#because on a basic crop they seem to be nearly impossible to put in a non-letterboxed 4:3 scan in a way that does not cut off people's name | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

mussthemoose · 4 years ago

Text

The Cast and Their Friends

So I was writing up a different Omori thing concerning an AU to procrastinate writing stuff but then I started writing this to procrastinate that so that’s where we are. Basically looking through the game, what we know, and a mixture of personal headcanons I decided to write a little thing concerning the crew of Omori and how they handle friends outside of the tight circle they all seem to have with each other.

Under a read more because oof, this got long.

KEL

Kel is perhaps one of the easier ones to look at. He’s nice, friendly, personable, and funny as all hell.

Hero might be someone who can befriend almost anyone with very little effort and seemingly just by being in the general area but Kel is someone who makes friends easily

There’s never a doubt that if you called him your friend, even if you hung out for a little bit, that he wouldn’t call you a. friend as well. He’ll believe in you, support you, and he might not give some uncle iroh level of wisdom but he’ll speak his mind and show you that he truly means everything he says

He makes friends easily, but it’s also...hard to find true friends

Everyone is fine with having the fun goofy kid as their friend, and he has some better ones that know him from the belief he has in them, the way he picks them up and helps them do better, but no one ever really gets close like the friend group does when it comes to both getting him and letting him feel so...relaxed at the same time

He never really realized until the friend group broke up and just...nothing stuck. Not the way it used to, not the way that made him feel the sort of happy that made his own shine even brighter

Every member of his basketball team wouldn’t hesitate to call him a good friend, and so would half the other teams in the division along with a good number of people in his school. Kel hasn’t been able to open up his heart to any of them

It’s part of why he tried so hard to never give up especially on Sunny. True friends are worth holding onto, and he’s never going to try to let go

AUBREY

Aubrey, of the group, is a bit more...complicated

It’s not that she isn’t a good friend, or that she can’t find friends, but from the dreamworld and hints in the real world we see that she feels a lot of her emotions

She’s a bright firework when she’s happy, she cries easily when she’s sad or overwhelmed, and her anger is loud and proud at the forefront, giving her a strong stubborn hardheadedness

And for little kids, it can be hard to find friends when you have an attitude like that, when you feel everything so much, when you’re quick to laugh or cry or argue or fight

And then she finds the group, where everyone is either willing to listen or and be patient with her, or enjoys playfully fighting back so nothing is ever too serious

It’s all she has for a time, but it’s all she needs...until the accident happens

For a time, she made friends with the hooligans, even becoming their leader, because she put her anger to the forefront and didn’t let any other emotions come through, and suddenly she’s the big scary person who doesn’t have an easy to find weak side (but who still can let her fun and loving side show, sometimes, if she feels it’s safe enough to do so)

After everything though, when she starts to hang around other people besides just her close group of friends she can manage, when she realizes that people outside of church gossipers and rude kids will appreciate you for who you are...

She still tends to stick to those she knows. There’s still a bit too much hurt in her heart to go out of her way to find people to let back into it

BASIL

Basil, of the friend group, is probably one of the ones who has the most trouble of them all making friends

Most of it isn’t really his fault, when it comes down to it; unfortunate circumstances that made a bad combo to try to make friends when he was young

At first glance he just seems like a very bright but shy kid, someone who’s quiet but still has that soft glow around them that feels like it’d be nice to relax with

But even before the accident, there was signs that Basil has been dealing with issues of anxiety, especially when it comes to the abandonment issues that stem from his parents never being around when he was younger

Most kids don’t understand why he’d be so nervous around them at times, having an unnerving jittering intensity, the way he’d get clingy at times

It all adds up into someone that most kids just don’t get or understand, and so he finds himself alone

Until he meets the group

Suddenly he’s with people who understand, who get him, who are happy and willing to help him through his anxieties when they crop up to be able to see the bright young boy shining behind them

And the one who helps more than anyone else is Sunny, who’s calm quiet presence seems to completely consume his thoughts and worries whenever he’s around

After the events of the game, Basil...he still has troubles making friends, always thinking back to the old friend group, but it’s not as bad as it once was before

He finds other people eventually who understand him, and think he’s worth putting the effort in to befriend. They might not ever be as close as the original group but, he finds companionship in others that he hasn’t in a long time

It might not be the same, but he thinks that that’s okay, everything is going to be okay

HERO

Hero is universally loved

There is not a single person who has met Hero that has not either wanted to be friends with him, or has developed a crush on him

Everyone who’s interacted with him could give you a story about how he’s either helped them or just was so charming in his interaction that they wish they could meet him again

It’s nearly impossible to meet Hero and not love him for what he brings to everything

Hero has very few people he truly considers friends

There’s acquaintances, classmates, roommates, co-workers, study partners, a variety of titles for the people he hangs out with and doesn’t allow to get any closer than he will allow

Before the accident, he threw around the title friend casually, because it made people happy and he’s a people pleaser at heart

After the accident and the events of the game, it just feels...hard.

It’s easier to focus on something else, anything else, than to try to let people in that could hurt him the same way

He’s very good at faking it, he can be the most amazing friend you’ve ever had who will be there to help you through a rough time in your life but you’ll also never see past the barriers he puts up around himself like an imposing fortress that stops you not because it’s intimidating and harsh like Aubrey’s, but because pushing through would just seem so rude

He does great at everything, he’s nice to everyone, everyone loves him, is it really anyone’s place to try to push him on trying to crack him out of his shell? would it be selfish or selfless to try to make him different than how he is?

The best disguises are those that the people you’re trying to fool never want to see taken off

So he has a lot of people he’s friendly with, a few other friends, but the friend group...he both loves and fears them a bit, because they know Hero better than anyone else, even if he still can hide so much from them. They’re some of the few people that want him to take off his mask and be himself, and it scares him, constantly

He’s the most afraid of Sunny

Sunny can read him like a book, can dig through every single layer he’s built for himself, lay him bare and open and exposed by just one knowing look, a hint of an expression colouring his eyes with something Hero doesn’t want to see

Hero thinks that it’s cruel irony, that the one person outside of Mari now that could likely break through his shell completely is the one he has the most conflicted feelings about

It’s a reminder of why he keeps himself distant. Sunny respects his mask, someone else might not

MARI

Hero might have been universally loved, but Mari brought love with her like had so much of it inside of her that it just radiated out around her

Not everyone loved her, or wanted to be her friend, but it was also hard to hate her either

Being around Mari in most situations could make you feel safe, like you knew there was someone around who wanted the best for everyone around her, putting her absolute best forward and never settling for anything less than perfect

She carried a different air compared to Hero. She didn’t seem like nothing could affect her, but more that she could carry herself and those around her through any dark time. A bright smile, a word of encouragement, and acknowledgement that things might not be okay right now, but that they’ll all get through it with just a little bit of effort

You just couldn’t hate her, how could you? She brought a positivity with her that wasn’t just blind optimism, it was an aura that made you feel like you were heard, you were acknowledged, that it was fine because she was here

The people outside of the original group that she called friends always felt lucky to know her, even when she got busier, because whatever the situation, she could make them feel loved, and sometimes that’s what a friend desperately needs

To know that someone out there cares

Even if sometimes she cares too much

Mari’s death did not leave waves of pain and despair, it left a hole in every person she touched, even lightly

She brought love to everything she touched, and now it was up to those people to try to fill it

Some have a easier time than others, some never find a way to fill it at all

SUNNY

Sunny is the universal friend

Some people might be confused by that looking at the quiet boy that tends to stare at people instead of talk, showing little emotion and even seeming off-putting at times. If people were asked, they’d say that Hero would obviously be a universal friend

But Hero is universally loved, and that is different, because Sunny could be friends with anyone he tried to be

Sunny went outside his house for three days, after being locked inside of his room for 4 years. In that time he managed to befriend half of the neighborhood that he was living in to the point that they all sent him get well gifts when he was hospitalized

Sunny himself does not care too much about other friends besides the original ones he had, they’re who he cares about who he wants to be

Everyone he interacts with though are probably just as surprised as he would be that he would even be a friend

Not everyone needs someone who brings love, or optimism, or even happiness, he brings something else with him

He’s calm, he listens, he follows more than he leads so he’s likely to be doing whatever it is you want to do, whether that’s a game or you need help with something (even if he doesn’t enjoy work all that much, he’ll still do it because he feels he should)

And he might not have an emotional read on you, but he will remember everything you said to him, will listen to every word if you’re talking to him about something, and will seem to figure you out and who you are faster than you’d ever expect

On a good day, you can drag Sunny along to do something with you. On a bad day, he’ll be there to listen, to nod, and to let you know in your own way that there’s someone here who acknowledges you and your existence, your problems, that you’re not alone

And on the days where you don’t feel anything, he can be there too, and just exist with you in a way that does not feel like intruding, but as if he can just naturally exist next to you like it’s the easiest thing in the world

He was in a way the glue of the original friend group. Everyone enjoyed his presence, everyone felt like they could go to him, he just...felt nice to be around because when you’re with Sunny he never seems to expect anything from you as long as you get to be with him

Sunny sees the world differently, and it just so happens to be that whenever he tries to, he can easily see the problem that’s bothering you, and will go out of his way to solve it like it’s a fun puzzle for him, instead of a bother at all

The only time he’s ever failed at that is when he broke the violin

He wonders sometimes, in the aftermath of the accident, if this is why Mari was so concerned with perfectionism

If one mistake can cause so much hurt, maybe it’s better to just give up instead

#Omori #Omori spoilers?#Basil (omori)#Kel (omori)#Aubrey (omori)#Omori (game)#Hero (omori)#Mari (omori)#Sunny (omori)#Mussthemuse #I would write more in the tags but this post murdered me #definitely omori spoilers

43 notes · View notes

st-just · 4 years ago

Text

Semi-coherent Thoughts on Against the Grain

Okay, so trying to add a bit of non-fiction and a bit of proper High Culture to my literature diet this year, and to start that off I figured I’d at long last get around to reading some James C. Scott. And, well, honestly my local library doesn’t have a copy of Seeing Like A State handy, so Against the Grain it is (which is an excellent name, by the by).

So, like, first of all this book does an excellent job of generally enforcing my already firmly held belief of Holy shit everyone, the past was awful! But, like, generally speaking I feel like he made a fairly good case, though I kind of have the suspicion he’s overstating his somewhat – or generalizing when he shouldn’t, maybe? I don’t know, not at all like I’m an expert here.

Though I suppose it’s fair to say that my natural inclination is to dislike his thesis and want to pick at it. The grand, unifying historical narrative of humanity using increasingly sophisticated and complex technology to liberate itself from the tyranny of nature is an immensely appealing one, after all. Which is a decent chunk of the reason for the book’s existence, of course – I joke about Scott wanting to turn his readers into anprims, but while he’s quite forthright about mainly writing to relay the knowledge of domain experts his dim opinion of bureaucracy, centralized administration, hierarchy and, well, civilization come through pretty clearly.

But, okay, the book’s main theses are that primordial states as we conceive of them – priests and kings, cities and stone walls, specialization of labour and codes of laws, etc – could only have ever emerged under very strict and specific conditions, are were also basically parasitic impositions, all the monumental architecture and cuneiform tablets so prized by historians and mythmakers only made possibly by imposing novel and ever-more-extreme varieties of oppression and misery on their subject populations. Moreover, he argues that many of what we call ‘dark ages’ in history – while they might technically earn the name in the sense of not leaving texts or monuments for later scholars – were in fact probably a net benefit to human well being, not any sort of horrific loss or tragedy. Finally, he talks about how what their contemporaries called ‘barbarians’ were really more symbiotic to their settled neighbours than predatory, growing in social complexity and material abundance through raiding and trade with them to the point where much of early civilization was really a better deal for the savages than it was for the peasantry.

The argument that sedentary agriculture and then the state were a) both mistakes and b) not nearly so tightly connected as the popular history goes is honestly fairly convincing. Or at least, it all makes sense – that agriculture is far more labor-intensive and regimented that hunting and gathering in an environment below its carrying capacity, that relying so heavily on just a few staples rather than broad spectrum foraging could make survival much more precarious if just a couple things went wrong, and especially that the concentration of population (not just humans, but livestock and pests as well, and from a different angle crops) made early agricultural settlements an absolute wonderland for diseases and parasites that otherwise would have burnt out and died without sufficiently large numbers of hosts.

In terms of an impression that’s going to haunt me for a while, just the idea that there are literal millennia where the calories produced and the human birthrate exploded but overall population basically remained static because infant mortality and regular lethal epidemics were just that bad is..bleak. You really start to appreciate, like, public hygiene and medicine over previous strategies of ‘enough people die over a long enough time that the good god Darwin gives most of us some level of immunity, and also everyone rich or important enough flees to the countryside every flu season’.

It’s entirely possible I misread something, but the general impression I got is that, contra the usual story, Scott doesn’t thing people were forced into sedentary agriculture by any real population pressures or declining ability to survive off the land – agriculture developing in exactly the most fertile and abundant places to begin with – and also that it predates states or elaborate social hierarchies by a significant period. Leaving him with absolutely zero idea what motivated the development, given what a strict downgrade it seemed to be in terms of quality of life.

But the book’s main thrust is in the title – about the absolute vital role of grain agriculture in allowing complex states to develop. I’m not sure if Scott ever puts it in quite so many words, but there’s the distinct impression throughout the book that he views pristine states as essentially parasites – extracting labour and grain from a toiling majority of peasants and various forms of slaves to support a tiny aristocracy through coercion and force, without providing anything at all of much worth in exchange (village-based agriculture being practiced for centuries and millennia before the formation of the first pristine states, after all). That’s where grain comes in – grain grows according to a predictable schedule, it has to be harvested all at once in a concentrated time period, it’s relatively easy to transport once harvested, and best of all, it’s basically impossible to hide from the tax collectors. It is, to use Scott’s favourite word, an extremely legible crop to the scribes and tax collectors in the palace, easy to access and easy to collect. He states in very strong terms that no pristine state could possibly form or extract enough value from its subjects to sustain itself except in areas of preexisting grain agriculture (overwhelmingly wheat, barley, millet, rice, and later maize. Is maize technically a grain, actually?)– though grain agriculture can happily exist for tens of generations in areas without a state.

He goes into some detail on the idea that, if not slavery, some variety of unfree labour was the lifeblood of every state. Basically, a great many of the wars fought by early city-states or kingdoms weren’t really for territory, so much as loot – and the most valuable loot of all was slaves and prisoners of war to drag back with your so you could exploit their skills and labour yourself. This ties into the

earlier point about epidemics – early cities were constantly hemorrhaging people, both through disease and flight back to pastoral or foraging existences beyond the state’s reach (often no more than a day or two’s travel form the centre). The key symbol here is the grand, monumental walls that early states were so found of – Scott argues that they weren’t so much for keeping nomads and invaders out (though that too), but for keeping the peasants and slaves in.

And on an empirical level I feel like I need to nitpick there. I’m not even close to an expert, but I do listen to a lot of podcasts, and basically by coincidence Patrick Wyman’s Tides of History had an episode on the development of agriculture in the Americas that came out like a day after I finished the book, and Paul Cooper’s Fall of Civilizations had an episode of the Inca come out a couple days earlier. So not exactly academic sources in either case, but they both seem to quite strongly agree that the development of Andean civilization didn’t look like that at all? A vertical economy that required exchange between maritime, agricultural and pastoral producers at different levels of elevation (growing cotton at higher levels to make nets to allow fishers to be more productive, for example) seems extremely distinct from the picture of simple alluvial plain agriculture that Scott’s very exact on being the only possible birthplace for a nascent civilization, and tubers seem to have been at least as important as grains. It’s not exactly an argument against his thesis as it applies to Mesopotamia or other places he looks at in detail, but I guess it does make me more suspicious of his wider conclusions?

His argument about what ‘collapses’ and ‘dark ages’ is interesting. Essentially, there are certainly occasions where states collapse because of invasion or epidemic or ecological collapse. But a lot of the time, states just collapse because people get sick of their shit, and they lack the force or authority to get their subjects back in line. In cases like this, there is kind of a ‘dark age’, in the sense that there’s no longer a central palace interested in creating monuments and paying scribes to extol their glory or keep track of their riches, but it’s really only dark from the perspective of the future historian and archaeologist. For contemporaries, it might actually be a blessing – an end to conscription and taxation, a dramatic jump in health as people disperse back to village life, no more army-sized slave raids on the periphery, and so on.

His last chapter is devoted to the ‘barbarians’, the unsettled and stateless people beyond the reach of history who populated the vast majority of the world for the vast majority of human history. I do kind of feel like he gets sloppy with his terms here, in terms of just how vast a category he lumps under ‘barbarian’. Like, he initially uses the category to describe the nonstate, unorganized peoples beyond the taxman’s reach, but then latter lumps in the Huns, Mongols, and all the other of what he calls ‘shadow empires’ (that is, nomadic empires that grow up in the shadow of civilization). Again, I’m not even close to a specialist, but what specialists I have read tended to take a fair amount of offense to the tendency to dismiss social complexity and organization among the inhabitants of the Eurasian steppe and, like, especially in the case of the Mongols saying that nomadic peoples and cultures were protean and generally formed in the image of state designations really almost seems insulting (though I suppose Scott probably doesn’t see it that way). I’m reminded here of John Darwin’s characterization of the post-Tamerlane ruling class in Samarkand as being in a certain sense more civilized – having access to more sophisticated and effective political and military technologies – than the settled agriculturalists in northern India they eventually conquered.

....All that said, the idea that the concentrated wealth of early states, and the resulting opportunities for both trade and plunder, was actually a much greater improvement in the quality of life for the nomads for could exploit them than the vast majority of the, like, actually settled peoples is pretty compelling (well, the ones that aren’t captured in slave raids by their rivals and sold to said states for finished goods, anyway). Though I do find it vaguely ironic how Scott basically arrives at the idea that powerful nomad groups had essentially the same dominant and exploitative relationship with farming populations as their own state elites, but approximately none of his evident distaste for the latter transfers to how he talks about the former.

But anyway, good book, probably overstates its arguments, but doesn’t everyone with anything interesting to say? I’ve still got too much of a bureaucrat's soul to fully buy in to what Scott’s selling, though

#books #against the grain #james c. scott #in this essay I will #this is theoretically a writing blog #history #book review #or book 'writing an essay to satisfy myself that I understood it' anyway #though going by the names that cames to mind in relation to this I really need to read some histories not written by white dudes

44 notes · View notes

my-fall-from-grace · 3 years ago

Note

“activism only works when people understand the root of the issue” anon back at it (also yeah feel free to post these, I’d say them on my own blog but I doubt people who follow a drarry blog want tommyinnit/twitter hot takes + this is a long one that’s just my issues with twitter activism as a whole I am so sorry)

I wanted to mention in my original message too that twitter is such a flawed activism platform. This isn’t a teenager hot take, this is something that’s well known to the point it gets published in political textbooks as an exact reason for failure in online activism. It annoys me that twitter users perceive themselves as a bastion for activism and education because it is so damaging to causes constantly just because of its core function.

The main reasons it’s a failure boils down to two things. For activism to work you need to be able to effectively convey a message and get that message out. Groups like Greenpeace had effective activism because they did demonstrations, they did huge stunts to get the message about the environment across which pushed them to mainstream media outlets. That is positive activism, every direct action they took was done with the intention of showing they wanted to preserve the planet while also making those same actions eye catching enough to get into newspapers and on TV. But Twitter doesn’t have these things available to them! The entire basis of Twitter is basically only having 280 characters to get your cause and reasoning across, and then needing a dependable reach to get the message out which is nearly impossible because of their algorithm. It’s a complete failure of a platform in those regards and those are core functions, but its users seem to be blind to its fallacies and the echo chamber perpetuates their beliefs that they’re doing good. It’s rancid purely when you think about it from how it works as a platform but that’s without going into it’s users.

Twitter users are a whole different breed of poisoning causes. There is an expectation to constantly consume and demonstrate activism, if you see a thread about ongoing issues in Myanmar it’s seen as hateful to scroll past it even if you’re only on Twitter for a few minutes to waste time. If you see a political issue you’re obligated to interact, if you see an economic issue, if you see a cultural issue, if you see a social issue. There is this constant obligation to consume and maintain knowledge of current affairs and that’s not how activism works! It dilutes the message being spread by causing people to put their attention into 20 different causes rather than being able to advocate for 3 but know the associated issues and root of the problems by rote. The messages of so many civil rights activists in the past have only been resonating because of their expertise and ability to demonstrate why these issues exist and the steps to change what’s going on. The current system of dividing attention is never going to get a cause off the ground even without the limitations of Twitter as a platform because there is never suitable knowledge to demonstrate.

The present slacktivist attitudes rampant on that platform quite frankly annoy me as someone who is extremely involved in politics and grassroots movements. They’re not doing their part, they’re going to force people to consume and consume every single world issue that crops up on a daily basis until people become apathetic towards issues because they don’t realise that their feeble attempts at spreading news and generating change will never be enough to send a message with the way they go about it. Consistently keeping up to date with every world issue will breed apathy to politics and disengage the masses simply because with the way activism is approached at current will never be good enough.

Even without how mcyttwt thinks it’s entitled to content creators entire beings, twitter just itself is an awful place to go about making changes. Especially because their platform cruxes on notable people to gain reach and so many users on it will not once go out and make changes to how they approach activism and participate in demonstrations for the causes they allegedly support. It’s a façade and a mockery to actual work that people put in to alter political and social landscapes.

anon!! thank you for coming back and thank you even more for all this information! it's so interesting that you are involved in politics and grassroots movements, as you have a more in-depth and educated perspective than i do (and most people i would assume), and i'm really glad you came back and explained all of this! :)

i strongly agree that twitter as a whole has many issues with its performative activism and slacktivism, especially bc, as you said, it's not a platform that supports activism with its character limit and its general attitude about it! cancel culture and all of these attempts to educate are just never going to work and i think it will be a lot better if they simply admitted that and moved on from attempting to do so.

#if you will be coming often give me a name to call you by <3 #anon #ask #mcyttwt #and genuinely thank you! this was so so interesting to read through especially from your perspective #long post

10 notes · View notes

vgprintads · 4 years ago

Photo

‘Darklight Conflict’

[MULTI] [UK] [MAGAZINE] [1997]

At first blush, Darklight Conflict looks like what X-wing vs. TIE Fighter should have been: gorgeous SVGA graphics, amazing light sourcing, and a deep-space feeling that so many games in this genre are just plain lacking. But like so many others, it comes up short. The bottom line is, it's tough to make a really good space conflict game these days that finds the right balance of gameplay, graphics, storyline, difficulty and replayability.

The main problem with Darklight Conflict is that it uses what would be the real physics of space combat. Initially this makes for a very impressive feeling for the awesome dimensions of space conflict and movement, but in short order turns to a nightmare of nearly impossible maneuvers within very exacting missions.

There is also the ridiculous premise of the game, but that hardly deserves examination -- suffice it to say that you are basically kidnapped from your career as a navy top gun to be fused, for some inexplicable reason, into an alien spacecraft where you then, for some equally inexplicable reason, gladly fight and die for your abductors.

In its favor, Darklight Conflict flat blows away the competition in terms of look and feel -- there was obviously a great deal of thought and effort put into the realism of this game, but it might have been better as a deep-space flight sim than an action game for the seeming lack of thought put into making this beauty playable.

(...)Darklight Conflict comes up short because it has too many liabilities -- super-difficult gameplay, poorly-designed controls, the clunky old DOS environment, and a woeful lack of decent multiplayer options. Hopefully, the look of this game will impress other makers to the point where a truly great space combat sim can be born of the recent crop of near misses. ~Richard Law, Gamezilla

Source: Computer and Video Games, August 1997 (#189) || Internet Archive; Jason Scott

#gaming #advertising #darklight conflict #dos #ps1 #playstation #saturn #space sim #flight sim #shooters #rage games #electronic arts #ea games #united kingdom #sci-fi #computer games #video games #1997

13 notes · View notes

sometimes-love-is-enough · 4 years ago

Note

do you have any spicy hot takes you wanna drop 👀👀?? i will drop one as well, i think that everyone got carried away with the whole sympathetic and unsympathetic stuff -💫

okay so i read the first sentence and i was like ‘fuck yes time to talk about the sympathetic/unsympathetic thing’ and then i read the rest of it and yeah okay so we’re on the same page here. i have a feeling this is going to get extensive so if you don’t want to hear me complaining about stuff that you may or may not like don’t go reading under the cut. Also it's not going to be very coherent

disclaimer: i am not trying to police the fandom or trying to tell anyone that they can’t write stuff. i do my best to stay in my lane and read/consume content that i want to. these are just. feelings i have.

so on the one hand i sort of understand where the whole concept sprung from. it’s hard to write interesting longform stories without a villain of some sort, it’s not as if there’s all that many characters in the first place, and sometimes using the Dragon Witch doesn’t quite cut it. and honestly if you take away the whole ‘they’re all part of the same person’ thing it would’ve been pretty easy to assume that Deceit was the bad guy when he first showed up. he went the whole ‘ominous smirking, evil laughter’ route because he’s a dramatic little bastard, and some people were like 'my son, I love him' and others went 'evil man! Evil! He's planning bad things' and on a purely mechanical level having tags that distinguish people who think a character is good vs people who think a character is evil is a good thing, it helps you distinguish content you want to look at from the content that you don't!

HOWEVER. I think the idea of characters being 'sympathetic' or 'unsympathetic' in the way that this fandom uses those terms is innately flawed. It's black-and-white thinking and it veers close to the whole puritan thing that tumblr is so fond of. And in most cases 'unsympathetic' is just an excuse to write characters as toxic, abusive, and just downright cruel without having to explain yourself. Which is. Hm. And also just lazy writing.

This bit might be tmi but: Patton actually used to be my favorite Sanders Sides character. But back when i initially got into the fandom, I hadn't quite worked out how to filter the content I looked through yet, and I just kept seeing this... constant stream of stuff involving him being abusive to the others in a way that was hm how shall i say this. Uncomfortably familiar. especially with a lot of religious guilt themes. It's not anyone's fault, precisely, but it did tinge a lot of my fandom experience, and it maaaay be why i'm not great at writing him. Doesn't matter. The point is... There wasn't a point. I'm just still bitter about that and wanted to mention it. Maybe i'm angrier about this than i thought i was. Let's not talk about that. Let's move on with this discussion.

You'll notice that i used Janus as an example up there at the top. I can't be sure (and actually it grimly fascinates me so if anybody who's been around here longer than I have has any info on this send it over, I'd love to know) but I think that Deceit's appearance in CLBG may have marked the beginning of this whole unsympathetic/sympathetic split in the fandom. It seems a safe enough bet, anyway, especially since the earliest example I can find of any fic being tagged 'unsympathetic' in the AO3 archive is from 4th February 2018, literally the day after CLBG went up. (damn, guys, moving fast).

The first occurrences of the 'sympathetic' tag crop up about a month later. Tumblr is impossible to search so I don't know if there was any discussion about terms, or if it was just a kind of snowball effect with people seeing the tags and tagging their own fics as appropriate (and this is a fascinating phenomena in itself!) but either way - i have absolutely no idea what happened to make people go from 'we're divided on whether this character who presents himself a villain is actually doing bad and detrimental things to the other sides/thomas/the world as a whole/innocent puppies' to 'hang on what if the other sides were kicking puppies also?'

So now this has turned from a rant about terminology into me being genuinely curious about this whole thing. I will put the rant on pause while I go scour AO3 to see when the first occurrences of the tags popped up. Please hold.

Okay. I'm going to ignore the unsympathetic tags for anyone who's not a side because i don't hate myself nearly that much (but uh for the record. There is a part of this fandom that thinks the LITERAL CONCEPT OF SLEEP IS EVIL and i'm not sure if i should be impressed or horrified. What? What???)

All of these numbers are up-to-date as of 17/06/2020, which is when I'm posting this. I'm probably not going to update that, so keep that in mind if you're reading this in the future.

In order of chronological appearance:

Unsympathetic Janus ('Deceit' at the time, of course) - first appears 12 March 2018, 191 works Unsympathetic Roman - first appears 10 February 2019, 102 works Unsympathetic Logan - first appears 24 June 2019, 59 works Unsympathetic Patton - first appears 2 July 2019, 228 works Unsympathetic Remus - first appears 17 July, 2019, 121 works Unsympathetic Virgil - first appears 31 July 2019, 71 works

...I genuinely don't know what I expected.

The fandom was much slower to spark with Unsympathetic Remus content after he first showed up, which is kind of interesting. Unless they just didn't bother to tag it? Like, I'm working with the assumption that everyone's tagging all of their content, which might not always be the case

I thought there'd be so much more Janus and Remus-tagged fics than there actually are.

It does not surprise me that Patton has the most in this category. It makes me sad but it doesn't surprise me. Why are you guys so intent on making him evil

And on the opposite side of the sympathy spectrum (similarly chronological):

Sympathetic Janus - first appears 7 March 2018, 1920 works Sympathetic Remus - first appears 2 July 2019, 965 works Sympathetic Patton - first appears 31 July 2019, 71 works Sympathetic Virgil - first appears 1 August 2019, 69 works (nice) Sympathetic Logan - first appears 8 August 2019, 41 works Sympathetic Roman - first appears 20 August, 56 works

It's actually wild that 'Sympathetic [Janus]' seems to have appeared several days between Unsympathetic Jan made any appearance.

There were several Remus fics that were backtagged to before DWIT was released. I ignored them because it was throwing this off a bit. there may be other problems to this effect in any of the other stats, but i’m too lazy to go back and check those all one-by-one

Sympathetic tags in general seem to be used as, hm, there's a word here i can't quite think of. Basically, 'Sympathetic' seems to be the default setting for characters like Virgil, Patton, Roman, Logan (the 'Light Sides', although i take issue with that terms as well. This isn't the time for that, though. Statistics!!) which 'Unsympathetic' used to be the default for Janus and Remus. That's become slightly more elastic of late, though. Basically if you're using the Sympathetic tag for anyone who's not a 'Dark Side' you're usually doing it to make a point of something. e.g. if you have other sides who aren't usually unsympathetic as such and you're trying to clarify that yes, these specific ones are Okay. Or if you're just being thorough. Anyway that's why LAMP seem to have less works tagged as Symp than the other two.

All the sympathetic tags for non-Janus characters seem to have sprung up in quick succession over a short period of months! I have no idea what this means but it's strange and cool to look at

If you're wondering about the discrepancy between this information and my earlier note that the first appearance of 'unsympathetic' as an AO3 tag was the day after CLBG came out - that fic in question had a general 'unsympathetic dark sides' tag, no specific tags mentioned.

Okay statistics segue over. The only point of that apart from scientific curiosity was to try to puzzle out where the fuck this all stemmed from. I still have no answers.

I need you all to understand that 'Sympathetic' no longer looks like a real word to me.

So. Remember how i mentioned how this fandom managed to make unsympathetic!Remy/Sleep a thing? Yeah. That baffles me. I haven't seen unsympathetic Dr Picani anywhere yet but I know it's only a matter of time and that lowkey horrifies me. But that's not really the most baffling thing because, uh

Well. earlier this week I accidentally stumbled into a corner of tumblr that's dedicated to unsympathetic character Thomas content. If you're a fan of that, i'd advise you to click away from this post now because i'm about to get very angry about that and i don't want to make you upset. Thank you.

What the fuck. literally all of the posts in this corner of tumblr are about c!thomas abusing the sides and being a terrible person??? ??????? ????? WHAT? can we just take a step back and. WHY? WHY are you doing this? Are we watching the same show? from a psychological standpoint, that's self-abuse and self-harm and i suppose it might be interesting if you explored it as such but APPARENTLY NO. apparently that's not what this is about. This is just about writing about someone being abusive to other people for the sake of it. there were so many posts about him 'abusing the sides by telling them they're not real people' and. OKAY so a) he wouldn't do that b) THEY AREN'T. THEY LITERALLY AREN'T REAL PEOPLE WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT

[deep breath]

so actually i think that kind of leads me back to the point of this whole thing. I had a point, what? It surprises me too, don't worry. The point is (roughly) that writing characters as 'unsympathetic' isn't something that i have an objection to at all. Everybody has the capacity to be cruel! Nobody's perfect!! But with the sympathetic/un labels it seems to enforce this strict dichotomy of good vs bad. Either Logan is an abusive monster OR he's a perfect angel. Guys. That's not how it works. And it's not INTERESTING if you do that sort of thing because then you've got people being unnecessarily cruel and evil for the sake of it. They turn into 2-dimensional caricatures that only exist to be bad people.

People make mistakes! I write about characters making mistakes all the time! Janus and Remus pulling the whole trolley problem thing in Pick A Side definitely wasn't a great thing for them to do, but I didn't tag them as unsympathetic at the time and i have no plan to do so because i don't want to write them as two-dimensional caricatures who are only capable of one of two settings on the morality meter. (same goes for the next chapter, whenever that comes up but... let’s talk about that when i post it, maybe)That's boring. If you're going to take characters and make them into antagonists just because you can't think of anyone else to fit the role, and you're doing it by stripping away everything that makes them Them, then you might as well just stuff a paper bag with straw and cast a scarecrow as the villain instead because buddy. You're making a strawman. That's what you're doing. You can't have Patton without kindness and well-meaningness, just as you can't have Patton without the mistakes caused by those two things. Same goes for the other sides and their flaws and strengths.

And then there's the other thing that's definitely more specific to this fandom, which I think was best summarized with something i said in the comments section of Pick A Side with len at like ten minutes past midnight that one time:

(...) and not necessarily related to anything you said, but - this fandom is kind of unique in that... there's no actual bad guys or villains. (at least that's how i perceive it.) The Real Villain Is Your Poor Mental Health. people are always like 'unsympathetic deceit' or 'unsympathetic patton' and point to different points in the videos as evidence, ('i give you permission to think those thoughts' patton's being controlling - that's abuse) but like. it's all the same guy. he's giving himself permission. he's doing it to himself. imagine if we tagged other fandom characters with like 'Unsympathetic Harry Potter' when he was being mean or critical to himself. wild.

So yeah. In conclusion: obviously people should write what they like. If they see characters one way and they want to write about them being two-dimensional monsters that's fine. I kind of wish you'd put more thought into it and make it at least interesting if you're going to do that sort of thing, but you do you i guess.

That being said. If I see any more unsympathetic!Patton content I will start crying. i want to love Goofy Dad Man the same way i used to

#asks #min goes off the rails #this turned into an essay. apology for incoherence and my tendency to jump around wildly!#Anonymous

21 notes · View notes

honeyrose-tea · 4 years ago

Note

are you doing anything for new years? if you could call any friend to talk to at midnight to enter the new year together, who would you choose? do you enjoy staying up late or going to bed early? do you like making new years resolutions? if so, what are some of your new years resolutions for 2021? did you have any for 2020? did you succeed at them? if you didn't, are you going to try again this year? what are your hopes for the upcoming year? your fears? your most ridiculous prediction? -🌙

no, I don't have any plans for new years. my parents will likely put on the tv and I might watch a bit of the festivities, or I may just go to bed and let the year come softly. either way, it won't be too eventful. but I don't mind

the past few years I've gone to my friend Syl's (@spice-ghouls) house to celebrate new years with them and a couple friends, and I've always enjoyed that. and they're basically my only friend at the moment, as well as being one of my oldest and best friends. so probably them. I love them very much

I hate waking up early. though I love the morning and think it's a beautiful time of day, I like waking up when my body tells me to and that rarely coincides with the morning. I especially hate alarms, no matter what tone they are it's always such an abrupt way to start the day. I'm excited for the day when my significant other (who is hopefully a lighter sleeper than I am) wakes up to a quiet alarm, rolls over, and gently wakes me up so we can start our day together. maybe then I wouldn't mind waking up early.

as for staying up late, I don't love it either. I do love the night, it has a peace that is similar to yet distinct from the morning. but staying up late is honestly almost a compulsion at this point and it definitely has negative effects on me. it's something I've been working to stop doing over the past year or two. I still do it (it's almost 1am as I type this) but I don't love it either. the best nights are when I go to sleep at a reasonable time (8-11pm) and wake up naturally, but still early enough not to feel as if the day is already wasted

I'm not big on resolutions, actually. I mean I don't mind them, I just don't usually don't have any. if I want to do something, I just start doing it right away, I don't wait for a certain time to start. if I get a whim in July or October or even December to start writing more poems or posting less on social media or whatever, I start immediately instead of making it a whole big new years resolution. part of that is because I'm very instrospective and goal-driven by nature so I'm always seeking out new ways to grow and improve. I think people in general don't think much about their goals until it's time for a milestone like the new year. I guess it's also because the new year just isn't that big of a deal for me. if anything I seem to reflect most on my growth around my birthday rather than new years

that said, I did have a resolution in 2019, simply because I happened to get a whim right around that time of year. the resoltion was to visit all the counties in my state. I had lived here my whole life and hadn't been very far outside the city I live in, I wasn't really familiar with the state's geography either, and that didn't sit right with me. I felt like I couldn't call myself a real resident until I really took ownership of the and got out into the state itself. so from January to July I visited 80+ counties, often with one or both of my parents, and it was incredible. it made me feel so much more connected to my region and we found so many hidden gems. I have tons of pictures and I've done some writing about it if you're ever interested. but yeah, since then it's been kinda hard to come up with new resolutions. I feel like I peaked with that one, I don't know how I'd top it.

I'm not planning on a resolution for 2021, but maybe something will pop into my head in the next couple days. I want to be more social after the vaccine, that I know for sure. it was kind of a wake-up call that the pandemic didn't change my social life hardly at all. I want to spend more time with friends and family and enjoy the little things like the ability to eat in a restaurant or cafe or go thrift shopping or go to the movies. I just think I should do more with my life, and I've been feeling that way for several years now. I've made some small steps, but post-quarantine I want to make bigger ones. my lifetime is finite. outside of that I don't know of anything big I hope to accomplish in 2021. good grades I guess, but that's kind of a given. I'm always aiming for good grades

I hope that the year is filled with love and warmth. I hope it is calm, joyful, and that I can live it out with all the people I love by my side. I hope that for everyone else too, that they can be closer to their loved ones. I hope for less death and sickness and that the virus is eradicated as soon as possible. I hope for more equality and progress, and though they are slow I do believe they're coming. I hope that life becomes more normal, and that people who are hurting are comforted. I hope things go well for my church, because it means a lot to me. selfishly I hope for a significant other, and I hope it's the last one. I'm so ready to be with the person I will spend my life with, I like the thought of stability and security, of building a life with someone. and even more selfishly I hope it's Eli. I hope my dog stays healthy, that my chickens live long lives as well, and that the weather is nice. I hope I get to spend more time outside. I hope that children get to see their friends, go to school, and that they are more carefree. though I don't have any siblings I do have some special kids in my life and I hated seeing how they've suffered this year. I just hope everything is better and happier for everyone, that we are all more successful and compassionate. I especially hope that we will carry our lessons from 2020 with us but leave behind the pain

I have a lot of fears. I am scared of the unknowns about the virus- the effectiveness of the vaccine on a massive population, the new strains, the long-term effects of the virus or even the vaccine that may crop up months or years from now, and much more. I am scared about the state of our society and how reforming it seems nearly impossible, I am scared that at some point this unsustainable system will fall apart, I am afraid of how and when that will happen and how many people will have to suffer and die amidst the collapse. I am afraid of a very lonely and uneventful year, I am afraid of a lonely year filled with bad events too. I am afraid for the health and safety of everyone, especially those I love. I know we aren't out of the woods yet, and the new year will not be a magical fix. I am a little afraid regarding how quickly my future is approaching, that in 2021 I will need to be looking at grad schools and applying to begin my graduate program in fall 2022. I am afraid I will lose my passion, I am afraid maybe I never had any passion to begin with. and as always, I am afraid of being forgotten, but also afraid of being known, deeply known, and still remaining unloved. I think we often forget the mortifying ordeal of being known is not guaranteed to result in love

still, I don't want to dwell on my fears, and though it has been tempting in the midst of all this chaos, I think I have managed to push them away most of the time. I think fear is rarely productive except sometimes as a motivator, and even then I would rather be motivated by love or hope or optimism than by fear. I will end with my absurd prediction, which is of course that Eli and I will get back together and it will be permanent. I hate to say it but I do honestly believe it, even though I know it's ridiculous. I have a deep sense that it will happen. I don't know why. it is just a divine knowing, one that I have only felt before on a couple occasions, both of which were definitely orchestrated by God, I have no doubt about either. but feelings aside, you can never predict the future, and I am excited to see what happens regardless. there is joy in not completely knowing, joy in knowing that you will get to live it out and watch it all unfold. all that I can do is learn and love and grow and work as hard as I can, and the universe will take care of the rest

thank you for this, my friend. your questions aid in my self-reflection and I always feel like I know myself better after writing to you. I hope you are well, and thank you again for taking an interest in me. it means a lot to me, more than I can say. I hope your holidays were/are well. are you doing anything for new years? talk you soon:) xoxo💞

#ask #pen pal #eli

1 note · View note

imaginaryelle · 5 years ago

Text

Okay, @tonyglowheart , here is that promised response:

@three--rings already brought up some points I was going to mention so I’ll skip over going into detail on those and just say that I agree with the use of caution and thoughtfulness in approaching works produced by other cultures (of whatever language), and I, too, love a mash-up of MDZS and CQL for ideal storytelling. Accepting genre tropes in general is really important as well. I once showed my grandfather a piece of my writing based on pulp adventure stories like Indiana Jones and his main reaction was “All these secret chambers and codes and gadgets, isn’t that all very convenient?” and I just had to shrug and say, that’s the genre, it’s part of what makes it fun to read. Also, based on reading about various medicinal histories I’ve been exploring, I can say that the coughing up blood thing is a trope based in Ancient China’s traditional medicine. Lots of pre-understanding-of-blood-circulation societies thought expelling old or stale blood was important for the body (possibly based on how menses works and reflected in Western medicine’s several-century-long obsession with bloodletting), and I recently read that having it caught in your chest and needing to cough it up was part of China’s take on things. I’m still not sure about all the other face bleeding, but if it’s not actually based in something historical it seems like a reasonable extension for the genre.

Okay, so the thing I want to respond to most is the translation bit, because I… okay. I understand that people are going to find works in translation less accessible than works written in a language they can read, and especially works written in their native language and of their own culture. Because obviously there are a ton of underlying ideas that inform word choice and symbolism and character arcs that most people just don’t really think about until they make a serious study of writing or literature (or they travel and learn more about other languages and literature traditions). On a linguistic studies level, language literally shapes the way humans in different cultures think, and what they pick out as important (an academic article that compares English and Chinese specifically can be found here). Even the distinctions between British English and American English, on a word choice and theme or syntax level, can have an impact. I have seen it turn kids off a book, because there are just too many elements they don’t get (this is, for example, why there are two English versions of Harry Potter). Same thing with different decades even. I’m talking about kidlit and YA here because that’s a lot of what I work with, but in that realm, the way we approach stories today is just incredibly different from how they were approached even 50 years ago, even in the same language and the same country. Think Judy Blume or The Dark is Rising vs Diary of a Wimpy Kid or Percy Jackson. And I’m fascinated by those changes, and by the effects of culture and bias on translations (I am extremely hyped to read Emily Wilson’s Odyssey translation, for example), so I tend to approach them as puzzles, where I’m reading the work, but also looking for clues that will tell me more about both the translator and the author to hang in balance. I enjoy that part, and I enjoy figuring out aspects of the two languages that can contribute to how a translation evolves.

I’m a language and literature nerd, and I know not everyone is going to take the approach I do. I’m not going to fault anyone for saying they don’t enjoy or can’t get into a translation. That’s a perfectly valid opinion. Reducing a work to its translation and judging it only on that impression of it, however, seems pretty shortsighted to me. Here are some things that I think are important to keep in mind when reading a Chinese work in translation, just based on my own extremely limited knowledge:

1. In Chinese storytelling it’s an established practice to reference idioms, poetry, folklore and historic events as a sort of shorthand for evoking the proper tone. Chinese writing tends to be extremely allusive, and much more understated than what we’re used to in English-language storytelling. We can see hints of this in some of the MDZS translator notes, and it’s likely that this difference feeds into a lot of dissatisfaction with the translation. Either the allusions are not translated in a way that adds meaning for an English-speaking reader, or the standards for detail are different. Indirectness and subtly are huge parts of Chinese literature, and so different words or scenes will have very different connotations for Chinese vs. English speaking audiences. And this isn’t even touching on the use of rhyme and rhythm in Chinese writing, which are all but impossible to translate a lot of the time, or the often extremely different approaches to “style” and “genre” between the languages (an interesting article on comparative literature is here at the University of Connecticut website). Given this knowledge, it’s entirely possible that, for example, the smut scenes are more effective in Chinese than in the English translation. In fact, I find it difficult to believe it would be popular enough to get multiple adaptations and a professional publishing run if they weren’t. In translation, smut is a lot like humor: every culture approaches it a little differently. Unless a translator is familiar with both writing traditions and the relevant genres (or they have editors or sensitivity readers who can offer advice), something is going to get lost in the process. And sometimes that something is what at least one of the involved cultures would consider to be the most important part. It’s unfortunate, but it happens.

2. Chinese grammar is slightly different from English grammar (and I’m focusing on Mandarin as the common written language here. For anyone interested, a very basic rundown of major differences is available here). Verb tenses and concepts of time work differently. Emphasis is marked differently – in English we tend to put the most importance on the start of a sentence, while in Chinese it’s often at the end. Sentences are also often shorter in Chinese than in English, and English tends to get more specific in our longer sentences. From what I understand, it’s also a little more acceptable to just drop subjects out of a sentence, and that is more likely to happen if someone is attempting to be succinct. I’ve been told that it’s especially common in contentious situations, as part of an effort to distill objections or arguments down to an essential meaning (if I’m wrong about this or there’s more nuance to it, I’m happy to learn more). As one example of how this affects translation, let’s take that and look at Lan Wangji’s dialogue. I’m willing to bet that most of his words are direct translations, or as direct as the translator could manage. But his words don’t work the same way in English that they do in Chinese. If you continuously drop subjects and articles (Chinese doesn’t have articles) out of a character’s speech in English, they start to sound like they have issues articulating themselves, and I see that idea reflected in fic a lot. The idea that Lan Wangji just isn’t comfortable talking or can’t say the words he means is all over the place, but I don’t think the audience was intended to take away the idea that Lan Wangji speaks quite as stiltedly as he comes off in the English translation. He’s terse, yes. But I at least got the impression that it’s more about choosing when and how to speak for the best effectiveness than anything else, because so many of his actual observations are quite insightful and pointed, or fit just fine syntactically within the conversation he’s part of.

3. Chinese is both more metaphorical and more concrete than English in some ways. In English we use a lot of abstract words to represent complex ideas, and you just have to learn what they mean. In Chinese, the overlap of language and philosophy in the culture results in four-character phrases of what English would generally call idioms. Some examples I found: “perfect harmony” (水乳交融) can be literally translated as “mixing well like milk and water” and “eagerly” (如饥似渴) is read as “like hunger and thirst.” If these set phrases are translated to single word concepts in English, we can lose the entire tone of a sentence and it’ll feel much more flat and... basic, or uninspired. The English reader will be left wondering where the detailed descriptive phrase is that adds emotion and connotation to a sentence, when in the actual Chinese those things were already implied.

As translations go, MDZS in particular is an incredibly frustrating mixed bag for me, partially because of the non-professional fan translation, and partially because my knowledge of Chinese literature and especially Cultivation novels is so minimal as to be nearly non-existent. But I have enough exposure to translations in general and Chinese language and literature in particular that I could tell there were things I was missing. The framework of the plot and scenes was too complete for me to ever be able to say that any particular frustration I had was due to the author, not the translator. There’s a big grey area in there that’s difficult to navigate without knowing both languages and the norms of the genre extremely well. At one point I was actually able to find multiple translation for a few of the chapters and I loved that. It was really cool to see what changed, and what remained essentially the same, and I was actually really surprised to find that rant you mention, because to me, more translations is always better. I think it was probably about wanting to corral an audience, and possibly also about reducing arguments from the audience about whether a translation was “wrong” or “right.” And that is an issue that’s going to crop up more in online spaces than it has traditionally. Professional translators don’t have to potentially argue with every single reader about their word choice. But then, professional translators also tend to have a better grasp of both the cultures they’re working with as well, and be writers of some variety in their own right, and while I can’t know how fluent (linguistically or culturally) the ExR translator was at the time, the translator’s notes lead me to believe that at minimum their understanding of figurative language use was incomplete. So I can’t fault people for not enjoying the translated novel as much as CQL, for example, because it can be quite choppy and much of the English wording feels like a sketch of a scene rather than something fleshed out fully, but I don’t think it’s fair to apply that impression to MXTX herself or the novel as a whole in Chinese.

More about ExR: I also got the sense that they have a strong bl and yaoi bias as you mentioned, mostly from the translator’s notes. And in general, okay, that’s fine, they’re working with a particular market of fans and I’m just not as much a part of that market. I knew going in that I wasn’t the target audience. I’m okay with that. What I was less okay with was getting to the end and reading the actual author’s notes in translation and finding that the author herself expressed a much more nuanced, considerate, and balanced approach to the story and her writing process than I had been led to believe by the translation and the translator’s notes. And so when people want to criticize the author for things that happen in the translation…. I just think it’s very important to remember that the translator is also a factor, as is the influence of the cultivation genre, and the nature of web novels, and the original intended audience. As you said, white western LGBT people were never the intended recipients of this work. It comes from a totally different context. But I think it’s also important to remember that, again as you noted, it wasn’t first written as a professional work. It was literally a daily-updated webnovel, which works a lot more like a fanfic than a book in terms of approach. And on top of that, it was the author’s second novel (if I’m reading things correctly) and one that they experimented with a lot of new elements in. Those elements earn a lot of forgiveness and benefit of a doubt from me.

About MXTX herself: Most of the posts or references to posts that I’ve seen that judge or dismiss her have to do with the stated sexuality of characters who are not Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji. And it just kinda baffles me, because this is fandom. Most of us spend our time writing about characters who are stated to be straight all the time. Why is anyone getting up in arms about this? How can anyone in fandom just summarily dismiss an author for producing original work that centers around a gay relationship when that’s… literally what most of us write, to some extent or another? Again, I’m not saying there’s aren’t aspects that can be criticized in her stories, but the hypocrisy is kind of amazing. I think that fandom, as a culture overall, has issues with treating gay men and their relationships as toys rather than people, and individuals can address their own behavior on that as they learn and grow. That doesn’t mean that every work about gay men having sex is fetishistic, and honestly I’d say that the translator demonstrates more of that attitude than the actual story ever does. The smut is such an incredibly tiny part of the world, plots and character arcs in MDZS that it could be taken out without significantly changing the main narrative very easily. That’s… not fetishistic. That’s smut as part of an overarching romance plot.

Which leads me to the tropes discussion. Yes, obviously there are tropes in MDZS. There are tropes in every story. It’s not a failing, it’s part of writing. Are some of those tropes BL or Yaoi tropes? Sure. Wei Wuxian denying his own sexuality for much of the novel and his tendency toward submission and rape fantasy are some of the very first tropes mentioned in relation to the genre. That Wei Wuxian just sort of seamlessly moves from “pff, I’m NOT a cutsleeve, I’m just acting like one” to shouting “Lan Zhan, I really want you to fuck me” in front of friends, enemies and family without much of a process for dealing with the culture of homophobia around him also seems to be characteristic of the genre. But I think that’s about where it ends. You and @three--rings both made some good points about the nature of the actual relationship, which I agree with: There’s not much of a power play element, or an assigned gender roles element. They’re both virgins who only partially know what they’re doing from looking at illustrations of porn, and they do enthusiastically want to have sex with each other. They’re just bad at negotiating their kinks clearly and could use a decent sex ed manual. The trope I actually have the most issue with is the use of alcohol. I personally despise the trope of “I’ll get someone drunk on purpose for reasons that benefit me personally,” due to my own real life experiences. But it’s an exceedingly common trope in Western media (Idk about Chinese media, but my guess would be it exists there too), and it’s not exclusive to mlm smut scenarios. It’s pretty much everywhere. And, thankfully, Wei Wuxian does seem to eventually realize that he’s fucking things up by using it. That said, despite knowing what happens to him when he drinks, La Wangji keeps doing it. So they’re both contributing to that mess, no matter how much I dislike that it exists, and the narrative doesn’t actually condone it. No one says “Oh, Wei Wuxian, that’s such a good idea, that’s definitely something you should keep doing.” He is consistently warring with himself over it but unable to resist. It’s still dubcon and manipulation, and I certainly understand people not wanting to read it. I just also think that reducing the entire relationship down to “bad, terrible, fetishistic BL tropes” requires the reader to ignore large parts of the story and pretty evident intent on the parts of both the characters and the author.

On purity culture: Yeah, that’s obviously been cropping up all over the place the past several years (I have indeed been in marvel for ages :P). It does seem like there are places in fandom (to some degree any fandom), where “I don’t like how this idea was executed in this context” gets conflated with “This entire work is terrible,” which is a disservice to everyone involved. I agree that there are many things that can be legitimately criticized in MDZS, but I also just… really don’t understand where this attitude comes from that because something is not perfect, it’s trash. Wasn’t fandom essentially invented out of the desire to respond to canon? To make it more your own? Isn’t picking out the parts you like and ignoring the bits you don’t (or writing around the bits you hate until you can fit them in a shape you like better) pretty much what all fic is about? Aren’t those holes people are sticking their fingers into and complaining about opportunities for more fan content? But even more than “purity culture” I would term it “entitlement culture,” because a lot of it seems to be about the idea that media should fit into and support a certain set of beliefs at all times. A lot of fandoms are no longer an atmosphere of “I don’t like the way this is presented so I’m going to create my on version that works for me.” Instead there’s a growing element of “I don’t like the way this is presented so that means it’s wrong and bad and the original creator should admit that it’s wrong and bad and fix it to satisfy me.” And honestly? That’s just sad to me. More and more, we’re not having a conversation with canon, or even with each other. We’re not building what we want to see we’re just… tearing other people down. I really don’t understand what anyone finds fun in that, and I’m going to do my best to keep creating the things I actually do want to see instead.

#blah blah alex #this is about mdzs #and translation #and fandom #alcohol mention #dubcon mention

37 notes · View notes

tanadrin · 5 years ago

Text

Realistic phoneme inventories 1: Vowels

All of the old webpages that I used to rely on for at-a-glance information about vowel systems when designing new phoneme inventories for my conlangs seem to have succumbed to various forms of link rot; and I’ve never found a good overview of how to build consonant inventories in a systematic way. So I want to set out, for my own reference and for others, an overview of both vowel and consonant systems as they tend to exist in natural languages, with an eye to creating conlangs with natural-feeling distributions of sounds.

A phoneme inventory is, of course, only one of the most basic elements of a conlang. I won’t be dealing with phonotactics, with suprasegmental features like tones, and certainly not with grammar or syntax or anything like that. A good starting point for lots of those topics is the LCK, either online or in print.

Also, phonology is not my strong suit; I’m more of a morphology person by inclination, and all my knowledge of linguistics comes essentially from years spent conlanging as a hobby. So apologies in advance if I get any terminology messed up. My primary references for this post specifically are this paper on vowel systems, this paper on consonant systems, the relevant chapters from the WALS, and conlanging resources like the LCK.

For length reasons, I’ve broken this post into multiple parts. Part 1 will deal with vowels; part 2 will deal with consonants.

1. Background information

You could, when creating a conlang, select sound arbitrarily based on what sounds pleasing to your ear, what you can easily pronounce, your favorite natural language, or your favorite IPA symbols. For conlanging as a purely artistic enterprise, those are all perfectly fine criteria; but if you want your conlang to reflect trends in natural languages--perhaps as for conlangs which are the putative natural languages of science fiction and fantasy settings--it’s helpful to understand why humans make the noises they do with their faces, and how.

The human vocal tract is a resonant column of air, stretching from the vocal cords to the lips (and nostrils, for nasal sounds), not unlike the pipe of a pipe organ, or the body of a flute. Air expelled from the lungs moves through the vocal tract and, thanks to our well-developed throat, mouth, and facial muscles, and the elaborate control over them provided by a region of the brain called Broca’s Area, we can rapidly reshape our vocal tract and manipulate the resonances of the air passing through it, producing speech.

In principle, we could make an almost infinite number of subtly different motions with our various speech-producing organs to produce an equally limitless quantity of different sounds. In practice, however, speech has to be an effective way of encoding information, or it’s useless as a communication tool. Therefore, we want sounds to be as different from one another as possible, as distinct to the ear as they can be, so they can be clearly distinguished from one another, and clearly heard over noises like wind and crackling fires and loud music. And because we talk constantly, we want speech to be as easy as possible; we are going to tend to restrict ourselves to the easiest sounds for the human vocal tract to produce.

So the IPA, the system for transcribing human speech sounds, only has about 107 basic symbols for consonants and vowels.

The IPA consonant chart. Shaded areas are “articulations judged impossible.” White areas with no symbol are sounds that aren’t impossible, but which aren’t widely attested in the world’s languages to need a specific transcription.

Of all the sounds covered by the IPA which actually show up in natural languages, only a small subset are truly common. Some, like the plosives /p t k/, are nearly universal. In general, the easier to produce (and more acoustically distinct) a sound, the more common it is; and languages will tend to make use of commoner sounds first (like plain plosives) as their phoneme inventory grows, before they have recourse to less common sounds (like pharyngealized plosives).[1]

The other important thing to note about phonemes is that they’re not atomic. The human brain is an extremely powerful pattern-recognition machine, and whether we’re learning our L1 as babies or learning our sixth L2 as an adult, we break languages down into many different patterns and systems as we learn them. It’s easier to learn, for instance, the general pattern that “third-person present verbs in English end in -s” than to learn, as separate pieces of information, “okay, after ‘he, she, it’ the verb ‘put’ is ‘puts’ and the verb ‘see’ is ‘sees’ and the verb ‘run’ is ‘runs’...” etc.[2] But we usually do not learn these patterns explicitly, and even when sitting down in a classroom to learn a language, there’s only so much use you can get out of memorizing a table of conjugations or declensions--it’s hard to speak fluently if you have to pause in a conversation to go, “hmm, okay, but what’s the dative femine form of the article?” Most language learning requires acquiring an intuitive grasp of the patterns of language; and you only acquire that intuition through lots of speaking and listening.

A consequence of our dependence on intuitive understanding is that two people’s intuition can differ. For instance, many people learn the rule in English that “I” is nominative, and “me” is objective; and so, unless the first person pronoun is the object of a verb or preposition, you must use “I”: “Gowron is better at Klingon politics than I.” Sometimes, this is analyzed as having an implied verb: “Gowron is better at Klingon politics than I [am].” But over the centuries of people speaking English, many people internalized a different rule. Because pronouns crop up as the objects of verbs or prepositions more than as the subjects of verbs, the objective forms came to be reanalyzed as the default forms. The nominative form became a special, marked form--one that only occured in certain cases, which was, over time, simplified into “only when the subject of a verb.” Therefore, for these speakers of English (me included), the rule became: “when appearing to the left of a verb, use ‘I’; otherwise, use ‘me.’”

Out of the steady accumulation of such petty reanalyses, great changes in grammar are born.

The same process is at work in the sounds of a language. Just like grammar, sound is heavily systematized, and encapsulated by the brain as a set of patterns. Only instead of cases or persons or numbers, the component features of sounds on which patterns are based are called their “features.” And, as with any good Saussurian principle of sign-distinction,[3] we only care about a minimal set of features which, as a community of language-speakers, we all agree are the relevant ones for distinguishing sounds. For instance, if our language has the consonant sounds /p t k b d g m n/ (the unvoiced and voiced plosives, and some unvoiced fricatives), we might need only the feature [voiced] and [nasal] to distinguish the sounds of our language. But, because we learn these rules implicitly, and we don’t have to give our youngsters a background in up-do-date phonetics research before they can say “papa”, maybe later generations of speakers, or the next village over, notices a different set of features. After all, we have to physically produce these sounds with our mouth; they don’t exist in a perfectly idealized acoustic realm. Some speakers of our language may come to see the defining feature of the voiced stops as only [+voiced], and since there are no fricatives which they can be confused with, start pronouncing them with a less constricted airflow to make them sound even more distinct from the unvoiced stops. So gradually /b d g/ become /v ð ɣ/, the voiced fricatives produced at the same place in the mouth. As far as the speakers of the language are concerned, the sounds haven’t changed--[+fricative] is not a phonemic feature of their language! The pattern isn’t changed, at least not yet. But more sound changes will accrete over time, and they may affect the new series of fricatives differently than they do the stops; and with a few more changes like this, soon you may have a version of the language that sounds completely different and is entirely mutually unintelligible.

Sound changes are 1) regular, and 2) have no memory. While sound changes can be triggered only by certain phonetic environments (say, the voicing of /p/ to /b/ between two vowels), if the conditions for a sound change are met, it will be triggered everywhere it applies.[4] And later speakers of the language won’t remember that /v ð ɣ/ used to exist in opposition to /p t k/ (unless they take a class in historical linguistics); they’ll treat these sounds on their own terms.

When the exact production of a sound varies within a language, usually altered by context due to the physiological considerations surrounding making that particular face-noise, this phenomenon is called allophony. Different versions of the same underlying sound are allophones. The sound as a unit of the formalized pattern stored in your brain is a phoneme. A phonemic transcription (between slashes /like this/) is a transcription of a sound or sounds as these abstract phonemes. A phonetic transcription (between brackets [like this]) is a transcription of a sound or sounds as something like their actual acoustic realization.

2. The vowel space and vowel planes

Consonants involve obstructing or redirecting the flow of air through the vocal tract, often entirely (as with plosives), or turbulently (as with fricatives). Combined with the large number of distinct places of articulation, involving the teeth and tongue and palate, consonants can all sound very distinct from one another. As a consequence, small consonant inventories can restrict themselves to a small subset of the full space of possible consonants, and still be fairly distinct from one another. In fact, in languages like Hawaiian or Rotokas, with very small consonant inventories ( /m n p t~k ʔ h w~v l~ɾ/ for Hawaiian and only /p t k b~β d~ɾ g~ɣ/ for Central Rotokas; the ~ symbol indicates allophonic variation between two sounds, depending on speaker or context), it’s very unlikely there’s going to be any sound that’s really difficult for a speaker of a language with a more complicated consonant inventory like English to pronounce.[5]

Vowels, though, don’t involve specific points of contact between different parts of the vocal tract in the same way as consonants; vowels are produced by the relative position of the tongue in the mouth, with an unimpeded air flow and the vocal cords engaged. This means that vowels can vary subtly--and, as a consequence, that languages tend to spread the vowels they have out, throughout the entire articulatory and acoustic space available to them, in a way they don’t have to do with consonants.

Here’s the IPA vowel chart:

The reason it’s longer at the top and on the left side is because there is more acoustic differentiation possible when the mouth is more closed versus more open, and when the tongue is more front than back. Languages will especially tend to have more close (or “high”) vowels than open (“low”) vowels. That’s not the only property that affects how vowels tend to be distributed though. Here’s a schematized diagram of the vowel space based on the actual acoustic components of the vowels:

Speech sounds are composed of different-frequency elements called “formants;” the lowest-pitch formant is F1, the next-lowest F2, and so forth. For most vowels most of the time, F1 and F2 are the really important formants. Open vowels have higher first formants, and close vowels lower first formants; front vowels have higher second formants, and back vowels have higher low formants. Here’s a similar chart, showing actual values, from the Hitch paper:

But we don’t recognize vowels just using their pitch. If it did, we could in theory have languages with hundreds of vowels: the ear and brain together can detect extremely subtle gradations of tone. Rather, what matters more is the relative value of vowels, the distinctive features like [+front] or [-high].

Most languages have small vowel inventories; in terms of the psychological perception of vowels, the vowel space is quite small. WALS classified any language with 4 or fewer values as “small,” languages with 5-7 vowels as “average,” and any language with more than 7 as having a “large” vowel inventory. Germanic languages like English, which have anywhere from 10 to 17 (!) vowels, are monstrously bloated by global standards. Usually for larger vowel inventories, additional features will be added besides the spatial features so that vowels don’t have to compete for space: Latin doubles its vowel inventory (/a e i o u a: e: i: o: u:/) by adding a length feature, and Turkish (/i y ɯ u ɛ œ a o/) accomplishes something similar with rounding.

Additional sets of distinctions like these, which are not spatial distinctions, create different vowel planes, where vowels do not have to compete for space with one another directly. Vowel planes may be parallel (as in Latin or Turkish), or not. There may be phonological or grammatical processes that trigger vowels moving from one vowel plane to another, as languages with vowel harmony, where vowels in a word must share a particular feature like frontness or roundedness, or vowel planes may simply exist to provide additional acoustic contrast within a language’s vowel inventory.

Traditionally, languages with large vowel inventories have been analyzed as having many degrees of front/back or height distinction: four, in languages like Danish, or even sometimes five, as in the case of one Bavarian dialect Hitch cites in his paper. However, Hitch argues that the psychological space available for the vowel plane is really divided by reference to a perceived “neutral” vowel, one that may not be phonemic in a language, but will still crop up in paralinguistic utterances (like English “ugh” or “uh-huh”). It is by comparison to this vowel that vowels acquire distinctive spatial features, and as such, there are really only nine ways, at most, to divy up the vowel plane:

No language, in Hitch’s analysis, really has more than three distinctions of height or backness. When you think you have more, as in Danish, it’s time to take a look at the possibility that some apparently spatial feature really reflects an underlying contrast that isn’t spatial. Remember, it’s only the phonemic features of a sound that are fixed: the non-phonemic features can vary, sometimes by quite a lot.[6] Anything higher and fronter than the neutral vowel will count as a “high front” vowel, and its exact spatial realization may not be the same in each vowel plane.

Danish, for instance, has the vowel inventory /i e ɛ a y ø oe u o ɔ/ and is analyzed as Hitch as having the primary vowel plane

The three front rounded vowels /y ø oe/ form a distinct plane, one in which the only distinctive feature is height: high round, mid round, low round. The “frontness” of these vowels is a phonetic feature, but not an important phonemic feature. They don’t contrast directly with the rounded back vowels, because back vowels are usually rounded--it makes them more acoustically distinct from mid vowels, and round back vowels show up in tons of languages, like Latin, that don’t make a phonemic contrast for rounding. And rounding has a side effect on front vowels, making them sound a more central: thus, the “front round plane” is, perceptually speaking, more of a mid round plane distinguished by the [+round] feature. Languages can have multiple secondary planes. According to Hitch, Jalapa Mazatec “may have six parallel planes.”

Vowel harmony doesn’t have to operate across planes: Hitch provides the example of the three-vowel language Jingulu, which as /a i u/. A suffix in /u/ or /i/ will raise the preceding vowel unless a high vowel intervenes: bardarda, “younger brother” + -rni > birdirdirni, “younger sister.” But if often does, with apparent height distinctions being better understood as plane distinctions: “In these languages, the vowels in a particular word will all be from one plane or the other. It seems that the choice of plane is determined at the lexical level. In the lexicon, the words contain archiphonemes spanning both planes, and each word is marked with a feature indicating plane membership.”[8] Even if a language doesn’t have clearly non-spatial articulatory features distinguishing its planes like nasalization or length, it can still have two vowel planes that exist side by side. For Ogbia, a language of Nigeria, Hitch gives two vowel planes corresponding to one with the advance tongue root feature (+ATR) /i e u o ɐ/ and one without (-ATR) /ɪ ʊ ɛ ɔ a/. For Nez Perce, five surface vowels /i u o æ ɑ/ correspond to two planes /i u æ/ and /i o ɑ/; a word can have vowels from one plane in it, but not both. /i/ happens to exist in both planes (possibly due to a merger of two distinct underlying vowels).

3. Vowel systems

So for any vowel system on a single plane, we’re going to have a maximum of nine vowels. Secondary systems may be the same size as the primary vowel plane; or they may be smaller. Either way, our vowel systems will tend to have one of two shapes, triangular or rectangular. In a triangular vowel system, acoustic considerations are dominant. We will have fewer open vowels, and more close vowels. In a rectangular vowel system, the psychological considerations are instead dominant, and vowels will be distributed in the nine-vowel grid in a more symmetric fashion.

These nine potential positions or “archiphonemes” don’t always reflect the same division of the vowel space given on the IPA. 7 and 9, for instance, might be open-mid vowels rather than true open vowels. 2 might be a rounded front close vowel. 5 may or may not be a schwa. 8, the bottom of the IPA trapezoid or the idealized acoustic triangle, is usually [a], despite [a] being, tecnically, a front vowel! I will simply quote Hitch at length here:

With those caveats, we can then look at the possible arrangements of vowel systems, from zero vowels to nine.

Zero vowels. “A zero-vowel language would insert vowels according to rules of epenthesis, then colour the vowels according to phonetic context. It sounds theoretically possible, but no completely convincing cases have yet been identified.”

One vowel. “There would seem to be no indisputable examples of one-vowel systems on a primary plane.” But there are languages with one-vowel secondary planes. If a language has one long vowel, for instance, it will be /a:/. But if a language has one nasalized vowel, it can be just about anything.

Two vowels. This includes languages with a two-vowel front round plane; also, languages with a primary plane that has just a height distinction. All Northwest Caucasian languages have /ə a/ (but feature lots of allophones). Most examples Hitch cites for two-vowel systems have some kind of central vowel (/ə/ or /ɨ/) plus /a/; but Witchita has /i a/. “But this type reveals something fundamental about vowels: that [low] is the most basic of the four spatial features.”

Three Vowels. The triangular system /i u a/ is a very common system among the world’s languages, with /i/ and /u/ having lots of vertical freedom.

Hitch is very down on the idea of a three-vowel on the primary plane; of the potential examples he cites, none are undisputed. But “Parisian French has a vertical three-vowel configuration /y ø oe/ on a front-rounded plane (primary /i u e ə o ɛ a ɔ/). While vertical three-vowel systems may not exist, primary plane triangular three-vowel systems are exceedingly common.”

Four vowels. The triangular 4-vowel systems (4a and 4b) add a neutral vowel to the classic 3-vowel system. A straightforward rectangular system is possible (4c); as well as a slightly more complicated variation with more room for allophony (4d).

He also gives the unusual example of the Lummi dialect of North Straits Salish, which “appears to have no low vowels” /i e ə o/, though this is clearly an outlier.

Five vowels. The Latin vowel system (5a) is an extremely common triangular system; a rectangular 5-vowel system is also pretty common (5b). Three other five-vowel systems are given that are “relatively rare,” being a triangular system that combines 4a and 4b (5c), a 4c-like rectangular system with a mid front vowel added (5d), which is “asymmetrical, because the acoustic space is dominant,” and a different variation on 4c that instead adds a high central vowel. As an unusual exception, Hitch notes that Tohono O’odham “appears not to fit the pattern of any other language, and to violate a universal by having more back than front vowels with /i ɨ u o a/.”

Six vowels. Adding a central mid or central high vowel to 5a gives two common triangular six-vowel systems (6a and 6b). A rectangular six-vowel system, with no central vowels, is also possible.

Seven vowels. There is one possible triangular configuration, 7a, with one low vowel. Otherwise, 7-vowel systems are rectangular systems that differ only on where they place the central vowel.

Eight vowels. Similarly restricted: there are only three possible configurations of eight vowel systems, depending on which central vowel is omitted. None appear to be very common, however.

Nine vowels. Nine is the maximum number of vowels on a single plane, and therefore there is only one nine-vowel configuration possible. All analyses of more than nine “basic” vowels means you should start examining the possibility of multiple vowel planes.

In the next post, we’ll take a look at consonant systems.

Footnotes:

[1] https://wals.info/chapter/1 (ctrl+f “size principle”)

[2] Languages do have irregularities, where historic patterns have been obscured by sound change or other processes. But there’s a reason irregularities or fossilized forms tend to occur in commonly-used words and phrases rather than rarely used ones: it is harder to remember variant patterns for rarely used words, and so they tend to become regular by analogy.

[3] Cf. Ferdinand de Saussure, Course in General Linguistics. This is one of those texts that was mind-blowing to me when we read it in our Critical Theory course in undergrad, but now seems so obvious as to not be worth discussing. The key insight can be summed up very succinctly, though: human brains care about differences between symbols, not their absolute values. When it comes to the kind of meaningful differentiation required for communication, it’s the relative differences between signs that matter--so any sign-system can be simplified to the minimum required number of distinctions, without the loss of information or without impeding communication. This insight is relevant to everything from linguistics to information theory.

[4] Apparently irregular sound changes--why does the Early Modern English sound spelled <gh> get pronounced as /f/ in “enough,” but is silent in “through”?--are usually the result of patterns being obscured by analogy or borrowing. In this case, it’s because the prestige dialect of English that coalesced around London in the Early Modern period, and was influenced by speakers of English from all over England, sometimes borrowed words from other dialects that had undergone different sound changes. In some of those dialects, the <gh>-sound was lost. In others, it changed to /f/.

[5] The only sounds in either Rotokas or Hawaiian given above that don’t crop up as a phoneme or allophone in English are probably [β ɣ]. The former is just [v] pronounced with only the lips; the latter, the voiced equivalent of German or Scottish [x].

[6] For instance, the Middle English long vowels /iː eː ɛː aː ɔː oː uː/, had as their distinctive feature their length, not the exact contour of their sound. That meant that these long vowels could “break,” becoming diphthongs, but as long as they remained mostly distinct from one another, no confusion resulted. That breaking, plus the general reorganization of the vowel system that changed the pitch of the pure long vowels (the high ones, which could not acquire a high offglide because there was no space above them acoustically) later yielded the corresponding modern long vowels /aɪ i: i: eɪ aʊ u: oʊ/

#conlanging #vowel systems #comments and corrections welcome

15 notes · View notes

just-kessho · 5 years ago

Text

Ambrosia: Dazai Happiness Week

[Day 3] Birthday party

AU: None

Warnings: Mentions of suicide (thanks, Dazai) and slight spoilers for those who haven’t finished season 1 and 2 of BSD I guess?

[Day 1] [Day 2] [Here] [Day 4] [Day 5] [Day 6] [Day 7]

It was unlikely for Dazai Osamu to not know things – escape routes and alleyways of Yokohama? Those he has already mapped out with every nook and crannies within his brain. A war against Port Mafia? Yes, he already have at least 84 plans and countless backup plans already stored in his mind.

A birthday party for him?

What?

Sure, Dazai knew of ‘birthday’ and ‘party’ as well as ‘birthday party’ but for that to happen to him, the few people who stared into the swirling abyss only for it to blink back, was completely out of his calculations.

All right, to be fair, his mind was already whirling with countless possibilities when Atsushi, all trembling and stuttering every other word, came up to him only to ask about, and he quote straight from the teen’s mouth, “all the best places for suicide” in all of Yokohama.

But Atsushi didn’t stop there – oh no, he followed up with a very high pitched and very loud (that Dazai had to refrain from covering his ears, though he clearly remembers his eyebrows twitching from that sudden outburst) shout of, “will you show them to me?!” that had ‘suspicious’ labelled all over him.

He was about to ask Atsushi what was wrong – and believe me, if [Name] was involved in anything, then he would drop everything and anything just to sprint to her side – but before a single word could get out of his throat, his blond co-worker screaming about everybody’s schedule being interrupted whenever Dazai’s present, and thus that leads to Dazai… well, basically granting Atushi’s wish by showing the male all the places that he would personally commit suicide.

Though just after the two stepped out of the agency front doors, the brunette turned back to face the brick red building, wondering what on Earth was happening to prevent him from merely being inside it – he figured that much out, for Kunikida, under no circumstances, would ever allow Dazai to step a single feet outside the building when it was working hours. It says something about his own disappearance skills (that he was somewhat proud of), and also more about how it was a poorly disguised way (to someone as perceptive as Dazai, of course) of not wanting a person named ‘Dazai Osamu’ to know about what everyone was planning.

He could rule out a war against Port Mafia, as the truce between the two organisations were still standing, and he could also rule out-

Wait, was [Name] truly in danger? Sure, he knew of the dangerous jobs that she sometimes would take without as much blinking an eye, yet the image of her laying on a hospital bed, where her red liquid of life would make a stark contrast against the pristine white of the sheets, and being strapped to every machine available just to barely keep her alive was not an image that he want – nor want to remember.

[Hair colour] framed her face like an antique piece of artwork, and those [eye colour] were shining with… something met his dull brown ones.

He blinked, and the- his belladonna was gone.

Whether the stunning beauty in that window was an illusion or not, perhaps it was time to focus on entertaining Atsushi with his hand-picked spots for suicide.

Yet two and a half hours into showing the white haired kid the suicide spots with as much enthusiasm as possible so he wouldn’t know Dazai knew the agency (and perhaps along with [Name]’s workplace named with the very original name of ‘The Office’) was planning something.

Though Dazai thought [Name] had a neutral look of looking as if she was absolutely bored of everything, as if she had somehow experienced everything before and was doing them again, like a countless playthrough of a game that mirrored your first one, Atsushi’s face now sort of… resembled that of his girlfriend’s.

… Perhaps the white haired male really had enough listening about “ooh, that branch seemed to support your weight well” and “there’s not many people who would come here, so this is the perfect spot for a clean suicide~” and whatnot.

Honestly, he seemed more like their newest addition in the agency, Izumi Kyouka, when she was waiting personally for him in the shopping district than the sunny boy who always smiled, asking if there was anything he could do to help and putting his life on the line for others.

“Atsushi-kun.” stopping so suddenly, much like them times when Dazai himself slammed on the brakes, at the last minute, when he was driving, so it was no surprise that Atsushi nearly bumped into him. Nearly. “what is with you and the agency today?”

“I… do not get what you mean, Dazai-san?” really, the kid was so bad at lying that Dazai swear he could personally count every sweatdrop that was staring to show on his forehead. “Wh-whatever could you have gotten that from, I won-wonder?”

“… Your whole attitude.”

Really, Dazai might have wanted to re-think his earlier statement, since as soon as that ruthless three worded sentence was uttered, Atsushi looked as if someone had snatched his beloved chazuke and threw it in the bin all right in front of him.

“W-well, it is a special day, so the agency thought that… you should have a break today!”

“… oh shit, is today the anniversary of me and [Name]?”

“No! At least, I don’t think so.” to see Dazai panicking was a sight to behold, but it was slightly sad for the birthday boy not realise what today really is.

“I-is it [Name]’s birthday?”

“… No.”

“Versalius-san’s birthday?”

“… Think again, Dazai-san.”

“The Office’s founding date? The agency’s founding date?”

“Keep thinking, Dazai-san.”

“Was today the day [Name]’s favourite pet died, and so she wants us out of the picture so she can mourn in peace, yet deep down inside, all she really wanted was for me to lend her a shoulder to cry on and have comfort sex?”

“What?! NO!”

Face red and huffing as if he had just sprinted across three hundred meters for the last bowl of chazuke, Atsushi hunched down and mumbled something about Dazai being so sad and oblivious, yet he wondered whether the older man was really just entertaining him.

Yet at the thoughtful look spread across Dazai’s face as he really whacked his brain, Atsushi threw that last thought out of his mind.

Oh wait, Dazai was known for being good actor, so maybe that deduction wasn’t that far off.

Perhaps I should just tell him outright- wait, what were you thinking, Nakajima Atsushi?! [Surname]-san’s trust was specifically put into you! So don’t fail her – and the entire agency – now.

A phone beeped. And at the vibration felt in the pocket, Atsushi immediately scrambled to get it out, nearing dropping the object in his haste. And at the neat kanji and katakana that told him everything was ready, he felt himself relieve a breath that he didn’t know he was holding.

Thank God, because I don’t think I can fool or keep Dazai-san from the truth anymore.

“Dazai-san, I think we should return to the agency because… uh, oh, because Kunikida-san just texted me saying that we need you.”

“Eh-? No, don’t wanna, and here I was having such a good time showing you all my favourite suicide spots-”

“Actually, it was [Surname]-san who needs you, she just didn’t want to… she didn’t want me to tell you that.”

“Then let’s go! That sounds exactly like [Name]-chan~”

I offer you my sincerest apologies, [Surname]-san, but your sacrifice is much needed – just please find it in your heart to forgive me!

“Atsushi-kun, why are you praying to a God now?”

Atsushi didn’t really have a convincing answer for that impossible question. So he stayed silent, praying for Dazai to not work out what they have in store for him.

A thunderous bang resonated throughout the room. Confetti was thrown, and a particular long one got entangled in Dazai’s hair.

Atsushi’s frantic stuttering and sweatdrop now made sense. They were preparing a birthday party for him!

Oh wait, today really was his birthday, wasn’t it?

But he paid neither the confetti nor the sudden realisation that he was a year older any notice.

Oh no, not with his co-works (that were crawling slowly but surely, to the place in his heart where the walls that he carefully put up were defeated – much like what [Name] did) smiling – yes, even Kyouka, and the corners of Kunikida’s mouth twitched upwards – and simultaneously shouting “happy birthday, Dazai!” along with the colourful banners and freshly prepared food that was put out for everyone to enjoy.

… He just hoped Vesalius did not prepare them…

But still, that cake, that magnificent cake that was coated in his favourite flavour – a sure sign that it was [Name] who ordered it, heck, perhaps she even made it herself. Oh wait, it wasn’t covered in crabsticks so that was out of the window.

However, the disappointment that reminded him of a child not getting his way in a toy shop was quickly washed away by a warm feeling as he scanned each happy faces of his co-workers that he couldn’t help but feel his lips spread into a smile-

And then his eyes met hers.

Did time slow down? Probably not, but he really felt it was just him and her in this room. A dazzling smile that he wanted to protect (despite fully knowing she was perhaps even more capable of that than him), a dazzling smile that was not present not even two years prior… a smile that was directed solely at him. He remembers simply expressing his gratitude to the people in front of him, and then making his way towards the [hair colour] haired woman.

Her hands were clasped behind her back, was she trying to look cool by hiding her fiddling fingers? How utterly cute.

(It wasn’t the first time such a thought cropped up in Dazai’s mind, and it for sure wasn’t the last)

“… Happy birthday, Dazai.”

“Really, [Name]-chan, you didn’t have to do all this!”

“But I wanted to, we wanted to. You deserve a break after all… so here.”

A package of blue and red was thrust in his vision of sight. With hands that trembled slightly – huh, why was he trembling anyway? Years of torturing and other jobs in the mafia without batting an eyelash hardened him so. Thus this small, trivial exchange should not… should not make him feel as if he was on top of the world, and wouldn’t mind having this warmth blossoming in his chest longer.

Still, he took it. Gently unwrapping the thing, a burst of blue greeted his eyes.

“It’s a labradorite.” [Name] explained, leading him right under one of the agency’s artificial lights. “it changes colour depending on the light. Normally this gemstone I got you stays a blue-ish colour, but it can become red, yellow, hmm… a blue-green and gold. Ah, see that? It just changed to gold for a moment- and now it’s a sort of blue-green. Oh, it changed back to being solely blue.”

Turning the precious stone so that it shined in all the colours that it can give off, the birthday brunette entertained himself with it – heck, Dazai even managed to get [Name]’s eye colour to stay on for an extended period of time, but it is fickle, one slight shake of his hand and the colour vanished.

“Thank you, [Name]. I’ll take good care of it.” it wasn’t a lie, nor a white-lie that was the result of his silver-tongue that made many people spill out their deepest secrets or flush in a deepest red. No, it was right from his heart – and that was something that made [name]’s smile widen.

Which in turn, made his own widen, for the warmth in his chest, spreading down to his fingertips and toes, made him forget of his past and the demons that plagued his mind – just for today, just for this hour… just as long as [Name]’s genuine smile was there, on her face.

Huh, and he thought it was impossible to fall more in love with her.

The presents he received were more everyday essentials, though there were some books from the Director and Vesalius (with the latter glaring at him for seeing him kiss his lovely niece) that he wanted to flip through.

Still, the gift that made an everlasting impression – almost as much as [Name]’s gemstone – was Naomi and Tanizaki’s.

It was a maid dress.

Not one that showed off everything and hid nothing, not it was one that was historically correct with the skirt down to the floor. It was one that showed off all the right curves of [Na- uh, whoever that would put it on. It was a miniskirt, yes, but it could pass for a school uniform miniskirt, and the collar was also down, though it didn’t show off everything and so left just enough room for imagination…

All in all, Dazai thought he had to give it to Naomi (this had the younger Tanizaki sibling written all over it) for her to pick out this particular and… uh, unique gift.

… And she was smirking slyly all the while he opened it.

Hey, guess he and [Name] would get busy tonight, as he would definitely abuse his ‘birthday boy’ status.

Omake

“[Name]-chan, put it on, pleaseeeeeee!”

“No.”

“Come on, I’m begging you- and I’m the birthday boy here. Also, everybody want to see you in this, after all, who wouldn’t want our poster girl in a cute maid dress?”

“Y-yeah…” I-I’m so sorry, [Surname]-san!

“Oooooh, definitely! It would be a sight to behold.”

“I’m sure it would suit you. I know it would have more impact than the time I dressed up.”

“See, even Kyouka-chan and Naomi-chan said it. So please!”

“……………… Ugh… fine. Give it here then.”

“If you don’t I’ll make my infamous puppy- wait, what?”

“I won’t say it twice.”

“Yes!”

“I’ll get the camera ready!”

“You won’t old man.”

“D-damn… she’s so cruel to me…”

“Come on people, drum roll please! Aaaaaaand here we go!

“No! No drum rolls Naomi. Also……… Kill me. Right now- hey, D-Dazai, why are you picking me up?! And where are we going?”

“Kunikida-kun, don’t look for us for the next three days bye!”

Guess who’s a day late! Happy birthday husbando, the light of my life, my reason for living, the one whom I just reblogged 100+ gifs and photos of…

@dazaixhappinessweek2k19

#bungou stray dogs #dazai osamu (bsd)#bsd #ambrosia (story)#dazai x reader #reader insert #dazaixhappinessweek2k19 #fluff #suggestive themes #imported work #Ambrosia: Dazai Happiness Week

25 notes · View notes

bearnakedlady-blog · 6 years ago

Text

Famous

Also posted here:https://archiveofourown.org/works/19064266

It’s not that Adrien didn’t try to talk to Ladybug before she left, he definitely did. But it had taken a few moments to compose himself after their encounter. And even longer to transform with how much teasing Plagg was doing. When he finally was able to get out to her she was a veritable ball of energy. It seemed everything she did was hyper-focused and fast.

He couldn’t even find it in himself to be jealous that she’d rather kiss him in his civilian form. Because finally, finally, he had a kiss from her he could remember. And if her somewhat erratic behavior was anything to go off of, she was excited too. He tried bantering with her, only to be met with dreamy smiles and vague nods. It would be worrisome if he didn’t know the cause. As it was Adrien was on cloud nine. They took down the Akuma in record time, and as soon as their fists parted she was off.

Adrien was disappointed of course. Especially when he realized his friend must have also left because of the attack. Not to mention the shoot would have to be rescheduled for the next morning, which would make him late for school.

He’d tried to be optimistic, tried to tell himself he’d catch her next time. Because no matter how the talk went, the needed to talk. The universe, or at least Hawkmoth seemed determined to keep them apart. While it was completely normal to get an Akuma three times a week at his school, now that he hoped for one, there were none. And even though it was commonplace for them to crop up around him when he was out and about, now there was radio silence.

Not to say that there weren’t Akuma's. They just happened miles away from wherever Adrien was at any given moment. On top of that, instead of finding a safe spot to wait out the attack, his bodyguard immediately drove him home. Which, of course, made it harder to get to Ladybug, to begin with. In fact, there were a couple fights he hadn’t made it to and it was driving him mad.

“I don’t know what to do Plagg, it's like she’s avoiding me!” Adrien flopped onto his bed after another fight where Ladybug bailed as soon as the fight was over. “But that’s impossible, right?”

“I don’t know kid, ever think you aren’t that great of a kisser?”

Adrien groaned, rolling over and burying his face in his pillow. “She’s not running from Adrien. Just Chat Noir.” The bitterness that had eluded him after their fireworks inducing kiss crept up on him as he stewed.

“Well, You’ve only tried to get her attention as Chat. Adrien hasn’t tried to talk to her.”

“Adrien doesn’t know who she is though. It’s not like I have her number in my phone, or that I see her every day or something.”

Plagg cackled as he flitted about the room. “Wouldn’t that be something?”

“What would be something is if you were actually helpful”, Adrien grumbled. How was his first kiss (that counted) from his true love so frustrating?

“Look, kid, you do realize you’re famous, right? Why don’t you ask her on that web thing you are always talking about? You know, where you post those pictures?”

Adrien shot up, scrambling to find his phone. “You think she follows me?” Plagg leveled him with a droll stare. “Right”, he chuckled. “Famous. And Ladybug probably doesn’t make out with every celebrity. Right?” Plagg snorted, which didn’t assuage any of Adrien’s concerns. Which was fine since he hadn’t expected that when they started the conversation.

It took him a while to set up the post, and he almost forgot to block anyone he didn’t want to see the post. He agonized over sounding too confident, or not confident enough. He was basically calling her out, what if she didn’t think he was worth her time? What if she only showed up because she felt like it was a challenge? What if she didn’t want anyone else to know?

“It’s okay, this is the only way.”

“Careful there. I hear it’s not good when humans talk to themselves.” Adrien swatted at his kwami, knowing he’d dodge with ease.

“Hush. You are no help”

“Excuse me, whose idea was this anyway?”

Adrien scowled at Plagg before rewording the post. Again. “Fine, if this works, all the Camembert you can eat. For a month.”

“If I knew love advice was all it took to get cheese out of you, I would have said something sooner.”

Adrien read and reread the text, drew a deep breath, and pressed post. Instantly he felt his heart drop to his stomach.

“Crap.”

Crap was right. There had been a flock of messages, everything from congratulations to outrage. But nothing from Ladybug. Adrien had stayed up all night reading over every comment, hoping for any sign that she’d even read what he’d said. So he looked awful when he trudged to his desk the next morning.

Well, awful for him. His clothes were still coordinated, and his hair was still in place, but the bags under his eyes had bags. And he might have spilled espresso on his sweater. He was so late, in fact, that even Marinette was in her seat when he stumbled in. Though she looked even worse than him if that was possible. Was her shirt on backward?. She was looking anywhere but at him, and there was no time to talk to her though as the class had already started.

The whole class was silent excepting a whispered “Duuuuude”, from Nino. He knew there would be questions later, especially if Chloe’s glare was anything to go off of. He almost wished he’d never even bothered last night, but any chance to be closer to His Lady was worth it. She would be worth anything.

The class was excruciating. He was too jittery to actually fall asleep, but he wished he could. Instead, his stomach was in knots, keeping him from focusing on anything. Except for his spiral into hysteria. Madame Bustier seemed to take pity on him, which he had the mind to be grateful for. And somehow the clock made it to lunchtime before his head exploded.

As soon as they were able, his classmates swarmed to his table.

“Are you really gonna meet her?”

“You got some guts Agreste!”

“It’s so romantic, don’t you think?”

“It’s ridiculous I didn’t hear about this sooner, utterly ridiculous!”

“Look, guys, I really don’t want to talk about it,” he started, before he was interrupted again.

“Dude, this is crazy!”

“I hope I’ll get an exclusive after, you aren’t holding out on me, are you?”

He cleared his throat and tried again, “ Now is not the best time, I’m kind of really nervous and-”

He was cut off by a shrill whistle from behind. Everyone snapped their attention to the culprit, Marinette. “C’ mon guys, leave him alone. He doesn’t look too well.” She sidled her way to him, managing to only trip twice. “As class representative, I’m going to take him to the nurse. So, disperse.” She made a shooing motion, and to his surprise, everyone obeyed.

Even Chloé, though not without a remark, “Your tag is under your chin Dupain-Cheng.”

Adrien followed close behind her, thankful for her interference. She managed to keep the other students at bay until they made it to the school clinic, which was a miracle. Now that they were alone her bravado deflated, and his thankfulness doubled.

“I’m sure you want to be alone”, she started finally. “And I’m sure you don’t want to talk about it. But if you did, want to talk about it I mean, I would listen.”

“There’s not much to talk about. I’m an idiot”, he mumbled into his sleeves.

“Nobody thinks you’re an idiot Adrien, why would they? I mean, lots of people want to meet Ladybug-”

“Yeah, most of them don’t use their fame to call her out on social media. I should have figured something else out, but I just couldn’t think of anything, and I’ve been trying to see her for weeks.” Once the dam broke, it seemed it wouldn’t stop. “What if she doesn’t show up? I mean, what if it only meant something to me?” Adrien fought to keep his voice from cracking as he swiped at his eyes. “I mean, she’s Ladybug, she’s, she’s, I can’t even put it into words.”

Marinette placed her hand tentatively on his own. “What only meant something to you?”

“Our kiss!” He nearly shouted the words and regretted before he finished. “Gosh, I’m sorry Marinette, you're just trying to help, I should be thanking you, not taking all my insecurities out on you.”

“I’m sure she’ll come, Adrien. She’s gotta feel the same. Maybe she’s shy. Or maybe she didn’t realize you cared so much. But I’m sure she’ll show.” Her words were sweet, and the most comfort he’d gotten since this whole thing started, but he was still anxious. Ladybug didn’t know him outside of their few interactions together. Why would she care about him?

“I guess.”

“Hey, none of that. How about this, if Ladybug doesn’t show, I’ll kick her butt.” Adrien snorted, finally glancing back up at Marinette. She was giggling herself, her nose wrinkled in amusement. “I mean, I’m bluffing, because I know she’ll be there, but. If by some cooky accident you end up in The Twilight Zone and she doesn’t, well, I’ll probably be stronger than her then.”

“Thanks, Marinette, I needed that.”

#ladrienjune #@ladrienjune #ladrien #adrien agreste #chat noir #marinette dupain cheng #plagg

19 notes · View notes

jarrodwbrown · 5 years ago

Text

Brokenness and A Plan for Mass Transformation.

A man, lying in the road, literally on fire. A flame wicking off of his heal as bystanders looked on for the best shot with their phone cameras. Then the attention shifted to something moving in the bushes, and as the camera changed its focus a person, perhaps a woman was moving, the look on her face was of desperation, burned from head to foot, skin coming off. Noone to offer help. No ambulance on the way. No LifeFlight to the nearest burn unit. This was on the road just a few miles from the school Mission Lazarus operates in North-East Haiti. The man in the road was driving a motorcycle carrying the woman from the side of the road along with two five gallon jugs of gasoline when they wrecked. The gasoline quickly combusted and engulfed the two in an inescapable inferno. The driver hadn’t lasted long and the woman in the bushes would not last long either. This did not have to happen but due to a massive fuel shortage in Haiti the people have been forced to take drastic measures to obtain fuel. Fuel for their cars to get to work and fuel for their generators so that their businesses can operate (only 20% of Haiti has electricity). So while it might seem obvious that carrying two jugs of gasoline on the back of a motorcycle would be extremely dangerous everything is relative in Haiti.

I will probably make someone mad by writing this. What I’m trying to say will most likely not be understood by more than one person. I know that my life experiences are unique and that they have greatly shaped who I am, how I think, and how I view others, the world, and the Kingdom of God. I cannot avoid using my lenses to see but I do recognize that not everyone has my lenses. I hope that this will give you insights into how I see the transformational work that I believe that as followers of Jesus we are all called to.

On thursday afternoon September 12 I was flying from Cap Haitien, Haiti back to the US after a week packed full of reviews and planning meetings. My trip was a success and I was blessed to be with our team there. But I was exhausted. Not exhausted from working hard, something that I’m accustomed to, rather exhausted emotionally from the clear reality of life in Haiti. I was exhausted and I was only there for five days.

If you’re not aware, Haiti has been plagued this year by political turmoil. From a massive government report detailing how billions of Dollars, were skimmed off of the Haiti / Venezuela discounted fuel program “PetroCaribe”, to a fuel hike to reduce the level of government subsidy on the price of fuel, and to fuel shortages throughout the country due to a shortage of US Dollars to pay for fuel imports since the PetroCaribe scheme collapsed. Those three primary issues coupled with a democratic political system that resembles more of a playground of bullies rather than the leaders of the nation, where the Survivor TV series tagline of “Outwit, Outlast, & Outplay” takes on a whole new meaning. These realities can lead to many problems, one of the most common is massive protests and a crippling of the nation’s already fragile transportation infrastructure. These protests are often times at the beckoning of whatever politician’s agenda is looking to stir something up this week and whether or not he has 1,000 Gourde bills to hand out (Haitien currency where roughly 100 Gourdes = $1). Since 1,000 Gourdes is about US $10 or twice what a well paid Haitien garment factory work would normally make in a day it is easy to understand why unemployed men, young and old, will quickly take to the streets to block roads for the day for $10 each. A rather cheap way to inflict possibly fatal political wounds on your political rivals. And also a rather easy way to provide some food for your family for the day.

However, when the protests get out of control and the crowds become mobs, when the road blockages become riots and the mob mentality takes over, all safety and security guarantees that should be afforded to private citizens of any democratic country are off of the table. Such has been the case numerous times this year in Haiti resulting in the US state department declaring Haiti a Level 4 travel risk, the same level of travel risk shared by nations like North Korea, Afghanistan, and Iraq, for a few months this past summer. But we’re talking about Haiti, our neighbor, just 900 miles from Miami, a 90 minute flight. The result was economic devastation with hotels and restaurants throughout the impoverished island struggling to survive. Travel booking sites like Expedia removed, at least for a while, all hotel and flight options to Haiti from their sites. And not only has the tourism industry been affected but nearly all industry in Haiti. When it is unsafe to go to work or when it’s unsafe to get home from work or when it’s unsafe to transport your goods to the port for export or when you cannot distribute your goods throughout the country then the entire nation is affected. And then there are the ministries or aid organizations operating in Haiti. For better or for worse you cannot deny the incredible economic boost that foreign ministries and aid organizations provide to the Haitian economy. Thousands of travelers come every year to Haiti to serve and when they don’t travel the loss of Dollars that are spent to house, host, transport and entertain missions and aid workers is devastating. Tens of millions of Dollars are invested annually by these organizations as well, invested in everything from from water wells to new houses and schools. All of which is put at risk when the country is practically shut down.

The results of a year of political turmoil were seen everywhere on my recent trip. In a country where brokenness is hardly able to be hidden. Where the reality of living in a fallen world is ever apparent, not hidden by the excesses of materialism enjoyed by the West, the brokenness is palpable in a different way. In North-East Haiti, where we focus our efforts, added to the political turmoil has been a prolonged drought which has made growing even the hardiest of crops, such as okra, nearly impossible, much less a crop of Haitian staples like rice, corn, and beans. As I encountered friends from the rural villages we serve in, men and women alike, the result was obvious. Malnutrition. Plainly put everywhere you look the farming families we work with are skinny, bone skinny. They never were exactly healthy but now these families were for sure suffering. Another, more subtle result, is stress. It was noticeable on the faces of our local leadership. The constant concern over how will I get to this place or that, or if I get there will I get home or worse will I get home safely has taken its toll on our team. While I was there last week I witnessed hundreds if not thousands of factory workers from the Caracol Industrial Park walking back to their homes in Cap Haitien, some 10 miles away, because their buses could not pass through the numerous road blocks along the way. This level of stress is exhausting. While generally a protest or road blockage rarely turns violent the possibility is that it always could. And yet, day after day, our leaders make our operations happen. They make it to work. They make sure that our programs continue. They make sure that our school can function. They make sure that the teachers have the materials they need. They make sure that the kitchen has food for breakfast and lunch everyday. And they make sure that, even if just for six or seven hours a day, the children of the Academie Lazare are able to be children, able to enjoy the most basic of things like a plate of food, a classroom to learn in, a playground to play on, and a safespace behind a wall that separates them from the painful reality of their village, their community, and their nation.

So why bother? It’s too broken to even fix. I think that this same conversation could be had often or maybe has been had, between God and Jesus, or perhaps Gabriel and Michael, away from the earshot of God, have discussed this very topic, but in regards to the US, or perhaps even with regards to those “Christians” in the US, or maybe it’s with regards to humanity as a whole. I don’t really think they are limited or defined by geo-political lines that man has drawn across the globe that seem to somehow indicate that this nation has or has not been deemed worthy. In the US our strong economy, our good jobs, our nice houses, our facades tend to fool us to believe that we’re not broken when in reality the brokenness of Haiti is ever present in the US as well, we’ve just become skilled experts at covering up the stinch. No it’s not evidenced by piles of burning trash on the side of the road covered in 300 pound hogs rooting for a meal, or poor roads making travel a nightmare or even by starving families, it’s evidenced by our own divisive politics that is hell bent on dividing our nation by political color or even skin color and by religion. It’s evidenced by schools and churches, rather than being safe havens they are becoming targets for individuals who are obviously not well, who are broken and are hell bent on forcing their brokenness on others. It’s evidenced by our economy, not the dire lack of economic activity but rather an obsession with spending and an overwhelming number of families drowning in debt. It’s evidenced by corporate expansion that defies all logic, generating shareholder wealth at the expense of the most vulnerable in the foerign countries where they manufacture their wares. So why bother? It would appear that it’s too broken to even fix.

We learn from Jesus’ teachings that he came for all of mankind but his approach was to focus on the 1. And that as a good pastor he’ll leave 99 behind to go after the 1. The 1 woman by the well, the one blind man, the one tax collector, the 1 Jarrod, the 1 you, the 1 Haitian. He’s always been about the individual, that 1! He ministered 1 by 1, 1 at a time. He healed 1 by 1, loved 1 by 1, and transformed 1 by 1. He knew that the brokenness of man could not be cured in mass, rather that individual transformation requires individual attention and when massive numbers of individuals have been transformed then the masses are able to invest in massive numbers of 1. Jesus knew that his saving ministry individual approach must be shared because serving the individual 1 by 1 was slow and unless there were others doing the same thing many, if not most, would be lost. His investment in the disciples, 1 by 1, loving them, 1 by 1, correcting them 1 by 1, and encouraging them 1 by 1, put into motion a series of relationships and discipling opportunities that continues to this day, you and I are a direct result of that intentional effort, 1 by 1.

Back to Haiti. Would I like to see the city streets of Cap Haitien clean? Sure. Would I like to see the beauty of the Haitian countryside restored to what it once was? Sure. Would I like to see her coastline sparkling turquoise blue again? Sure. I’d also like to see an end to brokenness in the US, failed marriages, addiction, abuse, debt, hate, and bigotry. Sure I would. But if I only focus on the masses and the enormity of the brokenness then I’ll never notice the impact that I’m having as a disciple of Jesus, one of his ambassadors, one of his representatives on this earth who is investing in the life of one other person. I do not believe that the social political problems of Haiti, or any country for that matter, will be solved by schemes and strategies to solve social-political problems. I do however believe, wholeheartedly, that when followers of Jesus invest their time, talent, and treasure in just 1 then there is a ripple effect, that grows exponentially. Where 1 quickly becomes 10 and 10 quickly becomes 100 and 100 quickly becomes 1,000 and so on and so on. I gave up on politicians solving the brokenness of our nation or any other nation a long time ago. But I’ve not given up on believers, like you and I, doing what we can to guarantee that Jesus’s proclamation in John 10:10 not be a lie to billions of people living in brokenness in this world, some rich and some poor, but all broken.

“I have come that they may have life, and have life in abundance.” John 10:10

#haiti #fuelcrisis #transfomation #lifeinabundance education

2 notes · View notes

thecollegefootballguy · 5 years ago

Text

2019 Top Games of the Week: Week 12

I usually do this on Monday but scheduling made that impossible. Since it’s Wednesday I’ll be using the Playoff rankings since they’ve been released.

Any way, what kind of week do we have here? Well, it’s not great. There are a couple of meaningful matchups, but it’s a pretty light slate all told.

The Top Ten Games of the Week

10. USC 6-4 (5-2) at California 5-4 (2-4)

Like I said, it’s a light slate. USC needs to keep winning if Clay Helton wants to stay on as head coach and Cal needs one more win to gain bowl eligibility. The Bears looked like a shoo-in earlier this year until QB Chase Garbers went out, now they can’t score to save their lives and dropped four straight before beating Wazzu last week. It’s the 106th game in this in-state rivalry.

9. #11 Florida 8-2 (5-2) at Missouri 5-4 (2-3)

This is pretty much just a game to keep an eye on in case Missouri tries for the upset. The Gators are on their way to a 10-2 record and a decent spot to make the Orange or Cotton Bowl but a loss here would likely end those hopes.

8. #19 Texas 6-3 (4-2) at Iowa State 5-4 (3-3)

If the right pieces fall into place Texas can still make the Big 12 Championship Game but a win over Iowa State is a prerequisite. The Cyclones’ season hasn’t gone as well as hoped, but ISU came a 2 point try away from another upset in Norman. A home win over UT shouldn’t be as daunting a challenge.

7. Indiana 7-2 (4-2) at #9 Penn State 8-1 (5-1)

Penn State is looking to reassert themselves after a disappointing loss to Minnesota. The Nittany Lions host plucky Indiana, who are off to their best start in who knows how long. The Hoosiers haven’t yet had a signature win this year, but they have taken care of business against the riff-raff, now they get a real big challenge in Happy Valley.

6. UCLA 4-5 (4-2) at #7 Utah 8-1 (5-1)

It’s hard to believe but the match between this 1 loss Playoff contender and 4 win disaster that lost every non-conference game will most likely decide the PAC-12 South. Somehow UCLA has turned around everything around after a terrible start and hold their destiny in their hands. Utah has played the part all year, throwing around opponents and the Utes are dark horse contenders to make the Playoff should they win out.

5. Wake Forest 7-2 (3-2) at #3 Clemson 10-0 (7-0)

It’s very likely that Clemson will go the whole regular season without playing a team that will end the year in the top 25. Even if the Tigers lose they’ll have the division wrapped up. They won’t lose, of course.

4. #23 Navy 7-1 (5-1) at #16 Notre Dame 7-2

The Navy-ND rivalry game will be one of the more high stakes games of the week. Notre Dame could still reach the Cotton Bowl if they win out and Navy will look to do the same as the G5 champion but neither will likely be able to do that with a loss here. It’s the 93rd game in this long rivalry series.

3. #8 Minnesota 9-0 (6-0) at #20 Iowa 6-3 (3-3)

Minnesota needs to claim Floyd of Rosedale for the first time in five years if the Gophers want to keep their Cinderella season going. Iowa has basically been eliminated from winning the Big Ten West, but can play spoiler to their rival. The Hawkeye upset machine hasn’t taken their top ten win this year, this should be the last chance. It’s the 114th playing of this rivalry game.

2. #4 Georgia 8-1 (5-1) at #12 Auburn 7-2 (4-2)

The Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry can add another high stakes meeting to the long list. Georgia has found themselves thrust back into the Playoff top four and will be assured a spot in the the Playoff should they win out. Meanwhile, Auburn looks to play spoiler to their rivals. The Tigers can still throw a huge wrench in the Playoff picture by winning here (or better yet winning out). It’s the 124th playing of this great game.

1. #10 Oklahoma 8-1 (5-1) at #13 Baylor 9-0 (6-0)

Oklahoma and Baylor have distinguished themselves as the cream of the crop in the Big 12, and still may play again in the Championship Game. Oklahoma certainly seem to be the best team in the conference, but the Sooners’ surprise upset at Kansas State have made their Playoff candidacy a stretch. Meanwhile Baylor is unbeaten but have shown serious flaws in near misses. We’ll get a clearer picture of what the Big 12 means to the Playoff race after Saturday.

G5 Games of the Week

5. Tulane 6-3 (3-2) at Temple 6-3 (3-2)

Neither team will likely win their respective divisions, so this is just a good game between solid AAC squads. Imagine somebody telling you in 2005 that Tulane and Temple would be playing each other and having the outcome not effect bowl eligibility because both teams already had 6 wins. Crazy right?

4. Wyoming 6-3 (3-2) at Utah State 5-4 (4-1)

Bridger’s Battle will play a role in the Mountain division race. Utah State is still alive with a clear path to the Championship Game. Wyoming will try to play spoiler. The Cowboys nearly upset Boise last weekend and will look to seal the deal this weekend and knock the Aggies out. It’s the 70th meeting between Wyoming and USU.

3. Fresno State 4-5 (2-3) at San Diego State 7-2 (4-2)

San Diego State opened the door up to lose the West division with a home loss to Nevada last week. Fresno State will attempt to snatch the division crown and earn the three-peat with a win over their rival Aztecs. It’s the 59th game in this rivalry series.

2. #25 Appalachian State 8-1 (4-1) at Georgia State 6-3 (3-2)

It probably won’t be a good game but let’s see if Georgia State can hex the Mountaineers the same way rival Georgia Southern did. That would put the Panthers on a surprise track to the Sun Belt Championship Game.

1. Louisiana Tech 8-1 (5-0) at Marshall 6-3 (4-1)

This could be a preview of the C-USA Championship Game as frontrunners Louisiana Tech and Marshall clash for home field advantage. Beware, there are sharks circling. Southern Miss threatens the Bulldogs should they lose and the Herd face competition from FAU and Western Kentucky.

FCS Games of the Week

5. Richmond 5-5 (4-2) at #2 James Madison 9-1 (6-0)

The all-time record in this rivalry series stands at 18-18, let’s see the tiebreaker.

4. Yale 7-1 (4-1) at #18 Princeton 7-1 (4-1)

This is the....142nd meeting all-time between Yale and Princeton. I think I read that right. Man, the Ivy League is crazy.

3. #4 Northern Iowa 6-3 (4-1) at #8 South Dakota State 7-2 (4-1)

Both of these teams should make the Playoff, this is for seeding. Northern Iowa is sitting pretty at #4 despite 3 losses. The FCS poll just doesn’t care, I love it.

2. #9 Furman 6-3 (5-1) at #21 Wofford 5-3 (4-1)

This is it for the Southern Conference. Barring some weird upset in the following week, the winner here will clinch the auto-bid for the FCS Playoff.

1. #3 Weber State 8-2 (6-0) at #5 Montana 8-2 (5-1)

The Big Sky is having one of its best years in recent memory. The league features four top ten teams and the top two face off looking to decide the conference title and get the auto-bid. With a win, Weber State will be all but guaranteed the title. Montana will have to beat archrival #10 Montana State to secure themselves.

1 note · View note

sleepykittypaws · 6 years ago

Text

Best and Worst of 2018

Well, it’s hard to believe another holiday season has come and gone. It feels like just yesterday (a.k.a. September) when I was filled with such hope and excitement for the ever-growing crop of holiday entertainment headed our way. With 83 original made-for-TV movies debuting on network/cable + Netflix/Hulu alone, I barely scratched the viewing surface, even while mostly watching new holiday content nightly from November through Christmas. For instance, this is the first year I didn’t get to a single ION or UP offering. Heck, I didn’t even get through all of Lifetime’s offerings, which I mostly really enjoyed, let alone do more than dip my toe into Hallmark’s daunting 38 new movies. But, of the more than 34 new movies and specials I did sample this season, here are my best and worst…

Best Made-for-TV Holiday Movie of 2018

Early on it became pretty clear that Hallmark’s ever-more homogenized offerings were unlikely to produce my seasonal favorite. Now, it’s possible I just missed that gem that was gonna win me over, since I stopped watching Hallmark altogether at some point, but for the second year in a row, it was Lifetime that offered up my favorite of the season, with one of their acquired titles, Every Other Holiday.

Every Other had both rom and (some) com, but wasn’t your standard made-for-TV Christmas fare. It was clearly just as low budget, but it was a lot more realistic and well-acted than average. It wasn’t light, fizzy fun, and it even had a strong faith element, which is usually not my favorite, but it was so well done, it was impossible not to like.

The story of a an estranged family fulfilling their children’s wish of spending Christmas together with extended family, instead of only sharing “every other holiday” with each parent, was well-written, holiday-centric and ultimately touching. I just loved it, and really hope it becomes available on DVD or digital.

Hitting a completely different note, I also really liked the cheese-tastic Lifetime original A Very Nutty Christmas, starring Melissa Joan Hart, who is, for me, the Queen of Made-for-TV Christmas movies. Not only did she star in the classic Holiday in Handcuffs, this is her second-straight, sweet, funny Lifetime joint, after last year’s a A Very Merry Toy Store, and I hope she continues to make more. (Hart’s company also produced both Nutty and Toy Store.)

This story of a nutcracker come to life, and the baker who falls in love with him, was super silly Christmas fun, with all the elements of the classic ballet transposed onto a small town bakery in the lead up to the holiday. The cast was outstanding, and quite funny, and it was the perfect amount of crazy Christmas fun, that really hit my holiday movie sweet spot.

Honorable mentions also go to the quite funny The Truth About Christmas (Freeform) and wacky The Princess Switch (Netflix), both of which were light, fun holiday larks that I absolutely enjoyed.

My 2018 Made-for-TV Top 10

Every Other Holiday (Lifetime)

A Very Nutty Christmas (Lifetime)

The Truth About Christmas (Freeform)

The Princess Switch (Netflix)

The Christmas Chronicles (Netflix)

Christmas Lost and Found (Lifetime)

The Christmas Contract (Lifetime)

Poinsettias for Christmas (Lifetime)

A Christmas in Tennessee (Lifetime)

Return to Christmas Creek (Hallmark Movies and Mysteries)

Honestly, Return only made the cut because it was best of a bad batch I watched from Hallmark, and there were probably plenty I rated two paws that I actually enjoyed more.

Clearly, I am hoping Lifetime stays in the Christmas movie fight, as I strongly feel they’re out Hallmark-ing Hallmark, on every level. Lifetime is bringing the cute Christmas romance, but also offering up greater diversity, better casts (with a heavy lean towards late ’80s/early ’90s nostalgia), and scripts that nail the formula, without seeming formulaic and boring. Family friendly and sweet doesn’t have to also equal absolutely boring and bland, and Lifetime is proving that year over year.

Best Theatrical Holiday Movie of 2018

This category is a bit of a cheat, since I didn’t actually go to the movies this Christmas season, but thanks to some quick video turn arounds, I was able to see some of the stuff that debuted, albeit in one case only briefly, in theaters this year.

My favorite is the not-exactly-Christmas, but very snowy and fun, Smallfoot. I did not expect to enjoy this Channing Tatum-voiced Yeti movie nearly as much as I did. It was smart, funny and great fun for the whole family. Much more savvy and sweet than expected, this story of a Yeti tribe who live isolated above the clouds for their own protection, find their belief in a series of wacky explanations is challenged when one of them sees the mythical “smallfoot,” a.k.a. a human being.

My other, much more holiday-centric pick, is Elliot: The Littlest Reindeer, which enjoyed a brief theatrical release before jumping directly to digital. This long-delayed movie about a miniature horse who wants to be one of Santa’s reindeer, boasts a talented voice cast and a charming story that went in ways I definitely didn’t expect. The animation isn’t totally up to par, but our entire family enjoyed this original take on Santa and his magic, and I definitely see us re-watching it in future seasons.

And, honestly, The Christmas Chronicles probably belongs in this list, rather than made-for-TV, since the Netflix original had a much more big screen budget. Kurt Russell’s cool Santa will be watched more than once in many households, and I can definitely see it becoming a bit of a Christmas classic over time.

Best Holiday Special of 2018

Disney Channel’s reboot of the classic Ducktales offered up its first Christmas special in 2018, and it was a doozy. Ducktales Last Christmas! got multiple watches in our household this season.

This full-of-callbacks half hour managed to bring in Mickey’s Christmas Carol and Dr. Who, with a large nod to David Tennant, current voice of Scrooge McDuck, and a host of other meta-jokes that make it well worth watching more than once.

The tale of Scrooge visiting great Christmas parties across time with a little help from these, “three ghosts he met once when they meant to visit another Scrooge,” was great, classic animation that was a just a ton of fun to watch, and I think I liked it even better the second time around.

Honorable mentions go to NBC’s A Legendary Christmas with John and Chrissy, who’s throwback quirky style put a huge smile on my face, and Netflix, for finally blessing us with Great British Baking Show: Holidays.

Best New-to-Me Holiday Discovery of 2018

The 2017 theatrical The Man Who Invented Christmas was, I believe, considered a box office flop, but this somewhat ahistorical tale of how Dickens created his legendary A Christmas Carol was great holiday fun, with Dan Stevens ably channeling the Victorian-era author. I’m not sure it’s funny or schmaltzy enough to become a Christmas classic in the It’s a Wonderful Life or A Christmas Story vein, but I have no doubt it will become much better known as more people get a chance to experience it.

I also want to offer up two honorable mentions for made-for-TV movies of yore I saw for the first time this season, including the delightful 2013 Hallmark movie, Window Wonderland, which earned a spot on my all-time-favorites list and definitely made me wish Hallmark still made smartly written and less formulaic movies like this.

I also really liked Melissa Joan Hart’s 2014, The Santa Con, which she directed herself and was her first holiday pairing with Barry Watson, also her co-star in A Very Nutty Christmas. Con was another definitely different movie not afraid to buck the formula, which I really enjoyed.

But it wasn’t all Christmas Eve snow and candy canes this season so on to what I didn’t like…

Worst Made-for-TV Holiday Movie of 2018

I was deeply torn between two Hallmark movies I spent the entire runtime hating more and more as the movie went on: Christmas in Evergreen: Letters to Santa and Mingle all the Way. Both contained actresses I’ve really enjoyed in other Hallmark projects, Ashley Williams and Jen Lilley, respectively, and in the case of Evergreen, the 2017 original actually made my best-of list last season.

Both were less “movies” than a checklist of Hallmark plot points so grimly adhered to and executed that you could almost see the script writer’s notes

decorate Christmas tree ✔️

make gingerbread house ✔️

have snowball fight ✔️

save business ✔️

kiss under soap bubble snow ✔️

The End ✔️

These are the exact sort of competently produced (they look just fine), content-free, promo-filled (everything in the picture above, with the sole exception of actress Jill Wagner, can be purchased at a Hallmark store near you) faux-festive slogs that I find mind-numbing, and not in a good way.

I totally want silly, cheesy and cozy in my Christmas fare. But I do not care for churned out, near-identical schlock. Basically, there’s good cheese, and there’s bad, and Hallmark’s brand this season seemed to be entirely of the “cheez” variety, a.k.a. we-can’t-legally-call-it-cheese-because-it-contains-no-dairy.

Slick, but joy-free is how I sum up Hallmark’s 2018 slate. Don’t get me wrong, I know I’m in the minority here, as their ratings are going up and up and up. I fully expect to see even less interesting movies, and more of ’em, in 2019. I’m just not sure I’ll be bothering to watch.

Not that there weren’t bad fare to be found beyond Hallmark’s borders…

Lifetime’s A Twist of Christmas was a boring promo for the weirdest product ever: an Oreo music box. Still baffled how they didn’t make the “twist” title into an Oreo pun, and I think its lack made me dislike the movie even more.

Freeform’s No Sleep ’Til Christmas had so much potential, but got so many things wrong, it kind of infuriated me more than any other movie this season, simply because it was so close to being really good. (I had a somewhat similar take on A Shoe Addict’s Christmas, but that one wasn’t tone deaf like No Sleep, just boring.)

And, lastly, if I’d been able to make it all the way through the execrable Life-Size 2: A Christmas Eve, I’m pretty confident it would have topped my worst-of picks by a mile. This utterly unwatchable sequel to the quite charming 2000 Wonderful World of Disney film was an epic fail on every level. Not festive, incredibly dumb and not even accidentally funny. All in all, this wildly hyped outing was a disaster of Holiday Joy (my most-hated of 2016) proportions, but with a much bigger budget.

Worst Holiday Special of 2018

Nailed It! is a show that a lot of people, including my 11-year-old son, really enjoy, but I find tedious and kind of disgusting. Nailed It! Holiday! was my first, and frankly, last, experience with the show, and all I can really say is that it is very, very much Not. My. Thing.

Worst New-to-Me Holiday Discovery of 2018

For the second year in a row, Trolls figure into the worst category of my list, this time via this new-to-me 1981 HBO special, The Trolls and the Christmas Express, that I picked to show my kiddos.

Wow, this Canadian-made animated special was a slog. Not terribly festive, it makes Santa’s elves into idiots, and the entire premise of wearing out the reindeer seems … dumb. I mean, aren’t they magic? Do magic reindeer get tired?

We try to watch a Christmas special every night between Thanksgiving and Christmas—kind of a TV advent calendar—and this was my YouTube pick, as I wanted to watch something we hadn’t seen before. Big mistake. Huge. My kids (justifiably) didn’t let me make a pick again all season.

So, that’s a wrap on Christmas TV 2018. I’ll be back with renewed hope and festive fantasies of TV movie greatness in 2019, mostly because, with each year, there is fresh hope that this time will, for sure, actually be the Best Christmas Ever. 😂

youtube

2 notes · View notes

chinesegal · 6 years ago

Text

Another review of a shitty article.

Barely a day ago I noticed yet another shitty article written by an animal rights activist trying to smear the farmer Jenna Woginrich, and it’s written by notorious steppelord Gary L. Francione no less! Today I finally sampled enough bravery to try to brave the dumpster-fire that is his thoughts and opinions.

Let’s begin.

“Jenna Woginrich, supposedly a former vegetarian/vegan (she has used both terms), has been aggressively pimping “happy meat” for about five years now. She claims: My beef, after all, wasn’t with beef. It was with how the cow got to my plate in the first place. One way to make sure the animals I ate lived a happy, respectable life was to raise them myself. I would learn to butcher a free-range chicken, raise a pig without antibiotics and rear lambs on green hillside pastures. I would come back to meat eating, and I would do it because of my love for animals.She advises those who care about animals:If you really care about the humane treatment of livestock then I strongly suggest you eat them.“

I just wanna say, I don’t really agree with Woginrich here. Not everyone has the opportunity or skills to start becoming a farmer, but otherwise I don’t really have that much of a problem with what she is saying.

“Ms. Woginrich has a new essay: An Open Letter to Angry Vegetarians.It starts: This is a letter for the angry folks who think not eating meat makes them morally superior to those of us who do.Oh, oh: we can see where this is heading.She goes on to tell us that she was a vegetarian/vegan (she uses both terms) for nearly 10 years, a PETA supporter, and “animal activist,” but has decided that all food involves killing because animals are killed in plant agriculture and harvesting, and growing crops involves other harms, including war, so she produces and promotes “happy” meat. “:The simplest backyard salad from your own organic garden to the fake bacon in your shopping cart — both take lives. I have simply chosen to take lives in a way that causes the least amount of suffering and causes the least amount of wasted global resources. And yes, it means there is blood on my hands now.The truth is there is no meal we can eat without killing. None. A trip to your local grocery store for tofu and spinach may not include a single animal product but the harvesting of such food costs endless animal lives. Growing fields of soy beans for commercial clients means removing habitat from thousands of wild animals, killing them through deforestation and loss of their home. Eating meat you raised means eating food infused with integreity [sic], sweat, loyalty, determination, love, friendship, memories, loss, perserverance [sic] and respect.And none of these things are ingredients you will not find on a package of tofu no matter how close you look.”

“And Ms. Woginrich complains that those who disagree are violating her human rights:Eat in whatever way invokes respect and gratitude in your soul. Be grateful we live in this time of contrived and soon-to-be over luxury and abundance. But do not come to battle here, accusing those of us raising good meat of murder. Those are fighting words, unkind words, and for someone so intensely passionate about treating animals well you seem to have no issue treating human beings like crap. I’m an animal, too. I would appreciate some ethical treatment.

So what is there to say about Ms. Woginrich’s position? I could say a great deal. But I think four comments will suffice. First, and as a preliminary matter, Ms. Woginrich should not confuse disagreement with “anger.” It is very common these days for those who are criticized for promoting animal exploitation to whinge about being “attacked” or “bullied,” or lament their status as victims of “anger.” I certainly agree that people should not address Ms. Woginrich in uncivil ways. But disagreement with and reasoned criticism of Ms. Woganrich, who is profiting from exploiting and killing animals, and who is actively promoting animal exploitation, does not amount to incivility or anger.“

You don’t know her life, mr Francione. I mean, many, many people including farmers like her have been harassed by militant vegans. One friend of mine has literally been accused of being a murderer for working on a dairyfarm, and another was given death threats from a vegan petfood company for merely pointing out nutritional inadequacies in their products. With that in mind, “anger” could very well be a massive understatements.

“ Second, Ms. Woginrich has no clue about basic ethical reasoning. She appears to think that morality is a matter of personal preference and nothing is inherently morally wrong. People may be put in jail for killing other humans, but that’s just a matter of a legal convention. There’s nothing inherently morally wrong with intentionally killing a human. “

I mean... Almost nothing is inherently morally wrong excluding things like rape, bigotry and genocide. Killing can be done in self-defence, lying can save lies and stealing an apple for a starving child is barely a crime in my opinion. So I don’t even get what you are trying to go for here.

“ I suspect that this is a good part of the reason why Ms. Woginrich sees herself as victimized by disagreement. If she sees fundamental moral issues as involving nothing more than a preference, then it would be natural for her to think that disagreement, including substantive, principled, and reasoned disagreement, is an expression of “anger.”

Hmmmm. (grumbling as I think about everything shitty an ARA has said, including death and rape threats against hunters and farmers).

“ I note that her blog says that we can look forward to see her writings about the Civil War. Given her moral subjectivism, I will be curious to see if she defends human slavery as well. After all, on Ms. Woginrich’s view, the morality of human slavery is just a matter of preference. There’s no moral truth there.“

Comparing animal husbandry to slavery, how nice. No, mr Francione, that is never justifiable in my opinion and I will tell you why: neither veganism nor vegetarianism are universally feasible. Not just because of substinence hunting in developing countries but also because of diet restrictions and eating disorders making changes in diet nearly impossible and the dozens of ex-vegans you can read about online. And animals unlike humans do not have a concept f ownership, they cannot think about the implications of being owned property. Therefore, comparing farming animals to slavery is something that is never justifiable.

“And if Ms. Woginrich maintains that there is moral truth where humans are concerned but not where nonhumans are concerned, then’s she is merely another speciesist who begs the question from the outset and engages in circular reasoning. So, without saying more, if you don’t accept moral subjectivism (and no one does except when they are thrashing about continually trying to convince themselves that exploiting the vulnerable is morally acceptable), and you reject speciesism, then Ms. Woginrich’s position collapses.“

circular reasoning my ass. You radveegs are much more guilty of “circular reasoning” and I will hsow you someone who explains that much better than I can: miss @avatar-dacia

The only people who do not accept the fact that morality is subjective are usually WBC-type christian fundies or radveegs who never accept that their diet is not feasible for everybody.

“I should add that Ms. Woginrich seems to think that murder, as a legal term, involves killing with “malevolent intent” and that deliberate killing done with “gratitude,” “respect,” and “love” is not the requisite culpable mind state for murder. That’s wrong. Murder involves killing a human in a premeditated or deliberate way. The mercy killing of a loved one suffering from a painful illness done out of love and compassion is premeditated killing and constitutes murder. And Ms. Woginrich clearly is killing animals with premeditation even if, as she rather incredulously claims, her heart is overflowing with “gratitude,” “love,” and “respect” for the nonhumans she exploits and kills. This is, of course, not to say that Ms. Woginrich is guilty of murder because murder is a crime defined to involve humans only. But her claim that her mind state in killing animals is not the mind that would allow for a conviction of murder if a human were involved is, like most of what else she says, wrong. “

The precise legal definition of murder varies by state and country, but I am pretty sure that legal euthanasia is not murder in most lawbooks. Even if it was, there’s still a GIGANTIC difference between animal husbandry, euthanasia and murder. Also, what I find really goddamn sick is your insinuation that slaughtering an animal for food makes one a possible murderer or “psychopath”. Literally thousands if not millions of people grow up helping their family butcher an animal throughout the world, and most of them will never kill a human. My maternal grandfather was the kindest man I knew, and he grew up butchering animals. He is not a “serial-killer.”

“Third, Ms. Woginrich’s argument in a nutshell is: we can’t live perfectly so it’s fine to kill nonhumans. But that’s just silly. I agree that living involves indirectly harming nonhumans and humans. When we build a road, we know that some humans will be killed on that road. Does that mean that there’s no difference between building a road and intentionally killing humans? Of course not.

I agree that everything we consume involves indirect harm to nonhumans and humans, and that we all need to consume a great deal less. But does the fact that the manufacture of a product may have resulted in the negligent death of a human or nonhuman mean that there’s no difference between that negligent death and an intentional killing of a human or nonhuman? Of course not “

Pesticides are literally used to intentionally kill insects and small mammals considered “pests”. Vegetable and crop farmers will pay trappers to capture and cull raccoons and deer to stop them from eating their produce. Those deaths are not “negligient”.

“ I agree that the harvesting of crops involves unintentionally harming animals and humans who are killed or injured in the agricultural process. But if we were all vegans, there would be many fewer acres under cultivation. Professor David Pimentel of Cornell University has written that livestock in the United States consume 7 times as much grain as is consumed by the entire U.S. human population and the grains fed to livestock could feed 840 million humans who had a plant-based diet. “

From what I have seen, cattle are usually fed crop byproducts, things humans don’t want to eat. I actually found a good study on this. But your assertation is still not really relevant here, if we are comparing one person being a substinence-farmer to vegans eating commercial crops. And cattle do not need to be fed crops, pasture is a thing although feeding animals by-products from plant agriculture could actually be a good way to lessen food waste.

“Should we do everything possible to avoid any unintentional nonhuman (and human) deaths that occur during harvesting? Of course. But does the fact that unintentional deaths will occur however careful we are mean that intentional deaths of nonhumans and humans are morally justifiable? Of course not. And if we all took veganism seriously as a fundamental moral issue, would we develop better ways to avoid that unintentional harm? Of course we would. Ms. Woginrich proudly proclaims that the animals that she raises and kills are being fed with “local non-GMO feed grown by our neighbors.” And do her neighbors harvest that feed without unintentionally killing animals? No, of course not. So she’s participating in the unintentional deaths and the intentional ones. It is clear that her position–that unintentional deaths cannot be avoided so the intentional ones are morally acceptable–is frivolous on this basis as well.“

In my opinion, becoming a substinence-farmer and raising your own animals for food is not evil nor wrong, because veganism is not universally feasible as I said earlier. And technically, someone who consumes only local produce and products whether they are vegan or not is probably causing less harm than a vegan who consumes exotic fruits and vegetables picked by underpaid workers. Meaning that Woginrich is actually trying to avoid nonhuman and human harm by being a farmer.

“ Ms. Woginrich even has a “donate” button on her page. That makes perfect sense. The whole happy exploitation movement is about buying indulgences for engaging in morally unjustifiable behavior. So I don’t blame Ms. Woginrich for cashing in as well. “

Or you know, since female ranchers usually don’t make that much money, she is just low on cash.

#militant vegans #farming #animal wrongs #diet evangelists

3 notes · View notes