following the Dead, I met a John Lennon look a like and fell in love. I had his baby and now she is 16 (YIKES!). She made me domestic for a few years. I really took time out to be a great stay at home Mom. I would do anything for her, she is my sweet heart. Jasmine has shown me what unconditional love is all about. I would love another child, but can barely find time to sleep now a days. Who has the tightest mussels? Rick Allen of Def Leppard. I recently worked on him and could NOT believe how tight he is in the neck and shoulder area. I am sure it is from him losing his arm, he can't help but hold him self in an uneven way, the sweetheart. I sorted him out though! Mostly it's drummers who are all knots and need massage the most. Who is most relaxed? Paris Hilton didn't have any knots, she seems like she hasn't a worry in the world (go figure). Who was a bit nervous about you working them over at first but now is a huge fan? Joe Jackson. He heard I am the Pit Bull of massage and was afraid as he doesn't like it rough, but I can tell how hard I can go on someone from the first touch, no he gets regular treatments! You have built this into a world renowned business. What keeps you going? I get high off of my career. I live to work and it doesn't seem like work. When you do something you love, it isn't work. I do play hard, but I work even harder. I have found a niche and I plan on going very far with this whole thing. How to massage DVD's and several books, I have just begun baby. Tell me a bit about your book? Which one? I have few that are to come out hopefully soon. The one most want to read is called "Butt Naked and Backstage" which is my life story. It is not a tacky tell all, it is just a rock and roll Cinderella story that brings you on a very interesting and encouraging journey. You may think of me as the Forrest Gump of Rock and Roll when you are done reading and you will know A LOT about all of the bands that have crossed my path, but nothing that would piss them off (well, maybe not). How did the love and sex columns come about? When you go to the hair dresser or barber, you talk, you spill your guts. Imagine how much comes out of people when they are naked and being rubbed down for hours. They talk about their love lives and sex lives and ask me for advice. I have been giving love advice for over 20 years and have a look at me, does it look to you that I know what I am talking about when it comes to sex? I have been writing a blog on my web sites for about 3 years. I get around 100 readers an hour. I get emails from people asking me love and sex questions, so I answer them on the blog, usually changing their names so no one is ashamed. A few magazines, Steppin' Out for one, approached me and asked me if I would like to have my Q & A in their mags. So I am kind of syndicated now and it keeps getting around more and more. I really enjoy helping people, after all, what good will all of this experience and knowledge do me in the grave? I can't massage the whole world, but I can surely help them get laid.

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mytrumarareviews · 7 years

Text

Nostalgia Glasses: Canaan - Part 1 (Background + Eps. 1-3)

This was one of the series that really got me into anime back when I was around 14 years old. It introduced me to the action genre of anime and got me into scenes of fluid animation for the sake of making the fights look really cool. And honestly, as far as the first few episodes go this series still holds up really well. I mean we all like things that aren’t good when we’re 14 but this was the first real time when I liked something that was really well done.

So much so in fact that two characters from this series, Santana and Hako, were major inspirations for Kali and Aria from my writing, which isn’t currently published or available for reading. I actually had to change Aria’s character to having her black as well as only having a weaponized voice when she sings because she was a bit too much like Hako. Kali’s death scene was also originally a shot for shot remake of Santana’s death scene. The death scene has been removed now that I’ve rewritten a few characters.

My first published work was in a school magazine that was sold to people outside of the school that we wrote in collaboration with the school paper. it was a Canaan fan fiction centering around Hako and her own inner monologue. it got a couple of my classmates to watch the series but was otherwise shitty, that’s actually up on my fanfiction.net account currently here:

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9212506/1/Tormented-Thoughts

It was also the anime I introduced my younger brother into anime with. So it holds a special place in my heart because of that.

I also got a copy of the series on bluray for by birthday yesterday, so that’s a good reason to jump into doing this now.

Episode 1: Evil, Flood-Colored City

Going into this series I’m remind of how well it sets up it’s tone. It’s an action series and it starts off with a series of shots introducing us briefly to both Canaan (one of the two protagonists) and Alphard (the antagonist). Canaan is shooting balloons with real bullets, which serves to show that she doesn’t really have a concept of value or currency. She’s a mercenary and that’s all she’s really know. Her professionalism is shown off with the fact that she’s wearing a military cap to keep the sun out of her eyes while she shoots and by the fact that she doesn’t miss a single shot. Alphard is being taken into custody by the military, this establishes that she’s not on the good side of the law and insinuates that she’s either grown sloppy or got captured on purpose to gain a strategic advantage against the government.

We also get a monologue spoken by Andrew Love, as his character in this series. About how Canaan and Alphard came from two very different worlds and that Canaan shouldn’t be using her negative emotion to move her forward when Alphard is doing the same thing. So without even giving us an inciting incident in the first 10 minutes of the series they’ve already given us Canaan’s inner conflict; the fact that she has to defeat Alphard through compassionate means rather than hateful ones.

So enough on literally the first two minutes of the series.

On to the main characters of the first couple of episodes. Maria Osawa (which has to be a reference to the porn star Maria Ozama) and how Mino. I honestly like both of their characters. Maria is both naive and optimistic yet it doesn’t come off as overly annoying, like a lot of other overly happy anime characters come off as. Mino is a more stereotypical male character but at the same time he’s quite likable. He’s a down on his luck journalist just trying to get a good story for his paper while on a trip to China. He’s pulled into all this stuff against his will. He follows up on any lead he can and shows a great dedication to his job. And he’s doesn’t come off as a pretentious jerk like Frank West from Dead Rising.

Throughout the latter half of the episode we’re introduced to the relationship between Canaan and Maria. Whereas Canaan is merciless when fighting she shows a really soft side toward Maria because of their history together. She comes off as socially inept.

I’d actually venture to say that Canaan has high functioning level 1 autism. She’s completely capable of functioning as a part of society but doesn’t like being a part of society. It could be the fact that whenever she goes outside she gets a literal sensory overload, which is common for people with autism. Though the sensory overload is caused by her synesthesia, rather than a disability. It’s just interesting to bring up those similarities between how her synesthesia affects her and how autism affects a lot of high functioning individuals.

This is coming from an individual with autism who’s done quite a bit of research into his own disability.

Episode 2: Worthless Games

The second episode gives us a lot more information about the world this series takes place in. Alphard leading a terrorist group named Snake. The nature of Maria and Canaan’s relationship. And much more.

Throughout this episode you start to get this feeling that a lot of the terrorist attacks are linked through a common group, though you still don’t know who they are. You know Liang Qi has something to do with it but it’s not completely clear if Alphard has any knowledge about it. You also find out a lot about Maria’s past, her amnesia that doesn’t turn her completely stupid like it seems to do for every other character that falls under this trope and her relations to synesthesia and the Ua virus, a virus with a 100% mortality rate that she’s the only person to survive, due to the valiant efforts of her Doctor father.

This episode mostly serves to give us exposition and develop the characters a bit more before sending us further into the plot. it also serves to set up later events and give Alphard a reason to let herself get captured by the Chinese government. She mentions something about an anti-terrorism conference, what better place to commit an act of terrorism. Security will also be relatively lax if there’s a lesser threat of terrorism, what with Alphard being olut of the picture and her organization being without proper leadership.

Liang Qi shows that she can’t take rejection from Alphard by taking her anger out on her coworker... Well, I’d more so call Cummings her submissive even if she does act as his assistant. it’s made very obvious by that fact that he drops an important call when Liang Qi needs to take out her anger on somebody and just takes the abuse. Alphard seems to share a mutual respect with Cummings at this point and Liang Qi probably hates this.

This was also the episode where I was kind of struck by the fact that this anime still looks really good 8 years after it started airing. Anime today all kind of looks the same, and that’s not me being some grumpy old man, I’m only 22. A-1 Pictures created this face template that’s used in all of their series. That make most of the anime in Japan right now so that same facial template is in more series than it isn’t in. Seeing a stylized series that looks like it could have been hand drawn with amazing fight animation is really refreshing. Style-wise this is probably my favorite series of the last decade.

We also get to hear Maria’s inner monologue, and experience how depressed and self conscious she really is. It’s a really nice contrast between her outward and inward personalities.

Episode 3: Trivialities

So we see a more sarcastic side of Maria’s personality in this episode when they go to a cosplay bar. Yes Hako is extremely sexualized in this part of the series, but she works at a cosplay bar. We also get a comic relief scene of Mino trying to get information from Hako but failing due to being nervous, because she’s a gorgeous woman with her breasts outside of the shirt. At this point you do start to get this feeling that maybe the Japanese writers are portraying Chinese people as a bit too aggressive and going into a bunch of Japanese taboos. Though the joke about Chinese cab drivers in the last episode was actually pretty funny because of how true it is.

And then we get a scene of Canaan doing a cats cradle with copper wire. Showing her immense, yet still human, physical strength. It’s interesting to note how she’s designed as a teenage girl because she hasn’t yet gone through puberty even though she’s in her twenties, her synesthesia stops her from having a period so she can’t go through

Liang Qi continues to show her hatred for Canaan and an obsession with Alphard. In fact, much like how Cummings acts as her submissive and takes her abuse (which isn’t good by the way), Liang Qi takes the insults from Alphard and continues to show complete devotion to her, being submissive to her while still taking her repressed anger out on Cummings.

Going further into this episode there’s a noticeable difference between the sound mixing int he prior episodes of the dub (suck it up) and the 3rd on.

And, just through her conversations with Maria I think my theory that she has autism stands a bit more ground. The lines for the other characters are written relatively normally, you can picture a normie talking like Alphard, Maria, or Mino. But Canaan’s dialogue is written strangely when compared to the other characters. She’s socially awkward, doesn’t understand more advanced social situations, and gets really excited when going out with friends. Most people wouldn’t outright say that it’s their first time having fun with a friend or rudely interrupt other people to repeat something she’d said before. I know it could be argued that she’s just weird and with good reason, but in what situation could she get a diagnosis. So she may not be diagnosed by I think she might be an autistic character. She’s sociopathic, a lot of people with autism are sociopaths, which are commonly mistaken for psychopaths (sociopaths can still feel compassion and empathy but only for a select few people). I myself an not a sociopath, as not all people with autism are, but a good portion of us are. The way she walks away from Maria at the end of the episode speak volumes about how she’s still capable of becoming emotionally hurt by another person’s actions, and her lack of understand of Maria’s own moral compass also shows that she doesn’t fully understand other people or societal norms, as most people view murder as wrong.

So that’s the first part of my Canaan retrospective, I hope you didn’t get triggered when I talked about autism and I hope you enjoyed the rest of the analysis of the first three episodes of the series. So far this series really does stand out.

#canaan #maria osawa #alphard alshua #anime #review #good #mino #action #aniplex #sentai filmworks #hako #santana #showgate #428: shibuya scramble #masahiro ando #nostalgia glasses #sentditt reviews

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themostrandomfandom · 5 years

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Hi! I found your blog the TKTD, and that fic and your theories have highkey gotten me back into glee :D your content is so interesting, thank you so much! I haven't read all of your analyses yet, so I may have missed something, but I'm still wondering a couple things 1. why did Brittany fail senior year? You've written a lot about her not being dumb (despite her intelligence being non-normative), and we know she's able to do at least very advanced math. It seems like her primary goal would be...

To move to the next stage of life with Santana, so why wasn’t avoiding failing out a bigger priority for her? Furthermore, as someone who was so involved with extracurriculars (Cheerios, glee), she must’ve needed to maintain reasonable grades to avoid academic suspension. So avoiding failing seems like something that would be on her radar? and 2. do you think brittany dropped the ‘if sex were dating santana and i would be dating’ line on purpose?

Hey, @savealtonrichards!

Sorry it’staken me so long to answer you! I don’t have much internet access these days.:p

If you’re infor a good ramble, it’s under the cut.

(WARNING:Here be griping about Glee writing—as one does.)

___

First thingsfirst:

Theout-of-universe stuff.

Glee is a show that’s difficult to categorize because while it ostensibly takes place withina realistic fictional universe (as opposed to say a fantasy or science fictionone), there are times when it noticeably deviates from reality.

Though thecharacters seemingly live in suburban Ohio in the early 2010s and areregular human beings living “regular lives,” there are certain aspects of theirexistences that absolutely strain credulity (even when one actively tries tosuspend disbelief).

Some ofthese breaches are obvious, like when Lord Tubbington is shown as being capableof using a computer. However, others manifest more as gaps in logic—the typesof minor “glitches” in believability that cause the viewing audience to go,“Wait a minute. That’s not how that plot development would play out in reallife.”

One exampleof this second type of breach is how between S4 and S6, the young charactersliving in New York, most of whom are supposedly tight on money, arenevertheless able to jet set back and forth to Lima seemingly every otherweekend, as if plane and train tickets are free and travel takes no time orenergy at all. Another is that Sue Sylvester could do all of the illegal,immoral, and just flat-out batshit insane things she does without ever being firedor prosecuted. Still another is that nineteen and twenty year-old kids likeBlaine, Finn, and Sam could be hired to coaching positions at their respectivehigh school alma maters, even though none of them holds a college degree orteaching certificate.

The breachin realism that is pertinent to our discussion has to do with Brittany’sacademic history—which as depicted in show canon is replete with gaps and holesand just doesn’t make much sense.

In episode1x07, we are told that for years Sue has been doctoring the grades of herCheerios, including perhaps Brittany’s. However, even after Will puts his footdown and flunks many of their teammates, the Unholy Trinity, including Brittany,continues to attend Cheerios practice. They are the only Cheerios who do.

How theyalone of the whole squad retain their academic eligibility is not clear.Santana may not be taking Spanish, as she’s not shown in the class. However,Quinn and Brittany most definitely are, so either they must be passing (whiletheir teammates are not) or else Will must have decided against giving them thefailing grades they would otherwise deserve, perhaps because he doesn’t want torender them ineligible for glee club.

WillSchuester is nothing if not a hypocrite, so honestly I wouldn’t put it past himto walk that particular low road.

In any case,the show never really clarifies to what extent Brittany may rely on Sue tomaintain a passing GPA.

ThroughoutS1, Brittany is reported to cheat off of Becky’s schoolwork in math class (seeepisode 1x09) and is shown attempting to cheat off of Quinn’s tests in Spanishclass (see episode 1x07), incidents which suggest that she does at timesstruggle with academic performance during her sophomore year.

However, herstruggles are not explored in depth, and her continued eligibility for theCheerios would indicate that either she somehow manages to make passing grades,struggles notwithstanding, or else that interference from Sue renders herstruggles moot.

Kurt alsoreports that Finn sometimes cheats off of Brittany’s math assignments (seeepisode 1x10). We don’t know if this cheating represents an isolatedincident or a pattern of behavior. However, if it’s the second option, then given that Finn maintains his academiceligibility for football even after having cheated off Brittany’s work, andconsidering that, unlike with Brittany, Sue is unlikely to have doctored Finn’sgrades, we can perhaps surmise that Brittany at least occasionally managesto earn passing grades on her own.

Even if Sueis pulling strings to keep Brittany on the field, come S2, the situationchanges, as in episode 2x11 Brittany quits Cheerios, at which point whatever“help” Sue had been giving her is almost certainly rescinded.

Shortlythereafter, in episode 2x13, Brittany remarks that hergrades are bad (“Totally. Most teachers think that by cutting class, I mightimprove my grades”), perhaps suggesting a drop-off due to a cessation in Sue’shelp.

Even so, it would still seem that Brittany isn’t altogether failing, asshe apparently passes the eleventh grade and commences thetwelfth grade with the rest of her class.

The shownever specifies to what extent Brittany and the other glee kids must maintaintheir grades in order to stay in show choir. On the one hand, glee club is notan athletic program, so the rules for eligibility may be different than withcheerleading or football. On the other hand, glee club is seemingly anextracurricular activity in which students may “letter,” and it does have itsown governing board and competition requirements, so perhaps its eligibilityrequirements are similar or even identical to those for prep sports. To whatextent there may be “house rules” specific to WMHS as opposed to district orstatewide rules for all competitive show choirs remains unclear.

My guess isthat there’s got to be some kind of statewide threshold for eligibility,particularly as we’re told, per Jesse St. James, that the Carmel High kids in VocalAdrenaline cheat and doctor their grades in order to maximize their practicetime and minimize their schoolwork.

Whatever thespecific requirements may be, the fact that Brittany remains eligible toparticipate in glee club throughout her junior year is another point that maysuggest that even without Sue’s interference Brittany maintains a passing GPA. ThatBrittany is eligible to rejoin the Cheerios come her senior year also suggeststhat her eligibility remains intact as she finishes out the eleventh grade.

However,things seem to take a sudden downshift from there, both in terms of Brittany’sprospects and in terms of narrative sense-making.

Come S3, we arefinally told that Brittany has a 0.0 GPA, though it’s never specified if that’sher semester, yearlong, or cumulative GPA. My guess is that it’s the secondoption, given that Brittany is told she must repeat the twelfth grade (asopposed to just making up a few credits during summer school or repeating multiplegrades).

That said,the situation surrounding her failure remains murky.

Prior to S3,Brittany has seemingly maintained a passing GPA, as is evidenced by heraforementioned progress through her freshman, sophomore, and junior years ofhigh school and her continued academic eligibility to participate in Cheeriosand glee club.

However, theshow never reveals how she has come by this passing GPA.

Our threemain options for explaining this phenomenon seem to be:

We can infer that Sue hasmanipulated Brittany’s grades in order to keep her academically eligible forvarsity sports.

We can infer that Brittanyhas achieved passing grades through her own efforts.

We can infer that perhaps somecombination of the above two options has taken place (i.e., that Sue hasmanipulated some of her grades, while others she earned through her ownefforts).

On the onehand, the show heavily implies that Brittany is a very poor student who wouldprobably be incapable of passing her classes if not for Sue manipulating thesystem on her behalf. On the other hand, given that Brittany maintains academiceligibility for Cheerios even when Will flunks many of her teammates in hersophomore year AND that she spends a significant portion of her junior year offthe Cheerios and still manages to pass, it would seem that Brittany is able tomake grades even during the times when Sue isn’t propping her up.

The questionsthen become: If Brittany can pass the eleventh grade “on her own,” then whydoes she fail the twelfth grade? Furthermore, how come Brittany is allowed toremain on the Cheerios and in glee club even once her grades start slipping?Why does her failure only come to light after it is essentially too late forher (or anyone else) to do anything about the problem? How come Sue, who hasnever had any qualms about manipulating her cheerleaders’ grades in the past,seemingly “allows” Brittany to fail her senior year? How come not a singleteacher or counselor at WMHS makes any efforts to help Brittany, even thoughshe is obviously struggling?

After all, Brittany’s 0.0 GPA seems to be a reflection of a chronic problem.

The firsttime we hear about said failing GPA is in episode 3x19, which is the sameepisode that features the WMHS senior prom.

For mostAmerican public high schools, prom takes place anywhere between March and June,which means that somehow Brittany is allowed to fail for at least one or two fullsemesters (or, more likely, given that many Midwestern American public schoolstend to run on the quarter system, two or even three full quarters) before Figgins tells her what’s up.

The school thenseemingly takes no action—at least as we see play out on screen—to helpBrittany course-correct for the final semester or two quarters of her senioryear.

She’s notput on academic monitoring or probation. She’s not assigned a tutor. MissPillsbury doesn’t set up any meetings with her to discuss her options or determineher future. No one writes her an IEP. She just crashes and burns until the endof the year, at which point she fails to graduate.

It strainscredulity that in today’s day and age Brittany could flunk out as “quietly” asshe did, without anyone—including her parents, coaches, guidance counselor,and/or girlfriend—realizing she was in trouble at any point along the way.

Where werethe midterm progress reports? The report cards? The summonses to MissPillsbury’s office? The failed tests that required the signature of her parent orguardian? Santana glimpsing an F on her Spanish essay and ripping Mr. Schue agoddamn new one because who is he to tell Brittany she isn’t conjugating verbsright when he can’t tell his own ass from an ñ?

Shouldn’tsomeone somewhere along the way have noticed something was wrong while therewas still time enough left to do something about it—and particularlyconsidering that Brittany is not only a student but a student athlete?

Per the OhioHigh School Athletic Association, a student must earn “passing grades in aminimum of five one-credit courses, or the equivalent, in the immediatelypreceding grading period” of athletic competition in order to be eligible toparticipate in a varsity sport, so in theory, after she fails that first term,Brittany shouldn’t be able to compete as part of the Cheerios squad at all, letalone be one of the senior leaders.

For therecord, the real life school districts in Lima, OH require a minimum GPAbetween 2.5 and 3.0 for student athletes.

One has towonder: Where is Sue in all this? How come she doesn’t intervene once she seesthat first bad report card?

After all,Sue has no qualms concerning academic dishonesty. By her own admission, she’s meddledwith her cheerleaders’ grades for years. Why shouldn’t she simply meddle in this case, too? Wouldn’tit be in her best interest to keep Brittany eligible to compete?

Come S4, Sueherself blames a “haze of pregnancy hormones” for preventing her from noticingBrittany’s S3 academic nosedive (see episode 4x02). Another contributory factor to her negligence may be her vicious congressionalcampaign against Reggie Salazar and Burt Hummel.

However,that Sue would allow Brittany to fail still presents a narrative problem, nomatter what her excuses for doing so may be, because the fact remains that academiceligibility is an issue that extends beyond her sole purview.

OnceBrittany fails the first academic quarter of the 2011-2012 schoolyear, shebecomes ineligible to compete in interscholastic competitions. The issue is outof Sue’s hands and into those of the Ohio High School Athletic Association.Some state official somewhere has the responsibility to mark her fileand bar her from any further participation in state cheer events.

—and yetthat never happens.

Somehow,Brittany remains a cheerleader (and member of the glee club) for the duration of the schoolyear, despite not passing a single class.

It’s one ofthose lapses in believability—those “Wait a minute. That’s not how thatdevelopment would happen in real life” instances—that takes Glee out of the realmof passingly realistic fiction and into the realm of exaggeration and camp.

There’s noway that Brittany could fail an entire year of school without facing anyacademic consequences—that’s just not the way that the American school systemworks, particularly when it comes to athletic eligibility.

How comeFiggins only notes Brittany’s failures in springtime? What is going on during the fall and winter?

For the record, episode 3x19 originally aired on May 8th, 2012. Within the universe of the show, the action of the episode may take place on the same date or at least a proximal one.

By allaccounts, someone somewhere along the way should notice what’s going on—if nota faculty member at Brittany’s own school, then some official on an athleticeligibility committee, or a college cheerleading coach scouting Brittany for anNCAA scholarship, or an auditor working for the superintendent, or a rivalcheerleading coach digging for dirt on Sue Sylvester’s stars.

Someone!

But no onedoes.

I mean,that’s what the show purports.

Figgins knows enough to inform Brittany thatshe’s failing, but he doesn’t do anything to help the situation except to lectureher for neglecting her duties as the senior class president and badger her intoplanning the prom.

Will and Emma, too focused on rescuing Puck from a similarfate, seemingly remain either oblivious to or unconcerned about Brittany’sacademic woes until she’s on the verge of failing her SECOND consecutive senioryear in S4.

And Santana? She’s blindsided. Somehow, even though she andBrittany take classes together and meet up during every passing block and spendall of their spare time in each other’s company outside of school, she has noidea that Brittany is in academic jeopardy—not until Brittany springs the newson her at BreadStix just before what should be their joint graduation.

Not untilit’s too late.

That’s canonas TPTB at Glee wrote it.

It makes nogoddamn sense, but it’s what we’re stuck with.

So.

Onto thesecond order of business, then:

Thein-universe stuff.

Returning toyour original questions: Why does Brittany fail her senior year—from asituational and character perspective? How come she doesn’t work harder not tofail?

Though earlyon, Glee at times tried to play Brittany off as an accidental or even dubiousgenius—such as in the scene in episode 4x22 where she’s first shown solvingcomplex equations for the researchers at MIT—they later fully committed to herprodigy, acknowledging it as the real deal.

By episode5x12, Baby Girl is shown as being capable of tackling the Riemann Hypothesis.Her work at MIT is serious. By S6, she’s doing complex math for fun, albeitwith kitty doodles drawn in the margins. The Brittany of episodes 6x03, 6x06,and 6x08 is able to slip in facts and impressive logical arguments alongsideher usual Brittanyisms and one-liners. Her intelligence is no longer subject todebate.

So what’sthe deal with her flunking out of high school? How can someone capable ofprocessing the most complicated calculus there is fail at high school algebra?

Here’s thething: While Brittany is indeed a certified math genius, there’s not always aneat one-to-one correlation between “raw intelligence” and “academicsuccess.”

Lots offolks who are plenty bright—including many who have impressive naturalaptitudes in certain areas—fail in traditional classroom settings, even inclasses that by all accounts they “should be good at.”

Some havebehavioral tendencies that are incompatible with the classroom culture. Others findthe course materials boring, either because they already know the materialbeing taught or else because the material is being taught in a way that isn’tconducive to their learning style. Still others learn at a different pace thanwhat the curriculum may allow for, working either faster or slower. Many simplytest poorly or have trouble focusing. Organizational issues, language barriers,home circumstances (which may interfere with one’s ability to complete homeworkor come to class rested and ready to learn), individual teacher-studentdynamics, problems with bullying at school, health or disability factors, etc.,etc. may also affect one’s ability to “make grades.”

Many of thesmartest people there are have failed in formalized academic settings. Conversely,many people of average or even below average aptitudes have found ways tosucceed in the classroom. Other factors such as one’s work ethic, connection toteachers and mentors, support networks, accommodations, etc. can also impacteducational success.

In Brittany’scase, there are myriad reasons why, despite her certified genius, she fails herclasses.

For onething, WMHS is a substandard learning environment, just to start out with.

Theatmosphere there is toxic. Bullying runs rampant, with the staff either whollyapathetic toward, powerless to intervene in, or even sometimes party to theperpetuation thereof.

The administration routinely mismanages its resources,spending an inordinate amount of money to support the cheerleading and footballprograms, though lacking certain other necessities—such as a functional specialeducation department, adequate handicap accommodations, and up-to-datetextbooks.

They also hire teachers who are both underqualified (such as Will,who teaches Spanish for years despite not actually speaking the language) andfrequently abusive (such as Sue, who should literally be serving jail time forthe way she treats the student body).

Multiple times, it’s stated that theirstudents test at below average reading levels.

While only a small percentage ofwhat Sue says should ever be believed, her claims that she doctors the gradesof her Cheerios to maintain their academic eligibility to participate in avarsity sport are seemingly accurate, as Will and Principal Figgins aver that such is this case.

Not a single permanentteacher, principal, or guidance counselor at the school, with perhaps theexception of Coach Beiste, appears competent to do their job.

The hijinks ofvarious staff members and students regularly interfere with the learning day.

Rememberthat old post about JennaB. Lacey, the Hogwarts student who just wants to get a proper education but isconstantly prevented from doing so because she has the misfortune of being inthe same year as one Harry Potter, whose adventures and misadventures areconstantly interrupting her lessons and preempting her exams? Just replace “Harry Potter” with “Rachel Berry” or “SueSylvester,” and you’re basically describing the life of your average WMHSstudent.

Though wedon’t spend a lot of time following the New Directions kids through theirregular classes, the few glimpses that we do get suggest that much of thecurriculum they are subjected to is either outdated or else straight upobjectively incorrect.

While theepisode plays the situation for laughs, Holly Holliday’s points about the sexeducation at WMHS being painfully inadequate aren’t at all off the mark. Mrs.Hagberg seems to experience episodes of dementia while teaching (and is aself-admitted painkiller addict). She frequently forgets her spatiotemporallocation and has on occasion been known to teach that the Nazis won WWII. Will speaksSpanglish and buys into racist stereotypes about Latinos. Sue promulgatesconspiracy theories and unsubstantiated revisionist history, purposefullyspreading misinformation as if she were the White House Press Secretary.

Later on, inS6, it’s shown that a complete overhaul is necessary to update the school’stechnology and curriculum in order for the students to start performing up tostandards on their state tests.

—and there’sBrittany, who learns differently than most people do, stuck in the middle ofall of this chaos.

Honestly,it’s a wonder that any of the kids at WMHS achieve any kind of mainstreamacademic success. That Quinn gets into Yale and Tina into Brown is kind of ascholastic miracle, all things considered.

So she’s upagainst a lot of impediments as barriers to her learning just as a baseline.

Then add inher individual difficulties on top of the other stuff.

Brittany’sis a unique mind. It is unclear to what extent book-learning and traditionaleducation work for her. She has a tendency to metaphorize concepts, suggestingthat she is an abstract thinker. Her flair for malapropisms also intimates thather mind is organized in “webs,” with various like-words grouped together byloose strings of associations. Though she is mathematically intelligent, she isalso emotionally intelligent and physically intelligent, as well.

Early on,her genius seems highly intuitive, as she is able to pull numbers out of theair, though she is not always equally able to explain how or by what means she hasdone so. In time, her methods seem to become more examined and deliberate, withtheory underlining what was once a more reflexive capability.

She isperhaps something of an autodidact, able, for instance, to teach herselfSpanish, though she apparently doesn’t fare well in the class in high school.

Though fewpeople on the show, save Santana, realize as much, she frequently runs abouttwo or three steps ahead of everyone else in terms of her conversations andsocial maneuvers. Her zany quips and seemingly innocent demeanor throw peopleoff, to the point where they don’t pick up on just how wily and keen she canbe.

On the onehand, this phenomenon affords her some social leeway—because, after all, she’sjust “Brittany being Brittany.” On the other hand, it sometimes results inthose who fail to understand her talking down to her, infantilizing her, andblowing her off.

Frequently, both Brittany and the people who engage with herwalk away from their interactions frustrated, Brittany because she’s beencondescended to, her conversation partners because they find herincomprehensible and off-putting.

So.

Considerthat many of her teachers—including Will—seem to be confused by the way shetalks and find her irksome to deal with and so tend to be dismissive of herduring classroom discussions.

Because herintelligence is non-normative, a teacher talking about A subject can get her thinkingoff on a tangent about B subject, C subject, and D subject, and pretty soonshe’ll be blurting out a question or comment about Z subject, which from herteacher’s perspective does not relate to the discussion topic at hand and mayeven derail the lesson, distracting the other students. The teacher then eitherreacts to Brittany’s question or comment with annoyance, shutting her down(such as Ms. Hagberg does in episode 3x02); or reacts with bafflement, ignoring her andglossing over what she’s said (such as Will does in episode 1x10). Either way, Brittanydoesn’t get her questions answered or her comments responded to in aconstructive manner, which means that, invariably, she doesn’t get what sheneeds to out of class.

By the timewe first meet her as a sophomore, Brittany’s reputation as a nuisance and“numbskull” precedes her.

Her teachersmake no effort to hide their low opinions of her intelligence.

In episode2x04, everyone ribs Puck for crashing his mom’s car into an ATM and gettingarrested. Brittany joins in the fun, remarking, “He may be the dumbest personon this planet—and that’s coming from me.” Though the moment is generallyjocular, the fact that Brittany’s teacher Will says nothing to defend her toherself speaks volumes. The incident is also not an isolated one, as later inthe season, in episode 2x17, Will directly questions Brittany’s intelligence toher face (“I get the three of you being on [the Brainiacs], but Brittany?”).

Tack on allthe instances when he responds to Brittany’s comments during rehearsals (andeven her later “cries for help” during S4) with bafflement at best and disdainat worst, plus the way he clearly talks down to her as if she were a youngchild rather than a teenager, and there’s no question that he thinks she’s adolt.

And he’s notthe only member of the WMHS faculty who feels that way, either.

SueSylvester is likewise a serial offender when it comes to calling Brittany dumband infantilizing her. Ditto for Hagberg and Figgins. Though we don’t get tosee Brittany interacting with many other members of the staff aside fromSheldon Beiste, Holly Holliday, and Shelby Corcoran—the last two of whom areonly at the school briefly—it stands to reason that there are other teacherswho share the same negative attitude toward her that the featured teachers do.

At onepoint, Brittany even says that her teachers have told her that her grades mightactually improve if she were to slough her classes.

Brittany’s“stupidity” is widely viewed as a given.

Time andtime again, the show depicts people taking her intelligence for granted andassuming the worst of her capabilities. Such attitudes undoubtedly influencethe way that her teachers approach educating her. If a smart kid like Quinn orArtie isn’t grasping a concept, then teachers will try changing their pedagogyup, teaching the lesson in a different, more effective way. The same is trueeven for an average student like Mercedes. If she’s struggling, a teacher’simpulse will be to show her patience because there’s a good chance thateventually (with some hard work and extra credit) she’ll get it. But not so with Brittany, whom most teachers seem to viewas an idiot. Why slow down a class for her? Why assign different readings? Whytutor her after school? Their assumption is that she is a lost cause.

Sue potentiallydoctoring her grades—and those of the other Cheerios—also exacerbates theproblem.

Thoseteachers who are aware of Sue’s meddling, and especially the ones who have beenbullied by her into being complicit, may feel a lessened sense of obligation toreally teach Brittany or attempt to accurately evaluate her learning because,after all, no matter how Brittany performs, she’s going to be handed a passinggrade in their classes anyway.

Conversely,those teachers who remain unaware of Sue’s meddling may believe that givingBrittany a failing grade will result in meaningful academic consequences forher, which will then lead to her getting the help and attention she needsvis-à-vis the systems that are in place to prevent kids from “falling throughthe cracks.”

Of course,because Sue changes Brittany’s grades after the fact, Brittany never receivesany such help.

The systemsdon’t attend to her. Nothing in her file gets flagged. No one pulls her aside.She just gets passed along from year to year and class to class without anyoneever really taking an interest in her learning.

Either way,she’s left ill-equipped to succeed in high school.

On top ofeverything else, Brittany may also have an undiagnosed learning disability,such as ADHD or ASD. Though of course the show never states that she does havea disability (undiagnosed or not), some neurodivergent fans see in Brittany a kindred spirit whose experiences inthe public school system resemble their own.

It’sdefinitely possible that she could benefit from some accommodations.

But as faras we know, they’re never offered to her—not only because, as we learn from Sueregarding Becky Jackson, WMHS doesn’t offer special education classes, but alsobecause everyone thinks that she’s just “Brittany being Brittany,” and she’s a hopelesscase from the get-go.

So howeversmart Brittany may naturally be, she’s got alot stacked against her at WMHS, including antagonistic teachers, theabysmally low expectations people set for her, Sue’s interference with hergrades (and then the sudden cessation of that interference), her non-normativelearning strategies, and other possible factors.

Add in thatduring her senior year, she’s also dealing with some extra pressures outside ofthe classroom, and what we have is a recipe for a disaster.

Note: Ofcourse, the show deprives us of hearing Brittany talk about the aftermath ofSantana’s outing, suspension, and disowning in her own words, but HeatherMorris’s nonverbal cues show that Brittany’s upset during this period is hardfelt. It’s a stressful time in Brittany’s life, and even after the initialwounds have healed somewhat, Brittany still devotes much of mental andemotional energy to trying to ameliorate the situation, to keep Santana in agood place, to help her smile, and carry on. That’s not to say that Brittana’srelationship or Brittany’s efforts to make Santana happy cause Brittany to failher classes. It’s just to say that Brittany’s senior year is one in which shehas a lot on her mind beyond the regular cares of just being a teenager.

Thesituation as it is, it’s perhaps unsurprising that she should struggle.

However, thequestion still remains: Why doesn’t she ask for help?

No one, includingher parents, teachers, or girlfriend, seems to notice she’s academicallydrowning until it’s too late. But just because they don’t notice on their owndoesn’t mean that Brittany can’t alert them to the situation, right? So whydoesn’t she turn to Mr. Schue and say, “I need some extra help on my historyhomework,” or confide in her parents that she’s just bombed another Englishexam, or ask Santana if they can perhaps study for chemistry class together?Wouldn’t it be in her best interest to do so? Shouldn’t she want to graduate sothat she can get on with her life (and follow Santana)? Why not just reach outto someone?

Easier saidthan done.

Brittany hasspent her whole life being disparaged for “not being smart enough.” Is shereally going to admit she’s struggling to many of the same people who are activelycontributing to her struggles?

Sure,ostensibly, Mr. Schue is her teacher, and he’s supposedly an advocate for her.But can she really turn to someone who has routinely made her feel like anidiot and confess to him that she’s not understanding her classes—andespecially when she’s fully aware that, even if she were to ask him for help,he is probably not the best person to offer it, considering that he’s not actuallya qualified teacher?

The samegoes for Sue, who habitually preys upon Brittany’s vulnerabilities and has beenknown to blackmail students whenever she has any sort of leverage over them.Brittany would have to be an even bigger fool than the one people take her forin order to ask a favor of a megalomaniac of Sue’s caliber.

If Brittanywere to turn to her, the best case scenario would be that she would once againresort to doctoring Brittany’s report card—which is not necessarily an outcomethat Brittany wants. The worst case scenario would be that she would find someway to make Brittany’s life hell for having even approached her.

Brittany has to wonder: Is there any good that could come of prompting Sue totake action if she hasn’t already done so (unprompted) yet?

Not evenEmma is a safe bet, considering that she seems completely oblivious toBrittany’s plight, even though it is literally her job to be on top of it.

She doesn’t pushWill to include Brittany in his Saturday Night Fever competition alongsideFinn, Mercedes, and Santana (see episode 3x16). She isn’t present to participatein the “come to Jesus” meeting Figgins calls Brittany in for before the prom (seeepisode 3x19). Nowhere along the line does she show any concern for Brittany’sGPA, even though she has access to Brittany’s records and presumably has aprofessional imperative to counsel with her concerning her future.

If she can’tbe assed to take an interest in Brittany’s academic struggles even though she’sbeing paid to do so, then Brittany’s not going to beg her to get involved.

Her inactionhas already sent the message loud and clear: Brittany is on her own.

As for whyBrittany doesn’t turn to her parents or Santana for help, things arecomplicated on that side, too.

Since wedon’t know much about Brittany’s relationship with her parents aside from thelittle we see of it in S6, it’s difficult to say why she doesn’t approach themfor help. Maybe she fears disappointing them. Maybe she feels that they won’tunderstand why she’s failing. (They might assume she’s being lazy or goofingoff rather than facing legitimate roadblocks to her learning.) Possibly,they’re dealing with some kind of crisis of their own at the same time thatBrittany realizes that she’s failing, so she doesn’t want to “bother them” withwhat she’s going through. Perhaps she does approach them but they either can’t or won’t helpher.

There’s alsothe possibility that Brittany is reluctant to involve her parents in her issuesbecause she fears the consequences if they find out that Sue has been doctoringher grades for years. How can she explain to them why she’s gone from having apassing (and perhaps even impressive) GPA in years past to having a failing(and even abominable) GPA this year? She’d have to admit that Sue’s been fudgingher report cards to preserve her academic eligibility—and doing so might resultin her parents asking her questions that she doesn’t want to answer.

Either shewould have to say that she had gone along with Sue’s meddling (even though sheknew what Sue was doing was wrong) OR she would have to admit that Sue hasbasically been abusing and blackmailing her and the other Cheerios, making herscared to come forward about the academic dishonesty. The first option oversimplifiesthe situation. The second option is the truth but one that’s probably difficultfor her to cop to.

In any case,for whatever reason, Brittany either doesn’t bring her problems to her parents’attention or she does but they can’t (or won’t) help her.

WithSantana, things are different.

Brittanyknows that if she approaches Santana with her problem, Santana will not onlycare but also understand all of the extenuating circumstances. Santana knowsabout the Sue stuff. She also sees how teachers and other staff members tend toreact to Brittany. She’s fully aware of the injustice. She’s also fully awarethat Brittany’s genius is misunderstood—that Brittany is smart, though her smarts don’t necessarily translate to hertopping the Honor Roll every semester. Santana has the full view of thesituation, and there’s no question that she’d be sympathetic to Brittany’sissues and do everything in her power to get Brittany help, if Brittany justsaid the word.

The troubleis that Brittany doesn’t want to say the word—not when Santana has been dealingwith her own troubles, which, on the whole, from Brittany’s perspective, seem so much bigger and moreagonizing than Brittany’s own.

Brittanycan’t bring herself to interject, “Um, excuse me, Santana, but can we take a break fromdealing with you being outed the entire state of Ohio, suspended from school,disowned by your grandmother, and homophobically bullied so that we can talkabout my algebra test?;” not when she knows that if she points out that she isfailing, Santana will pump the brakes on her own plans and ambitions in orderto stand by her side.

She doesn’twant to hold Santana back when Santana is on her way out of their stifling, gay-bashingtown, onto bigger and better things. She doesn’t want to drag Santana herpersonal turmoil, not when Santana is just finally getting clear from theturmoil in her own.

—andespecially not when Brittany views her own failure as inevitable.

Yeah, shecould tell Santana, and, yeah, Santana would try to move heaven and earth tohelp her. But in the end, there’d be nothing Santana could do. Brittany wouldstill fail, not due to any lagging efforts on Santana’s part, but becauseBrittany has never been able to succeed in school no matter how hard she tried,because the whole system is rigged against her and always has been. No matterhow much effort Brittany expends to show people she’s got a fine brain in herhead—by winning a quiz bowl championship, writing for the school newspaper,becoming class president, dishing out wise advice, etc.—no one except for Santanahas ever been willing to give her a chance. They always see her as an imbecileor a child. Even Santana can’t change the status quo. So why drag her into it?

InBrittany’s view, it’s better for her to help Santana pursue her dreams outsideof Lima than to do anything that might cause her to turn back or slow down.

ThoughBrittany often projects confidence, the truth is that just like the other twomembers of the Unholy Trinity, she has some serious and deep-seated self-esteemissues. After so many years of people calling her an idiot and treating herlike a child, part of her wonders if they aren’t perhaps right (see her speech in episode 4x22).

While shedoesn’t want to believe what the haters are saying, she also can’t help butfeel that maybe she is destined for Lima Loserdom. If so, then the last thingshe wants to do is drag Santana down with her—hence why she doesn’t mention herfailure to graduate until she’s sure that Santana leaving town and going toLouisville is already a done deal.

Is refusingto seek help from anyone a wise choice on Brittany’s part? No.

But havingdifficulty asking for help is a character flaw she comes by naturally. That agirl who’s been told “no” her whole life would be scared to ask anyone to takea chance on her and say “yes” makes sense. The behavior pattern is a consistentone that she displays throughout the show, such as, for example, in S4, whenshe stages not one but two separate public meltdowns in situations where sheneeds help but doesn’t know how to ask for it (see episodes 4x02 and 4x22).

Note: Thefact that Brittany actually brings herself to ask Santana if they can seekadult help regarding their relationship troubles in episode 2x15 shows just howmuch the issue means to her. Normally, Brittany would never suggest seekingoutside counsel, but in that case she wants so badly to set things to rightsbetween her and Santana that she petitions Santana to approach Holly Holliday.Her love for Santana outweighs her fear of making herself vulnerable.

Brittanydoes want to graduate high school. She does want to be with Santana andcontinue their relationship. She wants to escape Lima. She wants to prove thenaysayers wrong. She wants to start a new life somewhere where she’s notnegatively stereotyped and looked down on by everyone. She wants to livehappily ever after with the woman she loves. She wants all of these thingsdesperately, more than anyone really knows.

But she alsodoesn’t know how to get what she wants.

She feelsboxed in and like her situation is hopeless.

So she justtailspins until she crashes.

—and thetruly tragic thing is that nobody notices what’s happening with her until it’stoo late, either because they remain oblivious (like Santana) or because theyare apathetic (like Brittany’s teachers, coaches, and guidance counselors).

Per usual,Glee tried to play the situation for laughs, but there’s really nothing allthat funny about Brittany’s academic failures at all.

Like manystudent athletes, Brittany is a kid whose physical abilities have been valuedover her learning. As long as she’s helping the Cheerios to winchampionships—and make no mistake, like Quinn and Santana, Brittany is one ofSue’s superstars, whose dance and choreography talents are one of the main advantagesthat make the squad elite—then nobody cares if she struggles in her classes.It’s all about what she can do for the school and not what the school can dofor her.

Of course,in Brittany’s case, there’s even an added element of administrative apathy atplay beyond the usual “Just pass the girl so she’s competition eligible” bit.

Because ofthe way she thinks and acts, her teachers assume that she incapable of and/ordisinterested in learning. They allow their annoyance and exasperation with herto supersede whatever obligation they might feel to provide her with a realeducation.

The sad reality is that no one’s going to go out of theirway to teach a girl that they consider a) a nuisance to have in class; b)incapable of learning; and c) someone for whom grades don’t really matteranyhow, given that she’s one of the moving parts in Sue Sylvester’schampionship cheerleading machine.

So that’show Brittany makes it through grades nine, ten, and eleven: By being passedfrom hand to hand, with the faculty and administration turning a blind eye towhat’s happening because, ultimately, no one really cares about her educationanyway.

But thenBrittany enters grade twelve, and for whatever reason this system suddenlyfalls apart. Though she has previously made passing grades—some of themostensibly without Sue’s “help”—the coursework in her senior year gets thebetter of her.

Maybe thetwelfth grade material proves substantially more difficult than the eleventhgrade material. Maybe years of inadequate learning finally catch up to her. (Ifone never masters the basics of a given subject, then one can’t very wellnavigate more advanced material, after all.) Maybe the stress in her family andsocial life so distracts her from her schoolwork that she is no longer able to juggle it all, and she ends up dropping the academic ball. Maybe herteachers finally have enough of her antics and decide to grade her punitively. Maybea confluence of issues affects her.

Whatever thecase, she fails.

That no onein the WMHS administration takes an interest in her case is a tragedy. Thatshe doesn’t feel safe enough to ask any of her teachers or coaches for help isutterly heartbreaking. Particularly when we compare her story to Puck’s, thenumerous ways in which the system has failed her become painfully apparent.

No childshould flunk out of school because her teachers find her annoying.

—andespecially not when she is willing to learn, if only given the chance.

Throughouther time at WMHS, we frequently see Brittany taking notes in her classes andvolunteering answers during lectures, incorrect though some of those answerscertainly are. She isn’t a girl who sleeps through her schooldays or cutsclasses or goofs off. She’s trying her best. And as the way she really comesinto her own after she leaves WMHS proves, she isvery much capable of learning, albeit at her own pace and in her own way.

Imagine howvery different Brittany’s story could have been if even one teacher had realizedher potential—or had even just given her a chance of any kind.

Not onlywould it perhaps have been possible for her to graduate with the rest of herclass, but her genius could have been recognized sooner. The entire course of her life could have been changed for the better.

As thingsare, Brittany eventually succeeds inspite of her experiences in the education system, not because of them.

Hers remainsa sobering story.

Anyway.

Then, toanswer your second question:

No, I don’tthink Brittany drops the “—if it were, Santana and I would be dating” line onpurpose. I honestly think it’s a slip on her part.

Here’s thething:

ThoughBrittana don’t get a lot of foreground development during S1, they do have asubtle subtextual, “in the background” storyline that centers on the tension between howSantana thinks they need to be versus how they really are.

Whilethey’re both truly happiest when they’re monogamous with each other, Santanacontinually insists that they maintain publicly visible sexual relationshipswith popular boys at the same time that they’re sleeping with each other—youknow, to project at least the illusion of “straightness.”

However,despite her interest in appearing “heterosexual,” Santana is never able to keepup her sexual relationships with boys for long. Puck inevitably cheats on her.Finn inevitably turns back to Rachel. She invariably ends up back in amonogamous sexual relationship with Brittany, who is more than happy with thearrangement, given that she and Santana are actually in love. The cycle repeatsitself ad nauseum, until eventually, between episodes 1x10 and 1x13, Santanaand Brittany fall into a prolonged period of exclusivity with eachother.

During thistime, they’re sleeping together, plus doing all of their regular “best friend”things—you know, like sharing meals and going out to movies and sittingtogether in the back of the class and writing each other cute notes andcuddling and linking pinkies and generally being, you know, GIRLFRIENDS—whichis why Brittany feels confused about the status of their relationship.

Santana hastold over and over again that just because you’re having sex with someonedoesn’t mean you’re also dating them.

But she andSantana aren’t just having sex. They’re also doing all sorts of relationship-ystuff. Plus, you know, they’re in love with each other.

So doesn’tthat mean that they’re dating?

That’s thequestion that’s in Brittany’s mind going into the infamous party line scene inepisode 1x13.

To quoteextensively from thispost:

During S1,Santana feels secure in her arrangements with Brittany as long as she maintainsa sexual relationship with Puck and he brags about it around school. As long aseveryone knows that Santana has sex with a hot boy and “likes it,” then Santanafeels safe to also have sex with Brittany, per her own druthers. Even afterSantana and Puck officially break up circa episode 1x03, things are cool becausethey still keep having sex and Puck keeps broadcasting the fact that they do totheir peers.

But then circa episode 1x10, somethingshifts.

Though Puck and Santana continue to haveintermittent sex, Puck ceases to boast of their encounters starting around episode1x10, when he begins to woo Quinn in earnest, trying to prove his worthiness asa father and partner to her.

When Puck ceases to brag, Santana getsnervous and feels as if he has rejected her. Is she doing something wrong?Doesn’t he like it anymore? Does he know her secret?

In episode 1x11, Santana sexts Puck in adesperate attempt to rekindle his interest in her, but her efforts don’t panout. Pucktana likely stop sleeping together between episodes 1x11 and 1x13,and, when they do, it likely causes Santana to fear immensely for herreputation.

Ironically, though the thing Santana mostfears in losing Puck as her beard is that people will find out the truth abouther relationship with Brittany, Santana can’t help but run to Brittany when shefeels Puck’s attentions waning. She panics her way right into Brittany’s bed,seeking the approval, affection, acceptance, and validation there that shedoesn’t get from Puck. In so doing, she probably reveals some emotionalvulnerability or even neediness to Brittany.

Considering that Brittany is in love withher, it’s hard for Brittany not to read significance into her actions and thinkthat they signal something big.

Hint: They do.

Brittany starts thinking more and moreabout what’s going on between her and Santana. Since Santana isn’t dating Puckanymore, maybe Santana could date Brittany instead.

It’s because Brittany has the idea ofdating Santana in her mind—and heart—that she blurts it out to the group in1x13.

“Sex isn’t dating.”

“—if it were, Santana and I would bedating.”

It’s Brittany voicing what’s in her heartbefore she can really stop herself.

That she has no premeditated intention ofouting herself and Santana is clear from the look on her face the second thewords leave her mouth and she realizes what she’s just said. She spoke what wasmeant to be a private thought aloud, and she’s scared to death about what theconsequences might be now that she has. She immediately glances to Santana,gauging her reaction, wondering how badly she’s just fucked up theirrelationship. Though the conversation quickly moves on from that point, herheartbeat most likely doesn’t resume a normal pace for minutes afterward.

Anyway, I’ve jabbered for a good, ol’long while now.

Thanks for the questions!

#Crazy Brittanalyst Answers #savealtonrichards #Brittanalyzing #It's been a while kids #I just want queue

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