#and he finally reclaims that at the end of the game by defying EVERYONE and doing it his own way

[glitchfang]

always sort of a shock to the system when i remember ppl know sonic 06’s plot more for the fandub than for itself. which is understandable given the og is a mess, but idk its kinda sad bc theres some good stuff there (shadow’s entire story arc)

[crossdressingdeath]

#yeah man of COURSE bhaal is gonna kill them wdym you thought that they could defy their god - their creator - and he would just shrug#and let them off#and you told them to do it#you told them to their face that you wanted them to defy their god and die for a cause (tags via @zoneofsmites) #afagsghdhdk THIS#YEAH#i really want them to realise how stupid they were being with that#because in the game everyone is like *awkward chuckle* “well it worked out in the end didn't it? so proud of you bud :) haha”#which is so fucking cruel imo#on my first durge playthrough i was so sure that was going to be another vlaakith type instadeath ngl#they're telling a god to go fuck himself be fucking fr#but considering gale can rock up to mystra like “my weave now” fully confident he can beat her maybe they're all just idiots#still#i think they deserve to get chewed up a bit ngl#that's why in my canon ezra doesn't defy bhaal in the temple 🤷‍♂️#because i want to give my boy a chance to finally lose it in a “you don't fucking get it do you?!” way#when people start being like “wow can't believe you just did that :( after everything :( i thought you were better than that :(”#he deserves to go off like a runepowder bomb (tags via @wilchur)

So glad we're all on the same page. It really is like... the fact that no one apparently considered that maybe the actual literal god of murder who only started having kids so that he could murder them would perhaps murder his child for defying him is at best a massive, massive fuckup on the part of the entire party. Including Jaheira and Minsc, who should absolutely know better! Like... of course Bhaal is going to kill Durge for this! What did they expect would happen?

I feel like Durge would absolutely have the right to go off on the party whether they resist Bhaal or reclaim their place as Chosen, because... the party is asking them to go to their death because it's The Right Thing, and no one is even acknowledging that that's what they're doing. The party also doesn't offer much by way of actual support; they talk a lot about being on your side, but at the end of the day Durge will be facing Bhaal alone. And to be fair there's only so much the party could do against a god, but the complete non-reaction to how Durge has to fight Orin alone and then handle Bhaal alone does irk me a bit. I feel like in either path Durge would have the right to be furious at the others! With Chosen Durge "You don't fucking get it, you seriously expected me to say no to the god who created me and literally owns my soul, you can't actually have thought it would be that simple" would be a very fair response! And resist Durge really should get the chance to lose their shit at the party for acting like them dying to defy Bhaal and putting their soul at risk in the process is just business as usual. Like, Durge defying Bhaal isn't the same as Lae'zel defying Vlaakith or Shadowheart defying Shar or Gale defying Mystra; Durge in a very real way belongs to Bhaal. When they die their soul is his no matter what and up until the Withers ex machina no one has any reason to think that that can be changed or fixed (and even Withers's solution seems to basically be "Well, if your soul will suffer for all eternity once you're dead I'm just not going to let you die"). Defying Bhaal has eternal consequences for Durge, and no one acknowledges that. Let them be mad at the party brushing that off like just because defying Bhaal is The Right Thing To Do the choice should be easy!

A thought: the party freaking out when Bhaal kills Durge for their defiance (like they should have, Larian)... only for Durge to be genuinely surprised by that on being resurrected. Of course Bhaal was going to kill them for defying him. They thought everyone realized that.

And of course it's only after the party has had some time to deal with the whole "Oh gods our friend actually died" thing that they realize that if Durge thought everyone knew Bhaal would kill them for their defiance, that means Durge thought everyone knew they would die for defying Bhaal and pushed them to do it anyway.

[skinfeeler]

I watched Joker (2019) at the cinema last night. It induced in me a lot of thoughts about the film, but also about the nature of criticism and art in general. Because I respect people’s time and general sensibility, I’m putting the rest of this post under a cut. Content warnings surrounding discussion of (sexual) violence, and obviously a number of spoilers.

I left the room feeling uncertain how to interpret what I had just watched, and for this reason (and others) quite uncomfortable. As a narrative the film seemed disjointed and overly metaphorical, certainly as a movement of set-up, crescendo, climax, and denouement the film made no sense because the film for the most part utterly denied itself a clear and uninterrupted line in events. This was because of certain scenes in the film that can with certainty be said to not possibly have happened in the way they did on the screen, even with suspension of disbelief intact, but also in general the solipsism of the film— Arthur Fleck seemed like the only character in the film with everyone at most taking a rather symbolic, flat, role (Thomas Wayne) or only purposefully serving as a source of narrative unreliability and confusion (Penny Fleck). Most characters, however, were simply part of an unindividuated antagonistic bloc whose sole purpose seemed to truncate both its own humanity and Arthur's— perhaps this is what we could call 'society', or something.

It took me a moment of talking to friends to find a method through which this film perhaps not quite become intelligible, but at the very least that I could get something out of it. This method is one of doing away with the narrative and instead, trying to view it as a character study.

Certain parts of the film become immediately more palatable when viewed this way, or at least, easier to parse as meaning anything at all. For example, we don't have to accept the pop criticism analysis of that his relationship with his neighbor is something Arthur hallucinated and then realised he hallucinated. Instead, we can take each of the scenes in which she is present as something that tells us something about Arthur even if not extant in the ‘real narrative’— while he is truly and actually maligned by society, it can't be said that Arthur himself is particularly sensitive to the complicated humanity of those around him. For example, when it comes to Penny, he seems to have absolutely no regard for the simultaneous plight and guilt surrounding her character, that of a woman who, yes, let him be abused by her boyfriend but who herself was also being abused by him and presumably had her own troubled past.

Likewise, we can state that if his neighbor were to be present in the scenes in which she couldn't possibly have been (since it would defy all plausability of that relationship developing in that way), Arthur would actually have seen her as how she acted in those scenes: A symbol, at most. An anchor. Something without particular agency or drives or motives of her own, which she only reclaims in the final scene that she's in, where she is concerned with the safety of her daughter and Arthur leaving her apartment. The disparity between her as a an agent and the scenes in which her presence was imaginary (as opposed to unreal) tells us something about Arthur, even if it tells us nothing about the narrative.

When it comes to Penny, perhaps it doesn't matter so much to Arthur whether she had her own complicated reality of pain and powerlessness. In the moment where Arthur killed her, he was simply reclaiming a kind of power he never had. Arthur has no social means to power, so he resorts to presocial means, or really just only ever one, which is murder. And not just any kind of murder, not the kind of violence of slowly strangling someone, or beating someone into a pulp until they pass away as a combination of factors such as lung failure, neural trauma, and internal bleeding, but the kind of violence with a huge power differential where the moment he decides someone dies, they're already dead, a wish spoken to remove someone from this world that one immediately grants oneself. A terminally ill woman can't defend herself against smothering, and even an able-bodied adult man stands no chance in the second between the revolver being unholstered and being shot in the head.

Hypnotising, really. In particular that moment where the third businessman who was first harassing a woman on the train and then beating Arthur up is now slowly limping away as Arthur casually follows him, you can see every aspect of his fear, the sheer realisation that the social dominion he enjoys means nothing when faced with a cartridge of sufficient caliber.

I feel that this is significant somehow, the fact that Arthur is both traumatised into being unable to parse the very intricate and individual drives of the people surrounding him, and the fact that he recognises that this is happening to him, constantly, and acts very purposefully to circumvent it through means which in turn allow no resistance in any sense whatsoever. All of this can, of course, be attributed to trauma as an aspect of the character study of the film, and for this reason I believe that the scenes-that-couldn't-possibly-have-happened and the very real violence he enacts are part of one and the same network of themes.

The fact that for most of the film Arthur is simultaneously treated by the narrative as the one person with humanity (but having this unrecognised by society) but Wayne and everyone else is portrayed as not possessing it (but at the very least conditionally having some of it bestowed upon them by those around them) is an important part of this conceit.

The inherent hypocrisy of Arthur’s character as maligned but having no qualm with truncating the subjectivities around him shows us both that the way he views things is disturbed and that he is legitimately cut off from others, that he genuinely cannot conceive of why he should not act as he does, but the harm he does is real. It’s obvious that we know Arthur did not have any choice in becoming the kind of person he ended up being, but also that he's not in particular a 'good person', if that means anything at all. One could possibly draw parallels to Brad in LISA: The Painful RPG, but to anyone who has played that game I shouldn't have to explicitly draw the links.

Furthermore, this baseline of the ineluctable unpleasantness of Arthur's character helps us differentiate between the parts of the film where he can meaningfully choose what to do, actions he undertakes without the force majeure of trauma and mental illness making any other options not even appear in his head. From here we could possibly draw a parallel to the utter meaninglessness of Alex’ actions in A Clockwork Orange post-Ludivico, a film in which this particular theme is much more explicit, although there’s a contrast of the ability to be compassionate being truncated as opposed to the ability to be cruel.

(To be clear, I'm working with the framework of "what could you reasonably expect from someone who has had their psyche malformed like that?" whether it is the lack of 'good' deeds from Arthur or the lack of 'evil' deeds from Alex as opposed to a blanket condemnation/sanctification of character.)

This is where directorial fiat starts meaning anything, or from a more in-universe perspective, what little agency Arthur himself has left— Watsonian or Doylist analysis, who gives a shit, you know what I mean.

There are a couple actions Arthur took that were completely unwarranted, which were neither reactions to imminent threats or reactions to people who had wronged him in the past. In particular, I am referring here to him sexually assaulting his neighbor — even if not a real scene within the narrative, it still tells us something about Arthur as within the aforementioned parameters — and later the woman on TV.

Were he not to have taken those actions, a meaningful moral judgement — a positive one but in particularly the negative ones — could not possibly have been ascribed to him, because all of his actions could have been conceivably reduced to simple learned traumatic behaviors and reactions to impending harm. The story of Arthur could have been one of a gun cocked by SOCIETY and then exploding in its own face.

However, since not all of his actions can be placed within this framework, we can say something about Arthur for certain that I don't feel we could unequivocally have before: He is not the hero of this story. There are actions of his to which morality meaningfully applies, and in a negative light— as opposed to not being a bad person, the 'not' here referring to the futility of trying to ascribe morality to the actions of those who have certain faculties truncated from their psyche. But why opt for this in the script?

If Arthur could possibly have had all of his actions justified or at least hypothetically justifiable, he would have been the hero of the story. And 'the hero of the story' implies 'story', it implies 'narrative', it would have meant a regression to the narrative structure that the film explicitly seemed to be avoiding, at least most of the time. Joker (2019) wouldn't have been a character study, it would've regressed to a relatively standard narrative with an antihero. Thus, I think it makes sense to insert these actions as a diversion of the baseline of things which could really not have been any different in any categorical way (the killings in self-defense, general acts of revenge, the general insensitivity to the humanity of all others).

All of this is very complicated and challenging, perhaps in particular to those who aren't familiar with the larger lines of the subjectivity that is Arthur: One of a kind of mental illness that not even provisional accommodation exists for, particular economic dependence and destitution, and a general sense of being cut off from the world soul or whatever metaphysical metaphor you would like to use.

(The reason I want to use a metaphysical metaphor is because the longer you are both stuck in and at odds with society, the more everything that happens feels like a presocial fact, something that is intrinsic to you, rather than something that is occuring for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with you. One could choose to draw a distinction between saying that all of it is absurd, that the very construction of value in a Marxist sense creates an impersonal system of domination upon us all, or that the reason why things are as they are is the result of the enforced interests of certain blocs, but this doesn't really matter here. The fact that this reality is rapidly occluded from those who are subjugated to it remains, and that education to circumvent this occlusion and being reminded of what one knows by oneself and others is necessary to not keep returning to a mindset where one feels like something is intrinsically wrong with oneself rather than with society or whatever.)

All art produced by humans, even mass-produced art, is the result of the labor of those who even if they have no particular personal creative input, still levy the aspects of the contexts they are embedded in within the film. No film about a truly alien universe is possible, if it were, it would intrinsically not be possible for humans to conceive of and portray on any medium. Thus we have to conclude that this film, too, says something about perhaps all of us, and those around us.

This is very difficult. The morality of the film is so contradictory as to be completely reprehensible to anyone with any worldview at all, and trying to view it as a character study protects us from being impacted by it. It's a film about Arthur, after all, not us, a twisted person who does not deserve our sympathy. This contradiction doesn’t matter if we abstract Arthur away from ourselves.

I would call this cowardice, or at least, a kind of fear. There is a difference between consuming art from a critical, analytic distance, and really engaging with it. This is of course scary to most people, and I think many of us, even or perhaps especially those who claim to be hardcore critics and analytics are often unwilling to do this. After all, if we really open our minds and hearts to the art we interact with, we don't know how we will end up on the other side.

Will we come to question our preconceptions about who deserves sympathy? Does anyone, even, does the concept retain meaning in a world in which we are all traumatised? Does everyone, perhaps, which may be much scarier to some of us? Why do people behave in the way they do? It would be so easy to assume that the people we hate are behaving either irrationally or from a position of malice, and the idea that everyone has reasons to do what they're doing is a difficult one when we have been hurt by others.

There are a lot of questions like these that pop up when we truly take art for what it is, and I think most of us just can't be bothered. Certainly I couldn't while watching this film, or immediately after it.

This is why I think why a lot of both professional critics and more casual consumers seem to have trouble taking this film in. As a narrative, this film is obnoxious, frustrating, incoherent. As a character study, however, it is still painful, but if you dare to see it that way, you will get way more out of the film than you otherwise would. However, I feel even this is still a layer of abstraction too far removed from the meaning that the film could potentially confer upon us, but it’s one that people seem to be consistently refusing, judging by the state of discourse surrounding this film.

There are certain areas where analysis and ideology fail, or even if they succeed at a totalising idea of how to organise communities and lives, they don't suffice to let us truly perceive ourselves and others. There are certain things that can only be conveyed through art in this way, and at times, even the methodical structures surrounding art can prevent us from getting out of it what we can from nowhere else.

If Joker (2019) fails at any point, I would say it fails here, the parts where it fails to commit to disemphasising the narrative, where they return to the frame of a monomyth with an antihero, where it pulls punches about Arthur and why he does what he does, where it is altogether too subtle about the fact that there are more commonalities between Arthur and everyone else in the film than there are differences. Its cowardice makes it too easy for its audience to, in turn, also hide and scurry away from feeling what they could potentially feel, from having their psyches touched in a particular way.

There is, however, an artist whose work I feel consistently successfully eschews structures and their intrinsic problems, and whose art is extremely impactful as a result.

Play Vesp, by Porpentine.

[theoracleparadox]

2, 18, 19, and 20! For the Mun Ask meme!

This got long. 

2. Tell us about the first fandom you roleplayed in. Are you still part of it or have you moved onto others?

It was over twelve years ago on Neopets. I was obsessed with the X-men. At first, I tried RPing specifically with the Evolution series, but it had ended a few years before that, and the fan base was never that big for the show. So then I moved on to the movies, because everyone knew the movies. Then I moved onto the comics because that’s what the “true fans” were into. But those fans were also elitist, and if you didn’t know something or agree with them, you were terrible. 

Then I was introduced to Kingdom Hearts eleven years ago, and ditched Marvel comics completely. 

18. What’s the one thing you want to try the most on your blog?

I keep forgetting that, I think. I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about Final Fantasy XV. Andromeda was created partly as a something else to play with when I’m not focused on my other OC, but she’s also a response to the canon. The canon does a lot more than you think, when you think about it. 

Kingsglaive was mostly about the action, but it hit on some real world points of immigration and xenophobia. The film only depicts the Japanese perspective on the issues, whereas I come from a very American perspective, and immigration is a bigger issue in America. Lucians are Japanese, but Galahdians are the “lesser Asians” (i.e., Tibetians, Vietnamese, Laotian, etc). As long as they were joining the Kingsglaive, the Galahdians were allowed to immigrate to Insomnia, but in a few instances of the movie, it was shown that they were not welcome. From a Marxist reading, they were simply used.

The movie doesn’t touch upon illegal immigration, and that is one thing that I wanted to introduce with Andromeda. But she doesn’t come from a “lesser” ethnicity; rather, she comes from a “valued” ethnicity as a Tenebraen (but she can pass as a Lucian). The Tenebrae that we see is very similar to French culture with some elven effects, but I wanted a more Gaulish or Celtic background for Andromeda. In that aspect, she could come from a “lesser” ethnicity among Tenebraens as well. 

On top of all of that, I want Andromeda to be a foil to Lunafreya. Luna represents the divine feminine, but one that is controlled by a male-dominated religion. So of course, she is sacrificed. I’ve read into goddess worship and reclaiming of the divine feminine, and that is something I want to dabble in with Andromeda. 

For a Japanese game, FFXV has a very strong Christian influence behind it. The gods choose a descendant of kings (Jesus was a descendant of King David) to be sacrificed for the good of the people (so they can be forgiven for their sins against the gods). Ardyn is interesting because he’s the failed messiah. He helped the people so much that he was cursed for it. Noctis is shown to be just as helpful and generous to the people, this making him even more messiah-like. 

With that, I want to use Andromeda to introduce a lot of pagan elements to the story. As the Christian elements seem to conclude themselves with Noctis’s death, I want those pagan elements to rise up to the surface. I also want her to be used to defy the gods’ will, which the characters seem to be bound to. 

All in all, down with Bahamut/the Abrahamic God. 

19. Give us a headcanon about your muse that you never shared to anyone else or wanting to explore deeper.

Andromeda can dream walk. If she’s alert while asleep, she can travel to the dreams of other people and communicate with them. Unless the other person is just as alert and knows of this ability, they wouldn’t think much of it. 

At first, this would happen randomly and Andromeda had no way to control who she visited. Over time, she got more control over it. 

20. Is there someone you admire on here?

Literally anyone that puts up with my crap. This question always makes me nervous because it shows favoritism, and that can easily offend someone on this site. 

[veliusthewanderer]

Happy 4th of July...Now Make Sure Your Fallout Shelters Are Up To Date.

Yesterday was the 4th of July. This special day commemorates the day the Declaration of Independence was signed by the Founding Fathers, stating their intention to forge their own identity and defy what was then the greatest power in the world, Great Britain. It commemorates everything this country fought for, achieved. It recalls heroes and heroines from the past, from Molly Pitcher to George Washington, Abraham Lincoln to John Pershing, FDR to Barack Obama. Fireworks, barbeque, pools and family are the mainstays of July 4th celebrations (did I meantion the fireworks?).

In the past, individual heroes were often paraded. In small towns, it was the local law-enforcement and firefighters who would be paraded for the crowds to wave and cheer at. Veterans could also often be brought out to receive the accolades which they are rightly due, having fought for this country in the wars of the recent past. Politics actually DID take a back-seat to patriotism. Aside from Christmas it was the one holiday Democrats and Republicans could actually act civil for. The only unpatriotic people on the 4th were those who truly meant to do this nation harm, i.e. terrorists. But this year all that changed.

In what can be considered the worst political poker game in history, this 4th of July was not about patriotism. It was not about celebrating America. It wasn’t even about the genuine heroes who helped make this country great. It was all about Donald Trump. Having campaigned under the slogan ‘Make America Great Again’, Trump has instead caused worldwide embarassment by embracing dictators while insulting close allies, rounding up immigrant children in concentration camps whose conditions would make Auschwitz look like the Hilton with terrible plumbing (remember the showers with no water, only poison gas?), repealed every Obama-era enviromental regulation because he claims climate change is a Chinese-invented hoax, promoted racism in the country, and most recently declaring a war on women’s uteri in defiance of Roe v Wade. Yet after seeing France’s Bastile Day parade last year, he practically moistened in the crotch to the idea of doing a parade down Pennsylvania Avenue complete with all the military vehicles and hardware we have. He continued to insist that he was making America great “again” while at the same time, in classic poker fashion practically challenging last year’s Bastile Day parade by “seeing their parade, betting all his chips and calling them out to either counter or fold”.

There are only three periods of American history where I would be willing to say that we were not all that great. The first was the Civil War, in which North and South slaughtered each other over States’ Rights and slavery. The second was the day the Stock Market crashed in 1929, bringing on the Great Depression which lasted until FDR brought us out with his New Deal. The most recent time was on September 11th, 2001 when Middle Eastern terrorists associated with Osama Bin Laden struck the World Trade Center and Pentagon, and revealed to the world how vulnerable we became at the end of the Cold War, with no serious rival. But each time, we found a way to rise again and reclaim our greatness and we didn’t need a Trump-type politician to do it. Yet, Trump claims-and many people sadly believe-that only with him will America achieve the greatness that we’ve fallen short of (due to having a black president, as is very clear even if he doesn’t actually say so). Our greatness is because we have the ability to recover from any setback no matter how terrible it has gotten. We fought a civil war to end slavery. We fought two world wars to protect and preserve liberty and democracy. We’ve put men on the Moon....

At this point you are likely wondering why the title suggests you make sure your fallout shelter is up to date. Simply put, yesterday’s unnecessary and expensive military parade was more than just Trump trying to outdo the French in showmanship. Consider the fact that he’s again met with Kim Jung-Un of North Korea, Vladimir Putin of Russia, Xi Jinping of China, and other dictators, recently ratcheted up tension with Iran, and even involved himself in the turbulent British politics post-May. The military parade was more than just ego stroking at its most perverse and disgusting. It was a clear shout to the rest of the world that unless and until he’s voted out of office (or impeached), he’s either going to get what he wants, or the full military might of America would be brought down like Thor’s Hammer on those unlucky enough to defy him. I hope everyone enjoyed the barbeque, swimming pools and fireworks because I suspect that this will be the last July 4th we ever celebrate because we will either be invaded and conquered by the numerous allies Trump has offended, or the Iranians will finally unleash nuclear Hell on all of us as revenge for Trump’s rhetoric.

[sinrau]

People pouring into the streets, in city after city. A wave of protest sweeping a broken, wracked society. Defying a demagogue. Standing against centuries of racism and decades of brutality.

The sudden feeling that maybe, this time, things really can be different.

I don’t know if it’s too early yet to begin speaking of the American Spring. You’ve heard of the Arab Spring, I’m sure. Maybe America’s on the cusp of a moment like that: a tidal wave of people power that attempts to reclaim democracy from failed elites, autocrats, and extremists, and build a functioning, modern society instead.

Of course, the dark twist in the tale is that the Arab Spring ultimately failed, backfiring into the same old authoritarianism as before.

What about the American Spring? What chance does it really have of succeeding? Can America finally build a civilized, modern society, like Canada or Europe — or is it this just a blip on a longer trajectory of collapse?

I am an economist. I think that economics hold the key to the destinies of societies. And so I think the best way to answer that question is to examine the nascent economic call — which means much more than it suggests — to “defund the police.” What does that idea really mean?

From an economic point of view, “defund the police” means something like this. America invested in all the stuff you might expect from a society of people who genuinely hated each other, and feared the world, too. Police forces becoming paramilitaries. Advanced training in brutality and interrogation and military tactics and all the rest of it.

But meanwhile, everything else was massively underinvested in — things which actually improved the quality of people’s lives, from healthcare to education to transport to retirement. As a result, Americans now enjoy a standard of living more comparable to a poor country than a rich one.

According to that story, then, all that we have to do is what economists call “substitute”: take overinvestment from the police (and all the other stuff which doesn’t yield improved lives, whether guns, bombs, and so forth), and put it towards the better stuff, which genuinely improves people’s lives, like healthcare and transport and retirement.

We take money from one pot, and we put it into the other. And — presto — we fix society!!

That’s a nice story. It’s one that everyone can get behind — even the well-meaning white liberal. Because in the end, it’s easy. Unfortunately, it’s also not true.

It’s not going to be so easy to fix America. Taking money from one pot — police, brutality, repression violence — and putting it into the other pot — true public goods which benefit everyone — isn’t going to be enough to do the job.

That is the wrinkle.

How do I know?

Because America has a deeply misshapen economy. In genuinely modern, functioning, civilized societies — like Europe and Canada — the economy is about half private, and half public. That means: a full half of it’s spent on the expansive public goods those societies are famous around the globe for, like good healthcare, education, retirement, and so on.

In America, though, 75% of the economy’s private, and 25% is public. Just about a quarter of the economy is spent on public goods. That includes policing and guns and whatnot, the stuff of repression.

Do you see the conclusion yet? America has to double how much it spends on public goods to become a functioning, modern society.

It can’t just take money from one pot and put it in the other. The pot is far, far too small to begin with.

Why does America spend so much less on public goods than everyone else in the rich world?

That is the deep, jagged scar of slavery and segregation. In the 50s and 60s, while the rest of the rich world was beginning to build expansive social systems, America was still segregated — and fighting to stay that way. By the 70s, when segregation was finally lifted, Europe and Canada had already built world-class systems of public goods. In the 80s, Europe and Canada made these systems the most advanced, sophisticated institution human beings have ever created — but America had the Reaganite counter-revolution against the civil rights gains of the 1970s, in which whites said, effectively, “I won’t pay for their healthcare and education! Those dirty, lazy, filthy people aren’t like us!!��

Racism is what made America a society with a misshapen economy, bereft of public goods for all. And that, ultimately, hurt the white American too, because today, it’s his life expectancy and income falling fastest without decent healthcare or a pension.

If you understand all that, then for the American Spring to succeed — to really transform American into a functioning, modern society like Canada or Europe — something needs to happen that has never happened before in American history.

White Americans need to agree to invest more — much more — in everyone else.

We economists rely on something call “revealed preference.” That means: talk is cheap. Actions are hard.

I think it’s wonderful that so many white Americans have joined the protests. And yet it’s easy to march, tweet, hold up a sign. The hard part? When it comes to actually putting your money where your mouth is. When somebody comes to you and says: “Listen. Will you really spend this much more so that everyone has healthcare, education, retirement?”

“Defunding the police” is relatively easy. We can all agree what not to spend money on. There’s more to go around for all of us, then. What’s really hard for a society — and where most fail — is to agree what to spend money on. Especially more of it. Because that calls for a certain level of wisdom and courage and goodness. I have to say: “OK, I agree to have less income, so that we all have healthcare, retirement, pensions, and so on. No matter the color of our skins.”

I highlight that because it’s the test Americans failed in the 80s, 90s, 00s, and 10s.

They’ve failed this test over and over again, for decades.

Even the well-meaning white liberal has nice political beliefs — everyone’s equal, everyone’s a human being, and so forth. But when it comes time to put his money into systems like that — he votes against it. And conservatives? Lol.

That’s why Americans, when asked blind, want to be a society like Canada. But when whites — even good ones — are asked to invest in blacks and browns — they never have, and still don’t, to this very day.

That’s why America’s public investment level is just half of what it takes to build a truly modern, functioning society — because white people say the right things, and then refuse, flatly, to invest in anyone or anything else. They might talk a good game, but for the last few decades, they have wanted to keep all society’s gains for themselves.

Since the end of civil rights, America has made no economic progress whatsoever towards having a functioning, civilized society of expansive public goods for all.

For the white American, the game went like this. “Oh, so you can drink at my water fountain? Go to my school? Visit my park? I see. I’ll tell you what. Then we won’t have any.”

White America voted over and over again against public goods as a way to not to have share any kind of collective resources with browns and blacks. The result was that today, even white Americans don’t have those collective resources, like good healthcare, schools, pensions.

Meanwhile, Europe and Canada do, precisely because they weren’t home to this kind of vicious backlash from whites against everyone else over the last few decades.

America has never built a functioning, modern society. Never. This is its chance. Maybe this is its last chance.

And so that chance should be thought about clearly. It’s not as simple as “defunding” things to “fund” others. The total pot of money America funds collective goods with isn’t large enough to produce a functioning society yet. That is because whites, over the last few decades, have not put enough into that pot.

The challenge is whether they will this time. Or, like the 80s, they will say that they support a more equal, free, and just society — but when it comes to actually invest in it, they’ll politely look the other way, not put any money into the pot, and hope no one notices.

You can’t build a functioning society that way. Everyone has to contribute — not just in cultural terms, or social ones, but in economics ones. White people may be becoming socially more liberal — and that’s nice. But if they are still economically ultra-conservative, the American Spring will fail.

The American Spring holds great promise. American can and should become a functioning modern society, like Canada or Europe. It shouldn’t be the kind of broken, devastated place it is now — one where a vacuum of optimism and competence paves the way for a demagogue like Trump, to inspire an army of American Idiots to be as hateful and ignorant as ever before.

But the American Spring is not going to be as easy as many are being led to think. It’s not just about what we “defund” and then “fund”, but also, more crucially, how much Americans — especially white ones — are willing to invest in each other. Right now, that number is far, far too low. It has to double, over time. Is America up to that challenge? Are white Americans, especially, capable of putting their hard cash where their polite and well-meaning sentiments are? Or will they say the right thing — and do the same old one, all over again, which is to talk about freedom and equality and justice for all, and then starve society of the cold, hard cash it needs to actually have it?

I don’t know. You tell me.

Umair June 2020

[globalsource-blog]

The Taiwan Correspondent - Episode 1

It’s been a while since I’ve written a piece on here about my travels. Since moving to Taiwan I’ve been busy to say the least, but the time is now, and here I present to anyone who cares to read it my attempt to distil into writing some sense of what I’ve been up to in my first two months on this Illa Formosa.  

I arrived here, by way of Dubai, on the evening of the 31st of August. When I’d reclaimed my bags and passed through immigration without having to present any of the many documents, photocopies and extra passport photographs which I’d brought like magic charms to ward off evil spirits, I caught the airport train into the city of Taipei. I was headed to a hostel right by the main train station, which was a welcome thought as my bags were weighed down with books, my tent, sleeping bag and camp stove… I’d had a hard time deciding what to bring, and in the end decided on pretty much everything, stopping short of a skateboard. I caught the train at just the right time to watch the last half hour of golden daylight washing over hillsides whose wooded slopes were interspersed with small brick buildings, the occasional temple and gradually more and more concrete as we came closer to Taipei. On arrival, I shouldered my bags and set out to find my hostel.

Unfortunately, the universe had decided that I should first make a brief tour of the neighbourhood with the help of an energetic man who spoke bad English, worse Chinese and claimed to be called Henry. He also claimed to be from Portsmouth despite his strong and distinctly non-English accent, and was evasive when I asked what he was doing in Taipei. Anyway, he was keen to help me find my hostel, and proceeded to do exactly the opposite by leading me in every possible wrong direction, bags and all, in the heat of the Taiwanese evening (around 30 Celsius at the time). Eventually he seemed to lose interest, and with a vigorous handshake, passed me off onto a pair of local girls, insisting that they help me. Bemused and a little relieved, I was not unhappy to see that strange and enigmatic individual stride away into the night. Free to make my own way, I soon came to the hostel, passing by at least five convenience stores, a temple (Taipei’s streets are home to many Taoist and Buddhist places of worship) and many of the small, family-run restaurants open to the street which are characteristic of Asian cities. I had booked into Flip Flop Main Station Hostel, whose slightly strange name, according to their website, reflects the “flip flop philosophy”, which seems to have something to do with a laid-back travelling mentality and also their no-shoes-inside policy. In all honesty I could take or leave the philosophy, what I required was a cold shower and a bed, and after checking in I took full enjoyment in both. After hours of breathing recycled cabin air, trying to escape the Duty Free maze in Dubai and tramping around Taipei like an overladen pack mule, I was ready for a long sleep.  

I’d discussed doing a work-exchange program with the hostel management in the weeks prior, with the aim of earning free accommodation in return for some kind of work on my part. I’d billed myself as a kind of human Swiss-army knife – translator, artist, vegan chef, blogger – casting a net wide enough to hopefully catch myself a job and save some money on rent. I managed it, but not quite how I’d imagined… I was signed up as night receptionist at Main Station’s nearby sister hostel Flip Flop Garden, working 10pm ‘til 4am, three times a week, keeping the place ticking over by checking in guests, giving out towels and sending booking confirmation emails, to name only the most exciting aspects of my new profession. Nothing beats free stuff, though, and even if it was just for the first couple of months (I’ve since arranged to only do one shift a week), I wanted to save some money to set aside for travels during the rest of the year. I’d decided against living in university accommodation because I didn’t want to live surrounded by other foreign students, speaking English all the time and inhabiting a self-imposed bubble. I have no regrets about this choice; even despite my slightly vampire-like schedule, I get to practice speaking and listening to Mandarin every day with the other staff here, and being the only staff member on shift at night means often having to use my Chinese under pressure.      `

With my accommodation sorted, next on the agenda was exploring Taipei, and getting set up at National Taiwan University, my academic home for the coming year. The first of these was a lot of fun; I spent the first few weeks wandering all around the city whenever I got chance, walking the streets and exploring different neighbourhoods on the public rental bikes. I’ll write more about Taipei itself in another post, as it deserves more than a quick mention to do it justice. However, suffice it to say that it is a thoroughly modern, well-ordered and bustling metropolis, occupying a natural depression in the landscape, meaning it is surrounded by lush, tree-covered hills. One of these in particular became a frequent spot for me to visit in the evenings; with an incredible night-time view over the city’s skyline, close to the one-time tallest building on the planet, Taipei 101, Elephant Mountain is popular with both tourists and locals. While the view isn’t quite as breathtaking as that from Victoria Peak above Hong Kong, it’s still a beautiful cityscape and helped me to build a mental map of Taipei.

As much as I’d have liked to come to Taiwan with nothing to do but take photos, eat dumplings and explore, I had also come to learn Chinese, and after several months off from my studies I was ready to jump in to whatever NTU had to offer. I first went to the campus a few days after I arrived, and was thoroughly impressed by my first sight of it. The day was hot and the air shimmered as I walked through the gates and down the main boulevard, lined with the tallest, straightest palm trees I’ve ever seen. Like seriously, forget those near-horizontal ones you see on holiday brochures, these things look like they’re on military parade. This broad avenue (imaginatively named Palm Boulevard) led straight to the main library, with red-brick faculty buildings off to either side. I was one of the few people walking around campus; since the site is so big (about twenty minutes from end to end), most students and staff get around on two wheels, and with over 30,000 students, that makes for a lot of bikes. My intention had been to not only to check out the campus but to get ahead of the game by completing my registration early. No dice. When I finally managed to find the right office in the right building, my presence caused chaos for a good fifteen minutes while several members of staff talked agitatedly into telephones and everyone appeared thoroughly confused. A consensus eventually emerged from the voices at the end of the phones: I was a week early, I must register on the same day as everyone else, and there was nothing to be done. So much for my attempt to sidestep the honoured Chinese tradition of bureaucracy which had first been exported to Taiwan back in the Qing dynasty.  

I won’t go further into the details of registration, class timetables and textbook purchases, as I would like to keep the attention of those readers who have somehow made it this far into this piece. Suffice it to say that all the right forms were filled, all my paperwork checked out, and I even managed to somehow navigate the incomprehensible online student system to download my timetable. Ten hours a week of Chinese class, with no English spoken in the classroom and around twenty new characters to memorise before each class… my wish to return to some serious Chinese study was well and truly granted, no two ways about it. Between the workload and my duties at the hostel, I haven’t been free to do as I liked; to simply take off into the unknown and get acquainted with the furthest corners of Taiwan, whether on two wheels or by thumbing lifts (a Czech friend managed to make the tour of the island by hitchhiking only a few weeks after arriving), and this has admittedly been a little frustrating, not to mention my confused body clock and occasional need to sleep for 6 hours in the library after an 8am class (thankfully this does not seem to bother anyone in the slightest.

However, it hasn’t all been late check-ins and vocab tests; I’ve made the most of being in Taipei, and you don’t have to go far to experience something incredible. One of the highlights so far has to be the Pingxi sky lantern festival, where I stood with a damp crowd in the rain and watched hundreds of giant sky lanterns defy the elements to fly majestically up and away into the sky, a genuinely uplifting sight which took me a little by surprise. A couple of weeks ago I also took the train out to a village in the mountains to the East to go swimming with some friends at a beautiful waterfall – I will be heading back for sure. After buying a decent road bike a couple of weeks in, riding through the parkland along the banks of the Keelung River has also been a pleasure, and I’m signed up to do some serious cycling with the staff team from the shop where I got my new wheels. Maybe the single biggest factor that has made my recent low-key lifestyle much more enjoyable is the amazing food that I’ve been eating, but here again I need to defer to a later post… there’s no way I can describe the wonders I’ve eaten without the attention they deserve.

Anyway, I hope this post has gone some way to illuminating what the past couple of months have been like for me. I have been busy, I have been deeply immersed in a foreign language daily, and I have eaten a lot of 7-11 noodles (actually surprisingly good). It hasn’t exactly been a highlight reel of Tripadvisor’s highest rated tourist hotspots, but my goal in coming here was and is first and foremost to come out of this year having genuinely experienced life in Taiwan, not to treat it as a year-long opportunity to take the same photos in the same places as every other exchange student. To that end, working in the hostel has been a real success, not necessarily a lot of fun but with the constant practice combined with my studies, I have already seen my fluency in Mandarin develop dramatically. Besides that, these two months of rent-free living have let me save a decent chunk of money, and equipped with tips and recommendations from friends as well as a whole lot more free time, come November, I will appreciate my newfound freedom.

I will be trying to keep on top of these posts a lot more in the coming months, so they won’t be quite so long – I’ll probably write them each with a focus on a particular topic rather than long-winded retrospectives like this one. I hope that anyone who’s still reading has enjoyed this post, and look out for the new Global Source website launching soon!

H 

[antepenultimatefantasy]

FFXII Zodiac Age Playthrough Part 12

The Tower of Furries

-With Reddas in tow, it seemed like a good time to take on extra-strong side monsters.

-If you haven't noticed, I'm somewhat of a completionist (sorry these last updates are taking so long. So many sidequests!!)

-The first of these is the Esper Chaos, who is found in Nabudus. To get to him the team has to fight two other bosses first: Humbaba Mistant and Fury.

-Humbaba Mistant is a giant scary monster with a huge sword and Fury is...a cute little bunny.

-Not joking.

-But like think of the bunny from Monty Python and that's more what it's like.

-Chaos itself is a wind Esper, and is pretty nasty, like everything else in this place.

-The team also ventures deep into the great crystal of Giruvegan, which is impossible to navigate, to find an Esper named Ultima.

-The baddest bitch of them all.

-She's a fallen angel and is basically awesome. She led the rebellion against the gods that resulted in all of the game's obtainable Espers being banished from the heavens.

-After all of that (and some hunts), the team finally ventures to The Ridorana Cataract, a solitary island with a huge beautiful tower.

-It's on the edge of the world, surrounded on one side with water and on the other, waterfalls flowing into an infinite void.

-So...is Ivalice a flat Earth situation?

-Checkmate, Neil Degrasse Tyson.

-They arrive and Ashe is still equivocating on what she is going to do.

-Reddas says that if she chooses the blow-everything-up route, then it'll really suck for her.

-Before they set out, Balthier tells Vaan that if anything happens to him, Vaan gets the airship.

-Aww.

-At the foot of the Pharos entrance, the team has to square off against a zombie dragon.

-It's pretty gross.

-Luckily, after defeating it, its ashes just blow away.

-Next to the door, there is an engraving written by Raithwell. Ashe is shocked.

-Fran reminds her that the Occuria gave him a blade to cut the nethicite, so he must have left this engraving for her knowing that it would have to happen again.  

-It's very cryptic and says that there are a lot of illusions, but that she should cut the true path.

-I guess that means by just walking up to the door? Because that's all she has to do to open it.

-Inside is a great open tower room with an upward waterfall. A sign indicates that the monsters here carry black orbs, which the team has to collect to dispel seals on doors and ascend.

-After opening the first door, the team is teleported to a darker version of the Sandsea, yet the map still says they're in the Pharos.

-In this inter-dimensional desert is a very angry turtle named Pandaemonium.

-What did you expect with a name like that?

-After defeating it, it runs into a wall and dies.

-Aw, that was kinda sad.

-The illusion fades away back into the Pharos and the magic binding the waystone at the entrance is broken.

-Taking the waystone teleports the team up to the tenth floor. No awkward elevator music for team Dyanst-Queen!

-On this level, the team has to defeat green-flame head statues to open up paths while avoiding red-flames.

-Higher up, they enter another illusion room, this one similar to the Ozmone Plain.

-This one has an angry fish named Slyt.

-Who named these guardians?

-Again, after defeating it, the illusion fades and the team proceeds to the second ascent on the 60th floor!

-Calves for dayz with all of these stairs.

-In the second ascent, the team must choose to relinquish attacking, magic, items, or a map to proceed.

-Items? I don't know her.

-In the illusion room near the end of the second ascent, the team encounters an angry muscle tiger person named Fenrir.

-Furry boss.

-The illusion is reminiscent of Mt. Bur-Omisace.

-After defeating him, the team gets their items back, and proceeds to the third ascent.

-Which is a color-coded teleporting puzzle.

-When they complete it and take the elevator up two levels, they get stopped by a muscly lion dude with crazy arm things.

-Furry boss v 2.0

-OMG he has a move called Roxxor. Emo furry confirmed.

-Turns out he's an Esper named Hashmal.

-Continuing on after the battle, Fran says that they're getting close.

-Penelo wonders if Ashe will choose to take revenge on the empire, and says she understands if she does. They've all lost important people.

-She says that sometimes she can see her loved ones so clearly.

-Reddas says that they are illusions that everyone experiences and wonders if Ashe will cut the true path, like the entrance to the Pharos indicated.

-The team makes it to the 100th floor and comes across the sun cryst.

-Ashe, holding both legendary swords, talks about how Raithwall last used one to make the shards. Vaan says that she's going to use it to destroy them.

-Obviously Vaan didn't get the memo that this was a monologue.

-She raises the treaty blade, and mist violently gathers at the top of the tower.

-PBT appears, and everyone can see him.

-Ashe says that she cannot exact the revenge that he asks.

-Gabranth appears and goads Ashe by telling her that he killed the king.

-Before he can attack, Reddas intervenes and recounts how he was a judge and destroyed Nabudis, then swore of his judgeship. He says no one can escape their past.

-Gabranth beats Reddas aside and Vaan takes up his sword to attack next, but he and Ashe share a long moment of mutual understanding that revenge won't heal the dead.

-Ashe turns to PBT and says that he's not the real PBT and slashes through the ghost.

-PBT speaks with an Occurian voice saying that she's their saint, and she slashes again saying that she won't be used.

-Reclaim your time!

-She says that Dalmasca never needed the dusk shard before and they don't need it now and that she will destroy the stone.

-Gabranth insists that the dead need to be avenged, but Vaan says that there's no point because they're dead.

-Gabranth then says that she can't defend her kingdom, and Basch says that he'll defend them all.

-Gabranth is very displeased at the mere existence of his twin and a boss fight begins.

-After the team defeats Gabranth (so satisfying), Cid appears and says that Gabranth is released from his service for betraying Larsa.

-Gabranth tries to attack Cid, but is thrown back by Venat.

-Cid says a whole lot really quickly about how Ashe is putting fate back in the hands of man by defying the Ocurria, which is good, but she shouldn't destroy the stone because it's so full of mist.

-Then he says that he will use the mist to summon Bahamut and to become like a god himself and fights the party.

-Halfway through the fight, Cid summons an Esper named Famfrit.

-Rude.

-After the battle, Venat appears to block Balthier from Cid. Cid tells him to let Balthier through and that he enjoyed their last six years together.

-Venat disappears, and Balthier asks a dissolving Cid if it was all worth it.

-He says that Balthier should run away as pirates do, then he dies.

-Penelo notices that Fran has collapsed from the mist, and she says that they have to run away and leave her.

-Fran.

-Did you really think everyone would just by like "kbyee"?

-Like, come on.

-Meanwhile Ashe and Vaan attempt to detory the Sun-Cryst, but the mist is blowing too hard.

-Reddas takes the sword and attacks it, blowing it all up in the process.

-There's a great cut scene where the bright light of its destruction can be seen by everyone the team has ever met from Eruyt Village, to Jahara, to Bur-Omisace, to Balfonheim.

-At the end, the team (minus Reddas) is in the Strahl outside the Pharos looking on.

-So we don't get to see Balthier huffing Fran down almost 100 flights of stairs?

-Anyway, some pretty major characters are now gone, and not much is left standing between the team and the final showdown.

-That's it for this section!

Quotes

Ashe: "Should I choose revenge, what then? Reddas: "Then your woe shall be your own."

Balthier: "I am the leading man. I need to do something heroic."

Penelo: "It's hard losing someone you care about." Vaan: "Something we've all got in common."

Vaan: "But you're going to use the sword to destory the Sun-Cryst. Aren't you, Ashe." Ashe: "Don't interrupt me, Vaan."

Ashe: "Rasler. My Prince. Our time was short. Yet I know this: You were not the kind to take base revenge!"

Gabranth: "The dead demand justice!" Vaan: "You're wrong. What would change?"

Fran: "Hadn't you best be off? That's what a sky pirate does. You fly. Don't you?" Balthier: "I suppose you'd better hang on then. 

[zeroviraluniverse-blog]

Why Roger Federer might not be the best example for fellow players to follow

Visit Now - http://zeroviral.com/why-roger-federer-might-not-be-the-best-example-for-fellow-players-to-follow/

Why Roger Federer might not be the best example for fellow players to follow

Roger Federer’s loss to Juan Martin del Potro in the final of the BNP Paribas Open last Sunday, in which he squandered three match points, was a reminder that, appearances to the contrary, the world No. 1 is actually mortal. But even though the match ended with a rare loss for Federer (his first of the year) the two-week tournament in Indian Wells, California, mainly served to underscore a key point about the biology defying renaissance that the 36-year-old is enjoying: When it comes to durability, it turns out he is pretty much unique.

While Federer was making a second consecutive run to the Indian Wells final, Novak Djokovic lasted just one round in the California desert, losing his opener to qualifier Taro Daniel 7-6 (7), 4-6, 6-1. If Federer’s loss to del Potro was heartbreaking, Djokovic’s loss to Daniel was just ugly and baffling. By the end, the 12-time major winner could barely keep the ball between the lines.

The Laver Cup was a hit last year, and now Roger Federer is hoping it proves popular on U.S. soil.

Juan Martin del Potro rallied from three match points down in the third set and beat top-ranked Roger Federer 6-4, 6-7 (8), 7-6 (2) to win the BNP Paribas Open, handing the Swiss superstar his first loss of the year.

A gentle giant? Pfft. Juan Martin del Potro showed he might be the heavyweight champ of the tennis universe with a smash-mouth win against Roger Federer in the final of Indian Wells.

2 Related

It was Djokovic’s first appearance since the Australian Open, which in turn was his first tournament back from an elbow injury that forced him to cut short his 2017 season by five months. Djokovic made it to the fourth round in Melbourne. To state the obvious, Indian Wells was not a step forward. He is now playing the Miami Open, where he will face either Mischa Zverev or Benoit Paire.

Perhaps Florida is where he will finally recapture his form, but based on what we’ve seen so far, time off has not done for Djokovic what it did for Federer.

Federer, as you no doubt recall, was forced to sit out the second half of the 2016 season on account of a knee injury. The hiatus gave him time to heal and rest, and also to retool his backhand. The time off paid instant dividends when he returned to action and promptly won the 2017 Australian, his first major in five years.

His opponent in the final in Melbourne was his longtime rival and Grand Slam tormentor Rafael Nadal, who was also returning from a prolonged break; he had cut short his 2016 season because of a wrist injury.

The fact that the two most rested players in the men’s draw reached the final in Melbourne did not go unnoticed in the locker room. It suddenly dawned on everyone that time off, whether by choice or out of necessity, could be a really good thing, allowing the body to recover and possibly reviving a flagging career or taking a great one to even greater heights.

Confirmation of this seemed to come when Federer, after winning the Australian, swept Indian Wells and Miami and then divvied up the year’s remaining majors with Nadal, the Spaniard claiming a record 10th French Open and his third US Open. Federer captured a record eighth Wimbledon crown.

While Federer and Nadal were dominating once more, their biggest rivals decided to follow the examples they had set. Djokovic, Andy Murray, Stan Wawrinka and Kei Nishikori all sat out the US Open and missed the entire fall season. All had medical reasons for doing so. Djokovic had the elbow problem, Murray was dealing with a hip injury, Wawrinka needed knee surgery and Nishikori had a torn tendon in his wrist.

All were also at the age when tennis bodies begin to give out. Murray, Djokovic and Wawrinka are all over 30, and Nishikori is in his late 20s. While they were involuntarily sidelined, they no doubt figured that what worked so well for Federer and Nadal would work for them, too.

Roger Federer has played arguably the best tennis of his career since coming back from a knee injury last January. AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill

Not so. Murray ended up having surgery and won’t be back until late spring at the earliest. Wawrinka, after a brief return, is sidelined again because of his knee. Nishikori skipped the Australian to give his wrist more time to strengthen and sat out Indian Wells. So did Nadal, who after his spectacular 2017 is hobbled once again by an injury, this time to his leg, a continuation of the boom-and-bust cycle that has characterized his career.

And then there is Djokovic. It is certainly possible that he will win more majors and get back to No. 1. Despite Djokovic’s baffling performance in Indian Wells, Federer believes he will eventually be back atop the sport. “Look, still such early stages for Novak coming back,” Federer told reporters. “He’s only going to get better from here.”

But it’s worth recalling that Djokovic went into a slump long before his elbow sidelined him. He won the French in 2016, and then lost his game somewhere between Paris and London and has been struggling to find it ever since. And while all sorts of explanations have been offered for his downward spiral, the most obvious one — age — has been ignored or discounted. With players maturing later and sticking around longer, it has become an article of faith that the game’s aging curve has changed, and that 30 is the new 25 or 23 or 20.

The unprecedented success Federer is enjoying in his mid-30s has reinforced this idea. But tennis is tough on the body; the pro game has never been more physically demanding, and it is entirely possible that the years and all those hard yards are catching up with Fed’s top rivals.

What seems undeniable at this point is that Federer is uniquely durable and that he benefitted from time off more than anyone else because he was more durable to begin with. Whether it is his natural elasticity (such loose limbs), his balletic efficiency, his training methods, his judicious scheduling or (more likely) some combination of all these things, Federer is sui generis.

In winning multiple majors after the age of 35 and reclaiming the No. 1 ranking, he has not redefined what’s possible for tennis players; he has only demonstrated what’s possible for Roger Federer, which — as with almost all things Federer — is on a different plane from everyone else.

[worldcupnews2018]

Russell Crowe, Piers Morgan exchange

AUSTRALIA reclaimed the Ashes courtesy of a thumping win in Perth.

The Aussies secured an unassailable Three-Zero sequence lead after defeating England by an innings and 41 runs on the WACA.

Wet climate brought about a prolonged delay on Monday morning however nothing was going to cease Steve Smith’s males working by the Poms’ batting line-up and guaranteeing the urn returned Down Under.

Here are all of the speaking factors from day 5.

ENGLAND REACTS: MERRY F***ING CHRISTMAS

England followers have been left to rue one other Ashes tour gone horribly improper.

After the 5-Zero whitewash suffered in 2013-14, all indicators level in the direction of one other drubbing because the guests now solely have delight to play for.

Aussie icon, actor Russell Crowe, took nice enjoyment of poking enjoyable on the vacationers, prompting a hilarious response from English media character and cricket tragic Piers Morgan.

Past gamers and supporters weighed in on what went improper for England throughout the opening three Tests of the summer season.

Former England captain Michael Vaughan mentioned he hopes all-rounder Ben Stokes is hurting greater than the gamers who took the sphere on the WACA as a result of he allow them to down when he turned concerned in a violent incident on an evening out in Bristol in September.

Stokes was not included within the touring celebration as a result of he was the topic of a police investigation, robbing England of its X-factor.

“I hope that Ben Stokes is watching and I hope he’s hurting more than the team in the dressing room because as soon as Ben Stokes did what he did it was very clear to me he was going to struggle to be in Australia,” Vaughan advised BT Sport.

“I said it straight away that I didn’t think England would have any chance of competing out here without Ben Stokes.”

Joe Root mentioned after play he hopes veterans Alastair Cook, Stuart Broad and Jimmy Anderson are all nonetheless enjoying 12 months from now regardless of Cook and Broad particularly having little or no impression this summer season.

Root wasn’t eager on the thought of wholesale adjustments for the sake of them, saying the group will likely be making an attempt to bounce again within the ultimate two Tests of the sequence.

But England nice Kevin Pietersen mentioned his former aspect wants to make use of the outcome as a motive to blood new expertise.

PITCH DEBACLE CAUSES CHAOS

There was uproar earlier than play even received underway on day 5 as a mishap with the covers noticed a number of moist patches seem on the WACA pitch.

The floor employees in Perth was criticised for failing to guard the deck from the weather and there was a real worry the circumstances can be deemed too harmful and the match would finish in a draw with out a ball being bowled on Monday.

The WACA curator and his group went to excessive lengths to dry the pitch, utilizing leaf blowers on the moist patches.

Steve Smith mentioned it was a “shame” for the match to be marred by one thing that shouldn’t occur at worldwide stage.

“It was a shame that some water was able to get through the covers in the first place in an international venue,” he mentioned in his post-game press convention.

“I really feel the umpires made the precise name to get us again on and play the sport.

“The complete factor nearly dried out and it was exhausting and so they deemed it match to play and I supported their determination.”

Joe Root was seen shaking his head after speaking to the umpires within the morning however later mentioned they did a very good job in coping with the weird scenario.

“The pitch from those spots didn’t misbehave or become dangerous,” he mentioned.

“When we got here this morning it definitely wasn’t fit to play. It obviously dried up as the sun got to it and the wind got to it … and I think by the end there it was probably fit to play.”

England legend Geoffrey Boycott mentioned the bottom employees had “c**ked it up” and made a “big, big error” and former spinner Graeme Swann mentioned the visiting camp was livid.

“They’re not happy at all,” Swann advised BT Sport.

Ex-Aussie captain Ricky Ponting known as it “farcical” and former Australian wicketkeeper Adam Gilchrist had some sympathy for the vacationers after talking to an upset Root.

“I know he is a little bit disappointed that the umpires have said it’s fit to play,” Gilchrist advised BT Sport. “They’re already dealing with this crack now they’re dealing with this moisture in the wicket that should not be there — it’s a Test match cricket venue.”

SMITH FUMES AFTER CONTROVERSIAL SNUB

Moeen Ali got here to the crease within the second over of the day after Josh Hazlewood bowled Jonny Bairstow along with his first supply of the afternoon. Ali hit his second ball for 4 however two balls later he edged Hazlewood to Steve Smith at second slip.

The ball bobbled up and Smith caught the rebound however the third umpire was known as upon to adjudicate if the Kookaburra hit the turf earlier than it slapped into Smith’s fingers.

The ball appeared to hit Smith’s fingers down low, which prompted it to bounce up, however third umpire Aleem Dar gave it not out as a result of replays seemed — as they normally do — the ball could have bounced up off the grass.

Umpire Marais Erasmus gave a comfortable sign of not out, which means Dar was obliged to assist that call if he couldn’t discover conclusive proof on the contrary.

Smith kicked the grass in frustration when “not out” got here up on the massive display screen and Hazlewood had some phrases for Ali on the finish of the over.

Channel Nine commentators Shane Warne and Mark Taylor each believed Smith caught it, however understood why Dar didn’t give it out as a result of he couldn’t be 100 per cent positive.

“Looking at Steve Smith’s hands, he has them under the ball for me and the ball has bounced up from his fingers into the palm of his hand, right there,” Warne mentioned.

“That ball hasn’t hit the grass. Fingers are beneath the ball.

“I feel everyone watching is aware of it’s out, and the participant is aware of it’s out.”

MALAN SHOWS SOME FIGHT

Dawid Malan backed up his first innings hundred with a half century within the second dig.

He confirmed loads of grit to defy the moist patches and cracks on the WACA deck, scoring 52 earlier than he was unluckily caught down the leg aspect off a Josh Hazlewood bouncer.

That tally, mixed along with his 140 scored on days one and two, means Malan now has the document for many runs by an Englishman in a Perth Test. His 302 runs for the sequence is already greater than any batsman managed on the Poms’ final tour of Australia in 2013-14.

In that 5-Zero whitewash Kevin Pietersen was the most effective with the willow, scoring 296 runs throughout the 5 Tests.

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The Various Projects I’m Procrastinating On

I’m making this list as part of my New Year’s Resolution to get at least one of these done. As organized by medium type because most don’t have any real working title. I’m also putting my reason for it existing because those reasons keep the idea in my brain as something I want to do.

Book - Nonfiction

A writer’s guide to making alien species that would be a collection of essays covering how to combine alien biological/physical design with a culture in a way that makes sense. It would also go into detail on how to make a fictional culture and discuss how to avoid things such as stereotype, coding, appropriation, and colonialist idea holdovers.

Why: I haven’t seen anything about making fictional CULTURES. Most things I’ve seen talks about visual design or at least some into the potential of biological diversity in aliens. After seeing the horrible negative stereotypes used in the Star Wars prequels (Watto = Jewish, the Trade Federation = Japanese businessmen down to the l-r), this is something that needs to be addressed.

Fanfic

The Enterprise helps in the final negotiations for a planet to enter the Federation, but find out that the general populace have grievances about the whole arrangement that have gone unanswered. Part of the problem is that they have a language system that defies the universal translator and its a huge part of their cultural identity. However for them to become a part of the Federation, they need a form of language that is a bit more compatible to make things like trade and general interaction far more reasonable on a larger scale. The people are worried that this will wipe out their cultural heritage because they will be forced to work with the outside with a different language system that migth eventually supercede their current one.

Why: In my Star Trek RP experience, I’ve found that many of the same aliens are used when there’s so much potential to make your own. Also I wanted a situation that dealt with cultural identity and also something that defied the universal translator for once.

Film

The plot is the typical Chosen One story where a girl ends up in a magical kingdom while chasing her father’s kidnappers and finds the remaining members of a resistance force rebelling against a tyrannical leader. She finds out she has magical powers and bla bla bla saves her father. But this would be ENTIRELY from the villain’s point of view (because that plot is so predictable, you don’t need to focus on it to figure it out). It would start from her defeat and go backwards to go into first how she came to be defeated, then how she became a tyrant.

Why: I’ve yet to be completely satisfied with how Hollywood presents villain POV’s because they inevitably cross that line between explaining their actions and excusing those actions. Maleficent came so close to doing that, but the ending ruined it for me. I had the idea for this for over 10 years, but the focus switch came after seeing Maleficent.

Short Film

The story follows a girl whose boyfriend has become super distant since they got back from summer break. He checks out and starts skipping classes until he just goes missing altogether. His close friends have an idea and the girlfriend insists that she comes along because she’s worried. They take her to a magical realm that the boy and the friends had together saved from an evil wizard. However, the boy (who had been basically a leader, prolly a Chosen One plot again) had become disillusioned with his mundane life since returning home and has run away to the magical realm where he’s a hero. The plot of the short film would be trying to convince him to come back and I think I might have him become almost like a villain in his insistance that he stay. I’ll have the girl break up with him even if she saves him because he’s been acting like a major dick and she deserves better than that. 

Why: I want to look at the kind of aftermath of these kinds of stories. I mean, you’re a national hero and people adore you then go back to being just one in a crowd? Like fuck man, that’s got to be a blow to your psyche I think.

Tabletop RPG

At first I wanted this as a Graphic Novel (and the original basis grew out fo an RP group, but it has changed SO MUCH since then), but I think it has more potential as a tabletop game. So the setting is, briefly, a post apocalyptic fantasy where the war between those who can and those who can’t do magic left no winners and just wiped out the landscape. Though the current day has had some time since then so nature is reclaiming its landscape with dots of towns around the place (but not incredibly frequent). Substrate magic is based on common molecules/substances etc. such as water, carbon dioxide, different rocks (or things like iron) and each person can only do one substance. There’s also a rarer grouping that called Energy that can do fire and electricity. Non magic people aren’t completely defensless because nuclear radiation cancels out magic so there’s that.

Why: I just really like the world and there’s so much potential in it that I can’t possibly make a dent in it if I was the only one to play in that sandbox.

TV Series/Web Series

An ode to shows like Star Trek and Firefly that is on the lighter side of things. It follows a military supply (subject to change, but definitely military support and not the flashy flagship that gets to do all the fun stuff) crew on its adventures of being the butt of the joke in the fleet. This is the ship your assigned to when you need experience before going on, or when your superiors don’t like you but you haven’t done anything to court martial you. A reckless and paranoid security officer, a helmsman and science officer who are completely and obviously a married lesbian couple but they have to pretend they’re not because of regulations against relationships, and a doctor who hoards supplies and is never visible because he can’t survive everyone else’s atmospheric conditions, confining him to a giant hazmat suit. Together with a largely unhelpful AI, the captain and first officer have to keep enough order to function. But when the captain has the chance to be promoted onto another ship, will she take it?

Why: This is a project that I brainstormed with @thewinningscenario and it’s a vehicle for all the things we wish in a sci-fi series from little things like universal translator issues, to things like more representation for different sexualities. 

Research Paper

The closest to actual fruition. I used stopwatches to figure out the percentage of applicable Disney movies that the protagonist and their love interest are shown to interact. However I still need to go back now and figure out the percentage that the protagonist does NOT spend with their love interest as my initial numbers gave me interesting results, but I can’t just assume that it’s an inverse relationship (for example, there may be a lot of things with side characters without the protagonist at all). Then after I collect THAT data, I need to actually write the damn thing. Though I need to figure out what editions I did for the original data. I know for Beauty and the Beast it was a copy that had Human Again, but I don’t know if any of the other movies have things like that that would throw off my numbers. 

Why: I wanted to see what the numbers look like. Also because we have this modern idea that it’s better if they spend more time with their love interest before the end because it means that the chemistry can build. But we often forget the flip side that it means that there’s less time spent on them in their own narrative by themselves. But I need the other data set to really be able to make a statement about that. Also for some reason the animal films are outliers in their eras which I was not expecting at all and don’t know what to do with THAT.

So yeah that’s a lot of shit I need to get sorted out. Some have more progress than others of course, but hopefully I shorten this list before I add things to it?