#and there are a lot of details that further cement my belief that it had to be intentional

[boyfridged]

the brilliance of jay's progression in countdown is that it gives you a promise of positive character development, and then it breaks it. and it does so intentionally, in the most diverting way, to emphasize jason's inability to escape the cycle.

or, another post breaking down the series, where i repeat myself a lot but also make a clearer argument.

there are three notable events that happen at the beginning: the subtle showcase of jay's internal conflict considering his approach toward killing (the very first encounter with duela and the monitor), jay reaching out to donna in crisis ("i guess I just wanted to be around someone else who might know how it feels…"), and finally – his helmet shattering. these scenes tell you: jason's direction as a character is changing, and it seems, for the better. he's about to abandon his trauma-based (no matter how ironic, it does remain tied to his trauma) identity, he is connecting with people, and he seems to be on a brink of understanding that his moral standing does not provide easy answers or solutions either.

and for the most part of the series, we see that narrative unfolding (even if a bit non-linear, still innocently convincing way). it is, in many ways, supported by bringing up features of his characterisation from the 80s. jason remains, of course, still unpleasant in ways typical for this era of writing, and is conflicted and disagreeable, which makes sense for his utrh/post-utrh personality. however, there are also details that bring us back to his original robin run and his cameos on ntt – we see him being responsible (e.g. #43 – suggesting to bring in other superheroes in crisis, even though he clearly is not keen on the idea of working with them), determined (#16: “isn’t that your super-power, stupid boy? too stupid to ever give up?” “maybe it is”), sensitive (half of the whole storyline, really), caring for gotham (gotham by gaslight) and people-oriented (as early as #51).

the issue that particularly signals that jason is an inherently good person and externalizes his internal conflicts regarding classic heroic vigilantism vs his cynical approach is #30, where we meet batman of earth-15 –  alt jason, whom our jason attempts to punch in the face.

and on topic of batman – jason is always gravitating towards batman. in gotham by gaslight jay looks delighted to see (the foreign) bruce and suggests checking with the local bat. then, earth-51 arc arrives.

earth-51 arc (#16 - #13) is a culmination of a promise of catharsis for jason. we have already seen him as batman, as a confirmation that a different life for him is possible. and here he has a chance to come to terms with his past and overcome it. he meets a version of bruce who has done exactly what he wanted him to do in utrh: killed the joker and the rest of the rogue gallery. what is most important – he is disappointed with this version of his father. we realise that jason, deep down, has an intimate and intuitive understanding of what batman stands for; and that he shares most of his values. this is a truth that you can't ignore especially since jay is the one to inspire this hollow, cynical version of batman to go out and fight in a seemingly lost battle.

and then batman dies. right in front of him.

this is a central moment of the narrative, for many reasons, most strikingly:

the symmetry:, a premise known from the lost days, becomes literal. this "the father had lost a son, and now the son had lost the father" is a cruel parallel to a death in the family and bruce's grief. jason's death created a gap between them that jay has been desperately trying to close, with no avail – because in bruce's mind, jason remains dead. now that jason is grieving bruce, the connection closes on both sides, and there's no way for either of them to reconcile the mourning with the reality of the other being truly alive. in this sense, the arc solidifies that jason can never come home.

no good deed goes unpunished. as i have mentioned before, so far jason is established as someone good at heart, but confused; and the reader intuitively assumes that his better, honest side will win. yet, the moment jason gives in to hope, it victimises and retraumatizes him. this event, again, brings to mind his own death, when he tried his best to save sheila and ended up paying the highest price for it. so, narrative-wise, jason is always punished for his kindness.

perhaps because of the nonchalant act that jason pulls off, many readers seem to miss that everything that happens after that arc is an upshot that follows logically from it.

jason's immediate determination to leave – and later a short period of indecision that ends up with his dramatic exit, pushing his team away, makes perfect sense when you consider what intense trauma he has just gone through. admittedly, i'm not a fan of the notion that he would give up at all (i think he's always ready to give up on himself, but not on the world), but then on the other hand, if there's anything that would cause it, narrative-wise, witnessing batman dying does sound like a good incentive for that. (it also has to be pointed out that jason seems to be confident that the rest of the team can go into the final battle without him anyway; it's not like he would go back to his earth not even knowing if said earth will exist tomorrow).

it's crucial to notice that following that crisis of faith (faith in fighting for the world) is followed by him raising up for the challenge again, but now... worse and even more confused. in the final confrontation with donna, jason antagonizes the superhero community, and when we see him at the end of the series (#1) his monologue indicates that he believes the capes to be naive. (significantly, he also focuses on bruce and offends the memory of 51 earth-bruce by calling him crazy; an action that can be seen as suppression of his own guilt and invoking, once again, a cruel symmetry considering bruce's engagement in victim-blaming after jason's death). this, once again, is consistent with the "no good deed" reading – jason diminishes superhero values because he has been continuously punished for living by them. (and unlike other superheroes, he doesn't have a support system nor skills in compartmentalization that would help him deal with this trauma) every leap of hope re-traumatised him. hence, it seems to be no surprise that jason decides to abandon the mask, and in the closing scene we see him without it. the promise of the shattered helmet is pushed to an extreme – jason does not get a new alt identity. he denounces the idea of superheroism completely.

and yet, what is ultimately subversive about the ending, is that jay is not truly a civilian and he does not abandon vigilante ways. he does the same thing. we see him without a mask, but he is clearly working a case. he might have rejected the symbolic dimension of the vigilante work, but he still carries the same delusional hope for bettering the world and protecting people that the superhero community does. only now, he is even more isolated and doesn't have any identity to go by (as he is still legally dead).

as such, the ending opens a new question regarding jason's understanding of himself and vigilantism, or rather the lack thereof. is it possible that vigilantism is really at the core of jay's trauma? and why, potentially, is it something that is so destructive for him as a character specifically? (and i have some answers for that, but i'm not going to get into it here, as it's already a very long post)

so, tldr; the genius of countdown is that it establishes jay as sensitive, determined, and fundamentally good (this is what the purpose of seeing him as batman is!), and then it brutally reminds the reader that jason’s tragedy is that on this specific earth, in this specific timeline, his love doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. the story goes on as it did; one way or another, jay is trapped in the cycle of his care ironically creating rifts between him and the others, and bringing him to his own downfall.

#okay i know i said a lot of it already but it's been some time since i finished the reread and i feel like my take on it has shifted a bit #and i wanted to emphasise the 'no good deed' interpretation!! #also it's just that i've seen a lot of people saying that countdown ends with jason being a civilian. #while i think the whole genius of it is that he is not really a civilian?? #have you seen civilians doing whatever the hell he is doing in the final scene? #this is arguably the element of the narrative that is by most readers missed – and i understand why #it's easy to get confused when navigating an event that spans across pretty much all of dc #fortunately for you i have worms for brain. and i have hyperanalysed it #i'm not saying overanalysed btw because i genuinely believe that this is not a case of accidental narrative brilliance #this is a pretty clear and straightforward progression once you dissect it from the rest of the series #and there are a lot of details that further cement my belief that it had to be intentional #i mean. even the recognition that donna and jason know each other is already... a lot for dc writers? #the fatal flaw #51 #no good deed #jay.zip #jay.txt #jason todd #core texts

[blondebooklion]

why it drives me crazy when people say c!ranboo has no morals but think c!wilbur and c!ranboo could still have potential to be narrative foils

morals:

loyalty to family/friends: in both his normal functioning and his enderwalk stage ranboo is incredibly defensive of his loved ones. this is 100% the center of his moral compass. he doesn't do certain things he fears will upset others (thus succumbing to peer pressure yes) but i deeply disagree with people argument that that is proof he has no moral backbone. particularly due to a couple of instances:

ranboo visiting tommy in exile: while not directly breaking the rules there was a general expectation, especially the people ranboo spent his time with, of not really visiting tommy. it wasnt really a set rule or anything but ranboo was definitely putting himself at risk by doing so.

protectiveness over michael: when sam and puffy showed up to prank ranboo, he was incredibly defensive over his son. he was ready to kill to protect his son if it came down to it.

rescuing tommy+tubbo: while we have it confirmed this instance was in their enderwalk stage, ranboo going both proves ranboos values in the enderwalk are the same (or i'd argue strengthened even) ranboo moved protectedly in front of tubbo when he and tommy had separated

forgiveness: he is willing to give people more than one chance, he is incredibly quick to judgements but for the most part he does not rely on other peoples opinions of each other to dictate the way he feels about them, he does take it into account in his overall image of them, but like with revivebur, he is willing to offer him a chance.

reciporcity to kindness: when people are kind to him, he is kind back. y'all let this slide as a moral with techno. it counts here. no im not counting it as necessarily loyalty because he is polite and kind even to those he isn't close to.

self-reliance: for better or worse ranboo does not think he needs other people to survive, in many instances he has displayed thinking he and everyone else would be better off if he were isolated. he does not want to depend too much in anyone, which can especially be seen in his desire for wealth. i think it has always been more about i dont have to rely on others, if things go south i can still survive (obviously part or it is needed something to do on stream, im applying other characteristics of ranboo to infer) but we can also see this in him retreating to himself (panic room, not telling anyone about his book being missing) when he is threatened because he believes the best way to handle it is himself

security: ranboo is incredibly driven bu his desire for safety and stability for both himself and for his loved ones. he thrives on consistency. he struggles the most when things begin to change.

difference between foil and antagonist (just for clarity cause some people have been switching up the definitions)

"an antagonist is a character who is in direct opposition to the protagonist. their actions deliberately hinder the protagonist from achieving her goal. this relationship helps build conflict and propels a story forward."

"a foil exists simply to shine the spotlight on certain traits of another character, without necessarily creating opposition or conflict."

credit: masterclass

the opposing traits/beliefs that i think will cause the most conflict between the two (ranboos will be written like this and wilburs like this to differentiate)

leader vs follower

probably the most obvious contention point, pointed out on 5/05 stream by wilbur pressing ranboo on what he stands for. wilbur wants to be in charge. but i think ranboo is how wilbur wanted people to value him. wilbur wanted to be the guy that everyone liked because he believed being liked comes with power. ranboo does not necessarily want to be well liked by everyone, but he wants to at least be neutral so he does do things in order to keep them on his side

conflict driven vs conflict averse

wilbur thrives on chaos and conflict, much like dream he is willing to manipulate situations. rqnboo does everything he possibly can to avoid it

cockiness vs insecurity

wilbur is obviously bold and arrogant. he thinks extremely highly of himself and the postions he does and could potentially hold. he is ruled by this factor and often does not think about the consquences of his rashly made decisions(thats not to say he isn't calculated or intelligent, he is, he just focuses on how things affect him rather than others)

means to an end vs no ulterior motives

all of ranboos bonds are strong because when he cares about people he does what he needs to to take care of them, they usually initiate out of instances of kindness, but he does not seem to expect anything in return. he cares about people because he loves them, nothing more nothing less. wilbur however while some of his relationships were initially based on care the motives became corrupted and its hard to say whether there are any relationships he has at this point that aren't ruled by some kind of benefit for him (my only guess for that would be phil)

similaries: paranoia, trust issues, secretiveness

ranboo and wilbur really are two sides of the same coin, yes they are opposites in a lot of aspects but despite the differences in their values orginate from the same place they jutted of in two completely different directions, they tried to solve the same issue in vastly different ways. ranboos paranoia was attempted to be solved by isolationism, while wilburs mainly tried to solve it through manipulation. ranboo pushed people away and wil tried to force them to be around. both backfired for them and caused them to retreat further into the paranoid states demonstrated by wilbur blowing up l'manburg and ranboo catastrophizing with hearing dreams voice.

I think wilbur's main contenion with ranboo resides in wilbur thinking ranboo glazes through life easily, and that they disagree on what morals means. being more confrontational does not mean you are more or less moral than another person. wilbur does not understand that differing morals does not equal none at all.

I don't think their relationship is going to act as an antagonist because while ranboo is actively keeping an eye on wilbur it wouldn't really make sense for ranboo to suddenly be more confrontational. I know a lot of people are citing the Burr vs Hamilton relationship as parallels in their dynamicI want to remind you that narrative foils are not conflicting in nature. conflict can happen. but the point of them is to highlight the differences in character traits.

likening to burr vs hamilton

burr wanted power but he wanted it to come to him vs hamilton wanting power and actively chasing it

yes this makes sense for wilbur, but it doesnt for ranboo. ranboo doesn't want power. he never has. the reason burr waits on the sidelinesnis cause he is waiting for the chance to act, but ranboo is not waiting for something to happen, in fact he would rather have the exact opposite, for things to be as uneventful as possible.

"Hamilton’s success at the expense of his personal life is countered by Burr’s relative lack of success and his happy family life. Both of these are directly due to the two’s differing goals and approaches to life. Burr and Hamilton are two side of the same coin, opposite results with the same starting conditions."

source

this is exactly what I referenced earlier between the two. ranboo cares about family, wilbur about career. while a lot of their behavior originated from a similar place, their paths rapidly diverged.

hamilton's downfall at burr's hand

i'm gonna be honest i find it extremely hard to believe that a situation will exist where wilbur waits and ranboo acts. however, if one does i still firmly believe it will be revolving around (likely in defense of) the people ranboo loves and cares about, specifically michael, tommy, tubbo. it would be where he is cementing his views of choosing people. but wilbur being hesitant is still difficult for me to think of a scenario on which he would that hesitant? for it to be his downfall?

important to note: ghostbur did also akin ranboo to burr so it is definitely possible that this dynamic is going to countinue to playout in the future

I will shut up now thank you for reading. reminder that this is just my interpretation and analysis, obviously looking at different details could lead to different conclusions. i'm super willing to discuss as long as we are both going to be respectful of each others opinions and courteous <3

#ranboo #wilbur soot #revivebur #long post #also let me know if i need to tw anything else #tw paranoia #tw anxiety #tw death mention

[xfadingstarx]

A Bleach Retrospective: In defense of Bleach

These are opinions, please respect that.

_______________________________

My Journey with Bleach (please skip if you want to go straight to the analysis):

On September the 8th, 2006 YTV’s weekend evening anime programming block (Bionix) aired the first episode of Bleach. I, unfortunately, did not catch this episode, instead, I caught the second episode on September 15th the following week. I was ten and from then on, Bleach fascinated me. It had an interesting concept, tight pacing, catchy music, a good story, and unique character designs. I also really enjoyed how Bleach lacked the same kind of emotional labour that Naruto demanded (as child who survived off of constantly seeking validation from others because of absentee parents, Naruto is way too much work).

My fascination with Bleach got me started in the fandom communities of yesteryear, for I was a child with zero internet supervision. My introduction to fanfiction was because I loved Hitsugaya Toshiro.

Bleach was my entry into poetry (poem at the start of every volume).

But alas, all good things were not meant to last and by the summer of 2009, I was officially done with Bleach. It had felt stilted for some time before then. Over the years, I would gradually revisit bits and pieces of Bleach, but I would not read it in its entirety until months after its finish, about a decade after I had first saw Bleach on my TV. Between the time I stopped reading and the series ended, I became friends with people who didn’t think highly of Bleach and I also started seeing criticism I had made about Bleach in 2011 being repeated by fans on the internet, I started to think that maybe Bleach was bad, but I knew what bad writing looked like —I started reading fanfiction through Bleach fanfiction AMVs on YouTube — and somehow Bleach didn’t sit right with me in the “bad writing category”. 

I sit back now, a decade and ahalf later from when I first started and ask, “was Bleach really that bad, and if so, why do I keep coming back to it?”

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What Made Bleach So Good?

Unique story and aesthetics: When Bleach first started in 2001, it was one of the first manga series to talk about souls and death in a poetic way and with such coherence. Bleach clearly knew what it wanted to say about life and death. It also had a very unique aesthetic, very similar to that of “The World Ends With You” or “Persona 5″ — an urban Japanese take on R&B kind of vibe. Also, Bleach had the most “realistic” and minimalist art style amongst the Big 3.

Cool Music: Bleach had cool music, from very solid rock’n’roll and R&B style songs in its OPs and EDs to very funky OST music with lots of pizzazz. Many singers feature by Bleach ended up successful (to varying degrees) outside of anime, eg: Orange Range, UVERworld, YUI, sid, etc.

Versatile tone: Bleach was edgy, there’s no doubt about that. It was willing to show a lot of blood and bodily violence, especially in the manga (eg half of people blowing up and bits of bone still attached). Despite this though, it was not pretentious about its edginess — it didn’t revel in it. To contrast the edginess, there is a lot of humour in Bleach with character interactions. It was able to be laid back enough with its strong characters that it would rely on the characters’ relationships for comedic relief. The post-credit skits and the fillers really helped to add to this overall feel as well.

Maturity of the Story: Bleach was very willing to handle topics that made people think. For example, the Ulquiorra - Orihime subarc was treated with a sense of carefulness about it, as if to reflect Ulquiorra’s own cautious curiosity about the heart. A less emotionally mature story would’ve gone for the cheap rape/torture porn, but instead we are treated to determined strong Orihime, who has found strength through the heart after the death of her brother, clashing with the nihilistic hollow who wants to know if there is happiness outside of emptiness. It’s a very loaded question and one that requires both perspective and life experience to fully understand both parties. As well, Bleach always knew what it wanted to say about life and death as the final conflict of Bleach is between Ichigo, who has accepted his transient life and Yhwach, who is scared of death. And ultimately, underneath all that action, Bleach produced takes on its themes that were hard to relate to unless the reader themselves had a certain level of emotional maturity (eg: 12 year old me got nothing out of the Ulqui-Ori arc, but 20 year old me spent a good 10 mins crying after)

Strong characters: Contrary to popular belief, Bleach does have quite solid characterization. In fact, Bleach is the journey of Ichigo as a character, from grappling with his weakness and pain to finally accepting all the parts of himself and his history in order to defeat Yhwach and protect those he cares about. Even the secondary characters of Bleach receive a sizable amount of backstory and/or development. Bleach also managed to have more proactive female characters. Even the damsel in distress Orihime stands up to Ulquiorra and slaps him. As a result of these strong characters, Bleach was able to rely on them and their relationships to drive aspects of the story (eg Ichigo crying in the Fullbringer arc).

Willingness to Deal with Emotion: Given that Ichigo is an internally motivated character, it was obvious Bleach would deal with emotion at some point in time. Making Ichigo just a normal high school boy also relives the previous edginess. Bleach also clearly too the time to make its readers feel in its early years. We are treated to beautiful panelling and very real displays of strong negative emotions. Bleach is also very good at giving its characters room to breathe and be sad. Eg: moping Orihime, moping Ichigo, etc. As well, Kubo went to extraordinary lengths to break Ichigo down during the Fullbringers Arc.

Interesting Character Designs: Every character in Bleach feels vibrant and unique with their personality showing through in their designs. For example: Shunshi’s sloppily tied up hair, visible stubble, and overcoat-hidden-haori show that he is both easy going and not looking for a fight; meanwhile Byakuya’s neatly pulled back hair and neck covered by scarf show that he is both someone who likes structure and is conservative.

Poetry and Symbolism: Kubo manages to weave poetry into Bleach in the beginning of each volume. The poem was said by the character on the volume. It gave the reader insight to this character and it gave Kubo a chance to flex his poetic chops. Further proof of this is the fact that many people don’t realize that the name “Bleach” refers to the bleaching of soul that is key to the story. Kubo loves to use rain to set sad scenes. It rains when Ichigo fights Grand Fisher, Zangetsu tells Ichigo that he hates the rain, etc. Kubo also specifies that he wishes for the reader to read certain volumes on stormy, rainy nights.

Panelling: Many people like to criticize Kubo for the lack of effort with the Bleach manga, but Kubo has stated that he uses negative space (i.e., foregoing backgrounds) to focus more on his character’s expressions. This not only further proves that Bleach cares a lot about its characters, but it’s done well enough that the average reader likely doesn’t notice the lack of background on the first read through. As well, Bleach has very cinematic panelling. Kubo uses the format of manga well, utilizing the human mind’s ability to fill blanks in with clever panelling to create tone and build tension and the feeling of movement through a scene.

In fact, in finding pages for this analysis, I found myself noticing that Bleach panels very similarly to slice-of-life shoujo but with a boy MC manga like "Horimiya": focus on expression through intimate angles and use of panels and breaks to create mood and the feeling of cinema; whereas something like DBZ panels like a shounen action manga with many hard lines and action shots, instead of a focus on subtle details and emotions.

Some Examples:

Notice now in Chapter 197: The approaching danger, Kubo uses a gradual zoom to build tension and the black background to add intensity and signal to the reader that Hitsugaya is relaying important information.

Here in Chapter 234: Not Negotiation, the immediate close up to Ulquiorra’s eye from the full body shots creates a sense of intimidation and unease with its sudden intimacy. As well, the immediate zoom in from Ulquiorra’s side full body shot to his facial profile creates tension and the change from the dark background to the white face with Orihime releases this tension (very fitting with considering the line for this panel is “but not you”). (This scene also ties into Ulquiorra’s central dogma of “that which is not reflected in my eyes does not exist’.)

Again in the same chapter, this gradual zoom in on the two creates tension that is then release in the next panel and summarily cements Ulquiorra as a terrifying BAMF.

In Chapter 262: Unblendable, Kubo uses the negative space to create a feeling of isolation, similar to how Orihime is supposed to be feeling.

In the same chapter, notice how Kubo creates a sense of intimacy (not in the romance sense) with the relationship of Ulquiorra and Orihime. He creates tension gradually with the zooming into Orihime’s eye and releases it with the zoom out to Ulquiorra. Through this scene, Kubo has shown us that Ulquiorra and Orihime have a tense relationship and with the implication of eye contact through the shots and panel breaks creating both the intimacy and showing Orihime’s defiance.

(Interestingly, I’ve noticed that Ulquiorra and Orihime have a lot of these intimate zoom shot-reverse-shot eye panels)

___________________

What are the Bad Parts of Bleach?

Okay, so by now, you’re probably thinking that I’m ignoring the massive amounts of critique that Bleach gets and don’t get me wrong, while Bleach does have a very special place in my heart, I’m also not maudlin enough to pretend that Bleach was all good.

Pacing:

Pacing in the First Half of Bleach (Karakura Town - Arrancar)

When Bleach first started out the pacing was excellent. Kubo showed great mastery of pace to control the tone and highlight the emotions throughout the first two arcs. Mid-way through the Arrancar arc, the fatigue sets in and it was hard to keep up with, especially since Kubo would interrupt one exciting fight set up to go set up more plot elsewhere (eg Fake Karakura town right as Ichigo and Ulquiorra were about to battle). Whilst looking back and reading it all at once does help with the pacing, it was frustrating if you were reading/watching on a weekly basis.

Pacing in the Anime:

I don’t ascribe to a simplistic belief of “fillers bad” simply because I think that sometimes fillers can be a good thing, for example, since every chapter is ~15-20pp, some character interactions have to be cut for the sake for space, so filler is a great opportunity to add those moments back into your story. For example, a lot of early Bleach fillers are just the people of Karakura town just hanging out. That being said, Bleach does have an unfortunate amount of fillers, with some of them even interrupting tense fights (eg the Beast Sword Arc interrupts Ichigo’s battle with Ulquiorra). However, the padding that the fillers provided did wonders for the transition between Soul Society to Arrancar Arc in the anime. Ultimately, the Bleach anime adaption was a long-running anime made for syndication and that’s okay.

******* Brief Aside: many people like(d?) to point out that Bleach has a very cyclical plot structure. I used to think this way too; however, this is not the case. There are many other long running stories that repeat similar goals. The problem lies not in the idea, but the execution. The main complaint about the Orihime rescue was not that it was uninteresting, but instead that it felt a rehash of the plot of the previous arc. This is largely because the story was not given enough time to breath between similar character arcs. For example, in One Piece, Luffy and Co have to save Nami and by extension, her home village so she can join them; however, the next time a Straw Hat needs to be saved is 227 chapters (2 whole story arcs) later. In between saving Rukia and Orihime, there is only a really an arrancar encounter, a bit of training, cheering up Ichigo, and a Grimmjow encounter before Orihime goes with Ulquiorra, thus making the goal of this arc “save Orihime” in only ~59 chapters vs 227. These two similar arc goals so close to each other does indeed create the sense of repetition.

Pacing from Fullbringer to End:

This is where Bleach really lost a lot of people. If you weren’t gone after the Ulquiorra fight, you probably were by this arc.This arc went at breakneck speed, and ngl, during my first full read through I almost gave up here too. I mention earlier that Ichigo had been broken down in this arc, but it was hard to feel his despair and the weight on his shoulders because there wasn’t enough for the reader to take a beat and breathe. The Thousand Year Blood War, similarly suffered from sloppy pacing, with many readers feeling like story lines of Squad 0 and the Soul King were anti-climactic. As well, this arc started with a massacre and feature the deaths of many fan-favourite characters, and unfortunately due to the pacing, their deaths were not given a sense of gravity.

Missed Opportunities and Forgotten Story lines: Many people felt that Kubo forgot about a lot of his characters after the Aizen arc. Many thought the Fullbringer Arc was going to be a Chad/Orihime Arc. Whatever happened to Uryuu lolol? We all just collectively forgot about him for a large portion of the last half of Bleach. At one point in time, there was a rumour going around that Kubo had written out the story for Bleach and lost it. Idk if there is any credibility to it. However, in a 2017 interview, Kubo did say that he did end the series exactly the way he wanted to.

(If anyone wants to see me write an entire ass text post about Orihime and her treatment in Bleach, please let me know because I will do it)

Too mature:Even though above, I praised Bleach's mature handle on its themes, an unfortunate side effect of this is forgetting that the characters are only 15 at the beginning and for the first half of Bleach. This unfortunately, leads to some readers feeling disconnected from Bleach.

Epilogue: THE DESTROYER OF SHIPS!!! A lot of people hated this ending. Many people felt like the romance was shoe-horned in, others didn’t like the pairings, and there were some people who actually liked it. Personally, I didn’t like it too much, but it was a cute conclusion nonetheless. Since it didn't add anything to the story except for a "where are they now" look and because of that, I low-key felt like it was unnecessary, but w/e.

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Perspective

Making a long-running weekly serialized story is hard and doing it for 15 years is gruelling (obligatory “fuck capitalism” here). Like many artists of long-running manga, Kubo destroyed his health for the sake of publishing Bleach weekly. Kubo on his health after Bleach (photo from AshitanoGin on Twitter):

Given this insight, I think it’s only fair to be respectful and grateful for Kubo’s contribution to the anime-sphere. Also, through his work, Kubo seems to be a very understanding person and artist. I’m sure he knows better than anyone where Bleach went wrong, but there’s nothing that can be done now. Despite him having a twitter, he is not Joanne and doesn’t feel the need to constantly hemorrhage out word of god info about Bleach (and thank god for that).

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Final Thoughts

It’s hard to forget my happy memories when I think about Bleach. It had my first adolescent crush and first OTP. As a result, I think the best way to enjoy Bleach is to take what you want out of it. People always think that something has to be 100% without flaw for it to be good, but that is not true at all. It is totally okay to just like the parts that you like without engaging with anything else. It’s special to you for a reason, you know? 

There’s no use in fretting over what Bleach could’ve been, besides, very rarely is the reality better than the fantasy in your head.

I do think though that a lot of Kubo’s issues could’ve been fixed if he planned the story better but not all of us can be “I've been planning One Piece since elementary school” Oda Eiichiro.

Other voices on this issue: here

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Wow. I can’t believe you made it this far down. Congratulations! Thanks for reading my 2:30am non-sober take on Bleach (it only took me 7 hours to write). Here's a cookie <3

#bleach #pro bleach #analysis #writing #characters #ramblings #pro orihime #orihime #ichigo #ulquiorra cifer #hot take #quarantine thoughts #late night #weebshit #criticism #critique #anime review #manga #i'm still bleach

[at-the-exd-of-everythixg]

Right. Cracks knuckles

So there I was, watching spirited away, when I started thinking somewhat about how the characters teleport to the spirit worlds, and u know I always have Sal on my mind so...obviously I started thinking about Aspherane teleportation in further detail.

These are some pages that I think best sum up the working of Singularity's powers and the manner of how her teleports work.

Aa lot of media always uses the work of "speed of light" when it comes to travel in space. Steven Universe particularly used it as Gems are made out of hard light as well as the many times we've seen characters travel in light speed. So, yeah, it's a big ass trope and one I'm now gonna play around with 👈👈

Singularity is a hero who is a living pocket dimension as well and someone that particularly inspired me when creating Aspherane. A lot of their (going with nb Singularity cause marvel is a coward who still gendered EVERYTHING when A-force came about) powers are relating to dimensions when they crossed over into Arcadia, a world ruled by Doom, and began to help A-force but ultimately satisfied their life before they were "reborn" or teleported to another universe.

(Which, holy shit, could u IMAGINE Sal dying and he just. Teleports to another world. Aha imagine that as a thread the truama the angst of seeing who he loved as someone diffrent- fuck I'm into it)

So yeah, Singularity is capable of teleportation spatially, teleportation through dimensions and being capable of taking people into their personal pocket dimension. Now, this is where my headcanons come in on how it affects Aspherane and Majesdanes and therefore Sal and Pascal.

So, for Majesdanes, I like to think there's a comparison between the workings of time travel and inter-dimensional travel. I've stated a few times how there are differences between Majesdanes and Aspheranes that involve the amount of energy that they process and how it's used. Before the Fall, Majesdanes controlled Aspherane and had a large amount of energy within the planet and within themselves. A lot of Majesdane technology was focused onto space travel and time travel, which meant that it wasn't entirely uncommon for Aspherane to travel to other time periods on other planets and blend in.

As for social context, I imagine it wasn't that uncommon for a lot of Majesdanes to accidentally time travel when they're young and still expanding their energy. Mostly I like this because it's very funny to imagine a Majesdane accidentally popping away in time ksksk. A lot of this is due to the fact that while Majesdanes have a physical outreach of power and energy, much like how a star is constantly expanding, as well as having a pisonic outreach which in turn, rockets through time itself as a Majesdane will often cement their existence.

After the Fall, a lot of Aspherane liked to tell horror stories about how the Majesdane were never really dead, but how their Light (or, well, spirit for humans) simply travelled and followed their energy and now they live on, trapped in between the echoes of time and stretched beyond all limits.

....anyway.

In contrast, Aspherane are more in tune with dimensions and the constant expansion beyond their world and through more stars. There's a belief held among Aspherane that their people never really die, instead, being reborn in diffrent worlds until they wind up back as a Starling on Aspherane. Unlike Majesdanes though, it takes a lot of effort and the teleport of such an extensive form only takes place under severe stress which,,,kinda happned to Sal when he was 12 and although he doesn't realise it, 100% I'm saying he crossed into a spirit world of sorts and that's how he got to New York in like, under ten minutes from Utah. This is a large reason for his cracks since Sal kinda,,,blew off a lot of energy that he never quite got back and then immediately came to live in a place where he would slowly decay while alive but whatever.

Sal in these terms is...messy with his power and while he ranges less in dimension travel, his human side would allow Sal to actually shift into the spirit world, y'know, like imagine how it was for Sokka in ATLA??? Its that for Sal. Idiot probably can do it once or twice a year but never realises fully. This is also in tune for Pascal, who has dreams of the future as well as making reality altering prophesies if he was more inclined due to the fact that he has Majesdane and ßönnënlicht blood, which...makes him strong as FUCK when it comes to fate.

And surprisingly, his twin sister, Cassandra is actually more tied in to Aspherane powers and therefore has the ability to see into other dimensions as well as unlocking them. When Iris buys her from Molly Solberg, she's the reason why the DFC are able to extent their business into other worlds. God. I'm so big brained with my worldbuilding.

But yeah, takes drag of ciggerate, that's my take on dimensional travel and time travel that's slowly died within two cultures over time.

#the living stardust (sal) #he speaks of holy fates (pascal) #headcanon #mothman was here (ooc post)

[earthnashes]

Hey so I don’t typically do this but, on a whim I watched the Lion King remake and wanted to share my thoughts on it! <:

Final verdict? It... actually wasn’t as bad as I originally thought it was. Like I try not to have an opinion on a movie I haven’t seen, including remakes, because I wouldn’t have much to base said opinion on it otherwise. But after hearing how much people seemed to despise the movie and call it entirely soulless (and seeing clips out of context of the full movie) I was inclined to agree with that verdict.

But now that I’ve seen it? I honestly enjoyed it. I admit it lacked something magical the original had but for what it was, it was pretty good. This felt more like a slightly darker take on the story, and took a little more inspiration from Hamlet as far as I can tell and for what it’s worth, it worked for the realism the movie tried to convey.

So my thoughts on the movie! (below the cut cuz it got longer than I anticipated)

-The voice acting was pretty damn good. What the characters lacked in facial expression the cast tried to compensate with their voices and it kinda worked.

-The animation was beautiful; this is probably the most realistic looking CGI movie I’ve seen and I say that in a positive way. It’s just bloody gorgeous to look at. Speaking of realism, to touch back on expression I did notice that what the animals lacked in facial expression was also compensated by body language typical of that specific animal. Scar does a strange trot-pacing when he was scared, Mufasa rolled around on his back and did the cute happy cat squint while letting Simba climb all over him when they were playing, Zazu would ruffle his feathers when agitated, so on. There could have been so much more emoting, don’t get me wrong because that attention to detail was sometimes made too subtle to catch but, when it was there, I appreciated it. It felt like these creatures was emoting human feelings but in a way natural to them.

-I love the fact that Scar actually feels threatening and menacing. The original Scar is a joy, one of the best Disney villains created, and I always liked the fact that he’s shown as a whiny self-entitled brat when he actually becomes king (and further cements why he wasn’t chosen in the first place). But this Scar had actually fought Mufasa for the title of king and lost, and is entirely bitter about it; hell I wouldn’t be surprised if that scar on his face was from Mufasa in this version. His resentment toward his brother felt like it had more weight to it: Mufasa took the kingdom, Mufasa has the love and admiration that Scar believed is owed to him, Mufasa was the one chosen by the lioness Scar wanted. His want for everything Mufasa had felt personal, not like a mere obstacle, so much so that he went to the hyenas to achieve what he wanted (instead of it being implied he was actually friends with them; they were a means to a gain he couldn’t achieve alone).

 And it didn’t simply stop at Mufasa: when Sarabi refused to be his queen he basically sentences the lionesses to starvation until she relents (which she doesn’t thank god), it’s implied some of the lionesses have tried to leave before because Scar and hyenas patrol Pride Rock seemingly 24/7: I have no doubt he would have killed Nala if he found her in that scene. Zazu can barely be around the pridelands to give the lionesses news of the goings on in their home. Everyone owed him something and he was stopping at nothing to achieve it.

Like there was the scene where Simba and Scar were talking to each other and Simba turned his back on him and it felt like Scar was only just refraining from killing the cub. Yikes.

Scar was legit scary in this iteration and I honestly loved it.

-The added scenes give a tiny bit more depth to the suffering the Pride Lands faced in Simba’s absence and I really appreciated that. I also like how we’re shown some of Simba’s life with Timon and Pumbaa and why he seems so torn about being who he was meant to be: every time he brings it up, Timon and Pumbaa kinda shut him down on it. Not out of malice but it’s hurtful nonetheless and his hesitation showed from it. I think a lot of that might have to do with how Danny Glover voiced him: Simba stuttered a lot or would back away when his beliefs were challenged and that, at least for me, showed his fear of bringing change. What if it’s the wrong kind of change? The last time he tried to change something, his father died, so its better to be a nothing and not cause anything, right? Maybe I’m lookin’ too deeply into it but hey, that’s what I do best. <:

-The music is fucking amazing. If there’s no other takeaway from this remake then at the very least, the music is just... awe-inspiring, particularly the orchestral scores. There’s new scores in the movie that just got me caught up and was just... bro, it’s so damn good.

-Seeing Mufasa die in fully realistic CGI was painful. Every time he’d get hit or ran over I cringed; the sound design and the weight to the animation made sure you knew he was getting trashed. The part where he slipped and struggled to get down just to start rescuing Simba was a nice touch too, like it fully showed just how dangerous it all was, not just the wildebeests.

I love the addition of how he spoke to Simba through the chaos too, like trying to be assuring despite it; there was a scene where he’s like “it’s alright! Come to me son!” then he gets BLASTED and I was like NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! I do miss how he called to Scar as his brother though; with how they added dialogue to show Mufasa still loved his brother despite everything in the beginning, keeping the “Brother! Help Me!” would have nailed it home, but they got rid of it for some reason. :/

-The scene where Simba escapes was a nice change: I’m pretty sure one hyena did fall with him and like, legitimately died, and when Shenzi told the other two to look for him they were like “uhhhhhhhh actually, if that dude died there’s no way a cub would survive that. o3o” I like how they were honestly certain he had died instead of just pretending he was, but it would have been nice for that certainty to be challenged a little more when Simba had shown up at the end.

Also, Simba limping out of the bramble and into the desert, then him eventually just lying down to die was really sad to see. :C

-SHENZI WAS FUCKING SCARY AND I LOVED HER. I LOVE HER SO MUCH. She was more menacing that Scar, I’d say, because the hyenas felt more like they were following her, not Scar. They only went along with it because Shenzi thought it would work, and the moment he tried to throw them under the bus, it was Shenzi who put the nail to his coffin. Which was... oof. Yeah, seeing Scar pathetically attempt to fight for his life before being swarmed and screaming was a little horrifying, it was a little more than just his shadow this time.

-Speaking of Shenzi, I love the fact that she and Nala had a throwdown, that was so fuckin’ cool. Actually, the entire final fight (up until the Simba and Scar fight anyway) was great. I liked that we got to see more of the lions fighting for their home instead of slapstick stuff (which was great in the original but wouldn’t have worked here).

-Speaking of the final battle? The whole scene was really cool... but the final fight between Simba and Scar was so WEAK. That shit was weak sauce bro. They had this whole buildup to the final confrontation between true king and false king, the dialogue before it was tense and everything, the start of the fight was promising... then Scar accidentally falls off. Like... really? Fuckin LAME. Dude, I was hoping for a big-ass scrap like the final battle in Jungle Book. There was power and impact in the fight between Shere Khan and the animals, and the final confrontation between him and Mowgli was so well done. The original fight in the original was fuckin AMAZING! The two tear into each other and Simba wins because he outsmarts Scar by using a move he learned from Nala, something he always fell for himself and he used it to his advantage. Like, hell yeah!

But this? I legit said “that’s it?” out loud after it all, I couldn’t believe it. Lame. :/

-Simba and Nala bantering was really sweet. They were arguing about things they did together in the past and I did enjoy that, like showing that they were best friends through the past experiences they had. I also like the dynamic of when they actually got to the Elephant Graveyard and Nala was immediately aware of the danger they could be in and how reckless Simba really was being. She tried several times to convince him to leave, even as far as saying “okay, I can see just how brave you are so can we please go home?” and.. I dunno, I just thought it was a nice added touch to her character as a cub. As if she knows Simba so thoroughly she can see right through him.

-I really missed the characterization of Rafiki in this version. He came off as more a silent shaman than a kookie but wise baboon, and that would have worked if they... showed more of him and his personality? He was in the movie less here than he was in the original and I wasn’t really feelin’ that. :/

-I’m not gonna lie, the scene where Simba and Mufasa’s spirit reunite made me tear up a little. The original left goosebumps in its wake and it was a powerful scene, but this one was powerful in a different way? Like in the original Mufasa told Simba who he was, where as in this one Mufasa told his son how proud he was of being his father and how he always would be. And ya’ll, when Mufasa began going away and Simba just quietly, desperately saying “please... don’t leave me again” and Mufasa goin’ “I never left you, I never will” I was like NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Yeah, it got me man. DAMNIT Mufasa! ;-;

---------------------------

So all in all? I can honestly say I liked it. Is it to the point where I’d be willing to sit down and rewatch several times over like I did the original? Not quite. But this remake felt a lot like “The Lion King, but what if it was with legit real animals?” and in that sense, it worked. This felt about as realistic as the story of the Lion King could possibly get and I could appreciate it for that. They told the same story with a different flavor and direction and I still enjoyed it, and while I think Disney should be criticized for trying to shamelessly cash in on the nostalgia of their long time fans with the remakes, the actual people behind creating this remake (director, animators, sound design, everyone actually making the film and not distributing it) seemed to honestly care about the product they were creating and it shows in more than just the characters’ facial expressions.

Sooooo yeah. Sharing my thoughts on something no one asked for but I did it anyway. I enjoy talking about this stuff but enough about what I thought, what about you? If you’ve seen the remake, what did you think of it? O:

#earthsong talks #earthsong does the big think #lion king remake #earthsong sings #not really a review? #I saw it and wanted to talk about what I liked about it #because it honestly surprised me #o3o

[rivetgoth]

OC #2 - Angel Steel

Pinterest board 🍰 Tag on OC blog

I think a lot of people know Angel by now. He’s been through a lot and he’s been around for way too long but he just keeps fighting to be one of my most significant OCs. I can’t get rid of him. He began years and years ago as a Repo! OC exclusively, pretty much a self-insert and a weird coping device when I was pre-everything and closeted and hated myself and whatever. He eventually evolved into his own character entirely and cemented a place for himself in my own original OC canon. He’s also from the Fresno, California megalopolis from the 2080s and he’s stupid.

Angel’s basic information is that he’s a pre-everything bisexual trans guy in his early twenties. He was born in Chowchilla, California as an only child to a poor couple. Chowchilla, like most of the areas surrounding Fresno, have pretty much fallen into wasteland, and when Angel’s parents grew sick they moved to the city to try to get medical treatment, but they could only afford enough medicine to treat Angel alone and ended up dying and leaving Angel an orphan when he was still pretty young. So Angel grew up on the streets, and really quickly had to learn to adapt to survive. He quickly became involved in the very dangerous and highly illegal medicine transportation vehicle raid circuit. Basically, Himmel Medicine, the megacorp that pretty much owns the monopoly on the hospital and medicine industry, transports armored cars full of medicine and supplies throughout the city on a daily basis, and individuals with nothing to lose will risk their lives to raid the cars, take the supplies, and sell them for huge amounts of money on the street. Angel, who is naturally very small and not particularly muscular and was very young at the time, ended up becoming a frequent medical car raid “runner,” which meant that he would stay at the site of the attack, be given the supplies, and then make a run for it to avoid the Street Patrol from reclaiming the stolen property. However, Angel would often break certain rules and expectations of the medical car raiders, such as keep a handful of the items he was given for himself to sell at a higher cost as he would not have to split the proceeds with the group he was with. He valued survival over all else and felt this was a justified way to exist as it was every man for himself out on the streets.

Over the course of his time as a medical car raider Angel ended up seeing a great deal of people die, including many brutally killed right in front of him. The Street Patrol, policeman who had been bought out by Himmel Medicine and originally hired with the intent of protecting the armored cars, had always caused trouble during raids, but once Himmel had bought out the prison system as well they were promoted to street work, where they would do reverse-raids and attack places where the raiders were hiding out and brutally slaughter them. Angel’s life became even more at risk and he knew it was just a matter of time before he was caught. When he came home one day to the place he and a group of raiders had been squatting and, despite only being out for about an hour, found nothing but mutilated corpses left behind, it really struck him how seriously his life was at risk. In a panic he turned himself in, after learning that Himmel had just recently put out a call seeking volunteers for some medical experiments they were working on in exchange for a wiped record. Angel had just turned eighteen.

Angel’s story immediately caught attention at Himmel Medicine, and the tale of a reformed medicine runner who saw the truth and became a loyal follower of Himmel was one that the company was eager to capitalize on. He was eventually assigned to be the test subject of the Icarus Project, a series of cosmetic surgeries being developed by Doctor Giorgio Marcello, one of the leading plastic surgeons at Himmel. Giorgio is an important OC of mine, he’ll come up later as well. Giorgio was looking into the extent that surgical human body modification could go, pushing the limits of how much he could manipulate and add to the body in hopes of bringing about the future of body modification in which one could have full ownership of themselves in a way the human species never has had before. For the following year, Angel was in and out of consciousness, mostly out, as surgeons spent day in and day out tirelessly grafting giant, artificial angel wings to his back, fusing the artificial appendages at every level, his nervous system, muscular system, and everything else being conjoined with the wings.

The end result was imperfect. As the first major transplant of an artificial, non-human limb to a human body, the connection was not completely even and Angel had a permanent stiff awkwardness in the wings. He had a limited range of movement, and the circulation wasn’t great. Imagine if you had a pair of arms sewn to your back that were permanently a little asleep, that’s what Angel was stuck with. But Giorgio had no interest in furthering the experiment beyond cosmetic, and told Angel that if he wanted a secondary series of surgeries to correct the minor details he would have to pay for it out of pocket, which was money Angel certainly did not have. More fine details soon arose as well, primarily that Angel’s wings were property of Himmel Medicine, and he would have to pay for those as well if he wanted to leave. He couldn’t just remove them without not only extreme pain but a serious risk of bleeding out, and despite how much he wanted freedom, he couldn’t quite prioritize it over the pain and bring himself to try it. He was instead “hired” as a model for the company. There, he received the name “Himmel’s Angel,” which was where he got his name. Prior to that, he had been willingly nameless, due to a belief he held that without a name it would be significantly harder to catch him. “Angel” is really just a shorthand version of his advertising title. Angel would be dressed up in pretty outfits and photographed or filmed, frequently winding up on the front of magazines and television screens, working as a spokesperson for Himmel and telling his story of “redemption,” and working behind the scenes as a high class prostitute for Himmel’s especially wealthy and generous investors.

In his downtime, Angel was assigned a dorm-like living space with a fellow Himmel “employee” called Hollywood California (I already wrote about her earlier). She had been working for Himmel much longer than Angel had, and seemed to quickly attach to him. He was the first friend she had had since coming here. Angel didn’t particularly want to talk to her, preferring being alone at this point and not a particularly sociable being. But they were trapped together, and the fact that they were both the same age and both trans gave them something in common, although Angel didn’t really want to see it that way. He also felt that California had it easier than him, as she wasn’t expected to be a spokesperson in the same way - She was a wanted criminal, tried and ruled guilty for murder, and yet she still was undergoing surgeries that Angel felt were significantly easier than him, as they weren’t even physical. He also spent a great deal of time with Giorgio, who had grown quite attached to Angel over the course of the surgical process. Giorgio and Angel frequently had sex and Angel went along willingly, and maybe even started to fall in love with Giorgio in a stockholm syndrome kinda way, but throughout the process of their affair he also worked to get as much information out of Giorgio as possible in order to slowly plan an escape. Their relationship is complicated and far from healthy; Angel was left with a lot of uncertain feelings by the end of it that fucked with his certainty about escaping at all, but he never fully lost sight of his need to be free from Himmel’s grasp,

Just as he was ready to leave, Angel was caught by California, who had been seeking an escape plan of her own and had began to pick up on Angel’s frequent disappearances and shifty behavior. She interrogated him and threatened to report him to Himmel’s authorities if he didn’t allow her to accompany him. Angel agreed begrudgingly, though this only further removed any positive feelings he had for Cal prior, although he did rationalize within himself that having a second person on his side would be helpful. After all, he couldn’t easily cover his wings, but California had not received any physical alterations. But he still managed to keep control of the operation and didn’t quite reveal everything to Cal - With Giorgio, he had learned of where a great deal of money was hidden within Himmel’s headquarters, and before leaving with California he managed to steal a large chunk of it, which he kept entirely a secret from her. Together the two of them escaped to the Outskirts, the furthest that the buses will travel out of Fresno before turning back around. Aaaaand that’s where my novel starts off, so I don’t want to share more details about what happens exactly, but I will say that eventually Giovanni Marcello winds up staying with Angel in the outskirts and the two become love interests, but I won’t tell y’all how that works out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :)

Angel’s key priority is always survival, at the cost of forming any genuine relationships with other people or really standing for anything. He doesn’t believe in anything but seeking comfort and safety and sort of desires a happiness that probably will never exist because it will take more effort on his end than he’s willing to give. He’s very jumpy and skittish but that can be flipped over into “sneaky” when necessary. He has a lot of trauma and a lot more wrong with him than he’s willing to face and a lot of it manifests in weird attachment or detachment issues that he doesn’t even really realize. He’s more superstitious than he wants to admit and gets caught up in worries about fate and the future and feels like he’s constantly trying to run from something he can’t quite name (aside from Himmel, who’ve put a hefty bounty on his head). Angel likes pinks and reds, pastries, strawberries and other cute fruit, and dislikes pretty much all animals. He’s not really a good person nor does he really prioritize goodness or kindness as a virtue at all, he doesn’t necessarily want to hurt people who he doesn’t think deserve it but he’s not going to worry much about kindness anyway.

I’ve had Angel for SO long and he’s gone through so much. I care about him way more than I wish I did. I’ve commissioned a lot of art of him and he still feels very closely connected to me since he began as a stupid way to cope with shit, although he’s since evolved a lot. There he is! Also a fun fact about Angel is that he named himself. When I was still developing him in the early stages, I had a nightmare where he worked for a group of people who were out to murder me and he told me his full name, which is fucked up. I hate him! :)

#daily OC talk

[thestraggletag]

The Deal, a RCIJ Fic

Author’s Note: It is I, @iatethebiscuit, your Secret Santa! So happy to say I had NO panicky “DID I HIT THE ANON BUTTON?” moments with you this year, which was a pleasant surprise. Thanks for letting me be your santa and for giving me ideas and support! I hope this is to your liking and happy Christmas in July. which totally should be a real thing.

Also I’m sorry that the summary absolutely BLOWS this time around but I promise it’s a good story!

Prompt: Is the baby okay?

Summary: To wish for a child is a dangerous thing, Belle knows. As it is to make a deal with a creature as old and as powerful as Mr Gold.  But everything worth having required leaps of faith and bouts of bravery, including love.

Rating: M

She smirked, looking at the clock right next to the Children’s Corner to confirm that she had guessed right. As she had imagined it wasn’t even ten o’clock in the morning. When he’d begun to visit her almost daily Mr Gold made a pretence of stopping by on his way to Granny’s for a lunch break, his entire demeanour as professional and as aloof as ever as he enquired after her child with the same tone as one might enquire after the weather. It was calculated and effortless at the same time and she marvelled at his capacity for subterfuge. If he hadn’t pulled the same stunt at least half a dozen times before she wouldn’t have noticed. She rubbed her swollen belly absentmindedly, smiling down at it.

“He’s been sleeping all day, but I can feel him moving now.”

She was sure it wasn’t a coincidence, sure that her babe could feel Mr Gold the same way she could sense him when he was nearby. She wondered what other people saw when they looked at him, since they clearly could not see what she did.

“Little one must be hungry.” His voice sounded concerned, but she couldn’t tell whether it was genuine or a pretext for what was coming next. “I think a trip to Granny’s is in order.”

Belle was sure he was convinced she’d forget to eat entirely if he didn’t remind her, and to be fair that did tend to happen from time to time, specially when she got her hands on an interesting book. He leaned forward, eyes glowing gold for a second, so faintly she barely caught it.

“You need the protein, dearie. Wee bairn is hungering for something bloody. I must insist.”

His smile was predatory and nowhere near human, and he kept it as she attacked a rare steak in front of him with relish, Ruby commenting on how it was good to see her eating so well.

“Baby’s gonna be a strong little wolf. Granny’s been knitting him an entire winter wardrobe.”

She made sure her friend was out of earshot before laughing.

“I can’t believe it still. No one’s said a peep about it. They just accept the baby, as if it’s completely normal that I just up and got pregnant one day.”

“I did promise you, my dear. And I never break a deal.”

Another shark smile, another flash of gold in his eyes and a bit of scales on his neck. And yet no one else could see it. She had been able to tell right away, though, even from afar. It hadn’t been the first time either, so it hadn’t shocked her. She had always been aware of things most people didn’t see, but hadn’t realised at first it was strange, because her mother had been like her too, had been able to see things that for most people weren’t there. People who glimmered, small creatures that blinked in an out of existence, beings that were see-through or disguised themselves as animals.

She’d hated it, after her mother died, for a long time. Especially during her commitment, when every glimpse of something other had felt like the universe mocking her. She’d had made her peace with it since then, and now saw her oddity as a nice gift from her mother, something to remember her by.

Even though she’d had always been able to see what others didn’t, she couldn’t say she’d ever encountered anything like Mr Gold. Ancient, for one, and powerful, dangerous in a way that had made her wary of approaching him at first. He’d always been cordial and courteous with her, but his reputation as a cutthroat dealmaker had put her off, even though the deals people talked about were not like the one she had in mind. To mix magic with a reputation like that could only spell trouble.

But her need had been too strong, so in the end she had caved in and sought him out, finding out his true name and summoning him. It was an old practice, out of style as he’d told her later, and had caught him by surprise. He above any other fae she’d been able to spot had mastered the art of adaptability: where others struggled and faded he changed and survived, thrived even. He hadn’t thought there were humans who could see into his true nature anymore, not unless he revealed himself.

Luckily he had been amenable to the deal, once she had explained it. A deal with a fairy for a child was as straightforward as it came, once upon a time it had been a common enough bargain for whoever was willing to pay a price. But now, with science and adoption, and the abandonment of the belief in magic and the old ways, it was a rarity. But science hadn’t been enough to help her conceive, and her mental history made adoption impossible in practice, if not in theory.

She had told him that, in the most succinct way possible, unwilling to share more than what was absolutely necessary. When he’d enquired about the potential father of the babe she’d told him there was no one to fill that position. Romantic love had never come easy to her, and certainly never the kind that she’d want to cement in such a permanent way. But she longed for family, for a child. He’d done it before, he told her, granted the wish for a child to a woman with no husband or partner.

“It’s not impossible, but it does come at a steep cost, particularly taking into account what I must contribute. Are you willing to pay it, dearie?”

Fifteen years was a lot of time to shave off her life expectancy, but not so much that it would mean leaving her child motherless before they reached adulthood, which was what she cared most about. He had gone into the back room of his shop, where she could tell most of the objects displayed were not what they seemed, particularly the old spinning wheel in the corner. He’d spun literal straw into Gold- if fit, given his true name- and had fashioned the thread into a small seed, which he had instructed her to ingest if and when she was ready. She had swallowed it with a glass of water the moment she was back at the library and had woken up with a white streak in her hair and her stomach roiling with what she discovered was morning sickness.

She had stopped by his shop to thank him, hugging him in her exuberance. He’d shied away in a manner that was a stark contradiction to his dangerous nature, fingers twitching nervously. He’d looked ancient then, atrophied in some way, before she blinked and his usual mask was back on. He’d congratulated her in a stilted way, assuring her that he always delivered on a deal and all that he detailed in it.

“You’re miles away, Miss French, and that steak’s getting cold.” He gently tapped her wrist, encircled by a gold woven bracelet. “My magic may give the child a lot of what he needs, but it can only do so much.”  

She had almost forgotten how awful the first months of the pregnancy had been. Nothing had stayed down at first. Citrics in particular became revolting to her, as did a lot, if not most, of processed food. Everyone kept telling her it was normal but she grew concerned as she began to lose weight instead of gaining it. When she grew deeply scared she went to Mr Gold, who seemed genuinely offended she had not come to him sooner.

“I promised a healthy bairn, Miss French. You should’ve told me if that promise didn’t seem to be materialising.”

Gingerly, after asking her for permission, he laid a hand on her stomach, closing his eyes and frowning after a few seconds. When he opened his eyes again he looked at her in a strangely speculative way and sent her home with instructions to eat very rare meat and berries. The meal, as unappetising as it had sounded, was delicious and settled nicely in her stomach. No one commented on her new habit of purchasing meat daily- though her librarian budget rankled a bit- nor did they question her long walks in the woods in search of blackberries and the like.

She hadn’t expected to see Mr Gold once the problem resolved itself, though her energy was still flagging and she was having problems with falling asleep several times during the day. But he began to come to the library often, enquiring after a particular book or a topic of interest, and during the conversation he’d ask after the child, as if it was a passing concern. He’d get close sometimes, closer than what she was used to with him in any case, and his visage would turn less human than usual for a moment or two, as if his human facade slipped slightly. 

It wasn’t until he found her dozing off in the Ancient History section that he told her of a notion he’d had for a while, that he could now confirm. He smelt magic around her, which he hadn’t before, and with the further development of the baby had been able to confirm the magic came from him. It was that what was leeching her energy, the wee one’s magical aptitudes developing, using her life force in order to do so.

“An unexpected development, for sure, but not entirely out of the question. Changeling children have always been rare, but nowadays they’re downright a near impossibility. The only time I’ve ever produced a child with only one human parent he was fully human himself, so I had no notion things would not be the same this time around. I do apologise for the inconvenience, Miss French, and have devised a means of helping you through the rest of your pregnancy.”

It was then that he gave her the gold bracelet, which shimmered in a way she knew had nothing to do with the metal it was made out of.

“It’s got enough of my magic to feed the babe. It should make things easier from now on.”

The bracelet had indeed done as he’d promised and soon she began to notice the increasing swell of her stomach. Though she had been afraid of what the townspeople would say, no one commented on it, and if they did it was only to congratulate her. Not one question about the father, or a snide remark on her single status. It was all as Mr Gold promised.

Magic worked mysteriously, but it puzzled her less than the fae himself, who kept turning up at the library or at Granny’s when she was around, something he had not done before. His interest in the child was soon obvious- “I aim to keep my end of the bargain, lest my reputation suffer.”- and surprisingly she found that she did not mind it. Aside from the fascination that his non-human nature inspired he was an old creature, and had lived a fascinating life. One that she could sometimes cajole him into share tidbits of with her, though at first with the clear intention of putting her off and curtail her curiosity. He told her of the wars he’d seen, the violence and horror of the days of old, when magic was much more plentiful and the greed of man and fae had done terrible things with it. He seemed surprised when that did not stop her questions of her welcoming his company, but it did not stop his visits, just changed them in a way she couldn’t quite describe.

He was a hoarder, of both stories and objects. It became usual for him to let her take a peek into the back room of his shop, often telling her about an item there and the power it possessed. Most of them had once been worthy of awe and fear, but time had leached their magic away bit by bit till little remained. Enough to make the object hum to Belle’s eyes and ears, still, but nothing that inspired the feelings Mr Gold did.

She offered bits of herself for every part of his long life he shared with her. Things about her mother and herself, the strange gift they both shared and the bond it had created. One particularly vulnerable afternoon he enquired after her time at the asylum, in hushed, respectful tones. He listened patiently to her recollection of it. Her father had had her committed, soon after her mother’s passing. He’d meant well, which he told her only made things worse, more painful. She hadn’t been able to reconcile with him before he’d passed away, and as she cried, holding on to the fae in a manner she had no right to, he told her he’d seldom met anyone so brave. He’d told her about the other child he’d created with no father, Baelfire, and how he’d also been brave.

“Too brave for someone who could die so easily, though I suppose I was lucky.”

He told her how his mother had made a second deal with him when the lad was around four, giving him up in exchange for riches and adventure, and how he’d raised him up as his own, which he was in a way. They shared enough in terms of blood for the child to be a vulnerability that could be used against him, so he’d taken him in. He’d raised him, thinking that he could one day make a deal with him for eternal life so they could be together. But the child had been too human, and had grown old and faded before his eyes.

It began to worry her, that. Her child, her son, would he be human enough to grow old and die? He didn’t want him to grow lonely, specially since she’d die sooner than even a regular human was expected to. Mr Gold, she’d learned, was painfully lonely, in a way she would never understand, as lonely as she had sometimes felt, particularly at the asylum. To live centuries alone, to watch his kin fade and die…

She had never met a creature more apt for survival. Cunning and patient, clever and powerful, it did not take much to understand how he’d gotten to be so old, and so prosperous. And so tired, at the same time. A long life of isolation sounded like the worst sort of punishment, and she grew worried for her child, for little Gideon. So when she began catching Mr Gold looking at her swollen belly, his hands twitching in that way she knew meant he wanted to reach out, to feel the babe, she grew hopeful. Gideon need not be alone after she was gone if the fae took an interest in him.

The more she thought about it the more it made sense, though she didn’t dare voice her new hope aloud. Instead she concentrated on feeding his budding interest in her child, letting him see ultrasounds and telling him about doctor’s appointments and such. And little by little, day by day, a sort of greed grew in Mr Gold’s eyes. Like a light slowly being turned on inside him, bringing newfound life to him. His dull scales, when they showed, now shone with a deeper gold colour and his presence grew in weight, to the point that Belle could feel him way before he stepped into her Library when he came to visit.

Those visits turn to trips to Granny’s and sometimes back to his shop. A strange sort of tension grew between them, which Belle hoped meant Mr Gold was getting attached, was seeing the possibility offered to him of a child that could be a companion, and was now looking to make a new deal, to tie himself to the child. She pushed further, gently prying into his personal space, where the very air seemed to softly vibrate with the echoes of his restrained power. He was skittish at first, endearingly so, but once the baby started moving he became intrigued by the notion of it, daring to ask once or twice to feel it.

It was unexpected but nice to have a partner through the pregnancy. Mr Gold wasn’t as she had expected, certainly less fearsome than shat had thought at first. Handsome, for sure, in a way that she hoped little Gideon would inherit. That and his sense of humour, dry and dark and just the right kind of strange.

She’d miss the closeness once little Gid was born and Mr Gold would have less incentive to interact directly with her. The closer she grew to her due date the more restless she became, both mentally and physically. Pregnancy, which had given her glowing skin- with the tiniest bit of an unnatural shine, she noticed, her child’s magic and Gold’s mingling on her skin- and great hair, had overstayed its welcome and turned acutely uncomfortable, specially when it came to sleep.

Her discomfort grew to the point that Mr Gold remarked on it, nose scrunched up.

“You reek of desperation, my dear. Whatever is the matter?”

She explained, though she imagined the pacing she was doing was helping her convey her problem more than her words ever could. He tilted his head, considering her.

“Want to strike a deal, Miss French?”

The words were purred at her in his customary brogue, thicker than what was usual. She’d interpreted the deepening of his accent around her as a sign that he had grown comfortable around her. He also dropped his human mask more around her, with his face sometimes entirely covered by his scales and his nails sharpened into claws. She looked forward increasingly to those small glimpses of his true nature.

“What do you have in mind, Mr Gold?”

“I’ll trade you relaxations for… that button on your pocket.”

It was a trifle, a small golden button she’d found at the bottom of her closet, matching none of her clothes. Knowing it for the transparent attempt at help that it was she eagerly handed it over, hoping for a quick magical solution to her problem. Instead, to her quiet disappointment, Mr Gold led her to the spinning wheel in the back room, helping her sit down on the stool beside it and taking a seat on a bench behind her.

“Spinning has always calmed me. There’s something in the rhythm of it, in the motion of the wheel and the feel of the wool on the skin.” His voice was low, like honey. “Almost hypnotic.”

He was quite adept, and Belle had to admit it was relaxing to watch him go through the motions. The wheel made a gentle, steady sound as it spun. She leaned back against the solid chest of the man behind her, thankful when he did not object. She felt him tense up slightly, his magic spiking around him, and she shivered at the sensation of it. Another type of tension grew inside her, a pulsing from below her navel that made her fidget in her seat. 

“Rumple…”

She had used his real only once before, when she’d summoned him, but in the privacy of her own thoughts she’d been referring to him as such for a long time. He made a low, guttural sound behind her, hands dropping the wool and leaving the wheel to slide up her arms and down her torso, curving possessively  around her swollen stomach. She felt his nose against the skin of her neck, his breath causing goosebumps where it touched her. She could tell he was holding himself back but barely, a feral, powerful creature straining against the bonds of his self-imposed restraint. His hands- green-gold and clawed, no longer human- drifted down to spread across her bare thighs, pushing the fabric of her summer dress up around her waist. He didn’t go any further, though, causing her to whimper and shift around. She reached out behind her to grab a fistful of his hair, noticing it curled, no longer straight.

“You… you promised…”

He hadn’t exactly, but it was a way to let him know she was more than okay with it, if he was. Belatedly, as he felt his fingers dip inside her underwear, she recalled the greedy looks she had seen him give her and wondered for the first time if she had misinterpreted them. But just as she felt as if she was about to come to some sort of monumental realisation she felt his fingers inside her, and his other hand cupping her breast. The scent of magic grew strong in the air as she rocked against him, feeling him hard and warm behind her, power made flesh and completely devoted to her needs. Time stretched and contracted as they moved together until with a sharp spark deep inside her cunt she felt the tension explode inside her, making her toes curl and her spine tingle. He followed her a second later with a cry he muffled against her hair, murmuring something in a language she could not understand. She brushed aside all worries about what would come next, with the birth of her child and therefore the end of their first deal, so nearby. If she could have nothing more, she would at least have this.

 For all the magic that had been involved in Gideon’s conception and her subsequent pregnancy, the delivery was as normal as it could be. Her little boy was born after four and a half hours of delivery, looking perfect, specially once the swelling and the redness went down. He was resting peacefully in her arms when Mr Gold showed up, dapper in his three-piece suit and his long coat, a hint of gold about his eyes and the smell of magic around him. Belle cuddled Gideon closer, happy to detect, behind the smell of baby powder, the same scent about him.

“Do you wish to meet him, Rumple?”

It was a bit awkward to treat him in such a familiar manner after what it had happened, but with her son in her arms she felt particularly brave and unwilling to let things become stilted and stiff between them. He approached her cautiously, his face soft and open when he saw the child. It was then that Belle knew she’d done everything right and that he was there to claim the child as partly his. She looked down at the babe, noticing the unnatural shade of blue of his eyes and the very slight golden shimmer of his skin, and smiled in relief. 

“He looks just like you, don’t you think?”

There was no mistaking the child’s origins, not with those ears and nose. The fae came close enough to be able to see the child’s face, but no closer, nervous energy crackling around him.

“He was supposed to look like what you wished. I’m sorry.”

“And is it too hard to imagine I might have wanted him to look like you?”

The light teasing was meant to put him at ease, but it fell flat. If not for the barely-concealed look of longing on the fae’s face as he stared at the child Belle might have thought she had failed altogether in getting him to care for little Gideon. 

“I mean, after all, you’re the child’s father.”

His right hand tightened painfully around the golden handle of his cane, scales rippling across the skin of his neck before disappearing. 

“That’s not entirely true, is it? The deal was clear, the child is yours alone. But, perhaps… Perhaps there could be another deal. Half of the boy’s life for my own. In exchange, I’d share half of my life with you.”

It wasn’t exactly the deal she had anticipated, so it took her a moment to make out exactly what he meant.

“But… you live forever. What exactly are you proposing?”

He took a step closer, and another, till he was within reach. Yet he made no motion to touch the child or herself, though he looked very much like he wanted to do both.

“I’ll share my lifespan with you, Miss French, if you share the child’s life with me. It’d mean moving to my house, so we could build a… a home, so we could both share Gideon’s life. It’d be forever, so you best be sure.”

There was a lot he wasn’t saying. About them, about what he expected and hoped for when he talked of home and of sharing a life. But the look on his face made it abundantly clear. She felt her eyes begin to water and feared for a second that he would misunderstand, so she smiled widely, taking a shuddering breath to steady herself.

“It’s a deal.”

#rumbelle christmas in july #Rumbelle Christmas in July 2019 #Iatethebiscuit #rumbelle fic #Thestraggletag fanfiction #rumbelle

[bramblepaws]

alright i’m gonna try to put all of my thoughts on this together into one post so i dont have to say anything else about it ever again

Mike is not abusive. Lucy is not abusive.

Now, a disclaimer: if you have been abused, and you see elements of your own abuse in their relationship, that’s valid! The point of my argument is not to tell you that your relationship wasn’t abuse. You know better than anyone else what it was.

okay! now onto the meat.

To start off: evidence that Lucy is an abuser.

Lucy repeatedly hurts Mike physically from the start of the comic up ‘til December, from kicks and slaps, to hitting him with a stick, and everything in between.

Mike feels trapped in the relationship because Lucy depends on him so heavily

Mike feels cut-off from their friends, as he believes they will side with Lucy every time.

The comic started out as a slapstick one with kids in eighth grade; everyone hit each other to start with. Mike literally punts Yashy a few times. Lucy was the only one who didn’t grow out of it -- she continues to slap Mike on occasion. It never, however, follows a cycle of abuse. Abusers generally follow a cycle when they physically abuse someone: they lead up to physical violence with threats and emotional abuse, then physically attack the other person, then cycle through apologies and excuses and manipulation to keep their victim from blaming them. Lucy is physically violent with all of her friends, and does not EVER apologize or express remorse over it. I would label it as bullying behavior rather than abusive, which is terrible in and of itself.

Mike severely over-estimates how one-sided the dependency is. Neither he nor Lucy have any other friends that match the level of closeness they have with each other. I’m going to just c/p one of my other posts for clarification;

Mike and Lucy had the exact same “most people only like me cuz im attractive, Mike/Lucy is the only one who genuinely likes me for who i am” attitude regarding their other friends.

For Lucy : Daisy viewed Lucy as a romantic rival for Mike’s affection, and was pretty neutral and detached with any interaction outside of that. Paulo was interested in getting in Lucy’s pants and didn’t interact with her outside of hitting on her aggressively. David is partially there for Paulo, and partially there to ALSO hit on her. Sue and Amaya don’t interact with her much, but there is implication that they also see her as a romantic rival for Mike’s affection.

All of this results in Lucy believing that everyone has ulterior motives for being her friend. The various random middle schoolers that crush on her and call her hot encourage this view. Mike is the only one who doesn’t fit into this pattern; they met on the pretext of (what she saw as) friendly competition and nothing else. She was the one who initiated friendship, further proving that he doesn’t have ulterior motives.

For Mike : Daisy saw Mike as a romantic interest and didn’t interact with him outside of hitting on him. Paulo saw Mike as a romantic rival for Lucy’s affections and a person to insult. David is there for Lucy and Paulo, and doesn’t really interact with Mike outside of interacting through those people. Sue and Amaya both see Mike as a romantic interest.

All of this results in Mike… most likely ALSO believing that people have ulterior motives for being his friend. He takes note of the fact that many girls are interested in dating him in “Prom Preparation” and laments that fact, as he isn’t interested in any of them. Lucy is the only one who doesn’t fit into this pattern; she established their friendship on the pretext of competition, which he enjoys (though he wishes she was less harsh about it), and zero romantic interest. She also tries to stick by him even when he’s romantically unavailable (regarding Sandy), further cementing the idea that she isn’t using him for something else.

Mike and Lucy are both VERY reliant on the other person to be their only True Friend. they both crush on each other throughout the series, but it’s understood for both of them that they aren’t going to let that get in the way of other things. they both see past the exterior of the other person – Mike sees that Lucy is sweet and fun under her “hot” & spiky exterior, and Lucy sees that Mike is sweet and fun under his “hot” & humble exterior. They relied on each other to see themselves as like… real people, rather than either something to be Won or competed with.

On another note, Mike relied just as heavily on Lucy for emotional support — she comforted him every time he was upset about Sandy, had his back during and after Confrontation, and generally set aside her teasing if it seemed like he was actually upset about something. In return he protected her from her phobia of water, defended her from the ire and desire of their friends, and gave emotional support back. Their dependency was about equal in the end, though Mike later leaned heavily on the idea that she needed him more than he needed her (and was proven wrong, as recent chapters have shown).

The above paragraphs also illustrate that BOTH of them felt cut off from friends; neither of them felt that any of their other friends were dependable for much. When it came down to it, Daisy would always side with Mike and Paulo would always side with Lucy. Lucy felt equally sure that people, aside from Paulo, would side with Mike.

The main issue here, however, is that nobody spoke up about Lucy’s physical bullying of Mike. They all grew up hitting each other for the lulz, and when they all slowly drifted to a stop she didn’t. But Mike never acted like it bothered him, never said anything against it — so I have to assume that everyone, Lucy included, just inferred that Mike didn’t mind it. Mike resented this, but he never said anything about it, because he was used to it too. It took Sandy to help him realize that he didn’t deserve to be hit — but for some reason, he bottled it up and grew resentful instead of communicating with Lucy about it. Lucy, meanwhile, has been shown to be respectful of the boundaries of other people once they’ve clearly set them. It’s my belief that she would’ve stopped hitting if he had asked her to. In an abusive relationship, that just isn’t the case. Asking an abuser to stop doing something is a surefire way to be manipulated/gaslit and then for the activity to either remain the same or increase. We can’t know for sure because Mike never asks her to stop, but there is no indication that he never says anything about it because he’s afraid of retaliation. He’s not afraid of her at all, which is another point in the favor of it not being abuse.

Another important detail: Lucy isn’t controlling. When she finds out Mike is still interacting with a girl he originally left her for, she’s genuinely happy for him and gives him space about it. She gets pissed about it later when he isn’t being honest with her or himself, but is genuinely happy when he IS honest about it because she knows Sandy is important to him. Most abusers would not handle the situation the same way. If Lucy was abusive, she would’ve most likely reacted with anger and a desire to stop communication between the two of them. She could have used third grade as a way to guilt-trip and manipulate Mike out of interacting with Sandy, who posed a threat to their relationship. But she didn’t. This doesn’t inherently make her NOT an abuser, but it’s a tick in that direction. Lucy also doesn’t influence their friends to side against Mike at all. She’s just… living her life, not really giving a shit either way WHAT her friends think about either her or Mike. Abusers are generally very concerned with how they’re viewed. They put in a lot of time and effort to make sure they seem like nice, likable people. They’re especially controlling about how their victim sees them — Lucy never really influences Mike either way other than just Being Around As His Friend. She doesn’t seem to even care about his opinion at all -- until later on in their relationship, when she opens up to outsiders how much his opinion matters to her. But even at that point… she’s not really doing anything to influence him aside from just Being Nicer, which is something a normal friend would do and isn’t manipulative at all.

Overall, Lucy just doesn’t strike me as abusive. The physical attacks and general mean-ness are absolutely bullying and toxic behavior, and the relationship between the two of them is clearly codependent and toxic. But Lucy isn’t controlling, she isn’t manipulative, she doesn’t gaslight. She isn’t hell-bent on making sure Mike thinks only the best of her while making him think of himself as complete garbage — she goes out of her way to be as honest and frank with him about herself (aside from her crush on him) as she can. She was a bad friend, but not an abusive one.

Now, on to Mike!

Evidence that Mike is an abuser.

Lucy feels incredibly dependent on their friendship

Mike was manipulative during December

Mike is being manipulative and controlling after their friendship ended

Re: dependency — see above long paragraphs about their relationship.

December was a horrible, heart-wrenching chapter. Mike had bottled up feelings and built up resentment for a LONG time leading up to this, and all of it exploded out at once in an irreversible decimation of their friendship. And that’s exactly what he wanted it to be — he was tired of her trying to be his friend, and he’d hinted at it plenty of times, but enough was enough and he had to spell it out for her. He tells her he hates her. Explains that Sandy helped him see that it wasn’t right to let Lucy hurt him all the time. And then says that he’s going to stop hanging out with her at lunch. All of this is standard horrible-friend-breakup stuff; it’s the next two bits that get the honor of making the whole event Unforgivably Bad.

Mike tells her that if he leaves, all of their other friends will probably follow him. Lucy will be left alone.

This is an absolutely horrible thing to say to someone. To tell them that no one actually likes them, they’re just tolerated. That if all the friends were forced to choose between two people, they sure wouldn’t pick Lucy! And Lucy would be abandoned, which has been her number one fear since third grade (and why wouldn’t it be? humans are social creatures and NEED friends to survive).

But this isn’t abuse. It definitely rings as something close. In fact — (this is gonna be personal for the first time in the essay just to warn u) — the person who abused ME used a similar tactic, though with a different endgame in mind. When I rejected him the first time, he forced our friends into a position where they had to choose between us. His intent was to get me to relent and date him, to stop causing strife in our mutual friend group — or, failing that, to punish me for taking away what he saw as rightfully his (aka me).

Mike’s actions were similar, but his intention was very different. He wanted her to hurt; he wanted revenge for the way he had been treated, and he wanted to make it VERY clear that he didn’t want to be friends with her. He wanted, furthermore, to prove that he wasn’t in the wrong for this: he was the victim, and other people treating Lucy like she was a bully would be validating for his own victimhood.

I genuinely don’t think he was trying to manipulate her here. He was trying to hurt her badly and was succeeding in doing so. He was being absolutely monstrous, but not abusive. His intent with this was not to control; he was lashing out to hurt someone who had hurt him, which Everyone Does. It was horrible, but not abusive. It pushed Lucy into a depression, but it wasn’t abusive. It not being abusive doesn’t make it any less fucked up IMO. It was terrible and it had terrible consequences! It just was a different beast than abuse.

After Lucy comes back, Mike is clearly consumed with guilt. All he does for her first day there is hide from her and stare guiltily at her from a distance. He tries to talk to her a couple of times, but isn’t able to catch her alone. He gets antsy about old physical violence from her and yells about it, then tries AGAIN to catch her alone so they can talk but does it in a really weird passive-aggressive manner because she’s been acting weird and he doesn’t know how to handle it, and he doesn’t really want to deal with his guilt over what he said in December. She gives him the chance to apologize, but is openly resistant to it, and he ends up completely fumbling the ball and doing just a god-awful job of apologizing, and then getting overly defensive about Sandy and completely ruining any chance he had. He starts clinging to his victim complex with everything he’s got, because suddenly he can see how much he fucked things up, and he doesn’t know how to handle it. He follows her again, because he misses her and hates her and misses Sandy and wants her to be there for him and wants her to prove that she deserved what he said to her. He’s called out for glaring at her and is Reminded Again That Sandy’s AWOL.

But most of this isn’t what people point to when they’re saying he’s abusive — this is all just him being a freak, but like, a normal freak. It’s in Witch Hunt that he flips into the extreme again. He starts ranting and raving about how obsessed Lucy is to Daisy, despite like… having just seen how much she doesn’t want male attention…… I think it’s partially because he’s used to her leaning on him when others ramp up their romantic attention for her, because he used to be the one that would just leave her alone in that regard. Plus there’s the whole messed-up-about-Sandy thing that Lucy used to swoop in and comfort him for. But I’m getting off track.

He starts ranting about how obsessed she is with him. Daisy is immediately like “I don’t think she is dude” but he relents, so she snaps at him and storms off.

From what I understand, people are reading this scene as abusive because they interpret this as him trying to control how others see Lucy. He’s ranting about a mutual friend he’s having trouble with, which he HAS done about Lucy in particular a number of times. I can definitely see where people are coming from with this one. If you look at it a certain way, it comes across as him trying to slander her name. But it could just as easily be him ranting about a person he’s having trouble with, which everyone does, all the time. I’ve ranted about a person I don’t like to people plenty of times, and it was never ABUSIVE, because all of the other requirements for abuse weren’t set into place.

This, IMO, falls under the same category as Lucy’s physical violence. It’s definitely present in abusive situations, but there are guidelines for abuse that it just doesn’t fit into. He doesn’t have control over Lucy or any of their friends in this scenario. He isn’t using this to try and isolate Lucy; he’s just trying to get his friends to see his side of the story and help him feel better about the awful way he treated her. It’s Super Shitty, but it isn’t abuse.

In summation: I get the bits and pieces that people see in their relationship that matches up with abuse, but there just isn’t enough there to label either Mike or Lucy abusive. The basic requirements for abuse haven’t been met. There are things present that can definitely happen in abusive relationships, and their relationship was absolutely toxic and bad, but it isn’t abuse.

As a final note of evidence that I fall back on every time the subject comes up: both parties have been offered up as possible abusers. Lucy has been stated by many to be possibly abusive, and Mike has been stated by just as many to be possibly abusive. But they can’t BOTH be abusive — that’s not how abuse works. They can be mutually toxic toward each other, they can both exhibit bullying behavior, but they can’t be abusing each other at the same time. Abuse only works when there is an abuser and a victim. There is always a victim, who is not at all at fault for how the relationship is! And Mike and Lucy both played their part in their relationship becoming as toxic as it is. So it literally CANNOT be abuse.

#long post #bittersweet candy bowl #if anyone comes into my inbox telling me that the victim can actually be at fault for abuse i will smite them on the spot #OR lead them to therapy very gently because that's something abusers teach their victims and it's Focking Incorrect #bcb ramblings #bcb analysis #ok now ive said my piece and i never have to talk about this again #IT'S SO EMOTIONALLY DRAINING FOR ME GOD.......

[yutaya]

Where is the Hermione/Viktor Krum AU where they keep long-distance dating after fourth year? 

They have a constant letter correspondence. Viktor likes the letter system a lot because he feels like he’s awkward when talking - he feels like he has trouble finding the right thing to say quickly and is always coming up with “what I SHOULD have said there!” way later - but with letters he can write loads of drafts first! Hermione’s letters to Viktor are PAGES long every time. She’s not even very frilly with her prose or anything like that, but she always tells him what she’s been doing since her last letter and the trio’s lives are so packed with shenanigans that it fills feet and feet of parchment even in her tiny handwriting. 

Viktor receives letter after letter from Hermione detailing how angry she is at the FLAGRANT INJUSTICE of some of their Professors’ behavior and the INSULT TO THE VERY EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM and oh yes, I’m starting an underground rebellion study group I’ve invented a way to hide the real contents of this letter from the people scanning our mail; did I ever tell you about that time I brewed a secret batch of polyjuice potion in an out of order bathroom when I was twelve, I had to steal the ingredients from our Potions professor’s private stores; sorry this letter is shorter than usual but we’re about to break into the Ministry, will let you know how it goes; this is all very illegal of course so mind you make sure not to leave these letters laying around, I’ve cursed them as a precaution but you know :)

Viktor is just. In constant awe of Hermione. Every new letter just further cements his belief that this is the most amazing human being on this Earth.

“I am going to marry this girl,” he informs the air seriously at least once while reading every new letter for the first time. Also sometimes on rereads. “Oh my god, I heard you the first thousand times,” his roommate says, throwing a crumpled up ball of parchment at his head.

#my stuff #harry potter #hermione granger/viktor krum #make it happen fandom #give me ALL the AUs #harry freakin' potter

[imagestag]

Happy Columbus Day USA | History | Images | Quotes

History of Columbus Day

Christopher Columbus is all over America. There are statues in his honor. Streets and cities are named after him. He’s got his own national holiday-- complete with parades. For centuries, Columbus has been celebrated as the “brave explorer” who “discovered” the “New World.” We celebrate Columbus Day The anniversary of that day in 1492, when Columbus first sighted the land of the New World, America But Columbus never even set foot on North American soil. His four voyages brought him to the modern-day Caribbean islands, Central, and South America...but never to the country where more than 50 cities, towns, and counties bear his name. We rarely hear about the other explorers, who actually landed in the US just a couple decades after Columbus. So how did a man who never even set foot in North America end up with a national holiday and a permanent place in American mythology? [caption id="attachment_1157" align="aligncenter" width="992"] Columbus Day 2020 Usa[/caption]

Why America Celebrate Columbus Day ?

Columbus and his arrival in the Americas are mostly introduced to kids through books, songs or cartoons like this one.” I will discover a shortcut to India and bring back some of the great wealth I find there . And I can do it, for I know the world is round. “One of the many problems with cartoons like this one is that it taught a lot of wrong information. Children were told that Columbus defied conventional wisdom and proved the world was round. But at the time people already knew the earth was round. Columbus actually claimed the world was smaller than predicted, and he was wrong.

Why Children Celebrate Columbus Day ?

Children were also told that Columbus’ voyages to the inhabited islands in the Americas were peaceful... “The people Columbus called Indians were very friendly, and they gave Columbus and his men many gifts. ” But they don’t mention that Columbus and his men were responsible for mass deaths of native people. A friar who lived on the islands Columbus reached and experienced the brutality of the conquest, wrote about it: He wrote: “They forced their way into settlements, slaughtering small children, old men and pregnant women.” These details have been kept out of most textbooks from the beginning, allowing Columbus to become an American icon.

Celebration War Of Independence

 The idealized version of Columbus is as old as the United States. It all began during the War of Independence, when the US fought the British. The new nation needed a rebellious, non-British symbol. And they found one in Columbus. Once the US won independence, streets and cities were named after him. Columbus’ iconic status was further cemented in 1828, when Washington Irving published a biography glorifying him. He described him as Brave, heroic and a genius. But he neglected to mention his brutal treatment of indigenous people. But Columbus’ real big break came in the late 1800s-- when the country he’d never visited started experiencing some massive changes. Italian immigrants were arriving in the United States in big numbers. And they faced harsh discrimination. They were treated as perpetual foreigners and restricted to manual labor. Their Catholic beliefs opened the door for even more discrimination. So they embraced Columbus. After all, he was Italian and Catholic and already admired. So he quickly became an icon for Italian immigrants who argued that they, too belonged in America.

Anniversary Of Columbus

On the 400th anniversary of Columbus’ arrival, in 1892, “Columbus Day” was first brought in to the school system. Schools held celebrations and students pledged allegiance to the flag for the first time, associating Columbus with patriotism in classrooms across America. A year later, Columbus became the theme of the World Expo in Chicago, branding him America’s hero around the world. As Columbus and his legend became further embedded in American culture, so did the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic social club founded by Italian immigrants. [caption id="attachment_1158" align="aligncenter" width="940"] Happy Columbus Day With Usa Flag[/caption]

Columbus Day a federal holiday

 1937, the Knights of Columbus had gained enough influence to convince president Roosevelt to proclaim Columbus Day a federal holiday. But not everyone wanted to celebrate Columbus. While the myth of Columbus had been developing throughout history, Native Americans in the US had been dealing with destruction and discrimination for centuries at the hands of all the European settlers that followed Columbus. But in the 60s things started changing in America. As the civil rights movement demanded change, Native rights became a part of the conversation We’ve asked the federal government for hundreds of years to do things for our people or with our people. The government has only compromised, only given us token issues to deal with We are here today as living factors of the problems that are still existing Historians started reexamining Columbus and his story, correcting the myth and including the missing historical facts. As revelations about Columbus have become mainstream, some people have rejected holiday’s well as the man and the legacy behind it. Today cities around the US are opting out of celebrating Columbus Day.

Celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day

In some cities they are choosing to celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day instead. At the same time more than half of Americans think celebrating Columbus Day is a good idea, according to a poll commissioned by the Knights of Columbus. Most countries are formed with the help of myths and heroes to forge a sense of unity and belonging. Its human nature. But as the myth of Columbus is confronted with brutal historical facts, the US will have to decide which myths are worth keeping and which ones to discard.

Happy Columbus Day Quotes and Sayings 2020

"Be a Columbus smell the fragrance of the new lands and discover them."

Every ship that comes to America got its chart from Columbus.

"In all parts of the Old World, as well as of the New, it was evident that Columbus had kindled a fire in every mariner's heart. That fire was the harbinger of a new era, for it was not to be extinguished." — Charles Kendall Adams

"He stands in history as the completer of the globe." — John Sterling

"Every ship that comes to America got its chart from Columbus." — Ralph Waldo Emerson

"A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for." — John A. Shedd

"One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time." — André Gide

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes." — Marcel Proust

Christopher Columbus, as everyone knows, is honored by posterity because he was the last to discover America.

"If Columbus had an advisory committee he would probably still be at the dock." — Arthur Goldberg

"I also hate those holidays that fall on a Monday where you don't get mail, those fake holidays like Columbus Day. What did Christopher Columbus do, discover America? If he hadn't, somebody else would have and we'd still be here. Big deal." — John Waters

"Perhaps, after all, America never has been discovered. I myself would say that it had merely been detected." — Oscar Wilde

"America's one of the finest countries anyone ever stole." — Bobcat Goldthwait

"What a pity, when Christopher Columbus discovered America, that he ever mentioned it."

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes." — Marcel Proust

Best Quotes on Columbus Day 2020

"Columbus only discovered that he was in some new place. He didn't discover America." — Louise Erdrich

"As soon as I arrived in the Indies, in the first island which I found, I took some of the natives by force, in order that they might learn and might give me information of whatever there is in these parts. And so it was that they soon understood us, and we them, either by speech or by signs, and they have been very serviceable."

I went to sea from the tenderest age and have continued in a sea life to this day. Wherever anyone has sailed, there I have sailed.

Columbus Day, let's go exploring

Happy Columbus Day from my shore to yours!

Every one of us has in him a continent of undiscovered character. Blessed is he who acts the Columbus to his own soul.

19 Happy Columbus Day Images

[caption id="attachment_1172" align="aligncenter" width="840"] Happy Columbus Day Road Show In America[/caption] [caption id="attachment_1173" align="aligncenter" width="1280"] Happy Columbus Day[/caption] [caption id="attachment_1174" align="aligncenter" width="750"] International Happy Columbus Day 2020 Images[/caption] [caption id="attachment_1175" align="aligncenter" width="810"] Welcome Happy Columbus Day[/caption] [caption id="attachment_1159" align="aligncenter" width="900"] Flagship Happy Columbus Day Usa[/caption]

See More : 75 Special Birthday Cake For Friend with Images See Next : 27 Signs She Loves You But Is Scared To Admit #columbusday2020 #columbusday2020 #columbusdayhistory #columbusdayquotes #happycolumbusday

[thequarrelsome]

14, 40, 41, 94!

014. DETAIL ONE SECRET SHAME YOUR CHARACTER FEELS. 

it’s about his lack of education. lambert feels shame about very few things, and perhaps in witcher setting it’s not that pronounced as education is not that widely accessible to the public, but in modern it’s something he is very conscious about. he dropped out of high school simply because it started to become too much paired with the training at home and him feeling isolated from everyone else. 

in my modern verse his combat/monster training started at the age of 8 and didn’t stop until 18. he is a third child being raised by a single father, he wears his brothers’ hand-me-downs, he is an aggressive kid, so he’s not exactly bullied but he is very isolated. he has trouble concentrating because he’s tired a lot and eventually he just doesn’t go back and he’s not pushed too hard to go back either. there are a few shouting matches about it, but lambert is not willing to bend, just like throughout most of his life.

but he sees so many people going to university, and he feels it hit closer to home when ciri gets into a university and he feels like he missed out, and he feels stupid compared to others. it’s something he beats himself up with regularly and makes him feel inferior compared to others which only fuels his aggression further.

040. WHAT IS THEIR OBSESSION? 

i wouldn’t say he’s obsessive, however, he is very competitive. he is an alcoholic but does that really an obsession or a different category? i guess, in a way his obsession must be his fear of abandonment. because his mother left when he was still an infant in modern, he is terrified of people leaving him, that later made worse by his friend, aiden dying. in witcher abandonment is still an issue, though he was dragged away from home to be made into a witcher. he is terrified of heartache, of pain, so he simply exchanges all his emotions with anger and he is constantly prickly, insulting people and keeping them at arm’s length, that way they can never truly get close to him, and if they don’t get close, them leaving won’t hurt him either.

this constant fear shapes all his relationships so he obsessively makes sure to not get attached, only ever sleeping with someone once and then never looking back. that way he was the one who left and he formed no attachments. he still longs for attachments but the fear is stronger, terrified of the pain it would bring if he had to live through it. he has to with the death of aiden, the one time he chose to be vulnerable and befriend someone. no wonder he kills everyone who had anything to do with his friend’s death. but that only cements his belief that getting attached is the worst thing he could ever do.

041. ARE THEY COMFORTABLE WITH TECHNOLOGY? 

sort of?? he’s actually not a massive fan of most kinds of technology in modern. okay, he loves his tv, he loves his soaps, he has a massive horror film dvd collection, but while he has a phone he strictly uses it to text and call if needs be, no apps, not playing on his phone, none of that. he has a laptop but only to carry out business transactions, otherwise, he does nothing on it. no, he doesn’t watch porn either, because he just goes out and brings someone home for that reason. he’s not a massive fan i guess but if he has to use it, he can.

094. NAME THREE THINGS MOST WOULD NOT EXPECT YOUR CHARACTER TO BE ABLE TO KNOW.   

oooh that’s hard. as i said he has a thing about knowing less than other people… but… i guess his carpentry counts? he is such a destructive guy it’s a surprise to know he actually likes to build and create when his time allows him to. he knows how to make most furniture and he whittles little figurines as well for fun. a lot of technical knowledge goes into creating sturdy and reliable furniture and most of the wooden furniture in his house was made by him. again i think that counts in witcher as well, i mean he built a boat! yeah it leaks a bit, but still, that’s a whole boat he built all by himself and no one is even a little impressed with that, which i find highly insulting!

but i can’t think of two other things at the moment.

@zharptiitsa  |  100 random character development questions

#zharptiitsa #ᵗᵉˡˡ ᵗʰᵉᵐ ᶤ'ᵐ ᶰᵒᵗ ᶤᶰ ( answered. ) #[ thank you for these! ] #ˡᵉᵗ ᵐᵉ ᵗᵉˡˡ ʸᵃ ʰᵒʷ ᵗʰᶤˢ ᶤˢ ᵍᵒᶰᶰᵃ ᵍᵒ ᵈᵒʷᶰ ( headcanon. )

[nero-kyounghpark]

I have a complicated relationship with Christianity. I was not born a Christian, but I remember going to Korean church on Sundays. I remember not being able to read the Bible in Korean, or understand the Korean sermons. My fondest memories from church are drawing with colorful, thick, Korean crayons with my friends, and drinking sugary juices over snack time.

Growing up, Chile was an extremely Catholic country and the Church had a great influence. Along with Pinochet’s military regime, the Church determined the social and cultural norms of the country and Sunday broadcasts of mass was normal. It was also normal for the regime and the Church to censor the news, arts, and culture. It was also normal to give and to volunteer and to help the country’s poor. 

In fourth grade, my friends were studying the catechism after school. I asked whether I could join the study group and the teacher asked me if I was Christian. Because I answered no, I was not invited to the class, and that’s the first time I felt, spiritually speaking, different from my peers. And perhaps, it was at that moment, that I was told I wasn’t a Christian.

During my teenage years, I identified mostly as an atheist. I had become obsessed with Sartre and existentialism. I didn’t believe in God, but believed in spirits and higher powers. In my darkest days, I used to pray because I was suffering from extreme depression. But in general, God and the church played no part in my life.

Even though I wasn’t personally a man of faith, I was taught the Doctrine of Discovery and the Spanish, Christian, colonization of the Americas as part of my history. I grew up learning about the the blessing of Spain to send missionary expeditions to the Americas and the Spanish colonization of indigenous communities in Latin America. I remember movies detailing the bloodshed, the history of the Pope and the Spanish kingdom, the story of colonizers, and being colonized. 

“Many Native Americans, when speaking about Western civilization, Christianity and colonization, will immediately name the Doctrine of Discovery as the root of the colonization, dispossession and genocide that they have experienced from the western colonial powers throughout the Americas.” This history, I was less aware of, because I was taught US History as the history of thirteen colonies building a democracy--an expansive nation-state that industrialized, corporatized, and became world power in the 20th century. US History wasn’t about being Christian--it was about being democratic and capitalist--but I guess neoliberalism has its own kind of missionary zeal.

I had to confront Christianity again when I moved to Korea. South Korea is the most successful Christian mission in the 20th century. There are mega-churches. Korean bible study groups. Red neon crosses across the country. Pres. Lee Myung-Bak at one point ordered the removal of Buddhist temples from public maps, further cementing Christianity as the religion of the country.

I turned to religion for personal reasons in my late 20′s. I was heartbroken and living a life in the closet. I needed some spiritual guidance in my life and I found myself converting to Buddhism with His Holiness, the Dalai Lama. That’s when I officially adopted Buddhism as my faith, although, when I made my Buddhist vows, I made them because the vows reminded me a lot of the Ten Commandments.

I was first drawn to Buddhism via Zen in high school. A trip to South Korea after my freshman year of college led me to become even more curious about Buddhist practice. I shaved my head to my grandmother’s dismay. My Southeast Asian history/politics class at NYU and “The Life of Pi’s” message of religious tolerance made me curious about India. After I converted to Buddhism, I returned to India for a second time to do a pilgrimage to the Bodhi tree in Gaya. Both trips to India were spiritual journeys to help me confirm that I believed--that I had faith. But my Buddhist practice is still tinged with my own beliefs that I’m a bad Buddhist. I think it took me about ten years to feel like my spiritual practice was of actual benefit to me--until then, conversations of faith just felt punishing.

Some of my closest friends are Christian. Some were theologians, alter boys, dressed as priests in the 20′s, or ran away from their religiously conservative communities after being admonished for being outspoken or critical of the Church. But I think of the ways faith-based organizing permeates the ways we come together. The ways some of my friends call theater their church. How I’m usually employed by Jewish people in New York City. How my father would ask me: “what about God? Aren’t you a believer?” during my coming out process.

I am grateful to have been excluded from the Church--it helped me develop a sense of religious tolerance and find faith on my own. But while I seek to practice my own faith with more discipline and rigor, I see how Christian hegemony has shaped my understanding of history and in general, the order of the world. 

This is when I feel it’s important to acknowledge what kind of Christian hegemony I’m addressing--whether it’s the hegemony in Chile, Korea, or the United States. And to be honest, all I know is my experience, and reading articles such as this one are helping me understand an American (US) history of Christian hegemony, which I’m now beginning to question. 

#dismantlewhitesupremacyculture #dismantlewhitesupremacy

[streetsmartbusinessschool-blog]

Plan Your Life and Business Through the Magic Power of Words!

The 'Affirmation of Independence' states:

We hold these certainties to act naturally obvious, that all men are made equivalent, that they are enriched by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights that among these are Life, Liberty and the quest for Happiness...

That, my companions is a key expression to help yourselves to remember as you seek after your fantasies and your unalienable appropriate to assemble an actual existence and a business that, when you're sitting in your most loved seat thinking back, will be totally fulfilling and fulfilling. Is it accurate to say that you are following your Life reason? Do you have the Liberty and Happiness that you merit?

The amount Happiness do you feel at the present time?

I had the amazingly favorable luck of being brought into the world here and being raised by a cherishing family. We were never affluent. Indeed, we were some place in the huge white collar class as far as cash. I learned at an early age how to function to profit I expected to purchase the stuff I needed that was not in the family spending plan.

I recall the long stretches of picking berries, cutting gardens, washing autos, working at the burger joint, and so forth. It was so energizing when I got that first 'Genuine Job' flipping burgers for $1.25 60 minutes! At that point one summer when I was around 17 or 18 years youthful I had a 'Vital turning point'.

I recall it like it was yesterday. There I was on an excellent Wednesday morning remaining on the tee box of the third opening playing golf with my father and two of the land specialists that worked for his organization and it hit me... It's Wednesday evening, we're at the fairway, all the folks had cool vehicles so normally I said to myself land is the business for me!

What did I know?!

At the time I was worked away at the nearby paper factory doing the least loved activity at the organization and was scarcely ready to make enough cash to see me through the following year of school! Along these lines, I considered like a maniac while I was at the factory working.

I finished my test soon after my nineteenth birthday celebration and after 3 years began my land profession that served me great for the following 34+ years! At first I was a finished disappointment. Goodness I was excited, buckled down and did what I could to realize the business.

What's more, I was suffocating... that is until I met my tutor/mentor. I agreed to accept his multi day training camp and took in the characteristics, language and systems of the best land experts in the country.

After that training camp I returned home and promptly took 'Gigantic Action' with the new apparatuses I had learned.

What's more, guess what? My business took off like a rocket!

I went from averaging $671. /Month my first a half year in the business to averaging $7325. Every month throughout the following a half year! Stunning! Was I at any point energized!

I kept on contemplating, practice and practice my art and achieved an apex of shutting 10-15 exchanges for each month in my most recent 5 years of posting and selling private land. Wonderful, from one viewpoint since I was having a great time, profiting and accepting nearby/provincial/national acknowledgment for my record-setting deals around then.

Absolutely all-expending and whacked out of parity then again. My own life endured. We should be 'Totally nude' genuine... I had no close to home life!

However, there was something fermenting inside me.

It had been hatching for two or three decades and it was long over-due that I pursue my actual calling... being an expert Coach-Trainer-Speaker and I level out LOVE what I do!

My sole explanation behind composition this report is to enable you 'To air out Your Skull' and begin you venturing down the yellow block street to accomplishment in your life... on your terms... so here's my guarantee to you:

In this short report I'm going to share a couple of 'Brilliant Nuggets' with you on the most proficient method to find your actual energy and qualities in the land business. I am just beginning to expose what's underneath here.

How about we make a plunge and get the chance to stir setting you up for 'Gigantic Success' in the land business. I will caution you front and center that this data alone can kick you off on the way to your fantasies and objectives however YOU are the X-Factor in this procedure!

As it were, I promise you a certain something, on the off chance that you become familiar with this stuff yet make no move or good for nothing it you'll get zero outcomes. Then again, on the off chance that you learn it, practice it and take 'Gigantic Action' with it you'll promptly ascend to the highest point of the land diversion in your market! Sufficiently reasonable?

We should Rock and Roll!

Be careful With THE PAST

(CUT IT THE F LOOSE!)

See, The Past Is The Past... it doesn't direct your future! It provides intimations be that as it may, and when you figure out how to perceive these signs and retrain your cerebrum you will see astounding things start to occur.

I once heard that the Chinese Monks have a centuries old custom... a custom truly... that they perform day by day. Each morning they drape a rope over a can. That rope is then lit and is intended to consume for precisely 24 hours. At that point the following morning they take the basin loaded up with fiery remains and hurl it to the breeze, symbolizing that yesterday is basically a can of cinders to be disposed of so today may begin over again. At that point they hang another rope and flame it up!

I like that relationship. To overlook yesterday and begin restored and crisp each and every morning with the goal that you may live without bounds. When you do that you are molding your brain to give today your 'Absolute best' and convey your endowments to however many individuals as could reasonably be expected with the goal that YOU can have any kind of effect for them. That is truly living, cherishing and having any kind of effect!

So...TIP 1: Get in 'Right Mind'. The activity that I did to cement this for me was to just answer this inquiry:

"On the off chance that there were NO Limitations or Consequences, what might my Perfect normal day resemble?"

(This took me several hours since I penetrated down profound... to the point of depicting my contemplation directly before I nodded off, to what I would eat and with whom, to what discussions I would have and with whom, to where might I live, what might my home resemble feel like-smell like... Truly DETAILED in light of the fact that I gained from my mentor that to be spectacular you MUST be Specific!)

So that is Step 1. Furthermore, trust me, I procrastinated on doing this activity for a long time since I thought it was simply excessively hard and would take a lot of time and I definitely knew this stuff in any case so why put myself through this... other than I accepted at the time that there were impediments and results...

I was totally overwhelmed however once I did this mind-control work out. My life started to quickly advance toward my 'Flawless Average Day' that I had mapped out. All of a sudden I had more certainty, less uncertainty, more zoom in my progression and started speaking with my customers in a substantially more positive and profitable way.

So do this activity and as you do it, let go of ALL the restrictions that you've set in your psyche about progress, cash, where and how you would experience that ideal normal day. Free your psyche of results that are awful (those possibly happen when you accomplish something you shouldn't in any case and you're not excessively sort of individual, isn't that so? Right!)

We should walk on...

Stage 2 is to comprehend what your 'Center Beliefs' are currently and on the off chance that they are in arrangement with your objectives and on the off chance that they are set-up to give the most abnormal amount of administration you can to your clients and customers. What I mean by that is to jump into the openings of your psyche and truly put forth some intense inquiries... be that as it may, extraordinary inquiries... that uncover to you what your current 'Center Belief System' looks like and where you may need to change it.

When I took a gander at this for myself I decided, and hence requested, that I live by this easy to imagine but then hard executing conviction:

"My certified, center and unshakable conviction is that I can and will do anything I put my brain to... That is all! What's more, on the off chance that I realize that what I'm doing is the best activity and I realize that what I'm doing is for the outright advancement of my locale and I realize that each time somebody gives me cash for my items as well as administrations, that cash will be exponentially less than the estimation of what I give them"

Do that and... At that point you're UNSTOPPABLE... Correct? You KNOW that, regardless, you will achieve your objectives.

NEXT THING TO DO

When you've finished structuring your "Immaculate Average Day' at that point it's a great opportunity to haul out your schedule and plan the following a year. Begin by planning all the individual things that you realize you'll have to and need to do, including days off, uncommon events, network ventures, and so forth. What you have left are the days and hours that you can focus on your vocation. At that point separate it further to structure your 'Standard Work Week'. 

In detail, record each movement that you will do every day that you've focused on working in your business. For instance, I begin each day by getting up at 5:30. I go to the rec center from 5:45-6:30. From 6:45 to 7:00 I survey my day by day movement plan. At that point I shower, dress, have a glass or two of espresso, invest energy with my wonderful woman and begin composing. I compose from 8:00 to 10:00, I enjoy a reprieve from 10:00 to 10:30 and do a few errands, at that point from 10:30 to early afternoon I prospect for business, at that point... is it true that you are beginning to get the thought?

I have a set everyday practice for every day that I choose to work. Do I make tracks in an opposite direction from it? Completely! Also, that is alright... it's called Life! The structure tallies!

You'll see that once you make your schedule around your 'Immaculate Average Day' and your 'Center Beliefs' that the sky is the limit!

I trust that we are driven through our lifetime by the internal learning animal, the fun loving otherworldly being that is your genuine self and that we're in every case allowed to alter course in our course, to alter our opinion motion picture and live any future and we can pick an alternate past.

Just by picking how we wish to get and process data... past, present and future.

Kind of overwhelming... be that as it may, hello... this isn’t no 'Dress Rehearsal'! You get only one shot at life as we probably am aware I

#Business Advisor #Business Consultant #how to market your company #How to improve sales conversions #How to increase sales #How to increase profits #How to improve sales #How to market your business #How to systemise your Business #How to create a Great Business #How to create a business plan #Become a Business Coach #Become a Business Consultant #Business Coaching #How to Become a Business Coach #How to Become a Business Advisor #How to Become a Business Consultant

[shareeanne-deactivated]

This Weekend I Fell Apart, and That’s Okay

“Look for something positive each day, even if some days you have to look a little harder.” ~Unknown

This weekend I hurt more than I have in a very long time.

It all started on Friday, when my boyfriend and I headed out to spend the weekend with friends—two couples, both with babies in tow.

I’ve been trying, unsuccessfully, to get pregnant since the start of the year, yet I didn’t anticipate that it would be emotionally taxing for me to be around two little families. I was just excited to see our friends, who live in the Bay Area, hours away from our home near LA.

A little backstory: I’m less than three weeks away from my thirty-ninth birthday, which means I’m now in the category of “high risk pregnancy,” if I’m even able to get pregnant at all.

My boyfriend and I first discussed having a baby five years ago, but we kept pushing it off because our families live on opposite coasts, and neither of us was able to agree to live on the other’s coast full-time for the long-term.

We finally decided, at the beginning of this year, that I would be the one to visit my family—as often as I feel I need to, with our kid(s), for the foreseeable future—and we’d commit to staying in LA, which makes sense, since we’re working toward a career in film.

But biology doesn’t just fall in line because you finally get over your fears and decide to make a compromise. We’re both open to the idea of adoption, but there are other personal issues—that my fiercely private boyfriend would not want disclosed—that have complicated matters.

So there I was, on Friday, with our friends and their adorable babies—one actually a toddler, since he recently turned two.

We toasted our get-together around 5:00 with our first glass of wine, and the wine continued flowing throughout dinner. After, we all moved to the deck to partake in an at-home wine tasting.

The ladies and I discussed my road to pregnancy, and though I was discouraged, for the most part I was fine—until I wasn’t.

Having lost track of the amount of wine I was drinking, I eventually hit that emotional place I remember from my twenties—when alcohol eventually led to histrionics and tears. It is literally a depressant, after all, and generally not great to imbibe when you’re already feeling fragile.

I don’t remember all the details of that night, but I know I cried about my fears about not being able to have a family (which, as I mentioned, is an issue complicated by many factors).

I woke up at 4:00 in the morning and picked a fight with my boyfriend about our relationship. Then I woke at 8:00 with two things: a hangover and a shame-over. I was absolutely mortified.

I’d gotten drunk, turned a fun night with friends into something heavy and emotional, and had caused my boyfriend a lot of pain and embarrassment. It gave me a little comfort to realize everyone had drunk too much. But I still felt deeply ashamed of having lost control.

Ironically, I received an email that morning that I’d been waiting on for almost a month. My film mentor had just read the second draft of my first feature screenplay, and she said she was blown away by the massive improvement from the first draft.

I had never in my life simultaneously felt immense pride and deep shame, but I did right then.

Fortunately, the friend I cried to was extremely kind and empathetic. And no one judged me or put me down, as good friends never do.

But that day was pretty rough for me, physically and emotionally. And the next day, it got worse.

That night I noticed that a few people had commented on a meme I’d shared on Friday, using clipart with a hyper-sexualized female silhouette. They mentioned that it was demeaning to women to use what essentially appeared to be Barbie to represent the female form. One person called it “offensive.”

Though there were only a few critical comments, juxtaposed against 12,000 shares, I immediately realized I agreed with them. As someone who once struggled with an eating disorder, I’d like to represent women as more than a busty, high-pony-tailed caricature.

This didn’t fully or accurately represent my values or the message I’d like to convey. And I didn’t like the idea of young girls seeing it and concluding, as I may have as an adolescent, that this was what a woman is supposed to look like, even if some women actually look like this. So I decided to take it down.

With a mind still foggy I decided to write something on Facebook, as I wanted the community to know I felt I’d made an error in judgment. I didn’t want to just delete it. I want to make it clear I don’t agree with a society that puts pressure on women to be femme bots and suggests that our sexuality is our most valuable contribution.

I mentioned in my post that some people had pointed out that the image was offensive, and I agreed that it was triggering—and the backlash was swift and harsh.

In retrospect, I don’t think I accurately communicated why I decided to remove this image, since I didn’t address the cultural issue of how women are portrayed in the media, and the fact that I’d like to be part of the solution, not the problem. But I’m not sure if would have mattered if I did, since I’d used the word “offensive.”

I forgot that people often get offended by other people getting offended.

Over the next day, hundreds of comments came in, many attacking me on a personal level.

People called me spineless for catering to “snowflakes.” People said they lost respect for me and questioned my aptitude for even doing the work I do, since I clearly have no sense of conviction or belief in my own decisions. Even more alarming, many people mocked the idea of being “triggered,” and essentially belittled anyone with emotional or mental health issues.

I felt misunderstood, judged, and condescended.

I hid or deleted many of the worst comments, and resisted the urge to defend myself, deciding instead to leave one clarifying comment a couple hours in. But I’m not going to lie; this affected me deeply.

While on the one hand, I reminded myself that my power was in my response, and publicly, I only responded in one calm, clear comment, I also obsessively monitored the feed.

By this time my boyfriend and I were at his parents’ house in Nevada, where we planned to stay for a few days, and I wasn’t even close to present. I didn’t want to delete this new post, since I believed I’d done the right thing, but it pained me to see so much vitriol in a space that I hold sacred.

Then came another blow: I’d noticed a while back that since the start of the year, someone had been sharing every single challenge from my book Tiny Buddha’s 365 Tiny Love Challenges, on Facebook. Though this person tagged my page, none of the posts included the book’s title or a link—and some people actually assumed she was writing these posts, or getting them from my Facebook page.

I’d emailed my publisher a few weeks back to ask their thoughts on this, and they told me they could send an email asking her to stop. At the time, this seemed warranted.

Her Facebook friends didn’t see it that way. After she posted the letter from my publisher’s legal department, tagging my page, once again, the comments turned nasty.

F— you, Tiny Buddha.

You suck, Tiny Buddha.

 More like “Greedy Buddha.”

Unbelievable! She should thank you for the free marketing!

For a while, I felt completely numb. And I knew I was doing the “wrong” things by obsessively monitoring my phone and letting these comments get to me.

I knew it wasn’t serving me to dwell in my self-righteousness and how wrong I believed it was for this woman, who enjoyed my work enough to share it, to like comments that attacked me on a personal level. But I did it anyways.

I was angry with the people who were angry. I was triggered by the people who were triggered.

And then something occurred to me: This whole weekend was an opportunity. It was a chance to practice some of the lessons that are much easier to practice when everything is going well.

This weekend was a chance to remember that:

I need compassion most when I think I deserve it the least.

Initially, I beat myself up over several things this weekend: drinking to excess, exploding emotionally, hurting my boyfriend, choosing clipart that I wished I hadn’t chosen, asking my publisher to speak for me instead of reaching out to the woman personally, and obsessing over the various challenges I was facing instead of being present.

I told myself I shouldn’t have made any of those mistakes. I should have been beyond this. I was a fraud.

Then I realized something: I was being as mean to myself as the people online. And not a single blow of self-flagellation was helping me move on. In fact, each self-judgmental thought cemented me further into the hole. Because telling myself I was sucking at life made it awfully hard to find the strength to do better.

Every time I criticized myself, I weakened myself, and a weakened person is far less equipped to reframe difficult circumstances and respond with equanimity.

The only way out was to cut myself from slack. I need to stop fighting with myself and let go, as if melting into a hug from someone who finally forgave me. I needed my own love and compassion.

So I drank too much and cried. I was hurting. It’s been a long journey toward starting a family, and it’s been hard. It’s okay to hurt.

So I made mistakes in my work—who doesn’t? I owned them and publically admitted them. What matters isn’t the fact that I messed up but that I acknowledged it and committed to doing better.

I don’t have to be perfect. Sometimes I will make mistakes, some public, and sometimes I’ll make many that compound. The only way to stop the cycle is to stop obsessing about having done things wrong. The only way to move into the future is to fully accept the past. Once I did this, I felt freer, and better able to be present.

The approval that matters most is my own.

It bothered me that people believed I removed the image because I needed approval from the “complainers,” as opposed to having made a decision based on my own beliefs and values.

But ironically, once the flood of negative comments came in, I did start feeling a need for approval. I wanted people to understand and honor my positive intentions.

It took me a day, but I was finally able to accept that some people were simply committed to judging me, and this wasn’t something to change; it was something to accept.

It didn’t matter if someone people derided me or questioned me if I felt in my heart I’d done the right thing.

I eventually deleted the second post because I wanted to put an end to the negativity. There’s far too much of that on Facebook already. But I’m proud I waited and resisted the urge to remove all criticism immediately. For a recovering people-pleaser, allowing a public character assassination requires immense strength. And I give myself a lot of credit for that.

It’s rarely personal.

Intellectually, I knew this when people were insulting me in both places on Facebook.

I knew that the people who were angry with me for catering to “snowflakes” were really projecting their feelings about what they perceive to be an oversensitive culture. It wasn’t just about this one image. It was about every time someone’s ever said they were offended, and their complex feelings about what that means to them.

I also knew that the people defending the woman who’d been sharing my book online were acting from a place of allegiance to their friend. They were more pro-her than anti-me. Many didn’t even have all the information—they didn’t realize she’d been sharing from a book. So really, I couldn’t take that personally either.

This wasn’t immediately comforting to me because the attacks were so public, but when I was able to fully absorb this, it did give me some peace.

Not everyone will see my side, and that’s okay.

I believe one of our deepest desires is to feel understood—to know that other people get where we’re coming from and that they may even have done the same thing if they were in our shoes.

I didn’t feel that way when people judged me personally based on the letter from my publisher’s legal department.

I left a few comments on that post, trying my best to respond from a place of calm, but I know there are some people who will forever think I am greedy and soulless because I didn't want my book’s content republished online.

I’ve decided that this is okay. Not everyone has to get me, understand me, support me, be considerate of me, or treat me kindly—so long as I do those things for myself.

Pain can be useful if you share it to help someone else.

I decided to share this post for two reasons:

First, I thought it would be cathartic for me. I felt ashamed for a lot of this weekend, and I wanted to be able to reframe this experience in a way that felt empowering. As I said when I first launched this site, when we recycle our pain into something useful for others, we’re able to turn shame into pride.

And that brings me to the second reason: I thought it might be helpful for someone else to realize that even someone who runs a site like Tiny Buddha can fall into so many self-destructive traps.

If you’ve ever drunk too much and fell apart emotionally, know that you’re not alone.

If you’ve ever obsessed over comments online and allowed something as trivial as a Facebook feud to get the better of you, know that you’re not alone.

If you’ve ever failed to apply what you know and regressed to the least evolved version of yourself, know that you’re not alone.

And know that all of these things are okay. They don’t mean anything about you as a person. They don’t define you. And they don’t have to dictate the future.

This is what I needed to hear this weekend when I was despondent and numb, so today it’s my gift to you. I hope someone benefits from something in my experience. But I suppose no matter what, someone has—me.

About Lori Deschene

Lori Deschene is the founder of Tiny Buddha and Recreate Your Life Story, an online course that helps you let go of the past and live a life you love. Her latest book, Tiny Buddha's Worry Journal, which includes 15 coloring pages, is now available. For daily wisdom, follow Tiny Buddha on Twitter, Facebook & Instagram.

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The post This Weekend I Fell Apart, and That’s Okay appeared first on Tiny Buddha.

[icechuksblog]

A new report published by The Cable details how teachers in the Almajiri schools built by the past administration, engage their students in street begging and leave off the proceeds from the street beggars. The teachers allegedly chain some of the disobedient students on the leg if they refuse to go out begging. Read the shocking report below In Sokoto state, there are 2,000 shoeless boys roaming the streets in tattered clothes. With bowls and dirty ropes suspended around their necks, they move in groups begging for alms. Their teachers, popularly known as mallams, supported by parents and cultural beliefs, encourage them to beg. This does not only deprive them the opportunity of an education, they also become tools in the hands of insurgents. TheCable visited four traditional Almajiri schools in Sokoto and found that the billions of naira spent on integrated Almajiri schools might be going down the drain. AN ENCOUNTER WITH CHILD BEGGARS The sight at an Almajiri school in Gobirawa in Goronyo, a local government area west of Sokoto, would make any rational being emotional. The pupils look a little older than the regular 6-10-year-olds who roam the streets. There is no mistaking the frustration in their eyes. Their legs were clamped together with big iron chains. Upon inquiries, the warder said after the Quranic class, the boys go to beg and are required to give the money to their teachers. He explained that the ones in chain were disobedient. He said they run away with the money meant for their teachers. For few minutes, this reporter scanned the murky room, un-cemented floor, finger print-dirty wall. A boy lying on a blue mat tried to stand but couldn’t. He looked behind and noticed his chain was joined together with another. When he wanted to urinate, he would pee in a sachet of polythene bag, and then throw it outside the room. He looked towards the door for 18 seconds, and with a loud voice, he began to recite the Islamic inscriptions on his wooden plank. The mallam, owner of the school refused to speak further. He also refused to be named. ORIGIN OF ALMAJIRI IN NIGERIA In Nigeria, the Almajiri system of education started in the Kanem-Borno empire during the colonial era. The empire had a large number of rulers widely involved in Quranic literacy. More than 700 years later, the Sokoto caliphate was founded by a revolution. Sokoto caliphate and Borno caliphate started running the Almajiri system together. The year 1904 brought a new twist to the almajiri system as the British invaded the northern part of Nigeria. During the invasion, most traditional rulers were killed and others disposed. The emirs who escaped death lost controls of their territories, this resulted also in the lost of fundamental control of the almajiri. Boko was introduced, boko meaning western education. The British abolished the state funding of almajiri schools. With no support from the community, emirs and government, the system collapsed. The teachers and students had no financial support, so, they turned into alms begging and menial jobs for survival.  ALARMING NUMBER OF OUT-OF-SCHOOL CHILDREN Sokoto, home of the caliphate and the Muslim spiritual leader, is now among states with a huge number of out-school-children who in the name of seeking Islamic education are used as child beggars. With a total population of four million, school-age children population of 1.1 million and school enrollment of 610, 886, it is reported to have a literacy level as low as 15.1 percent, one of the least literate states in the northern geopolitical region of the country. Pupils at Zamuya traditional Almajiri school Under a bamboo tent at Aliu’s compound in Zamuya, boys numbering 190 squatted on their mats with their wooden slate bearing Arabic handwriting on one hand and their ‘tesbah’ (prayer bead) on the other. As this reporter stepped in, they chorused a long, ‘aamin’ to the prayers being offered by their 11-year-old class captain, Sanusi Abdulazeez. It was exactly 3:38 pm on a sunny Sunday afternoon. The class started around 2 pm, but prior that time, they had left Zamuya (some kilometres from the state capital) at 10am, to beg for food and money. Begging in northern Nigeria started over 1000 years ago, according to Aliu. It is virtually what all Almajiri pupils in traditional Almajiri schools in Sokoto do, even when there is enough food to cater for them. The pupils, parents, and mallams see nothing in begging. They believe it’s a tradition that cannot be changed. TheCable learnt that when the children do not want to beg, the mallams compel them to. Many of the pupils, for the fear of punishment, were nervous to speak when approached. When the reporter wanted to press the shutter of his camera pointed to a group of Almajiri pupils struggling for food, one of them shouted and they all abandoned their rice cake (massa in Hausa), running towards different directions. Part of the money collected from benefactors is used to buy rice cake food. There are thousands of them in the state capital. During break, they go in groups of eight, sometimes nine, and are always accompanied by a rice cake seller. The population at the traditional Almajiri school outnumbers that of the model schools. Boyi Ku: Owner of an Almajiri school ONE MAN STANDS OUT Lying on a mat in an unkempt room, Boyi Ku, an Islamic teacher and owner of Gidan Miye Almajiri school, looks sick and exhausted. In a chat with the reporter, Ku said he doesn’t collect money from the boys but offer them as workers for business individuals who use them as domestic helps. “The pupils are attached to houses. People come to book them to be used as workers in their houses or shops,” he said. “I do it for Allah that’s why I have few children. I only accept the number of pupils I can teach,” Ku said. He added that he does not accept money from the children or their parents. He also allows them to beg to get food and sustain themselves but does not force them. He said he only collects food from the pupils’ parents to feed himself and the children, who eat the food only on days they were not successful getting money. “Other mallams collect the money the children realize from begging. But pupils do not respect mallams who do that,” he said. Almajiri “The pupils are getting 60 percent of food from their parents and 40 percent from begging. Even though the children get 100 percent food, they will still go out and beg. The parents also think they are eating a balanced diet by getting varieties of food from begging,” he said. Many of the children whom TheCable spoke to said they have not seen their parents for months. “If my parents bring enough food for me, I will still go out and beg because it is tradition,” Abdulazeez, a pupil at Zamuya school, told TheCable. NO TO CONVENTIONAL EDUCATION TheCable gathered that parents see western education as evil while pupils say they can’t sacrifice Islamic education, which is their priority. “I am learning a lot of Islam but I can’t speak English,” Abdulazeez says. “I don’t want to learn western education because I will miss Islamic education,” Aminu Dahiri another boy said. When asked why he sent his son to Almajiri school instead of the government’s integrated Almajiri school, Abubakar Muazu, a parent at Zamuya said it is not easy to provide food for his son in the school. He brings food, which he described as “honourable” to his son once every week. “I don’t want conventional system because I do not value it.” However, another parent Ummaru Arzika countered Muazu’s opinion. “It is not that we (parents) don’t value conventional system. It is because it is a belief and tradition which they are not ready to change.” MAKING THE DIFFERENCE At an Almajiri school in Gidan-Miye, in addition to the Islamic knowledge, the boys are taught mathematics and english by a local non-governmental organisation -Alubarika Advocate for Health and Community Development Initiative (AHCDI)- every Thursday and Friday. The pupils are issued certificates at the end of the course after which the successful ones are registered to begin from primary five in one of the three integrated Almajiri model schools in the state. Almajiri Checks show no sign of improvement in learning english and mathematics from the pupils. It also shows there are no significant efforts by the governments in reducing illiteracy in the state since there is no framework to navigate the pupils from the traditional system to the integrated model system. The one built at Gagi in Sokoto is reported to be in a state of disrepair. INTEGRATED ALMAJIRI SCHOOL NOT WORKING In 2012, former President Goodluck Jonathan spent N15 billion on the establishment of 400 Almajiri model schools with the aim of integrating the traditional system of learning Islamic education with western education. The Arabic school, also called tsangaya teaches pupils only Arabic knowledge. The pupils acquire no proficiency in literacy and numeracy- a skill needed for economic leadership, development and global competitiveness. The idea of Jonathan’s government was to set up integrated Almajiri schools to transform into model Almajiri schools. Despite this, a huge number of children are still roaming the streets. The state also built a N70 million Almajiri integrated school at Dange-Shuni. During a visit to the school, the vice-principal refused but he hinted that there is a lack of teachers. This confirms the report from the state ministry of education on lack of teachers in Sokoto schools. In one school with an average of 294 students, there are only six teachers. The feeding programme is also another avenue used to attract pupils to schools. The cooks are eager to prepare lunch. On their part, the pupils wash their coolers and submit them. Almajiri “As a boarding school, we give them breakfast, lunch, and dinner, one of the cooks said.Commenting on begging in the school, the director of Almajiri integrated education, Bello Umar told TheCable there are over 2000 Almajiri children in Sokoto. “Whenever we try to solve the problem (begging), it emerges again. It is pitiful seeing the children begging. It is a bad issue here in Sokoto state,” he said. “We care for our own young boys who are out of school and who leave their houses due to lack of food.” Jabbi Kilgori, state commissioner for basic and secondary education, said in September, the government incorporated 4,000 Quranic schools in the state into the formal education system to boost enrollment. According to the state education sector plan 2011-2020, parents are the major obstacle in achieving education for all (EFA) initiative because they do not cater for their children thus leaving them at the mercy of the society who feeds them from the proceeds of begging. “We can enact a law to reduce it but we cannot ban it at all. But the government can be strong on the law. No movement of the children from one town to another. The state governments can form an agency to always catch the children and arrest mallams who told them to go out and beg. It will reduce the massive influx of children begging,”  Umar said.

http://icechuks2.blogspot.com/2018/07/new-report-shows-how-teachers-in-sokoto.html

#http://icechuks2.blogspot.com/2018/07/new-report-shows-how-teachers-in-sokoto.html New report shows

[kidsviral-blog]

How Prince Taught Me About Female Sexuality

New Post has been published on https://kidsviral.info/how-prince-taught-me-about-female-sexuality/

How Prince Taught Me About Female Sexuality

He helped me realize there are men who enjoy being submissive to women — and that being a woman who’s more sexually experienced than a man isn’t something to hide or being ashamed of.

View this image ›

CROLLALANZA /REX USA

As a little kid in the early 1980s, I remember watching the video for Prince’s “I Wanna Be Your Lover” for the first time, as I experienced the magic of cable television and MTV in my family’s first house. I could not look away from this man with the hairy chest, single hoop earring, and feathered hair. When I was around 11 or 12, my sister was in college and dated a guy who was a huge Prince fan. He let me listen to his records, including the B-sides and bootlegs, like “Girl,” “Erotic City,” and “17 Days.” I felt like I was a member of a club with select membership.

I’ve been fascinated with sex since an early age, and even as a child, I knew Prince was “nasty,” but it drew me to him even more. Prince built a reputation on his risqué songs, like “Head” with lyrics that said, “I know you’re good, girl/ I think you like to go down.” With songs like “Soft and Wet,” it’s easy to think that Prince only sees women as objects made for sexual pleasure, but looking further, his songs show women with the same sexual urges as men. Acts like Salt-N-Pepa and Madonna were equally important in showcasing women’s desires through song during my childhood, but Prince’s work resonated more with me. His music shaped my own sexuality because it helped me realize there are men who enjoy being submissive to women, that there are men who are willing to admit to helplessness during sex, and that being a woman who’s more sexually experienced than a man isn’t something to hide or being ashamed of.

His ’80s catalog, in particular, was a revelatory mix of sex, politics, and religion. He sang as a man unafraid of changing how society looked at masculinity, a man who enjoyed a more sexually experienced woman, and as a man willing to follow a woman’s lead.

“Darling Nikki,” from the 1984 Purple Rain soundtrack, details a one-night stand. It has all the markers to offend — a sex fiend of a woman masturbating in public who abandons her conquest after using him. On the surface, the song has much in common with 1982’s “Little Red Corvette,” another song about a one-night stand with a promiscuous woman. However, in “Little Red Corvette,” Prince’s persona warns the woman against her sexually adventurous lifestyle and attempts to “tame” her into monogamy. In “Darling Nikki,” the object of the woman’s affection has no problems with being used and ends the song begging for her to come back. Also, “Darling Nikki” was the catalyst for Tipper Gore, ex-wife of former Vice President Al Gore, to become co-founder of the Parents Music Resource Center, which led to “Parental Advisory” stickers on music deemed too explicit for children.

People frequently sing “Darling Nikki” to me because of my nickname (although I spell it differently) and love for Prince, but they don’t realize how empowering the song was for me once I became sexually active as a teenager. As I matured, I frequently warred with the idea of being a “good girl” who doesn’t talk about sex openly because it meant I was “easy” and yet wanting to express myself sexually in an open and honest way. I was warned that when women talk about sex, no matter how innocently, it makes people want to have sex with her, and that could have dangerous consequences. Even though “Darling Nikki” is told from the point of view of her conquest, I felt drawn to the woman in the title, bold and memorable. I wanted to be like her. I haven’t followed Darling Nikki’s exact footsteps, and my journey to realizing my full sexual self hasn’t always been straightforward, but I often think of her and the song when challenging myself sexually.

Beyond fast-paced rock and pop songs like “Darling Nikki,” “Little Red Corvette,” or even “Raspberry Beret,” where Prince sings about succumbing to the wiles of women more sexually experienced, he has more traditional R&B-like ballads, making sexual demands of his lovers for their mutual satisfaction. In “Do Me, Baby” from 1981’s Controversy and “Scandalous” from the 1989 Batman soundtrack, he asks to be touched and explored and lets the objects of his desire know that he’s at their mercy. Despite the persona’s obvious eagerness to make love, he lets his partners set the pace. In “Do Me, Baby,” he waits for his lover to lay him down, a sure sign of the other’s readiness. In “Scandalous,” Prince croons, “Anything’s acceptable / just ask me / and I’ll try it.” He’s willing to follow someone else’s lead. In these songs, Prince sings of his overwhelming desire for his partner but doesn’t rush the rendezvous. He encourages his lovers to lead, knowing that his being in a submissive position will be mutually beneficial.

Video available at: http://youtube.com/watch?v=eu9qkMPr10I.

When people jokingly wonder how a man who wears heels and makeup, challenging ideas of masculinity, is able to date so many women, I often think of songs like “Do Me, Baby” and “Scandalous.” He understands the need to give his partners room to take charge and how doing so doesn’t equal a threat to his manhood. On the album version of “Do Me, Baby,” Prince ends the song with his orgasm, begs his partner for help, and finally asks to be held. The vulnerability he displays perhaps answers the question of how this diminutive man in eyeliner and lace can be considered a ladies’ man. It set a high bar for me when it came to my own sexual partners. I expected my boyfriends to let me lead sometimes and to express neediness without shame. My disappointment was frequent, so I’d return to Prince’s music to daydream.

As much as Prince’s music gave me permission to accept my own sexual maturity, his discography is not without issue. Sometimes he is flat-out hypocritical and misogynistic. “Little Red Corvette” borders on what we’d now call slut-shaming. On stage, Prince frequently pairs women dancers together in sexual mimicry, and yet some of his lyrics scold women about being bisexual. On the 1979 self-titled album, the song “Bambi” attempts to convince a woman to abandon her female lover because “it’s better with a man.” Prince ends the song declaring, “Bambi, I know what U need / Bambi, maybe U need 2 bleed.” In the 1982 bootleg single “Xtraloveable,” Prince’s persona tries to seduce a woman by asking her if she wants to take a bath with him. He praises her because she doesn’t brag about her love life and doesn’t appear to be loose with her affections: “What I dig the most is the way that U keep your sugar in your hand / till I want it.” However, later he claims he’s “on the verge of rape” then: “I’m sorry / but I’m just gonna have 2 rape U / Now are U going to get in the tub / Or do I have 2 drag U?” Prince moves from seduction to rape, and it’s jarring. Here, his usual submissive role is gone and replaced with an overly aggressive one. One moment, the song’s persona is happy that his lover makes him wait, and the next he’s threatening rape because she doesn’t respond to his advances quickly enough.

Prince recently performed “Bambi” on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon with the all-female band he fronts, 3rdEyeGirl. He didn’t sing the final threat of violence, but the overall sexist sentiment of the song remained, especially considering the fact that Prince stood in front of an all-woman band. Perhaps Prince decided to play the song because it’s more rock than funk or R&B and showcases his rock guitar talents. It remains an odd song selection.

In 2013, Prince released “Extraloveable Reloaded,” with sanitized lyrics. The sugar in hand becomes a vague “it,” and any mention of rape is scrubbed. Since Prince became a Jehovah’s Witness in 2001, he’s become increasingly conservative, refusing to play most of his racier songs that cemented his place in pop culture. Recent music like “Da Bourgeoisie” returns to shaming a woman for her bisexuality, but “Breakfast Can Wait” hints that the old, raunchy Prince is still around.

Video available at: http://youtube.com/watch?v=GHbyNrGXpAA.

Prince still has moments where he wags his finger at a woman because of her choices, but then I think of “If I Was Your Girlfriend,” from the 1987 album Sign O’ the Times. It’s a song so important to me that I have a line of its lyrics tattooed around my left ankle. In it, Prince’s alter ego Camille sings in the perspective of a man who wonders if becoming a woman would lead to a closer relationship with his current female lover. Again, Prince disrupts heteronormative ideals of masculinity by being willing to change genders for more significant connection, the kind shared between women.

It’s hard to reconcile the Prince of gender-fluidity with the one who refuses to comment on same-sex marriage. I’ve overlooked his bouts of hypocrisy and sexism to concentrate on what I’ve learned from his music over the years. With his music, I gave myself permission to be bold and shameless in my desires. As a Southern woman, I’ve grown up dancing to a lot of music that directly contradicts my feminist beliefs, like bass and bounce. Lyrics demanding women to pop their pussies or guaranteeing material goods in exchange for satisfactory sex fly directly in the face of the idea that a woman is more than her body and sexuality. It’s not enough to shrug off the misogynistic verses simply because of a good beat. Not only did I give myself permission to speak freely about sex, I also had to allow myself to be a complex person who enjoys flawed artists and their art.

Prince’s early catalog taught me things about myself I wasn’t even aware I was learning at such a young age. When I made the decision to become sexually active as a teen, I imitated Prince’s moans and gasps from his songs as practice to make sure I would sound sexy in bed. To this day, you might catch me making sounds straight from “Do Me, Baby,” “Girl,” or “Vibrator,” a Vanity 6 song Prince wrote. That’s what was sexy to me — a man willing to vocalize pleasure and be vulnerable and so I sought to translate that into my own sex life. Despite his increasingly conservative beliefs and his occasionally sexist lyrics, Prince helped me achieve an honest and good sex life. For that, I’ll always be grateful.

Read more: http://www.buzzfeed.com/tnwhiskeywoman/do-me-baby

#music #sexuality