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thatwasthenightthingschanged · 3 years

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so, I personally think The Perks of Being A Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky is one of the best (if not the best) teen book of all time and in general just one of the best books out there and I’m tired of it being slandered as “pretentious” so here’s a list of reasons why it’s so freaking good:

first things first, I feel like Stephen Chbosky is one of the few (adult) writers who truly gets what it’s like to be a teen. some writers pretend teenagers are unknowing little kids, some do get closer to what the reality looks like but he just. went all in. Charlie has so many of the typical teenager experience while also being a really deep character who has profound conversations about his friends but sometimes also just gets really high

Charlie in general is one of my favorite fictional characters ever. as a teen, I was struggling with similar feelings as him, and I felt so undersood by him. like how he would sometimes just spend hurs looking at other people asking himself what their life might be like. how he is painfully awkward and doesn’t know how to tell a girl he actually doesn’t like her that way because he doesn’t want to hurt her. how he literally says he doesn’t want to be dead, he just wishes he could fall asleep for a little while. the way he so deeply cares about his friends even if he sometimes goes about it the wrong way. and so much more

the quote “we accept the love we think we deserve” has literally changed my life. like, I think it’s so true and oftentimes when I looked back on toxic people I couldn’t let go I would think back on this quote and be like. oh. yeah. it makes sense.

the fact that I’ve read the book over five times now and watched the move like 20 times and every time I still find something new and intriguing about it. like, it just never gets boring

the first time I read it was when I was 15, like Charlie, and I felt really down and sad all of the time and this book gave me a sense of hope. Like, maybe not everything will be perfect one day, but it will get okay, eventually.

I just generally like the message it carries about mental health. I literally have the quote “So, I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons. Maybe we’ll never know most of them. But even though we can’t choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there. We can still do things. And we can try to feel okay about them.” memorized. Whenever I experience a difficult time, I remember this quote and know that yes, what is happening to me is shitty and I can’t do anythign about that or what has been done to me in the past and traumatized me but I can still choose how I want to proceed. I also love the notion, as I said, of “we can try to feel okay about them”. like, I don’t even have to feel happy about my life. Maybe okay is enough. Okay is achievable.

while we’re on the topic of its messages, I also like that it tackles the issue of feeling as though you cannot complain about difficult stuff that’s going on in your life because others have it worse. Several of my friends (as well as I once) struggle with reaching out to others because we think our problems are not worth talking about. I really like that Charlie concludes that yeah, there will always be people who have it worse but that doesn’t make your struggle less valid. If it’s difficult for YOU, it already deserves to be talked about.

quick not-that-serious note but THE MUSIC? okay that’s not so prominent in the books but Charlie’s music taste is just. impeccable

(SPOILER) I love that the book talks about sexual assault both on men and women. Sexual assault is still a topic of taboo, but definitely was even more so one when the book was released. And it also tackles it in such a good way imo.

LET’S TALK ABOUT PATRICK. I love how the book and Charlie don’t make a big deal out of Patrick being gay. I mean this book was written from the perspective of the 90s, still the author chose not to focus on homophobia towards Patrick, but rather on how he’s a normal person and just wants to love and be loved like everyone else, and everyone in his closest circle supports him wholeheartedly.

one thing that is diferent from the movies which I love about the book is its talk about masculinity. In one scene in the book, Charlie remembers how his father went into the kitchen and cried after watching the last episode of M.A.S.H.. He teaches his sons that crying in public is not acceptable and I love how the book discusses the negative influences of toxic masculinity on men and how it might lead to them feeling as though they cannot express their emotions, ever.

another scene I love in the book is when Charlie talks about his grnadfather and how he grew up poor and wanted his daughters to do better and so he slapped them if the got bad grades. I also love the introspection of his grandfather and how he recognizes that some of that might have been the reason why Aunt Helen turned out the way she did. The book also talks about Charlie’s dad, and how his father was abused by his father as a kid, and as a result he promised himself to never do physical harm to his kids, ever.

another thing that I found really relatable is how Charlie is constantly not really there. He either, as I’ve already mentioned, wonders what other people’s lives might be like or thinks about how someday all of what is currently happening to him will be just a story, and that also prevents him from really being there. I am definitely guilty of that too and sometimes I have these moments of coming back down to earth and realising that all this time has passed and I never really participated in life.

honestly I could go on and on (for example about Sam and the discussion of making onself small so that a love interest might like you, or his sister and her abortion, etc etc) but I’ll stop now. All of this to say is that The Perks seriously improved my life massively and I think it’s not only relevant to teens but also adults, since it tackles a lot of big life questions in such a good and valuable way. I actually find it far from pretentious and rather a very realistic depiction of so many people’s life and mental issues and undermining the way it has genuinely improved other people’s life is shitty and I think people should, just, stop it. Just because it’s a teen book doesn’t mean that it cannot be good

#long post #the perks of being a wallflower #the perks #2 ppl liked my text post so this rant goes out to u guys askhdahs

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thisiswhatwereupagainst · 4 years

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TL;DR Went into Captain Britain and Excalibur just to read Meggan, expected to hate Brian, found out they both were bad to each other and are both very injured, traumatized characters grappling with gender norms in their own way, and I have a lot of sympathy and love for them BOTH now even if they definitely are not a good couple at this point. So, I am keenly interested in Meggan Puceanu as a character and a concept. Just learning some very basic things about her prompted THIS META POST three years ago. And that was before I really plunked down and decided to read all her stuff in order. And while I have yet to read ALL of it by a longshot. But I’ve gotten through about 20 issues now, from her first appearances in “The Mighty World of Marvel” in 1984, to meeting and joining up with Brian Braddock/Captain Britain in the second series of Captain Britain in 1985, to the first five issues of Excalibur in 1985. So yeah, keep in mind reading this, I am only up to Excalibur #5. And I know I probably should wait before writing all this stuff, read more, see if my interpretations hold true. But I have so many thoughts and I just can’t wait that long! So please read on with the understanding I may be proven completely wrong in these perceptions later. That said.... I had some basic knowledge of Brian and Meggan’s dynamic. I knew that she was completely emotionally dependent on him, that her every emotion hinged on his approval and attention, that a lot of her very identity was based around pleasing him as his girlfriend. I also knew he’d been a real dick to her, and that his descent into alcoholism had made him an even bigger dick. So, I was really prepared to dislike him. And while I do still dislike the power imbalance that their relationship was founded on, I ended up having very different feelings about Brian himself than I expected---I thought I was going to encounter a shitty macho man himbo asshole who treated Meggan like shit just because. Seriously, look at THIS and THIS and THIS! What a JERK! I was all prepped to despise this guy and yell about toxic masculinity and how Meggan deserved better. Instead, what I found was someone who was as broken and in pain as Meggan herself, but who got far less sympathy for it than she did, both from other characters and from fans. The first big shock that I got was that Brian had been raped twice by female villains in the second Captain Britain series, before Excalibur began. I had actually read about this a couple years ago on TV Tropes, but seeing it was something else. I wrote a longer post about it HERE As noted in the post, Brian never told anyone about either of these incidences as far as I know, nor getting any kind of therapy or treatment. He also started drinking after this happened. And as of Excalibur beginning, Betsy is dead (or so he believes) and he’s grappling a lot with that too. I think it was unethical of him not to rebuff Meggan when she first came on to him, for reasons I’ll discuss later in this post, but also makes sense for his character, not because he’s an unethical person but because he’s actually very passive and seems to just accept whatever is demanded by him of others; he talks about this with Courtney, how he has no choice in being Captain Britain, how it was imposed on him, asking if he’s a coward for just wanting a little of his own life and she unsympathetically says it’s “obscene” how he “can’t be bothered” to “take charge” of his own life (Excalibur #3). It’s a very unusual flaw for a male character. In his own way, he’s at the mercy of what others demand him to be as much as Meggan is with her powers, and I find that really interesting. I already knew that Meggan is very much a reflection of the demands placed on women by society, literally twisting her own emotions and physical forms to coincide with what is considered beautiful and what others desire, whereas Brian, it turns out, is himself a reflection of the demands placed on men---he has to be a warrior, whether he likes it or not (and he doesn’t, it’s part of his backstory that he doesn’t see himself that way at all), he has to be the hero and take care of the girl and he feels he has to just go with it when Meggan decides he’s her man and she needs him. And Meggan is more flawed than I expected. She’s oftentimes shockingly selfish in her obsession with Brian. For instance, when his ex Courtney is kidnapped by the sadistic murderous Arcade, Brian is understandably upset, and this troubles Meggan because she thinks that his being upset means he still cares for Courtney. The selfishness there is staggering; a woman’s life is in danger and Meggan’s first concern is her own love life, and she assumes that the only reason Brian could care about said woman’s life being in danger is if he’s in love with her. Or when Brian’s drinking is first brought up by the rest of the team, Meggan says it hurts her that he turns to those bottles instead of to her (Excalibur #3). So, her problem isn’t that Brian is obviously becoming addicted to alcohol, it’s that SHE isn’t the one that he turns to. She’s got a lot of moments like this. That said, I LIKE this about Meggan. It makes me like her MORE. It makes her WAY more realistic and flawed and human than the archetypical frail damsel who is just an accessory to her man that I was expecting. She’s clingy, she’s possessive, she’s downright nasty and hostile over him a lot! She may not think of herself as a real person, but the writers treat her as one, complete with flaws. Her dependency isn’t treated as a good or romantic thing either, it’s not held up as a female virtue like I was expecting; Brian is actually bothered by it, he confides in Kurt that he doesn’t think he can handle how she relies on him for everything, how he actually PREFERS Courtney because unlike Meggan, Courtney is her own woman-- “She doesn’t seem to NEED me as completely and desperately as Meggan seems to. Sometimes I feel I’m the total and absolute focus of Meggan’s life. It’s a responsibility I don’t think I’m capable of handling.” And Brian is right, this ISN’T a good thing to do in a relationship, Meggan is putting a lot of unfair emotional weight on his shoulders, and he’s already got a lot to bear from his own trauma and loss. In fact, one could even argue that her behavior would be seen as toxic if the genders were reversed. She’s still very sympathetic, of course, because this is coming from a place of real insecurity and need and probably her powers too, but it’s more three-dimensional and complicated than what I originally expected. But I like that. Because again, it’s more realistic, both in terms of Meggan’s behavior and in Brian’s reaction to it---he doesn’t WANT a woman being totally dependent on him and thinking the sun shines out his ass and needing him for everything, he wants another human being. That’s not what I expected a Bad Macho Man Stereotype to be saying! But in fact, Brian says another thing he prefers about Courtney is “she’s her own woman” and “I can talk to her, Kurt.” (Excalibur #5) Brian is a man who wants to be able to have someone he can be VULNERABLE with, to talk with as an equal about his fears and anxieties---which he does with Courtney, as mentioned---and he can’t do that with Meggan because of the pedestal she puts him on and her needing so much care herself. He says as much himself to Kurt. He also recognizes that he himself probably isn’t equipped to deal with Meggan’s issues, she needs much more help than he can give. This isn’t an idealized thing at all, this is a realistic depiction of two very emotionally injured people in a very messed up dynamic that is bad for BOTH of them, hurting them BOTH. Up til actually reading it, I was expecting it to be one-sided, with Meggan being the only one suffering, but it’s not! And Meggan being like this, of being obsessed with Captain Britain and behaving in a very “cliche” way over him, makes a TON of sense for her, she’s not just obsessed with him for no reason like a typical “just the hero’s girlfriend” character. Meggan grew up being kept secret in her family’s camper-trailer for her then-monstrous appearance, til during the Jasper’s Warp when reality shifted into a world that was putting superhumans, including herself, into concentration camps. While she was in the camps, Captain Britain was a legend as a liberator and freedom fighter who was fighting back against the regime for the sake of people like her. And when reality returned to normal, Meggan was one of the few people who remembered that it had ever changed; she remembered the camps, and she remembered Captain Britain. Even though she’d never even seen him at that point, she clung to him as her one hope. Then the real Captain Britain found her when she was homeless and living in an abandoned warehouse, and he lets her live with him in his mansion because she has nowhere else, which is probably more kindness than she’s ever been shown in her life, and from someone she idolized. Which, as I said way earlier in this essay, does make their relationship an inherently unethical one because of their power imbalance, as he’s got a lot of power over her in terms of being the one providing her with a home, food, clothing, etc., not to mention her emotional dependency that’s obvious well before she makes a move on him. So we’re already starting on really problematic territory. But it makes SENSE for her. Add to that Meggan was raised on television in a VERY literal sense. Again, she was locked up in her camper trailer all day every day her whole life, and so she spent most of her time just watching TV. It’s shown that this has given her SOME UNREALISTIC IDEAS ABOUT HOW TO BEHAVE so I think that absorbing the media’s depictions of how women are “supposed” to behave towards their men is actually pretty realistic. She’s not doing this because the writers think this is just how women are----NONE of the other female characters act at all like she does!---but because SHE thinks it’s what’s normal and expected, and she’s probably very much imprinted on the media’s fantasy fairytale depiction of relationships. Given how she grew up as an ugly monster and seeing herself as such, I can very much see her as latching on the idea of “beautiful sweet woman who is valued for her beauty and being with the lead man and has no identity apart from that” that’s prevalent in media, which she would take for a reflection of reality, a reality that she thought her whole life would be denied to her. So all her behavior has a good in-character reason; she could even be read as a criticism of trying to enact gendered media stereotypes in real life and how they can’t actually work in the complexity of the real world, and how damaging they are to those who absorb them. What’s also funny is that despite appearing to be the standard “strong man, pretty woman” couple, especially with Brian becoming emotionally distant and cruelly pushing her away whilst she’s very emotional and obsessed with pleasing him, is they actually subvert this paradigm as much as they play it straight. The Juggernaut WIPES THE FLOOR with Brian at one point, and then Meggan shows up, shapeshifts into a GIANT MUSCULAR VERSION OF HERSELF, and comes to his rescue with Rachel and Kitty! That’s right, a buff lady and two other ladies save the dude in distress! And then afterwards, she acts like SHE was the one in danger, resuming her default petite form and jumping into his big manly arms while he asks if she’s alright and she says “Always in your arms!” ---it’s hilarious! (Excalibur #3) And of course, speaking of subverting gender stereotypes, there’s Brian’s desire to have a partner he can be vulnerable with, which is really astounding to me----he’s very much grappling with the expectations of toxic masculinity in a way that’s harming him as much as Meggan. Not just in relation to Meggan, but also, as mentioned before, in relation to not having control of his own life as Captain Britain, and being responsible for others. In particular, he’s messed up over Betsy’s (seeming) death, and over not having protected her, as a man would be expected to protect his sister. In the panel right before the “changeling cow!” scene I linked earlier, THIS IS WHAT HE SAYS. He doesn’t see himself as any good if he doesn’t meet impossible standards. And while Meggan reacts to pain by getting teary, Brian consistently reacts to his pain (or trying to hide it) by getting ANGRY, which is consistent with how women vs men are socialized. Which is not to say it’s anything but VISCERALLY HORRIBLE when he lashes out at Meggan, especially given how dependent she is on him, and she absolutely SHOULD have dumped his ass then, but it’s also a lot more three-dimensional than the emotionally abusive drunken bad boyfriend stereotype I was expecting. I know I’m a broken record on this, but I am just so shocked at how sympathetic I ended up being to a guy I was so prepared to hate and was so cruel to a character (Meggan) that I was already very sympathetic to and invested in. Instead, I’m invested in them BOTH now and want to see them BOTH heal from this, and from each other. So, basically, I was really ready to be mad about Meggan’s lack of agency and her dependence on Brian. And these are things that happen. But the writers are clearly AWARE of it, and treat them as issues to be addressed and overcome. Meggan and Brian come off not as the cliche male and female stereotypes they first appeared, and that I expected, but very critical examinations and sometimes subversions of them, and both are shown as being hurt by the expectations of their gender, and being hurt by each other as they enact those expectations. It’s not totally perfect, not by a long shot, but it’s very interesting and a lot more nuanced than I expected some straight white guys in the 80s to be writing, it’s definitely a far cry from the typical idealized relationship between a hero and a leading lady, and I’m pretty impressed with it. And I’m looking forward to reading more.

#meggan #Meggan Puceanu #brian braddock #excalibur #captain britain #meta

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marshmallowgoop · 5 years

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On Ragyo Kiryuin

Please note: This post will contain discussions of sexual assault and abuse.

I am not good at talking about Ragyo Kiryuin.

Every time I do, I mess it up. I don’t emphasize her atrocities enough. I emphasize her atrocities too much. I cause trouble for myself and others, and I always end up feeling awful.

My recent writing on Ragyo’s character—found here and here—proved no different. The reception for the first post was so overwhelmingly negative that it spurred on my first-ever legitimate anon hate, and the second post only made things worse. Even now, my inbox is being filled with dismissive, rude, heartbreaking messages that bring me to tears, and though my therapist has told me not to say that I hate myself anymore, it’s difficult not to in situations like these. I hate that my wording was so poor and that I stated my opinion so badly that I incited all this rage and aggression in someone (or someones, a thought that scares me more than I would like to admit).

It may be a mistake to try to explain myself further. But I hurt people with what I said, and that bothers me. I hurt people because I struggle to explain my feelings on a cartoon character well, and I’m sorry. I’m embarrassed. I’m ashamed. I want to at least put in the effort to be kinder, more nuanced, and more sympathetic.

And maybe it’ll all blow up in my face. But I don’t want to not try.

So. Ragyo Kiryuin. Mother of Satsuki Kiryuin and Ryuko Matoi, CEO of REVOCS, and the ultimate Big Bad of Kill la Kill. Love her, hate her, or love her and hate her, she’s certainly made an impression in the anime-viewing world. And though I can’t speak for anyone else’s impression, my personal impression is... mixed.

Let’s go through this bit by bit.

A Good Villain?

Though I don’t see it much anymore, I remember lots of comparisons between Ragyo and the villains of Saturday morning cartoons back in the day. She was described as a generic, two-dimensional “evilz for the sake of evilz” baddie and criticized for her simplicity.

And though I did admittedly agree to an extent—I craved a lot more depth and insight, particularly in regards to her haunting line about “still having something of a human heart” whilst brutally attacking her own daughter in the final episode—I also found Ragyo to be a remarkably compelling, powerful, and horrifying villain even without tons of backstory and explanation. Perhaps my write-up on her first scene in episode 6 best details why; this woman has such a presence, and the visual language of the series amplifies that presence spectacularly. Ragyo’s intimidating and scary without the audience even needing to know anything about her.

And... I’d say that’s a good villain. That’s exactly what a villain should do.

Why Does This Matter, Goop?

I know, I know. My talking about Ragyo’s efficiency as a villain probably doesn’t seem all that relevant to the stuff that egged on an anon hate assault. But I think it’s important to mention that I do believe that Ragyo is a great, powerful villain. My previous posts were so bleak and cynical that I didn’t make this point clear. It does, in retrospect, seem as though I am crapping all over the character and subtly dissing anyone who enjoys her. I’m sorry for that, and I want to stress that that was not at all my intention.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with loving villains—even when they’re morally bankrupt, atrocious people like Ragyo—because loving villains, of course, doesn’t automatically mean that you excuse or endorse their actions. Villains like Ragyo also leave such a strong impression on the viewers, and personally, I’ve been so captivated by this awful woman that my first attempt at my years-in-the-making Kill la Kill fairytale AU featured about a 30,000-word backstory for her. There is a lot to respect, love, and love to hate when it comes to Ragyo and how she’s written, and I never, ever mean to discount that.

However, as with all things, it’s possible to love a piece of fiction or a character or what have you and also recognize that there are problems in the portrayal. And when it comes to Ragyo, as much as I think she’s a fantastic, engaging, terrifying villain, I do take issue with her depiction.

The Sexuality Point

I got a lot of heat for my ideas regarding Ragyo’s sexuality, and I admit: I didn’t express myself well. There was a lot more I should have said and elaborated upon. Maybe I’ll still fail spectacularly, but as I said before, I don’t want to not try.

So first, I want to take a moment to discuss intentionality. While I absolutely value Author is Dead and respect fan interpretations of any work, I also recognize that narrative decisions in fiction don’t happen in a vacuum. The fact of the matter is, Ragyo was originally designed as a father but was later changed to a mother so the relationships Ragyo shares with her daughters wouldn’t seem so “murky,” “gross,” and “perverted.”

And... that disturbs me. The idea, as I see it, is that a father abusing his daughters is, more than appropriately, disgusting, but a mother abusing her daughters is somehow less bad. In fact, writer Kazuki Nakashima outright states that he didn’t want to explore the “murkiness” of these relationships, noting that he “didn’t want to mix [that] ‘murkiness’ into the battle.” My impression—which I understand might very well be wrong—is that there’s the feeling that female-on-female abuse just isn’t as serious or life changing as male-on-female abuse. There’s the feeling that you can just not talk about how devastating this sexual assault is, and that’s totally okay, because the perpetrator is a woman.

I’ve written previously—and perhaps most overtly here—that female-on-female abuse seems to get brushed off way more than it should be. It’s cute when a girl grabs another girl’s boobs, even when that other girl is noticeably and visibly unhappy. It’s adorable when a girl forces a kiss on another girl. Charming. Sweet. If you have a problem with it, you’re a homophobe.

And I think that’s so, so damaging. I wish I had some statistics (oh anon hounding me about facts, if you’re here), but I recall reading about how this mindset—this idea that girls just can’t hurt other girls—ends up keeping wlw in abusive, toxic relationships. And that’s not even mentioning how the notion that women are harmless and can’t do damage is a totally sexist one that hurts men and other genders, too!

With Ragyo, I actually think there’s a lot of powerful potential. Kill la Kill could have shown that there’s nothing sweet or cute or charming or sexy about female-on-female abuse. It could have shown that a mother sexually abusing her daughters is just as horrific as a father sexually abusing his daughters. Both good representation and bad representation are important, and I do see the value in an evil, awful lesbian; as noted above, the idea that girls can’t hurt other girls, that wlw can’t be bad, and that only men can cause harm is a dangerous mindset to have. I think it’s important to address it, particularly in anime, which attracts younger viewers.

In the past, I argued that Kill la Kill did address it. I wrote, “These scenes [depicting Ragyo’s abuses] are full of what may be typically used as fanservice—female nudity, fondling, touching—but they’re all incredibly disturbing, uncomfortable, painful, and tragic. The series makes no joke about just how violating these instances are.” I’ve seen similar arguments made today.

But personally, now knowing more about the creation of Ragyo and being aware of the gushy, “Wow, this is so hot!”-type comments concerning the notorious bath scene in the official Trigger Magazine, I’ve since changed my tune. I think it’s undeniable that there is some “this isn’t so bad and maybe actually kinda sexy” appeal to Ragyo’s abuses, and that’s very, very disappointing to me.

Further, being a survivor, I also find it incredibly hurtful. I’ve been too traumatized to even date ever since what happened to me happened, and to see situations like what I went through depicted in such explicit, detailed, fanservice-y ways... it disturbs me.

I understand that my opinion isn’t going to be shared by everyone, but I’ve come to believe in a “less is more” approach when it comes to these hard, real situations. Implication arguably holds far more power. For example, in all of my college film classes, Osama left one of the strongest impressions. In it, a young girl dresses as a boy to provide for her family. She’s eventually found out when she has her first period, and she’s then married off to a much older man. The ending scene of the film depicts the man washing himself just as the girl, in disguise as a boy, had been taught to do after having sex. Unlike in Kill la Kill, you don’t see the unspeakable scene at all. You know exactly what happened with just that one shot, and that one shot has stuck with me ever since. That’s a powerful, respectful way of portraying these very real, very horrific problems.

I know I cannot speak for every survivor, but I personally disagree with the notion that fiction should not discuss these topics. In my mind, fiction absolutely should because these things are real, because they happen. There could have been so much power in Ragyo’s depiction, in Satsuki’s depiction, in Ryuko’s. But the severity of Ragyo’s abuses is brushed off, and, as I see it, fetishized. That’s what I take issue with—not that there’s a potential evil lesbian, not that there’s a depiction of a mother abusing her daughters, but how this is depicted: not respectfully.

Referring more to my troublesome posts, I also want to address my point of how girls showing affection for other girls is often portrayed negatively in Kill la Kill, which could potentially send the message, “Hey, lesbians just be evilz.” Perhaps more than anything else, this hurt my readers the most. I wasn’t very clear and didn’t speak well, and I apologize.

Maybe surprisingly, I’ve also taken issue with the argument that Ryuko kissing Nui shows that a girl having an attraction towards another girl is bad. As I saw it, the kiss was simply a shocking way of showing that Ryuko is not at all herself; someone kissing the person they hate the most says more than words ever could. The scene isn’t an attack on wlw; the protagonist and the villain in this case just so happen to both be girls.

And I still believe this rebuttal. But I also have mixed feelings, which explains my previous responses. I once more have to question intentionality: if Ryuko were a boy, as shonen heroes so often are, would this scene have happened? Would Nui have been so flirty with him? Would there have been so much screen time and detail put into the kiss? Similar to my arguments about Ragyo, could there have been a potentially much more powerful scene whose power comes from its implications, not what it actually shows?

In all my years in the Kill la Kill fandom, I’ve seen reactions to that scene that find it hot, as “proving” that Ryuko/Nui is the only canon Kill la Kill pairing, and that see it in ways that I find to be unsavory. If the goal of that kiss is to cement the fact that Ryuko isn’t herself in the most shocking way possible, I could argue that it failed for a lot of viewers. In fact, one of my more looked-at posts is about why Ryuko kisses Nui. Its execution is confusing, and yes, I do believe it could potentially send some bad messages about wlw, even if that wasn’t intended.

Which, to bring this discussion back towards Ragyo, I want to take a moment to say that bad messages can be totally unintentional. As a writer myself, I think about potential bad unintentional messages all the time. For instance, in my aforementioned fairytale AU, I had a theme going (’cause it’s a fairytale and all): a healthy, beautiful baby is good, a healthy, ugly baby is bad, and an unhealthy, beautiful baby is good. Notice how there’s only one ugly baby, and they’re bad? I realized that this could subtly say something about ugly people, and I’ve decided to make a point about a heroic character being ugly in order to send the message that anyone can be good or bad, regardless of if they’re beautiful or ugly, healthy or unhealthy.

With Ragyo (and with Nui as well), I don’t at all think the intention is to show that girls loving other girls is wrong and bad. But the depiction, to me, leaves things to be desired. A lot of it feels fetishy, and the fact that Ragyo was purposely changed to a woman for “gross” concerns also greatly irks me.

And before I try to write up a conclusion of sorts, I do want to offer this: what if Ragyo stayed a man, but he was associated with white and rainbows as Ragyo is in the final cut? It was stated at this year’s Anime Expo that director Hiroyuki Imaishi has his heroic characters in black and villainous characters in white, which could possibly send messages like Darkness Isn’t Bad and the real villains are the ones who are perverting the purity, goodness, and so on that are associated with white. In the same way, if Ragyo were a man who seemed straight but had rainbow hair, it could send the message that the real villain is the one perverting this symbol of love and acceptance.

I don’t know. Just some food for thought.

Conclusion

I am bad at talking about Ragyo. I am bad at talking about serious topics. I’m sure this post proves as much.

But I hope I’ve done a better job of explaining my point of view than I did before. But if I didn’t—which, knowing me, is likely—I just want everyone to know that I don’t think you’re a reprehensible person if you like Ragyo. I don’t think Ragyo is “too evil” to be representation. I don’t think she’s some terrible, awful character whom nobody can love. (At least, in regards to the writing. I hope there’s agreement that she’s a terrible, awful person.)

While I have problems with Ragyo’s depiction, I don’t think anyone is horrible and wrong if they don’t and resonate with it. I know I certainly like things that others find horrible and wrong, like the Ryuko/Senketsu pairing that I’ve been attacked left and right for, and I more than recognize and voice my own problems with it whilst still loving what I love (and politely disagreeing with the problems that others see that I don’t!)

I know I’m not good at this. But I hope I’ve conveyed my thoughts respectfully, and that, even if you strongly disagree, you know I welcome and am open to your thoughts and perspective, if you would like to share. That’s why I write these posts at all.

#kill la kill #ragyo kiryuin #analysis #ragyo discourse #ramblings #serious talk #the discourse #abuse mention #i'm sorry if this is awful i just got it confirmed that i do have adhd and hyper-focused on this even though i shouldn't have #and i haven't eaten all day 'cause i've been dying to finish this and i've spent several hours on it and... i'm trying #i'm sorry but i really really am trying

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snicketsleuth · 5 years

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Whatever happened to Mrs Widdershins?

Fiona Widdershins' life was plagued with abandonment issues. Her birth father is unaccounted for, her mother died when she was very young, her only sibling disappeared and her stepather left her stranded on the Queequeg without so much as an explanation. It's no wonder that Fiona snapped when she finally got her brother back and decided to stay with him at all costs. It's the tragic tale of a broken childhood, and a broken family.

But the topic of Mrs Widdershins' untimely demise is interesting from a narrative point of view. Why did Daniel Handler decide to make Fiona and Fernald's mother such a big deal in the first place? Surely the tension between the Captain and Fernald was enough to explain the trauma inherent to the Widdershins family drama. Adding a mysteriously departed mom on top of it is kind of overkill.

The Netflix adaptation attempted to give us some resolution by turning Fernald into a lab assistant at Anwhistle Aquatics and giving the Captain the subplot of his wife's disappareance. That's all well and good, and satisfying from a narrative perspective, but the books have their own separate canon.

Surely there's a reason why this subplot was included in the books. Daniel Handler probably had a resolution in mind but decided not to include it (just like he never confirmed that Lemony was the taxi driver from "The Penultimate Peril", for example). So why did he think Mrs. Widdershins was important? What's the missing story behind her death? Her demise looms in the background of the Widdershins family dynamic like the missing piece of a very important puzzle. It seems inoccuous, but it's probably the key to understanding everything. So what really happened to her? And how would it help us rationalizing the actions of Fernald and his stepfather?

Although the following hypothesis will mostly focus on Mrs. Widdershins, we will also try to answer a number of burning questions regarding the Widdershins family, including but not limited to:

How did Fernald lose his hands?

Who killed Gregor Anwhistle?

Who burned down Anwhistle Aquatics?

Why did Fernald betray his stepfather and join Olaf's troupe?

More after the cut.

There are some interesting tidbits of chronology to be found in the Widdershins legacy, so let's try to organize events in the right order.

We don't know anything about Fernald's and Fiona's birth father. Apparently Handler chose to make the Captain their stepfather to better explain why the relationship between Fernald and the Captain turned sour so quickly. Indeed if you look at the chronology it turns out that the Captain is only older than Fernald by a few years. So basically the Captain became Fernald's stepfather when he had barely entered adulthood. Fernald probably never saw him as a proper authority figure, which would explain why his bossy attitude particularly annoyed him.

For more details on Fernald and the Captain's age, please refer to this article : (Link).

Although not traditional, the family was originally a happy one:

"I found something else," Violet said, handing her brother a crumpled square of paper. "Look." Klaus looked at what his sister had given him. It was a photograph, blurred and faded with four people, grouped together like a family. In the center of the photograph was a large man with a long mustache that was curved at the end like a pair of parentheses – Captain Widdershins, of course, although he looked much younger and a great deal happier than the children had ever seen him. He was laughing, and his arm was around someone the two Baudelaires recognized as the hook-handed man, although he was not hook-handed in the photograph – both of his hands were perfectly intact, one resting on the captain's shoulder, and the other pointing at whoever was taking the picture – and he was young enough to still be called a teenager, instead of a man. On the other side of the captain was a woman who was laughing as hard as the captain, and in her arms was a young infant with a tiny set of triangular glasses. [The Grim Grotto, Chapter Twelve]

This does beg the question: who took the photograph and towards whom is Fernald pointing? Who’s this assumed friend of the Widdershins family? More on that later.

Then the questionable death of Mrs Widdershins took place:

"Phil!" Violet cried. "What on earth are you doing here?" "He's the second of our crew of two!" the captain cried. "Aye! The original second in the crew of two was Fiona's mother, but she died in a manatee accident quite a few years ago." "I'm not so sure it was an accident," Fiona said. [The Grim Grotto, Chapter Two]

The Captain and Fernald seemed to get along well when Mrs. Widdershins was alive. Then the relationship changed.

"You?" said Olaf's henchman. "What happened to Widdershins?" "He disappeared from the submarine," Fiona replied. "We don't know where he is." "I don't care where he is," the hook-handed man sneered. "I couldn't care less about that mustached fool! He's the reason I joined Count Olaf in the first place! The captain was always shouting 'Aye! Aye! Aye!' and ordering me around! So I ran away and joined Olaf's acting troupe!" "But Count Olaf is a terrible villain!" Fiona cried. "He has no regard for other people. He dreams up treacherous schemes, and lures others into becoming his cohorts!" "Those are just the bad aspects of him," the hook-handed man said. "There are many good parts, as well. For instance, he has a wonderful laugh." [The Grim Grotto, Chapter Ten]

It’s jarring that Fernald cites the Captain’s behavior as the main reason he joined Count Olaf’s troupe. Why would he suddenly resent his stepfather when he used to actually like him? In fact, he seems to think so little of him that he considers Olaf an upgrade. What made Fernald change his mind about his stepfather so quickly? There could be three explanations for this: either the Captain’s behavior changed dramatically after his wife’s death, or Fernald learned something about the Captain which redefined the relationship entirely. The third option is that Mrs. Widdershins’ death was so traumatic an ordeal that it severed any affection between Fernald and the Captain.

As one can imagine, it’s easy to posit that these three hypotheses could combine themselves. There are things about Mrs. Widdershins’ death which Fiona does not know and which severely damaged the bond between a stepfather and his stepson. A huge disagreement occurred over her untimely end, and feelings were hurt. Now there’s one legitimate reason for Fernald to be upset at the Captain: he’s lying about the true circumstances of his wife’s death. Fiona was already questioning the official version while she was devoted to V.F.D. and her stepdad, so it’s safe to assume that Fernald does not believe this story either.

Although Fernald's eventual defection clearly has much to do with what happened at Anwhistle Aquatics, it's clear that the death of Mrs Widdershins is equally important in the matter. Is it possible that the two events are linked? In fact, it's likely. The composition of the Queequeg's crew of two is especially revealing:

"Aye! The original second in the crew of two was Fiona's mother, but she died in a manatee accident quite a few years ago." [...] "Then we had Jacques!" the captain continued. "Aye, and then what's-his-name, Jacques's brother, and then a dreadful woman who turned out to be a spy, and finally we have Phil! Although I like to call him Cookie! I don't know why!" [The Grim Grotto, Chapter Two]

Now there is someone apparently missing from this list: Fernald. After his mother died, it would seem likely that her son would replace her as the second-in-command in the crew of two. Fernald remembers the Captain bossing him around. It's possible that Fernald was indeed a member of the Crew of Two and that the Captain is omitting him out of shame, but that’s unlikely. You see, Fiona is in the room with the Captain while he is listing these people. If he had “forgotten” to name Fernald, she would have corrected him immediately. But no, the list appears to be correct in Fiona’s own assessment. For some reason, Fernald was NEVER considered a member of the Crew of Two, even though he was old enough and had the qualifications. The Captain immediately replaced Mrs. Widdershins with Jacques Snicket.

And that’s really telling, because we know Jacques was occupying this position at a time where Fernald was already part of Count Olaf’s troupe. Here’s a passage from a letter which Jacques sent Lemony from the Queequeg. At that point in time, Fernald was probably starring in Olaf’s play “One last warning to those who try to stand in my way”:

Under normal circumstances, new volunteers like ourselves would not receive disguise training until our years of apprenticeship were finished, but we have not been under normal circumstances for quite some time. For instance, currently I am under sixty feet of water, rather than under normal circumstances. [Lemony Snicket’s un-Authorized Autobiography, p.96]

The two actresses playing the Defenders of Liberty now have their faces painted a ghastly white color, and the part of the Little Snicket Lad, once played by the young actor pictured here, has been replaced by a sinister-looking person far too old for the part (also pictured here). [Lemony Snicket’s un-Authorized Autobiography, p.78] [NB: The picture in question depicts a young man in a fedora who looks eerily similar to the way Brett Helquist draws Fernald in the official illustrations of the original editions]

And that means something very significant: that Fernald left the Queequeg a short time after his mother’s death, to the point that he was never considered a second in the Crew of Two. As we know, Fiona is barely older than Violet even though she was born before Lemony’s and Beatrice’s break-up (that is, before Jacques became a secon-in-command in the Crew of Two).

So we've established, chronologically, that the fire at Anwhistle Aquatics and Mrs. Widdershins' demise are part of the same debacle. Is there a reason for a second in the Queequeg's Crew of Two to be involved in Gregor Anwhistle's research?

Potentially yes. Anwhistle Aquatics, for some reason, was built upon a subterranean grotto which could only be accessed by deep-sea divers. You'd need a submarine to get there. The grotto was arranged to conceal specimens of the Medusoid Mycellium securely: the spores can't travel by water, so making sure that only deep-sea divers can access it makes complete sense. Shortly after they visit the grotto, Violet and Klaus are able to safely contain the infestation in a submarine helmet. It's probably the only way safe for the fungus to be handled. Therefore, in order to make his experiments on the Medusoid Mycelium securely, Gregor Anwhistle would need constant access to a V.F.D. submarine and its crew, making long trips from the research center to the grotto.

This is why we need to understand what truly happened during the fire. The Queequeg's crew didn't just have access to Gregor Anwhistle's research center: they were heavily involved in it. They knew exactly what he was doing and the Widdershins family perhaps even had a hand in it.

So let's imagine that Mrs Widdershins wasn't just a submarine operator. She was a scholar. She was one of Gregor Anwhistle's assistants, and, more importantly, one of his accomplices. Gregor Anwhistle took the photograph of the Widdershins family.

"I think the ruby ring is very in," Esmé purred. "It would look wonderful with my flame-imitating dress." "That was my mother's," Fiona said quietly. "She would have wanted me to have it Esmé said quickly. "We were close friends at school." [The Grim Grotto, Chapter Thirteen]

And if you think that's doubtful, ask yourself this: why is Fiona a mycologist? And why does the Queequeg's library contains so much information on mushrooms in general and the Medusoid Mycellium in particular? This library is a legacy of Mrs Widdershin's works on the Medusoid Mycellium. She knew everything. And that is exactly why Kit Snicket targetted the Widdershins family when she reached a disagreement with Gregor Anwhistle. Kit definitely had Gregor Anwhistle murdered. The reason she specifically asked the Captain and Fernald to commit this crime is because they had easy access to Anwhistle Aquatics (through their submarine) and to Gregor (through Mrs Widdershins).

Violet smiled. "Precisely," she said. "A Hobson 's choice is something that's not a choice at all. It's an expression our mother used to use. She'd say, 'I'll give you a Hobson's choice, Violet – you can clean your room or I will stand in the doorway and sing your least favorite song over and over.' " Fiona grinned. "What was your least favorite song?" she asked. " 'Row, Row, Row Your Boat,' " Violet said. "I hate the part about life being but a dream." "She'd offer me the Hobson's choice of doing the dishes or reading the poetry of Edgar Guest," Klaus said. "He's my absolute least favorite poet." "Bath or pink dress," Sunny said. "Did your mother always joke around like that?" Fiona asked. "Mine used to get awfully mad if I didn't clean my room." "Our mother would get mad, too," Klaus said. "Remember, Violet, when we left the window of the library open, and that night it rained?" [The Grim Grotto, Chapter Seven]

We may never know what truly happened at Anwhistle Aquatics that terrible night. We can only makes hypotheses. But here's our proposition.

Kit Snicket eventually realized Gregor wouldn't listen to reason. In order to stop his bioweapon project, she needed to come up with a way to burn down Anwhistle Aquatics and murder Gregor. That way, the research would be lost forever. Kit then reached out to the Captain, who had both access to the research center and a wife who was part of Gregor's inner circle. The Captain accepted the mission and even enlisted the help of his stepson. He told Fernald that his mother was under a corrupting influence and that she had been brainwashed by Gregor. She needed to be saved from herself.

In the final analysis – a phrase which here means "after much thought, and some debate with my colleagues" – Captain Widdershins was wrong about a great many things. He was wrong about his personal philosophy, because there are plenty of times when one should hesitate. He was wrong about his wife's death, because as Fiona suspected, Mrs. Widdershins did not die in a manatee accident. He was wrong to call Phil "Cookie" when it is more polite to call someone by their proper name, and he was wrong to abandon the Queequeg, no matter what he heard from the woman who came to fetch him. Captain Widdershins was wrong to trust his stepson for so many years, and wrong to participate in the destruction of Anwhistle Aquatics, and he was wrong to insist, as he did so many years ago, that a story in The Daily Punctilio was completely true, and to show this article to so many volunteers, including the Baudelaire parents, the Snicket siblings, and the woman I happened to love. But Captain Widdershins was right about one thing. He was right to say that there are secrets in this world too terrible for young people to know, for the simple reason that there are secrets in this world too terrible for anyone to know, whether they are as young as Sunny Baudelaire or as old as Gregor Anwhistle, secrets so terrible that they ought to be kept secret, which is probably how the secrets became secrets in the first place, and one of those secrets is the long, strange shape the Baudelaire orphans saw, first on the Queequeg's sonar, and then as they held the porthole in place and stared out into the waters of the sea. [The Grim Grotto, Chapter Thirteen]

The Captain betrayed his wife's confidence by sneaking into the research center to set a fire while Fernald murdered Gregor. Then they retreated to the safety of the Queequeg. However things didn't go as planned. Instead of fleeing the flames, Mrs Widdershins threw herself into them. She was desperately trying to save Gregor's research in order to duplicate it. In spite of her family's insistence, she never came back to the Queequeg. She died in the fire. Fernald and the Captain agreed to never tell Fiona what had transpired.

"Our stepfather knew Jacques Snicket," Fiona said. "He was a good man, but Count Olaf murdered him. Are you a murderer, too? Did you kill Gregor Anwhistle?" In grim silence, the hook-handed man held his hooks in front of the children. "The last time you saw me," he said to Fiona, "I had two hands, instead of hooks. Our stepfather probably didn't tell you what happened to me – he always said there were secrets in this world too terrible for young people to know. What a fool!" "Our stepfather isn't a fool," Fiona said. "He's a noble man. Aye!" "People aren't either wicked or noble," the hook-handed man said. "They're like chef's salads, with good things and bad things chopped and mixed together in a vinaigrette of confusion and conflict." [The Grim Grotto, Chapter Ten]

This is why the relationship between the Captain and Fernald never recovered. Fernald could never forgive the Captain for starting the fire which killed his mother. Although the Captain certainly never intended for Mrs Widdershins to die, his responsability in his wife's death was inevitable.

Interestingly this tragic death would explain A LOT about Fernald's decision to join Olaf's troupe. After all, one can understand why killing Gregor Anwhistle was necessary. It's morally ambiguous, for sure, but it's not a good enough reason to join a criminal gang. But if you add the trauma of losing a mother on top of this shady assassination, things start to make more sense. You see, Fernald and Olaf had a big thing in common: both lost parental figures in a shady assassination scheme orchestrated by members of V.F.D. The Baudelaire parents killed Olaf's parents at a opera house. Count Olaf used this connection, this proximity in background, to warp Fernald's feelings. He turned him against his stepfather and V.F.D. in general by sharing some aspects of his own backstory.

"Fiona!" the hook-handed man cried. "Is it really you?" "Aye," the mycologist said, taking off her triangular glasses to wipe away her tears. "I never thought I would see you again, Fernald. What happened to your hands?" "Never mind that," the hook-handed man said quickly. "Why are you here? Did you join Count Olaf, too?" [The Grim Grotto, Chapter Ten]

It would also explain why Fernald is reluctant to share some aspects of his past with Fiona (such as the way he lost his hands, for example) even though she knows about the Anwhistle fire. Although she's begun to scratch the surface, there are simply aspects of the murder which are worse than she thinks and which Fernald is not ready to divulge. Indeed Fiona could very much blame both Fernald and the Captain for her mother's death. Her stepbrother fears that. It's likely that the reason he lost his hands has as much to do with their mother than it has to do with Gregor. If we had to guess, we'd say he burned his hands trying to rescue his mother at Anwhistle Aquatics.

What makes this theory credible is the cover story which the Captain used to explain away his wife's disappearance. More specifically, it involves a manatee. And a manatee shows up in another dubious disappearance story :

"Have you lived your whole life on this island?" Klaus said. "Yes," Friday said. "My mother and father took an ocean cruise while she was pregnant, and ran into a terrible storm. My father was devoured by a manatee, and my mother was washed ashore when she was pregnant with me. You'll meet her soon. Now please hurry up and change." [The End, Chapter Three]

"Oh, Ish," he said, his eyes shining bright, "I told you many years ago that I would triumph over you someday, and at last that day has arrived. My associate with the weekday for a name told me that you were still hiding out on this island, and–" "Thursday," Mrs. Caliban said. Olaf frowned, and blinked at the freckled woman. "No," he said. "Monday. She was trying to blackmail an old man who was involved in a political scandal." [The End, Chapter Eleven]

However this story is later proven to be untrue: Miranda Caliban and her husband were on opposite side of the schism which divided the island. Thursday left with the Baudelaire parents, while Miranda remained on the Island with their daughter. She made up the entire story. It's a little too much of a coincidence that two different disappareance cover-up stories share the exact same weird detail about a manatee.

"Have you been here before?" Violet asked. "No," Kit said, "but I've heard about this place. My associates have told me stories of its mechanical wonders, its enormous library, and the gourmet meals the islanders prepare. Why, the day before I met you, Baudelaires, I shared Turkish coffee with an associate who was saying that he'd never had better Oysters Rockefeller than during his time on the island. You must be having a wonderful time here." "Janiceps," Sunny said, restating an earlier opinion. "I think this place has changed since your associate was here," said Klaus. "That's probably true," Kit said thoughtfully. "Thursday did say that the colony had suffered a schism, just as V.F.D. did." "Another schism?" Violet asked. "Countless schisms have divided the world over the years," Kit replied in the darkness. "Do you think the history of V.F.D. is the only story in the world? Bu: let's not talk of the past, Baudelaires. Tell me how you made your way to these shores." [The End, Chapter Eight]

"Occasionally someone leaves," Ishmael said, and looked down at the Incredibly Deadly Viper, who gave him a brief hiss. "Some time ago, two women sailed off with this very snake, and a few years later, a man named Thursday left with a few comrades." "So Thursday is alive," Klaus said, "just like Kit said." "Yes," Ishmael admitted, "but at my suggestion, Miranda told her daughter that he died in a storm, so she wouldn't worry about the schism that divided her parents." "Electra," Sunny said, which meant "A family shouldn't keep such terrible secrets," but Ishmael did not ask for a translation. "Except for those troublemakers," he said, "everyone has stayed here. And why shouldn't they? Most of the castaways are orphans, like me, and like you. [The End, Chapter Ten]

At this point, it seems more likely to be one of those memetic code phrases which V.F.D. likes to use. "Eaten by a manatee" is a slang term that adult volunteers use to hide something horrible from their children. So what does "eaten by a manatee" mean, exactly? Surely it doesn't mean "dead", as Thursday was clearly alive and well when Miranda started spouting those lies. "Eaten by a manatee" is not used to cover up deaths, it's used to cover up betrayals. Instead of telling young volunteers that someone went to the other side of the schism, parents tell them the person was "eaten by a manatee". It's the ultimate way to sever the parental bond. It's common to tell someone who betrayed you: "you're dead to me". V.F.D. takes the expression to its literal extreme.

So when the Captain affirms that his wife was eaten by a manatee, he means that she actually betrayed the organization. It's not obvious because she didn't go to Olaf's side of the schism (as Fernald did later) but rather to the other side of another schism: that is, she chose Gregor's side in his feud against Kit Snicket. There are indeed multiple schisms within the history of V.F.D. The schism between the "noble" and "villainous" side is the first one and the most important one, but the "noble" side suffered other disagreements: Ishmael vs the Baudelaire parents on the Island, Kit vs Gregor, Lemony vs his mentors in "All The Wrong Questions", Dashiell and Theodora vs Gifford and Ghede, etc.

And on that topic, the newspaper clipping which Violet Baudelaire found in the grotto is especially revealing:

" 'VERIFYING FERNALD'S DEFECTION,' " she said, reading the headline out loud, and then continued by reading the byline, a word which here means "name of the person who wrote the article." "By Jacques Snicket. It has now been confirmed that the fire that destroyed Anwhistle Aquatics, and took the life of famed ichnologist Gregor Anwhistle, was set by Fernald Widdershins, the son of the captain of the Queequeg submarine. The Widdershins family's participation in a recent schism has raised several questions regarding..." Violet looked up and met the glare of Olaf's henchman. "The rest of the article is blurry," she said, "but the truth is clear. You defected – you abandoned V.F.D. and joined up with Olaf!" [The Grim Grotto; Chapter Ten]

Violet missed the point of the article entirely. The text clearly mentions a “recent�� schism; that is, not the original one which happened while Dewey and Kit were about four years old and which split the organization into two. The “recent” schism is clearly the one which divided the “noble” volunteers into Gregor’s followers and Gregor’s adversaries. And note that this is the “Widdershins family” who is involved in that particular schism; not just Fernald.

"You should have seen the fire," he said quietly. "From a distance, it looked like an enormous black plume of smoke, rising straight out of the water. It was like the entire sea was burning down." "You must have been proud of your handiwork," Fiona said bitterly. "Proud?" the hook-handed man said. "It was the worst day of my life. That plume of smoke was the saddest thing I ever saw." He speared the newspaper with his other hook and ripped the article into shreds. "The Punctilio got everything wrong," he said. "Captain Widdershins isn't my father. Widdershins isn't my last name. And there's much more to the fire than that. You should know that the Daily Punctilio doesn't tell the whole story, Baudelaires. Just as the poison of a deadly fungus can be the source of some wonderful medicines, someone like Jacques Snicket can do something villainous, and someone like Count Olaf can do something noble. Even your parents –" [The Grim Grotto; Chapter Ten]

As Fernald warns the Baudelaire orphans, the newspaper clipping is propaganda meant to disguise the volunteer’s more questionable behaviours. It purposedly fails to mention that the Captain helped start the destruction of Anwhistle Aquatics, for example. So the author clearly wants us to question the official narrative. And for some reason, as Fernald starts defending his own version of the events, he starts spewing unsavory revelations about the Baudelaire parents. Why would he do that? Is he projecting his own family issues on the Baudelaire legacy? That would be fitting. We already know that the Captain did morally questionable things for V.F.D. It’s not a big leap to assume that his wife committed some crimes of her own.

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beneaththetangles · 4 years

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Nice Shoujo Protagonist You’ve Got There…Shame If Anything Happened to Her

Jeskai Angel continues our Holy Week series on anime and disability by examining a condition that might quality as the latter, but which as he mentions, can certainly be significantly disabling.

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Shame is an extremely common result of being abused, and it can happen with any kind of abuse: physical, emotional, sexual, etc. Shame isn’t a disability, at least not in the usual sense of that word, but it is indeed disabling. It constrains one’s choices, paralyzes one to the point of inaction, prevents one from considering new possibilities, blinds one to the truth, and gets in the way of relationships. Of course, in ordinary everyday language, “shame” is a synonym of “guilt,” both words being used to describe a distressing awareness of having done wrong. This raises obvious questions about what I mean by “shame.”

Some years back, my psychologist, Dr. Geoff Weckel of Fort Worth, Texas, explained to me that there is a profound difference between “shame” and “guilt” as mental health professionals use those terms. In this paradigm, “guilt” is a feeling that says “I did a bad thing.” On the other hand, “shame” is a feeling that says “I am bad.” To put it another way, guilt is a negative view of specific actions one has committed, while shame is negative view of one’s very identity. Someone who feels guilty thinks “I shouldn’t have done such-and-such, I should apologize for doing such-and-such, I shouldn’t do such-and-such again,” etc. But a person suffering from shame believes that their fundamental nature is flawed: “I am a terrible person, my inner self is irreparably flawed.” Real and even imagined failings are regarded as proof of one’s own corrupt character.

I’ve read books and articles by various other mental health professionals, and they consistently define shame and guilt in terms similar to those my therapist used. Since I don’t want you to rely on a secondhand recollection of something I heard years ago, I tracked down some direct quotes. First, a 2013 quote from Dr. Brené Brown, professor of social work:

I believe that there is a profound difference between shame and guilt. I believe that guilt is adaptive and helpful – it’s holding something we’ve done or failed to do up against our values and feeling psychological discomfort. I define shame as the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging – something we’ve experienced, done, or failed to do makes us unworthy of connection.

Second, a 2017 quote from sociology professor Dr. Thomas Henricks:

Guilt is distinguished by its focus on particular actions… Guilt, it may be recalled centers on improper actions – things done and undone. Even in its free-floating form, it focuses on failed actions to come. By contrast, shame centers on the self in its fullness. Guilty people regrets their moments of “deviance.” Shamed people, that they have become, profoundly, “deviants.”

Hopefully these examples suffice to clarify what I mean by “shame.”

Shame is a liar, hobbling its victims with false perceptions of reality. Shame is a voice in one’s head insisting at all hours of the day that one is dirty, not good enough, unworthy. Shame says that one never does anything right, and even if one does something right, it must have been from wrong motives. Shame says one has nothing of value to contribute, that one’s very presence is a net negative for other people. Shame says that one doesn’t deserve to enjoy good things and that one is unlovable.

With that typically long-winded intro out of the way, let’s…err…have a slightly less long-winded intro? I Refuse to Be Your Enemy, a fairly recent entry in the reincarnated-into-a-video-game subgenre of isekai light novels, opens with an ominous letter from fourteen-year-old Kiara’s nominal guardian Count Patriciel announcing her arranged marriage to the noble Lord Credias. This letter proves to be the last piece of a puzzle, helping Kiara connect the dots with the strange, recurring dreams she’s had as long as she can remember—dreams of being a different person in a different world. All the details add up and she deduces that she’s living in the world of a tactical RPG (e.g., Fire Emblem, Final Fantasy Tactics) that this other self was fond of playing in her past life.

Most importantly, she recognizes her soon-to-be married name “Kiara Credias” as the name of a villain who dies by the hand of the game’s protagonist: “I was a character in a video game. And even worse, I was an antagonist.” Being sensible, Kiara flees. Immediately. She takes a few moments to gather her meager possessions, then hastens to get away from the school her guardian had her attending. Naturally, book-protagonist Kiara soon winds up involved with game-protagonist Alan and his associates. Lots of fun and sweet stuff happens, so go read the book once you finish this article.

All this is relevant because Kiara is a remarkably well-written example of a character who suffered childhood abuse and now lives with the shame those traumatic experiences caused. In short, her mother died when Kiara was quite young, her father never loved her, and her stepmother hated her. Then her father died and her stepmother treated her like a slave for a while, before finally selling Kiara to Count Patriciel for a large sum of money giving her up for adoption to Count Patriciel. Her new guardian doesn’t treat her like a slave, but he does some pretty sketchy things, like force her to drink mysterious concoctions, train to fight with a dagger, and carry a vial of poison with her. Finally, at age eleven, Kiara goes off to boarding school to become a proper noblewoman.

I would expect such a traumatic background to leave serious scars on the person who went through all that, and at first, I was rather annoyed by how well-adjusted Kiara seemed to be. She appears smart, decisive, friendly, and kind. I suspected the author was just using a melodramatic tragic backstory to build easy sympathy for the otherwise emotionally healthy protagonist. Thankfully, first impressions proved misleading. Kiara is deeply traumatized by her past, and the story reflects that. However, like many victims of abuse, she doesn’t fully understand how hurt she is, and she has grown capable of appearing psychologically functional around others. As a result, the symptoms of her trauma aren’t immediately obvious.

Kiara’s burden of shame is no less real for manifesting in subtle ways. Indeed, the subtlety makes her shame more realistic! The story never explicitly says “Kiara was traumatized by abuse,” but it does provide an accumulating series of examples of behavior that accurately depict a person dealing with shame from past abuse. For one thing, Kiara feels almost pathologically compelled to prove her worth to the people around her—even if they already like her plenty well. She believes that unless she demonstrates her value to others, they will soon cast her out. Second, she expects rejection at every turn, even when it’s totally irrational to think her friends would suddenly turn against her over this or that. She fully expects they will cast her out the moment she makes the tiniest mistake. Kiara is under the impression that unless she is perfect, she will be rejected by others.

Finally, Kiara is nearly incapable of considering that anyone might love her, or even just care about her as a friend. This is dangerously reminiscent of tiresome tropes we’ve all seen before involving stupidly dense characters, but Kiara averts them once we remember her background. She lives with shame born of trauma inflicted through abuse. That means it’s eminently realistic that she would believe others can’t like or love her. This being a shoujo story, there are three potential male love interests, though only one, Prince Reggie, goes out of his way to express it to her. But in Kiara’s mind, there’s obviously no way that any of these guys could be romantically interested in someone like her, which leaves her sincerely baffled and slightly worried by their inexplicable behavior. To the reader, it’s obvious that the guys are treating her with friendly, and Reggie’s case romantic, affection, but Kiara, with her distorted, shame-wracked perspective, just finds it puzzling.

Kiara’s sad backstory isn’t merely a pile of tropes used for cheap drama: abuse left her with shame that is reflected strongly in the kind of person she’s become. As someone who grew up in an emotionally abusive environment, I find Kiara deeply relatable on all these points. I remember more than once feeling mystified and disconcerted by kindness from others. “Why are they so nice to me? I don’t deserve their generosity, and I haven’t done anything for them to have earned their favor.” I’ve lived with the belief that people cared about and respected me only so long as I proved my worthiness by being perfect all the time. Worst of all was God: What with that whole omniscience thing, there’s no way God could be mistaken about how bad I am, and since that was the only basis on which anyone could care about me, I concluded there was no chance God could love me.

Shame is a liar, a vicious non-physical wound left in one’s mind by the sins of abuse others committed. This intangible injury to the psyche is harder to perceive than many of the issues that we commonly associate with “disability,” but it is no less a hindrance to living life as one wishes. I can’t say for certain, but I strongly suspect that like more concrete injuries or disabilities, shame will never be *fully* healed in this life. But even while we wait for the resurrection, when our minds and bodies alike will be completely whole, partial recovery from shame is possible right now. I can say from experience that good counseling with an appropriate mental health professional makes an incredible difference. I’m much more capable of fighting back when the voice in my head spews cruel lies. If you or anyone you know is besieged by shame, please don’t give up. Remember that shame is a liar, cunningly twisting our thoughts so that we see ourselves and others in a distorted way. Take courage, seek help from licensed professionals, pray without ceasing. You are lovable (and loved!), and you deserve to enjoy good things.

=====

Beneath the Tangles recommends I Refuse to be Your Enemy!

#Anime #Light Novels #Christianity #I Refuse to Be Your Enemy!#Watashi wa Teki ni Narimasen!#Shame #Disability #Mental Health #Holy Week #Easter #Psychology #Sin #Abuse #Articles #Author: JeskaiAngel

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kingofthewilderwest · 5 years

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In Race to the edge, I do think that Heather is a good character in terms of being well developed and contributing to the storylines, but there are just certain aspects about her that stop me liking her. She just comes across as full of herself and really boar headed. I know that Hiccup is boar headed as well, but unlike him, Heather never listens to anyone. She talks down to the other characters as well, albeit not in a comical way like Snotlout and the twins do. With her it is more nasty.

I think it’s perfectly fine to recognize a character is a well-developed, good character, but at the same time not enjoy her presence on screen! In many cases, writing a good character means that the audience will hate them (Solf J. Kimblee and Shou Tucker from FMAB come to mind). Regardless, whatever the writer’s intent for characters, we all have the right to dislike or like the characters we do. Even if we fully understand why the character was written into a story, that doesn’t mean we have to connect and fawn over them. So you do you with Heather! That’s chill!

That said, I do think there’s an important distinction to make between Heather and Hiccup’s personalities and life choices. These two characters might both be boar-headed, but they come from very different life circumstances.

Heather is a character who lacks trust in others. She’s gone through many traumatic events, from being separated from her birth parents, to watching the Outcasts kidnap her adoptive parents, to watching invaders destroy her hometown and kill many people including her adoptive parents, to fending for herself with no humans to support her, to learning that the sociopath behind her misery is her biological brother. All these circumstances have scarred Heather to the point that trusting others is legitimately challenging - even daunting.

There gets to be a point in peoples’ lives that, when they’ve been repeatedly harmed by others… they lack the innate ability to form meaningful trusting relationships, even when they yearn to connect. There’s this constant internal dialogue taunting you, saying that you’re destined to be alone, that everyone will leave you because everyone always has. It becomes a game of fighting yourself and somehow reversing negative beliefs you’ve held for years.

Now, it’s not that Hiccup hasn’t had hard points in life too. I mean, he lost a freaking leg as a teenager! He had rough differences of opinion with his father, too. But he didn’t develop the trauma and vast insecurities Heather did. And while Hiccup’s had harrowing escapades with enemies like Alvin and Dagur, Hiccup’s emotionally improved throughout his teenaged years because his social network has increasingly supported him. Hiccup has become more confident, more comfortable, and happier. Hiccup has been able to trust his peers; he has a close-knit social network he knows he can count on, a father who believes in him, and a best friend dragon who stays by his side through anything.

Hiccup isn’t in a psychological situation where trust is hard to understand. He hasn’t been conditioned by negative experiences to the point that his internal dialogue is telling him his friends can never be reliable. Hiccup makes his boar-headed decisions for different reasons than Heather does. When Heather acts in her own interests, it’s not that she’s justified doing those things… she’s still making wrong choices that hurt others… but I think it’s understandable given her painful background. And frankly, that fear you’ll always be alone, that suspicion even the nicest people will have to leave you behind… it is HARD AS HELHEIM to unlearn.

We see this struggle in Heather throughout Race to the Edge. Heather doesn’t listen to the others because she’s scared to trust them. Heather acts on her own self-interests because she thinks that no one else will take care of her.

In Have Dragons, Will Travel, Heather says that she believes she’s destined to be alone. She’s gotten to such a low point that, even though she’s in the company of friendly people, she doesn’t think she belongs with them. She believes she’s been cast out alone, and that’s how life will continue.

Hiccup: I talked to Johann. He told me Dagur wiped out your village… and your family. I’m sorry.Heather: Then you know why he has to pay.Hiccup: I do. But you don’t have to do this alone.Heather: I don’t know. It seems that I’m destined to be alone.

Heather is unable to trust the dragon riding gang. She’s skittish. Even though she’s touched that they’re trying to do well for her, she’s also so accustomed to fighting for herself. Fearful that these people will turn against her, she can’t trust them with basic friendship instincts. She locks up their dragons, which is definitely for her own self-interest and their harm… and she’s doing it out of fear, from lack of trust.

Heather: Look, I’m sorry I locked up your dragons. I just didn’t trust that you guys would let me go after Dagur.

Heather’s fragile fears break when all the riders are tell Heather that attacking Dagur is a bad idea. Heather’s response that they’re “all talk” rather than friends. Now, it’s true that real friends stop others from doing foolish things. Fishlegs, Snotlout, and Astrid aren’t wrong to question Heather here. Heather’s reaction is emotional rather than logical. However, I find it very realistic given her situation. It’s a response I have seen MANY TIMES by people who’ve been scarred by trust:

Fishlegs: Wait a minute. You want us to go into battle with Dagur and the Beserkers without Hiccup and Toothless?Heather: Guys, I wish Hiccup and Toothless were here, trust me. But they’re not. And we can’t wait. Fishlegs: I have to say any aerial assault of this magnitude would be foolish without Toothless. He’s the most powerful dragon in our arsenal. Heather: You heard Johann, Astrid. This is our last chance. Tell them.Astrid: Well… Look, Heather…Heather: You too?! Just forget it. All that stuff about trust and having my back… I guess that was just talk!

Heather is so accustomed to being alone that when she sees her friends being less-than-rosy to her, her fears kick in, and she believes they’re full-out against her (because everyone’s always been against her, she feels).

Heather again demonstrates an inability to trust Hiccup in Snow Way Out. To be fair, she’s grown. She trusts Astrid enough to give Astrid information about the dragon hunters. At the same time, old habits and deep fears are hard to overcome. We see that Heather still is acting with limited trust, believing Hiccup wouldn’t react the right way to her spying, and that Astrid isn’t judging the situation right when she suggests they tell Hiccup.

Astrid: We should tell Hiccup what we’re doing, this doesn’t feel right.Heather: No. We agreed.Astrid: I’ve never lied to him before!Heather: I know. But this is the best way to take the Dragon Hunters down. From the inside.Astrid: Hiccup could help us! He’s really good at this stuff.Heather: He also cares too much. Astrid, if we told Hiccup that I was spying on the Hunters, we both know he’d try to pull me out of there.

To Heather or Not to Heather also shows Heather’s struggles continuing. Since she’s inclined to be alone, she’s quick to give up and believe she isn’t going to be part of the dragon riding gang. Windshear starts acting up, and Heather’s immediate response is that “this isn’t meant to be.”

Heather: Windshear doesn’t belong with other dragons. And no matter how much I love being on Dragon’s Edge, I’m not gonna choose all of you over her.Fishlegs: But you haven’t even given it a chance. Hiccup is the best dragon trainer there is. I’ve seen him do things I never thought were possible. Heather: I appreciate everything you’ve done for me. Really, I do. I just can’t take the risk.Fishlegs: Okay. I wasn’t gonna say this, but here it goes. I don’t want to go back to being long-distance Terror mail pals. I want you here.Heather: And I feel the same way. Believe me. But Windshear has spent her whole life with me. Protecting me, and watching over me. That’s all she knows how to do. I’m sorry, Fishlegs.Fishlegs: I have an idea. I’ll never ask you again, but please, just this once, trust me, Heather.

“Please, just this once, trust me, Heather.”

Even with the man Heather is starting to attach romantic affections with, she’s finding some difficulties trusting still.

I know I’m talking mostly about her in the first few seasons, but since this is the starting point of Heather (and her character arc conclusion is getting to the point she can even trust Dagur again in Gold Rush), I think this is the context whereby we can understand why she acts the way she does for the whole series.

It’s true that Heather is boar-headed at times, and it’s true that not all her boar-headed choices are based on lack of trust. It’s true sometimes she says things that are somewhat scathing to other dragon riders. But to be fair, the dialogue in the DreamWorks Dragons shows has Astrid and Hiccup saying some pretty scathing things to the twins and Snotlout, too. The friendship dynamic of the Edge is one of constantly haranguing on each other. In a weird way, the fact Heather starts dishing on the others has always felt to me like a depiction she’s finally part enough of the gang to understand their dynamics and get in on them. Doesn’t mean that all the insults the gang says to one another are justified, but it’s interesting to think that Heather starts picking up the crew’s interactions and becoming a part of them.

It’s also true that I don’t remember the middle seasons of rtte as well and am not talking about how she acts during those either!

So it’s not that Heather’s always justified in how she treats others or how she acts in her own interests. However, I think that we do have to understand Heather in this light of her psychology. Lots of the times Heather charges out on her own is because her life’s been conditioned that way, and she’s stuck in a psychological rut fearing that only she can help herself. She does also have a growth arc where she gets better about these things.

In the same way, when Hiccup acts boar-headed, stubborn, and aggressive in RTTE, it’s because of underlying insecurity. He feels uncomfortable being bested by Viggo. It starts to eat at him. Hiccup makes riskier, daring, and sometimes more stubbornly foolish choices… because of what he’s internally fighting through. It doesn’t take away the fact this is a character weakness for him. Faults are faults. But it does mean we can understand why he’s in this mental framework, too.

Whether or not we like Hiccup for acting that aggressive, or Heather for acting in her own self-defense, it’s up to us how we feel about them. And liking or hating them, even when we understand their dynamics, is a part of us being humans with opinions. No opinion of “I like this character” or “I dislike this character” is wrong! I suppose I personally don’t call Heather “nasty,” but “scarred and struggling.” She’s also a character I connect with and love in RTTE. That said, even if she didn’t have a background reason for being a little harsher in the story, it doesn’t change the fact that we can acknowledge characters who are good for storylines but might not be our personal faves. We all have different relationships with characters, and we don’t have to love all of them! For me, I’m happy to love Heather. For you, you might not connect, and there are other characters you enjoy seeing on screen!

Take care and stay awesome. Have a good one!

#happysafaricampers #long post #rtte #Race to the Edge #Heather #Hiccup #faq #analysis #my analysis #To Heather or Not to Heather #Have Dragons Will Travel #Have Dragons Will Travel Part 2 #Snow Way Out #Gold Rush #ask #ask me

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ebhenah · 5 years

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IMPORTANT

When you see families (whether by blood or circumstance) depicted in fiction that have one spouse, or (one or more) child suffering from clear, unmistakable abuse, the OTHER FAMILY MEMBERS ARE ALSO BEING ABUSED. It is ABUSE to witness a trusted authority figure harm your loved ones.

It is ABUSE to be taught that those victims are bringing that treatment onto themselves.

It is ABUSE to live with the knowledge that if you screw up, that treatment may be directed at you.

It is ABUSE to wonder why you are treated ‘so well’ comparatively (even though the way you are treated may range from adored and coddled to ‘not beaten to a bloody pulp quite as often)

CHILDREN are not ‘bad siblings’ if they don’t intervene to protect the more obvious targets of the abuse- they are conditioned to respond the way they do.

CHILDREN are not ‘bad siblings’ if they BELIEVE what their abuser says about the obvious targets of the abuse- they are conditioned to respond the way they do.

CHILDREN are not ‘bad siblings’ if they do not defy the abuser to help the obvious targets of abuse- they are conditioned to respond the way they do.

This conditioning happens by way of ABUSE. It is less obvious, but just as effective and every bit as harmful! The kids that are ‘spared’ do not escape unscathed. They have deep and long-lasting damage done to them.

The effects of this kind of abuse aren’t always as obvious, nor are they as likely to illicit sympathy from others. Sometimes this damage is expressed in incredibly toxic and unsettling ways.

This whole part stands on its own, but it directly relates to a rant I have about a show I recently completed that I will spare you if you aren’t interested.

So:

Spoilers for Netflix’s The Umbrella Academy under the cut

There is a LOT of hate going around for Luther, and I understand it. He’s not a very likable guy. He’s rigid and judgmental. He sees things in black and white, and is hyper-loyal to his father. He is over-attached to Allison, dismissive of Klaus and Vanya, and gets into power struggles with Diego and 5.

It’s easy to see him as the ‘golden boy’ who failed to protect his siblings.

But the material ALSO shows us that Luther is the way he is because he was ALSO abused. He witnessed his siblings go through hell at the hands of a man who he loved- his father. He, on the other hand, was held to incredibly high standards and constantly told that he was the best of them, he could do everything that was asked of him and more, that he was the leader, a hero, the ‘favorite’. He had NO social interaction outside of his sibling group and absolutely no sense of identity beyond “Number 1″. His ENTIRE LIFE was devoted to and revolved around his father.

To question him, even a little bit, would mean that every single aspect of Luther's reality would crumble. Who IS he if not Number 1? He’s nothing. He’s no one. That is a question he is absolutely incapable of even ASKING.

Many of the same things apply to Allison. Her entire identity is wrapped up in her ‘gift’. She’s grown up seeing what it means to ‘not be special’ or to ‘fail to live up to your potential’, just as Luther has.

Not using her gift and ‘wasting’ her abilities would mean that she was the same as Klaus- who has been propped up as a warning for all of them since he was very young. Trying to live life as a ‘normal’ person would mean ‘lowering herself’ to Vanya’s level (ignored, isolated, unimportant and uninteresting- in a word, worthless). No wonder she sought out fame and celebrity when she broke away from ‘hero work’! No wonder she abused her child through what she saw as a ‘reasonable’ use of her ‘gift.

The alternatives were the worst realities she could imagine.

There was ONE person who understood what her life was like. ONE person that she could connect to. Allison and Luther’s unhealthy dynamic is the DIRECT RESULT of their abuse and the emotional harm that was done to them by their father. It is 100% incest, but it is incest that came about as a result of extreme deprivation of affection, connection and physical touch and being forced into near constant contact with one another. It is a “Flowers in the Attic” situation and it is as heartbreaking as it is horrifying. The show presents it as the FANTASY that it is for them. That is why the dance sequence shows Luther as he was before being resurrected, and puts them in completely different costumes. We are supposed to see how they see each other, so we can sympathize. We aren’t supposed to think it is sweet and romantic, any more than we are supposed to see Klaus’ dangerous attempts to detox himself as ‘healthy’ they are just another desperate quest for a few minutes of happiness and peace. It’s just that this time it is from seeing his dead beloved instead of intoxicants.

They are broken.

They are ALL broken.

Diego is violent and confrontational.

Luther is emotionally stunted and highly indoctrinated.

Allison is self-absorbed, controlling, and unable to keep from swinging from one emotional extreme to the other.

Klaus is self-destructive and irrational.

Five is cold, calculating, and unstable.

Ben didn’t even survive the life his father thrust him into.

Vanya is crushed and filled with vengeful rage.

NONE of them ‘got off easy’. NONE of them are whole or unharmed. NONE of them have avoided hurting others because of their abuse.

But, it is a whole lot easier to feel bad for Klaus and Vanya than it is to feel bad for Luther or Allison- because of the way the abuse LOOKED and because of the external symptoms of the damage done to them.

Vanya is furious that Allison used her powers against her, and Vanya has every right to be furious about what happened to her, but her blame is misplaced. They were FOUR YEARS OLD. A man she trusted took a four year old little girl to the cell that her only sister was in and told her that her sister was sick, and would have to stay in that cell forever... but that she, a LITTLE GIRL, had the power to save her only sister and let her come ‘home’ again. All she had to do was use her ‘special gift’ and say ONE sentence.

There is not a four year old child alive that wouldn’t have done exactly what Allison did. There is not a four year old alive that wouldn’t have seen that experience as proof that using those ‘magic words’ on loved ones ‘for their own good’ was a loving choice.

We SEE Luther completely shatter when he realizes that his father sent him to the MOON for four years in complete isolation rather than help him process what had been done to him to save his life. His entire sense of reality fractures and falls apart.

The shows doesn’t shy away from how traumatic and painful that is for Luther- but none of his siblings are equipped to recognize it, and so a large chunk of the audience sees it as comeuppance. It’s not. It is a culmination of years of abuse coming to a head and seeing the truth for the first time.

Luther goes through EXACTLY the same revelation that EVERYTHING they believed to be true was a lie that Vanya does. He deserves just as much compassion.

Klaus deserves every scrap of love and sympathy that he gets. But so does every last one of the siblings. It doesn’t EXCUSE the harm they do to others, they have a responsibility to seek help for their problems, to learn healthy ways to interact, to keep from repeating the toxic behaviors they grew up learning. They are adults and that is on them, but they do deserve EQUAL MEASURES of sympathy.

Fuck Reginald Hargreeves. He was an abusive monster- which was never shied away from by the show since our introduction to him was that he was PURCHASING NEWBORNS and calling them ‘it’.

Seriously, fuck that guy!

#TUA spoilers #discussions of abuse

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fyeahfantasticfour · 6 years

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What are your thoughts on Reed's role in the Civil War comic?

You will never catch me arguing that what Reed did was in any way right, because it wasn’t. He was given quite a lot of extenuating reasons (i.e., supporting the SHRA was the only way to stave off planet-wide extinction), but I still think it was an immoral choice, more so when you look at the sociohistorical context and realize that the SHRA was really the Patriot Act, Stamford 9/11, the Negative Zone prison Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo. Nothing justifies that kind of authoritarian, fascist violation of human rights, and it is even more galling when it is done in the name of the safety and security of the American people. What I would argue very vehemently is that a person who behaves the way Reed did during Civil War is so unlike Reed that he is a wholly different character, which is why I find it so infuriating that people who have read him in that and nothing else think it’s what he’s always like, when it’s not. His behavior throughout Civil War flies in the face of over fifty years of canon. When I read everything he says, everything he does in Civil War or in the related spin-off comics, I do not at all recognize the man I have come to know and love in well over 600 issues of Fantastic Four comics. Reed’s simply not like that. Sue even tells Reed at one point in the main FF title, “You’re not Reed,” and, no, he isn’t. So I don’t know who Mark Millar and co. thought they were writing, but it sure as hell wasn’t Reed. They warped Reed’s character virtually beyond recognition to suit their plot – but of course, if that’s the only comic you know Reed from….you don’t have the context to be able to see that. And that’s why Civil War!Reed has come to be the defining Reed in an Avengers-dominated Marvel fandom that largely doesn’t bother to read FF comics…even though, again, Reed isn’t like that at all.

I think Civil War has, first of all, largely been responsible for that truly mystifying take that holds that science matters more to Reed than his family, which is not something anyone would ever argue if they looked only at FF comics. Reed’s boundless love for his family just spills off of every page. But the way he behaves in Civil War, I can see how people would miss that. Reed chooses the government and the SHRA over his family every chance he gets in Civil War, which is terribly OOC. If given a choice between his family and anything anyone could ever want -- wealth, immortality, even godhood -- Reed will always choose his family. But in Civil War -- for the first and only time ever -- he doesn’t.

Cut for length.

Sue, the love of his life, his soulmate, who he loves more than his own life, leaves him, and he chooses the government; Ben, his very best friend for over two decades, who he canonically loves as much as he loves his wife, leaves him, and he keeps working for the government; Johnny, Reed’s surrogate son, goes with her, and Reed chooses the government. Johnny is hospitalized and Reed doesn’t drop everything to be there for his wife and his brother and seems fairly indifferent about Johnny and Sue’s wellbeing. That is not the Reed I know. As Sue has said, Reed is always, always there when it matters. When Sue was going through a difficult first pregnancy, the doctors actually had to tell Reed to go get some rest because he refused to leave the hospital. When Franklin was badly hurt by Annihilus, Reed was so shaken by Franklin’s hospitalization that he and Sue moved to the suburbs under assumed names so Franklin would be safer. When Reed discovered that Franklin was worried about his powers, he and Sue actually quit the team so they could focus completely on their son. When Franklin was tossed into Hell by Doom and badly traumatized, Reed was right there, holding Sue’s hand and comforting Franklin while they talked to psychiatrists. So we know how Reed acts when his family’s hurt – he tends to hover, obsess, worry, beat himself up for not protecting them, and take it very, very seriously. The Reed I know would have refused to leave the hospital until Johnny woke up. He would have been too worried about Johnny and Sue and too busy blaming himself for what happened to Johnny to even consider doing anything else.

Also, Civil War is the first time in fifty years that Ben, Johnny, and Sue have all turned their backs on Reed. Normally, they are endlessly loyal. Normally, they would follow him to Hell if he asked them to – and, in fact, they have. Reed would care that his family had abandoned him. It would destroy him. Make him unable to function. It makes absolutely no sense for Reed as a character to have behaved as he did, because Reed’s chief motivation is his love for his family and it always has been. Everything he does is because of them. Everything. The fact that Millar and co. didn’t understand that Reed’s family matters more to him than anything is sign enough for me that their characterization of Reed is deplorable. It’s like writing Wonder Woman and having her care not at all about women, or Magneto and having him be indifferent to mutants. It does not make any sense at all for Reed. Straczynski’s idea that Reed did what he did to protect his family – sacrificing himself and his principles in order to keep them safe (although in the main Civil War comic, he’s written as oddly enthusiastic about the pro-SHRA side’s projects, and just no – Reed (as he’s characterized in FF comics) participating extremely reluctantly and hating everything he was forced to do I can maybe see, but being excited about any of it? No) – is slightly more believable, but I still don’t buy that Reed, after having been called out by Sue the way he was, wouldn’t have listened to and trusted her. Because he nearly always listens to Sue and he respects her opinion more than he does anyone else’s. They’re equal partners. Certainly the idea that he’d trust and care about Tony’s opinion more than Sue’s is a risible one at best (not that he doesn’t like Tony, but the length and depth of his friendship with Tony pales in comparison to his all-consuming love for Sue – Reed and Tony simply haven’t been through everything Sue and Reed have together, which includes the death of their daughter). And the fact that Sue alone left him – for only the second time in a fifty-year marriage – would have had a much larger effect on him than was depicted. In the 1970s, when Sue first left him, Reed pined for her constantly and refused to leave the Baxter Building in the vain hope that she’d call, he couldn’t focus on work, or sleep, or eat, science and all of his projects were meaningless to him without Sue, but you expect me to believe that a second separation – particularly one that was potentially permanent – had such a small effect on him? Reed should have been a mess, depressed, hopeless, and entirely unable to function. His whole reason for existing left him. He wouldn’t have cared about anything besides Sue and when she would be back and what he could do to get her back.

Reed siding with the SHRA and helping the government discriminate against aliens, mutants, Inhumans, and other metahumans like him also makes no sense at all for him as a character and, furthermore, goes against everything he and the FF have ever stood for, ever fought for. And that’s because the FF have always been about looking to the future and making the world a better place for everyone, which means rising above petty hatreds. Reed especially has a lengthy history of fighting to protect the civil rights and autonomy of nonhumans – particularly the Inhumans – from the government and the military. The story told in Fantastic Four v3 #51-54, for instance, is a perfect counterpoint to Civil War. Reed, when faced with humanity’s petty fear of the Other, actually behaves like himself and defends them from the government, the military, the masses. He very bravely stands up in front of the United Nations – when everyone else in the world was against him – and he tells them all that what they are doing is wrong. Specifically, he says, “What is being contemplated here is unthinkable! Yes, there are vicious, evil aliens – just as there are vicious, evil humans. There is no black or white.” When the defense system he set up for Earth is used offensively by the military to destroy an alien spaceship, Reed is openly furious at the military because his technology was misused for the purposes of murdering aliens and lectures a group of four-star generals on the evils of xenophobia. “Do you know what every extreme group has in common, general?” he asks them. “From the Nazis to the Taliban to the Ku Klux Klan? An obsession with purity. An unwavering belief that everything would be perfect if everyone was exactly like them. Don’t draw lines in the sand, gentlemen – not when it’s quicksand.” Reed has a lengthy history of defending the civil rights of nonhumans – he singlehandedly stopped the SHRA from getting passed during Simonson’s run in the 1990s by pointing out that it would be impossible to genetically differentiate between mutants, metahumans, Inhumans, and regular humans who carried those genetic markers. He knew it was a troubling law and he prevented its passage. Even before that, Reed originally fought behind enemy lines as a spy with the Italian underground during WWII – he knows full well the abuses totalitarian governments are capable of because he saw them firsthand and put his life on the line to stop them. So it’s just galling to see Sue having to lecture Reed about the dangers of fascism and totalitarianism when he, as a character, has demonstrated that he knows that very well so many times, when that knowledge is a pivotal motivation for him as a character, and when he has a lengthy history of fighting against those same governmental abuses. It’s like watching someone lecture Cap about the dangers of Nazism. I mean. He knows. Given his history, Reed should be the one making that speech. Hell, Reed has made that speech several times. It’s just all a flagrant misinterpretation of his character that, worse yet, makes no sense.

As someone who knows Reed’s character extremely well, let me say also that the idea that Reed would side with the U.S. government’s draconian laws because he believes that everyone has a responsibility to follow the law even when it’s wrong is absurd. This is a man who broke into a military base and stole a rocket ship because he thought the government’s decision to pull funding from his project was misguided. Not morally wrong, mind you, just misguided and short-sighted. This is a man who was himself taken to a top-secret military base in the dead of night and detained indefinitely by a government fearful of his powers, and who witnessed the unceremonious execution of another superpowered detainee in that same prison, and then began behaving in a way that was as innocuous and unthreatening as possible as a survival tactic. Because he knew that the government posed a very real threat to him and his family. He even says in Fantastic Four v3 #60 that he knew that he had doomed his family, the three people he loved most in all the world, to being “fated to be freaks…lab specimens or worse…” and that he turned them into celebrities to give them the best life possible given the circumstances. He also told Tony Stark once, in Iron Man Annual v1 #8, that if the government ever tried to take his incredibly powerful mutant son away, he would fight to the death to stop them. Immediately prior to the Civil War, the government did try to take Franklin and Valeria away, and in Fantastic Four Vol 5, they succeeded in taking all of Reed and Sue’s children away. That all means that Reed’s very aware that the government poses a threat to his and his family’s well-being and their ability to continue as a family. He knows how very dangerous the government is to people like him because he has been on the receiving end of that mistreatment. Reed has also just blatantly broken the laws more times than I can count. In his first-ever appearance? Broke onto a military base and stole a rocket ship. Second? Broke out of a military base, set it on fire, and stole a helicopter. And it’s not like all of that illegal activity dates back to the 1960s. Two years before Civil War I, Reed disregarded both the U.S. and the U.N.’s orders, invaded and took over an entire country, and afterward only narrowly avoided being charged with treason by bribing the government. He also, during this time period, broke onto a military base and stole Ben’s dead body back. That was swiftly followed in Straczynski’s run – only about five issues before the onset of Civil War – with Reed deliberately sabotaging a top-secret military project, which culminated in a high-speed chase as Reed escaped, fled back to New York, and openly defied the military’s orders to turn himself in by launching himself into space in a rocket ship. Reed, throughout his history, hasn’t just defied the law – he’s openly flaunted his defiance. So Reed isn’t a stickler for the law and he simply never has been. He knows it can be violent, devastating, and harmful, particularly to people like him and his family.

But also? An unquestioning allegiance to science without a thought for the ethical ramifications is just very unlike Reed, who has always cared about people more than science – in fact, I’d argue that he cares about science because it lets him help people and make the world better. I think Straczynski’s better than the main Civil War comic about hammering home the point that Reed fixates on the numbers to keep himself from thinking too hard about the awful things he’s doing to his friends…but I don’t think doing them at all is very like Reed. It’s not as though Reed’s frightened of defying the U.S. government – he invaded and conquered an entire country against their explicit orders, after all. But also, Reed is compassionate to a fault – as Cap points out in the first Secret Wars, Reed is renown throughout the superhero community for his compassion. Everyone turns to Reed for help because he never turns away anyone who needs help. To think that he could, for any reason, turn his back on anyone’s pain and suffering makes no sense for him as a character. This is a man who helps supervillains who are hurt or in trouble, just on principle, because he swore an oath to help all mankind and that includes them. This is a man who once saved Galactus’ life just because he couldn’t, in good conscience, stand by and let another living being die -- and was later put on trial for it in an intergalactic court of law. He’s saved the life of Namor, who he doesn’t particularly like, so many times – and that includes the time he was challenged by Doom to save Namor’s life in 24 hours or Namor would permanently become Doom’s slave, and when Reed failed he flew all the way to Latveria to rescue Namor, just because Namor came to him for help and he couldn’t, in good conscience, abandon him. Even Ben thought Reed was going overboard helping Namor. But Reed believes he’s responsible for the well-being of everyone around him, he’s got a big heart, he’s extremely moral, and he has a very exacting conscience. If he fails someone? He’ll feel guilty about it the rest of his life.

Really, I could go on with this -- I haven’t even touched on the awful mischaracterization of Reed and Sue’s relationship (that sadly is also what everyone thinks they’re always like when it isn’t at all) -- but I think that’s enough for now.

#tenaciousarcadeexpert #reed richards #fantastic four #mod: lamujerarana

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audreycritter · 7 years

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:o CAN YOU TALK TO ME ABOUT THE BATFAMILY AND TRAUMA because it feels like this is a subject in which you have a great deal of knowledge

Okay, I could talk for hours about this, honestly. There are so many lettered disorders that fit the Batfamily (OCD, RAD, FAS, SPD, PTSD, ASD, plus bipolar, depression, anxiety, insomnia, etc) and they can all be the RESULT of trauma or the result of innate brain structure. There’s so much that I’m actually tempted to write a few essays about it. But for the sake of answering the ask, I’ll hit a few major points and I am 100% open to questions/more specific asks.

Canon is a mess, obviously, but there are some things that either consistently track or show up regularly in fanon for each character. I think first we need to differentiate the kinds of trauma each character has experienced because both the type of and duration of the event and the age at which it’s experienced can make a difference.

Bruce and Dick both are portrayed as having loving, stable parents and backgrounds that were taken from them by abrupt violence. This means that they have event-based trauma like PTSD or other things that it can trigger but they do not have chronic or infancy-related brain damage (because this, essentially, is what most trauma is: brain damage). The age at which they were exposed was mid-adolescence so there are many crucial developmental stages that the probably hit appropriately.

Tim, while born into a home with money, is written as often neglected emotionally which is an important detail. Meeting physical needs does not prevent trauma when there is gross emotional neglect. If there is one stable caregiver, like Alfred with Bruce, it can resolve (to some degree) a missing parent even if there is bitterness or hurt. But with a rotation of attachments of varying interests or levels, the reality is that there are going to be long-term attachment issues. The kind of trauma that missing attachment creates in the brain can have all kinds of affects and trouble regulating sleep is one of them. It’s highly likely, in the context of realistic trauma depiction, that Tim’s coffee habit, sleep troubles, and anxiety predate his tenure as Robin and are rooted in the lack of attachment to a consistent caregiver. When a child’s emotional needs are not met, they often have trouble regulating themselves and in some personalities this results in the physical component of difficulty recognizing a need for sleep, water, or food or seeking them at odd times/in crisis states.

Cass, my darling. There is a very fundamental danger in separation from a mother at birth. Even infants experience grief and to be separated from the smells and sounds of the womb even within minutes or days of delivery severs the first and most basic attachment. This is why even children adopted at birth can have attachment issues, even if they are very mild in a loving adoptive home. But to be separated from a mother and then raised in a home with minimal language or comfort (remember, she tells Bruce, “he never held me” as far as her memory goes) does two things that are present in Cassandra Cain’s story. Children with that kind of physical and mental trauma often have sensory issues with input, so when Cass doesn’t react to pain the same way the others do, it might be that her brain actually doesn’t register pain. A common presentation of this is that actual pain (a broken arm, a deep cut) go unnoticed for hours while a soft hand on the back or a gentle tap are perceived as deeply painful. The other thing the absence of spoken language/dialogue does is affect memory. Memory storage relies heavily on repetitive recollection and the strongest positive/neutral memories are the ones that are discussed and shared. Her childhood, the most traumatic memories aside, is likely a blur or a composite.

Jason. Ooh, boy. Because his return is (relatively) recent and there are three separate but very strong iterations of him, I’m going to focus on his character pre-death just for this. Partly because we’re told the Lazarus Pit changed things significantly for him and each of the current versions have very different, equally valid explanations. So, pre-death, he’s a bit of a punk. We know that he dealt with, like Cassandra, a separation from his birth mom in infancy and then Catherine’s drug problems and Willis’ instability probably worsened those things instead of helping to heal them. Children with reactive attachment disorder and early trauma often have issues with cause and effect, appropriately placed blame, and emotional illiteracy coupled with stress hormone overdrive resulting in explosive anger and deep self-hatred/mistrust. They often pendulum swing between self-blame (“I’m an awful person, I don’t deserve anything, everyone hates me”) and violent shows of external blame (“this is all your fault! You just like to punish me!”). The problem is that with the missing cause and effect cycle and the high stress state of the brain, this means that most things that make the child even mildly uncomfortable are perceived as massive threats AND misappropriately blamed. For example, a child with a healthy brain may forget to do their homework and if the parent asks in the morning about it, may feel slight panic or annoyance in response. A child with RAD might snap: everything is stupid, nobody cares, this is all YOUR FAULT. They may throw or break things or storm off and then defend themselves with “you MADE me do that!” Decisions made to protect or help the child can be interpreted as threats or hate.

Okay, Damian. While it might seem like he is the most traumatized of the lot (and in some ways he is), he also has the benefit of being with Talia and Talia genuinely caring for him. She holds him, she talks to him, etc. It does important things for his brain. Unfortunately, he also has massive physical abuse and the war zone/refugee stress of being forced into dealing with adult violence and adult decisions while he is still small and developing. This is why he seems more mature for his age– he has huge social and emotional gaps as a result. His trauma means that his brain likely considers every input a threat, resulting in massively high stress hormones, chronic exhaustion, and defensive anger. Everything he does is coded as a survival mechanism.

Stephanie Brown! I’m guessing that she is dealing with some form of Fetal Alcohol/Drug Syndrome as well as basic neglect. Inconsistent care is dangerous because the cause and effect pattern in an infant’s brain is disrupted (healthy: baby cries, is fed and changed; unhealthy, baby cries, is SOMETIMES fed or changed– baby learns that crying doesn’t mean much and everything seems arbitrary). FAS means that there is physical brain damage she’s probably had to learn to route around, so mild learning delays. She isn’t stupid but she has to work twice as hard to retain the same academic things others do. Because of the cause and effect gap, she probably has a loose innate grasp of how dangerous things are. I’m guessing if she hadn’t gotten into crimefighting, she’d either be a thrill-junkie or have the reputation as being “wild” even though in basic self-care like sleep and food she’s very self-regulated and responsible. When Bruce or Tim tell her things are dangerous or beyond her skill set, it is probably not just her bravery at work– they might actually have accurate assessments that she cannot and does not see, but through sheer luck, force of will, or discipline she’s managed to escape more severe consequences. That isn’t to say that she isn’t good at what she does, just that she might actually NOT consider the worst-case (or even likely case) scenario when attempting something.

I could go on for hours– there are so many aspects of each of these that I haven’t even touched on but this is getting super long, so I should probably divide it up!

#batfam #trauma #batman #adoption #ptsd #rad #fas #asks #science

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