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argentdandelion · 5 years ago

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The True Power of NEO: Part 1

Series Thesis: Mettaton had decent reasons to think confronting the human in his NEO form was a good idea, and to think he’d survive the encounter and be a hero. However, he didn’t fully think it through, and his desire for a humanoid form warped his reasoning.

The series is organized as follows. (Use the tag "The True Power of NEO" to navigate.) Part 1: Mettaton’s reasoning. Part 2: Where everything went wrong, and why. (General Trends) Part 3:Where everything went wrong, and why. (Specific Details) Part 4: And yet...his death is meaningful.

Introduction

Mettaton has a unique role in the Genocide Route. He’s a Genocide Route-exclusive boss, who makes a dramatic speech about his “anti-human functions not being entirely removed” and transforms into Mettaton NEO. He has an exclusive battle theme, and a speech acknowledging the genocidal human’s crimes. Still, for all his build-up, he dies in one hit, and gives the genocidal human however much EXP is necessary to reach LV 19.

His battle is strange for other reasons, too. On the Genocide Route, Mettaton claims his Mettaton NEO form was made for human extermination and his boxy form is more “photogenic”, but, on other routes, he makes the opposite claim. The latter claim makes more sense, given his boxy form’s very high defenses and how his body is described as invulnerable. Despite supposedly being made for extermination, Mettaton NEO goes down in one strike, even if one barely hits him in a near-Genocide Route. Mettaton’s body also explodes when he dies, but it deals no damage.

Why? Why is his fight so strange? Why would he ever think fighting the Human was a good idea?

Tactics

Tactic 1: Mettaton is the Bomb (Literally)

Tactic 1 Summary: Mettaton would block the CORE’s exit by self-destruction of his body. This would block the human’s progress or at least buy a lot of time to evacuate others, and contact Asgore to get him to absorb the human SOULs and fight the Human. It’s possible Mettaton would survive his body’s self-destruction, assuming he didn’t fuse with his body.

Mettaton (in his NEO/EX form) is one of only three enemies to explode when he dies. (Tsundereplane and Mad Mew Mew are the others) Mettaton’s explosion could theoretically be weaponized: in fact, it’s plausible it was upgraded (if hastily) for this.

First, Mettaton NEO’s explosion lasts for a while. Tsundereplane, Mad Mew Mew’s, Mettaton EX, and Mettaton NEO’s explosions last one, four, seven, and eight seconds, respectively.

Second, it’s big. Mettaton EX’s, NEO’s, and Mad Mew Mew’s explosions all turn the whole screen white and then black for several seconds, suggesting a huge, blinding explosion. In contrast, Tsundereplane’s explosion doesn’t cover the whole screen, and its death makes the screen flash white very briefly.

Third, in addition to lasting one second longer than in his EX form, Mettaton NEO’s explosion grows faster when triggered. For Mad Mew Mew and Mettaton EX, the explosion only starts after they are done speaking, but Mettaton NEO’s text is still on-screen when the explosion starts. (Note: When Mettaton EX is damaged, his arms fall off, and his arm sockets smoke. Tsundereplane also has mini-explosions as it dies and says its last words, before crashing to make a much bigger explosion.)

Furthermore, in the Neutral/Pacifist Route, Mettaton's body is left behind after he explodes, and it’s trashed beyond repair. Yet, in the near-Genocide/Genocide Route, his body isn’t left behind, although it logically would. If his body’s explosion were upgraded to be stronger, that might explain the lack of a corpse: his body became shrapnel that stuck to the ceiling. 1

Thus, he could plausibly block the CORE’s only exit through self-destructing. At the very least, this would massively delay the Human. It’s vital: it gives more time to evacuate New Home, if the human still has a chance to get there, or to contact Asgore, have him absorb six human SOULs, and wipe out the genocidal human.

Mad Mew Mew survives the explosion and dismemberment of her body, so Mettaton, too, surely would survive his body exploding. If he could set his body to self-destruct by timer, he could easily leave his body near the entrance, and then phase out of his body and go through walls to flee. If there was no timer, he might survive if it were a physical explosion, since ghosts are immune to physical attacks.

Blocking the exit by body explosion ahead of time is sensible, reasonably low-risk, and seems to fit Mettaton’s and Alphys’ motives.

For Alphys, one should note that in the Genocide Route some floors of Hotland are inaccessible through laser traps, and the elevator to New Home won’t work.2 Given her hacking abilities and the fact she’s leading the evacuation, Alphys most likely did that. In fact, she had so thoroughly blocked off sections of Hotland that, had she evacuated Muffet from her den as planned and sealed the den’s exit, the Human couldn’t leave Hotland at all. Additionally, since the MTT resort elevator to New Home won’t work, the human has to take the long way around though an unpopulated area (the CORE). For Mettaton, indirect tactics are in-character for him. He does re-arrange the CORE in the Neutral/Pacifist Routes, perhaps to ensure the human will encounter the mercenaries he hired, and he offers a lot of money to Muffet for the Human’s SOUL. Therefore, it would make sense Alphys would tell Mettaton to seal the CORE exit, or that Mettaton would decide to do so on his own.

Tactic 2: Offense Over Defense

Tactic 2 Summary: Mettaton made a decent choice in choosing his Mettaton NEO mode, because it could (in theory) hit hard and fast but still take a few hits. (Slightly less well-supported than Tactic 1.)

Although Mettaton EX is not invulnerable, he's a fairly difficult boss. He can attack with a larger volume and variety of bullets, in versatile combat patterns with unique combat mechanisms (the fast-forward/rewind technique). He uses a unique SOUL mode, too, and if Mettaton only fights the human once in the Genocide Route, the human would have no practice with this mode. (like for Undyne). Mettaton’s a pretty formidable foe, even when he's focusing on glamour and dancing rather than killing the human as quickly as possible.

Mettaton has very good stats, too. His boxy mode has 9999 HP, 30 AT, and 255 DEF, while his Mettaton EX and NEO forms have 1,600 HP, 47 AT, 47 DF, and 30,000 HP, 90 AT, and 9 DF, respectively. While Mettaton NEO's defense is much lower than the other forms, he has the most HP and AT. In theory, Mettaton NEO is a mode that emphasises offense over defense, but can still take several hits. If Mettaton strikes hard enough, he wouldn’t need to fight for very long. Furthermore, assuming Mettaton NEO has a higher AT stat than Mettaton EX and was more focused on killing a human, he might actually succeed. (That's not even counting the possibility he could dodge or fly)

Tactic 3: “You wouldn’t kill a human, would you?”

Tactic 3 Summary: Believing the human would be reluctant to kill someone who looks humanlike, Mettaton takes on a humanlike form. If the human cannot kill Mettton, they would be drained of the will to exterminate, or quit after “killing” him. Of course, Mettaton would actually survive since he’s a ghost. (Least plausible interpretation, since Mettaton thinks the human is a “threat to humanity”)

Mettaton thinks the human might be reluctant to kill someone who looks so humanlike. The human would be unable to kill Mettaton, and thus be drained of the will to exterminate, or quit after “killing” him. (see real players quitting after killing Papyrus; now apply it in-universe to someone who looks shockingly humanoid)

Humans have a deep-seated aversion to killing their own kind, to the point killing humans comes at a high psychological cost. Indeed, according to the book The Most Dangerous Animal: "[...]the most traumatic form of killing involves looking a person in the eyes while taking his life. It is an experience that often haunts men for the rest of their lives.” Soldiers sometimes get PTSD even when killing in self-defense or in defense of others, and their turmoil is surely greater when killing those who don’t pose a threat. (e.g., children) Psychologically, the easiest way to dodge this and exterminate vast swaths of people is to conceive of them as non-humans: as wild beasts, vermin, pests, or simply “monsters”. Although Papyrus, Undyne, and Sans look pretty humanoid, Mettaton NEO/EX are definitely the most human-like, due to the humanlike face and body.

Due to his admiration of human culture, Mettaton might have known about this tendency, and made it part of his plan. Taking on a suddenly very humanlike form would confront the human with an aversion to killing other humans. Furthermore, if he couldn’t (or didn’t) attack, the Human wouldn’t be able to justify attacking him in self-defense. Progress on the Genocide Route is only possible through clearing out areas and exterminating bosses, and the Human can make no exceptions. If the human cannot kill Mettaton NEO, they’ll lose the will to fight (or at least for exterminating).

His plan hinges on a human not wanting to kill humans/someone who looks so humanoid. In any case, if Mettaton hasn’t fused with his body yet, a physical strike cannot hurt him, and he will survive if his body is destroyed.

(If you liked this content, check out the author's Patreon and Ko-Fi. The links on the ArgentDandelion blog sidebar.)

As for why it's not visible...video game limitations. For example, Toriel notices when Frisk is hurt, despite Frisk's sprite showing no damage, and when Toriel fights Frisk, the room has no scorch marks, despite the volley of fireballs. ↩︎

In other routes, a manticore says: "The elevator goes straight to the capital. [New Home] But it stopped working." (If inspected, it says “in use”, no matter the route) ↩︎

#Undertale #Meta #Analysis #Mettaton #Mettaton NEO #Undertale Genocide Route #Essays #Post Series #The True Power of NEO

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firemama · 5 years ago

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Extremely long rant about SU Future, ft the diamonds and the symbolism they feature

the thing about su diamonds was always their representation. and we call that quickly with yellow and blue- respectively, body/physical health and emotion/emotional health. further proven, when helping gems heal, yellow diamond could help a gem find a body they liked and were comfortable with, or fix broken things in a physical form, while blue diamond helping others was just to make them happy, or to make others grieve sadness when everyone around her often ignored their sadness.

the other two diamonds were more abstract through the series, and it was relatively hard to name them, but i think i've finally grasped the base concept in one-word answers, and the health factors they represent:

white diamond was very hard to give a word until after i had watched future. for a while the only name i could give her concept was The Ego. Now, i've come to a more final conclusion: Identity/Personality health. specifically, in the aspect of the personality, id day ID health. its a much more difficult concept to format ID health into an explanation, so lets start with Identity- something we can all agree White Diamond had an unhealthy view of.

Like yellow having an obsessive need for physical and performance perfection in every gem including herself, and blues unhealthy obsession with her emotions to the point of ignoring other's emotions in favor of her own grief, sadness, or happiness. White followed suit with her example of extremely unhealthy Identity issues for herself and others; White Diamond was incapable of recognizing identity at all. She saw herself not as a Diamond but as light itself, therefore everything, everywhere, and as NOT a person. she saw all gems- creatures of projected light- therefor as herself. she was incapable of acknowledging individuality or identity.

she improves in future by facing her unhealthy views, like the other diamonds, by reversing her powers. yellow abandons her own opinions on what is a perfect body in favor of helping gems achieve bodies they want- her crutch is that Yellow is still making gems better, more correct, such as removing deformities from corruption- but she is improving by subjecting changes to approval and desires of her patients. blue abandons her need to make others face their emotions, her emotions, head on and forceful as she one did (quite litterally); she uses her powers now to make people feel happy, feel better, because when you feel less miserable your more likely to make better choices to improve yourself and your situation, much like medication- her crutch, however, is that she is still MAKING gems feel something to try and help- but she is improving, by acknowledging that making others feel miserable is wrong, and by taking the time to listen to how others are feeling and then attempt to make them happy, rather than ignore others feelings as she often did before in favor of wallowing in her own grief.

White abandons her unhealthy views of identity in the most opposite way her powers will allow. rather than make herself everything, and that everyone is just an inferior piece of herself- she lets them be everything. to do this she must acknowledge each person she connects with as an individual- as not her. she acknowledges everything they are in order to do this, and takes in every imperfection as it is, and allows it to enter herself. the crutch here is that white has not changed HER OWN identity. white diamond's taken upon herself the identities of others, to understand them, to help people "be heard," and to acknowledge their identities. she does this by erasing herself, as she has not yet come to find her identity. this is where ID Health comes into play and can be a little more complicated. the 3 facets of personality can be denoted by Superego (or morality), Ego (external personality, or the face you show the world and acknowledge yourself), and ID.

ID is most easily described as Instinct, but the reality of it is still more complicated than Instinct. it is everything subconscious, everything inherent to an animal, everything inherited from your ancestors, it is the compressed concept of function. there isn't right and wrong in ID- that is Superego. There isnt debate or awareness, thats Ego. ID is essentially invisible information, "bottom of the iceberg" of the personality. White diamond has essentially ignored and set aside all ID, shut away and suppressed it, in an effort to maintain "Perfection." her ID, her innate needs, innate emotional connections, innate acknowledgment of her own body and mind, have been ignored and put aside for Superego- morality, laws of an empire, what is right and wrong with the universe- and Ego- her display of Perfection and her Entitlement and Superiority. ID health is very difficult to care for, and can be a major factor in personality disorders. White diamond is the culmination of Identity Issues and an unhealthy ID, but like her fellow diamonds, while she has work to do on herself, theyre making improvements. and theyve started with how they affect others foremost- which is good, especially since theyre are authoritative figures who have hurt many already.

pink diamond was the Mind/Mental health, which seems obvious in hindsight, but her powers were of a wide variety, which leaked into other places- like real physical healing, with her tears. this is a good metaphor for how mental health has its fingers in everything. It is affected by emotion and can cause extreme or minute fluctuations in a person's emotions without external stimulus; it is effected by body chemistry and can have detrimental effects on ones health and ability; it is effected my acknowledgment from others in the Ego, it is effected by morals and judgments from the self in the Superego, and changes the weight of the ID on the personality.

pink diamond often had extreme problems with her mental health- irrationality, emotional instability, frequent rejections of herself that eventually lead to new identities, which only made such problems exacerbated by immersing herself in further strain and responsibilities she took upon herself- such as trying to "fix" her dysfunctional family. like the diamonds, pink had a need for perfection, and like the diamonds, this was both for herself and for others. when she failed to be perfect, she took extreme hits to her mental health. when her immediate family and primary interactions, the diamonds, acted with poor emotional health responses, she tried to fix them herself, with her own hands- her powers didn't always necessitate this as easily as the fellow diamonds, so her tactics were to entertain them to get them together, to throw balls to ease tension, to make jokes and to sing and to get angry when she was ignored, because you c a n t ignore your mental health or it will scream at you to pay attention to it. Herr powers did allow her to connect to other minds, things we see in steven- to enter others dreams and share his own, to travel mentally to where others are, to speak with them directly into the mind. but both pink and steven struggled to handle these powers ; possibly because mentally, they were not healthy enough to grasp them, and mental health can ruin every aspect when not cared for- if mental health can damage the body, the personality, the mind, the emotions- then surely it can disrupt magic powers.

i think that pink made her change, just like her fellow diamonds did, as rose quartz. while the diamonds did full immediate 180s and turned their powers in reverse, pink diamonds change took time. at first even her rebellion was a desire for herself, to save only earth and to be not a diamond- yet another new identity, another attempt to run as she often did from other problems. and i think her change started just after Garnet appeared, when the rebellion stopped being (only) about earth, but also about Gems. rather than kick every gem off earth, it became free gems who wanted to be freed. it became not fixing her colony, not maintaining perfection or her secrets once earth was free. to be the true opponent of mental health, you need change, and you need growth, and you need support. pink diamond never found and of these things, but rose quartz did. rose quartz made her 180 with the support of the rebellion and the rebels and the crystal gems, made the hard change to finally abandon trying to be perfect like a diamond, and eventually started to grow on earth when the war and the turmoil was over.

her crutch, though, was that she never did stop running. she lived a lie, faked her death and blamed everything on her old self who she detached from, and never faced this music, and instead left everything to be dealt with without her. in the end pink diamonds crutch was to run and to abandon her problems, even while she improved, but because she lived a lie and never shared amd faced her biggest secret, she stopped growing. these traumas were inherited to Steven in turn- he was given remnants of her old life as pink diamond, memories of her anger and haunting nightmares of a neglectful home and eroding mental health that she never was able to acknowledge, because she abandoned them and never faced them again. while rose made improvements, using her powers to try to help others take care of their mental health and to grow, her crutch just like white diamond's is that she did not approach her own.

so to summarize a very long post:

Yellow Diamond: The Body, Physical Health

Blue Diamond: The Emotions, Emotional Health

White Diamond: The Identity, Personality Health

Pink Diamond: The Mind, Mental Health

#this was written at 5-6am #so forgive any spelling errors #munchatter #steven universe future #suf #steven universe spoilers #steven universe future spoilers

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walkineternity · 5 years ago

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Day 3: Delirium

(The Umbrella Academy x Sandman)

Klaus knew he was in trouble.

He had overdosed again. He tried to stay clean, for Ben and Vanya, for his other siblings, and for Dave. He so very much wanted to see Dave.

But. He tried, okay. Tried so very fucking hard, and everyone was so focussed on Vanya that his efforts weren’t exactly…supported. Ben, of course, knew. And Klaus was grateful to have him. And he didn’t really blame everyone for not paying attention to him. They never really did that in the first place, unless he was causing trouble. And this time, it was because Vanya had nearly ended the world and he got that. He really did. He was trying to be there for them.

But. He was an addict, okay. He can admit that. And…it was so hard to stay clean. He was so fucking high right now. He was so fucking sick right now. And Ben was yelling at him again.

“Fuck! I can’t do this again, Klaus! You were doing so well! Fuck! I can’t even pick up the phone to call the ambulance can I! No! You are going to die in this alleyway and then I’m going to have nobody to talk to and, and, and you can’t leave me alone! Please, Klaus, please! Shit, okay, I’m going to try and get help, okay? I’m going to try.”

Klaus felt himself drift. Ben was still talking, but then suddenly everything was quiet. He didn’t really get how he could still hear Ben with all the drugs in his system, but the other spirits had quieted down. And now, finally, Ben was gone too. He was going to die alone. Like he fucking deserved. His eyes shut, closing over tears that never fell and let the fog take him…

Next thing he knew there was something licking his face. Okay, still alive. Still dying. Probably. He opened his eyes.

Well. Where was he? This wasn’t the alleyway anymore. Maybe he wasn’t dying and he was already dead. But this wasn’t heaven. This was…he wasn’t sure. There were explosions of colours and shapes twisting in and out of existence and he felt simultaneously the highest he’s ever been and stone cold sober. He felt like he was awake and dreaming at the same time.

And in the midst of all this madness, there was a rather ordinary looking dog, who was licking his face.

“Well, hey there, boy. You wouldn’t happen to know the way back to reality now, would you?”

He didn’t know what to expect at this point. And yet it still startled him when the dog stopped licking his face and spoke back. “Ah. You’re awake. Good. You don’t taste very good.”

Klaus frowned. “Actually, I’m a snack. A delicious- wait. I’m…awake.” He sits up and looks around. Nothing was solid. There was no up and no down and he had no clue what he was sitting on because reality kept changing. Okay, he was definitely going crazy. “I don’t think I’m awake.”

“Hm. Well. In a manner of speaking. And in another, you’re dead.”

“Huh.”

“You don’t sound surprised.”

“Well, I’ve been dead before. And really, I was asking for it anyways.”

The dog tilted its head, considering him, “I should be more specific. You’re only mostly dead, this time. This isn’t Death’s realm, but her sister’s.”

“…mostly dead? What am I? The man in black now?” Klaus hadn’t seen the movie until his teens, when he was homeless and couch-surfing. Or rather bed-surfing. And old lover had the movie on VHS.

“I don’t know what that means.” The dog huffed and then said, “I’m Barnabas, by the way. Not that you asked.”

“Aw, what an adorable name!” Klaus tried to pet him, but Barnabas looked mildly offended and ducked his head away. He looked like he was about to say something snippy when a bunch of brightly coloured fish swam past his head. Klaus had been trying to ignore his surroundings for the sake of his own sanity, but this caught his attention.

And then the…strangest voice followed after. “Ohhh, fishies! Come back here! …Hi, Barnabas!” He couldn’t really describe it. He could understand it, and for the most part it sounded like a young women’s voice, but something was distinctly…otherworldly. The voice sounded how this world looked. Chaotic, ever-changing, pitches and stresses in all the wrong places. It would have been called musical, if it wasn’t so discordant.

And then a figure stepped out of the swirls of colours and then he realised that nothing was ever going to make sense in here. She was colourful herself. Rainbow hair cut in an odd style. Two different coloured eyes and the oddest combination of clothes.

Though, honestly, he couldn’t say anything about his clothes. Currently, he was sporting the same outfit he wore in the real world and, frankly, wasn’t to off from this figure’s choice of clothes.

Well, at least they had something in common. “Nice shoes,” he tries.

The woman (girl? Young lady?) was talking to the dog and the fish, but turned to him at the sound of his voice. She drifted closer and peered down at him.

“Well, hello there, traveler. You seem a little lost.”

Klaus shrugged. She giggled. “Welllll, I suppose that’s, uh, that’s what you call life, now, isn’t it? Just a little bit lost and a lot bit lost! Go-ing on Forever!”

Barnabas came a bit closer to her, to sit beside her, not quite touching, but close. Like he meant to offer her comfort. She absentmindedly scratched his ears, but still didn’t look away from Klaus. Oh, was he supposed to offer a reply?

“Well, I’m hoping that’s not the case. I’ve been trying, lately, you see, to settle down a bit. Stay clean and, y’know, be there for my family. Try to…have a home, a proper one.” His voice grew more unsure as he continued to speak.

She was staring at him as he spoke, but not in his eyes. Just looking there briefly and then looking at his shirt and then his hair. Listening, but just couldn’t keep completely still. As she did, her nail polish changed colour and her ears changed shape and the rainbow in her hair shifted. This whole place was topsy-turvy. Strange how a talking dog named Barnabas was the sanest thing in here.

She looked back up briefly into his eyes and then down at her feet. “It’s Nice to do things for fa-mi-ly. I have many Siblings too. I like to help them sometimes. You said I have nice shoes. Would you like to wear them? We can trade!”

“Um.” Klaus wasn’t really sure what to say. “I don’t think our feet are the same size?”

She frowned. “Oh, what does that matter? Its just for fuunnn. C’mon!” And she proceeded to take off her shoes. Which, were just as colourful as her hair. Rainbow boots that had really neat buckles shaped like the fish that swam around their heads.

His were a solid black heel, stolen from Allison. They pinched his toes, not being the proper size, but they made his legs look gorgeous.

Allison probably wasn’t going to be happy to learn her shoes were traded away, but then again, she probably wasn’t going to be happy with him either way. If he ever made it back, that is.

He decided he should probably say all that out loud, and then he did, because they really weren’t his shoes, but the girl in front of him just sat down to better take of her shoes. “Oh, you’ll get out of Here eventu-ally. I like you, but you’re not mine to keep.” She finally managed to pull off both her boots. She was wearing mismatched socks, but those seemed to vanish. “And your family is just worried about you. If your sssister is mad, it’s only because she cares. You should ask them for help.”

He shrugged and easily kicked off his own shoes, accidently kicking it too close to Barnabas. The dog just looked long-suffering.

“They just think I’m useless and crazy. Well, maybe not Ben, but I’m not exactly doing my best there, y’know? He deserves to follow someone else around. Someone who won’t disappoint him again.”

The girl hummed. “They say I’m crazzzzy too. But that’s alright. Mad-ness isn’t always a Bad thing….it helps when I know too much. Sometimes its nice to have a break from san-i-ty.” Here she started to slip on the heels and gestured at the boots, so Klaus grabbed one and put it on, stamping a little to get his heel in. Huh. Perfect fit. She continued, “And just because I’m mad, doesn’t mean my siblings don’t care about me. Doesn’t mean I don’t care about them. We aallll make mistakes, even Beings such as us, even little ones such as you, and we…oh, shoot, Barnabas! What’s the word? The- the Big one.”

She glanced around as if the word she was looking for would suddenly appear. “You know. When the butterflies are iiiinn your body instead of outside them. Like stepping off the edge of a cliff, but knowing there is Someone to catch you, or for you to catch them.”

Barnabas opened his mouth to say something, but she snapped her fingers (which made Klaus do a doubletake when the snap sound created visual shockwaves of colour, like they were in some sort of comic book), and then said, “Oh! Love! It’s lo-ve. We all love each other the same. They loved me when I was Delight, and they still love me as Delirium. I mean, look at Bar-na-bas!” She gestured with a heel in her hand. The dog sat a little straighter. “He was a gift to me from one of my bro-thers, to care and look afterrr me, and we’ve become such good friends! Destruction cares in his own way, and I know your siblings do too. You just got-ta….gotta ask, okay?”

Barnabas smiled slightly. It looked a bit weird on a dog, but it seemed gentle. “I think we are the very best friends, my dear Delirium.”

She put the other heel on and bounced up onto them, smiling at them both, at the world around them, at the tiny fish swimming above her head. The black of the heels swirled with spots of colour, but mostly stayed the same.

Klaus finished doing up the buckles on both shoes and stood up too. He reached a hand up and the fish swam through his fingers and around his arm. The rainbow shoes felt warm and comfortable on his feet. He felt a bit giddy. He gave her a big grin and said, “Yeah. Okay. Sure. If I ever manage to get out of here, I’ll ask. Why not!”

She gave him a grin in return. To match. Though hers stretched a little too far on her face. Still friendly, but not exactly a human smile. Her eyes changed colours too, but never the same colours at the same time. A fish swam in front of her face and this distracted her from him.

“Well, how do I get out of here anyways? Not that I don’t mind your company, I should be getting back to the real world.”

She looked back at him and seemed to startle a little bit. “Ohhhh, what were we talking about?”

He blinked and looked at her and then looked at Barnabas, who said to her, in a reassuring manner, “It wasn’t important. Klaus was leaving soon anyways.”

“Hm. My he-ad hurts. Was I talking Rightly again? That always Hurts.”

“Yes, Delirium, but you don’t have to anymore. Why don’t we help Klaus go home and then play with the fish?”

Klaus frowned at Barnabas in confusion. Delirium laughed joyfully and said, “Well, hell yeah! There’s only a few swimming around, buuuut I can make more!” She proceeded to spin around and do exactly that.

Barnabas sidled closer to Klaus and said, “She does that, sometimes.”

“What? Forgets?”

“No. Remembers. The advice she gave you? How coherent she spoke? Does not happen often. You should take heed. The knowledge she has…is vast. So vast that it seems to…hurt her. Now, it’s time for you to go.” He didn’t say this roughly, but there was a sadness when he spoke.

“Thanks,” Klaus said, heartfelt. “And thank her for me, too, even if she doesn’t remember.”

Delirium wandered back over with a great many more fish swimming around, some bigger than others. Some so small he could barely see in the swirl of colours and shapes. “Oh yes! You!” She tapped him firmly on the forehead and said, “Say the magic words!”

“Um, please-”

“Wrong, so wrong. Try again.” And here she clicked her new heels three times.

Klaus couldn’t help it. He laughed. He saw that movie too. And then he copied her action and said the “magic” words, “There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home. There’s no pla-”

And then he was in an ambulance, the paramedic’s expression triumphant and relieved. Ben, hovering over him on the other side, looked similar.

“Klaus, don’t ever do that to me again. You are so lucky there was this goth lady around. Apparently, you aren’t the only one that can speak to the dead. She was pretty Zen about the whole thing. Said it wasn’t your time and managed to find a nearby payphone. She didn’t even ask why I couldn’t call the ambulance myself!”

Ben sounded a bit hysterical. The paramedic seemed to be chattering away as he checked Klaus’ vitals. Klaus felt himself tearing up. He could still feel the drugs in his system. “I’m so sorry, Ben. I can’t do this-”

“C’mon, Klaus! I know you’re stronger- what about Dave-”

“No, shit, Ben, just- I can’t do this alone, okay? I-I really need. I need help. I want to stay clean. Please. I just- please. I can’t do this alone.”

The paramedic wasn’t paying attention to his babble, too focussed on actually keeping him alive, but Ben was listening intently. He tried to lay his hand on Klaus’ shoulder, but his hand passed through. Klaus shivered. Ben looked disappointed, but not surprised. He settled for leaning over, close to Klaus’ face, and said, “Never, Klaus. I’m here, okay. And the others…we’ll ask for help from them too. We’re all trying to be a family, right? And….and whatever you need.”

Klaus felt tears in his eyes and with a rough voice he said, “Thank you, Ben. I always knew you were my favourite brother.”

Ben rolled his eyes, but a smile tugged the corner of his lips. “Oh, please. I’ll remember that next time you say that to any of our other siblings.”

“Why would Allison or Vanya be my favourite brother?”

“Fuck off, you know what I meant.” Okay, definitely a smile now.

And then Ben happened to glance at his feet. “Klaus, where the hell did you get those?”

Klaus looked at his feet and saw that he wasn’t wearing Allison’s heels, but rainbow boots. Huh. So not a drug-induced dream.

“Klaus?”

“I’ve been thinking, Ben.”

“Oh no. I didn’t know you could do that.” He gestured at the boots. “Are you not going to answer?”

Klaus ignored him and stared at the boots. “I’ve been wondering if they might allow aquariums in rehab.”

Ben stared at him a little. But he was also long used to Klaus saying weird stuff. “Well. If we manage to use some of dad’s fortune for rehab, they’ll allow us as many fish as we want. If…if that’s what you wanted the aquarium for.”

It was…so fucking nice to hear Ben using “us” and “we” like that. He knew Ben was stuck with him, but it felt…. like he wasn’t alone. That Ben meant it. That he was going to have help this time, from the whole family. And if they used dear old dad’s money…well. That would be icing on the cake. Petty? Yes. Deserved, even beyond the grave? Hell yes. He’s glad that he didn’t have another visit from him. He doesn’t think he could stand anymore revelations or disappointment from him. He’d take a bizarre realm of multi-coloured girls and fish and talking dogs any day.

Though, he really didn’t want to go back any time soon. Being mostly dead was exhausting.

“Yeah, Ben, fish. Lots of colourful fish.” His voice sounded further away, like hearing himself through a long tunnel. Klaus could feel his eyes droop closed.

Ben laughed softly. “Anything you need, Klaus. Have some nice dreams for me, will you?” Klaus’ eyes were closed, but for a flash, he thought he saw someone above him. He couldn’t see features, just a strange helmet and black robes. A pale hand sprinkled shining dust onto him. Onto his closed eyes. And then the figure was gone.

And he swore, right before he drifted off to sleep, that he felt Ben’s hand on his shoulder. But then again, it could have just been his imagination.

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preserving-ferretbrain · 6 years ago

Text

The Lexicon Issue: A Retrospective

by Dan H

Tuesday, 15 March 2011Dan is up to date as ever~So a little while ago a concerned citizen popped up to say that they (I'd say she from the LJ handle but one doesn't like to presume) felt they should tell me that they had “laughed so hard at my cluelessness” in this article. She/he also kindly provided me with some links to discussions of the case, which I duly read and from which I was forced to conclude that, in the language of this commenter “cluelessness” means “being broadly correct about everything.”

What I objected to at the time was the fact that Rowling's objections were stupid and irrelevant, and people who have a better understanding of the law seemed to agree. There's a rather good list

here

of the various points people brought up at the trial, conveniently broken down into “stuff that is legally relavent” and “stuff that isn't”. You might notice that high up on the list of things that aren't relevant is “how lazy, sloppy or inaccurate JKR considers the Lexicon to be”.

Now this is mostly water under the bridge, the verdict is in – although it's possible there's appeals going on. A lot of people had good reasons to think that the court's rulings were a bit shonky in places (several people with actual law degrees were confused by the fact that the court ruled that the Lexicon wasn't a derivative work) but to be honest I think it all came out right in the wash – some decent analysis

here

sums up the key points pretty well and what it boils down to is “the Lexicon copied too much.”

Ironically, the Lexicon was – as the judge observed – a victim of its own enthusiasm. The basic concept was legitimate but it used too much original language (a good example from one blog is describing the sounds made by the “clankers” - the things that scare away the blind dragon in Deathly Hallows – as “like tiny hammers on anvils”). If Vander Ark had been more willing to mess with the Holy Writ, he'd probably have been absolutely fine.

But mostly, what I want to talk about here is copyright law, because I think it's kinda cool, and I'm kind of on a roll here with articles about stuff I know jack shit about.

Derivative Works

One of the most peculiar things about the Lexicon ruling was that it held that the lexicon was not a derivative work. The basis for this is rather obscure, but it seemed to be that a compilation of information about a work was considered sufficiently transformative that it was not considered a derivative work. This seems reasonable to me, but also seems to conflict with US legal precedent (specifically with

Castle Rock vs Carol Publishing

in which a Seinfeld trivia book was ruled to constitute a derivative work, and therefore to be in violation of copyright).

I suspect that this basically comes down to that old aphorism about laws and sausages. The definition of a derivative work is unclear (and the definition of fair use even more so). The strongest interpretation seems to be that even making reference to copyrighted material makes a work derivative – this seems peculiar to me, unless you're going to argue that “derivative” means “contingent upon the existence of”. This seems to be the logic that held sway in Castle Rock - the court ruled that the “fictional facts” of Seinfeld were protected by copyright. This is a peculiar idea in and of itself and one to which I will return shortly.

Of course the weakest definition of a derivative work – a direct adaptation to another medium – is also unsatisfying. Intuitively, it seems reasonable that fanfiction, for example, be considered derivative (in the legal as well as the literary sense), and certainly few people would dispute the fact that only JK Rowling has the right to produce an eighth Harry Potter book.

Where this becomes problematic is that “derivative work” is actually an extremely powerful term in copyright law. Authors are assumed to have an absolute monopoly on derivative works. This is a big deal – monopolies are generally a bad thing and it's relatively rare for them to be protected by law. Given the stakes, it's entirely predictable that while one court feels that Castle Rock Entertainment has the right to control the production of Seinfeld trivia books, another feels that JK Rowling does not have the general right to control books of information about her fictional world. It's a murky area of law and one with no clear right answers. Most people would – I think – accept that JK Rowling has the right to decide who can make movies out of her books (although Derek Bambauer argues

here

that she shouldn't – at least from an economic perspective) but I suspect most people would also accept that she has no right to decide what people write about her books.

Fictional Facts

One of the strangest aspects of US copyright law I dug up in my recent trawling through the intarwebs was the notion of “fictional facts” - this was a key element in the Castle Rock case, in which it was ruled that authors (or in this case entertainment companies) do retain copyright over matters of fact in their fictional worlds.

I have a policy when it comes to matters of law, which is to assume that if it looks like the law is made of stupid that it's probably covering up something else which is even more made of stupid.

Because on the face of it, the idea of “fictional facts” seems – well it seems pretty made of stupid.

We'll leave aside for now the fact that it's an oxymoron of the highest order, and focus on the weird implications. If I'm understanding the precedent correctly, the statement “Harry Potter is a Wizard” (or for that matter “Dumbledore is Gay”) is protected by copyright, due to its being a “fictional fact” created by JK Rowling. Now most uses of that statement will wind up being protected under fair use but it still seems to be based on the principle that authors (at least in theory) have the right to control information about the contents of their books, which seems perverse.

I don't want to go too far into slippery slope arguments here, but it does strike me that treating “facts” as copyrightable puts spoilers in a difficult legal position. I don't actually think that anybody will ever get sued for spoilering, or that any court in the land would uphold an anti-spoilering case on copyright grounds, but by a strict application of logic, spoilering looks a lot like it breaches copyright. A spoiler consists of the repetition of a fictional fact (which is copyrightable material), the act of spoilering cannot be said to have transformative value (indeed many argue that spoilers detract from the value of the original work), and a case can be made that spoilers directly compete with the author's original product (insofar as a person could, quite reasonably, decide not to read a book or see a film as a result of having been spoilered for it). A sign bearing the legend “Snape Kills Dumbledore” is, in essence, a derivative work which – since it consists only of copyrighted material repeated without commentary – may not be protected by fair use.

Again I should clarify that I don't necessarily think this is a problem. In America at least, a Snape-Kills-Dumbledore sign would be protected by freedom of expression, and the constitution trumps copyright last time I checked, but it does highlight some of the weirder implications of this idea of “fictional facts”. I also suspect that the distinction between a “fictional fact” and a – for want of a better term - “factual fact” is a narrow one. Part of the reason that the Castle Rock ruling went against the defendants seemed to be that their Trivia book had focused exclusively on episode content and not on questions about (for example) the cast or sets – such questions would clearly have been matters of factual fact and not protected by copyright. So perhaps what it boils down to is that while “Dumbledore is Gay” is a fictional fact protected by copyright, “JK Rowling declared in interview that Dumbledore was gay” is a factual fact and therefore fair game. This seems like a silly distinction, but it probably matters rather a lot.

For a start, people will in fact pay for fictional facts. One of the biggest points against the Lexicon back in 2008 was the fact that it had reproduced a lot of information from Quidditch Through the Ages and – that one about magical beasts the name of which I can't be bothered to look up – both of which were sold primarily as books of fictional information. The fact is that people do like to know More Stuff about fictional realities, and they will pony up real cash to find out More Stuff. The Harry Potter Lexicon does tell the reader a lot of Stuff about the Wizarding World, and much as I hate to admit it, some people really do read novels purely or primarily to acquire facts about a secondary reality (I think these people are culturally moribund, but they seem to exist) so from a certain point of view it does make sense to see the “fictional facts” of the Potterverse as having value and requiring protection.

On top of this, if “fictional facts” are not protected, then it becomes very difficult to see how the law protects authors from things like unauthorised sequels. If “Harry Potter is a Wizard” is not on some level protected by copyright, then it becomes difficult to see why I cannot write a book about a Wizard called Harry Potter with as much impunity as I could write a book about, say Napoleon Bonaparte or Abraham Lincoln. If we accept the (seemingly common sense) idea that the basic facts of fictional settings should be fair game for use and commentary we tacitly allow people to recreate other people's work from whole cloth. If I have unlimited license to refer to the facts of somebody else's creation, then in practice I have unlimited license to reproduce their work (since after all, any text is just information about the content of that text).

All of this leads to a rather difficult situation. Copyrighting facts seems dangerously close to copyrighting ideas (which would be a terrible, terrible precedent), but not copyrighting facts seems dangerously close to not copyrighting anything.

Who is Copyright For Anyway

Copyright is one of those areas of law that everybody thinks they understand but in fact nobody does. Intuitively we all get it. You create something, it's yours and you get to control it. A lot of people take this as a kind of moral axiom: these are the people who literally believe that JKR has the right to call the shots in all things Potter related, be it the production of reference guides, Dumbledore's sexuality, or whether or not Snape was redeemed. This is the “it's her world, we're just playing in it” doctrine.

The thing is that this is a naïve approach to the law. We can't just say “playing with other people's toys is naughty, so ban it”. Copyright exists for quite important economic reasons and, contrary to popular belief, those reasons have comparatively little to do with stopping people from bootlegging stuff.

Copyright is generally considered necessary because in a perfectly competitive marketplace, the price of any good tends towards its marginal cost of production, the price of creating one more unit. As long as you can sell a unit of a good for more than you spent to make it, you should and somebody will. This works great for bananas, coffee tables, bricks and door handles, but it doesn't work so great for books, music and video games. The marginal cost of producing a copy of a book is very small indeed (and the marginal cost of producing a copy of an ebook is effectively zero). If authors were not allowed a monopoly over their work, they wouldn't be able to sell it, because any price they could sell it for, somebody else could sell it cheaper.

Just to be clear here, this very much isn't about piracy. Piracy is a crime (well actually it's probably a tort, but let's not split hairs here) and crimes, sort of by definition aren't prevented by the law. Copyright doesn't stop people illegally reproducing copyrighted material because, well duh. FACT and its associated bodies would have you believe that Copyright Is Good because it Protects Authors from Bad People. This is stuff and nonsense. Copyright is good because it protects publishers from other, better funded publishers.

Consider: you are Bloomsbury, on the verge of bankruptcy you discover a promising children's author by the name of Rowling. These books get inexplicably popular. You celebrate.

Consider: You are every other publishing company in the world. You notice that Ms Rowling's books are getting extremely popular, you also notice that Bloomsbury, having paid the author an advance, paid the salaries of editors and proofreaders, hired cover artists and so on, has incurred a great many costs which you can avoid, simply by taking their product and reproducing it (using the resources which, as a large and established publishing company, you most certainly possess). The resulting competition drives down prices, which is fine for you but not so great for the company that has paid the substantial setup costs. Every other publisher in the world makes a tidy profit, Bloomsbury goes bust.

Worse, nobody wants to pick up the option on the next book in the series, because everybody knows that their competitors can sell flawless copies of the book more cheaply than they themselves can afford to sell them. Even if JK Rowling wanted to sell her next book, nobody would buy it, because everybody would know that whoever published first would incur large costs for little reward (this is true even given the substantial first-day sales for popular books, many ordinary customers would rather wait a couple of weeks and pay half the price).

Conventional publishing and distribution models are founded on the notion of copyright. The problem is not, as many assume, that people wouldn't write books if they weren't sure they'd make a lot of money from it. Thousands, probably millions of people are working on novels right now with no guarantee of financial reward. Thousands of people put their work online for free as a matter of course, and an awful lot of people actually pay vanity publishers for the pleasure of seeing their work in print. Copyright isn't there to reassure authors that they'll be paid, it's there to reassure publishers that they'll recoup their losses.

Now of course you can argue that the conventional distribution model for novels and the like is inherently broken because, well take your pick, information should be free, corporations shouldn't tell us what to like, whatever. Speaking personally, though, I actually have a lot of faith in the conventional models of publishing, at least for the mass market. Indie and self-publishing is great for niche materials (the indie-RPG industry, for example, works well because it services a small community and everything it puts out is effectively peer reviewed by the community it serves) but not so great for novels and the like. Anecdotal evidence

here at Ferretbrain

supports the observation that self-published books really are less good than those that are published conventionally.

The public interest is generally served by allowing authors, and by extension publishers, to control distribution of their work. This means that the commercial interests of publishing companies are served by seeking out high quality authors (allowing them exclusive control of a valuable resource) rather than by seeking out more efficient means of distribution (allowing them to better exploit the resources developed by others). It is not so easy to see how the public interest is served by allowing authors to control derivative works, particularly if the term is defined so broadly as to include things like reference guides. Put simply, I do not believe that one single person has ever been dissuaded from writing a novel by the fear that somebody might write a reference guide to it at some point in the future. Nor do I believe that any publisher has ever refused to publish a book on such grounds.

From this perspective, derivative works rights are a lot harder to justify. While it feels intuitively right that you shouldn't be able to make Harry Potter tie-in material without JKR's say-so, it's not immediately clear why: sure it might make her upset, but “it will upset people” is generally not a good reason for legislation. A hard economic argument would say that if there is a market for something, and the production of that thing will not be generally detrimental to the public good, then people should be allowed to make that thing. Ultimately, shouldn't it be up to the Invisible Hand to decide whether – say – a fan-made guide to a fictional setting is worth producing? This might lead to a market inundated with trashy cash-ins, but if there's a market for trashy cash-ins then those cash-ins have real economic value. Of course they might harm the value of the individual property but to my (admittedly limited) understanding, that becomes a trademark rather than a copyright issue (I can't go around putting the coca-cola logo on things, but that isn't because it's copyright, it's because it's a trademark which is a subtly different thing).

This article doesn't really have a conclusion beyond “good lord copyright law is complicated and unintuitive”. I shall end, therefore, by sharing the irrelevant tidbit that “uncopyrightables” is the longest word in the English language which uses all of its letters exactly once.Themes:

J.K. Rowling

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Arthur B

at 15:40 on 2011-03-15

This is indeed an oddity, and to be honest I think it's something that could happily have been avoided. UK law has evaded this by and large by looking at the work done by the producer of a copyright work, and considering how much the person producing the allegedly infringing work is freeloading off that.* In the case of someone writing a book, the effort involved entails

does

entail cooking up a bunch of fictional facts if you're writing fiction or researching a bunch of actual facts if you're writing nonfiction, but the key isn't whether you've replicated the same facts so much as whether you're using someone else's brainstorming or research to make your own job easier.

Two cases which help illustrate the point are Ravenscroft v Herbert and the Da Vinci Code case. In Ravenscroft v Herbert, James Herbert lost because

The Spear

was found to have infringed the copyright on a pseudoscientific book of kook history by Trevor Ravenscroft about the Spear of Longinus, because he took the narrative presented by Ravenscroft in the book and used it as the basis for the background and prologue of his novel. How Ravenscroft came up with his facts (a mixture of conjecture and psychic mediumship, as it turned out) wasn't relevant: the fact was that Ravenscroft had put in all this effort to put together this narrative which he put forward as being nonfictional, and then Herbert had simply taken that narrative and copied it wholesale without attribution or permission to get the basis for his novel.

In the Da Vinci Code case, on the other hand, the guys who wrote

The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail

sued Dan Brown on a similar basis and lost because they didn't show that Brown was freeloading off their work - the court deciced that he wasn't simply taking their narrative and replicating it in the book, but was using those facts and combined them with others (from other sources and of his own invention) to come up with his own work.

The point is that the "fictional facts" - or nonfictional facts - aren't the issue, the issue at stake is the effort that authors put into obtaining/inventing those facts and stringing them together. The Castle Rock guys would have probably lost in the UK too because all they did to make their trivia book was to pick answers out of the scripts and they didn't really put in much in the way of original effort of their own. Rowling can't sue you for making a sign saying "Snape Kills Dumbledore" because the amount of effort it actually took her to come up with that fact is trivial. A sign with extensive quotes from the actual death scene? Now you're talking.**

* This is also relevant to derivative works. If Vander Ark was writing all the text in all the entries in the Lexicon from scratch then it would have been extremely unlikely that Rowling would have been able to make anything stick if she'd sued in the UK. If he directly copy-pasted great swathes of her text, he'd be obviously trying to make a quick buck when she in fact had put in almost all of the work in producing the text in the first place. Obviously there's a big grey area between those extremes, which is why these cases are decided by judges and not machines, but one of the considerations would be how heavily Vander Ark relied on the effort Rowling originally put in. If he wasn't very, very clear about where he was quoting from the original text and where he was making up his own stuff that'd probably also count against him.

** It's actually interesting whether you'd fall down on copyright if you wrote a book about a wizard who happened to be called Harry Potter but who didn't actually have that much in common with the actual Harry aside from the name. Also academic, since Rowling would have a much easier time suing you for "passing off" - because you wouldn't be freeriding on the effort she'd put into establishing her characters and setting so much as you'd be trying to freeride on the reputation she had established surrounding the Harry Potter name.

the constitution trumps copyright last time I checked

Actually, it doesn't.

The Constitution in article 1, section 8 empowers Congress to, amongst a whole lot of other things, "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries". Granted, the First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech and of the press too, but both copyright and free speech are conceptually enshrined in the Constitution; neither can necessarily trump the other. (Also the "limited Times" bit is getting increasingly laughable...)

In my professional experience the better someone understands the copyright system, the more embarrassed they are by it. At the moment it is a complete shambles.

Also, bravo for coming up with the best explanation of copyright I've ever seen from a non-IP professional. I'll have to kill you to protect the Guild's aura of mystery but I'll keep it painless. :)

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http://sunnyskywalker.livejournal.com/

at 23:41 on 2011-03-15

While it feels intuitively right that you shouldn't be able to make Harry Potter tie-in material without JKR's say-so, it's not immediately clear why

Maybe this is a case where it's more similar to a trademark: too many fictional works set in the Potterverse by people other than Rowling could constitute "brand dilution" or however they explain that. Although I'm trying to remember how it works for fictional characters/locations - you can have a cartoon mouse, but you can't make your own Mickey Mouse movie even if you give him entirely different adventures from his Disney* original, because the totality of the character is copyrighted. Or possibly trademarked. I'm not sure which. *really should remember this since I know I learned it*

*Speaking of the limited times bit "getting increasingly laughable..." Disney really, really doesn't want any of their copyrights to expire. And what a coincidence - copyright duration keeps getting extended, and Mickey is still private domain! This makes it even funnier that someone has made an educational film about copyright and fair use entirely composed of Disney clips:

A Fair(y) Use Tale

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Dan H

at 18:21 on 2011-03-16@Arthur

Actually, it doesn't.

And the ironic thing is, I'm pretty sure I actually knew that. I think it's just that "the constitution trumps copyright" sounded punchier than "the American judicial system is generally pretty strongly invested in the idea of free speech, such that it seems unlikely that they would uphold the precedent that spoilering constitutes a breach of copyright, even though it might be argued to under current legal precedents."

@sunnyskywalker

*Speaking of the limited times bit "getting increasingly laughable..." Disney really, really doesn't want any of their copyrights to expire.

Yeah, so I've observed. It's difficult because I can sort of see that even really old copyrights do definitely have a *value* for Disney - the question is whether it's in the public interest for Disney to retain those copyrights.

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Arthur B

at 18:38 on 2011-03-16

To be fair it is kind of an oddity because the First Amendment says that Congress absolutely isn't allowed to curtail freedom of the press, but then the powers it does invest Congress with to give authors copyright protection can't exactly be exercised or enforced without curtailing freedom of the press. It's almost like the Founding Fathers were fallible human beings who were kind of making it up as they were going along or something.

There is probably precedent law I'm not aware of which settles the contradiction.

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Dan H

at 23:09 on 2011-03-16Presumably a big part of it is that "freedom of the press" is quite hard to define. I mean you could argue that requiring journalists to have any kind of ethical standards at all goes against freedom of the press.

I suppose the thing about it is that "freedom of the press" is all about the government not being able to stop particular stories or ideas from being published, there's a big difference between that, and trying to stop them from being published by *specific people*. I mean it's not censorship for the law to prevent newspapers from publishing articles which have been copied directly from other newspapers.

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http://sunnyskywalker.livejournal.com/

at 17:54 on 2011-03-17I guess that goes back to the debate over whether stopping people from shouting "fire!" in a crowded theater is not really restricting freedom of speech in some technical sense, or whether it is but it's an okay kind of restriction. If one newspaper copies another's articles verbatim, then stopping them doesn't actually kill the articles - they're still out there in the original publication. And sense it wasn't the copier's speech in the first place, their speech isn't being restricted. Or something.

One of the complicating factors with Disney is the person vs. corporation issue. It's much easier to see how an author benefits from a copyright which lasts for a certain percentage of his or her lifetime (or, if it's "life plus x years," the family can pay funeral costs, I suppose). Since individuals have limited lifespans, it's easier to grasp what might be a reasonable limit for copyright. It's a lot less clear when the copyright holder is a corporation which could exist indefinitely, other than "well, it would be better for the public for it to expire... sometime..." Although if they're legally supposed to be treated much like people, then they'll just have to suck up losing their copyright after 120 years max.

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Robinson L

at 15:15 on 2011-06-01

Speaking personally, though, I actually have a lot of faith in the conventional models of publishing, at least for the mass market.

Fair enough Dan, but I don't think much of your reasoning, as evidenced by this article.

Anecdotal evidence here at Ferretbrain supports the observation that self-published books really are less good than those that are published conventionally.

For the purposes of argument, I'll agree self-publishing tends to foster terrible writing a lot more than professional publishing. On the other hand, we've had plenty of evidence here at Ferretbrain that professional publishing also tends to foster terrible writing (check the first theme handle on this article). Professional publishing is less prone to it, but surely we can do better than this.

I'll go one step further. In response to one negative review of “Deathly Hallows” (I think it might've been Mike Smith's recap) somebody posted a link to a guy relating a conversation about editing. Basically, Party A argued that Stephen King's writing has gone to shit in recent years (anecdotal evidence

here at Ferretbrain

supports this observation) and that a good editor could make it much better. Party B rejoins that a good editor isn't going to touch a big name author because they'll rake in the cash anyway, and an editor's meddling might make the author sell less (or might coincide with the author's loss of popularity), or might piss the author off and convince them to take their business elsewhere. So now we have an example of a situation where the professional publishing system as it stands now actively blocks improvement rather than just enabling mediocrity.

Self-publishing obviously is not an improvement, but surely there's another possible system which could do better?

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Dan H

at 15:59 on 2011-06-01

On the other hand, we've had plenty of evidence here at Ferretbrain that professional publishing also tends to foster terrible writing (check the first theme handle on this article). Professional publishing is less prone to it, but surely we can do better than this.

Except that there's actually a world of difference between bad professionally published literature, and bad self-published fiction. Very little professionally published fiction is *actually incompetent* in the way that self-published fiction so often is. J.K. Rowling actually *isn't* that bad a writer - she's written a great many books that I personally dislike, and her writing is often pedestrian, frequenly overwrought and on very rare occasions actively clunky, but it is still genuinely head and shoulders above the vast, vast majority of amateur fiction.

The fact that somebody once said that Steven King had gone downhill and that somebody else suggested that this was because he'd got too big to edit is not evidence of any flaws in the publishing industry.

Once again, I'm very, very leery of any argument which assumes that popular things are only popular because the people who buy them are stupid sheeple. The publishing industry is not broken just because things I don't like are sometimes more popular than things I do like.

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Arthur B

at 16:10 on 2011-06-01@Robinson: If you think another system would work better would you care to propose one? I'd argue that the number of authors who, like King and Rowling, could pretty much dictate terms to their publishers are in fact quite small. And the reason they got that way in the first place was that they gave the reading public what they wanted.

The problem isn't instituting a system which prevents crap books from being published, because you can't, not in a way which isn't totalitarian. The problem, as a reader, is in tracking down books which you personal would enjoy and want to read. The world of professional publication is actually quite good at helping you do that, because publishing houses want to target the books they publish at those sections of the public who'll pay money for them, and even if your particular niche isn't catered to by the major publishing houses there will be niche small press publishers who are more than happy to crank out the sort of book you want. And on top of that, the more widely distributed a book is, the more likely it is that you'll have reviews to use as a guide.

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Robinson L

at 00:00 on 2011-06-02Okay Dan,

that

strikes me as a more compelling argument. I'm not really interested in arguing the the merits of the current publishing industry versus a hypothetical alternative model – I just found your argument as presented in the article rather unconvincing. Thank you for clarifying.

#Ferretbrain #J.K. Rowling #Harry Potter #The Harry Potter Lexicon #Copyright law #Dan H

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pcnnydime · 6 years ago

Text

I’m Leaving Tumblr.

Dramatic? Probably, but it’s come to my attention (again, and again, and again) that a great number of people feel uncomfortable in my presence, so I’d rather the title sum up the post. You can read this and try to see things from my point of view, or you can move on with your lives. Either way, I hope this doesn’t cause much drama for anyone not involved, and I hope everyone regardless of involvement has a good day/night.

First, I apologize if this post seems robotic, but after countless anxiety attacks , multiple lost friends, and a few instances of self harm due to everything that’s been happening around me, I find myself lacking the emotional energy to put more ‘pep’ or ‘enthusiasm’ into this post. I’ve been on Tumblr since Red Thread was at its peak, however many years that may have been, and roleplaying, meeting people here, and developing characters that mean the world to me has helped me grow as a person. It brought me out of a near 2 year long depression that included an extremely abusive relationship, being left behind by all my close local friends, and a failed suicide attempt. Writing on tumblr introduced me to my best friend, many dear friends, and my current romantic partner. It’s seen me through a really tough job, two cross-country moves, and some of my worst and lowest points. But with the word ‘racist’ following me at every turn, I no longer feel welcome or supported by what was once my favorite hobby and best coping mechanism.

The reason being labelled a racist has effected me so deeply is because I come from a multi-racial home. I am half Puerto Rican, one quarter African American, and one quarter white. I have tan skin, very hispanic features, and very curly, thick hair with dark brown eyes. I don’t look white. I grew up in a rural area where I was one of very few people of color in BOTH of the schools I attended, and I’ve never lived in very diverse areas in all my 21 years. I don’t believe I was treated any differently because of it, I never had any race-specific issues in my childhood, and I’m very lucky because of that. Sure, I’ve had a few ‘playful nicknames’ but nothing that ever hurt me as much as being bullied about my height, weight, or chest size.

My Grandmother is white and my Grandfather is black - they got together in the 60′s and dealt with a great deal of prejudice and hardship due to being an interracial couple. They and my mother raised me to look past what people look like on the outside - weight, height, gender, age, race, religion - they believe, and I believe that it shouldn’t matter. People should be judged and valued or ignored based upon their personalities. In a near-perfect society, that’s how everyone would feel, but ours is far from perfect. People of color are faced with violence, hate, and even murder on a daily basis all over the world - not just in America - and by no means has it ever been my intent to diminish that, I simply am deterred by conflict because it hurts me to see.

Now that I’ve described myself, the way I’ve been affected, and my views on race and in/equality, I will explain my experience as a “racist”. For months, I’ve been blocked, shunned, and ignored due to this. I spent MONTHS not knowing why people were blocking me, why all of a sudden people I had been writing with and even admired for their graphic and literary skill were suddenly ignoring me and treating me like I was less than a stranger.

Because no one told me.

Not until sometime around perhaps September or October, when someone was finally kind and considerate enough to step out of their comfort zone and inform me that I’d made a comment about Black Panther without thinking about my wording. On Twitter, I said something to the effect of ‘Black Panther has too much black power for me’, something along those lines. What I should have said was: Black Panther was a good movie, and I liked Killmonger as an antagonist until he began building a highly advanced army of thousands of near-superpowered warriors and devastating militaristic technology to declare war on what was clearly intended to be Caucasians as a race. At that point, I became uncomfortable because racial war of any kind isn’t something I would have paid money to see in a theatre, had I known it was going to be included. But I didn’t say that because twitter has a character limit, and I didn’t think anyone wanted to read an entire thread of my review of what was, all in all, an excellent movie.

Another individual recently followed suit and gave me a few more examples of why people believe I’m racist and discriminatory.

1. I’ve used the “n” word on multiple occasions. This is not true. I am incredibly uncomfortable around the use of that word, in any form, even it’s reclaimed version. I don’t like it. I don’t know where or when I would have used it before, but even as someone who is African-American and has multiple African-American family members who say it ‘affectionately’ to refer to each other, I have not EVER said that word. Not as a joke, and certainly not as an insult.

2. I hold people who speak English as a secondary, third, or otherwise language to a higher standard than those who do not.

No. If anything, it’s the opposite. I strongly admire and respect anyone who speaks more than one language, as someone who only speaks English and very broken Spanish. I formerly had an RP partner whose first language is Spanish, and is very proud of their heritage. My father, who I’m no longer in contact with due to estrangement and abandonment, primarily speaks Spanish and I had no quarrel with him because of that. Some contradictory things you may have read can be found here and here. These are screenshots from the rules page on an old blog of mine that I would rather not explicitly name, for the sake of privacy for people who used to interact with me. In these screenshots, I say “[Does] Understand that English is not everyone’s first language. It’s okay if you have some errors with grammar or spelling, as long as you’re making the best effort that you can.” perhaps that can come off as me saying ‘you have to try really hard if you want to write with me’, but in fact, it just meant that I wanted some manner of effort to be present. I.E., if I write 2 paragraphs, at least write one in response, rather than a single sentence. Could I have worded that better? Absolutely. But since realizing that can be perceived incorrectly, I removed it from my rules page entirely to avoid offending anyone.

In the other screenshot, I mention not tolerating anyone who is ‘cis or heterophobic’. This ties back into my ideal of not seeing people for who they are on the outside, but rather, who they are on the inside. I’ve had great friendships with people who were either cisgendered, heterosexual, or both, and it upsets me to see all the jokes about ‘down with cishets’ and the hate that the LGBT+ community sends their way. I understand that being a ‘cishet’ doesn’t put them in any ‘legitimate’ danger like being LGBT+ does, but it doesn’t feel good to be judged for being LGBT+, so it doesn’t seem right to judge ANYONE based on sexuality or gender without personal experience. If someone has been repeatedly hurt, offended, or otherwise wronged by individuals of those designation, I understand, but mob mentalities frighten me.

I’ve apologized for these accusations, and explained my reasoning and my ‘side’ behind them, and there’s one last thing I’d like to address. My being perceived as acting like a victim. This, I can’t contest. Perhaps I have been overly dramatic over this hole thing. Roleplay is a hobby, at the end of the day, and while it may not be a great one, I do have a life outside of Tumblr and Twitter. What I don’t have, however, is friends. My only friends are miles and miles away, and they’re few and far between. The ones I did have began telling me I was a racist, to me, seemingly out of nowhere. I had no clue when these things began to spread because again, I wasn’t confronted. I’ve lost two people I consider to be good friends, and I’ve been doing my best to keep to myself ever since. I stopped reaching out, out of fear that people would find me obnoxious or abrasive, not knowing how far my reputation had spread. The absolute last thing I wanted was to hurt anyone, so when I vented to my friends I asked them not to make a big deal out of it. I didn’t want them with the label as well. I didn’t want to see them ostracized, or to be the reason they lost a hobby they enjoyed. When one of them went against my wishes and said something on their blog, it was deemed ‘public drama that didn’t belong on the dash’ and I was TERRIFIED that they would end up losing the chance to interact with others. Thankfully they didn’t, but that’s the example I have. No, something like that didn’t necessarily belong on the dash, but they were simply trying to look out for me while watching me have an anxiety attack and contemplate dropping all of my muses and completely deleting all social media. I’ve moved twitters multiple times due to trust issues this whole ordeal has caused for my own mental health. I’ve hidden behind locked accounts because the thought of people who are triggered by public drama having to see something of this scale was at the forefront of my mind. In short, if it seemed as though I was playing the part of a victim, it’s because I have, for months, been confused and hurt without understanding what was going on. When I tried to move past it and remedy my mistakes, I was pushed away and hurt even more by people I called friends.

To sum the entirety of this long post up, I’m upset. Far more upset than perhaps I’ve conveyed here, because I’m doing my best to remain logical and fair. I understand why anyone who has heard these things about me would block me and would want to avoid contact - I wouldn’t want to interact with a racist either. But I’m not a racist. I’m not judgemental. I’m open-minded to a fault, it seems, and my ideal of perfect equality is unrealistic in the world we live in full of murder and segregation. If anyone would like to talk to me in more detail about anything they’ve read here, they may do so at my open twitter which is solely for responding to inquiries about my reputation, my tumblr blog here, which will no longer be active, or my personal discord, which is mad dog!#6346 .

There are likely many issues I forgot to address, or simply don’t know about, but I’d like to thank anyone who read this far. Your attention means more to me than I can express.

#racism tw #segregation tw #murder tw #prejudice tw #self harm tw #suicide mention tw #attempted suicide mention #suicide tw #homophobia mention #war tw #anxiety tw #anxiety attack tw #n word mention #n word tw #anxiety mention #supremacy tw

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yesteachersblog · 5 years ago

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Comunicación Efectiva

Writing in the Hispanic and Latin(x) Discourse Community:

This blog post is intended to help educators understand the best way to approach writing (genre) for students’ part of the Hispanic and Latinx discourse community (subject matter) in order to help them achieve college readiness.

The Differences Between Hispanic and Latino/a (https://www.hnmagazine.com/2017/09/difference-hispanic-latino/)

Defining terms

A person who identifies as Latino or Latina: Comes from Latin America: “Unlike Hispanic, which refers to language, Latino is a term that refers to geography. It is used to signify that a person is from or descended from people from Latin America. It is, in fact, a shortened form of the Spanish phrase latinoamericano — Latin American, in English.Like Hispanic, Latino does not technically speaking, refer to race. Anybody from Central or South America and the Caribbean can be described as Latino. Within that group, like within Hispanic, there are varieties of races. Latinos can be white, Black, indigenous American, Mestizo, mixed, and even of Asian descent.”

Latinx: A term used to replace Latino and Latina to promote inclusivity.

A person who identifies as Hispanic: Comes from a Spanish speaking country and background: “Hispanic refers to what language people speak or that their ancestors spoke, it refers to an element of culture.This means that, as an identity category, it is closest to the definition of ethnicity, which groups people based on a shared common culture. However, people of many different ethnicities can identify as Hispanic, so it’s actually more broad than ethnicity. Consider that people who originate from Mexico, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico will have come from very different cultural backgrounds, excepting their language and possibly their religion. Because of this, many people considered Hispanic today equate their ethnicity with their or their ancestors’ country of origin, or with an ethnic group within this country.”

When I was in high school, I remember feeling lost at the question of what I wanted to do in the future. As someone who dedicated themselves to taking honor and AP classes I knew that I wanted to attend University but had no idea where to even begin looking. There was not a lot of direct support from my school or my community in regard to college preparation. The only help I actually received came from my AP English teacher that I had taken classes with my Junior year. She was running an afterschool program to help guide students through the application process for applying to local universities and community colleges, but it was very vague. Nobody really tells you what needs to go in your college application, what an application letter looks like, where you can get help filling out your FAFSA, nothing. It was up to me entirely to figure all of these procedures out if I wanted to attend University. Looking back, I think if I had had better guidance, I might have been able to apply for more scholarships and even out of state schools. However, we can’t go back and change the past, only the future.

Being a first generation student, you can’t ask your parents for help, because they’ve never applied for college, most of them never even made it past middle school in their home countries. In a study done by Angelica M Tello “The Role of High School and College Counselors in Supporting the Psychosocial and Emotional Needs of Latinx First-Generation College Students” https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1164907.pdf She describes how these first-generation college students or (FGCS) are “a growing population faced with unique challenges for college retention and graduation. Because their parents did not attend postsecondary education, this group of college students has not inherited the social or cultural capital common to many traditional college freshmen. Both high school and college counselors are in positions to support the psychosocial and emotional needs of Hispanic and Latinx FGCS, which may increase successful college completion rates.” (Tello, 349) As a collective culture, the Hispanic and Latinx community believes strongly in hard work and dedication, something that many young students carry with them all throughout their public education experience. But no matter how hard you work and study there will always be obstacles to overcome, the problem is if you have the motivation and support to jump these hurdles.

Motivation, guidance, and support, that is what young students in the Hispanic and Latinx discourse community need if they are to succeed in the higher education setting and make it to college. Now that I have graduated from a four-year university and am attending graduate school, I know that it is possible to beat the odds and make it out of the community that once held me back. It is important to be able to recognize and understand the way a community functions and the genres part of it if you are to try and help instill change. Charles Bazerman describes genre as the activity systems we are a part of that shape our lives. He claims, “these organized complexes of communication shape our ongoing relationships and identities, and within these complexes we change and develop through our sequences of mediated participation.” (Bazerman 15) Therefore, we must understand how members of specific community have come to form their identities and discourse languages that influence their lives and perspectives. Our social spaces help us develop different genres of communication and sometimes these spaces also can influence how we perceive the world around us. These perceptions, however, are not definite set in stone. Just as language is constantly changing and evolving so are we.

As I mentioned, the first step to help this specific discourse community is motivation. Motivation inside the classroom means providing materials, projects, and academic opportunities that will allow students to practice writing in their familiar genres while meeting writing requirements. Students will be more engaged in school if they can form a connection with what is being taught while expressing their voices. In another study done by Jason Irizarry “En La Lucha: The Struggles and Triumphs of Latino/a Preservice Teachers” https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ988308 the study found that many of these participants in the cohort of Latino/a students experienced “systematic silencing, the result of the acts of individual agents and institutional practices and policies that manifested in overt and subtle forms of subordination.” Which in turn, pushed them away from pursuing their educational career. Motivation can also look like positive feedback.

Sometimes, members of the Hispanic and Latinx discourse community have different interpretations of genre writing requirements. Since our context shapes our understanding of genre, many students may have influence of genre styles from their first languages which can interfere with the requirements of genre pieces in schools. As teachers, we should not dismiss their genre writing as wrong, but rather open up to the idea that genre doesn’t have to mean only one thing. The term genre is ever changing, Amy J. Devitt notes the issue with viewing genre in this manner, “The common understanding of genre among too many composition scholars and teachers today is that genre is a relatively trivial concept, a classification system deriving from literary criticism that names types of texts according to their forms. Viewed in this way, genre is not only a rather trivial concept but

also, a potentially destructive one, one that conflicts with our best understandings of how writing, writers, and readers work, one that encourages the dichotomies in our field.” (Devitt 574) Motivation should look like encouragement, writing encouraging feedback can go a long way.

The final requirements I mentioned are guidance and support, inside and outside of the classroom. Guidance and support go hand in hand when it comes to increasing students’ possibilities of attending community college and beyond. Teachers can provide time in class to connect learning material to future uses, such as; teaching how to write cover letters and application letters, teaching academic writing versus non-academic writing, providing resources and materials with information on college applications, and even having mock application writing assignments. Throughout these activities and assignments its important to again remember genre and the role it plays in our students’ writing. Guiding them to use the appropriate genre for each setting can come a long way in their futures. Supporting students by being a vessel of information and a resource to their education should be a part of every teachers plan. Hosting outside activities like college tours, after school programs, and even clubs can also help support these students. It may not be doable for all teachers considering funding and time but seeking out help from the community and reaching out to parents can help, as long as they are made aware it is for their children’s futures.

All students are entitled to education, but not just k-12, they should have the same opportunity to reach college despite their backgrounds, culture, socioeconomics, identity, etc. In “Literacy from a Right to Education” by Gianna Alessandra Sanchez Moretti and Tobias Frandell, the authors describe education as:

“The human right to education, as a social good, constitutes a solid foundation for human development. Its implementation, protection, fulfillment and promotion can lead to the creation of opportunities, freedom of choice, economic sustainable growth, improvement of health conditions, poverty reduction, social mobility enhancement, and prevention of autocratic rule (Coomans, 2007, p.185). In other words, education is a means to risk-prevention, as well as a tool that can help improve the human quality of life in a sustainable manner. Not only does the right to education have intrinsic value, but it is indispensable for the exercise of all human rights. A quality education as a right becomes the concrete key that empowers individuals to fully develop their personalities and participate in society through the acquisition of knowledge, human values and skills. Thus, education as a right can provide a solid tool in poverty reduction strategies worldwide.”

Establishing the importance of education in the Hispanic and Latinx community can help bring students out of poverty and crime by creating opportunities for a better life. The Hispanic and Latinx discourse community is only one of many minority groups that face low retention rates when it comes to college enrollment and completion. Although I am writing for my specific community, much of this can be applied to others as well. As teachers, our goal should be to see our students succeed not only in our classrooms, but outside in their personal lives as well. We have the ability to help make this happen, so let’s use our knowledge and experiences to build students up and guide them down the right educational path.

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theboykingofhell · 8 years ago

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(acting anon from earlier!!) i read ur whole thing and its FILLED with rly good info ty!! im british and im looking to start getting into acting but i always shyed away from it in schools etc cause there's always be a dance side to it and :/ no ty id rather eat nails than dance ever. but im rly interested in the acting techniques n stuff u mentioned and id defo read as many posts abt it as u wanted to write :0 ty for your time!!

OK YEAH now that i actually have time and by that i mean i have no time there’s like three things i’m supposed to be doing rn but i want to stall starting them lmfao I’MMA TALK MORE ABOUT THIS RN

imma be real i cant remember all the things i mentioned in that post i wrote and i cant be bothered to go back and look so IF YOU EVER HAVE A SPECIFIC QUESTION LITERALLY ASK ME ANY TIME

oooooooooooh... yeah.. love... babe.... go to acting schools lol it’s not even JUST the fact that they literally teach you how to act but. you. need to network. god. especially since you ARE british, acting schools are very important because a lot of companies will pretty much hire you based on what school you went to. just the short amount of time i was there made this VERY obvious that it is VERY hard to get picked up by a company if you haven’t gone to school, and getting picked up by a company is how you get consistent theater work for YEEEEEEARS...!!! also, usually a school will give you a rly good chance to network by having some sort of showcase at the end where you can get in contact with a bunch of agents and the more famous the school, the more agents see your work and try and help you out!!!!

and, like... the whole dance bit is just a hurdle you’re gonna have to jump. it’s def rly important to just partipate in the classes, you don’t have to be GOOD but it gives you just that little bit of awareness over your body and your movement that you might not have had before and that’s rly important, especially on the stage!! i felt the same way about singing but, man, the more you work at it, the more mangeable it gets. and you don’t want to have this grudge on you forever because it’ll really limit your work :/

but i mean man you don’t actually have to, there’s no set way to become an actor! if you find work, you have that work, it doesn’t matter how you get there t b h. i just think it helps and the more skills you acquire, the better of a chance you have to get that work...

(i RLY suggest lamda, it’s a hard school get into but it’s one of the best if not the best and also the education is beautiful and ALSO lamda-trained actors get the most consistent work because the uk just nuts all over itself about lamda-trained actors)

BUT YEAH. ACTING TECHNIQUES. GONNA FINALLY ADD A CUT LOL

i’m only gonna talk about these vaguely cuz tbh i’m not as ~studied~ as i should be because i’ve been far too lazy until now to actually sit down and read acting textbooks but HERE’S THE GIST....

stanislavsky is like... pretty much the most well-known most taught acting technique. so many of the other techniques you learn BUILDS on his work. there’s a huge range of shit that he’s got to offer because his and later similar teachings are SO focused on realism (which tbh is a very new thing in acting), but some of the most important is stuff like emotional recall and objective work aaaaand character building by using yourSELF and projecting it onto the character. it’s a very psychological form of acting and it’s... MY BASIS but not actually my fave!

now, a lot of parts of it is very useful. emotional recall, for one, is SUPER nice. it’s a very good way to build that vulnerability up, tear down a lot of walls and explore how to summon emotions up....

my first exercise with stanislavsky, i remember them making us lie down and pretty much meditate, and then you listened as the teacher described a bunch of things: your favorite beach as a child and what it felt like, all these sensory memories about the smells and tastes and sights of the beach. and then it moved on to the night of your first kiss, your first love, and then your first loss. a nice basic range of basic emotions, and then you build on that.

stanislavsky (and stuff like uta hagan who wrote a RLY great book that i havent finished reading yet but it’s a GREAT way to rly build on the technique) rly encourages taking yourself and putting it into the character. SO!!!! if your character is going through their first break-up, summon the feelings and memories of your first break-up and push that into your lines, so on and so forth.

the big criticism with stanislavsky and all the techniques like them is that it COULD be very unhealthy for you... considering it’s all about reliving and reliving old memories. and i agree, i mean, one of my favorite plays and one of my monologues of choice for auditions is from a play where the main character is kidnapped and raped, and i’ve been kidnapped and raped before so i am CONSTANTLY and purposely triggering myself just to perform that monologue well. THAT AIN’T RIGHT! helps tho!

(stuff like method acting falls under stanislavsky and his successors strasberg and stella adler, so....! you can see why not everyone fucks with it)

MY criticism about stanislavsky, which is why it doesn’t work as much for me, is that it’s very VERY heavily text-based. uhhh THIS IS LONG ALREADY SO SOMEONE SEND AN ASK ABOUT OBJECTIVES AND I’LL EXPLAIN but they want you to do a lot in the moment that makes it very distracting if you don’t have this process pinned down and that’s AGGRAVATING FOR ME ANYWAY

chekov is another technique that’s interesting, again not a fave but VERY helpful. this one builds character more from the outside in, it’s all about like... a lot of very subtle details that you can add to the background to add color to your performances. a lot of it is about atmospheres, attitudes, body language, and how that affects your character and how your character is thinking through the scene. it’s VERY reactionary and very fun because you don’t have to think NEARLY as much.

pretty much you form... gestures, or moods for your characters, and instead of perfoming an ‘action’ (stanislavsky thingy, i’ll explain that in another post i guess), you’re using this ‘gesture’ to explain yourself. it is far FAR more abstract than stanislavsky, which is a lot more technique and exact, and it’s very vague, which does make it very hard for people. it also doesn’t stress realism like stanislavsky and company does, so it’s not as popular at the moment!

meisner technique is my second favorite technique and kind of hard to explain because i haven’t rly gotten a comprehensive course in it yet besides a few workshops and activities, but it’s a technique that stresses STRESSES ‘listening’. that’s something you hear a lot as an actor, it’s one of the hardest things to really get but it’s also, truly, the essence of good acting. you can’t be a good actor if you don’t listen, because if you don’t listen, you’re not in the moment, and if you’re not IN the moment, you’re just... reciting lines!!!

it’s so hard to explain so i’mma link a cute video i just found because it shows a lot of variety and also shows the actors messing up a lot and it’s cute omfg

it focuses a lot of repetition (either of the same one line for each person or they’re both doing the same line back and forth) which forces the actor to not think about what’s being said but how it’s being said. you’re stuck in the moment because you KNOW what you’re gonna say, you don’t have to worry about saying anything else, all you gotta worry about is what the other person does and how you’re gonna react to it. if they suddenly start screaming in your face UHH YOU’RE GONNA SCREAM BACK HOW DARE YOU? and it’s automatic and SO natural and that’s why i love it, because you don’t have to THINK through it. you don’t rly think through your life like they make you do in other techniques, so i adore the ability to not have to do that on stage.

however i’ve never gotten far enough in the technique to find out how to apply it to a set script but it might just be about building that openness to just... DO and BE and let whatever happens happens, which is NICE

LAST THING THAT I’LL TALK ABOUT IS FUCKING GROTOWSKI YE S. ok so a lot of techniques overlap, so by this i’m also talking about lecoq and peter brook’s acting techniques. it’s all physical theatre which is all about the GROTEQUE and like UGH there’s so many fascinating things honestly just google ‘theatre of cruelty’ because it’s FASCINATING

the emphasis is... not rly on realism altho the acting i’ve seen come out of it is the most realistic i’ve seen? it’s rly gritty and about accessing the most... EXTREME of emotions, it’s about rly grasping human nature and twisting it and bringing it on stage. peter brook especially (who has a book called the empty stage or something like that that i got to read) stresses that... theatre shouldn’t be about costumes and sets and whatever, it should be just about the actor, and that you can do a PERFECTLY GOOD show with a completely empty stage, with just the actor in the center.

it also has an emphasis on YANKING the audience into the show and being very interactive and like... nothing’s held back, it should be hard to watch, THEATRE SHOULD BE CATHARTIC AND FUCKED UP AND YES.

so physical theatre involves pulling emotions from the body through your movement. life isn’t just about the mind, after all, your body holds emotions through it, there’s chemicals and hormones and what your body does on its own and against other bodies and just. again, hard to explain so HERE’S SOME COOL VIDS THAT SHOWS DIFFERENT TECHNIQUES AND COMPARES THEM ALL

i lied there’s one more technique i wanna mention: it’s called alba emoting! it, again, builds on the idea that trying to access emotions through the brain is UNHEALTHY AND DANGEROUS and that you can, instead, try and access it through the body! how???? cuz emotions are PHYSICAL. you feel sadness and anger and love and whatnot in your gut and chest and through your head and all through every nerve in your body, right????? so why not try and mimic that for the stage???

it’s SUPER COOL because! what you do with alba emoting is: affix yourself a certain way. it involves certain body postures or positions, certain expressions sometimes... EVERY time it depends upon a different breathing pattern... and all you gotta do is do it. and your body doesn’t know better, it gets tricked into it...!

so, if i were to alba emote fear... it’s hard to describe through text rather than do it but this one might be the clearest one... part of the positioning is to have your hands up in front of you, as if you’re trying to ward someone off or shield yourself. you have your mouth open, you have your eyes stuck to the floor in a submissive sort of way, (there’s more that i cant describe but then) you start to make yourself hyperventilate by taking short, quick breaths through your mouth. after a few seconds of this, your body just starts SHOOTING adrenaline through you because it starts thinking WHOA SOMETHING BAD’S HAPPENING I’M AFRAID?FUCKFUCKFUCK

and that continues until you stop! you can stop at any time and then just go. you get left with a ‘residue’ (which is very chekov in nature in that it ‘colors’ your performance) where you can just act and do the lines and do your actions (stanislavsky) without worrying about needing to push any fear into yourself because it’s THERE, it’s PRESENT and whatever happens in the scene will either alliviate it or make it worse!!!

it’s a BEAUTIFUL way to prepare for a scene right before you go on stage too omg. last semester we were doing julius ceasar, and there was a scene where i had to play a servant who just witnessed a murder and just. go in and beg for my life and the life of my master. so i did the fear emote, and then my friend (playing my master at the moment) decided to talk to me in character and give me the order to throw myself in front of the murderers and LMFAO by the time i ran on there i was like fucking in tears i was so terrified HA

THERE ARE SO MANY MORE TOO IT’S SO FUN YOU JUST GOTTA GO AND SEE WHAT WORKS FOR YOU WHOO!!!!!! HOPE THIS WAS FUN AND HELPFUL YES

#ACTING TAG #GOD THIS TOOK LIKE A HALF HOUR LOL #I WANTED TO PROCRASTINATE BUT NOT T H A T MUCH SO I'LL ANSWER THE SECOND HALF OF YOUR ASK LATER #Anonymous #ask tag

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omcik-blog · 8 years ago

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New Post has been published on OmCik

New Post has been published on http://omcik.com/dont-have-a-pension-heres-how-to-build-one-on-your-own/

Don't have a pension? Here's how to build one on your own

I had a choice to take my pension as a lump sum or lifetime annuity payments and I opted for the lump sum. Now I feel like it was the dumbest decision of my life. I think I’m looking at a long retirement, and I’m just not very confident about investing in today’s market. Any advice for what I should do now?–Bill

My first piece of advice is don’t beat yourself up too much about this. Deciding between a lump sum and a pension is tough and complicated decision.

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On the one hand, the guarantee of lifetime payments is appealing because it represents security and offers peace of mind. Indeed, research shows that retirees who have pension or annuity income tend to be happier in retirement than those who don’t.

And yet, the prospect of getting your hands on a big chunk of money — for many people a larger sum than they’ve ever had at one time in their entire life — is also appealing. It can give you a feeling of freedom, perhaps the sense that you can live larger than you’d ever imagined.

Problem is, there’s also a little thing called “wealth illusion,” a term behavioral economists use to describe the fact that people often overestimate how much sustainable income they can draw from a large sum, which leaves them vulnerable from running through their money too soon.

Given the conflicting goals and feelings that the pension-vs.-lump sum issue can awaken, it’s no wonder that people have a hard time making a choice. So I’m sure you’re not the first one to later regret his decision.

Related: 1 in 4 workers have less than $1,000 saved for retirement

The good news, though, is that you have the opportunity to take a mulligan, a do-over, and get the pension-like income you seek. How? By buying an immediate annuity, a type of investment that’s specifically designed to turn a lump sum into guaranteed lifetime income.

For example, a 65-year-old man who invests $100,000 in an immediate annuity today would receive payments of roughly $560 a month as long as he lives. A 65-year-old woman investing the same amount would get about $530 a month for life, while a 65-year-old couple (man and woman) would receive about $470 each month as long as either is alive. To see what size payments you might get based on other ages and investment amounts, you can check out this annuity payment calculator.

Just to be clear: I’m not saying that buying an immediate annuity with your lump sum will give you the same level of payments you would get by taking the pension annuity option from your company. Insurance company annuities tend to generate somewhat lower monthly income because, unlike an employer, they have to build a profit margin into their payment rates.

Still, if not having stable income that will last no matter how long you live is what’s causing your pangs of regret, this is a way to get some relief.

Before you commit your savings to an annuity, however, there are a few things you need to think about. One is how much of your money you ought to devote to an annuity. It’s important that you understand that once you put your savings into an immediate annuity that generates lifetime income, you’ll no longer have access to that money.

So you’ll want to be sure that after buying the annuity you have enough left over from your lump sum or invested in other accounts to cover unanticipated expenses.

That’s why I typically suggest that people combine an annuity with a portfolio of stocks, bonds and cash that can not only provide liquidity for emergencies and such, but also generate some capital growth to help you maintain your living standard in the face of inflation over a retirement that, given today’s lifespans, could easily last 30 years.

To estimate how long you might need your savings to last given your age and health, you can go to this longevity illustrator. For advice on how to divvy up your money between stocks, bonds and cash, complete this risk tolerance-asset allocation questionnaire.

Related: How much do I need to support myself for a long retirement?

There’s no rule that I know of for how much of one’s nest egg should go into an annuity. But a decent guideline is to devote enough to an annuity so that its payments plus income from Social Security will cover all or most of your essential retirement expenses. If you’re not sure how much your essential, or for that matter non-essential, expenses amount to each month, you can get a fix on them by filling out this BlackRock Retirement Expense Worksheet.

The size of the monthly payments you’ll receive can easily vary 5% to 10% from one insurer to another, so it pays to do some comparison shopping before you buy. You can do that by going to a site like ImmediateAnnuities.com, an online insurance brokerage that offers annuities from a variety of insurers, or by getting quotes through investment firms such as Fidelity, Schwab and Vanguard.

To ensure that you can truly count on those annuity payments for life, I recommend that you also spread the money among the annuities of two or more insurers that get high financial strength ratings from firms like A.M. Best and Standard & Poor’s and limit the amount you invest with any single insurer to the maximum amount covered by your state’s life and health guaranty association.

To see the coverage limits for your state as well as get information about how the state guaranty system works, go the site of the National Organization of Life & Health Insurance Guaranty Associations.

Don’t feel compelled to invest all your money at once. In fact, you’re probably better off investing smaller amounts gradually over the space of a few years. Buying in stages will give you a better chance to assess how much annuity income you actually need, making it less likely you’ll end up putting too much of your money into annuities. And since the level of interest rates plays a big role in determining annuity payments, investing over the course of a few years reduces the chance that all of your money will go into annuities when interest rates and annuity payments are at or near a low.

If the idea of weighing the pros and cons of annuities just seems too daunting, you can always consult a financial pro for help (although you want to be careful you don’t wind up with an adviser who’s really more of an annuity salesman or an adviser who would never recommend an annuity because he’s more intent on managing your money for an annual fee).

One final note: If you’re currently facing the lump-or-pension decision or expect to be grappling with it in the future, I urge you to set aside sufficient time to give this issue the attention and seriousness it deserves. If you’re lucky enough to have a defined-benefit pension and also fortunate enough to have a choice in how you take it, better to get it right the first time around rather than having to reverse course later on.

CNNMoney (New York) First published March 22, 2017: 10:20 AM ET

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