#A digression within a digression

[dolphin1812]

This chapter is primarily Hugo’s Opinions, but some of them are interesting, so I want to try to comment on them.

The chapter as a whole is a criticism of corruption/a focus on status in the Catholic Church (which the bishop is outside of and is, consequently, unpopular with many other churchmen). This section summarizes much of his critique:

“The priest is nowadays the only man who can become a king in a regular manner; and what a king! the supreme king. Then what a nursery of aspirations is a seminary! How many blushing choristers, how many youthful abbés bear on their heads Perrette’s pot of milk! Who knows how easy it is for ambition to call itself vocation? in good faith, perchance, and deceiving itself, devotee that it is.”

On the one hand, Hugo recognizes that the Church can seem to be the only legitimate avenue of social advancement, as anyone can theoretically rise to prominence within it. (Of course, given the emphasis that Hugo places on priests in court, those from a wealthy background were probably more likely to succeed in this; I don’t know a lot about the Church in this time, but I’d imagine that “advancement” is less likely to be “peasant to pope” and more “minor noble or well-off bourgeois to pope”). At the same time, entering a profession like the priesthood – which is supposed to be about serving God – for these reasons is inherently suspect, as it trains one’s focus on the material over the spiritual. As many churchmen retain this focus, it isn’t something initiates learn to reject, but rather something that’s encouraged as they learn to flatter others for better positions.

However, Hugo expands his criticism to a broader social phenomenon: equating success (high social status) with merit.

“Be it said in passing, that success is a very hideous thing. Its false resemblance to merit deceives men.”

Success does not inherently equal merit, but Hugo points out a more insidious aspect of this equation:

“Prosperity argues capacity. Win in the lottery, and behold! you are a clever man. He who triumphs is venerated. Be born with a silver spoon in your mouth! everything lies in that.”

While it’s true that an ordinary person can become “successful” (i.e. wealthy) through a stroke of luck (the lottery), the luck that determines success typically happens much earlier: at birth. Someone born with that “silver spoon” will already have a respected position (whether as a noble, a merchant, etc), but will also have the resources to change their position (for example, leisure time to study, a social network that fosters business connections, and so on). Even without doing so, they’re respected, because they’ve already inherited their wealth/title. Thus, praising one’s “success” could merely be admiring material things that one has possessed since birth, not through anything innate to them.

[segretecose]

in italy sometimes the difference between prescription and over the counter is dictated by how pathetic you can be in front of the pharmacist

[edwinisms]

banging my head against the wall every time I see someone reblogging a post of mine with tags mentioning the ‘unrequited confession’. we have been OVER this it is NOT a case of unrequited romantic love it is completely canonically up in the air as a possibility. listen to jayden revri himself and be enlightened i am begging you

[your-ace-cousin-clover]

"In hindsight, Max thinks, they perfectly Checo-ed him."

-

In the middle of the 2024 Formula One Season, Checo announces that he's joining the newest team on the track, Expensify APX-GP.

Behold, the Chestappen in the weird F1-RPF movie fic.

Tagging @formulanni as requested! 🫡

Thank you for your wonderful Inspo of Joshua fanart!per

[merriclo]

i should tell you about the cishet aa server NDJSNSKS. the cishet aa server is a server run by this 1 mutual circle or whatever (i used to be mutuals with them but um. not anymore) and iirc the premise was that they had this joke au where everyone in ace attorney was cishet and they decided to run a server around it. i wasn't in there for long but Wow it was a uh. place. /neg. owner of the server was 18 and most of the other mods were 17 or 18 and they had a whole channel dedicated to mocking this 15 year old fanartist???? who they made the most ableist jokes about??? their anatomy (spinal specifically) tended to be odd so they'd constantly make scoliosis jokes????? there was a huge falling out and controversy in the friendgroup after the 18 year old blog runner harassed a 15 year old which turned into 2 members of the server who lived in the same country mutually cyberstalking one another and finding info like home and school addresses etc.

this wasn't the only unsavory behavior directed towards minors in the server i personally got some Weird behavior as well but WOW it was. Weird! really Weird!

∑(;°Д°) HELP AHAKSKLSLW WHAT THE FUCK where. do i even begin to react

leave the kid alone holy shit (T⌓T) that’s actually so weird to be kinda grown and still bully the hell out of a 15 year old. i know the age gap isn’t that big but the maturity difference is so insane.. like guys grow up and leave them alone??????? they’re a young artist????????? also mona lore i have scoliosis and hate most of those scoliosis jokes because it’s so hard to make people take it seriously bc it sounds so unserious. like how do i say “guys :( my bad posture.. it’s serious stop being silly” without sounding like a whiney little bitch. stop it guysss my back hurts :(((

ALSO THE MUTUAL CYBERSTALKING is that a common thing because i’ve seen that happen too in several servers. some people just get weird i swear

anyways. discord is a hellhole and cishet ace attorney au will haunt me in my nightmares

[dirtbra1n]

I don’t know. I feel like maybe I can get so much mileage out of Weird in ssmyverse because I know that harusono’s got the chops for that sort of thing. just look at butai ni sake

you know

[fellhellion]

I’m not trying to be a prick but there’s a lot of video essays in which the analytical work would, imo, benefit from examining the economical writing style and clarity of something like Dan Olson’s body of work.

[icarus-suraki]

I love giving my psychiatrist pause when I tell her that, no, I don't have a five year plan. I don't even have a one year plan. Hell, I barely have a one month plan.

[king-calycanthus]

Top Five Songs at the Moment

Thank u for tagging me @domsaysstuff <333

Never The Heroes by Judas Priest

Powerslave by Iron Maiden

Hellfire by The Mechanisms

Playing With The Boys by Kenny Loggins

Can’t Stand The Night by Accept

I feel like this list is kinda all over the place. We’re going thru a weird era I guess.

And I’m tagging @steviesnailbat @spicysix @mogami13 and anyone else who feels like sharing their music (because I’m a nosy bastard who likes seeing what y’all are listening to). No pressure, ofc, just if you feel like it 👍

[crescentfool]

thinking long and hard about the ballpoint nouveau kit has been making me go through every emotion humanly possible i want to know what it is so badly...

[necrotic-nephilim]

What are your opinions on Casstim?

i LOVE CassTim. i've actually written a CassTim fic that's mostly just fluff and smut, but i have a lot of ideas/thoughts about them that play with the more complicated aspects of them.

i'm of the opinion that Tim and Cass were a potential romance that DC left the door open for before Tim got adopted by Bruce. (and tbh, even after he got adopted there were certain interactions in Red Robin (2009) that felt romantically implied) a lot of their interactions have implied feelings on both sides so of all Batcest ships, i think this one has a *lot* of genuine canon backing despite it being one of the most underrated ships of the fandom.

the dynamic between Cass and Tim is really interesting to me because Tim doesn't want to be Batman in any capacity and thinks that goal is actually incredibly unhealthy and unachievable, whereas to Cass it's the thing she strives for the most and if anything she wants to be even more than that. (Batgirl (2000) #59 actually has a really interesting discussion about that and that whole post-War Games arc is fun for understanding how Tim and Cass feel about each other) so a lot of their interactions clash because of that and they can't always see eye to eye on what vigilante justice and Batman's vision should look like. their relationship with each other is always going to be dependant on their relationship with Bruce first, as well as the Batman mantle as a whole. so for them to love each other (which, they do without a doubt, romantic or not) they have to accept where they don't agree with each other.

there's such a gentleness to CassTim, i think? not because i think Cass (or Tim tbh) is gentle, but i think for the exact opposite reason. there is this fullness and drivenness in the way she loves and her undying devotion to them. she would do anything to protect her loved ones. and when you combine that with Tim, who's pretty self-sacrificial at his worst, you have some interesting conflict because they're both too-willing to die for the other. their lives are defined by violence, *especially* Cass', so for her to finally let herself be loved and protected by someone else as much as she loves others is something that simply makes me feral.

they've both been trained by Shiva, which i don't think gets explored enough because it's fun for exploring the way they fight and think in a fight being potentially similar. Cass is *far* smarter than anyone gives her credit for being, and has detective skills on par with Tim, in my opinion. they balance each other out in a lot of ways. they're two people who have *chosen* this fight more than a lot of the rest of the Batfamily. being Batgirl is so important to Cass and it's something she chose because of her desperate want to be good. and Tim chose to be Robin because he knew Gotham and Bruce needed that. while they don't always agree on it, i would argue Cass and Tim understand the nuances of the Batman mantle and what it represents deeper than almost anyone else. because of that i'm particularly interested in a future CassTim, where Cass becomes Batman and Tim is in a weird limbo where he wants to stop being a vigilante but can't seem to quite let go of the life and how they end up meeting in the middle of that. i think it could be really fun with a lot of complicated arguments between them that end in a slow burn romance.

idk man this is baseless rambling, but tldr i love them so dearly and there's so much that can be explored between them. also, i think TimKonCass should be a thing. i like KonCass more than most people do (why do y'all hate this ship it's so good pls hear me out-) and i think as a complicated weird throuple they'd be fun.

[arctic-hands]

I'm seeing a lot of environmentalism pushback on collecting seashells, something I have done many times since living near the oceans (however, I have long since stopped buying commercially harvested seashells because it usually results in the deaths of the animals using the shells), because we're allegedly taking too many shells off the beaches en masse for animals like hermit crabs to use.

I'm just wondering, is that solely a cause for concern for intact spiral shells? Most of my shells are clam/oyster shells, some intact (as in, the shell is intact, not that it was a whole matching clam specimen), some broken, and I only have broken spiral shells. Is it okay to take those, or do abandoned (most of them sunbleached if they ever had color) bivalve shells and broken shells still have a use for native wildlife?

[catwouthats]

Saying that fanfic isn’t as enriching as regular books is such a fucking lie

1) not all fanfic is smutt and not all books are thought provoking, not that it matters for a book to be considered official anyways. All reading is reading. There is literally pulp fiction. There is literally Colleen Hover. A lot of fanfic authors are literally published writers too.

2) some of my most mind altering moments have been induced because of a fucking fanfic. And before y’all say “well you just haven’t read good literature!” I have literally read Charles Dickens, George Orwell and Shakespeare. Those were also good. I’d say Oliver Twist, Hamlet, and that fanfic I read were possibly some of the best shit. On equal playing fields. I analyze tf out of all media I consume.

Go fuck off with your lowkey elitist take that fanfic is below the level books are at. Just because someone can’t print their writing, whether due to copyright or a lack of money/ability, doesn’t mean that it’s “less than”.

Let’s also not forget that A LOT OF GREAT LITERATURE IS JUST STRAIGHT UP FANFIC!!!!!!

[archivalbeholding]

23/12/21 -> 17/11/22

[isa-ghost]

It's morally correct and acceptable to use sensitive snowflake as a derogatory term for specifically Twitter Boobers btw. Those motherfuckers would faint at the sight of an ankle fr

[dragonomatopoeia]

my rough drafts always have that moby dick vibe of just some absolute unrelated batshit nonsense being said and stella swoops in to go nope no not a chance we're hemingway-ing this. take those words out of there this instant or so help me