#re the last part: my theory is about a lack of interactivity within the world + ppl moving on fast from thg usually

[caesarflickermans]

@maidstew I know you will inevitably have experienced this as well, but unfortunately side characters are not focused on much by most fans. Caesar is no exception, and the list below is the extent that fans think about this character:

Stanley Tucci was sooo funny!! Haha funny man. (Sometimes) Oh wait, morbid I laugh with him, omg!

Nepo baby meme (very rarely) how does this affect number 4?

Question: What happened with Caesar after the war? Answers ranging from executed over imprisoned to (rarely) let go or (even more rarely) used by Paylor as an asset.

Question: How did Caesar feel about the Games? Answers ranging from bootlicker to opportunist to feeling sympathy for the tributes but not doing anything

aaaand that is it. Yup. That is all people think about Caesar regardless the platform or time.

This is reflected in most fanfiction published about him, as the majority of times he is tagged in any given work is because he interviews tributes. Rare are the works where people feature him mainly (41), and the majority of these are oneshots of character studies. There is a small sub-genre of fanfiction where he dates a tribute/victor (including reader fics), or where he is secretly from the Districts/was a past victor; he is no rebel there but being blackmailed by Snow—this is a common theme btw! The character studies usually like to make him more contemplative and perceive him as having sympathy for the tributes but not giving up his privilege—sometimes due to blackmail. Some like to write him as a bootlicker and being imprisoned-to-be-executed with two even having him buy victors for pleasure.

There is perhaps a handful of fan-made storylines for Caesar that are more complex. For example, someone had a series of beginner art on Deviantart where Caesar dates Effie.

Caesar being a secret rebel is not impossible to come up with. The reason why it is only me is simply because most people do not care enough about him to construct a major arc around him that's a bit more in-depth and a bit more out-of-the-ordinary.

I have kept up-to-date on the creative work surrounding Caesar for over ten years, which might sound like a lot, but if you were to search for it right now, I know you will spend half a day on what is out there and be finished. The majority of the oneshots are under 1K, the art is rare to begin with, and many of the ones out there have either been commissioned or requested by me, even if it isn't as visible—for example, the detailed art piece of Caesar contemplatively staring at a rose commissioned by a guy called raamsay? My old username & the artist misgendering me. Most anon requests on tumblr? Me not knowing the artist well and sending it in on anon.

I came up with this theory on Caesar becoming a rebel through major influences on aspects of guilt and complicity—what do you do if you grasp the horrors of your society and profession?—as well as being influenced by works like 1984 (Winston and O'Brien). Caesar is the only character we know of who has worked for decades in the Games industry, which can make him more complicit and more of an opportunist, or it makes him a sleeper agent for Plutarch, as Caesar is the only character to be close to the tributes and victors for such a long time span and who can easily influence the audience's perception of a tribute as well as communicate (rebel plans) with the victors on a steady basis. He asked Peeta about love and allowed Katniss to twirl her dress again during the 75th interview despite a past incident that was not beneficial to Snow/the regime.

Overall, it just bugs me when people go out of their way to hate on specific fan works. And this pet peeve applies to my theory as it has one person behind it (me) + the people I closely talk with and who I'd generally associate with my work one way or another ( @beedelia and @pollinarys ). I think that is simply very different from popular theories that don't have a single person behind them, such as the Foxface suicide theory, or are such massive works that they are within the fanon literary canon (the victor's project, the end of the world, peeta's games). That's punching up or into such a general direction that no one cares.

Maybe my perception of my work is fairly different to the fandom's—it has been featured in two popular tiktok rec lists—but even if that were the case, I also don't feel like I have within the fan work elaborated on Caesar at all. All the "this is why" is yet to come, which makes it fairly easy to reject the theory as the supporting arguments and the interesting effects on the character are yet to come.

To have a more productive finalising paragraph on this—and you surely know a thing or two about this as well—is that secondary and tertiary characters are not focused on much within the fandom. Which! Is! Sad! Most people's favourite characters are Johanna, Finnick, Peeta, Katniss, and Haymitch. While funny in nature, the "I liked Haymitch before SOTR" meme is cute, but ultimately he is one of the most popular characters out there. 90% of the fandom likes Haymitch, this isn't in any way unique. While I know all of the Caesar work out there, I have never been able to pinpoint the exact reason as to why that lack of interest in side characters is the case, especially when other works popular during THG that took place in magic Scotland have a plethora of hyperfocus on niche characters. I have my theories on why, but nothing ever felt conclusive.

y'know what kind of annoys me. if people pretend like the caesar is a rebel theory is some sort of popular theory. it's almost as if there's a pushback against it based on "all the theories he's a secret rebel" and it's rather strange because these comments create the false sense that there's a massive hoard of fans who like and speak about this theory (all while the counterpoints receive a lot of support)

but in truth it's literally just

🧍‍♀️<- me

and i just sorta. dislike this kind of false narrative. if you hate my theory, fine. but at least don't create some false story about the masses who support this while you are an underdog for speaking out

[for-your-therapeutic-smile]

They Never Teach You How to Stop

Rarely do I lack the words to express myself. Perhaps this reflects my failure to maintain my journal consistently throughout 2020. Here goes an honest attempt to capture and document my mental state and the fatigue of Covid, the inertia of this shelter-in-place, the anxiety of this political crisis we face as a nation, the pressure of being a 1L in law school against the backdrop of civil unrest and Justice Ginsburg’s death, coming out - my dad told me he was disappointed -, the possible erosion of my relationship with someone I love, and this feeling of absolute dread and resentment for a system that continuously fails my and future generations (robbing us of a social contract that promised life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness), among many other things I’m too tired to consider. When did we accept a $0 baseline as the American Dream? Oh, to be debt free - free from this punishment for having pursued an education. Stifling the educated to prevent them (myself included) from organizing and mobilizing the masses so we can supplant this system with a better one is the overall objective of the oppressive class (read: Pedagogy of the Oppressed); it’s the conflict between the bourgeois and the proletariat. The proletariat has swallowed the middle class, leaving only the ruling class. I am essentially on autopilot, forcing myself to go through the motions so I can survive another day. I know others join me in this mental gymnastics of unparalleled proportions, one social scientists and medical researchers will soon study and subsequently publish their findings in an attempt to explain the unexplainable. Despite a lack of air circulation, we are breathing history; the constitution, like our societal norms, must adapt accordingly. Judge Barrett: there is no place for originalism. While I seldom admit weakness or an inability to manage life’s curveballs, this series of unfortunate events seems almost too much to bear. 

And yet somehow I continue to find the energy to submit assignments due at 11:59 p.m., write this post at 1:38 a.m., “sleep”, wake at 7 a.m. so I can read and prepare (last minute!) the assigned material leading into my torts or contracts class. I find the energy to text my boyfriend (or ex-boyfriend) so I can attempt to salvage the real and genuine connection we have, cook elaborate meals to find some solace, wrestle with whether or not to hit my yoga mat (I don’t), apply to a fellowship for the school year and summer internships, prepare my dual citizenship paperwork, manage a campaign for two progressive politicians, and listen to music in an attempt to stay sane . . . ~*Queues John Mayer’s “War of My Life” and “Stop This Train”*~ . . . I realize I have to be kinder to myself, give credit where credit is due. I hate feeling self-congratulatory though.

Mostly, I am too afraid of the repercussions if I stop moving at a mile/minute, that I can just work away the pain and be the superhuman who numbs himself from the low-grade depression and nervous breakdown. My body tells me to slow down, as evidenced by the grinding of my teeth, but I take on more responsibility because people rely on me. I must show up. I am a masochist in that way. This is what I signed up for and I’ll be damned if I don’t carry through on my promise to do the work. Pieces of my soul scattered about like Horcruxes, though they’re pure, not evil, so I hope nobody resolves to destroy them. 

My mind rarely rests. It’s 3:08 a.m., one of the lonelier hours where night meets morning; it’s the hour for and of intense introspection. It makes you consider pulling an all-nighter, one you reserve for an “important” school or work deadline. We always put our personal lives on the back-burner. 3 a.m. sets the tone for a potentially awful day. But that doesn’t matter right now. I’m letting some of my favorite albums play in the background: Joni Mitchell’s Blue, Mac Miller’s Circles, Rhye’s Blood, Alicia Keys’ ALICIA, Coldplay’s Ghost Stories, Frank Ocean’s Blonde, Miley Cyrus’ Dead Petz in addition to other playlists, Tiny Desk performances, and tracks (I unearthed last week, like When It’s Over by Sugar Ray). I need to feel something. I need to feel anything. I need to feel everything. We experience such a broad spectrum of emotions throughout the day that we lose track of if we don’t pause to absorb them. Music reinforces empathy; it releases dopamine.

I spent the past two hours reading through old journals and posts, as scattered as they were, on a wide range of topics: poems I had written about falling in and out love, anecdotes about my world travels, and entries on personal, political, and professional epiphanies. The other night I found one of my favorites, a previous post from my time living in Indonesia, centering on the dualities of technology. It resonated with me more than the others. To summarize, I wrote about my tendency to equate the Internet with a sense of interconnectedness (shoutout to Tumblr for being my digital journal; to Twitter for being a place of comedy and revolution; to Instagram for curating my *aesthetic*; to Facebook where I track my family’s accomplishments and connect with travel buddies displaced around the globe all searching for a home). And yet I feel incredibly lonely and disconnected whenever I spend too much time using technology, so much so that I set screen time limitations on my phone recently to curtail this obsession with constant communication and information gathering. Trump and Biden admitted that it’s unlikely we’ll know the results of the election on November 3rd during their first presidential debate. Push notifications don’t allow us to learn of trauma within the comforts of our own homes. I’m already fearing where I will be when that news breaks. 

This global pandemic and indefinite shutdown of the world (economy) undeniably exacerbates these feelings. This is some personal and collective turmoil. But I was complicit in the endless scrolling and swiping of faces and places long before Covid-19. Instead of choosing to interact with my direct environment (today’s research links this behavior to the same levels of depression one feels when they play slot machines), I am still an active on all these platforms, participating the least in the most tangible one: my physical life. I am tired of pretending. I am tired of being tired. I am tired of embodying fake energy to exist in systems that fail me. I am tired of the quagmire. Like Anaïs Nin, I must be a mermaid [because] I have no fear of depths and a great fear of shallow living. This particular excerpt from that 2016 entry was difficult for me to read: “The fantasy of what could have been if a certain plan had unfolded will haunt you forever if you do not come to peace with the reality of the situation. I hope you come to terms with reality.” I am not at peace with my current reality. But is anyone?

It’s a bit surreal for my peers to have suddenly started caring about international relations theory. It’s transported me back to my 2012 IR lecture at Northeastern: are you a constructivist or a feminist? Realist or liberalist? Neo? Marxist? The one no one wants you to talk about. Absent upward mobility, this is class warfare. But I cannot be “a singular expression of myself . . . there are too many parts, too many spaces, too many manifestations, too many lines, too many curves, too many troubles, too many journeys, too many mountains, too many rivers” . . . It feels like America’s wake-up call. But I know people will retreat into the comforts of capitalism if Biden wins and, well, we all enter uncharted waters together if the Electoral College re-elects #45. For those who weren’t paying attention: the world is multipolar and we are not the hegemon. Norms matter. People tend to be self-interested and shortsighted. Look to the past in order to understand the future. History, as the old adage goes, repeats itself. Once a cheater, always a cheater. Taxation without representation. Indoctrination. Welcome to the language of political discourse. Students of IR and polisci have long awaited your participation. Too little too late? Plot twist: it’s a lifelong commitment. You must continue to engage irrespective of the election outcome or else we will regress just as quickly as we progress. Now dive into international human rights treaties (International Covenant on Civil & Political Rights; International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights), political refugees, FGM. No one said it wasn’t dismal. But it’s important. We need buy-in.  

While I am grateful for the continuation of my education, for this extended time with family, for this opportunity to be a campaign manager for two local progressive candidates (driving to Boston to pick up revised yard signs as proof that the work never stops), it would be remiss of me, however, not to admit that I am lonely: I am buried in my books, in the depressing news both nationally and globally, and in precedent-setting Supreme Court cases (sometimes for the worst, e.g. against the preservation of our environment). In my nonexistent free time I work on political asylum cases, essentially creating an enforceability framework of international law, for people fleeing country conditions so unthinkable (the irony of that work when my country falls greater into authoritarianism and oligarchy is not lost on me). I am fulfilling my dream of becoming a human rights lawyer which stems back to middle school. I saw Things I Imagined (thank you Solange). I have held an original copy of the Declaration of Independence that we sent to the House of Lords in 1778 and the Human Rights Act of 1998 while visiting the U.K. Parliamentary Archives as an intern for a Member of Parliament. This success terrifies and exhausts me; it also oxygenizes and saves me. Every decision, every sacrifice, has led me to this point. 

“It’s the choosing that’s important, isn’t it?,” Lois Lowry of The Giver rhetorically asks. This post is not intended to be woe is me! I am fortunate to be in this position, to have this vantage point at such an early age, and I understand the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. My life has purpose. I am committed to the work that transcends boundaries; it is larger than life itself. It provides a unique perspective. But it makes it difficult to coexist with people so preoccupied in the drama they create in their lives and the general shallowness of the world we live. It feels like there is no option to pump the brakes on any of this work, especially in light of our current climate, and that pressure oftentimes feels insurmountable. Time is of the essence. It feels, whether true or not, that hardly anyone relates to my experience, so if I don’t carve out this time to write about it, then I am neither recording nor processing it. 

Tonight, in between preparing tomorrow’s coursework, I realize that I have an unprecedented number of questions about life, which startles me because typically I have the answers or at least have a goal in mind that launches me into the next phase of life or contextualizes the current one. These goals, often rooted in this capitalistic framework, in this falsity of “needing” to advance my career as a means of helping people, distract me from asking myself the existential questions, the reasons for why we live and what we fundamentally want our systems to look like; they have distracted me from real grassroots community organizing until now. They distract me from the fact that, like John Mayer, I don’t know which walls to smash; similarly, I don’t know which train to board. Right now feels like we are living through impossible and hopeless times and I don’t want to placate myself into thinking otherwise despite my relatively optimistic outlook on life. As we face catastrophic circumstances – the consequences of this election and climate change (famine, refugees, lack of resources) – I do not want to live in perpetual sadness. I am searching for clarity and direction so I can step into a better, fuller version of myself. 

It’s now 3:33 a.m. Here is the list of questions that I have often asked myself in different stages of life, but recently, until now, I have not been willing to confront for fear that I might not be able to answers them. But I owe it to myself to pose them here so I can have the overdue conversation, the one I know leads me to better understanding myself:

Are you happy? Why or why not?

What do you want the future to hold? What groundwork are you going to do to ensure it happens?

What does your ideal day/week/month/year/decade look like? Why?

With whom do you want to spend your days? Why?

Who do you love and care about? Have you told people you care about that you love them? Does love and vulnerability scare you?

What do you expect of people – of yourself, of your partner, of your family, and of your friends? Should you have those expectations? Why or why not?

What do you feel and why?

What relaxes you? What scares you? What brings you joy?

What do you want to improve? Why?

What do you want to forgive yourself for and why?

Does the desire to reinvent yourself diminish your ability to be present?

Do you have a greater fear of failure or success? Why?

How do you escape the confines of this broken system? How do you break from the guilt of participation in it and having benefited from it?

How do we reconcile our daily lives with the fact that we’re living through an extinction event? This one comes from my friend (hi Jeanne) and a podcast she listened to recently.

How do you help people? How do you help yourself? Are you pouring from an empty cup?

How will you find joy in your everyday responsibilities, in the mission you have chosen for yourself? What, if any, will be the warning signs to walk away from this work, in part or in its entirety? Without being a martyr, do you believe in dying for the cause?

So here are some of the lessons I have learned during this quarantine/past year:

“I’ve Got Dreams to Remember,” so do not take your eyes off them. Chasing paper does not bring you happiness.

Be autonomous, particularly in your professional life.

Focus on values instead of accolades.

Do everything with intention and honest energy.

Listen to Tracy Chapman’s “Crossroads” & Talkin’ Bout a Revolution for an energy boost and reminder that other revolutionaries have shared and continue to share your fervent passion . . . “I’m trying to protect what I keep inside, all the reasons why I live my life” . . . When self-doubt nearly cripples you and you yearn a few minutes to run away when in reality you can’t escape your responsibilities, go for a drive and queue up “Fast Car” . . . “I got no plans, I ain’t going nowhere, so take your fast car and keep on driving.”

With that said, take every opportunity to travel (you can take the work with you if absolutely necessary). Go to Italy. Buy the concert ticket and lose yourself in the moment. Remember that solo excursions are equally as important as collective ones. But, from personal experience, you prefer the company. Find the balance.

Detach from the numbers people keep trying to assign to measure your personhood.

Closely examine the people in your inner circle and ask them for help when you need it.

“And life is just too short to keep playing the game . . . because if you really want somebody [or something], you’ll figure it out later, or else you will just spend the rest of the night with a BlackBerry on your chest hoping it goes *vibration, vibration*” (John Mayer’s Edge of Desire) . . . so love fiercely and unapologetically.

Be specific.

Go to therapy even when life is good.

[phantom-le6]

Episode Reviews - Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 4 (6 of 6)

To round of my look into season 4 of Star Trek: The Next Generation, here are my reviews of that season’s last two episodes.

Episode 25: In Theory

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

Lt. Commander Data and Lt. Jenna D'Sora are in the torpedo room configuring several probes with which the Enterprise will explore a nearby nebula. D'Sora explains that her ex who she just split up with has asked her to dinner, prompting Data to remind her why they broke up as part of a standing agreement between the pair of them. Later they play together in a chamber concert along with Keiko O'Brien. D'Sora complains of her abilities as a musician, but Data insists that he could not hear anything wrong.

 Later, on the bridge, Data is reviewing the information from the probes sent into the nebula. He theorises that life might have evolved differently in the nebula because of the volume of dark matter detected. Captain Picard orders the ship to the nearest planet within the nebula. Data and Jenna configure further probes, when she kisses him on the cheek and then on the lips, before leaving the room. Data seeks the opinion of his friends, specifically Picard, Guinan, Geordi La Forge, Commander Riker, Counsellor Troi and Lt. Worf. Data decides to pursue the relationship and goes to Jenna's cabin with a bunch of flowers, where he informs her that he created a romantic subroutine for the relationship.

 Meanwhile, the Enterprise is approaching an M-class planet within the nebula. Picard enters his ready room and finds his belongings scattered on the floor. He calls in Worf, who cannot explain their displacement. Jenna arrives at Data's cabin where he is painting. She tells him to continue, but is then annoyed when he does so, causing him some confusion. The ship arrives at the coordinates for the planet but finds nothing there. Then it suddenly appears as the ship's computer warns of a depressurization in the observation lounge. The crew investigate and find all the furniture piled in one corner of the room.

 Data visits Jenna, but she seems unhappy and he is acting erratically in order to find an appropriate response to make her happy. It becomes evident to the crew that the nebula is causing distortions in space; Picard orders the ship into warp to leave the nebula as quickly as possible but this speeds up the distortions. Whilst investigating them, Lieutenant Van Mayter is killed when a distortion embeds her into the deck. Data discovers that dark matter is causing the distortions. The ship can detect the pockets at short range, but not in enough time to move out of the way. Worf proposes using a shuttle to lead the Enterprise out, and Picard insists on piloting it alone.

 Picard pilots the shuttle through the field of distortion pockets; he is initially successful, but the shuttle is damaged near the perimeter of the nebula. Chief Miles O'Brien transports the Captain back to the ship before the shuttle is destroyed. However, the Enterprise is now near enough to the edge of the nebula to no longer need the shuttle to scout ahead, and they quickly depart. Afterwards, Jenna reveals to Data in his quarters that she broke up with her boyfriend because he was emotionally unavailable and then pursued Date because he was the same. Data realises that she is breaking up with him and explains that he will delete the subroutine. Jenna departs and Data is seemingly unperturbed, although his cat, Spot, jumps into his lap as if to comfort him.

Review:

This episode was Patrick Stewart’s directorial debut on the show, following on the heels of fellow cast member Jonathan Frakes taking a shot at directing during the previous season.  Like Frakes, Stewart was handed a Data episode to do, and in some respects it’s a good episode.  In others, it’s less brilliant, specifically having a techno-babble B-plot thrown in because TNG was very much enslaved to the idea that the character always had to have an enemy or an anomaly putting them at risk, regardless of whatever else might be going on.  This plot doesn’t inter-connect with the A-plot except for both things happening in the same episode, and it includes Picard playing shuttle pilot when he’s not really the TNG character of note by way of piloting skills.  In fact, TNG and DS9 never really had a definitive helm officer in the way that the original series had Sulu and Voyager had Tom Paris, which when you have to do an episode with this kind of B-plot is a bit of a must.

 However, the meat of the episode is Data making forays into the world of romantic relationships, and to some degree I appreciate how some of his behaviours in this area are quite autistic.  His asking around the majority of the main cast and Guinan for advice, his inability to pick up relationship skills ‘on the fly’, and his emulation of stereotypical romantic interactions rather than just being himself are all things I can see someone on the spectrum doing.  Hell, I’ve done them all in my own unique way, and I can’t help but cringe a little reflecting on that.

 However, Data is only able to go so far both with his relationship and with his representation of the autistic mindset in this scenario because he lacks emotion.  I understand that this was meant to be the point; according to Memory Alpha, a lot of original series fan mail for Spock was from women who felt they could reach the character’s suppressed emotional core.  This episode was born of a fascination with this aspect of fandom, only it was written to see if a romantic relationship could work with a being who was hard-wired not to feel any emotion, to really explore the ‘ghost in the machine’ concept through Data.

 This, for me, is where the episode’s main plot really loses efficacy, because by definition a romantic relationship requires emotion, and as such Data was never going to succeed.  Frankly, I’d rather have seen them hold this plot off until the films when Data is finally given license to have emotions.  It would have been great to see Data have a romantic relationship then, because it would have been a more complete, well-rounded exploration of his status as an autism metaphor within the world of Trek.  As it is, characters like Voyager’s Doctor and Seven of Nine end up serving better in this capacity.

 It’s also disappointing to see that, not unlike some of my own early experiences in romance, Data isn’t being approached out of a genuine romantic interest on the part of Jenna.  To her, he’s basically a re-bound fling; she’s struggling with being single again, keeps having to be reminded why this is so, and tries to make something happen with Data to ‘fill the void’.  It’s not unlike how some girls used to pretend to go out with me to test, and mock, my gullibility, and for me it’s right up there with people who go out with someone just to avoid being single (done that), or to get something else like a roof over their head or cash.  To my mind, no one should ever do anything like this; if you want a romantic relationship with someone, it should be real romance or nothing.

 If you want a fling, a rebound or anything similar, then you seek out something more casual like friends-with-benefits, and you say that’s what you want up-front.  Leading people on is never ok, and it seems to me it only happens because of neurotypical selfishness and unwillingness to talk about you want before anything happens. The model of discussion-first-action-second is something that already exists within certain forms of sex play, and it’s probably going to gain wider and wider use over time for consent in general, and it’s exactly the kind of thing that would not only make all relationships more autism-friendly, but it would also vastly reduce the potential for being misled.

 What would have improved this episode, aside from Data actually having emotions, would have been to see the female guest character seek him out just from general attraction with no recent ex being mentioned, and perhaps having the B-Plot put the A-Plot characters in danger more directly.  That would have helped the B-Plot gain some additional worth and would have created a dramatic scene that would have more conclusively answered the ‘ghost in the machine’ question around Data.  As it is, it’s a middling episode and a poor showing for something Data-centric; I give it 5 out of 10.

Episode 26: Redemption (Part 1)

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

Captain Picard and the Enterprise are asked to attend the installation of Gowron as the Leader of the Klingon High Council, as it is Picard’s final duty as the Arbiter of Succession. Gowron intercepts the Enterprise en route and informs Picard that the House of Duras will challenge Gowron's position, which may lead to a Klingon civil war. Picard states he cannot intervene beyond his role as arbiter, and asks Worf to escort Gowron to the transporter room. There, Worf informs Gowron of the truth about his discommendation; Gowron thanks Worf for killing Duras, but explains that he cannot clear Worf’s name because he needs the support of the council, many of whom are loyal to Duras. Worf then requests a leave of absence from Picard to visit his brother, Kurn, who controls a small fleet of Birds of Prey, and to urges him to back Gowron. Worf plans to use this support as leverage so that once installed as the Leader, Gowron can reinstate their family name.

 Interrupting the ceremony, the Duras sisters present their deceased brother's illegitimate son, Toral, who has the lineage to challenge Gowron. Picard is called on to determine Toral's candidacy. Relying on Klingon law, Picard comes to the conclusion that Toral is too inexperienced to be Leader, and secures Gowron's candidacy. This, however, prompts a majority of the council members to abandon Gowron. Gowron returns to his ship to meet with Worf, who offers his brother's fleet's support in exchange for the return of his family name to honor. Gowron initially refuses, but they are attacked by two ships loyal to the House of Duras. Worf and the arrival of Kurn's fleet dispatch the attackers. Picard completes the rite and installs Gowron as Leader; Gowron restores Worf's family honor.

Gowron and the Enterprise crew learn that the Duras sisters are assembling a fleet to incite a civil war. As the Federation cannot get involved in internal affairs of the Klingon Empire, Worf resigns his commission from Starfleet to assist Gowron and Kurn. As the Enterprise evacuates the area before fighting begins, Toral and the Duras sisters consider Picard a coward, but their Romulan ally, a woman bearing an uncanny resemblance to the late Tasha Yar, emerges from the shadows and warns them that Picard may return.

Review:

Apparently, this episode was originally planned as the season 3 cliff-hanger finale, but had to be delayed because those working on the show who wanted this episode really had to fight for it.  Apparently, Gene Roddenberry didn’t want to do any kind of war stories, even if that war was internal to the Klingons and not something the Federation got involved in.  Granted, I don’t think this episode could be as good as it is without everything leading up to it, and part of that groundwork lays here in the fourth season as well as the third and second.  Nevertheless, it seems that once again Roddenberry was taking his idealism one step too far, and I’m guessing him having to step back from production of the show due to increasingly ill health around this time was the only reason we got this episode.

 Being only one part of a larger story, of course, the episode loses out a little for not being quite as self-contained as it otherwise would be as a one-part episode.  However, it delivers a lot for part 1 of a two-part narrative; we finally see Worf get his discommendation lifted and Gowron take command of the Klingon Empire, only to then see Worf resign his commission when Picard won’t wade into the civil war, even though we all know by now Picard should realise it’s not even remotely an all-Klingon affair.  Picard and Worf are well aware that the Duras family are thick as thieves with the Romulans, and they’ve had the recent events of ‘The Mind’s Eye’ to illustrate to them that dividing the Federation and Klingon Empire is high on their agenda.  Surely Picard should have been able to put 2 and 2 together in this part and sided with Gowron outright, rather than appearing to cling to the Prime Directive.

 This is where TNG, and Trek as a whole, falls down a little; it can’t seem to come up with a consistent approach to the Prime Directive.  Some episodes it gets broken, others it gets adhered to, and at times you’ll get a non-adherence for a situation that in a later or earlier episode saw the rule being upheld. Back in season 1, Picard was willing to dare the wrath of the Edo’s ‘god’ to save Wesley Crusher from execution, but in this episode, Picard won’t act to save Worf when Gowron’s ship gets fired upon. Both times someone from the Enterprise was in danger, so surely Picard should take the same actions, but he doesn’t. I can’t tell if this meant to be a follow-on from ‘The Drumhead’ and they stupidly cut out some exposition where Picard says ‘we have to be extra careful now to avoid another Satie-style witch-hunt’, or if it’s just a lack of attention to continuity.

 For me, this episode really relies on Worf and Gowron to carry it, as Picard’s so-called ‘tightrope walking’ just makes him look decidedly unheroic and not a little ruthless.  Honestly, this episode would have benefited from a more Kirk-ian/Sisko-esque style of captain.  Overall, I give it 7 out of 10.

[rwby-redux]

Deconstruction

Worldbuilding: Semblances II

Last time in Part I, we analyzed the failings of Semblances from a meta perspective. Now we’re going to look at them within the context of the actual show. Before we begin, let’s revisit that list of basic traits that are universally shared by Semblances.

A Semblance draws upon Aura as its source of power. When this fuel is depleted, a person can no longer use their Semblance, and must wait for their Aura to regenerate before it can be used again.

The specific ability or nature of one’s Semblance is alleged to be an expression of the user’s personality/character/soul.

Overuse of a Semblance can adversely affect a person and cause physical side effects, such as fatigue, headaches, or fainting.

Semblances can interact with Dust in such a way that their skills are augmented, resulting in the temporary acquisition of new subskills or secondary characteristics.

Through training and regular usage, Semblances can gradually become stronger or more advanced.

The intensity of certain emotions, such as stress, panic, despair, or rage, can cause a person to subconsciously activate their Semblance.

This refresher will be important as we go more in-depth. At the very least, it’ll save you the hassle of having to jump back and forth between tabs.

Limitations of Semblances

Recall point one. If your first instinct is to say, surely having a limited amount of Aura is a good limitation for Semblances, then you’d be forgiven for thinking that. In theory, it makes sense: a power based on a finite energy source does seem like a pretty significant drawback. My main issue with this being a credible limitation for Semblances is that we, the audience, have no way to gauge Aura depletion over time. And by extension, neither do our characters. In the first three Volumes, students used specialized monitors (usually on their scrolls) to keep tabs on Aura over the course of a sparring match. Not only do I like this because it’s a clever visual aid for relaying information to the audience, but also because it conveys clear worldbuilding information: characters don’t seem to have a way of innately sensing when their Aura is low. This idea seems to be reinforced again in V7.E3 - “Ace Operatives.” In the opening scene, Clover reminds RWBY and JN_R that their scrolls have been upgraded with Atlas tech, and they shouldn’t forget to use them. That line of dialogue is accompanied by Blake consulting her scroll for her teammates’ Aura levels. To my knowledge, there’s nothing in the canon that suggests characters can sense or feel when their Aura level drops, or how far away it is from depletion.

Having to rely on scrolls to monitor their Aura would be an excellent limitation to impose on an otherwise limitless superpower. Not only would it require the characters to constantly monitor their Aura, but it could introduce realistic problems. Like what would happen if a character’s scroll was lost, or destroyed, or its batteries died? How would that affect the character’s behavior in regards to Aura-related tasks? Great idea, right?

Now here comes the kicker: we don’t see any evidence of this in the show. When Team RNJR was traveling through Anima, none of them discussed having to find a village to recharge their scrolls. It’s not as if the trees have outlets that they can conveniently plug their scrolls into. Similarly, none of the characters from Volume 3 onward consult their scroll during fights to see where their Aura levels are at. You don’t see characters changing fighting styles midway through a fight in order to conserve what little Aura they have left. You don’t see characters minimizing the use of their Semblance in favor of more efficient tactics.

That’s why limited Aura doesn’t seem like a believable limitation for Semblances—not for a lack of possibility, but for a lack of execution. If characters made more of a fuss about it on-screen, I could buy it. But apart from one or two throw-away lines, characters don’t seem to pay attention to how Aura depletion affects Semblance usage, and by extension, they don’t adjust or change their tactics during combat to compensate for it.

Bear in mind that this discussion has only touched upon general limitations. We haven’t even addressed Semblance-specific limitations yet. Can Marcus Black only steal one Semblance at a time? Can Sun only make a certain number of clones at once? If Yang doesn’t eventually release the energy that she’s stored up, does it backfire on her? Is Pyrrha limited to only one type of magnetism, like ferromagnetism, or can she use more than one type? If Robyn uses her Semblance on someone who’s stating an incorrect fact, but they believe that fact to be true, then does it indicate that the person is lying? Does Hazel’s Semblance allow him to bypass/negate his Aura’s healing factor in order to stab Dust into his body?

And on and on it goes. A combination of vague or poorly-established mechanics for Semblances, coupled with the wide variety of Semblances, makes it impossible to predict what could be a hindrance for our characters down the road. This in turn creates a lack of stakes—how can we, the audience, be invested in the dangers that the cast faces, when we don’t know if those dangers are credible in the first place?

Active versus Passive Semblances

Usually when a character reveals information, it’s meant to answer questions, not create more of them. Such was the case when Qrow revealed his Semblance to Team RNJR for the first time—he brings misfortune, or rather, causes people (and objects in the nearby vicinity) to be blighted by bad luck via the manipulation of probability. Qrow is our introduction to passive Semblances, a term which, if I’m being honest, I’m not even entirely sure is canon. Someone’ll need to correct me on that, but for now “passive Semblance” will do. Because we have precious little information on the topic, I’m going to be relying on direct quotes.

Qrow: My Semblance isn't like most—it's not exactly something I do. It's always there, whether I like it or not. I bring misfortune. [1]

This passage tells us two different things: (1) passive Semblances are always active, and (2) passive Semblances can’t be controlled.

You can already see the problems with introducing a new concept this late in the game, because this new information clashes with what (few) previously-established rules we already have: Do passive Semblances require Aura? If Qrow’s Aura is depleted, will his Semblance continue to run, or will it become unusable like everyone else’s?

This ambiguity becomes even more frustrating when we acquire more information a little over a year later:

“It's not necessarily constantly running, it's more that it randomly spikes to cause unfortunate situations. If he chooses to amplify it in a fight, then yes, it does cost him.” [2]

Now we’re being told that that his Semblance isn’t “always there,” that Qrow can control it to an extent, and that his Semblance only depletes his Aura when he chooses to amplify it. Here we have an example of the character in the show being directly contradicted by one of the show’s creators. This implies that either they didn’t do a good enough job explaining passive Semblances the first time around, or they changed things after the episode aired. It isn’t just a he said/she said issue, either—Semblances requiring Aura is one of RWBY’s core mechanics for its pseudo-magic system, and by having a character whose Semblance breaks that cardinal rule, it makes the writing more difficult to believe or trust in terms of what’s canon versus what’s a retcon; what’s a subplot versus what’s a plothole. It doesn’t help when we get even more contradictory information from later episodes:

Qrow: I wouldn’t thank me. My Semblance brings misfortune. Sometimes I can’t keep it under control. [3]

I’m sorry, I thought we just established that Qrow can only amplify his Semblance. Now you’re telling us that he can partially suppress it too? Either he can’t control it at all, he can amplify it, or he can sometimes suppress its effects. Make up your damn mind.

The effects of his Semblance can be as minor as a coffee spill or as dire as a collapsing building… [4]

No! Stop it! Knocking over a Starbucks latte is not the same thing as demolishing a fucking building.

How is Qrow’s Semblance able to do something as insanely energy-demanding as toppling infrastructure without expending any Aura? How does his Semblance locate or prioritize variables in the environment to exploit/sabotage? Like, if there’s a mouse hanging out near some sort of Dust-powered generator in the building, does his Semblance send out subliminal messaging that convinces the mouse to chew through an electrical wire and cause the generator to explode?

Look, I refuse to believe that spilling a cup of coffee is somehow equal to setting off a stick of TNT or taking a wrecking ball to the side of a skyscraper. It doesn’t make any sense, which means that you have to provide a proper explanation for how it works. Because otherwise you’re going to be left with an audience that assumes Qrow’s Semblance is powered by (a) plot convenience, or (b) rats.

This—all of this, right here—is my issue with passive Semblances. (And don’t even get me started on Clover’s.)

Semblance Discovery, Auratic Plasticity

Did you notice the fancy scientific-sounding term in the heading?

Ooh. Auratic plasticity. That sounds official. You’re probably wondering where that term came from. A scene from Volume 5 you haven’t re-watched in a while (not that I can blame you). A World of Remnant episode, perhaps? Maybe it’s from one of the comics, or the director’s commentary on a DVD, or even an AMA on Reddit?

To answer your question: it didn’t come from any of those. Auratic plasticity is a term I coined exclusively for the Redux. Specifically, for talking about what goes behind discovering a person’s Semblance, and what factors are at play when that Semblance takes on its unique form.

Before we can talk about Auratic plasticity, however, we need to talk about all the ways someone discovers their Semblance. It can vary wildly from person to person. For some, their Semblance unlocks randomly while doing everyday run-of-the-mill things. As alluded to by Taiyang in V4.E9 - “Two Steps Forward, Two Steps Back,” Yang’s Semblance activated while she was getting a haircut. For others, it can be the byproduct of training, extreme stress, or an otherwise fatal encounter. [5] In rare instances, Semblances can be hereditary, thus removing any ambiguity of what that person’s Semblance will be when it first activates.

The reason why I bring any of this up is because RWBY’s official stance is that Semblances “generally reflect the wielder’s personality.” [6] If Semblances were generally tied to the personality of the wielder, then it would fail to account for the correlation between the circumstance that triggered the Semblance to manifest, and the resulting Semblance expression.

Let me give you a few examples.

Adaptive Semblance: Nora’s Semblance was unlocked when she was struck by lightning. Consider the fact that her Semblance allows her to absorb electricity without taking any damage from the electric current. Rather than her Semblance being tied to her personality, Nora’s is likely a case of an adaptive Semblance—as in, her circumstances required a very specific Semblance in order to survive the 10,000 amperes running through her body. Instead of her soul generating a Semblance tied to her personality, it prioritized generating a Semblance that would help her survive an immediate and life-threatening scenario.

Innate Semblance: Ruby’s Semblance was discovered one day while training. If we’re to assume that there weren’t any dangerous circumstances factoring into that training session, it’s likely that her soul generated a Semblance that was in fact tied to an aspect of her personality. In this case, her superspeed is a projection of her enthusiasm and hyperactive zeal, and her tendency to prioritize others’ wellbeing over her own, trying to figuratively (and in this case, literally) reach them before they’re harmed.

Hereditary Semblance: Weiss and Winter, and (presumably) Whitley, Willow, and Nicholas all share the glyph-based Semblance unique to the Schnee lineage. The confirmation of their Semblance being explicitly hereditary contradicts the idea that Semblances are an expression of one’s personality. If we go by that logic, it implies that—what, their personalities are all the same? They have no individuality? I’m sorry, but that’s just dumb.

This is why Semblance discovery is important, and why the canon should have paid more attention to developing it. There’s pretty compelling evidence for a person’s Semblance being tied to multiple factors apart from their “personality.” I know that I’m digressing here a bit, but the main reason why I bring up this correlation isn’t just because it clarifies inconsistencies with the canon. It also presents an opportunity to enrich the lore of the show.

In the Redux, Auratic plasticity is the ability of the soul to generate a Semblance based on either an immutable personality trait (innate), a scenario-specific survival method (adaptive), or a “genetic” trait that’s repeatedly selected for due to its inherent fitness (inherited). These three categories are determined by a value called hierarchical prioritization—basically, it’s the soul’s ability to decide what Semblance-trigger gets precedence. I’ll get into more detail when I start the Amendment, but it felt important to clarify my intentions early, so I could justify writing 700 words on why Semblance discovery is important.

Adverse Effects of Using Semblances

Unlike Limitations, which focuses on what a Semblance can or can’t do, Adverse Effects deals with the negative repercussions/consequences of using a Semblance.

Or in RWBY’s case, a lack thereof.

(For the moment, let’s set aside the magic/not magic discourse and acknowledge that yes, in the traditional sense, Aura, Semblances, and Dust are part of RWBY’s magic system, the same way bending is part of A:TLA’s.)

When designing a magic system, you’ve got to balance it. Otherwise, the system contains powers that are vaguely-defined, OP, and bereft of any costs.

One way to implement a system of checks and balances is by giving that system a cost for using it. In RWBY’s case, the only “cost” experienced by characters is physical fatigue whenever they overextend themselves. But in the grand scheme of things it’s not really a detrimental consequence, in part because of how infrequently exhaustion is viewed as a legitimate threat. Seriously. When was the last time you saw the main cast fail because they overdid it while using their Semblances? It just doesn’t happen.

One way you could implement a cost is by tying Semblance usage to a physical demand. According an article by Julia Belluz, Winter Olympic athletes consume anywhere between 1,300 - 2,500 and 4,000 - 7,000 calories on average per day.

It wouldn’t be that much of a stretch to apply this to RWBY. Given the high-intensity acrobatics the characters perform on the regular, it would make sense that strenuous physical activity, coupled with Semblance usage, would create costs in the form of caloric needs. Maybe that’s an issue Team RNJR needs to deal with while backpacking across Anima. Is food a top priority for them? Do they have to restrict Semblance usage when running low on rations? Does the group ever have to hunt or forage for food to meet the energy demands of fighting Grimm?

Not only does this balance out Semblances, but it opens the door for potential worldbuilding. Is “Huntsman” ever used as a euphemism for “glutton”? Do all-you-can-eat buffets ban Huntsmen from their establishments? Do Huntsmen have a reputation for being less picky about food options? In places that use trade-and-barter systems, are Huntsmen willing to accept food as payment instead of lien?

I think that’s more or less everything I wanted to say about Semblances. I have a few unrelated nitpicks, but I can save those for another time. This post is already longer than I intended it to be.

-

[1] Volume 4, Episode 8: “A Much Needed Talk.”

[2] Shawcross, Kerry. “CRWBY AMA.” Reddit interview. February 12, 2018. [https://www.reddit.com/r/RWBY/comments/7x3w4s/crwby_ama_w_miles_luna_kerry_shawcross_and_paula/du5bpdm/?context=3]

[3] Volume 7, Episode 3: “Ace Operatives.”

[4] Wallace, Daniel. The World of RWBY: The Official Companion. VIZ Media LLC, 2019, page 94.

[5] Volume 5, Episode 4: “Lighting the Fire.”

[6] Wallace, Daniel. The World of RWBY: The Official Companion. VIZ Media LLC, 2019, page 39.

[justgenlockthings]

gen:VIEW Episode 5 “The Best Defense”

You know what I love about this show? You pick up on some things and go “Oh, I know exactly where this is going based on these specific tropes” and then they do a complete 180 and it’s like “NOPE I WAS VERY VERY WRONG ABOUT THAT.” That’s a sign of good entertainment, keeping you on your toes week-to-week. The fact that we’ve had one of the major gen:LOCK theories disproved literally one episode after it was formed says wonders about how well they’re doing this show.

WHAT IN THE NAME OF HOLY FUCK IS GOING ON

This is yet another episode that balances the light-hearted nature of the training scenes with the dark reality of the Union-Polity conflict, similar to the previous episode tonally but with more serious subject matter.

I absolute adore how this episode follows up on Cammie’s trauma from her encounter with the Nemesis mech, and how it comes through in the training montages. Her overall skittishness of fighting by herself after such a traumatic event necessitated consequences, and we clearly see those consequences in her actions throughout the episode: surreal, evocative nightmares; frustration at her lack of progress compared to the others; her attempt at “cheating” the system to gain the upper hand and having it horribly backfire. Really, Cammie was the MVP of this entire episode. My only real nitpick is her re-encounter with the Nemesis. I get that there’s no accurate way of depicting PTSD, but I personally think there should’ve been a little more hesitance on her part when she engaged with the thing that literally tore her apart. But honestly, I loved her arc otherwise, and I think having her able to face it with the combined efforts of her team makes for an equally strong characterization.

I also really connected with the team dynamic this episode, which has overall been developing quite nicely over the past 5 episodes. We’ve gone from being introduced to these characters to seeing them get to know each other, and we’re at a point where they’re really feeling like an actual team, which was very-well demonstrated both in the scenes at the Anvil and their skirmish with the Nemesis in Atlanta. There was a review that said gen:LOCK was at its strongest when its characters interacted, and we very clearly got that strong interaction from this episode. Big highlight goes to the humorous turn the conversation at the cafeteria took: it felt like a natural conversation these people who’ve gotten to know each other would have, and a very funny one to witness at that.

I also connected with the sense of intrigue this episode has brought to the series, building off of a simple question stated in the last episode: “What the hell was that thing?!” A certain level of mystery in my eyes can only help the show, giving us something to mull on while we patiently wait for the next episode of this far-too-short season (look, I get that Rooster Teeth can only make so many episodes, but EIGHT?). It adds a new level of engagement to the story, and I’m livid for some of the theories that have been popping up in the past few days.

Worldbuilding continues to work very well. There’s a strong sense that what’s happening in gen:LOCK is connected to what’s happening in the outside world, that we’re viewing something within a much larger context that we’re gradually learning more about, which is why I’m more than willing to forgive a lack of information on the Union (I’ll go into more detail in a full analysis). This is absolutely the case with the mission to the Union base in Georgia: an idea of the opportunities the Holons provide the Vanguard, and how they can turn the tide of the war. We also get some vague hints at what the Union is up to with its captives, though nothing concrete yet.

All positive things aside, one thing I really didn’t like about this episode was what’s going on between Miranda, Julian, and Jodie. I said in the last review it looked like they were pushing away from the standard love triangle in favor of a different, more (I wanna say but don’t quite think is accurate) “wholesome” dynamic, only to have threads of jealousy going on with Jodie. I also didn’t quite understand that whole question of Julian rejoining the Vanguard, since it seems kind of like a moot question? I mean, he doesn’t have a full body anymore, and isn’t the gen:LOCK program technically now part of the Vanguard? However, I did like the whole approach that Miranda is kind of wishing things could go back to the way they were and Julian is more reluctant, but they both understand a lot of stuff has happened in the four years they were apart that they can’t just skip over.

Conclusions

gen:LOCK delivers another very strong character-focused installment that balances itself with some well-done action and an additional layer of intrigue that just make the show all the more complex. I think my only complaint, and this has nothing to do with the episode itself, IS THE FACT THAT THERE’S ONLY THREE FUCKING EPISODES LEFT THIS SEASON.

Ahem...otherwise, good job gen:SMITHs. Keep up the good work.

[tomasorban]

THE ZODIAC: SAGITTARIUS THE ARCHER

Date of Rulership: 21st November-21st December; Polarity: Positive, male; Quality: Mutable; Ruling planet: Jupiter; Element: Fire; Body part: Thighs and hips; Colour: Dark blue, purple; Gemstone: Topaz; Metal: Tin.

In my mind Sagittarius is proof of the Aristotelian teleology concerning God as the instigator, primal mover and consummator of a hierarchy of purposes; as the last and the most evolved of the fire signs, the mutable energies of this zodiacal sign draw attention to the natural philosophy that the essence of all things that have been created are forever striving towards a higher and more perfect form. Sagittarius will religiously profess that everything is predetermined and that formed matter contains within itself bits of genetic corpuscles encoding the final purpose and mode of expression. How do we know this? Well, does the seed not sprout and become a tree? Does the human personality not grow, expand, and increase the field of its perceptive, intellectual, and spiritual vision by dissolution and death of the ego during the course of one’s lifetime? Does the egg not hatch to become a chick after a period of incubation in the nest? Does the bland-looking caterpillar not undergo a physical transformation during its lifecycle that sees it pass through individual and distinct phases of growth until it becomes a supernal butterfly? Does carbon, a gloomy and lacklustre element, not fuse to become a sparkling diamond inside the womb of Mother Earth? What more proof of God’s benevolent intent to perfect the forms and products of Mother Nature could one want than the existence of subatomic particles in various stages of interaction and evolution? What proof could be more convincing than the vestiges of that cosmic beginning known as the Big Bang (or perhaps the Big Crash, an alteration of the primal substance spurred by the collision of two universes as put forth by the “unified theory” of superstrings)?

Wherever Sagittarius is in our chart, we become seized, possessed and driven by the big picture. This archetypal power has a knack for stepping outside the microscope of the human senses, getting its hands on a state of the art Skywatcher 16” Synscan GOTO Dobsonian telescope and scouring the heavens for journeys of intergalactic discovery that will simulate sensual delights and tease the intellect. There is nothing more satisfying in life than a physical pilgrimage that tempts the mind to grow bold and question, if not reject outright, its learned biases and attitudes concerning established societies at large. Thus, it would be safe to say that Sagittarius isn’t content being the passive observer of interstellar and deep space mysteries that it will never get to examine under the auspices of scientific investigation. No, that will never do! Seeing might be believing but it will never be enough, not when it comes to understanding the true nature of reality. Sagittarius would rather be one of the lucky astronauts that gets to experience weightlessness and associated gravitational anomalies, walking on the moon, and a throng of other unusual and exhilarating things that most people could only envision in their wildest fantasies. That way it can kill two birds with one stone; it can collect bits of vital information concerning the universe to be used in its philosophical musings at a later stage and concurrently enjoy the finer things that life has to offer. The trajectory of outer space provides the Sagittarian with an adrenalin rush akin to the ride an intravenous drug user experiences after a good hit, one that he or she doesn’t want to lose any time soon by coming back to Planet Earth.

Even after the Sagittarian shuttle uses up all its fuel and is forced to re-enter the atmosphere of Earth, it brings its wide-angled perspectives and some of the heavenly Aether with it. Having already scanned the surface of our planet for the existence of Others whilst it was in orbit, Sagittarius is keenly bent on travelling to these places to interact with the various cultures abounding there. It wants to try out new and exotic foods and customs, meet, interact, and even share a beer or two with members of the indigenous population, explore religious and theosophical beliefs different to its own, learn different languages, and juxtapose moral and socio-political standards quite alien to its own mode of being with those of its own culture. Unlike some of the other zodiacal signs, Sagittarius will never scoff at the opportunity to connect with minority groups or support causes it deems are of utmost important in the human plight. A Sagittarian is likely to be a sponsor for a homeless child in Africa, to donate to cancer charity, to campaign for animal rights and equality in the workforce, and to vouch for the cessation of activities that have contributed to global warming like deforestation and urban carbon emissions.

This sign has a strong sense of identity and is not frightened, intimidated, or overwhelmed by people who are different physically, psychologically, culturally, or in their spiritual groundings. From an academic standpoint they are fascinated by how social perceptions are moulded, group and nonverbal behaviour, conformity and its polar opposite eccentricity, chauvinism, and hostility. How does one’s formative environment and culture actually mould the outer personality, the mirror which one uses to confront the world? Sagittarius wants to know how the abovementioned phenomena affect social cohesion as a whole and will go to any lengths for the sake of understanding the psychology behind it. Above all it wants to see change unencumbered by authoritative limitations that will spur society towards the classical ideal of utopian perfectionism (i.e. Atlantis or Shangri-La), a belief that it can be whimsically optimistic and fanatical about at times. Because much of its time is spent exploring the underlying psychosocial principles from which cultural groups and attitudes form, the Sagittarian can be disconcertingly accurate about any prophecies it makes or visions it has relating to societal change.  

A condition of tempered mutability pervades the last of the fire signs. Aside from drawing attention to the Sagittarian aptitude for adaptation, this quality reveals a heartfelt desire to be in constant motion. Sagittarians will prefer to ride a bike, walk, or jog to work rather than drive a car in or arrive via public transport. Activities and pastimes that get the heart rate up are also high on the festivity list of Sagittarius; instead of sitting in an air-conditioned unit and watching serials and full-length Hollywood movies, the Sagittarian psyche prefers to bide time amidst other inhabitants of the Great Outdoors where it can sail a yacht, swim, walk, and hike to the nearest waterfalls for a refreshing dip in the mountain waters. Risk-taking and a certain level of recklessness also appeals to this sign, and it isn’t uncommon for them to seek contentment in white-water rafting, skydiving, shooting, hunting, deep diving, hand gliding, and mountain climbing.

Despite the magnanimous and carefree sentiments indigenous to the depth of its being, the Sagittarian sign does have its shortcomings. First and foremost fire is an expanding and rising element that can lose track of its own relentless activity and protean elasticity. Hence, all fire signs lack a degree of objective grounding that keeps sensory perception tightly bound to an understanding of reality that is detached and unencumbered by prejudice or emotion. Similarly, the Sagittarian man or woman encompasses a proclivity to stubbornly hold onto any established creeds with zealous resolve and even attempt to impose them on others, a deed that can be easily mistaken for the narrow-mindedness and intolerance it yearns to decimate. Unlike the earthy Libra, Sagittarius finds it hard to detach from its intuitive streaks and ascend to a bird’s eye position above its own body from where it can tune into tho the cosmic powers of percipience and good judgement. This can result in unruly situations where the Sagittarian might become indecisive in pursuing a requisite course of action, slumber into a protracted state of repose, or renounce its obligations. When it inevitably comes to a situation of flight or fight, Sagittarius will take the easier option in an attempt to jettison the discomfort that comes when one is embroiled in commitment.

If the Sagittarian generative power could speak, it would utter, “God is a reality my friends, did you know that? Encountering God is as simple as taking a glass of water or as taking a breath of fresh air. How do I know? Um, well… I know because the creative force and imagination that moves everything in the universe towards a state of completion was born within me! That is how I know and you better believe me! That doesn’t mean I’m not empirical in my rigorous investigations of the paraphysical realms and the ethereal energies that infuse the cosmos. Limitations and problems associated with the scientific method are ample and will reveal themselves in time. Nonetheless, I do conduct my experiments within its concrete framework for the sake of contemporary credibility and acceptance. In my philosophical speculations, I’ve learnt that karma is not a theory but a reality. If you, my friend, wish to attract plenitude and fecundity in all areas of your life you must put out the right energy to the universe and the universe will answer. The answer might not be instant, but I assure you that it will come and it will be as revelatory as the day you woke to realise that it was your parents and not Father Christmas laying presents beneath the perennial Christmas tree. Isn’t that proof enough of the existence of divine providence and a fate for both the individual soul and the cosmos?

Feel good about yourself I say, and give, give, give! Give of yourself to everything and anyone, for we are all conscious extensions of the same divine spark and part of the same Truth. We all deserve love, happiness, and contentment, and anyone who dares to state otherwise is an ignorant and insular fool. Your generous acts will return to you when you least expect it and usually in a way that will sweep you off your feet. I’m not one for an orthodox way of doing things, although I do hold religious and pastoral practices of all cultures in high regard. What would day-to-day life be without festivities that honour the great cosmic cycles and bring us together? Boring and monotonous, no doubt. Know that faith is a powerful thing, an overwhelming force to be reckoned with; it can move mountains, render itself into a panacea that heals all ailments, creates serendipity and freedom, and enact feats that manpower and muscles could only dream of.”    

Sagittarius the Archer is connected with two beautiful symbols, both subordinate to the overarching activity of hunting which the constellation has personified from the earliest of times. The first, an image of a centaur drawing his bow, symbolizes duality of being and the noticeable intercourse between the physical and paraphysical realms. It appeared in the second millennium BCE during a phase of Mesopotamian history known as the Old Babylonian Period. When trade routes between the Orient and the Mediterranean world were finally forged, the image of a celestial deity wielding a bow and arrow travelled all the way to Greece proper whose city-states then weaved it into their image of the virgin goddess Artemis. For the Greeks, centaurs were composite creatures whose physiognomy comprised the head and torso of a human joined to the hindquarters of a horse. They were, for the most part, of a savage disposition and enjoyed cavorting about with humans and initiating pandemonium. Chiron was one of the few centaurs of superlative character; sired by the wily Cronus, he spent much of his time healing the sickly and raising orphaned children on Mount Pelion. Despite their relegation to a carnal sphere of impulses, the Greeks seem to have taken favourably to the mythical centaur because they crop up frequently in innumerable classical episodes. Perhaps the most famous of these is The Battle of the Lapiths and the Centaurs, a battle deemed so numinous, violent, and memorable in the Hellenic mind that it was transcribed onto the metopes of the southern wall of the Parthenon on the Acropolis in Athens. In the said encounter a horde of centaurs were invited to a nuptial festivity in Thessaly honouring the union of their half-brother Pirithous to Hippodamia, daughter of Atrax. During the course of the event the centaurs became quite inebriated and attempted to abduct and rape other guests that included women and boys. One of them by the name of Eurytion went so far as to attempt to ravish the bride herself. A fierce altercation ensured, whereby Pirithous and the Lapiths fought against and swiftly subdued the centaurs with the aid of his best friend Theseus.

The second of the symbols, a shorthand for the zodiacal sign utilized by astrologers in the creation of astrological charts, consists of an upturned arrow. Being an implement of war, the arrow connotes dexterity, litheness, and mercurial wit but it is also the potent instrument of Divine Love (Eros or Cupid) that pierces the wellspring of the heart and sets free the torrential will for union and interconnectedness in one’s life. The latter decrees that the arrow is also a symbol of spiritual transcendence. In the Sagittarian sygil, the diagonal determining the direction of the arrow is crossed by a horizontal line to establish the figure of a cross. Proceeding from a metaphysical angle, the cross can be interpreted as the first irruption of the primeval origin, singularity or chaos that created matter, the four elements, the four cardinal directions, the substances, the objects, the beings, and the physical plane in general. The tip of the arrow, on the other hand, is the desire to transcend the limits of the physical body and the five senses and travel to other worlds and other dimensions. Hence the entire arrow could denote the condition of a spiritual inner quest whose final cause is contingent on circumstances generated by the formative environment and by time itself.  

In the northern hemisphere the constellation of Sagittarius appears in the sky at a time when the moisture of autumn has surrendered its place to the aridity of winter. The transitory nature of this period of the year when Mother Nature has withdrawn to the cavernous depths of the earth to ruminate makes it especially suitable for nomadic ventures like hunting and travel. Sagittarians are innately wired for exploration and evolution, and so a talent for expressive and action-orientated activities such as the just mentioned comes naturally to them as what hunting does to an apex predator. In this, the last of the fiery signs governed by an expansive planet and heeded by a protean aptitude for adaptation and change, elemental fire has become tame, measured and tempered. This is the flame that forms the sun discs that crown the heads of the Egyptian gods and the golden halos over the Christian saints, as well as the hermetic fires that burn beneath the alchemical alembic to bring the Philosopher’s Stone to fruition. Infused by the forces of this energy, Sagittarians exhibit idealistic and spiritual qualities much desired by the corpus of the human populace but seldom wrought. They partake in far-reaching philosophical questions and are drawn to travel, an activity that spurs them towards the universal notion of freedom in all its colours, shapes, sizes, and guises. The Archer is a godsend, wishing to orientate the world to optimism, quash moral and religious fanaticism, and exercise compassion and understanding in its day-to-day dealings with all projections of life, human or otherwise.

[ill-be-istj-if-no-one-else-is]

Regarding looping, I also find that many people mistype their Enneagram, considering themselves 2 in integration or 7 in desintegration... There is no info about how long these "rises and falls" may last.

I’m not sure if there was a question in here? But I’m going to take it as a jumping off point to talk a bit about my entirely subjective theories here.

First, re: no info about how long these rises and falls last. This is all pseudoscience, so this is very much just me speculating, but as I understand it:

Gripping is a brief stress reaction. If you think you are gripping for years, you are probably just mistyped.

Looping is typically described as a defense mechanism, specifically in people who haven’t developed their auxiliary function very well. As a result, shorter periods of looping, also as a brief stress reaction, make sense in teen/early adulthood years. For long-term looping, I’d suspect it wouldn’t occur unless someone also had severe trauma in the mix, in which case stop reading about looping on the internet and find a therapist if that’s remotely possible.

disintegration/integration are more a lifelong state of health for enneagram. Most people are somewhere in that middle range, and again, stop saying “oh it’s just enneagram disintegration” and get some actual help. But I don’t think you just dip into disintegration (the way you might for a loop or grip) - it’s not a stress reaction, but an overall, well, disintegration. It’s a breakdown process.

-------

Now, the other part: Tumblr is an absolutely garbage place to learn about mental health. I cannot stress this enough. There are lots of people who have taken a single psych course if that and decided that they are basically a luminary within the field of abnormal psychology when in fact they are a caffeinated 19-year-old with a B- average. Or people will hear something from their therapist - which is great - but share it and other people will assume it also applies to them.

The example I like to use is maladaptive daydreaming. This is a controversial subject even within actual clinical psychology, and research is in its infancy. There have been something like two actual case studies. And, more crucially, normal levels of daydreaming in healthy humans are pretty high. If maladaptive daydream gains traction as a recognized condition, it would have as its core symptoms a requirement that the affected person essentially be addicted to the point where it is seriously interfering with one’s ability to engage with the real world. It is not common. But because it’s a poorly-understood area with little research, instead of exercising a normal level of scientific caution, or having the life and/or research experience to say “oh having elaborate escapist fantasy scenarios in your head is ENTIRELY FUCKING NORMAL, why do you think people write fiction or play D&D” a whole lot of people on Tumblr have decided they are afflicted with this, when in fact they are completely fine.

Self-diagnosis is a stage in the mental health process, and I’m not going to front like every mental health professional has pure intentions and is infallible nor that mental health is as accessible as it should be, but so many things - daydreaming, intrusive thoughts, feeling anxious or sad or easily distracted sometimes - are well within the normal human range of experience. The mental illness occurs when you feel this way for no reason and can’t stop for extended periods of time and can’t function normally. To put it another way, even a completely neurotypical person can have really shitty days, because that is how life and the world and brains all work.

I don’t want to minimize mental illness (ie, I’m trying not to sound like Maria Bamford’s brilliant Everyone Has Depression bit), but the internet discourse in general suffers from a severe lack of context and nuance.

This applies to MBTI. Everyone has stressful moments when they lash out, because that is how many people interact with stress. These are things you can learn from a. meeting a goddamn fucking person and b. taking a class in cognitive neuro or psych and recognizing it does not make you a psychologist but it does give you a tiny grain of that context you so desperately need to engage with that internet discourse intelligently. But without that context, instead of saying “I was having an awful day and I freaked out and I’m sorry, this is a human thing” it turns into “I was gripping/looping/disintegrating.”

For some people, MBTI turns into a way to divorce their consciousness (their soul I guess if you ascribe to that theory?) from their actions and that’s one reason I try to describe the functions as being used (eg: I am a high Si user) - if I do something shitty, that is me, Em, doing something shitty, not my low Ne or my high Te or enneagram 1 disintegrating into 4.

Frankly, even if I were legit in the grip, if I did something shitty I have still done something shitty and am still responsible for my actions, because adult humans are general speaking responsible for their actions. But I think a lot of looping/gripping/disintegrating stuff comes from a place of both not understanding what is pathological and what is completely normal, and also a lack of personal responsibility. Or, on the flip side, people hoping they are fine and this is just an MBTI quirk when in fact it’s an actual issue.

As a lesser and more cynical factor, I think some of this also is a way to type yourself as the hot new darling of whatever system while explaining why you don’t actually act that way: “oh, I’m disintegrating to 7 but I’m really the all-knowing 5″.

[rudyskatopianiii]

Breath of the Wild Review (long AF)

So, as the title says, this is a review of the game Breath of the Wild and it is exceedingly long (TLDR at the end). THUS there are going to be some major huge spoilers for the game both lore-wise and gameplay-wise. If spoilers are not in your best interest, GO NO FURTHER THAN THIS CAPS LOCKED SENTANCE! Seriously, I’m going into some major important stuff both in the main story AND in sidequests. You have been warned.

First the review. 3 days before writing this I finished the very amazing game LOZ: Breath of the Wild and I will admit, it was pretty awesome. However, I was recently asked what my final thoughts on the game were and I had to stop and think a pretty long time. I was forced to review all of what I had experienced within this massive game and condense it into a single concise explanation of my overall emotion and thoughts about the staggering 150+ hours I spent in the land of Hyrule. It took some time as I relived every mountain I climbed, every guardian I destroyed, every secret I dug up, and all the various emotions I felt during the entire journey. And then I found an answer. The one thing that could possibly encompass all of the thoughts I had about Breath and the adventure I had been involved in for an entire cumulative 6 and a quarter days. “Meh”.

Now I know that "meh" is not the most glowing of reviews but it was the only thing I could say to completely sum up my entire Breath experiance. But why was the game so meh? Well, when I look back on everything I liked and didn't like, the game is terribly balanced. Everything that brings the score up is countered by something that brings the score right back down. The diverse and varied weapon style and techniques is brought down by the horridly low weapon durability. The characters are well designed but some lack depth and others have so little screentime I didn't feel any emotion for them. Even the main villain and major conflict, though epic in scale and interesting in the story, was little more than a blurry low-res shadowy wallpaper that I forgot it was there half the time. So many good things have been counteracted by bad things that I am left with a truly neutral ruling.

Now lets start with the story. Specifically, the characters. Link is devoid of any memory at the beginning of his adventure and is tasked by Impa to seek out those memories. There are a total of ten memories including the secret one Impa points you to and they are supposed to include all the information you need on all the main characters of the past that you are supposed to care about. But the main problem I have is that it's not enough. Only three out of the ten memories have to do with the other characters other than Zelda and the rest focus solely on Zelda and her relationship with her father and Link. There seem to have been more thought given to the character of Zelda than there is to the other characters who you actually need to save the souls of from the divine beasts. There's no incentive to go through with that as I am not in any way motivated to like or care for those characters. Rivali is a pompous ass, Urbosa is slightly amusing, Daruk is like a drunk uncle, and Mipha is in love with Link. Each of them have very compelling personalities but it is never expanded upon to the point where I want to save them. Even Link in almost all cutscenes is a deadeyed straight faced machine who does what he's told and has no real expression in reaction to things happening around him.

Now the past isn't the only place the game tries to gain your motivation, there is another motive for completing the divine beasts. That is for the sake of the people in immediate danger of their rampage. Nabooris is threatening the Gerudo, Medoh is oppressing the Rito, Ruta is drowning the Zora, and Rudania is attacking the Gorons. So, as a good hero must, you are expected to save those races from the rampaging colossi. However, if I were a first comer to the Zelda series, I wouldn't be that motivated to save these races as I don't really care for much of the characters. The ones you interact with are either super one-dimensional or they are interacted with so shortly you don't have time to get to know them.

Take everyone's favorite at the moment, Prince Sidon. Memes aside, this was the worst case of a missed opportunity in the entire game. Mipha, the Zora champion, is not only the Zora King's daughter, but Sidon's sister as well. A very compelling and intriguing story would've been to have the two of them immediately angry with Link or be an obstacle to the objective to begin with. I mean, losing a family member is the extremely traumatizing and it would make sense for those closest to the deceased to be the most affected. But instead, the King is all too happy to help you, Sidon is all "I believe in you!" right from the very start, and the only obstacle between you and Ruta is some crotchety old Zora who is quickly convinced to help by a set of armor and a memory. Yeah, its cute and unexpected that Mipha's armor is like a Zora wedding ring but that's the most you get in the direction of meaningful connections. In the end there is only one reason to do any of the divine beasts and its just for an easier endgame.

Speaking of endgame, Ganon is also a point that kills the score I gave this game and not just because of the anticlimactic final fight. @blueganon has said this already but I'll add it here because it is so true. Ganon is supposed to be the main villain in this game with the Yiga Clan as his devoted disciples. You'd think after games like Majora's Mask and Ocarina of Time that Nintendo would know how to make a overbearing evil that looms upon you from every angle or goads you forward with each step. But the team missed the mark with this game. Ganon is locked in place as a hazy smoke rolling around Hyrule Castle that is obstructed from view as soon as you go past a mountain and the Yiga clan, though more active after defeating their master, is more a nuisance than an active threat. It is such a passive thing that you could easily forget that there is even a Ganon at all. The final fight is depressingly simple as well. The first round is actually pretty active and very well designed (see my theory post coming after this) and incorporates all the techniques and equipment you've been collecting on your adventure. But then the fight devolves into a shoot-the-weak-point generic 3D Zelda boss that this game had done so well trying to avoid.

Even the side quests are shallow and not that fun to do. They're either a "get this thing(s) and bring it here" quest or a "kill this thing(s)" quest with few deviating from that formula and they all have either common or uncommon rewards that are easily found in abundance in the overworld. The only quest that even comes close to being worth the chore is the Tarrey Town questline where you build an entire settlement and populate it with people from all over the map. But even that is comprised of multiple fetch quests. I mean, I know they're just side quests and those characters don't really matter in the grand scheme of things but Majora's Mask is chocked full of side quests that are not tied to the main objective but the majority of which have memorable characters with great stories spanning before, during, and after their completion. It's that attention to detail and good storytelling that give the world its own voice and each and every NPC their own special place in not just your memory but your heart (god what a cliché...).

Then there's the music. The game has only 3 memorable pieces in it (at least for me), the song that plays at Rito Village, the song at Tarrey Town, and the final assault orchestration that plays at Hyrule Castle. Rito Village is the melody on Dragon Roost Island from Wing Waker but much more mellow, Tarrey Town is an amazing melding of each theme across Hyrule and is a real calming melody, and Hyrule Castle's music really does feel like a final assault with its epic orchestra and the weaving of Ganon's theme and Zelda's lullaby together along with an original theme for the Castle itself is so fulfilling especially when your there to finish the game. But that's it. Other than some of the mini-boss themes like fighting a Hinox or Molduga, which are good but... fleeting to put it mildly, there are no other really memorable melodies or compositions even for the overworld witch is eerily silent except for the once in a while piano piece that only serves as ambiance. Even Kass' song, though very recognizable and a great example of good open world design, is just a loop that gets old pretty quickly. The final boss' theme was so forgettable that even a few days after completing the game I've already forgotten it. That. Is. Not. Good. My last thoughts on the game should not be "welp... that's done".

There was just so much missed potential in this game that could've made it so much better. And it's those multiple shortcomings that are ultimately holding it back. I want to be exceedingly enthusiastic about the game. I want to give it a perfect score. Hell, I WANT to be excited about every part of this game. But I just can't. And it kills me that I can't have it on that level of esteem.

TLDR: Breath of the Wild counters itself so well its just an "ok" game. Ganondorf theory post coming soon.

[kdyeowritingsample]

Putting a Rudder on the Ship: A Discussion of Card Cataloging Then, and User Access Now

I have vivid memories of my first “computer lab.” It consisted of a row of heavy-breathing machines that seemed to sprout up overnight in our modest elementary school library: a wiry garden of boxes tended by our harried lone librarian, who heralded their appearance with construction paper lanyards and shining laminated signs. Since entering this program, conversations about technology access, information literacy, and user experience take me back to previous appointments managing community college testing labs and non-profit computer classes, but they also take me there again: a space that seemed somehow liminal, where something transformative to my life and schooling first appeared and then never left. I had seen computers in the houses of family friends before, but I’d never been allowed to use one – and now, immediately, my peers and I were expected to use them to search for books and cassette tapes that we already knew how to find. 

It implied a framework of classification that existed outside of the physical realm but nonetheless imposed organization upon it, accepted and understood standards of a profession beyond the whims and ingenuity of my beloved and tireless school librarian, and these were concepts I had never considered before. This shift in technology and how it changed the way users interact with a library, discover available resources, and move to access them is interesting to research and write about, captivating in the sense of the “new” and “modern” (and still unraveling today), but it is by no means the only or most important of its kind in the history of libraries. This change has its roots in an earlier period of transformation: the rise of the card catalog, and the appearance of LC cards in 1901.  

This paper seeks to provide a concise, pocket-sized overview of related developments spanning between 1840 and 1912, with focus on the general development of the LC classification system and card catalog, and ending in brief discussion and semi-waxing re: user access, cataloging, and change in the here and now.

                                                  Thinking About Then

The concept and use of a “catalog” (or listing of library holdings) is ancient, but only made “systematic” or “professional” relatively recently, as David Levy discusses in Scrolling Forward: 

“When the French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette excavated the “House of Papyrus” at Edfu in the 1860s, he found none of its contents, but … inscriptions listing the library’s holdings. … For the Library of Alexandria, the poet Callimachus is said to have compiled a catalog filling 120 volumes. This long history notwithstanding, it is only in the last 150 years that cataloging … has emerged. Indeed, the catalog produced through these professional practices, the modern catalog, is inseparable from the birth of the modern library. Both are products of industrialization and bureaucratization.” (Levy, 2016). 

Though they had been in use by librarians for a long while before, the first written, “official” mention of a card catalog in an American library appears in 1840, when Harvard College Librarian Thaddeus William Harris conceptualized a “slip catalogue,” wherein every title present in the library would be documented on pieces of card, in a published annual report, though this somewhat revolutionary idea only came to the institution via William Harvard, who discovered the system by “cutting old catalogs into strips and sorting the individual entries into groups by subject” (Battles, 2003). This system went into use at Harvard in various phases of evolution until 1912, though it wasn’t until later that it began to look much like a card catalog as we think of it today. Semi-concurrently, Charles Folsom of the Boston Athenaeum revealed his own idea for a physically organized catalog at an 1853 Library Conference. 

These conceptions of  “catalog” were made to smaller scale and intended for use in single libraries, but in that same year, Charles Coffin Jewett, chief librarian of the Smithsonian, “presented a plan outlining the future of the library catalog, the key feature of which was to “form a general catalogue of all the books in the country, with reference to the libraries where each might be found.”” (Hayden, 2017). In other words, though the idea was timeless, in the United States it was beginning to gather urgency and increased topical relevance as a field-wide discussion, from local libraries to the Smithsonian to the Library of Congress itself. Standards of organization would, in theory, affect not only the broader informational structures within a library, but ultimately the way in which patrons discovered and accessed needed materials.  

In 1876, the first issue of the ALA publication Library Journal named “the most pressing issues facing libraries [as] a lack of a standardized catalog and an agency to administer a centralized catalog” (Hayden, 2017). It remained a hot topic even nearly twenty years later, in 1893, when discussion still revolved around what form a catalog ought to take, how its organization should be calculated, and what constituted the proper sizes for cases and cards. 

Harvard, as perhaps to be expected, had a loud voice in the conversation – and approached the matter with innovation. Librarian John Sibley’s system, debuting its design in Harvard’s 1863 general report, was apparently the first catalog to be made available for public use rather than solely for library staff (Carpenter, 1986). (Though only in the library at Harvard, of course).  

His was not, however, the first system designed especially for readers – that particular innovation can be attributed to Harvard assistant librarian, Ezra Abbott, around the same time. Abbott’s catalog was created specifically for use by library patrons, with “flexibility of adding or deleting cards to accurately and immediately reflect a library’s holdings” that was “groundbreaking” at the time. (Hayden, 2017). Also of note: the efforts and study of his associate, Charles Ammi Cutter of the Boston Athenaeum, which would later lay a foundation for the Library of Congress Classification system. 

Before we get there, though, we must of course mention Melvil Dewey, who remains a “player” for years despite his somewhat awkward relationship with the general American Library Association (for which he held the position of Secretary). His efforts at classification seemingly began at its first conference in 1876 (Levy, 2016), some years after Abbott’s catalog for patrons. 

Dewey set out to better systems for classification of knowledge that had originated nearly a hundred years earlier, with Francis Bacon. He did this by applying  unique numbers to every book, these meant to designate a position in physical space based on subject (or conceptual) matter – in other words, a “controlled vocabulary of subject headings represented by numerical values that could be subdivided further by decimals” (Hayden, 2017). This framework of organization could be collapsed or expanded based on available shelving or size and scope of collection, and it played well with the still-growing concept of the card catalog. 

Melvil Dewey “sought to standardize not only catalogs, but all aspects of the library experience” (Battles, 2003). In fact, he actually founded a library supply company (originally affiliated with the ALA itself) that peddled catalog card stock and usable cabinets, and was present to represent it – and his energetic theory-making – at the World’s Library Congress in 1893. Thanks to this (and the forever relevant, still in use Dewey Decimal System), “Dewey left an enduring mark on libraries across the country,” helping to spread “uniformity” as well as a “hallmark of … sturdy oak furniture.” (Hayden, 2017) He envisioned a sort of “central cataloging agency” that would assign and issue cards nationwide, and when the Library of Congress and the ALA seemed to drag their feet (there was some kerfuffle at the time about general leadership and priorities that ate up the attention of the field), he took initiative. As Matthew Battles puts it, Dewey “was thinking about libraries everywhere.” 

Funny and a little sweet -- as Cutter’s work seeded the earth for the later LC classification system, which would one day take general preference in academic and research libraries over Dewey’s –  Melvil had great respect for Cutter’s cataloging rules, which were used by many libraries before his Dewey Decimal System came into prevalence instead. Cutter “insisted catalogs must give information concerning the author, title, and subject of a work” (Hayden, 2017). To him, a “bibliographic system” had clearcut objectives to meet: identifying, to enable a person to find a book, collocating, to provide clear insight into library holdings, and evaluating, or to assist with the choice of a book (Cutter, 1876). As one can see, this all has its conceptual echo within the theoretical and organizational structures of the Dewey Decimal system. 

Dewey would later pressure publishers into working with Cutter to catalog their books onsite, resulting in these books being sent off with bibliographic slips hidden within (to lukewarm reception by the general library community). 

This increased pressure for the Library of Congress, which waffled back and forth about whether or not nationwide cataloging was feasible – or even responsible – for any single institution to take on. Eventually, after a move into a new building that prompted increased Congressional attention into their spending (not to mention a flooding influx of new materials that made very apparent the inadequacy of their antiquated catalog and skeleton crew of catalogers) the tide seemed to turn. 

Dewey had ascended to the presidency of the ALA by this time, meaning that the association now – for the most part – backed his clamoring for standards, which were spoken in “official” terms at Congressional hearings into the Library of Congress’ spending. There, Dewey argued for centralized cataloging with “standard author, title and subject … that could be distributed to libraries across the country” (Hayden, 2017). His arguments were supported in part by testimony from the current Librarian of Congress, Ainsworth Spofford, who acknowledged that the current LC collection was best searched by hand rather than by rifling through the current card catalog, and by the Head of the Boston Public Library, who emphasized the small size of the LC’s current cataloging staff, of which there were too few to complete needed work quickly as well as efficiently. 

Spofford was removed from his role and eventually replaced by Herbert Putnam in 1899, who would go on to formally establish the Library of Congress classification system as well as the National Union Catalog (Thorin & Wedgewood). Before Putnam, however, there was John Young, who would die in the position less than two years after entering it. Young hired a duo of “modern” library thinkers, J.C.M. Hanson and Charles Martel, who entered the Library of Congress to reboot cataloging efforts of its massive collection. 

Their project would eventually morph into official Library of Congress Subject Headings to be used , and be continued by Putnam himself, who later spent his entire first year as Librarian with continued focus on cataloging. He did this with the express intent of “mak[ing] the Library’s collection more accessible to the public” (Hayden, 2017), resulting in – finally – the Library of Congress Classification System, now most in use by academic and research libraries although it was developed specifically for use in the LC. 

Putnam’s work did not go unnoticed; it resonated broadly, and the idea of a central cataloging system became more and more popular across the nation. Pressure arised for the Library of Congress to release their catalog cards and allow them for use at other institutions, which was still yet to happen for several years. In1901, Putnam made the announcement that the Library was, at long last, prepared to print and sell, to immediate joy from Melvil Dewey (still kicking around) at 1901 ALA convention: 

“You remember that when the Pacific railroad was built, and as the ends came together to make the connection, a great celebration was held through the country, a thrill that the work was at least done; and I feel today, now that we hear in this able report that printed catalog cards are really to be undertaken at the National Library, that what we have waited for [for] over twenty years, and what we have been dreaming about has come to pass at last.” 

This card service, so transformative to the library world, would continue for almost an entire century before finding its end in 1997: around the time my elementary school library debuted a row of shiny, alien computer monitors.

                                                 Thinking About Now

There’s no question that we live in a time of constant, increasing change – enough that it rings trite to mention, I’m sure. Technology both enhances and occasionally eludes us and our efforts as information professionals on a regular basis – and when it comes to the way we present and utilize systems of organization in the context of user experience and access, a century has taken us from change that takes literal decades to change that could feasibly take effect within months. 

Reading through the historical arc of the card catalog, Putnam and Dewey and Cutter almost feel like ancient history – but in a way, so do the entrance of MARC standards and the inevitable innovation of the OPAC, while somehow initiatives of the 90s seem like only yesterday for many people (including me). There’s something strange about time, perspective, and reality. It’s easy to believe we live in the future and have mastered a new technological frontier, when, speaking from my own experience in King county, many people who rely on library services for access – especially immigrant and refugee populations -- still don’t always know how to use the internet to its full extent and possibility, or are not completely confident in their skills. I know this is true in other communities as well. Alma (“the next-generation library services platform”) and WorldCat are getting a little old and creaky. But, to put things in context, as Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden writes:

“Cataloging began to move from oaken chests to computers five decades ago, and now that most people expect to access knowledge through search engines, it’s time for another transformation … A new method must be created to get this information out of the libraries and into patrons’ hands through the web. It’s time to connect our library tributary to the big river of the internet ” (Hayden, 2017).  

Approaches to cataloging as a wider whole – and, inevitably, user access to holdings within library settings which now flicker and manifest between physical and virtual spaces – now involve not just a heady mix of constantly changing perspectives, but the incessant shift of technological standard and ability. For Carla Hayden and the Library of Congress, their best arrow now takes the shape of Bibframe, “a bibliographic framework initiative … to link catalogued library collections to the internet.” It’s the next logical and necessary step in a process that’s been unfolding for decades. 

This is amid renewed nostalgic love (in a more popular or trendy sense) for books as physical or art objects, as well as for a kind of bookish “identity,” concern over whether or not material resources will be overwhelmed in an electronic haze, continuing debate not just about the definite role of new technology in academic and public libraries, whether it is possible for these things to change what a library is even supposed to be anymore, etc – it’s a weird and wild and very interesting mess to untangle. 

And, naturally, while mode and scope of delivery appear to be the question of the day when it comes to the library catalog, at least based on Carla Hayden’s testimony, we also cannot simply sit back and be content with classification systems as they are – those systems, too, need to move and shift and find flexibility. For example, Matthew Battles first wrote and published these words several (or more than several) years ago, but they remain relevant now, perhaps even increasingly relevant: 

“The LC subject classes – those nesting, cross-referenceable rubrics (“United States – Social Conditions – to 1865”) that once ordered the subject card catalogs and that online users still search in the distributed databases – make up an epistemological labyrinth unto themselves. And not everyone is happy with them. In seeking a lofty common denominator, useful for libraries of all shapes, sizes, and specialties, the Library of Congress subject classes often strike a tone of bureaucratic high-handedness.” (Battles, 2003, 2015). I think that earlier figures such as Dewey and Cutter would find the above difficult – but perhaps also a worthy challenge, once they got their heads on straight again after their sudden flight through space and time. I don’t think they would necessarily become radical catalogers, but I do think Cutter especially would absolutely be interested in questions of inclusion that cataloging should and must confront now. I believe he would be concerned about a reader being “alienated and confused by subject classes that emphasize professional knowledge” (Battles, 2003, 2015), or that some books might not be described or evaluated completely or efficiently, especially within the context of the wider commitment to access that underscored his entire approach to classification in the first place. I think Dewey would be, too, though Dewey’s adamant championing of centralized cataloging would be, probably, quite hard for him to unlearn – Dewey wanted a one-size-fits-all approach, and he might see echoes of that in some current practices that he would likely rather tweak to perfection than seek to overhaul completely. 

Perhaps for Dewey and Cutter, however, it would be helpful to frame all of this within what our technology looks like: what we have and are able to use, and the visual and material nature of (or construction behind) user access points as shaped and made capable by cataloging efforts. After all, in their time a hot and seemingly unending topic of debate was the very best and most appropriate size of card and design of case. Now, it’s new and interesting to discover that OCLC’s cataloging client can work directly with the Microsoft Access database underlying the local save file, applications of which improve efficiency in cataloging new collections, finding OCLC numbers for newer e-books, and bibliographic record creation for Early English texts (French, 2017). Obviously, this would have been nonsensical to our old friends, as it probably is for some of us. Times have changed. 

While in the 1860s, Ezra Abbott was considered totally innovative for designing his card catalog around patron use, now “all librarians are UX librarians” (Schmidt, 2015), and we see “library catalogs becoming even more accessible to users who do not need to deciper library jargon to understand the resource they are viewing” (Burris, 2016) – wildly different from the library world that Cutter and Dewey and Abbott knew, where for some time it was apparently easier for people to wander around than use a card catalog (at least at the Library of Congress), and before that a catalog had nothing to do with the user at all, being mostly an organizational tool for staff use only. This is in part because we have made it so, and in part because users are drastically and constantly changing in terms of education, need, and prior training or knowledge. 

We directly connect our outcomes with design, and our design with outcomes, and, as technology advances, we emphasize that our profession centers around creating spaces and services that reflect the user (Burris, 2016), which means a responsible, inclusive and innovative approach inevitably must vary from community to community. There is nothing entirely one-size-fits-all about it, even as we strive to improve accepted methodology and technique approach across the field – something that grows more and more complex to be done properly, both in the context of cataloging and its relationship to access, user experience, and general library design and functionality. Of course, it was complex a hundred years ago too, in ways that would be difficult to navigate if we were the ones tossed backward to early 1900s, when Putnam was first rolling out the LC cards for purchase – and who knows where we’ll be a century from now.

Burris, Christian. “The User Experience and Technical Services.” Technicalities, Vol. 36 Issue 4, p14-17, 4p. Jul/Aug 2016.

Carpenter, Kenneth F. The First 350 Years of the Harvard University Library. Harvard University Library, 1986.

Cutter, Charles. Rules for a Printed Dictionary Catalog. 1876.

Dewey, Melvil. Papers Prepared for the Worlds Library Congress Held at the Columbian Exposition. Government Printing Office, 1896.

French, Rebecca. “Direct Database Access to OCLC Connexion’s Local Save File.” Code4Lib Journal, Issue 38, p1-1. 2017.

Hayden, C. The Card Catalog: Books, Cards, and Literary Treasures. San Francisco: Chronicle Books. 2017.

Hayden, C. “Remember the Card Catalogue?” Publishers Weekly Vol 264, issue 18.  5/1/2017.

Levy, D. M. Scrolling forward: making sense of documents in the digital age. New York: Arcade Publishing. 2016.

Nix, Larry (2009). "Evolution of the Library Card Catalog". (www.thelibraryhistorybuff.org)

Schmidt, Aaron. “The User Experience,” Library Journal 140, no. 16 (2015): 21.

Strout, R.F. (1956). "The development of the catalog and cataloging codes". 26 (4). Library Quarterly: 254–75.

Thorin, S.E., and Wedgeworth, R. The Librarians of Congress: Past and Future. American Libraries Magazine. (https://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/librarians-of-congress/)

[reviewsfeed-blog]

Happy Friday folks! I hope you are all looking forward to a fabulous weekend!!

Today I am posting another Down the TBR Hole post, in an effort to clear out my Goodreads list of unwanted books. In case anyone needs a brush up on just what this tag entails:-

This meme was started by Lia @ Lost in a Story to clear out my reading list of unwanted books. Here is how it works:

Go to your Goodreads to-read shelf.

Order on ascending date added.

Take the first 5 (or 10 if you’re feeling adventurous) books

Read the synopses of the books

Decide: keep it or should it go?

Without further ado, here are the next ten books on the TBR:-

  Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch – Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

Goodreads

According to The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch (the world’s only completely accurate book of prophecies, written in 1655, before she exploded), the world will end on a Saturday. Next Saturday, in fact. Just before dinner.

So the armies of Good and Evil are amassing, Atlantis is rising, frogs are falling, tempers are flaring. Everything appears to be going according to Divine Plan. Except a somewhat fussy angel and a fast-living demon—both of whom have lived amongst Earth’s mortals since The Beginning and have grown rather fond of the lifestyle—are not actually looking forward to the coming Rapture.

And someone seems to have misplaced the Antichrist…

To be honest, this book was a no-brainer before I even re-read the synopsis. I love Pratchett’s humour, and Neil Gaiman is also an esteemed author in his own right. Whilst I wasn’t so fond of American Gods as I’d have hoped, I did enjoy Stardust. This is an easy keeper for me!

Verdict: Keep!

  The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time – Mark Haddon

Goodreads

Christopher John Francis Boone knows all the countries of the world and their capitals and every prime number up to 7,057. He relates well to animals but has no understanding of human emotions. He cannot stand to be touched. Although gifted with a superbly logical brain, Christopher is autistic. Everyday interactions and admonishments have little meaning for him. Routine, order and predictability shelter him from the messy, wider world. Then, at fifteen, Christopher’s carefully constructed world falls apart when he finds his neighbor’s dog, Wellington, impaled on a garden fork, and he is initially blamed for the killing.

Christopher decides that he will track down the real killer and turns to his favorite fictional character, the impeccably logical Sherlock Holmes, for inspiration. But the investigation leads him down some unexpected paths and ultimately brings him face to face with the dissolution of his parents’ marriage. As he tries to deal with the crisis within his own family, we are drawn into the workings of Christopher’s mind.

And herein lies the key to the brilliance of Mark Haddon’s choice of narrator: The most wrenching of emotional moments are chronicled by a boy who cannot fathom emotion. The effect is dazzling, making for a novel that is deeply funny, poignant, and fascinating in its portrayal of a person whose curse and blessing is a mind that perceives the world literally.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is one of the freshest debuts in years: a comedy, a heartbreaker, a mystery story, a novel of exceptional literary merit that is great fun to read.

This is a book I had heard of growing up, but it wasn’t until I understood what was special about it, i.e. that the main character is autistic that I added it to the list.

One of the ladies I used to work with has an autistic nephew, and I’m curious to take a moment and see things from an autistic child’s perspective. I think we could all benefit from gaining some understanding of autism and how people think differently on the whole! It is easy for people to be labelled nowadays, “fat”, “thin”, “simple” etc. I don’t want to use any further slurs, including race and religion because frankly, I don’t condone them. I acknowledge their existence here.

This book is also a keeper!

Verdict: Keep

  Six of Crows – Leigh Bardugo

Goodreads

Criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker has been offered wealth beyond his wildest dreams. But to claim it, he’ll have to pull off a seemingly impossible heist:

Break into the notorious Ice Court (a military stronghold that has never been breached)

Retrieve a hostage (who could unleash magical havoc on the world)

Survive long enough to collect his reward (and spend it)

Kaz needs a crew desperate enough to take on this suicide mission and dangerous enough to get the job done – and he knows exactly who: six of the deadliest outcasts the city has to offer. Together, they just might be unstoppable – if they don’t kill each other first.

This is the first book I am resigning from the list. The synopsis sounds perfectly okay and readable, but doesn’t sound WOW! It lacks the pop, so it’s going to drop…

Verdict: Go

  Sleeping Giants – Sylvain Neuvel

Goodreads

A girl named Rose is riding her new bike near her home in Deadwood, South Dakota, when she falls through the earth. She wakes up at the bottom of a square hole, its walls glowing with intricate carvings. But the firemen who come to save her peer down upon something even stranger: a little girl in the palm of a giant metal hand.

Seventeen years later, the mystery of the bizarre artifact remains unsolved—its origins, architects, and purpose unknown. Its carbon dating defies belief; military reports are redacted; theories are floated, then rejected.

But some can never stop searching for answers.

Rose Franklin is now a highly trained physicist leading a top secret team to crack the hand’s code. And along with her colleagues, she is being interviewed by a nameless interrogator whose power and purview are as enigmatic as the provenance of the relic. What’s clear is that Rose and her compatriots are on the edge of unraveling history’s most perplexing discovery—and figuring out what it portends for humanity. But once the pieces of the puzzle are in place, will the result prove to be an instrument of lasting peace or a weapon of mass destruction?

An inventive debut in the tradition of World War Z and The Martian, told in interviews, journal entries, transcripts, and news articles, Sleeping Giants is a thriller fueled by a quest for truth—and a fight for control of earthshaking power.

I remember adding this book to my TBR – what drew me to it was how different it was to anything else out there! I also like the idea of the story being chronicled in the manner of articles etc instead of prose.

Verdict: Keep

  Join – Steve Toutonghi

Goodreads

What if you could live multiple lives simultaneously, have constant, perfect companionship, and never die? That’s the promise of Join, a revolutionary technology that allows small groups of minds to unite, forming a single consciousness that experiences the world through multiple bodies. But as two best friends discover, the light of that miracle may be blinding the world to its horrors.

Chance and Leap are jolted out of their professional routines by a terrifying stranger—a remorseless killer who freely manipulates the networks that regulate life in the post-Join world. Their quest for answers—and survival—brings them from the networks and spire communities they’ve known to the scarred heart of an environmentally ravaged North American continent and an underground community of the “ferals” left behind by the rush of technology.

In the storytelling tradition of classic speculative fiction from writers like David Mitchell and Michael Chabon, Join offers a pulse-pounding story that poses the largest possible questions: How long can human life be sustained on our planet in the face of environmental catastrophe? What does it mean to be human, and what happens when humanity takes the next step in its evolution? If the individual mind becomes obsolete, what have we lost and gained, and what is still worth fighting for?

I’m a little on the fence about this one. I’ve had to have a good long think about it.

I love the idea of the book exploring advancement in technology and individuality (or the lack of). I feel my reservations are the result of thinking the synopsis isn’t written all that well. I’m going to keep it tentatively based on potential.

Verdict: Keep

  Three Parts Dead – Max Gladstone

Goodreads

A god has died, and it’s up to Tara, first-year associate in the international necromantic firm of Kelethres, Albrecht, and Ao, to bring Him back to life before His city falls apart.

Her client is Kos, recently deceased fire god of the city of Alt Coulumb. Without Him, the metropolis’s steam generators will shut down, its trains will cease running, and its four million citizens will riot.

Tara’s job: resurrect Kos before chaos sets in. Her only help: Abelard, a chain-smoking priest of the dead god, who’s having an understandable crisis of faith.

When Tara and Abelard discover that Kos was murdered, they have to make a case in Alt Coulumb’s courts—and their quest for the truth endangers their partnership, their lives, and Alt Coulumb’s slim hope of survival.

Set in a phenomenally built world in which justice is a collective force bestowed on a few, craftsmen fly on lightning bolts, and gargoyles can rule cities, Three Parts Dead introduces readers to an ethical landscape in which the line between right and wrong blurs.

Okay, so this was added to the list a year and a half ago. Looking at it now, I can say that my reading preferences have certainly changed. This doesn’t appeal to me anymore, so it’s off the list.

Verdict: Go

  Doors of Stone – Patrick Rothfuss

Goodreads

The eagerly awaited third book of The Kingkiller Chronicle.

It is absolutely eagerly awaited – I love this series so far!

Verdict: Keep

  Golden Age – James Maxwell

Goodreads

The discovery of a strange and superior warship sends Dion, youngest son of the king of Xanthos, and Chloe, a Phalesian princess, on a journey across the sea, where they are confronted by a kingdom far more powerful than they could ever have imagined.

But they also find a place in turmoil, for the ruthless sun king, Solon, is dying. In order to gain entrance to heaven, Solon is building a tomb—a pyramid clad in gold—and has scoured his own empire for gold until there’s no more to be found.

Now Solon’s gaze turns to Chloe’s homeland, Phalesia, and its famous sacred ark, made of solid gold. The legends say it must never be opened, but Solon has no fear of foreigners’ legends or even their armies. And he isn’t afraid of the eldren, an ancient race of shape-shifters, long ago driven into the Wilds.

For when he gets the gold, Solon knows he will live forever.

This book doesn’t appeal to me much at the moment. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure I could read it… I may even want to in the future, but I’m not feeling the love right now.

I’ll keep it because I bought a copy, but it’s not something I am likely to pick up in the near future.

Verdict: Keep

  Children of Earth and Sky – Guy Gavriel Kay

Goodreads

From the small coastal town of Senjan, notorious for its pirates, a young woman sets out to find vengeance for her lost family. That same spring, from the wealthy city-state of Seressa, famous for its canals and lagoon, come two very different people: a young artist traveling to the dangerous east to paint the grand khalif at his request—and possibly to do more—and a fiercely intelligent, angry woman, posing as a doctor’s wife, but sent by Seressa as a spy.

The trading ship that carries them is commanded by the accomplished younger son of a merchant family, ambivalent about the life he’s been born to live. And farther east a boy trains to become a soldier in the elite infantry of the khalif—to win glory in the war everyone knows is coming.

As these lives entwine, their fates—and those of many others—will hang in the balance, when the khalif sends out his massive army to take the great fortress that is the gateway to the western world…

This synopsis really doesn’t say a whole lot about the book, in my opinion. Unless you are die-hard feminist and want to invest into special agent “doctors wife” – nothing stands out about these characters.

It’s a nope from me.

Verdict: Go

  The Psychology Book – Nigel C Benson

Goodreads

Clearly explaining more than 100 groundbreaking ideas in the field, The Psychology Book uses accessible text and easy-to-follow graphics and illustrations to explain the complex theoretical and experimental foundations of psychology.

From its philosophical roots through behaviorism, psychotherapy, and developmental psychology, The Psychology Book looks at all the greats from Pavlov and Skinner to Freud and Jung, and is an essential reference for students and anyone with an interest in how the mind works.

I definitely have a kindle copy of this – and I am fairly sure I have read at least some of it. Psychology is a subject I am interested in and like to visit periodically, so I’ll keep.

Verdict: Keep

  There you have it!

I only dropped three books of the list this time. I think now I am coming to books that I have added more recently (within the past year and a half or so) there will be less I drop off the list as my reading taste will be closer to it is now.

I’ll still benefit from reviewing, however, as you never know. Plus, doing so gets the books put on the ACTUAL reading list I work from.

Have you reviewed your TBR recently?

  Down the TBR Hole is a tag designed to help clear Goodreads lists of unwanted books #bookblog Happy Friday folks! I hope you are all looking forward to a fabulous weekend!! Today I am posting another Down the TBR Hole post, in an effort to clear out my Goodreads list of unwanted books.