#we ABSOLUTELY are missing cultural context to understand it though

[oldtvandcomics]

One quarter of the year 2023 gone. So far, I’ve read:

-) 3 nonfiction books (Handbook of Medieval Sexuality; By Your Side - The First 100 Years of Yuri Anime and Manga; Clothes Make the Man - Female Crossdressing in Medieval Europe)

-) 1 piece of classic literature (Roman de Silence)

-) 2 novels (Transistor; Consecrated Ground)

-) 0 novellas

-) 0 short story collections

-) 1 comic book (Dracula vs King Arthur)

[from-the-coffee-shop-in-edoras]

A Need of the Soul

Summary: Éomer is teaching Faramir how to speak Rohirric as a surprise for Éowyn. Come for Faramir being a sweet husband, stay for the emotional links to Boromir and Théodred. Oh, and for Éomer being a big horse dork.

Context: I pulled a JRR and wrote a whole story around a special word I like! More on that at the very bottom. You can read this without knowing any of my personal Rohan head canon, but just in case it’s helpful: In my world, Éomer is married to his childhood best friend, Mereliss. My Théodred (who you can read more about here or here if you’re interested) was a nurturing soul with a curious mind, and I may be obsessed with him. And damn it, my Éomer can absolutely read and write! (See here for why that’s the case in my HC.)

As soon as Éowyn left for the morning, Faramir pulled out his secret stack of papers, the ones he had started requesting from Éomer six months ago when he first decided to try learning Rohirric. He wanted to master the language as a surprise for Éowyn, ever conscious of how much she had sacrificed on his behalf when they married. Although he knew she loved Ithilien, he also knew that sometimes she still longed for the familiarity and comfort of home, for the people, places, and culture that were now many miles away. If he could bring some of Rohan to her in the form of her language, he hoped he could brighten her heart on those days when she looked most in need of a reminder of all that she missed.

With this goal in mind, he had thrown himself wholly into the pursuit, but the process was more difficult than he had hoped. The Rohirrim didn’t keep written records in their own language, nor did they have textbooks or primers made to learn from. All Faramir had were the pages that Éomer would write out and send to him every few weeks, using Westron to describe basic grammar rules and listing common Rohirric words and phrases by their definitions and rough pronunciations. Working from written materials to learn a language that was only taught orally was maddeningly difficult, and Faramir spent long hours alone at his desk laboring at the exercises Éomer sent, unsure if he was even getting close to the sounds he was attempting to produce.

At least he would be aided today by the presence of Éomer in person. The king of Rohan was coming to Gondor to take counsel with his allies on military matters, and he had agreed to make time for some lessons while his own wife, Mereliss, kept Éowyn occupied in furtherance of the surprise. With Éowyn gone now to meet her sister-in-law, Faramir looked down his lists of Rohirric words and tried to commit a few more to memory, repeating them slowly out loud to himself while he waited for Éomer.

“If someone back home heard you slur your way through those words like that, they might assume you were a drunkard.”

Faramir looked up to see Éomer smirking at him from the doorway, still dressed in his riding clothes and holding a small pack. “Well, if the performance of the student falls short, I think we have no option but to blame the instructor,” Faramir returned with a smirk of his own.

“A fair point, I will grant you.” Éomer strode in and tossed his things on an empty chair before pulling Faramir up into a strong embrace, thumping a fist on his brother-in-law’s back with enough enthusiasm to knock the breath out of him.

When they separated, Faramir smiled and held up his stack of papers. “I do appreciate all of this. It’s a lot of work for me, but for you, too, I’m sure.”

Éomer gave a dismissive wave. “I have the easy part. Besides, there’s some benefit to me in all of this, as well. I’ll certainly enjoy the show the next time you visit Edoras and all the ladies at court discover that you can actually understand their scandalous comments about how handsome they find you. Your admirer’s club is in for a big shock.”

They both laughed, though Éomer noted the flush of pink in Faramir’s ears and cheeks and that only made him laugh all the harder. “Don’t let them see you blush, you’ll only make it worse!” He plopped down into a chair and put his feet up, smiling.

As Faramir took a seat across from him, he felt a warm, familiar echo in his heart. The easy camaraderie, the good natured teasing balanced with true affection…it couldn’t help but bring Boromir to his mind. Faramir still missed his brother every single day and looked for reminders of him everywhere that he could. But he didn’t think it was a stretch to see clear elements of Boromir reflected in Éomer–in his strength and brashness, his earnest intensity, his fierce loyalty. They were both proud men of action with an unshakeable sense of duty and love for family. Éomer could never replace Boromir, and he was surely his own man, different in many ways from the brother Faramir lost. But it lifted Faramir’s spirits to once again have such a figure in his life.

Now his brother-in-law reached into his pack and pulled out more pages, covered from top to bottom in his own scrawly handwriting. “I’ve brought you some more to learn–words you’d hear often around Rohan and that any self-respecting Rohirrim would know.”

Faramir accepted the papers from him and skimmed his eyes down the first page, but a look of confusion slowly built on his face as he read. “Am I understanding this correctly? Why do you have twenty different words for ‘horse’?”

“I have not given you twenty words for ‘horse’! Each one of those means something very different.” Éomer grabbed the page back and pointed. “This one here, éotynde, this is an old, calm mare that would be suitable for a young child just learning to ride.” He pointed again. “And this one, éoweder, is a high spirited horse that has quickness and agility but is unpredictable and difficult to control. The others are equally unique. Do you not see?”

Faramir gently extracted the page back from Éomer’s grip, hoping to avoid a further explanation of each specific variant on the list. “I understand those distinctions, but are they really significant enough that I require a whole separate word for each one? We make do in Gondor with but one term. A horse is a horse.”

“A horse is a horse?” Éomer gaped at him, incredulous. “You think the language of the Rohirrim would put a courier horse, whose purpose is swiftness and endurance, in the same category with a farm horse, who sacrifices speed in favor of strength and power? They aren’t remotely the same thing, and a proper language wouldn’t treat them as such. If we went by your rules, we’d all be calling the blacksmith a baker because they both make things with heat!”

It was obvious from the truly scandalized look on his face that Éomer would never concede the point, so Faramir held up his hands in smiling capitulation. And if all these varieties of horse were important to Éomer, likely they would be to Éowyn as well, so Faramir would learn them as best he could. But he desired to speak to Éowyn of many things, and horses were nowhere near the top of the list. He shuffled through the papers one more time. “Have you finally given me anything that would be suitable to say to a beloved wife?”

Éomer shot him a look. “I am not the right person to consult for words of romance. And certainly not when the woman to be romanced is my own sister.”

Faramir laughed. “Fair enough. Let’s get back to your many words for ‘horse’ and I will ask Mereliss to help me with some more emotional thoughts later.”

Éomer sat back, satisfied. “I will have you sounding like a Rohirrim in no time. Now, do you know the word for a horse that likes to cause trouble in the stable with the other horses?”

**********

The next morning, Faramir spent two hours with Mereliss while Éomer and Éowyn went for a ride. When the siblings returned, Éomer sent Éowyn to Mereliss’s quarters and went himself to check on Faramir’s progress. He found his brother-in-law once again at his desk, bent over his work, and dropped casually into a nearby chair.

“Did you get all of the flowery and eloquent phrases you need?”

Faramir put down his pen and smiled. “Mereliss helped me to write a special toast to Éowyn for our upcoming anniversary. I knew what I wanted to say, and Mereliss made sure it will sound not just like a bunch of Westron bluntly converted into Rohirric words but rather something that was written by a native speaker. Something truly of Rohan. She has quite a talent for beautiful language and imagery.” He gave a sly smile. “Though she told me that you also have something of a poet’s heart when the two of you are alone in your own chambers.”

Éomer’s head snapped up, a tinge of dark red sweeping across his cheeks. “She told you what?”

Now it was Faramir’s turn to laugh at his brother-in-law’s furious blushing, so out of character for one who was otherwise always self assured and confident. Faramir had faithfully reported Mereliss’s remark, and it was clearly true that Éomer really did speak his softest thoughts to her or he would not be so flustered by the possibility that she had shared those thoughts. But Faramir had no need or desire to prolong Éomer’s self-consciousness.

“There is nothing to worry about. I know only that you are capable of words to enchant and delight your wife, which is no bad thing. But she didn’t reveal what those words are. She wouldn’t betray your privacy, and I would never ask her to.”

Éomer’s shoulders noticeably relaxed, and he laughed a little at his own embarrassment. “Well, your discussion of my clumsy attempts to please my wife aside, I am glad that she helped you. Westron is very useful, but there are some things that just cannot be said as effectively without our own words and expressions.”

“Indeed. She gave me a number of things that I quite like, ways to convey entire concepts with a single word that has no direct equivalent in any language that I know. Like sáwolthearf. Every language should have such a term.”

Sáwolthearf. The word sent a wave of fond remembrance through Éomer’s heart. It translated literally as ‘a need of the soul’ and was used in Rohan to mean someone who is necessary in order for another person to feel truly happy and complete. His late cousin Théodred, who had always been so free and generous in expressing his feelings, used to call his bride-to-be sáwolthearf, and Éomer could easily picture Eadlin practically glowing with love and pride whenever Théodred referred to her that way.

To hear Théodred’s words coming now from Faramir’s lips was no great shock to Éomer. On the contrary, it only intensified a feeling he had long had in the presence of his brother-in-law: a sense that he was not with Théodred himself, but with a kindred spirit of his cousin. Someone whose modesty, eagerness for knowledge, gentle heart and dreamer’s mind so thoroughly echoed Théodred’s own nature that Éomer felt immediately at ease in his company. Théodred had been many things to Éomer–a deeply loved cousin, but also much like an older brother and at times even a father figure–and he had carried Éomer through some of the most difficult moments he would ever experience. Éomer could never truly reconcile himself to Théodred’s loss, but having Faramir in his life helped to salve that wound.

Watching Faramir now—shuffling again through his notes and drafts, applying himself so diligently to such a difficult task and all for the purpose of simply making Éowyn smile—Éomer was struck by a profound feeling of gratitude, one that he felt should be voiced even if it was not normally in his nature to speak of his innermost feelings. He cleared his throat, and Faramir looked up.

“What you’re doing for my sister is very admirable. I know it will mean a lot to her, and for that reason it means a lot to me. Thank you, eyre-brothor.”

Faramir frowned slightly and looked back at his papers. “Eyre-brothor? I don’t think I’ve learned that yet.”

Éomer smiled. “It means ‘brother by choice.’ Write that one down.”

**********

[Language nerd notes:

“Sáwolthearf” is a real Old English word (though I modernized the thorn in the middle for readability–it’s actually “sáwolþearf”) and it really does mean “a need of the soul,” which I just think is incredibly beautiful.

I made up “eyre-brothor” by combining two other real Old English words, “eyre” (“a choice made of free will”) and “brothor” (“brother”, though once again I turned the thorn in broþor into a “th” to make it smoother to modern English-reading eyes).

“Éotynde” comes from an approx combo of “eoh” (“horse”) and “tyende” (“teaching”) for a horse that’s calm enough to be good for beginners.

Éoweder comes from an approx combo of “eoh” (“horse”) and “weder” (“weather”) because to be impressive but quick-changing, unpredictable and uncontrollable is to be like the weather.

And it’s not in the story, but Éomer’s word for a horse that likes to cause trouble in the stable with the other horses is an “éodrefa” from “eoh” (horse, again!) and “drefan,” which is “to stir things up or cause mischief”.]

[downthepub]

Something that I love about this season of Good Omens, but am not quite sure how to articulate, is the way characters who don't understand the context clues are treated. Like even when that's used to keep them in the dark, it's never treated as something mockable or stupid (except perhaps by Metatron!).

Gabriel's amnesia makes him not know anything, and so things have to be explained to him. He has to be wrangled, to protect himself and others, but he's not "stupid" just because he doesn't know things.

Shax needs tone explained and constantly has things about Earth and human culture that she doesn't understand. Even when Crowley is exasperated and doesn't feel like explaining, he doesn't seem to think that makes Shax stupid, or less dangerous, or anything else.

And then we have Muriel being *really bad* at her scripted "human" interactions, but it seems like the only person who really looks down on her for that is Metatron.

And of course there's Aziraphale with his incredibly literal reading of situations and people and what's true and what's not true. It is a very rigid binary. And obviously even social injustice is just part of the ineffable plan and an opportunity for people to rise to the challenge! He believes what he is told, and when he finds out something isn't true, it's a big adjustment for him. He can stretch it and make his own choices about right and wrong, and he reads situations much better with more experience under his belt, but there's still a part of him that absolutely believes what he's told, at least in that first moment. And the truth is really important to him. Like Crowley lying to him, he knows and needs to reassure himself that it's a lie, and he also keeps trying to get Crowley to affirm that. (You're really good, etc.)

And even with all their experience, neither Aziraphale nor Crowley seem to grasp that relationship issues for Nina and Maggie could have something more to do with outside things than just about what the two of them could / should / might feel. Love is a simple 1+1=2 that they never question. Obviously humans fall in love, that's what they do! The fact that one of them is already in a partnership, the other one has forced herself to accept that and not act inappropriately, well it simply doesn't register on their radar. Somehow they've missed this complexity of human interaction that would be clear to most people at a glance. I don't think they're actually dismissing the lived experiences of Nina and Maggie or trying to ride roughshod over their lives as much as it simply doesn't even register to either of them that things are more complex than they currently understand. It really does need to be explained for them to begin to understand.

Then there's the poor guy who has to keep asking questions because something *doesn't make sense* or isn't consistent, even though he gets punished for speaking up, over and over.

So, to me, many (most?) angels and demons are basically coded as being on-the-spectrum, IMO. It's nice to have that not be the butt of the joke, just part of the humor and cultural clash and conflict. For instance how Muriel is not a "stupid low-level angel" to Azriphale and Crowley, but more like "a dangerous, if currently ignorant, problem we have to stay ahead of." Even when they're tricking Muriel it's feels more respectful and humane than when Metatron acts like she's just stupid (even though she's useful to him).

I don't quite know where I'm heading with this but I love seeing it. It's like a breath of fresh air to have characters who are absolutely missing the "normal" cues, and not have that simple fact overshadow everything else about them.

[eddieydewr]

The irony in Noah being called an anti-Palestine Zionist even though he said he hopes for their peace and distinguished between them and Hamas. . . Do these people purposely twisting his words not know anything about Hamas? Do they think that equating all of Palestine and its people with Hamas is a good thing? I'm at a loss looking at his tag and this fandom. Terrorism is wrong no matter who's doing it and acting like he's said this out of nowhere instead of referencing a very specific event is mind-boggling. Did the mention of Israel suddenly throw all compassion and understanding out the window? Are we not allowed to feel for all innocent lives lost, whether they be Palestinian or Israeli? I don't understand. The callous disrespect for human life is scary to witness. Anyone that supports Hamas supports the extermination of the Jewish and Palestinian people, because Gazans will never be free under terrorist rule and will instead suffer the most no matter what and it is within Hamas' political doctrine to kill the Jews. But sure. Let's all focus our anger on a teenager and act like he called for genocide. If he had omitted "Israel vs terrorism" would they still be so mad even though he was obviously talking about Hamas and what they did recently and still managed to show support for the Palestinian people? Sorry for the essay.

👆👆👆 i think they’re too angry and jumping the gun to really take in what noah wrote. there are people who are already biased against noah, and there are people who can’t or won’t accept nuance. so they’re firm in their conviction that noah is a zionist. they’re also very nitpicky with what noah said; they believe he’s saying palestinians AND muslims are terrorists. the 40 babies being killed is supposed to be misinformation but there is a lot of misinformation, missing context and propaganda flying about - it’s an ongoing event so the incoming news and updates are endless and people will get some things wrong, even without malicious intent. even the most educated people are unable to form their thoughts, so what chance do ordinary people have? even noah who is smart enough for UPenn, but he’s majoring in economics (i think), not geopolitics and such, so he’s supposed to be quiet because he’s not educated in that area, according to twitter activists. i don’t necessarily agree, because he is jewish and he’s worried about his cultural homeland. he also sympathises with palestinians but it’s just not good enough, i guess. we’re supposed to say something but we also should shut up because we’re not educated enough but we’re evil if we’re silent cos that means we side with the oppressors!! we can’t win.

anyway, streets are saying it was a friend who wrote that insta post and they asked noah to share it. whoever wrote it, it’s a sensible, thoughtful post and the backlash is over the top. reading comprehension is out of the window and noah seems to be public enemy number one on my twitter timeline. they talk about him like he’s absolutely vile and akin to a dictator, like he’s responsible for the long history between israel and palestine. the backlash against ST cast members like brett, jamie bower, and cara buono seems nothing in comparison. and we all know why.

[wellwornwornwell]

A Hatred of Clothing

I recently revisited a wonderful essay by Jon Baskin in The Point, entitled “On the Hatred of Literature.” The piece, while decidedly focused on the criticism of a specific author, did a wonderful job of underscoring the temptation to contextualize and nuance a work of art beyond meaning – attempting to create a crystal-clear, microscopic image by zooming in as closely as possible through opaque and rigid layers of one-way glass.

Baskin points to New Historicism – “…the prevailing school of literary interpretation (that assumes) artworks were primarily of value insofar as they could offer us insight into the context and conditions of their historical production” – as the vehicle most readily employed by academics who, in his words, “hated literature.”

It should come as no surprise to my fine followers that I read on an eighth-grade level. Accordingly, it’s almost entirely certain that I missed the point of this eloquent, poignant, and… I’m sure some other “-ent” piece of criticism. Unfortunately for you, you’ve already started reading this. So, slide your seatbelt off and wait for impact. Being thrown clear is your only hope.

The need to contextualize and rationalize any work of art – those we see, those we wear, those we eat, etc. – is, at its heart, rooted in a sense of insecurity. There is a necessary level of vulnerability that comes with enjoyment. You must let yourself go. Find a bright confidence in freedom. One that can’t be tinted by ambiguity.

But that’s scary. There are no roads in the middle of the woods, so surely we’re lost.

Of course, there is utility in understanding the context of art. In clothing, especially, we see that there are very real connections between concepts of class, society, socioeconomics, etc. and the clothing we wear (and don’t wear) today. There’s just no escaping the implications, both subtle and tangible, of certain garments. 

We tell a story when we get dressed. And just like any good author, we construct the narrative for each and every uneducated passerby. That doesn’t mean there isn’t ambiguity in these tellings or that more learned observers won’t revel in the details, but validation of literacy is always the primary goal when we step out.  

Where we start to get into dangerous territory is over-distilling the story or, worse yet, revising the narratives our clothes tell the world. We see this readily within more recent conservative movements, wherein “classic tailoring” is extolled as the epitome of bygone values.

Of course, this is all bullshit. I’ll slap the shit out of Nazi wearing a suit just as quickly as I would one in a spiked cutoff vest with bright red swastikas.

But this does betray the other end of the spectrum. Baskin is sure the hatred for literature is borne from leftist elitism and a desperate inability to enjoy anything, knowing the blood spilled to reach that point in history. These academics now walk on eggshells, even though they’ve been eating omelets all their lives.

In contrast, we see right wing insecurities on full display in their hatred for clothing. They care not about the artistry of design, the integrity of the manufacturer, the evolution in thinking and culture that created their Norman Rockwell acceptance of the world. Unlike leftist academics – hell-bent on over-analyzing every concept, every motif, every allusion – today’s conservative commenters tether a weak understanding of clothing to a loose mooring constantly battered by shifting (and conflicting) tides of traditionalism. There’s no solid ground for anything other the performative instinct to “dress like a man.”  

And yet, while opposites in motivation, the underlying impulse is identical: a lack of confidence in anything, namely themselves. It’s much easier to quote a philosopher than it is to experience conclusion. It’s much easier to beguile a setting from afar than it is to travel there. 

The beauty of the world is its lack of absolutes. C.R.E.A.M. – Context Rules Everything Around Me. While perspective is important in appreciating art, one cannot let the popular opinion of its legacy shape personal significance. You must experience things and form your own opinions. You must find confidence in dark places and take the road less traveled while also refusing to let the less traveled road be the cross upon which you die.

Enjoyment, contentment, acceptance. These are concepts that are incredibly hard to measure and even harder to replicate. But they are certainly not feelings that arrive through over-analyzed correlation or haphazardly concocted causation. You must allow yourself to be moved, to be inspired, to be drawn to something. To dress and act and do what you like; what you feel is right.

Human existence is what you make of it. A balance. There’s simply not enough objectivity to convincingly hate anything. Or anyone.

Go get dressed.

[marengogo]

Tae is not the victim here, it's jimin that was called fanservice king, that forced jungkook to do the show, when it's clearly a vminkook decision. Also people think that jikook is fanservice and Taekook the private couple. So why you're mad only for Tae? Vminkook has 3 members, don't forget.

Hello there Anon,

I was going to take you to the Colosseum but, as I read your question again, I realised that it would be unfair, because from where I stand, it is as if you just walked into the arena but have no clue where I am. Am I to your right? Am I to your left? Am inside the ground beneath you? Am in the sky above? As you “can” see … it’s not quite fair, is it?

But it’s okay, not to worry, I’ll come closer to where you are and explain a couple of things. I know that from where you stand it all seems so simple as Taekookers vs Jikookers, however, I can assure, that from where HYB3/BH stands it is also a simple matter but of a very different nature, and believe me when I tell you that at the very core of it all, HYB3/BH doesn’t give a fuck about shippers for various reasons, cause if they did, you and I would not be having this conversation; I can guarantee you that. That being said, below is what you are probably experiencing as I write: 

Birdbird App ARMY: *celebrating because shippers are going to have a meltdown*

Shippers: *some are having a meltdown*, *some are bringing out their fanservice essays*, *some are jumping ship*, and *some are rejoicing at their “enemies” having a meltdown*

Solos: *Already using this to sponsor their propaganda and keep marching on*

ARMYs like me: Wondering why they’d do Tae like this.

All the above, including ARMYs like me are all very International-ARMY problems, to be more specific, Bluebird App International ARMY problems. They are the ones that live because they also see it but don't act upon it unless truly necessary the vitriol, the fanwars, the absolute drama that unfolds EVERY 👏🏾 FUCKING 👏🏾 DAY👏🏾. Every day there is an anti with a minimum 10k, to a maximum of 90k, likes hit tweet on that blasted platform. Everyday there is someone associating a member of VMINKOOK to SA, and everyday there is a person like you concluding that the information found on international social media is good fuel to use and start being confrontational within your little well, where other little frogs like yourself will eventually meet, but ... not the members, nor the company. 

Cause you see, whatever VMINKOOK said in the entire video wasn’t wrong at all. These are videos that are checked over and over and over for their South Korean audience, but only once for their international audience. When it comes to I-ARMY the questions they ask themselves are: Does it make sense? Is what we are saying generally offensive? Is the point of what we are trying to say met? AND THAT IS ABOUT IT. Questions like: Is any of the members going to be dragged on twitter because of what we say? Are we promoting one ship over the other? Do we perhaps need to provide more context to what we are saying as international people’s understanding of our culture is somewhat different from theirs YES, WE WOULD REALLY APPRECIATE IF YOU COULD ACTUALLY?

They are obviously not caring about any of I-ARMY bluebird app and other social media dilemmas, though they really should consider the last question in my opinion, only for I-ARMY mental health if anything. Because our unfortunate truth is that they passed all the SK culture "questions", as there really was nothing wrong with what they said except that with the english interpretation it was all lost in translation and what we know for fact to be a Jikook show, is now misunderstood to be a VMINKOOK show, so as you can see, the only person who will logically take the brunt; is Tae honestly I really don't care about none of the shit that happens in Verona, you can miss me with that shit.

Don’t get me wrong, Solos and Shippers will find a way to make it about JK and JM: FOR SURE. But that is between them and their tiny well and if they ever cared to come out of it, and expand their horizons they might live a bit of a lighter existence, I think, but I don’t know, you see, I am talking to you from outside the well: so ... care to come out? I could use some help while trying to ask HYB3/HB to please please please pay a bit more attention when translating things for international audiences. Just for our mental health you know?

Always respectfully yours,

Marengo.  

[discluded]

On MA and fanservice. Seems like discussion in anglophone spaces misses cultural expectations - many things MA do and say are expected of them as being a cp (even for het cp). Many actors in the thai BL world are very obviously queer - they dont hide, they just dont come out. Unpopular opinion, I honestly do think these couples (when both are queer) are getting together at the same rates as the het cps. Its human nature to like a person who is compatible with you and shares your interests.

[context]

FOR THE RECORD, I think most of his research happened in 2021 or early 2022 so like, MileApo would not be a blip on his radar during the time he would be talking to industry insiders. 🤷🏻‍♀️ Also hilariously just, take his big-headed declarations with a grain of salt. Appreciate it for what it is, but he got into a feud with one of my RL friends about Johnny's fandom a couple of months ago so 🤣 he's very self-important about how he has ~insider access too

Friend, I don't feel comfortable legislating morality. When it's a matter of fandom history / context with multiple perspectives discussed, sure, but in many instances, I don't know you might extrapolate approval or disapproval.

Also, this is not chastisement so don't take it as such, but I want to encourage everyone to be more confident in their own opinions.

If you don't feel it's wrong, like the tone of your message implies, then you don't need my or anyone's approval. And if not seeking validation of your opinions is hard for you sometimes, then practice!

I feel strongly about mentioning this since your message came in the context of me mentioning HP fandom history and toxic fandom participants, and I have no qualms highlighting who some of these people are and what they did when they took advantage of others with their more assertive personalities.

One such individual is thanfict!on (lol don't want them to find me) but this person not only caused drama in HP and other fandoms but also led a cult that eventually led to the deaths of some cult members. (See the fanlore article I linked about them.)

In regards to practicing cult/groupthink protective behaviors, it also help buffer against political propaganda.

But to answer your question: 1) it's not criminal in any way nor is it hurting anyone to believe such a thing and 2) as long as you are aware that an opinion about the people's relationships [general] is irrelevant to how those relationships actually are and don't get angry when there's evidence pointing to otherwise, then it's fine. A . absolutely asinine example of this was I once saw a person said their "opinion" was that Mile was closer to Build than to Apo... *makes Oprah "see" gesture*. Or the toxic solos who keep insisting that Mile and Apo barely tolerate each other, though their narrative is always a mess.

In many cases, we don't know the specifics of people's relationships with each other, and as long as you understand your own opinion has no effect on that actual relationship, there's no problem if you think one way or another. 🤷🏻‍♀️

For the record, I think my opinion is perfectly clear :) I trust y'all ability in reading comprehension. I just don't believe in telling people how to think or guiding them to a conclusion. I have faith in your abilities to do what's right for yourself.

The lovely thing about having differing opinions but civil conversation is that we can still respect each other and disagree! No harm, no foul. Some things set me off more than others, and we all come from contexts in which certain things are more sensitive than others.

[margridarnauds]

fanfic writer emoji ask: ✍ 🎢 👀

✍ Do you have a beta reader?

For a while, I did, and they were and are great (we have not had a falling out! We are still friends!), but real life kind of got in the way for both of us, and that's fine. Sometimes, I do miss having someone look over my stuff so that I know I don't sound insane, but it's fine.

🎢 Which of your fics would you call your wildest ride?

I feel like "wildest ride" could mean so many different things. Like, content wise, just on the basis of it existing? ABSOLUTELY A Soft October Night, mainly because I don't think I'd ever gone as far as "Incest Murder Threesome" before. (I will make no promises that I won't do so AGAIN, but it definitely is a shocker from the usual.)

Though this is ALSO from the same creative team that brought you "Romeo has sex with the personification of Death on a crucifix" and "Ronan and Lazare have sex on a printing press" (which seems MUCH tamer compared to the other two), so, really, you can pick your poison.

As far as plot? Either The Midnight Mass or Pour la Peine, depending on if you think "Ronan discovers his old friends are zombies that want to kill him" or "The Thing that happens in Pour la Peine that changes the whole plot" is more shocking. (Personally, I am still REALLY proud of that twist in PLP, since I'd sat on that for years.)

If you're talking about in a crackficky sense? ...I mean. Goosefic. Goosefic. The fic that solidified my reputation in the 1789 fandom. If I say so myself, every single fic I've listed before that has some larger motivation for why it's Like That. Goosefic was just me reading a writing prompt and thinking "I want Lazare to get chased by a pissed off goose." And it is beautiful.

👀 Tell me about an up and coming wip please!

I don't think it's a SECRET I'm working on writing out my playthrough of BG3, or at least. Key parts of it. (I am NOT. Novelizing. An 125 hour playthrough. Yet.) I have about 11k words into it at the moment, but I'm not publishing a word of it until it's in a place where I know I can very likely finish it, or at least make a dent. We are NOT doing that thing where I just publish one chapter, hit a major bout of writer's block, and can't go through with it. (I can't make any promises for AFTER one chapter.)

It deals, primarily, with Kitrye's Happy Fun Times in the game, her ongoing verbal game of cat and mouse with Raphael, her relationship with her sister, and her relationship with her culture, as well as her overall development during the course of the game. (I don't really consider it a spoiler, given I put it in an actual gifset, that Kitrye breaks her oath as a paladin at one point -- there is a LOT dedicated to the circumstances around that and how it changes the game, even though that's a late development.) A spoiler that literally only you and a couple of people will understand and so I can give without any worry is:

"Ich will dich nicht, ich brauch' dich nicht. GEEEEEEEEEHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH."

(Honestly, thus far, it's looking like how I'm writing out every act is taking inspiration from something else. Like, if Pour la Peine and its related stories drew a lot of inspiration from the Evilious Chronicles, I would say that the third act in particular is very, very Elisabeth tinted if you know where to look; second act is looking to have at least one scene inspired by a very memorable moment from one of the branches of the Mabinogi; and the first act, which is still the roughest, is a little bit more up in the air, with all of them borrowing at least a LITTLE bit from The Last Trial.)

Of course. It would be much easier to work on it. IF I HAD MY GAMING PC THAT COULD RUN THE GAME SO I COULD DOUBLE CHECK MY FILES. MY CUSTOM MADE GAMING PC THAT I CHOSE EVERY SINGLE PART FOR SO THAT IT COULD BE A MONSTER AT RUNNING GAMES.

(I'm cool, I'm chill, I'm fine.)

Anyway, have the Symryvvin girls, out of context. (Malla 🤝 Raphael: Being in an eternal state of Done.)

[kaile-hultner]

THE SPECTACULAR LEVIATHAN

an essay about criticism and culture

ed sheeran doesn't need music critics

Rolling Stone published an article of cut content from a recent Ed Sheeran feature, in which the pop musician said, "Why do you need to read a review? Listen to it. It’s freely available! Make up your own mind. I would never read an album review and go, ‘I’m not gonna listen to that now.'"

And to some degree, Sheeran is right. Streaming services make music readily available and conjure the illusion that it's also freely given to us. We don't "need" cultural gatekeepers - such as, ironically, Rolling Stone - to tell us whether or not the newest song by Ed Sheeran is bad (that's just a deeply felt sense we hold in our bones, which Spotify or Apple Music can help us confirm at our leisure).

But like most criticism-of-criticism in this vein, Sheeran's point misses the forest for the trees. We absolutely don't need critics to tell us whether "thing good" or "thing bad," but that's not necessarily why critics even exist in the first place. In addition to that sort of mere qualitative statement, critics exist to help us understand context, like how financially deleterious the very existence of streaming services is to the artists themselves, for example, or how subscribing to a streaming service means that your music collection is never actually yours and can be revoked by the record companies at any time. Critics can help to place Sheeran in his historical context as a contemporary singer and songwriter, or offer more palatable, lesser-known alternatives to his vapid art. Critics could, if they wanted, try to situate Sheeran's songs in a political context, though I could not tell you how that would shake out to save my life.

Sheeran is not the only person to make that mistake, by any means. The idea that critics are unnecessary today except as objects of derision or agreement is popular, and the idea that criticism is only there to tell you whether "thing good" or "thing bad" is even upheld by people responsible for making sure criticism gets published to a broad audience, like IGN's executive editor of reviews.

Critics ourselves are often pushed into this narrow view of our field whether we like it or not, not necessarily out of malice but out of the harsh realities of business in the media industry. We watch as our friends and colleagues get fired from their "sure thing" jobs regularly, as outlets shutter and downsize to focus only on that which can get the greatest algorithmic return-on-investment.

Even with service journalism, the underpaid and undervalued field where writers put out dozens of how-to guides on everything from "How do I beat this level in Final Fantasy VII Remake" to "Where can I find the latest blockbuster on streaming," writers' jobs are being threatened by the looming mistake of Large Language Model (LLM)-generated content. Why pay someone to write an accurate, carefully considered guide that actually feels like a person wrote them - you know, the appeal of old chestnuts like GameFAQs guides - when you can just get a chatbot (and by extension, forced labor in Kenya) to do the work instead? At a certain level of bullshit jobs-style upper management, what's considered "efficient" is directly antithetical to human life.

But this isn't Ed Sheeran's fault, per se, nor is it really his problem. He's a point on a graph of a much broader trend.

anti-criticism in the age of disney adults

Poet laureate Karl Shapiro identified the concept of "anti-criticism" in a series of lectures delivered from October to December, 1949.1 He saw "[arguments] against criticism [as] related to a wider and more dangerous anti-intellectualism that in poetics leads to the primacy of the second-rate, and in literary politics may lead to official and controlled art." In his ensuing Poetry article, "What is Anti-Criticism?" Shapiro briefly examines the history of 18th and 19th century poetry and how it was analyzed, carefully demonstrating the values such structural and interpretive analysis upheld and how they were incompatible with contemporary 20th century poetry - and indeed, its critical apparatus.

The anti-critic takes for his quarry not only the modern symbolist poets but also the old symbolist poets like Blake; not only the modern metaphysical poets but also the old metaphysical poets; and in addition to these the polylingual poets; those who practice typographical or grammatical experiments, past or present; those who use one rhetorical figure at the expense of the other- those who are too abstract and those who are too concrete. The contemporary poet may not be tolerant of all these kinds of poetry himself, but the anti-critic would like to get rid of the lot. His measure, as I said before, is the prose semantic, and any violation of this central canon he regards as a threat to intelligibility and sanity. To the anti-critic any departure from the immediate area of the paraphrasable meaning is, moreover, a sign of wilful obscurantism. [...] A highly paraphrasable poetry is equivalent to a highly representational art, and both, in a period like ours, are liable to degenerate into escapist art.

Shapiro describes phenomena that would likely be familiar to anyone who has lived through the last decade of critical discourse around any kind of art you can imagine, from the indiscriminate uplifting of mediocre yet broadly popular "cultural products" to the bashing of art that resists easy interpretation and a sneering attitude toward the critics who attempt to analyze said art anyway. Through Shapiro we see anti-critics in those who endlessly repeat "Let People Enjoy Things" at anyone who doesn't like a superhero movie, in the throngs of gamers (and the reviewers who enabled them) who refused to let a little systemic transphobia get in the way of their Hogwarts Legacy run, and in Ed Sheeran's throwaway jab at the critics forced to listen to his pablum for less money than they should be getting for their troubles.

The anti-critic has surely evolved in other important ways away from what Shapiro observed in the first few years after World War II, just as the corporate media/art space has evolved. We see the "enthusiast" subsume more formal critics and critical outlets all the time, coincidentally as a monoculture forms around a few massive entertainment and technology corporations. In one particularly blunt example, critic B.D. McClay notes that a writer for IGN was replaced as the reviewer for the Disney+/Marvel series Loki after a single less-than-glowing review of the show. In a more recent example, replies to longtime film critic Robert Daniels's tweet panning The Super Mario Bros. Movie ranged from indifferent to derisive, with one reply telling him, "I’ll trust the reviews from people who actual [sic] play the game," together with a screenshot of IGN's 8/10 review synopsis.

We might revisit that IGN article that contends the purpose of criticism is to determine whether "thing good" or "thing bad," as it actually contends something worse: that the wide majority of things even worth talking about in IGN's eyes are broadly "good" along a sliding scale of quality from "mediocre" to "superlative." In this case, the criticism isn't even merely qualitative; it's meant to be singularly supportive or at worst ambivalent about a given cultural product. It is itself anti-criticism.

McClay (more charitably than I suspect Shapiro would have been) identifies the tendency for largely positive anti-critical writing about mass media as "a world of appreciation," not necessarily unadulterated fandom, but "essentially, a fan culture." In this dynamic, there is only people who like the thing, and the thing itself. If negativity in this world of appreciation exists, McClay explains, it does so as part of a binary: "the rave and the takedown."

an endless content™ jubilee

I remember when I first got into games criticism I heard everyone joke about the "discourse wheel" and how if you spent enough time in the industry you'd eventually find yourself back at the beginning, older, not necessarily wiser, yet experiencing many of the same arguments about a particular game or design concept yet again. The obvious punchline was someone yelling "LUDONARRATIVE DISSONANCE" and watching everyone in the discord server duck under their desks like an air raid alarm had gone off.

Since then, The Last of Us has gotten a sequel, a PC remaster, a full remake of the first game, and a whole-ass television show with a second season on the way. The discourse around that media franchise has happened in front of me not once, not twice, but like four times at this point. As Autumn Wright wrote, "there’s a new AAA catastrophe that’s weird about trans people and also The Last of Us is relevant again."

This is perhaps not the worst or wildest example of monoculture forming around us in a suffocating cloud, though. That dubious distinction goes to Disney and Microsoft, probably, as the companies attempting to gather up as much culture as they can to homogenize it, with the former going as far as digitizing actors' voices for use long after they retire in new portrayals of characters those actors first performed more than 40 years ago. Hell, it's not even the worst example in the games industry. What iteration number is Call of Duty on? Or Assassin's Creed? Or fucking Mario? Hell, we're already two deep into the reboot of God of War.

It's hardly worth saying at this point that nostalgia fuels so much of the media that we're given to consume. It's increasingly difficult to find new art or ideas in a media landscape that puts so much value on callbacks to old forms. If something isn't another superhero origin story, it's referencing a meme from 12 years ago. And it's nearly impossible to resist the ever-present pull of this strictly iterative culture: I can't lie and say I didn't thoroughly enjoy both of the above examples.

But we still need to try and cut through the overwhelm for a moment. Disney isn't a poison to the culture simply because it owns Marvel Studios or Lucasfilm. The reason for its negative impact is because of the absolute crushing presence it has in the film and television industries at large, having bought out major competitors like 20th Century Fox and nearly completely snowed out smaller film studios at the theaters. It doesn't help that the industry is consolidating in other ways with its move to streaming platforms. As Adam Conover said in a recent video about two different mergers (Live Nation and Ticket Master in the 90s and Warner Media with Discovery late last year), "one man's whims and preferences dictate which stories artists get to tell and what hundreds of millions of people get to watch."

The idea that a few rich dudes are in full control of every piece of media we consume and that the number of rich dudes who do so is actively getting smaller all the timesucks, not just for criticism's purposes but simply as someone who Consumes Content™. To my knowledge, no one has ever been explicitly asked if we want the same shit, year in and year out, only More. Nobody from Game Freak or Ubisoft ever sends out a survey like "hey are y'all tired of Pokémon or Rainbow Six: Siege seasons?" Instead, they just push them out, and let the resulting economic data do the talking: "People want more of this thing because a lot of them bought the thing when it came out." There's such a thing as too much of a good thing, especially when we're less likely (or able) to say no in the first place.

In this light, doesn't it make just too much sense that Ed Sheeran has a whole mini documentary series coming out on Disney Plus?

towards a guerrilla criticism

So what's to be done here? Aside from maybe the 🏴 most 🔥🍾 obvious 💣 (and unlikely) answers with regards to the most egregious monopolies, how can critics - who are, as a reminder, less institutionally supported than ever - or criticism even contend with Content™ backed by the most well-funded mega corps on earth and supported by hegemonically anti-critical fanbases?

Here is where I disagree most heavily with thinkers like Shapiro, who believed in retaining an elevated critical class and poetic movement with remove from the masses, and critics like McClay, who said "Opinions will become both more binary and more homogenous, and about fewer and fewer things. [...] things will get worse, whether or not they ever get better." I don't think our options necessarily have to be "remove ourselves to an academic ivory tower" or "accept that things are the way they are." We don't need to dutifully fall into line along the "rave" or "takedown" axis as McClay described.

The kind of criticism I am imagining is a criticism that is inherently and radically skeptical of (especially corporate-backed) nostalgia; a criticism that is not necessarily hostile to fans but antagonistic toward fandom as a system which undergirds larger structures of power; a criticism that is as transgressive and playful in the forms it takes as it is with the words that fill those forms. I believe we are capable of performing criticism that disappoints everyone in delightful ways.

Criticism as a weapon is not a new idea, of course. Marx is famously quoted as saying "The weapon of criticism cannot, of course, replace criticism of the weapon, material force must be overthrown by material force; but theory also becomes a material force as soon as it has gripped the masses." More modern philosophers and theorists, like the Situationists and Bruno Latour, have written about the decline and possible weaponization of criticism as well. To a degree, that worries me. Talk doesn't just become action because the talker wishes for it real hard. There's a real possibility, no, a near-certainty, that anything that comes out of this will result in next to nothing changing. If everything is part of the cycle of discourse, including conversations on how to break the discourse, what hope do we have?

The alternative to facing the leviathan and losing at the moment seems to be more or less doing nothing, which to me is more unbearable than all the pranks of all the cringe-ass culture jammers of the 90s and 2000s combined. At what point does quiet dissent simply morph into complicity?

***

Shapiro, Karl. “What Is Anti-Criticism?” Poetry, vol. 75, no. 6, 1950, pp. 339–51. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20591169. Accessed 9 Apr. 2023.

[cyrusreblogs]

Ok so I love so much about this and I absolutely understand how bad smoking is for you but are we talking about gate keeping access to HRT dependent on smoking cessation? It’s not clear to me one way or the other. OP sounds lovely and I’m hopeful that they just nag their patients to quit a lot or offer them resources about quitting. But my mom’s doc denied her access to HRT as treatment for menopause unless she could quit smoking, and she had hot flashes for about six months (longer?) before she was able to quit long enough to qualify for the hormones that stopped them. My mom is in surprisingly good health for a lifelong smoker — fewer back problems than me, healthy heart, healthy digestion, no respiratory issues that I know of. Her knees aren’t fantastic but that’s not because of smoking. And the hot flashes pretty seriously impacted her quality of life for a while. I’ve had hot flashes before, back when I first started T. They’re unpleasant, and I didn’t love that the hormones were being withheld on condition of smoking cessation, something my mother has been trying and failing to do ever since I was a kid. (Though I figured it was a good motivator — and it was. She quit for longer than she ever has before, lol. She’s back at it now, unfortunately.)

But gender dysphoria is (or at least can be) much worse than hot flashes, and more hazardous to one’s health, especially if we’re engaging in self harm, self destructive behaviors, or suicidal ideations as a result of dysphoria. So I do agree that quitting should be the goal, but not a prerequisite for taking hormones unless there’s further context indicating elevated cardiovascular risk. My mom didn’t have any. If my hypothetical trans mom had been denied access to gender-affirming HRT on the same grounds with the same health markers, I would be livid.

Also I want to say that I smoked for about five years and once I decided to quit it was actually pretty easy (I waited to have a cold, when cigarettes naturally disgust me, and used the break to get over the chemical addiction, after which it was purely psychological and not very strong at that point because I missed my sense of smell. And freedom from cravings — felt like such a burden to have to smoke every few hours. In case this helps anyone) BUT it is also very clear to me that quitting is not that easy for everyone. It unsettles me the way that people see a health risk that has some relationship to behavior (weight comes to mind, though Maintenance Phase has kind of disillusioned me about a lot of the relationship between weight and behavior or between weight and health — there is a lot to unpack there) and immediately start dogpiling on people with that behavior or health risk in the name of good health or good public policy. That’s not what’s happening here in this post, I guess I’m just easily triggered by remembering all of the unsolicited lectures about the dangers of smoking from random acquaintances and the fear that I might not be able to get access to testosterone. I do dislike the stigma about smokers. I think it’s veiled classism, pretty frequently, and often feels victim-blamey, as if being a smoker means you’re morally aligned with Big Tobacco, as if getting sucked in by our cultural obsession with smoking or the way it feels chemically means that you’re voting with your dollar in favor of Marlboro.

Anyway anyway. This post I’m reblogging isn’t doing that. I’m just over here in my feelings about it, clutching my tobacco-smoke-stained pearls.

Quit if you can! Especially if you’re getting any kind of surgery! But if you can’t, there should be some kind of risk-aware, informed consent model of care, shouldn’t there? Know the consequences (necrotic tissue due to poor circulation and healing following surgery, for instance — of particular relevance to trans people who smoke: your whole brand new dick could fall off) and manage the risks as best you can while making informed choices about your body and your healthcare.

For the most part, my approach to prescribing hormones is “sure,” but I will note that the one thing I lean HARD on patients about is smoking. If you’re transgender, and you’re on hormones, the number one thing we want to protect is your cardiovascular health. That’s frankly the number one thing I want to protect in all my patients, but anyone taking exogenous hormones is at higher baseline risk. And the best thing you can do for your heart is DON’T SMOKE. It’s a bitch to quit, and I didn’t even smoke much or long before I quit in my late teens, and I STILL didn’t enjoy quitting and had smoking dreams for years. It’s harder to quit than just about anything else up to and including crack and heroin, and that’s coming from a patient of mine who recently passed in her early 60s who’d done all of those things—for years and years—but eventually was able to quit everything except smoking. And that killed her. She developed severe COPD and eventually called to say her blood oxygen saturation was dipping into the 70s, which is incompatible with life. She was lucid enough to decline medical care, including refusing to call 911 or go to the ER. A week later, after both I and one of our outreach nurses had contacted her to ask her to please go to the ER, I got a notification that she’d been found dead. She had been so frustrated that she wasn’t a candidate for a lung transplant.

One of my oldest trans patients is in her late 50s. She’s had blood clots that went to the lungs. Repeatedly. Smoking raises that risk. Estrogen raises that risk. She’s a veteran with PTSD; of course she smoked.

These aren’t theoretical. These are humans I’ve cared for over years of their lives. I have been rooting for them—my beloved former addict, who spoke without shame about her years of homelessness and drug use in the city; my queer elders, who are slowly trading in their motorcycles for power scooters. I want everyone to live their fullest, best life.

Smoking doesn’t fit into that. Please don’t smoke. I don’t want you to die like that—not now and not later. I want you to have the future that you may not be able to see yet, but exists.

Since I moved home as an out queer, word got out, and there’s a whole apartment complex of lesbians in their 60s to their 80s who come see me—sitting next to their wives in the office, nagging about blood pressure meds, tattling about not having gotten the shingles shot they said they would. To be clear, when I was growing up in town, I knew no lesbians. Not one. I knew one gay kid in my class, which eventually turned into two. We were it. To see these women living decades with their wives and being able to squabble like any couple in my office over who was supposed to bring their home blood pressure cuff in for us to check it… it means the world to me.

[nnnn99999]

I was already thinking about learning thai when I was watching simm. Because some things were so confusing to me at first and I was sure it was because I was losing context because I don't know thai. I know all too well how important language can be in how we perceive things.

I use two languages, bangla and english, in my everyday life. I use both almost equally. Bangla is my mothertongue but I did my schooling in english. So I am equally comfortable with both languages. Yet I struggle to translate creative works in bangla to english. Because how am I supposed to translate it in a way that preserves the essence of the work? The sentence structure, the use of certain words and the connotations behind the use of those particular words, the cultural context behind certain words and phrases, what pronouns are used, how someone addresses another person-all of these things add context. How am I supposed to explain how I can guess what kind of relationship two people have based on the use of the 'you' pronoun when there are three different singular 'you's and three more plural 'you's in bangla but only one 'you' in english?

Coming back to simm, at first I couldn't understand why everyone thought Fah was Daonuea's boyfriend when he clearly addressed him as his brother. It was one of the first thai series I watched so I didn't know anything about thai pronouns and addresses. It was only later that I understood the confusion was because of the use of the word 'phi'. Actually in bangla we use the words 'apu/bhaiya' to call older females/males in a very similar way. So if someone came to me and said that guy is my 'bhaiya' I would also be confused, because that could mean this guy is their older brother, cousin, boyfriend, friend or just some random older guy they know. This made me realize just how much context I am losing out on just because I don't know thai. But I was not convinced enough to start learning. I thought- am I really going to learn a whole new language just so I can understand this one show I love better? Yeah no, not yet at least.

I didn't get the same feeling of losing context again, until I watched bbs. I just know some scenes would hit differently if I knew thai. I just know it. Especially the way Pat and Pran talk to each other. I just know I am missing out. And so, I am now convinced enough to start learning thai. One series I loved wasn't enough, but two is more than enough for me apparently. Yay to me I guess.

Fun fact: I actually watched quite a lot of safehouse season 3. After watching simm, I watched the behind the scenes for simm. Then I saw a jd reaction video for simm trailer. Of course I watched that too. While watching I realized that there were other people there and they seemed to be in a reality show of some kind. So being curious, I went to watch said reality show. But then I realized this was livestreamed and had no subtitles. So, I couldn't understand a single word they were saying. At this point I wasn't even that familiar with any of the people in safehouse. But somehow, I ended up watching hours worth of footage, where let me remind you, I couldn't understand a single word they were saying. Except that one time jd spoke english, I understood that. Yeah I couldn't sit through the whole thing, I just watched parts of it. The games were fun though. It was after this that I became a full on jd fan, not just a fan of them as actors but also as people. I will never forget Dunk eating fried chicken with a fork and spoon. I will also never forget Joong getting startled by the cute music. I absolutely cannot forget that pool game where Dunk almost took off Joong's shirt. Or jd being stuck to each other for like 90% of their time there. It was fun actually. Also, Gun was so chill most of the time. He was a vibe. The few thai words I now understand are mostly because of safehouse.

[avant-hope]

Not Too Much on Martin

NOTE: This post is a behemoth with a ton of pictures, hyperlinks, and text. It will probably crash your phone if you are in app.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Was a Black, Baptist Preacher and Civil Rights Leader born January 15th, 1929 [we love a Capricorn here] in one of the Blackest cities on the planet: Atlanta, Georgia. He is known to the world as the man who gave the I Have a Dream speech, went to jail for the cause a few times, led some marches, and most notably, ended racism. More importantly than ending racism, he did all these things through completely non-violent means.

This white-washed understanding of Dr. King is so incredibly pervasive that it also persists within the Black community. My aunt has this absolutely absurd hyperrealist drawing that I grew up looking at depicting Martin Luther King Jr. Beside Barack Obama that sort of looked like this:

Image ID: Disembodied images of Barack Obama and Martin Luther King Jr. Beside one another in Black and white

This post isn’t about Obama, but at a certain age, I started looking at that photo with some contempt. Martin Luther King Jr. was probably rolling in his grave being depicted as a guardian angel of one of the most vicious American war criminals of all time. Placing him in the cultural Overton window as so was probably easy because he’s dead and can’t speak for himself to dispel this nonsense, so I’m here to do it today.

Dr. King gave his most famous speech I Have a Dream, on August 28th, 1963 during the March on Washington For Jobs and Freedom, or the Great March on Washington for short. The speech was delivered at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial.

Within the context of what we as a nation believe about it and Dr. King and I Have a Dream today [how he’s discussed in schools, in speeches, and on the news] large sections of the speech are missing from the cultural Overton Window. Of the five refrains of “I have a dream…” within the speech, I personally have only seen up to two of them mentioned, those being the ones where he talks about wanting white and Black children to be able to go to school together, and the “not by the color of their skin but the content of their character” part.

Alongside the refrains being cut out, there’s also the top half of the speech where he says some things that were probably considered inflammatory in the moment:

“There will be no rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.” - Dr. King, August 25th, 1968. I Have a Dream.

This speech has been instrumental in minimizing Dr. King’s revolutionary action and ideology in part because aside from containing minimal critique of white America and being inspiring, the speech also takes several moments to gesture away from physical violence.

He spends so much time insisting that violence is bad probably to avoid getting SHOT and still, even those parts of his speech go unrecognized except for the one time you had to read it in 5th grade. He was still listed as an adversary of the FBI, enduring smear campaigns, and listed as a possible "Black Messiah" in COINTELPRO, a document written by J Edgar Hoover with the express motive of illegally undermining Black Liberation efforts.

Image ID: Redacted COINTELPRO document proposing exposing Jean Seberg's pregnancy to tarnish her reputation.

Malcolm X was also listed as a possible Black Messiah in COINTELPRO, though they note him as a martyr for the Black cause; someone who fucked around and found out—

“Prevent the RISE OF A “MESSIAH” who could unify, and electrify, the militant black nationalist movement. Malcolm X might have been such a “messiah;” he is the martyr of the movement today.” - J. Edgar Hoover, COINTELPRO

Martin Luther King is mentioned within the same bullet point, though, the FBI considered him more respectable and "obedient" at the time.

Now within the context of the public eye, they are at odds with one another, specifically on the subject of violence, or militancy. Where Malcolm X promoted the By any means necessary line of thought, Dr. King was an incredible admirer and student of the famously non-violent Mahatma Gandhi.

Image ID: Dr. King standing at his desk overlooked by a portrait of Mahatma Gandhi

Positioning them as enemies within the ballpark of the civil rights movement is wholly unfair to both of their ideologies, though. While their opinions differed on what uses of force was appropriate within their freedom struggles, Dr. King never openly denounced the act of rioting, nor did he insist upon "law and order." Instead, he sought to uplift his non-violent tactics in hopes that they could further the civil rights movement. And even then, he is quite regularly quoted by leftists stating that “A riot is the language of the unheard," in the often discarded The Other America

All of this discussion of nonviolence so that they can ignore one of the core reasons why Martin Luther King Jr. deserves to be revered as a fallen leftist, regardless of his stance on reform or violent revolution:

“So today capitalism has outlived its usefulness. It has brought about a system that takes necessities from the masses to give luxuries to the classes. . . . Our economic system is going through a radical change, and certainly this change is needed. I would certainly welcome the day to come when there will be a nationalization of industry.” - Dr. King, early letter to Coretta Scott King

This quote doesn’t necessarily mean that Dr. King was an Anarcho-Syndicalist or Maoist-Third-Worldist or Marxist-Leninist or whatever you are. While he did lean towards Marxist ideals and away, he rejected the worldly understandings within dialectical materialism and replaced it with his religious understandings.

Typically a point of contention or a big no-no amongst many Marxists, this reworking of Marxist ideals into something that has a place within a religious understanding of the world has a historical home within the Black community. Whether it be through the NOI, the Baptist church, or any other predominantly Black congregation, Black people in the U.S. have had to mesh together Anti-Racism, Religion, and Class warfare with one another in order to believe in Black people’s ability to survive this country.

We have had to form our own Avant-Guard movement in which anti-racism, anti-capitalism, anti-imperialism, and the like have all been entrenched with one another after being rejected or put second by white leftists.

While he is most definitely not the first to do this, Dr. King deserves to be celebrated by using his belief as a lightning rod to guide large portions of the Black community to a wider ideology of liberation.

[kimyoonmiauthor]

Yeah, posting more story ideas to Asian writers...

So, again, doing the posting to more writers thing. Destined With You, I thought had a good thematic base, I loved the past life scenes, but it was lacking in thematic unification, organization and execution in terms of writing. I'm watching, though, It's a Good Day to be a Dog, which is quirky, but knowing Korean make the drama more funny.

Chinese Drama: Stereotypical girl becomes mother?

The stereotype of the mother that chases down her daughter to work harder on her grades, is hard-nosed, but on the other end, there is the sweet, a little lazy daughter whose grades aren't that stellar. I'd like to see how these two stereotypes become each other. How does the cute daughter who doesn't study that hard become the mother that is really strict about studying?

I thought the Chinese censorship board wouldn't be against time travel in this case, if it was say, daughter finds out about how hard mother worked to get where she is. Or we go beyond "Just got married" narrative--but the transformation from cute marriage to concerned parent. It would also give more opportunities to 30-year old women to have more interesting roles. The whole building towards being grateful towards your parents would totally be something I would think the Chinese government would say yes to. Also, you wouldn't absolutely need time travel for this.

I suppose might also work as a Korean drama, but Korean dramas would need stronger thematic building than this...

2. Korean dramas about the real and active religion of Donghak are missing from context?

We have Mugyo, but there are other native Korean religions, no? Maybe lesser known?

I still wish as a Korean for Koreans to be able to find our own unique genres made up of our own experiences of being Korean. I've been looking internationally, and Japan invented their own, Chinese have Xianxia, and Wuxia,. Japan has a few as well. But isn't there something that is uniquely Korean in terms of experience, belief and context that we could make into a genre? Pride as Koreans. BTW, I also found the origin of Han (Cultural concept). It is Japanese. It's from Yanagi Sōetsu's theory of the "beauty of sorrow" which was imposed on Koreans during the Japanese occupation. Nunchi and Jeong are clearly Korean. I still would like more dramas set in early Joseon... though... 'cause I read from Korean scholars that it had less regulation on women. (I suggested the widows story last time to fit around that slot.) Rom Com~~ And lastly, I'm going to ask my fellow writers to make fun of the whole, "Can't name a country in Africa trope." C'mon. You can't name one? You don't have a map? African people also watch Asian dramas and have been sorely disappointed with the whole, Africa is poor, and there's no one middle class, they are disease-ridden, and have no technology type of narrative coming out of East Asia. I had a really long and pleasant conversation with some people who are from Africa--various countries, and I think we can do better. Kenya, Ethiopia, etc. Why not do the research and maybe not promote the whole savioristic mentality that was done on us on them too. "Character is going to Africa." WHICH COUNTRY IN AFRICA? I'm truly asking all three China, Korea and Japan, WHICH ONE? Make a joke of it and then slam it by doing better. I truly feel embarrassed as an Asian when writers can't pull out a map and are being savioristic towards Africa. A whole continent when we should also understand how that narrative has also destroyed a lot of Asia too. I should note I had a Japanese drama idea, but I forgot it. Another time, then. It'll come back. Meh, I like seeing gaps filled. Gap theory works better to me, if executed well over combine three existing things. If someone goes left, you go right. If someone hasn't done, it, then do it. If someone goes right, you go left. What have they not done in doing that thing when it's obvious. On the US side, we're stagnating because studios and publishers won't take the right sort of risks and understand... so I wouldn't mind seeing people kick butt.

[bouwrites]

Those Warm and Halcyon Days: Chapter 19

Snow

Ao3.

First, Previous, Next.

Story under read-more.

Solon’s body is missing.

The news hits Veery soon after it hits the Golden Deer. Immediately after, if the yelling is any indication. Veery actually goes into the classroom even though it’s technically class time to investigate when he hears it.

“Good news and bad news,” Claude sighs. “The good news is that we know there’s someone else working with Solon in the monastery now.”

“How is that good news?” Lorenz asks.

“The bad news is we now have no way to find them,” Claude finishes. “Damn it.”

That… sums it up, yes. Veery decides to let them handle it and leaves the classroom. Being at a dead end with Solon’s group and the Flame Emperor makes Veery itch to do something productive. It’s frustrating making no progress at all.

But he is making progress on something, at least. He retreats to his room to work on it. He’s spending more time in here, lately, just to work on this. He’d rather take it outside and work on it in the courtyard, but aside from Sylvain, Dorothea, and Linhardt, no one outside the Golden Deer know about it, so he’ll probably get in trouble if he does.

Not that this is the part that he’s supposed to keep secret, but still. The less they talk about Zanado, the better for now. At least until they have a better idea of what they’re dealing with.

Veery likes words, so translating a language he doesn’t know, in a script he doesn’t know, is actually quite a delightful task. It reminds him of stealing scraps of human text, interpreting it and eavesdropping on the humans in Albinea, slowly but surely piecing together symbols and words from context and logic.

Veery knows how language works. It’s one of the few things he’s actually good at. He knows how his own language, Albinean, and Church Common are all structured, what their rules are and what makes sense and what doesn’t. He even has an idea of the grammatical structure of Brigidan, from the way Petra speaks, since her “mistakes” in Church Common are almost definitely glimpses into how Brigidan and Common differ in structure.

Language makes sense to Veery. Probably because he used to study it to give himself courage. He spends so long cowering at the edge of town in Albinea, trying to hype himself up to catch a boat and come to Fódlan, or even to approach the Albineans, but he always chickens out and he always, always retreats to studying language to reassure himself. He doubts it too much, back then, but now he does just fine among Fódlanders, he realizes that he actually does a pretty damn good job with what he’s given.

He may not understand a lot of cultural context, but he has an impressive vocabulary given his origins and it’s only getting bigger by the day. He wouldn’t be half as far as he is if he couldn’t identify rules and structure among these masses of unfamiliar scribbles. It’s not easy, but he’s done it before.

The hardest part, he thinks, will be figuring out what the words mean. He doesn’t really need to know what they sound like, since he doesn’t think it’s necessary to speak this language, but without the context of someone using it, it will be very difficult to figure out what the script says, even if he can identify how sentences work and what each letter and word is.

He’s hoping that the script on the walls of the ancient agell ruins, which looks similar to this, is at least related to his own language. He might have to stretch it a bit, since he’ll be going across three (probably distantly) related languages, one of which he doesn’t know, but he’ll at least have something to work with. With absolutely no context, he thinks reconstructing this will be impossible.

Interestingly, though, the structure seems nearly nonexistent. There are no clearly defined sentences, or phrases, or anything of the sort. Letters become apparent, and he assembles an alphabet quite easily, but – and this is his breakthrough – he doesn’t think this wall reads anything at all. Or rather, it’s not sentences like out of a storybook.

He thinks, instead, that it’s a list of names.

The funny thing about names, though, is that they don’t help him much in interpreting the language, even if he can figure out how to say them, which he doubts he can. What they do do for him, however, is add context. And context is the most important thing in this.

Why would names be inscribed into a wall? Why so many names? Why is the wall different than the surrounding structures? What are these two headers that Veery and Claude identify?

The most obvious answer? It’s a memorial. Like in the story, where a foreign god comes to the wasteland and plants a flower in memory of those lost to the extinction. This wall is the mass gravestone of… at least a great number of those lost.

Who remembers them, though, that they can carve those names? The goddess? Veery doesn’t know the powers of the goddess. Maybe she can pluck the names of the dead from history in order to record them. It isn’t the most farfetched theory.

If he’s right, then Claude’s header is obvious. It’s just a note of remembrance. Veery’s header, however, with the smaller box of names under it… that’s interesting. Maybe this is the names of especially notable people. Maybe people who fought the extinction? Or people that the creator of the wall had some connection to?

Is this even relevant to anything? Veery is honestly not sure. He doesn’t think it is. A memorial to those lost in the mass extinction isn’t relevant when the vast majority of what he’s dealing with has to do with modern day or, at best, the War of Heroes.

It’s interesting, though. Veery likes words, so this is a lot of fun for him.

“Will you be attending Dorothea’s dancing lessons?” Edelgard asks Veery once they’re seated for tea.

Veery just blinks dumbly at her. “…Should I?”

Edelgard holds back a chuckle. “You will attend the ball, won’t you? Perhaps I am wrong, but I do not think you know any ballroom dancing.”

“Ballroom dancing?” Veery curls his lip. “Uh, no. I don’t. That sounds like more of your stupid court rule things.”

“In a manner of speaking, yes. Dance is standardized here, to a certain extent. Still, you should at least try it. It is more fun than it sounds.”

Veery frowns into his tea, thinking about it. “Am I even allowed at the ball?”

“Whyever not?” Edelgard asks. “It is a student event.”

“I’m not a student.”

“Hm.” Edelgard does giggle at him now. “You say that, and yet…”

“I’m literally not a student,” he protests.

Edelgard quickly composes herself. “Yes, of course. Regardless, you will be expected at the ball. Even if anyone were to try to crack down on the technicalities of it, I can think of more than a few students, including myself, if necessary, who would be more than happy to take you as their date. In which case, there is no more problem. No?”

“Fair enough,” Veery admits. Even if it’s just in name to get him through the doors, he can definitely imagine some of the students bringing him as their date to this ball. “That’s assuming I have any interest in it, though. I’m a hermit, remember? Packing myself into a hall with a bunch of people and trying to keep up with your fancy human noble customs sounds like an actual nightmare to me.”

Edelgard smiles into her tea. “I am confident that even Bernadetta will at least show her face. I hope you’re aware that I expect no less from you.”

“Bernie’s going?” Veery asks. “More reason for me not to, then. I don’t think she’s ever seen me and not fainted. It’s been months.”

Edelgard makes an uncomfortable face at that. “Ah, yes. I… do hope you aren’t taking that personally. Bernadetta is…”

“I know,” Veery says honestly. “You don’t have to make excuses for her. No one can blame prey for running away.”

“Prey?”

Veery shrugs. “Not that I’m hunting her. That… probably wasn’t the best way to say it. I mean that she’s conditioned to think like prey. It’s obvious from… everything she is. She thinks everything is a threat to her. Honestly, we’re not that different.”

“Hm. I see.”

“Anyway,” Veery says. “I guess if I’m invited, I can at least come and observe a little. I wonder how your balls compare to agell festivals.”

“That’s the spirit.” Edelgard smiles. “Though, you do know that there’s no chance of you escaping the dance floor, correct? You have too many friends who will be far too eager for a dance with you.”

“A poor decision on their part. As you’ve rightly guessed, I don’t know Fódlan dancing at all.” Veery shakes his head as he smiles. “Honestly, I was never a… socialite, even back home. I spent most of my festival time either avoiding everyone and exploring or bugging the elders for stories.”

“That is why you should have Dorothea teach you,” says Edelgard. “You are coordinated, graceful, and intelligent. I’m sure you will be an excellent dancer in no time.”

“I never said I can’t dance, but we don’t have structured dance. …Well, if I’m going, I’ll need to at least try to learn,” Veery says. “So, why not?”

“I am delighted to hear it,” Edelgard says. “And I’m sure Dorothea will be happy to see you there, as well.”

Yes, probably. Dorothea is really nice. Veery knows her well enough by now to know that she will be among those who are very insistent that he attend the ball.

“I hope you will forgive me for bringing up Remire…” Edelgard says carefully, after a sufficient pause to know that the previous topic is exhausted. “I understand that you were the one to kill Solon.”

“I am.” Veery nods. He doesn’t… mind talking about it. It’s terrible, but avoiding speaking of it, acting as if it doesn’t happen, isn’t going to help anyone. “Though, Lysithea is one who gave me the chance to do it.”

Edelgard hums. “I’m sure you’re tired of hearing this already, but I feel I must thank you for ridding this world of the likes of him. Anyone who commits such atrocities surely deserves that fate.”

Veery bites his lip and looks away. It’s true, really. Veery doesn’t hesitate to kill Solon. In fact, Veery delights in Solon’s death. It feels good to hold Solon’s lifeless body, to feel the snap of bones and the hot splash of blood and the soft flesh in his teeth, when those bones and that blood and that flesh belongs to someone so reprehensible.

Veery knows there is no salvaging that situation. When they meet on the battlefield, even if Solon does not condemn humanity and the agell both, even if Solon does not push those very specific buttons that makes Veery so angry, when they meet on the battlefield, there’s only a very limited number of options available to them. Death for either or both sides, or retreat for either or both sides.

Still… even still… in killing Solon, does Veery merely prove himself to be the beast that Solon accuses him of being? Does his delight in Solon’s death make him base and savage? Those are questions Veery can’t answer. They bother him.

He doesn’t like the feeling of relishing death, even if it’s the death of someone so horrid. Veery feels no hate for the hunters who killed his parents, he feels no hate for the humans who trap and kill his kind, he holds no hate for those agell who think humans cruel and savage and worthy of retribution. Solon takes it too far, doing what he does to Remire and to Flayn, but at his core Veery believes he’s the same as all those others.

“You don’t seem pleased about that,” Edelgard says calmly.

“Not exactly,” Veery admits. “Honestly, I’m uncomfortable with how pleased I am by his death. I shouldn’t take pleasure in death, no matter who it is. It feels… wrong.”

Edelgard eyes him curiously. “One can hardly blame you for being happy that Solon is dead. After what he did to Remire, I’m sure everyone here is glad he is dead.”

Veery clenches his jaw for a moment, and then releases it with a sigh. “Just because it’s a common reaction doesn’t make it right,” Veery says quietly. “But… it’s more than just that. I don’t actually care if it’s right or wrong. Right or wrong doesn’t even really matter. I’m just not satisfied with my own actions that day.”

“You performed your duty brilliantly; I’m led to believe. Where do you find fault with yourself?”

“When Solon called Marianne a beast, I got angry. When he called me… the lowest of beasts, I was furious. I was… indignant, because he did something so horrible and then looked down on us.”

Edelgard smiles sympathetically. “An understandable reaction. I would have felt the exact same way. I do, as a matter of fact.”

It’s true, and Veery can’t help the way he feels about things. That isn’t the problem. The problem is how he acts. “…I wanted to kill him. I wanted to kill him, and I attacked him and followed through with it.” He looks up, somewhat helplessly to Edelgard. “I’ve never wanted to kill anyone before. Not the hunters who killed my parents, not humans who threw rocks and spears at me, not… not anyone. I don’t like that I’m capable of that kind of…”

“It was not wrong to wish to kill him,” Edelgard says gently. “He threatened you, your friends, and your entire species. He destroyed Remire. That instinct to kill him is in self-defense. It drove you to protect the lives of more people than we probably know.”

Is it really? Veery honestly doesn’t know. “You asked me before if there was anything I’d give my life to do,” Veery says. “I said no, because… I’ve never felt that way before. I’ve never put aside my own safety for anything. Even in a hunt, if I’m more likely to be killed by the prey than I am to get food, it’s better to go hungry. When I’m attacked, I get away, not hit back. Even on the missions before, I only killed because I was in a situation where they’d kill me if I didn’t. But with Solon… he would’ve just left. He almost did. I attacked him, with intent to kill. He could’ve seriously hurt me – he might have if Lysithea didn’t support me – but I didn’t care. I just wanted to kill him.”

Edelgard hums sadly. “So, you do understand. Sometimes, when we encounter something that we cannot live with, there is only one way forward.”

Veery roughly shakes his head. “There’s never only one way forward. We always have so many options available to us.” He sighs. “And worrying about which one is best is how people drive themselves mad. All we can do is our best – react in the moment and accept the consequences. I’m just… not sure how I feel about what my reaction says about me.”

“…And what does it say about you, do you think?”

Veery ducks his head, unable to meet Edelgard’s penetrating gaze. “I feel… savage. Cruel. Killing Solon is one thing. Even if he wasn’t invested in killing me that day, he made it clear that he intends to eventually, so it was, at the time, a kill or be killed fight regardless. I doubt I could have reasoned with him, so that was the best I could do. I could have tried, but… that aggression I had, and how I felt when I broke his neck… I shouldn’t ever feel that way about killing a person, shouldn’t ever act that way. That wasn’t okay.”

“Even though Solon is so reprehensible?”

Veery sighs. “Solon is an extreme.” He looks up to meet her gaze. “He’s so comically evil that it’s hard not to excuse it, but… people think others are reprehensible for so many different reasons. Monks here at the monastery think I’m reprehensible, because I’m an agell in Garreg Mach. Agell think the humans are reprehensible, because they take our fur to warm themselves. Rhea thought the Western Church was reprehensible, because they rose against her. Who’s right and wrong in those situations? Is it okay to delight in the death of others just because we think they’re reprehensible?” He shakes his head. “Solon thought we were reprehensible, because we aren’t part of… whatever group he’s a part of. Does that make his killing okay?”

Edelgard is quiet for a long time, staring at her tea as it cools. “So, you believe there is no good reason to kill?”

Veery shakes his head. “Once you’re in a fight, once you’re already standing against each other, you have to do what you can to survive. I won’t feel guilty about killing if it means I’m alive at the end of the day. What’s not okay is starting the fight in the first place. There are so many better ways to handle every situation, but when you start a fight, you limit yourself to what you must do to survive.”

“I see,” Edelgard says, taking a sip of her tea. “I believe I understand you a little better now. So, tell me. If you find that part of yourself unacceptable, that part that delighted in Solon’s death, what do you do about it? Do you cut it out, or accept it anyway?”

Veery wrinkles his nose. “That’s a stupid question.”

“Excuse me?”

“It’s unacceptable. You can’t accept it anyway if it’s unacceptable,” Veery says with a shrug. “But cutting it out… it’s not… not an arrow in me. It’s a feeling. I can’t cut it out any more than I can accept it.”

Edelgard tilts her head. “Another option, then? You believe there are always more, correct?”

“I do.” Veery nods. “My feelings are products of my perception of the world. I react to things in certain ways because of how I perceive those things. I perceive Solon’s actions as terrible, because the way I see the world is such that an action like that is terrible. And how I perceive the world is a product of the lessons I’ve learned and the memories I’ve made.”

“I… think I see what you mean. If you want to change the way you feel about something, you must learn more about it,” Edelgard says. “That is why you’re here with us humans, is it not?”

“It is,” Veery confirms. “I was so afraid of humans, and so tired of being afraid. I want us all to get along, so that I can live in peace, without fear of humans hunting me down and killing me. I can’t- I can’t cut out those feelings as if they’re something foreign put inside me. They’re just products of my experiences. Even if I could cut them out… that’d just leave me empty. Not better.”

“That…” Edelgard huffs a small laugh. “That is very wise. And very brave. You have a most interesting mind, Veery.”

Veery shrugs. “Not really. I just do what I know how to.”

Veery is sleeping when the first snowfall comes. Gods, does Veery miss the snow.

He awakens in the dark to gentle snowfall, his Albinean instincts telling him to get up and to shelter immediately. He does have an admittedly bad habit of sleeping in the courtyard, since he prefers being outdoors, but cold-resistant as he is, even he can’t simply nap out there and be buried.

It’s so exciting to see snow again that he can hardly just go back to sleep, anyway. For a while, he’s convinced that it just doesn’t snow here at the monastery. He knows Faerghus gets snow, but he’s sure that it should be snowing heavily for a while now and until today sees only fleeting rains at best.

He takes shelter inside the Golden Deer classroom and watches the snow outside the window, unable to contain his widening grin as he sees it slowly build up. It brings him so much pleasure simply to watch the snow pile up that the next thing he knows, the sun is peeking over the horizon and the day is already beginning.

Veery is a lot of things, but he’s not a complicated person. He’s a hermit by nature, one content and happy in solitude and more than eager to enjoy such an isolated life. He’s a survivalist, who lives off the land with few luxuries to make his lifestyle more comfortable or entertaining. As such, he’s accustomed to making his own entertainment.

Even so, it is quite a remarkable note on his progress here at Garreg Mach, getting comfortable with humans, that his first thought now is simply to play.

It’s not as if he doesn’t ever play around here with the humans, but those instances are becoming more and more common. When Veery first comes to Garreg Mach, he is so terrified of everything that he probably can’t play if his life depends on it. Yet now, with the first snow of winter, Veery enters the courtyard and frolics.

And when Ingrid steps into the courtyard, early for today’s classes, Veery stops his rolling around in the snow to smile and wave at her, and she laughs, puts her things in her classroom, and reemerges to join him.

Faerghans must be of a similar heart, he thinks, for even Ingrid to be so eager to play in the snow. It’s just a shame, they silently agree, for the first snow of winter to not be enjoyed as it should.

It’s not long before Felix passes by and Ingrid nails him with a snowball. Predictably, Felix retaliates and the courtyard becomes an all out war between the two. Snickering, Veery ducks beneath a snowball and gathers a handful of snow to return fire. He’s mostly on Ingrid’s side, but she does shove a handful of snow down his shirt and he does knock a tree to make the collected snow on the above branches drop down on her, but with Felix’s assault the two join forces against him.

And then Annette joins, followed closely by Mercedes, supporting Felix, then Ashe stumbles in and joins Ingrid’s side. Dimitri shows up a minute later, laughing at the scene and unflinchingly joining in himself, splitting with Dedue to keep each team even in numbers.

Mercedes has a surprisingly mean arm, and Dedue is so large and unyielding that he easily protects his comrades. But Ingrid’s team is overall more agile and avoid the vast majority of hits.

Veery hears and smells her coming but allows Flayn to “sneak” up on him and dump snow over his head, yowling dramatically when she does so and turning to see her mischievous snicker. He gets her back by picking her up and falling back into the snow – himself first so as not to hurt her – and rolling over to smother her in the ice.

She screams, from delight and the sting of cold both, the same as Annette squeals as Ingrid manages to strike her with a snowball, and as Ashe yelps when Sylvain appears to pull the back of his collar and drop a handful of snow down his shirt.

Shrill laughter joins the shrieks, a cacophony of serious, barked orders as if they’re on a battlefield and the breathless joy of play rings over the courtyard, and from the volume likely much more of Garreg Mach.

Other students join in, too, not just the Lions. Petra shows up wide-eyed in wonder at the snow and eagerly participates, but bows out after only a few minutes, unable to bear the dampness and cold despite her exertions. Likewise, Claude comes in and turns the tide of battle, with Flayn and Veery both, and Leonie, Hilda, and Raphael to form a temporary, impromptu Golden Deer team before he and most of the other Deer likewise retire from cold – though they withstand it much longer than Petra. The other Eagles join in, too, with the obvious exceptions. Edelgard and Caspar both prove forces to be reckoned with, though Caspar admittedly struggles to make a snowball that won’t fall apart in the air before some of the Lions take pity on him and give him pointers.

Ingrid stops unexpectedly, millimeters away from shoving her handful of snow directly in Sylvain’s face, and everyone else likewise stops to follow her gaze to the professors. All three of them. And Captain Jeralt. And Seteth. The noise quiets all at once.

Seteth, at first, worries over Flayn, but quickly turns to lecturing them all about decorum. Everyone bows their heads, suitably chastised, until Professor Byleth unceremoniously dumps an armful of snow on Seteth’s head.

Veery can’t help but giggle, though he, like most, also gasps at the surprise of such a bold action.

“P-professor!” Seteth exclaims, scandalized and flustered by the unexpected assault.

“It’s the first snow day,” Captain Jeralt says with a shrug and a knowing smirk. “Let the kids have their fun.”

Professor Byleth makes a snowball and raises her brow at the gathered students, looking between them all seriously.

“Professor’s on our team!” Sylvain yells suddenly.

“Wha-? No way, she’s with us!” Ingrid retorts.

Professor Byleth smirks, looks back to her father, and then to Professors Hanneman and Manuela, and earns nods from the lot of them.

Oh, dear.

The four of them wreak havoc on the students. Seteth sighs, shaking his head disappointedly, but is pelted with enough snowballs from both students and teachers alike to be egged into joining the battle.

It’s the most fun Veery has in… maybe his whole life.

“Professor?”

Professor Byleth looks up from her desk and whatever paperwork is on it and raises her brow. “Veery? How can I help you?”

Veery bites his lip. “I’m… I’m sorry. I probably shouldn’t bother you with this, since I’m not actually part of your class, but…”

“You’re my student,” Professor Byleth says firmly. “How can I help you?”

Veery ducks his head, cheeks warming a little at the affirmation. “I, uh… I was thinking about the battle at Remire. About what role I played in the battle.” Professor Byleth tilts her head slightly, listening intently and not interrupting. “I… I don’t like shifting back to this form on the battlefield. My teeth and claws are my weapons, so it feels like… intentionally disarming myself. I’m not helpless like this, but…”

Professor Byleth nods slowly. “I can see your concern. Did you already have a solution in mind?”

Veery nods. “It does occur to me… if I can learn how to use my magic while shifted, I won’t need to cripple myself on the battlefield to heal. I mean, with strangers like those villagers, I probably would anyway, but as it is, I need to either devote myself to being a brawler or a healer. That limits my options a lot. Plus, offensive Faith magic is probably the last thing an enemy will expect when they see me on the battlefield. I’m still working on that, but Nosferatu will make me a lot more versatile, I think.”

“Very well. Allow me to speak to Professor Hanneman to draw up a training plan that might work. Or, if you’d like, we could go together.”

Veery hums. “Let me know when. I may as well go.”

“I’m nearly done with this report,” Professor Byleth says. “And he should be in his office at this time of day. We can go in just a few minutes if you don’t mind waiting.”

“Not at all.” Veery smiles. “And, um… thanks. I thought about trying to figure it out myself. I think I probably can, but… I thought I’d ask a teacher, anyway. I know you don’t have to help me, so I appreciate you taking the time.”

Professor Byleth smiles. “You’re my student. I’ll help you with whatever you need.”

Part of Veery still protests that he is still literally not her student, but… honestly, he’s starting to accept that that point is moot to just about everyone who matters.

Veery waits patiently. It’s no time at all, really, before they’re on their way up to Professor Hanneman’s office.

He invites them in eagerly, seemingly delighted by their visit. Veery has no doubt that he is, given that Professor Byleth and he are some of Professor Hanneman’s favorite test subjects.

Professor Byleth allows Veery to explain why they’re there, and Professor Hanneman perks up even more when he learns the reason for the visit. “You wish to use magic while shifted?” Professor Hanneman says, stroking his beard.

“Well, I’m pretty much giving up hope of not being dragged into whatever the next battle is,” Veery says. “So, yeah. I don’t want to be a liability going around unshifted on a battlefield.”

“I see. That is a wonderful idea. Absolutely wonderful. As a matter of fact, I am quite curious how your heart reacts to your use of magic. Is it at all similar to how Crested individuals wield the power of Heroes’ Relics?” Hanneman chuckled and nods to himself, delighted with whatever he’s thinking. “I will set some time aside each week and work with you personally on not just using magic while shifted, but some introductory Reason magic as well. You’re competent enough with Faith, so more tools in your arsenal will only help, after all.”

“Makes sense,” Veery says. “Are you sure you don’t mind putting aside the time? Aren’t you already busy with your research?”

“Why, I’m never too busy to help one of my students!” Professor Hanneman says happily. “Besides, working with you directly on your magic will allow me the chance to make valuable observations of your Crest at work. Two birds with one stone, as they say!”

That… makes more sense, admittedly. He will still be doing research even as he teaches Veery. That sounds like Professor Hanneman.

“Though in truth, I believe you will have little trouble managing it,” Professor Hanneman says. “If you can still control the magic inside of you while shifted, there should be no difference in application.”

“I can,” Veery says. “I can sense magic the same, too. Maybe better, actually.”

Professor Hanneman nods and hums and strokes his moustache. “The primary difficulty will be to figure out the focus point from which you will expel your magic. As you know, by convention, we use the palms of our hands. This is both tradition, standardized to prevent nasty surprises when facing mages, but also practical. The palms of the hands, the bottom of the feet, the top of the head, and the scrotum are the natural exit points of energy from the body, so they are by far the easiest places to make your expulsion points. For someone first exploring magic, especially without proper tutelage, those may be the only possible places to successfully do so, and the palms of the hands are, from those options, by far the most practical. Not the least of which because they are usually the only ones uncovered, unless you want to risk a fire spell burning the hair off your head. That said, theoretically, these points from which you will summon your magic can be anywhere on your body, and you can have up to a few – certain ruffian types are known to add two extras, right on the tip of a finger on each hand. For use in escaping bindings, primarily, since fingers are too fragile for much powerful war magic.

“It is possible to have more, though. Why, I know of one quite extraordinary, and entertaining, mage who made seven! Though I’ve never heard of more than that. It starts to become dangerous, you see, having so many open expulsion points where magic may leak without proper control, especially if they are distributed all across the body and do not align with the natural exits of energy… Where was I? Ah, my point is it should be no trouble for you to work on making another one, though I wouldn’t recommend more than two extra. Only one, if you can get away with it. The problem is figuring out where.”

Veery frowns. The point that the magic leaves his body… that’s what gives a spell direction, usually. He simply points that expulsion point at whatever he’s targeting and pushes out the magic. He can tell that the exits he already has, in the palms of his hands, translate to the pads of his paws when he’s shifted, but it’s true that that isn’t a very practical place to have it if he’s fighting.

Not completely unreasonable. If he’s just healing, it shouldn’t matter that much for him to lift a paw to touch his patient, and offensively he’s usually leaping up onto enemies anyway. It does somewhat eliminate the range advantage that using offensive magic will give him over simply clawing someone, though.

He ponders what he can use that he can point at an enemy from a range. “My nose?” he asks. It’s the obvious answer. It’s what leads him. He walks in the direction his nose points. He’s always facing his enemy if he’s attacking them.

“…Possibly.” Professor Hanneman frowns. “I worry that magic formed on your nose may impair your vision or sense of smell. While the excess magic you release protects the area around the expulsion point from your own spell, if you, say try to summon a Fire spell and embers blow back into your eyes…”

Veery frowns. “Good point. That’s bad.”

Professor Byleth tilts her head for a moment, and then says, “What if you were like a dragon?”

“Like a…” Veery furrows his brow, trying to figure out what she means. It clicks a moment later. “Oh! Like breathing fire! If I made the exit point in my mouth, I could direct it with no problem and since it’s more contained, the excess magic wouldn’t scatter as easily, so most likely my whole mouth would be protected. Is that what you mean?”

Professor Byleth nods.

“Hmm.” Professor Hanneman hums, nodding. “That could work. I’ve read about circus performers who do something similar to give the appearance of breathing fire. Yes… yes, I’ll do some calculations to be sure, but I believe that should work. Hold on for a moment, please.”

Professor Hanneman grabs some chalk off his desk and frantically rummages through a messy cupboard for some notes and starts scribbling a bunch on numbers on a blackboard. Veery glances over to Professor Byleth to see if she understands what he’s doing at all, but she’s just watching him attentively, her face giving away none of her thoughts.

Veery sighs. Math really isn’t his strong suit, anyway. He’s better with words than numbers. Even when he tries to remember dates, he only gets by with thinking about the events and using broad terms with simple numbers like “about a thousand years ago” and “around the time of this significant event” rather than the actual year on the calendar. Then again, Albinea has a different calendar than Fódlan does and Veery specifically doesn’t have any calendar for most of his life, so maybe that’s to be expected.

“Aha!” Professor Hanneman exclaims. Veery refocuses on him. “Yes, if the magic is expelled from the back of the mouth, it will disperse… Very good! Very good. Veery, you will want your expulsion point in the very rear of your mouth. From that point, magical dispersion should protect the entirety of your mouth. Just do remember to open up when you cast, yes?”

Ugh, Veery doesn’t want to think about what will happen if he doesn’t. That’s a potential problem, though. Much like how mages need their hands free to cast spells because the palms of their hands need to be unobstructed, his mouth will likewise need to be open. And he can’t be biting anything, either, unless he wants to seriously damage whatever he already has in his mouth and risk damaging his own mouth too in the process.

Lysithea mentions that some mages get around the hands-free problem by making the tips of their fingers expulsion points. The same people Hanneman calls ruffians, Veery guesses. That way, they can hold a sword and point to cast with the same hand. It works, apparently, but isn’t as common because of how fragile individual fingers are. A break could mean crippling their ability to cast. It takes a lot of control to be able to cast that way, and since it’s mostly only applicable if you’re also using a weapon anyway, most mages can’t or won’t devote the time to mastering their magic that much. It’s much easier to just use the sword in one hand and use magic in the other. Or just use a levin sword, which is designed to have magic pumped into the handle.

Veery doesn’t have such solutions already waiting for him, though, because he’s treading new ground doing this at all. Honestly, when dragons and theory are the best references he has, he’s clearly doing something unconventional.

“You should start immediately on forming that expulsion point.” Professor Hanneman instructs him. “It shouldn’t take nearly as long as your first time, since there is so much less guesswork when you already have the experience, but as you know, it will take time and effort before you will be casting anything that way. Once you’ve successfully managed to expel magic with that expulsion point, you will absolutely not cast any sort of magic using it until both Professor Manuela and I are available to observe. Until we are one hundred percent positive that it is safe, I must insist on this point.”

Veery agrees eagerly. “I understand. The last thing I want to do is damage the inside of my mouth, so you don’t need to worry about me being reckless with it.”

“Very good.” Professor Hanneman nods. “In that case, I’ll begin drawing up a lesson plan with Professor Byleth to schedule our Reason and shifted magic lessons. Do you have any further questions or concerns? Anything planned that I’m unaware of that should be taken into account for scheduling?”

Veery honestly doesn’t do much around here. Not that’s scheduled, anyway. All he does is assist the teachers occasionally, usually Professor Byleth, train, and do the occasional chores. Everything else is entirely his own study and time that can be shifted however he pleases. “I don’t believe so,” he says.

“Excellent. Then do begin on opening that expulsion point.” Professor Hanneman grins. “I must admit, I am most thrilled to begin these lessons!”

[will-o-the-witch]

If this is not uncomfortable to answer to , may I ask what's your view on Lilith?

I see a lot of opinions being shared left and right by people on tumblr and while I don't support appropriation, nor I have any interest in her as a religious/ mythological figure, your post about her sparked some curiosity inside me in terms of her being viewed solely as a monstrous entity.

I honestly don't take any myth or story about deities, spirits and so on as being 100% true. These stories are still written by humans based on their experiences, the way their mind works, their bias etc. The child killer Lilith can absolutely be a way trough people tried to explain why their children were dying, considering that during those times we had no advanced medicine and diseases were much more harder to treat and prevent.

This is pure genuine curiosity, do Jewish people approach Lilith? Are they truly that scared of her? Do almost everyone believe she is the reason why children were dying in the past ?

I frankly believe that no religious/ spiritual text holds the absolute truth of all that exists or the truth of the being/ race of beings that it is talked about in it. Humans always tried to explain (especially in the past ) why things happen by involving divine/ unseen forces, when most of the times it was just a normal phenomena that was way too hard for them to understand so boom a monster/ god must have been the cause.

If someone had a bad experience with a specific entity or they don't like what that entity represents, of course they'll paint them as a monstrous creature.

Jewish people and Jewish beliefs aren't a monolith, so there's no real answer to your question. People have a wide range of opinions about her and how much they "put stock" into her stories. The way you've described it here sounds like you imagine most people take all of this extremely literally, though, as if we missed out on learning about SIDS alongside everyone else. I'd encourage you to think of it less as a literal-fictional either-or binary and examine how the myths and the science feed into each other!

More to the point maybe though, the interpretation of her as ANYTHING other than purely malevolent is very modern. Doesn't mean valid or invalid, but it's VERY important to remember she maintained this reputation for thousands of years and it miiiight be a bad idea (even from a scholarly perspective) to assume everybody got it wrong bc they just didn't like her until the last 50-60 years. To many people, that's like putting a pretty pink bow on a wild boar.

You're not going to find ANY traditional Jewish folklore/practices that treat her as anything other than malevolent. (If you DO manage to find one from before say 1950, I will eat my kippah.) This has been her role for literally thousands of years. I'm fine when Jewish folks participate in feminist discussions about her and reinterpret the works within this context with regards to how she's played a role in our cultures, but I DONT like when gentiles then co-op these discussions to go "Yeah she was ALWAYS a feminist #icon, (((they))) just got it wrong because they're just a bunch of backwards chauvinists 💕"

From what I've seen most of the backlash about people romanticized her comes from people just wanting to adopt the feelgoody vibes from the latter. The one where she's totally #unproblematic and anything troubling can be explained away, ignoring her massive amount of historical context/90% of everything ever written about her.

SOME Jews will work with her, but most of the ones I know stay far the hell away from her. There's no such thing as a Universal Truth, but people earn their reputations for a reason.

[f-a-b-l-e]

Dutch person chiming in:

I think I've got some missing context that might help y'all understand why we don't bother wearing helmets here.

1) Cycling trips are just shorter here! According to the Dutch Central Bureau Of Statistics, in 2021 people cycled for a good 15 minutes per day. That means the trip is 7 minutes long, because you have to get there and get home.

If your trip is only 7 minutes long you're not going to bother with a helmet, cause putting on and taking off the helmet, even if it only takes one minute, would take 1/7th of the actual trip.

The risk of an accident happening is also reduced just on the basis of the trip taking less time. Your exposure to risks is reduced. Of course we do cycle more than americans annually, but there's also the psychological aspect: why would I bother with a helmet on the off chance that these 15 minutes are the ones in which I crash?

2) infrastructure!! I bet all the people in this thread have never been to the Netherlands, because they'd understand immediately that cycling in the Netherlands is just saver by default. The youtube channel Not Just Bikes has an excellent video comparing what it's like to cycle in Calgary and in Amsterdam. Even I wouldn't have the guts to take that cycling trip in Calgary, are you nuts? Anyway, watch the video and you'll understand. He didn't cherrypick his dutch route, dutch cycling infrastructure Is Just Like That™.

3) the culture. Everyone who drives a car also rides a bike. Everyone who participates in traffic also rides a bike. This is so, so important to grasp for anyone talking about this who doesn't live in the Netherlands.

Lastly, I know that "I don't know anyone who's gotten badly injured in an accident" is anecdotal evidence, but your survivor's bias also doesn't hold up because uhh... I also don't know anyone who's died in a traffic accident? I do know people who've been in an accident (my brother twice actually) but since traffic is slower in places where people cycle, I feel like traffic injuries are also less bad. I don't have a source on that, but as I said this is all anecdotal anyways so it shouldn't matter. I do have some data on traffic deaths though: some raw data and an article.

The light blue (the first in the list under the graph) is bicyles. Yeah. Let that sink in.

As you can see, most of the people dying in bicycle accidents are old people. If you ask me, old people should absolutely wear helmets, but also there's a real problem of old people still going out on a bicycle when they should just. Not. My own grandparents are a great example of this: my grandfather faints a lot, but he still cycles. Like dude. Do you want to die? Anecdotal evidence again, but ask any dutch person and they'll know of this social problem. There's also been a rise in the use of electrical bikes amongst the elderly, which I theorise has a large part in why they have so many cycling deaths.

Anyway, ignore the old people and you can see that even though we have more bicycles than cars in this country (23.5 million vs 8.9 million - with a population of 17.5 million) most fatal traffic accidents happen in a car, and not on a bike.

Footnote: bicycles themselves are also different here. They're heavier, but sturdier. You cycle sitting up like you're sitting in a chair. This makes the trip more comfortable, but also slower (and thus safer). Once again Not Just Bikes has a very good video on the subject.

So. I don't even know what else I can say to make you see something that's obvious for anyone who's ever lived here. The main takeaway is that

taking part in traffic is fundamentally different here.

And that

if you don't grasp that, you don't have any business talking about traffic in the Netherlands.

Thanks for listening.

re: helmets, Literally no one in the netherlands wears helmets when cycling. If you do see someone w a helmet theyre either 1. a race cyclists or 2. german tourists. I also genuinely do not know anyone whos had a serious head injury whilst cycling. This includes like, drunk students who cycle home.

I mean, you do, because you're talking to someone who flipped over his handlebars, nearly died, and spent days in the hospital. I wasn't involved in a car accident and I wasn't going very fast or biking recklessly. I had my little sister with me so I was looking after her and we were biking carefully - I was always more careful when Cari was with me. I may have hit a pothole or a rock or my brakes may have malfunctioned. We don't know and I don't remember the entire accident.

Like, I get that you culturally don't do that, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea. There's no argument to me to be made about bike helmets the same way there's no argument to be made about seatbelts. If you wear one, you might look like a dork or a German, I guess. If you don't, you might end up like me, flipping over the handlebars of your bike and puking on yourself for several days while you try not to die.

I'm genuinely baffled by the idea that city bikes are somehow immune to severe head injuries or that cars are the reason for lots of bike accidents so without car hazards you just don't need a helmet at all. The average cycling speed is 8-14mph in the Netherlands - do you ... get what happens to a skull when it hits things at 10mph?

If y'all want to ride around like that, I think you're foolish as hell, but I can't stop you. 🤷🏻‍♂️