#overwhelming averageness

[ahb-writes]

Book Review: ‘I Am Blue, in Pain, and Fragile’

I am Blue, in Pain, and Fragile by Yoru Sumino My rating: 3 of 5 stars The seduction of self-affirmation is infinitely dangerous. And the prickling unease that claws its way through the brokenhearted? One often mistakes it for a twinkling of presumption or insight. Such is the case for Tabata Kaede, closing out his final year of university studies by sprinting the final stretch of lazy afternoon classes, the blues of working part-time at a local drug store, and surviving the drudgery of job hunting. Such is the case for Tabata-san. Unless, of course, the man should parlay that twinkling of presumption into an earnest aggrievance; that is, revenge. I AM BLUE, IN PAIN, AND FRAGILE is a slow-moving novel of middling intrigue until the climax. Sadly and truly, very little of substance occurs in the novel's first 225 pages. Tabata laments the loss of his best friend, a wily and hyper-social young woman he often describes as "vexing" because of her boundless optimism. Akiyoshi Hisano, his friend, delighted in asking awkward questions during lectures and professing world betterment to be the grandest of aspirations. Akiyoshi was, in a word, an idealist. So then, what changed? Tabata and Akiyoshi only became friends through their mutual awkwardness. At some point in their freshman year, they founded a university club, Moai, to represent their embrace of the different, the unique, the cultural, and the idealistic. But disillusionment came fast for these two. The club grew, the pair drifted apart, and the personal philosophies to which both Tabata and Akiyoshi held at their cores forced the young adults to make several difficult decisions. Regrettably, this novel is only passingly about the conflicts that arose as a result of those philosophical complications. A story about agency, about college students' difficult and urgent scuffling with the adult world's philosophies would, perhaps, make for a good read. I AM BLUE, IN PAIN, AND FRAGILE, in contrast, is about a lazy braggart who redefines his cowardice as a means of exhaling his emotional debts onto others. Does Tabata's sophistry catch up with him? Absolutely. That's probably the best part of the novel. But everything that happens before then? Readers will surely fall asleep. The narrator, Tabata, schemes to sow chaos among the affairs of modern day Moai, a club no longer dedicated to culture and questions, but instead a club turned farm system for obsequious business-types. He feels bitter and betrayed by his cohorts. Nobody chases their dreams anymore. Nobody is eager to make a difference in the world. Students no longer visit museums and watch documentaries; they hold mock interview sessions and exchange business cards with dull-faced professionals. The novel's solution to Tabata's feeling of betrayal is circuitous and uninteresting. How indeed does one disband a club one doesn't belong to, and with only a few months until graduation? And why go through the effort? Are Tabata's wounds really so deep and untreated? These practical storytelling questions never get in the way of this bland tale of pseudo-revenge. Tabata attempts a handful of awkward blackmail schemes, and he fails, rather oddly, to fully convince his few friends to join a cause for which even he has reservations. Again, I AM BLUE, IN PAIN, AND FRAGILE isn't a discussion of the moral peculiarities best suited to ignorant young adults breaking into the wider world; it's a novel about one man's petty need to validate his emotional listlessness, and in doing so, identifies and reifies the listlessness of others. The narrator engages his best friend, Tousuke, whose charm masks an ardent ache for personal intimacy. The narrator engages his coworker, Kawahara, a casual kouhai of his, whose severe look belies an astonishingly casual, even childlike disposition. The overwhelming averageness of these and other characters frame Tabata as fool for believing his grievance is worth grieving, and an even bigger fool for attempting to pull others into the wake of his manufactured indignation. For readers bored to tears in tracking the mumblings of a student whose loneliness seeps into everything, they'll be delighted to know the confrontation that comprises the novel's climax is exquisite. The novel's climax is a 21-page argument, and while the scene doesn't quite make up for the passive plotting of the prior 200 pages, it does serve as an excellent case example for other storytellers in how to pen a scene that demands attention and thus defines the book on the whole. The argument scene itself possesses all of the highs, lows, gaffs, and screams native to exhaustive blow-up shouting matches. For all of the book's chronicling of average, human failings, the climax-argument is a fine literary example of what happens when these failings all come to a head. Tabata articulates, with unexceptional believability, his personal tenet of non-interference, of being so hopelessly agreeable that conflict is the farthest thing from people's mind. Akiyoshi herself confides that pursuing one's goals, no matter how idealistic, should take precedent. But what neither of them realize until it's too late, is that being overly agreeable leaves little room for individuality and that being an optimist often leaves one under the boot of realism sooner rather than later. I AM BLUE, IN PAIN, AND FRAGILE exposes the consequences of unimpeded self-affirmation, either internally or externally, to be a grotesque and painful emptiness tended to by illusory necessities.

Light-Novel Reviews || ahb writes on Good Reads

[blooodymoon]

A "RETURN of the Number of PERSONS FLOGGED in the BRITISH NAVY, in each of the Years 1845 and 1846; specifying the Name of the Ship, the Offence, the Sentence and the Number of Lashes Infficted." Parlamentary Paper, Number 661 of Session 1847

So after reading the Post about Jopsons Flogging by @handfuloftime I went down a research rabbit hole because I wanted to see if their exist sufficient & specific enough Data to accuratly compare his punishment and put it in the historical context.

I found this Website, which features the two tables from the Parlamentary Papers and their Source.

(Note: The tables on the website are incomplete and inaccurate in certain places. I compared it from top to bottom to the original source and corrected/added the informations in my table.)

I used that as a basis for my own table, where I also added Averages and Sliders so people can search the Informations!

(Apparently Sliders don't work on Mobil, and I don't know enough about Google Sheets how to fix it :/

If anyone knows or if you find a some kind mistake please let me know.)

This week I visited the University Libary, which has access to the Parlamentary Papers Online, to see if such tables also exist for earlier years but sadly 1845 was the first year where they went into such Specifics.

(I hope to add some of the Years after 1846 to the table, when I can.)

Earlier years only had these Informations per Year:

Total Number of Punishments

Total Number of Lashes

Highest Number of Lashes Inflicted at One Time

Lowest Numper of Lashes Inflicted at One Time

This Information for 1839 - 1846 under the Cut.

Also under the Read More are some Graphs, Medians & Averages about Flogging for Drunkenness Alone, seperated by Seamen, Marines, Boys and Everyone!

Hope that someone find this useful/interesting !

Corporal Punishment for Drunkenness Alone

Everyone:

Lashes Sentenced Median: 32,75 (1845: 33,5 | 1846: 31,4)

Lashes Sentenced Average: 31,07 (1845: 31,13 | 1846: 31,02)

Lashes Inflicted Average: 30,8 (1845: 31,02 | 1846: 30,58)

Seamen:

Lashes Sentenced Median: 36 (1845: 36 | 1846: 36)

Lashes Sentenced Average: 34,37 (1845: 34,62 | 1846: 33,86)

Lashes Inflicted Average: 34,33 (1845: 34,41 | 1846: 33,86)

Marines:

Lashes Sentenced Median: 31,4 (1845: 32 | 1846: 31,4)

Lashes Sentenced Average: 30,8 (1845: 31,09 | 1846: 31,09)

Lashes Inflicted Average: 30,8 (1845: 31,09 | 1846: 30,69)

Boys:

Lashes Sentenced Median: 24 (1845: 24 | 1846: 33)

Lashes Sentenced Average: 26,22 (1845: 24,4 | 1846: 28,5)

Lashes Inflicted Average: 25,33 (1845: 24,4 | 1846: 26,5)

Years

1839:

Number of Punishments: 2,007

Number of Lashes: 59,341

Highest: 60 | Lowest: 3

1840:

Number of Punishments: 2,026

Number of Lashes: 60,302

Highest: 48 | Lowest: 1

1841:

Number of Punishments: 2,066

Number of Lashes: 61,669

Highest: 50 | Lowest: 2

1842:

Number of Punishments: 2,472

Number of Lashes: 71,024

Highest: 100* | Lowest: 1

1843:

Number of Punishments: 2,170

Number of Lashes: 63,985

Highest: 60 | Lowest: 3

1844:

Number of Punishments: 1,411

Number of Lashes: 42,352

Highest: 72+ | Lowest: 6

1845:

Number of Punishments: 1,070

Number of Lashes: 33,511

Highest: 48 | Lowest: 3

1846:

Number of Punishments: 1,077

Number of Lashes: 32,360

Highest: 50* | Lowest: 3

*By sentence of a Court Martial.

+By order of the Commander-in-Chief for theft, in a shop at Chusan, and violence to the natives.

Sources: A "RETURN of the CORPORAL PUNISHMENTS inflicted in the ROYAL NAVY, in each of the Years 1839 to 1843, both inclusive, stating the highest and lowest Number of Lashes at each Time, and the aggregate Number of Lashes in each Year [ ]" Parlamentary Paper, Number 308, of Session 1845 + ABSTRACT of Total Numbers of CORPORAL PUNISHMENTS inflicted in the NAVY, and the Total Number of LASHES Inflicted, in each Year up to the 31st December 1846 [ ]. Parlamentary Paper, Number 661, of Session 1847

[aparticularbandit]

it is important to me that you understand that:

junko has no luck (and when she does, it's bad luck)

nagito has fantastic luck, but it always comes at a cost - for every moment of good luck, there is also a moment of bad luck; the higher the good luck he wants, the greater the sacrifice of bad luck he needs first (see case 5)

izuru has luck with no cost, which makes his luck better than nagito's; he's the inverse of junko, but his luck is downloaded, fake, contrived (like the rest of his talent is)

this must be combined with:

junko can calculate and anticipate anything provided she has access to the right dataset (the better she knows someone/something, the better she can manipulate them/it - this extends to talent as well; the more data she has on how someone's talent functions, the better she can imitate it, which is why she can't imitate ryota's animation as completely in the way that she wants (different talents have different rates in terms of how much she needs to analyze them, though))

nagito can deduce but he cannot mimic; he dabbles in manipulation, but he is much more of a servant to someone else's goals, which means his analysis is always in service to someone else (kyoko is similar but not quite the same; kyoko can get to the point of deducing fast enough to prevent things, which is a lot more similar to junko's analysis, just used in a different way; kyoko's more straight forward than junko is, which is why deduce and not analyze)

izuru's analysis functions the same as junko's does, except that he doesn't need to analyze someone else's talent to mimic it; he has had talent downloaded straight into him like neo in the matrix; if he wants more talents than the ones he already has, he's gonna need them downloaded again, probably

as a result:

junko's weakness is luck and incomplete data sets; an incomplete (or wrong) data set leads to a miscalculation, and when something relies on luck and cannot be precalculated or predicted, then junko falls. she relies hard on her analysis, which gives her a blind spot. (junko, however, is aware of this. that's why she has both nagito and izuru on deck; in the hope calculation that their luck, correctly used, will allow her to predict things that happen by chance as well)

nagito's weakness is his reliance on his luck. he believes in his luck. his luck will take care of him. he can't control how it works, and he can't control how the bad luck will happen or who it will happen to, but he doesn't need to analyze something for his luck to get him out of it (and the smaller the chance that something will happen, the more likely it will happen to him; his luck works on an inverse to everyone else's, basically, so what's the point of predicting things on what is most likely to happen when, for him, it will probably be the other way around)

izuru could cover his incomplete data sets with his luck, but tends to rely so completely on his luck to cover his ass that he stops analyzing and leaves himself open there - he should be the strongest of the two, but really tends to leave him with more weaknesses until he figures out how to use the two in conjunction; something junko has figured out but cannot do because her luck is not her own

[ruestew]

It's a pain to love niche media when there is a lack of content (both official and fan-made). I appreciate it in a twisted way, especially when you're me, and I tend to obsess over lesser-known media (Eltingville, Road 96, Postal, etc.). It fuels me to create. To pay homage to the underappreciated work I love. I've met many wonderful people in such small communities and even reignited old friendships thanks to our shared interests. I don't think I'd feel the same in a large fandom where I'd feel drowned by the mass influx of noise everywhere.

[setaflow]

Man. I am so goddamn tired.

[danielnelsen]

suffered through that whole fight with the forge monster thing and then got an achievement for killing it without using the forge 😭😭😭 i wasn’t trying to make the fight harder, i just forget you can do interesting things in this game

[du-hjarta-skulblaka]

How to draw a character in an audio drama when the only visual description I can remember is "nice suit'

[dewgongs]

?

[yaminerua]

It’s a bit funny how originally it was probably meant to be at the very least implied that Jamie has feelings for Victoria (and Frazer has pretty much said he played it that way at the time) but like in the years since the original run in the series, other materials that came much much later like audios and novels and stuff have ended up giving them ages that kinda change the vibe. Like the birth year Victoria was given in one piece of media now works out to her being around 14-15 when she joins the two of them, and Jamie’s birth year in another making him around 22 at the time he joined.

so it’s shifted a bit from being viewed as Jamie being protective of her in a romantic sense to Jamie is protective in something like an older sibling-ish kind of way. It’s funny how extra info can completely change the way the same thing is viewed, even if the extra info came much later. And also it depends a lot on people actually Knowing the extra info and whether they consider it canon cos not everyone even seeks out stuff beyond the tv show itself.

[mx-lamour]

What do y'all fucking do to record music? Like, there are so many annoying terrible sounds EVERYWHERE ALL THE TIME.

Especially bad because I have pets and they hate being alone and also hate when I'm making sound that they don't understand. The house makes noises. My computer pinged. If the pets are not yelling at me, they're rattling toys and food around. I can't go outside, because the highway and birds and random fucking neighbor sounds (which I can also hear inside the house, because why not).

I literally could not take it anymore and screamed and now my voice is fucked for the day and I have nothing to show for it and my cat is still yelling at me because I locked myself in my room. I am SO MAD.

[phatcatphergus]

the possibility of any of the morning crew meeting averageharry just became real in my mind

oh lord, please

That’s extremely horrifying to think about. Maybe Harry will be busy then. Hopefully

[prosebushpatch]

Okay.... batb retelling is drafted.... time to see how long it is and pray it’s under 100K

[c0rpsedemon]

The Tiktokers Are Saying That Romeo And Cinderella Is About Grooming

[divinekangaroo]

Good lord writing Alfie is difficult that bloody cadence

[hwanghyunjinenthusiast]

.