#they are camel humps in all but name lol | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

itsclydebitches · 4 years ago

Text

Welcome back, everyone!

A quick note before we begin: after the previous recap a couple of lovely friends and anons explained to me some discrepancies in my work, mainly about how Fox's semblance functions and how much info we’ve gotten on that previously. They're worth a read if (like me) you haven't read After the Fall and would like a more accurate picture of this whole project. However, I have to admit that sadly past!me didn’t think through the usefulness of those posts and tag them appropriately... so they’re just somewhere in the mess that is the “rwby” and “mymetas” tags. Still, I wanted to acknowledge their existence, both for your potential use and as another disclaimer along the lines of, “I’m reading what amounts to a sequel and recapping as I go. Prepare for a bumpy ride.”

We're on chapter five now (of twenty-two! Holy god I’m slow!!) and truth be told I actually enjoyed this opening. We're in Yatsuhashi's head this time around and he's likewise enjoying Vacuo's Meeting Spot, an "artificial oasis" that reminds him of his mother's healing gardens. I wonder what "healing" means in this particular context. A generalized benefit to your body, mind, and spirit in the form of meditation? Or a more literal, magic-based healing with its roots in aura use? In a world with RWBY's possibilities, a healing garden that someone like Ozpin might run—let's take time to settle ourselves and reflect—vs. one that someone like Jaune would create—let me use my semblance to literally heal your wounds—are rather different things. I'd be interested to know which category (or another) Yatsuhashi's mother falls under.

Regardless, it's a satisfyingly quiet scene. Yatsuhashi comments on both the beauty of the oasis as well as how that beauty, in turn, raises the desert in his eyes. Nothing like not having to deal with a hard landscape to make that landscape seem more bearable, alluring even, and this moment managed to capture that feeling rather well. The only downside is that, in a recurring theme, I once again got whiplash upon realizing that Yatsuhashi is not standing alone in the peace of the early morning, like the description had led me to believe. Apparently Velvet is there. As well as the whole freaking student body! Myers* has this strange habit of writing one kind of scene only to suddenly reveal that the scene is actually radically different from what his writing had encouraged you to imagine. Yatsuhashi is going on about healing, natural beauty, and the peace of an early morning. What's peaceful about dozens of students speculating beside him? Have you ever met a school of sleep deprived young adults dealing with a surprise announcement before breakfast? That’s as far from peaceful as humanly possible.

Mood, kid.

(*Also yes, we're working to write Myers' name correctly this chapter. If I'm going to drag his work so much the least I can do is not add an additional 'e' to his name lol.)

Along with the entirety of Shade Academy to break the peace, Yatsuhashi tells us about dromedons and mole crabs. The former, according to the wiki, is a "camel-like Grimm that can spit acidic venom" and also sports an armored hump. Fun! The latter, according to Yatsuhashi, is a "horrifying" creature that "slept just below the sand and could cut a person in two with their massive claws." And they're the normal, non-grimm animals! Screw Salem. Humanity needs huntsmen just to keep people safe from the everyday wildlife. Crabs cut people in two, Zwei is capable of being set on fire and launched at a mech... it's a miracle that anyone ever steps outside their home.

I do write this with full knowledge that Australia exists, but still.

As Yatsuhashi moves away from thoughts of killer crabs, we begin what is easily the strangest bit of repetition this chapter. Yatsuhashi's shoulder is sore from having tried to break down the hideout door and I'm going, "Wait no, you used your sword” and frantically flipping back through my PDF. To Myers' credit, there is a detail that suggests Yatsuhashi uh... rammed the door? I think? Last chapter he "Stepped forward and Fox heard him grunt with exertion." That's the only thing I can think of that would explain his shoulder unexpectedly being sore hours later: if he'd charged it instead of doing something insane like, oh, I don't know, trying the doorknob first. Odd choice of continuity, but okay. What's super weird though is that Myers repeats the detail again:

Yatsuhashi crossed his arms, then grimaced as a fresh pain shot through his shoulder. Come on, Aura, he thought. Do your thing.

I'm sorry, how badly did you hurt your shoulder? Why does a supposedly intelligent student immediately resort to what is apparently somewhat serious self-harm when faced with a closed door? Why is Myers choosing this of all things to tell us about? Is this incredibly random shoulder injury going to hinder Yatsuhashi during the test? Spoilers: I don't think it does considering that I searched for "shoulder" in my PDF and there's just a lot of hands on shoulders coming up, but nothing that, at first glance, seems to make this kind of set up necessary. So I say again: weird.

Meanwhile, weirdness doesn’t even acknowledge the continued inconsistencies with aura. Jaune heals a cut on his cheek instantaneously, but hours later Yatsuhashi needs to gripe at his aura to hop-to already? So either Jaune’s aura is far more powerful than the average person’s (never established outside of Pyrrha’s “You have a lot of it” comment), or Yatsuhashi really hurt his shoulder that badly. Hard enough that with the rest of the night and early morning to heal him, his aura is still working overtime.

Alrighty then.

So the whole student body is just kind of hanging out, striking up casual conversations. Velvet asks how Yatsuhashi is doing and he says he's fine, "Thanks to you." Wait... what did Velvet do? I mean yeah, she was there last night and she's here now, but so is the rest of the team. I don't really recall her helping Yatsuhashi in any specific way. As is the norm now, I remain mildly, endlessly confused by this novel.

But we don’t have time to delve into the gratitude attached to events I’m not actually sure happened. There’s more chit chat going on as everyone tries to figure out why they've been summoned so early in the morning. "It's not always about us," Velvet says and I nod along in agreement even though I know, as a reader, that it's absolutely about them. "As I'm often reminding Coco."

Coco fires back with how it "could be about us," noting that it would be pretty coincidental if something else was going on right now, plus Rumpole may have realized they were out last night. (Remember, Yatsuhashi wasn't subtle about trying to break down that door). This is one of those moments where I agree wholeheartedly with Coco's logic, but kind of hate to encourage the 'It's all about us' attitude. Velvet might be smiling, but as previously established this is an ongoing theme within RWBY's characterization that it could really stand to do without.

Yatsuhashi then offers some "unsolicited advice" about how Rumpole could afford to slow down some and "let things come at their own pace," to which I respond, "Huh?" Where in the world did this come from? Previously the whole group—including Yatsuhashi, considering he didn't speak out against it—was concerned that Rumpole wasn't doing enough to track down the Crown. That is, do more, move faster, get it done already. You haven’t gotten it done? Okay, we’ll do it instead. Now he's providing this subtle criticism in response to a meeting, as if that's an inherently odd or bad thing for a headmistress to do. You want the woman to do extra work faster but slow down when it comes to her actual job?

It reads to me like Myers is trying to put a lot of wise-sounding dialogue into Yatsuhashi's mouth—you know, the Asian character who keeps bringing up things like meditation and mindfulness—but hasn't bothered to think about whether that dialogue makes any sense. Of course, we then immediately backtrack to reveal that his comment was really about Coco not pushing the team too hard, but... that's not what he said? And Coco clearly didn't get the message. And the hidden meaning of the words didn't come across too well if your reader is squinting at what was said until the author has to straight up go, 'This is what Yatsuhashi actually meant.' Maybe just... have him say that? Give us some significant looks towards Coco, at the very least. Something to clue us in here that Yatsuhashi is (weirdly) blaming Rumpole for Coco's flaw.

Then he just ruins the whole scene further by mentally commenting that if all this extra work was hard on them, "what would it do to SSSN?" Ugh, look. I don't even like SSSN very much. I didn't shed a tear when they left the main series and would shrug if they ever came back, so you know the story is ragging on them too much when I'm standing up for the group at the bottom of my Character Adoration list. The duality of 'SSSN is so incompetent I don't even know how they're alive' and 'That, in comparison, makes us the best team ever' got old forty pages ago, yet I have the distinct feeling it won't be letting up any time soon.

Headmaster Theodore finally arrives to break up this thrilling conversation and the students erupt into thunderous applause. "It was what [he] expected. It was what he inspired whenever he appeared." That... is absolutely hilarious. This guy is so much of a showman, so insanely over the top, that he expects people to treat his everyday appearance as a spectacle worthy of praise and they agree. You know who he reminds me of?

The king himself, Alex Louis Armstrong. I'm digging this already. It's absurd and I will forever question RWBY's ability to balance comedy with its darker tones... but I'm counting this one as a win so far. There's got to be something to praise about this book.

Just as important, we get a description of Theodore's positively insane outfit. I immediately googled to see if someone had drawn him and the fandom did not disappoint. I'm not going to include the image here in case the artist, Edisu, doesn't want their work reposted like that, but I highly recommend you check out the link and get a visual.

The only thing left to say about this fashion monstrosity is that he has a "flowing gray-blue cape, the color of a stormy sky." I'll let our favorite textile engineer make my point for me:

Honestly, between Ruby's cape and Weiss' hair someone is going to end up in trouble one of these days.

In this world free of horrific cape tragedies, we've segued into a flashback which is, frankly, kind of boring compared to the others we’ve gotten. It's just the group meeting Theodore, information and characterization that could have easily been distributed to the audience in the present. It's starting to feel like the structure of including a flashback each chapter is hindering Myers somewhat, just because every chapter doesn’t necessarily need one, but that’s far from the biggest issue to tackle.

We learn that Theodore (really Rumpole) did a bunch of research on all the students involved in the Vytal Festival and they're very pleased that Team CFVY has joined them now, despite the horrific circumstances. We again hear about how judgmental Coco can be, that her judgements are rarely wrong... but if they are wrong she's the last to admit it. So really that's less of a 'This character has good instincts about other people' and more 'This character is just, as said, judgmental and then stubborn about it when she’s wrong.' Theodore, however, seems like a cool dude:

“Ah, she speaks!” Theodore strode toward Velvet. His voice softened. “You didn’t fail, my dear. You fought. You stayed, far longer than anyone would have asked or expected of a student. And now you’re here. Do you want to be here? Will you fight for Shade the way you did for Beacon, Velvet Scarlatina?”

This is great. This is the kind of reassurance I would expect from a headmaster who, thus far, has received a fair amount of praise. Unlike his students, Theodore understands the risks Beacon students took and when it was time for them to make a life-saving retreat. He's inspiring while also being empathetic and honestly? That's the most I've had that 'You're a good person' sense from RWBY in a very long time.

Now watch Theodore turn out to be evil lol.

He cuts the tension of the serious conversation by proclaiming that if any of them doubt whether they should be here, they should take it up with him via a fight. Theodore announces this while striking a pose. I say again:

We then get some more reflection on how Theodore compares to Ozpin:

Ozpin had believed in you before you did, almost like he knew your true potential, despite what your transcripts or fighting abilities looked like. Theodore believed you had potential, but you had to earn it and prove yourself to him first.

I agree with that and I'm pleased to see that this time the comparison didn't involve criticizing Ozpin in an effort to build Theodore up. It’s likewise a useful description and I think it provides us with at least one interpretation of why the RWBYJNR group has discarded Ozpin so thoroughly. The addition "despite what your transcripts or fighting abilities looked like" implies that Ozpin sees potential in everyone. It doesn't matter how presumably flawed you might be—in physical strength, like Jaune; in morals, like Lionheart— Ozpin will see the good in you and give that good a fighting chance. That's why he's the one tasked with doing something as crazy as uniting the whole world because he's the one person capable of seeing that potential in literally everyone. That much is true. But the flipside of this is that, unlike when in interacting with someone like Theodore, no one expects to have to work for Ozpin's faith, his praise... his trust. With Theodore you have to "earn" the respect he gives you right from the start. With Ozpin it's free! So surely that means such faith extends to every possible situation, right?

Which is when you run into trouble. When the situation is no longer "I'll give you a chance in my school" but something much more serious like "I'm risking the whole world on your character." Ozpin is an optimist, but he's also cautious as hell (with good reason), so though he sees the potential in everyone he knows he can't let his own hope for humanity blind him to reality. That person might betray you. They might turn on you. They might give up and hurt you in the process... even if you want to believe that people are simply better than that. Wanting doesn’t make it so.

If someone who had as little interaction with Ozpin as Team CFVY did nevertheless developed such a strong sense of, "Yeah, he believes in everyone!" then it seems likely that Team RWBY, already sporting a special connection with him, thought they were shoe-ins for every possible secret and task they might ask of him. Their time at Beacon was defined largely by both intentional favoritism and coincidences that could arguably be read as such. Ruby gets to go to Beacon two years early. She gets to be team leader. The sisters stay together despite teams supposedly being random. Team RWBY goes on missions not meant for first years. Team RWBY is given a nudge-nudge-wink-wink about The White Fang so that they can do what they’re able to help. Team RWBY was friends with Pyrrha, next in line for the Maiden powers. They got used to Ozpin simultaneously solving all the real problems that showed up and letting them play at being important, all while the rest of the school had to follow normal rules. They’re special. But then Beacon falls, the game is over, and they're blindsided by having to earn trust and privileges in the real world. Playing at huntresses in the safety of your headmaster’s school is over and Ruby in particular never got that there was a massive difference between that and a real war where the fate of the world hangs on your trustworthiness and ability to keep it together. It’s why she announces to the Argus guards that she is a huntress while attacking the people she’s meant to protect.

Which would be a fantastic arc to give them if the show ever had someone sit the group down and tell them how childish and selfish they're being. Instead, they're still being handed that trust and privilege—you can go into Atlas despite stealing from the military, you get your licenses years early, you get to carry an incalculably valuable relic around—while likewise still getting mad that the adults around them don't give them more. This comparison here, though realistically just a throwaway passage in a novel rather iffily connected to its original series, starts to highlight the excellent situation RT set up... and then didn't do anything with.

But I've gone on about this long enough. There are just two other things I'd like to point out about this flashback. The first is that it may help us get a handle on Ozpin's age (if we're willing to accept these books as canon, despite their other inconsistencies). Earlier we're told that "Headmaster Theodore’s whole style should have been ridiculous for a man likely in his forties, maybe older" and here, in describing their different approaches, we get "Headmaster Ozpin, who had been younger but seemed much older." So that could potentially put Ozpin his his late 30s if he's noticeably younger than Theodore in his 40s. Or, in his 40s if the "maybe older" part is right and Theodore is in his 50s. I can’t imagine that Theodore is in his 60s. Not much to go on, admittedly, but I'll take whatever I can get. The interesting thing is that if Ozpin really is that young and Qrow is now (presumably) in his early 40s, wouldn't that have made them basically the same age during his Beacon days? Perhaps even giving us an Ozpin who was younger than his oldest students? I don't know. It's really less of a definitive piece of information and more messy speculation to add to the pile—which is par the course for RWBY nowadays.

The second detail I wanted to point out was that despite all their supposed differences, Headmaster Theodore and Professor Rumpole have a very Ozpin-Glynda relationship going on. For all the cosmetic changes it boils down to the same dynamic. Both headmasters are powerful, quirky men who at first glance appear to be rather useless at their jobs, requiring the confident headmistress to swoop in and manage the daily running of a school. Those two do the heavy lifting while their bosses work wonders from behind the scenes (a la The Wizard). When I read Rumpole chastising Theodore for claiming he investigated the students, or when she reminds him that there isn't time to have an impromptu duel with his students, I couldn't help but think about Glynda reluctantly letting Ozpin invite Ruby to Beacon early, or cleaning up the cafeteria while he shrugs off the mess. To be clear, I don't necessarily mean this as a criticism, just an observation. In truth I'm not sure how I feel about it, but it adds to the overall sense that Shade is just Beacon with a slightly different coat of paint. As I've mentioned previously, for all the text's insistence that Shade isn't like the other schools, the story hasn't done a good job of demonstrating that cultural difference in any meaningful way and similarities like this only add to the feeling that this isn't really a unique Kingdom—or at least not one with a firm enough identity to be persuasively unique. Same rule breaking team sneaking out on their own mission. Same secondary team who’s talented, but not as special as the protagonists. Same strange man with his responsible woman running the school. The details differ, obviously, but the structure feels largely the same.

As mentioned above, once the flashback ends Theodore tries to spar with one of the students but is quickly shut down by Rumpole because, you know, they have a meeting to hold. Apparently there have been complaints lately from the local security about Shade students interfering with official huntsmen business.

“I told you it was about us,” Coco muttered.

Coco, when you hear that people are pissed that you, an unlicensed student, are disrupting the careers of professionals every night the takeaway should not be, 'Aha! I knew it was all about me.'

Yatsuhashi at least provides a more nuanced perspective. "This wasn’t right, though. If they hadn’t interfered, those Huntsmen would have kidnapped an innocent person." He's right. They did help someone, but what they've failed to learn is that an individual good deed does not excuse the unlawful steps they took in getting there. If Team CFVY had just been out on the town and happened to spot some shady characters pulling shit, then put a stop to their kidnapping, that's fine. That's heroic. What is not heroic is them going out with the express purpose of fixing a situation that trained professionals told them they should not be trying to fix—key word being “trying,” given that they all understand Rumpole’s worry that they’ll make things worse. It was enough to send them back home last night... after Yatsuhashi failed to break into the hideout. The problem is not the "I helped someone who needed it" part but rather the "I'm arrogant enough to think that my presence is necessary" bit.

If having students conducting investigations was wanted or necessary, it would be a part of the curriculum: acknowledged or otherwise. AKA yes, Ruby. It would be very helpful if you'd head on off to Mountain Glenn, under the observation of a seasoned huntsmen, and report back if there's any dubious activity going on over there. Ozpin said, 'Yes please' to the extra (highly controlled) help while these professionals are saying, 'No thanks.' The fact that Team CFVY acts is if they're justified in continuing this investigation—and worse, that the story keeps validating those feelings—undermines their otherwise heroic actions. RWBY really is a series that struggles with giving its protagonists compelling reasons for getting involved in the fight. ‘Because I want to help’ might be a noble motivation, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you should. The Mountain Glenn mission was like a chef allowing a talented, aspiring teen to help them with a dish, all of it done under their tutelage. Team CFVY’s investigation is like the teen sneaking into the kitchen after dark to doctor all the prep for the next day’s cooking under the assumption that they’ll make it even better. Hell, maybe they will! But that’s not the point. Your help was not invited — explicitly denied, actually —and there’s a very good chance you’ll mess something up.

So because this group of eight continually insists that they know best, the whole school is required to stay on campus after nightfall. Huzzah!

It’s just too bad these consequences hurt others just as much as Team CFVY. The other students are pissed about this. I would be too! Team CFVY remains adamant though that they did the right thing, no guilt here, relying on the reader inaccurately comparing ‘saving lives’ with ‘losing free time off campus’ in order to come out on Team CFVY's side. They still fail to understand that helping people is not the reason they’re being punished.

Theodore and Rumpole reiterate that they are working on a solution and that no one else should be getting involved. Team CVFY is no more persuaded by this speech than they were the previous ones. The announcement then segues into discussion of the former Haven students which produces... boos from the audience?? My god, what is wrong with this school? I mean I get it, school is brutal—both in real life and fiction—especially when the social dynamics of your school are written much more like a high school than a college, but usually if characters are going to drag new students it's in the semi-privacy of a bathroom or an empty hall. Groaning over the existence of war survivors in front of your headmaster is a level of confident cruelty I didn't expect.

Then again, RWBY is the show that gave us Cardin pulling on Velvet's ears in the middle of the cafeteria, so perhaps I shouldn't be surprised.

Theodore quickly bypasses the whole 'A decent number of my students hate these other students' issue and instead acknowledges that it is "difficult to adjust to a new school, an entirely new group of classmates, and most of all to life in Vacuo. Yet some of you have been separated from your original training teams.” Which is a nice way of saying that a good number of these teammates are dead. So what's the solution here?

Reinitiation Ceremony!

I'm sarcastic, but in all honesty I don't hate this idea. Far from it. Partly because I have a strong love of competitions in shonen-esque stories. Tests, trials, the obligatory tournament arc... they've always been some of my favorite parts of a series, largely because they allow the author to develop whacky and creative challenges that show off important characterization. See: Killua using a skateboard during the tunnel run before deciding that if Gon can manage running it, he can too; or Izuku using the mines and a piece of scrap to blast himself ahead of Bakugo and Todoroki. The structure of such tests forces characters to demonstrate creativity and critical thinking skills alongside strength, and that in turn reminds us of why they're our heroes. RWBY managed this a little bit with the Vytal Festival, but overall I don’t think the teams did anything particularly impressive to win. Team RWBY worked together, Nora hit people really hard with her hammer, Weiss' injury pissed off Yang enough to tap into more power... it was all stuff we had seen before and very little of it required planning or creativity. The Vytal Festival functioned more to set up the plot developments of Volume 3, which is fine, though for a while I had hoped that we would get a huntsmen license exam to do this sort of work... which obviously didn’t happen. Disappointing, but we’re at least getting something like that here.

So I love the concept. I even love the general reasoning behind holding the ceremony at all. Anyone who had spent five minutes on this blog knows that I think the groups need to learn to play well with others. Yet I also can't deny that the team dynamics provide stability for these characters, even if they've come to rely on that stability to an unhealthy degree. We've got students whose teams were presented to them not just as a professional tool, but their primary support system. You live with these people, attend all the same classes, spend your free time together, and survive life-threatening situations on a fairly regular basis. It's work, family, and friendship all rolled into one, so if the headmaster suddenly says that you get a new team, that's a whole lot more devastating than just learning that you've got a new project group to deal with. It shouldn't have come to that—a school looking to teach a profession that requires working with a wide variety of individuals should never have told four students to rely one each other and each other alone—but now that we're here you can't just break them apart with no notice. Especially with a traumatic war going on. It's hard to come to a new school, meet new people, learn a new culture... so let me rip away the one piece of familiarity you have left.

Of course, I don't really think that the teams will be broken up irrevocably, if at all. Rather, I simply want to acknowledge that despite my appreciation for these kinds of stories and despite my desire that the teams get some distance... it shouldn't be done like this. Even more-so when it’s abundantly clear—to us if not the instructors—that this little stunt is causing their students to re-live a whole bucket load of trauma. Yatsuhashi thinks about how this feels like an “out of body experience” and “It reminded [him] uncomfortably of the evacuation of Beacon Academy… He felt his breath catch in his throat.” Coco’s order to stick together “[brought] him back to the moment,” re-emphasizing that he was lost in the past for a while there. He’s clearly struggling.

Now, to be fair, this could all fall under the category of flawed characters. Meaning, anytime something awful happens in fiction we can interpret that as a skill on the part of the author: they wanted to write a scenario where the teachers are screwing up and unintentionally hurting their students. Or they know they’re hurting their students and consider that to be an acceptable sacrifice under the justification of ‘They have to get over Beacon at some point!’ There are lots of ways to paint this as Myers/RT writing complex, human characters who make ambiguous choices—a testament to their ability to write “realistically.” But to be frank I don’t really buy it. Simply because I’ve had a lot of experience now with how RWBY handles subjects like trauma and it’s only rarely been written respectfully and engagingly. I could be proven wrong as the novel continues, but it seems more likely that Myers wrote the instructors coming up with this test, wrote Yatsuhashi panicking over it, and intends to continually imply that these two things are separate plot points. Bringing both together in a narratively useful way would require acknowledging the instructors’ motivations—Why this test? Why now? Do they realize the harm they’re causing? If so, do they think it’s worth it?—and then coming to some sort of resolution, either via some recovery on CFVY’s part due to the instructors’ choices (this test did help us move past Beacon), or the instructors learning something about empathy and trauma via CFVY’s reaction (we never should have done this). I highly doubt we’ll get either.

Thus, everyone is (justifiably) horrified. The teams are gone and either the shock of that made Team CFVY prioritize feelings of safety over strategy, or they're just not going to demonstrate any of the intelligence I look for in this kind of arc, because they immediately start obsessing over staying together.

He needed to keep his team close to him. Especially Velvet. If they weren’t separated, they couldn’t be assigned to different teams.

Yatsuhashi, that is not at all what Rumpole told you:

“It’s already begun,” Rumpole said. “Everything you do from this moment forward will factor into your evaluations for new teams.”

Where in the world did you get the idea that you wouldn't be assigned a new team so long as you stuck with your old one? If I were one of the instructors here that choice would make me more likely to separate them. "Everything you do from this moment," Rumpole says, meaning that how they respond to this information is a part of the test. The team that panics and refuses to separate is the team that either can't function without one another, or at the very least believes that they can't. They're not willing to work with others and thus they're precisely the type that needs to learn this skillset. You're the ones they'll want to give new teammates to.

Of course, fate has different ideas about how things should go down. And by "fate" I mean "A completely ridiculous plot device." Team CFVY is separated because... the crowd is large I guess? It’s ridiculous. Four fighters already standing beside one another and who are now hyper-focused on staying together are not going to get swept away by a Shade size crowd who probably also want to stick with their own teammates. There are far better, far more convincing ways to keep them apart. Ozpin shot students one-by-one into the forest! Literally anything other than what we got, really.

Still, that’s what we wound up with. Yatsuhashi and Coco both try to keep the team together only for the immense power of other people existing putting a stop to their plan. Alrighty then. Before they’re dramatically swept away on different ships, however, we do get two other noteworthy bits of information that I'd like to end on. The first is Rumpole’s announcement that “When you reach your destination, your goal will be to locate a gold figurine and bring it back to the school” to which Fox replies, “Great. Glad this is fair for everyone. Who can see.” And you know what? He's right. Maybe Fox and I will both be proven wrong (I feel like I'm writing that a lot this chapter...) but unless there's some miscommunication here or a surprise in store, a goal of "locat[ing] a gold figurine" is indeed a sight based challenge and, when placed in a test that is deliberately separating Fox from his team, puts him at a severe disadvantage.

The second is simply that the year levels of the students will not be a factor in the creation of new teams. “What year we are? Yatsu thought. This can’t be right. How could a first-year keep up with fourth-years?” to which I respond, "Um... that's the entire show?" The webseries RWBY is about how Team RWBY, starting out as first years, has surpassed everyone around them, to the point where they're now beating the best team in Atlas. Time-wise they're still second years—far as I can figure out, anyway—so if second years can beat elite military operations, a first year can stand toe-to-toe with second, third, and fourth years. More crucial to Yatsuhashi's thought process—because as an in-world character he doesn't necessarily know what Team RWBY has been up to post-Volume 3—he's still seen how well first years did at Beacon. Ruby was let in two years early. Pyrrha is such a phenomenally talented fighter her face is on their cereal boxes. A first year, Yang, went on to compete in the Vytal Tournament final (even if it was rigged. Yatsuhashi doesn't know that), and Team CFVY fought beside a number of first years at the Battle of Beacon. Now, you all know that I think education and experience are damn important. I'm not saying Yatsuhashi is flat-out wrong to question whether there would be any issues attached to slamming, say, a first year, two second years, and a fourth year into one team (especially when you consider practical questions like going to classes), but the general takeaway of "How could they keep up?" seems a tad strange. You know first years can keep up. You watched it happen, both in your former school's curriculum—first years get to go on an upper-level mission—and in real life battle. This knee-jerk response reads as even worse after five chapters of looking down on Team SSSN. Team CFVY really thinks highly of themselves, huh.

Honestly, it feels like our authors didn't pay a whole lot of attention to the implications of the dialogue/thoughts they’re giving to the characters which is, again, par for the course at this point. Like the questions attached to the test, this feels less like giving Yatsuhashi a flaw (he, as an in-world character, hasn't bothered to think through whether his knee-jerk assumption about first years is supported by his experiences) and more like a flaw of the creators. That sounds like a legitimate concern—in the same way that Yatsuhashi's advice to Rumpole sounds generically wise—but poke at it a bit and you start finding a number of cracks. An author who is well aware of the world they've built and strives to adhere to it might have had Yatsuhashi acknowledge some of the amazing things he's seen first years do and still conclude that there are problems with this decision. That's legit. As it stands, Yatsuhashi just sounds ignorant and (again) overly confident, which I don't trust to be a moment of character insight as opposed to an authorial blip.

Which is about where we end. The team is split on different airships, no one is happy about it, and we're left with this somewhat unsettling image:

Headmaster Theodore was waving and whooping, like it was all some terrific game, while Professor Rumpole watched silently, her hair whipping around in the wind and an unsettling grin on her face.

This gives me some hope that the story will treat the problems attached to this test respectfully. The description of Theodore acting "like it was all some terrific game" is a mark against his character and Rumpole straight up has an "unsettling grin on her face." Is she one of the baddies? Potentially. Will I ever again get adult characters who aren't depicted as inept, traitorous, or just so flawed that they unwittingly cause great damage to their students? Probably not. These two desires remain constantly at war with one another. RWBY introduces issues that the story should tackle, but the only issues it acknowledges are those attached to the adults. So we have everyone doing a range of iffy things, but only the elders are likely to be punished or (better yet) learn something over the course of the tale. The double standard remains so strong across the franchise that at this point I just want to raise a THE ADULTS DID NOTHING WRONG banner and call it a day. Not because they're actually free of mistakes or even, at times, downright cruelty, but because if our protagonists constantly get that free pass I'm not sure why everyone else can't too.

Anyone for a spot of denial?

But I've now written nearly twice as much as the actual chapter in question. It's time to stop! At this rate I’ll have written the equivalent of five Before the Dawns in my attempt to recap just one. #yikes

Until Chapter Six 💜

#rwby #BTD Recaps #Before the Dawn #mymetas

22 notes · View notes

jonathan-cranes-mistress-of-fear · 5 years ago

Text

The Gotham Rogues and their Super-Pets (from the DC Super-Pets Character Encyclopedia)

Joker is first, and Harley share two hyenas. His is named Crackers. He got his name because Joker taught him to eat all of Harley’s saltines. And don’t forget about his clown fish! Harley got it for his birthday.

Harley’s hyena is named giggles. He loves to pull pranks and scowl. He’s only loyal to Harley, while Crackers listens only to Joker. Still not sure why they're green though, lol.

Oswald has his own flock of birds. Artie Puffin is the leader, followed by Waddles the penguin and Griff the vulture. “One toss of Artie’s high-tech dice means bad luck for any foe caught in their icy blast”

Bane as Osito the beat cub! He’s named after the stuffed animal Bane had as a child, and he even sports a similar mask to his master!

Catwoman has a Siamese cat named Rozz. He’s a master bugler just like his mother Selina, so beware when he is on the prowl!

Scarecrow, fittingly, has a murder of crows at his side! The leader is known as Croward (coward? get it?) He likes candy corn and has his own version of Fear Toxin called Scary Dust!

Poison Ivy has this weird chimera dog named Dogwood (named after the plant of course) Beware, because he has mind-controlling abilities!

Mr Freeze has Ice Bear! (and no, not the one from We Bare Bears) He’s a shy polar bear who likes forested doughnuts!

Ra’s Al Ghul owns a camel named Sandy. She actually drinks from the Lazarus Pits, which keeps her very healthy! She also has quite the stamina, storing fat in his hump so she can travel across the desert.

Otto the owl belongs to Riddler! He’s a genius just like Edward, With a sharp beak and wise mind, this bird helps Eddie plant his riddles across Gotham

Two-Face has a fiddler crab named Lefty. He looks like the splitting image of Harvey Dent. (and funny enough, he likes banana splits)

Mat Hatter owns a cat named the Mad Catter! He’s also a collector of hats, just like his owner Jervis. He bares a strong resemblance to the Cheshire Cat of Alice in Wonderland.

Clayface has a Geoduck named Goop. Goop loves to eat slime and has shape shifting powers just like Clayface, so be careful!

Killer Croc has two pets, a snake named Anna Conda (clever name) and a tarantula named Dr. Spider. Anna Conda is a good simmer and loves to accessorize with jewelry while Dr. Spider who develops evil weapons for Waylon!

406 notes · View notes

timbavatiwildlifepark · 7 years ago

Photo

Greetings friends and welcome to this week’s blog post! It’s been a chilly start to spring, you know with the blizzards and all! Don’t fret we have to get back to green pastures soon! I also have to talk to you guys about my most favorite part of spring! The babies! Like this little guy here named Brinkman! Brinkman here is already starting to create a small but mighty hump. Fun fact is, camels are born without them. They also can run within hours of being born. A female camel’s gestation period is 12 to 14 months. She typically will give birth to a single calf but on rare occasions can have twins. A male baby camel calf like brinkman here is called a bull calf. Baby camels weigh an average of 79 pounds at birth. This little guy will grow up to weigh around anywhere from 900 to 1300 pounds when he grows up. Camels also can travel as far as horses but with greater endurance. That’s the beauty of Timbavati WIldlife Park in general. There is always something new to see around here. The nursery area changes just as much as the weather does it seems. From pygmy goats to impeyan pheasants you never know which one of these critters is gonna add to their litters lol. Our opening day for General Admission is April 28th and don’t forget we’re running a kids drawing contest right now also! Until then, we’re open for guided tours daily at 11AM and 1PM. We will talk with you all next week!

2 notes · View notes

bestillmybeefyheart · 7 years ago

Text

Good morning friends across the globe, good afternoon evening and night to those who it applies.

It’s Wednesday. Hump day as some call it, I call it another day on the sofa for whatever is wrong w me that month day. I know its a longer name and finding a card for it is impossible but so is National I May Have Eaten Your socks and I’m sorry day but that doesnt stop me.

So... just a follow up on my world or summary since, you know, I have nothing else to say due to it being so early and my brain is not working.

Leg... doing well. I did 3x10 of my basic foot movement PT work yesterday (dorsal and planar movement, circles, writing letters and numbers). It wasn’t easy, I had to do it slow and not push, but I did it. And since I’m only down a week w my foot in the wraps after surgery not 2 months, it went well. Let’s only in minor discomfort today. I’ve also been putting more weight on it as it comes back to life so to speak. I’m excited, proud and anxious. If I’m going to do this I’m doing it right. Dr also said I dont need PT if I dont want it and that we could review in a month in case I hit snags. I think I can do all my home PT and be fine and once I can ride my bike I’ll be peachy. So good there.

My insomnia is there as always, but since I have the leg pain and some pain pills, Ive been timing my pills halved with my getting near bed time esp if I had a long time. Walking on crutches is literally more work then you’d imagine and by the end of the day I’m super sore as is my foot. So I sleep or med sleep for a few hours instead of being up all night a zombie. FWIW I am not dependent on the meds, I take them purely to stay ahead of pain esp as I push myself and my foot. Always halves and only as really needed. Been down the opiate addiction road before so I’m careful. Despite having zonked out just past 10 last night and waking at 645, I’m still a zomb today like I am every morning. I am not a morning person.

Folks are going out of town for a week starting today so I am dependent on my brother and Uber and what food is in my house. And what I can have delivered. As long as they dont shut off my internet before the date agreed (another story will share next) I’m good. I hope. I’ll be busy working my foot. I have a month of this before next appt. Its frustrating for sure, I feel ok, I want to get out, but I’m supposed to be letting my leg heal. Last time it was pain pain pain and the sofa was great. This time, I want off this crazy ride. At least I can get stuff and Uber. So thats good. And most of you would say “being home a month Dr orders and getting paid is a dream”. It was a year and a half ago. Now it’s just, I need out and a life, lets say that.

Internet... SOOOO, being home all the time, I hit my cap a lot, and before a few months back they didnt enforce it. Bring on the 4k, data flies out left and right, I hit my cap in 4 days of 4k binging, learning that 4K eats your bandwidth alive, esp in the older format. Note, YouTube runs 30-55MBps when playing 4K. Which is why theirs looks amazing. Sorry Apple TV 4K users, they dont support 4K in their YouTube app. (Or any app, their 4K is horrid, dont waste your money on the new Apple TV and if you doubt me, I have hard proof and 4 other peers who agree who are industry). So I call internet provider to see if I can get some help, a break, a discount, some small refund for overages. 7 year customer, they told me more or less screw you. So I told them to cancel my tv and internet and eat my butt. So I have till the end of the month to find a new plan. Or call back until I find a good employee who understands. They didnt even try, just told me tough. Id name the provider but lets face it, any provider name would fit in there. What sucks worst is, I am grandfathered into the most perfect tv package for $30 a month with ALL my channels minus BBCA and Freeform. And I can get my 2 FF shows off Hulu. And Doctor Who off iTunes. The same plan now to everyone else is $80, so Id lose that huge discount. And be stuck with OTA.

Tivo, collection and ocd. I have ocd, I have a desperate need to tivo and download everything I record, collecting shows and keeping track of episodes I’m missing. I will not be able to do that with anything but locals once this change happens. And none of the online streaming tv services let me save the files and convert for Apple TV use. Sad about losing that, it’s giving me bad anxiety. I’m still upset the provider couldnt be bothered to even begin to give a crap. Angry about it too. But I will make sure the new provider knows. I’ve already got one who has offered me a switching bundle that is half the cost of my internet now and free tv for 6 months. Of course they only offer 50/1 and I have 150/10 and use 6-8 of that 10 out every night. My security system can’t even run 1 camera off 1 out, and I have 5 running at night, 3 day, doorbell cam and 3 more in boxes to be mounted. So that is a problem. This whole thing is eating me inside. Which is why I want to get on my feet and biking, an hour or two on the bike is not only good for me physically but also emotionally and mentally. And its 1-2 hours Imnot using internet or watching tv.

Let’s see... I finished my chili sadly. 6 meals out of 1/2lb of meat, 1 can beans, 2 cans tomatoes and some Williams seasoning plus water. FTW. I just wish I had more I love me some chili. I could have made that last bowl be 2, ate more crackers but I had the last crackers so I ate all the chili. It was damn good. So worth it.

Lists... I missed this as I was not really “here” but I have to say this and its all I will say, making lists is bad, burn books, etc, any list that excludes no matter how well intended, is a recipe for disaster. Names that shouldn’t be there get put there, people are ruined, others worry they are on it even though they are good people, it ruins friendships and more. Hitler had lists. McCarthy had lists. Say no to bad people lists. Love you fellow man and woman and whatever you identify as, hug and talk and show them you are good and care, that is all that matters.

Stretch yawns - you know how great a stretch yawn feels? It doesnt feel so good when it makes your injured leg move in ways its not ready to move, tightens muscles that aren’t ready to tighten. And yet,I just did it and it felt good overall minus the foot pain. A good stretch yawn can solve world problems. its like a yoga move that your body just knows. :D

What else... Its 50f here. Sun is up and bright, so bright that the light coming through the door is so intense I thought the kitchen light was on and barked out an order to Alexa to turn it off. It didnt, I asked again, then realized DOH it’s sunlight. Silly windows. Lol. I’m old and slow so excuse me if I take a minute to catch up. I’m like watching a movie on a dialup modem, I take a long time, you have to watch me buffer a lot, but in the end I’m worth it. :D Ha, sorry couldnt resist.

Speaking of modems. I found out that AT&T throttles you when you’ve hit 10GB of internet usage via personal hotspots. (Was looking at it as a stop gap for home but I’d hit 10GB in a day.). They throttle you down to 2x 56k modem speed. Seriously. WTH? Its 2017, most major countries have crazy cheap and fast internet and no one is throttled. Here in the US, the providers run wild and unchecked and do whatever they want because they know you are screwed and cant do a thing about it. Sounds like our countries leader right? Except I cant call and cancel him. I wish.

Since its Wednesday, I was going to do a hump day picture, but my camel is in the shop. So here’s a gif of a goat instead.

Love, b

PS, get this, a search for “goat” in the GIF section here came up with NO GOATS. Its a goatsperacy!!!

Still love, b

9 notes · View notes

beenovel · 4 years ago

Text

Rules: Answer the questions [you can skip some if you don’t want to answer them] then tag 20 people.

Thanks for the tag @thewhiteladyofrohan

Name: Deb (not my full name, that’s all you’re gonna get though)

Pronouns: she/her

Star Sign: Capricorn

Height: idk, somewhere around 5′4 I think

Current Time: 11:08 am

Birthday: December 31

Nationality: American

Favorite Band/Groups: Hmmm, rn it’s Bleachers and Panic at the disco (we all know it’s just Brendon Urie lol)

Favorite Solo Artists: Hozier, Florence and the Machine, Jasmine Cephas-Jones

Song Stuck in Head: Hurricane Drunk by Florence and the Machine

Last Movie You Watched: Uncorked (1998)

Last Show You Binged: The IT Crowd

When you Created your Blog: right around the end of february

Last thing googled: was looking up something about frogs or mushrooms i think

Other Blogs: @elvish-sky @clotpoleofcamelot @full-time-disaster

Why I Chose my URL: uuhhhhh idk

People I follow: idk if it’s asking me the number or the specific people 12

Followers: 11

Hours of sleep: no regular sleep schedule

Lucky #: uh I like 3 but I don’t believe in lucky numbers

Instruments: none

Currently Wearing: pajama’s with little pale blue camels and palm trees with “hump day” on it

Dream Job: *starts crying violently immediately*

Dream Trip: Ireland

Favorite Food: anything with carbs or sugar lol

Favorite Song: aaaaaaaaa cannot pick!!!!! I’m currently listening to I Dare You by The Regrettes and I like that i guess lol

TOP THREE FICTIONAL UNIVERSES ID LIKE TO LIVE IN: Middle Earth, Camelot (bbc merlin), and Discworld!! (the good omens universe is up there too)

No pressure tags: @guardianofrivendell @entishramblings

Interview Tag Game!

Rules: Answer the questions [you can skip some if you don't want to answer them] then tag 20 people.

I was tagged by @vera-liscious [thanks bud]

Name: Mal

Pronouns: she/her

Star Sign: Libra

Height: 5'6 [167cm- 168cm]

Current Time: 8:21 am

Birthday: rather not say 😅

Nationality: American

Favorite Band/Groups: Stray Kids, BTS, Ateez [?], Day6 [?] I'm actually still getting to know about Ateez and Day6 but I like them.

Favorite Solo Artists: Jamie [Jimin Park] also still getting to know about her.

Song Stuck in Head: Going Dumb by Alesso x Corsak and Stray Kids. [literally me every 5 seconds: YOU GOT ME GOING DUMB DU DU DUMB DUMB DU DU DUMB SAYIN']

Last Movie You Watched: Tenet

Last Show You Binged: The Promised Neverland [anime] i think or maybe it was another one i can't remember

When you Created your Blog: end of December 2020

Last thing googled: idk some word definition

Other Blogs: @teambangtanboys [ for BTS stuff] @booksmoviesandstuff [for just books, movies, and other stuff I like]

Why I Chose my URL: tbh I'm not really sure just that I wanted it to have stay and stray kids written in it.

People I follow: idk if it's asking me the number or the specific people 22 people

Followers: 62

Hours of sleep: usually around 5-7 hours

Lucky #: none

Instruments: none

Currently Wearing: a pink, grey, and white sweatshirt that says honey on it with black pajama pants :]

Dream Job: still not sure :(

Dream Trip: New Zealand

Favorite Food: idk i like a lot of food

Favorite Song: there's waaay too many to chose from

TOP THREE FICTIONAL UNIVERSES ID LIKE TO LIVE IN: idk harry potter, Narnia, and idk what else

Tagging: @thewhiteladyofrohan @myhannieuniverse @hemeichu @chxngbin @sproutminmin @jiminho-s and idk who else.

308 notes · View notes

sylsabastian · 8 years ago

Text

The Little Pot on the Tiny Fire

Audio recording of this story: https://youtu.be/Zk9vHYbO9n8

[The following is a great conversation during which a few stories of my adventures, along with Dear Friend, are related. I could have edited out the rest of the conversation and left the stories only, but these types of conversation are a big deal to me. For decades, the only conversations of this nature were with my Dear Friend and companion in the stories. For me, this kind of conversation is exceedingly precious. I like to share them. When one is wandering in the wilderness, the certain knowledge that there is an oasis out there is extremely comforting. And where it starts is not where it ends...]

M: - Re: Theme- That's been one of the positives of FB for me, seeing the theme. Not so much creating one, and seeing it develop, like, this is your theme, even if the oscillations are wide and it takes a while for the pattern to repeat, it does, and shows me something I wasn't aware of before. I mean, I knew I liked cats... but really?!

S: - Yes, so yes. I love that we get to see parts of ourselves more clearly, and completely new ones. So awesome.

M: - It shows you your own interests, over time.

S: - Yes. Talking about reflection, it struck me that the Bushman post didn't garner any comments, just seems unusual somehow.

M: - Maybe the experience is sufficiently alien to most people that they didn't know how to hook onto it.

S: - Yes - that's one of the things I wonder. I figured for sure somebody would have asked me their names after my comment.

M: - Maybe if you showed a more universal point there.

S: - Yes - well, I make them for me, but there are quite a few more stories from that experience which are meaningful to me. Some are definitely more Universal. The entire issue of perspective, lol, much like the cat, was very different for the Bushmen.

M: - And, what do you mean when you say "the entire issue of perspective"?

S: - Ha sorry, I mean in that we assume how we perceive the world is the same for most humans, in basic things. but not so. I went...

M: - There's the point to latch on to.

S: - I went tracking with them quite a few times. We were on a private game reserve and new game had been brought in. We tracked them after release to make sure that they were ok as they were very expensive. The Bushmen were amazing at the tracking, they did it mostly on the trot, rarely stopping to examine the prints, only in extremely rocky terrain. It was evident from observing them that they were gleaning the information, as a whole, the way we listen to music for instance, or mostly do. ...

S: - Ah yes, longish story.

M: - This should all be incorporated with the other part, the crossbow part. And develop the question about what we know, and what we assume we know, about how we are alike and different. Sorry. Don't mean to coach.

S: - Ah - yes, I aim to make separate posts, otherwise it will be very long.

S: - No - I love it, it's awesome feedback - thanks, truly thanks.

...I noticed that they seemed to be doing the tracking on a non-conscious level, there certainly was no evidence of analysis, logical constructions, conclusions and so on. Of course I couldn't be sure, so I decided to test my hypothesis...

M: - Athletes call it the zone. Body-knowledge, allowing the unconscious processes to happen.

S: - I had a book of animal footprints. I showed this to them and asked them to tell me to which animals the footprints belonged. They were not even close. I tested with most of them separately, wanted to be as scrupulous in my testing as possible. They all were guessing. And they were wrong every time, it was fascinating.

M: - Yes, they are not thinking of it analytically, as in comparing to a picture.

S: - Yes. So I said nothing to them and individually went to a footprint I knew to be of an animal in the book I had asked about,

M: - Like when you can drive straight to a place in a big city, having been there only once before long ago, if you don't think about it. I never get lost, even in the woods, because I don't think about it. Truly.

S: - I took them individually, and asked them to tell me what they saw from the footprint. I got the most detailed analysis, that is was a female and that she was pregnant, which I knew to be true from the owners who had told me they had purchased this particular animal that way, to how fast she was moving and so on.

S: - And yes, I believe you about the woods, I will share an interesting perspective on that later.

M: - I've escaped great danger on more than one occasion by not-thinking. Suspending my mind and letting my body make the decisions, or like that.

S: - Anyway, I was observing them very very closely during this. All of them simply gave the footprint in question a glance and then proceeded to tell me all this information and more. Now if someone had asked me that same question I would have had to examine the print, analyse the depth and shape etc. etc. and then draw my inferences and conclusions. It was a great illustration of right and left brain thinking. Now the danger is here that we assume that it is necessarily a difference, no, it is simply a matter of practice. I taught myself to become an excellent golfer, to scratch, late in life, so it was a very conscious process, and we can learn to behave and operate similarly if we want to.

M: - That's so cool, Syl. You should write all that Bushmen stuff up in a piece.

It's like wholism.

S: - Yes, thanks, I will, when a story is relevant to be told it comes out - and this I thank you for a lot. Pulling them out.

M: - They were looking wholistically.

S: - Yes, I loved that about them, but it also had it's drawbacks many times. We really do need both I think, and from being with them that really helped me see that.

One more related little story while I'm on it...

S: - They eat everything, and I mean everything, from grasshoppers to donkey, doesn't matter what, they'll eat it. Ever the fascinated scientist and curious as hell I went and asked each and every one of them, separately and individually, which was quite the challenge in itself as they are very social, what their favorite things to eat were. Things plural, I didn't want to bias the results.

M: - And?

S: - The answers I got ranged tremendously, from Eland, to camel. The woman who liked camel made a point to explain that it was the humped back kind, not giraffe. In the common language we spoke those two had some similarities in the name. She had eaten giraffe also. But one thing was common, if it wasn't the outright favorite it was one of them, and this was wild donkey. It was hands down that particular group of bushmen's favorite food.

M: - I imagine the wild donkey was a relatively rare treat?

S: - So where we were, was on top of a very large flat mountain. There was a deep gorge and another flat mountain on the other side, well relatively flat anyway. I had seen some wild donkeys on the other side of the gorge and knowing it was their favorite and wanting to go hunting with them I asked if they would like to go hunting the donkeys the next day. It was late afternoon when I asked. They all were enthusiastic and very keen. I left with them expressing eagerness for the hunt the next day...

S: - Yes on the rareness of the donkey.

M: - Donkey is always better rare.

S: - When I came back the next morning all eager and ready to go, no-one was around really. They were kinda doing whatever and no-one had the least bit of interest in going hunting.

Lol on the rare - have a nice story about eating it later....

M: - I found the same with the Indonesians. Commitment of the evening would fade by daylight. And that was totally fine. Plans were ideas, not schedules.

S: - I was most perplexed at this lack of enthusiasm. Only one guy was sort of, more or less keen to go. So I went around and asked them. "But you were so eager yesterday, what happened?" and "Were you not really eager yesterday?" - the common reply, "Yes I was, but that was yesterday?"

They explained that yesterday when they said they were eager they meant it, but that was then, and now they were feeling differently...

M: - I still strive to live that way.

S: - Yes, it is quite awesome, always be Appropriate to the time of now.

M: - There are powers greater than myself to whom I must jump when they say. Of course, but much other stuff is self-imposed, and unnecessary. Your heart-mind, or whatever you call it, works best when you LET it work. Duh.

S: - Yes, definitely.

S: - Undaunted in my quest to go hunting with them, I waited for another morning when most seemed uninvolved and would be free to go hunting, and all were fairly close by. "Who wants to go hunting for wild donkey right now," I said so that they could all hear. I got an overwhelming enthusiastic response and everyone came to me ready to go.

M: - I'm typing on a TV tray, because I lent my desk to a friend who is staging a house for sale.

Great story! You have a knack.

S: - "Ok, let's go" I said, and nothing happened. Lol, they looked at me like I was crazy. I repeated that I was ready to go and started walking in the direction of the wild donkeys. More curious stares and still nothing from them. When I asked what's wrong they said to me as if explaining to a child: "But where's the Land Rover and the guns?"

M: - Oh no... LOOLOL

S: - Hahaha yes, it was so awesome. Stopped me right dead in my tracks. A-hole that I had been in all my assumptions lol.

M: - And Syl said, "To hell with that! I got a helicopter!"

Yeah, it's the approach. We all approach the same things, but in different ways.

S: - It took me the whole day to explain I wanted to go hunting with them using their bows and arrows, to learn how they do it, that I wanted to experience it for myself. This was incomprehensible to them. Why the hell anyone would want to do it in the most difficult way when an easier one was at hand was completely beyond them.

[...]

S: - Yeah - it was awesome. And I remember this every time I see people lamenting the loss of "traditional" ways. And the arrogance that goes with that. Lol, try living "traditionally" and then come and say the same.

They were a great bunch to be with.

M: - There's no "right" way. There are better or worse ways. The attraction of the formal as heuristic. "Right" is a mental shortcut for "best". But you gotta check back with the source occasionally. Make sure the situation hasn't changed.

S : - Yes - for sure.

S: - Oh lol, the Eating Donkey Story. So I had told the owners of the game reserve that donkey was their favorite food and asked if they could get some. They had chalets for tourists and my Dear Friend and I had a restaurant on the reserve, but only really had business on the weekends so spent the rest of the time with the Bushmen. The restaurant is another long story for another time. The owners sent some donkey which I was very happy to deliver to them.

M: - And it was the worst shite ever, I have NO doubts.

S: - Haha no, but wait, more to come lol.

They didn't cook it right away interestingly enough. They had unusual living arrangements, or lack of arrangements more accurately. Someone would make a fire, and their fires were the most marvelous examples of thrift and efficiency. They would cook a meal with wood maybe the size of a hand. The smallest stingiest fires you ever did see. Well, someone would start a fire as the mood or need took them and they had these tiny cast iron pots, not much bigger than two fists put together.

So I came to their camp and smelled something cooking and it was fantastic. Makes my mouth water even now thinking of it. I asked very politely and detachedly what it was. I didn't want to preempt them offering me some because they didn't have much. They told me it was the donkey.

M: - Man, I love the way you repeat the hand thing in both the fire and the pot. You are like a freakin' Hemingway sometimes. And the way to build up the expectation of the meat, the smell, salivating, all of it. You're a good writer.

S: - Lol, it smelled so incredible, and as was their way, every now and then someone would come by and simply help themselves and go on their way again. It wasn't exactly a communal pot, it was just accepted that it was ok and the privilege was never abused. There was no formality or rules to this sharing, it simply happened. It was most marvelous to observe.

S: - Lol and cool thanks.

M: - The teasing withholding of "detachedly." Are you plagiarizing this stuff?

S: - So the day goes by and my resolve to not ask them to taste the donkey weakens steadily until I cannot bear it anymore. I very cautiously and tentatively ask if I could, possibly, maybe, try a little bit of the donkey...

M: - It's like- no rules, because we'd know abuse when we see it?

S: - The woman who had cooked it leaves me without answering at all, and a few moments later bedlam breaks out in the camp.

M: - What the HELL...

S: - Now I am most distressed - what could I have possibly done to cause all the consternation. I see some of them going from one living space to the next, seemingly looking for something. There is much energetic discussion, something is obviously amiss.

Yes - my sentiments exactly. I have great affection for them and have always made every effort to be as respectful as possible. I am feeling the right heel and turd so I finally manage to ask someone what the problem is.

M: - No silverware!

S: - Yes. They explained, with much embarrassment and reluctance, that my request put them in an awkward position. They were most embarrassed to say but they sadly could not comply to my request. (The formality was very much a part of their reply.) Because no one in the camp possessed the appropriate crockery and cutlery as which was fitting to someone of my station.

M: - At which point, you snapped your fingers, and your general, seeing the sign, summoned the footmen to bring your silver service.

S: - Well I of course was completely flummoxed and also thoroughly relieved. "Ah, no worries, I said, "I'll just grab some out of the pot with my fingers if you don't mind." I had seen others do this so it wasn't rude in the context. But my relaxed happy comment and relief that it was such a trivial issue was short lived. Immediately I said that, bedlam once again broke out...

M: - Not more bedlam in the camp! You don't want me to have to start singing "Silent Night" do you?

S: - This time a more happy bedlam. They really were like a bunch of children oftentimes. The bedlam was more like when kids are really involved in something. The next thing I know, the entire group, even man woman and child, grandpa, grandma, the entire lot, were sitting atop and around Dear Friend and I. We were literally physically touching each and every one of them all at the same time. It was a most incredible experience and brings tears to my eyes relating it now.

Unbeknownst to me, my comment had had the most profound effect. They immediately understood that Dear Friend and I did not prescribe to that way of thinking, class thinking etc., and that eating from the pot was no big deal at all for us, just as it wasn't for them. Because of this realization, we instantly went from being "outsiders" to becoming part of the group. They were running their fingers through our hair as we sat all together like that, and pretty much everyone held my hand and some point, mostly it was a few hands at a time. They are a small people. They were absorbing us, getting the feel of us. They were taking us in. By getting as close as physically possible, we all became as one.

I was duly brought a piece of the donkey meat, on a chipped and cracked plate that to me then was one of the most beautiful pieces of crockery I had ever seen. And of course it was delicious, beyond delicious, I can most definitely say it was the most delicious meat I had ever tasted. And I can truly say, one of the hardest things I have ever done... was not asking for seconds.

***

M: - Beautiful story, Syl. Thanks for sharing it with me.

S: - Lol, sorry the typing is slow - that is the end of that story And truly my pleasure, thanks for listening. Wow thanks, I suppose when we communicate from so deep within it comes out good. That is why I love them, they almost always have that extra ending to them.

Lol and the flippancy helps me - I get a bit overwhelmed with these stories - they were, and are, intensely Profound for me. They are not just simply things that happened, they affect my life every day. They are constantly with me and influence everything I do.

M: - Yes, flippancy is good tool to deflect the brunt of emotional impact sometimes. I try to do it kindly, and in a respectful way.

S: - Yes, that intent is always clear to me. I'll clean it up and make a nice post of it later, thanks M, I have told this story quite a few times verbally, but never in type, and it came out very nicely, thanks a bunch, you helped a lot.

-Haha, btw, lots and lots more stories, it's been a wild ride, still is...

***

To me, these stories of mine are stories of spirit, or stories of the spirit, whichever one prefers, the spirit of man. The fact that they happened as related doesn't alter that. I can only really tell them when I am telling them to someone. Then it is easy, I have the motivation, which is otherwise lacking. I simply go inside to the memory, which is now much more clearly available to me, and relate it as it unfolds as best I can. The events have their own momentum and logic, I am a passenger mostly.

For me there is More to them also, much More, I don't mean in terms of the emotional experience, the lessons learned or the awareness gained, yes those are extremely powerful and profound, but there is More to it even than that for me.

When I came to the events in these stories, naïve and innocent as I sometimes was, that was not the whole of it. I had before then spent considerable time, and had made an inordinate and sustained effort to learn, to expand my Awareness, to understand the world and people and the abstract, and all things philosophical and religious and spiritual. This was not even a random effort, but a large cohesive project. I am relating this not because of some ego point or anything like that. What I did anyone could have done had they had the motivation that chanced upon me. That motivation made all the difference. I relate this purely to provide perspective for the point I want to make.

The root of the power in these stories for me is Goodness. All that effort of mine did make a huge difference yes, and it did change me enormously, but the key piece of the puzzle that I only came to realize much much later, was that I had actually started from a point of goodness. I had always been a good person. This was, and is, a profound realization. I was extremely motivated to expand my Awareness, to understand, to find that which I could apply in my daily life in order to enhance my living. And what I had found is all good.

But had I started with the understanding of my own goodness, the process would have been very different and much less wasteful. Being Good inherently doesn't mean we don't need to learn. Not at all, the learning is still the same, but if we know that we are good to start with we don't get stuck in the always learning perspective. I see this all the time in the electronic age. We are constantly searching, searching for that something, driven by the pressure of our lack of acceptance of our own goodness.

We don't stop to apply. In my stories that is the theme to me. Had I accepted my goodness, I would been looking around less at what to learn and been more focused on applying what I had already learned. That is a profound shift. It seems so simple. But it is not. Doubting one's goodness, or not even being aware of it, has enormous consequences. We end up in situations where this is the essential lesson. And not learning it causes all sorts of complications. We pay attention to what is not appropriate, we miss opportunities to apply. We waste energy and time in questioning and re-learning what has already been learned.

And it is not that I ever thought of myself as bad, no, never that, but it was not a conscious deliberate thought either, until much later. Being a good person, to me is about intent, desire and wishes. What we truly want for ourselves and for others, how we feel about others, how we relate to their successes and failures, their joy and their pains.

Being good alone is not enough, neither are life skills, or awareness or understanding. They need each other. Goodness without awareness leads to all sorts of trouble. We assume what is good for us is good for others and so on. And that is a large subject. The point here is that awareness, understanding, compassion, discernment and insight into people without the conscious awareness and acknowledgment of our own goodness also leads to problems. We never learn to enjoy what is, in all its marvelous excellence.

We end up chasing our tails trying to satisfy this feeling that we are missing something and all the learning, awareness and understanding in the world makes not one whit of difference. But once we do make peace with our own essential goodness, the entire process changes. Now the task becomes one of learning how to enjoy our goodness more. How to be more effective and judicious in the application of our goodness. How to be more responsible in its application.

This is the thread of spirit for me. Had I learned this more thoroughly a lot earlier I would have enjoyed my adventures so much more at the time. They would have been discoveries of how to enjoy my own goodness more, how to apply it and enjoy the connection to the goodness that was a constant throughout my adventures and still is. The learning and the lessons that were, and are, so fantastic would have been celebrated more and would have had even more significance. Of course this is a hindsight perspective but I see so so much unacknowledged goodness every day that it motivates me to communicate this.

The pure unadulterated Goodness of my Bushmen friends reminded me of this. Reminded me that simply Being Good is enough. Being Good is enough of a Doing Good. There is no need for more.

[A note on the photographs. They are of the place where we were. The picture of the woman accompanied by the man with a crutch is the woman who had cooked the donkey meat. And the antelope is the same kind as we tracked.]

Audio recording of this story: https://youtu.be/Zk9vHYbO9n8

More stories of my Adventures with the Bushmen:

http://syldinada.blogspot.com/2016/06/painting-cave-of-expectation.html

http://buff.ly/22Lb6In

#Acceptance into Group #Assumptions #Being Good #Bushmen #Game Tracking #Left Brain #Right Brain #Self-Goodness #Traditional Hunting

0 notes