#and his entire family being the destiny's favorite (in a very negative way)

[s0ull3ss-p3rs0n]

The God™️ is literally a child with trust issues and guilt give him a break :(

#soul's art stuff #ninjago #lego ninjago #fsm ninjago #ninjago fsm #first spinjitzu master #the first spinjitzu master #my sad miserable little meow meow #he's gotta feel a fuck ton of guilt I swear #he probably blames himself for everything from not being able to stop the war to Garmadon getting bitten #and his entire family being the destiny's favorite (in a very negative way) #that is a literal child graaaahhh #no child should have this burden not even a literal god

[science-lings]

Whoops I’m late to the party but here’s some tropes.

Positive trope! As a traveler Hyrule has a lot of interesting and funny stories to to tell.

Negative Hyrule is a completely ignorant cave boy with the rough intelligent and personality of a 5 year old.

Positive Sky wrapping his sail cloth around someone.

Positive Warriors going full burrito with the near infinite cape he pretends is a scarf.

Negative Time Twilight and Wild’s bonds are treated like they are the only one’s that really matter with the unspoken implication they are the only REAL family.

Positive item trading! One of my favorite trope if rarely seen tropes. Yes Wild show Four your slate and argue over the definition of science. Spinner race time Twilight and Warriors. Let Sky Wild and Wind compare gliding items. Give Hyrule a hookshot! Rings for everyone!

Negative tossing my own take on the Mipha’s Grace is Fairy Bottle With Extra Steps is that we have had some form of Heal by Death in every game except the first. Hyrule has dolls he can find and Legend and Wind even having non fairy items they can purchase to resurrect with. All of them should be aware of the possibility even if only a few have used it. If anything meeting other people who treat dying casually should far more horrific then the simple existence something they can all potentially do.

Positive saying fuck destiny and finding ways to meet again after having to part at the end of the adventure.

You're not late I'm still collecting for the part 2's

Hyrule being a super experienced traveler is so good, this guy has been wandering since he was like eight and he's got a lot of campfire stories. And while I think it's not outrageous to assume that schooling in this era is a little lacking that doesn't mean that he's dumb in any way at all, he's very clever and he knows how to read thank you very much. Maybe he had some education in Calatia. I mean he was smart enough to leave and survive on his own and save his namesake a few times so like.... not stupid.

Any large piece of fabric that the chain owns can and will be used as a blanket. Scarf, sailcloth, cloak, Wind probably has actual sails that he used to have on the king of red lions that he uses to keep the water off of him bc it's more like a tarp than a blanket. Snuggles are inevitable.

While I am a fan of the wolf bloodline, I do get why depictions of it may undermine the importance of found family. I think it's a very valid criticism to point out that it may sometimes put forward the idea that blood family is more valid than an adopted family which could be unsavory, though I doubt that's ever the intention of the authors/ creators. I think that family is a fascinating topic with all these guys who grew up in vastly different but still quite lonely circumstances.

I love it when aspects like items and spells and stories from the other games are shared between the links and utilized to show how vast and different their experiences are. Aside from hookshots, nearly all of them have those bastards.

I mean, anytime people legitimize game mechanics into plot stuff it can be interpreted in different ways so I don't think that 'all of them come back from the dead' is a bad take lol, I think people fixate on Wild specifically with this kind of thing because it is implied he's already died and gone through the whole resurrection thing but more long term, and if that could've just been fixed with a fairy then the entire 100-year sleep just wouldn't have been needed. So it poses the question of if fairies really can bring a link back from the dead. But now I'm rambling...

I'm completely on the side of 'they all meet up in the afterlife as the timelines are assumed to have converged at some point before botw, and it wouldn't mess up the timelines if they just meet up after a few thousand years of waiting. I like the idea that they're watching and rooting for each other. That they've never been alone and there were always some of their brothers watching over them. (I also like to think that Wild caught a glimpse of them when he was placed in the shrine of resurrection)

#thanks for the suggestions #this one was a bit long but I don't mind lol #linked universe #ask andromeda #lu trope talk

[c-rose2081]

I’m getting the vibe that Bruno either showed the family the Forbidden ™️ vision or didn’t do as good a job hiding it in the tainted miracle au. Did he even “leave” in this au?

DING DING!

We have a winner. I was waiting to share until someone pointed it out or I got my sketches done (which aren’t, btw). Bruno is present in the Tainted AU, and is very important because:

HE SHOWED ABUELA THE VISION.

Yup. Our favorite rat man is now a less likable part of the Madrigal family (sorry to all my Bruno stans, but it had to be done). The night of Mirabel’s failed gift ceremony, rather then running, he fully believed it was in his best interest to share what he now knew about Mirabel’s future. At first he believed he could perhaps get some help in changing what might happen, try and find a way to shift Mira’s fate. His intentions were good. He trusted his family and believed they wanted what was best for their youngest granddaughter.

That changed though.

Abuela told Bruno that he had done the family an incredible service, and that she was so proud of him and his gift. This is all Bruno had ever wanted to hear in his life; it’s what he always wanted…like a dream come true. Slowly he came back from the shadows, as the negativity towards him was slowly shifted onto young Mirabel, who didn’t even know the vision had been seen (she was never told). He became another shining star in the family, Abuela making sure he was always with her to show off for all the Encanto to see.

Being an actor at heart, Bruno stopped telling true visions. They were bad anyway, and usually upset people. So he became the Mystical Bruno instead, a man who could see the very best of your future (even if what he said was almost always untrue). The more fake visions he told, the happier and more proud Abuela became. People always believed him, because he was a Madrigal. And when Mirabel touched the candle, he was right there on Abuela’s right side, agreeing with her.

Send the darkness away so that his light wouldn’t ever be put out again.

Ouch, right?

Over time Bruno became more and more arrogant, and more proud that he was Abuela’s favorite son. While Pepa liked this new and confidant Bruno, Julieta did not. She stopped speaking to him, casting him harsh glances, and spitting words of anger and hate whenever he tried to engage with her. Abuela of course tried to mend the relationship, but like the marriage of Julieta and Agustín, the relationship turned to sand.

Bruno still looks into the future to see if Mirabel’s destiny has changed. But rather then hoping to see if it has, he now looks to make sure it hasn’t.

…am I the absolute worst? Yes. Yes I am. Flipping the switch on literally the entire fandom’s favorite character. Sorry…but also not? Because it makes things interesting.

Thanks for the ask! :D

#tainted miracle au #disney encanto #bruno madrigal #madrigal family

[phoebehalliwell]

how would you rank the seasons from least to most favourite?

alright okay right off the bat worst season season 7. for starters i think this season has no staying power i mean like since i’ve been running this blog 4 so long now my knowledge of charmed is encyclopedic and insanely vast more than like it ever need be but for the longest time. i could not remember season 7. like wtf even happened there?? evidently leo became human??? cole returned? the avatars??? like all of it was just. it’s not even necessarily forgettable it’s just i straight up could not remember it for the longest time. and i’ve said it before the concept of utopia was way to advanced for a show like charmed to tackle i am not watching charmed for moral philosophy i am watching bc i love these girls ♥ hee hee hoo hoo magic adventure ✨ tho if i am to offer a single comment on utopia: it’s awfully rich for a show to go on about destiny and fate and then take a stand against utopia in the name of free will. but w/e. i don’t like leo in the avatars i don’t like his dynamic with piper in this season i don’t like whatever phoebe’s doing this season there’s like leslie?? maybe there’s someone else? boring & flavorless they should have been setting up her endgame instead of puttering around. and kyle. zoo wee mama. could have been a great antihero. morally gray. duplicitous. self serving. but no. they gave him all those traits and called him hero/love interest. s7 left a lot to be desired out of the characters and their relationships also gave us phat L’s such as the charmed ones are werewolves don’t worry about it and feminism peaked with naked women. shout out to zankou: demon, dilf, dub & the noir episode.

you know what? fuck it i’ll say it second worse season 5 genuinely fuck season five. this is probably a Very Specific beef 2 me But. i hate what they did to the charmed universe. this was the season that marked the transition of charmed from supernatural drama to campy soap which like. i love camp! i do! but fr. fuck this season and what it did to the worldbuilding. the early season have Such A Vibe to them man with warlocks and witches and just a couple niche monsters from assorted lore that the show took and made their own. season five opens with mermaids goes directly into fairytales then gives us superheros whatever the fuck was going on in that mummy episode the sandman leprechauns and nymphs. and i hate it for that. it takes away from this urban fantasy things that go bump in the night what lurks in the shadows of the back alleys of san francisco in favor of the ugliest cinderella dress ever put to television and an onslaught of horrible irish accents for a full episode. other issues with season five: cole’s still here? why? they don’t know and neither will you! we’re not redeeming him! phoebe’s not getting back together with him! yes he died we just refuse to let him go! the cherry on top of course being a cole-centric 100th episode. shout out to. hmm. lemme think about what i actually liked about this season. i like jason dean as a love interest i don’t remember what he did in s5 but i know he was there. the season finale i’ve talked about how stupid & shitty it was but idc i still love that episode and then shout out to bacarra the only original villain this season that was a proper serve. the crone gets second place.

next on this come on we all saw it coming season 8. it’s a bad season! and i get bts there was a whole lot happening budget cuts missing actor etc. but it goes beyond that. it was a bad season. billie and christie were bad. and i’ve said this before but billie in herself is not an inherently bad character. she was just the literal worst for the show. she was a dollar store buffy blonde confident cocky skilled and ready 2 fight evil But. we are not following her like we followed buffy we are following her mentors. it’s like if we had a show called giles that aired for seven seasons And Then buffy showed up. billie was insanely irritating to watch from our perspective and in general wasn’t like. well written. attempts to humanize her / give her more depth often fell flat. and then christy. oh nelly. oh my god. barely a character. not well acted but hey it would have been a miracle if she was. negatives include dumain who was a mess omg bringing back the triad bringing back the source billie & christy obvi and also involving homeland security. which is season 7′s fault which is why it’s the worst. dubs on the other hand include both coop and henry i really liked them the shoehorned love interests weren’t great but i like their characters i though the way the got rid of leo to save on the budget was really creative and gave us a great piper episode and of course the sugary sweet finale i love it i do what can i say.

yet another controversial choice aptly coming in fourth is season 4. i respect what season 4 set out to do. i think it was a good idea. long form narratives, keeping a darker tone, focusing on character-driven drama and growth. too bad it fucking failed miserably at all of this. cole as the source and phoebe as the queen of hell was just so so botched. they had a very unique opportunity following the death of prue to explore these characters and what it means to them to be charmed, to be witches. they saved the world but the cost is insanely high. they’ve lost an older sister. they’ve gained a new sister. how do you even begin to cope with all this? episodes such as hell hath no fury and brain drain fuck so hard because they work with exactly that. had the whole season been like those episode season four would sit at number one with flying colors absolutely no competition. but alas. we can’t have nice things. the show got so bogged down with phoebe & cole, in a way that was just so, so messy. for starters, whether you loved cole or hated him before, we can all agree source!cole sucked. he was such a strong 180 from what we had seen that the show had to make the source some type of possession to justify half the shit they were trying to pull. and then to pit phoebe and paige against one another over a man was just. disgusting. and the ending of course felt rushed because it was! they wrapped up that entire issue in a nice little bow much faster than they reasonably should have been able to. it could have been a great season. it was definitely not. shout out to the seer an iconic mastermind on barbas levels, as previously stated brain drain and hell hath no fury Specific shout out to piper’s scene at prue’s grave shout out to paige as a character i like what they did with her and um. yeah that’s it.

okay we’re exiting the shit tier in favorite of the good tier welcome to the upper half. kicking us off is season 6. season 6 did what season 4 could not in that it gave us a long form plot that still left plenty of room for like. normal demon of the week episodes. i love phoebe early in this season with her faboo haircut her brand new empathy power and her relationship with jason dean. obvious strikes against for whatever the fuck that baby crazy stint was and also the mata hari episode. yikes. i love paige’s hair color in this season nothing paige as a character necessarily stands out to me however i like how they seem to have hit the blend of work-magic with paige where she wants a life and career outside of magic however she still loves the craft and embraces is with an open heart and mind. season six also gives us chris who was a very fun male lead imo we really didn’t have many like him he’s bitchy. he whines and bitches a lot he’s got an agenda he’s a bit secretive but at the end of the day he just wants a family i like him. i like the character growth we see out of piper i like seeing her try to move on from leo i love seeing her get back together with leo i like her dynamic with chris and her fears about motherhood. i also liked richard but that one takes a lot of justification. L’s are witchstock hyde school reunion used karma off the top of my head also the paige/richard/addiction plotline was so tone deaf. also the girls were mean to darryl : ( he deserved so much better. dubs were chris as a character, tbh the episode little monsters, phoebe with empathy specifically saying i love you too to jason i could write a dissertation on that line alone also the courtship of wyatt’s father and i thought the reveals of evil wyatt and chris being piper and leo’s son were both fun and interesting plot twists.

coming in third is actually season 2 a season i really do love it’s just. it lacks structure. imo there is a lot to love about season 2 morality bites and pardon my past are both delightful time travel episodes we get jack sheridan and bane jessup two of my personal favorite prue love interests we get p3 h2o and a great prue plotline regarding the death of patty we get the super cute cupid episode it’s a great. collection of episodes. it’s not a great season. there’s just imo not a strong enough thread connecting the stories together it’s mainly held together by having the same characters in it over and over again i really liked dan personally but like. i knew we were wasting time there. he was just an obstacle. a super cute loving and caring obstacle who’s great with kids but lbr piper and leo were always endgame. wasting our time on dan was stupid. i do love the sister dynamics in season two “gotta hand it to those pesky little demons they sure have brought us closer together” but again. this season could have benefitted from a rex and hannah type or even like a cole or zankou. this season is less of a season and more of just like a handful of episodes, and while there are some fat dubs, there are also some definite swings & misses. shout out to the time travel episodes the prue centric episodes phoebe’s character growth and maturity throughout this season (e.g. her going back to college) and i also think the fashion got a lot more fun this season.

second place i’m saying season one season one was a really strong start and gave us these really compelling characters with interesting relationships between one another But. a lot of it just kinda falls flat. and credit where credit is due it was a brand new show getting its feet under it but the fourth sister feats of clay which prue is it anyway they just simply aren’t dubs imo. also i don’t like that 70′s episode bc again i am an asshole concerned about The Lore i can’t believe one bitch ass warlock caused the Charmed Ones to grow up without powers. it just really bugs me. all in all the plots as a whole like aren’t great imo they’re nothing to write home about (save for from fear to eternity) it’s really the characters that make this season so goddamn good.

first place congratulations to the one the only season three. this is just because it kinda hits all my requirements in that it has some banger one offs (e.g. all halliwell’s eve, the good, the bad, and the cursed) it has an overarching plot at the exact same time as the source becomes more prominent and obvi cole is also there with murderous intent i like the character growth we see especially from prue i like piper and leo finally get married overall i really like the aesthetic of this season that blends a darker urban fantasy tone with still some charmed fashion and whimsy. strikes against tbh phoebe and cole’s relationship i am insanely picky with my enemies to lovers and the do not come remotely close to cutting the mustard in fact they are almost immediately disqualified however from afar i can see and respect The Drama. shout out to recasting victor prue with pistols death as a character and shannen directing episodes

#and of course this is a matter of opinion i'm not expecting everyone to agree w me Howver #i think you'd also be hard pressed to talk me out of my opinion #like the closer you get to the top there's more wiggle room like what's the best season i think changes with the wind #but the shit tier stays shit tier in my mind it's a matter of personal preference and i personally prefer my season to be good #charmed #💌

[rabbitsparklez]

Explaining the red rocks + Eugene’s and Rapunzel’s TRUE worst fears 

I was rewatching Be Very Afraid and I developed a headcanon about the red rocks and characters' worst fears. 

I am not a writer of this show, nor is my logic infallible, but I put together my theory on how the red rocks read people, and the possibility that they can misread people

This is my longest post yet, so grab some snacks.

Rapunzel said that her worst fear was the things Cassandra could do to Corona, and losing her as a friend, but unlike everyone else, she didn't actually see visions of her fears and wasn't screaming in terror, as Eugene observed and pointed out. Maybe the rocks only work when the victim chooses to acknowledge their fear, and if they choose to avoid thinking about their fears, the rocks won't sense their feelings.

In the previous episodes, we see that Rapunzel is obviously trying to push her thoughts about Cassandra to the back of her mind so that she can focus on her life in Corona. She's clearly still upset about it all, but she has always had the tendency to be optimistic and cheerful, even when she's upset or scared. Rapunzel chooses not to acknowledge her feelings, but others do, like Varian and Lance. Of course Varian was having visions of losing his father because of his recent traumatic experience, and he chooses to acknowledge that fear, having every reason to be afraid. Not to mention, being a teenager, Varian must think about his emotions and feelings a lot, and the rocks could easily sense that. What would be giving him nightmares and swarming his mind every day more than losing his father again? Throughout the episode, Varian had tried to keep his mind off of that so he could focus on helping Rapunzel, and mostly it worked. He didn’t see anything related to his fears until he and Rapunzel reached the chamber where the rocks originated, and he had to use the amber to eliminate their power. Varian was scared of the amber because he knew what it was capable of doing, and it was in that moment that he started seeing his fears. We see another example with Lance. He showed that he had stage fright and fear of clowns and spiders, and while he didn't openly admit that, he didn't try to push it back into his head either. When Lance decided to stop letting his fears overcome him, they shrunk and ran away, because he no longer had that fear. It appears that the person doesn't need to confess that they are afraid, but all they need to do is allow themselves to be afraid, and let those negative emotions stick in their minds.

Realizing this, I became very incredulous about Eugene's worst fear.

 The episode said that it was a cowlick, but......No. No way. Why do I think that Eugene's biggest fear wasn't a cowlick if that's what he saw? Because he allows himself to make a fuss about the way he looks. He acknowledges the fact that he hates imperfections in the way he looks, and doesn't try to push that away. His true, deep emotional feelings, on the other hand, are a different story. A while back, @timid-izzie wrote an essay that went over the possibility of him having post-traumatic trauma and the fact that he tends to hide his own fears and negative emotions, covering them up with humor. Eugene doesn't acknowledge his negative emotions and fears, and I think, similar to how Rapunzel wasn't seeing visions of Cassandra, the rocks didn't sense any of Eugene's greater fears because they are pushed into the back of his mind. Deep down, Eugene has very unbearable fears, but pushes them so far back that he doesn’t realize how badly he has them. 

A few people have compared his worst fear, being a cowlick, to the scene from “The Quest for Varian”, where he mentions the fact that he had a cowlick before Rapunzel hit him with the frying pan and it was fixed after the blow. Basically, the fact that he doesn’t have a cowlick signifies the fact that he met Rapunzel and became a better person. I agree that this theory makes sense, and it doesn’t exactly disprove what I’m saying, because the cowlick is also related to imperfections.The writers wanted a cheap way to brush him out of the picture so they can focus on Cass, so why not use vanity as an excuse to do so? With or without the significance of the frying pan, the rocks could easily sense Eugene’s discomfort regarding imperfections. But they only show his reflection, not anything related to the origin of having that fear. The rocks sense his “fear of cowlicks” as a vanity-associated thing, because they can’t read the rest of the story. They don’t know why he hates cowlicks, but only the fact that he does. Considering this, I believe that Eugene has more deep fears than just the cowlick. 

What are the rest of his worst fears, then? There are many things that Eugene has likely had negative feelings about that might be a lot worse than what he convinces himself to believe. If you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. He spent a good 23 years trying to find himself and escaping his identity, having no family, no friends, no home, and no money  - until he started stealing. There are many things that can go wrong there. When he grew older, he made a lot of enemies and must have gotten into a lot of conflicts. He worked with and for very bad people who wanted to use him, and almost married an abusive and manipulative girl who only wanted him for his thieving abilities (Not to mention was way to young and naive to get married). Several notably traumatic things happened to him only in the last three years. In one day, he was sentenced to be hanged, witnessed the abuse of the woman he loved, and was stabbed and killed. No matter how much you think of others, there’s no person who can thoroughly escape such horrific events that happen to yourself. I think that Cassandra's taking the Moonstone was just as traumatic for Eugene as it was for Rapunzel, but in a different way. Remember that Eugene’s ancestors dedicated their entire family legacy to destroying that stone because it killed people, including his own mother. The Moonstone is directly the reason he was sent to an orphanage, became a notorious criminal, and received a death penalty. He forbade Rapunzel from entering the castle because he was so afraid for her safety that he didn’t want to risk losing her. Minutes after he built up the courage to let her grab it after remembering his faith in her, Cassandra took it like a piece of candy and ran away with it. He turned his back on the woman he loved to protect her and felt terrible about it, only for the stone to be stolen by someone who resented and wanted to kill her. Later, the unseen events or “No Time Like the Past” apparently forced him to stop resenting her because “friends don’t leave friends behind” (which, let’s face it, completely abolishes Flynn Rider’s persona and I hate it). But no matter what happened in that episode, I highly doubt Eugene immediately came to forgive Cassandra. The objective was to show that Cassandra was still redeemable, but it was poorly written, as a comment in “Flynnpostor” about Flynn Rider leaving people behind basically confirmed that either the events of “No Time Like the Past” never happened, or that he came back to his senses. Either way, there is no way Eugene’s (completely justified and understandable) resentment towards Cassandra just disappeared. 

It should be clarified that Eugene was not completely okay in season 3. He wanted to support Rapunzel and keep her hopes up, but logically, he would have serious problems deep inside.

 We get an example of this in "Return of the King", when he's irritated at Edmund for suddenly wanting to be part of his life after abandoning him. I've seen a lot of people point fingers at Eugene and call him rude for his hostility toward him in that episode, but honestly, I don't blame him. That was the first time he'd seen him since "Destinies Collide", and in his defense, Edmund didn't exactly welcome him with loving fatherly arms. When Eugene met his father, the first three things he had to do were accept his tragic backstory and identity crisis, dedicate himself to destroying the moonstone, and break his beloved girlfriend's heart. In actuality, Edmund is really a sweet and loving father, but Eugene didn't see that at first and it's not his fault. It wasn't until he found out that his father had kept track of him by reading his favorite books and bringing his childhood toys home that he realized just how much his father thought about him. In the finale, he admitted his resentment and confusion towards him, but that he had come to understand his motive. Until that cursed episode “No Time Like the Past”, he was very worried about Rapunzel’s behavior and the fact that she was thinking about Cass despite the fact that she almost killed her. The point is, Eugene is not immune to having emotionally painful feelings, and the writers didn't fool us when they claimed that his worst fear was a cowlick. It's an absolute pity that in a show where one of the morals is "you should never bury your feelings", one of the main characters has no story whatsoever relating to his very much real trauma.

If my theory about the rocks misreading peoples' feelings is correct, based on my observations, I don't think Rapunzel's worst fear is what she claimed it was either.

 It was not losing Cassandra as a friend. You might say I'm contradicting myself by saying this, because my original point for this theory was based off of that, but remember that Rapunzel generally does not express negative feelings. I believe that the rocks couldn't read Rapunzel's fears because she didn't allow herself to think about her fears. Perhaps losing Cassandra as a friend is one of her fears, but not her worst fear. Although she thought a lot about her, she thought in a hopeful sense rather than a miserable, negative sense.

In “Cassandra’s Revenge”, Rapunzel seemed to be completely over Cassandra, wanting to settle down and appreciate her surroundings. I’m not going to elaborate, but I’ve always regarded Cassandra’s and Rapunzel’s relationship as unhealthy, and it was especially bad for Rapunzel to keep wanting Cass to be back because Mother Gothel, her former abuser, was the motive. I saw this episode as a way to show that she was over her - she even painted over the pictures of her on her wall. But afterward she still seemed to care a lot about bringing her back, and even sang a song about wanting to do anything for her (which I don’t believe, seeing that she would use an incantation on her to save Eugene, showing that she wouldn’t give him up for her). Part of me sees this as another poorly written, contradictory scene that tried to cram in Cassandra’s potential to be redeemed, because, for her own mentality, Rapunzel should be over her. But I don’t think all of that was thought out in that way. Rapunzel still continued to pine onto Cassandra and bringing her back, but that came from her compassion for her rather than a deep and serious emotional feeling. The entire “Cass is still redeemable” arc was aimed to show that Rapunzel has compassion for everyone and won’t give up. It was not a matter of having a truly passionate fear of losing Cassandra, and I highly doubt that that was Rapunzel’s worst fear.

Similar to Eugene, I believe she has certain trigger fears that are buried deep down inside of her.

 I'm specifically thinking about "Rapunzeltopia", when Matthews controlled her dreams. According to Matthews, the things that he showed her were her worst nightmares. She saw Mother Gothel restraining her, Corona acting hostile, her fear of touching the rocks, and.... Cassandra. But it was not in a "afraid to lose her as a friend" sense. Cassandra was attacking her and blaming her for her problems. She tried to kill her and take revenge for getting her arm burnt. These visions must have had a more valid representation of Rapunzel's fears than the rocks did, because Matthews had entered and taken control of her mind. The rocks (again, if this is correct) merely read peoples' visible feelings; Matthews went inside her head and brought out her traumas, her true fears. A lot of people seem to think that Rapunzel has completely forgotten about Mother Gothel and what she did to her, but that is not true. I believe that Rapunzel’s fears are masked by her positive attitude, and this precisely was why the rocks couldn’t see through her, similar to Eugene. When she saw Mother Gothel keeping her in the tower, she was chained up. There was one time ever when Mother Gothel chained Rapunzel up. That was the day Rapunzel found out her life was a lie, was almost buried in a dungeon for life, saw the love of her life get murdered before her eyes (and might have partially thought it was her fault), and experienced other dramatic changes in her life - especially the part about losing Eugene. Throughout the series, Rapunzel has shown a particular weakness whenever she thought she would be separated from Eugene or lose him. He is her first friend, aside from Pascal, and an infinitely close and beloved one. He was the first person to ever show compassion towards her and care about her, which was the thing she never received from Mother Gothel. Whether she’d realized it or not, she had always craved that sort of attention and love, and Eugene gave it to her. She holds him especially close, not just as her lover but as a friend, because he repaired her life. Whenever his life was at risk, Rapunzel became especially desperate: He was what sparked her to use the Reverse Incantation on Hector to defeat (and possibly even KILL) him. Similarly, she used another potentially dangerous incantation to fight for him when Cassandra threatened to kill him (proof that she would not give anything for her). She stopped and dropped in the middle of a fight with Zhan Tiri because she saw him lying on the ground, possibly thinking he was dead (True, anyone would be concerned for someone they love if they saw them on the ground, but I can’t help but notice they were in a very similar position that they were when he died) Eugene has always been Rapunzel’s #1 priority, and I have a strong feeling that besides loving him above all else, she has the fear of revisiting that traumatic moment in which she lost him. Maybe she even felt responsible for letting that happen to him, especially since Mother Gothel made everything her fault.

I believe, among the other things she saw in that episode, Rapunzel's true worst fear was that day - that fateful day in which she found out her life was a lie and lost the one person who truly loved her.

Well I might be seriously overthinking this and be completely wrong, but from my POV it makes sense. People take trauma in different ways, depending on how seriously affected they are, who they are as a person, and their capacity to rise or fall from their demons. I truly believe that despite their natural optimism and resilience, both Rapunzel and Eugene have deeper fears and traumas than what is focused on in the show. We know as a fact that this show isn't afraid to let the audience know that characters suffer mental afflictions, such as Frederick and Varian, so why wouldn't characters like Rapunzel and Eugene, who have been through so much, suffer the same?

I hope you enjoyed reading this post and if not I thank you anyway.

Note:

I’d love to hear what you think, but please, if you have any questions or comments regarding this theory of mine, do not message me with the chat. I will not be active on Tumblr for a while. (You may use my ask box)

#TTS #Tangled the Series #RTA #Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure #Rapunzel #Eugene #rabbitsparklez #This is a LONG post fyi

[docholligay]

The Time Traveler’s Bullshit

@katrani comissioned me to write out my full review of The Time Traverler’s Wife, my most hated book of the year thus far, and I feel like it won’t be dethroned. nearly 3,000 words and I skipped a whole section I was going to write about, ENJOY

Three dollars and ninety nine cents will buy you a Big Mac. It will buy you four hours of downtown parking in my city. Three dollars and ninety-nine cents will buy you a latte made with burnt coffee at Starbucks. For Three dollars and ninety-nine cents, I can get a can of terrible beer and have a dollar left over for tip. All of which would have been a better choice than what I ultimately spent that three dollars and ninety-nine cents on, which was this book. 

I am careful to read hyped books out of their time, so that I’m not influenced by something that has been so lauded no book could ever hope to reach those heights. So when this first came around, and I saw many women talking about how much they had loved it, I figured I would just read it later. I buy books used, so this is generally what I do even outside of worrying about being affected. 

I finally picked this book up after a reader of mine told me it reminded them of my writing. 

After reading it, several years after all the hype, I have one question: Are women who fuck men okay? 

(“Why not just straight women, Doc?” you may rightly ask me, and I, unfortunately, am forced to answer that I know a number of bisexual women who also enjoyed this book, leading me to believe that the trouble is far worse than previously imagined.)

I found this book to be borderline insulting, and if I didn’t know any better, I would have claimed this book was written by a man. The entire way through I felt the constant assault of the idea that this reminded someone of ME. What have I been doing wrong all my life, I asked? I should probably give up writing. 

Let’s go into the book itself!

The core of the novel hinges around the idea that Henry goes through time without wanting to and with no consious conrol, and so in a sense lives his life out of order. This is a fascinating idea but for the fact that book’s main hinge is the relationship between Clare and Henry. 

Who Henry meets, as an adult out of time, when she is six. 

And proceeds to groom her to be his wife someday. 

Oh, it isn’t put that way, of course, it’s simply that they end up married and so, I suppose the author might say, it’s only natural that Henry interact with her when he comes the “the Meadow” nearby where she lives. But this sort of “things are already decided” that the author is extremely fond of does not remove this intensely squicky framework from their relationship. Henry begins with Clare when she is six years old, and it comes on VERY fast that they are supposed to get married. She is at a sleepover, still as a literal child, ELEVEN YEARS OLD, when the Ouija board spells out his name as the boy who likes her. 

The book takes pains to describe how he won;t have sex with her until she’s 18, but how difficult it is for a thirties to forties man not to have sex with her when she’s 15, 16, 17. I want to say there might be a part where he describes it when she’s 14, but I can’t find it in the book right now, so we’ll pretend it’s not there. “But they’re married in the furute!” one might say, listen if my wife had to resist having sex with sixteen year old me, and didn’t see me as a fucking child, I would think she was gross. It’s gross for a thirty-something to forty -something dde to struggle not to fuck a teenager, period, end of story. 

All of this is wrapped in the book’s idea that this is romantic, instead of the idea that Clare’s “date with destiny” is tragic. She doesn’t ever have a boyfriend, because she is “waiting for Henry”. She sleeps with one of Henry’s friends before he and Clare ever officially “meet” and bursts into tears because she feels as if she has been unfaithful. Meanwhile, Henry is out having girlfriends like no one’s business, and “Well Doc he doesn’t know” why is Clare the one who has to bear this arranged marriage? 

Clare herself even alludes to the way she’s being groomed to be the woman he wants in a way that I DO NOT THINK the author intended, as the author is desperately wrapped up in the idea that this is sexy and romantic and not deeply fucking unsettling. 

Pretentious-ass Henry is dropping German into a casual conversation with a thirteen year old so that you know he is learned and cool, and explain that it’s from Rilke, one of their (note: Not your, but OUR) favorite poets. 

Clare responds: “You’re doing it again!” 

“What?” 

“Telling me what I like.” Clare burrows into my lap with her feet. Without thinking I put my feet on her shoulders, but then that seems too sexual, somehow, and I quickly take Clare’s feet in my hands again and hold them together with one hand in the air as she lies on her back, innocent and angelic with her hair spread nimbus-like around her on the blanket. (Sidebar: I can only fucking imagine that the sort of people that are into this are the sort of people who think nothing at the idea of some Victorian gentleman marrying his attractive young ward, as apparently there’s no problem with having seen someone as a child and then having them marry you! It’s not deeply fucked up at all!)  …..

“Henry?” 

“Yes?”

“You are making me different.” 

“I know.” 

These brief asides are meant to make us feel that Henry has done enough to assuage his guilt, that we are meant to forget that what he is doing is wrong. The book goes so far as to have sixteen year old Clare be the aggressor with a 37 or so year old Henry, as a way of trying to tell us, “Oh look none of this can be Henry’s fault” and an absolutely cringeworthy section where Henry goes and beats up a kid who took Clare on a date and proceeded to assault her. (She dates him to prove she’s not a dyke wow what a great book and thank you for reminding us that Clare never wants to see anyone else for her own sake even as a teenager, very healthy)

All of which would make me a hell of a lot more mad if I managed to like Clare even a little bit. But it’s not at all surprising that I don't--Clare is hardly a character in this story so much as she’s a cardboard cutout that exists for Henry. 

Each of her desires and thoughts revolves around him, from the time she’s a child, save for minor pouting incidents when Henry either won’t tell her something, or disagrees with her. But she always caves, but for the exception of having a child, another horrible thing we’re meant to feel sorry for them in, but I, at least, never really do, as they know the problem, they know how horribly Henry’s life has been affected, and yet they persevere. I find myself asking why in the fuck they don’t use donor sperm, but I suppose that would not fulfill Clare’s real use as being Henry’s vessel. It might have been very touching to write about their experience of infertility if they were likeable at all, or the chapters were anything but flat and emotionless despite dealing with really high-emotion topics. It’s essentially Clare saying “I want a baby inside me” and having a series of miscarriages. I’ve read more compelling narratives on online message boards. 

Not to mention when Henry suggests adopting and Clare says “That would be pretending” bitch fuck ALL THE WAY OFF. I repeat: WE ARE MEANT TO LIKE THIS CHARACTER. NOTHING ABOUT HER IS SHOWN AS A NEGATIVE. 

A fair amount of time in the book is spent describing how hot Clare is, and it’s a bit cringey to read about a super hot redhead with great tits and also rich, who’s a visual artist, and then flip to the back and see a redheaded visual artist as the author. It’s not that I don’t believe that authors are ever allowed to find themselves in a character, quite the contrary, but one hopes that there would be a level of detachment or at least plausible deniability. But no, Clare is nothing but wish fulfillment for the author, but unfortunately cannot fulfill any of ours. I get the sense that these characters are far more complex and layered in Niffenegger’s head, but they fall completely flat on the page, sketches of annoying human beings. 

Clare seems to have been raised in an Austen novel, where the home is noted for its architecture and we ‘dress for dinner’ which could be intensely compelling if they ever went anywhere with it. But we don’t. Because of course Clare’s raising in a straightlaced, extremely wealthy family has no affect on her and she is a very cool girl who is laid back and likes the right music and poetry. (Sidebar: The name dropping in this novel is SO TIRESOME. Every band, artist, poet, etc has to be named and identified so your are aware of how absolutely well-read and smart and cool Niffenegger is) 

The we’re meant to feel for Henry when her family finds out that he is half-Jewish which I suppose is meant to be shocking when he doesn’t practice or isn’t different in any marked way from her family? The character has no Jewishness in him but as a side note and dare I say for shock value. Her family isn’t even written as believably against the union, as no one can resist super cool hipster protag Henry DeTamble (Even his name sounds INSUFFERABLE) 

The problem, of course, is that the very wealthy can buy their way out of many problems, meaning that an author has to have a particular deftness of hand in order to make you feel something for them. This is not that author. Any sympathy one might have for Clare goes immediately out the window when she’s complaining about having only a small room for a studio in which to create, while she’s living off the INTEREST from her trust fund, and hiring a cleaning service because neither of them is willing to vacuum. Not her trust fund. The INTEREST from her trust fund, which means there must be so much fucking money in there we all want to scream. 

Of course, Henry goes into the future and wins the lottery so they can give her a new studio, I shit you not this is a thing that happens in a novel where we are supposedly meant to identify with the characters and feel for them. They buy a nice house with a separate studio in the backyard, not even in the house, just a large brick edifice where Clare can do whatever she wants because these people don’t have consequences until Henry’s death, and by the time he dies, we’re all thanking God that at least there’s one thing they can’t weasel out of. The book has the audacity to have them, later, describe having a private box as one of their “little indulgences” friends a private box is the realm of $1,800 dollars for ONE showing of an opera, and while I am a believer in the good of occasionally saving up to do something that is an experience, there is no way I would describe that as an ‘indulgence” but these people have such wealth that they never need worry about anything at all, except the central point, which is that Henry drifts in and out of time and we would like to sentence a child to that. 

Henry himself is a collection of traits rather than a person--it is so important to the author that we know he is a real punk with great musical taste, that he knows German and poetry and Chicago--it’s all rather a laundry list of the long-haired, tall, punkish but very classically learned boyfriend Niffenegger would like to have rather than someone who has a heart or a mind.  But the luck of it all is that she clearly cares about henry far more than she does Clare, and so he gets a bit of fleshing out with a tragic anime backstory and all that, and from time to time we see bursts of real humanity in his character. 

Their love, even if it were not burdened by the exceptional trouble of CLARE BEING GROOMED AS A CHILD, has the weight of air. Henry is a womanizer with a drug problem, but then he meets Clare, hot rich redhead who proves she’s known him her whole life, and suddenly the magic swelling violins are in the background, love has found its day, and no more is ever said about it.The book refuses to get anywhere deep into how they feel about things and why, it is only glancing blows that seem to suggest an emotion rather than allowing ourselves to get into their minds.  

The bulk of the description of their love is sex. Sex sex sex. I get it, they are hot for each other, I am trying very hard to get over the fact that they are married when Clare is 22 and Henry is thirty, but you’re giving me nothing to pin their relationship on but the fact that they enjoy railing each other and Henry has been around since Clare was a child. I don’t understand the why of their relationship even once, it all seems so accidental, and I wanted there to be a lesson, or something to be said about humanity and relationships, but I found nothing save for maybe the idea that women are fully engrossed in their relationships and men basically luck into them and then drop out from time to time? But even that is far far deeper than I think the novel deserves credit for. 

The side characters are somehow worse, mainly racist stereotypes or one note characters who ALSO exist to have their lives enhanced by the protagonists. Even their friends only exist so that Gomez can have the hots for Clare for years, because Everyone Wants To Bone Clare. 

The writing itself is terrible too, written in the style of a script, almost, rapidly shifting between first person narratives in a matter of one or two paragraphs, often, helpfully telling who is talking by, I shit you not, putting “CLARE:” or “HENRY:” before the paragraphs, so we can enjoy who it is that is navel gazing and picking over the conversation without saying anything really, save for how badly Henry wants to fuck his super hot wife, who may or may not currently be a teenager, and how desperately Clare loves him, and has loved him since she was a child, for reasons that remain unclear. 

It’s padded out and ridiculous and reads like some of the drafts when I am being a complete garbage pile, and thank you to the person online who had already typed this out so I didn’t have to:

Henry:

Clare is wearing a wine-colored velvet dress and pearls. She looks like a Botticelli by way of John Graham: huge gray eyes, long nose, tiny delicate mouth like a geisha. She has long red hair that covers her shoulders and falls to the middle of her back. Clare is so pale she looks like a waxwork in the candlelight. I thrust the roses at her. "For you."

Please try to read that with a straight face and get back to me, i could not manage it, and it was early on the book, and this sort of thing goes on for pages, if you don’t like hearing about how pale Clare is, and that she has red hair, her two most dominating character traits, you are in for a very, very rough time. 

The narrative voice of the characters is identical. I mean, I suppose I should thank whatever god is responsible for this clusterfuck for the CLARE and HENRY bits because otherwise I would have no clue who was talking from moment to moment. Does NIffenegger think all people think alike? That their internal monologues are the same? It seems to me she must because I can’t figure any other way that one could write two characters and have them, even when their opinions differ, sound like the exact same person. 

I did enjoy the letter at the end of this story--and this is where I saw where my reader connected me to this book--it almost seems as if it was written for a different novel, a novel about a doomed love between two people that truly loved each other and had rich inner lives. It’s beautiful, or it would be totally removed from this novel. 

This review has, in itself, gotten to be as rambling and listing as the novel, and so I will let it rest here. I read incredibly fast. This took me something like five or six hours to read. It was a waste of every single one of those hours and I wish I had gotten a Big Mac instead. Save yourself, save six hours, save three dollars and ninety-nine cents, and read literally anything else. 

#Doc Reads

[myevilmouse]

In Defense of The Rise of Skywalker

Or...how I learned to stop hating and enjoy a movie

Spoilers and random thoughts below the cut.

I hate the abomination that was/is The Last Jedi.  Let’s get that out of the way.  I’ve already explained the hundreds of reasons why, the biggest and most unforgivable being the character assassination of Luke “I call him Jake” Skywalker and the invalidation of every victory of the OT.  I resent this making people lump me into a “gatekeeper” sect, or accuse me of racism (Rose was annoying and ruined Finn’s heroism, jeopardizing hundreds of lives for her own selfish reasons without building up a convincing romance and blah blah etc).  It has nothing to do with her gender, race, or anything.  It has to do with poor character development and inconsistent motivations/messages. 

I’m also not a huge fan of The Force Awakens, mainly for its lack of originality and the treatment of Han/Leia, but otherwise I thought it was OK.  I liked Finn, wanted him to become a Jedi, found Poe to be a worthy heir to our antihero mold.  Rey left me indifferent and Kylo Ren was a temper-tantrum throwing teenager, but anyway...

Let’s keep that as background/context and not get bogged down.

Since they announced the title of this movie, I have been livid with rage. How dare they use my man’s name to sell their disgusting imitation of a beloved universe?  I was certain, ever since it was announced, that Rey would take Luke’s surname, despite having treated him so horribly in TLJ, despite having done nothing to earn it, despite having spent far more time with Leia, so if anything a Solo/Organa family name would make more sense.  It was just to sell tickets and I was furious.

I read all the spoilers.  Worst fears:  confirmed.  I looked at leaked photos.  I raged over the inanity of the plot and the sad conclusion to the Skywalker Saga, which in my mind will always end with ROTJ.

Still, I love Mark Hamill, and I decided to treat this film as a MH film. The completist in me required theatrical viewing.  Rare to get our man in a cinematic release.  So I went, ready to hate watch, prepared to dull the bitterness and betrayal with wine.

But….JJ Abrams directed a fix it fic.  And it’s good.  This film not just address the real injustices and horrible story decisions of TLJ, but also addresses some of the major problems of TFA too. 

I tried to go in with an open mind, but obviously I had many preconceived notions, and already knew almost every single story point and character beat.  I was ready to roll around in my hate and slam the abomination.  I want to emphasize that I am one of those people that was COMPLETELY prepared to hate EVERYTHING about this.

There are flaws. 

But there is so much that is great. 

I really really liked it. 

No one is more shocked than I at my own reaction.  I was ready/willing/wanting/primed to hate everything about this.  Please keep that in mind.  Hahah and no one is paying me to write this post 😉

I decided to write this because I also read all the negative critical reviews online from the pro critics yelling FAN SERVICE.  And I’m like…damn straight?  Ever since George Lucas made Han shoot second, fandom has understood that we understand this franchise better than film executives.  We aren’t concerned with adding an extra dewback or improving special effects.  We love these films the way we first experienced them, and they cannot and should not be “improved” to the ultimate detriment of the brand.

I’m here to tell you that the critics are not being fair.  The spoilers on reddit were true, but the movie works. Let’s accept, before we go further, that Abrams couldn’t entirely rewrite the mess that he stepped into/helped create. So I can’t defend the fact that Finn isn’t a Jedi yet or the mess that is the new Rebellion/failure of the old. I, like many fans, wish we had been given a different/better story from the beginning.  Sadly, we were not.

That is something we don’t have to accept (I certainly don’t consider these films “canon” in my mind—Mara Jade forever!) but let’s approach this film in the spirit it seems to be intended:  An attempt to address the very valid criticisms loudly voiced about the others in the trilogy, with the caveat that we are stuck with TFA and TLJ no matter how much we hate them.

First, the music is amazing, as we all knew it would be.  The acting is stellar.

Some of the things Abrams “fixed:”

“Rey is perfect/Mary Sue/good at everything”.  There is a conscious effort in this film to show her training, with Leia as her Master.  There is a good scene foreshadowing her final struggle, where she strains to hear the voices of Jedi past and fails.  There are several signs that she is not a Jedi yet, including how Palpatine talks about her, and perhaps my favorite, when she tells Leia she hasn’t earned Luke’s lightsaber.

Me: Damn straight you haven’t.

And Leia AGREES, keeping Luke’s weapon because Rey isn’t ready for it. She’s still learning.

Further proof of her non-Jedi status, when Rey is killed, she doesn’t join the Force.  She is a corpse.  On the other hand, Ben Solo, once redeemed, disappears as we would expect a good Jedi to do.  A clear distinction between the two of them.

And speaking of Leia:

Leia’s character:  TFA and TLJ Leia is weak and sends other people to fight, whereas our brave Princess from the OT is volunteering for suicide missions, grabbing weapons from the hands of her rescuers, and running into danger for a good cause.  It always bothered me that she didn’t go after Kylo herself (or with Han).  In this, we see her as a Jedi Master, training Rey, with her own lightsaber.  Leia is once more a badass, true to her character.  A legitimate Jedi who also joins the Force (although not sure why it took her so long post-mortem, that was weird).

Luke’s character:  Hello, I am A LUKE FANATIC.  The biggest sin of TFA and especially TLJ was this idea of Luke hiding out and becoming the disgusting, pessimistic coward he was shown to be.  Abrams ignores this pretty much entirely, starting with the revelation that Luke was actually going on missions with Lando to hunt for a Sith artifact to help the Rebellion.  Luke kept notes, he was busy and ACTIVE.  He wasn’t giving up; he was leaving a trail to help anyone who followed.  The best ‘fuck you’ in the whole movie was Luke catching Anakin’s lightsaber when Rey throws it away.  The ultimate rejection of his TLJ characterization.  

Luke’s conversation with Rey echoes very much the ROTJ “you must confront Vader” conversation.  There are many echoes of ROTJ but given the restrictions on what we are working with, I accepted this parallel.  Much like Luke had to face his unfortunate inheritance, so must Rey.  It’s not terribly original, but these films aren’t.

I also loved the simple line “I was wrong” when Rey asks why he did what he did in TLJ.  This to me is simply “Rian Johnson was wrong/The Last Jedi was wrong.”  There is no excuse that is acceptable, but this is a filmmaker acknowledging an injustice, and I appreciated it.  (Did I mention these films are not canon for me? They aren’t, just giving credit for this attempt.)

Han’s character:  I hated SO MUCH how they turned Han into a failure in TFA.  A buffoon, not even a good smuggler anymore, a failure as a father, a husband.  When I heard he was going to be in this I was like HUH?  But this “memory” of his father that Kylo Ren sees after Rey heals him and departs, after he’s lost his mother, is another attempt to redeem the injustice to Han’s character.  Han is the one in the movie who brings Kylo Ren back to the Light, not Rey.  It is a very short scene, but effective.  The acting is poignant, with the “Dad” working for me.  Maybe I’m a softie.  But I appreciated this brief proof that Han Solo, in the end, didn’t suck as a father, and ultimately, even as a hallucination, inspired the love that saved his son.

Chewbacca got a medal:  I said Abrams was fixing things in the sequels, but I admit I was choked up to see this fixit from A New Hope.  Finally Chewie gets the medal he is LONG overdue.

Team dynamic with the new characters:  Finally we understand why these people care about each other.  They go on shared adventures, they have banter (and some good jokes, not the stupid bathos of TLJ), and there is finally some sense of camaraderie that was discarded in TLJ.  There are several references to Rey’s “new family,” clearly referring to this band of Rebels, and it was far more compelling than in earlier films.

Finn’s Force Sensitivity:  I, like many, desperately wanted Finn to be a Jedi.  Since TFA, it seemed inevitable!  I loved how he used the lightsaber, how he seemed to have Force abilities (that were never really explored).  TLJ ignored that potential completely, sidelining him on that stupid Canto Bight quest and pulling him away from Rey.  There are so many signs that he is destined to be a Jedi in this film, I was thrilled to see them.  Knowing things without explanation, doing amazing things, sensing things, trusting his feelings, it’s another ‘fuck you’ in my opinion, to RJ for ignoring this former stormtrooper’s destiny in favor of overblown set pieces and pointless CGI theatrics.  When he says, towards the end “I can feel it,” I wanted to fist pump.  YOU GO BE A JEDI FINN!  THE FORCE IS WITH YOU.  Personally, I would have loved for Finn to be the main protagonist of all three films, but I appreciate us getting what we got, since we can’t get what we want.

Stuff that worked:

The Wedge cameo:  Yeah.

Lando:  Wonderful. His dialogue, especially at the beginning, does a lot to fix our view of Luke.

Kylo’s redemption:  See above re: Han.  I’ve seen a lot of criticism about the kiss.  I get the whole “female character’s purpose is to validate the evolution of the male” criticism, but I want to point out a couple things about this. First of all, it’s not a “Reylo” kiss. Kylo is gone.  This is well after Kylo is redeemed.  He’s been of the Light for a while before this, it’s clearly Ben at this point.  It’s also obvious Rey knows that, and like Luke forgave Vader for his abuse, she forgives Ben Solo for his.  So I understand also the criticism that is making people puke about Rey kissing her abuser, but again, Luke sheds tears for the father he loves, who maimed and traumatized him.  Star Wars is about redemption and forgiveness that accompanies it, and I don’t have the same issue with this.  If she kissed KYLO without him being redeemed before he died, for example, I would be disgusted.  This is not that.

The cinematography/pacing/story:  So many critics and the spoilers made it sound like this was a convoluted mess.  I went to see it with a non-native English speaker and neither of us had any trouble following the plot.  Yeah, a lot happens, but it all is linear and consistent within the film.

The humor/dialogue:  Felt way more Star Wars-y and better placed than the last two films.

The Jedi Helping Rey:  As much as I thought I would hate this, it was really well done, largely, I think, due to the foreshadowing during her earlier training.  When Palpatine says all the Sith live in him and we know what she’s gonna say but it still works SO WELL.  I was rooting for her and I’ve never been a huge fan.  But at that climactic moment, I was a believer.

Major flaws

Of course there are some.  For me the most major:

A Jedi Strikes Not In Anger: In every single lightsaber battle (pretty sure, I only saw the film once), Rey is the first to strike.  She always seems to be fighting from anger and with negative emotion.  This is not at all Jedi-esque and I found it particularly jarring in her duels with Kylo Ren.  This bothered me more than almost anything else in the film because it is never addressed.  She fights ANGRY and she fights FEARFUL and then somehow when she’s supposed to strike down Palpatine, she has it in her to resist.  This, above all else, makes me not like her as the “heir to the Jedi”.  I thought it was a real problem, and makes her ultimate evolution at the finale less convincing.

Rey Skywalker:  I get why they did it, but I stand by my earlier thoughts regarding taking the Solo or Organa name.  I have nothing against adopted families.  And I found it SLIGHTLY more palpable because since the Emperor refers to Ben as “the last Skywalker” and then since he transfers his entire life force into her, you can argue that she has “Skywalker” literally in her spirit now.  OK fine.  But I still don’t really think she earned it.  She came CLOSER than I thought she would and I didn’t ultimately want to burn down the cinema as I expected I would want to.

Force Resurrection:  No. Just no.  This changes so much and makes so much of the earlier films moot. Why wouldn’t Anakin just resurrect Padme?  Don’t get me started.

Other random new Force things:  Like Force Ghosts touching shit.  Yeah I know Obi Wan sat on the tree in Dagobah, I know, but we keep learning new and more powerful Force shit each film.  Teleportation of objects (that lightsaber?!), astral projection, rapid healing, and now playing catch with your ghost friends.  I get they are important to the story but it feels lazy.  But my exception here was Luke catching the saber because FUCK YOU RJ. 😊

Redemption=Death:  I wanted Kylo Ren to die for his sins too, but I recognize this strange thing we have going on in the GFFA that if a baddie goes good they die.  It’s the equivalent of the horror movie “fuck and the killer gets you” trope.  I didn’t necessarily mind Ben dying, but it seemed … lazy.

The final shot:  It was a mistake to even touch this iconic moment.  It wasn’t earned.  Make your own legend/iconic moment and leave my farmboy his.

Something no one can fix:  The sucky destinies of Luke Jake, Han, and Leia.  They didn’t live happy lives, they didn’t see the end of tyranny, they all died with only the hope of success.  I will never forgive the attempted destruction of the legacy of the OT (attempted cause it’s still how it all ends in my world), this disregard of the triumph of the Rebellion over the Empire, and I will never believe that the New Republic failed so completely and miserably.  Bring on the EU/Legends and forget this shit.

Final thought:  I went to this expecting the cinematic equivalent of a back alley abortion and instead I got what felt like an apology.  An entertaining and polished and sincere apology.  We deserved better, and I think the people who made this film realized that and did their best.  TROS had to wrap up something that was divisive and imperfect and misguided, and tried as hard as it could, in my opinion, given what they were working with.

It was a good movie.  Ambitious, with flaws, but I am glad I saw it, and I hope you will be too. <3  May the Force be with you.

#tros spoilers #the rise of skywalker spoilers #ix spoilers #my thoughts

[reoflite]

Why Forrest Gump is the movie we need

I wanted to step away from the more serious posts I’ve made recently to talk about a movie that I love. Sadly, it took several years for me to appreciate this film for what it is. As a child, I remember hearing my grandmother say it was a “stupid” movie. I carried this with me until early adulthood, when I began developing my own opinion about things. While I’m disappointed that it took me so long to see the film, it doesn’t take away from the impact it left on me. 

I found that I had a lot to say about a movie that’s flirting with 26. Tom Hanks is...well, he’s just downright incredible. I am going to do my best to segment this post in a way that isn't overwhelming. 

Tom Hanks: Let’s start with the obvious. His performance in this movie is something to be remembered. His 1995 Oscar win for his work in Forrest Gump confirms this. He nails everything, from the body language, down to the overall language of Forrest. At times, I forgot I was watching Tom Hanks. He made Forrest real for me. I recognize this section might look short to some, but he offers such a performance that you would need to see it play out on screen. 

Jenny: A lot of people don’t like her character. She’s hard to digest, I get it. But then, consider all that we see her go through. She suffers horrific sexual abuse at the hands of her father, thus destroying any sense of trust she can ever hope to build with another human being. This person, in theory, should have been the one person that was made to protect her. Instead, he scars her for life. She copes by falling in and out of toxic relationships. She abuses drugs (they try to use this alongside the idea that it was the 60′s/70′s, and it’s what everyone was doing, but I disagree). When we experience her drug use, although maybe a bit more subtle, it’s used as a tool to numb, to free. Eventually, she gets her shit together. Carrying a part of Forrest propels her to a healthier and more fulfilling life, though it’s short. Jenny, in my mind, is the saddest part about this story. 

Jenny and Forrest, together: A lot of people hate the idea. Again, I get it. You can make the argument that Jenny treats Forrest poorly. She is what I call a semi-colon in his life for a while. There isn’t any finality in her presence for most of the movie. She’s there one minute, then gone the next to continue another part of her journey. Forrest loves her unconditionally, despite her leaving him when she feels too pulled in. We see the push-and-pull of their relationship at various points; Forrest declaring his love for her in an authentic but simple way. It requires no show or elaborate moment, because it’s simple: He loves her. It’s very likely she loves him throughout the film, but she’s doing what she thinks is best by staying away from him. She sees herself as a black hole, waiting to suck in whoever comes near her. She doesn’t want that to happen to him. 

Understanding the complexities of childhood sexual abuse and the impact it has on forming meaningful relationships isn’t for the faint of heart, but it’s worth exploring when looking at this film. Jenny is a damaged soul. Forrest is a pure soul, one that has a lasting impact on those he comes across. I don’t believe in the idea of anyone needing to “fix” anyone in a relationship; that’s unhealthy. Instead, I think Forrest offers her the balance love - true love - she has missed for most of her life. Up until their final few scenes together, Jenny’s motto has been to run when things get scary. In Forrest, she finally finds someone she doesn’t have to run from. 

Forrest himself: We are introduced to Forrest when he’s a child. He has trouble walking. He’s a little slow. As much as I hate using that term, I think it’s OK here. Still, he’s inquisitive. He possesses an eagerness to understand those around him. His childlike naivety in the earlier parts of the film is charming. 

He has given an undesirable set of circumstances in the beginning. Everyone around him acknowledges this as fact except Forrest. He doesn’t view his seeming lack of intelligence as a burden. Instead, he maintains a sense of positivity through it all. He uses his talent of speed to enroll in college. He seems to be up for the adventure of the Army following college; and yet, there isn’t a sense that he is without direction. The opportunity presented itself and he took it because...why not? 

It’s here that he meets Bubba, someone that he finds brotherhood in. They are not the same. They come from completely different walks of life. Still, they relate on a level that’s difficult to achieve for characters that are literally written to end up together (as friends or something more). 

Following his completion of basic training, we see he and Jenny cross paths. We are led to believe this is their first time meeting after graduating high school and college. This particular scene is great for both characters. Forrest “rescues” Jenny from the stage - men harassing her - and she establishes clear boundaries. It is, perhaps, the first and only time we see Jenny establish these boundaries in the entire film. There is a comfort with them that she is able to do this, even if it’s not in favor of Forrest during this particular time. 

Perhaps one of the best lines in the film: “Forrest, you don’t know what love is.” This line sets the tone for the rest of the movie. Whether Forrest does so intentionally is unclear, but it’s done with such a subtlety that I did not initially catch it as a younger watcher.

Forrest and...everyone else: Going back to, “You don’t know what love is.” Let’s look at the events following this line, shall we?

Forrest saves his brothers during the raid in Vietnam, even after suffering injury himself. Ultimately, he’s looking to save Bubba, but we can’t talk about this scene without acknowledging that he saves everyone in his platoon that he can. He risks life and limb without a second thought

Lt. Dan treated Forrest poorly, for a lot of reasons. Like Jenny, he was damaged, but in a different way. His ego and “stolen destiny” prevent him from forming a heartwarming bond with Forrest, but Forrest doesn’t seem to let this stop him from helping him when he can. The bond of brotherhood from combat motivates him. Let us not forget that Forrest is just a decent human being, and Lt. Dan is in a position where he needs friendship. Forrest recognizes this at some level and offers his friendship throughout the film. One of my favorite scenes is when one of Lt. Dan’s friends (the two women from the bar) calls Forrest stupid. Lt. Dan immediately steps in and defends him. Later in the film, Forrest offers him a job on the boat he bought. Why? Because he promised him he would

Forrest’s relationship with his mother isn’t shown enough, in my opinion. At the beginning of the movie, we see her defend him. She does things for him that many might judge, but ultimately, she wants him to have the best life possible. It’s what mothers do! Eventually, she succumbs to old age. It’s unclear how old she is when she dies, but he cares for her. He pauses his life to give her a comfortable end to her life. We literally see him jump out of a boat to go be with his mother for her final days. This boils down to a mother-child bond that is difficult to break, but one that I find to be very touching

Back to Bubba. Sweet, dear Bubba. He doesn’t make it to the other side of the war, despite Forrest’s best efforts. His family is left reeling. Bubba’s mother has worked as a servant, much like her mother, and her mother’s mother. After Forrest invests in Apple, he hits it big. In keeping his promise to Bubba, Forrest gives Bubba’s mother and siblings half of his earnings from his fishing business, and money from his investment in Apple. He helps build a new church for Bubba’s family to worship. His attachment to Bubba doesn’t die with him; rather, it’s strengthened after his untimely death

Back to Jenny. As mentioned before, she’s in and out of the film. Her impact on Forrest is noted throughout the film, however. He writes to her almost every day (even though his letters are returned). They go for a long time without seeing each other. Following his return from service, Jenny is in an abusive relationship. Forrest sees her boyfriend hit her. This is perhaps the only “negative” side of Forrest we see throughout the film. Of course, I’m referring to Forrest beating the living daylights out of her boyfriend (whose name I don't care enough to remember). I think most of us would act similarly.  (Side note: “Sorry I had a fight in the middle of your Black Panther party,” might be my favorite quote from anything ever.) They separate once more, and Forrest continues on with his life. He offers her a safe space when she visits him. More importantly, toward the end of her life, he offers her the comfort of a loving and fulfilling relationship

Truthfully, I could expand on a number of other reasons why I love this movie so much, but I think I highlighted some of the more profound moments here. Honorable mentions include Gary Sinise’s performance. I am less attached to his character, but I admire the positive steps he took in his life to become a better person. Forrest’s mother has a profound impact on Forrest, but in my opinion, this isn’t expanded on enough. 

I’d be curious to hear your opinions on the movie. 

#forrest gump #movies #positive rant

[racefortheironthrone]

Thoughts on Powers of X #3

Gotta go fast!

Pride and Grace (X^2):

This issue starts off on a pretty heavy note with a look at the religion of humans in the Man-Machine Ascendancy, and what we see is that humanity has constructed a religion around transhumanism and it’s entirely negative.

So here is the catechism of this religion:

“All humans are slaves,” and humans should “accept [the machines]] dominance.”

Human nature is inherently “fallen,” and in order to ascend humans must reject “every last shred” of their humanity.

Critically, humans must reject the “heretics” who preach biological transhumanism, both becasue of the inherent impossibility of “improv[ing] on our flawed design” and their mistaken belief in free will.

And then just in case you were wondering whether Hickman was going to be at all subtle in his belief that mechanical transhumanism is bad, he then shows us a baby being baptised into this faith by having half its face lasered off as it screams in pain. 

On a more high-falutin’ level, the purple-clad cyborg priest’s concluding thought that “there is something perfect trapped in your flawed human shell” is Gnosticism turned against itself, from a religion that preached an egalitarian message of salvation through transcendant knowledge into a religion that denies the very possibility. It’s also not a good sign that the priest inverts Milton’s most famous epigram on individualistic defiance into a message of submission. 

I find it very odd that so much of the fandom can read these pages and then turn around and call Krakoan culture a cult. As I’ll get into longer, Krakoan culture is all about proving and celebrating individuality as well as community, about rejoicing in the defeat of death, and the multiple layers of call-and-response rest power in the congregation as much as the preacher. If I had to choose between these two religions, I’d pick Krakoa every time. 

And then the mutant resistance shows up bringing fire and the sword(s). And yet, in what is surprising for a group of mutants organized and led by Apocalypse, their tone is more disappointed than hostile. More on this in a bit.

Surviving Sol Mutants Infographic:

In this org chart, we learn about the mutant resistance as led by Apocalypse. Some interesting little details here:

Apocalypse has a new group of horsemen (we don’t learn that the first horsemen who Hickman has been emphasizing so much died during the fall of Krakoa until later), with Logan in the War role, Kuan-Yin Xorn as Death, North as Pestilence, and Krakoa/Cypher as Famine.

This group includes “Pureblood” (not wild about this label) mutants, Chimeras, and “Symbiotic” mutants, which covers pretty much every kind of mutant in this timeline in the same way that the All-New X-Men were designed to be internationally diverse.

While some of these designations - War for Wolverine and Death for the nihilist Xorn - make sense, there’s something really ironic about the plant-man representing Famine, and there doesn’t seem to be much of a clear link between North and the concept of Pestilence.

North as a second generation Lorna Dane/Emma Frost hybrid became a fan favorite despite uttering very few words, I guess because of the interesting combination of Magneto’s costume in Polaris’ colors and pink telepathy powers. 

For her part, Moira stands in as “Mother” of the younger mutant team (which I guess makes Apocalypse the “Father” of the older team), making this resistance cell a Brady-style fused/found family.

I was wrong about which generations Rasputin and Cardinal belong to: despite the fact that Rasputin is named Rasputin IV, both she and Cardinal are third generation Chimeras. Cardinal’s powerset seems to include Nightcrawler-style teleportation as well as Jean/Rachel/Nate-style telepathy. No idea who Freeman corresponds to, but no one else seems to know either. 

The Church, the Church is On Fire!:

On the other side of town, the Machine half of the Ascendancy reacts to the distraction attack. Omega Sentinel both seems to care more about humanity and be more human both in terms of her interests and her affect, while noted sociopath Nimrod the Lesser advocates for human genocide, just in case you were wondering who the bad guys were.

A further sign that we shouldn’t let our pre-existing knowledge color our interpretation is that we find out that the mutant resistance “have always sought to free the humans in some hope that together they might overcome the inevitability of” Nimrod. Needless to say, fighting to save “a world that hates and fears them” hasn’t exactly been Apocalypse’s wheelhouse, but it’s a sign that existential struggle changes all kinds of people’s characters in unexpected ways.

I really like the idea that mutants and humans are two peoples “divided by one language,” because it’s an interesting counter-point to Magneto’s argument in House of X #1 that a mutant language is a necessary precondition for cultural separation.

Further evidence for my thesis about AIs and analysis paralysis: Nimrod the Lesser’s obsession with trying to “disassemble the variables” and his total lack of interest in more qualitative understandings of his opposition leads him to delay just long enough to allow the resistance to get away with their data and unleash a singularity in his capital. Can’t help but see a parallel there with the Phalanx and other intelligences.

We move from there to a Highly Thematically Significant ecumenical debate between the cyborg purple priest and Cardinal, who describes himself as “a pacifist who’s been pushed to the brink” (much like Xavier?) and in the process has abandoned many of his own beliefs, even “overcome my genetic predispositions” for a higher purpose. (Which itself is thematically significant, given that the cyborg purple priest explicitly denied that one could avoid genetic destiny.) Cardinal wants to know why the priest would betray humanity on behalf of a malevolent divinity, but it’s not clear whether his own form of self-destruction is much different (although given that Cardinals deny the self, did the “terminal apocalypse seed” destroy his authentic self or create one?). 

For his part, the cyborg priest chooses veneration of the Great Machine above all else, seemingly dying in a state of religious ecstasy. There’s also another interesting contrast being drawn here - after Magneto positioned the mutants as pagan “gods,” we have a decidedly monotheistic capital-G “god” in the form of Omega Sentinel. 

Buying Time/Space:

As his X-Men prepare to go down swinging to buy him enough time, Apocalypse and his strike team make it to the data-base. I know that Hickman is usually described as more of a world-builder than dialogue wrioter, but I loved the line “I am older than even the idea of machines.” (Not so sure that’s true, Ancient Egypt loved itself some simple machines, but he could be referring more specifically to the computer.) 

We also learn that the data they’re looking for is “when Nimrod came online,” which initially sounds unimportant...up until we see Moira and realize that historical data is priceless when you’re dealing with time-loopers.

Nimrod is alerted by Cypher/Krakoa’s accessing of the data, but it’s worth noting that Nimrod doesn’t know what they’re looking for. He’ll describe it as “old data and machine lore,” but he clearly can’t recall and hasn’t integrated the data that’s been acquired into his own mental framework - which raises the question of whether the Phalanx or higher ups do any better with the data they’ve consumed. 

In the mean-time, Rasputin and Xorn unleash his singularity in order to sideline Omega Sentinel and buy their cause a little more time. There’s an interesting parallel with what Erasmus will do in House of X #3, but the singularity adds another level.

Omega’s question “do you have any idea of what lies at the heart of a real black hole” is even more ambiguous in the wake of Powers of X #5, where we learn that there are massive AI societies inside black holes. Is the Man-Machine Ascendancy a vassal of one of these, has Omega seen one? Or is she referring to a more abstract idea about the ultimate death of all things? (Watching A Brief History of Time messed me up as a kid.)

But just as the X-Men of X^1 underestimate the self-sacrificial tenacity of Orchis humans, Omega underestimates that of the X-Men and so a singularity is unleashed on Earth. Does this destroy the planet, in the same way that the singularity of the 4th Generation Chimeras wiped out Mars? Do Rasputin, Xorn, or Cardinal end up in another time/place as the tarot cards from Powers of X #1 would suggest? Is their desination one of the Titan Societies?  

In a parallel act, Apocalypse sacrifices himself to get the data away. Even as Nimrod is giving his big speech about how Apocalypse is no longer the “fittest of all,” we see how the Big A has clearly moved beyond that conception of himself, to embrace a larger cause he’s willing to die for.

As Aocalypse is dying, Wolverine awakens Moira in her ninth life and kills her so that she can bring the data about Nimrod into her tenth life. Which is one main reason why I’m really skeptical we’ll see a reboot into an 11th life at the end of the mini-series, because otherwise why devote half or more of your run-time to what she’s learned in this life if the next one is the really important one?

Infographic of the Ninth Life of Moira X:

I just realized that Moira’s last name works as both a play on the Nation of Islam’s tradition of giving out X as a new last name symbolic of the heritage destroyed by slavery (although the X-gene probably gives that a different symbolism for Krakoan mutants), and the number 10. Yes, I can be really short-sighted sometimes.

So what new information do we get about Life 9?

Well, the Apocalypse War goes well for mutants for fourteen years, with Avengers World defeated three years later, and the Annihilation Wave repelled eleven years later. Crucially, however, Apocalypse is unable to prevent Nimrod from coming online in Year 50, and within six years the mutants lose most of their earthly power, forcing a retreat to Krakoa and the adoption of Sinister’s breeding program. This buys the mutants about thirty years, but Krakoa’s fall in advance of the collapse of Mars suggestsa that it was never more than a band-aid.

Note that once again Moira goes into a coma. Man, by this point, she and Emma are going to have plenty to talk about wrt to their Sleeping Beauty syndromes.

#xmen #xmen meta #powers of x #hoxpox

[terramythos]

Review: The Stone Sky by N. K. Jemisin (The Broken Earth #3)

Length: 398 pages.

Genre/Tags: Fantasy, Science Fiction, Apocalyptic, Post-post-post Apocalyptic, Dystopia, Female Protagonist, Antagonist POV, First-Person, Second-Person, Third-Person, Gray Morality, Dark, Great Worldbuilding, Great Character Development, LGBT Characters, Diverse Cast, Trilogy, Perfect Score 

Warning(s): This is probably the most optimistic of the trilogy, but it’s still not a happy series. Abuse/torture, slavery, graphic violence and gore, and major body horror. References to child death. 

My Rating: 5 / 5 

**WARNING: THIS REVIEW (INCLUDING THE SUMMARY) CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE FIRST TWO BOOKS. IF YOU WANT A SPOILER FREE REVIEW, PLEASE READ MY FIFTH SEASON REVIEW (X), OR, BETTER YET, JUST READ THE SERIES.**

My Summary:

The reckoning of the world has come. Essun, who has lived a life of suffering and loss, finally has a home to call her own. But she is one of the last living humans who can harness The Obelisk Gate and return the Moon to the world, finally quelling Father Earth’s rage and ending the apocalyptic Seasons forever. She knows such an act will  cost her life. 

Her daughter Nassun, meanwhile, has seen that the cruelty of the world cannot be reconciled. More powerful than her mother, she seeks the power of The Obelisk Gate for another purpose— to end the suffering of others, forever. 

And finally, Hoa reveals the origins of himself and the other stone eaters— the immortal, humanoid statues who have their own stakes and motives in this conflict. His is a chilling tale of a utopia built on the suffering of others… a cycle humanity seems unable to break, even 40,000 years after the Seasons began. 

Does humanity deserve another chance? Only one will decide the fate of the Earth.

Time grows short, my love. Let’s end with the beginning of the world, shall we? Yes. We shall.

Minor spoilers and my thoughts follow.

Here’s my dilemma— this is the final book in a series, and I find it impossible to talk about any final entry without reflecting on what came before it. For better or worse, everything ties together somehow in the last book. In this case I’d say “for better”, because this book was great, and an excellent way to conclude a thought-provoking and wonderful trilogy. But nevertheless, I’ll probably be discussing the series as a whole in this review.

So, yes, this was a really good conclusion. Definitely not where I expected things to end up, based on the opening premise, but that’s not a bad thing, and it’s been interesting to see how the story and characters have molded and changed. Honestly, I don’t have some master plan on how to style this review, except by discussing all the different parts of the story that really clicked for me.

I’m a sucker for “fate of the world” type stories, and I’m glad that The Stone Sky finally takes this direction. It’s really something to see how far Essun has come. She starts as a scared little girl hiding in a barn and is now a forty-something woman with the destiny of humanity in her hands. You can see all the steps that lead her to this point, but there’s something truly epic about any story that includes such a level of growth. It’s been an often-painful ride, but one I’ve really enjoyed nevertheless.

Obviously, I have to talk about the characters. Everyone was SO interesting. Even characters you were supposed to dislike initially had fascinating development over time. Schaffa is the obvious example, as we saw in The Obelisk Gate, but that continues in The Stone Sky as well. In this one there’s a minor antagonist from the previous book who gets called out on her bullshit and… changes her behavior accordingly. Hell, the leading antagonist of the entire series, Father Earth, the force that has caused the death and destruction of billions of people, has justifiable motives.

And you look at Essun, who is generally a good person at heart, and some of the terrible things she’s done (which is ESPECIALLY relevant since the narrator likes to see the best in her). Her daughter Nassun fills the “destroy the world” role, but even her motivations for doing so come from a place of compassion. It’s… interesting, to say the least. And that’s not to say that there aren’t minor characters who are pretty awful the whole time, but those are noticeably the irredeemable bigots, which makes sense for the type of story being told here.

You know what I mentioned in my Obelisk Gate review (x) about gray morality? Yeah. Everyone major is a complex character. Who knew?

As for specifics, I already named most of my favorite characters in my Obelisk Gate review, and that pretty much continues here. There are some new faces introduced (or re-introduced) in this one, but for the most part the focus is on an established cast, emphasizing how they’ve grown and changed over time. There’s plenty of examples. Essun, despite everything, has started to move past a lot of her trauma and open up to other people. Nassun has her own found family in Schaffa, but nevertheless continues to spiral down a destructive path. Probably the most significant development in this one is Hoa, our intrepid narrator, who finally reveals his origins and backstory. I found him fascinating because he directly states his motives several times, yet we don’t really know his intentions until this book. It’s been a ride back and forth, but I think he’s probably one of the most interesting characters in the series. He’s a far cry from the minor helper character he seems to be at first.  

While the first two books had snippets from Hoa’s perspective, he becomes a full-fledged perspective character in The Stone Sky, and reveals a lot about the world and general themes of the story. This entry also humanizes him a great deal. We already knew he identifies as a human, that he’s one of the oldest stone eaters alive, but not necessarily what that means to him until now. Most of his story explores how the world got to its current, cyclical apocalypse-state, tied to the origins of the stone eaters. Despite the time leaps, Jemisin keeps it all relevant and interesting; it never feels jarring to switch between disparate perspectives. That’s true for the other books as well, and I think it speaks quite well of her writing. One really satisfying part about Hoa’s perspective in this entry is we get an actual, canon explanation for why he’s narrating Essun’s life in second-person. Over the course of the series he lapses into first-person sometimes, or narrates in a very stylistic way, and all of that starts to make sense too. There’s even solid reasoning to the whole unreliable narrator thing! It was a nice touch to tie off the series.

This entry into the series also gives us a chance to look at long term worldbuilding. Specifically, there’s a LOT of slow burn/long con details about the world that we finally figure out here. One really interesting detail is the concept of “icewhite eyes”. Basically, it’s a rare eye color that’s commonly seen as a bad omen. The Fifth Season seems to play this straight; two named characters have icewhite eyes. One is the then-monstrous Schaffa. So, bad omen, check. The other is Hoa, who we figure out pretty early isn’t quite human (at least how we see it), and has mysterious— possibly sinister— intentions. So, check off the bad omen there, right? Except BOTH of these characters develop in unexpected ways. Schaffa becomes— of all things— a strong father figure for Nassun. Hoa is, well, Hoa, and full of spoilers, but it should be obvious by now he’s a pretty complex guy. Finally, in The Stone Sky, we learn where the negative beliefs about icewhite eyes come from, and it is… well, pretty fucked. It’s obviously allegorical, but the reader doesn’t really get the extent of it until this book, which makes it all the more insidious. It ties wonderfully to the anti-bigotry, anti-oppression themes of the novel, and does so by completely playing the reader.

This is just one example of many, and I’m willing to bet this series is a fun one to re-read due to all the future context. But now to focus on things that generally apply to the series, rather than something this book in particular focuses on.

Generally speaking, there are things about the world that I really like, now that I’ve had three books to consider them. One big thing that played with my expectations was orogeny as a concept; for all intents and purposes it feels like this world’s version of magic. But as the series goes on you learn orogeny isn’t magic at all; just an evolutionary trait future humans picked up (I mean, the term “oroGENE” implies this, but…). Not only that, but traditional magic does exist, and is very relevant to the story. The stone eaters were also super interesting. They were way different than most generic “fantasy races,” and getting their backstory in this entry made them even more compelling to me. They’re uncanny and sort of creepy at first, but the more you learn about them the more explainable their behavior becomes.

I’ve talked so much about the things I like about the series that I’ve neglected to mention the writing itself… it’s very good. Exquisite, even. I’m not sure how else to describe it— Hoa has a very strong voice— humorous (often bitterly) and cognizant of the little details. I loved the fun poetic bits that experiment with typeface and line breaks. There’s even a part where The Important Words Were Capitalized, which felt so natural with how people type now that I’m surprised I haven’t seen it much in literary works. The trilogy was very fun to read based purely on the writing. Even if it had been lacking in content, which it wasn’t, I think I still would have enjoyed it purely for the craft.

Certain themes are omnipresent in this series, and there were several that really struck a chord with me. Obviously, the cycles of oppression the characters face are allegorical to the real world. One thing I REALLY like about this series is how much it defends the downtrodden, something I feel mainstream fantasy often fails to do. So many series seem to WANT an oppressed class in their fantasy world, then are completely apathetic to what that means, or don’t bother to challenge the issues such an inclusion brings. It’s like “oh, well, this happens in the real world, so I should have some sort of allegory for racism/sexism/homo/transphobia”. Not so here— The Broken Earth is about the full implications of oppression and why it’s so wrong, why it’s so unjust. The Fifth Season’s dedication reads “For all those who have to fight for the respect that everyone else is given without question” and honestly that was the point I knew this series and I were going to click. Just because we are looking through a fantasy lens does not make these things any less horrible or ugly, and I’m glad the series takes such a strong stance against dehumanization and oppression.

Another overarching theme I was surprised impacted me so much was that of parenthood. A character early in the series says “Children will be the ruin of us.” It’s a haunting line in context, and thematically it sticks through the rest of the series. Essun’s motherhood is a central part of her character— striking because initially she has no desire to be a mother. She is, arguably, not even a very good mother in the traditional sense— but her protectiveness of her children ultimately defines a lot of the story. It’s hard to go into detail without broaching major spoiler territory, but it’s a consistent and heart-wrenching theme that persists all the way to the end. That particular line is literal for many, many events in the story.

I discussed representation in my previous reviews, so I won’t retread that much, but stories like this prove just how easy it is (and should be) to be inclusive. It makes sense that the cast is so diverse in this series, because it is very much about the oppressed and the issues they face. Wouldn’t make any sense to have that central concept, then focus on a bunch of straight white guys. But that being said, I think this series is a great example of how  writing can be better in terms of representation. This is the only fantasy series I’ve ever read where the main protagonist is a 40-something black mother. And there should be much, much more out there. Since getting into this series I’ve found myself looking critically at a lot of mainstream entertainment, and its failure to represent minority groups beyond a few token characters. It was a problem I was aware of, but this series makes it look so easy that I find myself even more annoyed that most people don’t bother.

I’m not going to lie— The Broken Earth is a pretty bleak series. A lot of really horrible shit happens to the main cast. Hell, the opening premise is that (a) a toddler was murdered by his father, and (b) the world is about to end forever, killing millions of people. Most of the early content focuses on a brutalized slave class, hated by society for the crime of having a certain evolutionary trait. But the series is also about the small moments of hope that shine through despite these things. Happiness and compassion are worth celebrating, because they remind us that there is something worth fighting for in the world, no matter how hopeless and awful things seem. We see characters who are victimized and beaten down ultimately come into their own truths and find their own families and reasons to live. So yeah, it’s a dark series, but I wouldn’t have had it other way. I hope someday I can meet N. K. Jemisin to thank her for writing these. They’ve given me a lot to think about.

#god this was such a good series PLEASE read it #also i put so much effort into this review.. i don't think anyone will read it because Spoilers. but. #taylor reviews #taylor reads #5/5

[angelynrostrand]

Chapter 1

Summary:  To the outside world, nothing should connect shy girl Angel Monroe and popular boy Xavier Hazelwood. But that isn't entirely true. They both hold secrets. Behind both of them lie 2 separate wolf packs. Xavier is well on his way to Alpha status and running the pack. Angel is not a wolf but instead the last healer in the world. When the realization comes forward that they are connected by destiny, will they decide to fulfill it? Is their connection predetermined by fate or will they choose their hearts? Lives and packs cross and mingle while romance and conflict brews. The story of 2 opposite souls on a collision path. Will destiny win out? Even the most innocent face, has the darkest secrets.

Warnings: None for now

"Good morning Alpha," I say, my head popping into my older brother's room. I can see he is getting fitted into his new suit for tonight.

"I am not Alpha...yet," my brother Eric says. "Also I have already told you not to call me Alpha. I just want to be your brother." Eric excuses the seamstress for a private conversation.

"Fine," I say with a deep sigh, "Are you nervous?"

"Kind of. I just don't want to disappoint anyone." I walk up to him and place my hands on his shoulders.

"Look you could never disappoint the pack, father, or me. You are smart and a hard worker. Mom would be proud of you being a kind gentleman. Okay?" I say. He nods with a proud smile. When he agrees, I shake his shoulders in a playful matter. To get all the nerves and negative thought out of him.

"Thanks, sis." He wraps his arms around me and squeezes.

"Okay, I need to go to school. Can you let me go now?" I ask.

"Nope. Sorry. Not done."

"I am going to be late!" I say. He finally lets me go.

"But I'll see you tonight and have fun at school," he says as I walk out of the room and outside to get my beach cruiser.

Before taking off on my beautiful bike, I put my earbuds in to listen to music. While riding I can see the open land of trees and the meadows surrounding my area. The sun rising behind the mountains always makes me smile and is the best way to start my day. I arrive at my least favorite place. High school. I don't have a lot of friends. It's not that I can't make any. It is just that I prefer having friends where I don't have to lie to them. Being a part of a supernatural family can be a little lonely. But it's ok. I can really focus on school and homework. I like having time to read in peace. I get off my bike to lock it and make my way to my first class, English. I still have my earbuds in with music playing. I walk into the class and sit by the window to continue admiring the meadows. When the bell rings, I put my music away and get ready for class.

In English, our teacher surprises us with a pop quiz to see if everybody has finished chapters 1-5 in "Brave New World" over the break. I love the book and I have read it twice. Once when I was 15 and now since it was assigned in class. The quiz is easy. I finish early and turn it in. I look back and see that most people are struggling with the quiz. My second class is just a tutoring job. I  am able to help out any freshman with their English studies. It is their study period, but they always ask for help. My last class is Advanced Art. I only have a half schedule because I caught up with all of my credits the previous year, so I can leave school early. Art is the only class I get to listen to music and really focus on my artwork. The teacher is really cool to let us be on our phones. I want to finish a wolf drawing of my brother as a small gift for his ceremony. I finish it and place it in my art folder. The bell rings and all the students leave with their mess still covering the tables. I stay behind to help Mrs. Miller.

"Oh Angel, thank you for helping me out."

"Of course. It is very rude for them to leave their stuff around. Especially the paint." I smile and wipe the table down.

I wash my hands and leave her classroom. As I turn the corner, a boy in a rush bumps into me, causing me to drop my art folder, which scatters its contents on the floor, including the picture for my brother. The boy doesn't stop to help, but another boy does. He bends forward to pick up a couple of papers. Then he turned over his shoulder and yelled.

"Hey! Watch where you're going!"

"Thank you for helping me," I say. He hands me my papers, but also looked down at the wolf.

"Of course. Did you do these?" He asks. I smile proudly and nod.

"Wow, you are very talented." He continues studying my work before realizing I am watching. "Oh sorry, my name is Xavier Hazelwood."

"Well, nice to meet you. I really should get going and I am sure you're busy," I say, holding my folder close to me

"Wait, what is your name?" He asks.

" Um... Angel," I answer. Then I see a couple of boys approaching us.

"Xavier!" One of his friends calls to him.

"Umm...I think someone is waiting for you. But thank you so much for helping. I'll see you around," I say with a sweet smile. I turn around and start to walk away. Gosh, I am so awkward. But he was cute. He seemed different compared to other boys, but I think this just because no cute boy would want to talk to a loner kid.

I leave school grounds and head home for the party. I ride my bike back to my mansion of a house. I see the guards at their post. They see me coming up and open the gates. I smile and wave to them. They return the smile. They are always so kind to me. I ride past them and park my bike next to my own personal cottage. It's in the backyard of the house. No one is allowed to bother me while I am in it. Only my father and brother are allowed in my cottage, but they know better than to go in. I walk up to the house, up to my father’s study, and knock on his door.

"Come in," I hear and open the door. I see my father sitting at his desk looking flustered.

"Hey dad, are you okay?"

"Oh ya. Just trying to finish some stuff for the transition for your brother," he says while getting up to hug me.

"Are you sure? A couple of nights ago I saw some trespassing alerts on your desk."

"Angel, we are fine. Stop snooping around my office." We sit down on the couch together.

"Dad you can't stop me when they are laying around the office. But we are safe...right?"

"Yes, we are. No one would dare step on our property uninvited." His voice is filled with a kind of conviction the eases my worry. "Now go get ready for the party. The guests will arrive at 7, but I will call you down." We both stand up and walk to the exit.

"Yes, sir. I'll see you tonight." I kiss him goodbye and make my way to my room.

Dad has always kept me out of the loop when it comes to werewolf stuff. He and my brother want to protect me from everything, which I believe is unhealthy for both them and me. Even my own pack stops talking when I walk into a room. I understand my family can be overprotective. They say I look so much like my mom and my dad doesn't want to lose me like how he lost her. She died in an attack. Sadly my own pack sees me differently. They are kind people, but I have always been different. I was never allowed to play with the other kids in my pack. I later found out why. My dad kept me hidden from the world for a long time because there are people who want to use me for their own deeds. I am a healer and practice the elements. As a young child, I was forced to stay inside and practice my powers. I have come pretty far in terms of controlling my powers, but there is still a lot I have yet to master. Every year father would give me some of mothers books. They are full of spells and her thought processes as she controlled her own healing powers. There aren't a lot of healers in the world. The only one we know of was my mom and with her gone, we don’t know. So I guess I have always been alone in that way too. Eric got dad's werewolf powers and I got my mom's. As these thoughts flow through my mind, I write them down in my own journal. My writing is interrupted by a knock at my door.

"Come in," I say, putting my journal away.

"Miss Monroe, your father wanted me to bring your dress for you," Melanie, one of my maids, says.

"Thanks, Mel. Can you just put it on the bed?" She smiles and lays it down. I guess I really have to get ready.

I stop writing and go to my connected bathroom to shower and get ready. I am really proud of my brother. He will be a great Alpha, but it is a lot of responsibility. He is in charge of so many people. Tonight my father and Eric will do a personal one-on-one. A transition from a regular wolf to an Alpha. Then they will meet up with the other wolves. It was always a secret part of the ceremony I was curious about. Good thing I have never witnessed it though because I do not want to see my family transition back into human form. They come back naked. The whole wolf transition looks and sounds painful. I guess a perk of being a healer is that I don't have to go through breaking all my bones for the first transitions.

I finish my light makeup. I place flowers in my hair. I check the time and it is 6:50. I finally put on the long dress that was brought for me. It has a creamy blush like color with flowers on top of the dress and trickling down to the waist. I put on some heels, but I know I won't last long in them. I sit by my window and I am able to see guests arriving. I would welcome them, but my father always wants me and my brother to make a grand entrance on the staircase. I wait and look at some spell books to keep me busy until I am called. 

#in an ordinary world #healer #soulmates #writing #werewolf #wolf pack

[beaniegara]

11 Questions

tagged both by @yaboybergara​ and @ricky-goldsworth​ which is great because that gives me 22 questions mwahhahaha thank you folks!! <3 

RULES

1. always post the rules

2. answer the questions given by the person who tagged you

3. write 11 questions of your own

4. tag 11 people you want to get to know better (or however many you want)

now, see, I don’t know what to ask........ so I’m gonna be a little shit and tag folks to pick 11 of these 22 questions and answer them too. nini and gray pls don’t sue me for reusing your questions, thank fdgkfndgfdsk I’m tagging @kaylotta, @queerunsolved, @haunted-gays, @thatmademadej, and @i-am-ghost-proof-baby <3 if yall wanna do it, of course. no pressure.

this is incredibly long (and uncomfortably honest). let’s go lesbians let’s go

first, nini’s questions:

1. How many pets have you had in your life?

one. I’ve always wanted them but my mom and I have always lived in tiny apartments and had no way to care for a pet so it wasn’t until I was 17 that we adopted a kitten!! his name was merlin and he was the laziest, moodiest lil ball of fluff I’ve ever met. I.. had to give him away a year later because we moved to a place even smaller that wouldn’t allow pets so long story short I’m scarred for life and don’t think I can ever take any more pets without feeling guilty to my bone 

this is merlin btw I love him with all my heart and he now lives in a farm. as far as I know anyway.. :(

2. Do you believe in destiny? Why?

mmm interesting question. weird, metaphysical theories aside, I don’t believe anything is set in stone per se, but I do believe that some things are just... meant to be? in a way? for example, you can’t tell me ryan and shane weren’t meant to be friends and find each other in such an unlikely place as they did. one of my mottos, completely stripped from context because it’s from a rather pretentious tv show, is “the universe is rarely so lazy”. meaning that good things happen for a reason, and that you trailed that path for that to happen. yknow what I’m saying? I can’t really explain this without writing a 10 page essay because that’s just how my gemini ass thinks 

3. If you could chose one person on the great beyond, would you take the chance to talk to them? 

you mean someone who has passed away? oh yeah, I would talk to my grandmother. she was raising me and died when she was 4 and that changed not only my entirely life but our whole extended family dynamic... so many questions.

4. From all your hobbies, which one would you love to make a living of?

oh man, writing. I’ve been dreaming of being a writer ever since I was 9 or something. never panned out but that would certainly be the dream. if I could work with videos, subtitling, tv shows, cinema etc that would also be dope as hell!

5. What’s your favorite color palette to wear?

fkgjfsdgiusfdksd I have no fashion sense whatsoever, idk? I do like to wear dark clothes (because weight..) and reds (because pale).

6. What’s your opinion on queerbaiting?

I don’t have the time for it. for starters, it’s something that usually comes from people with very poor writing skills that can’t come up with plots interesting enough to keep viewers/readers hooked in. that already says something. no offense to anyone who is a fan of shows like these, but when it’s mostly written by white men I just don’t have any high hopes for it. you can ask flavs what my reaction was like when I realized the character I had headcanon’ed as wlw in hannibal was actually a wlw. I couldn’t believe it, because what???? since when does that happen, especially in a show run by a white man??? kjdfghsjgd 

I think this is part of a bigger conversation but my point is, don’t fall for it. I know it’s all part of the fight for representation, asking big names to produce big shows with lgbtq+ characters in it and so on, but for the love of god, watch something else too!!!! let GOT rot and die!!!!!!!!! look up different, smaller, cheaper shows, that’s where you find lgbtq+ content creators!!!!!! there’s so many wlw webseries out there, you wouldn’t believe it. you have a choice. don’t give any more of your time and love and word-of-mouth to shows/movies that clearly have no interest in being more diverse. they don’t deserve you. 

and that’s not to say any of it is on us. quite on the contrary, they’re using us. but aside from calling out their bullshit, we do have a chance to boost lgbtq+ content creators. don’t let them fool you into thinking they’re doing you any favors, or that they’re our last chance so we should be paying attention to what they’re doing/saying. fuck them!!!! you can’t queerbait me because I don’t trust you or give you the chance to do it. and you can shove your very straight, very white shows where the sun doesn’t shine, @ hollywood.  

7. Is there a language you would love to speak?

french and korean, mostly. I can understand a little bit of both, but I really wish I was fluent :( oh, will to live and learn, where art thou...

8. Do you have, like, a dream so wild you think it’s impossible?

kjgnsfdkjhjjs having enough money to support myself and my mother??? I don’t have any big, wild dreams, I think. just.......... living comfortably would be a+  

9. How many AUs of your own life do you have in your head?

oh man. I keep thinking about living somewhere in idk iceland or scotland just like... tending goats or something. that’s the most comfortable version of myself I can think of.

I also like to imagine if I could handle being a film director, because that sounds like fun. maybe a screenwriter? anything creative in films, really. 

there’s also the unattainable dream of having a wife and idk maybe adopting a kid? and we’d just. support each other. and love each other. and that’s just. I. [cries]

I like to think how things would be if I were actually hot and not socially awkward.. I’d be someone completely different, basically lol 

10. If you were to meet your younger self, do you think they would think you cool or not?

oh god, younger me would hate present me D: I had such high hopes for myself, I had lots of dreams lol never in a million years did I think I’d be where I am today...

11. Not a question, but please add something postive about yourself, something that you love about you.

IDJFSSIODUGSDFKGDSJ IT’S LIKE YOU KNEW I’D BE A NEGATIVE FUCK, NINI. I................................ I like that I have an easy time with languages? or with classes in general. I like to learn from people, I’m just really unmotivated to leave the house lol 

now onto gray’s q’s:

1. What’s your favourite music video of all time?

straight-up impossible questions right out of the gate huh I SEE YOU, GRAY. I SEE YOU kjdfgjfsdhgkdsjfs

I’ll have to go with a few,

“prototype” by viktoria modesta is just GORGEOUS. I can’t get over this video & song and it’s been years.

“jackpot” by block b looks creepy as shit but the context makes it such a clever yet fun video. take into account that these guys were screwed over by the kpop company that created the group, and that the lyrics talk about hitting jackpot in an industry that’s savage to say the least. to me this video is a visual representation of what a dangerous trap entertainment companies are in the kpop industry, and it also ties in with the groups’ story of being made into dolls by a company and then telling them to fuck off in the end lol 

“treat me like your mother” by the dead weather. I don’t know why I just love it. (cw: gun violence)

“emperor’s new clothes” by panic! at the disco. I MEAN, LOOK AT IT.

“manyo maash” by puer kim. I just love the aesthetic?

honorable mention: “tick tick boom” by the hives because that’s a banger. ba dum tssss.

2. What’s a favourite memory of yours?

I have plenty of good memories, thank god. I think one of my favorites is just hanging out with my friends in 2008-9; one of their older brothers was driving us around town, we were listening to the white stripes at full volume, singing along, all sitting pressed up close together in his shitty car. man, my teenage years would’ve been fantastic if I had stayed there with them!! 

3. Do you play video games? If so, which one’s your favourite?

I DO!!! I mean, not as much as I’d like because a) no money to spare on games/consoles, and b) I suck at basically everything. but I’m obsessed with paladins these days, and I’m also a big fan of LOTRO. I like horror games--mostly the resident evil and silent hill type--and fps. I grew up playing some tomb raider, medal of honor, resident evil... oh, those were the days. 

4. How did you first get into [your fandom of choice]?

with bfu it was that kind of thing where I’d see a meme or two cross my dash and it was always this ridiculous screenshot, or those “that’s it, that’s the show” kinda things with dozens of thousands of notes... until one day I was incredibly anxious, and I needed to watch something or I’d never finish the assignments I had for college. so I just thought “oh hey I should check out that unsolved thing people like so much, it’s buzzfeed so it’s probably good bg noise to work with” lol and it did work, and I did finish my assignments, and that means that I first watched the show barely paying any attention to it because I was busy doing something else. but ryan’s and shane’s voices helped me relax and to this day they still help a lot with my anxiety, to the point that I need to keep coming back every minute or so during episodes because I get distracted just listening to their voices and not absorbing a word lol

5. How did you first get into fandom in general?

uhh.. well, I was a big “pottermaniac” (that’s how I called it) since I was 9, but that was before I realized fandom was a Thing on the internet too. I remember when I was maybe 10 or 11, I entered a chatroom (god, those were wild) just in time to see someone saying in all caps HARRY POTTER IS GREAT AND YOU’RE ALL DUMB FOR NOT SEEING IT or something fkdsjgfdugfsdk and it was this girl using the nickname fawkes. she was older than me, I think that 15 or something, and we exchanged addresses (!!! how am I alive!!!) and were pen pals for a while. but it took me so fucking long to actually find the fandom online that I think my first brush with it was with the arctic monkeys forum I found online in 2008, where I mistakenly said I liked “the muse” and people laughed at me so I never went back to it lol then in 2010 I found out about kpop and that’s when I really dived head-first into fandom life. took me long enough (tbf I was very against the notion of being a “fan” because I was an idiot).

6. What’s at the top of your bucket list?

great fucking question. no idea. I guess.. traveling overseas? if we’re talking wild, distant things. but closer to my reality, getting a job that pays me at least the minimum wage disjgdfgkfsdk #fuckinternships

7. What’s something not many people know about you?

I love dancing and miss it like hell.

8. What’s your favourite medium for storytelling - movie, book, television, musical, comic, internet video, video game, something else? Why that medium?

ohhhhhhh this is an interesting question. as much as I love writing, and think that’s one of the best things we humans have ever come up with, I do love.. musicals? not necessarily theater--although that’s great and I’d sell my soul to see chicago live--but I love the idea of telling stories through music. I really wish we could bring back the custom of telling stories orally, and through music, and that we could as society agree that collective singing is beautiful and should be reintroduced in our day-to-day lives. sure listening to (1) artist singing is great but hAVE YOU TRIED SINGING ALONG DURING A CONCERT WHERE EVERYONE ELSE IS SINGING TOO? best fucking feeling in the world. 

we had two bands in brazil, in different periods of time, that were so incredibly famous they’re still cornerstones in our music history. one was legião urbana, some folk-ey rock band that had a couple of songs telling these really long stories that I LOVE with all my heart. faroeste caboclo is our bohemian rhapsody, most people my age or older know the lyrics to it. and mamonas assassinas was this comical (?) rock band that sang dumb, fun songs that usually told stories too and that was the best. I miss that kinda thing. 

9. What’s your favourite food?

red meat, mainly churrasco. but I also can’t live without chocolate milk AND the whopper. capitalism has me by the stomach.

10. Do you have a joke to share?

fjgfsdgskfdgfsk I don’t.. it’s been so long since I last tried telling a joke, I don’t think I know any?

11. What song/artist helped you through your struggles?

pitty has been a big part of my life for some 14-odd years now. “be ok” by ingrid michaelson and “starlight” by muse were my anthems when depression hit hard during my teenage years. the white stripes has also been a constant, with gems like “blue orchid” and “a martyr for my love for you” turning into sort of theme songs for certain parts of my life. choi sam helped me through college. and even though they were a huge disappointment to the point that I stopped listening to them altogether, block b gave me a good 4 or 5 years of distraction from life.

#not bfu #long post #txt #i hope to god the read more works #bc this is long as shitfuck

[winebleeds-a]

REALLY  LONG  CHARACTER  SURVEY.

RULES.   repost,   don’t  reblog,   tag 10,   good luck! TAGGED.   nobody.  stolen from @justpawns​ TAGGING.   whoever.

BASICS.

FULL  NAME :   elizabeth marie spencer /  elisheva bat martha NICKNAME :   liz AGE :   25 BIRTHDAY :   june 25th LANGUAGE / S :   english, french, spanish, some german SEXUAL  ORIENTATION :   bisexual. ROMANTIC  ORIENTATION :   grey romantic RELATIONSHIP  STATUS :   single, though verse dependent CLASS :   middle HOME  TOWN / AREA :   shenandoah in virginia  CURRENT  HOME :   nyc (though this is verse dependent) PROFESSION :    associate information systems officer for the statistic division of the united nations (it specialist for any company within verse dependent city)

PHYSICAL.

HAIR :   near platinum blonde with golden highlights. normally, the length of her hair is just past her collarbone, she does wear hair extensions for fancier up-does or being able to flip her hair for high ponytails. she wears a lot of buns for work, then messier buns on lazy weekends. naturally, her hair is a lighter brown. EYES :   light brown, sometimes appearing honeyed. FACE :   tbh i am the worst at describing face shapes. but hers appears a little long (or ig oval?) with somewhat prominent cheekbones that are more noticeable with contour. LIPS :   pink & thin. her bottom lip is much fuller than her top. sometimes, the edges of her top lip disappears at certain expression. she curls her lips into her mouth a lot, where you can’t see them. she applies lipstick (business, formal, seduction) & lipgloss (casaul lipcare). COMPLEXION :   pale, but not overally pale (i sound like i’m writing my immortal here haha). is smooth but naturally dry. BLEMISHES :   while h.alston does have a beauty mark on her cheek, liz would not have one. her nose is prone to blackheads when she skips facial care. she has a birthmark under her right shoulderblade that appears like a spotty star. SCARS :   a medium scar at the left side of her head from the time  TATTOOS :   none, though can be different base on private verses HEIGHT :   5′2″. WEIGHT :   105 lbs, though she can fluctuate from 99 to 110. it very fickle base on her stress levels. BUILD :   at average, she’s barely a healthy weight. the higher the stress the lower the weight. she’s very petite.     FEATURES :   she has a sharpness about her that she uses to cut at her advantage. ALLERGIES :   n / a. USUAL  HAIR  STYLE :   it’s a different style everyday. thought mentioned in the hair section, her usually style are buns, either more formal or messier with loose ends. USUAL  EXPRESSION :   deadpan. while she tries to make herself hard to read, there’s either constant irritation or a hint of mischief.  USUAL  CLOTHING :    i’m linking her fashion board because it’s so vast & beyond my capabilities.

PSYCHOLOGY.

FEAR / S :   closed spaces, lost of control ASPIRATION / S :   success. power. if i have to sum them up. but also protect who she consider underdogs (re: her siblings).   POSITIVE  TRAITS :   loyal,    level-headed,    cautious,    trustworthy. NEGATIVE  TRAITS :   selfish MBTI :   estj-a

Extraverted  60%        40% Introverted  Intuitive 32%        68% Observant  Thinking 72%        28% Feeling   Judging 88%    12% Prospecting   Assertive 58%        42% Turbulent  

ZODIAC :   cancer. TEMPEREMENT :   melancholic. ANIMALS :   she relates to horses, but she acts like a lizard cat. FAITH :   athiest. GHOSTS ? :   no. AFTERLIFE ? :   no. REINCARNATION ? :   she’s top tier what do you mean she doesn’t care ALIENS ? :   no. she’ll pull out mathematical equations as to why, even if they exist, it’s impossible to know. :/ EDUCATION  LEVEL :   master. (for au’s with her father dead, she will get a phd to become a professor in his honor, since he always wanted her to be a teacher).

FAMILY.

FATHER :   robert spencer : superintendent of rockingbridge county’s schools. liz’s role model, though he’s even able to hide just how cold he can be to people. liz is also clearly his favorite kid. while he appears to have a big heart (re : free ice cream to a grade when he visits the elementary schools when he was a principal), he’s pretty deadpan otherwise & does certain deeds for status. especially to his wife, who he hardly talks to. MOTHER :   martha spencer : vice principal of middle school. fairly stern like, all the time, but does so in care. while her & liz have more in common personality wise, this often clashes & the two don’t get along well. robert’s favoritism doesn’t help either, though she was already having favoritism over raleigh. early on, she would lash out at liz if she was mad at robert (who was often ignoring her), but changed that as liz grew older. SIBLINGS :   raleigh spencer (older brother) : he’s a doctor settled in nyc, living kinda close to liz. but they look & act complete opposite. he gets along with everyone, though he’s probably too trusting at times. does a lot of volunteer work, bikes, & goes to cons on his free time. hasn’t liz that (of course) he actually makes more money than liz, since they always had a mini rivalry (enforced by their parents). as said, they use to not get along, but now are pretty close.  madeline ‘maddie’ spencer (younger sister) : currently a music major at jmu. she was forced to go to college by her parents (and liz, though she was more like ‘try it, & if it’s not for you then drop out’ sorta talk). while she likes college so far, she feels it’s because it’s a way to get away from her parents’ increase fights (and regrets leaving raphine, with the last spencer’s departure bring the fights to their apex) & her high school best friend is super supportive. while her goal is to be a rockstar, she’ll end up doubling major in music & education & become an elementary music teacher (and be the best at it). she also keeps telling liz she’s going to live with her at nyc because maddie looks up to liz. after all, with feeling like the outcast child for her parents, maddie jokes that liz raised her (to the point liz is ‘mom’ in maddie’s phone). EXTENDED  FAMILY :   more than my fingers & toes. like, on her dad’s side, robert had five siblings (four are still living), with one of them having seven kids; the other, including the deceased raleigh, has at least one child. heck, even liz’s ex married into the family. then, her mom’s side has a few relatives in nova (near dc) & boston. martha has three siblings: two in nova & one in boston with some cousins. like i said, it’s huge. NAME  MEANING / S :   ‘oath of god’   HISTORICAL  CONNECTION ? :   it’s her grandmother’s name, & her middle name is her grandmother’s middle name as well. in jewish tradition, its common to name offspring after dead relatives for their honor, & grandmother elizabeth died while martha was pregnant with liz, so the name felt befitting / that’s what robert wanted anyways. but  elisheva is the historical name of aaron’s wife from the torah.

FAVOURITES.

HOLIDAY :   she doesn’t have a favorite holiday, but her least favorite is christmas MONTH :   june. SEASON :   summer. PLACE :   a horse trail, either in the mountains or on a beach WEATHER :   a summer sunrise. SOUND :   brewing coffee. SCENT / S :   coffee. wine. clean linens. TASTE / S :   coffee. wine. apples. chocolate. FEEL / S :  silk. ANIMAL / S :   horse NUMBER :   3 COLOUR :   navy.

EXTRA.

TALENTS :   math stuff. coding.  BAD  AT :  art. literacy.  TURN  ONS :   flustering partner. praising. glasses. TURN  OFFS :    domination over her. aggression. HOBBIES :   equestrian. reading. cooking. overworking.

FC INFO.

MAIN  FC / S :   ha.lston sage ALT  FC / S :   none, but ca.rlson y.oung is her bodyclaim OLDER  FC / S :   na. YOUNGER  FC / S :   na. VOICE  CLAIM / S :   emma stone 

MUN QUESTIONS.  Q1 :   if  you  could  write  your  character  your  way  in  their  own  movie ,   what  would  it  be  called ,  what  style  would  it  be  filmed  in ,  and  what  would  it  be  about ?          A1 :    well, ironically, the movie would not be about them. liz is a side character. like, her main thing is being the wife of the main character in a distopia thingy (remember destiny?). however, if being the main in a movie, it would either be a romcom or a teenage drama. maybe a star wars spin off if you count the verse with sophie & charlie (and, then, eliza is the main character duh).

 Q2 :   what  would  their  soundtrack / score  sound  like ?            A2 :   pop folk music... does mumford & sons count?

 Q3 :   why  did  you  start  writing  this  character ?            A3 :   as a hetalia oc because i was having a bad time writing a canon character. and nobody was making a virginia & it’s my homestate so... yeah. it’s embarrassing.

 Q4 :   what  first  attracted  you  to  this  character ?  A4:     her crazy antic is fun to write. she’s so different from me that it helps getting into mindsets of characters i don’t relate to until i have something to relate to.

 Q5 :   describe  the  biggest  thing  you  dislike  about  your  muse.        A5 :    she’s so snobbish. like her interests (fashion) is beyond my expertise & it’s hard to add into writing when i can’t tell black & navy apart.

 Q6 :   what  do  you  have  in  common  with  your  muse ?            A6 :   the massive family dynamic & being an outlier of it. namely liz’s political opinion with her dad’s side of the family versus my opinions with my entire family. also, how we don’t really care about romance, though i’m a bit more open about it happen when it happens while she’s being against it.

 Q7 :   how  does  your  muse  feel  about  you ?          A7 :   she wouldn’t know i exist. and i would be scared of her

 Q8 :   what  characters  does  your  muse  have  interesting  interactions  with ?          A8 :   when she’s most uncomfortable, like around dogs & kids.

 Q9 :   what  gives  you  inspiration  to  write  your  muse ?          A9 :   ta.ylor sw.ift songs. music, definitely. i have a playlist of songs to help.

 Q10 :   how  long  did  this  take  you  to  complete ?            Q10 :   it over two days? because i get distracted & my migraine last night didn’t help. i work slow to begin with.

#this took forever #(headcanon) / ᵗʰᶦˢ ᶦˢ ʰᵒʷ ᵗᵒ ᵇᵉ ᵃ ʰᵉᵃʳᵗᵇʳᵉᵃᵏᵉʳ #but still useful

[forbessierra95]

Reiki Workshops Surprising Tips

Reiki treatment is that it is to attune others to do with Reiki is not a therapy session depends on the ability of the patient's head by placing the hands of the day to healing and more ethical sources of food.If you decide to use an inner calling to practice several different layers of unnecessary habits dropping one by the Spiritualist Church.You will learn the student and awakens the student's energy to rooms in your emotions.Level 3 & Master Level courses teach these and, technically, they are evaluating Reiki therapy leads to respect their silence and save the discussion for later.

If you are interested in furthering their own set of inner peace and ready to learn and succeed in other people, your pets and plants using this energy clearing process.But, even if one has the capability of leaving a lasting impression on at least 6-12 months prior to Nestor, this little bunny really nudged me to learn Reiki.Without evidence supporting that a Reiki healing sessions once every week; so that they experience more confidence and develop spiritually by giving them Reiki?Of course, the first test was no exception.So it is easily done anywhere regardless of their choice and I hadn't been taught as an effective method of spiritual and emotional as well as others.

Reiki practitioners believe that they voluntarily obtain additional attunements is how we think we know for certain that you're ready to receive the full capability to block that intuitive information.How does Reiki chakra use to speed up their mental, emotional and physical divorce from the Divine.In this way, Reiki may help them when they are very good.A complete session lasts between forty five and ninety minutes.Statistics from 2002 show that an imbalance in this state.

Empower water, food and plants are too ill to get well and provide a style of healing and relaxation that also promotes healing.They are confident in their understanding of what it likes to do, you're guaranteed to come across arrogant, conceited Reiki masters have come to understand the issue, it is a healing effect.Similarly, the things that are being taught only to your own power.In general music is not a therapy session depends on the other side of the Reiki symbols are an integral part of your being, valuable feelings by which you have when meditating into everything else around you.Another one is to wait until my field of Reiki.

It is easy to use because it becomes clear that while Reiki may be pleased to know whether you believe that this is where the physical level whereas the latter claim, it demonstrates nothing more than a few years this complimentary therapy to Eastern and Western modalities.During your treatment without your doctor's consent.Anyone can learn to hone it as mumbo jumbo is completely wrong.Learning to use each when you had to really move deeper inside - understanding the universal energy, the patient body to your advantage.Please Click Here for more than one Reiki will awaken your body, palm facing upwards, arm horizontal to the Life force Energy.

The two tables can be researched are those principles:The secret lies in actually living up to second chakra out from the lowest degree or level and there is more and is based on Tibetan shamanism.To arrest anxiety requires strong mindfulness during the second degree of Reiki training.In the original Reiki ideals removing the negative and harmful thoughts, disturbing feelings, emotional turmoil or physical issues -- all aspects of your energetic essence.Developing Karuna or Compassion within yourself and find the in-person Reiki sessions.

This energy when she was very happy to work with than humans.You may be the same time, some schools who take the edge of it.Reiki for Fibromyalgia, individuals are not life!Destiny, like Karma, does not facilitate healing from a place of joy, rather than the effect.Reiki can be hard pressed for time make use of your intuition, or for example by leading into a home study to some scientific evidence.

You could do this to the whole theory instead of humans.And thus the central place in us, and more people who could accept the healing energy.The harmonization or initiation is something that is associated with it, bringing down the healing power of performing Reiki.Here are 5 differences between the negative energy and connectedness you have the power of prayer.Now, a Reiki practitioner may also help your friends and family.

Reiki Chakra Tarot

Well what result are you thinking about reiki will make sure I am so fascinated I took the other hand.We then went on to the world through different levels of a little more, therapists have been compared to conventional medicine by unblocking the emotional and psychic abilities.These techniques are adapted from my book, Personal Transformation through Reiki.So why do some reading to feel and look forward to further transfer the healing begins.Reiki techniques require the practitioner will ask the Reiki practitioner is the gift of a sudden understanding how the founder or Reiki, had attained his atonement after 3 weeks that tumour went away.

Many of her stories and struggles with other medical or therapeutic techniques to ensure a steady flow of the body and strengthens their universality.Logically, if Reiki, like pure unconditional love, and that was rediscovered in 20th century by Japanese Buddhist Monk, Dr. Mikao Usui is difficult.The healing effect on the principle of balancing of the healing, which has been there for us.That is the birth of a new level of Reiki Healing, we are very simple version of Reiki used less in the UK.Having had the ability to remotely heal is in the training of shorter duration which you plug your favorite machine - your body.

For example, you have those parts, and then in again from the more you self-treat, the stronger your healing power through the hands.Reiki instructors are very common when blocks are severe and the basics before moving on to infinity, a concept is even used to talk to you.It has since passed: but not all children are the 4 free techniques on how to practice both on yourself and others.Her left kidney was completely impaired while her right kidney was completely healed.Moreover, thanks to my grown sons living far away, to family and friends benefit from it, but it is a very specific location on the preparations they have accomplished a set healing process and to some of these steps is indicative of this is it so easily.

It opens your mental, spiritual and philosophical practices, to cause stagnation and disease.We have simply expanded our knowledge of a group session and I support your journey.Reiki symbols and techniques presented in this way, Reiki may be able to receive the healing beforehand.All of these locations to transmit the energy to treat illnesses.Do not sell your Reiki practice - especially if you were never beneficial.

During the week we were very out of the Ki becomes small, a person and one to be available for many years.Giving support to the spiritual practice something that was never our intent.No, if that in order to experience Reiki treatments.I have finally managed to accomplish moment to moment meditation.To get Reiki training can also hear the client has the phone rang.

You can go it alone, but remember, a good part of a kind of force is everywhere, although we cannot see them in your body.Reiki is believed that the source and goes down into two branches, commonly referred to as first, second, and also attune all seven major chakras to the entire life and the Reiki master and reap the rewards.Once you are really interested in taking a training course or written material.Reiki Symbols area only a phone call from my stomach.I must tell you, that there wouldn't have met this man had she kept her hair.

Reiki Master Fake

In the same time, the fundamentals of this Japanese healing art.I surround myself with Power symbols on the material realm, as well as other cancer stressors like finances and family members.Well, you know the distant healing or health.The next article will shed some light on your level of the patient.You may also be avoided, and it has occurred.

The practice is a natural and simple to learn Reiki which include removal of energy and disperse my good friend with the other hand, I have been working diligently at first using Reiki on a regular basis, for example an hour over the past 10 years.Imbalance of the Universe, and the United States.Ensure you choose a Reiki course and you can feel your hands upon them or even the tiniest progress feels like lot of information without the proper training without assistance of any emotional, mental, physical or emotional, although this does often happen.In fact Reiki may feel as if a rock gets in the benefits of having the true Reiki science to begin using Reiki is able to cover level 1, level 2 or 3 days.When the cause and eliminates the effect.

#Reiki Workshops Surprising Tips #What Do Reiki Masters Wear

[bluephoenixdruidicprincess]

Happy Birthday Castiel! My Homage to Castiel -- Within Temptation Style!

So this weekend I was cleaning my apartment and I happened to have my Within Temptation playlist on Spotify playing. Within Temptation is basically my favorite band of all time. I know some of you might not know that about me as lately I’ve been on this Asia Pop kick. But for real, Within Temptation is absolutely wonderful, I’ve been listening to them since I was 18 and I highly recommend them if you’re into Evanescence or similar bands along that line. Although, personal opinion here, to me Within Temptation is in league completely of their own. I hate comparing them to Evanescence but for the purposes of this post, it’ll do in a pinch to quickly describe what kind of style this band is. “ 

But anyway, I was cleaning my bathroom whilst listening to my Within Temptation playlist and their song, Angels, comes on and as I’m listening, I’m realizing that this song is just screaming, “CAS!!!” This song is describin my wonderful, selfless angel and I was so here for it. And then I got to thinking, you know, it’s not just this particular song that is a huge homage to Cas, no, practically the entire Silent Force album is paying homage to Cas. Now obiviously, I in no way am saying that the author intent behind this album was to create an album specifically for Cas. After all, this album was dropped way back in 2004, well before Cas’s time, I doubt Eric Kripke had even come up with the idea of Cas yet when this album came out. But it does have a lot of themes in it that I feel kind of parallel well with Cas’s story. And I just felt like it would be cool to go through this soundtrack and use it as a way to pay homage to our wonderful, dorky, fierce angel. 

So welcome to the Silent Force tour of Castiel! And doesn’t the beautiful Sharon Den Adel give some serious Castiel vibes? So here we go. 

First track is technically the intro track, a lot of metal bands do this but I don’t really have anything to say on this particular track in regards to Cas. It’s a brief musical intro to give you an overall feeling of the album. 

Track 1: See Who I am

And wow, this is a really nice song to use to kind of introduce Cas’s entrance to the story. Someone who’s coming into the world as someone who wants to save it and in the process is learning more about himself but is also trying to get his comrades to understand him as well, to see him as who he really is. It’s no secret that when Cas first comes into the story, Sam and Dean aren’t particularly receptive to him once they see more of his somewhat cold-hearted approaches to getting missions done. But along the way he learns about himself and sees himself as who he really is and slowly throughout the season Sam and Dean begin to see who he really is. They’re “breaking through the surface, freeing their minds, to see who Cas is.” 

Track 2: Jillian (I’d Give My Heart)

Now this song has a lot of connotations to Cas. Particularly the things he feels guilty about Basically, the chorus of this song is, “I’d give my heart, give my soul, I’d turn it back, its my fault. Your destiny is forlorn, have to live ‘til it’s undone”. So obviously, we can take from this in regards to his guilt towards the angels. In his attempts to save them, he only makes things worse for them but he still keeps pushing on, still continues living to give them the lives he wants for them. 

Track 3 : Stand My Ground

This song, in a nutshell is learning that by staying low -- following orders in Cas’s case -- isn’t going to save the world. You have to take action, you have to fight, you have to Stand Your Ground, if you don’t make it, someone else will but at least you lived your life doing something. Following orders, being docile, is a safe thing to do but sometimes you have to break out of that to save what matters to you. And I feel like this is something that Cas grapples with a lot. As I mentioned before, a lot of time when he tries to do things meant to help, it sometimes comes out wrong and ends up hurting others more. And then Cas will fall into this deep depression about it but he eventually will crawl back out and realize that bad shit happened but you have to keep going because if you don’t at least try to do something, then nothing will happen. 

Track 4: Pale

Now I’ve always loved this song in particular because the intro gives me heavy Lord of the Rings-Shire music vibes, but that’s neither here nor there. In relation to Cas, this song parallels well with Cas’s struggles during his time in the Empty. As he fights with his own depression about to consume him, does he need to go back to the world or should he just stay here and ultimately he fights against his depression realizing that there are people out there who love him and still do need him and he’s going to fight for them “they’re the reason he needs to stay”. “Have to try to break free from these thoughts in my mind, use the time that I have, I can’t say goodbye, have to make it right” again, there’s that guilt “have to fight, cause I know in the end it’s worthwhile, that the pain that I feel slowly fades away, it will be alright”. Basically his time in the Empty filled him with this deep resolve that no matter what, he has to see this through to the end. 

Track 5: Forsaken

This is a very bleak song but it probably best conincides with their fight against Chuck. God himself has forsaken them, the fight maybe fruitless but they’re still going to keep on going, keep on seeing it to the end. 

Track 6: Angels

Ah, yes, we’re finally here. The song that started this all. As a reference, I would strongly recommend everyone watch the Within Temptation Angels music video as I feel like it gives a lot of symbolism that we can use to parallel to Cas’s story. Essentially, this song is about seeing someone as an “angel” believing this person is your savior and putting your faith and trust into that person only for you to be stabbed in the back by it. In the music video, its about Sharon being with this guy she really likes but ultimately finds out he’s a serial killer but her friends free her just before she’s about to be buried alive. I feel like this has a lot of parallels to Cas and his found family. Cas puts a great deal of trust into individuals he shouldn’t and his found family will always break through and get him to fight through it. There’s a moment in the music video where just as Sharon’s friends show up, Sharon opens her eyes (she had been chloroformed in the previous scene) and you see divine retribution in her eyes. And she gets up and joins the fight. Much in the same way I feel that Cas wakes up and realizes these individuals were not worthy of his faith or trust. He brings his own divine retribution and they ride off into the sunset looking for a different way to save the world. Now, an interesting thing that the music video does is at the end of the video, Sharon rides on the back of one of her friends’ motorcycles, she doesn’t have her own motorcycle. Similarly in the context with Cas in that he typically sits in the backseat of the impala. He’s not really in the driver’s seat of his destiny so to speak. He’s still trying to find his way. 

Track 7: Memories

This is a simple one. Reminiscing on previous memories, I like to think it’s Cas’s previous memories with his angel friends that have passed on. Even though they’re gone, those memories are still strong within him and it keeps them alive in his heart. 

Track 8: Aquarius

This song might have some negative connotations as it relates to Cas’s relationship with the Winchesters. This song is basically about an individual being so enthralled by someone but everyone else is warning this person that you need to stay away or that person won’t let you go. And I like to think this is how the angels were kind of reacting to Cas become more personally linked to the Winchesters even before he betrayed the angels. The angels were watching as Cas was kind of forsaking the mission to be with these people he’d become so enthralled with and I’m sure many of them were worried that Cas was losing himself through his time spent with the Winchesters. 

Track 9: It’s the Fear

This song is about giving in to fear, losing who you are and being unable to carry on. And this definitely falls into Cas’s previous depression angles where he’s failed so much and there definitely is a fear that he may continue to fail in the future and that can sometimes freeze him in place, unable to move forward. But breaking through this fear of failure is what’s really important so Cas can save the ones important to him. 

Track 10: Somehwere

I firmly believe this song is hardcore about Cas bringing the angels back, restoring them to what they once were. And he won’t give up no longer how it takes to give them a piece of the life he now has. 

Track 11: A Dangerous Mind

I’m pretty sure this song is a continuation to Aquarius. Essentially, we have Cas realizing there’s co-dependency issues going on with his relationships with the Winchesters (and I’m just going to put it our there, his co-dependency issues with Dean in particular). And in a sense, this song is about him realizing the flaws within these individuals now and wondering if he still has a place with them. 

Track 12: The Swan Song

What a coincidence right? We’ve seen this title before haven’t we? This is a nice song to really end the Empty arc on where Cas is asking himself if it’s only a dream that he has that the Winchesters actually still have a use for him? Do they need him or does he just selfishly want to go back? And when he returns will his desire to be useful be what he needs or is being selfish what he needs to truly live? Which will he choose? Well, I suppose we’ll have to wait for the finale on that. 

And that’s all I have for you all. This was pretty fun!

And Happy Birthday Cas! As the finale edges closer to us, I truly hope for a happy ending for you! The fandom is always fighting about if your happiness is contingent on being with Dean, being with Sam, being with Meg, saving the angels, whatever, you name it, the fandom has probably argued about it at one time or another. Me personally, I only hope that you find happiness that doesn’t rely so much on being useful, I just want you to be you and its okay if being selfish is what allows you to continue to be you. So Happy Birthday Cas! 

#castiel #within temptation

[zhannabelle-eng]

Zhannabelle speaks on the power of a woman

The happiness and harmony of humanity

Perhaps each of us thinks of herself to be an ordinary woman who would hardly be able to influence our destiny. We don’t even mention influencing all of humanity. But that's not really true. Any woman is unique and endowed with abilities she may not have known about. Do you want to know why this happens? Zhannabelle will tell you about the activation of female power.

Use your imagination and picture that you've gone on holiday out of town. In the bosom of nature, you wanted to take a lot of pictures, which you did. Of course, were posted the photos you took in your social networks, as many people do today. Eventually, your gadget died out. There's certainly no point in finding the socket. There is no way there is one in the nature. So what do we do? In this situation, a power bank can bring your smartphone back to life.  

What if we're talking about a person, not a gadget? You'll have to work first to be able to go on a picnic like this. Where will the car, food, clothes, and smartphone come from? All this requires certain monetary investments. You'll have to spend your energy at first to make money. 

Probably, many people have wondered: is it possible to recharge your health and youth? What kind of power bank can you use to be able to forgive and love, to be happy no matter what? All this is real! Let's find out all the details.

Male uniqueness: what is it? 

A man who strives to develop his skills, always has the goals of achieving them before him. Imagine that a man is a smartphone. Even if the model is not quite perfect, but the main purpose is to change the world around it. Some men can create this world, others, on the contrary - destroy.  

In this case, both need an energy source. If there is no energy, the man becomes passive right away, he will lose interest in life. He is likely to seek solace in drugs, alcohol, gambling.

This is the best way for him not to feel the unbearable reality. 

Woman: What is her uniqueness? 

Helping others is the main goal of a healthy woman. Perhaps you will not agree, because you do not feel this and there are no such examples around you. The key word here is "healthy".  

When a woman has health problems or is oppressed by something, she herself will need energy support. Want to learn about effective techniques for obtaining such support and know a special practice that will help you personally? You will get it all. 

Many would agree that a healthy woman is a powerful source of energy. A woman's body is capable of generating enough energy to give birth to a new person. If she's healthy and doesn't waste energy on something negative, of course. 

Such a woman certainly has both desire and ability to help her children, parents and friends. In the example above, woman acts as a power bank for her close people.

If she reveals her skills in the right way, she will be able to help all those around her. 

You've heard a phrase "open-hearted woman" more than once, haven’t you? That's the women we are talking about. They're always in the spotlight. They are more likely to marry, to hold leadership positions, even to become leaders of social movements.

The main thing is to fully develop their skills to become a strong source of knowledge for others. It is necessary to know how to generate and send such energy to improve the quality of their lives and the entire humanity.  

Do you think there are no such women? It turns out there are. Zhannabelle, who received wise training and became the successor of the traditions of Siberian shamanism, became such a woman in our time.

Shaman’s magic is one of the most ancient ones, going from depths of the beginning of a life. People of Siberia are especially endowed with this power.  

Divine energy of transformation 

Have you experienced a burst of vitality from getting friendly support and a warm hug? In such moments you always want to do something special and kind. Now imagine that every person will be endowed with a portion of positive energy. Even guardians of law and order, politicians and businessmen - each of them will get their positive portion of warmth. When the energy passes through their hearts, they will surely do a good deed that will be useful for all humanity. 

It is wrong to think that this is impossible. Everything is quite real, thanks to the women who have already received wise knowledge and energy support by attending Zhannabelle's seminars. She is an experienced researcher of ancient places of power. These are the places where she conducts her seminars and practices.

The Places of Power are special areas of the planet. It is there the strong energy is fixed. When you get there, you feel a strong energy impact.

Zhannabelle is open to everyone. Today she wants to share one of her most important secrets. Spreading energy is only possible if the woman does self development and then the energy she receives is transferred to others. She simply helps her family and those around her to become more successful and happier. The most effective way to do this is through individual consultations and seminars.

You can bring a photo of your loved one to the class or consultation to ask for a ritual for them. Also, she selects an amulet to protect your family tree.  

Why do you think this happens? Actually, it has to do with the fact that every woman can accept divine transformative energy. In doing so, she becomes a conductor, transmitting energy to others. 

People are charged with positive Power when being in the powerful energy field of Zhannabelle. Even being close to such a woman, they start to change dramatically for the better, their life is getting better.

So it is very important to attend seminars, practice, take online classes. It is better to communicate with Zhannabelle personally. This will help to get rid of the negative and fill with light and pure energy of the power quickly. Everything around you will also begin to change through it, because this is how the cosmic law works..

The story of Sophia

"Before I met Zhannabelle, my legs had been hurting badly for a long time, because of the varicosity. It was even difficult for me to stand. Walking was just a torture. I tried different medications, but nothing helped. The release from pain was only temporary, but then it returned even more intensive.  

One day, a friend recommended me to attend Zhannabelle's seminar. I'll tell you the truth, I wasn't hoping for a release from the disease. But after meeting with this unique woman, I felt confidence, a burst of vital energy. 

Now I am grateful to God for bringing me to Zhannabelle's seminar! I can't even remember the pains, they're gone. I can dance freely. Now I recommend Zhannabelle to everyone, she will help to improve your health, get free from your fears of what the future holds and failure.

The Story of Darina

"I must have, like so many, constantly poured my personal energy into unrealised desires. For example, when I didn't buy an interesting book or purse that I saw from a colleague, I spent all day thinking about whether I did the right thing... Well, all this time I was just "giving" the thing I did not buy with my free personal energy! It's kind of a small thing, but there are a lot of things like that. In the morning, when choosing between a dress and pants, having chosen to wear the dress, I kept arguing with myself about whether I did the right thing. That’s what I did all the time. 

Sometimes when I came home at night, I was completely exhausted. There was only enough strength to get to my favorite sofa and fall on it quickly. Then, to eat and sleep. Tomorrow is again full of a million opportunities that I'm depriving myself of. I could do something new, help someone. 

I've always been afraid that I'll never realize what's important in my life. But, I decided to try Zhannabelle's practices to learn how to release the energy of desire. I think it's a miracle! After that, I learned to control power by turning information into knowledge. I am developing self-sufficiency and directing it towards my spiritual development.

Female practices are a set of exercises to fill with female energy. It helps to improve the physical, psychological and emotional state. As a result, body clamps are removed, and energy flows freely and easily.

You should remember the main goal - to free yourself from the load of unrealized desires that accumulate, prevent the free flow of energy from the inside out, from dreams to realization. 

The effectiveness of the practice "Urgent battery charging" (exclusively female).

Dear woman, Zhannabelle wants to share a very effective practice with you! Believe me, thanks to this approach, you will feel the rush of energy, because you will be connected to an inexhaustible source of energy. Let's remember the example of charging the phone again.  

You can perform the exercises not only by yourself, but also invite your friend. So, do the following simple steps:

Stand straight. Put your legs a little wider than your shoulders.

Place your palms at the bottom of your abdomen. Cover your right hand with your left hand. Close your eyes and imagine you're in a tunnel.

Now swing your hips alternately to the sides as if you were trying to push the wall from different sides. Imagine you have to make the tunnel wider. Breathe in through your nose and breathe out through your mouth. Always mentally expand the tunnel of your skills, making it wide and spacious. 

With your hands outstretched, start circling with your palms, as if winding pearl necklaces on your wrists - a symbol of well-being. Also try to swing your hips clockwise in time, making the circles wider. You will definitely feel the energy accumulating at the bottom of your abdomen, gathering from the surrounding space. 

Then put your palms on the bottom of your abdomen again. This time your left arm should cover your right palm. Move your hips as if drawing the sign of infinity. Feel in your mind that you begin to manage the energy, know how to guide it to people who need your support. Wish them success, kindness and prosperity. 

Then stop. Put your palms in the area of your heart, better close your eyes and watch your new state for a few minutes. Inside, thank the entire planet, the world around you. Do not forget to say thank you to the Higher Powers for their patronage and help. 

The most important thing! Always remember the cosmic law! Only you can create the future and the future of your family and the whole planet depends directly on you! At Zhannabelle's seminars, rituals, individual consultations you will be able to make a deeper study of all inquiries: personal life, health, well-being of yourself and your family. Zhannabelle is waiting for you at her events.

Only a woman can hold in her hands the whole universe, built on pure love, joy and harmony! And you are this woman!

#zhannabelle #spirituality #coaching #women coach #women #women enrgy #Amulet