#but a lack of something clearly differentiates you from someone who experiences a 'normal

[tiredmaster]

Aroace "discourse" is fucking weird because if you can understand how an agender person (someone with no gender) is trans and queer, surely you can understand how an aromantic or asexual person is queer.

[itsclydebitches]

Hello, lovely readers! Welcome back. Buckle up, this chapter — and its accompanying recap — is one of our longest so far. 

To start, I am grappling with my surprise over the opening sentence of Chapter Seven:

“Scarlet was disappointed that there’d been no big celebration following reinitiation.”

I’m sorry, reinitiation is over? First, this goes against the expectations set up last chapter. Sun, Velvet, and Scarlet had a whole conversation about how this test looked exactly like normal initiation, so obviously there must be some key difference in order to both differentiate it from regular initiation, and ensure that students originally from Shade don’t have a major advantage. They seemed to expect a twist to this test so I expected a twist too. In fact, as a reader looking for entertainment, a twist was all but assured. Or so I thought. When nothing much happened during Velvet’s adventure — she just drops down the first hole she sees, immediately spots the relic, and dodges some grimm on her way out — I thought, “There must be a Part II coming up.” The airship isn’t taking them back to Shade, it’s taking them to the next sequence in the test. …Apparently not. It really is just like regular initiation.

Second, what about the rest of Team CFVY? What about Team SSSN? We don’t need to follow every character individually (that would indeed take a while), but at least do something similar to what we just got with Velvet and Sun undergoing the same challenge. If I remember correctly, the student body was divided into three or four groups, meaning that by default every member of our teams will be mixed up with someone else and, based on Velvet’s challenge, every airbus team is given the same task. So just show us two more adventures and you’re done. Given how short most chapters are (Chapter Eight is a mere six pages) and the fact that we’ve got twenty-one of them overall, that’s not much of a hardship. As it stands this is… weird. Why Velvet? Why, out of eight separate characters — two of which are team leaders and seemingly more of a main character than she is, as least two others who we know next to nothing about — does she get the extra time and attention? It’s like if RWBYJNR underwent a test but we only heard about Jaune and Blake’s experience, with Jaune dropped halfway through the chapter and everything else is told through Blake’s PoV. Like yeah, that’s technically fine, we can assume they all completed the same task, and Blake is great! But it’s still weird when you’ve got seven other characters to balance.

Not to mention missing out on everything else that I assumed we’d get answers to. Velvet obviously never found Yatsuhashi since we were never given a test section where they were together. How did Yatsuhashi deal with the panic he was struggling with when we left him? Did Fox have to rely on someone else to get him a relic since he couldn’t see them? What does Coco think about all this??

We might get flashbacks at some point, but right now we’re starting Chapter Seven having skipped all of this including, as Scarlet points out, the immediate emotional aftermath. I don’t really care about another Beacon Brigade meeting, I care about the shocking change that was thrown at our characters and changed the whole dynamic of this school… but apparently we’re moving on.

As said, Scarlet is sad there was no party because he, unlike everyone else, is pretty thrilled with the new teams. Yup, they actually changed. At least that’s an engaging development. Especially given how uh… volatile these teams are likely to be. Scarlet now fights with Coco who is no longer the team leader. Instead, it’s a girl named Reese who “didn’t strike [Scarlet] as a born leader. On the other hand, she wasn’t Sun, so she was definitely an upgrade.” Yeah, it becomes clear within a couple of paragraphs that Scarlet straight up hates Sun, rather than simply grappling with frustration over his recent behavior.  

He’s likewise critical of the Beacon Brigade, mentally referring to them as a “pity party” which 1. Yikes, Scarlet, people died and 2. Why is he here? It seems like everyone whose perspective we’ve gotten so far — with the exception of Velvet — thinks these get-togethers are a waste of time, yet they continue to attend them. From a writing standpoint it’s easy to see why you’d want these characters there to prompt personal conflict, but I’m confused as to the in-world reasons for why so many of them are sitting through something they only have criticism for. Is it peer pressure? Loyalty to their friends? Lack of anything better to do? The disgust or indifference for this group is well established, though not what makes all these characters attend it anyway.

We’re at least told that Sun was “dragged” here by Velvet which… okay? Why? Last chapter Velvet didn’t particularly like Sun either, so I suppose she’s simply looking to improve him or something? Honestly, the Velvet we’ve given while seeing the world through her eyes and the Velvet of other chapters seem radically different from one another. By that I don’t mean that Velvet sees herself differently than she really is. An example of that would be Ruby thinking that she’s bad at making friends, when in reality she forms deep bonds incredibly quickly. 

It’s a characteristic that has always existed, obvious to the viewer too, but Ruby simply doesn’t notice it due to her own self-confidence, self-esteem, etc. Velvet, meanwhile, is written as a different character altogether. The Velvet who exists across most of this book comes across as far quite kind and patient, whereas when we’re in her head Velvet is both internally and externally mean. Her attitude flips on and off like a switch. I know I said last time that Sun’s admiration at her avoiding the Ravagers might finally start changing her tune about him, and that could indeed be an explanation for why she brought him back to the Beacon Brigade, but that doesn’t explain the extreme change in how she holds a conversation with him. Remember that last chapter we had “tough love” Velvet who was insulting Sun almost every chance she got. This Velvet speaks calmly and patiently until Sun understands their reasoning behind forming this group… which yeah, is a good thing. I’m glad someone is offering to explain things to Sun instead of just assuming the worst of him, but we’re nevertheless left with very inconsistent characterization. How and why did this change come about? Will Velvet revert back to tough love? Who can say? Certainly not me.

At least Scarlet’s opinions are clear: “just when [he] was ready to get a little distance from [Sun]” he shows up again. He goes on to think about how he just wanted a fresh start which, okay. Fair. That’s partly the point of this whole exercise and but right now Scarlet is convinced that a fresh start isn’t possible “with Sun in charge.” So Sun as an individual seems to be the problem here, not Scarlet’s team as a whole. Which would likewise be fair if I had a better understanding of where such intense opinions were coming from. In this chapter we’re suddenly told that Sun running off isn’t a new occurrence:

“Well, you were always leaving us and going solo. We were never sure why,” Scarlet said. They might not be on the same team now, but his questions hadn’t gone away.

Sage still had questions, too. “Were we not good enough for you?” he asked.

Okay, that definitely sounds like a legitimate flaw that would alienate your team members from you... but when did this happen? Granted, the answer to this might (again) just be, “In After the Fall, Clyde” but we’re nearly a hundred pages into this book and this issue hasn’t come up before now—something that would be very easy to accomplish when each chapter is changing perspectives. Upon reflection, Sun is doing things semi-solo in a lot of the main series, but that never came across as anything other than an easy writing choice to me. Meaning, Sun originally existed as a faunus friend for Blake, someone outside of Team RWBY to get involved in the White Fang fight. Introducing him as a single character is easier, having him meet with Blake alone makes sense, etc. Not only is the concept of teams existing as a single unit that always does everything together ridiculous, but Neptune was clearly meant to exist as a representation of the rest of the team without having to write three distinct characters alongside Sun every time he comes on screen. Sun is solo on the docks. Sun is at the cafeteria with Neptune. Sun infiltrates the White Fang with Blake. Sun eavesdrops on Team RWBY with Neptune. In the main series I never got the sense that Sun was avoiding his team, only that he had a life outside of his team and that his team was otherwise represented through one guy instead of three. Three wouldn’t have worked for most of these scenes. 

All of which isn’t to say that Sun didn’t avoid his team — I’m not claiming Scarlet is lying — only that I’m not convinced we’ve seen that flaw. Which is incredibly common in RWBY. Characters will make quite significant statements and the viewer/reader is left wondering when this thing happened, or why the contradictions we can easily see in the story aren’t acknowledged. If Sun, as leader, has a habit of ditching his friends, both leaving them to function as a team without him and acting as if he doesn’t like spending time with them… then yeah, that’s absolutely something that needs to be addressed. But where is that Sun? Why haven’t I seen that characterization? Every time they’re together his team avoids him (Scarlet being a perfect example). Even Sun baffled by the accusations.

How could he not know? Scarlet wondered.

I don’t know either! This certainly seems to be a misunderstanding, but oddly the one person who can shed some light on the miscommunication doesn’t speak. Sun looks to Neptune in his confusion which makes perfect sense because: Hey, best friend! The guy I do everything with and who functions as clear evidence that I’m not always going solo like Scarlet claims, can you explain what’s going on here? We might have gotten an exchange where Neptune points out that spending time with him doesn’t equal spending time with the whole team, Scarlet and Sage feel left out, and that’s absolutely a claim that would stand up within the canon… but Neptune says nothing. Sun is simply accused of being a horrible leader who doesn’t want anything to do with his team, despite there being very little basis for this in the text. All we’ve got is him leaving with Blake which, as I’ve explained, is something he does need to apologize for. But that’s the conflict we’ve seen, not this broad, wishy-washy claim that Sun is an all around bad person.

What it comes down to is that Scarlet’s disdain is apparently rooted in more than just a single action of Sun’s, it’s apparently a pattern of behavior that he takes issue with, but I haven’t seen him be a particularly bad leader/friend lately. Or, I should say, certainly no worse than everyone else around him, given that this entire group does what they want and insults one another on a regular basis. Sun isn’t an exception in that. Both the book and this conversation feels like an attack on Sun’s character, not the event we know he needs to redeem himself for. When Blake left, Team RWY didn’t speak ad nauseum about how horrible a person she is, not talented enough to fight with them, incapable of doing anything right…  insults that are separate from the issue at hand. The mistakes we’ve seen Sun make aren’t aligning with the complaints other characters have about him, but nor is the story acknowledging that his friends might be biased or simply wrong. Basically, like Velvet’s character, it’s a confusing, inconsistent mess.

And if it feels like I’m repeating myself every chapter it’s because the book is repeating itself every chapter. How many times are we going to tell the reader who awful Sun is? We’re nearly a hundred pages in, folks. 

I’ve been getting very ahead of myself though. Before we delve into Sun’s apology and the resulting confessions, let’s quickly lay out the new teams. Yatshuhashi and Neptune have ended up together, which explains a certain scene that I know is coming later. I figured that the entirety of CFVYSSSN was conducting their investigation together and some cross team duos came about. Turns out they’re actually part of a team now. It’s an interesting premise! Too bad I know it’s heading in the worst possible direction.

Also, everyone already has color names. That’s the true evidence for non-random assignments! The instructors would never come up with enough color related terms otherwise lol. 

“Oh brilliant headmaster, why did you choose to put me on this team? Was it because I worked so well with this peer of mine? Or does my semblance compliment another’s?”

“No, kid. Your name just happens to start with an ‘F’ and we needed one to get an abridged version of ‘Forest.’”

“…ah. I see. One more thing, sir.”

“Yes?”

“I’d like to transfer to a less stupid institution.”

These conversations had to have happened. 

Velvet has been paired with Octavia as well as another Beacon hating student named Nebula. No surprise there. Then, just to make sure we don’t go more than a few paragraphs without insulting Sun, we’re told that “poor Sage” is still “stuck with him.” Sage is now the team leader, another choice that Scarlet doesn’t understand. Indeed, he actually says that this is “proof of the utter randomness of the exercise.” I’m both inclined to agree (in the sense that, as said, managing all these team aspects intentionally is nearly impossible) and also point out that by all intents and purposes Jaune should have read as an idiotic choice too. “How can you say that, Clyde? Jaune showed astounding leadership during his own initiation!” No he didn’t. Jaune noticed that a scorpion’s tail was loose, yelled out a generic call to action, Pyrrha figured out what to do, and then he told Nora to finish it off. Jaune said they needed to help get across the gap and help them in the first place (no duh) but Nora is the one who figures out how. It’s really not much, especially compared to things like spending most of his initiation stuck in trees and having no idea how to wield his sword. If Jaune can be made leader Sage should absolutely be given the chance. Everyone should be given the chance compared to the guy who became team leader without knowing what a landing strategy was. 

Scarlet concludes all this by saying that “Sun didn’t seem bothered in the slightest by not being the boss,” but remember, when a character is already inclined to think the worst of someone, their assumptions about their emotions aren’t necessarily accurate. We won’t know until/if we get back into Sun’s head whether he’s truly indifferent to these changes or not. Not that Scarlet needs any such confirmation. He decides that Sun “probably didn’t care who was in charge because he wasn’t going to listen, anyway.”

This is still so confusing to me. Did the rest of team SSSN tell Sun not to leave and he blew him off? Am I forgetting a time recently where he made his team do something they didn’t agree with? If not, where is this ‘Sun doesn’t listen to anyone’ criticism coming from? Even if we establish that it’s true — perhaps supported by the free spirit personality Sun wields, though that’s not the same thing as ignoring orders — why is he the only one getting heat for it? Coco doesn’t listen to anyone either. She’s out here metaphorically flipping Rumpole off to conduct an investigation that Sage and Scarlet didn’t seem to agree with, but Sun, trying to integrate everyone into Vacuan culture, is the one who abandons everyone to do what he wants? 

But this is normal for RWBY. A flaw is a flaw until it’s applied to the character this story supports, then it becomes something to praise instead. In some respects, this is even more frustrating to experience in the novel because unlike in the webseries, there’s plenty of time here to explain a character’s opinions, show us their memories, lay out the nuance in these relationships, all the techniques that would help convince the reader of a difference in behavior when actions seem pretty identical at first glance… yet here we are, not utilizing that time or, when we are, providing inconsistent information. There have been precious few moments in this novel where I’ve felt like I have a firm handle on a protagonist: what their motivations are, what actions they’ve taken in response to that, how those actions have been received, and whether that reception is justified. 

Honestly, the most consistent aspect of this novel is how closely it aligns with the webseires: both texts don’t make good internal sense and leave me scratching my head over what I’m supposed to take away from the story, let alone whether that takeaway makes sense based on what I’ve been shown.  

But I promised you all Sun’s apology. Let’s just chuck out the whole thing:

“Here we go again with the Beacon Brigade stuff,” Sun muttered.

“Excuse me?” Velvet frowned. “I thought you came back here to apologize.”

Scarlet laughed. How could she even believe that? “Sun’s pretty bad at apologies.”

“I can apologize!” Sun’s tail swept back and forth.

“Go on, then.” Scarlet said, prompting him.

Sun put his hands into his pockets and looked down. “I’m sorry I said all those mean things and stormed out of here last time,” he said quickly.

“Thank you—” Velvet began.

Sun lifted his head. “But I was only trying to help you understand how elitist this group looks to everyone else.”

Scarlet rolled his eyes. He leaned back to watch the show.

I’m going to fall back on a list for this one.

1. As said in the past, I’m well aware that a story needn’t show us every scene but should rather provide information that allows us to extrapolate things based on the context and basic logic. e.g. “I haven’t read a scene yet where these characters brush their teeth, but I can assume it’s happening and we just don’t see it because that’s incidental to the plot and would (theoretically) be boring.” In fact, a story that provides too much information—be it in world building, characterization, every detail of the current event—will often have failed in one of its core intentions: entertainment. I get that. However, it feels like more often than not RWBY struggles to pinpoint which moments should be shown and which should be relegated off screen. I, for one, would have liked to see this conversation between Velvet and Sun. Not because a conversation inviting him to another Beacon Brigade meeting is inherently exciting, but because we’ve been given a context wherein such a conversation is significant for both of their developments. Velvet was incredibly critical of Sun last chapter. Now she’s “dragged him” back to this meeting. Is it because she’s changed her tune about him, or because she hopes to change him further? That’s important. Sun, last we saw, was digging his heels in regarding the meetings, the new teams, and the refugees’ overall approach to living at Shade. Now, Velvet tosses out that he “came back here to apologize.” What changed Sun’s mind and got him to admit he overstepped? Or is Velvet wrong in her assumption about what he intended to do? This story is character driven—we’ve gotten very little action thus far, none of which has been integrated into the emotional stakes—yet consistently the story fails to answer questions like, “What does this character want?” “What made them change their mind about this?” and “Do we trust their perspective and interpretation of events?” Like skipping out on everyone else’s reinitiation, it’s impossible to get invested in the “development” of characters when we’re always unclear about where they started, where they’re heading, and what in the world happened to enact any change we see between chapters. 

2. Similarly, we’re told that “Sun’s pretty bad at apologies.” Did anyone else know this prior to Scarlet announcing it to the group (the reader)? Yes, Sun has yet to apologize for leaving with Blake, but that is, as I’ve stated above, one event that is not necessarily indicative of a behavioral trend. I’d much rather have known a Sun across the webseries and this book who consistently demonstrates an inability to admit when he’s wrong, not simply be told that by a character when it becomes relevant to the scene. Or, at the very least, allow our time with characters like Scarlet to provide that information in a more persuasive, fulfilling manner. Maybe he thinks about all the times Sun has let him down and then refused to acknowledge it. Maybe we get another flashback to a similar event that this is reminding Scarlet of. Maybe he and Sun actually talk and we get a sense of how this opinion formed. Something other than an announcement simply informing us of an impactful character flaw that we haven’t seen up until now.

3. Especially given that Sun does apologize and it’s not a bad apology either, it’s just that he’s chosen to apologize for the things he’s actually sorry for: saying mean stuff and storming out. It takes a lot to admit that two of his responses weren’t appropriate and there’s enough specificity and sincerity here that Velvet immediately accepts it with a “Thank you.” Where Sun arguably messes up is in continuing his apology with a “But…” yet here I’d like to reiterate that the simplistic advice we find on tumblr isn’t applicable to every situation. Meaning, I’ve seen a lot of posts lately about apologies, reminding people that it should be about acknowledging how you hurt someone regardless of your intentions, not using your intentions as an excuse for your actions. I agree with that. I likewise think Sun did this. He admits that he hurt people despite not meaning to and he owns up to that, even if he does so in a quickly, clearly uncomfortable manner. Acknowledging that you hurt someone despite your intentions doesn’t mean that your intentions can never be brought up again. If I accidentally insult someone in the act of confronting them about, say, destructive behavior, I should indeed apologize for that… but that doesn’t mean the issue itself—the destructive behavior—is forever off the table. It’s an important topic and Sun likewise has an important topic he’s trying to broach again, this time in a more respectful manner. Sun is sorry for the cruel things he said, he’s sorry for storming out, he’s sorry for how he responded to things… but he’s not sorry for his opinion about the situation itself, and that’s fair. Apologizing for your behavior does not require that you suddenly agree with the person you’ve hurt. Indeed, it’s only Sun challenging the group again—this time in a non-insulting, non-storming out manner—that the group itself realizes that they haven’t been clear about their own intentions. The issue was never whether the group is a good thing or a bad thing, but rather that the group didn’t bother to explain to Sun why they were doing this in the first place, leaving him to come to his own conclusions—and then getting upset when those conclusions turned out to be inaccurate. Up until this moment, no one in this room is inclined to spend time with Sun, let alone ensure that he has an accurate view of what this group means, so is it any surprise that he took things at face value? The group who named themselves after Beacon doesn’t want to be a part of Shade. That’s what it looks like on the surface and thus, that’s what he assumed. 

4. Despite the complexity of this situation—by far the best Myers has managed thus far in this novel—Scarlet doesn’t acknowledge any of it. Not the group’s behavior towards Sun that resulted in a lack of understanding, not Sun’s understandable assumptions, not his inappropriate response to them, nor his apology. Scarlet said Sun was bad at apologies and Sun just proved him wrong… but acknowledging that requires likewise acknowledging everything in the above paragraph. Scarlet doesn’t want to think about what Sun is apologizing for vs. concerns he still has, he just hears a “But” and “rolled his eyes" to “watch the show.” What’s perhaps the most strange about all this — and the easiest to pinpoint as a potential problem — is that Scarlet agrees with Sun. He thinks the Beacon Brigade is a waste of time too! In another story I would expect to either a) have Scarlet grudgingly admit that Sun had a point, helping to lead him to some realizations about his bias, or b) have the story itself acknowledge that Scarlet is interested only in criticizing Sun no matter what he might actually say or do. If we boil the conversation down we’ve got:

[Scarlet is critical of the Beacon Brigade]

[Sun is critical of the Beacon Brigade]

[Scarlet ignores that tie between them]

and

[Scarlet thinks that Sun isn’t capable of apologizing]

[Sun apologizes]

[Scarlet ignores this]

This trend is likewise seen at the start of the meeting when Scarlet goes, “The gall of it. It was so obvious what Sun was doing—he was practically gleeful to be rid of his teammates” in response to Sun not seeming devastated by the changes. It’s the same situation we got last chapter with Velvet, wherein one character’s interpretation of a situation — Sun doesn’t look sad enough to my liking — doesn’t necessarily match up with reality. Indeed, when Scarlet throws out another accusation we’re shown precisely how inaccurate his perspective is:

“I guess it’s not hard to move on when you’re always moving, huh?” He sat up straight and looked at Sun. “Just how ecstatic are you to be moving on from us? Be honest. While we’re at it, maybe you can explain why.”

Sun was taken aback. “What?”

Sun is shocked by the idea that he’s “ecstatic” over these changes because he’s clearly not. There’s so much miscommunication among these characters and, thus far, incredibly little done to resolve it. This conversation explaining the Beacon Brigade to Sun is the major exception and, as a result, is one of the only worthwhile scenes. I feel like our characters have finally changed in some way. Yet to continually balance out any enjoyable bits, Scarlet’s bias stands in contrast to this improvement we see with Sun. It’s even more obvious when we factor in Scarlet’s revelation about Nolan in the same conversation. Despite witnessing nothing nearly as concrete as an apology when he said apologies weren’t something Sun was good at, Scarlet comes to the conclusion that he had been “underestimating Nolan all this time” and seems, from a single comment, to form a much higher opinion of him. The kicker is that not only does this moment not jumpstart a similar revelation regarding Sun, but is rather used as another segue into criticism of him: “Just like Sun had been underestimating the rest of them. But would Sun ever see that?”

Sun is indeed blind to some things, but so is Scarlet. Arguably more-so. At least here we see Sun listening to the others and flat out admitting that he was wrong. The confusing nature of Scarlet’s anger — is he upset about the Blake incident or something that seems to exist ‘off screen’? — coupled with his inability to acknowledge the improvements Sun is striving to make when they’re literally happening right in front of him, makes for a frustrating read. So as always: Yay flawed characters? It’s just too bad that this cast seems to be made up primarily of flaws and are doing incredibly little to improve themselves. Unless you factor in things like Velvet’s randomly changing personality.

As said though, I think the group does a good job explaining their perspective to Sun, largely because they bother to take a moment to connect with him, see how and why he came to these conclusions, and respectfully lay out their own perspective. Velvet explains that names are important, a part of your identity, and thus when they came to Vacuo they wanted a new name to reflect their new life. “Beacon was the obvious choice.” By the end of the scene Sun freely admits his mistake — “Maybe I was wrong,” Sun said — but still maintains that his misunderstanding stemmed from something. All of these (somewhat convoluted) explanations involving names, identity, belonging, moving on, but keeping their past is in no way obvious when you just hear the name Beacon Brigade. “‘Well, you’ve been sending a mixed message with this group, at least to Vacuans,’ Sun said stubbornly” except that “stubbornly” is uncharitable because he’s right. Not about the Beacon Brigade being a useless waste of time like we saw a few chapters back, but about the name and meeting sending the wrong message without that complicated context attached. The name alone has no connection to Vacuo. The name sounds like they’re refusing to move on. The name is also weirdly about being an army despite this being a therapy group, but we’ve already mentioned that. The statements “Your reasons for having this group and naming it this are valid,” “It’s not your fault that the Vacuans are refusing to accept you,” and “On the surface that name and these meetings send an unintended bad message that doesn’t help your already iffy social status” can and all do exist simultaneously.

The fact that Sun is using this opportunity to understand where the Beacon Brigade is coming from, but the Beacon Brigade is continually insisting that his perspective has no merit, just reinforces that the only one undergoing any growth here is Sun. Which, coming into this novel, I would have said is justified. He abandoned his team! He followed Blake! He listened in on her private conversations! He hasn’t even apologized to his team yet! Sun obviously has things to work on. But the expectation of him being the most in need of improvement rests on those around him being more level-headed, empathetic, talented people than he is… and they’re not. In this novel, the people Sun has hurt can be just as stubborn and cruel, making just as many iffy decisions. So when we’ve got a whole school of incredibly flawed teens, with one individual clearly striving to do better while the others endlessly pile on him… uh, I’m in that guy’s corner. At least I understand how Sun’s development is coming about, unlike Velvet. At least Sun admits when he’s made mistakes, unlike Coco and Scarlet. At least Sun hasn’t done anything close to the horror that I know is coming with Fox and Yatsuhashi…

So yes, to say that this scene and its resulting implications is complicated is an understatement. For the love of God, let’s move on.

We get another flashback, this time to Team SSSN arriving in Vacuo to meet with Headmaster Theodore and Rumpole. Recall that we were shown the exact same situation with Team CFVY… but wow is Theodore different here. Previously, I praised his compassion and ability to inspire new students because in that scene it was clear he was thrilled to have Team CFVY joining his school. Theodore is not thrilled to accept Team SSSN and I’m honestly unclear as to why. Both did well in the Vytal Tournament, which is something Rumpole apparently looked over when evaluating the students. Both participated in — and survived — the Battle of Beacon. Both are here now, hoping for a new place to call home, yet the reception SSSN receives is distinctly frosty.

Granted, this is at least partly because we’re still seeing things through Scarlet’s perspective, but that doesn’t cover everything. Theodore starts the flashback by reminding them that he believes “Actions speak louder than words,” to which Sun wholeheartedly agrees. Rather than acknowledging that they have similar outlooks, Rumpole tells him to be quiet — “[she] put a finger over her lips” — and when Sun doesn’t seem to notice the gesture Scarlet interprets this as him being “cocky.” That… doesn’t really line up. Regardless, Theodore is interested to know why Sun didn’t attend Vacuo if he grew up here, seeming to read that choice as some sort of insult towards him and his school: “He exchanged a look with Professor Rumpole. Then he looked sternly at Scarlet, Sage, and Nexpeptune.” When Sun explains that he wanted to see more of the world before settling down, Theodore and Rumpole jump on the word choice.    

Sage snickered. Rumpole’s eyes flashed gold.

“So you think of Vacuo as ‘settling’?” Theodore asked.

Wait. 

Excuse me, educator, but the phrase “settling down” is not comparable to “settling.” The former means to live a quieter, stable life usually after, yes, traveling the world for a time. It has few (if any) negative connotations. In fact, it’s quite positive. The implication is that you’ve been to many places, seen a great deal, experienced much of what life has to offer you, and now you’re choosing this place as your home. It’s also framed after a sought-after end goal. The weary hero longs to settle down but is unable to due to their quest. Settling down with friends and family is the prize given at the end of a story. It’s good. In contrast, “settling” for something does have a number of negative implications attached to it. It suggests that it’s not what you want, but you’re willing to put up with it at the end of the day given that you have no other choice. It’s second or third best, at most, but you’ll tolerate it. The concept of settling for something is insulting because it says that given different circumstances, you never would have chosen it.

Sun says he’s “settling down” in Vacuo; this is the home he’s choosing. Theodore and Rumpole both interpret this as “settling;” he’s choosing them only because he has to. But why? Where did this interpretation come from? Schools were a mix of people from different kingdoms long before Salem shook things up, so why is Sun getting heat for going to Mistral? Especially with the rather persuasive justification of, ‘I’d like to see more than just my backyard, thanks’? Are Vacuans so xenophobic that the mere act of one of their own leaving for a short time makes them an outsider? Why is this never explained then? Why doesn’t Sun, the Vacuan, understand this and seek to defend himself?

I’m still so confused, folks! 

Things just go downhill from there. Sun asks if he can call Theodore “Theo,” which doesn’t go over well.

“No!” barked Theodore and Rumpole at the same time.

“Right. Sorry. Professor—”

“Headmaster.”

This is unnecessarily strict. As someone who has known a number of “You must refer to me as ‘Doctor’” people, I have never heard a single one “bark” out a negative in response to asking about using a different address. They respectfully correct a student because instructors — and people in general — should strive to be respectful. Then Theodore nitpicks about “Professor” vs. “Headmaster.” A look back at what I read does show a consistency of students addressing him as “Headmaster,” but if that’s a preference why not just say that? As it is, the curt correction feels like he’s trying to limit Sun’s options, especially when we’ve heard others like Ozpin be referred to as “Professor.” It’s not exactly a weird mistake.

Then Theodore goes,

“And which of you is the leader again? I know it’s not Neptune, but you can tell that just by looking at him.” Neptune’s jaw dropped.

What is wrong? With this cast?? Theodore was a splendid Headmaster whom I loved a few chapters back, now suddenly — as soon as he’s talking to Team SSSN — he’s become downright mean. What the absolute hell was that comment? “You can tell that just by looking at him”? That’s so insulting! He’s another Velvet, turning basic compassion on and off depending on who he’s speaking to, yet I still remain in the dark as to why everyone in this novel hates Sun, to the point where even his teammates bear the brunt of that negativity. Because, you know, when Sun says he’s the leader,

Rumpole was momentarily speechless.

Hold on. Let’s take a hot second to summarize what Sun has done in this conversation thus far, AKA everything that exists to form such a horrible opinion of him that Rumpole would be “speechless” at the thought of him leading. Sun has:

Agreed with Headmaster Theodore regarding a life philosophy.

Says he grew up in Vacuo.

Admits that he wants to settle down here, making Shade his permanent home.

Asked to address the Headmaster as “Theo.”

Apologies for his presumptiveness.

Correctly changes his address to “Headmaster Theodore.”

Explains that he was on a “special assignment” last semester and that’s why he wasn’t at Haven. Scarlet mutters that the assignment was given “by himself.”

So Sun is a native who’s heart has “grown fonder” for his kingdom and who agrees with Theodore’s outlook. He is willing to apologize and change his behavior as instructed. The only marks against him so far are 1. Being overly friendly with an authority figure and 2. The implication that he simply ran off without justification, though thus far it’s Sun’s word against Scarlet’s. That should hardly count until the accusation is proven one way or the other. 

So Sun is implied to be an unfit leader because he was friendly? That outweighs positives like being from Vacuo and taking direction?

Everyone is really just out to paint Sun as The Worst Person Ever, huh? Here’s your trophy, bud. 

After this stunning display ranging from indifference to what appears to be outright disgust, Theodore says that they can stay on through what’s essentially a trial period. “Until you wash out, or he changes his mind,” Rumpole explained. “Frankly, that happens a lot.” Again, Team CFVY didn’t receive such a threat. Theodore concludes the meeting by requiring a written account of the White Fang attack, something Sun is nervous about. “You do know how to write?” Theodore asks, just casually tossing in a final insult. Scarlet reassures him that they’ll help Sun with the “big words.”

Wow. The farther I get into this story the less surprised I am that the fandom has been hissing at it like an angry pack of cats. Or at least, a solid chunk of the fandom here on tumblr. I can’t recall if I mentioned this in an earlier Chapter, but at the start of this project I popped onto Goodreads and was somewhat shocked at Before the Dawn’s 4.16 rating, accompanied by numerous glowing reviews. Were we given different copies of the book? Then again, I often feel as if I’m watching a different show than the fandom talks up. I too would love to be watching a gripping, emotionally compelling, complex RWBY story of the sort that I’ve heard about. Ah well.

Back to the text at hand.

It’s the next day and everyone is attending Professor Rowena Sunnybrook’s Weapons Training Class. I briefly grapple with the image of Rowena Ravenclaw at Sunnybrook Farm. Then I consider how close “Rowena” is to “Rebecca.” Then I remember that in the stories Rebecca’s middle name was Rowena. Then I move on with my life.

(How badly am I dating myself if I bring up Shirley Temple?) 

There’s a sandpit set up in the middle of that classroom which “had always seemed odd to Scarlet. If you wanted to fight in sand, why not just go outside? There was plenty of sand in this place.” Honest answer: ease of access and control over your environment. It’s the same reason why you’d take students to an indoor track rather than just telling them to run anywhere there’s space outside. There may be qualities to the sand that make it a better practice tool — less coarse, no rocks hidden underneath — and it’s presented in an accessible, otherwise safe classroom. No one is wasting time finding a spot outside. No sand storms will suddenly interrupt an exercise. Rowena and the students alike aren’t fighting against the wind, or the sun, the grimm, or anything else they might have to pay attention to. Given the tech of this world, there may even be cameras in the classroom that allows instructors to record and revisit their students’ practice. Unless you’re looking to prepare them for the unpredictability of the real world in a given lesson, this is just an all around easier choice. A pain to set up, perhaps, but easier once the pit is in place.

So Scarlet is, per the trend, in somewhat of a bad mood. He says he’s excited to see what class is like with his new teammates, but he doesn’t understand why you’d have a sand pit inside (in a world where competitions like the Vytal Festival exist…) and he likewise doesn’t get why anyone would fight on sand if they didn’t have to. But… you do have to? Scarlet just got done reminding everyone that they live in a desert now. He doesn’t get much of a say in whether he’s fighting on sand or not, so he’d better learn how to do it. I don’t think the grimm and occasional baddie is going to let Scarlet choose the setting before a fight begins.

Scarlet is also exhausted, which I can definitely understand. I’m tired just reading about the week they’ve been through. We get a tiny glimpse into the Chapter That Never Was where he thinks that “Spending hours in an underground Dust mine fighting a herd of Jackalopes wasn’t exactly a fun time.” Too bad we didn’t get to read about it. Though I do quite like the tiny insight into Scarlet we get here. He’s extra tired because he was “staying up so late to clean his clothes and shine his shoes.” Yeah, I could say something about implied-to-be gay guys and their obsession with clothes, though considering that Scarlet’s sexuality is nonexistent in this text or the main series, it feels disingenuous to make any claims about stereotyping. Besides, that may be a reach even if he was confirmed as queer. Rather, I like the line because it can be read in different ways, one of which is further confirmation that Scarlet seems to be a straight-laced, eager to please authority sort of guy. He doesn’t like having a spontaneous team leader. He hopes that Theodore will see his worth over Sun’s. Scarlet already comes across as the sort of student who would put additional time into shining his shoes while everyone else gets some much needed sleep. Appearances matter to him.

This entire time Sunnybrook has been lecturing, though seemingly not about anything important. Scarlet is surprised that they haven’t started an activity yet. The stalling is explained when Rumpole shows up, stomping into the classroom and grousing that Sunnybrook started without her. She rightfully points out, “You’re late, and this is my class.”

Ooh, Scarlet thought. Sunnybrook just went from chatty to catty.

…No? Beyond my ardent love of writers insisting that women are “catty” whenever they show an ounce of assertiveness or self-respect (/s), how is Sunnybrook being “catty” when she’s literally just stating two facts? Rumpole is late. This is her class. Both those things are true. There is an implied criticism there, but it’s hardly undeserved. If anyone is close to being “catty” right now it’s Rumpole, arriving late without an apology and criticizing Sunnybrook for doing her job in Rumpole’s absence.

Which begins the very strange read of watching Rumpole give an excellent lesson while the story characterizes her as the bad guy (we’ve been down this road before...). 

Outside of that rude entrance, I don’t think Rumpole does much wrong here, but it becomes clear by the end of the chapter that she’s someone we’re meant to dislike. 

She begins her lesson by pointing out that “Before you got here, some of you were trained to rely on your teams. But what do you do when your team is gone and you’re on your own?” Yes! Excellent point! Just like Scarlet needs to know how to fight on sand while living in a desert, every huntsmen needs to know how to defend themselves solo in case they’re separated from their team, their team is knocked out, or they’re killed. Wasn’t Sun alone at the start of this novel? Didn’t Ruby fall through the floor into a White Fang hideout by herself? Wasn’t Blake out in the woods alone when she encountered Adam? In each case they either sought out additional help or help thankfully arrived in time — you should strive to have backup — but in the case that there’s none to be found, how well can you defend yourself? It honestly shocks me that these talented, experienced fighters so often reject learning something that’s so obviously useful, whether we’re talking about Ruby telling Ozpin they already know how to fight, or Scarlet scoffing at fighting on sand in Vacuo.

Rumpole also says that they need to learn how to fight without their weapons.

“The room filled with whispers. Fight without weapons? In Weapons Training? Is she kidding?”

See, this is the kind of nonsense I’m talking about. Are you telling me that none of these fighters have ever lost their weapon in battle? It’s never broken (Blake)? That they can’t reach the basic conclusion of their fists being a weapon too? Too often RWBY introduces entirely unnecessary reactions that don’t fit with the characters’ intelligence, experience, and overall world view. They say and do ridiculous things in the context of their fictional lives. I could bring up a Volume 8 “Divide” example, but I’m trying to keep these recaps spoiler free. For those of you who have seen the premiere though, you likely know what Ruby moment I’m talking about. 

So the whole class is upset for an incredibly stupid reason. Scarlet has gone from his usual grumpy to downright pissed. Things only go from bad to worse when Rumpole chooses Velvet to fight Nebula.

“Oh, come on!” Coco said, intervening for her former teammate.

What exactly is the problem here? According to Scarlet it’s that they’re on the same team. “This is so not cool,” he whispers to Coco. He believes they “shouldn’t be forced to fight each other,” but why? He admits freely that they’ve all fought against peers before. What do they think this is? It’s just another sparing session. Apparently the distinction is “with the intent of beating them, especially in front of an audience.” So when sparing you normally don’t intend to win? Or if you spar no one can be there to see you do it? Both of those defeat the purpose of sparing in the first place: to improve, partly by receiving feedback. 

Arslan provides a bit of clarification with “They should not fight each other. We’re teammates, and we have to learn to work together. This just undermines that goal” but that is a staggeringly narrow view of what it means to “work together.” Frankly, a worrisome one too. Are team relationships truly so fragile that they can’t handle a little competition? You wouldn’t think so given the continuing message of teams as friends, family, and coworkers — those relationships are rock solid — yet Arslan seems to believe that a single exercise would undermine all that. There might have been some justification if she’d specifically brought up the problem of fighting new team members, prior to forming those bonds, with the added difficulty of working with people who might not think much of you yet… but she doesn’t. No one here seems to think that teammates should fight, period.

So then what do we make of Ruby vs. Oscar in Volume 5? That’s almost the exact same setup, with two teammates fighting one another, one of whom is new and hasn’t formed a solid bond, in front of an audience, with an instructor — Ozpin — evaluating their performance. Do we honestly believe that because Ruby got frustrated for a hot second that any care she had towards Oscar evaporated?

Is Team CRDL incapable of fighting beside Pyrrha in the Battle of Beacon because she absolutely kicked their ass in class? Does Weiss grow to hate Winter because she beat her during training? Of course not.  There is something to be said for an institution that constantly pits teammates against each other in a manner that interferes with the ability to form those bonds… but this isn’t it. This is a single exercise for students who are currently shocked that they’d ever need to fight solo/without a weapon, so they clearly need the lesson, yet their reactions are extreme. Coco yelling, Scarlet muttering about how bad this is, both of them praising Arslan like she stood up against an actual attack on Velvet — “Good for you, Arslan,” Coco whispered. Now there’s a leader for you, Scarlet thought. — and Yatsuhashi is going so far as to stand in front of Velvet to protect her. They’re all acting like Rumpole told them to engage in a death match, not do the exact thing they’ve come to this school for: learn how to fight.

So yeah, that all is exceptionally weird imo and feeds into the general sense that Rumpole is the supposed to be the bad guy here, but it’s not done persuasively. She’s oh so evilly making them fight one another, evilly smiling about it, evilly telling Coco that that’s enough… though none of this is actually, you know, evil. The closest we get is a moment when Rumpole “haughtily” says that “In the heat of battle, a weak teammate can be worse than the most powerful enemy,” which frankly comes out of nowhere given that she’s responding to Arslan’s criticism of the test as the whole. If you say, ‘We shouldn’t fight other because we need to learn to work together’ and your teacher responds with ‘Weak teammates are more dangerous than your enemy,’ that’s very nearly a non sequitur. Yeah, the general subjects of teammates and fighting are the same, but otherwise these points seem to belong to different conversations. What Rumpole says in the context she says it is nearly nonsensical and serves only to make her look cruel. She tosses out a startling truth unprompted, leaving the reader going, “Wow! Rumpole is awful!” unless they’re inclined to consider whether any of that makes sense.

That moment with Coco did catch my attention though, simply because we’re told that Rumpole’s eyes flashed and then Coco gasped, cluing Scarlet into the fact that she’s not as “unshakable as she usually let on.” That’s another extreme reaction to a tame event, as well as the second time this chapter that we’ve heard about Rumpole’s flashing eyes, the first occurring in the flashback when she was displeased with Sun. So perhaps it’s something involving her Semblance? I’d look it up, but I kind of what to be surprised in the next 173 pages. Got to find things to look forward to in all this lol. 

One the group realizes that they do actually have to fight one another (the horror) Velvet and Nebula give up their weapons. As expected, Nebula jokes about how she hasn’t lost anything, “What good’s a camera in a fight, anyway?” which produces applause from other Shade students. Right, because Velvet got into a top academy and survived the Fall of Beacon without a weapon. I’m not sure if this is just bullying for the sake of bullying, outside the bounds of logic, or if these students, living in their magic-infused, crazy tech world, legitimately can’t reach the conclusion that Velvet uses photos as a weapon, even if they can’t figure out how. Either way, it’s not endearing, but at least this time my reaction aligns with what the text is aiming for. Rumpole tells them to “Save it for the arena” with “a hard edge in her voice,” but of course no one comments on when she sticks up for Velvet. Asking her to complete a simple exercise results in fury, but telling her own students to leave the newcomer alone results in silence. Seems about right.

The fight finally begins and it’s a tad underwhelming. There’s nothing specifically wrong with it—nothing that stands out on first read through anyway—it just not a particularly compelling action sequence. Any interesting tidbits are seen in the dialogue instead. Nebula continually establishes herself as another Mean Girl character, taunting Velvet with how she’s “been wanting to do this for a while” and how “fun” it is to fight her. The spectators, specifically Scarlet and Coco, comment on how Velvet is able to use her semblance outside of the hard light weaponry. Here, she draws on moves from “Pyrrha Nikos, Yang Xiao Long, and even Sun.”

Pyrrha 😭😭😭😭

Why the “even” though? 😒

Coco summarizes her style by saying that “Velvet may fight like a lot of different people, but no one else fights like Velvet.” I quite like that. Velvet is a living embodiment of being more than just the sum of your parts.

As the fight continues Nebula’s taunts grow more vicious, saying that she is better than Velvet because “We left Beacon because we knew it was a lost cause.” Beyond that just being a horrific thing to say, I want to ward off any potential comparisons between our Volume 7 conflict and this statement. RWBY might be trying to draw a parallel between the mean student who would abandon her school and the villainous general who would abandon his city (depending on how my Myers knew about upcoming plotlines), but there’s a huge difference between fighting a grimm army and fighting Salem herself with a grimm army. Velvet and the others were absolutely correct to fight for Beacon because they had a shot at taking it back. A slim one, but a shot nonetheless. Volume 7 provided none of that in regards to Team RWBY’s stance.

This remark does its job though and soon after Velvet becomes stuck in the sand, distracted and upset. Rumpole goes full Mean Teacher then, telling them to keep going. In fact, she quickly becomes the only mean person in the room because the formerly feuding teams are all banding together in Velvet’s defense and even Nebula randomly demonstrates honor—

(sorry I had to)—in how she approaches Velvet now: “[she] reached a hand down to help Velvet up.” Rumpole is clearly meant to be the enemy here, uniting friends, bullies, and even Sunnybrook too. Thing is, it’s once again not that bad? I’m not going to pretend that she isn’t harsh. Too harsh for a normal school? Absolutely. Too harsh for a combat school where these students are learning how to defend themselves from monsters and murderers during a war? Ehhh. Rumpole says that Velvet “beat herself” because “You don’t stop fighting until you can’t fight anymore.” That’s true. Within the context of a school exercise where everyone knows they’re safe and can stop the battle at any moment, it feels finished when Velvet gets stuck, but an actual life or death fight? Do we really think Velvet would stop trying to defend herself, passively staring up at her attacker while they do whatever they please with her? Of course not. She’d either find a way out or she’d go down fighting. You’re telling me that students who frequently break apart stone or, in Ruby’s case, blast through steel doors specifically meant to keep people inside can’t punch downwards and free themselves from some sand? Are the pieces of either of their weapons anywhere within reach? Can Velvet trick her attacker, pretending to be down for the count and then lashing out when she gets close? At the very least, as we saw with Sun’s first encounter this novel, can she talk enough to buy herself time until others arrive to help. Obviously there’s no arriving in this structured exercise, but the point is to try. Rumpole is telling them not to stop trying — to treat this exercise seriously (which they haven’t done from the start) — and they’re throwing back that challenging Velvet to get creative is too mean? In the same way that the students shouldn’t be pit against each other 24/7, they shouldn’t be pushed to their limit 24/7 either… but for once class? One lesson? When they know an attack is on the way and have already watched people die?

See, this is why I can’t take this cast seriously as the leaders of this war. When we’ve got scenes like this the characterization — whether intentional or not — is that they’re not nearly as devoted to their and others’ safety as they should be. Such characterization is fine when one group isn’t conducting a secret investigation, the other hasn’t been given licenses early, and both haven’t been through a battle that cost them the lives of numerous friends. But when they have experienced all these things, you have to wonder what they’re doing complaining about a teacher who says, ‘Hey, don’t just roll over and accept defeat.’ 

Eventually Coco, Yatsuhashi, Fox, and Arslan step in front of Velvet to keep the fight from continuing. Yatsuhashi pulls her from the sand and when free “she pushed his hands away.” That’s the other thing: no one seems interested in what Velvet wants. They all speak for her in deciding that she can’t and shouldn’t fight anymore.

As a suggested change, I would have liked this so much more if we have the group uncomfortable with the fight continuing, Velvet insisting that she can keep going, and then she asks them for help. Rumpole never laid down a hard rule that this was a 1v1 fight. That’s the unspoken assumption, yeah, but she speaks far more about them not using their weapons. If Velvet had called for reinforcements, so to speak, and the group had dropped their weapons before entering the sandpit, it would have arguably just been an extension of what they learned in reinitiation: “The only rule is survival.” Allies are right here, why wouldn’t she use them? Friends of Nebula step forward to back her up, Rumpole puts a stop to things before it becomes an all out brawl, she compliments Velvet for bending the rules to her advantage, and reminds everyone that this is why it’s so important to learn to work with their new teams: they’re your lifeline so long as you have them. Honestly though, a RWBY story that doesn’t make everyone over 30 out to be a literal or personal villain? Unrealistic.

What Rumpole does instead is remind them that they have to be prepared for the worst and the unexpected to happen. They no longer have the excuse of “No one could have predicted that”: “We know a threat is out there. We know it’s coming to Vacuo. To not prepare for that eventuality would be irresponsible, dangerous, and naïve.” Exactly! Too bad no one else wants to think about that truth. Instead, Scarlet mentally criticizes her for the “cheap shot” and Coco waylays Sunnybrook to ask if she thinks Rumpole seems alright. Of course, Sunnybrook agrees that she’s being too hard on them. She’s “mean” now and “picking on” Velvet.

It astounds me that these characters are grieving over their murdered friends in one chapter and then going ‘You’re mean to challenge us in training :( ’ the next. Don’t any of them want to defend themselves the next time? Or avenge their lost peers? Whatever other faults RWBY has, I think they did right by Jaune and Ren by making the former (briefly) Cinder obsessed and the latter angry that they’re going to a party rather than training. Going too far in those directions obviously isn’t healthy, but neither is demonizing the instructor trying to keep everyone alive. It’s the same underlying problem as Ironwood’s antagonism in Volume 7: armies and threats of martial law are a problem when there isn’t a justified emergency for them. RWBY has, time and time again, given us that emergency in a variety of ways, so why do the characters act as if they’re living in our world where such measures are extreme? 

It’s a question I’ll never get an answer to, I’m sure. That’s where we leave the cast though, with Scarlet thinking about how “As long as they were here, every day was going to be a bad day in Vacuo.” Fantastically emo ending for this long and frustrating chapter. I am massively behind on my NaNoWriMo challenge thanks to normal RWBY Recaps, but this? This was a substantial boost. If you somehow made it to the end of all this please accept my virtual cookies. 

I’d share the actual gingersnaps I made if that were possible :(

Alright. I’ve kept you all here long enough. Until next time! 💜

[Ko-Fi]

[suometar]

Hi, weird anon here again :) Thank you so much for the kind words, you're really lovely :) And obviously I have more questions ;)

I think I get the sexual attraction now, thank you, although I have to say it still seems kinda fake ;P

In a way I can relate to the mental vs physical attraction, although neither makes me want to do anything sexual. There are some people I just find gorgeous and I like to look at them and that's it, and there are some that I'm interested in for some other reason and once I know them better I may also find them attractive. Like for example Tom - I'd seen him (and Loki) around on my dash many times and never looked twice at him until I watched the Avengers and Loki turned out to be so fascinating. And that's actually how 99% of my celebrity crushes happened lol, I fell for the characters first, actors second.

So, would you say that this mental thing could be like romantic attraction? The kind that makes you want to know the person better but not jump into bed with them right away? I can imagine how it works regarding a specific person, I've read enough fanfiction for that, but how the heck do I determine which gender in general am I romantically attracted to? I can find both men and women beautiful but that alone is not attraction, right? Do other people even differentiate the two or do the sexual and romantic attraction go neatly together?

Hi!

Worry not, you're not weird at all here in my blog! I'm anything but normal myself 😄 Besides, normal is way overrated imo!

And thank you 🙂 I'm always kind to everyone who's being nice at me - what goes around comes around.

Haha, you just have to trust me on that sexual attraction is a very real thing 😂

Same goes for me too with celeb crushes, it's always the role/music/work first, then the person behind it. Well, that's probably kinda obvious, we wouldn't know them otherwise at all.

I think romantic attraction is a good term for the mental attraction I mentioned. Yes, it is exactly like that, wanting to get to know the person better first before getting into more intimate interactions. But it doesn't always evolve into sexual attraction either. You just might find the person interesting on mental level and rather have a friendship with them than anything else. Sometimes it's unfortunately the only option you have too - and sometimes it's a mutual decision even though you both are sexually attracted to each other. I have a bittersweet experience on the later.

No, just finding someone beautiful isn't actual attraction in my opinion. I can for example clearly see that Chris Evans is gorgeous but that's it. He doesn't ring any of my bells. At all. Or basically any female celebs either. Nothing happens when I see them even though I see many of them as being beautiful.

I think most people do differentiate the two, or at least they should know the difference. It's then again another thing if they can tell the difference or if they have the self-awareness to recognise which one they're feeling. Because those two can be tricky to tell apart if you lack that. Especially bc we're usually wired on the sexual way first and it overrides the mental attraction at least in the beginning.

Feeling sexual attraction does make it easier to figure out what gender you prefer.

Then again as I'm bisexual and have always been I honestly don't know how that really works with people who have a preference on gender. While I can differentiate the ways I'm attracted to men and women very distinctively, in real life, with real flesh and blood people, gender doesn't really play a significant role to me when it comes to attraction. It's one thing to get attracted to a bypasser but when I'm serious about any relationship I always get to know the person first and then if I get attracted to them, it's because who they are, what they think, what they value and so on. I'm always drawn in by the brain, so I'm clearly a sapiosexual as well :D Gender is only a part of the equation to me and not a very important one at that.

What I then project online is exactly bc of the sexual attraction I have towards men, so I might appear not bi. But as usual, what you see online about someone isn't everything.

I could imagine that if you had a preference you'd find an idea of having sexual relations with the other gender(s) somewhat uncomfortable maybe? Like for example to a hetero man even the idea of having a sexual relationship with another man wouldn't definitely feel good at all, it would be repulsive in fact, and that then clearly underlines what their preference is.

That said, I get it that if you're indeed asexual there's not even that to help you.

Maybe you have already thought of these but to me two questions come to mind that might help at least to some extent:

Do you find it uncomfortable thought if you didn't have a specific preference on the gender of the person you're attracted to? And is gender or the looks in fact at all a reason for you being attracted to someone? That it might be totally something else instead, like who that person is as a human being?

I don't think that sexual attraction is at all required at first, as I experience it that way irl. That maybe it's just that you don't feel attraction by looks at all and you too get attracted by the mental side. Which could explain that you see and recognise beautiful people but don't get attracted to them.

Obviously, these are just my views based on what you've told me, so don't take it as the ultimate truth 🙂

Like I said, to me it has always been clear what my orientation is and I'm not familiar with really figuring out this particular thing. But I'm always in for helping others figure it out the best I can! I have gone through extensive self-exploration but that has been to work through childhood trauma and grow away from that which is probably a bit different - but I do know what it's like figuring out stuff for sure.

[zhanxixis]

Can someone explain me what was the situation with jian yi family , brother qiu and he cheng I already forgot all the story and I’m so lost T_T

first, I’d like to apologize for how late I am in answering this.. I know this ask has been sitting in my inbox since the last 19 days update but I wanted to be able to answer as thoroughly as I possibly could, plus I had to find the time. also, you forgot all of the storyline regarding jian yi’s family situation? *chokes*~ I mean I’ll take that as an exaggeration but my heart couldn’t live with it if you were serious, it would just keep me awake at night lol. okay, I’m going to try and answer this as shortly as I possibly can although I feel like this answer will still end up being quite a long one since, as I said earlier, I’m going to try to be as thorough as possible. (>﹏

I will provide a shortened version in bullet points at the bottom if that is preferable so you can just skip ahead if you want. 

when jian yi was just a baby, he was abandoned by his father which is shown in chapter 105. in the panels, shown in chapter 105, there are a few ways in which old xian employs elements of a somber mood and a sense of dark tension in the scene of jian yi’s father leaving him and his mother; the lack of a background, black speech bubbles that are vacant, the almost hyper focused imagery on the blood that covers jian yi’s father, ms. jian being shown tightly clutching a baby jian yi while visibly upset/crying — it gives an empty, dark, strained atmosphere while juxtaposed with a somber, almost loving mood from mr. jian’s last moments with his son and wife as mr. jian is actually shown to be tender with them - he clasps ms. jian’s face, gives her a kiss, and gently strokes his son’s head lovingly. the sense of dark tension seems to help assist readers in inferring that jian yi’s mother and father were possibly arguing before he left, most likely arguing about him leaving, and that he left in the middle of something dangerous happening in their lives given him being covered in blood; while the somber, semi-loving mood hints at the notion that it’s possible he didn’t really want to leave them and it was a tough decision for him to make. **also, this is one of two times old xian actually reveals some parts of what jian yi’s father looks like: tall, lean, medium grey/ash blonde hair, with a little bit of a stubble on his chin. the second time we see him is in chapter 136, where jian yi has a dream of his father pushing him and causing him to fall off this sort of hill/cliff, which may suggest that jian yi feels a bit of fear towards his father.

as jian yi grew older, his mother wasn’t around very often; jian yi never got to see her involved in his life very much so he was constantly being taken care of by a nanny. from chapter 193, it appears one of the reasons she wasn’t around very often was because of work (her occupation is unknown). as a result of neither his parents really being in his life, jian yi begins to feel very lonely, unloved, and gains abandonment issues. (panels below from chapters 97, 193)

and the feeling of being lonely, unloved, and having issues with abandonment is something he still feels and deals with currently even as he is older (below are panels from chapter 192 & 235 for example, although there are countless other times it is shown throughout the story).

now we enter the middle school days: chapter 167 is where we first see he cheng and qiu’s character, along with several other underlings, try and kidnap jian yi. they’ve come to take jian yi without discussing any reasons why and without giving any prior warning to ms. jian nor asking for her permission; they simply follow the order they’ve received from their boss to take him. it is clear he cheng is speaking to his boss as he is displayed speaking in a respectful, formal tone with common phrases one would say to their leader in an organized gang such as “we’ve already found him” and “understood”. it is then revealed in chapter 168 that their boss is jian yi’s father when he cheng hands ms. jian the phone and the phone’s caller i.d. says “mr. jian” (so yes jian yi’s father is the one who ordered them to take jian yi, again the reasoning still being unclear at this point in the storyline - it will become more clear later). jian yi’s mother is shown angry, yet composed and fearless in front of massive men clearly from an organized gang — this could be because she immediately knew that it was mr. jian’s people / was able to differentiate that they are not from a different mafia group, having had some experience in seeing some of mr. jian’s mafia lifestyle firsthand while they were together before he left; whereas a natural reaction from a normal person, ‘normal’ as in someone unaware of who this gang was or who has not been submersed in that particular lifestyle, would be to react more shocked, hysterical, and scared of who these people might be. she is very curt and direct with them, immediately ordering he cheng to hand over the phone and he cheng listens to her without resistance. 

from the conversation jian yi’s mother has on the phone with mr. jian, it is implied that jian yi’s mother and father have a estranged and complicated relationship. it is shown in chapter 168, that they are in disagreement with each other when it concerns jian yi from the time he cheng and qiu tried to take jian yi the first time. ms. jian tells mr. jian on the phone to order his underlings to leave, and she also reminds him of a conversation they once had in the past saying “I hope you still remember the promise you once made. no matter the reason, you will not..” but then it gets cut off. however, it seems to be implied that jian yi’s father had made some sort of promise in the past to leave jian yi alone when it comes to his mafia business; so while jian yi’s mother seems to want jian yi to stay as far away as possible from anything to do with the mafia, jian yi’s father has a specific reason (unknown at this point) he is involving him with it — essentially breaking that promise. 

after the conversation jian yi’s father and mother have on the phone, things between them seemed to be put to cease fire and the underlings let jian yi go and leave. however, only a few days later jian yi is taken for the first time (for real this time) by an older unnamed man in chapter 192. while held hostage, jian yi speculates reasons as to why this man captured him and keeps him as a prisoner; however, when jian yi brings up the topic of money, the older man quickly shuts that possibility down saying he wasn’t doing it for money, which only just terrifies jian yi into thinking he is after something worse. while jian yi thinks of other possible intentions this man may have for kidnapping him, he comes to the conclusion that one of the reasons could possibly be because the man wants to threaten his mother (and although this is not the reason as he cheng later says “his only motive is to meet sir [jian yi’s father]” in chapter 195). this scene is important in that it shows how jian yi feels towards his mother: that no matter how often jian yi feels lonely and abandoned by her, it hasn’t caused him to hate her full-heartedly or anything like that — in fact the phrase, “I can’t let him succeed”, that crosses jian yi’s mind when he thinks of the older man threatening or harming his mother shows he still loves her and cares for her well being greatly.

there is also another scene which feels important to mention because it reveals a bit more about ms. jian yi’s character and that is a scene in chapter 193: jian yi’s mother thinks back to the time she took jian yi to kindergarten and he asked her to stay but she told him she couldn’t (these panels can be seen near the top of the post where I mention how she is not around often) — when she remembers this, she actually begins crying, which old xian shows to demonstrate her love for jian yi and her feelings of regret for not being there for jian yi enough throughout his life. after this, she gains a look of determination on her face and meets up with he cheng and the rest of mr. jian’s underlings; when she sees them she immediately expresses her upset by the situation and remarks that she doesn’t really give a shit what they do in their line of business as long as it leaves jian yi out of it. she also mentions “I’ve been running for so many years, but I still can’t escapes from events like this” which I feel is pretty direct and doesn’t need much explaining but just in case – she has clearly been involved in dangerous events surrounding the mafia before (most likely when she and mr. jian were together) and tries to avoid that type of conflict as much as possible ever since jian yi came into their life. he cheng lets her know that in response to jian yi’s kidnapping, his father immediately sent out people to go save his son and ‘already reminded’ them to make sure jian yi comes back unharmed.

as said earlier, jian yi’s father sends his underlings to save jian yi, and qiu is the main one who goes out to do the rescue. jian yi manages to find a hole to escape from, qiu finds him and tries to help him leave while they are being shot at. the lack of care the older man gives as he erratically and desperately shoots at them to prevent them from getting away shows this man has no qualms regarding jian yi’s life ~he doesn’t care if he is harmed or killed by any of the bullets being shot off. jian yi and qiu manage to get away and while qiu hands off a weak, faint jian yi to another guard, he orders him to take jian yi to “safety”. jian yi is finally safe and he is reunited with his mother (he was gone for two days), she takes him home and leaves that afternoon “out of town”.

after jian yi’s mother leaves town, she doesn’t come back for quite a number of days which jian yi begins to complain about in chapter 235. within this same chapter is where we first learn qiu’s name when he goes to deliver a bag of lots, like a ridiculously large sum, of money to jian yi. when jian yi calls him ‘big guy’, he becomes annoyed and tells him to call him ‘brother qiu’; do not to be confused with the word ‘brother’ — qiu and jian yi are not related/family, but in chinese culture, referring to someone older as “brother” gives a sense of respect to your elders. qiu tells jian yi his mother won’t be back soon, and answers a short but quick series of rapid fire questions from jian yi without really expanding or giving much explanation to them; he is not his mother’s boyfriend, nor is his boss pursuing his mother, and the money is for him to do as he pleases since his mother will be away for a while — basically its money to take care of himself.

after this chapter, old xian begins hinting some more about qiu (he cheng and the rest of mr. jian’s underlings) being jian yi’s bodyguard as the next day qiu is seen waiting out front of where jian yi lives as if to keep watch over him and make sure he is safe; he also mentions to he cheng that he hates ‘this assignment’ (being that of watching over jian yi) because he finds himself doing other favors for jian yi besides protecting him, such as taking jian yi to school when he is late as it makes him feel like a ‘maid’, which bothers him especially when his only responsibilities are to watch over him, make sure he is safe, and protect him when it is needed. however, he cheng reminds qiu to simply deal with it as ‘the situation has become tense”, the situation likely being one where someone is out looking for jian yi to harm or kill him which is essentially confirmed when qiu reacts quickly by shielding jian yi when he thinks someone is trying to shoot jian yi in his house, says its no longer safe there, and says in chapter 279 that he — as well as the other underlings — are getting paid to protect jian yi because someone is out to hurt him. 

this leads us back to the current chapter, where it has been clear for a while now that someone (unknown to us for now ~it could be the older man from before, could not be etc.) found out that jian yi is mr. jian’s son and now they want to harm jian yi. it is slightly suggestive that it could be to get to (or maybe ‘at’, as in revenge) his father but nothing has been confirmed yet. because of the rising danger surrounding jian yi, he will now be temporarily staying somewhere else that is considered safer for him in the meantime, and his mother will be meeting him there soon. she most likely knows more about what is going on and it is likely the reason for why she was away from home without any contact for so long as well.

eventually, (keep in mind this will happen later on in the story, it hasn’t happened yet and won’t for some time as jian yi is still in middle school) jian yi will disappear on the 2nd day of high school and he will be gone for about 3 years and come back when zhan zheng xi is a freshman in college.

so to shorten it up:

mr. jian is the boss of a mafia group

mr. jian and ms. jian were in disagreements with what to do with jian yi regarding his life/childhood. they’re estranged.

neither jian yi’s father or mother participated much in jian yi’s life. because of this jian yi seems to feel detached (and maybe a little bit of fear based on his dream) from his father who completely abandoned him, and has complicated feelings towards his mother because although she didn’t fully abandon him like his father and he loves and cares for her greatly, he is still frustrated by her lack of presence in his life often and how lonely it has made him.

there is someone, unknown, who is after jian yi and they want to harm and possibly kill him. mr. jian has sent underlings to protect him and they have taken him somewhere else to live (temporarily). 

he cheng and qiu’s connection to jian yi’s family is in no way a personal one but a business one in that they are currently underlings who work for mr. jian’s (jian yi’s father) mafia group and have been ordered to protect jian yi. 

I probably could’ve just shortened it to only those bullet points but I felt in order for you to get the overall idea and understanding of what was happening with his family’s situation and how he cheng and brother qiu are connected to it, I had to expand on who, why, what, etc… I also included stuff like how they feel towards each other as a family ~like how jian yi feels towards his parents / what they feel (or may feel in his father’s case) towards jian yi because I feel like that’s also part of knowing his family’s situation (not just the kidnapping or protecting stuff). hopefully this was a pretty decent refresher. I am sorry if there are any typos.

[quacinema]

On The Dreamers In Toy Story 4, Buzz Lightyear finds his “inner voice” in the buttons on his chest which when pressed relay different catchphrases or soundbites that he can immediately act upon. Thus there is an axiomatic quality to his decisions and the inner voice is seen as outside you - you can press the button but the phrase is not chosen. The father’s inner voice in the movie is clearly his GPS. Either way, toys and humans have both inner and outer voices, they model the world, autonomously. The game of giving and asking for reasons begins not only with other self-conscious beings but with regards to oneself and how one interacts with the call of the repeatable inner voice that is modeled on one’s outer voice. One can realize there is no difference when Andy voices Buzz or when Andy voices himself and becomes his own toy.

“Name a film.. / Which film?” Any action or saying, or saying as a doing, has a possibility of already being in a film, which is to say repeatable, and possible to treat as an axiom that can be launched in any situation, without any regard to the situation itself, like Buzz pressing his own button. Is there a point where we need new inner voices, new buttons? Of course, the inner voice in this regard can be wrong for the situation it appears in, but that may mean reality is wrong, the idea is right, and the button should simply be pressed again in a different situation. But is there anything worth repeating in French cinephilia’s love for American pictures, or Americans caught in this same French projection of themselves? As Andrew Tracy once noted, on an artistic level it is clear that there are not many masterpieces in American movies, only some great moments, often crushed by some exterior or interior compromise, a lack or difficulty in differentiating inner and outer voices.

Cinema, an art that appeared to have some sort of prelapsarian relation to reality, in fact bars itself from reality by such an assumption of fusion. In fact, Matthew and Isabelle learn more about what is going on in the street by briefly catching it on TV. No amount of film watching “all of a sudden” links up with reality, there is nothing in the films themselves that can tell you anything. If one believes the sophistry that there is no difference between critiquing and making a movie, and that there is no difference between movie and reality, you end up in a suicidal position of gassing your living room while dreaming of Bresson. (This is also something one may unfortunately claim of Ossos.)

Godard’s critique of American cinema is as crucial to his System as Plato’s critique of democracy is to his own. It is a recipe that can be updated but it is not to be simply jettisoned because it is opposed to liberal tastes. It has recently been argued that today’s “opium of the people” is both “the people” in the sense of populism, and “opium” itself, and one can easily tie this to the notion of a Hollywood (”independent”, “foreign”, or otherwise) narrative that’s “for the people”, or else we have the fragmentation of someone like Philippe Garrel to stand for the position of “opium”. If today’s pornography is often crowdsourced, where comments and data trails allow a company to create their scripts that directly copy consumer desires, and the actors do not know their lines or know any details until they get to the set, then it should be clear that if the production of Last Tango in Paris was critiqued for last minute script changes or withheld details in pursuance of a dated idea of “getting into character” and “surprise” from the actors, today it is absolutely normalized, and instead given a “democratic” spin, our ultimate fetish. Either way, “story” appears from the American standpoint to be the only way to model our reality, especially if, in this particular example, the sex remains more or less the same, the narrative being an excess that does nothing but give us the seed to live the most stupid Aristotelian lives. And again I’m not arguing for opium-based fragmentation to mimic one’s sense-experience, nor am I claiming we should fight narrative because it is a “totalizing practice” or that totalization is already evil and totalitarian - instead it’s that both forms of story are not abstract enough to hold any traction in thinking either politics, sex, or art today.

The cinephilic mistake is not in the fact that the films they imitate in their daily life are too far removed from “lived experience” and have no relation to their social reality- in fact, this is the strength of cinema. If the highest levels of imagination could be recalled at the press of a button on one’s chest when one needs a sort of compass then this would be one of the better uses of movies. For in fact, there is nothing more impoverished than “lived experience”, whether it’s a conservative claiming that superhero movies are bad because they don’t mean anything to our real lives, or whether it’s some sort of liberal-leftist who demands more stories told in first person by those who are historically excluded and yet in the very form will take moves from world cinema and yet claim any litany of reasons why universalism doesn’t exist and particularity is all that matters. But other systems can be imagined - if a new form is invented, outside of either opium or people, the link of being able to ‘live’ a movie can be closer to realizing philosophy ‘in practice’. That is, today and yesterday’s ‘cinema’ is too close to so-called ‘real life’ to be worthy of imitation.

Kelley rightly claimed the movie allows us to think the crucial difference between siblings and comrades, and such a confusion can lead to what Zoohky called those “who want to enjoy art but not make it, enjoy the catharsis of protests but not do the work of politics [...] what u may think is sexual exploration, may in fact be the repression of it; what u may think is political engagement, may in fact be the repression of it; what u may think is artistic celebration, may in fact be the repression of a formal event by which the world could be reshaped forever.” Despite the insularity of the movie’s characters, there’s something worth holding onto that is implicit in the film's locale: simply being American does not give you special insight into American movies, and the experience of French-Maoism is not simply a call to a return of only understanding politics from one’s own local standpoint. But this also goes for the French experience of May ‘68 - they may not be the best people to inquire about its political consequences and bequeathals. We are comrades of Ideas, and not merely an Idea’s sibling.

The brick that comes through the window saves the three children by waking them up and ultimately allowing them to live, but it also allows them to keep dreaming that they have any relation to a real historical movement that isn’t mere incest and trivia. In that sense the breaking of the window may be a dream sequence on par with 1900′s ending of De Niro and Depardieu rolling around comically fighting until the end of history.

[goldenkamuyhunting]

Hi i love your metas. I am now get worried that Tsurumi is a sociopath but he, Ogata are spies so hard to understand. I always think Ogata has BPD bcoz he is like this person and normal for a man. But author sometime writes him only for making plot twists. Sorry for bad english.

Thank you, I’m really glad you love my meta!

Don’t worry about your English as I’ve said many times English is not my mothertongue either.

Now, in regard to your ask and personality disorders let’s put some order in this as I’ve noticed there’s quite a lot of interest for this topic.

First of all rarely characters from works of fiction have accurate personality disorders. The best they can have is the trope version of that personality disorder, unless they’re stories dealing either with real life people or written by someone competent or that researched a lot into the topic as writing realistically someone with a personality disorder isn’t easy at all.

Also, more often than not they go for the extreme version of the personality disorder as the tame version wouldn’t be worth the effort.

That’s why instead than using my studies in psychology I fish up the trope descriptions for personality disorders and use them. It’s not just simpler but also more fitting considering the subjects at hands.

It’s also worth to note way too many authors aren’t trying to represent a personality disorder... with the result it becomes impossible to fit a character in that personality disorder because any resemblance is coincidental and the character simply isn’t meant to have it.

Long story short, I don’t think Noda had a particular disorder in mind for Ogata otherwise he would give him much more obvious syntoms.

Noda, instead than giving disorders to his characters, seems more focused in giving them traumatic experiences and maladaptative copying mechanisms giving them ambiguous disorders without really having to dig too much into them so as to make them accurate.

The only disorder Noda seems to refer at, albeit vaguely, in his manga, is the post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as most of the cast is composed by war veterans who might be esperiencing it one way or another (well, actually in real life not everyone experience it but in fiction it either doesn’t exist or everyone experiences various deegress of it and becomes a Shell-Shocked Veteran).

The good part of having so many cast members who are probably experiencing this is that in order to keep characterizations different, each of them experiences it differently, giving the whole thing a tinge of realism instead than a flat aderence to a trope.

Of course this too can be Noda merely referring to a trauma and to the maladaptative copying mechanisms derived by it, without Noda really planning to dig too deep into the disorder’s condition.

Sugimoto, after all, isn’t really qualified to give a diagnosis for himself and the others and it’s worth to note part of the people he’s thinking at had pre-existing traumas.

Long story short, even if post-traumatic stress disorder seems a safe bet, we can’t really be sure about it.

Anyway, let’s give a look at the two disorders you mentioned.

Antisocial personality disorder (ASPD or APD) and Borderline personality disorder (BPD) don’t quite have a referencing trope as far as I know.

It can be because to people who aren’t really into personality disorders antisocial personality disorder closely resembles sociopathy and psychopathy and borderline personality disorder resembles post-traumatic stress disorder so media didn’t feel like digging into the distinctions.

Or maybe they just aren’t mainstream enough.

This of course lowers the chances Noda thought at them as well.

Anyway, Antisocial personality disorder.

I’ll just pick the main defining traits from tv trope again because they feel what an author would use more than the defining traits from a psychology book... even though since I’ve already said Ogata didn’t fit the sociopath trope, this might feel redundant.

Antisocials will simply take what they need or want, and don't think of anybody as a friend; everybody is a tool.

While Ogata has no friends, not everybody is a tool to him as, as I mentioned discussing the sociopath and the narcissist tropes, he went out of his way to spare Huci, help Nikaido, spare Shinpei and even comforted Koito.

They have a reputation for rationalizing acts most would consider dog kicking, in the process shaming their accuser for standing up for themselves. Contrition and remorse are tools for getting what they want and nothing more; if they think or know that they can win their way back into someone's good graces by appearing to want to atone for their actions, they will, only to revert to their old ways the minute that they have succeeded.

Ogata never tries to atone for his own actions... but I’ve already discussed how he clearly feels guilty for Yuusaku’s death.

They are also notoriously prone to violent and aggressive behavior and will frequently seek revenge after a setback, and their general inability to experience guilt or appreciate consequences means that they are unlikely to view punishment as anything other than an undeserved injustice, something to bullshit their way out of, or as a score to settle.

Ogata, being the trope of the cold sniper isn’t really prone to violent and aggressive behaviour. Sure, he used scissors against Ejiri Matasuke, but that’s probably the only time Ogata did used physical violence against someone without being in need of it (kicking Koito to render him unconscious is tactical, not gratuitous violence).

He didn’t kick Asirpa when she tried to reach for the arrows nor beat Koito after he was immobilized to take revenge for Koito hitting his nose with his head.

In a time period in which people are actually very violent (look at the Nikaido brothers beating Sugimoto up or at Sugimoto threatening Shiraishi or even at him and Kiro beating the guys who were trying to rob them), Ogata is comparatively very calm and cold.

More traditional methods of teaching empathy are generally held to be useless with antisocials, as they typically just learn how to be better manipulators.

Again, I’ve talked already about how Ogata fails as a manipulator.

(They) have no qualms of violating established rules or disproving widely held theories.

This can be perceived as fitting... but it actually fit all the cast. No one is really following the law in the gold hunt, it’s a pre-requisite to take part to the gold hunt itself and again just a trait wouldn’t be enough to.

Long story short, no I don’t think Noda had this in mind when he created Ogata.

Borderline personality disorder now.

I’ll skip all the elements it has in common with post-traumatic stress disorder... as this can be a disorder in Golden Kamuy.

So... defining traits that differentiate it from post-traumatic stress disorder are: frantic fear of abandonment, unstable and intense relationships, impulsiveness and inconsistent image of self.

None of this really fits Ogata.

He is an abandoned child, true, but while he likely would have preferred for Asirpa not to leave him, he didn’t show a ‘frantic fear of being abandoned’ by her.

His relationships aren’t intense or they wouldn’t fit with the trope of cold sniper.

Ogata isn’t consistently impulsive, he’s a risk taker, true, but he usually plans things first when possible and hardly acts on impulse.

Regarding Ogata’s image of self he knows very well how good he is as a sniper... but also how little worth he had in his father’s eyes.

Long story short I don’t think Ogata was meant to have this one disorder either.

Again it’s just me.

If the Golden Kamuy characters were real life people to make a diagnosis about what they might suffer would be a lot more complicate than just checking a checklist. As they’re just characters, we should expect them to have just the defining traits to the disease, the ones that would eventually create a trope.

Still, if you want, you might consider reading @chibivesicle‘s post which actually considered the chance of Ogata having borderline personality disorder per the NIH as @chibivesicle diggest into this not from the trope side but from the psychological side.

Now... can Tsurumi be a sociopath?

Skipping I don’t think Noda had in mind specific diseases for his characters, Tsurumi is much more complicate than Ogata to analyze because we hardly have any introspection for him... and since he’s meant to fit the trope of chessmaster and manipulative bastard we hardly see him in contests in which he can be himself still... let’s try.

Mind you, this time I’m going to report only the main points and not the descriptions.

1) Lack of Empathy and Devoid of Conscience

As I said there are little to no introspection scenes with Tsurumi so we can’t really say if his actions are due to how he feels or due to the image he has to project outside to play out his role of chessmaster and manipulative bastard to judge.

However the fact he tries to send away Fina and Olga...

...and seemed to genuinely suffer for their dead

since he remained with Fina until she died, holding her hand and even told her his true name, showed affection for Olga...

...and even set them down to rest together before leaving...

... make me think in those moments he was showing empathy and coscience otherwise he would have had no reasons to waste his time with them once Kiro and Co were out of sign.

Also although it would have been easy for him to persuade his men to get rid of the lightnight bandit and O-gin, he spared him and even entrusted him to Huci alongw ith some money wrapped in his parents’ clothes so he would even have mementos of them.

2) Consummate Liar and Manipulator.

As said before Tsurumi fits the tropes of chessmaster and manipulative bastard so of course he’s a consummate liar and manipulator, the best in the whole Golden Kamuy were everyone lies and way too many have tried manipulating someone.

The problem comes from the fact this isn’t an enduring maladaptative behaviour which characterize a personality disorder but a set of skills he had to learn to be an effective spy and that now is using to reach his goal. As we’ve no info on Tsurumi PRIOR to him becoming a spy, we can’t know if he’s just someone with enduring maladaptative behaviours which he’s using to do his job or if those are merely acquired skills.

3) Pathological Need for Stimulation.

I wouldn’t say Tsurumi is doing all this for the thrill, even if there are moments in which he seems to relish on the thrill. We also have no info about him viewing his existence as boring or meaningless.

Tsurumi seems to have a clear goal in mind, and all this doesn’t seem just an excuse to have fun.

4) Shallow Affect and Complete Lack of Emotional Reciprocity.

Again he seemed to care for Fina and Olga but, due to the situation, it’s hard to say how much. He might care/might have cared for others, like Tsukishima, but again, his plans get in the way and with the lack of internal dialogue we can’t really tell, just speculate.

5) Grandiose Sense of Self-Worth.

I can’t remember Tsurumi babbling at how clever he is but since he wants to become the new Hokkaido dictator I guess he could have some.

To sum it up.

Info on Tsurumi are vague and, due to the tropes he represents and the lack of inner info or past info about him, we can’t really sort him well.

Tsurumi has very little evidence going again the idea he’s not a sociopath (never mentioning Noda even had fun compating him to hitler or a demon) and actually, considering other factors people could very well buy he’s one.

Is that the case?

Actually I still think we miss pieces of his past that we should know before judging him... and I’m not sure Noda aimed to represent personality disorders and, in this case, the resemblance with one is ‘coincidental’, the result of Tsurumi being an antagonist as well as Noda wanting to use the chessmaster and manipulative bastard tropes, and not to a genuine effort to portray a personality disorder... but again, maybe I only saw the tip of the iceberg.

Still, it's worth to note I think if he wanted us to buy he's a sociopath he would have given us absolutely 0 evidence he could not be one and instead he gave us 2 moments that seem to deny it and much more evidence he's one when there are actually some parts for which we've no evidence.

In short Tsurumi I understand how people can thinks Tsurumi can be a sociopath... but his resemblance to the Sociopath trope can very well be coincidental due to the other tropes he represents and due to us missing some info. It’s hard to say FOR SURE as for now we've nowhere near enough elements to judge... and some elements seem to go against this theory.

Noda seemed to favour being vague so I think we can only wait and see.

Thank you for your ask and sorry if something in my reply was unclear but I had a pretty terrible week and now I’m mostly worn out. Sorry again!

[pelikinesis]

it could be mostly because of the 2020, but i don’t handle it particularly well when someone has to cancel D&D, which happens more often than i’d like. to clarify, i mean i feel bad in various ways, but i don’t lash out or anything.

i know that part of it is because it’s one of only a few outlets for socialization i have, and because the world is uncertain enough as it is. but i’m beginning to think there’s a bit more to it than that.

storytelling is kind of a big deal for me. understanding and creating narratives is probably the only skill i’ve been really focusing on for the past handful of years, and the more i think about it the more that makes sense. the narrative i had of myself was ripped to shreds awhile back, and ever since then i’ve been somewhere in between clinging to familiar narratives as if i could absorb their integrity of continuity, and trying to write one myself as if that accomplishment would give me the missing piece needed to work on my own life story.

the collaborative nature of D&D comes with its share of challenges, but whether as GM or player, there’s something relaxing in the fact that in session, i don’t have to create that narrative all by myself. i only need to contribute, by setting up the board or playing my part. and a narrative happens. a story happens, even if i’m not doing everything. and it happens the way it does precisely *because* i’m not doing everything.

maybe i’m upgrading my understanding of isolation and loneliness, what they are and how they affect people, particularly me. yet another chunk of the “(re)learning how to process emotions and recovering from numbness” thing. it’s amazing how many feelings are out there, which at some point early on i deemed i didn’t have the luxury of accepting. bewildering or overwhelming might be a more true adjective.

i kept something like a journal in the first year after julien died, and i’ve read through it here and there recently, in addition to finding the first and only letter i ever wrote my dad, shortly after he went to jail for trying to kill my mom. the letter reads like something a lawyer wrote. completely dispassionate and rational. the motivation was to demonstrate to his family that he was the one out of control, not us. a defense against dismissal and invalidation.

but even i’m surprised at how cold the whole thing is. i was so angry at what had happened i had to cut myself off from emotions or else i’d have done something completely crazy. and clearly i wasn’t fully aware i was doing it, and won’t be so long as i continue to downplay and minimize how hard it is to recover from that.

in regards to the journal, i was surprised to remember at some point i’d started breaking down the meaning of Japanese haiku, and Czech idioms, because i’m not particularly good at learning languages. at the time, i just thought i missed learning and wanted to occupy my mind with something, and didn’t bother thinking about why that in particular. it was as good a pastime as any, and that was the extent of my concern.

in hindsight, i was struggling with an absolute collapse of meaning. i understood human interaction and social realities through the lens of English, and neither of those things made sense to me anymore. so it makes a sort of sense i’d jump into the deep end of linguistic unfamiliarity. out there, it was impossible to take anything for granted. i had no choice, no risk of cutting corners on interpreting the meaning of every single word being said.

In English, i had the luxury of negligence, of carelessness. these were great sins of mine. that’s how i felt about it. but it was slow work. slow was reassuring, because i wouldn’t crash into anything, or anyone, or miss a turn i needed to make. 

but so long as i associate slowness with safety, and speed with danger, i will struggle with the motivation to believe and act in a way that allows me to keep up with the pace of modern life. i think some people resolve this conundrum by adopting a simple living kind of lifestyle, and i definitely see the appeal in that sense. 

but i’m pretty invested in the more normal speed of things, regardless of my current ability to keep pace with it. another way of looking at it, is that there’s a force opposing my natural desire to speed up. i’m not the most patient guy. when i’m snowboarding, i like going pretty fast. there are plenty of avenues in which i enjoy acceleration and velocity. i don’t lack the desire to accelerate my life. it’s just that trauma is a blockade. a series of spike strips. i’m so busy trying to figure out what’s wrong with my engine, i didn’t notice my tires were shredded. 

one of my textbooks mentioned that in folk/pop psychology, “trauma” is a term used in such a way that conflates (A) the event which results in the traumatic experience, with (B) the negative lasting effects on a person as a result of exposure to that event. And it seems i’m making that same conflation now.

Is trauma the blockade and the spike strips? or is trauma the shredded tires of the car? Technically, it’s the latter. the former is the event. a monster truck would crash through that event, and it’s jumbo-sized tires would probably be unaffected by spike strips. an event produces trauma, but trauma is not distributed evenly among individuals. 

bolts of lightning are never straight lines, or regular shapes. lighting is branched, and jagged, and crooked. electrons burrowing through the past of least resistance across the gaseous molecules of a furious sky.

i say “path of least resistance,” but “conductivity” is another way to describe this property, particularly in the context of metals. There is a vast connotational gulf between the two, and yet both are true.

i forgot i was talking about D&D originally. i doubt this was the original intent, but there’s something i’ve always found fascinating about listening to horror stories about awkward and bewildering and fucked up games of D&D, whether due to bizarre player or GM behavior. certain themes emerge though, when you read through enough of them. they all involve forms of acting out, of people reacting to emotional flashbacks and demonstrating the effects of poor differentiation.

and it makes sense that wacky countertransferential-type dynamics could emerge, since D&D creates an intersubjective container not dissimilar to the holding space of a therapeutic alliance, freeing people up from the constraints of normal social reality. but GMs aren’t therapists. i mean in a year or so, i might be both, but the point is that there’s no signing and briefing on informed consent forms, and no process of licensure for GMs, and of course group therapy differs from individual or couples therapy in a number of ways.

the point is, i’m not surprised that RPG horror stories exist, any more than i’m surprised that there will always be stories about terrible dates. expectations are rarely openly shared. everyone comes in with a set of assumptions and often do very little to share, compare and contrast. talking these things through is a skill, one which i don’t know the word for, and one which isn’t taught in school.

i consider this rambling, what i’m doing right now. i don’t do it all that often, but it’s good to have another recorded example. i have conversations with people who are more prone to it than me, and at times i found myself wondering about their internal processes and motivations, what needs are met in doing so.

part of it’s because more often than not, i only share or speak up if i have a particular point to make. it’s a lingering influence from my background in Communication. but there’s something a bit mechanical. in contrast, this whole bit of writing feels extremely organic, by my standards anyways. 

rambling came to mind because when it comes to the people who tend to ramble, i often find myself questioning to what extent they need someone to serve as a wall to bounce their thoughts and feelings off of. whether or not someone like that confuses this for true, two-way interaction.

naturally, that’s not actually an issue here, considering i’m just shouting into the void. but there is a sense of freedom and fluidity in engaging in this form of mental meandering. a soothing, relaxing quality even in the process of engaging with potentially distressing subject matter. i think i can see why they do it. of course, in a true interaction, there’s the potential that the distressing effects of the content is transmitted to the listener.

a repeated theme in some of my class readings this quarter is the idea that many of us are missing a permission, a sense of safety to feel certain ways, express things, to accept and share openly. and there’s a common tendency to try to replace this with something stringent, to impose a rigid structure or procedure as if this externalized integrity can function as substitution for something meant to freely flow. it’s a tendency that has us focusing on execution, and results, instead of on actual human connection.

and it’s probably one of the most prosaic and insidious forms of dehumanization out there in the world today. this part, too, feels similar to the rambling people i talk to sometimes. this arrival at some grandiose conclusion, this habitual seeking to state some truth about the world not directly attached to my own concerns--or presented as such.

at these points in those conversations where i am the listener, i feel the most like a sounding board. because those moments of conclusion tend to feature ideas that i find to be personally copasetic, but not particularly profound in relation to the amount of time and words it takes for the other person to arrive at: Misogyny sucks. Masculinity is toxic. A person i described as inconsiderate is inconsiderate. the movie industry sucks at casting Asians. it’s bad that people in my life made me feel bad for having feelings and opinions.

i get the feeling i’m meant to respond like some sort of cheerleader. give them the ‘you go girl’ treatment. and i suppose biggest reason i don’t feel like doing that, is because these are people who have many conflictual relationships. both have diagnoses for borderline personality disorder, but the main reservation from my point of view is that i find myself skeptical that they are working on their shortcomings, because of how often they act out or violate personal boundaries or demonstrate a lack of self-awareness or otherwise don’t seem to recognize or acknowledge the consequences of their actions. direct and indirect past experiences have left me feeling as though i can’t take it for granted that they’ve learned from past mistakes.

but then i wonder about my own shortcomings. how i rarely feel like i’m overcoming the worst parts of myself. my own capacity and willingness to change for the better is still in question. and here’s the part where i sympathize with those people the most: my natural instinct is to heap blame and guilt on myself with the implicit expectation that this will motivate change. 

but the cumulative toll of that tendency is not only counterproductive, but devastating. you can’t actually build yourself up much if you’re constantly demolishing your own foundations. but as far as internalized oppressive-abusive tendencies go, that one’s a real pain to excise once it gets under your skin.

if there’s one thing i can say on my own behalf here, aside from the fact that i’m blogging this instead of talking about it with someone, is that as i write this, i don’t feel frantic, or despondent, or otherwise overwhelmingly negative. part of it is because i’m pretty darned high, but i feel like if i’ve been emotionally activated at certain points in writing this, it hasn’t been to an overwhelming extreme. ii’ve been feeling mostly chill throughout this increasingly long bit of journaling. 

i know it’s questionable to frame things in terms of “at least i’m not talking about this with someone directly”, but i think part of that has to do with the fact that if i tried talking to someone about this, my capacity to really think through and feel though all this would be constrained by the constant consideration of keeping up some sort of appearance, or being overly concerned with the other person’s experience of the conversation. 

it’s one of those balance things. one of those instances of being so caught up in the imperative of being considerate to the other person, that the imperative gets in the way of actually being considerate to that person. 

if i tried to read all this back just now, i imagine i’d have two distinct conclusions: (1) wow, that’s a lot to think about, and (2) why is this taking me so long to process, an is this actually productive or am i just faffing about? And then a part of me wants to go on a tangent where i think about whether or not i’ve ever used the term “faffing about” out loud, and where i got it from. 

one thing i’ve done before in poetry, if not in blogging, is learned to write within a certain freedom of restriction, something learned by figuring out how to clear away all expectations concerning form and slant rhyme or slam judge scores, and freely do what i set out to do. it’s quite liberating, but an experience i’ve seldom experienced outside of poetry. to write and perform without undue concerns about winning the slam, or getting published, because of the reaction and feedback received from the audience in front of me.

and i suppose if there’s another avenue i have for that rare thing, it’s when i’m playing tabletop RPGs with friends. on the one hand, i’m absolutely invested in meeting a standard of excellence. it’s just that the standard of excellence exists on my terms, and is shaped in a manner not affected by intrusive imperatives from invalid sources, but rather by what i truly hope is a more authentic connection with my friends. 

anyways so that’s why playing D&D is fun, and why suddenly not getting to play D&D sucks.

[fractalcult]

Market Myths: Good, Bad, and Bazaar

The stories that hold up western* capitalism

First, a procedural note…

The truth value of a myth doesn’t matter, where efficacy is concerned. However, some myths have become so strongly internalized that they become difficult to identify as myths; they are mistaken for “common sense”. For most of us, the ideas underlying western* capitalism are like this. It’s difficult to separate ourselves from these myths and gain the appropriate distance, so I’m going to engage in a little bit of ‘debunking’ — specifically, I’m going to take some time pointing out parts of the capitalist model that don’t match with reality or history, during the course of analyzing its structure and function. This doesn’t take away from the immense power and importance of capitalist mythology, nor does it indicate that I consider all of the ideas associated with capitalism to be strictly false.

On tautology

Academics tend to treat tautologies as a lesser form. Tautologies are shallow, by their nature. It’s quite reasonable for a system optimizing for novel and interesting ideas to reject tautologies. Nevertheless, some really important ideas can be rephrased as tautologies — as Charles Fort points out, natural selection is better summarized as “survival of the survivors” than “survival of the fittest” — and one can make the argument that any really true argument is in some sense circular. There’s no shame in a circular argument that depends only on true premises. In fact, this is one way to look at all of mathematics — which is true because of its internal consistency, and only accidentally coincides with physical reality.

When someone dismisses a seemingly profound statement as “just a tautology” they omit important information. An obvious tautology contains no information. However, a non-obvious tautology is just about the most profound thing imaginable — it takes a complex, incomplete, vague collection of loosely related ideas and replaces it with a much smaller and simpler set of rules, which (if the tautology is reasonably close to correct) is both at least as accurate as the original set of ideas and easier to reason about. A non-obvious true tautology refactors huge sections of our mental models. Obviousness is a function of existing knowledge, so what is an obvious tautology to some people will be non-obvious to others. It should come as no surprise that people seek out ideas that present themselves as non-obvious tautologies.

The drive toward seeking non-obvious tautologies can lead to mistakes. Looking for simple and efficient models of the world is a mechanism for enabling lazy thinking. When lazy thinking is correct it’s strictly superior to difficult thinking, but lazy thinking often comes with lazy meta-cognition. If we jump on ideas that look like non-obvious tautologies too greedily, we fail to see hidden assumptions.

Market efficiency is a very attractive model. Under certain circumstances, we can expect things to actually work that way. If a large number of competing producers really do start off completely even in capability, we really can expect the Most Unexceptional product to price ratio to win out. To accept it completely means ignoring hidden assumptions that serious thinkers should at least consider.

One hidden assumption in market efficiency is that competitors start off even in capability. This is almost never the case outside of a classroom demonstration. Companies enter established markets and compete with established competitors, and companies established in one market will enter another. Both of these mechanisms make use of existing resource inequality in order to reduce precisely the kinds of risks that lead to efficient markets, and while perhaps in the long run poor products might lose out, with the extreme spread of resource availability the “long run” can easily last until long after we are all dead. Given no other information, if age is not normally or logarithmically distributed, we can reasonably expect something to last about twice as long as it already has. With corporations, the tails of this distribution are further apart — we can expect a startup to be on its last legs, and we can expect a 50 year old company to last 75 more years, because resource accumulation corrects for risks. A company that has a great deal of early success can coast on that success for a much longer period of poor customer satisfaction.

Another hidden assumption is that communication is free within the set of consumers and between consumers and producers but not within the set of producers.

Free communication within the set of producers is called collusion, and the SEC will hit you with an antitrust suit if you are found to engage in it. People do it all the time, and it is usually worth the risk, since it reduces market efficiency down to almost zero.

Free communication between producers and consumers is also pretty rare: even failing producers typically have too many consumers to manage individually and must work with lossy and biased aggregate information; successful producers have enough resources to be capable of ignoring consumer demand for quite a while, and often encourage ‘customer loyalty’ via branding. (In other words, cultivating a livestock of people who will buy their products regardless of quality — ideally enough to provide sufficient resources that appealing to the rest of the customers is unnecessary). Customer loyalty can have its benefits compounded if wealthy customers are targeted: “luxury brands” are lucrative because something can be sold well above market price regardless of its actual quality or desirability, and sometimes the poor price/desirability ratio is actually the point (as a form of lekking / conspicuous consumption).

Free communication between consumers is becoming more and more rare, since flooding consumer information channels with fake reviews and native advertising is cheap and easy. There used to be stronger social and economic incentives to clearly differentiate advertising from word of mouth, but advertising’s effectiveness has dropped significantly as customers develop defenses against it and economic instability has encouraged lots of people to lower their standards. Eventually, consumer information channels will become just as untrusted as clearly paid advertising is now considered to be, and communication between consumers will be run along the same lines as cold war espionage.

Motivated reasoning

Considering that the hidden assumptions in market efficiency are dependent upon situations even uninformed consumers know from experience are very rare, why would people accept it so easily? The inefficiency of markets has no plausible deniability, but motivated reasoning lowers the bar for plausibility significantly.

During the bulk of the 20th century we could probably argue that anti-communist propaganda played a large role. I don’t think that’s true anymore. Nevertheless, in many circles faith in the invisible hand actually is increasing.

There’s another kind of circular reasoning — one that operates on the currency of guilt and hope. If one accepts market efficiency, it tells the poor that they can rise up through hard work, and it tells the rich that they earned their wealth. This is remarkably similar to the prosperity gospel, which claims that god rewards the righteous with wealth and therefore the poor must have secret sins. It also resembles the mandate of heaven, which claims that all political situations are divinely ordained and therefore disagreeing with the current ruler is sinful.

The similarity between the guilt/hope axis of the market efficiency myth and the prosperity gospel explains the strange marriage between Randian Objectivists and Evangelical Christians found in the religious right. We can reasonably expect many members of this group to be heavily motivated by the desire to believe that the world is fair. It’s not appropriate to characterize this movement as lacking in empathy — empathy is a necessary prerequisite for a guilt so extreme that it makes an elaborate and far-fetched framework for victim-blaming look desirable.

For the poor of this movement, at least on the prosperity gospel side, it might not be so terrible. Motivating a group of people to do the right thing has a good chance of actually improving life generally, even if their promised reward never materialized; second order effects from accidental windfalls are more dangerous, though. (For instance, if you disown your gay son and then win the lottery, you’re liable to get the wrong idea about what “doing the right thing” means).

That said, while the above factors encourage people to trust more strongly in an idea of market efficiency they already accept, bootstrapping the idea of market efficiency is much more difficult.

Natural law, myth vs legend

Market efficiency draws power from an older myth: the idea that money is a natural and universal means of exchange. This is historically and anthropologically dubious. David Graeber, in his book Debt: The First 5,000 Years, makes an argument for the idea that systematic accounting of debts predates the use of actual currency and furthermore only became necessary when cities became large enough to necessitate something resembling modern bureaucracy. Regardless of how accurate that timeline is, we know that gift economies, potlatch, and feasting are more common in tribal nomadic societies than any kind of currency exchange, and that feasting in particular remained extremely important in Europe through the Renaissance.

The legend that backs up the myth of money-as-natural-law takes place in a town. A shoemaker trades shoes for potatoes, but doesn’t want potatoes, so he organizes a neutral currency so that potatoes and apples can be traded for shoes. Graeber points out that this level of specialization couldn’t be ‘natural’ — the town is an appropriate place to set it, since specializing in a particular crop or craft would have been suicidal in the bands of 20–50 people that most humans lived in prior to around 2000 BC.

Our first examples of writing, of course, coincide with the first permanent settlements to have a large enough population to justify heavy specialization. Our first examples of writing are, in fact, spreadsheets recording debt and credit. This, along with the evidence that the unit of currency (the mina of silver) was too substantial for most people to afford even one of (and probably was mostly moved between rooms in the temple complex), is part of Graeber’s argument that independent individuals carrying money for the purpose of direct transactions (i.e., our conception of money) probably only became common later, when imperial armies were expected to feed themselves in foreign lands.

So, on the one hand, it seems to have taken a very long time for the ‘natural’ ‘common sense’ concept of money to take hold among humans. On the other hand, people exposed to the idea of money tend to adapt to it quickly and we have even been able to teach apes to exchange tokens between themselves in exchange for goods and services — in other words, it’s a simple and intuitive system that even animals we mostly don’t consider conscious can grasp.

If something is considered natural law, it’s very easy for people to believe that it is also providence. If something is straightforward and useful in every day life, it’s very easy for people to consider it natural law.

Moral economies

Thoughtful economists tend to recognize the caveats I present here. Some behavioral economists have done great work on illuminating what kinds of things aren’t — or shouldn’t be — subject to the market. This, in turn, illuminates the market myth itself.

It’s possible to think of social relations as economic in nature. Indeed, this is a pretty common model. Transactional psychology presents social interactions as the exchange of a currency of strokes, for instance. Nevertheless, Khaneman presents an experiment that shows social relations aren’t, and shouldn’t, be fungible.

The experiment went like this: a busy day care center has a problem with parents picking up their children late, and instates a fee. Parents in turn respond by picking up their kids late more often, and paying the fee. After the fee is eliminated, the percentage of on-time pickups does not return to the pre-fee state.

Khaneman interprets the results in this way: initially, parents thought of picking their kids up late as incurring a social debt (they were guilty about inconveniencing the day care), the fee reframed it as a service (they can pay some money in exchange for their kids being watched a little longer, guilt-free). But when the fee was eliminated, they felt as though they were getting the service for free.

This result looks a whole lot like the way fines for immoral business practices end up working.

If we consider that, typically, we can make up to people we feel we have wronged, we consider social currency to be somewhat fungible. Nevertheless, exchanging money for social currency is still mostly taboo — paying for sex is widely considered taboo, and even those of us who feel no taboo about sex work would find the idea of someone paying someone else to be their friend a little disturbing. If my Most Unexceptional friend helps me move furniture and I give him a twenty dollar bill, he might be insulted. If I left money on the dresser after having sex with my girlfriend, she might be insulted. (Or consider it a joke.)

We could consider the ease with which money is quantified to be the problem. We rarely can put a number on our guilt or joy. On the other hand, we can generally determine if we feel like we’ve “done enough” to make up for something — our measures of social currency have ordinality, if not cardinality.

Instead, the disconnect is that money is, by design, impersonal. I cannot pay back my guilt over Peter by giving him Paul’s gratitude toward me. This is where transactional psychology’s monetary metaphor for strokes falls apart: a relationship is built up via the exchange of strokes, and that relationship has value based on trust. Meanwhile, any currency has, as a key feature, the ability to operate without trust or even with distrust. Money makes living under paranoia possible, and sometimes even pleasant. But exchange of strokes has its own inherent value, and the trust it builds likewise: it cannot be replaced with money because money’s value is based only on what it can buy.

Speculation

The belief in market efficiency, and the emotional and moral dimensions of that belief, have some unfortunate consequences in speculation. Paradoxically, these consequences are opposed by the myth of money as natural law.

With speculation, one can create money without substance. Promises, bets, and hedges can be nested indefinitely to create value held in superposition. A stake in a speculative market is both credit and debt until it is sold. This is natural, since social constructs are eldrich, operating on fairy logic. This is both a pot of gold and a pile of leaves until I leave the land of the sidhe. Of course, there’s every incentive to oversell, so more often than not it’s a pile of leaves: when too many superpositions collapse, so does the market.

Naive materialism, when it intersects with the idea of money as natural law, finds the eldrich nature of money in speculation disturbing. Isn’t money gold? Or coins? How can something be in my hand and then disappear? So, we get arguments for the gold standard along moral lines: “it’s immoral for something that’s real to behave like fairy dust, so we should limit its growth to match mining efficiency”.

The eldrich behavior of money has some paradoxical results. Being aware that money is a social construct tends to decrease its value (clap your hands if you believe!). The question “if someone burns a million quid on TV, does the value of the pound go up or down” is very had to answer. (If you think you know the answer, substitute a million for a trillion, or for twenty.) On the other hand, being aware of its eldrich nature also tends to slightly decouple one from potentially-destructive drives.

Belief in market efficiency leads successful speculators to believe themselves skilled. While skill at speculation might be possible, statisticians who have studied the problem have generally come to the conclusion that the success distribution is adequately explained by market speculation being entirely random. Unwarranted confidence can lead to larger bets, which (if results are random) means half the time the money disappears into thin air. This does not require malfeasance, misrepresentation, or willful ignorance (as with the 2008 housing crisis). Believing that speculation involves skill is sufficient to cause the market to have larger and larger bubbles and crashes.

*“Western” is neither precise nor correct here. These myths seem to be present in western Europe, North America, Japan, and South Korea. Both China and the former Soviet states have different mythology I’m not qualified to analyse. In the absence of a better term than “western capitalism”, I will use it.

(originally published here: https://modernmythology.net/market-myths-good-bad-and-bazaar-7fa0cbc8f646)

[istillshootfilm]

Ilfotec DD-X and Fomapan 400: Stand Development Tutorial

Guest Post By Vincent Moschetti

The World of analog photography keeps surprising me every day a bit more! I recently read about a technique called Stand Development so I have decided to try it myself. For those of who never heard of it before, let me explain you the differences between a normal development process.

When developing, as recommended by manufacturers, we are supposed to make regular agitations to ensure that the exposed film is always in contact with fresh developer. This is because the developer exhausts itself after a while and is no longer able to transform the particles of silver on the emulsion. Agitations also ensure that all the tonalities are evenly revealed.

On the contrary, stand development consists in letting the developer sit inside the tank with only one minute of agitation at the very beginning. Without movement, the areas that require more development quickly exhaust all the developing agent whilst it keeps acting on the less exposed areas that don't weaken the developer so much. This has for effect to preserve highlights and reveals more details in the shadows.

On top of that, I see two other advantages that are directly linked with this lack of movement in the developing tank:

1. High Contrast

This is a question of tastes but I tend to prefer my pictures to be more contrasty, especially for black and white. I believe that it gives more character and help to drag attention on the subject. This is, of course, a personal opinion and it may not work with all styles of photography. The pictures that you are going to see next, barely received any adjustments and came out naturally contrasty. Fomapan is not known for having contrasty films, it's more the opposite, they tend to be more of a flat look.

2. Fine details

Because the developer is not moving, the acutance is very high. If acutance is a new word for you too, check out the definition here on Wikipedia. It makes edges very sharp between dark and bright areas, hence the increased sharpness. I was already very satisfied with the quality of the glass on my Hasselblad Xpan but, as you will see below, the amount of details that came out from my last roll is insane...I feel like I have a new lens!

Another advantage is that it's a low dilution process. With normal development, the dilutions are usually between 1+1 and 1+4. Here we are using a very low dilution so you can save a lot of developer. Depending on the developer, you can dilute up to 1+50. This means that for 1 litre of pure developer, you can do 50 litres of developing solution!! Considering that one roll of 35mm needs more or less 300ml of solution, you could develop up to 150 rolls... Knowing that one litre of developer cost in average 18 $ so it would less than 0.12 $ of chemical to develop per roll !!

Before we end with the math lesson, let me share with you in details how to reproduce this at home.

You will need :

A roll of Fomapan 400 exposed

A developing tank, I use a Patterson tank

Developer Ilfotec DD-X

The Recipe :

Step 1 - Prepare the developer

To get enough developing solution for 1 roll of 35mm you need 300ml of solution. The dilution of the Ilfotec should be 1+9, which translate into 1 dose of developer for 9 doses of water. So here we need 30ml of developer and 270ml of water, it should be around 20 degrees Celcius(°C) or 68 Fahrenheit (°F). Put these two together into a jar and stir well.

Step 2 - Develop the film

Pour the solution into the developing tank. Then I agitated for the first minute, tapped the tank on the table 3 or 4 times to remove all the air bubbles from the surface of the film and let it sit for 45 minutes. Once time is over, empty the tank and get rid of the developer as it is a one time use.

Step 3 - Stop the development

Put the stop bath into the tank and agitate for 1 minute. For better results, I use Ilfostop from Ilford but you can also use water. FYI stop bath is reusable so keep it for later.

Step 4 - Fix the film

Last but not least, you have to fix the film so it can be revealed to the light. Put the fixer into the tank for 3 minutes, agitate 10 seconds at beginning of every minutes. I use Ilford Rapid Fixer but any other fixer will do the job. Likewise, you can also reuse the fixer.

Step 6 - Wash the film

At this stage you can open the tank, your film is no longer sensible to light. You have now to wash it with clear water. This last step ensures that all chemicals are removed from the surface of your negatives. It takes 5 minutes with running water to completely clean it. Once this is done, hang your film and let it dry in the dry and quiet place for 1 hour. It's important to find a place without too much movement otherwise dust will stick on the film while drying.

Enough talk and math for today, let me show you a few more images to thank you for reading until here!

As soon as I saw the negatives, I knew that these images would turn good (for my taste at least). I have developed a few rolls already but never saw a negative so dense and contrasty. Sometimes it's hard to differentiate the shapes but here everything was clearly distinct and sharp. The comparison with a normal negative of Fomapan 400 is unbelievable, it looks like I shot a completely different film.

The only downside I have found so far it is the time it takes. Some stand development can take one hour and more so you have to be patient. But it's the perfect opportunity to scan some negatives for example. You can also read that some people experienced uneven development or the apparition of streaks due to a chemical reaction that falls at the bottom of the tank. This can be avoided by making one or two inversions mid-development, in this case we talk about semi-stand development. Personally, I didn't notice anything strange, but it might have something to do with the low dilution I used, comparing to what it should be with Rodinal for instance.

Another important point to mention: With this process, you can mix in the same tank two films that are rated at different speeds. This also lets me think that it doesn't matter too much if you pushed your film, but I am not sure about this and will have to make some tests to determine if you need to extend the time when pushing film. I feel like I have just opened another door that will lead me towards more adventures into the film photography experience! It's like I am playing with Russian Dolls.

I hope you have found this article useful, if so, please share it with someone that might be interested in this process!

About the Author:

Vincent Moschetti is Frenchy based in Ireland. He worked exclusively with digital equipement until recently when he had a revelation and discovered the beauty of shooting with film cameras. If you would like to learn more about his work, you can visit his website, Facebook, and Instagram pages.

Find & Follow Vincent Moschetti:

https://www.instagram.com/one.year.with.film.only/

https://www.facebook.com/oneyearwithfilmonly/

http://www.oneyearwithfilmonly.com/

[priestcatte-blog]

Sini’s Dark Knight story part 4

Sini would now leave the mansion more often, not only to go visit his love in the Goblet, but also to meet with the Dark Knight in La Noscea, to train away from prying eyes several times a week. The Jackals would not like having a broody stranger around the mansion and garden, and the wilderness had much more space and privacy. As per the Knights advice, Sini fought with a simple greatsword now that Bert had made for him, and he was slowly making progress.

It was a truly cheesy name, Dark Knight, Sini thought to himself as he crossed swords with the older Keeper again, but he couldnt think of a better name. The man had told Sini his name by now, Ome'a Molkot, but being mentor and pupil Sini wasn't gonna call him that. And the guy was clad in a blackened heavy armor after all... Sini had asked him once why, and the reply had been: "There are several like me, i know that much, but they don't all look like 'Dark Knights'. That's just a name people made up because it's so ominous and mysterious. And many of us are not much liked either. But i digress... this armors colour is just coincidence, personal preference. Some look like normal Knights. Some look nothing like Knights at all, more like commoners, but that doesn't change what they are and do." Sini already knew what they all had in common, the fight against injustice and the use of the so called 'dark arts', a technique they developed in Ishgard in secrecy. Sini knew that much already, so he didnt have to ask his mentor about that. He had already made some visits to Ishgard, to see the seminarium and learn more about the ishgardian way of priesthood, and at these occasions he secretly looked some of the stories about these 'Dark Knights' up.

He would ask about the Dark Arts at some point, maybe, probably... he didn't plan to yet. For now it was important to simply learn how to fight well with a greatsword and armor. Sini had told him about his first succesful, real fight. It had been on the bridge in lower La Noscea, where Sini and Shin, together with some friends of hers, had to fight off a group of scoundrels who wanted to get rid of her. Among these, Sini succesfully fought and killed a Hyur with a greatsword, an Elezen swordsman and a Roegadyn with an axe. All in teamwork with Shin and her friends of course. Why all Roes seemed to fight with axes was a curiosum that probably would keep puzzling scholars for ages... In any case, this earned Sini the approval and respect of his mentor. Good job and keep it up, the usual words one would expect. But also "Seems i were not wrong with my estimation of you." Well that was nice to hear.

But training would continue further of course, and so it did on this day too. Although Sini didn't seem very concentrated. They were sparring, training moves and reactions, as his mentors sword slammed against the protection on Sini's upper right arm. They lowered their weapons and Ome'a took off his helmet. "Get yourself together, you are not really here, not in the fight with your thoughts! Are you thinking about your sweetheart again?" Sini held his right arm in pain, but a wide grin spread on his lips nonetheless as he thought about Shin. He could hear Ome mumble something about "worst priest...", but Sini shook his head. "No... no, it's not her, actually... we got trouble in our company. Nothing i should share with outsiders..." The older Miqo'te nodded, and gestured him to follow him to the side, where they took a break standing in the shadow beneath a tree. "Yeah, thats understandable... but it eats at you, it seems." Sini leaned his sword against the bark, and rubbed his neck while looking away. "Yeah, well... it's someone i don't have a problem with usually... her name is Thya. You fought with her in the job you gave us." He nodded again, remembering. His interest was peaked. "Ah, yes... i do remember her. Fights similar to me, i am quite curious how she learned the arts... but it's not that which worries you, right? You knew about that." "Yeah... you cannot miss it when fighting with her, and i did. But no... it's something else. I just... i won't talk about it. But i feel like i cannot trust her anymore. For Reasons i cannot disclose. And that makes everything... complicated of course... I still have to work with her. Wavering trust is a problem, but i see no way how this can be solved easily." "Hm... yeah... thats bad..." The old man sat down, his armor creaking a little. He flicked his black furred ears and looked back to Limsa Lominsa, the cityscape visible in the distance. They fell silent for a moment, with only the sound of the wind and the sheep grazing nearby reaching their ears.

"I will be honest, i don't know a simple solution either. Or any advice. It's a shitty situation, but there's no help beside her regaining your trust. However she could accomplish that, i don't know the details..." Sini sighed, running a hand throuhg his grey hair and sitting down with his back against the tree. "I know... i will figure something out." Ome'a suddenly grinned, and looked back to Sini'to. "Heh, i was gonna say, i can maybe give you something to distract you from that. But i guess you have plenty of distraction with your sweetheart already, whenever you want." Sini smiled again. Yes, he had been very happy lately, before the thoughts about Thya and her family clouded his mind, but it had been pretty obvious still. And it was a nice feeling to see when people were happy for him. "But i am a curious sort... you can still show me. What did you have in mind?"

The old man reached for something under his armor, a little bag that he seemingly always had close to his body. He opened it and took a small black crystal out, adorned with a golden symbol. It was fitting into his palm perfectly. "Do you know what this is?" Sini straightened up a little, raising his brows. "Yes... that's a soulstone, no? I heard they are pretty rare. But i read about them. That little symbol differentiates it from a gem." Ome'a nodded. "Yes, smart one. It's my soulstone. I got this one from my master, the one who picked me up from the brume after my mother died and trained me. He got it from his master and where he got it from, i have no idea. I assume some Knights just started to make these, like other soulstones that are around, to pass them on. Like we do with our art. Master, apprentice, master, apprentice, and so on... So you know what it can do." Sini leaned forward, inspecting the stone curiously. He nodded slowly, hesitant. "Yes... i assume it could allow someone to learn your dark arts, as you called them... i have spoken with Thya about it once. She said it's a dark force inside you, that you can harness to empower yourself, but you have to be careful... the price to pay is an internal struggle. She called it a voice in your head, that speaks to you and wants to make you do things, or even take over herself... but then again it's not really just some voice, it's still you. It's another you, but still you. Part of you. She said it's hard to describe..." "Hmm, yes..." The black haired keeper held the small stone up betwen his index and thumb, tilting his head a little as he watched it. It was slightly heart shaped and deep black, like the purest Onyx Sini had ever seen, the light shining on its polished surface. "That's one way to put it. I also heard it does differ from person to person, and manifests differently for different people. She is right, it's nothing from outside, it's all you. So you don't need to worry about that, you don't get a voice in your head. It is like... urges and desire. You know? We all have urges, but of course, we don't just give in to them. We are civilized, we know what we can do and what we better shouldn't do. We fight our urges. It is like that, just stronger. Go ahead, bash that guys face in. He deserves it! Make him pay. Who cares about the people staring? Just let him feel the pain, pay him back tenfold, nay, hundred! Like that. For example."

He was very calm as he talked about it like that, and Sini watched him with a frown, not sure what to think. "You can control it. You learn that. It's not much different then than controling our daily urges. It's just when we tire and slip that it gets dangerous. If the urges take control of us, if we go and bash that guys head in, we have to live with the consequences. But... the powers it can grant are very, very useful... you might have already seen some of the things one can do with it from your friend Thya." He held it out for Sini, looking him straight in the eyes. "You'll have already guessed it by now, i want to give it to you. I had an apprentice once, but he died, and now im old and dont want to go through that again, and i dont know if i would even live long enough. But you are smart, you are capable, and you can make good use of the things i show and teach you. You're not a warrior, but a mage... you have to learn to fight, but the powers and magics you will learn with this stone will be much easier for you, i am sure. You are smart, you can figure it out. And i figure using the magics the dark arts grant will be very useful for you. You can, no you must incorporate them into your fighting. That's what makes a 'so called Dark Knight' much better than any other ordinary fighter. You could use magical shields, for example. But as said, you'll prolly have seen from your friend what else it can do..."

Sini was staring at the stone with a frown. He was clearly hesitant, reaching out but not taking it yet. "I don't know... Thya said there's no going back." Ome'a shrugged. "That's true, i guess. I never tried. But yeah, i guess think good about it. Go ahead, you can take it, it wont just go and imbue you with scary dark powers. It won't do anything unless you concentrate on it." "You don't need it anymore?" "No... it literally only teaches you. It's filled up with... the experiences of its former bearers, to say it in lack of a better description. I can't describe how it works, but you can learn with it, things just seem to come to you naturally with it. I already know everything, i know how to use the Darkness. You don't need to stone for it, it just shows you how. And i will give it to you anyway, if you decide to learn it or not. I'm old, as said, and i rather give it away before i die somewhere and it gets lost. Even if you don't use it, you can give it to someone else." Sini nodded and sighed, reaching for the stone and taking it. It felt cold in his hand, and smooth, not different to any other gem. Unconsciously, with his other hand he reached for the glas encased pieces of topaz that were hanging on a chain around his neck, a gift made by Shin. They were the broken remains of the gem with which he always had summoned his carbuncle Puff, since his childhood. Symbol of his lifelong practised arcanism, that was failing on him now and again lately.

He nodded to the old Knight and closed his fist around the soulstone, his voice steadfast. "Alright. You are entrusting me with something important to you. I thank you, and promise to make or find good use of it. I apprecaite it."   The other keeper smiled faintly. "Heh. Well... thanks for taking care of my legacy, so to say." He got up and stretched, holding his back like a typical old man. He looked back to the City in the distance again, and Sini swore the Knight even got a bit melancholic. "It's a chain of tradition that goes on and on, and should be kept going...keep the art alive and all that. It's like life, really. Old teach the new, things get passed on from generation to generation, and so on and so on..." He gazed out into the distance and fell silent, and Sini could only imagine the things that probably went through the old keepers head. What if his life had taken different turns? What if he had grown up in the shroud instead? What if he, instead of leading a vigilante life, had settled down and got a family? Who knew, who knew... what if, could have been, all that didn't matter in the end... Life was what it was right now, and none of us could change the past. Ome'a chuckled and shook his head, probably thinking just the same as Sini right now.

He took his helmet and put it back on his head. Now he was the image of a Dark Knight again, gone was the old man, hidden beneath a blackened suit of armor and only for few to know. "Heh. Thanks again. See you around next time. And don't die, alright? Would be a shame. Your sweetheart would be sad." With that, he strode off, towards Limsa Lominsa, leaving Sini behind underneath that tree. The grey priest in a training suit of armor followed the Knight with his gaze until he was out of sight, sitting there and pondering.

[bigjoesound]

Why Does Cannabis Make Music Sound So Good?

You shut your eyes and take a breath from your vaporizer because the music starts to play. You’ve listened to the record on many different occasions, but this time that the person notes, rhythms, and melodies seem to resonate with a specific richness, intensity, and gravitas that together provoke your senses on a completely new level.

As Lindsey Buckingham of Fleetwood Mac previously said, “If you have been working on something for a couple hours and you also smoke a joint, it’s like hearing it again for the very first time.” The connection between audio and cannabis has a rich history, dating back to the development of jazz from the early 20th century. Many leaders within this improvisational art form were regular users of cannabis, such as Louis Armstrong and Dizzy Gillespie.

But why does audio sound reallygreat when you are high?

While scientific study investigating this subject is uncommon, there are several hypotheses that attempt to describe the gratifying duet that’s cannabis and audio.

How Cannabis Can Aid Music Production

A few theorists postulate that cannabis’ effects on someone’s sense of timing may be responsible for its appeal among musicians. Previous studies have shown that cannabis speeds our inner clocks, making external “real world” time seem to pass slower. For instance, 1 research revealed a 15 second time interval was “enlarged” to a mean of 16.7 seconds while under the effect of cannabis (while sober controllers correctly estimated this interval).

One study revealed a 15 second time interval was “enlarged” to a mean of 16.7 seconds while under the effect of cannabis.

“If you check into the literature on timing, it seems to be the the brain systems that are affected by cannabinoids are producing a state of mind where there seems to be a slower backward counting,” says Jorg Fachner, professor of music, wellness, and the brain at Anglia Ruskin University in the uk. “And that means your timing components, the time frames that you’re overseeing, seem to be expanded. So those who are improvising seem to get a little more time to postpone the melodic improvements in improvisation and to fine grain the patterns.”

Indeed, some anecdotal reports suggest this subjective expansion of time gains an improvisational art form like jazz as artists can mentally squeeze notes in a specific number of musical bars. These claims, but have yet to be substantiated by empirical research.

Why Cannabis Makes Music Sound Better

How can this change in timing affect listeners consuming cannabis?

Focus and Care

Based on individual user accounts, alterations in inner time can change our attentional spotlight, facilitating changes in sensory perception.

“When your time understanding changes, your focus of attention changes,” says Fachner. “So when you put on a stereo headset you may have an improved capacity to select certain info and dismiss other information, which could help differentiate the person sounds a little more intensively.”

Based on Fachner, this improved attentional focus to see “the distance between the notes” leads to music that’s perceived to be ” more lively, far more tidy, and much more different”

These anecdotal changes in understanding also have been demonstrated to have possible neurological underpinnings.

Back in 2002, Fachner ran a research investigating the connection between cannabis use, music understanding, and changes in brainwave activity. Employing an electroencephalogram (EEG), a device capable of detecting small changes in electrical activity throughout the brain, Fachner first quantified the subject’s cognitive activity while sober (both without and with the existence of audio).

In order to reduce biases in behavior that may arise from an artificial lab setting, the experiments were conducted at the comfort of a living space. The selected music consisted of three songs that included ensemble chamber music, folk-punk, and a Beatles cover. After a 30-minute rest interval, participants then smoked cannabis containing 20mg of both THC and listened to same audio while their brainwave activity was captured.

The results indicated that music-listening cannabis users undergone changes in cerebral, right temporal and left handed cortices–brain regions that have previously been connected to attentional strategy, auditory processing, and plasma processing, respectively.

More especially, the parietal (attentional strategy) cortex showed stronger activity in a specific frequency range called alpha. Interestingly, previous EEG studies have shown that pupils who are gifted in mathematics also show comparable gains in alpha patterns within this brain area while solving problems, indicating that this activity pattern may be indicative of more effective information processing than the average individual.

“One of those interpretations that I had from this information is that when it has to do with focus, subjects were focusing a little more on the noise, which this focus also required less mental ability,” says Fachner. “So it’s much easier to listen to focus, and to relax.”

In addition, greater activity in the perfect temporal brain area has been also detected in stoned music-listening subjects. Because this field is primarily responsible for processing sensory information, these findings further demonstrate a change in neural processing system could underlie shifted music understanding.

Visual Impact

Fachner also detected cannabis-induced modifications from the left occipital area, an area in the rear of the brain that normally processes visual information.

“When you listen to music, it consistently has a spatial dimension to it,” he says. “We need to understand where the noise objects are coming from–that is evolutionarily important. And of course the visual facilities process this.”

Changes within this visual processing may be connected with person reports of synesthesia, or the mixing of various sensory programs, while intoxicated. For example, “there are people that say they’ve improved visual imagery to the audio” after smoking, ” says Fachner.

While high on cannabis, “you tend to shift your focus more rapidly if it’s an interesting-sounding piece of music.”

Jorg Fachner, professor of health, music, and the brain at Anglia Ruskin University

Yet, it’s essential to be aware that this EEG study only analyzed four topics, each of which may have different perceptual approaches for listening to audio and varying tolerances to cannabis. Therefore, the consequences lack adequate statistical vulnerability to produce wide-reaching claims concerning the intermingling of both cannabis and audio on a neurological level.

Performance

Fachner also suggests an alternative explanation for cannabis-induced changes in audio perception that involves disruptions in memory processing. While high on cannabis, “you tend to shift your focus more rapidly if it’s an interesting-sounding piece of songs,” he says.

Because you’re rapidly shifting focus and assimilating more info than you possess the capacity to retain, you end up “draining” your short term memory more often. As a result of the “compressed” memory, your protagonist is believed to be more present, more in-the-moment together with the audio, and can cultivate a larger emphasis on each individual noise.

Stated differently, “A subject becomes less able to incorporate past, present and future, his awareness grows more focused on present events; these cases, consequently, are experienced as prolonged or ageless when they appear isolated from the continual development of time,”wrote Frederick Melges, a psychiatrist at Stanford University.

In summary, “we have a distinct acoustic space we perceive, a different time scale to its auditory events, and a different focus strategy for focusing on what is happening in the songs,” says Fachner. “And that seems to be attached to what’s occurring at the beginning of cannabis action”

Future Research and Application

The auditory enhancing consequences of cannabis may also have possibly therapeutic applications. Fachner notes according to his results and anecdotal evidence, cannabis could help those with hearing impairments fine tune their listening capability, more effectively distinguish the origin of sounds, and also hear higher frequency sounds clearly.

“You get a different understanding of the acoustic space, and the higher frequencies give you more info concerning where the sound source is from the room,” says Fachner.

Yet, scientists continue to face many barriers in their own capacity to test this and a number of the other hypotheses put forth encompassing cannabis and sensory processing. Regardless of the decriminalization of cannabis in many nations across the nation, it’s still difficult for scientific research involving controlled substances to transparent scientific examination boards.

But despite these setbacks to the scientific understanding of cannabis’ transcendent influences on the musical experience, many users have a tendency to agree this partnership reveals no signs of slowing.

from big joe sound http://bigjoesound.com/why-does-cannabis-make-music-sound-so-good/

[atticusblog2016-blog]

New Post has been published on Atticusblog

New Post has been published on https://atticusblog.com/immature-internet-behavior-will-cost-you-business/

Immature Internet Behavior Will Cost You Business

Today on the Internet, I watched photographers draw analogies among a retouching method and using nerve fuel in conflict. While I stared, aghast on the immaturity, I started out to wonder: “What would a purchaser consider this?” I rarely frequent Facebook corporations for photographers anymore, generally due to the fact they constantly seem to devolve into ego journeys and unsolicited rudeness. I’m in some smaller ones with near friends, but outside of those, I avoid them. And yet, nowadays, I acquired this type of stark reminder of why I typically avoid them that I felt pressured to write down approximately it.

Someone published an unsolicited rant approximately a sure method and at once known as out every other member, and 515 feedback (and nevertheless counting) later, there was a litany of personal attacks and pettiness to scroll through, little or no of which had anything to do with photography strategies. Keep in mind that this became in a collection of 10,000 human beings; I wouldn’t exactly say this came about at the back of closed doorways.

It’s no mystery that the Internet typically enables a disposal of etiquette and fundamental regard for fellow people that most people would not dream of in character. Maybe it is because we’re secretly extra caring humans and the relative anonymity of a display makes us overlook that, or perhaps it’s because said anonymity definitely allows our true hues. I desire it’s the former.

What surprises me isn’t always the behavior, but the seeming lack of information of the real-life effects it has past the confines of Facebook corporations. Sure, I can allude to a few individuals inside the enterprise who reached an essential mass of prominence and loud-mother that finally triggered the pendulum to swing the other way and essentially ripped the rug out from below them overnight, however, I’m referring more to regular results. These are what I suppose a lot of people are overlooking.

Here Are Some Great Tips For Internet Marketing

A lot of human beings are looking for the “best” affiliate advertising machine. The golden way to get their baked products throughout the net and convey in a consistent movement of earnings via a website or weblog. This is something that helps all events concerned upward push to the top in their personal niche, but does that honestly exist?

Did you recognize that cemeteries are among the maximum common WiFi hot spots for plenty towns?

The reason is that genealogists like to go to cemeteries to acquire data about their ancestors. By giving genealogists get right of entry to the Internet right wherein they’re working the cities offering the WiFi are meeting a totally crucial need.

Research what your competitors are doing whilst making your advertising plan

Search for keywords and spot who ranks wherein. Use thoughts from some of the better-ranked agencies as jumping off factors and see wherein you can cross from there. Use your competition efforts to peer in which you must focus your efforts.

Work for organizations that fit you! If your website talks about baseball, don’t promote a company for elderly ladies’ undergarments. Basically, live relevantly. Make positive the data you sell remains real for your very own area, otherwise, you can inadvertently force away clients. Make sure you allow your readers recognize you recognize what they may be seeking out!

Many small agencies can highly increase their sales by means of taking their advertising campaigns online. Because more conventional venues of commercials are slowly becoming much less worthwhile, as newspapers see declining subscriptions, small groups, which begin marketing online are frequently capable of attaining a far greater large consumer base and see an increase in earnings.

Get greater humans to visit your internet site by way of ensuring that your content is straightforward to study and applicable to what you are selling or showcasing. Also, make it smooth to find. Your domain call must be easy and self-explanatory. By following those simple ideas you’re at the right track towards a successful website.

Make the maximum of Internet advertising opportunities

You can without problems and cheaply, acquire banner commercials from many legit outlets that will help you start generating capital as quickly as they are added. Banner commercials are a well-examined manner of growing your web presence. Get the advertisements placed on your partner’s sites and websites that are much like yours.

Set up your business profile on social media sites, which includes Facebook, Twitter, and Linked-In. This makes it clean for clients to find you and refer you to their pals. Those who like or follow you can receive updates whenever you have a sale or introduce a new product or a tip, the approximate merchandise they’ll have already bought, retaining your visibility high and your clients knowledgeable.

Fixed Training Costs Vs Variable Training Costs

The current financial consumer makes it hard for training departments to reap any more funds, much less normal working price range. Many instances departments must “make do” with the price range they have got been passed. But as soon as you have a budget, no matter how large or how small, you need to have a concept of what expenses are constant and what expenses are variable.

Fixed education costs are clearly those you can anticipate at any factor

You’ll price range for those prices and be capable of relying on the fact that they will most probably stay the same. For instance, the salaries of the training workforce are distinctly constant. When you work to your finances, for something term, you realize if you’ll be able to upload personnel, which we will discuss in a second. You’ll additionally recognize how a lot to budget for will increase based on the common from the last yr. But altogether, you will be capable of count on earnings as a set item.

The device you use robotically for education is likewise a set cost

In fact, plenty of the device schooling departments use is sold and paid for at one time. These gadgets are everyday use objects such as copiers, computers, laptops, overhead projectors, LCD’s, displays, automated whiteboards, and some other device this is mechanically used in the school room or inside the administrative office. But take into account that you’ll need to restoration the cost of the maintenance on these gadgets. Light bulbs for overheads and LCD’s are pretty high priced, and should be replaced with an object this is accepted by using the producer. One manner to fix those costs is to recognize how long these gadgets remaining and plan for their replacements accordingly. One of the most important shocks to an education budget is while all the LCD’s burn out at one time, leading to a price object which could add up to thousands of greenbacks.

Overhead is also a hard and fast expense

As an education manager, you understand how tons it costs to keep your vicinity or locations. These costs include the lease or mortgage fee, the prices that accompany the places, along with office substances and paper, and also any income that is available in from other departments or agencies renting area in an owned building. You also can encompass utility costs as fixed overhead, but be cautious whilst the climate will become extraordinarily warm or extremely cold – one manner to do that is to make sure that engineering installs timed thermostats. Many organizations waste overhead cash heating and cooling spaces that are empty in a single day or over a weekend so the education department can continue to show its really worth via turning off the utilities when they’re not in use.

  Reasons Why Your Business May Fail

According to Bloomberg, eight out of 10 organizations fail inside the first 18 months of operation. That’s a terrifying statistic in case you’re an enterprise proprietor. That absolutely means that 80% of people who started blogging or any other online business will fail in it too.

Why do companies fail? What could make your commercial enterprise fail? How are you able to avoid them?

1. Lack of Planning:

For many individuals, they choice to be engaged in a business just to make cash or which will brag about it. They haven’t any clear-cut concept where they need the commercial enterprise to go. They best plan to begin an enterprise, however, they do not do actual planning on the way to gain it. Your plan is your intention. Planning entails the entirety you need to do and put in the vicinity to get on your intention. If there’s a plan without proper making plans, it’s miles only a depend on time earlier than the plan comes crashing. The popular 6P formula states that: Proper Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance.

2. Lack of Discipline:

Having a web commercial enterprise can present you with lots of spare time and the freedom to paintings when you want. This identical benefit can be a curse in case you do now not recognize in which to attract the line. You need the area with the intention to work even whilst you don’t experience like working. You want to sustain your desire to paintings no matter something can be limiting you. A disciplined businessman with little capital will continually outdo an undisciplined businessman with massive economic functionality.

3. Lack of differentiation:

Many human beings frequently attempt to imitate others of their style of business. They assume they could create success by means of imitating the pinnacle pictures in their area of interest. It does no longer work that manner. There can only be one Nairaland. There can most effective be one ImportExpert. There can most effective be one Linda Ikeji. Rather than copy them, select the lessons and construct your logo. If you imitate others, you’ll best remind your clients of the actual factor. Build your brand. Be distinct.