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the-blue-fairie · 3 years

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Elsa’s scars are because of a complex interplay between the pain of the accident AND the pain of her upbringing thereafter.

I talk about the ways in which the trolls’, Agnarr’s, and Iduna’s choices negatively impact Elsa and Anna a great deal. It’s a complex subject to discuss - and I feel like I’m always returning to it because the fandom often tries to reduce it to black and white.

On the one hand, there are people in the fandom who vehemently dislike Agnarr and Iduna and portray them very negatively.

On the other hand, there are people who love Agnarr and Iduna and try to defend their every action, even when their actions hurt their daughters.

And... the trolls don’t usually get brought up at all. I mean, there are definitely folks who point out that the trolls are to blame for stoking the whole royal family’s fears... but I don’t think people can see their pain as easily in the abstract magical characters’ actions, so they just don’t dwell on them as much.

In my opinion, both extremes are approaching the matter in the wrong way. I don’t agree with people who hate Agnarr and Iduna. I don’t agree with people who paint them simply as abusive parents. In both the first film and the second, Agnarr and Iduna are good people trying to do their best in a painful situation. BUT, at the same time, their parents’ actions and the trolls’ actions hurt both of the sisters - and I feel like, when people bend over backwards to defend their actions, people ignore the hurt they caused.

AND, in some ways, I feel like the second film encourages this black and white thinking. The second film WANTS viewers to ignore the negative ramifications of the trolls’ and the parents’ actions. That’s why the film proper never discusses Agnarr’s and Iduna’s or the trolls’ actions while the sisters were children - opting instead for the tie-in book Dangerous Secrets to discuss those events... a tie-in book that, however well-written, will only reach a select audience while the films will reach a far wider audience.

This bothers me because it usually means I see people ignoring many of the external forces that caused Elsa to grow into who she is as a character.

In some cases, these are people who simply treat Elsa like a bad person because they ignore all the context that informs why she behaves like she does.

BUT, at the same time, I have friends who are deeply sympathetic to Elsa... but can’t seem to process how deeply Elsa’s upbringing informed who she grew up to be.

Like, I’ve had long discussions with friends who have told me that, if Elsa was raised differently, she would still grow up the same because her trauma comes from the accident.

I feel this represents a gross misunderstanding of how child development works.

Yes, Elsa was devastated by the accident. But consider her actions and body language immediately thereafter:

Her first instinct is to run to Anna and hold her in her arms. Even after her parents coming rushing in and her father asks what she has done, she defends herself, saying, “It was an accident. I’m sorry, Anna.” She still holds Anna close:

Elsa has to be taught to recoil, to shrink away, to keep her distance from Anna.

Elsa’s fear is learned. We only see her truly starting the pattern of shrinking away, of curling inside herself with fear of herself after Pabbie shows her an ominous vision, telling her there is “danger” in her powers.

A fear of herself that continues thereafter, after she has processed that she is and so begins to see herself as a danger:

Yes, the accident itself scarred Elsa. But to say that, “If Elsa was raised differently, things would have turned out the same because her trauma emerges from the accident” is simply wrong.

Elsa was a child being influenced by adult authority figures who ultimately failed her.

Pabbie igniting a vague and fiery vision of danger before an impressionable child influenced her, helped to cement the idea in Elsa that she is naturally dangerous.

Agnarr and Iduna separating the sisters reinforces to Elsa that there is something wrong in her - something she has to repress.

Keep in mind, I’m NOT saying this to demonize Agnarr and Iduna. As this moment shows, they are heartbroken the more Elsa shrinks from them. They love their daughter, and hate to see her hurting like this:

BUT that doesn’t change the fact that their actions helped to hurt her. Inadvertently, I know. But they still did.

To ignore the influence of the adult authority figures on who Elsa became is to ignore the complexity of how children interact with the world, how they respond to elders who are in positions of power. Elsa trusts the signals given by the adults around her. When Pabbie tells her there is “great danger” in her powers, she believes him. When her parents tell her that it is a necessity that she isolate herself and conceal herself, she trusts them.

Sometimes, certain people make much of the nuances of Pabbie’s words or Agnarr’s words. They point out that Pabbie also says there is beauty in Elsa’s powers and that “Fear will be your enemy” also refers to Elsa’s inner fear of herself. They comment that “Conceal it, don’t feel it” is not the same as “Conceal, don’t feel.”

The thing is, these readings put the blame on Elsa for misunderstanding - instead of putting the blame on the adults for inadvertently imparting hurtful messages to a child.

It shouldn’t be placed on the shoulders of a child to decipher a cryptically worded aphorism. It should be on the adult figure, especially when this adult figure is an ancient and wise being.

And really, for all the distinctions between “Conceal it, don’t feel it” and “Conceal, don’t feel,” their essence is still the same. The misguidedness of concealment, of not feeling something that is a part of you, is still rooted in the words regardless of which version we choose.

Elsa, as a child, was still told by the adults around her that she should keep her distance from others for their protection and so, as she grew older, she took that more and more to heart. She grew into what she had been taught - even though the teaching initially came from a good-hearted place.

Sometimes, I’ve had my friends ask me, “But by putting all this focus on Elsa’s influences growing up, are you sure you’re not losing focus on the pain Elsa feels because of the accident itself?” And... no, I’m not. That’s why the title of my post is, “Elsa’s scars are because of a complex interplay between the pain of the accident AND the pain of her upbringing thereafter.” Because I WANT this post to be a nuanced reflection.

But... if Pabbie hadn’t shown a vague and terrifying vision to and impressionable child and her frightened family... you can’t tell me things would have been the same.

If Iduna and Agnarr hadn’t limited Elsa’s contact with people, you can’t tell me things would have been the same.

A friend once pointed to the trail of ice Elsa makes on the journey to the Valley of the Living Rock, arguing that this shows Elsa’s loss of control and panic before Pabbie stresses that she is dangerous - and therefore arguing that this highlights that things would still turn out the same for Elsa growing up even if the trolls and her parents made different choices because she fears what she can do:

I feel my friend’s reading here is... a bit of a stretch. Elsa is scared, yes, but the self-hatred that defines her as an adult? That comes later. That, she has to learn. And it is that self-hatred and fear of herself that paralyzes her.

And I’ve had friends point out, “But Elsa WAS dangerous! She DID hurt Anna, and that’s tied into her stress with wanting to protect her, and that was before the trolls or her parents had any involvement...”

I don’t like this take because it seems to put an impossible amount of weight on Elsa as a child. It asks Elsa as a child to be perfectly composed. To not be scared for her sister’s safety. To... not feel.

It’s a take that follows the misguided logic the film ultimately refutes while defending the mistakes that caused that misguided logic to do so much harm.

And, yeah. Sure. Elsa becomes scared. In the ballroom and riding through the forest. She’s a tiny child.

That doesn’t justify teaching her to fear herself, actions that only make the problem far, far worse.

And you can say, “Well, the adults didn’t MEAN to teach Elsa that-” I know they didn’t mean to do it.

But showing a terrifying light-show to a little girl will impact her, regardless of what Pabbie meant. Especially when he does not clarify.

But slamming the gates shut will have a powerful psychological effect on both Elsa and Anna, regardless of what their parents meant.

Elsa was a child.

Children learn from their surroundings. They respond to the actions of adults they trust, adults they love. While the accident itself impacted Elsa, we cannot ignore that the way she was brought up thereafter also had a profound effect on the way she saw the world, the way she responded to the world.

Elsa was a child being influenced by adult authority figures who ultimately failed her - and the fact people are so willing to put the weight of that on a child instead of the adults surrounding her is troubling to me.

The fact that the second film kind of tacitly puts the weight of that on Elsa’s shoulders by only making abstract references to “fear” - instead of openly talking about the complex circumstances Elsa and her parents found themselves in - is troubling to me as well. It allows viewers to disregard the more complicated elements of Elsa’s relationship with her parents and only focus on the positives the second film puts on display.

(Keep in mind, I DON’T intend this post to be anti Agnarr and Iduna. I love them as characters - ESPECIALLY Iduna, with the backstory F2 offers. Agnarr and Iduna are good people. They are loving parents. They were put in a horribly complicated position... and ultimately their actions - for all their good intentions - had negative consequences.)

#frozen #frozen 2 #elsa #bigfrozensix

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hpiguess · 2 years

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Narcissa and Draco’s Relationship

Is constantly overlooked in this fandom and I have no idea why

Think about it: Draco was Narcissa’s only family (besides her husband) for a long time. This should be more significant than it is

She doesn’t, presumably, have any contact with Andromeda for many many years

Bellatrix was locked up for well over a decade

Regulus is dead

Sirius is disowned and also locked up for over a decade

We never hear anything of Druella and Cygnus, so it’s probably safe to say they’re no longer around in one capacity or another

Walnburga and Orion are dead

We never hear of any family on her mother’s side. Technically I guess there could be some, as all of those pure blood families seem to be interlocked one way or another, but nothing close enough for even a passing mention

Draco was, for at least 13-14 years, Narcissa’s only blood relative. As we know, family and loyalty is very important to Slytherins (for the most part anyways). By the time the second war is in swing, Lucius decides that loyalty to Voldemort is more important than keeping his family safe. I don’t know how you come back from that, or if it’s even possible at all, so by the end of that war I’m willing to bet there was a pretty major rift drawn in that marriage.

Even before that though, I can imagine Narcissa being fiercely protective over Draco when he was a child. She came from a large family and by her mid twenties, that was completely destroyed and she was left with only her husband and child. Lucius could take care of himself but Draco? Little vulnerable Draco?

That was her son, and she would be caught dead before anything ever happened to him.

I think Draco would have been a relatively extroverted child, and yes extroverted children can be annoying. But I don’t think she hummed and nodded along, I think she would have listened intently to every word he had to say, and she would hold on tight. Narcissa knew she only had so long before he would be off to school and she couldn’t keep him so close anymore.

Narcissa probably had a hard time once he did go to school. Nine months out of the year, just gone. She wouldn’t be able to properly watch him grow up, his sphere of influence would grow and that was scary. She didn’t want her son to end up like Andromeda or Bellatrix or Regulus or Sirius.

She didn’t want to lose her little boy.

So when the war did finally come, and she saw the crippling stress, the bags under her son’s eyes, yeah I think it might have caused some problems. Some of the blame for that probably went onto Lucius, no matter how much she loved him, and I really don’t think she could ever forgive him for that.

I’m not sure that Draco was fully aware of the extent of his mother’s feelings, or the circumstances that led her there. For that reason, when she did ultimately go a little too hard trying to keep him close, he found it a bit overbearing and shut himself away from her more.

The tragedy of their relationship is that it really is a vicious cycle. On a surface level their lives look so similar (pure blood, proper upbringing, money, class, external coldness, war, etc.) with generational differences, but despite being mother and son their situations, or at least reactions to them, are so different. She takes a step forward, he takes a step back.

But I think it could be different, once the initial end of war shock wears off. Hard to say, I guess it depends how you look at it. It could go great, or be a spectacular failure.

In any case, their relationship is often hard overlooked, and I wish it was explored more thoroughly by more people.

#harry potter #draco malfoy #narcissa black #narcissa malfoy #this is like half headcanon and half canon #idk #do as you please #I like to think about it tho

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ymiwritesstuff · 3 years

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yes!!! i’m glad your requests are open!!! could i please get a revali x reader (fem preferred but idc ig) thats kinda angsty as revali has a rito gf but can tell he’s falling for the reader as she falls for him ?

Heyy thanks for the request, I’m incredibly sorry that you had to wait. I also hope that this didn’t get confusing as I worked on this on and off for a long period of time and as you can see, it got quite long. Still, I hope you enjoy.

Beloved

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of The Wild

Revali x Reader

Summary: A new discovery about Revali leaves you distraught and confused, your feelings toying with you and influencing your behavior in the worst ways.

Notes: Angst

The day was as good as it could be. The sky was clear, the air was just the right temperature and the pleasant aroma of the spruces surrounding the village pleasantly tingled in your nostrils as you made your way up the wooden stairs. The princess had kindly asked you to visit the village, wanting to make sure each Divine Beast was functioning properly and you accepted her request, though a bit reluctantly.

The village itself was among the most stunning places in the Kingdom, that wasn’t the issue. Rather, a certain someone had always stuck out to you in a troublesome way. Those emerald eyes mockingly staring at you, those wings that so gracefully carried him through the air, and that irritating and condescending tone in his voice, all that annoyed you to no end, yet you found yourself at the village time and time again and the more time you spent in his line of vision, the less irritating he seemed to become.

At first, you couldn’t stand him and his arrogance. No matter what he did or said he managed to somehow anger you, but over time, you learned to filter his words, and more recently, you found yourself rolling your eyes at him, unbothered by his constant ramblings about himself. And you didn’t know why. Perhaps you had simply gotten used to his demeanor, but there had to be something more as every time your gaze fell upon him, you felt strange, nervous even.

You went through these thoughts as you made your way to his landing, expecting to see him there as the day would soon turn to the night and despite his passion for archery, even he knew when to rest. You caught a glimpse of those navy feathers and lifted your gaze towards him, witnessing his landing, graceful as ever. The previous thoughts faded away and a small smile crept onto your face as you picked up your pace, Revali quickly noticing your presence.

“Here once again? Let me guess, the Princess sent you,” He said, that familiar tone present in his voice, though it hadn’t vexed you in a long time. You briefly laughed at his guess that had hit the bullseye and rolled your eyes playfully.

“Yep.” You stopped in front of him. “So, anything to report?” These visits had become quite frequent over the past few weeks due to Zelda’s understandable paranoia towards the Calamity, and though you despised them initially, you soon found out that they weren’t as burdensome and tiring as you thought.

Revali brought his wing to his chin and appeared to be in thought, though you both already knew the answer. The Rito was skilled and had no doubt forged a strong bond with his Divine Beast so he facing any issues with it was very unlikely. His eyes then locked onto you, the tiniest smirk tugging one side of his beak.

“Everything is in working order. You and the Princess have absolutely nothing to worry about.” His answer didn’t surprise you in the slightest and upon hearing it, you merely sighed lightly.

“That’s good. I’ll let her know that there are no abnormalities regarding Medoh.”

You immediately glance at the beast that still roamed around the sky thanks to the impressive technology it was fueled by. It never ceased to amaze you. Your (E/C) eyes then moved to him, the mere sight of him making you experience that bizarre feeling you couldn’t describe once again. Despite his ego that was bigger than the entirety of the kingdom itself, he had worked incredibly hard for his achievements and if you were truly honest with yourself, he had every right to be as cocky as he was.

“I’ll do that. Now the-”

“And what of you? The Princess also wishes to know of everyone’s condition. Just in case.”

It was a lie. However, you couldn’t bring yourself to ask about his well-being on your own. He’d never stop taunting you about it. Revali raised his brow slightly and crossed his wings, that prideful aura still emitting from him.

“You can let her know that I am indeed in fine condition.” You lightly smiled at that, delighted to hear that he at least externally was doing fine.

“Revali!”

Both of you turned towards the unknown voice and you saw an unknown female Rito approaching you, her gaze firmly glued on Revali. Your brows frowned in confusion at the sight of the teal-colored Rito who got closer, her amber eyes glowing in excitement.

You were about to say something but when the girl threw her wings around Revali’s torso catching you and him both completely off guard, a wave of shock and confusion hit you like a bomb arrow.

“Nika! What do you think you’re doing?!” Revali asked, completely surprised at the female’s action, a rare expression of embarrassment plastered across his face as she hugged him. The only thing you could do was stare at them, completely and utterly speechless at the sight.

Who was she?!

“Oh, sorry!” She quickly pulled away, allowing the flustered navy blue Rito to take a deep breath and internally deal with the heavy blow to his ego.

“I forgot that you don’t like it when I hug you like that in public.” Nika giggled slightly, the sight of Revali’s feathers puffed up greatly amusing her but only filling you with more bafflement. Nika quickly turned her eyes towards you.

“Oh, who’s this?” She asked, more so from Revali than you. After regaining his composure that was so easily broken, Revali turned to look at you once more.

“Oh, I see!” She stepped forward and extended her wing, which you slowly shook, dying to hear her introduction but also dreading it.

“This is (Name). An acquaintance of mine.” The word he used, ‘acquaintance’, it didn’t feel right.

“She’s an accomplished researcher, the Princess sent her to assess the condition of the Divine Beast.” You had never heard him speak so highly of you before and as much as it would have delighted you, you couldn’t feel even an ounce of joy at that moment. You were more focused on trying to figure out the identity of this female Rito who stayed close to him as he spoke.

“It’s nice to meet you, (Name). I’m Nika, Revali’s beloved.”

Nika smiled and let go of your hand that had gotten cold due to... something. What was this? Your eyes fell on the wooden surface of the landing, this unexplainable sensation spreading throughout your entire being like Malice.

As soon as those words left her beak, you instantly felt something. Something... Painful. As if you were pierced with a Royal Halberd after a bombardment of arrows. You swallowed, unsure how to react.

“Oh... It’s nice to meet you too.” That was all you could say as her sudden words hitting you a lot more harshly than you thought.

“It’s getting dark,” you heard Revali say, his gaze landing on the horizon behind which the sun was setting. “It’d be best if we settled in for the night,” he stated, to which the Rito next to him nodded and began walking, most likely towards their shared hut.

You finally looked up at Revali. “It’s unfortunate you had to meet her like that, I didn’t expect her to cling onto me so... enthusiastically.”

His words didn’t exactly make you feel any better, but you tried your best to stay calm regardless.

And that’s how you met her. The one Revali called his one and only. You couldn’t understand why it had shocked you so. Why were you so bothered by all this? The strange feeling of sadness you couldn’t comprehend followed you like a Hylian Retriever clinging to its owner. It was unbearable. The way he looked at her, the way he spoke to her, it was unlike you had ever heard or seen and the more of that you experienced, the more it saddened you. It took you some time, but you eventually understood the reason for this arduous feeling. Those actions of love weren’t directed at you.

“It’s... It’s fine. I’ll probably go now. It’s been a rough day.” Your voice had gotten significantly quieter and you could only hope Revali didn’t notice it. Fortunately, he nodded at your statement.

“Indeed.”

He turned away from you, ready to join his beloved. “I expect you to return soon, knowing the Princess, she most likely won’t stop fussing about the Divine Beasts until Calamity Ganon is defeated.” He glanced at you.

“So, until then, I’m afraid you’ll have to enjoy my presence a bit longer.” And with that, he left, not that you were surprised, he did so often. This time, however, you felt lonely as your eyes lingered on him for as long as they could before he disappeared into his hut, through which you could have sworn you saw him embrace his... Beloved.

It was impossible to look forward to the trips to Rito Village because you knew you’d see them together for even a brief moment. It was not Nika’s fault, no. She was a kind Rito and you didn’t need to wonder for too long why Revali was so fond of her. You were the one to blame. For allowing yourself to develop such feelings for him. If you had realized them sooner, perhaps it wouldn’t have hurt so much. All you wanted, was to feel his wings around you just like she did, to see those stunning emerald eyes look at you with affection, just like they looked at her. It was impossible, you knew this, yet you allowed the feelings to linger within you, only for them to hurt you even more.

You flop onto the ground with a heavy sigh after defeating a group of Lizalfos that were threatening Zora’s Domain. Breathing heavily, you wipe the sweat off your forehead with your sleeve and catch your breath, the Zora Champion slowly approaching you.

“Is something the matter?” The Princess asks, her soft voice and oddly specific question making you look at her.

“No... I’m alright,” you say, still catching your breath. Mipha kneels down beside you, checking for any possible wounds you may have suffered as she does.

“Usually something heavy weighs down on someone when they fight this ruthlessly,” she says, glancing at the rather brutally defeated monsters that she herself didn’t even get to fight.

She had noticed your merciless attacks and the way you flung your weapon. The Princess had never seen someone defeat their foe in such a ferocious way. In truth, you took your anger out on just about anything that wasn’t a Hyrulean. You kept the feelings bottled up and it was only a matter of time till someone noticed your distress. And the Zora beside you did.

“I’m not asking you to tell me what’s bothering you. But... I’m here. If you need someone to talk to.”

You glance at Mipha, her eyes shining with the most genuine form of kindness you had ever seen. She had her own share of worries, yet she was ready to put them aside and help. Her soft voice filled you with a temporary calm you hadn’t felt in weeks. Her mere presence was already helping.

You briefly look down, going over your situation. Keeping everything inside was already killing you, and with Mipha’s calming presence next to you, the words just come out of your mouth:

“I... I’m in love with someone. But... They already have someone to call their... beloved."

The word had stuck to you, and digging into your being like a sword, yet you let it slip from your lips. Mipha listens carefully, your words hitting her quite significantly. You didn’t know this, but the Zora Princess understands your predicament well.

“How do you possibly cope with that, Mipha? Every time I see them, I can’t help but feel hurt. I can’t get over him...”

“We all have our roles to fulfill, (Name).” She places her trident down and you feel her hand land on your shoulder. Her touch is gentle, much like the healing power she possessed.

“Sometimes... We have to accept the truth. No matter how much it hurts.” You feel like crying. Her words are sincere and you know them to be true, but you can’t bring yourself to accept them.

Your (E/C) eyes fall to the ground below you.

“But how? How can I possibly come to terms with it?” You look at her again, your eyes filled with desperation. You wanted to overcome this, you really did, but it was far easier said than done.

“The only one who’s in your way is you (Name). If you can’t conquer yourself, you will have no hope of accepting the truth. It is difficult to look at someone you love to be so close to someone else, but if you cannot put that behind for the sake of your own well-being, the pain will only increase.”

Mipha’s own eyes glance at the ground, her own pain with the similar situation weighing on her heart.

“Trust me... I know.”

Her words stick to you, slowly replacing the unpleasant thoughts that had roamed within you for so long. You turn to her, an empathetic glow apparent in your eyes.

“Thank you, Mipha. Guess your words also have healing properties.”

“However, there’s always hope. And you should never give up on it.”

A smile tugged the ends of her lips as she spoke, her expression reflecting her words perfectly. The soothing words that left her mouth gave you hope that you thought you had lost and that unbearable sadness turned into something else. You couldn’t help but smile at the Princess.

She lightly giggled at that as you both began making your way back to the Domain.

An exhale that appeared in the cold air as a faint cloud left your mouth as you let go of the arrow, aiming at one of the targets of the Flight Range. You lowered your bow to witness where the arrow would hit, hoping it would land on the center of the wooden target. But alas, it missed the middle by a tiny bit, causing you to let out a sigh of disappointment and frustration, though it was fortunate you managed to hit the target at all since the powerful winds often messed with the flight of any arrow. Still, your ambitious side wanted to hit the bullseye more than anything, so you grabbed another arrow, ready to try again.

“Don’t even try it. You won’t even come close to hitting that target,” Revali said behind you. For a moment, in the midst of intense focus, you had completely forgotten his presence.

After the conversation with Mipha, approaching Revali had become slightly easier. You could talk to him without the constant feeling of envy or sadness, though it did partially enter your being every time your eyes caught a glimpse of teal-colored feathers. You couldn’t be mad at Nika, she hadn’t done anything wrong, so you tried your best to remain calm and friendly whenever she was around, but oh boy, was it difficult.

You lowered your bow and looked at him after rolling your eyes.

“Thanks for the encouragement.”

Turning away from him and facing the target once again, you were about to continue your attempt. Only to get interrupted once again.

“Well if you insist on shooting with an incorrect stance, don’t let me stop you.” In the middle of his sentence, you fired again, but this time didn’t look at where the arrow landed and instead turned towards him again, his words catching you off guard.

“Stance? What do you mean?”

Your brows frown at him, confusion painting itself on a canvas that was your face. He lets out a sigh and walks beside you, taking out his infamous Great Eagle Bow and drawing it.

One of your frowning brows raises up as you watch him, noting how inhumanly steady his grip was as he releases an arrow, which lands on the center of the target you had been attempting to conquer. He smirks at his small achievement and turns to you. How typical of him.

His words puzzled you. Despite the fact that they were coated in his usual sarcasm and arrogance, he had never sincerely given you such words of advice. Sure, he liked to bathe in the statements of fame he dedicated to himself, but hearing him actually providing his guidance was extremely peculiar. Strangely, it made you smile.

“The way you hold your bow is rather... Amateurish, to say the least.”

He placed his wings behind his back and kept his emerald eyes on you. His words had little effect on you and you found yourself lightly rolling your eyes at them as he continued:

“The reason as to why you keep missing is simply because your grip on your bow is unstable.” You glance at your hand that was still holding your weapon, the cold sensation caused by the low temperature tingling on your fingertips quite uncomfortably.

“Thank you for the advice, Revali,” you say as you draw your bow again, paying close attention to your grasp on the wooden material, making sure to keep your previously shaky hand under control. Your hand stays relatively steady and your confidence begins to bloom even under a sharp pair of emerald eyes.

Revali steps away from you, allowing you to finally release the arrow after taking a deep breath. It flies through the cold air and your eyes follow it anxiously, hoping that it would finally hit the center of the target that had been cleverly avoiding you for the past few hours. Your (E/C) eyes widen when the arrow hits the target, and this time, it had hit the place you had wanted. Immediately a smile creeps onto your face.

“Relax your shoulders,” you hear him say, just as you are about to release the arrow. You throw a brief glance at him before allowing your shoulders to relax slightly. This apparently isn’t enough for the Champion, however, as he approaches you, placing a single wing on one of your shoulders, immediately making your eyes widen a bit.

“The key to a successful shot with a bow is the right stance, which is not as simple as someone like you would think.”

His wing pushes your shoulder down slightly, which allows you to relax the muscles, and suddenly, the likelihood of you hitting the bullseye is increased.

Upon turning towards the navy blue Rito once more, your eyes catch an expression that seems to be a mixture of surprise and rare awe. A small smirk makes its way on your features as you look at him.

“Well? How do you like that?”

Your head tilts in the direction of the target that now had two arrows in the middle. Revali lets out a scoff and a laugh.

“I am mildly impressed. Hitting a still target on the ground is in no way a difficult task.”

You find yourself once again rolling your eyes at him as you know that what he says hides what he truly means. That’s the most important lesson you had learned when in his company.

“However,”

He takes a few steps towards you, his wings once more crossed behind his back. “You somehow managed to do it with that.”

His wing points at your bow, which immediately causes you to look at it, only to notice a crack on the wooden surface. “It’s... Broken?”

“Don’t tell me you expect me to oversee everything you do with a bow. If only your eyes were more perceptive, you may have been able to noti-”

“Indeed. I noticed from the moment you first attempted to shoot with it."

You lift your gaze to him.

“You knew it was broken from the start? Why didn’t you say anything?”

Confusion mixed with slight irritation coats your voice as you look at him, noticing him smirking once more as he turns his back to you, increasing the distance between you two as his talons sink into the shallow coat of snow.

His words that were coated in a condescending tone come to a halt when he feels something hitting his back rather harshly. A noise left his beak and he turns around, only to see you with your arms crossed, a mischievous grin stretching your lips, and a small area of snow that looked as if it was missing a piece. Revali’s eyebrows frowned as he swiped the remaining snow off his back, a slight wave of annoyance at the unexpected snowball flowing through him.

“I didn’t expect someone like you to act so utterly childishly.”

Your rolled your eyes, unwilling to let his words affect you, though they already had.

“Well, it was your childish blabbering that caused this in the first place. So technically, this is your own fault.”

Your smirk remains on your face as you purposely, and admittedly childishly, fire back at him.

“I was merely having fun.” You look at him and notice his expression change. It’s a change so microscopic you almost miss it, but something in his eyes indicate that the tone of the conversation was changing.

“At least I know how to have fun.”

“What a ridiculous way to have fun.”

Revali walked past you, his wings once again behind his back. This time, his voice sounded different, a strange spike of anger in it that didn’t go unnoticed and certainly didn’t help the situation or ease your own growing pique.

“And you are saying I don’t?”

You crossed your arms. “Clearly not. Judging by your attitude.”

He scoffed mockingly. “I’ll have you know, I have plenty of ways to spend my time in a meaningful way, that do not involve childish games.”

“Oh, I’m sure you do! When you have someone like her in your life!”

The words that shot out of your mouth almost accidentally linger in the air and echo around the Flight Range, the harsh meaning behind them making Revali look at you, utter confusion and surprise twisting his feathery features. You blink a couple of times, your mind realizing what you had allowed to slip from your lips, and for a moment, you hope that he somehow hadn’t heard your words.

Revali looks at you, then at the ground, processing what he heard. It was true that he had noticed shifts and changed in his feelings the more time he spent with you. The times he would steal a glance at you, knowing it was in a way forbidden due to Nika. You were right, he did have a meaningful life with her, and that seemed to pain him the most. Revali noticed your expression and immediately understood that what you had said had plagued you and weighed on your being for a long time. Still, your words pierced him like a poisoned arrow. He loved Nika, but at the same time, his heart seemed to feel complete when he was in your presence.

“Revali... I...” The words of vindication and apology get stuck in your throat, unwilling to come out as if they know that there is no way to explain your sudden burst of emotion. You wanted to say you didn’t mean it, but that would have been a lie. Jealousy had twisted your mind little by little and you failed to push your feelings aside. You hung your head in defeat, understanding that there was little to do to save the situation. Your feelings were exposed and what would happen next was out of your hands.

After a grueling silence, the Rito finally spoke, his eyes holding a glow of sorrow and disappointment: “I’d better get going back. Back to-”

“Your beloved.” You finished his sentence as a heartbreaking indicator that you understood how much the teal-colored Rito meant to him. He glanced at you but quickly moved his emerald eyes away from your form as the mere sight of you was enough to claw at his insides. A nod was all he could offer as he prepared to leave. He crouched down and took off, leaving you in the midst of the snow that sprinkled around you.

Your eyes dampened with tears as the being you loved slipped away from reach, his saddened eyes not daring to look back as he flew towards the direction where the being he loved was, conflicted by his feelings he didn’t fully realize he had.

#loz #the legend of zelda #breath of the wild #loz botw #legend of Zelda breath of the wild #loz revali #revali #legend of zelda revali #loz revali x reader #revali x reader #legend of zelda x reader #reader insert

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namelessexistence · 3 years

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Am I the only one who loves the Idea of WWX and SJ being friends? Please Tell me I'm not the only one. Not only they are my favorite characters (for Very different reasons, but still) but I really think It would be beneficial for both. Hear me out.

WWX is not naive, he's not unfamiliar to the cruelty of the world, he doesnt have an close minded Sense of honor about what methods are acceptable to use in a fight according to what society decided was acceptable. He's cunning and good enough at deceit. But he is kind, selfless and heroic. He would be able to understand SJ in a way that LQG and most of righeous cultivators coudn't. But even so he represent a moral that SJ lacks, and, because WWX can understand him, because he doesnt live in a completo different world from SJ, WWX could be a positive influence to him. (And, as we know, SJ becoming a better person in virtually everyone's interest). WWX is protective and would defend SJ when SJ is wronged. No, he's not the kind of person to abandon, WWX and JC situation is completly different from SJ and YQY, I'll explain why later here in the post.

SJ is extremely loyal, even when he feels betrayed and abandones. Once he grows to Care about WWX, he woudn't turn his back to him, no mattter How mas he may be at WWX. He would never, for exemple, Tell everyone that WWX is an enemy of the cultivation world.

They both lived in the streets, they're both orphans. Of course they're not exactly the same circunstância. Almost no one knows about SJ's origin. But he knows and he never seem to forget. WWX'S origin is known. He may be a Head disciple, a prodigy, but, when he annoy some rich spoiled a******, he's the son of a servant. They're both defined by their low North, one internally, and the other externally. They both know How is like to live in a society where a lot of people around them believe that their birth makes them less. Being part of that society without really being part of It.

They are both targets of rumours, both acused of deaths they did not cause, Just because they were there and because people were already so inclined to think the worst of them. Os course the scum SQQ would kill LQG, he Said he would, didn't he? And he always envied LQG. Of course the evil Yiling Laozu would kill his own shijie that basically raised him. How manu people he killed that night? Just ignore the fact that the other people he killed that night were ALL fighters that already gathered with the intent of fighting against WWX and that he coudn't know that JYL, who's not a fighter and tecnically shoudnt be there, would run into the middle of the Battlefield.

They were both perceived as villains and, while It is true to SJ, to certain extend, they were condened for crimes they either did not commit or had justifications to commit. Yes, SJ commited some of the crimes he was acused of, but not all. Virtually the world turned against them. People who should defend them turned their backs to them. Actually, both books start by informing us that they were really bad people who met horrible, but deserved, endings.

Let me Tell why WWX didn't abandon JC like (SJ believe that) YQY abandones SJ. First, when WWX left the Jiang Sect, JC was a Sect leader, had a living sister. The war was over. There was no threat, not to JC. SJ was left as a slave of a cruel master. Every day that YQY didn't came back was a living hell and YQY was the only one who cared enough to try to save him. So, to start, SJ and JC were "left" in completly different situations.

Second, YQY had a promise of coming back, WWX had no promise to stay. The promise he did to JC was to serve him as his father served JFM. And guess what? Said father left to live his own life, and JFM had no problem with this.

Third, the reason. WWX left to save Innocenti lides and JC was fully aware of this. You can't say JC didn't help because WWX wasnt honest. The only thing WWX was keeping from him was the core issue, but It shouldn't affect the morality of that choice. JC already had a debt with WN and WQ without bringing the core to this. YQY didn't come back because he coudn't, I don't blame him for that, but SJ believe he didn't even try. In SJ's Head, YQY abandones him because SJ was not important enough, because YQY could live a bright New Life without SJ. That's not the true, but YQY never told the true even when SJ asked.

Só no, I don't think that, If SJ'S friend, that he already know to be a selfless and heroic person, left him, in his position as a peak lord, to save Innocent lifes and SJ knew that, he would be as bitter as he was with his friend leaving him as a slave to an abusive master Just because he didn't Care enough to come back to save SJ (once again, that's not the true, it's not what YQY did, but is what SJ believe).

And WWX woudn't have to abandon SJ If SJ was in JC's place, because SJ woudn abandon him. He coudn't abandon YQY, despite believing everything I wrote above. He woudn't Just say "well, If you won't do what I want, you can Just die with them". SJ would try to use his Power and influence to help WWX If he saw WWX as a friend. Because SJ is ruthless and deeply flawded, and he loves Very few people, but he would never abandon those few people to the Wolves. SJ coudn't even let LQG, whom he resented, die, or get over the guilt of not being able to save him. Why would he let a friend die? He woudn't!

#svsss #shen jiu #mdzs #wei wuxian

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kanomitri · 3 years

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Dimitri vs Fleche Parallel

*SPOILERS FOR AZURE MOON CHAPTERS 14 AND 18 AS WELL AS (minor) SPOILERS FOR POST-GRONDER OF OTHER ROUTES*

Tw/Cw - Death, mentions of decapitation, trauma, and stabbing

Okay, but Dimitri and Fleche.

I'm in the middle of my Azure Moon replay, soaking in EVERYTHING,

and I just hit the end of Chapter 14.

Uh, as a reminder, this is the chapter after you've just reunited with your students and the monastery is being attacked. What's most important here is the dialogue Fleche shares with Randolph (the enemy general of this chapter whom you must defeat and Fleche's older brother). The transcript is as follows:

Randolph: It would seem the report that the Knights of Seiros have returned was accurate. This is going to take some effort.

Fleche: Brother... I heard a rumor that there is a vicious murderer among our enemies.

Randolph: Who knows if there's any truth to it. Though I admit we have lost some soldiers recently.

Randolph: Whether he's among them or not, taking on the Knights of Seiros is extremely dangerous.

Randolph: You're not ready for the front lines, Fleche. Stay in the back and support us from there. Understood?

Fleche: No! I want to stay with you! I have to---

Randolph: I need you to understand, Fleche. I will come back, I promise.

Fleche: Fine. I trust you, Brother. Please... be safe.

Randolph: All units, prepare to attack!

(Source: The game itself. I copied it from the Log)

Now, aside from the fact that Randolph using Fleche's name while Fleche only says "Brother" is heavily reminiscent of Seteth and Flayn (wow, even the names are similar - Fleche and Flayn), I was listening to this exchange intently.

You see, last time I listened, I was clowning on them because - duh, they're gonna die lol. Dimitri is on my side 🤪🤪🤪 (I later learned that my Dimitri was NOT that powerful, as this was my first playthrough and I had little experience back then. My current Dimitri would absolutely demolish though).

This time, however, I recalled Fleche from last time - she was the one to nearly assassinate Dimitri, and accidentally kill Rodrigue.

Before, I saw this conversation as relevant simply because, "Oh hey, that guy's gonna die! Yup, there he is. Wait, Dimitri, calm down-"

I completely forgot Fleche, so when she came and claimed we killed her brother, my mind blanked. I thought similarly to the rest of the army - her brother must've been some soldier we killed. Oops. ╮(╯_╰)╭

Then, as the conversation closed, a small thought dawned on me:

That reminds me of Dimitri.

To be blunt, a lot of things do (I think about Dimitri just about 24/7 and thusly, I think about Dimitri parallels non-stop) but this was a first for me - and the thought stuck.

Yes, yes... Fleche was like Dimitri - seeking revenge for fallen family, a vengeance that would take her life.

She reflected what Dimitri could've been - and is - in another route. Another way the story could've been told.

Allow me to explain:

Firstly, Fleche was worried for her brother, and she survived the battle where he died.

This was, oddly enough, the first thought to come to mind to explain this, but hear me out.

In an earlier conversation (pre-timeskip), just after the Jeralt is killed, Byleth speaks with Dimitri, where the latter reveals more about his experience back in Duscur, as a way to empathize with the Professor - including some words about his stepmother, whom he loved as his own flesh.

Dimitri: ... My stepmother, the kindest person I had ever known, left me behind and disappeared into the infernal flames. ...

(Source: The Cause of Sorrow/Script - Fire Emblem Wiki)

Dimitri and Gilbert's C-Support reveal that Dimitri would not have lived were it not for an external influence.

Dimitri: (To Gilbert) ... You saved my life at Duscur. I have only gratitude for you, no blame to speak of. ...

(Source: Dimitri/Supports - Fire Emblem Wiki)

No doubt, Dimitri was extremely worried for everyone of the Kingdom during that battle - friends and family alike - but I focus specifically on his stepmother mostly because it's later revealed that she has something to do with the Tragedy, and I sometimes like to have a tragic sense of humor :]

Similar to Dimitri's concern for his stepmother, Fleche worries deeply for her brother, Randolph. Both of them are kept from the front lines and live the battle, but still bear witness to the murder of their family - for Dimitri, that included his stepmother, and for Fleche, that's her brother. Both survived where their beloved family fell, and they had a feeling it would happen.

Second, Fleche seeks revenge.

This is not a hard one to prove. In Chapter 18, as Fleche prepares to kill Dimitri, she shouts:

"[The pain of being stabbed is] nothing compared to what my brother felt! You will never be forgiven, you know. I will never forgive you!"

(Source: Blood of the Eagle and Lion (Azure Moon)/Script - Fire Emblem Wiki)

If that's not vengeance, I don't know what is.

Third, her vengeance is her death, but she does collateral damage in the process.

This one is also fairly obvious - after stabbing Rodrigue she's killed - but there's also a bit more to it.

Yes, Rodrigue's death is an important step in Dimitri arc as it caused him to view both life and death differently, but you can also use it as parallel fodder (as I have).

You see, during other routes (Verdant Wind and Silver Snow specifically), Dimitri comes incredibly close to killing Edelgard (they are literally on the same battlefield, and she's even severely wounded in the process!) but he fails to finish the deed. He severely damages the Imperial army (alongside the Kingdom and Alliance forces, as cited in the event, "A Visitor"), but Edelgard lives. He dies.

Similarly, Fleche comes incredibly close to killing Dimitri. She even does collateral damage (aka she killed Rodrigue) - but she ultimately fails. Dimitri lives. She dies.

In essence, Fleche is a Dimitri that would've been - a Dimitri that is - had he not been corrected. Ironically enough, she helped him - saved his life even.

And people give all the credit to Byleth. ┐(´ー｀)┌

Anyways, that's just a thought I had that I may or may not have put too much thought into haha. I'm not sure if anyone else has noticed it but that's my two cents at the very least.

TL;DR - fleche is lowkey a manifest of dimitri

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obscuremarvelmuses · 3 years

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Some headcanons for Aqueduct aka Peter Van Zante: - His self-esteem is very easily influenced by external events. For instance, when he's suffered a setback or defeat, he becomes insecure, pessimistic, and dumps on himself terribly. All the insecurity vanishes, however, the moment he has the upper hand. He becomes a gloating egomaniac, drunk on his own sudden rush of self-esteem, certain of his unbeatable supremacy...until it all comes crashing down on him in the next instant. He'd probably like to be a confident bully for real, but he's too emotionally fragile to keep that up for long. This is why he feels much better when he's working with a partner or a group; he can enjoy the mental high of success, but escape the lows of defeat by deferring the responsibility for it on to whoever is in charge. - Pete’s heterosexual and not used to female attention, and can easily be swayed or distracted by an attractive woman who seems to be flirting with him, or if one appears hurt or in distress (though his selfishness may also override those situations in favor of his own self-preservation) - Due to his fragile self-esteem, Peter is easily manipulated by flattery or insults in general - Canon art depicts him the same way they depict all men, but I headcanon him as kinda chubby - Last we saw in canon he had his hair in a mohawk, and before that it was worn long in the 90s, but mine has his short like he originally did in his Water Wizard days - He dresses in a casual, working-class normcore kind of way, with most of his clothing being in muted blue or teal, accented with a brown leather belt or shoes. A typical outfit would be a long-sleeved blue or green work shirt worn open as a jacket over a short-or-long-sleeved T-shirt in solid white, solid navy, or striped olive, with a brown belt, relaxed-fit blue jeans, and brown work boots. - He's a serial hobbyist who gives up on everything before he ever gets good. He took tap dancing lessons as a kid, is afraid of bees, thinks 3D printing is cool even if he doesn’t understand it, decent at grilling, has a metal detector he’s never used, can juggle up to three balls pretty ok, got into leather engraving just long enough to halfway etch a design on a belt he’s never finished. His most recent interest is RC hobby cars, and he just might stick with this one for awhile. He's just one and it's a cheap model, but he's really fond of it. - He has a strained relationship with his parents due to his aimless nature and consistent criminal activity. He’s also borrowed a lot of money from them that they're never getting back. - Likes grunge music, psychedelic rock, and easy listening - Peter will shift blame if he can so he doesn’t feel bad for a failure or mistakes, because he will beat himself up BAD for those if he CAN’T find someone else to blame - Despite his tendencies towards morose self-pity sessions, he's not bad company if he's not in a bad mood. He's fairly affable to others, and gets on well with most of his social group, which is to say, other Average Joe working class types who are a lot like him. He's not particularly complicated in social terms; he responds well to people being kind or cordial, and hostile to those he perceives as rude or challenging him. He's the kind of guy you can have a beer with, though also not the most sensitive or astute. - His biggest limit on his very potent power is his lack of brains regarding how to use it

#aqueduct hcs #sexuality hcs #hobby hcs #music hcs #body hcs #fashion hcs

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letusmeetagain · 3 years

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On redemption and blindness

I walk amongst men as the fragments of the future: that future which I contemplate. And it is all my poetisation and aspiration to compose and collect into unity what is fragment and riddle and fearful chance. And how could I endure to be a man, if man were not also the composer, and riddle-reader, and redeemer of chance! To redeem what is past, and to transform every "It was" into "Thus would I have it!"—that only do I call redemption! - Nietzsche: Also sprach Zarathustra

This is probably a unique way to see redemption. I understand the intention of Nietzsche to offer an different way to approach redemption and guilt or to overcome the talions law or other Christian conceptions about mistakes and sins.

I’m glad that age isn’t an important criterion for Isayama. Growing older doesn’t guarantee that characters will reach enlightenment. It doesn’t matter if the warriors were children and Eren is an adult. Someone can argue that it’s not logical but I find it quite interesting that adulthood doesn’t imply necessarily wisdom. Characters can live their whole lives in the wrong and redemption can happen even before death after a long life like with Kenny or Karina with a proper impulse of their environments.

So, for now: Eren is standing in the wrong fundamentally driven by his spirit of revenge and he doesn’t understands.

Kenny is a good example of what it feels like not understanding the source of every beauty. His struggles involve trying to understand why he admired Uri and why Uri was different. He wanted to see the same things. This struggle culminated when he discovered that this power wasn’t the reason behind Uri’s compassion. In reality, Uri was dealing with the power he was entrusted with. Every founder were partly enslaved to this power and the preech about peace and love was nothing but a farce. The true miracle was actually Uri’s personality and this gesture. The guilt of not being able to create a paradise.

Eren’s case is then similar to Kenny’s. Surrounded by a violent world with no freedom and having a violent nature sleeping inside his mind, he understood things through his own worldview and was blind to the true reasons behind Armin’s sight.

Eren’s natural response to the dream he couldn’t see was projected with rage onto an external obstacle. He never thought that maybe... he was the one being unable to see went past his mental walls or the way his environment influenced his mindset. To him, it wasn’t about accepting the freedom he had to dream but about searching for any obstacle to blame for his impossibility to reach his dream. He felt his state as a lack of freedom:

“This, that I want to do, I can’t reach it because something is restraining me”.

But the final goal was something abstract. It wasn’t something he could wrasp on an ontological level, thus, he kept searching for support in Armin, who was the one with bright eyes and able to recognize it. So he asked him...

To this point, Eren has to overcome this mindset... his spirit of revenge* in nietzschean terms and the very reason why he CAN’T be considered an übermensch. Nobody prevented him from this dangerous development regading this wrong vision of freedom that brought us to this mistake that has to be redeemed.

According Kenny’s confession in the end... everything he did, he did it searching for redemption for his own life. His goal was to understand Uri’s view: the very moment when he saw for the first time a victory through kindness and modesty. Although he tried from the wrong perspective, he was trying to overcome his own weakness.

Redemption for Nietzsche meant a continuated cycle of self-overcoming/creation and the aceptation, love and reafirmation of our stories and fate as everything we have done and chosen during our lives. Guilt is detrimental and opressive. Past can’t be changed (there’s no undoing it), so there is no point on being enslaved to guilt. “The will can’t will backwards” but we can keep willing in the future. Redemption is not about being slave to the guilt but a learning process of overcoming our weakness.

If being wrong about a dream or a goal lead us to do wrong, when we choose paths that are detrimental for others and ourselves as Nietzsche said, redemption lies in the understanding of our weakness and overcoming them. It means to live with pride about our past and having confidence in ourselves to do things right in the future. It’s about dignifying our mistakes that in the end, are also part of the stories we wanted to create. Without this, we wouldn’t be who we are.

In his last moments, Kenny could bring understanding and relief to Levi. Despite his self-concept as someone unable to take care of Levi, he couldn’t leave him to die.

In the end, he took another path and entrusted Levi with an important gift for humanity. Kenny left the world giving up the dream that was wrong, understanding the truth behind his struggle and redeeming his story as he decided out of his own will.

I expect something similar for Eren in the future when he overcomes his spirit of revenge and his blindness.

“What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: 'This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more' ... Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: 'You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.” Nietzsche

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

* spirit of revenge, easy explained, is born from the ressentiment we have when we can’t accept how things are, our weakness or when we can’t deal with the wrath caused by our past. Ressentiment means here the reaction humans have towards disadvantages by nature, laws or the system against others that enjoy privileges. (See in Eren, Gabi, Karina... etc.) It’s a revolution against fate, past and time.

“For that humanity be delivered from revenge, that for me is the bridge to the highest hope, and a rainbow after long storms”

“And so he moves stones out of wrath and displeasure, and he wreaks revenge on whatever does not feel wrath and displeasure as he does. Thus the will, the liberator, took to hurting; and on all who can suffer he wreaks revenge for his inability to go backwards. This, indeed this alone, is what revenge is: the will’s ill will against time, and its “it was.” Nietzsche

#Shingeki no kyojin #snk #eren yeager

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fymagnificentwomcn · 4 years

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Why do people think Kösem mistreated or was mean to Turhan and Mehmed? I've never read that anywhere in a book, but it's so famous around internet that it's ridiculous.

<DISCLAIMER> Here I need to put a small disclaimer because while answering the question, I truly decided to share some interesting bits about Kösem vs Turhan and in the end it turned into some mini-essay heh. It was definitely a really complex matter and the myth of evil old hag who snatched unlawfully power from her angelic daughter-in-law and then began persecuting her because she was not obedient enough culminating in Turhan having no choice but to kill her mom-in-law and then become best (but absolutely not interested in power) Valide ever is just... not true.<END OF DISCLAIMER>

*******

Same.

I mean, we can bet that when later the rivalry between the two ladies was in full force, they were sometimes rude to each other, but I doubt they would have done it in public for people to note and record, and even that could be filtered out. Harem was truly a closed-off space and this is why we get most of quotes by Sultanas from their letters or if they act in political capacity, like Kösem’s speech to the pashas from the Divan. And yes you can find all sort of rumours cited in books, but I haven’t seen anything like that with legitimate sources provided.

This is also why we have so many different accounts of Kösem’s assassination, often very conflicting, and sometimes even completely internally incoherent and illogical.

And for example we have an account by Derviş Abdullah, who so wanted to avod placing blame on any of the Valides, that he put all blame of Süleyman Agha going from one Valide to another, with each telling lies about the other to incite them to act against each other. But why would the agha want to create showdown between two sultanas? In this case he was an easy scapegoat because he was present as the participant in brutal treatment of Kösem in most accounts. And both Sultanas surely actively participated in the conflict.

As I said, Turhan was very good at propaganda. She really put a lot of focus to keep a good image, especially an image as a lady who was not so much involved in politics and doing it legally, so she placed far more attention to make it seem like Mehmed was ruling, not her, during her regency. She also relied more on statesmen’s advice than Kösem because she was less experienced, and, as Halil İnalcık puts it, less talented than her mother-in-law. And when she gave her power to Köprülü (who was however her man through and through) she created that image of a woman giving up her power willingly. Sakaoğlu states plainly that those historians who criticised Kösem so much were exactly the ones who praised Turhan a lot and stresses how such historians desribed Turhan as having “no political aspirations” as opposed to her mother-in-law. “No political aspirations immediately meant “charitable lady with golden heart, religious and loved by all”. Turhan continued to create her image even when Köprülü began taking radical actions to maintain order:

The year 1656 is, nevertheless, an appropriate date at which to conclude a study of the political role of dynastic women in this period, for henceforth the emphasis in Turhan Sultan’s role as valide sultan would be altered. As her overt political involvement lessened, her ceremonial and philanthropic roles increased considerably. Indeed, the appointment of Köprülü Mehmed Pasha seems to have initiated a period of intense ceremonial aggrandizement of the dynasty. It was shortly after his appointment that Turhan undertook the construction of the Çanakkale fortresses and her great mosque—both reportedly at the grand vezir’s urging. The elaborate royal progresses between Edirne and Istanbul and to Bursa and other areas near the capital also date from this period. Mehmed IV, who in the forty-five years of his reign displayed little interest in the government of his empire, nevertheless campaigned a number of times as a figurehead ghazi under Köprülü Mehmed Pasha’s successors. It may be that these royal rituals were planned by Köprülü Mehmed Pasha, or Turhan Sultan, or both, in order to divert attention from continuing crises and the severe and bloody solutions imposed by the grand vezir. With political power and military leadership delegated to the grand vezir, the most useful function that the sovereign might perform was to furnish visible symbols of majesty and piety to maintain the subjects’ loyalty and sense of community.

Source: Leslie Peirce, The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire

Peirce also said that Turhan was a sultana who was very concerned with “custom and propriety”.

Sakaoğlu also concludes his citation of Evliya Çelebi’’s account mentioning [short summary & parapharase of that account by me:] how Turhan and Meleki found a way to kill Kösem and then they killed many other people after that and then mentioning also alleged mismanagement by both that brought about Cinar incidents in with the following comment: “This historical account tells us that she [Turhan] had a character far removed from some of her descriptions on other sources and the only ting that saved her from a fate worse than Kösem Sultan’s was luck and her son”. Sakaoğlu also wrote a whole article on how male historians tried to villify the most powerful woman in Ottoman history entitled precisely that (Turkish title of the article: Erkek tarihçiler Osmanlı tarihinin en güçlü kadınını nasıl kurban etti? How did male historians villify the most powerful woman in Ottoman history?)

Peirce mentions about Meleki that:.

Kösem was murdered in a palace coup led by Turhan’s chief black eunuch. Meleki became the new valide sultan’s loyal and favored retainer. She was eventually manumitted and married to Şaban Khalife, a former page in the palace training school. The couple established residence in Istanbul, where, as a team, they were ideally suited to act as channels of information and intercessors on behalf of individuals with petitions for the palace. Şaban received male petitioners, Meleki female petitioners; Şaban exploited contacts he had formed while serving within the palace, while Meleki exploited her relationship with Turhan Sultan. The political influence of the couple grew to such a point that they lost their lives in 1656 when troops stationed in Istanbul rebelled against alleged abuses in government.

Source: Leslie Peirce, The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire

Curiously, some people truly believe in some myth it all immediately became good after Kösem was killed. Evliya’s account is not the only one actually that mentions Meleki and Turhan being good friends even during Kösem’s lifetime, so maybe the “betrayal” wasn’t actually betrayal even if Meleki was formally Kösem’s slave/servant. Maybe the story of Meleki warning Turhan was invented. We will never know.

Turhan was truly careful to cut herself from controversial decisions and whatever the Grand Vizier was doing, but as Leslie Peirce puts it, she undoubtedly had influence on Köprülü and if she hadn’t liked what he was doing, she would have definitely had a way to end it.

Turhan saw what problems her mother-in-law encountered, so was careful to hide her interest in politics (which again does not mean she had none). But when she gave up power it was a necessity - chaos persisted and persisted after Kösem’s death, there was no Grand Vizier who could stay for longer, and last rebellion was bloody and very dangerous to both Turhan and her son. Turhan realised she would not be able to handle it and in the end made a correct decision because that was a necessary step at that point.

According to Naima, nothing came of these efforts because no one was strong enough to enforce the necessary reforms; the would-be reformer Tarhuncu was brought down by the discontent of influential persons injured by his attempts to economize.The year-and-a-half-long grand vezirate of Derviş Mehmed Pasha in 1653 and 1654 was a respite of relative solvency and harmony, but after his death matters once again began to deteriorate. The integrity of the throne was increasingly threatened both internally by rebellious pashas and externally by Venetian advances in the war over the island of Crete, as well as by chronic fiscal shortages now exacerbated by the costs of mounting campaigns against these internal and external enemies. A serious uprising of the troops in March 1656 that resulted in the execution of many palace officials demonstrated the urgent need for a political solution. It was found six months later when Turhan Sultan appointed the elderly Köprülü Mehmed Pasha grand vezir.

Source: Leslie Peirce, The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire

Sakaoğlu descirbes this event in the following word “the financial and political management were responsibilities that Turhan Sultan and her son Mehmed IV could no longer attempt to rescue and operate, so they handed over the management to Köprülü Mehmed Pasha and new era began for the Ottoman Empire”.

Which does not mean Kösem ruling in her own right was a bad decision either - Kösem was more talented in state matters and she knew she could handle stuff, especially during her second regency when she also had a lot of experience. Turhan realising she could not handle it and withdrawing also spoke well of her sense of responsibility, even though she was not as gifted in politics as Kösem.

Thus said, while Turhan did not have such gift for state matters, she was truly skilled in the act of PR & ceremony, which truly helped her a lot during her career and after her death.

Since she later skillfully cut herself off from blame concerning what was happening in politics, there was still one huge stain on her reputation, namely the way she took power from her mother-in-law.

Contemporary Ottoman chroniclers did not welcome the news of Kösem Sultan’s death and recorded it as an injustice committed against a woman of great accomplishments and stature, and as a harbinger of greater social disorder. The manner in which the older valide was disposed of and the subsequent chaos in the palace was recalled during the reign of Mehmed IV as a time of upheaval. Bobovi, so taken by the event, was able to recall more than a decade later the part of the palace where the old valide had been removed from her quarters for the last time.

Source: Lucienne Thys-Senocak, Ottoman Women Builders: The Architectural Patronage of Hadice Turhan Sultan

Murder of Valide Sultan was unheard of in Ottoman history. And what was a better way to justify it then by assassination attempt on the padişah himself? But how to explain why Kösem, known for her prudence and careful calculation, would have attempted such a risky move for no reason? Wouldn’t it have meant that Turhan, the lady of pure characters with no political aspirations, actually did desire power and wanted to take her from her mother-in-law?

Peirce comments that:

The bloodiest contest between competing mothers—the murder in 1651 of the formidable queen mother Kösem by the party of her daughter-in-law Turhan, who was impatient to take power—was reminiscent of past rebellions of princes against aging sultan fathers.

We know little about their relations when Turhan was just a haseki - we only know about conflicts between Turhan and Ibrahim. We similarly know next to nothing about relations between Kösem and Ibrahim’s concubines - the person she was definitely in conflict with was Şekerpare aka one of the people who encouraged Ibrahim’s spending and supported corruption in his court (do not confuse her with his consort Şivekar, historically they were two separate people, show put them together because of limited screentime). There are however some mentions of her, similarly like in the show, backing up Turhan in her conflict with Zarife. Peirce mentions Kösem groomed Turhan in the Imperial Harem and one of her articles. This is a mention of Kösem backing up Turhan in the Zarife conflict from Sakaoglu’s Famous Ottoman Women, though of course this whole Padre Ottomano story with illegitimate prince has so many versions and legends surrounding it and again this account sounds sensationalised in some details like Turhan seeing them in bed or Zarife being pregnant with Ibrahim’s child only then, though we know such situation with throwing Mehmed after a quarrel did take place.

Turhan was definitely the person who benefitted most from Ibrahim’s deposition - from relative obscurity she entered big politics as Valide Sultan. While Kösem got the job of a regent, her position was actually not as stable as woman with her own son - it all depended on statesmen and their whims. She was offered a job due to her experience as opposed to really young Turhan (she was only around twenty two) and as person who had already stabilised Empire when it had been on the brink after Osman’s deposition and Mustafa’s disastrous reign. It was not legally normalised in the Ottoman Empire for a mother to be automatically regent - in the past it was often Grand Vizier and when Süleyman left for campaigns, he always appointed his viziers and later his sons as his regents, not his mother or Hürrem. Mehmed III was the first one to appoint Safiye as regent when he was on campaign to Hungary. Later Halime and Handan were appropriately co-regent and regent de facto, but they did not have the naib-i-sultanat title like Kösem and later Turhan.

Judge Abdülaziz Efendi commented on this unprecedented occurrence in the following words:

It being an ancient custom that upon the accession of a new sultan the mother of the previous sultan remove to the Old Palace and thus give up her honored office, the elder valide requested permission to retire to a life of seclusion. But because the loving mother of the [new] sultan was still young and truly ignorant of the state of the world, it was thought that if she were in control of the government, there would result the possibility of harm to the welfare of the state. Therefore the elder valide was reappointed for a while longer to the duty of training and guardianship, and it was considered appropriate to renew the assignment of crown lands to the valide sultan.

Of course I can bet neither Kösem wanted to go to Old Palace nor Turhan was happy about not becoming regent, but it obviously had to look like this officially :) Peirce comments here that truly the position of Valide Sultan had become institutionalised by then for Abdülaziz to put it in these words because he was a well-known as opponent of Kösem.

After quoting the above,Thys-Senocak goes on to say:

By the time that Turhan Sultan was to take up the position of valide, Kösem Sultan was in her sixties, and she had been a valide since 1623, close to three decades. Upon the death of her husband, Sultan Ahmed I, she had been removed to the Old Palace for six years until her son Murad IV succeeded to the throne in 1623 and she returned to the Topkapı. When Murad died, she continued to serve as a valide for her son İbrahim. During these years Kösem had established a solid network of alliances within the court and among the Janissaries, who would support her if her power was threatened. In the unstable times that faced the Ottoman administration Kösem’s seniority and guidance were seen as essential by many in the palace. Her authority was not, however, welcomed by Turhan, who saw her place in the harem administration usurped by her mother-in-law.

Turhan was deprived neither her Valide Sultan title NOR status. Kumrular mentions she was nowhere near as powerless as some try to portray her. There is even evidence from Spanish ambassadors she participated in foreign politics, e.g. that she complained about ambassador Allegretti sent by Spain .She also moved to Kösem’s old Valide chambers.

Kösem’s rank as “Big Valide” was a new one, created especially to allow her to be regent. It was the only time this title was used in the Ottoman Empire.

Also the new Grand Vizier, Sofu Mehmed Pasha, was against the appointment of Kösem as a new regent because he hoped to get the position himself and as Peirce says also saw himself as “temporary ruler”. He was supported by Abdülaziz Efendi, and these two were the two statesmen Kosem addressed particularly in her famous speech because she was well aware they plotted against her together. Swedish ambassador Ralamb said the following about two first years after Ibrahim’s death: “the state experienced two good years. The valide sultan, an intelligent and smart person, ruled well and peacefully thanks to her natural talents and much experience”.

It is generally assumed by historians who assessed the whole conflict, like Kumrular or Peirce, that Turhan was the one who initiated the rivalry. From the start, she tried to undermine Kösem’s rule, thus also making it difficult for her to stabilise Empire and Kösem was actually doing a good job with it. Her first decision was to remove corrupt harem aghas, who participated in mismanagement and mayhem of Ibrahim’s reign, but Turhan used this opportunity to lure them to her side and made them her supporters, which as Valide Sultan was not a difficult task. In her speech dimissing the aghas according to the account by Derviş Abdullah, Kösem apparently accused them of having schemed against her which resulted in her exile and then said that thanks to their corrupting influence “light of my eyes, Sultan Ibrahim, became a martyr, crying loudly. Do you intend to bring similar fate to Sultan Mehmed?”

Turhan also worked hard to lure as many statesmen as possible to her side by showing herself as morally superior to her mother-in-law, which again was quite easy considering she was up against a woman with so many years of experience on political scene. She especially used Ibrahim’s deposition for this purpose. According to Rycaut, she sent letters to statesmen describing herself as poor grieving widow with an orphan who hopes to see those responsible for his father’s death punished.. obviously she meant Kösem among them. She often incited anger following Ibrahim’s deposition and rebellions, which again made it difficult to restore peace after Ibrahim’s reign. And please - relations between her and Ibrahim were so bad & she was so sidelined by him during his reign compared to his other women, it is hard to believe she was truly in any grief. Sakaoğlu mentions three “strikes of luck” for her - Ibrahim’s death, Kösem’s death and surviving Cinar incidents of 1656). Rycaut ends his description of the “throwing Mehmed” incident with the following words: “All these matters served for farther fuel to nourish the implacable Spirit of the Queen [Turhan]”.

This tactic was also shown in the show – after pushing for Ibrahim’s death during the coup&making it bloody, she continued to incite riots to force the Şeyhülislam and others to demand Ibrahim’s execution, then made Mehmed sign his dad’s death order. For once, she seemed to acknowledge Kösem’s rank and didn’t do anything behind her back because she was well aware that Kösem, a seasoned politician, would realise that there was no way Ibrahim could survive this and decide to carry out the sentence herself being justifiably scared what might happen if he got into Turhan’s and her supporters’ hands or other angry people as she saw what had happened to Osman. Then Turhan could carefully remove herself from the scene and depict Kösem as Ibrahim’s murderer, while conveniently forgetting everything she had done from first episode she was in to have him dethroned and killed (when she told Haçı: “How any padisahs have you killed?” GIRL….) Plus, she knew the whole situation of Kösem carrying out the execution would fuck up Kösem mentally and make her an easier opponent for further fight...After all, following Ibrahim’s death she happily announced “Ibrahim is dead, now time for Kösem”.

Shortly before Kösem’s assassination there was still rebellion of sipahis incited by Turhan. Rycaut mentions she wrote to them about her husband’s death and how those who had caused it (implied Kösem and janissaries) disrespected her son’s authority and would soon bring similar end to sipahis and eradicate them forever. The rebels also mentioned Ibrahim’s name & demanded his killers punished during these riots in 1651 (!).

What happened next, we will never know for sure. Kösem was definitely a woman of action&it’s likely she had to take into account steps like dethroning Mehmed or getting rid of Turhan. Apparently, Turhan was afraid about Süleyman being put in Mehmed’s place for some time. What we know for sure she planned for eliminating four of Turhan’s allies.

Did she try to kill Mehmed? We will never know, but it spreading such rumours would definitely make it easier for Turhan to rally supporters.

Another example of Turhan’s strategic PR – she requested a fetva for Kösem’s execution, but after Kösem’s death dismissed the judge to cut off herself from his person and this decision&also to prevent punishment of people involved in the matter. Still, GV who carried out purges among Kösem’s allies was later dismissed for that and it’s hard to imagine Turhan had not been involved in the original decision for these purges. There is one account by Rycaut describing Turhan requesting fetva for Kösem’s execution in which the mufti was scared to make this sort of decision, while Turhan arranged a mob to come and demand justice “for their padisah”, and simultaneously Turhan hid behind a curtain to say to leave the woman (Kösem) in peace for the sake of the padişah her son and to stop slandering his grandmother’s name&involve the padisah in such matters The account goes to kinda sensationalised picture that there was a woman in crowd that Turhan pointed out as being Kösem and encouraged the mob to punish her, not the padisah’s mother, and then fell to her knees crying in front of her son, with Mehmed drying her tears with handkerchief, but this sounds definitely like sensationalised account to make the story more dramatic such as Rycaut’s mentions that Kösem was 80-year-old toothless old lady to stress her age (she was 60, chill)

Turhan was a very sly and PR-based sultana.

I’ve seen a theory (?) that Kösem was rude to Mehmed and Turhan because of her sassy speech to pashas (?). Firstly, one of the people to whom the speech was addressed earlier, Abdülaziz Efendi, had insulted MEHMED when during a Divan meeting Mehmed did attend (Kösem was there with him to instruct him, just as Turhan later) replied to Mehmed asking him about bribery among pashas: ’My dear, who taught you this?” Of course what they wanted was to express displeasure that in fact this woman was ruling them, not a padişah. And Kösem did mention the slight given to her grandson. After the “I’ve seen reigns” part the usually skipped later part is “Sometimes they attempt to kill me. When certain imperial commands have been issued, they have said [to the sultan], ‘my dear, who taught you to say these things?’ Such patronizing behavior towards sultans is impermissible! And what if the sultan is instructed?” [translation taken from Peirce]. Moreover, the same people were plotting against her and also tried to have her killed and she was very well aware of that, which is why she kept mentioning her death. The speech is not only sass, as Kumrular points out, Kösem also mentions that she is aware death might be near and is not scared of it and she’s also aware everything will go on following her death, no matter how important she was.

Kösem following Ibrahim’s death was shaken and just as shown in the show in fragile mental state that she did not resemble her old self in certain aspects – she was definitely more reliant on her trusted group of people mostly consisting of janissaries instead of co-operating closely with everyone unlike during her first regency (which was pointed out as serious mistake by Naima) and was more quarrelsome than ealier, but damn those people truly used her weaker mental condition for their purpose – like when she was crying in her room following Ibrahim’s execution, Abdülaziz Efendi (yes this bitch again) came to her and told her it was what she had been praying for in response to her “Whose curses and bad wishes reached him [Ibrahim]?”, which shook her mentally very much (Abdülaziz Efendi himself described this incident, so it’s hard to doubt its occurrence).

And in the end, while assessing the Kösem/Turhan conflict we must also take into account that this elderly woman who had been through a lot was automatically at disadvantage against young, seemingly innocent rising star, who in the end emerged as victor. And as Derviş Abdullah put it when talking about the matter “it’s easy to put all sort of blame on the deceased” (he used it when discussing all sorts of rumours & blame being assigned to Kösem following her death).

- Joanna

#turhan hatice sultan #turhan sultan #kosem sultan #kösem sultan #ottoman history #ottoman empire #answered #Anonymous #history #muhteşem yüzyıl kösem #historicalquotes

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numinous-shaman · 3 years

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Secret Space Program Timeline Wars

Not even organic time travelers know what's going to manifest exactly, but I do know this is a timeline war and the forces of chaos and corptocracy are what will lead us into a horrible A.I., future of soullessness and military industrial servitude, if we don't shift the tide in consciousness back to human values soon.

There ARE definately forces ready to resist tyranny all over the country and there are also militarized groups invested in destroying the stamina of defensive forces too, war on our soil is NOT desirable. There used to be only a timeline with five free states in the future, having Constitutional protection, back in 2011, I was aware when that was secured. Then we got an 11 state timeline some years later and I'm pretty sure the last I felt we had a pretty solid 27 state structure for manifesting continued protection of Inalienable human rights, should succession become necessary.

I hope it's more now, it would be wonderful to have the whole country turn back from the Great Reset completely, before the Great Divide manifests. But, consciousness just isn't aware enough to expect that at this point, it's painfully obvious watching the majority of people demand to be experimentation survivors and freely give over their genetic code to hybridization with other species, and new technology, that the level of awareness of the masses has been greatly reduced, along with understanding of their own value, rights and responsibilities. Of course, we KNOW in the future that it was "the fears" that caused them to sell their liberty, not actual harm, just the idea of it and their lack of awareness regarding the methods to manipulate them made it all possible. Watching this play out in real time, is just gut wrenching.

MAYBE, if enough false flags happened to jolt then awake they would help fight their captors instead of beg them in, but the iron curtain of information has become increasingly difficult to penetrate. I don't think Trump is the Messiah, but I think if he's prohuman then he'll use this opportunity he has to rally some people who care about freedom behind him and hit them where it hurts, AT THE INFORMATION LEVEL. We need to get past the frequency fence of distorted information being used to hold humanity hostage and unable to discern the danger.

Of course, the controllers want it that way, they want us dumb and happy when they cut out lives short and all the blame for the genocide resting squarely on our own, failure to rightfully apply free will. I've had more than my fair share of exposure to eugenist, reptilian timelording types of beings and I will tell you what they never will, because I'm not like them although I perceive them. They believe in survival of the fittest, or most cunning, really.

They figure if they are smart enough to fool humans and conquer us, then our benevolence is a weakness and they deserve to rule with an iron rod and treat us like domesticated cattle and resources for their whims. They think of this world as part of a larger ocean and the bigger fish wins, unless the smaller fish gets smart enough to survive. The idea of a loving Creator force is foreign to them, nature is cruel, only children have foolish dreams of things which are obviously not true, that's what they would say to a child who believes good will win out, simply because it's moral.

Now, if the alien Corptocracy gets their way and are able to slice through the federal government and manifest authoritianism quickly, this is probably where the Orwellian vision of two sort of parallel societies might spring up in the same land, some flocking to federally managed economic development, while others reclaim land and resources for sustainability, environmental protection and multicultural preservation, in states leaving the union. Those were basically the legal umbrellas we used to get support from the corptocracy in some timelines in the future and not called fundamentalists, revolutionaries or radicals for simply wanting to remain natural humans and to keep our Bill of Rights.

They didn't care about our rights or our liberty or right to make our own health decisions, because they thought it was important, NO. We had to show that the degradation of our environment was no good for them and the degradation of our genetics was akin to killing a protected animal, because it was an endangered' species. Human interest was protected only under the banner of what today might be equated to Leftist Liberalism or Environmental Activism. So many humans are already under the influence of such heavy programming and so degraded genetically, they already serve the AntiChrist system, the Corptocracy who is attempting to rewrite our souls for capture and control, and just don't know it. Wanting to be human completely and to access nature and make individual choices, was called tragically fundamentalism and seen as radical or mad. Covertly, the secret societies weilding heavy handed influence within the Corptocracy knew the truth and knew the human ascension potential was intentionally being cut off from the masses and tightly controlled. They had their own plans of breeding into the genetics of ascendant humans while enslaving the rest.

The Multidimensional capacity of the human soul was lost by most after being genetically degraded with medicine, environmental toxins and food. Humans literally lost their ability to fully embody and connect with their soul and multidimensional nature, the process happened over a few generations and most didn't notice it occurring or miss it when it was lost, everyone was tuned into their pain and pleasure body only, five senses they couldn't see through with higher ones. In many probable futures a company called Aegis was ultimately responsible for raising awareness and support from the rich to help achieve their goal of protecting, studying and tracking the human potential for Multidimensional communication and influence on the environment. Many human domains for natural living were organized and protected legally and with force by Aegis Corp. and Aegis Shield Corp. Organic and inorganic time travel was experimented with by many factions, warring for control over the timelines and various aspects of our future. Time travel operations were in place before Sept. 11th and that event itself has already been altered by divine intelligence and human operatives, so we are experiencing already, an altered version of the past. The 911 timeline, 911 numerological sequences are an energetic reality that crosses the threshold of the unconscious mind for many of us.

It's so important to understand though, the leaders didn't care about our souls or the afterlife, the government is controlled by soulless corpore entities, not human ideals. They only helped us, in the end at all, because they wanted to replicate what it's REALLY like to be human and receive your Divine nature in artificial systems and experience a replicate reality using technology for virtual extended life spans in artificial worlds of clones or digitized and uploaded into what is akin to a virtual reality cloud. The small percentage of true humans lived parallel lives, but they fought to not be dependent on the Corptocracy, so that separation would remain and the rest of the world saw and treated then like an oddity, some kind of stage show freak for them to project their own fears and insecurity onto. They had no idea they were just dangling participles, evolutionarily speaking, slated for nothing but further degeneration, experimentation and enslavement. I can already feel this separation becoming palpable, the emergency vaccine powers are definately a trigger event

The real humans, eventually were able to live protected, to stay in touch with natural order and live like a natural human, but only in exchange for information and for power the secret societies used for themselves. We still managed to create hubs of Divine Creator energies, cruelty free animal zones and real human existence to assist with keeping balance in the world by helping the Corptocracy understand the importance of universal law and the real purpose of morality at the level of the template of reality manifestation. This helped the populations (we weren't all human) to survive and avert pole shift, we literally have to keep the balance.

The effect of that knowledge on the majority was not natural though, it was tyranical and the populations who destroyed the old America demanding liberation were the ones who ended up with the least liberty in the end. All of these impressions are collected from possible futures and parallel realities, I pray everyday the options improve and more real humans remember who they are and what is really important. They had to shut the inorganic (technologically) induced time travel missions down, the effects were bizarre and became a greater concern than originally imagined. There are rogue groups still experimenting covertly, it is well known in the future and these groups are hunted religiously by the scientific order.

Organic time travel is more mystical in nature, it's the ability of your higher self to project itself back in time to your physical self and effect change which shifts the future. This is just one example of the types of abilities the Multidimensional human is able to do, if their genetics and consciousness aren't interfered with and free will used to serve Love, like Christ taught. The elite know that REAL humanity doesn't need their faulty technology to externalize their powers for interconnectivity and don't need controllers at all. That's why they aim to suppress us, dumb us down and keep the secret about who and what we are far from our awareness.

They need us to control, to feed off, to feel powerful by dominating and to justify their own limited, dimensionalized existence. They are like an interdimensional invader, a parasitic intelligence we are playing host to and giving more power over our entire universal time matrix. The ONLY people who won't be TOTALLY owned and controlled by these corporate boards and warlords in the future, are going to be the ones who dedicate themselves to consciousness expansion and Spiritual Ascension, because they'll need those enhanced abilities and awareness to stay a step ahead of the parasite and their legion of zombie enforcers, demanding submission to intelligence beneath the true Human. They expect us to out smart them if we really deserve our free will, I'm not condoning the belief system, just making it conscious in hopes more people can see through the vaneer of humanity they aim to project.

#projectibis #projectbluebird #james casbolt #annunaki #multidimensional #timelines #indigo kids #ascension #starseed #montauk #project pegasus

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oneagainstthelegion · 4 years

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Stephen M.R. Covey: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Mr. Alex Mau

July 17, 2020 • Last updated: October 12, 2020

in Soul • 30 Minutes Read

"We see the world, not as it is, but as we are──or, as we are conditioned to see it." - Mr. Stephen R. Covey

In this episode of "The Art of Manliness" podcast, host Mr. Brett McKay interviews Mr. Stephen M.R. Covey on the launch of the 30th-anniversary edition (2020) of "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People." It is one of the most inspiring and impactful books ever written for self-development.

He discusses the reasons "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" is as relevant today as 30 years ago. He describes the seven habits in detail and gives advice we can apply today.

Mr. Stephen M.R. Covey is an author, public speaker, and former president and CEO of Covey Leadership Center and the co-founder and CEO of CoveyLink Worldwide.

He is the oldest son of Mr. Stephen Covey. He played an instrumental role in the launch of the first edition (1989) of "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People," as well as in his father's company, Franklin Covey.

Interview with Mr. Stephen M.R. Covey in Three Sentences

“Treat a man as he is and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he can and should be and he will become as he can and should be.” - Mr. Stephen R. Covey

The higher our confidence is, the more we respect and work well with others and more impactful our influences are.

The seven habits built on enduring and timeless principles with an inside-out approach for self-development.

The first three habits teach us self-mastery and move us from dependence to independence, the next three habits teach us to work with others and take us from independence to interdependence, and the seventh is a maintenance habit.

Ideas to Takeaway from This Interview

"Show me someone who is humble enough to accept and take responsibility for his or her circumstances and courageous enough to take whatever initiative is necessary to creatively work his or her through or around these challenges, and I'll show you supreme power of choice." - Mr. Stephen R. Covey

What are the seven habits? Why the seven habits relevant today?

"As a principle-centered person, you see things differently. And because you see things differently, you think differently, you act differently. Because you have a high degree of security, guidance, wisdom, and power that flows from a solid, unchanging core, you have the foundation of a highly proactive and highly effective life." - Mr. Stephen R. Covey

These are the seven habits.

Habit One. Be Proactive.

Habit Two. Begin with the End in Mind.

Habit Three. Put First Things First.

Habit Four. Think Win-Win.

Habit Five. Seek First to Understand, then to be Understood.

Habit Six. Synergize!

Habit Seven. Sharpen the Saw.

The 7 Habits built on enduring and timeless principles, not practices.

The habits are timeless and universal.

It is an inside-out approach to self-development.

It is actionable and practical for people.

It starts with ourselves and our responsibility.

It is tangible with results we can measure.

It is accessible to everyone.

The 7 Habits develop personal character, not personality. Character-based development focus on the principles.

Humility is a humble view of ourselves. It is essential to learning and becoming a better person.

Fairness is an impartial behavior without favoritism or discrimination. It is essential to encouraging others to collaborate.

Integrity is the quality of being honest and have strong moral principles. It is essential to building trust.

Courage is the ability to face challenging matters that frighten. It is essential to make the right decisions based on our values.

Justice is the quality of being just; righteousness, equitableness, or moral rightness. It is essential to yields decisions that accepted as legitimate and reasonable by others.

Temperance is moderation or voluntary self-restraint. It is essential to have self-control against extremes and to utilize what we have.

Accountability is to ensure we own and commit to the decisions we make. It is essential to be responsible for our choices.

Humanity is the sense of kindness; to be human is to be kind for others. It is essential to have empathy and understanding of others.

Collaboration is to work with others. It is essential to promote teamwork and build an organization.

The contemporary self-development programs often structure on the techniques and methods. These are mostly skills-based learning and focus on personality.

Steps to Boost Your Self-Confidence.

Things We Can Do Right Now to Boost Self-Confidence.

Tips for Improving Our Communication Skills.

Steps to Effective Communication that Gets Results.

Proven Ways to Develop Our Leadership Skills Today.

Steps to Take Right Now to Becoming a Better Leader.

Short-term external fixes cannot solve long-term internal issues. These skills-based learning often passes over the solid ground and never drills down to build a solid foundation for the long term.

The seven habits based on timeless principles, it is an inside-out approach, and we take responsibility based upon principles. We start with ourselves and look in the mirror. It is not an outside-in approach where we look at our circumstances and blame others.

The Seven Habits take us from dependence to independence and interdependence.

The habit one, two, and three are habits of character. They enable us to move from dependence to independence.

The habit four, five, and six are the outward expression of character in the relationship with other people. They enable us to venture from independence and interdependence.

Habit One. Be Proactive.

"It's not what happens to us, but our response to what happens to us that hurts us." - Mr. Stephen Covey

Be proactive is a foundation habit. Be Proactive is about taking responsibility for our life. We don't blame others.

We often influenced by our circumstances, our environment, and our genetics. They affect us, but they don't determine us. We choose our response based on our values, not by our impulses.

Proactive people recognize that they are "response-able." We don't blame genetics, circumstances, conditions, or conditioning for our behavior.

We become proactive by taking action, embracing our responsibility, and controlling our responses. By doing things such as anticipating our future and focusing on solutions instead of problems, we will maintain a happier and more proactive outlook.

Circle of Concern of Cirlce of Influence of Concern of Circle

We have two circles in our lives; the circle of concern and the circle of influence.

Reactive and impulsive people focus on their outer circle of concern. They feel overwhelmed by everything around them. Their outer circle of concern gets larger while theire inner circle of influence gets small.

Proactive and self-responsible people focus on their inner circle of influence. It gives them a greater sense of self-control, a greater sense of self-power, and a more significant impact on their happiness. Proactive peoples' inner circle of influence gets larger while their outer circle of concern gets small. Proactive people focus on the things they can control.

"Response-ability"—the ability to choose our response. We take responsibility. Effective people are proactive people.

We are proactive and self-responsible in our lives when we focus on the things we can influence, and we can control. We choose our response. The outside influences us, but it does not determine us.

It takes self-confidence to be self-reliant. As a result, our circle of influence begins to expand and ripple out, and we are in charge of ourselves, our lives.

Habit Two: Begin with the End in Mind.

"At some time in your life, you probably had someone believe in you when you didn't believe in yourself." - Mr. Stephen R. Covey

We have the mental image of our lives' end as our reference frames to evaluate everything we do every day. Our ends guide our decisions day by day—action by action.

We begin each day, each task, or each project with a clear vision of our desired direction and destination, and then continue by flexing our proactive approach to make things happen. We are independent. The most effective way to incorporate habit two into our lives is to develop a Personal Mission Statement.

The mental creation precedes physical creation. Our mission statement is the blueprint of our lives.

We write our philosophy, own belief system, our creed. We get our mission statement in writing and into our minds and hearts.

What's our vision for ourselves?

What are we fundamentally about?

What's the vision for our lives?

What is the meaning of our lives?

What are we trying to accomplish in our lives?

What are our ends in mind for ourselves?

We don't tie ourselves to our history because history is our memory. We link ourselves to our potential because our potential is our imaginations, our future. Our future potential is the essence of habit two.

Habit Three: Put First Things First.

"How different our lives are when we really know what is deeply important to us, and keeping that picture in mind, we manage ourselves each day to be and to do what really matters most." - Mr. Stephen Covey

Putting first things first means we organize our lives and execute around our most important priorities. It is living and being driven by the principles we value most, not by the outside influence and forces surrounding us.

We make our decisions based on our mission statement. If they are on our mission statement, then we put them first, not second or last. We have decided what the right things to do are, and we must do them right.

We manage our decision based upon what's important and what's matters to us. It means being clear about our priorities and acting on them.

URGENT NOT URGENT IMPORTANT Quadrant One Quadrant Two NOT IMPORTANT Quadrant Three Quadrant Four

We manage our time based on the time management matrix made up of four quadrants. It is organized by things that are urgent and important.

Urgent means things are pressing upon us. They give us a sense of urgency, and we must act upon them, like a ringing phone or deadlines.

Important means things attached to our principles, our mission statement, our roles, and our goals.

Quadrant One

Crises. Emergencies. Urgent and important. These are our meetings, our deadlines, and our emergencies that press upon us.

Quadrant Two

Improvement. Effectiveness. Not urgent but important. These are self-improvement, daily exercise, and nurture relationship, and deep-reading.

Quadrant Three

Distractions. Interruptions. Urgent but not important. These are the other people's problems, meetings, and deadlines.

Quadrant Four

Waste. Mindless. Not urgent and not important. These are the time-wasted and mindless consumption of news, entertainment, and leisure.

Our mission statement belongs in quadrant two because it is important in the long-term, but it is not urgent.

We must be proactive in working on things that matter most to us. We take the time away from quadrant three, four, and one and put it into quadrant two. When we spend more time and expand our quadrant two, the other quadrants get smaller.

It is similar to our circle of influence and concern. When our circle of influence gets bigger, the circle of concern gets smaller.

Habit Four: Think Win-Win.

"“When you have No Deal as an option in your mind, you feel liberated because you have no need to manipulate people, to push your own agenda, to drive for what you want. You can be open. You can really try to understand the deeper issues underlying the positions." - Mr. Stephen R. Covey

Think win-win seeks mutual benefits. It is a growth mindset of abundance mentality versus a fixed mindset of scarcity mentality.

We think we, team, and us the most. We are not in a zero-sum, win-it-all competition. We always look for mutual benefits.

It involves asking ourselves what we want from a given situation and what the other party wants.

See the issue from the other's point of view.

Identify the critical question and concerns involved.

Determine what would constitute entirely acceptable results.

Evaluate and identify the options to achieve those results.

We are not compromising. Think win-win is finding and creating better solutions that benefit both parties. If we are going to work interdependently, collaboratively, the best way to do is by having a win-win, mutual benefits mindset of thinking; we both win.

You win, I win, and we work together cooperatively. It is an abundance mentality with enough internal self-security to seek a win-win for both parties.

Habit Five: Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood.

"Look at the weaknesses of others with compassion, not accusation. It’s not what they’re not doing or should be doing that’s the issue. The issue is your own chosen response to the situation and what you should be doing. If you start to think the problem is “out there,” stop yourself. That thought is the problem." - Mr. Stephen R. Covey

Habit five values the significance of being understanding of others first, then to be understood later.

Effective communication plays a significant role in the success of any organization and relationship. We listen to understand their viewpoints first, and then we express to them with our views.

We will be more effective at expressing our viewpoints, and influencing other people when we take the time to listen, take the energy to understand and make an effort to summarize their perspectives.

When the other person feels understood, they will become far more open to listening to us and being influenced.

Empathic listening is listening with the intent to understand. It is the highest form of listening and respect. It takes courage and self-confidence to listen and understand because we are opening ourselves to be vulnerable.

We are trying to understand their satisfaction with how they feel and how they view this situation before telling them how we think and how we see it.

We are proactive and choose to listen and choose to truly understand other people, even if we see the world differently, even if we disagree.

The purpose of understanding does not mean agreeing. We understand their views does not necessarily mean we agree. We might not accept it. We might completely disagree. When there is an understanding, we can come up with all kinds of solutions. When people don't understand each other, they have a hard time achieving solutions.

Habit Six: Synergize.

"Synergy is better than your way or my way. It is our way." - Mr. Stephen R. Covey

Synergize is the habit of creative cooperation. It is the combination of habit four, "Think win-win," and habit five, "Seek first to understand, then to be understood."

Synergize is two heads are better than one. It is teamwork, open-mindedness, and the adventure of finding new solutions to old problems.

We create something more significant than the sum of its parts, bigger than habit four, "win-win," where the whole is more than the sum of its parts.

Let's be creative and see what we can brainstorm together.

Let's put our heads together and see what we can do.

Let's be innovative and think outside of the box collectively.

Our differences are our strengths. We come up with new ideas and possibilities together that we could never have come up with if we were by ourselves.

Habit Seven: Sharpen the Saw.

"Never be too busy sawing to take time to sharpen the saw." - Mr. Stephen R. Covey

Sharpen the saw is the keystone habit, the maintenance habit. Sharpen the saw strengthens and supports all six habits together. We must sharpen our saws and renew ourselves regularly in four dimensions, mind, body, heart, and spirit.

The Mind

We renew our minds mentally by keeping a curious mind for new things, learning new skills, reading deep books, writing blogs, and journaling daily to keep our minds alert, calm, engaged, and active.

The Body

We renew our bodies physically by exercising, body-stretching, walking, jogging, swimming, running, cycling, and being active daily to take care of our bodies.

The Heart

We renew our love and relationship with family, friends, and our communities by supporting our families, listening to understand, and being present.

The Spirit

We renew our spirit, our philosophy, and our inner-self by deep meditating on key-fundamental issues and thoughtful questions, finding meaning and purpose of our lives, and contributing and creating essential values.

An hour a day is the minimum to maintain the six habits. We sharpen our saws regularly to renew our ability to practice the six habits. It makes us a better contributor and leader to our personal lives, professional lives, and community lives.

Final thoughts.

"Find your voice and inspire others to find theirs. Leadership is communicating people's worth and potential so clearly that they are inspired to see it in themselves." - Mr. Stephen Covey

What is the principle? A principle is a fundamental proposition that serves as the foundation for a system of belief or behavior.

What is a habit? A habit is an internalized principle. It is an overlapping of knowledge, skill, and attitude. Knowledge is what to do, skill is how to do, and attitude is why to do.

Principles apply everywhere. The seven habits are life-changing principles. We are not the product of our genetic, condition, and upbringing. The effectiveness of ourselves based upon our character ethic. It aligns ours' values with "universal and timeless" principles such as fairness, integrity, honesty, truthfulness, and treating people with respect.

If we will understand these seven habits, learn them well, teach them to other people, and then apply them until they become part of our lives. It will change our lives in fundamental ways in these areas.

Habits one, two, and three take us from dependent to independent.

We develop courage, confidence, and strengths to be responsible for our lives.

We laser focus on our circle of influence and what we control.

We write our mission statements.

We visualize our roles and goals weekly to align with our mission statements.

We cultivate mental toughness and discipline to do what matters to us first.

Habits four, five, and six take us from independent to interdependent.

We become vulnerable, and we open ourselves to people.

We listen with empathy and compassion to understand first; then, we express our view later.

We approach our personal and professional relationships with a win-win and mutual benefit with people with different views.

We get into creatively thinking with people to see if we can develop better solutions and agreements.

We work together collectively because our differences are our strengths.

The sequential nature of the seven habits is significant. We develop proactive before we seek to understand and then aim for win-win. We realize personal vision and awareness before we lead others. The private victory, the character victory leads to public victory, the personality victory.

The seven habits will improve our self-esteem and self-confidence, improve relationships with family and friends, improve our capacity to motivate and influence others, and improve our sense of adventure and creativity.

We encourage teaching to others. To teach is to learn twice. We will learn better when we are expected to teach. It gives us a sense of responsibility and understands the seven habits. We are living and cultivating the habits when we teach.

It is essential that we learn, teach, and live the seven habits. If we work diligently and think deeply to understand, they will become part of our thinking and our lives.

The nature of our inner-circle energy is proactive. Our circle of influence is value-driven, and it is positive. Positive energy lifts us and powers us as our circle of influence gets larger. Our power of influence is the function of us, not from the external and not from others.

Let's be a light, not a judge; be a model, not a critic; be useful, not wasteful, and be part of a solution, not part of a problem. We work in areas where we can help and support others. We work on our circle of influence, our inner-circle, the things we directly influence with positive energy in the seven habits, and watch what happens to our lives in thirty days. It is a new level of joy, happiness, and satisfaction in our lives.

Interview Summary with Mr. Stephen M.R. Covey

"As we make and keep commitments, even small commitments, we begin to establish an inner integrity that gives us the awareness of self-control and the courage and strength to accept more of the responsibility for our own lives. By making and keeping promises to ourselves and others, little by little, our honor becomes greater than our moods." - Mr. Stephen R. Covey

In the 19th century, many self-improvement programs were fundamentally built based on personal character. However, in the 20th century, a gradual rise of quick-fix technique and follow-through method programs dominated the market.

The habit of being proactive for our lives is as fundamental as the keystone on an arch. Without it, everything falls apart.

Habit one is a personal vision, habit two is personal leadership, and habit three is personal management. The first three habits cultivate us from dependent to independent.

Habit four is listening with empathy, habit five seeks mutual benefits, and habit six is working together. The last three habits prepare us from independent to interdependent.

We sharpen our saws regularly, our four dimensions mind, body, heart, and spirit.

The physical creation in habit three follows the mental and spiritual creation in habit two.

We look for mutual benefits in habit five after listening and understanding what they need in habit four.

We throw away our calendars and appointment books. Instead, we write down our mission statements, roles, and goals, then we transfer them onto our long-term calendars and review them weekly. We develop mental toughness and disciple to stay with them in our lives.

The practice of the seven habits takes patient and time. We are working on all seven habits every day. It is important to realize we don't have to be perfect in habits one, two, and three before working on habits four, five, and six. We just have to achieve a higher degree in self-confidence, self-responsibility, self-mastery, and internal-security before listening with empathy.

[You can listen to this full interview at the "Art of Manliness." Link]

Further Read and Resources on The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

You can find more learning of the seven habits and other related books, webinar, and courses on FranklinCovey website.

A weekly podcast "FranklinCovey On Leadership with Scott Miller" hosts by Mr. Scott Miller, a 23-year associate of FranklinCovey, available on Apple Podcasts, TuneIn, SoundCloud, and popular platforms.

I highly recommended "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: 30th Anniversary Edition" by Stephen R. Covey is available on Amazon.

If the content is king, then trust is the currency. Trust is more relevant today than ever. "The SPEED of Trust: The One Thing that Changes Everything" by Stephen M.R. Covey is available on Amazon.

If you enjoy this interview, please visit the website the Art of Manliness for more in-depth interviews with authors and thinkers. The Art of Manliness podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Google Android, Stitcher, Spotify, Overcast, Tunein, and most major podcast platforms.

Please visit the "Art of Manliness" store for a well-thought-out gift to the special person in life. Your support means so much to his business.

Our Mission.

#writing #soul #stephen covey #the 7 habits of highly effective people

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irinapaleolog · 4 years

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Star Wars: The Rise of Kylo Ren #4 just offered some major insight into how long Emperor Palpatine was manipulating Ben Solo towards the Dark Side. While Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker offered a definitive ending to the saga of Ben Solo, the fallen Jedi, the Star Wars: The Rise of Kylo Ren miniseries is providing insight into his history and turn to the Dark Side that we never saw on the big screen. So far, we've seen him wrongfully blamed for destroying Luke's Jedi temple and kill his first Jedi as he turns to the Dark Side. Now, in Star Wars: The Rise of Kylo Ren #4, we see how long Emperor Palpatine had been influencing and corrupting Ben Solo. While it was clear that Palpatine was using Snoke as a proxy to manipulate Kylo, this issue shows how long Palpatine himself influenced the young Solo. This series has already illustrated how Snoke began probing Ben's mind, planting seeds of doubt, jealousy and hatred towards his uncle, right under a clueless Luke. While he's essentially a deformed Palpatine clone, Snoke really is an entity on his own, which is why his manipulation is more subtle and gentle when he first gets Ben to consider leaving Luke for the Knights of Ren. When Ben actually met Snoke, the Sith was diplomatic towards the young Force user, and far less aggressive as Palpatine was when he wooed Anakin over to the Dark Side. We see this firsthand when Ben finally faces his former Jedi peers after they track him to the Mid Rim. When Ben's old friend Tai starts to get through to him, Ren snaps Tai's neck using his Force powers, which launches Ben into action. While we see Snoke egging him on from afar, Palpatine plays an active role in pushing Ben over the edge and into embracing his rage. "Now you will be who you are," he goads Ben, "Who you were always meant to be." The moment isn't too dissimilar from when the decrepit Emperor tried to convince Luke to kill Darth Vader on the second Death Star in Return of the Jedi. While Luke rejected Palpatine's urges to claim his "birthright" by striking his father down, Ben gives into his anger. As Snoke steps aside to let Palpatine take the charge in manipulating Kylo, Ben kills Ren, forges his red double-hilted lightsaber and becomes the leader of the Knights. Given his zombie-like appearance, this is definitely the Palpatine vessel from The Rise of Skywalker, who was kept alive through an external life support system, which means that he could've been quietly pulling Ben to the Dark Side for years. At any rate, it's clear that Palpatine didn't just pop up in that film at the secret Sith Temple on Exogol to fiddle with Kylo's mind. Palpatine was really the one who was chipping away at Ben's morality and breaking his spirit from the very start, and Snoke was merely another pawn in the Emperor's far larger game. Given the way that he responded to the Emperor in The Rise of Skywalker, it's not even clear if Kylo realized that Palpatine had been manipulating him for so long. Even though Kylo Ren ended up being one of the Emperor's most effective disciples, he may not have realized who his true teacher was until it was too late. Fortunately, Palpatine couldn't erase all the light in Kylo, and that's why Ben eventually returned to help Rey preserve the Skywalker legacy.

#kylo ren #ben solo #star wars #palpatine

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unklarity · 5 years

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Critical Role: Fjord

“It is in our nature to adapt.”

Click “keep reading” for more pictures of my Fjord magic box and for an explanation of the contents!

So, this box was pretty challenging for my brain, content-wise, because I knew that I loved Fjord but couldn’t figure out WHAT I loved about him. It was difficult to name his qualities, because I feel like he’s a bit different than everyone else, both in lore and in the way we learn about him throughout the game. So instead of trying to make a list of what made him who he is, I decided to go a different way and mirror some of the questions he asks himself and others. I’m pretty sure I just made things harder for myself in the end, but I also think it was an interesting way to tackle a box that I’ve never tried before and I’m pretty happy with the outcome.

This box does contain spoilers, because as fast as I was trying to pin down something concrete about Fjord, he was changing - or maybe just showing more of who he really is - and things were happening TO his character that were forcing him to change and adapt as well. The most recent “spoilers” which aren’t super concrete but will be referenced here would be episode 76, as that’s when I finished the actual contents of the box. I promise I will keep things vague in my explanation, but you’ve been warned. :)

The box for Fjord is a vintage box with an awesome pirate ship on the lid. The second I saw it, I knew I needed to have it, and it was actually what inspired the box in the first place. Right after I got it, I immediately got the yellow eye and set it into the top lid to represent Uk’otoa watching Fjord in his dreams and the Cloven crystals. It is super creepy, because the eye totally looks like it follows you when you move the box around!

Stones:

To start out, I started accumulating stones, as I tend to do when potion contents seem intimidating and confusing. As a focus stone, I included a Kambaba Jasper sphere, which helps with dissolving overwhelming negative emotions and healing from trauma - plus it’s varied shades of green, which I thought would fit nicely.

The two crystal towers in the box are smoky citrine and pyrite. Smoky citrine helps to ground and to calm fear and uncertainty. Pyrite, on the other hand, is a Protector Stone, representing self worth, personal power, strength, willpower and focus. It helps overcome feelings of inadequacy and live your life to its full potential.

The tumbled stones included in the box are:

bloodstone for courage and freedom from captivity;

labradorite for help banishing fears/insecurities while enhancing faith and reliance in oneself;

moss agate for a new start and gaining confidence in oneself;

fluorite for seeking knowledge, changing negative behavior, revealing truth, and emotional balance;

black tourmaline for help when feeling trapped;

aquamarine for courage, freedom, and communication, and is used by sailors as a talisman of good luck;

vesuvianite (a type of greet garnet) for soothing emotional turmoil, help making peace with and adapting to new situations, and support through major transition and upheaval;

obsidian for protection;

dumortierite for help taking control of one’s own life

Finally, there’s a round, flat star ruby in the black sachet, meant for overcoming adversity, opening up and expressing true feelings, and some tiny red coral pebbles for confidence and courage.

Potions:

I felt like I anguished over the potions for ages, but really it took a few weeks of trial and error to get my thoughts to flow in a way that made sense. I started with 7 bottles and came up with 7 questions as loose themes for each one. This was a bit tricky, and I think I ended up making things more difficult for myself, but I’m happy with the results, so I’m going to pretend it was intentional genius all along.

After I finished the bottles, I did give them each a more succinct one-word theme, but I’m going to share both the questions and themes in an effort to show my process a bit. The first three potions are in the first photo above, in order from left to right, and the remaining four are in the next photo, also in order.

1. What is this pact I am in and what does it mean? (PACT) This potion is centered around Fjord’s pact with Uk’otoa, which is his most important conflict that’s both internal and external. He is initially confused about the pact and wants to learn more about it, and this curiosity quickly seems to turn to fear and uncertainty when he realizes just what he’s in for. There’s skullcap for making a binding oath or pact, bay leaf for prophetic dreams, lavender and coffee for disappointment, bitterness and regret; Anise and rosemary for preventing nightmares/disturbing dreams, aid in clear thinking, and help with memory, as Fjord doesn’t ever remember actually making a pact, he just washed up on the shore with the falchion next to him. There’s also vervain for protection at sea and protection from drowning, and thorns for feeling trapped and fearing one’s circumstances. Lastly, dogwood here represents regret over a specific decision or a situation that was beyond your control, and black represents a curse, or a boon that’s been warped into something negative. -Sealed with an anchor stamp and gold wax.

2. What is magic worth to me/Where does my worth come from? (DESIRE) This potion focuses on Fjord’s desire to learn about magic and understand his abilities. He seems to be searching for something he can’t name, and through learning magic he gains confidence in who he is and starts to accept himself (albeit conditionally). On the flipside, once he has this magic and this knowledge and it gets taken away, he has the realization that his magic and strength is intrinsically tied to his self-worth and isn’t sure how to deal with the possibility that it might not be permanent. This one contains fluorite and garnet pebbles, representing the search for knowledge and gaining strength. In addition, there’s cedar for confidence, strength and gaining knowledge; mugwort for building confidence; rosemary for difficulty with self-acceptance; jasmine for beginning a new life with new ideas/a new outlook, and hibiscus for finding passion, drive and insight. There’s also labradorite and violet for glamour magic and changing who you are both physically and mentally - for example, both gaining physical strength, filing down his tusks, and adopting Vandran’s accent. -Sealed with rosemary stamp and gold wax.

3. What am I willing to do for power? (POWER) This one deals with Fjord’s struggle of not wanting to be a burden or be cast out vs his impulsiveness and tendency to take risks. I had a lot of questions going into this one such as: How willing is he to deceive people/keep them in the dark? WHO is he willing to deceive? What are the means, what is the end? What was the goal in working with Avantika: just knowledge, or power? Cad’s quote of “Sleep well with your bad decisions.” really influenced this one in a big way. Fjord tends to make decisions and think about what they mean later, and ask questions of his friends without being willing to answer any about himself in return. On the surface it seems as though Fjord is trying to play both sides, getting what he wants by deceiving Avantika, and thinking he can fool his Patron as well, although as we know, that doesn’t turn out quite as well as he plans. For this one, we’ve got deer tongue for power; licorice root for persuasive powers/charisma and having advantage over others; lavender for distrust/disappointing others and yourself; hydrangea for pushing people away, and yellow rose for lies and suspicion. -Sealed with tiny ship stamp and gold wax.

4. How do I define myself? (SELF) This potion was super interesting and led to a lot of different questions. How does Fjord define himself? By his magic? By his past, or the people in his past (like Vandran)? How does he think of himself? As a leader, as an outcast, as part of the mighty nein? Who is he? Orphan, sailor boy, half orc, warlock, charming, intimidating? His tendency to act as teacher/mentor/protector/leader/ really stood out when compared to the lack of that figure in his own life. At times, he seems like he wants to fade in the background, but when no one else will, he steps up and becomes the voice of the group. For this one, I added cinquefoil for eloquence and acting as a leader; goldenrod for magic; cypress leaves for processing grief, anger and loss; pyrite for becoming a protector; poppy for trying to leave the past behind, and calendula for honoring the people we have lost, which I thought really fit with how Fjord adopts Vandran’s accent. I think Fjord defines himself internally by his past and is trying to scratch out one by one the things that remind him of his pre-Vandran life that he views as worthless, or as something he needs to erase in order to be worth something. He’s emulating a man that he respected, and trying to choose how he defines himself instead of having that decision be made for him as it was in his younger years. -Sealed with ship stamp and gold wax.

5. What am worth I without magic? (DOUBT) This potion focuses on Fjord’s uncertainty, loneliness, insecurity, self-doubt, and fear of being helpless/fear of failure. Because he’s given his new powers so much importance, it paints a really stark contrast when we start to see his really deep reserves of insecurity and self-doubt. His fear of being helpless again is a big motivator for most of his (poorly thought-out) decisions. He tries to stay self sufficient, and we start to see that fear of being abandoned by the Mighty Nein if he isn’t useful to them, likened to his previous abandonment by his family and by Vandren, the only other positive figure in his life. In this potion is black ink and purple goldenrod for trauma and imprisonment/being helpless/blaming oneself; heather for solitude and protection against violence; lemon balm for help with insecurity, calming, and self worth; yarrow for overcoming fear and self doubt, and dogwood for keeping things (his dreams, accent, past, etc) close to the chest. -Sealed with ship stamp and gold wax.

6. Where do I belong/where am I going? (CHOICES) For me, this potion was about Fjord gaining the agency to make his own choices instead of having those choices made for him. He didn’t choose the pact with Uk’otoa, and didn’t choose how he grew up, but slowly, he starts realizing the power he has to make decisions and change his own life, both alone and with the help of others. He has a ton of choices to make: Release Uk’otoa or not? Break the pact or not? Become a follower of the Wildmother or not? This potion is one of my favorites and is packed full of ingredients! There’s barberry for atonement, magic/sorcery, and for freeing oneself from the power/control/influence of another; mint for help getting the push needed to change one’s life, peaceful sleep, protection while sleeping, communication, and drawing good spirits; rue for freedom and breaking oaths, and for help seeing and understanding one’s mistakes; agrimony for overcoming fear, reversing pacts and spells and warding off evil entities. Like the first potion, there’s also skullcap in this one for making a binding oath/pact, but this time it represents both Fjord’s blood oath with Caleb and his newfound connection with Wildmother. It also represents the relief of disharmony. Lastly, there’s pink rosebuds for divine love, pink carnation for a mother’s love (the Wildmother), and peony for protection, breaking hexes/curses/bindings, and help dealing with feelings of shame, which Fjord definitely struggled with when his powers were taken away from him. -Sealed with symbol of the Wildmother and gold wax.

7. Can I reach my goals alone? Do I want to? (GROWTH) In my other CR2 boxes so far I’ve included a reference to the rest of the Mighty Nein, and for Fjord I wanted to keep it going. In this potion, there is one clove for each member of the M9, including Molly. Cloves represent camaraderie, and becoming better through the influence of those around you. There’s also thyme for attracting loyalty and the good opinion of others, providing strength/courage, and warding off grief/nightmares; zinnia to remember friends that are no longer with us; sage for renewal, and for grief/loss and being able to learn from them (grief for Vandren, Molly, himself, and for other losses the group has sustained). Lastly, there’s magnolia for loyalty, calming anxiety, peace and overcoming destructive/unnecessary behaviors. -Sealed with tiny ship stamp and gold wax.

Since the top inside lid was so simple with just the eye, I wanted to have a little fun with the bottom of the box and make it a bit more complicated. I got a silver sword and broke it, then carved out a space in the bottom so the sword would fit, using clay to fill in gaps so the sword was set flush into the bottom surface and it was still flat enough for everything to balance on it. Then, I covered it in resin, giving the bottom a “wet” look, which turned out even better than I expected and ended up looking super cool. To finish it all off, I added a piece of fishing net on the bottom as both a way to protect the resin and to give an interesting effect.

Lastly, I added a brass-topped tooth on a red cord in the little black sachet to represent the red rope on Fjord’s armor and his tusks, which have served as a metaphor throughout the campaign for his journey to self-acceptance, and carved a quote on the very bottom of the outside of the box. It says “It is in our nature to adapt.” I don’t want to spoil how and when it’s said, but I thought it fit really well.

This box was a wild ride, and I felt like I couldn’t see the end until I’d reached it. I’m glad I stuck it out and kept going because I love how it turned out! Thanks for reading this ridiculously long write up, friends, and until next time!

#cr fjord #critical role #critical role art #magic boxes #magic box #critrole #fjord #long post

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gorogues · 5 years

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Spoilers for Flash #81!

You can see the preview pages here.

What? Hunter, no! indeed. He sacrifices himself to fix the Force Barrier, and something bad happens to the Speed Force and its users. He saw Wally and Linda via the Forever Force and is still feeling remorseful about his past actions, and it really is too bad he's never apologized to Wally in person (at least in any way Wally could hear).

And, as seen above, Eobard really was the one with his fingerprints on the gun, because he gave it to the Clown. I'm not sure how I feel about that, as the idea that Hunter was wrong about the Clown's psych profile was kind of a cornerstone moment for him and showed that the wunderkind was fallible. On the other hand, it's a very Eobard thing to do and certainly adds to the tragedy of Hunter's life -- which is not insignificant for a guy who yelled about being fuelled by tragedy. So I've got mixed feelings about the revelation.

Barry's looking quite haggard in this issue, and it's not clear if it's from the sickness in the Speed Force or just the ridiculous amount of crap he's been through recently. Certainly can't blame him in either case.

And the Rogues are being huge dickheads by kicking around a pair of kids, which I guess foreshadows the story arc to come. It still remains to be seen why they're acting like this and what they (or some of them) are trying to achieve. Have they been corrupted by the power within their grasp, or is it because Perpetua's evil has poisoned their minds? Both options seem plausible, because there does appear to be outside influence acting on their behaviour; this isn't how any of them normally act. As we see in the issue, Perpetua's influence can be seen in Steadfast's vision and in the Doom symbol appearing in the sky, so she's clearly affecting the area in addition to other parts of the world.

Another question: what exactly are they searching for in Iron Heights? We don't see anything special when they arrive at the Flash Museum, so if they've found a weapon or tool they haven't shown it yet.

I'm really not sure what to think of flying mummy monster Lisa, but I wonder if potential outside influence is affecting her too. If so, one also wonders how she shakes it off in a few issues to help save the day...however, the other possibility is that she's just acting like a creepy jerk with no external influence and realizes that later. She's the one who really interests me in this arc, because she seems like the only one who has been (and will be) thinking independently recently.

This issue was somewhat weaker than others in the arc, in my opinion, but there were still some interesting bits in it. I doubt Hunter is dead, although it may be a while before we see him again, and I hope something actually comes out of the revelation about Eobard. Regardless of how I feel about it, it'd be a waste if the bombshell just gets dropped and then forgotten about. I'm also wondering about the future of the Speed Force, which seems like it'll be in chaos for quite some time. Maybe that plays into the potential 5G rumours about the supposed replacement of Barry..? Perhaps Owen becomes the new Flash because he isn't truly a speedster, and that's why the more obvious successors in the Flash Family aren't taking the role. We will see, I suppose.

@ianxfalcon

#Captain Cold #Golden Glider #Heat Wave #Weather Wizard #Mirror Master #Zoom #Professor Zoom #the Flash #Black Flash #Kid Flash #Avery Ho #Iris #Linda Park #Iron Heights #Flash Museum #spoilers: comics #reviews #horror #tw blood

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supernoondles · 4 years

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2019

The last day of 2019 was also the day I fainted for the first time--a fitting metaphor for the year.

2019 was overall very emotionally taxing. This year was emotionally defined by falling intensely, deeply in love with someone (who is a very private person so I will try to be vague to respect that) and being in a lot of pain because of situations mostly outside of our control. There were a lot of intensely joyous moments, and a lot of intensely sad ones. Throughout it all I wish I had communicated better. I also made some bad decisions with another person I really loved and cared about that resulted in us growing apart. Do I think I grew from the experiences? For sure. Do I wish I could have come upon these realizations through a different course of action? Also yes. Am I fully healed from the experiences? Not really, but I've been getting better.

2019 was also very bad in terms of research. It was the 2nd year of my PhD. After I submitted my rotation project I basically felt stuck in the swamp of my advisors rejecting new project ideas for like literally half a year. This, combined with my high emotional volatility (partially due to starting birth control), made me really sad, unmotivated, and susceptible to self-blame. I definitely had high expectations for myself and became frustrated at my lack of progress and felt a lot of pressure from myself to get my shit together. I also felt incredibly bad after most advisor meetings and not supported by one of them to the point where I had to have a conversation with him about the lack of support (which was very scary)! Things started picking up, though, near the end of the year. I published a paper in collaboration with a former post-doc/now professor elsewhere whom I learned a lot from, and started finally building out another system. I also started mentoring an undergrad who at some point told me I helped him feel like he had something important to say and belong at Stanford for the first time and those words meant a lot to me. I think I'm continuing to refine what I value as research contributions and increasingly think about what it means to build systems that aren't used outside of the lab to satisfy the annual conference publishing cycle. I'm also starting to feel the pressure of doing work that follows a narrative rather than random projects that interest me.

Oh, I guess in terms of "program requirements," I did finish taking required classes, passed qualifying exams, and got a master's degree. But honestly those weren't hard at all nor do I think are externally valued in the larger research community, so I don't really celebrate them as accomplishments beyond surface level.

In 2019 I saw two different therapists. The first one was awful, I think directly influenced some of my bad decisions, and also didn't respect my gender identity??? The second one is a lot better and I'm grateful to see her, even if 90% of our sessions are just talking about my relationship (romantic/advisor) issues, which is something I want to move away from in the future. But I also feel incredibly privileged when relationship issues are the primary stressors in my life--I am grateful I feel equipped to handle other crap, like deadlines, and don't have to worry about my own health.

Those were the main things that have colored this year. We'll now move into the section of this post where I go through my photos to jog my memory of other events.

New years started a tradition of getting dim sum with Jasper, Matthew, and Michelle dear to my heart. My high school friend was also visiting and we all attended a really awesome new year's eve party. I was also going on a lot of dates and having a lot of good sex, which made me really happy, and at the same time crying all the time at work. In February I received probably the best gift anyone has ever given me and saw Panic! at the Disco, which I said in an end of the year group meeting was a good memory of my year (it was, to relive my scene days!). In March I roadtripped both to Marin (which I had never to been before, despite all my years in the bay) and LA for Wondercon; it was nice to both see high school friends and go on a trip with the boo. In April I went on a hike with my office which was probably the start of us all becoming closer (we are the social office in the wing now, which I take pride in! Also we draw a lot of Pokemon which warms my heart). In May I went to CHI in Glasgow and then to Paris afterward, and the entire experience was very weird and bad and also too many flights were canceled and/or missed and I vowed to not return to Europe for a while, but man do I love the noodles at Trois Fois plus de Piment. In June we hosted a double apartment party with my downstairs neighbors (side note: I am really appreciative of the place I live in, for the community, convenience, and large-ass space and will be really sad to be kicked out fall 2020) and I started a friendship important to me. I cat-sat for my advisor (the one who doesn't make me feel bad) twice. I went to Redwood State Park with my family and hosted a summer solstice celebration. Over the summer a friend I met in Paris back in 2017 moved in with me. I had a much needed escape from the bay to Seattle where I was reminded how abundant the world can be. I also went to Tahoe to celebrate my parents' anniversary, and really liked stumbling upon a smaller lake with a cheap boat rental. Then I became FOMO about the highly competitive Bay Area camping and did a last minute walk-in at Redwood Basin in Santa Cruz, which made me realize that I don't actually love camping (but was nice nonetheless). I ate an expensive meal at Commonwealth before they closed. For my birthday we made a friendship quilt and I served my favorite dish of cumin lamb but it was also 90 degrees in my apartment (I felt really bad and bought two fans afterwards). I started buying many cartoon frog plush after being gifted a $3.99 on sale Safeway frog (called Baby!). I went on Tinder dates (one of which was at a quaker yard sale marketed as Harvest Festival where I got a 1970s Kermit puppet for like $2) that largely went nowhere. My high school friend visited and we were both sad about break ups. I did Inktober before I went to New Orleans for a conference on Bourbon St where everything felt like it was coated in a sticky film of alcohol. I almost missed my flight home because I fell asleep in a sculpture garden but I had the most amazing Uber driver who snaked his way through traffic (oh and the flight was delayed by like 3 hours). I went to kind of embarrassing haunted houses and pumpkin patches over Halloween, but also had the most incredible bowl of ramen at Mensho. My whole office dressed up as Zootopia characters which warmed my furry heart. I spent like $120 on a Pokemon shirt. I started playing Arkham Horror and rekindled another friendship important to me. In November went on a road trip to Big Sur because again, I had to escape it all. For Christmas Eve dinner I roasted a duck for the first time (which was delicious). Shortly after I waited in line for 2 hours for a rollercoaster at Great America, which taught me the value of buying a fast pass because at this point in my life that money is worth it, and then waited 2 hours in line at the DMV to get a RealID (I had made an appointment, which was the fast pass).

Okay, now we move to the hobby section!

I got really into sewing in 2019, having received a sewing machine last Christmas. I made a Judy Hopps (which I wore to CrunchyRoll Expo) and Korok cosplay (Fanime), several unsuccessful garments, a crab bean bag, a dice bag, a fanny pack, and put hearts nipples on a jumpsuit.

Shows! I think I went to way fewer shows this year. The ones I can remember are Elephant Gym, Thom Yorke the night before I had an 8am flight, Carly Rae Jepsen over pride weekend (also, she is my #1 artist of the year, which makes a lot of sense given my emotional space), Mitski at Stern Grove, Capitol Hill Bloc Party (which was super lame, except for Lizzo, where I cried), and the National (which was a fucking surreal experience as they played on Stanford's campus, I was the only one within earshot of myself who knew the words to Crybaby Geeks, and then the white catalog moms came up to me after to thank me for singing the song).

I also started playing my own music! I started playing viola again for the first time in 7 years (lol) in both pop-up concerts with the Awesome Orchestra (one in Golden Gate Park, one at the Exploratorium) and a string quartet through my school. Sometimes I am filled with joy and delight. Other times interpersonal tensions run high and also I am very bad at being in tune. It's life.

Media! I really liked Mob Psycho 100 Season 2 and Beastars. I feel like those were the only notable anime I watched this year? I saw the Farewell three times--first in Seattle where I sobbed for like 1 hour after the movie, the second time with my parents, and the third where Awkwafina was present for a Q&A. I thought Parasite was incredible and Promare was OK. I have spent an unfortunately large amount of my time playing Pokemon Masters. I finally beat BOTW and completed my Pokedex in Shield like 2 weeks after getting the game.

Resolutions! In my draft of my 2018 end of year post (which I never polished and posted, sorry), I said my resolutions were 1. come out to my parents 2. draw enough to table at an anime con 3. be disciplined about paper reading and have a doc. I did none of these things!!! However, for 1, I feel like I am well equipped to have this conversation but am waiting for my sibling to do it first out of respect. 2 was just bad. I barely drew this year except for gifts. 3 was okay--I did have a large doc in the beginning of the year when I was looking for ideas, but as time went on I abandoned it (I also stopped reading papers, which I don't think you're supposed to do as a grad student...)

My resolutions this year are phrased as intentions (-(c) Matthew). They span several categories. Relationships: I want to open myself to and actively seek experiences of love, because I miss that. That being said, I will only date someone if 1. they have their life together 2. they love themselves and 3. they challenge me to grow. (I do think you can experience love without dating; the thing I'm after is love in an expansive sense.) Work: I want to do enough work so I don't feel guilty about not doing enough work, and also not berate myself for taking a long time to do things. Hobbies: I want to sew at least one thing a month. Chinese: I want to improve my Chinese, especially pronunciation.

Having written this 20 days into 2020, it's not been so bad so far. But I was also really happy in the beginning of 2019. Here's to no global maxima, a monotonically increasing year!

#noon's shitty end of the year summary posts #lol i never post on here anymore but i got 8 years of summary posts so i gotta maintain the tag u get me

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kcwcommentary · 5 years

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VLD8x09 – “Knights of Light Part 1”

8x09 – “Knights of Light Part 1”

The first time I watched this episode, I spent most of the episode being nothing but confused. This time, there is still a lot that confuses me, but I’m able to focus in on what does so. This episode retcons what has previously been depicted as the Lions’ consciousness. Now, the void that Shiro spent seasons three through six in is no longer the Black Lion’s consciousness. It’s just a miscellaneous realm of connectivity between everyone in the universe’s minds. In the style of how what was previously described as the Black Lion’s consciousness was animated, now similar appearing locations exist inside Honerva’s mind. The way universal consciousness is depicted in this episode is so uncontrolled that the episode has the Paladins arrive at Honerva’s mind twice during their attempt to get to her, or if the first mind they get to wasn’t Honerva’s then it was someone that isn’t identified. They get pulled into Honerva’s mind, but then the things characters say indicate that they’re not in Honerva’s mind. Basically, this episode’s production couldn’t keep clear about its locations. Maybe that’s just a problem with writing disembodied, nebulousness like this: you lose sense of the logistics of the action.

I’m also super annoyed that this episode now adds a second level of blamelessness to Honerva and Zarkon. The show has long been pushing the idea that neither of them are to blame for their actions because they were externally influenced by being poisoned by quintessence. But now, this episode says that they weren’t to blame because they were possessed by rift entities. I am not okay with a story telling me that it’s not the fault of abusive, torturous, genocidal dictators that they abuse, torture, and commit genocide.

The episode starts with Allura having another dream, floating in darkness. There’s a voice calling her name, I think it’s Honerva? Allura wakes up, Coran and Lance by her bed in the medical bay. Coran asks her about the entity, and Allura says, “I did what needed to be done. […] This entity, it is connected to Honerva in some way. I believe we can use it.” Coran goes patriarchal, saying, “I swore to your father I would look after you, but I fear I may have let him down.” Because how dare a woman make her own decisions.

Coran says, “This is the path of darkness.” We get lots of supposedly ominous statements like this in this part of the story, but none of it really amounts to anything. It’s certainly not foreshadowing, nor is it used as set-up to be undermined. It’s not as if the story is having it seem like the rift entity is dangerous only to reveal, as I suggested last commentary as having been a potential better story, that the entity isn’t dangerous, just upset at being imprisoned and hurt by Honerva. Nothing like that happens in this story. It’s just the entity is miscellaneously dangerous, and then the danger to Allura never happens.

I still think the way gravity works on the Atlas is odd. Shiro floats through a hallway up to a door, and once at the door, he steps down onto the floor. There’s no gravity in the center of the hallway, but there’s gravity along the sides of the hallway. It comes off to me as nonsense. Shiro opens the door and inside are the Paladins and Coran. “You wanted to see me?” Shiro asks. This again emphasizes how Shiro is not part of the team. The rest of them had this big conversation without including him in it until now.

Keith says, “We think we might have a way to find Honerva.” Allura tells Shiro, “The entity has bonded me to Honerva. The link is there whether we use it or not.” I guess this is just more miscellaneous, unexplained space magic. The entity isn’t really defined in this show. We’ve seen the entities in the past be aggressive, we’ve seen it merge with others of its kind to fight. That was presented as being a threat (3x07 “The Legend Begins). Now, we’ve seen it having been inside Tova, but precisely what it did in him wasn’t explained. I guess maybe the show is saying the entity is just there to let Honerva control and kill the Colony Alteans? That doesn’t make the entity really seem inherently threatening in and of itself though. That’s just using the entity as a mechanism to say this is how Honerva can control people. That’s Honerva, not the entity, being threatening.

Allura says (and Lance looks super angry while she speaks), “I believe if the Paladins connect using the shared consciousness of Voltron, we may be able to travel through the void and into Honerva’s mind.”

I have a huge problem with this. This is feels like a massive retcon to what “the void” has been shown as in the past. This is connected back to 5x03 “Postmortem,” in which all five Paladins used their bayards in Voltron. In that episode, Voltron is being attacked by a plant-virus and Pidge says, “Listen, this virus is affecting Voltron on a submolecular level. To drive it out, we have to tap into the quantum energy that binds us all to Voltron.” Allura then responds, “The bayards, they amplify each Paladin’s life force. They might provide enough power to drive out the virus.” The five of them put their bayards in their respective Lions’ bayard slots, and then they all appear within “the void.” The void is in “Postmortem” and in every instance that has dealt with Shiro and the Black Lion’s bond, like 2x07 “Space Mall” and 6x06 “All Good Things,” been about the Paladins and Voltron. The void has not been some otherworldly location separate from the Lions/Voltron. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever for the void to now be connected to Honerva. Honerva is not a Paladin. She has never been a Paladin. The psychic space of the Lions/Voltron should have absolutely nothing to do with her.

I can totally understand why people would see this episode and, on this alone, think that this is evidence of a massive change in the season’s plot really late into the season’s production. I can see how there’s a suggestion here of a revised story where originally the Paladins went into the psychic space of Voltron having something to do with Shiro and his having been stored by the Black Lion in her psychic space. If the void is now just some nebulous otherworld that does not belong to the Lions, then it completely erases the previously stated fact that the Black Lion kept Shiro in its consciousness. But the show’s use of the void in the past has been fairly explicit that that is what was happening. So, this episode contradicts severely with past episodes.

That’s not to say that the executive producers and writers of this show would have any problem with writing this story to contradict previously written story. They don’t seem to have any real desire to maintain continuity and consistency in the writing for this show. Since most of the plot of this series seems like the EPs and writers were mostly just winging it as they went along, I don’t think they cared that this violates what’s been established in the story. Sometimes, I honestly don’t think that Joaquim Dos Santos and Lauren Montgomery were even interested in telling a story. I think they just wanted to do story-less animation. So many times, this show feels like they were trying to do nothing more than to make some Voltron: Defender of the Universe AU fanart. They certainly did not construct a coherent, cohesive narrative. Maybe that’s part of what angers me so much about VLD. I’m a writer. I love storytelling. I love animation, but I come to animation as being a medium through which a story can be told. JDS and LM saw this project as animation first and foremost, and storytelling was only secondary, at best. The story of this show was only something they were forced to do in order to be allowed to make animation. I don’t think they really cared about telling a story.

Back to this episode. Pidge says, “That could in theory give us access to her physical location as well as key information on how to defeat her.” I’m still stuck on how they would see entering Voltron’s psychic space would have anything to do with Honerva. This is just feels forced.

Keith says, “Honerva is capable of creating galactic komars, wormholes, Robeasts,” I know this show doesn’t do logic, but Honerva’s “galactic komar” was dependent on the Robeasts. How many Robeasts did she create from the statues at Oriande? I know, the show doesn’t show us so that it can have an endless supply for whenever the writers want to pull a new one out of the bag and not have to keep track of the logistics of them all. All of the Robeasts used in 8x06 “Genesis” should be out of the story. Oriande and the white hole went boom, so none of them there should have survived (though since Merla pops up again, I guess they did). The ones used as part of this “galactic komar” though have been found; that’s where the four of the six Colony Alteans now onboard the Atlas came from. So, did the Atlas just leave those Robeasts laying on those respective planets? Are they just sitting there waiting for Honerva to reclaim them? Otherwise, how is the “galactic komar” still a threat since it was built out of tech (the mechas and the Olkari cubes) that are destroyed or no longer functioning?

Keith continues, “And now, Lotor and his mech are out there somewhere.” Again, this show presents this story as if Lotor is actually alive, but we’ll soon be shown that he’s a melted corpse. It does make the season feel like it was re-edited. If it wasn’t re-edited, then this is absolutely the creative team for this show repetitiously manipulating the audience. If they hadn’t already proven themselves to be more than willing to engage in audience manipulation, especially when it comes to Lotor’s part in the show’s story, then I might be more willing to give more weight to the possibility that this was re-edited. I can see JDS, LM, and the writers in a meeting saying to write the season’s story to make it look like Lotor is alive only to surprise twist! he’s been dead the whole time. They wouldn’t care about the inconsistency that writing this season that way would have because their goal would be to create the surprise twist! that they seem to think is how you create a story. And it would make sense that they would think that that is how you create a story if creating that story was always secondary, at best, to their goals with this project.

Keith says, “We don’t have any other leads. It might take lifetimes for another opportunity like this to come around.” Are you kidding me? Keith thinks that Honerva is going to sit out and do nothing for “lifetimes?” Remember, they’re saying they need to do this in order to find Honerva, that’s the opportunity of a lifetime: a chance to find her. But if Honerva’s not done doing what she plans to do, then she’ll show up again, thus they will have found her by her just continuing whatever it is she’s doing. This line of dialog is just not written well.

Shiro speaks. “I spent a lot of time in the infinite void.” Yes, you did, and that void was inside the Black Lion, not some otherworld that is connected to Honerva. “And if you face Honerva in the void—” They shouldn’t be able to because how is Honerva able to be in the Lions’/Voltron’s psychic space?

Lance says, “We’re messing with powers we don’t fully understand.” Unfortunately, the writers of this show don’t fully understand those powers either because they didn’t bother to define those powers.

Coran says, “It’s been a long time since it was only the seven of us in a room together.” That’s because the writers didn’t bother to continue to write you guys as the main characters.

The Paladins get in their Lions. Allura has a flash of Honerva’s face and screams. She then has a vision of Honerva and Merla floating in a hallway. It makes me think of how the Shiro-clone had visions of Honerva going to Oriande in 6x01 “Omega Shield.” Unlike with Allura, it couldn’t be that the clone had a rift entity in him. I’m still wondering why exactly the clone was able to see Honerva in that episode. The initial blast of Allura seeing an outline of Honerva’s face made it seem like Honerva was directly trying to access Allura, but then the vision of Honerva floating down a hallway would suggest Honerva was just doing her thing and Allura was eavesdropping. Even within just a couple of seconds, this show seems to contradict itself.

The show then cuts to a total tonal dissonance by having Veronica and Iverson discussing Shiro’s win at arm-wrestling while having a “robot arm.” I really like (the barely included) Curtis in the background turned in his seat and listening to this conversation while having an adorkable smile.

So, Voltron forms, the Paladins do their joint bayard use. The animation team was clearly lazy and just reused a shot from the animation in 5x03 “Postmortem.” You can tell that it’s reused animation because Keith is currently the Black Paladin. Keith, though he has the black bayard, wears red armor. In the animation of the bayards being used here in “Knights of Light Part 1,” the user of the black bayard has black armor, just like he did in “Postmortem.” So, in this particular shot here in “Knights of Light Part 1,” that’s Shiro’s arm, not Keith’s.

Everything glows and then turns dark. Then the Paladins enter the void. Allura declares that they “must travel through that light.” Generic, but okay. She says, “The entity draws me toward it.” That implies that either the entity has some agency or that for some reason the entity is unwillingly attracted toward Honerva. (I really hate that to continue to discuss this episode, I have to accept the retcon that the Lions’/Voltron’s psychic space is not the Lions’ consciousness but some otherworld that Honerva is connected to.)

The Paladins use their suits’ jetpacks to move toward the light. I know it’s a minor matter, but they’re not physically in this location right now; they’re sitting in their Lions. So, why write them to look like they’re using their jetpacks to move through space? They get to the light, which fills the screen, and then dissipates into normal looking space. Lance says, “What is this place? It’s like I can hear what the universe is thinking.” What? This show is going to write the universe itself to be sentient? I imagine that this line really is nothing but the writers thinking they’re being profound when really it’s just them being nonsensical.

Pidge invokes the Olkari having said everything is made of the same energy. Hunk replies, “So, thoughts are linked across some kind of, what, cosmic connection?” I’m so uninterested in this. The psychic space used to seem special, that it was a manifestation of the Lions’ consciousness. Now, the void is just some generic overmind of the universe. The implication of this is that the Black Lion didn’t save Shiro’s spirit at all. If the void is not some psychic space of the Lions’ consciousness but instead is just a universal overmind, then Shiro’s spirit wasn’t being stored in the Black Lion. Shiro’s spirit was just where spirits are.

Allura has another flash headache, and then everyone else does too. They see Honerva and Merla somewhere. It looks like Oriande with how the mechas are standing in the background. Cut to Voltron’s eyes glowing.

Back in the overmind. Allura explains that “that was Honerva. The entity inside of me is connected to her.” This dialog is getting repetitive. Allura says that they now have a psychic link with Honerva. “The closer we are to her, the stronger that link.” But of course, they’re not physically closer to her, so I guess this “closer” is referencing their being psychically closer to her here in the overmind? In which case, this line of dialog becomes a tautology. Lance worries that Honerva will use this link the Paladins now have with Honerva’s mind to find them. Then they will have achieved their goal; remember, they’re doing this to find where Honerva is. Also, Honerva has enough space magic already, I doubt she needs this link to find them.

It feels really weird for Keith to say, “This isn’t just on you now, Princess.” They haven’t interacted with Allura in recognition of her as a princess in a long time. It feels strange hearing him do so now. It actually sounds kind of condescending when he says it. Keith tells them all to miscellaneously focus on Honerva’s energy. They glow. The Lions’ eyes glow. Each Paladin is shown associated to their Lions. And then the Lions are flying through space.

What is happening here? I guess the Lions aren’t actually flying anywhere, that this is somehow now them in the overmind going with the Paladins through the overmind to Honerva’s mind? But then, they fly into the distance and there’s a flash of light and the Lions are back together in Voltron. So, is this actual Voltron or some Voltron in the overmind?

This is a huge part of why I hate this episode: It so too damn confusing. I can imagine the creative team had certain specific ideas in mind when they were doing this, but they failed to tell this story clearly, and I don’t know what they were trying to tell.

Voltron looks like it’s travelling through space. There’s even planets and moons. Because Voltron actually travels through space, there’s nothing visually that allows for this to contrast with actual space if this is supposed to be Voltron traveling through the overmind.

Hunk says, “I can feel something, like an energy inside me.” And Allura says, “It’s the entity.” The entity is now in Hunk? In all the Paladins? Keith says, “It’s like a dark realization washing over.” This line does not mean anything. It’s just miscellaneous spew that the writer thinks sounds profound and ominous. It doesn’t though. Pidge says, “It’s like we’re begin pulled by a tether connected to our souls.” Again, this is nowhere near as profound as the writer thinks it is. It also places the locus of action on the entity, pulling them, rather than on the Paladins actively traversing through the overmind. It’s sort of depriving the Paladins of agency. It also doesn’t explain why the entity is being drawn toward Honerva.

They come upon what looks like a black hole. Everything goes dark, then every looks like neurons, which I assume is supposed to be Honerva’s brain. Then Voltron looks like it comes out of a light, like it’s left the neurons behind. It’s so confusing. I’m really trying to understand what this animation is actually depicting, but I don’t really know.

Voltron flies through space some more, and then everything turns dark again. And then Voltron is flying through that darkness with little bits of quintessence? floating off of it. Then Voltron separates into little colored dots. From the wide shot, you can’t tell if they’re the Lions or the Paladins. They float through blackness with more quintessence-bits floating from a glowing event horizon. The camera reorients, and the glowing Paladins land on the black surface.

I don’t know why Voltron was involved in this traversing of the overmind. What did Voltron actually do for the Paladins in this process? And why is Voltron now not part of the process? Why did it poof into just being the Paladins in the overmind again? Also, the animation already had Voltron enter what looked like a black hole, which I assumed was Honerva’s mind, but then they left it, floated through space some more, and now have arrived at what looks like another black hole. So, why was there a first black hole if that wasn’t Honerva’s mind? Whose mind did that first black hole belong to?

They stand on a surface, and Allura says that Honerva’s mind is “on the other side of this wall.” There are streaks of black with streaks of red or orange for eyes moving under the wall. Allura says, “It feels like that these are the souls that Honerva has defeated and corrupted.” Why has the show not shown us that Honerva could corrupt souls before now? (Or is corrupting a soul what she did to the clone to be able to control him? That would make it even more offensive that the Paladins described the clone as evil.) Honerva corrupting souls just comes out of nowhere. There is nothing in the show prior to this that sets-up this reveal. And, if Honerva can explicitly corrupt someone else’s soul, then how did the writers think it’s acceptable for them to expect the audience by the end of the series to view Honerva as absolved of her horrible behavior?

The show here says Honerva can corrupt souls, it has been saying for seasons now that Honerva was corrupted by quintessence poisoning, and in this episode says that Honerva was corrupted by a rift entity. It’s all a mess that does not locate motivation for character action within the character.

Spectral hands come out of the floor-wall and grab Allura first and then all the Paladins. There are a lot of hands, so there are a lot of souls that Honerva has corrupted. The Paladins, with the exception of Keith, are pulled down into the floor-wall, into Honerva’s mind. Why wasn’t Keith pulled in?

First Pidge opens her eyes and the way the place she is looks, she’s in a greenish version of what had been depicted as the Black Lion’s consciousness in 6x06 “All Good Things” when Keith spoke to Shiro’s spirit there. But Allura just said that “on the other side of this wall” was Honerva’s mind. But the visuals of this would suggest that this is the Green Lion’s consciousness. So, how is the Green Lion’s consciousness inside Honerva’s mind?

A green-outlined shadowy person with a polearm weapon appears and attacks Pidge. Cut to a yellowy-orangey area where Hunk is being attacked by a similar figure with a staff. Lance in a red area fighting one with a sword. Allura in blue and fighting one with a bow. Keith meanwhile is still on the surface of Honerva’s mind.

Pidge says, “I can’t even feel my Lion.” I still don’t understand why the animators chose to have the environments the Paladins are fighting in resemble what “All Good Things” presented as the Black Lion’s consciousness if here the Paladins are, as Pidge says, disconnected from their Lions. I don’t know if the executive producers and animators in making this episode either didn’t remember or recognize the significance of this background from when it was used in “All Good Things,” but that’s hard for me to accept as a possibility. Or if they instead thought that assigning meaning to animation like they did for this background style from “All Good Things” just didn’t matter and that they could just port over the background style and ignore the previous meaning.

In Shiro and Keith’s conversation in “All Good Things, Shiro said, “somehow the Black Lion retained my essence,” to which Keith asked Shiro, “Is that where we are, in the Black Lion’s consciousness?” So, this background style has most definitively been established as being that of the Lions’ consciousness. But now, Pidge says she “can’t even feel [her] Lion.” I just don’t know what to make of this episode. It seems so disconnected from what has come before. No wonder people think this is the result of shattering some original story and reconstituting the pieces into this confusing mess.

Allura’s attacker shoots an arrow at her. She holds out her hand, shadowy wisps float off her hand, and the arrow stops. Her eyes turn black. She screams an inhuman scream. I guess we’re supposed to think this is the rift entity acting through her?

But then glowing, spectral versions of the Lions show up in each of the four’s combat area. So, they’re supposed to be inside Honerva’s mind, though it looks like the visual style previously used to depict a Lion’s consciousness, Keith can’t get inside Honerva’s mind with the other Paladins, but the Lions can enter into Honerva’s mind to join their Paladins? The Lions roar, and the dark wisps are blown by the wind of the roar off of Allura’s eyes. The shadowy figures the Paladins have been fighting have their shadow blown off of them revealing them to be the past Paladins.

So, we’re supposed to understand that Honerva somehow corrupted the souls of the Paladins. How did she corrupt Alfor’s soul? When did she corrupt Alfor’s soul? We saw in “The Legend Begins” that Alfor was killed by Zarkon on a bridge with no one else around them.

Allura’s eyes go dark again and she screams her inhuman scream and attacks Blaytz. The Blue Lion roars again and everything goes white. Then we see Alfor giving the other old Paladins their armor and their bayards. This scene depicts Zarkon pre-quintessence poisoning, and he says, “With this much power, we will be unstoppable.” So, his being a dictatorial, genocidal conqueror was always a part of who he was. He didn’t become bad because of quintessence poisoning. So, the show using the poisoning to excuse his behavior is just offensive. This flashback scene of the old Paladins unintentionally emphasizes Zarkon’s lack of presence in this fight so far, emphasizes Keith’s exclusion from the fight.

Allura stops short of stabbing Blaytz. “It’s really you,” she says. Pidge says, “Your soul, Honerva must have—” and Hunk continues, “—trapped you here somehow.” Of course, that makes me ask, how did Honerva do this? Especially with Alfor? We’ve seen his death. When did Honerva trap the Paladins’ souls inside her own mind? And why has that never been part of the story until now? Honerva has been active in this show’s plot for the whole series. Why is it only now that her having done this is relevant? This has never been a part of anything in the story until now. It clearly was not planned as part of the overall story arc. This really is just coming out of nowhere. And that, beyond this part of the story being super confusing, is why I don’t like it. The idea that the current Paladins would have to fight the old Paladins is a really interesting premise, but there’s been no set-up to lead to this fight. There’s nothing to this that makes it feel the inevitable outcome of the events prior to now.

Like too much in this show’s story, this is a set piece. It seems conceptualized wholly independently of the story and then the story is what was written to try to force connection between set pieces. It’s why the reveal of the clone and resulting battle between Keith and Shiro had a certain grandeur to it, but there was no reason ever given in the show for why Haggar had hundreds of clones of Shiro made. That fight was a set piece that was forced into the story rather than grown out of the story. Similarly, this fight with the old Paladins doesn’t come out of the story, it’s wedged into it, the story is forced to accommodate it, and that’s why it is so disconnected to what has come before. And in being so disconnected, the moment is deprived of the emotion it could and should have.

The Lions roar once again, the souls of the old Paladins and the backgrounds fracture and light pours out of it all and everything goes to white. All of the development in this conflict comes from the Lions, so if the Lions could clean the Paladins’ souls of corruption, they why have they been sitting there in this fight waiting instead of just doing so from the moment they came into this space?

Cut to a flashback with Alfor, Gyrgan, Trigel, Blaytz, and Coran discuss how Zarkon is going to come for them. Trigel wants to fight Zarkon, but Alfor doesn’t want to risk Zarkon getting the Lions. Alfor says they’ll use the other Lions to seal the Black Lion and then send the other four to where they were until they were found at the beginning of the series. Alfor tells Coran to use the Castle of Lions to take Allura and the Black Lion away. But then, Gyrgan says, “Then it is decided: We go into battle together one last time.” Of course, that doesn’t match Alfor’s having rejected fighting when Trigel suggested it first.

Cleaned of having been corrupted by Honerva, Trigel asks, “Where am I?” Hunk answers Gyrgan, “You’re in the void, just outside of Honerva’s mind.”

One, the backgrounds still look like the Black Lion’s consciousness, but Hunk doesn’t say they’re in their respective Lions’ consciousness, he says they’re “in the void.” But then he says that they’re “just outside of Honerva’s mind.” Keith is, the rest of them are not. The rest of them were dragged under the barrier into Honerva’s mind. This show really cannot keep this straight. So, which is it? They were pulled into Honerva’s mind, but it’s outside her mind. They’re in the void, but it looks like the Lions’ consciousnesses.

Trigel says she’s glad that “someone so connected to the world around her is piloting the Green Lion.” I still don’t think this show has actually shown Pidge to be connected to nature. “My race believes observation to be the most revered attribute.” As I’ve said before in my commentaries, I really don’t like when science fiction writes aliens to be monocultures. Trigel’s race doesn’t believe anything because it was made up of a bunch of different people, who like humanity, all have a bunch of different thoughts and opinions and beliefs, or at least her race should be like that if it was written realistically. Sorry, that’s just a peeve of mine.

Blaytz tells Allura, “People often overlook me because I was,” there’s a very slight hesitation in his voice, “different.” I very much imagine that this is supposed to be a reference to Blaytz being gay. Unfortunately, this phrasing sounds to me like how a straight person would write a gay person to speak. Using the word “different” as a stand-in functions like someone who doesn’t want to get personal, which you have to do to write dialog well. It’s seems clear to me that the word “different” was chosen to avoid actually, openly talking about Blaytz’s being gay. It makes the character’s experience generic, which causes it to lose emotion and meaning. I can imagine the writer defending this dialog by saying writing it this way gives it universality, but that’s a thought that comes out of unexamined privilege. By excluding the specifics in favor of claimed universality, you deny the cause and content of the discrimination and exclusion you claim to be rejecting, and so cease to be actually rejecting anything.

Blaytz then continues talking about the Blue Lion picking him. “But the Blue Lion recognized something in me, something others couldn’t see. It saw the greatness within that even I did not.” Imagine this dialog but instead of Blaytz talking to Allura, he was talking to Lance. It would be totally fitting in theme as another step in Lance’s struggle to recognize something great within himself that even he could not see. Lance had, until it was abandoned by the writers, serious issues with self-confidence and believing himself to have value as part of the team. Even this episode hints at that abandoned element of Lance’s character back at the beginning during the meeting with Shiro when Lance expresses pleasure that calling him “the sharpshooter” is now something the team does fondly. It would have made so much more sense for Blaytz to have said this to Lance. But instead, he says, “You, Allura, have greatness within you as well.” This isn’t something she needs him to tell her since she’s hasn’t wrestled with feeling fundamentally worthless, especially once she learned Altean alchemy at Oriande. She has doubted her ability to succeed, but not her inherent worth. “You’re so much like your father, and yet so different.” This line is so cliché and so meaningless.

Lance, with his long history of insecurity, gets nothing from Alfor that supports him as a person. Instead, the show returns to having patriarchy as the governing influence of Lance’s relationship with Allura. “Through the Lion’s bond, I could feel your love for my daughter,” Alfor says. “I could feel yours as well,” Lance says. Why is this show juxtaposing the love of a father for his daughter to the love a guy feels for his girlfriend? It’s just gross. It makes Lauren Montgomery’s claims that feminism has any influence whatsoever in this show seem absolutely absurd. But then, LM thought killing Allura at the end of the series was feminist. I still cannot get over how she considered having Allura reincarnated as an infant, literally infantilizing Allura, and have her then raised by Lance. It’s so creepy.

Alfor tells Lance, “We face many quests throughout the cosmos, but the most amazing journey is that of life. And the biggest question you face is who to go on that journey with. I’m glad my daughter chose you.” So, Lance receives nothing, no personal support from his Paladin-parallel. The others tell their respective Paladins something supportive of them, but all Lance gets is Alfor’s patriarchal approval of Lance as a suitor for Allura. This is such an absolute disservice to Lance’s character.

Keith remains on the surface of Honerva’s mind, unable to get through. Then suddenly the Black Lion is there. Why did it take so long for Black to show up for Keith when the other Lions had long showed up for their Paladins? Keith gets no special moment of affirmation with a previous Paladin. It feels absolutely like he was excluded, but for no reason other than they wanted to save a conflict with Zarkon until later. But if Zarkon was corrupted the same as the other old Paladins, why wouldn’t he have attacked Keith the same as the other old Paladins attacked their current counterparts? Almost as soon as the Black Lion shows up here with Keith on the outside of Honerva’s mind, the other Lions show up here too. The other Paladins, both old and new, show up here on the floor-wall to Honerva’s mind.

Allura runs to and hugs her father. Alfor says, “It is fitting that I would find what is brightest to me in the darkest place.” This feels a bit cliché. Allura says, “All that I have done, I have done to make you proud.” Trust me, I know what it feels like to want to make a parent proud, but this is so limiting. This is Allura defining herself by her father’s acceptance rather than defining herself by her own self. It’s very patriarchal to write a young female character to define herself by her father. I just don’t like it.

There’s a headache flash, and they see Honerva looking at a mecha, one that matches the one Allura saw Lotor piloting in her vision last episode when Lotor said, “Follow me!”

Alfor says to Allura, “You hold a dark entity within you! Don’t you know how dangerous that is!” Thank you so much for your patriarchal judgement, Alfor. Allura is so stupid that she couldn’t possibly know about something being dangerous unless you chastise her for it. Also, ignore the fact that this supposed dangerousness never manifests in the story.

Alfor says, “That’s what led to Honerva and Zarkon’s end!” So, not only were they poisoned by quintessence when they went into the quintessence field in “The Legend Begins,” now the show is saying that Honerva and Zarkon became who they are because they were possessed by a rift entity? The show is really doubling down on absolving Honerva and Zarkon for being abusive, murderous, genocidal dictators for 10,000 years. Not only is it supposed to be not their fault because they were poisoned, now it’s also not their fault because they were possessed. I do not find the-devil-made-me-do-it stories even remotely interesting. This is just the creative team of this show being too cowardly to actually have their villains be villains. They don’t mind retaining their proclamation that Lotor was evil all along because declaring him to be evil was their big, desired plot twist. But they were too scared to commit to having Haggar and Zarkon as villains. For so long, both characters were written as just generic, maniacal villains. Then, I think the creative team thought they were making Zarkon and Honerva be more complex villains by saying they did the horrible things they did because of an external force (quintessence). Now, the show is just creating another way with which they can absolve the characters of the horrible things they did. But it’s not like Honerva and Zarkon just said hurtful things. They abused their son. They enslaved people. They tortured people. They murdered people. They committed genocide, murdering the population of whole planets. This is not something to forgive them for. And it’s offensive that this show is telling us to do so.

Also, if Honerva is supposed to be absolved for her actions because she was being controlled by a rift entity, how is it that the show simultaneously has Honerva affecting others through the rift entity? She was trying to kill Tova last episode through the rift entity in him. So, is the rift entity controlling Honerva, or is she controlling rift entities?

Allura says, “I am not going to be afraid to use the power I have.” She says, “We need to continue,” and someone, Lance, I think, says, “But how do we get past the wall?” Well, the spirits of the old Paladins dragged everyone but Keith beneath the wall earlier, so, try that.

Allura says, “It’s like I can feel her thoughts. The way through is with the darkness.” I don’t know how these two sentences are supposedly connected. Is this the extent of what the entity is doing for Allura, just getting her inside Honerva’s mind?

Alfor says, “Honerva went mad—” it’s annoying that the show equates mental illness with dangerousness in this line of dialog “—obsessed with darkness and power.” She was obsessed with quintessence. So, is the show now calling quintessence “darkness?” I thought quintessence was supposed to be life energy.

Allura does a touch-hand-glow and the surface beneath them glows. A light line streaks through the surface and the geometrics like that which appear around wormholes and like the ones Honerva created on Oriande when she retrieved Sincline appears beneath them all. Everything starts glowing white and they disappear from the surface.

This episode is a mess. It’s ambitious, but it’s so unwieldly. It significantly contradicts previous parts of the show, and that really, really bothers me. I don’t like how it takes what felt special (the idea that the Lions had a psychic space created by their consciousness, and that that is where the Black Lion kept Shiro’s spirit after he died) and now just makes it all be some generic universal overmind.

And I really hate that this show is now saying Honerva and Zarkon’s horrible behavior is the fault of being possessed by rift entities. Before it was the result of being poised by quintessence. Did the show forget that they had already assigned one thing to blame for their behavior other than themselves? And that is the ultimate thing that angers me about this. Both quintessence poisoning and rift entity possession are cheats. They reveal a fear of letting villains be villains. They refuse to seriously deal with the reality that these characters are horrible people. By assigning blame to an external source, now two external sources, the show prevents the villains from having to confront their behavior, and the protagonists lose the ability to condemn the behavior as the narrative manifestation of their final confrontation with the villains. The same way that these episodes keep telling us the rift entities are a threat without ever really resolving that, the series, by locating the blame for the villains actions in external sources, never resolves the villains’ actions.

#voltron legendary defender #voltron #vld #voltron criticism #vld criticism #voltron critical #vld critical #vld season 8 #vld 8x09 #commentary

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