#I guess I’m also a terrible human being for having empathy for every innocent person affected

[twoelectrichearts]

Noah Schnapp is literally beyond evil. Like, spawn of satan level of evil. He only deserves to suffer for the rest of his existence. How dare he have empathy for innocent civilians in Israel and Palestine. First of all, there’s no such thing as innocent Israeli civilians. Second of all, you can't have empathy for both. Especially if he is a Zionist. All the Jewish people who identify as Zionists are evil. Israel has absolutely no right to exist and Jewish people have no right to exist in Israel. So many Jewish people who are Zionists claim that’s what Zionism means to them but they’re wrong. Zionism is pure evil. You can’t be Zionist and want peace and self determination for Palestinians. I’m not Jewish but I definitely know better than the Jewish Zionists who claim that. They’re all evil lying monsters. They want every Palestinian wiped off the face of the Earth. Hamas would never want such a thing. It’s not like they had a charter that said that about Jewish people. Even if they did, they supposedly recently changed it to Zionists instead so it’s all good now. Hamas is totally accepting of Jewish people now and would welcome them with open arms as long as they aren’t Zionist. Noah, if you’re a Zionist, don’t be anymore. You can change your evil ways. Hamas changed. Yeah, they may have killed civilians and taken hundreds hostage, they may have said October 7th was just the beginning and that it was going to happen over and over again, but they’re no longer antisemitic. They’re just anti Zionist so they’re good people now. You can change and be good too. You’re so young. There’s still hope for you. Stop lying and telling us how you want peace and self determination for Palestinians. We all know that’s not true. It can only be true if you aren’t Zionist.

You liking something like this makes absolutely no sense if you’re Zionist. I bet you don’t even agree with it and just liked it by accident or something. It’s crazy how I even managed to come across this months ago considering nobody talked about it or brought it to light. You liking that sketch of people in the LGBTQ+ community simping over Hamas got so much attention and caused so much outrage though. Funny how the internet works. Anyways, as a bisexual, I was so offended by that video. Hamas are well known LGBTQ+ allies. How could you like that video as someone who’s gay? It’s probably because you’re lying about being gay too. Shame on you.

Last thing I’m gonna say is fuck Israel and fuck Israelis. That country and all the people living there are evil. They’re all colonizers and occupiers. It needs to cease to exist and all the people currently living there need to go back to where they originally came from. All of them came from Europe, right? That’s what I’ve been hearing. They all need to return to Europe. Gosh, why’d they ever leave there in the first place? I know Jewish people say otherwise but they’re wrong. They’re either lying or in denial. They’re not indigenous to Israel. They’re indigenous to Europe. Us non Jewish people really need to educate them more about their own history, religion, ethnicity, etc. We need to teach them what antisemitism actually is. A lot of them don’t seem to understand what it is. We do that to every other minority group that we aren’t apart of, right?

#this post is sarcastic in case you can’t tell #bottled this up for so long and finally exploded lol #gotta learn to just not give a shit #noah schnapp #will byers #byler #I guess I’m also a terrible human being for having empathy for every innocent person affected #Netanyahu hamas and the idf suck #all terrorist groups and militaries suck #they shouldn’t even be a thing #one of the many reasons this world can’t be peaceful #I wish we all could live in peace but that’s never been reality and will never be reality because this world is terrible #if there actually was a god why would they allow all these horrible things to happen? #this is why I’m a former catholic turned atheist #stranger things #I can’t think of anyone more perfect to portray Will #actual gay actor playing gay character #love the representation #so many people who don’t personally know Will demonize him bully him and call him slurs #so many people who don’t personally know Noah demonize him bully him and call him slurs #thank goodness they both have family and friends who care about them and love them #antisemitism

[luckycheesefoodie321]

Y’all. YALL. KIPO SEASON 2 is FIREEEEEEEE

Heroes on Fire...

Anyway!

Binge watched Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts Season 2 today and y’all it was sooooo good!!

MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD

I was gonna do a cut off but... I can’t be bothered getting my laptop sooo...

LONG POST TOO!!! Plus I have enough spoiler tags I think...

———

First of all... Scarlemagne = Mojo-jojo but with actual redemption arc potential???

They really set homie up as the biggest bad and then the twist mystery that Lio and Scarlemagne are connected at the end of S1... but then every much like The Storm from ATLA, we just DEEP-DIVED into Scarlemagne aka HUGO’s backstory and you’re like “well shit, no fucking wonder he got so damn twisted and hating on humans”

And yknow what even with his convoluted thinking and the terrible things he’s done, I’m really really glad they didn’t go down the whole “I blame Kipo bc I’m jealous she took Lio and Song’s attention away from me and that’s why they left me behind” story line... it’s absolutely fascinating that at no point does Scarlemagne blame Kipo, and even looks at her as a sister... like his line “you’re not the one who rejected me” was so powerful, bc he recognises she was just an innocent baby and sees the same confused child in her that he was when he was left alone on the surface... and twisted though his attempts of making her happy were, he was really reaching out for someone who genuinely cares about him again, and it helps that she’s also the daughter of the two people he once viewed as parental figures... and also Kipo’s just naturally empathetic and sees the good in people...

Then she was willing to sacrifice her humanity for a stadium full of mutes and Lio pulled him out of danger... so I’m reaaaallly hoping they keep this potential redemption going... bc really Hugo and Kipo are perfect mirrors of each other... very Zuko/Aang reminiscent... Hugo the animal experiment that was given human hopes and dreams and abilities, only to be thrust into a confusing and scary place with strange powers, and seemingly betrayed by the people he loves most... Kipo, the human experiment, with typical hopes and dreams but is forced into a confusing and scary place with strange powers, and finds out her whole birth and life has been a lie...

One of them just came out of it better...

Secondly... Kipo’s inner Mega-Jaguar scene = Naruto and the Nine-Tails Fox???

Like slowly learning to control the little bits of power that sneak through... being able to change between forms at will provided there is something anchoring her human half... that whole water/mirror/internal Jaguar sequence?!?!... USING THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP TO GET A GRIP ON HER HUMANITY?!?!

ACCESSING AN EVOLVED FORM OF HERSELF WHISLT THINKING OF THE PEOPLE SHE WANTED TO SAVE?!?!

Yo if that ain’t Naruto idk what is...

Next we have Mom the Monkey...

Wasn’t too hard of a leap to figure out... I probably clocked into it maybe mid ep 1?? Idk what triggered it but yeah don’t think that was meant to be a difficult leap to make... that aside, I like that they didn’t have Song immediately change back or have her wits about her when Mulholland helped free her from the pheromones... she’s been a monkey for 13 years, under the control of Dr Emilia, she hasn’t spoken and she didn’t have little moments to control her powers like Kipo... so figuring out how to change her back is a good ongoing mission to have I think... it also makes the fact that Kipo was the one to get through to her in the first place even more powerful and that’s SO dope...

Lio... yknow what when grown ups in these types of stories have regrets and the children are dealing with their consequences it can be very frustrating... but I like that Lio is more than willing to reflect on his past mistakes (valid tho it was that he had no choice but to grab Kipo and run before Emilia could get to her) and is also willing to ACT ON IT...he gives Kipo’s ideas a chance and its even shown for real when Scarlemagne forced him to tell the truth... Hugo was a child he raised and he doesn’t want to leave him behind anymore... even if he’s done so much bad... I’m also glad they showed Kipo expressing disappointment in her fathers actions, empathy for Hugo’s pain, but that didn’t mean she was suddenly disillusioned to her father and what kind of person he is... that can also be a very frustrating aspect of these types of plot lines...

Benson and his darling potentially mutual crush, Troy? What else can i say but beautiful first awkward teen crush PERFECTION! Both of them blushing when Benson ended up on top of Troy after tackling Troy out of the way of a rampaging Pierre? Troy kissing him on the cheek? Troy helping Benson out of the pit and the same falling in love music playing while Benson gazed up at Troy?? TROY AND BENSON HOLDING HANDS WHILE SCARED AND CLINGING TO EACH OTHER?!?!?

TROY BEING AT LEAST PARTIALLY (Latino? Hispanic?) MEANING EVEN MORE POC CHARACTERS AS MAINS LIKE HECK YEAH!!!

Sidenote: a good chunk of the music is like... “rap” music and they always hit during fight scenes and it’s great...

Also: the Kipo title sequence? A bop we must never forget...

SPEAKING OF BOPS WE MUST NEVER FORGET: Heroes on Fire... a karaoke classic I must learn... used with the Power of Friendship can turn a mega mute back to human...

Also also my love and life Jamack??? Continuing to help Kipo out even if he’s a total tsundere about it?!?! LITERALLY CANNOT STOP HIMSELF FROM HELPING HER?!?! I love him... and I want him to join the gang... so bad...

ALSO. The whole second episode was basically about cheese.

Feta. Gouda. Chevre. Fromage.

Idk about that whole... Soothsayer meets the Grey Sisters (Greek mythology? Three sisters, one eye, one tooth? Is that what they’re called?) business with the cheese but whatever it was fun... they were just straight up tossing knives at Kipo to get her latent powers to activate and that was hilarious... also Mr Miyagi moment I guess XD but it means Kipo’s created a whole brain pathway between Herbs in/Herbs out and how she controls her powers and she even mentions that...

Also mega bummed about Ratland burning down...

I also wanna know what was up with the sentient Fun Gus and why it had the mind of a child...

FINALLY: our new big bad - Dr Emilia...

WHAT COMPLETELY TOOK ME BY SURPRISE WAS IT WASNT SCARLEMAGNE WHO PUT HER UNDER HIS CONTROL BUT FRIGGEN THESE CLOAKED HUMANS...Monkey Mom wasn’t a surprise but THAT sure was

We’re really leaning into the one race supremacy theme here huh? But also the reckless and callous treatment of animals and the earth by humans... without regard for how they feel... and after mutating and having and being able to communicate their thoughts and feelings and dreams, Emilia still thinks it would be better to remove that and return them to just animals...

Fascinated to see where they go from here...anyway... go watch Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts so we can get a season 3 babeyyyyy

#spoilers #kipo #kipo and the age of wonderbeasts #kipo and the age of wonderbeasts spoilers #kipo spoilers #season 2 #kipo season 2 #kipo seasons 2 spoilers #kipo and the age of wonderbeasts season 2 spoilers #wolf #benson #dave #wolfatha christie the fourth #dreamworks kipo #mandu #long post

[merlinistheredheadedstepchild]

Magic Bullet - June 13, 2011

Ugh, Kate I do like that they’re going for a Buffy cold open moment where we think the blonde’s in trouble and then she’s a badass But it’s Kate Also neat shot of the Alpha running along side her car How is she not deaf? She fired a shotgun three inches from her ears

And the Alpha howling wakes Scott And he decides to come check it out?

Chris should be better at lying than this

Derek getting his blood hound on The Alpha getting its gorilla on And parkour Kate getting her sharp shooter on Derek does not understand how injuries work

“Not even a hello, nice to see ya?” “All I’ve got now is please put the assault rifle away before someone sees.” Like a reasonable werewolf hunter

They think there are only two of them and they need the beta to lead them to the alpha

Kate hasn’t seen Allison in a year And she and Chris should be better at lying To be fair she did almost get mauled

Stiles is asking all the important questions and Scott cant handle any of it

“No more talk about the Alpha or Derek. Especially Derek, who still scares me.” And he looks genuinely scared in that moment. Because I’m fairly certain he’s trying to hide the existential crisis he’s going through behind werewolf research

I know Derek looks too old to still be a high school student and thus people in the halls should notice him. But I’m not certain I ever looked at the people around me once while walking between classes in high school

I might have noticed the guy who looks like he’s in withdrawal

God he looks so sad for a second before he puts on his game face to threaten Jackson “Where’s Scott McCall” “Why should I tell you” “Because I asked politely and I only do that once” Derek looks so offended that Jackson thinks he’s selling Scott steroids And then he accidentally claws open Jackson’s neck

Derek looks confused while he listens to Lydia and Allison talking about condoms and dates He’s such a good actor Like I’m offended by how much he makes me feel for Derek while he’s just staring and listening or cringing away from a ringing bell

Ooh the jeep scene Just pass out in the parking lot why don’t you?

“What are you doing here?” “I was shot.” “He’s not looking so good, dude.” “Why aren’t you healing” “I can’t. It was a different kind of bullet” “A silver bullet” “No you idiot” (Roll your eyes a little harder while you’re dying, Derek) “Wait, wait. That’s what she meant when she said you only had forty eight hours” “What? Who… who said forty eight hours?” “The one who shot you”

“Why should I help you” “Because you need me”

Scott you should help Derek out because he is dying and you have empathy! But you’re sixteen and in denial about being a werewolf and in love with this girl who’s family wants to kill you and you are putting all of the blame and hate on Derek

“I hate you for this, so much”

It’s strange that they don’t have a mountain ash situation in their house But I guess they haven’t thought up mountain ash yet

“Haven’t been here for like, over a month?’” That purple dress is so cute This techno music is not

“Start the car or I’m gonna rip your throat out. With my teeth.” The scene that launched a thousand ships The make up on Derek is doing such a good job that it actually looks like they cgi-ed him into the scene. Like his lighting and coloring is so different it looks like it was filmed on a different day

“That’s my dad’s sister Kate. Except she’s more like my sister.” “She actually used to live in Beacon Hills, maybe you saw her once?”

Allison is clearly a perfectionist who is searching for something artsy but is ultimately very good at athletics and not art

“So I was nationally ranked as a kid. My dad really wanted me to go on.”

Chris is so fucking great at being a terrifying dad

Kate is great at being a cool aunt To bad she’s a terrible person

Chris, cool your fucking tits He’s sixteen You don’t even think he’s a werewolf yet It’s cute that he anchors her even though it’s him that her dad is attacking

“And by the way he’s starting to smell.” “Like what?” “Like death!”

Dylan and Hoechlin are far and away the best teenage actors on this show right now and they have amazing chemistry and I totally get it Derek is more of a person in those scenes with stiles and it’s probably partially that he’s dying and partially that Stiles is a human

The Argents have no chill

Why are only a few of her bullets wolfsbane? Shouldn’t they all be?

Oh god. The rabid dog speech. Find your fucking chill Christopher!

Does he think Scott knows a werewolf?

Ooh abs

“Last resort” “Which is?” “You’re gonna cut off my arm”

And Kate confronts Scott And Allison whips out a condom to protect his virtue

Ugh, Stiles. That jacket Is the no chest hair so that he looks younger?

“Oh God! What if you bleed to death?” “It’ll heal if it works.” “Look I don’t know if I can do this.“ “Why not?”

You are actively dying! How much sass is necessary?

“You faint at the sight of blood?” “No, but I might at the sight of a chopped off arm!” “Look either you cut off my arm or I cut off your head”

Derek only knows how to get these kids to listen with threats But his threats are fucking weak

“He’s not waking up” “I think he’s dying. I think he’s dead!” Stiles holds Derek’s face so gently

And we get the first punch Derek in the face to save his life

I like how the burning of the wolfsbane seems like a drug ritual

He is just cut to pieces

“That was awesome! Yes!” Not the time Stiles “Are you okay?” “Except for the agonizing pain.” Not the time Derek “I’m guessing the ability to use sarcasm is a sign of good health.” Still not the time Stiles

“You think you can trust them?” “They’re a lot freaking nicer than you are!” “I can show you how nice they are.”

Beacons Crossing Home ( Because they hadn’t realized they needed him at the hospital yet

Oddly, perfectly clean shaven Peter looks so much older than scruffy Peter

“Six years ago my sister and I were at school. Our house caught fire. Eleven people were trapped inside. He was the only survivor.” “They’re the only ones that knew about us.” “They say they’ll only kill an adult and only with absolute proof but there were people in my family that were perfectly ordinary in that fire. This is what they do. This is what Allison will do”

Derek believes that Allison is like Kate

Scott have some fucking empathy his entire family was murdered by the Argents there is no reason for that He tells you there were humans in the house and thus innocents who shouldn’t have been killed And yet, you think he’s liar

“How do we know its just the two of them?” “We don’t.”

“You and the code.” “It’s there for a reason.” “Of course. I always play by the rules.” And then she lights the gas fireplace. Because they are not fucking around with the allusions on this show

End Episode Four

Notes:  I think Kate is meant to be no more than a decade older than Allison. Otherwise them being like sisters would be strange. I think Chris suspects every teenage boy might be the third wolf Derek becomes twenty or twenty one around episode three Though if he was fifteen and it’s been five and a half years that still checks out

#teen wolf #tw s1 #tw rewatch #magic bullet #1.04

[magioftheseas]

theory asker anon here yet again! sorry for bothering you about tsukasa again hh, but i do want to ask for some advice! im considering writing something for him, both for his human self and current self, but im not super duper sure on how to portray his personality. and how to make him both sympathetic and.... not?? i suppose?? aaa i hope this is understandable.

You’re not bothering me, anon. It’s okay.

Tsukasa is a weird character to write because by nature you’re going to have to extrapolate due to a lack of information. Basically, a reliance on headcanon and theories as to how and why he is the way that he is. This is the case with pretty much every character, mind you, because fanfic writers tend to portray characters in situations that haven’t been explored in canon, but the more unknown variables you have, the more strongly this becomes the case.

This can be a good thing and a bad thing, but we haven’t the time to go into that.

I can’t really tell you how to portray the character because y’know, I’m not an authority on that, but for me... It’s a matter of paying attention to a lot of his little quirks and expanding on them, and also just...a matter of preference.

My favorite things about Tsukasa is his childishness, his matter-of-fact and sometimes literal-minded view, and his easygoing nature. He’s a character of simple joys, and I find that precious. However, he can and will kill you if it either suits his fancy or if you get in his way. Sometimes this can be done playfully but, much scarier is when violence is just his instinct at someone getting in his way and he has a blank expression on his face when he does it. I feel like a lot of people miss out on that which is a shame because it, to me, is far more worrying behavior.

To me, Tsukasa’s character is one of intense and unsettling contrast. He’s very cute and small, but he’s also a ticking time bomb. What gets me is the uncertainty. He does things, yes, but he doesn’t always do things, y’know? He can just as easily decide against hurting a person even when his instinct is to do so as he can decide to hurt someone to accomplish a goal. That he’s capable is scary enough, but it’s in being fickle/unpredictable where the true intimidation factor lies.

What really gets my attention though is just how unusual his relationship with Hanako really is. Like a lot of people go the obsessive brother route but while Tsukasa is that, he’s not to the extent that fans portray. He doesn’t mind Nene, in fact he definitely likes her as opposed to his utter indifference towards Kou. He actually shares his brother’s fascination with stars to the point where he gets really excited when trying to show what he sees with Amane/Hanako. While undoubtedly fixated on Amane/Hanako, it’s...really weird and difficult to explain the nuances between that and usual obsessive sibling behavior. It exists but it’s not a driving force in his character. While his instinct is to cling to Amane/Hanako, he’s not possessive. It’s actually very rare that he actively seeks out Amane/Hanako. Pretty much the only time I can think of where he does that is his first proper appearance and in an old announcement post on AidaIro’s twitter that included Tsukasa demanding “Amane” for Christmas.

(From here, for the curious.)

(Translation: 'What do you want for Christmas?' 'AMANE' 'That's what I thought you'd say...' 'You have him? Do you!?')

When it comes to sympathy I don’t...really think about that. There is definitely a stink of tragedy around him, because the fact of the matter is that he was killed young by someone he was very close to and loved quite dearly. He had not only his future taken away, but any chance of physical maturation, making him permanently stunted. Regardless of the circumstances, Tsukasa had been betrayed in a really terrible way...and yet, he still adores his brother whole-heartedly. Rather disturbingly, he’s seemed to have categorized his death as a good thing due to how it provided Amane with a sense of release and that...makes me pretty sad in its implications.

I guess...I find him a very pure-hearted character, overall. Innocent, definitely. And what’s that Pokemon BW quote? “There’s nothing more beautiful and terrifying than innocence”? Yeah. Tsukasa’s definitely an example of that, and we still don’t even know if he’s a victim of manipulation or not.

I don’t think Tsukasa is inherently sympathetic. I think he should be, but he’s probably not. He lacks consideration and remorse, be it for others or even himself on occasion. A lot of his personality could be chalked up to lack of maturity in addition to a lack of empathy. He’s a child, and he has some of the worst traits a child could have. Not all of them. But some of them. And for some people, that’s more than enough reason to not care for him. And while I think several fandom assumptions/interpretations are wrong, it’s not my business how people feel. It still saddens me how people miss out on the nuances of his character in favor of a more straight-forwardly villainous approach. I feel like if you miss out on the nuances, you’re doing yourself a disservice.

Sometimes, it’s all about the little things!

As for his human self, we literally have no idea what human Tsukasa was like beyond the fact that he can do katanuki for hours and threw fits when interrupted. My personal favorite headcanon is that he was super rambunctious but isn’t like...y’know super terrible. He could be tactless and shitty at times, being a child, but I prefer the idea of those traits being far more magnified as a supernatural. Still a little feral, but he could’ve turned out fine-ish under better circumstances. Unfortunately those better circumstances never came.

Ahhhh, I just went off and I have no idea if any of this is helpful. I hope it is. :’>

#Magi answers #anonymous #jibaku shounen hanako kun #tsukasa yugi #magi headcanon

[makeroomforthejolyghost]

this started off as navelgazing about a line from a book, then turned into an anxious rant about current events

“Inborn in nearly every artist is a tendency to accept injustice if it creates beauty” (Death in Venice, 21). well, idk about inborn, bc i had to go out of my way to shed the opposite tendency, but i do think it’s true that this mentality is necessary for… art and also other kinds of thought, anything where you need unfettered curiosity. but the painting of it as a vice interests me lately, because i’m starting to think i may have gone too far in this direction? the quoted line speaks to an assumption that indignation is a thing you should practice whenever relevant so you don’t lose it. that if something strikes you as unfair, you should always prioritize that impression over everything else you might notice about the situation that provokes that response. in this scene, that even though it’s not clear how it would help anyone for aschenbach to disapprove of this family’s treatment of the three daughters, it’s still a vice for him to brush it aside because he likes watching the son whose personality he thinks results from this favoritism.

i think we assume this because we fear that failing to deplore an instance of injustice when we see it makes us complicit? which, in and of itself, is clearly not true; that’s just thoughtcrime. like: unless you maintain that it’s his responsibility to tell the parents off, or to do something nice for the girls to compensate,* there’s no reason to view aschenbach’s feeling of “yeah well that sucks but it’s interesting to watch” as any worse than thinking “those terrible parents! how dare they deprive three out of four of their kids in this way”? bc there’s no consequential difference.

but. i think… maybe there is something to be said for cultivating this habit? because, at least for me, this kinda has led to a sort of complacency, a feeling that it’s not my place to judge people (or that there’s nothing i can do to fix injustice when i see it, but mostly the first thing: i tend to assume i don’t know enough about other people’s situations to judge, much less to try to correct or advise people). and that’s true??? like, in part i think this mental habit must have grown out of the axiom not to give medical advice to chronically ill people. i… have a tendency to internalize advice across the board, rather than situationally. i.e., to take this as meaning, “people know more about their own problems than you do,” and also, as meaning, “they’re already doing their best; nobody fails on purpose.” and generalizing that to situations where the “failure” is one of cruelty rather than of just not being as healthy/happy as it seems to you people should be. like: i have rooted out just-world hypothesis so thoroughly, i have so much contempt for that “obviously it’s possible to be better” mentality, that i apply it even when what i see looks to me like. someone being mean to their children. and to a certain extent this seems right to me??? like, parents fearing everyone around them thinks they’re evil because their kid is crying, when really all they deprived this poor child of is a piece of candy she found on the floor, is a real thing, and, i honestly cannot think of a time when i’ve seen a parent say or do something harsh to their child where something like this couldn’t easily have been the explanation. plus, the possibility they might take it out on their children still exists!

but i think maybe the specifics here are confusing the question? either that or the question is so abstract/fake that it’s not one i need to answer. so here: the root of my anxiety is this: i sometimes worry there’s something wrong with me because i’m not obsessed with the BLM protests going on, or at least, not in the way so many people imply i should be. it’s not that i lack empathy for the victims?—i do tear up when i think too hard about george floyd, or that man with the food cart who used to serve the cops for free. it’s just… that this sense of injustice doesn’t lead to any conviction. i don’t feel the righteousness of the protests; i’m detached enough to wonder intellectually about their effectiveness. although?? i guess that’s not wholly true either, because when i first heard about them my very first thought was “OH GOD NO NOT THIS AGAIN! YOU’RE ALL GONNA GET KILLED!”—a combination of fear at what might (…would, from today’s perspective) happen to the people involved, and dismay at the knowledge i was going to have to perform supportiveness about it.

for the record: i do think police brutality is evil, and that the police are corrupt and overpowered and groomed to be racist; also, from what i’ve heard, the protests have helped create a lot of policy changes, so from that standpoint i guess i support them. or, at least, congratulate them on a job well done. but: i think holding protests during a pandemic is fucking insane, especially since the thing protestors demand a stop to is unnecessary death. people keep telling me this is a crucial moment for the black community, and i think that at this point that’s true, but, afaik there’s no good strategic reason we can point to for why it had to be now, and i don’t like… well ok, let me start again. i wouldn’t mind having to say “yeah, well, straw that broke the camel’s back,” if i didn’t feel like that excuse precluded all criticism of the protests’ timing.** in my own life, when i reflect on times in my life when i’ve done things whose consequences i regret, i often have to conclude that under the circumstances i can’t have expected anything better from myself. but i still get to say i shouldn’t have done that. maybe i’m being greedy with my cake here, i just. ugh. it just pisses me off, the hypocrisy about covid, because the whole point of lockdowns and social distancing &c. was that no one person’s or group’s interests outweigh the risks to the human race at large. but now it’s apparently more important for even the unaffected members of said human race to stand in solidarity with the minorities who are affected by this latest crisis--as in, literally stand there, in public, right next to them, even if that means that two weeks later they come down with the plague. like?? you can’t even say “but this is a matter of life and death”! because covid is an even wider-reaching matter of life and death!!!!

also, the most common justification i hear is that the number of horrible things we’ve seen the police inflict on protestors proves we need to keep protesting. and politically speaking that does seem to be working? but IT’S STILL KIND OF FUCKING GHOULISH to hear that we as a nation have a responsibility to give the cops more opportunities to kill innocent people. like. i can intellectually say “yes, you’re right, i think it’s working,” but i can’t seem to feel that as a duty or a righteous cause.

…what was my point again? oh right: that i worry this makes me a Bad Person, or at least that everyone around me would think i was a Bad Person if i told them how i felt. and that i specifically worry my emotions are wrong, because i should be having… the kind of patriotism proust talks about (though for BLM and the left &c. rather than for america itself, obviously), but instead i’m like “aaagh ok fine if you have to but GOD I WISH THIS WOULD STOP.” and apparently, wanting it to stop means siding with the oppressors. and i guess… god, do you know what it is? honestly, i’m so short-sighted that a return to the status quo does sound better to me than this chaos. i don’t disbelieve people who assert that only a bitter fight like this can force change? intellectually i think maybe that’s true. but emotionally, i hate it, and on an animal level i don’t really believe it. the animal in me believes only that positive change is slow and unsatisfying, regardless of how you accomplish it.

*both of which seem to me Too Risky because option a might end with their harassing the girls over it (e.g., “this stranger over here thinks you’re being mistreated. if he only knew you like i do…!”), while option b, coming from an older, solitary man, might strike both the girls and their parents as a creepy, lecherous thing, in which case the girls might view it as insulting or even traumatizing rather than as a favor to them.

**especially the timing of protests like the one in my own town last weekend. they marched to the city police station--even though the one widely-known violent incident in our town in the last decade was perpetrated by the university police department--on, afaict, general ACAB principle. my friend who attended says the anger felt real, not just like a performance, but they weren’t agitating for any concrete changes here, you know?? so idg why it was worth infecting people.

[darkwinterchild]

Malcolm, Moira, Thea and anger

Note: This post came about because I stumbled upon a cool gifset whose conclusion was that Thea’s rage was the one thing she took from her father (as opposed to her mother). Someone added tags about how Moira’s rage was actually so much more powerful, and Malcolm’s was small and insignificant just like himself. That’s so drastically opposite to my own interpretation that I just had to write something about it. I didn’t want to hijack someone else’s meta though (particularly tag meta), so I figured I’d just make a new post. Particularly since I have a lot of thoughts on the matter. Malcolm and Moira were my first favs in Arrow and I loved all of their interactions together.

So, long, in-depth analysis of Malcolm, Moira and Thea and their relationship with anger under the cut, one by one. I just don’t do short.

Malcolm

First off, I truly think there is nothing small about Malcolm’s rage. Not its origin, not its intensity, not its duration, not its results, not anything.

The cruelty of the men who shot and killed Rebecca Merlyn for nothing (“I told them to take everything”), the indifference of the people who walked by and ignored her cries for help, who let her bleed out and die on the street as if she didn’t matter (as if she wasn’t there for them in the first place, as if she hadn’t made it her life’s mission to help them and save them with her free clinic) - these are more than legitimate causes of anger. You know what else isn’t small? His anger at himself and his own failure to protect or help her, his regrets for that stupid momentary feeling of exasperation that made him shut his phone off that night (such dreadful consequences for such a small act of negligence that married couples do to each other all the time - that people in general do to loved ones all the time). His shame and rage for his motherless son. The whole thing is just a huge tragedy.

(And I just don’t think this rage should be called selfish.)

Malcolm harbored these feelings for 20 long years. They compelled him to give himself up to Ra’s Al Ghul to be tortured and brainwashed into something else, because he felt it could give him a measure of control and power back over his life. He let them fester inside of him for 12 years after his return from the League before he decided to act on them by starting the Undertaking. 12 years of desperate search for some form of redemption, for peace. 12 years during which he strived to honor Rebecca’s legacy the way she would have wanted, to save the city with charity and when it was no longer enough, by blackmailing the rich and corrupt. 12 years of frustration because you can’t win a war against crime. 12 years is the time it took him to convince himself that some people can’t be saved, are better off dead (because he is that kind of person: arrogant and unforgiving, justice without empathy or understanding).

Two decades after Rebecca’s death, his rage was still as intense as ever, if not more. It consumed his being to the point her death became the only thing that mattered - more than her life, even. An obsession that eclipsed everything else. He let it destroy his relationship with his son, let it destroy their family. He listened to that recording of her dying over and over until it drove him mad (until her tears and suffering were engraved at the forefront in his mind like words on stone - “No one would come”). He murdered Robert, his best friend in life, along with Robert’s son (Tommy’s best friend), because at this point he was no longer capable of truly caring. He murdered countless others. He blackmailed Moira into doing his bidding with the life of her daughter, a woman he used to have feelings for (whether they were purely platonic or more). He destroyed every relationship he had, spent countless hours planning his Undertaking, gave away huge amounts of money, all of this for years, and for what? Nothing. He risked everything, in the end lost everything, and he had absolutely nothing to gain from all of this, only a pointless, false satisfaction, the illusion of revenge. (The murder of a thousand innocents to pay for the murder of one? It’s a senseless spiral of violence and he was too far gone, down into the abyss, to see the irony.)

Malcolm Merlyn’s rage basically killed him, made him kill his city, and there is absolutely nothing “small” about that. Robert’s death wasn’t small, Moira and Thea’s sufferings weren’t small, Oliver’s 5 years in hell weren’t small, Walter’s kidnapping wasn’t small, the Unidac massacre wasn’t small, 503 people isn’t small.

(“insignificant” just isn’t a good word here.)

You can’t even say that his wrath was an illusion with the intent of making himself seem bigger, because he actually kept it carefully hidden and controlled. To the world, he showed the face of an affable businessman, and whenever his anger would show behind the mask, he’d use his own sorrow to disguise or dismiss it:

Malcolm [smiling]: My wife would have liked you, Laurel. Laurel: I’m only sorry I never got to meet her. She passed away before Tommy and I became friend. Malcolm [bitterly]: She was killed, Laurel. There is no need to be ‘polite’ about it. Tommy: You’re just a ray of sunshine today, aren’t you, Dad? Malcolm [smiling again]: Please forgive me, talking about my wife has a tendency to make me a bit maudlin.

“A bit maudlin”. He didn’t want people to know how truly enraged he still was about what happened. It’s actually an interesting dynamic: inside, he was using his anger to drown out his grief; outside, he was using his grief to conceal his anger. We only really saw glimpses of it (like the way his voice almost broke during his speech in Dead to Rights), up until it burst out during his conversation with Tommy in Sacrifice (“They deserve to die! All of them! The way she died!”). I don’t think he even wanted to admit it to himself. Instead, he presented his Undertaking as the only logical solution to an underlying societal problem. “I like to think that if the man who murdered her knew her, knew the work that she did, he would have helped her to her car, made sure she was safe, instead of taking her purse, and shouting her.” -- this is the man Malcolm wanted the world to see him as. Forgiving, hopeful. Someone who still believes in humanity, someone who sees the best in people just like Rebecca did. Because deep down he knew this is who he should be or strive to be. Mr Humanitarian of the Year. And it was all a lie.

I think people have a tendency to glamorize anger, because anger can be good and it can be beautiful. After all, anger is what motivates us to fight against injustice. So when we don’t like it in someone we want to make it less. But I think that’s hiding the fact that it has an ugly, dangerous, self-destructive side, that even righteous anger can become wrong when taken to the extreme, left unchecked. The whole problem of Malcolm’s rage isn’t that it was illegitimate. He had every right to be angry. It’s that it was wildly, terribly disproportionate. Monstrous.

Moira

All of this is in sharp contrast with Moira Queen. If Malcolm’s flaw was that he was too angry (let his anger turn him into a monster), Moira’s was that she wasn’t angry enough.

Moira is earth where Malcolm is fire (and together they are lava, a freaking volcano - a natural disaster about to erupt). Less aggressive and powerful, but more stable and enduring. Fully controlled instead of just focused. Like the earthbenders from Avatar, her stance is neutral jing: listening and waiting for the right opportunity. Fighting for preservation instead of fighting for change. Prudent in everything she does.

She stood by her husband through all the lying and the cheating. Robert cheated on her right after his best friend lost his wife (who was probably also their friend - that’s just highly distasteful). Years later, he cheated on her with a woman barely older than their son and called her his “soulmate” (that’s even more distasteful). Moira dealt with all of it and never let it affect their family - so much so their children never had any idea their father was unfaithful. She remained steady as his partner, still loved him despite everything, still supported him whenever he was worried or anxious - even if she didn’t trust him (“Robert, if this is what I think it is, I don't want to know her name--”). She endured.

Unlike Malcolm, losing her husband and son didn’t cause her to run or gun for revenge, instead she retreated into herself (“When you and Dad disappeared, she spent more and more time at home. Eventually stopped going out altogether.”). She had the exact same reaction after losing Walter. Both times, she put herself back together and pushed through life, solid for her family.

She searched for the Queen’s Gambit for two years after it sank, looking for proof, for surety, before blaming Malcolm. She salvaged the remains and kept them secure to potentially use as leverage at a later date, and never once brought up the fact she knew he murdered her husband and son to Malcolm before the start of the show. For years, she played the good soldier. She let him believe they could still be friends, that she believed in his cause (“And I think I speak for everyone here when I say we're all with you, Malcolm.” and “Moira, you may be surprised to know that I sometimes waver in my convictions. But your friendship, your endless support, always gives me the strength to carry on.”). Moira was never rash, she was always cautious and calculated. There may have been a terrible rage lurking under the surface, but we can only guess based on context - she never truly showed it, certainly never let it dictate her actions. Horror, guilt and sorrow - yes; but not anger. Hell, Malcolm tried to murder Oliver at his party in her own home, the son she’d just got back after five years of believing he was dead (that Malcolm had murdered him along with his father), and her only reaction was to make sure he understood she wouldn’t stand for yet another attempt on her family. Pretty cool under the circumstances. Later, she even made the choice to let Malcolm kidnap her second husband (actually even asked him to do it), rather than opt to fight him together.

Malcolm Merlyn was very much a “high risks, high reward” kind of person. Not Moira. She didn’t like taking risks, playing the game of thrones. She prepared some cards (the Gambit, Grizzled Man), but never attempted anything against him until she was backed into a corner (after the Hood attacked her and she realized she was now caught between two psychopaths). After her carefully planned assassination attempt didn’t pan out, her next move was to cut her losses and retreat, make sure her family was still safe no matter what (and if it meant throwing her good friend Frank and his family under the bus… well she wasn’t their mother, was she?). Moira could be so pretty damn ruthless: having her son kidnapped and tortured as soon as he got back home from 5 years of hell (imagine the trauma if Oliver wasn’t what he was - and Moira sure knew how much pain he already had to deal with: “20% of his body is covered in scar tissue”); having her husband kidnapped right after telling him he was her salvation; planning the murder of one of her oldest friend, him and his guards and the servants and whoever else was on the way, waiting for it to happen right after agreeing to a dinner-date with him; sacrificing another one of her old friends for something she made him do against his own better judgement (after he went out on a limb for her!); being ready to kill thousands of people for her and her family’s safety; etc. But unlike Malcolm her ruthlessness was never rooted in rage, it was always about fear and survival - she did whatever she needed to do for her family.

And I think that’s important in terms of Moira and anger - she should have been angrier. She should have lashed out, fought back, taken risks. Anything but accepted, even for a second, that leveling 24 square blocks and getting away with it was an tolerable end. Anything but surrendered before having tried her damn hardest to get out. Before Oliver pushed her to turn on Malcolm at the last minute, she wasn’t just going to let him murder thousands of people, she actively helped him do it. She bullied people (her friends) into serving his vision, threatened some of them, and it was her company that built the earthquake device at the end of the day. I think sometimes the fandom forgets that - she was a mass-murderer too. Not the architect of the Undertaking, but the second most important conspirator. Her confession at the end of the first season does redeem her a little, but 503 people still paid the price of her selfishness with their lives - not counting the suffering of the numerous survivors: the physical and mental scars, the permanently disabled, the pain of those who lost their loved ones, the struggle of rebuilding a broken community in the poorest part of town. Her belief that her and her family were more important than all of them Glades inhabitants put together, that they weren’t worth protecting, that she could afford to sacrifice them - it caused that. Moira had a right to be afraid; Malcolm had a right to be angry - neither of them had a right to kill.

(And nope I’m not equating what they did, Malcolm is still a hundred times worse.)

Sebastian Blood once asked Moira: “During your trial your portrayed yourself as a fragile creature living under Malcolm Merlyn’s thumb. So which is it? The woman strong enough to lead the city? Or the one too weak-willed to save it?”. The answer is both. Moira had the strength of a mountain, but I meant what I said about anger having a positive side. At the very least, it means that you have an incentive to fight for the wronged. There is something terrible about Moira’s dismissal of the lives that would be lost (that were lost) - “I’m not their mother”, she said.

So, yeah, at the end of the day, Moira was better than Malcolm. She never let her sadness and grief turn into cruelty. Her priority was always to protect the loved ones she had instead of lashing out for the ones she lost. She never let her pain skew her perspective, never forgot how to love. For her children, that was enough. For so many others, it wasn’t.

Thea

So, we have these two terrible disasters - and they made a baby together (volcanic islands are very fertile, they say). Thea, who at four year old brought home a stray cat who horrified her mother (“it was filthy, and it was mean”) and decided it was going to be family; Thea, who fell in love with the delinquent boy who stole her purse; Thea who’d never think of the poor and homeless as any less important than she is, who has a greater capacity for empathy than both her parents put together (heck, maybe even her whole family put together).

(“Thea was always so kind. The kindest person I’ve ever known.”)

Thea has her father’s anger. Sometimes it can be self-destructive, like when she jumped into a car high on Vertigo because she thought her mother was having an affair with Mr. Merlyn (off by a few years), or when she was ready to go to prison just to punish her. It can make her disagreeable, like all the times she lashed out at Oliver after his return from the island for being distant and a liar, or at her mother for being negligent. It can make her hard, like when she categorically refused to visit her mother in prison for months. It can compel her to make some very bad decisions, like letting their family lose their fortune or leaving with Malcolm Merlyn at the end of season 2.

But her anger means that she cares. A lot of people didn’t like Thea in season 1, and maybe she was wrong to be so hard on Oliver or Moira or Roy, but it was because she loved them and more often than not wanted to help them (and it wasn’t such a bad thing to ask them to care about her too from time to time):

Moira: Please, don't presume to think that you know what I'm going through. Thea: I do know. I lost Dad too. I'm worried about Walter too. But I don't get to worry about him, because I'm busy worrying about you. Moira: I never asked you to do that. Thea: Right. Because you don't ask me to do anything anymore. You don't ask me to do my homework or to be home at a decent hour. I mean, you basically stopped being my parent. Moira: Well, how's this? Don't talk to your mother like that. Thea: Maybe you should start acting like my mother. So I don't have to act like yours.

Thea cares about her family so much, blood family and found family, and that makes it so much more difficult every time they betray her, or die, again and again. And as she grows up, we see her lose a lot of her immaturity: Thea inherited Malcolm’s rage, but also her mother’s grace. Despite all the pain she went through, she hasn’t let that anger destroy her like it destroyed her father. When it was amplified by magical factors, she fought against her bloodlust until it was killing her. When she realized it was getting out of hand (when she almost killed a little girl to stop her father - that’s the most like Malcolm she’s ever been), she made the choice to step away from her vigilante life no matter how much she loved it. And she has a huge capacity for empathy and forgiveness: she forgave Oliver once she understood why he was being distant, she forgave Roy for pushing her away every time he did, she forgave her mother for neglecting her after Robert’s death, she forgave her for committing mass-murder once she realized how scared she must have been, she was even ready to forgive Malcolm (“You protected me, risked your life for me. Just like my mother did.”).

She has enough anger in her to be passionate about things, to care that a wrong is being committed - to stand up for the innocents. It means she will never just passively accept an atrocity (mass murder), let alone participate in said atrocity like her mother did. Thea will always choose to fight. How many times has she risked her life for strangers since she became Speedy? At the same time, she has enough love and restrain not to let that anger devour her.

Ultimately, the woman she’s growing into can be the best of both world. Despite all her fears that she is doomed to become her parents, Thea will never be Malcolm, and she will never be Moira. She is, has always been, and will always be better than the both of them.

#thea queen #moira queen #malcolm merlyn #arrow #mp #my commentary #precious summer child and her trashy parents #is it me or does willa really look like thompson and barrowman's love child? #the queens #the merlyns

[kittypeas]

The Force Awakens and fairytales: part two. Prince Lindworm.

This is the second and (probably) last part or my essay “The Force Awakens and Fairytales”. This time I wanted to describe the Norwegian folktale about Prince Lindworm (which can you read HERE) which, in my opinion, is the most accurate summary of Kylo/Ben & Rey relationship. First, I will discuss a theoretical framework and concepts that I will need to conduct proper analysis of the parallels between TFA and “Prince Lindworm”. But don’t get discouraged! Throughout this essay I will continuously get back to the movie.

Some time ago Pablo Hidalgo tweeted that „long time ago in a galaxy far away” should be read as a begenning of a fairy tale. Surely it means more than just a fact that every movie in Star Wars trilogies is similar to popular tales like Snow White or the Beauty and the Beast. A myth or a folktale is, as Karen Armstrong describes it “in some sense is an occurrence that happened once and happens over and over again”, because it takes place inside each of us when we read, adapt and reenact it. “Mythology, just like poetry and music, should open us to a sense of wonder, even in the face of death or a threat of annihilation.”

This notion reminds me of your posts that I see frequently on my dash: those where you described how reylo helps you in dealing with difficulties, how you find yourself in various traits displayed by the characters, how they can voice your feelings and thoughts. Because every fairytale has also a therapeutic aspect, which manifests itself in the said sense of wonder, described by Rudolf Otto as a numinotic experience. Numinosum is an encounter with Mysterium tremendum et fascinans:

Mysterium which is a source for the English word “mystery” has its roots in Greek “mysterion” which originates from “myein” which can be traced in “mustism”, a condition in which a person is deprived of an ability to speak. Mysterium is a superhuman revelation which we experience in silence because it is both tremendum, as you can guess – tremendous, terrible – and fascinans, fascinating. Igen wrote:

“Our religions and psychotherapies offer frames of reference for processing unbearable agonies, and perhaps, also, unbearable joys. At times, art or literature brings the agony-ecstasy of life together in a pinnacle of momentary triumph. Good poems are time pellets, offering places to live emotional transformations over lifetimes. There are moments of processing, pulsations that make life meaningful, as well as mysterious. But I think these aesthetic and religious products gain part of their power from all the moments of breakdown that went into them.”

There is an intimate relationship between the numinosum and trauma, often conceptualized as a rupture in continuity of personal narrative. On the other hand, experiencing the numinosum –through physically inconsequential process of identfication with fairy – tales characters and participation in their adventures as well as struggles – is a factor that could restore unity to individual’s inner world. To paraphrase Kalsched’s claim: a fairytale describes psyche’s self-portrait of its own archaic defensive operations; in other words, it illustrates a psychological process and even though the events from a fairy tale never took place the material world, they take place inside any of us during the lecture. The Force Awakens, just like the story of a dragon or a snake Lindworm is an example of a type of story about a traumatic event, dissociation or a fissure in personality, and the need for internal integration. In this sense the only hero of the story is Prince Lindworm – or Kylo Ren, whose ego (i.e. self) breaks, or is dissociated.

“I’m being torn apart. I want to be free of this pain”

In TFA it happens when Ben Solo symbolically kills his former self and gives himself a new name. He tells Han that “his son is dead” but you know that it is not true and those two identities are alive and at war with themselves. In the story about Prince Lindworm this division is marked in the moment of his birth. Lindworm was one of the pair of twins. Cirlot writes in his book of symbols: “dual nature of twins has two sides, one light and one dark, one giving life and the other bringing death; […] However, the night craves to become the day, evil admires righteousness, life is heading towards death.” This duality often serves a certain narrative purpose and can, for example, be used to avoid the taboo of parricide, like in “Enchanted doe” where one of the brothers kills their mother. In The Force Awakens it is not Ben Solo, Han’s son who murders him, but alien to him Kylo Ren.

It is said in the beginning of the tale that “And this [that they couldn’t have children] often made them both sad, because the Queen wanted a dear little child to play with, and the King wanted an heir to the kingdom”. Then, it is quite possible that the duality of twins is used to illustrate the process in which all unacceptable affects – anger, aggression, defiance – are placed not in the firstborn son but in his shadow, his evil brother. What supports this thesis is the fact that after the happy ending another wedding is prepared but not a word is spoken about Lindworm’s brother. In TFA Kylo Ren represents the same qualities as Lindworm, while Ben Solo is a boy who was born to the light.

This is not the only split visible in the characters of the narratives. The “Prince Lindworm” fairytale belongs to quite popular type which describe the story of monsters which hunt innocent girls, like Bluebeard, the Beauty and The beast and almost all vampire stories.

Their common point is the motive of a malevolent figure, abducting and captivating defenseless woman. What seems most interesting, is that every time a vampire, a sorcerer, or a terrifying creature is both a persecutor and a savior. In the fairy tale of Bluebeard, the protagonist wants to test his wife, but instructs her how she can get out of his jail. Similarly Count Dracula, who in the Coppola’s adaptation allows the woman and the men protecting her to catch him. As Suzy McKee Charnas writes in the "vampire tapestry": the monster is a "predator paralyzed by an unwanted empathy with his prey".

The titular vampire of the story recalls yet another fairy tale, when he accuses the main character that she wants to seduce him. He mocks her, saying: “Unicorn, come lay your head in my lap while the hunters close in. You are a wonder, and for love of wonder I will tame you. You are pursued, but forget your pursuers, rest under my hand till they come and destroy you"  That's where the title of this novel came from, and this is what medieval tapestries and paintings depict.  Nowadays we think a unicorn is a beautiful, enchanting horse. Once upon a time it belonged to the catalog of wild beasts and in many works of art it is depicted as a dangerous predator, tearing animals and people into pieces.

The ‘Hellsing” manga describes vampires as follows:

It seems that in the depths of his heart the creature from a fairytale wants to be killed. The human part of the monster is suffering because of the terrible fate he was condemned to.  It is the girl who impersonates this dissociated, human element of the monster who wants to be defeated and liberated by death.

“You, a scavenger”

Typically, these women are described as virgins or poor peasants – which in the “Prince Lindworm” tale is underlined many times – the narrator often speaks of their bare feet, as in the Snow Queen tales in which Gerda sets out barefoot to the snowy land to save her beloved Kay from Snow Queen. The Lapland shaman says about her: “I can not give her more power than she already has. Can not you see how great she is? You do not see how men and animals are obliged to serve her; How she travels the whole world with bare feet? This power does not come from the magic, it comes from her heart!…”

Still, the bare feet of heroines or their virginity do not symbolize - as we would expect - their innocence. On unicorn tapestries there is often a scene in which a unicorn sleeps in a woman's embrace, and then the hunter's arrows reach him. In this situation, the victim puts her persecutor in a mortal danger. Similarly, Rey is “no one”, lowly scavenger from a desert planet, uncivilized and uneducated. But she is the one who brings the prince to his knees.

At the end of the story, it is said: " No bride was ever so beloved by a King and Queen as this peasant maid from the shepherd’s cottage. There was no end to their love and their kindness towards her: because, by her sense and her calmness and her courage, she had saved their son, Prince Lindworm”. Stories about young men tell about their courage that helped them in the process of becoming a hero; correspondingly, the girl from “Prince Lindworm” is not fearless, but brave when she decides to oppose the hideous snake, or, in case of Rey, to defy someone who might as well be a monster under his mask. When the girl says "Prince Lindworm, slough a skin!" (just like Rey when she wants Kylo to take his helmet off) he replies, " No one has ever dared tell me to do that before". He hissed and showed her teeth, but the girl was not afraid (“you! You are afraid…!”) and persuaded him to do as she commanded. At first we do not know if Lindworm, outraged by her impudence, will not eat her alive, but there is  this part of Lindworm which wants to obey and – by revealing his weakness to the girl – make him mortal, easy to hurt. And indeed, "And there was nothing left of the Lindworm but a huge thick mass, most horrible to see. Then the girl seized the whips, dipped them in the lye, and whipped him as hard as ever she could. Next, she bathed him all over in the fresh milk. Lastly, she dragged him on to the bed and put her arms round him. And she fell fast asleep that very moment. "

As it has been said, girl’s compassion is the key to Lindworm's transformation but before this act is completed, "the girl confronts Lindworm with his violence on his own terms." Only after reflecting and recognizing his - and consequently her own - destructiveness and aggression (just the way Rey did during the duel on Starkiller Base), the prince-monster is bathed in milk – which symbolizes the milk of his mother – and can be born anew – so he can lay in the arms of woman. Bettelheim said: "If we do not want to be ruled and - in extreme cases – torn apart by our ambivalences, we must recognize them, deal with them in a constructive manner and reconcile with ourselves and our personalities."

Her grief is nothing more but the mercy shown to a monster by a man in him. It is then that the integration of his "ego" with the numinosum happens. As Anna Freud wrote, "The most pressing task of man is to resurrect what he has annihilated in a defensive reaction, i.e. recreate what has been repressed, return to the previous place what has been displaced what he moved, to return to the old place, and integrate what he dissociated.”

 It seems that Ben Solo has a lot work to do! ;)

#Rey #Kylo #kylo ren #kylo x rey #kylo ren x rey #reylo #meta #star wars #Star Wars The Force Awakens #the last jedi #snoke #supreme leader snoke

[magicalthoughtsendinterriblefics]

Sick - Request

Requested by @buckybarnesaddicted:  Hey can I have a request ? 😄 I have a cold at the moment and feel like reading a one shot where "Sherlock is taking care of you when you're ill " if you attached any gifs it would be awesome !!!

Pairing: Sherlock x reader

Word count: 2,763

Warnings: None.

A/N: Ugh, I need this right now but in real life. Also, I suck at adding gifs, my apologies.

Enjoy!

Have you ever gone underwater and tried to listen to the conversation being held on the surface? Well, that was how (Y/N) heard everyone that day. Distant, confusing, overwhelming.

Have you ever smelled something so disgusting you instantly feel like fainting? That’s how (Y/N) felt that day, even if there was nothing to be smelled because her nose was blocked.

Have you ever been hung over and trying to act normal? Go to work, talk to people, even going outside to the sunlight. It’s annoying, like a hammer hitting ones skull every time a noise can be heard, and the sunlight feels like burning one’s eye orbs and just the thought of living feels like a nightmare.

Have you ever been so tired you feel like you can’t move? That was (Y/N). It was almost as the invisible elephants had tied invisible weights to her limbs just so it was harder for her to move. Or even more logically, like a prisoner who gets to carry the black berry around for a whole day.

But she coped with it. She followed John all over London, making questions, doing research, chasing after people and stopping to have something to eat in between all of that. She did it without complaining, only because it had to be done.

To be a Doctor, John was very distracted – or too much into his job – to notice she was sick. Maybe because in London the weather usually gets healthy people to have red noses – without mentioning the massive amount of makeup (Y/N) had tried to avoid looking like a character from Zombie Land – or maybe because (Y/N) wasn’t complaining, but either way, John had no idea she was sick.

Eventually, their work finished with a black eye on John and a few dollars less from (Y/N)’s bag. The two friends said their good-byes and went to their own ways. John returned home to his wife, and (Y/N) went back to Baker Street to give Sherlock the information they had gotten.

“You look terrible.” Sherlock commented without looking up from the files on his hands.

“Thank you.” (Y/N) replied sarcastically, “It’s my we were chased by bandits and a priest while trying to interrogate a cat look. Do you like it?”

Sherlock chuckled. “Always with the sarcasm.” He whispered, “Not that I’m complaining, I just think you should sleep.”

“Says the man that doesn’t sleep nor eat.” (Y/N) joked, as she took a seat in the victim’s chair.

“It’s the different.” He said.

“How so?” The detective set the files on the table next to his laptop and knelt in front of her.

“I am used to it.” He said, “And you have a stuffy nose and…” He touched her forehead, “As I suspected, you have fever.”

“You’re a better doctor than John.” (Y/N) muttered.

“I’m a better everything than John.” Sherlock replied sassily.

“Not when it comes to empathy and… Well, basically humanities.” (Y/N) snapped back innocently.

“It’s a work in process.” Sherlock explained listlessly.

“Why would the great Sherlock Holmes want to change his characteristic character?” (Y/N) lifted an eyebrow.

“Because, apparently, my girlfriend wants more affection.” Sherlock hissed and stood up.

“Oh look! You said girlfriend out loud.” (Y/N) replied.

“You are awfully annoying when you’re sick.” Sherlock observed as he filled the kettle with water.

“Guess you can’t complain, but at least now you’ve admitted we’re dating out loud.” Sherlock sighed heavily.

“I have never denied it.” He spoke.

“Yet, you haven’t admitted it in front of your friends.” (Y/N) clicked her tongue.

“Maybe because I don’t have any friends… Except for John and you made sure to tell him first.” He said.

“Only because you wouldn’t do it.” Sherlock furrowed his eyebrows angrily.

“Shut up.” He commanded and turned around to turn on the stove. “Are you going to let me take care of you or not?”

“Are you going to ask me if I want you to take care of me or not?” Sherlock groaned in frustration.

“Do you want me to take care of you?” He asked, faking a soft voice. (Y/N) lifted her eyebrow, “My love?”

“Yes.” He rolled his eyes and turned back to the stove where the kettle was being heated.

He was mumbling something about annoying girlfriends and how Mycroft was smarter for being single, as well as one or two blasphemies (Y/N) had never heard come out of his mouth. But even so, he was willing to be the best carer in the world because she was his pain in the arse, and he’d stop being Sherlock Holmes, the world’s only consultant detective, if he didn’t give his life for her.

After his silent tantrum, he turned to look at (Y/N), who had moved to his seat and was cuddled there, shaking slightly. His heart melted a little at the image of her being so vulnerable. He walked to his room mechanically and brought back to the living room a blanket and a thermometer.

“Open.” He ordered and (Y/N) obeyed, opening her mouth to let him place the thermometer and, once he did, she shut it again. Sherlock then wrapped her in the blue blanket he had gotten. (Y/N) nuzzled on it and Sherlock caressed her cheek unconsciously, making her smile a little.

The kettle whistled and Sherlock went to the kitchen to turn it off. Then, he served two cups of the tea he had just made and walked back to the kitchen with the tea tray in hand. He took the thermometer from her mouth and checked it.

“Very high fever.” He muttered, “Have you gone to the doctor?”

“No.” She replied honestly.

“Why?”

“Because certain detective wanted me to go talk to a cat.” Sherlock rolled his eyes and extended a hand. “What?”

“We’re going to the doctor.” He said.

“But it’s raining, and the tea will be cold when we come back.” (Y/N) argued childishly.

“We can always reheat it… Or make another one, for that matter.” He said, “Also, that’s what umbrellas are for, now come on.”

“Can we drink the tea first?” She pouted and fluttered her eyelashes. Sherlock pretended to be annoyed but his stomach tickled at how cute she looked.

“Fine.”

They were both sitting at his seat. It was too small to carry two people, yet there they were. Sherlock was sitting properly, as usual, while (Y/N) occupied his lap like a little child. They were both drinking their tea in silence and Sherlock could feel her body temperature variating from hot to hotter every so often.

He felt a desperate need to take her to the doctor, which resulted in him literally carrying her out of 221B and calling a cab to take them to the nearest hospital. The doctor and Sherlock scolded (Y/N) for not going to the doctor earlier, and so she went out with three different pills to take.

“I told you so.” Sherlock muttered as they walked out of the hospital.

“I know, you’ve said it five times since we went out of the doctor’s office.” (Y/N) argued tiredly.

“Tired?” He inquired, analysing her.

“Obviously.” She breathed out. Sherlock nodded and wrapped an arm around her as they walked to the edge of the street to call a cab to take them back home.

Once they were back, Sherlock dragged her directly to his room. It was the first time she was there for more than five minutes – when he asked her to go look for something useful for their case – and even when she was excited, her ailment was such she couldn’t help but to ignore her joy and allow Sherlock to guide her to the bed.

He pushed her down slowly, and when (Y/N) was finally in place, he took of her shoes and his own and then joined her. It was odd at first – Sherlock had no idea how to cuddle like a normal person – but once he found a comfortable position everything turned better.

Her head was on the crook of his neck, with his chin over the top of her head. Her arms were around his chest and his were around her waist. Their legs were tangled and they were only covered from the shoulders down with a thin blanket.

“You took your pills in the cab, right?” He inquired softly.

“Yes, you saw me.” She replied.

“I’m just making sure.” He explained, “Are you hungry? Thirsty?”

“No.” She interrupted, “I just need to sleep.”

“All right… Do you want me to sing you a lullaby or…?” (Y/N) giggled lightly, making Sherlock blush.

“Do you even know how to sing?” She inquired playfully.

“No.” He replied thoughtfully.

“Then it’s fine.” She said softly.

“Are you sure?” He asked, “I’m confident that the healthy person, AKA me, must take care of the ill person, you, until said person gets better.”

“You don’t have to be alert 24/7.” She commented.

“But you are sick, and I have to take care of you because I’m your boyfriend.” Sherlock stuttered.

“Two times in a day, that’s more than I expected.” She joked and Sherlock groaned bitterly, “Sher, just take a nap with me.”

“But if I sleep and you need something…”

“I’ll go get it by myself.” She interrupted.

“Uh no, that’s not how this works.” He argued.

“Are you setting your rules for this?” She looked up at him.

“I am.” He stated, “Now, you take your nap, I will remain awake just in case.”

There was no use in arguing with him, so (Y/N) gave up and fell asleep within minutes. Sherlock kept his position, caressing her back and trying his best to keep his breath steady so he wouldn’t alter her. He was focused on any sound or movement she made, as well as her body temperature which, he was pleased to notice, was lowering until it reached the “Normal” one.

Sherlock’s heart begged him to stay awake and take care of (Y/N) – even when there was not much to do while she slept – but his whole body was tired of his own work during the day and so he slowly fell asleep as well.

He had done a few experiments, visited the morgue and checked some clues at the laboratory in Saint Bart’s, he had also helped Mrs. Hudson with a few chores she needed to be done, and then visited Lestrade’s office. It wasn’t as much as what (Y/N) and John had done, but he hadn’t slept in a whole week.

It’s funny how people change when one’s asleep. The ones that claim to hate physical contact, end up cuddling with whatever’s closer; the ones who are silent snore and mumble a few senseless phrases, without caring if they are heard or not. People are themselves while being asleep, because there’s no such thing as conscience to interfere with the true expression of one’s self. This time wasn’t the exception.

(Y/N) woke up by Sherlock pulling her closer to him, nuzzling his nose in her hair and even leaving some absentminded kisses over it. She was pleased to know he was a cuddlier and didn’t hesitate in nuzzling on his chest. If anyone had seen them, they would’ve noticed the huge space the bed had, and the little they were using by being all over the other.

There was zero space between them – not that it mattered – and his hands were securely around her, tracing light circles with his fingers; and their hairs were a mess, splattered all over the pillow and, in her case, on Sherlock’s chest. He was snoring lightly, it could barely be heard, and his breathing was slow and steady. Their hearts beat at the same rhythm and they were feeling as comfortable as never before.

What was supposed to be an afternoon nap, ended up in them sleeping until 3 am when Sherlock woke up, utterly worried to have over-slept.

“(Y/N)!” He called, looking for her by his side. She wasn’t there. “(Y/N)!” He called once more and the girl appeared at the door.

“I’m right here.” She said in a sleepy voice.

“Why aren’t you in bed?” He inquired desperately.

“I only got up to take my pills, calm down.” She said and crawled back in bed to him. Sherlock received her in a warm embrace as a sigh of relief left his lips.

“Are you feeling better?” He asked.

“Yes, I told you I only needed to sleep.” She spoke softly, pushing his back to the bed.

“Are you sure? Are you hungry? Did you need anything while I was asleep?” She giggled.

“Calm down, Sher… I’m fine.” She whispered and placed her head back on his chest.

“No, you’re sick.” He argued.

“I know… But you’re the best carer in the world.” She beamed, “Now, can we please sleep a bit more.”

“Okay.” He granted. His fingers travelled to her hair, where he stroke the soft strands unconsciously, lulling both back to sleep.

The next morning, (Y/N) woke up to an empty bed and the smell of home-made breakfast.  She took a sweater from Sherlock’s closet and walked out to the kitchen, where a messy-haired Sherlock was cooking.

“Didn’t know you could cook?” She greeted, walking closer to him and hugging him from behind.

“There are a lot of thing you don’t know about me.” He replied cockily but when he looked back at her, he had a loving smile on his face. “How are you feeling?”

“Better.” She replied. Sherlock nodded and pointed to the coffee table of the living room.

“Take your pills.” He commanded. (Y/N) walked to the table and was pleased to see Sherlock had cut the ones that needed to be taken in halves and placed them together next to a glass of water.

While she took the pills, Sherlock “set” the table of the kitchen with tea, biscuits and two plates of what he had prepared: scrambled eggs, baked beans, bacon and toasted bread.

“It looks so good but… I don’t think I can eat it all.” She said. Sherlock’s face turned pale in seconds as he approached her, touching her face and analysing her.

“Why? The doctor said the pills had secondary effects and…”

“It’s not that.” She interrupted, “I’m just joking.” Sherlock rolled his eyes and didn’t let her sit until he had checked her temperature, asked her to show him her tongue and made her blow her nose to see if she could breathe better.

But finally they sat down and had breakfast.

After they finished, Sherlock forced her into the bathroom to take a shower. He wanted her to fill the bathtub with ice, but she declined and so he could only convince her to shower with warm water instead of hot or cold water. While she showered, Sherlock asked Mrs. Hudson to keep an eye on her while he went to her apartment.

When he came back, (Y/N) was sleeping in bed, wearing only his bath robe – Mrs. Hudson was washing her clothes, which she took from the bathroom as she showered – and Sherlock couldn’t help but to crawl in bed to join her; waking her up in the process.

“Shhh…” He begged, “I’m sorry, go back to sleep.”

“Where did you go?” She asked in a whisper.

“I went to your apartment to get you clean clothes.” He explained. (Y/N) sat up I bed and saw her travel bag next to the door.

“You brought my… How many clothes did you pack?” She inquired, looking at Sherlock.

He hesitated and his cheeks went red for a second before he explained. “The doctor says it will take you four days to recover, so you’re staying here until you’re better.”

“I don’t know about you, but I’m definitely considering this as kidnap.” She joked, and Sherlock chuckled. “You worry too much.”

“You wanted me to be a normal boyfriend.” He reminded her.

“Normal boyfriends don’t kidnap their sick girlfriends.” She replied.

“Guess I will never be common.” Sherlock sighed.

(Y/N) giggled and leaned closer to him. “If I weren’t sick, I would kiss you.”

“If you weren’t sick I would kiss you.”  Sherlock beamed back and left a soft peck on her forehead.

(Y/N) didn’t argue; she stayed at 221B with him until she recovered. But once she was back in the game, healthy and ready to go back home, Sherlock realized he had fallen in love even more with her because of the time spent together, and thinking of going back to his solo living was something he didn’t dare to consider. Sherlock didn’t want her to leave.

*Requests are ALWAYS open.*

Masterlist.

Sherlock Tags: @resurrection-huntress @oaisara @charlottemalfoy @zena-dukmak @just-a-blog00 @wefracturedmotivation @beccamullz @newts-fan-case @sugarshai @vancepter @roseyhxnt @thisisjessicatalking @foureyedsiopao

#bbc sherlock #sherlock holmes #sherlock #sherlock x reader #sherlock imagine #sherlock imagines #imagine sherlock #sherlock oneshot #sherlock one shot #sherlock one-shot #sherlock fanfiction #sherlock fanfic #sherlock au #sherlock reader insert #benedict cumberbatch

[grantplant]

They All Saw a Cat

Last week, I was innocently skimming through Emily Nussbaum’s New Yorker commentary on the Girls series finale. I stopped watching this show a while ago—I liked it, and much of the material in early seasons resonated with me, but to a point. That point, or points, were Adam, the whiplashiest character I’ve ever hate-love-hated, forcing himself on his girlfriend and then Hannah repeatedly assaulting her ear with a q-tip. But I digress. I’ve followed the cultural zeitgeist of the show and Lena Dunham herself, and I like Emily Nussbaum, so I read the review. (You can, too.)

Somewhere in the middle of the piece, in a parenthetical no less, Nussbaum asserts: (You can’t be a writer without being entitled: Why else would you think anyone wants to listen to you?)

Record scratch. Oh, god. Is that possibly possibly true? Or rather, are any of the components that make up this doozy of a declaration?  Because she’s saying 1) all writers are entitled, and 2) that the act of writing is synonymous with the belief that anyone wants to listen to us, and 3) that that unanimous and inherent entitlement is the reason why we believe that anyone wants to listen to us.

Before I put “Delete blog/set book(s) on fire” on my to-do list, I paused to think.

Couldn’t this (horrible! faulty!) logic be applied to anyone who ever created anything? A chef, or a painter, or, as my tech-minded husband said testily, “How about all the people in the world who feel sure that their app is the one that needs to be made?”

I admit, I spent five years of my life working at a nonprofit that encourages hundreds of thousands of people annually that they have a story (or perhaps dozens) to tell. This nonprofit has been likened more than once to a new breed of parent that believes and convinces their child that he or she is a special snowflake unlike any other, and is capable of—and dare I say it, entitled to--anything he or she sets his magical little mind to. (I am parent to a nine-month-old snowflake myself, and understand how terribly, seductively easy it is to adopt this mindset. No judgement here!)

I’m not now, nor was I ever, saying we’re all Pulitzer-quality yarn-spinners (Nussbaum actually is), but I genuinely do believe that we all have stories to tell that are unlike the stories that anyone else can tell. No one is exactly the same, and while that doesn’t imbue their differences with magic or the right to special treatment, it does add value to their perspective. This perspective allows each of us to experience, understand, live, and do everything differently from each other, and it also makes that uniqueness of experience unknowable to anyone else. That is, unless we decide to share it. And how do we share it, but by telling stories. That story could be painted, plated, coded, thrown on a wheel and fired in a kiln, or knit from dog hair into a dog sweater. Making something out of nothing is telling a story of some kind.

This storytelling isn’t new, btw. We are not talking about a tool for millennials to message each other disappearing videos, or broadcast their every location or opinion or achievement to the masses. People have been telling stories from the very beginning, with words and hieroglyphs and inventions and yes, novels and essays and, now, blogs and critiques and columns.

I am tickled by the thought that anyone ever looked at a cave painting drawn by one of our earliest ancestors and thought, “That entitled sonofabitch.” Maybe they did! Totally their right to feel that way, too.

As part of this snowflake-producing creative writing nonprofit, NaNoWriMo utilized the horrible, useful, sometime hilarious millennial tool for storytelling (and searching and archiving), the hashtag, specifically for a campaign called  #whyIwrite (about, you guessed it, why you/I/anyone writes). I did a quick search (thanks, hashtags!) and not a single person wrote “Because I am entitled.” (But then who, other than Emily Nussbaum, is that self-aware? I’m looking at you, caveman.) My quick-search also turned up what I and my cohorts had to say on the subject back in 2011.

“I write because so many things are better read than said. Misunderstandings are too easy in spoken communication; we talk so much and so fast and with so many interruptions! Writing is a haven where I may sit with a concept, clarifying here and editing there, until I can stand back and say, “Here. This is exactly what I mean.””

Reading this makes me realize, I guess, that I’ve gone and made a leap of my own. I am operating on the (possibly gross/horrible/faulty) logic that to write is to tell a story of some kind. And while my above answer does address why I *write* my stories instead of, for example, saying them out loud or painting them (can’t) or cooking them (sometimes I do that, too), or coding them (nope), it doesn’t ask or address exactly why I tell stories (aka create anything, written or otherwise) in the first place.

We’ll get to that in a sec, though.

Do you remember the study showing that by reading literary fiction, we humans’ emotional sensitivity is improved? The NYTimes characterized the findings thusly:

“…after reading literary fiction, as opposed to popular fiction or serious nonfiction, people performed better on tests measuring empathy, social perception and emotional intelligence — skills that come in especially handy when you are trying to read someone’s body language or gauge what they might be thinking.”

I don’t know what middling impact or nonimpact my nonserious nonfiction (as opposed to its serious counterparts, or literary or popular fiction) might have or not have but… this is #whyitellstories. My stories happen to be true stories, and they’re not always mine, and so I have no idea if any of it increases or promotes understanding in this often baffling and misunderstood world. If not this way, though, how else will we gain any insight into what’s happening elsewhere to other people of other belief systems and capabilities and ethnicities and everything else that makes up our own snowflakey identities?

I’m not writing to be read, or telling stories to be heard or listened to. The writing-down part is ultimately a selfish act; a putting together of disparate pieces to make something comprehensible in times of confusion. I am using the written word to make sense of, well, everything. So why do I share it? Why tell the story instead of logging it away, sussed but otherwise unconsumed? In the hopes that maybe I’m not alone in my wonderings or bafflement. That anyone else who ever felt confused or amazed or humbled or edified might see the way it happened over here, through this lens of experience, and might think that even though it was different for them, maybe it was also the same.

Even though I think hope Emily Nussbaum is wrong, there’s more than enough room for her opinion and perspective and… were we to meet over a Cinnabon or a tub of hummus, she may come to believe I am the wrong one, indeed the most entitled nonserious-nonfiction writer she ever did meet. We’re probably both right. And wrong. And there is plenty of room for both versions or some combination therein.

As I am often guilty of doing, because I ultimately believe that all of life can be explained by children’s books (which further reinforces my view on the value of storytellers, I guess) I will bring this back to a book that we, the Grant-Bowens, have been reading a lot. They All Saw A Cat is about a cat, as seen by a child, a dog, a flea, a bird, and a bat, among other animals, until, in the end, it sees itself. Each creature sees this cat differently, based on its size, perception, biology, and biases. The way the cat sees itself is the only way it could ever perceive itself in the world, unless that child, dog, flea, bird, bat, and anything else so inclined, shares the way *it* sees the cat. This not only changes the way the cat sees itself, but also the cat’s understanding of the way a child, dog, flea, bird, and bat sees things, too.

I used to think this should be required reading for all nonfiction writers, and then expanded it to all writers, period. Increasingly, I’m thinking it goes on the syllabus for life.

We all see the cat. But how do we see it? And more importantly, why do we see it as we do? If no one else pipes up to answer the question, we will only ever see it one way—our own way--and worse, never realize that there are other ways; ways we can’t even imagine.And they are all weird and surprising and beautiful, and they are all true.

The entitlement of the writer, or the solipsism a writer-free world. I know which I fear more. And so I hit ‘publish.’ Emily, send me your address and I’ll send you a book. It’s about a cat.

[drink-n-watch]

Welcome back everyone to my Psycho Pass watch-a-long with Matt! I’m surprised by how few bloggers seem to be watching this series but that’s o.k. Small parties are the funnest! Also, my week has been a killer so I don’t want to go to some huge party! Next week is gruesome too but after that, it should ease up – YAY! So how has your week been Matt?

I’ve been a bit unwell but I’m sure the people who come to read this aren’t interested in the details of my health, on with the review!

I’ll be honest with you guys, I really didn’t take as many notes as I usually do so I may skip over some things but here are the things that stood out to me.

I loved that bank fraud and market manipulation in the form of a manufactured housing bubble was the initial crime. And explained in such detail as well. It was amazing! Financial crimes in Psycho Pass is something I really hope they explore more. Because people’s relationship with money, especially in a society that has no poverty, is probably quite different than their relationship with violent crimes. I wonder what it does to their hues! What did you think Matt?

It’s funny I was watching these parts thinking “man, the writer of this series must have just discovered about the 2012 financial crisis and housing collapse in the US and felt compelled to write about it… either that or they’d just watched ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ and ‘The Big Short’.” Not a bad thing, of course, it was very interesting and conveyed well, just a little bit obvious. There were also mentions of election fraud and manipulations…it was a pretty topical episode.

At one point, we see Arata jumping around rooftop with a cord tied to him, as Kei is infiltrating the criminals’ stronghold. That action sequence was spellbinding. I really enjoyed it. How about you?

I loved it, simple yet immaculately choreographed and executed parkour.

So the white colour crime got wrapped up quickly but rather gruesomely and just as Kei and Arata are chasing after the main criminals, bam, familiar faces. We get a Ginoza and Kogami (reunited again!) double whammy cameo. I recognized them both instantly and my heart did that little nostalgia squeezy thing. And I do love seeing them but I’m not sure how I feel about the constant callbacks. They feel a little “fanservicy”. I think I would have been happy with a glimpse of Akane and then let this be its own story.

It’s gotta be hard for a series that’s got so many ardent fans to both please them with enough call-backs to the things they liked about the first season while simultaneously introducing the new. I’ve been fine with it up to this point, but I don’t think they need to go as hard about the call-backs going forward.

Also, I must say, there were a few moments during this sequence and the conversation with Mika afterwards where I think I really missed something because I have not seen season 2. Did you know that Nobu and Ko were working as partners again and for Foreign Affairs at that? They don’t seem to be latent criminals (or at least are not being treated as such). Have we ever seen that blonde before? They kept making cryptic references to Akane as if she was an urban legend…Cause all of this came as a confusing surprise to me.

I have an absolutely terrible memory so unfortunately you’re asking the wrong person. I barely recognized them as returning characters until the show spelled it out for me (yeah, yeah I know I’m pretty bad at this).

Having wrapped up their first case, the second half of the episode switched to a new one. Investigating a supposed suicide. The hotel staff that discovered the body as well as any witness had their Psycho Pass deteriorate and are now probably stressed out because of that and I realize that Sybil is just the ultimate victim blamer. Something bad happened to you, better not let it get you down – or else!

That’s always been my number one complaint (maybe) about the Sybil system in general, the idea that innocent bystanders can get their hue deteriorated to such an extent just by witnessing something–hardly seems fair–but I guess that’s the point this series has always been making.

I got to say, I still feel like the mind trace is a bit of a gimmick. Not necessarily a bad one and I enjoyed it in this episode a lot more than in the last, in fact, I wished it had lasted a bit longer, but nevertheless, it feels awfully convenient.

I still like it, I think it’s unfair to judge the quirks and abilities of people who see the world differently than the lay person, maybe there are people like this in our real world and we don’t hear about them because their abilities like ‘absolute empathy’ are things that aren’t measurable by modern science. I don’t find his abilities to be cheaty any more than a character who has a genius intellect, it’s just something they can do better than everyone else. 

I’d just like to say, I’m only judging it as a narrative device. As a character trait I like it. But I find that so far it does take something away from the investigation aspect as the long hard job of gathering clues and making deductions basically wrapped up in 2 minutes instead and in a way where the audience isn’t given a chance to figure out the mystery along with the character because everything is just given in direct exposition.

I mean sure I guess that’s a concern but I’ve never been one to try and be smarter than the show I’m watching. I’m just happy for it to unfold however the writer wants it to unfold, if that means me solving the crime before the characters do and feeling smug about it then so be it but if that means me being stupid too then thats okay too.

Really? Trying to figure out who the killer is has always been one of my favourite things about mysteries! I’m pretty sure authors pride themselves on leaving just enough clues for people to figure it out but presenting them in a way where we don’t think of it right away because we get wrapped up in the story! Even when I do figure it out though, I doubt it makes me smarter or even anywhere near as smart as the writer. Creating a mystery is way harder. Besides, I’m wrong most of the time but its fun trying, you know? I wouldn’t people who enjoy trying to solve puzzles are doing it to feel smug. I just think they like puzzles. Maybe I’m being naive.

Seeing the history of the idol Karina and how every step of her path was dictated by Sybil in a parallel with the Sybil approved man vs machine MMA fight that ends with shouts to the glory of the system, was a bit of a shock. I never got to see much of everyday life in the Psycho Pass universe but what I remember is fairly normal, very peaceful and full of holograms. That was the brilliance of the system. There was no need to make the population obedient either through force or propaganda because they were perfectly content. Sybil’s control was through comfort and safety.

This was a much more obvious and forceful depiction of a rather stereotypical dystopia and I think it makes the story a little weaker.

I’ve always felt the Tokyo of the ‘Psycho Pass’ series was incredibly dystopic, to me it’s a world that on the surface looks like a law-abiding peaceful place but is run by a system that’s so counter-human that everybody is living on edge–always afraid of something going wrong or seeing something horrible that might cloud their hue. The revelation of a character being almost raised by Sybil to be a perfect personality and then later become a politician seemed very in-line with what this universe has shown. Sybil works by controlling everyone, even down to what’s popular, who’s famous and who’s in power.

On the other hand, Karina seems like a wonderful potential antagonist. Honestly, I got excited but the little of the character we did get to see. I was even a bit bummed out when the episode ended. And it took me by surprise which is impressive considering these guys are double the length I’m used to.

She was great, wasn’t she? The idea that she’s almost like a Moriarty-esque equal to Arata’s Sherlock is going to be something that I really want to see a lot more of!

I know I nitpick and point out aspects I enjoy less. I did like the latter half considerably more than the first in this episode. But all in all, I am really liking the start of Psycho Pass season 3. I can’t wait till the next episode. Had it been available, I would have watched it right away. What are your thoughts so far Matt?

I agree, the second-half of the episode had a lot more going for it overall and is looking to push this show in a lot more interesting directions especially as politics are going to be involved. One thing I didn’t get to mention in last week’s review but is still exceedingly relevant here is how glad I am that these episodes are all double-length the normal anime length. The added time helps this show greatly as it allows you to fully immerse yourself in this world and allows for a lot more information to be imparted in one go. To binge watchers this’ll be hardly noteworthy but in watching week to week it helps. Overall I think I liked this episode even more than the first episode and if things continue along at this quality we could have some stiff competition to the first seasons’ crown.

Psycho Pass s3 ep2 – The Hand Off Welcome back everyone to my Psycho Pass watch-a-long with Matt! I’m surprised by how few bloggers seem to be watching this series but that’s o.k.

#action #anime #Collab #crime #drama #Psycho Pass #sci fi