#no 2: people misunderstanding the post wholesale

[marciaillust]

mom come pick me up people related to my personal posts too much

[jockrightsnow]

omg I would love to hear you talk more about your tags on that last post—how you research syntax/speech patterns for non-native English speakers’ dialogue. this is something I struggle with a lot in writing fic (esp writing Russian players!) and I’d love some advice on how to get better at it.

god this got long! i just care about this! i will put under a cut for the 99% who will be like u little pedantic bitch.

so my answer is probably not AS helpful for Russian players because i have not written at any length with Russian characters and their language is SO different, so i find it is trickier! but the process is likely the same. i am not an expert at this by any means (only know/have taught spanish <--> english), but i do think it gives you more believable voices and also tends to help you understand the perspective. some people are better at english than others! some are less good! some have been in english classes for a while, some haven’t! there’s variation! you don’t have to do this to write well, but i think about it.

some things i think about:

1. sentence structure/syntax--more than vocabulary, sentence structure is the thing that gives most english language learners trouble and tends to give them away. in order to figure out common mistakes along these lines, it is helpful to look up how sentences are typically structured in someone’s native language. very often, people learning english will rely on those structures. this is actually why swedish is very easy to learn for english speakers--the sentence structure is most often subj, verb, object. but there are tricks: in complex declarative sentences, the verb will always be second, even if there is an adverb or object in the first position instead of the subject, in sentences with subordinate clauses, the independent clause inverts verb and subject. stuff like that does tend to give a sentence a different feel, and it absolutely very commonly almost-always sticks with someone. it’s foundational to how people construct their thoughts, it can be hard to change.

2. pronunciation--i don’t love to see heavy dialect written phonetically and i think many people don’t, but there are ways to consider it and certain ways to write it well. certain languages have different stresses or tone ranges or pitches, which can give off a certain Vibe if you’re used to english, which is on the more expressive end of the scale in tone and pitch (obviously i don’t think that’s better, but it is different and it does affect how people hear a speaker’s voice). certain sounds straight-up do not exist in other languages, certain letters are always pronounced a different way. it leads to predictable mispronunciation. for this, resources like this are very interesting.

3. actual cultural language differences! this is in part about what turns of phrase are common, what’s the cultural (or often, can be regional) “cat who got the cream”-type idioms, what is colloquial that you don’t realize is colloquial, etc, but it can also be about how you talk about concepts on a larger scale. 

the recent sidney crosby engaged fiasco is a good example of this--in russian, “girlfriend/boyfriend” has a very casual connotation, so for longer-term relationships, a russian person might say “fiancee” instead. there are certain languages where you talk about love using different words if a relationship is more casual. these are fun, i think, because i do think that kind of thing can be meaningful. 

there was some book or study i read about how maybe the way we learn language impacts how we think. i think parts of it were debunked (eg not having a word for something like ‘crush’ doesn’t mean you don’t feel it, that’s silly), but parts of it are certainly true, right? like, if you have a different way of talking about spatial awareness or time, your ability to translate those concepts will be affected because your thoughts are often structured along those lines. 

4. vocabulary--less important than you’d think, but still interesting to think about what words someone would have learned. i expect hockey players to know virtually every hockey-related word in english, and even in the KHL, there is some coaching done in english because plenty of non-russian players play there and never learn the language (it is very hard). pretty much everywhere, you’re going to know the english words for many hockey-related terms. but you might not know other complex words, because you might not ever have a reason to or a context where you would’ve learned it or been corrected on it.

i often have to examine or cross-examine spanish speakers, and you actually don’t want to correct every single thing they say--you only want to correct things which might lead to a misunderstanding, because you don’t want to seem pedantic to a judge or condescending to a witness. 

this is also true in a lot of social settings. so i do see some things which tend to go uncorrected because they don’t lead to any wrongness. for example, videoS plural in Swedish is video klipp. it’s the same, it’s really the same. but i notice sometimes that plural S is dropped by Swedish speakers or a word like “klipp” that’s so similar in meaning and context to the english word will come it. there’s one video where petey says ‘eller’ instead of ‘or’--it’s close, it’s a word that doesn’t matter, you wouldn’t correct it, it’s normal, you get the point. there are plenty of words that are so similar they might just have a different inflection, or which are entirely the same in different languages. these will not get corrected in daily conversation for the most part.

but there are also false cognates which you DO need to correct (eg in spanish embarazada = pregnant, i do need to correct it every single time because it has a huge impact on proceedings if someone’s pregnant) and being aware of those is also helpful! 

there are also some crutch words which differ from person to person (this is also true for native english speakers). when people use those and in what way can be important. there are certain things a specific person gets wrong only when nervous or not thinking or whatever (i personally find the “person realizes they’ve been speaking in a different language while having sex because it was so good” trope. exhausting, to say the least. but it is true that in higher-stress moments, someone might not have the capacity or desire to do internal translation, or might feel frustrated by it.)

i really do think all of this is Very interesting, and mostly my advice on doing it for languages you don’t know is:

1) be thoughtful about stuff, be believable. contrary to what it seems like from this whole dissertation, not every sentence needs to have errors in it, especially for people who are Growing/Learning/Actually Very Good at english. don’t be condescending about it. being at an intermediate stage in english learning might make someone choose a simpler sentence that’s still correct. it might lead to an actual relevant misunderstanding or tonal shift. it might not. it might enhance someone’s understanding of a situation! it’s not all about just fucking shit up--it’s a hard thing to learn another language. you gotta respect people who are doing it!

2) hear people talk, preferably the people in question if available but doesn’t have to be (for characters i care about less, i will often wholesale map a sentence and then copy the structure exactly. i did this for pasta because i didn’t care about actually figuring out so much about him emotionally--i just listened to his ep of sp*ttin ch*clets as i wrote and copied several sentence structures exactly with my own Content and then, as you may be able to tell, gave up on that venture to movie-montage the rest because i am Lazy.) 

it’s interesting to hear someone talk both in their native language and in english--you get a feel for the tone and pitch differences, and also i love to see native language interviews because i tend to think they’re more reflective of someone’s actual thought processes when they’re not trying to come up with words or modifying their sentences to be simpler. petey’s swedish interviews, for ex, are far more reflective and eloquent and funny. but again, he is getting better very quickly, in part because swedish and english are more similar than they appear. progress is often slower for russians, because there’s a lot more ground between the two languages and a whole diff alphabet and also strong cultural affinity to where a good number of russians living in america almost exclusively hang out with other russians living in america. (see ex alex ovechkin, nikita zadorov--both have very russian-heavy social circles if Instant Gram is to be believed)

3) actually look up stuff like “common english mistakes for [x group]”--there are plenty of good language learning resources which will show you the mistakes people tend to make, the pronunciation errors, things like that. these are invaluable.

4) google translate stuff if you’re going to have a touching language-teaching moment. once read something where someone was contemplating how to say something, which they wouldn’t have done in reality, because how you say it was Exactly the same in the person’s native language. i also think it’s fun to read google-translated articles and see which things jump out at me as Weirdly translated, because those are often things which are going to be different! but that’s not gospel, it’s something you can look into. sometimes google translate is just bad.

[bluebeirry]

Humanity in Heroes, Humanity in Villains- everyone’s flawed AF even if Hero Society can go F*** itself

Edit: I had to rename this because I realized my original name was misleading

I’ve seen a lot of thoughtful, well-written posts making very good points about why hero society is broken and is doing the wrong thing by vilifying their ‘villains,’ locking them up and forgetting  about them. I’ve seen a lot about how Tomura Shigaraki and the LoV in particular are natural responses to a broken system. @linkspooky and @waxwingedhawks and @thyandrawrites have a lotta good meta on this.

But… I also wanted to make something about the other side, that accepts that the heroes are flawed, human, and often in the wrong. Maybe a lot of people who already stan the heroes won’t get this, or will misunderstand what I’m going for, but I wanted to put it out anyways for fun and to see if I’m just talking out of my ass.

Here’s the thing. BNHA society as a whole being a villain-making machine that creates new villains, demonizes them, destroys lives, and then benefits from the hero system that only functions because of this destruction? Yes, spill that tea. Heroes doing harm by perpetuating the system? Totally agree.

But Heroes individually being responsible for the monsters created and being justifiable targets of hated? Well, I think it’s more complicated than that.

See, if we look at the hero system as a mirror of real-world capitalism, then the Heroes aren’t the CEOs and the politicians who make up the 1% and keep the world in tatters. They are symptoms of a broken system as much as the villains. They have more agency than the villains, yes, but I don’t think they’re all monsters for failing to see the shortcomings of a society that encourages them not to look too deeply.

First of all there’s the pure fact of what heroes do- they save people.

I don’t have a problem with heroes fighting villains who use their powers in destructive and violent ways. I have a problem with the system then taking those villains and locking them away, instead of trying to help them. But when a man made of slime is holding a 13/14 year old kid hostage, blowing up buildings, and shouting how he’s gonna kill All Might? He needs to be stopped.

In short, I agree with the hero system ONLY so far as the idea of having people who are trained professionals use their skills to protect people and save lives. If people are threatening/taking the lives of other people, I do not have a problem with those people being stopped by violent means- so long as those means do prevent further death.

What I have a problem with is the demonization of human beings, harsh and unforgiving societal reactions, and refusal to acknowledge or examine the circumstances that push human beings into committing crimes.

We see heroes treat villains as the irredeemable scum- and in cases like Overhaul, this is pretty true. But their society also doesn’t encourage heroes to follow-up on anyone they arrest after all is said and done- not once is it even mentioned that a hero plays a role in a villain’s trial, something that real-world cops often are called to do IRL  for the people they’ve arrested. And let’s be honest- it's easier for heroes to beat people senseless and not feel bad about it if they think the villains all deserve it. Acknowledging that doing physical harm to another person may be necessary in order to prevent further physical harm (or even death) from falling on more people is complicated and difficult to accept. I’m sure some heroes are being cowardly when they embrace the idea that villain=evil, while others- like All Might (see below)- don’t seem to have the social and societal awareness outside of their own experiences to realize that they should be following up and helping people. What’s more the idea that anyone should be looking at the cause of villainy is one that’s hard to pick up because it’s so rarely found. Nobody in the media, in the government, in the HPSC, wants people to think about the ethics of Tartarus. Even the Liberation Army doesn’t seem to give two fucks about the ways their society makes and profits off villains. It’s said several times that the world of hero society is a world of ‘repression’- I strongly suspect that anyone who tries to explain to others the flaws in their society gets repressed  and shut up, one way or another, with the only people in power who are aware being the ones that benefit from the system the most and don’t care about the lives destroyed in the process.

Deku says that this is the story of how he became the worlds greatest hero. I can this be the case without dismissing the villains completely- if the world changes how it treats them. If Deku brings about or enters a society where cases like Toga and Twice can be saved without needing to turn to the darkness- where the people Deku defeats and arrests aren’t just locked up for life, but are given brighter futures.

Now some specific cases, just for fun:

All Might:

So I said above that All Might is a good-intentioned person who backs the hero system due to ignorance of how it harms people. Now here is where I break down the psychology of this statement for you. First of all, we know that All Might’s original mission statement as a teenager was to make the world safer so that people would have the courage to do the right thing and make the world a better place- a viewpoint he probably gained from being part of the population that was too terrified to act. It reflects his life experiences. What’s more, we know that the world before All Might was very different from the world after him. It's very possible that his limited viewpoint comes from having an understanding of the world and what it needs that hasn’t changed over the course of his career- even as his career changed what the world needs. It’s not malice or arrogance that leads All Might to support a broken system- it’s lack of societal awareness beyond his own class bracket and lack of awareness of how the world has changed.

All Might may very well have been what society needed at the time when he was a teen. We don’t know what the world was like  back then- we don’t know if he truly was doing the right thing But he failed to make sure that the culture that sprung up in his wake would properly protect everyone as best as it can, and failed to recognize that society had to keepchanging beyond his original vision. It’s like stairs- you need to take each step one at a time, but after you take one step you then have to continue on to the next one. And All Might poured so much of his life into getting past one particular step, he never even realized that there was more steps to be climbed before society could reach the top.

The League of Villains:

See, I agree that the league are all people pushed to their roles by societal rejections, and their actions are a direct repercussion of society’s failures and crimes against them. I can even agree that attacking kids is morally iffy and not 100% morally wrong when those kids are also willingly  learning to become the next generation of soldiers (and later used as child soldiers) enforcing the broken society. I still think child murder is wrong because you cannot reasonably expect 15-year olds who grew up in a society that idolizes heroes to not buy into the propaganda. Plus often they’re being attacked just for being convenient, or for pissing Tomura off- which IMO is not a good reason to try to kill someone.

But all that aside, there are two things the LoV does that I truly believe are reprehensible. While the execution of the PLF raid had severe moral issues involved all over the place, the concept of  taking the PLF and the League down is just because of  two factors:

1. The use of human experimentation to make Nomu as weapons

2. The plan to massacre entire cities- killing millions of people-  as part of the PLF’s grand plan

The second one in particular is to me unambiguously evil. The first one is evil too- but if I put on my villain stan hat I’ve noticed in cannon that we  don’t actually know if the LoV is aware that the Nomu are made from human experiments. They’re called ‘artificial humans’ and apart from Tomura (who was a willing test subject) the LoV don’t seem to play any major role in the creation of Nomu (Shigaraki is said to have ‘designed’ some of the Nomu, but  it’s not clear if that means he actually worked with dead people or just planned the quirk combinations to go into the Nomu or something in between). Point is, Doctor Ujiko is pure evil but I can forgive the LoV if it turns out they didn’t actually know how the Nomu came to be.

But there is no possible way I can see the plan to kill millions as anything less than evil. There are a million better ways to change society- don’t jump into wholesale genocide. Atomic weapons are a last-ditch resort for a reason, and their plan would basically have had the same effect as dropping several atomic bombs on several cities without warning. I don’t think it was right when America bombed Nagasaki after destroying Hiroshima, I don’t think it was right when America made a half-assed attempt at explaining the bomb threat before dropping Little Boy, and the ethics of using nuclear weapons are complicated AF but I honestly don’t believe that the LoV’s plan is right.

Tomura Shigaraki:

In relation to Tomura, we see the heroes demonizing him and calling him an ‘it’ and seeing him as a manchild. All totally wrong. But for the last point… how are they supposed to think anything else? As readers we know Tomura is a traumatized kid, but the heroes don’t know anything about his backstory. Even All Might doesn’t know how Tomura got picked up by All for One, he doesn’t know about the death of the Shimura family.

What they do know is that Tomura is willing to kill children and bystanders to get his way. And to put this on the table- that is not a good thing. I am not pro-murder. If you think killing innocent people for simply being in a mall when a villain and a hero-trainee happen to also be there is acceptable, this post isn’t for you. By now you’ve probably figured that out, and I don’t know why you’re still reading unless you saw Tomura’s name and skipped ahead to this section.

Getting back on track, I don’t think doing such horrific things like attempted cold-blooded murder makes Tomura irredeemable. I agree that he’s traumatized and confused and lashing out. That does not mean he’s innocent, but he’s also not ‘pure evil’ or ‘evil incarnate’ as the heroes believe.

Here, the heroes themselves are definitely doing the wrong thing. Not because they’re trying to stop Tomura, but because they’re treating him- and the Nomu- as non-human. Honestly I preferred when they called him a man-child; at least then they were acknowledging the symptoms of his trauma. They didn’t have enough information to know that these were trauma symptoms as opposed to, say, symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder- with the information the heroes have, either could be possible guesses. But the world is broken when they assume it’s the latter- when they assume the case that casts Tomura in the worst possible light. And then removing his humanity entirely and treating him as a thing- there I have actual beef with the heroes.

Hawks/Takami Keigo:

Now Hawks is suuuper interesting to me, because so far he is the ONLY hero to show any awareness of the broken system. Namely in Twice. But even then, there’s problems- and arguably Hawks is either even worse of a person because of it.

There’s the fact that Hawks only recognizes the humanity and the very valid backstory of the one guy who’s his personal friend- which is blatant favoritism and shows willing blindness towards the trials and suffering anyone who he didn’t try to ‘save.’

Hawks has no desire to re-make or even change the system that he clearly knows hurt and broke a good man down into doing very wrong things. He sees that the system did these things, but he doesn’t think to try to make a lasting change that might not only protect Twice, but protect future victims from following Twice’s path. This is… interesting.

Then there’s the way in which Hawks approached Twice. Now, here I think Hawks was trying to both do a hero’s duty of preventing further future violence, but failed to balance this with his personal attempts to reach Twice as a person and save him as a victim of a broken system. Hawks tried to do both at the same time, and condescended Twice while offering him a way out.

I do not think in any way shape or form that letting Twice go free, or even not apprehending him, was the right thing for Hawks to do. Again, the LoV had two crimes that Hawks knew of that could not be allowed to go through/go on. Stopping Twice was the right thing.

Stopping Twice by throwing him around, taunting him, offering him a choice between betraying his friends and dying, and threatening his life, and ultimately killing him- that is NOT the right thing. I don’t get what Hawks was trying to do, and honestly his behavior really, really confuses me. I don’t know what would’ve been the right thing for him to do- it's a rock and a hard place- but what Hawks did definitely wasn’t the best option he had. It also wasn’t the worst. But killing Twice is still pretty damn close to the worst.

Edit: I also realize in retrospect that I didn’t even cover issues of corruption in the hero ranks, such as Endeavor, and how the popularity/fame aspects helps enforce the failings and corruption of the heroes and their society, or the issues with Quirks being repressed and regulated in anyone not a hero (which ironically contributes to the idolization of heroes)

[manhattandigital]

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[frickengreenfrickyeah]

Sides Fantasy AU Context Dump

Warnings: Mentions of violence, murder, discrimination, parental death (Please tell me if I missed anything)

The World and Backstory:

- The kingdom is called Sanderia, ruled by Queen Uthra, who has two(2) sons. Simon and Roman. Roman is the second son by about ten(10) years

- Queen Uthra came into power with her husband King William and his brother Damarcus by defeating a Tyrant Invader who was enslaving their people (and who doesn’t have a name yet because that’s where his plot relevance begins and ends). 

- But after they defeat Tyrant, Damarcus got power hungry and wasn’t content to let William have the throne, so he killed his own brother. Roman was there when it happened, our poor boi. 

- The assassination sparked a Civil War. The Crown (Uthra, most of the nobles, some army, and the druids) versus the Insurgents (Damarcus, the rest of nobles, a majority of the army, and Dark Magic.)

- The Dark Magic would have won Damarcus the war, except [spoiler] happened and it was dispersed. No human can control it now. It roves the countryside as a giant storm called the Scourge. The Scourge is bad. Damarcus loses the war, takes the remainder of his forces, and flees to the mountains.

- As a consequence of [spoiler] and misunderstanding, Queen Uthra thinks that the druids betrayed her, and therefore all magic is bad. She orders a Purge and puts her own brother, Lord Nigel, in charge of it. Think of the tv show Merlin.

- Lord Nigel does a Witch Hunt. All known magic users are burned at the stake, and druids are persecuted wholesale. They can’t leave the kingdom because the neighbors (where Tyrant came from) will enslave them, but they can’t live out in the open either, so they become nomads who hide in the vast forests and mountains of Sanderia.

- And that’s about where our story begins. 

The Sides:

Roman

- As previously mentioned, he’s the second prince of Sanderia. He loves being a knight, is eager to prove himself, and dislikes being in the shadow of his older brother, Simon. He loves Simon though, and they have a decent relationship despite the age gap.

- Queen Uthra put him in charge of managing the druids, which means he organizes and leads raids whenever a druid camp is located. Any druids caught are killed. He doesn’t see anything morally wrong with this duty when the story begins. 

- He and Anxiety have a history. Anxiety is the Murderous Magical Menace of Sanderia and Roman’s nemesis.

- Roman has a terrible secret though. He has magic. Dun dun dun. No one, not even Logan, knows. He discovered his powers a year or two before the story begins and he doesn’t really understand them. All he knows is that he needs to keep it a secret. He’ll sometimes use it instinctively in a fight. And, though he doesn’t know it, he’s a little more powerful than the average magic user.

Logan

- He’s a nobleman. And you’ll never guess who his father is. It’s Lord Nigel. Who is Uthra’s brother. Who is Roman’s mother. That makes Logan and Roman cousins. (I need family tree stuff explained like I’m two(2) years old, so sorry if that connection was obvious to you.) Logan’s not in line for the throne though, because Uthra married into the Crown. I think that’s how the line of succession works, right?

- He doesn’t have a good relationship with his father, Lord Nigel, mainly because Nigel was off Witch Hunting for most of his childhood, leaving Logan back at the castle, and Nigel isn’t a very emotionally available person anyway. Logan’s mother died when he was young.

- He’s besties with Roman though. They were glued at the hip as children and still are despite their different personalities. His calling in life is to be Roman’s adviser, and he loves knowledge, so he soaks up all he can. He’s good friends with the Court Librarian. 

- But there’s a problem. I looked it up, and glasses didn’t exist in medieval times. That was a Renaissance thing. When Logan was around eight(8), he vision started to go bad. By the time our story begins, his vision is worse than mine, which is saying something. So, when it comes to things like reading facial expressions or depth perception, he’s hopeless. I won’t say he blind, but he’s definitely impaired on a day to day basis. He can still read though, since he’s nearsighted.

- He does not have magic. 

Patton

- Patton was born a druid. Not only was he born a druid, he was born a special druid. I’m not sure how much I can get into without spoiling anything, but think Merlin (from the tv show) levels of power (and if you don’t know the show, I just mean, like, stupid powerful. OP much?)

- He was a happy child for those first few years of life. Then tragedy struck. He, his sister Cassidy, and his parents were all captured in Nigel’s Witch Hunt. His parents were burned alive in front of him. His mother’s last words to him were something to the effect of, “Look away, sweetie. Close your eyes and everything will be okay.” and he’s taken those words to heart. To make matters worse, the druid’s rescued Patton at the cost of abandoning his sister to die because they deemed it too risky. He carries that trauma with him to this day. (This got dark, I know.)

- His special status with the druids means that he’s been groomed to take over as their leader once he comes of age, but that responsibility scares him, especially since lives are at stake. Virgil supports him though, which is a great help. Unfortunately, when the elders force him to take on too much responsibility too fast, he leads the clan right into a raid. People die. He’s separated in the chaos, and, unable to face the horror of what just happened, he runs away. 

- Through a wacky series of events, he becomes Roman’s manservant. (The tv show Merlin was a big influence for me, can you tell?) He keeps his magic a secret. Logan doesn’t like Patton until he discovers he can read, which is the icebreaker that leads to friendship. Patton is really close friends with Roman as well, but he sabotages Roman’s attempts to ‘manage’ the druids. That leads to drama later.

- About Patton’s glasses... Glasses exist in this world, but they’re a known druid invention, so he can’t wear them or risk outing himself. Instead, he uses a spell to see. It hurts him that he can’t do the same for Logan. Another thing about his appearance: Druids wear distinctive cloaks, and Patton misses his, so he ties a sweater around his shoulders to imitate the feel of it.

Virgil

- He was born in a small mining town to blacksmiths and had an older brother. The town was destroyed by Insurgents and his parents were killed. His older brother took care of him for a few years before being conscripted into the Crown’s army. Virgil was apprenticed to a blacksmith while he was away. Then his brother was killed in the line of duty, his wages stopped coming, and Virgil had to fend for himself.

- He saved a couple druids from the Witch Hunt and got adopted by the clan (read: by Patton). He and Patton are besties. Virgil refused to leave Patton’s side, to the effect that he got basically the same ‘leader’ training as Patton did. So when Patton disappears and is assumed dead and everyone is running around like chickens with their heads cut off, he steps up and declares himself the Temporary Leader. 

- It’s at this time that he embraces his moniker, Anxiety, and becomes the Magical Murderous Menace of Sanderia. Basically, he and a couple other druid warriors will create a big distraction in one(1) place so the rest of the clan can slip away unnoticed when they come under heat. The job is stressful, but he’s the only competent leader available.

- He has magic, but it’s really weak. If he hadn’t been adopted by the druids, he would have never been able to do anything useful. Only through years of rigorous training did he get to the level he’s at right now. I’m talking, like, maybe four(4) spells a day, maybe more if he saves his energy for a few days. The Anxiety persona gets lots of help to pull off his stunts. He’s self-conscious about how weak he is but tries not to let it show.

Other Characters, Original and Not:

Simon

- The Crown Prince of Sanderia, Roman’s older brother. He too witnessed his father’s murder. He was around twelve(12), and Damarcus gave him a nasty facial scar in the attack.

- He loves Roman and wants to protect him from the cruel world. 

- He’s in charge of dealing with the Insurgents.

- Technically, he’s not totally an OC. Remember that one vine where Thomas changed his name to Simon to win Simon Says? Let that be a hint as to his personality. Yeah. Huge inspiration for me, no joke.

Adrian

- This guy is OC

- The top knight. Technically, Roman and Simon are higher rankings than him because royalty, but he’s got the most experience.

- He’s a father figure to Roman. 

Tristan

- also OC

- Roman’s personal guard from when he was about five(5) to around thirteen(13). Basically an older brother to Roman and Logan, even if they’re hesitant to admit it because of his common-born status. 

- He died while protecting Roman from and Insurgent assassination attempt.

Blazon

- I swear, I’m trying to keep the OC's in this post to a minimum, but I needed at least one female character on here. 

- The Insurgent leader(Damarcus)’s second-in-command. Pretty much an enigma. We don’t even know her real name. She admits to being a druid, but we don’t know how she got to be so powerful in the Insurgents, and she insists she has a brother, but we don’t know who that is either.

- Honestly, she’s really fun to write. The perfect balance (I think) of cruel and compassionate.

Emile

- Based off of Dr. Picani, obviously. 

- He’s a druid. Good friends with both Patton and Virgil. Just about thirteen(13) when the story starts. 

- His magical affinity is mind-speak. The mind-speak spell is within the power of most druids. What his affinity allows him to do is connect with people really easily over longer distances than usual. Other than that, an average power level of magic. More on affinities later.

- He’s training to be the Oral History Teller of the clan, which means he has hundreds of stories memorized and is always ready with a reference to one of them. 

Misc:

Monikers: Part of (my) druid culture is that they give everyone a nickname. There are a couple legacy titles, but most are specific to the person. Obviously, Virgil is Anxiety, and Patton is Morality when the story starts, and there’s a backstory to both. The others are worked in later. Blazon is a moniker.

Magical Affinities: All magic users have an affinity. It’s the type of magic that comes easiest (and sometimes most powerful) to them. Emile’s is Mind-Speak. Other examples include Teleportation, Water, Fire, Earth, Air, Battle Magic, Healing, etc.

Marks: I haven’t mentioned this yet, but (my) druids have a tradition of tattoos. Usually put right above the heart, the Mark magically connects all its bearers. Patton’s is shaped like a heart. Emile’s is a bird. Virgil declined to receive his.

Magic Levels: There’s no formal scale or anything, and I haven’t worked out numbers for what percentage of people have magic or anything. Most people are like Virgil, capable of casting spells only if they train really hard for years. Must druids are like Roman or weaker. Magic comes naturally to them and they don’t require training to achieve some amount of accidental magic. Patton’s power level is pretty much unheard of. I have lore explaining why he’s so powerful, but it’s really spoilery so I won’t go into it now.

Dark Magic: There’s a difference between magic that has negative effects and Dark Magic. True Magic is balanced, like the ying-yang. Dark Magic is bad. It’s a man-made corruption, and virtually indestructible. There’s spoilery lore that goes more in-depth.

Crofters: You bet I managed to make jelly integral to the world, plot, and characters! In fact, it’s so integral that I’m not sure how much I can tell you without spoiling anything. So this is all you get :P

Muggles: This more a hole in my world building than anything else. I can’t figure out what to call non-magical/non-druid people. And I can’t think of any other term for accidental magic (Unintentional? Incidental?). Obviously, HP was a big influence. Should I just name the elephant in the room and call muggles muggles, or should I try and be a bit original? I’m open to suggestions.

Also, I don’t know what to call this thing. The working title is the Sanderiad, but I think that’s a bit too presumptuous. I’ll keep working on it.

I HAVE A PRELUDE SHORT(ISH) STORY FOR THIS IN THE WORKS AND ALMOST COMPLETE. LET ME KNOW IF YOU’RE INTERESTED. I mean, I’m gonna post it regardless of what you say, but still.

Disclaimer:

Any time I mention druids in this post, I am referring to my version specific to the story I’m telling. I did a lot of world building around my version of druid culture by flipping through an Ancient Celtic history book that I got for free when my local library spring cleaned. I just grabbed whatever seemed really cool (like the fact that druids had a religious taboo against writing things down in their own language) and put it in the story. In some cases, I willfully played into stereotypes because I liked them (for instance, I’m pretty much ignoring the fact that druids were actually the intellectual caste of the Celts and not representative of their entire people or the fact that the majority of them were farmers, not nomads.) and I’m really ignorant as to how much of that culture is still relevant today. I’m sorry if anything I end up putting in the story is culturally insensitive. If you notice anything, please point it out in a respectful manner that helps me educate myself and others and fix the problem. But also I think it’s important to note that I’m creating a landscape that, on many levels, I purposefully distanced from our modern world in the name of fun and storytelling. Please know that I have good intentions, and I hope you enjoy the fruits of my labor.

Additional Disclaimer:

I don’t know how taglists work. Do you just type out the username of the person? 

Hey, if you got this far, thank you for your time! You’re my favorite person :) And since you’re already here... I love constructive criticism. I may be shy af and anxious to boot, but I take pride in my writing, which means bettering my craft. And I want to make friends!*

*See previous post for disclaimer about friendship. (Darn I wish I knew how to link stuff... Oh well, wisdom comes with time. I’m kinda patient.)

TLDR; I wrote a thing. The Sides are in it. There’s magic and tragedy and shenanigans. Cultural Appropriation is a thing. A general appreciation for all the beautiful people in the world. I’m clueless and/or socially awkward and crave attention. (Now this is how tldrs work).

[vardasvapors]

berrysphase replied to your post:                   gurguliare replied to your post:                  …                

   asdfkjl but no I also cannot come up with a LINE… at this point it is all wholesale structures of colonialism and nobility-by-descent and benevolent sexism and unthinking racism and I LOVE IT ANYWAY and the really egregious stuff like Teleporno is anyway not canon so WELL   

i think the thing with wholesale bullshit stuff is that i always think there IS a meaningful, and discernible, line where you can go “does this sketch bullshit simply complicate the story, or does it actively undermine the purpose of the story?” and i think there IS a difference, and one that can be argued, basically: ‘if i interpret this bs bit of canon according to what it looks like it implies in the text, does that render crucial elements of the story quicksand or a waste of time?’ because idk man, fandom is neither literary analysis nor non-fiction historical accounts.

berrysphase replied to your post:                    gurguliare replied to your post:                  …                

   how about “not entirely unwilling?”   

GOD. the big problem is that there are, I think, two solutions that actually aren’t all that difficult, they’re just both unsatisfying in different ways, because the people telling this story had a shit understanding of the concept of consent as a state of being rather than a feeling or thought.

1) forced marriages with rape etc aren’t always a solid unadulterated block of NOPE for 50 years on end, because people don’t work that way all the time, joy and other interests and even like, camaraderie and shit, may well fill in a lot of time too. or, 2) unwillingness as a desire from the person’s own POV is a function of revealed info, and feelings of unwillingness can kick in later down the line, after willingness stops, and can be a state that wasn’t always present. forced marriages aren’t always forced from the victim’s pov from the outset, it can well be that she was genuinely like ‘WOW this place is kinda cool and this weird creepy dude is kinda fascinating and hot tbh’ for [fill in the blank] number of years before going ‘wait uh,’

given that that phrase is linked with “nor that her life in Nan Elmoth was hateful to her for many years” i think that bears out the explanation of narrator-misunderstanding, or narrator’s-lack-of-willingness-to-go-against-what-witnesses-told-him. i don’t think it would be weird if aredhel herself, when telling people what happened in her short period in Gondolin afterwards, might have been not very jazzed about the idea that she had been enchanted and therefore technically helpless the whole time, and emphasized to her listeners that no it’s not as if she totally couldn’t leave the whole time while actively trying to, or something like that. :\

[prolapsarian]

After Hyde Park

The following text was written for Facebook a week after the fight between trans* activists and transmisogynist feminists in Hyde Park in September. Since these issues have come up once again - this time at the Anarchist Bookfair - and there seems to be more polemic than ever around the proprosed Gender Recognition Act, I am posting it again here.

-------

This week I found myself embroiled in all sorts of arguments around transphobic and transmisogynist feminisms. I find it so depressing that this stuff is still around. I'm also depressed by how discussions around the Gender Recognition Act are being used by cynically by certain feminists in these milieux, whose main politics over the last decades has been to whip up hatred against trans* people, to try to gather a crowd behind them. I know that quite a few people who are currently lining up behind the likes of Julia Long (or who at the very least refuse to recognise the deeply divisive positions and gestures that people like her are taking and making) read my wall. My hope is that some of the stuff below will make you see this differently.

1. There has been a small but vocal scene of feminists around London - people like Sheila Jeffreys, Gail Chester, Julia Long - whose politics over the last couple of decades has centred on making the argument that trans* women aren't women. A good proportion of these people's opinions go further though: they claim that gender reassignment surgery is nothing other than self-mutilation; that trans people demanding protection from oppression are "male rights activists" (that is, aligned with certain far-right movements); and that the main aim of trans* people's lives is to undermine the gains of the women's movement. But what has been peculiar to this politics - and I only know about London here, but I hear the same from other places - is that its mode of expression has been to attack trans* people themselves. Far from making theoretical interventions or arguments, far from entering into conversations, this group of feminists have gone about instituting their politics by publicly outing, doxxing, and monstering trans people. They do this in a context (and take full advantage of this context) in which transphobia predominates in the mainstream press and many other institutions of civil society. In more immediate social interactions their politics consistently and deliberately misgender all trans people they come into contact with. Ultimately their politics amounts to the idea that trans*-women, in their very being, undermine feminist movements, and they wish to undermine them in every way possible, playing opportunistically on wider social transphobias.

2. It is significant that this pattern has been known to feminism in the context of debates over sex work. On that question certain feminists have attacked women sex workers (most prominently on Reclaim the Night marches.) They do this instead of negotiating the dialectical tensions of labour, commodity, libido, possession, and exchange under patriarchal capitalism. Instead the sex worker herself becomes the scapegoat and centre of gravity of the entire system. If only she can be done away with (and with no particular care for how she came to be selling sex), the whole system will apparently simplify itself. The whole thing is slightly bizarre - akin to blaming proletarians in a munitions factory for a society founded on perpetual war, rather than blaming the society based on perpetual war for the fact that certain proletarians find themselves having to produce munitions. This isn't to say there aren't important and nuanced debates to be had about sex work, safety of workers, the consequence of sex being sold on the most anarchic open market for all women, and so on. Although there is an irony that feminists whose political movement arose from hatred of the "it can wait until after the revolution" now take precisely the same attitude to sex workers merely defending their physical safety. This is all slightly by the by. But the same brutality of attitude, which leads to certain feminists putting the blame of sexual exploitation at the feet of sex workers, which leads them to attack their very existence as scapegoat, has been transferred wholesale to how some feminists are treating trans* people. This has now been going on for very many years.

3. In the discussions that have surrounded the Gender Recognition Act, those women who have for many years been aggressively transphobic have been trying to reposition themselves to win support from other women and feminists who might not really agree with the extremity and violence of their positions. They have started to talk about defending civil society institutions, and about having debates. To many trans* people in London it is clear that these aims are not true. Indeed last week's shitshow of a "debate" mainly involved slinging insults and platforming people whose only point ever is to say that trans* women are men (indeed people who have somehow made careers out of this!) There are questions about civil society, and about womanhood, raised by the act. The trouble is that these particular feminists are not interested in them beyond a very specific, outmoded and divisive line.

4. There are genuinely some people who (mainly on the internet) take an "against nature" position in the trans* community, and who respond to anyone questioning trans* discourse - or even the primacy of discourse in trans* scenes - as an existential threat that can only be met with violence. There are certain individuals who send death threats, punch people, shout "kill all TERFs" etc. Apart from these people are the enormous majority of trans* people who are consistently in conversations, discussions, social movements, reflections with all sorts of people (and alone) about questions of sex, gender, sexuality, nature, history. The transmisogynist and transphobic feminists consistently attempt to play up the extent of this violent, silencing culture, because they know that ultimately plays out in their favour. This behaviour is analogous to Zionists who play up the anti-Semitism of small elements of the Arab population to justify the violence meted out by Israel against all Palestinians. They know that it is ultimately beneficial to their position to claim that they are being silenced and attacked, that all discussion is made impossible. Often their aim has been to provoke this situation (for example by holding meetings where the only speakers are those who routinely claim that all trans* women are men.) The events this week in London, when divisions were cynically sown in this way - people like Julia Long know that their position is ultimately stronger, that their hatred of trans* people and violence against them appears more legitimate and more reasonable when people are most divided. It is for this reason that these people have for so long practiced such a highly antagonistic politics. But none of this really helps women, trans* or otherwise. At the same time it is really a terrible shame for most trans* people that the time they need to defend themselves has collided with what can only be described as a crisis in the politics of oppression, where (turbo-charged by the internet) significant numbers of people advocate nihilist violence against their oppressors to shore up the community of the oppressed. But this trend seems thankfully to be waning. It is a strange irony too that an all-out-war has broken out only where these internet cultures have come into contact with those feminists who first tried to drag the movement into communitarianism.

5. One frequent line of argument that is common is the "gender" is all post-modern nonsense. But to think that the transformations in social relations that have taken place in the last 30 years can be done away with through the power of a demystifying gaze, which does away with the ideology of discourses only to rediscover nature, is to miss the point. We are without a doubt living through a sexual revolution - one as great as those that preceded it, that of the 20 years following the French Revolution, that of Weimar Germany (and Austria) in the wake of psychoanalysis, and that of the 1970s. And indeed it is the revolution of gender itself. Perhaps it is better to think by analogy. When I try to think about the early decades of psychoanalysis it is impossible to think about the great advances it offered people in thinking about their sexuality, about understanding the sexual lives of children, without at the same time thinking of its victims: of Dora, of the children subject to the prevalent paedophilia of Western Culture over whom psychoanalysis had thrown the darkest cloak (until Ferenczi's late interventions). But to take up the position that just refuted it as pseudoscience - the position of someone like Karl Kraus - is to sort of miss the point. The great historical movement of psychoanalysis (which remains unfinished) was already transforming people's lives, people's self-understandings and self-misunderstandings, people's relations and relationships. So too is the case with something like Butler's view of gender, which has now entered the everyday. And whether you agree with it or not is no longer the issue, because questions of humanity are not staked either for or against it but within it and through it. When I was teaching classes of 18 year old humanities students a lot of them had read Butler while at school. Most of those who hadn't were at least aware of the discourse, and were familiar with replicated or bowdlerised forms of it online. It was just part of their sexual growing up. And sometimes I think of the old arguments against the psychoanalytic revolution: that it left the continent of Europe deep in anxiety, packed full of people narcissistically introspecting, discovering uneasily, and obsessing over, their own neuroses. And perhaps if psychoanalysis left in its wake a generation of neurotics, then theories of gender leave a generation of gender disphorics. But it is unclear to me that they are any less well as a result. All of this isn't to say that something like a fiendish Krausian rejection isn't interesting, but it is nonetheless brutal, polarising, as Benjamin would say: destructive. But the Karl Krauses of today's sexual revolution have none of his style; they are experts in the brutishness of brutality alone. They refuse even to accept the divisive effects of their own polemical skepticism, and refuse to notice the bodies trodden underfoot.

6. Perhaps one of the arguments used by transphobic feminists that I find myself most sympathetic to is the idea that we need to return to a conversation of nature. The claim stands against the idea that questions of gender and sexual identity are entirely matters of society and consciousness, in a world that has apparently (at least in these spheres) overcome the forces of natural necessity, the expressions of nature, and natural divisions. But where I absolutely disagree is with the sort of nature that is invoked by these people: it is nature viewed with the taxonomic gaze of Linnaeus. The point of this thinking is to show, just as Linnaeus tried to do with animal species, that sexual divisions are eternal and unchangeable, and thus can be given names. It is to invoke precisely those figures like Goethe's "eternal feminine" that feminism initially set out to undermine. Absolutely no regard is given to questions of sexual development, transformations in sexuality in childhood, puberty, maturity or old age. No discussion of how socialisation and historical catastrophe might affect this. Instead all of this is ignored in favour of the sovereignty of the persistence of the genital, in its purely fleshly form. After the arguments I had this week I went back and read Firestone's Dialectic of Sex and Mitchell's Feminism and Psychoanalysis - two of the brightest stars in the constellations of the second wave. What I love about these books is their views of nature (and in Firestone's case, where she is most indebted to late Engels, quite polemically) as something utterly dynamic, as a world of constant change, modification, and dialectical force, utterly unrecognisable to Linnaean fixation. This thinking shows up the will to fixate nature - the brutal domination of nature - as that which bourgeois thinking has mistaken for the mastery of nature by an enlightened nature that would lead it to reconciliation. This fixated and fixating view of sexual difference ultimately disregards all questions of sexual development (and decline), and in questions of consciousness it willingly swaps out the sensitivity and nuances of developmental psychology for the stark fruitlessness of evolutionary biology.

7. Amongst responses to the Gender Recognition Act are a set of arguments that have been virally circulating on the internet about how it is set to roll back the victories of the second wave. Most of these arguments are patent nonsense, relying on convincing readers (with no evidence) that legal gender reassignment isn't already possible (the Act would just streamline these processes, and would not require the sign-off of doctors.) But more than this, these arguments often rely on a total revisionism about the gains of the feminist movement. Reading them one might quickly believe that women in the 1970s spent their time arguing for single sex toilets and women's prisons. Meanwhile these arguments have a habit of eliding the work done by many trans* people continuing the best of the struggles of the second wave, in organisations like Sisters Uncut, fighting for better domestic violence services. Similarly on questions of sexual violence these viral internet ventures seem to take a step back. Far from the perspective of the second wave that so often saw press sensationalism around street rapists and unknown attackers as often used as a mask for not dealing with the prevalence of sexual violence in the home and amongst known men, the sensationalist figures have been reinvented as the spectre of a sexually violent man who becomes trans* only to gain access to women. This is not to say that street rapists and the like are not real consequences of patriarchal society that need a feminist response. But it is to say that the rolling back of the perspective that finally after decades won out against the marital exemption for rape into a sort of tabloid sensationalism is a step backwards. And more than this, it is terrifying that this sort of sensationalism is used to justify punishing all trans* people, not least when there is absolutely no evidence that this behaviour is any more prominent in the trans* community.

8. Perhaps what has been most grotesque in the last week is the willingness of people to talk explicitly and aggressively about trans* people's bodies - about bodies they don't know in any sense other than seeing a clothed photograph, and about which they have no real right to speak. This is matched with the cruelty that wants to point to every moment when those bodies might be most uncomfortable, when they might not "pass", when they betray a difficult history or an unfulfilled wish, when they express a neurosis that they try to compensate against or disguise. I have been so upset by how friends' bodies have been spoken about - and all just to try to elicit an angry reaction from them at best and to destroy them at worst.

All of this isn't to say that no conversation should be had. Nor is it to say that that gender is some easy solution (and I challenge you to find a single trans* person who thinks it is.) The point, however, is that at their best theories of gender - in their natural-historical, dialectical elaboration - are capable of saying "well sex isn't that easy or simple either." But the point is really to give some background and hopefully some understanding about what is going on. I know lots of people feel uneasy too and want to have conversations, and that they feel silenced. The best suggestion I have - other than joining in existing discussions, forming reading groups, or getting involved in struggles together - is not to line up behind people like Julia Long, Sheila Jeffreys, Miranda Yardley, Jen Izaakson, and the rest. Strangely their politics of hate wants you to be silenced too - they want to leave the field divided so that their hatred can win out (as it did in London this week.) Similarly, quite a few people in the last week have responded to me by simply denying the violence and effects of transphobic feminisms. I would encourage everyone who says this to go and talk to some trans* people about their effects it has on their lives. Why not just ask them about it? And find out how a discussion with them can happen humanely without all of this shit. This is quite the opposite of organising meetings where the one thing the platform speakers have in common are repeated press claims that trans* women are men - never mind acting all naive afterwards when it causes shit to kick off. It will require some savviness to work out who is involved in what position and why - but what is needed now is to be savvy, and to not think that Julia Long presents the only option for "opening debate" while she in fact closes it down. It is also true that the Gender Rights Act has the potential to affect more people than just trans* people. This really ought not be responded to by publishing outright lies, provocations, and viral content, only to conclude "let's have a comradely debate," by which point the "debate" is already utterly uncomradely.

[lindentreeisle]

Enjoy this morality play

Unlike the rest of our ongoing national nightmare, it’s actually pretty fun to watch.  No tragedy, I promise!

I’m not sure if you heard, it’s been national news kind of, but not very important news: there’s a reporter who recently published a book called Pill City, supposedly a true story about how some super smart teenagers planned the looting of pharmacies during the Baltimore riot, and collaborated with Black Guerilla Family (a powerful Maryland gang, I don’t think they did the guerilla/gorilla thing on purpose, but who the fuck knows) to carry out the looting and distribute the stolen prescription drugs nationally.

So, after reviews started coming out, it didn’t take long for journos in Baltimore to become suspicious.  The author, who was based out of New York and has been writing primarily for NY based publications, somehow managed to collect enough material to do this entire book on Baltimore without anyone in town knowing who he is.  The story itself was wild, conveying not only a basic misunderstanding of how the riot happened and how long it lasted, but possibly a basic misunderstanding of reality.  Apparently it involves the darknet, multiple gangs, the Russians in some way.  It sounded absolutely nuts.

Unfortunately, the author said up front that he changed the names of every person in the book, plus some places and details.  Not only is this completely not standard practice (most journos only change names for confidential sources or people whose privacy or freedom would be at risk if named), it nicely prevented anyone from fact-checking his work.  Sources could not be verified because the author refused to say who any of them were: even the ones who just talked about things like what kind of patients a local hospital handles.  There is literally no reason to rename everyone unless you are trying to avoid being sued for libel for misquoting people, or you are trying to hide the fact that you invented sources.

Justin Fenton, the reporter on the court beat for the Baltimore Sun, was one of the people who quickly grew suspicious.  He penned a pretty fair article bringing up these questions and concerns, and describing the difficulties fact-checking without names of sources.  He also talked to law enforcement officials, none of whom had any idea what the fuck the guy was talking about with his claims in Pill City.  This led Newday, which the author had done a great deal of work for, to announce that they were conducting a review of all his work to determine if he had made stuff up for his articles.  David Simon (writer and creator Homicide: Life on the Streets, The Wire), who is basically the godfather of Baltimore crime journalism at this point, said the book was “by and large, a wholesale fabrication.”  Edward Ericson, an investigative journalist for Baltimore City Paper talked to police officials, former police detectives, health officials, nobody knew what the hell he was talking about.  Ericson also investigated the murders described in the book and found that none of them corresponded in either timing or details with known murders in Baltimore. 

The guy’s response was not suggestive of his innocence: mostly it was whining and claims that he was being unfairly attacked.  In late February, the NYT issued an editors note stating that they could not verify two of the guy’s sources in an article he wrote for them.  New York Daily News, for whom the author has done extensive work, announced they would also review all his stories.  A website called imediaethics announced that they had investigated a few of his stories and that two sources in an article about the Pulse shooting in Orlando were unverifiable, and might not exist.  City Paper wrote about it again.

Then things got hilarious.  On March 8th, an account appeared on twitter defending Pill City, claiming the tweeter “lived that shit.”  Curiously, the account had been created in early March, first tweeted on March 7th, and preceded the defensive tweet by random retweets.  A quick look also showed that the first twitter account’s followed by the defender are all prominent NYC media/official blogs.  Obvious implication?  The account is a sockpuppet created for the sole purpose of defending Pill City.  The next day, the author tweets out what he says is a screenshot “of the Pill City dark web marketplace on Silk Road, as documented in my book.”  Justin Fenton quickly pointed out three problems with that: one, that page was documented as active in 2012, three years before the riot; two, Silk Road was shut down in 2013 and its successor Silk Road 2 in 2014, well before the riot; three, the author had written in Pill City that the dark web used by the pill thieves was inspired by Silk Road.  Obvious implication: the author told a lie to defend his book, and in doing so forgot the lie he told in his book and directly contradicted it.

Comedy fucking gold! 

Imediaethics is now reporting that they are up to 8 potentially nonexistence sources in their review of the author’s articles, that he quit his teaching job at Queens College suddenly, and that Newsweek is now reviewing the few articles he wrote for them.  The author’s response?  More whiny posts and tweets, no actual documentation of his claims.

The reason this is such a delicious dose of schadenfreude is simple.  This guy, who isn’t even from Baltimore, thought he could sail into town and use an event that he knows nothing about and had nothing to do with to create a book that would make him rich and famous.  He thought he could make his name on a lie he made up about a place he’s barely been, and he thought that nobody would call him on his transparently bullshit story.  I certainly don’t have any inside sources, but my take as a person involved in the criminal justice system for ten years, who was present in the city during the riot and the Uprising and watching very closely, is that the whole thing is extremely unbelievable on its face and the burden of proof rests on the author: the same way it would rest with an author who claimed that the pharmacy looting was masterminded by Vladimir Putin with a team of mobile strike bears.  It’s just a dumb story that doesn’t jibe with anything I know about the Uprising, the riot, the drug trade, ANYTHING.

[amtrak12]

I ship yatesbert but I like holtzbert occasionally on the side (there's so much fanfic, it's a statistical inevitability that some of it is good) but I find, more often than not, there is a fundamental misunderstanding of Erin as a character and a tendency to elevate Holtz to basically (irritatingly) faultless, thoughts?

I have not even looked at that area of fanfic since… probably September because the fic summaries alone horrified me by what they were writing about (or pissed me off because they wholesale-lifted elements from the canon Abby/Erin relationship and twisted it around to make a Holtz/Erin AU). But from the stuff I have seen and from the posts I continue to see made on Tumblr, that fandom has a fundamental misunderstanding of both Erin and Holtz.

(They also deeply misunderstand Abby’s and Patty’s characters, but that fandom puts no effort into understanding them while allegedly they do put thought into Erin and Holtz. … allegedly.)

Common Erin Mischaracterizations:1)   playing too hard into this conservative nerd + quirky sex god trope they all insist Erin/Holtz fall into and making Erin more naive and clueless than she really is.

  – Erin is not in high school. She’s a 42 year old woman who’s definitely had boyfriends and has most definitely had sex. She’s no where near a stumbling virgin.

2)   powerful, instant sexual attraction and whaBLAM!! she’s a pile of turned on goo around Holtz and is of course going to have sex with her. She has to. It’s inevitable.

  – what in the…????? like I know I’m on the asexual spectrum, but you know what, I can easily argue that both Erin and Holtz are acespec too (Erin definitely is) so this characterization makes absolutely no sense to me. Even if they were both allo, sexual attraction still doesn’t work that way??? This is such a weird thing that pops up in fanworks. And it almost always leads to some super gross smut thing that was lifted straight out of cis hetero white men porn that was not made with the healthy portrayal of women in mind :S 

3)   completely disregarding Erin’s relationships with both Abby and Patty and essentially pretending she doesn’t have one with either

 – Abby is hands down the most important person in Erin’s life. Shipping yatesbert or not, it is utterly impossible to claim otherwise. Abby is the most important person in Erin’s life. Yet 9.9 times out of 10, the Holtz/Erin content pretends Abby doesn’t exist or that Erin and Abby don’t have this huge massive history together or that it doesn’t matter anymore because Erin has Holtz. That is not true. Abby and Erin’s relationship and history matter. Abby matters. People will never, ever get Erin’s characterization right unless they start with Abby being the most important person to her. And Patty and Erin also developed a solid and important relationship over the course of the movie. Patty was doing things like grabbing coveralls for them to wear solely so Erin wouldn’t ruin her clothes with slime again. She offered immediate and unconditional support after Erin shared her Ghost Girl story (which no one except for Abby had ever done). They were both ducking behind each other at different points and essentially using each other as human shields. Patty pulled Erin into a great big hug, not once, but twice in the movie. Patty is very, very important to Erin too. In fact, of all the Erin dynamics, Erin and Holtz actually spend the least amount of canon time together and thus have the weakest one-on-one relationship. Not saying they therefore can’t be shipped together, but shipper content has to acknowledge that weakness and build it up. They can’t just write them with a strong instant connection at the expense of Erin’s relationships with Abby and Patty.

4)   that Erin would enjoy teasing flirting that really just looks and sounds like bullying

 – for the sake of this point, let’s accept the claim that Holtz is flirting with Erin whenever she does something jackass-y like make fun of her for getting excited over a swiss army knife or step on the gas pedal whenever Erin tries to get into the car and then berate her for holding them up. Let’s pretend that’s flirting. Erin would in no way, ever, ever, ever enjoy that type of flirting. Her experiences with childhood bullying would make these “flirtations” sound just like the mocking she experienced throughout school. It’s going to get her guard up, and she’s going to be frustrated and annoyed (which – SHOCKER! – she absolutely was every single time Holtz did something like this in the movie). She’s not going to think it’s cute or fun or amusing. She’s going to be pissed af. So writing this type of flirting as their main dynamic and as something Erin enjoys is not only OOC, it’s a bit disturbing and arguably crosses the line into romanticizing abuse :S Please don’t do this.

I have a lot more complaints on Erin’s portrayal in that fandom, but that probably covers the basics.

Common Holtzmann Mischaracterizations:

1)   omg where do I begin. How about with the insistence that she’s a confident Cassanova-esque flirt and sex god? like omg have these people met Holtzmann???

 – even if you (somehow) disagree with the autistic Holtzmann headcanon, Holtz is still a perpetually nervous and socially awkward koala bear who is only truly comfortable around Abby because she’s known her for so long. She is not comfortable around Erin at all. She grows comfortable around Patty over the course of the movie because Patty is delightfully sarcastic af while still being a loving ball of sunshine and, oh yeah, she saved Holtz’s life three different times, that probably helps the comfort factor :P But she is not comfortable around Erin, and it’s not hard to see why. Erin is not only a new person, she’s a new person Holtz has heard all kinds of legends and stories and rants about from Abby. Holtz already has this mixed and vague impression of Erin in her head when they meet, and she has to make that impression match up to the real life Erin standing in front of her and that’s always an awkward process. Because it’s like ‘I know you, but I don’t actually know you, so how am I supposed to act here? What am I supposed to say?’ Considering Holtz already relies on scripts for social interactions, she’s going to be very much feeling like a fish out of water around Erin.

 – I didn’t actually touch on the flirting and sex god thing yet, but seriously. Holtz didn’t even have a real friend until she met Abby (a fact she shared in the most stilted, nerve-filled toast I’ve ever seen, the poor thing). Do people really think she walks around convincing women to drop their panties with a mere smirk and a wink? People are so attracted to Kate McKinnon that they keep projecting that attraction onto Holtz’s characterization and it is just wrong, wrong, wrong. That is not how Holtz is at all. She’s actually a clueless puppy when it comes to romance. She might flirt but she doesn’t realize flirting is supposed to lead to asking someone on a date or will bring up expectations in someone else’s mind. She thinks it’s just another type of casual social interaction.

2)   Holtz’s relationships and history with Abby and Patty are ignored completely

 – just like with Erin, Abby is the most important person in Holtz’s life.  She’s her first and only friend for the longest time. She’s the first person to show Holtz unconditional support and love. She’s the first person to *get* and accept Holtz. None of this can be ignored when writing Holtz’s character. In fact, these are all things Holtz and Erin have in common and could be used as a foundation to a relationship between them instead of being blatantly swept under the rug and going “Abby who?”

 – also just like Erin, Holtz builds up a significant relationship with Patty over the course of the movie. In fact, there is quite a bit of one-on-one interaction between Holtz and Patty and even more that occurred off screen. They went out and grabbed cheesesteaks together after Erin left the group and it wasn’t even the first time they did that. Holtz pulled Patty away alone to measure her for a proton pack. There was a conversation of some kind before or after the subway ghost that (rightfully) convinced Patty that Holtz would be interested in cadavers instead of grossed out. There’s a fully fleshed out dynamic between them that becomes even more meaningful and weighty after you add in the times Patty saved Holtz’s life, and all of that is completely ignored in Holtz/Erin fan works. If Patty is shown at all, it’s so she can fulfill a Sassy Black Woman stereotype and 'hilariously’ yell at them for having sex somewhere inappropriate. It’s disgusting. Patty (and Abby) do not exist to do amusing commentary on the Holtz/Erin ship. >_main characters with their own personalities and dynamics and histories with everyone.

3)   Holtz is being flirtatious whenever she mocks or teases Erin

 – I mentioned that if this is Holtz flirting, then Erin would not be into it in any way shape or form, but now I’m going to point out that this isn’t Holtzmann flirting. You know what Holtz looks like when she flirts? “you’re mouthy. I like that.” Grabbing Patty’s hand and kissing the back of it instead of returning the high five. Stuff that actually looks like romantic interactions. Holtz mocking Erin is in response to their shared history with Abby and how Erin completely abandoned Abby twenty years ago. Remember that Holtz has heard the stories and rants. She’s still trying to put them together into the real life person now hanging with the group, but she’s completely aware of how Erin abandoned Abby and she’s super judging Erin for it. Because again, Abby is the most important person in Holtz’s life and Holtz is pissed that someone would dare hurt her. In fact, Holtz is meanest to Erin whenever Erin is denying ghosts or seems uncertain and like she might run again. The times she’s nicest (like the hug after the portal rescue) come only after Erin saves Abby’s life or is super obviously 100% on board with ghosts like with the Protect the Barrier presentation. Any weakness in Erin’s convictions, and Holtz is right back to being on guard (and kind of a shit head) just in case Erin flees and makes Abby sad again.

4)   calling Holtzmann “Jillian” or any variation of her first name

 – I’ve said it before and I will continue to say it until every single person making fan content for this movie gets it through their thick skull, HOLTZMANN’S NAME IS NOT JILLIAN!!! She does not use her first name ever! She never introduces herself as Jillian. She is never introduced as Jillian by any of the other characters. None of her friends ever call her Jillian. They call her Holtzmann or Holtz or Holtzy/baby when it’s Patty addressing her. No one calls her Jillian. “Jillian Holtzmann, Radio Times” was Holtz using a script, and being obviously sarcastic as she is not a journalist for the Radio Times. She was pulling up the only interviewing script she knew and was purposely messing with Kevin as he was so clearly oblivious and ignorant. Dr. Gorin was her mentor and a pseudo-parental figure. Her addressing Holtzmann as “Jillian” is not a sign that her friends or lovers would call her Jillian because again none of the other Ghostbusters ever call her that. All Dr. Gorin using Jillian means is Holtz isn’t triggered or repulsed by her first name. She simply prefers not to use it. She is a single name character much like Parker from Leverage. The name Jillian should never be used in the narration or when a character is addressing Holtzmann in fan works. That is not her name. I’m utterly baffled by how a near-100% queer fandom can be so dismissive of someone’s preferred name, good lord. Respect the character’s wishes, please and thanks.

5)   dressing Holtzmann up in full evening gowns and wearing her hair down or otherwise presenting her gender as more traditionally feminine than she presents in the movie.

 – again I have to ask, has people who do this ever actually met Holtzmann???? holy cow. Holtzmann is not Kate McKinnon. The two do not present their gender the same way. Holtzmann only dresses and presents herself the way we see her do in the movie. This isn’t a limitation of the movie events or timeline, that’s legitimately how Holtzmann presents herself all the time. Once again, respect the character’s wishes and don’t twist them into something they’re not.

One last thing that bugs the hell out of me: when people make a fanwork where the joke is centered on the characters (usually Holtz) outing Erin to someone else, and then having everyone laugh at Erin when she gets upset. Like, holy shit I am so appalled by how many posts I’ve seen centered around this idea. O_O Erin is an acespec bisexual who’s only figuring out her sexuality now when she’s in her 40s. Like that’s a major thing? Maybe these twenty-somethings and teens who figured out their sexuality before they were twenty didn’t have big identity crises about it, but as someone who did figure out they were actually bisexual later in life, that’s the kind of realization that’s pretty mind-boggling. Because you don’t just have to come to terms with any internalized homophobia you have and accept that you aren’t heterosexual, you also have to come to terms with how long you were ignorant about this part of yourself (and for Erin, that’s a long, long time). You have to come to terms with feeling like a fraud when you say you’re bisexual or otherwise queer, because you’ve never had a relationship with a woman and aren’t really sure how to relate to other queer women on that level. And god, feeling like a fraud could potentially be even worse for Erin because her childhood trauma and subsequent experiences with gaslighting from all the trusted adults in her life means she has very little faith in her ability to interpret reality. Whenever she changes her statement after someone else counters her in the movie and deleted scenes (look especially at the Phil scenes), that isn’t just Erin being a people-pleaser, that isn’t just the script trying to be funny, that’s Erin honestly questioning reality simply because someone gave a different opinion than her. Without concrete and undeniable evidence staring her in the face, Erin is not confident about anything and that would include her sexuality. It’s not funny or cute to write about other characters – especially someone who’s supposed to be her girlfriend and trusted partner – outing her to people and then laughing it off when she gets mad. If Erin seems like she’s uncomfortable with a certain character, like Dr. Gorin or whoever, knowing that she’s bisexual while you’re writing her, then respect that about her. Make the other characters respect that about her. I see post after post decrying how Hollywood gay narratives where one partner is in the closet and the other partner is pissed about it is complete bullshit because in real life, gay couples are almost always completely understanding when someone’s in the closet because they understand how hard it is and know the dangers of being out – and yet the Holtz/Erin fandom continually and repeatedly write the Hollywood gay narratives instead of writing anything based on real life. It’s infuriating and more than a little disturbing because if this nearly 100% queer fandom can’t respect things like people’s wishes about who is told about their sexuality or people’s gender expression or their preferred name, then how the hell am I supposed to feel comfortable interacting with them? How is anyone who doesn’t fit some narrow, white-cisgendered-lesbian-who-figured-everything-out-when-they-were-16-years-old narrative supposed to feel comfortable interacting with that fandom?

That’s my thoughts on the Holtz/Erin portrayals and characterizations.

[63824peace]

Thursday, 10th of november 2005

awoke in my hotel bed. I opened the window... Seoul stretched out before me.

It looks like we'll have good weather today too.

Yesterday's weather report forecasted cold temperatures, but it feels much nicer than expected. Korea's weather gave us a break, at least for now.

From my window I looked down to the ground. I saw that the hotel had frozen its swimming pool for use as an ice-skating rink during winter. It's only November, so they're still preparing it. A large white sheet covered the surface.

I had stayed in this very hotel when I visited back in February. I remember that I had looked through my window and had seen the same scenery. Perhaps I'm staying on the same floor now as I had then... perhaps I'm even in the same room.

The skating rink had been illuminated from beneath the ice's surface when I had been here before. The frozen glow had been powerfully atmospheric. I had wanted to skate so badly, I almost couldn't stand it. The whole scene had radiated a joyous ambience, kind of like Disney's ice show.

You don't get many chances to skate outdoors in Tokyo. I had hoped that I could skate while I am here, but I'm simply too pressed for time.

"I'll ice-skate for sure this time!" I had even brought a pair of brand new gloves. I'll have to postpone skating once again though. The rink hasn't even opened yet. I'll try again next time.

I left my room to eat the hotel's breakfast. On my way I passed some members of our preparation team who were heading to the G-STAR site.

We arrived late because we had run into a traffic jam on our way to KINTEX.

A group of able-bodied men surrounded me the second that I stepped from the car. The bodyguards escorted me into the building.

The show would start at 10 A.M., so I double-checked the stage and our booth. I mounted the MGS stage and lightly rehearsed. I tested the microphone with our interpreter and our emcee. I sat in a chair and déjà vu hit me! It was TGS all over again!

I proceeded to check the video and sound setups for MGS4's presentation in the SCE booth's next-gen theater. I returned to Konami's booth and slipped into the backroom.

Our bodyguards follow us everywhere. They stick beside us even if we only walk a few feet. They hold posts at the backroom entrance all the time. They even guard me in the bathroom. I know that these guys are paid for it, but I really appreciate how far they go for us.

U.S. and European fans are much more intense than the Japanese. I always make sure that I have bodyguard escorts during each event and autograph session. I've never had this many at once though... three to six of them surround me at any given moment.

I considered checking more of the expo site, but I didn't have enough time. In addition, it wasn't easy to move quickly from place to place. I am so well protected here that I'm like Vic Viper with Option and Force Field defenses activated.

Meanwhile, Korea's first game expo finally opened. Korean companies furnish most of the booths. They all look great. Korea is an impressive force in the gaming industry.

Korea could outrun Japan in the gaming industry at this rate. Asian booths had challenged Japanese booths at TGS, and Japan has already been beaten at E3. Korean booths naturally hold center-stage on their home turf.

On another note... I hadn't noticed that Korean women are so tall! They have gorgeous legs!

The grand opening was so slow compared to my experiences with other game expos. I'm accustomed to the usual rush of visitors at TGS and GC. G-STAR's visitors entered slowly and hesitantly. I heard that the expo hadn't opened until the very last second.

I rehearsed one last time in the backroom with both our interpreter and MC.

Afterwards I ate some lunch. We had sushi bento, Korea's specialty Kimpa (Makizuishi), and my favorite Sin Ramyun (hot ramen). Even Shin-chan tried Sin-chan! It was like a picnic!

I asked our interpreter to listen to my introductory speech. I had practiced it in Korean. I wanted to include the line from Sympathy for Lady Vengeance that I learned yesterday, but I ultimately decided against it. I foresaw too much room for misunderstanding among those who hadn't seen the movie.

She told me that I could say it if an interviewer asks about Sympathy for Lady Vengeance. I still received concerned looks whenever I said it. They'd always ask, "Where did you learn that expression?"

I told them that I had learned it from Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, and they smiled and said, "Oh, I see!"

A large banner hung in the conference hall reserved for the press meeting just outside the main expo grounds. It read "HIDEO KOJIMA."

We have the same interpreter now who had worked with us in February. She does excellent work, so she easily translated my long and complex Japanese.

I mounted the MGS stage at 2 P.M.

I'm thankful that everything was a huge success.

The Korean fans were truly enthusiastic! They were almost as intense as the European MGS fans.

I wound up making a slight mistake with my Korean toward the end of my memorized greeting. Also, Sympathy for Lady Vengeance never came up during the Q&A... I didn't get to say "Neo na jal haseyo" after all.

An autograph session followed the Q&A. We required that all participants have reserved their autographs online, so everything went smoothly.

I was asked to autograph a variety of things. I wonder... did they find them all online? Some people brought limited editions of Japanese items. A few people even brought copies of the MSX2 Metal Gear and Policenauts for the NEC PC-9821. People also brought hardware for me to autograph, such as PS2s, Nintendo DSs, and PSPs.

Several Korean fans actually spoke strong Japanese. They must play their games in Japanese too.

Mr. Sang Young Lee from Phantagram visited me in the backroom early in the evening. We had last seen each other around six months prior. We had missed each other at TGS because we had been so busy. We conversed for about an hour. He seemed as though he's been busy with Ninety Nine Nights.

G-STAR's first day ended at 5 P.M.

Folks from the MGS community had come to help us for one of our events. I thanked them for volunteering to test MGO.

Young, enthusiastic, grateful fans had responded to an internet advertisement distributed by UNIANA. They know as much about MGS as we do, and they love it equally too. They played MGO just as well as KojiPro's staff.

The language barrier tumbled down today and MGS became our common tongue. I would never have expected this at TGS... I'm thankful to share this sort of relationship with my fans. Everyone onstage gathered for a group photo.

We gave them MGS-related souvenirs to express our gratitude. By then the backroom had become another autograph room.

Thank you everyone, and please help us again tomorrow!

I went to a party that evening set up by G-STAR. I saw Mr. Inaba from Clover Studios there.

I left the party and joined some KojiPro staff at a barbecue restaurant for dinner.

Kanpai! Three cheers for G-STAR's first day! This will change Korea's future. I appreciate everyone's work.

Shin-chan and I explained, "We're looking for an out-of-the-ordinary style of leather jacket." We were directed to Tondaemun Market and Namdaemun Market, so we headed there with some others after dinner. We heard that those markets feature wholesalers with really competitive prices. Their reputation has even spread to Japan.

We first headed to Tondaemun Market. The place was so animated! Crowds were everywhere! The hour was so late that I could hardly believe it was real.

I heard that everything here stays open until 5 A.M., so it was still too early to see business in full swing. The real thing hadn't even started yet.

Tondaemun is really outrageous!

We started shopping in the doota building. Many similar looking shops were squeezed beside each other inside. The bustle there was similar to what you'd expect at a department store at midday.

I got a greater shock when I exited the building. Crowds flowed all around me outside. More people seemed to come in cars. It was just before midnight. These downtown streets seem really family-friendly, unlike Shibuya or Shinjuku in Tokyo.

We descended the underground passage leading to stores that specialize in leather and furs. Vendors barked at us on the way down.

"Get your quality knock-offs here!"

"Phantom watches! Phantom watches for sale!"

We apparently couldn't hide the fact that we're Japanese. Was it our clothes? Our group's hairstyle and make-up? However they could tell, they addressed us in Japanese everywhere we went.

"Miss! I can speak Japanese!"

"Oohaa, it's so delicious!" Oohaa? What outdated slang!

We ascended the stairs to street level and arrived at the Pyonfa Market.

"Wow! This is just like Blade Runner! Amazing!"

Food and merchandise sellers' stalls filled the narrow alleys. It looked like it had been packed beyond capacity. This place must feel like a festival every day. It's as vibrant and populated as the New Year's Eve celebrations at the shrines in Japan.

We could buy a slew of different foods here, from Tchigae to Oden. They sold more than just food though. Bags, clothing, and all sorts of items sat on display in storefronts. There was even a shop selling only Bae Yong Joon's brand of socks.

Such life and animation! Even the boardwalk stalls got a lot of customers. Families strode through the streets alongside unchaperoned youths. Such energy! I don't understand why I didn't see any drunks on the street. Just being there invigorated me. The downtown streets never sleep.

I noticed several micro-busses parked on the street. They looked like sight-seeing buses. Were tourists out at that hour?

I thought about this, and then I saw many old women with serious facial expressions--they looked so severe. They carried several large plastic sacks on their backs. I also saw a lot of stuff piled on the street.

Our guide explained to me that the women had come from the rural provinces. They regularly gather a group of people from their provincial towns, rent micro-buses, and shop here. They arrive very early in the morning and shop until the following day. Then they return to their hometowns and sell everything that they bought.

The old women began their serious shopping at the hour I saw them. How colorful!

We ate oden at one of the stalls.

I have wanted to eat oden in Korea ever since I saw Jeon Ji-Hyun eating it in the movie Windstruck.

They offered many different types of oden in shapes made from minced fish. Some were round while others were thin boards. I heard that the seasoning can differ, but it's all still oden. The boardwalk shop also provided skewers.

I decided to try the oden that looked like Japanese Chikuwa. I added some sauce using a brush that they provided. It tasted like Gobo tempura, sans the Gobo.

It was warm and tasty.

While I ate, people flocked to the stall from out of nowhere. Without so much as a greeting, they took oden from the stall. No one spoke a word... they just ate.

We paid for our food after telling the stall clerk what we had eaten. For some reason, I saw more female customers than male. They ate pretty quickly considering the eating method. To drink the soup, you're supposed to ladle it into a paper cup and then drink directly from the cup.

The soup tasted great too.

If you don't want to finish the soup, then you can simply splash it onto the street. You should put the paper cup in a trashcan though. Everything there was self-service.

We finished and then took a car to Namdaemun Market.

We arrived a little too early for the evening boom again. Half of the shops weren't open yet. I felt a strange sense of familiarity as I walked the streets... aha! The place resembled Ameyoko in Ueno.

Someone suddenly addressed us in Japanese.

"Hey buddy--got some leather jackets here."

Unfortunately we didn't see anything that we wanted. We didn't get what we set out to buy, but we got a lot of other stuff anyway.

I feel as though we bought a slice of Seoul's energy itself. I really enjoyed this. I'll definitely return... and maybe then I'll stay until 5 A.M.

You know, those phantom watches still intrigue me... I wonder what they look like....

[stephenaltrogge-blog]

The Gospel-Emptiness of Gospel-Centeredness

The recent resurgence of gospel-centrality in the American church encourages me. Though it has been around for most of my life, when I look back on church history I am grateful there has been a recovery of gospel-focused writing, teaching, preaching, singing, thinking, and so on.

The gospel is the metronome of the biblical story—the cadence with which God wanted to communicate Himself to us.

The gospel is, well, central.

For all it gets right, it seems gospel-centered theology is involved in a strange predicament. Those of us in the “gospel-centered tribe” have been conditioned to behold the gospel in all of life and Scripture. And as a result, I have watched many, many people I know fall into the trap of practicing their gospel-centrality before others, and I think it’s a subtle danger.

I can see it in them because I’ve seen it in my own heart.

Can We Have Too Much Gospel?

First off, I want to make clear that I don’t think “too much gospel” is a thing. That phrase sounds incoherent to me. There can never be “too much” of the gospel in anything. It is the lifeblood of the church and the mission of God in the redemption of humanity.

Additionally, nothing can rob the gospel of its power. One could be motivated by fame or fortune in the preaching of the gospel, but if the apostolic teaching of the gospel is what is truly being communicated then I believe the Holy Spirit can pierce the hearts of the hearers. The gospel is that powerful, and God is that big (but I wouldn’t encourage this behavior, obviously).

I don’t think our desire for gospel-centeredness is empty. I’m just afraid many of our attempts to be gospel centered aren’t truly concerned with love for God and neighbor—that they often amount to little more than gospel-centered thumb wrestling matches, hoping we will one-up or out-gospel those in our theological clique.

In other words, I worry our gospel-centrality will turn out gospel-less if we aren’t careful.

Here’s a question worth asking: “Am I keeping the gospel in focus because I believe it is the power of God for salvation to all who believes? Or am I merely grandstanding, hoping to fit in a little better or get looks of incredulity out of my peers, mentors, professors, or influences?”

A little gospel-centered pizzaz can go a long way, and our hearts are incredibly deceptive. Let’s not get caught up thinking we can’t do the right things for the wrong motives. Keep watch, for your gospel-centrality can quickly turn into gospel-one-upmanship.

How to Keep Your Gospel-Centrality Full of Gospel

I think, at times, all of us become guilty of prioritizing theological correctness over genuine concern and love for God and neighbor—especially those of us who read theology and care about having right doctrine in our churches.

That said, I don’t want this article to come off as finger-pointing, assumptive, or any other descriptors that add a nonexistent degree of intensity to what I’m saying. I’m mostly speaking to myself here, as I catch myself doing this all the time subconsciously.

I have to keep myself in check at all times or else I will easily become more concerned with being gospel-centered than I am concerned with being centered on the gospel, and these are a few things that have helped me.

1. Make a list of the people with whom you spend the most time.

If the majority of your time is spent hanging out with people who go to your church or consider themselves gospel-centered, you might be misunderstanding what it means to be missional. The proclamation and/or spread of the gospel is a natural outflow of gospel-centeredness, so if you’re in a gospel foxhole all week long, your gospel-centrality might be empty.

2. Make a habit of nixing jargon that won’t make sense to lost people.

Your gospel-centrality should lend itself to an approachability. Don’t ditch theological terms wholesale—Scripture is packed with them, and they are necessary because they make boundaries around our beliefs. That said, a lot of us are guilty of over-theologizing everyday sentences, trying to turn everything into theological debate, or pressing people on issues they haven’t even thought about. (Let’s face it—I can think of maybe one or two people who could talk about fourth century Trinitarianism within a twenty-five mile radius of me.)

3. Make sure someone makes you repent of sin.

There is nothing more gospel full than living out the story of redemption. When we repent of our sins, we are confronted anew with the reality of Christ’s death and resurrection, and we are reminded of how we ought to live in light of it. Repenting of sins humbles us and causes us to realize our smallness. In seeing Christ as big, we will see his purposes as big. In a sense, though it hurts and is humbling, repentance is something of a gospel recharge. Get a friend, a group of friends, a community group, or an elder to regularly force you to repent of sins—not in an awkward way, of course, but in your everyday conversation or lifestyle. You’ll be amazed at just how big the gospel gets when you are confronted with your sinfulness and God’s graciousness day in and day out.

The post The Gospel-Emptiness of Gospel-Centeredness appeared first on The Blazing Center.

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[jamiekturner]

7 Questions that Will Help Build a Successful Website

According to internet live stats, there are more than a billion websites live today.

This number illustrates the importance of websites and how they are an integral weapon in the online marketing arsenal of businesses.

When you make a website, it’s important to remember that it is not just an online page filled with text and images; it is much more than that. Think of it like a front door to an entire organization. It has the onus of creating a good first impression on its target audience.

It is used as a rallying point for all the marketing efforts of a business.

All the promotional campaigns will direct people to visit the website for more information. All the leaflets, all the posters, all the TV advertisements, all the social media advertisements on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc. will direct people to home in on the website of an organization.

Therefore, there is absolutely no doubt your website plays a stellar role in driving business growth by conveying the unique value proposition offered by your client’s business.

Image source: Divan Raj

If a website is unable to fulfill its duty, the consequences can be disastrous. You will have your work cut out for you while building a website because you have to make a great first impression and if that goes off-kilter, no amount of efforts can remedy that.

There is no doubt that your clients will be extremely conscious of each detail of their website. So, a website has to fulfill all client expectations in terms of its usefulness, aesthetics and functionality. But above all, it must be able to achieve their lead generation and conversion objectives.

As a designer you must ensure your hard work pays off and the client is satisfied with the website you’ve built. But, this is easier said than done.

The web design and development process is long and difficult, but you can simplify things by asking some key questions that will give you much needed clarity about client expectations from the site.

These questions will help you get into the mind of the client, which is vital if you want the website to satisfy the client’s business goals.

1. What do you do?

Image source: Giga Tamarashvili

This the best question to start with. Since you are going to be working on a website that must be a perfect online representation of the client’s business and reflect his business philosophy and value proposition, it is imperative that you understand who your client is, what does his business do and how does it differ from the competition.

A website that is made for a pet shopwill be different than a website built for a real estate agency. Therefore, you need to be clear on the path you have to take regarding design. Any misunderstanding can screw up your design ideas even before you have commenced your work.

Personal Learning: You know what they say about assumptions. Very early on in my career, I used to get a tad uncomfortable asking clients about their business in a drill down manner. While I used to get an overview of the business, I did not focus on getting a granular understanding of the client business. Result – I couldn’t zero in on a client USP that I wanted to showcase throughout the site; resulting in an ordinary site.

2. What should your website do?

Image source: Alex Sailer

You need to know the purpose behind the website you are creating. You should be aware of the aim of the website and what it is meant to accomplish.

Is it meant to act as a front to let people download magazines? Is it meant to act as an information tool that offers insights into the services offered by a company? Is it meant to get people to fill in registration forms?

A website can have more than one purpose and it is your job, as a designer, to ensure that each purpose is fulfilled without a hitch.

Personal Learning: A basic question isn’t it. For me personally, this question is about getting on the same page as the client. I remember this project wherein the client was selling jackets on a wholesale basis, and I assumed the client wanted to ‘sell’ his jackets through the site, but what he actually wanted to do was get leads through ‘form filling’. Big difference! But this question sorted it out for me.

3. Who is your target audience?

Image source: Miro Koljanin

This is a very important question. Each website can be customized to appeal to a set of target audience.A website for children will be designed differently than, say, a website used by business professionals. A children’s website will use more images and bright colors to attract children, while a business website will have a formal and an elegant layout.

If you know the target audience, you can create a website design that attracts and entices exactly the group of people that your client is targeting.

Personal Learning: I had a client who was very clear about the target audience he wanted to work with. So, the instructions were – ‘Male, US, 18-25, had the money to buy an expensive product (which meant the parents needed to be at the upper end of the wealth bracket)’, this made my task a whole lot easier. I could focus on a theme that talked to and resonated with the audience. There was no confusion in my mind.

4. What should your website visitors do?

Image source: Ibnu Mas’ud

Once you know the target audience, you should ask what they are supposed to do on the website. If the people are to be guided to watch videos that showcase the business features, then that should get prominence in the design.

If the visitors are to be directed towards registering on the website, then they have to be subtly moved towards it with strategic call-to-action buttons. If the visitors are supposed to share the blog content on social networking sites, then the share buttons must be easily visible. The design depends on what your client wants the visitors to do when they visit the website.

Ideally, most visitors have very little time on their hands and given a small timeframe to consume information on a site, they will prefer consuming content that is designed beautifully as compared to something plain.

Personal Learning: Think of this one as an extension of point #2. Visitors are an extension of your website. Your website serves to serve visitors, right? Wrong. I thought along these lines as well. But, over time I realized that the primary objective of the website is to get its visitors to do, what you want them to do. So, if you want them to fill a form, make sure the design elements on the site gang up, to prompt them to do just that.

5. What elements do you want to include?

Image source: Michael Korwin

Your main motive is that the website should fulfill all client objectives. Hence, their choices, likes and dislikes matter a lot. You need to ask them what would they prefer to include in their website and which are the elements they would definitely not want to miss out on.

You also need to ask them about stuff they would like to exclude. They might have a clear idea regarding design elements they detest. If you know what they do not like, you can avoid those elements outright.

But, it’s important to remember you are also designing for the target audience. While you need to include elements that the client will like, it is doubly important to make designing choices that will resonate with your target audience.

Personal Learning: Through the course of my life as a website creator, if there is one important aspect I learnt, it is to make sure you are aware of the likes and preferences of clients. I was working with this client who discussed website objectives and then asked me to create a website the way I thought fit. But, it didn’t work out that way. When I suggested a color scheme, he came up with his own preference, when I showed the images I wanted to work with, he had his own ideas. Finally, I asked him what he wanted, in detail. These days, this is one of the first questions I throw at the client. Life’s easy this way.

6. What additional features do you require?

Image source: KREATIVA Studio

You need to ask your client about what extra elements they want integrated on their site.

Do they want to have embedded videos? Do they want users to be able to comment on blog posts and other types of content?? Do they require a chat box? Do they need an internal search engine for the site?

Any additional features that your client wants should be included in the website.

Personal Learning: Website design and development doesn’t work on hindsight. Again, I learnt this the hard way. One of the my website projects needed to be broken down, after it was complete and ready to go live. Why? The client decided he wanted a nice new feature he had read about. So what I also learnt was that there needed to be a cutoff date. Post that date, no requests for new feature/design integration will be considered.

7. What is your budget?

Image source: Masudur Rahman

It is best if you don’t approach this subject with apprehension. What a client wants and what a client can afford may be two different things. Therefore, some amount of negotiation will be necessary. If you maneuver intelligently through the budget negotiations, you will be able to freeze on a figure that is mutually convenient for both of you. Make sure you have all your costs figured out so that you don’t end up committing yourself to unsupportable costs.

Personal Learning: I know this question is uncomfortable, but in the interest of a good working relationship, you must ask this question upfront, after you get a clear idea of the clients’ requirements. Don’t be shy. In my early days, I used to commit to a project with all its requirements, without working out the budget with the client. Needless to say, there were times when I suffered.

Many a times a website fails to meet a client’s requirements. This may happen if the wrong kind of questions are asked. But, if you ask these 7 questions, you are bound to succeed in your endeavor to satisfy the client by building a website that looks and functions as it is supposed to. Be a nosy parker and start asking the right kind of questions now!

from Web Development & Designing http://www.designyourway.net/blog/web-design/7-questions-that-will-help-build-a-successful-website/

[ferritepowder719-blog]

Maintain Your Youngsters From Daycare! Obtain A Home Based Business

There are a lot of things to think about when you work from home. If you need help getting through the do's and don'ts of a business you run out of your home, then this post will certainly offer you the assistance you need, to ensure that you understand how to make it effective.

Discover economical ways to promote your home based business. If you are a pet-sitter, drop some refrigerator magnets that consist of a lot of ferrite powder and a business cards off at local veterinarian offices. Stores, post offices, even community centers typically have bulletin boards you could advertise on. Be creative and you will enjoy a larger need for your services!

Establish a websites for your business. Because a lot of people use the web to find products and discover new details, it is important that you have a place where possible consumers can learn more about your product and check out just what your business is all about. You will certainly reach a lot more people through the internet than you might have otherwise.

Treat yourself like a professional. Have refrigerator magnets that consist of a lot of ferrite powder and business cards made, sign your emails with a proper title, and go through your entire day making decisions as if you worked at a corporate building. Your business is run from your home, yet you must still carry yourself as a professional so that possible consumers and clients will certainly regard you as such.

Construct a home business while you're still employed. When starting a new business it is advisable to proceed working till your brand-new business begins generating profit. Make sure you have actually some money saved away while you wait on the profits to start coming in.

Always recognize exactly what your products cost you to make. This is important for numerous factors, but if someone needs to unexpectedly show interest in retailing your products, you will certainly need to know off the top of your head what your cost is, and where you intend to set your wholesale price. As a rule of thumb, the retail price is about 2 times your wholesale price. The wholesale price is your costs plus a fair profit margin for you.

If you prepare to form your business, think of what legal actions you are needed to take. You will need to decide if you want to form your business as a sole proprietorship, partnership or corporation. Your business will certainly need a license or permit, in order to operate. Depending upon the kind of business, you may need to get special insurance. Ensuring that you address all the legal issues, will certainly safeguard you and your customers from any legal misunderstanding.

Be sure that the home business that you are thinking about is safe for you and your family to get involved with. Look in to any chemicals or products that may trigger your children harm and find out about the best way to keep them stored securely and out of your child reach.

As was stated at the beginning of this post, having a home based business requires a lot of work and follow up in many different areas. The pointers as well as recommendations here must help anybody who already has or is hoping to begin a home based business make it more successful. For those who want or need to read this information to comprehend this topic, check this out.

[prolapsarian]

A note on transphobic feminisms

Last week I found myself embroiled in all sorts of arguments around transphobic and transmisogynist feminisms. I find it so depressing that this stuff is still around. I'm also depressed by how discussions around the Gender Recognition Act are being used by cynically by certain feminists in these milieux, whose main politics over the last decades has been to whip up hatred against trans* people, to try to gather a crowd behind them. I know that quite a few people who are currently lining up behind the likes of Julia Long (or who at the very least refuse to recognise the deeply divisive positions and gestures that people like her are taking and making) read my wall. My hope is that some of the stuff below will make you see this differently.

1. There has been a small but vocal scene of feminists around London - people like Sheila Jeffreys, Gail Chester, Julia Long - whose politics over the last couple of decades has centred on making the argument that trans* women aren't women. A good proportion of these people's opinions go further though: they claim that gender reassignment surgery is nothing other than self-mutilation; that trans people demanding protection from oppression are "male rights activists" (that is, aligned with certain far-right movements); and that the main aim of trans* people's lives is to undermine the gains of the women's movement. But what has been peculiar to this politics - and I only know about London here, but I hear the same from other places - is that its mode of expression has been to attack trans* people themselves. Far from making theoretical interventions or arguments, far from entering into conversations, this group of feminists have gone about instituting their politics by publicly outing, doxxing, and monstering trans people. They do this in a context (and take full advantage of this context) in which transphobia predominates in the mainstream press and many other institutions of civil society. In more immediate social interactions their politics consistently and deliberately misgender all trans people they come into contact with. Ultimately their politics amounts to the idea that trans*-women, in their very being, undermine feminist movements, and they wish to undermine them in every way possible, playing opportunistically on wider social transphobias.

2. It is significant that this pattern has been known to feminism in the context of debates over sex work. On that question certain feminists have attacked women sex workers (most prominently on Reclaim the Night marches.) They do this instead of negotiating the dialectical tensions of labour, commodity, libido, possession, and exchange under patriarchal capitalism. Instead the sex worker herself becomes the scapegoat and centre of gravity of the entire system. If only she can be done away with (and with no particular care for how she came to be selling sex), the whole system will apparently simplify itself. The whole thing is slightly bizarre - akin to blaming proletarians in a munitions factory for a society founded on perpetual war, rather than blaming the society based on perpetual war for the fact that certain proletarians find themselves having to produce munitions. This isn't to say there aren't important and nuanced debates to be had about sex work, safety of workers, the consequence of sex being sold on the most anarchic open market for all women, and so on. Although there is an irony that feminists whose political movement arose from hatred of the "it can wait until after the revolution" now take precisely the same attitude to sex workers merely defending their physical safety. This is all slightly by the by. But the same brutality of attitude, which leads to certain feminists putting the blame of sexual exploitation at the feet of sex workers, which leads them to attack their very existence as scapegoat, has been transferred wholesale to how some feminists are treating trans* people. This has now been going on for very many years.

3. In the discussions that have surrounded the Gender Recognition Act, those women who have for many years been aggressively transphobic have been trying to reposition themselves to win support from other women and feminists who might not really agree with the extremity and violence of their positions. They have started to talk about defending civil society institutions, and about having debates. To many trans* people in London it is clear that these aims are not true. Indeed last week's shitshow of a "debate" mainly involved slinging insults and platforming people whose only point ever is to say that trans* women are men (indeed people who have somehow made careers out of this!) There are questions about civil society, and about womanhood, raised by the act. The trouble is that these particular feminists are not interested in them beyond a very specific, outmoded and divisive line. 

4. There are genuinely some people who (mainly on the internet) take an "against nature" position in the trans* community, and who respond to anyone questioning trans* discourse - or even the primacy of discourse in trans* scenes - as an existential threat that can only be met with violence. There are certain individuals who send death threats, punch people, shout "kill all TERFs" etc. Apart from these people are the enormous majority of trans* people who are consistently in conversations, discussions, social movements, reflections with all sorts of people (and alone) about questions of sex, gender, sexuality, nature, history. The transmisogynist and transphobic feminists consistently attempt to play up the extent of this violent, silencing culture, because they know that ultimately plays out in their favour. This behaviour is analogous to Zionists who play up the anti-Semitism of small elements of the Arab population to justify the violence meted out by Israel against all Palestinians. They know that it is ultimately beneficial to their position to claim that they are being silenced and attacked, that all discussion is made impossible. Often their aim has been to provoke this situation (for example by holding meetings where the only speakers are those who routinely claim that all trans* women are men.) The events this week in London, when divisions were cynically sown in this way - people like Julia Long know that their position is ultimately stronger, that their hatred of trans* people and violence against them appears more legitimate and more reasonable when people are most divided. It is for this reason that these people have for so long practiced such a highly antagonistic politics. But none of this really helps women, trans* or otherwise. At the same time it is really a terrible shame for most trans* people that the time they need to defend themselves has collided with what can only be described as a crisis in the politics of oppression, where (turbo-charged by the internet) significant numbers of people advocate nihilist violence against their oppressors to shore up the community of the oppressed. But this trend seems thankfully to be waning. It is a strange irony too that an all-out-war has broken out only where these internet cultures have come into contact with those feminists who first tried to drag the movement into communitarianism. 

5. One frequent line of argument that is common is the "gender" is all post-modern nonsense. But to think that the transformations in social relations that have taken place in the last 30 years can be done away with through the power of a demystifying gaze, which does away with the ideology of discourses only to rediscover nature, is to miss the point. We are without a doubt living through a sexual revolution - one as great as those that preceded it, that of the 20 years following the French Revolution, that of Weimar Germany (and Austria) in the wake of psychoanalysis, and that of the 1970s. And indeed it is the revolution of gender itself. Perhaps it is better to think by analogy. When I try to think about the early decades of psychoanalysis it is impossible to think about the great advances it offered people in thinking about their sexuality, about understanding the sexual lives of children, without at the same time thinking of its victims: of Dora, of the children subject to the prevalent paedophilia of Western Culture over whom psychoanalysis had thrown the darkest cloak (until Ferenczi's late interventions). But to take up the position that just refuted it as pseudoscience - the position of someone like Karl Kraus - is to sort of miss the point. The great historical movement of psychoanalysis (which remains unfinished) was already transforming people's lives, people's self-understandings and self-misunderstandings, people's relations and relationships. So too is the case with something like Butler's view of gender, which has now entered the everyday. And whether you agree with it or not is no longer the issue, because questions of humanity are not staked either for or against it but within it and through it. When I was teaching classes of 18 year old humanities students a lot of them had read Butler while at school. Most of those who hadn't were at least aware of the discourse, and were familiar with replicated or bowdlerised forms of it online. It was just part of their sexual growing up. And sometimes I think of the old arguments against the psychoanalytic revolution: that it left the continent of Europe deep in anxiety, packed full of people narcissistically introspecting, discovering uneasily, and obsessing over, their own neuroses. And perhaps if psychoanalysis left in its wake a generation of neurotics, then theories of gender leave a generation of gender disphorics. But it is unclear to me that they are any less well as a result. All of this isn't to say that something like a fiendish Krausian rejection isn't interesting, but it is nonetheless brutal, polarising, as Benjamin would say: destructive. But the Karl Krauses of today's sexual revolution have none of his style; they are experts in the brutishness of brutality alone. They refuse even to accept the divisive effects of their own polemical skepticism, and refuse to notice the bodies trodden underfoot.

6. Perhaps one of the arguments used by transphobic feminists that I find myself most sympathetic to is the idea that we need to return to a conversation of nature. The claim stands against the idea that questions of gender and sexual identity are entirely matters of society and consciousness, in a world that has apparently (at least in these spheres) overcome the forces of natural necessity, the expressions of nature, and natural divisions. But where I absolutely disagree is with the sort of nature that is invoked by these people: it is nature viewed with the taxonomic gaze of Linnaeus. The point of this thinking is to show, just as Linnaeus tried to do with animal species, that sexual divisions are eternal and unchangeable, and thus can be given names. It is to invoke precisely those figures like Goethe's "eternal feminine" that feminism initially set out to undermine. Absolutely no regard is given to questions of sexual development, transformations in sexuality in childhood, puberty, maturity or old age. No discussion of how socialisation and historical catastrophe might affect this. Instead all of this is ignored in favour of the sovereignty of the persistence of the genital, in its purely fleshly form. After the arguments I had this week I went back and read Firestone's Dialectic of Sex and Mitchell's Feminism and Psychoanalysis - two of the brightest stars in the constellations of the second wave. What I love about these books is their views of nature (and in Firestone's case, where she is most indebted to late Engels, quite polemically) as something utterly dynamic, as a world of constant change, modification, and dialectical force, utterly unrecognisable to Linnaean fixation. This thinking shows up the will to fixate nature - the brutal domination of nature - as that which bourgeois thinking has mistaken for the mastery of nature by an enlightened nature that would lead it to reconciliation. This fixated and fixating view of sexual difference ultimately disregards all questions of sexual development (and decline), and in questions of consciousness it willingly swaps out the sensitivity and nuances of developmental psychology for the stark fruitlessness of evolutionary biology. 

7. Amongst responses to the Gender Recognition Act are a set of arguments that have been virally circulating on the internet about how it is set to roll back the victories of the second wave. Most of these arguments are patent nonsense, relying on convincing readers (with no evidence) that legal gender reassignment isn't already possible (the Act would just streamline these processes, and would not require the sign-off of doctors.) But more than this, these arguments often rely on a total revisionism about the gains of the feminist movement. Reading them one might quickly believe that women in the 1970s spent their time arguing for single sex toilets and women's prisons. Meanwhile these arguments have a habit of eliding the work done by many trans* people continuing the best of the struggles of the second wave, in organisations like Sisters Uncut, fighting for better domestic violence services. Similarly on questions of sexual violence these viral internet ventures seem to take a step back. Far from the perspective of the second wave that so often saw press sensationalism around street rapists and unknown attackers as often used as a mask for not dealing with the prevalence of sexual violence in the home and amongst known men, the sensationalist figures have been reinvented as the spectre of a sexually violent man who becomes trans* only to gain access to women. This is not to say that street rapists and the like are not real consequences of patriarchal society that need a feminist response. But it is to say that the rolling back of the perspective that finally after decades won out against the marital exemption for rape into a sort of tabloid sensationalism is a step backwards. And more than this, it is terrifying that this sort of sensationalism is used to justify punishing all trans* people, not least when there is absolutely no evidence that this behaviour is any more prominent in the trans* community.

8. Perhaps what has been most grotesque in the last week is the willingness of people to talk explicitly and aggressively about trans* people's bodies - about bodies they don't know in any sense other than seeing a clothed photograph, and about which they have no real right to speak. This is matched with the cruelty that wants to point to every moment when those bodies might be most uncomfortable, when they might not "pass", when they betray a difficult history or an unfulfilled wish, when they express a neurosis that they try to compensate against or disguise. I have been so upset by how friends' bodies have been spoken about - and all just to try to elicit an angry reaction from them at best and to destroy them at worst.

All of this isn't to say that no conversation should be had. Nor is it to say that that gender is some easy solution (and I challenge you to find a single trans* person who thinks it is.) The point, however, is that at their best theories of gender - in their natural-historical, dialectical elaboration - are capable of saying "well sex isn't that easy or simple either." But the point is really to give some background and hopefully some understanding about what is going on. I know lots of people feel uneasy too and want to have conversations, and that they feel silenced. The best suggestion I have - other than joining in existing discussions, forming reading groups, or getting involved in struggles together - is not to line up behind people like Julia Long, Sheila Jeffreys, Miranda Yardley, Jen Izaakson, and the rest. Strangely their politics of hate wants you to be silenced too - they want to leave the field divided so that their hatred can win out (as it did in London this week.) Similarly, quite a few people in the last week have responded to me by simply denying the violence and effects of transphobic feminisms. I would encourage everyone who says this to go and talk to some trans* people about their effects it has on their lives. Why not just ask them about it? And find out how a discussion with them can happen humanely without all of this shit. This is quite the opposite of organising meetings where the one thing the platform speakers have in common are repeated press claims that trans* women are men - never mind acting all naive afterwards when it causes shit to kick off. It will require some savviness to work out who is involved in what position and why - but what is needed now is to be savvy, and to not think that Julia Long presents the only option for "opening debate" while she in fact closes it down. It is also true that the Gender Rights Act has the potential to affect more people than just trans* people. This really ought not be responded to by publishing outright lies, provocations, and viral content, only to conclude "let's have a comradely debate," by which point the "debate" is already utterly uncomradely.