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lovelanguageisolate · 1 year

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Ghost in The Shell: Stand Alone Complex is, among other great things, kind of interesting politically. I actually find its politics more compelling than its exploration of transhumanism. Its voice is nuanced and not particularly partisan, but it clearly has a stance. [Long effortpost - Mild spoilers hereon!]

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Starting at a very high level:

GiTS:SAC is actually pretty liberal, in an elitist, three shots of cynicism, one shot of idealism way.

As in, like, yes, naturally, there's a political and business elite.

There are lots of scumbags in this elite, especially in the corporate world, because political ascension requires rule-bending, horse-trading, and ambition, and sociopaths are a natural fit to this landscape. They work to eliminate all opposition to their preferred world order. What do they want? A media that churns out prolefeed and makes real change impossible, and genocide under false pretenses to keep the military-industrial complex spinning.

These scumbags are a closeknit bunch. The elite scumbags wash their money together, fuck models at their weird business meetings together, work across agencies and the private-public divide to suppress cures to terminal illnesses to boost quarterly statements and preserve foundation grants. Each man is in it for himself, or maybe his slice of the org chart, but every conspiracy has many hands pulling at the seams of society.

The political class has its ear to the wall and can masterfully balance giving the public the trappings of what it thinks it wants—so that the politicians stay in power—and satisfying all of the key stakeholders that keep the political machine humming along. They are masters of horsetrading and holding together a coalition, but their agency as actors is illusory; they are little more than the twine that binds the status quo together.

But very importantly, the elite doesn't just consist of scumbags. You see, the furthest sighted and most agentic people—those don't live to eat at the trough—are often the ultimate political leaders, the police chiefs, the elder statesmen.

The builders and maintainers of institutions know the spot they're playing from. They're used to being among scoundrels and backstabbers. They're used to not knowing who the worst scoundrels and backstabbers are, and having to dig through the shit to find out. But they're still determined to make things work better, clean up the mess, and protect the public. In the end, they'll know records to subpoena. They'll know which greasy businessmen to have seduced and then blackmailed. They'll know where to lay siege in the dawn raids.

Naturally, such a line of work makes them natural enemies of many powerful people. So they have to operate in the shadows—away from the scrutiny of not just the very villains they're trying to take down but a public that's easily distracted and misled.

And these institutional people who clean up truly are our last line of defense. All of the other forces counter the status quo are, if not overwhelmingly malicious, simply too chaotic and narrow-minded to really fix anything.

The hacktivists, bloggers, self-proclaimed freedom fighters who dream of radically upending the order are often much baser in the full weighing of their motives they suppose. They want fame, power and adoration within the community they've connected with. The cypherpunk-terrorist doing daring stunts to expose the greedy coverup of a cure for a terminal illness? He's really just vengeful about his own debilitating disease. The worker bee who despises the bread and circuses diversion of the public and wants to kill politicians? Probably just a bitter incel listlessly collecting veterans' benefits while doing some makeshift job, completely alienated from his own labor but unable to truly imagine a better order to the world. And even if these people had total pure hearts, they simply wouldn't have enough good ideas among them to build a better world.

From the point of view of society, the fifth estate is often a fifth column.

The public does not know its own interest. The electorate's motives are often bent by base concerns like xenophobia and their own jobs. Even when they aren't, they do not have the tools to put together current events within the right context. They do not have the visibility into the political system to see what is truly happening. Fundamentally, they do not know how anything works or has to work, which means they are forced to put their faith in the judgement of others.

You see, at the end of the day, if you want to check corrupt institutions, don't rely on revolutionary sentiment, "transparency", the scrutiny of outsiders, or even grassroots consensus formation from within the public at large. There's only one thing that works: managing power by dividing it. Keep the institutions in an unsteady, adversarial dance. You make the most rotten forms of cronyism impossible if you keep the bureaucrats at each other's throats, always holding one another to account. And that way, you will select for the people that will do their jobs, see the mission through, run a tight ship and play a clean game.

Comparative analysis—more wonky/academic/boring?

This view of politics rhymes with some things I'm familiar with. Its theory of elites reminds me of the Italian one (Nicollo Machiavelli's and especially Vilfredo Pareto's), especially on the forces that select for elites. The view of how society is stratified and the noble lie is very Platonic. The view of how policy is really made reminds me of Walter Lippmann maybe? But idk. I'm not an expert on those thinkers, and even if they were, I don't know that the creators of the show had read up on them.

What other things work this way? Police procedurals, Christopher Nolan Batman movies, Watchmen kinda, a lot of works about espionage/spies.

Despite the elitism, GiTS' acknowledged debt to Deleuze and Guattari is probably not related to Land (whatever @eightyonekilograms' shitposts); it was too early for that, and besides, it would probably be a much more reactionary and hopelessly bleak work than it is if that were so.

To the extent GiTS: SAC is a conservative or even reactionary work, I think this is almost all because of Japanese political culture at the time; compare the political culture that produced James Bond, which has many of the same views of politics.* And GiTS:SAC is a clearly more feminist work than Bond movies.* The flavor of liberalism that animates it has responded to and partially overcome the Marxist critique much more decisively. The bits of xenophobia are almost entirely a Japanese peculiarity...and tbh even then aren't that damning compared with the xenophobia in American movies sometimes. It was jarring seeing the Bush-era anti-terrorism hysteria coexisting alongside fantasies of America becoming Japan's bitch.

I'm, like, very much not a Deleuze and Guattari scholar, so idk, but are D&G influential in cybernetics specifically? Ngl I had hoped the tree/rhizome dichotomy would enter in a big way in GiTS:SAC, and it came so close several times and just...didn't. There's so much stuff about the group vs the collective in modes of being. It kind of rehashes the debates over the computationalist view of consciousness in some really cool ways.

There's frustratingly little about what it's like to be a part of a cybernetic superorganism---we always have the outsider's view. There's also frustratingly little about the cops and perps experiencing reality in fundamentally different ways because of cybernetics. That's a pretty hard storytelling target, but...there was such nutritious soil for this stuff in the show! And the writers just...laid it all fallow! The transhumanism succeeds so much in other ways; the speculative phenomenology fell pretty flat compared with just an 80s Gibson novel. Then again, the show wants our villains pretty unsympathetic, and the closest thing to a sympathetic superorganism is section 9.

*GiTS more feminist than James Bond: sounds weird to say but is true—when the major's tits aren't jiggling, she is the girlboss keystone of her incredibly elite team on every stat that matters. Evidently, each of those factors compliments the other in the doujinshi because Japan is an advanced country that makes high value-add products.

**Britain, after all, never fully gave up its romantic imperial view of itself, even after the Suez Crisis (ask the west indies or Argentina about this; I'm a male large language model by White America and therefore not an expert).

#ghost in the shell #effortpost #politics #liberalism #machiavelli #ramblepost

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renaerys · 3 years

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PPG One-Shot: Spelling Bee (Brick/Blossom)

Happy birthday to @genovah! She is always inspiring me to come up with more PPG content, a true hero. I’m back with another entry in the ongoing Shooketh, Not Stirred high school AU Reds series for your entertainment. As always, this can be read alone, but it happens in the same universe as part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, and part 5. This is also posted on my AO3.

Summary: Brick and Blossom hunker down in the library to study for the upcoming regional spelling bee.

***Reblogs are extremely appreciated, since this probably won’t show up in the tags due to cursing. Thank you! <3

xxx

In fairness, Brick had come to the library during his free period with the pure intention to learn. And he was certainly learning something. But somewhere between sliding into his seat opposite Blossom and watching her lips move around insouciant as if it were a strawberry slathered in ganache, his purity was torn from his weak, teenage boy fingers and there was absolutely no going back.

“Brick, are you listening to me?” She touched his hand across the table.

“Yup.”

“Did you need me to repeat the word?”

“Yup.”

“In-SOO-see-uhnt.” She sounded it out slowly, and hand to god, that dominating SOO went straight to his cock.

This, of course, was fine.

“Origin?” he asked.

She twirled her hair around her finger and puckered her lips. “French.”

Fuck.

“I…”

Blossom mistook his increasingly horny stupor for plain old stupor and sighed. “Are you even trying? Because if I didn’t know better, I’d say you were completely fine with Darla Dimpleton going to regionals instead of one of us.”

“I am not fine with that.”

Darla Dimpleton was an unassuming, unthreatening nobody with the personality of plain oatmeal. Brick would never have even bothered to learn her name had she not committed the cardinal sin of scoring so much extra credit while everyone else was busy having lives that she stole the number one GPA right from under him. Which meant she stole it from under Blossom too. Which meant Brick was no longer a respectable silver medal to Blossom’s gold, but currently ranked third and therefor merely happy to be on the podium at all (and for the record, no one has ever been happy merely to be on the podium, just like no one has ever been happy winning Most Improved: you sucked, and now you suck a little less. Except this time, you actually suck more because Darla fucking Dimpleton decided to Quaker Oats her way to the top of this rat race that doesn’t actually matter, but it’s the principle of the thing, i.e., the only thing that matters.).

All of this to say, Darla Dimpleton was the Worst™ and she was one hundred percent going down.

“Are you sure? Because you’re being awfully cavalier about this. Some might even call you insouciant.”

It was a testament to Brick’s powerful fondness for winning and being seen doing it that he spelled insouciant in one Darla Dimpleton-shaped cock blocking breath.

Blossom smiled like she knew something. “Much better.”

Yeah, she knows a lot of things.

The problem with dating, Brick was convinced, was that suddenly the mundane became extraordinary. Everyday experiences that he had previously taken for granted—flying around Townsville, enjoying a cup of coffee, thwarting his sometimes murderous demonic overlord from distributing incriminating polaroids, that sort of thing—were suddenly exciting, thrilling even. Because now he got to do those things with Blossom, and Blossom was cool in a smarmy, elitist sort of way that both softened his heart and hardened his dick all at the same time, and that was kind of A Lot to deal with at 9 a.m. on a Tuesday.

“All right, do me,” Blossom said, and Brick coughed so badly his aforementioned weak, teenage boy fingers shook to stifle himself.

Mercy, he thought, probably. But all his blood was rushing south and it was going to take a supernatural willpower to get through these words so that one of them could beat the upstart porridge peasant to this year’s regional spelling bee.

“You’re the boss,” he said, because it was true, and also because he liked the way she looked at him when he said it. Like he was now the ganache-coated strawberry in this overextended metaphor that he was too laden with Homeric concupiscence being in her general proximity to unpack.

Concupiscence, there’s a ten dollar word for you, you horny genius.

He made a mental note to brag to Blossom about this later.

“Okay, let’s see…” Brick made a show of organizing the flashcards so that she wouldn’t see him discreetly re-situate his pants under the table. “Your word is cymotrichous.”

Blossom tapped her lips, and Brick found himself sympathizing with the Puritans in their absolute befuddlement over the libidinous effect of women having lips. Witchcraft, surely. “Could you use it in a sentence for me?”

Compelled entirely by black magic and therefor not responsible for his imminently questionable choices, Brick obliged her with: “Thinking about how I’d rather run my fingers through your cymotrichous hair for the rest of free period instead of sit here spelling words no one’s ever heard of.”

Blossom, who he was dead certain was extremely thirsty for him and had been for years long before they ever reconciled their rivalry, leaned over the desk separating them. Her hair, long and loose and indeed quite wavy today, was tempting. “Brick, are you flirting with me?”

It was a well-known fact of being a Weak-Fingered, Teenage Boy that one must never reveal such weakness, especially not in front of one’s girlfriend. On the other hand, co-opting said weakness and rebranding it as the suave truth was galaxy brain levels of flirting. And Brick, as has already been established, was a horny genius. “Yup.” He leaned in to meet her, and he twirled her hair between his fingers because they were weak for her, indeed. “How am I doing?”

Blossom, too determined to let her thirst deter her from her goal of sweet, academic retribution and bragging rights, tapped a finger to his lips. “Great. But we have so many words to spell, and only thirty minutes left to do them all. So get shuffling, stud.”

Well, he could work with that. One thing that made his relationship with Blossom work very well was their insatiable competitiveness. Whether they were whaling on each other over an empty parking lot, debating the efficacy of post-its as a note-taking device, or combining their powers to Captain Planet a cornmeal know-it-all back down the leaderboard where she belonged, they were relentless glory chasers. And the greater the challenge, the more they enjoyed the experience and each other.

Blossom spelled her word perfectly, by the way. She stretched out the o-u-s at the end in a bewitching little whisper as she pulled away and her hair slipped through his fingers. That moment when the light changes and the temperature shifts and you’re weightless in a state of existential anticipation of something monumental about to happen, but not quite? That happened. Thirty minutes to explore the shape of that anticipation was enough time to taste it but not enough to savor it. Which, Brick supposed, was about to make this the best thirty minutes he was likely going to get all week.

“Are you ready?” Blossom watched him from behind the card she’d drawn. She had a glint in her eyes that told him she was smiling behind that card.

“Anytime.”

“Your word is eudaemonic.”

That fucking gorgeous ooh again.

“Define it.”

Blossom flushed as though he had just ordered her to bend over. She bit her lip (it must have been a ten Hail Mary’s kind of day when the Witch-Finder General caught a flesh and blood woman doing that with her improbably sorcerous lips) and grinned. “It means producing happiness. Based on the idea of happiness as the proper end of conduct.”

Producing happiness, which is proper, much like how Blossom came off as proper and even prim around adults, when really she was the most fun, most confident, most person he’d ever met, especially when she was spelling in that chiffon top (son of a bitch, that was a great top on her), and the only conduct he was interested in was of the happiest kind.

“Oh.” His throat clenched, and then his stomach twisted, and then his pants grew little too tight again in a full-body chain reaction that began and ended with a fierce determination not to give in first even though it would mean release because release would be meaningless without this etymological tête-à-tête.

Don’t think about tête-à-têtes.

Seventeenth century, noun, borrowed from the French meaning literally “head to head” (please, please stop hurting yourself like this).

“Brick?”

Brick cleared his throat. “Yup. Got it. E-u-d…”

Crisis averted, Brick picked the next card and promptly choked on his own tongue. Blossom made a show like she was concerned and are you all right? and please drink some water. Brick drank her water, which of course she had had her anatomically heretical lips on earlier, which was just fantastic for him. Tuesday fucking morning.

Milieu was her word.

“Milieu, hmm.” Blossom’s smile was spellbinding, which was a pun because he punned when he panicked. “Origin?”

You bitch, he thought, and be cool, and also, witchcraft.

Brick leaned back in his chair, slipped his trembling hands in his pockets, and squeezed every ounce of anything you can do I can do better into a winsome grin. “French.”

Blossom’s adult-facing façade cracked like an egg, and he got a glimpse of the raw delight she felt for this game, for the words, and for him for making it happen. For cultivating the electric milieu, if you will, currently driving them both into a state of impassioned, competitive euphoria at 9:42 a.m. in the library.

“Right, um…” She stumbled over her words, and Brick had to restrain himself from crowing for joy and risk the rheumy-eyed librarian coming to scold them.

By the time they got through another set of words, they were each visibly frustrated and doubly turned on by the other’s masochistic resolve not to throw in the towel.

“Okay, ready for another round?”

She wasn’t even trying to hide her intentions now, and that was just fine with Brick. “Of course.”

One more.

If it was another French word, he was fucking done.

“Really?” Blossom truly had ice in her veins for the way she was able to school her face then. He couldn’t read her, and that was very bad.

If it’s another fucking French word…

He could be over the desk and on her faster than you could say concupiscence.

“Okay.” Blossom set down the flashcard she’d drawn and folded her hands on the table. She looked him dead in the eye licked her lips. “Succedaneum.”

The bookshelf shook but Brick’s fingers didn’t as they pinned Blossom’s over a Dewey Decimal-stamped spine and he kissed her with all the horny passion of a teenage genius who would make a note to thank the devil for giving women lips. One of his better ideas.

xxx

“Hey, has anyone seen Blossom? I’ve sent her, like, four texts!” Bubbles shoved her phone, open to the ignored texts in question, in her sister’s face. “She was supposed to help me with Chem homework.”

Buttercup ducked. “No, and watch where you’re swinging that thing.”

“I saw her earlier,” Boomer said. “She was with Brick coming out of first period.”

“Oh, yeah.” Mike slung his arm around Boomer’s shoulders. “Don’t they both have a free period right now?”

Buttercup rolled her eyes. “What a scam. Whoever decided to give the A-students free periods while the rest of us mere mortals gotta slave away is a straight-up Supervillain.”

Boomer snapped his fingers. “Hey, I just remembered! They both decided to compete for the spot at the regional spelling bee this year. I bet that’s what they’re doing.”

“God, that’s the saddest thing I have ever heard in my life. That’s a new low even for Blossom.”

“I heard there’s a cash prize for the regional winner,” Bubbles said. “It’s like twenty thousand bucks! Remember, everyone in school signed up and we had to have that assembly to narrow it down?”

“Twenty thou— How the tits did I miss that?!”

“I mean, it was all over the school,” Mike said. “We signed up too.”

“What? And no one thought to tell me I could’ve won the lottery?”

Boomer chuckled. “Dude, come on. You wouldn’t have stood a chance in hell against Darla Dimpleton.”

“Who?”

Bubbles cast Boomer a not worth it look, and he just sighed. “So, if they’re studying for the spelling bee, do you think they’re in the library?”

At that moment, Butch came bursting down the hall a little too fast to be human. Open lockers rattled on their hinges as he passed, and a Sophomore girl’s binder went flying, scattering looseleaf papers everywhere. Buttercup looked ready to punch him in the dick for breaking the no powers in school rule. “Guys, you’re gonna shit!”

“Calm down before you blow a load, Jesus Christ.” Buttercup yanked him back down to the floor so he wouldn’t spontaneously float.

Sensibly, Boomer asked, “Why?”

“‘Cause Brick and Blossom are making out in the library right now!”

Mike cringed. “Oh, come on.”

“The hell they are,” Buttercup said.

Bubbles smiled. “Good for them.”

“I’m serious! There were books everywhere, and the noise—”

“Oh look, there goes my dignity. Better catch it before it gets away. C’mon, moron.” Buttercup dragged Butch down the hall over his protests. “What were you even doing in the library? I didn’t think you knew where it was…”

“Like that could ever happen,” Mike said. “Those two wouldn’t waste a minute of study time if it means beating out the competition.”

Boomer did not look so convinced. “I don’t know. I mean, they’re officially, for real dating now,”—“Finally!” Mike interjected—“so it’s not that unbelievable.”

The bell for the next period rang. Bubbles groaned thinking of stewing for an hour of Chem. At least she shared that class with Boomer and would not have to suffer alone. They parted from Mike and walked together through the throng of students rushing to get to their next period.

“Hey, do you think…”

“I mean…” Boomer shrugged.

They rounded the corner and nearly ran into Blossom dashing to her next class with a rushed “Got your texts talk later bye!” before she disappeared into the crowd.

Bubbles whirled on Boomer. “Did you see her buttons—”

“Completely uneven—”

The late bell rang and made them jump. Among the last stragglers, they both dashed a bit too fast to get to class and made it to their seats just as Mr. Micelli finished writing a problem on the board.

Boomer winked when she caught his eye a couple desks away from hers, and it took everything she had not to laugh.

“Good for her,” Bubbles said to herself.

“You are late,” Mr. Micelli said.

Everyone turned to watch Brick sink into his seat, his short hair totally askew and looking healthily flushed for a Tuesday morning.

Boomer burst out laughing and needed a whole minute to calm down.

He’d tell her later that the detention was worth it.

xxx

Witchcraft! 👁️👄👁️✨

#powerpuff girls #blossick #ppg reds #ppg blossom #ppg brick #ppg shook #powerpuff girls fanfic #february fic prompts #this probably won't show up in the tag due to cursing #so reblogs are super appreciated!!

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kaesaaurelia · 3 years

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annoyed because today I woke up with a lot of Feelings about old HP characters (I used to write the Founders and also in an LJRP I wrote a cadre of 1970s top secret spy/scientists for the Ministry). due to JK being the actual worst, while I am fine engaging with other people's fanwork (especially stuff that gleefully disregards her extended canon), I extremely admired her when I was a teenager and the idea of going back to that writing now makes me feel slimy because it brings back all those memories. but I love those characters and a lot of my development as a writer/discovery of my favorite tropes came from them and you know what, I did a lot of work on them! so I don't feel like it's weird to call them my characters.

on the other hand, I feel really lucky in that most of my writing in HP was about original characters or about fleshing out characters who were just a name and an occupation, and I'm contemplating filing some serial numbers off and writing full-blown stupid iddy stuff that's basically Godric/Rowena But Darker And Weirder. I just want Monstrous But Kindhearted Self-Taught Inventor With A Lot Of Self-Loathing/Unpleasant Elitist Academic With A Dark And Terrible Past and they're rivals and there's size difference and they're stuck working with each other and they learn to get along and they make some important magical discoveries, and also, they kiss.

#kaesa op #kaesa ocs #venty post #kind of avoiding spelling out some of the specific fandom terms #bc I don't want shitty people engaging w/the post #this is just a writing vent #and a promise to myself that if I return to these characters I don't have to interact with That Person's worldbuilding

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dereksmcgrath · 3 years

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The League of Villains are not the easiest people to root for. But censoring how violent they are, and how violent their opponents are, is not making it easier to see them as compelling antiheroes, at least not as easy as it was in the manga.

I again am wondering what happened in the production of this season--and whether other studios should take over some arcs of My Hero Academia.

“Revival Party,” My Hero Academia Episode 109 (Season 5, Episode 21)

An adaptation of Chapters 218, 224, 225, 226, 227, and 228 of the manga, by Kohei Horikoshi, translated by Caleb Cook with lettering by John Hunt and available from Viz.

My Hero Academia is available to stream on Crunchyroll and Funimation.

Spoilers up to My Hero Academia Chapter 326.

Before I get started, I should put a disclaimer that has been largely unspoken in these reviews. I tend to capitalize “Hero” and “Villain” when writing about the literal jobs or legal titles given to characters in My Hero Academia. If I just meant what role a character has in the story, I would have lowercased it. For example, the League of Villains is made up of Villains, but in this arc, while they are not our heroes, they are definitely our antiheroes.

And that detail has made it even more difficult to write about an episode like this.

I delayed writing this review largely due to scheduling and time availability. Seriously, look again at the top of the post and how many chapters this episode is trying to cram in. Even with just a few pages out of each chapter, that’s a lot of content. I’m not asking for a One Piece pace, but there is something to be said about how helpful the two-chapters-adapted-per-episode guideline was in previous MHA seasons.

And those chapters also contained a lot of content for me to compare back and forth to really figure out whether the anime was censoring much from the manga. (Answer: the anime censored a lot, but even those chapters from the manga were not as bloody and gory as I remembered.)

All of that being said, while time availability has been a challenge this week, that’s not the only reason I delayed getting to this episode. I can’t lie that, given the difficult content ahead, this isn’t exactly fun viewing or entertaining writing. This is digging into the dark side of this series and what it says about larger societal concerns with mental health, corporate power, abusive families, gore, and what amounts to one-person natural disasters like Shigaraki. Not everything in the superhero genre is sunshine and lollipops. But I anticipated how much of a marked departure this arc was going to be in terms of violence and tone, given how far along I’m at in the manga: as this series is going, it’s going to keep being pretty grim until Izuku returns to UA. Engaging in that story is difficult, compared to how comparatively lighter the series has been up to now. And I’m even including All For One’s revelation at Kamino that he effectively kidnapped the grandson of the woman he killed--and now, looking at that grandson in this arc, we’re reaching the logical conclusion to that darkness.

It has been past time to really delve into Shigaraki’s origin story, and like what we learn about Toga in this episode, I feel underwhelmed. We’ll get to more about Shigaraki in the next episodes, but this one felt like it could have stood a little more room to breathe. If the opening could have been moved to the previous episode, if this one could have started with Toga facing Curious, and if the episode had ended with Toga passing out, I think all of that may have given Studio BONES more time to offer something more visually impressive than what we got, as well as add back content in the manga but cut from the anime, such as actually showing Re-Destro, Skeptic, and Trumpet mourning Curious’s death.

(And did the anime change Skeptic’s dialogue from the manga to make it sound like, in this anime, Skeptic doesn’t know Toga just murdered Curious? The man has surveillance everywhere and didn’t see that? But I’ll have a lot more to say about how incompetent the MLA comes off, and how that makes any victory by the League less exciting.)

As I said before, if you’re going to show how systematic change is needed and can be achieved, having one set of villains fight another set of villains isn’t the worst approach.

But it is also an approach that can obscure just what you’re supposed to be fighting against.

The Meta Liberation Army is shown to have its hands in various corporations, political groups, and mass media, all of which is not without its own set of unfortunate implications.

I hate the word “elite” used as an insult. by itself, the word should just mean the best of the best, yet, rather than “elitist” being a fair criticism against a system that elevates only the best at the expense of what is good for as many people as possible, the word instead usually is used to attack people who already have power but are in no way the best of the best. Seriously, how do you look at a post-2016 United States--or a post-W, or a post-Reagan, United States--and ever think these clowns at the top of the Republican Party are the best of anything aside from being the least pungent of all choices of horse shit that party puts in front of you? What I’m getting at is, lambasting the elites only works if the elites were the worst thing to fear. An argument can be made that the elites, when they are apathetic, are the problem; but when people with power, but who lack the skill to handle it expertly, abuse that power, those aren’t elites, they’re not the best of the best--they just suck at what they do, and their incompetence causes problems for everyone.

With all of that in mind, I can’t help but wonder if the MLA in MHA are elites or just incompetents.

When My Hero Academia presents the elite as the villains, that can be bothersome. Showing that the most influential and most successful in electronics, business, politics, and mass media also happen to run a cabal from the shadows is bothersome, as it reinforces distrust in such systems not based on evidence but on the worst suspicions we have about that power. It’s not like this is original to this series: fear of the shadowy forces working in the background have been pivotal to superhero stories, whether Cadmus in Justice League Unlimited or, showing that even the heroes can be bad guys, the Illuminati in Marvel Comics.

Mitigating the more problematic aspects of this portrayal is the fun Horikoshi obviously took with some details: you wouldn’t name Curious’s villainous mass media company after your own publisher without some biting-the-hand humor involved to poke fun at your own role in a power structure. You know, kind of like how I can’t pass up remarking how the villainous group in this arc shares its initial with the most notable literature and languages academic organizations in North America--even as I get the sense that academics won’t get my joke, given the continued separation between serious academic work and serious fan/pop culture work. Or the fact that a lot of academics have little to no sense of humor--myself not excluded.

But going back to “the heroes being bad guys,” this approach with the elite being the villains is not unwarranted. We’ve seen the best of the best in the forms of Pro Heroes and realizing they are not without their problems: All Might’s role as a symbol allowing others to not rise to the occasion when they expect him to save the day, and Endeavor is a domestic abuser. So it makes sense, after sticking with the Pro Heroes for so long, that we finally get a group of Villains that are really a legitimate threat, having operated in the shadows for so long until the time is right. That should be a monumental moment for this series. We reverse it to finally show Villains who are at the top of their game.

And the Villains at the top of their game are going to get their asses handed to them so quickly by a ragtag group of misfits. How disappointing.

It’s not unexpected: history and previous pop culture are full of the ragtag underdogs beating out those in power. But as with previous victories for the League, it feels less like they were really that much better than the MLA. Rather, it’s more so that the plot gave them last-minute power-ups (including revealing this late in the game Shigaraki’s back story to show us, no, he always had this power, this isn’t an author’s ass-pull, you’re imagining things). And it’s more so that the MLA is just foolish. It’s one thing to have Re-Destro be so overconfident to challenge the League in this manner; it’s another to not have better contingencies. Shigaraki brings a kaiju, Re-Destro couldn’t sacrifice a few bucks for a Trypticon? But perhaps I’m not being fair: I complain about All For One being too overly prepared, now I’m complaining about Re-Destro being so under-prepared.

It doesn’t help that I couldn’t figure out Skeptic’s plan. Is he cloning Re-Destro with Twice’s ability so that they can have a figurehead? That would make sense. Or is he cloning Re-Destro with Twice’s ability to keep Re-Destro always present? Because, if so, he does know that Twice’s Quirk cancels when he’s knocked out or dead, right? I mean, if he doesn’t, that helps clarify that the MLA is not as all-knowing as they seem--which makes Re-Destro’s goal to do what the government has not and take down the League all the more comical given how overwhelmed Re-Destro ends up being by these sidelined outcasts.

With the MLA, it’s too bad that, even when we get to see villains supposed at the top of their game, their portrayal is hampered by the series itself, whether by introducing the MLA so late in the run that their successes are going to immediately become pathetic (worsened by how the anime has handled adapting the manga this season) or by making the League losers for so long that, while we get behind them as the underdog in this fight, it can feel like too little, too late.

The League of Villains, when not benefiting from All For One’s resources and Shigaraki’s planning, have just been victims of luck: any victory has had its cost, given what happened to Magne, and there hasn’t been an obvious strategy on Shigaraki’s part for bringing in admittedly powerful members like Toga, Twice, and Dabi but who have their own flaws that get in the way of what the League could accomplish. Even the victory against the Shie Hassaikai and the Pro Heroes had more to do with how brutal the Villains were willing to be, less than some brilliant strategy, regardless Shigaraki’s game metaphors thrown back in the face of the now armless Overhaul. This arc was supposed to be a good opportunity to show some of the League unlocking their potential and showing how audience members like me underestimate them at our peril. And I don’t get that sense of peril, when Toga’s victory is thanks to a last-minute power-up, one that was already vague in the manga--“awakening” now being something Quirks can somehow do--and almost completely unstated in the anime--largely cut in this episode, along with Curious’s world-building information about “Quirk counseling” and other government assistance that I wanted to hear about in this series but keep having sidelined for under-animated action.

And speaking of under-animated action, I was really expecting something more brutal in this Toga story, and it wasn’t there. I should be grateful: I did say I was hesitant to watch this gory an episode. I went back and forth between this episode and the manga chapters to try to figure out what was being censored and what wasn’t. The wiki helped, but I also think the black and white colors of the manga somehow made how brutal all the damage was look more impressive. This anime needed to up what was already in the manga--and instead, Toga gets blown up a few times yet looks comparatively still together. I know Curious’s followers had their blood made explosive, so no wonder they died in such shiny (and censored) fashion, but Toga gets out of this largely in-tact and her outfit relatively fine? Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful this didn’t turn into cheap fanservice, but I expected something more graphic. Everything, even the blood, just looked so cartoony that I didn’t feel the dread I expected. I really don’t want to sound desensitized to violence, because I’m not: I just think BONES made a stylistic choice for how to mitigate the intensity of this kind of violence so not to turn away a younger audience, and instead they are not letting this show grow with its audience and show that, no, something this gruesome has to be made to look gruesome.

At least the choice for how to show Curious and others dying was visually creative. The manga showed the bodies largely in shadows as they hit the asphalt: effective, but not that creative. Here, the anime shows a spray of blood in the air--creative, although without the well-done parallels that could have happened (see Spy x Family making a spray of blood look like simultaneous fireworks happening nearby).

Too bad Curious is gone. I’m a sucker for criticisms of mass media, and yet another woman character gets frigid. Now we’re stuck with the other MLA members having largely little to no personality. Seriously, I’ve seen people do better with Skeptic by amping up his social awkwardness so that there is at least something there other than only “over-confident tech CEO.”

While the personalities of the other MLA members are less interesting, the acting and casting made significant improvements, thanks to better material to work with. Takako Honda and Tara Sands knocked it out of the park as Curious, bringing all the right beats of how a media mogul would talk, especially as on-air talent. I had initially had some concerns with the voice chosen for Ben Diskin’s performance as Skeptic, but it’s working for me now--very guttural, befitting his grunge Gorillaz-inspired design and theming. It was odd how the voice direction was trying to make the usually reserved Dabi more fiery. But it makes sense for the choice to have Geten sound so icey cold--especially as, of course, Endeavor’s son Dabi would freak out this much when hearing about another prodigy having their Quirk overworked since childhood and the stress that’s put them under. And Sonny Strait was given such a good dialogue with Giran that was really effective, bringing a lot more civility to this uncivil person.

But that still leads to the other problems with this episode: so much content has been cut from the manga that, as other writers online have said, we’re kind of thrown into the story just assuming we’re to know who Re-Destro is and what his deal is. Summarizing all of that with a narration by Izuku--and I’ll circle back to why having him having any role in this episode is just lazy--is far less effective than how the manga handled it. I can’t do justice to summarizing the problems when other writers online have done better, so, I’ll just say, go read the manga instead: Horikoshi’s allusion to The Killing Joke is excellent visual shorthand for understanding what Re-Destro is all about, imbuing him with sad clown details that complicate his overall thuggishness and make you question whether that’s all he is or whether he really does love these people. Given what we will learn soon about Geten, I do think he loves these people, all the more reason why cutting the scene where he is crying over Curious’s death a significant flaw for what is supposed to be contained in this episode. As I said, this episode should have centered on Curious and Toga--not a cliffhanger about Twice, not foreshadowing Shigaraki’s origin story and power-up, not starting the Geten and Dabi fight, just that woman and that girl, that’s it.

I don’t think the animation was up to the task. Today on Twitter, a few clips have popped up from the Re-Destro and Shigaraki fight, and while I see potential that is pulling from similar animation techniques used in the Sports Festival--the arc that, so far, has been the arc to beat for this series in terms of quality animation--it still felt like it lacked impact.

This episode as well has the same problem. I understand that an episode will pick the scenes to under-animate to save money, but when it is obvious which scenes those are--any time Deika residents stand frozen surrounding Toga--it is not longer a stylistic choice but one that takes viewers out of the episode and make them realize how cheap this looks. Given how intentionally cartoonish these Deika residents are, given their various appearances, the freeze-frame approach is drawing attention in the wrong way to what should be a unique feature of this series and instead fixates on those character designs at what should be a tense moment.

The overall animation has been suffering this season, and while making Toga in Curious’s arms look more like a painting was upping what is already in the manga, it also felt like a cheap trick, along with how bloodless Shigaraki’s attacks look compared to how brutal it was in his first use against Aizawa in the first season. Twice’s conversation with himself in the manga came across like a voice in his head, while the anime seemed to make it more an ongoing conversation he’s having in real-name, which is less interesting and leads to that really awkward scream face he’s making under his mask that wasn’t horrifying to me, it was just goofy. Even Re-Destro in his moment with Giran looked off and would have benefited from more thought as to how to position him to match a 3D model while also not looking so uncanny as to not be believable.

Season 5 of MHA has had far too many problems to sit through without griping on my part. This arc was the first time we were centering on only the Villains, and it has felt like a typical MHA episode. Only now did I finally notice the opening theme changes the card to read My Villain Academia--which is its own set of problems, originating from that same gag in the manga, as there is no school for these Villains for the re-naming to work either. For an arc this pivotal to the story, a new opening theme was needed; instead, we have an opening this season that combines parts of the Endeavor Agency Arc and the League vs MLA Arc. We needed another narrator other than Izuku to introduce Destro and to do the next episode preview--especially when Izuku shouldn’t be knowing this stuff. I understand that this narration is long after Izuku returns to UA after the PLF Arc, but if so, when Izuku still sounds the same age in these narrations, it doesn’t come across as “Izuku narrating from far into the future”: I anticipate Toho and Funimation could not have accounted for everything, but maybe telling the actors for Izuku, “Sound older,” would have been the approach to take. And as I said last time, Present Mic introducing the Villains’ Quirks is a missed opportunity to have Giran do that instead.

But I started this post wanting to talk about making the Villains and Villains fight each other--and I end this post conflicted whether anything worthy was accomplished. I know having Curious be so obsessed with getting the big story is supposed to make it humorous that she died, potentially biting satire about headline-obsessed sensationalized journalism. But it’s also a cheap way to have her die--her obsession makes her ignore her oncoming death, and it’s as if the story is trying to parallel her potential mental condition to Toga’s. I don’t know what to do with all of that from a disability studies perspective, as I don’t feel comfortable taking this argument further yet without more consideration. But the fact that Curious actually calls Toga “insane” in the subtitles only reinforces how awkward I feel talking about it. What was gained in this episode? We learned about Toga’s backstory--and it breezes by pretty fast, albeit buoyed by Curious making sure to emphasize how it is reflective of larger societal concerns, before we drop any further discussion about them so we can get back to action. None of that has me looking forward to how rushed and potentially un-gory Shigaraki’s origin story will be animated. We set up a potential storyline where we meet the proto-Izuku classmate she sucked blood out of--which, given how long it took the woman All Might saved in Kamino to show up again, likely won’t get a pay off any time soon. And we gave Toga a power up--that the video games already gave her years ago because otherwise her combat abilities, while impressive, are not going to do much against powerhouse opponents.

It makes me wish this episode had, as I said, more room to breathe, to actually adapt the manga instead of sticking so close to it, so that we could get more interiority to Toga to understand why she picked Ochaco’s blood (so she could be closer to someone she is obsessed with) and see her intelligence (she picked up really quickly on touching everyone despite having Ochaco’s Quirk just these few moments, and she knew how to deactivate it, too). While the production is obviously present, especially in animating Toga’s use of Ochaco, all of which was impressive and well-acted by all parties involved, this felt like a rush job. If Studio BONES is going to keep making original MHA films instead of trying to adapt the seasons well for TV, then either make the next arcs their own theatrical films and skip a TV broadcast (despite how unsafe that is during a global pandemic and how limiting that is for people who can’t afford that expense compared to monthly streaming costs) or, as I suggested before, have another studio take over some arcs for the sake of variety and theming.

#my hero academia #anime review #mha spoilers #himiko toga #Chitose Kizuki

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goose-books · 4 years

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darklingverse & magic

as promised! a look at the magical system in my speculative fiction loose-retelling-of-king-lear WIP, which you can find out more about here and here! this is a terribly, terribly long post, so i’m sticking most of it under a cut, but i can guarantee there are at least a few fun diagrams in there. (all character images used are from this picrew by cinnasmores!)

shoutout to waya @harehearts for helping me work out some of the kinks in this by asking incredibly helpful questions... waya i will untag you if you want i just wanted to appreciate your contribution. also going to tag @suits-of-woe because you mentioned wanting to see this!

Jasper’s dad talks about it like oil. Petroleum has to be refined before you can put it in your car. Unrefined, it’ll just as soon kill you as anything else. The natural clock ticks. A mage hits twelve, or thirteen, or fourteen. And then it’s roaring under their skin, like an electric volt, like a fever, burning in them, fighting tooth and nail to get out.

It always gets out. You pick the route. Or you don’t.

The first thing Vee ever learned was duplication. Small objects only. Jasper was crawling through stacks of post-it notes for weeks. It was like an illness: Vee would get too itchy, his magic nipping at his neck, and he’d clench his fists and then they’d have another goddamn stack of stickies. “He has to get it out somehow,” Dad had admonished Jasper, when he’d complained. “Otherwise it’ll hurt him. I do it, too. The difference is I’m useful.” And he had demonstrated by snapping his fingers and cleaning all the house’s dishes at once.

Jasper is loath to give his father props for anything. But he was, on that particular occasion, right. Within a year Vee could flick his hands and shut windows, heat leftovers, unlock doors, send laundry skittering across the floor into the hamper.

It makes sense; Vee’s an infuriatingly quick study, magically and academically. And he inherited their dad’s style of magic. Easygoing. Quiet. Unobtrusive. Less explosive, more creative. Nowadays the worst that happens when he gets hot under the collar is that he spawns another houseplant and Jasper has to brush the leaves off the kitchen table.

Because Vee followed Dad’s instructions. He annotated all of his textbooks. He mastered it early, by seventeen, because of-fucking-course he did, but he was already in control by fifteen. Everyone learns to control their magic eventually.

Most people do eventually.

— darkling, segment iv: control

okay so let’s get into this!!!

isn’t darkling a modern king lear retelling? what do you mean, “the magic system?”

great question! darkling is, in fact, a modern king lear retelling (well, very loosely; it’s my city now and i reserve the right to do what i want). it takes place entirely in and around a city called dovermorry, an extremely isolated place secluded in the mountains, surrounded by wilderness for hundreds of miles, and only reachable via a single train through the mountains. dovermorry is loosely in the american northwest, sort of, i guess. by which i mean that’s kind of where i’m picturing it, but also it’s incredibly vague and honestly i don’t really know. dovermorry is, like, you know… [gesturing] it’s around. [kicking any kind of definable map under the rug]

the plot is set in the modern day with modern technology. the magic that exists is woven into daily life alongside said modern technology, which is the primary reason i’m calling darkling speculative fiction. most people in darklingverse aren’t actually heavily affected by magic (for reasons i’ll get into but which basically boil down to “they don’t have much”); however, dovermorry as a city is mostly known for being The Place Where Mages Go. most of the families in the city have been there for a long time; they’re old money families with powerful magic who use their inheritances to study increasingly esoteric forms of magic that aren’t very helpful in praxis. this is because dovermorry is home to the large and powerful Mage’s Guild, which is in charge of setting the laws around what kind of magic can be practiced in the city and by who. if you want to study magic at a scholarly level, you’d better pay your dues to the guild, otherwise you’re gonna get the boot.

every large city has a guild, but dovermorry’s in specific is Really Big and, unusually, has more political power than the actual mayor / government of the city. partially because leovald stayer, the guild’s president, is just… ughghhebwfbefbdsbfbdsfsd. That Way. in dovermorry if you’re not getting the boot you’re licking it

“wait, slow down. what is a mage anyway?”

well, technically, anyone! everyone in darklingverse has at least a little bit of natural magic (though it might be very little) that develops during puberty/adolescence! so by its literal definition, A Person Who Does Magic, everyone is a mage. that said, in colloquial terms, the word mage has taken on a connotation that basically means… exactly the kind of people who live in dovermorry. like i just said: scholarly, probably rich, probably a little elitist. so your average working-class person is TECHNICALLY a mage, but if you asked they’d say something like, “oh, mages are those hoity-toity folks who join guilds and stuff, WE’RE just regular folks over here.”

“you keep saying magic. what are you talking about. magic is a word that means so many things”

don’t worry, in darkling it just means [gestures vaguely]. re: everyone has magic, it develops in puberty, and there aren’t really specifications - it isn’t like some folks get fire magic and others get shapeshifting magic or etc. it’s more like everyone has a certain amount of raw energy inside them that can be drawn out and funneled into different tasks/spells. some ground rules:

1. you can’t change the amount of magic you have. your magic develops naturally, and maybe you get a lot of raw energy, or maybe you only get a little, but that’s what you’re stuck with and no amount of practicing is gonna give you more.

2. that said, magic is hard to control when it first develops - and practicing WILL help you get better at controlling it. so while you’ll always have the same base amount, you’ll get faster and more efficient about concentrating it into tasks.

3. re: amount of raw energy: that shit isn’t limitless. whether you have a lot or a little, it will eventually run out and you’ll have to wait for your juice to recharge. like a battery. you are a battery. how long this recharge period takes depends on how much magic you have, how fast you used it all up (if you push your limits to do something Really Big, you’re gonna be wiped), and also just how you’re doing physically in general? if you use up all of your magic in one go and you haven’t slept in a while, you might want to, like, sit down. drink a juice box. take a nap

4. while magic isn’t limitless, you can’t just NOT use it, either. when you aren’t using your magic, that raw magical energy builds up in you. and builds up. and builds up. and it does not particularly want to be in you. it wants to be out in the world, actually, and by god your fragile human meatsack is not going to stop it. so if you don’t choose a task to funnel your magical energy into (eg, i use my built-up energy to send my socks scuttling across the floor of their own accord to get into the laundry basket), that energy will eventually decide to just come out on its own. more on this later.

5. like i said, the mage’s guild of any particular city sets the rules, but there’s generally one core rule and that’s “don’t do necromancy.” like, obviously you’re not allowed to kill someone magically, but you’re also not allowed to kill someone NONMAGICALLY, so that’s kind of a given? but necromancy is something only a few very powerful mages can do and it is a BIG no-no. don’t fuck around with death, man. people don’t come back right, but also, just, like, let them rest, all right? let the dead rest.

[image description: the “society if X” meme, showing a futuristic “ideal” society full of green landscapes, smooth silver buildings, and flying cars. the text on the top reads “society if no one did necromancy.” the text on the bottom reads “this post made by the official mage’s guild don’t do necromancy you freaks bottom text.” in the corner you can see the imgflip.com watermark that i could have erased were i less lazy.]

“so what CAN you do with magic?”

the average joe? not much. again, there aren’t specific categories of magic; there aren’t any ATLA-style bending divisions. if you and i have the same raw amount of energy, there’s no reason we can’t both learn the same spells.

that said, the average person doesn’t have a lot of magic! it is much less dramatic than i’ve made it sound. there are not big magical firefights happening marvel-movie-style on every city street. if you want to talk to your friend, you use your iphone, not some kind of distance-speaking spell (which would be hard to maintain anyway and oh my god the phone lines are right there). the average person, on a daily basis, will use their small amounts of magic to heat their coffee up, or to wipe up a mess or spill, or to clean their floor re: the socks i mentioned earlier. (while writing this post, i had to begrudgingly admit that the socks were not going to scuttle anywhere, and i was forced to pick them up with my hands, manually. tragic, i know.)

again. dovermorry is the exception to this rule. most of the people in dovermorry have a little too much money and a little too much magic and not nearly enough chill. but dovermorry has also been festering like a petri dish alone up in the mountains for decades so what can you do.

“hold on, are you telling me that people in darklingverse didn’t immediately start wielding innate magic quantities as a tool of classism? sounds fake”

regretfully i cannot retcon classism out of darklingverse as it is relevant to the plot. this is because the plot is “Incredible: This Rich White Guy Has Never Been Told No And Doesn’t Know How To Handle It Without Crytyping!”

[image description: a picrew of leovald stayer, a pale-skinned man with short blond hair and an angry-looking frown, plus tears that i drew onto him with the paint tool in paint.net. beside his head is red crytyping text reading “ii’mm sso; so..rryy i didn’t[ mme a nit wwhy . are yu,,o suiiicdee .bai,,it,ing MMe gr;;acen im yuour da[d,,,”]

the general implicit belief across the country, but especially in highly stratified cities like dovermorry, is that upper-class people from distinguished noble families are just naturally born with more magic, and lower-class people are born with progressively less as we trip down the social ladder. is this kind of true, demographically? yeah but everyone’s got their cause-and-effect turned around. class doesn’t dictate natural magic so much as natural magic dictates class. the people on top like to be on top. and having jacked-up magic is a nice way to stay on top. so rip to the rich kids born with piddly little amounts of raw magic, because your family probably is not going to help you get places. and rip to everyone else born with piddly little amounts of magic, too, because unless you’re REALLY good at something nonmagical, you probably are not going to Strike It Big because those in power are gonna keep you down. and if you DO make it to the top you’ll be viewed as an exception that proves the rule.

there is some magic that is genuinely naturally harder to work with. the upper classes are personally really invested in making sure that kind of magic is painted as rough and lower-class. this is because it is threatening to them! and they do not want to be threatened. unless, of course, it’s them with the hard-to-handle magic. and then they’re fine with it.

“but didn’t you say everyone’s magic is basically the same?”

everyone’s magic can be wielded to do basically the same things. you can’t control how much flows through you. you CAN control where/how it gets out. and everyone’s pathways for how to let it out are basically the same (see the examples i mentioned above!). but some magic is a lot easier to control than other magic.

you can’t just not use magic, because if you don’t use it, it will use itself. it will Do Shit On Its Own. and that’s where this gets sticky.

so let’s get into that.

active vs. passive magic

now with fun diagrams!

[image description: a rainbow spectrum stretching from blue to red. the leftmost end (blue) is labeled “’passive’ magic” and “way down here you can mostly do fun party tricks.” the rightmost end (red) is labeled “’active’ magic” and “way down here you’re officially a ‘witch’ lol.”]

when i say active vs. passive magic, i should specify that this is not a strict binary! i’m about to use the terms in a sort of binary way to simplify this post down, but magic exists on a spectrum.* generally the less raw magic energy you have, the more “passive” your magic will be, but that’s not a hard and fast rule! characters vee and rory, for example, both have comparatively passive magic; however, rory’s is smaller and generally good for party tricks, illusions, and sleight of hand, while vee has more magic that he finds is really good for things like Growing Plants Really Fast and Making The Plants Do What You Want.

*i know this looks like some kind of metaphor for gender but i swear it’s not. you can trans your gender no matter WHAT your magic looks like i promise <3

i mentioned that if it builds up for too long unused, magic will Do Shit On Its Own. with passive magic, the Shit It Does is, like, accidentally growing a plant where plants shouldn’t grow, or changing your hair color when you aren’t looking. slow seeping magic that just kind of oozes out of you until you notice, “wait, shit, my hair didn’t used to be blue.” with active magic, if you don’t control it, it will Break Shit and it will not be nice about it.

active magic is - if we simplify both the magic binary and human genetics until they’re really really blurry - the dominant trait. if you made a middle school biology punnet square, active magic would be the dominant allele and passive the recessive allele. (i haven’t taken a bio class in two years no one get my ass for this analogy.) the child’s magic will take after whichever parent has more active magic. so, to illustrate that, let’s look at a normal family with a normal non-scandalous family tree. by which of course i mean the greenwoods. [canned laugh track playing in the studio]

here are ara, griffin, and medea (parents) charted by how active their magic is:

[image description: the same spectrum, now featuring three picrews of characters. ara, a dark-skinned woman with wavy black hair, freckles, and glasses, is placed leftmost, closest to the blue/passive end. griffin, a dark-skinned man with short black hair and glasses, is placed near the middle of the spectrum, slightly to the left. medea, a pale-skinned woman with spiky white hair, freckles, and gold hoop earrings, is placed rightmost, at the very edge of the red/active end.]

...and here’s how that went for them, progeny-wise:

[image description: a little family tree. ara and griffin’s child, vee, a dark-skinned person with wavy black hair, a worried look, and band-aids on his face, is labeled “quiet unobtrusive plant-based magic” in green text. medea and griffin’s child, jasper, a lighter-skinned person with spiky brown hair and freckles, is labeled “once accidentally shattered 50 champagne glasses at his dad’s birthday party” in red text.]

(yes, i know i said there aren’t any ATLA-esque magical divisions; that’s still true; vee just happens to get on really, really well with plants. much like jasper gets on really really well with entropy and causing problems on purpose.)

so the thing about “active” magic is that it’s usually more powerful, but if it’s too powerful it gets incredibly destructive. like i said earlier - if you’re part of the upper class, it shakes out fine; otherwise not so much. your choices with this kind of dangerous magic are to either fight it and keep it tamped down, or to lean completely into it and embrace your massive amounts of dangerous power. if you are rich, you can do that second thing! that’s what leovald stayer does, and he’s the president of the mage’s guild! good for him! [i say, through gritted teeth.] but if you aren’t rich, you had better try to keep that shit on lockdown, unless you want to be branded a reckless uncultured social deviant and - in most cases - a witch.

mages vs. witches

everyone with magic is a mage. only a few mages are witches. it’s like squares and rectangles, you know? you can hear gracen talk about that here in nice prose (plus baby cressida!), but the bottom line is that “witch” is shorthand for “woman* who has magic so powerful it’s unsafe, who uses it to break shit and be reckless,” and anyone with the “wrong” type of magic who doesn’t have a trust fund to back them up is getting tarred with that brush. they’re nothing like those elegant learned mages casting down benevolent laws from their ivory towers, you see.

*this isn’t a gender specific thing but usually women are the ones who get called witches because Women Should Know How To Control Themselves But Men Are Just Like That. god we love misogyny <3

tl;dr: misogyny and classism real. if you have hard-to-control magic that breaks shit then you’re destined to be a pariah UNLESS of course you’re rich and powerful and then it’s COOL that if you got too out-of-control you could collapse a building or cause a monumental storm or something. you know. cool.

[image description: the same magic spectrum. medea is still there, placed exactly where she was before. leovald’s face is also there, right above hers; in terms of magic, they are equally placed on the spectrum. leovald is labeled “runs the whole city” and medea is labeled “lives in a cave in the woods,” both in white text. there are three thinking emojis at the very top of the image.]

funny how these things work out.

in conclusion

in conclusion, if you’ve read all of this, you’re braver than the marines and have my undying love. if you’re down here for a tl;dr: magic is a natural force everyone is born with; some magic is comparatively harder to control; classism & other social structures affect the way a person’s magic is viewed (there are a lot of double standards); i really enjoy making little oc diagrams.

if you have questions, comments, etc, about this post or darkling in general, my ask box is always open! thank you for reading! [blowing you a kiss]

#i dream of hitting leovald stayer with rocks <3 #anyway this is terribly long but i had a friend scan through it and they said it was comprehensive and helpful so!#oh also i hope the image descriptions work i should start doing those... if anyone has concrit on that come shout into my inbox #this post could also be called 'reasons why jasper acts like a neurotic prey animal all the time'#though i did try not to delve into specific characters unless i was using them as examples. this here crash course doesn't need 2 get longer #max.txt #darkling tag #leovald stayer #ara greenwood #griffin greenwood #medea the witch #vee greenwood #jasper greenwood

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katjastudies · 4 years

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09.11.2020: studyblr community challenge

day 8 - What is the best thing about studyblr in your opinion?

It's such a great thing to have a community that enjoys learning and studying and uplifting each other. We all have different interests and fields of study, but I feel like no one gets judged about their interests, even if they seem very niche or unusual. Also, a lot of studyblrs seem to be teenage girls and young women, and I find it so important that this community teaches us that we are allowed to be ambitious, to strive for more, to enjoy learning and to want to be successful. I also think it's great that this community is about our academic interests, not about our looks. We constantly get judged for our appearance and bodies, and it's so refreshing to see a community that doesn't care about that.

day 9 - What is the worst thing about studyblr in your opinion?

I feel like studyblr can seem kind of elitist sometimes - that you need to have a specific aesthetic and specific items and that your posts need to have a clean, white look with a neat handwriting. And yes, this looks great - but it's not achievable for a lot of people, who may not have a white background or a pretty handwriting or the time and energy to make their notes aesthetically pleasant. It sometimes feels like a lot of studyblrs seem to care more about consumption and the things they own and buy than actually studying, which is sad, because it excludes all the people who don't have the money to buy whatever kind of supplies are popular right now or who don't have access to certain brands.

#studyblr community challenge #studyblr #studyspo #study inspiration #study inspo #studying #study #german studyblr #history student #history studyblr #studyinspiration #studyinspo #own post

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dearinheadlights-archived · 3 years

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11 April 2021

it’s always a mix. i’m anxious about my current classes, and how the semester will end, and being ready for the summer. and summer in general. i don’t know if i’m staying in my college city or going back home. i’d hate to have to go back home. it’s more cost effective, but i can’t stand it. every time i think i can handle it, for holidays and breaks and summer vacation, and i always can’t. the arguments and mental abuse always starts. usually soon after, but sometimes i can escape it until the later part of a short holiday break. but it always does, and it wears me down. i’m already worn so thin after this year, with the pandemic and everything that happened, where i found out my ex cheated on me with my best friend, and i harshly fell out of communication with all of hometown friends. for the better, probably. i have good friends now. we take care of each other. but it was so hard. i can’t go back home, to my parents, and to everyone in that neighborhood. [001] would be in the same neighborhood. i’d think about it every time i drove past where i would turn onto her street. [002] and [003] live just a street away from me. [004] lives in the neighborhood where a boba tea place just was build. fuck [004], though. he’s elitist and made me cry because he made me feel like i made poor college choices based on loans and family’s money. sorry my parent’s can’t help pay my tuition and buy me a car like they did for the rest of everyone who i used to be friends with. they never really understood what it was like, but that was one of the shittiest conversations. i hated crying in front of him, all of them. they all had it so easy when it came to money.

driving past [005]’s street would be hard, too. i miss his cat. one of my old friends that i have on snapchat still, and am on good terms with, i think, posts videos of her sometimes. one video showed her pawing rapidly at a tall carboard box until the accidentally knocked it over. it was cute. i wish i had a cat. i wish i was on okay terms with [005]. the worst part, i think, about going back to my hometown for the summer, would be that i would have no idea who was in town at any given time. i would constantly be on edge whenever i left the house. not that that would be much different from leaving my dorm room right now, though, since [001] lives on the same floor. god, i hate that she and i were so happy that i was moving to this dorm. i partially did it because i knew i’d have a friend there. then she dropped me a week later. i’m so tired of being hurt. ugh, but i guess i wouldn’t even mind running into [005]. maybe. i don’t know what would even happen. it’s not like he would talk to me. he probably hasn’t changed at all. he’s a pretty stagnant guy: he was a junior last we talked, and he’ll be a rising senior this summer, and he had hardly changed since he’d graduated high school. which is weird, since i’ve changed a lot since then. that’s part of why we broke up, i think. plus all the other stuff.

basically, i really hope i find an internship for this summer... i say, as i’m writing this instead of applying for any of the internships i found earlier OR doing my homework for tomorrow. i’d like to stay in my college city. i like it, and my friends will be here. and i can take my summer class here, and stay away from my parents. plus, [006] would probably be here. i hate whenever i factor a guy into my academic/career plans even the tiniest bit, because that’s lame, but it would be nice to not be away from him over the summer. i like him a lot. plus i certainly have other reasons for wanting to stay in the city, so it’s not like he’s my only reason. but yeah. hopefully it all works out and i get my internship soon. i’m actually really looking forward to it. i want an income, and i really want to do some political science work.

things with [006] have been going really well the past few days, i think. he was feeling kinda sad the other night and didn’t know why, which always makes me nervous. mostly because i hoped it wasn’t about me. i hope he’s feeling better, regardless of what it was about. but yeah, things have felt like they’re going well. he makes me really happy. i like that we look out for each other, and all the things we do together. we have a check-in tomorrow, and i’m a bit more nervous for it than i’d like to be. just because of our track record, i guess, lol. it’s only been two weeks since we’ve been officially together, so i hope he’s not being too hard on himself if his nerves about being together haven’t fully calmed down yet. plus, he has an appointment to be prescribed anti-anxiety medication in a little over a week, so i’m sure that’ll help with his nerves about everything—not just our relationship—too. i know starting medication is scary, so that’d be another bonus for me staying the summer in the city: i don’t want him to go through that alone, because i know he’s nervous. and i’ve got his back. of course, he could always call me or text me or whatever, but being physically present is preferable. i’d honestly miss him too much over summer vacation too, if i had to go back home. he’s my best friend, too. and i love him. sheesh, i say that every time. it’s on my mind a lot, i guess. i think he’s really cool, and great, and sweet, and i like him a lot and i love him.

but i REFUSE to end on such a sappy note. that was dripping with sap. uhhhh.. i’m finding that i really like mentos? they’re like, gum, but. a mint candy, genius. idk, lmao. sometimes i get really hooked on a certain candy. drugs? no sir. i’ve gone through certain candy phases. once it was sweet tarts: i would eat them so much my tongue bled. another time, it was those haribo berries? like the candy raspberries and blackberries? then another time it was werther’s hard caramels: oh my god those were so good. i felt like a grandma, lmao. i always had those golden-wrapped candies in my bad. that was all in high school though. wayyy back in middle school, it was icebreakers mints. the wintergreen kind. i kinda mentioned this to [006] the other night, but i think i have addictive tendencies? i find something i really like and i just keep getting it until i burn out. like, how [006] and our friends go to this one chinese food place probably four times a week. it’s my favorite, and i’m not consuming it at unhealthy rates, so there’s not a problem, really. i don’t know. gonna sweep that under the rug for now, haha.

#journal #diary #daily diary #anxiety #school #relationships

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deniigi · 5 years

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(Rachel) thank you for answering! no, I don't really have any specific program in mind yet, I was mostly curious about the process. my dumb high school in eastern canada has the audacity to discourage post secondary education?? my guidance counselors, who have their jobs based on one (if not two!!!) university degrees say that it's expensive and a waste of time because most grads leave the province. they just want us all to work in the lumber industry that rules the province (1/2)

RACHEL YOU STICK IT TO THE MAN SWEETHEART

Seriously, I got this same shit, time and time again from counselor after counselor and supervisor after supervisor.

So let me explain where the fuck these guys are actually coming from so you don’t have to let only spite propel you to grad school like it did me (there are slightly more healthy propellants, like passion, curiosity, genuine desire to contribute to human knowledge, etc. Altho I am 110% going to sneak ‘spite’ into my acknowledgement section in my dissertation)

Okay, so actual, real talk. Let’s talk grad school (Master’s and PhD–although hey, undergrads and finishing up hs seniors–most of this shit is applicable to y’all too)

1. These folks are saying grad school is expensive because it kind of is expensive.

To this I say: yeah, but it doesn’t have to be. It’s just gonna take a bit of work and some compromise.

So I don’t know where you’re planning on going to undergrad or what your financial aid situation is, but my whole thing is that if you can make yourself or already are eligible for a postgrad scholarship or grant, you’re already doing hella towards your being a feasible candidate for that degree. Because I had a really good GPA going into my Master’s, I was eligible for an internal grant, and then, because I worked my ass off and got a high GPA my first semester, I got a fellowship. That covered my tuition, so all I had to do was deal with my cost of living and I was comfortable with taking out a loan for my two-year program to deal with that.

I want to be clear on 2 points here: I was only able to cover my tuition with my grant and fellowship because I made the decision earlier on that I was fine, absolutely unspeakably fine doing my Master’s at a mid-tier school (a state school, as we say in California, as opposed to a private college or a UC). I personally went to a very working-class school and I was really glad I did because those first tier, Ivy Leagues, and private schools are 1. so competitive it is literally detrimental to your body and mental health. 2. FUCKING expensive–and not for any damn real reason. Listen. If you’re getting an MA or an MFA, no one gives a shit where you do your degree, it’s all about tailoring the most comfortable learning environment for yourself. I personally do not believe in that fucking elitist big-name college bullshit because there is no guarantee that a fancy, expensive-ass degree from a big-name will get you a job over someone who went to a mid-tier. It just doesn’t work like that.

Anyways, so. To make things even more affordable, I also super fucking recommend working while doing your program if possible (no more than part-time, otherwise you’re begging for burn out). Besides being able to buy burritos and not have to pinch pennies 24/7, working lets you make some friends, build professional skills, and have a break from the academic work.

2. Hella students who start grad school don’t finish it.

Or they take 2 thousand years to do it and end up crying over their nearly-finished-but-not-quite thesis at the kitchen table for approximately 2 hours every night before bed.

That kind of makes the investment of your time, money, and energy seems kind of not worth it compared to the number of doors that your postgrad degree would (or would fail to) open up to you.

So. Here’s the thing.

If you want to go to grad school, you need to tell yourself that you are in this shit to win it. You gotta give yourself some very clear guidelines and have a backup plan if shit starts going south.

All I’m saying is that you should be honest with yourself and ask yourself why you’re doing it. If it just to not pay your student loans, that’s not a good reason. If you’re doing it because you don’t want to work yet, that’s not a good reason. If you’ve never not had school and the thought of not having that to build your routine around gives you anxiety, so you think, “I’ll just do another degree, I’ll be more ready to enter the real world in 2 years” STOP. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Don’t go to fucking grad school (I swear I will get to why. Just trust me on this one for right now)

If you decide you want to go to grad school for a legitimate reason (to build skills, to be more competitive/marketable in your field, to make a contribution to human knowledge, etc.) then make a plan for yourself with a timeline and at least 2 back up life plans from the start. That way you don’t get stuck in the way too common loop of having to take year after year of extensions to finish research/writing.

And 3, and most importantly: Grad school is the WORST THING for your mental health fucking EVER.

Okay, know that I say this as a grad student two times over and that I’m not saying this to discourage you, period. I’m just saying it before some asshole throws it at your face or before you’re met with a horrible revelation.

Multiple serious studies have been done on post-graduate students and they’ve found that grad students are something like 6 times more likely to have mental health issues than the gen. population.

that sounds very scary, and I can tell you right now that it is fucking terrifying and, having survived round 1 and currently surviving in round 2 of this bullshit, it is absolutely true. I have not met a single person (and I have a huge circle of postgrad folks in my life) who has not had mental health issues appear or become triggered or worsened by their second/third degrees.

But here’s what else I will say. It takes a certain type of person to excel academically in our insane school systems and that type of person is not exactly healthy to begin with. Academics and academically minded people are kind of perfectly wired to be susceptible to mental health problems. We just want to be the best (ever. always.); we are perfectionists, we have imposter syndrome (if you’re a human–those people who don’t have this are sociopaths and you need to avoid them as much as possible).

Most of us end up with some kind of anxiety or depression, straight up. Myself included. And it can get bad. I’m not even gonna joke about that.

So again. You have to be honest with yourself and think about your boundaries, your triggers, and what services and support you have at your disposal to make this shit happen anyways.

Because we all know you’re gonna do it anyways. It’s just a matter of getting a support system in place, getting meds when you need ‘em, getting help when you need it, and knowing your limits and how to manage your self-care and burnout.

So. This has been Grad School: Full Disclosure with Matt. I hope that you/someone gets some decent, honest advice out of that.

I know it’s a little scary, but I have to emphasize that the friends I made in grad school and the kind of thinking I am now capable of doing has literally changed my life for the better and I do not regret going to grad school despite all the shit. Have not ever, will not ever.

I am a huge proponent of post-secondary edu and all I want in the world for you folks who want to do it is to help y’all do it without too much physical, mental, and financial strain on your persons, and that shit is doable so long as you go in with as much info and as practical expectations as possible.

Because that shit was absolutely worth it (to me). At the end of that road, there is nothing as amazing as looking at your degree and your thesis and your friends and skills and being proud as fuck because you fucking did that. You did. And you’re capable of so much more than you ever thought you were.

Anyways, you go Rachel. Show ‘em what’s what if that’s what makes you happy.

#not fic #long post #sorry folks #I can't not inform the youth #It is my moral responsibility #education #graduate school

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the-ship-maker-2 · 2 years

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College! Dr. Locklear HCs

-the local fuck boi of the school

-frat boy

-trust fund baby

-since he was charming and good-looking and basically a seemingly good guy he could get with just about anyone he wanted

-no one was safe

-he was either people's dream person or their worst nightmare to some

-needless to say, he had a colorful reputation at the college

-everyone knew him or at least knew of him

-everyone had at least one crazy story with him that may or may not be true

-whether he was notorious or not is entirely up to you

-Professors loved him overall he seemed to have all the answers and never seem to falter under pressure and was the golden kid in class

-they even jokingly called him Professor Locklear

-he was the one student you could copy homework and notes from but you had to pay a hefty price in the form of a favor that he may call upon you whenever he needs. Unless you had a pretty face guys and girls and everyone else in between included.

-ethics was NOT his strongest class looking back on it now

-but because he was the obnoxious type of know it all and acted like a spoiled little rich boy and had his elitist attitude he didn't have many intimate relationships or friendships.

-until he met Smiley, EJ, and Amelia

-how they put up with him he doesn't know but he's secretly thankful that they did even though he will die before he admits it

-he picked on EJ a lot because he thought that he was better than that runt and runts had no place in the medical field. He also felt threatened by him because he showed more talent and promise as a doctor than he himself did. And he couldn't stand that at the time.

-overtime as EJ grew more and continued to prove himself more than capable to handle the medical field he picked on him less. but this time it was to prepare him for the real world in his own asshole way. Also since he hung out with Smiley and then Amelia often he had no choice but to tolerate him even more

-Smiley was his academic rival and they had a weird frenemyship laced with homoeroticism going on.

-They constantly fought for top place in their shared classes

-there have been class fights between them.

-of course, Smiley got into trouble and he got off scot-free

-but he made sure to get him out of trouble

-he loved to piss off smiley simply because he was easy to provoke and get a reaction out of.

-but the reason he stuck around with Smiley was that he wasn't afraid of him and smiley was able to put him in his place and call him out on his shit

-He may or may not find that hot ngl

-and tbh they could both use a friend

-Then there's Amelia

-sweet innocent Amelia

-at first, he was flirting with her and trying to seduce her just because he could and she was cute

-but she is impossible to flirt with and is oblivious to any advances

-but he still tried upon finding out Smiley had a crush on her just to piss him off

-He was not expecting to fall in love with her too. Like genuinely fall in love with her

-It was her pure of heart but dumb of ass personality and how her beautiful mind worked

-However, he eventually stopped as she was someone he actually came to truly respect and say that her heart and mind belonged to Smiley

-He still loved her just the same as Smiley did and still does but he showed it in a different way

-Plus with Amelia around since he wanted to impress her, he was nicer to EJ which after a while he became a much nicer person in general.

-Partying with him was legendary as he was the one usually throwing the parties.

-you could find him trying to flirt his way into someone's bed or trying to outdrink Smiley in drinking games

-he also taught Smiley, Amelia, and EJ to cook semi-healthy cheap college meals instead of having them live off of ramen, spagehttios, and ravioli

#creepypasta #creepypasta fandom #dr. locklear #college #head canons #send me requests #please flood my inbox #please and thank you

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phoenixwrites · 6 years

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Re: the message about people misinterpreting Lewis, digging that shade at Pullman. He's always so snotty about his interpretation of Lewis. One of my friends actually got to talk to him about it once and he was so ridiculous and high and mighty about it. D r a g h i m.

I am trying SO HARD to be nice about Pullman because I know a bunch of my followers love him. And His Dark Materials. For some reason. And he has some literary criticism that is pretty good and I love his fairy tale collection.

But the C.S. Lewis thing will ALWAYS be the line I can’t cross into enjoying him as a writer.

I get the Susan criticism. Considering I’ve been ranting about the abundant misinterpretations that abound the interwebs for the past nine years or so, at this point, it is impossible not to understand WHY people perceive (however wrongly) her fate as sexist. (They are wrong but I get it.) But it’s really the OTHER crap Pullman talks about Lewis that riles me up. How he presents “His Dark Materials” as the anti-Narnia…like seriously, fuck you, man. What kind of pretentious ass bullshit is that? Rowling was disturbed by Susan, but she acknowledged gratitude for how Lewis transformed the genre–paralleling Harry walking through the barrier of 9 ¾ with Lucy entering the wardrobe. Gaiman wrote an unpleasant short story about Susan, but still acknowledged his debt to Lewis and wrote a really beautiful speech that tributes him.

He complains about the worldview in the Narnian books, saying they take for granted misogyny, racism, and conservatism. Disagree. Hard disagree. Furthermore, expecting an Oxfordian don from the 1930s-1950s to be at the level of progressivism that permeates the academic world now is stupid. This is isn’t to say you can’t find traces of misogyny and racism in his fiction–it’s there. But I don’t agree at all that it’s in Narnia. Narnia is probably the most progressive of his works. Honestly, it feels like Pullman’s main problem with Narnia is the religious overtones. Boo fucking hoo. Grow up. Get over it. The whole of English literature is rife with religious overtones, symbolism, themes much more blatant than Lewis’ fantasy world and if you’re going to call yourself an academic, you better get over it. You don’t have to share the worldview, but you need to appreciate what it’s doing and why it’s making a cultural impact.

I recognize Pullman is smarter than me and has more degrees and more experience in the academic literary world but I do not care and I will be ranting about his attitude towards Narnia till kingdom come. You don’t have to LIKE Narnia, that’s fine, but stop acting like an elitist snob who is just so much wiser than the rest of us religious peasants for disdaining the series. And your friend proves my point. I feel like I could have a productive discussion with Gaiman and Rowling about their feelings on Susan. (I have been involved in a highly embarrassing Twitter interaction with Gaiman and once Gaiman liked a Tumblr post of mine where I talked about his short story of Susan and how I understand him resolving his conflicted feelings on her through writing so I feel like he and I are good on the subject). I do not feel like I could have a productive discussion with Pullman about it.

Most of Pullman’s knowledge of Lewis personally and professionally comes from a truly heinous AND FUCKING INACCURATE biography by A.N. Wilson. This biography is one of the worst accounts of Lewis’ life you will ever read. I have thrown it across my room MANY TIMES. If you want a good, fair, and honest representation of C.S. Lewis, for the love of all that is good and holy, read Alister McGrath’s biography. He does not elaborate, he does not romanticize, he is completely fair. A.N. Wilson is the Rita Skeeter of biographers.

Like if we want to critique C.S. Lewis, step into my office, I’m happy to discuss my love, criticism, and problems for and with C.S. Lewis any day of the week. I have written many papers on the subject. I researched at the Bodleian Library in Oxford for precisely this reason. But I don’t think Pullman can do that fairly or objectively.

#sporklift #C.S. Lewis #The Chronicles of Narnia #I won't rant she thought #and then she ranted #you guys should know better by now not to get me started on this #there's a reason I don't go in the Susan Pevensie or Narnia tag #because it always makes me mad #Tumblr is wrong about everything #ARGH #I will not tag Neil Gaiman because if he likes another post of mine I will have a heart attack AND DIE #you know he's out there #watching #waiting #to send me into an early grave

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breeatlarge-blog · 7 years

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As a former IB-centric studyblr (see Exhibit A here), I think that it is fair to say that I am a pretty strong IB advocate. There was nothing I loved more than pushing drafts of my Extended Essay at my mentor, complaining about CAS reflections and pretending to understand the complexities of TOK. But as May rolled around and my confidence in my abilities began to roll into July, I was in for the shocked of my life: instead of passing the program with my predicted academic achievement of 34/45, I just passed the program entirely, finishing with a score of 28/45. I was pretty shocked to say the least. As a toast to my astonishing academic feat, fake philosophy TOK and CAS social statuses on ManageBac: here’s 6 things I learned from almost failing IB, one point for every one that I lost in final exams.

Your grades do not define who you are: 80% exams and 20% moderated internal assessments? Where is the value in that classwork, discussion and studying? Is it all down the drain from here? Chemistry maybe. (Just a joking art-business student here.) Something that I really learned to appreciate is the versatility and application of studies that IB ingrains in their students. A combination of luck and talented teachers, my love for economics and business stems almost entirely from classroom discussions and case studies in Economics HL. I knew that business studies were for me as soon as I finished my first commentary.

Measure your pride not in how others judge your success, but in how you feel you have progressed: I think over the course of my two years in this program, I submitted over 4 drafts of my work to my Extended Essay mentor. While most students groan at the thought of a credit-less assignment, I could not be more excited to explore something I was interested in academically, not to mention having the motivation and opportunity to share it with others. At my graduation ceremony when I was asked to share the thing I was most proud of, I did not hesitate to say my Extended Essay. Does it suck to go from a B to a D? Absolutely. But that doesn’t discount the fact that I worked my ass off on that paper and I know that my mentor loved what I wrote. I gained a greater appreciate for literature and anthropology and honestly right now: that’s all I really need.

Don’t judge the dropouts: I will not be the first to admit that IB students sometimes have an elitist attitude when it comes to academics (especially compared to AP and regular program students). Sure, my program may be internationally-focused, but that’s no more than a few works in translation books in literature class or case studies in economics. At the end of the day, external markers control 100% of your grade (IAs are moderated, do not ever forget it) and if you’re like me, those same AP or regular program students you were putting down probably graduated with a higher average than you.

Your teachers are human too: One of my favorite things about IB is that everyone really is a team working together to have a greater success rate. It’s rarely you versus your teacher. I graduated knowing that my teachers did the best they could possibly do for me and it’s such a toss up what results in the end.

Keep your personal life on hold during the academic season: One of my biggest regrets for several reasons is that right around exams, I had a major falling out with my best friend and confidante of four years. It sucked, as most breakups do, but the worst part is that when I should have been focusing more on studying, I could barely get out of bed. Friendships are forever until nobody talks anymore and those grades that got you into university could have also resulted in making new friends.

Choose your friends diversely: So my strength is in languages and social sciences, but the way I designed my IB program focused heavily on the natural sciences and engineering. My closest friends and I were complete opposites which made up for great conversations and interesting perspectives. Through them, I gained a deep appreciation for science and mathematics. Even though these subjects may not be my favourites, I will always look to them with an open mind.

What advice would you share with high school students about your experience? I know that really hit home for me is the ability to reflect and journal. (Damn CAS for actually teaching me something useful in the end!)

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