#fun to contemplate Nd expand on though !

[blazardragon]

What are your least favourite and most favourite Assassination classroom pairings?

You know, usually when I see a post or meme about fandom, Imust nod my head in embarrassment and agreement. I get absolutely ecstatic whenmy favorite characters appear on screen for even a single millisecond, and Ifeel like sobbing tears of joy whenever something good happens to them.However, one of the only things where I feel like I’m not on the same page asthe rest of Tumblr is pairings. I’m just not much of a shipper. Mentor/student,parent/child, and sibling relationships have always been the strongest forcesin my life, not romance, so those are the relationships that tend to capture myheart. Hence all the Asano family antics in my art. I’ve actually contemplatedmany times making artwork for this ship or that ship, but I get artist blockwhenever I try to actually make something.

A side effect of my lack of shipping is that arguments aboutOTPs and NOTPs confuse me. I know that chemistry doesn’t occur between everypair of individuals, but it doesn’t bother me to see a character paired withdifferent characters. I’m always happy to see my favorites interact with othercharacters since those interactions bring out different aspects of theirpersonality, so seeing a wide range of ships for a single character is excitingfor me, not anger-inducing. That being said, I do have a few preferencesregarding pairings, which you can read under the cut if you’re curious about myopinions, but they’re mostly based on character representation. It’s a littlelong though. I divided it into three categories instead of two: my mostfavorites, my least favorites, and my non-negotiable nopes  

My most favorites (andothers I like)

Anything featuring my favorite characters being happy to behonest. They can suffer a bit too, pain is part of what makes them who they areafter all, but as long as I see my favorite characters getting attention andlove (from both the character they’re interacting with and the writer/artistbehind the scenes), I’m as happy as a clam. The only exception is if the shipinvolves what I listed under my nopes.

Examples of ships involving my faves that I have had the privilegeto enjoy include:  

Gakuho x Karasuma:Since Karasuma is even more serious and reserved than Gakuho, I get to watchGakuho put some effort into this ship. Also, Gakuho teases Koro and Gakushuu inthe canon sometimes, yet even though I’m sure he would have done the same withKarasuma, who’s probably the easiest character to joke around with, it neverhappened. This ship fixes that.

Gakuho x Korosensei:I’ve always loved the way Gakuho calmly accepts Koro’s spazztastic antics inthe canon, so seeing that expanded upon is fantastic. The mutual respect theyhold for each other is also a big plus. Bonus points because Korosensei is alsoone of my favorite characters of all time.

Gakushuu x Karma:Where I get to see Gakushuu’s fiery side. I’m pretty competitive myself, so I likerivals in general. They can both challenge and support each other to do betteras equals.

Gakushuu x Kevin: Ilove how Kevin attempted to defend Gakushuu in the canon, so seeing this big,warm-hearted American boy bring Gakushuu’s feelings out a bit more makes mesmile.

Gakushuu x Nakamura:I like seeing Gakushuu interact with her because they’re both successfulacademically, yet their core values couldn’t be more different. Nakamura wantedto be normal, but Gakushuu wants to be as exceptional as possible, and thatclash of ideals is fascinating. I’m sure they could both learn a lot from eachother and grow to appreciate each side.  

But you could probably write a story about the Asanosand a cactus and I’d probably like it. I’m really not picky. None of these haveto be romantic for me to enjoy them either.

 There are a lot of ships I like that don’t need to involve myfavorite family as well. All you need to do is draw/write a healthyrelationship about any set of characters in AssClass and I’ll probably like it.Examples include:

Takaoka x GoD (2ndgen):  Two characters that I didn’t reallycare about in the canon. I didn’t feel like I had anything in common with them,nor did either of them ever inspire me to become a better person. That’s about theworst start a pair of characters could have in my heart, and yet there’s somuch fanart of them having fun together that the pair now feels canon to me. They’relike the friendly, happy newlyweds living next door, and I feel like I mustsupport them.

Mimura x Sugaya: There’susually at least one reason to like each student in Class E. In the case ofthese two, I always have a soft spot for artistically inclined characters. Watchingthem draw out each other’s creativity and inspire each other to keep reachinghigher is something that resonates with me. Maybe it’s because my sister is anartist.  

Terasaka x Takebayashi:Going to maid cafes together seems like a great way to bond. These guys share aunique common interest in spite of their physical differences, which I findquite compelling.

Yuuji x Nagisa:Yuuji really grew as a person after meeting with Nagisa, and I’m sure there’sroom for even more growth. They both seem like rather gentle people too, so readingabout them hang out and relax, whether as friends or as more, is prettyenjoyable.

There’s a lot more, but these are the ones I get to enjoythe most since they end up on my dash a lot ^^;

My least favorites (whichare still negotiable)

Gakushuu x Lea:  It feels weird to say this because I’m theone who posted the English translation of Korotan C, but it felt like Lea wasintroduced as a character solely to give Gakushuu a female love interest. I don’twant to be too harsh on her since she barely had a chance at character developmentto begin with, but I never got a chance to love this girl. I generally don’tlike forced relationships for the sake of having relationships, and it’s a forcedrelationship involving my orange son, so this is probably the closest I’ll everget to having a NOTP. However, if someone were to appear in the fandom and startwriting fics or drawing fanart depicting the growth of their relationship in acompelling manner, I could probably grow to like even this ship.

The only other pairing that comes to mind as one that I feelless than neutral about has more to do with one of the characters more than theship itself. In spite of the mutual respect established by Karma and Nagisa inthe canon, why is Nagisa treated so disrespectfully so very frequently inKarmagisa works? I’m sure that Nagisa would be able to protect and provide forKarma as much as Karma could for Nagisa. I don’t dislike Karmagisa as a concept,but I do dislike it when Nagisa devolves into a crying sex toy, and thathappens enough for me to hold a certain level of fear in my heart when I seefanfiction tagged Karmagisa. Have mercy on Nagisa.

Non-Negotiable Nopes(or NNNopes)

I love Gakuho. It’s been ten years since I’ve loved a characteras much as I love Gakuho, but boy oh boy, looking through his fanfiction islike stepping through a minefield. He somehow manages to cover all of my nopes.For example:

Teacher x Student:  I really like mentor/student relationships,but not THOSE kinds of relationships. Mentors are there to unselfishly supporttheir students, but adding sex/romance to their relationship adds an element ofselfishness that really shouldn’t be there. And yet, Gakuho keeps gettingshipped with Isogai.  This same line ofreasoning also applies to Parent x Child relationships.

Relationships withNon-Con:  I’m pretty much okay with anysituation if the characters are okay with it. Similarly, I hate reading thingswhere one of the characters doesn’t like it. Simple.  I’ve read some fics where Gakuho startsphysically torturing someone (usually Gakushuu, goddammit), and I nope out ofthere as fast as I can, but I still feel like I lost a few minutes of mylifespan.  

I’m not going to personally track down a person’s blog and sendanonymous hate messages to anyone for writing these. Exploring differentemotions, even the darkest, is probably a necessity for some people to understandand tackle their own darkness. It probably takes some practice to write aboutdark themes in a responsible way too, I’m sure (I’ve never written a fic so I’mactually not sure). But will I ever read any of these? NOOOOPE  

 Thanks for the ask :D  I hope it doesn’t feel like I dodgedthe question since I didn’t list any ‘most favorite’ pairings, but these are myhonest feelings on the subject. I like a lot of characters in AssClass, so aslong I feel like those characters don’t get horribly misrepresented, and aslong as they look happy together, then I’m happy too. And if it involves acharacter I love, I love it!  

[djgblogger-blog]

New ways scientists can help put science back into popular culture

http://bit.ly/2mJsory

Science is one thread of culture – and entertainment, including graphic books, can reflect that. 'The Dialogues,' by Clifford V. Johnson (MIT Press 2017), CC BY-ND

How often do you, outside the requirements of an assignment, ponder things like the workings of a distant star, the innards of your phone camera, or the number and layout of petals on a flower? Maybe a little bit, maybe never. Too often, people regard science as sitting outside the general culture: A specialized, difficult topic carried out by somewhat strange people with arcane talents. It’s somehow not for them.

But really science is part of the wonderful tapestry of human culture, intertwined with things like art, music, theater, film and even religion. These elements of our culture help us understand and celebrate our place in the universe, navigate it and be in dialogue with it and each other. Everyone should be able to engage freely in whichever parts of the general culture they choose, from going to a show or humming a tune to talking about a new movie over dinner.

Science, though, gets portrayed as opposite to art, intuition and mystery, as though knowing in detail how that flower works somehow undermines its beauty. As a practicing physicist, I disagree. Science can enhance our appreciation of the world around us. It should be part of our general culture, accessible to all. Those “special talents” required in order to engage with and even contribute to science are present in all of us.

So how do we bring about a change? I think using the tools of the general culture to integrate science with everything else in our lives can be a big part of the solution.

Science in popular entertainment

For example, in addition to being a professor, I work as a science advisor for various forms of entertainment, from blockbuster movies like the recent “Thor: Ragnarok,” or last spring’s 10-hour TV dramatization of the life and work of Albert Einstein (“Genius,” on National Geographic), to the bestselling novel “Dark Matter,” by Blake Crouch. People spend a lot of time consuming entertainment simply because they love stories like these, so it makes sense to put some science in there.

Science can actually help make storytelling more entertaining, engaging and fun – as I explain to entertainment professionals every chance I get. From their perspective, they get potentially bigger audiences. But good stories, enhanced by science, also spark valuable conversations about the subject that continue beyond the movie theater.

Science can be one of the topics woven into the entertainment we consume – via stories, settings and characters. ABC Television

Nonprofit organizations have been working hard on this mission. The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation helps fund and develop films with science content – “The Man Who Knew Infinity” (2015) and “Robot & Frank” (2012) are two examples. (The Sloan Foundation is also a funding partner of The Conversation US.)

The National Academy of Sciences set up the Science & Entertainment Exchange to help connect people from the entertainment industry to scientists. The idea is that such experts can provide Hollywood with engaging details and help with more accurate portrayals of scientists that can enhance the narratives they tell. Many of the popular Marvel movies – including “Thor” (2011), “Ant-Man” (2015) and the upcoming “Avengers: Infinity War” – have had their content strengthened in this way.

Encouragingly, a recent Pew Research Center survey in the U.S. showed that entertainment with science or related content is watched by people across “all demographic, educational and political groups,” and that overall they report positive impressions of the science ideas and scenarios contained in them.

Science in nonfiction books

This kind of work is not to every scientist’s taste. Some may instead prefer engagement projects that allow them more control of the scientific content than can be had when working on such large projects in the entertainment industry. Often, they instead work on nonfiction science books for the general reader. Here, I think we also need a change.

The typical expert-voiced monologues that scientists write are a wonderful component of the engagement effort, but the form is limited. Such books are largely read by people already predisposed to pick up a science book, or who are open to the authoritative academic’s voice telling them how to think. There are plenty of people who can engage with science but who find those kinds of books a sometimes unwelcome reminder of the classroom.

Following from my belief that science is for everyone, I suggest that publishers need to work with scientists to expand the kinds of books on offer, assured that there is an audience for them. This is currently difficult because publishing companies are risk averse: Something truly original in form likely will have trouble getting past the book proposal stage.

Like an overheard conversation, the author’s graphic novel explores big scientific questions about life and death. 'The Dialogues,' by Clifford V. Johnson, CC BY-ND

Progress is possible, however. Many years ago I realized it is hard to find books on the nonfiction science shelf that let readers see themselves as part of the conversation about science. So I envisioned an entire book of conversations about science taking place between ordinary people. While “eavesdropping” on those conversations, readers learn some science ideas, and are implicitly invited to have conversations of their own. It’s a resurrection of the dialogue form, known to the ancient Greeks, and to Galileo, as a device for exchanging ideas, but with contemporary settings: cafes, restaurants, trains and so on.

I decided it would be engaging for the reader to actually see who’s having those conversations, and where, instead of describing them in words. This led me to realize that I was contemplating a powerful form of visual storytelling: Graphic novels for adults have matured and exploded in popularity in recent years. Spiegelman’s “Maus: A Survivor’s Tale,” Satrapi’s “Persepolis” and Bechdel’s “Fun Home” are just three well-known examples.

But the storytelling tools of the graphic book have been little used in the quest to convey nonfiction science ideas to a general adult audience. The vast majority of contemporary graphic books with a science focus are presented instead as “explainer/adventure comics” for younger audiences. This is an important genre, but graphic books about science should not be limited to that.

And while there are several excellent graphic books for adults that include science, they typically focus instead on the lives of famous scientists, with discussion of the science itself as a secondary goal. Some excellent recent examples that balance the two aspects well include Ottaviani and Myrick’s “Feynman,” Padua’s “The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage,” and Doxiadis and Papadimitriou’s “Logicomix.” The scarcity of science-focused non-biographical graphic books for adults is especially true in my field of physics. So I decided that here was an opportunity to broaden the kinds of nonfiction science book available to engage the public.

Clifford Johnson at his drafting table. Clifford V. Johnson, CC BY-ND

So over six years I taught myself the requisite artistic and other production techniques, and studied the language and craft of graphic narratives. I wrote and drew “The Dialogues: Conversations About the Nature of the Universe” as proof of concept: A new kind of nonfiction science book that can inspire more people to engage in their own conversations about science, and celebrate a spirit of plurality in everyday science participation.

What’s at stake

Science increasingly pervades many aspects of our lives. If people succumb to the typical view that science is difficult and should be left to experts and nerds, the most important decisions about all of our lives will be made by just a few people: from the quality of the water we drink, our medical treatments, energy sources, through to action on climate change. That is not a democratic situation. Moreover, it makes it easier for a powerful few to sideline or misrepresent important ideas and lessons about our world that come through scientific research.

To push back against that scenario, it’s important for scientists to try to engage the public with science. In a changing world, it’s important to keep looking for new ways to do that.

Clifford Johnson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.