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inessencedevided · 3 years

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Ah, but what scenes in particular did you enjoy? The wangxian ones in general? Or were there any particular ones that stuck with you?

-the axe cultivator

Oh, ac, I missed some of your question last time didn't I? So sorry. My head is kinda in the clouds these days

There are so many scenes that stuck with me, so I'll make a bullet list and probably still miss some ^^

It's such a small thing but in ep 1 the transition from the tale of how wei wuxian was killed transitions to the tea house via a shit from within sizhui's trea cup as he's pouring tea "onto the camera". It's nothing special but remember loving that shot so much the first time I watched that it was one of the things that kept me watching

Wangxian-wise in the first two episodes, I'd be remiss not to mention that handgrip when wei wuxian plays wangxian to calm wen ning down. Because it goes on ... and on ... and on. When I watched it for the first time I was like "ooohhhh so it's gonna be this kind of gay". You know the endless-longing-stares kind. And now when I rewatch it's just devastating. The last time they saw each other before this scene, they also held onto each others wrists but wei wuxian let go and fell to his death. And here lan zhan is, holding on for minutes and only let's go once jiang cheng threatens wei wuxian. Just ... 💔

i started shipping xiyao from their very furst sxebe together. Those two actors (i try to remeber their names but i always forget them again. My memory is shit when it comes to names :/) really just did want some of that sweet sweet homoerotic tension. Also, their first interaction stand out to me as the moment i really started to like lan xichen. In a setting that was shown early on to be highly hierarchical, he exhibited in the very forst scenes that he is willing to disregard someone's standing and look at their character and abilities instead. I just really love xichen ❤

Okay, i can't name one scene per episode, so let’s sum them up a little

I adore this progression during the cloud recesses and the yin iron arc from a flirtratious rivalry to genuine deep freindship and love. There are so many little moments that stand out because of the subtle acting joices made my wang yibo and xiao zhan, as well as the script, The lantern scene, when Wei Wuxian doesn’t betray the yin iron secret to huaisang and lan wangji goes “hu, so your bullshitting has reasons”, when they are in the market and lan zhan actually communicates that he doesn’t like crowds and wei wuxian pulls him closer but not into the crowd and so many others. When you watch closely, you see them realising little details about each other and I’m honestly so impressed with how amazingly the process of their falling in love was portrayed

fast forward a bit: obviously, the freaking montage quasi-fan vid in the middle of the cave scene set to their freaking love song. I remeber when I first watched this scene I actually, literally screamed. I could not believe it because their was no fucking way that this could be read as anything but romantic and I was not used to that much blatant queer romance!

A little less happy (okay a lot). The entire destruction of the jiang clan with a special mention to the scene when Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian just saw the bodies and run into fields where they fight and Jiang Cheng chokes Wei Wuxian and then they just fall back in exhaustion and sleep right there under the open sky. Everything about that scene was brilliantly done and also soul-crushing. The loss of innosence in that moment devastated me. It was so obvious that in the moment of deepest despair, all of these children’s traumas and deep-seated fears reared their ugly heads. So Jiang Cheng directs all his grief at the easiest target for his anger and Wei Wuxian just takes it because that is what he thinks is his job. And the real tragedy? This dynamic will not be broken until Wei Wuxian’s literal death. These children need therapy so goddamn badly and all they get is more trauma on top of their excisting trauma.

“The single log bridge” scene. I. Am. A. Sucker for the found family trope, especially for characters who cronically think they have to do everything on their own. So there Wei Wuxian is saying he will walk his dark path alone, but instead he finds lit lanterns and a humble feast prepared for him by people who love him. That juxtaposition kils. me. every. time. YOU ARE LOVED WEI WUXIAN! FOR YOURSELF!

(Shout out to the second time his word are refuted, this time by lan wangji and *gasp* verbally. Because there is NO better love declaration than that scene in front of basically every leader of cultivation world who politely wait for their turn to attack them)

Luo Qingyang removing herself from the narrative. I literally cry every time.

Talking about women: jiang yanli defending wei wuxian and calling him her brother. That moment is the "three things all wise men fear" quite incarnat, only it's the anger of a gentle woman

“Let me go” So ... I have SUCH a thing for couple who grapple with questions of when it is time to let go and when it is time to hold on. So Wangxian hits all my buttons. I will go further into this in my last bullet point (about the very last scene)

Oh god, this list is gonna get so long and i’m still going to forget things

In the present timeline:

Again, to sum it up, all the gentle wangxian moment where they look at each other and their entire face grows soft. Every almost-smile lan wangji sends wei wuxian, every "oh. He really loves me huh?"-look from wei wuxian. Especially in the Jingshi just after lan Xichen's loredrop. These two intensly guarded people (yes, wei wuxian is guarded,he just hides behind smiles) are so open with each other. I only have to see a guf of lan wangji with his heir down and I go feral!

Talking about that episode, the lan family backstory as a scene does things to me. And I remember watching that the first time and so much of lan wangji's behaviour suddenly making sense. Especially little lan zhan kneeling in front of his mother’s house and that being how he showed his grief really drove home just how this man exhibits emotion. I'm pretty sure that that was the moment he really became my favourite character.

Same episode and a start juxtaposition to the domestic scene between wangxian before: the talk between lan xichen and Jin Guangyao just afterwards. You could probably write an essay of meta about the parallels and differences between those two scenes and I think that's deliberate because they're back to back. The lan brother's share tea with the person closest to their hearts. One is finally able to open himself fully, the other closes up more than he ever has before with this person. The framing in that scene alone drives that message home, never mind its content. It's heart-wrenching and so well done!

Talking about xiyao: jin guangyao's death for similar reasons. Just ... arrrgh

I'm sure I've missed a ton but thus is already so long so I'll close with my favourite overall: the last scene. The parting and subsequent reunion on the mountaintop. I've stated before why this means so much to me. It is such a reassuring message to me: to have two intensely different people learn to understand and love each other exactly as they are. Being who they are, the occasionally walk different paths. But they don't limit each other. They learn to improve each other by just being there when they are and therefore know and trust that their love will return.

This was mostly cql because you asked for "scenes", but have some honorary novel mentions:

Lan Wangji: "The face says nothing. Listen to the heart-beat." 😭😭😭

The moment when wei wuxian collapses after the second siege and lan sizhui expresses surprise over this, lan wangji says something like "We are all human." I love that moment for many reasons. 1) it's one of the rare direct insights into lan wangji's thoughts. No matter how brief he is here, you don't say something like that just because. 2) and it's significant that he is the one saying it because he, too, is placed on a pedestal. In fact, I think a lot about mdzs boils down to the conflict between the inner self and outer perception and how that dichotomy can be both a deliberate shield (lan zhan being the perfect example) and a curse

I hope you and your axe are having a wonderful day 🥰

#mdzsnetcc #ask #ask game #the untamed #cql #mdzs #lan wangji #wei wuxian #lan xichen #jin guangyao #wangxian #xiyao

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medschoolash · 4 years

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Now that i’ve seen the end and had a chance to really marinate on the saga as a whole I don’t think I was ever the type of Star Wars fan who would be satisfied with what most people view as the main draw to star wars. So I don’t think Star Wars was ever truly for someone like me.

I was never that hard into the OT. I’ve seen them all and I enjoy the films but they don’t really deeply resonate with me. I don’t know if it’s because I wasn’t born when they were created or if it’s because they just weren’t made with a fan like me in mind but the OT isn’t some reverent untouchable piece of fiction for me. I more so connected with characters vs that actual film. I adored Luke and Leia, I adored the concept of a fierce princess and rebellion leader and these two siblings connected by so much tragedy and love. That’s the lasting legacy of the OT for me.

I’m actually one of those Star Wars fans who adore the prequel films more than the OT. I only watched because I had a crush on Hayden Christensen and it was star wars so how could I not watch and I really really loved those films. I loved Padme, I found Anakin so compelling because I already knew how his story ended but watching how he got there was a good movie experience for me. I adored the themes of Love, fear, friendship, and the exploration of the force. One of my favorite things about the prequels was how it toyed with the idea that the ideas of Jedi are not infallible and pure ideas and how their ideology can create a monster just as much as the ideology of the sith even if it’s in a completely different way. It was compelling to watch Anakin struggle with his love for Padme that is forbidden by the Jedi and how that ban on attachment is what ultimately started to push Anakin over to the dark side because what human being truly wants to live with no love, no real relationships? I loved the politics of the prequels which entertained me for more than the daily adventures of the OT and the prequels. The political landscape in the galaxy and how it allowed someone like the emperor to rise to power was so compelling. It was also so compelling to watch these powerful Jedi be completely powerless to stop these political machinations. I love that Padme was a fierce leader and that she was one of the most sensible and powerful people in the prequel trilogy despite having no force sensitivity. Her love for Anakin was so strong just like her love for her people. She’s literally only a young woman in the films but she can see the democracy they have established crumbling in front of her and she’s one of the few who has the guts to acknowledge it. She believed in the love of her life but even when he turned down a path she didn’t agree with she held strong to her morals. That took so much strength when you see all you’ve worked for crumbling to the ground and the man you love falling apart along with it and he’s not even just the man that you love he’s literally your husband and the father of your unborn children. It was painful to watch but Padme knew what she stood for and not even Anakin could change that.

Those are the themes and nuances I loved about star wars. Not the fun battles and action scenes, the endless adventures, the cool displays of the forces. I got sucked in by the themes of the force, not the power, by the character dynamics, and the themes that were explored through those dynamics. I liked the OT trio because of the themes of friendship and love and how they all are different from each other but fit, not because I like seeing three cool characters go off on adventures together to defeat the bad guys. I guess for me Star Wars was never just about fun action-packed adventure even if that aspect was enjoyable to see on screen. Without the character relationships and depth, without the exploration of relatable themes that weave together into a narrative beautifully and in a compelling way these films are just shallow spectacles.

When the Sequal trilogy was announced I wasn’t immediately deeply excited about it. I didn’t even see the force awakens in theaters. I watched it months later when I was bored one day and I’m glad I did because what I saw was so interesting and exciting and it inspired me to really get into a whole new generation of Star Wars film. A modernized Star Wars sounded amazing and the prospects after TFA seemed endless. But even with the ST what drew me wasn’t what drew a lot of people. I didn’t really care about seeing Luke, Leia, and Han again just for the thrill of seeing them. I cared about being able to see the original heros because they were weaved into a story where they have a fallen son, a fallen son who just so happened to be the most interesting new character in the films. Kylo Ren/Ben Solo was such a mystery when he first came on screen and then he proceeded to be the only character really explored on a deeper psychological level in the film which made him the most compelling as well. I was so shocked when it was revealed he was Han and Leia’s son but I loved the reveal because of the themes it explored. How the weight of legacy is contemplated, how the failures of parenting are explored, how relentless love for a child is demonstrated. My favorite theme was also how failure was introduced. How the Jedi were not a myth that some people barely even believed truly existed, how all that the original heroes worked for somehow crumbled and even took one of their own with it. That was interesting to me, that was the thing that made me want to see more.

And then there was Rey, this nobody from nowhere who had all this power and years worth of baggage due to abandonment and isolation. Using her to explore another side of family, the theme of absent family and absent purpose and legacy directly contrasted with the way family, legacy, and purpose were explored with Kylo and it made for such a rich narrative which is why the idea of them coming together, the idea of them being the missing piece of the puzzle for each other made so much sense and felt so compelling.

Even with Finn, we got an interesting perspective of someone who was conditioned to be in the FO from birth and someone managed to break free to live on their own. I loved how they explored how you don’t really have your own identity after an experience like that so you latch on to the only things you know like fear and self-preservation. It was a perspective that was new and fresh for star wars. After TFA everything felt new and fresh and inspiring.

Then TLJ happened and it did so many good things on a narrative level that the entire scope of Star Wars was expanded in new and interesting ways. The way it truly explored the failures of the Jedi. The way it showed a broken hero grappling with his biggest failures and feelings powerless to fix then so only shame and guilt exist. The way it explored the idea that the people we love are never really gone and love can bring even the most broken of us back. The way is even dissected the black and white dichotomy and suggested that the true solution was something in between. The way it explored how two completely different people from two completely backgrounds can both feel alone and connect with each other. The way is pretty much shot down the idea that a hero is only bravado and brash behavior, and charm mixed with the desire to do good but true heroes are those who make sacrifices, those who listen, those who think bigger picture instead of small victories. I love the idea that heroes aren’t just a great speech with an improbable plan but the heart to make people believe in it, but instead, they can be mild-tempered women who are short on encouraging speech but are big on plans that will save them all, people who know that doing the obvious and taking a big risk isn’t always what counts as heroics.

TLJ also even expanded the mythology of the force in a way that made it more than just a cool supernatural thing to talk about with friends. I loved how the force was once again talked about as a thing that can exist in all living people. How it gave the force space to exist outside of the skywalkers and any huge legacy at all. I mean that moment where the little slave child is shown to be force sensitive was such an amazing moment because it made you dream of all the other people out there who might be the same, the other nobodies and forgotten people like Rey who hold this great power that can save the galaxy. It made the legacy of our favorite original heroes and characters so much bigger than was it was before, so much more meaningful and it was exciting and fresh and new and IMO paid homage to the themes and concepts that George Lucas originally established in an amazing way.

But quickly I learned that this wasn’t what a lot of Star Wars fans wanted to see or cared about. They wanted more action, not family names, more force powers, more badass moments from their favorite old characters, more shallow evil villains, more boom bang, more trio adventures just for the sake of having adventures and TROS has really highlighted this because most of the people who say they enjoyed it only say “it was so fun!” ��it was so cool to see X old character!” “the trio got to go on adventures!” “the good guys won!” “The Jedi was right!” “wow, this person was related to this person!” . None of the stuff that seemed to matter to a fan like me even registered for a lot of people and none of the creators seemed to care about making it matter. I didn’t come for the action, I didn’t come for nostalgia, I didn’t come for adventure, I didn’t come to hear old last names, and see old faces. I came for characters and themes, and relationship dynamics, and exploration of belief systems and people how they fail or succeed, I came to see the force finally explained for what it truly is instead of having it confined to bloodlines. I came to see how a new generation of people, some with a great family legacy before then and some with no legacy at all can come together build a new legacy and a new world for themselves and the galaxy out of the ashes of all that came before them and I feel like with the final film I’ve finally realized that what I came for was never what this was meant to be and that realization is both freeing and disheartening.

#star wars #the rise of skywalker #reylo #star wars commentary #kylo ren

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getaroomyouheck · 4 years

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wrote a review for Hospice by The Antlers

(little precursor to this review, it's rather emotional and personal, maybe also upsetting, kinda stream of consciousness at points too. so a warning in advance) The beginning to 2020 has been one of the roughest moments of my entire life, honestly speaking it's the most aimless and fucking lost I've felt in a while. My grandfather essentially gave up on living and now simply just sits and waits for his eventual death, taking a toll on me, but specifically my mom. Having heard her anger but eventually just simply harrowed emotion of seeing her father at this state. Alongside this, I've almost felt momentary lapses of reason, moments where I feel back in my hollow shell of a body left behind by ones who hurt me in my past, people i once called friends as well as my abusive ex-girlfriend. Broken promises, lies, empty betrayals, actions that left me afraid of human touch. Combined together, the past month I barely even felt like myself, just a shell of who I should be. Yet at this endless sea of wander, I've come to realize something. Something that has helped me begin to finally feel like myself again. Something that I would've only found through the help of this album. So, I want to talk about it, and really go into what it means to me Hospice is, at it's core, an album about abuse, trauma, and the psychological reparations of broken relationships. From the first words sung on Kettering to the final refrain of Epilogue, this albums breathes and bleeds raw emotion as it's main sense of catharsis and sense of meaning. The concept of this album is one that's simple enough to grasp, our narrator (I'll call him Peter since the lead singer of The Antlers is named Peter), is a nurse at a hospice. He falls in love with Sylvia, a woman who is fatally dying of cancer, and the album from Kettering to Epilogue explores their degrading love, her abuse towards him as she withers, and her eventual death. The conceptual narrative to Hospice is one that, while strong and fully developed across the 10 songs present, is second-nature to why this album hits as hard as it does. Where this album hits closest to me, is in how uncompromising its portrayal of abuse, toxic love, and psychological damage on a fragile mind, ends up being, that is what makes Hospice stand above most of its contemporaries. The prologue to the album, while a beautiful instrumental chop that sets the mood, to me, isn't really where this album begins. The true beginning, lies in our 2nd track. Kettering Within this bubble of echoed piano chords, comes our first signs of what's to come. Peter's frail, broken falsetto's, speaking over what little he knew getting into this relationship. It's a unceasing icy reminder of anguish, each hit of the chord being another lie told, another object thrown, another vicious word spat out in agony, all containing this soft yet obvious punctum to their hits. In this dirge of utter misery, Peter spills out from his heart true bleeding words of what abuse really represents. You wish you knew what you would've gotten yourself into when you became a piece of this other persons life, you wish you had the foresight to know you're just one person, that you can't save them from their own demons. Yet, you still try anyways, in an unceasing hope that you might just be able to bring them closure. From Kettering onwards to about Shiva, we get more of a standard fare of what was presented prior There's an inquantifiable amount of depth I can get into. How Atrophy perfectly captures the justification of abuse from the victim, showing what it means to accept ones abuse as a warped sense of adoration. How Bear is a dichotomy of a soft, broken lullaby alongside this crashing chorus of fuzzy guitars, accurately representing the broken home a child would grow up in. How Two is a horrifyingly real portrayal of the false world and broken promises made manifest into a reality crafted by the abuser and the victim, the private life of suffering never to be seen. And especially, how Epilogue painfully captures the cycle of abuse and the clammy throes of falling for the lies and soft words of your abuser simply to let them hurt you more. Yet, the song I want to discuss the most here, is Wake Wake is, a song I can't fully even begin to describe. The sound of this song is haunting to the fullest degree. The lifeless breaths of a dying corpse always cutting through the lowkey instrumentation to which Peter lays bare the reality of being alone as his abuser has left him. This song sounds almost like a suicide note, like a final recording before taking ones own life. The pulsating, rythmic drumbeat feels as if it's a heartbeat, ready to cease on a lifeline. Layered vocals represent that of a Wake, the social circle around a funeral. It's steeped in the clammy hands of death and throes deeply in the jaws of abuse, the breath of death is fresh always present on the words Peter sings. Yet, lyrically, it doesn't mean that at all. This song is not a cry for help, but rather a championing cry for learning to open about the pain inflicted to you, that it's ok to speak, that some people can't be saved, but that's not your burden to bear. It all crashes into what is maybe one of the most powerful moments in all of music to me, one that without fail, makes me cry. Peter, repeatedly, with more and more strain and power to his voice, screams out "Don't ever let anyone tell you you deserve that" as it all washes away in this final maelstrom of emotion. The crashing cymbals, the layering ascending horns, the cutting piano chords, the choired vocals, this song is the beginning of letting go of the anguish that's festered deep inside you. This song, after 8 songs of utter pain and abuse, being hurt and apologizing to the one hurting you, is representative of finally beginning to realize what you had was broken, but accepting it's ok to find someone to listen to you, and finally taking that step forward. Finally, walking out that door, letting people in, and beginning to accept what you are for who you are. This song, to me, helps represent the emotions surging through me as i finally began opening up to my friends and current girlfriend about how I was emotionally abused and sexually harassed by my ex. How I began to trust and learn to accept the touch of another human. How I learned to realize I'm more than just what she saw me as. Wake is more than just a song to me, rather Wake is the culmination of learning to move forward from grief and toxic love, and try to begin again, maybe wishing you could change the past, but willing to move forward all the same This is what Hospice taught me, and what truly clicked with me as I listened to it this past month and a half. As much as I may want to, I can never go back in time and change the mistakes I made in my youth. I can never go back and stop myself from making friends with people who would only feed into my depression and suicidal ideation. I can never go back and stop myself from dating someone who would end up nearly raping me. I can never go back in time and speak with my grandpa before he gave up on his own life. But, what I can do, is move forward in spite of this pain, in spite of this grief, and learn to love again, to laugh again, to trust again, to continue facing forward anything that may ever face me. Hospice taught me that while I may have endured anguish, I'm still here despite it, and can still keep moving forward. That this burden isn't mine to brunt alone. That it's ok for me, to let people in Favorite songs: Kettering, Sylvia, Atrophy, Bear, Two, Wake (standout), Epilogue Least fav song: N/A

#aidens taste in music #album analysis #the antlers #hospice #long post #tw sensitive material #tw

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fyrapartnersearch · 4 years

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Partner search!

Hello all! I’m looking for a skilled, experienced 1x1 partner or two for a Discord roleplay. I have a few particular plots, though please feel free to come with your own ideas. Please read to the end as there is a password I won't answer messages without.

•General/Writing Style•

I usually prefer sticking at around 4 paragraphs and up, but quality over quantity for the most part. If you usually write 3 paragraphs or less, it'll be hard for me to stay interested, however. I would prefer you write in 3rd person, past tense. Please have decent grammar and spelling, varied vocabulary and sentence structure, as well as decent syntax. Please provide me something of substance to respond to in your responses. Please also be somewhat experienced.

•Age•

18+ only, but 21+ preferred (I'm 23)

•Timezone•

Mine is EST. I do not mind what timezone you're in.

•Response Frequency•

I'd prefer if you could respond at least once a week. I'm a pretty busy student can't definitely commit to much more than that, so I won't ask that of you. Please try to communicate when you will be gone or significantly less active for several weeks or more. I will try to do the same.I'm a bit less lenient with this when we're still doing introductions, so if we've barely said hello but a few days pass and I hear nothing, I'll assume you're no longer interested or never were in the first place and close our discussion. You are free to assume the same of me.

•Genre•

I'm a sucker for Romantic Slice-of-life with a healthy dose of drama and angst, but I do like to weave other genres in there too such as Supernatural, Mystery, Action, and Adventure. I'm really open to most things if the plot interests me.

•Gender and Romantic Preference•

I strongly prefer playing a female main outside of MxM. Beyond that, I am open to MxF, FxF, and MxM . Currently, I'm mostly in the mood for an MxF or possibly F//. My apologies, but please note I do not play male in MxF unless we have roleplayed other pairings together before and have highly compatible writing styles. I rarely double up.I do not engage in dichotomy personality dynamics(ie- dom/sub, ABO, top/bottom) and like pairings to be close to even as possible in contributions to the relationship. If a scene gets intimate, I'd prefer we fade to black.

•Plots/Creativity•

The plots I’m looking to do atm are listed below. Despite this, you're more than welcome to share plots of your own. I'd prefer it if you are open to brainstorming plot points and bouncing ideas off each other too- let's keep this interesting for both of us so it stays alive.

•OCs•

I would prefer not to roleplay with OCs that are excessively shy, Mary-Sues, or OP. Additionally, please ensure your own OC does not monopolize the plot with their own issues and background. Let's share the spotlight.I tend to play multiple characters and would prefer if you did too.Please do not control my main OC or any named side characters I introduce. It can really mess with my plans with them if you suddenly auto-kill out of nowhere or something... If necessary, I may permit you to control a side character of mine, but please run it by me first. Communication is key.

•Platform•

Discord is strongly preferred. I can potentially be convinced to use kik, tumblr, or line.

•Fandoms•

I am willing to roleplay within the universe of several fandoms, but please note I do not roleplay as canon characters and would prefer not to roleplay with canon characters either. Please recall that I am more than happy to do original plots too if you aren't into any of these.-Corpse Party**-Black Mirror-Death Note-Avatar The Last Airbender*-Downton Abbey-Call The Midwife*-Dragon Quest(IV-IX)***-Miraculous Ladybug****(I'd love to delve into the more subtle, darker elements like the consequences of a broken miraculous and time travel)-Fruits Basket**-Soul Eater*-The Hunger Games-Harry Potter(The number of * indicates craving)

•Original Plots•

(Muse I would like to play is bolded. If neither are bolded, I can do either. All of these are open to brainstorming and tweaking!)

Muse A was born into a society where ‘falling in love’ is not a thing. Sure, it’s written in about fairy tales and even history texts, but most Readers laugh it off as a silly, archaic concept. All couples are formed by reading Cerebral wavelengths, stats that are unique to every individual. Every person has a single match and are paired with that person permanently when they come of age. No trades, no take-backs. Muse B, though born into the regular world, doesn’t believe in love either. Perhaps it was the plight of their parents, or that one nasty breakup. Perhaps it was the sight of all the couples around who’d be lovey-dovey one week, but strangers the next. Whatever it is, they don’t buy it. That suits Muse A just fine- their Cerebral wavelengths not only don’t match, they bang together in a cacophony. Why is it then that these two begin experiencing an undeniable pull to each other?

One night, Muse A is taking their usual jog through the park when they trip right over Muse B tying their shoe. Cliche start is cliche, I know, but stay with me here. After some initial awkwardness, the two hit it off quite well. Flash forward a week or so and the pair are starting school in the same class, Muse A as one of the typical debutants, and Muse B a lucky upstart on a basketball scholarship. Muse B had high hopes for where things’ll go…only to find out Muse A has a boyfriend, who happens to be Muse B’s nemesis on the courts. Whoops. But something’s really off with the couple. As in the boy is downright awful, and it isn’t just the rivalry talking. Yet Muse A refuses to leave him…why is that?

(This is an older one of mine, but I’ve recently kinda been in the mood to start it up again.) Marianoh’s Culinary Institute is the most renowned school for culinary arts in the country. Any who truly wish to be a master chef would be foolish not to attend. Unless they don’t have the means- the tuition is insanely high. Muse A is part of the lucky few of humble beginnings that has been selected to attend via scholarship. They couldn’t be more excited. Muse B, on the other hand, comes from a family of celebrity chefs. Their spot at Marianoh’s was confirmed before birth. Yet, somehow, they don’t share Muse A’s joy. Far from it, actually. What happens when the two are partnered up for the year?

(A brand new one definitely open to suggestions) St. Cornelius’ Academy(or University) is an academic institution reserved only for those of royal or noble background as well as their future servants, attendants, and body guards. Students of the academy hail from kingdoms where individuals are born gifted with control over the 8 elements- light, wind, flame, flora, lightening(tech), water, earth, and darkness. Students are divided based on status into ‘Golds,’ ‘Greys,’ and ‘ The ‘Gold’ category includes all royalty and nobility aside from viscounts and barons of low birth. The ‘Gray’ category includes future ladies and men in waiting, other servants, attendants, and body guards. Students are instructed in all areas in order to best prepare them for their future roles from political science to etiquette to combat. Given the wealth of a portion of the student body, the campus is a vivacious display of luxury, featuring lavish gardens, seemingly endless grounds, state-of-the-art learning facilities, and even an expansive kitchen headed by a world renowned 31 star chef. Currently, I have three potential pairings in mind for this set-up.

-Muse A is a new lady in waiting assigned to a spoilt, catty Duchess of Aquaria(Water Kingdom). Catering to the every whim of the young princess-to-be is exhausting, but her goal of reaching far greater heights than her questionable background merits keeps her going. What faster way to do that than catching the eye of Muse B, the princess’ bethrothed and crown Prince of Aquaria using abilities bequeathed to her by her merpeople ancestry? The lines between acting and reality are prone to blurring, however and actual feelings soon begin to muddle her plans. Muse B isn’t as unaware as he first seems either..

-Muse A is the somewhat naive prince of Angion(Flora), unsure of his future. He’s distant from his fiancée, Muse B a cold, proud Marchioness of the same kingdom, and his closest confident is one of his newest body guards, Muse C. Little does he know, that Muse C has quite the secret- she’s truly a girl whose taken on her brothers identity to serve. What will happen when all comes into the open?

5. Muse A has always been at the top of their class since early elementary and thrived on it. They come from a family of high achievers where failure is neither seen nor accepted. Proud and arrogant over their achievements, their grades make them, them. All that changed when Muse B showed up, smashing the entrance exams with marks unheard of. Of course Muse A wouldn’t take that lying down, thus, the classic rivalry begins. What happens when the two find they have more in common than they thought? Life on Muse B’s side is not all it seems as well.

Contact Instructions: Please message me here on tumblr (https://lisanimelis.tumblr.com/) with your favorite color and a writing sample. If all goes well there, we'll move to discord.

#oc rp #multiple paragraph #long term #messenger #submission

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rosarioreibey-blog · 5 years

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Machine Gun Kelly Claims High Of The Pop Charts With ‘Unhealthy Issues’

^ F. Holt, Style in Common Music (University of Chicago Press, 2007), ISBN 0226350398 , p. 56. Music contributes enormously to our lives as Christians. We sing, or at least sing alongside, in church, at dwelling, at parties, and even in the automotive to music from a whole bunch of composers, vocalists, instrumentalists, producers, and other artists stored on our smartphones, streaming companies, CDs, and radios. Christians in past centuries could not even think about such convenience or quantity. Yet music in church is a topic that has been a source of appreciable controversy over the past quarter century. As a music professor at Providence, and as a composer and former church music minister myself, I have usually pondered the many differences of opinion. Here are a couple of ideas, a few of that are extracted from my article printed in the June 2011 challenge of Christianity As we speak. Authoring a song that might launch almost a a hundred covers, ‘Hallelujah' is just a small sliver of Leonard Cohen 's immense contribution to music over the previous five a long time. The completed poet and https://www.goodreads.com novelist was the toast of the Montreal literary scene earlier than he turned to music to become the foremost songwriter of his era. His meditations on love, faith, despair and politics might be conveyed in even the simplest of terms. Songs like ‘Suzanne' and ‘Chook on the Wire' and ‘Sisters of Mercy' would cement his popularity as a in-demand folks songwriter, spawning hits for countless other artists, but nobody could substitute Cohen's deep, resonant voice. It's a huge mission and out of necessity Stanley is compelled to condense entire fascinating histories that probably deserve their own guide into only one chapter (I might love to learn a e-book concerning the Brill Building scene, for example, or riot grrl, about which I stay largely ignorant), however he's clearly acquired endless enthusiasm for pop and his dismissive angle to rockist bores or really anybody who takes themselves too seriously (fans of Patti Smith, Radiohead & The Doorways take be aware) is good.

Love Yourself 轉 'Tear' is the third Korean studio album by South Korean boy band BTS. The album was launched on Might 18, 2018 by Massive Hit Leisure. It is accessible in four versions and accommodates eleven tracks, with "Fake Love" as its lead single. The concept album explores themes regarding the pains and sorrows of separation. It debuted at primary on the US Billboard 200, changing into BTS' highest-charting album in a Western market, as well as the first Ok-pop album to prime the US albums chart and the very best-charting album by an Asian act.

Frankly I do not care if the music is pop or rock. Simply the tune and the lyrics needs to be my style and wise. I follow four rock bands :Disturbed, Evanescence, Breaking Benjamin and Within Temptation, cause I just really feel calm or evernote.com nice or excited by their music. I am only talking in regards to the songs, not the concerts because I reside in India and I've never been to any concert events. One of the important causes I don't like pop music a lot is as a result of they're all the time so cliched. It's both love songs or partying or drugs or sex. I am just feeling so damned tired of trendy pop music. I'm additionally afraid that rock is creating those type of attitudes and that is why I stick with solely 4 bands. In case you guys may suggest a brand new track for me, post your touch upon cretoxyrhinamantelli@gmail. com. That does not essentially mean that stupid people love pop — just that pop trains us to count on much less from our inventive and creative lives. Music can nourish our minds like almost nothing else, so when a mega-trade is devoted to selling the least inspired music they can, they're short-altering all of us. A survey of different research on music reveals that pop music has gotten worse over the last 50 years. Not only that, it's been used to brainwash listeners by way of predatory marketing strategies across all media channels. Do it sure? Or just keep behind some random hate weblog whereas having the most boring job of your life every day the place you are taking out all of your frustrations on a kind of music recognized throughout the world that does not even make it's a must to take heed to it. Folks say they don't seem to be fairly sufficient or they don't look too good everyday. It isn't simply in korean. It's in America, Europe, just about anyplace else you might consider. Guess what? In the event that they assume that means then they'll nonetheless turn out to be higher when they notice that they actually don't should attempt to be a sure look. The sounds of the 1960's straddled a large dichotomy between the last word commercialism with fully manufactured bands (like The Archies and The Monkees) and revolutionary artistry (Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix) with a few of the greatest singer-songwriters and instrumentalists emerging on the scene. There were additionally many bands and artists that walked the line between commercialism and Http://Www.Magicaudiotools.Com/ musical innovation like The Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel, and The Rolling Stones. The Beatles dominated the charts and spurred on the British Invasion that characterized a lot of the last decade.There are two singers. Each are accused of abuse, and by many accounts, both have done lasting harm to susceptible individuals. Personally, I think one singer makes completely banal music, so it is simple for me to be self-righteous and by no means hearken to him again. (The buzzword people have been utilizing lately for that is "canceled.") The other singer, nonetheless, has written songs that I've loved for many years, and whereas I've never really doubted his guilt, eradicating his music from my listening life has proved tough.The chords and notes used in 2016's biggest hits aren't unique; they're the identical exact ones we've been listening to because the invention of modern music around 1750 But by shifting a few notes right here and there, present pop artists can hold their songs from sounding predictable and give them a extra open-ended tone. Instead of touchdown again on the chord we expect it to, these songs lift again up into another observe, making the song extra buoyant, stunning, and dynamic.

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heroesarelife · 6 years

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I returned to ask something of my beloved Togata Mirio, in the case he make a request for courtship the girl he likes very much (I accept to be his future wife too, oh lord), thank you and sorry for the english so bad.. :c ♥

Hey mate I didn’t proof read this so forgive me for any odd mistakes and whatnot.

Also, please remember to specify if you want headcanons or scenarios, otherwise I will tend to choose freely and I generally default into hcs.

Word count: 2k+

Warning: Some second hand embarrassment.

Mirio was, for as long as he could remember, single-mindedlyfocused. He had wanted to be a hero since he was a toddler. He could all but recallthe endless summer days, when he and Tamaki would play, pretending to be wellknown heroes. Saving each other in turns, chasing seagulls away as if they werevillains - which worked very well, since the seagulls would usually fight backand he would somehow need to defend his friend from them. In fact, that’s oneof the ways he learned how to control his quirk; provoking the territorialbirds and then proceeding to activate it whenever they attacked, satisfied whenthey would fly right through him, shrieking in angry dismay. Of course, hewould sometimes time it wrong and instead be the target of the bird’s fury. Reasonwhy he would claim, for whomever bothered to hear, that they were the devil’sspawns. And he had the scars to prove it.

And that was only one instance of his determination. He hadneeded to be that way, with his quirk being as it was, and the generaldisbelief and scrutiny the world threw at him regarding his dream. And yet, henever gave up. Plunging through challenges and against all odds, training hisbody and mind mercilessly until he had unwavering control over his abilities.

That is, until now.

She was from the class next door, and had been inadvertentlysending most of Mirio’s days in disarray by simply existing. And did soeffortlessly, with no realisation whatsoever of the devastating effects she hadon him.

Crossing past her on the hallway became a complicated heart-flutteringordeal. Observing her from afar turned into a daily habit. The simplest ofhair-throws, the smallest of smiles, would send whatever he was holding rightthrough his hand and into a splattering mess on the ground. A sudden cross ofeyes and he would promptly find himself two floors below.

One for whom confidence came as naturally as air to thelungs, Mirio was the most confused by his own nerves. Even when he tried totalk to the girl, he ended up derailing into a verbal avalanche, that made aslittle sense to him as it did to her, leaving both devastatingly confused,although it seemed to entertain Nejire to no end, if her unveiled snickering wasanything to judge by.

“Our Mirio is in love!” She teased pleasantly, after he madehis now all too common walk of defeat back to his group of friends.

“Do you think she noticed?” He asked, smiling as to mask the dread the sheer thought caused him.

“I think the whole school knows at this point.” Nejireanswered, almost distractedly. Then joined her hands together, like struck by asudden thought, a playful smile lighting up her features: “There’s even a pollgoing around. But don’t worry, we are team Mirio!” She added, as if thatsettled any issues he might have, nudging Tamaki with her elbow.

Mirio left his head hang in defeat, wishing fiercely hecould go back to simpler times when all he worried about was to become a heroand defeat villains. When it was all about training his quirk. Thinking back,maybe seagulls weren’t all that bad, after all. He would choose the demon spawnsand a beating over this whole mess. Any day, any time.

“That’s it!” He slammed his fist against his palm invictory. “She’s like the seagulls!” he declared triumphantly. Seeminglyrecovered to his traditional excited demeanour, he walked off hurriedly,restless under the fuel of his idea. He understood now; this was training aswell, and he had to face it like a challenge. He had to win her heart.

“Oh. She does sound a bit like a bird, I guess.” He heardNejire say behind him in placid agreement, not sounding the least confused.

—–

The next day, Mirio was ready. Armed with a messy chimeramade of varied internet tips – the ones he managed to make any sense of. Groomedand set into pretending his insides weren’t all mush and rattled nerves, hemarched into his UA designated building with all the airs of a man on amission. Before he could change his mind, he beelined towards the lockers wherehe knew he would find her, now that he had most of her schedule internalizeddown to the second.

There she was, organizing her locker absent-mindedly as shechatted to a friend. He swallowed dry, suddenly realizing how little his memorymade her justice. She seemed to sparkle along with the sunlight, all her beinglight and ease in her own existence, and he wondered if that was some sort ofmagic or if he was really just that hopeless. He hesitated, almost turning andcalling it a day. But he had made a decision, and he would follow through withit for all he was worth.

And so he did, approaching and placing his elbow against thewooden structure, supporting his head and weight with it. She had her back tohim, but the aspiring hero hadn’t planned as far as what to say, wanting atfirst to be, well, noticed. Preferably looking cool. Yes, that would do.

He stood awkwardly locked in the position, the confidentsmile frozen in his face almost as if painted in place. After an absoluteeternity – or one minute and fifty-three seconds, but who was counting? – herfriend poked her shyly, pointing towards him. She was going to notice him, andhis insides froze up and burned in a superb dichotomy that perfectly mirroredthe jumbled state of his own thoughts.

“Hello!” He said, louder and more mechanically than heintended. “Isn’t this a—” She turned to look at him and their eyes met. That’sall it took, really. There he went, across the lockers and the ground, fallingbutt first against the concrete floor one story below, leaving behind hisclothes and a great chunk of his dignity, no doubt. Luckily, Tamaki broughtthem both back to him a couple of minutes later.

Not a man to be intimidated and give up on first struggle –after all, how long did it take for him to face off the seagulls properly? –,Mirio pushed forward. The following days went by as smoothly as a messy andunplanned laboratory experiment could go, and usually bored the results onewould expect of such disasters. Each and every single day he tried a differentapproach, a different plan, one more miraculous than the other. He triedeverything the internet and his imagination had to offer. Showing his skillsin the hopes of dazzling her, making himself a constant presence in her orbit, chocolates,flowers, the list of actions went on. Some of which didn’t end in outrightcatastrophe; a plus considering his growing track record.

At the end of the month Mirio found himself no closer to hisobjective, hopelessly out of ideas, and seemingly defeated. He stopped trying,to the chock of half the school. Instead he walked around a bit hunched over,uncharacteristically gloomy, proceeding with what was needed of him with adistant, disconnected energy. Nejire and Tamaki tried to cheer him up, in verydifferent and characteristic ways, but he only payed them half a mind. Hethought, maybe people around were right and he should just give up.

It was one of those days, when he was walking back home inthe company of his sulking, that their paths crossed. Not on a forced, overthe top, based on careful planning, manner. But as simple as him raising hishead for a second, and the person who consumed all his thoughts was right infront of him, like a gift.

His heart squeezed in a confused mix of happiness and sorrowthat he couldn’t quite describe, let alone name, but that had become a constantpresence whenever he would see her. Part of him thought that maybe this was themoment to give his last try, and if it didn’t work… But his thoughts stoppedmidtrack, given pause by his other, more observant, part.

Because for the first time in a long while he paid attentionto her and not to his thoughts and plans. And he saw a reflection of his ownsaddened state on the lines of her shoulders; as if she was bending towards herself,trapped in her own thoughts, head cast down.

Insecurities forgotten to give place for goodhearted worry, hisbody acted on its own accord and he approaches quietly, sitting down on the parkbench beside her. She noticed, but didn’t raise her head. All thingsconsidered, that was a good thing, since his quirk had developed thehabit of acting out whenever she looked at him.

“Hey. Are you alright?” He asked haltingly.

She nodded, not startled at his presence. “Yes. I just had abad day at training. That’s all.” She sighed, and as she did the world answeredin tune, a gentle breeze reaching them both, brushing the loose hair strandssoftly. At that she raised her face, looking straight ahead, a slight smilecurving her lips; welcoming the gift. She looked beautiful and he thought,painfully, that he couldn’t give up, after all. It wasn’t in him. “I just feellike I try and try and I’m still behind everybody else. I—” she went on,looking at her hands with a contorted expression “I still can’t control myquirk properly so I keep thinking that maybe… maybe I should just give up.Maybe I’m not cut to be a hero, really.”

“That’s not true!” He exclaimed in sudden passion, much moreloudly than what the situation demanded, but he didn’t care. Not this time. Hestood up indignantly, looking at her firmly for the first time. “I’ve seen youtrain! I’ve been—” observing you like acreep “I notice you around. And I’m not about to let you talk yourself intothinking you are not worth it. I was told that all my life by everyone, but I knew I could do it. And so can you.” He declared boldly, squeezinghis hands into fists. She was looking at him now, eyes wide. “I believe in you.You are incredible and I think the world can’t be the place we want it tobecome without you at our side. At my side too. As a hero.” He opened a largesmile, truth behind every word, not attempting to hide his excitement. “Myquirk is also really hard to control so I can help you with yours too. So don’tworry. I would give anything to you.”

Caught up in his beliefs and sheer spirit, it took him asecond too late to realize exactly what he had just said. Very suddenly hestuttered, because now she was looking at him at a loss for words. Oh no. “Imean, like because I would love to help. Like, as a friend. It’s not like I’mtrying anything else. No, but not like I wouldn’t like it, I would love it! Imean you are so amazing and we could, like, do hero work together in the futurewhen we are not going on dates and watching movies. And I just being happy. Butwhat I mean is that you can totally be a hero, it doesn’t need to be with me,but it can. No, I mean—” He derailed and came to a halt; her fingers pressedagainst his lips to hush him. While his brain was still trapped in the book hecould say to go and try to save the whole situation, his heart definitely tooknote of her proximity, turning and skipping beats wildly. That was it then, hethought. He screwed it up.

But instead of the certain rejection he was fully expecting,she smiled instead. Sweet and bright. “Thank you, Mirio. I… I think I will dothat. And it means a lot, that you believe in me.” He took in a deep breath,almost shaking with the adrenaline rush. “About the rest… Maybe we could startwith an ice cream instead? And we can see about the dates and movies later on.” She suggestedsimply, laughing softly when he staggered, wide-eyed.

“There’s an ice cream place close to here. Where the seagullsgather.” He heard himself say, almost distantly. Still in shock.

Because by a stroke of luck – or some wild dream, and ifthat was the case, he would like to keep dreaming, thank you very much - theywere both walking side by side, towards the ice cream place. Mirio couldn’tquite make sense of the whole thing, but his entire being was covered with a glowing sensation,warm and fuzzy and oh-so-good. He felt like an idiot, but a happy idiot.

“You know, about that poll…” She started, inquisitively. Hejumped on the thought, having completely erased from his brain the casualinformation he had been told before. He fussed, scratching his head and smilingwidely, albeit apologetically.

“Right! I’m so sorry about it! My friends…” Nejire, he corrected inwardly. “…theyhave a weird sense of humour. I will tell them to call it off.”

“No! Don’t yet. I mean…” She exclaimed, laughing easily,and the sound was like music to his ears. “I was going to say that my bet was onyou, you know.”

Say what now? He stopped, mouth hanging open in dismay. Shelooked at him, apparently finding something funny in his expression, since she smiledmischievously. Taking a step back in his direction, she reached out and heldhis hand, interlocking their fingers together and squeezing it warmly.

“But I think that somehow I’m already collecting my wagers.”

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sometimesrosy · 7 years

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Hi Rosy, If you get some time, KimShum had a Twitter exchange yesterday I believe where she talked about Finn's characterization. It might interest you.

I KNOW.

I saw it.

It was delightful.

I cannot tell you how many conversations I’ve had with Finn fans who are upset at me because I see him as a “nice” guy but really a manipulative jerk intent on controlling and undercutting these amazing women so he can have power over them. These aren’t even the controversial discussions. You know the ones.

And this same Kim Shumway discussion talks about how hard it is for us, as fans, to see the non-heroic qualities in these characters we love and have identified as heroes. It’s clearly not just Finn, but also Lxa and Bellamy and Clarke and Kane and Octavia and all the characters.

She talked about how it’s so much easier for the audience to recognize the good in the “bad guys” than it is for them to accept their hero as just as morally gray.

I think it’s such an interesting discussion to have and I’m glad one of the writers brought it up. And I’m glad that she was clear that they never intended Finn to be seen as “a hero.” She said Finn’s portrayal was subversive and I think it was. The flip flop between bad/good Bellamy/Finn has actually been mentioned as one of the best plot twists on The 100.

It’s so good that she’s talking about how the show is CONSCIOUSLY trying to make viewers aware that they themselves might be capable of horrors. That being “the good guy” is not an excuse for your actions.

Honestly. Thank you kim shumway for talking about this, because we’ve been having this discussion over here FOREVER about how we need to evaluate for ourselves what is good and evil and the ends do not justify the means and doing it for your people is not a justification, and taking away someone’s freewill is not “taking care” of them, and abuses of power, and redemption arcs, and forgiveness, and lack of change, and how perspective changes your perception. Oh for years now.

I think we could also take this discussion farther and look at how some people go from stanning a character to hating him/her, and what is the dividing line they hit that takes them from a hero to a villain, because we’ve seen that with Clarke, Bellamy and Octavia at this point. Each one of them has had fans turn on them when they believe they’ve gone too far.

Why is the fandom so resistant to this idea of good guys being capable of bad actions, of hurting people? To be honest, a lot of people are analyzing the writing to see what has gone wrong and how they’ve messed up, and I’ve been analyzing the fandom’s perception and trying to understand how they are coming up with their interpretations. I don’t think the fandom particularly likes that analysis. lol.

This was a thread that I was particularly excited to see.

Kim Shumway‏ A thing I noticed over the years wrt how characters were received is that viewers would slot them into villain/hero roles more than writersLike, in the room we wouldn’t say, “here’s a villain” and build from that. Same with heroes. But viewers do, so there can be a disconnect

There are characters who are antagonists, for sure, like Dante. But we had ENDLESS talks about how from Dante’s POV, he was justified.Viewers seemed to have an easier time seeing the “good” shades of villainous characters than the “bad” shades of those they believed heroic

And yes, the show is from certain characters’ POVs, so they are presumed “good.” But those good people have done a LOT OF SHIT.The show seeks to understand their actions, but that does not equal approval. And, of course, it’s not perfect. Sometime people got passes.But when I was there we tried to play fair with it. And, for me, that seems to have been one of the biggest disconnects with some viewers. The show was not interested in calling people heroes or villains. Those labels are not helpful/relevant/meaningful. Abby makes it explicit.When it’s called a cable show on broadcast, that’s why. It was not interested in playing the hero/villain dichotomy……yet some viewers are so trained to see shows through that lens that there would be a disconnect. It was really interesting to watch. Granted, this is all somewhat academic. A show is interpreted by its audience. That’s where it lives. So people take from it what they see.But it’s been illuminating to watch viewers’ responses just to see the gap between intention/reception. Much of which was due to assumption.Which is also about how audiences are implicitly trained to interpret shows. In some ways it felt like this show had a bigger gap than most.So I’m curious to see, years after the show ends, how it is remembered. Again, it’s academic, but interesting for those in the biz. /end

Okay. Well. Like. It absolutely makes me ecstatic to read this, because this is the way I was interpreting the show and I’d been told by many people that I had no right to do this because the writers CLEARLY intended certain people to be heroes. And here they are saying I was picking up the story they were laying down. So. This for me is more validation. I cannot tell what their next choices will be for the narrative, but I can absolutely tell you what they are doing with the story as it is on screen.

honestly. thanks @the100writers

#the 100 #the 100 meta #social media #the 100 writers #validation #honestly you guys i'm uncomfortable with bragging sometimes but i've gotten SO MUCH SHIT for my interpretation #and here kim is saying I was right #i need to go lay down now i am overcome

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anautisticdragon-blog · 6 years

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Marvel vs. DC

I've wanted to write this one for a while, but I'm going to sum it up before I begin: DC does diversity and social issues better than Marvel could manage in its wettest, wildest dreams.

That's going to annoy fans. So let's even include my personal bias, just as a disclaimer: I'm really not fond of Marvel's lack of continuity, nor am I a fan of Bendis.

With Morrison's New X-Men, Grant looked at the problems which plagued the X-Men and how every time the books would just go back to telling the same stories. He wanted to unshackle these books from that curse, and he set up the means to do precisely that.

He weaved everything together so masterfully, Corporation X, the second mutant boom, the much needed nod to how mutants aren't all just these beautiful poster models, et cetera. Honestly, how can you stand for the downtrodden if you come across as the one per cent?

Being an X-Man must've had an amazing dental, physical, and mental health plan. No one dared to even be anything less than a perfect icon of the status quo, it was basically what Magneto always wanted. It was really quite difficult to distinguish between what separated him from Xavier.

Grant fixed that. Mutants could be less than beautiful and that was okay, mutants didn't always need to have MacGuffin powers and that was okay too. Then, at the very end, he edited the Marvel Universe to remove mutant prejudice.

That's wild.

It's the end goal of everything they'd just been striving for since the '80s, and the reason they had been locked in this neverending cycle. Now the X-Men could tell new stories. Stories about how it was okay to be interesting, diverse, and not just a living god. It was incredible, I had more hope for the X-Men at that point than I ever had.

Marvel retconned it with the very next issue. Prejudice returns, everyone is beautiful again, and every gift Grant gave them was generally pissed over. Marvel hates continuity. They're so wantonly, gaggingly desperate to tell exactly the same stories over and over and over again.

One of the worst casualties of it all was Beast. Before Morrison, Beast was nothing more than a one-dimensional, Silver Age character. Grant gave him a third-dimension, a dichotomy. Certainly, it was a bit of an old trope (Grant loves those), and yet he used it to give Hank McCoy depth he'd never had in all his years as an X-Man.

Bendis took that away. No more feline Beast for us, no more dichotomy, no more third-dimension. Hank is just a Silver Age airhead again.

Marvel is basically Groundhog Day. This is their problem and I promise you this will all tie together and go somewhere. This Groundhog Day syndrome is at the root of all of Marvel's problems, and why DC are trouncing them right now on every story-telling front.

So, they did it with Iron Man, too.

Tony Stark was always weirdly technophobic for what could only be described as a self-made transhumanist. In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, you can see him operating on himself to give himself upgrades. Not in the comics.

Warren Ellis was the first to set out to fix this -- Extremis. Extremis was pretty okay. I'd say it was definitely a step in the right direction, but Tony still had this technophobic edge to his personality that caused dissonance in anyone who had any minor level of familiarity with technology.

Tony seemed oddly unfamiliar with the tech he'd supposedly been building. Had it turned out that -- in fact -- Tony was just a pretty face, and the real tinkerer and putterer was hiding in his shadow? That would've been interesting!

They didn't go that way, though. So they had to cure Tony of his technophobia. From Extremis we moved onto Matt Fraction's run where Tony really learned to trust technology; In fact, it proved to be more reliable and faithful to him than people did. His distrust moved away from technology to authority, government, and powerful figures like the Mandarin. This provided a strong focus, it provided the reader with reasons.

It reminds me of Mark Waid and Eobard Thawne. Eobard, the Reverse Flash, was just a two-bit Silver Age airhead of a villain. Just evil because evil, no more to it than that. Waid fleshed him out by having him become an obsessive stalker, a crazed fan whose vision of Barry Allen was so idealised that the real Barry couldn't live up to it.

This gave Eobard Thawne a reason to be Barry's villain. Similarly, Tony's newfound distrust of very powerful people and authority gave him a reason to distrust a self-styled, preening, entitled figure like The Mandarin. A character who fancifully imagined himself as an emperor.

It also allowed Tony to explore technology and realise that he wanted to spend more time simply working on it and helping to create heroes to combat men like The Mandarin than showboating hismelf. It set up the scene for both Rhodey and Pepper to replace him as Iron Corps.

Continuity! Evolution! A bold new di--RETCON! Now Tony's a technophobe again who was starkly (heh) terrified of his old technology and went back to sticks, rocks, and showboating because that's what Tony does at Marvel.

And this brings me to why I dislike Marvel. You might've heard that their editors actually blamed their push for diversity for their waning sales. It couldn't have anything to do with this Groundhog Day syndrome of theirs. No, no no no. Of course not. It has to be diversity, right?

Well, no. And, weirdly, yes? You see, their attitude toward diversity is inauthentic. It isn't genuine. I think everyone's catching on. That black kid who's going to be Iron Man? That's Cat Beast, you see? Soon to be replaced by technophobic Tony, completing the cycle.

The new Lady Thor? Cat Beast. Falcon as Captain America? Cat Beast. It'll all revert. It's because they don't actually have any passion behind it. Why did Falcon become Captain America? Oh, he and Steve Rogers had an argument and now he's wearing Captain America's uniform because reasons.

Then he got Cat Beast'd, now he's Falcon again. Steve Rogers is Captain America again. Groundhog Day, everyone! It's Groundhog Day!

Lady Thor? Lady Thor is there because... Um, er, other realities? Reasons? No one really knows, but everyone knows that it's a gimmick. It's not really intended to stick. She'll get Cat Beast'd, and ultimately replaced by Man Thor again.

I mentioned the Iron Corps, right?

This is because of how DC handled things with the Green Lantern Corps. The best example I've seen yet of HOW YOU DO THIS RIGHT.

Hal Jordan? He's being a space cowboy. John Stewart? He's leading the Green Lantern Corps. Your old favourite lantern? Heavily featured in the Green Lantern Corps. New, young, diversified lanterns? Meet Cruz and Baz!

DC does do it wrong, occasionally. I feel like what they did with Barry and Wally was just a massive clusterfuck. That Barry is still present as the League's only speedster is depressing, it's very much contrary to the Lantern Corps and it feels a little Marvel-y, to be honest. It's all about the editorial staff pushing their tastes.

So DC isn't perfect. No. Are they doing almost everything better, regardless? Heck yes! Do you care about social issues? Check out Green Arrow, Batgirl & the Bird of Prey. Do you want diverse characters? Cyborg, Blue Beetle, New Super-Man and many others have you covered. Do you long for nuanced stories that cover a character's life outside of being a hero? Superman has you covered. Do you want old-fashioned superhero comics? Action Comics, Justice League, and Detective Comics have your back.

DC is inclusive. And... AND AND AND... DC never, ever Groundhog Days. If DC does something? Then it sticks. This is why I respect them so god damned much. Even if it's begrudgingly, sometimes. You know? They deserve it, they really do.

The New 52 was a failure, they knew that. So, what's to be done about that? Reboot it and just forget it ever happened? No! Do something really clever and make all continuity matter, forever! That's what DC had done up until the New 52, so it's not that unexpected, but it is refreshing.

They could've been cowardly and just set the clock back to a pre-52 state. They did actually have some pieces in place for that (Waverider, Pandora, et al). Instead, they did something much, much more compelling. They made it all matter. So any new characters they'd introduced and fleshed out? They got to stay, along with the old stable!

And that's why DC will always be better than Marvel. I mean, you know, along with the fact that I don't think that DC has featured nearly as much snuff porn and women getting kicked in the vagina as Marvel has given us (thanks, Bendis). So that's also a feather in DC's cap.

Plus, when a woman is empowered in DC comics, it doesn't just feel like a silly, colourful, 'this is my l'il Universe which is separate from everything else' gimmick (looking at you, Squirrel Girl, sorry). They really are there, in the prime reality, and working to make a difference.

Batgirl & the Birds of Prey is better than just about anything that Marvel has done in its long history. So we're back to being inclusive, can I talk about that some more? Young readers? You've got young, experimental comics with the Young Animal and Wildstorm imprints. Gay audience? You're covered, too! Especially notable, here? Apollo & Midnighter.

When DC does it, it feels authentic, real, and genuine. They put a lot of heart into the story, to set things up. It's a long, drawn out process of handing over the mantle or switching focus. Sure, they screw up occasionally but for the most part they get that right.

It's not BOOP DIVERSITY GIMMICK, which is very much Marvel's schtick. It's why no one is satisfied with Marvel, not even an old, haggard "SJW" like me. I see Marvel's insensitive, tacky gimmicks for what they really are.

If Marvel cared to understand how to do this even remotely right? Apollo & Midnighter, Batgirl & the Birds of Prey, Shade the Changing Girl, New Super-Man, and... Doctor Endless.

Oh. My. God. Doctor Endless. Here's why I'm inspired to write this. It's not just a tacky BOOP DIVERSITY GIMMICK thing, it's not a magical one issue replacement of an existing character. They put in the effort to create new characters that people would care about, it shows DC cares.

Marvel, by comparison, feels like a soulless corporate machine. They're doing diversity not because it's ethical, or inclusive, or it makes people feel good, but rather because they think they're widening the net to sell more of their hugely overpriced comics.

If you replace five existing characters with LGBTQ versions BECAUSE REASONS (without any actual reasons) in a one issue span? It's meaningless. It’s insulting. It doesn't carry any weight or gravitas. It's hard for people to get behind that as their new hero because it all just happened so suddenly that it feels like a trick, they're feeling like Marvel will tug the rug out from under them the moment those characters lose popularity. They'll be gone as suddenly as they appeared.

Inauthenticity, a lack of genuineness, and just an air of being con men. Along with an inability to ever change, evolve, or grow. This is what I think of Marvel as being, now. Like I said, they had some really obvious chances with X-Men and Iron Man to grow. They could've launched off of Matt Fraction's stories to set up an Iron Man Corps, it would've been glorious. They could've had a number of Iron heroes, each with their own fleshed out story which is separate from Stark's own. No tackiness or gimmicks needed.

And you know Marvel is going to just Cat Beast every diverse character. Give it a couple of years and no one will ever remember any of these people they invented over a one issue span, no one will remember that Falcon was Captain America because it happened and it was gone again so quickly that it was forgettable.

It's Groundhog Day, everyone! A really gimmicky, shady Groundhog Day!

There are actually a lot of characters like that throughout Marvel's history, who've either been forgotten or have lost most of their development due to Marvel's love of the reset button. DC only flirted with the reset button once and it almost doomed them. They learned from that.

So now that Doctor Endless is here, they're now here to stay. They're always going to be in the DC Universe. Everything is. Grant fucking Morrison is in the DC Universe as The Writer or somesuch. Yankee goddamn Poodle and Captain Carrot are still present. I LOVE IT.

With Rebirth, DC has made a stand. They're not going to use the reset button to fix the time they -- thanks to some poor judgement -- flirted with the reset button. They're leaving that thing well, well alone.

So while Squirrel Girl enjoys a short stint of popularity as one of Marvel's gimmicks (and this kills me because I adore Ryan North and love his writing), off in her own Universe? Black Canary exists in the Green Arrow, Birds of Prey, and Justice League of America books being generally just the most kick-ass woman ever.

I used to be such a Marvel fan, it's funny. It's just that I began to notice their over-reliance on that bloody reset button back in the '80s. It got boring by the '90s and I was fed up of it. Morrison's X-Men and Fraction's Iron Man gave me some, infinitesimal glimmer of hope, but...

I watched DC continue to grow, grow, and grow. I mean, I'd always had some love for DC thanks to the DCAU and the Justice League, but I was iffy about the comics because they took away one of my favourite characters as a gimmicky stunt (and that felt like a very Marvel thing to do). With Rebirth? I couldn't stand it any more.

I can forgive DC for its one, flawed, gimmicky stunt. The horrible, egregious error that was the New 52. I forgive you, DC. It's okay. It really is okay. You've done everything to make up for it.

However, Marvel is doing reboot after gimmicky reboot all the time. GROUNDHOG DAY, EVERYONE! All of those new first issues, and nothing ever, ever changes. It's just a new issue one to tell exactly the same stories, just with a shiny, new gimmick! And when diversity and social issues are their shiny, new gimmick? I feel especially dirty.

DC is as authentic as Marvel is just a soulless, corporate beast who's only in it for the money. Yeah, sure, DC is a company, too. Owned by Warner Bros and definitely also in it for that money, but it feels different. You can tell by reading the comics, it really feels genuine.

If DC has a book featuring women? It'll often be written (and sometimes drawn) by women. If DC has a comic book featuring minorities? It'll often be written (and sometimes drawn) by those same minorities. This is really obvious with New Super-Man, Batgirl & the Birds of Prey, and so, so, so many others. It really shows.

And there are just too many honest-to-god genuine things going on at DC -- for those who pay attention -- for me to think it's all just a bunch of clever ploys to draw in the money. There's too much effort. If you're just doing it for the money, you do it like Marvel, and you'll succeed all the more. Marvel is simply better at making money than DC comics has ever been.

Sorry, DC.

But DC comics puts out some damn good comics. And they're trying. It's not gimmicks, they are trying and I can tell. I love them for trying.

You need only look at Doctor Endless to fully understand why DC are trying, whereas Marvel is just taking the piss (and your money).

It genuinely reminds me of the Nostalgiasaurus Parx thing I was talking about, recently. Where it turns out that the tyrannosaur had feathers and scales, it wasn't merely scaly as has been incorrectly reported so frequently of late. When people heard it really might've been a Nostalgiasaurus Parx, though, instead of a Tyrannosaurus Rex? Well, it was like their football team had won, or something. Fireworks, celebrations, people crying in the streets, riots. Crazy shit.

I guess that some of us want to preserve the status quo no matter what, right? Some just want to uphold that, keep it steady, no matter how much jury-rigging they have to do, no matter how much Don Quixote-esque self-delusionary nonsense they have to engage in just to keep the world as this overly simple construct that they already knew everything about.

Others? Well... I imagine that this is a scale, where it kind of slides and it has extremes. But on the other end of this sliding scale? I imagine that people will become more open-minded, they'll actually want a constant evolution of change borne out of an ever growing understanding. They can accept that the world is changing around them. There are likely traits and quirks that get swapped between and around to dictate where on this scale a person sits, but that's how ultimately it seems to be.

It also, quite interestingly, ties back into the toxic ideals of perfection that some people have and how problematic they are. And the importance of valuing being humble and understanding diversity instead of just upholding the status quo as some kind of holy default state that must never, ever be questioned.

Marvel kind of does the status quo thing. Yeah, they have gimmicks, and tomorrow it'll be a new gimmick, but they're doing the same kinds of stories they always have. Miles Morales comes along and could serve as the Spidey on the Streets role that people enjoy, allowing Peter to slip into the background as an older person and enjoy a family life, perhaps even take on a team leadership role. Growth, yo! But, no... Peter's still a small-time bank robbery solvin' sort of guy. Which makes Miles Morales utterly redundant, since that's what they brought him in to do.

So Morales was a gimmick. Peter being a teacher, then Peter being a CEO? Gimmicks. Nothing will stick. Ultimately, Peter's always going to be dealing with gang bangers and hoods. He's always going to be stuck at that frozen point in history, never to evolve, grow, or change. And that's Marvel.

Which is... why I prefer DC, and that's that, I guess?

#marvel comics #dc comics #doctor endless #genderfluid #rant

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3ddentalprinting · 5 years

Text

DIY 3D Dental Printing

Many people do not get all of the orthodontic treatment they need because it is just simply too expensive. In recent years though, the popularity of 3D printing in the medical field has skyrocketed for a few reasons and one of those reasons is because it has cut costs for professionals in the medical field to 3D print things, but why does it still cost people an average of $5000 for braces/aligners? And let’s face it, we do not all have $5000 to spend on orthodontic work. So, what is it about this 3D dental work that makes it so expensive? and what if these spectacular 3D printings could be done on your own without breaking your bank account?

Image by Author

3D printing is making itself seen as one of the biggest influences in technology of all time. It has allowed for people in all professions the ability to create real-life objects in just a few steps with endless potential applications. It was first called Rapid Prototyping in the late 1980′s and was used as a way to create prototypes for product development. The process of 3D printing starts with computer aided design software that is used to create a virtual replication of an object. From here, the deign is sent to the printer where it breaks down the material being used into small 2D layers that are added on top of each other until the desired outcome is complete. Things such as prosthetic arms have been 3D printed and many more amazing life changing things. The average material being used in these processes are plastic and rubber, but of course as time proceeds, more materials (even consumable) are being experimented with in 3D printing.

Among the ways that 3D printing has come about, one way is by completely revolutionizing the dental field. According to studies done by Smartech, 3D printing in dentistry will most likely be worth $3.1 billion by 2020. It has created a huge improvement in methods that were prevalent prior to 3D printing, its “penetration in specific applications will reach more than 60 percent of overall dental production in the next ten years, and perhaps even higher in certain areas such as dental modeling.”

More 3D printer appliances are being made to cater towards the dental field and have already significantly improved technology for dentists. Dental labs all across the world are utilizing these resources by creating anatomical models of teeth to use for common things such as crowns, bridges, aligners, dentures, caps, and even the tools they use.

Author unknown “Image”

There are many types of orthodontic aligners such as your average irremovable metal braces that range in the price of $1800-$5500, but the most prevalent form of 3D printing as an aligner are clear retainers of Invisalign. The average cost of Invisalign is $5000 and this does not include the visit to the dentist and orthodontist. There are a few reasons aligners cost what they do, some of which are:

1: Paying your dentist, of course, is one major part of getting your teeth fixed. These orthodontists go to school for an average of 8 years to learn the mechanisms of various methods of teeth aligning and it is no doubt that this is a very tricky thing to manage. Even the slightest mistake can make a huge impact on a person’s teeth. Hence, these small aligners are complicated and can seriously cost a lot of money.

2: The materials it takes. A 3D printer can cost anywhere between $500 and $100,000, but since dental labs are making such a large quantity of things with their machines and are making very durable items that must sustain being in peoples mouths for such a long period of time, they are most likely using higher quality machines. Materials would also include the plastic required to make the printed aligner, and since Invisalign is replaced every few weeks, this is a lot of material.

3: Labor costs. Apart from paying the orthodontist, there are also all the costs on the individuals in the lab who are creating these printed designs. Not to mention the assistants and any other individuals involved in the process.

Image by Author

Now all of this talk about money surely begs the question of “is it possible to get aligners for cheaper?” Well, one person has done it and that is a college student named Amos Dudley. He shared in his blog that he created his own teeth aligner for about $60 by using materials he bought on his own and a 3D printer he had at school. Dudley first got this idea after he had already made a molding of his teeth so that he could get an idea of what needed to be fixed. After doing this and realizing that he could not afford to get braces, he came to the conclusion of: “I’m an undergrad, which means that a) I’m broke, and b) I have access to expensive digital fabrication tools- definitely an unusual dichotomy.” It was during this time that he came across the following picture of an average clear aligner. He immediately recognized the layer striations he could see on it and knew it was made from a 3D printer.

Image by Amos Dudley “image”

Dudley decided that if others are able to create an aligner with a 3D printer, then what is to stop him or anyone else with access to a 3D printer from doing the same? He began to do a lot of research on everything he would need and he finally came to the conclusion that what it would take is “knowledge of orthodontic movement, a 3D scanner, a mold of the teeth, CAD software, a hi-res 3D printer, retainer material, and a vacuum forming machine.” Now, this may sound like a lot of high tech stuff, but he realized that all of these things were within his reach for a very small amount of money. He was able to obtain inert, high quality retainer plastic by buying it on Ebay. He then went through his process of making an alginate mold of his teeth and using a yogurt container for his casting of the mold in Permastone. From here, Dudley used a NextEngine laser scanning machine to correspond his dimensions he measured on the physical model of his teeth. Now getting near the end of making his aligners, he took the total distance he desired his teeth to travel and divided it by the recommended distance for a tooth to travel per aligner being worn. This is how he created his series of STL(CAD software) models to slowly and gradually straighten his teeth. His last step was using vacuum forming plastic (bought on Ebay) in a Formech vacuum form machine and using a Dremel sanding drum to smooth out any tough edges after they were finished. This was his final product:

Image by Amos Dudley “image”

Of course, one huge question is “well, did they work?” and the answer to that question is yes! Dudley consistently wore these aligners for a sixteen-week period until they were as straight as he had hoped. From there he explains that he is “planning on fabricating a bunch of retainers for the current position, which [he] did- at night.” The following photos are his before and after:

Image by Amos Dudley “image”

As it has been able to be seen through Amos Dudley, it is in fact possible to create a DIY aligner. Yet, is this something that is truly practical to accomplish on your own? Well, of course it took Dudley time to create these aligners on his own, but he had amazing accessibility to all the machines he needed to make them. Comparing Dudley’s process to that of a professional’s, the actual work they went through to create the aligners is not much different, but where is that huge difference in the amount of money coming from exactly?

Image by Author

The largest difference, is the difference in creators behind the aligners. As we saw earlier, professionals go to school for many years to learn exactly how teeth should be moved and how to create the braces, aligners, and retainers to do just that. As you might imagine, this means that just as with any medical DIY, there are potential risks if not properly educated. Although Dudley did an amazing job at being thorough with his research and taking precaution prior to just pouring some materials in a 3D printer, he also had to be willing to risk messing up his teeth as he repeatedly states that he is not a trained orthodontist. As one commenter on his blog put it:

“...Your work is pretty good but there is a lot more to this than just a bit of acrylic in the form of a tray. The part where you understand why your teeth have moved takes around 5-6 of general dentistry plus 4 years of orthodontic specialization. The amount of money it costs to make these trays is not what should be important. That’s without talking about the risks of using removable repositioning trays as a substitute to conventional fixed appliances. Very dangerous.”

At the end of the day, aligners are expensive for good reasoning considering all the time it takes for school/training as well as the materials used. Yet it is also possible to create them on your own if you have the patience, time, resources, and willingness to take some major risks. If you are willing to take the chance and save thousands of dollars by doing so, then it could pay off just as it did for Dudley. And who knows, with such advancements as there are in 3D printing, as well as having students such as Dudley experiment with things like this, this process of creating your own dental aligners could very possibly be the future we are all coming to.

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elizabethrobertajones · 7 years

Text

“What, are you gonna look up more anime, or are you strictly into Dick now?”

A lengthy exploration of Dean Winchester as a consistently queer character, thank to themes he embodies with his core characterisation of occupying both sides of binary traits.

(aka the reason why I lazily shove random things into my “Dean vs cake” tag with no explanation, written out while on a 8hr train journey)

The writing of Dean is of a character split between endless examples of duality, moments of characterisation which have stark opposites (either generally accepted or made up into a false dichotomy by the show) where he appears to embody elements of both at all times. Generally, the less-expected or pleasant part is something he resists admitting liking or labelling himself as.

He may be described as a killer while being shown to be the most compassionate character by his actions in the same episode; his projection of himself as a dumb grunt has been so successful that we have to scrape up lists of dozens of examples to prove his intelligence in arguments, despite one of the most-used examples being in only the fourth episode but is cited all the time to prove he’s not the stupid brother in contrast to Sam’s college-educated introduction leaving a lasting impression there; a lesser example of Dean wobbling between sides of a duality includes his strict favouritism of pie being shown in stark contrast to cake as if he must surely hate it, having declared himself for pie; and of course his frequently shown interest in women is contrasted with extremely consistent queer subtext implying that Dean is attracted to men as well.

This last duality seems to be the most persistently hard to reconcile (meanwhile Dean was happily eating croissookies by the middle of season 10 after getting over his problem with cake). Despite the common interpretation of Dean as a bisexual character with numerous textual moments to back up the reading, moments of him expressing his interest in women are sometimes seen as the writing trying to deny the queer side of his character outright, even by some of the same people making this interpretation as we struggle with text and intent over subtext and implication and how deliberate the suggestion is. While to others the existence of his attraction to women is more than enough to prove definitively that Dean is a straight character and any attempt to read queer subtext into his story is inaccurate, despite an entire catalogue of examples and analysis by those who make the reading across the entire length of the show to date. A regular argument that Dean can’t be bi is for the person denying it to attach dozens of gifs of Dean blatantly expressing/exercising his interest in women as if this definitively proves it, despite only being one side of the both ways he’s suggested to swing.

A similar state of disbelief exists for real life bisexual people or those with similar orientations, with a mentality that they should either pick a side or are really one thing or the other, depending on their most obviously expressed orientation/gender, usually based on their current partner or obvious behavioural cues (especially ones society favours or would find easiest to read). Reading a fictional character who can’t talk for himself to answer it, who can only continue to be written and portrayed on screen following various patterns, and going through storylines which may or may not answer anything, of course makes it all the more impossible to reach a definitive reading, as it is entirely subjective and down to the viewer and how they understand what they see on screen. Dean being written with all this duality in his behaviour can lead to extremely contradictory readings, which is also a smaller symptom of the show’s broad appeal playing successfully to multiple audiences.

Of course people can like a varied selection of music or dessert treats in real life and it is generally considered a mark of a balanced and well-rounded individual to cultivate varied tastes in things. No one trying a croissookie for the first time should be a stunning moment of character development. In storytelling, associations and traits are made easily known by small details with larger social or tropey coding in order to quickly get to know them, and subconsciously access a wealth of implications about how else they might act/feel or their backstory. Characters are defined by often seemingly meaningless distinctions which make it difficult to imagine something perceived as an opposite trait to it, as something the character could also occupy. The trait is used as a shorthand to convey a great deal about the character, from which assumptions can be made about the rest of their personality, and it allows for false binaries where it makes understanding a character confusing when they’re shown enjoying something they previously seemed to hate; with a rigid definition to help us understand them to start with, the character acting in a contrary way becomes suspicious, breaks immersion, or requires analysis to work out why they’d change their behaviour, as we are aware they are a fictional construct and need to be explained and interpreted, and that someone is creating it all deliberately to some end for our entertainment.

Dean is a controversial character to define in part due to his projected façades he creates either for the job or for personal and emotional security, including façades he keeps for Sam’s benefit and therefore will be persistently shown on screen due to their interaction in every single episode. Many of the episodes about their childhood expose these vulnerabilities by showing the characters before their modern day dynamic was fully established (3x08 especially as it had so much of them interacting as kids), or by exposing that there is a great deal Sam doesn’t know about the ways in which Dean has protected him from harsh truths about their upbringing and father (9x07 springs to mind there and “the story became the story” to explain how Sam ended up never knowing certain things about Dean’s childhood or the way John was as a parent to him). 10x12 and 12x11 explored Dean returning to a childlike or innocent state, further revealing the ways in which he creates – or rather, curates – his seemingly generic surface personality for Sam’s benefit.

By changing the rules of how Dean is written they can expose him having different tastes or behaving in entirely different ways which betray the gruff and macho exterior for what it is - a part of Dean but by far not the only part. 10x12 showed Dean enjoying cake and Taylor Swift while briefly in a teenage body - the joke being that his mind remained entirely intact to his current age. At the end of the episode Dean enjoys Taylor Swift on the radio and then starts eating croissookies or wanting cake in later episodes. 12x11 again makes Dean vulnerable in front of Sam and almost the first thing he does as a sign he’s no longer remembering to project for Sam, is admit to liking Dory and therefore watching Disney movies, betraying yet another part of his tough exterior which something like catching a Pixar movie on the down low would be entirely opposite to the personality he wants to project.

(As an aside I’ve seen wank recently that the performing Dean meta is because people want to get rid of Dean’s surface layer entirely and entirely remove this part of his personality, which is a misunderstanding that of course it’s a part of Dean’s personality but he would be happier and more well-balanced if he would own to the other parts. Moments like admitting he likes chick flicks are actual genuine huge progress to unravelling this persona and have not drastically changed who Dean is - only allowed Sam to go from a suspicious outsider to someone on the inside where he and Dean now share the knowledge Dean likes chick flicks openly and without aggression or deflection, meaning they can be happier and more comfortable. When they actually watch a chick flick together with Jody in 12x06 Dean can’t exactly complain about doing it and Sam is utterly comfortable teasing Dean to Jody because it’s no longer hostile territory... Obviously that’s an ideal way to resolve all their other issues without making some weird hypothesis that now Dean has to do nothing but watch chick flicks and cry about them in his down time since this admission... He can just be more comfortable embracing both sides of the duality of his interest in movies - the random box of socially acceptable stuff to Dean’s eyes, and the stuff that he’d be embarrassed to admit liking for reasons rooted in the toxic masculinity that informs a lot of his shell.)

Anyway, unpacking a balanced understanding of Dean’s personality is difficult (and finding things people agree on even about what the surface layer means or is for), as many things he says or does will be taken as fact, and therefore meant to convey the entire understanding we should have about Dean, meaning every action or statement contrary to the initial interpretation becomes bad data that is easily discarded, or one off moments that lend no greater understanding to his character. This is not helped by the multitude of writers who have contributed to his creation, throwing in disruptions or unexpected approaches to his portrayal which to some may seem too far to credit even for such a multifaceted character (and of course what it is and who it bothers among the various factions caused by these readings change depending on the moment, as different concerns about his characterisation arise... But seriously can we all agree that Dean apparently having never even heard of It’s a Wonderful Life even through pop culture soak (which is 90% of his personality) in 9x03 is clearly a step too far).

Differentiating what seems like a poorly considered character beat from intentionally contradictory portrayals of his behaviour, that can be reasoned out or understood for what they were attempting to convey more in tune with the wider picture, does not always happen smoothly. This leads to interpretations of Dean that can be extremely hostile to each other and seem to discuss starkly different characters as certain readings take their place in the wider story as they interpret it and the intentionally ambiguous writing of the show fosters many layers and different interpretations throughout. The reading of Dean as a queer character or not is only the most contentious of these entirely different narratives people find in the story.

Examining the different presentations of Dean and his sexuality can be an enormous task with twelve seasons of discussion and imagery, metaphor and both textual and subtextual displays of interest Dean expresses that would need to be analysed (not always to the obvious gender when assuming Dean is textually portrayed as heterosexual and subtextually bisexual – for example in 8x13 Dean has his humorous misunderstanding with Aaron, who he calls his “gay thing” rather fondly to Sam, and takes absolutely no pains to establish to anyone that he wouldn’t have been interested after being caught out by and unable to lie about his interest in a proposition that Aaron had expected to only scare him off).

Setting aside the smaller episode to episode instances which lend to a bigger picture but are hard to discuss to get the sense of a larger narrative (as there’s too many, and each one would need to be described), I’m just going to go for a few big obvious examples which can be used to describe Dean in relation to this framed binary of interest one way or the other by briefly examining some of the more prominent relationships Dean has that I think represent both sides of his interest in men and women.

Buried in the subtext of the show since season 9 or 10, Dean ended up having a physical relationship during a brief “summer of love” with Crowley, since then and to date portrayed clearly as a relationship and them as exes, with varying amounts of fondness, embarrassment and knowing innuendo about their activities and history. It’s about as close to textual as any relationship Dean’s had with a male character and there’s now 3 seasons of content between 9x11 and 12x15 relating to it.

There is also Dean’s most popularly shipped and most firmly subtextually embedded but constant relationship with Cas - waffling about angels aside, a male bodied and identifying character. The evidence for the queer subtext of their relationship dates back to Cas’s arrival in the fourth season. Narratively, as a clear example, being played against Ruby, and the way that relationship with Sam was used in the story. Though Anna is introduced to have Dean’s relationship to the divine directly paralleled to Sam’s relationship to the demonic, with a 2 episode romance arc to allow a parallel of both brothers hooking up with their respective sides, Cas and Ruby play as narrative foils to their Winchester and the other’s relationship all season, and to greater emotional and plot effect than Anna, whose personal relationship to Dean is non-existent after she becomes an angel again. Dean and Cas continue to have romantic subtext for the entire time Cas is on the show (and even while he was supposedly written off and dead).

Dean’s longest lasting romantic relationship on the show (with most flings being the “girl of the week” in Dean’s words) was with Lisa, between seasons three (where she was used to demonstrate the normal life he’d never get but suddenly really regretted never having and was acutely aware of missing) and six (where after the apocalypse they end up together as a year break from hunting for Dean), ending in non-fatal tragedy after a mutually acknowledged break up earlier in the season, after which she plays no further part in the story.

His sexual and romantic history with Lisa does not invalidate his romantic connection to Cas, nor his sexual history with Crowley (though of course it has more textual grounding even than his fling with Crowley hardly being a secret or subtle or “Destiel” having been name-dropped in the show). Likewise, the relationships with Cas and Crowley don’t invalidate the time he spent with Lisa as a meaningful and fully desired part of his life. (And of course Dean continued sleeping with women after and during his elopement with Crowley...) All of these elements exist within the story and never ask you to choose between them. Even the Crowley and Castiel parts complement each other, taking the form of Dean in a love triangle of sorts with the demon and angel on his shoulders, again another binary that Dean is in the middle of, between angel and demon, Heaven and Hell, the dynamic of which reliably plays out since season nine when Crowley’s seduction and muscling into their previously established romantic subtext began.

Though these are the eye-catching examples of relationships as a demonstration of Dean’s ability to share his affection, of course looking deeper reveals that Dean has been a queer coded character since the start, and no examples of long relationship arcs would be necessary to argue that Dean’s bisexuality exists in the subtext, even just in the way the show discusses and frames his character (and some people do identify with him in general as a bisexual character, without caring about ships but rather through his experiences and the way he’s written). Dean just has a relatable state of existence that specifically seems to describe him as bisexual, with general queer coding subtext.

So as a starting point (and I’m not going to go season by season because one: we’ve been there done that and B: I’m only stuck on trains for 10 hours, I can’t elaborate on the bi Dean subtext in every season in detail), the first season plays Dean thematically against Sam’s psychic abilities (that arc more traditionally played as a queer metaphor with lines such as “don’t ask, don’t tell” uttered about Sam’s powers – from Dean, of course). Dean meanwhile is presented as feeling like a freak and outsider himself with a sense of estrangement and otherness from society which plays as an easy metaphor for a queer character (1x06 overtly having his feelings described this way; 1x08 also has him expressing discomfort about suburbia and normal life, for example). This backdrop of the sort of framing of his character is assisted with moments of flirtation with male characters (in very specific contexts which leave room to argue it’s one thing or another and would make up the surface reading, such as Dean feeling threatened and flirting to deflect - the two off the top of my head are the saucy comments to police in 1x01 and 1x12, and snark-complimenting the random (later revealed to be evil) villager in 1x11); presenting Dean’s general insecurity with gender and sexuality, a running theme that gets increasingly explored as time goes by but the roots of which are especially visible with hindsight; and ambiguously presented moments with extremely suggestive implications (for example Dean’s missing hour in the bathroom in 1x15 immediately after what seems to be a flirtatious wink past Sam to some of the people playing pool behind him - mostly men, of course). Dean’s immersion in the world of hunting, itself in general a culture presented with a metaphorical suggestion relating it to queer culture despite its overt hypermasculine and assumed conservative social structure (hand in hand with monsters sharing this metaphor), is another sense of coding Dean as belonging to a culture within but separate from the normative culture, and the fact he embraces it in a way Sam doesn’t in season 1.

Played in contrast to Sam, it’s an interesting picture. Sam is given a starting point with an attempt at building a “normal” life which of course includes a girlfriend he intends to marry and one day hopefully have a family with. Though this is all ripped away from him in the first episode, Sam still wishes for a normal life, and at several points consistently throughout the show expresses this interest and the idea that he still would dream for it as his ideal life; that he only continues hunting because it’s the family business and his brother is still in it, for example, as his line in season 10/11 when bringing it up, and in season 12 Mary wins him over to the BMoL’s world without monsters pitch with a reminder of what a normal life might be for him now.

Dean meanwhile expresses that the normal life is not for him many times, and when he attempts to have it with Lisa, as the one example of him living as a civilian since he was four years old, it’s a compromise for his life taking him away from hunting and expressed as such, while Sam generally cuts himself entirely off from their world and can live as and imagine himself being a civilian, having a history of running away as a child, a break for freedom at college, and another attempt as an adult when he ran out of family to continue the family business with between season 7 & 8.

Unlike Sam’s attempts to leave the life behind, Dean is shown still using the symbols of that culture, warding the house, laying down salt, and keeping a gun and holy water under his bed, that last image of which the montage at the start of season six ends with, showing vividly how his bed and normal life still has the world of hunting and monsters under it. This life quickly draws him back in with the return of Sam from the dead and back into his life, and he tries to exist in a half-in half-out state until various disasters show the problem with their set up, as Dean’s connection to this other culture upsets the balance of the home life he had with Lisa. This also is shown as a tragedy and a negative reflection on Sam and Dean’s, that they couldn’t make the compromise work.

Similarly one of the darkest moments in the brothers’ relationship is when they pick each other over Sam’s once hopeful way out and chance at a normal life on the other side of all their eight seasons of accumulated trauma, Amelia (and Riot the dog), and Dean’s (of course ambiguously coded) relationship with Benny, and it seems awful that they’ve given up so much and chosen such an extreme, clearly over their own happiness and desires, because of their obligation towards each other and their job. In the example of 8x10, Sam gives up total normality while Dean gives up an emotional connection within their world.

On the surface the fact both Sam and Dean are disrupted out of normal life, especially by each other’s presence, and would continue hunting because of the other, seems an identical conflict of interests between them and a normal life. But their actual attitudes towards it are again presented as opposite. Dean expresses many times that he sees no end to hunting for him, and that he would happily die doing it; later attempts to suggest possible endgames include possibilities of considerably more settled lifestyles still within the hunting culture, again for Dean a hybrid life where he may occupy two ends of a spectrum simultaneously, and that he might be allowed to emotionally settle while still being able to identify as a hunter and to be a part of their world.

Sam might also wonder about settling down with someone in the life as a possibility he never seemed to consider until 11x04, but it comes with precisely none of this baggage, connected instead to different arcs in Sam’s development. Sam’s interest in the normal life comes with assumed and unchallenged heteronormativity, and the desire to have an eventual wife is implicit (while for Dean since season 10 all his discussion of an endgame has repeatedly used gender neutral phrasing that he may settle down with someone). Sam is also shown with few long-term love interests, the only notable positive one since Jess being Amelia (Ruby was never going to be a settling down white picket fence thing, but again, different story being told over there where Sam has no queer subtext but other struggles). Again in (or, before) season 8 he settled down with the full intention to leave the hunting world behind, including letting go of the burden of following leads from the newspapers that would have taken him onto a case, and ditching their phones instead of at least putting himself on standby in case Kevin or someone else got in contact needing their help. Mary’s return in season 12 contrasts this all the more by showing even after she was married and settled and had already had Dean, the prospect of a hunt could still tempt her out of the house. In many ways Mary’s outlook on life and hunting has been paralleled more closely to Dean’s and “a world without monsters” is antithetical to their true desires; that they will always be somewhat between worlds, while it is genuinely tempting to Sam to leave it all behind and get married.

Very little is made in the text of Sam’s interest in women in the sense of his interest being, well, interesting. He never makes sexual comments, rarely checks women out, and is rarely depicted wishing for casual sex, something he also extremely rarely engages in except for times when he’s been soulless or drinking demon blood, giving him clear and dramatic changes in his psyche. An incidental moment where he and Dean sign a virginity pledge in 9x08 leads to an accidental unbroken “virginity” until 11x04 for Sam (and he says he’s going to go research and sounds like he means it when he leaves and stumbles into his hook up, paralleled to Dean intentionally looking for a hook up but seeming to strike out after a bad night... or - well, that moment is itself ambiguous and had a ton of discussion of exactly what “mistakes” Dean made after blowing all out of proportion an attempt to hook up with a female hunter he already knew was never going to happen when he brought her up). Of course in 9x08 Dean breaks the same vow within the episode, as well as it being obvious to Sam he would, and the way it happens playing into a long thread of pointing out Dean’s interest in women and his varied tastes in porn (Chuck had never seen so much on one computer...). Dean’s sexuality has a much greater focus in general, whether it’s his interest in women or the subtextual coding of him as bisexual. Whether it’s subtextual or Dean openly discussing sex and being shown seeking it out, a fairly consistent discussion continues within the text about his sexuality. Showing his overt interest in women leads to a more general picture of all of Dean’s interests and contributes to an ongoing depiction and thematic discussion of Dean’s interests and desires.

And so to the chosen quote for the title – Sam’s fascinating challenge to Dean about his computer usage in 7x12, combining Dean’s stated interest in watching anime porn from 7x01, implied to be about female characters (based on the sound effects coming from his laptop in the only incident where he’s actually shown watching it and - ew) and the endless Dick jokes of season seven (“Who would choose to be called Dick?” Edgar wonders about him, hanging a lampshade on the season’s desire to just make as many Dick jokes as they could). Sam once again suggests there’s a binary – in this case because you can’t really do both at the same time for reasonable multi-tasking issues. Of course metaphorically it seems to be a jab that Dean has transitioned his interest in the heterosexually coded anime porn to a strict homosexual interest in “Dick” – an innocuous jibe from Sam who has lived in close quarters with Dean for long enough to be fairly certain of his interest in women.

Still, it illustrates the binary that this sort of thought operates in: that even when Dean is shown and known to have a multifaceted range of interests, in this case literally coded as a metaphor for his sexuality rather than coding suggestive of it as well (like the cake/pie thing), it’s an either/or despite that we know he could reasonably want the laptop to do either (though not in this context as he genuinely did want to help with the monster of the week case which was an entirely other thing outside of the binary and not relevant - you know, until 10 minutes later Dean’s fangirling over Eliot Ness and rotating to check out a soldier in the street). The end of 7x12 shows Dean is still “into Dick”, continuing his research for the obsessive revenge mission as the last beat of the episode; Sam displays that he’s perfectly aware of how multifaceted Dean is years later in the season 12 episode where he gets to tease Dean for being “an animated Japanese erotica chick” - never mind that in that case it was a binary between “chick flick chick” and that, and riffing off the pilot episode’s “No chick flick moments” (establishing the first binary of stated text and implied subtext about Dean), at the end of season 11 Sam finally managed to get Dean to admit that he loved chick flicks, so again he knows full well that he’s ascribing a false binary to Dean when he operates in both.

(Robbie’s season 7 seemed to be full of this because 7x20 also has a totally fake binary for the sake of subtext - Charlie can’t flirt with the security guard because she’s only into women, not even in an emergency... Dean, of course, is happy to help out... Immediately not playing into the arbitrary rule established about functional flirting on the job vs sexuality - or playing right into it and revealing another side of himself to help Charlie, just as Sam reveals how deep his Harry Potter nerdiness runs.)

So, thematically, where does this all go and why is it important?

In season 10 when Dean is a demon and off “howling at the moon” with Crowley, during their subtextual elopement and honestly I would say textual sexual tryst (triplets comment in 10x01, implication Crowley knows how much Dean can stick up his butt in 11x23, “maybe I’ve rubbed off all over you” in 12x15...), their official break up is marked with Crowley yelling at Dean to “Pick a bloody side”, after Dean spends the episode overtly struggling between being a demon and a human. Of course this phrasing mirrors sentiments real life bisexual people can have to deal with from intolerant people. In the end of that particular episode Dean accepts he’s a demon, but on his own terms, not being bound to Crowley’s desires for him, after the King of Hell runs out of interest to Dean as a source of free drinks and no consequences fun as he starts making demands of Dean to work for him. Sam and Cas pick a side for him shortly after to cure him of being a demon, and then again at the end of the season to cure him of the Mark of Cain, the root cause of his transformation, after Dean had spent most of the season adapting to living as a hybrid human and Knight of Hell.

This arc resolves at the end of the next season metaphorically, when Dean restores harmony to the universe by reconciling light and darkness in Chuck and Amara, picking neither side in a binary which has been causing conflict by one overpowering the other since the dawn of time and currently threatening the existence of the universe when Dark attempts to destroy Light. Dean is described by Chuck as “the firewall between light and darkness” in 11x21, emphasising he has a place of cosmic importance in occupying a middle ground between two binary choices. He is both a “virile manifestation of the divine” (so says a server in a hippy cafe in 7x07, but there’s more to his words than he knows), and a worthy bearer of what turned out to be a mark of primordial darkness that made him a conduit of Amara’s power. Dean doesn’t need to pick a side, and occupying ground from both sides makes him stronger. Not for nothing, Chuck also is revealed to be bisexual during his return arc, clearly stating he had had both girlfriends and boyfriends while hanging out incognito on Earth.

By the end of season 11 then, it is clear through these textual statements and actions that Dean is a character linked to this pattern of a strong connection or implication of one thing and also to something that is presented as an opposite or opposing force to it in the narrative, and that he represents a middle ground embodying both. He is the croissookie.

Though the show leaves a lot to be desired in textual representation when it comes to Dean’s bisexuality, the subtextual thread of the story is filled with imagery and suggestiveness directly relating to this depiction, and this exploration is only a small part of the way Dean is surrounded by the queer subtext of the show. This particular imagery relating to Dean is a regular, important and eventually universe-saving part of his characterisation, and discussion of the imagery of him occupying a dual nature can be applied to many of the other ways the show explores and divides his psyche without making it into a discussion of his bisexuality at all - these divided aspects of his personality have been fuelling discussion of his character for years. And as he has a separate and extremely detailed queer reading, applying this facet of his character to his bisexuality specifically creates a fascinating reading of the depiction of this in the text.

Standard disclaimer none of this proves anything but I love looking at Dean this way and it completely informs my reading of him.

#Dean is bi #my stuff #things I wrote on the train while really really bored #long post for ts

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palliddata · 6 years

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Game Of Insert Pun Here

By Elizabeth “Esquilax” Lavenza

This isn’t just an article about Season 7. Game of Thrones has had plenty of enduring problems since its inception, and the roots that fully sprouted this year have been festering for quite some time. The series’ obsession with rape isn’t new, for example. And if you’re the type of person who’s mentally rolling out all the justifications for why the show needs to regularly show explicit rape scenes, please remind yourself that the show doesn’t feel the need to show us hideous period-accurate pseudomedieval teeth, so the “they need all the rape because gritty realism!” defense doesn’t hold up. And since I can’t find a good place to slot in the racism issue in the rest of this article, I’m bringing it up here, because it’s yet another gaping wound on the show. The fact that non-white people almost exclusively show up in Game of Thrones to be liberated by the hyperaryan Daenerys is...well, do I even have to go into it? Part of the problem is the show’s overburdened nature: juggling plotlines on two separate continents isn’t easy, and Essos typically ended up left in the lurch, its residents and societies and cultures left unfleshed as essentially Pokémon gyms for Daenerys to beat on her way back home. Since I’m trying to keep this article focused on season seven, I’m not even going to get into the abominable, interminable Dorne story arc, which has been torn apart in plenty of other pieces.

If I had to pick one point where the show jumped the shark, it would have to be when Jon Snow became Jesus. Snow has always been the closest thing to a traditional fantasy hero in the story: handsome, martially and tactically skilled, partially noble, dramatic, and intermittently flawed but overall morally decent. So, if the show was to earn its reputation as dark, subversive, and merciless, knocking him down from this position would have been an obvious place to start, a move that would have shocked the audience in the same manner as Ned Stark’s death. Kill him, take him out of action, reveal him as a hypocrite, there were many options. The writers magically brought him back to life instead, and in doing so they perfectly set the tone of the coming seasons: Jon was The Hero, and even death could not stop him from assuming his place as the heroic savior of a world that we were led to believe was no place for heroic saviors. Even revealing that he secretly isn’t a bastard, and is therefore even more noble-blooded than we assumed (“secret noble heir” being such a contrived and hackneyed fantasy trope that critics were already tearing into it decades ago) couldn’t match up to the betrayal of any sense of actual grittiness or ruthlessness or subversion that was The Resurrection Of Jon. And since then, the show hasn’t exactly kept to its promise of ruthlessness. Sam cured Jorah’s greyscale. Jamie charges towards an angry dragon and comes out more or less unscathed. Jon and his pals embark on a pointless, ill-conceived zombie wrangling mission, and the only casualty is one of three mostly interchangeable dragons (and that doesn’t even get into how badly the “capture a zombie to prove they’re real” subplot abuses time and space to allow characters to teleport around Westeros at speeds dictated solely by the needs of the sloppy writing).

Jon’s messianic turn feeds into the central problem with what Game of Thrones became. Now, the most cliched and simplistic sorts of fantasy tend to present morality and conflict in rather simple terms. A hero or group of heroes, usually of noble birth and gifted with great power by virtue of their noble birth or purity of heart, rise to oppose a generally un-nuanced and uniformly fiendish villain, cheating death and conquering improbable odds to persevere. This was exactly the kind of story Game of Thrones wanted us to think it wasn’t, what with all the gore and sex and corruption and intrigue and major characters dying. But where are we in this season? Jon, Daenerys, and Tyrion are together on Team Good Guy, Cersei has gathered the scum of Westeros on Team Bad Guy (and Jamie has finally left her side, depriving Team Bad Guy of one of its few sympathetic, nuance-providing members), while Scowls McCorpse and his frozen pals round out the conflict with Team Pointless Zombie Murder. Dear god, the zombies. Dany vs. Cersei is a fairly cut and dried “good army vs bad army” brawl, but they can at least add some depth with the tragic factor of the inevitable deaths of the innocent soldiers who just happened, through accident of birth or fortune, to end up on Cersei’s side. The same can’t exactly be said for the zombie conflict, since GoT’s zombies don’t deviate much from the usual fantasy template of mindless monsters the heroes can guiltlessly hack up. Even Sauron, Morgoth, and their orc armies had more motivation than the scowling White Walkers, and they were capable of exercising their power in much more subtle and memorable ways. I genuinely do not understand why “inexplicably evil zombie army” was chosen to be Westeros’ encroaching doom. Surely there were less banal cataclysmic threats than an evil zombie army. It isn’t even a creative zombie army, as indicated by the fact that its most interesting asset, a zombie dragon, is something that Dungeons and Dragons players have been hacking up for decades by now.

Those are some of the major overarching issues, but the show has so many more, all intertwined with each other like an incestuous mangrove of creative laziness. The show’s reluctance to kill off major characters combined with its sexism has given us yet more interminable character focus on Theon, an unlikable, uncompelling sorrow-blob who seems to exists solely to steal narrative attention from more interesting female characters, his toxic presence depriving the genuinely likable Yara of her own character arc just so he can dramatically redeem himself by proclaiming he’ll rescue her after she ends up being needlessly damseled. The union of bad writing and bad acting made Littlefinger’s presence in the seventh season agonizing. Aidan Gillen plays him as Slick McSleaze, World’s Shiftiest Man, to the degree that you have to wonder why literally anyone in Westeros trusts him any more. The show’s terrible writing and plotting sends him into probably his most ridiculous scheme yet, trying to turn the Stark sisters against each other...for no clear benefit that would make it worthwhile for him to antagonize two very powerful, dangerous people who already hate and distrust him. And Tormund, fucking Tormund, living embodiment of the show’s decision to jettison creative merit for GIF-worthy scenelets. Tormund, who shows up at least once an episode so the writers can remind us HEY HE REALLY WANTS TO FUCK BRIENNE, who has turned Brienne’s primary role in the story into “woman who Tormund wants to fuck”, and who magically escapes death by zombie army so he can continually remind us how much he wants to fuck Brienne. The season ends with his fate uncertain, but I do not trust the show’s writers to do the decent thing and kill him off offscreen. Game of Thrones isn’t really doing anything right, other than a few visually spectacular scenes. It’s given up on being in any way a mature and subversive approach to the fantasy genre, but it isn’t even particularly good at being cliched, because even if we accept it as a standard “good vs evil” plot, it remains riddled with bad writing, bad decisions, and myriad plot holes. If you told me a few years ago that the future would see people talking seriously about a big-budget show involving dragons, I would have been cautiously optimistic. I guess the ultimate moral of Game of Thrones is that fantasy fans have to be careful what they wish for.

#Original #Elizabeth Lavenza #Game of Thrones

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rolandogapud-blog1 · 7 years

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Understanding Business Development – Rolando Gapud

Business Development is a mysterious title for a little discussed function or department in most larger companies. It’s also a great way for an entrepreneur or small business to have fun, create value and make money.

Good business development allows businesses to profit by doing something that is tangential to their core mission. Sometimes the profit is so good, it becomes part of their core mission, other times it supports the brand and sometimes it just makes money. And often it’s a little guy who can be flexible enough to make things happen.

Examples:

Starbucks licenses their name to a maker of ice cream and generates millions in royalties.

A rack jobber like Handleman does a deal with a mass marketer like K Mart. K Mart gives them room in the store to sell records and gets a cut, Handleman does all the work.

AOL buys AIM instant messaging software and integrates it into their service.

Years ago, I licensed the rights to Isaac Asimov’s Robot novels from a business development person at his publisher and turned the books into a VCR murder mystery game which I licensed to a business development person at Kodak, a company that was experimenting with becoming a publisher. (Isaac made more from this project than he did from many of his books).

Best Buy offers extended warranties on appliances you buy. They don’t provide the warranty, of course, a business development person did a deal with an insurance/service company to do it and they share the profit.

The Princeton Review built a huge test prep business, but only by licensing their brand to a series of books which did the lion’s share of their marketing for them.

You don’t see business development from the outside, particularly all the potential deals that fail along the way. Many companies, though, spend millions of dollars a year looking for deals and then discovering that they pay off many times over. Others, particularly smaller competitors, are so focused on their core business that it never occurs to them to consider partnerships, licensing, publishing, acquisition and other arrangements that might change everything. Harley Davidson probably makes more money on business development than they make on motorcycles.

Ronaldo Gapud says that,

The thing that makes business development fascinating is that the best deals have never been done before. There’s no template, no cookie cutter grind it out approach to making it work. This is why most organizations are so astonishingly bad at it. They don’t have the confidence to make decisions or believe they have the ability to make mistakes.

Think about the Apple Nike partnership on making a device that integrates your iPod with your sneakers. This took years and cost millions of dollars to develop. Most companies would just flee, giving up long before a deal was done and a product was shipped.

Here are some tactical tips on how to do business development better Given by Ronaldo Gapud

Process first, ideas second. If you’re going to be bringing new partners and new ideas into your organization, you need a process to do it. Professionals don’t, “know it when I see it.” Instead, professionals think about the abilities of their company and strategies necessary to bring ideas in, refine them and launch them. Great business development people don’t waste time in endless meetings with random vendors or hassle about tiny details up front. Instead, they have an agenda and a project manager’s understanding of what it means to get things done. They don’t keep the process a secret, either. They share it with anyone who wants to know. Someone needs to say, “here’s how we do things around here,” and then they have to tell the truth.

Who decides? Because every great business development project is different, it’s incredibly easy to get stuck on who can say yes (of course, everyone can say no). Professional business development people intentionally limit the number of people who are allowed to weigh in and are clear to themselves and their potential partners about exactly who can (and must) give the go ahead. Don’t bother starting a business development deal unless you know in advance who must say yes.

Courtship, negotiation and marriage. Every deal has three parts, and keeping them straight is essential. During the courtship phase, you win when you are respectful, diligent, enthusiastic, engaging, outgoing, and relentless in your search to make a connection. Do your homework, research people’s backgrounds, learn about their kids, visit them–don’t make them visit you. Look people in the eye, ask hard but engaging questions, you know the drill. Basically, treat people as you’d like to be treated, because the people you most want to work with have a choice, and they may just not pick you. Hint: if you skip the courtship part, the other two stages probably won’t come up.

Buyer and seller. If you’ve ever pitched a product or service to a business, you know how soul-deadening it can be. The buyer works hard to make it clear that she’s doing you a favor, and you need every dog and every pony available at all times (and you better be the cheapest). But business development doesn’t have this dichotomy. Both sides are buying, both sides are selling, right? So talented business development people never act like jaded buyers, arms folded, demanding this and that. Instead, from the start, they seek out partners.

Enthusiasm is underrated. Business development people are exploring the unknown. That means that there’s more than cash on the table, there’s bravery and initiative and excitement. The best business development people I’ve ever worked with are able to capture the energy in the room and amplify it. They’ll build on the ideas being presented, not make them smaller.

Close the open door. I regularly hear from readers who are frustrated because a big company wasn’t willing to hear a great idea they mailed in. Here’s the thing: there isn’t a shortage of ideas. There’s a shortage of execution. That means that successful business development teams look for proven partners and organizations with momentum. A key part of that is the decision to say no early and quickly and respectfully to people who don’t meet that threshold.

Call the lawyers later. A business development deal that never happens is one that’s sure to cause no problems. While the legal clarity you need is important, there’s plenty of data that shows that ten page NDA agreements and onerous contracts early in the process don’t protect you, they merely waste your time and energy.

Cast a wider net. The Allen and Co. annual gathering is a dumb place to choose a merger partner. Limiting the number of potential partners to people you’ve met at a trade show is also silly. Business development (when it works) creates huge value for both sides, so better to be proactive in searching out and soliciting the organizations that can make a difference. Here’s a simple way to widen your net: start a blog and go to conferences to speak. Describe your successful business development projects to date and let the world know you’re looking for more of them. How many amazing partnerships could the Apple store launch? How many great books could Starbucks highlight? Not only don’t they do this, they hide. Don’t hide.

Talk to the receptionist. This is huge, and so important. When a great partner shows up at your doorstep, do you know? Here’s a test: call your organization (pretending to be from some respected organization), describe a business development opportunity and ask who can help. If you’re not immediately transferred to your office, you’ve failed, right? Make it easy for the right people to know that you’re the right guy.

Hire better. How do you decide who to put in this job? I’d argue that glibness and charisma aren’t as important as strategic thinking, project management and humility.

Structure deals with the expectation of success. The only real reason to do business development deals is because when they work they’re so powerful. Andrew Tobias put his name on a piece of software that ended up earning him millions of dollars. It’s easy to get hung up on all the bad things that could happen, but keep your focus on how the world looks when you get it right.

End well. Most of the time, even good business development deals fall down before the end of the negotiation process. If a deal doesn’t come together, say so. Acknowledge what went wrong, thank the other party and end well. If it does come together, track the integration and stay involved enough to learn from what works and what doesn’t. I’m still waiting to hear from people who said they’d get back to me “tomorrow” fifteen years ago, but I’m losing hope… Ending well not only teaches you how to do better next time, but it keeps doors open for when you need to come back to someone who you should have done a deal with in the first place.

To know more About Ronaldo Gapud, Please visit About Rolando Gapud

#Rolando_Gapud

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