#hannah's heinous ideas

[sp1rit-realm]

༻¨*:· 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐌𝐘 𝐋𝐈𝐅𝐄 ·:*¨༺

༻¨*:· summary ·:*¨༺ remus leaves you after the first war.

༻¨*:· notes ·:*¨༺ 𖦹 inspired by love of my life by queen 𖦹 y'know "love of my life, you've hurt me. you've broken my heart, and now you leave me" 𖦹 angst 𖦹 hurt/not quite comfort but kind of ??? 𖦹 pizza thursdays :) 𖦹 sad :( 𖦹 ANGST (you have been warned) 𖦹 i did not proofread this⎝(ˊ0ˋ)⎠

༻¨*:· word count ·:*¨༺ 𖦹 623

Remus was sad and angry, and in pain. Sad that he had lost everything, angry that he had lost everything. He was always saying that, talking about how he lost everything.

"But I'm still here, Remus." You told him countless times. His response was always a curt nod; it never failed to hurt you.

"I miss them," He whispered, holding a picture of James and Lily.

"I miss them, too," You put your arm around his shoulder and scratched his scalp—he leaned into it.

You cherished moments like this. In some selfish, twisted way, you were glad Remus only had you right now. You knew this—whatever you two had—was temporary. He would kiss and hold you, but his heart wasn't yours. He wasn't yours. Your heart would always belong to him, though. 

Part of you was scared he would wake up one day and realize he didn't love you.

"What're you thinking about, m'love?" His voice was lazy and sleepy.

"Us," You murmur.

"Yeah? What about us?" It seemed like he was in a better mood.

"If you love me or not." It slipped out.

"Of course I love you," He frowned, "Why wouldn't I?"

"I don't know," You sighed longingly.

"I love you so much." He reassured.

Foolishly, you believed it.

You dropped by Remus's flat. Another Thursday meant another pizza date. He had everything set up, roses, candles, everything to make a girl feel special. And that was how you knew it was ending soon. 

"Bad movie," You grimaced as the film ended.

"Agreed," Remus nods. He turns to you, "I'm thinking a lot," He pauses.

"Yeah?" Part of you wanted to joke about how surprising it is that he can actually think; another part of you wanted to scream. The part you listened to was telling you to stay and listen.

"Yeah."

"About what?"

"Lots of things. Sirius, school, life before all of… this."

And your heart hurt. It hurt for you, and it hurt for him.

"I think about that a lot, too."

"I miss it," He whispers.

You nod, "So do I."

"I miss him," He murmurs, and the crack in your heart grows.

But that's as far as he goes before standing up and going to do the dishes.

The next time you see Remus, he's moving things into boxes. You're confused. Today's Thursday; you're supposed to have pizza, not do whatever this is. And then it dawned on you.

"Come in," He greets you like nothing is wrong.

"I brought pizza," You murmur, toeing your shoes off.

Once you're all settled on the couch, pizza on a plate in your lap, you ask him, "What're you doing?"

You can see his subtle hesitation as his movements stutter, "Just putting some things away," He lies.

"Remus," He stops and looks at you, "Where are you going?"

He sighs, rubs his face, and sits next to you. He places a hand on your knee and proceeds, "Somewhere far away from all of this. I—" He shakes his head, "I can do this anymore. I need to leave."

And that selfish part of you wants him to say: "And I would love for you to come with me."

But you know he won't.

You stare at each other for what feels like an eternity—just him and you and the last granules of sand in the inescapable hourglass that was your relationship. 

"What about me?" Your voice is soft and quiet, and goddamnit, why did you have to look so sad?

"What about you?"

A fitting reply to a fitting ending.

"What about us?"

He had no response.

"Am I not good enough, Remus? Why am I not good enough?"

All he could do was hold you as you cried.

sorry :(

mutuals: @sw34terw34ther @imshiningjustforyou @woahlifehitsyahuh @forourmoons @vampieteeth @masivechaos @queerpumpkinnn @lucasnclair @doyouknowwhoyouare13 @maddipoof @nutellani @zvdvdlvr @honeymunson @reysdriver @just-another-godless-god @bellathethirstybitch @onmyknees4lily @angry-little-frog @starstruckmoony

#remus lupin #remus lupin angst #remus lupin x reader #remus lupin x you #remus lupin x y/n #post first war marauders #the marauders #marauders angst #marauders #marauders era #₊˚.༄ hannah writes #hannah's heinous ideas #hannah's hellish #remus lupin fanfiction

[xqueenybeebooks]

I Read Assistant to the Villain

Title: Assistant to the Villain Author: Hannah Nicole Maehrer Tags: fantasy, romance, grumpy-sunshine dynamic, office romance, mystery, humor Spice: None Cliffhanger: Yes CW: multiple forms of abuse, especially familial abuse and neglect, attempted rape backstory, attempted murder, prison isolation (let me know if I should add any) Read Below for Review (Spoiler-Lite)

Reading Assistant to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer tickled the part of my brain that watched Ella Enchanted as a kid and loved the visual world building of movie-Kyrria. It has a very fun fantasy-medieval world with modern conveniences like coffee and clocks. That said, the true stand out elements of the story, are the characters.

The titular Assistant, Evie Sage, is an overly optimistic and clumsy girl that ran into her most ideal job. She's an interminable busybody who keeps the office in tip-top shape to the point that it literally can't run properly without her after only a few months. She could very easily be really annoying, but honestly I think she resonates as very relatable, especially as you get further into the book and learn more about her parents and the situation they put her in. It's also really interesting to watch as her inner dark side becomes more and more apparent.

Her boss, the Villain of Rennedawn, is in my humble opinion, a lot more quirky and grumpy than he is actually scary. It's established quite quickly that the Villain is only truly heinous to those that deserve it, which is pretty common for this character archetype. A Villain with a heart-of-gold if you will. I really like him because he has a lot of little character details that make him feel more squishy, especially his love for sweet and milky coffee, get the boy a latte machine. His relationships with his family members, while brief, are quite enlightening and I'm curious to see how they will develop in the future. He has some things that he has done that I believe will come to bite him (or maybe not) in the next volume.

Evie and the Villain balance really well and have extremely fun banter and chemistry. I look forward to witnessing how their relationship will expand in future volumes.

Personally, I think this is quite a good book for a first time author with a unique idea. I think she had a really good grasp of the characters, which to anyone who has seen her TikTok videos shouldn't be surprising. However, I think the world-building could be fleshed out more as I would have liked to see and understand more of the anachronisms of this world and I hope she adds more in the next book. I am also looking forward to more time spent with the side-characters and how the relationship webs out even further (especially Blade and Becky). A lot of questions were raised and answered in this book, but just as many were left for the next installment.

I would recommend this book to anyone who has seen her skits and was interested in what stories these characters could get up to if properly developed. Also to anyone that was a nice and light fantasy book with light romance and a mystery.

#bookler #assistant to the villain #review #evie sage #the villain #2023

[thepalmofyourfreezinghand]

European countries have pulled a lot of shit (from colonialism to two world wars) but they’re all so beautiful! The architecture!! The history!! I am obsessed!! I can’t help it

Yeah! The colonialist part is especially bad in Italian history because it’s sooooo downplayed here. There’s a phrase that goes “Italiani brava gente” (which means “Italians are good people”) which was coined at the end of the XIX century in relation to the occupation of Eritrea and Ethiopia. It’s like a refrain that was repeated for years (and still gets said) and that basically means: “yeah, we’ve done bad stuff but we’re not bad guys and whatever pain we caused or crimes we committed are nothing compared to what other countries have done”. An Italian writer defined this myth as “a shield of goodness, friendliness and natural inclination towards mildness which should have kept Italians safe from heinous hostility; a comfortable pillow capable of softening the dramatic impact of history and cruelty”.

It’s the reason why when people talk about fascism it’s often followed by “at least it wasn’t as bad as nazism”. It’s the reason why when colonialism is discussed there’s always someone who says “but we built schools and brought our culture, we helped them!”. It’s the reason why the persecution of Jewish people in Italy is seen as not as horrible as the one in Germany (I actually recently discovered that freaking Hannah Arendt herself said that Italians were good at heart and their persecution of Jewish people wasn’t that bad).

And all of this is false, obviously. Italy was among the very first countries to use chemical weapons, for example. It was so bad and it caused so much damage and so many victims in Ethiopia that Italy was actually sanctioned by the League of Nations in 1935. And, if I remember correctly, every single country except for two-three voted in favor of the sanctions (so, like, 50 countries).

It was so bad, and while its objectively true that Italian colonialism caused less deaths than the Belgian one, for example, that doesn’t take away from the fact that Italian colonialism was just as heinous.

Instead, there’s this myth that fascism was just a watered-down nazism, colonialism was just a friendly meeting between populations and an opportunity to build schools, and what happened to Slavic people in eastern Italy was a nuisance and nothing more.

It sucks and there are so many examples and I could talk about this for days but basically there’s this idea that Italians are good at heart and even when they commit international crimes, those crimes are really not that bad.

And unfortunately Italian art plays a big part in this myth that Italians are talented and kind and have never made anything more than small mistakes.

#italy #colonialism #tw antisemitism #tw racism

[beepmeepmeepbeep]

when hannah gadsby said “There is too much hysteria around gender from you gender-normals. You’re the weirdos” and when hannah gadsby said “do you understand what self-deprecation means when it comes from somebody who already exists in the margins? It’s not humility. It’s humiliation” and when hannah gadsby said “I’m still ashamed of who I am” and when hannah gadsby said “How about we stop separating the children into opposing teams from day dot?” and when hannah gadsby said “So perhaps… we have the sunflowers precisely because… van Gogh medicated” and when hannah gadsby said “This whole idea, this romanticizing of mental illness, is ridiculous. It is not a ticket to genius. It’s a ticket to fucking nowhere” and when hannah gadsby said “Seventy percent of the people who raised me, who loved me, who I trusted, believed that homosexuality was a sin, that homosexuals were heinous, sub-human pedophiles” and when hannah gadsby said “By the time I identified as being gay, it was too late. I was already homophobic, and you do not get to just flick a switch on that. No, what you do is you internalize that homophobia and you learn to hate yourself” and when hannah gadsby said “Underage. Legally underage. Picasso was 42, married, at the height of his career. Does it matter? Yeah. Yeah, it actually does. It does matter” and when hannah gadsby said “Maybe, if comedians had done their job properly, and made fun of the man who abused his power, then perhaps we might have had a middle-aged woman with an appropriate amount of experience in the White House, instead of, as we do, a man who openly admitted to sexually assaulting vulnerable young women because he could.“ and when hannah gadsby said “that is what happens when you soak one child in shame and give permission to another to hate” and when hannah gadsby said “there is nothing stronger then a broken woman who has rebuilt herself” and when hannah gadsby said “Vincent van Gogh had a brother who loved him. Through all the pain, he had a tether, a connection to the world. And that… is the focus of the story we need. Connection.”

#this is long and no one will read it but i have emotions right now #hannah gadsby #kes' random stuff

[intheshadowofsignificance]

I think the point is June and Serena becoming the same person in the end so there’s not any room for better or worse.

I completely understand your interpretation and there’s so much it makes me want to touch on and dissect.

Ultimately, June and Serena are different people with different experiences. Trauma and pain were a huge part of Gilead’s narrative even before it existed, and seeing that trauma manifest in similar ways between June and Serena is so, so interesting to me.

Ultimately, to me, Serena is a more compelling character. I personally like her more than June. That doesn’t make her more likable overall though, and it certainly doesn’t mean the two were created equal.

June has more room to grow and evolve than Serena, because despite what she’s been through and the anger it’s bred in her, she’s empathetic. She cried holding Esther. Regardless of it potentially dismantling their escape, she didn’t leave her. She felt deeply for Janine’s struggle too, and mourned her when she thought they were separating. She has complex PTSD and I think the flashback of Alma is a nod to her survivor’s guilt. The question of what she deserves is another nod to that. We don’t get that kind of reflection and introspection from Serena.

When she’s praying in the church, it’s not because she’s truly sorry, or truly grasps the horror of what she facilitated and forced upon thousands of women, it’s because she wants something. She wants a healthy baby. When Serena mourns Nicole, she’s moreso mourning the chance she lost to be a mother. She doesn’t feel compassion for Nicole’s separation anxiety, she immediately tells her, “it’s mommy.” Because what she really wants from Nicole is someone to love her. Serena never mentioning Nicole again during her pregnancy is very telling. It was never about a little girl she loved and bonded with, but the idea of having that love and bond in the first place. Motherhood is about completing herself, not bringing another soul into the world and helping them find completion.

June tells Hannah it’s okay to be angry with her. Can you imagine Serena telling preteen Nicole the same in that context? Can you imagine Serena being okay with a daughter who rebelled, and showing her compassion instead of spiteful, Bible verse scorn in the face of that rebellion? Serena’s own mother masqueraded her grief around for attention and sympathy. Serena is intoxicated by that same attention as long as she’s not the subject of it, and I could see her turning into Pam without much effort.

One thing June got right in the last scene that I don’t think is remotely shared between them is this: Serena is a sociopath. Not one who was made, like June, for the sake of survival, but one who was born. She doesn’t genuinely know how to feel anything for anyone else, she’s able to leech people’s emotions when she needs to, but she very seldom feels anything for herself towards other people.

When she got shot, was recovering, and called Fred weak, that wasn’t compassion. That wasn’t love. The Waterford’s had a marriage when Fred was useful to Serena and vice versa. When Eden died and she saw what very well could’ve been a younger version of herself drown in that pool, she grieved. Not for Eden, but for the person she made her out to be in her own head. For the person her daughter could have grown up to be. When we find out Eden had written in the Bible and Serena condemns her for it, we get confirmation of this. Eden isn’t who Serena thought she was, and Serena’s grief is strictly for the idealized version of her.

I firmly believe she could only let Nicole go because she saw herself in Eden. When Eden died for love while everyone around watched her drown, just like Serena was drowning grasping for the pieces of her failing marriage and the illusion of her superiority in Gilead, she realized she wanted more for Nicole. And the second the smoke cleared and she started to feel empty, she took it all back.

Right now, June and Serena are the same. They’re drunk on power and in a desperate battle to be in control of their own life. The difference is, June has the capacity for empathy and love, and will eventually use those things to see the wrong she’s done, whereas Serena is, in my opinion, incapable of meaningful grief, reflection, and growth.

She lived her entire life as a fanatic in a faith that requires surrender, not because she’s committed to it, but because she practices a version that absolves herself of responsibility for what she’s done. If she gives it to God, God will forgive her. If she says she’s making amends, she doesn’t have to actually do it. Some people use God, even in Gilead, to find meaning in heinous things. Serena uses God to take the meaning out of them.

It was his plan. I am his vessel.

Gilead made June into this person too, she didn’t care who died for her, she just needed to get to Hannah. Start a movement. Keep moving, keep being useful.

June has been cold and callous and she has committed atrocity just like Serena Joy, the difference is she has the capacity to recognize it eventually, and change. Whether she will or not is up in the air.

But anyway, all this is to say that June and Serena are both products of their environment, but June was very on the nose when she told Serena she didn’t know how to love. I genuinely don’t think she does. I don’t think she feels much other than smugness unless she’s sapping it from people around her.

Neither of them is perfect, and I think saying June is better or worse than Serena would convey the wrong message. What I will end on, though, is the notion that June is more human than she is calculating, while Serena feels more calculating than she does human.

#the handmaid’s tale season 4 #the handmaid's tale #tht #june osborne #serena joy #serena waterford #character study

[younevercantell]

Interesting thoughts

Psychopaths: the worst people that don't exist

Psychopathy is a popular but misguided and fundamentally dangerous idea.

Psychopathy - Distortion of a complex problem.

Modern psychologists such as Simon Baron-Cohen have realized that the concept of evil can only arise from cyclical thinking; evil deeds are done by evil people, so called because they do evil deeds. As a term, it has no explanatory power, and this is where the discussion ends. Instead, Baron-Cohen argues that these people are "psychopaths", capable of understanding the feelings of others, but with lower affective empathy, wholly indifferent to the plight of those they have offended. He contrasts these people with autistic children who cannot make sense of the inner lives of others, but are stressed when they can tell that the other person is in pain. The idea that psychopaths are still present among us, riding the subway and eating at our favorite restaurants, while at the same time being able to ruthlessly kill us, fire us from our jobs or make our lives miserable, is very seductive. This has spawned a vast number of books that attempt to characterize their "wisdom" or "test" of this supposed illness. Seemingly more convincing now are MRI studies that claim to show functional differences in the brains of psychopaths.

As enticing and popular as this idea is, I cannot help but find it completely unconvincing. Apart from the fact that this is a medicalization of the same hackneyed concept of evil, it does not give a true understanding of the very nature of heinous crimes. The Psychiatrist's Bible, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, does not include psychopathy as a diagnosis. The World Health Organization, the American Psychiatric Association, and numerous other professional bodies have also chosen to avoid using the term. Instead of the very real risk of stigmatizing people suffering from an often distressing mental condition with emotionally charged stigmas, they tend to use diagnoses such as "antisocial personality disorder". The far from useful description "psychopath" conjures up an ideal image of a person you would be desperate to help.

Psychopathy is not a mental illness, it is not a diagnosis. Psychopathy is a set of personality traits, including lack of remorse, callousness, indifference. Psychopathy is not a mental illness that falls under the so-called insanity defense. In cases of psychopathy, people use others in their lives to get what they want. Other people are pawns.

Another component of psychopathy that makes it so desirable and so inadequate is its ability to bring together entire groups of very different people doing very different things into one damn population. A Wall Street banker who fires employees without thinking about their families, an ex-partner who made your life miserable, and the architects of genocide may have something in common. As absurd as it may seem, it allows us to maintain the validity of our own choices without taking into account the complex perspectives of those we demonize. Confronting them as real people, with real problems, gives us a frightening feeling that we might be capable of the same thing.

The Holocaust, arguably the most horrific episode in human history, has defied psychologists for decades. How can so many thousands of supposedly sensitive, social animals do such cruelty to their fellow citizens? Political theorist Hannah Arendt offers insights that others have not justified. She sees the genocide as a chain of human events, from the cops rounding up the ghettos, to the train driver and signalman, all the way to the finale, when the man raises the hatch and lowers the Zyklon B canister. No one person performs any action that can be described as something more than ordinary, and yet together these actions create a tragedy. In an attempt to understand the thoughts of the death camp guards, Stanley Milgram performed famous experiments at Yale University, where he showed that ordinary volunteers would readily deliver a supposedly fatal electric shock to an invisible person, especially if they were told that they would not be held accountable. It's doubtful anyone here can be considered a psychopath. It seems more accurate that they made the all-too-human mistake of withholding judgment and conforming to cultural and societal norms.

If this is convincing for heinous crimes involving many, then what about those committed alone? The ruthless killer seems to act in the same way. For a number of reasons during development, they were forced to abandon compassion and dehumanize those around them. Once your victims are no longer human but faceless beings, no amount of suffering can sway you, and no action will be too terrible. Some subgroups of these people may indeed have neurological signs, but they deserve our compassion and our unrelenting desire to understand and heal, not our fear and disgust.

Therefore, psychopathy as a concept is quite dangerous. It tempts us into believing that people who do truly terrible things are doing it for motives we could never support. This puts us beyond the ability to do the same and reduces the control we have over our own actions. This prevents us from always remembering that there really is evil in the world, but the people who commit it are the same as you and me.

References:

Arendt, Hanna "Eichmann in Jerusalem: An Account of the Banality of Evil", Penguin.

Baron-Cohen, Simon "Zero Degrees of Empathy: A New Theory of Human Cruelty and Kindness", Penguin.

Article author: Gabriel Gavin (neuroscientist at University College London (UCL) working on neural networks).

#Being mentally ill is not a choice #being violent is a choice. #psychopathy #Reminds me of Tom calling Loki a psychopath #real psychopaths are terrible people #loki is not a psychopath #loki #loki series negativity

[astridbrandonauthor]

Autism and Offending

Disclaimer: this is my experience being an autistic person, and every autistic person experiences autism differently from another person.

So I want to explain my issues as an autistic person. As an autistic person, I am surrounded by people who are not neurodivergent, and who do not understand neurodivergence. Some say they do understand, but they do not understand the autistic experience, specifically when it boils down to the individual level. Today’s topic is on offending people by accident.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

One of the common and defining parts of the autism diagnosis is problems with anything social. Many of us cannot read social cues, many can make inappropriate conversation, many don’t understand when something is actually offensive, some can’t keep friends or make them very well. The list goes on and on. 

A problem I’ve come across rather often this year is offending people by accident. I don’t know it’s offensive, until the offended party flips out on me. I have to remind them I’m autistic. And it’s not even obviously offensive language, like using slurs or pertaining to especially heinous crimes that I would rather not mention. Just something that isn’t the worst thing in the world to joke or ask, but can be rather rude anyway.

Every single time it happens, I have to remind them I’m autistic. At that point, they either attempt to help me, or they automatically assume I’m using it to excuse my behavior. I’m not excusing myself, I just want to be understood. Never assume when I mention I’m autistic that I’m trying to use it as an excuse. I mention it for understanding.

This has caused problems between me and many people in the past. Earlier this year, I made an offensive joke about a shinto kami (One that I follow). In my head, it did not seem offensive. (I’d retell the joke, but I am terrified to). In fact, it seemed like a reasonable joke. I don’t see why deities and kami wouldn’t keep up with new words and slang, and use it amongst themselves, whether ironically or not. Many people jumped at me for it, and when I explained why I said it, I was told if it sounds offensive, then don’t say it. The problem is: it did not sound that way to me. Again to me, it sounded reasonable and fun. I see deities and kami in a different light than others. So to me, this deity seemed the type to love a good joke. However, many proved me wrong that night.

When I woke up the next morning and read up, one of the members was talking shit about me. They said that I was using my autism as an excuse, and I was just trying to make the admin of the group feel bad for me. I was being manipulative. I was in the wrong, and I’m the asshole for “using it as an excuse”. Although I said I was gonna go away for awhile, I ended up leaving the group because I hated how they talked shit about me after I went offline.

Another thing I’ve recently come across is offending due to wording. I offended a couple of people because I worded something wrong. (I couldn’t possibly explain it now; I’ve essentially forgotten what had been said). I struggle to word things properly rather often, and it took awhile for everyone to calm down after that. It was just a question, and apparently the wrong one to ask.

Again, I was told that I need to think about whether or not it would sound offensive if I was asked that question. In my head, I had all of the context, I knew exactly what I was talking about, but when I went to type it out... well, I screwed up.

Neurotypical folk do not understand that when they ask a neurodivergent person to think these things through, we are thinking it through and it still doesn’t bother us. It all makes sense in our heads, and when we try to translate it... things can get messy. Essentially, our universal translators are broken and it is difficult to fix it. Especially if you have gone most of your life with it broken, oh say 21 years? Yeah. I’m behind on learning social stuff. I just got my official diagnosis in January—after almost 21 years.

Problem? I’m an adult now. Most autistic programs out there are geared towards children til about the age of 18. There are very little programs for adults. 

Autistic children become autistic adults.

Even with those diagnosed as a child, they still need help as adults. Yet the stereotype of autistic people only being autistic as children is extremely hurtful. (That and other stereotypes, but that’s another discussion). Autism never leaves you—you just learn to cope and when necessary, continue therapy. It’s kind of hard, however, to continue therapy if there is no therapy available for your age group. And this is frustrating.

Do neurotypicals understand how frustrating it is for me to not have the resources to try and communicate with them? Comedian Hannah Gadsby made an excellent analogy on what it’s like to be on the spectrum:

"To give you an idea of what it feels like to be on the spectrum, basically, it feels like being the only sober person in a room full of drunks. Or the other way around. Basically, everyone is operating on a wavelength you can’t quite key into.”

This is how it feels to communicate with neurotypicals. I feel like I’m drunk, and everyone else is sober. Somedays, I wish I was legit drunk because have y’all seen what’s going on out there? And this is why I don’t realize something I’m saying can be misconstrued as offensive or otherwise. This is why I get frustrated when people tell me to think about what I say and wonder if I would be offended if I was asked the same thing. I am thinking, and it does not sound like something I would be offended by. Perhaps I’m just far more laid back than a lot of people. I don’t know, and perhaps I may never know.

But just know, we are trying our best! And we are immensely sorry when we offend. 

#actually autistic #actuallyneurodivergent #autistic community #autistic author #autistic adult #autistic problems #being autistic #autistic #autism acceptance #autism #neurodiversesquad #neurodivergent #autism spectrum

[sp1rit-realm]

me when people dont specify if they want a happy ending or not...

#mwuahaha #angst #hurt/no comfort #hannah's hellish #hannah's heinous ideas

[the-resurrection-3d]

so heathers eps 2-3

it's a few days late but I just woke up from a dream about my TomTord Roommate and I don't want to be actually productive. I had to go back and copy-paste this from Word because Tumblr’s new text post editor has a woefully small character limit. Gotta love how Wordpress of all fucking places is going out of their way to make their new pet project hostile to writers. 

Anyway.

Good things:

the pacing feels like an actual show now

it took them three whole episodes but they finally managed to make JD/Veronica interesting and actually dark. Think the ending of Gone Girl if both characters viewed it as a happy ending.

I love Heather Duke's peacock motif. It's very fitting with her personality and is incorporated tastefully.

Changing “Teenage Suicide (Don’t Do It)” by Big Fun into a musical produced in-universe is a fun idea... I think? It gives me a lot of similar vibes to Riverdale having to justify performing Heathers the Musical in-universe , though that only lasted an episode, whereas this looks like it’s going to be an overarching plot. I honestly think they should just pull a Riverdale and have a full-on musical episode -- at least that would give musical fans something to enjoy. I guess this isn’t a good thing so much as a thing that didn’t annoy me. It’s not conceptually poisoned like a lot of other things here. 

Anything else? No...? Well then, moving on. 

Several new problems have emerged:

Veronica's bug motif is absolutely heinous and I don't have any clue what it's supposed to represent, especially when they keep changing what exact bug she's wearing.

Also you don’t have to vomit blue all over every Veronica scene. It’s very weird because they don’t usually throw red or green or yellow lighting all over everyone’s else scenes. Sure, it’ll feature prominently, such as the shot of Heather M sitting on her bed surrounded by yellow stuffed animals, but that’s at least a characterization detail. I’m talking solely about lightning choices here.

Removing the death of Heather Chandler has destroyed any sense of direction the show could have had. I asked TTR what the characters wanted and what goals they were working towards and she just said, "I have no idea." They had Heather Chandler blackmailing JDonica and Heather M. getting gaslit and victim-blamed by everyone around her, but both of these things were done by the end of the episode.

This is a problem a lot of teen dramas have, but I think it’s worth noting that the pop music choices rang from “okay” to “.... but why though.” Like in the scene where Heather C. reveals she’s still alive, it plays “Halo” by Beyoncé, get it, because they thought she was dead! Except it doesn’t fit the tone of the scene nor Heather C’s intentionality, and there’s nothing funny about the contrast, either. What? 

 Heathers looked at the controversy around 13 Reasons Why's suicide scene and said "bet." Except it's not even done well because the entire point of 13RW s1 was getting to know Hannah and understand why she kermited. We always know she's killed herself, sure, but the series utilizes the tapes and frequent flashbacks to characterize Hannah, especially by the time we actually see the suicide. This episode just dumps trauma on Heather M. and has her kill herself at the end. Of episode 2.

After the funeral scene, the rest of ep3 is just pointless generic teen drama, only half of which was made interesting by that Gone Girl twist at the end (where JD kills Ram because Veronica is going out with him and Veronica finds this thrilling and romantic).

The other plot, about Heathers D and C fighting for power, culminates in Heather C forcing D to break-up with Kurt and then bouncing D off the stage during play auditions. Problem one: this is all drama I could get in any teen show. Problem two: you could have easily set up Duke/Kurt in episode one by having a scene where Kurt asks why Duke just she let Chandler humiliate him in front of everyone, allowing us to see that Duke's subservience to Chandler has actual personal costs to her (since the eating disorder angle is out). Problem three: having Duke constantly just back down whenever Chandler challenges her is boring and lame. Why not have a sing-off between the two Heathers? Why not have Heather D. gain the self-confidence her movie self did after C's "death" and then not be fully willing to play nice anymore, especially after Chandler forced Duke to publicly break up with and denounce Kurt for no real reason?

But we can't have the sing-off, because it's getting pretty clear that this show has the same problem RWBY does, where the writers/directors care more about the characters they made than the actual main characters. Characters like the teachers, Betty Finn, and whoever tf this new black girl is get to be major players because their personalities were not as previously well-defined as JD's, Veronica's, or any of the Heathers'. This is also pretty apparent in how Kurt and Ram have both been rewritten to not be douchebros at all (racism aside, because remember, the show doesn't think racism is that bad), despite the episode's title, “Date Rape and AIDS Jokes,” referencing their movie characterization. The show is so obviously uninterested in its supposed main characters that JD and Veronica have only had two real romantic moments together in over two hours of content. Heather M. has gotten the most development... only because the show realized it hadn't given any reason for anyone to care about her before she killed herself off.

JD’s dialogue is fucking horrendous. Imagine if every single word out of Jughead’s mouth was the “I’m a weirdo” speech but five times as long. And you know what, in defense of Jughead, at least Lean Jesus has things going on in his life outside of plowing Betty and wallowing in his own melodrama. He has hobbies, goals, and complicated relationships with other characters. The only things JD has are Veronica and bitching at his dad/his dad’s new girlfriend about how love is a wound and all this other nihilistic shit he got off r/im14andthisisdeep. I’m honestly surprised he didn’t counter Veronica talking about how she wanted to be normal with “Normal is just a setting on the washing machine.” Another missed characterization moment: JD bringing a sword from his katana collection (that’s only seen once in episode three) to school and threatening Kurt and Ram with that instead of the gun. I think that would have been fun.

The show also hates black women. And Native Americans. In such a way that it actively contradicts itself (the pilot established that Heather C. actually isn't just a keyboard warrior and goes to irl protests, so why would Heather C. not say a word about Westerburg's school statue being a Confederate soldier holding an Indigenous person's decapitated head?)

[imagine-organization-xiii]

Organization XIII As Disney Villains

Suggested by: Sapphire on Discord! <3

Comment with your favorite Disney villain!

Xemnas - Claude Frollo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame - a ruthless Parisian justice minister who becomes the begrudged caretaker of Quasimodo.  A religious zealot with intolerance to sinners.  Believes Romani people are the most heinous of all malefactors.

Xigbar - Hades from Hercules - the fast-talking god of the underworld with a fiery temper and a vendetta against his eldest brother, Zeus.  Hatches a scheme to take over Mount Olympus and the cosmos, but a prophecy by the Fates foretells a hero that will rise against him.

Xaldin - Governor Ratcliffe from Pocahontas - the power-hungry, xenophobic leader of the expedition to the New World.  Incredibly manipulative and has an insatiable craving for gold.  Believes he’s a good person and refuses to find fault in himself.

Vexen - Professor Padraic Ratigan from The Great Mouse Detective - a suave, criminal rodent who is the archenemy of Basil of Baker Street.  Obsessed with his status as a mouse, but is revealed to have a violent and savage mind when revealed to be a rat.

Lexaeus - Chernabog from Fantasia - based on the God of the Night in Slavic mythology. Emerges from the peak of Bald Mountain on Walpurgis Night.  Praised as Disney’s best representation of pure evil, with no discernible goal other than caused havoc.

Zexion - Dr. Facilier from Princess and the Frog - an evil, smooth-talking witch doctor who plots to rule New Orleans with help from his ‘friends on the other side.’ Quickly became one of Disney’s most popular villains.

Saix - Scar from The Lion King - younger brother of Mufasa and the second born prince of the Pride Lands, Scar was next in line to assume the position of king, but his chances were lost at the arrival of his nephew, Simba.  Began a regicidal plot to take over the kingdom with the aid of his hyena henchman.

Axel - Gaston from Beauty and the Beast - an arrogant and chauvinistic hunter who was greedily determined to have Belle’s hand in marriage, even by force if necessary.  His obsession turned him into a ruthless villain, especially upon discovering Belle’s love for the Beast.

Demyx - Sid Phillips from Toy Story - a young, bratty, and disturbed 11-year old punk whose idea of fun is terrorizing his little sister, Hannah, by taking her toys away and using them for experiments. Not exactly a true villain since he didn’t really know the toys were alive when breaking them, but he is definitely considered antagonistic.

Luxord - Captain Hook from Peter Pan - the villainous and bloodthirsty captain of the Jolly Roger.  Long since abandoned sailing the high seas in favor of enacting revenge on Peter Pan for feeding his left hand to a crocodile.

Marluxia - Cruella de Vil from 101 Dalmations - a wealthy, fashion-obsessed heiress who wishes to use the skins of 99 Dalmatian puppies to create a fur coat. Acts purely on impulse and is prone to reckless behavior.

Larxene - Madame Medusa from The Rescuers - proprietor of a seedy pawn shop in New York City.  Loosely based on Diamond Duchess, an elderly woman who served as the villain in the novel Miss Bianca.

Roxas - Lots-o-Huggin Bear from Toy Story 3 - a large, pink, strawberry-scented teddy bear who used to rule Sunnyside Daycare like a prison.

Xion - Cat Yzma from The Emperor’s New Groove - an evil sorceress and the former advisor to Emperor Kuzco.  Became obsessed with killing Kuzco when she was fired from the position of advisor.

#image headcanon #kingdom hearts #kingdom hearts headcanons #organization xiii #organization xiii headcanons

[kagetsukai]

Drops of Satina: Day 3 - Conflicting

Raphael Trevelyan belongs to @out-of-the-embers

Words: 1204 || Read on AO3

Knight-Captain Rylen turned out to be an invaluable source of information.

“The morning drills start at half an hour after the sixth bell - everybody runs a lap around the lake as a warm up. We’re usually back by the time breakfast is ready and we resume afterwards with weapons training until the midday meal. Afternoons are spent in more specialized training or any additional drills that need to be refreshed with new recruits,” he explained, then paused. “Are you sure you’re up for it? You still seem a little malnourished.”

Raphael frowned.

“I’ll be fine,” he said. “I may not be up for a full day of training, but starting with a morning run would do me a world of good.”

“Does the Herald know about this plan of yours?” Rylen asked with a smirk.

Raphael rolled his eyes. “Lily can’t keep me confined forever. I’m not made of glass, I’ll be fine.”

Rylen chuckled. “If you say so! But if she comes after me for this, I’ll send her straight to you.”

“Please do. I’m not exactly afraid of her,” Raphael said with a smirk.

He was going to carry on questioning Rylen, when out of the corner of his eye he noticed movement around the trebuchets. On a closer inspection, he recognized Hannah and Commander Cullen, walking around the equipment and animatedly discussing something, and his mood soured at once.

It pissed him off that even after the unfair berating Hannah had given him at the tavern, he still couldn’t stop thinking about her. In his head he would replay their conversation and come up with new and increasingly more scathing replies to her comments, secretly hoping he would have a future opportunity to use them. Her assumptions had cut him to the core and he wanted her to know how wrong she was. Then he would have a peace of mind and he’d be able to forget her completely.

“Should I leave you to stare after the pretty girl?” Rylen asked with a knowing grin.

Caught doing exactly that, Raphael felt his face warm with embarrassment.

“I’m not staring. I’m just curious what’s happening over there,” he said and tried for a nonchalant shrug.

Rylen raised an eyebrow, clearly not buying the misdirection.

“Well, our dear Hannah is helping Commander Cullen calibrate the trebuchets,” he explained. “It usually ends with them shouting at each other because Cullen likes to do things by the book, while Hannah likes to use some engineering tricks she knows to speed up the process. Nobody likes to be in their immediate vicinity when it all goes down, but it sure makes for a good show.”

Raphael frowned. “Why would she be dealing with military equipment? Isn’t her job to design bridges and watch towers?”

“Because she’s really smart?” Rylen replied, as if that was obvious. “She’s talented with the numbers and knows the kinds of maths I only vaguely heard about. Cullen tries his best not to admit that having her around has cut a lot of his paperwork in half, but she’s been invaluable. Yes, she does design bridges and watch towers, but she’s so much more than that.”

This explanation was a lot more complimentary than Raphael had expected, so he continued glaring in Hannah’s general direction, willing her to do something heinous that would expose the rest of the world to her vile disposition.

“You have something against Hannah?” Rylen asked.

Raphael forced himself to look back at Rylen, though his scowl refused to go away. “She’s a prideful woman filled with prejudices. I can’t say I enjoy her presence,” he said, his tone sour.

Rylen’s eyebrows vanished into his helmet in surprise, closely followed by an outburst of mirth.

“Well, that’s interesting. Let me guess: you said something unsavory towards the lass and she gave you such a thorough what-for that your ancestors felt it,” he said with a wide grin. “What was it? Did you try flirting with her? Or did you discount her work? That tends to get her going pretty quickly.”

The fact that Rylen had such a ready-made comment blew wind out of Raphael’s puffed up sails, his bubbling anger simmering down to a mere annoyance under his skin. He frowned.

“Wait, that happens often?”

A long-suffering sigh escaped Rylen’s mouth as he nodded.

“A lot more than you think,” he said. “You have a young, pretty woman who is sharp as a whip, who works in a field that is still very much dominated by men. I’ve heard plenty of stories of what she had to put up with in the months since she joined the Inquisition. I shudder to think what she dealt with before.”

Raphael crossed his arms and continued glaring. “Maybe if she tried being nicer she wouldn’t have to deal with bullshit,” he quipped, willing himself to stay angry.

“Lad, let me put it to you plain,” Rylen said, his voice going hard. “The first Orlesian noble to show up to ask for help with his roads saw Hannah and decided she’d be perfect as his concubine. He actually tried to buy her from the Inquisition! Then there was some burly asshole from the Bannorn who straight up propositioned her, and when she rebuked him, he threatened to take her by force so he could, and I quote, break her spirit. And I’m sure there are others who made comments that I don’t know about. Frankly, I’m shocked she interacts with any men to begin with; I’d castrate them all on sight.”

No amount of previous hurt or anger could have prepared Raphael for this information. He stared at Rylen for what felt like an eternity, completely gobsmacked, before his mouth regained its function again.

“That’s awful,” he whispered. “I had no idea.”

Rylen shrugged again, though his countenance seemed to soften a little.

“Most people don’t,” he continued. “If she complains, it’s usually to Krem or myself. Flissa from the tavern also gets to hear some of the stories by the fact she provides the alcohol. We try to protect Hannah from the assholes who would mean her harm, but sometimes the only defense she has is that sharp tongue of hers. So if that bothers you so much, don’t tease or taunt her and your pride will remain intact.”

Her heated words rang through Raphael’s head once again, but this time he remembered the tired timbre of her voice and the almost-empty cup of mead that sat on the bar counter next to her. If she had started drinking just past midday, it meant that she had had a terrible day already and his carelessly phrased questions only added fuel to the fire. It still didn’t excuse her biting words, but he now had a better understanding of what had happened that day.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he told Rylen. “It’s not like I plan on being in her path anytime soon.”

Rylen snorted in reply. “It’s a small village, lad. You’ll have to try really hard.”

As Raphael once again glanced towards Hannah, their eyes briefly met and she looked away with a sharp turn of her head, making him feel like the biggest asshole in the world.

#fanfiction #dragon age #da:i #Hannah of Highever #Raphael Trevelyan #Rylen #drops of satina #may-hem #grumpy Raphael

[nzenuniverse-blog]

Tonight We Drink to New Life

On Sunday, January 6, 2019, esteemed actor Regina King echoed the sentiment of her character, Sharon Rivers, when she issued an oral call to arms to her fellow movie and television makers to produce media with half the sky, and drink to a new life, which includes women in active roles both behind and in front of the camera. What a last day of Christmas, always and forever day of the epiphany gift that would be to the world if that truly happens. Watching the trailer for “If Beale Street Could Talk” the film, which has so far garnered award nods from the New York Film Critics Circle, the National Board of Review and the Golden Globes, for Regina King in her role as the mother of Tish Rivers. The story follows the plot of the wrongfully incarcerated Alonzo “Fonny” Hunt, portrayed by actor Stephan James, an innocent who has been effectively framed by a white police officer for the rape of a Puerto Rican woman in the neighborhood of Harlem, while at the same time Hunt receives news that his childhood friend and soon-to-be-wife, the 19-year-old Tish Rivers, portrayed by actor KiKi Layne, is pregnant. To quote from the Atlantic article, writer Hannah Giorgis surmises, “If Beale Street Could Talk chronicles their gentle romance, as well as the strained fortitude of the Harlem families who support the two and help Tish prepare for the baby who arrives while Fonny is in carceral limbo.”

Watching a mini behind the scenes doc featuring members of the film's cast and crew recently published exclusively to the Huffington Post, can give one chills as it powerfully describes some of the significance relative to this adaptation of Baldwin's work with particular regard to the power of the love not just between the protagonists, but also the love of the black families of Harlem coming together in the face of this heinous crime to live by example the maxim “it takes a village” For instance director Barry Jenkins describes the power of intellectualizing current political circumstances through the characters narratives.

For further information, see the aforementioned Atlantic article that chronicles the movie's Apollo Theatre premiere which details how the Baldwin family was reluctant at first to the adaptation of the novel but came around when they understood the cultural vision for the film's narrative. And their reluctance is understandable, because a novel, much like a poem, has infinite dexterity for readers' imagination to grow with, but once the imagery travels through the tunnel of adaptation to film, though films can be recast and revised in certain skilled hands, the images have immortally become initially impressed on the public imagination thus altering forever the author's literary vision.

In dark and scary times such as these Baldwin's words which declare “Neither Love Nor Terror Make One Blind: Indifference Makes One Blind” echo a glimmer of the cultural significance of Regina King's call to action last Sunday. It has been 34 years since the collective consciousness birth of the Bechdel Test via comic artist Alison Bechdel who in 1985 published “Dykes to Watch Out For” in The Rule. Are men so indifferent to the insult of their inaction that communicates to women their stories are irrelevant? Why has it taken so many generations for the #metoo movement to galvanize political will for real change in action?

Film has historically been an elitist model masquerading as a popular artform. It very much mirrors the oligarchy masquerading as our democracy in action in this manner. As the top down traditional studio model continues to disintegrate, as movies continue to erode from their once singular dominance as the cultural face shaping mainstream public consciousness, it is an important contemporaneous moment to speak to why Madame King's platform invocation at the Golden Globes is so culturally significant.

If one is to research the Bechdel test at any length, the patriarchal biases for why the systemic problem persists are well documented . Finances, and the mistaken perception that female leads and narratives fail to drive sales are prolific examples. In the top 100 grossing films of 2012, women accounted for 4.1 percent of directors, 12.2 percent of writers and 20 percent of producers, according to a 2013 study by Stacy Smith, an associate professor at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California. Of 4,475 speaking roles in those films, 28.4 percent were women. Smith says when more women were involved in the production of a film, it was more likely to have female cast members. In short, when one gender dominates the creative process for a picture, that comes out on the screen.

When one thinks about these examples combined with the preface of the disintegrating studio system, one can consider the argument that as the independent studio system emerges as the viable option for television and film as an industry, then these questions of a laissez-faire resolution to the Bechdel test issue will be met in a classical sense, as in supply meeting demand. To state this idea in another manner, in a similar way to how financiers predicted a complete crash in the disintegration of the hard copy book model of industry at the emergence of the online retail market; though diminished, people who love books will always really love books and those people want the tactile feel that an electronic copy can never deliver. Extend this to the concept of cinema as a community, though DVDs are dead as a doornail, people who really love cinema will always really love cinema and those people will go out to see the film in its theatrical release because they understand the larger scope of everything involved in the nexus of art and commerce involved in the production of a quality film like “If Beale Street Could Talk” A specific example herein could be the film “Springbreakers' put out by the studio A24 based in NYC. It is likely that this studio chose to produce this film aware of the intent to reach an audience which already had an awareness of the Bechdel test and would be the type of crowd that would like to entertain a conversation about a film that addresses the complexity of patriarchy and matriarchy because they follow the work of a director like Harmony Korine, an actor like James Franco, and/or a hottie artist like Selena Gomez, and thus much like an artist who puts work up in a new gallery exhibition and trusts that the right people will show up and that's it, there is an argument that in a similar way that studios who are conscious of the niche audiences they are creating artwork through film for will take a local economy laissez-faire approach to their individual solution to more female representation, both in front of and behind the camera.

[panglossesanddiadorims]

Would technical discussion-or even discussion- be doomed in the corporate world?

“Whenever a theory appears to you as the only possible one, take this as a sign that you have neither understood the theory nor the problem which it was intended to solve.”  Karl R. Popper

In the overwhelmingly riveting movie by Sidney Lumet,TWELVE ANGRY MEN, based upon the play by Reginald Rose, twelve jurors are secluded in a room in which the whole movie is developed, to decide upon the sentence of a young man tried for the murder of his father. Since the prosecution went for the death penalty, the decision must be unanimous. Once assembled, they start voting, but one of the jurors votes not guilty, ensuing an immediate and outrageous upheaval. After all, under no circumstances, after all the evidence and testimony, could that boy be innocent and ,therefore, no further time should be squandered by grappling with suppositions and useless debates. After identifying himself, the juror simply says he doesn't really know whether the defendant is not guilty/ he just believes that they all should discuss the case more profoundly.

Well, now imagine corporate meetings, where important decisions are also taken and opinions are considered. Or not.

Well, let me rephrase that. Indeed they are, but more and more I have noticed that all discussion has been so streamlined to schedules and goals that the soil for new ideas has become barren. Our vocabulary has been so confined to words such as action item, KPI, burndown, champion, touchbase, Raise a flag, escalate, team work, planning, risks, pro-active etc that any word out of this spectrum is seen as either a menace or an attempt to divert from the point. It is a 1984 corporate language that must be followed and obeyed.

I remember once I said that a project I was responsible for would exit a phase, being promptly corrected by a project manager (I prefer, as a mechanical engineer, not to call them engineers. I am not trying to belittle their work, necessary at any corporation, it is just my humble opinion ) telling me that the word EXIT was inappropriate, I should apply the word MOVE FORWARD. When I asked him why after all I believe we can always learn something new, he said EXIT was not longer a used word, it was decided that way and it was not up for us to question it. Well, first the word EXIT still existed, after all. I collected enough evidence and data from various dictionaries to validate my stance. In addition, I believe questioning something would have prevented mankind from committing heinous crimes, obeying inactively and blindly supporting sociopaths camouflaged as leaders. I believe this is exactly the idea Hannah Arendt tried to convey when writing The Banality of Evil.

Finally, there is no longer the need to bring up the results of engineering calculations or analyses - or even debate over their results - after all, Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations suffice to provide the necessary information upon which decisions and solutions will be taken. Just make sure they are presented in a High Level methodology.

However, my intention here is not to undermine anyone's work or or way of working. After all, well-defined planning and appropriate risk assessment are a must in any project. One may envision to foster an amazing project, but without adequate analysis, it is destined to fail.

All I want is to share an opinion per experiences to which I have been exposed. More and more it has become difficult to debate technical aspects when all that matters are the schedule-driven results.

More and more questioning and intellectual challenges are hampered and suppressed, since they are seen as obstacles to the project development. More and more corporate meetings are used to repeat a jargon and question not the idea but the colleagues attitudes and behavior. And because of that, many times people have preferred not to raise an issue and, sometimes, even raise the voice and be labeled as reactive individuals.

Then, what is the alternative? I do not really know. I just believe that perhaps, just perhaps, a balance in the force should be pursued. The truth is, we all need each other to accomplish a goal.

First, the young people who join the companies must understand that the greatest asset in a company is its experience and knowledge. In addition, professional courtesy and respect must never be done away with, especially with the ones who made possible for the company to exist.And a good career does not necessarily - or only- mean a management position in the company

Second, all debates should be fostered and opinions heard, reaching for a common objective we all can benefit from. Believe me, a technical decision, well-discussed and debated, does loom as a higher chance of success.

Finally, foster the critical and different opinions, balance the Cartesian and dialectical thought developments and allow different alternatives to be discussed. When only those who say exactly what the management wants to hear are favored, the whole development may be jeopardised in the long run. Even if a decision delays, it may be an advantage. Napolean Bonaparte would tell his aide while being dressed before battle, faites-le lentement parce-que je suis presse`, meaning do it well once, so i do not have to repeat it.

Many times in history wrong decisions were taken due to hubris, subservience, self-promotion and arrogance. For instance, Jules Caesar conquered the Gallia from being impetuous and having hubris. He was stabbed to death due to the same reasons. General Eisenhower heard all his commanders on June 5, 1944 before taking the right decision to initiate Operation Warlord. And the odds were high that it could have been a major disaster for the allies.

The decisions and priorities taken during the construction and during the maiden voyage of the Titanic revealed a level of arrogance, stupidity and hubris that ended up with the deaths of 1,500 people, none of which had been previously consulted.

When Nero became emperor, he was advised by men like Seneca and Petronius, who defied his attitudes and decisions, showing him that ,regardless of his divinity, he was bound to make human mistakes. Once he got rid of them and was surrounded by pathetic, half-wit and ambitious boot-licks, he sealed his fate. In fact, he never recognized it, since while by being helped by a slave to stab himself, he stated that the world was losing an artist...

Besides that, the Spanish Armada invasion of England, Czar Nicholas II ineptitude and lack of drive, and so many other events in history and also in corporations and governments show that one must always be open and respectful for different opinions and accomplishments.

Let us behave like General Fedina, character in Italo Calvino`s story The General in the Library, or Doctor Efimitch, in Tchecov`s Infirmary 6, or finally the lawyer Drummond in Inherit the Wind, who defends a teacher the right to teach Evolutionism, since he believes that the Bible is a good book, but not the only book. And that a unique line of thought has disastrous consequences to all, with no exceptions.

Once I saw an interview from a scientist who worked at NASA that if the US wanted to develop the Space Shuttle now, they would not be able to, for all was outsourced, knowledge was discarded and creative and contradictory line of thought was replaced by technocrat objectives.

In my opinion, both methods can and should co-exist, all we need is to become the jurors in the movie I started this article with and allow the topic to be discussed.

Entropy will always exist, since the Second Law of Thermodynamics is a majestic law. But the exergy analysis may bear less irreversibility , since our ability to think, create and reach common goals is also a beautiful thing.

[willbrady0]

Thinking and Moral Considerations

In a short essay titled Thinking and Moral Considerations, 20th century philosopher Hannah Arendt  unfurls the reasoning behind her belief that evil deeds committed on a large scale can not be blamed on any one participant for their own sinister agenda, but more so for their lack of thought. Arrendt’s theory can be summarized as follows, if you are not actively intending to be good, you are intending to be evil.

To fully grasp Arrendt’s idea I needed to consider the relationship her essay has with other philosophers and critics across history. Arrendt’s argument sounded very similar to civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr’s reasoning for why the white moderate is so detrimental to progress. The white moderate fails to think about the infringement of rights on others, so long as their rights remain untampered. Similarly, Arrendt’s Nazis fail to refrain from committing the heinous acts they are instructed to, because they do not contemplate either the reasoning or the consequences of their actions. Both groups may never have intended to be evil, however their lack of intention allowed themselves to become a cog in an evil machine. Intention, referred to as reason, is addressed similarly by Kant. Kant argues that if you fail to activate your own reason you will become guarded. Those categorized as guarded are used by a group labeled the guardians, who impose their reason on those who can’t or won't reason for themselves. Meaning if the guardians intend to be evil, the guarded will intend to be evil simply by failing to reason or consider their intention at all.

After I read Arendt's essay and explored its connection to other pieces of literature I began to wonder, can an evil act be performed with good intention? Does good intention pardon all acts, or does good intention only come with good outcomes? I believe that yes, an evil act can be performed with good intentions. As I thought about this question I remembered a moral question titled “The Trolley Problem.” The trolley problem is a scenario in which you are a trolley operator and the trolley is headed towards a group of five people on the tracks and if the trolley continues on its current trajectory they will all be killed. On a separate track there is one person, but you must pull a lever to actively put the trolley on the path to killing them. If you pull the lever you are actively choosing to kill someone, an intrinsically evil act, however at the exact same time you are saving 5 people’s lives. Whereas the act of saving lives is intrinsically good. The second question I found to be much more complex. I believe that good intention does not pardon all acts, and intention in the concept of good and evil is not independent from each action’s outcome. Though, It was the American’s intention to prevent a larger loss of life by dropping the two atomic bombs, in my eyes the act is not pardoned, in fact it was an evil act. This reading in my opinion was the most morally challenging as there are so many buts and what-ifs associated with intention and the ideas of good and evil. Though I may not ever have a clear answer to the questions I posed in this essay, their contemplation will help me lead my life with more good intention than I had in the past.

[elizabethrobertajones]

This week's big debate seems to be about Cas and humanity. I've read posts that are both excited and upset about how it seems like Cas is eventually going to choose to become human. I was wondering if you had any insight into whether that's a good thing or a bad thing for him, or if he should choose to stay an angel.

Heya! :) I am going to answer this to the best of my ability which is a liiittle bit loopy and over-tired today :P 

But yeah I have been scrolling my dash and I am not dead yet so I have seen this discussion going on :D I sort of feel like I haven’t got much to say about it in a way that I haven’t said/agreed with before (so it’s been redundant to weigh in), but like… riiiight back when I was a Fandom Newbie and getting to know the lay of the land and I just got absorbed right into the general fandom consensus at that time among the groups of meta writers I glommed onto… 

I mean, because I showed up after 9x18, and then though of course I was around for the following episodes I really started the whole circus of new episode reactions along with everyone, with season 10… between tearing apart the Cas stuff in 9x18 and then the Cas and Hannah stuff in 10x01-3 it just seemed really really obvious where Carver was going with it, and what it meant to Cas? And I mean okay this was 3 (4?) years ago but I also feel like with Cas’s development getting stalled over and over and over except in tangential ways, this was all put on ice like 3 times over before he even got possessed by Lucifer, so the MAJOR work on this was between the last minutes of 8x23 and 10x18 and even then that’s the STORYTELLING of it, and of course Cas himself puts the whole thing on ice as something he has the luxury to think about in 9x09. (Except for the one peanut butter and jelly conversation.)

So in 9x18 the MAJOR thing is that the lyrics “loneliness is a coat you wear” are laid over Cas taking off the coat to mend it (although that’s left out so it’s more like… he takes it off to gather his thoughts on what he’s going to do next, which is even more symbolic and useless in a practical way of why he does it). He then puts the coat back on to greet his army… And in a few episodes Metatron does the “draped yourself in the flag of Heaven” thing, which when 9x18 is all about the subtext and telling us to pay attention, I find a very very straight line to what that meant about him doing similar to 12x19 - using Heaven but not wanting Heaven, and never mind his motivation with Dean (and that being what changes his mind and makes him play Metatron’s game), the way it portrays Heaven as an obligation and a duty to help, but with a loneliness that comes from wearing that coat. He’s walking out into a parking lot full of angels but the lyrics are screaming that he’s without love, and lonely, and the end of the season confirms these choices were the reason. 

And in season 10 it gets more personal, and we have Hannah as a counter example. With Daniel in 10x01 who wants to stay on earth and gets what that’s all about we see Cas empathising, but at the end of the episode he goes way deeper than that, talking about human things that upset and startle Hannah. She literally drapes the flag of Heaven over him in 10x02 and smooths it down and accidentally reveals that the plaid of Winchesters is underneath the collar all along, and Cas is sleeping and acting more and more human while sick. She wants to give him his grace back to stop this and he resists… Out of penance and lack of self-worth and knowing he did a heinous thing to steal grace in the first place (again, for Dean, not just to be an angel again but because he needed to survive to warn him about Ezekiel). But symbolically she is trying to make him take the grace and be an angel. Be a leader, the angel the others will rally behind and follow. She represents how all of Heaven feels about him (and 12x19 and 12x15 cover similar ground in what Kelvin says about Cas). 

But also in 10x07 it goes deeper with how she feels about humanity - that the human things are forbidden, that love and enjoying sensual pleasures like showers are just *wrong* for angels to experience. She rejects human things entirely as stuff that’s not for her, and nopes out hard. And she is symbolic of angels in general, of Heaven’s desires and feelings in general when she asks him to be a leader. 

This is the sort of pressure - innocent of malice but FULL of lack of understanding - that is at odds with what Cas FEELS which is full empathy to wanting to be on earth… an actual understanding and feeling for these human things. He’s in his own body without a shared vessel as 10x09 goes on to confirm, which means he has none of the conflict Hannah does there, and 10x09 paints quite a picture of Cas as wildly unlike all the angels in this way, because it confirms for once and for all he’s alone in there and the Jimmy issue is resolved. 

To quickly skip ahead on this side of things, 12x10 shows the same thing but dialled up to a zillion. Instead of Hannah standing in for a clueless family that doesn’t understand and can’t empathise with the different feelings and sense of belonging Cas has, but is still mostly harmless if accidentally intolerant and stifling with their expectations and demands, we have Ishim, who stands in for the worst sort of family experience with intolerance. He’s also in love with a human and that’s the metaphor for violent, self-loathing homophobia I guess, as he kills Lily’s daughter to emotionally sever himself from her, to no avail, and tries to kill Cas for having the same “weakness”. Lashing out with hatred because of the internalised feelings of crossing a taboo line that their society has turned into a harsh rule. Supposedly good reasons are offered with the nephilim thing, but obviously Cas and Dean aren’t gonna have a baby any time soon, so the metaphor unfolds itself as queer through and through once Ishim turns on Dean.

And to walk aaaall the way back DOWN canon, I’m stalled in my rewatch in 4x10 at Anna pacing around talking about how she did the worst thing imaginable and cut out her grace and fell. 4x10 is the first episode to actually explore the nature of angels and lays down some ground rules, like that sex and disobedience are forbidden. 

ANNAOrders are orders. I’m sure I have a death sentence on my head.

PAMELAWhy?

ANNAI disobeyed… which, for us, is about the worst thing you can do. I fell.

DEANMeaning?

PAMELAShe fell to earth, became human.

(I have the transcript open and scrolled down to that part in a tab and have for months… CBA to go find her talking about sex later but I think we all know the stuff she says)

That “worst thing you can do” line feels to me like with retcons from 12x10, that the “sacred oath” may be any sort of angel to human dalliance or connection or desire to BE and to be FREE. The same thing Hannah nopes out of in 10x07 is what Anna had to tear out her grace to experience. Anna having to take her grace back to survive is tragic, especially as it puts her right in the vulnerable firing line of Naomi’s reprogramming. This metaphor is SO much worse with Anna than even Cas, as it’s so simple about her returning to her family as an angel again after making a break to be free and live as a human like she wants, then to be tortured back to the family line and pure obedience, to her eventual death as an unrecognisable killer, a la Cas in 8x17. But without the sympathetic inside view and long arc to explain it or the narrative having any interest in saving her >.> (Hi, I like Anna and am bitter about that whole thing 5eva :P) 

Cas in 9x09 also takes back a grace to survive (and this whole arc brings in the clear concept that has been on the backburner since Anna of grace and consciousness as 2 separate things, and grace to an angel being more of its power than its mind, though functionally they seem one and the same when nothing hinky is going on - something else important for human endgame as well as showing ways of removing grace without falling and turning into a human baby)… Again like Anna Cas has little choice when he takes the grace back. He was happy to die human until he learned Sam and Dean were in trouble, and made a horrific choice to help them by stealing grace. After that getting his real grace seemed like the only way to fix him dying of his actions, though he seemed happy to again, the story had other ideas :P (And Mittens wrote something on how Cas has “let himself die” in the way he didn’t in 10x18, where he has to pass through death for change and reaping the character benefits of transitions. (Flyingfish1′s heroine journey meta also comes to mind). Of course by not letting himself die, he’s trapped in the 10x18 > 12x19 holding pattern on his entire life and personal arcs except the ever-worsening depression and self-worth arcs that spring up in the meantime, and the belonging one.)

Anyway it’s all connected, these angels with their connections to humanity, either what they really really want and are denied by fate, or by fate end up experiencing, and really really don’t want. Or in Ishim’s case he really wanted and then because of being an example of a total tool representing institutional prejudices, decided murder was the best way out of his brush with feeling human things. And they all tell us things about Cas from different angles, with different angels (sorry. wordplay was right there.) The long and short of it is that Cas is supposed to be one of those marble statues with no doubts (in 4x10 - *buzzer noise* WRONG *points at 4x07 and “I have doubts”) or that human things are not for them (*points at Cas even bringing up the subject and confusing Hannah about why you’d want to learn them and horrified that Cas seemed to have picked up human cooties by admiring these qualities in the first place*) or indeed that angels in general are massively intolerant to humans and from start to finish it’s a death penalty offence to get tangled up with them or want to be/be one of them. (I know 12x10 is more applicable to the Destiel side of things but the general message about Heaven’s intolerance with “humanity” instead of queerness with all the other examples makes a lot of sense to me.)

Actually I’ve seen the argument a lot that this debate is metaphorical to the trans experience for Cas changing species, even more than the interspecies romance parallel to sexuality metaphors, and I think it is fairly simple to me that this is part of the general queer metaphor applied to Cas as something the angels are intolerant of. 12x10 threw in the Benjamin stuff too and made it a little angel gender studies thing (which Hannah also helped with in 10x17 by reprising her “totally in love with Cas” look in a male vessel and not giving a crap about the change). With Benjamin they said that the angel Cas was closest to there was the one who had a ….. friendship ….. with his vessel. So there’s a lot going on there between that and the “his vessel is a woman, benjamin is an angel” thing) :P 

I think, anyway, Anna wanting to be human and getting disowned on pain of death and having to become an angel again, and even then being hunted for daring to not be an angel once, is the closest parallel to what Cas faces. Especially for internalised ideas he had at the time and hadn’t got to unlearn until he was a human. 

And I think, additionally to that, he may not have even realised that being human even answered his feeling of not belonging or being different until AFTER it happened. Like, Metatron forced it on him too soon and then everything was non-stop awful and then suddenly he’s had to get grace again (and heading for that flag of heaven metaphor), and only then he gets to reflect on what it felt like, by way of being an angel again looking back on it. It was so brutal and short that he never got a chance to appreciate being human at the time in a way where it would explain to him what he lacks. 

By 10x18 he has the family dinner and he takes his coat off for it. Heaven has rejected him, he’s seemingly chosen the Winchesters again, and got his grace back, but he has to go back to the grind, and he doesn’t change his wardrobe, he keeps the coat which is basically performative angel-ness with Winchester plaid underneath. 

(Actually about the only time I can think of that angel-ness is used as the queer metaphor and not the other way around is in 9x06 when Cas is playing cis straight human to Nora and Dean shows up yelling about him being an angel at his workplace… I think that’s a very circumstantial metaphor which is more about delightfully queercoding the entire thing than a wider statement… After all, contained within a season where the main arc for Cas is leading a heaven army thing, and ending in “i just want to be an angel” in utter, tragic defeat on the emotional battlefield. Absolutely NOT a statement on what would make Cas feel HAPPY, just useful and numb, per 10x03 and what he says about human pain and how revealing those lines are side by side about what Cas is feeling and how angel is he REALLY, like, deep down in his too-big heart where it matters)

But yeah he just keeps on going after 10x18 and this all kinda drops away, so I think until season 12 basically nothing was really done to mess around with this concept again in a substantial, meaningful way aside from attack dog and similar arcs tangential to this and more about Cas’s state of mind in general (as the same conflict can be applied to Dean when human). It has become more about Cas belonging in the Winchesters as the main thing - 12x19 has Cas being way more upfront about using Kelvin to his face, that he’s only going along with it because his old connections to Heaven are useful, as well as shining a massive spotlight on Cas considering himself a guardian angel as a bad bad thing, which is actively damaging his beloved family relationships and especially upsetting Dean. He would rather protect them from afar, and I think long-term Cas ending up with the Winchesters but as an angel would always be somewhat prone to that sort of thought in an emergency that as a more powerful being he would have to protect them, and a sense of not belonging entirely as another species that can’t quiiite relate no matter how different he is and how much more kinship he feels with humanity even as an angel. I can’t see that as a happy ending, and since 12x19 it feels rather more like it would be not finishing a plotline that is not JUST about this relationship but using it to move the piece on the board about Cas’s human arc forward another step, as his endgame would be not just as human, but also with them, so tying the concepts together isn’t a bad idea, as long as it’s clear this is something in season 9 and 10 Cas came to as a desire without very much contact with them at all, and therefore very much for himself as an understanding of what he is and what he desires. 

And, again, I don’t think Cas has great resources for self-reflection on the subject - not just that Metatron had to turn him human briefly to even make him realise he could ever do it, but something like using the belonging with family arc to help speed it along gives him a clear reason and goal for why it works and would feel right for him and to give him the place to self-analyse with motivation. I really don’t like the idea of equating this entirely with Cas’s belonging with the Winchesters arc all on its own, though. It CAN’T just be about that he should be human to be with his human friends/family etc. But I do think that a lot of the work to explain why he identifies with humanity has ALREADY been done and is a solid, existing part of his character already. 

In a happy ending even if it all gets told tied up with the Winchesters, I would point to season 9 & 10 to argue that it was not JUST FOR them, but that they were the soft landing for him to make a decision. If he became human he wouldn’t be forcing himself to fit in with them, he would be doing it for himself. I mean, since season 4 he is equated with Anna, protesting loudly he’s nothing like her when even before we meet her he admits to one of the cardinal sins of doubt. He has ALWAYS had a slight leaning towards humanity and clearly described as UNANGELIC traits and feelings. So in this way he’s always FELT different and therefore as it gets expanded and expanded and ends up being a deeply complex metaphor and fascinating way to relate to Cas, it’s clear this is an inherent part of him from the start. The human feelings that Hannah violently nopes out of have been things Cas has tolerated, defined himself by, and felt all along. She’s used to show that Cas hasn’t ever been bothered in the same way, and just uses her leaving as an excuse to delve even deeper into human connections by worrying about Claire, and in the narrative, walking us right into proving he has his own body and no Jimmy, and another way Cas is both unique, and uniquely suited to a human endgame.

I think though that a lot of this is personal and subjective on the arguments going around, and I see this sooo deeply through the old meta I read back in season 9 & 10 which has shaped all my ongoing thoughts I do know I have developed probably my own biases on this. I think Cas would never be happy as an angel in a happy families endgame because the Guardian Angel Cas issue (which was his downfall in season 6, so not a new thing, just re-focused recently) would always play on his mind as it’s shown that he self-sabotages his relationships in order to protect them. I see it like season 4 Sam using his powers to exorcise because it’s an ethical way to get rid of demons quick in a fight without stabbing the innocent meatsuit. In season 5 even knowing aaall the trouble it caused him and that Ruby played off his desire to save people as a GOOD thing to do great evil, he was tempted by the demon blood and regrets/resents not being able to use powers to exorcise the kids. (Obviously before he learns they were all just human all along because that episode is so disturbing >.>)

Even if it went some pretty hinky places (as in the end of season 6 for Cas and the guardian angel mentality, with Crowley as his Ruby, as he uses “i still considered myself the Winchesters’ guardian” as a justification) Sam’s motives were for good originally and he missed the idea of sacrificing his own morality to save people for an objective better good. Cas seeing his powers as making him more powerful, therefore more expendable, less included, and with a personal sense of duty to watch over and protect them, HAVING the powers would only ever be living in temptation to do a 12x19 again. Sam only recovers properly without the powers to tempt him and I feel he’s in a very different place as a person by now… Cas with a human endgame might not get room to grow out of it on screen but by his grace being removed (hopefully and tbh by necessity willingly), he’d have the potential and promise that he would be able to recover in the same way from this toxic mentality. And I consider 12x19 very much doing for Cas and the guardian angel thing what Carver era and 8x01 especially did for the codependency. Just put it all on the table and told us, this is hurting them more than it’s doing good in the world. Let’s look at how it hurts them and why. Let’s aim to fix it and let them move past it.

And even if Cas can start to recover from some broad strokes, like feeling more included, feeling like less of a tool/personal attack dog, he will only have a long term chance at happiness if the temptation is removed at the source, and he will need to UNDERSTAND that too and to vocalise some things about his reasons for watching over them like this LONG before he chooses humanity. And these are very much my personal subjective feelings on why it feels BAD to me that Cas would stay an angel, as it’s right off on another end of the spectrum of why people are arguing they feel bad if he would become human. To me the personal identity stuff right down to complex sexuality and gender metaphors are MAIN TEXT in Cas’s arc due to him being an inherently queer character. The “it feel bad” reaction to me right now is that I feel sad for Cas being an angel around the Winchesters forever because he will always be their guardian angel and that’s BAD for what he WANTS which is just to be a part of the family with no complicated strings attached like his obligation to protect them. So to me I see humanity as the obvious answer to that. But that’s a personal reading of what I hope would happen and why. So my explanation of what I see in the text is one thing and this part is another, if that makes sense?

… I hope any of this makes sense. I apologise for typing so long… I know I said I’ve said it all before but I mean I assume you’re not tag-diving on my blog if you’re just asking me and tbh I wouldn’t know what tag to dive either and they’re *my* tags so I’m not judging ;)

#Asks #Caaas #human!Cas #long post for ts #Cas analysis

[yainterrobang]

List of the Week: Bisexual YA Books

As a bisexual teen, I can’t count that many times I’ve seen myself and my sexuality reflected respectfully in a YA book. Luckily, that number is slowly but surely growing, and there are more and more books published every year with bisexual protagonists. Still, a lot of them aren’t discussed and promoted as much as they deserve to be, so when Nicole asked me to write a blog post about it for YA Interrobang, I jumped at the chance.

I haven’t read all of these books yet, but am definitely planning to and have heard fantastic things about all of them. I’m including both released and unreleased books, so you have books to buy or check out from the library now as well as books to preorder and/or become excited for.

Adaptation by Malinda Lo Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers Release Date: September 18 2012 Reese and her debate team partner and longtime crush David are in Arizona when it happens. Everyone knows the world will never be the same. On their drive home to San Francisco, along a stretch of empty highway at night in the middle of Nevada, a bird flies into their headlights. The car flips over. When they wake up in a military hospital, the doctor won’t tell them what happened, where they are—or how they’ve been miraculously healed.

Far From You by Tess Sharpe Publisher: Disney-Hyperion Release Date: April 8 2014 Sophie and her best friend Mina are confronted by a masked man in the woods. Sophie survives, but Mina is not so lucky. When the cops deem Mina's murder a drug deal gone wrong, casting partial blame on Sophie, no one will believe the truth: Sophie has been clean for months, and it was Mina who led her into the woods that night for a meeting shrouded in mystery.

Otherbound by Corinne Duyvis Publisher: Amulet Books Release Date: June 17 2014 Amara is never alone. Not when she's protecting the cursed princess she unwillingly serves. Not when they're fleeing across dunes and islands and seas to stay alive. Not when she's punished, ordered around, or neglected. She can't be alone, because a boy from another world experiences all that alongside her, looking through her eyes. Amara has no idea . . . until he learns to control her, and they communicate for the first time. Amara is terrified. Then, she's furious.

Not Otherwise Specified by Hannah Moskowitz Publisher: Simon Pulse Release Date: March 3 2015 Etta is tired of dealing with all of the labels and categories that seem so important to everyone else in her small Nebraska hometown. Etta doesn’t fit anywhere— until she meets Bianca, the straight, white, Christian, and seriously sick girl in Etta’s therapy group. Both girls are auditioning for Brentwood, a prestigious New York theater academy that is so not Nebraska. Bianca seems like Etta’s salvation, but how can Etta be saved by a girl who needs saving herself?

The Impostor Queen by Sarah Fine Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books Release Date: January 5th 2016 Elli was only a child when the Elders of Kupari chose her to succeed the Valtia, the queen who wields infinitely powerful ice and fire magic in service of her people. The only life Elli has known has been in the temple, preparing for the day when the queen perishes—and the ice and fire find a new home in Elli, who is prophesied to be the most powerful Valtia to ever rule. But when the queen dies defending the kingdom from invading warriors, the magic doesn’t enter Elli. It’s nowhere to be found.

Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Córdova Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire Release Date: September 6 2016 Alex is a bruja, the most powerful witch in a generation…and she hates magic. At her Deathday celebration, Alex performs a spell to rid herself of her power. But it backfires. Her whole family vanishes into thin air, leaving her alone with Nova, a brujo boy she can’t trust. The only way to get her family back is to travel with Nova to Los Lagos, a land in-between, as dark as Limbo and as strange as Wonderland…

Not Your Sidekick by C. B. Lee Publisher: Duet Books Release Date: September 8 2016 Welcome to Andover… where superpowers are common, but internships are complicated. Just ask high school nobody, Jessica Tran. Despite her heroic lineage, Jess is resigned to a life without superpowers and is merely looking to beef-up her college applications when she stumbles upon the perfect (paid!) internship—only it turns out to be for the town’s most heinous supervillain.

A Darkly Beating Heart by Lindsay Smith Publisher: Roaring Brook Press Release Date: October 25 2016 After a failed suicide attempt, Reiko’s parents send her from their Seattle home to spend the summer with family in Japan to learn to control her emotions. But while visiting Kuramagi, Reiko finds herself slipping back in time into the life of Miyu, a young woman even more bent on revenge than Reiko herself. Reiko loves being Miyu, until she discovers the secret of Kuramagi village, and must face down Miyu’s demons as well as her own.

Our Own Private Universe by Robin Talley Publisher: Harlequin teen Release Date: January 31 2017 Fifteen-year-old Aki Simon has a theory. And it's mostly about sex. So when Aki and Lori set off on a church youth-group trip to a small Mexican town for the summer and Aki meets Christa — slightly older, far more experienced — it seems it's going to be a summer of testing theories, and the result may just be love.

Queens of Geek by Jen Wilde Publisher: Swoon Reads Release Date: March 14 2017 When BFFs Charlie, Taylor and Jamie go to SupaCon, they know it’s going to be a blast. What they don’t expect is for it to change their lives forever. While Charlie dodges questions about her personal life, Taylor starts asking questions about her own.

Radio Silence by Alice Oseman Publisher: Harper Collins Children's Books Release Date: March 28 2017 Frances has always been a study machine with one goal, elite university. Nothing will stand in her way; not friends, not a guilty secret – not even the person she is on the inside. But when Frances meets Aled, the shy genius behind her favourite podcast, she discovers a new freedom. He unlocks the door to Real Frances and for the first time she experiences true friendship, unafraid to be herself. Then the podcast goes viral and the fragile trust between them is broken.

How To Make A Wish by Ashley Herring Blake Publisher: HMH Books for Young Readers Release Date: May 2 2017 All Grace Glasser wants is her own life. A normal life in which she sleeps in the same bed for longer than three months and doesn't have to scrounge for spare change to make sure the electric bill is paid. Her attempts to lay low until she graduates are disrupted when she meets Eva, a girl with her own share of ghosts she’s trying to outrun. Grief-stricken and lonely, Eva pulls Grace into midnight adventures and feelings Grace never planned on.

Noteworthy by Riley Redgate Publisher: Amulet Books Release Date: May 2 2017 Jordan Sun is an Alto 2, which — in the musical theatre world — is sort of like being a vulture in the wild: She has a spot in the ecosystem, but nobody’s falling over themselves to express their appreciation. Then the school gets a mass email: A spot has opened up in the Sharpshooters, Kensington’s elite a cappella octet. Worshiped ... revered ... all male. Desperate to prove herself, Jordan auditions in her most convincing drag, and it turns out that Jordan Sun, Tenor 1, is exactly what the Sharps are looking for.

The Seafarer's Kiss by Julia Ember Publisher: Duet Books Release Date: May 4 2017 Mermaid Ersel learns of the life she wants when she rescues and befriends Ragna, a shield-maiden stranded  on the mermen’s glacier. But when Ersel’s childhood friend and suitor catches them together, he gives Ersel a choice: say goodbye to Ragna or face justice at the hands of the glacier’s brutal king.To save herself from perishing in the barren, underwater wasteland and be reunited with the human she’s come to love, Ersel must try to outsmart the God of Lies.

The Gentleman's Guide To Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books Release Date: June 27 2017 An unforgettable tale of two friends on their Grand Tour of 18th-century Europe who stumble upon a magical artifact that leads them from Paris to Venice in a dangerous manhunt, fighting pirates, highwaymen, and their feelings for each other along the way.

#ya lit #ya books #weneeddiversebooks #we need diverse books #mackenzi lee #list of the week #list