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booklindworm · 3 years ago

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A rant against Karen Traviss' understanding of history and her FAQ answers

Did you base the Mandalorians on the Spartans?

<cite> No. I didn't. </cite> Fair enough.

<cite> I really wish history was taught properly - okay, taught at all - in schools these days, because history is the big storehouse that I plunder for fiction. It breaks my heart to hear from young readers who have no concept even of recent history - the last fifty years - and so can't see the parallels in my books. You don't have to be a historian to read my novels, but you'll get a lot more out of them if you explore history just a little more. Watch a history channel. Read a few books. Visit some museums. Because history is not "then" - it's "now." Everything we experience today is the product of what's happened before. </cite> Yeah, I do to. Please, Ms Traviss, go on, read some books. Might do you some good. And don't just trust the history channels. Their ideas about fact-checking differ wildly.

<cite> But back to Mandos. Not every military society is based on Sparta, strange as that may seem. In fact, the Mandos don't have much in common with the real Spartans at all. </cite> You mean apart from the absolute obsession with the military ["Agoge" by Stephen Hodkinson], fearsome reputation ["A Historical Commentary on Thucydides" by David Cartwright], their general-king ["Sparta" by Marcus Niebuhr Tod], the fact that they practically acted as mercenaries (like Clearch/Κλέαρχος), or the hyper-confidence ("the city is well-fortified that has a wall of men instead of brick" [Plutarch, Life of Lycurgus])...

<cite> A slightly anarchic, non-centralized, fightin' people? Sounded pretty Celtic to me. Since I went down that path, I've learned more about the Celts (especially the Picts), and the more I learn, the more I realise what a dead ringer for Mandos they are. But more of how that happened later... </cite>

The Celtic people are more than one people, more than one culture. Celtic is a language-family! In the last millennium BC nearly every European ethnic group was in some ways Celtic, and they were not one. Later, after the Germanic tribes (also not one people, or a singular group) moved westwards, the Celtic cultures were still counted in the hundreds. Not only Scotland was Celtic! Nearly all of Western Europe was (apart from the Greek and Phoenician settlers on the Mediterranean coasts). The word “Celts” was written down for the first time by Greek authors who later also used the word “Galatians”. The Romans called these people “Gauls”, and this word was used to describe a specific area, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean, the Cévennes and the Rhine: “Gaul”. So the Celts, the Galatians and the Gauls were all part of the same Celtic civilisation. "Celts, a name applied by ancient writers to a population group occupying lands mainly north of the Mediterranean region from Galicia in the west to Galatia in the east [] Their unity is recognizable by common speech and common artistic traditions" [Waldman & Mason 2006] Mirobrigenses qui Celtici cognominantur. Pliny the Elder, The Natural History; example: C(AIUS) PORCIUS SEVERUS MIROBRIGEN(SIS) CELT(ICUS) -> not just one culture "Their tribes and groups eventually ranged from the British Isles and northern Spain to as far east as Transylvania, the Black Sea coasts, and Galatia in Anatolia and were in part absorbed into the Roman Empire as Britons, Gauls, Boii, Galatians, and Celtiberians. Linguistically they survive in the modern Celtic speakers of Ireland, Highland Scotland, the Isle of Man, Wales, and Brittany." [Celtic Culture: a historical encyclopedia. by John Koch] "[] the individual CELTIC COUNTRIES and their languages, []" James, Simon (1999). The Atlantic Celts – Ancient People Or Modern Invention. University of Wisconsin Press. "All Gaul is divided into three parts, one of which the Belgae live, another in which the Aquitani live, and the third are those who in their own tongue are called Celtae, in our language Galli." [Julius Caesar, De Bello Gallico] <= I had to translate that in school. It's tedious political propaganda. Read also the Comentarii and maybe the paper "Caesar's perception of Gallic social structures" that can be found in "Celtic Chiefdom, Celtic State," Cambridge University Press. The Celtic tribes and nations were diverse. They were pretty organized, with an academic system, roads, trade, and laws. They were not anarchic in any way. They were not warriors - they were mostly farmers. The Celts were first and foremost farmers and livestock breeders

The basic economy of the Celts was mixed farming, and, except in times of unrest, single farmsteads were usual. Owing to the wide variations in terrain and climate, cattle raising was more important than cereal cultivation in some regions.

Suetonius addressing his legionaries said "They are not soldiers—they're not even properly equipped. We've beaten them before." [not entirely sure, but I think that was in Tacitus' Annals]

Regarding the Picts, in particular, which part of their history is "anarchic"? Dál Riata? the Kingdom of Alba? Or are you referring to the warriors that inspired the Hadrian's Wall? Because no one really knows in our days who the fuck they were. The Picts’ name first appears in 297 AD. That is later. <cite> Celts are a good fit with the kind of indomitable, you-can't-kill-'em-off vibe of the Mandos. Reviled by Rome as ignorant savages with no culture or science, and only fit for slaughter or conquest, the Celts were in fact much more civilized than Rome even by modern standards. </cite> That's how the Romans looked at pretty much every culture that wasn't Greek, Roman, Phoenician, Egyptian, or from Mesopotamia (read, if you want, anything Roman or Greek about the Skyths, the Huns, Vandals, Garamantes...).

<cite> They also kicked Roman arse on the battlefield, and were very hard to keep in line, so Rome did what all lying, greedy superpowers do when challenged: they demonized and dehumanized the enemy. (They still used them in their army, of course, but that's only to be expected.) </cite> They were hard to keep in line, but they most definitely did not kick Roman arse on the battlefield. Roman arse was kicked along the borders of the Roman Empire, such as the Rhine, the Danube, the Atlas mountains, etc. And mostly by actually badly organized, slightly anarchic groups, such as the Goths or the Huns (BTW the Huns were not a Germanic people, even though early 20th century British propaganda likes to say so). Though they were also decisively stopped by the Parthians. Who were very organized. Ah well. <cite> While Rome was still leaving its unwanted babies to die on rubbish dumps - a perfectly acceptable form of family planning to this "civilisation" - and keeping women as chattels devoid of rights, the barbarian Celts had a long-standing legal system that not only gave women what we would think of as equal rights, but also protected the rights of the elderly, children, and the disabled. They had a road network across Europe and worldwide trade long before the Romans ever got their act together. And their science - well, their astronomical calculations were so sophisticated that it takes computers to do the same stuff today. </cite> See? You even say yourself that they weren't actually anarchic. Also you're not completely right: 1. women (of most Celtic cultures, with one notable exception being the Irish) were not allowed to become druids, e.g. scientists, physicians, priests, or any other kind of academics, so they did not have equal rights. Also, as in other Indo-European systems, the family was patriarchal. 2. the roads they had were more like paths, and did not span the entirety of Europe; the old roads that are still in use are nearly all of them Roman. Had the Celtic inhabitants of Gallia or Britannia built comparable roads, why would the Romans have invested in building a new system on top? 3. world-wide? Yeah, right. They traded with those who traded with others and so were able to trade with most of southern Eurasia and northern Africa, as well as few northern parts (Balticum, Rus), but that's (surprise) not the whole world. 4. most people use computers for those calculations you mention because its easier. It's not necessary. I can do those calculations - give me some time to study astronomy (I'm a math major, not physics) and some pencils and paper. 5. and - I nearly forgot - the kids didn't die. That was a polite fiction. The harsh truth is that most Roman slaves were Romans... <cite> So - not barbarians. Just a threat to the empire, a culture that wouldn't let the Pax Romana roll over it without a fight. (Except the French tribes, who did roll over, and were regarded by the Germanic Celts [...]) </cite> WTF Germanic Celts? What are you smoking, woman? Isn't it enough that you put every culture speaking a language from the Celtic family in one pot and act as if they were one people, now you have to mix in a different language-family as well? Shall we continue that trend? What about the Mongolian Celts, are they, too, proof that the Celts were badass warriors? I think at this point I just lost all leftover trust in your so-called knowledge. <cite> [...] as being as bad as the Romans. Suck on that, Asterix... </cite> Asterix was definitely a Celt, and unlike the British Celts, he was not a citizen of the Roman Empire.

<cite> Broad brush-stroke time; Celts were not a centralized society but more a network of townships and tribes, a loose alliance of clans who had their own internal spats, but when faced with some uppity outsider would come together to drive off the common threat. </cite> They might have tried, but they didn't. The first and only time a Celtic people really managed to drive off some uppity outsider would be 1922 following the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921*. The fact that France, Spain, Portugal speak Romance languages and the British (or Irish) Isles nearly uniformly speak English should be proof enough.

*Unless you count Asterix. <cite> You couldn't defeat them by cutting off the head. There was no head to cut off. </cite> You mean unlike Boudica and Vercingetorix. Oh wait. Tacitus, in his Annals, said that Boudica's last fight cost 80,000 Britons and 400 Romans their lives. He was probably exaggerating. But it definitely stopped much of the British resistance in its tracks. <cite> To the centralized, formal, rather bureaucratic Romans, for whom the city of Rome was the focus of the whole empire, this was a big does-not-compute. The Celts were everything they didn't understand. And we fear what we don't understand, and we kill what we fear. </cite> While that is totally true, it's also completely off the mark. The Romans demonized the druids, not every Celt, and they were afraid of what was basically an academic network. That had nothing to do with war. <cite> Anyway, Mandos....once I took a single concept - in this case, the idea of clans that operated on a loose alliance system, like the Celts - the rest grew organically. I didn't plan it out in detail from the start. </cite> That's really obvious. Maybe looking at some numbers and remembering that you weren't planning a small, local, rural, medieval community would have helped, too. I mean lets have a look at, say, Scotland (since you specifically mentioned the Picts): they still have less than 6 mio. people all together, and that's today. Mandalore is a sector. A sector of Outer Space with at least 2000 inhabited planets. How do you think that translates? It doesn't. <cite> I just asked myself what a culture of nomadic warriors would value, how they would need to operate to survive, and it all grew inexorably by logical steps. The fact that Mandos ended up as very much like the Celts is proof that the technique of evolving a character or species - find the niche, then work out what fits it - works every time. It creates something very realistic, because that's how real people and real societies develop. </cite> Celtic people were usually not nomadic! And, once again, non of them were predominantly warriors! It's really hard to be a nomadic farmer. I believe the biggest mistake you made, Ms Traviss, is mixing up the Iron Age (and earlier) tribes that did indeed sack Rome and parts of Greece, and that one day would become the people the Romans conquered. And apart from the Picts they really were conquered. <cite> So all I can say about Mandos and Spartans is that the average Mando would probably tell a Spartan to go and put some clothes on, and stop looking like such a big jessie. </cite>

I'd really like to see a Mando – or anyone – wearing full plate without modern or Star Wars technology in Greece. Happy heatstroke. There is a reason they didn't wear a lot (look up the Battle of Hattîn, where crusaders who didn't wear full helmets and wore chainmail* still suffered badly from heat exhaustion). [Nicolle, David (1993), Hattin 1187: Saladin's Greatest Victory] *chainmail apparently can work like a heatsink CONCLUSION You're wrong. And I felt offended by your FAQ answers. QUESTION You're English. You're from England. A group - a nation - that was historically so warlike and so successful that by now we all speak English. A nation that definitely kicked arse against any Celtic nation trying to go against them (until 1921, and they really tried anyway). A nation that had arguably the largest Empire in history. A nation that still is barbaric and warlike enough that a lost football game has people honestly fearing for their lives.

Also, a Germanic group, since you seem to have trouble keeping language-families and cultures apart. If we were to talk about the family, we could add on the current most aggressively attacking nation (USA) plus the former most aggressively attacking nations (the second and third German Reich), also the people who killed off the Roman Empire for good (the Goths and Visigoth), the original berserkers (the Vikings) and claim at the very least the start of BOTH WORLD WARS. Why did you look further?

Some other sources:

Histoire de la vie privée by Georges Duby and Philippe Ariès, the first book (about the antiquity) I read it translated, my French is ... bad to non-existent

The Day of the Barbarians: The Battle That Led to the Fall of the Roman Empire (about the Huns) by Alessandro Barbero

If you speak Dutch or German, you might try

Helmut Birkhan: Kelten. Versuch einer Gesamtdarstellung ihrer Kultur, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien

Janssens, Ugo, De Oude Belgen. Geschiedenis, leefgewoontes, mythe en werkelijkheid van de Keltische stammen. Uitgeverij The House of Books

DISCLAIMER

I’m angry and I wrote this down in one session and thus probably made some mistakes. I’m sorry. Or maybe I’m not sorry. I’m still angry. She can’t know who reads her FAQ and at least two of her answers (on her professional website) were offensive to the reader.

#history #england #scotland #ancient celts #roman empire #mandalorians #sparta #proud warrior race #shitty research #rant #me ranting #fuck this #karen traviss

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danteinthedevildom · 4 years ago

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So, talkin abt multilingual Mams,

I was gonna make this post anyway but then I saw @cheerypining put this in the tags of my post re: Mams’ English in his character song:

I would like to hollar out a hell yes!

The thing with Mams is that he isn’t stupid. He’s smart as fuck, he’s just motivated by self interest and fixation. It’s easier for him to learn things that are of interest to him, or that expand his interests. He’s got that sweet, sweet ADD brain.

So, if language helps him spread out his influence, make money, expand his contacts? It’s gonna be that lil bit easier for him to figure out. It might even be a fixation of his. Learn a language; open opportunities in the place that language hails from. Gain an interest in how language works. Learn other languages bc it’s fun.

Consider, then, if you will, for some of that tastey lore-building,

Mams starting out learning the languages of the most influencial/opulent human powers. It’s beneficial for him to figure out how to speak their language if he really wants to get at their pockets, and you can’t really smooth talk someone if you barely understand the way their haggling works. How is anyone going to trust you if their idioms go over your head, or if you miss some slang that marks you very starkly as an outsider? It’s a lot easier if they think you’re like them; if you know the little things that’ll get them lowering their guard around you.

He’s great with dialects, too. With differences between the upper and lower classes. It only takes one slip-up using court language around the common folk, or using the dialet of the north in the south, for him to recognise how important those divisions are. He works with trust, and the eventual corruption of that trust, and it becomes pretty clear to him pretty quick that trust can only be attained the more like his target he sounds.

Dead languages still live on in Mammon’s brain. He’s fluent in them, and even though he hasn’t really had to use them in some time, for some reason they’ve just never faded away. You can pretty much use him as a way to track how languages changed over time, how regional variants were influenced by other languages or cultures, when various languages died out and what replaced them.

It’s not something that he really thinks about. It was beneficial for him, so he learnt it. Beyond that, it was fun, and he enjoyed it. He doesn’t really give himself credit for just how much linguistic history he has stored inside his head, and he really doesn’t put much credit into how goddamn useful it is - or would be - for modern historians. That’s not what he’s interested in. He’s content to leave Satan to the books, to the past; he’s got more of a propensity for the practicality, anyway.

Listening to him talk is actually pretty astounding. The ease with which he slips into each language, the depth of his understanding for even the slight nuances between regions, makes him seem like a native speaker. The speed, too, is absolutely stunning; you’ve never seen a more baffling sight than Mammon, speaking mild-mannered in Russian to a witch, switching mid-sentence into heavily-flirtatious French to order from the waitress that came to their table. It’s like he doesn’t even stumble between the two, both as natural to him as breathing.

He has his preferences, of course. When he’s not using the language for his own goals - doesn’t need to, for instance, be careful about his word choice to ensure a bond of trust is made - he quickly slips into a dialect that is most comfortable for him. He might use ‘watashi’ or ‘ore’ when he’s on the job, might tack on the ‘gozaimasu’ to his greetings to make them polite, but when he’s just generally speaking Japanese? That’s when he starts using ‘ore-sama’, when he drops all the humble or stilted phrases; uses ‘ja ne’ instead of ‘sayounara'. That’s when, in English, he stops making sure to enunciate fully; starts shortening ‘you’ to ‘ya’, cuts off the ‘g’ from ‘ing’ words, starts peppering in ‘crap’ instead of ‘stuff’, lets his words slur together to make ‘whaddaya’ out of ‘what are you’.

He’s naturally an informal guy! It’s just the way he prefers to talk. He hates the pompous lingo, even if it’s usually the most beneficial to learn for what he does. If the language he’s speaking has a way to show belligerent informality, he will absolutely use it whenever he can. It’s a choice, make no mistake; he can arguably speak better in most languages than the stupid high academics. He just doesn’t enjoy that crap when it’s not immediately useful to him.

(Yes, that does mean he can comprehend even the most pompously written academic papers. No, that doesn’t mean he wants to read them. He would much sooner stab a fork into his giblets than sit down for any period of time and read that wordy bullshit. Same goes for a lot of Satan’s literature; it’s just not enjoyable for him to read, even if he can perfectly understand it.)

Sometimes a word works better in one language than another. It can get extremely frustrating for him, if he has a very specific point to get across; unless someone knows both languages, they’re never going to fully understand. And why use five words in the inefficient language when one in the efficient language would have been even better for his intent? ‘Fernweh’ works much better than ‘imagine being homesick for a place you’ve never been’, after all.

Mams has a tendency to drop in words he likes from other languages, which makes some of his speech sound a little confusing. He doesn’t think it makes him sound smarter, and he’s not doing it to show off; just, sometimes, he thinks ‘hey’ sounds better than ‘ohayou’, or that ‘ciao’ is cooler and more aloof than ‘au revoir’. Plus, it’s kinda funny when you’re talking to someone Lucifer and you insult them in a language they don’t understand.

(I mean, in English, we literally say stuff like “it has a little je ne sais quoi,” [it has a little something that I can’t adequately express] so we merge languages into our own in order to better express ourselves. Mams does the same. He just does it with words and phrases that aren’t always naturally used together within that language.)

Do you understand the amount of skill that comes with being able to do this without even stopping to think? He somehow manages to do it in a way that makes each sentence still perfectly fluent and understandable in translation. It’s a little incredible, actually, considering he doesn’t put any stock into this ability. It’s just natural for him. Why’s he gotta think on it more than that?

(This does mean, the few times someone points it out, that he gets incredibly flustered. Especially if they say it in awe, or in praise. It really is just second nature to him, not even something he’s putting on for show or something that he’s trying to be good at, so being given so much positive attention for it is... well. It’s surprising, and a little nice, actually. But also genuinely embarrasing. It’s perhaps the only time he’ll struggle to find words in any language.)

In conclusion:

Hell yeah I love reinforcin the idea that Mams ain’t stupid and that there’s a lot of goddamn skill that comes with learnin languages and learnin them to such a degree you can accurately pepper their words into your speech without stoppin to think.

#obey me #obey me headcanons #obey me hc #obey me mammon

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all-things-are-nothing-to-me · 3 years ago

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Words of the Wasteland Against a Plastic Language

Speech is a spell, and words, once ejected into the air, warp the weave of worlds.

–Ho Tzu Nyen.

Language is world-warping, world-making. This is an old understanding of the weight of a word. Mythology, folklore, origin stories across the world tell of the power of the word, of how speaking words can birth the world and its occupants. Language is powerful. Words paint the world with color, culture, history, and context. It is through language and through words that people interpret their worlds.

As we accept and acknowledge the world warping ways of language, we would do well to expose those places in which those with power wield language gatedly—inaccessible in a selective way. These places, these worlds are woven for only a select few to know and understand, and when these places critically affect, mutilate, and yet generally exclude our world, that we must pay close attention, and ask: Why is this so? How does this continue to be? And, what can be done?

Today, in many ways, it is the language of science that wants to paint our perspective of the world. It likes to tell us who we are, why we are here, and what might happen next. But it also conceals much from us. Scientific language can be impenetrable and inaccessible to a general public, and this inaccessibility can be traced back to the foundational birthing of modern science. Some of the earliest scientific institutions, for example (circa 1560-1700) shared scientific findings using highly technical vocabulary—a shared language among scientists of the day, but to anyone else, incomprehensible[1]. This exclusionary language served as an early form of scientific jargon, which created a dissonance between scientist and layperson that was often intentional. Aside from this scientific jargon, Latin was the original language of science. Botanist Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778) is widely known for carving up the world he observed around him using Binomial Nomenclature, which gave animals and plants specific Latin names. Scientists also published in Latin. At a glance, this use of Latin appears to be a way to write about science objectively. Latin was a dead language. There was no one and no culture alive to claim Latin as their own tongue. Because Latin belonged to no one, it could theoretically belong to everyone equally. However, this only makes sense if Latin were understood equally by everyone. Instead, it was only the colleges and schools that taught Latin, meaning that the uneducated masses would largely not be able to understand anything written in this tongue. Historian George Sarton notes that Latin “was the esoteric language used to prevent the dissemination of learning to people who were deemed unworthy of it, or who might make a bad use of it”[2]. Giambattista Dealla Porta, who created one of the earlier and more experimental institutions of science in the 1560s, “wrote in Latin, and not for the people”[3]. Francis Bacon, the first philosopher of modern science and the father of empiricism, may have insisted that the study of science was to better mankind, yet his agenda would also appear to have included using science to reinforce the dominance and power of elites. He is quoted as saying, “I do not like the word People” whom he regarded as “the commonality” or “the meaner sort”[4]. Among many of the scientific elite, there was distrust of uneducated people, and a desire to keep them in the dark from scientific pursuits.

Today, we can find contemporary examples of this foundational inaccessibility of science when we consider the academic journals and articles that are only accessible to students or academics, or those who pay for membership and access.

It is truly the word of science that now dominates our language and that paints our world. Lexicographers have found science and technology to be responsible for nearly half of the new words added to the English language in the 20th century. A linguistic study reveals that 45% of new words created between 1960 and 1985 were born on behalf of science and technology[5]. When scientists write about their findings, they create highly specific new words that will be almost exclusively used only by those of specific disciplines—scientific jargon.

Outside of compartmentalized disciplines, and for everyone else, this jargon confuses. It distracts. It complicates and frustrates. It serves to subtly reinforce the specialization of divided labor. This compartmentalization of language says to us, “Leave it to the experts”. It makes the discourse of science largely inaccessible, and therefore unassailable, because readers struggle to grasp concepts when they are several layers removed—abstracted—from their original context. Such barriers to understanding are measurable. It is estimated that in general academic texts, there is 5% jargon, 80% high frequency or commonly used familiar words and somewhere between 8-10% academic vocabulary. In scientific academic texts, however, jargon is around 22%. When the Flesch Reading Ease (FRE) test—a test which measures a text’s readability from 0 (unreadable) to 100 (understandable)—was applied to Summaries for Policymakers from The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the document scored below 20, a dishearteningly low score for an organization that is chiefly charged with the task of monitoring research in global climate change and effectively sharing that information with the general public[6].

Concepts rendered in unfamiliar, idiosyncratic grammar and syntax becomes, in effect, a foreign language—unreadable and unspeakable by those for whom the language nonetheless bears upon. This creates a form of illiteracy that defends science against comprehension, contestation, and resistance.

Creating new words is a fundamental component of language that keeps it alive and relevant as our values, beliefs, and ways of communicating with one another and within the world that shifts and changes around us. However, scientific jargon is dehumanizing in its abstraction. It diminishes the scientist’s ability to communicate appropriately and effectively with other people. There are times when this gap in understanding can have distressing consequences. For example, when a genetic counselor discusses with a pregnant woman the risks that her unborn child may pose, there is a tangible, if not provable dissonance between the words and concepts that need to be relayed to the pregnant woman and her own understanding of her baby. Silya Samerski relays such a scene in which a genetic counselor seeks to advise a pregnant woman:

1. The geneticist talks to a laywoman. He has to spell out his knowledge in such a way that normal people can follow him. To do so, he has to find everyday words for notions like chromosomal aberration, DNA-mutation and probability model.

2. Once talked to, the client is urged to make a decision. This decision is, in some way, a decision about life and death, about delivering a child or terminating a pregnancy. Facing the counselor’s genetic mumbo jumbo the client inevitably asks herself: What does all this say about me? What does all this mean to me? Genetic counseling is a glaring example of the clash between scientific concepts and everyday meaning (Samerski, 2002, p. 6).

This is an example of a delicate situation in which both parties would greatly benefit from sensitivity to and skillfulness in translating between specialized jargon and the ordinary vernaculars of lay people. We can see here how the “mumbo jumbo” of jargon aggravates confusion, dissonance, and distance between the pregnant woman and the genetic counselor.

Intentional, objective abstraction from human emotion and bias carried into this sort of situation is emotionally devastating. To the would-be mother, her could-be child has been transformed before her very eyes into a frightening, dangerous risk. Dehumanizing, indeed. But it is not only dehumanizing, it is also disempowering. In this case, the mother is rendered powerless at the hands of the genetic counselor—her knowledge of her body, her womb, and her baby is inconsequential next to the knowledge of the scientific expert: The Genetic Counselor.

While a certain technicality of scientific language may be inevitable, a censored, inaccessible, and disempowering dissemination of information is not.

Science plays host to another class of inaccessible terms, which, compared to scientific jargon, are largely unknown and unrecognized for what they are. In 1988, linguist and philosopher Uwe Poerksen wrote a book called Plastic Words: The Tyranny of a Modular Language which discusses ‘plastic words’, named for their plasticity and malleability. Plastic words stem from the vernacular, migrate into scientific discourse, and then return to the common tongue[7]. In this migration, meaning is lost, but in the absence of meaning, these words bear a new and more dangerous burden: a hollow, powerful aura evoking a sense of correctness that invites a breathless silence. Poerksen’s plastic words are imprecise and vague, often interchangeable. For example, “communication” can be used to describe many different things: a person talking to another person, a cat meowing, a smartphone receiving data from a satellite, etc. More specifically descriptive and contextualized terms, like talk, meow, or transmit data are eschewed in favor of a generalizing, less communicative term: communication.

Here are Uwe Poerksen’s plastic words:

accomplishment, basic needs, capitalization, care, center, communication, consumption, contact, decision, development, education, energy, exchange, factor, function, future, growth, health, identity, information, living standard, management, modernization, model, partner, planning, problem, process, production, productivity, progress, project, quality, raw material, relationship, resource, role, service, sexuality, solution, strategy, structure, substance, system, value, work, workplace[8].

Sound familiar? I’m certain they do. But what do these words mean? Resources—be they plant, animal, or mineral? Are they human (resources) or natural (resources)? Are they growing or shrinking? Are we supposed to put money into them, or are they our money, already?

Let’s take the plastic word “management” and unpack it in more depth to illustrate the ingenious and nefarious characteristics of these sorts of words. Management is a marriage of the prefix manage and the suffix ment. Manage originally comes from the Italian maneggiare, from mano which meant hand, and which comes from the Latin manus. Maneggiare, when used in the mid-16th century, originally meant: to handle, specifically, to handle or train a horse. Related is the Spanish manejar, meaning to use or manipulate. Other early uses of the word management implied manipulation or trickery[9]. Today, the meaning of management is up for interpretation. The management of workers is a role that can be hard to understand, and is far removed from these original definitions. A manager’s job description will very rarely include the handling of horses, and while manipulative managers are certainly not unheard of, most managers will assure you that such practices are as far from their list of duties as horse training and handling are. In the ecological realm of invasive species management, management more often than not refers to the massacre of certain plant or animal species. However, several usages are not so clear. In Executive Order 13751: Safeguarding the Nation from the Impacts of Invasive Species, a Management Plan is revealed, but this plan encompasses many different ideas, including:

(1) provide institutional leadership and priority setting; (2) achieve effective interagency coordination and cost-efficiency; (3) raise awareness and motivate action, including through the promotion of appropriate transparency, community-level consultation, and stakeholder outreach concerning the benefits and risks to human, animal, or plant health when controlling or eradicating an invasive species; (4) remove institutional and policy barriers; (5) assess and strengthen capacities; and (6) foster scientific, technical, and programmatic innovation[10].

While some ideas of what management refers to in this context can be discerned through the haze (ie: control of, minimization of, eradication of, education of, etc), when we reach to grasp for a concrete meaning, it is as if the word jumps away to signify something else altogether. It serves as a placeholder for whatever the management will be at any moment. We see also in these soundbites a handful of other plastic words (plan, information, health, etc) with obscure intonations that contribute to a generally vague intention for invasive species management.

Further, one need only look into another sub-discipline of science to be made clearly aware that management (as like any other plastic word) is a master of disguise, with multiple diverse personalities. In the realm of economics, for example, management will rarely, if ever, refer to eradication or minimization. We can see different implications for the word management in the Federal Trade Commission Draft Strategic Plan:

Major Management Priorities and Objectives: The FTC’s management objectives are incorporated into Strategic Goal 3, Advance the FTC’s performance through excellence in managing resources, human capital, and information technology. This Strategic Plan addresses priorities in areas of human capital management, information technology management and planning, financial and acquisition management, staff emergency preparedness, records management and ethics[11].

Here, the meaning of manage or management generally refers to stimulation, advancement, and encouraged growth, rather than minimization or eradication. In this comparison, these meanings of management contradict each other, deflating each antonymic meaning.

So, from these two examples, what could we conclude for a definition of management? Here, management means: More money; less plants.

Plastic words are siblings of scientific jargon, but not twins. Adoptees of science, they carry a weighted power of science, but are in fact weightless in meaning and signification. Weightlessly, they can be easily transported across radically different concepts, realms, or disciplines, and still promenade a sense of scientific power. Therefore, they neatly bridge the pseudo-objective world of science with the everyday, but they do so covertly and discreetly. They are single words with countless applications, eradicating or making obsolete their kindred synonym words or phrases. They erase history and context, because they replace more precise and accurate explanation with a solitary empty word—collapsing vast histories into definitive words. The way the words feel and sound, and the power they radiate are far more important than anything they might mean or suggest. This species of language, bloated with scientific authority, is yet hollow. Their effect is a camouflaged confusion; these words sound familiar, but can be so varied in meaning from context to context, that one cannot truly know what these words will mean at any given time. Because they lack consistent meaning, and are simultaneously used by experts or officials to describe, they make it so that one relies upon those experts in power to know and understand what is being said. They serve to evoke the taste of power rather than to clarify or explain.

Plastic words simplify, reduce, and homogenize language, decreasing its precision and contextual efficacy. These words have intruded into the common tongue, but do differ from that vernacular lexicon. While vernacular words similarly can have obscure, difficult-to-grasp meanings, the context surrounding any vernacular word will ground it. Plastic words can be slung repeatedly in a single context, and have varied meanings throughout.

What these plastic words mean is everything and nothing at the same time. What they mean is science. They mean authority. They mean good. They mean believe this. Using these words is to seem smart, elite, powerful, and correct. These words generate silence among recipients of the message—they do not offer room for contestation, conversation, disagreement, or alternatives, as they are all encompassing in their vapidity. The audience to this plastic tongue can do nothing but receive, absorb, and obey. Already alarmed by this silencing tendency of bureaucratic language in 1966, Situationist Mustapha Khayati describes, “[…] people no longer even need to talk to each other: their first duty is to play their role as receivers in the network of informationist communication to which the whole society is reduced, receivers of orders they must carry out”[12]. This silence is a symptom of industrial language that is certainly not new, and things have only gotten worse.

In sum, plastic words are a species of tyrannical and omnipresent vocabulary that serve to establish a disguised discord between speaker, intention, and audience.

Development, for example, is a plastic word, and it bleeds easily into many disciplines, contexts, and realms. In psychology, there are step-by-step levels a parent is supposed to track to ensure that their child achieves the reassuring status of normal child development. A fetus physically develops in similar step-by-step levels. Building a building of apartment complexes is also considered development. Film develops. We can know and recognize the truth in these definitions. Development is the movement, growth, or act of becoming something bigger, better, something desirable. And yet, the original definition of develop comes from the French developer circa the 12th century, and it means: “to free (a person from something), to unwrap (something), to unfurl, open out (something)”[13]. Language itself is an amorphous entity. Like a river, it moves and changes, and routinely rewrites its course in increments. The development of the word development from its 12th century meaning to a modern understanding of the term itself is not to be scrutinized or critiqued, at least not by me. What makes this word, and all plastic words, so treacherous is their camouflage, and their chameleon application.

Development has many definitions, but above all it has a taste of something good that is becoming, for the general public or the casual observer. When something develops, we are made to believe it becomes better, more valuable, more usable. But this generally positive understanding of development neglects a darker history, a darker truth behind the word. We would do well to remember to ask: What is the fate of the un-developed, the under-developed?

On January 20th, 1945, Harry S. Truman created the word “underdeveloped” when referring to certain areas that make up more than half the world in his inaugural presidential speech[14]. In this seminal instant, a new way of seeing the world was born: the world’s population was set suddenly on course towards the ultimate goal of becoming developed. Today, under the banner of development, the United States legitimizes invasion and intervention of other countries and cultures under the guise, the euphemism, of development. For an example, we can refer to George W. Bush’s military campaign of Operation Iraqi Freedom, which deployed “some 140,000 U.S. troops deployed in Iraq, in addition to civilian experts and U.S. contractors, who provide substantial support to their Iraqi counterparts in the fields of security, governance, and development”[15]. Total number of Iraqi civilian deaths by violence from the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom through 2020 is 184,776 – 207,645[16]. As Poerksen writes: “With a word such as development, one can ruin an entire region”[17]. With a word such as development, the United States continues its massacre.

Their vernacular origins would seem to make plastic words the inverse of scientific jargon. Scientific jargon emerges from scientific language and rarely mingles with the vernacular, whereas plastic words emerge from the vernacular and comfortably infect both the vernacular and scientific tongue. Plastic words are general and vague, while scientific jargon is highly technical and specific. Terms in scientific jargon retain their meanings consistently in their context, while plastic words are malleable, morphable, and, well, plastic. However, while they appear dichotomous in these respects, their exclusionary effects are similar. They both abstract and distance. Plastic words and scientific jargon both describe terms that are hard to translate broadly and meaningfully. However, when we hear scientific jargon, we do not presume to understand it unless we are well oriented in the sub-discipline of that brand of scientific jargon. Compared to scientific jargon, plastic words are a much trickier lexicon, largely because of their widespread use. We tend to think we know what plastic words mean. They hide in plain sight. Plastic words act as the abstracting language of that which rules the world. Scientific language is made intelligible by both a scientific technical tongue of jargon, whose history is steeped in intentional obfuscation, and these imprecise, interchangeable, progressive plastic words.

Plastic words are an amorphous chameleon zombie language, promenading a promise of something that is correct. They are the writing on the walls of the tower of Babel, the language of the leviathan, and the native tongue of the machine. But they are not only omnipresent gibberish. Plastic words also serve as industrial capitalism’s armor, and are used to justify almost any action, even as it results in the abuse of people and planet.

Different languages offer alternative ways of seeing the world. There is a vast system of meaning, interpreting, and perceiving that exist uniquely within each culture and language. Each distinct language gives a wholly unique perspective. As we have already touched upon, historically Latin was the preferred language of science. Today, English is the dominant tongue by which the story of science is told. English is so common in other countries that academic papers written in English will largely outnumber academic papers written in other country’s own languages. A Research Trends study from 2012 has found that 80% of over 21,000 articles coming from 239 different countries were written in English[18]. Today, not only is there less room for other languages in the sciences, but also they are fading away, dying off altogether. They are going extinct. There are approximately 6500 languages spoken today, but most are tucked away in little distant corners of the world. About 2,000 of extant languages are spoken by less than 1,000 people. It is believed that within one hundred or two hundred years, global language count will decrease to just a few hundred[19]. Can it be determined that the English language dominates and colonizes, as it sweeps across the world? Poerksen tells us that “Five languages cover almost half the earth, a hundred languages almost all of it. The universalist orientation to the nation state destroys the diversity of living languages. But even these triumphant languages are not the peak of the linguistic pyramid”[20]. It is not just English sitting atop this linguistic pyramid, Poerksen warns us. “The peak is comprised of that small and spreading international vocabulary of a hundred, or fifty, or fifteen words…”[21]. He is speaking, of course, of the tyrannical plastic words, the lexicon of industrial civilization which sit atop, dominate, and infect languages, across borders and cultures[22].

Industrial civilization seeks to replace the myriad tongues and words of the world with one globalized machine language that says “I am”. A machine language that says nothing and means everything. Wiping out other words, other cultures, making them obsolete under the banner of development allows but a single narrative of development to flourish. The road to scientific knowledge is littered with wide-eyed corpses—other ways of seeing. This machine language would have us synonymize an indigenous way of knowing with obsolete belief systems in order to negate and destroy the ontological competition. And in this, we are made to forget that the knowledge of industrial civilization was itself born from a “local system, with its social basis in a particular culture, class and gender. It is not universal in an epistemological sense. It is merely the globalized version of a very local and parochial tradition” [23]. It is this misappropriation of knowledge whereby we are made to believe this globalized western thinking is, has been, and always will be universal. But let us remember, it has not been, and will not remain!

Scientific knowledge replaces the names of places, plants, and animals with GPS coordinates, nonsense abbreviations, and dead Latin words. Global capital puts forward words like sustainable development, and scientific progress as it genocides the language of the indigenous community, as well as its people.

It is out of an elitist desire for hegemony that scientific language was born. Its origins and foundations sought to exclude the commonality, and the commonality is, as it has always been, left vaguely wondering: What is it that is being said here? What is it that is being done?

But these are not the questions that we should asking. The questions we should be asking are, and have always been: Why is this so? How does this continue to be? And, what else can be done?

We have touched on and tasted the answers to why this is so, and how this continues to be. What remains is what can be done.

What can be done?

In the end, this is a problem of culture. Unlike jargon, these words are not exclusive to the scientists. Plastic language is not just another tool for the geneticists, the chemists, the ecologists, the biologists. The plastic tongue is rooted in the mouths of politicians, of lawyers, of journalists, of teachers, of students, of baristas, and retail workers, and nannies, and dish washers. Of children and of adults. These words are perilous, omnipresent, and they are often found even on the tip of your own tongue.

To discourse, argue, or converse in these terms is to concede to something you may not be consciously conceding to. When there is concern over normal and abnormal sexuality, we concede that our bodies must have a sexuality. When we debate about what is good or bad development, we concede to the development of the world. When we explore good or bad management techniques, we concede to be managed. When we talk about dignified or undignified work, we concede that we have to work. Plastic words are logical fallacies, tautological linguistic riddles with a lost beginning and no end in sight. They do not invite an answer, because they are the answer.

These words are the ontology of industrial society which paint a picture of the world that is to be stripped of its natural resources, to be dominated by human beings and by poison, and to project us into a technocratic and capitalist hellscape of an armored, onward, forward barreling progressive development, one that is commonly referred to as universally desirable economic growth. This lexicon paints a picture of the world that seeks to carve us into digestible, interpretable data, that wants to police our bodies, our minds, and our spirit.

These words are the names of concepts not to be questioned, but to be categorized, compartmentalized, studied, and praised, and when these words so smoothly slip off our tongues, we are made to play our part in a linguistic concession of these ideals of industrial civilization. The world we are made to see is painted by these words. At every level, these words and what they stand for are taken for granted as how the world really is. When something is this unquestionable, it becomes a cultural truth.

What can be done?

This essay offers the preliminary tear into the veils of this dead machine language that massacres us and renders us blind and subject. This essay isn’t an answer, but it should serve to remind us that this is a linguistic pandemic. The language it uses, the narratives it speaks to us, and the world these words weave is surreptitiously infectious, and is an illness that we would do well to heal from. This essay reminds us that these words paint just a single picture, weave just a single world, tell just a single story that is but one way of seeing, and it is a way that is false, forged, and temporary. This is the lexicon of industrial civilization’s story, a story of its own importance and infallibility. And this is a story that can be rewritten.

What can be done?

We can challenge that story of industrial capitalism, and we can challenge its favorite words, cast them aside, contest their incontestability. To challenge that story is to begin to rewrite it.

What can be done?

What we can do is begin to ask other questions. We can ask: What other words are possible? We can ask: What other worlds are possible? What we can do, in response to these questions, is to begin to come up with answers. References Barkemeyer, R. 2016. "Jargon-Free Science". Chemistry & Industry 80 (1): 20-20. doi:10.1002/cind.801_7.x. Conners, C. (2005). A People’s History of Science. New York: Nation. Daston, L. and Galison, P. (1992). The Image of Objectivity. Representations, 0(40), pp.81-128. Dale, Catherine. 2009. Operation Iraqi Freedom: Strategies, Approaches, Results, And Issues for Congress. Ebook. https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL34387.pdf. Executive Office of the President. 2016. Safeguarding The Nation From The Impacts Of Invasive Species. Federal Trade Commission. 2018. Federal Trade Commission Strategic Plan For Fiscal Years 2018 To 2022. Gilbert, J. and Stocklmayer, S. (2013). Communication and Engagement with Science and Technology. 1st ed. New York: Routledge, p.viii-x. Huttner-Koros, A. (2015). The Hidden Bias of Science’s Universal Language: The Vast Majority of Scientific Papers Today are Published in English. What Gets Lost When Other Languages Get Left Out?. The Atlantic. "Iraq Body Count". 2020. Iraqbodycount.Org. https://www.iraqbodycount.org/database/. Knabb, Ken. 2006. Situationist International Anthology. Berkley, CA: Bureau of Public Secrets. Poerksen, U. (2004). Plastic Words (David, C. and Jutta, M. Trans.) University Park: Pennsylvania State Univ. Rakedzon, T., Segev, E., Chapnik, N., Yosef, R., & Baram-Tsabari, A. (2017). Automatic Jargon Identifier for Scientists Engaging with the Public and Science Communication Educators. PloS one, 12(8), e0181742. Rosenberg, J. (2012). Scientific Jargon. Durham: Duke University. Sachs, W. (1999). Planet Dialectics. New York: Zed Books. Shiva, V. (1993). Monocultures of the Mind: Perspectives on Biodiversity and Biotechnology. Palgrave Macmillan. Stivers, R. (2006). Technology as Magic. New York: Continuum.

#1907 #anti civ #oak journal #clare follmann #ecology

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margridarnauds · 4 years ago

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Things I Wish I Had Known About Being A Celticist (Before Becoming One):

1. If you’re North American, you’re going to have to work twice as hard to get the same level of respect as your peers from Europe. Get used to that now, because it won’t get any easier as time goes on. You’re also going to very likely be in classes with people who, while not FLUENT in Gaeilge, have at least some background in it. This can be a blessing and a curse - The curse is that you have less of an idea of what’s going on, the blessing is that the professors will focus a lot of the tougher questions on them, at least at first.

2. “So, do you have any Irish family?” You will be asked that question. All the time. If you’re North American or English. Unless you have, say, a grandma from Tipperary, the safest answer is always “No, not at all! I just love the literature/history/language/etc.”

3. Love languages? You’re going to! On average, depending on your program, it’s likely that you’ll at least be learning two languages. At enough of a level where you can get pretty in-depth when it comes to the grammar. Most Old Irish experts are expected to know Old Irish, Middle Welsh (at least enough for comparative purposes), and German, with Latin often being brought in. You’ll also be expected to be able to comment on the development of Old Irish, Middle Irish, Early Modern Irish, and Gaeilge - It’s essential if you’re going to date texts. There are also multiple other Celtic languages (Breton, Manx, Cornish, Scottish) that, while they might not be ESSENTIAL for whatever you’re doing, are still going to be cropping up at different times for comparison purposes - I’d be lying if I said I knew them WELL, and most people tend to stick fairly firmly to their area, BUT you will probably be learning at least a little of them. (Personally, no one asked me, but I honestly think that I couldn’t call myself a Celticist if I just knew one Celtic language, it’s why a longterm goal of mine is to build up as much knowledge of the others as I can.) I’ve seen quite a few scholars go in thinking that the linguistics part won’t be important, only to be slammed by the program early on. Even if you just want to do literary analysis, you’re going to have to explain the meaning and development of individual words, as well as situating it in the broader scope of the development of your language of choice. (IE “This is a ninth century text, and we know that because it has intact deponent verbs, the neuter article’s dying out, and no independent object pronoun. Also everything’s on fire because Vikings.”)

4. You’re very likely going to have to move. This applies mainly for North Americans who want to do it (unless you happen to live directly in, say, Toronto or Boston, in which case ignore what I said and, Bostonians, polish off your GREs and prepare to listen to Legally Blonde the Musical on repeat because you’re going to be applying for Harvard). There are very few Celtic Studies programs in the world and, in general, most of the major programs, sensibly, are in Celtic-speaking countries - So, if you want to study Scottish, you go to Scotland, you want Irish, you go to Ireland, Welsh in Wales, etc. If you already wanted to move to Europe for a year or two while you’re doing your MA, then great (and for EU students this doesn’t apply, since they can relocate much easier...unless they were planning on going to the UK in which case.....my condolences), but if you didn’t have any sudden plans to move, keep it in mind. From an American perspective, it was literally cheaper to move to Ireland and do my MA there than to deal with the school system here, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t other inconveniences associated with moving to another country. Even if you’re European, the field is fickle - An Irish scholar might find themselves moving to Scotland, an English scholar might find themselves moving to Ireland, etc. etc. These things happen when you have to take what you can get.

5. You don’t need Old Irish to go for your MA in Celtic Studies. You do not need Old Irish to go for your MA in Celtic Studies. When I first applied for my MA, I thought I didn’t have a chance because I had a general Humanities degree and didn’t have any formal experience with a Celtic language, least of all Old Irish. As it turns out, most programs do not expect you to have a background in this sort of thing beforehand, and quite a few have different programs for those who have a background in this stuff VS those who don’t, so don’t feel, if this is what you REALLY want to do, like you can’t just because of that. Show your passion for the field in your application, talk a little about the texts you’ve studied, angles you’re interested in, etc., make it the best application you can, and you still have a shot even without Old Irish (or, for non-Irish potential Celticists, whatever your target is.)

6. It’s competitive - Just because you get your MA, PhD programs are fewer and farer between. Academia in general isn’t known for its phenomenal job security, but Celtic Studies in particular is very fragile, since we generally are seen as low priority even among the Humanities programs (which, in general, are the first to be axed anyway.) If you focus on medieval languages as opposed to modern ones, you might very well find your program ranked lower in priority than your colleagues in the modern departments. Especially since COVID has gutted many universities’ income. I found that getting into a MA program was significantly easier than planning on what to do afterwards, since, for a PhD, you generally have to go someplace that can pay you at least some amount of money. Going into your PhD without any departmental funding is a recipe for burnout and bankruptcy, and there are very few Celtic Studies programs that can pay. Doesn’t mean you can’t try, and, when paid PhDs become available, they tend to be quite well publicized on Celtic Studies Twitter/Facebook, but keep in mind that you’ll be in a very competitive market. Networking is key - Your MA is your time to shine and get those treasured letters of rec so that you can get that sweet, sweet institutional funding for your PhD.

7. You’re very likely not actually going to teach Celtic Studies. Because there are so few teaching positions available worldwide, it’s much more likely that you’ll be teaching general Humanities/Composition/etc. This doesn’t mean that you’ll be giving up Celtic Studies (conferences are always going to be open, you don’t have to stay in one department for your entire life and can snag a position when it becomes available, and, even if you go outside of academia, the tourism industry...well, it was looking for Celticists, before The Plague), it just means that if teaching it is what you REALLY want to do with your life, it might be good to check your expectations. A few programs even have an option where you can essentially double major for the sake of job security. (So, if you always wanted to be the world’s first French Revolution historian/Celticist/Gothic Literature triple threat......................the amount of reading you’d have to do would likely drive you insane but................)

8. Make nice with your department. Make nice with your department. Celtic Studies departments tend to be small and concentrated, so you’re going to be knowing everyone quite well by the end of your first grad degree, at least. You don’t have to like everyone in it, but they aren’t just your classmates, they’re your colleagues. You will be seeing at least some of their faces for the rest of your life. I can say that my MA department remembered students who left the program a decade ago. Your department is supposed to have your back, and they can be an invaluable source of support when you need it the most, since they understand the program and what it entails better than anyone else can. You’ll need them for everything from moral support to getting you pdfs of That One Article From A Long Discontinued Journal From The 1970s. I’ve seen students who made an ass of themselves to the department - Their classmates remembered them five years later. Don’t be that guy. Have fun, go to the holiday dinners, get to know people, ask about their work, attend the “voluntary” seminars and lectures, and do not make an ass of yourself. That is how you find yourself jumping from PhD program to PhD program because your old professors “forgot” your letter of rec until the day after the deadline. Also, since your departments are small and concentrated, it’s a good idea to prepare to separate your social media for your personal stuff vs your academics as much as you can, since it won’t be too hard to track you down if people just know that you do Celtic Studies.

9. Some areas of the field are more respected than others. If you want to do work on the legal or ecclesiastical aspects, excellent. If you want to focus on the linguistic elements, excellent. If you’re here for literature.....there’s a place, though you’re going to have to make damned sure to back it up with linguistic and historical evidence. (There’s less theory for theory’s sake, though theoretical approaches are slowly gaining more acceptance.) But if you’re here for mythography or comparative approaches...there is a PLACE for you, but it’s a little dustier than the others. There are fewer programs willing to outright teach mythology, mainly because it’s seen as outdated and unorthodox, especially since the term itself in a Celtic context is controversial. Pursue it, God knows we need the support, but just...be prepared to mute a lot of your academic social media. And, really, your social media in general. And have a defense prepared ahead of time. With citations. Frankly, I think my Bitch Levels have gone up a solid 50% since getting into this area, because consistently seeing the blue checkmarks on Twitter acting like you’re not doing real work while you’re knees deep in a five volume genealogical tract tends to do that to you. If it ever seems like I go overboard with the citations when it comes to talking about the Mythological Cycle, this is why - I have to. It’s how I maintain what legitimacy I have. I’d still do it if I’d have known, but I would have appreciated the heads up. (On the plus side - It means that, in those few programs that DO teach mythology, you’re golden, because they want all the serious students they can get.)

10. If you really, really love it, it’s worth it. After all this, you’re probably wondering why anyone would sign on for this. The work’s grueling and often unrewarding, you might or might not get respect for what you do based off of where you were born and what your interests are, and you’re subject to an incredibly unpredictable job market so you might never see any material compensation for all of it. But, if you can check your expectations of becoming rich off of it, if all you REALLY want to do is chase it as far as it can go, then it’s worth it. There’s a lot of work to be done, so you don’t have to worry too much about trotting over the same thing that a dozen scholars have already done. You might get the chance to be the very first person, for example, to crack into a text that no one’s read for over a thousand years, or you might totally re-analyze something because the last person to look at it did it in the 19th century, or you might get to be the first person to look at an angle for a text or figure that no one’s considered. If finding a reference to your favorite person in a single annal from the 17th century makes you walk on air for the entire day, then you might very well be the sort of person the field needs.

#celtic studies #long post #school tw

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kirkenovak · 4 years ago

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You know what I think about a lot? And this is not a joke, I’ve been thinking about it non-stop since I watched The Old Guard.

Preservation of history.

Ok so the dichotomy in the film is: The Old Guard whose actions we reap the benefits of in the future vs the things that their bodies can do that we could benefit from now.

Well, what about the third benefit? What about the fact that these people are walking, talking reservoirs of knowledge on ancient and lost civilisations, cultures, languages? And each can provide their own unique take on these things?

Let’s take languages. According to the released extra material Andromache speaks all languages. ALL languages. How is that possible? I’ve lived in uk for 12 years, and more and more i find myself struggling when talking to my family abroad, forgetting words and phrases in my mother tongue or slipping in English equivalents without thinking about it. So how do you remember ALL languages? How is your brain wired that you retain everything you’ve ever learned and still can learn new things? And not only that, languages evolve and change and get influenced by other languages. Italian didn’t even exist as a separate language when Nicky was born, and the language he was speaking is vastly different he spoke when he was a a boy. Between the four of them (counting in Quynh) they must know hundreds of extinct languages. Imagine being a linguist and getting your hands on this type of knowledge. Imagine spending your entire academic career trying to decypher a language that no one spoke in 4000 years and then meeting someone that is fluent in it.

And the cultures? Forgotten, misinterpreted, distorted by hundreds, THOUSANDS of years of misreads, own cultural bias, mistranslations and even malicious tampering, opinions coloured by sexism, racism, homophobia, the convicion of the supremacy of your own culture. Now imagine sitting down with a frigging 7 thousands year old person who can tell you, with excruciating detail, exactly how wrong you got it.

Nicky and Joe should get their own essay? They are “only” 1000 years old but the uniqueness of their experiences alone are worth building your entire phd thesis on. Just by existing they can bitchslap the “these people weren’t lovers, it’s just how men talked back in the day” conviction out of so many historians. Joe is an artist, how much has he to say about the evolution of arts? How many famous and forgotten artists he met and interacted with over the years? I know fandom has this headcanon that him and Nicky were hanging around with every important artist ever (which I just don’t buy, btw) but we do have a canonical confirmation that they met Shakespeare - they can put to bed every stupid conspiracy theory about Shakespeare not writing his own plays with one sentence.

And don’t get me even started on their relationship with religion and sexuality.

What I’m trying to say is that their purpose might not be (just?) improving the future but about changing our relationship with the past. Maybe they aren’t warriors, maybe they are and always were, scholars.

My ultimate happy ending for them would be hundreds of historians, sociologists, linguists etc sitting down with them and writing down everything they have to say, preserving it for the future generations. We now have the technology to make it possible.

#the old guard

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mediaevalmusereads · 4 years ago

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Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past. By David Reich. New York: Pantheon Books, 2018.

Rating: 4/5 stars

Genre: non-fiction, science, genetics

Part of a Series? No.

Summary: Massive technological innovations now allow scientists to extract and analyze ancient DNA as never before, and it has become clear--in part from David Reich's own contributions to the field--that genomics is as important a means of understanding the human past as archeology, linguistics, and the written word. Now, in The New Science of the Human Past, Reich describes just how the human genome provides not only all the information that a fertilized human egg needs to develop but also contains within it the history of our species. He delineates how the Genomic Revolution and ancient DNA are transforming our understanding of our own lineage as modern humans; how genomics deconstructs the idea that there are no biologically meaningful differences among human populations (though without adherence to pernicious racist hierarchies); and how DNA studies reveal the deep history of human inequality--among different populations, between the sexes, and among individuals within a population.

***Full review under the cut.***

Content Warnings: discussions of racism and eugenics

Because this book is non-fiction, the structure of this review is going to be different from how I usually do things.

I picked up this book after it was used in a workshop on teaching Old Norse-Icelandic classes in an age of renewed interest in the mythical white past. The workshop used Reich's findings as an example of how to talk both about genetic differences between populations, and how to use scientific evidence to disprove the myth of a "pure" white race. The workshop itself was helpful, so I decided to look at the book as whole to see what else Reich had to say.

The first thing I really appreciated about this book was the way it was written. Reich makes clear that Who We Are is meant to be something of a hybrid: it's not a pop-science book, but it's not aimed solely at specialists, either. Thus, it's a good book for those who want to learn more about genetics and ancient DNA from an actual expert in the field, and I think Reich respects the reader's intelligence by including a lot of detailed, complex information about how genetic work is done. Granted, at times, some of the science went over my head, but that's due to my own limitations rather than anything Reich did wrong. Reich avoids jargon and carefully lays out what kinds of techniques his lab does and why to prove his points, and though it could be a little much, I understood and appreciated why all those things were included. If you're the type of person who wants a little more than pop science, you might find this book meets those needs.

Reich also has a genuine passion and fascination with the pursuit of knowledge, and loves being surprised by scientific findings. This passion is contagious and made me, as a reader, want to learn more and keep turning the page. I appreciated, too, that he called for scientists to work more with archaeologists and historians to avoid making elementary mistakes when interpreting data.

I also really liked the moments when Reich used science to critique racist myths from the 20th century and in the present. Reich makes clear at multiple points throughout the book that there is no such thing as a "pure" racial bloodline; all people alive today are the products of millennia of population mixture. He also stresses that though populations have genetic differences, those differences do not support white supremacist narratives.

However, I do think that Reich makes it a little to easy for people to accuse him of upholding or legitimizing some racist ideas. He spends some time in his book criticizing people who insist race is purely a social construction; in his line of work, genetic differences do exist between populations (people with African ancestry have increased risks for certain genetic diseases, people in Tibet have genetic adaptations that they benefit from, Ashkenazi Jews have increased risks of certain genetic defects, etc.), so I can understand the frustration he might feel when people insist that no significant differences exist between people of different races. However, in railing against a forced "orthodoxy," I think Reich opens himself up to unfair criticism and makes him look like he's fighting against "PC culture." Granted, he also rails against racists and makes clear that white supremacy is not only harmful, but scientifically unsound.

I also think Reich might come across as perpetuating racist ideas due to a small section in his book that outlines how genetics and cognition/intelligence are linked. Reich highlights the work currently being done in the world of genetics regarding cognition, and admits that some of this work may be misappropriated by white supremacists (or other nationalist groups). Granted, Reich also makes clear that, whatever the science says, we should be careful to shape our societies to treat everyone the same and not use genetics to deny people certain rights or opportunities. While I can get behind that sentiment, I think the turn to cognition is a little out of place in this book, and even if there is merit in having a conversation about the ethics of studying the link between cognition and genetics, I don't think Reich is the person to helm that discussion, mainly because it requires a lot of time and nuance (as in we need to account for how economics/class and other environmental or social factors play a role), and Reich doesn't devote that much time to it in this book.

Lastly, I think Reich comes across as a little insensitive to Indigenous/First Nations people. While Reich acknowledges the ways in which white/Western scientists have taken advantage of native peoples, I also think he underestimates the strength of that trauma. Given various tribes' refusal to participate in genetic research, I can, to some extent, understand Reich's professional frustration; but I also think Reich positions his field as benevolent and somewhat dismissive of tribal consent. Again, I think the topic of how to go about doing genetic research on Indigenous populations is worth having; I just don't think Reich is the one to helm it.

TL;DR: Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past is a fascinating look at the history of ancient human migration using genetics. Despite some moments when Reich struggles to overcome his own biases, this book is an honest look at the possibilities genetic research can offer, as well as a powerful refutation of racist ideas about "pure" lineages.

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pameluke · 4 years ago

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I’m here for all the fun headcanons about the most Italian to ever Italian Nicky, but I have to admit I’m personally more interested in the absolute opposite:

A Nicky who spent 30 years in the Genoan Republic, went on a Crusade and turned out to be immortal and then roamed the world for almost a thousand years with the love of his life and three other immortal companions.

(small note: I’m by no means a historian, this is mostly just my personal theorizing on what being immortal would do to one's sense of identity.)

Italy was only unified in 1861. Nicky and Joe have known Booker longer than Italy existed.

At that point, only 2.5% of Italy's population could speak the Italian standardized language properly when the nation was unified in 1861.

Yup, Booker is older than Italian.

Why on earth would Nicky feel or identify as Italian? He probably had to learn the language together with Joe and Booker.

There’s this saying that History is like traveling to a foreign country and that you can be a well-read tourist at most? I think this could be how Nicky feels about Italy. Some things are familiar, others never quite fit right again.

The most influential people in Nicky’s life are Joe, Andy, and Quynh. Joe was, in Nicky’s own words, of the people he was taught to hate. Nicky fell in love with him and obviously had to unlearn all that hate, which was a huge part of his upbringing, since he was willing to die for it far away from home. So to me, it makes sense that once he started rejecting all of that, he would become more and more distanced from the place where he grew up.

In the same vein, Andy calls herself the Scythian, when her people predated them thousands of years, and nothing remains of them. Before she met Joe and Nicky, she roamed through Europe, Asia, and Northern Africa (not sure if she ever crossed the Sahara, I’m unfamiliar with the comics).

Quynh spent a couple of hundreds of years with Joe and Nicky, bringing with her her own history and heritage.

These are the people that shaped Nicky throughout centuries, all the while Genova was evolving on its own, mostly staying independent (when it wasn’t trying to conquer the Mediterranean).

One of the reasons I love the Malta thing so much, is that because culturally and linguistically it’s very much a mix of Arabian and Italian influences, and I feel like that would feel familiar and comfortable to Nicky.

So yeah, in my mind, Nicky is a globetrotter, who loves Arabian poetry (you would too if you had Joe whispering heated stanza’s in your ears for centuries), can eat his weight in pierogi, still loves to polka dance, kicks ass at Go but sucks at Mancala, doesn’t really like soccer but loves ice hockey (it has speed, punching, and knives on ice) and he bakes a great fucking focaccia.

I mean... these people were immortal for centuries! The world is our oyster! They can all be so much more than just the place they were born! More thoughts here.

#jan by jan #headcanons #to be clear #i'm not telling anyone they're wrong or that they shouldn't have fun with the character #this is just my personal interpretation of him #at the moment #like #italy didn't have tomatoes yet when nicky was born #in a way #new jersey italians are probably closer culturally to italy than nicky #or he to them #(although most american italians have roots in the south of italy if I recall correctly)#anyway this is mostly just me rambling #but please do consider #a nicky who hasn't had a home country for over 950 years #who has no place to call home #except for the people he loves #joe andy quyng booker they are his home #also #everything i wrote here goes for the others as well #i'm just more familiar with italy as a case study #also i have very similar feelings about nicky's religion #because i'm not convinced he still is religious at all #but that's not a discussion i want to get into today #nicolo di genova #the old guard

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artificialqueens · 4 years ago

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Sanctuary (Jalaska) - Grinder

AN: Wow…been a hot minute since I posted anything to AQ. Currently working on a series but decided I should give myself a wee break and write something else. This is a songfic based on Sanctuary by Joji whom I absolutely adore. And, who knows, maybe I’ll write more Joji inspired fics and make it a collection. Anyway, I hope y'all enjoy! Stay safe!

Lots of love to all the discord people for helping me with this and, especially @artificialeevee and V. If anyone of you are thinking about joining the server, do it!

The year is 9872. And I’ve fucking had it.

The name’s Jinkx Monsoon; intergalactically tolerated American space Historian, a linguist of 3 human languages, and 4 alien languages.

Location: Space somewhere.

I have a question; Is it wrong to destroy the only housekeeper on your ship, an AI bot whose sole purpose is to clean and only clean? It’s nothing personal against the bot. It’s just…the thought of thriving as a glamorous space housewife for an hour or two is very appealing to me at this moment.

You see, life on the Sanctuary ship isn’t exactly exciting anymore.

Dumb name. The place is anything but a sanctuary. Ivy and I just call it ‘Big Debbie.’

Speaking of Ivy, she’s fallen asleep at the wheel again. Yes, this has happened before—a few times. The first time, we all had a laugh about it. The second time, we joked about how it was becoming a habit. But the third time, it was starting to kind of get on the Captain’s nerves.

The ship has been spinning in slow circles for half an hour now. Shea storms in, flicks Ivy in the ear, waking her up. I breathe a laugh out of my nostrils as Ivy rolls her eyes. The ship stops spinning and is back on course. Destination? Nowhere.

I notice how Shea looks at me now as I sit my feet up on the controls. She looks like she wants to say something. But what is there to even say? She shares my exact thought and leaves the room.

I look at Ivy as she types away on her keyboard, a bowl of yogurt in my hand, cold spoon in the other. “What are you thinking about?”

“All the fuel we’re wasting.” She puts on a fake smile, hiding her frustration.

Before I get another chance to speak, Phi Phi sits in the other pilot seat, next to me, and slaps my feet off the control panel. “Can we please avoid accidents?”

“What’s the fun in that?” I sulk. Heck, at least it would give us all something to talk about.

Who even are we anymore? And how did we get here?

Let me explain.

-_-_-_-

9869. 3 Years Ago

“Be warned, Monsoon; If you mess this up, you’re out of here.” Alyssa’s words ran circles in my head.

I resisted the urge to grab a glass of complimentary wine as I walked around the exhibition room, nodding and offering a fake smile to the attendees. The wine probably tasted like ass. These folks loved that type of stuff. I wasn’t part of their social class, not used to such tastes, so it was a hard pass on the booze. However I hoped my green emerald tea dress told them that I was one of them. Not that it would have mattered anyway. To them, I was just staff. But I knew I was so much more than that.

I was pretty good at hiding my nerves. This opportunity wasn’t given to just anyone, something I have waited on for a long time. I was to host an entire exhibition, the Universal Museum of Space History’s Lost Treasures reveal. A “One Night Only” event with a guest list of people who probably ate breakfast with a second cousin to a Royal at least once in their lives. And I couldn’t fuck it up. I couldn’t.

Before I walked into the room that night, I was just a tour guide, and in the current Century, it wasn’t as glamorous as it sounded. My manager, Alyssa insisted that we stick to the science-y feel. Instead of having an actual real live tour guide, we just used a hologram instead. And that hologram was yours truly. Groovy, right?

But this event? This meant opportunities. A possible promotion! And not to mention, I would be a part of something big. I was blessed with the task of unveiling a one of a kind artifact. No one knew where it came from. Or the real name. But they called it the Revitalization Grain. The name didn’t do it justice.

This pretty, glowy stone brought forth the growth of nature, crops, and resources. If I was a saleswoman, this is the part I’d say, “But wait! There’s more.” It had healing properties, offered a sort of hit, and even brought someone back from the dead (apparently).

Standing in that room, with all the aristocrats surrounding me, I was the only person who knew all that. The amount of digging and snooping around I had to go through to obtain this information was extensive.

Of course, not everything about the stone was known yet; where it came from, if it was life-form made or natural, or what its real name was.

I passed a Glarglaxian, and she wriggled her scaled fingers in a wave at me. I asked her how she was doing. Not that I cared. It was all about being a good hostess. But I really wanted to grab her and say, “Wait 'til you see the shit we’re about to pull out.” The excitement was getting to me.

Greeting a few others, I saw the tall woman standing in front of a floor-length window, staring out at the galaxy and sipping her wine. Damn, she looked classy in her long black mermaid dress, her blonde hair falling to her lower back. She looked human; therefore, I guessed that was what she was.

She seemed lonely, and I had to be a good little hostess and make her feel welcome. I walked up to her and cleared my throat. She turned to look at me, and I swear her eyes were black pits. She blinked, and I saw her eyes were actually just a dark brown. Maybe it was just the lighting in the place.

“I hope everything is up to a satisfactory standard for you, ma'am.” I started before spurting out a few other statements.

“Yes,” she drawled, “I’m having a ball.”

I rose on my toes and lowered to the ground again. “I can see that.”

“Well…if I could make one improvement, I would have chosen someone else for the entertainment. Someone more…electronic.” The woman said, her eyes trailing behind me.

I looked around to the other side of the room, where Cher was singing something a bit more slow and soft for her tastes. Yes, we bagged Cher for this gig. The woman was centuries old and still an absolute diva. How she hadn’t been given her own planet yet was beyond me. I think her Mom was in the crowd too.

“I couldn’t agree more with you, ma'am.” I looked back at the blonde.

“Please. Alaska will do."

Alaska…Strange choice of name. The last name of Nocturna, USA, Earth. It had been known as Nocturna for over 2000 years. Quite peculiar to choose a name like that.

"Apologies.” I smiled.

Alaska held out her glass of wine. “Here.”

I waved a dismissive hand. “Oh, I shouldn’t.”

“You can stop with the formalities, Jinkx. I can feel your anxiety."

"My anxiety?” This caught me off guard. And not to mention, “wait…how did you…?”

Alaska pointed a perfectly manicured finger to the left of my chest. I looked down. The name tag. “Oh. Of course. How silly of me."

"Weird spelling. But, other than that, I like it.” Alaska commented.

“Um, no. It’s spelled normally."

"Well, it was originally spelled without a 'k.’”

“No. It’s always had the 'k.’”

“No. The human race only started to spell it with the 'k’ when Jinkx Jenner was born back in the 49th Century.”

Alaska sipped her wine, and I was speechless. How the fuck didn’t I know that? I didn’t want to sound like one of those 'I’m an intellectual’ types. But I had dedicated a significant amount of time to learning about my origin planet’s history. Even going back to the caveman times.

Alaska ended the void of silence, offering me her wine once more. “Here. Drink up, Jinkx-y.”

My face flushed at the nickname, blinking a few times before finally accepting the drink. I took just a sip, not to appear unprofessional. As I expected, it was bitter. But I tried to hide my scowl and handed it back. Alaska’s upper lip curled up.

“Like that’s going to do anything.” She commented.

“Honestly, I’m fine. But thank you for the offer.” I beamed, putting my hands together. “Are you here alone?”

“No. I’m here with…friends.” She stretched the ’s’ sound. Her gaze traveled to a particular group of people. Looking around, I took in how attractive they all were. They all had glitter painting the side of their faces. And their lashes were long and thick, just like hers.

And dumbass me just came out with it. “God, you’re all so attractive.”

Looking back, my eyes widened. Why I had said it, I have no idea.

“Thank you.” She drawled.

“I-I…that just came out. I’m sorry.” I stammered.

“Don’t worry. We get it all the time.” Alaska stated before smiling.

I thought she was just gloating. But if I had known back then what I know now, it would have meant something else entirely.

Hours later, I was giving a speech that I must have written over 50 times before being proud of the final product. There was a red velvet curtain behind me. I was moments away from pulling a gold rope, dropping the curtain, and finally revealing the Revitalization Grain. The mixture of anxiety and excitement stirring inside was euphoric.

While I was delivering the speech, I spotted Alaska in the crowd, how eager she looked. Her friends were scattered around the room, sharing her expression. It only made me more excited.

And finally. Pulling the gold tassel, dropping the curtain, the stone was finally revealed in its glowing glory. I heard the crowd gasp in surprise. But I was too busy staring at the stone in its glass container.

And gasps turned to shrieks. This was what caught my attention.

I looked around. Alaska and her friends were holding laser guns, pointing them at the other guests. I don’t know why, but Cher started singing again. I guess maybe she was trying to calm the situation. For fuck sake.

“What the fuck??” I exclaimed as Alaska made her way towards me.

No. Towards the Revitalization Grain.

“It’s been a great night, beautiful people.” Alaska looked at the crowd once before turning and smashing her gun into the glass, smashing it to pieces. Oddly iconic.

My heart had risen to my throat as I watched her reach in and lift the stone. Where the fuck was the security?? Before I had the chance to act, the stone’s light became brighter in a matter of seconds. So bright if I hadn’t looked away, I probably would have been blinded.

I shielded my eyes, hearing the shrieks from the crowd along with Cher still singing like the legend she was. And when the light dimmed, I looked back.

And my stomach knotted.

Alaska’s hair was longer now, bigger, thicker, and practically white. Confirming that my earlier misjudgment was actually correct, her eyes were all black. Her skin shimmered as if glitter ran through her blood. And those nails, those perfectly manicured nails were longer and pointier.

She was a Celestial. Her friends were Celestials. How hadn’t I clocked this before, what with the glitter? And that also explained why I had just blurted out how fucking hot they all were. It was an effect they had on everyone they met.

“Thanks for being a great host, Jinkx-y.” She winked before approaching me. She held the stone tight as she leaned over and kissed me on the cheek.

Why hadn’t I tried to grab the stone? Because of the feeling of her lips on my skin, I swear I was high for a few seconds. I recovered only when she was walking down from my podium. A Glarglaxian charged as if ready to tackle her to the ground. But one of her buddies intervened, sending the Glarglaxian sliding across the shining floor with a single shove.

Alaska stood in a circle with her followers now. She turned and winked one more time. And just like that. With the flash of pink light, she was gone.

-_-_-_-

I called Alyssa immediately after the incident to just let her know how it went. She was mad because I called it “a small fuck up.“ She was a religious woman, so the string of curses and threats of hiring a hit man took me by surprise.

What seemed to be 5 minutes later, she was at the museum, her sugar baby boyfriend in tow. Her first question was, “where the flying fuck where the security?”

As far as I was aware, there was no security. Not one guard was in the room for the whole thing. Turns out, they were all hiding in a closet and smoking up. She fired them immediately. And there was no doubt I would be next.

Then came the talk with Government officials. It was all through holographs but still scary as shit. They were equally as disappointed to hear a group of Celestials had stolen something so powerful. They said the matter of the situation was so grave, the President would most definitely have to hear about it. Not one of the US or some other Earth country Presidents. The President of the Universe. So you could understand why they would rather not.

And instead of deciding amongst themselves what should be done next, they put that on Alyssa. But she was just the manager of a museum. How was that fair? And bless Alyssa and all, but she wasn’t very bright.

Because I couldn’t help but feel somewhat responsible, I piped up, offering to go and find the Revitalization Grain myself. They laughed at first. But upon expressing my knowledge of Celestials and being able to speak their language, they agreed. They would find more people.

And that was it. I was destined to travel the universe.

Of course, I cursed myself for even speaking up. I had never been a part of something like this. And I couldn’t just be like, "Hello, lovelies. Just letting you all know, I’ve changed my mind. Unemployment doesn’t sound that bad.” I drank two bottles of wine that night.

It took a year to prepare for the journey. And in the process, I met my team. Here, have a nice bullet point list I made a̶n̶d̶ ̶s̶l̶a̶v̶e̶d̶ ̶o̶v̶e̶r̶.̶

♡ Shea Couleé: The Captain.

♡ Sasha Velour: the First Mate and executive officer.

♡ Roy Haylock: Chief Officer of the Flight Department.

♡ Ivy Winters and Phi Phi O'Hara: Pilots.

♡ Milk, Kameron Michaels, and Bob: Engineers.

♡ Willam Belli and Courtney Act: Technicians.

♡ Me, Jinkx Monsoon, narcoleptic nerd: Linguist and Historian.

We met up a few times, different planets for each occasion. I’d say our visit to Barcelona (no, not the lovely sunny destination on Earth but the planet) was what solidified our friendships.

But for that whole year, I couldn’t get one person out of my head. And that was Alaska. I thought not much of her while we talked that night at the exhibit. But that fucking kiss on the cheek. That’s what got me. The momentary high, the way I was just frozen as she walked away, robbing us all of the stone. Whenever I remember that night, all I see is her image, like some kind of PowerPoint presentation. And Baby, I love your way plays in my head . Appropriate moment to call me a simp?

-_-_-_-

9872. Present Day

But wait. That doesn’t exactly explain how you all ended up in your current situation!

Shut up. I’m getting there. I just need a wine break.

I find myself in our kitchen. On my way there, I pass Willam and Bob playing ping pong. We went through a phase where we couldn’t decide who was the best and who got to go next. But the fun had long faded away. Same with the karaoke machine. That belongs to me. I must say, if I hadn’t volunteered for this shit, I would have belted out a song and won over an audience years ago. But without getting off-topic; the karaoke machine ain’t fun anymore.

Courtney stood there in the rec room, singing the lyrics that appeared on the screen. Her once electrifying whistle tones brought down to a somber dirge. “If you’ve been waitin’ for fallin’ in love, babe you don’t have to wait on me. 'Cause I’ve been aimin’ for heaven above but an angel ain’t what I need.”

Reaching the kitchen, I pour a glass of wine and look out the window into the far off distance. And all of a sudden, I’m reminded of Alaska, standing in that window, looking classy, sipping her wine, how the glitter on her face shimmered as she turned to look at me.

“What are you smiling at?”

Fuck, Ivy’s here too. She’s sitting on a counter in the corner, eating yogurt. I look away.

“Oh. It’s nothing.” I reply.

“I haven’t seen you smile in a long time.” Ivy points out. “Is it really just nothing.”

“It’s just…something funny from back home.” I lie.

Ivy places the bowl to the side. She’s silent momentarily before her face scrunches up, tears surfacing. For fuck’s sake, curse me and my foot in mouth disease!

I sit next to my best friend as the tears come flooding. I hold her in my arms, letting her know I’m her shoulder to cry on right now. It had been years since Earth was destroyed. But the grief was still fresh for her.

Actually, for the whole team.

I’m considered the lucky one. After all, I had no loved ones left on Earth. But my team? They had families; parents, siblings, partners, children of their own. And now, they’re gone.

How the Earth was destroyed? We tried to figure it out ourselves. But with no answers, we are just wasting away, flying around in Space on our ship. Nowhere to go. No purpose in life.

-_-_-_-

9870. 2 Years ago.

I was high-key worried that a year wasn’t enough time to prepare for this mission. And this thought hit harder upon arriving on the planet Celestia.

Although, we were expecting some sort of barrier, guards, a surprise attack. But there was nothing. Huh.

The place was pretty much just a copy of Earth, except if you took 10 hits of LSD and were pushed into a never-ending hallucinogenic trip. The blue sky was an oceanic hue, clouds glittering, pink trees everywhere like someone just scattered houses and buildings in the middle of a forest. Nearby planets were visible in the sky, the stars shining bright, and I questioned whether it was night or day.

Music pulsated through the air, all different songs playing at once from all different directions; Electronic dance music. I figured that’s why Alaska wasn’t feeling Cher the night of the exhibit.

Upon approaching, Shea quickly noticed that locals weren’t exactly acting how we thought they would. They were excited, cheering, and beckoning us to land. We did so, parking in what I guessed was a parking lot? Except there were no cars.

Exiting Big Debbie, we were distracted momentarily, watching as the Celestials ran around, hand in hand, their spirits high.

But Shea got right to it. “OK! Calm down. Where’s the Revitalization Grain?”

A Celestial approached us, like an animal ready to pounce, and Shea was ready to brawl.

“Just down the street. Take a right. You’ll see a marquee all lit up. It’s just in there. Costs to get in, though.” The Celestial explained.

The fuck? How was everyone on this planet this chilled out?

We all collectively agreed to keep our lasers hidden since they seemed harmless now. But I knew they could pack a punch. I had seen it the night of the exhibition. Better to be safe than sorry.

On the way to the marquee, we bickered over how the hell we were going to even pay. Well, Shea and Sasha mostly. Willam and Courtney were more interested in how attractive the Celestials were. couldn’t blame them.

All the while, I looked around me, hoping to see a certain someone. But then again, if she saw me here, surely she’d know something was up.

Coming to the marquee’s entry line, Sasha managed to get a peek at the front of the line. People were literally paying with anything - false eyelashes, jewelry, scales from their own flesh, fake nails, whatever they had on them.

Roy decided to stay behind, the only thing he thought that would interest them being his rose-tinted sunglasses. And he was not willing to part with them. Over much debating on what we would offer, we agreed that maybe a simple handshake, a sign of peace, would suffice.

We were right. How I wished I could just live there.

When we were in, the deja vu set in. Celestials, humans, and other alien species stood around, sipping wine and talking amongst themselves. The music wasn’t live and provided by Cher. But it played from speakers in the corners, the beats fast and fitting with the environment.

And there, on a podium in the middle of the room, was the Revitalization Grain. Its glow was brighter than the last time I had seen it. The light seemed to travel through the podium and into the ground, like veins running through a human body.

I looked around for Alaska, but she was absent. Damn.

Shea gave the command, and we withdrew our weapons. The once cheerful and friendly atmosphere was brought to a grinding halt as the people began to cower. The rest of the team reassured them everything would be fine if they just stayed put. I approached the podium and lifted the precious stone.

And with that, the light from the podium disappeared, but the stone still shone bright. This was it—time to hit the road.

Everything was going so well. We had gotten back to the ship safely. No one even bothering to attack us.

But before we could get high enough, the ship started to go through what we thought was turbulence. But of course, the Celestial’s decided now was the best time to fight. They were attacking Big Debbie in their own flying pods. There was no way we were going to make it out of the planet alive.

And so we were forced to land in hopes we could fight them off. Disembarking Big Debbie, there was indeed a face-off. My team and the Celestials stood outside; the area around us was more barren and dusty than its main city area.

We were all yelling at each other, not a single word clear enough to understand with the many voices. All I got from the exchange was that we argued they had stolen a rare artifact. They claimed it belonged to them now. It was just back and forth madness.

And then came another pod, this one bigger and more glittery.

And my heart stopped.

It was Alaska.

She exited the pod.

Oooooh, Baby I love your way.

She looked right at me as if she could sense the stone within my satchel.

I smiled shyly, “Hi, Ala- -”

“Jinkx, give me the stone.” She demanded, holding out her hand.

“Ugh…no,” I replied, clutching the satchel strap.

“Jinkx, if you don’t give me that rock…” Alaska growled as she stormed towards me. Shea tried to block her way, but with a simple wave of her hand, Shea was lifted from the ground and thrown back.

Like a dumb ass, I just screamed and took off. I abandoned my poor team, leaving them with the Celestials. But honestly, Alaska at that moment was terrifying. She really did growl. And her eyes were black pits again. Scary stuff, really.

I don’t know how long I ran for, but the sun was scorching, there was no wind or moisture in the air. I just ran and ran until I had no choice but to stop. My legs and lungs burned.

I was doubled over, hands on my knees and panting. I made a mental note to work out more, which I still haven’t done.

Looking behind me, Alaska was nowhere to be seen.

“Wh…What…?” I straightened.

A manicured hand clamped down on my shoulder, spinning me around. It was Alaska. How she had got there was beyond me.

God, she was stunning. Ooooh, Baby I lo - -

She grabbed the strap of the bag tight, which brought me out of my trance. I tugged back. “This is ridiculous! Just give it up, for crying out loud!”

“No. That stone belongs to me!”

“It belongs to the museum!”

“Jinkx, you have no idea what you’re doing!”

“I do! I’m saving my career!”

The strap snapped. And the stone flew out from the bag, flying across the rocky plain. We ran for it. Alaska was slightly faster than me. The only way I could think to reach the stone before she did was to fling myself to the ground like a penguin sliding on ice. And it must have been my lucky day because it worked.

A piece of the stone had broken off. For fuck sake!

“Jinkx. The rock. Now!” Alaska commanded.

I turned, sitting on the ground now, and pointed my laser at her. “Alaska, honey, you know I can’t do that.”

“Stupid human. You need to give me the rock right now. You don’t understand - -”

Over Alaska’s shoulder, I could see the ship in the distance, heading in our direction. Damn, I really did run far.

I bolted for a rocky hill, awaiting the ship’s arrival. And of course, Alaska followed.

“Get back here!” She yelled.

I held the stone tight, shaking my head. Backing up, I felt my stomach tighten. My heel was on the edge of nothing. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw the long drop down and gulped nervously.

“Give me the stone!"

I looked around as Alaska lunged forward. I instinctively threw myself to the side.

And I watched as she fell from the cliff.

"Alaska!” I yelled.

I watched her fall, becoming smaller and smaller.

My mind was blank. I couldn’t even comprehend what was happening. “Fuck…fuck…fuck…”

Before her body could splatter to pieces, her body moved along the plain of land, and shot high up into the sky. “She can fly? Oh…OK. Good.”

She was like a glowy blur, contrasting the oceanarium blue of the sky. A glowy blur that was getting closer and closer. “Oh…OK. That’s not good.”

I looked at Big Debbie. And then to Alaska. And then, Big Debbie. And then, Alaska. A dizzying back and forth. Who would reach me first? I hoped it wouldn’t be the latter. Death didn’t sound too lovely, after all.

“Jinkx!” I heard Ivy yell. Alaska was close, but the ship was closer. I saw Ivy standing in the doorway, hanging on for dear life.

The speed of light that was Alaska was catching up. Fuck. The ship was so close. I was so gross from all the sweat, practically feeling the heat radiating off the approaching Celestial.

And in a matter of seconds, the ship was next to me. Ivy was reaching out a hand. I grabbed it, and my skin could have peeled off from the great force of being dragged into the ship.

I hit the ground and rolled, Ivy quickly shutting the door.

We had no time to celebrate our victory. It was time to get the fuck out of Celestia and keep the stone safe.

-_-_-_-

9872. Present Day

“Yeah, but you tell that story like it’s the wildest shit.”

I snap out of my daze. Shea is in the kitchen now, pouring herself a cup of coffee. I was so involved in telling Ivy my own account of the story, I didn’t realize our Captain entered the room.

“It was the wildest shit. The way Ivy pulled me onto the ship? It was like something out of an old action movie.” I insist.

Ivy’s not upset anymore. She laughed a few times during my storytelling. Good to know I can lighten the mood for her a bit. “Did Alyssa even notice the missing piece?” Ivy asks, tucking a leg under herself.

“No,” I answer. Like I said, Alyssa wasn’t the brightest. But in returning the stone to the museum, I learned she was also one harsh mother fucker. After the long journey back, she basically said, “Thanks for the stone, Jinkx. What you did is so admirable! But also, you’re fired. And one more thing. While ya’ll were gone, the Earth was destroyed. So, good luck trying to find a new home. Bye.”

Well, not exactly word for word. But it might as well have been. Alyssa fired me for “letting the aliens steal the stone,” which was totally stupid. I wanted to sue her for unfair dismissal. But at that stage, what was the point? I just gave the stone over and accepted defeat.

“What a bitch.” Ivy shakes her head.

“I know. She sounds like one of those bitches, you know the ones who take a vacation to a poor country, come back and throw away most of their wardrobe instead of actually doing something to help.” Shea observes. She’s not far off.

“Any other questions?” I ask.

“Yeah, one more. You have a crush on Alaska.” Ivy smirks.

“… That’s not a question.”

“OK, well, 'you have a crush on Alaska.’ True or false?"

"False. Are you nuts? As if.” I lie.

“I mean…” Shea squints her eyes, “You do talk about her some type of way.”

“Well…how do you know I’m not adding to the story? To make it more exciting?” I raise my brows. That’s dumb. That’s my worst lie. I’m terrible at lying, and I know they can see right through me. But they don’t question me further, and I am thankful.

Of course, I like Alaska. What’s not to like? It wasn’t just some plot device I threw into my story for exaggeration. Actually, none of it was exaggerated. Imagine if I told you right now that Alaska didn’t even fly, and she had indeed fallen to her death, and that was the last of it. Would it be considered a sad or happy ending?

She really did fly that day. But part of the story I left out was this; when she went soaring into the sky, that motherfucking Baby, I love your way song played in my head again.

-_-_-_-

I’m in my room now. It’s only 5pm, but my all-over-the-show body clock is saying 'nap time.’ I kick off my boots and fling them into the corner. And before I can even get comfy, in comes the cleaner bot, Tallulah. She’s like a slightly bigger version of Wall-E from the Oscar-winning film Wall-E . But instead of eyes, she has a screen for a face. Therefore she only speaks in symbols. Bless her.

“Hey, girl,” I murmur, feeling a yawn come on.

“ :) ” She says. She hovers over to my tossed boots, picks them up, and carefully places them under my bed. She takes almost a full minute to make sure they are perfectly symmetrical next to each other.

“Thank you, Tallulah. That’ll do.” I say, smiling. But she isn’t leaving. She starts searching the room for something else to clean. I really really want this nap, but from past experience, there ain’t no stopping her.

I think back to earlier in the day when the dark thoughts were getting the better of me. How I thought of ways to destroy her just to live out my intergalactic space domestic fantasy. I regret that immensely. The feeling of loneliness, while being surrounded by people, can sometimes fuck with your head.

“Tallulah.” I pipe up, grabbing her attention.

“ ? ”

“We love ya, gal.”

“ :D ”

I smile and lie down on the uncomfortable bed. You get used to a mattress like this when you’ve been using it for so long.

I close my eyes, hoping sleep will come quick.

“ Hmmm, hmmm hmm, hmmm…falling in love…” God, that karaoke song that Courtney was singing is stuck in my head now.

The ship shudders, and I huff. The light above my head isn’t any help, either. I can only turn it off when Tallulah leaves the room. But I’m guessing that won’t be for another while. Think I’ll just face the wall then.

My eyes are closed for all but 2 seconds when Tallulah taps me on the arm. “Tallulah, it’s nap time.”

She taps again, and so I sigh heavily, letting her know I’m serious. I turn around. And bolt upright.

I have no fucking idea how but Tallulah has somehow found the chipped off piece of Revitalization Grain. “ 😃 ”

“Give me that.” I hold out my hand.

“ 🍬 ”

“Tallulah, that is not candy. It’s very, very precious.”

“ >:( ”

“Look. I traveled so far to get that fucking stone just to lose my goddamn job. I earned that piece.”

“ :( ”

She really isn’t going to give this up. “OK. Fine. You can have it. But, you need to take good care of it. It’s not food. It’s not a toy. And if it falls into the wrong hands, the consequences could be vital.”

“ :D ”

“Glad you’re happy, hon’.”

The ship shakes again, only more violent this time. “Jesus Christ! If we’ve flown into a storm - -”

I nearly hit the wall as the ship shakes even more aggressively.

“ 👁👄👁💧"Tallulah’s screen flashes.

"Go to your room.”

“✅”

We both leave my room, Tallulah hovering down to the left and me towards the right.

I’m jogging my way to the control room, Roy popping out of his own room. “I swear to god. Somebody better be dead.”

The ship jolts. Because we were practically power walking with confidence, we fall the fuck over, right on our faces.

I groan in pain before responding to Roy’s statement. “Jesus, ain’t that a bit much?”

Entering the control room, everyone’s on their feet, rushing around, pressing all sorts of buttons, Shea giving a lot more commands than usual.

“OK. Who’s dead?” Roy asks.

“Do you have to?” I roll my eyes. He only smirks.

“Someone’s trying to get in,” Shea explains.

“Into the ship?” I raise a brow.

“No. Into my panties. Yes, of course the ship!” Shea snaps. Can’t blame her; it was a dumb question. My bad.

I approach Ivy, looking over her shoulder at the screen.

“This is crazy. What do you think it is?” I ask.

“I don’t know. But, from all the ruckus, I’m gonna guess and say it’s huge.”

My stomach is sinking to my ass. “Fuck…”

“It’s kind of exciting, to be honest.” Ivy laughs nervously.

“Which side are we talking, ladies?” Shea cuts off our conversation.

“The South East Side, Captain.” Phi Phi answers.

There’s banging. We all look to the North West side. Not the South East.

“Wow. Whatever it is, it’s fucking fast.” Ivy says.

“Shh. Listen.” Sasha holds a hand up.

There’s scratching sounds now. It’s almost unbearable to listen to like nails on a chalkboard.

We’re all still, just listening, too afraid to speak, unsure of what to do.

“What the fuck is going on??!!” Bob bellows as he enters the room, Milk and Kameron following behind.

“Shut the fuck up,” Shea swears through a harsh whisper.

The three engineers stop dead in their tracks, unsure of what is actually going on.

The scratching has stopped.

The ship is still.

And the silence is haunting.

Even though whatever is on the other side is probably a bloodthirsty creature, craving the taste of our insides; honestly, I’m fucking pumped.

I look to everyone else, but they clearly don’t feel the same. Phi Phi’s skin is pale like she’s looking death right in the eye.

There’s still this silence. And I want to break it. “Do you think - -”

The room is illuminated, and we all collectively flinch. And that feeling of familiarity settles in.

When the light has faded enough for us to look, what I fear (or low-key hope) to happen has happened.

In the middle of the room is a figure, the light slipping away from them to reveal their long blonde messy locks, their long arms, talons for nails…Oh, God…

Their head whips around to look at us. And that stupid Baby, I love your way song plays in my head as they flip their hair over their shoulder.

“Alaska!” I gasp.

She holds up her laser gun, aiming it at us. The others aim their own weapons right back at her.

“None of you could have opened the door? Seriously??” Alaska growls.

“Yeah, because inviting in whatever was fucking with our ship wouldn’t be a stupid move or anything.” Phi Phi sneers.

Alaska stands tall. “I mean, I did fucking knock.”

“Sorry, we didn’t hear it,” Ivy replies apologetically, Shea shooting her a look.

“As if we’d let you in, though.” Shea chimes.

“How rude.” Alaska comments.

I take in her appearance, which has significantly changed since I last saw her. The once strong, tall Celestial is now frail and seems to struggle to even hold herself up. Her once luscious hair is like straw, dry, and lifeless. And the glitter in her skin. It’s gone.

“Why are you even here?” Sasha demands.

“To take back what is mine.” Alaska pants. “Where’s the stone?”

“Jokes on you, girl. We don’t have it anymore.” Roy answered.

Alaska is breathing heavier now, blinking more than usual. “That’s impossible. I was drawn here. I can feel its energy."

The crew is quiet, and I feel like a fucking idiot. Of course, she’s talking about the broken piece that I gave to Tallulah. Maybe this was reality coming back to bite me in the ass that we can’t always have nice things.

No one is saying anything. Therefore, it’s my time to spew some bullshit. "It’s probably just the aura still left over on the ship. There’s nothing here for you.”

Alaska seethes, her body quivering. “So I saved up all my energy - fucking propelled myself across the universe - used whatever strength I had left…all for nothing?!”

I feel bad but won’t let it show. I just nod my head. “Yeah. You kinda did.”

Alaska lowers her weapon, eyes drawn to the ground. At first, she looks in disbelief. Then disappointed. And now her eyes aren’t lifting, her chest heaving.

“If you want, we can fly you back?” Ivy offers, shrugging her shoulders.

Instead of answering, Alaska drops to the ground, out cold.

“Jesus Christ!” Bob steps back.

I’m the only one who rushes to her. I try for a pulse. She’s still alive. A sigh of relief escapes my lips, and I look to the others. “Are you just gonna stand there all day? We need to help her.”

“Do we though?” Roy smirks.

“Yes. We do.” I snap. Looking back at the passed out Celestial, unsure of what to actually do, I poke her on the forehead. “Alaska…?”

She stirs.

Kameron kneels on the other side and scoops her up in his arms.

“Wow - wow - wow. What are you doing?” I demand.

Kameron raises a brow. “Helping?”

He turns to leave the room.

“Yeah, well, be careful with her!” I call after him. Kameron is harmless. But with those muscles and her fragile state, I’m afraid one wrong move, and she’ll snap in half.

“What the fuck is going on?” Phi Phi asks, standing up from her chair.

“I don’t know, but I feel so unprepared. What do we do?” Ivy says.

“Let’s all just calm down.” Shea raises her hands, trying to ward off the team’s anxieties. “Look, we don’t have the stone. We’re not gonna tell her where it is. Therefore, we’re useless to her.”

“More reason for her to kill us,” Willam noted.

“Not if we keep the peace and give her a ride home.” Shea counters.

Too many thoughts whirlwind in my brain right now. Maybe I should just come clean and tell them about the piece of Revitalization Grain. Or maybe not. I feel like the confrontation would be worse.

“I need a smoke.” I don’t even smoke.

“I need a drink.” Phi Phi adds.

“I need to stress masturbate.” Willam groans.

I’m ready to hurl.

-_-_-_-

2 hours later and I’m still on edge. Since Alaska broke in, I’ve had a long-ass shower, napped, ate 2 heaping bowls of cereal, and tried to find Tallulah. If anyone found out about the stone, my ass was grass.

The bot is not in her usual hangouts, which wracks my nerves up to 100—time to try looking through the whole ship.

I search high and low, searching each room I pass. I’m desperate to get this stone back.

“What are you looking for?” Milk passes me.

“Tallulah. I…spilled something”, I answer, the frustration apparent in my voice.

“Someone’s stressed.” Milk comments, continuing on in the opposite direction.

I bite my tongue, knowing full well that a snide remark is on the tip of it.

I find myself at the far end of the ship, where no one really visits too often. It’s just storage and the prison cell. Yes, we have one of those in the case that a criminal boards.

Finally checking said prison cell, I don’t find Tallulah. But I find Alaska. I can feel anger brewing in my chest, knowing this was what Kameron thought would be appropriate. Yes, she broke in, but she is not a threat.

She’s just lying there on the ground, and I feel saddened.

But she looks over her shoulder. I’m glad to see she’s awake.

I enter and stand before the glass barrier separating us. Alaska sits up and turns to me.

“Look what the cat dragged in,” she says.

“The Captain’s set sail. We’re taking you home. Should we expect an attack?” I ask.

Alaska blinks long and hard, looking away in frustration. “I don’t think so.”

“Good,” I say. I could just turn and leave. But my feet are stuck to the ground. I just look down at her, feeling the pity inside. But I must remain firm for my team.

“So, I’m really stuck in this cell for weeks with no entertainment?” Alaska combs a clawed hand through her long hair.

“Well, when you put it that way, I’ll willingly allow you some form of entertainment. You want a book?”

Alaska gags. “I’d prefer music.”

I move to the wall on the left; there’s a switch linked to the sound system that plays through the ship. Music used to play on repeat throughout the place. But when you hear the same songs over and over again, it becomes repetitive. I turn the volume, but not too loud as to disturb everyone else.

Some classical tune plays at random. It was never a favorite, but Alaska seems to not mind.

“You know there’s one moment I can’t ever stop thinking about. It involves you.” She drawls.

“Really?” I let myself smirk, sounding a bit too enthusiastic.

“When you let me fall from that cliff.”

“Oh. OK.”

“I could have died that day.” She continues. “But honestly, as I was falling, I thought… that’s alright… that’s OK. Everyone would know that I was legendary.”

“I would have caught you if my reflexes were better.” I try.

“No, you wouldn’t. Then I would have had the stone.” Alaska counters.

I don’t even try to argue that she’s wrong. I know I’d fucking blurt it out that I found her very appealing and would be pretty sad to know she died. Although, the thought of her reaction was also intriguing.

“You want to join me in here?” She suggests.

“Not terribly.” I lie.

“Are you scared of me?"

"No.”

“Well, I find it kind of rude with the barrier between us.”

She has a point. But the team would tear me a new one.

“Don’t worry. I won’t try to escape.” Alaska raises a brow. “I don’t exactly have the energy right now.”

To be fair, she still seems very sluggish. I give in, scan my key card, and enter the cell. Her eyes follow me as I sit down on the ground next to her.

“At least it’s not cold in here,” I comment.

“I’m pretty cold.” Alaska states.

You wanna cuddle? Nah, I can’t say that. “I’ll find you a heater later.”

“So, Jinkx-y. What have you all been at since we last met?” She’s intrigued.

“Nothing fascinating,” I reply. “Planet Earth was destroyed. We got nowhere to go. No missions. Nothing.”

Alaska looks disappointed with the answer.

“I’m sorry. Were you expecting something a bit more thrilling? Well, the last time something exciting ever happened, before you got here, was a very long time ago.” I continue.

“You have a really negative aura right now.” Alaska comments. “Maybe if you had a little more positivity, you’d find happiness.”

My brows connect. “Well, I’ve never been one of those 'fake a smile’ types. That’s a one way trip to a massive breakdown.”

“Who said anything about faking a smile?” Alaska tests. “If you get out of your head, stop focusing on how boring everything else, then you’ll see what the world has to offer.”

“What are you? A therapist?"

"See, this is what I’m talking about? The negativity. It’s making you more hostile. So different to the Jinkx I met back in the museum.” Alaska’s eyes squint as she analyzes me further. “And no, I’m not a

therapist. If you didn’t notice before, it’s just my people are a very positive bunch. Give us a Tsunami; we’ll make a water slide out of it. Give us a house fire; we’ll toast marshmallows and have one hell of a party.”

I know I could never reach that level of chill. But I find it admirable.

“Jinkx, how old are you?” Alaska asks.

The question catches me off guard, but I answer anyway. “33 years old.”

“Wow. You’re like…way younger than I thought you’d be.” Alaska’s brows raise in surprise.

“Are you saying I look old?"

"I was going to guess late 40’s.”

“Oh, wow. Thanks.” The sudden urge to leave and go find some more wine is strong. Actually, maybe that’s what has clearly aged me.

“Late '40s is still young, girl. But early 30’s. That’s really, really young. Practically still a child.” Alaska comments.

“You have a really warped concept of age,” I note. “How old are you then? You gotta be younger than me, at least.”

“Far from it. I’m actually 2099 years of age. Just about to get into my 2100’s."

I’m shocked. Only then, when she states her age, do I remember that Celestials live for a very, very, very long time. But still. I never imagined she’d be 2 millenniums old.

"I forgot you humans only have less than 100 years.” Alaska plays with her hair again. “Which is why I find it sad you’re just sitting here wasting what remaining time you have. You have so much to experience. A lot to learn. You just gotta open your eyes.”

“Huh, you’re not wrong.” I click my tongue. “OK, so let me know more about you."

Alaska looks flattered.

"Why the name 'Alaska’? I’m guessing your parents had an interest in Earth?”

“I’m gonna let you in on a little secret. Just because I like you.” Alaska says coyly, making me blush. “It’s not my real name.”

“Oh, cool. What is your real name then?” I lean forward, enthusiastically.

“I’d rather not say.”

“OK.” I don’t press her. “Does anyone know your real name?” I don’t want to feel left out.

“Of course they do. But for specific and appropriate reasons. I’d just much rather be referred to as Alaska. And what about you? Why Jinkx with a 'k.’” Alaska lies on her side, propping her head up with a hand.

“I don’t know. My Mom liked it, I guess.” I also lie on my side, and I just smile at her.

“Jinkx Jenner fan?” Alaska asked.

I shook my head. “I have no clue. Honestly, she wasn’t very present for my childhood. I never had the chance to find out.” I see the sorrowful look on her face. And I regret taking the conversation to a dark place. Before she can ask about the rest of my family, I take a turn and ask a question. “So like…are you broke or something? I’m guessing that’s why you wanted the stone so bad.” I smirk.

“What do you mean?” Alaska’s brow raises.

“The marquee. You were charging people to see the stone.”

“Oh, that . I guess that was just a perk. Not really different from people paying to see it in the museum.” Alaska explains, her smile slowly fading. “But no, that’s not the real reason.”

With a sigh, she sits up again, leaning her back against the wall. Her chest heaves, eyes looking upward. It’s like she’s avoiding me, or the topic. I’m unsure of which one.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

“It's…” she pauses like she’s trying to find words. And then she sighs through her nostrils. “It doesn’t matter.”

Concern takes me over. I sit up and move towards the wall beside her. “Hey, it’s OK. You can say it. It’s just me.” I say as if she’s known me for years. I don’t know why I said it. I guess I just really want her to trust me.

Alaska avoids my eyes. “I really can’t. It could be dangerous for Glamtron.”

“Glamtron?"

"Yes, my planet.”

“You mean Celestia?”

“No. Glamtron.”

“…”

“Alaska, you’re from Celestia.”

“No, it’s called Glamtron.”

“Says who?”

“I do. I renamed it.”

My head cocks to the side. “ You renamed it?”

“Yes. I do have the power and the authority to do that, after all."

My eyes widen. "Wait a minute. Are you saying…”

“Yes, I am the Queen. Alaska Thunderfuck from the planet Glamtron.” She says so proudly. “So, yes. I really did rename it to Glamtron.”

I don’t even care about the name change any more. I’m just…beyond shocked. Here, I am; Jinkx Monsoon, a space nerd, sitting with royalty.

"Fuck. I just… don’t know how to act all of a sudden.” I say.

“Well, I’m not looking very Queenly right now. Just see me as Alaska from the exhibit for now."

"I know, but… I’ve studied Celes - -” Alaska shoots me a look, “Glamtron before. There’s never been any mention of an Alaska before. And you’ve been alive for so long. How…” I trail off, not knowing how to even finish my statement.

“Because Alaska isn’t my real name.” She says as if I should have remembered that. I thought she would have been happy to know I forgot.

“Well.” I pause. “I hate to ask, but what do they refer to you as?”

She licks her teeth like she’s slightly frustrated. “OK. Fine. But you gotta promise to always call me Alaska.”

“Cross my heart.” I place a hand over my heart to seal the deal.

“OK.” She looks to the door as if afraid anyone will just wander in. Then she looks at me, leans in close, and whispers, “My name is actually Thriks.”

My first thought is, 'Oh, yikes. That is kinda awful.’ But now I’m thinking back to my reading. And I am definitely familiar. The Queen Thriks was known as a wild party animal, yet a loving and caring mother-like figure. She was always so strong for her people and went out of her way for them, making sure everyone was in high spirits. Because of her loving nature, she was to go down in history as one of the most adored Queens of Celestia.

“I have read about you,” I say quietly.

“And you’re little history books and articles. Do they still call it Celestia?” Alaska stretches the ’s’ in Celestia out.

“Uh, huh.”

“If I was a different person, I’d sue."

But we’re getting off track. I need answers. "Well…I could write about you? I’d write you as Alaska . I’d call it Glamtron . I’d make everything right if you help me."

Alaska bats her lashes. "You’d do that for me?”

“Yes!” I exclaim, grabbing her hand.

“Hmmm…” she brings a finger to her mouth, thinking, “I can’t wait for the part where I robbed the museum. I’m sure there will be some bitterness in those words.”

She’s kind of right. Yeah, I’m having a good time talking with her. But she did kind of cost me my job. I purse my lips as the classical song ends, transitioning to something from the 1980s.

“Alaska, why did you take the stone?” I ask again.

She’s silent again, pretending to be distracted by the catchy Madonna music.

“Alaska, I need to know if I’m going to write your story."

She stops bobbing her head, huffing put through her nostrils. "Jinkx, I really can’t.”

“Why not? You told me your name.”

“Because that’s different.”

“How?”

“Because it’s dangerous.”

“Why?” My tone becomes more demanding.

“Because it just is,” Alaska replies, her tone the same.

“For who? Us? Are we in trouble?”

“No! For my people.”

“So…you don’t trust me?” I ask in an accusing manner. Seems a bit emotional blackmail-ish, but I’m desperate to know.

“I do trust you, Jinkx. But I can’t say the same for your team.” She says with venom.

“My team are good people!” I say. “They have never caused any harm.”

“They terrified my people that day.” Alaska countered. I figure she’s talking about the day we arrived in Celestia.

“And how is that any different to the night of the exhibit?"

"Because unlike you all, we had a good reason.”

“And that is?”

“Jinkx, you’re really really starting to piss me off.”

“Don’t ignore the question. What am I going to do? Go out and tell my big bad teammates? Why would I do that if I have no idea what the consequences are?”

“Because we’re vulnerable, Jinkx!” Alaska shouts. Her volume causes me to shrink away. She’s gritted her teeth, kneeling on her knees and towering over me now. I’m actually scared.

“Look at me!” She presses her hands against her chest. “I’m fucking dying! My planet is dying. My people are dying!”

In my moment of shock, as Alaska looks down on me, pieces of the puzzle come together in my head.

Thriks; the loving Queen who went out of her way for her people.

The attack on the museum.

The Revitalization Grain.

The one thing that brought restoration and reincarnation.

“You wanna save them,” I speak through a whisper.

With a sigh, Alaska sinks back to the ground. Her head lowers, blonde hair covering her face.

“Jinkx, the stone is of Glamtron origin. It was lost 300 years ago, in the middle of the war with the Holoxyans. For so long, we were wasting away, trying to build up our own energy to keep ourselves alive. And from just laying around, we were just dying anyway. And I had no idea what to do. I didn’t know how to save them.” Alaska’s voice cracks. “For years, I had to watch as many gave what little energy they had left to my team and me. Just so we could go find the stone.”

I’m horrified as realization hits; I’ve brought doom to an entire planet.

“Please, I don’t want anyone other than us to know,” Alaska states firmly. “Glamtron has no defense. If someone knows how vulnerable we are, it makes us a prime target for invasion. The Holoxyans. They will attack.”

I move close to her again. I resist the urge to throw my arms around her, now aware of literally how fragile she is. I take her hand graciously; my own eyes must be glistening. “Alaska, I’m so sorry.”

She puts her other hand on top of mine. “I do trust you, Jinkx. I’m just…terrified.”

“I know. I know.” I say quietly.

Alaska hasn’t shed any tears. They were right when they said Thriks was a strong bitch. I held back my own tears, fearing it would be selfish.

“So, no. It’s not because I’m broke.” Alaska comments. And I nervous laugh. She laughs too. “You promise this stays between us?” She looks me in the eye.

Is it inappropriate to say at this moment I’m just smitten by the dark irises? “I promise.” I squeeze her hands reassuringly.

“Great.” She nods. And she leans forward, kissing me on the cheek.

I could fucking melt. The high must be kicking in again because the lights are dimming, there’s some sort of pink aura emerging, the music is louder, and Alaska feels warm.

She pulls away. I expect a smile. But she’s looking around her as if she’s experiencing the same thing.

“Alaska, look.” I point to her wrist. She looks just in time to see something glitter under her skin, like sparkly pink blood flowing through her veins.

She’s looking at me now like something has just hit her in the head like a brick. I don’t know what, so I just stare back in confusion. “What’s - -”

I’m cut off as she grabs my face.

And she kisses me again.

On the lips.

Suddenly, I know what pink glitter tastes like, even though I’m pretty sure there is no taste. Her kiss is so gentle, which I do not expect from her. She’s lifted a hand to my cheek, stroking a nail along my skin. And I hope this is a sign she’s not just in it for some nice colors floating around the air. I feel this spark, and it will kill me if she doesn’t feel it too. Upon having this thought, I wrap my arms around her tiny waist. The butterflies in my stomach are going wild, my heart is pounding so hard, yet all I can focus on is the soft feel of her lips.

She pulls away, and I almost pull her back in. But I’m taken aback by the room now . Like, am I tripping right now, or are there really purple fireflies floating around?

Alaska’s looking around in awe as well. I guess it’s not the cosmic-high feeling from her kiss.

“Well, that’s never happened before.” Alaska looks back to me with a smirk. The holographic glitter has resurfaced, decorating the sides of her face.

And her hair, almost pale white, longer and thicker. I can’t help but run my fingers through it. Never has hair felt silkier to me.

She’s glancing down at my hand, still playing with her locks. “I feel…alive again.” She breathes out a laugh, pulling away from me, admiring the healthy color of her skin, the glittery fluid coursing through her.

I look away, noting how the floaty lights remain. But the hit is gone. So this is real. There really are tiny glowy orbs floating around us.

"Wow. What is this song?” Alaska asks, moving her body to the rhythm of the music. The 1980s song has long ended. Instead, the song Courtney was singing earlier plays.

“I’ll have to find that out for you. You’d think I’d know it. We’ve heard it so many damn times now. It’s kind of annoying.” I laugh.

“Why do you think that?"

"It’s just…too depressing, I guess. I mean, listen to the words.”

“This is what I’m talking about. Don’t focus on what’s black and white. Listen to the music.” Alaska turns to face me, her long arms rippling to the tune.

I don’t want to be an annoying son of a gun and ruin the tender moment for us, so I take her advice and really listen to the music.

“Not anyone, you’re the one, more than fun, you’re the Sanctuary,

'Cause what you want is what I want, Sincerity.”

My eyes are closed, and my body is swaying. And I’m feeling it. Like the music is flowing through me. “Hey. I think you’re right.”

“See?” I open my eyes to see her move toward me. She takes my hands in hers. And we spin in a slow circle.

“Souls that dream alone lie awake, I’ll give you something so real.”

As the chorus kicks in, the dance has picked up a pace. I don’t even know what kind of dancing this is. Let’s say a mix of slow dancing and ballroom. And I laugh when she spins me around. I try to return the gesture, but she’s too tall, and I nearly knock her in the face. I’m embarrassed for a few seconds, but she’s laughing. And it makes me feel less like an idiot.

I can’t keep up this pace; I’m falling so hard right now. I slow myself down, hoping she gets the hint.

“Hold me oh so close, 'cause you’ll never know just how long our lives will be.”

I wrap my arms around the small of her back, pulling her to me. I can see the small floaty lights reflecting in her dark eyes. And now it’s my turn to kiss her. I’m really, really falling hard.

I could stay like this forever, rocking side to side, just kissing Alaska. But reality has to come back and creep into my brain, doesn’t it?

I know this won’t last. We’ll eventually have to part when we leave her back to her dying planet, and my team and I will continue on wasting away.

I stop kissing her to get another look at those eyes, and she lays her head on my shoulder. We continue to sway side to side. And the thought of letting go is making all kinds of negative emotions surface. Am I glad for this moment? Oh, absolutely. If she hadn’t broken in, I’d still be in my room, either sleeping or waiting for Tallulah to finish cleaning.

“Wait…” I say.

“What is it?” Alaska speaks into the crook of my neck.

“I…” I pause, “OK, don’t get mad. But I kinda lied to you.” She lifts her head at this. “You were right about sensing the stone. The truth is I have a piece.”

Her eyes widen. “I knew I felt it.”

“It’s small. But it’ll give you more strength.” I suggest with raised brows.

“No. I have enough right now. I don’t know how but…you ignite something in me, I guess. As for the stone, I know a few people back home who could use it more.” Alaska suggested.

“Well, good. Wait here.” I give her a small kiss. “I’ll be back in a second.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t be going anywhere.” She calls as I leave the cell.

I’m too buzzed to search every damn room. I just search for the nearest human who will provide me with answers. I find two in the security room. Ivy and Courtney.

“Which one of you whores have seen Tallulah?” I ask, peaking my head in.

“Not me.” Courtney answers. She’s got a smirk on her face, and I know somethings up.

“Me neither. But we’ll tell you what we did see.” Ivy gestures to the 5th screen, showing Alaska still dancing around in her cell.

My eyes widen. “You were spying on us?”

“Not our intention. We thought we’d keep an eye on things in case something happened.” Ivy then laughs. “And I guess it did.”

The shame takes me over, and my face flushes with shame and embarrassment. “Oh, for God’s sake.”

“I actually think it’s adorable. Very Romeo and Juliet.” Courtney coos.

I roll my eyes. This is all incredibly immature. But I know they’re not going to just let it go. “OK, kids. I’ll let you have your fun. But it stays between us. Anyway, where’s Tallulah?”

“We told you. We don’t know.” Courtney replies. “Try her closet.”

“OK.” I turn to leave, not before turning and pointing at the two. “Remember; it stays between us 3.”

“You got it, girl.” Ivy smirks.

I waste no more time with them and rush to the cleaning room, which just so happens to be at the end of this corridor, just around the corner. My pace is so quick, I almost trip.

Upon getting to the door, I’m thankful to find Tallulah is here but shut down. “Tallulah?"

No response. I clap my hands 2 times as if it’ll bring her to life. It’s never worked before, so I don’t even know why I tried.

When she doesn’t power up, I roll my eyes, grabbing a bottle of disinfectant from the shelf and dropping it on the ground.

Tallulah is up and running in a matter of seconds.

"No. Stop.” I move forward to stop her from going to the bottle. “Tallulah, I have a huge favor to ask.”

“ :0 ? ”

“You remember that glowy thing I gave to you?”

“👍”

“Good. Where is it?”

A box on her build opens, revealing the chipped off piece of Revitalization Grain. But I can’t just take it.

“Well, that’s good that you haven’t lost it. Can I have it back, please?”

“ :( ”

“OK, it’s not that I want it. I need it.”

“ >:( ”

I’m serious. There’s no time to argue.“

” 🤬💢🖕🗣🔫🚫✖❗ “

I lick my teeth beneath my pursed lips, realizing this isn’t going to be as easy as it seemed.

"Look, Tallulah, I know you like it. It’s pretty. It’s glowy. I get it.” I soften my tone. “But there are people out there who are dying. A lot of people. But this tiny little stone? It can help them get better. If you give it back to me, you’re saving the lives of so many. You could be a hero.” My brows raise.

“…”

Wow, talk about being left on read.

“ 🆗️ ”

“Yes. Jesus Christ! Thank you!” I quickly hug her. She hands me the small stone, and I pat her on the head. “You’re a lifesaver. Literally.”

“ 🤺 ”

Not sure what she meant by that one, but I leave her to it. I hold the small rock tight in my hand, seeing its glow seep through the gaps in my fingers. And I can’t believe that there’s a chance we can help Alaska save Glamtron. Even if I can’t be with her, I would feel better knowing everything is better back on her planet.

I pass the kitchen and stop dead in my tracks. Shea’s all alone, just staring out at the window. Fuck. I can feel it. The dread creeping up.

“Captain,” I address her. It feels weird calling her that. She’s just been 'Shea’ for a long time now. But with the new task, I guess it’s only appropriate.

She looks away from the window, taken by surprise. “Jinkx, you scared me.” She sniffs, quickly wiping at her eyes. Fuck, this isn’t good.

I walk into the room. “You feeling OK?”

She sighs. “Yeah, I guess I will be.”

She goes back to looking out the window. Standing next to her, I follow her gaze. And I immediately recognize the area.

Large masses of rock float around in the distance. Remains of the Earth.

I purse my lips for a moment, trying to make sense of it. I almost feel confused by what I’m looking at. I know what happened, but it still feels…unfamiliar. “You’d think someone would clean this mess up,” I say.

“No. This is a graveyard, Jinkx. It has to stay.” Shea states.

“Fair enough.”

We continue to stare, like we’re in some sort of trance, watching the pieces float around.

“Wanna hear something funny?” Shea asks, giving me a sad smile.

The mournful aura is weighing down on both of us. Something funny right now would be great. “Yeah, of course.”

“As soon as she broke in, I knew it was our chance—a new purpose. Finally, for the first time in a long, long time, we get to do our thing. And I was…so fucking excited. I couldn’t fucking wait.” She laughs.

I don’t find it funny, but her happiness is making me happy.

But her smile drops. And I know now when she said if I wanted to hear something funny, it wasn’t going to be funny at all.

“But then what? What happens after we leave Celestia?” She asks, looking at me with wet eyes.

Nothing happens. We go back to the same old shit and hope that something good happens.

Shea must’ve been holding back a sob because she chokes, grabbing my attention. She covers her mouth as if it will hold back the other ones.

“Hey, it’ll be fine.” I grab her free hand.

But my words are meaningless. I don’t know if it will be OK or not. So I hug her hoping it’ll help some.

She whispers in my ear, “I just want my family.”

I’m devastated. I really am the lucky one. Who knew being abandoned by my own mother at such a young age could be such a blessing? Because this anguish Shea is expressing? It’s soul-destroying.

She cries into my shoulder some more, and I run my thumb along the back of her shoulder. I can’t even tell her it’s alright. Because I know it won’t be.

I look at the stone in my hand, still hugging Shea. If only this stupid glowy thing could restore the life of this ship. If only it brought back the good times, the adventure, the danger.

I continue to stare at the stone. And I have no idea why, but something I thought about earlier resurfaces.

The loving Queen who went out of her way for her people.

“Fuck.” I whisper.

“I’m sorry.” Shea sniffles, lifting her head. She dabs her eyes with her pinky.

“It’s not you. It’s - -” I begin. But I fail to find words to explain my thought process.

All I can say is I know what I need to do now.

I look at my Captain for what will probably be the last time. “Shea, when the time is right, come find me.”

“What?”

“You’ll know what I mean.”

I pull away from her and go to leave the room, her voice calling after me. But I don’t listen. I need to do this.

-_-_-_-

Alaska stands as I enter the room. I pull the stone from my pocket, and she’s already drawn.

“Fuck, you weren’t kidding when you - -”

I cut her off with a kiss, something to give her more energy. I don’t know how much she’ll need to make it to the escape pod, but hopefully, this should do it.

I pull away. “Change of plan, hon’. You wanna rob the museum?”

“What?” Her brows cross.

“I’m gonna make things right - I’m gonna get the Revitalization Grain back, we’re gonna take it back to Glamtron. And I don’t care if that makes me some sort of intergalactic space villain. When the time comes, we’re gonna fight for your planet.” I babble, and only when I finish do I realize how nuts I sound.

Alaska’s blinking, as if struggling to comprehend everything I just said. “Jinkx, you know the stone? You know it’s called the Glitter Bomb, right? And before you argue, yes, I named it that.”

I roll my eyes, adoring her dorky side. And I hand over the piece of the stone. If we’re getting the glitter bomb - as she calls it- she might as well have this piece now.

As soon as it’s in her hand, she’s glowing. It’s breathtaking.

She’s breathtaking.

“Come on. We need to get to an escape pod quick.” I take her hand.

“No need. I say we take the quicker way.”

“And that is?”

She wraps her long arms around my waist. “You better hang tight.”

And in a matter of seconds, light envelopes us. And the atmosphere changes. We’re outside. If it wasn’t for my trust in her, I’d panic at the thought of suffocating. But I can breathe, and I know it’s one of her quirks.

We’re blasting at the speed of light, passing many planets and stars that would take weeks to pass. And I wonder if people on other planets are looking up at us right now, thinking we’re a shooting star and making wishes.

Speaking of wishes, I kind of wish I could see what’s happening back at the ship. I can just picture it. The sight of Alaska and I whooping by the windows, Shea realizing what’s going on, giving commands and ordering everyone to get a move on. Ivy trying to figure out where we went, giving her plenty of searching to do. Milk, Kameron, and Bob working on kicking the ship back into action. Everyone just running around, trying to shake the energy back into themselves.

'Cause they have a new purpose now. I am their enemy. And that couldn’t make me happier. Because I know they’ll be thankful for giving this to them, something we all had been waiting for.

But what makes me happier, more than anything, is that I’m here with Alaska. We’re going to save Glamtron, the planet formally known as Celestia. We’re going to protect it at all costs.

And, most importantly, I’m going to be with her for the rest of my life.

#rpdr fanfiction #jinkx monsoon #alaska thunderfuck #ivy winters #shea coulee #courtney act #bianca del rio #jalaska #fluff #sci fi #angst #hurt/comfort #lesbian au #head in the clouds #grinder #concrit welcome

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justgottafinishthischapter · 6 years ago

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Worldbuilding Tips: The Five Visitors

You’ve done it. You’ve come up with an idea for your fantasy world, but right now it’s mostly curb appeal and decorations without much else. So, you have the skin and flavor of your fictional world, but what if you’re having a bit of trouble coming up with the meat needed to make your world juicy and delicious? Well, I have a little game that can help flesh out your world.

Imagine a ship or whatever other kind of vehicle arriving on the shores or outskirts of your fantasy land and from that vehicle emerges 5 people from our own mundane world: a historian, an economist, an anthropologist, a diplomat, and a cartographer. There are some other visitors, but these are going to be the most universally beneficial.

The Historian:

This person is going to be interested in the backstory of your world. They don’t need to know every minuscule detail (though they wouldn’t turn that much information down) and just a general overview would be much obliged. Many fantasy worlds such as Tolkien’s Middle Earth and Martin’s Westeros are far more rich and interesting due to the amount of effort put into crafting their world’s histories. If you’re stumped, look to real world history for inspiration. It doesn’t even need to come from the middle ages so long as it works for your story. You should be able to answer questions like: How long has the dominant civilization been around? What are the biggest defining moments in your world’s history? What things are common knowledge that every child is expected to learn (such as George Washington being the first president of the USA) and which stuff is known more by historians and social studies teachers? And as you’re discussing the rest of the visitors, think back on how the answers you give would impact the historical aspect.

The Economist:

You don’t have to know the exact cost of every single thing in your world, but have a good guess. Be able to at least have a scale of price. If someone can buy a loaf of bread for 13 of your world’s currency, but a house costs 17, that would mean that either that bread is very expensive, that house is very cheap, or each unit of your currency is equal to a lot of real world money. Whatever you use to refer to your currency, keep not only price scaling in mind, but economics. If you have a port city, there’s going to be a lot of merchants in that area. The first primary export you’re likely to see in such a port town would be seafood, but also keep in mind the things that are closet to that port, as well as the climate. Greece for instance is a very rocky and mountainous country, so while they can grow crops, they would not have been any match for medieval French Aquitaine, the crown jewel of medieval farming territory. It’s also worth remembering that food in the middle ages was far more valuable than it is today. There was an old saying that wheat is worth its weight in gold. It was southern France’s bountiful soil that caused it to become one of the richest and most coveted territories in medieval Europe. So, keep in mind where resources would come from and where they would need to go, as well as trade that would be useful. A seaside farming town might not have any good access to raw minerals, while a city in the frozen mountainous north might not be able to grow crops, but are bountiful in minerals. The correlation of supply and demand now opens a vital trade route between them. This becomes more complex when the topic of war comes into play. The kingdom that supplies your crops and food is at war with your oldest ally. Now there’s a dilemma between having enough food to feed your people, or betraying the trust of a long time friend. Now your world building can be used as a part of your drama and narrative tension. The economy also impacts culture. What is considered a display of wealth, or is a common status symbol? What are the living conditions of the poor, the working class, the rich, and the aristocrats? Is there upward mobility? In the middle ages, you were what you were for the most part, especially serfs: peasants tied to their land. It was illegal to leave your territory, but there was a saying in the middle ages that “city air makes you free” that once a serf made it to a city, they’d be free of the life they’ve escaped.

The Anthropologist:

Every society has a culture. The way they act, think, dress, believe, talk. It’s all impacted by culture. Beliefs tend to be tied either to what has come before, or based on the world as observed. While many modern fantasy pantheons are based on ancient Greece, it’s not the only model to live by. In a loose interpretation, religion in it’s earliest stages was a rudimentary science used to explain why things happened. A culture that developed along rivers, sea coasts, and other popular trade routes are far more likely to be diverse melting pots due to the frequent traffic of people coming and going, and the common sight of foreigners choosing to set down roots. Meanwhile, a more out of the way and isolated culture is far less likely to have widespread cultural diversity. Tying back into history, a country that has experienced a number of successful wars may tend to think of themselves as invincible, or may try to police the issues of other countries, assuming they’re always on the right side, or that they can’t be defeated. The same culture may ask a high price of any other culture that asks them for militaristic support. Ask what things your people value, be they material or abstract ideals. However, try to refrain from creating a Planet of Hats, a trope often seen in Star Trek and similar Sci-Fi shows and even some Fantasy stories where everyone of a single race all have mostly the same skills, interests, personalities, and roles in the global culture. This is also the time to start thinking about myths, legends, folk heroes, and historical people and events worth celebrating, as this may be when you start to craft holidays or celebrations. This could also lead into discussing religion, and the gods or lack there of that might be celebrated by your culture. How does your society reflect itself in art, music, literature, dance. Does the way someone dresses tell you something about their place in society? Some taboos come from simple logic. The reason it’s frowned upon to eat a cow in India is the same reason it’s immoral to eat horse in western culture. Both are beast of burden livestock worth a lot more alive than dead. Cows produce milk, a source of nutrients and health. Horses are strong and were used in just about everything from plowing fields to pulling entire families or communities a great distance. Horses even became status symbols, as even in modern culture, owning a horse or pony is still considered to be (largely) a snobby rich person thing. Understanding not only what your people believe, but even just a vague idea why they would believe it is a vital aspect.

The Diplomat:

As this landing party is your fantasy world’s first contact with our own reality. How would they react to the newcomers? If there’s more than one society in your world, how would each society, country, kingdom, race, etc. react to something completely foreign? Would they try to forge an alliance? Open trade negotiations? Declare war? Prepare a feast? How would they feel about the way we dress? act? talk? How would they react to different levels of progression in technology? Could an unbiased third party from our world help two feuding sides come to peace with one another? How would they feel about knowing of a world beyond their own? Are there actions or behaviors acceptable in our own society that are considered offensive to them?

The Cartographer:

Although it’s not necessary that all fantasy worlds have a fully designed map, it is a good idea to have at least a rough idea of where things are in relation to one another. This can tell you about climate, resources, wildlife, natural borders, natural disasters, food chains, and more. It’s worth at least taking a crash course in understanding how geographical biomes tend to be laid out in order to make your world feel more real. Some authors claim that a world map is the single most important feature, others say it’s not that important. Frankly, trust your gut based on the kind of world you have. You may need a map, you may not. It really depends on the size and scope of your world. For instance, with Disney’s

Zootopia

, the entire world doesn’t matter. The audience doesn’t need to know where in the world Zootopia is, or what climate or biome it’s in. Zootopia itself is the world being built, and the separate districts and biomes of the city explain the world that’s being focused on.

Secondary Visitors:

They may still be important to your world, but are less likely to be universally helpful to all people.

Biologist: if your world has creatures beyond those found in our real world, it may be worth exploring how their bodies work on a more scientific level in order to give more realistic weight to their supernatural abilities.

Linguist/Translator: If you feel compelled to come up with a language no matter how basic or complex, it may be worth while to consider the problems with communication. this may also extend to unique idioms, colloquialisms, and slang native to your fantasy world.

Teacher/Scholar: Regardless of whether or not there is a formal education system in place in your world, a teacher may be interested in how knowledge is passed down, and what information the culture might have that would be unknown to people of our world. Whether that’s how to keep a wild animal from charging you, to knowing how to forge a mineral that exists only in your world, being able to readily answer questions is generally considered to be a good thing.

Healer: There may be healing spells in your world, there may not, but most fantasy stories tend to involve either action or adventure, both of which tend to cause fights. And since fights tend to lead to injuries, it’s important to know what can and cannot be treated, and how readily available these healing abilities are to the public.

#world building #worldbuilding #fantasy writing #writing tips #writing advice #writing worldbuilding

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skipygmod · 4 years ago

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Art is somewhat hard to understand its concept from some, and no wonder because the misinformation about this term has been promoted. And because of that, there’s a constant debate about the topic.

Art is not a personal concept. When we talk about art, we’re not talking about tastes, but a discipline. And like any other discipline, it takes some logic and reasoning. I want to make sure why is there the mistake that art is ambiguous when it’s pretty clear. There are two categories about the definitions of art or preferably two ways to see art.

There’s the belief that art has an objective definition and the view that art is something personal. The 1st definition I’m mentioning appeared first, and because of that, it’ll be the one I’m talking about first.

While the artistic expression has existed since the first steps of humanity, that definition was given by old schools and when society stabilised art as a discipline because it never was considered as such.

METAPEDIA (100% trustworthy) Art is the use of ability or imagination in the creation of aesthetic objects, environments or experiences that can be shared with others. Artistic pieces are the materialisation of human feelings, ideas or a worldview, that being carried to others, have the faculty to enrich their personalities. A town’s art is part of its culture and reflects its customs, believes and behaviours. Spanish Wikipedia (Not my cup of tea)

Art (From Latin ars, artis, and Greek τέχνη téchnē) is generally understood as any activity or product made with an aesthetic and also communicational purpose, where they express ideas, emotions and in general, a worldview through a diversity of resources, like sculptural, linguistic, resonant, corporal and mixed ones.

Definición.de Art (From Latin, ars) is the concept that encompasses all creations made by the human being to express a sensitive vision about the world, either real or imaginary. Through sculptural, linguistic or resonant resources, art allows expressing ideas, emotions, perceptions and sensations.

If we go to different sources, the definition is written with different words, but the idea is the same. Art is about material or experience of aesthetic nature, that materialises thoughts and feelings; and can be shared with others to enrich the personality.

Concept

The definition of art is open, subjective and debatable. There is no unanimous agreement between historians, philosophers or artists. Over time, there have been numerous definitions of art, including: “art is the right order of reason” (Thomas Aquinas); “Art is that which establishes its own rule” (Schiller); “Art is style” (Max Dvořák); “Art is the expression of society” (John Ruskin); “Art is the freedom of genius” (Adolf Loos); “Art is the idea” (Marcel Duchamp); “Art is the novelty” (Jean Dubuffet); "Art is action, life” (Joseph Beuys); “Art is everything that men call art” (Dino Formaggio); “Art is the lie that helps us see the truth” (Pablo Picasso) ; “Art is life, life is art (Wolf Vostell)”. The concept has changed over time: until the Renaissance, art was only considered the liberal arts; architecture, sculpture and painting were “crafts.” Art has always been one of the primary means of expression of the human being, through which it expresses its ideas and feelings, the way it relates to the world. Its function can vary from the most practical to the most ornamental; it can have religious or merely aesthetic content; it can be durable or transient. In the 20th century, even the material substrate was lost: Beuys said that life is a means of artistic expression, highlighting the vital aspect, the action. Thus, everyone is capable of being an artist.

The term art comes from the Latin ars and is the equivalent of the Greek term τέχνη (téchne, from which ‘technique’ comes from). Originally it applied to all man-made production and disciplines of know-how. Thus, artists were as much the cook, the gardener or the builder, as the painter or the poet. Over time, the Latin derivation (ars -> art) was used to designate the disciplines related to the arts of the aesthetic and the emotional. And the Greek derivation (téchne -> technical) for those disciplines that have to do with intellectual productions and articles of use. At present, it is difficult to find that both terms (art and technique) are confused or used as synonyms.

Attributes of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (1769), by Anna Vallayer-Coster

What I don’t like about the Wikipedia article is that it contradicts itself. It starts with a clear definition with no ambiguities; later, it says that art is subjective because there’s not a consensus about its definition. That is because many experts have different ideas about what art is, which it’s absurd because the fact that someone understands something differently doesn’t deny the truth. It’s like saying that I understand math differently and mathematics have different interpretations, in other words, they’re subjective, which it’s ridiculous. Many examples of opposite ideas that Wikipedia put as an example don’t contradict each other. Because they are straightforward ideas, at most an expert prioritises more thought than another one. It’s not like one of them said that art could be anything, what is ugly or a person. They got certainty about what is more important in art, not that art is each thing.

Let’s analyse why the given definition makes sense, breaking down the features that compose it:

1. Art refers to some material or experience with an aesthetic character:

That makes sense because it’s aesthetic; it makes it striking and presentable; also, it reflects effort. And reflecting something that requires effort it gives a meaning that art is a job, I mean if it’s not a job and anyone can do it, then why would there be artist or experts in the first place? Besides, if we take out the aesthetic feature in the definition, then horrible and harmful things would be considered art.

2. It materialises ideas and feelings:

That tells us that one of the foundations of art is it has to have a communicational function, I mean, art must have a meaning. That makes sense because if art has no meaning, what’s the point of doing it? So you can admire it? Why admiring it? What are your reasons to admire it if it doesn’t mean anything? Let’s leave out the communicational function of the definition. It has room to the fact that if something is beautiful, then it’s art. Beauty has a very high rank, so it would make the definition ambiguous.

3. It can be shared to enrich the personality: That’s extremely important because it gives art a purpose; every discipline must have a purpose. It’s part of the concept of the field; I mean schools exist to educate, science exists to make life easier and preserve the species. Science is a discipline, and art just like science has a purpose; to enrich the personality. Through art, you think, you learn something new. As said earlier, art is a materialisation of ideas and feelings, and that’s why consuming art is good. With art, you learn, art is emotional intelligence. Art just like science is something that has its reason to be, its logic; it’s merely another kind of logic, another type of intelligence.

The 2nd definition of art is something personal, and so; subjective appears after 1884 when the artistic movement; The Impressionism, which it was contemptuously criticised back then; was active. The impressionists, in defence of the critiques they got, they forced the idea that “Beauty was in the eyes of the beholder.”

That’s absurd to me because as I explained earlier, not just because someone has a different take, it doesn’t mean that an objective or relative truth cannot exist. I mean, you can say a sickness can be beautiful, but the thing is no matter how much you want to bend reality, it’s a fact that an illness is not beautiful in any way.

While I respect the impressionist movement to a certain point, and I respect its ideology to sacrifice complexity to leave colours to transmit emotions. I do consider that its new subjectivist definition of art was a terrible misfortune, because of that there’s a lot of confusion with a term that easily was well-defined through centuries. Not only that way of thinking brought lots of notoriously inferior artistic movements like Cubism.

In a nutshell, it’s a mediocre way of thinking that brought with itself misinformation, a decline of the idea of art, and a drop of quality.

My point reinforces with a simple comparison; you have to compare the works that were created with an objective definition of art, with the ones with a subjective definition.

Think for a moment how well-defined was the first definition, and how it demanded higher standards. Turning out in more outstanding excellence and compare it with the problems and ambiguities that brings the 2nd definition.

According to the ambiguous 2nd definition, art itself is ambiguous; then anything can be considered as art. It all depends on how it’s seen. If that’s true, it promotes overthinking; in other words, pretentiousness. You are praising something for its lack of content or its confusing/contradictory content. On the other hand, if we omit many features of the 1st definition, the idea of arts stops making sense. Let’s say art for some is what is beautiful, but it’s not necessary to be communicational. That means art lacks substance, and then painting green a wall is art, because the colour is beautiful.

If presenting just a beautiful colour is art, then it doesn’t make sense trying hard to create something with substance. Because a painting that took you days to perfect will be as praised as an empty portrait with no meaning.

Let’s consider art to be transmitting something, in other words, having a communicational function. Still, our message doesn’t need to be beautiful nor aesthetic. We’re saying that things like wishing death to somebody can be considered as art, or just communicating anything is art; even a conversation.

There’s a reason why a political speech shouldn’t be considered as art. The political address is communicational and discipline, but not an artistic one. I could go on for hours explaining why it doesn’t make sense to have a very flexible definition of art, and why the first one has better results.

The first one never created a creative standstill nor restricted the artists. It helps them to push themselves and reach excellence; the praise of their people aided them to create culture.

What is too abstract loses all meaning as art. I’m not saying that art shouldn’t have an ambiguous character in certain aspects, after all. As I said in the past, subtlety is one of the most of import components in good work. The difference between an ancient artwork and modern art nonsense is that the first one counts with recognisable elements that give you tools to interpret. While modern art is so abstract, that it’s not made up of anything, I mean, it’s not like it’s hard to understand, you’re so pretentious, that you see messages where there’s none. The work was done like that on purpose so people can fill the empty voids instead of taking credit from that job to the author, who has no conviction in what they want to express.

Minimalism is not a type of artistic technique; it’s a type of design. It works well, and it’s attractive for advertising or to spread information, not to have a pragmatic and crucial message because minimal art lacks eloquence.

The only thing that our free and modern definition of art is doing is to create confusion, lower the standards, and to ridicule the name of art. It’s because of things like a man taking a shit can be considered a piece of art nowadays, people who don’t know about art; dimmish its value. That’s why people don’t see art as a World Heritage Site, and it’s as important as science. And that’s why people who want to be artists to suffer, because their parents don’t want them to be artists. Because they consider something artistic work as a ridiculous job and has lesser value than other jobs.

We must start to understand what genuinely is art. We must begin to understand its importance, its work. We must change the popular mindset about art. When people see art is work, that it requires effort, dedication, sweat and tears. That art is quality work, and that is not something that is just held to personal perception, or taste. It’ll be the time when people will start respecting art again. Maybe then, the fans will be more demanding, business people will abide by franchises more. And they’ll set out to see that in the entertainment world there’s not just entertainment, but also art.

We all know at this time and age whoever judges art with a postmodernist view is an idiot and a spoiled brat. I’m not going to argue with hicks anymore about something that they’re not interested in. Instead, I’ll address to people who are genuinely interested in art, no matter their reasons for their interest. Especially I’ll address to a group who is following and having me in mind.

So, my brothers, believe it or not, art can say more about the state of a society than a thousand words.

I have the hard belief that one sees GOOD art when a society is good and healthy.

And one sees bad art when a society that is not very intelligent or diseased.

After years of studying and being interested in the world’s history, this funny pattern repeats with no exception whatsoever. It’s by far one of the best ways to judge the quality of a nation.

Even though you want to believe it’s an issue about money, the truth is that it’s not the case. I want to point out that a wealthy society can produce art, that art is degenerate, sick and anti-nation.

That should not be surprising because art is the reflection of a person’s soul and spirit level. Degenerate art reflects a sick society and a disloyal state. Anyways, why is producing art so important anyway? My idea of saving the world has to do with anything artistic-wise.

As this curious study shows, our shitty modern buildings make us depressed, and no wonder.

They’re grey, similar and dull.

Capitalism and globalism destroyed that magic.

In ancient times, we were leaving our homes with excitement because we were feeling inspired by our surroundings.

Instead, now most people are doing jackshit and repeating a depressive routine.

In ancient times, our ancestors were admiring and praising the stars as their gods.

Now you can’t even see a single star because there is smog.

It’s like that simple joke of “Retro Always Wins” was never a joke, but actual reality. Not only art is getting shittier; life itself gets even shittier. Horrible shit happens every day, but nobody cares. Horrible shit occurred in ancient times, but people were inspired and giving their lives away. They cared about things, and they weren’t sedated in front of a screen. Modernity made us weak and epicurean. I’m not too fond of the modern world, and I’d love even to be a miserable hobo if I had the chance to live in those magnificent times. To be surrounded by those beautiful castles, that fine music. At the same time, I can see little kids playing outside.

Even the CIA admitted that the elites manipulated art to control your emotions. Typical from this disgusting modernity, nobody gives a fuck, nobody complains, nobody talks about it. We accepted our fate as an uninspired herd with no ambitions. We don’t have art to inspire us anymore. However, we got stupid entertainment that makes us temporarily happy to stay still, immobile and inactive. In a nutshell; we reached the point that it’s completely useless.

Or isn’t it? I understand why people don’t listen to me because many turn down my message and because they sense me as a lunatic or excentric. After all, I’m not someone to be considered as normal. What moves my gears is something different. If at the end I will die and so will the universe and nobody has no certainty about what will happen next. Then why worry about all this shit about values, beauty or inspiration?

Because it feels right for me, when I was a kid, one person who used to make me happy was my grandfather. He’s part of why I started liking cartoons a lot. He used to tell me cool stories and made impressions of cartoon characters to make me laugh. I never met such a joyful and full of energy person like him in my life. He always inspired me, telling me his stories and showing me how strong he was. One day… he just got cancer, my grandpa was going to die, and while I was sad about it, I was too weak to face reality. I sometimes wanted to escape and not thinking of sad stuff. I made so many hedonistic things at the time. I couldn’t look at my grandfather because he’s just wasn’t the same, all that jolliness was just gone. My grandfather died, I didn’t dare to say goodbye, and that’s why I hate hedonism, and I love fascinating and beautiful art.

Hedonism weakens us, and we always know it when we fall into it. Instead, art or even good entertainment inspires and join us together.

That’s why I promised myself never to lose my spirit, no matter how most people see me; I will be me—doing crazy things, taking risks. The victory means finding a superior status, and defeat means finding death. There won’t be in-betweens for me; I’ll be eternally inspired, even in the eyes of death. No cancer will change that, not even the cancer of modernity.

#Art #Doomentio #Perezoso Doom #Topic #Society

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gnosticgnoob · 5 years ago

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Variations on a Theme: "The Weird vs The Quantifiable" -- Aggregated Commentary from within the Gutenberg Galaxy

The pursuit of examining the world through philosophy, mathematics, and science tends to be seen as expanding the borders of what is known and quantified, conquering the territory of what is not yet known. In this pursuit, the investigator encounters wonder or the "weird", and what ideologically separates some philosophers and scientists from others is whether the investigator sets aside the weird as a misunderstood quirk of what is not yet known but still knowable, or the investigator takes into account the weird as a fundamental, permanent attribute of the landscape of inquiry that may perhaps always represent factors which intrinsically and inescapably evade knowledge and literary explanation, not as a bug of our understanding but as a feature of the true ontological state of affairs. The former mindset supposes that with more time and rigor, our inquiry will finally arrive at a sort of epistemological/ontological "bedrock" that dispels any sense of the bizarre, the latter treats scientific inquiry itself as necessitating the injection of a sort of subjective poetry or play to adequately do justice to the full reality of what is observed and described for our purposes, without ever expecting that we will hit such bedrock. Materialism/scientism perhaps would posit that any inclusion of the mystical or poetic in the language we use to describe the world is inappropriate, pseudo-scientific, pseudo-intellectual, or maladaptive; the mystic posits conversely that to exclude the poetic and not make room for the weird is maladaptive.

I have here a collection of excerpts from other thinkers that I think work together to allude to the mystical as a permanent fixture of our endeavors for clarification through experimentation and language, or at least suggest that a more "mystical" mindset will always be more useful than one that is conversely more in the vein of materialism/scientism trying to arrive at a "final technical vocabulary":

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“We say the map is different from the territory. But what is the territory? Operationally, somebody went out with a retina or a measuring stick and made representations which were then put on paper. What is on the paper map is a representation of what was in the retinal representation of the man who made the map; and as you push the question back, what you find is an infinite regress, an infinite series of maps. The territory never gets in at all. […] Always, the process of representation will filter it out so that the mental world is only maps of maps, ad infinitum.” --Gregory Bateson, English anthropologist, social scientist, linguist, visual anthropologist, semiotician, and cyberneticist whose work intersected that of many other fields. His writings include Steps to an Ecology of Mind (1972) and Mind and Nature (1979). In Palo Alto, California, Bateson and colleagues developed the double-bind theory of schizophrenia. Bateson's interest in systems theory forms a thread running through his work. He was one of the original members of the core group of the Macy conferences in Cybernetics (1941- 1960), and the later set on Group Processes (1954 - 1960), where he represented the social and behavioral sciences; he was interested in the relationship of these fields to epistemology.

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“The mind is somehow a co-creator in the process of reality through acts of language. Language is very, very mysterious. It is true magic. People run all over the place looking for paranormal abilities, but notice that when I speak if your internal dictionary matches my internal dictionary, that my thoughts cross through the air as an acoustical pressure wave and are reconstructed inside your cerebral cortex as your thought. Your understanding of my words. Telepathy exists; it is just that the carrier wave is small mouth noises.” --Terence McKenna, "Eros And The Eschaton". McKenna was called the "Timothy Leary of the '90s", an American ethnobotanist, mystic, psychonaut, lecturer, author, and an advocate for the responsible use of naturally occurring psychedelic plants. He spoke and wrote about a variety of subjects, including psychedelic drugs, plant-based entheogens, shamanism, metaphysics, alchemy, language, philosophy, culture, technology, environmentalism, and the theoretical origins of human consciousness. -------------------------------------

“If quantum mechanics hasn’t profoundly shocked you, you haven’t understood it yet. Everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real.” --Niels Bohr, Danish physicist who made foundational contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum theory, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922. Bohr developed the Bohr model of the atom, in which he proposed that energy levels of electrons are discrete and that the electrons revolve in stable orbits around the atomic nucleus but can jump from one energy level (or orbit) to another. Although the Bohr model has been supplanted by other models, its underlying principles remain valid. He conceived the principle of complementarity: that items could be separately analysed in terms of contradictory properties, like behaving as a wave or a stream of particles. -------------------------------------

“We have to remember that what we observe is not nature herself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning.” --Werner Heisenberg, German theoretical physicist known for the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, which he published in 1927. Heisenberg was awarded the 1932 Nobel Prize in Physics for the creation of quantum mechanics. He also made important contributions to the theories of the hydrodynamics of turbulent flows, the atomic nucleus, ferromagnetism, cosmic rays, and subatomic particles, and he was instrumental in planning the first West German nuclear reactor at Karlsruhe. -------------------------------------

“We have no right to assume that any physical laws exist, or if they have existed up to now, that they will continue to exist in a similar manner in the future.” --Max Planck, German theoretical physicist whose discovery of energy quanta won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918. Planck made many contributions to theoretical physics, but his fame as a physicist rests primarily on his role as the originator of quantum theory; the discovery of Planck's constant enabled him to define a new universal set of physical units (such as the Planck length and the Planck mass), all based on fundamental physical constants upon which much of quantum theory is based. -------------------------------------

“There is no such thing as philosophy-free science; there is only science whose philosophical baggage is taken on board without examination.” --Daniel Dennett, American philosopher, writer, and cognitive scientist whose research centers on the philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, and philosophy of biology, particularly as those fields relate to evolutionary biology and cognitive science. A member of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, he is referred to as one of the "Four Horsemen of New Atheism", along with Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and the late Christopher Hitchens. -------------------------------------

“Things themselves become so burdened with attributes, signs, allusions that they finally lose their own form. Meaning is no longer read in an immediate perception, the figure no longer speaks for itself; between the knowledge which animates it and the form into which it is transposed, a gap widens. It is free for the dream.” --Michel Foucault, French philosopher, historian of ideas, social theorist, and literary critic. Foucault's theories primarily address the relationship between power and knowledge, and how they are used as a form of social control through societal institutions. His thought has influenced academics, especially those working in communication studies, anthropology, sociology, cultural studies, literary theory, feminism, and critical theory. Though often cited as a post-structuralist and postmodernist, Foucault rejected these labels. -------------------------------------

“When the mind projects names and concepts on what is seen through direct perception, confusion and delusion result.” --Patanjali, sage in Hinduism, thought to be the author of a number of Sanskrit works. The greatest of these are the Yoga Sutras, a classical yoga text. -------------------------------------

“The man who says that he has no illusions has at least that one.” --Joseph Conrad, Under Western Eyes (1911). Polish-British writer regarded as one of the greatest novelists to write in the English language. Conrad wrote stories and novels, many with a nautical setting, that depict trials of the human spirit in the midst of what he saw as an impassive, inscrutable universe. Heart of Darkness is among is most famous works. Conrad is considered an early modernist, though his works contain elements of 19th-century realism. His narrative style and anti-heroic characters have influenced numerous authors, and many films have been adapted from, or inspired by, his works. Numerous writers and critics have commented that Conrad's fictional works, written largely in the first two decades of the 20th century, seem to have anticipated later world events. -------------------------------------

“I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.” --Richard P. Feynman, American theoretical physicist, known for his work in the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics, and the physics of the superfluidity of supercooled liquid helium, as well as in particle physics for which he proposed the parton model. For contributions to the development of quantum electrodynamics, Feynman received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965. He assisted in the development of the atomic bomb during World War II and became known to a wide public as a member of the commission that investigated the Challenger shuttle disaster. Along with his work in theoretical physics, Feynman has been credited with pioneering the field of quantum computing and introducing the concept of nanotechnology. -------------------------------------

“The critical ontology of ourselves has to be considered not, certainly, as a theory, a doctrine, nor even as a permanent body of knowledge that is accumulating; it has to be conceived as an attitude, an ethos, a philosophical life in which the critique of what we are is at one and the same time the historical analysis of the limits that are imposed on us and an experiment with the possibility of going beyond them.” --Michel Foucault -------------------------------------

“In mystical literature such self-contradictory phrases as ‘dazzling obscurity,’ 'whispering silence,’ 'teeming desert,’ are continually met with. They prove that not conceptual speech, but music rather, is the element through which we are best spoken to by mystical truth. Many mystical scriptures are indeed little more than musical compositions. “He who would hear the voice of Nada, 'the Soundless Sound,’ and comprehend it, he has to learn the nature of Dharana…. When to himself his form appears unreal, as do on waking all the forms he sees in dreams, when he has ceased to hear the many, he may discern the ONE—the inner sound which kills the outer…. For then the soul will hear, and will remember. And then to the inner ear will speak THE VOICE OF THE SILENCE…. And now thy SELF is lost in SELF, THYSELF unto THYSELF, merged in that SELF from which thou first didst radiate.… Behold! thou hast become the Light, thou hast become the Sound, thou art thy Master and thy God. Thou art THYSELF the object of thy search: the VOICE unbroken, that resounds throughout eternities, exempt from change, from sin exempt, the seven sounds in one, the VOICE OF THE SILENCE. Om tat Sat.” (H.P. Blavatsky, The Voice of the Silence). These words, if they do not awaken laughter as you receive them, probably stir chords within you which music and language touch in common. Music gives us ontological messages which non-musical criticism is unable to contradict, though it may laugh at our foolishness in minding them. There is a verge of the mind which these things haunt; and whispers therefrom mingle with the operations of our understanding, even as the waters of the infinite ocean send their waves to break among the pebbles that lie upon our shores.” --William James, Varieties of Religious Experience. American philosopher and psychologist, and the first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States. James was a leading thinker of the late nineteenth century, one of the most influential U.S. philosophers, and has been labeled the "Father of American psychology". Along with Charles Sanders Peirce, James established the philosophical school known as pragmatism. James also developed the philosophical perspective known as radical empiricism. James' work has influenced intellectuals such as Émile Durkheim, W. E. B. Du Bois, Edmund Husserl, Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Hilary Putnam, and Richard Rorty, as well as former US President Jimmy Carter. -------------------------------------

“Metaphysical assertions, however, are statements of the psyche, and are therefore psychological. … Whenever the Westerner hears the word ��psychological’, it always sounds to him like ‘only psychological.’” --Carl Jung, “Psyche and Symbol”. Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. Jung's work was influential in the fields of psychiatry, anthropology, archaeology, literature, philosophy, and religious studies. Jung worked as a research scientist at the famous Burghölzli hospital, during which time he came to the attention of Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis. The two men conducted a lengthy correspondence and collaborated, for a while, on a joint vision of human psychology. Among the central concepts of analytical psychology is individuation—the lifelong psychological process of differentiation of the self out of each individual's conscious and unconscious elements, a process which Jung considered to be the main task of human development. He created some of the best known psychological concepts, including synchronicity, archetypal phenomena, the collective unconscious, the psychological complex, and extraversion and introversion. -------------------------------------

“God is a psychic fact of immediate experience, otherwise there would never have been any talk of God. The fact is valid in itself, requiring no non-psychological proof and inaccessible to any form of non-psychological criticism. It can be the most immediate and hence the most real of experiences, which can be neither ridiculed nor disproved.” --Carl Jung -------------------------------------

“Daniel C. Dennett defines religions at the beginning of his Breaking the Spell as ‘social systems whose participants avow belief in a supernatural agent or agents whose approval is to be sought,’ which as far as Christianity goes is rather like beginning a history of the potato by defining it as a rare species of rattlesnake…. He also commits the blunder of believing that religion is a botched attempt to explain the world, which is like seeing ballet as a botched attempt to run for a bus.” --Terry Eagleton, Reason, Faith, and Revolution. British literary theorist, critic, and public intellectual, Eagleton has published over forty books, but remains best known for Literary Theory: An Introduction (1983). The work elucidated the emerging literary theory of the period, as well as arguing that all literary theory is necessarily political.

#occult #scientism #mysticism #esoterica #philosophy

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dailyaudiobible · 5 years ago

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01/05/2020 DAB Transcript

Genesis 11:1-13:4, Matthew 5:1-26, Psalms 5:1-12, Proverbs 1:24-28

Today is the 5th day of January welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it is wonderful to be here with you and this is the first time we get to do this, we get to turn the knob as it were and swing open the door and step through the threshold into a brand-new week and this would be our first full week of this new decade. So, I am excited to share it with you as we move forward on our journey that we have begun moving through the Bible this year and this week we will read from the New International Version, brings up another little thing to explain. You’ll notice when we began the year and worked through last week we were reading from the New Living Translation and now we’re reading the New International Version, next week we’ll be reading another translation, and the week after that another one, and we do this, working our way through the year for a number of reasons, but the primary reason is…is this, we may not ever think about this or we may know this, but not really think it matters that much, but the Bible's native tongue isn't English. It's Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic. So, every single one of the words of the manuscripts that the Bible has been translated from are a different language than English. And, so, every word has to be poured over or translated or brought into the language for which its intended. Not necessarily an overwhelmingly big deal unless you are creating theological formulas and doctrines that…that affect the human soul and its eternal life, like it becomes more of a big deal. And it’s kind of at this time that some people raise their hands and I go, “I just stick to the good old tried-and-true King James. That’s the real one. That’s the inspired word of God.” But it's actually it's actually a translation into English, like all other translations into English. And…and I've sat…I've been able to observe biblical interpretation and translation in my…been able to watch teams of scholars around the table discussing the kinds of things like verb tense and obscure Hebrew words that have fallen out of use and what do they mean. And that’s just scratching the surface. I mean, there's a number of ways to do this kind of interpretation. So, you could go like, “well why don't you just look at one word in Hebrew, and then say what is that word and English? How do you say that word in English and then just put that down and then go to the next word? And there are translations that do that, that seek to do that, and we read from them. There also biblical translation teams that…well…basically every biblical translation team would acknowledge that oftentimes one word means more than one thing, depending on its context. And, so, if you try to port a word for word translation you can see this word and know that it has five or ten equivalents in another language, depending sort of on the nuance of the context and so then you get into interpretation, “what is this trying to say? What does this mean?” And, so, often biblical translation teams will then look at a complete thought. “Like what does the sentence mean? What is the point here?” Because word for word when you read it back in English doesn't convey the depth of the meaning and maybe even obscures it. And, so, then teams of linguists and historians looking at the context of the time that a particular passage might have been written try and get into the minds of the original hearers will then looking and go, “what is the complete thought? Like, how would what's being said here in Hebrew or Greek, how would that complete thought be said in English in a compelling way that would carry the same weight that it does in its native language?” And, so, there are translations that seek to work from this perspective and there are all kinds of hybrids in between. And, so, allowing ourselves to receive thousands and thousands and thousands, probably tens and tens of thousands of scholarship hours for us to be able to rotate and appreciate and receive all of that as we continue the rhythm of the year is the goal so that being English speakers we get the most comprehensive view of the word of God that we can…that we can short of learning all of the biblical languages and then, not only just understanding how, maybe for example, to read Greek but all the slang and all of the cultural reference…like all of the stuff that you would have to immerse yourself in. We have this scholarship, and this is why we rotate through so that we can appreciate this. And, so, this week we will be reading from the New International Version. And let's get to it. Let's get back into the book of Genesis. Today we will read chapters 11…well chapter 11 verse 1 through 13 verse 4.

Commentary:

Okay. So, we have already…we have already done some talking about some things, so I don’t want to spend a bunch of time because we’ll have plenty of opportunity. I just want to point out a couple of things, three things in particular that we have begun talking about. Alright. So, let's begin with what we what we were reading in Matthew today, the Sermon on the Mount and in particular the Beatitudes. And. they’re very, very famous, this is Jesus central core teaching. And it's interesting to read it as His core teaching because it's like everything that He talks about we don't quite understand exactly how that could be. It's like He's saying bad things are good things, right? “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Just…I mean…that…that one is…that one beatitude, that's disruptive because that seems out of sync with the world that we live in. “Blessed are those who mourn. Blessed are the meek”, right? So, what is Jesus telling us here? Like are we supposed to be week, feeble, cast down human beings with our shoulders slumped and our heads facing the ground as we move about the earth? It's disruptive and it forces us, if we want…I mean…we can blow by all of this, but if we are seeking what the Bible says and trying to understand what's going on in the Bible then we have slow down and go, “Okay. That does not look like the world I live in. The advice that I'm being given is to live almost backward to the world I'm living in.” And that is the point. So, we talked about Proverbs. We talked about wisdom. And listen, I believe Jesus is the son of God. He is my Savior, right? So, like, there's no problem there but let's…let's like step aside from that understanding and just look at Jesus appearing on the scene in the first century. Like, he just starts calling people together as a rabbi and starts teaching. And we could say that the reason that the people flocked to Jesus was because He was a miracle worker and that would be true, that would be part of it. We could also say that Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet, like He spoke of the end of things, He spoke of the kingdom of God, He spoke of an ultimate reality. So, people would've also understood Him that way. But Jesus also used a specific teaching style. We know them as stories or parables. We look often at the words of Jesus, and it seems as if He may not be answering what He's being asked or He may not be talking about what it seems like He should be talking about and this is also because Jesus was known as a wisdom teacher. And, so, when you see a story or something that's disruptive and you have to stop for a second and go, “what are we talking about here?” “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven?” We have to stop and go, “Okay. How does that work? What are we talking about?” It's disruptive because the ways of wisdom are disruptive. You have to be shaken awake, right? You’ve got to see something clearly all of the sudden and then it comes to you clearly. This is the way, walk in it, right? But if we look at our lives, we see that…that like that rarely happens when everything is perfect. Like when things are super great and we’re sort of like sailing with the wind at our back downhill, like everything is moving in the right direction. It’s wonderful to enjoy those times, but wisdom usually comes in disruption and we will find that this theme and these ideas, they are everywhere, everywhere in the Bible. We will not be able to turn a page when we start reading the apostle Paul, without coming face-to-face with these themes of enduring and looking deeper, like not just looking at what we can see but understanding that there is a vast reality beyond it and we are being transformed and that…that Jesus says this, Paul says this, Peter says this, John says this, James says this. Like, disruption is actually part of it. Like, being shaken awake from our slumber is part of the journey. So, as like we are just getting going, we are just in the first pages of the first gospel, so we’ve got a lots of time before we go through Mark and Luke and John to look for this, to begin settling in and looking for this when we listen to the words of Jesus.

Okay, then the book of Genesis we have another of these weird like stories that… “where did this story come from? And why is it situated here? And it's just a really short story and then we just kind of move on. And what's happening here?” And that is a very famous Sunday school story, the tower of Babel. So, we member a couple days ago we were talking about the sons of God and the daughters of Eve and just, you know, just exploring some of the different ways that that has been talked about or viewed or understood and this tower of Babel story is kind of a weird one like that. So, here's these people and they’re…they’re moving and they’re coalescing together, they decide to build a city and they decide to build a tower. And this is going to stabilize them, and they all speak the same voice there and they’re all on the same page. And God comes and He’s like, “yeah. this is not a good idea because if they stay here and they're allowed to do this, then, you know, they’ll be able to do anything. Nothing…nothing will be impossible.” So, He confuses the language and then people have to disperse into their language groups from there. So, we could say, “well, you know, the point of the story here is that this is where the languages on the earth came from, but many theologians would say, “no. this is tied to the sons of God and the daughters of Eve…like these…and the Giants. Like this is…there’s like this other kind of story happening before us. And, so,…so the thought here would be that the people come together at Babel and decide to exalt themselves because they are…are fully…they…they have fully inherited the knowledge of good and evil, the…the price that was paid for eating the fruit, and disobeying God and that awareness that conscious shift or whatever we want to call it, the Bible because it their eyes being opened, made them realize they were naked and separate from God. So, all of a sudden this is…and this is really interesting because we know this in child development, right? So, there is a certain period of time where a child doesn't have an awareness of themselves as a separate thing, as a separate being from their parent. And that grows and then we cultivate and then we work really, really hard to get our children to be individuals. And when out back out to the garden in Eden, we see man and woman and God, and they have no awareness of a separation. They have one understanding of their reality and it is them and God together and then eat this fruit and they become aware of all lot of things that make them sense a separation. They are…they are…I need to be careful how to say this, that they are the same as their parent, that they are separate. And, so, it's traumatic for them. And, so, we zoom forward all the way here to the Tower of Babel and see the repercussions that have happened since that event. We’ve read these repercussions and we’ve moved through a terrible flood on the earth. We’ve seen these repercussions. So, the people are exalting themselves and fully embracing their otherness, their separation and God’s like, “no. No. This isn’t going anywhere.” And, so, many theologians would say, “okay. You got…you got the lower gods or lower Elohim, you have the spiritual family of God, and they interact in different ways with the human family on earth and we see those types of interactions happening repeatedly throughout the Scriptures. But Gods not going to cooperate with His fallen spiritual family and His fallen human family attempting to exalt themselves. And this will not be the first time we see this kind of thing. God does not put up with that for very long, ever. And, so, one way of theologically looking at this is a disinheritance. God confuses the languages of the people and spreads the people out so they cannot be successful in sort of like deifying themselves. And, so, an end is put to that. When people begin to coalesce around their language. Then, immediately…immediately after that story we introduced to Abram. So, it’s like not out of place. This story happens, the people are spread out. Immediately we get interest to Abram who will become Abraham who will affect the entire rest of the Bible. So, God sends the people across the earth and then we get introduced to Abraham and it is through Abraham that God is going to do a new thing upon the earth and we’ll be watching that story and its challenges and victories for the rest of the year.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You. We thank You for the richness of Your word and we thank You for the opportunity to explore and to be disrupted and we ask Holy Spirit that You would come among us and help us to get comfortable with the idea of being disrupted or interrupted because we need to get used to this idea because this is one of the primary ways that Your word works within us. It challenges us, invites us to think, but it also invites us to tune into the ears of our hearts and understand that it's much deeper than what are five physical senses can become aware of. There is a lot more going on than we ever perceive. And, so, we invite You Holy Spirit into this week into everything that we’re going to do, all the choices that we’re going to make, all the words that we’re going to speak. May they be good. May they be honoring to You. And we pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is the website, its home base, and its where you find what's going on around here, so be sure to stay tuned and stay connected in any way that you can and in any way that you will.

I will mention at dailyaudiobible.com in the Community section you will find links to all the different social media channels that the Daily Audio Bible level is on. And that is a great place to get connected.

I means, some of the pages, you know, you’ll want to follow because if we, you know, send out an alert, “there’s a problem with this or here's what's going on or whatever” then you’ll be able to be alerted. Others are groups, You can just interact with other brothers and sisters who are working their way through the Bible, like the Daily Audio Bible women's page that my wife champions. If you are a woman then…then it is her mission to encourage you and you find tremendous encouragement by staying plugged in to the women's group there. Then there’s DAB Friends, which is kind our loving free-for-all where conversation is continually happening. So, check out those links in the Community section at dailyaudiobible.com and stay connected.

Another thing about social etc. is like, once in a while, you know we read the Scriptures and talk about them, but there are times when it's like our hearts…the Scriptures have opened our hearts and the only way to really respond is in song or just to drive the point home it would take me, you know, 20 minutes and a bunch of words or it could be just this one song that moves beyond our intellect and just starts to speak truth into our hearts. And, so, we do that from time to time. And invariably, you know, we get asked, “who was that?” We post all that is to our social media channels so just if you’re following that you’ll always kind of know how that all works when it happens. So, there's today’s tip.

And if you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that dailyaudiobible.com as well. There is a link that lives on the homepage and I thank you with all of my heart for your partnership. If you’re using the Daily Audio Bible app, you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or the mailing address, if that is your preference is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And, as always, if you have a prayer request or comment you can now press the Hotline button, the little red button in the app at the top and just start talking or you can dial 877-942-4253.

And that's it for today. I’m Brian. I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow

Community Prayer and Praise:

Hello Daily audio Bible family this is Stephanie from Bangalore and I just wanted to call in. Its Friday, December 27th and I thank you all for praying, those of you who have been praying for me and my in-laws. This was my first Christmas, of course, as being married and my first Christmas away from my parent’s household as far as going there and celebrating and it really was in a lot of ways better than I could’ve ever imagined which is really, really great. So, thank you for praying and we were able to have a couple of my in-laws over for the afternoon and evening and that was actually just a really good time. So, praise God, thank you for praying. Please keep praying that I can build relationships there. And, of course, there’s always the next thing, always the next thing, always the next prayer request but thank you for that. Quick update on the little girl who got the kidney transplant. For the first time in 15 months she was able to go to bed the other night. She came home Christmas Day and she was able to go to sleep without any tubes at all. No catheter for dialysis, nothing. So, please just, you know, keep her in your prayers, keep the donor in your prayers as she is recovering from the surgery as well. But praise God for that. Thank you so much family and I am sure I’ll be calling back soon. Five.

Hi Daily Audio Bible family this is Rhula from the Sidney Australia. I was just listening to 27th December reading and prayers at the end of the reading. Anonymous called and she said something that really prompted me to call immediately. Anonymous, I’m just praying for you right now because that feeling that you feel where you’re in despair and you don’t know why you’re in a relationship with God because why, like you said, He’s always good and you’re not good and He’s always right and you’re wrong…you’re always wrong. Anonymous this is exactly why…why we need Him, because we can rest in his goodness and we can rest in his…in the comfort of knowing that the Lord Almighty who’s always right and who’s always…always knows everything, that He loves us unconditionally as we are. So, come to Him as you are anonymous, come to Him as you are because that is who He loves, you with all your flaws and all your mistakes and all your errors and everything that you feel like you’re just not good enough. Our Lord loves you as you are and that is the most profound and most amazing love that you could ever experience in the world, where it’s…He doesn’t judge us and He doesn’t condemn us and He’s a forgiver and He’s merciful and He’s grace and He’s good and his goodness will last forever and He will work all things for good because He loves us and He calls all things according to his purpose. So just remember that Anonymous. And remember that it’s not about you being as good as God. We will never be as good as God no matter what we do. He is enough, his love for us is enough and that’s what we need to know. And I just pray for you Anonymous. I pray that you get that strength for…from God…

Hi this is Marylin calling from the inland Northwest. This is my second call. I just started listening in October, somewhere around there. I do have an answer to prayer and that I asked prayer for my son who is in isolation in the psych ward, the hospital, he’s had a severe frontal brain injury back in 2002 and also mental illness. He is now out of isolation and actually they are wanting to release him, and he is very demanding and doesn’t listen, thinks he’s the medical professional and is going to be released. The problem is that I need prayer that he would be willing to…willing and understand that if he keeps doing the same old same old is insanity. He needs to be in a group home or something. He’s on very heavy-duty psych meds and he probably should be in a group home or some situation where somebody can be taking care of him and he can be monitored, and he can be also out of a very moldy sick apartment. So, I really appreciate it. I really appreciate everybody’s honesty on this podcast. I am so thankful for this program for everybody’s honesty and the vulnerability of everybody and I do pray for others as well and am so thankful I know I’m not alone being in a family with mental illness. So, thank you so much for your prayers and I am praying for everyone else that calls in. Thank you so much. Have a wonderful day. Bye.

Good morning this is Sally from Massachusetts and I’m calling for anonymous. Today is Friday, December 27th and I heard your call this morning. You were thinking about how you could meet Jesus if you pulled your car in front of the 18-wheeler. And I know what you’re saying when you say you feel like you’re very far from God. And when I feel that way, I remember that it’s me that’s turned away. God is still right there. And if you don’t know what to pray, sometimes “help me God” is the best prayer because that lets God know that you want Him to help you and He will help you. He will meet you wherever you are. And I know what you mean about how you don’t feel that you can go to anyone in your church or any of your friends to talk about your feelings. You know, you can call the suicide hotline. I did that myself. I was not suicidal but I just wanted somebody to listen to me cry and I had spent hours on the phone with a treasured friend but I still needed to talk and when I called them they didn’t offer advice or try to fix me the just asked me questions to keep me talking. And, you know, we as people, we want to offer advice, we want to help you and we want to reach out to you. Sometimes, just having someone listen and not judge is fantastic. So, I urge you to give them a call. And, also I’ve started journaling because I can get my thoughts down on paper and there out…

Hello, I’m calling myself “I am a Child of God”. I’m from Central Florida. I’ve listened since 2007 and this is the first time I’ve ever called in. I have two important requests. Sorry. I have two important prayer requests today. I’m praying for my father’s health. He has other issues that are causing him to have kidney problems. Of course, I pray that he be healed and not have surgery at all but if he does have surgery, I pray he is a very quick recovery. I’d like to have help from people that aren’t as stressful. I also pray for his salvation. He’s __ towards God. I pray God brings people into his life that he will listen to and that God talks to him in his sleep, in his dreams. I hope to call back again and get better at this. Thank you for your prayers. God bless you.

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