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a-little-revolution · 2 years

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// rating Little characters in film //

Since I enjoyed rating Little characters in animation so much, I thought I'd rate and discuss some Little characters in live action films! (These are in no particular order, nor does this list begin to be all encompassing) Here are some of my thoughts on various Little characters that come most to mind:

Lemon, Penelope (2006)

10/10

To me Lemon is a great example of naturally including someone with dwarfism in a film - he isn't belittled for his disability, and his roll feels very organic. He may not be the most likeable character, but he's taken seriously and goes through development throughout the film.

Ma Petite, American Horror Story (2011)

-10/10

Purchased for three cases of Dr. Pepper and treated as a doll by all member's of the circus, Ma Petite is an excellent example of dwarfism enslavement without revolt.

It was unsurprising in a season titled "Freak Show", in a genre with a history of horrifying and mystifying people with disabilities, but I really wished for better from a 21st century series - but then again AHS is crawling with problems when it comes to marginalized communities.

Alex Radziwill, Bones (2005-2017)

10/10

Alex is a character I find to often be forgotten, but he's probably one of my favorite characters with dwarfism to date.

The show gets a little iffy when the episode regarding "m*dget wrestling" comes around, but Alex is consistently respected in his field and by the main characters. His roll is minor but I loved seeing him naturally integrated into the world.

Mini Me, Austin Powers (1997-2002)

-100/10

First to be given this low a score, the character Mini Me is one I hate the most, not only for it's heinous representation but for it's staying power within pop culture.

He's an A+ example of pet culture within dwarf history. He is dehumanized and owned as property, abused, and made a mockery of constantly.

Not only that, but being that the Austin Powers series is so popular, the Mini Me character became a point of reference for many abled folk when it came to people with dwarfism.

This character nearly single-handedly influenced the way I was treated by my peers throughout childhood.

Oompa-Loompas, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1971, 2005)

-100/10

Like Austin Powers' Mini Me, the oompa-loompas of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory have had a major staying power in the world of dwarf representation. The popularity of these characters have been used as a tool for harassment in the real world - representation matters y'all.

The Oompa-Loompas are one denominational characters, owned and enslaved by Mr. Wonka under the guise of mutual benefit - a phenomenon not dissimilar to the "m*dget villages" and tiny towns of the 60s and 70s.

The Seven Dwarfs, Mirror Mirror (2012)

5/10

I have mixed views of this particular rendition, since despite it's terrible subject material (being the classic group of one dimensional and comical small men) it actually takes a refreshingly positive approach to the Seven Dwarfs.

In this version, members Grimm, Napoleon, Butcher, Wolfie, Chuck, Grubb, and Half Pint are all named after the rolls they filled in their village before being outcast by the queen ("banish the uglies" - she decreed). They are full characters with back stories and personalities, and play a far more crucial roll in this rendition. We even see them achieve their various life goals as the credits roll.

They did, however, require an act of heroism and Snow White's use of privilege to regain their place in society.

Overall it's easily my favorite reenactment, but the bar wasn't exactly high to begin with.

Marty, Pirates of the Caribbean (2003-2017)

3/10

The anarchist in me absolutely loved seeing a little person as a member of a rebel pirate crew, but overall I don't have strong feelings any which way about this particular character, which is disappointing.

Aside from being not overly interesting, the most memorable scene from Marty is when he gets knocked back after firing a small canon - which was obviously a joke at his stature

Willow, Willow (1988)

11/10

I've spoken about this film before, but I honestly can't boost it enough. It has a huge Little cast, and was able to truly humanize it's village of little people in such a wholesome and human way which I absolutely loved.

Willow's is that of a hero's journey - he embarks on a grand quest despite the doubts of his peers and succeeds! He has a wife and children and a roll in his community, just overall a wonderfully lovable character.

I hope to do a part two soon since this just scratches the surface of Little rolls, so if you have any characters you'd like me to review please send them my way!!

-Elliot (they/them)

#dwarfism in film #dwarfism in media #dwarfism awareness #disability #disability representation #representation #dwarfism #little people #disability awareness #social justice

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lastwave · 8 months

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Hello, if you have the energy, time and will, would you expand on the recent post you made on how people in fandom talk about the skills and how harry feels about them? Like, what kind of things people say are hurtful/inaccurate/uncomfortable, in relation to disco elysium?

I do not mean to pressure you to educate me on this topic, as it is not the responsibility of the affected to educate unknowing people just because they are affected, of course. I just have not found many sources discussing the microaggression regarding the way some people talk about the skillset in disco elysium and the way that they might differ from the general microsaggression about psychosis and systems.

I ask this because I am curious about the way other people experience the world (though I know I will not always get my curiosity sated and this might be a selfish reason) and I want to know what not to do or say in talks about the skillset or in depictions of the skillset in art or writing. I want to be able to discuss and use the skillset as a game mechanic, narrative device and characters in a way that minimizes harm to marginalized groups. I also know that venting or talking about frustrations can sometimes help make one feel better, (but I also know that that depends on the person, problem and the relationship between the venter and the person listening) so maybe this can help relieve some feelings? Those are my intentions with this ask.

I apologize if my careful wording is too overly careful or if this question in other ways causes you unnecessary strife. I just try to be a careful person when it comes to these topics. If you'd rather only respond to me personally instead of the ask, feel free to message me. Whatever way you wanna handle this, if it be publicly as a post, a private message or if you do not feel like you want to answer at all.

Whatever you choose, I wish you the best day that you can have today. Kind regards, Chromatophorium

hiii thank u for asking!

im gonna preface the system bit with whether or not harry & his skills are a system is never explicitly stated, so take this all with a grain of salt

the rest is under the readmore so i don't clog up peoples dashboards

so what gets me is a lot of works imply the skills are less as people than Harry. i understand where the assumption comes from tho, because a lot of media likes to purport the idea of an "original" alter, which isn't how the disorder works. harry is the current host, and he identifies with the body, but the host isn't any more or less person than the other alters.

& we know the skills have independent thought from harry and their own, even if some (or a lot) of them share similar goals (see electrochemistry and volition, two very different personalities w/ different thoughts on how to go about things, but share a goal of keeping the system experiencing joy, though echem has considerably worse coping mechanisms). hell, they even have different political affiliations (see different routes) and a method of coming to a consensus on information (thought cabinet.)

and, as implied in the name, the skills have different talents from harry. *harry's* talent is connecting with people. i interpret the red checks with other skills as trying to let another alter front. i know ive had moments where i've had to let a way more socially adept alter take over. this would be a slightly different conversation if he was implied to be polyfragmented, but hes not soo.

that's why im less inclined to believe theyre a delusion or supernatural thing (shivers excluded, shes definitely supernatural), bc on the most part the skills just act like people, and all display signs of did/osdd (amnesia, distinct personalities, dissociation, etc.) if u want i can make a separate post going into individual skills and how i think they fit how certain alters form, but thats off topic

ANYWAY. it irks me when people boil the skills down to "this is the one that wants good things and this is the one that wants silly things and this is the one that wants bad things" bc it really falls easily into the negative stereotypes applied to systems & by extension psychotic people

#morris #hugh txt #disco elysium

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hero-israel · 9 months

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In defense of anti-Israel people, it doesn't seem the fairest to consider any of their political art to be antisemitic for showing the Star of David in a negative light (such as censoring, breaking, being stabbed, etc) when that *is* the only symbol for the State (save for stripes, which I've seen represented too but less). How else are they supposed to criticize it visually? You can only use Netanyahu as a strawman so many times. The institutional and historical issues are more extensive than him or anyone like him. The recent branding with the Star of David of a Palestinian by an Israeli cop (assuming that's true, which looks like it as far as I can tell) shows the symbol can be used for evil. We should maybe make some exceptions to what we might otherwise consider antisemitic. I'm reminded of a graphic novel I read called "Dictatorship: It's Easier Than You Think", which mostly sarcastically criticized and compared various historical regimes. I felt it was a little too biased in a lot of ways, but it made one point I find relevant here. It said that populist ideologies create symbols that represent large swathes of marginalized people so if you criticize that ideology you can be framed for being prejudiced. It talked about how the communist/Soviet symbol was hammer and sickle, representing workers, so if you opposed communism/Soviet Union/etc., they could just say you were classist. (I personally have more sympathy for communism/Soviet Union so I somewhat disagree but I believe you said you're more anti-communist than I am so this might be more agreeable to you). To pull this back to my main point, maybe it isn't fair to have a historically violent nation be able to always have the ability to attribute criticism of it to one of the world's oldest bigotries? Don't get me wrong, I am a Zionist and I do think there's value in Israel asserting itself as Jewish and representing Jews. Enough Jews get associated with Israel by antisemites when they have no affiliation with it or even oppose it, so there's not much real value in trying to separate. And I do believe criticism of Israel and Zionism crosses over into antisemitism more than critics would like to admit. But I'm just making a point about iconography here. I half-wish that Israel went with one of the earlier flag designs of the Menorah or Lion so iconography could be more clear-cut. But maybe it shouldn't be.

A few thoughts on this:

The menorah would be functionally identical to the Magen David in terms of potentially causing confusion / inspiring hate from critique. The lion just isn't as good, though YMMV

It isn't hard for cartoonists to caricature political leaders like Netanyahu, it is in fact their job, if you can call it that.

if someone can draw a Magen David, they can draw it in blue and put in the stripes to remove all doubt that they mean the modern political entity and not the human ethnic group / religion

I don't recall seeing as much specifically blood- and killing-oriented imagery around Muslim crescents. The flag of Pakistan has the crescent on it, people making a cartoon criticizing Pakistan would hopefully not leap to showing the crescent as a knife beheading someone

All things are not equal and the political artists just have to cope with that and work a little harder. It does make a difference that Jews are a persecuted, frequently-genocided group controlling such a tiny land area. If the hammer-and-sickle was only used as the flag symbol of North Korea, which was the only Korean country, and most ethnic Koreans lived there after having been wiped out everywhere else, maybe people would have to be more careful with how they negatively portrayed that symbol.

to reiterate point 1 - it is good that artists and activists should be expected to work hard to avoid bigotry in their critiques

#zionism #anti-zionism #israel #judaism #antisemitism #jumblr

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placetneplacet · 2 years

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On Translation

Translation is an art.

When fans give of their time and language and their knowledge that is a gift and a piece of art that they are sharing with other fans.

We are not entitled to art. Not all art is for us. If something was written, spoken, sung, performed in a language we do not speak, it doesn’t matter how much we would like access to it, we are not entitled to it.

That’s not how art works.

I am a relative BL newbie. I just came in under the wire pre lockdown, so I’ve had the advantage of most of the BL released being provided in my language. I’ve only had to watch a few fan subbed projects and I was very grateful for those fans who chose to share that, but I know that if they had not or if I had simply not been able to find the fansubs, I was not entitled to see those series simply because I wanted to see them.

All of this is to draw the distinction, that I do understand that I’m not entitled to art that is not for me, but what’s happening with War of Y is different.

Translation is an art.

A good translation elevates the work that it translates. We saw this with Secret Crush on You.

Secret Crush on You was largely ignored and lambasted when it was first released. Many people were choosing not to watch the show because of the way Toh’s character was perceived. Many were turned off by the “cringe” and a humor they did not share. And then something happened.

Those who had turned the show away began to hear about the story the show was telling. A story about the marginalized and the outcasts of the BL world. They heard about Daisy. But they also heard about The Scene.

The beautiful gorgeous scene where Touch gently and beautifully embraced all of Daisy’s gender expression and proceeded to make it known that Touch wanted to pursue Daisy. That scene was made available to the international audience via translation. A less determined translating team would have gone literal and maybe the audience who longed for a character like Daisy would never have tuned into Secret Crush on You, it would have been a loss. However because of the art of translation we were gifted that scene.

Sometimes translation gets in the way or distracts from the emotion of scene, see any of the number of “censored” lines in KinnPorsche.

Translation is an art.

It is not always perfect. It doesn’t always add the context necessary.

War of Y is marketing itself to the international audience, it is selling itself to the international audience. It claims to be providing access to that audience through translation and it is simply untrue at this point.

War of Y is about the BL world and as we the BL corner of the site know, the BL world is a largely online world. It is a World populated by social media. War of Y knows that the world that they are telling a story about is a world that partially exists online, which is why so much of the show is presented through social media and texts. It’s important, it makes sense that the story be told that way.

However, if the series is not going to translate the social media and texts, then the story will simply remain, at least partially, inaccessible to an audience that it is marketing and selling itself to.

I find that frustrating and sad, because it’s a story that I do want access to and that I am willing (and have been) paying for access to, but I am not receiving it.

I don’t really know what to do at this point. I think it’s ridiculous and wrong to expect fansubbers to translate a show that’s being sold to an international audience, but I know if the fansubbers don’t do that work the international audience (including myself) will never be able to understand the scope of the story War of Y is telling.

I wish I could experience the fullness of this story. I’m sad that I can’t and I don’t know how long I want to continue watching just a piece of it.

#war of y #war of y the series #this is one of those had to get it out posts #I hope the tone is clear #I think it’s ok to ask for this #I think there should be a way to ask for it #but I’m feeling a little bit defeated #especially because I know that it’s totally within their power to provide #we see it in BL all the time #anyway #sorry for the negativity

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thegirlmirage · 5 months

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I look up to all trans women. But finding queer heroes can be tricky to navigate because fame is inherently poisonous, and a lot of the way discourse is shaped online it's very easy to condemn people.

I myself suffered from a broad attack from a community I was in that started with me speaking out about being misgendered and mistreated, and it got turned into "well don't believe Rose because she's a bad trans person we have trans friends to prove it."

And I've ran into this issue with trying to identify with other known trans content creators. There will come places (especially with whiteness and wealth) where criticism of those privileges becomes ignored. It would be easy to say that they're resistant to criticism because of always being criticised but I think that it just comes down to not knowing and not feeling like they need to know better, which is how those privileges behave anyway.

To me, my oppression has always linked me to other oppressed people. The poor and the embattled and the weird and ostracized will always be my family more than someone with it all figured out. There is a social cost to thinking like this.

So I end up feeling quite disconnected to some trans people. Perhaps it's foolish for me to expect just because someone has overcome the brutal imperialsm that keeps us from feeling safe to be ourselves, that they would be able to see the other oppressive junctors in the world and act accordingly.

Bringing it back to condemnation, any personality online will at some point have to deal with a snap group judgement, and for marginalised people this is often constant, scaling with intersectional marginalizations. People who have survived this world may struggle to fit with a society that demands adherence to stricter social rules, especially because we are here because we survived. We are often quite badly harmed by what we've been through, and we will struggle often to fit a narrow view of what's considered expected behavior. We are human. We won't have perfect responses, we can be wrong. It's therefore easy for us to suffer more when the judgement arrives.

If I'm looking for someone trans to admire, it's not uncommon for me to hear why it's not a good choice. And there are legitimate reasons to question them, because of course, fame is evil, it's more a miracle that people come out of it balanced at all, but also there is tighter judgement on those people for their marginalization such as being trans.

So it leaves me with this feeling almost, like I can't trust my own kind. If I'm following blogs are they inclusive of other ethnicities? Do they believe in fat liberation? Would they look on an unfortunate person with compassion or indifference?

So I have to temper my feelings of admiration. I have to remind myself that realistically, placing anyone on a pedestal is dangerous. I have to deal with my disappointment that trans women are just human too, they're not just angels. They shouldn't need to be exceptional to be worthy of my praise.

But it's more complicated than that. Certainly putting even more pressure on trans women to behave better is just more of the same. I think about how rife eating disorders are among us and how even with my most femine looks I do not feel I am girl enough societally to do things like buy groceries.

And we do need uplifting too. I had been in such a gender euphoria haze that once things settled I was horrified by just the extent of my mental health when times weren't in boom. So we do need someone to see our qualities and praise them, and to love and adore them not in spite of what we are but because of who we are. But I think that person is me.

I wish of course that every trans person would rush to embrace me and we would see eye to eye and celebrate our joint survival but... not everyone wants to do that. For all the thousands of images of celebrating skinny trans women with 3 wives doing DJ sets there's so many more people who are just desperately trying to fit their gender into the world they already have. People who might not seem exceptional or have big projects to their names.

I think about how I was regarded when I didn't have HRT. I passed zero percent. I thought I was ugly and I couldn't see how I could possibly change anything about that. And I think there's a tendancy for queer spaces to sometimes even outright reject people like that, especially if they subscribe to any ideas about being anti what they perceive to be men.

It's those girls who need the princess treatment. It's they who we should be elevating and celebrating and caring for.

#transgender #trans discourse #trans heroes #trans judgement

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greatwyrmgold · 1 year

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I've been thinking about this classic tweet.

Now, this tweet is wrong on the face of it: People will say "So you hate waffles?" on plenty of other websites. Some people will even say that kind of thing in person!

And to give "You Hate Waffles" crowd what credit they're due, sometimes people talk about pancakes as a way to comment on waffles. It's only a small step from "I like pancakes" to "Pancakes are the best breakfast food," which in turn implies "People who like waffles are wrong".

Taking further steps to something like "Waffle-lovers are moral degenerates who need to be re-educated for their good and the good of society" sounds absurd when we're talking about breakfast food, but a bit less so if we're talking about—for instance—LGBTQIA+ people. Straight Pride is theoretically saying "I like pancakes," but context clues indicate that it's a movement that hate waffles.

Now, to make it clear how little credit the YHW crowd deserves...sometimes people just like pancakes. There's nothing inherently wrong with being cishet, or even with being glad you are. Some of my best friends are cishets! Saying "I like pancakes," or even "Pancakes are the best," is not an effective diagnosis for wafflephobia. You need something more specific to separate waffle haters from milquetoast pancake fans.

(Also: Not all waffle-haters are worth flipping out at. If someone is praising SAO to mock Chainsaw Man, why should anyone care?)

Now, why should anyone care about the YHW crowd? YHW is dumb, but it's easy to identify and ignore. And it's not even particularly mainstream; it's only as prominent as it is because social media websites encourage and promote anything that makes people want to engage with it (often by being so absurd that you want to get mad at or make fun of it). This both makes people more likely to do whatever gets more engagement and makes sure people see it (regardless of how typical that stuff is).

Why is YHW worth spending any mental energy on? Because lots of people think it's mainstream, which pollutes internet discourse in general.

Let's again take the "waffles" in "You Hate Waffles" as a metaphor for some marginalized group. How often have you seen someone say some pancake supremacist dog-whistle, get called out about it, and then claim they were just saying they like pancakes? There's nothing wafflephobic about just liking pancakes!

Sure, people who know all the relevant context will be able to recognize this as bullshit, but most people won't. Some will see some guy talking about how pancakes are the best without knowing the relevant dog-whistles, and many more won't even see the dog-whistle before they see the "I just like pancakes!" defense (or hear about the guy who "got cancelled" for liking pancakes).

In a better world, people would look at that kind of exchange and go "That's ridiculous. Hardly anyone would assume that someone hates waffles just because they say they like pancakes." They might look into the context, or they might dismiss the defense as ridiculous. But we don't live in that world. We live in a world where the line "So you hate waffles?" is recognizable shorthand for a rhetorical style which is assumed to be common—omnipresent, even.

Therefore, when people see someone insist they just like pancakes, there's this pre-existing YHW narrative that they can slap onto the situation. One which bypasses the fact that people who genuinely think waffle-lovers should be forcibly re-educated are usually smart enough to not directly say so.

...I wish I had some positive conclusion. Like, something we can do to make that problem not a problem. But I don't; I've been thinking about that tweet, but that just lets me see the problem's scope. Even if we restructured all social media sites to stop promoting inflammatory posts, we'd still have personal habits and online culture built around an attention economy which rewards that absurdity; even if we didn't have that, the YHW narrative is already established enough in the cultural consciousness that people can use it to cover up all but the most explicit bigotry.

I guess...don't buy an "I just said I like pancakes" defense without a second thought?

#twitter #social media #online discourse #politics #random thoughts

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teamfreewill2pointo · 2 years

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Ok, honest question, and please don’t call me homophobic, but why are 90% of the shippers SO invested in seeing Dean/Jensen hooked up with another man, are in fact hetero or gay women? Never realized so many women were turned on by gay men. Especially, gay women. Is this a thing?

This is a great question and I love these discussions. Sometimes the "women" in question are exploring their gender identities and come to realize that they aren't cis. However, it's super common for cis women to enjoy real or imaged queer male romance and sexual relationship.

It's existed in fandom as long as fandom has been around. Before the internet, women were exchanging print media about Spock/Kirk. It's also cross cultural. For example, Yaoi/Boy's Love is a genre of media about men in same-sex relationships.

In an interview with a famous scifi writer, Mariko Ohara says,

As for me, I started writing yaoi, not as an imitation of others, but as a narrative (in those days, we called this kind of fiction simply the homosexual novel) necessary for the description of sexual love in my imagination. Probably I was not able to enjoy the conventional pornography, which had been made for men; I feel impatient with its patriarchal form. This is why I could not help but produce a new style of sexual love. And I was not the only one who thought this way. It is the female imperative that produced yaoi fiction in Japan and other countries simultaneously.

She wrote Kirk/Spock as a way to explore herself and the world around her.

There are some queer men who see this fascination as no different than straight men who enjoy lesbian porn. Just as most lesbian porn is made by men for men and is rarely seen as authentic by actual lesbians, so it is for a lot of content produced about queer men in fandom.

This article talks about how a woman admitted to enjoying gay porn on tiktok and was harassed for it. The article notes that women represent more than 1/3 of the views on Pornhub's gay male videos.

Lots of different theories have emerged as to why this exists. The article notes

[T]he majority of heterosexual porn is created by men, for men, and is therefore not reflective of female desire. In turn, these women resort to watching porn created for a demographic that’s been similarly marginalized, since gay men, too, have historically had their desires ignored and their representation in erotic texts co-opted.

...Dr. Lucy Neville has interviewed more than 500 women over five years on this very subject. In her research for the book, Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys: Women and Gay Male Pornography and Erotica, Neville found that, similar to what Layla, Kirah and other likeminded women shared with me, women’s reasoning for liking gay porn was more about what they didn’t like about straight porn than what they enjoyed about gay male porn.

Since fandom is often composed of women, especially queer women, women feel more free to share their sexual desires.

What's more, often people kink on what they fear. Tumblr's fandometrics showed that fandom leans left. If you look at A/B/O, which was created in the Supernatural fandom, it's basically kinking on the patriarchy. By using male characters and subjecting men to extreme patriarchy, it can be easier to enjoy the story as a fantasy.

Wish I could dive into this topic more, but it's huge to the point where multiple books have been written on the subject and there's lots of essays and studies examining the subject.

#fandom #fandom history #queer #slash shipping

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type1cyclingdan · 9 months

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Consistency is Key

I have already written this once but it disappeared when I saved it 😥

You Can have the best plans in the world but without consistency, it will mean nothing you will never reach your full potential.

I can count on one hand how many sessions I have missed this year due to illness or other commitments. Now finally I am starting to see the benefits of this consistency with how I am riding especially over the last week with some really solid sessions completed.

Now I need to get really consistent with my diet as this is a major gain that I can make in my performance I am currently just under 84kg and should be around 73-75kg. This will massively help me with my overall speed on the bike and my health.

My FTP which is the power that I am able to put out on the bike for around an hour is currently sitting around 300 watts, but likely to be a bit more as I have not done a test for a while. I was a fair bit higher than this 3 years ago before all the injuries and then diabetes hitting me and I honestly believe that I can get back to that and better if I can stay consistent and lose the weight that I need to lose.

Where I struggle most to stay on top of my diet is when I work away I spend a lot of time in Premier Inns which means Table Table or Beefeater restaurants, and for someone that has a plant-based diet this is not ideal as the menus are in all honesty rubbish.

The options that I have are a Vegan burger that is probably more processed than a McDonald's burger and is around 1400 calories before anything else is on the plate. Then there is a mushroom BBQ stack again 1200 calories all in and I am not really a fan of mushrooms. I would complain to Premier Inn however I doubt that they would do anything, so I have bought myself an Air Fryer so I can cook my own food in the hotel room or at the site that I am visiting.

This, I believe, is going to make all of the difference and be the marginal gain that I need to push my performance to the next level. I will be able to roast veg and jacket potatoes and anything else that I can think of, stop me from buying any food that I should not be eating.

The Masters National Crit Championships happened yesterday at Darley Moor, I was going to enter and actually wish I had now because there were people in that race that I know that I could have hung with that finished in the bunch. That is a lesson learned. Just do it next time, even if it is just for the experience.

I have 3 races left planned, which I am treating as training races and training throughout without resting/tapering for them. I will use them for mainly trying out new tactics with no expectations of winning, as the pressure is now off and I have my CAT 3 licence.

Diabetes wise, it has been a bit strange again where I have not really been having to take any insulin with food, and my levels have been dropping at night meaning I have been back to limited sleep and where it happens so often I am kind of pre-empting it so I wake up around the times that my low levels alarm goes off.

That is where the rest of my performance jump will come if I can get my sleep and recovery dialled in. It will all add up to some really big gains, and I will be flying and well on the way to achieving my goals for next year.

Anyway you beautiful humans, dream big, keep trying never give up and alway believe that you can achieve.

#believeandachieve #giantpropeladvancedpro1 #keeptryingnevergiveup #wegoagain #giant #giantbikes #giantpropel #type one diabetic #typeonewarrior #inflitetypeone

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searching-for-synpathy · 1 year

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I’m supposed to be working, but how could I work when everything is coming to an end like this? I’m sitting on the grass and the sun is shining and it’s finally a lovely day, and I still feel like everything is being swallowed up by an eternal doom. I only have so many days left here and as much as I am At Peace about it I’m spending them feeling like a ghost. I drift through this campus which I do love, and I watch people interact and I finally feel happy rather than jealous for them, and I might see someone I know and wave, and then I drift somewhere else and open up my laptop and quietly sit and worry and sigh and look at the sun and clouds. I believe I have things to share with people. I believe I can be a good person and a good friend. I’m not sure why I haven’t gotten the chance to really explore that yet. Yes, I am more unbending than some people. But I’m loyal, and straightforward, and I think I even have some interesting passions and ideas. I just want people to share those things with. And, obviously, selfishly, humanly, I want a place to put my own hurt, too, as well as my joys. Am I really so on the outside? Is this just a weird quirk of my life story that God wrote in the fact that I would be a wanderer for so much of my life? At least I’m saying “wanderer” now rather than “outcast;” perhaps it’s a journey. A long and slow journey. And this is one place I will sit and think about it; and there will be another place; and another and another. And I will have the same thoughts at different times and places and hopefully I will be able to look back at myself and say, it’s okay. you’re doing good. you’re doing the things that made things just a tiny, little bit better for me. And that’s what I keep going for. Even when things seem doomed. Even when I drift through and feel invisible, and even when I feel like people let me down and toss me to the margins of their lives, and even when I don’t and can’t understand why. I was insulted yesterday by someone I thought I might be able to trust for the rest of my life. It wasn’t a big insult and I understand why it was said but it has been knocking around my brain all day, forming a deep circular groove in the dirt of my brain. I keep thinking, was it me? did i bring it on myself? do I deserve it in return for my own guilty actions? is this karmic punishment? am i overly sensitive? do I need to trust and let it go? I’m leaning towards no for the first several questions and yes for the last two, because that’s just how life is. All the same I wish I could return to that child’s fantasy where nothing and no-one will ever hurt you, insult you, and toss you aside. I am a sensitive person and I try to make space for that. I’m a sensitive person because I’ve seen the horrors that resentment, entitlement and callousness can cause and I would rather be a ghost than go through that. And anyway. I’m trying to trust and love myself without writing off the possibility of support like I did in the past. I’m trying to nurse my wounds while still opening them up to the outside world and that’s hard. It’s not something I do. But I can try for me. And someday I will be like the people I see.

#adrian.txt #introspective #it's getting cold so I'm going inside

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busstamp3 · 2 years

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of-foolish-and-wise · 3 years

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a uni survival guide: tips from a phd

if there's one thing i know about, it's college. i've done it, i've taught it, i've lived and breathed it. these tips are for first years in particular, but honestly for everybody. i think it's so important for people to have balanced lives in these years -- academics are not everything. you know what didn't help me in the real world when i was afraid i wouldn't live through it? my fancy college note-taking format. you know what did help me? the friends i made there who i knew would get on a plane and fly across the country in a matter of hours if i told them i needed them.

academic

- figure out where class is held ahead of time: don't be that kid who's late on day one, i beg of you

- use the writing center: especially for basic grammatical editing, which a lot of professors don't have time to mark on papers

- speak up in class: talking through ideas helps you work through them, and asking questions about something you don't understand can open up great lines of conversation

- find a regular schedule that works for you and stick to it: my college schedule was morning free time, class, lunch, class, practice, homework. that consistency was a life-saver

- keep a planner: it's so important to have a central place to track deadlines, assignments, and engagements

- annotate your reading: when you're stressing about a paper topic, being able to go back to what you've highlighted and written in the margins is a life-saver

- color-code your coursework: i use the same color highlighter, pen, and notebook for any given class. it's super helpful

- if you can't focus while studying with friends, don't: i reserved group studying for days when i didn't have important work because i can't be in a room with other people without talking to them. if your school has one, the quiet floor of the library is your best friend

- treat yourself to a "fun" class: art was always my place to just sit back and chill, a way to end the night all zen in the darkroom instead of conjugating russian verbs in a fluorescent-lit cinderblock prison. for you, it could be gym, it could be pottery, it could be some random course about, like, the history of cooking or something -- explore!

- profs are people too: don't be too nervous around them. also, know that if you're struggling -- even b/c of something in your personal life -- you can admit it, and they'll almost always understand why you missed a deadline or bombed a test

- go to office hours: it's the only way to get to know professors in big courses, and it's so helpful for both your grades and learning how to navigate relationships with authority figures

social

- don't let academia keep you from your friends: it's a case-by-case basis, but sometimes it's okay to let the reading slide and spend time with friends. i graduated seven years ago and my college group text still talks every day. that's so much more important to me than the fact that i never finished brideshead revisited

- joining a club is one of the best ways to make friends: i played ultimate frisbee through college and it was the source of so many lasting relationships, as well as the way i met all my local friends when i was abroad

- say yes to things you don't know if you'll like: you'll surprise yourself. me? turns out i love drinking games. and theme parties. and skinny dipping. and rock climbing

- don't be that person who looks down on their peers for partying: honestly? that person kind of sucks. you don't have to party if you don't want to, but actually, a lot of those people are super nice and also good at school -- don't just write them off!

- show up for your friends: go to their games, their concerts, their art shows, their standup nights. show them that what matters to them matters to you, too

- set aside a night to do a group activity with others: whether your vibe is wednesday night trivia, a weekly "terrible movie" showing, or a get-high-and-watch-nature-documentaries-type thing, these are great ways to liven up the week and de-stress

- this is a great time to figure out who from high school really matters to you: you don't have to force relationships that were built mostly on convenience if there are friends at uni with whom you click more. people you became friends with purely based on the coincidence of where your parents lived do not have to be your forever friends. they can be! but they don't have to be

personal

- don't expect too much of yourself: a 4.0 is not the end-all, be-all. if your family or somebody tells you it is, tell them to call me, and i will personally talk some sense into them

- take advantage of university support services: mental health counseling, free yoga classes, multi-cultural societies, etc

- drink water: please, please don't get kidney stones in the middle of the semester, says the girl who got kidney stones in the middle of the semester

- let yourself take breaks: if you need to lie to a professor and say you're sick when really you're just feeling down and you need to sit in bed and watch a movie, that's totally valid

- don't freak about individual assignments: my students come to me freaking over a B+ and i tell them, honey, no job interviewer is ever going to ask you about your second paper from communications 101. i wish i'd known that

- go see speakers if there's someone interesting coming to campus: these talks are always cooler than you expect. i'll never get over the fact that i didn't go see anita hill when she came to my undergrad

- do your laundry on the same night every week: i can't explain why this is so helpful but it really is

- keep up on the news and the memes: read the school paper, the school blog, the memes page -- college politics and inside jokes are fun and convoluted and fascinating

- set the groundwork for long-term self-care: all of the above is really just to say -- university isn't just for learning about the french revolution, it's also about learning how to balance, how to handle failure, how to ask for help, how to make a salad that doesn't totally suck, etc

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mercy-burning · 3 years

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Affection

Pairing: Spencer Reid x fem!Reader Summary: Spencer and Y/N decidedly hate each other. But when a near-death experience puts one of them in a coma, their mutual hatred might have to take a backseat— Or will it? Category: Angst / Happy Ending! + Humor and a lil bit of Fluff Content: Strong language, Reader is in a coma, mentions of injury, kissing Word Count: 2.6k

MASTERLIST

NOTE: This one’s for Pom’s ( @imagining-in-the-margins ) September Writing Challenge, Enemies To Lovers! I have another one coming up as well, but this idea wouldn’t get out of my head ever since I watched The Abyss with my dad and I had to get it out 😅 I hope you like it!!

———

I swear to fucking God, if this motherfucker really thinks he—

That was the last thing Y/N thought before she was knocked out cold.

With her line of work, it was natural to assume that she was thinking about the unsub, but unfortunately the criminal she and her team were tracking down was the farthest thing on her mind. Spencer would have chastised her for it— letting something else cloud her thoughts while she was in a dark alley, alone, and with a serial killer on the loose.

"You should be smarter than that!" she could hear him say in that high pitch he always carried when he was upset— especially with her. "If you don't get yourself killed one of these days, then it'll be the rest of us!"

Thinking about it made her blood boil.

"It's your fault," she wanted to tell him. "I had to blow off some steam because you were pissing me off!"

The only thing was... She couldn't tell him.

Well... She could.

He just couldn't hear her, because no one could.

It was like some stupid, cliché movie, where you found yourself standing over your dying body and having to choose whether to live or not. It seemed like the obvious choice, to fucking live, but... Y/N found herself wandering around her hospital room, yelling into the void and attempting to jump back into her own body.

Nothing was working.

And when Spencer showed up, his face red and his hair and clothes all messed up, she wanted to scream at him.

"Hey!"

Nothing. He was practically lifeless as he drifted to the chair next to her bed and sat down. It was nearly impossible to read from his expression and body language how he was feeling, and that alone was enough to make her angry again. (Not that the anger had really gone away since waking up next to her comatose body, of course.)

"Hey! Dumbass!"

Still nothing.

As Spencer just blankly stared down at Y/N's bed, she decided she'd had enough.

"SPENCER FUCKING REID, IF YOU DON'T HELP ME RIGHT NOW I SWEAR TO GOD I'LL HAUNT YOUR ASS UNTIL THE END OF ETERNITY, AND I'M GONNA LAY FAT, STINKIN' GHOST SHITS IN YOUR SHOES, DO YOU HEAR ME? AND—"

"I hate you."

It was a bold enough statement to stop Y/N in her tracks, no matter how quietly he'd mumbled it. She knew for sure that he didn't like her, after years of constant bickering and dirty glares and whatever else, but... The word 'hate' was like a knife that sliced through her joking rage and stopped the whole world around her.

If she wasn't already out of her own body, she just knew she would have felt her soul leave.

Spencer didn't hate anyone. Not that she was aware of, anyway. He found nearly everyone delightful, and vice versa... But for some reason, he hated Y/N.

She scoffed, crossing her arms. "Yeah, well... Feeling's mutual, I guess..."

"You're stupid, and reckless, and you don't think. And you're a goddamn nightmare to work with... You know what— You're a stone-cold bitch."

His words made her physically step backwards, and it felt like if she were a cartoon, there might have been steam coming out of her ears.

"Yeah, well jokes on you, you make it easy," she seethed. "Fuck you!"

"How... How dare you..." he continued, anger reddening his face.

Y/N watched as he balled his fists and leaned in a little closer to her body, his voice tight and strained. "How dare you walk into my life and boss me around and make it impossible to breathe... From the moment I met you, you've brought out this... this fire in me that I can't put out no matter how hard I try, and it's insufferable—You're insufferable, and I hate you, how dare—"

Whatever he was going to say next was cut off by a shortness of breath. Spencer breathed in, loud and choked, and the next breath he let out was nothing short of a sob. His eyes squeezed shut, tears rolling down them and his hands clutched the bedsheets with a vigor and rage that Y/N had never seen from him, even in all the years she'd spent visibly getting on his last nerves.

"N—No," she choked out, feeling her throat tighten. "Don't... Don't turn into a sappy mess on me now, do you hear me, Reid? You hate me, don't... Don't..."

"I don't hate you," he whispered, wiping his eyes and reaching out to grab her lifeless hand. "I hate that you make me feel this way, but... I could never hate you..."

She wanted nothing more than to be able to squeeze his hand back, to tell him, not even necessarily with words but with a simple gesture, that she was right there and wasn't going to go anywhere.

She just... had to figure out how to make that true.

Still, Spencer kept going, a small laugh bubbling up through tears and phlegm. "But I will hate you if you die, because I just know you're gonna come back and haunt me for eternity... Probably... shit in my shoes or something."

Y/N barked a laugh that was true and pure... Happy, even.

The genius may have acted like he hated her, but it turns out he knew her pretty well, perhaps even fondly in one way or another.

To think— All those years she spent seeing him sneer at her, feeling his glare burn into her soul, the amount of times she caught him making faces or inappropriate gestures behind her back, all of it... And the whole time, he was probably doing it with a little flicker of fondness deep within the confines of his heart, which he swore to fill with nothing but hatred for her.

The thought made the little flicker in her own heart burn brighter.

As she wandered closer to her bed, beside Spencer and in front of her own body, she reached her hand out to see if she could touch his face, to give him something...

Even though she had no luck, something shifted when he spoke.

"Just... Come back to me, please? I know I'm not good at apologizing, but if it means I get you back... I swear that I will make up every horrible thing I've ever done or said to you. Just... Please don't leave me."

He laid his head down in his hands and tried not to cry again, every said horrible thing replaying on a loop in his brain like some kind of taunt. He wished more than anything for a chance to make it up to Y/N, and now he might not ever be able to.

"You think I'd leave this mortal earth without getting the chance to kick your ass?"

Everything was so fuzzy and light and brimming with these high emotions that Y/N almost didn't realize she was saying these words and Spencer was hearing them. She almost didn't feel the warmth of her bloodstream beneath layers of skin, the beat of her heart slowly coming back to life at the sounds and smells of the hospital room.

She almost didn't realize that Spencer was grabbing her now, his warm hands covering her cold ones and bringing them back to life as well.

"Screw you," he breathed with absolutely no malice to be detected in his voice.

They shared a smile so bright, no one would have been able to guess that they never got along.

TWO WEEKS LATER

Not only was she stuck at home doing nothing while on suspension (Yes, it turns out that storming off into an alley and not paying attention while on the job, just because a co-worker pissed you off, can get you suspended by Chief Strauss), but Y/N was also being visited by a daily rotation of her co-workers and friends and family, and her house was nearly covered in flower bouquets and baked goods.

It was a nightmare.

The sentiment was nice, sure, but if she had to move one more vase, she was going to start throwing them.

God, maybe Spencer was right, I am a stone-cold bitch...

Thinking of him also put a little damper on her mood.

He hadn't been to visit her once... And she figured that after their nice little moment at the hospital, he'd at least stop by with flowers or an "I'm glad you're not dead!" call, but there was nothing on his end. Not even a text message or a letter.

But for all she knew, their small moment of kindness could have been a figment of her concussed imagination.

Please, she thought, if I brought it up to him he'd probably just laugh in my face.

Rather than a laugh, Y/N heard the bright sound of her doorbell, which normally would have meant a fun unexpected visit or a date she was getting ready for, but by now it only meant another vase of flowers or a pie from a neighbor she still didn't remember the last name to.

Either way, she answered the door with as polite a smile as she could muster, and instead of finding a vaguely familiar neighbor or acquaintance, she found Spencer.

Though, to be fair, he was holding a bouquet of flowers.

"Well, this is a surprise," Y/N drawled, crossing her arms. "I don't even think you've ever been to my house."

She was surprised to see him nervous around her, rather than irritated. And she would have found it endearing had they not been practically mortal enemies from the moment they met... She was suspicious.

"O—Oh, yeah... I know, I just thought... I wanted to come see how you were doing... These are for you."

He held out the flowers, which were truthfully the pretties set she'd received, and it irked her. Because of course he of all people would be the one to tell which kinds of flowers she'd prefer.

"Thanks," she said, taking them from him and allowing him the space to come inside. "Watch out, it's a maze in here..."

While she looked for somewhere to put the flowers on display, she could feel Spencer looking around her space, probably profiling what he could behind a sea of flowers.

"Hm."

Y/N sighed. "What?"

"Nothing. I'm just... I'm surprised this many people actually like you."

Despite the nature of his observation, she found it comforting. That level of playful contempt was what she was used to, and it brought a sparkle to her eye as she turned to face him. "Ha... I'm not a complete bitch, you know."

"Sure."

Between the growing grin on his face and the smirk forming on her own, Spencer and Y/N found themselves falling back into a familiar rhythm. And yet, something about it was still... different.

So much so that Y/N felt honest-to-God butterflies in her stomach when he approached, hands retreating from his pockets and head tilting off to the side. His expression held that look he got when he was trying to figure someone out, usually an unsub. She hated to admit it to herself, but a little part of her always found that side of him extremely attractive.

And now that it was right in front of her?

She didn't know what to make of it.

"What?" she snapped, looking for an excuse to hide any and all attraction she was feeling.

Spencer stepped back a little, breaking away from whatever trance he'd just been in. "God, why do you always have to do that?"

"Do what?"

"You push away every single show of affection! Any time I'm trying to be nice, you just act like it's some big inconvenience to you!"

Y/N laughed. "Ha! That's what that was? Just now? When you insulted me, and then started stalking towards me with that look you get when you're interrogating an unsub? That's what you call affection?"

"That's not... That's not what that was!"

"Oh really? Then what was it?"

"It was part of the routine! Banter! Y—You know, that's our thing! We insult each other, and we act like we hate each other but we... We don't, really..."

The longer he went on, the faster her heart raced. This was the moment in the movie where he inevitably blurted out that he loved her, and in turn she would either kiss him or slap him, or slap him and then kiss him...

But Y/N was still feeling rather playful despite the swarm of butterflies in her stomach begging for some relief.

"Oh?" she prompted, taking a slow step closer to him. "We don't?"

Spencer seemed to get red immediately, and he avoided her eyes. "U—Uh... Well I... I thought... Maybe I read it all wrong, a—and I'm sorry if I did..."

She'd been getting closer meanwhile, and now they were practically toe-to-toe. He did his best to ignore her, taking a few steps back until she cornered him against the front door. And with the way he wasn't doing anything to get out of his predicament, she took that as his acceptance and took another leap.

"What..." she cooed, crawling her fingers up the front of his chest like a spider. "You like me? Hmm?"

When he finally looked down at her, she allowed herself to smile, albeit slowly and with calculation.

In a flash Spencer went from nervous to fed-up, weight seeming to visibly lift from his chest as he sank against the door. "You're messing with me..."

"It's so fun."

"You know what, screw you."

"Is that a promise?"

"Maybe it is. What are you gonna do ab—"

She didn't let him finish.

In an instant, Y/N lunged forward and pulled him down for a kiss.

Even though she thought he might have tried to take control of the situation, he ended up surprising her with a wanton moan as his hands clutched at her sides, holding on for dear life. Their bodies and tongues collided in a mess of years worth of pent-up tension, chaotic and wild and fiercely beautiful in a way that put even the greatest first kisses to shame.

And of course, Spencer had to go and ruin it.

He pushed her away and looked almost panicked. "W—Wait, are you even cleared to do this?"

Y/N rolled her eyes, reaching out for him again. "I'm fine."

"Y/N, you were in the hospital! I thought... I thought you were..."

She appreciated the sentiment, but with her entire body on fire from his touch, she decided she needed more of it. "Yeah, but I'm not... I'm very much alive, and you know what?"

He blinked back at her, watching carefully as she leaned in close to him and wrapped her arms around his neck.

"It's because of you. You make me feel... more alive than I've ever been."

"And... You're not messing with me this time?"

With a laugh, Y/N shook her head and leaned up to brush her nose with his. "Nuh-uh... But if you'd like to, I'd love to mess with you in a more fun way. And maybe I'll even let you do it back..."

Spencer hummed, feeling himself gravitate towards her more with every passing second. "Deal."

He barely got the word out all the way before she was dragging him through the maze of flora and contained food and into her bedroom, where piece by piece, their hatred and fondness for one another combined to create the most exquisite of nights.

———

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#spencer reid x reader #spencer reid #spencer reid angst #spencer reid x reader angst #spencer reid fanfiction #criminal minds #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds angst #enemies to lovers

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raineydays411 · 3 years

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Trauma really does bond

The umbrella academy x teen!reader

Summary: It’s time for you to meet your siblings. But what happen when your introductions don’t exactly go as planned?

You were trembling as you walked behind Pogo and Grace. Its ironic, you’ve waited your whole life for this moment. To finally meet your siblings and expand your family. A childish hope of your siblings one day returning to the mansion and accepting you with open arms.

But now that you actually have a chance to meet them, you’re terrified. You realized that you have no idea how to talk to people. It’s different than when you talk to Pogo or your mother. These are complete strangers. No matter how many stories you’ve been told, how many times you read Vanyas book, you truly didn’t know these people. How were you meant to be a family? How are you supposed to-

“Y/n? Dear?”

You’re snapped from your thoughts by your mother calling you.

“Yes, momma?”

“Momma? Pogo, who’s that?”

You turn, again surprised by an unfamiliar voice. There she was. Alison Hargreeves. She’s beautiful.

Her hair is curly and blonde, with beautiful high cheekbones and glowing brown skin. Her as were kind even as she squinted at you skeptically in confusion.

“Alison, this is Y/n Hargreeves, or Number Eight. She’s your sister.”

Grace again gives you a light nudge, and you move in front of her. It was then that you realized that you are shorter than Alison, having to glance up to meet her eyes.

“My sister?” She looks at you in disbelief, “How come we didn’t know? This wasn’t mentioned by the press or anything...”

“Your father decided to keep our dear Y/n a secret.” Grace said wrapping her arm around you, “ She’s been our little secret for 17 years and 4 months.”

“A secret? But why? I mean, what was the reason?”

“Your father, believed that the world wasn’t ready for a new superhero. Nor was Y/n ready to face the world.” Pogo said with a grim face, “ He had hoped though, that one day he would be able to take her out...but it seems that for now, Y/n shall remain inside.”

You frowned, holding back tears at the thought. You didn’t know that your father had wanted to let you out, nor that he wanted to be there when you were. But, what truly upset you, was that you had to stay in the mansion. Freedom was at the tip of your fingers and you didn’t even know it.

“Stay inside? You mean she’s never been outside?” Alison said horrified.

“Well she has been out in the courtyard and such, but Mr. Hargreeves prohibited her to leave the premises. Nor was she allowed to be in contact with the citizens”

“She’s been here all alone?” Alison asks sadly, “ With no one to talk to? No one her age?”

“I’m afraid not” Pogo says sadly, looking at you.

You didn’t understand the big deal. Of course you were lonely, and wanted to explore the world, but you knew why you had to stay. You can just hear your fathers words.

“You have a duty Number Eight. A duty to your people and to me. It may not be ideal but sacrifices are hardly ideal.”

And everytime you thought about leaving, you’d remember his words and stay put. Besides you wouldn’t dare disobey your father.

Not after the last time.

“Well,” Alison says gently, leaning down to your eye level, “ Hello Y/n, I’m Alison Hargreeves, your big sister.”

Your eyes widened at her words as your heart filled with joy. For so many years you imagined those words. You wondered how this whole thing would play out, how meeting your siblings might be. And to hear Alison so readily accept you, it brought tears to your eyes.

“Hello, Alison” You say beaming as you carefully step forward, “ I’ve been waiting a long time to meet you, Momma says you live in California, what is it like?”

Alison smiles at your question, your demeanor like a small child. It reminded her of Claire...

“It’s very nice, maybe when we have time I’ll be able to tell you all about it.”

Your smile widens as you turn to your mother excitedly, she smiles back and says, “ That sounds wonderful dear, but you should go and change. You know the rules. You don’t want your father finding you in your night clothes, now would you?”

You furrow your brows,” Momma...”

“No buts now march” She says with a grin. You smile at Alison but see the worried look on her face.

“So she did notice how weird momma acting” You think to yourself. You stay in a daze as you walk towards your room. Worrying about your mother, grieving your father, and thinking about how you’re finally meeting all your siblings. Then as you turn a corner into the hallway that leads to your room, you’re knocked to the ground as you bump into a wall of a body.

“Ow!” you squeal as you hit the ground, rubbing the back of your head and peering up at the person you bumped into.

“Uh..sorry Y/n”

“Luther!” You shout, your pain overridden by the happiness you felt at seeing your brother, one that actually knows you exist.

He helps you up, which to him is like picking up a feather, and before he knew it, your arms are wrapped around his midsection. Luther awkwardly pats your back, not really expecting to be hugged.

“It's great to see you Luther! I read all your mission reports, or rather the ones that Father let me read. I always wished you good night though! Pogo always caught me looking at the moon with that telescope, I hope you don’t mind that I used it. It's just that I missed you so-” Your happy ramblings cut off by a Luther clearing his throat.

“Ahem...right, um hey Y/n, I gotta go...check on something.” He says gently pushing you away, “It was nice seeing you though.”

And with that he walks away, leaving you in the hallway as you stare at his retreating form.

“oh...okay then! I’ll see...see you later.” You say, disheartened by his brief acknowledgement. You sigh, walking into your room.

“I don’t know why I try...” You mumble to yourself. “ It’s not like he was ever happy to see me before.”

You go into your closet, trying to figure out what to wear. Usually, Grace picked out your outfits, ordered by your father, but she didn’t leave anything out for you today. So, you settled for a black turtleneck sweater, a black and white plaid skirt, black knee high socks with some mary janes. It wasn’t really your go to look, but you felt like it was appropriate given the circumstance. You let your hair loose, curls falling into your face as you let it out of the bun you quickly put it in.

You go to walk out of the room when you’re stopped by a gleam. You see the necklace your father gave to you after the incident. You stare at it, debating on whether you should put it on or not. You sigh, deciding to wear it, it was his funeral after all. You put it on, the cold metal never truly seem to heat up, the pendant heavy on your chest. You never grew attached to it. It just served as a reminder that you’re stuck in the mansion. You can never leave. Not until he let you and now...

You shake your head. Trying not to get into your thoughts, that's when you heard it. Little scratching at your window. You turn to see Despereaux, the little mouse you saved when you were younger. Ever since that day it was like you and him formed a bond.

You open the window excited to see your little friend.

“Hello Despereaux, it’s been a while since I’ve seen you.” You whisper as you let him climb on to your shoulder. “ you’ve missed quite a bit since I’ve last seen you. How about some cheese?”

You walk out of your room, Despereaux nestled on your shoulder. As you walk through the long hallways, you bump into another body.

“Ouch, again?” You whisper to yourself, rubbing your forehead.

“Hey watch it...teenage girl?” A male voice said in a perplexed tone.

You look up to see a man in some rather tight clothes and kohl ringed eyes.

“Hello” You quietly mutter with a soft smile. “I’m Y/n”

“You are adorable.” The man says, “ Where has the old man been hiding you?”

You blush looking down at your feet, you were never really complimented. Only by Grace.

“ Aww” The man squeals, squishing you to his body. He smelled like booze and sweat but the hug was nice, “ I have no idea who you are but I’m your uncle Klaus from now on.”

“You’re Klaus?” You say excitedly, “ I’m so glad to meet you!”

You wrap your arms around him, feeling the outline of something hard and metal in the back of his pants. You ignored it though, happy to meet another one of your siblings.

“Ugh it’s so nice to be around someone who isn’t a total stick in the mud.” Klaus says letting go of you, “ Like Luther, all that rage in that big body”

You giggle at his words and eccentric behavior. It was a stark contrast to the ridgid stoic behavior that you’re used to. Klaus’ grand gestures and silly nature was new to you.

“I’ve heard alot about you.” You say happily, “ Mama always tells me stories about how you used to steal her shoes and skirts and Father said--”

“Father?” Klaus asked, “ You mean ol’ Reggie bought you too? Or are you like..his offspring? Eww! I don’t want to think about that, shut up Ben.”

Ben?

“Father adopted me, I was born with powers like you.” You clarify for him.

“Huh, so he managed to create another trauma case before he croaked.” Klaus said in a light voice, “Well. I always wanted a little sister.”

You smile, glad that at least two of your siblings liked you. But what did he mean by trauma case.

“Anywho, I have some... inheritance I need to collect. I, will see you at the funeral, das Kind”

And with a wiggle of his fingers he was off, gone as quick as when you met him. Leaving you yet again, alone. You shrug off his odd behavior when you heard two voices speaking.

“ah no, not to my knowledge.”

“But..the spine is broken and there's notes in the margins.”

“ Yes, that would be the work of.. ah Y/n, there you are.”

You jump in surprise, although you should’ve know. You can never eavesdrop with Pogo around.

You walk down the stairs, slowly towards Pogo and.. Vanya!

Out of all the siblings, she’s the one you wanted to meet the most. She, like you was isolated in this mansion. You felt a connection to her as soon as you were able to pick up that book. Your heart raced as you made it to the final step, reaching the first flower and into the living room where Vanya and Pogo were talking. You can see that she is shocked, as all your other siblings were.

“Pogo, who is this?”

“Go ahead dear, introduce yourself. Just like you practiced.”

You smile widely, “Hi I’m Y/n Hargreeves, I love your book. I’ve read it almost five times now. You’re Vanya! I’ve been waiting to meet you! You look exactly like the picture on the back of the book! It really is a good book, I-”

“Y/n, take a breath. Let her get a word in.” Pogo chuckled, glad to see that you’re comfortable around Vanya.

“Oh, right. I’m sorry, father did always say I..tend to talk to much” You say looking down at your shoes. You didn’t notice the frown on both Pogo and Vanyas face.

“You...you read my book?” Vanya asked, still trying to figure out who you are.

“Yes, multiple times. It...well, besides the stories Mama and Pogo told me, this was the only way I got to know all of you.”

“Why didn’t you just come find us?”

“Oh well..I wasn’t really allowed outside”, you say glancing at Pogo, “ Father said the world and I weren’t ready for each other.”

“You mean, you’ve been alone...all these year?”

“No, not totally alone! I had Pogo, and Mama, and and father too. Plus there were the robots he built, although I did destroy them...and the books and and..”

“Y/n...that’s..that’s not..” Vanya stopped herself. She knew that this must be a sensitive subject for you. The way you listed everyone in your life was practiced. Like you’ve said it to yourself over and over again. And by the grim look on Pogos face, she can tell it wasn’t only you who was sensitive about this subject.

“Well, Y/n..perhaps you should go on in the kitchen and help your mother. Your siblings will be meeting here shortly, it would be nice if they had some snacks, don’t you agree?” Pogo says, forcing a smile at you.

“Oh! Okay” You beam, “ It was nice meeting you Vanya!”

And with that you scurry off into the kitchen, leaving Vanya and Pogo behind in silence.

“She’s been alone for...”

“For seventeen years. Yes”

“Pogo...”

“You know your father...once he made up his mind...there was little I can do.”

Vanya sighs and pats Pogo on the shoulder, “It’s good to see you Pogo.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You skip into the kitchen, seeing your mother humming at the sink. You walk up to her and notice that she’s cleaning the same plate over and over again.

“Hi momma!” you say suddenly

“Oh, hello dear. What are you doing in here?” Grace asks putting the plate in the drying rack.

Pogo said it would be nice to make snacks for my siblings” You ask, then feeling movement around your neck, “Oh and some cheese please.”

You forgot Despereaux was on your shoulder, its a wonder that no one has seen him yet.

“hmm snacks we can do.” Grace says with a smile. She goes to the fridge and pulls out some cheese.

“How about some cheese and crackers? Its simple.” she says, “ ans Despereaux here can have his fill as well”

You freeze, caught again by your mother, “ Thanks momma.”

You both giggle, and side by side you work on cutting the cheese and presenting the crackers. You feel a sense of calm wash over you. You usually do when you’re around your mother. She makes you feel safe.

“Ahem.”

You both turn to see Diego in the kitchen doorway.

“Diego dear, you startled us.” Grace said with a smile, “ Come help, we’re making you kids some snacks.”

He barely spares a glance at you.

“Pogo wanted me to come tell you that the meetings starting.”

“Oh, well go on darling, run along and I’ll bring out the snacks later.”

And with that she kisses your forehead and waves you away. She turns back to the sink and starts humming again.

You glance back at Diego. He’s glaring at the wall and to be honest you’re surprised he even waited for you. You pick up Despereaux and put him on your shoulder again, and grab some grapes and cheese then stuff it in your skirt pocket. Then you walk up to Diego with a small smile.

He glances at you and scoffs, then walks away. You have to jog to catch up to him.

“You uh, you walk pretty fast” You say huffing a bit.

He doesn’t answer you, he just keeps walking in the same pace. You stay silent as well, the trip to the living room longer than you remember.

You finally make it, and you see all your siblings in the room, spread out. You take a seat next to Vanya. You smile at her and take a glance around the room. Luther is sat at the couch across from you and Vanya. Allison and Diego are sat on some chairs, and Klaus is at the bar.

The six of you sit in an awkward silence until Luther clears his throat.

“ So I guess we should get this started.” He says standing up, “ So I figured we can have sort of a memorial service. At the courtyard at sundown, say a few words. At dad’s favorite spot.”

You nod along and hear Alison speak up, “ Dad had a favorite spot?”

“Yeh at the oak tree, we used to sit out there all the time. None of you did that?” Luther asks.

“Oh yeah, after training” you chime in, causing the adults to look at you. You heard Diego scoff again and saw Luther quickly furrow his brow then smooth out his face again.

“Will there be refreshments?” Klaus asks walking out from behind the bar, “ Tea? Scones? Cucumber sandwiches are always a winner.”

He goes to take a seat next to you when Luther speaks up

“What? No, and put that out. You know dad didn’t allow smoking in here.”

You roll your eyes. If you had to choose one thing to hate about Luther, you’d choose his insistent need to always be on your Father's good side. He can be such a downer sometimes.

“Is that my skirt?”

You hadn’t even noticed Klaus in the skirt. If you had to be honest, it did really suit him. You let out a small laugh, hearing Klaus mention his “bits”.

“Listen up.”

Oh boy, you’ve heard this tone before. You really forgot how stern Luther could be.

“There’s still some important things that we need to discuss alright ?”

“Um Luther” you squeak out, “ what more is there to talk about? Its not like Father had many friends we can invite. And his only family is us...”

“Yeah. The kids right, what else is there to discuss?” Diego asks.

You turn to him in surprise, this is basically the first time he acknowledged you unprompted. You send him a smile that, as expected, he ignores.

Oh well, small steps.

“ The way he died.”

“ And here we go”

You scrunch your eyebrows, “the way he died?”

Klaus sits next to you, throwing an arm around your shoulder as Vanya speaks up,

“I don’t understand, I thought they said it was a heart attack...”

“A heart attack?” You ask, realizing that no one’s really did tell you how your father died..

You’re question gained a suspicious look from Luther and confusion from the rest.

“ Y/n...you didn’t know?” Alison asked gently.

“ no one told me...” You say quietly, feeling nervous from the sudden attention.

“Well, According or to the coroner it was.” Luther continues.

“Well wouldn’t they know?”

“Theoretically..”

“Theoretically??”

You don’t understand. You don’t understand why nobody told you how your father died. You don’t understand why everyone was acting weird. And you don’t understand why Luther was bringing this up.

You feel a hand on your forearm, breaking you from your thoughts. You turn your head to see Klaus.

“ you lost in space?” He whispers playfully, “ I would be too, having to listen to Detective Daddy issues over here.”

You let out a small chuckle and whisper back, “ well technically we all have daddy issues.”

This earned you a quiet laugh and a pat on the arm. Then Klaus went to drink whatever was in his cup. And you tuned in again.

“ i’m just saying at the very least something happened. ” Luther says looking around the room, “ The last time I talk to dad he sounded strange.”

“Oh quelle surprise!” Klaus gurgles through his drink.

The rest of the adult ignored him, only sparing him a quick glance.

“Strange how?” Alison asked, continuing the conversation.

“ he sounded on edge”, Luther said, “ told me to be careful who to trust.”

He then gave you pointed look. You looked back at him perplexed, not knowing why he looked at you that way.

“Luther,” Diego chimed in, “ he was a paranoid, bitter old man who was starting to lose what was left of his marbles. ”

You frown at that statement. Sure your father was old and sort of eccentric, but his mind was sharp.

But come to think of it he was acting really weird the week before he died. He started telling you more about your siblings, about your place in the world and how you were meant to help it. He spent more time with you more than he ever has your whole life. He was, in his own way, nicer to you. Nicer in training, nicer on your free time, nicer in general. He took you out to the old oak tree more often, and just sat there with you, no lectures, no tirades, he just sat in silence.

It was almost like... like he knew he was going to die.

“I can’t just call dad in the afterlife and be like, “ hey dad can you stop playing tennis with Hitler really quick and take a quick call?’” Klaus says exasperatedly.

Oh right you forgot, he can talk to ghosts.

“ since when? that’s your thing.” Luther asks

“ i’m not in the right... Frame of mind!!”

“ You’re high?” Alison asks

“Yeah!” Klaus laughs, “ Who wouldn’t be listening to this nonsense. Right kiddo?”

He nudged you gently look at you for confirmation.

Your eyes widen and before you can even answer Diego cut you off,

“ Don’t bring her in this, she probably isn’t even know what being high is.”

You most certainly do. You’re not a child.

“ Look, just sober up this is important!” Luther demands , then continues on, “ and then there’s the missing monocle.”

“Who gives a shit about the missing monocle?” Diego mutters.

“ Father is missing his monocle?” You ask, getting ignored again.

“Exactly, it’s worthless.” Luther states, “ so whoever took it it must’ve been personal.”

The group starts to actually pay attention to him

“ Someone close to him, someone with a grudge.” He determines.

Wait...he’s not implying..

“Where are you going with this?” Klaus asks

“Oh, isn’t obvious Klaus?” Diego taunts, “ He thinks one of us killed dad.”

Luther grunts, but doesn’t deny his accusation.

The room goes silent as everyone tries to come to terms with what was revealed.

“ Luther...” you start sadly, feeling hurt and betrayed.

“You do?” Klaus asks in disbelief

“How could you think that?” Vanya chimes in

“ is it really that far-fetched?” Luther defends himself, “ I mean, it’s not secret how much you all hate him.”

“Luther.” Alison says sternly

“ That’s not fair accusation, there’s no evidence or anything...” you say defending your siblings, “ Besides, no one came home until today. Trust me, I’d know.”

But that just turned him on you

“ And where were you when he died?”

Your breath hitched, “ what?”

“ You’re the one who can heal people right? So where were you? Why didn’t you heal him?” He demands, “ Or did you let him die?”

“ Luther!” Alison shouts at him

You stay silent as you can’t think of anything to say. You already felt horrible about not being able to save your father. But yo hear it from Luther...

“I..” you start to say but get choked up. You feel the walls close up around you and the heavy gaze of these adults. You quickly stand up and run out of the room sniffing.

It was then that Luther realized what he just accused you of.

“Y/n wait..” he starts but you’re already gone by the time he spoke up. He turns to the rest of his siblings, facing their glares and betrayed looks.

“ Great job Luther.” Diego says sarcastically, “ Way to lead.”

And with that he walks out the room.

“That’s..that’s not what I’m saying”

“You’re crazy man. You’re crazy.” Klaus said getting up from his spot and grabbing his things. “Crazy”

“I..I wasn’t finished”

“ Okay, sorry I’m just gonna go get Y/n and have her help me murder mom.” Klaus sneers, “ You know, after I get her to stop crying, be right back.”

“That’s not what I was saying!” Luther says, “ I didn’t—“ he cuts himself off, seeing as everyone but Alison left.

Then she gets up to leave, but says this

“ That little girl has had it rough enough growing up here, she doesn’t need anymore from you.”

Then she walks out ignoring what Luther tries to say.

Leaving him all alone.

“That went well.”

#the umbrella academy x reader #the umbrella academy #klaus hargreeves x reader #diego hargreeves x reader #alison hargreeves x reader #vanya hargreeves x reader #five hargreeves x reader #luther hargeeves x r #klaus hargreeves #five hargreeves #comics #netflix

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raifenlf · 3 years

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Why Loki’s Sylvie Is A Mary Sue

So I am firmly in the camp that Sylvie on the Loki series was/is a Mary Sue. The last episode made me feel better and like maybe the show was doing a thing where they were faking you out that she was a Mary Sue only to show she was actually sort of a bad guy and I liked that. But all the recent interviews make me think the show wants to go back to her being a Mary Sue.

But I feel like when I call her out for being a Mary Sue people tell me what are you talking about, she’s not a Mary Sue, bad things happen to her, etc. But that doesn’t actually make her not a Mary Sue.

Also, before we start, I know some people find Mary Sue sexist. But I personally use the term for guys and girls. I don’t use the term to belittle women. I use the term to criticize a poorly written character.

And I know Mary Sue is often used to describe fanfic characters. But to me, this series is kind of like a fanfic because the writers took a character who had been in canon MCU material for ten years and then created characters around that character. So, I kind of review it like I would a fanfic. It’s very different than if the writers had created a brand new show with all of their own new characters.

Anyway, if you are not totally familiar with the Mary Sue term, then check this out:

I know the term Mary Sue probably means different things to different people. But I have always used these guidelines when I write my own fanfic to make sure my characters never come off as a Mary Sue.

This article really gives you a full scale of what a Mary Sue is. If you start reading it, you’ll immediately see why Sylvie is. But I’m going to take out the parts that most fit Sylvie just to highlight why I believe she is a Mary Sue. I apologize for this being so long.

Mary Sue Character Traits

Personality

Erm... what personality? The typical Mary Sue doesn't have one per se, because she isn't meant to be a character; rather, she's an entity by which the author makes cool stuff happen.

I feel like that is Sylvie in a nutshell. She doesn’t have a personality. I feel like even though she ate screentime, I still don’t really know her at all. The writers love to say she’s badass. That’s not a personality.

Sometimes when I am writing stories for fun and creating new characters, I like to take surveys as my fictional characters. Like the kind of surveys you’d see in a magazine, like personality types, what’s your dating style, etc. I figure if I don’t know what my character would do in any of those situations, then I need to keep working on my character. And if I was trying to fill out a survey pretending I was Sylvie I would have no idea what to answer because she doesn’t have a personality. She’s just “cool”.

What little personality a Mary Sue has isn't as important as how other characters react to it. No matter how shy or socially awkward Mary Sue is supposed to be, other characters will be inexplicably drawn to her

This is so Sylvie. Loki falls in love with her...why, exactly? He falls in love with her in the big Nexus event moment...why? Because she had a tough childhood? Mobius spends like two seconds with her in a car and goes from hating her to saying she’s his favorite Loki. For. No. Particular. Reason.

She's extremely persuasive; everyone finds her opinions to be better than their own

She enchants Hunter B-15 and then immediately Hunter B-15 makes it her whole entire life mission to back Sylvie up.

And occasionally she'll be a complete asshole...This can manifest itself in several ways...The author wants to write a badass but doesn't know how. This leads to a character who mistreats everyone around her and is never called out on her abrasive, casually abusive behavior.

Sylvie talked down to Loki and treated him like garbage for all of episode three, but it was never portrayed as a bad thing and we never got any impression Sylvie later felt bad for the way she treated Loki

The author doesn't know how to hold back the character, meaning that she will succeed at practically everything. This means that when she encounters rules or authority figures who would otherwise prevent her from doing what she wants to do, she rolls right through them (and they praise her for her "boldness" in defying regulations). If a bad guy is violent and aggressive, she can beat him by being more violent and aggressive (with all that entails). It's impossible for her to go overboard because she's protected by Protagonist-Centered Morality.

Sylvie is shown as a kid to immediately be able to grab a Tempad and run away. And she can kick ass way better than Loki, for no known reason. She is always able to fight back against the TVA when they attack her. And she can kill lots of innocent TVA agents but it’s okay because TVA bad, Sylvie good.

Skills

She will always be superior to the canon characters, regardless of what canon has established they can do or whether it makes any sense.

Whose skill was needed to defeat Alioth? Sylvie’s. Of course. Sylvie needed to teach Loki her skills in order for him to succeed (!). And again, she is literally called the superior Loki.

Relatedly, there's no effort to her skills. She never actually trains or learns anything to become more powerful; she just wins the Super Power Lottery, or is a freakish natural learner, or is just Inexplicably Awesome

We’re told Sylvie literally taught herself magic. She literally taught herself to enchant people. That. Makes. No. Sense. Like, I have so many questions. Like, why would it even occur to her to teach herself that? And how???????????? This is really lazy writing.

Canon Character Relationships

Mary Sue is often designed to hook up with another character, often as a form of Wish Fulfillment. This isn't that bad in and of itself (okay, it is kinda weird), but Mary Sue accomplishes this without any sense of realism. She just grabs her lover's attention straight away, and their relationship will never face any obstacles or tension; it's true love from the start and nothing else. The biggest giveaway is if the love interest is explicitly the author's favorite character, and she essentially "cures" him of all the angst that ails him (at the expense of his characterization).

Yeah, so...this one should be pretty obvious to anyone who watched the show. Loki literally falls in love with Sylvie immediately, and then he suddenly turns from “villain” to “hero” just because of loving her. And this was definitely at the expense of his characterization. And Loki just knows he falls in love with her. There’s not even any moments of hmm what do I feel for this person? It’s just true love, immediately.

She will be related to a canon character in some way. This (marginally) helps explain such phenomena as her being a Copy Cat Sue and other characters accepting her so easily.

Sylvie is a Loki variant. They use this to help explain why Loki is drawn to her and why their falling in love immediately “makes sense”.

Most characters give her more heed than they normally would. The good guys never stop praising her

Seriously, it was so over the top and OOC for Loki to gush over her. He literally tells her she’s amazing. They don’t even make it subtle.

Characters' previously established personalities change in reaction to her. Proud, arrogant gimps suddenly acknowledge her superiority in everything. Reckless youths will listen to all her advice. Responsible leaders will defer to her instead. Villains will obsess with her to the detriment of all else. Extremely competent characters will become stumbling buffoons who require her help to do anything. Sweet, mild-mannered characters whom the author doesn't like turn evil and insult her. They all become unnaturally focused on her in some way.

Again, Loki’s whole personality changed in reaction to her. He became a buffoon who needed her help to enchant the Alioth because of course he couldn’t do anything without her! Hunter B-15 goes from doing whatever the TVA said to fighting the TVA just because of Sylvie.

Story Elements

Mary Sue is without exception a single-person Spotlight-Stealing Squad. The entire story hinges on her existence; if you removed her, there would be no story.

Sylvie undoubtedly drove the whole story this season. It all became about HER meeting the TVA heads because of HER trauma. Loki’s life was only saved at the beginning because the TVA was trying to capture HER. And SHE was the one who started the whole multiverse (!).

Mary Sue is The Chosen One, even if the setting already has one. There are many ways she can accomplish this: she can be a Sailor Earth type who "shares" the position with the canon hero; she may be vaguely "destined to help the destined one fulfill their destiny" (i.e. do all the work except the final blow so that the prophecy is still technically correct); or the canon hero may be revealed to be a Fake Ultimate Hero all along. Being the Chosen One doesn't necessarily involve her being a God-Mode Sue, especially as authors become aware of the phenomenon and try to avoid it, but it does make her critically important to the world and allows her to continue stealing the spotlight without the "god mode" label.

HWR wanted Sylvie to come with Loki in the end, like she was chosen all along right alongside Loki. Like one of the most important characters in the entire MCU is now this character who we only met a few episodes ago.

Most Sues have an unusually Dark and Troubled Past. It's often used to create a Sympathetic Sue, but any type of Sue can have one

They tell us, over and over, how hard Sylvie’s life was because she was kidnapped by the TVA in order to create sympathy for her.

She almost never does anything wrong. In the rare instance that she does, it's usually; (a) a way for the author to disclaim her being a Mary Sue by introducing a single imperfection (that has no bearing on anything anyway), and (b) designed to show her smarts by making her feel instant remorse, and she'll be Easily Forgiven anyway:

So this one hopefully will not come true, as a lot can change between now and when the show is taped. But if the show goes on the way the behind the scenes team is talking, Sylvie immediately felt remorse for betraying Loki, and Loki has already forgiven her and is desperately looking for her. Ugh.

Alternatively, she is more than capable of doing something wrong, be it in general moral terms or something that goes against whatever code she abides by, and she maybe even frequently does so, but don't expect the other characters or the narrative to ever acknowledge or comment on it in any real capacity. If the other characters do call her out, expect them to be treated like they're the problem for daring to criticize her at all.

Mobius calls her out for killing people, but Sylvie immediately says he’s a bad person and then Mobius agrees, because, of course.

She will often suffer from Special Snowflake Syndrome; i.e., she has a trait or backstory that sets her apart from her group or race.

She is the only female Loki, thus making her the special one among all the Lokis in episode five.

Presentation

In visual media, the camera just can't stop staring at her.

The camera would follow her in fight scenes rather than Loki.

Mary Sue Tropes

Okay, so there are specific Mary Sue tropes that Sylvie is. One of those is Copy Cat Sue, which I think was referenced before.

Copy Cat Sue

A lot of fanfic writers...start to write something because of their passion for this character, but they find something about the character that doesn't mesh well. Maybe they're the wrong gender or are otherwise not close enough to the author's expectations...In any case, rather than put them through the Possession Sue process, they just get a Clone-O-Matic™ and out pops a Copy Cat Sue...the character might be intended as a replacement for the canon character, but without whatever icky traits the author hates. They'll then rob the spotlight, prove the canon character to be unworthy of his/her position, and either relegate the character to obsolescence or, perhaps, even remove them entirely.

Sylvie is basically a clone of Loki, she is a variant. But she absolutely robbed the spotlight of Loki’s, and they literally call her the superior Loki. I mean, they are literally not even being subtle about this. And there was a feeling by myself (and a lot of other viewers) that Sylvie might ultimately replace Loki in the MCU.

Black Hole Sue

Much like a black hole, this is a Mary Sue who "sucks in" the plot and characters to her. Characters will behave outside their personalities, logic will be defied, and rules will be broken for her sake.

Sylvie really does suck up all the plot and Loki definitely behaves outside of his personality just to fit the Sylvie show.

Jerk Sue

A Mary Sue who is mean or maybe even cruel, but are still treated as an ideal person.

Once again, Sylvie is basically a jerk all of episode three, but you’ve got Loki falling over himself to call her amazing in just the next episode.

Relationship Sue

A Mary Sue who exists to be the perfect mate for a specific character...this character has everything in the plot conspiring to enforce this One True Pairing...in Fanfiction, they are the perfect beloved of a canon character.

They literally have Mobius speculate that Loki falling in love with Sylvie is so extraordinary that it causes an entire Nexus event, that’s how huge this One True Pairing is (!). And Sylvie is the love interest of Loki, the only character who had been around before the beginning of the series

TLDR: Sylvie has all the tropes of a classic Mary Sue character. So calling Sylvie a Mary Sue isn’t being sexist or just randomly hating on the character. If you use common Mary Sue characteristics to examine the character, she just has too many of these characteristics to ignore.

#loki negativity #antisylvie #loki critical #loki criticism #antisylkie

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homosexuhauls · 3 years

Text

15 JUNE, 2021 by Chimamanda Ngozi-Adichie

IT IS OBSCENE: A TRUE REFLECTION IN THREE PARTS

PART ONE

When you are a public figure, people will write and say false things about you. It comes with the territory. Many of those things you brush aside. Many you ignore. The people close to you advise you that silence is best. And it often is. Sometimes, though, silence makes a lie begin to take on the shimmer of truth.

In this age of social media, where a story travels the world in minutes, silence sometimes means that other people can hijack your story and soon, their false version becomes the defining story about you.

Falsehood flies, and the Truth comes limping after it, as Jonathan Swift wrote.

Take the case of a young woman who attended my Lagos writing workshop some years ago; she stood out because she was bright and interested in feminism.

After the workshop, I welcomed her into my life. I very rarely do this, because my past experiences with young Nigerians left me wary of people who are calculating and insincere and want to use me only as an opportunity. But she was a Bright Young Nigerian Feminist and I thought that was worth making an exception.

She spent time in my Lagos home. We had long conversations. I was support-giver, counsellor, comforter.

Then I gave an interview in March 2017 in which I said that a trans woman is a trans woman, (the larger point of which was to say that we should be able to acknowledge difference while being fully inclusive, that in fact the whole premise of inclusiveness is difference.)

I was told she went on social media and insulted me.

This woman knows me enough to know that I fully support the rights of trans people and all marginalized people. That I have always been fiercely supportive of difference, in general. And that I am a person who reads and thinks and forms my opinions in a carefully considered way.

Of course she could very well have had concerns with the interview. That is fair enough. But I had a personal relationship with her. She could have emailed or called or texted me. Instead she went on social media to put on a public performance.

I was stunned. I couldn’t believe it. But I mostly held myself responsible. My spirit had been slightly stalled, from the beginning, by her. My first sense of unease with her came when she posted a photo taken in my house, at a time when I did not want any photos of my personal life on social media. I asked that she take it down. The second case of unease was her publicizing something I had told her in confidence about another member of the workshop. The most upsetting was when she, without telling me, used my name to apply for an American visa. Above all else was my lingering suspicion that she was a person who chose as friends only those from whom she could benefit. But she was a Bright Young Nigerian Feminist and I allowed that sentiment to over-ride my unease.

After she publicly insulted me, it was clear to me that this kind of noxious person had no business in my life, ever again.

A few months later, she sent this affected, self-regarding email which I ignored.

Friday September 15 2017 at 4.35 AM

Dearest Chimamanda,

Happy birthday. I mean this with all my heart, even though I know I have fallen (removed myself?) from your grace. It would be impossible for me to stop loving you; long before you gave me the possibility of being your friend you were the embodiment of my deepest hopes, and that will never change.

I think of you often, still – stating the obvious. I grieve the loss of our friendship; it is a complicated sadness. I’m sorry that I caused you pain, or to feel like you can no longer trust me. There’s so much that I wish could be said.

I pray this birthday is the happiest one yet. I wish you rest and quiet and abiding stability, and of course more of the kind of success that means the most to you.

I hope mothering X is everything you hoped and prayed for and more.

Have a wonderful day today.

Love always.

About a year later, she sent this email, which I also ignored.

Thursday November 29 2018 at 8.42 AM

Dear Chimamanda,

I realise this is long overdue and vastly insufficient, but I’m really sorry. I’ve spent so much time going back and forth in my head and my email drafts; wondering whether to write you, how to write you, what to say, all kinds of things. But in the end, this is the thing I realise I need to say.

I’m sorry I disappointed and hurt you by saying things publicly that were sharply critical, unkind and even disrespectful, especially in light of all the backlash and criticism you experience from people who don’t know you. I could have acted with more consideration towards you. I should have, especially given the privilege of intimacy that you had offered me. There are many reasons why I chose to behave the way I did, but none of them is an excuse. And I clearly realise now, after many, many months of needless sadness and angst and hurt and actual confusion, that I did not treat you as a friend would—certainly not as someone would to whom you had offered unprecedented access to yourself and your life.

You’ve meant the world to me since I was barely a teenager. It’s been very hard navigating the emotional fallout of the past several months, knowing you were displeased with me but truly not quite understanding why, then deciding I didn’t care, then realising that would never be true. I’ve always cared. But I was too mixed up about the situation to be able to make sense of it, or properly see past my own justifications. I’m sorry it took me so long to grasp how I let you down.

I realise that I don’t have room to ask anything of you, but I would be grateful for a chance to say this in person. Still, even if I never get that, I really hope you believe me.

Congratulations on restarting the workshop, and on all the other amazing successes of the past several months. I think of you often; it would be impossible not to. You look so happy in your pictures. I really hope you are well.

All my love,

I hoped never to hear from her again. But she has recently gone on social media to write about how she “refused to kiss my ring,” as if I demanded some kind of obeisance from her. She also suggests that there is some dark, shadowy ‘more’ to tell that she won’t tell, with an undertone of “if only you knew the whole story.”

It is a manipulative way of lying. By suggesting there is ‘more’ when you know very well that there isn’t, you do sufficient reputational damage while also being able to plead deniability. Innuendo without fact is immoral.

No, there isn’t more to the story. It is a simple story – you got close to a famous person, you publicly insulted the famous person to aggrandize yourself, the famous person cut you off, you sent emails and texts that were ignored, and you then decided to go on social media to peddle falsehoods. It is obscene to tell the world that you refused to kiss a ring when in fact there isn’t any ring at all.

I cannot make much of the hostility of strangers who do not know me – fame taints our view of the humanity of famous people. But the truth is that the famous person remains irretrievably human. Fame does not inoculate the famous person from disappointment and depression, fame does not make you any less angered or hurt by the duplicitous nature of people. To be famous is to be assumed to have power, which is true, but in the analysis of fame, people often ignore the vulnerability that comes with fame, and they are unable to see how others who have nothing to lose can lie and connive in order to take advantage of that fame, while not giving a single thought to the feelings and humanity of the famous person.

And when you personally know a famous person, when you have experienced their humanity, when you have benefited from their kindness, and yet you are unable to extend to them the basic grace and respect that even a casual acquaintanceship deserves, then it says something fundamental about you.

And in a deluded way, you will convince yourself that your hypocritical, self-regarding, compassion-free behavior is in fact principled feminism. It isn’t. You will wrap your mediocre malice in the false gauziness of ideological purity. But it’s still malice. You will tell yourself that being able to parrot the latest American Feminist orthodoxy justifies your hacking at the spirit of a person who had shown you only kindness. You can call your opportunism by any name, but it doesn’t make it any less of the ugly opportunism that it is.

PART TWO

When I first read this person’s work, which was their application to my writing workshop, I thought the sentences were well-done. I accepted this person. At the workshop, I thought they could have been more respectful of the other participants, perhaps not kept typing dismissively as others’ stories were discussed, with an air of being among people below their level. After the workshop, I decided to select the best stories, edit them, pay the writers a fee, and publish them in an e-magazine. The first story I chose was this person’s. I wrote a glowing introduction, which the story truly deserved.

They sent this email.

Fri, Aug 7, 2015, 8:20 AM

Thank you so much for that introduction. It means so much to me and I’m going to keep reading it to get through the rest of my stay at Syracuse. I sent it to my mother and she got nervous about the piece because you said ‘it disturbs’, said she’s not sure how she’s going to feel when she reads it. But she’s also one of those ‘let’s leave the past in the past’ people. My sister approved, which meant a lot because our childhoods were each other’s.

All that to say, I’m so grateful you gave me the space to write the short version of this piece, the encouragement to write the longer piece, and now, a platform for it. I definitely have plans to write more about Aba.

Thank you, with all my heart.

PS- I wanted to sign off gratefully + gracefully in Igbo but I said let me not fall my own hand 🙂

About a year later, they sent another email to let me know that their novel would be published.

Wed, Jun 8, 2016, 8:20 AM

Greetings!

I hope all’s been well with you this past year. Belated congratulations on the baby’s arrival, I hope she’s being a delight (I’m sure she is), and on the Johns Hopkins honors.

I was thinking about how this time last year, I’d just received the email from you about Farafina and I wanted to reach out with a quick update. I’ve just accepted an offer for the novel I excerpted as my application and it feels like the workshop was a catalyst for the events that’ve led me here. So, thank you, for the workshop and your words and the Olisa TV series and listening to me babble on about my story at the hotel. I deeply appreciate all of it and you.

All my best,

Before the novel was published, I spoke of it to some people, to help it get attention. I had not been able to finish reading it. I found the writing beautiful, but the story false-hearted and burdened by bathos. When I spoke of the novel, however, it was the former sentiment that I expressed, never the latter.

After I gave the March 2017 interview in which I said that a trans woman is a trans woman, I was told that this person had insulted me on social media, calling me, among other things, a murderer. I was deeply upset, because while I did not really know them personally, I felt they knew what I stood for and that I fully supported the rights of trans people, and that I do not wish anybody dead.

Still, I took no action. I ignored the public insult.

When this person’s publishers sent me an early copy of their novel, I was surprised to see that my name was included in their cover biography. I had never seen that done in a book before. I didn’t like that I had not been asked for permission to use my name, but most of all I thought – why would a person who thinks I’m a murderer want my name so prominently displayed in their biography?

Then I learned that, because my name was in the cover biography, a journalist had called them my “protegee” and they then threw a Twitter tantrum about it, calling it clickbait, viciously disavowing having received any help from me.

I knew this person had called me a murderer, I knew they were actively campaigning to “cancel” me and tweeting about how I should no longer be invited to speak at events. But this I felt I could not ignore.

I sent an email to my representative:

From: Chimamanda Adichie

Date: Wed, Feb 14, 2018 at 2:06 PM

I’m writing about X

She attended my Lagos workshop two years ago and I selected hers as one of a few pieces I published after the workshop.

Apparently I was referred to as her ‘mentor’ and/or she was referred to as my ‘protege,’ in some articles, which led to her tweeting about it. Her tweets were forwarded to me by friends. In them, she reacted quite viscerally to my being called her ‘mentor’ and her being my ‘protege.’ To be fair, she is not technically my ‘protege,’ and it is perfectly fine that she feels this way, but her ungracious tone and the ugliness of the energy spent on her tweets surprised me.

I recently received her book and noticed that my name was included in her official book bio. I was stunned. Surely if she is so strongly averse to my being considered a person who has been significant in her career, (which is my understanding of the loose use of protege/mentor) then it is unseemly to make the choice to include my name in her bio. I found it unusual, as I don’t think I’ve seen it done before in a book bio, but I also now find it unacceptably cynical.

It is only reasonable for a person who sees my name as it is used in her bio — ‘her work has been selected and edited by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’ — to assume some sort of mentor/protege relationship.

To publicly disavow this with a tone bordering on hostility and at the same time so baldly use my name to sell her book is utterly unacceptable to me.

I’d like you to please reach out to her publishers and ask that my name be removed from her official book bio. I refuse to be used in this way.

After contacting her publishers, my representative wrote:

They have asked whether your preference would be to remove the Acknowledgment to you in the back of the book also, in future reprints.

I replied:

I don’t think that is my decision to take, and so will not answer either way, although it would be ideal if she herself made the decision to do so.

On the subject of how to go about it, I was absolutely determined not to be used by this person, but I was also sensitive to the costs the publisher might incur, as this was not in any way the publisher’s fault. Instead of pulping the already printed copies, I asked that the jackets be stripped and rebound. To my representative I wrote:

I’m completely determined that I not be used in this opportunistic and hypocritical way. But I want to make sure to proceed reasonably.

I was assured that my name would be removed and I moved on.

But from time to time, I would be informed of yet another social media post in which this person had attacked me.

This person has created a space in which social media followers have – and this I find unforgiveable – trivialized my parents’ death, claiming that the sudden and devastating loss of my parents within months of each other during this pandemic, was ‘punishment’ for my ‘transphobia.’

This person has asked followers to pick up machetes and attack me.

This person began a narrative that I had sabotaged their career, a narrative that has been picked up and repeated by others.

The normal response would be to ignore it all, because this person is seeking attention and publicity to benefit themselves. Claiming that I have sabotaged their career is a lie and this person knows that it is a lie. But if something is repeated often enough, in this age in which people do not need proof or verification to run with a story, especially a story that has outrage potential, then it can easily begin to seem true.

My addressing this lie will indeed get this person some attention – may they bask in it.

Here is the truth: I was very supportive of this writer. I didn’t have to be. I wasn’t asked to be. I supported this writer because I believe we need a diverse range of African stories.

Sabotaging a young writer’s career is just not my style; I would get no benefit or satisfaction from it. Asking that my name be removed from your biography is not sabotaging your career. It is about protecting my boundaries of what I consider acceptable in civil human behavior.

You publicly call me a murderer AND still feel entitled to benefit from my name?

You use my name (without my permission) to sell your book AND then throw an ugly tantrum when someone makes a reference to it?

What kind of monstrous entitlement, what kind of perverse self-absorption, what utter lack of self-awareness, what unheeding heartlessness, what frightening immaturity makes a person act this way?

Besides, a person who genuinely believes me to be a murderer cannot possibly want my name on their book cover, unless of course that person is a rank opportunist.

PART THREE

In certain young people today like these two from my writing workshop, I notice what I find increasingly troubling: a cold-blooded grasping, a hunger to take and take and take, but never give; a massive sense of entitlement; an inability to show gratitude; an ease with dishonesty and pretension and selfishness that is couched in the language of self-care; an expectation always to be helped and rewarded no matter whether deserving or not; language that is slick and sleek but with little emotional intelligence; an astonishing level of self-absorption; an unrealistic expectation of puritanism from others; an over-inflated sense of ability, or of talent where there is any at all; an inability to apologize, truly and fully, without justifications; a passionate performance of virtue that is well executed in the public space of Twitter but not in the intimate space of friendship.

I find it obscene.

There are many social-media-savvy people who are choking on sanctimony and lacking in compassion, who can fluidly pontificate on Twitter about kindness but are unable to actually show kindness. People whose social media lives are case studies in emotional aridity. People for whom friendship, and its expectations of loyalty and compassion and support, no longer matter. People who claim to love literature – the messy stories of our humanity – but are also monomaniacally obsessed with whatever is the prevailing ideological orthodoxy. People who demand that you denounce your friends for flimsy reasons in order to remain a member of the chosen puritan class.

People who ask you to ‘educate’ yourself while not having actually read any books themselves, while not being able to intelligently defend their own ideological positions, because by ‘educate,’ they actually mean ‘parrot what I say, flatten all nuance, wish away complexity.’

People who do not recognize that what they call a sophisticated take is really a simplistic mix of abstraction and orthodoxy – sophistication in this case being a showing-off of how au fait they are on the current version of ideological orthodoxy.

People who wield the words ‘violence’ and ‘weaponize’ like tarnished pitchforks. People who depend on obfuscation, who have no compassion for anybody genuinely curious or confused. Ask them a question and you are told that the answer is to repeat a mantra. Ask again for clarity and be accused of violence. (How ironic, speaking of violence, that it is one of these two who encouraged Twitter followers to pick up machetes and attack me.)

And so we have a generation of young people on social media so terrified of having the wrong opinions that they have robbed themselves of the opportunity to think and to learn and to grow.

I have spoken to young people who tell me they are terrified to tweet anything, that they read and re-read their tweets because they fear they will be attacked by their own. The assumption of good faith is dead. What matters is not goodness but the appearance of goodness. We are no longer human beings. We are now angels jostling to out-angel one another. God help us. It is obscene.

#chimamanda ngozi adichie #femimism #nigerian feminism #radfem safe #gender critical #radical feminism #cancel culture #forgot the link oops

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