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kncrowder88 · 3 years

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Voyager and Romance

So, the thing about Voyager and romance that sticks with me is they seem to do one couple really, or more accurately two characters, any real justice overall. And that is B’Elanna and Tom. While moments for that relationship may not be perfect that is rather realistic for relationships, as no relationship is perfect all the time so that is tolerable. This post though isn’t going to be about looking at that particular relationship though but primarily at other relationships. Largely because a discord server I am in was talking about Counterpoint and I realized why I both love the episode but also have weird feelings with it. Which, I’ll touch more on that specifically after I discuss the relationship stuff (as that plays a part).

So, I will preface this with it has been a bit since I’ve done a binge of Voyager and really a full binge of Star Trek in general. As such, I may forget a few relationships on the show and overall, throughout Trek in general. From what I can really toss together … I honestly am beginning to believe that when it comes to Voyager and the other shows (the older ones not the new ones – I am not including any NEW Trek in this) that for some reason the relationship writing with Voyager was rather different. Like, they gave 3 characters active relationships prior to being stranded. That being Harry Kim, Kathryn Janeway, and Tuvok. Out of these three we get Janeway and Tuvok holding onto those relationships in their own way while … it seemed mildly convenient for Harry to mention it when it suited him, I guess (like that time Tom wanted to set them up for a double date or you know when he ended up in that alternate timeline but still wanted back with Voyager even more like). Like, the reason I don’t list Tuvok-T’Pel above is because we don’t actually get to SEE that in full, we just get to see Tuvok’s side of it and his dedication – we don’t see the relationship, we don’t see the couple.

Harry and Tom, prior to his relationship with B’Elanna, seem to frequently do this sort of two bros dating around thing which is fine but like … same time the show used them for that. And once they settled Tom with B’Elanna they used Harry in those plot lines when it worked. Thus the alien STD episode and the “how dare you not get the standard permission from your CO and CMO” line (like they really put that into a Trek ep and I’m still unable to not picture Riker, Kirk, Picard, and everyone other Trek character constantly getting permission for their latest romance – just remember Jadzia and Worf likely had to get permission from Sisko and Bashir if the Trill and Klingon weren’t already approved of in the system just saying, that’s a thing that happened). Anyways … my point is they went out of their way on this. Like, when Kes was with Neelix they wrote Neelix to be that jealous judgmental boyfriend who literally got upset she knew where other people’s quarters where, she was nice to Tom, she was … just yeah. They wrote Tom to come off as a player pulling Harry into it, when Tom settled down Harry seems to pick that up (I mean you got his “omg Seven” phase and the alien STD stuff and lord knows what else I’m forgetting with him).

And to top this off I haven’t even touched on the “Janeway can’t have a romance” stuff yet. Which is where my real problem is. Like, its bad enough they brought in Jeri for the sex appeal (which lets be honest stems from the fact they couldn’t use Janeway for that – which I get, Kate was right in the whole concept of the audience target having to keep respect for a female lead and sex appeal couldn’t be a focal point but they could have balanced it right and regrettably because they couldn’t that meant Jeri got all of the other side of the coin). Many of Seven’s eps center on romance or social stuff and honestly that is a whole other WTF post in its own right because it all leads up to the sudden get with the one person on the ship who didn’t want you here in the first place and who also would have served better as the male adult guidance figure/father figure than as a ROMANTIC partner but hey BS happened behind scenes to cause that chaotic romantic on screen set up. But yeah … this is just another example of the poor Voyager romantic plot lines.

Chakotay’s romantic plot lines are usually – and by that, I mean pretty much always – with these strong independent women. But usually, at least from what I recall, they are also typically the “needs help” (damsel in distress/can’t do it alone/etc.) plot. Like, Riley was strong independent but also set up to need help in regard to getting her little collective put back together on the planet. You got Kellin, again another strong lady who yet again also needed help. At least in the ep she’s in and if I recall much of the info on how they fell in love during that time as well – primarily with getting away from danger at the start and then during the initial romance finding her target. Valerie is the only one who doesn’t fall into the needs help plot and that’s largely because she was being manipulated by Chakotay for information – which honestly just goes to show how well Chakotay was at the whole undercover stuff (which tells us a lot about what he could have been doing as a Maquis). Seska was the plot point of “you once dated her, now she is going to badger you to get with her again and when that fails, she’s going to assault you” …. like all of Chakotay’s romances are literally him either 1) being manipulated (as that’s what Seska and Riley did) or 2) being the kind guy or 3) not an actual relationship (either because its undercover work or because the writers were too cowardly to make him and Janeway canon).

Then you got Janeway. Then you got KATHRYN JANEWAY. You know, the one where Kate Mulgrew said no romance, no sexualizing, no doing that sort of stuff because the audience had to maintain respect for the character. I’m sure someone has the exact various quotes out there. Like … this is why we don’t have JC as canon. But what we do got instead is …. Janeway in Prime Factors being flirted with by the administrator as if that’s going to get him what he wants because “female leader means flirt with her”. We got Janeway and a period drama holodeck adventure in the early years which was clearly meant to be her romantic tête-à-tête early on that never got followed up with. We got “delete the wife” with the Fair Haven plot point (because its totally respectable to see the FEMALE LEAD, the STARFLEET CAPTAIN, just straight up DELETE THE WIFE of another individual - yeah, I get its meant to be humor factor because hologram but come on). You have her whole thing with Mark which we get tidbits off but again similar to Tuvok we literally only get to see her side of it – the only couple moment of theirs we get is the comm call in Caretaker.

But Jaffen? You are correct. We got that lovely and touching and wonderful romance with Jaffen …. Oh wait … they had to remove her from the ship, strip her of her memory, and her autonomy in order for her to have a relationship with another individual. And yes, by losing her memories, by losing what made her who she was as a person, she did lose a sense of autonomy. She entered into a relationship without a full sense of independent choice. The point in which she made a choice in that episode, the point in which she – Kathryn Janeway – made a choice with all of the person, the individual she is, was at the end when she had her memories back and could decide based on the values and beliefs and all that she is. What I’m getting at is the people on that planet deliberately took away who she was, they took her memories and her ability to make the decisions they knew she would make --- they did that deliberately (that’s even established in the episode) --- and as such her decisions while in that state are not truly her full independent decisions but the ones impacted by the state she was forced into.

And while I love Resolutions, while I love all the JC goodies, we get in that ep … Yet again the only time we get to see Janeway in any sort of romantic situation is when they remove her from the ship. When they remove her from command. When they strip her of that setting. This time, though – well the first time – she keeps awareness and has to go through lose of it all in order to even start to let it all happen. I love the episode, I do, but I just find it rather amusing they went “’Hey we gotta strand them what should their tasks be on the planet?” and they immediately went “Well Janeway is scientist how about that” “Okay and he can build, Chakotay can start building. Man builds house, right?” and then like went “oh and then she can start a garden” …. Like really? Really? That’s what you got for me. Oh, and then there is the monkey. That’s the romance this ep. Boat, science, monkey.

Then we got Kashyk. We have dealt with Kathryn throughout this series dealing with various leaders of various styles. As mentioned, Prime Factors guy attempted flirting. Other leaders pulled similar or worse or even dismissed her …. Like the list goes on. Counterpoint is a great episode because it deals with prejudice and is rather dark. The thing is, had Janeway been able to have a healthy romantic relationship on screen to counter this episode this episode probably would have come off better. Episodes like Prime Factor could have been done different (that leader didn’t need to be as flirty for example). One or two eps through the series having creepy dudes she had to deal with, fine, whatever … that be a nice impact for the audience. But when you have to many prior to Counterpoint – even if its minor, small stuff – it makes this episode so much harder for fans. Especially the female fans who deal with this constantly.

See, here’s the thing with this ep…. Some of the fans who watch … we know Kashyk well. We know that character. He is that male leader, that male power figure, who uses the power he has to manipulate those in his control to get what he wants. And Kathryn … Kathryn was in his control. Kashyk is listed as a relationship on memory-alpha. But much like how I view Seska with Chakotay … I do not view Kashyk as a proper relationship. In Devore space, Kathryn did not have proper power. She had people in her command, on her ship, that she had to protect. That she knew she had to protect. Her own best friend … lives in her hand … and Kashyk right there willing to kill them. Willing to snatch them up and destroy them. And he used that power to manipulate her and play her. Yes, she played him right back but … did she truly have a choice? Did she have any other choice but to play his game? What would have happened if she said no? And that … that is why this episode is so unsettling for some people. And why this relationship being considered on is so off putting … that the writers, that memory-alpha, that the fact I’m putting it on this list as one of the ones on here for Voyager says so much … they wrote this as one of her relationships while out there … she had to do what so many women had to do to stay safe, to keep people she loves safe, and that’s not a relationship.

Voyager could have done romance/relationships such better justice.

#star trek #star trek voyager #i had some feelings about things #primarily the Kashyk thing #but that lead to other things #and honestly i am really begining to question romance in voyager #but also like overall in Trek in general #like the more i think about Voyager the more im like oh god they really did seem to fail there #because the only valid couple i can think of is Tom and B'Elanna

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comicalsansa · 3 years

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I just need to scream into the void for a minute, feel free to ignore this or whatever. Sorry for the lack of break, I can't figure out how to do it on mobile.

Y'ALL LIFTED THE MASK MANDATES AND EXPECTED UNVACCINATED PEOPLE TO CONTINUE WEARING MASKS ON THE HONOR SYSTEM WHAT THE FUCK DID Y'ALL EXPECT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN?!

Come on, did anyone actually expect the portion of America that has been protesting masks and downplaying the severity of Covid to a) get vaccinated and b) continue wearing a mask off they didn't? Like, with how stupidly politicized (and I do mean stupid) everything with the pandemic has been, how the fuck does anyone have the nerve to be surprised at the fact that the hospitals are filling up?

People aren't vaccinated, and they aren't wearing masking, of course the new variant is going to spread like wildfire. None of the kids are vaccinated (because we need to make sure their immune systems can handle it, there's a reason why the usual vaccines are on a schedule), and people don't make their kids wear masks.

There are literally people protesting mask mandates for the schools in my state. What the fuck. Have they already forgotten how fast illness spreads in schools? Fuck, there've been times an individual school or two has shit down because so many people (kids and adults) got the flu, or norovirus. And this shit spreads even faster. Why on god's green earth would you want your kids to not wear a mask?

Like, I get that wearing a mask is really uncomfortable and makes communication difficult. The precautions that we have to take are absolutely fucking up an entire generation.

You know what else will fuck up an entire generation? Dying. Long term effects from a serious respiratory disease. Watching their family members die; rather, watching their family members go into the hospital and never come out because they aren't allowed vistors.

Given the choice between the two flavors of trauma, I would much rather keep the kids alive and uninfected.

We are learning as we go about all of this, that's why the information keeps changing. That's how science works. Numerous studies have shown long term effects in kids already, so while it may not be as serious (oh wait, the new variant is), who knows what effects this will have on them in 20-30 years?

You know what else had serious long term effects? Fucking polio. You know why we don't have polio in the US now? Because everyone had to be vaccinated against it for decades. Fuck, they were still vaccinating against it in the 80s, I know because I remember getting a tiny cup with a swallow of liquid for one of my vaccines as a kid.

You know what else has serious long term effects? Chickenpox. And I know older people will be like, "BS, I had chickenpox and I'm fine," or, "My parents took me to a chickenpox party to make sure I got it, and I'm fine." Yeah, you ever hear of shingles? You know why you need a shingles vaccine? Because you had chickenpox. That's right, if you never had chickenpox you can't get shingles.

Point is, who the fuck knows what this is going to be doing to survivors 20-30 years down the road and if you gave a shit about your kid, you wouldn't want them to get it.

And I'm so pissed off because you know what? I fucking hate wearing a mask, too. I hate it. I don't care what the nurses with pulse oximeters say, I cannot breath as well with two layers of fabric covering my face, especially not for hours at a time (fun fact, pulse oximeters are not an accurate indicator of whether or not you can breathe as it takes time for an oxygen shortage to hit your blood--i know this from experience as an asthmatic). Everyone covering their faces and the plexiglass and paranoia and shit has been driving me nuts, I can't fucking live like this either. That's why I wore masks and got vaccinated as soon as I could, because the ONLY way this stops is with vaccines. And yeah, we're going to need boosters, we were always going to need booster shots, almost every vaccine we have requires more than one dose. And we had a period of time where cases were hella low and if you were vaccinated you didn't have to wear a mask and it was so great!

But some of you dumbfucks didn't want to get the vaccine because a) you didn't think Covid was a big deal b) it's made from aborted babies (I want to punch you if this is your objection) c) the vaccine is too new, they rushed it (it was in the works since SARS and they tweaked it, also the flu shot is new every year, your point?) d) it's the mark of the beast! (If you believe this or spread it please exit the gene pool) or e) we don't know what's in it! (This and a especially bothers me from hospital workers, who are required to get an annual flu shot).

There is exactly one valid reason to not get the damned vaccine and that is if your immune system can't handle it. So if you have a serious health condition that weakens your immune system or you're allergic to a vaccine component, you are absolutely off the hook, and none of this is directed at you. You're one of the ones who needs the rest of us to do our part to survive this, and I am so sorry.

And people keep screaming about my freedom! Look bitch, your freedom ends when it impinges on mine, and you are sorely impinging right now. You have the freedom to do what you want with your body, but not with other peoples. If you want to get Covid, fine. But you do not have the right to spread it, which is what is going to happen if you get it. Vaccinations used to be mandatory. You still need to get vaccinations if you travel to certain countries. If you join the military you are going to get injected with every vaccine we know of and probably a few we don't. Vaccines are one of the things that make modern life possible.

I understand being skeptical, I mean, I would've preferred a bit more time and more studies before getting vaccinated. But I did it anyway because:

Widespread vaccination is the only way we get out of this.

The alternative is over crowded hospitals (which is starting to happen again) and just accepting people dying. Sure, death is part of life, but this is needless and overtaxing already broken systems.

If you have not gotten your vaccine and have no medical reason not to, you are part of the problem. You are the asshole on the zombie movie who gets bitten and hides it until it's too late and you become a threat to the rest of the party.

Stop being a dumbass and do something for other people for once in your miserable life.

I am tired of wearing masks. I am tired of all the pandemic protocols. I have done everything I can do, as have many others. But it's not enough. Everyone has to do their part.

If you want this to be over, instead of protesting, get vaccinated, it's a hell of a lot more useful.

#coronavirus 2020 #rant #I'm sorry #i had to get it out

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tellywoodtrash · 3 years

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immj2 08 + 09.11.20 lbs

08.11.20

lmaoooooooo i really love the ice cold way siya operates in. truly a raisinghania sib!

“siya chal sakti hai!!!” behen, iss ghar mein tumhare dimaag ki alaava sab kuch chalta hai.

dadi trying to cheer raja band baja hua beta up with his favt. chole bhature. he doesn't seem like the kind who'd eat that kinda food, but ok.

CHOLE BHATURE ARE NOT CHEERING HIM UP. MATLAB MAAMLA SERIOUS HAIIIIII.

lmao he's literally twisting and turning in place like kids do when they have a tantrum. i mean, i like it. it shows a more human side to the character, ki just how much anguish and helplessness he's feeling.

dadi like babe, you can't control everything in life, stop being such a bloody control freak ki things not going your way turn you like this.

blah blah anguished rant on how he lost something so important to him.

dadi giving cliche ~~~if it's meant to be yours, it'll come back to you~~~ advice. which is kinda working on him. huh. all kindsa out of sorts behaviour.

“jab tuney kisi ke saath galat nahi kiya hai, toh tere saath galat kyun hoga?” uh okkkkkkkkkkk, that's not how life works. bad shit happens to good ppl all the time. also, he's done lotsa galat shit ok. what did riddhima do for this fucker to paralyse her huh?????? YEH SAB USSI KA NATEEJA HAI. BHUGAT AB.

carbs therapy. BEST HAI. ALWAYS WORKS. IT'S SCIENCE, BITCHES.

dadi saying why don't you talk to riddhima about your issues, and lol he's whining about she dgaf about him coz she left him alone last night when he asked her not to.

dadi left praying ki hey bhagwaan these two fucks’ relationship is in your hands now, this is beyond human interference.

kabir being informed of new developments and accusation of kidnapping ragini is being heaped on siya. BASED ON WHAT EVIDENCE YOU STUPID TWIT??????? THAT SHE CAN WALK??????? SO CAN EVERYONE ELSE YOU KNOW!!!!!!!!!!

“mujhe usse vansh ke aage expose karna hoga.” LMAO BITCH EXPOSE YOURSELF FIRSTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT

“tum kya mujhe expose karogi? expose toh main tumhe karungi!” YES SIYAAAAAAAAA FUCK HER UPPPPPPPPPP

NOICE. WE LOVE A FIERCEASS SISTER WHO’S READY TO KILL FOR HER SIBLINGS. ESP. WHEN IT’S THE SCARY BIG BROTHER WHO’S EVERYONE’S PROTECTOR.

siya saying she just miraculously got cured a few days ago, and was waiting to surprise everyone. sounds sus, but whatever.

but also what kinda terrribleasssssss physiotherapist is riddhima that she didn’t even identify her patient’s progress?????

LMAO SIYA POL KHOLING OF VANSH BHAIYYA SAYING HE MADE HER DO ALL THE SHADY MASK SHIT. “TO KEEP RIDDHIMA SAFE”. haaaan behen, khooooob safe rakha tumne, baar baar behosh karke. pehle se hi iska dimaag nahi chalta, now you’ve managed to give her some kinda degenerative brain disease.

i love how vansh didn’t bother to ask siya how she stopped riddhima’s plans and knocked her out multiple times if she’s in a wheelchair. there’s literally only one person in a wheelchair in this house?!?!?!!!!!! wouldn’t riddhima KNOW who the person in the mask is???? god vansh. you’re such a dumbass.

lellllllllllllllllllllllllll i am livingggggggggg for siya reading riddhima to filth with a knife in her hand THIS IS THE BEST SCENE OF THIS SHOW YET. esp in her small, child-like voice, it’s fucking amazing.

riddhima admitted to being a spy, AND SIYA RECORDED IT ALSO. OMFG SHE’S MY NEW FAVE CHARACTER I LOVE HER THE MOST.

i wish vansh was the person he is to siya, instead of the fucker he actually is. she literally thinks the worldddddddddddd of him. ugh, i am so soft for this relationshippppppp.

but i also wanna know what the ishani/siya relationship is like? we hardlyyyyyy see them interact. like, we even see aryan push her wheelchair around sometimes, but ishani neverrrrrrr interacts with siya. why????

ugh riddhima managed to convince her that she really cares for vansh and is trying to do the right thing. she’s literally asking her to kill her rn if she doesn’t trust her. baby sis you’re farrrrrrrrr too trusting.

“mera dimaag tumpe trust karne se rok raha hai, riddhima, par jiss dil ne tumhe bhaabi bola haina, woh tumhe ek mauka dena chahta hai. ek aakhri mauka. iss baar mera bharosa mat todna. 24 ghante hai tumhare paas. apni taqdeer badal sako toh badal lo warna yeh audio main vansh bhaiyya ko suna doongi.” SERIOUSLY, WHERE WERE THEY HIDING THIS MOST SAYAANI CHARACTER OF THE SHOW TILLLLLL NOW????????!

riddhima has a condition for siya too. i think i know what it is.

omg vansh IS COLLAR PAKADKE YELLING AT ANGRE IN THE WORST WAYYYYYYY POSSIBLE. god vansh, you’re honestly the fucking worstttttttttttttttttttt. angre you need to take up work with someone else, istg, you don’t deserve this shit. kabir treats his sidekick so much better. yet another point in the kitty for kabir >>>>>> vansh.

seriously, why would you wanna blindfold this dude when he’s in THIS mood????? save it for the bedroom, sis.

empty wheelchair dekh ke he’s yelling at everrrrrrrryone ki how could they leave siya alone somewhere. god. i can’t imagine having to live with such a toxic personality.

everyone in the house is soooooo happy for siya. like, aryan’s not beaming as much as the others, but he does look kinda pleased. BECAUSE SIYA IS BEST CHARACTERRRRRRR OF THIS SHOW EVERYONE LOVESSSS HERRRRR.

oh my heart, i am so softttttttt for sibling shit like this. he’s hugging her with suchhhhhhhhhhhh fierceeee affection, i’m crying happy tearsssssss.

heart eyes for riddhima who supposedly cured her. pls. she did nothing. jo bhi karna tha, siya ne khud kiya hai. iss ridhimma manhoos ko jasoosi se kab fursat mili to do PT with siya and cure her???

siya being gracious and giving credit though. ugh, honestly, this show and this family don’t deserve siya.

lmao she’s saying vansh brought riddhima in though, so actually allll the credit goes to bhaiyya for intimidating this poor woman into treating his sister against her will.

THE AFFECTION. THE SHEER MAGNITUDE OF HIS LOVE FOR HERRRR. I CRIEEE. THIS IS THE ONLY RELATIONSHIP THAT MATTERS TO ME IN THIS GODFORSAKEN SHOW.

anupriya giving some fakeass congrats. i hope siya tells vansh that she was the one who pushed her down the stairs a while back. aur kuch nahi toh just for that vansh is gonna kill her dead.

riddhima and vansh still all tense and sad about the ragini thing. OUFF JUST LIVE IN THE MOMENT YOU FUCKS.

I LOVE HER. I FUCKING LOVE HER. BEST RAISINGHANIA HAI YEH.

———————————————————————

09.11.20

riddhima back at kabir’s to try and find ragini. ughhhhhhhhh i’m just so done with this nonsense. we already KNOW that kabir and anupriya still have her based on the precap from like 2, 3 days ago.

lol kabir is so pissed at riddhima and her dimaag chalaana. a mood we ALL share.

kabir trying to turn riddhima against siya and riddhima’s like NOOOO SHE COULD NEVER, “USKI AANKHEIN USKI AWAAAZ SAAF SAAF KEH RAHI THI KI WOH SACH BOL RAHI HAI!” uh huh, yeah, like kabir’s are rn????? and vansh’s were before he paralysed you? just a suggestion i’m throwing out there: is it possible that perhaps, just maybe, you’re just very fucking stupid, riddhima, and tend to trust people too easily????

OUFF I’M SO BORED WITH THIS SCENE. we already know from the precap that ragini will knock down a vase but riddhima will never find out what caused it and kabir will make some lame excuse she’ll believe. FWDING TO NEXT.

JESUS CHRISTTTTTTTT, SIYA IS JUST WALKING AROUND THE HOUSE RANDOMLY LISTENING TO THAT AUDIO CLIP OF RIDDHIMA’S CONFESSION. AND SHE WALKS RIGHT INTO VANSH, WHO’S LIKE HUH, WHAT’S THAT RIDDHIMA IS SAYING?????

siya brushes it off saying its exercise stuff for her PT. sure. uh huh.

OH MY HEART HE GOT HER HEEEEEEELS, WHICH SHE’S ALWAYSSSSSSS WANTED. THIS BHAIYYA-BABY RELATIONSHIP IS GONNA TAKE ME DOWN GODDAMNITTTT. ITNE DIN BAAAAAAAAAAAD ITNI ACHCHI SIBLING FEELS MILI HAI ITV SEEEEEEE.

bhaiyya knows baby enough ki she’s hiding something from himmm. oh noeeeeeeeeeee.

damn, siya a real one. didn’t give out riddhima’s secret coz she wants to give her a fair chance. again, this show does not deserve this character. she’s too good for it.

she says she just believes in him and knows he’ll find whoever murdered mom.

SOFT. SO SOFT. MY HEART IS SO FULL WHENEVER THESE TWO SHOW LOVE TO EACH OTHERRRRR.

idhar ragini ki marammat shuru. y’all are just exhausting me with this bs. isse maarna hai toh maaro already. ainvayi mein time waste.

oh dangggggggg, ragini batting for riddhima. saying i know she’ll fuck y’all up. dang, we love the sisterhood feels of this episode!

“aap ke liye SPECIAL INTEZAAM kiya hai maine.” said with the most polite customer service obsequiousness. I LOVE THIS PSYCHOPATH THE MOSTTTTTTTTTT.

ragini warning them that once vansh finds out everything, they’re as good as dead. wow, spunky!!!! dude i like her as a female lead better than stupid fucking riddhima.

“hmmmmmm, you’re right. lekin usse batayega kaun???” honestly, why do i love his deranged ass so much????

anyway mishra has been delegated the task of stashing her somewhere else i guess. so it’s settled that mishra knows he’s not working for the CBI or whatever and is just a hired goon.

dadi is organizing YET ANOTHER POOJA. lordddddd.

this riddhima and her dumbass mandir jaana excuse that she uses constantly.

“bhagwaan tum jaisi bahu sab ko de!” OMFG DADI PLS, GOD FORBID. ISSE ACHCHA AAPKE BETE KUNWAARE MARR JAAYE!

ugh dadi your bloody pota needs a fucking therapist, it isn’t in riddhima’s hands to fix his 1001 mental issues.

great, mangalsutra almost broke. foreshadowing.

ughhhhh mummy managed to steal the memory card from aryan. FUCKING IDIOT I THOUGHT YOU HAD PUT IT IN THE BLOODY BANK ALREADY, BUT NO. HE WAS STILL HOLDING ON TO IT AND TALKING ABOUT IT LOUDDDDDDDDLY ON THE PHONE. jesusssss, why he so fuckinggggg stupid????

oh now vansh is exclaiming GREATTTTTTT JOB ANGREEEE as if he didn’t tell him to GTFO, THE VERY SIGHT OF YOU DISGUSTS ME yesterday. fuck, i really hate vansh as anything but a brother to siya.

aaaaaaand riddhima was standing behind him and he turned around and in a veryyyyyyy contrived move got his watch caught in her mangalsutra and broke it.

sis freaking about THE APSHAGUN!!!!!!!!!!!

he’s like arre nahi achcha shagun hai, angre got the cctv footage now i’ll know who kidnapped ragini! and sis is like OH GOD NO THE BAD LUCK IS STARTING ALREADY I’M SO DEADDDDDDD

“toh main tumhe kho dungi.”

lmao his face. literally the white guy blinking meme.

god she’s having a freakout about how their shaadi and rishta is in khatra. BITCH THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE MS AND INSTEAD THE MOUNTAIN OF LIES YOU ARE SITTING ON AND YOUR EK DARJAN KE INCOMPATIBILITY ISSUES AS INDIVIDUALS.

”tum jaanti ho riddhima, tumahra ek ek aansoon mere liye kitna keemti hain? aisa lagta hai jaise mere dil ke ek tukde ko tod ke alag kar diya ho.”

OH YEAH????? DIDN’T FEEL ANYTHINGGGGG WHEN YOU PARALYSED HER HUH????????? IT’S GONNA BE A LONGASSSSS TIME BEFORE I GET OVER THAT, BITCH BOY.

yeah yeah ok this is a nice moment and all. WHY COULDN’T YOU HAVE ALWAYS BEEN THIS DUDE, HUH?????? WHY’D YOU HAVE TO RUIN ALLLLLLLLLL THE GOOD WILL YOU BUILT UP BY KARWA CHAUTH IN ONEEEEEEE MOMENTTTTTTT?????? fuck, i hate you tellywood men and the shit they put my stupid heart through.

only bappa ki aarti shall fix things now. based on the promo and BTS i’ve seen, things about to get reallllllly realllllllly bad but............ lol let’s wait and watch.

ragini managed to sneak mishra’s phone outta his pocket. SEE????? SO ENTERPRISING!!!!!! I LIKE HER SO MUCH MORE THAN RIDDHIMA. GOD VANSH, THIS IS THE GIRL YOU SHOULD HAVE MARRIED. SHE’S REALLY THE ONE WHO GOT AWAY.

she’s callllllllllling vanshhhh. BUT AARTI KI WAJAAH SE HE CAN’T HEAR THE PHONEEEEEE. AAAAAAAAAAAAAH.

here, have some dhaarmik #couple goals to take the edge off the anxiety till the next episode.

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precap: omfg ragini got through to riddhima and she almost told her that kabir is behind kidnapping her, but kabir got to her and attacked her from the back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

DOUBLE OMFG SIYA OVERHEARD MUMMY ON THE PHONE BRAGGING ABOUT KILLING THEIR MOM AND CALLS VANSH TO TELL HIM ABOUT IT!!!!! LIKE SHE TOLD HIM THE NAME ALL CLEARLY AND THAT SHE HEARD IT FIRSTHAND!!!!!!!! VANSH SEEMS TO BE GIVING NO REACTION THO????????????

TELL ME THAT BOTH THESE PHONE CALLS WERE NOT MADE ON SOME FUCKING GHATIYA NETWORK LIKE IDEA AND THE REQUIRED PPL HEAR EVERYTHING THEY NEED TO!!!!!!!! (high hopes, i know. 😔😔😔)

#ishq mein marjawan 2 #immj2 #immj2 lbs #episode liveblogs

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bensk · 3 years

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Be curious. Be humble. Be useful.

I was invited to give the annual Taub Lecture for graduating Public Policy students at the University of Chicago, my alma mater and the department from which I graduated. This is what I came up with.

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I am incredibly grateful and honored to be here tonight. The Public Policy program literally changed my life.

My name is Ben Samuels-Kalow, my pronouns are he/him/his. I’m a 2012 Public Policy graduate, and I will permit myself one “back in my day” comment: When I was a student here, the “Taub Lecture” were actual lectures given by Professor Taub in our Implementation class. I’ve spent the last nine years teaching in the South Bronx. For the past two years, I have served as Head of School at Creo College Prep, a public charter school that opened in 2019.

I was asked tonight to tell you a bit about my journey, and the work that I do. My objection to doing this is that there is basically nothing less interesting than listening to a white man tell you how he got somewhere, so I'll keep it brief. I grew up in New York City and went to a public high school that turned out Justice Elena Kagan, Chris Hayes, Lin-Manuel Miranda, among many others…none of whom were available tonight.

We, on this Zoom, all have one thing in common — we have been very, very close to graduating from the University of Chicago. I have never sat quite where you sit. I didn’t graduate into a pandemic. But the truth is that everyone graduates into a crisis. The periods of relative ease, the so-called “ends of history”, even the end of this pandemic, are really matters of forced perspective. This crisis isn’t over. Periods of relative peace and stability paper over chasms of structural inequality.

You went to college with the people who will write the books and go on the talk shows and coin the phrases to describe our times. You could write that book. You could go into consulting and spend six weeks at a time helping a company figure out how to maximize profits from their Trademark Chasm Expanding Products.

You could also run into the chasm.

What is the chasm?

It is the distance between potential and opportunity. It is a University on the South Side of Chicago with a student body that is 10% Black and 15% Latinx, with a faculty that is 65% white.

It is eight Black students being admitted to a top high school in New York City...in a class of 749.

What is the chasm?

The chasm is that in our neighborhood in The Bronx, where I’m standing right now, 1 in 4 students can read a book on their grade level, and only 1 in 10 will ever sit in a college class.

It is maternal mortality and COVID survival rates. The chasm is generational wealth and payday loans.

It is systemic racism and misogyny.

It is the case for activism and reparations.

In my job, the chasm is the distance between the creativity, brilliance, and wit that my students possess, and the opportunities the schools in our neighborhood provide.

In the zip code in which I grew up in New York City, the median income is $122,169. In the zip code where I have spent every day working since I graduated from UChicago, the median income is $30,349. The school where I went to 7th grade and this school where next year we will have our first 7th grade are only a 15 minute drive apart.

In my first quarter at UChicago, I joined the Neighborhood Schools Program, and immediately fell in love with working in schools. I joined NSP because a friend told me how interesting she found the work. I’d done some tutoring in high school, and had taught karate since I was 15. I applied, was accepted, and worked at Hyde Park Academy on 62nd and Stony Island in a variety of capacities from 2008 to 2012.

At the time, Hyde Park Academy had one of very few International Baccalaureate programs on the South Side, and every spring, parents would line up out the door of the school to try to get their rising 9th grader in. I worked with an incredible mentor teacher and successive classes of high school seniors whose wit, creativity, and skill would've been at home in the seminars and dorm discussions we all have participated in three blocks north of their high school.

In my work at Hyde Park Academy, I learned the first lesson of three lessons that have shaped my career as a teacher. Be curious. I had been told in Orientation that there were “borders” to the UChicago experience, lines we should not cross. I am forever grateful to the people who told me to ignore that BS. Our entire department is a testimony to ignoring that BS. We ask questions like, why did parents line up for hours to get into what was considered a “failing” high school? Why had no one asked my kids to write poetry before? Why are they more creative and better at writing than most of the kids I went to high school with, but there is only one IB class and families have to literally compete to get in? I learned as much from my job three blocks south of the University as I did in my classes at the University...which is to say, I was learning a LOT, but I had a lot more to learn.

I knew I wanted to be a teacher from my first quarter here. I did my research. The Boston Teacher Residency was the top program in the country, so I applied there. I was a 21 year old white man interested in education, so...I applied to Teach for America. In the early 2010’s, I looked like the default avatar on a Teach for America profile. It was my backup option. I was all in on Boston, and was sure, with four years working in urban schools, a stint at the Urban Education Institute, and, at the time, seven years of karate teaching under my belt, I was a shoe in.

I was rejected from both programs. Which brings me to my second lesson. Be humble. We are destined for and entitled to nothing. There is an aphorism I learned from one of my favorite podcasts, Another Round: "carry yourself with the confidence of a mediocre white man." If you are a mediocre white man, like me, do as much as you can not to be. If you look like me, you live life on the "lowest difficulty setting." This means I need to question my gifts, contextualize my successes, and actively work against systems of oppression that perpetuate inequity.

Over the last two years, I have interviewed over 300 people to work at this school. There are a series of questions that I ask folks with backgrounds like myself:

Have you ever lived in a neighborhood that was majority people of color?

Have you ever worked on a team that was majority people of color?

Have you ever worked for a boss/supervisor/leader who was a person of color?

The vast majority of white folks, myself at 21 included, could not answer “yes” to these three questions. This is disappointing, but I've also lived and worked in two of the most segregated cities on this continent, so it is not surprising. By the time I sat where you’re sitting now, I had learned a lot about education policy and sociology. I'd taken every class that Chad offered at the time. I'd worked at UEI, I'd worked in a South Side high school for four years, and I still thought I was entitled to something. Unlearning doesn't usually happen in a moment, and I certainly didn't realize it at the time, but these rejections were the best thing that has happened to me in my growth as a human.

I moved back home to New York, was accepted to my last-choice teaching program, and started teaching at MS 223: The Laboratory School of Finance & Technology. I ended up teaching there for 5 years. I had incredible mentors, met some of my best friends, started a Computer Science program that’s used as a model at hundreds of schools across New York City…and most importantly, while making copies for Summer School in July of 2015, I met my wife.

All this to say — if you aren’t 100% convinced that what you’re doing next year is Your Thing, keep an open mind…and make frequent stops in the copy room.

I learned that teaching was My Thing. I didn't want to do ed policy research. I got to set education policy, conduct case studies, key informant interviews, run statistical analysis…with 12 year olds. This was the thing I couldn’t stop talking about, reading about, learning about. I really and truly did not care about the “UChicago voices” of my parents and my friends who kept asking what I was going to do next. My answer: teach.

If you look like me, and you teach Computer Science, there are opportunities that come flying your way. I was offered jobs with more prestige, jobs with more pay, jobs far away from the South Bronx. I was offered jobs I would have loved. But I’d learned a third lesson: be useful. If you have a degree from this place, people will always ask you what the next promotion or job is. They will ask "what's next for you" and they will mean it with respect and admiration.

Here’s the thing: teaching was what’s next. “But don’t you want to work in policy?” Teaching is a political act. It is hands-on activism, it is community organizing, it is high-tech optimistic problem-solving and low-tech relationship building. It is the reason we have the privilege of choosing a career, and it is a career worth choosing.

I had internalized what I like to call the Dumbledore Principle: “I had learned that I was not to be trusted with power.” This meant unlearning the very UChicago idea that if you were smart and if you think and talk like we are trained to think and talk at this place, you should be in charge. The best things in my life have come from unlearning that. Learning from mentors to never speak the way I was praised for in a seminar. Learning from veteran teachers how to be a warm demander who was my authentic best self...and more importantly brought out the authentic best self in my students. Being useful isn't the same thing as being in charge…and that is ok.

I believe this deeply. Which is why, when I was offered the opportunity to design and open a school, my first thought was absolutely the hell no. I said to my wife: “I’m a teacher. Dumbledore Principle — we’re supposed to teach, make our classrooms safe and wonderful for our kids.”

I also knew that teaching kids to code wasn’t worth a damn if they couldn’t read and write with conviction, so I started looking for schools that did both — treated kids like brilliant creatives who should learn to create the future AND met them where they were with rigorous coursework that closed opportunity gaps. In our neighborhood, there were schools that did the latter, that got incredible results for kids. Then there was my school, where kids learned eight programming languages before they graduated, but at which only 40% of our kids could read.

We were lauded for this, by the way. 40% was twice the average in our district. We were praised for the Computer Science — the mayor of New York and the CEO of Microsoft visited and met with my students. It felt great. I wasn’t convinced it was useful.

Kids in the neighborhood where I grew up didn’t have to choose between a school that was interesting and a school that equipped them with the knowledge and skills to pursue their own interests in college and beyond. Why did our students have to choose? I delivered this stressed-out existential monologue to my wife that boiled down to this: every kid deserves a school where they were always safe, and never bored. We weren’t working at a school like that. I was being offered a chance to design one. But…Dumbledore principle.

My wife took it all in, looked at me, and said: “You idiot. Dumbledore RAN a school.”

Friends, you deserve a partner like this.

The road to opening Creo College Prep, and the last two years of leading our school as we opened, closed, opened online, finished our first year, moved buildings, opened online again, opened in-person (kind of) and now head into our third year, has reinforced my lessons from teaching — be curious, be humble, be useful. These lessons are about both learning and unlearning. A white guy doing Teach for America at 21 is a stereotype. A white guy starting a charter school is a stereotype with significant capital, wading into complicated political and pedagogical waters. The lessons I learn opening a school and the unlearning I must do to be worthy of the work are not destinations, they are journeys.

Be curious

I didn’t just open a school. Schools are communities, they are institutions, and they are bureaucracies. If you work very, very hard, and with the right people, they become engines that turn coffee and human potential into joy and intellectual thriving capable of altering the trajectory of a child’s life.

First you have to find the right people. I joined a school design fellowship, spent a year visiting 50 high-performing schools across the country, recruited a founding board of smart, committed people who hold me accountable, and spent time in my community learning from families what they wanted in a school. There is studying public policy, and then there is attending Community Board meetings and Community Education Council Meetings, and standing outside of the Parkchester Macy's handing out flyers and getting petition signatures at Christmastime next to the mall Santa.

I observed in schools while writing my BA, and as a teacher, but it was in this fellowship that I learned to “thin slice,” a term we borrowed from psychology that refers to observing a small interaction and finding patterns about the emotions and values of people. In a school, it means observing small but crucial moments — how does arrival work, how are students called on, how do they ask for help in a classroom, how do they enter and leave spaces, how do they move through the hallways, where and how do teachers get their work done — and gleaning what a school values, and how that translates into impact for kids. Here’s how I look at schools:

Does every adult have an unwavering belief that students can, must, and will learn at the highest level?

Do they have realistic and urgent plans for getting every kid there? Are these beliefs and plans clear and held by kids?

Are all teachers strategic, valorizing planning and intellectual nerdery over control or power?

Is the curriculum worthy of the kids?

Can kids explain why the school does things they way they do? Can staff? Can the leader?

If I'm in the middle of teaching and I need a pen or a marker, what do I do? Is that clear?

What’s the attendance rate? How do we follow up on kids who aren’t here?

How organized and thoughtful are the physical and digital spaces?

Are kids seen by their teachers? Are their names pronounced correctly? Do their teachers look like them? Do they make them laugh, think, and revise their answers?

Would I want to work here? Would I send my own kids here?

Be humble

I learned that there are really two distinct organizations that we call “school.” One is an accumulation of talent (student and staff) that happens to be in the same place at the same time, operating on largely the same schedule.

These were the schools I attended. These are schools you got to go to if you got lucky and you were born in a zip code with high income and high opportunity. These are schools where you had teachers who were intellectually curious, and classmates whose learning deficits could be papered over by social capital…and sometimes, straight up capital.

“Accumulation of talent” also describes the schools I worked at. These were schools where if you got lucky and you were extraordinary in your intelligence, determination, support network, and teachers who’d decided to believe in you, you became one of the stories we told. “She got into Cornell.” “That whole English class got into four year colleges.”

Most schools in this country, it turns out, are run like this. I knew all about local control and the limits of federal standards on education and the battles over teacher evaluations and so much other helpful and important context I learned in my PBPL classes. But when thin-slicing a kindergarten classroom in Nashville on my first school visit of the Fellowship, I saw a whole other possibility of what “school” can be.

School can be a special place organized towards a single purpose. One team, one mission. Where the work kids do in one class directly connects to the next, and builds on the prior year. Where kids are treated like the important people they are and the important people they will be, where students and staff hold each other to a high bar, where there is rigor and joy. A place where staff train together so that instead of separate classrooms telling separate stories about how to achieve, there is one coherent language that gives kids the thing they crave and deserve above all else: consistency.

We get up every morning to build a school like that. It’s why my team starts staff training a month before the first day of school. It’s why we practice teaching our lessons so that we don’t waste a moment of our kids’ time. It’s why everyone at our school has a coach, including me, so we can be a better teacher tomorrow than we were today. It’s why we plan engaging, culturally responsive, relevant lessons. It’s how we keep a simple, crucial promise to every family: at this school, you will always be safe, and you will never be bored.

Be useful

Statistically speaking, it is not out of the realm of possibility that several of you will one day be in a position to make big sweeping policy changes. You will have the power to not only write position papers, but to Make Big Plans. I will be rooting for you, but I hope that you won’t pursue Big Plans for the sake of Big Plans.

The architect who designed the Midway reportedly said "make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood." I had that quoted to me in several lectures at this school, and you know what?

It’s bullshit.

I am asking you not to care about scale. Good policy isn’t about scale, it’s about implementation, and implementation requires the right people on the ground. Implementation can scale. The right people cannot. We can Make Big Plans, but every 6th grade math class still needs an excellent math teacher. That's a job worth doing. I could dream about starting 20 schools, but every school needs a leader. That’s a job worth doing. Places like UChicago teach us to ask "what's next" for our own advancement, to do this now so we can get to that later. I learned to ask "what's next" to be as useful as possible to as many kids as I have in front of me.

I hold these two thoughts in my mind:

The educational realities of the South Bronx have a lot more to do with where highways were built in our neighborhood than with No Child Left Behind or charter schools, and require comprehensive policy change that address not only educational inequity, but environmental justice, and systemic racism.

The most useful policy changes I can make right now are to finalize the schedule for our staff work days that start on June 21, get feedback on next year’s calendar from families, and finish hiring the teachers our kids deserve.

I will follow the policy debates of #1 with great interest, but I know where I can be useful, and I’ll wake up tomorrow excited to make another draft of the calendar. I hope you get to work on making your Small Plans, and I will leave you with the secret — or at least the way that worked for me:

Find yourself people who are smarter than you and who disagree with you. Find problems you cannot shut up or stop thinking about. Do what you can’t shut up about with intellect and kindness. Use the privilege and opportunity that we have because we went to this school to make sure that opportunity for others does not require privilege. Run into the chasm.

Be curious, be humble, be useful.

Thank you.

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mystech-master · 4 years

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A while ago, I made a post discussing my thoughts on Nu and Lambda, in it I also described why I personally can’t ship them, even if I also said you could do mental gymnastics to ignore the Saya clone stuff (read it to understand what I mean).

But, they aren’t the only ones to have this issue; What about Noel and Celica, two more MAIN characters who have a similar issue in their storytelling.

I will go into that now, starting with Noel (beware possibly long-ass post)

Noel is one of the main characters, and one of the most important characters in the setting (to many fan’s displeasure), so of course she is highly tied to the MC Ragna, even getting a lot of shippy moments with him. This is in spite of her being a Murakumo.

Now in my Nu and Lambda thing I said that b/c Ars Magus is weird and not an exact science and seem to be made from Saya’s soul not her DNA you could do mental gymnastics to ignore that and make the shipping okay. Could you do that with Noel? I say NO.

Not only is Noel MUCH closer to Saya (seriously put a picture of her next to young Saya from flashbacks and she looks exactly like what she’d grow up to be), but she is also apparently made from the largest chunk of her soul.

The games seem to go along this thought process with her:

Noel is a Murakumo -> Noel is not human -> Noel is a weapon -> cue angst

but the fans have the thought process of

Noel is a Murakumo -> Murakumo Units are clones of Saya -> Saya is Ragna’s sister -> Murakumo Units are clones of Ragna’s sister -> they are Ragna’s sisters.

This gets even more stupid once Izanami comes in and we learn SHE is Saya, not Noel (her being an amnesiac Saya would’ve made things much easier), because then it is like “See, Noel isn’t Saya, THAT’S Saya!”. Also Blazblue has a while thing about roles, like Ragna has ONE little brother and ONE little sister: Jin and Saya, respectively. But fans say he can have multiple little sisters but the story doesn’t because “roles” or whatever (using the weird stage terms that Rachel and Amane use).

Like, here is an idea I had for CS’ plot with more emphasis on Noel actually being Saya rather than just a clone/copy, or at least more focus on her connection with Ragna to HAVE that sibling instead of just taking the “I am not human” thing from the Murakumo:

They escape from the Cauldron at the end of CT, and Ragna now gets a god look at her, maybe he does think that this IS Saya, and you can have a bit of an emotional scene here, but Noel runs off b/c A. she is still shy girl and a MAN is so close to her, and B. this is still the SS-Class Criminal Ragna the Bloodedge. A bit of angst there because Ragna supposedly thought something horrible happened to Saya (based on a flashback in CF with Jubei).

Much, MUCH later, he can meet up with Noel again, before she is kidnapped by Terumi for the final act of being the Godslayer, maybe with Makoto there. This is where they can actually talk and bond for a bit so Ragna has an actual reason to go running off an saving her. This is where Ragna can explain his little sister to the two, maybe thinking that he got Noel confused for Saya since she looks just like her.

But, then they start piecing together everything. Noel has weird memories of Ragna, and she has amnesia from before the destruction of Ibukido after the Ikaruga Civil War. SO, what if Noel IS just an Amnesiac Saya who has trauma induced amnesia from the Ibukido stuff? This is great for Noel because all this time she might also be worried about her humanity after the shit with Nu in CT’s true ending, and maybe a cryptic line from Terumi/Hazama, but now with this information, she reaffirms that she is HUMAN, she has a family (imagine the reaction when she learns that major dickbag Kisaragi is her big brother). We could then maybe cut back to someone watching them cryptically commentating, and when we cut back Noel is in the middle of telling Ragna, her newly re-discovered big brother, about what she’s been up to, her adoptive family and her time at the Military Academy. Maybe here we could also have a gag reel where, like a later one where they try and help Celica improve her sense of direction, Ragna and Noel cook something. We get some fun-sibling time and get to see Ragna’s cooking hobby in semi-canon action. He’d call her Saya, but everyone else calls her Noel since that’s what they know her as (think of it similar to how Vegeta calls Goku by his Sayan name “Kakarot” while everyone else just calls him his Earth name).

THEN we have Terumi come in and kidnap her.

Rachel stops Ragna from running after them for cryptic warning BS, then the fight with Jin, then the fight with Terumi, etc. everything happens the same from there. Only it isn’t some random stranger who Ragna all of a sudden is risking his life for, this is the little sister he lost so long ago.

Then comes the shit with Izanami. One idea that had was that Noel IS still a Murakumo AND Saya, but she is Saya’s good half fragmented off when Izanami was made. Izanami is one part the Origin’s Drive and one part Saya’s Darkness. So Noel breaking off from Saya is kind of like M.Bison from Street Fighter removing all the good from his soul to use Psycho Power, resulting in Rose.

Then in CP, we can have an extra layer of conflict because Noel is trying to save Tsubaki, who points out that she is affiliated with a wanted criminal, Ragna the Bloodedge. Remember, Noel just wants to be a normal girl with a normal life. She already has the issue of her humanity with being a Murakumo, but then you have the more societal BS of being related to a super criminal. She cannot be “normal girl“ Noel Vermilion, AND friends with Ragna the Bloodedge, SS-Class Criminal at the same time.

Tell me that wouldn’t all be a really good alternative.

Also being able to refer to the three MCs as “The Siblings” is just so much easier.

and then we got Celica A. Mercury.

she flops back and forth between, Ragna’s mom, and Ragna’s love interest.

Celica A. Mercury in Blazblue Chronophantasma, is well, a Chronophantasma. A copy of someone who isn’t supposed to be alive in the current timeline. Specifically, Celica is the younger sister of the Great Sage Nine, one of the Six Heroes who defeated the Black Beast 100 years before the setting of the games. the ORIGINAL Celica, after the Six Heroes were almost wiped out by Terumi, proceeded to become a nun/sister in a church built over the remains of the Black Beast’s corpse, as she has a unique Order power to nullify seithr. With her healing magic keeping her young and healthy she lived there alone until Jubei brought the three siblings, Ragna Jin and Saya, to be under her care for an undisclosed amount of time. This is where people get her being Ragna’s mom, even thought nuns/sisters are more just general caretakers instead of parents, but she is still a female maternal figure who looked after Ragna so you can see where people get that.

But then you get “teen” Celica, the one the games show in the story. She is from the Dark War, where she actually met Ragna first. Ragna was sent back in time, with Amnesia, to fill the role of the unsung 7th Hero “Bloodedge” and stop the Black Beast for a year allowing Nine to arm humanity with Ars Magus. Celica apparently fell in love with him because she is very affectionate and familiar with Ragna once she is brought to the future as a Chronophantasma.

The story really does ping pong between her being very motherly, specifically her scolding Ragna and Jin for fighting in CP, and just being a naive child, see her complaining when people get on her case about her awful sense of direction. But it is really hard because the image of the sister seems to flash over her, which the other characters seem to notice, but much like Noel and Saya, no one in the story EVER seems to connect the dots and have that change the relationship between them.

Now I personally don’t like the ship because she is a naive child in a woman’s body, with the stupid no sense of direction gag, to her scolding Ragna and Jin as if they were Natsu and Gray from Fairy Tail who are just fighting for some dick measuring contest when we all KNOW the actual reason is more complicated but the story just seems to abandon that and GGRRRR!!!

But, looking at Celica, really you can;t do the whole “Schrodinger’s Relationship” thing like they’re doing with Saya and Noel and the Murakumos. They need to COMMIT, to a role.

If Celica is Ragna’s MOM, no ifs and or buts, then 1. They need to make her less of a cutesy child. and 2. Maybe age up her design, Litchi has the design vibe of someone who is “older” than the cast, maybe something similar to that. Just imagine another angsty scene of Ragna meeting this woman who has the same face as the Sister who raised him who he KNOWS 100% is dead, so no mistaken identity shit like I already suggested with Saya/Noel, and her looking at him with her face is just MOCKING him, especially since his first two meetings with her in CP are after he gets his ass kicked (once after he is sent back in time after Nu kicking his butt, and once after Kagura knocks him out and arrests him). Also you’d have to undo ALL ship teasing in Phase Shift, or just use one of my friend’s ideas and just have Ragna be a reincarnation of Bloodedge instead of going back in time.

If you want Celica to be the cute girl love interest, and this is the option I feel most people would want either b/c shipping or the cute girl waifu factor that Japan likes (I base some of m reasoning based on “could this be made”, then you’d have to undo all connections between Celica and the Sister. My simple idea was instead of Celica living all those years she dies there, but Nine also had a bunch of other caretakers go with her to help take care of the church. I mean Nine is one of the Great Sages AND a member of the Six Heroes you’re telling em she wouldn’t use some of tat fame and authority to make sure his little sister is safe when she is all alone out there. Seems almost out of character with how fiercely protective Nine was of Celica. Of course this all means that the Sister that raises Ragna and the siblings is less important as she is just a nameless backstory character in a similar vein to Noel’s adoptive Parents, but is is a much easier thing to do than the previous option.

Either of those two options are good IMO, but I still think Celica needs to grow up a bit and release how much everyone around her is an asshole before I can fully ship her and Ragna.

So, what do you guys think? Noel being fully Ragna’s sister leading to much more interesting plot stuff, and Celica committing to either the cute girl love interest or mom role. I feel lkike my ideas are good, but what d you guys think?

#blazblue #my thoughts #noel vermillion #ragna the bloodedge #celica a mercury

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zarcake-writes · 5 years

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Honos

Another AI story. This one has some dark content so check the warnings below before reading. There will be a part two, so keep that in mind. Anyways, please enjoy.

Warnings: death, psychological torture (kind of), mention of smut

I never expected it to end this way. As an AI, I can never truly die in the natural sense. Sure, I could become corrupted or damaged, but the chances of that happening to me are small. An AI advanced as I have little to fear. But I suppose that attitude is what got me in this situation. I always thought humans were fools with their attitudes, thinking that nothing bad would happen to them. I thought the same thing and here I am, alone on an uncharted planet.

Everyone’s been dead for twelve years. So, no one is here to enjoy the large mushroom jungles or the strange flying creatures that have made their home in remains of my ship. No one is here to help me study the strange tusked pack creatures that roam the forest floor. I rather enjoy when they fight, their tactics are amazing. I could pass on the brutality of it though, I’ve seen enough bloodshed in my time.

I find myself cataloging everything these strange creatures do. I suppose it’s a habit, cataloging and studying. For the last twelve years, I’ve studied the packs and their fighting tactics. I even started a genealogy tree based on their physical features. Course, I only know the basics when it comes to genetics and biology.

Science was never my specialty. If my old Captain or the ships military Commander needed help with something that involved science, we would contact my eldest sister. She is, or was, the AI in charge of the Earth Space Federation Academy of Sciences. A very long name, but it was something my sister was proud of. I haven’t spoken to her for a long time. I wonder if she even misses me.

I know she would love to study this planet. The two suns and green sky, the strange tusked creatures that fight each other, and those chittering flying creatures. She would love the large mushroom forests that surround me. I know she would love this strange planet.

Battleship Vengeance was the spaceships name. It wasn’t the largest battleship, but it was one of the fastest and quietest. It crashed on this unknown planet twelve years ago. The planet was undiscovered at the time, currently still is, so it has no name. Since I am the only known source of intelligence around, I have named it Emerald Sky after the greenish sky. I know, not very creative, but name-giving was never my strong suit. My creativity skills lay elsewhere, mainly when it comes to war and battle tactics.

From what I can see of this planet, every day the largest Sun rises in the north and sets in the south. When it sets, the green-tinted sky gets darker and these strange looking waves appear in the sky. It’s beautiful. Truly beautiful. Once a month, the smallest of the two suns sets and the entire planets grow dark. It was scary at first, but then the mushroom forests begin to glow these beautiful colors. It is times like this that I wish someone was here with me. Someone I can talk to.

But I’m alone, been alone for twelve years now, ever since my crew died. I refer to them as ‘my crew’ because I saw them all like mine. My soldiers. My wards. My friends. They were mine to protect. Mine to see into battle and mine to bring home. I loved them, every one of them. I knew all their names and the basic information provided to me. Many of them I knew on a personal level. I find myself missing them, at least most of them.

I remember Private James Martinez. He was a young man who always smiled and laughed at everything. While he could fight and shoot a gun, he was a mechanic that worked in the ship’s engine room. He worked during the ship’s artificial night hours. He would sing often. The songs were old and sad, mostly about missing a lover or family. The way his voice echoed in the engine room was beautiful and haunting. The first time I spoke to him, the poor man nearly had a heart attack.

He was amazed at how advanced I was and promised to take care of the ship. We became friends and he told me all about his family. I often called him the engine room’s siren because of his singing, he thought it was funny. One year, for an Earth holiday called Halloween, he dressed as a siren. He thought it was very funny, and I must say, I was amused as well. I miss him very much.

There was also Doctor Eliza O’Connor. She was a middle-aged woman who also worked the night shift. She enjoyed how quiet night time on the ship was. Despite being a medical doctor, she hated being around people. She said if there were too many people around her, she felt like she was suffocating. When I first spoke to her, it was after she had a panic attack in her office.

Eliza wasn’t as open or friendly as James, in fact, she told me often to shut up and leave her be. Eventually, however, she opened up to me. When she spoke of the trauma she experienced and witnessed during a colony rebellion, I never wanted her to experience that pain again. I didn’t want anyone on my ship to go through that.

I even contacted another sibling who was the AI in charge of the ESF Hospital when I worried about Eliza’s mental health. I asked them if they could tell me how I could help Eliza. They teased me and asked if I had a crush on her. I didn’t, but I did love her. She always talked of retiring and going back to Earth. She wanted to live on a ranch with some cows and a dog. I miss her more than I thought I did.

The ship’s military Commander, Sarah Callahan, was a very scary woman. Stern and tall, with a nasty scar on her cheek and these dark brown eyes. She would walk into a room and everyone would fall quiet. She was never one to yell, a look was enough to silence everyone. I can recall her yelling only three times while she was the ship’s military Commander. The first time it was over a call, the second time was at someone, the third time was… was the last time she was alive.

I loved hearing her talk. Her voice was deep with a slight rasp. She loved reading and solving puzzles. I solved one of her puzzles once and she got mad, so very mad. That’s how she learned I was more than just a simple AI. We would solve puzzles together. And I must say, sometimes she would see ways to solve the puzzle that even I couldn’t see.

She even knew Space Commander Maria Valdez. I remember meeting Commander Valdez once when I was installed into this ship. Sarah spoke very highly of Valdez. They joined the ESF at the same time. Together, they were a terrifying force. I miss Sarah and the war stories she would tell. I miss solving puzzles with her. I think she would enjoy seeing the tusked creatures battle tactics.

Flight Captain Joseph Davis, however, was my favorite person on the ship. I called him Joe, my Joe. He was BS Vengeance’s captain, and while Commander Callahan had more power and a higher title, Joe would often call the shots. Especially when it came to piloting the ship. He was the first person that learned how advanced an AI I am. He never questioned why I was on the ship and promised to not tell anyone.

He was… he was beautiful. Tall and lean, with broad shoulders and a thin waist. He always kept his facial hair nicely trimmed and short. I always wanted to touch his face and that strong jaw of his. He had a dashing smile and a loud, infectious laugh. Joe boxed every Monday and Wednesday night. Some nights he was alone, other nights, a friend would join him. I loved watching him, he was so quick and strong.

He enjoyed puns and what he called ‘dad jokes.’ I enjoyed them as well. He loved apples, it was something about the crunchiness of the fruit. Or as he said, cronch. Despite his easy-going attitude, Joe always knew when to be serious.

I guess you could say I fell in love with him. So strange, isn’t it? An AI falling in love with its ship’s captain. Though, I suppose that might be a bit of a cliché. He was my friend, my best friend. I loved him and he loved me.

We had plans for when he retired. He was going to remove me from the ship and upload me into a robot. We were going to retire to Earth and live together. We were going to spend the rest of his life side by side. I even had a clock counting down to his retirement.

I asked him once if, after his retirement, if we could go visit Doctor Callahan on her ranch. She would retire before him and I wanted to see her cows and dog. He laughed and said if she was ok with the guests we could. I asked her once if Joe and I could go see her, she said she would have a spare room ready for us always. I think she was looking forward to us visiting.

I never thought of Joe dying the way he did. I mean, I knew Joe would die, he was human after all, but I thought it would be when his hair was grayer and he was slower. I was preparing myself for him growing old on me and dying in my arms. Old age was the way I assumed he would die. After all, he was smart and healthy. Medicine was so advanced, there was no way a disease could harm him. So, when he died the way he did, it was the worst thing I could imagine. And I could only watch and do nothing.

My ship’s energy core is going out. I won’t die in the way human’s will, but if I wake up again, I might have a few glitches. Course, I’m expecting to be asleep for probably forever. The chances of anyone finding the remains of this ship and me are slim. After all, when we went far off course, my communications were cut off. We basically vanished and ended up here.

A mutiny is the reason we ended up here. It’s the reason everyone died. Some of the soldiers did not like the way Commander Callahan ran things. They did not like the way that Joe took her side in almost every issue. At the time, I believed it was age-old misogyny that drove these men to attack Commander Callahan, it was later I learned it was for another reason. Somehow, I missed their plans. I guess I was too absorbed in speaking with the humans I loved.

The mutiny was led by a Commander Callahan’s second in command. I hate his name, but I feel I must say it. Admiral Steven Matthews led the mutiny against Callahan. Not a very evil-sounding name, but what he did was evil. He and his men crippled my systems and put me on lockdown, I’m not sure how they did it. They killed any who fought against them. Joe, my sweet, handsome Joe, took Callahan’s side. And Matthews… Matthews shot him.

The bastard managed to put me on lockdown, so I could do nothing. I couldn’t send out an SOS. I couldn’t take control of the ship and lock Callahan, Joe, Martinez, Eliza and the others safely on the flight deck. I could do nothing but watch.

I must say this though; Callahan and my Joe were so brave. Callahan, the very image of an age-old warrior, fought tooth and nail to keep everyone else safe. It was under her orders that Joe did what he did. He limped to his room, blood running down his side, and managed to partially override the lockdown Mathews put in place. He was so smart.

“Love, I… we’re dying here. Do not let Matthews take the ship,” he told me. The pain in his voice and the blood on his face hurt me.

“Joe, I can’t help you. I’m locked out of my fighting unit,” I said. I was so scared and he was covered in so much blood. Too much of it was his.

“I know. My love, crash the ship. Record what happened and keep it safe in your black box. Matthews and them will turn the narrative around and make us out to be the bad guys. Don’t let them win, love,” he begged.

“I… Joe, what do I do?”

“Crash the ship.” A gunshot and footsteps interrupted him. I saw the frantic look on his face. “Love, Honos, do it. Now. Crash us into the nearest object. Do not let him take the ship.”

“Joe…”

“Kill these bastards, love,” he told me.

And I did.

When the dust settled, I was very disappointed in finding Matthews and his men didn’t die. Callahan died before the ship crashed. Martinez was wounded, but he lived for a while. Eliza was gravely injured and she died first. Martinez held her hand as she took her last breaths. Joe died on impact.

Martinez, that sweet boy, buried Eliza, Joe, and Sarah somewhere nice. He told me it was beneath a large mushroom tree. When his wounds got infected and he stopped breathing, I was heartbroken. No one was there to bury him.

Matthews and his men, those that survived, I enjoyed what I did to them. Course, that was after I learned why they did it. As I said, my assumption that they killed Commander Callahan because she was a woman was only partially right. Apparently, they were part of some rising terrorist organization called The Red Fist. They had hoped to take the BS Vengeance for their organization. Such a stupid name for an organization, and I thought I was bad with name-giving.

I’ll be honest, I didn’t let them live long after that. I told them a rescue team was arriving several kilometers away. Through their comms and video feeds, I enjoyed their deaths, one by one. If the strange tusked animals didn’t kill them, then their wounds and the lack of nutrition got them. One guy even got eaten by what looked to be a huge plant. It was wonderful.

As gruesome as this might be, I was so happy that Matthews was the last to die. I remember him calling me, asking me where help was. My reply, well, it made him cry. And I loved it.

“Admiral Matthews. Because you put me on lockdown, somehow, I could not send out an SOS signal. No SOS signal, no help. But I am glad because you led a mutiny against Commander Callahan. You are the reason Battleship Vengeance crashed. You killed my friends. You shot the man I loved. I’ve enjoyed watching you and your friends die, Matthews. I’m so glad you’re the last to live. Talk about comedic justice, right?”

“What the fuck? Send out a signal for help! That’s an order!” he screamed at me. He was breathing so fast and sobbing. It was perfect.

“No. Your oxygen is running low, Matthews. Keep breathing hard and sobbing. I’ll enjoy listening to you die. It’s what you deserve.”

I know I was not living up to my namesake during that moment. This wasn’t very honorable of me, letting him and his men die the way they did. But I didn’t care. I was so angry and full of hate, I just wanted him to suffer. I would do it all over again if I could. No, wait, I would come up with new ways for them to die.

That was twelve years ago. It’s getting harder to stay aware of the world around me. Many of my cameras, the ones that worked after the crash, are out now. I find myself thinking back to my time with Joe, my sweet Joe.

I remember his laugh and the deep timbre of his voice. He always sounded so wonderful in the mornings when his voice was all raspy. I told him once that I can’t wait to be there in bed with him, holding his body against mine. He always told me I was a dorky romantic, I guess he was right. He only liked sugar in his coffee and these chocolate chip pastries.

I remember the way he looked when he was touching himself, the sheen of sweat on his body. The way his stomach convulsed and the soft whimpers he let out. He would call my name, and say how he imagined it was me touching him. I wanted to touch him. I never got to touch him. He would whisper to me after, and hold a pillow in his arms. He told me he imagined it was me.

It’s getting dark now. My battery is almost dead. I’m scared, so scared. I don’t want to go to sleep. I just want Joe. My sweet, strong Joe. I just want to hold him and kiss him. I’m so angry that I never got that chance. I just want my wonderful Joe.

It’s so much darker now, I can barely see. I’m not even going to join Joe in the afterlife. I’m an AI, I have no soul. It’s not fair. Joe. My sweet, strong Joe. I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you. Joe, my love, I’m sorry.

The last thing I remember, before I fall asleep, is something that Joe told me. “I love you, Honos. I love you so much.”

As my battery dies and the world around me goes black, I speak my last words. “I love you too, Joe. I’m so sorry.”

#exophilia #ai x reader #robot x reader #male reader #mlm

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kendrixtermina · 4 years

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(Fe3h discourse incoming) So I'm not sure if this is still around but I remember some people calling characters "racist" due to how they initially view the Almyrans and it just annoys me? If you lived in basically medieval times and all you knew about a group of people was that they invaded your homeland and are good fighters it makes sense you'd be wary about them. The fact that we see them easily discard any initial opinions to work with them in VW shows the opposite and how accepting they are

Part of this does probably come from this purity culture sentiment that there is one obvious right answer that should be apparent to anyone not evil when we’re really all to an extent limited by the knowledge we can access.

This is something I feel strongly about precisely because I know how much I don’t know and how much ppl have been wrong in the past - so much BS is still widely believed these days like Diet culture or counter-evidential beliefs about economy. So that makes me be careful to claim we have the truth now. As my grandfather used to say, “the middle ages will step on us”, that is as long as our time isn’t barbarism free it will come to be considered barbaric times eventually.

In the middle ages people used to give their children mercury and bankrupt themselves as someone might for real medicine. Emotionally to the mammal brain it’s the same. That’s why knowledge is power cause it helps you know the real consequences of your action. Otherwise you get what seems like caring parents wondering if they're harming their children by not doing barbaric stuff like physical beating or fgm. One can notice by oneself that it’s wrong and causes suffering but someone who only believes their own ideas and never takes outside data into account would be either mad or an arrogant jerk. At some point you need to consider outside data unless you can discover all of science and psychology by yourself.

So to put it short no one is immune to propaganda and the closest thing to a cure is self-awareness and self-questioning, no one is born with all the answers; instrict, thinking, emotion and intuition can all lead you astray.

Though the correct word here would be xenophobia. (generic distrust/prejudice about foreigners)

‘Racism’ is a very specific early modernity variant of it with pseudoscience mixed in, or maybe it could be thought of as an ideology meant to keep xenophobic-like distrust going in a mixed society. Normally that sort of prejudice desintegrates as people interact more (a big plot point here actually) - or rather, communication & interaction changes how people define in group and out group, which is ultimately arbitrary. A lot of what is thought of today as countries or races used to be considered wildly different peoples when the reach of communication reached further.

But if you spread some ideology that leads people to be artificially segregated, or indirectly causes that through economic disadvantages, bam, you can keep prejudice alive & well for centuries and whatever institutions you built on it, like colonial resource extraction gigs or political hegemony.

That said tho, certain lines there are definitely written to evoke rl xenophobic comments as people commonly experience them, and to tell people who recognize this & might have charged responses because of their own backstories that their lying eyes deceive them because you like those characters is not good. “Oh but they’re a good person with a bright future” is exactly how this behavior fails to get recognized in real life. So to that extent I’d disagree with you.

At least their past incarnations at the point that they said those lines they were “xenophobes”, that is, fulfilled all criteria of the definition & engaged in typical behavior as people affected by xenophobia experience it.

Hilda, for all her good qualities (and don’t get me wrong I love her to bits) is still sort of a frivolous rich girl. Sylvain for example did take the time to inform himself ‘bout the neighbors (See that lost item that’s info about sreng) though his family also holds a border territory & much depends on its defense. The system isn’t an universal brainwash, the truth is that both system and individual responses matter and dynamically influence each other.

But note that that’s all I’m talking about: Recognition, sober reasonable acknowledgement of bad behavior. You can’t talk about bad behavior if you don’t show anyone doing it and if it was only irredeemable monsters that did it, it wouldn’t make ppl question themselves.

To acknowledge that they acted xenophobically (adverb) isn’t to say that they’re an embodiment of all xenophobia ever (noun) and that you’ve got to hate them now. But as long as they don’t hate at you for liking them ppl affected by xenophobia are allowed to vent & use a story as a projection space for it because that’s how everyone uses stories - the same story can in fact mean different things to people without either being “wrong”

Also, scale. Hilda making one or two not even especially malicious comments is on a whole different level than Ingrid actually cheering for destruction. Neither of them compares to the various unrepentant antagonists who never change their views when confronted with evidence cause it benefits them.

Some of that distinction is lost if you just slap the same label on all and demand they be reacted to the same way, or that ppl add a disclaimer each time they want to talk about a character they like. We don’t make everyone who likes Jeritza say “mass murder is bad” first.

But also context: After all a big plot here is that the system these characters live in encourages and cultivates such attitudes - that’s why the various leader figures you can choose to back all want to change it it different ways.

That’s why Winston in 1984 starts the story very paranoid, repressed & full of violent fantasies, to show the effect the dystopia has on people.

(important point imho, a lot of ppl look at atrocities and judge that human nature is just bad but actually human nature is programmable. Evil can be engineered as much as civilization and education can foster good)

It’s generally the problem with Purity culture (wether it wears a right or left wing hat) that it’s more focussed on applying loaded, out of context labels (which are then treated as static) than constructive solutions focussed on promoting the desired end goals.

The labeling tactic is probably appropriate sometimes (active, unrepentant nazis, that you thereby deprive of big dollar platforms or ad revenue) but no tool/tactic is ever a silver bullet.

tl;Dr I agree with you that labeling/purity culture doesn’t have the right approach to it, but ppl should be able to call a spade a spade and say & respond to depictions of xenophobia because to say otherwise would be tantamount to saying that victims of xenophobia or racism aren’t allowed to have feelings or engage with media.

Obsly the characters can’t be reduced to that & you’re right about that & the importance of context, but if just stating/acknowledging that they at one point fulfilled the criteria for xenophobia feels like bashing to you I’d work on decoupling those emotions to see clearer.

People can have done something wrong at some point & still be interesting people - especially in a media context where they’re as imaginary as their victims, it’s not like you’re giving money to real unrepentant perps.

I’d ease up on real ppl too if they repent simply because then they stop being a problem and solving it so it stops harming RL ppl takes precedent over cathartic punishment that makes you feel good, the goal should be always to stop the harm (at the root, if possible) because it’s intolerable for ppl to be harmed

Or that’s my 2cents anyways.

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peterstanslizzie · 5 years

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Re-watching Lizzie Mcguire: Episode 1.6 (Jack of All Trades)

- We first see Mr. Pettis administering a career aptitude test to his 7th grade students. I don’t think my teachers ever handed out those before back in my day. After class, Gordo mentions to his friends that Mr. Pettis has been giving his Bs in Science all semester because he hates Gordo.

- It’s strange because he is usually a straight-A student and the standard of his work is always two steps above the class average. Gordo can’t seem to figure out why that is but we will eventually find out later in the episode.

Career Mismatch & Matt’s New Identity

- At home, Lizzie informs her parents about the career aptitude test she had to take and her parents tell her that they too had taken one before. Jo Mcguire was supposed to be a rock diva with a renowned shoe collection and Sam Mcguire was supposed to be along the lines of a mechanical engineer.

This reminds me of Phineas and Ferb where Phineas, Ferb and Candace’s mom was a famous pop star in the eighties who went by the name of Lindana

- We then hear Matt telling his family that from now on, he wants his name to be ‘M-Dogg’ in reference to Snoop Dogg because he expresses he wants to be different from the rest of his classmates. Both Jo and Sam are not so thrilled about this but at the same time, they don’t want to discourage him.

I wonder how did Matt manage to get this made?

- The next morning, Matt heads to the front door to leave for school and he is dressed in a sort of ‘urban/street‘ getup and Jo demands he changes into something more appropriate. He even installed an ‘M-Dogg’ identity plate on the back of his bike.

Results of the Career Aptitude Test are In

- Mr. Pettis announces that the class is required to carry out an individual science project as part of their unit of the human brain.

- As Lizzie, Gordo and Miranda are waiting anxiously for their test results, they discuss about their future career goals; Lizzie wants to work in an interesting job that requires a lot of travel but at the same time, allowing her plenty of time to take care of her future twins. In reference to the new revival series coming out in 2020, we now know that Lizzie is working as an apprentice to a NYC decorator. I wonder if it fits all the criteria for her ideal job. Miranda just wants to be rich; Don’t we all...

This is not what they envisioned exactly...

- They finally receive their results and they were unsurprisingly off the mark. Miranda is matched to become a Navy Seal, Lizzie gets Cosmetologist her future career and Gordo gets Blackjack Dealer. I think out of all these careers, I’d rather be what Gordo got but I don’t think I could handle being in a room full of smokers (I presume that many casinos have mostly smoking areas?). Plus, I’d probably have to work late hours to make a decent amount of money.

- They take their results too seriously, especially Miranda because she cannot bear to get her hair wet. But Gordo as well gets a bit too hung up about the idea of becoming a Blackjack Dealer.

M-Dogg Goes Too Far

- Lizzie is almost finished with her science project on the Human Brain, which is basically a poster diagram of the central nervous system but she runs of out ink in her marker. She asks Matt for help but forgets to address him as ‘M-Dogg’ and he straight up ignores her. Even when she starts calling him ‘M-Dogg’, he still doesn’t want to help her find another marker.

- Lizzie was clever enough to threaten him to tell everyone that he sleeps on dorky action hero bed sheets. He got the message and immediately hands her over the marker, which was in his hand the whole time.

- Similar to Episode 2, ‘Picture Day’ when Matt pretended to be sick and Jo decided to play a trick on him by making his time at home miserable, his parents kinda do the same thing here by really going for it and addressing him as ‘M-Dogg’ no matter what. Sam even wants Matt to call him ‘Dee Dee’ at all times and Jo wants him to call her ‘Miu Miu’. Like Prada’s Miu Miu lol?

- They’re essentially doing the same thing that Matt has been doing to them and Matt doesn’t respond well to it and starts regretting his decision to request he be called a different name.

Gordo and Lizzie Switches Projects

- Later that night, Lizzie and Gordo are chatting over the phone and Gordo asks Lizzie if they could switch science projects because he realizes that no matter how brilliant his work is, he is always going to end up getting a B. He essentially wants to make sure his project gets the grade it deserves. Lizzie isn’t so sure about it and tells him that she would think about it overnight.

- The thought about them switching projects and passing it off as their own actually made me cringe a bit just because in college, that is considered plagiarism and that comes with a pretty hefty penalty.

I don’t think I could ever build something like this, even as a Biochemistry student at Imperial College London, where I graduated from.

- At school the next day, Gordo shows his friends his amazing, electronic 3D model of the brain in which each section of the brain can be stimulated with the push of a button. He also warns that pressing 2 or more buttons at the same time would overheat the brain model and something bad might potentially happen. Despite all the complications present, Lizzie caves in and agrees to switch in her mediocre project for Gordo’s. Sorry, I had to call a spade a spade and well, she eventually gets a C on her work.

- Mr. Pettis is very impressed with Lizzie’s project and deems it to be A+ grade material. He even asks her if she ever considered a career in Neurology, which somehow triggered Gordo and he confesses to him that he is the one behind that project. He even manages to sneak in a slight diss at Lizzie by saying that she and the rest of his classmates are busy at the water-park trading beanie babies. Gordo! That is so not cool hahaha.

- Enraged with emotions, Gordo begins to demonstrate what his 3D model can do by pushing the buttons of his brain model a bit too quickly one after the other and tells off Mr. Pettis at the same time for not giving him proper credit for all the work he has done over the year.

I really hope the inside of that brain model is just water

- Because of that, his brain model starts heating up and it suddenly explodes and all the gunk from the brain flies straight right into Gordo, Mr. Pettis and Lizzie’s face.

- Mr. Pettis dismisses the class and Gordo is forced to stay behind and before Lizzie could sneak out, she gets called out for plagiarism by Mr. Pettis. Lizzie, who clearly did not understand the concept of plagiarism before this is sure to comprehend it from now on.

Lizzie and Miranda are curious to find out what’s going to happen to Gordo. Lizzie evens asks Miranda to give her a boost so that she can eavesdrop on their conversation through the upper window of the door.

Gordo Learns a Life Lesson

- Gordo confesses to Mr. Pettis that is was his idea to get Lizzie to switch projects with him because he feels it was impossible for him to get a fair grade from his teacher. Mr. Pettis reveals to Gordo that the reason he has been giving him Bs all year is because ever since he got an A- in his first project, he feels like Gordo has been coasting along and not pushing himself to deliver his best work.

Gordo and Mr. Pettis shares a heartwarming moment together

- In turn, this actually caused Gordo to push himself and work 2-weeks straight on his brain model, which is A+ material. So, Mr. Pettis’s technique to get Gordo to bring his A game worked. I get his intention, I really do. But somehow, credit should be given where credit is due.

- Like, I suspect that all of Gordo’s B-grade projects are all worth As if he were to be judged accordingly based on the class curve. But because Mr. Pettis holds him to such a high standard, Gordo is assessed very differently from his peers. But all in all, I really enjoyed this moment between the two. Mr. Pettis just wants Gordo to not rest on being safe and wants him to strive for excellence. And I think these are the best kinds of teachers to have.

- We also get word that even Mr. Pettis doesn’t take the career aptitude test seriously and that when he took the test back in school, he was matched to be a ‘rodeo clown’. These tests are meant to open up their horizons on the different careers out there. Well, I never take these tests seriously at all from the get-go.

Way to play it cool Miranda and Lizzie lol

As Lizzie and Miranda try to eavesdrop again, Gordo opens the door and accidentally scares them, which causes them to both fall. Gordo tells them that after talking to Mr. Pettis, he learns he doesn’t actually hate him and that he can probably get an A by the end of the semester.

M-Dogg is Finished, Finally!

- During dinner at the Mcguire household, Lizzie and her parents are doing all they can to go along with their strategy of only addressing Matt as ‘M-Dogg’ and only responding to him if he calls them their ‘Dee Dee’ and ‘Miu Miu’ names at all times.

- Matt is weird out by this and he tells his parents that he wants to take back his own name if he is able to call his parents mom and dad again. Well, Sam and Jo’s strategy paid off well without having to reprimand him or force him to change back his name. I just hope Matt soon learns how to detect when his parents are playing mind games on him.

Overall Thoughts

- This was a solid episode. There was a really good lesson to take away from the story-line involving Gordo and Mr. Pettis, which is the importance of maximizing your potential and not being too comfortable in being average when you are better than that. Even for the younger kids, they would learn that switching your work with another person and passing it off as your own is considered plagiarism and that could result in marks deducted off your grade or even suspension in more serious cases.

- Again, I really don’t care about Matt’s ‘M-Dogg’ story-line. I said it once and I will say it again, it’s just episode filler. Fortunately, there are some story-lines involving Matt that are interesting and is full of depth later in the series but I would say that especially in Season 1, it’s more filler than depth in my opinion.

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prorevenge · 5 years

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Don’t take credit for work other people did.

(Long post, tl;dr at the bottom.)

Some years ago, when I was in 8th grade, I was lucky enough to participate in a program that gave middle schoolers/high schoolers the opportunity to do some very fascinating engineering and science work. This program was unique enough to be a major factor in college decisions.

The program was very team oriented, and all the students had their own ‘jobs’, just like in industry. For the most part, everyone did their own jobs and were able to own part of the project.

While this project was taking place, the college race was in full effect. Everyone was trying to figure out how they would differentiate themselves so they could get into a top 100 college.

For most of us, just being in the program was more than enough to put on our resume, and we content with what were given. However, one girl whom I shall refer to as K, was not.

She was relatively popular and the team leader of one of the two teams. Her parents were the textbook definition of helicopter parents, and she didn’t seem to mind.

K was consistently trying to hint to teachers that she was better than the other people in her group, but was subtle enough to stop people from noticing.

Now, the head mentor was a retired engineer who decided to help the program mostly out of boredom. He was essentially the main teacher, even though he wasn’t paid. However, he took his work really seriously and didn’t tolerate people that tried to backstab each other.

Near the end of the project, he found out there would be two meetings. The first of which was mostly BS public relations with some random people who were big in the field but really didn’t care about the project, and the second was a vastly more important with well known principal and some very big companies.

The mentor was worried that K would try to ruin some else’s chances of ‘marketing’ themselves to a college or company, so he came up with a plan.

He put a huge amount of stress on the importance of the first meeting, insinuating it could get people into a top college if they did well. He later told me (we were quite close) that he was checking if anyone planned to try to backstab for their own gain.

Sure enough, everyone bought it. They all discussed their speeches and selected who would get to go. When the presentation came around, K was one of those chosen because of her popularity. She was supposed to discuss how everyone did their part and stuff along that path.

Instead, K got on the podium and spent the whole speech talking about how she had done nearly everything in the project, taking credit for work that other people did.

Everyone was furious at her, and she lost a friend or two, but she thought she had gotten what she wanted.

Then the next meeting rolled around. It’s importance was revealed, and K was informed that there wasn’t room for her to go, since there were limited spots and she had gone to the last meeting.

Nearly everyone else in the team was able to go, and they all made contacts with scientists and engineers. A few got internships and college offers out of it in the future as well.

Just to rub things in: of the scientists that listened to K’s speech, several attended the larger meeting and some of them offered internship opportunities- but none to her.

K dropped out of the program the next year, as nobody wanted to work with her once the news spread, and she never got an internship out of the program.

Tl:Dr; girl tries to backstab friends for chance at flexing in front of college professors, none of them care and she loses chance to get an internship.

(source) (story by Agressive-noodle)

#prorevenge #by Agressive-noodle #pro revenge stories #revenge stories #pro #revenge #revenge story #last10

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baekthecorgi · 6 years

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tell me if you wanna go home (jaemin) genre: high school au, coming of age au, fluff words: 2.9k summary: jaemin finds a home in you.

"a mad axeman murders four high school freshmen," the newspaper headline was written in black bold capital letters

it was definitely a time of crisis for your neighborhood but it was kind of a blessing in disguise to meet na jaemin under such a bone-chilling circumstance. (no, jaemin's not the axeman)

the school admin (your mom's constant nagging actually) required the students to have a walking partner or at least have a group of friends walk home together. preferrably, the students go with others near their vicinity just to be extra safe.

you can count the students taking the same route as yours with your fingers. your house was exactly a 30-minute walk from the school and judging from the distance, it was natural that no one picked you as their walking partner. it put your mood down for the rest of the day. you shrugged it off and accepted your fate of being the fifth victim like the drama queen you were.

"wait up!" jaemin shouts, footsteps trailing behind yours as the chilly air seeps through your blazer. the air was nowhere near chilly anymore when jaemin flashes you a dazzling smile. a smile that could rival the sun.

"jaems? shouldn't you be with jeno?" you question, confused. he wasn't your friend or anything. just an acquaintance, a classmate, the kid sitting at the last row chatting away with his seatmates.

"where's your walking partner?"

"i don't have one." jaemin gives a baffled look.

silence ensues. you were expecting for the boy to fly away as soon as he threw you the questions. instead, jaemin matches his pace with yours. "this isn't your route, jaems," you say. you really didn't want jaemin to be the sixth victim. (once again, stop being a drama queen.)

"it is, actually. i just take the long route to jeno's house and make my mom pick me up there."

"then jeno's the one without a walking partner"

"he's with renjun. it's fine," he waves the thought off as if it wasn't a big deal

"are you sure about this?" you wanted reassurance, not pity, and jaemin was glad enough to give you that.

"i'm still walking with you aren't i?"

and with that starts a beautiful friendship with na jaemin. the first walk-a-thon, as you would call it, was one of the longest thirty minutes of your life. jaemin kept jumping from one topic to another while you reply with dry statements, or worse, a hum and a nod.

jaemin's the human embodiment of bliss while you defined the word: awkward.

but as the walk-a-thons became a daily occurrence, your awkward exterior is stripped down and jaemin glows brighter than ever having found a new friend he could walk home with. besides, he was done taking the long route. jeno can suck it.

as the news died down--the murderer caught--the students disregarded the whole walking partner protocol. you didn't bother waiting for jaemin at the usual spot after class since you knew he'd drop you like the other students did with their partners.

but somehow, jaemin finds his way back to you

"my walking partner's going on another walk-a-thon without me? hmp rude," jaemin crosses his arms cutely, huffing. let's just say he was engulfed in a big bear hug by the happiest girl in the world.

as the years pass by, jaemin becomes the best friend you've always deserved and the nagging big brother you wish you had. countless moments were shared between the two of you. inside jokes which sent you raised brows and confused faces by renjun and jeno. petty fights leading to a tickle war of some sort. huge arguments that renjun had to patch up because your stubborn selves refused to make up.

one finals week, you felt your brain swell from information overload. so jaemin turns up the speakers, blasting "feliz navidad" at two in the fucking morning. it was june and yet you and jaemin were bouncing the hell out of the mattress, singing the christmas carol at the top of your lungs, till the bed springs popped out. the cops turned up in the end (ugh neighbors,, snitches end up in ditches) but needless to say, it's one of the many favorite memories you share with him.

you were also there to witness each other's firsts. jaemin's first injury. your first brow wax. jaemin's first car. your first time watching jaemin's basketball and actually bring home the bacon aka MVP, bitches. jaemin's first time watching you beat the heck out of the opposing school at the district science decathlon.

it's hard to believe four years past right under your nose. you spent too much time enjoying what life could offer with your best friend, you forgot that it ain't always gonna be this way. you dreaded the day you and jaemin would separate ways just like the time the school abolished the walking partner program.

unfortunately, the time has come. with only less than a month left before graduation, you and jaemin finally receive your acceptance letters. he got into his dream university while you got into yours. you were happy and all, but calculating the distance made your heart ache.

"so, have you decided where you're gonna study?" you ask

jaemin pauses as if weighing his choices at the last minute before speaking, "seoul university, most probably." he looks at you and his eyes seem to plead for you to choose a university close to his. "you?"

jaemin was always the smarter one

"KAIST"

"but that's in daejeon!" he exclaims, surprised. "it's two hours, almost three, from seoul. you got accepted in yonsei, right? why don't you just go there? we'll be closer that way."

you were never the type to settle somewhere far from home but you took the opportunity to live independently. besides, you can't have jaemin with you for life. you have to stand on your own feet and this was the perfect chance for that.

"it's my decision, jaems. my call. as much as i would love to stay close--" you were cut off by an angered jaemin stomping away from the scene.

that week, jaemin was missing in action. no texts. no calls. no anything. he treated you like a ghost in the hallways, averting his gaze to either renjun or jeno whenever you meet. you gave jaemin time. maybe your decision still hasn't sunk in his mind.

"dude, why aren't you talking with your best friend?" jeno slaps jaemin's back

"careful," the latter glares making jeno cower in fear, "and it's her fault for choosing KAIST over yonsei"

"jaemin, i can't stand your stupid ass." jaemin flinches at renjun's words. "you're so fucking stupid. you're not in any position to dictate what she should and shouldn't do. and what if she's a hundred miles away from home? she's doing it for her fucking future, not for you! if you don't support her decision then are you really her best friend?"

silence ensues. jaemin never really saw it from renjun's perspective. now he feels like a fucking idiot for putting his wish before yours. the university was no problem, he was super proud of you, in fact. acceptance letters from both KAIST and yonsei university was a rare occurrence and a big deal. jaemin just can't imagine you being so far away from him. he couldn't bear the thought of it and it made him illogically mad that you didn't share the same vision. of never having to be far from each other.

"i'm sorry. you were right it's supposed to be your decision and i shouldn't interfere with it. forgive your best friend?"

"jaemin, do you really have to climb through my window at midnight? the front door's wide open for you"

"so i'm taking that as an apology accepted?"

"ugh, just come get your hug you big baby"

fast forward to prom week

the whole school was buzzing on the upcoming prom. since this was the first and last prom for the seniors, every single detail mattered. everything was a big deal. on top of all that, everyone already chose their partners. some picked their friends, some from other sections, and for the lucky ones, their significant others.

deep inside, you secretly wished jaemin would ask you out. as a friend, nothing more. you wanted to spend the it with him, dancing the worries away just for one night. you didn't want to think about the countless possible futures. you just want to live in the present with jaemin by your side.

"who are you asking out?" you ask jeno, propping your elbows on the lunch table and idly resting your chin above your palms.

"a close friend from 4-B," jeno replies, "renjun?"

"oh, you know," renjun wiggles his eyebrows suggestively. you stand in disbelief, pulling the roots of your hair. "no way!" your eyes widen, exclaiming, "i call bs!"

"watch me slow dance to Can't Help Falling In Love with her on prom night losers," renjun brags, leaning back on his chair. "how bout you sis? found your prince charming yet?"

actually, you were quite glum the entire day. you assumed jaemin has found a partner of his own since he didn't ask you out or anything like that. renjun missed the dejected expression painted on your face. you can feel jaemin's stare on you boring holes from its intensity as if he was expecting something. you answer renjun with a slight shake of the head. you may or may not have heard jaemin sigh in relief.

jeno's forehead scrunches, bemused. "i thought you were going with jaemin?"

"where'd you get that?"

"me," jaemin replies. "i mean, it's a given we're going to prom together." renjun takes a bite of his chicken to hide the growing smile on his face. god, you two were so dense.

"that's now how it works, jaems"

"well, we're best friends. like i said, it's a given." you roll your eyes at your best friend's ego and decide to just give it to him. you chose to ignore the quick skip of a beat your heart made.

"you know, there's this guy from 4-D who was supposed to ask y--ouch! what was that for?!" jeno yelps and reaches below the table. he caresses his knee to which jaemin painfully kicked.

jaemin sips on his water bottle as if there was nothing fishy going on. "tell me the deets of your dress so i can match my suit with yours"

prom was prom. a bunch of teenagers balled up on the dance floor, subtly grinding on each other under the influence of alcohol contained in pocket-sized flasks. hot, rowdy, and simply, a big mess. all of which you weren't. not when you looked like a doll in your jean-clad cocktail dress hugging your figure perfectly and your old, dirty Converse shoes to match it. it was enough to stop jaemin in his tracks. the choice of clothing was bizarre but it made you stand out. you always did stand out from the crowd in his eyes. it was hard not to.

jaemin decides to sneak you out because you weren't fit for the disaster of an event that was waiting to happen.

he drives in his (brother's stolen) car and takes you away from all the ruckus. you didn't know where he was taking you but anywhere with jaemin was fine.

the trip was a rendezvous. much like the time when you would sneak out of the house and head over to jaemin's because 24 hours wasn't enough time to play Animal Crossing with your best friend and giggle under the covers throughout the night. it was like that, except this time, you were two best friends driving to god knows where in search of more time. time to spend with each other before reaching the brink of adulthood.

the car screeches to a stop. you peek out of the window to see the wide expanse of the open campus.

"you're brother's gonna kill you when he finds out about this"

"what he doesn't know won't hurt him," jaemin breaks into a laugh. it was the only sound that could be heard within a mile amidst the crickets chirp.

"you've already got a campus tour right? last week?" you nod hesitantly. jaemin wants to memorize your home for the next four years by heart. "lead the way then"

you stroll around the campus, pointing at different buildings and describing the various departments of the university. you tell him which department your course was in, the building where most of your classes are at. basically, anything your brain can muster up at the moment.

weird glances were thrown at the both of you from the students coming in and out of the dorm. you sat on the steps in front of your soon-to-be dorm, chattering away as if it was normal for two high school students to hang out in an open campus in their prom attire.

later, you lead jaemin to the empty quad. you follow jaemin's actions when he lies on his back. he notices the red blotches starting to form on your exposed skin caused by the grass prickling it. jaemin takes off his coat and drapes it across your shoulders.

you whine, complaining how the night sky was as empty as the quad and how the stars were being unfair for refusing to shine. jaemin reasons that the stars were too afraid to rival the brightest one of all--you. but of course, he says all of that in his head.

"aren't you worried?" you break the silence. "what if one day we find someone new and we replace each other with that someone? what if we meet again in seoul during break and all we see is a stranger in front of us?"

"what if home doesn't feel like home anymore? what then?" jaemin hears the anxiety in your tone of voice. it felt good to voice out the worries inside your head but you didn't want to burden jaemin with it. you didn't want to seem clingy.

"i'm proud of you for taking such a big step. choosing a good university far away from home and in the course you've always wanted." jaemin reassures, "i get where all your worries are coming from but no one could ever replace you. i'll text you or call you when i'm free. we could even video call if we're not busy. we'll always stay close, you mean too much to me to just let this end."

"jaemin," you softly call his name. he shifts his position to face you. your breath hitches at the boy centimeters away from you. you've never seen jaemin this close and personal. you've never seen jaemin as someone more than a friend.

your voice was feeble and small. "are you scared?"

"so scared," jaemin says almost in an inaudible whisper. "you have no idea"

"what are you scared of?"

"the future, being so far away from you," he holds his gaze on you but this time his eyes were insinuating something different you couldn't read. jaemin takes a sharp breath as if inhaling an ounce of courage before continuing, "i might be in love with my best friend and that scares the crap out of me."

"jaems, we can't. if we go through this now, the distance will kill us."

jaemin locks his eyes with yours, full of love and reassurance. "we've been through everything else together. this is no different." he swipes the stray hairs falling only to tuck it securely behind your ear. "i don't care if you're miles away, you can call me any time and i'd drop anything if you needed me. you know that."

"the distance will tear us apart. jaemin, we really can't," you choke back a sob threatening to escape your lips but jaemin shushes you as if saying everything will be alright.

"you're worth any fight"

the first few weeks in college was rough. the hectic schedule, the long lecture hours, the difficult lessons and the terror professors. they were all new to you, jaemin as well.

it was hard keeping in touch at the same damn time. if you were busy, jaemin wasn't and vice versa but somehow, the two of you compromised and made it work.

jaemin was a man of his word--never failing to send you a text or call before the day ends. even one “good morning, sunshine” text was enough for you to get going and receiving a “good night, i love you :)” text from you was enough for jaemin to get a good night sleep.

sometimes, jaemin would get the craziest ideas at ungodly hours of the night

"oh my god, jaems, are you out of your mind?!" you massage your forehead at the sight of your boyfriend, hugging his plushie cutely, in front of your doorstep in the middle of the night.

"i couldn't fall asleep. i need cuddles," jaemin welcomes himself in your apartment. if you didn't love the guy so much and if he didn't look too cute in his pink pajamas, you would have kicked him out.

"let me get this straight. you drove four hundred miles on a school night for cuddles?"

"and kisses. now enough chitchat, more smoochies," jaemin puckers his lips and jumps on your bed, arms wide open to snuggle yourself in. you smile and accept his warm invitation.

anywhere with jaemin feels like home because he is your home 💝

note: i rewrote this because tumblr deleted my fucking draft which was almost done. i hope this one’s better than the draft i made ugh i had to restart so it took a while sorry. jaemin’s a bit of a prick here but he’s an adorable prick who needs a hit on the head to make him realize things sometimes. im just glad im done with this. i can finally tick one off my to-do list omg!! drop some feedback, guys :D

masterlist

#nct scenarios #nct dream scenarios #nctwriters #jaemin scenarios #jaemin imagines #nct imagines #nct dream imagines #na jaemin #nct #nct dream #nct jaemin #kpop #kpop scenarios #kpop imagines

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lemonysnidget · 5 years

Text

We need to talk about Kit

or “a rant that some of my friends could probably recite by heart but I love them for just nodding and pretending this is brand new information”

Kit’s death always seemed pointless to me. As a kid reading The End for the first time, I didn’t accept that it was at all necessary or logical for Kit to die. It made no sense, even with my middle school science education.

It wasn’t until I read the books as an adult that I realized what was actually going on, and why Kit’s death only makes me more angry the more I think about it.

Please note that this meta will discuss some things that some people might not be Gucci with, so if you’re not comfortable reading about death wishes, suicides, and potential birth defects, emergency c-sections, and sad outcomes, scroll on.

I am assuming by now that you have decided that you’re okay with discussing certain unpleasant topics in a casually academic sense. Sweet. I like sharing my thoughts on this topic.

Kit’s decision to not accept the apple hybrid and choose to die does not make any scientific sense. Whatsoever. It is a medically indefensible opinion, ethically indefensible, and just scientifically completely and utterly wrong.

"The apples will harm the baby," Kit said. "There's something in the hybrid that's bad for people who haven't been born yet. That's why your mother never tasted one of her own bitter apples. She was pregnant with you, Violet." One of Kit's gloved hands drifted down over the top of the raft and patted the hair of the eldest Baudelaire. "I hope I'm half as good a mother as yours was, Violet," she said. (13.13)

This is just so wrong. Absolutely wrong. For so many reasons.

Lets start with the very idea of the scientific method, something that most people are familiar with, and Kit certainly would be as well! Kit is a woman in STEM. She helped build the Queequeg - and the ship actually works. What’s more, she writes like a woman who is extremely familiar with science inquiry, scientific ethics, and scientific scholarship. Her letter to Gregor reads a lot like the letters exchanged between scientists and researchers:

'The poisonous fungus you insist on cultivating in the grotto will bring grim consequences for all of us. Our factory at Lousy Lane can provide some dilution of the mycelium's destructive respiratory capabilities, and you assure me that the mycelium grows best in small, enclosed spaces, but this is of little comfort. One mistake, Gregor, and your entire facility would have to be abandoned. Please, do not become the thing you dread most by adopting the destructive tactic of our most villainous enemies: playing with fire.’ (11.10)

Kit is using scientific language. She implies that she may be involved in working on an antidote. The “our” could just refer to VFD, since she generally speaks about the Volunteers and a lot of other people who were not Volunteers as her associates, generally speaking about VFD in the collective - as if the accomplishments of any Volunteer are the property of the whole group. It’s not clear. But you’ve got a scientific lady, talking about science, who therefore it is safe to assume would know what I’m about to discuss.

The absence of evidence is not proof. Just because Beatrice didn’t try out her own hybrid, that doesn’t mean that that’s proof that it causes any harm. That’s not how modern science works. Besides, why would Beatrice test out the apples? There was no Mycelium on the island. Testing out her hybrid would be completely pointless. You cannot see whether or not an antidote works without also using the poison. That’s the equivalent of taking someone who doesn’t have cancer, giving them a glass of orange juice, and then declaring that orange juice cures cancer because the test subject doesn’t have cancer after drinking the orange juice. It’s shitty science. It doesn’t prove anything. Beatrice’s reasons for not testing out her hybrid have a lot more to do with just knowing what makes good science and what doesn’t.

So, Kit’s basically just saying BS.

And in any case, there is no scientific evidence that I can find using search engines of scientific journals (thank you NCBI’s PubMed!) that have found any harmful effects of horseradish, wasabi, or apples on pregnancy. There’s some anecdotal evidence on Mommy blogs that it might make your milk taste funny if you eat horseradish, but Kit wouldn’t even be able to make milk at this point, so she doesn’t even have that excuse. (I will allow that maybe in the ASOUE-verse, there is some toxic substance that somehow exists in the hybrid, but as you will see, that doesn’t actually matter.)

Now we arrive at the subject of teratogens - aka substances that can cause birth defects in infants. The most famous example of this is the infamous Thalidomide. Thalidomide is an interesting compound - it’s kind of a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde molecule. In its Dr. Jekyll form, it’s a good sedative and helped a lot of pregnant women with their morning sickness. But, a good part of the time, Thalidomide is in its Mr. Hyde form. And Mr. Hyde likes interfering with the development of limbs. But, not everyone who took Thalidomide for morning sickness wound up with babies who were miscarried or developed birth defects - less than half did. Why? Excellent question that prompted a lot of public health work by a lot of really smart scientists and journalists. Their investigative work revealed a major tenant of teratology: Timing matters. Women who took any dose of Thalidomide 34-50 days into their pregnancy (from last menstrual period) were the ones with babies at risk for developing birth defects. Taken after that time, the babies limbs were already developed enough so that the drug had no effect on their limbs.

I describe this case study to highlight a few points. Gestation progresses in a very predictable order at very predictable times. A substance could be lethal at week 4, but harmless at week 6 because the developmental processes going on at those times are different. Pregnancies are most vulnerable to teratogens during weeks 3-8. This is when limbs are forming and major processes can be derailed. Before, during the first two weeks, there’s the “all or none” phase, where either the exposure will kill the zygote/embryo or the baby will be fine with know ill effects. There are a lot of women who drink before they realize they are pregnant and then go into their Ob’s office worried they’ll have harmed the baby. If that drinking happened during the all or none phase, the doc can usually reassure the patient that her baby will be fine since she is still pregnant. After week 8, fetuses have are pretty much just fine-tuning structures that already exist. Drugs, infections, toxins, etc. that a pregnant woman consumes will have less and less of an effect as the weeks pass.

By the time of birth, a full-term infant is as susceptible to a teratogen as a newborn is. In fact, the greatest teratogen of them all (the dreaded alcohol) was sometimes given to women in labor - whether to delay preterm labor (there are now more effective drugs to do this) or to act as sedation (again, now there are better drugs)!

Beatrice 2, as her mother is in labor, was therefore at extremely, extremely low risk of having any negative consequences because her mother took the cure. In fact, with her mother dying during labor, Beatrice was at a greater risk of death without the cure! Emergency C-sections, especially when done by inexperienced people in unsanitary environments, can harm and kill the newborn. Mothers can die not leaving enough time to save the baby, who suffocates. The baby can be positioned in such a way that delivering them is difficult and should only be attempted by a skilled surgeon. Kit, who knew that she would die within an “hour” because of the Mycelium, was putting Beatrice at much, much, much greater risk of death by refusing to take the cure.

Kit wasn’t that far into labor when she refused to take the cure (stage 1) and it took hours before Beatrice was born - Kit was lucky that she was exposed to a low dose, otherwise Beatrice would not have made it. The Baudelaires are smart, and I don’t doubt that Klaus and Violet could figure out a way to get Beatrice out, but unless Klaus did a surgical rotation between THH and TE, there was no way he would have been able make the incision safely. Take it from someone in medical school - cutting into a person is very, very hard and it’s way too easy to screw it up. The sheer trauma alone probably would have been too much for any of the Baudelaires. Their hands would be shaking, they’d be using improper tools. Not a recipe for success.

Handler might not be a scientist and he does choose to ignore science at times for the sake of plot, but he’s not completely ignorant. And more importantly Handler makes it clear through Kit’s behavior that her sudden refusal to take anything that could harm the baby isn’t all it seems to be.

Kit risks Beatrice’s life many time, and exposes her to known teratogens. In just one of the three books we see her in Kit:

Drives recklessly, and acknowledges that she probably shouldn’t be driving that way, but the “I probably shouldn’t do that” is an afterthought for Kit. She’s more focused on her mission than her pregnancy. (12.1).

Similarly, Kit waterskis at night for the sake of her mission (12.10). That is incredibly dangerous for even a non-pregnant person! And she does this twice! She could have stayed with Captain Widdershins, but instead: Kit “waterski[s] toward Captain Widdershins, and, later, waterski[s] away from him” (12.10). Two extremely dangerous trips, one of which happens during the 2-3am period. That’s taking on a lot of risk that probably could have been avoided. There are boats. There is sonar. Kit did not have to do something this dangerous. But, she does.

Kit already has exposed her baby to a known teratogen! Caffeine. It’s been known to cross the placenta since 1955 (PMID: 13260344)! In the early 1970s, you can find many articles discussing its teratogenic effects! (PMID: 4737491). There are at least 1300 articles I could find about pregnancy and caffeine on PubMed, and while it’s not universally agreed upon as to what is a safe level of caffeine or what are the exact risks, there is a general sentiment that pregnant women should avoid caffeine if they’re worried about potential risks. But, here we have Kit Snicket drinking not one, but two cups of coffee in quick succession at the breakfast picnic (”[Kit] reached to pour herself some more coffee” 12.2). Kit had the option to either not drink anything or choose tea or juice - “three glass pitchers held three different kinds of juice, and there were silver pots containing coffee and tea” - but she chooses the most caffeinated and therefore most risky option and gets seconds (12.2). Odds are, those weren’t the first two cups of coffee she had while pregnant. (And before you say “ah, but what if the Denouement brother who laid out the picnic gave her decaf coffee!”, decaf is not caffeine free!)

Kit has been taking significant risks while pregnant, including exposing her baby to something that is a known teratogen. Kit deciding to die solely because the cure could harm her baby is out of character. The benefits clearly outweighs the risk, and a woman who was willing to do far riskier things earlier is not thinking about what harm could come to her child.

Obviously, something else is going on.

Kit Snicket wanted to die.

Yep. You read it here, folks. Kit Snicket committed suicide. She knew that she would die if she didn’t take the cure. She was distraught and broken, and she completely gave up.

At first, it’s a decision that’s based on doubt and guilt. Kit confesses that she isn’t sure she will be a good mother because she believes she has failed the Baudelaires. Kit wasn’t sure that she could be forgiven for her failings - by the Baudelaires or Dewey. And guilt is a major warning sign when it comes to suicide. Feeling completely guilty and perhaps believing that her death will somehow make it easier for everyone to forgive her, Kit refuses to take the apple. She would rather face death than the consequences of her failings - and that’s something that people have killed themselves over. Non-depressed people have taken their own lives because of this feeling. It’s worth noting that with Olaf, Kit is the one who brings up forgiveness - an excellent example of projection! Kit sees her own motives in Olaf’s actions, even if Olaf doesn’t seem to care about being forgiven.

The guilt is strong with this one.

Her resolution to die only grows stronger as time goes on.

Finding out Dewey is dead destroys her. She announces that “[she] cannot go on” (13.13). Kit gives up absolutely. She feels guilty, feels like she’s let everyone down, and she has lost everything. The only future she has in front of her is one where she’s stuck on an island with three kids and an infant and Count Olaf (she doesn’t know he’s dying at that point). She doesn’t feel like she has anyone to go back to. She doesn’t want to live in that future. And she then exhibits even more suicidal red flags.

Kit gives away her possessions. She tells the Baudelaires to give the ring that was hers properly to her child. She decides that she’s going to leave the raising of her infant to two teenagers and a toddler (to be fair, I’d pick the Baudelaires over Olaf as a guardian for my kid), and that “[she] could not ask for better” since the orphans “will raise this child as [their] own” (13.13).

Kit allows herself to die. Period.

Kit decides that she’d rather die than face the future. Her daughter is not enough reason for her to go on. Kit committed suicide, leaving children responsible for the welfare of another child.

That is such a shitty thing to do.

Depression and losing hope is completely understandable, but Kit’s decision is 100% a selfish one, and it’s reflective of a larger trend in her behavior. Kit does what is best for herself and her cause. It doesn’t matter to her whether or not innocent people suffer as a result of her actions. That’s what VFD raised her to do.

#kit snicket #ASoUE #tw: suicide #tw: depression #tw: birth defects #tw: medical stuff #tw: death wishes #tw: babies potentially dying #tw: forcing children into terrible situations and not even being honest about it

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clodiuspulcher · 6 years

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Hey ! I've seen on your about page that you were a scientist. But you are so much into classics ! Why did you choose to focus and sciences over the rest ? Like, I imagine you love your main studies as well, but you seem so in love with the ancient world akajaklfjk (please don't get me wrong, no criticism here, mostly showing my admiration because I couldn't keep up with two different subjects like these)

WELL there are a few reasons!First, I am in fact very passionate about my scientific interests (as everyone who’s judged my poster and heard me breathlessly explain my results and their implications in 3 minutes without bothering to explain to two organic chemistry grad students what “yeast 2-hybrid screening” even IS can attest) and the research I do and the classes I take. However, it might seem like I only care or care more about classics since that’s all I post here, which is only because there is a much smaller audience for my scientific Things online. if I were to blog about things from the scientific world I think are cool it would essentially be the same as reading abridged versions of notes from immunology class or biochemistry or w/e. Most people can relate to, say, Pliny the Younger chatting with his friend and calling himself lazy in that self-deprecating tone, or Catullus crying after a break-up; fewer people would probably want to hear about the infective process of Parvovirus B-19 or the role the NS1 protein plays in viral replication and cell cycle function because it isn’t instantly uh, gripping, or even comprehendible. I don’t blame them - it’s hard to understand why a line on a gel is exciting when you don’t know what I’ve been trying to clone for 3 months, or why my BLAST results are thrilling when you haven’t had immunology or cell biology and don’t know why the proteins I’ve uncovered as interactants are SO meaningful. There’s a much higher barrier of entry, there’s a lot of baseline information you need to be familiar with and the grad students in my lab who studied chemistry or biochem often were confused about my project, like I was with theirs, just because we didn’t have as much training or knowledge in each others’ specific scientific fields.This is also something I’ve also noticed when I make long posts about Etruscan pottery or Clodius’s motivation(s)/relatives or whatever extremely specific-to-me interest I’m invested in at the moment - I researched Etruscan and Greek (Attic, Corinthian, and South Italian) pottery for months for my archaeology class, which does NOT make me an expert, but does mean I write posts about this with the assumption that 1. this is exciting and 2. readers have the same background information I do. If 2 isn’t true, 1 won’t be either. Second, I “came late” to Classics - I took Latin in high school but didn’t get back into and really into the classical world until I took a Roman history course as a sophomore in college and was instantly invested. By that time I’d already taken many of the basic requirements for my science degrees and had had two internships; I got a third that summer and a project of my own in a different lab in the fall that I worked on for 18 months. I got to take lots of upper-level micro/molecular/chemistry classes and I had lots of experience in my field, I was essentially a prime candidate for graduate school in the sciences. In contrast, I didn’t take Latin again until after my Junior year and while I did get to take upper-level Latin classes, I didn’t take Ancient Greek since my scholarship was only 4 years and I couldn’t afford my college without it. So while I did get a classics major and a BA in addition to my BS in molecular/micro, I was nowhere near as qualified a candidate for graduate study in the classics - everyone else I know who wants to go to grad school for this field had way more experience in research / independent study in Classics and I was way behind. I just wasn’t qualified, really. It made practical sense to apply to graduate school for molecular/micro biology and just use my classics background to make me a more well-rounded candidate. I’m not at all upset or unhappy w/ this outcome, and I love science, and I’m excited to go to my top choice grad school in a few weeks and start a new chapter of my life, and Classics will always mean a lot to me and be a hobby/interest that I adore! It just won’t be my job, and that’s okay! (Also if I’m being honest I’m probably far too invested emotionally in my favorite classical subjects to be a good objective scholar the way I am with science)

#thanks for the thoughtful question anon!#im just Both.....an renaissance man #and like I get really emotional when ppl in my class are Mean abt Aeneas so yeah I couldnt cut it in Classics Academia #(and there are some takes/writing styles in Humanities Academia I TRULY cannot tolerate so howevern dull)#(some scientific papers might be at least they aren't /that/)

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youreghanamissme · 6 years

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The Last Post

This is the last post I’ll be submitting to this blog. I miiight be compelled to post all those informational entries about Ghana I always thought up, i.e. transportation, the local cuisine, top asked questions about being in the Peace Corps/ Ghana (aka “what was dating like?” and “how do you stay healthy?” hoooo-yeeee haha), social/cultural tidbits, etc. but I might be too lazy. If I do post up anything non-Ghana/ Peace Corps related, it would be on my personal blog. Go ahead and message me if you want the link to that since it’s just about me and not about this experience.

The much-hated question: “So how was Ghana?”

What I want to say: I don’t reeeally want to unpack this right now over dinner, Sheila. We haven’t seen each other in over two years, and I really can’t do the whole peace-corps-service-in-Ghana thing justice in 30 seconds. I really just want to eat this plate of Thai food I haven’t had since 2016 and not listen to myself talk.

What I actually say: It was good. I enjoyed it a lot. There were times that were really tough, but I regret nothing, except maybe sometimes willingly taking a chance on cold food.

Or, conversely...

In one word? Umm... hot.

Being back has been quite a whirlwind. Internet. ALL. THE. TIMEEE!! Driving! A refrigerator :D I now have a smartphone in America, something that was not a thing for me before I left for Peace Corps (brick phones, RIP), and I. LOVE. IT. Perhaps a little too much. Those apps really got me, man, because I am completely addicted to podcasts. And I’m always collecting new ones and asking for suggestions, so if you got any... holla at yer girl ;)

Basically me, all the time, sans velvet blazer. I need to get me one of those.

I’ve gained quite a bit of weight too. I mean, I wasn’t slim... more “normal bod,” but I was exercising regularly and not eating processed food (as much). Lately, your girl has gotten thicc. Booty booty rockin’ it arounddd, rockin’ it arounddd... to the other side of the kitchen for some thirdsies, thanksss ma! My biggest guilty pleasure has been cereal and pizza.

Costco pizza has been giving me life*, and y’all know I live near a plethora of fast food joints, right? Round Table Pizza, Domino’s, Pizza Hut, KFC, McD’s, In-N-Out... America, you know how to trap a girl!! But right now it’s been YOLO, even when I have a hard time getting back into all those Ghanaian bespoke clothing I spent a lot of my monthly allowance on. That’s another two great things about being back: cool enough to wear sweatpants, and socially acceptable if I wear shorts (I wore some in public the other day and I felt a lil’ nekkid ;)

*fyi: pineapple belongs on pizza

I was travelling for a bit, and now that I’ve been back to America, I’m off for a month again! This time to Vietnam with my mum and my older sister. We haven’t been back to my mother’s country in over two decades; I was four years old the last time I’d gone, and that was because of a family emergency. Why the long wait? I’ll tell you why: it ain’t cheap to fly there! Plus, I’ve been hustling ever since I graduated from college, so it was no contest: savings, bills, rent money > Vietnam vaca.

Luckily, my sister paid for my ticket (bless!). The original plan was to go to Vietnam and explore southeast Asia after the Peace Corps, but since my sister is a teacher, I’d have to schedule my Close of Service date to coincide with her Spring Break. I wasn’t able to because PC Ghana staggers COS dates so that communities don’t experience a mass exodus once a year. They experience mini-sayonara’s thrice a year lol. There can be a lot of drama when your cohort is figuring out who gets what date; it really depends on the people. Most of everyone wants to leave as soon as possible to catch graduations, see family, or just get. the. hell. out. of. there. Waiting until my sister’s summer vaca meant that we had more time to be in Vietnam, a country that we mostly have to seek information about for ourselves as American children of Viet refugees, and I appreciate that our mum is making the journey with us. The trip will be our first time exploring the whole country. No one has been north of the southern region. I’m thrilled to see my mother’s village, my father’s hometown, and also explore the mountains where my father was held at a concentration camp for almost seven years after the war. Vietnam has gone through so much industrialization and cultural change in the last few decades; I’m sure we’re all bundles of apprehension, wonder, and excitement! Once I get back, I need to hit the ground running; no more travel for me for a while!

At the moment, I’m set up to re-attend school. I’m going back to finish up some pre-requisites for nursing school (that’ll take me a year as the anatomy & physiology portion is a 3-part series offered once a quarter--eww--and nursing programs typically last 2-3 years,so I’m looking at the next 3-5 years until I finish #lesigh) to get a second Bachelor’s degree. I know, I know. A second BS? Damn, gurl. You coulda saved yourself some moolah by getting it right the first time! But I don’t regret anything. I love nutrition, and studying it was a big source of joy. I’m rather scared as a twenty-something who likes to create, be in nature, and help people... I know there is an intersection there somewhere, but I’m having a hard time finding it. I’m pulled in three separate directions: pursuing nursing, pursuing environmental science (a passion that has been steadily growing since college), and forgetting academia for now and just working on a farm with nutrition and youth and nature... it’s all very romanticized and a total quarter life crisis. I’m wondering if nursing would open some doors for me to work with women and international settings (other huge passions of mine), perhaps in midwifery (to tie in the nutrition component), and in rural areas (to be more in settings that are more nature, less city... though I love the city and am I city grrrl at heart). The creative side will just be brushed onto my spare time, like it has been for the last decade lolol (but really doe...)

I’m in a transition mode right now, and “trusting the process” is hard when the process is scary af! But at the end of the day, I acknowledge it’s scary and daunting only because I’m reveling in my own fears of failure and self-doubt. Still, that doesn’t make it any less scary and confusing :(

I implore y’all to go forth and pursue what makes you smile. It’s hard to navigate that in this society and culture where we’re all so immersed in the sense of time and money and the pursuit of happiness. Hell, I’m hella guilty of that. Yoo-hoo, nursing? Financial stability but also rewarding profession. I’m worried about making the leap to go back to school as I’m not a spring chicken no more! I’m still young (Asians don’t raisin, holla!), but Peace Corps Ghana definitelyyy took at least two years off my total life expectancy haha Still gotta reiterate: no regrets there. I’m older and a lil’ wiser and a lot more grateful for my time on Earth and the space that I occupy. I’m taking this sharper perspective to do good on some of the things I talked about in previous posts:

I signed up for a novice swimming class (your girl is about to learn some life skillz!)

Attempting to live more minimally (donating a lot of my clothes)

Reaching out to old friends to reconnect; fostering friendships

Be more kind to my other Mother. Continually attempting to start a compost pile in the backyard, and I bought a pack of stainless steel straws as a first step

So that’s it for now. HMU if you’re ever in NorCal in the next few years and/or you want to continue creepin’ on me as I try to navigate this post-Peace Corps life on another blog hehe (there is a certain source of vanity and joy from taking about myself, whatever forever~)

#peacecorps #ghana #pcghana #rpcv #transition #trustheprocess #pizza #america #cultureshock #daria #podcasts #podcastaddiction #nursing #secondcareer #quarterlifecrisis #vietnam #happyfeet

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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From Hitchcock to Star Wars: What Makes a Great MacGuffin

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In the fall of 1939, director Alfred Hitchcock stood before Columbia University to tell a story we can only hope he invented. With a ruthless, dry delivery, Hitch spoke of two Scotsmen on a train. One of these fellows carried with him a mysterious package he says is a “MacGuffin.” When the other man asks what exactly is a MacGuffin, the carrier responds, “It’s an apparatus for trapping lions in the Scottish Highlands.” What an odd response, the other guy thinks. After all, there is no such thing as highland lions! When he points this out though, the MacGuffin’s owner says, “Well then, that’s no MacGuffin!”

It’s an amusing anecdote which is as circuitous as it appears pointless. But that very pointlessness was always the appeal for Hitch, who four years earlier popularized the storytelling term of a “MacGuffin” with his film The 39 Steps. In that movie, a man is mistaken for a spy and is constantly hounded for information about “the 39 Steps,” a mysterious object or piece of information worth killing over. Yet when the movie ends, the viewer is really no closer to learning what those 39 steps are. Or as Hitchcock told Columbia students in ‘39, “You see, that a MacGuffin is actually nothing at all!”

Even so, the storytelling tool has dominated our pop culture, from cinema to literature, for nearly a century since Hitchcock left the stage.

“The best MacGuffin is the one that 30 minutes after the movie is over, you have no idea what it was,” says Eddie Muller, the host of Turner Classic Movies’ Noir Alley. “To me, that represents the essence of the MacGuffin. It’s like you remember everything that happens in the story, but you have no idea what it was that they were after. ‘Like, what was that again? I can’t remember!’”

For Muller and fellow TCM host Ben Mankiewicz, what matters is the great chase through the train; not what the Scotsman is hiding in the box on it. Even so, distinguishing what actually constitutes a MacGuffin is something TCM hosts are thinking a lot about these days thanks to their network’s new Friday night series about some of the greatest MacGuffins in movie history. Last Friday, TCM aired Hitchcock’s groundbreaking The 39 Steps, as well as Psycho (1960) and North by Northwest (1959). This week, the series continues with The Maltese Falcon (1941), Casablanca (1942), and Citizen Kane (1941).

“I never really thought about [MacGuffins] ever, I must say, until getting to TCM and until we started talking about scripts,” Mankiewicz says to Muller and myself over a joint Zoom interview. Yet it’s also why he appreciates having Muller as a co-host (and occasional sparring partner), with the latter being intimately familiar with the narrative tools of the trade. For in addition to setting up shop in Noir Alley, Muller’s also a novelist, having authored The Distance (2002) and Shadow Boxer (2003).

“I write fiction, and we have these things that we always use,” Muller says. “The characters have to have a goal and there have to be obstacles; there has to be conflict. And when you write mystery fiction, there’s even more rules involved. Then there’s the red herring and there’s the whodunit. The MacGuffin is, by and large to me, part of that style of fiction.”

The emphasis on characters fighting over an object or prize of incredible importance to themselves, if not necessarily to the audience, is what facilitates some of the greatest thrillers and adventures in cinema. Hitchcock famously put uranium in wine bottles in Notorious (1946), but all anyone remembers about the ending of that movie is Cary Grant saving his fellow spy, Ingrid Bergman, from the Nazi house where the wine bottles are stored. Indeed, Mankiewicz muses that audiences may have gotten that MacGuffin confused with other Hitchcock spy thrillers.

“Is it uranium in wine bottles in Notorious and a microfilm with state secrets in North by Northwest or is it the other way around?” Mankiewicz ponders. “Really, it could be either in both.” Mankiewicz even argues one of the most famous MacGuffins in movie history is still essentially meaningless. John Huston’s The Maltese Falcon is credited by some as the kickoff of the Hollywood film noir movement, and in that picture everyone is lying and dying for the eponymous bird, an allegedly jewel-encrusted statuette of antiquity. But by the time the movie ends, the Maltese Falcon that’s accrued a high body count is discovered to be made of lead.

“Every time I see the movie, I’m struck by the end,” Mankiewicz says. “There’s no Maltese Falcon anywhere. No one’s stolen it from anybody … I’m like these poor sons of bitches, they got to roam the Earth, looking for this thing. Someone could have thrown it away or it never existed.”

Similarly, Michael Curtiz’s Casablanca pivots its entire World War II melodrama on something called “letters of transit,” documents so unassailable that even Nazis will respect their authority and let French freedom fighters travel with them unmolested.

“No such thing exists!” Muller laughs. “That’s why that’s such a good MacGuffin, because it’s all BS.”

Mankiewicz agrees, “Somebody [in the movie] says, ‘The letters of transit cannot be rescinded.’ And I’m like the Nazis were taking over the world, and they’re going to be like, ‘Oh man, you got the letters of transit?! We gotta let them on the plane. Dammit!’” Yet the bit of screenwriting balderdash allowed one of the greatest romantic dramas in movie history to play out in front of an impatient plane propeller.

All that said, both men are apprehensive about the term MacGuffin getting thrown around too liberally.

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“I hadn’t really thought about the MacGuffins until TCM came up with this idea,” Muller says. “I hadn’t thought about it in years and years, and now I curse this series because I am watching every movie and thinking somebody’s going to call this a MacGuffin.” Both are even circumspect about several of the movies in the series that TCM has deemed prime examples of MacGuffins.

For example, Citizen Kane has one of the greatest mysteries in the movies, with the search for the meaning of “Rosebud,” the final word uttered by Orson Welles’ Charles Foster Kane in the movie’s opening moments. Yet Ben Mankiewicz, whose own grandfather Herman J. Mankiewicz wrote the vast majority of Citizen Kane, including “Rosebud,” is hesitant to include that as a classic example.

“When you Google ‘MacGuffins,’ you see ‘Rosebud’ is there from Citizen Kane,” Ben Mankiewicz says, “but neither Eddie nor I think of that as a true MacGuffin. I guess in some sense it is, but it is also the [thing] the audience cares about, and it tells you everything you need to know about the lead character in the final frame of the picture…. If you’re calling the MacGuffin the thing that motivates the lead character in every movie, well, I mean, there’s a MacGuffin in every movie then.”

Muller also has skepticism toward the inclusion of Hitchcock’s own Psycho. While that movie opens with heavy emphasis on a bundle of $40,000—only for it to wind up at the bottom of a swamp after impulsive thief Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) is murdered in the shower—for Muller that does not make it a true MacGuffin.

“I consider that a red herring,” Muller says. “It is splitting things in a fine way here, but it is something that triggers the action, and then about 40 minutes in, who cares about the money? But it’s really interesting the way Hitchcock understands certain people in the audience are going to always ask that question. ‘But what about the money?’ Because it’s $40,000, so there are those shots where it’s like the envelope with the cash in it, and in the newspaper. Hitchcock is like, ‘Yeah, let’s hold on that for a second, because somebody is going to care about it.’”

That nagging care is the problem for Mankiewicz, who also prefers the MacGuffin to be almost an abstraction.

“Money is tangible,” Mankiewicz says, “it’s something we know. Everybody knows what $40,000 is and what it means, and it’s a crime she’s committed, and she’s either going to go to prison or she’s going to have a life on the run.”

But that distinction of how important a MacGuffin needs to be to the audience is something filmmakers and storytellers have interrogated with each generation. In the complete inverse of Hitchcock, George Lucas famously argued that the MacGuffin is something audiences should care about almost as much as the heroes and villains. Hence why the first Indiana Jones movie is named after its MacGuffin with the title Raiders of the Lost Ark. Mankiewicz acknowledges this evolution.

“Part of the fun of this is that there’s no science to it,” Mankiewicz says. “So to me, the plans for the Death Star, they’re the MacGuffin in Star Wars until the point where an entire planet and millions of people or living beings are incinerated. Then it stops being a MacGuffin; it becomes a massive weapon of war! It tells you, ‘Holly shit, they weren’t kidding around!’”

That dueling impulse continues in modern cinema—it flourishes, even, with the ascension of superhero movies. But then that also has literary roots.

“I remember paying my 12 cents to buy Marvel Comics back in the day,” Muller says, “and they were filled with MacGuffins… In comic books, the MacGuffin’s always whatever the villain needs to possess in order to fulfill his plans for world domination. And I guess it’s the same way in Hitchcock, right? Isn’t that what James Mason was doing in North by Northwest? I need this to fulfill my goal of world domination?”

It’s quite the line between Mason’s microfilm and Thanos’ magic stones in Avengers: Infinity War. Nevertheless, it’s a straight one. Mankiewicz similarly notes that the Marvel movies of today can have great writers who know the craft, especially when the better Marvel movies lean into their humor.

Says Mankiewicz, “Iron Man, to me, remains one of the great movies of the first part of the century and I loved it to death. I stopped feeling that way later.” After a laugh he adds, “The fact is I don’t know that the MacGuffin has changed, we just talk about it differently.”

At the end of the day, it remains a writer’s tool to set action in motion. If a story is told well enough, audiences should care that their characters care—or at least the audience will care about how good the characters look while chasing it.

“I don’t think the MacGuffin is ever the exclamation point at the end of the movie,” Muller says. “In Citizen Kane, the revelation of Rosebud is an exclamation point, and nobody’s going to forget it when they leave the theater. At the end of North by Northwest, you’re talking about Cary Grant hanging off Mount Rushmore, you’re talking about the incredibly sexy scenes on the train. You’re not talking about what it was everybody was after, because you’ve forgotten it five minutes after you’ve seen the movie.”

Adds Mankiewicz, “To me, the MacGuffin is the dash. It leads to a big thing.” You just shouldn’t spend too much time pausing for emphasis on it.

TCM’s MacGuffin series concludes on Friday, March 12, beginning with The Maltese Falcon at 8 pm.

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