At the time of writing this, I still have not received feedback or a grade for my critical research essay, but I figured I could reflect on it regardless. It is honestly something I am equally proud of and terrified of, and while I wrote it I felt much the same. Putting across a controversial idea is always a little uncomfortable, but I really felt I had to write it. I had way safer ideas I could have used, like talking about #GamerGate and women’s roles in video games and how even the characters that are seen as strong, such as Samus or Lara Croft, were still created for the sole purpose of being looked at by men. That stuff is easy, it isn’t controversial, it isn’t hard to do, it would have got me a good mark because I’m knowledgeable and have good sources. Yet I felt I absolutely had to write what I did. I felt it necessary, almost. To spend an entire semester talking about how women in media are treated, I couldn’t possibly hold my tongue about it any longer. I was initially going to write about Game of Thrones in general, but that would have been dozens of thousands of words long, and even with the specific topic I chose I had to stop myself and cut out about six sections of it to prevent it tripling the suggested maximum word count. It was a topic I was beyond passionate about, something I felt needed to be said and discussed, and I was nervous handing it in. I know you watch and like Game of Thrones, and to totally tear it apart as a big part of my grade was something I was nervous about, but again, I felt I had to do it. I knew it wasn’t a totally safe choice, but it wasn’t about a grade when I started writing it. It wasn’t about getting an A because I had easy facts and a safe topic. It was about it being written and it being said. It was about saying something that needed to be said regardless of whether or not it would be looked upon kindly or with bias. I’m still nervous about it, honestly, and about getting my grade back, but I am incredibly truly proud of it, regardless of the grade it gets for whatever reasons are given. It was the most rewarding thing I have written all semester, and I could write ten thousand more words on it happily.