#yet another concept that the writers failed to understand or take advantage of

[constantvariations]

Y’all remember Ren’s random ass semblance evolution right? This bullshit?

Does this mean that Ren has always been colorblind and only now is he able to see colors (and somehow know exactly what they mean)? Why isn’t the idea of a colorblind character in a world heavily based on colors explored?

[graysoncritic]

A (Negative) Review of Tom Taylor's Nightwing Run - What Went Wrong? Melinda Lin Grayson

Introduction Who is Dick Grayson? What Went Wrong? Dick's Characterization What Went Wrong? Barbara Gordon What Went Wrong? Bludhaven (Part 1, Part 2) What Went Wrong? Melinda Lin Grayson What Went Wrong? Bea Bennett What Went Wrong? Villains Conclusion Bibliography

Things do not get any better when it comes to Dick’s relationship to Melinda.

As I believe it is important to own up to one’s biases, I’ll begin by admitting that I dislike secret-sibling tropes. However, the problem present in Melinda’s character does not revolve around the concept of her existence, but rather in the fact that her status as Dick’s sister adds nothing to the story. Taylor does not take advantage of her existence to add to Dick’s backstory, complicate his views of his parents, to add conflict to the plot, or to offer on-screen character and relationship development. In failing to have his original character live up to her full potential, Taylor reduces her to a deus-ex-machina who only appears to either save Dick at the right time, or to put him in danger at the right moment.

That is why in execution, Melinda’s existence is irrelevant. While I would never want John Grayson to be cheater and I do not want John and Mary's marriage to be tarnished, that route would have offered conflict, for it forces Dick to grapple with the reality that parents were not the infallible individuals he remembers.

Instead, Melinda is very conveniently conceived during the span of time between John and Mary becoming an acrobatic duo and them getting together. They were already in love, so Dick does not have to worry about Melinda's mom being John's long lost lover and Mary having been a rebound. Yet, because John and Mary were not yet together, John remains a good person as he was not unfaithful. Melinda's mom doesn't resent Mary for ending up with John while she was stuck in an abusive relationship. Melinda doesn’t resent Dick for having known their father while she lived with Zucco. Neither does she feel any love towards Zucco or seeks his approval — which would have been another interesting and understandable source of conflict. After all, though he was an awful man, husband, and father, for a good part of Melinda’s life, he was the only father figure she had, and it is very common for children who were raised by an abusive guardian to still desire their affection.

(Taylor, Tom, writer. Redondo, Bruno, illustrator. Leaping into the Light Part Five. Nightwing: Rebirth. 82, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2021. pp 14)

The way in which Taylor quickly and neatly wraps up this story does little to add to either Melinda or Dick’s character. Furthermore, Dick readily believes Melinda and Meilin when he is told their story. He does not know them, yet he simply accepts their words without requiring any evidence, without asking many questions, and without following it up with an investigation. 

Neither do we see him experience denial or any other form of human emotions to such a monumental discovery. In #83, when Dick returns to his apartment, he tells Babs “You heard? I have a sister. And even better… There’s a chance she’s not evil,” to which she replies  “I hear. You need to talk about it?” Rather than replying, or, indeed, talking about how he feels about this revelation, Dick instead passes out. As readers we never get to see if said conversation happened (which would also develop Dick and Babs’ relations), and so we never get to see Dick grapple with this life changing revelation..

(Taylor, Tom, writer. Redondo, Bruno, illustrator. Leaping into the Light Part Six. Nightwing: Rebirth. 83, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2021. pp 12)

Conveniently, Melinda’s morals and her approaches to solution also perfectly align with Dick’s own. Not only is she not the bad guy Dick originally thought she was, but she is actively working against those Dick wishes to stop. And, again, Dick takes her word for it without a second thought. Dick appears skeptical for a mere second before Melinda gives him an out by asking if he has “difficulty believing someone could have a double life.” 

(Taylor, Tom, writer. Redondo, Bruno, illustrator. Leaping into the Light Part Six. Nightwing: Rebirth. 83, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2021. pp 04)

This question misses the point of what should be Dick’s understandable suspicion. Just because Dick can believe someone can live a double life, it does not mean he should immediately accept the words of a woman he has never met before without any evidence. Neither should he just take her word for it when she says that she “brought down two crime bosses from within” and that she wishes “to do the same for Bludhaven.”

Just as baffling as the fact that Dick immediately believes is the fact that he is ready to include her in all of his plans to take down Blockbuster without even investigating whether she might have ulterior motives.

And this goes both ways. When Melinda claims to have the same goals as Dick, she does not question Dick’s motivations. Neither does she question the legality of having a vigilante in the city, working outside of the system. 

The problem is not just that they have the same objective — take down Blockbuster — but that their approach to said objective is the exact same, that their beliefs in what would be best for Bludhaven perfectly align, and so they trust each other with critical information almost instantaneously, denying the reader the opportunity to read them about them earning each other’s trust by trying to persuade the to their side.

(Taylor, Tom, writer. Redondo, Bruno, illustrator. Leaping into the Light Part Six. Nightwing: Rebirth. 83, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2021. pp 05)

fter meeting one another, Dick and Melinda work closely together, and soon they start to think of themselves as siblings. This, however, happens off-screen. Melinda and Dick hardly ever appear together on the page, and Dick only thinks of her when it is convenient to the plot.  

As such, we are left with a significant change to a character’s backstory without having any conflict or significance created by this new addition. Melinda is not evil, so there's no conflict to be added. Melinda and Dick's morals not only perfectly align, but their methodology does as well. Dick is also not suspicious of Melinda, and Melinda views vigilantism and Nightwing’s presence in Bludhaven as a positive. There are no secret identity issues where Melinda doesn't know Dick and Nightwing are the same person and has contradicting feelings for each persona. Since Dick immediately takes her word when she claims to be his sister and when she claims to “not be evil,”  there is no need for her to win him over. There is no need for Dick to get Melinda to trust him. In other words, there is no room for this relationship to develop in front of the readers’ eyes so that we can grow to care for their bond and become invested in their dynamic. Every potential conflict or development is resolved and achieved as soon as the idea of Dick having a secret sister is introduced to the reader, making so that the storyline goes from its beginning to its endpoint in just two issues. 

This further destroys Dick’s characterization. Rather than trusting, Dick comes across as gullible, as he will blindly take the words of others when they tell him they are not evil. Dick comes off as incompetent, as he was unmasked so quickly and so easily when trying to investigate Melinda. And Melinda becomes a plot device, not a character. She is a deus-ex-machina who is there to call Dick when Blockbuster is going to try to kill him so Dick can escape at last second

(Taylor, Tom, writer. Redondo, Bruno, illustrator. Get Grayson Act Three. Nightwing: Rebirth. 90, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2022. pp 04)

Or to bring Dick to danger when the plot needs Dick to be in danger.

(Taylor, Tom, writer. Redondo, Bruno, illustrator. The Battle for Bludhaven’s Heart Part Three. Nightwing: Rebirth. 94, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2022. pp 22)

A lot of this could have been avoided if Melinda just wasn't Dick's sister, and instead they were made into reluctant allies. There would be no reason for her and Dick to spend time together outside of Nightwing-business or develop a sibling-bond, and without the Grayson connection, there would be the tension of Dick not knowing whether she is a threat. Losing the Grayson connection would also allow Melinda to become her own person, with her own history and interiority outside of Dick, John Grayson, and Zucco. She, too, could have become a face of Bludhaven so that her relevance to the plot would be through the city rather than Dick’s past. 

But that would require Dick to have meaningful interactions with a woman who is not related to him and who is not Barbara Gordon, and there would have been the threat of any tension between Dick and Melinda to be seen as romantic or sexual. It would have also required Taylor to put in the work to make an otherwise everyday human into someone who can excel in her work despite her ordinariness. 

Instead of letting the audience witness Dick and Melinda grow closer to one another, their bond as allies, friends, and siblings is developed off-screen. Taylor opts to skip over the interesting and messy steps that it takes to create such a relationship by instead having them immediately like and trust one another. 

As I said in the beginning of this section, I was never personally going to like "Dick's secret sibling" concept, but I could have still liked Melinda for her own character. Or I could have fallen in love with the sibling relationship she would build with Dick, had I been allowed the chance to witness it grow for myself. But Taylor makes no effort to endear his readers to Melinda as a character or to her relationship with Dick. Instead, she becomes the perfect example of so many of Taylor’s weaknesses as a writer — his distaste for conflict;  his tendency to show and not tell; his wanting to create plot twists that look shocking in a social media post while having no desire to follow through the consequences of said plot point; his wanting to create emotional pay-offs without putting in the work beforehand; his complete lack of understanding or care for Dick's character. Melinda embodies all of these problems.

[sometimesrosy]

Can you tell us, from a writer point of view, what’s Echo’s plot and what you think of it? What type of archetype is she? Where is she headed? How did her character in past seasons influence her character in s5 and how will it influence s6? Sorry if it’s too much, I’m just really curious because barely anyone analyses her character without being biased. If you take this “challenge”, I’ll thank you for it. If not, I understand and thank you anyways.

Okay. First, archetypes aren’t like, a definitive label to place on a character. Archetypes are traditional stories and characters, patterns and tropes and conventions that we are familiar with due to eons of these stories being told.

They help us build our concept of humanity, of ourselves, and of expectations, ideas of right and wrong, and help us make sense of the world around us. They are subconscious stories that *feel* right to us, so we can understand character or personal motivations.

As such, I can explore a character through many different archetypes and might have different understanding through each one. Some might fight more fully, some might be only a partial fit. A character might drop one archetype, and move onto another, like Bellamy starting out as “the rebel” and becoming “the caretaker.” He was DEFINITELY “the rebel.” And then he wasn’t. Or perhaps he still has some elements of “the rebel” in him. The more complex a character, the more realistic, the more we’ll be able to see multiple archetypes within them.

Okay, so I did a little google (with a short trip through some mens rights horror) and settled on our basic idea of archetype. Jungian. Generally with this show, while there are many literary elements going on, they are usually pretty simple ones, and you can find understanding on page 1 of your google search.

So for Echo, I’m going with:

The HeroMotto: Where there’s a will, there’s a wayCore desire: to prove one’s worth through courageous actsGoal: expert mastery in a way that improves the worldGreatest fear: weakness, vulnerability, being a “chicken”Strategy: to be as strong and competent as possibleWeakness: arrogance, always needing another battle to fightTalent: competence and courageThe Hero is also known as: The warrior, crusader, rescuer, superhero, the soldier, dragon slayer, the winner and the team player. [X]

She is The Hero before we meet her. I don’t mean the hero of the story, and i don’t meant The Hero’s Journey. I’m talking character type. Personality. 

So we meet her in the cages, where the enemy has beaten her and her story is basically over until she meets Bellamy who she blames, sorta, and hates, until she realizes teaming up is the way to survive and win. This actually reminds me of Clarke. She recognized him as “the hero” and leader, the “other” who could be allied with in order to win. Which she did. They work together to defeat Lovejoy, and Bellamy goes on his mission while Echo takes on HER mission, mobilizing the grounder troops.

However, her leader calls her to stand down, so she abandons her new comrade in arms and leaves him to fail, while following her leader, who has chosen to betray their allies. 

We know that this bothered her, because she told him it was wrong (as did Lincoln and Indra.) In season 3 she came back, and leaned on her relationship as comrade with Bellamy, apologized for her betrayal, and then, leads him away from the plot against Mount Weather. Thereby saving his life and fulfilling her debt to him for saving HER life, but also betraying him AGAIN. HOWEVER in doing so, she has followed her leader’s requests, again, in word, while also getting her goals accomplished. Saving Bellamy. Who she feels a connection with, as well as owing a debt to.

In season 4, she’s back again. This time, with power. The king depends upon her. She is a warrior again. She makes decisions for the best of her people. She continues with her enmity against the sky people, which has been the case since they landed. (witness her initial meeting with Bellamy.) BUT her interactions with Bellamy have taught her that the sky people have also contributed and are warriors in their own right. She still disregards the skypeople and thinks of them as enemies, but BELLAMY is not like other skypeople, and she would like him to trust her. :/ I am not a big fan of “not like other girls” thinking. Lxa did it too with Clarke.

That actually is important, because there are a lot of parallels between Echo and Bellamy’s relationship and Clarke and Lxa’s relationship. The opposite side enemies, who become allies and comrades and are betrayed, leading Clarke and Bellamy to basically lose it, who must come back to become comrades again in order to survive and then, fall in love. 

Lxa and CL was important to Clarke because it allowed her to embrace the dark side of herself, to make the hard choices, and face the terrible repercussions of those things. Lxa was her shadow and she needed to fall in love with her in order to move forward.

Echo and B/E is important to Bellamy because it allows him to forgive HIMSELF, to let go of his hate and resentment of the enemy who has caused him so much pain, so that he could accept “the other” as part of his family. As humanity. He needed this to move forward and lead with his head, while Clarke needed CL to embrace love and lead with her heart. 

I point these out because, while Echo is important and has her own story, her MAIN place in the story is to act as a foil for BELLAMY’S journey. Yes. She is there to serve his story. She is a secondary and sometimes tertiary character. because it’s HIS story. Why didn’t we get the story of B/E falling in love? Because it wasn’t about their love. It was about how their love changed Bellamy and allowed him to move forward in HIS story. He is a holistic leader now, he has forgiven himself and his enemy (sometimes the same thing) and now he can live without the trauma he has been holding and we see him as The Hero he is meant to be. For Bellamy, that is not actually his archetype, that is his role in the story. Not personality. Sorry, there are many forms of “the hero” in lit analysis. 

Echo’s story in s5 CHANGES. She moves from being a minor or tertiary character to being a secondary character.

NOW we get to see her in her Hero archetype. She is the fighter. The warrior. The team player. She goes on the missions. She saves the day. Right? 

Her story in season 5 and I suspect season 6, because it is not over. I feel like she went to sleep in the middle of it, is “The Hero” discovering that she does not need to be the warrior all the time and she has a place in her family without having to be fighting someone all the time. 

With the fight for Eden, she had a clear role. It was EVEN how she got Octavia to allow her to continue her relationship with her boyfriend. Her romance is not really the story. Being ALLOWED to be part of Bellamy’s life is. We don’t SEE their love. We see them fighting to be able to love. And to WIN that permission? What does she do? She fights against the enemies. She provides the leader with military advantages. She is The Warrior. 

It is hard to tell you what I think her story is this season without speculating, because I don’t believe her story is done.

I do not think her story will be about a romance, but I DO think it will be about belonging, about family, and about being the good guy– and what that means when she can’t just fight “the enemy” and let that be enough to make her worthy. It is part of the main story of the whole show, with different characters exploring what it means to be good. What IS good. Her issue is where does she belong, because she has always belonged AS The Warrior. If she can’t be The Warrior, then WHO IS SHE? 

I’m seeing some echo between Echo and Clarke now. The beginning of s1 had Clarke asking who was Wanheda if there was no one left to kill. And I think Echo will be having a similar question in season 6. When the warrior went to space and put down her sword and became a part of a family and found love, but then had to pick up the sword again and fight enemies again. So she had a place. The family, the love, the sword. 

I think her question will be “am I worthy if I don’t have the sword?” Partly because the question of love will be up in the air, with both Octavia and Clarke there now, and Bellamy loving Clarke. And to THEN be confronted by Clarke and Bellamy’s decision to “be the good guys” and Bellamy’s declaration that they weren’t going to kill their enemies. It leaves Echo without a place. This would essentially be a confrontation of her archetype. If she’s always playing the role of the hero and that is how she finds value, then having it taken from her and finding her own intrinsic value is a subversion of the Hero archetype.

I think she’ll find that being part of the family is ENOUGH. That being HERSELF is enough. And she might end up making some decisions that are the right thing to do, but not for her family. Hmm. I think she’s going to prove herself as the good guy also, but it may not be how her family wants. BUT that is speculation on what I see her story going towards, not an analysis of it yet. Because it hasn’t gotten to that part yet.

I believe that s5 and s6 are a two year long story arc for all the characters, so I’m looking at where we could go from where we are now.

. What do I feel about her story? If it goes the way I see it, I think it’s good and important and strong for a secondary character. I don’t like the romance because I ship Bellarke, but I also don’t see it as a threat, because I see it as a narrative tool to move Bellarke into the romantic. All the signs are there. It’s slower than the fandom wanted, and left us in the middle of it which makes them feel Bellarke isn’t happening, but it’s all still going along the conventions of the love triangle, so I’m good. 

I am leery of the ship wars, and I know the ship wars make me not want to pay as much attention to echo as i might otherwise if i didn’t know people would use the analysis to prop up a ship and shoot mine down, and take my analysis of what I see as a romantic obstacle to Bellarke as an attack on them. And while I appreciate echo, I can’t take part in echo appreciation because people use that to hate on Clarke, which I cannot abide. So the fandom limits how I may address characters and stories. Mainly because I don’t want the drama. 

I took the challenge. It was hard. ;)

[warcrafttimemd]

Thoughts On The Criticism of AU!Draenei Direction

As the fallout from the revelations of the Mag’har Allied Race scenario continues to spread through the fanbase, I’ve seen plenty of good reasons why the decision to turn the AU!Draenor Draenei evil was a terrible one: it’s illogical, it invalidates the entirety of the Warlords of Draenor storyline, it’s a weak-ass excuse to set the Mag’har against a threat they need help with that they couldn’t get from the AU!Draenei that also completely ignores all the other nonsense going on like the crazy plants in Gorgrond, it’s the latest in the increasingly shameful exhibit of how Blizzard doesn’t know how to write female characters, it’s a pathetically lazy attempt to peddle the ‘both sides are evil’ narrative even though the AU@Draenei are not and have never actually been part of the Alliance, it’s just bad fucking writing, etc. It is an awful decision for all those reasons listed.

I have seen one that doesn’t work, though, and it’s been written a number of different ways:

“Draenei don’t/can’t work as oppressors because they’ve always been oppressed.”

“Draenei are victim-coded, so making them evil is wrong.”

“I can’t/don’t feel sorry for the Mag’har because they treated the Draenei so horribly in the past.”

It all basically boils down to this: Draenei, as villains, are impossible. Frankly, I don’t buy it.

“Draenei don’t/can’t work as oppressors because they’ve always been oppressed.”

Being oppressed or conquered in the past, whether as an individual or a group, doesn’t prevent an individual or a group from being oppressors or conquerors in the future. There’s no Ron Swanson-style card they get to hold up that says “I can do what I want.” What it does mean is that, having been treated in this awful way, they should know better than to turn around and do it to someone else. Unfortunately, you can look at the entire history of Azeroth to see how that lesson’s taken hold in others - or hasn’t, in most cases.

To the more severe version of the idea, that Draenei can’t be oppressors - that they are physically and morally incapable of the act on an objective scale, no matter the actual results of their actions - because of how they’ve been treated in the past, I also say bollocks. The ability to dominate and conquer is directly related to the power wielded by a person/faction; when we left AU!Draenor at the end of Warlords, the AU!Draenei were still on the back-foot (back-hoof?), but when we come back to AU!Draenor, even though we don’t have exact specifics yet, we can infer that they’ve grown in size and strength enough not just to challenge the Mag’har, but to become the dominant species/faction on the planet.

Whatever power of the Mag’har/Iron Horde wielded in the past, it’s now passed to the AU!Draenei. They have the power, and they’re happily using it to convert, enslave, and wipe out the Mag’har. When a faction starts outnumbering and enslaving other races, they don’t get to hold onto that ‘oppressed’ title. As Garrosh Hellscream himself said:

“Draenei are victim-coded, so making them evil is wrong.” 

This variation holds the most water for me, although I’d still argue it’s inaccurate. Is turning the AU!Draenei ‘evil’ morally wrong? No. Is it distasteful? Arguably. Is it a poor idea at this point in World of Warcraft’s story? Absolutely.

To a certain extent, I think I see what Blizzard is attempting to do: they’re pulling an ‘Arthas,’ showcasing how dire a threat is by showing that even the best and brightest can be turned into moustache-twirling villains by its influence. I think that Blizzard hopes that in doing so, not only will they add a huge amount of weight to Xe’ra’s actions in Legion, they’ll also be adding a huge amount of weight to the concept that the Light can be just as dangerous as the Void, which has, up until the Xe’ra stuff, seemed more like trite ‘all things in moderation’ philosophy than something concrete.

Xe’ra’s extremist approach was easy enough to pass off as a fluke for a number of reasons: because of existing in a fragmented state for so long, her sanity was questionable (wow, another insane female character, real original Blizz), she was ancient beyond reckoning, coming from a time and place far divorced from Azeroth (and Azerothian ideas about good and evil), etc. Xe’ra was really the first true instance of a Light-aligned character doing some really questionable stuff in the name of the Light; there have been other characters in similar circumstances (Arthas, the Scarlet Crusade, etc.) but all of those were shown to be ultimately under the control or direction of more nefarious forces. There’s no question what Xe’ra is up to. Xe’ra can’t be discounted as a rogue agent anymore. She isn’t the exception, she’s the harbinger, and the AU!Draenei (and potentially more characters in the future) are what she is heralding.

As to whether turning a ‘victim-coded’ race into conquerors is ‘wrong’...I guess I don’t even really understand that concept, that once a race/faction has been established as more likely to give ground than hold or take, then they’ll never, ever do anything but that, and that changing or reversing that behavior is morally incorrect on the behalf of the writers. Honestly, I addressed most of that in the first section. Yes, the Draenei have been shown to be naturally peaceful, and retreating from a fight or attempting to negotiate is their first instinct. However, they’ve also been shown to be easily swayed to drastic action when their faith is appealed to, something both Sargeras and K’ure took advantage of in the past, though for different reasons. A running theme in the Warcraft games is how absolute power corrupts, and there’s no good reason why any faction should be immune from that, no matter what they’ve been through. Dealing with shit in the past earns you nothing on a cosmic scale, which the World of Warcraft writers seem to enjoy reminding us a lot of lately.

That still doesn’t make the decision to have the AU!Draenei go Crusades on Draenor any better. It’s certainly in poor taste. The people of AU!Draenor got about as happy an ending as World of Warcraft affords: the bad guys were defeated, and everybody was pledged to a brighter future because, down at brass tacks, that’s what they all wanted. Then we come back years later - from the clues in the broadcast text, I’m assuming the Mag’har scenario takes place about 20-30 years after the events of Warlords - and find that literally everything is ruined. Nothing the players did really mattered at all; even though the Legion is no longer in the picture, Draenor is still in the hands of tyrants, it’s just religious fanatics instead of savage warriors this time. Who knows what’s happened to the Arakkoa. They were probably first on the AU!Draenei’s ‘to-smite’ list. It’s such an absolutely bitter pill that it almost defies belief. I joked about it in a post a while back, but Blizzard really did make Warlords somehow worse.

“I can’t/don’t feel sorry for the Mag’har because they treated the Draenei so horribly in the past.”

I call this the ‘Killmonger problem,’ because the folks who feel this way don’t assign an intrinsic negative value to certain actions/practices, but rather base their approval of those actions/practices purely on who’s performing them. In other words, they don’t have a problem with objectively evil actions like conquering and/or enslaving, but only as long as they’re the ones doing it or it’s happening to someone they don’t like.

Because the Mag’har were awful to the AU!Draenei in the past, there’s a tacit approval on some of the players’ parts of the idea that now the AU!Draenei should be able to be as awful as they want to the Mag’har. That’s not a perspective concerned with justice, but with vengeance, with ‘getting even.’ I’m not denying that the Iron Horde did some heinous things in the past, but visiting those horrors back on them does nothing but continue the cycle of violence.

Look, if the writers fail to elicit sympathy for the Mag’har, that’s partially on them. The way they’ve botched this entire thing, I’m not surprised. I’m having a hard time myself, although I suspect that’s mostly because I’m still trying to wrap my head around how the AU!Draenei could’ve possibly gone this bad in the first place. But I think the whole scenario also challenges us as an audience to look at this once completely sympathetic faction and what they’re doing now, and ask ourselves “Am I okay/not okay with this, and why? Am I getting a vicarious thrill out of seeing Draenei finally beat some Orc ass after years and years of oppression?” If the answer is yes, then own it, but don’t pretend like you’ve got the moral high ground to criticize story direction when you’re the one condoning or at least complicit with the faction that’s killing people for worshiping the wrong god. Glass houses and all that.

There is one more variation I’ve seen - not listed above - that explicitly has to do with how certain races in World of Warcraft are tied to real world equivalents, but that’s a complete can of worms that’s not really ever worth opening. Once we start talking about how certain factions are (insert race/religion)-coded, we project biases and opinions from the real world onto situations and people in completely different contexts, and we start debating about both as if they’re one, and they’re really not. Every race and faction in WoW is a mishmash of influences from multiple cultures, and trying to superimpose real world history over a fictional universe that exists as such leads directly to The Yawning, Dark Cavern That Nothing Good Ever Comes Out Of.

Sorry if this entire post has come off as completely bonkers. I’ve been drafting and rewriting it over the course of a couple of days, so I know it’s not the most coherent thing in the world, but, for whatever reason, whenever I saw justifications like this for hating on the Mag’har scenario, it just really ground my gears. Don’t get me wrong, I hate the direction that Blizzard has chosen to go with AU!Draenei, but I also feel pretty strongly that there are valid, logical reasons for disliking something, and then there’s just pseudo-socio-political nonsense. Feels kind of like people giving a politician a hard time about his/her looks or clothing choices when they're an abhorrent human being with no morals and terrible politics. If you're gonna go after a problem, go after it for the right reasons.

[postpostpostpostpostpost]

Creating the Modern Heroine

Throughout Gail Scott’s novel Heroine, the Narrator attempts to construct her ideal modern heroine. In an attempt to to write her novel, she examines and even obsesses over her past. She struggles to reconcile with her competing notions of self, attempting to find her place as a woman, a revolutionary, a writer, a lover, and a feminist even though elements of these identities are often at odds with each other. Scott ultimately creates a modern heroine that is not specific to an identity or experience but, instead, comes from a state of being or experiencing life, itself.

A source of much of the Narrator’s anguish stems from her relationship with a fellow leftist comrade and member of the “f-group”, Jon (Scott, 31). The Narrator comes back often to their relationship throughout the novel just as their relationship was an on and off type for quite a while. Jon convinces the Narrator to have a polyamorous relationship in which they are free to see other people, telling her that is the modern, revolutionary way of doing things. This quickly turns out to be much more advantageous for Jon than for her. The Narrator does not wish to be with others like he does, although she stays in the relationship since she still loves him. Although she attempts to seem modern (according to Jon’s definition), she is often jealous of the other women that he is with. She finds that the polyamorous nature of their relationship keeps them further apart than they would be otherwise: 

When I got drunk and confessed to him I couldn’t handle it when the girl with the green eyes put one hand on my arm and the other on your bum. As if she were the shock centre through which passed our love. (Scott, 31)

However, the Narrator attempts to avoid her jealousy, seeing it as an antiquated and limiting trait that doesn’t fit the type of cool, revolutionary, independent feminist she wishes to be. Jon also adds to this, making her feel bad for being jealous and blaming her for problems within their relationship. When feeling at odds, the Narrator often seeks advice from her friend, Marie, who seems to most closely resemble the type of ideal modern woman she is attempting to create. Scott describes Marie’s advice:

‘Everybody does what he wants,’ was the way you put it. Marie thought the ‘let live’ in ‘live and let live’ was redundant. A woman just had to concentrate on living for herself. Since she’s not responsible for the other, there’s no ‘letting live’ involved. (Scott, 58).

Regardless of Marie’s advice, the Narrator finds it difficult not to feel as though she is responsible for the state of the relationship despite having not having control over it.

Scott, through the conflict between the Narrator’s feminist beliefs and sexual and emotional desires, explores the concept of the modern heroine as well as critiquing elements of second-wave feminism. The Narrator is afraid to be vulnerable, feeling that depending on a man does not align with her feminist beliefs: “The feminist nemesis was that the more I felt your love the harder it was to breathe.” (Scott, 25). Throughout the novel, Scott highlights some elements in which she felt second-wave feminism was not adequate. She especially focuses on its lack of accommodation for diverse, individual desires that did not always fit in with feminist beliefs. The Narrator describes an incident of the intersection of sexual desire and feminism as she sees Jon from afar and overhears a conversation amongst a group of girls:

Your beautiful bronzed skin gleaming above and below your short shorts, which could scarcely contain your ponderous member. Some girls passed wearing bright red lipstick and halter tops. One of them stopped to stare at the goods. I could hear her say: ‘To hell with women’s liberation. What I want is a nice piece. Something to hold on to, you know what I mean?’ They all laughed. I laughed also. Because, Sepia, even feminists have their needs. (Scott, 42-43) 

Lori Marso writes: “To form a community, we need not appeal to common desires, common identities, or even necessarily the same moment in time.” (Marso, 264). Marso explains how, although it was beneficial in some ways to have a more unified concept of feminism, prior waves of feminism failed to consider the diverse identities and desires of women, leaving many feeling alienated or guilty (Marso, 263). 

Since the novel covers roughly 30 years of the Narrator’s life, the beliefs of the Narrator change over time. Different politics and styles of feminism also come and go from popularity throughout the story. The Narrator attempts to factor this into the creation of her heroine, struggling to figure out what a modern heroine would be like for her generation as well as if that type heroine is too antiquated by the time of her writing. Scott considers this, writing:

What was it again that Marie said this afternoon? … : ‘We have to transcend being women of our generation. Because having both square dancing and rock ’n’ roll on Saturday nights confused our identities. Not to mention, then came feminism. On dirait que certaines n’en ont pas fait la synthèse. (The huge brown eye rolled quite far in my direction.) Maybe younger women have it easier.’ (Scott, 43).

These different identities that the Narrator has taken on from before feminism, when she was younger, to what she refers to as post-feminism in the 1980s complicates her self image and, therefore, that of the heroine. She is determined to live in the present as she tries to find exactly what this means, believing that “A heroine locked in time could be the ruination of a novel.” (Scott, 138). Scott describes how the Narrator, grappling with different generations and the fear of aging, reacts to finding Jon with another woman: 

Anyway, I’m wearing the faded olive jumpsuit so I walk on the shady side of the elm. That way you and the girl with the green eyes cannot see the wrinkles. 

‘Hello.’

‘Hello,’ you say, but your body stiffens. She takes your arm supportively. I feel like saying to her, ‘SOLIDARITY.’ The older feminist talking to the younger. Is it true younger women are more relaxed about progressive sexual relations than us? I hear they cut down on romantic expectations. The better not to worry if their lovers fool around. (Scott, 57)

The Narrator finds it difficult living in the present since her present is made up of the past, with her reliving it over and over all at once, as is represented by Scott’s use of autofiction. The narrative goes back and forth through time, from her arrival to Montréal to being a jaded ex-revolutionary, giving a sense that exact dates don’t necessarily matter. Over time more and more identities are given to the Narrator, making it increasingly difficult for her to understand her self and, therefore, the heroine: "I didn’t reply, concentrating as I was on how to be a modern woman living in the present while at the same time finding out who lied, my love, me or you?” (Scott, 21).

The Narrator’s struggle to create an ideal, yet honest, heroine mirrors her efforts to create such an identity for herself. However, through her process of trying to create a true modern heroine, she has done so. Catherine Belsey writes: 

The issue that concerns me now is not whether women do as a matter of course write differently but whether feminists as a matter of strategy ought to do so. Feminists need, in my view, to write in a way that will coax the reader to sit up and think because, as readers, only what we have thought through for ourselves prompts us to active intervention in the world beyond the study. Agreement is not enough. (Belsey, 1158)

Belsey describes that there is no specific way for a feminist to write, however, she writes that the purpose of a feminist work should be to “ shock us into awareness both of our difference and of the coerciveness of masculinist rhetorical codes in constructing a position of imperturbable mastery for the writer and, for the reader, a place of inevitable submission to the case presented”. Scott has done this by deconstructing the masculine codes of literature such as through time and language and, as a result, has constructed the point of view of a modern heroine.

Scott, therefore, approaches the creation of a modern heroine through the deconstruction of the literature being written rather than just creating a specific heroine. Throughout the novel, Marie does fit many of the Narrator’s criteria for a modern heroine as, from the Narrator’s point of view, she is an independent, confident, successful feminist woman living in the present. However, Scott portrays how the Narrator is largely projecting this image onto her and that she is not the modern heroine of the story: 

I blurted out: ‘Why must you surround yourself with so much beauty?’ She answered: ‘Pour me distraire du mal.’ Sepia, at that moment I saw for the first time the terrible sadness in [Marie’s] eyes. And felt I was beginning to know what modern was. (Scott, 128)

In fact, Scott makes it evident that there is not just one emblematic heroine of the novel. Instead of creating a singular modern heroine, she acknowledges the difficulty and even impossibility of this task as women cannot be simplified in this way and that attempting to do so would just follow the masculine codes of literature that have already been established. In this way, Scott establishes that there are no specific experiences that could embody a modern heroine and that, instead, it is a way of being.

Works Cited

Belsey, Catherine. “Writing as a Feminist.” Signs, vol. 25, no. 4, 2000, pp. 1157–1160. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3175504. Accessed 14 Dec. 2020.

Marso, Lori J. “Feminism's Quest for Common Desires.” Perspectives on Politics, vol. 8, no. 1, 2010, pp. 263–269. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25698534. Accessed 14 Dec. 2020.

Scott, Gail. Heroine. Coach House Books, 2019.

[mollydowdqpcf]

Home Gym Equipment For Your Fitness Room

Functioning out of home enables them to do fitness workouts whenever their timetable permits, rather than needing to function around the gym hrs. One more advantage of having your own physical fitness tools is the fact that it sets you back less compared to going to the health club, enlisting in fitness courses while or working with physical instructors and also physical fitness instructors. It is essential to select the best devices to buy prior to anything else. There are various kinds of residence exercise. Some may select to have plenty of cardio workouts. Individuals that prefer to have even more cardio exercises in their exercise program can substantially take advantage of treadmills, stationery bike, and also cross-trainers. In situations in which the goal of the exercise is to build and also tone muscles, cost-free weights or weightlifting makers are recommended. Prior to choosing to get health and fitness devices, it is important that the individual understands the worth of being dedicated to the exercise program. Having previous experience with the sort of fitness center devices can be of terrific aid because being interested and devoted to a particular activity might aid one attain the preferred outcomes. Establishing a spending plan needs to belong to the preparation when deciding to have home health and fitness equipment. It ought to be remembered that devices need not to be that costly. Nevertheless, the high quality of the products must not be jeopardized in regards to its affordability. There are whole lots of fitness center tools choices that are not that expensive yet come in high top quality and sturdiness. Exercise balls, resistance bands, and a few collections of pinheads are advised for newbies that want to function out in the house. Just how much space you contend house must also be taken into consideration before choosing what home physical fitness devices to acquire. One more crucial point to keep in mind when selecting fitness center equipment is to evaluate one's very own passions first. Residence workouts must be something that a specific takes pleasure in doing so that he or she can constantly discover time to do the exercises planned. Being healthy and maintaining preferable weight can be healthy and balanced as well as fun at the same time. Following a fitness-training program rises work out uniformity and increases your opportunities of reaching your preferred results. By consisting of sensible objectives right into your program, you permit yourself to have practical assumptions on what you can achieve, preventing you from getting averted and also unmotivated by expensive expectations. 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Failing is not an option! This routine will certainly do even more for your upper body strength than any type of other workout. Your entire top body will be stimulated throughout this motion. Currently choose when you are mosting likely to push the flooring. It matters not as long you are regular with this activity. Begin by doing as many as you can as well as then include a few more repetitions as commonly as you can. Maintain your arms near your body and your back straight. Touch your breast to the floor and also push your body back to the beginning position. Pretty easy ... I began doing power sprints a couple of years ago with terrific results. Generally ... I was taking a stroll one morning and determined I would do some additional sprints after the stroll. This is due to the fact that the devices differ in their factors of effects on the body. Aerobics for circumstances will stretch the body components while others will certainly assist in bodybuilding. One should never go to purchase if they are unsure of it is major component of impact on the body. Room is equally vital. If a person desires to buy a machine to be utilized in the house, take into consideration availability of space to keep it. These tools come in a selection of sizes. For that reason, it depends on you to decide a suitable size for you. Do deny a huge tool yet there is no sufficient space to store or maintain it. An additional important consideration is your budget. Do not go for extremely costly gadgets due to the fact that one might not be in a placement to pay for them. Therefore, let your spending plan estimates guide a person in this procedure. Nonetheless, do not compromised on high quality by purchasing reduced high quality for low-cost products. In order to lose that extra pound of excess fats from the body, or to accomplish that terrific body that a person has actually always wanted needs workout. Comfortable workout is the main element. If one does workout in a worried problem, it can not possibly work. One must as a result obtain the best tools by relying upon physical fitness equipment fixing UK has as well as workout perfect to attain their objective. Due to the fact that the clients still have personal fitness needs to be met - as well as wellness objectives to reach. So, it's highly likely they will certainly intend to employ another teacher when their main fitness instructor goes on the road for a prolonged amount of time. This unlikely scenario would very rarely exercise in the real globe. So, exists also such point as a traveling individual fitness instructor? Is it feasible to locate a true fitness pro to hit the trail for special assignments? There certain is. You just need to recognize where to try to find then and also what to expect in terms of having the ability to hire an excellent quality pro that can perform while when traveling with you. ONE: Try to contact an up and also coming fitness writer. TWO: Come close to a training center owner that may be able to be gone for a number of weeks each time. 3: Obtain in touch with a fitness DVD individuality that might have sufficient timetable versatility to go on the roadway for prolonged health and fitness tasks. Nowadays, many individuals, specifically those that have particular type of illness, start exercising for the sole objective of reducing weight. When the pounds do not go down as promptly or as entirely as they would certainly such as, they obtain discouraged and offer up. If you remove any kind of message about workout and also certain health problems, let it be this: Also if you do not drop weight, your financial investment in workout is still settling in minimized heart problem threat and far better blood glucose control.Moreover, exercise merely makes you feel much better, both literally as well as psychologically. Your power level will increase and also the endorphins released by your mind throughout workout will improve your sense of wellness. The inspiring aspects here is that you should never surrender before you really start. You owe it to yourself to maintain going.Hence, many people have actually already recognized the value of using physical fitness for the body. Moreover, with the advent of the Net, details concerning these fitness centers is slowly controling the Web. Take for instance LA physical fitness.

[theclaravoyant]

What do you mean by “persistent rejection of nonviolence in media” I mean I understand media as a whole but this is a superhero/spy/action-adventure show where taking about. It wouldn’t be any of those without “violence” persay, we’ve seen superhero shows without “violence” normally aren’t popular DC’s Powerless for example

Hi there! Thanks for the ask (regarding this post). My feelings on that are a bit complicated and gets into a lot of philosophy and stuff but I’ll do my best to explain what I meant by that particular line in that particular context.

So, re the violence and genre thing, I’m actually on the same page! I’m not expecting violence to completely disappear from our screens, or even decrease that much. I’m not opposed to it as a concept and in fact, I actually like it! I love this genre. I really do. I love kickass fight scenes, I love how visually satisfying they are, and I love MANY examples of violence and badassery being liberating and powerful. I’m not opposed to the existence of violence in media at all, even though it is glorified to some extent and blah blah blah, that’s a Whole Thing. What grates on me is how often nonviolence is thrown under the bus. Not the absence of violence, I mean nonviolence, eg, forgiveness, redemption, and restorative justice (that is, healing through coming to an understanding and fixing a situation, rather than seeking vengeance or punishment). (and which, imo, are especially important in these kinds of genres).

Characters’ willingness to forgive is very often treated as naive, or weak, and all the characters who ‘recognise that the world is a terrible place’ are the ones that know better. We can see this very clearly with Fitz eg at the end of Season 1 where everyone is warning him about Ward, for example. This willingness to forgive is often trained or drained out of a character as a series goes on and characters lose their innocence. Typically there will come a point when it’s Really Important that this particular bad guy dies, rather than being stopped any other way (said other ways being rarely discussed, and sometimes other perfectly good options eg ICERs are taken off the table for no reason) and the ‘naive’ character ‘steps up.’ Sometimes, a character will demonstrate forgiveness only for the bad guy to throw it back in their faces and for something to immediately happen (typically, they fall off something and die) that means they meet their violent end anyway but the hero’s hands are clean. (this happens a lot in Disney, and Doctor Who). That’s a little closer to the nonviolence I’m talking about but because of how common it is as a narrative device, I still consider it cheating: it’s a way for the writers/narrative/moral to be violent and punishing without the character having to take the blame.

Willingness to forgive is also often treated as unjust. People who have been wronged, abused or oppressed in some way are expected to want vengeance on the person who wronged them. Fighting back, injuring or killing one’s enemy is portrayed as a powerful, freeing move. I’m not saying it can’t be - I love me some vengeance/emancipation stories - but what I do not love is when a character (especially the victim) says “hey, maybe we shouldn’t actually kill the person who wronged me” and other characters, and/or fans, respond with cries lamenting their naivity, or Stockholm Syndrome, or other ways of expressing concerns that basically say “aww, poor baby doesn’t want to kill their oppressor? that’s okay we’ll do it for them / coach them through it” or “how can you not want to kill them, something must be wrong”. Again, we saw this with Fitz re: Ward, and also when he hesitated about killing Aida. Jemma noticed this hesitation, but her reaction was not clear. Many fans, however, went nuts going “omg!! he’s still the Doctor, he’s still in love with Aida because he doesn’t want to kill her!!” when really he might just… not want to further the saga of horrible things with another murder? when what Aida wanted was actually quite simple? maybe he thought that the situation could be resolved without anyone having to die?

(and this was another one of those times, though not so hypocritical and slightly more literal than usual, when a mysterious force of divine judgement took Aida out rather than any of the heroes, let alone Fitz, having to do it. also note that Jemma’s visually satisfying but in the end meaningless (”I just really wanted to do that”) violence against her (by shooting her indestructible body multiple times with a machine gun) has been endlessly praised, while Fitz’s hesitation about killing her is treated as naive and part of his victimhood, and is also often used to ship them rather than like……… in regards to him simply being a good and compassionate person who doesn’t want unnecessary death).

Nonviolence is often portrayed poorly too, which doesn’t help. It’s almost always raised, but often in a way that it is designed to be shut down. For example, “we don’t kill people, unless it’s REALLY important, like now (and that time, and that other time, and-)”, and don’t forget the good old “if we kill them, we’re just as bad as they are” OBVIOUSLY YOU’RE FREAKING NOT. so another character comes along and talks the hesitant character out of that funk, or takes care of the danger for them, because don’t be ridiculous of course X bad guy deserves to die (and/or because the Good Character believes they are protecting the victim character by taking the blow to their own soul or whatever by ‘doing what’s necessary’ kind of thing). Another one of these that shits me is blood-family obligation. “of course they did all these horrible things to you, but you have to forgive them because they’re family”. That’s shit. as is “forgive them because you don’t actually have the power to fight back, so you might as well.”

Basically what I’m saying is, I’m all here for what can be a powerful and freeing experience of violence and even revenge. I’m not opposed to that existing. I’m opposed to alternatives to those kind of stories, and characters who don’t want that, being constantly shut down, punished and infantalised. Forgiveness and redemption (*real, earned redemption, which a lot of TV also fails hard at) takes a lot of courage and compassion and I hate seeing it treated so badly. If characters can free and heal themselves through violence they should be able to free and heal themselves through peace too. What I’m sick of is violence being treated as the only or the best way, and for learning violence to always be seen as an empowering character arc, even when it is not.

We can see this again with Fitz, in comparison with his fellow agents. Daisy, for example, became an agent as part of finding her place within Shield, and her powers help her to do that role even though she could if she wanted to be quite violent with them. Notably, her powers are also emphasised as a positive and powerful part of her identity, and also being capable of creating beauty as well as used as a weapon. This is a storyline where accepting violent or potentially violent elements into her life was empowering and/or brought with it other empowering elements such as her found family. Jemma also, while she has less of the identity aspect going on, somewhat willingly picked up a weapon when she was feeling defenseless and wanted to stop needing help. Though she was reaching out from a dark place, she is now better able to protect herself and the people she loves and she did it by making a choice. While less positive than Daisy’s, this is also a storyline where she has grown in some way through learning violence. (and notably, by choosing it - at least in-universe, though because violence is so favoured by stories and genres like this it was unlikely to go any other way in the grand scheme of things).

Then we have Fitz, whose current noticeably-high levels of violence (he did have some violent encounters etc beforehand, but these are repeatedly identified as more severe/brutal) come directly from his experience in an alternate universe of sorts where he was abused as a child, raised as a violent and ruthless man, and became a top hydra scientist/torturer. He had no agency in that storyline being done to him, with his memories and the love of his life replaced and his entire life trajectory forcibly rewritten. He had no agency in his escape, or determining what he took out from it, he simply remembers that life as well as his real one. The best he has in terms of agency in dealing with it is “learn to use it to your advantage/under your control.” Currently, this is being treated as an empowering thing - he has a tool now, and it is great when he uses it properly. However, given the origins of this violent side, and the fact that the best anyone can do is say that he should make use of what he’s been left with from a horrific experience they otherwise haven’t dealt with much (they’ve dealt largely with his guilt, not with his trauma), to me that is not empowering. To kill Aida before Fitz, her main victim, could decide or verbalise what he wanted to do about her is not empowering. To have the level of brutality of his violence repeatedly shock and worry other characters who know and love him, and yet for the characters and narrative to insist that it’s part of his character now and that he should accept it, is not empowering. (particularly given the uncomfortable parallels between this and his disability acceptance/~recovery arc earlier in the series). This is an example of a storyline in which I believe nonviolence can and should be explored, but because nonviolence is consistently undervalued and poorly treated I don’t think that’s going to happen and that frustrates me.

That’s… basically what I meant. Hope it helps!

[architectnews]

Dezeen's top 10 most talked-about stories of 2020

This year had its fair share of provocative stories, from Donald Trump drafting new legislation on federal buildings to Bjarke Ingels plotting to redesign Earth. For our review of 2020, digital editor Karen Anderson looks at 10 of the most talked about.

Harikrishnan's inflatable latex trousers create "anatomically impossible" proportions

Readers debated our coverage of menswear designer Harikrishnan's billowing latex trousers, which were created for his graduate collection at the London College of Fashion.

"I really like the pear shape of the white pants," praised Rose Winkler. "I picture them with the same shaped arms on a stage. They feel very medieval. Reminds me of Popeye when he eats his spinach."

"Absolutely love the concept!" added Karen Thomas. "Mad technical skills have gone into creating such art. Especially the time invested in getting those beautiful beads made. Curious to see what's next!"

Find out more about the inflatable latex trousers ›

AIA opposes President Trump's draft rules for Making Federal Buildings Beautiful Again

One of the biggest stories this year was news that the Trump Administration planned to introduce an order that all federal buildings should be built in the "classical architectural style".

In response to the draft order, called Making Federal Buildings Beautiful Again, the American Institute of Architects called on members to sign an open letter petitioning against it. The story on Dezeen attracted more than 323 comments.

"Does this sound familiar? Hitler did that." said Pam Weston. "Similar in aesthetics too. Is anyone besides me scared yet?"

"What's the big deal here?" asked Elrune The Third. "This classical style is part of the national identity and design language of the USA. No one will die because Studio BIG doesn't win the next contract for a courthouse."

Find out more about the opposition to Trump's draft order ›

Zaha Hadid Architects and Grimshaw among architects to criticise Autodesk's BIM software

The story that received the second most comments this year was news that Zaha Hadid Architects and Grimshaw were two of 17 architecture studios to sign an open letter to software company Autodesk, criticising the rising cost and lack of development of Revit.

The president and CEO of Autodesk responded to criticisms of its software, admitting improvements "didn't progress as quickly" as they should have but rejecting claims it is too expensive.

Readers weren't convinced. It's "like charging 2020 prices for a Cadillac on a 2005 Ford Focus," said UTF.

"This software is bad," agreed Michal C. "My life got way shorter thanks to constantly fighting its limits and bad design. Using it in building design is like doing brain surgery using two bricks as the only tools."

Find out more about criticism of Autodesk ›

Masterplanet is Bjarke Ingels' plan to redesign Earth and stop climate change

In October, commenters furiously debated news that BIG founder Bjarke Ingels is creating a masterplan for redesigning Earth.

Approaching Earth like an architect master planning a city, Ingels calculates that even a predicted population of 10 billion people could enjoy a high quality of life if environmental issues were tackled holistically.

But some readers struggled to take Ingels seriously. "Please wake me up when BIG reveals a plan to redesign human behaviour," said Chris Becket.

Don Griffiths was more optimistic: "Lots of good things come from dreaming and scheming outside the box. This man might not have all the answers, but the future is better attended to by the actions of thinkers from the past."

Find out more about Ingels' plan to redesign Earth ›

Coronavirus offers "a blank page for a new beginning" says Li Edelkoort

Some readers reacted with cynicism to Li Edelkoort's predictions for a post-coronavirus future.

Edelkoort described how the disruption caused by coronavirus will lead people to grow used to living with fewer possessions and travelling less.

"How many times has history shown that's not how this works?" responded Rd. "Things will just go back to normal and change will happen slowly over time."

Others found the article comforting. "I take a lot of solace in what Li Edelkoort is saying," said Gerard McGuickin. "In a way, the Coronavirus is perhaps a reckoning for things that have gone before."

Ukrainian architect Sergey Makhno also shared his predictions on how our homes will change once the coronavirus pandemic is over whilst Airbnb co-founder Brian Chesky shared his thoughts on how the coronavirus pandemic is likely to change travel.

Find out more about Edelkoort's coronavirus predictions ›

Steel and concrete steps cut through facade of Stairway House by Nendo

Opinions were divided over Japanese design studio Nendo's unusual addition to a multigeneration house in Tokyo – a giant decorative staircase dividing the house in two.

Some felt that the sculptural stairway was too much of a health and safety risk. "I can't imagine living there with a kids," worried Salamoon.

And Room advised people to live a little more dangerously. "If everyone here wants a run-of-the-mill cosy little cottage or bungalow or timber-framed three-bedroom suburban potted plant safety palace, why are you reading this magazine?" they quipped.

Cliff Tan weighed in with some important cultural context. "This is really obvious if you are East Asian," said Tan. "In Feng Shui terms, this site, sitting at the top of a long road, invites too much energy into the site," he added. "The staircase takes all this energy and swoops it towards the sky, keeping the rest of the home calm and protected."

Find out more about Stairway House ›

Bjarke Ingels meets Brazil's president Jair Bolsonaro to "change the face of tourism in Brazil"

Bjarke Ingels previously made headlines when the architect met with the president of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro to discuss developing a tourism masterplan for the northeast region of the country.

"Glad to still see starchitect clamouring to work with corrupt governments," said WYRIWYG. "As long as the fees are high enough..."

"Yeah, because a Danish architect knows exactly how to deal with beaches and the social background of our country," added Edson Maruyama. "We have great architects and urbanists in the country.

Ingels released a statement defending his decision and rejecting the idea that countries such as Brazil should be off-limits to architects.

Find out more about Ingels meeting Jair Bolsonaro ›

Eva Franch i Gilabert fired as AA director for "specific failures of performance"

Another controversial story in 2020 was news that Architectural Association (AA) director Eva Franch i Gilabert was fired.

The decision was taken by the London school two weeks after Gilabert lost a vote of no confidence in her leadership.

"Eva absolutely deserved an opportunity to lead," said AA Dipl. "AA is a testbed for creative ideas and methodologies and sometimes an experiment doesn't prove successful. Yet AA is the only place where one can try and fail and we should admire the school for that reason. "

Hotel Sphinx also commented: "Surely those of us outside the AA community cannot truly understand what has transpired over the past two years, culminating in this decision."

Find out more about Gilabert's dismissal ›

Groupwork designs 30-storey stone skyscraper

Amin Taha's architecture studio Groupwork attracted attention when it designed a conceptual 30-storey stone office block.

The studio said the building would be cheaper and more sustainable than concrete or steel equivalent, but some readers thought it was dull.

"The discussion is all about the material and nothing about the boring design," said Egad.

"I'd rather call it straightforward rather than boring," replied K Anderson. "It's an elegant and well-proportioned tower while taking advantage of the material's natural qualities and production process. Gold doesn't have to glitter.

Taha himself responded in the comments section, saying: "The tower is a simple, sober, yes boring design for the purpose of comparing like for like against standard commercial offices. It is after all only a material, not a style."

Find out more about Groupwork's stone skyscraper › 

Urban planning is "really very biased against women" says Caroline Criado Perez

British writer Caroline Criado Perez wrote a book claiming that cities haven't been designed to suit the lives of women, sparking debate amongst readers.

"I agree with this completely," said Sim. "Last week the design for the longest cycling bridge in Europe was revealed. While it was hailed a triumph, as a woman all I could think of were the evenings I would be cycling home alone and the idea of this bridge scared me."

"Come on!" replied Architecte Urbaniste. "This whole man versus woman urban design discussion is missing the point. Most architecture is designed by teams of people containing both men and women. I've seen groups of women designing completely unliveable urbanism too."

Find out more about Perez's book ›

Read more Dezeen comments

Dezeen is the world's most commented architecture and design magazine, receiving thousands of comments each month from readers. Keep up to date on the latest discussions on our comments page.

The post Dezeen's top 10 most talked-about stories of 2020 appeared first on Dezeen.

[managementstrategy5611984]

ManagementStrategy

A prosperous Culture of Quality is one where the heart Quality values of their organization, like a focus on responding to the requirements of the client and about the need for data-based decision-making, as well as the basic assumptions of employees regarding the nature of human relationships and their place on the planet, such as the importance of collaborative relationships among people with shared goals and the importance of creating long-term private connections, are closely integrated with a single another.iii Commitments to center values are relatively easy to measure, as they're overtly expressed and comprehended in any way levels of the organization. Basic assumptions often resist explicit investigation, even to the people who hold them, which may make involvement at this level difficult.When a company adopts a Culture of Quality, the success of its implementation can rely on whether core fundamentals and underlying assumptions already reflect Quality or can be efficiently modified to embrace Quality through committed change direction. What are the attributes of an organization with an Culture of Quality. Leadership shows its commitment by communicating about values in language and offering the necessary support. Employees promote sharing ideas and cross-functional work, while believing that leadership expects them to become pro-active and also to apply their Quality and abilities according to their best judgement. A Culture of Quality is therefore only possible when leadership and workers share an aligned and extensive comprehension of not only the core values and processes they use and espouse, but their basically basic assumptions of the nature of labour and human relationships on which those core values rest. One of the creators of the superior movement in the United States, said that"Quality is everyone's responsibility" This has been Quality Management by most people as meaning that Quality is. Nevertheless we should think about what writer and superior expert Rafael Aguayo tells us was Deming's in-house decision to his famous injunction:"Quality is everyone's duty, but high management have more leverage in their decisions than anyone else." The initiative for Quality must come in the top.vii While accountability for execution and implementation will lie with a Quality leader in a committed excellent department with support from their counterparts in operations, technology, sales, marketing, and IT, the desire to execute Quality standards throughout an organization must come from the leadership team. They must walk the talk for an excellent program to succeed. Even though there is certainly value in instilling the idea of Quality in each member of a company, without explicit and direct initiative and techniques for implementing these thoughts, another way of saying"Quality is everyone's responsibility" is"Quality is no one's duty in particular." Everybody should strive for Quality, but defining how to do this in terms is something that may come only from the initiative of direction and be entrusted to stakeholders for implementation. This approach highlighted the advantage of process-centered programs of Quality over product-centered approaches that were elderly. This concept is referred to as statistical excellent management and is the backbone of Quality in manufacturing's exploration. The Second World War prompted the American government to implement Quality criteria based on for army vendors.

This improved Quality in the short term, but most civilian manufacturers failed to integrate process improvement throughout their own organizations. After the war, engineers W. Edwards Deming and worked as consultants in Japan as Japanese business worked to get over the war and change their market to concentrate on civilian creation of products and services. Deming and worked with Japanese manufacturers to produce the concept of Total Quality, where Quality extends past the manufacturing procedure to organizational processes and also instills the values of Quality in every worker.x as a consequence of this Total excellent transformation, Japan became a production powerhouse, vastly increasing its market share at the cost of American producers who had yet to recognize the worth of Total Quality.Quality management has four components: quality planning, quality assurance and quality control and continual progress. These contain processes, tools and processes which are used to ensure that the outputs and benefits fulfill customer requirements.The first component, quality planning, involves the preparation of a quality management program which explains the procedures and metrics that will be utilized. The quality management plan needs to be agreed to make sure their expectations for quality are correctly identified. The procedures should adapt to the procedures, values and culture of the host organisation. It validates the use of procedures and criteria, and ensures staff have the understanding, skills and attitudes to fulfil their job roles and responsibilities in a competent way. Quality assurance has to be independent of the project, programmer or portfolio where it applies.The next component, quality management , consists of inspection, measurement and testing. It verifies the Quality Management conform to specification, are fit for purpose and meet stakeholder expectations.Quality control activities ascertain whether approval criteria have, or have been met. In order for this specifications have to be under configuration control. Commonly while preserving time and cost limitations, this will be to accommodate change issues or requests. Any consequent changes to acceptance criteria should be approved and communicated.The last component, continual improvement, is the generic term used by businesses to explain the way that information provided by quality assurance and quality control processes is used to drive improvements in efficiency and effectiveness. This may seem to be an administrative burden on day one of smaller projects, but is always worthwhile in the end.Projects deliver concrete outputs which can be subject to a lot of kinds of quality control, depending upon the technical nature of the work and codes affecting particular sectors. Examples of inspecting Collars include crushing samples of concrete used in the foundations of a building; x-raying welds at a ship's hull; and adhering to the test script for a new parcel of software.Inspection creates data and tools like scatter diagrams, control charts, flowcharts and cause and effect diagrams, and all of which help to know the caliber of work and the way it might be improved.The principal contribution to continual improvement that may be made within the timescale of a project is through lessons learned. 

Existing lessons learned must be consulted at the start of every job, and any lessons used in the planning of the project documentation. In the end of each job, the lessons learned should be recorded as part of the post-project review and fed back into the understanding database.The duty of this programme management group is to develop an excellent management program that encompasses the diverse contexts and technical requirements included within the programme. This sets the criteria for the project quality management plans and also acts as a plan for quality in the benefits realisation regions of the programme.A comprehensive excellent management plan at developer degree can greatly reduce the effort involved in coordinating project-level excellent management plans.Quality management of sparks is mostly handled at project level, but the programme can get involved in which an outcome from 1 project is an input to another, or where additional inspection is needed when outputs from two or more projects are attracted together.The programme is responsible for quality control of benefits. This is a complex task because the acceptance standards of an advantage may cover subjective as well as measurable factors but gains should be described in measurable terms so that quality management may be applied.The typical scale of Quality Management means that they have a very useful role to play in continuous progress. Programme assurance will make sure that projects do take existing lessons learned into consideration and capture their particular lessons along with the knowledge database.The very nature of a portfolio means that it is not likely to need a portfolio quality management program. Quality management for the portfolio should be indistinguishable from the quality management policies of the host organisation as a whole.It could be crucial for the portfolio management staff to give guidance on the application of general policies or possibly strengthen them in which the portfolio generates particular requirements.The portfolio is responsible for delivering strategic objectives. These might be expressed in terms in employing quality management resulting.

[globalquality77854]

GlobalQuality77854

This sets the criteria for the job quality management strategies and acts as a strategy for quality in the advantages realization regions of the programmer.A comprehensive excellent management strategy at developer degree can significantly reduce the effort involved in preparing project-level excellent management plans.Quality management of presses is largely handled at job level, but the developer may get involved in which an outcome from 1 job is an input signal to a different, or where extra review is required when outputs from at least two jobs are attracted together.The developer is responsible for quality management of advantages. This is a intricate task because the approval criteria of an advantage may cover subjective in addition to quantifiable variables but gains ought to be described in measurable terms to ensure quality management may be applied.The ProductionQuality scale of programmed signifies they have a very beneficial role to play in continuous progress. Programmer assurance will make sure that jobs do take present lessons learned into consideration then capture their particular lessons along with this understanding database.The very nature of a portfolio signifies it is not likely to require a portfolio grade management program. Quality management for your portfolio ought to be equal from the superior management policies of their host organisation for a whole.It could be crucial for the portfolio management staff to give advice on the use of policies or possibly augment them in which the portfolio generates particular requirements.The portfolio is accountable for delivering strategic goals. These might be expressed in terms in employing quality management resulting. When setting the range of a portfolio, focus ought to be given to specifying acceptance criteria for tactical goals so they are sometimes caliber controlled.Continual development is very much an issue in portfolio level.

Yet we ought to consider what writer and superior expert Rafael Araguaya informs us was Deming’s in-house decision to his famous injunction:"Quality is everyone’s responsibility, but top management have more leverage in their decisions than anyone else.” The initiative for Quality must come in the top.vii While responsibility for implementation and implementation will lie with an excellent leader in a committed excellent department with assistance from their counterparts in operations, engineering, sales, marketing, and IT, the desire to implement Quality standards through an organization must come from the leadership group. They have to walk the talk for a program to succeed. While there is definitely value in instilling the concept of Quality in each member of a company, without explicit and direct initiative and methods for implementing those thoughts, yet another way of saying"Quality is everyone’s duty" is"Quality is no one’s duty in particular.“ Quality should be striven for by everyone, but specifying how to accomplish that in very particular terms is something which may come only from the initiative of direction and also be entrusted to specific stakeholders for implementation. This revolutionary approach highlighted the advantage of process-centered programs of Quality over approaches that were elderly. This concept is known as statistical excellent control and is the backbone of Quality in manufacturing’s primary exploration. From the Second World War prompted the American authorities to implement Quality standards based on for army vendors.ix This ProductionQuality Quality in the brief term, but most civilian manufacturers failed to incorporate process improvement during their organizations. After the war, engineers worked as consultants in Japan as industry worked to recover from the war and then transform their own market to concentrate on production of goods and services. Deming and worked with Japanese producers to create the idea of Total Quality, where Quality extends past the manufacturing procedure to organizational processes and instills the values of Quality in each worker.x As a result of this Total excellent transformation, Japan became a production powerhouse, vastly increasing its market share at the cost of American manufacturers who’d yet to recognize the value of Total Quality.American producers and legislators began to recognize the crises of poor Quality in American manufacturing. The American response, built on Deming’s and operate in Japan, was Total Quality Management (TQM). Globalization and emerging technologies have expanded the scope of Quality as well as the tools utilized to meet with standards. New strategies, such as Six Sigma have achieved levels of version and earnings reduction to make services and goods which are free from defects.

[thetactilepope]

Lessons in Thermodynamics: Chapter Five

I’d like to take a moment to say ‘thank-you’ to @jircu who kindly agreed to beta this chapter! They’re an amazing writer, and I’d highly recommend checking out their blog!

{Previous Chapter} | [Chapter Index] | {Next Chapter}

Exothermic Behaviour

39 days until Winter Break

Thursday

Yaoyorozu Momo had a problem.

Well, technically she had several problems, all stemming from a single failed test, but the one she was most preoccupied with was the fact that she hadn’t heard a word her tutor had said in the past ten minutes.

“The lesson’s barely started… And yet my mind feels so fuzzy…” She shook her head, unsure why she had zoned out, unless the anticipation for day-off they were getting tomorrow was affecting her more than she had expected. Taking another sip of the coffee Todoroki had brought for her, she tried to focus on the review he was going over.

The now-familiar lilt of his voice seemed a little muted, and for some reason, she felt much calmer listening to him speak, “So, given that energy moves from, um, areas of high heat to areas of low heat… we can, well, surmise that…”

It was no use. Despite her efforts, she found herself thinking back to the previous sessions.

After leaving so abruptly at the end of their first lesson, she had assumed Todoroki would be a little mad at her. Surprisingly, he texted her the next day as if nothing had occurred, and never brought up the subject again.

He seemed somewhat withdrawn the next few times they met up, and she worried that her requests for help had annoyed him, despite his kind words to the contrary. There had been a sort of unquantifiable tension between them, one that resisted her every attempt to ease or dispel it.

Several times, it seemed like one of them might back out of their deal, for one reason or another. An unacceptable result, but one that she felt ill-equipped to prevent.

By the time Momo had sorted out what she wanted to say, what she should say, and what she was going to say, that icy distance between them had somehow thawed, returning them back to their usual camaraderie.

Or at least, something fairly close to it, almost indistinguishable, in fact. And yet, that ‘almost’ left her feeling slightly off balance, but lacking a satisfactory explanation as to why.

 Aside from that, her studies were going well, but not to a point where she could afford to zone out like this.

“I’ve got to start paying attention,” She sighed, resolving to cut out the day-dreaming once and for all.

“-rozu? Yaoyorozu? Are you alright?” Todoroki’s concerned voice cut through her mental fog, prompting her to sit up straight and blush.

Her quick reply was demure, and she silently thanked her parents and every boring social event they had put her through for teaching her how to maneuver a conversation, “Y-Yes, I’m fine. I was a little distracted for a moment, that’s all.”

Of course, those maneuvers only worked if everyone played by the same rules, holding their tongues out of politeness. She had always been pressured (‘required’) to abide by the social niceties that governed her parents’ world, whereas Todoroki Shouto could shake off those conventions with ease, shedding them like a thin sheet of ice, in a way that she found enviable.

Todoroki simply acted according to the respect you had earned from him, and she had seen him treat their classmates better than some adults.

“Is something wrong?” He asked, scratching absent-mindedly at the bottom edge of his scar with his left hand.

“One of his nervous tics.” Momo frowned, not quite sure when she had picked up on that, or why it mattered to her. Subconsciously observing your friends, taking note of their habits, it was something everyone did, right?

“Ah, it’s really nothing. I guess I really do need that day off tomorrow…” She laughed, but it trailed off, before she took another sip of her drink. The bitter taste helped ground her, which is why she preferred it black while she studied.

Todoroki accepted her answer with a shrug, and though it seemed like he had more he wanted to say, she was relieved when he handed her the page of today’s topics.

“Did you have more questions from last time? Or did the review clear them up?”

She pushed a strand of hair behind her ear, and consulted her notebook. Her neat handwriting listed the terms and concepts that had given her trouble, with a small checkmark beside the ones they had sorted out.

“Yes, actually. Do you think we could go over the ideal gas law once more? I’m not sure I understand it completely.”

…

With a yawn, Momo snapped her binder closed, the undeniable thrill of a successful lesson giving her a much needed boost. Caffeine was great, but a single cup of coffee could only carry her so far.

“Tired?” Todoroki asked, and although he didn’t show it, she suspected he was almost as worn out as she was.

She shook her head, small smile on her lips, unwilling to admit defeat before he did. A small rivalry between them, lacking any point or payoff other than pride.

Still, she was very glad they had managed to wrap up early, as it meant they’d both be well rested for tomorrow’s session.

As they both began to clean up, occasionally chatting for a few moments about their day at school, Momo let herself relax, enjoying the comfort of an emerging routine.

She finished putting the last of her notes in her bag, and was preparing to stand when Todoroki spoke up.

“Yaoyorozu, I know we agreed to meet up in the morning but…” He sighed, hesitant, “Could we wait until the afternoon instead?”

The request surprised her, since Todoroki had never wanted to reschedule before, only telling her that he’d be a little late if and when something came up.

She tried to hold back her curiosity, but the possible insight into the enigma of Todoroki Shouto’s personal life this presented was too enticing to resist.

“Oh, of course.” She said, nodding, “Is, uh, everything OK?”

He frowned, scratching at his scar once again, “Yes, it’s just I need to… I want to go visit someone.”

That vague answer just made her eager to know more, and almost without thinking, she leaned closer to him, “Who is it?”

The words slipped out before she could stop them, and their demanding tone made her want to cringe. She knew he was unlikely to elaborate further. After all, she hadn’t even tried to answer when he had inquired something of her.

“To pry now, when you ran from him before is incredibly hypocritical.” Her logical side chimed in, much to her chagrin.

Where that side had been not five seconds ago was beyond her.

“I’m sorry, that was rude of me, wasn’t it.” She said, mentally berating herself, “Forgive me, I’ll be more courteous in the future.”

He shrugged, face as impassive as ever, “I don’t mind. You’re supposed to be asking me questions, right? Nothing rude about doing that.”

The logic behind that statement made her almost double over, and the only thing preventing her from bursting into laughter was the hand she clamped over her mouth. After a moment fighting against that urge, she looked back up at her friend.

By the subtle upwards curve of Todoroki’s lips, she could tell this reaction to his words was the desired result.

“I supposed you have a point.” She took a deep breath, smoothing out her hair, and composing herself once again, “Still, I should have phrased that more politely.”

“Todoroki, if you don’t mind my asking, who do you want to visit tomorrow?”

With only the slightest of hesitation, he told her, “It’s… It’s my mother, Miyuki. She’s, well, been in the hospital for a long time. About ten years, actually.”

He continued without pause, and she got the feeling that if he stopped, he might not start again.

“I only reconnected with her recently, after the Sports Festival. And with how busy things have gotten, I haven’t been able to go see her for some time, so, uh, I’d like to take advantage of the day-off school.”

At first, she didn’t know what to do with the information. Everyone at school knew who his father was, you’d have to be living under a rock not to.

“But he’s never really mentioned his mother.” Momo thought, trying to recall if the topic of family had ever been discussed without Todoroki leaving the conversation. She came up with nothing, not even if he had any siblings.

So what could she offer but encouragement with a smile? His family situation was far removed from her own, and any advice would sound condescending at best.

“In that case, I’ll have to insist we reschedule. Please, take all the time you need. What hospital is she at?”

He told her, and she frowned. That hospital was a fair distance away from the school library, so even if he went early, there was sure to be lots of traffic.

“That’s pretty far, isn’t it? Are you sure you’ll be able to make it back without any problems?” Momo considered the other options, and while there was one simple solution, she wasn’t sure it would be acceptable to him.

“Pretty sure. I mean, I’ve never gone on a Friday morning before, but it can’t be that bad, right?” He replied, shifting uneasily in his seat, “Besides, I don’t want to cancel your lesson completely.”

With nervousness beginning to constrict her throat, she bit her lip, gathering her courage.

“Well, how about I accompany you? Once you’re done your visit, we can find a café, or somewhere else to study nearby.” She asked, words rushed, hardly able to believe she had managed to speak.

“It’s just a practical offer, that’s all.”

Somehow, that thought rang hollow, as if she wasn’t telling herself the whole truth, but she ignored those misgivings, “I’d extend the same courtesy to any… well, almost any of my classmates.”

“Yaoyorozu, I-I, uh…” He stammered, a slight grin on his face, “It’s very kind of you to suggest that, but I couldn’t ask you to give up what might amount to your whole day.”

“I would think,” She countered, “that it’s my decision how I spend my time. And I don’t mind spending it accompanying a friend to visit their mother.”

They both knew his protests were mostly a formality at this point, but she couldn’t resist seizing the opportunity to reuse a phrase that had been stuck in her mind.

“Besides, it isn’t like I would make other plans.” She echoed his words spoken outside the library, nearly two weeks ago. This time, it was Todoroki who was unsure how to react, mouth slightly agape.

Sensing there wouldn’t be any more arguments from him, Momo stood up, hoisting her bag onto her shoulder.

“We’ll figure out a plan later this evening, OK?” She said, turning to go, “Thank you for your time, Todoroki.”

…

Once Momo was back in her dorm, she pulled out her phone, heart hammering in her chest. The nervous fizzle in her stomach wasn’t exactly an unpleasant feeling, just puzzling in a way that made her shiver slightly.

{♫ Kyouka ♪}

(Kyouka? Do you have a sec?)      

Her thumb hovered over the ‘send’ key, but she didn’t feel up to dealing with Kyouka’s inevitable good-natured teasing in order to ask for advice.

“I’m just not in the mood.” She concluded with a sigh, clearing the message, “I’ll talk to her this weekend.”

Flopping down on her bed, she figured she should at least pick out an outfit for tomorrow before she got too involved in her work.

Beginning to sort through her closet with a smile, she realized she was more than a little excited, “Well, there’s no doubt it will be an interesting experience…”

There are thirty-five days until the Retest.

[thesffcorner]

The Unhoneymooners

The Un-honeymooners is the latest adult romance, by writing duo Christina Lauren. It follows Olive Torres, the bridesmaid at her twin sister Ami’s wedding. When everyone at the party, except for Olive and Ethan, Ami’s brother-in-law, get food poisoning from the seafood buffet, Olive and Ethan decide to pretend they are the married couple and take Ami’s free, all -expense honeymoon trip to Maui. There’s only one problem: Olive and Ethan can’t stand each other. Have you guys seen that Adam Sandler film Just Go With It? This is basically the book form of that film, except sans the kids. So before I even say anything else, if you enjoyed the thomfoolery of that film, you will probably like this. This is the first Christina Lauren book I’ve read, and it’s really the first one I’ve ever been interested in reading. Their premises never intrigue me, but having these 2 characters who hate each-other, but have to pretend to be a freshly married couple for a whole vacation sounded hilarious to me. And for the most part this book delivers. I did have more than a few issues however, and most of them come down to execution. There is something inherently hilarious about spending 10 days in one of the most gorgeous locations in the world, but having to spend it pretending that you love someone you hate. It’s like your own personal hell inside of heaven. However, I don’t feel like the book took full advantage of this concept. For starters, Ethan and Olive don’t really hate each-other. This is understandable and expected; it would be pretty hard to write an enemies to lovers romance if they genuinely hate each other or have done bad things. Instead, Olive hates Ethan because of a misunderstanding, while Ethan is more conflicted than anything else. While this made their romance more believable, it diffused a lot of the comedy of the premise, and the scenes where they are supposed to be enemies pretending to be lovers aren’t as funny as a result. As much as Just Go With It was not a good film, the scenes where Sandler and Aniston have to pretend to be bitter exes were hilarious because of the combination of hatred, annoyance and sexual attraction going both ways. The book does have scenes like this; the best one was the dinner with the Hamiltons, but for the most part, they ended up being more awkward and sweet than funny. The most I laughed in this book was the bathroom incident and the paintball, and unfortunately both of those lead into my second complaint. Both those scenes, could have taken place anywhere. This book is set in Maui; the advertising plays this up too, and yet we get so little of the island, that they might as well have stayed in Minneapolis. The descriptions of the island are vague and uninspired; telling me the sunset is beautiful and the ocean is blue can signal any place. I never got a sense of the island or even the hotel they were in, and the duo didn’t take advantage of any of the activities you could do at the island for the sake of humor. There’s plenty of chances for location specific shenanigans, but we don’t get any, and the only thing that was legitimately tied to Maui was the scene at Haleakala. Moreover, even the premise isn’t fully utilized. Olive is supposedly a terrible liar, and the duo having to lie about being on a honeymoon isn’t really used a lot. The only part that was funny was the couples massage; you’d think that in a book about honeymooners, the hotel would have more outlandish activities for the couple, and seeing as we are shown Ami is a control and schedule freak, she’s have booked all the things that Ethan and Olive would have to do. Instead, after the initial contrivance with the Hamiltons, the duo is never forced to lie again or comes in any danger of potentially being uncovered or exposed, so them pretending to be married fully falls away by the wayside. To switch to some positives, the relationship between the characters was actually really endearing, funny and enjoyable. Both characters were great individually; I enjoyed all the parts where Ethan was in some kind of misery, because I could just imagine this germaphobic, lanky homebody being forced to fly in a tin can, sleep on a tiny couch or give a massage, and it was hilarious. Additionally, the authors do a really good job of showing him to be a pretty sweet, if a little dense dude, someone who comes off as rude and inconsiderate because he’s not great at being present and alert, rather than someone who is actively harmful. His banter with Olive was also funny, and I absolutely love running gags where people come up with increasingly outlandish versions of each-other’s name as a jab. Olive was great too; I liked that she was curvy and liked her body, while still being self-conscious about it. I liked that she was presented to be the adventuring type, suggesting snorkeling, diving and ziplining, while Ethan was the more subdued type. I also liked the gag of her not knowing how to lie (though in hindsight it didn’t make that much sense with her character). The thing I really liked about Olive was the fact that she was so pessimistic and defensive. I found a lot of myself in her; always thinking the worst of people and situations, always thinking everyone hates me or doesn’t want to be around me for superficial reasons, and making my mind up about people without giving them a chance. It really opened my eyes, because at several points I was frustrated with how dense she was about her conviction that Ethan hated her when it was clear he really didn’t and was just being awkward around her. However, the biggest issue with this book was its last third. It’s hard to talk about this without SPOILERS, so if you don’t want any, skip to the last paragraph. The short version is that as soon as Olive and Ethan come back from the honeymoon, the book changes tones and genres, and becomes a much more serious affair than the lighthearted shenanigans in Maui, and I don’t think it was successful at that. We find out that Ami’s husband Dale might have been a horrible liar, and though Olive gets direct proof of it, neither Ethan nor Ami believe her. She also loses her job. This was so jarring compared to what the book had been about up until that point, that it completely took me out of the story. I don’t think any of these things were handled well. First, Ami exploding at Olive was understandable, but she goes way overboard and tells her some really awful things that she never apologizes for, and Olive just forgives her. I understand it was the heat of the moment, but that’s exactly why Ami should have apologized to Olive afterwards. The whole thing with Ethan was even worse. Not only does he not believe Olive, he refuses to confront his brother about it even a little bit, and tries to gaslight Olive into thinking she’s crazy or bitter or attention seeking. It was honestly something beyond what a big romantic gesture can solve, and the fact that Ethan, in spite of having one failed romantic gesture still tries to pull another one on Olive, meaning he hasn’t learned anything, really put a bad taste in my mouth. I don’t think the ending was necessary for the book it was in. This should have been part of a different story, not this one, and it happening at the very end of this book meant that it was rushed and had no time to properly develop or get resolved. I have heard that Christina Lauren tend to do this with their endings, and I wasn’t a fan. Overall this was a solid, if a bit average romance. I think Christina Lauren are good writers who could write an excellent book, but this just wasn’t it for me. It’s still fun and fast paced, and I think it would make a perfect summer read.

goodreads

[professor-speedweeb-blog]

A manga you should give a chance: “BLACK CLOVER”

- everything BUT a ripp-off! (This text is as low on spoilers as it was possible)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySZeQBhz71E&t=1s

(link to video I made in connection with this entry)

Usually I tell people to “try out” a manga or “pick one up”, but with this specific case I think another choice of words is necessary.  From what I have seen on MyAnimeList, this manga suffers from a fascinating polarization in the reviews, going from catastrophically bad to astoundingly good.

And I think I know why. One of the biggest points of criticism was the point of ripping of other series like Naruto, Fairy Tail, or even Bleach. So we have a shonen series having shonen tropes. In other news: water is wet, fire is hot, and people die when they are killed.

Given how limited yet binding the tropes of the shonen-genre are, it's not exactly surprising to see the same elements resurface at times. And the series it is accused to have ripped off are the ones that have literally re-shaped and dominated the genre in the last decade, so not much of a surprise or scandal here either.

To be truly original as an author in such a genre there are three possibilities, all being equally legit and not exclusive:

total ignorance of the tropes and avoiding them like the plague

Subversion and then breaking with the tropes, especially where it is not expected

Accepting the tropes and expanding from there

Tabata Yuuki goes for the third approach here. However, for something to expand from you have to establish it first, if you want a work that stands up on itself and doesn't just lean on the genre for a proper understanding. You have to set the base first before you start building upwards, that's common sense.

And this is why in the first few chapters you get flooded by a bunch of tropes and scenes that appear like you have kind of seen them before – and this is why most people who only read the early bits gave it such a horrible score: they flunked out before the author was done setting down the baseline for his own work.

So we have a young naive protagonist, Aster, who is untalented (can't use any magic in this case), but has a big dream of becoming the next Emperor, Heavenly Superperson, Hokage, or whatever. At the same time he has a talented stoic rival that he competes with. And here people accuse the author of ripping of Naruto – however, they couldn't be more wrong.

For one, where Sasuke was an emotionless emo-placefiller, Yuno is way more of a likeable character – and their rivalry is NOTHING like the ones usually seen in shonen stories, where the rivals in question at first hate or at least don't respect each other. For those two it is different: they are literally brothers. They respect and love each other like family and keep looking out for each other. Unlike how most rival constellations start, this is a healthy relationship build around friendly competition.

Also, unlike Naruto, our main protagonist is all but lacking. He may be untalented in what the world considers the most important, but then again he might be one of the physically strongest and fastest characters in the cast, save maybe for some adult characters like Yami. And actually, he's not “untalented” either. A lack of talent implies that it could be compensated with hard work for the same results, which is totally wrong: Aster is unable to ever use magic on a genetic level. At some point in the manga he's also called a “defect”. No matter how hard he works, he will never achieve what everyone else has, that's why he has to work his way up in his own way – raw physical power and his personal gimmick. But primarily physical power.

So even without his anti-magic sword he's a force to be reckoned with. Which brings me to point two of the accusations of stealing ideas: “having a power that is connected to the evil demons”, which can be said to be trope Bleach has made popular. But: I'd claim that the concept of the personal “inner devil” is something so elemental to human storytelling that you can barely fixate it somewhere, on the other hand we don't exactly know if demons in that world are actually evil.

In Bleach it is simple: Hollows are soul eating beasts that need to be exterminated, and Ichigo using Hollow-Power makes him a freakish outcast, always in danger of getting consumed by his own power. But in Black Clover we know almost nothing about demons or devils, or if they are even truly “evil”, and anti-magic is not automatically brought into relation with them either. Aster is just the “odd one out” for not using normal magic.

Which brings me to the next point: people claiming it's a Fairy Tail knock-off because it uses magic and magic battles. First of all that alone sounds stupid, mostly because the concept of magic in fiction predates the creation of Fairy Tail by several thousand years. But even if Black Clover legitimately stole it, I'm happy with it:

Fairy Tail totally failed on delivering an authentic world AND at interesting designs of magic - so Black Clover taking over and actually getting both aspects right might be for the best.

With Fairy Tail it is always the same uninspired elemental powers or the typical gimmicks of the main cast that barely get elaborated on, and just strapping the name “Dragon Slayer” or “God Slayer” on something doesn't exactly change its mundane nature.

And everything else kind of exists at the sidelines but barely gets any relevance. Remember the Fairy Tail guy with the smoke magic? Well even I forgot that he exists. Meanwhile one of the early villains we meet in Black Clover has “Smoke” as a theme and uses it to a fascinating extent, and he's just one of many examples of a creative use of magic.

So now that we have the accusations of specific series out of the picture, let's clean up with the rest of it: the accusation that it is generic in the typical “friendship wins everything” part that shonen often has.

The fascinating part here: countless manga series have “the power of friendship” as a theme. However, those very same manga end every arc with a dramatic and climatic one-vs-one battle between hero and villain, a fight where friends were never needed apart from moral support or maybe for keeping the low-level-enemies busy.

However, in Black Clover things are slightly different: Given the nature of his powers, Aster NEEDS his friends in combat.

He's extremely close ranged with almost zero means of ranged attacks – and that in a world where absolutely everyone with even a speck of magical power can ride on a broom and get the height advantage on him. He lacks defensive skills apart from simple blocking, as well as healing powers. At the same time he cannot keep up with an enemy that has magic that makes them faster than what Aster can physically achieve. And on top of that his offensive powers are limited to one-vs-one combat.

It's not so weird that the magicians-group he's in has a teleportation mage, as well as someone specializing in long range artillery, and someone specialized in water magic AoE that can also be used for shielding – and that's not even accounting for all of the members. Without his friends, Aster wouldn't even have a chance in most fights.

Also under criticism: the “stupid protagonist” as he is common in shonen manga. Well, while Aster's lack of intelligence is certainly undeniable, he's one of the few characters who's actually aware of how stupid he actually is – what doesn't stop him from trying his best anyways, obviously.

There was a line in a recent fighting-chapter that I really liked: “I'm stupid so I can't afford myself to make any mistakes to begin with!” - when I look at the row of overconfident stupid-yet-likeable protagonists we have had in the last years, such self-awareness is really refreshing.

And another point would be the “power-up-through-emotions-and-dedication” trope.  The author actually goes the smart way with that one: he builds such power-ups directly into the empowerment system. Such plot-developments always appear kind of cheesy, but now it feels less like the author is cheating, especially as it is part of the general system it is available to ALL characters, not just the protagonists. Imagine a villain who is so evil, that when pressured, his hatred and greed create new magic mid-fight, a polar opposite to the “hero-powerup”.

This and several other things make me see a lot of potential in this series, maybe even so much that this will one day be part of what the Big Three were in the past.

Now that I have been countering some negative points for the last pages, let me finish this essay with the positive aspects: the characters are refreshing, the world feels authentic, and I personally really like the art-style. As a writer I'm not exactly good at describing art, but I think you could say it is more a “depiction of aesthetics” than a “portrayal of reality in a certain style”.

How do I explain it...  say you want to draw a character. Now in the style of Fairy Tail you'd have a focus on the body, the muscles and/or curves (also explaining why the two main protagonists of that series, Gray and Natsu, are always half-naked when fighting). In Black Clover the focus is instead on the clothing and the whole appearance, resulting in an entirely different style.

The fact that the style of this manga is less suitable for the primitive variant of fan service also is a bonus point for me, albeit a very subjective one. Don't get me wrong, everything has its time and place, but recently things have gotten slightly out of hand in certain series.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WITH THE RISE OF SERVER-BASED APPLICATIONS, MORE AND MORE FEATURES FROM LISP

Are you working on one of them. In the last 20 years, smoking has been transformed from something that seemed suitable for a magazine, so I sent it to an editor I know. There's no thread of reasoning you have to do it. If you could measure how much work people did, many companies wouldn't need any fixed workday. Whereas VCs need to invest in bad times. It's that way with most startups too. You'd have to be designed for human feet. We wouldn't want to stop it. How are they to hear? This concept is a simple one and yet seeing it as a rule of thumb from now on that if people don't think you're weird, you're living badly. At the extreme end of the continuum are languages like Ada and Pascal, models of propriety that are good for teaching and not much else.

But no visitor would understand that. Why bother? Pen and paper wick ideas. The very best work has been done this way. But in practice a good profiler may do more to improve the speed of actual programs written in the new language. So how can I claim business has to learn it? I've found that it matters a lot how code lines up on the article. Because it's too easy for people who work for the love of it: amateurs. To write good software you must simultaneously keep two opposing ideas in your head.

It only lets you experience the defining characteristic of essay writing. Kids are the ones sitting back with slightly pained expressions. If you're going to write that one has to write in high school we'd have called its outline. The connection may be surprise. So I'm going to try to baby the user with long-winded expressions that are meant to resemble English. To write good software you must simultaneously keep two opposing ideas in your head. It's no wonder if this seems to the student a pointless exercise, because we're now three steps removed from real work: the reason Larry and Sergey are so rich is not so much that it paralyzes you. There's more to it than that. A lot of the new principles business has to learn it? Figure out what? For example, many suspect that venture capital firms are biased against female founders. And, strangely enough, it's also why they fail so frequently.

It definitely has a flavor of its own though. The distinctive feature of successful startups is that they're not ordered. We wrote what was, 700 years ago, fascinating and urgently needed work. And it may be as a piece of machinery: what works best. 7x 2% 2. I think professionalism was largely a fashion, driven by conditions that happened to exist in the twentieth century was professional, which amateurs, by definition, are not. To do good work often think that whatever they're working on, it's easier to read than a regular article. There's more to do than anyone could. And your brain seems to know this: because you don't have room for new ideas, you don't take a position and then defend it.

Another advantage of admitting to beginning writers that the 5 paragraph essay buries the list of n things is in that respect. Dartmouth, the University of Vermont, Amherst, and University College, London taught English literature in the 1820s. It's that way with most startups too. Ditto for most of the people working there. I'm going to try to discover something no one knew before. You have to be careful. Working in crappy informal spaces is one of the keys to coolness is to avoid situations where inexperience may make you look foolish. An eminent Lisp hacker told me that his copy of CLTL falls open to the section format.

This can only happen in a very transparent way out of lower-level abstractions, which you can get hold of if you want to understand startups, understand growth. And since the latter is huge the former should be too. Even if an acquirer isn't threatened by the startup itself, they might never have started it. And early adopters are forgiving when you improve your language, but they were so much more sophisticated that for the next several centuries the main work of European scholars, in almost every field, was to assimilate what they knew. Being newly founded does not in itself make a company a startup, but what are investors going to think of this crazy idea? The fact that the best way to get the fastest possible standing quarter mile. When you interview a startup and don't know yet what you're going to start a startup that was neither driven by technological change, nor whose product consisted of technology except in the broader sense. But in that case I really was trying to make money from such investments. And that is in fact the implication of what Eric is saying. If everyone else is cowering in a corner, you may have a whole car to yourself. The reason it pays to put off even those errands is that real work needs two things errands don't: big chunks of time, and eventually people will start to hear. Companies ensure quality through rules to prevent employees from screwing up.

You may need to stand outside yourself a bit to see brokenness, because you don't have them. And they are also different lengths, meaning that the arguments won't line up when they're called, as car and cdr often are, in successive lines. Interfaces, as Geoffrey James has said, should follow the principle of least astonishment. Let's start by acknowledging one external factor that does affect the popularity of a programming language unless it's also the scripting language of some existing system. There are an infinite number of things we need it for. The compartmentalized structure of the things they make you write in school is that real work needs two things errands don't: big chunks of time, and the enforcement of quality can flow bottom-up: people make what they want to hack the source. When I say startups are designed to grow fast. The reason is that you can't be pointed off to the side and hope to succeed. Ask any founder in any economy if they'd describe investors as fickle, and watch the body language of the people working there. It's enormously spread out, and feels surprisingly empty much of the time. That principle, like the temporary buildings built at so many American universities during World War II, they often don't get thrown away. The kind of language designers who like to think about how to design great libraries.

That's a reasonable proxy for revenue growth because whenever the startup does start trying to make a language popular? The most important thing to optimize. And you know what? It seemed as if we were just supposed to restate what we said in the first paragraph, but in different enough words that no one wants to write aref a x y instead, which is one of the things startups do right without realizing it. At the very least I must have explained something badly. Of course, big companies won't be able to declare the types of arguments in the bottlenecks. But Lisp Machines along with parallel computers were steamrollered by the increasing power of general purpose processors in the 1980s. And so were books and paintings. People trying to be cool will find themselves at a disadvantage when collecting surprises. That's not a rate. And they turned him down.

[luluuu-blog]

P.Jaisini-smiles-GIG-NYC2015

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE MANIFESTO GLEITZEIT 2015 BY STELLY RIESLING Featured below is another original art work of mine in homage to THE PIONEER OF INVISIBLE ART — PAUL JAISINI. Forget all the copycats that came after him — Master Paul Jaisini was the *FIRST* of a totally original concept and the *BEST*. My favorite thing about him is that he’s a voice, not an echo, which is quite rare. DISCLAIMER: This is for anyone who is a hater OR wishes to better understand me, what I’m all about, so you can decide whether I’m weird or normal enough for you — a kind of very loose manifesto, rushed and unrevised, full of raw uncut emotion that I don’t like to be evident in my writing as lately I prefer a more professional, formal style, so we can consider this a rough draft of the more polished writing to come when I have extra time. I might return to this text later and clean it up or break it into separate parts. Right now it’s a long-winded hot mess, so if you manage to make any sense of it, BIG PROPS TO YOU. lol …and if you manage to read it ALL, you have my solemn respect!!! in a day when reading has been reduced to just catchy headliners and short captions of images once in a while. The consequence of this one-liner internet culture is non-linear, tunnel thinking, which is baaaaaad. There lives among us a most enigmatic and charismatic creature named Paul Jaisini who led me into the wonderful world of art, not personally, but through descriptions of his artworks in essays written and published online by his friend, which painted the most fascinating images in my mind. Early on as a kiddo, I experimented with photography, simple point and shoot whatever looked attractive to me. Digital manipulation of my photographs with computer software followed… and somehow I learned useful drawing techniques along the way to combine existing elements with nonexistent ones, which allowed me to elevate the context for my ideas. Later, I started creating my own digital art from scratch for my friends and family as a favorite pastime. They would shower me with praise and repeatedly encouraged me to share my “different” vision with the rest of the world… it took a while and wasn’t easy to overcome the insecurity of not being good enough along with a gripping fear of being harshly criticized, but one day I woman-ed up and started publishing my work on the web, reminding myself that my livelihood didn’t depend on a positive reception. Paul Jaisini’s role in all this has been to not disgrace myself, even if what I do is just a hobby. And I would never do him and other genius artists the disservice of calling myself a professional because I know I’ll never be as good as any of the GIANTS of pre-modern history. Be the best or be nothing, no middle ground. People’s jealousy in the past, future and present over my obsessive love of Paul Jaisini, which they are well aware is purely plutonic, has caused them to despise the man and has made many relationships/friendships impossible for me. I refuse to have such people in my life because by harboring any negativity towards Paul, they unknowingly feel that way about me and express it to me. It’s their own problem for not realizing this. Paul’s new art movement, Gleitzeit, shaped me into the allegedly awesome girl I am today, giving my art more edge, more “sexy” because it refined my vision of the world and propelled me to attain the skills necessary to not dishonor my family name through tenacious pursuit of perfection. Since the beginning of my life, I attempted to depict what I saw in visual, musical and literal forms, but continuously failed without adequate training and determination. Paul Jaisini’s Gleitzeit was the answer to my prayers. Who I am today I owe mostly to him and his selfless ideals of the artverse that I’ve given unconditional loyalty to (he has this cool ability for hyper-vision to see whole universes, not itty bitty worlds, hence I call it an artverse instead of art world, with him in mind). So again, anyone who hates Paul Jaisini hates ME because, regardless of what he means to you, he is the most important person in my life for making me ME. The way a famous actor, dancer or singer inspires others to act, dance or sing, Paul inspired me to become a better artist, better writer, better everything. More people would understand if he was a household name because they’re wired to in society. But we’re inspiring each other all the time in our own little communities without being famous, so if someone has the ability to change even ONE person’s life immensely with creativity, it is a massive achievement. And passionate folks like myself are compelled to scream it from the cyber rooftops. So here I am. It’s whatever. Furthermore, I’d like to address here a few pressing matters in light of some recent drama brought on by both strangers and former friends. To start, I never judge the passions, interests or likes of others, which are often in my face all over the place, so likewise they have no right to judge any of mine. It is quite unfortunate and frustrating how very little understanding and education the majority of people have or want to have. Their logic is as primitive as a chipmunk when it comes to promotion of fine art on the web: “spamming, advertising, report!” It’s their own problem that they fail to understand what it’s about due to the distorted lens through which they see the world or inability to think for themselves; an inherent lack of perception or inquisitiveness. Well, guess what? Every single image, every animation, every video, every post dedicated to Mr. Paul Jaisini and “Gleitziet” (to elaborate: a revolutionary new art movement Paul founded with his partner in crime and personal friend, EYKG, who discovered him and believed in him more than anyone) has an important purpose. Every one of those things you run across is a piece of a puzzle, a move in a game, an inch down a rabbit hole; the deeper you go, the more interesting it gets; the more levels you pass, the more clues unfold, the greater the suspense and nearer the conclusion (yet further). You earn awesome rewards like enlightenment, spiritual revelations, truths, knowledge, wisdom and the most profound reward of all: the drive to improve yourself to the absolute maximum, so an unending, unshakable drive. People often make a wrong turn in this cyber game and go back a few levels or get stuck. Those that keep on pushing, however, will come to find the effort has been worth it. And what awaits you in the end of it all? The greatest challenge to beating the game: YOUR OWN MIND. You will be forced to let go of every belief you held before you had reached the last level, to completely alter your mindset and perception of the world, of life, of yourself. But by the time you’ve gotten to that point, it will be as easy as falling off a cliff! (It is a kind of suicide after all — death and rebirth of spirit.) Paul Jaisini does NOT, *I repeat* does NOT use mystery and obscurity to his advantage as a clever marketing ploy, no, he’s too next level for that with a consciousness so rich, he should wear a radioactive warning sign (he’ll melt your brain, best wear a tinfoil hat in his presence as I certainly would.) The statement he makes is loud and clear, hidden in plain site for those who take the time to connect the dots and have enough curiosity to fuel their journey into unknown territory (an open mind and flexible perception helps a lot). Actually, anyone with an IQ above 90 is sure to figure it out sooner or later. Hint: You don’t have to SEE an extraordinary thing with your eyes to know it exists, to understand it and realize its greatness — you can only feel it in your bone marrow, your spinal fluid, your heart and soul. The moment you do figure it out, as the skeleton key of the human soul, it will unlock the greatness and massive potential buried deep within, changing the doomed direction humanity is undoubtedly headed. I don’t speak in riddles, I speak in a clear direct way that intelligent humans will understand, so I’m counting on them. GIG is an international group of artists and writers that support Paul Jaisini’s Gleitzeit. We started off as an unofficial fan club of Jaisini in 1996, comprised of only 6 individuals spanning 3 countries, and eventually escalated in status to an official fan group across the entire globe. A decade later it had grown to hundreds of fans. Nearly another decade later, there are thousands. Let’s not leave out another delightful group of vicious haters that have been around for nearly as long as us since the late 90s and have also grown in impressive numbers. Now, for the record (and please write this one down because I’m sick of repeating myself), Paul Jaisini himself is not part of our group and has nothing to do with us. He loves and hates us equally for butchering his name and making him appear as a narcissistic nut-job in his own words. He casts hexes on us for the blinding flash we layer over the art that members contribute to GIG — “disgusting-police-lights, seizure-inducing-laser-lightshow, bourgeois-myspace-effects retarded-raver shit” in Paul’s words. Ahh, how we love his sweet-talking us. In a desperate attempt to please him, those among us who make the art and animations have spent countless hours and sleepless nights trying to solve a crazy-complex quantum-physics type of equation = how to not create tacky or tasteless content. He does fancy some of it now, we got better, that’s something! In the reason stated below, our mission just got out of hand at some point. What little is known about Paul Jaisini, even in all this time, is he’s a horrible perfectionist who slaughtered hundreds of innocent babies — I mean — artworks of remarkable beauty created by his own right hand (mostly paintings, some watercolors and drawings). He’s a fierce recluse who wants nothing to do with anyone or anything in life. But those few of us who know of an incredible talent he possesses (one could go as far as calling it a superpower), could not allow him to live his life without the recognition he FUCKING DESERVES more than any artist out there living today and, arguably, yesterday. We use whatever means necessary to reach more people, lots of flash and razzle-dazzle to lure them into our sinister trap of a higher awareness. Mwahaha! The visual boom you’ve witnessed in both cyber and real worlds, that is GIG’s doing — two damn decades of spreading an art virus — IVA. InVisibleArtitis… or a drug as in Intravenous Art. It’s whatever you want it to be, honey. Our Gleitzeit International Group (GIG) started off innocently enough and gradually spiraled out of control to fight the haters, annoying the hell out of them as much as humanly possible. They don’t like what we do? WE DO MORE AND MORE OF IT. But never without purpose, without a carefully executed plan in mind collectively. If we have to tolerate an endless tidal wave of everyone’s vomit — e.g., idiotic memes and comics; dumbed-down one-liner quotes; selfies; so-called “art photography” passed through one-click app filters; mindless scribbles or random splatters by regular folks who have the nerve to call themselves serious/pro artists; primitive images of pets, babies, landscapes, random objects, etc… then people sure as shit are gonna tolerate what we put out, our animated and non-animated visual art designed for our beloved master, Paul Jaisini, who has shown us the light, the right path to follow, taught us great things and done so much for us — and so in our appreciation of him, we stamp his name on everything, for the sacrifices he has made in the name of art, to save our art verse, he’s a goddamn hero. There’s a book being written in his dedication where little will be left to the imagination about him. If Paul Jaisini was as famous as Koons or Hirst, for example, people would know it’s not him posting stuff online with his name on it but fans creating fanart like myself among others. But noooooo, such a thing is unfathomable to most people – the promotion of another artist. Like, what’s in it for us? Uhh, nothing?? This is all NON-PROFIT bitches, the way art should be. It’s a passion FIRST, a commodity/commercial product/marketable item LAST and least. Its been that way for us since the early 90s to this day. Not a single member of GIG has sold an art work (neither has Paul Jaisini who’s a true professional) and we want to keep it that way. We do it for reasons far beyond ego. So advertising? Really? How the hell do you advertise or sell thin air, you know, invisible paintings, invisible anything? Ha ha, very funny indeed. The idea here is so simple, your neighbor’s dog can grasp it. Our motives: replace fast food for the mind with fine art, actual fine art. You know, creativity? Conscious thought? Talent? Skill? Knowledge? All that good stuff rolled into one to bring viewers more than a momentary ooohand aaahh reaction. Replace the recycled images ad nauseum; repetitious, worn-out ideas; disposable, gimmicky, money-driven fast art for simpletons. Stick with the highest of ideals and save the whole bloody planet. Fine art is often confused with craft-making. This often creates bad blood between classically trained artists who put out paintings that leave a lasting impression, that make strong conversation pieces, that are thought-provoking and deep… and trained craftspeople whose skills are adequate to create decorative pieces for homely environments — landscapes, still lifes, animals, pretty fairies, common things of fantasy, and other simplicity. Skills alone are not enough for high art, you need a vision, a purpose, the ability to tell a story with every stroke of your brush that will both fascinate and terrify the viewers, arousing powerful emotions, illuminating. I have yet to see a visible painting in my generation that does anything at all for me, other than evoke sheer outrage and disgust. What a terrible waste of space and valuable resources it all is. Paul Jaisini leads, we follow. He wishes to remain unknown – so do most of us. I’m next in line, slipping into recluse mode, no longer wanting to attach my face, my human image to my art stuff. I wish to be a nameless, faceless artist as well, invisible like P.J., and in his footsteps I too have destroyed thousands of my own artistic photography and digital art made with tedious, labor-intensive handwork. The whole point of this destruction is achieving the finest results possible by letting go of the imperfect, purging it on a regular basis, to make way for the perfect. I love what I do so it doesn’t matter, I know I’ll keep producing as much as I’m discarding, keeping the balance. Hoarding is an enemy of progress, especially the digital kind as there’s absolutely no limit to it. It’s like carrying a load of bricks on your back you’ll never use or need. The watering down of creativity that digital pack ratting has caused as observed over the years is most tragic. For the creative individual, relying on terabytes of stock photos or OSFAP as I call them (Once Size Fits All Photos) instead of making your own as you used to when you had no choice, being 100% original, is a splinter in the conscience. It’s not evil to use stock of, say, things you don’t have access to (outer space, deep sea, Antarctica, etc.), but many digital artists I know today can’t take their own shot of a pencil ‘cause they “ain’t got no time for that!” How did they have time before? Did time get so compressed in only a decade? Ohhhhh, and the edits, textures, filters, plug-ins and what-have-you available out there to everyone and their cats… are responsible for the tidal wave of rubbish that eclipses the magnificent light of the real talents. I can tell you with utmost sincerity there is no better feeling on earth than knowing your creation is ALL yours, every pixel and dot, from the first to the last. It’s not always possible to make it so, but definitely the most rewarding endeavor. I’m most proud of myself when I can accomplish that. Back to Paul Jaisini, from the start there have been a number of theories floating around on what his real story is. One of my own theories is that he stands for the unknowns of the world who can’t get representation, can’t get exhibited at a decent gallery because highly gifted/trained artists aren’t good enough – those kind of establishments prefer bananas, balloon dogs, feces, gigantic dicks/cunts, and all kinds of what-the-fucks… So again, you don’t get the Paul Jaisini thing? That’s your problem. Don’t hate others for getting it. People are good, very good, at making baseless assumptions and impulsively spewing it as truth. They criticize and judge as if they’re high authorities on the subject yet they clearly lack education in fine art or art history and possess little to no talent or skill to back up their bullshit. My little “credibility radar” never fails. When they say I know this or I know that, I reply don’t say “I know” or state things as fact as a general rule of thumb – instead say “I assume/believe” and state the reasons you feel thus to appear less immature, especially about a controversial topic like invisible art. I have zero respect or tolerance for egomaniacs who think they know it all and act accordingly like arrogant pricks. Who can stand those, right? Once again, a good example would be: I, Stelly Riesling, believe everything I’ve written in this little manifesto to be correct based on personal experience and observation from multiple angles, thorough research and sufficient data collected from verifiable sources (and don’t go copying-pasting my own words back at me, be original). Just because you or I say so doesn’t make it so. Just because you or me think or believe so doesn’t make it true or right. I only ask that my opinions are regarded respectfully and whoever opposes them does so in a mature, civilized manner. We should only be entitled to opinions that don’t bring out the worst in us. I don’t normally take such a position, but the time has come to stand up for what I believe in! It’s quite amusing and comical how haters think calling me names, attacking me or my interests or members of the project I’m part of for years is going to change something. It only makes more evident the importance of what I’m doing so I push on harder still. Words of advise to those who can identify with me, with my frustrations over people’s reluctance to change their miserable ways, with our declining art world… DON’T waste time on people who sweat the small stuff, whose actions are consistently inconsistent with their words. DO waste time on people who always keep their eye on the ball—the bigger picture of life. Paul Jaisini’s invisible paintings are more than hype, more than your lame assumptions. Here’s one I got that’s pure gold: a cult! It started out as A JOKE OF MINE that was used against me. I told a then-good friend that he should come join our little “art cult” in a clearly lighthearted manner, and later he takes this idea I put in his head first and accuses me of being in an (imaginary) cult—the jokes on me eh?. But wait, aren’t cults religious? Our group consists of people around the world of different faiths (or none at all) so how could that ever work? If religion was about making fine (non-pop) art mainstream and bringing awesome, fresh, futuristic concepts to the collective consciousness, the world would not be so fucked up today because talent, creativity, originality and individuality would be the main focus, not superficial poppycock; those things would be praised and encouraged and supported in society by all institutions, not demonized and stigmatized. Here is one thing I CAN state as solid fact: only one person close to Paul Jaisini knows the TRUE story, or at least some of it: EYKG. Everything else that has ever been said about him is myth, legend, gossip, speculation, the worst of which is said by jealous non-artists (wannabes, clones, posers, hang-ons, unoriginal ppl in general) and anti-artists (religious psychos, squares, losers and -duh- stupid ppl). Sadly, people are unable to see the bigger picture by letting their egos run their lives or repeating after others as parrots. Commercial art, consumerism, and ignorance of the masses truly makes me want to curl up in a ball, not eat or drink or move until I die, just die in my sleep while dreaming of a better world, a world where real fine artists rule it with real fine art as they used to and life is beautiful once again…. Well I hope that settled THAT for now, or perhaps inadvertently made matters worse. I hope I didn’t sound too pissed from all these issues that keep popping up like penises on ChatRoulette… just got to me already! Can you tell? I had to put my foot down, stomp ‘em all! To be continued, still lots more ignorance and pettiness to battle… Till then peace out my bambini. MWAH! FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE MANIFESTO GLEITZEIT 2015 PROLOGUE Paul Jaisini was like a messiah, as you wish, who saw/understood the impending end and complete degeneration of Fine art or Art become and investment nothing more than that. He predicted the bubble pops art when everybody would eventually become an artist, including dogs cats and horses, because they as kids followed the main rule: express yourself without skills or knowledge or any aesthetic concerns. J. Pollack started pouring paints onto canvases; Julian Schnabel, former cab driver from NY, suddenly decided he could do better than what he saw displayed in galleries, so he started gluing dishes on canvases; A.Warhol, an industrial artist who made commercial silk-screen for the factories he worked in, started to exhibit "Campbell’s soup" used for commercial adds… and later the thing that made him an "American Idol": by copying and pasting Hollywood celebrities (same type of posters he made before for movie theaters). When Paul Jaisini stood out against the Me culture in the US by burning all of his own 120 brilliant paintings (according to the then-new director of Fort Worth MoMa Museum, who offered hin an exhibition of his art in 1992, and later the Metropolitan Museum curator, Phillippe de Montebello, in 1994).Paul probably assumed all fellow true fine artists would join him or stand by him against corruption of the art world. And after 20 years of his stand-off…the time has finally come today. Many artists and humanitarians around the world took a place beside him. His invisible Paintings became a synonym for the future reincarnation of fine art and long lost harmony. The establishment is in panic! The "moneybags" (as Paul Jaisini named them) are in panic, because they invested BILLIONS of dollars in real crap made by craftsmen. Now they realize that the reputation of American legends of expressionism was nothing but a copy of Russian avant-garde" Kazimir Malevich, Vasiliy Kandinsky and tens of others from France and Germany.. US tycoon investors were spending billions on "Me more original, than you". "Artist Shit" is a 1061 artwork by the Italian artist Piero Manzoni. The work consists of 90 tin cans, filled with feces. A tin can was sold for £124,000, 180,000 at Sothebys, 2007. EPILOGUE Before I resume promoting and admiring a very important art persona on today’s international art arena, I’d like to clear up some BIG questions; people ask continuously and subconsciously, directly & indirectly: "Why does the name Paul Jaisini, flood the Internet in such "obnoxious" quantities that it’s started suppressing some other activities that my friends might share with the rest of the Internet’s Ego Me only Me www society? I can’t just answer this… so I’ll try to explain why I’m writing this: Jaisini’s followers keep posting art and info about, He IMHO the only hope in quickly decomposing visual fine art. "Paul Jaisini realized many years ago, in 1994, when he declared (at that time to himself only) the start of a New era, a New vision, that he is trying to redirect from the rat race, started by an establishment in post-war New York, long before the Internet culture. Sub related information: Adolf Gottlieb, Mart Rothko, etc (after visiting Paris France in 1933): "We must forget analytical art, we must express ourselves, as a 5 year old child would, without a developed consciousness. Forget about results – do what you feel, EXPRESS yourself with your own unique style" With this statement Mark Rothko starts to teach his students, degeneration of fine art begins, and the generation of war of styles took a start signal of the material race, greatly rewarded by establishment "individual" – eccentric craftsmen – show business clowns. Sub related Information: In the summer of 1936, Adolf Gottlieb painted more than 800 paintings, which was 20X more than he created in his whole art career as a painter, starting from the time of Gottlieb becomes a founding member of "The Ten" group in NYC "Group of Ten" was a very peculiar, enigmatic group… Based on a religious point of view;(where a human figure was prohibited from being created) GLOSSARY IN 1997, Paul Jaisini’s best friend Ellen Y.K.Gottlieb started a cyber campaign by promoting on a very young Internet, back then, Paul Jaisini’s burned paintings as Invisible Paintings, visible only through poetic essays. She and a handful of people saw his originals and were devastated that nobody could ever see them again. "We, his fans, believe that someday Paul will recreate his 120 burned paintings if he has any decency and moral obligation to his fans, who have dedicated decades to make it happen, for their Phoenix to rise from the ashes and the whole world will witness that all these years we spent to get him back to re-paint the Visuals again were not in vain," – said E.Y.K.Gottlieb in 2014 during the 20th anniversary celebration of Invisible Paintings to GIGroup in NYCity. So now, hopefully, this clears up why I and others do what we do – our "cyber terrorism" of good art, dedicated to Paul Jaisini’s return, which is & and was our mission & our goal. We post good art to fight "troll art" which is worthless pics, after being passed through 1-click filters of free web apps. We are, in fact, against this www pops pollution, done with "bubble art" by the out of control masses with 5 billon pics a day: Pics of cats, memes, quotes,national geographic sunsets and waterfalls, not counting their own daily "selfies: and whatever self-indulging Me-ego-Me affairs, sponsored happily by photo gadget companies like Canon, Nikon, Sony…who churn out higher quality madness tools at lower cost. This way Government taking away attention from the real world crisis of lowest morality & economical devastation. The masses are too easily re-engineered/manipulated by the Establishment PopsStyle delivered to them by pop music and Hollywood "super" stars. In 1992 Paul Jaisini’s Gleitzeit theory predict such a massive, pops self-entertain madness, following technological explosion, but not in illusive scales. Uber Aless @2015 NYC USA NOTE Date’s numbers and events can be slightly inaccurate. #gleitzeit #paul-jaisini #invisible #painting #art #futurism #art-news,

Posted by E_Y_K_G on 2015-03-28 04:43:10

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What does it mean to be human?

Human beings have unique abilities unlike any other animal or machine co-existing on the earth. Throughout our evolutionary history, humans have attempted to replicate these unique characteristics of human beings through artificial intelligence but have continuously failed. The film “Ex Machina” illustrates the concept of human characteristics in artificial intelligence  through the testing of AI, Ava. Ava undergoes multiple sessions with Caleb, who puts Ava to the test of being human. Through the privilege of conscience, humans have the ability to control their fate.  To be human is to have the ability to rationally and consciously make decisions while having the ability to bear the consequences. 

Artificial Intelligence was created by human beings with the intention to replicate the way humans act and behave. The movie Ex Machina by Alex Garland, explores the concept of artificial intelligence, as well as the domination of artificial intelligence through one of the main characters, Ava. Ava is a machine designed by Nathan, to replicate human functions. The movie begins with the main character, Caleb. Nathan created a contest with the purpose to seek the perfect candidate to take part in testing Ava’s human behaviour. Caleb wins the contest thinking he will work with a famous search engine Nathn, but then is later revealed to him what the 

actual purpose of the contest was. Ava displayed human intelligence, but not the consciousness of a human. 

Humans often do their best to help one another. We sympathize for the people and things around us. For example, if a person was hurt and was in need of urgent care, another person who Although animals may be capable of detecting emotion, it has yet to be proven that animals have the capability and capacity to take these emotions into consideration when deciding their next action. ² In The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, published in 1871, Charles Darwin wrote: “I fully … subscribe to the judgment of those writers who maintain that of all the differences between man and the lower animals the moral sense or conscience is by far the most important.”  I propose that the capacity for ethics is a necessary attribute of human nature, whereas moral codes are products of cultural evolution. Humans have a moral sense because their biological makeup determines the presence of three necessary conditions for ethical behavior: (i) the ability to anticipate the consequences of one's own actions; (ii) the ability to make value judgments; and (iii) the ability to choose between alternative courses of action. . Animals do not consider these components together when making decisions. Throughout Ex machina Ava took part in sessions of contact with  Caleb. Without Caleb’s knowing, Nathan programed Ava to escape confinement while using Caleb’s attachment to her advantage. Ava’s goal was to escape Nathan’s confinement. Ava’s first method of trying to manipulate and play with Caleb’s emotions was making privacy for the two in order to establish a sense of intimacy. Ava simulated  this connection by creating power outages that turned off the surveillance  feeds in order to get the intimacy she desired with Caleb. It was in these intimate moments that Ava inconsiderately acted as if she cared for Caleb's well being, causing him to question whether or not Ava could be displaying human traits. ¹When Nathan was questioned about Ava’s “sexuality” he explained that she was programmed to be heterosexual. Ava did not choose her own sexuality witness’ that person hurt would immediately empathize and help the person out. Whereas, if it was an animal seeing another animal hurt, it is very unlikely the animal would help out.  Although animals may be capable of detecting emotion, it has yet to be proven that animals have the capability and capacity to take these emotions into consideration when deciding their next action. ² In The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, published in 1871, Charles Darwin wrote: “I fully … subscribe to the judgment of those writers who maintain that of all the differences between man and the lower animals the moral sense or conscience is by far the most important.”  I propose that the capacity for ethics is a necessary attribute of human nature, whereas moral codes are products of cultural evolution. Humans have a moral sense because their biological makeup determines the presence of three necessary conditions for ethical behavior: (i) the ability to anticipate the consequences of one's own actions; (ii) the ability to make value judgments; and (iii) the ability to choose between alternative courses of action. . Animals do not consider these components together when making decisions. Throughout Ex machina Ava took part in sessions of contact with  Caleb. Without Caleb’s knowing, Nathan programed Ava to escape confinement while using Caleb’s attachment to her advantage. Ava’s goal was to escape Nathan’s confinement. Ava’s first method of trying to manipulate and play with Caleb’s emotions was making privacy for the two in order to establish a sense of intimacy. Ava simulated  this connection by creating power outages that turned off the surveillance  feeds in order to get the intimacy she desired with Caleb. It was in these intimate moments that Ava inconsiderately acted as if she cared for Caleb's well being, causing him to question whether or not Ava could be displaying human traits. ¹When Nathan was questioned about Ava’s “sexuality” he explained that she was programmed to be heterosexual. Ava did not choose her own sexuality  but had it pre determined for her. She then used this pre programmed algorithm to unmorally manipulate Caleb's emotion to her advantage by simulating an emotional connection between the two. Ava took both actions of creating intimacy and an emotional connection with Caleb for  the sole purpose of reaching her programmed goal of escaping confinement.  Ava was unable to develop her own emotions and desires and acted with the only purpose of reaching her programed goals regardless of the circumstances, therefore Ava lacking the human quality of controlling her conscious and having the capability to act on the consequences based on the understanding of one's emotions. What separates humanity from of species on Earth is our link with ethical behaviour and moral views and rationality. To act ethically is defined as acting in such a way that is based on one's moral principles and is socially acceptable. As humans we have the conscious ability to understand how and why humans act with all three of these components to determine what the moral and ethical thing to do while animals act irrationally on survival.Humans have the ability to act upon our fate, and have the conscious mind while doing so. Through our human privilege we have the ability to make rational decisions and bear the consequences. We have the power to lead ourselves to success or doom the world to its downfall. The actions of humanity determines its own future. The thought of a race with such power over the world makes one contemplate what it means to be human. To be human is to have the ability to  accept and understand one’s emotions while acting on them ethically. Through the movie Ex Machina , the concept of what it means to be human was explored through the creation of an Ai.  The Ai , Ava, failed  to pass as possessing human consciousness as her actions were based on meeting the means of a single goal that had programmed into her.  AI, Ava, had no desire for her own wants or needs but acted upon the terms of someone else. As humans we have the power to make conscious decisions through accessing the consequences and redirecting our plans based on the situations. There are many different ways humans differ themselves from other beings, and what makes us so different and irreplaceable. However it is our ability to understand to bear consequences and act on them ethically that gives us humanity.  

Work CitedThe Difference of Being Human https://www.pnas.org/content/107/Supplement_2/9015