#and receiving a {problem} followed by {how do i do it} without much context out of the blue at the end of the day

[vivaciouscynner]

I don't know who needs to hear this, but if it's the end of the work day, don't ask for help and expect to get it that evening.

Don't send an instant message to one person about {thing}. I guarantee you that person is not the only one who knows the answer to the question and I guarantee you there are other options to get help faster:

Post in the DESIGNATED GROUP CHAT FOR YOUR TEAM - probably your quickest route.

If there really is only one person that can help, email and expect a reply the next day or even later

because damn it, you just don't do that to people. It's rude.

[theerurishipper]

Ladynoir and (In)Equality

For me personally, the most important thing in any relationship is that both partners are equals in that dynamic. I think that's a reasonable expectation to have. And Ladynoir did fulfill that requirement for me in the first 3 seasons. Even though Ladybug did most of the leadership stuff by making the plans and directing Chat Noir on what to do, it was understood that this was a mutual agreement. They both understood what they were good at, and their dynamic evolved accordingly. Chat Noir was content to follow her lead and Ladybug was content to make the plans and direct Chat Noir.

Season 2 saw the introduction of the inequality that shattered this balanced dynamic between the two, and quite frankly the later seasons only made it worse. It started in Syren, as we all know, where Chat Noir first expressed his displeasure at being left out of the loop when Ladybug was privy to important information that was being kept from him. Of course, Master Fu arrived to barely smooth things over before the issue was dropped for the season and never brought up again. Their dynamic remained as it was, but the cracks began to form here.

The introduction of Ladybug being the Guardian in Season 4 changed this established dynamic, obviously, and Ladybug began to give the Miraculous out to other holders. Keeping Chat Noir out of the loop began to become her MO, and she effectively replaced him with Rena Furtive in all but name. The central conflict of the season was the cracks forming in their relationship because of her new responsibilities and her secret keeping. And the resolution to this, as stated in Kuro Neko and Risk, is that even if he's no longer her partner, she still likes him best.

Now, the previous Ladynoir dynamic was one of equality, where they knew their roles and acted upon them. They were equals, and Ladybug's leadership in their pair was an informal one, one that was mutually agreed upon by them. The introduction of the Guardian role for Ladybug changes this from a mutually agreed upon dynamic to one where Ladybug is, for all intents and purposes, his boss. She is officially his leader, in the sense that if she so wished, he would be obliged to hand his Miraculous over to her. In the sense that she would be well within her rights to replace him if she so desired (which she does do). She is his superior, and he is no more important than the other temporary holders, with the sole exception that he holds his Miraculous permanently (which has now been exacerbated by the fact that all of them are permanent holders now).

Chat Noir received a demotion for no fault of his own, which he did not want, and someone else was promoted to replace him in the position he once occupied. Rena Furtive is Ladybug's special partner. Chat Noir is not Rena Furtive's equal, and he is definitely not Ladybug's equal.

This is not about a woman making more money than a man. She isn't just more successful than him, and this isn't about him being insecure about her being better than him. The problem is that Ladybug is Chat Noir's direct superior, and she has power over him. She has the power to call him when she needs him, and if not him, she'll get someone else. She has the resources to figure out his identity without him being none the wiser. She has the power to replace him if she wishes. Far be it from him to allow her to lead of his own accord, now he is obliged to follow her orders. She has the power to control what he knows and how he acts, and she has the power to keep vital information from him.

None of this is inherently "bad." But when you look at it from the context of them being on a path to a romantic relationship with each other, that's where the problems begin. Two people in a relationship should not have a dynamic where one has so much power over the other. Ladybug has so much power that she is able to slide a third teammate into their partnership and slowly push him away from his role at her side. She, quite unfortunately, can and has abused his trust because she had the resources to do so. The only opportunity he had in Season 4 to make his own choices that were not dictated by Ladybug's rules was when he quit. The final takeaway from this Ladynoir conflict is that Chat Noir is her favorite subordinate now (because Rena Furtive has replaced him), and just because they aren't equals anymore doesn't mean she doesn't want him around.

And, no, this was not corrected in Season 5. Season 5 was a return to their original dynamic, not because Ladybug and Chat Noir worked around this new shift in their relationship to find a way to overcome this new power imbalance. It's because Ladybug's power was forcibly taken away from her by a third party, and the only reason Chat Noir is her special partner again is because there is no one else left. But the end of Season 5 sees everyone come back, as permanent holders no less, and Chat Noir is once again demoted to his role as "just another holder like any other."

With the establishment of the Ladybug and the Black Cat Miraculous as two halves of a duo, equals in power, you'd expect them to be, well, equals. Me being upset about the inequality of these characters isn't with regards to screentime, or my wish for Adrien to be the main character or anything. My wish is for Adrien to be a character of his own. My wish is for the show to stop promoting such unhealthy dynamics as cute and fine. If they had simply made Adrien's role out to be the love interest, if they had just literally made him Ken who is content with just being Barbie's trophy boyfriend from the very beginning, if that was all his role has ever been and was meant to be from the start, I wouldn't be complaining so much. But the one they reduced into the role of Marinette's prize, the one over whom she has so much power, is the abuse victim whose arc is about self-actualization. And it paints a very disturbing picture. That far be it from Chat Noir to expect any kind of equal treatment from Ladybug, he's going to have put aside any discomforts or issues he has with their relationship to settle for being her favorite by virtue of nostalgia.

And it's just... bad, on a narrative level. Despite its ambitious introduction of so many plot points, the focus of this show has always been its romance. The main narrative goal of the series is for Ladybug and Chat Noir to get together. So, when your narrative hinges on these two characters getting together, and you decide to introduce such a power dynamic into the mix, saying "I still like you," isn't the fix that it's cracked up to be. If they are supposed to be the relationship around which the show is built, Chat Noir should be Ladybug's special partner, he should be her equal and not just another holder whom she likes better than everyone else. Ladynoir's relationship is directly tied to their partnership, and their dynamic as partners is the basis for any future romantic relationship between them. Introducing such an inequality between them in their partnership does affect their ability to be able to get together, and not in a good way.

This isn't a bad plot point. I like Ladybug being the Guardian, I like that they didn't just brush off the fact that there would be some changes in their dynamic. What I dislike is the way it was resolved, with Ladybug essentially saying that they would never be equals but she still likes him. A power imbalance does not a healthy relationship make. Ladynoir do not have a relationship where they are both completely aware of everything they should know. Chat Noir really cannot do anything in their dynamic, because Ladybug has all the control over everything. It's Ladybug controlling this information and Chat Noir accepting that he'll never be treated the way he wants to be treated, because he's been conditioned to believe his feelings don't matter. And she never did end up correcting this, and the conflict as it is ended with him forgiving her for everything even though she never apologized, and accepting that this is how it's going to be.

And it's not good. This isn't the Ladynoir I signed up for, honestly. I signed up for the Ladybug who accepted Chat Noir unconditionally and the Chat Noir who supported Ladybug through everything. I did not sign up for Ladybug trying to pull a Gabe and Chat Noir only being her emotional support who suppresses his own needs for her. The Ladynoir conflict and its less than satisfying resolution caused irreparable damage to the Ladynoir dynamic (it's irreparable because the writers don't see a problem with it and so they'll never fix it), and this has only continued into Season 5, which said "why fix it when I can make it worse."

[corellianhounds]

Idk why everyone thinks Crosshair was the chaotic misbehaving brother as a cadet. Mr. “Good soldiers follow orders” even without the chip? Mr. “Loyal to the Empire” even after they destroyed all Kaminoan cities and facilities and didn’t care enough to come back and see if there were any survivors? Mr. “Not immediately swayed by emotional convictions” even when they belong to those closest to him who he should trust above unseen authorities?

Even if you think obedience and compliance was hammered into him by those in charge and he had to learn to keep his head down or face the consequences, that doesn’t explain why it takes him so long to eventually accept the truth, despite the mounting empirical evidence he receives after the most dire possible circumstances that should show him that those in charge are wrong. It isn’t until Mayday’s death that Crosshair finally accepts the truth because it’s then that he’s being directly told by the people in charge that he and everyone like him is expendable and unnecessary.

Somebody with a rebellious youth is much more critical of authority figures even if they’re presently obeying them, and they’re much more ready to drop said authorities the second it’s a viable option and they physically can. Crosshair doesn’t behave like a dog that’s been beaten its whole life, he’s constantly making active decisions not only to follow the Empire but to enforce what the Empire dictates, even when he’s the one reaping the direct consequences of pushback on the ground for it. Because that’s what good soldiers do.

This guy was the kid following the rules by choice and getting mad at the others for finding loopholes or accomplishing things the ‘wrong’ way, especially if and when it got all of them in trouble (because they were kids and wouldn’t have always been right). Rules and structure are there for a reason. We’ve been here less than ten years, what on earth makes you think we know more than the people in charge? Why do I have to be punished because you guys couldn’t do as you were told?

To me the four of them (and Echo later) are a sliding scale when it comes to decision-making based on head vs heart. Crosshair and Tech are on one side, using logic and reason over emotion as their basis for decision-making and how they see the world, and Echo and Wrecker are more on the heart/instinct side of reasoning, putting people and ideals ahead of simply accomplishing objectives despite what the odds might be against them. Hunter’s the balance in the middle, being able to see both sides and weigh what the best option is based on the evidence and the context within which it’s being given. All of them have different fluctuating percentages of what’s going to motivate or drive them day by day, just based on the context of their circumstances, but that’s the general scale.

I think Hunter as a kid probably realized if he could get all of them to learn the rules as quickly as they could, then they’d know how to break them effectively with the least amount of repercussions and collateral damage. They were an experimental group for a reason and were likely given a modicum of wiggle room when it came to problem-solving, the Kaminoans not just allowing but pushing them to be more creative, flexible, and adaptable. They all know the hard rules of structure, chain of command, and behavioral compliance, but after that they’re given more freedom of choice. Their personal convictions inform both the why and how of following orders.

Wrecker is easier to figure out because he wears every thought and emotion on his sleeve and sees no reason not to. He’s more of a follower— Thinking is for other people, he’s a busy guy and man of action, give him something concrete with actionable directions and he’ll accomplish it with aplomb.

Tech, as a kid, likely knew both the spirit and letter of the law, which means he could see problems and solutions objectively regardless of his personal feelings/opinions and knew that rules are there to be guidelines: No structure is perfect and always following rules exactly was never going to always be the right decision. He would choose whichever seemed like the most logical, obvious route to success, finding loopholes and workarounds where he could as a means of balancing the consequences or fallout of said decision.

Hunter also knew both the spirit and letter of the law, but he was able to read situations and people better than Tech was, relying more on his gut instinct to tell him what the best course of action would be, even if that choice wasn’t the most logical. He’s a mediator and the best choice of leader because of his ability to get people working together by knowing how to convince each of them in their own way that this plan will accomplish their objective AND lead to the most amount of people being satisfied/happy in the end, them included. Despite the fact Hunter’s more reserved, he’s still a people person. It just happens to come from empathy, observation, and instinct, the latter two being qualities he was designed to specialize in.

Crosshair obeyed the letter of the law because structure exists for a reason and if that structure has yielded the best results and most success for the longest amount of time, then it’s obvious it must be the right one in place. Loopholes can be taken advantage of, but only when there isn’t an explicit wording against it or there is clear and mounting evidence that the rule doesn’t apply to him. To deviate from the majority in matters of how something is achieved is acceptable; to do so in matters of why is not.

[dropintomanga]

AI Can't Be the Whole Solution for Manga

So this week I found out out a Japanese start-up called Orange, who wants to be the Netflix of manga by translating a lot of manga with new apps and tools for the world to fight against online piracy. And to do so, the company will use AI to machine translate all of their manga into English. They also received $20 million USD in funding (one of their investors is Shogakukan) for their goal. This company wants to release up to 500 titles a month at some point.

I honestly don't know how to feel about this.

I read a more in-depth report from Deb Aoki of ComicsBeat and Mangasplaining about this whole startup. There's a lot of tout given by Orange about how this will help the manga industry overseas. Terms like deep learning, accessible content, influencers, reducing cost of localization, etc. are thrown around. Orange already has done some work for Shueisha for some of its MangaPlus titles. While it's apparent that the North American market only gets a small fraction of the manga published in Japan, there's concerns over whether this endeavor will end well.

A good number of manga translators and editors in the North American localization scene have commented on how bad this can be. AI machine translation is far from perfect. While DeepL (a Japanese language translation app similar to Google Translate) is arguably better than Google Translate, there's still errors abound. AI machine translation doesn't seem to be at a stage where you can just show it off to the world and have it translate something like a research paper with context. And even if the translation was good, there still needs to be people to fix errors AI will miss and the jobs to fix those errors don't necessarily pay well since they're the equivalent of "data entry" jobs.

And speaking as someone who reads up on mental health news, AI is not good for picking up nuances and differences that can help people for the better. It's only good for standardizing universal treatments. AI can not be open to the vulnerabilities of other people. One recent story I read last year was about a eating disorder helpline that created a chatbot to help those with eating disorders and how it bombed. There were complaints about how the bot didn't address patients' concerns that they were feeling down or bad about their bodies. Even worse, the chatbot gave some horrible advice by telling people to follow behaviors that led to their eating disorders in the first place. The support staff was fired in favor of the chatbot and while the chatbot was taken down after the complaints, it still left a bad taste in my mouth because mental health problems can never be solved without the human element.

I see this with what's apparently going to happen with manga. I don't see this creating a better world for manga readers. I'm well aware that there are a few professional manga translators in the scene who aren't doing a good job, but I feel they're doing fine for the most part. There's a glaring issue though that most people aren't thinking about - the amount of content we have out there.

We're in a golden age of having so much catered to us that it's ridiculous. Anime, manga, webtoons, video games, board games, music, etc. There's a lot out there. And to have a Japanese startup proclaim that they want to put out up to 500 titles a month, who realistically has the time to read all of them? I wonder if that's the point of these ventures - beat down consumers with so much material to consume that they become apathetic to what's going on behind the scenes.

I do want people to read manga, but I don't want them to become so overwhelmed to the point of burnout and numbness. That's the last thing any manga fan should want. I'm already hearing complaints from my fellow manga peers about the amount of manga we're getting here. It's nice to see bookshelves and libraries filled with manga, but which titles are really being read?

I also think there seems to be no universal standard that EVERYONE can agree with regards to localization. You have the professional side that knows a lot due to being inside the industry, but can be hindered by the Japanese publishing side and pestered by fans who think they know better. And you have the fan side that thinks they know everything because of scanlations and miscellaneous fan translations.

If you're a professional, it's a rough job and I applaud all manga freelancers who do it. Sometimes, I may not agree with the localization choices. But I'm not going to raise a pitchfork and treat them like they're witches. I know a few of those folks in-person and see the human in them.

If you're a fan, you can't expect a very casual reader to understand Japanese terms being spoken out right off the bat. It takes a while to get used to those terms. I'll use myself as an example as a riichi mahjong player. I throw out terms like suji, kabe, mentanpin, ryanmen, etc. to my fellow players. However, if there's an absolute beginner I'm talking to, they will have no idea what the hell I'm talking about.

I know some fans are like "Whatever, understanding those terms make me stand out. Yeah, I'm different! Screw the normal world!" But that makes it sound like gatekeeping to a certain degree. It's fine to have that kind of knowledge, but binding it to the very fabric of your identity is not healthy when circumstances change.

Orange seems to want a universal standard for manga translation by incorporating a variety of people into their process, but the fact that people will only be involved AFTER the translation makes me skeptical and the company is being called out for some things on their website. Both professionals and consumers will be screwed here. AI is being pushed so hard by corporations because it can readily applied to real life jobs and regular people in many ways, compared to cryptocurrency/NFTs, which applies only to people with a crap ton of money to spend. I've seen instances of AI usage at the company I work at - some of it good, some of it bad.

But nothing will beat the will and heart of the people. I think that's what scares AI-promoting people. Turning us into total mindless consumers prevents us from being mindful people that want to do right by others. Sure, reading manga makes me happy. But I don't want to be the only one who's happy. I also want people to make informed choices about what to consume.

I also want some people to stop assuming that Japan is the most "anti-woke" country alive out of their rage against localization because it's totally not. Japan has problems and there's people living there speaking out against them. They're "woke" in their own way. I swear that almost everyone who thinks Japan is better than the West hasn't lived there at all and are basing things from a very filtered point of view. I actually feel sorry for them because their lives are just so focused on consuming without thinking for themselves - a perfect market for the AI-pushing crowd.

I'll finish by saying that this AI-powered manga translation venture needs to happen with the right kind of people already on the table through the whole process and where everyone benefits. Everything bad with AI, as far as I've seen, has left people behind with no compassion or empathy. Manga has taught the wonders of compassion and empathy for all and I don't see the Japanese business side of things preaching what their works speak.

[chainsandmorechains]

How would you make me yours? What would you do to break me just right?

Ha!

What a question.

Truly, what a question, marvellous, this question was probably sended in the hope of getting an arousing answer am I right? I'm pretty sure I'm right, because my ego would refuse any reality where I'm not, but, I don't think you understand what you just awakened. You do not, because what you will receive is not a arousing answer that you would love to read with your hand between your legs! No! WHAT YOU WILL RECEIVE IS A THOROUGH BREAKDOWN OF HUMAN PSYCHOLOGY AND THE MOST UP TO DATE, MOST FUCKED UP MIND BREAKING TECHNIQUE EVER!

You won't escape your psychology class, and if you do try it, I'll be here to teach you, whether you like it or not!

CONTEXT!

USE THE RIGHT FUCKING WORDS!

Do it, your message can be interpreted in so many manners it's not even funny anymore, but since you said "make me yours" I'll write the rest of this message in our current setting, so, me, the owner of a porn blog, answering an anonymous question. I do not know you.

Therefore, I cannot touch you, and my words have little to no weight on you without an established relationship or information on you.

This limit a lot of my options, but considering the fact that I am the best, I'll figure something out.

The rest of this message will therefore be in this perspective, how do I make you, and specifically you, mine.

LESSON ONE!

Let's imagine...actually there is no need to imagine, I'm the owner of a porn blog, and you roam through it with one hand, now how would big little I, start the process of molding your cute little brain until you're nothing but a drooling mess that can only thing of pleasing me?

That's a pretty hard step, actually, the hardest step, if I manage this step, I am relatively confident in my ability at bending you over my desk, think of this step as me knocking in your metaphorical door to make you open it. My goal, is to make you open the door and convince you to let me enter, or enter by force...

In all cases, the most realistic way of getting through that first hurdle, is by convincing you, how you ask? In this current situation, I do believe the most optimal strategy is to answer your question in an extremely non-orthodox, strange, creative, and effort burdened manner, this is to pique your curiosity, to make you think "Who's that guy, he's pretty damn funny, and handsome and awesome and amazing" the end part may be a bit different in your head, it doesn't change the goal though, pique your curiosity, make you read my message and blog, the only way I can communicate with you.

If this step fail, everything else will fail.

If it doesn't and you see strange ressemblance between what I'm writing right now and this part of my plan, don't worry, that's just a dream, I am obviously not writing an extremely detailled, strange, unorthodox and funny message in the hope of making you mine, pffft, who do you take me for? Don't know if you see my username but it's "chainsandmorechains" not "writing funny and unorthodox message to enslave people for the rest of eternity"

Debunkage aside, this method have a lot of caveeats, the major problem is that everyone is different, and not a lot of people would like to read that long of a message...but, those are only losers, I doubt you're a loser since you follow me.

Yes, follow me, I doubt anyone that does not follow me would take the time to ask me a question, so your anonimity is not that useful to be honest, in a world where I REALLY REALLY REALLY wanted to make you mine, I would osint (open source inteligence, the art of finding people, place, events and more with all the information people unwaringly put on the internet) the heck of all my followers, kidnap all of them, torture you all, find who sended the question, and finally break you with much more basic methods.

All of this is illegal tho, so don't worry, I won't do it...really, don't worry.

LESSON 2:

In a uncertain future, where you're annoyed at being miserable and alone, you decide to do the smart thing and stay on the strange blog of the guy that threatened to stalk, kidnap and torture you in hope of passing the rest of your days polishing my dick.

Congratulation you're mad.

Or I'm way too charming, I like this second explanation more.

But what's done is done, you're interested in this guy awesome answers and decide to read more, more, more and more.

This is the second part of my plan, establishing a parasocial relationship.

What is a parasocial relationship you ask? Think youtubers and audience, or movie star and fans, the kind of fans that watched all their content and feel like they know them, for real, that like them like a friend...or a bit more than a friend in certain case, I'm sure you're heard the cases of fans stalking idols and shit? Yeah, that's a parasocial relationship pushed to the extreme.

My goal is to make you like me enough with that message....I mean, the theorical message I would write if I wanted to make you mine, so that you decide to stay around for longer and read more of my content, this is how parasocial relationship are made, they can also be improved by interacting with one audience....what I'm doing right now, yep.

Now now now, I can read your mind and I know you're wondering why I would want to establish a parasocial relationship with me?

It's obviously because of the THIRD LESSON:

we have the start of something, you wonder how I could break you into submission with my dick, I wonder if I should make something to eat right now, It's really fragile and uncertain but we have...some sort of parasocial relationship.

Just enough of it to wonder, what if? What if I entered this badass dm's and gave this awesome guy the oportunity to really break me in half?

So you do, you come in my dm's and boum.

You probably lost already.

Or win, depend of how you see being mine is, definetly think it's a win personally.

Why did you lost? Ah, that's simple, it's because of lesson 4,5,6,7,8,9[...]927282910.

Those next few lesson can basically be summarised in that:

Talk to you like a human being, learn what you like, enjoy our time together, and have fun.

.....

Lovebomb you to death, make you trust me, get more information on you, destroy the context mentionned above, abuse your trust, make you love me, abuse your love, meet you, fuck you into submission, establish an abusive relationship with you, make sure you can only rely on me, train you, and soon enough you'll be breaked in half.

If you really really want to know how I would train you, make you love me or other, well I do believe my dm's are open, and if you're really shy do ask me another question, this will only exacerbate the parasocial relationship.

You're playing a losing game, give up.

[animebw]

Re: oshi no ko fans,

What'd they do?

Yeah, I guess I should probably give some context to that statement.

So, for those not keeping up with Oshi no Ko, last week's episode featured a plotline where a character on a reality dating show is swarmed with cyberbullying after a minor dust-up, and it escalates so badly that she tries to commit suicide. It's a brutally effective episode that really captures the horror of online abuse, the almost addictive masochism of scrolling through comment after comment calling for your death and dragging your name through the mud. It's easily the best Oshi no Ko has been, and I will stand by that opinion despite how messy things are going to get in the rest of this post.

See, this plotline doesn't just a wholly fictional exploration of online abuse; it has a very direct real life inspiration. Shortly after the manga started publishing, Japanese wrestler Hana Kimura committed suicide following a chain of events very much like this. She was on a reality show, she had a minor altercation with a fellow contender, and she was bombarded with online abuse until she took her own life. It's likely Akasaka already had the general idea for this plotline sketched out before this event, but the connections are so specific that it's pretty clear this real-life event influenced how it played out in the story. And in the anime at least, some of the mean comments the character gets are lifted wholesale from comments Kimura received during her harassment. So clearly, Oshi no Ko is pulling on this real life tragedy to further its themes of darkness in the entertainment industry and how it affects people.

The problem is, Kimura's mom isn't happy about it.

See, apparently no one- nobody working on the manga or the anime- thought to ask Kimura's family if it was okay to use their tragic circumstances as part of their narrative. Nobody bothered to check if it maybe might be a little insensitive to drag out the corpse of a dead girl for an edgy reincarnation revenge idol drama without asking that girl's parents if they were okay with it. So the mom did an interview where she expressed her anger at the whole thing, and how her daughter was essentially being used as "free source material," which, yeah, seriously, how the fuck did nobody check with her before this went to air? I don't care how good your intentions are or how excellent the finished product turned out, you do not use the real words and comments that drove a girl to suicide without getting the go-ahead from her family first. She even mentioned that a friend of hers watched the episode without knowing its content beforehand and it basically triggered all those traumatic memories all over again. It's just really fucking ugly all around.

Now, the whole point of the episode in question is about how terrible online harassment is and how you should never toss mean words around online so thoughtlessly, because you could be hurting people in ways you can't possibly understand. So you'd think that Oshi no Ko fans, being faced with this very understandable anger from someone with more stake in this mess than any of them either well, would take the situation with grace and try to reach an understanding. You'd think they'd try to have the kind of compassion in discussing this difficult subject that Kimura and the character inspired by her never got.

If only.

Now, to be clear, it's not like the entire Oshi no Ko fanbase ganged up on Kimura's mother. Plenty of people took the situation in stride and treated it fairly. But even just on the English speaking side of the internet, I've already seen way too many people becoming exactly the kind of mindless hate mob the show portrayed in that critical episode. And while I can't speak for the Japanese side, people who keep up with Japanese online spaces have confirmed there's harassment going on over there too. People saying she's only doing this for attention (gee it's almost like HER DAUGHTER'S DEATH IS BEING USED WITHOUT HER CONSENT), she shouldn't complain because it's raising awareness about cyberbullying (which totally justifies cyberbullying her in response, naturally), even claiming the arc totally wasn't inspired by Kimura's circumstances and it was just a coincidence the storyline released around the same time. Which is funny, because I distinctly remember when the episode first came out I saw tons of people praising how it took inspiration from Kimura's circumstances and how it was totally speaking to real life events so you had to take it seriously. But now Kimura's mother comes out saying she's upset with how it was handled, and suddenly those same people are going "Uuuuuuh actually it's just a coincidence, if you think it's intentional you're stupid."

I mean, if I didn't know better, I'd say it's almost like they never actually cared about the message. Like they only wanted to use the shiny coat of real-life tragedy to massage their own egos for liking Good(tm), Serious(tm) works of fiction that talk about Real(tm) Issues(tm), only to discard that talking point when it no longer suited their narrative. I might even call them a bunch of worthless cunts who care about protecting themselves from even the mildest emotional discomfort and moral uncertainty more than they give a damn about anyone else's genuine struggles with actual issues far beyond what any of these fuckweasels will ever have to face. Hell, if I was feeling particularly spicy, I might even connect this bullshittery to my criticisms of Oshi no Ko as a whole and point out how despite its thin veneer of deep societal criticism, this show really is the kind of vapid, pandering edge-masquerading-as-depth spectacle that presents just enough illusion of substance for people to feel smart for watching it without actually challenging them to leave their comfort zone of an "edgy" male antihero saving the day and making all the cute girls fall for him, thus attracting the exact same kind of insincere, cowardly fanbase that reacts to the slightest real challenge to their sense of self-righteousness by become the exact kind of monster the story they supposedly adore was trying to warn them against.

But that's probably unfair to all the normal, perfectly well-adjusted Oshi no Ko fans who don't deserve to be lumped in with this vocal minority of losers. So I'll call it a day here. Bottom line, ask before you use a real person's misery for Content(tm), don't be a dick when people criticize the fiction you enjoy, and online harassers can go suck on an exhaust pipe.

[waterparksdrama]

double dare plz..

ask and you shall receive

hawaii (stay awake) - really sets the scene for the album. an upbeat pop punk song that shows off what parx does best; electronic infused pop punk that stays fresh with the equally interesting lyrics that compliment it. the song lyrically follows awsten dealing with his daily troubles but having someone to look forward to being with despite it all. really establishes the major themes of the album right from the get go in one catchy package. 7/10

gloom boys - probably the leader of the recurring theme in parx songs of "this song sounds happy but it's actually really fucked and sad ooOOOoooOOo i am the joker but an emoscene lead singer". even if that is the song's legacy for the rest of their discography, it's still a very fun song regardless. lyrically, it uses a lot of ironic imagery in its verses about how he only writes when he's sad like every other artist before going into the chorus, asking (maybe to himself, maybe to someone else) why they're so "cold" and "scared to be alone" in contrast to the more darkly playful nature of the verses. that bridge will forever be iconiccccc. 7/10

stupid for you - she is That song... probably the most well known parx song of all time what else is there to say. it's fun, it's catchy, it's smartly written both instrumentally and lyrically like c'mon it's a good ass song. to be fair there's some mild foreshadowing to the reason for the downfall of their relationship in this song already but "you're playing ring around my head / i wear you like a halo"????? c'mon this is some good shit. i love it. 7/10

royal - FUCK YEAH ROYAL. another song about feeling like he's failing to live up to expectations, both in his work and his personal relationships and wishing how those problems would just Go Away. like fuckkkkkkkkk this song hits hard. like the way it just builds up to these really cathartic big choruses really does it for me along with the subject matter. "you won't like what you see, so keep your eyes off of me / i fall in love with everything that wants nothing to do with me" you could shoot me in the face and it'd hurt less than this 8/10

take her to the moon - ok i'll admit i wasn't really a fan of this until i did a dance warmup to it and now i do LOL. the song instrumentally is the most pop sounding they've been up to this point with clear influences from owl city and early breathe carolina and hellogoodbye. lyrically, it's another well written love song using the space and beyond theming of the title specifically in the bridge's imagery with "yeah, you cloud my head, but can you really get lost in heaven?" showing the rose colored view of awsten for this person. again, foreshadowing, but it's a good ass song i can see why awsten loves it so much. 7/10

made in america - i don't get why people don't like this song it's a perfectly fine song both instrumentally and lyrically lol. from how i interpret it, it's a critique on the hypocrisy of american consumerism specifically in the ~pop punk scene~ for context during awsten's time growing up there was the rise of that sort of "this band saved my life" sentiment and non profits that would fundraise for charity (to write love on her arms specifically for their shirts and the keep a breast foundation with the infamous i heart boobies rubber wristbands). most people in the scene would wear these as trends without really caring about the causes they were for (hence "we're justice warriors when we're bored, you see? / buying bracelets and then channeling"). not to mention the glamorization of band guys' lifestyles they sell to kids who wish to be just like them without realizing they're phonies ("it's basically tradition / to lust for what you're missing / they're selling you a touched up name"). awsten points out the hypocrisy of both the bands and fans who buy into the romanticized band guy image or the causes they "support" that just end up being a fashion statement at the end of the day. honestly this commentary still holds up pretty well especially today when the prioritization of aesthetics over understanding subcultures seems to be fairly prevalent. 7/10

dizzy - a song about growing up into early adulthood, growing distant from the people you once knew, and dealing with depression all through it. pretty self explanatory, the song itself slows down much like the lyrical themes of this song. what else can i say man, it kinda hits for me stop being relatable to me pre los angeles awsten goddamn. final thoughts on this? i like the hidden vocals in the second pre chorus where awsten sings that he does wanna talk and think about all of this, though he sounds quiet and morose saying it out loud. you can hear that better in this post if you want. 8/10

powerless - again i think shooting me in the face would hurt less than this song. a head over heels love song with some subtle foreshadowing again about trying to keep a long distance relationship alive. this song is so devastatingly earnest and hopeful that i need to be stabbed. is that the best way to explain this bc this is me saying the song is really good and makes me emotional and incredibly sad from knowing how this ended up. 9/10

little violence - a song critiquing the rock music scene, specifically his band guy peers that only want to be friends now that parx is signed and making it and the music critics specifically on rock sites like absolutepunk that won't like them for heading in the more pop direction they've been shooting for. it's essentially just "fuck you: the song" and awsten being tired of all of it. the bridge itself takes a break from these shots fired though, since when he's with the person he loves, he seems to calm down about all this at least for a second. the instrumental itself carries the themes of these lyrics, with more punky riffs that still has the classic parx electronics complimenting their sound. 7/10

21 questions - another devastating foreshadowing relationship song has hit the towers. a song that starts as acoustic but builds into a full band song about awsten starting a relationship with a girl who cheats on her prior relationship to be with him and his fears of the same thing happening to him. oh god. yeah this hurts. hindsight is 20/20 and all that. the outro especially kills me "i'll forget you if you need me to, like nothing ever happened / my sun still sets without you, like nothing ever happened" please shoot me in the face it will hurt less 8/10

it follows - a song about awsten's emotions about this relationship, how he knows that he's not thinking straight with this person and how he can't think of anything else without them. if we're to believe the title refers to the horror movie of the same name, awsten feels cursed in relationships, making him nervous for this one despite how head over heels he is. i like how the guitars sort of tremble and stutter like a nervous thought before kicking into these large choruses in tandem with the lyrics. 9/10

plum island - a sort of stream of consciousness from awsten going from topics such as critiques of parx's new direction soundwise to his breakup and feeling shitty all throughout it, the chorus seeming to talk to the listener and playing into the "brooding band guy" thing and the last choruses taking solace in someone despite it all. god it's just an interesting song in general, the sort of lack of an actual chorus until the end and the sort of edm like drop that's used for most of the song with the chopped and mixed vocals of "lose your mind". not to mention those iconic drums at the beginning especially when you consider *waves hand* uh. the subjects of this song. 9/10

i'll always be around - lemme reiterate that when i react to a parx song and i say "i need to be shot" that means the song is good. this is one of the songs making me react like that. sonically, it has all the hallmarks of your regular, heartbreaking parx song with its electronics and devastating lyrics, and hopeful nature despite knowing something bad will happen. a song of awsten promising to be faithful to someone that in later performances got turned into a song about always being around for geoff and otto T___T i am going to put a gun in my mouth and blow my brains up /pos i love friendship i love love i'm dying to be your everything 9/10

candy - y'all know i gotta do the bonus tracks c'mon. this song is the most pop punk they've been while still have those parx certified electronic bits. this literally sounds like it could've been in a 2000s teen movie. hell, this sounds like if an old all time low song was good let's just admit that. lyrically, the song is about lessening your problems by sugarcoating them, which is what the song does by contrasting awsten's daily worries with the upbeat guitars. it's fun idgaf. 8/10

what we do for fun - Literally The Parx Song Of All Time. what the fuck. jaw dropped on the floor at some of this oh my god. less of a love song, more of an obsession song, mostly about sex. why did awsten bother writing about sex after this; it's articulate, mostly subtle, sexy yet playful like hello, "worshipping you from the darkest of corners like i'm practicing my own private religion" IF YOU WROTE THIS KINDA SHIT ABOUT ME I WOULD MARRY YOU ON THE SPOT. AWSTEN YOU DID NOT HAVE TO WRITE INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY WHEN YOU WROTE THIS. instrumentally, it's a drum heavy song much like plum island and yeah i can't say anything more what the fuck this song is so good i need to blow something up. 10/10

all in all, double dare is such a classic. from the instrumentals to the lyrics, it's all so emotionally earnest it makes you want to pick up the nearest sharp object and sink it into your chest when you realize what happened like immediately after this album. it's such a good album and establishes a lot about parx.

-iz

[tauforged]

[anon from before again] I don’t think we have directly interacted before nor was I the person sending people the messages that were telling people to block you!! I just wanted to offer some perspective on what haUppened and that probably drama #1 was the catalyst for unfollowing. Most people who got the anon didn’t really care. I didn’t mean to upset you further and dont check your blog but tumblr keeps reccing your posts to me and I don’t want to block.

i have a very hard time believing that you’re someone i’ve never interacted with considering your previous messages were nearly word-for-word identical to dms i’ve received on the matter from someone i am doing my damnedest to avoid, but i’m willing to believe that it’s just a weird coincidence and take you at your word for now if it will just put a stop to this. if you’re genuinely incapable of seeing me minding my own business without bringing the entire incident up, i would really prefer you just block me because i have stated time and again that i want to be left alone. that means no more asks about the situation. you don’t need a reason to unfollow, i don’t care if you did or not - i’d much prefer people unfollow me than make their not liking the way i blog my problem ! i’ve never given a shit about follower count, i’m here to try and make connections with people who share my interests and talk about my life, idgaf about clout or whatever. i’d rather have 10 followers and they all be people i enjoy the company of than 5k while also feeling like i need to watch my back, yknow?

however i do have one more question — can you elaborate on what you mean when you says “most people who got the anon didn’t care”? because aside from a couple of close friends who got it and reached out to me directly and one(1) nonmutual id never interacted with one-on-one who very kindly dmed me to see if everything was okay after getting it , i haven’t heard or seen anything and wouldn’t have been aware it was even happening had one not gotten sent to my boyfriend of all people, so i’d genuinely really love to know how you know who got the ask in question. im not trying to be directly accusatory, i really hope there’s a benign explanation for that and id hope you’d understand why my thoughts immediately went where they did without any further context.

[lazaruspiss]

your ship, character and fandom opinions are so based. i'm also a poly robin shipper so it's nice to see there are more of us here. anyway, i'd love to hear what are your all time favorite dc ships and why, and if you have any headcanons (sfw and nsfw) about them. or you can just ramble about any fic ideas you have, the ones you've mentioned already are very interesting.

thank u for the compliments and also the many things to talk about!! <3 mwah! (readmore added bc of length)

picking a favorite ship is so hard, because im a multishipper and real big on leaving my options open so that i have the most opportunity in any given story!! like, brudick and sladick are both ones i love for dark stories, but they each give such different angles and paths that you can take. all combinations of robins are dear to me for different reasons. and even within the context of one ship, i can usually come up with a lot of different directions that they can go it!!

i can't even say "X is my favorite for Y types of stories" because with a good pairing theres so much you can do with a variety of types of stories!! so. def cant pick a favorite, but i can list some that i like! they mostly involve Dick, bc my biases are quite obivious, lol.

Dick ships: Bruce, Slade, Talia, Slade/Talia, Tim, Jason, Steph, Damian (but it depends a lot on context, i see Dick as being very careful about not taking advantage), any poly robins combo, Slade/Rose, Tara

other ships: Slade/Rose, Slade/Talia, any robins together, Bruce/Talia (but only if Talia is having daddy issues about it), Nyssa/Talia (Nyssa repeatedly kills and revives her to make her understand her anger at Ra's. the rituals. they're intricate i swear-)(but also in arkham knight Nyssa compares her love for Talia to Bruce's explicitly romantic love for Talia and i've never been normal about that), any combo of the Al Ghuls tbh they're so mentally ill about each other

so uhhhhhh. really you could pitch any Dick ship at me and get me talking. if anyone wants to ask about that list ur welcome to lol

fic ideas!!! i have some shorter ones, like a Blackfire/Robin non-con based on that one scene from tt03, but i kinda wanna take this chance to ramble about my longer ideas!

u may have seen some of these, but i have a series called "days without incident" which is a bunch of shorter than usual fics stringing together random semi canon compliant scenes of Dick being in dangerous sexual situations, which are eventually going to end in a rlly angsty fic of Dick being assaulted and just accepting it. it sounds dark, and it is, but due to the length and format they really just serve as quick writing warm-ups more than anything.

DIDick AU. a friend of mine has been on the receiving end of so many DMs of me fleshing out these alter OCs, to the point that it would feel weird if I didn't write anything for it. the problem is that when I think about it, it all revolves around characters and there's no real plot line to use for it. I could just rant about it, bc figuring out what I want to do for a story about them is really tricky. it's also tough bc it's a teeny bit more personal than I usually go for. do /I/ have DID? unclear. I probably wouldn't tell you either way. anyways, it's an idea i want to more with but it's just more complicated to work on than most others.

suicide fic. "Where The Dead Stay Dead", title in reference to this being in a "Jason Stays Dead AU". i want to take a sort of dark comedy direction, but i have trouble controlling how the tone ends up when I write. Dick tries to kill himself post Jason's death + many other bad times but Slade just happens to pop in to try and bother him that day, and is uh. he doesn't know how to feel about it, the kid dying in front of him, but he drags Dick to a safe house and does some made-up comic book science fuckery to give Dick his healing factor. Dick is not very happy about this when he wakes up. the rest of the story follows an arrangement where Dick searches for a way to perma die and is generally a depressed grumpy bitch about everything, and Slade secretly tries to get him to stop doing that while trying to figure out a way to revive Jason. whichever ends up being easier. a lot of it would probably just be about Slade feeling lost with this "new" version of Dick, as well as the two of them swapping stories about dead loved ones and learning how to mourn.

timcel fic. that was the placeholder title, before i settled on "Nature's Order (As Told From Alpha To Beta)", but i still call it the timcel fic for short <3 the alpha in that title is Ra's, and the beta is Tim. the kick off for the story is that Ra's kidnaps omega Dick to use as a human incubator bc he and Talia had a spat that's left him heir-less, and he kidnaps Tim to make Dick more compliant. it's a really extreme take on "right wing alpha male pipeline, but omegaverse". it's gonna be a lot of bad times for Dick <3 i've talked about it so much with my friend that one time they mentioned basing smth partially off of Nature's Order Tim, and I think that's a good sign that I should really be writing this properly at this point. I have started chapter one! but bc it's gonna be a long one I want to get three chapters done before I start posting, bc having a few extra chapters written will help with my nerves a bit.

[thenourishedsoul]

All About Love by bell hooks - A Review

"Love is a force as real as gravity."

As I was thinking of how to begin this review, this is the quote that came to mind.

"Love is a force as real as gravity" - A bold statement when read with no context, especially when many of us have known lovelessness for much of our lives. But throughout this book, hooks makes a good case for this claim, which I believe can persuade even the most cynical among us.

The book begins with the notion that love is something our society consistently speaks of, but we have developed no real definition of it. It holds great significance in all of our individual lives, but lacks a discernible identity. It is this paradoxical nature that often leaves us confused about what it truly means to love someone, and yet, we often feel it in our spirit when we are not being loved correctly. It is here where hooks makes the argument that love is better described as a verb than a noun; It is a collection of actions, not a feeling (contrary to what many of us were taught). The actions described in the book are as follows:

Care

Affection

Recognition

Respect

Commitment

Trust

Most of our relationships only make it as deep as "care" and "affection". And while these are abundant in a truly loving relationship, they are just the baseline. Without the rest, what is initially believed to be a loving connection can quickly fall apart. hooks highlights the fact that care and affection can coexist with abuse, whereas love cannot. This is the first big takeaway that can be received from this book.

You may or may not have noticed that I have not yet brought up the word "romance" - and this is on purpose. When most of us think of love, we may initially think of it in the context of a romantic relationship. This was my mindset when I first picked up this book. What I quickly realized is that when bell hooks titled this book "All About Love", she really meant it. She makes the statement that "self-love can not thrive in isolation", which touches on both love of the self, and loving community. These are two key aspects of the book that I did not anticipate. All About Love is a call to responsibility, in bringing love into your own life and into the lives of those around you.

On the topic of self-love, here is the main takeaway that I received:

A large part of self-love is taking responsibility for our actions, and how they play into our own suffering. Many of our unsavory habits were subconsciously learned in the midst of lovelessness. This first step in self-nourishment can be uncomfortable because it requires us to acknowledge that we are in pain, to begin with - an act that can be difficult in and of itself. As a society, we have gotten comfortable with having a quick fix for every negative experience and emotion. For some of us, it can be drugs or alcohol. For others, self-depreciation, and self-shaming in the form of comedy. So to sit with our suffering, to get to know the ins and outs of it, and to learn the role we play in it... This is the first step in relieving ourselves from some of it. We often hear about communication as a part of love, but we don't often do the work of communicating with the deepest parts of ourselves.

On the topic of loving others:

Some people who do not love themselves seek out romantic relationships to fill that void. This turns love into an act of desperation - an act of selfishness. To briefly go back to the previous topic: When we offer ourselves love, we can begin to fill that void. It is from here that loving others becomes an act of generosity, instead of desperation. At this point, we are no longer desperate for love, for we have it in abundance.

Some of us also believe that all of our problems will be solved when we begin a romantic relationship. This is not the case. Love is not the absence of hardship - it is an aspect of our lives that allows us to continue growing and healing with someone by our side that embodies the values of care, affection, recognition, respect, trust, and commitment. It may support us through hardship, but it will never get rid of it completely. Hardship is a part of life, and so is love. They will always coexist.

This book is truly life-changing. bell hooks writes with such poise and informed insight about a topic that has remained a quiet mystery for many years. For those that can pick up a copy, I guarantee you that every time you open this book, you will later close it having gained something.

[roman-empire]

No one has phone manners anymore. As soon as I pick up the phone at work ppl go "is the manager there?" Or "can I speak to the groomer?" Then I have to take the phone to the person in question and when I tell them they have a call they immediately ask who it is or what it's about and I have no idea. Especially in the groomers case, they might be handling a difficult dog and can't talk safely.

I wish ppl would give a brief cover letter so to speak, describing in a few words the purpose of the call. That's what I was taught to do.

"I want to speak to the manager; I'm a customer and have a complaint."

I know the tone of the call and tell the manager they might want to step in the office to take this.

"I just had a quick question for the groomer about the shampoo they use."

I can tell the groomer this will be a quick call and they don't have to take the dog off the table or out of the tub to take it, or I can step into the salon and get the answer while they work.

"I'm looking to make an appointment. "

This one ppl actually sometimes say and it's a huge help because then I can tell the groomer what the call is about and if their hands are full they can ask me to take the persons number and tell them we'll call back.

Any phone call to a professional or business. State name, how you relate to them "I'm a client/ with your product provider/ interested in your open position,"etc

Then a VERY brief description of the purpose of the call "I have a complaint/ question / I'm returning a call about x/I wanted to update you regarding y/ I was looking for more information/ following up after my interview"

This gives the receiver an idea of how long the call will take, and if they are the one you need to speak to or if you need to be transferred to the relevant person.

Most calls I take open with absolutely no info, or way too much- they start describing a problem with no context. Give me the reason for the call before you start giving me back story.

And what I hate most is that ppl don't say goodbye. In service industry, sometimes we can't hang up until you do. That's why customer service interactions often ask if there is "anything else you needed" etc. Say, "no, that is all. Thank you for your time/ help. Goodbye/ have a nice day" that is my cue that you are satisfied and hanging up. If you called me, you decide when the call ends. Do not wait for me to end the conversation, I am waiting for your signal to end. Most people say "OK, thank you." Then either pause or just hang up on me without a clear ending signal, so i might sit for a few extra moments wishing the void a lovely afternoon. Not a huge deal, but I personally I hate it.

Millennial and genz complain that phone calls to professionals are awkward or scary- they AREN'T if you use scripts!!!

I feel like in the rush of “throw out etiquette who cares what fork you use or who gets introduced first” we actually lost a lot of social scripts that the younger generations are floundering without.

[selormohene]

day 13 (sunday, july 16th 2023)

On learning and understanding math, and “being a math person”. I learned to read, so my family tells me, when I was 3. I’ve been reading ever since. Not in the trivial sense that since then I’ve enjoyed reading books, although of course I have, but in the literal sense that I’ve literally probably not gone more than a few waking hours at almost any point in my life without interpreting text of some kind. Whenever I hear someone say something and visualise the words as text in my mind, or have to follow a road sign or look something up on Google Maps or whatever, really, I’m reading, working out those parts of my brain. In fact, it’s gotten to the point (as it does for most literate adults, of course) where I read compulsively; there is almost nothing I can do to avoid interpreting sequences of letters arranged to form English words as the English words they are arranged to form. Moreover, with the amount of extra effort I’ve put into language-related pursuits (writing short stories and essays since I was a child, learning how to read and wrestle with ever-more-complicated books and papers and making the effort to think on similar levels of complexity), I’ve taken my ability to engage with language pretty far.

Obviously, the same isn’t true for math. Unlike Terence Tao, who I’m told was doing addition at the age of 2, and has probably been doing math ever since, and whose intellectual trajectory may well have made him one of the few people alive (or throughout history, honestly) to whom math probably comes as naturally as language does to everyone else, I don’t think I started doing math at such a young age, and I haven’t had the same amount of compounded stimulus and effort (basically the same reinforcement learning regime) as he has. Most people haven’t. The point isn’t that if I (or anyone else) had had the same experience we would have reached the same level; we would have had, for instance, to have the special sauce that enables you to be able to do addition at the age of 2. But I do wonder whether it might not just be the case that if many of us had had the same amount of mathematical stimulus, from the same age, as we did with respect to language, we might not all have had, if not the same level of facility for math as someone like Terence Tao, at least a facility for math at a level comparable to even the most ordinary civilian’s facility with language.

Obviously this is a completely unworkable proposal. Plus the poverty of stimulus argument for an innate language faculty would suggest that the innateness of the language faculty is in fact what’s doing a lot of the work here. (Although the mathematical stimulus that children receive is of course orders of magnitude less, and when our mathematical faculties do get off the ground we aren’t solving thousands of tiny math problems every time our eyes fall upon a set of symbols, etc. Plus the co-evolution of linguistic faculties with linguistic activity would have played a role, but the relevant counterfactual would require that we be able to carry out all the things that we’ve been able to do with language with math instead, in order to stimulate the same amount of co-evolution, etc.) But what this thought experiment does suggest, at least to me, is that the notion that there is this innate mathematical faculty that some people have and others don’t doesn’t make sense. Obviously some people just “catch on to” certain things more easily. But I genuinely believe that many of the people who believe in such an innate faculty either haven’t actually had the opportunity to reflect on what generates mathematical understanding, perhaps because they don’t have that much of it, or else the contexts in which they have reflected on such understanding hasn’t necessarily involved thinking very much about the conditions which underlie such understanding, and so hasn’t necessarily left open as plausible the idea that those conditions might be relatively mundane.

When I think about my understanding of math, both at primary school and university levels, I don’t think of an innate faculty for accessing higher realms of truth which some people have and others don’t. For one thing, I’d be shocked if I had such a thing at a relative proportion commensurate with the relative level of achievement and/or understanding of math (and/or “potential” for such understanding) I’ve managed to achieve (which I’m not claiming is exceptionally high or anything). Rather, I remember not understanding how algebra and multiplication worked in second grade, and having no idea what long division was all about in third grade, and then eventually coming to understand those things. What caused me to understand those things eventually, when I did, was an unexceptional assemblage of everyday cognitive faculties, repurposed in non-obvious ways: an ability to engage in associative thinking, a motley of mnemonics and metaphors, a healthy dose of memorisation and repetition to automate the lower-level prerequisites for higher-level understanding, exploring different perspectives on an issue to find the ones which resonated with me in particular, which made things click for me, seeing things a bunch of times until the idea sunk in, sleeping on things and trusting my mechanisms of neural self-organisation (and/or, at a different level of description, your “unconscious”) to figure things out for me. The sorts of mental images and things by which I’m able to remember how matrix multiplication works, for instance (and some of them are rather whimsical and silly, they feel like the sorts of things a two-year-old daydreaming would come up with), feel just like those by which I’m able to get some grasp on how abstract tensor products work. When I think about those people on YouTube who do creative visualisations of mathematical ideas and there are people in the comments saying “ooh wow this makes it so intuitive” this shows that really it’s that sort of aesthetic understanding that underlies the ability of a wider range of people to understand mathematics than is generally believed. It’s just that some people more immediately see mathematical concepts in the sort of aesthetic perspective in question than others.

I remember reading a tweet by Frank Lantz (or retweeted by him?) which said that memorisation isn’t opposed to understanding (in mathematics?) but a prerequisite for it. That one tweet changed my perspective on learning math and probably my entire life. Crystallised intelligence is the basis upon which fluid intelligence works. How can you solve an algebra problem in your head if you have to figure out how multiplication works from scratch? Obviously at some point the multiplication has to be hard-coded into your head before you can even dream of doing algebra creatively. The ability to do that isn’t really a matter of some mystical faculty of understanding. It’s a matter of have you memorised your times table.

I’ve always said that math is like a large tower of blocks stacked on top of each other. In order for the higher bricks to stand any chance of actually staying on the tower, the lower-level bricks essentially need to have been stacked perfectly. So small, perhaps even minuscule (and usually perfectly fixable) differences in people’s mastery of lower-level concepts will compound, and lead to large differences in people’s ability to learn further concepts, but not because of large differences in one’s inherent potential to grasp those further concepts. I can’t count how many times the reason I just couldn’t get some “advanced” concept was because my understanding of a more elementary component concept was less-than-perfect, but understanding that elementary component perfectly was easy and subsequently understanding the higher-level concept was easy. In the moment it seems impossible, but once you do understand it, it becomes obvious. It’s like trying to jam a key into a slot at a slight angle. The moment you find the right angle it slides in perfectly. A lot of this is just a matter of explaining the phenomena, but many of the phenomena in question — for instance, the fact that things which seem impossible to understand when you’re trying to do so come to seem obvious once you’ve seen them, the best explanation for which is that it’s a matter of finding the right way to make the understanding go through rather than a question of whether or not one can or cannot ultimately come to understand the phenomenon in question — don’t show up to most people who are trying to explain how learning math works as phenomena to be accounted for.

The culture of genius partly accounts for this issue. If you’re surrounded by people you don’t need to make any effort to teach, you come to believe that it should never require any effort, you either have it or you don’t. But maybe I’ll elaborate on that later, maybe tomorrow.

[eternal-echoes]

Gianguido Vecchi:

Holy Father, during this visit too, you have frequently spoken of mercy. With regard to the reception of the sacraments by the divorced and remarried, is there the possibility of a change in the Church’s discipline? That these sacraments might be an opportunity to bring these people closer, rather than a barrier dividing them from the other faithful?

Pope Francis:

This is an issue which frequently comes up. Mercy is something much larger than the one case you raised. I believe that this is the season of mercy. This new era we have entered, and the many problems in the Church – like the poor witness given by some priests, problems of corruption in the Church, the problem of clericalism for example – have left so many people hurt, left so much hurt. The Church is a mother: she has to go out to heal those who are hurting, with mercy. If the Lord never tires of forgiving, we have no other choice than this: first of all, to care for those who are hurting. The Church is a mother, and she must travel this path of mercy. And find a form of mercy for all. When the prodigal son returned home, I don’t think his father told him: “You, sit down and listen: what did you do with the money?” No! He celebrated! Then, perhaps, when the son was ready to speak, he spoke. The Church has to do this, when there is someone… not only wait for them, but go out and find them! That is what mercy is. And I believe that this is a kairos: this time is a kairos of mercy. But John Paul II had the first intuition of this, when he began with Faustina Kowalska, the Divine Mercy… He had something, he had intuited that this was a need in our time. With reference to the issue of giving communion to persons in a second union (because those who are divorced can receive communion, there is no problem, but when they are in a second union, they can’t…), I believe that we need to look at this within the larger context of the entire pastoral care of marriage. And so it is a problem. But also – a parenthesis – the Orthodox have a different practice. They follow the theology of what they call oikonomia, and they give a second chance, they allow it. But I believe that this problem – and here I close the parenthesis – must be studied within the context of the pastoral care of marriage. And so, two things: first, one of the themes to be examined with the eight members of the Council of Cardinals with whom I will meet on 1-3 October is how to move forward in the pastoral care of marriage, and this problem will come up there. And a second thing: two weeks ago the Secretary of the Synod of Bishops met with me about the theme of the next Synod. It was an anthropological theme, but talking it over, going back and forth, we saw this anthropological theme: how does the faith help with one’s personal life-project, but in the family, and so pointing towards the pastoral care of marriage. We are moving towards a somewhat deeper pastoral care of marriage. And this is a problem for everyone, because there are so many of them, no? For example, I will only mention one: Cardinal Quarracino, my predecessor, used to say that as far as he was concerned, half of all marriages are null. But why did he say this? Because people get married lacking maturity, they get married without realizing that it is a life-long commitment, they get married because society tells them they have to get married. And this is where the pastoral care of marriage also comes in. And then there is the legal problem of matrimonial nullity, this has to be reviewed, because ecclesiastical tribunals are not sufficient for this. It is complex, the problem of the pastoral care of marriage. Thank you.

- PRESS CONFERENCE OF POPE FRANCIS DURING THE RETURN FLIGHT, 28 July 2013

[phoenixyfriend]

Okay I won't include all of @nightfall-1409's tags but I do need to comment on some of this, because... well, I did say based on the text of the show, but I suppose we do need some context to explain one of these things:

#My actual issue with her is that she has made many individuals who by all rights should be “mandalorian” NOT mandalorian#banishment and exile and the stripping of ones identity are generational wounds that do not heal#She didn't just make Jango Fett no longer mandalorian bc of his role in the clone army her line is that he's not a mandalorian#because he's a bounty hunter.#Other bounty hunters from Mandalorian planets in the disney canon are also not called mandalorian#IE Rako Hardeen; from Concord Dawn bounty hunter and no longer Mandalorian

So, this is important:

Jango and Jaster, even in Legends (like I said, context from outside the show), were not born Mandalorian. They became Mandalorian. This quote from the wiki:

Charged with murder, Mereel was exiled from Concord Dawn, going on to join the Mandalorians. [from Jaster's Legends page]

What that means is... unclear? Concord Dawn is in the Mandalorian sector, definitely, but none of the people we know are from that planet are actually "born Mando." Perhaps in this regard, "being Mandalorian" is referring specifically to following a shared culture and religion, rather than a nationality? It does seem to apply to all of them, though, and if it applies to Jaster, then it's a much longer status quo than Satine telling bounty hunters that they're banned.

Though Concord Dawn was located in the Mandalore sector[13] and had a long history of being affiliated with the Mandalorians,[14] the Fett family living on Concord Dawn were not Mandalorian. [from Clan Fett's Legends page]

So this is all happening before Satine is born, and also before she was introduced to the canon. Technically speaking, none of Legends canon should have anything to do with Satine, but it's the only context I have for why Rako Hardeen isn't Mandalorian: nobody from Concord Dawn is unless they elect to become Mandalorian.

(Also, the "Jango Fett was a common bounty hunter. How he acquired that armor is beyond me." line was from Almec, not Satine, and always rang as being very 'deny the fuck out of any connection before they try to blame us for this war' to me. Being a bounty hunter wasn't why he was denied the Mandalorian label... that's more likely to do with George Lucas not liking Fetts, as well as G.Lucas trying to pull away from Karen Traviss's work because it didn't fit with what he, as creator, wanted Mandalore to be like.)

So, with the Rako Hardeen thing cleared, there's no actual canon to bounty hunters etc. being booted from the system; I'd assume they fall under a similar 'if you have a license, guild membership, and follow these guidelines about not taking out hits on leaders of the Republic or CIS, you're in the clear. If you do take those jobs, and bring the war back on us, you will not receive our support in a court of law because we told you not to do that shit and you did it anyway."

#She has obviously accepted the necessity of certain violent positions IE Cops and her Secret Police #but if you are in a violent position that is not backed directly by her state you're liable to be exiled

The question here is, what violence do you consider acceptable behavior in public? Presumably, some who enact violence go to jail. Some can, perhaps willingly, choose to go to Concord Dawn. But what violence do you view as being so important that it shouldn't be punished by criminal law? Again, the bounty hunter thing that you mentioned isn't canon; it's a result of fanon misunderstandings.

The exile really boils down to "if you want to shoot people without a license, you need to go to this one moon because I'm not having that in the streets here. We have enough problems."

(The parts about capitalism I can't really comment on more complexly than just "Mandalore is poor as Fuck due to the many wars and cannot afford to enter someone else's war.")

#with the one exception of exile and banishment and stripping of culture

Skipping exile and banishment, already pointed out what's going on there, but the stripping of culture is also fanon. Satine doesn't ban the language, the food, the armor, the art styles, the motifs, etc. What culture is she stripping beyond just "blatant imperialism"?

#especially if its to all non-state actors who participate in violent careers#the rub most ppl have with her is misogyny#and if its phrased as her needing to compromise like nah thats misogyny w/ extra steps bc women are expected to be the ones to compromise.#my rub is her pro cop stance and pro-state violence while being against non-state actors in the role of bounty hunter#and ofc she's pacifist but has got a robust prison system and secret police? Cringe.#looking specifically at studies around peace and conflict her form of peace is negative peace that relies on imprisonment#and cops and a military.

I can't comment on this section much yet, but my understanding is that the secret police are mostly a secret service type thing that's meant to investigate things that need delicacy (e.g. going undercover for white collar crime), and the Fucked Up Stuff was corruption through Almec. Other than that, she doesn't seem notably pro-cop beyond the basics of 'unfortunately, people are causing problems that welfare and the like can't solve, and we need to account for the fact that there are bad actors in any society, even if we as a culture and community are trying to Do Better."

(Though, given that this is a post about compromise: the police force possibly was a compromise... from the other side. Satine may not have wanted a secret police, but bent to someone else pressuring for it in order to be able to root out treason. Or maybe she did want the law enforcement, but didn't want it like this. Or maybe Concordia was a compromise, in that others wanted to just straight up arrest the people who incited further violence, and Satine thought it better to just exile them to the moon.)

@duchess-of-mandalore, can you weigh in on the cop part?

"Satine needed to learn how to compromise"

What in the actual show makes you think she didn't already compromise?

Why did the traditional Mandalorians NOT need to learn how to compromise?

What was wrong about Satine, in the actual text of the show, that makes compromise necessary?

I need you to give me an answer that does not echo "meet me in the middle, says the unjust man" for the trads who Just Want To Keep Their Guns. Satine canonically doesn't ban armor (people wear it), doesn't ban the language (she speaks at least two dialects, Korkie takes notes in it, and it's on all the signage), doesn't ban the food (no evidence for or against, because that's an insane thing to ban so why would anyone even touch on it), doesn't ban the culture except for saying "don't do war."

So, based on the text of the show...

Why did Satine "need to learn how to compromise," and what makes you think she didn't already do so?

[rosebud-anonymous]

Will coming back to Tumblr bring back my teenage angst?

So, it's been a hot minute since I've done anything worthwhile on this website - if I did anything worthwhile in the first place is questionable.

As I've grown older, I've come to learn that I'm a person who loves to write (even if it's total trash), and inside me is an overwhelming need to share my voice and thoughts (without absolutely steamrolling my friends and family).

If you don't know what steamrolling means in this context, I'm basically saying that I don't want to turn into one of those raging pain in the ass people who dump all of their unsolicited thoughts and opinions on their loved ones. I care about them too much and frankly, anything I'm writing about is probably not something I'm forwardly proud of, and that's why I've chosen to keep myself anonymous. Sometimes there is shit that I want to get out there (don't worry, I'm not hateful or racist) but I don't actually fancy discussing it with anybody. Essentially, I've been inspired to jump on here and purge whatever's inside me in the form of written word. Don't worry, I'm not expecting you to find this interesting (but I'm impressed if you've read this far). I'm here to serve myself and myself alone.

My first thoughts about this platform actually lead me back to a stressful time in my life - being 17. Ha, I know, STRESSFUL. As if.

I like to laugh at myself for thinking that life was genuinely stressful at this age, it's easy to look back on your past self and cringe over something like this. But I think it's time to change the narrative and stop this intergenerational trend of who had it harder, or in this instance, dismissing the feelings of my past self because I know I have dealt with worse things since then.

At this age, you start to experience many new feelings and experience things you've never experienced before. Every time I think about Tumblr, I think about a boy hurting my feelings and making me feel like an absolute knob. Laughable now, but I'll give you a quick summary of what happened.

I'm 17 years old, I've recently left my years-long high school relationship and have started dating a boy a few years older than me. That's right, I'm the cool kid on the block with a boyfriend who has already left school and can buy my tobacco for me. Hell yeah. But oh, what's this? The ex girlfriend he was completely over and 'hated' was still trying to get in contact with him. No problem, he was ignoring her and I was his number one. Hell yeah.

We're four months (ha!) into our relationship and what do you know, the little shithead found a very cunning way to keep in touch with her without me or anyone else knowing - that 'ask an anonymous question' function on Tumblr. They would send little messages to each other as 'anonymous' via the question box, delete the message they had received and then send their replies anonymously back via the same function. Almost like an anonymous Snapchat, if you will.

Fortunately for me, he made the grave error of checking his message/question inbox in front of me which revealed my worst horrors. It was clear as fucking day who was behind that anonymous title, and you bet that was a clean cut 'fuck off' from me after that. It didn't stop my feelings from being hurt or the humiliation that followed though. Over ten years later, I still find this act incredibly snakey, but I'll give them ten points for creativity. This was the short story about why I associated Tumblr with teenage angst, and still do to this day. This story alone has sent me back to those tough days as a heartbroken teen.

This particular individual had some dirty secrets, and one day I might reveal a thing or two. I guess it will depend just on how petty I'm feeling - there's a reason I've chosen to do this anonymously, ha!

That's the end of today's waffle. Enjoy the maple syrup.

[writingwithcolor]

What Does Our "Motivations” PSA Mean?

@luminalalumini said:

I've been on your blog a lot and it has a lot of really insightful information, but I notice a theme with some of your answers where you ask the writer reaching out what their 'motivation for making a character a certain [race/religion/ethnicity/nationality] is' and it's discouraging to see, because it seems like you're automatically assigning the writer some sort of ulterior motive that must be sniffed out and identified before the writer can get any tips or guidance for their question. Can't the 'motive' simply be having/wanting to have diversity in one's work? Must there be an 'ulterior motive'? I can understand that there's a lot of stigma and stereotypes and bad influence that might lead to someone trynna add marginalized groups into their stories for wrong reasons, but people that have those bad intentions certainly won't be asking for advice on how to write good representation in the first place. Idk its just been something that seemed really discouraging to me to reach out myself, knowing i'll automatically be assigned ulterior motives that i don't have and will probably have to justify why i want to add diversity to my story as if i'm comitting some sort of crime. I don't expect you guys to change your blog or respond to this or even care all that much, I'm probably just ranting into a void. I'm just curious if theres any reason to this that I haven't realized exists I suppose. I don't want y'all to take this the wrong way because I do actually love and enjoy your blog's advice in spite of my dumb griping. Cheers :))

We assume this is in reference to the following PSA:

PSA to all of our users - Motivation Matters: This lack of clarity w/r to intent has been a general issue with many recent questions. Please remember that if you don’t explain your motivations and what you intend to communicate to your audience with your plot choices, character attributes, world-building etc., we cannot effectively advise you beyond the information you provide. We Are Not Mind Readers. If, when drafting these questions, you realize you can’t explain your motivations, that is likely a hint that you need to think more on the rationales for your narrative decisions. My recommendation is to read our archives and articles on similar topics for inspiration while you think. I will be attaching this PSA to all asks with similar issues until the volume of such questions declines. 

We have answered this in three parts.

1. Of Paved Roads and Good Intentions

Allow me to give you a personal story, in solidarity towards your feelings:

When I began writing in South Asia as an outsider, specifically in the Kashmir and Lahore areas, I was doing it out of respect for the cultures I had grown up around. I did kathak dance, I grew up on immigrant-cooked North Indian food, my babysitters were Indian. I loved Mughal society, and every detail of learning about it just made me want more. The minute you told me fantasy could be outside of Europe, I hopped into the Mughal world with two feet. I was 13. I am now 28.

And had you asked me, as a teenager, what my motives were in giving my characters’ love interests blue or green eyes, one of them blond hair, my MC having red-tinted brown hair that was very emphasized, and a whole bunch of paler skinned people, I would have told you my motives were “to represent the diversity of the region.” 

I’m sure readers of the blog will spot the really, really toxic and colourist tropes present in my choices. If you’re new here, then the summary is: giving brown people “unique” coloured eyes and hair that lines up with Eurocentric beauty standards is an orientalist trope that needs to be interrogated in your writing. And favouring pale skinned people is colourist, full stop.

Did that make me a bad person with super sneaky ulterior motives who wanted to write bad representation? No.

It made me an ignorant kid from the mostly-white suburbs who grew up with media that said brown people had to “look unique” (read: look as European as possible) to be considered valuable.

And this is where it is important to remember that motives can be pure as you want, but you were still taught all of the terrible stuff that is present in society. Which means you’re going to perpetuate it unless you stop and actually question what is under your conscious motive, and work to unlearn it. Work that will never be complete.

I know it sounds scary and judgemental (and it’s one of the reasons we allow people to ask to be anonymous, for people who are afraid). Honestly, I would’ve reacted much the same as a younger writer, had you told me I was perpetuating bad things. I was trying to do good and my motives were pure, after all! But after a few years, I realized that I had fallen short, and I had a lot more to learn in order for my motives to match my impact. Part of our job at WWC is to attempt to close that gap.

We aren’t giving judgement, when we ask questions about why you want to do certain things. We are asking you to look at the structural underpinnings of your mind and question why those traits felt natural together, and, more specifically, why those traits felt natural to give to a protagonist or other major character.

I still have blond, blue-eyed characters with sandy coloured skin. I still have green-eyed characters. Because teenage me was right, that is part of the region. But by interrogating my motive, I was able to devalue those traits within the narrative, and I stopped making those traits shorthand for “this is the person you should root for.” 

It opened up room for me to be messier with my characters of colour, even the ones who my teenage self would have deemed “extra special.” Because the European-associated traits (pale hair, not-brown-eyes) stopped being special. After years of questioning, they started lining up with my motive of just being part of the diversity of the region.

Motive is important, both in the conscious and the subconscious. It’s not a judgement and it’s not assumed to be evil. It’s simply assumed to be unquestioned, so we ask that you question it and really examine your own biases.

~Mod Lesya

2. Motivations Aren't Always "Ulterior"

You can have a positive motivation or a neutral one or a negative one. Just wanting to have diversity only means your characters aren't all white and straight and cis and able-bodied -- it doesn't explain why you decided to make this specific character specifically bi and specifically Jewish (it me). Yes, sometimes it might be completely random! But it also might be "well, my crush is Costa Rican, so I gave the love interest the same background", or "I set it in X City where the predominant marginalized ethnicity is Y, so they are Y". Neither of these count as ulterior motives. But let's say for a second that you did accidentally catch yourself doing an "ulterior." Isn't that the point of the blog, to help you find those spots and clean them up?

Try thinking of it as “finding things that need adjusting” rather than “things that are bad” and it might get less scary to realize that we all do them, subconsciously. Representation that could use some work is often the product of subconscious bias, not deliberate misrepresentation, so there's every possibility that someone who wants to improve and do better didn't do it perfectly the first time. 

--Shira

3. Dress-Making as a Metaphor

I want to echo Lesya’s sentiments here but also provide a more logistical perspective. If you check the rubber stamp guide here and the “Motivation matters” PSA above, you’ll notice that concerns with respect to asker motivation are for the purposes of providing the most relevant answer possible.

It is a lot like if someone walks into a dressmaker’s shop and asks for a blue dress/ suit (Back when getting custom-made clothes was more of a thing) . The seamstress/ tailor is likely to ask a wide variety of questions:

What material do you want the outfit to be made of?

Where do you plan to wear it?

What do you want to highlight?

How do you want to feel when you wear it?

Let’s say our theoretical customer is in England during the 1920s. A tartan walking dress/ flannel suit for the winter is not the same as a periwinkle, beaded, organza ensemble/ navy pinstripe for formal dress in the summer. When we ask for motivations, we are often asking for exactly that: the specific reasons for your inquiry so we may pinpoint the most pertinent information.

The consistent problem for many of the askers who receive the PSA is they haven’t even done the level of research necessary to know what they want to ask of us. It would be like if our English customer in the 1920s responded, “IDK, some kind of blue thing.” Even worse,  WWC doesn’t have the luxury of the back-and-forth between a dressmaker and their clientele. If our asker doesn’t communicate all the information they need in mind at the time of submission, we can only say, “Well, I’m not sure if this is right, but here’s something. I hope it works, but if you had told us more, we could have done a more thorough job.”

Answering questions without context is hard, and asking for motivations, by which I mean the narratives, themes, character arcs and other literary devices that you are looking to incorporate, is the best way for us to help you, while also helping you to determine if your understanding of the problem will benefit from outside input. Because these asks are published with the goal of helping individuals with similar questions, the PSA also serves to prompt other users.

I note that asking questions is a skill, and we all start by asking the most basic questions (Not stupid questions, because to quote a dear professor, “There are no stupid questions.”). Unfortunately, WWC is not suited for the most basic questions. To this effect, we have a very helpful FAQ and archive as a starting point. Once you have used our website to answer the more basic questions, you are more ready to approach writing with diversity and decide when we can actually be of service. This is why we are so adamant that people read the FAQ. Yes, it helps us, but it also is there to save you time and spare you the ambiguity of not even knowing where to start.

The anxiety in your ask conveys to me a fear of being judged for asking questions. That fear is not something we can help you with, other than to wholeheartedly reassure you that we do not spend our unpaid, free time answering these questions in order to assume motives we can’t confirm or sit in judgment of our users who, as you say, are just trying to do better.

Yes, I am often frustrated when an asker’s question makes it clear they haven’t read the FAQ or archives. I’ve also been upset when uncivil commenters have indicated that my efforts and contributions are not worth their consideration. However, even the most tactless question has never made me think, “Ooh this person is such a naughty racist. Let me laugh at them for being a naughty racist. Let me shame them for being a naughty racist. Mwahaha.”

What kind of sad person has time for that?*

Racism is structural. It takes time to unlearn, especially if you’re in an environment that doesn’t facilitate that process to begin with. Our first priority is to help while also preserving our own boundaries and well-being. Though I am well aware of the levels of toxic gas-lighting and virtue signaling that can be found in various corners of online writing communities in the name of “progressivism*”, WWC is not that kind of space. This space is for discussions held in good faith: for us to understand each other better, rather than for one of us to “win” and another to “lose.”

Just as we have good faith that you are doing your best, we ask that you have faith that we are trying to do our best by you and the BIPOC communities we represent.

- Marika.

*If you are in any writing or social media circles that feed these anxieties or demonstrate these behaviors, I advise you to curtail your time with them and focus on your own growth. You will find, over time, that it is easier to think clearly when you are worrying less about trying to appease people who set the bar of approval so high just for the enjoyment of watching you jump. “Internet hygiene”, as I like to call it, begins with you and the boundaries you set with those you interact with online.