#then reapply for actual analysis and the like

[porto-rosso]

can not for the life of me understand people who pick and choose their succession favourites based on morals

[mcgrillzdumpinc]

I'll likely make a more in depth post once I've read through all the translated light novels but

Hello Apothecary Diaries fans I am in volume 8 and would like to reassure you about the choking scene from volume 5

Spoilers under the cut!

Okay so there's a scene at the end of volume 5 (the manga is not there yet) that many have interpreted as sexual assault. For the sake of those sensitive to such topics, I'm going to give a light on spoilers version of the scene and then an in depth analysis. Personally, I do not view the scene as sexual assault, but it is very forceful and carries A LOT of very sad subtext. You'll understand what I'm getting at in the more depth part.

So, the general gist of the choking scene.

MaoMao and Jinshi are in the garden to escape a banquet. They talk for a bit about a very scary incident that occurred that day (thankfully nobody was killed) and share casual conversation. Then Jinshi brings up that they're at this banquet to find him a wife. I won't spoil the specifics, but fyi MaoMao has been wearing an accessory this whole time that loudly announces (to everyone except herself, of course) that She's The Favorite™. Despite how obvious Jinshi has been with his intentions, including holding her hand and combing his other fingers through her hair while mentioning the whole wife thing, MaoMao evades him while thinking "I'm not capable of love". So, she tries to dodge him by offering up another woman. This is what causes Jinshi to snap and choke her, as well as hold one of her arms behind her back to stop her from fighting back.

He doesn't kill her. As far as damage to her throat, the text doesn't indicate any. He then leans his weight on her. MaoMao then remembers how she was taught sex techniques against her will be the Verdigris House women & decides to use those techniques against Jinshi. She then promptly leaves and Jinshi feels like the most pathetic man in world.

The two don't interact beyond official matters until towards the end of volume 6. Jinshi brings more rare medicine in lieu of an apology. The two talk around the wife situation again and MaoMao gets tickled. It isn't until volume 7 that they have an actual conversation breakthrough.

That's my light on spoilers version of the events. Now I'll give a more in depth version, that's honestly a good chunk of my own meta-analysis around the events of volume 5.

Honestly, volume 5 is full of really interesting scenes regarding Jinshi and MaoMao. This is the first volume after Jinshi has been forced back into Imperial Brother status, yet the first thing I noticed that actually changed between JinMao is how MaoMao takes initiative with him now. As soon as she learns an insect plague might be on the horizon, she dives into unprompted research and delivers her findings to Jinshi. She's no longer working at the palace or for Jinshi, but she still takes on the extra burden. She also takes initiative to get Jinshi some extra sleep (though she misinterprets his desire to not sleep alone). And later in the novel, when they're in the paper makers' village, MaoMao acts so cute when reapplying Jinshi's burn scar makeup. I'll let screenshots talk for me.

Like man. She's so cute. And I wonder, if these two didn't have to deal with social standing and imperial drama, would we get way more of them just being cute and companionable? If MaoMao wasn't an unwitting member of the Who Wants To Be An Imperial Princess race, would her feelings for Jinshi have grown without so much pushing and urgency on his end?

But I digress. I think a lot of volume 5, especially once they reach their travel destination, is MaoMao trying her best to keep her blinders on even though she is in the thick of imperial drama. She's especially desperate with regards to the blazingly obvious fact that a certain someone of very high status is in love with her. I think the end of chapter 6 does a very good job of driving home one of the major reasons why MaoMao is reluctant to trust Jinshi's feelings.

To add fuel onto this unfortunate fire is that MaoMao, as an unmarried courtesan's daughter, was attacked as an infant by her mother, sought after by fucking Lakan of all people, ignored while crying as a baby, and forcibly taught sex (to the point of tears!). She also had to cover for Luomen's own eccentricities, specifically ensuring they had enough money to feed themselves. MaoMao, to put it shortly, has been taught not to believe she can attain anything beyond her very simple life of being a lowly apothecary.

And then here's Jinshi who, as a prince, has been forced to grow up fast & have all his favorite things taken away from him. I think MaoMao is the first time he ever wanted a person. He is, for lack of a better word, obsessed with her. I think a lot of his pushiness & tendency to be clingy with her is him desperately trying to make sure he doesn't lose her. If he makes her his wife, then, well, she can't leave.

And I think the choking scene is him finally at his breaking point. At this point, he has lavished her with gifts, been very forward sexually with her twice, and given her a new hairpin that is essentially this story's version of a promise ring. It's MaoMao's repression/reluctance vs. Jinshi's desperation and so far she's winning.

But then she pushes him past his breaking point and he takes physical action against her. MaoMao responds by performing an unspecified sexual act on him.

So why don't I personally take this scene as sexual assault?

Mainly because I think the people actually guilty of sexual assault her are the Verdigris House women who forced MaoMao to learn sex.

As far as I understand it, whether MaoMao can actually say no to Jinshi is left up to interpretation. If we're talking on social status terms, she can't say no. But if you look at Jinshi's overall treatment of her, both before and after this scene, I very much think MaoMao can say no and instead chooses to defuse the situation.

Because what isn't for interpretation, however, is MaoMao's abysmal impression of what love and sex can actually be for her. So she defuses a situation by using sex, something she herself doesn't like, and doesn't allow Jinshi to reciprocate, which leaves him feeling terrible, too.

I want to be clear. I do think Jinshi is in the wrong for physically attacking MaoMao. But the sexual portion of the scene, at least to me, falls squarely on the shoulders of MaoMao's fucked up backstory.

Anyway, I think I've typed for long enough. I am using the official translations of the light novel for this analysis, so if any fans have access to alternate translations or WN only knowledge that throw my analysis in the trash bin, please let me know (fyi puedo leer el español).

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

Ok so now that I've spent some time thinking about the whole "Chuuya was never a vampire" twist, I... still don't like it. For many reasons.

Here's my explanation; if you want to read it, please do. I strive to be fair. I want to wait for the manga release before making a verdict on whether it's bad writing or not, and I also want to see the start of next arc to see where they're going with all this.

If you don't want to read it, and you're having fun with the twist (it is funny. I will admit that much), then skip this and keep having fun! I don't want to ruin anyone's enjoyment.

First of all. It makes no sense. There are things that just do not add up. There was never an indication this was a possibility.

Bro. Did you put on costume makeup for the texture under your eyes? Did it wash off after nearly getting drowned and you had to frantically reapply it behind Fyodor's back and that's why we couldn't see your face for several chapters. Did you take it off again for your dramatic reveal here at the end? I demand smeared undereye makeup Chuuya in the manga when it releases hbfsdjhbfv

Ok this was more a joke. But here's what really irks me.

From what I can recall, this is. True. He needs to have made contact to manipulate gravity. It's also re-established in this very arc.

Great. So how the fuck did he slow the elevator? He was with Fyodor in a separate room! This makes no sense. Did he leave to stop the elevator and Fyodor was like "oh chill. ok come back soon"??? What?!

Here's another thing I want to address:

@ticklinglady I had this same question. However, on thinking on it again, I do have an answer that makes sense - they had to buy time for Sigma to use his ability on Fyodor, to gain knowledge on him about what he knows, and what his ability is. <-I feel confident in saying this is going to be important later. Sigma will still have a role to play and we will find out more about Fyodor!

Alright. Moving on to the themes, and why this also doesn't work (at least for me).

The theme in this arc is very much to do with the contrast between trust vs control. This is Fyodor's failing when it came to Dazai, and it is established very early on as the major contrast between them, in the Sky Casino arc. The vampires, though it seemed silly and random, fit nicely into that theming. And the conclusion, where Dazai showed extreme faith in Sigma and the Agency members (and what an interesting contrast that is; to have someone show faith in ordinary humans when his foil is a man who has faith in god but not humanity), that fits into that theming also. Ok, so this was an extension of that right? Showing faith in Chuuya, as always.

Yeah, no. I want to direct your attention back to this here.

This line is the one that had everyone going "oh man skk is going to fuck you up for that". I made an entire analysis back when this chapter first came out about the themes that we saw, and Fyodor's utter devaluing of the effectiveness of people beyond just their skills and abilities (it's here, if you're curious). This is why I suspected that, since Dazai and Fyodor are intellectually matched, it would have to be Sigma and Chuuya to catch Fyodor off guard - because he only values what people can do, not who they are.

Well, we got a little with Sigma, before Fyodor took control of the situation again. (Rip buddy.) Sigma's tenacity and unwillingness to fall for Fyodor's manipulating him away from helping the Agency was based off his personal choice and free will. He managed to shoot him! Fyodor was reduced to a cheap trick to get close enough to stab him! There was a certain level of payoff.

But Chuuya? I want you to think for a second. What did he actually do? Not a single part of this was Chuuya's idea. It was Mori's - he was at the very least sent undercover under orders, if not sent to Meursault under orders. He didn't even glue his own fangs in apparently. Now let's go over what he did. Why was it so necessary that it be Chuuya there? Well, obviously because gravity manipulation was needed to slow the elevator and the bullet. Oh... hm. So. His ability. Was what was needed, huh?

But it was necessary for it to be Chuuya because of the bond between him and Dazai, right? Oh. Wait. So, Chuuya's personality and goals don't matter - only his ability to read Dazai.

This twist makes it so Chuuya as a person doesn't actually throw a wrench into Fyodor's plans at all. All that matters is that he is Mori's executive and Dazai's partner. I guess he was "utilized" after all. I thought, with his characterization in Fifteen and Stormbringer, that we were moving away from this characterization of Chuuya only by his bond with Dazai. Do you want to scream.

You might be saying, okay, but at the very least it showed the depths of Double Black's bond! ...did it? Not really, at least not to me. The only impressive part of any of this was Mori's preparedness. This was barely an skk plan. It was a Mori plan. Double Black placing their lives in each other's hands is a Tuesday for them. This is nothing we didn't already know. And truthfully, it goes nowhere near the level of sheer trust we saw in Dead Apple. Mori sent Chuuya in sure, but it was only after everything settled down that he realized that Mori suspected Dazai would need help. Before that point, it seemed everyone thought Dazai was dead except Chuuya. Chuuya chose to jump out of that plane. Chuuya chose to risk his life. It showcased his personality, his free agency, and the level of trust they had far, far better. And it was emotionally satisfying! Dazai was extremely grateful that his trust paid off! Chuuya was somewhat conscious during Corruption, enough to weaken his own punch and shout Dazai's name! Dazai prevented Chuuya from having his ability be separated from him by the fog! They are an unbeatable team... but they were still left exhausted, and had to rely only on each other. How does what happened in this latest episode compare to that in a way that makes me believe they've actually outmaneuvered Fyodor?

Listen. I'll take twists that don't really have a great build up if they further the themes or character development, or it just makes for good drama. There's an interesting pay off, at least, so I say "okay, okay. Could've been done better, but I'll let it slide for the intrigue." But here? Nothing. It was boring. Are you bored.

Anime watchers were probably more fine with it. Maybe it was a little disappointing, but oh well. But manga readers have been having this plot dragged out for years. A lot of said fans (including myself) were excited to see Chuuya become main series relevant and receive present day development - and it seemed like we were going to get that with the recent publication of not one, but two Chuuya backstory novels, and the drama of this arc pitting Dazai and Chuuya against each other. Instead, this did absolutely nothing of interest for his character. Why was he even here?

Which brings me to the last point, which is the characterization.

Going back and re-reading this entire arc now, it becomes one big stage performance. Ok, fine, it's a little funny. But now there's hardly anything of value to these interactions. The only ones that actually matter are Fyodor and Sigma, and Fyodor and Nikolai. All that buildup to drama between Double Black, to another incredible display of trust, to something shifting and changing from the status quo... all that build up, and nothing has changed for Chuuya, or for Double Black. The show of trust wasn't even that dramatic really. Are you bored still.

This also weakens Fyodor's character to me. Fyodor witnessed their incredible show of trust in Dead Apple. I assumed he was prepared for skk-typical bullshittery, you know, being a genius on par if not greater than Dazai. You're telling me he was so overconfident he completely missed that Chuuya wasn't a vampire? Really? Fyodor really had nothing in place that would verify whether the vampires were actually under control? He wasn't constantly checking for a plan? It really was just red eyes and fangs, and he thought that was fine? That's it? Ok.

Truthfully, I was kind of :| about several of the preceding twists in the Meursault arc, particularly the dagger Fyodor pulled out when he started acting to Sigma, and the door railing being preemptively crushed by Chuuya before the drowning started. The dagger was actually ornate in the manga, which raised several questions - it couldn't have come from a guard. It made me think there was more to that interaction than just Fyodor pretends to have a split personality and that there was actually something to that knife. Well, it was made to be a regular knife in the anime, so I guess theorizing across those lines are dashed.

What bothered me the most though was the crumpling of the rail to stop the door from completely closing. There was no indication of this in the manga. None. No one could've predicted that - because it's stupid. The water filled so fast it couldn't get out of the crack in the door, even though it was huge??? Dazai was in the control room - you're telling me that there was no security camera focused on the door??? You know, where you would position a security camera??? It was dumb to me, but I was willing to roll my eyes and move on because I was expecting a good payoff to all this, and well, it was funny.

But now, the whole arc is one extended joke skk were playing on Fyodor. And you're telling me that's how our major antagonist goes out? Our major antagonist of several arcs? Be for fucking real.

And depending on when Dazai figured it out, it may even cheapen earlier scenes. If he found out after the elevator slowed like people have been theorizing, I could accept that. That's fine. But I need people to recall: in the actual episode he states "it was all an act".

Is Dazai probably lying to save face? Sure. But as of this moment we actually have no evidence it wasn't an act from the beginning. Remember that Ango was communicating the whole time with Dazai. Remember that Mori was involved and helped Tanizaki and Kenji get to safety. It's entirely possible it was all premeditated.

One last suggestion: the plan name was "Good-bye" as suggested earlier. This means that even if Dazai didn't know from the beginning, he knew by the time of his speech to Chuuya as he was drowning.

This means that his whole scheme with Sigma was not an extremely dangerous, life-risking play on his part at all (@daz4i has gone to explain why this sacrificialism isn't good for a suicidal character, which I recommend reading, but nonetheless it was still notable characterization for Dazai). And what about this?

Even his own flashbacks and memories were, what? A lie? A performance? For whom? Not for Fyodor, that's for sure.

For us. The readers. For the people who are invested in these two and their dynamic. For the people who wanted development between them, because there are actually issues there that have not been resolved. People wanted Dazai to show real concern. Chuuya is still bitter, even if Dazai thinks everything is fine and the same since he left. There was a tease that we're going to get how Chuuya felt when Dazai left the Mafia at some point in the future. People were making angsty art and writing and getting really excited because all the prior interactions had appeared to be set up for the payoff of this drama.

We get an introduction in the dungeon. We reveal their partnership and fearsome reputation during the Lovecraft fight. They perform flawlessly in Dead Apple. Throughout all this, they need no communication. They read each other and respond in tandem, always... but there's still an underlying tension in the way they do not talk to each other. I, and many others, had thought the prison escape arc was the breaking point for some development, since their prior appearances were all meant to establish them as a team, and this arc dealt heavily with the breaking of established things.

But no. Deus ex skk is perfect. They have no issues or flaws. Do you want to scream again.

Anyways. I recognize I'm probably just very disappointed right now and by tomorrow, I probably won't care anymore and will just roll with it. I think I was extra disappointed because while I tempered my expectations for, say, Yosano and Kyouka's involvement (sigh...), I fully expected skk would be handled well, being the fandom faves and where the money is at, so I guess I took the disappointment that much harder.

However, I'm eager to see how the manga tackles the ending, and if we will get any extra cues or better pacing there that may make me not quite so bitter. If it's any consolation, I do think we'll be getting Chuuya focus at some point in a future arc, and while I do think Fyodor is dead, I doubt he will have stopped haunting the narrative. He'll be back in some capacity. I'm pretty certain he's still the mastermind.

And I'm curious about the next arc and what's happening there. Maybe some things will be revealed later that will help smooth out the flaws here.

[enlitment]

N°2 for the book asks

Thanks for the ask kind anon and sorry for taking forever to answer! (this one was not easy!)

Top 5 books of all time?

In no particular order:

1. Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood

Set in an interesting historical period (Canada in the 1800s) + partially based on real events + focuses on women's issues + from a female perspective + includes complex, morally grey characters + unreliable narrator trope + criminal (sub)plot + weird historical psychoanalysis & psychiatry + some really great writing. Need I say more?

(Also the show is actually really good as well, if you don't feel like reading the book!)

2. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

I mean, it's a classic for a reason. Gay yearning. Corruption. Murder. Beautiful descriptive prose. But hey, this is Tumblr, so I feel like I'm preaching to the choir here.

(Still need to get my hands on the uncensored version at some point!)

3. The World's Wife by Carol Ann Duffy

I've reread this one more times than I can count. Duffy draws on the classics (mostly Greek mythology, but also fairy tale characters and even Faust) but reimagines them through a more contemporary, as well as female perspective. That could go wrong really easily, but this book in fact does a stellar job in my opinion.

Just read Eurydice, my favourite (I don't think I've ever felt quite as represented by a poem before). Or Medusa. Or Pygmalion's Bride.

Or, you know, and poem that is not Mrs. Tiresias - I like to pretend that one is not there.

4. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

Very much my teenage obsession. It's a gripping read written from the point of view of a teenage criminal that speaks in a strange mix of English and Russian that is at first barely coherent. It's raw, it's brutal, but it also asks some very interesting questions about the nature of morality and free will in a way that does not feel forced.

Oh, and the movie's great as well. Possibly the best soundtrack of all time. So good and so problematic that it's been banned in the UK until the 2000s.

5. The Great Cat Massacre (and Other Episodes in French Cultural History) by Robert Darnton

A collection of essays focusing on the microhistory of 18th century France? It's a real mystery why I like it so much, huh.

It's actually a bit insane how much I owe to this book. It arguably helped to spark my Rousseau and Diderot (and, in general, enlightenment era) obsession. I also sneakily reapplied Darnton's argument to justify my thesis (it's totally necessary to study 18th-century mental health approaches, give me all the funds now, please! /s).

Darnton is not only a hilarious author, but you also get a sense that he truly cares about the people he writes about. If you get your hands on it, I recommend reading chapter 4 (includes police description of the key enlightenment figures, like V, Rousseau, and Diderot!) or chapter 6 (the Rousseau stan culture analysis).

Maybe skip the titular chapter, especially if you are fond of cats. I'm afraid the name is, in this case, quite literal.

[amatorfilozofus]

Stephen Hicks on Postmodernism and Nietzsche

There is a video on YouTube which I have just watched now where Stephen Hicks “analysis” the postmodernists using Nietzsche’s concept of “ressentiment�� which basically means “resentment”. In this post I am going to reconstruct his main argument and will argue that Nietzsche was already fundamentally mistaken in his analysis and Hicks is doing even worse by reapplying it.

First what we need to do is to define postmodernism. Hicks does not do this in this clip, but I am going to give him the benefit of doubt that this clip is from a longer lecture and he defines postmodernism at some point. Postmodernism is notoriously difficult to define, since this word is used for such a diverse set of people that it is hard to find a common thread running between all of them. I am going to use the most common definition, which is that postmodernism is scepticism about metanarratives. A metanarrative is a kind of framework which is meant to explain the course of history. For example a metanarrative would be that social progress represents the will of god, or that Marxist class struggle is the key to understanding history. As we can see already here there is a tension between postmodernism and Marxism, to which I am going to refer back later.

Next we need to present Nietzsche’s original idea. As Hicks correctly says Nietzsche differentiates between master and slave morality. Master morality is the morality of the “strong” the “life affirming”. Slave morality is the morality of the “weak” the “cowardly”. The masters resent the slaves and the slave resents the masters. But the slaves also resent themselves because actually they are envious of the masters. This makes them bitter and since they cannot confront the masters due to them being weak they try to hurt them by more insidious ways, such as telling lies. Now Hicks does not give us the full picture here. In Nietzsche’s view the main representative of slave morality is Christianity itself.  Hicks lists patience, obedience, humility, and being on the side of the weak as values for the slave morality which are clearly Christian values, while he lists: aggressiveness, pride, independence, physically or materially success as the values of master morality. Of course what is a value or good for one is evil for the other. If Hicks told his audience this he would have alienated a large part of it. Even worse Nietzsche was an antidemocratic thinker, and thought democracy was slave morality as well, he says in Beyond Good and Evil that “the democratic movement is the heir of the Christian movement”, this would have alienated another large part.

At this point I would just like to point out the obvious: it is silly to think that those who are for example materially successful (and hence independent) are like that because they are somehow by nature “stronger”. If we consider a cast society where you are either born rich and inherit wealth or you are born poor without any chance of owning wealth then you would be rightly angry because you were never given a chance. So Nietzsche is completely wrong, the “weak” were “weak” for social reasons not because they were inherently weak and the “strong” were also “strong” for social reasons. And of course this has nothing really to do with who embraces the Christian faith and who does not. Christian religion is not a conspiracy against the strong by the weak. Nietzsche is doing real scholarly work in setting up his “theory”, he is just daydreaming. It is also funny to note that Nietzsche accuses Christians for being resentful while he himself is being clearly resentful towards Christians.

Now let’s see Hicks argument.

Hicks assumes that postmodernists are just socialists in disguise. This is already a very weak generalisation. Why would socialists/Marxists need to hide behind postmodernism? Terry Eagleton and Richard D. Wolff are Marxists and they don’t seem to need to disguise themselves. Eagleton is actually critical of postmodernism which is quite understandable given his Marxist stance and the definition of postmodernism we have given above. Fredric Jameson is associated with postmodernism yet he too does not shy away from calling himself a Marxist. The two examples Hick himself gives are Stanley Fish and Andrea Dworkin.

Stanley Fish has supposedly called all opponents of affirmative action “bigots” and lumped these people with the Ku Klux Klan. I couldn’t find the exact text for this but it seems this is from Fish’s book “There's No Such Thing As Free Speech: And It's a Good Thing, Too”.

Andrea Dworkin supposedly said “all heterosexual men are rapists”. For this I have found a Guardian article, which I am going to quote now:

“The attacks on Dworkin were not only personal; they also applied to her work. John Berger once called Dworkin "the most misrepresented writer in the western world". She has always been seen as the woman who said that all men are rapists, and that all sex is rape. In fact, she said neither of these things. Here's what she told me in 1997: "If you believe that what people call normal sex is an act of dominance, where a man desires a woman so much that he will use force against her to express his desire, if you believe that's romantic, that's the truth about sexual desire, then if someone denounces force in sex it sounds like they're denouncing sex. If conquest is your mode of understanding sexuality, and the man is supposed to be a predator, and then feminists come along and say, no, sorry, that's using force, that's rape - a lot of male writers have drawn the conclusion that I'm saying all sex is rape." In other words, it's not that all sex involves force, but that all sex which does involve force is rape.”

So it seems if this article is right then clearly Hicks is misrepresenting Dworkin which is bad enough but there is another question: what does she have to do with postmodernism? Yes, Stanley Fish is considered a postmodern literary critic, but Andrea Dworkin is a feminist author, and unless feminism is inherently postmodern she couldn’t really be called a postmodern thinker.

So already Hicks is on shaky ground assuming that postmodernism is just a disguise for socialists. But let’s move on.

What Hicks does next is basically just recasting postmodernists in the role of slaves and capitalists in the role of masters. The idea is that postmodernists are just socialists who were defeated and so they are now the representatives of slave morality. Again if the conservative audience were informed about Nietzsche’s original target, it would be really funny to see how they would have reacted when Hicks basically assigns traditional Christian values to postmodernism.

So for him the capitalists are the strong and the socialists are the weak. But since they are weak they cannot confront the capitalists, all they can use are words. According to Hicks deconstruction is the method of the defeated socialists which they use for this purpose. Deconstruction originates from the work of Jacques Derrida, and it became popular in literary criticism, it is clearly not a weapon to destroy the achievements of western culture. Hicks tells us about a dismissive deconstructive reading of Shakespeare but does not tell us about the author, so I couldn’t check his example. But even if he is right about that specific piece, are we seriously supposed to think that all literary critics who employ deconstruction in their readings of texts are secret socialists who in face hate literature and because literary critics just to destroy it?

Hicks tells us about two “examples” from the visual arts to illustrate this malicious intention. His examples are two works from Marcel Duchamp: Fountain so called readymade sculpture, which is actually a porcelain urinal and L.H.O.O.Q. which is a parody of the Mona Lisa. Now I find this part the most embarrassing. Hicks is not willing to engage with Duchamp’s work. He claims that Duchamp is just envious of past masters and realizing that since he himself is incapable to creating such works decides to destroy art for the sheer thrill of destruction. Marcel Duchamp is one of the most celebrated artists of the 20th century. This simplistic idea that Duchamp is just filled with rage and resentment because of his own lack of talent is such an simplistic understanding of his work that it is simply not worth discussing. I would just like to remind Hicks that earlier he criticized postmodernism for ad hominem so it is quite surprising that now he himself makes one against Duchamp. I would also like to assure Stephen Hicks that Duchamp did not destroy anything; the Mona Lisa is still the world’s most recognized painting and is still displayed in the Louvre. It is actually hard to see the relevance of these examples: I guess the examples were only meant to illustrate how the slaves can hurt the masters but how is Marcel Duchamp a representative of slave morality here? The Fountain is from 1913 and L.H.O.O.Q, is from 1919 long before the postmodern philosophy. Hicks told us that deconstruction is weapon of the postmodern but Derrida, the inventor of this “weapon” was not even born yet.

Finally it seems postmodernist didn’t even need deconstruction since all they do is spread lies.  Hicks says that the worst way to hurt a family man is to accuse him being child molesters or to hurt a women is to say that she is a gold-diggers. Now again I must point out the obvious that spreading such lies has nothing to do with being a leftist or a postmodernist. This is the oldest trick in the book and is done constantly on all political sides. Hicks draws an analogy with spreading such lies about people to lying about western civilisation itself. So accusations of racism and intolerance are somehow only lies about western civilization. I think there are many episodes in history where the west could not live up to its own expectation. Slavery and segregation in the United States or colonisation by Europeans are clear examples and only a delusional person could dismiss criticism for these terrible acts. The west must face up to the horrible things it caused.

There is an important point here, which is only obscured by Hicks, so let me turn now to a much more capable philosopher: Richard Rorty. Rorty in his book “Achieving our Country” discusses similar issues as Hicks does here, but his presentation is much more sympathetic and insightful. Rorty says that national pride for a country is like self-esteem for person, without it there is not much hope for a change for the better. He acknowledges that the United States did some horrible things, and he says that the new left deserve praise for calling attention to racism, misogyny, and the status of sexual minorities. However, Rorty thniks the truly important question is if we believe that things can be changed for the better within the current political system or not. His complaint is that many on the new left seem to think that the US has passed redemption and they turn away from everyday political matters to academic theorizing. Rorty regrets this outcome and proposes that we take inspiration from the progressive era. I think Rorty’s advice here is just what we need in our time, and what we really don’t need is the kind of moral panic Stephen Hicks represents here.

[khodorkovskaya]

21.02.23

im in a terrible mood today!!!!

first of all because i stink! i don't know why. maybe it's hormonal or i ate something or idk. but i smell so bad! not like sweat but like a general bad odor like what's going on????

secondly, the master's degree bullshit is pissing me off! i spent the whole day writing a cover letter for this shit and i hate it. thank god for chatgpt but it doesn't help as much as i hoped it could. i mean i still have to come up with dumb shit about myself and sound enthusiastic. and i hate it!!!

and then i have no idea how to even apply! everything is online, i don't understand shit. the only way to contact people is by email and i hate emails. why can't i just call or talk to someone in person so that they could explain things to me and show how it's done? apparently i need to reapply to my uni as if i were a new student. but when i enter my student number an error message pops up like "you're already enrolled". like yeah, but it said i had to do it again! then there's also a button that says "id like to reenroll" but it sends you to a fucking contact form that says "we will reply within 3 business days". so i left a message like "hello! id like to reenroll please!". what am i supposed to do???

and then, cherry on top, i was like okay i'll deal with this reenrollment shit later, let's try to apply for the specific master's program through their online application thing. and ive already talked to a couple of people about my case and asked what i should do about the english exam bc im fluent but i don't have any like technical proof of it. and everyone was like yeahh it's fineee, you don't need a certificate if you're fluent. so i go on their online application thing and i literally can't go to the next page if i don't upload the english certificate! it says "if english is your mother tongue this is not mandatory" and at the same time when i want to go to the next page it says "this field is mandatory". so what do i do? upload a blank page?? oh and wait for it! i need another certificate no one fucking told me about! guess what it is!!! a fucking iq test!!! okay not like THE iq test but a thing called gre. and i googled what it is and it's this like fucking analytical reasoning test or whatever. and it's also racist.

and im sorry, not to be all like "i have 999 iq" but i do maths okay..?? what more proof do you need that im not stupid? qUanTiTaTiVe rEaSoNiNg how about you quantishut the fuck up!?!!!? like im smart enough to do maths but not smart enough to do a fucking economics degree when economics is basically astrology for straight people.??? like give me a break. i already declined taking an actual iq test because iq is racist and i don't want to partake in racist things. and now there's this fucking gdr bullshit. and it costs 200 bucks to take!!!! for what????

anyway i sent an email like "umm i am not taking any expensive ass exams um no thanks". like dude why can't i just go to the fucking manager of the faculty or whoever the fuck and give them my cover letter and ask my questions? noooo i have to write fucking emails and fill in their fucking contact forms. like all of this could be solved in a 5 minute conversation.

also, third thing, i went to see the students union today because i have a bone to pick with my functional analysis professor. that's a whole different story. but anyway, i wanted to know if anything could be done about that. like can i possibly refuse the grade i got bc it was unfair? huge respect to the union btw, i love them, they occupied the cafeteria last year and now we have cheap lunches, it's great. and so yeah i went to see them to ask for advice and they guided me quite well but they also asked how everyone else felt about the exam in question. and i would love to know but no one in my class wanted to talk to me about it! i sent a message today, no one replied. and then this evening i insisted and guess what! one guy replied to my message like "not to be mean, but the exam was easy".

like broooo if you're a fucking functional analysis genius good for you!!! do you want a medal or what?? the guy is a child prodigy and with all due respect, i didn't ask his opinion! like good for you if you found it easy but when you're the exception to the rule maybe you should just like not ruin it for everyone! and what's with the "not to be mean"??? why did he have to phrase it like that? like he could've just said that he found it easy and that's it. now it sounds mean when you say it like that!

anyway, im stinky and angry and all i want to do is first of all take a shower but also cuddle with my ex and not think about anything and be in love and not have to worry about uni and degrees and functional analysis and all this crap. </3

[bogleech]

So the first review I ever saw of this movie talked about how people not into horror might like it because they’ll find it very very scary, people a LITTLE into horror might hate it because they’ll think they’ve seen it all before, but people a LOT into horror might love it because it actually does several fairly original things and puts its own interesting spin on what might seem to be cliches. I feel bad now for thinking that review sounded like some kind of pretentious over-analysis because it was exactly correct. For instance there are people really hard on it for using jump scares, but this was one of the only horror movies I’ve seen in my life where the jump scares felt genuinely necessary to connecting with the main character’s perspective. They’re integral to the whole theme! Unfortunately a cat dies (off screen) and there’s one thing I found corny or hokey enough that it kind of deflated the intended horror. Otherwise it constantly averts or reapplies horror tropes while coming up with a lot of little things of its own.

[gloryofluv]

Order Up! (Coffee Shop AU) Chapter 5

Well, I guess Alex is going through the motions. I am really starting to love how well-rounded this is getting. Flirty fics are fun, but they always need heart and perseverance!

Chapter

1 - 2- 3 - 4

Fuck. Why did she do that? Alex wanted to toss her phone but knew she couldn’t afford a new one yet. Memories. Social media keeps track even if you don’t. She was bundled on the ground of the bathroom she just cleaned and sobbed.

All she wanted to do was look at this real estate agent that Lucifer texted her. She glanced down at the picture of her and her mother while she was getting dressed for prom. Would she be upset that she was thinking of selling their home? Would she be proud? She felt so fucking alone.

There was a knock at the bathroom door, and she stuttered on a breath. Fucking get it together, girl. She wiped her face and nodded. “I’ll be out momentarily,” she said in a cheery tone.

Breathe. Stand up. Bitch, buck the fuck up, you’re at work. Alex listened to her inner dialog, turned on the water to the sink, cleaned her hands and face, and fixed her makeup. After she was satisfied, she picked up her tool tote and walked to the door with a plastered smile.

Solomon was on the other side of the door. “Hey, Alex,” he said with a curl to his lips.

“Hey, Sol, how are you doing?” she asked.

“Not horribly. I’m a bit stuck on this formula, but it’s bound to come to me,” he voiced while walking in step with her.

She rocked her head and shifted at the entrance to the counter. “Let me just go put this away and clock out. We can chat a minute after I’m off the clock.”

He rocked his head and leaned on the wall nearby. “Want to take a walk with me?”

She tilted her head and hummed. “Maybe.”

“Good, I’ll order, and we’ll head to the park.”

“Oh, good, we’re taking a walk to the park?”

Alex glanced over to see Satan wander over with his tea and pastry bag. “Oh, hey, Satan. I didn’t see you there.”

He tilted his head and gestured to his messenger bag. “I was grading pages.”

Solomon crossed his arms before touching his chin with his fingers. “You want to join us?”

Satan rocked his head. “A little fresh air would be great.”

“Okay, let me just go finish up,” Alex smiled and walked to the back of the shop. Well, it was quite the variation, but after how interesting her Sunday had been, it wouldn’t be a bad thing. She turned to the computer after putting the tote away and clocked out. Shaking out her body and taking off her apron and hat, she rolled her neck.

There was something to be said about the smears on her uniform. Alex stripped off her overshirt and straightened her purple tank top, and pulled out her ponytail. After checking her face in the mirror and reapplying a few touches on her eyeliner and lip gloss, she was ready.

Better. Alex smiled and collected her bag before marching to the front again. Solomon and Satan seemed to be in a discussion about the book in Satan’s hand. Their hand gestures only confirmed the estimation as Alex walked over to collect her drink.

“Hey, babes,” Jess hummed. “Do you think you could do me a favor and take my Friday shift, and I’ll take your Saturday one. It's closing, and I have a date.”

Alex rocked her head. “Yeah, I can. You never ask me to trade, so they must be pretty hot,” she teased.

Jess smirked and rocked her head. “Yeah, Mr. Macchiato, who comes in the evenings.”

“Nice, well, I hope you have tons of fun. Text Jordan and let him know, alright?”

Jess beamed and blew a kiss. “You’re a lifesaver for my social life, hun.”

Alex waved and met up with the two intellectuals holding their beverages. “I’m just saying that Dickens wasn’t as extraordinary as we make him out to be,” Solomon huffed.

“Oh, no, we’re on about Charles again?”

Satan laughed and shook his head as they walked out the door. “Just Solomon’s primary dagger.”

“Solomon, do you just enjoy debating?” Alex asked.

Solomon smiled and shifted his head from side to side. “Occasionally, but so does Satan, so we have a mutual understanding never to take it to blows.”

“I think the Brontë sisters are probably a staple for every woman,” Alex added to the conversation.

“And men,” Satan nodded.

“Very true, but we need to selectively decide what mannerisms are dated in order to value the interpretation,” Solomon voiced.

Alex smirked and raised her hand to her chest. “'Do you think I am an automaton? — a machine without feelings? And can bear to have my morsel of bread snatched from my lips and my drop of living water dashed from my cup? Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! — I have as much soul as you — and full as much heart!'” She paused after the quote and laughed. “Imagine declaring equality to a man who was higher in rank and stature than you in that time. The dated behavior is only setting.”

Satan let out a stream of hearty laughter. “Oh, Alex, I would have loved to have you in my class today. There was a sexist animal who was definitely in need of a strong female to set him straight.”

“My little Jane isn’t very plain,” Solomon chuckled and waved his hand.

“No, she isn’t,” Alex laughed before sipping her iced tea.

“I was referring to you,” Solomon hummed.

Alex smirked at him and shrugged. “I do pretty well, I suppose.”

Satan cleared his throat, drawing Alex’s attention to her left. “So, you realized that half your customers are my brothers.”

Alex rocked her head. “Yes, I was informed of that by Belphegor in a rather creative way.”

“I heard,” Satan laughed. “We all live together.”

“So I’ve heard,” she smiled.

“Interesting dynamic,” Solomon voiced. “All seven of them together.”

“They also throw some ridiculous parties,” Alex said and then waved her free hand in a circle. “From what I’ve heard.”

“Oh, don’t worry. I know you live across the street,” Satan snorted with a smug smile. “I’ve known longer than Lucifer.”

Alex gasped as they walked on the sideway in the park. “What?”

Satan chuckled and rocked his head. “Yes, I knew from Jordan. I was the one to buy his motorcycle.”

She shrieked and gasped. “Oh! That’s why I’ve seen it around the cafe.”

Satan wagged his eyebrows. “So yes, I’ve known for about four months. He pulled it out of your garage and brought it over. When I asked why he moved, he told me about your circumstance and why he was torn, but family comes first.”

“It does,” Alex smiled. “His mother was great to me when my parents died. She practically lived with me for the first six months. Then Jordan moved in, and he got me a job at the cafe. He’s always been like my big brother. So when his dad got injured at work and couldn’t work, I told him to move home to help.”

“How did you both meet?” Solomon questioned.

“Oh, that’s a funny story, actually. So, in middle school, he was a grade above me, and I was super shy. He saw me being harassed by some asshole. He stepped in and smoothed the situation. I was so shocked he was able to do so without violence. Jordan took me to the bathroom, cleaned me up, and told me that the only bitches in our life are the beautiful bitches we can be, so I needed to learn to walk like it. From then on, he just started pulling me into his antics,” she explained and laughed while shaking her head.

“You were shy?” Satan questioned.

Alex stopped drinking her tea and nodded. “I actually am in general. I took his advice to heart. I’m friendly and enjoy people, but I don’t have very many people I consider close with.”

“Is this why you aren’t dating anyone?” Solomon questioned.

Alex narrowed her eyes at him and smirked. “Yes.”

“Liar,” Solomon smiled.

“Wait, I really find this fascinating. You aren’t close to any family?” Satan asked.

Alex shrugged and hummed. “My aunts and uncles all live in different parts of the country. I was an only child, and now that my parents aren’t here, the only people I see are Jordan and his parents. Jordan’s sister left for a university across the country two years ago. I see them probably once a month.”

“You live alone? Like no one ever comes to knock on your door or calls your phone?” Satan questioned with a scowl.

“Well, I won’t be living there much longer,” Alex sighed. “I have to sell the place, so I’ll have to clear it out in the next couple of weeks. The financial officer, my parents, left in charge, said that the funds wouldn’t cover the expenses this next year, so it would be a good idea for me to sell.”

“Hm,” Solomon murmured. “I could help.”

“No,” Alex shook her head. “It’s time. I don’t need handouts, Sol. I appreciate it, but no.”

“Why do you feel like you have to do everything alone?” Satan asked as they rounded the outside of the park.

Alex breathed and shook her head. “It’s such a long story.”

“Your parents?” Solomon voiced.

This analysis was cathartic in a way, and Alex felt this heavyweight being pulled from her shoulders. “Well, yes and no. I was telling my mother before she passed that I was thinking of taking a year off to go with my boyfriend at the time to travel the world. She was so supportive, even though it would put my education in jeopardy. When they died, he bailed with some other girl, so I kind of just stopped relying on others.”

Satan tutted and exhaled. “To be an idiot teenager who couldn’t handle grief. I’m sorry you had to go through that, especially at such a young age.”

Alex smiled and shrugged as they made their way back to the cafe. “I’m pretty good. I have a degree. I’ll have a decent nest egg to pay for my schooling for an even better education and my best friend. I’m doing pretty well.”

“I have an intrigue before we conclude our adventure into your life,” Solomon hummed.

Alex tilted her head as she grinned at him. “What’s that?”

“You are strong without someone, but it makes it so much richer to share your heart with others,” Solomon declared.

“Says the man who has done his fair share of that,” Satan snorted.

Solomon rolled his eyes. “Satan, don’t cast stones in glass houses.”

“You have been married three times now,” Satan snorted.

News. Alex raised her eyebrows. “Three times? Aren’t you like barely forty?”

“I resent that,” Solomon scowled. “No, I am not. However, marriage and love are difficult measurements in a formula very few understand. I’m difficult.”

“I actually like that about you,” Alex laughed.

Satan scowled as they stopped at the sidewalk near the cafe. “You enjoy that he’s difficult, but you won’t text me?” he questioned with a sly smile.

She puffed and pulled his phone from his bag’s pocket. It was sticking out and available. Alex then went to his keypad, dialed her number, and pressed the call. Her phone soon rang, and she hung up.

“Now, you have my number. Stop trying to make me do all the work, you pushy professor,” she snorted and handed his phone back.

Satan was grinning as he pocketed his phone. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Solomon handed her his phone, and she groaned but did the same exact thing. “If you both call me all the time, I will block your number,” she teased.

“If you need any help with your house, please tell me,” Solomon nodded. “I am quite organized.”

“I will,” Alex smiled.

Solomon tossed his cup in the trash and smiled before walking to his car. Alex watched him wave and climb inside before driving off in the silver vehicle. Satan shifted and tilted his head when she turned back to him.

“Did you want to have dinner with me tonight? I’ll cook,” Satan offered.

“Just because we’re temporarily neighbors does not mean I’m a booty call, understood?” Alex questioned.

Satan snorted and straightened his shirt. “You’re far too interesting to blow on a booty call, Alex.”

“Just had to make it clear. I would take your offer for dinner, but I’m actually exhausted. Diavolo came in for a coffee tasting, and I hosted it. Since then, I’ve just been drained.”

Satan rocked his head. “Well, I’ll ask tomorrow then,” he smiled and shrugged. “You’ll eventually say yes,” he chuckled and walked over to the motorcycle.

Alex smiled and observed as he slid on his helmet, waved, and climbed on the bike. Bad boy, professor. Pretty sexy. That tickled her to no end. He pulled out with a roaring shift of gears and headed in the same direction she needed to go. Home. Even if it was just for now.

@rsmrymnt-tea @otome-scribbles

[duckprintspress]

I'm confused about the scoring system. It was said on the website that people were scored (numerically) and yet someone with much higher scores than I got didn't get accepted nor was offered the mentoring/beta/get to know discord.

I can't help but feel there is an error here. Is there a way to explain this?

Hi anon!

So there are a few things going on here, and I’ll try to explain them all.

Thing the First:

The scores on the rubrics are raw scores. Once we really got down-and-dirty with rating things, and I did some data analysis, I discovered that some of our raters were being a bit more generous than others. By the time we were done with all the scoring, there was nearly a 2 point split between the most generous and least generous scorer, on average. This was clearly a fairness issue - if one writer got our three most generous raters, and a second writer got our three least generous raters, even if they submitted identical stories, the second writer would get a lower rating. Rather than leave things like that, I did some research on statistical models that would standardize our ratings.

Basically, with the help of an excel algorithm (the “STANDARDIZE” function), we calculated the average that each rater gave, and that rater’s deviation from the mean (standard deviation), and plugged that in to convert their ratings from the 0 to 20 scale to a different, standard scale - which ran roughly from -2.5 to positive 2.5. What the standardization really did was - for each rater, whatever score they personally gave on average was 0 (so, if rater one’s average score was a 15...that was standardized to zero. And if rater two’s average score was 10...that was also standardized to zero. So now instead of comparing apples to oranges, we were comparing apples to apples). Then, if they rated a fic 1 standard deviation above or below their average, that became a 1 or a -1. If they rated it 2 standard deviations above or below their average, that became a 2 or a -2. And so on. This ensured that all of the stories were rated on the same scale and everyone was treated equally - standardization of test scores erased the differences caused by some people rating more strictly.

So, if you and your friends are comparing rubrics (which you’re welcome to do!) and you noticed that some of you did better, numerically, but had different outcomes, that’s likely a factor - one of you may have had more generous or more strict readers.

(Here’s some more information on how Standardization, here’s the very basics...there are other forms of standardizing, such as fitting folks to a bell curve, or curving the entire score, but those were not suited to our needs)

Thing the Second:

The top 20 authors, statistically adjusted for fairness, were invited to contribute to Add Magic to Taste. As it turned out, these top 20 DID roughly correlate to our top 20 by raw scores; comparing the two rankings, there are only two people out of the top 20 who wouldn’t have made it based on raw scores but did when their scores were adjusted to be standardized against the same scale.

The next 20 authors (ranked 21 to 40, when statistically adjusted for fairness) were also invited to Discord, and we’ve also invited them to potentially be involved in a second anthology. Depending on how many of them say yes, we may be able to open that opportunity up a bit more, but we’re not sure yet. Two of these people, by raw score, would have made the top 20, and three of these people, by raw score, would not have made the top 40. However, again, when we standardized the data to reflect the differences in rater strictness, these were the results.

That leaves another 62 people, who had various ratings all below those top 40. Some of them had a raw score fairly similar to their standardized score...and some of them didn’t. For example - my wife was an applicant to this, and she gave me permission to use her numbers for this example. By raw average? My wife came in 49th. However, one of her raters was someone who USUALLY rated very high, and gave hers a (relatively, compared to that person’s usual hig haverage) low score - when that was adjusted statistically, it caused my wife’s fic to plummet to 64th, because even though the raw number itself wasn’t bad, it was statistically well outside the norm for that rater. So, believe me when I say - these standardizations can make a big difference. If you, or anyone reading this, would like, I’m willing to send you what your standardized scores were (while still maintaining reviewer anonymity). I was originally thinking of adding them to the rubrics but doing so would have been a lot of work, and so I passed - next time we do this, they’ll probably be on there.

Thing the Third:

Often, what separated a fic that succeeded from a fic that didn’t was the range of raters scores. For example, the fic that ended up with the highest rating (by both calculations) wasn’t anyone’s favorite fic - but all three readers thought it was solid, and that was enough. My personal favorite fic? Didn’t even hit the Top 20. What often happened was -

Top fics: either all three people liked it pretty well, or one to two people adored it and the other person or people liked it well enough.

Second tier fics: either all three people thought it was okay, or one person loved it and two people were fairly meh about it.

Middle-range fics: either all three people thought it was average, or one person loved it and two people didn’t like it, or two people thought it was pretty good but one person hated it.

Lower quartile fics: either all three people didn’t think the fic was “up to snuff,” or one or two readers really hated it while a third thought it was average.

This isn’t universal, of course - but a fic that had one really high rating could easily do worse than a fic that had three so-so ratings, because...that’s how averages work. And that’s also why we had three readers for each - to try to even out some of the differences that would arise if someone had an extreme reaction to a fic that others didn’t. Obviously, it’s not a flawless system - no system was flawless - but with the resources and manpower we had, we thought this was a fair way to handle things, and we truly did our best. As soon as we broke 20 applications, we were never going to be able to accept everyone, and so we strived to create a transparent system that treated all of our applicants equally.

Thing the Fourth:

Now, in addition to the “why might scores be higher/lower” aspect of your question, there’s the aspect of “getting the Discord invite.” Now, the top 40 folks got Discord invites automatically, and those offers were based solely on the rating they received.

The other Discord invites that we sent out were not based on ratings alone! Just like we had a “reader subjective feelings” category on the rubric, when we’d finished rating all the stories, we were left with a conundrum - all of us had fics we liked that didn’t make the top 40. Maybe it was that “one person love it and two people didn’t like it” permutations. Maybe it was that all of us thought it was “good” but not “great.” Maybe some aspect of the story caught our eye. Based on our reactions, and the fics we saw that we wished had made it, we selected people to get invites. Those Discord invites were sent out based solely on subjective criteria.

Yes, we worried about doing this. Yes, we went back and forth about doing it at all. But in the end, what we decided was - we didn’t want to give Discord invites to everyone, because there were plenty of people we didn’t think their writing was quite ready yet - mentoring is an intensive prospect, and one for which we won’t get paid up front and might possibly never get paid, and while this all looks wonderful from the outside please do remember that we’re running a business - one that I’ve been working my ass off on for more than four months and have yet to earn enough to draw a single paycheck. So inviting everyone was never in the cards. And on the other hand, if we chose to give invites to no one, that would mean potentially having some people that caught our eye “slip through the cracks.” What if they got too discouraged to reapply? What if we missed the chance to work with them, after they’d impressed us?

To use an analogy - we saw something in everyone who applied, but in some it was “this is an uncut diamond, and we aren’t in the position to take it from raw to finished,” and in others it was, “this is a diamond with a crack, or a flaw, or a rough spot...and we think if we put in the work, we can get it to perfection.” And our verdict on the uncut diamonds isn’t, “this is uncut and it will never be cut,” it’s, “all of these diamonds have spent years honing themselves and working hard to strive for flawlessness, and but some are clearly farther along that journey than others. Once these uncut diamonds have shaped more of their rough edges themselves, we hope they’ll come back when they are ALSO only one flaw from perfection, and work with us then!”

There was no way for us to win, and there was also no fair way to distribute invites based solely on the raw scores, or even based solely on standardized scores, because some of the scores were sometimes not reflective our actual opinions of the writing. For example - if someone wrote a grammatically perfect story, with a compelling use of language, but the plot and characters were inaccessible to us because it required fandom knowledge we didn’t have, that might have scored very poorly, but we have every reason to think that if they’d chosen a different work that was more accessible they’d have done much better. Or, as another example - if someone’s writing was really sloppy, because of a lack of editing or possibly because English isn’t their native language - but they have a skill for creating characters, or setting a scene, or had excellent pacing - then again, they could have ended up with a score that didn’t reflect the actual potential that we saw in their work - using our judgement and expertise.

So, flat out - yes, there are inequalities in how the Discord invites were distributed to the 62 people who didn’t make the cut for either anthology. And yes, we agonized over whether to give them out at all. And no, I won’t swear that we always made the right choices - we were going by the one story submitted to us, and we had to use our best judgement based on what we were presented - what each applicant chose to submit. In the end, we invited the people who - regardless of their score - we personally thought were the closest to being sellable - in the sense of, “probably only missing one piece that would help with to get them from ‘didn’t make it’ to ‘now we’re talking.” And I truly, truly wish that we could have everyone. But if we spend all our time mentoring people, then we won’t have time for doing any of the other aspects of this business. We are not a writing school. We are a book publisher. This ISN’T just fandom, and I DO have to think about what is sellable and what isn’t, because in the end...I’m trying to make money, and pay my staff, and give our authors the highest royalties possible, and, and, and.

As a further note on this topic? We are still issuing new Discord invites, based on e-mail conversations we’re having with people. Several people who didn’t initially get those invites? Have now gotten them. It just depends on how people are responding to us, and the conversations we’re having, and lots of other factors.

And, as I tried to say in the post I put up earlier today about notifications: even the people who didn’t get invites have potential. Every single writer who applied has potential. All of you, even if you struggled with multiple areas, had some aspect in which you shined. In a perfect world, we would help you all. But this isn’t a perfect world, and I don’t have the hours in the day to bring up the people who aren’t already close, and I’m sorry about that. So, please, please - if you didn’t make it, don’t be discouraged, and don’t give up. You’re the only one who can tell your stories - if you don’t do it, no one else will. Find fandom friends who will give you honest critique. Learn to read your own writing with a critical eye. Track down stories that really speak to you, and read them like a writer - to see how the original writer put them together, and deliberately emulate what you thought worked. There are many, many ways to improve writing craft, and if ya’ll want to be published, either with us or with anyone, we strongly encourage you to examine whichever ones appeal to you and work for you.

There’s isn’t a single person who applied who couldn’t, one day, be published by Duck Prints Press.

We were never going to make everyone happy, however much we hate making people sad.

We did our best to make as many people as possible happy, while also doing what we feel to be best for Duck Prints Press.

If we hurt you - we’re sorry. We said in the application process that we’d be giving honest feedback, and we’ve never made a secret of the fact that this is a business and our goal is to publish books that sell - nor did we pretend that we’d be able to take more than 20, but we were so impressed by the quality of what we received that we did everything we could think of to open the doors to more folks, while still maintaining the core integrity of our business model. That means we have to narrow the pool; we can’t just take everyone, especially now, when we’re so small and new. Our desire to take as many people as possible is why anyone who wasn’t in the top 20 got an invite, and why we planned an entire second anthology on the fly, instead of no one below the top 20 getting anything except a rejection letter.

Now, as a final thing - it IS possible we made a mistake. We’ve spotted one big one already, and we’re working with that author to rectify the situation. If you truly believe we made a mistake, please e-mail us, and we can look into it. Our email is info @ duckprintspress dot com.

Sorry this got long - but I figured, if one person wondered this, others too, and as we have since day one - our goal is to be transparent, and so I thought it better to answer more thoroughly rather than less.

[ashleyphilippineslitblog]

Week #2 Blog

America is Not The Heart

Elaine Castillo

Pages read: 30-70

Word Count - 357

Summary

As messy as it is, Paz is now living with her uncle Roni while taking care of her newborn Geronima with a surgeon from her college. She also reconnects with her cousin Hero who turns out that she went through torture during the war as a surgeon. Because of it Roni, christens her for her well-being that he only know. Soon after, Hero was given seven-thousand pesos in a wallet from Roni for her good efforts of trying her best. Hero is very thankful so she tries her best to take care of Pazs’ daughter in return. As known now Hero is very trusted among Paz’s family.

Critical Analysis

During this weeks reading I found the quote “His hair was still neatly parted, but looser, a strand falling over his forehead; he hadn't reapplied his pomade, either.” (64). This was Pazs’ cousin, Eddie, who has been working hard at work who came over to see Paz. While reading I could see and tell om how exhausted he was from working all day in the heat. The specific detail about his hair and how Paz thought of it was hilarious too. She also thought about how he didn’t try to do his hair to before coming to see her as he usually does. The character thought was shown about Eddie since she doesn’t really describe in through this weeks reading.

Personal Response

This again was messy, her great surgeon of a boyfriend cheated on her yet she still loves him and had a baby with him. I wonder if she’s just using him for his money. In reality though, Ttio actually loves her and wants to take care of her which always happens after a toxic relationship. Though he is watching her over making sure she eats, he can’t stop thinking about what he had done in the past like it haunts him. Hero on the other hand? I give a round of applause and wish she realizes on how of a person she really is. She always thinks she has to do everything to be noticed, but all she has to do is just focus on the fact that she’s alive.

[keyenuta]

PSU First Dorm Leader

Name: Anansi Khari

Name Meaning: Kingly Spider

Voiced By: Hikaru Midorikawa

Gender: Male

Age: 16

Birthday: November 24th

Starsign: Sagittarius

Height: 5'5"

Eye Color: Scarlet Red

Hair Color: Black and Red

Homeland: Afterglow Savanna

Professional Status:

Dorm: Itan-ori

School Year: First

Class: 1-A

Occupation: Student, Dorm leader, prefect/therapist(unofficial)

Club: Trickster(this club is not officially recognized by PSU but everyone knows it exists)

Best Subject: Magical Analysis: Anansi's always been good at peering at the strings and gears of magic. And loves to mess with and edit how they work, especially if the result is chaotic as heck. But then again as a person he's analytical at everything. Both for tricks and basic survival.

Fun Facts:

Dominant hand: Ambidextrous with leaning to right

Favorite Food: really spicy ramen

Least Favorite Food: anything rotten

Dislikes: being looked down on, treated like he's worthless

Hobby: Writing, he loves writing stories, music, poems, and anything that connects to weaving words.

Talents: making traps, whether with words or physical objects

Anansi Khari is the first year dorm leader of Itan-ori. He takes on the MC's role in PSU, he's a crafty, mischievous and greedy person due to growing up with very little. But despite these harsher parts of himself, he was given the role of an unofficial therapist for the students. He was inspired from the spider deity known as Anansi, known to be a god of wisdom, stories, spiders and tricksters.

Appearance:

Anansi is a short boy with dark brown skin and 8 playful scarlet red eyes which peer through his messy mop of dreadlocks. Speaking of which, sitting atop his head and hanging down his face, Anansi wears a pair of messy black dreadlocks which fade to red near its tips.

The spindly boy always seems to wear a cocky, fang bearing grin as if he always has a trick of plot of mischief in his mind at every moment. (Which honestly isn't that far off)

And marked across his cheeks is a piece of white face paint. For as long as anyone's seen him in school he's always worn this paint. Reapplying it without fail day after day.

And finally for clothes, he's usually seen wearing his uniform in a very casual way. Around his neck are two multi-colored beaded necklaces. Beneath this he wears a grey turtle neck with rolled up sleeves, revealing a pair of black armbands with his magic ring on his right hand.

And around his waist is the sash that shows off his dorm. Colored black and orange, it later gives way to a silver web across the flap which rests atop his tied up blazer that's beneath the cloth. And finally on his legs are a pair of black slacks and sandals on his feet.

Oh and tied around his waist is a tanned gourd, being what his stave turned into when he became dorm leader. It's a reference to the gourd Anansi(myth) had which stored all the wisdom and stories in the world.

Personality:

Anansi to be blunt, is a little shit. He's a very playful and mischievous boy who often manipulates and weaves things to best suit what he needs to be done. This is mostly seem with how he handles getting the other dorms and students to both stop stepping on each other's toes and in giving each student who needs it therapy.

Instead of being honest and cooperative, using his analytical mind and a few other ways of finding information. Anansi often tricks and fools others into improving who they are. Even in his own dorm, it's never wise to fully trust the spider, because he always has some joke or trick to play. No matter if you're friend or foe.

Anansi is a very greedy person, often stealing, tricking, betting and playing for something he doesn't have. Even being the school therapist to assist Chiron was something anansi did was for a deal. He didn't do it out of kindness, but rather so he could receive a reward.

He's a person with a silver tongue amd a poisonous bite. Always weaving a web around those in front of him. And honestly despite his intelligence and skills in trickery, he often gets in his own way, getting too greedy for his own good, leaving him either beat up or in the same position he started in.

But while he is such a little shit, while he doesn't show it often, he can be caring and helpful to those who he views as being on equal or if possible beneath him in standing. He's always had a soft spot for people down on their luck. And often helps them as best he can. And especially for the slums he and Ruggie live in, you'll see the best side of anansi, he cares greatly for those there and really is an activist to get them better support. Even making many songs based on it. Though if he were to meet or see anyone from the Royal family, you are instantly marked for mischief.

This is a less noticeable part of Anansi but the boy is a giant creative nerd. He loves imagining stories sings and all sorts of other things in his mind while also making art. Despite his harsher parts he's a geek to be honest.

In summary: playful, intelligent, mischievous and at times protective and caring.

Unique Magic:

Hasn't awakened it yet

Trivia:

In Anansi's room, swaddled in a giant web in the corner of his room is a giant pile of all the "earned" items he's acquired over the school year. Often times you can see him swimming through it when he's bored

Anansi can produce natural spider silk and often uses it to get around, play tricks, and if he feels like it, weave actual stuff. He's probably made a subtle business about weaving clothes for people. Like need a bootleg expensive thing? Call Nancy

His fangs aren't just for show, they actually have venom in them. Though it's more just to numb and relax muscles.

Anansi is a giant nerd, if you can show him a story or piece of knowledge he hasn't read or heard of before, you can do that as an alternative to madool.

Anansi is actually really good friends with Ruggie, he loves collaborating with the hyena for pranks whenever possible. They grew up together and learned how to steal and trick people together

Continuing with this, Anansi has a deal with Ruggie where during holidays both bring back stuff for the slums. Ruggie brings back food, Anansi brings back the loot he's gained

Anansi loves playing drums, and is actually a really good performer and dancer, often times during winter holiday him and his family performed for the slums. Giving everyone some good entertainment and a rest from their worries. Anansi also often times drags ruggie to sing with them though he knows how well ruggie can sing and will tease him about it

He's like Spider-Man, often times you will see Anansi climbing on walls, ceilings etc.

Yes, he can see through each of his eyes, all 8 of them.

The spiders around campus are his little informants. Often giving him new information about students or activities coming up. To keep their support, he gives them flies bugs or whatever they feel like having for their service.

He often sneaks into NRC, both to mess with Leona and to study Yuu on any pointers on how to be a better prefect/therapist for all these students

A nickname for him is Nancy

If you want to see him blush, compliment him on his stories, it'll break his mask quicker than anything else. It always shocks him when someone actually likes them

If you dare him to move like a spider, don't. Just don't, you'll regret it. No one should be that flexible

[yandere-wishes]

Genie and the Savanclaw boys

So this was someting I wrote to get me out of my sour mood. Latly I haven’t been feeling to great. So I decided to wrote some platonic scenarios between my persona Genie and Jack, Ruggie and Leona, please let me know what you thought of this, I spent roughly six hours on it.

A quick recap of Genie's powers

Vision--  Genie can see small glimpses of a person's past. "Past Vision 2/4" occurs when Genie comes into direct contact with a person's possession (it could be inanimate or their darlings), this allows her to see a quick "video" of their past which can last up to 2 minutes. "Past Vision 4/4" is a longer version of the previous power. For her to be able to view an in detailed vision of a person's past, she must first have experienced a "Past Vision 2/4" of them and this power can only be unlocked while she's in her lamp. Think of it as downloading a video and only being able to watch the first two minutes until you're in "a room with a sort of significance to you." Due to this power also affecting her, Genie is sometimes forced to relive traumatizing events that have occurred to her in the past one thousand years.

Maniacal File-- Note that all of Genie's powers are based on manipulating the "yandere side" of people and or events. Maniacal file lets Genie create multiple scenarios or events for how a person under a yandere influence may act. Think of this as someone having a multitude of one-shots or stories about one particular "character". Now, these "files" allow her to do two different things. One being able to manipulate the person to commit various acts, such as murder, kidnapping amongst other macabre deeds. Two, she's able to mimic almost anything a that a person who's file she "owns" can do. Of course for this to work, the files first have to be shrunk to the size of a USB and inserted into her encephalon manually (or with the use of a bit of magic). The more files she has on someone the better she understands them and the better she can help them with their "wishes", there is also a sentimental viewpoint to these "files". Since Genie is very anti-social and withdrawn these fils are sorta like her "friends". For her to obtain a person "files" she will need to either see them perform a sort of "yandere like" act, stalk them to better understand them or/and have a very in-depth and detailed conversation with them.

Bloody Background-- Certain environments (like the entirety of the Savanclaw dormitory) trigger "bloody background" which always Genie to see multiple "escape routs" or "attack routs". These routes can be used for hiding, stalking and multiple other things.

Jack Howl

Genie’s eyes landed on the warn out beat up door. Scratch marks ranging in size, were left on the wooden entrance, each one a declaration of war. The purple-haired Jinn traced her long slender fingers over a random set of claw marks, debating whether or not to enter the Jackel’s den. For a split second her vision flashed, the ground morphed from marble to rough rock, bones of wild animals littered the ground, the door had disappeared and in its place was the mouth of a pitch-black cave. Screams of terror scorched the air followed by maniacal laughter… She'd seen this place before, stood on the very same flooring and heard the same disparate cries o despair.  “Ten more seconds and then the roar” she whispered. But the visions never last that long, it shattered into a thousand tiny shards and scattered away. Genie once again stood in front of the battered door. Inside she could hear the low grunts and huffed breaths of the ill-tempered first year that resided within. There was no reason for her to enter, she had no need nor business to invaded his privacy like this, her intentions boarded on plain rude…but the curiosity of the matter was eating her alive. She had to know!

Jack Howl first year Savanclaw student with a knack for getting into fights. He had no friends, never showed interest in a darling and the only words he ever spoke where curses and threats. Due to his harsh and brutish manner, Genie had never been able to receive a type three profile on him. Sure she knew all his attack moves and strategies by heart and could predict any action he would partake before he even knew it himself. But that left the biggest question unanswered...what kind of darling did he desire?

Based on pure analysis she could take an educated guess and say a darling whose temper was even shorter than his and who would beat up a defenseless person for kicks. But there were so many "what ifs.." maybe he liked a girl who was the opposite of him. Or maybe someone brave enough to stand in his way and tell him to stop his meaningless fits of rage. All these questions made the young girl's mind race with potential suiter for the boy.

Hesitantly the Jinn pushed on the door, it creaked as it was shoved out of her path. "Um...J-Jack", she counted her heartbeats a thing most Genii tend to do to pass the time. One heartbeat, two--

"GET OUT!" A water bottle flew in her direction, hitting the left side of her face. Ok so maybe she didn't know every move as confidentially as she had thought. "Ow!!" a court whine came after, followed by a stream of tears. Before Genie knew it she had fallen to the floor legs splayed to either side of her and loud sobs escaping from her mouth. The bruise on her head where to waterbottle had hit her pulsed with pain each time her heart beated. She frantically tried to dry the tears with her wrists to no avail. This was not what was suppose to happen, but then again had she expected anything better?

"Hey cut that out" Jack kneeled next to her frame, roughly grabbing both her wrists in one large callused hand. She tried to wiggle out of his grasp for a second debating wheater to kick or headbutt him. Slowly her white hair aggressor lifted his other hand to her face and wiped away her tears. "hey hey no more crying ok? You're going to be alright got it?" His voice was rough and demanding but it held a gentle undertone.

It took a while but eventually, Genie's tears stopped and her sobs died down. When the room had fallen into a semi-comfortable silence jack spoke again. "What the hell was up with barging into my room? Are you trying to get beat up?"

Genie casted her gaze downwards and took in a shack breath. 1 heartbeat, 2 heartbeats, 3 heartbeats...

"I wanted to...to-to talk to you..." Her voice shook with uncertainty and cracked from the strain the crying fit had left on her vocal cords.

"What for?" Jack glared at her, a snarl spread across his lips and his grip on her wrists tightened. "Don't tell me a useless pipsqueak like you want to pick a fight with me?"

In that second a strategy started to map out in her brain, Millian old gears turning and formulating words, tailoring them together to generate sentences. She swiftly lifted her eyes and locked her blood-red orbs with his golden ones.

"I-I've seen you fight, multiple times actually and I...I um came up with some strategies and suggestions for how you can improve...not that you're not tremendous I mean sorta good, already but...but um I can help you improve...if if you want that um that is."

Jack's eyes bore into her soul for a solid moment, he tossed her hands aside savagely. Getting up he stomped in the opposite direction, his bushy snow-white tail smacked her beauty in the face. He paused for when he reached his punch bag, grabbing the role of hand wrap, reapplying it to his bloody bruised knuckles. Finally, he barked out an answer "Meet me by the elephant skull at twelve am sharp, got it!"

feebly Genie stood up, using the wall as a support. "S-sure thing" she replied, surprise evident in her tone "You g-got" a large triumph smile graced her tanned face.

"Oh and bitch?"

Too happy to register the insult Genie cheerfully responded with a chirpy "yes".

"GET THE HELL OUT OF MY ROOM!"

Ruggie Bucchi

Booted feet pounded on the rough uneven ground. Heavy breathing filled the air. Behind her, Genie could hear footsteps chasing after her. Panic crawled into her mind, stretching its self thinly over her mind. It's ok she mumbled to herself, just realize you've done this a billion of times before.

"Bloody Background" she whispered under her breath. Genie blinked, hundreds of tiny blue circles appeared in her red orbs. A full layout of the land before he appeared in the far left side of her sight, multiple little notes flashed in bright shades of blue and red. navigating through the notes and maps, Genie finally made heads and tails of the situation. Quickly mapping out the most deceitful rout.

--Run 10 meters then take a left, lean to the right there is a 16 cm deep pothole in the middle of the path.--

Accelerating her pace she took a sharp turn, behind her she heard the squeaky raw sound of shows scrapping rock. followed by a few curses. She kept running, watching as a blue circle highlighted the promised pothole. She aimed right, hissing as the rock wall bite into her skin. when she was a good few feet away she heard a scream and 'thump', her pursuer had hit the fallen that should give her a head start of approximately three minutes.

--with a three-minute head start run straight ahead, you'll come to a cliff jump and role down. The current calculations do not predict any major damages to be inflicted, fractures and momentary body shutdowns are not guaranteed to be avoidable.--

Her body was feeling numb, blood rushing to her fingertips. A warm dusty wind hit her face, small bits of sand sticking in her eyeballs. "Thank you Arabian desserts" she mumbled, there really were some benefits of being born in the 8th-century middle east. In front of her the earth seemed to disappear, she braced her self for the jump. Leaping into the air she curled her body into a semi-oval like shape. Upon impact, with the rugged ground, she curls her self further. She finally used the tip of her boot to dig a slow her down. Getting up again she started to run trying her best to ignore the immense pain in her right arms and the various bruises and blooding scratches over her body.

--The skull on an elephant in approaching, hid in the inside of its hollow cranium.--

No, no hiding Genie thought to herself. This whole chase -although exhilarating- was starting to get boring. She scanned the ground, reading the comments trying to find something that might help. The blue comments kept highlighting potentially useful objects and hideouts. Swiftly Genie picked up two rock shards. Holding them tight she switched her path and dashed for the elephant skull in the far right.

She entering through the mouth, quickly taking in her surroundings. Using the jagged bone matter, Genie pulled her self up climbing until she reached the window of the empty eye socket. Looking out she could see Jamil, so he'd been her mysterious stalker. Racking her brain for a second Genie tried to find a reason why Jamil of all people would be after her. Did he need something? Was he having trouble with his darling? Or did he need her for something else?

The second-year Scarabia student was only a few meters away from the skull, his back turned eyes darting every which way trying to find the Jinn girl. Swiftly Genie positioned her self, one foot resting on the opening of the eye, the other ready to push her forward. One arm held her still while the other gripped one of the shards.

One heartbeat, two heartbeats, three heartbeats...

She leaped forward, crashing into Jamil's back. The third dorm's vice president landed face first in the dirt, Genie straddling his back. She raised her hand with the rock, balling it into a fist and slamming it down on Jamil's head.

"Ouch, cut that out you rouge Jinn!"

Genie didn't respond she struck him again and again. A sickly smile spreading on her face.

"Aw look at you little bunny, trying to beat a man to death."

Turning her head Genie glared at the source of the voice. Her eyes immediately widened. They're on top of an elephant spin sat the savage gluten of savanclaw Ruggi Buchi the vice dorm leader.

He leaned his head onto his hand and smirked down at the two. At that moment Genie noticed just how dark the sky had gotten and how many glowing eyes were watching her. She gulped and rolled off of the boy. Landing on the ground in a w sitting position. Jamil also got up, he placed a hand on the back of his head covering the bleeding wound. With his free hand, he grabbed Genie's wrist. "Listen here you useless genie.." Before he could finish Ruggie had landed next to him, claws leaving deep scratches in his arm. With a painful hiss, Jamil retracted his injured arm. Ruggie walked behind Genie placing a protective hand over her shoulder. "Get off our territory before Leona arrives."

Jamile sent one last glare towards the duo before returning from which he came.

"thanks" Genie mumbles

"Don't mention it, that's what a pack is for" Ruggie flashes her a predatory smirk

Leona Kingschalor

Genie leans over Leona's shoulder, arms loosely wrapped around his shoulders. A few centimeters in front of them a blue port screen is floating in the air. pictures of multiple girls rotating with their bios on the side.

"We really need to find you a darling big brother" Genie mutters as she nuzzles the crook of his neck. Leona simply takes another bite of the beef jerky in his hands, he chews slowly, relishing the feeling of his beloved "sister's" warm breath over his exposed skin. "Why are you in such a rush? Despreat to have me occupied with someone else so you're all alone and abandoned again?" He could feel her body tense, her breath hitch, and the nervous tick as she dug her long nails into his shoulder.

"N-no you're just getting older and we need to find the future king his queen. That-that's all"

Leona huffed and glared at the screen, there was something rather monotonous about these girls, they all lacked a certain "spunk" to them. Plus how did she expect him to concentrate when she was right there.

Leona didn't know when the entirety of Nightraven had decided that the naive little psycho jinn would become his "little sister" or even why for that matter. If it had been up to him he'd declare her as his darling the moment her lamp had been tossed through that magic mirror in the director's office. But something had happended, some choices, something! What that something was he did not know...only that it kept them apart.

Genie straightened and walked over to Leona plumping down on his lap and grabbing the screen, scrolling through some names and articles mindlessly. Automatically Leona's hands when to her head patting her softs then braiding a section of their hair to match his own. It was the brotherly thing to do, but when had it become so natural? "Look big brother.." Genie turned the screen and showed Leona the "file" of a round-faced hyena girl. She looked cute, maybe even try worthy...just not right now. "She's cute," he mutters turning his emerald eyes to Genie's face. No, he though her Genie's cheeks where come how rounder and puffier.

"I could set up a date if you--"

"NO!" Leona flinched he hadn't meant for it to come out so harsh. He cleared his throat and gently caressed the "young" girl's face, started pulling both her cheeks. "Why don't you give me her number and I'll give her a call after my nap...how's that?" The purple-haired girl tried to nod despite her flesh being pulled in opposite directions. "Good" Leona let go of her face and got up, lifting Genie up in the process. He walked over to the door of his room kicking it open and letting her fall on the bed, not a second later he plumped down on top of her. Genie let out a giggle and squirmed under him until she had some breathing room. "Get some rest  Ruggi tells me you haven't slept in a week." This was concern, it was how an "older brother was supposed to feel for his "little sister". "But I'm not sleepy-" she tried to protest. "Don't care, do that counting thing you do sometimes maybe that'll bore you enough to drift off."

She obeyed like the good little sister she was supposed to be. As sleep took over his sense Leona heard her tiny voice barely above a whisper.

one heartbeat, two heartbeats, three heartbeats, four heart--

[rorvk]

FFXIII Analysis: Lightning is ASD

In a game like FFXIII with a heavy focus on an emotional narrative, we are able to observe the cast in situations in a more psychological angle. In this thinkpiece, I would like to talk about how Lightning exhibits qualities in her life as a whole that heavily read as those of an autistic person, and reading her as such contextualizes her reactions and actions further. Spoiler-free.

Mental Machinations and Special Interest

  Since childhood, Lightning as been characterized as someone who entirely relies on logical decision-making and strictly following the rules she sets to get through life to shy away from emotion, a trait commonly associated with autism. Ever since her father died when she was little, she decided herself to play the job of “second parent”, neglecting facing any pain she faced associated with bereavement, and also neglecting emotional support from Serah and her mother. She does this again when her mother dies, and specifically instructs her to emotionally rely on Serah––the directive of which is not a set “rule” but an opening of a step-by-step emotional path to healing, which Lightning has trouble comprehending.

Exhibited through childhood and adulthood, Lightning prefers to think “logically” in terms of tasks, her actual job, and mission-like objectives––just like when she was a child. For her mental machinations of rule-based thinking, Lightning joined the GC to accommodate this, a job in which the general task is to enforce the laws of Cocoon.

One can further interpret Lightning’s interest in the GC as her special interest (an intense hobby associated with autistic people). It’s obsessively intense to the point where she doesn’t have friends because of it, and in the novel she even admits her schedule would have permitted time for her to spend with Serah.

She also excels in her field as she is a raid commander at such a young age, and autistic people tend to excel in their special interest. Lightning also thinks in terms of battle, and applies it to her penchant for expressing said rule-based way of thinking towards others. She attempts to deal with Hope’s emotional struggle by treating it as a “battle strategy.” She also equates a reason to live with a “target”, and when angered with Serah describes her as “my job.”

Emotional Intelligence and Reading Social Cues

-Lightning has hardly been an emotionally intelligent person, which is one of the reasons her mother attempted to give her a pep-talk away from Serah on her deathbed. Lightning explicitly has trouble understanding this, and misinterprets her mother’s well-intentioned suggestion of allowing support from Serah as a criticism of Lightning’s external fortitude. Lightning decides to reinvent herself to cast off her childhood and “skip” the grieving process, but ends up developing unhealthy coping mechanisms and does not allow herself the headspace to emotionally grow––largely due to an emotional misinterpretation of her mother’s intent. Additionally, in the pickpocket sidequest in LR, Lightning says she misinterpreted the government’s welfare support as “pity” despite substantial welfare being given to literally every orphaned child on the planet.

Further examples of misunderstanding others’ intent in Lightning’s “different” theory of mind is her first encounter with Snow. She mistakes his genuine kindness as a threat, then struggles to understand why Serah even likes Snow. She also expresses insecurity over Snow outdoing her in aspects of life, but would rather “rationalize” a distaste for him (that she needs to defend Serah…..from a person who cares for her?) than deal with such emotions. She also assumes her birthday is ruined because of Snow and Serah, and not herself having a disruptive reaction rooted in emotional issues she had been shying away from.

Lightning’s lack of emotional intelligence and recognizing of social cues extends not just into the novels, but in the game itself. Ali Hillis in -> this interview states that Lightning struggles to understand the emotions of others because of her “different” mindset. It’s also notable that Ali Hillis is actually familiar with and explicitly supportive of people with autism (you can search her twitter). In the fireworks scene, Amodar, Lightning’s boss, extends friendliness to Lightning, contextualized more appropriately by the festive environment. Lightning struggles to pick up on this, and is even perplexed when Amodar suggests Lightning should take the night off for the festivities and be a regular person. A more watered-down version of this misunderstanding is the scene where Fang pulls up Vanille’s skirt to examine her brand. Sazh, Hope, and Snow turn around out of politeness while Lightning turns her head in confusion. It’s made explicit that Lightning has a deficiency in understanding social cues.

Another instance of consistent lack of emotional intelligence is that Lightning continually is emotionally unaware of how she affects the people around her. Pivotal points of her arc revolve around realization of things like her negative effects on Hope’s mind, understanding the specific reason why she poisoned her and Serah’s relationship, and understanding Snow’s genuinity. One of the most redemptive personality traits of Lightning is her sense of justice, and even if it takes longer for her to understand such pivotal moments, she immediately tries to reapply herself to address and work through the problem. The game makes it clear that Lightning cannot change who she is, but can change her application and make efforts to understand others. Lightning being autistic is not inherently a “negative” character trait, it’s a different mental machination that was unsupported because of trauma. It’s something she ultimately has to work around, reapply, and accept instead of “fix”.

Body Language

More minor observations of Lightning’s symptoms of ASD is her habits and body language. A notable example is Lightning’s habit of spacing out. In Chapter 3, Lightning zones out over a crystallized Serah, appearing to be blocking all else out of her attention span. She also does this mid-conversation with Hope in the Palumpolum tunnel system, then in the novel when she is getting dressed for work, to the point of unintentionally dropping her holster. A smaller instance, but Lightning also self-stimulates with the survival knife repetitively in the calm environment of the Estheim Residence. The most contextual explanation as to why she would do this is because…she is on the spectrum.

Applied to social situations, Lightning in any circumstance that isn’t endangering, will avoid eye contact for the majority of the conversation, whether happy, sad, or frustrated. Autistic people often struggle with making eye contact, and I believe this can be attributed to her condition.

Lightning additionally has self-isolating tendencies. Rather than deal with her emotions of anger and insecurity towards Snow after their first encounter, Lightning shuts herself in her room. She also picked a career with minimal social interaction outside of discussing rules, orders, and strategies.

Lightning also has had trouble with facial expressions since childhood (she remarks that in above), and in the novels it states “Lightning’s bad moods hardly ever showed in her face.” Struggles with facial expressiveness is a notable symptom of people with autism, which can be applied to this instance.

Concluding Thoughts

All of these attributes and more lead me to believe that Lightning is autistic, the state of which surprisingly contextualizes her actions further than they already were. This is not a criticism or inherent attack on who Lightning is as a person, rather, an observation on a state of mind that influences Lightning’s traits and habits. What’s fantastic is that no one ever tries to “cure” Lightning either, and in reading her as such I think she would be optimal to read as an autistic character.

[elizabethemerald]

Dreams of Drowning: Chap 5

Jim’s mom is now safe. But the questions that have been raised need to be answered. 

Please reblog if you like!

AO3 

Jim sat alone in his apartment. His thoughts whirled around his head. So much had changed in just the past couple of weeks. He had gotten a new job, met an amazing girl, helped save his mom’s life. It was almost comical when he thought about it that way. Of course the more accurate way to describe it was he got a new job that required daily backbreaking labor due to being short handed at a research facility that apparently held a goddess captive. That same goddess had entered his dream and tried to drown him. Then she had possessed his mother so she could use her control of water to beat the shit out of some thugs and almost drowned one. Wasn’t quite as funny when he thought it that way. 

Claire had said she would be mostly absent for a while. It was true he hadn’t seen her in his dreams since that night, but he wouldn’t say she was absent. He swore he could feel her presence. Ever since she had grabbed his hand while in his mom’s body, he could feel her at the edge of his mind. Like a familiar song playing the next room over. She was there if he concentrated. If he needed her, he knew he would only have to close his eyes and see her. 

A sharp knock at the door drew him out of his thoughts. He quietly padded over to the door of his apartment. He carefully checked through the peep hole. After what happened to his mom he couldn’t be too cautious. 

At first all he could see was a someone holding a stack of boxes. Then the person shifted the boxes and Jim could see Toby’s face. He smiled to himself and opened the door. Toby unceremoniously shoved a stack of specimen cases into Jim’s arms then turned and grabbed another stack. 

“What’s with all this, dude?” Jim said incredulously. The cases were filled with sorted stones, each with careful labels. “Why did you bring your whole rock collection?”

Toby moved past him and shot him an annoyed look. “We both know this isn’t my whole collection.”

“Ok, then what are they?”

“Well apparently magic exists. You’ve got a psychic lady in your head, and she tried to drown you and I, but didn’t because we aren’t ass holes. She knocks you out to talk to you in your dreams and possessed your mom so she could trash some douchebags. Did I sum it all up pretty well?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Well I’ve been working at 49B for a while now. Remember how I told you, when I first was going to get you a job, my whole thing is they slap a rock in front of me and ask me what it is? And sometimes the rock glows?”

Jim nodded while Toby set his stack of boxes on the dining room table. Toby quickly sorted the boxes moving different collections around the table top. Whatever system he was using to sort was completely beyond Jim’s understanding of geology. Eventually his hands stilled. 

“I think the people there think I’m stupid. That I’m naive. They would put all kind of weird rocks on my desk, things that defied all chemical analysis, had properties that I had never seen before. I would tell them as much about the rocks as I could. What properties the minerals could or rather should have. But I knew there was something up about them. So I kept them to see if I could puzzle them out. I just didn’t know magic existed. Now I do. And I want to look over these gems and minerals to see if any are.”

Toby looked at his collection for a second. Then turned back to Jim. 

“But first I have a couple more questions about all this.” When Jim nodded, Toby took a deep breath. “Why did she try to kiss you when she was in your mom’s body?”

“Uhh, ha ha.” Jim hesitated for a moment, rubbing the back of his head. “I think we might be dating? Or something? I’m definitely in love with her. And she’s blown me kisses a few times, in my dreams. Maybe this was the first time she was actually able to give me a kiss?”

“You have a psychic girlfriend, who you’ve only seen in your dreams.”

“I saw her in person once!” Jim protested both the implication and the tone in Toby’s voice. 

“Honestly if I hadn’t seen it myself I would say you were making her up. Like a girlfriend in Canada.” Toby laughed, then grew serious. “Now my second question. How did your psychic girlfriend know my wife was pregnant before she did?”

“I-what?”

“I came home after checking in with my Nana. And Darci had just purchased a couple of pregnancy tests. She hadn’t used them yet. When she did they tested positive. All of them. Darci’s pregnant. I’m going to be a father.” Toby’s voice swelled with pride. 

“Oh congrats! That’s amazing dude!”

“Yes it is. I’m hoping you will cook something amazing for the baby shower. But back to my question. How did your psychic girlfriend know my wife was pregnant? The last thing she said before she disappeared was ‘tell your wife congratulations.’ How did she know?”

“I guess it’s the psychic part of the psychic girlfriend?” Jim said weakly. But then he thought for a moment. “Claire first sensed me when I first made her food. I hadn’t changed the recipe at all yet, so maybe she was able to feel something from the food? And then she must have known about Darci, because of your dream and I dreamed about her too. She was able to sense my mom was in danger after taking me into her dream last week.”

Toby nodded while Jim continued to think. “So psychic network or something like that?”

“Yeah.” Jim shrugged. “That makes as much sense as any of my theories.”

“OK, not the best answer in the world, but better than nothing. Now I think some of the stones and minerals they put on my desk are probably magical. Take a look at these and tell me what you think.”

Jim looked over the rocks. There was green gem cut to show off beautiful facets, a stone that shown like a drop of sunlight. He gasped and grabbed a stone out of one of the boxes. The stone had an orange-red glow. His eyes shown as he looked at the stone. 

“This one is magic.” Jim said with a sudden certainty. Toby looked at the rock for a second. 

“But how do you know?” He asked. 

“Can’t you feel it? It’s warm, I can feel it almost has a heart beat!” Jim said staring at the stone. There was a pulsing warmth to it. He swore he could feel an energy coming off the stone. Toby pulled the label from the spot the stone had been sitting in and scratched out the name and quickly wrote in a new name. 

“Ok, Heartstone it is.” Toby said. “What properties would you guess it has?”

Jim looked closely at the stone, holding it tight. “Probably healing, rejuvenation. Things like that. It just feels good.”

Toby took the stone out of Jim’s hand and put it back in it’s case. Jim couldn’t help but feel disappointed as the stone left his hand. Toby was carefully writing in a notebook, then he pulled out another sample.  

“This one is chemically identical to the Heartstone, but obviously different.” The stone was cold and gray. Jim picked it up and his disappointment grew. It felt much like the other stone, but just a ghost of that feeling. 

“This is the same thing as the Heartstone. Just...dead? Like all the warmth got sucked out of it. It feels uncanny, like it’s not supposed to be that way.”

Toby scribbled in his notes. He also changed the name plate to Dead Heartstone

“That was one of the first things they gave me when I first started working there. They wanted me to identify it. And they also asked if I could reenergize it? I had no idea what that meant. Does it make any sense to you?”

Jim held the Dead Heartstone in his hand as he mulled it over. He wasn’t sure how, but he could feel the difference between the two. He just couldn't think of how to get this one back to how it should be. 

As he pondered, he thought of Claire. The feeling she left him with every time he saw her. The look on her face when she saw him. A warm feeling flowed through him. On impulse he focused on that warm feeling and breathed out onto the gem. 

Toby gasped as an orangish glow breathed out onto the stone. It flashed dully for a second before it faded. Jim turned to face his friend, both their mouths were hanging open. Toby was the first to recover himself. 

"So your psychic girlfriend gave you magic powers?" Toby's voice was high with shock. Jim could only stare, his eyes wide. 

"But it didn't stay?"

Toby took the piece out of his hand. "Keep practicing, maybe you'll get better. Now take a look at this one."

Jim was focusing on what he had done. Had Claire somehow given him magic powers? But that magic wasn't anything like hers. He put out his hand to accept the next sample. 

Toby dropped the stone into his hand and Jim was filled with such extreme revulsion. It was worse than if Toby had dropped a live squid, a massive spider or a dog turd in his hand, worse than all three at once even. The revulsion overpowered his senses and his reasoning. 

Jim dropped the rock like it had burned him and jumped back away from the table. He stumbled almost blind to the kitchen and came up with one of his knives in his hand, held defensively. 

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Jimbo, buddy, you ok?" Toby was keeping a slight distance from his knife wielding friend. His hands were up placatingly. 

Jim's hands shook as he returned his knife to the knife block. He looked at the hand that had held the strange rock. There was no mark or residue but he couldn't resist the urge to wash his hands. 

He pushed his hands under the steaming water, scrubbing them furiously. He washed his hands mindlessly for several minutes, reapplying soap multiple times, even grabbing the kitchen sponge to scrub them. He was startled out of his hand washing by Toby grabbing him in a side hug. 

"I'm sorry I had you touch that thing."

"Its ok." Jim said shortly. 

"It very obviously is not. I haven't seen you like this since high school. Remember when your mom's clinic had that code black? You couldn't get a hold of her and you skipped right over stress cooking to trying to scrub the skin off your hands?"

"I'm not trying to scr-" Jim looked closer at the growing stain on his hands he was trying to wash off and realized the stain was a raw patch, already red and chapped from the sponge. Without giving it another look Jim tossed the sponge in the trash. "Please don't make me touch that thing again."

"Don't worry, you can keep your distance." Toby was scrabbling under Jim's sink and came out a moment later with a pair of rubber gloves. He put them on and carefully picked up the strange rock. Jim kept his distance, and tried to fight the rising queasiness, as he tried to put the feeling into words. 

"It feels almost like the Heartstone, but like the complete opposite?" Jim noticed he was subconsciously rubbing his hand on his pants. He stopped himself with difficulty. "Like the Dead Heartstone felt exactly like the living one, just less. Like it had been drained away. But that one is the opposite, warmth replaced with cold, comfort replaced with…"

Jim struggled for a second to put into words the extreme feeling that had overcome him. While he talked Toby was packing the crystal away. Even in appearance the stone was the opposite of the Heartstone. It was black with sickly veins running through it. Toby wrapped the stone in several layers of paper, then a foil he pulled out from one of his cases and finally it went into alarge box. 

"Don't worry dude, I got a pretty good idea of the emotion you were trying to describe.” Toby finished packing the stone away and threw away the gloves he had been wearing. Jim breathed out a sigh of relief once it was gone and sat down heavily at this table. He watched as Toby took the placard and scratched out the old name and changed it to Corrupted Heartstone. He looked at the placard for a moment, tapping his pen against his lip. “Odd.”

“What’s odd? Other than magic rocks I guess.”

“You said this is the exact opposite of the Heartstone. Where the Heartstone heals this one hurts.” Toby paused, thinking hard. “But this one is synthetic.”

“What?”

“It’s man made. Presumably in the lab downstairs at 49-B. So that means someone created a compound either on purpose or on accident that harms people. Specifically magical people.”

Jim blanched at the thought. The feeling of revulsion in his mind would be hard to forget. If 49B created the stone to hurt people with magic, what could they be doing to Claire? So many thoughts whirled through his head. He would have to do something to help her. Whatever it took. 

“Toby, how do you feel about doing something illegal?” Jim asked. 

“With my wife pregnant I’m going to have insist that we have some kind of plan. I know that’s not like me, but I’d rather not spend my child’s formative years in prison.”

“Understandable.” Jim thought for a second. “Speaking of which you aren’t going to store the corrupted stone near your kid are you?”

The thought of a child growing up near that stone filled Jim with a sudden terror. 

“Don’t worry. I have some contacts up in Washington, near Hanford. They’ll make sure this thing disappears and is never found again.”

Toby started packing up his rock collection. Jim guessed he didn’t want to trigger another freakout. He couldn’t blame him. As he did so, one of the rocks caught his attention. It was a blue stone wrapped in a silver metal. 

“Wait what is that?” Jim said pointing to it. 

“No idea.” Toby said picking it up and tossing from hand ot hand. “I don’t even know what the metal here is. It has a lot of weird physical properties. But we don’t have to worry about this one. It’s not one of the ones the researchers gave me.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I actually had this one since we were kids. I found it in a pile of rubble in the canals one day. It’s not related. I’m not even sure it’s magic.”

Jim’s eyes lit up. He stared at the stone wide eyed, holding out his hand for it. Toby hesitated for a moment before handing over the strange rock. As Jim grabbed it he could feel power flowing through him. He held it, turning it this way and that, his eyes shining. 

“It’s kind of cool, if you shine a light through it looks like daylight.” Toby said. 

“Daylight…” Jim breathed deeply as the words seemed to come to him. “Is mine to command.”

It felt like a bomb went off. There was a roar of power but only Toby and Jim reacted, nothing else in the apartment moved. Blue light flowed out of the rock, burning it’s way up and down Jim’s body. When the fire receded he was covered, head to toe in a silvery metallic armor. He looked at his hands and the armor there. He made eye contact with Toby, whose jaw was sitting on the ground. 

“That...that… that is so Cool!!” Toby said jumping up and running around him.   Jim laughed and clenched his hand into a fist. He could feel power coursing through his veins, just like every time he interacted with Claire, he could feel power radiating off of her. He put out his hand and white light blasted out shaking the room. 

“Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh!” Toby spun in a little circle. “This like some magical destiny shit right here!”

“Yeah.” Jim said. He looked at the armor that was covering him. And he thought of the woman who was chained up in 49B. Maybe with this he could free her. He could feel the magic singing through his body, creating a chorus with Claire’s magic that had sat at the edge of his mind. In his mind’s eye he could see his blue fire dancing with her purple water. “I think you’re right.”

[madamlaydebug]

IN THIS WAR AGAINST YOUR MIND, YOU EITHER WAKE UP AND LIBERATE YOURSELF, OR REMAIN MENTALLY ENSLAVED AND BE SLOWLY ERADICATED: I will not be silent in the face of ignorance, especially when that ignorance hinders our true Black liberation. If after 400 year of white oppression, your best plan for obtaining Black liberation is to cling tighter to your Bible or try to overcome the Willie Lynch syndrome then you’re ignorant of your own ignorance, and you’re a part of the problem that hinders true Black liberation. Furthermore If you’re walking around with a computer in your pocket — with access to unlimited information —believing in urban myths and biblical fairytales that were forced upon slaves then your ignorance is now a choice! What truly confront us is the monopoly that white oppressive forces have over our minds. Their monopoly over media images and societal narratives that shapes our beliefs and controls our behaviors is their greatest weapon used against us. As long as Black people continue to believe that our condition is connected to the Willie Lynch slave syndrome or a biblical fairytale we will never liberate ourselves. We must gain a true and accurate analysis of our condition in order to over come it. Because when our understanding of our condition is flawed then all solutions based upon the misunderstanding will also be flawed. In order to liberate ourselves we must learn the truth of what has been done to us. HERE IS WHY OUR CONDITION HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE WILLIE LYNCH SLAVE SYNDROME (MYTH): Black people are not suffering from a 400 year old self hatred programing created by a fictitious slaveowner name Willie Lynch — whom in spite of having no formal training in psychology whatsoever somehow miraculously developed a full proof plan to control the minds of countless millions of Black people for 400 years. This is such a childish and ridiculously cartoonish premise. Those who believes that the Willie Lynch myth is true have no understanding whatsoever of the mechanism required for brainwashing generations of people. They have no concept of how controlling the minds of large populations actually works. The Willie Lynch premise would in fact be the least effective method used for controlling large populations of people for an extended period of time. The Willie Lynch premise totally contradicts all leading studies of how controlling the mind of large population actually works. Brainwashing of large populations requires a system that is being constantly reapplied to remain effective. If not its effectiveness would weaken with each new generation. It wouldn’t get stronger as we’ve been witnessing. Case and Point: During the 1960’s African Americans were wearing Afros and calling each other Brothers and Sisters. We were also declaring that Black is beautiful. Today many of us are now calling ourselves N#ggers and b#tches, wearing blonde weaves and bleaching our skins. Given that the condition of self hatred has worsen this is clearly evidence of a system that is being constantly reapplied upon our minds and that has been strengthened. Furthermore, these same symptoms and condition also exist amongst many Africans living in Africa, the U.K, and Canada - that are NOT descendants of enslaved Africans therefore also proving that the problem is absolutely not the results of a slave syndrome. Furthermore the Willie Lynch myth was written by Dr. Kwabena Ashanti, an African American who lives in Durham, NC. He confirms that Willie Lynch never existed. The reason why the symptoms described in the letter appears so accurate and consistent with the behaviors that we’ve witnessed amongst many of our people is because it was not actually written in the 1700’s. This is also why when experts examined the letter they found 21st century words that were inconsistent with the 1700 date of which the letter was allegedly written. Dr. Ashanti wrote those noted behaviors based upon behaviors he actually observed among many Black people during the late 1970’s. ( behaviors that are actually the results of years of white social engineering of Black minds) That’s why the willie lynch letter appears so accurate. It’s however not a true story. THE BIBLE WILL NEVER LIBERATE US!! HERE IS THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIANITY: The early white Christians weren’t trying to save African soul’s when they converted them into Christians. This is irrefutably true, because they literally believed that Africans had no souls, and that heaven was for whites only. In fact the early white Christians believed that the mere thought of an African actually entering the kingdom of heaven was as blasphemously ridiculous as a dog doing so. This is a fact! When we critically think and logically look at the fact as they were, we can say with great certainty that the white enslavers conversion of Africans into Christians had absolutely nothing to do with saving African souls. There was another reason why the early white Christians put their time, and energy into teaching Christianity to a people they otherwise treated so brutally. The true self serving reason was to indoctrinate the belief of a white God into the subconscious minds of Africans. This creates a profound admiration towards whiteness within the subconscious mind’s of the Africans that then subconsciously transfers on to white people. This condition made the Africans more subservient towards their white people. Therefore Christianity made Africans much easier to colonize and into better slaves for white people. The effects of that brain washing scheme implemented hundreds of years ago, has been left uncorrected and un-removed for generations. The Christian religion has been one of the most effective tools used for imprisoning the minds of Black people. Through it million of Black people have been brainwashed to believe that all of the wrongs that whites have done to them throughout history, have been washed cleaned by the blood of a fictional white Jesus. Black people were also forced to become Christians, and then its doctrine was use to compel them to forgive whites for all the brutalities afflicted upon them by whites Christians. However, white societies never actually apologized, paid reparations, nor even repented for their evil deeds committed against Black people they merely insisted that Black people, as good Christians, forgive them as their Bible’s doctrine dictates. They fooled us now we continue to fool ourselves. Many Black Christians attempts to defend the Bible claiming that it was actually written by Black people and merely misused by whites during the enslavement and colonization of our ancestors. This is untrue. The Bible was written by immoral Romans ( Europeans) in 325 A.D. When Black people claim that modern Christianity was first practiced in Ethiopia long before Emperor Constantine created it in 325 AD this is a falsehood. Christianity didn't become the official religion of Ethiopia until 341 AD. That was sixteen years after the Romans created the false religion. Christianity is not the belief system practiced in Africa before 325 AD. The Roman Emperor Constantine tore apart the doctrine of the original African spiritual system to create modern Christianity. The Romans destroyed 18 books of the original doctrine in order to create the modern Christian religion. Many of the African followers of the true and original spiritual system were totally against the newly created Christian religion, some were killed by the Romans for doing so. Praying to God through a subordinate ( middle man) messiah was not within the original doctrine. Ask yourselves, why does the all knowing God need a middle man to speak to him in your behalf? Doesn't he know you better than anyone else does? The African spiritual system taught every individual to seek their own direct inner connection to the Most High. [Not through religion] A personal oneness that is established between the inner mind and that which we now know as God. It is an experience that no two individuals may verbalize the same. Some may say that it speaks from above, some may say it comes from within. Some may also say that it comes through the mind, while others says through the heart. It doesn't matter because in our true belief system they are all correct. It is their own individual oneness with the Most High! The original spiritual system was not at all like modern Christianity. It's original doctrine didn't believe in the trinity nor of the messiah story. The Jesus messiah story was created by the Roman Emperor Constantine and the Council of Bishops in 325 A.D. ( Research the Nicean Creed and the creating of Jesus) The original African spiritual system taught the teachings of a African man that was born in a cave in Ethiopia of a traditional birth - not a messiah born of an immaculate conception. It was also during the Nicene Conference that his story was changed into a Messiah and his original birthplace, of being born in a cave in Ethiopia, was changed to Bethlehem. They merged his story with Egyptian folklores to create the Jesus messiah myth. The Roman's creating of Jesus messiah myth was actually an ingenious scam. Its ideology, that to enter the kingdom of heaven you had go through Jesus, gave the church immense power. Because it meant that anyone that wanted to go to heaven had to do so through the church -- given that the church controls the Jesus image and narratives. It literally meant that they held and control the key to heaven. That's ultimate power on earth. If you believe that what plagues many Black people is caused by a slave syndrome or is connected to a biblical prophecy then you are one of the ignorant ones. Black liberation will only happen when we stop clinging to biblical fairytales and urban myths and instead start learning about the true psychological warfare campaigns that white societies deploys against us so unrelentingly. THE TRUTH OF OUR CONDITION AND PLIGHT: Black people are the unknowing targets are the most elaborate deployed psychological warfare campaign in world history. It’s how white societies protect themselves from unified Black retribution. To learn how this system works you have to first learn how societies actually function. Societies do not actually function based upon facts nor truth, they function instead based upon the prevailing narratives that are repetitively fed into the society. Those that controls all societal narratives also controls societal perceptions. And those that controls societal perceptions always falsely exalt themselves above others. And they always criminalize, vilify, and dehumanize those that they’ve brutally mistreated to falsely validate their past and present mistreatment of them. This is the reality presently faced by Black people living under white dominance. All societal narratives about Black people are created exclusively by the white society, and then are imposed upon Black populations. These narratives are rarely ever accurate; they’re usually false negative distorted interpretations of Black populations that serves the hidden nefarious racist agendas of the white oppressive society. “ To hold a people in oppression you have to convince them first that they are supposed to be oppressed. “ - Dr. John Henrik Clarke YOUR PERCEPTION OF REALITY IS AN ELABORATE WHITE DECEPTION: We Black people are being totally deceived about our collective state by a racist white society. Here is a fact that they keep from you. In spite of cultural traumas wrought by the injustice of white racism and slavery, it is actually Black people that are responsible for most of the inventions that have revolutionized the world. Case, Point, and Verifiable Proof: Do you know that without Black people there would not exist skyscrapers. This is because Black people invented the elevator, the air conditioning, and central heating. Alexander Miles invented the Elevator, Fredrick Jones invented the air conditioner, and Alice Parker, a Black woman, invented the heating furnace in 1919 which provided central heating. Without Black people there wouldn’t be any cars, because Black people invented the motor, the spark plug, and the earliest car called the horseless carriage. J. Gregory invented the motor, Edmond Berger invented the spark plug. A Black inventor and carriage company entrepreneur named Charles Richard Patterson is a builder/designer of the earliest automobile. Patterson and his sons invented a car they nick named it the horseless carriage. C.R. Patterson and Sons were forced out of business by Henry Ford. In 1939, the company closed its big wooden doors. These are all facts that white historians have concealed. There is more: If you enjoy using the internet thank Philip Emeagwali, a Nigerian computer scientist, is regarded by many as being the father of the Internet. He invented the super computer in 1987. It was his formula that used 65,000 separate computer processors to perform 3.1 billion calculations per second in 1989. That feat led to computer scientists comprehending the capabilities of supercomputers and the practical applications of creating a system that allowed multiple computers to communicate. Philip Emeagwali also invented the accurate weather forecasting system in 1990. He also used his mathematical and computer expertise to develop methods for extracting more petroleum from oil fields. If you enjoy sending emails thank a African American name Emmit McHenry. McHenry created a complex computer code whereby ordinary people can now surf the web or have e-mails without studying computer science. He created what we know today simply as .com. If you enjoy your digital cellphone thank an African American name Jesse Eugene Russell. He is an inventor and electrical engineer that invented digital cellular technology. He pioneered the field of digital cellular communication in the 1980s through the use of high power linear amplification and low bit rate voice encoding technologies and received a patent in 1992 (US patent #5,084,869) for digital cellular base station design. Jesse Russell holds several patents and is a key person to the invention of the modern cell phone. If you enjoy using your PC monitor thank an African American named Dr. Mark Dean. Dean is the Inventor/Computer scientist and engineer responsible for developing a number of landmark technologies, including the modern color PC monitor, the Industry Standard in 1981. In 1999, Dean also led a team of programmers to develop one of the stepping stones of modern day computer technology— the first gigahertz chip. The CMOS microprocessor chip is remarkable because it processed a billion calculations and large amounts of data in a second. Dean hold 20 individual patents. Dr. Thomas O. Mensah is a Ghanaian born chemical engineer and inventor. Is the inventor of fiber optics and nanotechnology. He was awarded 7 USA and worldwide patents in fiber optics. In all, he has some 14 patents. Dr. Patricia Bath, an African American scientist invented, and patented in 1988 the cataract laserphaco probe that help save the eye sight of millions. Millions of people around the world unknowingly owes their eyes sight to this Black woman. Mark Hannah developed the 3D graphics technology that now used in many major Hollywood movies Shirley Ann Jackson made several telecommunications breakthroughs which led to the touch-tone phone, caller I.D. and call waiting. Marie Van Brittan Brown invented the home surveillance security system. Henry Sampson invented the non digital cellular phone in 1983. Here is one that will surprise many of you. Although we’re taught the false narrative within our schools that it was Thomas Edison that brought light to the dark world, it was actually an African American inventor named Lewis Latimer that actually achieved this. Edison’s lightbulb wasn’t efficient enough to be used within homes nor businesses. It burned too hot, wasn’t bright enough, and didn’t last long at all. The life spans of Edison’s Lightbulbs were very short. They often lasted only a few minutes. It was actually Lewis Latimer’s lightbulb that was set up within homes, businesses and cities around the world. Latimer invented a brighter, longer lasting bulb. Latimer devised a way of encasing the filament within an cardboard envelope which prevented the carbon from breaking and thereby provided a brighter, much longer lasting life bulb, and hence made the bulbs less expensive and more efficient. This enabled electric lighting to be installed within homes and throughout streets. Latimer was dispatched to install the first electric plants in Philadelphia, New York City and Montreal and oversaw the installation of lighting in railroad stations, government building and major thoroughfares in Canada, New England and London. Therefore the lightbulb within our homes and business are the results of Latimer instead of Edison. It was also Lewis Latimer that drew out the patent plans for Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone in 1876. [ Research it!] These facts have been kept out of all white texts books. So our society therefore functions based upon the false narrative that honors Thomas Edison, because he was white, and ignores the true man that is responsible for lighting up the world, Lewis Latimore, because he was Black. There is more: Gerald A Lawson invented the first home video game system with inter changeable cartridges. Percy L. Julian invented the process of synthesis which led to the birth control pill and improvement in cortisone production. There is more: G.T. Sampson invented the clothes drier in 1892. George R. Carruthers invented the ultra violent camera spectrograph In1885, two Black inventors, L S. Burridge and N.R. Marsham, invented the typewriter J. Gregory invented the motor Six African Americans scientists were essential in the making of the first atomic bomb. One was J. Ernest Wilkins, one of the world’s leading mathematicians who earned his PhD at the age of seventeen. Alexander Miles invented the Elevator and safety devices for elevator. Patent no 371,207 Alice Parker, a Black woman, is credited with inventing the heating furnace in 1919 which provided central heating. Garret A. Morgan invented the automatic traffic signal and the gas mask. Edmond Berger invented the spark plug. J.B. Winters invented the fire escape ladder. John L. Love invented the Pencil sharpener 23- 11-189 Patent # 594114. Fredrick Jones invented the air conditioner. John A. Johnson invented the wrench John Standard invented the refrigerator Lewis Howard Latimer invented the electric lamp and the filament for the light bulbs. The small Pox Inoculation method was brought from Africa by African named Onesimus Phillip Downing invented the letter drop mail box 10-27-1892 John Burr invented the Lawn mower Marjorie Joyner holds the patent for the permanent hair wave machine. Lloyd Hall created the chemical compound that preserves meat S.H. Love invented improvements to military guns 22-4-1919 S.H. Love invented improvements to the vending machine 1-21-1933 W.A. Lovette invented the advanced printing press Thomas J. Martin invented the fire extinguisher 3-261872 W.D. Davis invented the riding saddle 10-6-1895 The white society has manipulated most of you to believe that most inventions that have revolutionized the world were invented by white men. Moreover that therefore - thru these inventions- most Black people have benefited from the genius of white men. However, in reality most inventions that have revolutionized the world were invented by Black people, and more white people have in fact benefited globally from the genius of Black minds. There is more: Do you know that the first successful open heart surgery on this planet was performed by a Black surgeon within a Black owned Hospital? Dr. Daniel Hale Williams (1856-1931) founded Provident Hospital and Training School for Nurses (the first black-owned hospital in America) in 1891. And he performed the first successful open heart surgery in 1893. Following the surgery white surgeons from around the country and the world came to learn from Dr Williams. Many white surgeon had attempted the surgery early but their patients died. In 1940, Dr. Charles Drew, another African American doctor achieved yet another medical pioneering break through. He invented blood plasma. And, just like Dr. Williams had experienced much earlier, white doctors traveled from around the world to learn from Dr. Drew. Dr. Drew was asked by white government officials to established blood banks the world. Those Black people that do not critically think and question the validity of all information from white sources are the ones that become self hating and mentally enslaved. It’s an elaborate psychological warfare campaign. If you think this disclosure is some ridiculous conspiracy theory then you don’t know history nor of how societies truly function. Throughout western history empires that maintain their power, have done so by perpetually manipulating the oppressed. Therefore the oppressed perception of themselves and their reality are never true. It is always a false negative image of themselves that have been shrewdly ingrained into their minds by their oppressors --without the oppressed even knowing it. White social scientist describes this nefarious hidden societal practice as merely instilling a value system into the subordinate population that makes them adhere to dominance and existing infrastructure of the ruling society. It is a psychological warfare system that is literally design makes the oppressed group accept their own subordinate status within the society. There is more: THE MYTH OF WHITE SUPERIORITY IS AN ELABORATE WHITE DECEPTION. Case and Point: Do you know that African Babies Advance Earlier and Faster Than European Babies? In the Developmental Psychology of the Black Child, Dr. Amos Wilson analyzes studies conducted by white social scientists that revealed significant differences in how quickly Black babies develop compared to European babies. The study found that at only 9 hours old African babies were able to prevent their heads from falling backwards. It took European babies roughly six weeks to accomplish this. By the time African babies were 11 months old, they were able to climb the steps alone while European babies typically didn’t accomplish this until they were 15 months old. The study focused specifically on African babies, but Wilson explains that the same trends were also found to be true in Black children of other nationalities. Studies have also found that Whites are also More Prone to Life Time Mental Disorders than Blacks: Four recent studies funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Consortium on Psychiatric Epidemiology Studies (CPES) reported that whites have the highest rate of lifetime mental disorders. These four reports are also a direct contrast of the perpetuated myth of white superiority. A Cornell University led study also found that Whites are both genetically weaker and less diverse than Blacks: The Cornell study, published in the journal Nature, also found by analyzing the genetic makeup of 20 White Americans and 15 African-Americans, that whites had many more possibly harmful mutations than did African Americans. That fact was reinforced by a larger-scale study, also published in Nature, led by scientists from the Universities of Michigan and Virginia who analyzed genetic samples of 485 individuals scattered around the globe whose DNA is recorded in a French databank. The researchers also found that Blacks are genetically stronger and had the greatest amount of genetic diversity. White people are far more prone to various genetic defects, malfunctions and disorders. White people also have thinner skins that ages more rapidly than the skin of black people. Their skin begins to wrinkles and muscles begins to decrease at a much faster rate than we blacks do. The bone density of white people are also less dense than those of black people. Do you know that the real reason white people perform laboratory experiments on white lab rats is because those white lab rats share the same genetic code as they share? They share two common factors. Those white rats are deliberately inbred to mimic the genealogy of so-called “Caucasians.” White people perform experiments on white inbred rats to see how experiments potentially go over in the human Caucasoid population. If they want to know how something will impact the normal population, the benchmark used is a normally colored rat. In the human world, if they want to know how something will impact the normal human population, their benchmark is a black human being. Black humans contain the fully dominant developed genes and genealogy is the benchmark for normalcy. Ever notice why white people have far more tolerance for milk? (they're the most lactose tolerant because they need it the most) Since white people reflect sunlight with white skin, they do not synthesize vitamin D like normal people, and this automatically decreases calcium levels in the blood. This is why white people-particularly white women--are at greatest risk for osteoporosis. Their bodies always need calcium because it is always robbed from their bodies. To compensate, they have to have calcium depleted from their bones, leaving their bones porous and weak and leaving whites susceptible to osteoporosis. Normal people, after reaching a certain age, no longer need milk and should be waned off of it. In the wild, when was the last time you saw a full grown animal still suckling its mother? Caucasians need supplements to help them make up for the Vitamin D deficiency. This is why most people who are lactose intolerant are black people. White people are not only the most lactose tolerant, but most needy. In the supermarket, notice how many products have calcium added in them from orange juice and other fruit juices to breakfast cereal? All that extra calcium fortification is to aid whites in their inability to maintain healthy vitamin D levels in their bodies because of the genetic defect. This is the governments way of “leveling the playing field” if you will. Brown Eyes vs Blue Eyes: Blue eyes are more prone to macular degeneration than brown. The brown in the eye is a melanin compound that allows you to absorb sunlight better and is beneficial in other ways as well. Blue eyes are the most sensitive to lights and dark brown eyes are least. Melanin shields from sunburn and lowers chance of melanoma. Black is not only beautiful, it’s healthy. The myth of white racial superiority is also totally debunked at its genetic core: The genetic characteristic of Black people are defined as the dominant gene while the genetic characteristic of whites are defined of the recessive gene. By definition in the study of genetic science the Dominant genes are defined as superior to the Recessive genes. This is a scientific fact of the science of genetics. A fact that whites deliberately hide because it scientifically refutes the perpetuated myth of their racial superiority. Clearly the bodies of whites are not genetically superior. These types of studies and results are being intentionally withheld from major media circulation in order to perpetuate the myth of white superiority. White superiority is a myth created by white controllers of misinformation. The truth is the exact opposite. THERE IS MORE: THIS SYSTEM IS ALSO BEING USED TO KEEP BLACK PEOPLE DIVIDED AND SELF HATING. The white media's unrelenting negative depictions of Black people-- that amplifies the negative to the point that it distort reality-- is much more than just bias media reporting. It is actually a Black Racially Demoralizing Divide and Conquer psychological warfare system. Black people are the unknowing targets of the most elaborate Demoralizing Divide n Conquer psychological warfare campaign in world history. It’s how white societies protects themselves from Black retribution. Demoralizing Divide and Conquer is the method of maintaining control over an oppressed population by creating feelings of self loathing amongst them and encouraging dissent between them. The implementation of this warfare tactic against Black people is secretly deemed necessary because while white societies, through their military strength, can invade, rob, and enslave Black people, they cannot win the loyalty of Black people, or sustain peace with Black people for long unless systems are put in place to keep Black people loyal, or to suppress dissent from among Black people. This divide and conquer tactic meets these objective. It is a well proven tactic that has been used for centuries by oppressors for controlling and subduing their oppressed populations. Because when the oppressed are made self loathing and divided this makes them much more easier to control and subdue. This system is deplored like a massive media marketing campaign that constantly subjects Black people to seeing only the fraudulent worst within themselves. Within this system fraudulent black racially demoralizing propaganda is pumped unrelentingly into the unsuspecting minds of Black populations--without being challenged or counterbalanced by an equal amount Black positive racially affirming information. Its weapon is the message that it carries. It conveys the subliminal message that Black people are there own worst enemy and therefore needs whites to govern over their lives. Moreover, that Black people should admire, respect, and trust only Whites. This system is extremely effective because when Black people are repetitively presented these noted narratives from trusted white media sources it can be very difficult to resist it's implied programming. Especially when the propaganda is being told daily and so unrelentingly. With time, being unable to refute the constant negative information about themselves, many Black people eventually comes to accept them. They unconsciously influences how many within the Black population perceives themselves, creating division and self hatred among themselves. Most importantly this system turns the collective aggressions of Black people away from the white society and turns them inward towards themselves. All long-term oppressions requires that the minds of the oppressed by constantly manipulated and that their collective aggressions be turned against themselves and away from the oppressive society; if not retribution and rebellion from the oppressed becomes inevitable. This brainwashing system is so effective that there are Black people that will insist that their negative assessment of their entire race is absolutely accurate. However, those Black people that presently makes negative generalization about their entire race cannot actually validate these statements based upon their own personal experiences. Those that insist that they can are not critically thinking or they’re delusional. Because it is not humanly possible to assess the collective state of millions of people based upon anyone’s individual experiences. These negative perceptions about our entire race were actually deliberately indoctrinated into the minds of many Black people by deceptive white sources. When you’re told a lie enough time it becomes a part of your reality. You begin to only see those things that appears to confirm the lie. White oppressive forces thoroughly studied this mental phenomenon and weaponized it against Black people. This psychological warfare program works so well in fact that it not only makes Black people more compliant with white dominance over their lives, it in fact makes many even prefer it.It is at the root of both the feeling of self hatred now afflicting so many Black people and is at the heart of internalized feelings of superiority that many whites possess. “The oppressed will always believe the (fraudulent) worse about themselves.” — Franz Fanon "If you do not understand White Supremacy (Racism)-what it is, and how it works-everything else will only confuse you". Neely Fuller Jr. Your entire perception of reality is a white deception. The more truth you learn, the more you’ll understand why they hate us so much. Their profound hatred toward us started many centuries ago as a profound envy toward us. Franklin Jones - The Black Matrix Learn more at www.theblackpeoplematrix.com

[ladyloveandjustice]

What time is it? MARCH COMES IN LIKE A LION OPENING ANALYSIS TIME

there’s a lot going on in this opening and I’M NOT SURE I UNDERSTAND IT ALL but I’m gonna try my best.

first of all, I actually went and looked up the lyrics for this one, and I’m not sure why the hell I didn’t do that with the other ones, because they are pretty related to the imagery, duh. This is why I was inspired to go back and do some additional commentaries on the first two OPs yesterday. Anyway, let’s look at those lyrics!

THE CLOUDS WHISPERED TO ME “YOU’RE GONNA D I E”

“WELL FUCK YOU TOO CLOUDS” I screamed back”

Yeah, so, the specific imagery here is REI, while on a bridge near the water (as Always, I’m going to note my theory bridge= connections and water= feelings) is briefly on the ground and picks himself up. This is while the lyrics are essentially saying “I was always told that I was doomed and i felt it was hopeless, but i got tired of that shit, leave me alone assholes you’re just bored with your own empty lives”. As he picks himself up, he sees the Kawamotos, which sort of shows how they “saved” him

A really interesting thing about a lot of imagery in this op is it often directly relates to some lyrics from the song (”Raise your Flag” by Yuki) that are not featured in the OP, such as:

Slowly brushing the sand from my skirt, the future left at my very fingertips seemed about to disappear, so I reapplied my bandages.

Rei specifically brushes off his pants as he rises, so it seems like these lyrics reflect what’s  happening here both literally and symbolically.

Water symbolizes feelings throughout this series, and we’ve often seen Rei drowning in it, but here he’s literally on top of it, and the song is very direct about what this means: he’s in control of himself right now. He can decide his future.

But it wasn’t always this way and the OP references the fact Rei was utterly drenched before this:

As it shows this, the lyrics reference rebirth and rebuilding yourself. Then a butterfly shows up:

There are several meanings for butterflies in Japan, they can be seen as souls of both the living and dead, they can be a symbol of femininity. But i think the one in the OP is the butterfly of rebirth.

The butterfly of death and rebirth’ is a common thing you often see in anime- butterflies are associated with transformation and spring, and this whole OP is very spring-y (I mean the show does have “March” in the title) with all the leaf and flower motifs. So it’s not a stretch the think this butterfly could represent the opportunity to be reborn after being driven to your lowest point. In fact, the song straight up says later “you’ve only got one chance to be reborn”.

Or maybe Rei’s just trapped in a Persona game idk.

We then see Rei climbing up a barrier and jumping over it, which speaks for itself. One of these is the bridge, which as previously stated, I believe largely symbolizes connections between people. So this could represent him overcoming the walls he’s put up to deepen his bonds with others (the Kawamotos specifically). Again, interestingly, the imagery of a bridge is directly referenced in this song, though not in the  OP lyrics themselves:

If I’ve managed to dance this well, there will be no turning back. I looked down from the footbridge overhead.

Rei is now actively reaching out for the butterfly now, but doesn’t get it- he’s not really able to attain total rebirth here. He’s also surrounded by musical notes and idk what that’s supposed to mean, other than the fact he’s in the middle of a song rn.

Then we see Hina and Momo, with Hina reaching out during a dark, starry night

She seemingly catches a drop of water. Note how this reflects the imagery earlier, where Rei was drenched during a dark night, his hand dripping. This to me, indicates there’s some danger of the same thing happening to Hina. Considering her arc this season has her dealing with bullying and becoming extremely emotionally distressed because of it, her going down the same road to depression Rei has been on is a real possibility. 

But the imagery also references a line earlier in the OP: 

“I’m sure if I pick up all the beads that rain from the sky and gather them, I’ll be able to plant a flag that symbolizes my liberty”.

The rain she gathers doesn’t have to drown her, it can nurture her and help her grow. After all, there’s so many stars among the dark night, and there’s opportunity for hope and warmth even in the darkest times. The butterfly shows up, indicating Hina has the opportunity to be reborn as well.

After we see Hina and the butterfly, Rei yells and takes off running across the water:

Once again, showing he’s not drowning in these feelings and is able to move forward and he’s also on a mission, one related to Hina, which of course is probably a reference to his desire to help her with her problems. Rather than focusing on and being overwhelmed by his own feelings, he’s using them as fuel to fight for someone else. The lyrics reflect this:

The we cut to what seems to be the Kawamotos house:

The imagery here is pretty related to the lyrics, the windchimes show there’s a draft:

And we see a glass of water (Hina’s emotions perhaps) reflecting that. windy sky. Something is shaking her foundations, causing her tears, but the sky is still so wide and bright and hopeful.

Rei keeps running, and the lyrics become more fiercely optimistic as we see the Kawamotos together, “like a boxer rise up again, pound on the door you painted yourself”:

Akari looks on at Hina entertaining Momo by showing her a “walking motion” and is proud- she’s watching Hina grow and become a strong young woman. She taught Hina how to “move forward” and Hina’s now symbolically showing Momo how to do it too.The student has become the master. It also shows their togetherness is what will get them through these tough times and save them.

We see Hina distant, turned away, as Rei continues to chase after the butterfly.

The butterfly and Hina are clearly connected, and I think Rei chasing it is about him searching for a way to help Hina. He’s looking for a way for HER to “rise from the ashes”. Her distance, her back being turned- it shows how lost she is to Rei right now, how she’s getting farther and farther away. He’s searching for a way to help her come back, to re-emerge stronger from the trauma she’s experiencing. So he’s trying to catch the butterfly for HER, he’s trying to find a way to help her be reborn. 

And he wants this so much for her because he wants this for himself too. Rei and Hina are deeply connected, and a lot of the lyrics in this OP could refer to both of them. In fact, these lyrics, though again, not part of the OP itself, almost seem to directly reference it:

The tiny girl that exists inside of me ties her hair in an off-beat fashion.

Hina lives inside Rei and Rei lives inside Hina.

However, Rei fails in catching the butterfly. Why? Maybe because he’s not doing it together with Hina. Maybe he’s trying too hard to catch it by himself. Maybe she needs to be involved in this. After all, as the lyrics say:

You have to decide for yourself when you’re going to bloom, when you’re going to be reborn.

So! That’s my attempt at analysis! It’s such a lovely op, there’s a lot to take in about it. If I have any new thoughts, or the episodes remaining yield any new insight, I’ll update this!