#because it means that it's not about some predestined quality you carry or some great natural ability

[naffeclipse]

Feel free to egnor if it's too personal.

But how did u learn to be so good a writing? Was it a passion. An inspiration that drove you. A natural talent?

Natural talent is not something you should think about when wanting to learn/get better at something you enjoy. I'm not saying someone can't be talented or have natural instincts for something, but a person can develop any skills they'd like as long as they dedicate themselves. This quote from Ratatouille comes to mind:

"Anyone can cook... but only the fearless can be great."

So, I don't think I have natural talent. I rarely think anyone does. I think writing or any artform/practice comes from desire and dedication.

I started writing fanfiction in middle school because I was passionate about it! I had a lot of ideas for original books, and I wanted to explore them on the page and in words. My writing sucked when I first started. It was amateurish and unrefined, full of grammar mistakes and incomprehensible characterization, but I didn't stop writing. I was, and still am, having too much fun.

I think the only way to get good at something is to do it over and over. I've been writing for years, and now that I'm in my mid-twenties, I think that shows. The only real way to figure out and grow with your skill is to work on it every day. You will learn and better yourself naturally through exercise.

If you want to write, write! If you want to get better at writing, keep writing. Let what you love fill up your scribbles and smear all of your plotlines. Don't be consumed by being good or skilled enough because that's not the point. The point is to enjoy what you create. The rest will naturally follow.

[cyanoscarlet]

2020 writing review

Thanks for the tag, @gladiowrites​! (I know it’s not a tag, but this is fun to do lol)

I.. honestly wrote a lot this 2020. No kidding. Quarantine productivity was real, but so is residency languishing by the wayside while everyone was busy surviving and adjusting. I highly doubt 2021 will be the same, but I’ll always cherish 2020 just because of the writing and nothing else.

This is gonna be long.

FIRST CREATION + MOST RECENT CREATION OF 2020

8:15 am  - Final Fantasy XV. Lunafreya. February 2020. - First piece ever written for the year. - Intended to be a Luna-centric AU, in which the Nox Fleurets were deposed and she’s now a regular teacher. Never managed to write anything beyond that, though, because residency. (Back then, I didn’t know it was gonna be the beginning of the end, so I had hopes. Oh well.)

irresistible!, or the summer ramblings of nene yashiro and everything that followed - Toilet-Bound Hanako-Kun. Nene, Hanako. March 2020. - First one published on AO3 for 2020 (yes, there’s a distinction). - If you think the title sounds familiar, you’re right.

versus

first yuletide - Final Fantasy XV. Nyx. December 2020. - Written for the FFXV Secret Santa event on Twitter. - Before y’all object and say what unwinding is, that’s an old fic uploaded late.

ONE OF YOUR FAVORITE CREATIONS FROM 2020

Do I seriously have to choose? Omg.

take heart - Bungou Stray Dogs. Dazai/Chuuya. Gods/Humans AU. - Discovered so much about myself writing this. Also (hopefully) I managed to get into Dazai’s headspace correctly. He’s an extremely difficult character to write, so finishing this brought so much gratification.

you don’t raise heroes, you raise sons - Final Fantasy VIII. Laguna, Squall. Post-canon. - Probably my most heartfelt work of the year- scratch that, ever. Also happy with how I just let myself go writing this and didn’t need to think twice.

A CREATION YOU’RE REALLY PROUD OF

oneiric moments (or, five nights with you) - Bungou Stray Dogs. Dazai/Chuuya. - Written for the SKK Fic Exchange for Summer 2020. - Five interconnected fics. 18,985 words. - Might not be a big deal for others, but this was taxing because I don’t usually write long, multichaptered stuff. I got carried away, though. It ain’t as well-polished as my more recent stuff, but I’m proud of myself for pulling this off.

A NEW STYLE YOU TRIED THIS YEAR & A FIC THAT USES IT

I... don’t think I have tried anything of the sort. My repertoire is sorely limited compared to others, I’m afraid. I’d probably have an answer for “explored new themes,” but again, I’ve a limited arsenal, too, in that regard.

A CREATION THAT TOOK YOU FOREVER

all in a day’s work - Bungou Stray Dogs. Atsushi, Akutagawa. Cells at Work AU. - It’s still being written, with a lot of side stories planned but never drafted. - I fell out of love with BSD, recovered from that, then got busy with residency.

YOUR CREATION FROM 2020 THAT RECEIVED THE MOST NOTES KUDOS

Also take heart. While I am proud of it, I guess it hit the right spot for mainstream shippers, too, somewhat? My feelings about mainstream things have changed a lot because of things, but I am still happy.

A CREATION YOU THINK DESERVED MORE NOTES KUDOS

amīcitia - Bungou Stray Dogs. Dazai, Chuuya. Final Fantasy XV AU. - Petty indignancy for my self-indulgent baby aside, I’m also proud of how I wrote Dazai in this one, similar to take heart.  the fun they had - Bungou Stray Dogs. Kajii, Port Mafia Ensemble. - ... Guys. Please notice genfics.

A NEW FANDOM YOU JOINED AND A CREATION YOU MADE FOR IT

Everything I wrote for Bungou Stray Dogs. (I kid you not.)

If you want a single answer anyway:

on the flaming mountains - act-age. Chiyoko, Kei. Princess Iron Fan Arc. - arc words: “what shall i do with this ire?” - I wouldn’t really say I “left” the fandom, more like it fizzled out after Matsuki-sensei got arrested.

A CREATION YOU MADE THAT BREAKS YOUR HEART

a cycle of; - Bungou Stray Dogs. Dazai/Chuuya. Medico-legal AU. - Written out of much anger and frustration over things. Also because this in itself was frustrating to write.

Also  you don’t raise heroes, you raise sons. Because no matter how much I hate my family at so many points in my life, I know I can’t truly hate them from the bottom of my heart. This fic is a reminder of that.

A SIMPLE CREATION THAT YOU REALLY LOVE

express delivery for love - Bungou Stray Dogs. Dazai/Chuuya. Real World Quarantine AU. - It’s funny. It’s orthodox. It’s sweet. I don’t think it can get any better than that.

A CREATION THAT WAS INSPIRED BY ANOTHER ONE

rather be - Bungou Stray Dogs. Yosano. Pre-canon. - Inspired by yesterday is another world by @wctercress​ - The whole of primum non nocere, actually, but specifically this one, and the rest followed. - This is also my first BSD fic. Ever.

A FAVORITE CREATION CREATED BY SOMEONE ELSE

... You sure? There’s a lot, and this is just on the surface. (unleashes the proverbial waterfall)

The aforementioned yesterday is another world by @wctercress​

silencer and snow white days by EKmisao - Bungou Stray Dogs. Dazai, Chuuya. Dead Apple canon-divergent. - The aftermath of Dead Apple, in which one of two goes wrong. - They’re unrelated, I know. But they’re both sisters! Just trust me on this. - The proper entry for this would be silencer, but I can’t very well mention one without the other, so have both anyway. I read both only this year, after all. Waiting for Godot by @eternal-aegis​ - Bungou Stray Dogs. Dazai, Fyodor, Chuuya. Canon-divergent. - Amazing theme, amazing philosophy, amazing writing. It makes you think. It makes you analyze and explore. This writer definitely knows her stuff, and it shows. Catharsis by @gladiowrites​ - Final Fantasy VIII. Rinoa, Gen. Caraway. Post-canon. - The denouement to the Caraway family drama we all deserve. I love how Rinoa is presented in this fic. She’s a normal person who makes mistakes and learns her lessons. So is Fury. Burned bridges don’t always have to stay down, and this fic illustrates that wonderfully.

Culmination by @gladiowrites​ - Final Fantasy VIII. Squall, Rinoa. Post-canon. - We can’t all have happy endings. This fic also illustrates that very well. While I, a Squinoa fan, personally ascribe to the happy ending Squall and Rinoa must have had after the events of FF8, this fic is so compelling and grounded and reflective and I totally buy this. 

Here Without You by @muselover1901​ - Akagami no Shirayuki-hime. Zen/Shirayuki. Real world quarantine AU. - One of the sweetest stories I’ve ever read this year. I can definitely relate to a lot of things in this fic. I’ve been rereading all of Muse’s ANS stuff whenever I feel down, and they all hit the spot.

Savor The Moment by @joeys-piano​ - Bungou Stray Dogs. Oda. Pre-canon. - Yes, yes, YES. One of the best stories I’ve ever read this year, ever. (And I mean stories, not fanfics.) Great character study about a man named Oda and a day in his life and a page (or three) out of his book of relationships. The love poured into this is simply overflowing and precious. I’ve been following Joey since this fic was being written, and I’m so proud of him.

False Equivalences by @slowquotesquill - Dai Gyakuten Saiban. Asougi, Ryuunosuke. Fullmetal Alchemist AU. - This fic also! Oh, My Heart. The cynicism of a state alchemist and the optimism of a foreign doctor. It perfectly hits the spot for everything FMA, and we all know that SQQ’s Asouryuu fics are always to die for. It’s the ultimate combo.

The whole Promptober Leo/Will/Despair series by @eternal-aegis - Kekkai Sensen. Various themes, many of which are dark/mature. - I’ve said this with Waiting for Godot, and I’ll say it again: Aegis knows her stuff. This is her exploring further in that direction, and you can feel the improvement with every fic in the series. I really love how adventurous these stories are, and how much depth you can go with every one. Her characterization is layered and exquisite, and the underlying lore is well-thought-out. - tl;dr: B3 Goddess.

Predestined by Galkimasera - Final Fantasy VIII. Rinoa, Squall. Reverse/Fateswap AU. - A very well-written reverse AU! The circumstances of Squall and Rinoa in this ‘verse fit so well and are so well thought out. I love this AU so much, you don’t even know. It also fills my nostalgic shipper’s heart with much joy at seeing quality content in this Year of our Lord 2020.

For auld lang syne, my dear by @by-nina - Fullmetal Alchemist. Roy, Riza. Canon-compliant + post-canon. - Holiday feels, snapshots through time, and all over showing Roy and Riza’s budding relationship over the years. And it does remind me of a lot of the SKK fics I’ve written (thematic-wise). This was such a treat to read and to follow. All her FMA fics are. She does Royai so much justice. Am not yet finished reading smoke without fire, but I’ll get to that, too!

SOME OF YOUR FAVORITE CONTENT CREATORS FROM THIS YEAR

Everyone in the answer above. There’s honestly a whole boatload of more, but this is getting too long already lololol

(might edit this when I feel like it, tho!)

[neuxue]

Wheel of Time liveblogging: The Gathering Storm ch 2

In which Egwene is excellent, understanding is reached, and laughter is achieved

Chapter 2: The Nature of Pain

Well that’s a promising start to a chapter.

Egwene! She only had one chapter last book but what a chapter it was, and I am loving her current arc so here’s to more of that, hopefully.

She smiled to her reflection, and her twin selves nodded to one another in satisfaction.

Speaking of reflections. It does seem to carry just a bit of double-meaning here (see what I did there?) if you want it to, what with her entire battle here to…maintain and also affirm her identity, and make those around her see her for who she truly is, and to be who she needs to be.

So she’s still spending quality time in the Mistress of Novice’s study every day. But she’s barely crying anymore. (Though, unlike a certain Dragon, she’s still capable of tears. Which is…good? I suppose? For a given definition of ‘good’, anyway).

The Aiel could laugh during the most cruel of tortures. Well, she could smile the moment she stood up.

I’m reminded, here, of the time when Rand forced himself to smile through the torture he was subjected to in the lead-up to Dumai’s Wells. Both Egwene and Rand have now been subjected to torture at the hands of the White Tower, and both have smiled in response, though the similarity pretty much ends there. I don’t really have a point to this comparison, because they’re very different situations and characters and contexts, but I like how something can be so superficially similar yet so different in every meaningful way.

(I would not be at all opposed to this arc culminating in a Dumai’s Wells level scene, though. I can’t see Egwene outright fighting the other Aes Sedai, but she did have that dream of the Seanchan attacking the Tower, and there’s also the issue of Mesaana…)

Give up? You’re asking Egwene when she plans to give up? Have you…met this girl? Ever? At any time across the last eleven books?

“Proper order, Silviana?” Egwene asked. “As it has been maintained elsewhere in the Tower?”

The score stands something like Egwene 2304913 – 0 Elaida. I’ve been keeping careful track.

Speaking of Elaida, Egwene gets to go serve her dinner. And, if we’re lucky, serve her in a more colloquial sense. (Does anyone even say that anymore? No? Nevermind then).

Silviana seems worried about Egwene’s wellbeing and Egwene doesn’t quite recognise it – in that, she and Rand have another thing in common, it would seem. The disconnect between them and those around them, when it comes to understanding that people are concerned for them, and even why those people might be concerned for them. Though again, while it’s a similarity on one level, it gets very different when looked at more closely.

She considered that last comment. Perhaps it hadn’t been surprise that Silviana had shown upon hearing of Egwene’s visit to Elaida. Perhaps it had been sympathy.

I’m momentarily amused at the memory of Egwene accusing Moiraine of not even recognising human emotion.

But Egwene’s role, as she sees and embodies it now, isn’t one she would think of as deserving sympathy. She’s not trying to get the other Aes Sedai to feel sorry for her. She’s trying to get them to follow her and recognise her as Amyrlin. More than that, she’s trying to repair the near-fatal damage that has already been done to the Tower and the Aes Sedai, and also prepare them for the end of the world, and at some point that starts demanding a force of nature more than a person.

Like so much else, the same could be said of Rand, to a degree. I say that a lot, I know, but what fascinates me about the parallels between Egwene and Rand are not the parallels themselves so much as the differences beneath them, which are highlighted by the surface-level similarities. And the more I think about it, the more I think it comes down to an issue of choice. Egwene chooses, where Rand was chosen.

I mean that not so much as a narrative truth but as a matter of perception, which in a way is what makes it so fascinating. This is a fantasy  world with prophecy and a Pattern and therefore a rather complicated notion of free will (or the lack thereof) that I would probably tie my brain into logical knots trying to untangle. So I’m not looking at how much choice or agency Rand and Egwene have relative to one another, but rather how much they perceive themselves to have. (Because perception and belief are the keys, aren’t they, to living freely a predestined life? But then, I’m an atheist; what would I know?)

Rand makes choices – he chooses to continue day after day, despite everything – but he does so with the increasing knowledge or certainty that his life does not belong to him but to the Pattern, to history, to the world itself. He chooses to do what must be done because it is his task and his duty and his destiny, and so is no choice at all. He is arguably the single most powerful individual in the world, but in many things he no longer perceives himself to have agency. He must do what he must. His choice is resignation. He is the chosen one; he does not get to choose.

(To go on a slight tangent from my tangent here, this relates back to what I was thinking about last chapter. That he has lost sight or sense of why he is fighting. He is using himself and everything around him, and destroying himself in the process, because it’s what he has to do, but it feels as if his aims are becoming increasingly…hollow. And with a fading sense of purpose beyond determined resignation, his ability to choose anything in a meaningful way fades as well, so he becomes little more than a weapon of fate, wielded by prophecy. Something is going to have to change that).

Egwene, though. Egwene actively chooses her path, and the steps she takes. Sure, she’s pushed and pulled by events around her, not to mention the part where she’s literally enslaved. Often, her choices are limited, and often she has to do things she would rather not, but the point is that she does not stop seeing them as choices. It is a matter of perception, and she believes herself to have agency. She leaves the Two Rivers because she wants something more. She goes to the Tower because she wants to learn. She goes to the Aiel because she wants to learn. She is summoned to become Amyrlin, but even then, she herself decides to truly be Amyrlin rather than a puppet. She makes that choice her own, rather than resigning herself to it. And now she is striving to save the Tower because she knows it needs saving. Egwene is not a prophecied hero; she is a hero because she chooses to be.

And I love that about her. I love that, if you try to map her story to the Hero’s Journey, she manufactures her own ‘call to adventure’ and then skips right past the ‘hero is reluctant’ step. I love that even when she is pushed a certain direction, she goes on her own terms. Becoming Amyrlin, being taken captive… when she surrenders, she does so in order to control. I love that instead of fighting a path she has been set on, she steps onto her own and dares the world to defy her.

It doesn’t make her storyline or character better or worse than Rand’s – at least, not the way I read it; they’re different characters and their different arcs are each lovely and effective in their own rights – but it enhances this effect of…contrasting parallels between them. For example, the way they deal with pain. Rand endures it because he must. Egwene embraces it because it is a victory. Both are determination and willpower, but one is resignation while the other is choice. It’s a bit like listening to the same piece of music played once in a major key and once in a minor key. The same, sort of, but also not the same at all.

Anyway.

Egwene treating Katerine as a servant amuses me far more than it should.

Egwene ignored the threat. What more could they do to her?

Not a question I would recommend asking, given that the answer is usually ‘challenge accepted’.

Egwene just gives them a lecture on precisely how fucked the Tower is right now, and how they should pull their heads out of their arses and do something about it.

More eloquently, of course. And very slightly more subtly.

Of course, this is no doubt lost on Katerine, given her actual Ajah. But Silviana seems to have been listening at the door…

I still rather like Silviana. I think Egwene kind of does as well. She certainly respects her, anyway.

No Alviarin? Where is she now? What is she up to? Trying to find a new concealer to cover the invisible mark Shaidar Haran left on her?

Yes, Egwene was winning. But she was beginning to lose the satisfaction she’d once felt at that victory. Who could take joy in seeing the Aes Sedai unravelling like aged canvas? Who could feel glad that Tar Valon, the grandest of all great cities, was piled with refuse? As much as Egwene might despise Elaida, she could not exult at seeing an Amyrlin Seat lead with such incompetence.

Time for Phase Two, perhaps? Whatever that might be, in this case?

I still just love the situation she’s in, because it’s so uniquely…odd. There’s an aspect of the classic ‘leading a rebellion from within the enemy’s camp’ element to it, of course, but the twist is that the Tower itself, and the other Aes Sedai, aren’t her enemies. She’s leading a rebellion, but one that seeks not to undermine or break the Tower, but rather to strengthen it. To take advangate of the cracks in the foundation, but at the same time to heal them. To gather support to her, but without ever letting the overall whole weaken.

Easy, right?

So now she has to figure out how to behave with Elaida. Punching her in the face, unfortunately, seems like it’s not an option.

Corridors are still shifting and also paintings are becoming significantly more creepy. Maybe Shai’tan once had ambitions of becoming an interior designer, and turned to evil when no one wanted to employ him.

Oh, there’s Alviarin.

This was the woman who had pulled down Siuan, the woman who had beaten Rand

So she knows about that now, it seems. Last book she was surprised to hear that Elaida had tried to have Rand kidnapped, but I guess she’s filled in the details.

And she thinks of him as Rand, here. It’s not ‘the woman who had beaten the Dragon Reborn’ and thus caused something of a diplomatic crisis. She doesn’t think of it here in terms of Elaida mishandling the Dragon Reborn, but of Elaida beating Rand. There is still love between them, even if it is strained almost to breaking and nearly overshadowed by everything else.

Elaida needed to know Egwene’s anger, she needed to be humiliated and made ashamed! She…

Egwene stopped in front of Elaida’s gilded door. No.

She could imagine the scene easily. Elaida enraged, Egwene banished to the dark cells beneath the Tower. What good would that do? She could not confront the woman, not yet. That would only lead to momentary satisfaction followed by a debilitating failure.

But Light, she couldn’t bow to Elaida either! The Amyrlin did no such thing!

Or…no. The Amyrlin did what was required of her. Which was more important? The White Tower, or Egwene’s pride? The only way to win this battle was to let Elaida think that she was winning. No…No, the only way to win was to let Elaida think there was no battle.

This is, I think, a very important moment in – or perhaps illustration of – Egwene’s character development. And it’s excellent.

We’ve already seen Egwene’s decision to accept pain, and her refusal to accept the role Elaida (and most of the Tower’s Aes Sedai) are trying to force her into. We’ve seen her determined and we’ve seen her defiant.

But this is different. Humility, I think we can agree, is not exactly one of Egwene’s main traits. That has often served her well – after all, arrogance, pride, and ambition are often separated from determination, confidence, and resolve by little more than context – but stubbornness even in the form of calm defiance isn’t the right tool, here.

The fact that she is able to recognise that, and not back away from it, is a real mark of strength and maturity in her. It reminds me of her conversation with Moiraine all the way back in TFoH, when Egwene asked why Moiraine had started doing what Rand told her. And Moiraine replied simply that she had remembered how to control saidar. It was a major moment in Moiraine’s own behaviour and approach, and Egwene is now facing something like that herself, and truly understanding it. Sometimes surrender, or the appearance of surrender, is necessary. Sometimes pride must be set aside.

This is about something far greater than her pride, and while that may seem a simple statement, it’s no easy thing to recognise and genuinely accept. Not just for Egwene – for anyone. But she accepts it here, and shows how far she has come, and how deserving of the Amyrlin Seat she is. She is not doing this for herself, but for the Tower. She will accept pain and sacrifice pride where necessary in order to heal and unite the Tower, will give of herself whatever is required, because it is about something greater than herself.

Moiraine would be proud. I’m proud. It’s such a strong moment, even though no one around her is able to notice anything of it.

Character development is one of those things that really benefits from a fourteen-book series, if you do it right.

Silence. That would be her weapon this evening.

Excellent. Silence is such an effective tool in so many circumstances, and it’s so often underestimated.

Ah, Meidani’s here. And not apparently happy about it. Poor Meidani; she’s caught in a pretty shit situation.

In stark contrast to Egwene’s understanding of when to set aside some measure of her own pride, Elaida’s sitting on basically a throne in an elaborately decorated room, smirking. Elaida wants power for power’s sake – she knows the world is going to need saving sometime in the near future, but while she is in her way trying to work towards that, it’s important to her that she be remembered as the one who saved it. That she be known as the greatest Amyrlin ever, etc. It’s not about the Tower and the World, it’s about Elaida. And she’s not effective enough to make that kind of arrogance work.

Though Egwene had not chosen an Ajah herself, she would have taken the Green.

This is one  thing I dislike about Egwene’s characterisation, actually. There’s such a good opportunity here for her to be truly of all Ajahs and of none. Not raised in the ordinary way, never given the choice of an Ajah, and therefore being in a position to understand and appreciate and identify somewhat with all of them. Especially because, while I can see why she might lean towards the Green, she does have elements of several of the others. There’s also the fact that she has brought a great deal of change already and means to bring more, so having her sort of…outside of the normal rigid structure of Ajahs, and instead as someone who genuinely stands getween and linked to and yet apart from all of them, could be a way to emphasise that. And it would underscore her suitability for the role of Amyrlin in general, because unlike every single other Aes Sedai, she actually isn’t of any Ajah, and never has been.

I just feel like it’s a bit of a wasted opportunity, and it always strikes me as slightly odd whenever it’s mentioned.

But Egwene held her tongue. This meeting was about survival. Egwene could bear straps of pain for the good of the Tower. Could she bear Elaida’s arrogance as well?

A less painful task, perhaps, but not necessarily a less difficult one.

Egwene broke her gaze away from Elaida’s. And – feeling the shame of it vibrate through her very bones – she bowed her head.

Elaida laughed, obviously taking the gesture the right way. “Honestly, I expected you to be more trouble. It appears that Silviana does know her duty.”

It seems like a small gesture to have to make, and her shame and anger could be read as slightly hyperbolic, but…it’s really hard to stay calm and let someone you absolutely hate take the upper hand, without making any move to show them how incompetent and mistaken they are, and that they’re only winning because you’re throwing the game.

Egwene hears Meidani’s name and knows she’s one of the spies, but doesn’t know the entirety of all the ways in which Meidani’s life sucks right now. Compelled by an oath she was forced to swear to spend time with Elaida, while knowing that Elaida knows she was sent by the rebels and terrified of what might happen if any of that goes wrong. Also the implication that their ‘pillow friendship’ has probably been renewed makes it even more unpleasant, given Meidani doesn’t really want anything to do with any of this.

“Ah, that is right,” Elaida said musingly. “It will be good to know how traitors have been treated in the past. Beheading seems too easy and simple a punishment to me. Those who split our Tower, those who flaunt their defection, a very special reward will be needed for them. well, continue your search then.”

How spectacularly cruel.

Egwene, meanwhile, is proving her ability to multitask: she can seethe and serve soup at the same time. Just about.

Elaida’s still being generally awful, asking Meidani for information about the rebels and insinuating that she could strip her of the shawl and then laughing about it. And Egwene continues to show admirable restraint by not punching her.

Light! What had happened to Elaida? Egwene had met this woman before, and Elaida had struck her as stern, but not tyrannical. Power changed people. It appeared that in Elaida’s case, holding the Amyrlin Seat had taken her sternness and solemnity and replaced them with a heady sense of entitlement and cruelty.

Well, and I think Fain might have had something to do with that, but otherwise Egwene is probably correct. Elaida craves power, but she clings to it too tightly. She’s not strong enough to feel secure in her position, so she tries to forcibly show herself to be even stronger, and instead ends up brittle.

At least some of the Aes Sedai are apparently nervous about the Seanchan, but Elaida dismisses that as well.

Egwene couldn’t speak. She could barely have sputtered. How would Elaida feel about these ‘exaggerated’ rumours if the Seanchan slapped a cold a’dam around her idiot neck? Egwene could sometimes feel that band on her own skin, itching, impossible to move.

…Yeah. It’s hard enough for her to keep silent and ignore Elaida tearing the Tower apart, and being wantonly cruel towards Meidani, and dismissive of a threat Egwene has seen. But the fact that the threat is the Seanchan makes it so much worse for her to be listening to this. She has suffered firsthand what Elaida scoffs at, and it’s no wonder she still feels echoes of it, and she can’t let herself show anything. So she’s stuck in a room with someone she hates, someone she thinks could bring down the Tower and possibly the world, and now she’s also stuck in here remembering enslavement and torture and generally one of the worst times of her life.

“No […] These Seanchan are not the problem. The real danger is the complete lack of obedience shown by the Aes Sedai.”

Holding onto power so hard that it shatters in her hands like porcelain. She is not strong enough to inspire respect, so instead she tries to beat everyone around her into submission. Which always ends well…

“Fortunately, I have an idea myself. Doesn’t it strike you as strange that the Three Oaths contain no mention of obedience to the White Tower? […] Why no oath to obey the Amyrlin? If that simple promise were part of all of us, how much pain and difficulty could we have avoided? Perhaps some revision is in order.”

Um…yikes. Double yikes because Meidani is listening to this and has already been forced into a fourth Oath of obedience.

Egwene is rather horrified at this notion; she has received oaths of fealty, but the first two were given voluntarily and the others were taken from those who tried to use her as a puppet, and none were sworn on the Oath Rod. There’s some grey morality there, but this is several steps further. Elaida wants to demand them of all Aes Sedai, for the sake of maintaining her own increasingly despotic power. Which is…understandably both terrifying and infuriating.

Egwene’s rage boiled within her, steaming like the soup in her hands. This woman, this…creature! She was the cause of the problems in the White Tower, she was the one who caused division between rebels and loyalists. She had taken Rand captive and beaten him.

Again with thinking of him as Rand here, and feeling angry at the fact that he was beaten, rather than at the fact that Elaida fucked things up with the Dragon Reborn. As for the rest…yeah, pretty much. The other Aes Sedai are not her enemies, and most want the Tower to be whole again, but Elaida stands in the way of that.

Egwene felt herself shaking. In another moment, she’d burst and let Elaida hear truth. It was boiling free from her, and she could barely contain it.

No! she thought. If I do that, my battle ends. I lose my war.

So Egwene did the only thing she could think of to stop herself. She dumped the soup on the floor.

Well, that’s…one way of handling things, I suppose. It’s certainly amusing, but again it’s actually not as excessive as it immediately appears, I don’t think. Given what Egwene has endured thus far, and everything that has happened as a result of Elaida, and even what she’s had to listen to in this scene alone, and the fact that she can’t let herself do or say anything and she has to act like she’s submissive and defeated…well, it’s not suprising that her self-control would waver slightly.

It is still amusing, though.

“I’m sorry,” Egwene said. “I wish that hadn’t happened.”

Ha. Well played.

And she has her composure back, so it seems to have worked.

Meidani gets the task of helping Egwene clean up the soup, so Egwene tries to tell Meidani to send for her. Of course, that just adds a third string to Meidani, pulling her in yet another direction, but Egwene doesn’t know that.

Egwene laid a hand on her shoulder. “Elaida can be unseated, Meidani. The Tower will be reunited. I will see it happen, but we must keep courage. Send for me.”

Meidani looked up, studying Egwene. “How…how do you do it? They say you are punished three and four times a day, that you need Healing between so that they can beat you further. How can you take it?”

“I take it because I must,” Egwene said, lowering her hand.

Leading by example. But she does win Meidani over very quickly here, by showing such determination and strength.

“I can help heal what has been broken, but I will need your help.”

I’m remembering way back in the beginning, when Nynaeve still thought of Egwene as her apprentice, and mentioned how ‘Egwene has the desire to heal, the need to’. And…in a way, she wasn’t wrong. Egwene hasn’t followed the same path of healing that Nynaeve has, but here she is trying to heal what is essentially the greatest wound to the Aes Sedai as a whole.

Elaida throws Egwene out, which is probably the best way this could have ended, all things considered.

Oh, except she wants Egwene to come back another day. Deep breaths, Egwene. You can do it.

“And if you so much as spill another drop, I will have you locked away in a cell with no windows or lights for a week.”

Elaida. Please. Can we stop with the locking people in boxes thing? That’s a parallel Rand and Egwene really don’t need to share.

Egwene left the room. Had this woman ever been a true Aes Sedai, in control of her emotions?

Yet Egwene herself had lost control of her emotions. She should never have let herself get to a point where she’d been forced to drop the soup. She had underestimated how infuriating Elaida could be, but that would not happen again. She calmed herself as she walked, breathing in and out. Rage did her no good.

Just like embracing pain, she has to learn how to do this, and it’s not exactly easy at first. But she knows where she went wrong, and is already making sure she will do better next time. And I like the recognition that rage does her no good, because it reminds me of her first meeting with Silviana, where Silviana asked why she was not hysterical and Egwene responded by saying she could not see how that would help.

Egwene ate contemplatively, listening to Laras and the scullions bang pots at washing up in the other room, surprised at how calm she felt.

She is learning true Aes Sedai serenity. Not the forced and brittle mask of it that so many seem to have used as a substitute, but the real thing. The ability to acknowledge emotion but dismiss it when it does not help her. Not forcing things like pain away, but accepting them as part of her. The ability to face anything, and withstand it in a state of calm.

She had changed; something was different about her. watching Elaida, finally confronting the woman who had been her rival all of these months, forced her to look at what she was doing in a new light.

She had imagined herself undermining Elaida and seizing control of the White Tower from within. Now she realised that she didn’t need to undermine Elaida. The woman was fully capable of doing that herself.

This is all excellent. She is steadfast and stubborn and determined, but she’s also able to recognise when she needs to shift her focus slightly, or reevaluate her exact goals and strategies. Because, again, it’s about something far greater than herself, and she knows it. And this is a lovely, subtle realisation.

Her role isn’t to undermine Elaida, but to be a source of strength in contrast to Elaida’s weakness, to be a centre around which the Tower can reform and rebuild and heal, even as Elaida shakes its foundations. She isn’t seizing control, because it isn’t about control, really. It’s about being there to support something that is crumbling, to show strength and sow unity amidst division and weakness.

It’s also a strong revelation because it means essentially relinquishing any sort of personal grudge against Elaida. It means making this, once again, not about her but about the Tower itself. Letting go of her own anger in order to focus on what is truly important.

Elaida would topple eventually, with or without Egwene’s help. Egwene’s duty, as Amyrlin, wasn’t to speed that fall – but to do whatever she could to hold the Tower and its occupants together. They couldn’t afford to fracture further. Her duty was to hold back the chaos and destruction that threatened them all, to reforge the Tower.

Yes, that, exactly. And holding the Amyrlin Seat, coming into power, may be a part of that, but this is the realisation that that part is…incidental, almost. That, again, it’s not about her at all. Nor is it about Elaida, even. It’s about doing whatever she can do to hold the Tower together and heal it.

And that’s what she’s been working towards this whole time, but this is just that…slight change in focus, and a much more subtle and nuanced understanding of her true purpose here, and what needs to be done.

She has come so far, to be able to see and understand and act upon this, and it’s beautiful to watch.

Time for another trip to Silviana, which will probably be edifying for anyone but Egwene. Because really, what can they do to her? And as Meidani showed –and as the reactions of some of the other Aes Sedai have shown – at some point it just makes the others respect her more, and thus serves her own purpose. She will not be broken so easily, and the others are coming to see that strength.

[Egwene] spoke calmly about the evening, omitting the fact that she’d dropped the bowl of soup on purpose. She did, however, say that she’d dropped it after Elaida had talked of revoking and changing the Three Oaths.

Silviana looked very thoughtful at that.

“Well,” the woman said, standing up and fetching her lash, “The Amyrlin has spoken.”

“Yes, I have,” Egwene said

Ha. It’s not quite on the level of “there’s no need to call me ‘sir’, professor” but that’s what I’m immediately reminded of, and it’s pretty excellent.

Oddly, Egwene felt no desire to cry out. It hurt, of course, but she just couldn’t scream. How ridiculous the punishment was!

It’s almost like the end of a training montage, except with…pain. She started off determined to embrace the pain, even though she wasn’t completely sure how, and did a decent job of it. But it still hurt, and she still screamed, and it took effort. Now…now, it just seems ridiculous.

She’s thinking of the far greater pain of seeing the division and hostility amongst the Ajahs, of hearing Elaida speak of an oath of obedience to the Amyrlin, of Meidani’s treatment.

Each of these things was a pain inside of Egwene, a knife to the chest, piercing the heart. As the beating continued, she realised that nothing they could do to her body would ever compare to the pain of soul she felt at seeing the White Tower suffer beneath Elaida’s hand. Compared with those internal agonies, the beating was ridiculous.

And so she began to laugh.

This is lovely. She thought, in the very beginning of her odd captivity, about how the Aiel could supposedly laugh through any torture. About how she could not see how she could manage that, but she could at least try to embrace the pain. And she had to remind herself of it at first, with something of a constant mantra, and over time it got easier, little by little. Easier still when she understood that every beating was a victory, a sign that she was winning.

And now…now she has realised something even greater than that: namely, that in the face of the wounds the Tower is facing, this pain is nothing. That in the face of a far greater task for a far greater purpose, this is a minor obstacle. A triviality. And that renders the pain…irrelevant, almost.

And so she laughs, finally succeeding at truly embracing pain and laughing in the face of it, without having to force it.

Laughter in the face of pain, serenity as she contemplates her true task – and the fact that it isn’t about undermining Elaida. These are major steps, and they show such incredible growth and understanding. Her way forward won’t be easy, but she understands what she has to do, and she’s strong enough to do it, and with that comes this sense of…lightness, almost.

The lashing stopped. Egwene turned. Surely that wasn’t all of it!

Silviana was regarding her with a concerned expression. “Child?” she asked. “Are you all right?”

Ha. Yeah, to anyone who is not Egwene (or Aiel, I suppose), that would look…rather worrying. It’s okay, Silviana, Egwene’s just badass and also a better Aes Sedai than most Aes Sedai.

“Can’t you see it?” Egwene asked. “Don’t you feel the pain? The agony of watching the Tower crumble around you? Could any beating compare to that?”

Silviana did not respond.

I understand, Egwene thought. I didn’t realise what the Aiel did. I assumed that I just had to be harder, and that was what would teach me to laugh at pain. But it’s not hardness at all. it’s not strength that makes me laugh. It’s understanding.

That is beautiful. And this is such a perfect chapter to follow the previous one, because the contrast is so clear. Rand hasn’t yet reached that understanding, not truly. He is lost and afraid and desperate and he doesn’t understand, not really, and he’s in so much pain that all he can think to do is become harder in order to prevent it from breaking him. So he has lost laughter, along with tears.

And the answer is understanding. Understanding what this is all for, as Egwene is finally understanding what her true focus is, what her battles and her war are all about. She was close, before, but now she understands it in full, and with that comes this sense of laughter and release and the true strength necessary to win, rather than the brittle hard strength of resistance and defiance.

So this is what Rand, too, will need to reach, in some form or another. An understanding of what it is he is doing, of why he is enduring all this pain, of what his task is and why it matters. He knows it, knows the prophecies and his role and knows he must win or the world dies, but it’s…like Egwene thinking that she has to beat Elaida and bring the Tower to herself. It’s very close to the right answer, but it lacks nuance, and the focus is ever so slightly off, but that small difference can mean everything.

“I will not make the same mistake [as Shemerin], Silviana. Elaida can say whatever she wants. But that doesn’t change who I am, or who any of us are. Even if she tries to change the Three Oaths, there will be those who resist, who hold to what is correct. And so, when you beat me, you beat the Amyrlin Seat. And that should be amusing enough to make us both laugh.” The punishment continued, and Egwene embraced the pain, took it into herself, and judged it insignificant, impatient for the punishment to cease. She had a lot of work to do.

What a fantastic chapter. So many great realisations, so much really wonderful character growth, and I am so very much looking forward to seeing how this arc plays out.

Next (TGS ch 3) Previous (TGS ch 1)

[sanantoniolimorentals-blog]

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You ought to hire such firm as soon as you exchange contracts as well as the completion day is set, consider ideal rate you need to not consider the most inexpensive, bear in mind, you tend to obtain what you pay for. Man Van firms also include packing materials, boxes, cartons and also crates. There are several reasons you might call for Luton van hire London. One of them could be you are moving out of your house or apartment or condo as well as require a person like a man as well as van or a truck to assist in moving the family. Or you might be revamping your house and also call for a man and van to haul away the old furnishings. It does not take a lot of vehicle ability to eliminate old furniture so the man as well as van mix could be flawlessly adequate for this job. If you are relocating your home goods after that you could require a full size moving truck or van and a number of individuals to do the moving. This all depends on the quantity of the house hold items you have actually obtained. If you are a minimal then you could not have a lot of products. If you are a collection agency well, you could need a full size relocating van.

If you are this collection agency, you could consider lowering the quantity of things you have actually collected. Keep in mind that anything you have moved will set you back each pound. As well as hefty points and also several stuffed boxes can end up costing a great deal of money to move. When you're moving house, transferring your service' workplace, or you need to supply a big, bulky item like a fridge or sofa, you need 2 points. First of all, you need a car big sufficient to move your thing or items from where they are to where they have to be. As well as second of all, you require an added pair of hands to help with the lifting and also the dumping. So hire a person with neighborhood knowledge. They'll get you there in document time, as well as you will not need to stress whether your initial article to your brand-new location will certainly be a ticket or fine.

[partybusannarbor-blog]

luton van hire london

When planning to relocate your residence, you have to very first choose whether you will do it on your own or hire a reputed pub to do it. Moving things includes packaging, filling, carrying, unloading and unloading which are not just time consuming however back-breaking too. If you desire to resume your everyday activities without any back pressure or muscle mass tightness, you need to call a Luton van hire London. Nowadays, pub use a variety of services including man with a van solution, complete, semi service and also self removal solution. You may need to select a removal solution according to your requirements and also budget plan. If you are preparing for neighborhood actions, man as well as van elimination solution is not simply an economical choice however a trustworthy as well as worry-free removal solution also. Some people are still unaware of the significance of man and van solution. Our man and van will happily aid you with all aspects of removals along with moving to make the day much less stressful. We will bring your furniture, tons the van as well as transport your furniture and also various other belongings to your brand-new home. If you are worried about price after that situate our affordable Luton van hire costs . Specialist Man and also Van Service man with a van luton . Different sizes of Vans . Registered and Insured . Hourly Rates or Set Price-- Pay Money or by Card

There are numerous ranges of deluxe camper vans to pick from, together with varying quantities of convenience and also convenience of use. Tiny automobiles are usually less complicated to deal with, although bigger automobiles supply a whole lot much more convenience. When initially working with a van, it might be best to choose a large camper van that you can feel comfy to take a trip in and will certainly be within your budget plan. man and van south west london If you are relocating house with one of your kids is setting out on their own for the first time, you are probably checking into elimination services or perhaps you are taking a look at the logistics of relocating yourself. Cost effective Luton van hire costs can provide you with the service you are seeking. You may not have actually thought about van hire or you might have discounted it as being much more bother compared to it was worth or something you did not know sufficient about. Below are a couple of facts that could be of rate of interest. Hiring a van is not as pricey as it appears so it can be a great deal cheaper compared to employing a removal firm. Relocating to a brand-new residence isn't really very easy. The significant issue that exists when you are mosting likely to reside in a brand-new home is moving all your house personal belongings. Well, fortunately van hire services have helped resolve this trouble to a wonderful level. You could easily rent out Luton van hire costs and also transfer to your brand-new home. However, when it involves van hire or man hire services, you need to ensure that the quality of service used by the carrier depends on the mark. This is due to the fact that there are a variety of suppliers available yet just a few are able to supply solution that's anticipated out of them. Are you preparing to move to a new area? The relocation procedure includes changing of prized possessions such as couch sets and even fridges. There are two crucial things that you require, a huge vehicle for transporting the items to the predestined location and an additional collection of hands. Van hire solutions could help you with this. Relocating products is a job that requires skill in addition to application. Nevertheless, you require a van hire solution that is able to relocate all your things about without damaging anything. A excellent van hire service conserves both time along with your efforts. The primary advantage of a man with a van Luton hire is that they are extremely flexible. They provide little to tool relocating services at a cost far less than the standard moving companies. Dimension as well as variety of things does not matter to them, as they are furnished to take care of a range of home items. Considering that they are composed of a man and a van, they usually could take care of concerning three rooms of home items. They could conveniently move for you electronics such as refrigerators as well as furniture such as seats and beds inexpensively compared to the huge relocating firms. Moving can be demanding, particularly when moving to another location. Man and van removals are experienced in disassembly as well as assembly of residence furnishings, electronic devices managing and packing of home hold products. They are utilized to the rushes of relocating, and their experience will certainly assist you stay clear of blunders like breakages. Man in a van business is always insured and also they supply assurances on your products previously, throughout and also after transit. The insurance covers for breakages, problems as well as loss of items when they are taking care of as well as transferring them. Because they are guaranteed as well as will certainly be forced to pay your case in case of any type of untoward occurrence, they are typically really careful when managing your products, which function to your benefit anyway given that your things are managed thoroughly. man and luton van london

Man and also van pubs are usually outfitted to manage all your packing and relocating needs. For an established relocating company, they have invested in the necessary devices needed for dis setting up as well as setting up of furniture and electronics, electronic tools to detach as well as connect your electronic devices, along with packaging aids like ramps and special dog crates. When you make a decision to do the moving yourselves, opportunities are that you will certainly miss some otherwise all tools needed to make the moving smooth. Essentially, you just pay for the relocating and also except the equipment, thus conserving you a great deal of cash. The most effective aspect of this kind of elimination solution is that they customize their operations to suit every customer's wants and needs. The dimension of the job is not conditional with the efficiency of their job as well as they always make sure that each job is handled properly and also based on the consumers specifications. That is why it is hard to get a flat price of prices in their web sites given that they always watch exactly what they are carrying first then give you a quotation given that no 2 eliminations are the same. You should hire such business as quickly as you trade contracts and also the completion day is set, think about ideal cost you ought to not think about the most affordable, remember, you have the tendency to get exactly what you spend for. Man Van firms additionally consist of packing materials, boxes, containers and crates. Man van can also assist you projecting your brand-new house, serve to how you can make rooms larger or how to make your kitchen area practical, or even the child's rooms full of space to play. This is why you require man van in order to help you with your house moving, man and also van elimination will certainly make your life a great deal less complicated. By utilizing such service you will certainly take advantage of a professional aid you won't discover any kind of where else. Man with a van Luton solution for top quality job Specialists offer this solution which is beneficial to you when you are changing your home. A lot of the items that have to be moved may be vulnerable and needs to be taken care of with care. Likewise, heavy metals should be handled with care as well. When you are shifting, you would certainly such as all the important things it be changed without a damage. Employing a friend or a next-door neighbor isn't really a great idea - it will be challenging as well as a lot more, you will be expected to do something in return also. Nevertheless, when you are employing a man with a van Luton service, you could obtain all your products shifted easily. Vans can be found in numerous sizes - when you hire this solution, the dimension of the van relies on your demands. You reach make a decision a van based upon your necessity. If you are investing loan, it actually makes sense to spend a few even more buck in employing a man also in order to help carry your products. A little support in your work can actually assist and you don't have to seek out at unfamiliar people to assist you while packing or unloading points from the van. Right here are some essential benefits that identify the relevance of Luton van hire London service: Trusted: luton van size and man hire As man as well as van elimination solution is accomplished by seasoned professionals and well-appointed elimination vans, you can move your products from one area to another in time. However, you may have to pick a trustworthy as well as reputed removal firm to gain all these benefits. When choosing a pub, don't simply compare its price quotes but compares its solutions, specialists and also vans with various other regional companies to select the best pub. Economical: For regional moves, man and also van elimination service is an inexpensive alternative than various other removal solutions. Nonetheless, for cross country relocations man as well as van solution can be pricey as van has to make several journeys to relocate all your things. Trouble-free: Moving can be difficult procedure however after employing a man and also van hire service you might need to simply keep track of the moving procedure. Man and also van hire solution looks after all your moving procedure varying from loading to unloading and unpacking. Experienced relocating experts will certainly be able to pack also pricey or breakable things in a secure and also protected means. As removal vans are geared up with sizable saving setting as well as modern-day facilities, your beneficial items will certainly remain safe even while moving through rough surfaces. The main benefit of a man and van hire is that they are extremely adaptable. They supply little to medium moving solutions at a rate much below the conventional movers. Dimension as well as variety of items does not matter to them, as they are furnished to manage a variety of residence items. Given that they are comprised of a man as well as a van, they normally can handle regarding 3 rooms of home things. They could easily move for you electronic devices such as fridges as well as furnishings such as seats as well as beds inexpensively as compared to the big relocating business. You should hire such firm as soon as you exchange agreements and also the conclusion date is established, think about appropriate price you ought to not think of the cheapest, bear in mind, you tend to obtain just what you spend for. Man Van companies likewise consist of packaging products, boxes, cartons and also pet crates.

There are various reasons you may require Luton van hire London. One of them may be you are vacating your residence or home and also call for someone like a man as well as van or a vehicle to aid in relocating the house. Or you may be remodeling your house and call for a man as well as van to carry away the old furniture. It does not take a great deal of automobile capacity to get rid of old furniture so the man and also van combination may be flawlessly sufficient for this task. If you are relocating your family products after that you could need a full size moving truck or van and also several people to do the moving. This depends on the amount of your home hold goods you have acquired. If you are a minimal then you might not have too many products. If you are a collector well, you might require a full size moving van.

luton van hire prices If you are this collector, you may consider lowering the quantity of things you have accumulated. Bear in mind that anything you have actually moved will certainly set you back per pound. And also heavy things and also many jam-packed boxes could wind up costing a great deal of cash to move. When you're relocating residence, transferring your service' workplace, or you need to deliver a big, bulky product like a fridge or sofa, you require two things. To start with, you require a car big enough to transport your item or items from where they are to where they have to be. And also secondly, you need an extra set of hands in order to help with the lifting and also the discharging. So hire someone with local understanding. They'll obtain you there in record time, and you won't have to worry whether your initial article to your brand-new place will be a ticket or fine.

[romancatholicreflections]

13th May >> Daily Reflection on Today's First Reading (Acts of the Apostles 13:44-52) for Roman Catholics on Saturday of the Fourth Week of Easter

Commentary on Acts of the Apostles 13:44-52 We are still with Paul and Barnabas in Asia Minor. They are still proclaiming the message about Jesus as Lord in Pisidian Antioch. They now have the whole city coming to hear them speak the word of God. But they now incurred the jealously of some Jews who hurled abuse at the apostles. Perhaps, they believed that the word of God was only for them and not for Gentiles. Pearls were not to be thrown to swine. Paul and Barnabas (notice that Paul is now regularly mentioned first) took this as a sign to transfer their energies to preaching among the Gentiles, who responded enthusiastically. Paul’s fellow-Jews in Antioch had shown themselves unfit to hear the Gospel. “It was necessary that the word of God be spoken to you first, but since you reject it and condemn yourselves as unworthy of eternal life, we now turn to the Gentiles.” He had to speak to them first – and he will do this in other places as well – because the Gospel came and was intended for the Jews first. And Paul, of course, was himself a Jew and had great compassion for his people. This is expressed very well in his letter to the Romans (Rom 9:1-5; 10:1-3). We are told that the two apostles spoke out these words “boldly”. The ‘courage’ and ‘confidence’ of the apostles has been already stressed by Luke on a number of occasions. Luke repeatedly attributes these qualities to Paul and Paul himself lays emphasis on them in a number of his letters. ‘Fortitude’ is one of the four cardinal virtues which should be the characteristic of every Christian. On the other hand they turn to the Gentiles because the Lord had told them to be “a light to the nations [meaning the Gentiles]” and “a means of salvation to the ends of the earth”. This is a free rendering of the Septuagint (Greek) reading of Isaiah 49:6. The words may be taken either as referring to Paul himself, apostle and teacher of the pagans, or to the risen Christ. Christ is the light of the pagans, he himself had said “I AM the Light of the World” but since only the apostles’ witness can spread this light, Paul considers this prophecy as a command that he must carry out. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus had told his disciples, “You are the light of the world” (Matt 5:14) – in the sense that they are being called to transmit the Light that is Christ. The Gentiles responded enthusiastically. “They glorified the word of the Lord” (received though Paul and Barnabas) and “all who were destined for eternal life came to believe”. ‘Eternal life’ refers to the life of the world to come. These are the ones whose names are “written in heaven” (Luke 10:20) and in “the book of life”. Actually, “destined for the life of the world to come” was a common rabbinic expression. For Christians, the first and necessary condition for this predestination to glory is faith in Christ. As a result of the Gentiles’ enthusiasm for the message, “the word of the Lord was carried throughout that area”. In other words well beyond the bounds of the city. However, some of the Jews continued their harassments. They incited prominent women who were believers (though not necessarily Jews) and leading men to stir up attacks on the two missionaries. They eventually managed to drive the two apostles from the city. Following the teaching of the Gospel, they shook the dust of the city from their feet (cf. Matt 10:14; Luke 9:5). In doing this, they showed the severance of responsibility and the repudiation of those who had rejected their message and had brought suffering to the servants of the Lord. They now continued on to the town of Iconium, lying to the east of Antioch on the southern borders of the province of Galatia. Its modern name is Konya. In Paul’s time it was an important crossroads and an agricultural centre for the central plain of Galatia. Far from being discouraged by their experience in Antioch, we are told that the two missionaries, “could not but be filled with joy and the Holy Spirit”. It teaches us a lesson we continually need to learn. The preaching of the Gospel, in spite of its message of love and forgiveness and justice and its rejection of all forms of violence, can incur vicious and violent opposition. We should neither be surprised nor discouraged at this. On the contrary, like the apostles, we should rejoice that, with Jesus, we suffer for proclaiming the message of life and love. “Blessed are those who are persecuted in the cause of righteousness” (Matt 5:10). We think of the story of the three men, thrown into the fiery furnace by an angry King Nebuchnadnezzar, singing the praises of God or, in much more recent times (and with more historical validity) of the civil rights marchers under Martin Luther King singing ‘We shall overcome’ as they were carried off to jail.

[theadmiringbog]

Writers and thinkers can be divided into two broad categories: 

1. Hedgehogs are type A personalities who believe in Big Ideas—in governing principles about the world that behave as though they were physical laws and undergird virtually every interaction in society. Think Karl Marx and class struggle, or Sigmund Freud and the unconscious. Or Malcolm Gladwell and the “tipping point.” 

2. Foxes, on the other hand, are scrappy creatures who believe in a plethora of little ideas and in taking a multitude of approaches toward a problem. They tend to be more tolerant of nuance, uncertainty, complexity, and dissenting opinion. If hedgehogs are hunters, always looking out for the big kill, then foxes are gatherers. 

Foxes, Tetlock found, are considerably better at forecasting than hedgehogs.

When we can’t fit a square peg into a round hole, we’ll usually blame the peg—when sometimes it’s the rigidity of our thinking that accounts for our failure to accommodate it.

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Beane avoids what he calls “gut-feel” decisions. If he relies too heavily on his first impressions, he’ll let potentially valuable prospects slip through the cracks—and

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Good innovators typically think very big and they think very small. 

New ideas are sometimes found in the most granular details of a problem where few others bother to look. And they are sometimes found when you are doing your most abstract and philosophical thinking, considering why the world is the way that it is and whether there might be an alternative to the dominant paradigm.

Rarely can they be found in the temperate latitudes between these two spaces, where we spend 99 percent of our lives.

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“One comes through Saint Augustine and Calvinism,” he continued, describing people who believed in predestination. Under this philosophy, humans might have the ability to predict the course they would follow. But there was nothing they could do to alter it. Everything was carried out in accordance with God’s plan. “This is against the Jesuits and Thomas Aquinas who said we actually have free will. This question is about whether the world is predictable or unpredictable.”

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Chaos theory

You may have heard the expression: the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil can set off a tornado in Texas. It comes from the title of a paper delivered in 1972 by MIT’s Edward Lorenz, who began his career as a meteorologist. 

Chaos theory applies to systems in which each of two properties hold: The systems are dynamic, meaning that the behavior of the system at one point in time influences its behavior in the future; And they are nonlinear, meaning they abide by exponential rather than additive relationships.

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Laplace’s Demon

Laplace in 1814 claimed that given the exact position and speed of all objects in the universe at some time a “demon” would be able to use the laws of physics to predict their positions at an arbitrary time in the future.

The main question that one has to ask him or herself when thinking about Laplace’s Demon is ultimately, what is the threshold for free will?

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Bayes’s theorem is concerned with conditional probability. That is, it tells us the probability that a theory or hypothesis is true if some event has happened. 

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In the beginning of a chess game the center of the board is void, with pawns, rooks, and bishops neatly aligned in the first two rows awaiting instructions from their masters. The possibilities are almost infinite. White can open the game in any of twenty different ways, and black can respond with twenty of its own moves, creating 4,000 possible sequences after the first full turn. After the second full turn, there are 71,852 possibilities; after the third, there are 9,132,484. The number of possibilities in an entire chess game, played to completion, is so large that it is a significant problem even to estimate it, but some mathematicians put the number as high as . These are astronomical numbers: as Diego Rasskin-Gutman has written, 

“There are more possible chess games than the number of atoms in the universe.”

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The core analytic skill in poker, rather, is what players call “hand reading”: in figuring which cards your opponent might hold, and how they might affect her decisions throughout the rest of the hand.

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There is a learning curve that applies to poker and to most other tasks that involve some type of prediction. The key thing about a learning curve is that it really is a curve: the progress we make at performing the task is not linear. Instead, it usually looks something like this—what I call the Pareto Principle of Prediction. 

This relationship also holds in many other disciplines in which prediction is vital. 

The first 20 percent often begins with having the right data, the right technology, and the right incentives. You need to have some information—more of it rather than less, ideally—and you need to make sure that it is quality-controlled. You need to have some familiarity with the tools of your trade—having top-shelf technology is nice, but it’s more important that you know how to use what you have. You need to care about accuracy—about getting at the objective truth—rather than about making the most pleasing or convenient prediction, or the one that might get you on television. 

Then you might progress to a few intermediate steps, developing some rules of thumb (heuristics) that are grounded in experience and common sense and some systematic process to make a forecast rather than doing so on an ad hoc basis. 

These things aren’t exactly easy—many people get them wrong. But they aren’t hard either, and by doing them you may be able to make predictions 80 percent as reliable as those of the world’s foremost expert.

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In competitive environments, it can require a lot of extra effort to beat the competition. You will find that you soon encounter diminishing returns. 

The extra experience that you gain, the further wrinkles that you add to your strategy, and the additional variables that you put into your forecasting model—these will only make a marginal difference. 

Meanwhile, the helpful rules of thumb that you developed—now you will need to learn the exceptions to them. However, when a field is highly competitive, it is only through this painstaking effort around the margin that you can make any money. There is a “water level” established by the competition and your profit will be like the tip of an iceberg: a small sliver of competitive advantage floating just above the surface, but concealing a vast bulwark of effort that went in to support it.

It is often possible to make a profit by being pretty good at prediction in fields where the competition succumbs to poor incentives, bad habits, or blind adherence to tradition—or because you have better data or technology than they do. It is much harder to be very good in fields where everyone else is getting the basics right—and you may be fooling yourself if you think you have much of an edge.

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In Bayesland, you must make one of these two choices: come to a consensus or bet. 

Otherwise, to a Bayesian, you are not really being rational. If after we have our little chat, you still think your forecast is better than mine, you should be happy to bet on it, since you stand to make money. If you don’t, you should have taken my forecast and adopted it as your own.

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This book encourages readers to think carefully about the signal and the noise and to seek out forecasts that couch their predictions in percentage or probabilistic terms. They are a more honest representation of the limits of our predictive abilities. When a prediction about a complex phenomenon is expressed with a great deal of confidence, it may be a sign that the forecaster has not thought through the problem carefully, has overfit his statistical model, or is more interested in making a name for himself than in getting at the truth.

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Consider the following set of seven statements, which are related to the idea of the efficient-market hypothesis and whether an individual investor can beat the stock market. Each statement is an approximation, but each builds on the last one to become slightly more accurate. 

No investor can beat the stock market. 

No investor can beat the stock market over the long run. 

No investor can beat the stock market over the long run relative to his level of risk. 

No investor can beat the stock market over the long run relative to his level of risk and accounting for his transaction costs. 

No investor can beat the stock market over the long run relative to his level of risk and accounting for his transaction costs, unless he has inside information. 

Few investors beat the stock market over the long run relative to their level of risk and accounting for their transaction costs, unless they have inside information.

It is hard to tell how many investors beat the stock market over the long run, because the data is very noisy, but we know that most cannot relative to their level of risk, since trading produces no net excess return but entails transaction costs, so unless you have inside information, you are probably better off investing in an index fund.

The first approximation—the unqualified statement that no investor can beat the stock market—seems to be extremely powerful. By the time we get to the last one, which is full of expressions of uncertainty, we have nothing that would fit on a bumper sticker. But it is also a more complete description of the objective world. 

There is nothing wrong with an approximation here and there. If you encountered a stranger who knew nothing about the stock market, informing him that it is hard to beat, even in the crude terms of the first statement, would be a lot better than nothing. 

The problem comes when we mistake the approximation for the reality. 

Ideologues like Phil Tetlock’s hedgehogs behave in this way. The simpler statements seem more universal, more in testament to a greater truth or grander theory. Tetlock found, however, that his hedgehogs were very poor at making predictions. They leave out all the messy bits that make life real and predictions more accurate. 

We have big brains, but we live in an incomprehensibly large universe. The virtue in thinking probabilistically is that you will force yourself to stop and smell the data—slow down, and consider the imperfections in your thinking. Over time, you should find that this makes your decision making better.

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This is perhaps the easiest Bayesian principle to apply: make a lot of forecasts. You may not want to stake your company or your livelihood on them, especially at first. But it’s the only way to get better. 

Bayes’s theorem says we should update our forecasts any time we are presented with new information. A less literal version of this idea is simply trial and error. 

Companies that really “get” Big Data, like Google, aren’t spending a lot of time in model land. They’re running thousands of experiments every year and testing their ideas on real customers.