#and it turns out to not align with the statement in the wiki and so the journalist claims that without checking or sourcing and then

[homo-house]

re:hbomberguy, on the topic of citing sources, i want to say:

it is insane how many people on here don't even click the sources op links on their own post to learn more and just hit reblog saying "oh my i didn't know about this thank you for teaching me!". like guys CLICK THE LINK!! CHECK THE NOTES!!! CHECK THE SOURCE!.... i swear half the time the link is dead or takes you to a nonsense page (i see this a lot with art specifically???? and excerpts from magazines??) and some times the linked source disproves a claim the very post that linked it made and people just. don't bother to check, no one bothers to even reblog saying "hey that link is dead! here's a new, working link!" or "hey that link doesn't work, can you link the source again?" and when it comes to misinformation people just share without checking or looking at the notes where numerous people will (in the best case scenario) already be pointing out the misinformation

"OH BUT I CAN'T CHECK EVERYTHING I SEE ON THE INTERNET" there is a surefire way to prevent spreading this kind of stuff even if you don't have the time to fact check immediately. just accept it's fine to save a post for later if you can't look deeper into it right now!!!!! literally just reblog it in private or save the post as a draft so you can come back to it later and check. it won't kill you and in fact it will actually make your life a lot better lol

[a-dumbass-jester]

Oh you know the second I finish the Magnus archives I'm making a crossover with your turn to die

Ok but jokes aside the entity's would have a field day with yttd

THIS WAS MENT TO BE SHORT!!

Also there’s a lot of edits in this sorry

Anyways I would center it around the dummies being avatars because of the whole humanity thing

I put an Entities chart at the bottom for my non Magnus archives mutuals (so most of them)

I already have:

(I'm nowhere near done with tma yet it might change the more Iearn about the entitys)

Ranmaru - Lonely

hayasaka - Eye

Megumi - Corruption

Sara - Slaughter/End

Joe - Desolation

Mai - Hunt/Slaughter

Hinako - Desolation/Buried

Kurumada - Buried

Midori - Flesh

Anzu - Stranger

Ranger - Stranger

Mishima - Vast

A bit of explanation:

- Ramaru would of been taken by the lonely so fast it's actually insane

Even his hair is already white!!

- Hayasaka is PERFECT for the eye

LIKE THAT IS LITERALLY HIM!!

(Second image put so it doesn't take up an entire page)

- I know the corruption is more focused on like bugs, mold, rotting things and maybe toxic or unhealthy love, but Megumi is literally a corrupt police officer in a corrupt system.

also want to see she become as disgusting on the outside as she is on the inside

- I can also see Sara becoming one

For Sara I'm thinking of Angus a lot

Maybe because I like the idea of her being deified by asunaro

But maybe Slaughter or maybe End

She was literally born and raised for the death game

She has the highest survival rate for a reason

Keiji literally says to her “will you be our goddess of victory, or angel of death” (I love that line sm holy shit)

- Tim reminds me a lot of Joe so I’m thinking desolation

WAIT ONG YES DESOLATION

He finds out what killed his father (the police system and maybe asunaro if they set it up) and goes the same route Tim does with the Circus of the other (that killed his brother)

(I also haven’t gotten there yet so I could be wrong, tjis is just what I’ve heard)

- Back to the dummies I can see Mai as slaughter based on how quick she resorted to murder if it ment survival

Now that I say that hunt actually

- I wanna say Hinako desolation because of her fire thing

Maybe buried because of her shovel and that she’s one of the people associated with the coffins

- I'm tjinking of kurumada - buried because of how he died and is another one of the people associated with the coffins

- I see Midori as one but I can't decide witch one yet

I'm thinking of flesh maybe

I can see him useing it to freak people out

Also the cart at the bottom says butchered or twisted which feel very Midori to me

Edit: another reason flesh fits is because it’s also typically the one people like the least 

Because even if you aren’t scared of it it still gets a reaction out of you because it’s rlly disgusting

Like mag 018 “the man upstairs” is a rlly good example of this

Edit: he’s a known liar so maybe web as well

- The spiral and stranger can share Anzu and Ranger

Now that I think about it they both feel more stranger to me

I might be biased because I’m stranger aligned and want my favorite(anzu) to also be stranger aligned

But with their theme of dolls and them being a lot like a not!them. (Taking the place of a dead person)

On the wiki it mentions that the stranger is often associated with preforming/theater and mask to things I’d associate with Anzu and ranger

Edit: I Saïd spiral Anzu because i want to let her be cartoonish, I also love the spiral (I want to kiss Helen and Michael)

- Because I can want to assign Vast to someone I can see Mishima finding beauty in it!

Yes the fact that you don’t mean much in in the big picture is scary but I feel like he’d be able to find beauty in it

Also in Simons statement(witch I haven’t gotten to yet:() he says that he “fell and the sky embraced him” which feel very Mishima to me

Here’s the chart:

Non Magnus archives meowtuals I can go more in depth if you want me too!! :3

[dissociativedaydream]

I'll Come Back to You

Pairing: Feresk Tssat "Frisk" x gn!reader

Word Count: ~1.5K

Tags: Mostly fluff, little bit of reader being a worrywart, tiny bit of licking lol

A/N: I don't know too much about the character other than what I found on the wiki and recounts of people who played the game 😅 hopefully it's not too OC - also sorry it's kind of short but I thought the ending was cute so I'm sticking by it.

“Hey if it isn’t my favorite bartender!”

You sigh, there weren’t too many regulars around these parts but one Trandoshan was determined to get your attention every time.

“Hi Frisk, the usual?” You put on your best customer service smile, flinging the towel you were cleaning the bar with over your shoulder.

“You know me so well.” He chuckled as he plopped himself down with a noticeable sigh in his usual spot by the bar well.

Weird. No flirty compliments or trademark smirk on his face.

“Bad day?” You asked, placing a glass of Trandoshan ale in front of him.

His eyes flickered across your face briefly while he nodded in thanks before glancing down at the drink, his face not betraying anything.

You backed away, kind of surprised by his mood. For the last several months he’d been coming here it’d been nothing but flirting and compliments, he always seemed to be in an upbeat mood despite his work with the Vanguard Squad.

More patrons walked in and you moved to serve them but kept stealing glances over at the lumbering man. His mood didn’t seem to change as the night wore on, you were careful to keep his glass full. Eventually, the bar quieted down and you could stop and pry.

“Did I do something to deserve the quiet treatment?” You teased, leaning over the bar a little bit away from him, not wanting to crowd him too much.

“Not a thing sweetheart,” he replied, not looking up from his drink.

You waited a beat, not sure how to proceed or if you even should. You decided against it, instead opting to move down the bar doing some cleaning. After a little bit, you had the feeling someone was watching you.

“Do you have a story for me Frisk?” You asked, peeking over your shoulder in time to see him drop his gaze back down to the counter.

He started tapping his claws against the bar for a moment before putting some credits down. “Not today dear, I just wanted to see your face before I leave.”

“What's going on?” You wouldn’t normally question a bar patron like that but you couldn’t stop yourself. The Trandoshan turned to look at you seemingly surprised at your question.

You laughed nervously, wondering what the hell was wrong with you. He chuckled in response, “I’ll be back sweetheart, I’ve got a mission to do.”

Your heart dropped a little bit. He was worried about a mission? From the stories he told you were a little surprised. He’d always been so confident in his flying skills and for a guy with the Imperial death mark on his head, he always seemed so carefree.

“You’re not getting soft on him are you?” Your coworker came behind you, causing you to nearly jump out of your skin.

“Don’t scare me like that!”

They smirked, “that sounds an awful lot like deflecting. So you are getting soft on him! I knew you would!”

“No, I’m not! Why would you think that?” You turned away, worried that they’d somehow sense the heat that was currently radiating from your face.

They snorted at your statement, “right, well. No one is blaming you, if he dates the way he flirts he’d probably worship the ground you walk on.”

You let out a breathy laugh, trying your best to return to your work but your mind wandered to the albino pilot and whether you’d see him again.

~

It had been weeks since you last saw Frisk. While that wasn’t unusual you couldn’t help but jump to conclusions and think the worst. You almost hoped he died in a dog fight. You didn’t even want to entertain the thought of him being caught by the Empire. Bad enough he had been in trouble for the stupid counterfeit painting with the Imperial officer, but now also aligned with the rebels?

You groaned, leaning back in your seat. You were supposed to be doing the budget for your supervisor but you couldn’t focus. This was stupid. Since when were you worried about Frisk? It wasn’t that long ago you were complaining about his long-winded (and probably embellished) stories and his insistence that you be the one to hear them all. But now you’d kill to hear one. Even if it was another of his famous repeats.

Groaning again, before dropping your head onto the desk. The musty smell of old flimsi filling your nose. Stupid old fashion owner wanting to use this stupid old book when a datapad would be so much faster. You wanted to get back out to the bar instead of sitting here alone with your thoughts.

A familiar voice drifted into the office from the bar, interrupting your thoughts but you could only catch your coworker’s response.

“Sorry, she’s working in the back tonight. Can I get you anything?”

You sat up straight suddenly, there was only one person that would ask for you.

“Yeah, a Trandoshan ale please.”

You stood up fast enough to hit your leg on the low desk, mumbling a quiet swear you didn’t stop, you had to confirm that you weren’t dreaming.

Sure enough, sitting by the bar well was your favorite pilot. He was drumming his talons against the bar like he was nervous watching the other patrons at the bar. His eyes wandered before falling on you standing in the doorway, his body posture perking up.

Your feet moved before your brain could catch up.

“Aren’t you supposed to be doing the budget?” Your coworker asked, a knowing grin on their face.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” You mumbled in response, eyes focused on the man in front of you.

He chuckled as you threw your arms around his neck, his own arms going around your waist.

“Now that’s not the welcome home I was expecting but I’m not complaining.” His breath tickled your ear, his body warm against yours.

“I thought you weren’t coming back.” You murmured back, burying your face in the crook of his neck.

You inhaled deeply, he smelled like sweat and something metallic, he must’ve come straight here after getting back. His hands on your back started to trace patterns and he nuzzled into your neck.

“I’m enjoying this sweetheart but pretty sure everyone at the bar is staring at us.” He relaxed his grip, giving you a chance to move away.

Instead, you pulled him tighter to you. “I don’t care. I was worried about you.”

“Sweetheart,” Frisk released your waist and grabbed your arms to position you for him to see your face. “Seriously. You don’t need to worry about me. I’ve made it this long.”

You glared at him. “You were acting weird before you left. I assumed you were worried about your mission. You’re never worried.”

He sighed before chuckling again, “I’m a damn good pilot. You don’t need to worry your pretty little head about me.”

You made a face at him, after months of hearing him talk and getting to know him you could tell he was holding something back.

“It was a little more dangerous than the usual mission,” he relented. “But nothing the Vanguard Squad couldn’t handle.”

“Don’t scare me like that again.” You dropped your voice down to a whisper as your coworker approached, drink in hand.

Frisk’s eyes softened, “I honestly didn’t think you’d care.”

You smiled, “You came in here regularly, telling me all those stories and flirting but didn’t expect anything to come of it? Really?”

You had to stifle a giggle as his eyes lit up. He pulled you closer, bumping his forehead against yours. His comlink started beeping, an uncharacteristic growl coming from him.

“I’ll be right back, it’s probably the general.” He mumbled before moving to the far side of the bar, giving you a wink as he answered it.

“Aww look at you.” Your coworker finally interjected with a smirk on their face. “Finally admitting to your lil crush.”

You rolled your eyes with a smirk, “Yeah, you got me. Guess I should probably finish that budget.”

“Nah, I think you’re not feeling too well. You’re all feverish and loopy, acting weird and stuff, you should probably go home.” They grinned before leaning in, dropping their voice to a whisper. “I’m not going to say if it’s with anybody.”

“You’re a dork and I appreciate you.” You whispered back, returning your attention to the Trandoshan at the back of the bar.

Frisk notices your shift in attention and winks again, curling a finger to beckon you over. As you walked closer you could hear fragments of the conversation, it sounded like they were talking about the next mission.

“Got it, I’ll be there first thing in the morning. Goodnight General Syndulla.”

“Bright and early start tomorrow?” You asked.

An arm curled around your waist, effectively pulling you into his lap. Nuzzling your neck, he doesn’t answer right away, seemingly enjoying your closeness.

“Frisk?” You prompted.

He sighed against your skin before briefly trailing his tongue along part of your exposed collarbone, causing your breath to get caught in your throat.

“Some of the Imps got away on the mission, the general wants us to see if we can find them.” He murmured before nuzzling into the crook of your neck again.

“Is it dangerous?” You asked, your brain honestly not working too well with the Trandoshan’s hot breath against your neck.

“It’s war, my dear, it’s all dangerous. But I’ll come back to you, I promise.”

[finnskeeper]

Critical Role - Campaign 1 (Thoughts Machina): Episodes 45 - 56

AKA: ~ WE’RE GOING ON A DRAGON HUNT! ~

Travis and Liam in Slytherin shirts is *chef’s kiss*. #Cunning4Life

Apparently that's just the face Liam makes whenever he meets Marisha's rpg-dad

GERN: "Can I modify the fire genie's memory to forget to not kill himself?" LOL 

#feelthegern

Laura's out here stealing hearts (and brooms, apparently)

Dark Scanlan is absolutely something I want to see

If Sam doesn't parody Fiddler's "Matchmaker" with "Mapmaker" I will be disappointed. 

I never understood why Find the Path is such a high level spell...

Taliesin's crow/raven sound is terrifyingly accurate (Benefits of being a voice actor I guess)

ROFL I just looked up the wiki page for Craven Edge. Status: Hungry

I sort of almost feel sorry for those orcs...almost

"What do you see, Percy?" "I see a door that I have conquered."  ROFL

Sphinx fights are so good

Mythcarver is a badass name for a weapon

That assassinate ability is gross. Was that 70 damage with one dagger?

Yes, send Scanlan into the center of the enemy camp completely alone. Nothing will go wrong.

I retract my previous statement. 

"Vox Machina! FUCK. SHIT. UP!"

RIP to Kevdak's elbows

GROG! I love these Nat 20 story points!

MATT YOU MONSTER

Oh thank god

Fassbender is the best golem

Awww, they're all calling her Kiki now

Scanlan fucking proposing at the war meeting? Amazing. (Also, LOL @ MATT'S FACE)

Grog: "Pick a number between 1 and 10." Grog (whispering): "I actually don't know any numbers."

LET'S GO KILL A DRAGON Y'ALL

Vex absolutely fucking Umbrasyl up in the first round is sending me. This is what she's built for y'all

Oh god, Liam's tiny voice is both adorable and terrifying

I am here for this plan. Teleport straight into a dragon. What could go wrong?

He's flying y'all! 1/2 the party is going with him. AND THAT'S WHERE WE LEAVE IT??

Scanlan: "I would like to fist the wound." ROFL

Grog becoming smarter by turning into an eagle is AMAZING and I love all of this

MONSTAH

Oh no, Percy...

GROG!!!

LOL watching Laura's inner struggle standing at the base of an immense dragon's hoard is giving me life

The cannonball contest w/ powers is the best thing to ever happen

Percy...omg

Delayed blast cannonball!

Character Rankings (As of Episode 56):

(Seriously, this list is just fast becoming who do I love most to least rather than who do I like to who I don’t.)

1) Vax (This whole Raven Queen thing has gone so much better than I could have imagined. Also, I love how he takes time for the little things, like sitting with Reginald’s body all night while his friends celebrate their victory.)

2) Keyleth (That druid magic is clutch in just about every circumstance. Need a 150 foot trench to drop bad guys into? Kiki’s got you. Need to evacuate refugees to safety in Whitestone? Have a tree portal. Basilisks threatening to petrify on sight? LOL giant scorpions don’t need to see you to fuck you up fam.)

3) Percy (I love that Whitestone has become a safe haven for refugees. I also love those moments when he just goes off. Boy did 172 points of damage to Umbrasyl in one round+action surge. Iconic.)

4) Pike (MONSTAH! NGL, I was kind of hoping she’d get the killing blow on Umbrasyl, but her moments were great and Ashley is just a treasure).

5) Scanlan (That mansion is amazing. And whatever his relationship with Kaylie is becoming is fascinating as hell to watch. Also, how did they ever think Laura was the dirty-minded one with all of Sam’s innuendo?)

6) Vex (I honestly don’t know what it is, but I’m getting some weird vibes from her these last few episodes. Also, the broom swiping moment was a very interesting character choice. I think I read somewhere that Matt adjusted Vex’s alignment because of it?)

7) Grog (The whole Craven Edge resolution was great, and I’m glad he’s finally free. And that entire Westruun arc with the herd and that story was *chef’s kiss*)

[irresistiibles]

Was that [BOB MORLEY]? Oh no no, that was just [JONATHAN SIMS], a [CANON CHARACTER] from [THE MAGNUS ARCHIVES]. They are [THIRTY TWO] years old and [ARE] aware that they are not actually from Washington DC. Too bad they can’t stray from this city for long.

how long has your character been here

like just a day or two really

what is your character’s job

he’ll be working in some sort of archives department, wherever he can find that’ll hire him really

where has your character been pulled from in their fandom

just like vaguely in the middle of season 3 since that’s where i’m at right now. if i update him as i finish catching up i will let people know

has any magic affected your character

nope

and any other information you might find useful for us and the other members to know!!f

okay so spoilers ahead so i can try to explain this nonsense. i’m gonna keep it on the barer side so i don’t go wild with this but feel free to hit me or the wiki up with questions i really kept it light on the plot details because explaining this is so much

he worked in this archives place in london that took reports on paranormal sightings and shit. he never really believed them except for a few but things got outta hand real quick and turns out a lot of them are real and also there are these 14 fear entities that all want different things and are all very dangerous and one is kinda involved with the place he worked. so now he’s aligned himself with this eldritch entity known as the eye not entirely by his own choice but here we are and it gives him some abilities. the biggest things he’s got are compulsion and knowing. he can compel people to answer questions, and sometimes he does this accidentally because he’s still learning everything, and sometimes he just knows shit, usually that has to do with whatever situation he’s in. this also goes along with just straight up understanding languages he’s never learned like a weirdo. obviously for anything involving the compelling i will check in with everyone and never do anything godmoddy. 

other weird small powers is that he heals quickly, and tape recorders just show up around him and start fucking recording when something relevant is going on. yes this is a genuine power listed in his wiki. 

he gets weak if he doesn’t take statements from people because like feed ur god or it’ll feed from you or something. technically he usually gets kinda ill if he’s away from the archives for too long but i’ll say washington alleviate that aspect of it but not the aspect of needing to take statements and what not to feel alright

personality wise he’s pretty paranoid and definitely an asshole because that is apparently my type. ‘wow, my coworkers are avoiding me cause i’ve been stalking them? i bet they’re trying to murder me.’ yes, this is a real though process he went through and genuinely had in the second season

scar tw, bugs tw, little bit of body horror tw: in terms of appearance jon has a bunch of scarring on one hand from a bad burn, a scar on his neck, and some scars just kinda dotted everywhere from some fucking worms burrowing in his skin. he’s been through some shit

[wayward-hatchling]

Another TED Talk About My Undying Support for Daenerys Targaryen

One of the only things I do enjoy about Daenerys’s arc on Game of Thrones is the conversation it has generated regarding governance, leadership, and morality. I’ve been reading and reading trying to wrap my head around this ending in a way that doesn’t feel so *ick*, and I’ve seen about a 50/50 split between camps of people who believe Dany represented war and violence in a story about how war and violence is very bad, and then people who think Dany represented revolutionary processes in a story about how central politics and nepotism will always reject sincere change. I think the conversation alone is profound enough for me to find some solace and closure in the finale.

Option 1 (War/Violence Dany) is *at least* satisfying in that it teaches us about the pointlessness of trying to bring positive change through violence. Even where we--the viewer--have had a full scope on Dany’s intent, background, and thought processes for almost her whole life, we know that there was a pointlessness to killing the entirety of King’s Landing (and potentially all of Westeros). We knew Dany could’ve just settled for taking the throne and engaging in revolution the hard way like she did in Slaver’s Bay, and we were all shocked and disappointed that she chose not to in the end--but narratively it can’t have been too surprising, because she absolutely hated the political process in Meereen.

We saw first-hand her hardship in trying the slow-burn method in Essos--a situation in which she was considered morally good because she was only trying to free slaves and create equality between classes. We saw how resistant the existing, remaining government was to change. We understood how messy making that type of change happen was for all involved (what with economic struggle, plagues, riots, coups, etc.), so there may have been a level of logic to trying her second revolution in Westeros a more ruthless way.

It was also made immediately clear to Dany that Westeros was not as interested in revolution as Slaver’s Bay was, since the poorest classes were technically free and independent and have consistently cared very little for their central government no matter what--this is a point made throughout the series and it was directly mentioned to Dany by Jorah Mormont.

"The common people pray for rain, health, and a summer that never ends. They don't care what games the high lords play."

In Essos, the poorest class was very emotionally invested in Daenerys’s success, which helped her launch her initial revolution. Add this into the fact that the smallfolk are much more invested in their nobility and local government, and that same local government consistently rejects any type of a central government to rule over them (Robert is killed by high lords plotting, Joffrey is killed by high lords plotting, Myrcella and Tommen are killed in the middle of high lords plotting, Robb Stark, Jon Snow, Margaery Tyrell and her family)....and well....Dany’s campaign would be a cocktail for failure if she tried to install herself as queen in a peaceful way. So instead, Daenerys asserting a forceful rule backed by a powerful, unstoppable weapon is definitely a way to bring the lords of Westeros to heel.  You can’t plot against a mothaf**kin’ dragon! What she fails to realize is that doing so alone and unsupported and misunderstood is what makes her tyrannical--the people she’s trying to “save” are not in on the plan, and inevitably reject her and remove her too, because they think she’s just trying to come to power for power’s sake. She’s given them no reason or evidence to think otherwise yet. The nobility would also never want her revolution if it means the destruction of the status quo, and the people don’t care what happens either way if it doesn’t affect them.

Option 2 (Revolutionary/Che Guevara Dany) is interesting because it leaves Dany in the role of a tragic, misunderstood hero even more so than Option 1. In this vein of thought, Dany offered Cersei the chance to surrender, and Cersei instead tried to display herself as a threat. She tried to use innocents and weapons-manufacturing to deter Daenerys, and Dany made an example of her--she sent a clear message to Westeros that nothing would save them if they did not fall in line. There would be no plotting against her, and there would be absolutely no mercy if they engaged in their old games. The wheel would be broken whether the existing lords liked it or not. Perhaps this is cruel and forceful, but it would prevent the high lords from using their smallfolk again (”a mercy to the future generations”)--and would help the smallfolk see the invalidity of their existing government (a government that uses its people as an ineffective meat shield against a dragon queen.) The lords may not ever love her, but they wouldn’t be using their smallfolk to maintain their own power ever again. That is what’s important. The Starks showed us that love and loyalty does not a leader make. Ned Stark, Robb Stark, and Jon Snow all inevitably failed their people and directly caused them long-term suffering via war and unrest (right before the Great War wiped out an already-weakened north, no less!) Even our “just and good” northern lords have not helped the conditions of the smallfolk at all. They are inept.

The stellar thing here is that all of these points are corroborated by the most stable and just king Westeros has had in generations--Robert Baratheon!

He knows how the incompetent lords of Westeros would react to a Targaryen invasion.

From the smallfolk wiki page:

When Cersei Lannister asks Robert why he is so worried about the prospect of a Targaryen-aligned Dothraki army, he explains that should the Dothraki cross the Narrow Sea, the nobles can retreat to their castles, but then a great many of the smallfolk would be slaughtered and those that are left will turn on their absentee king and possibly decide to join Viserys. 

He also knows how to keep them abiding by his rule:

"Honor? I've got Seven Kingdoms to rule! One king, Seven Kingdoms! Do you think honor keeps them in line? Do you think it's honor that's keeping the peace? It's fear! Fear and blood!"

Let it be fear!

I like this the most because it solidifies The Battle of King’s Landing as more-Hiroshima less-slaughterhouse--it immediately ended a long, horrifying war and prevented the escalation of worse types of warfare purely out of fear for an overwhelming weapon. This also implies that had Dany lived, she wouldn’t necessarily have to continue burning up cities, because the lords would already know what was coming for them. The central character perspectives in the finale made us believe Dany intended to burn other people, but that’s a relatively baseless assumption. (For example, she only crucified the masters when they crucified children to deter her campaign. She did not crucify masters when they revolted against her. She did execute one of them as a statement but could have slaughtered all of them to negate all opposition against her, if she were truly a mad, power-hungry queen. We also can’t even compare the two situations, since Daenerys was considerably less powerful at the time--having no Dothraki army, no extra allies or naval fleet, and no fully-grown, trained dragons yet. Her power at the end of GOT is enough to bring the lords in line on its own, without political statements and maneuvering.)

Furthermore, her disdain for the existing smallfolk of Westeros is explained when in comparison to those of Slaver’s Bay. These people really don’t give a s**t about making the world better, whereas the people of Slaver’s Bay follow Dany’s dream to the very end (and beyond).

The citizens of King’s Landing are completely indifferent towards supporting a disgusting human being like Cersei, whereas the people of Slaver’s Bay displayed passion and morality similar to what Dany is feeling. All these things together explain why Dany decides that “they don’t get to choose [what’s good.]” Because they just don’t care about good or bad for everyone else. They are the ones who let people like Joffrey, Cersei, and the Boltons take power with apathy. So only the people who do care get to decide what’s good for the world.

And FINALLY, for some additional thoughts, I like either of these points of conclusion for Dany’s arc and motivations because it helps create an idea of cosmic destiny. She was on the trajectory towards something massive and world-changing--the birth of her dragons, her visions, and epic journey full of magic and supernatural guidance all were pointing her towards some type of world change. It is the existing status quo--the darker, political side of humanity....the game--that kills her for it, despite her intentions and abilities.

(Perhaps there’s some divine intervention about to happen a la resurrection anyways!)

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

It’s been about two weeks since House Speaker Paul Ryan announced that he would retire, and a narrative has already emerged about Ryan’s legacy and why he wanted out. In short: Ryan had no place in President Trump’s Republican Party.

Ryan is a standard establishment Republican, the narrative goes, uninterested in President Trump’s populist bromides and racist appeals to some white voters. Ryan is cool and conventional; Trump is bombastic. Ryan is preoccupied with policy and ideology; Trump with style. Ryan is a fiscal conservative; Trump is a cultural conservative.

There’s some truth to all of that, and it’s not unimportant. But it’s much more difficult to separate Ryan and Trump than their demeanors suggest. Indeed, separating the two misunderstands the modern Republican Party and how it came about. Research has found that the two main ideological strains of contemporary conservatism — cultural and fiscal — are closely intertwined; we can trace the political careers of both Ryan and Trump to these ideological linkages.

Presidents can reshape what their parties stand for in the long term, but presidential ideology is also what social scientists call a “lagging indicator.” That is, we tend to get presidents who represent new ideological strains only after activists have been pushing the party in that direction for some time. And if we think about Trump as a product of long-term forces in the GOP, then his relationship to Ryan looks somewhat different.

Let’s start with Ronald Reagan, the icon of the modern GOP and the man whose presidency generally marks the beginning of it. Reagan’s political style was not Trump’s, and it’s difficult to imagine him talking about “shithole” countries. But it’s equally wrong to pretend that race wasn’t part of the larger political agenda at that time. Reagan helped tie civil rights backlash into mainstream conservatism. He kicked off his 1980 campaign in the South with a comment about states’ rights.1 Reagan was elected less than 20 years after new laws expanded the role of the federal government in protecting civil rights and voting rights, and his administration downplayed civil rights enforcement in the Justice Department and took stances against many of the affirmative action practices that earlier administrations had pursued. These stances fit an ideology that embraced both “color-blindness” and the paring back of federal power.

Now, the racial dynamics of the 2016 election were more extreme and explicit. Research by John Sides, Lynn Vavreck and Michael Tesler found that new divisions between white Republicans and white Democrats on racial attitudes emerged during Barack Obama’s presidency, and those in turn affected voting patterns in 2016. In a separate analysis, Tesler found that racial attitudes were more important to vote choice in 2016 than in 2008.

But that’s mostly a matter of degrees.

Indeed, just as with Reagan, researchers have found that race (and racism) isn’t so easily separated from the policy ideas that Ryan has most championed: shrinking the welfare state. Numerous scholars have pointed out the highly racialized images that surround welfare discourse and the importance of racial attitudes in determining how Americans feel about government assistance to the poor.2 In an environment this thick with implicit linkages between small government and social factors, you can reject hateful ideas and still contribute to resentment.

Ryan has himself found how linked these issues are by stepping into messy territory a few times. Some Democrats took issue with Ryan’s statements that he and Mitt Romney lost the 2012 presidential election because of the higher turnout in “urban” areas, suggesting that the language was an attempt to blame minorities for the Republican ticket’s loss. He caused a bigger controversy in 2014 when he said that a “culture problem” of men not working was driving poverty in U.S. cities.

Ryan acknowledged that his remarks had landed poorly and indicated later that he had changed some of his positions. But his comments indicated a connection between cultural and economic conservatism that had long been present.

Immigration is another topic on which race and economics intersect and on which Trump has been depicted as at odds with mainstream conservatives like Ryan. But the comparison with Ryan is at least somewhat complex. The House speaker has updated his website to accommodate Trump’s positions and actions. He has a low score from the anti-immigration interest group NumbersUSA, owed in part to his general stance that more legal immigration is good for the economy and the country (a stance with which the group disagrees). But as early as 2012, Ryan began to move to the right on a variety of immigration questions, including whether to grant permanent legal status to undocumented farm workers. So while Ryan’s views are still distinct from Trump’s, he’s been moving toward a more restrictive view of immigration, a shift that started even before Trump was a major political figure in the GOP.

One last demonstration of that overlap: Ryan and Trump, supposedly so different, actually followed similar trajectories to national political prominence. At least, those paths share a few characteristics.

First, opposition to Obama was crucial in both cases. As Craig Gilbert of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel noted in 2009, Ryan emerged as a leading purveyor of Republican vision after the Democrats won big in 2008. Similarly, Trump’s electoral appeal drew not so much on policy difference from Obama as on cultural backlash.

Both are also simultaneously of the tea party movement and separate from it. The electoral strength of that movement helped Ryan eventually land the chairmanship of the House Ways and Means Committee after Republicans won a House majority in 2010 and then the position of speaker after John Boehner resigned out of frustration with the House Freedom Caucus — a group that drew on some tea party membership and ideas. Trump’s connection to the tea party is both less obvious and more direct. The movement paved the way for insurgent campaigns and supplied some of Trump’s talking points about the party establishment and the media. This insurgent tendency goes back to Reagan as well; he once rode a tide of anti-establishment conservatism against figures like Gerald Ford, Bob Dole and George H.W. Bush. Newt Gingrich continued this tradition when he became House speaker in 1995.

All that insurgent thinking, of course, has contributed to what a difficult job being the speaker of the House has become. And it’s all the more difficult with a president who has to be worked around rather than worked with. But the stronger motivation for Ryan to leave may not be Trumpism, it might just be Trump.

[amandabct]

STUDIO 2020

Wednesday 26th February 

This semester Amy and I have decided to collaborate because we both want to produce work that emphasizes our primary advanced skills of UX/UI design for our portfolio. This partnership also complements our soft skills really well to create an efficient working environment.

Prior, to the first day of Studio, we discussed ideas and developed on one which we both find interesting and are curious to develop further. The concept of Internal Monologue. 

Concept

To design an interactive environment of transdisciplinary efforts to display the concept of internal monologue through personal exploration, (Hayes & Henwood, 2020).

Statement of Intent

This project is designed to educate people, through the use of interaction and immersion to emphasize the topic of internal monologue and people’s ability to process information. Do we see differences in people’s ability to connect knowledge with thoughts and ideas, internally and externally? How can we demonstrate internal monologue or lack of? in order to be more inclusive and understanding of others, (Hayes & Henwood, 2020).

Context

Internal monologue, also called self-talk or inner speak, is a person’s internal voice that provides a running verbal monologue while they are conscious, (Wikipedia, 2019). Your inner conversation is defined as what you think about yourself and others internally and externally, your attitude, successes, interactions and quality of life, (Russ, 2018). It is particularly important in planning, problem solving, self-reflection, critical thinking, emotions, and subvocalization as it reinforces knowledge, thoughts and experiences, thus regulating cognitive behaviours, also known as internal prediction or hindsight, (Wikipedia, 2019).

Internal speech relies on the same biological mechanism as that used when we speak out loud. Neuroscientists have found that the Broca’s area is active when we speak out loud and also during internal monologue, but corollary discharge acts as a predentive signal generated by the brain that helps to stop verbalising the internal monologue, demonstrating cognitive relationships with yourself and others. Intriguingly, if this region is disrupted using magnetic brain stimulation both outer and inner speech can be altered, (Fox, 2015). Until recently, it was believed an erregulation to this behaviour was closely related to theories of auditory hallucinations with schizophrenia, (Hogenraad & Orianne, 1983). However it is now known that some people do not experience internal monologue visually or auditorily at all.  

Internal monologue is a combination of cultural evolution answered through biological research and evolutionary processes.

References

Fox. S (2015). What’s going on in your head is the science behind our inner voice. Retrieved from https://thebrainbank.scienceblog.com/2015/10/10/whats-going-on-in-your-head-the-science-behind-our-inner-voice/

Hayes, A., Henwood, A. (2020). AUT University: The Art of Internal Conversation. Auckland. Unfinished Student Project.  

Hogenraad, R., Orianne, E. (1983). A Penny for your Thoughts: Imagery Value and Periodicity of Interior Monologue. Journal of mental Imagery 7(1), 51-61. https://doi.org/10.2190/8DB8-ELNU-FCDY-ENMR

Russ. J. M. (2018) Mastering Your Inner Conversation. Retrieved from https://michaeljruss.com/mastering-your-inner-conversation/

Wikipedia. (2019). Internal Monologue. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_monologue

Today’s Class Activities

Today, we had to do two self reflection tasks:

The first one, was the wheel of skills, a skill based reflection tool that lets the student see what skills/qualities are your strengths and what areas you have less experience in. This tool was useful in our team building to see what you can contribute to a team and find others who have skills in the areas you don't. It can also be used to identify areas of improvement. Personally, this activity didn’t serve much purpose to my team as we both have worked together before and are close friends so understand what strengths and weaknesses we have. 

The second activity was a team canvas, which outlines and sets the foundation for the group to help guide the projects goals that align with these foundations. This tool turns personal qualities into a team setting. This was really helpful in creating the project’s outcome and how to achieve such. 

[because-its-important]

what’s the most annoying question to ask a nun* in 1967?

tl;dr - In 1967, a very long survey was administered to nearly 140,000 American women in Catholic ministry. I wrote this script, which makes the survey data work-ready and satisfies a very silly initial inquiry: Which survey question did the sisters find most annoying?

* The study participants are never referred to as nuns, so I kind of suspect that not all sisters are nuns, but I couldn't find a definitive answer about this during a brief search. 'Nun' seemed like an efficient shorthand for purposes of an already long title, but if this is wrong please holler at me!

During my first week at Recurse I made a quick game using a new language and a new toolset. Making a game on my own had been a long-running item on my list of arbitrary-but-personally-meaningful goals, so being able to cross it off felt pretty good! 

Another such goal I’ve had for a while goes something like this: “Develop the skills to be able to find a compelling data set, ask some questions, and share the results.” As such, I spent last week familiarizing myself with Python 🐍, selecting a fun dataset, prepping it for analysis, and indulging my curiosity.

the process

On recommendation from Robert Schuessler, another Recurser in my batch, I read through the first ten chapters in Python Crash Course and did the data analysis project. This section takes you through comparing time series data using weather reports for two different locations, then through plotting country populations on a world map.

During data analysis study group, Robert suggested that we find a few datasets and write scripts to get them ready to work with as a sample starter-pack for the group. Jeremy Singer-Vines’ collection of esoteric datasets, Data Is Plural, came to mind immediately. I was super excited to finally have an excuse to pour through it and eagerly set about picking a real mixed bag of 6 different data sets.

One of those datasets was The Sister Survey, a huge, one-of-its-kind collection of data on the opinions of American Catholic sisters about religious life. When I read the first question, I was hooked. 

“It seems to me that all our concepts of God and His activity are to some degree historically and culturally conditioned, and therefore we must always be open to new ways of approaching Him.” 

I decided I wanted to start with this survey and spend enough time with it to answer at least one easy question. A quick skim of the Questions and Responses file showed that of the multiple choice answer options, a recurring one was: “The statement is so annoying to me that I cannot answer.” 

I thought this was a pretty funny option, especially given that participants were already tolerant enough to take such an enormous survey! How many questions can one answer before any question is too annoying to answer? 🤔 I decided it’d be fairly simple to find the most annoying question, so I started there. 

I discovered pretty quickly that while the survey responses are in a large yet blessedly simple csv, the file with the question and answers key is just a big ole plain text. My solution was to regex through every line in the txt file and build out a survey_key dict that holds the question text and another dict of the set of possible answers for each question. This works pretty well, though I’ve spotted at least one instance where the txt file is inconsistently formatted and therefore breaks answer retrieval.

Next, I ran over each question in the survey, counted how many responses include the phrase “so annoying” and selected the question with the highest count of matching responses.

the most annoying question

Turns out it’s this one! The survey asks participants to indicate whether they agree or disagree with the following statement:

“Christian virginity goes all the way along a road on which marriage stops half way.”

3702 sisters (3%) responded that they found the statement too annoying to answer. The most popular answer was No at 56% of respondents. 

I’m not really sure how to interpret this question! So far I have two running theories about the responses:

The survey participants were also confused and boy, being confused is annoying!

The sisters generally weren’t down for claiming superiority over other women on the basis of their marital-sexual status.

Both of these interpretations align suspiciously well with my own opinions on the matter, though, so, ymmv.

9x speed improvement in one lil refactor

The first time I ran a working version of the full script it took around 27 minutes. 

I didn’t (still don’t) have the experience to know if this is fast or slow for the size of the dataset, but I did figure that it was worth making at least one attempt to speed up. Half an hour is a long time to wait for a punchline!

As you can see in this commit, I originally had a function called unify that rewrote the answers in the survey from the floats which they'd initially been stored as, to plain text returned from the survey_key. I figured that it made sense to build a dataframe with the complete info, then perform my queries against that dataframe alone. 

However, the script was spending over 80% of its time in this function, which I knew from aggressively outputting the script’s progress and timing it. I also knew that I didn’t strictly need to be doing any answer rewriting at all. So, I spent a little while refactoring find_the_most_annoying_question to use a new function, get_answer_text, which returns the descriptive answer text when passed the answer key and its question. This shaved 9 lines (roughly 12%) off my entire script.

Upon running the script post-refactor, I knew right away that this approach was much, much faster - but I still wasn’t prepared when it finished after only 3 minutes! And since I knew between one and two of those minutes were spent downloading the initial csv alone, that meant I’d effectively neutralized the most egregious time hog in the script. 👍

I still don’t know exactly why this is so much more efficient. The best explanation I have right now is “welp, writing data must be much more expensive than comparing it!” Perhaps this Nand2Tetris course I’ll be starting this week will help me better articulate these sorts of things.

flourishes 💚💛💜

Working on a script that takes forever to run foments at least two desires:

to know what the script is doing Right Now

to spruce the place up a bit

I added an otherwise unnecessary index while running over all the questions in the survey so that I could use it to cycle through a small set of characters. Last week I wrote in my mini-RC blog, "Find out wtf modulo is good for." Well, well, well.

Here’s what my script looks like when it’s iterating over each question in the survey:

I justified my vanity with the (true!) fact that it is easier to work in a friendly-feeling environment.

Plus, this was good excuse to play with constructing emojis dynamically. I thought I’d find a rainbow of hearts with sequential unicode ids, but it turns out that ❤️ 💙 and 🖤 all have very different values. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

the data set

One of the central joys of working with this dataset has been having cause to learn some history that I’d otherwise never be exposed to. Here’s a rundown of some interesting things I learned:

This dataset was only made accessible in October this year. The effort to digitize and publicly release The Sister Survey was spearheaded by Helen Hockx-Yu, Notre Dame’s Program Manager for Digital Product Access and Dissemination, and Charles Lamb, a senior archivist at Notre Dame. After attending one of her forums on digital preservation, Lamb approached Hockx-Yu with a dataset he thought “would generate enormous scholarly interest but was not publicly accessible.”

Previously, the data had been stored on “21 magnetic tapes dating from 1966 to 1990” (Ibid) and an enormous amount of work went into making it usable. This included both transferring the raw data from the tapes, but also deciphering it once it’d been translated into a digital form.

The timing of the original survey in 1967 was not arbitrary: it was a response to the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II). Vatican II was a Big Deal! Half a century later, it remains the most recent Catholic council of its magnitude. For example, before Vatican II, mass was delivered in Latin by a priest who faced away from his congregation and Catholics were forbidden from attending Protestant services or reading from a Protestant Bible. Vatican II decreed that mass should be more participatory and conducted in the vernacular, that women should be allowed into roles as “readers, lectors, and Eucharistic ministers,” and that the Jewish people should be considered as “brothers and sisters under the same God” (Ibid).

The survey’s author, Marie Augusta Neal, SND, dedicated her life of scholarship towards studying the “sources of values and attitudes towards change” (Ibid)  among religious figures. A primary criticism of the survey was that Neal’s questions were leading, and in particular, leading respondents towards greater political activation. ✊

As someone with next to zero conception of religious history, working with this dataset was a way to expand my knowledge in a few directons all at once. Pretty pumped to keep developing my working-with-data skills.

[samhrncir]

H/FOSS Project Community

The purpose of this post is for reflection over a class discussion on H/FOSS Project Communities.

I believe companies initiate single vendor open source projects usually for the optimal business outcome.  This means its a numbers game concerning value added vs amount invested.  A company’s goal is to stay in business, take business from competitors, and make the most money for shareholders if they are public.  This can conflict to the core values of OSS.  Such as the 4 freedoms of OSS: 

The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose

The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).

The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Free_Software_Definition

Single vendor open source projects usually stem from a proprietary project that is turned open source.  This dissension to do so is not easy for business as the confidential code could lose value on the market.  I addition, companies may give up their complete control over the distribution and version control of its users.  This initially could result in a negative net gain from shifting a project to open source, however the company should expect a long term net positive gain through sources such as free contributions.  

I’m curious if publicity and PR plays a part when a company strategically makes a project open source.  What do they have to gain from this?  Are they trying to make their competitors look like the evil proprietary software monopolies, are they trying to be viewed as generous and “for the people”?  As some companies become the size of small country governments, they have the infrastructure to support many open source projects for strategic gain.  An example of this is Google’s Chromium web browser.  Chromium is an OSS bare bones version of Google Chrome.  It provides users with the benefit of less data tracking and limited resource usage/requirements.  Why did Google create the Chromium project?  Every company decision is steered by some form of business gain.  For Google’s case, this could be positive PR to combat their negative persona as data tracking giants.  Something to think about...

Version control can be the bane of an entry level software engineer’s beginning.  Through mastery of version control with tools such as Git, branches are the sword that coding knights use to take a copy of the source for themselves to modify.  Now the concept of “hard forks” plays an interesting unique role in OSS projects, as they are nonexistent in proprietary software projects within companies.  The possibility of hard forks is inherited from the OSS freedoms.  This is known by project leaders upfront and center.  Thus from day one, the possibility of hard forking acts as a countermeasure to dictators and unhappy communities.  Hard forks are usually a result of torn unhappy communities disagreeing on the direction the project is taking.  So the prevention of hard forks is to take extra effort in ensuring the community is aligned and in agreement to the direction of the project.

So what is the secret formula to a successful open source project? By reflecting my experiences on-boarding to two different teams through out my internships, I argue that the on boarding experience imperative to having a successful OSS project.  This of course needs to be paired with a popular mission statement and relevant utility to a strong user group.  I’ve experienced rough and rocky on boarding processes.  The pain points were usually from lack of documentation, lack of suggestions, and failure to relate to new members of a project.  Even though I have limited experience myself in producing documentation, I am aware of its importance in providing a scale-able on boarding solution.  In short, a project with an “automated” on boarding solution is scalable, allows entry level contributors to be semi autonomous, so the resources of the experienced contributors are not hindered when new contributors come knocking on their door.

In common media, dictator has a very negative connotation.  Yet in small early OSS projects, benevolent dictators are a perfect solution to project management and decision making.  For the project to be successful these benevolent dictators must uphold just and mature qualities to gain the respectful following of their contributors.  One quality I would like to discuss benevolent dictators uphold is the quality of being an excellent listener paired with asking the right questions.  This means the leader knows their is immense value in listening to his workers, as they are in more intimate relationship with the development.  This is where asking the right questions comes in to play so the leader can productively understand the status of the project.  Then the leader can direct the projects high level mission and direction.

[aurumvocem]

Fate/Servant Sheets: Rider/George S Patton

Name: George S Patton                                                                                 Title: Old Blood and Guts                                                                               Class: Rider                                                                                                      Other qualifying classes: Saber, Archer, Berserker                                   Country of Origin: America                                                                         Gender: Male                                                                                           Alignment: Chaotic Neutral                                                                            Relic: His helmet                                                                                          Likes: America, military life, America, tanks and guns, America, the battlefield                                                                                                  Dislikes: Germany, disobedience, insubordination, not being in command Parameters:                                                                                             Strength: D                                                                                               Endurance: D                                                                                                  Agility: E                                                                                                         Mana: C                                                                                                         Luck: C                                                                                                                                NP: A

Class Skills:                                                                                                  Riding: The ability to ride mounts.                                                                        B: All creatures but those of Phantasmal Beast and Divine Beast-rank can be used as mounts. This rank is high enough to have aptitude for the Rider Class. 

Independent Action: The ability to remain independent even when rejecting the Magical Energy supply from the Master.                                                               C: It is possible for a Servant to stay in the world for one day without a Master. Rider disobeyed the orders of his superiors and argued with them on more than one occasion.

Personal Skills:                                                                                              Military Tactics: Tactical knowledge used not for one-on-one combat situations, but for battles where many are mobilized. Bonus modifiers are provided during use of one's own Anti-Army Noble Phantasm or when dealing against an enemy Anti-Army Noble Phantasm.                                                    A: Rider was called the "best general (the Americans) had" at the time of World War II, and this statement still holds true today.

Charisma: The natural talent to command an army. Increases the abilities of allies during group battles.                                                                                   C: Can boost morale significantly, but needs a short period of time to do so. Rider managed to turn a battered, demoralised platoon into a formidable fighting force in 10 days, and was famous for his speeches.

Bravery: The ability to negate mental interference such as pressure, confusion and fascination. Not usable under the effects of Mad Enhancement.                 B: Bonus to magic related to fear and doubt.

Fearsome Mien: The ability to cause potentially paralysing fear in others.       A+: At this rank, merely mentioning the bearer is likely to cause slight nervousness, even amongst those who know that they are a match for him. In life, Rider was the only general that the Nazis actually feared.

Projectiles (Firearms): The ability to enhance the effectiveness of projectiles. B: Bullets strike with the force of mortar shells.

Noble Phantasms:                                                                                           The General's Jeep: Vehicle of Command                                                    Rank: Support C                                                                                         Rider's personalised command jeep, which includes oversized rank placards and a klaxon to announce his presence. This Noble Phantasm acts as Rider's secondary mount, mainly used as a fast mode of transport.                                

Hell on Wheels: Armored Behemoth of War                                                 Rank: Anti-Army B                                                                                      Rider's primary mount. A huge tank, capable of shrugging off Anti-Army-rank attacks with ease and dishing out the same amount of power with its main gun. It comes with its own tank crew, representations of the 2nd Armoured Division that Rider commanded in life. Each a low-rank Masterless Servant armed with C-Rank pistols, they require mana to sustain them outside of the tank, but can remain inside it indefinitely. The downside of this Noble Phantasm is the same as in an actual tank; it is extremely slow, and can be destroyed if Rider runs out of mana to sustain its armour.

Personality: Rider is loud-mouthed, blunt, exceedingly patriotic and often says things without meaning to. He is an extremely intelligent and tactical planner, and an opponent not to be underestimated. He absolutely loves war, feeling like it's the one place where he is welcome and appreciated.

Other notes: -He wields an ivory-handled Smith and Wesson .357 Magnum revolver and a Colt Single-Action Army revolver (his qualification for the Archer class). -In the Saber class, he wields the Model 1913 Cavalry Saber that he helped design. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_19…) One of his Noble Phantasms in this class is to disguise himself as other warlords that he knows, based off of his belief that he was the reincarnation of various warlords.

[longislandweekly-blog]

Tom Wolfe hits his stride with Project Mercury masterpiece

The Mercury Seven, front row, from left: Walter Schirra, Donald Slayton, John Glenn and Scott Carpenter; back row: Alan Shepard, Virgil ‘Gus’ Grissom and Gordon Cooper (Photo by NASA)

Ezra Pound once claimed that you can judge a nation by its literature. That’s where it sinks or swims. A typically sweeping statement, but if so, America was doing pretty well during the 1970s: Novelists like John Updike, Saul Bellow, John Cheever, Norman Mailer, Bernard Malamud, Kurt Vonnegut, William Styron and Walker Percy, to name only a few, defined the contours of fiction. Poetry wasn’t quite as strong especially after the passing of America’s most natural poet, Robert Lowell, in 1977, but James Dickey, Richard Wilbur and the unjustly-forgotten A.M. Ammons could fill a lecture hall.

Among the greats of that bountiful decade was ever-popular Tom Wolfe. Who was that dandy in the white suit? Don’t people know how hot it gets in Richmond, VA, Wolfe’s hometown, during the summer months? In the 1960s, Wolfe began preaching the gospel of “New Journalism.” Literature must be about realism. Journalism, Wolfe maintained, was the only way to achieve that goal. In the “New Journalism,” the author often became as much a part of the story as the events he wrote about.

Wolfe would alter his views. By the mid-1980s, he launched an attack on literary fiction, decrying the existence of too many novels about the novelists and their anxieties—get out of the house and explore America. Wolfe still maintained his fidelity to realism, citing John Steinbeck and Edith Wharton as examples.

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In his 1979 blockbuster, The Right Stuff, Wolfe did not inject himself into the narrative. But the writing was as lively as ever. After exploring forms of architecture and denouncing the “Me Decade,” Wolfe got off the sofa and celebrated the world of those original fly boys: The insanely heroic astronauts of the Mercury space program.

Wolfe had planned to write a history of the entire program, from Mercury to Gemini to Apollo to the return of the space shuttle. Once he was engrossed in the Mercury program, he found he had more than enough material for an entire book. All the elements of great drama were there: The long-suffering wives, the leadership of Chuck Yeager, the hell-for-leather jet pilot who broke the speed of sound, Alan Shepard’s solo shot into space and finally, the climax: John Glenn’s orbit of the earth. The story of the Mercury program was not an eventual rocket ship to the moon. No, it was a do-or-die (people believed the space race with the Russians was a version of the Cold War from the heavens). Once Glenn orbited the earth successfully three times, America had found the authentic salt-of-the-earth squeaky clean hero it badly needed.

Astronaut John Glenn, first American to orbit the Earth, enters the Mercury “Friendship 7” Spacecraft during prelaunch preparations. (Photo by NASA)

The book is a comic masterpiece. Yes, these fly boys had to be a little crazy to sit on top of a lit candle and go rocketing into the dark. The drama is even greater. There was the courage of the astronauts and even more so, the fortitude of their wives on the ground. The Right Stuff ran to 367 pages. You won’t notice the bulk. Here is a book that can be read in one sitting. It’s that dramatic, that fast and that much fun. The early years of the program had its failures. One launch after another from Cape Canaveral ended in spectacular explosions. Those would-be flights were unmanned. When it was Shepard’s turn, not many people were optimistic.

[On] the morning of May 5, millions, stopped by the side of the road, paralyzed by drama. This was the greatest death-defying hell-driver stunt ever broadcast, a patriotic stunt bound up with the fate of the country. People were besides themselves.

It worked. Shepard made it. Fifteen minutes in space and back down into the Pacific Ocean. The real story was Glenn’s orbit. Here is where the space race would be won. The fly boys were fun boys. They became celebrities and they enjoyed it. Glenn, a Presbyterian lad from rural Ohio lived up to the clean-cut image NASA officials created for this rowdy bunch. He jogged every morning, he worked out constantly. Glenn was a good soldier who patiently waited his turn. And that patience was rewarded. The orbit wasn’t as easy as it looked. Hurtling earthbound, Glenn would have to put his faith in the heat shield—or was it something else? Every flight had those three minutes or so when the pilot lost contact with Mission Control. Readers will recall how agonizing that was. The astronaut speeds towards earth, the capsule’s shield fending off the blinding heat. Does he pull through? Reader, you know the answer.

The capsule hit water…Even with the suit fans still running, the heat was terrific. Over the radio, they kept telling him not to leave the capsule. The rescue ship was almost there…He wasn’t about to hit the hatch detonator. The Presbyterian pilot was not about to foul up. His pipeline to the dear Lord could not be clearer. He had done it.

That was just the beginning. For Glenn, the next stop was a visit to the White House and Capitol Hill. After that, a ticker tape parade in downtown Manhattan. First, Washington:

He [Glenn] knew just what he was doing….He said things that nobody else in the world could have gotten away with, even in 1962. ‘I still get a lump in my throat when I see the American flag passing by.’ But he pulled it off! And then he lifted his hand up toward the gallery…‘above all, I want you to meet my wife, Annie…Annie…the Rock!’ Well, that did it. That turned on the waterworks. Senators and representatives were trying to clap and reach for their handkerchiefs at the same time.

And then, the Big Apple.

Like most military people…they [the astronauts] didn’t really consider [New York] to be part of the United States…Whatever ideals the military stood for, New York City did not. It was a foreign city full of a curiously tiny malformed gray people.

President John F. Kennedy, John Glenn and General Leighton I. Davis ride together during a parade in Cocoa Beach, FL, after Glenn’s historic first U.S. human orbital spaceflight. (Photo by NASA)

Glenn landed at LaGuardia Airport. Traveling along the Long Island Expressway into the city was impossible, so the entourage took a shortcut, driving along Astoria Boulevard towards the Queensboro Bridge. That thoroughfare was packed, also.

What they saw bowled them over…People were crying, right out in the open, as soon as they laid eyes on John…They were swept up in the wave now…When they reached….Manhattan…there were more people hanging over the railings…and they were crying and waving little flags and pouring their hearts out.

Has there ever been a nonfiction work more American than The Right Stuff? The brave Shepard, the dutiful Glenn, plus Gordon Cooper, the good times hero. In the background was Yeager, the ultimate Wolfe hero: The taciturn mountain man, who was glad to break the speed of sound, but also a man who neither needed nor desired the celebrity that went with being a Mercury astronaut. Yeager was content to stay in the background, coaching and gently prodding his protégées. The man didn’t mind taking off in an Air Force jet every now and then for another bout with the sound barrier.

Wolfe once called his white suit a “form of passive aggression.” His work, fiction and nonfiction alike, also had an impish quality to it. Wolfe knew that by the 1960s, the ‘WASP’ (and he was a member of the tribe) was being resented and ridiculed by ethnic groups one and all. The man put a twist on things. WASP you say? Try Chuck Yeager. Try Junior Johnson. This extended to his novels: Sherman McCoy of The Bonfire of The Vanities, Charlie Crocker in A Man in Full and I Am Charlotte Simmons, a novel about the western North Carolina mountain girl of that same name who conquers an elite college campus. Authentic heroes and heroines all.

The Right Stuff is Wolfe’s best book. It’s a time capsule representing an Innocent America.

Right Man, Right Time, Right Stuff: Long Island Weekly's Joe Scotchie recalls what makes Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff a masterpiece novel about Project Mercury. Tom Wolfe hits his stride with Project Mercury masterpiece Ezra Pound once claimed that you can judge a nation by its literature.

[osunews]

osu!weekly #98

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Weekly news

Granted, you could have already figured this out by yourself, but new.ppy.sh has a brand new look! For those of you who are severely behind on the times, the work in progress of our new net platform is available for public testing. With the site inching steadily towards a release, there’s not much time left to get your own name on a piece of osu! contribution history! If you have the technical know-how, you can head on over to the repository where you can contribute to the development of both the osu-web and the lazer projects.

The osu!weekly is currently trying to get more tournaments into our wiki! If you are currently approved for a badge already from our lovely staff, send us an e-mail at news@ppy.sh to find out how you can participate in our community promotion program.

While we wait for the new platform to take shape, Loctav has sounded the call to arms for mappers to start digging away at our featured artists! That said, if you have a map of a song that is taken directly from our featured artist listing, drop your map in the thread and we’ll see where we can take it together.

It seems that Ephemeral has hit a rather stiff hitch in his work, but is now nearing a complete recovery! This means that popular events that I know you all have been direly needing news of will finally see the light of day sometime soon. Hopefully, we’ll also finally have the new scheduled dev meeting for everyone to gloss over as well!

Around the community

Our top spot regular pishifat continues to deliver, this week giving us a little bit of his take on how we choose songs to be mapped! This topic should be no stranger to a lot of those who already are well and beyond the gates of the ranked category. For those of us who are not yet so experienced, perhaps now is a good time to do yourself a favor and watch some of the videos that this man puts out. While I can’t say watching a lot of videos in one go is very healthy, you’ll find yourself well on your way to becoming a mapping champion a lot faster here!

The skins! channel seems to be a collaborative effort between different members (mostly CBullet) of the community to review and promote skins from around the community. The channel looks to provide both a way to give mappers genuine feedback for their work, as well as score and categorize them so players would know what to expect when opening them up. This week, they have graced us with not one, but two new reviews! The first of our dynamic duo is an interestingly crusty looking skin called UJSv6, and the latter is a skin featuring a fantastic back animation aptly titled steampowered.

Scorewatch: March week 4 (With Scorewatch Patrol)

Angelsim took accuracy to the next league as he managed to pull off a stunning 99.74% FC on LeaF - Paraclete, gaining 486pp. This play becomes the only play on the leaderboards to have a single digit 100 count. Almost flawless.

Care to play a 22 minute 7* map? Sure, said ThePooN, who went on to break the 1 billion score barrier and set a 6 miss 99.75% score on Renard - Because Maybe! pt. 2 that gave him 529pp. Sit down, relax, and listen to some Renard with some insane skill from this French player.

WubWoofWolf makes the SS rank feel like a joke to him as he pulled that out of Kuroneko Dungeon - Ryoushi no Umi no Lindwurm on yf & Crystal’s Extra with HDHR to gain 312pp. No one in the leaderboards are remotely close to him. See this flawless play for yourself!

_Asriel broke loose as he pulled off an amazing 96.62% HDDT FC on BOSSFIGHT - Dr. Wily's Castle: Stage 1 to earn himself 611pp. No one has yet to even come close to this crazy score on the leaderboards. See it for yourself!

NOTABLE MENTIONS:

Xilver took Linked Horizon - Jiyuu no Tsubasa (TV Size) to a whole new challenge by slapping on HDDT and getting only 1 sliderbreak, setting a 97.54% 473pp play.

Cookiezi took a trip down memory lane as he mashed his way and finally pulled off a mindblowing HDDT 95.2% FC on Demetori - Emotional Skyscraper ~ World's End, giving him 450pp.

free mutual absolutely destroyed nano - Omoide Kakera by pulling off a “never been done before” 97.95% HR FC, giving him 561pp (with 83 UR).

jakads pulled off an impressive 97.92% S rank score on xi - PEACE BREAKER on the 1.2x difficulty, only getting 38 misses throughout.

TWC 2017 Week 3 Summary: Quarter Finals - with magnomizer

This week in Quarter Finals, we see yet another 8 spectacular matches between the 16 countries that still remain in the tournament. Don’t worry if you’ve missed out though, as you can always watch the VODs here, or settle for a brief recap below:

Starting off with the winner’s bracket, all matches were fairly one sided as the winning team ploughed through the opposition with a confident 5-1 or 5-0 victory, knocking Australia, Germany, Hong Kong and South Korea to the loser’s bracket. Over on the loser’s bracket, we had 2 fairly close matches on Saturday, in the form of Spain vs UK and Chile vs Brazil. While both matches started off evenly, both Spain and Chile pulled through and won with 5-2.

However, the highlight of the weekend was certainly the match between Malaysia and Poland. Despite Malaysia snatching an early lead of 4-1, Poland was able to turn the tide of the battle by decisively picking technical maps. Slowly but surely, it wore down the opposing team and Poland was able to force a tiebreaker. Despite a valiant effort from both teams, only CreepyDuck from Poland was able to pass the map, resulting in the first ever 5-way fail in TWC history. This just goes to show how frighteningly difficult the mappool is, and how it will continue to rise in difficulty in the remaining weeks.

Lastly, we must say our goodbyes to the 4 countries that have been eliminated. They have all tried their hardest, but alas only the strongest will survive. TWC is certainly no walk in the park, so well done to Brazil, Indonesia, Malaysia and the United Kingdom for making it this far.

Next week in Semifinals, the first match is scheduled to take place on Saturday 1st April, 10:00 UTC. There we will see France facing off against South Korea – perhaps they will be able to take revenge following their match in Group Stage? With a total of 8 nail-biting matches to come, be sure to drop by the osu!live twitch channel this weekend to show your support for the teams that remain!

Apparently, the next issue I’m in charge of will be quite special! While I can neither confirm nor deny the possibility of some overhauling being done, I think it is safe to promise that nothing will be quite the same! Deadbeat will be around to cover us next week, so don’t go anywhere. Drop us an e-mail at news@ppy.sh if you have any news you would like to share with us. Alternatively, I’m really just too deadbeat to leave the osu!dev discord, so feel free to drop either me (HI IT'S ME I’M NYQUILL) or deadbeat a highlight!

—Nyquill