#it's not his fault it's his phenotype

[cloud-based-and-rainpilled]

Most controversial take but Rhys Darby looks like a 1900's Boer War veteran who writes poetry about how colonizing India is christlike

[yuri-for-businesswomen]

i just now learned about a recent case where a german man kidnapped and did unspeakable acts to two boys. one was german, one was a refugee. the first one was immediately treated as a missing case, but the second one was not because the cops were afraid the mother was hiding her son to avoid deportation. and the worst part is, that little boy was kidnapped in a government institution (lageso in berlin) where his mother went for help! its infuriating beyond belief.

racism is so deeply engrained in german institutions, its not funny. yet police refuses any reforms or real investigations and deny even the notion - despite mounting evidence - that there is an issue with systemic racism in german police. and we dont have an independent institution to control the cops, you know who investigates their failures and issues? other cops. and we all know how they stick together like literal shit.

but it also made me think about „missing white woman syndrome“. does anyone really care about an eastern european white woman who goes missing while being exploited in the west through prostitution, in the domestic field, nursing, or as a „mail bride“ dependent on her husband? does anyone care about a white woman in the usa going missing from a trailer park? does anyone care about a white woman who was homeless, mentally ill, drug addicted, disabled, impoverished, prostituted, or otherwise marginalised going missing? and do people not care about white men going missing?

and it also made me think about this current trend of oversimplifying and decontextualising racism. one thing i hope we all can agree on is that anti black racism is very persistent. i cant think of a single country where black people are treated preferably over other races, best case is to be treated equally as a black person, and even that is not the case in most countries. but this doesnt just apply to white majority countries. in japan or korea, or under the kafala system in the arabic gulf states, for example, black people are systematically discriminated against and exploited too. white people are also not the only ones guilty of colonialism and imperialism - albeit i dont want to minimise the scale of portugese, spanish, french, british/australin, german, dutch, belgian (neo)colonialism or the north american slave trade.

i dont know its just, everything always has to be put in context and looked at from an intersectional perspective but i feel a lot of people who fault white supremacy for everything dont do that. and dont get me wrong, white supremacy is the root of a lot of inequality and issues, but despite the name its not merely a black and white problem, its complex. for example, even if a roma or jewish person is white, neonazis dont consider them the same race as white people. or i remember my turkish professor once saying, „in turkey im considered white, but in germany im a person of colour“. because race is not just phenotype, it is also culture, nationality, location and ethnicity that matters for who is holding power and privilege.

meanwhile a lot of the same people will refuse to agree that sex matters. or claim that sex - which is a lot less ambiguous than race by the way and nobody argues that mixed race people prove that race is not real or doesnt matter the way they argue intersex people prove that sex is not real or doesnt matter - is a spectrum while chanting „black lives matter“. and i know that black communities do have that conversation about colourism and how whiteness is something even people of colour are supposed to „strive for“, which is why for example the harmful practice of bleaching your skin exists. so it is being acknowledged that race is a spectrum, but some of the same people who rightfully talk about black lives and how blackness is its own social category will call you a bigot for talking about female lives and how being female is a social category.

im not going anywhere with this, just some thoughts that came up regarding discussions on racism and sex and how they intersect too. feel very free to chime in especially as a person of colour obviously!

[the-girl-who-didnt-smile]

Ranting about portrayal of Alastor’s ethnicity

This is basically Part 2 to a previous rant… I just need to get this bitch moaning out of my system. 

As previously mentioned, I think we might get the first glimpse of Alastor’s human life in Season 2 of Hazbin Hotel. As also previously mentioned, I don’t think Vivienne retconned Alastor’s heritage from white to mixed race. Given that she is herself a white-passing mixed race person, I think she originally envisioned him as a white-passing Creole.

Due to the controversy, I think there is a decent chance she is going to retcon his skin tone to make him more visibly mixed race. I feel ambivalent towards this. On the one hand, I much prefer Alastor’s character design if he accurately looks like a mixed race person from the 1930s (not that fanon Alastor is a bad design… this is a personal preference). But if his entire backstory has not been retconned, this could fall into the trap of: “Alastor became the first radio host of color in America without any issue, because the Deep South was a colorblind society where racism did not exist!” 

That being said, this is a very light-hearted show. THIS IS GONNA BLOW YOUR MIND but people (of all races, at that!) don’t want to think about the harrowing realities of racism in America while watching Hazbin Hotel. The lack of skin tone diversity in the main cast is worthy of criticism, so I’m not going to be complaining too bad if they pull an Adventure Time Marceline and retcon his skin tone.

But if they do retcon his skin tone, I hope his human design isn’t just Italian-passing Alastor. 

You’ve seen him. 

…What I’m referring to is the variation of fanon human Alastor, where artists just take fanon Alastor and shift his skin tone a bit without changing anything else about him. 

(I’m not going to insert an example image because I think a lot of these artists are well-intentioned but very young, and yeah… I don’t want to be a dick!)

Granted, “Italian passing Alastor” is not an entirely bad character design. In a place like New Orleans, there is such a wide range of phenotypes that it is not inconceivable that a mixed race Creole could have this phenotype. Not to mention, the whole mukokuseki effect - racial features are generally diminished due to the built-in limitations of animation as a medium (faces cannot be rendered in the same level of detail as live action or comics/manga). For these reasons, I won’t be complaining too much if this is his final design. Actually, I probably won’t be complaining at all, as I’ll just be excited to see his human form! It really isn't a bad design... I'm already simping for him!!

But to bitch moan anyways, here is my critique of this fandom trend: All of the visual data that went into fanon human Alastor is this: https://www.google.com/search?q=white+boys 

If you just shift his skin tone without changing anything else, the visual data that went into him is still this: https://www.google.com/search?q=white+boys 

If you’re going to retcon his skin tone (really, his ethnic makeup / family tree) you actually need to start from the ground up and use this as reference material: https://www.google.com/search?q=creole+men+1930s 

As you can see, there is a wide range of phenotypes, and many did pass for white. But this is a necessary step, not just for human Alastor fan designs, but in designing POC in general - including mixed race POC. The visual data / reference material behind the design needs to be people of color - not white people. You can always immediately tell who took this step and who didn’t; the former category always looks WAY better than the latter!

It’s not just white artists who do this. Many non-white artists fall into this trap, because they were only trained on how to draw white people. For this reason, I don’t really fault the individual artists - it’s more of a systemic problem in how schools etc. teach upcoming artists how to draw.

So yeah… thanks for coming to my TEDx Talk!

[dark9896]

Mistaken [Klaus x Reader]

Requested by Anonymous 😰

A haze crept across Klaus's vision. What was going on? This mission to infiltrate and isolate their target was going so well. What was this sensation? Why did he feel like the room was spinning? He needed to sit for a moment. That would fix this.

Surely that would fix everything.

His trusted friend, the person whom had assisted them all with the infiltration. She was guiding him to a quiet corner. Somewhere he could gather his thoughts. A soft mention of thanks, escaping like a grunt just before everything went black.

Klaus sat up in a cold sweat, clutching at his night shirt. Shaking his head, hoping to dislodge the dream... the memory.

Throwing the covers as little as he could, only wanting to free his feet and not disturb you if he could help it. Klaus stood up, half stumbling to the bathroom.

He needed to clear his mind.

The slightly haunted face that stared back at him was anything but reassuring. That had happened nine, no ten months ago. Anne had long since had the child Klaus had unknowingly thrust upon her.

Options? There had to be at least a hundred options for the two of them to either hide or get rid of the child. But neither Klaus nor Anne had any inclination for those options.

Of course you had been informed as soon as Anne told Klaus she was pregnant, and the three of you sat down to figure out the solution together. From basic adoption, to abortion, to how on Earth you would hide the baby from Klaus's family. Or rather, how you would explain it away.

While Anne wasn't anything phenotypically like yourself, the child had turned out to favor Klaus more, so passing them... him... off as your own child would be fairly easy. The problem was the timing and the values Klaus's family held ever so close to their collective chest, particularly his parents. Specifically his father.

Klaus let out a shaky sigh, staring himself in the eye. What was he to do? Anne had already agreed, already given up custody of the baby boy. Taking on the role of an aunt instead of a mother. It had been easy for her, shockingly easy at that. Anne had never wanted children in the first place.

And her enemies knew it.

That had been the motive behind the actions that evening. The one which haunted Klaus to this day. He had no clue why it had to be him, why was he the one they chose to drug and rope into this mess? Was that a premeditated decision? Had he somehow made the same enemies as Anne? Despite being part of a completely different organization? Or was he just the closest target? A victim of circumstance rather than planning? He-

He jumped at the sudden warmth over his forearm. Startled, but ultimately glad it was merely you. Rubbing your eyes and trying to speak, finding it rather difficult to form a single word. Klaus's face fell a little in the silence, he had been hoping to avoid waking you. Especially with little Lucas refusing to go back to sleep without you rocking him.

This whole situation was taking it toll on you and Klaus didn't like just how much you were shouldering. Between the wedding and a new baby, Klaus felt like he was somehow asking far too much of you.

"What's wrong Liebhaber?" You finally managed to break the silence, "It isn't healthy to bottle yourself away."

Klaus tried to avoid the question. Attempting to calm himself with slow, deep breaths, until he couldn't take the silence weighing on his conscious like a rock.

"Liebling, I just..." His gaze slipped off to the side then back to your eyes, "I fear this whole situation is my fault. That I'm asking too much of you and--"

"Klaus."

The tired sigh had him stopping, shuffling a little guiltily, he knew exactly what you meant after all.

"Please, we've two days until our wedding. There hasn't been a secret between us. Not one that was life shattering at least." You reached up, cupping his face, "I want to know how you feel. I don't doubt your worries. But I do want to help you, especially after everything that's happened."

"[Name], I..." Klaus leaned against your hand gently, "I don't want to add to your burdens. I know you worry as much as I do, and yet..."

His hand almost floated up to hold yours. Slow breaths behind closed eyes as Klaus gathered his thoughts. Knowing that he was delaying the inevitable. Unfortunately, the very thing he wanted to avoid was the exact thing was perpetuating.

"I can't help but feel that you got the worst end of this entire ordeal." Klaus's eye opened, focusing on you, "Your fiancé had an affair behind your back. And during work no less."

"My fiancé was drugged and in no proper state of mind to think clearly." You corrected, "Neither you nor Anne had any say in what happened that night. And neither of you have any intention of repeating the affair."

Klaus's expression softened a bit, torn between wanting to agree and arguing that it was still a traumatic experience even with explanation.

"In the midst of planning our wedding, you had to also think ahead of the consequences of those actions. Adding caring for a woman whom was carrying your fiancé's child to the list of responsibilities bearing down on you."

"Helping a friend through a difficult time and ensuring the health and safety of both the mother and child. While also trying to figure out the best, safest solution for everyone involved."

"And now you're taking care of said infant whilst the final touches are being put on the wedding. Stressing yourself out over small details and caring for a child that isn't even your own."

"Lucas won't know that." You tilted your head, "He'll only know that he grew up in a home where he is loved. Maybe one day we can tell him what happened, that his real mother is a trusted friend and a heavily altered version of why such a thing happened at all. But for now we shouldn't worry about that."

Klaus bowed his head, closing his eyes once more but keeping your hand against his cheek. His thumb slowly rubbing along the length of your pinkie as you brushed just under his eye. His mind churning everything slowly. The way you saw the situation was far different to how Klaus did, no doubt about it. Perhaps for once he was worried a bit too much.

But the real problem was nibbling at the back of his mind.

"Liebling," He finally broke his silence, "I worry about how my parents will react. Given how we can't show them evidence that Lucas is..."

Klaus shook his head again, "More than that. With how my family, my parents, treat having a child. Particularly one born out of wedlock and never even properly mentioned."

You stepped closer to Klaus, trying to free your hand so as to hug him. Alas, he was being stubborn about keeping your hand against his cheek, so you just had to slip your free arm around him.

"I don't know what to do about that Klaus, I'm sorry." You nestled yourself against his chest, "But you aren't going to face this alone. I'll be right here with you, okay?"

"Of course mein Herz."

[freudianslumber]

Tiger Man

Summary: The year was 1941, bandmates and secret lovers Scotty Moore and Elvis Presley got caught red handed by Scotty’s fiancée, and this led to the young men being thrusted headlong into the China-Burma-India theater of World War II as members of the first American Volunteer Group (The Flying Tigers).

Chapter 5. Guest and Hosts

Pairing:  Scotty Moore/Elvis Presley (m/m), Elvis Presley/Wen Ying (m/f)

Word Count: 2.7k

Warnings: None

As Mr. Yang came home from school, he was horrified by the unexpected scene in front of him.  His younger daughter, Wen Fang, was kneeling on the lap of the American fighter pilot who was temporarily staying with them and appeared to be poking at his eyes.  “Stop!  What are you doing, Xiao Fang??” Mr. Yang called out.  The girl giggled as she looked back at her father: “Daddy, you’re back!  I was only playing with Uncle Xiao Ai.  I have never seen blue eyes before or eyelashes so long!”

Xiao Ai was the affectionate nickname given to the injured Flying Tiger by the Yang family, derived phenotypically from his name Elvis.  The amiable young man almost felt like a part of the household now that he had boarded with them for a whopping two weeks.  Mr. Yang convinced Elvis to put off rejoining the squadron for a while in favor of more recuperation.  He pointed out the danger of taking a train directly to Baoshan, given report of frequent disruption caused by small teams of Japanese soldiers in the surrounding countryside from across the Burmese border.  The intention of the Japanese Empire to gradually encroach on this part of China had been rather evident.  

If he was to be perfectly honest with himself, Mr. Yang wouldn’t mind playing host to the young American for a little or even a lot longer.  Thus far the lad had been a delightful house guest, befriending Mr. Yang’s two daughters despite the language barrier.  Case in point, Wen Fang was getting a little too brazen with her curiosity here.

“Stop being naughty and get off this instant, Xiao Fang!”  The headmaster instructed in an emphatic voice, which was promptly heeded and followed by the girl.

 

Although Elvis didn’t understand the exchange in Chinese, he could very well guess what was being said by observing the tone and body language on both sides.  “Aww, Mr. Yang, just let her be.  It don’t bother me none.”

“Don’t side with her.  The kid is too spoiled.  Poking a guest in the eye, what next!?”  Mr. Yang huffed.  He then turned to the girl who was standing to the side with her head hung low, “go do your homework, I got adult business to discuss with Xiao Ai here.”

“Mr. Yang, it’s not her fault.  I let her sit on my knees, we were just having a little innocent fun. Please don’t give her a hard time.”  Elvis pleaded with the head of the family as he watched Wen Fang run away. 

“She will be fine.  Now let’s talk about something more important.” Mr. Yang quickly glossed over the previous topic.  “I know you are waiting to connect with your squadron again, Elvis.  I’m going to Baoshan in two days to buy some supplies for the school.  I will find your airbase and let them know you are alive and safe here.  I’m sure then your commander will arrange to get you back to the base.” 

Elvis’ eyes widened: “Mr. Yang, thanks for allowing me to stay with your family for so many days.  I don’t want to trouble you any more than necessary.  I can go along with you to Baoshan so it can all be taken care of in one trip.” 

Not surprised by the young man’s reply, the headmaster proceeded to explain his reasoning: “Trust me, Elvis, it’s better this way.  You are not Asian, so you will be a big easy target for the Japanese wherever you go, they may still be searching for you after the crash over the river.  I go to Baoshan every few weeks anyway, it’s not suspicious at all.   It’s a nice cover for me to go find Flying Tigers.  I’m sure they will know the quickest way to get you home safely.”

“Never thought of it that way.” Elvis scratched the back of his head and acknowledged.  “I guess it never hurts to be cautious.  Thanks for being so considerate, sir.  Would you mind passing a little message along to my pal Scotty Moore when you get to the base?”

“Not at all.  In fact, your handwriting will probably make them believe me more.” Mr. Yang readily agreed to the innocuous request.  Feeling satisfied that the main item of business had been settled, Mr. Yang decided to digress somewhat: “Elvis, may I ask how old you are?” 

“I’m 21.”  Mr. Yang nodded approvingly at the simple reply: “That’s a young age to be risking your life on the frontlines.  But as in the old saying, ‘Since ancient times, heroes have emerged from youth’.  You are only a couple of years older than my daughter Wen Ying.  I saw you teach her guitar the other day.  How is the progress?”

Elvis blushed a little at that, he didn’t realize the head of the household was watching when he gave Wen Ying a few pointers on the guitar recently.  “Oh, she was doing just fine, a lot better than how I did for my Chinese lessons.”

“I heard you sing and play, Elvis.  You’re very talented.  Were you a musician?”  Mr. Yang pried further.  “I was the singer of a band and was trying to build a local following before I started my pilot training.”  Elvis admitted. 

“No wonder you sang so well!”  Mr. Yang exclaimed.  “Your voice is strong and soft at the same time.  My late wife would have liked you a lot, she loved music and enjoyed listening to records.”  “Thank you, sir.  Mrs. Yang sounds like a lovely lady.”  The Blue Moon Boys singer was appreciative of the compliment but was worried that he had inadvertently brought up somber memory of his host’s deceased spouse. 

“Yes, she was a remarkable woman, we met each other as coworkers at the newspaper we used to work for.”  Not wanting to delve into this part of his past too deeply, Mr. Yang changed the subject then, “If you don’t mind me asking, how is your family doing back in your country?  I suppose they must be so worried about you, fighting in foreign land.”

Elvis’ heart felt a small prick as this sensitive topic was breached.  “Yes, I’m an only child so my folks really stress a lot about me, especially my Mama.  Over the years her health took a toll, and it got worse after I joined the Flying Tigers and saw real battle.  It was all too much for her, and her body gave out.  I received a telegram from home that she passed away a month ago.”  The young man’s eyes grew mournful as he shared honestly.

Mr. Yang was shaken up by this sudden new information, “Oh you poor child, I’m so sorry to hear about that!  That must be really hard for you!”  He walked closer and patted the young man on the shoulder in an effort to extend his belated condolence.  A redness was becoming conspicuous around Elvis’ eyes as he tried to fight back the tears: “She didn’t have much and never wanted much, her life revolved around me.  I just wish I could have made her life easier and happier, and made her proud of me.  But it’s not to be, such is life…  In a month or two my contract with the Flying Tigers would be over, I hope to go back home then and visit her grave.” 

“Mrs. Presley raised you very well, Elvis.” Mr. Yang couldn’t help but feel fatherly toward the remarkable American pilot, who happened to possess so many traditional Chinese virtues such as modesty and familial piety.  “Wherever she is, I’m sure she is proud of you for being so kind, just and valiant.”

“Xiao Ying! Did you tell Xiao Ai about the students with the gifts yet?”  Mr. Yang suddenly called out to his older daughter who was making dinner in the kitchen.  “Not yet!  You can let him know now if you want,” replied Wen Ying.  Mr. Yang turned back to Elvis: “We tried to keep your whereabouts a secret, but a few students did find out that you stayed with us.  They were the ones who found you in the river.  Wen Ying said they insisted on visiting you and bringing you gifts from their families, so she picked two of them as representatives.  Would you want to meet them tomorrow?” 

Surprised, Elvis broke out of his melancholy: “Sure, I don’t see why not.  I’m not busy with anything.  But maybe I should be the one giving them gifts since they saved me.”  The headmaster’s reply was resolute: “That would not be proper at all.  You were almost killed fighting for us, the least we could do is to show some thanks.” 

The matter was thus settled, and the next afternoon Wen Ying did bring back two boys from school bearing presents.  The boys were shy at first, but Elvis made them at ease.  Mr. Yang was not around so Wen Ying had to act as the translator, but she only knew some broken English.  Fortunately, most of the items were self-explanatory, such as Chinese herbal supplements, tropical fruits, dried nuts, exquisite handmade scarves, local wooden sculptures, etc.  The boys’ admiration for the Flying Tiger was also quite evident from their facial expression and overall demeanor.  One of them declared that he wanted to be a pilot when he grew up and become a war hero too.  To which the American replied sincerely: “The war should be over by then, it’d better be.”  He wasn’t sure if Wen Ying got what he meant, but she did give him a pretty smile before telling her student something in Chinese.  Elvis ended up teaching the boys to sing “Old MacDonald” which was silly and fun.  The kids tried to linger but Mr. Yang came home and sent both of them back, not wanting to worry their parents.  

The next day Mr. Yang left for Baoshan as planned, he told Elvis he would be back in about three days.  The young American gave him a little envelope with a brief note enclosed for Scotty, simply stating: “Alive and well, see you soon!  Elvis”.  He asked Mr. Yang if he should find another place to stay while the latter was away because he would be left with two girls in the house.  Mr. Yang didn’t seem concerned at all about the living arrangement, reassuring him that the whole family was comfortable with the idea of him staying.  In fact, Mr. Yang entrusted the two girls’ safety to Elvis during this time.  The fighter pilot was so amazed at the level of trust bestowed on him by the Yang family he felt a responsibility to everyone in it.  As he accompanied the two girls at the train station to see off their father, Elvis kept reminding himself in his mind: Don’t screw up, soon you will return to the squadron and get to see Scotty again.  And in a month you might even be able to go home finally.

The next few days went by without a hitch.  Elvis suspected that the two Yang girls actually enjoyed the little break from their strict father.  The young man imagined they probably thought of him as the goofy older brother who really needed more looking after than the other way around.  He took over Mr. Yang’s daily chore of bicycling Wen Fang back and forth from school.  Wen Ying would be riding her own bicycle alongside them.  This mundane affair attracted quite a few glances and head-turns from passerby simply because Elvis was part of it.  The American was getting used to most of the locals staring at him like he was from another planet.  After all, westerners were so rare in this part of the world they might as well be extraterrestrials.   At home, Elvis tried to be useful by assisting Wen Ying when she cooked, doing simple tasks such as cleaning produce, peeling carrots and potatoes, cutting poultry and meat, etc.  Wen Ying was a surprisingly capable cook for her age, but limited by the foodstuffs they were able to procure.  Elvis must have filled his stomach with more rice, noodle and vegetables at the Yang family than he had ever had in his life. The time after dinner was consumed with finishing homework, reading, language lessons on both sides, singing and playing.   Elvis was quite fascinated with the art of calligraphy which Wen Fang practiced everyday under Wen Ying’s tutelage.  However, the eager novice at this ancient Chinese art was very quick to find out how difficult it was to control the stroke of a brush or even just to keep the ink from accidentally smearing onto his clothes or face.  Wen Fang couldn’t stop laughing and pointing at Uncle Xiao Ai and his “tabby cat face”.  Wen Ying was amused too, but secretly thought the amount of concentration and enthusiasm to be incredibly cute.  Quietly, she handed Elvis a warm towel to dap his face with, then walked over to correct his sitting posture and the way he held his brush.  As Wen Ying’s hand hovered over those long and elegant fingers, her palm started to feel a little sweaty, just like when her hand was held by his during their guitar lessons.  She gently moved his digits around to place them into the correct hold and straightened his brush so that it was perfectly vertical to the paper.  That felt like such an epiphany Elvis suddenly turned his head and blurted out, genuinely appreciative: “Thanks so much, teacher!”  The tiny puff of air which hit Wen Ying’s face at close range and the velvety baritone that boomed against her eardrum combined to make the girl blush rapidly over her cheek and neck.  For an instant, the world seemed to have stopped moving.  Wen Ying could sense those brilliant blue eyes burning into the side of her face, thick long eyelashes fanning out, perfect Greek nose moving dangerously close, juicy plump lips left slightly ajar…  With her heart fluttering and mouth going dry, the young teacher took an awkward step away from Elvis.  She cleared her throat and managed to say “yes, you can keep practicing like that” before retreating to the kitchen to find some water. 

Time flew by as the trio were having fun, but soon anxiety began creeping in as the patriarch of the family did not return in the expected timeframe.  By the fourth day they went to the railroad station to check on the arriving schedule and was shocked to find all of the trains returning from Baoshan had been cancelled.  “They are fighting down south!” was all the station clerk said while shaking his head.  Both Elvis and Wen Ying immediately realized the gravity of the situation. Simultaneously but independently, the two started prayers for Mr. Yang’s safe return.  Elvis prayed to God, and Wen Ying prayed to Guanyin, the Goddess of Mercy.  They tried to act normal and keep their worries from the youngest one in the family but hope kept slipping away each day that they waited in vain.

At dawn on day six, someone knocked on the gate of the one-story brick house which belonged to the Yang family.  Everyone in the household jumped up from their beds and rushed out the door to find a carriage parked next to the curb.  Mr. Yang stumbled out of the carriage, and then immediately collapsed onto the pavement right next to it.  The sisters cried out “Daddy!” as they surrounded the feeble figure on the ground.  Elvis kneeled behind Mr. Yang and propped up his shoulders and head.  The educator’s impeccably ironed suit jacket now looked like it had been trampled on, some rusty colored patches at the right waist and shoulder looked like they might be blood stains.  The man’s lips were pale and trembling, his breathing was labored and irregular as he struggled to speak: “Xiao Ying, Xiao Fang, you’ve got to get out of here while you still can!  The Japanese are coming!” 

[messier-47]

i did say I had 2 story ideas to share in regards to Mecha Shounin Genre type of story

this one has a bit more potential for sexier scenes and is fairly different from Handler/Pilot AU

Madatobi, Alien/Human, Mecha Shounin AU (big robots fighting big monsters), everyone is an adult here, Tobirama POV

First of all, the robots are called Uchiha. "Wanna meet your Uchiha?" "The Uchiha's are over in the loading dock." "Yeah, I'm a mechanical engineer for the Uchiha fleet"

But unlike Pacific Rim style, let's go with Evangelion architype where the robots are parially controlled by alien sentience. And then let's have the alien sentience be a moldible goop like Venom that needs to be bonded with a human to reach it's full potential. You'll see why in a minute.

Our story begins with our two Senju brothers going up in their Uchiha and fighting off two upper class alien invader. Hashirama goes up in Madara, who he's bonded to and Tobirama goes up in Izuna, bonded just the same. The Senju brothers are experienced pilots with the shortest kill-time-ratio and are considered the dream team. Madara and Izuna are top of the line Uchiha and notoriously the strongest in the entire fleet.

But something unexpected happens in this fight.

Izuna dies and Tobirama is left traumatized but somehow able to finish his fight. Hashi and Mada are both horrified cause they lost their little brothers (Hashi doesn't know yet tht Tobi still lives but Mada knows through hive mind? or psychic connection that his little brother is gone)

Tobirama is saved and pulled from active duty cause nobody knows if theirs any longstanding consequences to having an alien psychic bond abruptly dying in the middle of battle. It doesn't help that Madara is convinced that it's Tobirama's fault that Izuna is dead and now all the Uchiha get fussy at the sight of the pale Senju. (Maybe Tobirama is at fault maybe he isn't. maybe he could have done something different, could have reacted better, but nothing could change what happened)

The pale Senju brother gets transfered somewhere else and for years, Konoha-port doesn't see him again.

Things change overtime and now there's a new type of invader showing up. Konoha has to bring in the top scientist to actually study their newish enemy and it's to no one but Madara's surprise that Tobirama came back. By now the other Uchiha are not so hostile with the pale Senju brother but at the same time, Tobirama doesn't even attempt to touch or acknowledge the Uchiha (feel like he's wearing a Scarlet Letter at this point) he's only here to do science.

Madara is seething in rage and tries to connect with Hashirama but...things have changed. Hashi isn't a pilot anymore, he's a General and therefore can't go up in an Uchiha though he and his bonded symbiotic alien still are connected. The Uchiha 'Madara' hasn't been on the frontlines for a couple years now, been dormant and gathering dust cause Madara is so strong an Uchiha that no other pilot could properly pilot with him.

Now these new foes are not new so much as they're a mutated, stronger form of the invading alien force. Instead of a monster alien having one or two animal-like phenotypes, now we're seeing three headed monsters with seven limbs. They're ugly, they're strong, they have alot of surprise attacks up their sleeves and both pilots and Uchiha start coming back really fucking hurt.

Then, one day, two of these ugly motherfuckers appear in gold and silver armor. There's no one else that could properly protect Konoha cause all the 'big dogs' have been injured before.

Tobirama steps up, offering his piloting services to Hashirama. Some of the Uchiha symbiotes are willing to form a temporary bond with Tobirama just to help defend but that's when Madara swoops in and proclaims that no one but he would work with Tobirama cause he doesn't want another Uchiha dying by Tobi's hand and Mada is strong enough to marionette the robot battlesuit with a useless human.

So Tobirama pilots with Madara.

They defeat the Gold-Silver brothers in almost record time.

When they get back to Konoha they both swear never to touch each other again.

Something had gone wrong.

[nevertheless-moving]

Obikin Crisis AU Part Six

 (Plot Things)

Part One - - - Part Two - - - Part Four - - - Part Five

So eventually they realize the divergent point in their universe’s is—the big thing that caused the galactic government to break along different fault lines is—drumroll please

JAR JAR BINKS

Yes, two paths diverged in a yellow wood and Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan took the one that did not lead to Jar Jar Binks

and that has made all the difference

which means no gungan army

which means the occupation of naboo plays out differently 

which leads to Padme’s death and the subsequent exit of Naboo from the federation

which leads to—look it’s all very for want of a nail, alright?

palpatine has schemes within schemes, this universe is probably closer to his original plan

anyway

Mace Windu, very seriously: “Could this Jar-Jar have been an agent of the Sith?”

Anakin: “Ha! No, that’s—no. Definitely not.”

Obi-Wan: “He’s—to put it delicately, he’s not smart enough.”

Anakin: “...Then again...that would be—”

Obi-Wan: “—the perfect cover. No. No!”

Anakin: “No way.”

Obi: “Didn’t you say he went from being an exile to a General? That’s kind-of suspicious.”

Ani: “And he somehow ended up on the Queen’s personal ship?”

Obi-Wan:

Anakin:

Obi-Wan: “...I always did wonder how he became a representative of Naboo.”

Anakin: “And there were security leaks...no, it’s ridiculous, I can’t believe we’re even considering it! He’s a friend, and he’s not—he’s not competent enough.”

Obi-Wan: "But—sometime’s he acted so incompetent that—”

Anakin: “—you couldn’t help but wonder if he was doing it on purpose?”

Obi-Wan: “Holy Force—could it—could he—”

Anakin: “It’s insane, but...”

Obi-Wan: “He did vote for Palpatine’s emergency poweres, which were immediately used for the military creation act—”

Anakin: “That doesn’t mean he’s evil but—”

Obi-Wan: “—it does indicate that there’s more to him than meets the eye.”

Windu: “Alright, I’ve looked him up and—he's Royal Consort of Bardotta. One of the leader’s of the Dagoyan Order.”

Anakin: “Huh.”

Ani: “Um, are his eyes yellow?”

Obi-Wan: “That’s—lots of species have that phenotypic expression.”

Obi: “Which, combined with the galaxy’s tendency to overlook Gungans, would make him an excellent Candidate for a secret Sith Apprenticeship.”

Anakin: “...Holy Kriff.”

Obi-Wan: “I can’t believe—”

Anakin: “Jar-Jar’s the Sith Lord!”

[keire-ke]

who do you think is right (or wrong): Charles or Erik? and why if you don't mind answering

also do you have any thoughts on the mutant-human or mutant-mutant conflict in x-men?

What an ask to find on a Sunday morning :D

(I will preface this by saying I deal strictly in the movie verse)

First off, right about what? They are of one mind about a whole lot of things, up to and including mutant superiority, they mostly differ on what number of dead people is an acceptable collateral. On this front I'm generally on Charles' side: less is better.

I am not in favor of experimenting on people (even the evil ones), murdering people en masse and torturing people. Also using your own as human shields is bad. Erik has a lot of good points, no question, but long term he is his cause's own worst enemy. That said, McAvoy I think had a solid take, when asked about the divide: in the long term Xavier is right. Anything but learning to live side by side is unthinkable. But that's from the perspective of someone who is either in the majority, or has enough security (whether through wealth, social circle, or passing privilege) to wait. Magneto offers immediate action, and for the people who are hurting right now it's absolutely understandable, required even, even though the specific actions he chooses are often grotesque. I think we're supposed to interpret his policies as "punch the fascists", except it very rarely ends with punching the fascist in question.

The human/mutant conflict (and I think mutant/mutant conflict is an extension of that) is... well a bit of a mixed bag, in terms of who is "right", because there is a point where the metaphor of mutants = LGBTQ falls apart. Like, of course, people should not be discriminated against based on arbitrary phenotype characteristics, nor should they be forced to disclose intimate personal/medical details, but also there is no approximate real world equivalent to Explodo, The Anti-Matter Person, whose secondary genetic characteristic is that they annihilate everything in a twenty feet radius every time they sneeze. It's not their fault they will kill probably one-third of the people they're ever going be around, but also refusing to hire them to wait tables is a no brainer. And in a world when there is only a clearly defined subset of a population that could turn out to be Explodo, being wary of that subset is not exactly unreasonable.

[theighthhorcrux]

We kicked off with Torres cage-fighting a guy, then walking into the bullpen with dilated pupils 36 hours earlier. McGee and Knight ragging on him was funny, as was his annoyance at Parker and Sawyer bonding. The garbage-dump storyline could’ve easily been adapted to become the Adams County landfill- I want to see Stewie again. Also, the missing eyeball was the perfect chance for a Kort reference. Parker channeling Gibbs in MTAC was great, as was him and the General sniping at each other while Vance tried to mediate. I felt kind of sorry for the brother, but it was his fault- also, what did he think would happen when he stole Navy property? Parker and Kasie remind me of early Gibbs and Abby, and the addition of the winter-coat down reminded me of Knockout, along with the whole pugilist theme. Kayla in FLETC was an exciting update, and Kasie doing phenotyping was very CSI. With maxim, my mind immediately went to a fake identity, but Parker bringing up the possibility of an undocumented immigrant made me do a 180 and think differently, and i really liked it. The team worried about Torres was sweet, and I couldn’t believe he didn’t see the trap Knight led him into. I love how the show consistently includes references to Gibbs and how the team is doing without him. Maxim throwing a curveball was cool, as was Knight pulling that taser out of nowhere. Sawyer agreeing to the fight was stupid, and we got to see Vance in his element. McGee played a convincing cage-fighter pimp/manager/whatever, and, as always, Torres big mouth and even bigger ego landed him in trouble. The fight was predictable- Torres getting his ass kicked, then finding a second wind. The mention of Breena and Dr. Grace was so bittersweet, and I’m surprised they didn’t throw Bishop in there as a reason for Torres’ behavior- maybe that’ll come later in the season.     

The show’s featured plenty of underground clubs and rings before, each with a different backstory, but this one was the most heartfelt. Highlighting how unfair the US immigration system is, and how people are willing to make really bad deals just for the chance to have a better life was really important.      

[bonesingerofyme-loc]

Let’s discuss Eliksni

This current season, Season of the Splicer, has a focus on Mithrax and the House of Light and Eliksni in particular as a species. Following with the landmark alliance between Caitl’s leftover Imperial Cabal and the Vanguard, now Mithrax has founded the House of Light and reached out a hand of peace to the Last City.

To this end, he has offered his services to the Tower and the Vanguard and in return, Ikora offered the House of Light resettlement within the City limits, under the Traveler.

This is the start of how incredibly poorly thought out everyone has acted in this season.

Ikora offered shelter to the House of Light without Consensus approval - hell, without even consulting with Zavala. She invited aliens into the Last City unilaterally, which, yeah, no shit that’s going to cause friction. 

Mithrax, in the first mission, when we chat with him, Osiris and Lakshmi in the Fallen Quarter, states that he will keep his House here and away from the rest of the City. We then have quite a few lorecards from weapons and whatnot detailing Eliksni out and about, alone, in the greater City. So was that a lie, Mithrax?

I get what the angle is here. I really do.

But allegory is fucking stupid.

There is nothing remotely similar between the Fallen/Human relations in the Destiny universe and hostile relations between nations or peoples on Earth IRL.

I think it’s all too easy for a reader to forget that Eliksni are alien. No matter how different a person’s culture might be on Earth, they are still human. They are still exactly the same as anyone else. You can look at them and see yourself. Their internal existence is, at least if you’re not going full solipsist, the same as your own. And you can bet on that because they’re human. We all grew up on the same planet. We all ate the same things, shat under the same stars, watched the same moon come up at night. It doesn’t matter from which corner of the globe you’re from or the divergence of phenotype, we’re all still human, closer than close. 

Eliksni (and Cabal, and Hive, etc) are alien. They are fundamentally different in a way that two cultural groups on Earth can never, ever be. Their brain chemistry is nowhere remotely comparable, assuming they even have brains in the way we’d describe it. There is no way to bridge the species gap about internal lives and existence - they are intrinsically other. They share none of the same, most  fundamental experiences of being that humans do, just as we do not for them. 

This isn’t to say that an alien can’t be empathized with or treated fairly, what I’m saying is that you cannot, in any way, compare an alien to a human, especially in how a person would relate or react to them.

Take a horrible war on Earth. From any time period. You’re going to have belligerents on both sides, deep-seated dislike and hatred of each other. But these things can pass and there are always, always those who are against it on either side. And they fade away. The scars can remain, at times, but these differences are driven by cultural rivalries and those cultures can fade away or move together. And over time can be lost in the collective visage of humanity, which does not bear a brand on it’s sleeve of ancient allegiance to one or another.

Do you know what cannot ever change? Biology. An alien will always be alien, no matter how close you associate with them or how long. There will always be a deep, fundamental disconnect in some major areas that cannot be crossed because you cannot be them and they cannot be you. 

And this is fine - a human should be human and an eliksni should be eliksni, or insert whatever favorite alien you have there. 

What gets me, though, is when writers treat ‘race’ and ‘species’ as interchangeable. It’s why I tend to take issue with using ‘race’ when referring to fantasy species, especially when there is no interbreeding possible. Dwarves and elves can get a little loosy-goosy there. 

You have these lorecards about Eliksni getting hate crime’d by the human population in the Last City or being shunned or prejudiced against and the r/dtg subreddit is all up in arms about the evil civilians and it’s like look - they’re aliens.

The fuck else did you expect?

This isn’t a case of accepting some human refugees in, this is a group of aliens that for seven hundred years have been the bogeyman for very real and very literal reasons. 

Humans have positive experiences with other humans all throughout life.

Humanity has not had a single positive experience with aliens since we learned alien life exists. I’m excluding the Traveler here, frankly, because it’s a cosmic god. 

For the seven hundred or so years that alien life has been a reality for the human race, they have been devoured, hunted to extinction, brutally sacrificed, used as torture fodder, used to feed eldritch gods and other, lovely, lovely things. 

Is it any surprise that the first time alien faces are seen in the Last City it’s met with hostility? There are zero positive experiences with aliens for all of humanity. The only ones who have had some are Guardians. The face of an alien means death or worse. The face of a human can mean that but again - we know so many humans in our lives, of all stripes. Here though, an alien, any alien, any face that is not comfortably human, means death. Something that the entire population of the Last City was very forcibly and violently reminded of just recently with Ghaul’s invasion and the subsequent slaughters that happened. Did we forget the citizens thrown to the warbeasts to be devoured?

The eliksni of House Light don’t deserve the hostility, of course. But it’s not surprising and really, it’s not the fault of the civilians. The fault is squarely on the shoulders of Ikora for deciding this incredibly poorly thought out move unilaterally and Mithrax for not recognizing that this was going to happen.

Because it goes both ways. Fallen haven’t had a single positive experience with aliens in all their existence, either, remember. For them, any alien, including humans, meant death. The thing with Saint-14 being a demon? Excellent! Perfect in showcasing this dynamic! But the stupidity is in recognizing this and then just going ‘lmao nah just give them free range in the Tower which is infested with Guardians, which they’re going to be terrified of.’ This is the purest of idiocy, a complete failure of leadership on all sides and is really quite insensitive to the needs of both species. 

So is the solution permanent segregation of species? No, but it’s definitely not just letting Fallen wander at whim and go to fucking ramen shops. This is seven hundred years of human-side bias and god-knows how long for eliksni to overcome. 

Aliens aren’t human. It bothers me when they’re treated that way because it’s lazy. This is a unique and fascinating angle in a story, one that is uniquely science fiction. Treating it as just a clumsy allegory for human relations is a waste of text (and also, ironically, a bit insulting to what the allegory is about. Unless you’re cool with implying that some people are as inhuman and inscrutable as literal bug aliens which is a yikes from me, dawg).

Maybe the salient point that Bungie is trying to make this season is that Ikora and Mithrax are complete knobheads and worthless leaders, but I’m gonna hazard that’s not the case.

[scarletta-ec]

Original Sin Story: Re_Crime

[AFTERWORD]

So this is mainly mothy talking about the original book so I guess this means I get to go through my process. More or less just my patch notes from this build of Original Sin Story: Crime.

Part 1

First, I made Maria a little older when she was caught in a storm. I wanted to distance Levia from lightning and make Maria a more Miku-ish age rather than a typical Rin age. 

Basically, I’m increasing Levia’s association with wind instead of lightning.

Next was Miroku’s name. I don’t know, it’s an alright name but it feels weird for a surname from later EC being a first name of a not-Jakokuese character here. I first renamed him Nemanja, but then found a Slavic G- name I liked, Gavriil. It’s an equivalent to “Gabriel” which is the name of an archangel.

I liked the first few chapters so not too much has changed. It got exponentially more and more divided from the source material as the book quality went down.

I haven’t changed too much of the worldbuilding or politics cause that is not my strong point, lol. It’s serviceable so I let it be.

I added a description of curled platinum blond hair for Irta Li because I think he should look like Alucard.

Changed the “gear” system of time to “period” since that term is an actual expression of time and is not used in-universe/in the book for this purpose.

Changed Adam and Gammon’s reactions to being late. I just feel maybe Adam shouldn’t be so smug and Gammon such an ass.

I didn’t change anything about Vaju, but his description makes me think of the Capitol elite from The Hunger Games.

Part 2

Didn’t feel like settling on “Mogura” or “Mole People” for those people who dig up Second Period relics, so I just titled them Excavators.

Kept the magic car cause it’s pretty dope and it made my friend go feral cause she predicted it.

Genderbent Raiou into Raijoou because I always imagined the Zvezdas as matriarchal and instead of switching it so Raiou was the late parent, I just said screw it, Eve gets two moms.

I like the idea of Horus Solnste being his own character but there’s really no way to make it work without even more rewrites so he’s still Seth here.

Raijoou’s wife still claims to have found Eve in a river. This is an in-story lie and a meta misdirection.

Added that Adam and Eve have a year to two year difference in age, but they’re both around 20.

I found the whale thing kind of dumb so I just made Catherine a “white blur under the waves” (i.e. a dead sunken body). I get it was a Jonah’s whale reference but I don’t think she needs to literally be a whale for her to fulfill that reference, like how Seth is never a literal snake.

Changed the mention of “THE White Army” to “A White Army”. Raisa mentions a test of her “Second Regiment”. I changed her from a Salem inheritor to a Vlad inheritor (who uses fire magic). This “Second Regiment” is an undead army that are all white, like the Netsuma humans of her First Regiment. Though the zombies are resistant to regular fighting, lightning gets them down quite easily.

I have to say, I wasn’t really chill with Meta being a Gilles inheritor when the info came out but the Red Devotees are so terrifying I couldn’t change it.

Salem inheritor fire is not fire magic. The Netsuma are not all Vlad inheritors like Raisa, but they are all skilled in the fire arts, that is, fire spells and weapons. The arts don’t cover blue flames, as only Salem inheritors produce that.

I made Eve a Held sect member from the start, for more conflict between her and Zellana as Zellana proceeds to be an asshole about Held. Since Nemu isn’t too close to the forest, Eve hasn’t seen Held for herself, so she tries not to cause so much of a fuss, aware she’s in a Levia sect majority place.

Part 3

Adam doesn’t have a direct memory of any river. He was just already out in the open as a very young child as far as he could remember.

Adam is still caught up in a storm like the original tsunami and is saved by Catherine.

Made Horus/Seth as less of a dick than he is, by him being unable to bring Adam to Maria (or reveal Adam as Maria’s son) since Maria’s visitors really are restricted and enforced.

It’s unclear if Horus really did update Maria on Adam’s condition as he claims, decide depending on how you want to see him.

Made Gammon and Adam’s relationship just a bit more pining-y, so when Gammon is drunk he just leans on Adam instead of the counter.

Changed the fucking STUPID Levia inheritor bullshit with Venom. Venom is now connected to Gilles Inheritors. Kept the dead body experimentation part so it’s uncomfortably close to the truth.

Made Adam a little less willing to commit homicide.

MADE ADAM KEEP HIS STUPID, GROSS PLAN ON THE BACKBURNER. HE DOESN’T GO THROUGH WITH IT.

Adam circumvents Seth for the recipe for Venom. This is very important.

Horus/Seth has told Adam about the river children, not telling Adam he is one of those. Adam thus assumes he must be one of them. This is further misdirection.

Raijoou is still a founding member of Apocalypse.

Seth isn’t around so much while Adam and Eve hang out, so as far as Adam is aware, Seth doesn’t know he’s using Venom. This is important as well.

Gammon flirts with Adam but slyly takes it back before he notices.

Adam is already paranoid that he’s given Eve too much Venom (this is unchanged from the source but still important for the payoff)

Scene with Catherine is unchanged, because I love her and this scene.

When Eve has the stillbirth, Seth implies something on Adam’s part is what caused it. The pieces all come together: Seth may have created Venom, but Adam went behind his back to get Venom, used it while trying to keep Seth from knowing about it, thus making this all Adam’s fault. Seth didn’t even convince him to use it, either.

Part 4

Seth gets a black eyes and is being creepy when pistol-whipped. Also his glasses were sent flying off his face.

Finally, Seth clears the meticulous shit I set up, lmao.

After Maria was rendered sterile and her twins were gotten rid of, she still wanted a child and enlisted Seth to make it happen.

The twins aren’t Adam and Eve. Seth kept the boy in cryostasis in Lunaca Labora for his destruction powers, and gave the girl to the Lighwatch Temple so he could keep a close eye on her. These are Amostia and Elluka, respectively.

Adam is essentially a tube-grown human. He’s not a ghoul child because he was made with two sets of DNA, Maria’s and a foreign man to obscure Adam’s phenotype.

Lunaca Labora is a large underground complex, with secret entrances spanning to and from many important capital buildings.

Thus, when Apocalypse bombed one of these buildings, this caused a collapse in the section of Lunaca Labora below it, the chaos in which Adam disappeared.

It was incidents like this that made Raijoou leave Apocalypse and take a wife in the quiet village of Nemu once again.

Horus had met both Raijoou and her wife, Inanna while searching Evillious.

I named her wife Inanna because I wanted a name that resembled “inazumi” to fit Raijoou’s lightning theme, in addition to Inanna meaning “lady” and “heaven/sky”, and being a Sumerian goddess equated to Ishtar.

Without Raijoou’s input, Inanna enlisted Horus to make them a child, she she couldn’t have any, and of course not with Raijoou.

Eve is fashioned the same way as Adam- made with two sets of DNA donated by Inanna and Raijoou.

She was a backburner project so she was finished about a year after both Adam and Meta. Seth had also made Eve a HER carrier.

Since Raijoou is a Held inheritor, Eve ended up as one, too. Noticing this early in her development, it got Seth interested in making ghoul children with inheritor abilities.

Seth is still a shitty father, but I made it less..... cartoonishly horrible. Not better, just less awful. Seth is already a twisted guy, so he tried raising Adam the way he himself was raised, the only way he could think of: purely for their intelligence. Seth had gifted child syndrome, I’m calling it.

Seth tried making Gilles inheritor ghoul children specifically because they were hard to make. If he could get them correctly, he could make any kind of inheritor.

When he failed, he melted down their compositions since they were now useless. This is where Venom really comes from.

His first success was Meta, which opened the door for more inheritors.

Seth would have preferred Cain and Abel be born alive, as he swapped the God Seed for Seeds of Malice when they were first conceived. (Notice how Seth just always has it with him and is the first to brandish it, even in OSS: Crime?) Eve being a HER carrier would have increased Cain and Abel’s chances of being born with HERS.

They did indeed die because Eve had too much Venom. Not because of some really gross lazy ass-pull of a plot twist. That’d be crazy, right?

Eve was actually immune to Venom because as the Held inheritor test tube human Seth made, her own powers cancelled Venom’s powers out.

But even though the drug did not affect her mind, it was still in her bloodstream.

Normally, that’s not a problem, but Venom’s side effects in a pregnant person include deformities in the developing fetus(es) that can kill in utero (the same general reason Gilles Inheritors were so hard to make)

Eve still went mad after the stillbirth, which is not because of all the Venom in her bloodstream, the trauma activated the self-hypnosis (another Held inheritor power) she uses throughout the series. It’s a self defense tactic to protect her from the death of her children, by making her think they are alive and well.

That hypnosis will last a VERY long time, it’s in constant action like a flexing muscle, though its effects waver. I imagine it’d make her kind of despondent or tired since she’s just constantly using her inheritor powers without even realizing it.

Seth is definitely puppeting all these disasters but Cain and Abel’s deaths are on Adam’s hands.

Part 5

RAISA AND META ARE ACTUALLY FRIENDS, LIKE MOTHY ORIGINALLY SAID.

I mean honestly they’re like casual, informal girlfriends. It’s like they never actually asked the other out but when they spar for fighting practice they pin each other a lot. They just like being near each other. Looking at each other. They drink together a lot.

I made Meta not such a bitch about Raisa, too. Like, Jesus Christ, mothy. Meta is now worried for Raisa because she’s such a hellbeast in battle, not cause she hates her for [404 REASON NOT FOUND].

Meta didn’t really have any impression of Raisa when Pale suggested they recruit her, mainly agreeing because it beefed up their forces, coming to know her because they had since lived together with the rest of Apocalypse.

Meta finds Raisa’s scar (particularly around her mouth) distracting because they aren’t covered up behind a mask like they usually are.

Raisa literally climbs onto Meta’s bed and probably over Meta so they can be face to face.

Meta’s almost not even listening, cause Raisa’s hair is like a glowing white next to her red face. Meta, please stop thinking about how pretty your girlfriend is and listen.

Instead of completely pointless amnesia, Meta simply wishes to not dwell on her past. It’s more of a conscious effort to repress that time of her life than actual locked-away memories.

To nonamnesiac Meta, her life really only meant something once she was around 20.

HEY, INSTEAD OF CHILD META BEING ASSAULTED, LET ME PROPOSE: 

Much like Adam, Meta had nothing to do but wander around the country, though she more often broke into homes and stole than he did.

Her Gilles inheritor charms allowed her to weasel her way out of trouble, but she always thought people went easy on her because she was a homeless child.

Her powers/the genuine pity of onlookers sometimes allowed her to SCP-1076 her way into a home, but she always felt out of place and would usually end up running away again.

Meta was caught up in an attack by Apocalypse but as the action was winding down, Pale found her and recruited her, her murdering a hostage as a sort of initiation.

The Royal Capital Army’s armor can’t be breached by Raisa’s fire. This is important later on.

Meta is done zoning out so she hugs Raisa to make her stop shouting.

Some very subtle rewording that implies Meta wasn’t dressed before Raisa left the room. Not necessarily naked, but maybe in whatever nightclothes she had. I imagine just lingerie though.

Milky is dressed as she usually is, on top of the covers while Pale is under them.

Made Meta less so goddamn spiteful about Milky??

Basically Meta and Pale kind of joke with each other about their other partners, Raisa and Milky respectively. Apocalypse is a big ol’ polycule, minus Yegor. Cause he’s a creep.

Kept the cute stuff Meta thinks about Pale... who’d have thought their relationship would be the least garbage out of the original book?

Changed a little bit about Pale’s music box tinkering. He’s not making something, he’s taking it apart. Though he plans to put it back together to get better at making things.

Meta is still thinking about Raisa so she accidentally brings her up when they’re discussing the mole in the group.

Meta genuinely doesn’t think Raisa is the mole, and defends her when Pale asks if she’s implying something.

The woman Meta comes across is still? Eve? I have no goddamn idea why it can’t be her in the original so, you’re welcome mothy, I fixed it.

The fog and fighting has knocked out Adam, whom Eve is cradling. The fog is a byproduct of Venom so it doesn’t affect Meta nor Eve.

Eve is so stressed, so hypnosis is going into overdrive to the point she can’t even get her children’s names right. or she could just be so upset that she’s slurring her words. 

Raisa has somehow come into intel that says Yegor is the mole and is conspiring to capture Meta, so she abandoned her trip north to warn or help Meta.

Raisa is not immune to Venom, but the mask she uses to cover her scars is helping filter some of it out so she’s still lucid enough to yell to Meta.

The fog has overtaken most of the scene, Eve has escaped with Adam, and Capital Army forces are closing in on Meta.

Raisa tackles Meta to the ground in an effort to cover her and unleashes an explosion (that ends up knocking the both of them out) in an effort to keep them away.

Elluka is older on account of being Maria’s twin daughter. She’s still quite youthful anyways.

Removed the second period legacy room mumbo jumbo. It can just be a Third Period anti-magic room.

Yegor Asayev looks like V from V For Vendetta, because I said so.

Instead of dying like a punk and offscreen no less, Raisa was killed immediately after her stunt to protect Meta. Remember, her fire can’t penetrate the army’s armor. She was aware of this but it was all she could think to do, or to do at all.

Yegor doesn’t know how Raisa caught wind of his betrayal and wonders if he has a mole of his own. I don’t either. It’s for intrigue!!

Made Meta more... emotional. Cause she kind of seemed not to care too much. Like obviously she was angry and defeated but since in this version, someone she loved, Raisa, died protecting her, all in vain, she’s even more griefstricken.

Meta and Elluka are friends by the barest means. Meta tried scaring her to get what she wanted, but Meta ends up giving her advice. This is how it was in the original but I still want to highlight it.

Instead of a pendant, Seth’s plan and map is kept in a glass bottle on Meta’s person.

Seth remains a little shit in this scene because he’s honestly the best part of the original book.

Elluka still cries for Meta, because of their rapport. God, I just think it’s so sweet.

Kept the baby Pale thing. I mean in the original it was probably added to make the age gap between Elluka and Kiril less YIKES, but I wasn’t quite sure how to take it out. Even if Elluka is older in this continuity, I think Pale being de-aged doesn’t hurt.

Hansel and Gretel are preemies!

Clearly something is up with Gammon, so I added he’s being tying his hair differently and smiling more often.

Since it was traveling into Maria’s maze that marked this changed, I changed his hair tie from high to low to match Irina’s low braid to suggest Maria might be in there.

I think it’s weird if Gammon himself was just kind of removed from the story by another character in his body so I made it ambiguous as to whether he’s still in there or not.

Looking at the babies forces Meta to think about her own childhood.

Meta can’t drain the tanks without letting the babies fall, so she dives inside, disconnects them from their support tubes and breaks them from the inside.

Yes, I’m aware the strength needed to break the glass would have to be fucking IMMENSE since it can handle the pressure from containing a building’s worth of heavy fluid, but shut up, Meta is buff in this continuity. Besides, the glass probably isn’t made to withstand sharp, repeated points of stress from the inside as opposed to the designed entire surface area pressure. I’m sure someone who’s into physics is reading this and pulling their hair out and I’m sorry. Not sorry enough to fix it. sdfghj

I want the incident that allowed Adam to escape to be the same one Meta escaped in, but I have NO idea if I can make that work in the timeline. I sure which there was a goddamn calendar system for this, mothy.

I have no idea what the hell mothy is talking about with Levia’s blessing, but anyways I kept it vague about how the babies are immune to the Venom fog. The wording is more in line with what we hear during Lust Arc when IR is talking about Mikulia’s immunity to Sateriasis’ lust spell.

Part 6

Kept the fourth wall breaking with Eve. That shit’s too great.

Definitely made the pre-demonic Venom Sword Raisa’s sword that they confiscated.

Eve picks up her Held worshiping habits again. They technically never went away but it was hard to do deep in Levianta.

Part 7

Adam doesn’t recognize Meta. To be honest, I can’t tell if he DOES recognize her in the original or not. But for sure here, he doesn’t point her out as Meta.

Adam is kind of silently panicking, so he just says sorry for every movement of the shovel he makes to bury her.

The time placements are all over the place in this chapter, just ignore it.

Eve’s self-hypnosis is still in full effect when they escape deep into Elphegort.

I sort of added a whole scene? More like I took stuff from other scenes and added enough to make it its own scene.

Her hypnosis was in complete swing when she came in the door, but Adam and the reality of Meta’s death finally broke it. Her denial from now on is normal self-denial, not the result of an inheritor ability defense mechanism.

Even though Eve has, on some level, acknowledged her wrongdoing and the reality of things, she still finds comfort in the babies.

I know earlier I made Adam less willing to commit homicide but I find his even just contemplating infanticide darkly humorous. Like, what the fuck, Adam? Of course he doesn’t follow through on it, though.

Kept Gretel being weirdly conscious of everything while Hansel is just a normal baby. I love the idea of Gretel being a creepy horror movie baby who knows more than she should and Hansel is just here vibing.

Remember that Adam thinks she’s done all this because he drugged her with Venom. He is indeed responsible for killing her unborn children with Venom, but he isn’t aware Venom hasn’t affected her mentally.

So Eve’s Original Sin is killing Meta and taking her babies, and Adam’s Original Sin is “ruining Eve” and thus killing her children.

Part 8

Added how Seth technically had Maria’s permission to do what he did, but he still took advantage of that, so even revealing that wouldn’t make him look good. It’s not officially reported cause it could lend him some credence.

Kept his edgy little manifesto because it makes me laugh.

Didn’t take out the Pale/Kiril thing because honestly that was an adequate turn of events.

Glossary

Levianta was founded by a cabal of mages who discovered Second Period artifacts. Magic is powerful, but requires time and preparation to use—however, the old technology streamlined the usage of magic, making it easier and more useful for technological advance. The woman who would become the first queen was named Alice Merry-Go-Round, and she is the one who realized this.

She hired people to dig up the technology in the temple, but was faced with resistance from the local populace, who revered Levia-Behemo using that temple. Alice put a wall around it in response, and this became the “first wall”. More walls were built and eventually this became a fortress.

Her followers named it Alicegrad, and Alice herself founded Levianta with herself as the queen. Still, they faced resistance from the natives. To appease them, Alice declared Levia-Behemo as the country’s god, and made a council of 12 people. Six of them were mages who served under her, and six were comprised of the local natives. Levianta grew prosperous. 

When the first queen died, her daughter inherited her position and took on the name of Alice Merry-Go-Round herself. Since then, every queen has taken that name. The one who appears in the story is the seventh one.

Alices 1 through 4 are based on Alice of Human Sacrifice, broken by the Fifth one.

Loop Octopus and Vaju are of the 6 mage families in the senate. Asayev and Li are of the 6 native local families. The families are supposed to be equal, but there are great gaps between them. Example being Loop Octopus has taken much of Vaju’s wealth, and there are two Loop Octopuses on the senate now (Gammon and his younger brother, Nazar, the family’s heir).

Lighwatch is a place where they raise queen candidates, but also has things like jail cells and execution devices like Torcia Tower. Lighwatch collects girls with Levia inheritor powers. They are able to remove “malice” from people’s hearts, and also hear the “voice of god”. Yegor is able to tell them by sight, as he is an inheritor of Behemo, who can see another person’s inheritor powers. Zellana and Elluka are orphans.

There were different varieties of Ghoul Children when it came to the artificial personalities they had. “Clean” refers to those that have no memories, “Preset” refers to those that have pre-made false memories, and “Copy” refers to those that have identical memories to Seth.

Catherine was a marine scientist, and married to Gilles. They rode along in the Climb One. They had a son, but he was sickly and did not ride on the same ship as them.

For this reason she grew jealous towards female psychologist Rahab, whose two children were able to board the ship with her. When she realized that Rahab was having an affair with Gilles, her jealousy turned to rage. She conspired with Lich to kill Rahab, but in the end was killed by Lich, who she realized too late was really “malice” wearing his form.

So then, I guess I’m gonna have to fix Original Sin Story: Punishment, whether I want to or not. Can’t wait to see what fuckery awaits us in it.

[lysapadin]

tsaiko

replied to your

post

:

@zjofierose​ tagged me in the meme where you post...

Okay, my interests say “shklance soulmates” but my morbid curiosity votes for “Galra puberty”

Here, have a snippet:

In his defense, as Keith points out after the dust has settled somewhat, it's not like he'd realized that Galra had a different set of nutritional needs than humans, or that those needs might have an effect on him, given his own Galran heritage. Who thinks about those kinds of things? Not Keith, that's for sure, especially since he's as phenotypically human as the next guy.

Given that the next guy is Lance, who doesn't know how to let anything go, this defense doesn't get him too far. Keith sticks to it anyway, especially because it's true: he really hadn't known, and since no one had thought to tell him, well. It really wasn't his fault.

It starts with Ulaz, or rather Ulaz's base: while Pidge and Hunk are busy being dazzled by the space-folding technology and Lance is oohing and ahhing over the field of crystal thingies and the princess is glowering at Ulaz and Shiro is pumping Ulaz for more information on his missing year, Keith is focused on two things: one is Ulaz's dagger, which is way too much like his own knife for Keith's peace of mind. The other is a bowl of some kind of dried fruit sort of thing—not much to look at, just small, brown-green spheres that smell like cut grass to Keith, and even though he's never really been all that fond of salads, Keith can't stop eating them.

He doesn't even realize that he's doing it until he reaches for another and finds only the empty bottom of the dish. His dismay doesn't escape Ulaz, who fixes a long, unnerving Galra gaze on him before saying, "I see that you like the horpek, Red Paladin. If you like, I will share some of my stores with you before you depart."

"Uh—thanks," Keith tells him, confused but pleased even though he's not sure he does like the horpek per se.

Ulaz really is as good as his word after all; after the mess with the robeast and Ulaz's self-sacrifice, Keith finds that there's a box of horpek on the castle-ship, apparently just for him. Hunk is the only other human who shows an interest in them, and that's primarily as an ingredient. "They might make some interesting stuff," he says, "But there's not that many. I'll wait to experiment once this isn't our only supply."

Since Keith was already beginning to bristle over his box of horpek—his box, not Hunk's!—this was clearly the most diplomatic option. Keith appreciates it nonetheless.

[thesparkjournal]

WHAT IS LEFT FOR PHILOSOPHY? A DISAGREEMENT WITH STEPHEN HAWKING

By René Simard

Hawking in action, explaining black holes.(2018) [Redux/Muir Vidler]

Physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking, who died on March 14th, was an inspiration not only because of his spectacular scientific achievements in the face of the neuronal disorder that gradually paralyzed him over the years. He deserves credit for progressive political stands on behalf of the environment and the campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israeli oppression of the Palestinian people. But that needn’t stop us from debating with Hawking over what he had to say about philosophy.

***

In a conference for Google Zeitgeist in 2015, Stephen Hawking repeated what was already found in his book Grand Design, written jointly with Leonard Mlodinow. Here is what he wrote there:

Humans are a curious species. We wonder, we seek answers. Living in this vast world that is by turns kind and cruel, and gazing at the immense heavens above, people have always asked a multitude of questions: How can we understand the world in which we find ourselves? How does the universe behave? What is the nature of reality? Where did all this come from? Did the universe need a creator? Most of us do not spend most of our time worrying about these questions, but almost all of us worry about them some of the time. Traditionally these are questions for philosophy, but philosophy is dead. Philosophy has not kept up with modern developments in science, particularly physics. Scientists have become the bearers of the torch of discovery in our quest for knowledge. The purpose of this book is to give the answers that are suggested by recent discoveries and theoretical advances.1

If Hawking is right, philosophy cannot respond to such gazing or wondering as has been traditionally considered the beginning of philosophy.2

The reason for such hostility towards  philosophy is perhaps the mistake made in expecting that particular discipline to provide us with definitive answers. For, according to Bertrand Russell, “The value of philosophy is, in fact, to be sought largely in its very uncertainty,”3  Then, once definite knowledge on a subject is possible, that subject does not belong to philosophy any more and turns into a science. This has indeed been true about cosmology, and astronomy, for instance. So Hawking faults philosophy because it does not give us a supply of uncontested, demonstrable truths, and this lack of definite answerability is considered to be a characteristic feature of philosophical questions.4

Russell is not alone in this assessment. In Qu’est-ce que la philosophie? (What is Philosophy?), Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari say, “What science is about isn’t concepts, but [mathematical] functions that are given as propositions in discursive systems. The elements of functions are called functors. A scientific notion is not determined by concepts but by functions.”5

Let us reformulate our initial question – What is left for philosophy? – in the framework of the three questions that Immanuel Kant thought his whole philosophy aimed at answering: What can I know? (the question he responds to in the Critique of Pure Reason); What do I have to do? (to which he responds in the Critique of Practical Reason and The Metaphysics of Morals); and, What may I hope? (to which he responds in several works, particularly Religion within the Boundaries of Reason Alone). While scientists such as Hawking can say that philosophy has nothing to say about the first question, the second and third questions, thanks to their nature, might seem to remain for philosophy.

In what follows we can see a response by the philosopher of practice – Marx6, who, unlike Deleuze, does not foresee a future for philosophy if it does not get past itself.

In the Eleventh Thesis in Marx’s “Theses on Feuerbach”, which Marx wrote in 1845, we read, “The philosophers have merely interpreted the world in various ways. The point, however, is to change it”.7

Bees constructing new comb. (n.d.) [Public Domain]

We can see that in saying this Marx is offering a response to at least the second and third of Kant’s three questions. These are matters that remain beyond purely scientific demonstrability. But one may ask if Marx thinks that this changing of the world is on the agenda for the first time in his own epoch. An answer to this can be found in the first volume of Capital, where he writes about what distinguishes us from animals:  

A spider conducts operations which resemble those of the weaver, and a bee would put many a human architect to shame by the construction of its honeycomb cells. But what distinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees is that the architect builds the cell in his mind before he constructs it in wax. At the end of every labour process, a result emerges which had already been conceived by the worker at the beginning, hence already existed ideally.8

Here Marx acknowledges that even a bee changes its life. In order for an organism to change its physical environment the only necessary condition is its existence.9 This point, recently discussed in the philosophy of biology, was already recognized by Marx.  But it is necessary from the very beginning to draw a distinction between biological changing and human changing.

It is possible to go even further and emphasize the point that Marx doesn’t say for whom it is important to change the world. Is the second part of Thesis Eleven the problem of philosophers also? Who, after all, is it that has to change the world? According to the understanding being proposed here, the question for Marx is not whether philosophers should or should not change the world: in a sense, they do that in their daily life. What important is, in a different sense, to replace this world with another one.

Marx’s slogan is therefore not “let’s change the world”, but “let’s change the world by replacing the existing world with the true reality”. The textual support for this reading may be found in Marx’s letter to Arnold Ruge of September1843:

Reason has always existed, but not always in a rational form. Hence the critic can take his cue from every existing form of theoretical and practical consciousness and from this ideal and final goal implicit in the actual forms of existing reality he can deduce a true reality. Now as far as real life is concerned, it is precisely the political state which contains the postulates of reason in all its modern forms, even where it has not been the conscious repository of socialist requirements. But it does not stop there. It consistently assumed that reason has been realized and just as consistently it becomes embroiled at every point in a conflict between its ideal vocation and its actually existing premises.10

By adopting such a standpoint, Marx in a sense follows a tradition known ever since Plato said (in The Republic 509b) that the good is transcendence of what exists, beyond being.

A term in need of explication, used also in the Theses, is the Germam word Praxis (translated as “practice”). Etymologically related to the verb prattein in Greek, it means human action. There is a need to distinguish involuntary from voluntary actions. If what a human does is different from other animals, it is just because it is the action of a human being. At the same time, what Marx wants to propose here is: for humans, in order to exist biologically they have to exist socially. In any case, all humans are already incessantly changing the world. Even more: in fact, every organism, changes its own environment. And, in the same way that there is no organism without there being the environment of that organism, there likewise is not that environment (the way it is) without that organism. Each organism determines its environment and is also determined by it.  

A young Karl Marx speaks to his fellow students, flanked by Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Epicurus, in a painting from China's Marx200 Exhibit. (2018) [Public Domain]

From this follows the critique, in Marx’s Third Thesis on Feuerbach, of the materialist doctrine that takes humans to be the passive products of circumstances and education. This doctrine takes the transformation of humans simply as the product of the transformation of circumstances. In so doing it

forgets that circumstances are changed by men and that it is essential to educate the educator himself. This doctrine must, therefore, divide society into two parts, one of which is superior to society.

The coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of human activity or self-changing can be conceived and rationally understood only as revolutionary practice.11

One key word in this passage is “coincidence”, which signifies that by coevolution, mutual transformation of the organisms and the environment, we and our environment co-adapt.11a The world is then in constant change, and we can neither stop this change nor stop playing a role. For the human organism, the change means simultaneous creation and destruction. Whereas in D’Alembert’s Dream Denis Diderot (1713-1784) tells us “everything changes, everything passes away, the only thing that remains is the whole”, for Marx the whole changes as well. We, as long as we exist as organisms, constantly and inevitably export entropy to our environment, and, in so doing, we change our world as well as ourselves.12

This truism is to remind us that philosophers are not exceptions here. Hence, the point stressed here by Marx in this Thesis is nothing but an invitation for a particular change. He thinks that, although humans make their history and change their world, including themselves, they do not do this on the basis of conditions they have chosen, “but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past.”13

This is a point established in the philosophy of science. In his article “Extended Phenotypes and Extended Organisms”, Scott Turner, the philosopher of biology writes:

“When organisms can modify environments to beneficial ends, they are liberated from being simply slaves at the mercy of the environment, and become, in a profound sense, its masters.”14

This could also be the slogan of Marx. Philosophy, according to Marx, is a practice engaged in by humans, and like all other practices has some direct or indirect influence on life. What is characteristic of Marx’s era is the following (to quote Ernst Bloch): “Thus the beginning philosophy of revolution, i.e. of changeability for the better, was ultimately revealed on and in the horizon of the future; with the science of the New and power to guide it.”15

If this interpretation is acceptable, Marx intends to introduce an epistemonic approach,16  without employing the term – the term which I want to use to emphasize an approach that retains the unity of intellectual and material life without accepting Hegelian idealism. Once more, like all of us in society, philosophers are certainly changing the world in their daily life. What Marx wants to say is rather that the world’s philosophers, along with all others, should orient their philosophy towards this particular change; a change that is on the one hand conscious and on the other hand enriched by their daily life as philosophers. To give a concrete example, like all other members of the society, the philosophers either participate in elections, or they do not. They make their definite choices in a social milieu and choose one candidate against another, or refuse to vote. Here, as always, even in choosing to be passive, one is in another sense inevitably active.17  

In insisting on this type of transformation of the world, Marx remains in the philosophical tradition seen since, for instance, the portrayal of Socrates as depicted in Plato’s dialogue The Crito (47a), where Socrates finds himself obliged to follow the arguments where they lead, and hence offers the prototype of the unity of the practice and theory well known in Marxist thought.  

To revitalize this in our era, to orient themselves towards such a change as the response to the second and third questions above, the philosophers have to familiarize themselves with political economy, and scientists have to be acquainted with philosophy, and go beyond their own narrow disciplines.

Detail of Rodin's La porte de l'enfer (The Gates of Hell) at The National Museum of Western Art (2011) (2011) [Creative Commons]

Conclusion:

I would like to finish this article with a reference to a scene from the famous movie, Zorba the Greek, made in 1964 and based on a book with the same title by Nikos Kazantzakis, the progressive Greek writer.

First, a few words on what goes on in the film. Basil, a young British writer, returns to Crete to manage a mine left to him by his father. He meets Zorba, an exuberant Greek who insists on serving as his guide and assistant. The two are different on all counts: Zorba loves to drink, laugh loud, sing, and dance; he follows his own unique lifestyle. Basil, on the other hand, is too polite, timid, and reserved, obsessed by his reading. Nonetheless, they make friends, and collaborate in developing the mine. Zorba agrees to construct a cable-car to develop the mine. Basil trusts him; the project fails in the end.

The particular scene related to the discussion here is the following. Seeing his inability to save a widow killed by the villagers for having sexual relations with the Englishman (Basil) instead of marrying one of the men in the village, Zorba asks Basil:

Why do people die? Why? Tell me!  

Basil says: I don’t know.

Zorba: What is the use of all this crap that you read, if they do not respond to such questions? What do those books tell you?        

Basil: They tell me about the torture of the ones who cannot respond to such questions.

Zorba: I don’t like torture.  

We as philosophers have to contribute in responding to the questions of the Zorbas of our time, including ourselves. Their questions are more horrendous. Here is an example: Why is it that, according to UNICEF, “every 3.6 seconds one person dies of starvation. Usually it is a child under the age of 5.”?18

A philosophical approach aiming at questions of this type does not leave philosophers calm, as Russell suggests, or leave philosophy as a discipline with its own particular function in contrast to science, as Deleuze suggests. Contrary to what is suggested by Deleuze, the aim of this philosophy is still truth, and not just getting a sense of things, as he says.

Nonetheless, in proceeding as philosophers, as Deleuze does suggest, we will be able to “write for the illiterate” where the word “for” in this sentence will not mean “intended for”, or “instead of”, but before, that is, in front of.19 Like Russell, we can be engaged in our life philosophically with the questions posed by our time. Personally, this engagement led to Russell’s loss of his academic position and six months of imprisonment. Deleuze famously says that in philosophy we formulate the problems of our era and create new concepts in response to those problems. In doing so, we can have “a constitutive relationship between philosophy and non-philosophy.”20 Without confronting the intertwined problems of our era, our philosophy remains abstruse and isolated from social life; that is the death of philosophy.

1 Hawking, Stephen; Mlodinow, Leonard, The Grand Design (New York 2010), p. 10.

2 Plato, The Theaetetus, 155 d.

3 Russell, Bertrand, Problems of Philosophy (New York 1997) p. 156

4 Russell, p. 155

5 «La science n’a pas pour objets des concepts, mais des fonctions qui se présentent comme des propositions dans des systèmes discursifs. Les éléments des fonctions s’appellent des fonctifs. Une notion scientifique est déterminée non pas des concepts, mais par fonctions.» Deleuze, Gilles and Guattari, Félix, Qu’est-ce que la philosophie? (Paris 2005), p. 117.

6 The greatest thinker of the second millennium according to the BBC (BBC October 1, 1999) (After Marx come Einstein, Newton, Darwin, Aquinas, Hawking – the greatest scientist ever according to Nature, November 6, 2013).

7 Karl, Marx, Theses on Feuerbach, in Karl Marx Frederick Engels Collected Works, Volume 5 (Moscow 1976), p. 5.

8 Marx, Karl (1976) Capital I, Ben Fowkes translator (Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England 1976), p. 284.

9 Pearce, Trevor (2011) “Ecosystem engineering, experiment, and evolution”, Biol Philos, Volume 26 (2011) 793–812, p. 800

10 Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher, Paris 1844, Marx Engels Collected Works, Volume 3 (Moscow 1975), p. 143.

11 Karl, Marx (1845), Theses on Feuerbach, in Marx Engels Collected Works, Volume 5, p. 4.

11 a Here, I use the modified version of what is proposed by Richard C. Lewontin in “The Organism as Subject and Object of Evolution”, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftzoa2dw3CQ

12 Pearce, Trevor “Ecosystem engineering, experiment, and evolution”, Biol.Philos, Vol. 26 (2011): 793-812, p. 799.

13 Karl, Marx (1851) The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, in Marx Engels Collected Works, Volume 11, (Moscow 1979), p. 103.

14 Turner, Scott (2004) Biology and Philosophy, Volume 19 (2004): 327–352, pp. 328-329.

14 Turner, Scott (2004) Biology and Philosophy, Volume 19 (2004): 327–352, pp. 328-329.

15 Bloch, Ernst, The Principle of Hope, translated by Neville Plaice, Stephen Plaice and Paul Knight, Volume 1

(Cambridge, Massachusetts 1976), p. 283.

16 I think this can also be seen in the conception of truth as introduced by Marx in the Second Thesis: reality [Wirklichkeit] is introduced as a characteristic of truth besides this sided-ness [Disseitigkeit] and along with power [Macht]. Marx, Karl, Theses on Feuerbach, Marx Engels Collected Works, Volume 5, p. 3.

17 Thus we underline the reverse of the slogan Hegel wrongly attributes to Spinoza, “Omnis determinatio est negatio”. (“Every determination – any definite way that something is – is a negation [of alternatives]”.)

18 https://www.unicef.org/mdg/poverty.html

19 “Écrire pour les analphabètes”, Deleuze, Gilles and Guattari, Felix, Qu’est-ce que la philosophie? (Paris 2005), p. 111.

20 “Un rapport constitutif de la philosophie avec la non-philosophie”, Deleuze, Gilles and Guattari, Félix, Qu’est-ce que la philosophie? (Paris 2005), p. 111.

The location of René Simard's philosophical inquiries is Montreal.

[kaapi-writer]

Review of The Naturalist by Andrew Mayne

TL;DR: 1 of out 5 stars.

This review has been cross-posted to my Goodreads. Feel free to add me on there!

If you're wondering just how terrible I found this book, I actually created a DNF shelf because I felt like I couldn't continue with it any further. Should probably add that I have a bachelor's degree in biotechnology, so I'm more familiar with the basis of Cray's work than the average reader.

Theo Cray is a computational biologist. We know this because he repeats this to everyone he meets - all while he secretly judges them for not knowing what that is. Actually, that's all the guy does, seemingly - boast about his profession and judge people. Off the top of my head:

> Implies a forensic tech isn't a scientist because she doesn't know about a fungal infection exclusive to frogs (!!!) - and takes a leap further and says she only collects samples, doesn't examine them. This is patently incorrect since a forensic technician's job requires at least a bachelor's degree in some sort of science.

> Says he hates explaining his work to non-scientists - because of course a freaking police detective should be able to parse a university-level explanation on phenotype plasticity so our hero isn't inconvenienced.

> Makes a crappy inside joke and then notes that his audience doesn't react. Non-STEM people don't have a sense of humour at all!

> Thinks people with doctorates in fields unrelated to medicine/science who insist on being addressed by a title they earned are just hot air. Because they're not in hospitals curing cancer.

> Calls it "emasculating" when a colleague tries to comfort him when a one-time student of his dies.

> Pretends to be humble about a research grant as if he's not been dissing non-STEM people since the first page.

> Did I mention he's scientific? Data gives him a mental boner. Totes.

> All this, and suddenly he goes off track to spend pages on explanations like DNA testing or how GenBank works. But don't you hate explaining your work to non-scientists?

If the author has written this with the intent of it being ironic and wanting us to dislike Theo - that's a great concept, but what makes it great is the apparent authorial intent behind such a premise. Off the top of my head I'm reminded of Madame Bovary. Flaubert was masterful in narrating the story at two levels - one from Emma Bovary's point of view and one as the omniscient narrator who wastes no time in poking fun at her. All we have in The Naturalist is Theo's self-absorbed, insipid monologue, filled with useless interjections about his opinion on everything.

The writing is clunky and strange in places. The dialogue attempts to be witty in places, but I don't know whether it's because I disliked the rest of the book - it fell flat. In some places, it feels like the book was written in third-person and then switched to first-person.

she felt her warm blood drip down the cold flesh of her stomach

with my spectacles and absentmindedly combed hair

My words are terse and filled with self-loathing. "It's not her that I blame."

She could pass as a Brazilian or any other beautiful mélange

Oh, and this isn't even including the plot holes.

> One of Theo's former students, from like six years ago, dies. She took one class under him in one semester. She never contacted him after that, but apparently she told everyone he inspired her(?) and when she dies of a bear attack, his first instinct is that it's his fault because he didn't caution his students enough about the dangers of nature. What?

(Spoilers under the Read More link.)

> After he's already been suspected of murdering the student, he trespasses on to the scene of the crime(!!!!) and destroys evidence, is caught and is then immediately released. What?

> He finds a vague connection (USING THE POWER OF DATA) and does not understand what the shady contact means when she texts him 1004BJ. What?

Theo Cray reminds me of the worst side of STEM - people thinking their work alone impacts the world, as if commerce and law enforcement and writers and mental health therapists don't matter. He's self-absorbed - that's acceptable. What isn't acceptable is that I'm 40% through the book and not one character seems to be capable of putting him in his place, even verbally. Frankly, it might be possible that he gets his just deserts at the hands of someone by the end of the book. But I'm not going to stick around for that long.

[fictionfromafar]

Phenotypes by Paulo Scott

Phenotypes

By Paulo Scott

Translated by Daniel Hahn

And Other Stories

Publication Date: 4 January 2022

Set primarily in Porto Alegre the capital of the state of Rio Grande Do Sol in southern Brazil, Phenotypes is a compulsive and insightful story which looks at race relations, the justice system and the perversity of the colour hierarchy in the South American country. The narrator Federico is founder of the Global Social Forum whose work has led him to advise various NGOs. Having long moved to the nation’s distant capital Brasilia, he is appointed to a committee by the new Brazilian Government to examine methods to reform the racial quota system in higher education. This quota is long standing and seeks to ensure that students of black or indigenous origins get fair opportunities to study at university yet it is perceived in need of modification as critics argue it not capture the all various multi-racial possibilities and can be manipulated by some of them.

This issue is of particular interest to Federico as he is mixed race who is able to pass as a white man. Yet very early into the story we discover that the narrator has a younger brother, Lourenço who has a much darker appearance. As we follow Federico’s recollections, from his very first few days at school he is treated differently by the other pupils during playground games. As the brothers grow their sibling rivalry sees them trade insults with each other, with Federico being called a whitey wannabe. Their father a member of the Porto Alegre police force would always clamp down on these squabbles and ensure that the their skin colour is the only difference between the two brothers who have since remained close.

As the bureaucracy of the committee finally starts to lead to discussions, Federico starts to develop a friendship with ones of his fellow members. Together they start to go on dinner dates as their connection growing stronger. Very soon some preposterous multi categorisations of skin colour are presented to the committee dismaying Federico and his new companion. In parallel to this story we are also given further insight into Federico and Lourenço’s life growing up in the city as they start to enjoy socialising and forming gangs of friends through the reflections of main character. With other groups of different racial and class backgrounds present in the same places this often led to conflicts some of which are detailed.

However Federico has to drop everything when the past and the present collide for the siblings. A gun that has been used was given to Lourenço by a friend he was then asked to hide, that both brothers had forgotten about, is discovered in the presence of his teenage daughter as she returns from a public demonstration against the Government. Knowing that he must support his brother, niece and his aging parents, and feeling guilt for not disposing of the weapon, Federico makes the decision to return to his hometown.

Once back in Porto Alegre Federico encounters a range of unsavoury people ranging from a fairly inept solicitor, judiciary that are being directed politically, a police chief looking for a quid pro quo deal, some figures holding grudges from the past; and countless taxi drivers who misunderstand key aspects of the country’s political history (the latter at least can be found anywhere). While trying to allay the worries of his brothers and parents, with the help of his former girlfriend he starts to realise that his niece has perhaps got herself in deeper than the family initially contemplated. He also feels inherent guilt at leaving the family behind for the benefit of his career but perceives detriment of their lives.

I found this story very enlightening, Phenotypes reveals both the fault lines between different generations and social classes both in terms of issues pertaining to race but also in terms of methods and approach to political protest. Furthermore it also shows the dubious policies of government as well as the corruption that abstracts progress not to mention the bureaucratic layers within many echelons of Brazilian authority.

I felt the translation by Daniel Hahn made this book fairly easy to read despite the unfamiliar situations within the book. Coming from Brazilian ancestry it seems he was the perfect choice for this book. He provides an afterforward to add more context to the story. I also think the book has a really strong cover.

With Federico making a long term decision about his future, there is definitely scope for Phenotypes to have a follow up with the characters we have invested with in this story.

Midway through reading the book, it was announced that Phenotypes was long listed for the 2022 International Book Prize which is another indication of the quality of this book. Highly recommended!

Also nominated in the International Booker Prize 2022 is Elena Knows by Claudia Piñeiro. Here is my review:

[traumaticloveinjury]

He Hates My Hair - C.C. Bloom

The title of this post is a movie quote from Beaches that I think of often. I say it whenever I sense rejection to buffer my fear kicking in.

I said it as recently as this morning when a doctor seemed over my fairly regular visits to his office. The story I told myself -- He was ready to reduce the frequency with which he had to deal with my questions and my general presence.

As a fellow curly girl like C.C. Bloom (played by Bette Midler), I understand the evolution of this quote. It firsts appears in childhood as "I hate my hair," and then evolves to "He hates my hair" when faced with rejection as an adult. If you do not have the proper guidance, curly hair seems like too much trouble for a child. Why can't I hop out of the shower and move on with my life like my friends? Why so many extra steps, planning, and money I don't have? The war with the hair eventually becomes the war with differentiation as an adult. The thing that makes you stand out must also be the thing that is forcing this rejection upon you. You resented your curly hair habitually as a child so the thought that others resent it isn't farfetched.

This thought is also safer than the other possibilities that may drive rejection. Your curly hair is a phenotype, a result of genetics. It's not your fault, which is much better than the possibility that they hate your personality or dismiss your talent. That is personal. Both of those things have been cultivated by you. If your curly hair is not the problem, then they are rejecting YOU!

Oof. Typing that hurts my heart. I am regretting this post because now this quote doesn't feel as fun as it did this morning.

I don't hate my hair, and that doctor probably didn't pay it much mind either. I hate swimming in a sea of rejection and wondering the directions each one sends me. I want answers. I also want to know which products you use if you have curly hair.